using a resources from a national infrastructure bank than there will be funds going to those projects. so it is just a matter of again making it as transparent and taking politics as much out of the equation as possible. >> mr. chairman, i don't i you will be surprised to hear i think it should be

independent. i think it should be independent because it gives more credibility to the private investor. my investors who will make the actual equity investment in the transaction to know this is independent organization that has looked at the loan and determined this is a credit-worthy loan and will there for grant a long-term, low-interest rate loan. they are therefore more attracted to it. i will say it is important that any national infrastructure bank does have some sort of congressional oversight as much reporting to a committee on an annual basis about what sort of loans it has done to establish this idea that it is sort of going across the country. but it is, it is also critical to understand that this is a supplement to other forms of financing. this is not replacing grants. this is a supplement to. projects will not pass the credit wore thinkness test but maybe would be ones

which other departments within the government and federal agencies would determine are merit-worthy of a grant. >> mr. . >> i don't have an opinion. i'm not an expert in this field. i have opportunity, senator rockefeller just to refined everyone that i have heard significant comments about the risk of money associated with this project but there are other risks that are involved here, in particular the human risks and safety issues associated with these projects. i would ask the senator to assure that the legislation and whatever type of investment situation we eventually we settle upon maintains that that the primary interest of the american people and the responsibility of the government is to insure that the people that use these projects, when they're eventually completed, do not suffer the consequence of cost-cutting because profit is threatened. we have seen this in great britain with their particular project where

cost overruns caused the private entity to cut back on some of the maintenance and caused a significant safety problem. anytime that occurs, it is a failure of the government in my opinion to not properly protect the people that they represent. i would urge to you consider that and keep that foremost in your mind during the final development of this piece of legislation. >> thank you, sir. >> mr. chairman i would echo the need for absolute transparency no matter which vehicle is chosen to house the bank. i think that is crucial to the success of this. and because i have -- >> are you saying omb should not be doing this? >> absolutely, they would have to be involved but i think the, to the outside world the you're going to have to, and this applies to the actual contracts that reached between the entities. all that has to be out in the open. the problems that have been experienced around the country where people have not had access to details and a lot of rumors take place, et cetera, as to what

the real deal and margins are and returns, all that. if it is transparent, open to the public i think you can solve a lot of that. and i would like to add a footnote to the discussion that senator mccaskill initiated there a moment ago and you started touching on it. one of the other benefits i see from an infrastructure bank that has come out of the whole ppp experience in the last 20 years, there has been a tremendous amount of innovation in the project management, the delivery systems, as you were referring to, on budget, on time and i see the freight intermodal connector type projects being ripe for these kind of funding situations from the bank. so i think that will be an additional benefit besides, you know, the profit and access to capital that the nation would gain by doing this whole idea. >> all right. i can not thank you enough. again i'm shocked that we didn't have this 10 years

ago but can't help that. you have introduced a fundamentally important concept into additional ways to deal with our national infrastructure. one of my observations about the congress as a whole is that in spite of, sort of thee logical statements, people, since people back home really care about infrastructure, and they're really aware, i mean i'm thinking in my own mind when i drive to our farm in west virginia, of all the one-lane bridges 30 years ago, as opposed to none now and what that means. that had to be paid for by somebody. and you magnify that by large projects and small projects throughout the country, you've made a very, very important contribution in this our first-ever hearing on this subject. so i thank you, and this hearing is adjourned. >> thank you, sir.

>> president obama is on day two of a three-day bus tour traveling the midwest visiting minnesota, iowa and illinois to talk about job growth. the president today is in peosta, iowa, where he is participating in a all-day rural economic forum at northeast iowa community college hosted by his agriculture secretary and former iowa governor, tom vilsack. the president will wrap up his tour tomorrow with two more town hall meetings in illinois before returning to washington. meanwhile, vice president joe biden is on his way to asia today for a week-long trip to china, mongolia and japan as part of the an effort by the administration to enhance the u.s. role in

asia. and over on c-span, live coverage of several events this afternoon. at 1:00 eastern, the brookings institution will host a panel discussion examining how the country's current political discourse affects america's foreign policy strength and overall standing abroad. and later this afternoon, pakistan's former foreign secretary will be at johns hopkins school of advanced international studies talking about the strained relationship between the u.s. and pakistan. "the wall street journal" reported on monday that the obama administration will start basing its aid to pakistan on whether the country meets a scorecard of u.s. objectives to combat al qaeda and its allies. again, watch live coverage of all these events today on c-span. all this month watch "booktv" in prime time on c-span2. tonight, journalism and newspapers.

at pitt p.m. eastern william mcgowan talks about the "gray lady" down. what the fall of the "new york times" means about america. at 9:40 well-hear from authors of will the last reporter please turn out the lights. and after that, at 11:10, john mcmillan's smoking type write others. the '60s underground press and the rise of alternative media in america. "booktv" in prime time on c-span2. >> the u.s. commission on civil rights recently examined the issue of eminent domain. laws allow local governments to take private property with just compensation if the purpose is one of public use. you will hear discussion of the supreme court's 2005 decision in kilo versus city of new london. such as economic growth for the community.

this is event is hour and 40 minutes. >> mr. shelton not arrived but in interest of time we'll get started. good morning, everyone. that is auspicious date of august 12th. this is meeting of --. >> [inaudible]. >> yes. this is it meeting of the u.s. commission on civil rights. it is now 9:35 on august 12th. this meeting is taking place at the commission's headquarters located at 624, 9th street northwest, in washington, d.c. chairman marti castro. the first part of today's meeting is going to be devoted to a briefing on the topic of the civil rights implications of eminent domain abuse. immediately following the briefing, we will conduct our regular monthly business meeting. before i begin introductions of the panelists and our briefing i would like to do something that is always a good thing to do is welcome a new member to the team. i would like to welcome our newest commissioner. david cladnye. appointed week ago today. >> thank you,

mr. commissioner. >> welcome aboard. today's briefing features four distinguished panelists. they will speak about 10 minutes. i'm a timekeeper. i develop ad specialty from that after our last briefing i'm told of after all the panelists had presentations made we will turn to our commissioners for questions. we'll have a approximately 50 minutes of questions that will be commissioners asking the panelists. as at the last briefing what i will do, i will acknowledge commissioners who raise their hand and i will be fair and balanced in terms of the opportunity, unlike the last briefing. we'll very a little more time here. so if a commissioner wants to ask follow up question to the original question please do so. if you want follow-up to the follow-up hold that to the next time so we make sure everyone has a fair opportunity to ask questions throughout. when the light goes from green to yellow that means it is time to start wrapping

up. when it gets to read that means stop. when you see yellow, that means of you have two minutes remaining in your time. i will do my best to strictly enforce that so we have the full opportunity to hear from you at the same time. have commissioners ask their questions. with those bits of housekeeping let me just add this is briefing that was proposed by our colleagues in the former commission majority in interest of bipartisanship we're able to do the briefing because it raises interesting issues, issues we all have reviewed the material that were distributed beforehand. we're very much looking forward to hearing the statements. i know we have a lot of questions to delve into this topic. but we're pleased to be able to do this in a bipartisan fashion. our first on panelist is ilya somin. professor at george mason university of law. he focuses on constitutional law, poverty law and study

of popular participation and implications for constitutional deepak civil among his many accomplishments. amicus brief on behalf of scholar jacobs which was cited by the supreme court in majority opinion of kelo versus city of new london. our second panel i. j. peter byrne. from george town university law center. he teaches land preservation and constitutional law. he is director of georgetown climate center and georgetown law policy center. i visited georgetown lastmont. it is a beautiful campus i never been there our third panelist is not here yet. i will give you his background when i arrives so he can immediately go into his statement. hillary health ton. mr. shelton presently serves as director naacp washington bureau and senior vice president for ad v. cansy and policy. the naacp joined an am mick cast brief in the plaintiffs in the kelo case and testified before congress on

civil rights implications of eminent domain use. the final panelist, mr. david beito. of his academic work focused on african-american history in the 20th century. mr. beito is chairman of the al became state advisory committee. a former sac member and sac chair as well i'm pleased to see you here. something the commission wants to engage more of our sacs and work they're doing. always good to have a member of extended civil rights commission at our table. professor somin is spouse of one of our special assistants allison somin. we have family at the table and we always appreciate that. in his presentation, professor beito is going to explain the work of this al became state advisesy committee on this topic. it is already conducted two public hearings on the subject of the eminent domain use in his state. so, looking forward to hearing about that. and with that, i would like to ask professor somin to

begin your remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to start by thanking chairman castro, vice-chair thernstrom and other members of the commission for your interest in this very important issue. president obama has written that our constitution places the ownership of private property at the very heart of our system of liberty. unfortunately over the last several decades both the courts and often legislatures as well have routinely consigned property rights to second class status, usually failing to give them the sort of protection that is accorded to other individual constitutional rights. it is particularly appropriate therefore for the u.s. commission on civil rights to consider this issue because property and the ownership of it was actually at the heart of the conception of civil rights that underlay the enactment of 14th amendment. it was central to the rights of the framers of that amendment hoped to guaranty

to african-americans and to other minorities. in my presentation i will first briefly speak about the constitutional law of eminent domain, particularly with respect to the public use clause of the fifth amendment. then i will talk in a bit more detail about the impact of eminent domain on racial minority groups which both historically and today has often inflicted great harm upon them. and finally, i'll briefly talk about the reforms that have been enacted since the supreme court's decision in kelo versus city of new london and explain while those reforms have improved the situation, in many cases do not go far enough to fully protect the rights of minorities and others threatened by eminent domain. so i will start off by looking at the law of eminent domain with respect to the public use clause of the fifth amendment. that clause, like similar clauses in most state constitutions, allow taking and condemnation of private

property only for a public use. there has been a long-standing debate whether public use means an actual use by the government or by the general public or whether it merely means anything that might potentially benefit the public in some conceivable way. during the founding era there was not a lot of discussion of the meaning of public use, however most jurists and commentators did have an understanding that takings transfer property from a to b as said, one private individual to another, that those were not permitted by the constitution. perhaps more relevant to our current debate the fact there was a lot more discussion of this during the time surrounding the enactment of the 14th amendment in the 1860s. and of course it is the 14th amendment which applies the public use clause in the rest of the bill of rights to state and local governments. the government entities that conduct the vast majority of takings. during that period opinion

certainly was divided. however, as my recent research suggests the majority of the state supreme courts and majority of the treatise writers on subject of eminent domain took the view public use does in fact have to be a use by the government or at least by the general public, not merely something that might benefit the public in some way. moreover as i have already noted, the framers of the 14th amendment, one of their principle reasons for wanting to incorporate the bill of rights against state governments was to protect the property rights of african-americans and also white supporters of the union in the south against the deprivation of state governments that were threaten fing those property rights in many ways. it would not make sense given that objection to have a statement of public use that let state and local governments condemn property for whatever reason they want. those are of course the very entities the amendment was supposed to constrain and

prevent from endpageing in abuses. now unfortunately modern supreme court cases over the last 50 to 60 years, particularly the berman case in 1954 and most recently the kelo case, have taken the view that a public use is almost any potential public benefit of any kind. they have even taken the view that it is not even the case of the government has to prove that the supposed public benefit will actually be achieved. in my written testimony i describe in some detail why this modern jurisprudence is deeply flawed. here i will just make one point about it and that is their position really makes very little sense give the whole point of having a constitutional right in the first place. the position of the supreme court is that the definition of public use is largely left up to state and local governments. but of course the whole point of having a constitutional right is precisely to constrain the power of government in its ability to abuse individual

rights. so makes really no sense to leave up to that very same government the definition of the scope of that right. and of course the court has not taken a similar view with respect to any other individual right enumerated in the constitution. this is, a unique case almost. now, given the state of affairs where over several decades the supreme court and lower federal courts have given very literal protection to property rights against taking, there has been a tremendous social impact on americans of all racial and ethnic groups. by far the biggest impact has been on that of racial and ethnic minorities. this has been recognized by scholars, activists and others across the political spectrum. since world war ii hundreds of thousands of people have been forcibly displaced by blight condemnations and also by economic development takings of the sort that the supreme court approved in the kelo case. and the vast majority of

those people who were forcibly displaced are in fact poor, african-americans or hispanics. during the 1950s and '60s the prejudice in these sort of takings was so blatant that urban rue kneel takings referred to by many people as negro removal. today, minorities continue to be disproportionately victimized by blight condemnations and other taking of that type. in my view the motive is rarely open and explicit prejudice against minorities however the political weakness of the urban minority poor is a big factor and the reason why they tend to be targeted for these sorts of condemnations and that political weakness is at least in part a consequence of the prejudice and discrimination that these groups have suffered for decades in our society. and in most cases when people are displaced by these sorts of condemnations, although they do get some

compensation payments, they are left off significantly worse off than they were previously because the payments rarely, if ever, fully account for their losses. in recent years, in addition to taking in areas where which one might consider to be truly blighted, in many states, the definition of blight has expanded so much, that almost any area can be declared blighted and taken. in recent years, court haves ruled that such areas as downtown las vegas and times square in new york city are blighted, thereby justifying condemnations in those areas. of course if times square is blighted and so almost any with area could be so considered. in addition to blight taking pure development takings of sort up held in kelo also disproportionately affect minorities. some people argue that blight and economic development taking benefit the minority poor because they promote economic growth

in their communities. i think this argument is greatly overstated for a couple of reasons. one is that these sorts of condemnations often actually destroy far more economic assets than they create. they routinely destroy large numbers of businesses, schools, homes, and other valuable assets for the community. second, in those situations, where there is a meritorious private development project that is likely to produce more growth than it displaces, the market has good methods to allow developers to acquire the property without resorting to eminent domain. many methods superior to eminent domain. i discussed this in my written testimony and i'm happy to discuss it further in questions. finally it should be noted respect for property rights is itself an important engine of economic growth. recent research in urban economics and development economics strongly suggest that areas which respect property rights see more investment, people are more

secure in their homes and businesses and that tends to promote growth whereas unconstrained government intervention in property rights are reassortment of them this tends to have the opposite effect. economic growth is an important objective and so is removal of blight. however, i would argue that we do not need to destroy a community in order to save it from blight. there are more humane and also more effective methods of alleviating blight than the use of eminent domain and ones that don't forcibly displace large numbers of people. in recent years since the supreme court's kelo decision in 2005, some 43 states have enacted new eminent domain reform legislation. and some people have said, well this solves the problem of emment domain abuse. i wish that were the case but are the most part it is not. as i discussed more fully in my written, as the majority of these new reform laws actually will have little or no effect. they claim to ban economic

development taking but they allow the very same types of taking to go on under the blight condemnation with blight defined so broadly to pretty much any area qualifies. even with states that him definition of blighted areas that layperson would consider blighted the minority poor still tend to be at risk. many of them tragically live in communities that fit that definition. only four states completely banged all blight condemnations. only in those states are the rights of the poor against these sorts of takings completely secure. i think in the aftermath of kelo there has been some genuine progress made and certainly public awareness of this issue has risen. however there is a great deal more work to be done before we can fully guaranty constitutional property rights to all americans, particularly those who are most vulnerable such as the minority poor. so, i very much welcome the

commission's interest in this issue. and i hope your interests will stimulate further discussion and further and more effective reform in this crucial area. thank you very much. >> thank you, professor somin. professor byrne? >> thank you, chairman castro and members of the commission. thai for the opportunity speaking with you today. this hearing addresses claims that the use of eminent domain for economic development unfairly and disproportionately harms racial and ethnic minorities. professor somin has a remedy for eliminate all economic development including elimination of blight requirements. in my view this is nonsequitor to remedy a nonexistent problem. the claim that emment domain unfairly harm minorities draws on the history of urban renewal prior to the 1960s when indeed many

african-americans and others were displaced by publicly-funded projects that bulldozed their homes in largely failed attempts to modernize cities. justice clarence thomas's dissent in kelo versus city of new london further argued use of eminent domain for economic development would inevitably harm minorities and the poor. such concerns in our time are seriously misplaced. redevelopment projects using eminent domain continue to be an invaluable tool for main inat thatting the economic competitiveness and liveability of urban areas where property ownership is fragmented and where minorities live in large numbers. the discriminatory elements of older urban renewal reflect racism generally prevalent in political life in the 1940s and '50s and have been largely eliminated by the growth and power of african-americans and other urban minorities as well as the change, fiscal relations between the federal government and local governments. the effects of which has

been to give greater control over redevelopment projects to local political processes. use of eminent domain rarely now applied to residences today requires political consent and community buy-in. eminent domain is a crucial legislative power exercised by governments around the world and dating back at least to roman times. in empowers government to acquire property in specific locations for the construction of networks, and the assembly of large tracks even when private owners do not wish to sell or hold out for excessive payment. under our constitution owners are protected by the requirement that the government pay them just compensation. the meaning of the takings clause of the fifth amendment relating to taking property for public use long has been controversial but no, and i repeat no supreme court decision contradicts the holding of kelo that public use includes publicly approved condemnations for economic redevelopment of

economically-distressed areas. the quality of redevelopment projects of course varies but recent successful projects can be found from the ferry building in san francisco to times square in new york. economic revitallization of urban areas tends to aid poor minorities who disproportionately dwell in cities by increasing ememployment and tax revenues for education and city services. without eminent, such eminent domain, large-scale development projects can occur only on greenfield sites on the edge of cities, exacerbating urban sprawl and pushing new employment opportunities further from urban minorities. political realities have changed dramatically since the urban renewal period. minorities secured significant political power in nearly every u.s. city as increased insfluns in private real estate markets. redevelopment projects largely come under the control of local governments as federal money and direction have disappeared.

local officials strive to avoid displacement of homes because of negative political repercussions and expensive litigation. federal and state statutes have in many instances increased the payments due property owners above what just compensation requires. in these circumstances the condemnation of homes is rare and has little or no identifiable ethnic or racial character. the plaintiffs in the kelo case were white, middle class people which explains a good bit of the political hysteria that surrounded the decision. the changes in the political economic development can be seen by comparing urban renewal in southwest washington, d.c. in the 1950s, approved by the supreme court in berman versus parker with the use of condemnation in d.c. today. massive condemnations and build dozing of southwest washington comprise ad complex episode with many facets but poor african-american residents

seemed to suffer disproportionately in displacement. the statute authorizing the project was enacted by congress, where d.c. has no representation till today which is a good top pick for this commission to take up. and the members of the redevelopment land agency that carried out the project were appointed by the federal government or their d.c. apdoesn't point east. the most controversial exercise of eminent domain in washington, d.c. in the past decade is condemnation of stores in the sky land strip mall in an anacostia. to permit construction of a badly needed supermarket for underserved community. that action was supported by many members of the local community, specifically approved by d.c. council which was majority african-american membership and signed by mayor anthony williams. although specifically exercised an order to convey the land to private

developer would be absurd to suggest that the case presents a civil rights issue appropriate for consideration by the u.s. commission on civil rights. but it would come within the kind of concerns of professor somin to which i will return. similar observations could be made about the use of eminent domain by dudley street neighborhood initiative in boston to assemble land for affordable housing projects. nowhere is there reason to suppose condemnation for economic development are more likely to harm minorities that condemnations for traditional public uses. many of the most brutal condemnations in the urban renewal period were accomplished for highways and public housing where the government would actually own the site. government has the same general incentive to seek less expensive or flourishing land for condemnation, whatever the use to be made. if the goal really is to protect minorities, why are the proponents not seeking to constrain the uses of eminent domain that have

historically been of most harm to minorities? yet legislation recently introduced in congress, hr-1433, ignores these exercises of eminent domain for highway construction and other public projects while prohibiting economic development that is the power to aid low-income people. it also protects speculative ownership of vacant land. there is no special protection offered to residentses. the case against eminent domain here is advanced largely on the basis of advocacy of libertarians who i have great respect for the principled positions they take which broadly oppose the use of eminent domain because they value private property more highly than local democracy. the evidence that they marshall such as the lurid victimizing the vulnerable presents ambiguous data and highly-colored language. the study shows no more than communities are somewhat more likely to pursue redevelopment in poorer areas than more affluent ones. it does not show what

properties were taken, or what show the, who the owners of those properties were. there is no consideration of the public benefits to be gained from those projects. the distribution of the benefits or the scope or character of citizen participation in the decision-making. nonetheless the study leaves to the astounding conclusion, that quote, the only real solution is prohibiting use of eminent domain for private development to protect the constitutional rights of all citizens. thus they oppose condemnation of the property of our largest corporations, just as much as that of the most economically-marginal minority individual. the concern for the latter seems often tactical since they know that they would get little hearing in many quarters simply advocating to reduce the state of legislative power over private property. if one were worried about disproportionate impacts of eminent domain on the poor

minorities there are remedies that would address that directly. one might provide more procedural protections or compensation to residents than to commercial property owners. one could mandate minimum payments to tenants of, who don't own their own property who normally receive no compensation when rental housing has been condemned. the fair housing act could be amended to clarify it applies to condemnation of residences without regard to intent. a topic pursued by a student of mine in a published paper that is cited in my talk. these ideas are all worthy of study. but have not been because they do not meet the agenda of property groups driving the issue. which to limit further the powers of government to court in favor of private ownership. proponents rather would deprive the d.c. government of the power to use eminent domain to build a supermarket in an a cost at this yaw. a world of growing economic

inequality and political climate demanding cutting taxes as well as medical and pension benefits it is unfortunate we're spending this time discussing a nonissue of the effects of eminent domain on minorities. i look forward to discuss you all aspect of that in our question period. thank you. >> thank you, chairman castro. ladies and gentlemen of commission. for inviting me to here to talk about property rights and. my name is hillary health ton. i'm director of naacp's washington bureau and senior vice president for advocacy and policy. the naacp of course is nation's oldest and largest and most wisely recognized grassroots based civil rights organization. we currently have 2200 membership units throughout the united states and we're located in every state in our country. the naacp washington bureau is our federal legislative and national public policy arm. given our nation's sad history of racial prejudice, racism, bigotry and basic disregard on part of too many elected and appointed officials to the concerns and rights of racial and

ethnic minority americans it comes as no surprise eminent domain has been misrused for centuries against african-americans and economically disadvantaged highly disproportionate rates. nobody knows exactly number people displaced through eminent domain across the nation everyone seems to agree african-americans are disproportionately affected. one source cites since world war ii it is estimated three to four million americans have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of urban renewal taking. it should surprise no one a vast majority of these people are racial and ethnic minorities. another study said, quote, between 1949 and 19732532 projects were carried out in 992 cities to displace one million people, 2/3 of them african-americans, making african-americans, five times more likely to be displaced than they should have give their numbers in our population, unquote. the naacp has a deeply held concern that the newly sank shunned expansion of use of

eminent domain to allow the government or its designee to take property by simply asserting it can put the property to a higher use, as approved by the is supreme court in the 2005 kelo versus city of new london decision will foster more discrimination as it sanctions easier transfers of property wealth and community stability from those with less resources to those with more. the history of eminent domain is rife with abuses specifically targeting racial and ethnic minorities and poor neighborhoods. indeed the displacement of african-americans in urban renewal projects are so intertwind often times as you heard before, urban renewal was often referred to as black removal. sadly racial and ethnic minorities are not affected more often by exercise of eminent domain power but we're almost always affected differently and more profoundly. vast disparities of african-americans or racial ethnic minorities removed from their homes due to

emment domain actions are well-documented. in my written testimony i give several exams pells of studies and single examples where racial and ethnic minorities are displaced at disproportionate rates for eminent domain. for brevity sake i hope you review my more extensive written testimony. the many who observed the patterns throughout the history the twisted goal of majority of these displacements to segregate and maintain the isolation of poor, racial and ethnic minorities and otherwise outcast populations. furthermore condemnation in low income and predominantly racial and ethnic minority neighborhoods are often easier to accomplish because these people usually lack resources to effectively contest the actions either politically or in our nation's courts. lastly municipalities off the of off then look at areas with low property values deciding where to pursue redevelopment project because of cost a condemning authority less and state and local government gains more

financially where they replace areas of low property values with those of high property values. thus even if you dismiss all other motivations allowing municipalities to pursue emment domain for private development as was upheld in the u.s. supreme court in the kelo decision will continually perpetuate if not exacerbate the disparate impact of african-americans and racial and ethnic minorities and economically disadvantaged in our country. as i said at beginning of my testimony not only african-americans and other racial minorities likely to be subject to eminent domain but the negative impact of thee takings on men, women and families is much more severe. first the term, just compensation. when used in eminent domain cases is almost always a misnomer. the fact that particular property is identified and designated for economic development almost certainly means that the market is currently undervaluing the property or the property has some trapped value that the market is not yet recognized. moreover, when an area is

taken for economic development, low income families are driven o out of their communities and find they can not afford to live in the revitalized neighborhoods. the remaining affordable housing in the area almost certain to become less so. when the goal of the, is to increase the area's tax base, it only makes the sense that the previous, only makeses sense that the previous low income residents will not be able to remain in the area. this is borne out of not only the common sense but also by statistics. one city did i from the mid 1980s showed 86% of the those relocated by the exercise of eminent domain power were paying more rent at their new residence with median rent almost doubling. furthermore to the extent ever exercise of taking power is more likely to occur in areas with significant racial and ethnic minority populations and assuming a proper motive upon the government the effect will likely be to destablize, organized minority communities. the dispersion, this dispersion both eliminates

or at the very least dramatically undermines estimates of community support mechanisms that has deleterious effect on exercise what little political power they may have established. very threat of such takings will hinder development of strong racial and ethnic minority communities. the incentive to invest in one one's own community financial wise correlates with the ability to realize the fruits of such efforts. as i have discussed in my testimony, too many of our communities, racial and ethnic minorities elderly, low-income have witnessed an abuse of eminent domain powers too often has been devastating. given the numerous chronicles of abuse it is the hope of naacp that all responses, legislative, administrative and others to address eminent domain abuse be educated and well-informed by our shared history and challenges. we need to insure that certain segments of our population that have too long been muted in the

takings issue have a voice. we need to understand how it has been too easy to exploit these communities by imposing eminent domain not only in pursuit of economic development but also in a name of addressing blight. we also need to make sure any compensation is fair and equitable and will not result in those who are being displaced being worse off. in considering the interests of our communities we raise broader concerns regarding the use of emment domain for any purpose including those purposes traditionally viewed as public purposes such as highways utilities, and waist disposal. even these more traditional uses open ment domain disproportionately burdened communities with the least political power, the poor, racial and ethnic minorities and working class families. furthermore not only owners owners that suffer but our renters. whether residents or proprietors of small businesses often provided no protection and pay a heavy and uncompensated price even in emment domain is imposed.

for those reasons ask the majority in kelo suggest there must be sufficient process as well' protection it is for racial an ethnic minorities in low income communities. the process must be open and transparents and full participation of those potentially impacted communities need to be guaranteed as well as fair compensation must be given. fair or just compensation should include replacement costs not just technical appraisal value. we need to insure compensation for the loss of goodwill of a business and to fairly compensate for the length of time a business or family has been at that particular location. this is the voice of our communities that all american communities deserve. thank you, again, chairman castro and commission members for allowing me to testify before you today about the naacp's position on the civil rights implications of eminent domain abuses. the naacp stands ready to work with the federal, state and local municipal officials to develop policy and legislation to end emment domain abuse while focusing on real community

development concerns like building safe, clean and affordable housing in communities with good public schools and a effective access to high-quality health care systems, small business development, opportunities in growth and a significant available living wage job pool. again i thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you and look forward to your questions and our discussion. >> thank you, mr. shelton. professor beito, you're up. >> before i begin i've got three handouts here. i have got 10 of them. not quite enough. maybe a couple of you could share. thank you, chairman castro, for inviting me here today. it reflect as spirit of bipartisanship we found very much in alabama where we decided to pursue this unanimously, democrat, republican, black and white decided to pursue this issue. let me start by saying that i speak for myself today rather than in my capacity as chair of the alabama advisory committee. and i have little to add to ilya somin's very insightful

and well-researched overview. i'm not going to revisit these issues, at least not in my talk right here. or even really talk much about conventional eminent domain or emment domain as conventionally understood. rather i want to highlight a generally overlooked threat to property rights of poor and vulnerable. for lack of a better term this threat could be called, eminent domain through the back door. now we decided to pursue this issue several years ago at the advisory committee and as i said all of us agree, that this was an important issue. and we've had two public forums. the first was, in 2008, which was at the historic 16th street baptist church in birmingham. and the witnesses at that meeting recounted some disturbing example of how blacks were losing,

especially in the city of montgomery, we got more and more information coming out, blacks in the city of montgomery, the city often called the cradle of civil rights, were losing their property through an extensive application of section 1153, b-1 of the alabama code. i quote that more extensively in my longer paper. in this provision, leave as major loophole for the indirect taking of property outside of conventional eminent domain. if a local government deems a property structure blighted or a nuisance. now in contrast to standard eminent domain, montgomery property owners and that's what we especially focused on because that's where the problem to us seemed the great, complaints seemed to be the most extensive, montgomery property owners on the receiving end of this section 11, section

11-53-b-1. do not have right to compensation even in theory once declaring the property a nuisance, the city typically demolishes the structure around bills the owner, often by slapping a lien on the property for the cost of demolition including carting away of the rubble. because the owners are often poor, many can not afford to pay and thus have to sell or abandon their property. all right? now, at our forum, if you go to the next slide please. oh, yeah. there is a quotation from frederick douglass that was in my longer paper but i think it reflects the concern for property rights you see in the history of civil rights and, i think it's something that we could call learn today about the application of property rights, regardless of economic class. we hold that civil government to be solemnly bound to protect the weak against the strong, the oppressed against the oppressor, the few against

the many and secure the humblest subject in the full poe possession of his rights as person and of property, all right? he was not refering to slave owners there. he believed that was man stealing. that was theft of legitimate property or people that owned themselves in effect. go to the next slide please. now this is the presentation that jim para gave, who is a developer in montgomery. i wish you could see it a little bit better but he showed on a map the demolitions through this section 115346 b-1, in a single year. many were in a small area of montgomery's most heavily black areas including rosa parks old neighborhood which is in that area. now another witness who testified at another forum that we had which was in montgomery, actually this

was at the montgomery meeting as well. we had two meetings. first in birmingham and then the second one in montgomery. this was presented at the second meeting. now, another witness we had was jimmy mccow. he was a rarity among montgomery's property owners, threatened with demolition of their homes. he decided he was going to fight back. a little bit about his background. he had scraped together a living, still is as far as i know, by salvaging raw materials from historic homes and then selling them to private builders. finally, he over time he was able to accumulate enough money to purchase two areas of land in montgomery on a very busy thoroughfare and he started to build his dream home, what he called his dream home. he did the work himself. he used materials accumulated in his salvage

operations including a supply of sturdy and extremely rare long leaf pine. eventually his dream house, what he called his dream house took shape. he built this very much incrementally. from the outset the city showed unremitting hostility. and he almost lost count of the number of roadblocks that it threw in his way. including a citation for keeping necessary building materials on the back of his property which is not even visible from the road. more seriously in 2007 he was charged under section 11-b-1 on the grounds his home then under construction was a nuisance. please go to the next one. all right. there is his home prior to demolition. go to the next one please. i think that is another view of it. fortunately it snapped these pictures right before,

shortly before the demolition. otherwise we wouldn't have known what it looked like. and the reaction of montgomery city fathers to this, to his efforts seemed very strange to him. his view he was trying to fight blight by building a new home in a underdeveloped area. and he suspects that no proof here, that wealthy developers are trying to get their hands on the property which is on a major thoroughfare, two acres. but he, as i said he fought back. he hired an experienced local lawyer. he negotiated a court-enforced agreement which gave him 18 months to complete the home. only a month after the agreement took effect in 2008, the city demolished the structure. and local bureaucrats were very much in a hurry. they did not give him notice when they sent in the bulldozers, on the same day as the court order

authorizing them. mccow went back to the same judge that allowed the demolition. she stated she had been misled. she ordered the city to pay compensation. montgomery, the city of montgomery appealed. and this, the complaint, or the ruling of the judge, they appealed it. at this writing he has not received a cent. his view the city will try to drag this out as long as it can until his money runs out. 2010, i received a phone call from karen jones. another property owner from montgomery. she related a case which was no less compelling. the city had just demolish ared the day before her family home, including furniture, family bible, and old photographs. the authorities charged the property was a nuisance because the front porch was in disrepair. please go to the next slide.

that shows the property. she had no photographs to share but we got this from, a reporter got this from google earth. interestingly enough. and go to the next one please. all right. they said the property was a nuisance because the front porch was in disrepair. the city, although the city sent out notices before sending out the bulldozers, none of them went to jones. instead they went to the flory jones, you have the 1989 debt certificate, her grandmother. and matthew jones, who is also deceased, deceased in the year 2000. you have also the city still regards them as, you can see from the official documents as flury jones as the official owner of the property even though this has been pointed out many times to them. now the city, as i said claims that karen jones is

the not owner although she pays the property taxes and, which are not in arrears. has a warranty deed from 2002 indicating that she is an heir and apparently all the other family members support her decision. despite asserting that jones is not the owner, the city is, you know, well, let's go on. in may of this year the city tried to sell the property at auction, still naming the deceased flury jones as the owner and, in again, in the official online information -- >> wrap up. >> okay. i'm going to end there but why don't we show this very short youtube. only couple minutes and i'm sorry i went over but i would be happy to answer further questions. >> hope this works.

okay. >> making headlines across the state some people are accusing the city of montgomery taking their property without compensation. using the city's blight ordinance, montgomery official as -- >> possible to raise the volume? >> i was born here in this house. >> built in 1920 the home of karen jones' grandmother is now a vacant lot. demolished by the city of montgomery, alabama. >> anything that is not up to their par, they will just tear it down, not try to revitalize. not try to bring back life into a neighborhood. just kill it. >> city officials came the house was in disrepair and used local blight ordinances to take it down. they did the same to a house jimmy mechanical was building despite state and federal court rulings in the homeowners favor. >> they came down and tore down the house anyway. they have no regard for the

rule of law. they do what they want to do. >> montgomery condemned dozens of homes under its blight ordinance often billing owners for cost of demolition. the city markets the properties to private developers. >> the actions that we're taking is speaking volumes about cleaning up our city and having a safe neighborhood so we can raise our family and enjoy the fruits of our labor. >> much of the demolition is taking place along montgomery's historic civil rights trail to make it more appealing for residents and visitors. critics say these efforts ironally violate civil rights. >> people are losing that are property. poor and minorities within the shadow of this apartment complex where rosa parks lived. >> david beito chairs the alabama state advisory committee for the united states commission on civil rights. >> the commission calls this emment domain through the back door. making property i think frankly illegally without due process. >> five years ago alabama

passed legislation to prevent local governments from using eminent domain for private development. but the law makes exceptions for seizure of blighted properties. and in the case of the latter, property owners have no guaranty of compensation. jonathan serrie, fox news. >> thank you. so we will now begin for the next, approximately, 50 minutes or so, questions from the commissioners. commissioner kirsanow, followed by commissioner yaki. >> i thought this was excellent panel and want to recognize margaret butler and her staff that put it together. >> thank you. appreciate it very much. >> commissioner kirsanow. >> thank you to all the witnesses. it was very informative. again i echo the fact that the chair, i'm sorry, the staff has put together a very good panel. one of the reasons why we had proposed this, at least

when i had suggested this, was, not just to concern with respect to kelo but this probably predated kelo and been a concern number of people crossing the idealogical perspective, conservatives, libertarians and liberals. setting that aside for the moment, professor somin, you hadn't indicated that the determination of what constitutes a public use is often or exclusively left in many cases to state and local governments. does that signal a tension between tenth amendment concerns and fifth amendment concerns? if it does, does primacy, should primacy be accorded to fifth amendment individual concerns, individual property right concerns over tenth amendment concerns? >> i don't believe there is any tension here at all because the tent amendment simply says that -- tenth amendment says powers not

delegated by the constitution to the federal government, thank you, are retained by the states and the people. however, any specific individual constitutional rights, there are protected by the constitution including those protected by the fifth amendment. they clearly are within the power of the federal courts to enforce and no one has ever suggested to my knowledge at any rate that the tenth amendment somehow prevents that. >> when did we get to a point where the notion of what constitutes public use is somehow evolved into something more akin to a public benefit? was that in the berman case? was that in hawaii thousand housing authority? where did that happen? >> as far as back as the 19th century some people made that argument in some state courts albeit minority at that time, held that under their state constitutions but the federal supreme court did not adopt that as an interpretation of the public use clause of the fifth amendment until the berman versus parker case in 1954.

there will were cases in the early 20th century and late 19th century which also were fairly differentialal to eminent domain but if you look at those cases as i did in great detail in one of my articles, none of those cases actually address the public use clause of the fifth amendment. rather those cases were heard during a period when the supreme court had not yet taken the view that the bill of rights was incorporated against the states. so therefore the only way to challenge a state taking in a federal court was under the due process clause of the fifth, i'm sorry of the 14th amendment and under that clause the supreme court applied a fairly deferential approach although not as deaf rengs as later in -- deferential as berman and kilo under the public use clause. however in rare instances when those federal government undertook a condemnation there was challenge in federal court, the supreme court actually made clear in the 1896

gettysburg case a higher level of scrutiny should apply when the taking transfers property to a private individual. . . private individual. unfortunately, there is some misunderstanding over this fostered in part by the supreme court in kilo where they claim there was 100 years of precedent backing their position. there was, indeed, precedent beginning in berman, but every one of the cases they cited before then was, in fact, a case that had nothing to do with the public use clause of the fifth amendment but was in reality a so-called substantive due process case under the 14th amendment. >> thank you. >> [inaudible] >> thank you very much, will chair. as a preliminary comment, i just want to say that i had concern about the title of this briefing from the very beginning because it seemed conclusory in its title saying that there were civil rights implications of eminent domain abuse as if that,

indeed, a matter of fact. and i think that was, unfortunately, mirror inside a comment that the administrator just stated on the video where he said that the commission calls this eminent domain abuse which we have not yet done. we have not yet said that, this briefing does not state that, this is a very different kind of creature. >> [inaudible] >> i understand, and it's something that we are very sensitive to here. >> although our local committee unanimously -- >> yeah. the committee, but you said -- >> you're right. >> -- the commission which was a step beyond. and that's why i was concerned about this title. i'm also concerned about how, whether this panel is truly balanced or not which i've stated in years past. but beside that, that's beside the point. i want to talk about i was a local government official. i've, i was involved in the use of eminent domain, and i though that abuses have occurred in the

past. abuses in the early '60s or the '50s. there was a thriving african-american neighborhood in san francisco, and there was a lot of relocation and uprooting through there. i also know that there's a lot of good that has been done from what we have done as well. in fact, when you see parts of san francisco now that have been through a redevelopment process, it's a wonder what has occurred in terms of the jobs and the economic growth that has occurred. i am not one who believes throwing the baby out with the bath water which is, seems to be part of what i've been hearing here today. because if there are issues that need to be addressed, they can be addressed. but i'm not as unarguably convinced that the whole mention of eminent domain is by it an evil. and i just want to ask a

question to mr. byrne and also mr. shelton. i think that part of, part of the sort of parade of horribles that have occurred in the past is precisely because they occurred in the past during a very different time before the civil rights act of '64, before the voting rights act, before, actually more importantly, redistricting one person and one vote cases that helped create seats for minorities have political power at the table. i just want would like your comment on whether or not those changes in the last 10, 20, 30 years are important developments in protection against the potential for uprooting, relocation of minority or disempowered communities. >> well, it's my view that it is. one can't say that in every community that minorities have the kind of political power that they have in san francisco.

but i'm sure you know from your experience in local government there that elected officials in a city would, are -- understand the difficulties of taking anybody's home and particularly doing so in a way that has an ethnic or racial tilt. it creates a kind of a political, political firestorm that is a major deterrent. one of the things about urban renewal was that the structure of urban renewal was such that mayors could bypass the local political processes by working with federal agencies. money would flow directly to specialized local government entities dominated by the mayor and pursue projects over which the normal sort of citizen processes -- as imperfect as they were -- had really no

effect. this has been wonderfully illustrate inside a book by douglas ray on the history of new haven, connecticut, which is cited in my article. so, you know, one can't say that there's never abuse of eminent domain in contemporary cities, but i think that the realities of the political process in which there is not a federal pipeline like that, in which the political processes of nearly every american city have been substantially democratized in terms of race and ethnic participation, and in which the money to be able to accomplish these things, a lot of it has to come through local sources. um, the kilo case itself is a reasonable example of that where the use of eminent domain there was pursuant to a fixed state program that was approved by the new london city council after extensive political discussion.

and justice stevens in his opinion pointed at the fact there had been an elaborate political process in place to the determine that new london was blighted, that this project was an appropriate response or appropriate attempt to remedy that problem. so can we do more to make participation better? yes, and i appreciated mr. shelton's commentses in that regard. but we've come a long way. >> i would agree. um, there are too many challenges and problems with those who don't have political power, economic power, so forth when the issues of eminent domain come about. quite frankly, we are disproportionately poor. the property values are disproportionately low, and it becomes a bargain for those who want to buy in lots in one place and do some major project whether it's a local government project or a private project for that matter. we've got a lot of concerns with people that feel they have not had an opportunity to fully participate in making the

decision, and that's why we make recommendations to address the problem. but also i think what you're getting at, commissioner, that we also strongly agree with is that there are a number of examples of eminent domain projects that prove to be very, very helpful. you are sensitive to the issues of the poor that live this those communities, there are examples in brooklyn and even manhattan where major construction projects actually made sure they honed in on those who were poor, created rent control scenarios for those who were able to come in and get first priority coming back in at the same rate. that is not done everywhere, and we'd love to see more examples that should be utilized across the country, but the safeguards are necessary because there are those officials who will exploit the opportunity. >> i just want to make a comment, and then that'll be it. i was going to agree with you because one of the things when we were doing this new project called mission bay in san francisco, one of the associations i was engaged in was setting aside a good proportion of homes not just for low income, permanent home ownership as well as low income

permanent rentals. so you actually see on some of the sides of these buildings homes in the low, well, for san francisco whatever it is which is still way beyond what any normal person would do, but it's still very, an affordable level that we deliberately chose to insure that we would have a diversified, mixed community and allow people the chance to come back. and this is pretty much a brand new neighborhood where there's no displacement other than bricks, mortar and a lot of toxic stuff. >> absolutely. and, again, the problem is those are still too few and far between. we'd love to see more of that happen. what we're seeing too often is when major projects like these occur, we see our folks find themselves in situations they cannot afford to come back into the communities they left. indeed, we also find one of the topics not discussed is when you talk about people of low and moderate income, they develop other forms of capital among themselves whether it's one

mother baby sitting for another mother while they go to the grocery store, you bring me back a gallon of milk. that as is not talked about, and we have to talk about those as well. >> professor, just briefly go ahead. >> let me briefly say the issue of lack of balance, major todd strange, officials in montgomery were invited to come here today, and they did not come here. they have repeatedly taken that position and, again, we have the death certificate here, somebody that they still identify as the owner of a property. if that isn't eminent domain abuse or abuse of property rights, i don't know what it is. so my recommendation is that the commission bring in the mayor, ask him to come, ask karen jones to come, ask these other property owners to come in, and at the very least we want to avoid these kinds of abuses. and it's not the only example of this kind of abuse that has occurred. >> the chair recognizes vice chair dunstrom.

>> thank you very much and thank you to all -- [inaudible] i'm going to lose my voice. but, anyway, all members of the panel. this has been an issue i've long been indirectly involved in since i'm -- oh, i'm sorry. my voice wasn't picked up. i was just thanking the panelists. and going on to say this is an issue that i've indirectly been long involved with because i'm on the board and have been for ten years, the board of the institute for justice which, of course, put ql and eminent domain on the national map as it were even though it lost that case. one could argue it won in the court of public opinion, though, that is not what the institute for justice regards as a victory. i have a question for professor somin and really is asking him to comment on something that

professor byrne said. professor byrne has described these decisions as, um, local democracy at bork. at work. reflecting the political judgment of the local communities and, um, and, of course, um, the local democratic processes are something that we all have some republican for. respect for. but i wonder, mr. chairman, if you would be willing to talk a little bit about that issue, and you might want and you can take any example you want, but i've got in mind new london. i don't think that's really an accurate descriptionment --

description of the new london decision to go after homes that were not blighted, and nts were white, low or middle class. i'm not sure, before or after -- professor byrne, why you'd say that. the fact that homes like those in new london were white and middle class explains the political hysteria, and i'm very biased on this whole issue. i wish there were more political hysteria, but in any case, professor somin, i wonder if you would speak to the issue of the kind of democratic quality of these processes. >> sure. certainly. so just a brief comment on the issue of blight. you are, of course, correct, no one claimed including the city government that these homes in

new london before blighted. in fact, that's the whole reason why the supreme court took the case in the first place, because it was a case of a pure economic development taken where there was no allegation of blight contrary to what i think professor byrne may have inadd inadvertently suggests a few moments ago. on the broader issue of democracy, at some level, yes, almost anything a local government does can be characterized as the actions of local democracy. but, of course, that doesn't resolve the issue of whether there should be constitutional rights to constrain that if local government engaged in censorship or unreasonable searches and seizures, all of those things can be seen as exercise of local democracy as well and sometimes have the support of the majority of the population, but that doesn't mean they don't violate the constitution and doesn't mean they aren't of concern. if you look more closely at how these sorts of takings work both in new london and elsewhere, it's actually often very

difficult for voters and ordinary people to exercise real influence over what's going on for two reasons. one is many of these projects are very complex and difficult for nonexperts to assess, and often it's not evident for many years after the fact whether the economic development that suppose we justify the taking is actually produced. for that reason because of the difficulty of acquiring knowledge about these matters, often ordinary voters have little or no real influence over what's going on. often they don't even know what is going on. in addition, obviously, both in new london and in other places powerful interest groups are heavily involved in the process, politically connected developers and others. in the new london case, a key role was played by the pfizer corporation which had lobbied for the taking of the one of the city's own experts in the case testified that pfizer was the, quote, 10,000-pound gorilla

behind the taking. the new london development corporation, the quasi-governmental agency that organized the condemnation at the time the chair of the agency, her spouse was actually an important pfizer executive. now, having studiesed the case -- studies the case, it is not my view she undertook the condemnation just because she thought it would benefit pfizer. i think she genuinely believed it was in the public interest, but that's sometimes influenced by, you know, these sorts of connections. if you work for general motors, you tend to believe that's what good for general motors is good for america, and if you have a close connection to pfizer, you might believe the same about them. so at some level, yes, this is an act of local democracy just as is anything that is done by local government. at the same time, this is an area where the democratic process often work quite poor and is often heavily influenced by interest groups.

the one last point i'll make about this is i feel the panel is certainly a sign of great progress that african-americans have much more political power than they used to in the past in the urban areas, but that does not prevent, in many cases, the kind of abuse because of the people usually targeted by this sort of thing are, in fact, the urban and minority poor and lot of studies as well as common sense suggests that those groups have only very limited political influence, and urban politician like other politicians if they want to stay in power, they need to favor the interests of those with political leverage over those who do not. >> [inaudible] >> yes, thank you. so i didn't mean to say that there was, that there was a blight finding in the kilo case. if i did, i misspoke. in fact, i had an interesting conversation with a connecticut state official who said to me that they proceeded under a

different provision of the connecticut state law involving eminent domain which allowed there to be eminent domain when there was a finding of economic stress in a city and that could be shown that the project would address the economic distress of the city. connecticut used that process because they thought it was more transparent. professor somin before correctly, i think, said that the blight determinations that exist are often quite elastic, and the term "blight" is a kind of a stand-in for a need for economic development, and it's a troubling term. connecticut was trying to avoid that and making it more transparent. now, um, the history of the taking in the new london is very complicated and interesting. but it's fair to say that the dissenters in the connecticut supreme court who voted to find that the use of 'em innocent domain -- eminent domain was against state law specifically found that the project was not done for the benefit of pfizer.

it was done because pfizer had already located a test facility in new london. at the same time that the navy had -- or the coast guard had abandoned a military site. and the hope was that by redeveloping this part of town, they could attract other corporate development. um, there's no, there's absolutely no proof that there was anything untoward done on the basis of the decisions, and and as i say, it wasn't just done by the new london development corporation. it was specifically approved by the new london, by the new london city council. now, look, nobody says that politics at the local level as at the federal level is without the influence of powerful entities what's needed, of course, is more transparency and more participation. and i strongly back that.

but i stand by my, by my view that those are the proper remedies and not taking away an entire power from local governments to engage in economic redevelopment. >> i'm going to ask a question, then -- >> whatever order. >> that's fine. and commissioner harriet, commissioner kline. last week the pew research center issued a report that shows that the net worth of minorities, especially latinos and african-americans, has plummeted particularly due to the current economic conditions that we find such that latinos and african-americans' net worth now is 22 time less than white americans. and i think there's a civil rights issue embedded there, but that's not what i'm going to ask you about. most of the wealth that minorities have accumulated in the past has been based op our homes. -- on our homes. however, i think when you look at minority communities and

immigrant communities, one of the ways to find success has been through entrepreneurial efforts, and you and your comments, professor byrne, mentioned the distinct between compensation for homes and compensation for businesses. do you make a distinction between a business that may be a family-owned business or family-run business versus something that is owned by a corporate entity, and could you speak to that? >> sure. i don't have any problem with the idea that it would be a good idea to provide growing concern value as part of compensation, particularly for small businesses. what i was trying to draw attention to was that the proposal to prevent or to prohibit abusive eminent domain for economic development would also prevent use of eminent domain on vacant lots held by investors in which there is no going concern value, but merely an attempt to try to speculate. so it -- so i agree with you, and i think that that is, i

think that the remedies that look to increase compensation which shifts the calculus involved in the use of 'em innocent domain is a very fruitful avenue for further study. >> thank you. commissioner grass yang know? >> >> thank you, all, but i kind of particularly thank professor byrne because it helps me understand those people who like you who say there isn't a problem, that this is a solution in search of a problem. and i'd like to mention two, um, matters that seem, you seemed to raise that bother me and get your reaction as well as professor somin. the first is that if some of the people involved in the coalition concerned about eminent domain are libertarians and be they happen to have a concern about the scope of government power, you didn't imply that they can't

really be motivated by the plight of minority students, but you seem to say, well, that could, that that isn't, that that isn't. it bothers many he to -- me to suggest that just because one might be libertarian one isn't powerfully moved by the special plight of poor and particularly minority. it certainly isn't the case that those who were concerned about voting rights generally couldn't have been powerfully moved, the north by some of the examples that this commission showed the plight of blacks in the deep south in the '50s and the '60s. so that's one concern i have. um, the second is the notion that seemed to animate part of the written submission and oral that as long as government has the right motives, then

government will usually help minorities more. and i'm glad we're beyond the stage where, um, you know, a lot of eminent domain may be motivated by racism. but the history of urban renewal is littered with so many devastating mistakes, um, the hud probably had the best motives to group people in these huge, horrible housings. you in your testimony seem to suggest that mixed use is a great thing, and government is best to decide. i became involved in the issue about 4 years -- 24 years ago in a zoning fight in houston, became acquainted with the now-deceased but beloved colleague of commissioner harriet's on the university of san diego, usd, i should say, bernie segin who did a study. back then the city of houston wanted to end mixed uses because

to them in their covenant neighborhoods, mixed uses that the poor had -- and i was in one of the, you know, more well-off neighborhoods -- were ugly. but his pathbreaking book and many of the other fallout studies showed that, in fact, what was unappealing to government at the time, um, really decreased rents for minorities compared to dallas and other cities. so i suppose my question to both you and professor somin is whether we should be so trusting of government even when they're supposedly well meaning? >> well, thank you for your question. first off, um, thank you for, um, the comment that -- and i totally agree that libertarians can be motivated quite sincerely by concern about the plight of the least among us or racial

discrimination as part of the response that they make. and i hope -- but let's -- the, that was not what kilo was about. kilo was not about racial minorities. and the focus of the institute for justice has not been, has been on property owners' court, on eliminating eminent domain for economic development entirely. and so it seems to me, and the way in which the issue was framed to me for this hearing today suggested that the main concern of the civil rights commission was the undue impact of eminent domain on minorities, and that's what my remarks were addressed to. but the solution that's being suggested both by professor somin and, i suppose, by yourself is to eliminate eminent domain for economic development period. and that does not address the harms that come to minors that

come from highways or public housing for that matter, and it takes away one of the tools that have been, that has been used to try to maintain the economic competitiveness of cities with greenfield -- [inaudible] so i do have concern as to what the focus of this discussion is about, and i don't mean to impugn anybody's motives or, or -- at all. and and i'm sorry if it seems as if i did. now, you're making then, commissioner, a very broad argument about the, whether government has a role in land use regulation at all. and i understand that there are people, and bernard segin is certainly one, who have argued over the years that that power is, um, is unhelpful. the problems with eminent -- so,

and mistakes have been made. i mean, urban renewal has a very mixed legacy, and, you know, the definitive book has not been written on that yet. but, plainly, mistakes were made, and mistakes are being made today in government policy involving urban development. however, urban, the understanding of urban planning has come a long way since the 1950s. we have a much less grandiose idea, we understand the value of mixed development, and we understand the limited role that government can play as a catalyst in, um, helping particularly redevelopment of areas that need it. t a very large -- it's a very large question to discuss whether government has a role, what the role of government properly should be in land use planning regulation, goes well beyond the issue of eminent domain.

but it is certainly the case that we can point to uses of eminent domain in the last decade that have been, in fact, very helpful. the government can assemble plots of land in a way that private developers cannot. they can overcome holdouts, they can insist on, they can insist on a planning process that involves the community. and i think that's valuable. and the, the larger issues perhaps save for another day. >> professor somin, are you now or have you ever been a libertarian? [laughter] >> i've been a libertarian since i was 15 years old, and i even described how i first became libertarian. perhaps more relevant to your specific question, i think there is no contradiction between advocating for property rights for the poor while also believing that the same property rights should apply to the wealthy and others just as there

is -- [inaudible] with our view that these protections should apply to powerful media entities like "the new york times" and not just unpopular speakers. so, similarly, i think property rights apply the all. that said, as discussed in my testimony, it is the case that the poor and politically weak with respect to speech are all the more vulnerable. and that does get to the question of the role of government. one of the reasons why i'm libertarian in the first place and others are as well is that problems with government are not directly the result of particular planning processes or particular individuals who might make mistakes, they're also systematic, and government does have a tendency to favor the politically powerful over the politically weak, particularly in areas like eminent domain where the issue is complex, and it's difficult for the general public to scrutinize what is going on. you don't have to be alibertarian to recognize this

particular problem, but i think the libertarians and their contribution to this debate is to see its systematic nature. now, with regards to the question of the broader role of government, obviously, like professor byrne, i don't think i can fully address that question in this hearing. however, i would note that i think both 1950s urban planning and modern urban planning tends to oversaying what the -- overstate what the appropriate role of government here is. it's true there are holdout problems, but as i discussed in my testimony, private developers have good way of overcoming them, one of them being secret assembly. and those have is the advantage -- have the advantage that they don't victimize the poor and the pretty create weak nearly as -- politically weak nearly as much, and they require the developer to pay for the project with their own money, right? >> when the developers pay with their own money, they have more incentive to actually do a project that will promote more economic growth than it destroys whereas when they can do so with

heavy public subsidies to transfer other people's property to them, you often get very bad results. not in every single case, but i think in the majority of the time i give a couple of examples in my written testimony. i just mentioned the kilo case which has already been discussed a lot. to date some $80 million in public funds has been spent there, and so far years after the taking nothing has been built. the only beneficiaries of the taking so far other than the, you know, other than, you know, officials and lawyers involved are some feral cats that are currently living on site. ..

development than you would have gotten otherwise. i think as others have indicated, similar problems sometimes do arise with traditional takings for roads. i externally agree with mr. byrne and mr. shelton that those sorts of takings also deserve consideration and concern. i do think there is a better justification for thosehan condemnations than for ones that transfer lands to private parties, because as i indicated, they operate in secret and not letting people know that this ic a big assembly project that's going on with a public projectcp where public funds are being spent, we do want public scrutiny. f we didn't want it we'd probably get it anyway because government tends to leak if they can't keep military secrets they probably can't keep development projects secrets either even if we wanted them to do so. >> professor, i'm glad you're answering the political philosophy because it would be

highly ironic if you answered your system. [laughter] >> the chair recognizes commissioner harriet. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to say a word on behalf of them of $80 million but at least i'm happy for the ferreal cats. professor coleman you had mentioned there are more effective methods of dealing with the urban blight. can you elaborate on that a little bit. >> sure. i think urban blight is a genuine problem which i mean blight which really are blighted in the term where dilapidatedtation, threats to public health and the like. i think the best and most effective long-term method is dealing with this is having long-term growth and property rights are actually an important part of that. most scholars in economics the problems going on in

underdeveloped world is underdeveloped property rights and there's a series of books on this. i think in a number of urban development scholars also think we have a similar problem albeit in a less severe form some in fact poorer and less developed areas of our own country. in addition, while long-term growth is the best solution, there are other more targeted measures that can be taken, for instance, public health codes, the situation where maybe there are infectious diseases breeding in a particular property owner's area. and also in some cases one can use nuisance abatement and private losses. and finally we should promote legislation that's already been done in many states that should have more private plan communities so people can use their own money and their own voluntary cooperation to create a better living space for themselves. today over 50 million americans already live in private planned communities of various types.

and more can be done to make that option available to even more people and i think actually that's the kind of participation which is often more effective in promoting people's interests than the ordinary political process is. so i don't think there's an absolutely perfect solution to blight. however, there's a great deal that can be done without resorting to eminent domain and especially since these other approaches -- they have the advantage that they don't forcibly displace people from their homes or away from their businesses. taking the target small businesses often inflict as much harm as target homes but the public sympathy in those cases tend to be less. >> we have less than 10 minutes left for questions. i have the commissioner who will be next. and prior to doing that i would ask if the commissioner had an opportunity -- she had an opportunity to do so. and that may be our time.

so commissioner? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks to the panel. professor, i read your testimony and you were shocked they actually had eminent domain in downtown las vegas as well as time's square. were you ever in time's square in the early '80s? >> yes, actually, i was. >> do you want to admit that? >> i should wait and let you finish your question. [laughter] >> as young looking as you do. i too will be a libertarian. [laughter] >> but i was, and i think that their redevelopment plan has been successful. would you not agree? >> to some extent, however what i was referring to took place in the early 1980s and it specifically with a taking the transfer of property that by normal standards was not in any

way blighted to the "new york times" for purpose of building a new headquarters. >> you were referring to the general condition of times square in the early 80s. >> i was referring to times squares at the time this case occurred which was in 2001. >> right. and then the taking in downtown las vegas. have you ever been around that property? >> yes. >> and that taking was really a problem of notice, was it not? >> no. >> not without having an order to enter? >> are you referring to the -- the fundamental issue there was, in fact, whether the area was blighted. and the owners of the land said it was not and it went all the way to the state supreme court and they ruled it was blighted on the grounds of nevada the definition of blight at the time was any area that was underdeveloped in some way, or which essentially was any area which does not have as much

development as produced by alternative use. so there may have been other procedural issues in the case but the aspect that i was referring to, the one addressed by the nevada supreme court was specifically the question as to whether the area was blighted or not and the nevada supreme court ruled that it was on the basis of this very broad standard. >> and then your last remark in your comments was more work was needed to ensure a constitutional property rights. has any of these types of cases shown a violation of civil rights and property rights like kelo and the hawaiian housing thought which stand these court tests, the constitutionality. >> it was a close 5-4 decision. i believe the majority in that case got it wrong as many of the cases do. there's some lower court decisions which have struck down takings on the basis that the official rationale was pretextual. and there also have been a

number of state supreme court decisions which have invalidate those takings under state constitutions but and part of my testimony was precisely the federal court and some state courts as well have not done enough to approach that piece to the fact that most of these cases are run by the government at least in federal court. i view not as a positive sign that nothing bad is going on but rather as a negative sign that, unfortunately, the courts have not been doing their job in this area as well as they should. >> the chair recognizes commissioner yonke and commissioner achtenberg will have the last question. >> i want to say one last word to the professor to begin with. what you've been describing in your testimony today to me is very powerful. and if it's indeed the case that they're using this different method of demolition to deal with homes primarily run by african-americans in montgomery

county in montgomery, it is something that i wish we could go down there for because then we could use our subpoena power to force the officials to come forward with those records. this is a much broader hearing than that. in terms of what you're talking about, that could be a potential abuse of a police power that i think could have -- we could have a very significant interest in. i just want to address really quickly the alternatives. one of the things you talked about was secret assembly or in other words, we'll call the developer's shell game and they run around and buy little puzzles there and hold in a conglomerate together. i want to get all your options as quickly as possible. to me having watched that and seen that happen in various cities across the country, including my own, the one thing that comes up is the fact that in many ways, one, i don't necessarily think that the developers are paying the highest and best price for some of those properties. they're paying in more than the

government would. and number 2, in doing it in this sort of shell game frequently using nominees shell corporations, other kinds of things to do so, it actually becomes almost undemocratic so that question that mr. shelton would want raised, where are these people going? what are we doing with them? what is their right of return? what actually is going to happen here and whether that is a good and efficient use of property? i don't think those questions ever get answered in the secret assembly type thing until the very end when they may have to go to the planning commission to get it done. by that time, you know, when you have a -- your abilities may or may not be limited at that time in terms of your ability to deal with the issues that have been raised by mr. shelton, and by mr. burton and yourself, too, in terms of on the impact of minorities. i just wanted you to address that and whether there are undemocratic aspects of that, that might actually militate against some of the comments you

were talking about in terms of the perceived ills you see of eminent domain on racial minorities. >> thank you for that question. it's an interesting point. i think the important thing about the secret assembly is that when secret assembly or any kind of voluntary assembly are going on, people don't have to sell unless they agree to the selling price that is offered to them. so as a general rule, if people will not sell unless they feel they are better off with the money than they would be with the property. and that's a fundamental difference from eminent domain. now, whether they always get paid the highest and best price, you know, that may vary depending on who's an effective negotiator or what nnot but they're getting paid a better price than keeping the property. the most important property rights is the ability to say no when people come and say i want your land or whatever it is that you own.

you might say it's undemocratic in the sense that, obviously, until the project is later announced, it's secret but i think part of the point of my argument is that a better way for people to participate is to be able to make their own decisions about the disposition of their property and to be able to say yes or no to the offers that are brought to them rather than having a voice in the political process whereas an individual particularly, a poor one, your chance of influencing the outcome is small. by contrast, if you can say yes or no to offers that are brought to you, then you have a much higher chance of actually having a say in your on own fate. so if you believe the money being offered is not enough and you'll end up living somewhere else or be worse off, then you can just say no. i think that's a good thing from a fairness perspective. it's also by the way a good thing from the perspective of maximizing economic efficiency

and economic development. if, in fact, the current owners of property value it more than the developer does, then even if all you care about economic efficiency if you're like -- a libertarian of stereotype only cares about economic growth or whatever, then you still would want the secret assembly rather than eminent domain because you would want those projects that are not worth more than the existing uses that they would displace. >> the chair recognizes commissioner achtenberg for the last question. >> i want to direct this question to professor burn if i might. my concern in reading the material has been that the data, at least as far as i can tell, is questionable in terms of the statistics that have -- that are

available to us about what has happened since 1980 or 1990 or in the most recent decade past in terms of the allegations that it is clearly a disparate impact that's being felt as a result of eminent domain on minorities and other disempowered communities. i'm wondering, am i missing something or is the data as scanty as our current records makes it appear? >> i think -- i think -- i think there's a big problem with a lack of empirical study of the employment of eminent domain. certainly, as you say in the last two decades or so, done to rigorous social science standards. we really don't know very much

about the incidents and who's affected by it. and so i think that would be an enormous benefit. and i think something that's agreed across the political spectrum that a better understanding of what actually occurs would be helpful. the study referred to in terms of the victims and whatnot that's in there, really doesn't look at who's affected. it just looks at the census tracks in which eminent domain is used and that just doesn't tell you very much. and we could use -- we could all understand this better. >> thank you. please, everyone, join me in thanking or panelists. [applause] >> i think we had a very thoughtful and thought provoking discussion this morning. i just want everyone to know who's listening here today that we're going to have the record remain open until september 10th for any public comments. those public comments can be

mailed either to our office here at 624 ninth northwest, washington, d.c., 20425 or emailed to publiccomment@usccr.gov. that's public comment one word at usccr.gov. thank you all and we're going to move immediately into our regular business meeting. so thank you, analysts you may go about your business. feel free to stay and watch our business meeting >> president obama is on day two of a three-day bus tour traveling the midwest visiting minnesota, iowa and illinois to talk about job growth. the president today is in peota, iowa, where he's participating in an all-day economic forum. it's hosted by his agriculture secretary and former iowa governor tom vilsack.

the president will wrap up his tour tomorrow with two more town hall meetings in illinois before returning to washington. vice president joe biden is on his way to asia today for a weeklong trip as part of an effort by the administration to enhance the u.s. role in asia. >> live on c-span at 5:30 eastern this afternoon, pakistan's former foreign secretary will be at johns hopkins school of advanced international studies to talk about the strained relationship between the u.s. and pakistan. "the wall street journal" reported on monday that the obama administration will start basing its aid to pakistan on whether the country meets a scorecard of u.s. objectives to combat al-qaeda and its allies. and all this month watch booktv in prime time on c-span2. tonight journalism and newspapers. at 8 p.m. eastern, william

mcgowan talks about gray lady down, what the decline and fall of the new york times means for america. at 9:40 we'll hear from the authors of "will the last reporter please turn out the lights: the collapse of journalism and what can be done to fix it." and after that at 11:10, john mcmillan's "smoking typewriter s." booktv in prime time all this month on c-span2. every weekend it's american history tv on c-span3 starting saturday mornings. 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. watch personal interviews about historic events on oral histories. our history book shelf features some of the best known history writers. revisit key figures, battles and events during the 150th anniversary of the civil war. visit college class rooms across the country, go behind the scenes at museums and historic

scythes, and the presidency looks at the policies and legacies of past american presidents. get our complete schedule at c-span.org/history and sign up to have it e-mailed to you by pressing the c-span alert button. be. the conference of court of public information officers hosted a discussion last week in washington, d.c. on the open court pilot project. the project provides live streaming of court proceedings in quincy, massachusetts, that's just outside of boston. panelists include judge mark coven whose proceedings are streamed and opencourt's executive producer john davidow. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> okay. one quick announcement, and then i'm going to turn things over to chris davey. um, lawyers, virginia requires

you to fill out the evaluation form. so it's in your packet, make sure you grab it, fill it out, turn it in at the front desk before you exit. at any rate, very briefly, i want today introduce chris davey, public information officer for the state of ohio. he is going to be the moderator for the opencourt pilot project. it's fascinating stuff. i've known chris for a couple of years. i always get e-mails and see news materials about the wonderful work that he is doing and his committee is doing, and i'm really looking forward to a fascinating discussion. chris? >> thanks, ben. good morning, everyone. we've already had a full morning, and we have quite a bit ahead of us yet, so we're going to jump right in to our discussion about this innovative program that is, um, connecting a trial court in massachusetts with the public that they serve with the hope of supporting trust and confidence in the judicial branch.

um, it's been mentioned a couple times that there was a conference similar to what we've been discussing this week last week in atlanta with the chief justices and the state court administrators on the topic of new media in the courts. and i thought i would open with some remarks that were given by richard griffith, vice president of cnn, who closed last week's program in atlanta with a speech about the importance of connecting what courts do with the public, being open and transparent for the purpose of supporting trust and confidence in the system. and what richard was discussing specifically was something that's come up several times this week at the conference of court public information officers which is a real, marked decline in the traditional sometimes they use the term legacy news media in covering the courts. and i know judges who, um, at

one point viewed reporters as somewhat of a nuisance who now look around and say, where are they? and they're understanding that since they've disappeared, and literally disappeared in some spots, that we need them, and we need to have vehicles for communicating to the public what we do. and richard griffith after outlining this problem for our chief justices and state court administrators in this speech, he closed by saying this brings me to my radical, final proposal. if public does not have the opportunity to learn about what happens in courts through traditional routine reporting, why not leapfrog the media and open up all court proceedings to the public by streaming over the internet? the technology is here and getting less expensive by the day. while some judges remain nervous ant cameras in the -- about

cameras in the court, others are comfortable with the presence of fixed cameras streaming all proceedings on the web and keeping an archive, maybe the ultimate in openness. well, there's some folks that are already doing that, and we're going to hear from them here this morning. um, our panelists are all from the state of massachusetts, and they're involved in this program to do exactly as richard griffith at cnn has suggested we explore, connecting the court directly with the public. we have joan kenny from the massachusetts supreme judicial court, joan is a former public relations executive and has spoken in eastern europe and russia about matters related to the administration of justice. with us, also, is judge mark s. coven, the first justice of the quincy district court in quincy,

massachusetts. judge coffin has been a judge -- coffin has been a judge for over 20 year, has been on the quincy district court since 2000 and has written extensive law journal articles on a number of different topics. finally, we have john davidow at wdbr boston, and john is the 2010 recipient of the knight news challenge grant to do this very program. and so we're going to start with john who will, um, give us an outline of what they've done there in quincy, and then we'll hear from our other panelists and open it to discussion. john? >> thank you. that was very interesting about richard griffith. i think the best thing to do is rather show than tell, so let me just see if we are up live right now and see what is coming out of there.

and naturally, we are offline right now. [laughter] but, but like every good news producer, i have a backup. [laughter] so let me get that up. and this is from our archive from august 2nd. you will notice a very familiar face on the bench. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. and we can always come back and check it later. but these are our archives. hopefully the internet stream will be bad enough and, of course -- >> [inaudible] thank you. [inaudible] >> yes, your honor -- [inaudible] >> [inaudible]

>> no, your honor. >> have you two talked about this? >> we'll be able to work it out, i'm sure. >> as soon as you're ready. >> so you get the idea. and i don't know how much i want to expose you to it. you've all seen court action. but that is, essentially, what opencourt does every day whenever the court is in session, whenever there is a judge on the bench. i know i'm not speaking into any of the mics specifically, but can you hear me at the back of the room? okay. and, um, exactly as chris was talking about, the reason for opencourt was exactly that, was to address the fact that there were less and less court reporters, people covering the courts. there used to be these things called reporters, and they worked for things that used to be called newspapers. [laughter] and there's just less and less of us out there, and ironically, at the same time that this, the

bridge, those reporters that brought what was going on into the courts, the individual citizen journalist or just the individual is now equipped with smartphone technology that can do pretty much what we in the electronic media have been able to do for a very long time; record, videotape, even live stream right off of smartphones. i didn't have a chance to go, but, obviously, they can blog and tweet and facebook almost anywhere at any time. so when the founders initially thought about how the judicial system was going to be, the idea was that it was going to be open, and it was going to be public, and i always think about that movie "to kill a mockingbird," where the entire community is piled into that court, a courtroom that was built in the center of town. and now that life has become more complicated, less andless

of us have -- less and less have any reason to be in touch with what is going on in the courts, we understand them less. and now with less reporters out there, there seems to be a need to bring the courts to the people. and that's exactly what opencourt does. and, fortunately, we were able to convince a lot of people that this was a pretty good idea. i am on, along with joan, on a committee called the supreme judicial court media judiciary committee. and you can tell that title was picked by a jurist as opposed to a member of the media. we would never get that many words. [laughter] but it, essentially, is made up of members of the bar, members of the press and members of the court. who sit there and off the record discussions, i think it's been going on for about ten years, it is presided over by a member of the media and a member of the

state supreme judicial court. and it's a place where we can discuss issues off the record and talk about camera in the courtroom issues, all of the kinds of things that come up between the media and the, and the courts. and i'm sure there are similar organizations around the country in jurisdictions where you live. um, that's where i took this idea. the knight foundation has an international competition that all they really want to inspire are innovative ways to cover the news to use digital technology to do it in a shareable way, and basically, to make sure that it's local. ..

>> and it was a formal vote made up of the members of that organization. they blessed it and actually it was 100%. there were no dissenting votes. and at the time it was suggested that we need to defined a courtroom to do this. and the court room that was sort of picked by this committee was the quincy district court where judge coven is the chief justice. and the reason for that was i think they wanted a very busy, very active court, one that was

proximate to boston. and i'll say the quincy district court has always had its history of innovation, going back at least two or three decades. and i'm sure judge coven can talk about that. at the same time, that we got the blessing from the media judiciary committee, and once we got our funding, we set up a board of advisors. there's no fiduciary responsibility but by the end of this conversation you will know i have no legal background at all. and so we need to bring in lots of voices to help us figure out how this is going to work from a very practical standpoint. so on our board of advisors is a justice from the state supreme judicial court, the president of the state bar association, a representative from the state district attorneys association, a top victim witness advocate at the attorney general's office, a

woman who runs a company called placeblogger that oversees 6000 hyperlocal new sites across the country, a du law professor who specializes in first amendment issues, and the chief counsel for the state district court. so it's a very representative group, and their goal is really to keep us sort of listening as was possible not to grant any of what we're doing down anybody's throat. the last thing was that we set up a quincy district court working group. this was really under the impetus of judge coven. we get all the state involved, the clerks, the court officers, the district attorneys who appear, the public defenders, the victim witness advocate,

citizens, the press to cover the courts. all of those people are on the working group. and after our first meeting in december when we started rolling this out, we met subsequently a number, and many times, just to go over some of the issues that are sort of obvious when you bring something so different to a courtroom that has been doing something so much the same over these years. so, lots of communication and lots of listening, and at the same time, hopefully a few answers along the way. one of the more interesting things that we were able to set up is, and judge coven will have a chance to talk about this, is that we like to refer to herself in some ways as a dump i. all the way we are is to get the signal and what is happening out of the court. we do not bring our editorial

side to what goes in that pipe. the judges do control the court and that's what i'm actually demonstrating to you. we do have a producer in the court at all times, but that's because we are a pilot. how we envisioned this is that the court, the judges who preside over the court would determine when the stream goes on and when the screen goes all. and judge coven controls the stream, and very often we have two laptops, one on the bench and one by where we sit. and he will control the bench. excuse me, he will control the camera from the bench. the microphones, and there are signs all over the courtroom, talking about this as a pilot program, and our microphones are actually plugged into the court system. and that's really only so we don't have to continue to lay out why are every day, and the audio is terrific coming out of the court. in fact, if you're sitting in court, you really can't hear as well as if you're listening to

what is already the courts recording system. and the science are by the defense attorneys, by the district attorneys, at the witness box, wherever anybody would be speaking. we also demonstrated in the courtroom where there were dead zones, where the attorney-client privilege would not be compromised. so before we even started, we brought all the stakeholders into an empty courtroom and did mic checks, and walked them through. this was all part of the preparatory process that really needed to be done. we also, going with our board of advisors, and whether quincy stakeholders, we started giving out some of the obvious pain point, where not everything was going to be immediately live streamed. in massachusetts there is rule

119 and our statutory requirements. that's the cameras in the courtroom law. and essentially there are very clearly defined things that just are not shot by any members of the media, more dire, juvenile sessions, again, joanie manages that will be happy to describe specifically what those are. and then we started talking about what is the judicial discretion, what can we agree on as a committee and the stakeholders who want to see this work? and 119 talks on substantial likelihood of harm. so again, that's the judges discretion. also, the people who are in the stakeholders were worried about witness protection, people who came forward, victim protection, would this keep people from going before the court, either due to illegal status, domestic violence, what would those cases that the cameras should go off and what would be the procedure

to do that, bench conferences. all of these kinds of things were anticipated, with the idea that we did not want to keep people from going forward. one thing that we decided to do before even going in, this is at the suggestion of the justice from the supreme judicial court, not to do domestic violence cases, unless there is a criminal complaint associated with them. because we didn't want to run before we walked and learn about the issues. we also set up a wi-fi network, which is more citizen journalist. so the entire court is why five years there's an area where you see priority seating, where citizen journalists can sit and blog without disturbing what is going on in the court. honestly, we haven't done that much of that. i just want to sort talk to you

just briefly about the future of where opencourt is going to go. our funding -- first of all, we went online may 2 so this is new. we started getting this up and going right when we got our funding november 1. i hired two very accomplished journalists who have incredible digital skills to work with me, and i have been very fortunate. but the future of that will be eventually once we have the mechanics out of the way, and there was a lot of sewing the seeds of this, we are going to take those people who i hired to our reporters to start covering what is going on in the court, highlighting cases, creating a place where the citizen journalists can engage with them, moderate that coverage of the citizen journalist. train citizen journalists. i think more and more we're asking that question, who is a

journalist? what is a journalist? and children talk about the new rule 119, the new cameras in the courtroom conversation going on in massachusetts that ups for public comment, because it now makes room for a citizen journalist in addition to a professional journalist. we also want to create more of an educational opportunity. there is an organization called discovering justice in massachusetts teaches civics in court for elementary and middle school students. we want to be engaged in the quincy public school curriculum, bring kids in. and i know this is something that's important to justice coven. we also want to address a huge issue, which is is the real benefit to what we are doing? or are we just putting out data for david's sake. what is going to be the way to sort of quantify the impact of this project, how is the public

being served, all those kind of things. sort of we are looking for ways to sort of quantify this experience which is a challenge. and then finally a we want to do a better job chronicling in legal journals, and working with the berkman center, the cyber law clinic, hopefully ben's organization to start publishing our experience and sharing what we've learned with other people through the case study law that comes up. and then finally, create some sort of media judiciary resource center where we can take what we learned and help propagated around the country. so with the end of that, those remarks, let's check one more time on the court and see if we are live, just to prove that i'm not making this up. [laughter] let's just see. do you know what?

>> they are on recess. >> i am just going to click it for kicks. well, i will keep an eye on it and we'll see if we can find something going on. that's the end of my prepared remarks. >> thanks, john. are there any questions for john? >> just one quick question. is that one fixed camera? >> yes. it is that angle. and i will go back to show it to you, is a fixed camera. but i think your question really is, let's say there's disruption in the court. we will, we are not, you know, we didn't give up our journalistic credibility and agree to not move that camera if necessary. and with two journalists often in the court at once, our job in general is to see what the public sees. we are not, if there's somebody seated in court, that's a public place. so we are not considered locked

down to that position. but for the most part that's the practical shot. we've had to move it to shoot arrangements that are, you know, in a stairway because of identity issues, or down stairs. so it's not a fixed effects, is the answer. [inaudible] >> yes, and they are. there is a pool camera as well in room 119, which joan can talk about, would provide for that on the next page, i suppose. [inaudible] >> light for hearing impaired or people who are visually impaired? >> we have not. and i think, speaking of that, i can't see it. i'm sorry. [laughter] we should, and right now in massachusetts that's not as big a priority as it is, for example, in california where it

is mandated. but it is something we should consider. and i think it is probably again one of those cases where we're walking before we run. obviously, that would impact our funding. it's an excellent question. >> it's not only an important question is a big question because it's not only people who are physically challenged, but we have in quincy probably 20 different dialects. and so, to the extent like the other day we had hearing-impaired interpreters there, well, they are all covered life. the same thing with our language interpreters. they are all covered life. so you get a sense of what's happening in court. >> i need to remind everybody in the audience, because this is on c-span, you need to mic before you ask a question or make a comment. who is next?

>> i was just would have close are you watch your analytics, like your audience? i'm a journalist. [laughter] >> if we were in it for the hits, we would be in another business. but surprisingly so, at any given time there is up to 100, 150 people watching that live stream, which actually is surprising. when there is a newsworthy event though, i mean, you can see that. a lot of it is pretty mundane. when there is a newsworthy event, our stats do go up. we tweet, and without really posting much on facebook, but we tweaked it out the day explaining what is going on. and in terms of followers. there's a case have gotten a lot of interest out of the quincy district court, and i've had a number of journalists tell me that they're not going to court, they're just watching our

stream. you know, and that's part of what we figured, that it would add to the efficiencies and had to the access. you know, that's helping access for the journalist to be there. i wouldn't say it's the best way to do it but it might be a practical way to do it. so our stats are not horrendous. we are on the quincy patriot ledger website, we are on "the boston globe"'s website. we are on wcvb tv affiliates website, and that was all part of -- they are all members of that media judiciary committee, and they have agreed to do that. and then i'll just ask -- answer the obvious question. so if you're online, what do you do about comments because comments can be toxic. we don't allow comments on our live stream. we did not want to do mystery science theater. [laughter] we don't want people talking about hairdos, clothing, any of

that. so again, that kind of conversation came out of the working group. you know, they were worried about that. we had to anticipate all of those kinds of things. you can't just put the stream up and not think about those things. >> john, this is the pilot. what's the projected model? is it commercial? is a court financed coverage, assuming that it spread, that it is viable and do you want to see in all courtrooms in massachusetts? do you see it commercial or do you see it in some ways municipally financed? >> i think when i imagined -- it's a very good question. what we imagined was that we asked for two years of funding from the knight foundation to demonstrate best practices. to show how this was done,

create almost a toolbox for other jurisdictions that would want to do this. and that's sort of the goal. we never thought there was much of a sustainability model, or as a business. on the other hand, this is where things are going and we feel that we can be a resource for that. and in my imagination of where this would be going is, 20, 30 years ago there was no such thing as a victim witness advocate in the courtroom. those were funded by federal grants. and now they are a fixture, at least they're a fixture in massachusetts courts. i can't imagine a time when there will be immediate access advocate who would play a role within state government, that would inevitably, out of a project similar to this one, not

necessarily this one, what i do see that the need is only going to grow as opposed to diminish. >> actually i have two quick questions. what would you estimate the cost was for the single courtroom set up? and sadly, what do you do about the jury's? >> we don't show juries. >> are you shooting over the heads of the jury box? >> we are actually -- i'm not even sure where the jury box is in the court. where is the jury box? >> we don't do trials in that session. we do trials upstairs and there are cameras only in the main courtroom where we don't do trials. >> it is a single courtroom. our goal would be to be in all five courtrooms there. that way the court can't take cases and move them around to avoid the camera, which can happen. but your first question against?

>> costs your. >> short money would be the best way to describe it. the cost of video, equipment is, we had to lay out for the camera. we were starting from scratch so we bought computers. the wireless cost was not your basic cable service. and i will tell you why. it's because quincy, a major city in a major metropolitan area, had no digital access. they are digging up the street. bears no -- whatever you call it, broadband there right now. so we actually had to sort of pull off a stunt to get our signal out of their, something they're shooting off the roof. we didn't anticipate that. under normal circumstances we would have just plugged into a service. and we couldn't even get the bandwidth out of verizon. so little things like that add

cost, but the streaming costs are not prohibitive. the biggest and only serious expense right now are the two journalists year and believe me, they are not considered very expensive, and i wish i could give them more. >> let's turn now to joan kenney from the massachusetts supreme court. and joan, why don't you tell us from the courts perspective some of the challenges you face and how you have move forward with the program. >> well, this program has been just an amazing program for us. and one of my roles is to help inform the various courts throughout this system what's going on. everyone has heard about this project in quincy, but there's a lot of curiosity about it. and they want to know, is this coming to my court, and exactly what is happening in quincy. so part of my role is to communicate internally with the various court leaders and court

staff throughout the system, to explain what is going on. i have to say john's staff that he hired to produce this program every day are just absolutely top notch, you know, highly trained journalist. and i think that has made all the difference, too, to make this program so worthwhile. and the staff and -- at quincy district court and the judges who have been involved in this program have been outstanding, and just so cooperative and supportive. having that working group that john talked about and getting all of the stakeholders together early on was absolutely essential. if you were to ever start this kind of a program, i mean, that is the kind of model you would want to follow. but quincy district court was the perfect choice i think for this pilot project. and how it is helping me on a parallel track, as john

mentioned, there is this judiciary media committee -- [inaudible] >> sorry. [laughter] >> so there really is life. >> live in quincy district court. that is the judge. >> and i understand -- >> it is not just judge coven. >> would you like me to appoint them on this one as well? is there an issue of bail? >> your honor, we have agreed to a $5000 cash bail. >> so there you go. sorry about that. it just sort of popped up. >> i think that's great. we are getting live proceedings from quincy district court. what i was about to say is on a

parallel track, the judiciary media committee was looking at our existing rule of cameras in the courts. and we were asked to see what changes could be made to it, to update those rules which have been in existence since the late '80s. >> and those rules of court started out as an experiment, also. so we have a judiciary media committee established a subset of that group, and we brought in some other people throughout the court system, call it the rule 119 committee. and the rule 119 committee has made some proposals that go back to the full court, the, full-court the full court has sent them out for review, excuse me, for comment. that comment period is over now. it went back to the rule 119 committee where it is to review those comments that were received and to see what adjustments should be made. now let me tell you what the

proposals are. first to step back, you need to know what our current existing rule is, cameras in the courtroom. and that is, is presumptively open, meaning all of our judicial proceedings, or most of our judicial proceedings, are open. the judge does have discretion. john mentioned the threshold is substantial likelihood of harm. if the judge finds that there is a substantial likelihood of harm, the judge can either suspend or limit what the coverage would be. currently, one td camera and once the camera are allowed in the camera -- courtroom. they stay stationary in one spot. i think some of you have similar roles in your courtrooms. and it has worked very well over the years. we have had very few conflicts with it.

but obviously now with the change in the media landscape, judges were asking for guidance, because they were getting requests from nontraditional media people asking whether they could bring in a camera. so judges and clerks were calling my office and saying, what should we do? this doesn't quite follow our rules, but can i do it? so there were a lot of, there were a lot of people looking for advice about what to do. and that's what brought -- i brought the agenda to our judiciary media committee. what we have come up with right now, and again i want to stress that this is still in the discussion stage. we are going to be having a meeting in a few weeks to discuss it more. we've had several already, that the news media, you know, we had a lot of discussion, robust discussion about who is a journalist, what is a

journalist. and this isn't the exact language, but the news media would be defined as those who are regularly engaged in the reporting and publishing of news or information about matters of public interest. so this would definitely include citizens -- citizen journalists and bloggers who meet the standard. then we had a discussion about should we register them or should they be credentialed? and after looking at all the pros and cons, we came up with the idea that they should be, there should be a registration process. and one of the reasons for that is that nontraditional bloggers or citizen journalists, you know, may not understand the rules. so my office is not going to be credentialing anyone, but people will have to register and they will have to say, fill out a form that can be downloaded from our website that would say i

have read rule 119, this would be the new rule 119, and will abide by those terms. and then they will sign it and they will be registered. so i'm not checking to see whether they are a blogger or a journalist. they are certifying that they are. now, the judge will still have discretion to decide whether that journalist or blogger can come into the courtroom. and even if they are not registered, the judge would have discretion. so there's a lot of room there. we are also anticipating that there would be a third camera allowed in the courtroom, and that third video camera would be for webcasting or live streaming. not live streaming, but streaming a video. so there would be the tv camera that is allowed now, the still camera and then the third camera. we've also changed -- we're not

calling it cameras in the courts now. it would actually be called the electronic access to the courts, because it really goes beyond cameras. we are talking now about having laptops and mobile devices in the courtroom as well. and those of course would be allowed under this new proposed rule. so those are just some of the highlights. there are many other things in the rule, and if we get to questions, you know, i'm happy to answer those. thank you. >> i'm sure there will be more questions but i would like to suggest we put justice coven in an unusual position, which is to ask him to speak last. judges are not accustomed to that. we have heard from the perspective. we've heard from the supreme court perspective. justice, what can you tell us about how this drug rep has worked out in the courtroom? >> if i could just back up the

second, provide a little historical context. in massachusetts, in the district courts, our proceedings were not even audiotaped until 1975. prior to that time there was no record, at least audio recorded record of the proceedings in the court. judges loved that. virtually everything you did was non-appealable because there was no record of what you are doing in the courtroom. [laughter] judges consider their courtrooms in their court houses their sole domain, not the public domain. he, and does almost all he, judges, male judges in 1975 could act arbitrarily, unfairly, without any equal protection if they chose to do so. so fast forward 35 years later. as everyone of you know, and

asked the public knows, we are in a time of deep cynicism towards all institutions of government, one of which being the judiciary. and i have total confidence that, and it's been my position and the position of the judicial court of massachusetts, that the more people that action know about what the courts do, the more trust and confidence there is in the judiciary as an independent branch of government. i'll give you just two very practical examples. probably every public information officer in this room has had to deal with an issue of bail and when dale has gone bad, something terrible has happened, a person has been released by a

judge on bail. i've written about bales before and published articles. i that op-ed pieces in "the boston globe" and boston herald. other judges have as well. and i remember the first day we went online, went live with this inmate, there was a wonderful bail argument, just a very professional argument between a prosecutor who was seeking a bail and the defense attorney who was explaining what the purposes of bail is. and that is in massachusetts, in a state court system to ensure that the person returns to court. and i leaned back during this argument because all the focus was on the argument. and i said i couldn't ride 10 articles that better explained what you have just seen in terms of the very practical application bill. the second example in massachusetts, we've had a recent controversy with our

probation department and hiring practices in the probation department. and there's been grand jury investigations now, the commissioner of probation has resigned. and it was a global spotlight report on probation, the hiring practices and probation. and the public was left with this impression, i think, it was very demoralizing to the probation staff obviously, but the public was left with the impression that the probation staff is full of people who just received their jobs because of the relationship with politicians, legislators or other things. and each week in this courtroom that you're seeing there, and i did it all day yesterday, we run an entire day of just probation violation hearings where the probation officers come in and they are seeking reviews of people who violated their terms of probation.

and you see the probation staff who were fulfilling their professional obligations, who know their probationers, can present a case, can present evidence, who are looking out for the interests of the community as well as the people they are supervising. and fully represent their professional obligations. again, a totally different portrayal of what probation does in very real terms. than you would get from the spotlight series or a grand jury indictment, or whatever. so you get a fuller perspective. so from the court's perspective, we think that we can really show what actually happens, and that if the public understands what we do in court and how hard people work and how seriously they take their responsibilities, there's a totally different impression of the court system and of

government as a whole. we all know that the world is changing out there. we have gone from 35 years from a time or proceedings were not even recorded in my session, to where it is live video streamed. and that's the wave of the future. there's no doubt the future is that the public has a right to full access as to what goes on in the courtroom. if they can't walk into the courtroom to see it for themselves, why should they be prohibited from seeing it on their computer? the same thing if they have the ability to walk in the courtroom, no one would prevent them. from seeing what goes on in the courtroom. and this experiment, and that's what it is, is an experiment. it gives us the opportunity to get ahead of the ways. there are real issues to this. i went to the earlier, one of your earlier sessions, judge

alito and from the district of columbia was speaking, and she framed the issue exactly. there are tensions between the first amendment, the public's right to know, and a criminal defendant in particular his right to a fair trial. and we could either examine those questions, the balancing act in a responsible and thoughtful way as part of this experiment over, which that is going to be reacting as we always react to public policy. >> questions? tom. >> joan, this question is for you. you talk about judges retains the discretion, even if an individual is registered with your system, to exclude the person. does that mean the judges have the discretion to exclude a particular person? or is it to disclose that

particular procedure or portion of a preceding? >> those are i think two separate things. the existing will allow us judicial discretion and suspending or limiting camera coverage. so they can do that now. and in the new rule, proposed new rule, that remains the same. the registering is a separate issue though. so what i was trying to convey is that even if a person doesn't register with my office, it's possible that the judge would allow that person in. so the judge to last discretion over who comes into the courtroom. >> are the only cases assigned criminal matter? >> no. in fact, i just want to touch on that because, it's another very important part of this experiment, sort of a whole public's right to know.

and that is where a community court or a district court, we call herself sort of people's court, and you see a host of people come in with a host of different problems. so predominantly we do criminal cases, and there are arrangements, bail argument. but some days i will do -- we don't have a housing court so i give landlord-tenant matters there. if you want to learn about what's happening with foreclosures, with people, former homeowners who are now being evicted by banks, you see in the summary process session. earlier this morning before i came out, the judge was hearing several motions, civil trials. we do a lot of collection cases, credit card cases. if you want to really learn about what this finance reform means where you see people coming in with credit card debts that started out with $7000, but

now with interest payments and late fees, they don't understand why they're court adjudicated judgment is now up to $20,000. we have a tremendous substance abuse problem in our jurisdiction. we have a very large heroin problem. we do substance abuse, involuntary substance abuse commitments in the courtroom. so you will see a hearing where family member is talking about why her son just spiked his arm last week and she found him lying with a needle hanging out of his arm and his bedroom, and why he needs to be committed for a period of 30 days for a treatment center. so all those things are done in the courtroom. and so, my point is, not only are we talking about the court system, we are talking about social problems that actually exist in our community. and having people begin to understand what a drug problem is, what a foreclosure problem

is, what a credit card problem is, and to get a realistic opinion about what the types of social issues that our courts really do address. >> follow-up question. do parties know in advance they will be in the courtroom where it will be broadcast? and do they have the opportunity to express concern about being broadcast? >> we put a sign on the door to the courtroom saying that everything is broadcast there. as john indicated, we put signs about all the microphones. one of the things that he didn't indicate his we even put signs in the prisoner's stock eric and so as you come up the stairs, the prisoners are told that anything you say will be captured on the microphone, because you don't want them confessing on the microphone. so yeah, everybody knows.

do people have the right to say i don't want to go in? no. what the supreme judicial court decided, the media advisory committee decided, was that as john indicated, we do not do the domestic violence restraining orders in that session because there's the question, at least initially, has to we did want to do anything that would inhibit a victims from seeking the protection of the court. so we don't do those. that's the one category of case that we don't do in that courtroom. >> follow-up. i'm not quite clear in your answer. in a civil case there is no mechanism for one of the parties to present a case for why he or she does not want to be on camera. there's actually no mechanism under the system right now. >> in both the criminal and civil site of our business people could always make a

motion for not being on camera. much less likely that they will prevail in a civil case as opposed to a criminal case. >> question over here. >> for joan, under the proposed changes to 119, are you going to be permitting the registrants to, you know, maybe take a cell phone picture? or is it still going to have to be that pool arrangement? and what if there is no professional photographer, you know, who wants to video a preceding? are you going to allow somebody to stand there? >> no. no, we're not. under the proposed new rule, covert photography recording over transmission is prohibited. so you wouldn't be too -- you

wouldn't be able to bring in a camera and just take pictures from the device at your seat. >> i'm a member of that committee, and my understanding is that if there's no, oh, mainstream media in the courtroom, that a citizen journalist who is registered with the court who has agreed to those rules could take their iphone, and in the designated area set aside, could be the designated community or civic journalist reporter. is that your understanding? >> yes. but that would be with the judge's permission to. it wouldn't be just coming in and doing it on your own. you would have to have permission. >> just one? >> just one. >> other resources are provided to help people understand what they see going on, perhaps a glossary of commonly returned that they might hear,

boilerplate of the different parties are, instead of? >> maybe i can just go to the website and show you that. hang on. >> it is opencourt dot u.s., if you have him into the website. and i think it is a terrific website. >> we have a blog. resource that if you go to our resources, you will see how to open your court, local organizations, a glossary that we're working with harvard cyber law clinic on out of the berkman center. so that's one area we talk about. we have a need to court officials, the history of the court which gives you some of the background, for example, this talks about the clerk, talks about judge coven, talk to other people your in the court. this is all why did you agreed national with question, why did you agree to have your court post open for?

with questions, what role does the court play in citizens lives? we talk to the assistant clerk, and as a justice of the court, the head of probation we talked to. we are trying to provide some context of what is going on around the court and how -- help people understand it. we've been so doing the blocking and tackling and the challenging part has been the video. we are smoothing out all of that operation again. we started on the second. hosting everything life. the site went up in its formal form on a second. so yes, we have work to do, but that is actually part of our mission as much as just the stream. >> a question up front. >> i understand it was a debate over to archive or not to archive. can you tell us all a bit about what the objections were and what considerations went into the final decision?

>> if you take a look at our site, and it's handy to have it, let me just go to it for a second. actually i need to bring it up a little higher. we have an ongoing blog that covers us, covering ourselves. [laughter] it's a very meta- experience. and the archive issue is a very complicated one. and there were a lot of conversations beforehand of how we would archive, when we would archive, what we would archive. and i'm giving you my point of view, and i think i need to at least -- this is a good place for a disclaimer. there is as you can see on our blog, that the full massachusetts supreme judicial court is to hear about the opencourt archive. so clearly it's an issue that

hasn't immediately been resolved. and i can't talk about the specifics of the case, because i suspect there's a few people who work in public information for the courts that you would want to avoid something like that. but the issue of archives is a key one, because it's not replicating the experience of being in court at that time. it is time shifting that experience. so, by definition we are not actually, you know, providing the exact same thing that happened when you come into court. and that was a large, large conversation about whether we should or whether we shouldn't. and working with our board of advisors, working with our working group, we felt by the friday before may 2 that we have come to a consensus, that we have covered the issue of

archives, and we would post archives. late on friday before the monday that we started it, we got a letter from the district attorneys office, from norfolk county with the quincy just a court resides, stating their feelings that there should not be an accessible archive. they are in favor of an archive but it shouldn't be publicly accessible. >> i have a question for john. -- joan. what is the response of the press in massachusetts to making reporters registered? because if i tried to do that to reporters in west virginia i think there would be a revolt. >> remember, this isn't credentialing. this is just asking them to sign up on their website and download a form that says i'm a journalist and i'm going to agree to these rules.

these proposed rules went out, for comment, and went out to all the news organizations. so there were no real objections to that, and because we have the judiciary committee can be and the rule 119 committee, which is comprised of journalists as well, they had a hand in, a big hand, in helping us to devise this proposed rule. so i, you know, i don't anticipate that being a problem. i think it's going to be, in the beginning, if this does get approved in this way, there will be a lot of work in the beginning just to get everybody registered. but then i don't think it will be a problem after that. >> i think tony had a question after laura. >> you mentioned with analytics, you've got about 100, 150 people viewing on average. and curious what the overall public perception is, how this

project shape the public perception of the court. has it changed? has it improved quick are you doing anything to gather feedback? there's no comments which i totally understand. i'm wondering what you are doing to see how to measure the feedback on the perception of the court as a result of the project. >> i want to clarify one thing. we're doing comments but we're not doing comments on the live stream. so you can comment on the blog, but to that point we need to do a better job of being part of that conversation to see where things are going. a lot of the comments, in the sense of what we're doing, has actually come out of coverage around this issue of the archives. we announced that opencourt was going online. we have a bit of a bully pulpit because we are based at wbur. we are part of debbie d. be

your. wbur is one of the leading news information sources in the city. it's the npr public radio station. so there is an awareness of this. there's been public conversations on our air around this archive issue. so that's where it is going. but to your point, as i've explained we spent a lot of time on the mechanics in getting it down. and now our intention is to be much more out in the community, engaging the community. and quite honestly, with this issue of the archives, we were doing periodic meetings with the quincy working group and within that community. and those have sort of, it's been hard to inject ourselves into those against the background, against the backdrop of litigation. but we intend to take those up

actually know. i mean, at this point we just need to keep going forward and talking to the community. but that's a great question. >> the comments you have on the blog, are those moderate? >> we moderate our comments. >> do you have a policy? >> yes. >> you follow that says what the circumstances are when you would delete something, et cetera? >> yeah. it's interesting. public radio, knock on would, does not have that kind of commenting issues, other media does. and we just use the exact moderating policy that we used for the rest of the wbur.org site. >> is it a i will know it when i see it just? >> yeah, it is basically play well with others and be respectful. it's very similar to npr's policy. we really got our policy comments from into yours.

and it's worked out pretty well. [inaudible] >> know, there have not been problems. >> tony. >> for john, i wanted to see whether this project is being used by the traditional media locally, broadcast and print, if i was a reporter watching this, "the boston globe" newsroom or something, and i saw something interesting going on, it looks like things are moving fast, how could i find out -- this is for the public also, how could i find more about this? which the title of the case, you know, who are the lawyers, is there anything that is on the site that we do that? >> you know, tony, we thought -- it's a real interesting question. when we were planning this, we thought the lowest hanging fruit would be posted the docket, what each case was. we have not really been able to crack the state court database

to provide something that is usable. and is also a lot of sensitivity about posting the name of those accused, because they are accused. and then as we all know, nothing disappears on the web. so for example, if john davidow was wrong accused of acts, and john davidow applies for a job as a "national journal" and the google john davidow and it turns out that he was accused of that, maybe i wouldn't get that job. and so, it hasn't been fully resolved. so it's an incredibly blunt instrument right now. there is no tagging that visually effective, no names associated with the case. and that's, as we go forward, one of the things that we're going to be working on.

and i reference it is earlier, sort of the data for data's sake. you can sort of get what judge coven is talking about these issue of bail, issues of society, and what he didn't include was how much the court is almost the social service agency of last resort. which the public can certainly get an appreciation of what's going on. but for me. coverage point of view, people are -- you have the ap datebook, and they know what's going to be heard that day so they'll put it on. and that's what the globe did. there was a case that happened a week ago. they knew it was coming up that day. they moderate it that way. so it's a really blunt instrument and i wish it worked. [inaudible] >> part of my question was his question, so you don't publish

the docket. but it appears to me what we are showing is what we call our first appearance or our arraignment court. and we don't permit cameras in there because 90 day% of the people making a first appearance are being arraigned on have representation. is about the case in your court? and how do you address that, judge? >> well, this is, as i've indicated, it's a good part of what gets done there our arraignment. there are a lot of other things we do in there as well. but at our arraignment sessions people or appointed counsel that day. they either come with counsel or they are appointed counsel. so the vast majority of people, you know, will have lawyers there either because they are appointed there, and then there's a call later if there's a question of bail or if they are just given a lawyer and given a date. in answer to tony's question, they case the day is called, the

voters identify themselves. that's the best you're going to get. we don't post the list of the cases that are going to be called, or everyone who's going to be arraigned that day, or whether it's a criminal pretrial conference or a landlord-tenant? the cases are called by name so it might be bank of america versus davidow, if he is being foreclosed on. >> the holy grail of my career has been access to the courts, so i must commend you for providing this kind of access. i think it's a great experiment. my question is, to questions actually. one is, do you contemplate how this would work for high profile trial? and also, what do you do about bench conferences? are you able to block them out? ..

>> i know they will tell me the guy's an informant. they don't need to approach. i've been around long enough time to know. [laughter] they insist on doing it, and it all gets on the record because we never turned off the recorder at all. it gets on the court record, but at that bench conference, yeah,

i turned off the camera because i didn't want everybody to know he was providing information to the drug task force, and what the second question, i'm sorry. >> a high profile trial. >> yeah, i mean, there was certain things that are prohibited by statute in massachusetts in a jury trial that you can't film that would be precluded. we wouldn't film the jurors or have video streaming of voir dire. one of the cases coming up to the supreme judicial court is a human trafficking case where the defendant was alleged to pick up a girl walking home from high school and a 15-year-old girl and essentially placed her in prostitution over a three to four week period is the allegation. we had a hearing on this whether he should be held as dangerous,

and i'm not going to comment about the case, but the legal issue was that the defense attorney and prosecutor both wanted the cameras shut off for the whole hearing. the prosecution wanted it turned off because they wanted to protect the privacy of the victim, particularly since she was a juvenile. the defense lawyer wanted the camera to go off because they didn't want to inhibit his right to a fair trial at any later point should this be archived. there's two motions, one to shut the camera off all together, and one to not archive this or not allow access to the archives, and i denied both motions. i ordered the -- both lawyers in their examination and cross-examination not to mention the minor child's name or any identifying information, information that would cause her to be identified. of course, the defense counsel

used her name twice, and now the case has gone up to the supreme judicial court, so there's real issues on, you know, this is -- it's not as easy as it may seem just to video stream things. there's very little significant, and i think important legal and policy issues that we need to grapple, and that's what i think is great about having this as an experiment that we could get ahead of the issues, think about them, be thoughtful about them. before going statewide, the supreme court has to address this issue which i think is great. i make the decision like any trial judge. i make the decision. if i'm wrong, the appeals court tells me i'm wrong, and we'll get some direction and statewide policy on this.

>> we have about four minutes left. question over here. >> i was just wondering if this generated interest in cases that otherwise wouldn't be high profile cases. i know you mentioned there was a window into the social issues of the day, and i was wondering if that had had any reverse fallout of journalists coverage something that they wouldn't picked up based on watching the live streams. >> i'll answer that they should be. [laughter] i know at bwmr it's coming into our newsroom and we have two employees in that courtroom every day, there's no shortage of material that should be covered, and there are absolute plans to do that, and i suspect as we all know coverage breeds

more coverage that this is a really valuable window into what is going on around not just the district court, but around the country as was eluded to. >> it's been said several times this is an experiment and the hypothesis being tested is a statement made throughout both of these conferences which is that the more the public knows about the court system, the better the public's perception of that system will be, which is something all of us are dedicated to trying and support. i commend you all on testing that hypothesis. i think you'll find out that the answer is that it's true, and i thank the audience for some good questions, and let's thank the panelists. [applause]

>> and, of course, i want to thank you you, chris. let's give hem a separate hand. [applause] we're right on schedule. we'll have lunch in this room. before we break up, who knows who art smith is? art smith is the chef for this wonderful facility, and he used to be oprah winfrey's chef. who knew; right? you'll be treated to a wonderful meal, so be back right around noon. brian lamb is the speaker for lunch, and right on time at 10:30, we're going -- 1:30 we're going to assemble for the case of the nylon night stalker. it's a lot of fun with great speakers. you have a 12-14 minute break and right back here for lunch. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> live on c-span at 5:30 eastern this afternoon, pakistan's foreign secretary will be at johns hopkins to talk about the strained relationship between u.s. an pakistan.

>> nasa said last week the agency is months away from american space flight capabilities speaking at a nasa forum hosted by the university of maryland in college park. following his remarks, a panel that included nasa scientists and engineers discuss the future of the agency and space exploration and moving forward in tough economic times. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> welcome to the university of maryland college park here in maryland for today's nasa future

forum. this is the firsti$2ñíl >> you can ask questions on our nasa technology account account @nasa technologies. we are discussing nasa's future and our role in america, the economy in maryland, and the economy of the nation. today, we have our first panel is starting off with some leaders from nasa followed by a number of panels on innovation, technology, education, and the future. i'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our hosts

for today, dr. pat o'shea who is vice president of research here at the university of maryland. pat? [applause] >> friends, colleagues, distinguished guests, i am delighted to welcome you on behalf of the university of maryland to the nasa future forum. nasa is the modern embodiment of our primal desire to understand the heavens. in its 53 year history, the technologies developed far and by nasa have been brought -- they have brought the heavens to earth and have enabled critical advances in how we deal with water, health care, energy, the environment, food, information, infrastructure, transportation, and security. as you can probably tell from my

accent, i grew up in ireland, and one of my earliest memories in the 1960s was of a drawing i made of a big rocket of sat turn five with usa and nasa on the side. that was the apollo 11 rocket, and later a few years later, i remember after apollo 13, the astronauts visited my hometown and had a forum in the park opera house. i snuck in with no ticket, i was a young kid standing in the back looking at the brave astronauts thinking of all the things they've done and the scientists and engineers who supported them before the launch and during the critical stages of their return to earth. that inspired me to become a scientist and a technology gist like it has several generations of children worldwide. here i am now at the university of maryland which is a globally preimminent institution renowned

for its powers in innovation and education. as vice president and senior research officer, i oversee an enterprise that closely couples creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and education to educate the leaders of the brave new world. as befits the nasa mission, we are in the business of educating exclorrers here at maryland, not simply training tourists. nasa projects ranging from commit hunting to climate monitoring. in today's forum, we'll actively discuss the role of technology, innovation, business, science, and education in our future space exploration plans and in sustaining economic development and competitiveness.

we have gathered together nasa leadership, technology, signists, and engineers along with leaders from local business, science, technology, and education to discuss and help guide the future role of nasa in advancing innovation, technology, science, engineering, and education in a way that benefits our community and the nation. nasa today stapedes at a critical juncture. will it adapt to new requirements placed on it by its own successes over the past half century and also by the changing economy and with it continue to contribute to our nation's progress in new ways? will it continue to inspire budding scientists and engineers like it did many those many years ago? nasa today seeks to fortify its crucial relationships with academia and business which now

more than ever will be vital partners as nasa ventures into the future. our forum today will explore major areas of interest and help attendees understand the issues, the opportunities, and the ways they can help ensure nasa's continued leadership. thank you. i would now like to introduce our most distinguished guest, nasa administer charles bolden. he's an extraordinarily accomplished individual, a highly decorated graduate of the u.s. naval academy in annapolis and astronaut. in 2009, he was named nasa administer by president obama. please join me in welcoming charles haldeman. charles bolden. [applause]

[applause] >> thank you all very much, and especially thank you, and i was trying to applaud for him, and nobody helped me. i liked everything he said. what i don't see are a lot of faces except in the back. i would really like to see a lot more faces of people like several of those in the back who

look like they have not been around for the last 10-20 years, so i'm disappointed in that regard. however, i hope as the day goes by, you know, i hope they're looking at the agenda and seeing that they're going to get all of this bureaucratic hoopla out of the way, and they are just waiting for the panels, and then they will show up. they will come streaming in. i see the first panel members over there going, yeah, we're not going to start on time, so come about nine, and you can catch the first panel. i am hoping to see more then, but this is an incredible opportunity for us, and congresswoman edwards is on her way and will be here, and if i don't, i'm going to say something now that hopefully someone passes to her because i do want to thank the congress for the bipartisan support that they continue to give to nasa. i know for those of you who don't see what we go through every day, you don't believe

that, but we'll continue to get bipartisan support on the hill but aeronautics and things like that still tend to be bipartisan. we have strong advocates no matter what party, no matter what segment of what party since even the parties today have parties. i do want to thank her for the leadership that she continues to exhibit in the congress as a vocal advocate for nasa. the maryland delegation as a matter of fact has been particularly enormously helpful to us in ensuring that the goddard space flight center, hubbell telescope and others and i thank the entire delegation for their support in the aerospace sector.

thank you, dr. o'shea and the university of maryland for hosting us today. i'm not sure this is the first ever -- everybody says no, okay. first of 19th of 2011? okay, so i can say it's the first? this year? okay. for hosting the first this year of our future forum, and when bobby braun and i talked about it the other day, we hope there's other universities around the nation that will follow the example that the university of maryland is setting today so that we can take this show on the road and have an opportunity to listen to the american public as much as we talk with them because that's really important. the future forums are wonderful gathers mainly because nasa is, always has been, and always will be in the future business. it's our job to conceive what might be possible even though it

seems out of reach, and the technology resources make it a reality. you know, i cannot help -- my wife hates to see me come into the house and turn on the television because she knows i'm going to switch to the talking heads, and i just have to do it because they have such wisdom, yeah, you got it. but it is still interesting to listen to them and to listen to people who supposedly are leaders today who speak with such pessimism. you know, we can't do that. we won't do that. we are very optimistic about the future. we're very optimistic about what can be done, and i think we're that way. any of you who are nasa hands or used to be nasa employees or are nasa employees know what i mean, when i say we take science fiction and turn it into science fact. that's how we live every day. it's fun.

we think it's important, and we hope today you'll help us to at least advance the efforts that we have. right now, the agency has completed one enormously effective chapter in our history with the retirement of the space shuttle, and we're writing the next one as we gather here today. the shuttle was an experimental vehicle throughout its lifetime. people don't want to admit that. shuttle was never operational. it was always an experimental vehicle. i don't know any of us at nasa ever thought nasa would be something we could truly consider operational. you know, it's just -- when you have something that's on the cutting edge of technology in many respects, it's sort of a -- i don't know -- it's a strange vehicle because when you're in the cockpit, you're in the 1970s, and when you look at things like the main engines and the systems alphamagnetic

spectrometer and it's the cutting edge technology and it representing dreams to be honest, things that have not been fulfilled yet, so it does show that while we want to advance technology and science in some cases, you have to use, you know, modern day, current day as sets to help you do that, so i say that only because we have a big battle going on right now both within nasa and without between moving into the future and preserving some of the past, and i contend that you can't -- if you forget your past and just kind of shake it off, you don't have anything on which to stand. when you're trying to reach high points or trying to reach a top shelf, you got to have something to stand on, and, you know, when

you kick the things you stand on away and think you're just going to jump, make big leaps, then i think we may be missing the boat. for starters, as i said, you know, shuttle was critical to the a semibly of the international space station. it's the size of a football field with human beings on it every day for more than 27 years now. it will have exploration until 2020, and we have just about completed the certification for 2028. we'll continue to study what the shuttle taught us working with our industry partners to develop the next transportation systems to bo into outer and beyond. nasa is now handing the transport of the space station to american industry so that we can focus on a new series of first like sending humans to an asteroid and eventually mars. we have the opportunity to raise the bar and demonstrate what human beings can do if challenged and inspired to reach

for something just out of our grasp, but not out of our sights. let me take a break here. just a show of hands. how many of you think you know what the gap is going to be between american capability to take things to lower earth orbit between the end of shuttle and the on set of the next american capability to do that? who thinks they know that? who thinks it's in terms of years? whether you know or not. who thinks it's in terms of months? it's in terms of months. we will be flying american vehicles to the international space station in less time than it took us to recover from challenger or columbia, and that is -- that is a message that i have failed to get out. that is a message that we at nasa, that is a message that our -- that the administration has failed to get out. you know, orbital sciences and

space are just two companies that are industry bidders to take over the responsibility for access to lower earth or bit. last december, space ex demonstrated their ability to get a vehicle to lower earth orbit, to orbit it, safely did orbit. it's never been done by a private company in our knowledge. they are on the verge of flying their first demonstration, and in both cases of both companies, they will have flown two demonstration flights for us in what we call the cots program that's sort of a very short development program, and next year, 2012, they will be -- we will be paying them fee-for-service to take cargo to the international space station,

to depending on how well things go for space ex in their now scheduled november/december final demonstration flight, they could fly their first cargo mission for pay as early as next february. we're months away, not years from an american capability to deliver cargo to the international space station. don't let anybody tell you otherwise. we're not dependent on the russians, the japanese, the europeans. we are developing an american capability that will be available very soon. that does not mean you throw away your international partners because we still need them to fill out the gap for being able to take the amount of cargo that we want to take to the international space station. president obama has given us a mission with a capital "m" to focus objects exploration and the capabilities required for us

to move beyond lower earth or not. the president asked us to harness that american spirit of innovation, drive to solve problems, create capabilities that is so embedded in our story and led us to the moon, to great observatories, and to humans living and working in space possibly indefinitely. that american i think newty is alive and well and will fire our economy and create and win the future, but only if we put aside our differences and come together to work hard, dream big, and imagine endless possibilities. working together, nasa, academia, and industry will create new technologies, develop new capabilities, and increase the knowledge in understanding of the fragile world on which we live, and that, i think, is the essence of what you will be doing here today, and that's what's happening right now across the board in nasa's work. just last week, we sent juno

soars to jupiter where unprecedenting images and polls about its surface and core will be made possible by efficiency advances in our solar cell technology pursueded by nasa over the past few years. juno will operate further from the sun than any solar powered spacecraft we've ever flown. that's no small feat. this capability advance is applicable to the future robotic future explorations and may also make a difference to our energy future here op earth. last month, dawn, arrived in orbit around the asteroid vesta and it could plan a human mission to such a body. tomorrow, reporters down in florida will be getting a last look at the mars science laboratory, appropriately named curiosity. before its mated with its decent stage, and we move closer to its

november launch. curiosity will have more high powered science instruments on mars than we've ever had before, and it's a step along the path to event issue human missions to the red planet. next month sees our return to the moon to understand the gravity field with grail, set of twin satellites. the preparatory project or npp launches in object to better understand our home planet, and those are just a sampling of the huge array of missions already in space and coming up. to reach the destinations of tomorrow, we're working on a new crew kit capsule and studying the path we want to take for a heavy lift rocket to take humans into deep space beyond lower earth orbit where we operated for the past 30 years. the initial investigation of propulsion, communications, radiation, and life support technologies that complement these two deep space systems are

being prioritized and worked into the pipeline even as i speak. looking further into our space future are the 30 visionary concepts that our chief technology bobby braun's office selected in the program. the advanced con cements selected for study were chosen based on their potential to transform our future space missions, enable new capabilities, or significantly alter current approaches to launching, building, and operatings space systems. matched with the 80 graduate fellowships recently awarded for basic and applied research if technology areas aligned with nasa's future space missions, the agency is beginning to create its future and invest in its future innovators today. nasa cease role has been crucial in seating the technology and innovations that brought our nation's capabilities to the cutting edge, made america the

world's leader in space exploration, and made a difference in our lives every day. nasa's impact on our nation's technology future, the work force, and the economy are based on investments and innovations that we had the courage to make. these investments have helped us create, galvanize, and strengthen the expertise that made nasa's achievements possible. similarly, today's investments in education, science, innovation, and space technology will maintain nasa's position on the cutting edge while stimulating our economy and global competitiveness and inspiring future generations. that concept of transformative work to give future generations more capability than we have today is at the core of our work right now. nasa is at the heart of a national strategy to invest in research and development and take these con cements from the

drawing board to the launch pad. we can't -- we can't do this alone. we need your help, your ideas, your energy, and your passion. what you're doing here today is very important, and i look toward to hearing more from you. i thank you all for participating with nasa and the entire aeronautic field as we move forward into a bright future of science, aeronautics, and exploration. our future is bright, and we're ready for the challenges of tomorrow. we hope that you will join us on this journey. thank you all very much for coming today, and thanks for letting me help kick it off. thank you. [applause] >> i want to start by saying a simple fact, and that's this. our greatest achievements, the greatest things we do as

individuals or as a society really begin with dreams. some thought of something we may view as unachievable, but worthying about, worth dreaming about, and as our capabilities evolve as we become smarter, as technologies are brought forth, these dreams evolve into aspirations where all the sudden -- not all the sudden, but in time it's not so crazy to think about going to the moon or going to mars or looking at distant stars at the edges of the universe. they become aspirations, something maybe to something to some day shoot for, and as we continue to become smarter or develop more capabilities and technologies, the next step in this continuum are pursuits. these aspirations become pursuits, things to go after, set our sights on a goal, focus

our efforts and work towards the realization of the goals, and then finally, the last step in that sequence is achievement, so we go from dreams to aspiration to pursuit to achievement, and i believe that se queen has been born out time and time again at nasa in the past is being born out in the present, and will be born out in the future. one great thing about achievements is they lead to new dreams so this cycle can just keep going, and really -- i'd say the sky's the limit, but the universe is the limit, and i don't think that's the limit. we'll learn as we go. nasa has a history of producing incredible achievements. these are not just human achievements in exploration and taking people to places that for most of human time was thought to be impossible. these are scientific achievements, discovery about

our surroundings, bout earth, about the universe. the administer listed a a number of achievements, but the last few months of this year really is incredible with two missions to study the earth, missions to study the interior of the moon. we're on our way to jupiter now and explores mars in ways we vice president been able to to date, and we're in orbit around the asteroid vesta learning about the solar system, entered orbit around mercury in february and looking out further than looked before with x-ray astronomy. this is over the course of maybe an eight or nine month period. i would say this is a period of great achievement with many that still lie ahead. when i think about nasa science,

two words come to mind -- inspirational and service. i think what nasa does is inspirational. i think it speaks to the very core of who we are as human beings. one thing that has been constant throughout time is the desire to explore, the desire to understand our surroundings whether it be, you know, years ago the forest we livedded nearby and how, you know, our residence or domicile fits into that landscape or more recently the universe we live in and our place in it. if you just think about it, getting back to dreams and pursuits and achievements, you know, we're currently looking very close to the beginning of thyme as we understand it -- time as we understand it to the furthest reaches, the edges of the universe. we discovered methane rivers and

lakes and have strong indications of liquid water on mars. we're understanding our own planet, how it's functioning and changing and what it means for life on earth. that gets to the second element. i said inspirational. the second is service. the science we do helps us understand not just the stuff we dream about, but where we live, and the second aspect of the human spire beside exploration is the desire, the need, the hunger to survive and not just survive, but thrive in our own environment, and surviving and/or thriving if you're a pessimist or optimist, it requires information, requires the perspective and scale and context of observation that comes from looking from space. you know, i'm sure nearly all of

you have seen that earth rise image of the earth's hanging -- well, floating -- well, floating is not the right word -- being in the darkness and silence of space, and that picture really changed how we view our planet as did the pail blue dot image. that perspective, understanding how the earth works, the interacting components will not only allow us to survive in the face of the changes our planet faces, but really thrive and the evolution of our planet. nasa inspires and serves human kind. what pursuit could be greater, frankly? i think it's fitting we're here at a university because i often compare investing in nasa

science and exploration to investing in college. you know, we're in difficult economic times, but any parent that has is great and saved money despite hard times to send their child or children to school for a brighter better future understands what we do at nasa for the nation and for the world, so with that, i'll pass it over to laurie leshin. thank you. [applause] thanks, walleed. good morning, everybody. thank you, gentlemen. i am here representing human exploration, and i am here to report that reports of our deaths have been greatly exaggerated. in fact, i'm here to declare that the next phase of human exploration is upon us, and we

at nasa are here to make that next phase a reality. i want to talk with you today a little bit about where we are going to the future with human exploration. as we go, we will be building on extrod their legacies and building on apollo, the greatest legacy of human kind. the legacy of the space shuttle program which we successfully brought to a close only weeks ago with an extraordinary final mission of the space shuttle to the international space station. how many people watched the launch? anybody go in person? right on. i was very privileged to be there, and it was a special time, and we owe extraordinary kudos that we can give them and

that program deserves all the pride that it takes in its achievements. it has been extraordinary, but we are looking towards the future. as charlie said, it was time to retire the shut m and -- shuttle and move forward. we will be going further. we will be going beyond where the shuttle could go. beyond leo, beyond lower earth orbit, beyond the moon, beyond where apollo went, beyond to places like asteroids and mars, and in my hopes and aspirations even beyond that with humans. why will we be doing this? well, one, there's so much to know about the places. as rods can teach us incredible thunderstorm warnings -- incredible things about the birth of our solar system. they are the oldest rocks in the solar system, and we can use them to really unravel the mystery of how solar systems

formed and how ours farms and how the organic materials were delivered to the planets. as rods can have a counter effect on life on our planet as we know. anyone who loves dinosaurs knows that these objects occasionally intersect the orbit of the earth. they can cause major changes in life on our plaint and have done so. some argue we are here today as a result of the asteroid impact. asteroids are interesting objects scientifically, interesting from a hazard perspective, and who knows, maybe we can save the world by exploring them. mars is one of the future destination for humans and it's extraordinarily compelling place with a long history of holing a special place in humanities for

future exploration. i believe it's our best chance to discover life on another world. you heard about the great water discovery last week. it's my opinion that we're going to need human explorers to actually go and deaf fintively answer the question about whether or not there has been or is currently life on mars. that's an extraordinary scientific reason to go, and in addition, long periods of stay for humans away from earth, mars seems like a logical place to do that. we do it because there's so much to know. we also do it because pushing the boundaries of what's possible is part of our dna as human beings, and it's part of the dna or of country i would say. it's part of american dna. we're going to continue to push beyond where we've been before and also because undertaking really audacious challenges like

saying we're going to send human to mars drives our nation to strive and invent and ultimately prosper. i truly believe that we must take on audacious challenges as a country to continue to drive forward and prosper, so how are we going to do this? how will we create the future of human space flight when so many people are saying there's no program? i'm here to tell you there's a great program. we actually have all the pieces in place in the programs we are putting together to undertake the next phase of human exploration. we have the pieces in place thanks to congress who passed the authorization agent last year and to the administration who supported that. what are those elements? there's basically three pieces to our future program of human exploration. they start close to home in lower earth orbit with the international space station and extension to at least 2020. it's our laboratory, test bed, and foothold in space for humans we got.

astronauts there now and occupied continuously for 11 years, and we continue to keep that record going for another decade at least. we will use it in ever expanding ways, supply it with cargo and ultimately crew using innovative approaches partnering with the private sector in new ways for nasa to create new industries and new commercial opportunities so not in the traditional nasa program sense that we can talk about in the q&a if you want to, but yet in new ways with the commercial partner, developing a service nasa can purchase, and that service is available to more than just nasa. it's a great opportunity to expand space exploration in new ways. we start in lower earth orbit, and next beyond lower earth orbit, the great thing about the innovative partnership is it frees up resources for nasa to focus on beyond lower earth outer. nasa should focus on the frontier, things that have never

been done before. we are starting on rockets to get out of lower earth orbit. those are starting to be constructed right now actually, and third, we need research and we need to develop technologies and new capabilities in order to go beyond lower earth or bit in addition to the rocket and capsule, and we're working on those as well. there's questions to answer on long term stability. there are new habitats that need to be invented. new propulsions for in space travel, new kinds of space walking suits, new kinds of shuttle craft to maybe fly as -- astronauts around the asteroids. there's been a question on twitter about the kinds of technologies we're working on. those are some of the new kinds of the systems we need beyond lower earth orbit. the rocket and capsule are absolutely necessary and not sufficient for us to get there. we need to invent more things to

get there. boib will talk more about that. we have all the different pieces, the lower earth orbit piece, the rocket capsule, and the research and technology we need to go forward. we need to follow through on inventing all of those things and on driving through all those things to make our exploration dreams a reality. i want to close by saying having cool destinations and having the various pieces in our program suspect enough to make this aspiration become realitiment making this endeavor a reality is going to require inventing something that's actually more challenging, that inventing new technologies or new systems. it's going to require inventing a new way of operating for nasa and for our community. it's going to require inventing new ways of collaborating, new ways of exploring. we need to collaborate across different parts of nasa, science and exploration together. we need to collaborate in new

ways with the private sector like we're trying to do with the commercial programs, but even in our nasa programs, we need to work differently with our private sector colleagues. we need to collaborate with nations in new and expanded ways, collaborate with the universities to be sure we get the best and brightest students and the best research possible, and we probably need to collaborate with the public in ways we haven't before. we need a worldwide exploration movement in order to make this aspiration a reality, so my request of all of you today is to think about how you can help us do that, talking to us, tell us ways to help create this worldwide exploration movement. tell us how to do that with you, worry less about who's going to build it or what the rocket looks like and more about how we create this coalition of human beings who won't rest until a person is walking on mars or even going beyond that, and let's just think about that for

a moment. what is that moment going to feel like as that first astronaut steps foot on mars? as she shakes that red soil from her duet -- [laughter] >> i like that. >> i hope we rededicate ourselves to enable ourselves for an amazing future at nasa. thanks. [applause] >> now turning it over to my good friend, bobby brown. >> thank you. remind me not to speak after you two again. [laughter] i want to start out by making a couple remarks. i guess the best way for me to say this is to say that i love being affiliated with nasa. i'm an engineer who has dreamed of building things and had the privilege of actually working on

flight systems in my career, who's been transplanted here to washington, and i love being affiliated with nasa, and i've been thinking about why that is, and the reason i think is because nasa, to me, is a little microcosm of the best of our nation. we're a nation of explorers. we're a nation that's never satisfied with the status quo. we're a nation that's always trying to outup -- out innovate ourselves to do better. we are never quite there. we can always do it better in this country. sure, there's fiscal challenges our country faces today, but this country still remains the land of opportunity, and when i look at nasa, those are the exact same characteristics that i see for our future. by the way, those are the same characteristics, that mentality, that approach to operations, is

the same characteristics required for success in the 21st century in the global technology mart place that we find ourselves in. we heard some about nasa's future science missions, some of nasa's future human exploration missions. these missions are bold. these missions are grand in stature, and so to me, one thing that i'm proud of is that our country can dream big through nasa. now, from a technology stand point, many of the missions that we're accomplishing today are based on engineering principles and germing systems that were actually first demonstrated in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and so while we do great missions today and while we do bigger missions in the future, it's imperative that while we proceed on these missions that we also, at a low level, make the technology investments required for our future, make the basic research, the applied research investments

required for our future. when i think of nasa, i think of all of way back to the space act, and i think of three long standing core competencies, basic and applied research, flight system, development, and mission operations. you take any one of those three things out, and nasa's not nasa. all three are required. now, from a budget stand point, they don't all require equal budgets, but that's not what i'm saying. all three have to be nurtured, at a critical mass because our technology investments at nasa are motivated by our in additions, and our missions are only as big as the technologies and capabilities that we've proven. these are integrated core competencies at the core of what makes nasa a special place for our economy, and a special place actually for the engineers and scientists across the country that work there. i've had the privilege over this

past year and a half of representing those folks that are doing the basic and employed research. the technology developments that are critical for our nation's future and our future in space, and i can tell you from first handing thes that those -- firsthanding thes that those folks in small industry, universities, like the university of maryland are thrilled and excited and ready to go, and they are contributing today to our nation's future in space with the work they're doing that will come to fruition in the future. now, we make technology investments for a number of reasons. we make them to enable our future in space, enable our future science missions, future exploration missions and the federal government also makes these investments because they build our economic competitiveness. we know that dollars -- when the federal government invests dollars in basic and applied research, the economy reaps a

multiplier of the dollars invested. just the past few weeks, by the way, there's a bunch of news arts out about the human genome project and for every dollar the federal government invested in the human genome project, over $100 were put into the economy. if nasa could get that kind of multiplier, i mean, just think of what that would do for people around the country in terms of jobs and our economy. we also invest in technology because it's a way of staying at the cutting edge; right? universities know this at their core. nasa knows this at its core, and that's why there's such a strong partnership between universities and nasa. small business, larger companies, they know this as well. it's by pushing boundaries of aeroscience and taking risk that these future missions will one day be possible. the 21st century will be within

won by those who innovate, seek breakthroughs, and create that future. i'm here today to say nasa is doing that. nasa is doing that every day. the engineers and scientists are making great strides towards that future. when we create these missions, the future science mission, future exploration missions, when we create that future in space, i should also point out we improve life every day here on the earth. the technology developments that go into nasa's future space missions are spun off into new businesses, new products, new services that we utilize every day, and the biomedical industry. the protective armor our police, firefighters, and military personnel wear, artificial monitoring devices, lasik eye surgery, the phones, all of these things we take for

granted, the weather channel -- they all come from our past investments in sphais, and they certainly all improved my life and you'd agree i'm sure they improved yours. when i think about our space program, i first of all as an engineer, i immediately am drawn to the charm of our future missions in science and human exploration, but i'm also reminded that those missions can only be as bold as our technology investments that we make today are wise, and they -- without those technology investments, we won't reach where we're trying to go. we'll be grasping for that future with older technology that makes it harder to have it sustainable and affordable exploration in the future. like i said, i'm an engineer who believes this passionately.

i think it's been a real honor and a service for me 20 come to nasa and get to represent the engineers and scientists that are going to make this future possible and make it future possible every day. there's one question i did want to get to before i pass on to leland. it also came through on twitter. the question that was asked was a very wise question. how do we ensure that the best ideas are harnessed? right? everybody has ideas. here at the university of maryland if i have a thousand students, i'd have 10,000 great ideas. there's ideas pouring in to the programs from across the country coming from universities, small businesses, the nasa centers. the one thing i doment to mention -- do want to mention and we can discuss it more in the future is one of the things nasa's trying to do is engage america in this

journey. we can't do this by ourselves. the technological developments i speak about, the technological developments we need for future science and exploration missions, they will come from across america, from innovators all around the country. we have to do this in an open and competitive mapper. you see us taking steps that way with some solicitations that administer bolden mentioned in his speech. the institution of advanced con cements which announced 30 visionary concept awards. those awards were divided 30% to the nasa centers, 30% went to academia, and the rest went to industry, small and large business around the country. that was not by design, but that's just -- to me, that's proof there are great ideas everywhere, innovators everywhere in this country, and one of the things nasa needs to

do is just engage them, and that will enable this future that we seek. thank you. [applause] >> let me turn it over now to my good friend, -- [inaudible] >> thank you. my job over the last eight months has been the associate administer of education. charlie up spired me to inspire the next generation of explorers, and all the missions that they are talking about with innovation, we need a very technologically and digitally skilled work force. this sometimes starts in grade school.

i had two defining moments in my life. the first one was turning over a desk in my elementary school class, and mrs. martin grabbed my ear and took me to the principle as office, -- principal's office. back then you could have corporal punishment. i handed my hand to the principal. when i was walking home, i stopped by butch's house, and his mother is a teacher. she had a hand in my development, and when i got home, i got the real deal from my dad with the bigger hand in my development. i say this because it takes a village to raise a child, and we're all part of that village to ensure the children and students have everything in their power and armed with everything in their power to succeed and to be the future

innovators, future rocket scientists, the future explorers. .. >> i think i was in eighth grade, and my mom gave me a chemistry set. and this was before osha had child-appropriate age for doing things -- [laughter] so i mixed these two dissimilar chemicals and created this fantastic explosion that orange and white smoke and burned a hole in my mom's carpet, had another hand in my development. [laughter] but this fueled my curiosity to

be a scientist. i became a chemistry major in college. so this out-school, hands-on activity helped me see the excitement of science and engineering, and that fueled me to become a chemist, as i said. but how do we do this as a society to get these students to see how they can become something like a bobby braun or a laurie leshin or a wally? how do we see this? it's inspiration, it's allowing them to see that they can dream. there's so many kids that are disaffected by the inability for a teacher to share with them the proper way to do an integral or the proper way to learn systems to get to the next step. math, science, engineering, technology, these are all the things that nasa's trying to do to insure that kids have the right, the right tools to move forward, but also the teachers

have the same thing. we're working in programs where we support teachers with curriculum, with hands-on experiences. the experience cial hands-on piece is not just for the kids, it's for the teachers too. a couple of weeks ago i was down in houston at nasa jsc, and we flew on the plane, and we had 84 k-12 teachers that supply research experiments, they worked in groups of four, had research experiments that they flew on this zero g airplane. and i took down one of our white house office of science and technology policy analysts with me to let him see what are the nasa-unique things that we can offer so that kids can be motivated and inspired. so we all have to figure out what do we uniquely have to offer to show that piece of inspiration? and that's what this is all

about, this village coming together to share these unique experiences to blow up the rug in my mom's room, to have these defining moments so that they will know that there's something out there for them in the future, this exploration, this science, the engineering. how many of you in here by a show of hands have had a defining moment early in your life that led you to where you are today? a teacher or an experiment or building a bicycle or doing something with your hands? we have programs like summer of innovation where we're trying to reach underremitted, underserved students and having a summer experience. because lots of times the summertime is when you get the summer slide, and the students don't do anything. so by the time they get back to school in the fall, they're having to play catch up again. so this is a program where we reach out to students, but we also reach out to teachers to give teachers these same types

of hands-on experiences. we're looking for collaborations are industry, nonprofit, for-profit, other government organizations to see how we can better leverage the nasa resources. and it might not just be money. it could be subject matter experts that come into a school and work with you, or it could be, you know, giving awards for gameification or badging to have the winner get to fly on the zero g aircraft. or where a student or a teacher can actually build experiments to go up in a sounding rocket or to go to the international space station. so these are some of the assets and the things that we have that we can offer up in a strategic partnership. we have an announcement of opportunity that's ongoing that you can apply to get a space act agreement with nasa, and we'll talk about some of these things later in the panel this afternoon. but one of the other things that we're doing, um, we have a vision for nasa education which is to advance high quality stem

education using nasa-unique capabilities. the president and the americas competes act had the office of science and technology policy come up with a paper in january of next year to show how the federal government and the stem fields are working together so that we don't duplicate efforts. how many summer camps are doing the same things? how many other organizations are doing very similar things? how do we pull them together and leverage the resources that they're doing to make a bigger impact? i want to try to take things to scale, i want to help try to motivate and inspire, and that's what nasa education is doing, so thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you to our panel and our speakers. and now is the really great part, an opportunity for all of you to ask questions of our panelists. we have microphones here in the aisles if you would like to ask

a question of one of our panelists, please, go to the mic. we do ask that you use the microphones in the aisles so that our viewing audience on nasa television over the web can hear your question. and our first question here, sir. >> good morning, folks. i have a general question about technology for you at nasa. how much do you think there is a synergy between green or fuel technologies and exploration technologies? how strong do you think this synergy is if you think it exists? and how much do you put, how much mental effort do you think you guys can, should and have invested in making that synergy a cornerstone of how you run the technology research? >> i'll try. that's a great question. um, thank you for that.

um, i think it's very true that the technology investments that we make for our future space missions help, can help us right here on the earth, and in particular in energy. i can give you a couple of examples. so when i was an engineer, i worked on a mission to mars, actually, it was the mars 2001 lander, and to be honest with you, it never flew. but there was a payload on that mission that was designed by a university professor, um, at arizona state university. and after that payload was developed and after it didn't fly, he actually left the university and went to california, and he started a small business. the reason he started that business is because he realized if he took his little mars payload that was designed to produce propellant constituents out of the atmosphere of mars and he ran it in reverse, he'd have a very efficient fuel cell. and those systems are now

popping up all over california. they're called bloom boxes. i don't know if anybody's heard of bloom energy here, but, you know, for instance, nasa's got a new energy-efficient building at the nasa ames research center, and it's got bloom boxes for some of its power. they're google headquarters, they're ebay headquarters. so there's a direct example for you. in his speech the administrator mentioned juno. it's only able to accomplish its mission because of the high efficiency solar cells that will provide the power for the instruments to do that mission. now, those high efficiency solar cells didn't just happen. it took years of investment by nasa to develop -- by the way, in collaboration with business and universities -- to develop those photovoltaic cells.

and those same cells can be transferred and in many cases have been transferred to commercial applications right here on the earth. so those are just a couple examples. but i should also tell you that in my role as chief technologist, i am working to set up partnerships with other government agencies. i've talked with the director of abe, i've been over to doe, i've been to a number of other agencies that aren't in the energy sector as well. and one of the things i've noticed about agencies, we all have different missions, right? be nasa has a different mission, obviously, than the dod. but where we all have commonality is in advanced technology. and so when nasa makes investments in technology, it creates partnerships, partnership opportunities, i should say, across government. and in a way it makes the pie bigger for all of us. and the fact that nasa is now

making technology investments and is talking about how those investments will help our missions in the future has actually created some inertia for me, positive inertia, positive momentum for me with those other government agencies. including doe and rbe. so i think you will continue to see nasa make increases in power and propulsion for our in-space missions and will continue to transfer those advances to benefit life here on the earth. >> yeah, i would just add one quick thing to that which is there's a unique part of this one, humans enter the equation which is the long-term life support systems to keep, to sustain a human mission of up to a year to, say, an asteroid or two to three years to mars. you must by definition be, you can't take everything with you, you need to live for two or three years in space. you've got to be able to

generate or recycle -- we're going to have the most efficient recycling system around on these spaceships that we're going to send to these other worlds. so -- >> water. >> yeah, and the water systems and other support systems, advanced packaging systems, there's all kinds of ways this can flow back into our everyday lives when you put humans in that equation. >> we're doing many of -- much of that today, actually, on the iss. >> right. >> the international space station. >> we're pioneering them on the space station. >> a reminder, if you're following us on twitter, you can find us on pound nasa future. and if you're here and have a question, please, come up to the mics. we'll take one in the back. >> good morning. my name's ray, i actually teach at the university of maryland. and, um, in my naive opinion it seems like the biggest problem that nasa has is, actually, pr.

i think you guys probably appreciate the fact that, you know, you're kind of preaching to the choir here, and everybody that's following along, you know, on twitter or on the web are also kind of part of the choir. and, i mean, nasa does a lot of great stuff in terms of outreach, you know, you've talked about it, we recognize it. but the aerospace community is very small, you know, a very niche market. and, you know, it seems to me that, you know, our military advertises, you know? the general public knows what the military does because they see advertising for it. and be it's great, you know, you reach out to the kids and the hope is that, you know, they're going to get excited and this information is going to get disseminated, but the problem is the kids don't vote. it's the parents that vote, you know? and i don't know maybe there's something that restricts nasa from being able to just make commercials, but i think you need to get creative and find a way around that because i think

the biggest problem is really exciting the adult public and letting them know what nasa is doing and what they're doing for their kids and what, you know, the technologies that they're really benefiting from. >> well, yes, you're correct, there are things that prevent us from doing exactly what the military does there. but the truth is we're creative and getting more creative all the time in our public affairs. david could probably even answer this, but, you know, you're -- you start to see nasa popping up in be pop culture references a lot of places, tv shows, things like that -- >> u2 concerts. >> yeah. that's not all an accident. so we do what we can to get things out there. you're absolutely right, though, that part of the challenge i hope we all take on is to try to go beyond the people who we've already convinced and are already great supporters of nasa, and there are a lot. i mean, it's fairly consistent when we do polls and things, you

know, it's fairly consistent between, you know, 50 and 70% of the country support us all the time, so that's great, and nasa has great brand recognition around the world. so we're really fortunate in that way, but you're right, we need to unleash an even broader base of support. one way we can do that is by having creative programs to engage people in new ways, and i think, for example, the commercial approach to bringing cargo to lower earth orbit is going to open up space for people to experience, ultimately -- it's going to take a little while for us to get there, but for more people to experience it than have ever experienced it before, and i think that'll be some of the best advertising we can get, having more people experience going to space. >> i'd like to add one thing. you mentioned preaching to the choir, and i actually want to ask the choir for help. the more loudly you sing, the more people passing by the church might poke their head in and see what's going on.

[laughter] there's a lot of magic at nasa, and i think the people in this room know that, believe that and feel it. i mean, i think we really feel it. otherwise we wouldn't be here. so ideas that you have and conversations you engage in to, um, help get that magic out, because i do think it's contagious, would be helpful to all of us. >> i think one of the other things we need to do is look at nontraditional partners. um, last year during the summer of innovation program we did a psa with mary j. blige, you know, the multiplatinum, you know, music recording artist in r&b. and she supports a school in new york, a women's academy of excellence. and so she's giving scholarships to these students, and in new york city a lot of these kids are, you know, single parents and don't have a lot of resources, but just this relationship with mary j. blige and her foundation for advancing

women now gets it out to a demographic that usually doesn't even know what we do at nasa. so i think more strategic partners that we don't usually see or work with is really important to insure that this message goes out. donovan mcnabb, we had kids in his football camp get taught by a nasa physicist the physics of football. so we were telling them if you understand physics, be a better ball player, you might get a scholarship and might go on, but here's a group of students that would never think of physics associated with football. and so again, reaching out to groups that would not traditionally be part of the mainstream. and then because that gets replicated, replicated, replicated and it goes out, and using social media, also, is a big area to get that message out to. >> but, please, send us your ideas. >> yeah. this is a two-way conversation. @not just us -- it's not just us knowing the best things to do up here. we need the support from you

guys out there also. that's why we're here. >> okay. sir? >> i'm dick henry, director of maryland space grant consortium and professor at the johns hopkins university in baltimore, and i have a question for mr. leland melvin. we're all attempting to inspire the young people, and the national spacecraft program allows nasa to have a footprint not just in states such as maryland where there's a nasa center, but in every single state of the union. and i'm wondering what your vision is, mr. melvin, for the future of your space program? >> that's a very good question, and we just went through, um, a redesign of nasa education. and we are, we're meeting, actually, september the 9th with all my ed directors to start shaping where we're going to go with our, with our new vision for nasa education. so i'll have to get back to you september 9th. we're really looking at how do we give kids more moments and

give some of the higher ed kids, you know, these experiences. some of the things that you're doing right now, all of the things you're doing right now, but how do we take it to scale even more with better strategic partners to get even more reach and more breadth? so it's coming, we're going to be talking to you guys a lot. diane troy who's our lead for space grant, we're working together to see how we can use the dollars to have more effective in where we're going with our vision. >> thank you. i see we've gotten a couple of cards handed up from our followers on twitter. would any of our panelists like to take a question? >> sure. i'll take one that came in that asks what international partnerships are currently available and how can these benefit the u.s. economy? we have a number of partnerships from, um, gosh, from argentina

to japan to throughout europe to brazil. i mean, there are sensors, instruments on various spacecraft, some of our loftier ambitions going deeper into the solar system looking out far into the universe have strong partnerships in particular with the european space agency, and i see more in the future. we cannot do this alone. well, we can do a lot of it alone, but we can't do as much as we should be doing alone. these partnerships allow alations involved -- all nations involved to realize things that are greater than they could realize individually. so, certainly, there are many existing partnerships. i look forward to many future partnerships. in fact, it's part of the national space policy. um, and as far as how these can benefit the u.s. economy, it all ties in to what bobby was talking about in investments in

innovation reducing significant economic benefits. the farther we reach, the more we pursue, the more we can learn from and cost share with our partners, the more benefit we can realize in our own economy through new technologies, through capabilities that we otherwise would not have developed on our own through, i would argue that missions that go farther, look deeper can be more inspiring to the young people who will benefit our economy through their contributions down the road. so there are many opportunities and many benefits. >> and i'd just add that, you know, today we have an extraordinary international partnership in space on the international space station, six agencies working together. and we have expanded that group to be thinking about the future of human exploration. we have a group called the international space exploration coordination group. and in about another couple of

months, i would say, you will see come out the first international road map for human space exploration that is 14 space agencies coming together, um, from all over the world to work together to think about what are the destinations and the pathways we want to think about for future human space flight, and more importantly then what does that drive us to today to think about the things we need to be collaborating on? so we are literally laying the foundation for extending all of this success we've had internationally to the future. um, can i answer one quick one from twitter? so aaron from twitter asks nasa, i hope to be a geologist on your first human mission to mars. how can i make this a reality? is. >> aaron, you're going to have to throw me out of the way first. [laughter] no, i'm kidding. i'd be throwing up the entire time. that's a great question and, of course, i think what motivates a lot of us is to think about being that, um, about actually getting to experience that space flight and actually getting to be the person that, um, does set

foot on mars. so what i would say is keep pursuing your scientific work, and i love the concept of a scientist being among the first crew that goes to mars. we're absolutely going to need that to be the case, so we're going to need a geologist, aaron, make sure you throw some boig biology in there because we're going to be looking for life when we get there, and i would like to ask re land what else -- leland what else this person should do if they want to become an restaurant. >> eat your green beans. [laughter] study hard. you know, i had never thought about becoming an astronaut, and i was working at langley when a buddy handed me an application and said, hey, you'd be a great astronaut. and i looked at him and said, what are you talking about? i never thought of it until my friend charlie who applied and got in, and then i said to myself if they're letting knuckleheads like that in, maybe i have an opportunity to get in.

but, you know, it's really about doing the best that you can in the field that you're in. you know, people always say do i have to get a degree in material science or mechanical engineering? it's just choosing what you love and doing the best that you can and being inspired and motivated. and then because as you fly in space, you're not, you're not really an expert in one thing, you're a journalist. because if toilet breaks, you've got to fix it, you know? if solar panels break, you've got to go out and do a space walk and fix it. so you're not a focused, specialized person. you are a generalist that your engineering, your science classes have taught you how to learn, how to grow, how to think. >> as a scientist you probably want to get a ph.d., most of the scientists in the corps are ph.d. holding, and can then come work with us at nasa. >> you heard it from leland, even knuckleheads can be inspirational. [laughter] >> that was charlie.

>> okay. we'll take another question from here in the audience, here in the bam. ma'am? >> thank you, good morning. first thing's first, thank you so much for being here today and giving us a chance of talking to you. it's wonderful. um, i'm a graduate student here at maryland, i study aerospace engineering, and we had this course last semester with professor hubbard from nia, and we were discussing many of the challenges that nasa has in terms of education, exploration, manned versus unmanned robotics exploration, and we were, you know, rounding up all these issues, but in the end it seemed that one of the major problems was to sustain or increase nasa's budget authorized by the government. so one of our solutions as

graduate students was to say, okay, why don't you, um, approach the problem from the standpoint of motivating the american public to motivate the congress at the point of, um, authorizing these budgets so that people will say, oh, yes, nasa does this for us, nasa does that for us. so my question is what would be needed for nasa to be more present in the civilized just like you did with the chilean miners? nasa has in technological advances that can help humanity at this point; droughts, famine, things that will definitely make big, big publicity and will open the general population's eyes to how great nasa is? because i do think that nasa is great. thank you very much. >> thank you.

[inaudible conversations] >> well, first i'd like to say i hope you run for political office. [laughter] secondly, in our earth science division we do have an applications program that really is highlighted at how we can use the space observations to serve society directly, enable support. secondly, i think, you know, one reason we wanted to have this forum was to hear this kind of feedback, invite ideas from you because we don't have all the answers. but i believe our content is incredibly inspirational. i believe that, um, i believe that anyone who's sort of even looked at the old footage even if it was before you were born of the lunar landings that gets goose bumps is stirred by it. when i watched the satellite

last friday launch toward jupiter, i mean, it was palpable. the people and the public that were watching this rocket carry this thing to great new destinations were energized. and somehow we're trying to bring that appreciation, the inspirational aspect and the service to society outward. and be this conversation -- and this conversation is one step in that process. our outreach efforts are, you know, they're working diligently, but we are always open to new and innovative and exciting ideas. >> with right. if i could just add to that a little bit, i think your question is, um, is very wise. coming from an aerospace engineer, i'm proud. [laughter] but i should say, you know, so i'm also a university professor, i'm a guy who's been affiliated with nasa for most of my career, but before i was in this

position i had that same question. um, now that i'm at nasa i see the content, i see it every day. and walleed has described it well, it's rich. t amazing the way nasa -- it's amazing the way nasa impacts the nation in so many ways; economically, in disaster relief across the world, you know, weather, you know, monitoring of the earth. i mean, it's just, it's unbelievable actually. but i can tell you that as someone in the choir but previously in the public like yourself i didn't know, i didn't know about all the great thingsing nasa was doing. so one of the things that i've been doing as chief technologist is we've been ramping up our communications of the spin-off program. nasa has a fantastic spin-off program. the spin-off program is where we

take the technological investments we're making for our future missions, and we spin those off into commercial products or into services that help the country. and we're publicizing that much more now. just in this past year there were a whole series of magazine articles that came out about some of the spin-offs. we're highlighting them on our web site more. there's always been a spin-off book and be a spin-offs web site. and this is just a start. um, you know, we haven't made a dent in where we need to be with this, but what i think you'll see this year and in these next few years is a much greater emphasis on societal benefit and communicating that societal benefit to the general public. because nasa does have a great story to tell. >> so i will add one thing, and my perspective on this is we are live anything a time in our -- living in a time in our country where thoughts of dramatically

increased budgets are probably not realistic, right? i mean, we've all just watched the great debate about the debt ceiling and linking that to reducing federal spending. so i think part of our job and the way we address this is how do we do more with what we have, how do we bring other kinds of support to the table beyond just federal dollars? and we have several ways that we're doing that. that get back to the innovative partnerships that leland was talking about. how do we leverage investments that are being made by others to advance the cause of space exploration? i think that is something that is really a great opportunity for us through our commercial programs. we don't just give a government contract. contractors bring their own investment to the table. we've all got skin in the game in making that successful. that expands the pie. we're working, we're partnered with google where privately-funded folks are off

trying to build missions to go explore the moon. if they make it and are success. , we've incentivized with very tiny amounts of investments. if they make it, a great prize for them from the nasa side and from the google side as well. so there's extraordinary opportunities for us to leverage investment opportunities out there, and then nasa needs to look at doing things more efficiently and effectively -- >> live on c-span at 5:30 eastern this afternoon, pakistan's former foreign secretary will be at johns hopkins school of advanced international studies to talk about the strained relationship between the u.s. and pakistan. "the wall street journal" reported monday that the obama administration will start basing its aid to pakistan on whether the country meets a scorecard of u.s. objectives to combat al-qaeda and it allies. all this week on "washington journal" we're bringing you a

series looking inside the fbi. here's a look at the rest of the week. today the fbi's counterterrorism unit. wednesday, key fbi programs and how tax dollars are spent. thursday, combating cyber attacks. and friday, we're live from the national crime and punishment museum in washington for a look at crime labs and forensics. our "inside the fbi series" airs on the washington journal each day at 9:15 eastern and then again in the evening at 7 eastern on c-span2. all this month watch booktv in prime time on c-span2. tonight journalism in newspapers. at 8 p.m. eastern william mcgowan talks about gray lady down: what the decline and fall of the new york times means for america. at 9:40 we'll hear from the authors of "will the last reporter please turn out the lights: the collapse of

journalism and what can be done to fix it." and after that at 11:10 john mcmillan's "smoking type writers: the '60s underground press and the rise of alternative media in america." booktv in prime time all this month on c-span2. every weekend it's american history tv on c-span3. starting saturday mornings, 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. watch personal interview about historic events on oral histories. our history book shelf features some of the best known history writers. revisit key figures, battles and events during the 150th anniversary of the civil war. visit college class rooms across the country during lectures in history. go behind the scenes at museums and historic sites on american artifacts. and the presidency looks at the policies and legacies of past american presidents. get our complete schedule at c-span.org/history and sign up to have it e-mailed to you by

pressing the c-span alert button. next, a discussion on technology and what's in store for internet users with the creators of twitter, biz stone and evan williams. they recently spoke with former "time" magazine editor walter isaacson in colorado. this is about an hour and ten minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> all right, everybody, i'm going to introduce to you jerry murdoch so that jerry murdoch can introduce me. >> yes, that's right. so i'm jerry murdoch, i'm a co-founder of inside venture partners, and this session is entitled "what's next for the internet." and, um, steve jobs once said if you want to predict the future,

the best way to predict the future is to invent it. and these three gentlemen have all had something to do with the creation of the internet and post-internet. you are illustrious ceo, walter isaacson back when he was at time as editor in if 1994 released one of the very first internet portals called path finder which is still out there today. biz stone and ev williams, co-founders of blogger and twitter, both of those inventions will be, we'll be feeling the repercussions of that for another generation at least. so without further ado, walter isaacson, biz stone and ev williams. [applause] >> thank you, biz, thank you, ev, for -- i'm sorry, say that again? >> [inaudible] >> okay. can you put your name tag back on so i can remember that? >> doesn't matter. >> doesn't matter? okay. by the way, we are actually going to start with a piece of

news. about the future of the internet and, seriously, a significant piece of news. these are the co-founders of twitter, and can they have something to announce today. biz, you want to start? >> sure. we, evan and i and our longtime collaborator jason goldman -- jason? right here, the bald man in front. >> you're allowed to tweet -- not trading on this information because the markets are closed. >> that's okay. he know he's bald. [laughter] the three of us have been longtime collaborators and really good friends, and our dream was always to build our own company where we get to make whatever we want, whatever we think is going to be helpful to the world and make the world a better place. and be so we put up a web site today, and we're calling our company the obvious corporation. and, um, and we don't have anything specific to say about exactly what we're going to be working on just yet, we're not ready to reveal that, but we're

excited to announce that we have started a new company. >> and by the way, i know there's sort of half skepticism here, but this actually is the launch of a new company, the obvious company -- >> right. >> with you as ceo. >> right. and it's actually a relaunch. obvious was a company that incubated twitter before spinning it off, and we decided to focus on that for a few years. but -- >> five. >> but the original idea with obvious was that we were going to create, you know, multiple things and see where they went. and we didn't, we didn't end up doing that many things. but this is a relaunch of that company, and we're very excited. and our, our mission is really that we don't have specifics about what we're going to build. what we're really excited about is building systems that help people work together to improve the world. in various ways. and we think that's really so much of what the internet promises and what, i think,

getting into our topic today with the future of the internet will entail, at least the bright side, is people working together to become, you know, greater than they could individually or greater than even organizations and institutions can be. >> so to try to describe this without going further than you're ready to go, you're talking about launching a few products of twitter-like quality. >> yeah. and collaborate can mean various things, and twitter-like quality quality -- >> if we get as lucky as we did with twitter, that would be great. but really the goal, what we think is possible and i think there's a whole wave of new companies and services starting

today that are about helping people work together to do things. i mean, i think this touches on what twitter actually does, and most be communication technologies doing this, they enable people who wouldn't necessarily act on their own to find like-minded people. and it's one thing to just find like-minded people and talk about stuff. it's another thing to find like-minded people and then do stuff. and i think that's what we've seen in the middle east, that's what we've seen much smaller examples throughout the history of twitter from stories we heard early on about people saying, hey, let's, you know, it's christmas time, a bunch of homeless people on the street, let's go give them blankets and food, who's with me? we heard stories like this, and we're convinced that wouldn't have happened if people didn't have this very low-friction communication channel. these thoughts get blocked in people's minds, and they don't get out there unless you give them mechanisms to connect to other like-minded people. so that scratches the surface of

what's possible in much bigger arenas. >> yeah. i was just going to use that phrase, it seems like we're just beginning to scratch the surface on applications like kick starter and to an extent donors choose and things like this that are allowing people to virtually collaborate to have real world, affect real world, positive change. and in many ways twitter has done that. um, it's not entirely what it's about, but it has done that in certain cases. but there's a proliferation of, of start-ups and of apps that are doing that now. and i think, um, as we get into our discussion about the future of the internet, hopefully, this is, you know, sort of the lead topic. >> in some ways this is the history of the internet because it was started as a collaborative medium and became something different for a while, became a put your stuff out there medium. >> right, right. >> well, yeah, it absolutely did. it was the original goal to help

scientists collaborate, right? and then it took on this very, very commercial -- >> yeah. >> -- mode, and the default paradigm for commerce was one way, and we'll push stuff out to people, and they will consume, they will buy things, and they will consume our media, and they will consume our advertisement. and then there's a next wave where we realized, well, this is a two-way medium, and people don't just consume, they participate, they create media themselves. and there's many great examples of people collaborating on the internet to create software, to create information like wikipedia. and then i think, though, collaborating -- bringing that collaboration back to the real world -- >> yeah. >> -- is sort of the next phase we're picturing. >> the way that i sort of simply think about it in my mind is there was this pure, collaborative seed in the very beginning, right? and then, and then, but sort of the three phases of the internet

if you can, if you want to vastly generalize our, like -- they paved the internet and built the mall, then blogging came along and some little seedlings started to sprout through the cracks. and we lowered the barrier to self-publishing, so the democratization of information suddenly flourished. and, um, and now we're entering that sort of third phase where it's not just an overwhelming amount of information, um, there's people working on relevance that gets you the best information as quick as possible. but also this third phase includes taking the virtual and making it real and making it true, real, positive global changes in the world. >> why do you call it the obvious corporation? >> well, originally we called it obvious because, for a couple reasons. one is we wanted to create

products that were obvious and easy to use and straightforward. not tricky. not trying to be too clever. because we can't be. [laughter] we're not that clever. and, but probably a bigger reason was all of the biggest ideas are obvious in retrospect. >> only in retrospect. >> yeah, right. >> that's right. >> everyone thought for the first nine months of twitter, everyone thought it was just totally useless, they said it to our face every day, and finally one day ev just got frustrated and said, well, so is ice cream, do you want us to ban ice cream and all joy? [laughter] >> and you're going to be the ceo of obvious. >> i am, yes. >> but both of you in some ways will still be connected with twitter. and you on the board -- >> yeah. we're both, all three of us, jason as well. >> [inaudible] >> i'm on the board of twitter -- >> a nice beard though. >> and we all have lot of

relationships at twitter. i serve on the board of director, and biz -- go ahead and say what biz -- >> yeah, i'm still -- all of us are deeply invested personally and, you know, financially in twitter. and ev's, you know, an active participant on the board. i am still working with -- my, what i told, i worked through this with dick, our ceo, when i said, look, you guys are so awesome that i'm just going to get out of the way, and if you need me, you just ask me to do something. so i'm going to be working a lot with coms and a little bit bouncing ideas off product, but that's pretty much it. and then jason, it's funny, jason's like kind of a guidance counselor because almost all the employees at twitter are constantly asking jason for a private meeting. so he's involved, and we're all involved, and we all want to see it succeed tremendously. so we want to try to help as much as possible while, you know, putting our efforts now day-to-day into obvious.

>> before we get into the future of the internet, let me pick back up on something you said which was the arab spring, and i know we've talked about it, and you've talked about it many times and twitter and how it affected -- so malcolm gladwell coming out with this argument, the revolution will not be tweeted, this is all bull. you responded to that, right? >> yeah. i mean, first of all, it was weird because no one was arguing that, um -- so his argument was these revolutions aren't twitter revolutions, and no one said they were. so that was weird. [laughter] and, and so that's what he was arguing against. and then, basically, i wrote a rebuttal that said, look, agreed. huge, major change like the civil rights movement comes from people. people need tools, you know? people use -- the telephone was a big part of wringing down the berlin -- bringing down the berlin wall, but the telephone

didn't bring down the berlin wall. i just think that his argument was kind of a straw man thing. i just think he was angry that people kept writing twitter into the headlines. and so he said, look, twitter had nothing to do with it. but, in fact, it did have a sideline part because, um, these people were ready to speak up, twitter was a tool that helped them realize that others felt like them, and it emboldened them and allowed them to feel like, okay, maybe we can do this. and so it has a role as a simple tool, but at the same time twitter must remain a neutral technology, not picking sides, not getting involved, not celebrating any, you know, part of helping in any success. >> you call it a neutral technology, but let me ask you a

question. do you think from guttenberg to twitter the technologies that enable a freer flow of information and communication inevitably bend the arc of history towards democracy? >> what do you think? >> yeah. i want to know your answer to that. [laughter] [applause] >> the answer's yes. >> well, here's -- >> i mean, it powers and enables people, that makes democracy. it's not neutral. it doesn't empower authoritarian regime. >> right. >> well, you could probably use it to do that. but it wouldn't be as effective, i don't think. [laughter] the thing is, but the thing we're facing now is that, um, you know, like, the state department is suddenly very cozy with twitter because they were like, oh, wow, we were trying to get this done with ak-47s, and

you guys kind of did it with tweets. [laughter] can we, can we, like, can we be friends? [laughter] and, you know, um, but the, but my, but i maintain that it has to be a neutral technology because there are different forms of democracy. and you don't want your company, you don't want your technology, you don't want twitter to look like it's simply a tool to spread the united states' version of technology around the world. >> ev? >> and what did i say? technology? democracy around the world. you know, you want it, you want it to help for good, but you don't want it to look like you're in the pocket of the u.s. government. and so we try to do that as much as we can, is to try to speak out and say that they have no access to our decision making capabilities. >> one thing that makes me think of speaking of the future is as

people have been starting internet company since whenever people started internet companies, one thing that changed a lot is the global nature of the internet. and now if you create a consumer web service, most of your users are going to be outside the united states. it doesn't matter if you're in the heart of silicon valley and launch only in english, most of your users outside the u.s. because most of the people are outside the u.s. and that changes how you think about things from kind of the get go. and it comes up in all kinds of policy decisions as you get big and then as the state department starts calling and all kinds of other weird things when you're a company of 40 people and why is this happening -- [laughter] but i think that's, um, just an interesting factor in designing anything these days is that if you can make something truly

global. and there's more global than it was even five or ten years ago with the networks because i went to korea to launch twitter in be be -- in korea in january, and twitter and maybe facebook now are the first two services to grow substantially in korea that are not from korea. and even though they're very advanced, they have high-speed internet connections, they have lots of home grown internet services, there's something culturally that kept most of the users on the home grown sites. and now with thicks like -- things like twitter and facebook, they have local competitors, but people want to be connected to the global network because it's, you know, they want to follow, um, what's happening with, you know, they want to follow bill gates, and he's not on the twitter korea. so you can't separate this stuff anymore. it has to be part of one massive system which also leads to ore

interesting -- other interesting things like the internet becoming less closed and more decentralized, but that's another topic. >> well, let's get to the topic. is there a problem with the future of the internet that you think it might become more closed? >> absolutely. i think there are a lot of trends that are, that, um, push it toward being a more closed environment. specifically, the economics of the centralized system and the user experience benefits of centralized systems are very powerful. >> are you talking about apple, for example? is. >> apple is a good example. as is facebook, as is youtube even because let's take youtube as a less talked about example. youtube isn't closed, but it is very centralized, and if ten years ago you would have talked to anyone, any technologist, they would have said, obviously, video was coming to the internet as bandwidth increase and storage costs decrease. but at the time no one i know would have said, yes, in 80% of

the video views are going to be run true one service. that would have been a strange thought because the internet model was decentralization as is every web site, every newspaper, everyone has their own island on the internet, so why wouldn't video work the same way? and now we're looking at a world where if you want to publish a video, you probably publish it on youtube whether -- or you're a major media outlet, maybe you publish it on your own web site, but lots of organization os publish on youtube at fist because it was -- at first because it was easier, but now because that's where the viewers are. so it has big network effects, and those will keep making it more and more powerful. same thing with facebook, and the same thing with apple now if you want to write a mobile phone app, then you're going to publish through apple's store because that's the only way to get it on the phone, and because that's great for users. and it's the same thing over and

over again is that the user experience is superior if it's centralized, and then the reach is better and the economics are better. so what we're getting is a platform where there's a few major players that are getting bigger and bigger, and there's opportunities for little guys to be on these major players' platforms. but i think it's going to be -- we're more dependent on these platforms than before. >> well, couldn't you put twit or on that list? >> yes. hopefully. [laughter] >> it's almost like there's a bunch of different internets, and you just pick the one you want to work with. >> i mean, by internet most of us have grown up thinking of the internet which it has been for 20 years as, basically, http web page internet. >> right. >> i mean, before that there were other variations of the internet. so we've had 20 years of a web-based internet.

now you're saying we're moving towards a social network-based internet, but there will be certain platforms like facebook or whatever -- >> uh-huh. >> -- youtube, and that'll be more centrally controlled perhaps? >> you could go on your ipod touch and just not have safari and still get almost everything you need. >> so we've moved away from a web-based -- >> you know what i mean? you can get everything, you can get maps, you can get wikipedia, this is an app for that. >> you can do it on your iphone. >> yeah, i mean, everything's on there. >> with but i think the -- but i think the distinction that isn't important is whether it's http, most apps use http in the background, that confuses the story. i think what's important is the paradigm has shift today a more and more centralized internet. so you have to go through the app store to get an app on your phone. that's very, very different than anyone can put up a web site. and if you, if a site uses

facebook connect or twitter accounts to log in this to their web site because people are automatically having accounts, that's very, very different than the days when you created everything from scratch. and i liken it to in the early days everybody had sort of an island, and they tried to, um, they tried to live on that island, they tried to attract visitor. they tried to attract tourists to the island. tourists would show up, and they'd issue them a passport and feed them whatever good, you know, whatever coconuts they grew on that island. and over time a lot of islands, well, we can't be completely self-sustainable, so we're going to import things, so some of the first things were advertising networks. we're going to import search. and it kind of stopped there, but there's, you know, you could import your cms because that's what blogger did really, published out to lot of different places. and now you can import your

identity, and you can even -- now people are saying, screw it, we don't even need to own our land. we're just going to go rent, and it's nice, and we're going to rent in this mall, and all these services will be provided for i, and we're just going to exist at a much higher level which makes a lot of sense from an entrepreneurial standpoint. it can be a lot more effective, but that mean you're dependent on that land ore owner. >> and what's the downside? >> maybe the landowners give too much control. >> so facebook changes or apple changes -- >> yeah. like, i mean, when we started odio, this is a little bit different, but when we started with a podcasting service that let you record into your browser and send that recording out to anyone who had an iphone and they would sync it with their iphone, and then apple said we have podcasting on itunes, and we said that's probably a good place for it. that's probably better than our

web sites. so once they made that decision, we were kind of, you know, we had to pivot. >> and another big difference, it seems -- let me ask you, is that if you're doing an app space as opposed to just purely web space, it's not searchable and link bl as much. >> right. >> yeah, exactly. it's not part of the greater internet really. >> i think in many ways apps are a step backwards from the web because they're not connect bl. >> are you old enough to remember aol and comp pew serve? >> >> oh, sure. >> walled gardens? >> yeah. >> the lighting just got -- >> yeah, i know. >> -- different. >> it got more gloomy. >> ominous. [laughter] >> what else are you worried about in the future of the internet? >> well, we're -- you should ask goldman about what we're worried about because he's the more cynical one. we're both, as ev says, hallucinogenically optimistic. [laughter]

and jason's always like, but here are the ten ways we can get screwed. [laughter] >> that's true. i'm definitely an optimist. but one thing we've talked about is quality of content. >> with yeah. >> there's, for the last 15 years we've worked on lowering the barrier to content creation, and that's had all these positive effects. but it seems like there's, um, no one has been working on how do we improve the quality of content on the internet. and i think this is highly possible. but if you look at what reading an article on the web looks like today, it's basically the same as if you write it in a magazine. if you print it out, you have the same experience. and it rarely changes, and the collective intelligence that's available in the world doesn't really collaborate to improve it. and the process of creation isn't very much different than

traditional media, it's just the distribution is the only thing that's changed. i think all the things could potentially change, the consumption experience, the evolution of information after it gets out there, the production process could be way more efficient and open. so that's a really interesting opportunity. and a way that things could actually improve that haven't really, i mean, the publishing industry in general there's a lot of turmoil and despair it seems because like, well, the internet screwed our business model which is true, but i'm optimistic there are things to, um, there are things more fundamental things than how distribution happens to change about publishing. >> and where does collaborativeness come in beyond the wiki phenomenon? ..