absolutely. >> we have three decades of experience with the global capital standards, we are trying to make those better. no precedent, no previous

attempt to make sure we have in place, and rules on margin around the rules for derivatives. so we've proposed a major international effort to establish those. we formed a special international task force that is led by the federal reserve, i believe, led jointly by the federal reserve that brings together central banks, and supervisors, market regulators together to try to design a common framework that will match what we're doing in the united states. we're in the early stage but we are talking to the european officials and those in asia, u.k. officials, there's very broad support in the and they share our interest to make sure the is a global level playing field. >> senator shelby do you have additional questions? >> i do. first of all, mr. secretary, i want to get, try to answer what you made a pitch for the nominee

former attorney general to be confirmed. 44 of us have sent a letter, you're very familiar with, to the president's biggest and i think you said to me to spend if i could finish. we haven't heard one word about that, asking for some modifications to this. it's not the nominee. i think the nominee as far as i know is probably well-qualified, very honorable, very smart man. but we are waiting for that dialogue, and i hope we hear from you. but short of that i think the nominee is not going anywhere. but i want an answer to that. go ahead. >> i understand your position and we received that message. you've been very clear about it and you have a pretty powerful show of strength. i would just encourage you to reconsider because i think that -- >> we hope you would reconsider, u.n. the president, changing three modest things in the dodd-frank bill. if you do i'm sure we'll have a

good piece of legislation, at least a better peace. and we'll go from there. but short of that i don't believe that we are moving that nomination. >> i'm always optimistic. i do think the three -- >> don't get optimistic on the. [laughter] spent the three things you suggested in combination i think would be a significant weakening of the bureau. >> we don't think so. we think it will strengthen the pure. we have a difference of opinion. i have a few questions -- >> what comes around goes around. >> absolutely. and that's why we'll plan on coming around. secretary geithner, the bank of england governor as you know, as well as some prominent academic economists have said that also three capital standards, they believe are insufficient to prevent another crisis. do you agree with them or do you have second -- >> i do not.

>> i thought it was positive. >> the framework that we call basel iii is a dramatic increase in the basic conservativism of the capital regime in the united states and around the world, a substantial increase in capital relative to what was required before the crisis combined with the liquidity provision in place to create better protections. one quick qualification. we have proposed that the largest institutions hold, and this was required by legislation, hold an additional buffer of capital. and our judgment is the combination of those two things, as long as you face them in, carefully over time -- >> but not too much time. >> no, you don't want to wait too long, but you don't want people building capital too much too quickly, or having -- when

recovery is still trying -- >> and they are trying to on the right road. >> and they are. u.s. firms are very, very for a long. >> do you have confidence that the european banks and the regulators there will comply with basel iii, the spirit as well as the letter of the? >> we will do everything we can to make sure they do, of course. we have the time to make sure that's going to happen because these rules only start to bite over the next several years so we're working very hard to make sure we have better protections in place. >> do you know of any financial institution that has had, has been adequately, in other words, well-capitalized and have liquidity? >> that's a very interesting question. i think that in a really systemic financial crisis, just to think back to the expense of

this country in 2008, for example, certainly was the case from the great depression. another example. you can have a situation where very well-capitalized financial institutions are subject to a queue pressure, sometimes that's the best way thing if your definition of what is a systemic crisis. >> but if they have liquidity doesn't that help? >> it does help, but this is an interesting conversation, but you can't, it's not sensible to try to force the system to hold capital and reserves to cover any foreseeable, imaginable risk or shock. >> that makes no sense. >> exactly. any real systemic financial crisis, even the strong will be affected by the pressures you see more broadly. >> this week -- >> but that's no comment on the present. we're in i think as i said, if

you look at capital a quiddity -- liquidity, and a strong position. >> this week, earlier this week the bank of america i guess the largest thing, i know it is, announced it would charge a monthly fee to consumers i guess some credit cards. when asked about the fee, the president stated, as i understand, if the banks do not have a right to get a certain amount of profit. how much, mr. secretary, how much profit should the government allow banks to me. and as the president's comments mean that this administration supports government mandated price and controls on financial products? is that taken out of context what he said or is that just political rhetoric? >> the president does not believe that we get to determine how profitable individual financial institutions are in companies across the country. >> the market should determine a lot of that.

>> it should of course. what we believe is you want to have a system of oversight, a system of protection where consumers have the ability to understand what they are being charged for financial services, charged to borrow. portable return to do is encourage much more transparency in clarity. >> so consumers can make the decision and not a bureaucrat, right? >> that's exactly right. now, there are things government officials have to do though. it's our responsibility to do. but the basic strategy we've adopted, the president supported in the cfpb is designed to establish put the overwhelming burden on better transparency and disclosure as a way to make sure consumers have the better chance to protect themselves. >> you are saying this administration is not in any way coming out with any type of wage control? >> yes, i'm saying we are not.

>> mr. secretary, the council's annual report that we've been talking about all morning, efforts to coordinate dodd-frank implementation, does across a number of agencies as you well know, the cftc and the sec have consistently have failed to harmonize some of the substance and the timeframe of the dodd-frank rules. has the council been involved in this trying, are they making any success here in improving the coordination of the sec and the cftc? i think that's important. drinking out of the same cup. >> i completely agree with you although congress did leave in place this complicated set of independent agencies with independent statutory requirements. our basic approach is to say that as you meet those requirements, we'd like you to do so in way that is as closely aligned as the law permits. where the law permits you to be

aligned, you should be aligned. because if you're not, all you're going to do is leave a complicated system with big distortion, opportunities for arbitrage and gaps are and that matters for us here but it also makes it harder for us to get the world to come to a more level playing field. it's harder to get the world to come to a sensible place. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. secretary. i wanted to focus in my questions on the housing finance agencies in the market, and the need to bring reform there, including a return of the private capital in the private market into that now very government dominated sector. my concern for while including all through the dodd-frank discussion is that that was put on the side with the promise that we'll get to that, get to

that next year. well, it's now next year and i don't particularly see his getting to it. now, i do know the report includes the statement that the member agencies need to strengthen the system quote, which includes developing a framework for the return of private capital to the system, closed quote. what does that mean exactly and what's the timetable for concrete action? >> i just want to start with one observation which is that congress did enact a fundamental change to the basic framework of oversight of the gses and home loan bank system in september of '08. ahead of dodd-frank. but you're right, that without foundation which didn't solve all our problems, dodd-frank did not go further and let this fundamental challenge of fixing the housing financial system. that's still ahead of us. what are we trying to do. want to set up a framework where

private capital, private investors, the private system plays the more dominant role in housing finance once again, and that we gradually phased and the governments role to a more limited, more targeted, more sensible role. for that to happen, we need to have a clear set of rules in place across the securitization markets, clarity on the amount of capital you have told against a mortgage loan if you're a private institution and we need to gradually wind down the exceptional measures, exceptional expansion of fannie and freddie and the fha rules that happened in the crisis as private and capital withdrew. as we lay out a comprehensive set of options, proposals, objectives last february, we are in the process of designing legislative proposals to present to congress, consulting probably with academic experts, how best to do that.

i don't know what's going to be possible in terms of legislating in this environment in the next 18 months or so but we would like to get that process moving. as we said last february, we are going to take the burden of initiative and layout to congress a proposal for how to get us to a better place. you're right. i see this all the time, we're at the only very earliest stages and trying to put in place a better finance system. >> so that work will include a concrete legislative proposal? >> we mightcome we haven't quite decided how to do it. we might start with another, we have options that we might start with a proposal before we get legislation. we haven't decided yet. we're going to propose something so you have something you can consider. >> what's the timetable broadly? >> haven't decided. we're busy but we've got enough people who have been working on this all summer and they're making a lot of progress, and we

are getting closer. >> there were elements of dodd-frank which in my opinion bush best actor in the wrong direction, further protecting for advantage in the gses. will that be directly addressed the? >> such as the exemptions for the gses for certain standards and requirements and dodd-frank. >> i don't think the stands it is stand in the way of us were putting finance reform but we will look at them spent and the risk retention prevention? >> again, whenever for generally to the senate rules, that's what i'm referring to. those trying to, there's been a lot of comments, look at those rules, but we need those that any sensible place. then we needed to change the basic economics of the gses role, and overtime that will pull private capital back in.

>> there's been some she just and i've read that there's a specific working group on this topic. is that specifically designed into is a part of that? >> i don't know if we call it a specific working group but we have a team of very talented people of the treasury and hud. we consult with the fed very actively. we work very closely with fhfa, the overseer fannie and freddie, and there's a team of competent people in the white house that are involved in those discussions. >> and is that formal or informal team include folks from outside the administration? >> that team does because it's just people, well, it includes some of these independent agencies but they don't meet as a team always like that but we've been very active in looking to academic experts, people in the real estate market, the housing community, the banking system, the financial system to make sure we are taking advantage of all the better ideas out there.

>> okay, thank you, mr. chairman. spent thank you again, secretary gartner for being here today. the financial oversight council is important to the overall stability of this country's financial economy. your work and the work of all the members of the council is greatly appreciated. thanks again to my colleagues and their panelists for being here today. this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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>> now a discussion on immigration and race. you will hear from experts at various universities and organizations. george mason university host this hour and a half discussion. >> okay, we are now ready to begin the second panel of the day. this is dedicated to international issues. we thought it best to look at both sides of the coin, if you will, and thought it very important to bring in international aspect. to moderate this discussion will be professor clarence lusane of american university. he teaches courses in comparative race relations, modern social movements, and comparative politics in both the americas and europe. he is the author of numerous books, so many more to name then

i will do here, but i do want to mention three of them. the first is colin powell and condoleezza rice, or in policy, race and the new american century's. also, hitler's black victims, the experiences of afro germans, africans, after europeans and after an can american strength in knots era beck and his most recent book, which is more domestically oriented, and that is the black history of the white house. so with that i will turn it over to professor clarence lusane who is just the other panelist and as always, and as with the second panel, if you have a question raise your hand. will teach you a card you write it out and professor lusane will handle it accordingly. professor lusane, thank you very much. >> hello? welcome to the second panel, and it's really good to be here with the first panel this morning, a

very excellent foundation for looking at a broad array of issues related to race and public policy. and what i want to offer is that all of those issues whether we're talking up access to voting, criminal justice issues as related to employment, all those issues are global. they affect people at the bottom who tend to be minorities, people of color around the globe. and particularly people of african descent. so the issues that we are addressing are very much related to these issues here in the united states, very much related to issues around the world whether we're talking about europe, whether we're talking about the global south. i'm very happy to have a panel that is experienced in both addressing issues of how we relate to u.s. foreign policy on some of these issues related to race and human rights and ethnicity, but also who are very

steep and the politics and different parts of the globe and how race manifests itself in public policy issues in areas like haiti, different parts of africa. i'm going to later talk about a project i'm working on grid to brazil with some of these issues, but let me introduce my three colleagues and then they will speak for about 10 to 15 minutes each and then we'll take your questions and will have a back and forth. for someone to introduce professor henry richardson who's a professor of law at temple university school of law. he specializes of international law in the public courses in africa, legal questions arising from the anti-apartheid movement relative to south africa, international protection of human rights, self-determination, international law and interpretation of international law from critical race theory. is also author of the book the

origins of african-american interest in international law. next to professor richardson is melinda miles, founder and director of let haiti live, which is a project of trans-africa form that mobilizes haitians through popular education, alternative media. it also strengthens the capacity of existing organizations that share the philosophy of empowering haitian leadership and haitians of patients. and then third, mr. nil akutteh who is an african-american, who is an african affairs specialist and former executive director of africa action which is a washington, d.c.'s based thinking. is also -- you can him on international and domestic television and radio and other media, providing analysis and commentary on critical political

social and economic issues of the day. is also a member of the scholar council at transafrica and was the founding executive director of the open society institute for west africa. let us begin with professor richardson. [inaudible] >> yes. i'm just honored to be here on this distinguished panel. i'm particularly as it addresses international issues of african-americans, which have a long and contentious history, although it is thought that they have such issues have a short and apologetic history, nothing could be further from the truth. african-american interest in international law and

international affairs have their origins in the atlantic slave trade, and in new world and american slavery. and as a nation. so, therefore, collision of afghan american international interests and american public policy has a very long history, especially when we consider american public policy in that regard as prescribed by the white majority. the black american tradition, what i like to call it, encompasses this collision between african-american claims, what i call claims outside law, and american public policy on north american territory, as the

late 1500s to the present day. that is to say, from the earliest revolt, slave revolts in the first spanish ports that were founded on the north american continent. so now, moving into the 20th century, we could talk about selected events where african-american international interest intersect it with u.s. public policy, resulting in important consequences for african-american freedom interests. in the united states, both in limiting international strategies as a source of domestic african-american leverage towards greater rights protection, and indexing the potential of such strategies towards greater rights protected leverage in the united states. through all these events we can

note a continuation of a long historical trend of white dominance, and opposition. sometimes against african-americans framing and invoking their international interests, including in law in situations that indicated a lack of white provision to do so. and where african-americans have called on international authority and support to better expand and protect their rights in the united states. in fact, that's one reason why i set out to write the book to examine the origins of this historical antipathy. and that antipathy actually extends in various forms to the present date. so let me mention five selected

historical events in this connection. and this is by no means an exhaustive list. and let me just list them and then come back and say a few words about each. first is the support of the united states in 1885 for the conference of berlin, the treaty which carved up according to european colonial territorial interests on that continent. even though the united states did not ratify that treaty, it arrived in the united states and it was discussed in the united states as the debate within africa, among african-americans about immigration back to africa as opposed to remaining in america to fight for equality

was reaching its last call at this stage -- calmative stage. the second event we can bring forward here revolves around w. e. b. to boys, african-americans and the ratification of the united nations charter in 1945 and 1946 where african-americans publicly anticipated that the ratification of that particular treaty with its human rights provisions, defining a new world order, a major problem of american foreign policy efforts at the time, that that treaty, coupled with the supremacy clause of the american constitution, which makes treaties the equivalent of

federal statutes in domestic u.s. law, would in effect emerged the first federal civil rights act under, if you will, the treaty clause. there was great hope and w.e.b. du bois represented that hope, that indeed the u.n. charter would serve this purpose to let me come back to that in a few minutes. the third such event i would mention is the rise and global recognition of martin luther king as an international human rights leader in the 19 '60s. and we can't indeed spell out the story. it's rather significant and it has been undervalued and parallels the story of his greatness in the united states, and in an out of that story.

passionate and in and out of that story. the fourth event that i would select your is the pre-south africa movement of the mid 1980s. here we had an african-american organized and led an american mass movement, which converted the struggle against south african apartheid into a domestic civil rights issue, and did a number of other major impacting of doctrinal outcomes with respect to american public policy. and lastly, in terms of the current day, where now african-americans have interest in international law and are

beginning to invoke them, we can, if time permits, talk about the occasions -- implications of these international laws of african-americans and other minorities of color in the united states, regarding important issues of american pluralistic governance in this country. so now let me briefly go back to the first, back to the first event. the treaty of 1885, as i said, arrived at the very time that there was a debate about, or the last stage of the immigration, the african immigration debate,

as the essential next step or not towards liberation of african-americans in the united states. and that treaty divided african-american leadership at the time. those leaders who, a group of leaders who favored immigration back to africa basically saw that treaty as conveying benefits or potential benefits to africans, and also, the african people's, and also to african-americans in terms of their both providing and sharing in those benefits in liberia, sierra leone, the congo and elsewhere. but they were opposed, and actually quite intensely by

leaders such as frederick douglass who opposed immigration and held that the united states should give no support for african-american immigration to africa, and that african-americans should remain in the united states and work to assure the equality and have the united states do justice to its people. in other words, the treaty of 1885 and served as a fulcrum of discussion about a major collective choice that african-americans had to make between immigration on the one hand, and trying to struggle and find equality in the the united states and give up all hope, any hope of going back to africa as a solution to the problem of racism. on the second event, w.e.b. du bois and the u.n. charter and african-americans.

du bois worked tirelessly. he was part of the delegation in san francisco. already his difficulties with the naacp had come to the floor. he was not quite a part of the naacp delegation in san francisco, but he was also halfway part of that delegation. and du bois worked tirelessly to ensure that the charter would be as a treaty and absolute prohibition of colonialism, and he also pushed the notion of the legal authority of the human rights provisions. in a word, the charter was

ratified, but under pressure from southern senators who president truman needed to get the charter ratified in the center. president truman interpreted its human rights provisions as having no legal authority and the united states. this was an example of the interference of whole war driven white, even white liberal leadership attempting to control, not only african-americans, but leadership, but especially attempting to control the extent to which african-americans were going to internationalize the problems of racism in the united states. part of the fallout from this was that du bois was rejected from naacp in 1948, divided

before a time before the american black community because of his insistence on holding that african-americans could not secure their rights in the united states without making common cause with colonized peoples of color around the world. the third, let me go back to the third set of events, the global recognition of martin luther king as an international human rights leader. cheney in 1960, supported -- king, he had very few followers on that point among blacks and liberal whites alike. you add the influence on his philosophy of gandhi and nonviolence. you look at his being awarded

the nobel peace prize in 1964 for his american civil rights leadership, and that award confirmed the global recognition of the u.s. civil rights movement as a global human rights movement. in other words, they had grown up by this time, separate marriage, a human rights narrative and a civil rights narrative. referred to human rights law and a sense outside of the united states, but also through the u.n. charter and other human rights treaties increasing as part of u.s. law. the civil rights narrative referred to constitutional law, and the official policy was that it is part of the and tiffany -- epiphany of against

african-americans who try to internationalize their civil rights, their drive for freedom in the domestic united states, by going to human rights law which doctrinally is a more rights protected body of law and trying to bring those rights into the law of the united states. and king indeed picked up in a different way than du bois, but picked up this prong of struggle. and you can see it even more in his grade in 1967 riverside church speech, which may in its own way the as great as his "i have a dream" speech for years before. that speech is no less than an international law argument against the illegality of the vietnam war.

and this caused president lyndon johnson to publicly excoriate king for meddling in foreign affairs, and why didn't he just stick to civil rights. which again illustrates the historic and tiffani on the one hand and the public policy determination of the united states throughout, well, i would say even since slavery but certainly throughout the 20th century against the internationalization of the american civil rights movement and then lastly, leading up to his assassination, king had shifted much of his focus in the movement from goals of political and civil rights the goals of economic rights. as he was going in that fateful last march, supporting the memphis sanitation workers.

quickly, the free style south african movement. we don't write about that much. but somehow or another we might be afraid of its success, and i'm not quite certain why. because look at what it did. it further internationalize the black community in terms of this organization. it took a major foreign policy issue away from the reagan administration. it forced congress to obligate the u.s. government and corporations to support by sanctions black south african workers. it prescribe the emergence of new legal doctrines, including the corporate and organizational duty to divest their stock in

corporations that were doing business in apartheid south africa. it prescribe the legal doctrine that trade with a racist, a systemically racist country is indeed to give assistance, prohibited assistance to that country. and it prescribe the sullivan principles, and the sullivan principles which set up the standards from reverend sullivan's baggage point, which set up the first standards to regulate corporations along the human rights set of standards for treatment of their overseas workers, which led to further growth in international law, along the lines of greater

liability of multinational corporations for human rights violations. this became, in other words, the sullivan principles became a template for an opening in international law to regulate multinational corporations under human rights standards. and then lastly, currently, we have now and we have had, because of the combination of these events, and many others, we know that african-americans know that they have interest in international law. what implications does this have? one application is that america must run its foreign policy, and washington must relate to the

inner lands to the population differently. because now washington is relating to a population what each minority group has and passionate has its own international jurisprudence. that genie is already out of the bottle. and african-americans developing their own international law interests have led the way here. this means that on the rather important questions that concern whether or not a particular american foreign policy interest is going to abide by or be characterized under international law as opposed to be characterized under executive discretionary power politics, or being characterized under some other form of executive discretion, or being characterized only to the limits of federal statutes.

that this particular question of bringing in international law is no longer a subject of the monopolistic control by washington. washington increasingly is going to have to convince african-americans, latinos, other minorities of color, that the exclusion of standards of accountability under international law, such as with respect to torture, that the exclusion of rights protected regulation under international law that would benefit african-americans here in the united states is justified in some valued terms rather than justified by some kind of preemptive constitutional interpretation. and that i believe is going to have large interests in the future as the previous panel

mentioned, the demographics of the united states changes and that america in a few years, relatively, becomes no longer a majority of white country. and, therefore, the internationalization, right, of the politics of international law within the united states as in vote by domestic rules and particularly by domestic minority's is necessarily going to play a role and must play a role with respect to washington's foreign policymaking. so let me stop there. >> i'd want to say thank you. i'm very appreciative to be here today. a conference about race and public policy makes a lot of sense for us to talk about haiti in this context. because if we look historically

and more recently we can see that race has always defined policy towards haiti. i want to talk a little bit about history. i could probably talk for days about this issue such as going to take a couple of examples from history and then talk a little bit more about post-earthquake haiti situation and u.s. immigration policies towards patients. historically the united states has considered the first independent nation in the americas. however, most of us are aware at the time he is declared its independence there were six and 50,000 people living in slavery. and if you go to any encyclopedia it's likely to tell you that the first country to abolish slavery was england. but in reality it was haiti. after the revolutionary war in 1804, haitians declared independence and abolish slavery. as eduardo galeano on a recent liberal, the black slaves of haiti defeated napoleon bonaparte's lorries army and europe never forgave the

haitians. so this was sort of the first time that we saw race defining public policy towards haiti, right after the country's first proclaimed independence. this was an error that was clearly defined by racism, and we saw haiti not only did it emerge victorious from this revolutionary war and defeated the strongest army in the world, it was never treated as an equal independent country during that time. it was seen as a threat to security of all the nations that were still practicing slavery. and so even though it was a free nation, throughout the 19th century a.d. was treated as this threat, and was required to pay france reparations of 150 million francs. these were for the property that france and french people had lost during the revolution. in other words, the haitians themselves. so this put haiti into a very

subservient position in the economy of hemisphere at the time. and also haiti was unable to trade freely and very with other countries that were still practicing slavery. in the early 20th century, haiti was invaded by the united states marines in 1915, and this was because it was considered insecure for foreign predators. in fact, these were the same pressures that haiti had taken loans out from an accredited in our to pay those reparations for the property lost to the french. during that time the united states marines occupied haiti for 19 years, really went in and washington we wrote the haitian constitution to a lot of changes were made such as the centralization of society and the economy of port-au-prince which is the capital today. as well as the foreign ownership for the first time in a country which had that impact on security throughout the 20th century. so these are just a couple of

public policy sort of issues that affected haiti historically where we can see very clearly that racism evolved i want to talk today about the earthquake response and how it was colored by a series of assumptions. i don't think i would shot anyone in this room to say that haiti is most readily referred to as the poorest country in the western hemisphere. it's considered to be chaotic, insecure, wracked with political and violence. and images of haiti that we all are accustomed to seeing. and when the earthquake first happened, this sort of expectation about culture and the people of haiti really covered the response. so the first response to haitis is good was actually a military response. in the first days following the earthquake the united states took control of haiti is one international airport. haiti only has one runway in a country that is long enough to receive major cargo planes, this

is in port-au-prince. and during this time there was an expectation that violence would break out at any moment and, therefore, a priority was given to lending military equipping and military personnel. some of us were working as first responders trying to get aid into the country noted that what we needed was god, not guns. but what was being prioritized was military response. we know that mainstream media freakily generalizes and also demonizes, sensationalized the haitian people and so we saw that the real first responders for haitians themselves. but whenever the mainstream media caught in image of the haitian carrying a machete or shovel down the street, most likely to try to dig out their loved ones and neighbors under the rubble, this is interpreted as looters and just rising sense of insecurity. the military controlled airport, i think the united states ended up being taken advantage of the victims of the earthquake.

we had a lot of doctors, haitian doctors on the ground who have supplies they need to give people the urgent care. there were indications been done without the proper tools. their applications been done without anesthetics or other kinds of medicines that were needed. and sometimes these were not just necessary aggregations but it was the only about people could take. beyond lending military personnel and equipment for doctors, there was a system set up to decide he would get access to the runway. and it was sort of a random entry in a system. you would call and leave a message on a voicemail system, requesting clearance to land your plan in the port-au-prince airport. and sooner or later eventually someone would get back to you. i had the privilege of going to speak with members of the congressional black caucus only 90s after the earthquake and i sat at the table with representative bobby rush who had a constituent of his who had a full team of surgeons with the

donated equipment. they had donated private helicopters but all they needed was clearance to land on the ground so they could assist a community where they had a twin parish program. they have been working in the committee for many, many years, and they couldn't get clearance to land. they turn to me and asked me what can we do? we left a message on the voice no system, nobody ever calls us back. essentially others were prioritizing for this team. this team lost their private helicopters and were never able to lead. or for john travolta landed on the runway the very next day with a plane load of scientologist who had come. so this was the united states response initially. the united states government response initially to the earthquake in haiti and its at the same as the american publics response which was extremely generous. we know now the statistics of how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of american

families donated for the response, but the humanitarian response being set up on the ground in a way that was very exclusive and exclusionary of the haitians themselves. at want to talk about the united nations in this context. initially and to this day humanitarian response was set up on the united nations military logistical base at the port-au-prince airport. it reinforced the message that haitians were dangerous others, as one observer of the relief efforts noted that regardless of what is real or perceived, people act according to their perceptions. so a lot of well-meaning foreign aid workers, many of them young and inexperienced or maybe experience in other parts of the world had never been to haiti before being flown into haiti on short-term contracts and being brought directly to a military base behind heavily guarded walls. this is what they were doing the work of coordinating the relief and recovery efforts. aid workers became very quickly believed they needed protection

from earthquake victims. they had seen these images, it hurt these perceptions about the haitian people and the insecurity and the violence that was about to break out at any moment. what ended up happening was aid workers refused to do distribution of life-saving food and water without either united states or united nations military there to accompany them. even with military accompaniment many times these distributions would fail because there was no indication happening with haitians. truckload of supplies would show up with foreign aid workers, they would stop, military would get out and surrounded vehicle and then, of course, malay would ensue as people were desperate to get the supplies and nothing had been done in advance to prepare for the arrival of supplies. we also saw sort of a racist sense of security, pervasive and the security measures that got set up around these foreign aid workers. so they were taken from place to place in expensive suvs with

drivers that doubled as bodyguards. they were not allowed to walk on the streets into tin cans with a displaced people were living. some people, some of the aid agencies were managing cans in red zones of the city. they were not allowed to get out of the car in the zones but i knew women would pull up in front of a camp and rolled down her window to talk to the haitians were managing that can't. she wasn't allowed to step foot outside her car in that area where she was responsible for the humanitarian response. in addition there was 6 p.m. curfews. some agencies still have these curfews today despite the fact that there has never been any chaos. i've never been a riot. there has never been any evidence they haitian people were on the verge of a violent meltdown. the united states system, the office for the coronation a few managing affairs really solidified the exclusion of haitians did not only was it behind the massive well guarded walls of the united nations

logistical base, haitians were initially determined to be unable to help in the recovery and relief efforts. this was indeed actual, in formal documents, official documents of the system. haitians cannot participate in the recovery. this was despite the massive efforts to haitians have made to say the neighbors in the days and weeks after the quake, and to what we saw was first response coming from haitians, yet the foreign policy response was that haitians couldn't be involved in the formulation of the relief and recovery policies. one of the more overt signs of racism was entering the logistical base, the u.n. law base. i have several haitian colleagues who were repeatedly refused entrance even though they have the proper credentials. i had a badge that i printed off my computer and laminated and stable, and i never once had a problem entering the space. it was, the color of my skin was my passport to walk on the base,

to even drive on the base. i had a friend who is working initially she was working with some groups and eventually with the united states agency for international the government, haitian-american, dreadlocks, lovely person, very professional. she couldn't get on the base and let she waited outside entrance on the road and hopped in my car. if i drove her through the gate and sort of flash my stabled badge, she never had a problem getting into the meeting. for haitians who did get onto the law base they found himself surrounded by foreigners. they went to cluster meetings that were conducted mainly in english initially which is not a language that they haitian people speak. eventually the official liquid for the broad-based meetings became french. also not the predominant language of 80 which is real. so there would these continual obstacles for haitians to participate in the own recovery. and relief. it very quickly we also saw homeless earthquake victims, families that have gone to live in the parks and public place of

port-au-prince initially they were about 1.5 million internally displaced people. they very quickly became referred to as squatters and even as trespassers i'd humanitarian aid workers that were part of the system, and because people are coming in, contracts, being held to these crazy security standards, they never interacted with the haitian people and is very easy for people to believe this myth that haitians had other places to go and that they were not truly displaced and living in these camps without other options but that they were living in these camps just to take advantage of the aid that was offered to them there. i just want to talk a little bit about the united states -- united nations peace keeping mission that predated the earthquake. this was very symbolic, a potent symbol of the first independent black republic of our hemisphere. that peacekeeping mission that was imposed on haiti in 2004 was put in place despite the fact that they were, there was no

war, there were no warring factions, armed faction about to start a conflict. and there were no peace accords to monitor. this was the first time a peace keeping mission was put in a country that was at peace already. it was deemed haiti was a threat to the security of its neighbors, and this was mainly because of a constant flow of economic refugees. ..

cholera is an epidemic that entered the country through the united nations peacekeeping filters. so since the earthquake i hope i have demonstrated the response has been deeply colored by race. there has been no participation in haitians from the lowest to highest level of the recovery response. we could look at the interim haiti recovery commission which is cochaired by the former prime minister in haiti. there are times the haitian government lodged a complaint to a formal letter saying they were not given a seat at the table for the directors' meeting for the recovery commission. as i demonstrated the haitian people working in civil society organizations, they were not

able to participate in the meetings held on a log base. finally we can look at the fact that haitian companies are not receiving reconstruction contract and going mainly to contractors. so these decisions are being made not by the people most affected by the earthquake but by people in washington. the last public policy issue imus the dress is the u.s. immigration policy. there has been a disparate treatment of haitian with the immigrants. certainly we can look at the example of cuban with a wet foot drive foot policy. if they provide on the shore they can stay in the united states weather systematically returned to haiti despite the fact that 6,000 people are in camps and a cholera epidemic raging in the country and so

little of this money pledged for reconstruction actually has reached the ground. now we have haitians fighting for family unification parole program. something cubans were granted in 2007. with the parole program does is allow haitians who are legitimately living in the united states can apply for their minor children and spouses to live with them. and if they are proved they can be paroled in the united states rather than being in a waiting cycle and haiti were conditions are harsh. there are 16,000 minor children and thousands of haitians legally in the united states who could benefit from a family unification program. and 25,000 cubans have benefited since it was passed for them in 2007. some are just want to say to wrap up the don't want to leave you with this harsh analysis of

the situation haiti and not say there are solutions we very much can work starting right now. one is support the family unification parole program. it would have a dramatic improvement immediately and increase remainss going back to haiti where families are struggling to rebuild their lives. their needs to be a timeline to withdraw united nations peacekeeping. it has to fulfil its mandate and we need concrete benchmarks to say once you reach these points you have to pull out. we have not seen a military solution work. the greatest sign of insecurity is escalating cases of gender based violence in the camps of the displaced people and soldiers can't stop that. what you need is well trained police force. we need to refocus haiti's reconstructs on haitians giving

them the funds and contracts to rebuild their country and the decisionmaking power to decide what are their priorities and what needs to happen next and we can combat the media stereotypes that haiti is a broad scope of the poorest country in the western hemisphere where we have to fear for our security and i lived in haiti eight years and never feared for my personal security while i lived there. trans africa we want to engage african-americans more in u.s. foreign policy because in order to impact negative public policy that comes out we must have african-americans more actively engaged in our foreign policy so it reflects the value and human-rights values we hold your.

here. >> on want to thank -- want to tell the audience there are a couple things to be noticed. henry richardson mentioned the free south africa movement where our moderator spoke. so to reveal that he and i are friends. and the free south africa movement -- one of these is you see -- [inaudible] -- talked about that. the way i interpreted the invitation and the focus, conference theme is just great. public policy and raise and

issues and solutions. i am focusing on the african continent. i am sure you have noticed -- i was born in got up --ghana. there are so many instances where u.s. policy tools -- i said i am going to take one instance as a case study and then i also said i am particularly struck that foreign policy, in particular, is driven by public opinion, public sentiment. i also thought that i should

talk about the impact of race in all the mainstream media, the u s mainstream media covers and doesn't cover africa. i thought i was going to take one case study in each instance but as i started to put down points the list kept growing of where you can see policy issues where race is the dominant factor. i am going to take a page from the way henry richardson approached it and list a couple things i am hoping in the question and answer period i can expand on these. of course the free south africa movement was all about the apartheid system in south africa. i have so many friends, we say

no one should say that the free south africa movement and anti-apartheid act of 1986 freed south africa. south africans freed themselves. what u.s. policy did in 1986, what the free south africa movement achieved was to remove the support of the u.s. government from the apartheid government whether it had been until the law was passed. you can go back and look at different u.s. administrations and all of them found excusess to do little or nothing about putting pressure on the apartheid government with this horrible system in place. if you want to be generous and give credit to say that jimmy carter was a little less supportive of the apartheid regime than other u.s.

administrations, going beyond the government you could give robert kennedy some credit. they point is washington was pretty supportive of the apartheid regime until things got really bad and the free south africa movement started saying it is wrong for our government to be on the wrong side of the issues so the u.s. policy toward apartheid is very much an issue dominated by race. the second one is it covers a pretty long space of time. i am calling it rhodesia and mugabe. the united states -- when it came to independence for zimbabwe in the rhodesian war. it took the u.s. along time to be on the side of the freedom

fighters in rhodesia. finally when the u.s. had no choice it decided independence in rhodesia and zimbabwe will be tolerable but the reason is these days if you read the media story you will see that mode -- mugabe is in the dog house. didn't get in the u.s. media doghouse until ten years later. i think you need to look at what prompted those issues, what put him in the dog house. what made him say a pariah in the west, had something to do with a promise by washington and

london that he will be given funds to pay for lands and when he didn't see the land he became a bad person. i want to start you in somalia. in all of these instances it is important to reflect on what led us to this place. on somalia if you go to youtube and google fox and clinton you will see president clinton when he was interviewed by chris wallace may be a year and a half ago about somalian policy. what i remember, the very first year he took office in 1993, president bush thought he won, sent troops into somalia on a

humanitarian mission. clinton took over, senator jesse helms who was in the u.s. senate, led a group of senators to say we want our soldiers out of somalia. i remember the language they use which struck me, senator helms said an african life is not worth the presence of an american soldier in somalia. there was pressure on president clinton to pull out. the world's -- they did not improve their situation. the do think the policy of the u.s. troops come out of somalia and somalia has descended to this day where the country is more or less split and there's farming and has something to do with the policies that it is an

african country we don't want u.s. troops saving lives which was the argument made by senator helms and others and if you go on youtube now the clip is there. president clinton was arguing with chris wallace because chris wallace was making the charge that mr. clinton is to be blamed for 9/11 because he did not have a strong policy in the middle east starting with somalia and clinton was pushing back saying did you forget the republicans said that i should not be in somalia? the fourth instance i want to look it is u.s. policy towards rwanda today. the president of rwanda today spoke about it. the united states is one of his closest allies. i happen to think that he is a

dictator and the u.s. has no business supporting african dictators. when i list one or two things to be done, i return to this point. i should have said looking at u.s. policy toward south africa i am confining myself to the last 50 years since africa became independent. to me the striking pattern that you see in independent african countries is the shocking closeness of washington being allies with so many dictators. the biggest poster child is in condo --congo. it was part of the cold war

struggle. when i look at you as foreign policy what i am looking to see is achievement of mutual interest. u.s. interest and of course african interests and therefore it seems to me there is u.s. support for dictators in africa. none of them has a good record. in support of dictators was going to help an african country and right now right across the border you have u.s. support for rwanda. the reason i put it under this category of foreign policy tinge by racism is if you look at the history of the current government of rwanda that president of rwanda has been involved in several wars. many people have died.

millions have died. probably 5 or six million depending on who is counting. i find it hard to believe that in that situation a person involved in that kind of bloodshed would be a close u.s. ally. finally, i think another instance where you can see a racial bias is when you look at the state department. it is common knowledge that the africa bureau in the state department is the least funded as smallest budget and the unit in the state department with u.s. resources and police procedural assignments. all of these are instances where the issue dealing with africa,

units having to do with africa get short shrift. i want to mention a couple instances of racial bias in the media's coverage of africa. you can find a lot of instances of this but i want to mention several. there is a newspaper from new york, the publisher is an immigrant from you gone up -- a --ugan --uganda. here is one of the things he discovered. in the 1950s when gonna --ghana was becoming independent, the editors would tell them it is not negative. we want you to make it more negative. to fit the stereotypes americans

have of africans including something like the president of the time and when the correspondence refused the editors would put in there and negative comments and shape the stories so it would come across as much more negative. in the washington area there is the washington post. are have always been extremely unhappy with the way the washington post covers africa. of course when i read the washington post and other media and i read how they cover the united states too and i notice a parallel between the way they cover black communities here and how they cover africa but i will give you just one example.

there are several younger people in the room so they may not have forgotten. from years back in 1994 during the height of the rwanda genocide and just after, the washington post said to go do a story in rwanda and basically after staying a number of days covering different instances, when he left on the assignment and came back he wrote a long piece and later a book. basically the scene was i am glad being african-american my ancestors were enslaved to get out of africa because africa is a mess. this caused a ruckus in the washington area. i happen to know that a friend of mine, the producer told him i

don't want any blood on the floor so i want you to moderate and keep your discussions down. my point is that in the coverage of african stories on the continent, i see the attitude seems to be -- i even talked to some journalists about this. they say good news doesn't sell. it is always we want bad news because that is what people want to hear. i don't think that is true at all. i want to give those two baskets of racial bias that i see in public policy and coverage of africa in the media is behind that. finally just to say a word or two about our solutions, my main

suggestion pretty much is in the morning one of the points that struck me is the u.s. -- there's optimism about how the u.s. deals with diversity. other countries struggle with it. i see something from america's democratic roots which may not be perfect but adherence to democratic principles. the first things i would like to see change in u.s. foreign policy is to stop backing dictators. i think it is a pretty easy thing to do because what it means is washington is taking your tax money and giving it to a whole bunch of corrupt,

violent rulers in africa who nobody selected and at the end of the day that does not benefit the u.s. or african countries. thank you. >> thank you very much. i want briefly to talk about a project i am working on in brazil. and then open up to questions. mostly what we talked about and many of us have been involved in is struggling against racist policies on behalf of the united states. one of the project i am working on is looking at from the other side to further racial equality. in this instance in particular in brazil but before i want to get to that want to address a question overhanging our panel. that question is why should people care about foreign policy?

why should people care what is going on in the rest of the world? when we were doing work around free south africa we had a meeting, someone said why should i be out there engage in what is going on in africa? no one is going around with signs saying -- they were raising a question we had to take a very seriously. have a three responses. first of all it is the right thing to do. martin luther king when you face these times of public policy questions you don't ask is it popular? do people support it or not support it? that should guide my decision or do you ask is this politically in my interest? will benefit? the question you have to ask is is it the right thing to do? one of my mentors, ron walker

used to always say if it is morally right it can't be politically wrong. my first response is morally is the right thing to do. we have to be in common with people. secondly there's a direct impact in terms of foreign policy on all the issues being addressed this morning. if you lost your job in detroit it wasn't because it is a messy policy. it was because of international policy. these issues we're looking at have a broad global impact because we are interconnected globally. and because looking at what the cuban world are doing, it may surprise people in the united states but there are things people are doing in the rest of the world that are better than what people are doing in the united states. the best practices we should engage in and look at. for example this project in

brazil. one of the key issues is sickle cell anemia. that is an issue not just affecting black communities here but black communities in brazil. and in brazil one of the ways to address that is using cultural practices as part of the medical intervention around this issue and there are some things we learned through that engagement. we have to address this issue that there are many people and we particularly hear this from abroad conservative movement in this country which often black people will buy into that we should not be engaged with the rest of the world. we should be giving foreign aid but only focus on our own communities. we have to take up that challenge. i am working with a project called the joint action plan for elimination of racial discrimination and promote racial equality in brazil. the u.s./brazil and action plan

is a collaboration between the u.s. government, brazilian government, u.s. civil society and brazilian civil society. it is a unique project that brings together four elements to sit down at the table and through a collective process come up with projects that can address issues in education, employment, the environment, criminal-justice, and health care. what we have done is begin to put together through the interagency process in the u.s. standard in the western hemisphere division of the state department but involves the u.s. labor department, the department of justice and other government agencies. on the brazil side it is centered in the ministry on racial equality but also involves ministry of foreign affairs and other ministries related to issues of labor, the

environment and health care and then civil society represented in the united states. i am one of the cochairs. we are engaging projects around the u.s. to address these issues to partner up with people in brazil and organizations in india who address these issues. this is student exchange and a range of activities. we worked with the police in brazil. brazil has one of the most notorious police departments in the world. and outlandish history in terms of how has treated brazilians. one project we worked on has been to rewrite the training curriculum for the brazilian police. this involves not only the department of justice but people who have active around policing

issues whether it is police officers and community groups and we brought them to brazil and people involved in justice department and police issues in brazil. we brought them to the united states to sit down and start looking at what might work or might not work and how we start addressing these issues and all those other areas we have done similar kinds of work. i wanted to raise that because this is a model that is innovative and with both innovative models there are problems. this is by far not resolved resolution to these issues but it is an approach you could not even think of 20 years ago. was actually initiated by condoleezza rice. it carried over to the obama administration and the project has continued on. once you throw that on the table i am going to open it to some of the questions raised by people in the audience.

i will read three questions and open it up to the panel because it is a real time crunch. one question that came up, how would you characterize american media coverage of race around the world? what does it say about the media? second question, to what extent should the so-called arab spring be seen as a racial event? the third question, continuing narrative of african leaders as corrupt or incompetent. how much criticism is legitimate and how much has to do with racial stereotypes? first half >> in my opinion there's no question there are african

leaders who don't deserve to be leaders. corrupt, yes. undemocratic, yes. as an activist when i look at government anywhere i am looking at the institutions and processes. so i agree with president obama when he said africa needs strong institutions. to the extent that we have, and we do have ever leaders who don't make the grade, i placed the fault not on their character but the lack of institutions which is why my recipe for u.s. policy in africa is to build strong institution. on the other hand africa has 54 countries. not all of the leaders are corrupt. it is the question of stereotyping.

it is a question of does it mean the minute the leader is an african leader it means he doesn't make the grade? just this morning the ibrahim foundation listed its prize for excellent african leadership. who have left power. they gave it to president perez. he handed over peacefully. he refused to change the constitution to stay on forever. the founder of the foundation was being interviewed and made this point. we are noticing in london, all the generals that came to they are asked using the same criteria name one european leader who would qualify.

he said none of them could. we need to use the same standard for all the leaders. quickly on the arab spring, one of the things that strikes me about it has to do with how the media covers it. it is a story that is not well told at all. all of the leaders that are in trouble, tunisia, libya, egypt, syria, yemen and bahrain. except for syria, all the others, even gaddafi, there were -- american threats. the story i would have liked to see and i frankly think the media if i could have time to write something -- they are not

telling the american people. the most important part of that story is the debate the u.s. should be having is how is it all these dictators, for the last ten years, bahrain, yemen, all these ohrid dictators are our friends and allies? that is the question to be asked. united states in africa and other areas, but in africa the u.s. has some very undemocratic regimes and most americans have no clue but it is being done in their name. >> is this on? i think generally not covering

issues of race globally, certainly not the issues on the far end of the protection of u.s. foreign policy as melinda so well laid out in haiti, not identifying the racial issues and racial questions in american foreign policy strategies. the media to some extent has been influenced by the academy. one of the most difficult premises with respect to the study of international relations is to have a discussion about race on a global plane, being a factor in international relations. in my experience with respect to our are scholars does not compute.

it did not compute during the height and south african apartheid but it was always an issue. it was always a power issue. it was always a class issue. it was always something else supposed to be more neutral. there was never a racial element with respect to ir policies with south african apartheid. this is predictive in a matter of theory and doctrine of international relations and i think the u.s. media have picked up on it. in terms of characterizing the arab spring as a racial movement, i wouldn't do that. significantly there are elements of racism and it particularly with respect to suppose that and

suppose the active mercenaries of ghadafi brought in from other areas to help but supposedly how they are being treated in the post ghadafi process. here you have a situation as it relates -- with respect to africa. progressive movements, demanded by the majority to be angelic, to be without fault. if indeed fault is unnoticed, the validity of that movement, legitimacy of that movement is challenged. african governments are demanded

to be of an american democratic standard. the arab spring in libya is demanded to be stainless with respect to its post gadhafi behavior. there is a validation with respect to discrimination and in some cases horrible treatment of people of overtly african heritage including some debts but race is not only reported for the wrongfulness of those deaths and that kind of racial movement but also by some in an attempt it seems to discredit the legitimacy of the entire

anti afford -- antigadhafi movement. in terms of african leaders being incompetent this is distorted reporting with points of some general accuracy but i am glad you mentioned the mo ibrahim foundation. let's call the roll. beginning with julius nehreri and nelson mandela. why do i mention these leaders? because -- this is more frequent for this one continent than on most continents certainly in asia. you had leaders who deliberately stepped down in a way to in short --ensure a piece full

line of succession so new leaders could peacefully take over and while out of politics could serve as a kind of fatherly presence for the country and the society and help its stability. this is not round up with respect to systematic observation that it should. american foreign policy with respect to actions in the united nations as they touched on questions of race are not reported. even when it is obvious -- i am thinking of the advent of coffee and and --kofi annan into

secretary-generalship after -- the first ever african secretary-general fell out of favor with washington. secretary of state madeleine albright was a proponent of that position. the united states, combined with france to basically threaten the entire african delegation at the u n to say that unless you take our candidate which at that time was kofi annan -- we will not do this for this candidate. not your candidate that our candidate. and indeed that is what happened. the nice thing about that was o kofi annan was strong and

progressive to realize what the game was and during his two terms he had become one of the strongest secretaries general. klystron i mean willing to stand up to the great powers. in the interest of the un on global issues such as iraq. he turned that issue around. it was not with respect to the u.s. role in the succession of the secretary-general in that regard. >> which one we on? we have time for one other question. are there fundamental differences between race and policy in africa and race and

policy in south america and the caribbean? different things on both continentss? >> yes. that is a great question. one of the big differences we see is people define race very differently. what a race might be in the united states would be different in the u.k. or zimbabwe or brazil or cuba. race can take on different connotations based on the specific history of different countries and how the racial stratification and classification in those countries evolve. that is critical because it means you can't import your racial solution away from what you tried to address issues automatically to other

circumstances but because racism manifests in similar kinds of ways in terms of criminal justice and access to health care and housing and political activism. in that light there are lots of similarities. very quickly there are two other items i want to add to henry's list in terms of how race as a global phenomenon has evolve the. what is the impact of the world conference against racism in 2001. that conference for the first time brought together tens of thousands of people around the world to put on the agenda of public policy the question of race, racial discrimination and it was a profound kind of movement that culminated in the conference in durban but the prior two years involve thousands of meetings that took place in virtually every country

around the world the bidding and addressing this issue not only in terms of government but non government organizations. we still have not sufficiently summarize the impact of that. of course what happened was to say in september 11th happened and that hijacked our ability to assess critically what that conference meant. we have to go back to looking at that as a notice point in history. the second item i would mention is the global impact of the election of barack obama. and whatever we may think of obama domestically, at the global level it pushed his election in that campaign, pushed issues of race on the agenda that states never wanted to address at all. ..

>> i know that. >> that's a very significant. because that is overlooked all the time when we talk about issues around issues around race. >> that's exactly right. egypt as well.

>> well. one of the results i came out of it is the general assembly last year, the international year of peoples of african descent, from january 1, to december 31. so we have a couple of months to still work on it. and a shameless plug, i hope they will forgive me. as a result of that, november 4 i'm giving a lecture at busboys and poets on that, on friday. and so i hope as many people here can come, and we address the issue of african descent, africa and democracy. >> i just wanted to address the

plight of peoples african descent in this hemisphere. one of the things my colleagues were just talking about were very much engaged in this celebrating the year of african descent, but one of the examples that my coworker, no cold, mentioned last week that walking into a prison in colombia is much like walking into a prison in the united states. and that you're going to find black people most predominately and the majority of the prison population. in these countries even where it's definitely a minority or collation, we are still saying this criminalization happening at a high level. and i also just wanted to speak to this mainstream media racism in terms of the cheerful and between this hemisphere and the african continent. i would say there's very little difference we see people of african descent and africans as farmers and animal husbandry's. we can minimization of justification of the cities and industry and the economies and

cultures. and what i was talking about with haiti being the poorest country in so insecure environment, the same picture we see of so many african countries we see today as well. >> let me go back to your point on the election of barack obama. i don't believe that the united states realizes the depth of its racial problems as much as the rest of the world does. and, therefore, the election of barack obama i think it globally either just as hard, or maybe collectively a bit harder, in terms of its significance, and even it did in the united states. >> thank you, panelist. thank you for your very in depth

and very excellent analysis. i'm going to turn it over to professor to close it out. thank you all for coming out again on this real beautiful day. >> just in closing, really want to thank all of you who are staying with us, again thank c-span for blessing us with some coverage of this. i hope that you all got something out of the. i know i certainly did. again, thank the panel, please. and we will see you next time. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> we are live this morning from the national press club here in washington. remarks on federal trade commission chair jon liebowitz.

today he will talk about his proposal for protecting consumer privacy on the internet. the ftc is calling for a do not track option where people can tell companies they don't want information gathered on them. internet privacy watchdog advocates are also expected to bring up concerns consumers are facing by being tracked online without their knowledge. the discussion is being hosted by 10 different consumer protection and privacy organizations. this is live coverage on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> anyone trying to follow on twitter? [inaudible conversations]

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

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> again we are expecting comments from the head of the ftc, jon liebowitz, this morning on efforts to protect consumer privacy online. his agency has proposal to allow people to essentially off out of the track online. >> makes me wonder why, a few more minutes and we will start. thank you very much for your

patience. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> as you may or may not have heard it will be a couple more minutes before this discussion gets under way. we again expect to hear from the head of the ftc, the federal trade commission, jon liebowitz. he will be document efforts to protect consumer privacy while online. his agency has proposal allowing people to opt out of the track. this is live coverage from the national press club here in washington. we expect it to start in just a couple of moments. from the associate press this morning the presidential candidates are getting ready for the next debate tonight at dartmouth college in new hampshire. upholding virginia has herman cain and mitt romney tight at the top. governor rick perry showing has plummeted over the past month

from 25%, to 11%. after tonight's debate we will have coverage of the close debate spin room. 10 p.m. eastern online at c-span.org. president obama's jobs bill appears likely to fail a test vote in the senate today. republicans oppose its spending proponents and its tax surcharge on millionaires. the president will be in pittsburgh for his jobs council released its recommendation to put more people back to work. you can see coverage of, live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. the senate will be in session beginning at 2 p.m. eastern. [inaudible conversations] >> i'm jeff. we are still waiting for the chairman of the federal trade commission. and i suppose i will preempt my

own remarks that i will give you in a few minutes by acknowledging the terrific work, and hard work, by the number of the leading civil liberties consumer protection, privacy organizations in this country who have been working collectively together over the last several years to raise the issues around the collection of personal information from consumers and citizens. as i said, i'm jeff chester, executive director of the center for digital democracy. i welcome you today to an important conversation about protecting the personal privacy of americans and we're calling it yes, they really know that you. the digital collection of personal information from consumers and