mr. mccain: after a year of bloodshed, the crisis in syria has reached a decisive moment. it's estimated that more than 7,500 lives have been lost. the united nations has declared that syrian security forces are guilty of crimes against humanity, including the

indiscriminate shelling of civilians, the execution of defectors and the widespread torture of prisoners. bashar al-assad is now doing to homes what his father did to hamah. aerial photographs procured by human rights watch show a city that has been laid to waste by assad's tanks and artillery. a british photographer who was wounded and evacuated from the city described it as a -- quote -- ," a medieval siege and slaughter," the kinds of mass atrocities that nato intervened in libya to prevent in benghazi are a reality in homes. indeed syria today is the scene of some of the worst state-sponsored violence since milosevic war of crimes in the balkans or russia's an nile hraeugs -- annihilation of the

chechnyan city of grahzi. a spree continued despite severe pressure against him. his regime is almost completely isolated. it's been expelled from the arab league, rebuked by the united nations general assembly, excoriated by the u.n. human rights council and abandoned by nearly every country that once maintained diplomatic relations with it. at the same time, assad's regime is facing a punishing array of economic sanctions by the united states, the european union, the arab league and others. measures that have targeted the asets of assad and his henchmen, cut off the central bank and other financial institutions, grounded serious cargo flights and restricted the regime's ability to sell oil. this has been an impressive international effort, and the administration deserves a lot of

credit for helping to orchestrate it. the problem is the bloodletting continues. despite years of diplomacy backed by sanctions, assad and his top lieutenants show no signs of giving up to take the path into foreign exile. to the contrary, they appear to be accelerating their fight to the finish, and they're doing so with the shameless support of foreign governments, especially in russia, china and iran. a steady supply of weapons, ammunition and other assistance is flowing to assad from moscow and tehran, and as "the washington post" reported yesterday, iranian military and intelligence operatives are likely active in syria, helping to direct and sharpen the regime's brutality. the security council is totally shut down as an avenue for

increased pressure, and the recently convened friends of syria contact group, while a good step in principle, produced mostly rhetoric but precious little action when it met last month in tunisia. unfortunately, with each passing day, the international response to assad's atrocities is being overtaken by events on the ground in syria. some countries are finally beginning to acknowledge this reality as well as its implications. saudi arabian qatar are calling for arming opposition forces in syria. the newly elected kuwaiti parliament has called on their government to do the same. last week, the supreme allied commander of nato, admiral james stavridis, testified to the senate armed services committee that providing arms to opposition forces in syria could help them shift the balance of power against assad.

most importantly, syrians themselves are increasingly calling for international military involvement. the opposition syrian national council recently announced that it is establishing a military bureau to channel weapons and other assistance to the free syrian army and armed groups inside the country. other members of the council are demanding a more robust intervention. to be sure, there are legitimate questions about the efficacy of military operations in syria and equally legitimate concerns about their risks and uncertainties. it is understandable that the administration is reluctant to move beyond diplomacy and sanctions. unfortunately, this policy is increasingly disconnected from the dire conditions on the ground in syria which has become a full-blown state of armed

conflict. in the face of this new reality, the administration's approach to syria is starting to more -- to look more like a hope than a strategy. so, too, does their continued insistence that assad's fall is -- quote -- "inevitable." tell them to the people of homs. they will them to the people of hamla or the other cities that assad's forces are now moving against. nothing in this world is predetermined, and claims about the inevitability of events can often be a convenient way to abdicate responsibility. but even if we do assume that assad will ultimately fall, that may still take a really long time. in the recent testimony of the armed services committee, the director of national intelligence, james clapper, said that if the status quo persists, assad could hang on for months, probably longer, and

that was before homs fell. so just to be clear, even under the best-case scenario for the current policy, the cost of success will likely be months of continued bloodshed and thousands of additional lives lost. is this morally acceptable to us? i believe it should not be. in addition to the moral and humanitarian interests at stake in syria, what is just as compelling if not more so are the strategic and geopolitical interests. put simply, the united states has a clear national security interest in stopping the violence in syria and forcing assad to leave power. in this way, syria is very different than libya. the stakes are far higher, both more america and some of our

closest allies. the regime in syria serves as the main forward operating base of the iranian regime in the heart of the arab world. it has supported palestinian terrorist groups and fund arms of all kinds, including tens of thousands of rockets to hezbollah and lebanon. it remains a committed enemy of israel. it has large stockpiles of chemical weapons and materials and has sought to develop a nuclear weapons capability. it was the primary gateway for the countless foreign fighters who infiltrated into iraq and killed american troops. assad and his lieutenants have the blood of hundreds of americans on their hands. many in washington fear that what comes after assad might be worse. how could it be any worse than this? the end of the assad regime would sever hezbollah's lifeline

to iran, eliminate a long-standing threat to israel, bolster lebanon's sovereignty and intelligence and inflict a strategic defeat on the iranian regime. it would be a geopolitical success of the first order. more than all of the compelling moral and humanitarian reasons, this is why assad cannot be allowed to succeed and remain in power. we have a clear national security interest in his defeat, and that alone should incline us to tolerate a large degree of risk in order to see that this goal is achieved. increasingly, the question for u.s. policy is not whether foreign forces will intervene militarily in syria. we can be confident that syria's neighbors will do so eventually if they have not already. some kind of intervention will happen, with us or without us.

so the real question for u.s. policy is whether we will participate in this next phase of the conflict in syria and thereby increase our ability to shape an outcome that is beneficial to the syrian people and to us. i believe we must. the president has characterized the prevention of mass atrocities as -- quote -- "a core national security interest." unquote. he has made it the objective of the united states that the killing in syria must stop, that assad must go. he has committed the prestige and credibility of our nation to that goal, and it is the right goal. however, it is not clear that the present policy can succeed. if assad manages to cling to power or even if he manages to sustain his slaughter for months to come, with all the human and geopolitical costs that entails, it would be a strategic and

moral defeat for the united states. we cannot, we must not allow this to happen. for this reason, the time has come for a new policy. as we continue to isolate assad dip diplomatically and economically, we should work with our closest friends and allies to support opposition groups inside syria, both political and military, to help them organize themselves into a more cohesive and effective force that can put an end to the bloodshed and force assad and his loyalists to leave power. rather than closing off the prospects for some kind of negotiated transition that is acceptable to the syrian opposition, foreign military intervention is now the necessary factor to reinforce this opposition. assad needs to know that he will not win.

what opposition groups in syria need most urgently is relief from assad's tank and artillery seizures in the many cities that are still contested. homs is lost for now, but iglib and hamla and cusair and derra and other cities in syria could still be saved. time is running out. assad's forces are on the march. providing military assistance to the free syrian army and other opposition groups is necessary, but at this late hour, that alone will not be sufficient to stop the slaughter and save innocent lives. the only realistic way to do so is with foreign air power. therefore, at the request of the syrian national council, the free syrian army and local coordinating committees inside the country, the united states

should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in syria, especially in the north through air strikes on assad's forces. to be clear, this will require the united states to suppress enemy air defenses in at least part of the country. the ultimate goal of air strikes should be to establish and defend safe havens in syria, especially in the north, in which opposition forces can organize and plan their political and military activities against assad. these safe havens could serve as platforms for the delivery of humanitarian and military assistance, including weapons and ammunition, body armor and other personal protective equipment, tactical intelligence, secure communications equipment, food and water and medical supplies. these safe havens could also

help the free syrian army and other armed groups in syria to train and organize themselves into more cohesive and effective military forces, likely with the assistance of foreign partners. the benefit for the united states in helping to lead this effort directly is that it would allow us to better empower those syrian groups that share our interests. those groups that have rejected al qaeda and the iranian regime and commit to the goal of an inclusive democratic transition as called for by the syrian national council. if we stand on the sidelines, others will pick winners, and this will not always be to our liking and in our interests. this does not mean the united states should go it alone. i repeat -- this does not mean that the united states should go it alone. we should not. we should seek the active involvement of key arab partners such as saudi arabia, jordan and

qatar and willing allies in the e.u. and nato, and most important of which in this case is turkey. there will be no u.n. security council mandate for such an operation. russia and china took that option off the table long ago, but let's not forget nato took military action to save kosovo in 1999 without former u.n. authorization. there is no reason why the arab league or nato or a leading coalition within the friends of syria contact group or all of them speaking in unison could not provide a similar international mandate for military measures to save syria today. could such a mandate be gotten? i believe it could be. foreign capitals across the world are looking to the united states to lead, especially now

that the situation in syria has become an armed conflict, but what they see is an administration still hedging its bets. on the one hand, insisting that assad's fall is inevitable, but on the other, unwilling even to threaten more assertive actions that could make it so. the rhetoric out of nato has been much more self-defeating. far from making it clear to assad that all options are on the table, key alliance leaders are going out of their way to publicly take options off the table. last week, the secretary-general of nato, mr. rasmussen, said that the alliance has not even discussed the possibility of nato action in syria, saying -- quote -- "i don't envision such a role for the alliance." the following day, the supreme allied commander, admiral james

stavridis, testified to the senate armed services committee that nato has done no contingency planning, none, for potential military operations in syria. that's not how nato approached bosnia or kosovo or libya. is it now the policy of nato or the united states, for that matter, to tell the perpetrators of mass atrocities in syria or elsewhere that they can go on killing innocent civilians by the hundreds of thousands and the greatest alliance in history will not even bore to conduct any planning about how we might stop them? is that nato's policy now? is that our policy? because that is the practical effect of this kind of rhetoric. it gives assad and his foreign allies a green light for greater brutality. not surprisingly, many

countries, especially syria's neighbors, are also hedging their bets on the outcome in syria. they think assad will go but they're not yet prepared to put all their chips on that bet. even less so now that assad's forces have broken homs and seem to be gaining momentum. there is only one nation -- there is only one nation that can alter this dynamic and that is the united states of america. the president must state unequivocally that under no circumstances will assad be allowed to finish what he has started, and there is no future in which assad and his lieutenants will remain control of syria and that the united states is prepared to use the full weight of our air power to make it so. it is only when we have clearly and completely committed ourselves that we can expect other nations to do the same.

only then will we see what is really possible in winning international support to stop the killing in syria. are there dangers and risks and uncertainties in this approach? absolutely. but there are no ideal options in syria. all of them contain significant risk. many people will be quick to raise concerns about the course of action i am proposing. many of these concerns have merit but none so much that they should keep us from acting. for example, we continue to hear it said that we should not assist the opposition in syria militarily because we don't know who these people are. secretary of state hillary clinton repeated this argument just last week, adding that we could end up helping al qaeda or hamas. it is possible the administration does not know much about the armed opposition

in syria, but how much effort have they really made to find out, to meet and engage these people directly? not much, it appears. instead, much of the best information we have about the armed resistance in syria is thanks to courageous journalists, some of whom have given their lives to tell the story of the syrian people. one of these journalists is a reporter working for al jazeera named nir rosen, who spent months in the country, including much time with the armed opposition. here's how he described them recently -- and i quote -- "the regime and its supporters describe the opposition, especially armed opposition, as salafis, gentlema jihadists, mum brotherhood supporters, al qaeda and terrorists. this is not true but it's worth noting that all the fighters i met were sunni muslims and most

were paez. they fight for a multitied of reasons -- multitude of reasons -- for their friends, foyer their neighborhoods, for their villages, for their province, for revenge, for self-defense, for dignity, for their brethren in other parts of the country who are also fighting. they do not read religious literature or listen to sermons. their views on islam are consistent with the general attitudes of syrian sunni society, which is conservative and religious. because there are many small groups in the armed opposition, it is difficult to describe their ideology in general terms. the salafit and muslim brotherhood ideologies are not important in syria and do not play a significant role in the revolution. but most syrian sunnis taking part in the uprising are themselves devout. he could just as well have been describing average citizens in egypt or libya or tunisia or

other nations in the region. so we should be a little more careful before we embrace the assad regime's propaganda about the opposition in syria. we certainly should not let these misconceptions cause us to keep the armed resistance in syria at arm's length, because that is just self-defeating. and i can assure you that al qaeda is not pursuing the same policy. they are eager to try to hijack the syrian revolution, just as they have tried to hijack the arab spring movements in egypt and tunisia and libya and elsewhere. they are trying, but so far they are failing. the people of these countries are broadly rejecting everything al qaeda stands for. they are not eager to trade secular tyranny for thee cat i can -- theo cat i can tyranny. the other reason we are failing in egypt and libya is because the libya of nations, especially

the united states, has supported them. we are giving them a better alternative. the surest way for al qaeda to gain a foothold in syria is for us to turn our backs on these brave syrians who are fighting to defend themselves. after all, sunni iraqis were willing to aaally with al qaeda when -- willing to ally with al qaeda when they felt desperate enough. but when america gave them a better alternative, they turned their guns on al qaeda. why should it be different in syria? another objection to providing military assistance to the syrian opposition is that the conflict has become a sectarian civil war and our intervention would enable the sunni majority to take a bloody and indiscriminate ra very long against the -- revenge against the alawite majority. this is a serious and legitimate concern and it is only growing worse the longer the conflict goes on. as we saw in iraq, or lebanon before it, time favors the hard-liners in a conflict like

this. the suffering of sunnis at the hands of assad only stokes the temptation for revenge which, in turn, only deepens fears among the alowites and strengthens their incentive to keep fighting. for this reason alone, it is all the more compelling to find a way to end the bloodshed as soon as possible. furthermore, the risks of sectarian conflict will exist in syria whether we get more involved or not, and he we will at least have some ability to try to mitigate these risks if we work to assist the armed opposition now. that will at least help us to know them better and to establish some trust and exercise some influence with them. because we took their side when they needed it most. we should not overstate the potential influence we could gain with opposition groups inside syria, but we'll only

diminish the longer we wait to offer them meaningful support. what we can say for certain is that we will have no influence whatsoever with these people if they feel we abandoned them. this is a real moral dilemma but we cannot allow the opposition in syria to be crushed at present while we worry about the future. we also hear is said, including by the administration, that we should not contribute to the militarization of the conflict. if only russia and iran shared that commitment. instead, they are shamelessly fueling assad's killing machine. we need to deal with reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. and the reality in syria today is largely a one-sided fight, where the aggressors are not lacking for military means and zeal. indeed, assad appears to be

fully committed to crushing the opposition at all costs. iran and russia appear to be fully committed to helping him do it. the many syrians who have taken up arms to defend themselves and their communities appear to be fully committed to acquiring the necessary weapons to resist assad. and leading arab states appear increasingly committed to providing those weapons. and the only ones who seem overly concerned about a militarization of the conflict are the united states and some of our allies. the time has come to ask a different question: who do we want to win in syria, our friends or our enemies? there are always plenty of reasons not to do something and we can list them clearly in the case of syria. we know the opposition is divided. we know the armed resistance inside the country lacks cohesion or command and control. we know that some elements of

the opposition may sympathize with violent extremist ideologies or harbor dark thoughts of sectarian revenge. we know that many of syria's immediate neighbors remain cautious about taking overly provocative actions that could undermine assad. and we know the american people are weary of conflict, justifiably so, and we would rather focus on domestic problems. these are realities. but while we are compelled to acknowledge them, we are not condemned to accept them forev forever. with resolve, principled leadership and wise policy, we can shape better realities. that is what the syrian people have done. by no rational calculation should this uprising against assad still be going on. the syrian people are outmatched, they are outgunned, they are lacking for food and water and other basic needs.

they are confronting a regime whose disregard for human dignity and capacity for sheer savagery is limitless. for an entire year, the syrian people have faced death and those unspeakable things worse than death and they still have not given up. still they take to the streets to protest peacefully for justify. still they carry on their fight, and they do so on behalf of many of the same universal values we share and many of the same interests as well. these people are our allies. they want many of the same things we do. they have expanded the boundaries of what everyone thought was possible in syria. they have earned our respect, and now they need our support to finish what they started. the syrian people deserve to

succeed, and shame on us if we fail to help them. fail to help them. live coverage gets underway at about 8:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. >> watch super tuesday election results tonight on the c-span networks and while he watches her second screen webpage with your tablet or laptop computer to see result maps, social media post from candidates and reporters and a public forum for your tweets and other views.

>> this crazy world of ours, we have atom bombs. the question is how not to use them, the question is how do you we strain yourself from using them? that's particular your commander in chief, any fool can get this country into trouble. it takes a wise man to get it out. >> as candidates campaign for president issue we look back at 14 in the rain for the office and lost. go to our website, c-span.org/thecontenders to see video of the contenders who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> shouldn't your present have the highest moral and ethical standards and an example to our children and young people in this country? ask yourself that question please. shouldn't his life making a role model for your future children? should anyone you elect to this office always keep his promises?

>> c-span.org/thecontenders. >> forty-ninth state and territorial attorneys general, along with other federal officials, convened in washington monday to discuss a variety of legal issues, including digital piracy, copyright, intellectual property, and stopping the distribution of counterfeit and stolen items on the internet. this annual summit was hosted by the national association of attorneys general. >> we have a caller on 10 -- colorguard waiting patiently as i think we should go ahead and get going. good afternoon and welcome to the spring meeting of the national association of attorneys general. i'm rob mckenna, dishes president of the national association. it's my pleasure to welcome all of my fellow ag's, our guests

and members of the media to our spring meeting. first i'd like to introduce the colorguard from the spam guarded senior high school junior rotc who will conduct our flag ceremony. so please stand. >> forward, march.

let's face -- left face. >> please join in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> right face. forward, march.

[applause] >> so please be seated. again, thanks to the spin guard senior high school junior rotc. well done. we have 49 attorneys general attending this meeting, seated alphabetically by state and territory around the table. i'd like to take this opportunity to introduce two new attorneys general who were appointed to office earlier this year but please join me first in welcoming alaska's new attorney general, michael garrity. right here. michael, welcome. [applause] and new jersey new attorney general, jeffrey kay said, who is not quite here yet. his loss. we will introduce him later. it's now my pleasure to

introduce our host, attorney general irvin nathan, from the district of columbia. irv? [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you very much, attorney general mckenna. it's my pleasure to address my fellow naag members for the second time as the host here in the district of columbia. i'm sorry for the weather today, but i am sure that it's going to get warmer and sunnier the next few days, and that's not just because of the hot air of the introduction i'm about to make. in my first year as attorney general, we have been fortunate to have a very productive collaboration with many of you at naag. we have appreciated the perspective and time given by naag and its executive director, jim mcpherson, and several attorneys general, to inform our thinking on challenges and opportunities that we face now because our office is

transitioning from an appointed attorney general to an elected attorney general, which begins in 2014. in addition, we recognize and value the fine work by many other offices on amicus briefs and letters, to the federal government and others, that we've been glad to join and that helped the district have an ability to have its voice heard on national matters, an issue of particular importance to us in light of the lamentable and unjust situation that we have no voting representation in congress. we have also been fortunate on deaf of our 600,000 citizens to have the opportunity to work on and join in on some of the important multistate settlements that our collective resources have made possible. most of you have been in washington before and i want to welcome you back. for those here for the first time, i encourage you to take a dish of the wonderful things in our city, the wonderful things it has to offer including the storable in scenic sites, good

food, shopping and other taxable events. we've had an exciting year here in the district of columbia in our office. i will mention just two items that i think are related to the overall topic of this meeting that is opportunities and challenges in state, federal relationships. first, we investigated and filed suit and obtained a settlement and a consent judgment against a sitting member of our local legislature for diversion of funds from the district. he took $400,000 that was intended for little league baseball and put it in his own pocket. this is the first time in history that our office has ever sued a city councilmember. we then referred the matter to criminal prosecution to the u.s. attorney's office, which security guilty plea, and the individual is awaiting sentencing. i point this out because we work closely with the u.s. attorney's office in d.c. which under

congressional legislation has jurisdiction to prosecute major felonies in the district. while we take no pleasure in this result, we think it sends an important message about the role of our office prepared to play in cooperation with u.s. attorney's office in government ethics in the district. the second major thing was we settled as the presiding judge of the u.s. district court here put it, a major and historic achievement in the so-called dixon case, which ended federal oversight of our department of mental health in a 37 year old class-action lawsuit. the judge mentioned that two judges have died while presiding over the case, and he was very glad we did this before he made his maker. it's interesting in this matter to see how the insights of the supreme court's 2009 decision in are playing out in very jurisdiction's around the country's, around the country states and localities evaluate

what to do about long-standing federal consent decrees. we believe this case is a harbinger for more success in the district towards our goal of ending the intrusive and extensive federal judicial oversight of local government agencies. and, finally, the issue of federal control over the district brings me to the main point i wanted to make today, and that is the ongoing and shameful denial of the basic right for voting representation in u.s. congress for, as i said, the 600,000 plus residents of our nation's capital. one of our governments major challenges in the district is that our fate is linked to what is happening, or sometimes not happening, on capitol hill. a federal shutdown because of a budget impasse which thankfully is not being brooded about at the moment, has in the past pose real possibility of closing down our local government, as well and including with that as our local school system and other

basic local functions. and making things worse under current federal law, the district without congressional authorization can't spend any of the $1 billion in local taxes that would generate and collect annually. and compounding this prompt is that we have no representation to vote in the body making these decisions. and as you know this is not simply a matter of local concern, but one of national, international and certainly regional consequence. it is or at least ought to be a national shame that as a people throughout the world striver self-determination, with the sport of our federal government, in our nation's capital lack this basic fundamental democratic right. our license plates accurately proclaim taxation without reticent nation, which, of course, was the battle cry for our nation's at the ration of independence. our mayor has made this a major priority issue to raise the

profile of this issue. and as utah's attorney general mark chertoff rightly noticed of years ago in his testament to congress, this is a matter of fundamental equal and civil rights. i am heartened to see that leaders across the partisan spectrum, like general chertoff, take a stand on this issue. and more recently governor mcdonnell from virginia came out publicly in support of budget autonomy for the district, recognizing that what happens here can have a ripple effect on our regional economy and the citizens of virginia and maryland, who work and obtain services in d.c. i'm very grateful at gatherings like this can bring before a bipartisan group -- this vital matter. as a chief law enforcement officers in your states committed to justice and democracy, i hope you'll enjoy me -- i hope you will join me in this issue. for now though i just want to extend a welcome too, wish you

well at this conference, enjoy your time in the district and let me or my staff know if we can be of any assistance to you. thank you. [applause] >> and i'd like to take this opportunity to remind all of you in attendance that you are cordially invited to the presidential initiative summit march 28-30, in seattle. as you know, vicious focus is attorneys general united against human trafficking. we are just putting the finishing touches on what is a very powerful agenda. with invited experts from across the country, from government, from non-profit organizations to the business world who will be joining us to offer their solutions on how to tackle this growing national and international problem. registration forms are available at the naag desk out in the foyer, and you can also register online on the naag website.

we hope you can attend and i think you'll find it to be a most worthwhile and powerful presentation. i want to thank the members of the leadership cabinet that we formed around initiative, those ag seven working on this program, and all their staff. they have been absolutely phenomenal. now for the spring meeting agenda, the theme for today's or this week's meeting is opportunities and challenges in the state-federal relationship. it's a scene that captures the complexity of joint state-federal partnerships. we'll be hearing from a number of top federal officials who will discuss how we can foster more ineffective state federal partnerships together, and the speakers as you know including a state attorney general eric holder, the director of the state consumer financial protection bureau richard cordray, our former colleague from ohio, and ftc commissioner julie brill. we are also pleased to announce an additional speaker lineup we will have secretary of housing

and urban development shaun donovan join us at 10 a.m. on wednesday, which will result in the operation in our sights program featuring lenny viewer from doj and the director of the ice, john morton, moving to 11 a.m. we are very pleased that secretary donovan could join us. as you know he was a crucial partner in the multistate over loan servicing and foreclosures. of course, it wouldn't be a naag spring meeting without the traditional state reception tonight hosted by former state attorneys general which will be at 5:30 p.m. and then tomorrow we have our traditional supreme court reception were a couple of the justices will be joining us. i'd like to thank members of the planning committee for this meeting, attorney general roy cooper, martha coakley, doug gansler, david louis, tom miller, john suthers, j.b. van hollen, and, of course, the fantastic naag step for the considerable time and effort in organizing our meeting.

if you can join in thanking them for the hard work, we would appreciate it. [applause] as we move into our first session i would just remind you that there are written speaker biographies in your materials, so as is our custom rather than actually providing those introductions orally as each person comes up we will refer you to those biographies to save time. allows us to get to the heart of the meta. we will start with our hot topics and best practices roundtable, an opportunity for all of us to discuss what we are working on, what we've are interested in and concerned about. we will follow the pattern on the model that we establish in their winter meeting in san antonio where instead of going arounaround the table alphabeti, the planning committee has identified several topics that would be addressing together. i would like to invite hawaii attorney general david louis and massachusetts attorney general martha coakley to come up front to lead is part of the program.

and i like to thank martha and david. they did a terrific job once again putting this hot topics panel together. join me again in thanking them. [applause] >> hello? a law. >> hello? all right. okay, so into meetings, i just wanted to start with a quick comment on what i hope will come out of this, and this is a session that we hope will be useful for you and for us. one of the things i just wanted

to note was starting my second term as ag, i'm excited about a lot of the challenges that face us, but i know that for my first two, three, even for years, as many of you are funny, there is a learning curve about what you can do in your office. ..

>> that you can join in with your exper tease because you've done it, or you have questions about it because you haven't done it yet. i think we should look at this next sort of hour and a half or so as a little bit of this is your opportunity during this meeting to be in a chat room with your colleagues, some of who have tons of experience and some of who are new at it but still enthusiastic about it. so i just want to, as we talk through these topics particularly this light of the theme of this federal/state relationships, opportunities and challenges, most of the topics that we're talking about can and should probably involve our work with our federal partners. so we want to do that, too, but as we talk about these topics today, i think it's important to think about a couple things. first of all, is this topic something that i am or should be interested in.

secondly, what are my options around a topic like this or anything else that i want to do as attorney general. is it statutory? is it regulatory? do we need changes in our states around statutory, regulatory authority? does it involve enforcement issues, and if so, do i have the people and resources to do it? is it a legal, civil or criminal enforcement issue, and what do i need to be able to do that. and finally, one of the things we don't talk about as much but is your authority and we talk about the convening authority. what do you do and can you do to bring people together to discuss these topics, to connect the dots and to provide resources with your federal partners, with your partners at the state or level level around these issues, and how do you use that bully pulpit in a good way to try and get results around some of these issues. and i say this as someone who for the last four years i think

in seeing what an attorney general's office can do -- we can't do everything, obviously, in how we focus our efforts -- this session, i hope, will be helpful to you in what are the other things we can do in our states going forward and together through, through, in nr jobs better. so with that, i'm going the turn it over to david. >> and let me just echo the comments of general coakley. the object of what we're going to do now is try to to mote collegiality, interaction and discussion among the as. we're going to shake it up, we're going to pick the random topics first and then go around the room. but we're going the start off with synthetic drugs. and the idea here is what i'm going to try and do is tee up the topic and give you a little bit of the experience in hawaii and then some of my colleagues i'm going to call on to talk

about their experiences. and, quite frankly, i'm looking forward to even, those of -- to everybody, those of you who have had experience and those who have not joining in the conversation which is to talk about what your experience has been in your state, what are the problems and pitfalls around this particular issue that you've experienced, what is perhaps some of the legislation that you have gotten involved in and what, if any, are the best practices that you and your state have come up with. let's jump right into synthetic drugs starting off. one of the latest fronts that we are con fronting, i think, in our state and many other state is the the attempt by a number of people to get around drug prohibitions, and they are doing so by marketing, selling is and distributing synthetic drugs in two main categoryies. k2 or spice which are tweaked

designer drugs that follow the thc that's in heroin, -- marijuana, and these are being sold as a mixture of herbs or other substances that many times are sprayed with these artificial thc additives that can be 200-500 times stronger than marijuana. another mimics cocaine and methamphetamine, and these are sold as bath salts which are ground up into powder and smoked many times, and these also can create many problems. so these things, um, they're trying to get around the laws and the bans on these things. we've had some interesting experience across the nation. in hawaii we've had attacks by people who have been smoking synthetic pot. in new orleans recently some guy committed suicide after smoking bath salts.

demi moore was rushed to the hospital after smoking k2. and my favorite, of course, was in charleston, west virginia, where a man high on bath salts based in women's lingerie was killing the neighbor's goat. it was very strange. so many of these drugs create hallucinogenic problems and psychotic episodes. the dea has placed a thurl of these substances temporarily on the banned substances list. there's a bill that passed the house to ban these things. in the senate senator rand paul has held up passage of the bill, unfortunately, but they're still working on it. this has been just a growing, growing problem. one of the problems has been that states that have regulation regulate the drug specifically, the chemical formulation.

and these guys say, well, what i'm doing is not illegal. you're not banning this substance. 39 states have introduced legislation on this. in hawaii we have introduced legislation to ban families of synthetic drugs. it is unclear whether or not that will be a sufficient definition to ban things. i had a discussion with lisa madigan from gil who cannot -- illinois who cannot be here to join us, but she has been doing an awful lot on synthetic drugs, convening informal summits to educate the public about this, doing informal sweeps where they go and they talk to merchants, and they tell them that what they're doing is illegal and get them to turn in their substances and to stop selling these things, and they've been holding a lot of press conferences and, in fact, doing sweeps, enforcement sweeps to bust people who are selling these things.

um, general, utah has been on the forefront of this as well. can you share some of your experiences with us? >> [inaudible] what we've done is we've created what's called a criminal strike force two years ago, and by the way, this has been great because every state your citizens are saying do something more about illegal immigration. and some states are taking more aggressive approaches with regard to enforcement-type bills, but everything we do and what we say, my job is to enforce state laws. there is criminal aliens in our state who are violating state laws, and we found in two and a half years that these not only are they manufacturing false ids, but they're very involved in synthetic drugs, human

trafficking across the board. so we've had so many successful raids, and the last two have netted a substantial amount of spice and other drugs including one that was head quartered in the southern part of salt lake county had connections to nevada as well as california, and they were getting the ingredients from china. so with a multiagency, multidisciplinary strike force that includes our office, local law enforcement and federal government, we've been very, very successful in going after these spice operations. they end up becoming something that is multistate and even international with the china connection. so i would just suggest that you maybe look into, you know, into a criminal alien type strike force. initially, people say, oh, you're just going after people of color. no, we -- 90%, 95% of all our confidential informants are otherwise undocumented aliens who are the first ones being victimized by the criminals. 90% of our 200 convictions so far are criminal reentrants, so

they go straight into the federal system, hopefully. gangs, so you can get two or three bangs for the buck by doing something like that. >> have you introduced legislation in utah? >> yes. >> and has it been successfully upheld? >> absolutely, it has. just recently, in february, we just had a major spice bust, we're charging under our new statute. hasn't been challenged yet, but that's the first time we've charged the new statute. i think we're going to be fine. >> okay, great. one thing i would note is, you know, sometimes we don't hear about these things, but the latest is that the american poison control center came out with a survey that they publish last year. one off the every nine, one out of every nine high school stupids reported they have -- students reported they have used spice or k2, and there's a huge danger to the children.

general bonnty, i understand that -- bondi, i understand florida has been on the forefront of this too. could you tell us about your experiences as well? >> yes, thank you. before i get started on this, well, it's killing our kids, and another very important issue, i know it's off synthetics, but it's the oxycodone problem, and general conway and i jointly testified in front of congress last week to stress the importance of our war on the real drugs, the prescription drugs thought our country. -- throughout our country. but as to the synthetics, general louie, yes, last session we banned the use of bath salts. it's mdpv. what we did was we found that it was all over the panhandle of our state. this stuff is being manufactured in asia, this junk is being sold in our country to our kids legally. they could walk in convenience stores and buy this stuff. um, it's in very small pacts, they look like sugar packets.

legal. $15, $25 a packet, these kids are sprinkling it in their potato chips at school, snorting it, drinking it, everything you can imagine. i was in office not even two months, and i found out this was going on. well, before we could reach session, we had spring break. one of the side effects is it's aha louis no generallic. we have kids on balconies. so in florida i have the authority to sign an executive order and make drugs illegal for a limited amount of time until we could get it passed that session. it than mousily passed, so we banned the bath salts and the k2 spice. i can tell you the same horror stories of, we have videos, law enforcement videos of what this stuff is doing. if somebody tries to say it's simple marijuana, it's not even close. it's aha louis no generallic.

now this session we're back again because it's a multibillion dollar business, and what they're doing is they are all over the world just changing the compounds around to make it legal. so it's back on the shelves, under different names. they've even gone so far as to stamp on the back of it, this is legal. being sold in convenience stores. so now we have an additional list of compounds that, um, passed, i think, the house and senate already, we're in session this week. so hopefully that'll be signed into law soon. but a but you've got to keep up with these guys because they're changing the compounds, just in the last three weeks we had two overdoses in florida because of the stuff that is now legally just by mixing up the compound.

on an education front, we've been all over the state talking about it. you know, when i -- i personally go talk to kids whenever i can. our gubernatorial fellows, i asked them, have you heard this stuff? they all raised their hands. are your friends taking it? they raised their hands. just this last week heard a story of a 14-year-old girl -- the students i spoke to witnessed this happen. some of the stuff that's till legal, she took it and sprinkled it in her potato chips at lunch, overdosed in front of the entire class. so that's what we're seeing, but we just have to keep up with these chemists and keep fighting the fight. if any of of you -- we didn't invent the wheel. we went to louisiana because they had already outlawed it originally to get the compounds from them, but if think of you, um, are interested in this, check with us, and we can go through the compounds with you that we feel are the most deadly and need to be outlawed. >> thank you.

>> general louie, to give -- these packets she's talking about, this operation we took down just last week, and this is utah, you know, two and a half million population, we seized 150,000 of those one gram sugar packets. 150,000. and they're selling for $13 a packet which is nearly $900,000 worth of drugs. 150 -- and the manufacturing machines where they were manufacturing them right there in the city of midvale. that is just one operation, so consider how much is out there in all of your states. >> uh-huh. >> general southers, any comments on this as a prosecutor? you guys seeing this in colorado? >> absolutely. you remember last meeting i told you how much colorado loves its ca nab noise, but you'll be pleased to know that they don't like synthetic. it's all natural in colorado. [laughter] so it really, our efforts to deal with this have really not

been that controversial. we got off to a good start because of a very high profile situation in september of 2011 when a 15-year-old high school student in thornton, colorado, during her noon hour purchased k2 from a corner store near her high school, smoked the product over lunch break, passed out in class, woke up, was hallucinating, taken to the hospital. had a long recovery period, and it just dramatized for the public how serious this problem was. so we had absolutely no problem in the next session outlawing it. we are now dealing in this legislative session with cap a nodes, but it's unanimous everybody wants to outlaw it. the issues are what people have said here, do we just individually risk these things

and -- list these things and then have to come back every year, or can we come up with compound descriptions that we don't have to amend the statutes every year. but in a state that's on the verge of legalizing marijuana next november, we've had no trouble turning the public against these particular products. >> okay. thank you. and let me just note for all of the ags, we sent out an e-mail to you with a handout and a memorandum documenting some of these things and also providing some of the press releases that general mad michigan has issued and also some of the press releases that general shurtleff has issued so you can take a look at that and see if you might want to do something similar. we've also provided you with draft legislation you might want to consider in terms of identifying the families of

these drugs. general biden. >> i just want to act to what general bonnty said. not only are our kids dying and too rapid a rate because of this stuff, but law enforcement is dying too. we had a police officer responding to a routine breaking and entering who ran up against one of these folks and found himself on the other end of a knife and is now no longer with us, was killed. and so this rapidly moved through our state and through our legislature, banning it. but if you call -- because we all do -- law enforcement they're very, very concerned about this for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is an officer safety issue. >> right. thank you. anybody else have any experiences or court challenges that have been brought up or successes in doing any of this? >> general -- jeff from new jersey. excuse me. >> yes, thank you. >> last week, last thursday or i through my department of consumer affairs was just part

of the attorney general's office issued an emergency order banning classes and including in that known and unknown variants of things used to make synthetic marijuana so that we can try to get around what we were talking about earlier which is the backyard chemist that tweaked these chemicals a little bit and, technically, it's legal. and it goes back on the shelves. so it's a very broad-based ban. i don't know if we're going to get a challenge, but i know the retailers that sell this stuff making it seem like it's okay to use are not going to have it on their shelves anymore, so that's what we did in new jersey. >> i just wanted to -- [inaudible] a question for those who are seeing it. what is the age group that it's targeted at and is using it and, second hi, do you see that the spread of this is through social media in any way? because of kids' ability to spread the word on facebook or thinking that you've seen? i guess my last question is urban, rural or across the board in your states for you, for

those of you that have seen it? >> yes. definitely -- primarily urban right now for the spice. for the manufacturing, that's where it's most popular, where it's spreading. they are using social media. it directly targets school cans. >> what age group? >> middle through college. they have names like, for these legal jars and the little spice packets, brain sick, three wise men, mary j., and some names are fruit flavors, so they are -- we clearly believe they're being marketed to youth. we did ban 17 finish our law bans, i think you have a copy of that, 17 specific synthetic drugs. >> right. well, i think this is an area where we can all collaborate and learn from each other, and if there are court challenges, i think we can band together to try and work on identifying these generic families and getting them banned so that we can address this problem.

and i would just note that, um, you know, there is no quality control on this. these guys get these chemical substances, and they spray them onto herbal packages, and then it's like spray painting or anything like that. you can lace something with 100 times what a dose would be, um, or ten times, and there's just absolutely no guarantee as to how hallucinogenic this stuff of may be. okay. general mcgraw. >> we're looking at this issue through the approach in consumer protection of unfair and deceptive action practices. and we believe we're on a road to a, an intermediate, in any case, solution. >> that's a terrific idea. have you brought up prosecutions against -- >> no, not yet. >> not yet.

okay. but that's, certainly, an avenue. >> okay. let me now jump to our next topic. we're going to take one topic out of order. is that right, general coakley? >> yes. we're going to switch around, and gang units will be last, so it's switching places with handling scaldals. >> okay. we're now going to talk about scandal reporting, and so that's the second topic that we wanted to cover. let me just tee it up for discussion. um, the issue many times comes up as to when there's sexual abuse allegations in schools or in state agencies or things like that. um, and the issue comes up as to when you're supposed to do something, what you're supposed to do, whether you report it, whether you call the police, what do you do. in hawaii we've actually had two recent cases. the first case involved allegations that surfaced about a high school track coach who allegedly had touched

inappropriately a 13-year-old girl. and what had happened in hawaii was that the coach, that complaint was made, and it was made to the principal, and the principal decided that she would make an investigation as an administrative investigation. she interviewed a thurm of people, decided that the girl was not credible and that the coach was credible and let it go. six months later it erupted as a scandal because a lawsuit was brought, and then criminal charges were brought. the charges had now escalated into a much higher degree of alleged touching, and there's -- so there is a lawsuit about that. and the question is, um, what was the principal supposed to do, what are the policies and procedures of the l schools, when do you, when do you report this stuff and who do you report it to. another recent problem that we've had in hawaii was we had

allegations surface at a deaf and blind school where there were allegations that the students themselves were coercing sexual activity on behalf of other students and that it had been reported up to the principal, and the principal had done nothing. i now have a lawsuit there involving about 30 plaintiffs, some of whom are victims, some of whom are perpetrators, and some of whom are both. they were victims, and then they thought, well, everybody else is doing this, i can be a perpetrator too. so now we have that. and the issue many times is what are you supposed to do, what are the different perspectives. obviously, law enforcement's perspective is always report and always report to the authorities and the police as soon as possible. from the school's point of view, um, they had to decide whether or not they have any expertise in this at all, whether or not they know what they're doing in terms of making an investigation into what are very serious

allegations and whether or not they should be you canning an administrative -- constructing an administrative information or sitting back and letting a criminal investigation go forward. many times the school as well as the state agency has to balance the rights of the accused as well as the rights of the accuser to privacy. many times these are minors who are making these allegations, they're very, very sensitive, and their parents are very sensitive about any kind of publicity about this thing. and then you have the problem of, well, is it just a disgruntled student who wants to make trouble because we have seen some of those things in the past. so we have had these problems not just in hawaii. obviously, in california they recently had a situation where they shut down an entire school, the miramonte school in florence, california, where they had two allegations of inappropriate sexual contact by

teachers, and they shut the entire school down and replaced the entire faculty, and it is still going on right now. that was over the objections of the students and the parents there who were very concerned that everybody was being tarred with the same brush. um, and we also know that in pennsylvania there have been some allegations that have been raised about a certain coach there, mr. sandusky. and so let me invite general kelly to tell us some of the, perhaps, if you can, and we all realize that there is litigation, so none of this is in any way intended to go into litigation details or to force you or anybody else to take a position that could be used in litigation. but perhaps you could talk to us a little bit about some of the issues that you are seeing in your state that have been teed up by the situation with mr. sandusky. >> sure.

um, i wanted to comment just briefly on the policies and procedures and really the lack thereof policies, procedures and law if some of these instances involving the reporting of child sexual abuse cases. and as david said, we've had this issue come up in a very big way in pennsylvania as a result of the jerry sandusky case as well as the parallel case where the attorney general's office is is -- has charged two high-ranking administrators at penn state university with tail being to -- with failing to report child abuse, child sexual abuse that occurred in the football locker room at penn state in lash hall. i don't want to talk, as david said, too much about the facts of the case but, quite frankly, i've never been involved in a case quite like this that has, where there's so much in the public doe maybe and so much --

domain and so much already of public record. so i think it will be all right to talk about some of the points that really illustrate the different ways that different people responded to their obligation to report in the sandusky case and in the case where the penn state administrators were charged i think that it's probably fair to say that the office of attorney general in pennsylvania became involved in the jerry sandusky investigation primarily because someone actually chose to report an instance of child sexual abuse. and that o can curred back in 2008 -- occurred back in 2008 when a mother of a young boy who attended a high school in clinton county, pennsylvania, which is very near penn state, where penn state is located notified the authorities at the high school that her son attend that he had been sexually assaulted by jerry sandusky who was a volunteer coach can at that school.

the school, clinton county school then in turn notified children and youth services which is what we call that agency in pennsylvania, and then the police became involved, and eventually, shortly after that the attorney general's office began its investigation which resulted in the charges against jerry sandusky, over 50 counts of related to sexual assault of over ten victims. and then from there the investigation worked backward from the report that was made by the mother in clinton county. and we then learned after that initial reporting of that sexual abuse at clinton county that back in 2002 an assistant coach by the name of mike mcqueary had gone to the penn state football facilities at lash hall in march of 2002 and saw what he

believed to be a young boy in a shower being assaulted by jerry sandusky. and i'm sure you've all read the accounts of what occurred after that. mike mcqueary immediately called his father who advised him to contact the head football coach at penn state, joe paterno, which mr. mcqueary did the very next morning. early the next morning he went to joe paterno's house and reported what he had seen. coach paterno, the following day, contacted the athletic director at penn state, tim curley, and the vice president in charge of finance and campus affairs, gary schultz, who was also head of the campus police department at that time and reported to them mcqueary's visit to his home the previous night. after that no one else was ever

notified. chirp and youth services were not -- children and youth services were not notified, and no law enforcement agencies were notified of what had occurred at lash hall this march of 2002. gary schultz, who was also the director, as i said, of security at penn state at that time was also aware of a 1998 incident where a report had been made. and that report of the 1998 incident again was made by the mother of a young boy who learned that her son had been showering in the lash hall facilities with jerry sandusky. so those sort of illustrate -- and an investigation was conducted by the penn state university police department and chirp and youth services were -- children and youth services were brought into that 1998 incidence as well. so in that case those are three instances of reporting or lack of reporting that occurred in the sandusky case. and it sort of illustrates how

different people react to different situations. the clinton county mother immediately notified the school who immediately notified the police. in the 2002 incident, the private citizen who observed it reported it to his superiors at penn state, to administrators. and then no further report was made to law enforcement or any child or youth services. in the '98 incident, again, a mother reported it to children and youth services and to penn state university. and as a result of all that, the ags ended up charging the two administrators at penn state with failure to report an incident of child abuse that occurred on the penn state campus. and we did that as a result of the statute that was in effect in pennsylvania at that time. the statute at that time was not very artfully drafted, it was

overbroad, unspecific, and it really was only a summary offense and had very little teeth as far as punishment or accountability. at the time that the penn state administrators allegedly failed to report the activity, it was a summary. since then it has become a misdemeanor, and it carries a penalty of one year. so you can see that the penalties associated with these reporting statutes are really not very, they really don't have much strength this them. in them. if you look at the statute that existed in pennsylvania at the time, it looks like it was drafted to really cover people and professionals who had contact with children as a result of the profession that they were engaged in. nurses, school administrators, doctors, people like that who might come in contact with kids

that were bruised or had evidence of some sort of physical trauma. but it really wasn't designed to alie to a -- apply to a private citizen who observed either child sexual abuse or physical abuse. and we know that with private citizens that there are all sorts of issues that are attendant to them as well because oftentimes you might run into a situation where someone might come into contact with their 7-year-old neighbor that lives across the street who may not be very credible to them, who they know has a tendency to exaggerate. and if that child tells them that uncle john has been doing things to them, then the question arises what is the obligation of that neighbor to report, to do anything, to probe any further as far as that child is concerned? so i don't want to go on and on here, but the jerry sandusky

case really has raised a lot of consciousness as far as the need to report child sexual abuse. i mean, it obviously has raised the consciousness of the public because when the facts came to light, it was obvious in both the media and the public, oh, my goodness, you know, why weren't these things reported? and then when you took a look at why they weren't reported, there were various reasons. and it also raised the consciousness of us in law enforcement because it made us realize that we really have a need for better laws and better statutes that are, you know, well drafted and that are directed toward the need that our society has today to protect our kids and to cause people whether they be private citizens or people that come into contact with kids by their profession to report this. and then you have the issue of whether it should be reported to a child and youth service agency

or whether it should be reported to the police. so it really is not quite as simple as it appears at first blush. there are a lot of nuances and a lot of issues that arise as far as both the moral obligation to report and the legal obligation to report. >> thank you, general kelly. general biden. >> yeah. i just want to chime in quickly, general kelly, commend you for all your efforts in the pennsylvania on this. it's been, you've been working on, and you've -- i've been thinking of you as you do it. our state approximately two years ago indicted, my office indicted a pediatrician who we indicted him for raping nearly 100 of his patients, average age 3 years old. pediatrician raping his patients, average age 3 years old. and so we've dealt with all the same issues that you're dealing

with, and i just want to leave y'all with one fact. most of you know these facts. one out of four girls is sexually assaulted before they're 18 years old. one out of six boys is sexually assaulted before they're 18 years old. only one out of ten of these kids ever report it. because nine out of ten of the perpetrators know or say they love the children they're raping. one out of four girls, one out of six boys, only one out of ten report, nine out of ten say they love the kid they're raping. that's why this issue is so critical, in fact, i'd raise with the admiral maybe at another event we spend some more time on this because the duty to report is essential and critical. the people who are reporting are in our communities who are in positions of trust who we entrust our children to of course aunts, uncles, coaches,

rabbis, priests, counselors. people who take our children, and we don't think another thought when we hand our children over to them. reality is that we focus so much on those of our children in our states or who are abducted and raped by strangers, but that's not -- that's the minority. majority is this is done at the hands of people who our families know. and that's why the duty to report is so critical. and the duty to report in my state, and i'll end with this, we've had to tweak our statute. but it's not an understood statute today, although it's better understood. we have a mandatory duty to report for all citizens of you r states, and there's about 16, 18 states depending on how you count it that have a mandate. if today reasonably believe a child is being abused or neglected, everyone has a duty to report because these children

cannot report for themselves. those that don't have voices quite literally because many pedophiles prey on because they know they won't be reported and/or children who are intimidated into not reporting because they have to report against someone that they care about. or intimidated by at a very minimum. so the duty to report is an essential, critical issue. how you grapple with that, some states deal with it different ways. ours is not a criminal penalty, ours was unclear before our case whether it was criminal or civil. it was never really enforced. we chose to make it a civil penalty. $10,000 fine and a $50,000 fine for the second violation. because we didn't want to be in, and you've dealt with this in your own way, in a misdemeanor world. because i want to be able to figure out a way where we can actually get people as aggressively as we can to enforce this statute. there's an organization that's

tackness to light -- darkness to light, stewards of children. we've partnered with them. i'm going to be approaching some of you along the way about this great organization, and i know you've probably been in touch, they've probably reached out to you, general kelly. it's an organization that works with states, works with entities about how to educate not children, but parents and law enforcers in commitments about how to spot the signs of abuse and neglect and do something about it and speak up and speak out about it. we have a moment in time because of the god awful tragedies that the commonwealth of pennsylvania's going through right now, my state, and there's other examples all around this table. this is something that i've become very focused on, and i look forward to the opportunity of being able to maybe have an opportunity over the next year or so to bring some of my perspective and thoughts to you all about this. >> thank you, general biden. just as one final note, you may

want to take a look at the policies and procedures that your schools, your universities and for those of you who have jurisdiction over the elementary schools, that they have clear policies and procedures, that they teach the administrators how to do this. many times the administrators just say i didn't know what to do. i didn't understand how to do it. and that's a failing. >> david, can i jump in for a second? i think that this is a very good time for those who are interested in having a working group through n.a.g. to look at what the policies and procedures are and how they are enforced. because our state's a little different. it is mandated reporters only who have to file, um, and i just want to put in context a little bit because whether you are an initial investigator or not, in one way or another, it end up up on your desk because if someone else hasn't done what they're supposed to do, you may well to deal with the publicity and the fact finding. but just by way of context, i

started as a prosecutor in the '80s, and we were coming off the daycare cases, and i remember the day when there was a witch hunt, that everybody was abused, everybody was abusing. um, we then devised ways in which we could have mandated reporters file reports. but one caveat, if you're going to file reports, you have to follow up on all of them, and you have to make sure that your state has the trained folks and personnel who can say, yes, this is abuse, and it should go to the da or the police or, no, it is not, or it is just neglect, and it's a civil issue. i think what happened after the backlash on the daycare cases was for a long time we looked the other way on the church abuses. i lived through all of this. and i think in 2002 it occurs to me when that first incident occurred, that was just the beginning of the priest cases starting to be reported, and nobody could believe it. doesn't happen. coaches don't do this, priests don't do this. and so there was this huge, um,

level of denial. one thing i do think that as we look at the ways in which your states require reporting and the circumstances in which they do it, we these to take into account that -- we need to take into account that overzealousness can be a problem, and it is one area this terms of child abuse reporting where we don't have a margin of error. if you overreport, you undercut your activities, and if you underreport, you have kids who no one will believe. beau's exactly right, 90% of the cases are not amber alert cases, they are cases of people that know and say they love those kids. it's absolutely true. so huge issue for everybody in terms of child safety, and i think it would be a great time to step back and take a look at what all of our statutes require and talking, this is a multidisciplinary issue. how do we deal with other disciplines that have a responsibility for identifying child sexual abuse and physical abuse, two very different cases actually. so --

>> okay. general robotis? speak up. >> sorry, okay. you know, in guam we have two major military bases, and one of the issues we've been seeing especially over the last couple months is this child abuse cases happening on base and not real good communication with the service providers on base. what we've been doing, what we're currently doing is reaching out to them and becoming, getting them -- getting the commands aware of their obligations and citizens on the island. and so those of you with large military communities, don't forget, you know, those bases. you need to get to the commands and talk to them about this issue because this stuff can happen, and it can stay hidden and remain hidden. so you need to do that. and that's one of the things that we've been doing as far as getting out into the community. we include them because they want to become part of the

community, so we include them and get them involved. >> okay, thank you. all right. we're going to now move to our next topic. general coakley. >> all right. changing topics a little bit. we've talked about veterans before, and i wanted to address it again, um, today. and, general biden, i may ask you to weigh in because i know you've had some thoughts about this also. this is an issue that it seems to me as attorneys general you have a range of opportunities to think about how your office can be involved and particularly working with the federal government, this is an area, i think, where it's a question of figuring what are the needs, what can you do as an attorney general's office, and how can you partner with federal and other resources in your state for the men and women who live in your state. and, obviously, the ones who are most visible that we think about are those returning from middle eastern conflicts.

but you still have world war ii, korean war veterans, vietnam war veterans, and i just want to give you a couple of things we've started to do in our state and then hear there other states about what you've been able to do or issues you've had around it because i think one of the things that's happened in our office is we've drawn from different parts of our office, um, consumer protection, our criminal bureau, um, people in the office who are just interested in the issue because they have veterans in their families. it's been a real morale booster in our office to be able to have this veterans' initiative both this our office, but also working with our lieutenant governor and working with other folks in the community around these issues. so convening power. we called together really as a type of hearing, um, experts around the field on three topics. one was mental health and suicide prevention. and so we heard from experts about the issues relating to veterans in the services that are available. we know that one out of three veterans returning from iraq,

afghanistan suffer from some form of post traumatic stress. we know that the level offed ises for -- of suicides for returning servicemen and women is extremely high. this effects every one of your communities s so what can you do about it. we heard also from experts around the criminal justice system. what can the courts do and what should they be doing around ways to better identify victims, screen them, look for other ways than criminally charging or other dispositions if that is appropriate? so i am interested, i know some of your states have done things around that area. and the third, i think, is really a business issue about the skills, um, and the reentry to the work force. how can you pull in your businesses and others in your community, um, to hire people who are disciplined, who are well trained but who may have resumés that don't really read like the civilian sector understands what their skills

and competence are. so out of that con convening authority, we are preparing a report on that, and we are going to go with the lieutenant governor to a criminal justice system and to our businesses around what we can do better for the men and women in our communities, um, who have gone overseas, who have taken time, energy, some of them have come back, obviously, with physical injuries. many more come back with mental health and other issues. but i think it's our responsibility to respond to. i would like if others are interested from some of these topics to continue on a working group going forward, and i think through n.a.g. we have that opportunity, even if it's just a question of setting up a wiki so everybody knows what everybody else is doing in best practices w. that, general biden, i don't know if you had some observations. i know wu tacked about this before. >> what you're doing on this issue as well as other colleagues, john kroger comes to mind and others who i don't see here yet, do i? >> is john here?

>> no. we've attacked the issue from many of the same perspectives you have, specifically on the mental health side in the form of a diversion court, a veterans' court in the state of delaware. it's been led by superior court judge, our highest trial court. one of the judges there took it upon himself to work with us but really led the way on creating what is a classic diversion court for veterans. and, um, it's in its infancy. like diversion courts are, many times they're worth while but hard work in standing up. i bet, my gut is it will prove to bear fruit for both the veteran and for the system. um, and so i'm hopeful i'll be able to report more on that at a later time. that's where we've been focusing our energies. >> is that a statewide policy, or is it just in one court? >> we tried it in one county, and it's now expanded to our

most populist county, so we're almost statewide, but we can be statewide very quickly, but it's not yet. >> has anyone has any experiences with that, plus or minus? we've run into some attention with these two. the devil's always in the detailsful john? >> el paso county, which is the home of fort carson and air force academy, several air force bases has a veterans' court pilot program. i think the jury's still out in all its effectiveness, but what the folks down there tell me is the tremendous benefit is it's caused all the prosecutors, all the public defenders, all the judges to become much more sophisticated about combat-related stress issues and all that sort of thing. so that the general educational level of the bench and bar has been greatly raised, and they see regardless of how the whole

veterans court experiment comes out, that's been a big plus. >> interestingly, we have one police department that took it upon itself probably ten years ago in cases where it's obviously substance abuse, mental illness when the police get called, they have a full-time social worker that they bring, and if diversion is appropriate to a hospital or another facility, that has helped them move into this area for veterans, understanding the mental health issues and recognizing that. so i think those are all ways that we can, ultimately, um, you know, do better for people who end up in the criminal justice system, save money, get a better result by doing it that way. anybody else with experience with veterans' courts? i know -- your mic. [laughter] >> we have one in spokane which has worked extremely well, and they're looking to expand the model to other parts of the state as well. we've successfully diverted a thurm of veterans who got mixed

up with the law into programs for mental health counseling, substance abuse counseling and is so forth. the judges who are involved with it believe in it 100%, and idaho -- i don't think lawrence is here right now, but idaho, i believe, has a very successful veterans' court model. do i have that right? at least northern idaho. yes. >> [inaudible] >> be right. former attorney general al lance is on the veterans court of appeals which is a federal appellate court. >> for veterans who are then, their status is veterans that gets -- >> and veterans benefits, right. >> veterans benefits. and the other thing that we've seen is that even though state law requires certain state veteran service organizations, a lot of cities and towns have just cut back on it because they can't afford it. some of this not unlike the child abuse reporting, depends on what kind of mechanism you

have in place to enforce it. are your veterans service officers able to identify the problems? and, frankly, there are resources out there along the lines of the topic here, make sure you work with your congressman or senator about the resources that are available to states for veterans and veterans' families. there are families from world war ii, from korea who are not aware of resources that may be available to them. and this is something i think with a little bit of resource from your office you can help to highlight and call attention to. is there anybody else who's working on this topic or who has ideas or questions? things that we can do at the state level? george? >> my office participants in conjunction with the -- participates in conjunction with the office of veterans affairs, but it's directed at homeless veterans where we do one-stop shopping fair. it's attended by hundreds and hundreds of veterans each year

where tents are set up, everything from the court system brings in judges to deal with cases so that guys can get their records cleared off to legal services, to housing special is, full range of things. it's been extremely helpful for a victimized pop haitian. >> and that's with veterans services at the federal level? >> state level. >> state level. >> principle drive. >> let me just plant a seed. we're using $5 million of our hard dollars from the mortgage settlement to match some federal funds for veterans' temporary housing for homeless veterans. and we did it through the governor's office and have, apparently, been able to play upon some matching federal funds to really very effectively use $5 million of the settlement to do that. >> another issue, obviously, that when you learn the number of veterans who serve the country who come back are

without jobs and become homeless, it's pretty sad, and we could be doing more than we are. but that's a good use -- i know ag kroger is not here, but he's done a lot of work around the idea of making sure that no one is foreclosed upon in violation of the federal law. he's been, um, doing that at the state level also. so i just throw these ideas out to you, and you can do a little bit, or you can do a lot. you have a couple of folks in your office who are interested in it, it's really a good way, i think, to get your office front and center. anybody else? questions? comments? peter? >> general, an important aspect to it that is cost-free where you get great success is veteran-to-veteran mentoring. and you'll be surprised at the number of vets who are out there that want to help all who have been through it themselves, either the substance abuse, the homelessness and have come through it and now want to help their fellow veterans. and it's an important aspect to it because they have a relationship that we can't have

with them. >> right. >> they've been through it together, and that leads to a lot of great success. and i know in buffalo, part of their veterans' court, it's part of the big issue of it. and we've engaged a lot of the -- [audio difficulty] and more than willing to do the veteran-to veteran mentoring. >> how do you hardball that, peter, get those -- martial that, peter? >> we're working very closely. our district court got, i believe, it was a $5 million federal grant for a pilot program. we're doing it in one of our counties in our large state like delaware is. we took a ride up to buffalo, the chief judge, myself, veterans' groups, and we looked at their model, and now we're trying to implement the same model. the important aspect of the veteran-to-veteran part is to leave them independent of us, let them talk freely amongst themselves because they help

guide and support them through the substance abuse counseling or whatever or is necessary to overcome whatever hurdle is afflicting them. >> yeah. no, and i agree with that. sometimes it's just difficult to get that when someone is outside the court system, for instance, how they get those services and even i know there are older veterans who say they don't need any help, they don't want it. >> we did it through our local veterans' agencies. >> yeah. and that's a huge resource. all you need to do to start is find out what's available in your state, who's doing what and try and connect those dots. all right. anybody else? veterans? going once. all right. so we're on to our next topic. >> okay. our next topic is social media policy. um, many of you may or may not be on facebook. many of you may or may not be on twitter. yahoo!, yelp, you know, there's lots of social medias out there. we have a lot of bad examples of

bad uses of social media which has come back to haunt people starting with anthony weiner. and moving on, i saw an issue where this was a report in -- there was a report in the paper last week where a couple were murdered, um, i forget which state, they were murdered because they had -- the woman had defriended somebody on facebook, and the husband of the person who had been defriended took great offense and went and killed them. so there's all kinds of things out there. we, obviously, have twitter being used by flash mobs. they do it in san francisco when they have protests, the occupy people have been doing it. there have been mistrials in both civil and criminal cases where people are going online to find out what there is on faceback and what there is on -- facebook and what there is on twitter. in kansas we know that there was an incident where a kansas teen

disparaged governor brownback, and there was a lot of brouhaha about that. so this is only going to increase and get greater. and the issues that many times come up are what are the potential liabilities that come with the use of social media, what is the responsible way to handle this, what are good policies and procedures to have, and then what are the political complications of all this, and how are you going to use it deftly rather than ineptly? we mailed out to everyone three social media policies for your perusal that you would have gotten an e-mail on. they're too large to happened out. we've -- hand out. we've prepared a draft policy for the state of hawaii that we worked with our friend adam connor from facebook on and have had a thurm -- number of people. we also included the policy from the great state of washington

which has been in the forefront of this and from the great state of massachusetts which has also been in the forefront of this. um, you know, many times the issues are what is the purpose, what are you trying to do with your communications, how are you going to do it in an ethical manner, and then one big, thorny area that comes up is what are you going to do with public comments, especially negative public comments if they come on to your web site, and if you don't have a policy and procedure already in place about taking down public comments, you could have a problem. so with those, you know, there are issues as to who gets to speak on behalf of your agency, who's authorized, how are you going to do this, what about copyright protection, what about disclaimers and things like that. so let me turn to general mckenna, and perhaps you could share with us the experience of washington in some of these areas and what are the best practices that you folks have come up with. >> well, first of all, of

course, you have to have a policy that you put in play. and for us the basic -- you guys want to turn this on back there? there it is. so the first thing we had to do was, you know, to come up with a usage policy. and this isn't all that different, you know, in kind from the policy that all of us had to develop for e-mail. and, of course, the first and cardinal rule of social media use is the same as it is for e-mail or the use of any other public resources which is no personal use. so we have a fairly short policy which was distributed to you, a little under or two pages long. and basically, it says, look, you can't use this for personal use. we want you to sign an agreement if you do decide to use social media for office use. and we want you to understand that there's no expectation of

privacy in your use of internet resources. so if you do use them, you need to remember that the owners of those sites commonly monitor usage activity and that we in the office reserve the right to monitor the internet usage of any employee of the office as appropriate. and we do that periodically just to check to see how people are using social media just as we check to see how they're accessing the internet in general. and as i said, we have a policy, or i should say an agreement that people are expected to sign if they want to use social media or social networking. it's called the office of the attorney general social networking use agreement, and it basically just says that staff may use social media as a tool for approved agency purposes only which includes professional networking which they're allowed to do, so if someone in our office wants to be on linkedin for professional purposes we allow them to do that, and we

want them otherwise to use social they canning for other official -- networking for other official, other purposes that further the mission of the attorney general's office. but again, we clarify in the policy or emphasize in the policy that use of social media for personal purposes is not permitted, and there is noty men miss exception which is important, i think, because sometimes people will think, well, if i just go on my facebook page once a day to update my status, that would be okay, wouldn't it? so we have a bright line rule which is no de minimis use whatsoever. our state government as a whole through the governor's office also has put out a document called guidelines and best practices for social media use in washington state. again, published by the office of the governor in coordination with a number of state agencies. this was provided to you as well. and this is a more elaborate exposition of state policy on the use of social media.

it includes topics such as how and when to use social media sites, advises agencies to create an agency-specific social media policy, to create a process for handling internal requests to set up social media usage. we also in that document lay out privacy rules and limits around acceptable use. so i encourage you to use that to take a look at that at your leisure. the other point i'd make about social media is some of you may recall -- i know general suthers will -- we needed to work with the social media companies because be if you look at their standard license agreement, it contained provisions that didn't make us comfortable as government. so we effectively negotiated through our office on behalf of all the states special provisions and terms for the states and, john, if you want to

comment on that, you're welcome to. we can make those available to any of you who are interested in seeing them. needless to say, we're a little different in government, and we didn't think a one size fits all policy from the social media companies like facebook worked for us so we, basically, got some changes negotiated successfully with those companies. they weren't entirely happy to have to do it, but to their credit, they did so. bottom line is beyond all of the, you know, usual legal considerations, policy considerations, social media present an array of an extremely useful tool for all of us in the state government, certainly in the attorney generals' offices, and we make heavy use of social media particularly in our consumer resource, consumer protection division and our consumer resources center. so, for example, we tweet about, we tweet consumer alerts when there's a new scam that we've become aware of. we push out public press releases over twitter and through facebook. we have several thousand people

who have signed up to follow the attorney general's office on facebook as i'm sure most of you have done as well. and several thousand who follow us op -- on twitter as well. so we see these tools as another way to achieve our mission of educating the public and alerting them to issues of concern involving consumer protection. sometimes antitrust and then in general about the work of our office. we think that they're terrific tools, we think they lower the cost of communication with the prick and make us more -- public and make us more accessible to the public which, of course, is always a goal. again, if we can be of advice to anyone, i would encourage you to let us know, we'd be glad to act as a resource for you. dave? >> any other comments, folks? general conway. >> thank you, general louie. i appreciate the opportunity to say a few things. first of all, let me thank my colleagues. about a year and a half ago, we had an issue arise in the

commonwealth of kentucky as it pertained to topics, one of these community bulletin board sites, and john and i co-authored a letter that 46 of you signed on to. they had a situation where in order to remove an objectionable post, they were ask asking for a $19.99 priority review fee in order to help someone get their good name back. they didn't pay much attention to me when i first contacted them, but when 45 others signed a letter with me, we were able to get that removed. and they now have new policies and procedures in place. i made the point at our meeting in san antonio when we talked about the internet safety issues that we have a cyber crimes unit in my office. we have taken about 900,000 -- 300,000 child porn images off the internet, we have consumer exand child education when it comes to the issue of facebook. but i made the point, and i learned this in talking to the general counsel of facebook at

one point, that often times the ags want information or want to work with them on something, they need a subpoena. and often times our grand jury process can be laborious when it comes time to get a subpoena. so in kentucky a few years ago we were given the ability to issue administrative subpoenas by my general assembly, and it has allowed us to streamline our ability to investigate when it involves an ip address or an internet service provider or some of the social media sites. what we can ask for, it's normally name, location, basic information. it's very limited, it's not snooping. j.b. and i did sort of a survey of what all the states have, and i think only 17 of the states right now have administrative subpoena authority. so we're happy to share that statute as a piece of model legislation with anyone who's interested. um, and to that end as well, general van hollen and i have been in the process of putting together, and all of you have in front of you, i believe, a draft directory of our various

internet thfghters, internet prosecutors and consumer protection internet folks so that we can share information with one another. we have six major states that have not yet given us their contact information. and this is going to go finalized as of march 30th, so some of the states that have not yet provided information, i know you have an internet program so, please, get that to emily because we're going to have our first directory on this as of april 1. so thank you. >> thank you, jay. any other comments, experiences to share? john? >> jack just reminded me, um, if you recall i don't know how long ago we went after craig's list jointly, and i thought made some fairly significant progress. have any of you had similar problems with backpage.com? we just busted a sex trafficking ring in colorado. i mean, very, very serious

statewide 14 defendants, and they were operating through backpage.com which some of, a lot of your alternative newspapers in some of your communities are owned by the same company that owns backpage. thus far they've been very uncooperative with us, to i may be -- so i may be asking for the same sort of approach we used in the craig's list thing. >> and since we've sent a letter demanding backpage take down some of their sex pages, i would recommend none of us enter into agreements to put our state agency pages up there. martha, did you want to make think comments? >> [inaudible] >> the light's going on. >> that reminds me, john -- [inaudible] >> louder. it's not working. come on up here. come on up here. >> yeah. >> yeah.

>> it ties in to the human trafficking work, obviously, because we had in boston what was called the craig's list murder, a young woman who put an ad in craig's list, and a young medical student went to her apartment ostensibly to rob her, but ended up killing her because she fought him. he was caught and ended up committing suicide in prison, o we'll never know -- so we'll never know the full story on it. through that hearing we started to take a look at what was the marketing tools for human trafficking, sex trade through craig's list and over sites. there are, obviously, countervailing first amendment issues, and they're thorny, so we immediate to look at those, i think -- we need to look at those, i think. the one thing i just wanted to say about the social media sites, and i say this as someone who has come kicking and screaming into this digital age. i know i'm looking around the table, and not a lot of digital natives who are attorneys general, although some of you like rob and mark have been a loot more savvy.

i still have a pager on my desk. now, i don't use it -- >> be is it right next to your rolodex? >> one of my lawyers said to the police how many of you still have these? and i was the only one who raised many i hand. i was still using it at the time. [laughter] having said that, i also recognize not only do you need the policy about what you don't want your staff to be doing, but you also have to recognize what an important tool it is. and if you have not maximized it as rob has for your office, you should do that. it means you have to hire people under 30 or run it yourself. it's easier to hire people under 30, i think, to figure it out. but as we're talking earlier about the issue of drugs, you know, this is an audience that gets most of its information on or about through the social media, so if you are going to address a lot of these issues around consumer protection, public safety, you need to go where that audience is. and if we as ags are not technically savvy enough to do

it, we're not going to be effective, not make our message. so i hope, and i'll be the first to admit i rely on other people to do it. so if you don't want to learn yourself, get someone else to do it because it's very important. and n.a.g. itself, i think, and jim's been very good about this, if we as ags start to use it more, we can do better with each other in keeping ourselves informed on best practices, where we can go and also as a resource. we are all resources for each other. hey, i've got a problem with x, who else is doing that? we should do more of that. >> yeah. bill, you had a comment? >> thank you, david. john, i'd like to work with you on this backpage issue. in michigan we had some murders in detroit where backpage was used as a vehicle for someone to stalk, and these predators stalking young girls. we need to approach this not on the law review approach and get restraint and censorship, but we

need to approach this if this were your daughter or your niece or your neighbor who's being victimized by these, you know, backpage and other people like that, they've been very uncooperative with me in michigan. so i'd love to work with you on that. we need to be aggressive because they use prior restraint and censorship as a protection for their, you know, i think -- that they provide space for people to prey on young girls, and that's just wrong. >> thank you, general. >> yeah. i have a question for rob. on your -- [audio difficulty] the people who are signing up for that relative to say folks who are just on your press list, do you have a sense of who's paying attention to what you're putting out publicly? >> it's a real mix, general. we certainly have the media who follows all the consumer reporters, follows on