opportunity and upward mobility for all people who are willing to work, those are all debates that i'm looking forward to having, but today i want to thank all the numbers of congress who came together and worked to get this done. it shows what an id is right, that we can still accomplish something our behalf of the american people to make our government and our country stronger. so to the ladies and gentlemen, who helped make this happen, thank you very much for your outstanding work. and with that, let me sign this bill. [applause]

this is not as easy as it looks. [laughter] [background sounds] >> and there you go. [applause] [applause]

>> good job, all of you. >> [inaudible conversations] >> more live coverage coming up on c-span2. at 1:00 the institute of medicine will be unveiling a committee report on medical products and food safety. the report is expected to

address stronger regulatory measures are brought to ensure the safety of food and medical product. that is live at 1:00. at 2:00 the brookings institutions host a discussion on drone surveillance in the u.s. president president obama signed an aviation bill in february and will allow flights by unmanned aircraft within four years. speakers will address the impact of the new policy on privacy, safety and national security life here on c-span2 at 2:00. with the u.s. senate on break over the next two weeks we are featuring some of the tvs weekend programs in primetime on c-span2.

>> this saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv, join our live call-in program with distinguished former navy seal and author chris kyle as he talks about his life to becoming the most lethal sniper in u.s. military history. at 10 p.m. on afterwards -- >> if you think of yourself as a family and if you think of yourself as a team, she said when i get a raise at work he is so proud of me. it's like we got a raise. our family got a raise. that i felt that though she had redefined providing to include what her husband does and that shut a lot of respect for what her husband was doing. >> "the richer sex" on the changing role of women as the breadwinners of the from and how that impacts their lives. also this weekend, america the beautiful, director of pediatric nurse or a tree at johns hopkins ben carson compares the decline of empires past with america and shares his thoughts on what

should be done to avoid a similar fate. sunday at 3:30 p.m. booktv every weekend on c-span2. >> details on that new food and medical product safety report coming up at 1:00 beaten. until then and look at the republican budget passed last week at the u.s. house. >> we are back with phil kerpen, vice president for policy at americans for prosperity. calls the house gop budget radical. want to show you and if you're a little bit of that speech and come back and get your reaction. >> this congressional republican budget is something different altogether. it is a trojan horse. disguise as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. it is thinly veiled social

darwinism. it is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who is willing to work for it. a place where prosperity doesn't trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. and by cutting the very things we need to grow an economy that is built to last, education and training, research and development, our infrastructure, it is a prescription for decline. >> host: your reaction to what the president said. >> guest: the ryan budget after 10 years contemplates federal spending as a percentage of the economy dropping to about 19 points are%. it would be higher than it was under most years in the current administration so obama i guess is saying clinton was outright unfilled social darwinism by his standard. i just think this rhetoric is completely over the top and out of touch and disconnected from reality.

spending still grows under the ryan budget at about 3% a year over the next 10 years. we are talking modest spending restraint, not some deep darwinian cut or whatever the president wants to characterize this as. and even more remarkably this is a president whose budget got zero votes. not a single democrat was willing to sign onto president obama's budget. if you can't get a single member of the own part to support your budget, i'm not sure you should be criticizing a budget that can pass the house of representatives. >> host: in a "washington post" column yesterday, numbers on paul ryan's budget. this is the headline to pull budgets -- two-thirds of the cuts in programs that primarily serve low-income americans, even as its tax cuts disproportionately benefit millionaires. when he breaks down tax cuts come he says that those that make more than a million dollars get about 12.5% in tax cuts. those that make less than 40-50,000, only 1.5%.

when you look at the other side of the ledger, ryan proposed 5.3 trillion in budget cuts, three-point returning and cuts to programs with people with low to moderate income. 463 billion mandatory programs such as pell grants or social services. 291 billion to cuts in discretionary programs. 134 billion in cuts to snap, formally known as the food stamp program. >> guest: let's be clear when he says cuts he's using it in the washington sense of a smaller increase in spending. in this case he's comparing it to the president's budget which i think is a completely meaningless metric since the president's budget can't get a single vote. when you talk about cuts relative to renew its budget i think that is very deceptive. relative to a more realistic measure, these are not cuts as i said over all. there continues to be spending growth under this budget. on the tax side, you can't cut taxes for people who don't pay

taxes. we've taken about half of the mencken published off income tax all for this boy so any tax reduction the initial incidence is going to go people in the top half. but the point of the pro-growth tax form in the ryan budget is to get the economy moving again to get that the nominee growing and did gdp booming which, of course, will benefit everyone. the cut in health care spending in particular in medicare and medicaid, those are not cuts in the sense of just draconian slice and taking money out the way obama did in obamacare when he tried to slash avatar and added medicare. these are fundamental reforms to the structure of the program. in medicaid, block grant it to the states, the same thing we did to a defense with dependent children in the 1990s. that program has been extorted successful. that's the model the ryan budget falls for medicaid. get rid of the federal bureaucracy that let states innovate and run on program. for medicaid of a bipartisan proposal with democratic senator from oregon. it brings choice and competition

into the medicare system and lets people control their share of limited resources that are edible. these are positive reforms that lead the population served by these programs better off not worse off into in a way this awful lot of money for the taxpayer. >> host: the "washington post" had a fact checker called on the presidents speech from yesterday. they quote him, part of the these proposed tax breaks would come on top of more than a train dollars in tax giveaway for people making more than $250,000 figure. that's an average of at least 150,000 for every millionaire in this country, 150,000. this is $150,000 figure for people with income of more than a million comes just from this fact of making the george w. bush tax cuts permanent, and repealing obama's health care law in medicare and other taxes. the senior administration official said obama was assuming that the house republican tax plan would not cut taxes more for the wealthy although by the

white house calculations even eliminating every possible tax break for the wealthy, the lower rate would still result in an additional $170,000 tax break. saying the numbers are accurate there, the president throws out, $150,000 for every millionaire. >> guest: i think that the alternative, raising the top marginal income tax rate as president obama and the democrats suggested would be extraordinary damaging for the economy. the problem we have is not on the revenue side. the revenues have fallen a little bit because the economy has been so weak. but he should look at the government over jackson, revenues will be back at historical norms even if we keep the current tax rate. the enormous deficits were facing our because spending is completely out of control and completely out of line with historical norms. i don't think you can solve the deficit problems on the tax i. even if we went back to the 70% rate before reagan cut taxes and a 95% top rate before john f. kennedy cut taxes. the federal government never got

more than about 19% of the economy in revenue. 19% of gdp even when the rate was 95%. the income tax just won't bear more than that. we are spending 23 or 24% of gdp will have huge, huge deficits, trillion dollar deficits that obama envisions in his budget. no matter what we do. we've got to get spending down. the economy won't bear a higher percentage of gdp and revenue no matter what the tax rates are. >> host: let's get to phone calls. go ahead. transferred i've got a question for this guy. i know you are -- >> guest: know i'm not. >> caller: americans for prosperity, come on, pal? >> guest: i've never taken a position in my life what a donor believes, nor would i. let's have an honest discussion of the issue traffic knock it off and listen to the question. >> guest: get to the question. don't start with an attack. if you want to ask me a question, ask a question. >> caller: he is 100% right

about the tax breaks for the rich. it wasn't for george w. bush's war policies which you seem to want to go back to, we have a balanced budget under clinton. if he hadn't gotten his in wars we wouldn't have these problems are i will take my answer off the air. >> guest: . we had a balanced budget under george clinton because it was under 18.5% of gdp. write-once go to level that is higher than that and the present is condemning of social darwinism. if we go back to the level of spending under bill clinton, the level of regulation under bill clinton, the pursued free trade agreement we had under bill clinton, i would be very happy with that but i think the democrats are concerned only with what the top marginal tax rate is even the raising of one address our fiscal problems. they don't want to do what we did on the skinny side and the regulatory side under bill clinton that's much more important it will get the economy moving. >> host: budgets it's a combination of the to, like what happened during the clinton years, less spending and then you do increase revenue?

>> guest: i think the tax increase is relatively early in bill clinton's term had little to do with the increase the site. ataxia in 1997 when clinton cut the capital gains rate was likely the most important tax change went into clinton years because that led to the bull market in stocks and economic boom that created so much prosperity and so much wealth that allowed us to be in such a favorable fiscal position. it's not just about raising taxes. george h.w. bush and bill clinton raised taxes. i think i was a relatively ineffectual policy. but on the whole it probably would be less damage than folks on the right predict it will. it so they did less in terms of benefits that folks unless it would in terms of deficit reduction. the important thing in the '90s with a balanced budget agreement, welfare reform, where the relative regular tonight, the free trade agreements and over on spending limitation. those are the things i would like to see. >> host: democratic line. gym in massachusetts or what's the name of your town?

>> caller: what about the oil companies, the drug companies and the wealthy? i do anything about the cuts to them. the oh companies got too big, and -- hello? >> host: we are listing. go ahead. >> caller: all you talk about is what you're going to do to the middle class. you don't say anything about the wealthy. >> host: and i was a recent vote in the senate, what to do about oil and gas tax credits for those companies aspect of been several votes that were very interesting with respect to energy subsidies. a couple weeks ago cindy jim demint from south carolina put an amendment into and all energy subsidies across the board for oil and gas as well as for wind and solar and biomass and what have you. basically said no, we're not going to decide politicians which energy technologies ought to go, which ought to be penalize, which ought to be rewarded based on political influence and what have you. that animate only a 26 votes which was disappointed.

they got a half republicans innocent and not a single democrat. more recently senator menendez put an amendment in that he claims was about reducing subsidies but it actually repeal some widely available and important cost recovery mechanism basically deduction of legitimate business expenses, and they got rid of the only for oil companies. they would've been subject to much higher discriminatory levels of taxes relative to any other companies in the country. we don't want the tax code and politicians decide which companies succeed and fail, and where it's not that i thought there was a poor idea, one that would've raise prices at the pump at a time where people are already hurting. and, of course, that amendment failed as well. >> host: twitter, we have had a budget for over four years. this is all political theater. do we really need a new budget? >> guest: under the 1974 budget act congress is required by law to pass an annual budget in both the house and senate and create sort of a guardrail for

the actual spending bill that follow. the house has passed a budget, the house passed a budget last year. you make a very important point about the united states senate, which is now three years and counting without passing a budget which as i said is illegal under the 1974 budget act. this is a deliberate political strategy of chuck schumer and harry reid, where what that basically arguing is putting nothing on the table, not proposing anything, not defending anything. letting the president's budget be dead on arrival at its avalanche innocent 97 votes against and 04. the democrats can can't say the president's budget, that was a joke, nobody was just about that. we're not going to ask her proposed budget and will just try to attack the house republican budget and score political points. i think it's destructive. would have been much under budget discussion if the senate democrats will be for something on the table and waited see what they're for. >> guest: where is defense

cuts in the ryan budget? or is only the poorest seniors that you can? let me show our viewers from the new times earlier in march. military spending for the house gop proposal would allow the melted budget to grow with inflation over the ten-year period. president obama's as you include 487 billion in cuts over 10 years. >> guest: this is one of the areas of the ryan budget that i find a little bit disappointing. there were significant cuts in defense that were agreed to last year as part of the budget control act. those are basically undone by the ryan budget. the approach they take is to replace those cuts with cuts elsewhere across the federal budget and they recover them over the next couple of years, and individual committees and house are instructed to find those cuts. but my view is there's no aspect of the federal budget that shouldn't be cut right now. there's no program that couldn't benefit from being reduced, so there's waste into in the federal budget. we've got by more efficiencies including on the defensive. i would've kept those cuts in place.

i'm not a defense expert by any means, but just from a budgetary standpoint i think we've got to be funny savings everywhere so i would turn those off the way ryan does in the budget gets back we go to pennsylvania, independent. >> caller: the whole mo of the republican budget of this ryan budget the republicans are embracing is to privatize everything. they are finance, health care, pharma, prisons, whatever. and it will give the same people that have all the money now the ability to make more money while booting people out of jobs. >> host: let's get a reaction. >> guest: is something to the. i think the thrust of most everything the obama administration has done is to socialize everything, to move everything inside the government. have a government program for everything. in a certain sense that's the fundamental contrast between the two major political parties. the republicans believe in the private sector. i think as much power and

control as possible should be and the private sector subject to the discipline of competition and market forces. democrats believe want to big government programs deliver everything. the scandal which is that of the general services administration, were a number of people just resigned over a big party they threw with psychics and clowns and the rest of its kind of shows this contest because nothing the gsa does could be contracted out to the private sector, building management. it's all in the yellow pages. i would just that government not being subject to market discipline is inherently more likely to have scandals and waste and abuse is because it's not subject to competition. so i think it's a good thing to the extent possible to inject competition into these programs. the only about the program in history that is costing less than the initial projection is medicare part d because it is structured around private competition and that's the basic medicare reform model that the ryan-wyden plan which is in this budget would extend to the rest of medicare. i think it will work very well. >> host: little rock, arkansas, bill, republican. >> caller: the medicare just

cost $3 to administer -- social security cost just $8 to administer every house. you can't get that kind of do with john hancock. i tell you what, buddy, i listen to, and the taxes collected relative to gdp right now are at all times low at just 14%. the top fifth own 92% of the financial world. why are you thinking for more and more money for the rich? you're living in a dream world. you wouldn't know what work was if you had to. >> host: hold on. you are slinging arrows. are you a republican? transit yes, ma'am. i'm one of those rockefeller republicans and we always thought it was great. when eisenhower was in there. we've had corporations pay 26% of the taxes collected. now they pay 9%. how much lower does he want to see them go? >> host: let's stick to the policy debate and not name-calling. >> guest: the taxes that are

legally on corporation are paid by the shoulders, their customers and their employees because they don't come out of employees during wages and customers a high price if they come out of profits which means, those are human beings, the shareholders. so this idea that you can get blood from a rocket that some of a few tax corporations it's not coming from human beings is of course a false one. i think as i said revenues are down a little bit right now but if you look at even the administration's own projections don't come back up to historical norms. you cannot balance the budget at 23 or 24% of gdp. the system will simply not bear that around unless you want a new broad-based tax. it will not hit the rich. you can't get that out of the ridge. they can change the work ethic. they can change the character of their income. you would have to get out of the poor, like fdr used in the 1930s. so i think less want to do something like that what you think would be a big mistake

them for the people that you claim to stand for, we'll have to get spending under control and that's what this budget does. >> host: joy, democratic are in california. >> caller: good morning. a lot of people i think have memory loss about what it was like the first day president obama came into office. he was faced with, he stopped us from going, all of us, into food lines, soup lines. and he had two wars that were off the books up until 2006, democrats control, of congress. anyway, what i think the difference is with the ryan plan and the obama budget plan is that president obama wants to do it at a slower rate. now, there's one word that

doesn't get talked about enough in the tax code, is loopholes. and my father made a lot of money in his life, and he was trying to teach me how to cash in an office. and the deductions he claimed, he hardly had to pay a thing. >> guest: of course obama did come in during a pretty deep recession. he did come in with a couple of foreign wars which it continues until very recently started some of his own in libby and central africa and elsewhere. so i think antiwar left should be very disappointed as president for that reason. and, of course, he is continue with a lot of bush policies and the civil liberties area that should be a major concern to the left even assassinate a u.s. citizen of our which, of course, had never been done before. but on the economic side, look, the president came in in a weak economy, no question about that but it's since been preside over the week is recovered we've had

since world war ii. we should've had a very robust recovery time and we seen such a weak recovery because we've had such tremendous interference in the market by government. not just best in this program which misallocated a huge number, a huge amount of resources, but very oppressive regular policy that it made it difficult for capital reform for investment to be made in this country until. the president's budget doesn't move in the same direction the ryan budget. it doesn't ever get there. let's be clear that the president's budget, which got zero, another difference, it got zero votes in the house, ryan's got 208 in the president's budget never achieved balance to a couple plates deficit literally forever. hundreds of thousands of and when not basically ever under president obama's budget in which the budget balances. i think that simply unacceptable. i think democrats in congress agreed it's unacceptable. i would like to see a series budget proposal from the democrats because we haven't seen when it. >> host: how could a budget

ever passed both houses when republicans won't compromise on taxes? >> guest: well, a budget can very easily pass both houses without raising taxes. i don't know whether the democrats are obsessed with raising taxes. as i said the problem is not on the revenue side. the problem is on the spending side. more over the democrats all agree to extend all these bush tax cuts that they now demonize. extended and at the end of 2010 to obama signed off on the deal. they have the fingerprint on this just as much as anyone else. the democrats and republicans in congress basically agree is the eternal time to raise taxes. they agreed in 2010 the economy is to weaken 2012. they're going to agree to extend them again after the election in the lame-duck session. i wish the democrats would drop is political posturing industries about cutting spending. if they did that they could pass a budget in the senate. it only takes 51 votes to pass a budget in the senate which is not subject to filibuster.

they could get a decent with just democrats votes if they wanted to. >> host: "usa today" editorial page, 30 members of congress finds the courage to do the right thing. one of the surest ways to solve hope what did the house do? and it points to a compromise bill between complete together by congressman of tennessee, excuse me, of ohio, and jim cooper of tennessee, democrat. they said going into the vote have had about 100 cosponsors. but after policy groups on both the left and the right got to the cosponsors, that fell to about 38 people who voted in the end for it. paul ryan and congressman van

hollen, the ranking democrat, both by opposing views in "usa today" on this budget proposal. what do you think of it? >> guest: i think is a bad budget because it had enormous tax hikes into contact increases on mortgage interest, tax increases on charitable contributions, tax increases on energy. i don't think you can balance the budget by hurting the economy further with punitive tax. that when i get them to get want to balance the budget we've got to bring spending back to the store can norms. this budget to do that. it kept spinning elevated at about 20% of gdp and try to catch up with all of the attacks. that will undermine economic growth and that will keep us running these deficits. site into was the wrong approach. we oppose the. are glad to see go down to defeat. >> host: what about on the spending side? >> guest: it had good ideas. they came from the simpson-bowles commission. many of those good ideas are in the ryan budget or similar

ideas. look, we've got to reform spending and i would like to see the democrats put something on the table that they went to vote for. clearly this wasn't it. i think the senate democrats need to put politics aside, stop going years on end without a budget, but for the best budget, and they would have discussion about the differences between the two. but the rest of this, all we're seeing from democrats is positioning for this election. if they want to pass a budget giunta to in the senate. >> host: did americans for prosperity lobby against this? >> guest: we sent a letter of opposition. we didn't get a lot of notice when this is coming up but we did send a letter up to the hill stating the reasons we were opposed to it. >> host: new jersey, marlene is joining us. independent. >> caller: good morning. i get speechless every time i hear someone make a comment on this show that bill clinton had a balanced budget. bill clinton balanced the budget

by taking money, borrowing money out of social security. so it wasn't really what anybody with a brain in the head would call a balanced budget. if you're borrowing from trust funds. that adds to the debt. when bill clinton was in office, every single year, the national debt went up. and i want somebody to start addressing that. >> guest: thank you. that's a very important point the we get cut off in the discussion in washington where we is what's called the unified budget or the social security trust fund is just kind of added in there. attacks reverend that is supposed to be dedicated social security is added on the revenue side and the expenditures are added on a spinning side and we pretend that it is not a separate program. and the reason we do that is because you are correct, congress has been written the social secure trust fund surpluses since they started materializing act of 1980 greenspan commission do. spending them on other unrelated programs. we are in a position where all

that money, all those trillions they're supposed in social security have already been spent by congress that social security is sitting on bus but the problem is when social security retains those bonds, the general fund has to pay the back. when the general fund has to pay them back, it doesn't have any good choices to come up with that money. there are only three ways to a content other unrelated spending. it can raise other taxes to try to pay for it. or it can issue new debt, new foreign held debt or new debt held by the public to make up for the special issue debt and the social security trust fund. the only options we have when social security retains those bonds are the same three options we would have if the trust fund never existed in the first place. the trust fund has been really sort of a -- a much higher level. as if all the revenue coming in since 93 had in coming. so you raise a very important

point people talk about the surplus in the clinton years, they were not genuine surpluses because they did rely on rating the social security trust fund dollars. which, of course, now we wish we still had in there to pay the claims on social security as more baby boomers retire. your point is well taken. and i think that's one of the recent we need to reform social security so that funds going to account that politicians can't touch and can't spend on something else. clinton did propose one form of central investing funds like a pension fund. i would much prefer that the individual accounts so they can get politicized. either would be preferable for the system we know where politicians just spend the money. >> guest: we have talked about president clinton. president obama yesterday brought up ronald reagan. here's what he had to say. >> we have presidential candidates who stood on the stage and were asked, would you accept a budget package, a deficit reduction plan that

involves $10 of cuts for every dollar in revenue increases. 10 to one ratio. spending cuts the revenue. not one of them raised their hands. think about that. ronald reagan, who, as i recall, is not accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that when the deficit start to get out of control, that for him to make a deal, he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases. did it multiple times. he could not get through a republican primary today. >> host: your reaction.

>> guest: that's outright revisionism. reagan did do a deal for $3 in spending cuts for each dollar in tax increases and he signed off on it and he passed. the tax increases were probably enacted by congress. the spending cuts never happen. they never materialize. and at the end of reagan's presidency he said his biggest regret was that he didn't do. he frequently would joke about where's my $3. been to $3 in spending cuts that he is supposed to receive for each dollar in tax increases. there was a similar betrayal by george h. w. bush when he cut a budget deal which was supposed be $2 in spending cuts for each dollar in tax increases but we got the tax increases but never spending cuts. so the lesson that we have on these grand bargain is that when you cut a deal with the democrats, you get the tax increases but you never get the spending cuts. so i think that's why there's so much skepticism about any kind of grand bargain but also as i said the probably really is on spending side. if we did it's been back to historical norms back around 20%

of the economy we will get manageable deficits because if the economy will be going again and revenues will be back at normal level. >> host: phil kerpen is our guest. americansforprosperity.org is your website. also author of a new book that just came out about sex much ago, democracy tonight. which this book about. >> guest: this book is about how president obama and various bureaucrats and regulars in the administration are disregarding congress and the constitution in a landslide to keep pushing big government policies without the approval of congress and so the implication of that an e-mail for you. wants to go back to the tax lied and 10 side of the ledger. specific examples. >> guest: well, in 2003 when the capital gains and dividends taxes were cut, we saw tremendous increase in capital

formation, tremendous reaction to the stock market that had a major follow on impact to really good. we had a genuine economic growth as a consequence of that. i think and it's pretty stark contrasts were largely not on the margin, a lot of things in there like that child credit and 10% bracket that didn't affect supply-side incentives. so the structure of tax cuts does month if you want to affect the margin rate. increasing the marginal rate on the so-called rich or whoever you're trying to increase the marginal rate on, that has a major economic impact because you increase the tax which. you lower the after-tax return on savings, investment, effort. when you know the after-tax return you get less of those things but those are things we want to see more of. we want more capital formation, more prudent risk taking. we want more work effort. and when you say come when you put the increase effort you're going to receive less of reward for that, more than will go into taxes, human behavior is such

that you get less of those. and i think even democrats understand this basic mental when they cut out for higher taxes on cigarettes or when they come up for higher taxes on other things that they consider undesirable. tax penalties on the uninsured, for instance, that obama put into trying to make advocate incher. when you tax something you get less of a. when you tax something less you get more of the. we got to want more income. we ought to want more to have more capital information to we ought to tax income and we ought to tax capital at lower rates we encourage more of it to be creative. >> host: republican line, you our next. >> caller: good morning. >> guest: good morning. >> caller: i have a couple comments so please bear with me, okay? basically, going back to the point about the lady made a second ago, there was a balanced budget. during the clinton years, but as she said, the baseline spending never got it continued to escalate during the entire time

so there were deficit that entire time. i don't know democrats get their information from. you know, i would suggest not reading newspapers and not watching, you know, rock star in b.c. going on the government website and looking at these dinners. it's not that public and. i dropped out of high school and i can understand. anyway, my main point is this. this is not about anything but left and right politics at the end of the day. because president obama has no interest in ever seeing any reduction in our deficit. it's all, he conveniently switches from like a little too conservative depending on what crowd he is talking to. you know what them in? he talks about capitalism glowingly one day and the next day shreds it, you know? >> host: and a jump in and ask you about the comments made by this former vice president dick cheney when the bush administration was in, that at some point to now that deficits don't matter.

>> caller: i will comment on the. dick cheney doesn't know anything about the economy. he's not an economist. he's not. you know he is? he's a lifetime politician to case a lifetime government employee. and i will say one thing about dick cheney while i have the opportunity. for everyone out there, dick cheney dedicated his entire life to this country. and because of that, he is now had to have his heart removed and have another one put in. so i have no love for the man, but just a we can be clear about it, dick cheney served this country very well during the course of his life. back to the economy and the tax credits we're talking about and taxing everything and budget, i find it so amazing that this administration that came and said that they're going to be the most open and honest administration in the history of this country, nancy pelosi said that, they can't even put a budget out that you are the most open and honest, you know,

government in history of this country but yet you can't even put a budget that. you know it's going to be rejected. >> host: i'm going to stop you there because we got your comments and we will move on to jane who is a democrat in tennessee. go ahead. >> caller: yes, thank you. i would like to say that the last three and a half years if president obama could've been assassinated by lies, he would have died a thousand deaths. i have never heard that amount of lies that fox networks, republicans and the tea party have put out against one black man who, in my opinion, he is -- not just for special interests. and i don't know why that people can't understand that. >> host: your comment stand as well, go on to paul, an independent in indianapolis.

>> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning, paul. >> caller: i have been an old federal auditor. i've been looking at the federal budget since 1980. bill clinton, i think that bill clinton surplus was based almost entirely on capital gains from the dot.com bubble. the most expensive thing that george w. bush did was to cut taxes for people below 250,000. i think you look at the numbers, if remove those tax cuts, bush had deficits -- only in two years. i think that you also find that if you did what obama wants to do to increase taxes to 100%, on all over two and 50,000, you still would end the deficit. as a matter that you wouldn't even hit half of its. >> host: let's get phil kerpen's response.

>> guest: that's right. i think that shows the opportunistic and seriousness of the democrats wouldn't talk about the bush tax cuts. the vast majority of the budgetary costs of the bush tax cuts had nothing to do with rich. it was a 10% bracket, a tax credit, the marriage penalty. the provisions were the ones that were really expensive in terms of revenue loss but a 10% bracket alone cost about a trillion dollars. the democrats all want to extend the 10% bracket are going to extend the marriage tax penalty. they want to extend child credited they choose a political opportunity and talk about income tax rates for upper income partners which every little impact on the deficit projection but have an enormous economic impact because those are the people are the most prestigious wealth greek and, therefore, the most subject to changes. so you are right that there's a duplicity there. but i also think, you know, most people, most of the american people do not believe that if they give washington politicians more money in taxes it will be used to pay down the deficit.

they believe that politicians will spend every dollar they can get their hands on an tax and then they will spend every dollar they can get away with borrowing. i to give you look historically, there's a lot of evidence to this idea that higher taxes will just be spin. they will not be used to pay down the deficit. and i think that's one reason people are so skeptical of a so-called deficit reduction package. >> host: here's a chart that together from treasury calculations raised on cbo data. bush administration policies. when you are looking at the deficit, seven-point -- 7 trillion coming in deficits through 2011. 3 trillion of that from the tax cuts, 1.4 trillion from the wars in iraq and afghanistan, 300 billion for medicare part d, after spending about 2.3 trillion. are those numbers wrong? >> guest: i don't know the exact assumption. bucklew they're using a static scoring model for the tax cuts which are thing always overstate the cost to cbo joint tax

committee do this. they pretend there's no effect on economic growth at the level of tax. we know that is not the case. that some of that. the numbers are shortly rugged for that reason we don't know how much they overstate the case. but as i said, most, the vast majority, something like 90% of the revenues lost from the bush tax cuts are policy democrats now support extending. very little of that has to do with the more politically sensitive so-called tax cuts to the rich. which they want to focus on. that had very little to do with the revenue impact. so i think, as i said there's a certain disingenuousness about the way they cut the deficit impact of the anti-bush tax cuts but then said want to give almost all of them except for the what they think they can score political points on. >> host: do you want to cut the deficit and raise taxes or cut taxes and raise deficits? >> guest: those are not the sights and that's what i wouldn't choose sides between those two options. i would like to cut taxes and cut the deficit by getting the

economy booming again, have robust economic growth as the driver brings revenues back up to the historic norm and have spending we strength that gets to the size of the federal government back down to historic lows. i think if we did that come into braves were christians, sound money and we could have another economic boom in this country and that would solve the deficit problem in a very productive, positive pro-worker way instead of pursuing the kind of high tax policies that i think would be self-defeating. >> host: one last phone call for you. a republican. you are on the air. >> caller: my question has to do with the spinning of the budget. this seems to be a large amount of money that has been spent at various companies and organizations that remove the money from the united states physical, within the economy to international markets and things like that. how are we going to bring that money back into the country from where it has been spent outside the country? because everybody here knows

that the cache, the dollar is the oil of the american economy. that's my comment. >> guest: that's a great question. first of all, we want to bring u.s. dollars back home to be invested here. we've got to stop penalizing companies for bringing that money home. where the only country in the world that imposes a tax on foreign source income. we have to eliminate that tax and see if you earn money abroad, he paid the taxes you owe in them country it was a. we will not penalize you for the. we did that on a temporary basis of years ago. a huge amount of money came home. that's about $1.4 trillion in profits sitting on the books off of, you know, overseas subsidiaries. u.s. congress would love to bring them home. that's one way to do. we've got to be much more competitive on the corporate tax agenda. april 1 was the date where in japan's corporate tax rate was cut which means the u.s. now has the corporate income tax rate in the entire developed world. i think there's a real deal to

be done that because obama has come out for taking that rate down to 20%. the house republicans want to buy to 25%. i think there's a deal that can be made there to bring down our corporate income tax rate, get rid of the loopholes to broaden the base, do it on a revenue neutral basis and we could be much more competitive internationally. that's what areas i have some hope we can get something done on a bipartisan basis. >> host: phil kerpen, thank you very much for being with us. >> guest: my pleasure. >> in about 50 minutes the institute of medicine will be unveiling a committee report on medical products and food safety safety. while we wait for that, more from today's "washington journal." >> host: good morning edwin. let me show you the front page

of the wisconsin state journal, courtesy of the museum. romney tightens his grip on the gop nomination. front but if the tory in wisconsin of the two other primaries, and in the "baltimore sun" this morning with the headline, romney sweep is how they played in the "baltimore sun." and then moving on to the next contest april 24, the big one for rick santorum, he says is pennsylvania. here's the "pittsburgh post-gazette," candidates set sights on p.a. romney sweeps three primaries. rick santorum attended a rally in martial tuesday night while mitt romney will strengthen his status as front-runner. that is the pittsburgh post. and then also in the pittsburgh tribune review this point they have the latest polls out for that pennsylvania contest. and this is buoyed by a university poll released yesterday that showed likely republican voters in pennsylvania favor the former

senator 41% to 35% that don't miss these headlines in the papers this morning. here is "the wall street journal." that says santorum prepares for a last stand in pennsylvania. it says rick santorum campaign has settled on all in strategy focus on his home state. that could provide a win or go home moment for the struggling candidate later this month. mr. santorum's campaign we will read more but we want to get your thoughts on yesterday's primary. richard in michigan, in minneapolis, minnesota. richard, who are you supporting?

>> caller: good morning. yes, mitt romney. >> host: not michigan. go ahead. >> caller: the main reason is i think that he would make the chinese trade fair, because the chinese are cheating a lot on the trade policies. they are stealing our software. they are undercutting everybody, you know. not devaluing their currency and things like that. so i think mitt romney will really bring back industry to the united states. >> host: richard, let me ask you about the other candidates in this race. would you like to see rick santorum, newt gingrich drop out for the sake of the party and your candidate, or t. think this primary contest is a good one and a toughens of the candidates and he should continue on? >> caller: i think rick

santorum is damaging the party. he is so far right that it really turns people off with his social issues i believe. he is so far right that is damaging the party. and passionate which the other candidate? >> host: newt gingrich, ron paul. >> caller: newt gingrich. newt gingrich, haven't heard much from him. and ron paul has a couple good ideas, but, but some of them are too far like get rid of the federal reserve and things like that. >> host: all right. monica, rick santorum supported in miami. monica, you just heard from richard and there in minneapolis. he think your candidate is too conservative and should get out of the race. >> caller: well, i think now is not the time for him but i think they're looking for a moderate and they found it in

romney. i'm an independent, and i don't think he would be the president. i don't think romney will be the president, but right now that's what people are looking for, a moderate. but i think 2016 will be his time. and he can go up against maybe hillary clinton or somebody because romney could come back in 2016 and beat hillary because it's like to democrats. that's my been. >> host: so you think rick santorum should run again? >> caller: i think he should run again in 2016. i think the conservatives will be back in 2016. >> host: what should he do now? should he get out of the race? >> caller: he should get out of the race. the republicans will not win anyway so he should choose, you know, keep campaigning under the radar as he prepares for 2016. >> host: all right. so who are you going to support than in the general election? >> caller: the general election, it would have to be,

if santorum was in i think i would support him but he would have to be, even though i'm an independent, it would have to be the president, the current president now. >> host: so mitt romney versus barack obama you are for obama? >> caller: just. i think that, i think the because of the consistency of santorum, he is somebody you can trust more than romney. i think that romney has been all over the place to even his speeches now, you just really don't know where he stands. >> host: so it is a trust issue with you because some might question i go from rick santorum the president barack obama. >> caller: i think what happened, if santorum was to get the nomination, which he is not, i would vote for santorum. and i think that the reason why is its consistency. moderates and democrats are usually not consistent. >> host: all right. a little bit more about rick santorum's campaign. this from the "washington times" this morning. then that mr. santorum's campaign sent an e-mail

fundraising pleas come to the, asking for me to cover the cost of airing commercials in pennsylvania where it's an all in strategy in that state. for the former pennsylvania senator. thomas, you're a mitt romney supporter in albany, new york. go ahead. >> caller: my feeling is that gingrich, ron paul and santorum should just drop out. it's too little, too late. >> host: so too little, too late. well then, why -- how would that help your candidate, do you think? >> caller: if you look at romney's credentials, put something, the way he's able to accomplish it, turn it around. >> host: all right. virginia beach, virginia, go ahead. >> caller: how are you doing? i would support newt gingrich until he made the statements about obama being a foodstamp

president. and after a while, i listen to the whole process, and we have been on this campaign for two years now. and no issues have been really discussed. and after, well, romney will win, i've only think issues will be discussed them. how about discussing things like capitalism? unit, capitalism of the right thing for this entire system because we have people losing homes and jobs going overseas. we have student loans debacle. it's almost a trillion dollars. the message is really not represented by the two party system. >> host: hang on the line. let me show you and our viewers what the former speaker had to say last night after the primary results came in.

he said we cannot win on an etch-a-sketch platform that shows no principal or backbone. what do you think of that? should your candidate get out? >> caller: my response is, which backbone does newt gingrich have? gingrich has been supported by a billionaire, somebody from israel, who got -- from gambling, from gambling destroys peoples lies. >> host: let me ask you this. you were a newt gingrich supporter, so now who are you supporting? >> caller: well, i'm supporting probably an independent candidate who might have a backbone. unit, who runs.

even cynthia -- [inaudible] anybody because well, who i really support is -- [inaudible] we should support the wall street occupy wall street movement. >> host: let's move on to ralph, a rick santorum supporter in detroit. go ahead, ralph. >> caller: i just, you know, i've been a republican all my life, and it's just, i thought ricky should have one in michigan and illinois and ohio. but he just came up at the last minute. he said so many stupid things and he took so many things owned that he shouldn't have brought up at the time. he was still in the wrong, you know? that i couldn't vote for romney. and lessee, unicode shows his income tax returns. jenny, just because you're a woman doesn't mean the money

falls out of the sky. that money came from somewhere, and the money, you should pay taxes. he should clean his own record of before you start criticizing the president. i would feel much better, but right now if santorum doesn't make it, i have to consider, i would probably have to consider obama because he has a record. i have to compare that against romney's record in boston. >> host: how did you vote in 2008? >> caller: i voted for mccain. i felt mccain, because, because of his standing as a war hero. and me being a veteran myself. i kind of link to them, and they voted for him. but i don't think there's anybody out there right now that probably could match up to obama's record.

once he got bin laden, you know, i thought well, he's a strong guy, you know? i think -- >> host: let me ask you this. if mitt romney is the nominee and he were to pick someone with a military record, and let me bounce this off of you, politico reports that syrian patrons bp. is alan west, a republican congressman, because of his military service, would that make mitt romney more appealing to you? >> no. i'm going to be honest. i just don't want to be woman eyes. i keep looking at a viable, and i'm a christian, and i just, i just can't feel it. you know? i think something is going about the guy. kind of looks like a vampire coming in. you know? he doesn't strike me as being a

guy who is sincere and honest. if he showed his tax returns i would look at him again and. >> host: well, let me show you and the viewers, "usa today" headline. .. >> caller: i'm trying my best to find something positive. every time he speaks he's criticizing and attacking someone, but he's never said what he would do, and his record in massachusetts as governor is just, you know, 47th out of 50

states? my goodness. i mean, you've got to come with something more positive than that. >> host: all right. well, you and other santorum supporters will be happy because rick santorum last night had this to say about the primary contest. >> ladies and gentlemen, pennsylvania and half the other people in this country have yet to be heard, and we're going to go out and campaign here and across this nation to make sure that their voices are heard in the next three months. [cheers and applause] >> host: let me show you "the wall street journal" -- "the new york times" this morning. in wisconsin exit polls hint at the leanings of november voters. it says:

>> host: it also says mr. romney won support among tea party sporters, a group he as often split with mr. santorum. >> host: about three in ten voters said mr. santorum's positions were too conservative while about four in ten said they were about right.

>> host: mr. walker becoming the state's first to face -- >> a reminder washington journal available in the video library at c-span.org. we'll take you now live to the national press club. the associated press writes that a new report will say if food regulators should offer training, technology and expertise to developing nations in asia and other regions to better assure the safety of imported products. the institute of medicine issuing that report this afternoon. this news conference just getting underway live here on c-span2. >> professor jim live riviera, distinguished professor of pharmacology at north carolina state university. dr. riviera was elected to the iom in 2003 for his contributions to the mathematical modeling of toxicology as well as his work in risk assessment and food safety. he directs the center for

chemical toxicology research and kinetics at the nc college of veterinary medicine, and he will review with you the conclusions and recommendations the committee made in this report. so thank you very much, and here's jim. >> thank you, gillian, and thank you for coming out to listen to what we've done over the last year, year and a half. what i would like to do is to briefly review this report which is a relatively complex report. why did we do it? why were we tasked to do it? essentially, fda has realized that the world has changed relative to the types of products it must regulate. often-quoted statistics 80% of after ingredients of pharmaceutical material are not

produced in the united states, 85% of seafood, 39% of fruit and nuts. if you look at medical devices which fda is also responsible for regulating, there's been a fourfold increase in medical device importation over the last decade. taking this into consideration, there is 20 million import lines that fda has to keep track of. so just try to let that number sink in. and i know we've had some issues in the last few days and the last year and the last decade of very specific aspects, but they're tasked to look at 20 million different import lines. so even if you take a look at a product as innocent as a nutrition bar, if you actually look even if that's manufactured in the united states, there could be six or seven different countries in which the ingredients that go into that finished product have been sourced in a different country. so this is, this is a huge task ahead.

so what was the committee and what did we do? we were essentially tasked three things by fda. one was to define the core elements of food, drug and medical device regulatory systems in developing countries. secondly, after assessing what these core elements would be, what are the gaps in those systems, and then once we've identified the gaps, how do we think we could actually address these gaps both in a short term which is 3-5 years and, ultimately, the longer term. what did we do? we visited and went on four trips to brazil, south africa, china and india, and at these meetings which lasted thinker from two to four -- anywhere from two to four days each, we met with representatives of the countries. so we talked to, basically, people from a dozen countries, government regulators, other members of government agencies,

we talked to the regulated industries both multi-national drug companies, domestic drug companies, professional associations, nongovernmental organizations and development organizations, and we met in all kinds of different venues from very large, well-structured meetings to less than well-structured meetings. and essentially had open public meetings and discussed what is the core elements and what really are the status of these systems. i want to stress that our task was not to specifically look at a country. our task was not to look at the granularity of a specific product. our task was to assess what's out there globally, how are these systems structured, how do they interrelate, and how can fda learn from these systems and work with these systems to improve drug and food safety coming into the united states. there's a lot of detail in this

report. and, again, i don't want to turn this into a semester lecture. so in two or three minutes what i really want to look at is there's four basic core elements of a regulatory system that's important. one, the system has to be responsive. it has to be responsive to problems that occur, but it also has to be responsive in terms offing being able to adapt to new types of problems and new types of regulated products. so what worked ten years ago may not work today. it has to be adaptable. we believe it has to be outcome-oriented so that no matter how the system is set up we have to realize there's massive cultural and political differences between all of the countries. and so, therefore, systems need to be set up, processes need to be implemented that are actually implementable in those countries in the proper context, but the outcomes must be defined. so then no matter how you get to a specific point, if you reach a point that the product is deemed

safe, then the product should be able to be exported. in line with that, they have to be predictable. so whatever occurs in that line is that if the same type of a process goes through with the same type of a problem, it's actually going to get detected. and importantly, it has to be independent. it has to be independent of accelerate political -- overt political control, of economic factors promoting some countries' trade. it has to be able to be based on a system that really just looks at what is the risk and the safety. going into a little bit more granularity in this line, you can essentially see that one could look at a number of different approaches to what regulatory systems looking at. you have to realize that one thing we may be talking about is food, so we're looking at is that food produced, is that food safe. may also be looking at drug development which is an entirely different type of an approach.

however, there are common elements between these. one is a government standards testing authority. it's crucial that when standards are set that they, essentially, use science-based approaches and risk-based approaches to come up with these standards. they can't be arbitrary. most of these systems in looking at different countries should participate in international cooperative activities and harm harm -- harmonization so that instead of focusing on very small differences within specific areas, these are harmonized, and people are working toward the same goal. decisions should be ethical, and when something occurs, that information should be rapidly transmit today prevent it spreading throughout the system. the further medical product regulatory system should really look at product safety through good clinical laboratory and

agricultural practices. staff development and training for employees should occur. monitoring and evaluation of product quality laboratories, inspection and surveillance of products, risk assessment analysis and emergency response. we go into a lot of detail in this report on those specifics as what a regulatory system encompasses. when we looked at those, we've identified and grouped together nine main gaps in developing country systems. first falls into a classification of add here is to standards -- adherence to standards. in order for a system to function, there has to be some standard set which allows export from from a country and import into another country, those standards must be met. those standards can range from specific tolerances of chemicals, absence of microbial contaminants but also relating to a drug at a specific concentration in the product. another aspect we found that's significant is controlling supply chain. so the supply chain is when the

chemical or the food is initially produced to when it's in a finished product and, actually, imported. what is that supply chain and some of the problems we've dealt with this week, again last month, a couple years ago really has to do with supply chain integrity and how can we monitor that. this is a gap in many systems we looked at. there are infrastructure deficits. in order to implement supply chain control, in order to adhere to standards there has to be a system in place. there has to be people trained to know that those standards exists, there has to be laboratories in place, and there's infrastructure deficits at various levels in both the food and drug systems. there needs to be a legal foundation for regulating drugs. there needs to be a legal foundation for indicating and imposing safety standards on a product. not just the manufacturing aspect and a manufacturing drive to actually develop these.

we noticed a number of different work force problems at multiple levels, and we go into a lot of detail on this within the report. essentially, what this relates to in many cases is that there's just a lack of adequately-trained individuals and regulatory science. there's lack of stability within regulatory agencies of those people who are trained, there's turnover and in some smaller countries there's rapid turnover and continuous turnover. so in order for fda or any other regulatory agency to actually communicate with individuals in some of these develops countries, they all need to be talking and speaking the same language. no surprise to anyone, a lot of the regulatory systems are fragmented. they're fragmented politically, they're housed in different ministries, they're housed in health ministries, agricultural ministries and in some cases trade ministries. those organizations have different endpoints, and so when you look at another regulatory system, you really need to start dissecting out where those

components exist. and, again, the report goes into detail on those. many countries suffer from a poor surveillance system. and the surveillance system is not just the finished products being exported, but in a lot of the quality control points throughout the production of either the food or drugs. there needs to be a way of measuring what's happening there, needs to be a way of determining whether or not specific standards are being met. another gap we found is communication. the communication gap can be within a ministry or an agency from the top to the bottom of the industry where the work is actually handled, between different ministries and between different regulatory systems, between a regulator and the regulated industry, between a regulator/regulated industry and the consumers of that product, between different countries and different countries and globally. it's just a lot of individuals not talking with one another and

sharing specific information. and finally, in developing a system that guarantees safe food and products there needs to be a political will to actually do this. so the committee's strategy on addressing this, we came up with 13 recommendations which, again, i'm going to briefly overview. but what we're looking for is we realize we cannot inspect our way out of this. we cannot demand that only safe products and foods come into the united states. we need to offer a series of carrots and sticks, and we need to look at activities that, essentially, hit a sweet spot in this diagram. and that is if we're looking at product safety, we need to build the system that by improving product safety, then the export from these countries can occur and trade can go up in those countries. as we increase product safety, this could -- this should have a

direct impact short-term on public health, but long term because we're building up the awareness and work force and practices within those countries to actually try to produce safe products. and this should also then impact on aspects of development. and we're going to address those some of those specific areas, but i guess the best way to look at this is if you are trying to assess that only safe products come into this country and there's no systems in place to insure that safe products can actually be produced and manufactured in these countries, no matter how much inspection, you're always going to find flawed products. what we really need to work on is a system through cooperation and through hitting mutually-reinforce bl goals that we can actually build a regulatory system and build product, production systems in countries that actually generate safe products. by doing that, they are allowed to increase the exports in those areas, and by doing that then the economic activity is in line

with what the safety endpoints are. this is a problem in gaps that, essentially, if someone is trying to generate and you're being judged on economic activity, product safety falls to lower priority. we have to change that. we have some common threads as to what we think needs to be done, and i just want to go through these four areas that you will see coming through our specific recommendations. first is the concept of enterprise risk management. now, we're using this as a broad-based concept that a regulatory agency and specifically in this case fda needs to look at all of its operations. it needs to assume that with 80% of apis not being produced in the u.s., with 20 million import lines coming in, essentially, you can't differentiate between domestic and international. and, therefore, you need to start thinking about how you regulate resources. and resources are not just

inspectors in a foreign country or the number of inspections, but it also has to do with budget of specific trading dollars. where is that trading money being spent? how is this being spread to the risks that are occurring? so one needs to really look at this agency that was created and, essentially, existed for an error when there was domestic product, and it was domestic consumption. there's been a lot of changes over the last 40, 50 years, but now to get to the point to be adaptable. it has to be responsive to current problems. another aspect we realized is the whole concept of professionalism and credentialing, is that regulatory science and working and developing regular rah story agencies -- regulatory agencies and endpoints in those agencies are not specifically addressed in training programs. there are sporadic training programs around the world, the e.u., the fda, somebody joins a

regulatory agency when they miss the first topic. there's no standing ability to actually communicate. there needs to be a lot more venues where, essentially, people can work together, talk together, start learning and developing a common science base. we found in some developing countries in the certain areas, africa especially, that even representatives to standard-setting bodies do not have the requisite training to actively participate in these bodies. so we need to make sure that as those types of approaches become implemented and standards are implemented that those standards can actually be handled within those countries. another comment is the supply chain security. obviously, end-to-end supply chain visibility is an important goal. if we could snap our fingers and find out instantly what's occurring in a supply chain, we'd all be happy. that's not going to happen immediately. we need to work toward this.

the food modernization act has a one-up, one-down approach where if you are in the middle of a chain, you need to know where it came from and where it's going to so you can recreate where that supply chain is. we think this needs to be apply today other fda-regulated products. accountability is important. we, obviously, can control and reject products coming in, but there has to be incentives to do this. market access can be a reward for product safety. we need to get other approaches and engage the private sector and engage food producers and drug producers in trying to work out to improve the overall quality of the system. fraud prevention technologies and detecting counterfeit products is a crucial problem, but we need to get some of the systems that may be operative in a large, multi-national organization to be able to work on a smaller scale. some of these are not scaleable, and we need to develop technologies that can actually get closer to the point of origin where the problem is and eliminate the problem before it

goes all the way through the system and it gets too spread out throughout the system. and another approach on accountability is product liability and to try to work out a system that if something is imported into the u.s., there's some type of liability farther back into the supply chain. so specific recommendations, there's 13 recommendations. the first recommendation on we break into international and domestic aspects. we feel it's crucial that regulatory structure, infrastructure in developing countries be strengthened. it's impossible for one agency to do everything. fda cannot protect and guarantee food and product safety around the world and what comes into the u.s. in order to interact and develop surveillance systems, in order to have trained personnel there needs to be intact regulatory systems, and we feel that this should be added to the g20 agenda so that when development

and health projects come forward, specifically you're also looking to build the regulatory system so that there's longer-term effects of whatever those funds are being spent at. second recommendation, in emerging economies national regulatory agencies really need to engage in open and regular dialogue. there needs to be communication. and some of the groups we met with in certain regulated individuals talking to the regulators, they never met one another. they had never been in the same room together. they never knew that they existed. they may have known they existed, but what were they doing? communication from a national agency promulgating a safety standard down to a provincial or state level just by promulgating a regulation doesn't mean that the people at the next level actually understand what that regulation is and how it can be implemented. same, again w the communication

to the regulated industry. there needs to be regional forums. this is not an fda activity and, in fact, fda can participate, but if fda called it, this is not what we want to do. get neutral venues, national academies, professional associations, universities that, essentially, can provide a nonbiased format and forum to discuss what these issues are, to communicate, to insure that a standard or a technique that's actually implemented is actually implementable in the country you're looking at or for the product you're looking at. another recommendation, and these are shorter terms, that countries with stringent regulatory agencies should within the next 18 months convene technical working groups to really accelerate the process of sharing inspections. so if you look at the number of lines coming in and if you look at the number of industries in some developing countries producing food and then even to some extent drugs and devices,

there is no way possible even by increasing inspectors on the basis that's done with the food modernization act that's being projected that you will be able to inspect all of these industries literally around the world. we need to start getting b to an approach that if a stringent regulatory agency like the european union, canada, australia, switzerland, japan, the u.s. inspects one industry, they share those inspections and let the resources of those countries be spread around to inspect other agencies. it doesn't help us by having the e.u. and the u.s. inspect one specific manufacturer and then not look at another manufacturer. so this is an area that we think some rapid progress has already started. progress could really be accelerated. on a similar vein, our thrust is that regulatory agencies alone cannot solve this problem. so industry associations should over the next three years work out a way of sharing supply

chain information. basically, work out a way to find out that what are the good supplies, what are the issues coming up, what are the problems coming up, what should they be looking at. now, realize this is tricky, there's trade secrets, we're aware of this, but there's been some progress in this line. the group rx360 has been working on this on farm suitics. the beef safety industry has held yearly meetings to share off how can supply chains and information be shared. so we are not prescribing what needs to be done, but we strongly feel that we need to get private industry involved in how to, essentially, do this on their own and share those results. starting in the next five years, usaid, fda, cac and agencies within usda need to start focusing on technical assistance and strengthening of surveillance systems. so what i've been saying up to

this point indicates that regulatory agencies need to increase and get some infrastructure, get some training, but there needs to be the laboratory facilities and the trained people somewhere actually assessing whether this is happening. and we think it's crucial that this happen in the countries of origin or closer to the places of production rather than after the finished product is starting to work its way into the u.s. so as supply chains can get defined, we need to look at how that can be handled. domestic action. i talked about enterprise risk management x what this really come -- and what this really comes to is the agency has very specific mandates, and it has to follow very specific approaches for approving drugs for testing, food safety. but there needs to be resources allocated to fda, but there needs to be an ability within fda to determine where those

resources best need to be put. we've talked about a lot of aspects of keeping track of things. this is a developing problem, okay? these problems aren't going to disappear. if you look at the drug safety kind of issues we've had, we've had heparin, avastin, those are vastly different supply chains. and so we need to be able to sort of keep track of what's actually happening in that line, and we need to be able to have a lot more flexibility on allocation of those resources. the fda should facilitate training of regulators in developing countries, and this really needs to be focused on an ongoing basis to work if with its other regulatory agencies and stringent regulatory agencies to provide ongoing standard and curriculums so that if individuals in a specific agency are appoint today a position, they can within a relatively short time frame start getting to know what the other regulators are doing and start getting to know what those endpoints should be and what actually pertains to that.

in addition to that, we should be looking at the same concept on economic development to build the regulatory agencies. we talked about what international organizations need to do. fda needs to be proactive to make sure that food safety and drug safety objectives are actually built into their development activities. the fda needs to and continue the development and information on strategy that allows in the risk-based system to actually be implemented. so if you look at where we are in the 21st century, we have twitter, we have google, we have instantaneous transfers of financial transactions and instantaneous use of credit cards. it's a mobile, completely electronic system. in order -- not today, but in order in five years to start increasing the speed that this

information can work through a global regulatory system, we need to start defining very specific metrics, we need to make sure that as new agreements come into place between countries that fda and other stringent agencies absolutely demand that very specific metrics be collected and those metrics be interchangeable between agencies. by doing that, we can start developing much more rapid information systems to get an idea on where the potential problems might be occurring and where the risk might be occurring. it's a different approach than what's been done relative to the structure of the existing systems, but with 20 million import lines coming in we have to be realistic. fda's not going to have 20 million inspectors to follow each of those lines. so, essentially, we need to start using modern technology which is available now at relatively cost effective approaches to actually start implementing this in these types of systems. we need and we strongly suggest and in some legislation being

proposed by fda that the supply chain of drug manufacturers and also device manufacturers start getting defined and nailed down. we think that initially applying a one-up, one-down approach in food, to begin to develop that toward drugs would be a good beginning on this. but we need to make sure that supply chain integrity can be assured. next recommendation is we need to make sure that fda can develop the proper mix of incentives in order to promote safe product delivery, and some of those are market access. there's an fda secure supply chain pilot program that is currently in effect. fda needs to look at how this is working and to really push and expand that to other aspect they handle. there needs to be an incentive to some of these aspects. it just cannot be a negative and a regulatory impact. final two items of domestic

action is fda should encourage through cooperative research and development agreements and other programs within private industry and research funding to encourage businesses to develop and universities simply applicable surveillance-type tools, technology that is easily implementable, relatively cheap to use but can essentially carry surveillance down to deeper levels within the supply chain. large companies have this worked out, but a lot of very large company systems are not scaleable down to smaller systems. and finally, over the next 15 years u.s. government agencies should really work to strengthen the ability of those foods to actually be liable for that. and we have a number of discussions within the report as to how that might actually work. so in conclusion, the overall goal is that fda cannot do this alone. it's just impossible.

and everyone has to realize that the globalization is not going to reverse to any great extent. with the rates of increase in product imports and even domestic products that have international components that we need to address this. and we need to create a regulatory system that interfaces with partners of similar abilities and desires to work together to try to develop a larger regulatory system. in terms of maintaining what's happening. if countries have well-developed regulatory systems, then in that line food safety and those product safeties should be increased which allows export from those countries. what would we like to see that would actually happen ten years from now? if we look at the list of mature regulatory agencies that i mentioned to you, that there were double the number of countries on that list. if that happened, then you can start looking at inspection and

start focusing on areas because of problems starting to become more manageable. training and education must be collaborative. we're looking at multisectorral recommendations, and there's a lot of people that can help implement this, but they have to be coordinated. in looking at this it's crucial that regulatory system, the infrastructure and the communication, fda, the e.u., japan, canada cannot do this alone. we need to work together to increase that capacity. i thank the excellent committee, three of my members whom are here who worked on this, traveled around and debated and debated and debated on what these recommendations actually could work and the outstanding staff at iom that really has dug into this and determined facts and tried to work us forward. so thank you, and i guess we're open for questions. >> my name's ellen ferguson -- >> microphone, please?

>> okay. my name's ellen ferguson, i'm with congressional quarterly, and so my focus is on congress. what role would congress have in any of this in terms of either facilitating things for fda or directing the state department and other federal agencies to, um, focus and make this a priority in terms of the negotiating trade agreements or, you know, other international -- >> you actually provided some -- >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> no, essentially what needs to be done is as congress negotiates trade agreements, as congress interacts and produces legislation, interacts in areas that relate to this that this is high on a priority list to develop a system and develop a regulatory system in that line. in addition to that, congress has to realize that regulatory products of fda cannot be broken

down to domestic and international alone. that worked 20, 30 years ago, it does not work now. from the opening slide i showed you. so authority has to be granted to fda to have flexibility in moving resources. they need resources. a lot of these agreements are unfunded mandates, but what we need to essentially do is not just throw money at the problem, we need to give fda the flexibility to put the money into areas that would actually have impact. for example, it may not be important just to throw more inspectors in a country. it may be important to throw inspectors in a country, but also put training in place, also put help to increase surveillance within those countries so that instead of just inspecting, you're actually helping to build the system. >> just a couple of other, um -- tom point key, one of the committee members. a couple of other things to add that they certainly could do, certainly, they could grant fda the ability to share data on

inspection reports with other regulators that will allow them to cooperate internationally. um, this is something i think the fda has been pushing for for a long time, and particularly in this austere budgetary environment i think it's crucial for fda's ability to have a, this interoperability with other regulatory authorities. i know there's a -- >> can. [inaudible] >> i'm sorry? >> u.s. or international? >> their ability to share u.s. proprietary data from u.s.-based companies with other regulators so that they can then receive the same. they need to be able to do this in order to have a interoperable regulatory system. there's also in the current drug safety bill pending before congress, there is a provision for end-to-end supply chain visibility. i think that's crucial. obviously, as a committee we

recommended traceability and having adequate one-step back, one-step forward, and that's an evolution of that. fda has been stashed for -- starved for resources in its international programs department to engage in this type of regulatory activities in the past. i think that's crucial. as jim mentioned, you right now see a balkanization of what trade, development and regulatory agencies do around food and drug safety. there needs to be an integration of that, and i think congress has a big role to play to insure that what trade officials do is promoting high-standard food and drugs and also on the same part what fda does is cognizant of the benefits for development and for trade of the countries involved to adopt these high, consistent international standards as well. >> thank you.

>> some from outside. >> our first question will come from emily walker. >> hi. thanks for taking my question. just one quick clarifying question, then another question. um, is it true now that a country, you know, such as japan, i guess, will go and inspect food or drug facilities, but then the u.s. might send an inspector to inspect that same facility, is that how it happens now? >> yes. >> okay. and then my other question is would you say it's kind of a fair assessment, a lot of previous reports on this same issue have called on more inspections. i feel like i read that a lot. would you say it's a fair assessment to say this report is saying more inspections is not necessarily the answer because the kind of reform of regulatory systems in these countries needs -- [inaudible] first? is. >> yes. we're saying more inspections might be important, but all

resources can't be just spent on inspections. resources have to be spent on integrating more and trying to change the nature of -- and work with the regulatory infrastructure in other countries. >> and on that we did also discuss sharing inspection reports, so it's not just the u.s. ramping up inspections that have the ability to rely on the inspections of other very well-resourced, qualified regulatory agencies. >> and also shift the burden to industry to do sharing amongst themselves to, basically, if we can get higher quality products being generated throughout the whole system, then the inspection resources may ultimately catch up with what it's trying to capture. >> and a big part is, actually, we stress in the report it's improving capacity, and it's much more cost effective if we improve the capacity in the developing countries to, actually, test and not send the product down the supply chain

because it's very costly, the logistics of getting something to the endpoint and then having it be rejected. so capacity building's really important. >> yeah. >> martha bankruptcyfield also from the committee. i would just like to add that we have to be mindful of the flipside of the issue. we were asked what things congress needs to undertake, but one thing that was very important to this committee is that this is not a u.s. problem. this is a global problem. so even simple things like sharing inspection reports. there may be laws in european countries, in canada and japan that also prevent sharing. so there needs to be a mechanism to influence the regulators in other countries to make this a two-way dialogue. >> which is why our first recommendation is to bring this to the g20 agenda to get everyone on the same page on that. >> and to build on both jim and martha and claire's good point on this, this is why this committee took such great efforts to emphasize that there is an intersection of global

health, trade and development on these issues. and that operates both internationally and why this should be important at the g20, it's not just about public health. also should operate domestically as well, and we're hopeful that, um, that allows the ability to bring together all the necessary partners that you need to bring to bear on this problem. >> thank you very much. once again, if you would like to ask a question, please, press star one. >> yes. >> hi. i'm lauren becker with the global health technologies coalition. i'm very curious, for the second set of recommendations, the u.s. government were very clear actors, and for some of the first set there were as well, but i'm curious because, um, as we all know the challenges in developing country regulators, they're not waiting for an iom report to tell them that they

should communicate more with each other, but they clearly need to. so i'm wondering as who you see as sort of a driving force particularly for that recommendation, but for the other international recommendations as well? >> essentially, what we're looking at is, again, the agendas, bring it on the g20 agendas to get the u.s. and other areas on the development organizations and the world bank and various other groups to, essentially, put strengthening regulatory infrastructure as a priority in anything going forward, to start getting that message out. so our tie-in with the domestic regulations at fda bring this forward, and the question on congress. bring this forward as new approaches to improve public health go forward, there is a realization for that to last and have lasting and a multiplier effect within those countries that, essentially, the regulatory infrastructure needs attention. >> i think that's right. i mean, we're -- we call for, basically, the g20 to endorse this as an intersection of global health, trade and

development, and with that endorsement what we'd like to do next is or what we recommend doing next is that this then filter down to the various international agencies that are dedicated to those issues. and, you know, of course, there is wto and its committee's network on these issues. there's codex, obviously the regional development banks we think supporting strong regulatory systems, again, achieves global health, trade and development outcomes, and who has activities in this as well. but, again, we're looking for an endorsement hopefully at the next meeting of the g20 which will be in mexico of the intersection of these issues and then to start to build down from there to these topic-specific international organizations. >> it's ma that -- martha brumfield, to build on tom's

point, the regulators with whom we were interacting in the countries were very enthusiastic about this initiative and are anxiously awaiting the report. so i think there is a lot of reaccepttivity on the part of many of these regulatory agencies. so it's not just for g20 to push it, although i think that is incredibly important. but i think there can be other mechanisms maybe softer, one-on-one types of approaches where there'd be a lot of retentivity with the -- receptivity in the developing countries. >> and one of the things we recommend here again is international standards to make it easy for them. one of the things we found, we did, as jim mentioned, a lot of field visits as part of this committee, and we often found strong regulatory systems in the areas that support products for export. that don't necessarily extend to the population at large. and there is a lot we can do both the u.s. specifically by doing more to support

international standards and the participation of developing country agencies and their development, but also internationally to make this easier for those countries to adopt internationally-compatible, high standards. >> and, ultimately, you would want spillover effects so it wouldn't be just towards the export market. you'd want spillover so you'd be improving the safety of food in developing countries. and i think there is a clear desire for the people that we've been talking to in the developing countries that that's what they're interested in. >> anymore questions? sure.

>> ellen ferguson, congressional quarterly. you talked about your goal is to have this adopted, the idea of having food and ped call device -- medical device product safety as an integral part at the g20 meeting. what other things are you looking to happen, let's say, in the next three, six, um, twelve months as a result of your report? >> i think that the immediate short term is the sharing of inspection approaches and really a push to get agreement amongst fda and its partner regulators that this really is an important activity for everyone involved. secondly, to push on the industrial sharing in both the food and drug groups to share resources and not duplicate resources in that line. and i think a third one begins a training aspect, an educational

aspect could have immediate impact within a year or two for even fda domestic regulators to realize what actually is happening internationally, to get communication and to start sharing that with other regulators. and so to, essentially, share that information. and the spillover on that at every level is dramatic. because once the knowledge is based and individuals go back to their countries even on food production on both sides, the quality of both should increase. >> the only thing i would add to that is prior training one of the things that we mentioned in the report that we think would be helpful and is potentially a short-term thing the fda could do is an adoption of the fda version of the cdc's epidemiological intelligence service which has been very successful in that context in applying u.s. expertise on epidemiology to other countries as well as building capacity in those countries as well and building an international

community that engage in international surveillance around disease control. how we see that working in the fda context is, of course, there is both in terms of bringing foreign regulators over here to potentially work with fda to encourage that kind of information sharing and mutual understanding, but also to send junior staff-level fda regulators abroad to work in other regulatory agencies. and we see this as a way of building a high profile program as you had in the eis context and starting to filter out a common regulatory approach to the same persistent challenges on food and drug safety that we face and other countries face. >> can i just want to stress one other thing we talked about in the report is the issue about metrics. it's important we start getting the baseline information so that we can do -- understand the

impact to see really are these training programs, are these things really working because you're working with different cultures, and you may not convey something in the way that's heard. >> the only other topic i would add is we do talk about the role of industry in this context, and i'm sure my other committee members are going to be able to weigh in on this as well. they are certainly the entities closest to this problem and the ones with the shortest distance to controlling their own supply chain and their products. and we have a set of recommendations in this report both about creating incentives for them to carrots and sticks to meet fda standards. we talk about having more programs like the secure supply chain product that the fda has now on drug safety. we think that's a very good one and should be evaluated at the conclusion of that pilot and, hopefully, adopted. but also looking at the issue of

doing more to develop appropriate sticks in this context. and that's liability. it can be difficult under some circumstances to hold importers of unsafe food and drug products liable for those activities because depending on where the action occurred, how far back in the supply chain, um, in this report we talk about ways that you could potentially improve the ability to hold those entities liable in the united states. >> questions? >> [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> make a final comment? is. -- >> i'll start. i will say that when we undertook this product, we realized how god in scope -- broad in scope it was, and i really feel honored to have been a part of this because we've

learned a lot of information, and we have -- i'm walking away from this understanding that, yes, there are a few bad actors that seem to cause grief for all of us, for the regulators, for the patients most importantly, the consumers, but also for the industry. i fully believe most of industry whether it's food, medical products, device are ethical and are doing their best to manage these problems. but they also need assistance in helping weed out the bad actors. so this really has to be, um, a partnership where all stakeholders are doing their part. it cannot rest on the shoulders of fda or on the shoulders of regulatory agencies. it has to be a full commitment by all parties that are involved in this. >> i would just agree with that. i mean, you can -- i think as a committee we united around the idea that there is an alignment of incentives to addressing this

problem on health, trade and development. all those actors, i think, ideally want the right things here. that's certainly true for industry as well. and there are little things you can do to make it easier for them to have that alignment and to achieve the safe food and drugs that all consumers want whether they're in the u.s. or in other countries. and we're hopeful that the specific recommendations we've put forward are undertaken so that that can happen. >> and i just would like to finish, and i echo those concerns. this is a long-term issue. this is not going to be corrected tomorrow. there's components that we need to share what's already in place, we need to develop the ability. someone asked a question earlier, you're -- not here, but earlier this morning, so if our recommendations were in place, would the avastin not occur? not necessarily, but the

probability would be greatly reduced. we have to realize there's always going to be problems, and as martha said, we were really impressed within each country the desire of these countries to get rid of these issues and get rid of these food safety issues. but how do you do it over such a large and complex situation? so we really need to apply technology. this needs to be a constant effort to improve what's happening so that in ten years from now we have less of these problems occurring. so thank you very much for, um, listening to us, and i really encourage you to actually look at the entire report because a lot of these issues are dealt with in great detail, the pros and cons and approaches to this. and i guess for the iom, thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> tonight on booktv it's booktv prime time here on c-span2. all this week and next as congress is out, we're bringing you some of the books that you see on our weekend programming. tonight at 8 p.m. eastern, "the end of money." at 9, louis hyman, the author of "borrow: the american way of debt." and at 9:40 michael graybell on "money well spent: the truth behind the trillion dollar stimulus, the biggest economic recovery plan in history." that's tonight starting at 8:00 on booktv on c-span2. and coming up in just over five minutes here on c-span2, the brookings institution hosting a discussion on drone surveillance in the u.s. president obama signed an

aviation bill in february that allows flights by unmanned aircraft within four years. speakers will talk about the impact of the new policy on privacy, safety and national security. that's life at 2. this year's student cam competition asked students across the country what part of the constitution was important to them and why. today's third prize winner selected the first amendment. >> and god said, let there be light, and there was light. but it is no rebuttal to my position that atheism poisons everything that religion poisons something. there are plenty of poisons in the world. >> anyone who says they have god on their side also awards themselves, and you can see it happening by opening the newspaper, the right to commit any crime. ♪ >> a little harsh, right? the debate over religion has been going on since the world

began. the muslims and hindus have been fighting over the indy peninsula since the 1940s. thankfully, in america we are guaranteed our right to practice whatever religion we so choose. our constitution says: congress shall make no law affecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and i believe strongly in our right to our own beliefs. this is my house in grand junction, colorado. we hardly ever go to church. my parents were both raised catholic, but they started seeing the church as more about the money than about the state. without religion on my mind every sunday, i stopped believing in a higher power until i became agnostic. religious beliefs can truly separate a society, and i decided to immerse myself in the middle to better understand religion and its role in government. this is a free lunch that is put on every week by a baptist church for students in my high school. people of all faiths are welcome, and all they ask is you

to listen to a 10-20 minute sur mono. >> i ask you guys to give him as much respect as you give me. >> i was allowing things in my life to interfere with the greatest decision, with the greatest reality that mankind can ever know, and that is experiencing, that is daily walking with christ. >> at the other end of the spectrum, there are the western colorado atheists and free thinkers. they meet once a month at our local mall to talk with like-minded people about infringements on their first amendment rights. >> [inaudible] ♪ >> a rational, progressive -- [inaudible] >> i spoke with the pastor from the church lunch and the president of the western colorado atheists and free thinkers about their views on many topics including the existence of a god. >> one of the ways i know that there's a god is i can't look at this beautiful world around us

and say that this happened by accident. i believe that that is an insult on my intelligence. >> but to say there's some guy up there in the hens looking down on me and, oh, i lost my cell phone and god found it for me because i prayed, that just seems very odd to me. if god can find somebody's cell phone, how come he can't make peace in the middle east? >> because there is no certainty, we all need to take a leap of faith in our beliefs. >> faith, to me, in jesus christ is like, for instance, i didn't -- when i set this chair down in front of you, i didn't, i didn't test it out to see if it would hold me, i didn't, i didn't look at the manufacturer stuff. i just believed with all of my heart that it would hold me up, and so i sat in it. >> and as a scientist, you know, i can't say there is no god because you can't prove that. there's no scientific way to test that. however, for myself i can say to me there is no god. i have not seen any evidence or,

you know, any kind of analysis that would convince me. >> -- [inaudible] historically been used in government as a moral system. i spoke with the ap american government and history teachers from my high school on the history of religion in america. >> just reading through the declaration of independence you can see we're all given these unalienable rights by our creator, just having god mentioned in the declaration of independence and those individual rights given by him were a huge driving force behind the american revolution. >> the founders definitely felt the need for religious, if not the establishment of religious institutions that would be imposed on people. they wanted people to believe in whatever form of religion that they so choose. >> i think one of the things that offends me the most when especially politicians nowadays

say, you know, we were founded on christian principles. christians don't have a monopoly on morality. morality comes from your upbringing, it comes from the environment that you're living in, and it comes from are your own brain. >> it surprised me as well to learn that our founders did have religious backgrounds, and now it seems we're going a little too far in trying to keep god out of government. >> you do not have a right, i don't think it was intended, to be protected from exposure to religion whether it be, you know, a christmas tree or some kind of display by someone who believes in god. once we get to the point where we're that sensitive, we're missing the whole point of what our freedoms are. >> the constitution protects our right whether christian, jewish, muslim, atheist or whatever we choose to be. i don't see any reason why we should eradicate god from a government that was founded by christians. congress shall make no law

respecting the establishment of religion. people are touchy when it comes to their beliefs. we are a country that was founded by christians. however, nobody is wrong, and nobody is right under law. we can pact what we wish. even if there is a nativity nativity scene, it isn't exempting you from your freedom of speech or having a right to vote. i'm personally not religious, but i rpt others' rights. we all need to see we have the right to our own beliefs and how we express them. >> we, like every country, must be vigilant in protecting the rights of religious minorities and building a society in which people of all faiths and people of no faith can live together openly and peacefully. >> go to student cam.org to watch all the winning videos and continue the conversation about today's documentary at our facebook and twitter pages. next on c-span2, we're live

at the brookings institution in washington for a discussion on a new federal law signed by president obama in february which compels the federal aviation administration to allow the use of drones domestically for all sorts of reasons within four years. the speakers will talk about the impact of the new policy on privacy, safety and national security. just started moment ago, and it's live here on c-span2. >> there's just an enormous amount that you can do with this stuff if regulatory latitude is there to do it. um, and, of course, the most famous applications of this involve surveillance and targeting, but that's not the only applications. and so just to give you a little bit of an idea of how far in principle this thing could go, um, i was talking the other day to a journalist -- not the other day, a few weeks ago -- to a journalist named shane harris who's spent a lot of time reporting on this and was

reflecting, shane is a features writer for washingtonian and had spent some time writing a paper sort of imagining and talking to a lot of industry folks about where this technology was and how soon it was going to get there. and he basically had come to the conclusion that there was no good reason anymore for there to be pilots in the domestic air flights that we all take. and doesn't really think that's going to persist for very long, the major barrier in his view to that sort of phasing out is psychological, not technological. um, and so when you think about sort of range of domestic applications from law enforcement to journalism, there was an amazing little episode that happened, i ran across it randomly recently. guy flying his uav and down, i think it was in texas, and is finds, um, starts taking pictures of what appears to be a plant and finds a river of blood

flowing out of it. it turns out to be a sort of grotesque animal cruelty situation going on in this facility, and he sticks the pictures up. so you can imagine a lot of journalistic applications of this. um, you can imagine a lot of malicious applications, um, as well by individuals, by governments, by corporations. um, and you can imagine revolutionary, um, effects on people's day-to-day lives. and so that sort of constellation of issues is, the privacy concerns, the promise, the, you know, broad range of potential effects are what we're here to talk about today. the theory that none of you is here to listen to me, i'm going to keep my own role really to a minimum. going to, um, just introduce our discussants and then sort of

duck out and kind of manage, manage conversation flow. um, speaking first is john villasenor who is a nonresident senior fellow here in government studies at brookings but also professor of electrical engineering at the university of california in l.a. he's written very extensively about, about this set of issues, um, across a broad range of the topics that we're going to be discussing today. speaking next will be, to his right, paul rosenzweig who is the founder of red branch consulting and served in the policy shop at dhs in the last administration. um, next will be catherine crump who's sitting to my right who's a staff attorney with the aclu and, finally, ken anderson who's also in a nonresident senior fellow here at brookings and a professor at the washington

college of law at american university and who has written, i think, in about robotics and law mostly in the international context including a very important, um, paper that he wrote for the brookings institution. so with that i'm going to turn it over to john, and thank you all for coming. >> thank you very much. >> your mic's not on. >> oh. i need a sound person to -- >> yeah, can we get a -- >> test, test. am i okay? thank you. i'm going to focus much of my opening comments on a particular class of unmanned aircraft called first person view or fpv aircraft. an fpv aircraft traction mitts realtime video to an operator on the ground. the operator looks at the image on the computer screen and sees the view as if he or she were sitting in the cockpit and flies the plane accordingly.

nonline of sight operation, an fpv aircraft can be flown by a pilot many miles or many thousands of miles away. the use of fpv aircraft in today's domestic air space raises significant challenges that touch on all three of the topics of today's forum; safety, privacy, and national security. first, in terms of safety, nonline of sight operation recognizes concerns. for example, if communication link between the pilot and the aircraft fails, there are obvious challenges involved in bringing the aircraft involved. as the faa goes through the process of implementing the steps in the recently-enacted aviation bill, it will be important to be extremely conservative when it comes to the rules. with respect to privacy, fpv aircraft can make it easier to spy. a person standing in front of the street -- on the street in front of your house and

operating an aircraft is more likely to be caught. nonline of sight operation would make it possible to hover directly outside a window facing into the yard and take pictures of the interior of the house. operation in this matter would be in violation of various aviation rules, but despite those rules if there are tens of thousands of unmanned aviation systems out there and tens of thousands of people flying them, it will happen. it's important for privacy laws to recognize this possibility and put in appropriate prohibitions and sanctions to address it. the last area is national security. it would be naive to deny that sufficiently-large, unmanned aircraft don't create some new risks. it would make no sense at all for a terrorist to attack a shopping center or an office building using a drone. as we saw in oklahoma city in 1995, a car or truck filled with explosives would be far easier and more deadly. however, sensitive government and military facilities are a different story because of their

access restrictions. at these facilities drones could be far harder to detect and stop than a car, truck or passenger-bearing plane. an unclassified 2005 report issued by the institute for analysis explicitly recognized these concerns. quote: a small team could launch a uav from hiding with a relatively small footprint and make their escape before impact. the report also stated that, quote: there would be little danger of detection and that a precision-guide canned uav there is a, quote, high probability of successful execution, close quote. today i don't believe that smaller, unmanned aircraft pose a credible security threat. however, other larger platforms might. using today's commercial communications technologies, an fpv aircraft large enough to carry a significant explosive

payload could be guided to a target well beyond line of sight. gps is another possibility. i don't think any of us would dispute the existence of this risk. the harder questions are, how big is the risk? of the many thousands of methods available to someone intent on committing an act of violence on america, does this rank as a legitimate concern? minimizing any negative impact on legitimate users of drones who, of course, are the vast majority. to this last question, are there measures that can e be effective on the legitimate use of drones, the best solutions are probably technological. particularly sensitive government facilities can be e gived with systems that jam communications and other systems of an incoming drone potentially thwarting an attack. these same technologies can be used overseas against armed drones launched from what the military called stand-off distance or range. i would expect there are people in our government working on solutions to this. presumably, we're not going to be hearing a lot about the details of that work.

one way we can indirectly help, however, is by recognizing the value of these technology solutions and in doing so put those people in our government who are working on them in a better position to develop them. problems are more likely to get the resources and attention needed to solve them when they are recognized, and this concern has not been recognized enough. of course, the best defense here at home is making sure it never happens in the first plait -- place. with the broader community to identify and respond to potential threats. and part of that effort is insuring that weaponized drones don't fall into the wrong hands. in closing, the presence of challenges regarding privacy, safety and national security don't mean that we should forgo many of the beneficial domestic uses of unmanned aviation systems. they can provide vital, life-saving images. companies in the drone industry are developing amazing technology innovations. people in university research labs and in the hobbyist community are developing equally amazing innovations. these innovations and the jobs

they create both now and in the future can help american competitiveness not only within the drone industry, but also more broadly. thank you. >> paul? >> well, first -- am i on? >> yeah. >> okay. well, first, thanks for inviting me. it's always a pleasure to come to brookings. i appreciate the opportunity. um, it's good that you put me right after john because i'm going to try and give you the bookend of it where john has spoken of the threats that come from drone technology and the potential national security threats in particular, i want to flip that around and ask the question about the utility of drones, especially in the homeland security and law enforcement space which would be the principle governmental domestic use of those. um, and in doing that i want to, i want to fight the premise of ben's introduction just a little bit. he says that the introduction of drones is a revolution. um, and i would say that it's

more of an evolution than a revolution. that drones in utility might be more pervasive but are, in the end, not so terribly different than a host of existing aerial uses that law enforcement and border patrol, homeland security use every day. one thinks of helicopters as kind of the example. but in doing that i also want to sound a cautionary note which is that sometimes differences in degree become differences in kind, and if history is any lesson, if policymakers within government push too rapidly in the use of drone technology for governmental purposes, they will quickly, i think, lose the support of the public and very much run the risk of killing the goose that laid the golden egg, of driving the technology over the cliff of public acceptance into a ditch of public dismay.

so let me, let me talk about those briefly. why do i think that drones are useful? just think of the border, right? our southwest border is, essentially, a 1500-mile-long desert punctuated in a few places by large, large cosmopolitan populations. the crossing points. but in between there's nothing. there's nothing at all. that's why there was such a move in the last five, ten years to think about ideas like fences across the border, because it is virtually impossible to imagine a situation in which one could successfully patrol that entire 1500-mile length of border with anything approaching uniformity. the fences, of course, have proven both difficult and expensive to construct and relatively easy to evade and,

thus, pretty ineffective. there's a reason that the department of homeland security is so intent upon the building -- the purchase of new uavs for the southwest border, and it's precisely because it gives a much broader scope of visibility, it allows for a deployment of response forces in depth. so instead of having border patrol at every 30 feet along the border, you can have people in cars who can respond when an intrusion is observed. that is just, of course, one of many potential positive uses that drone technology could be put to. um, when one thinks about whether or not that's different, um, in general i would submit it's unlikely in that context to prove any different from the existing law and the existing uses that we have. the classic case in the supreme court is a case involving the use of a helicopter to hover over a dow chemical plant. the supreme court there said, rightly or wrongly you can form

your own judgments, but said there is no constitutional limitation on the use of that technology to surveil the open fields inside of a plant. the same law will likely be held to apply at least in the context of law enforcement uses on the border or in other open field doctrines. i think that john's hypothetical of the small uav that comes down and looks inside the house is an interesting and one that i hadn't thought of before. it would probably fall under a different set of rules because one maintains a reasonable expectation of privacy in one's house and what's happening inside the house. um, but having said that drones are both useful and under the current structures probably lawful is not to say that we should rush headlong into their application. and to see that clearly, i want to tell you briefly a short story from the very recent past

involving something called the national applications office. something that i doubt anybody in the room has heard of because it came and went so quickly that it made barely a blip on america's policy screen. but national applications office was an attempt in the last administration to unify the use to which america put it national technical means, that is the satellites that we have that circle the earth and take really excellent, um, pictures of what's happening on the ground. we, of course, use those in classified means for spying on russia or on china or wherever it is that the ngia wants to look. we also use them in a very overt and unclassified means to follow the tracking of hurricanes and after a hurricane has hit to assess the damage that has happened, say, to new orleans after katrina. there was historically a gap between those two uses, a gap

for the law enforcement and border security/homeland security uses of these national technical means. the satellites also pass over the border between the united states and mexico, for example, and one could readily imagine using those satellites as a means of surveying the traffic across the border. the national application office was going to be a cross-government office that was going to unify all three of these purposes; the clearly humanitarian, the intelligence and the law enforcement and assign resources based upon need and do a kind of racking and stacking of request for use. and in times of, obviously, in times of hurricane crisis we would use it for hurricane, in times of high tension, we'd be focused on china, etc. that, to my mind, was a totally sensible proposal to use a technology which had no legal limitations for a very new and novel purpose, ie, examining the

southwest border. it crashed and burned. it crashed and burned because it was rolled out without any thought for the obvious privacy and civil liberties concerns that would attend using national technical means for that sort of surveillance along the border. it crashed and burned because the intelligence community kind of drove the entire development of the proposal. it was presented in a way that was a fait accompli and was present inside a way that did not involve congress or the ngos who have privacy and civil liberties concerns like the aclu. the history of that is, i think, instructive for what we need to think about in terms of drone use going forward. it isn't, to my mind, that drone use for law enforcement or homeland security purposes should per se be prohibited, to the contrary, i think there's a great deal of utility to be found in that sort of exposition. but if those uses are just laid

on the table as part of a rulemaking in the faa without thinking about the very legitimate and sensible privacy concerns that people will have about some of the scenarios that john talked about or some of the scenarios that i'm quite sure catherine's going to talk about in the very next speech, without giving those concerns, without developing an oversight mechanism for preventing misuse, we won't be able to gain the benefits, the positive benefits to law enforcement and homeland security that would come from the good use of drones. and i think i did my seven minutes. >> perfect. thank you. catherine? >> thanks. well, thanks for -- is my microphone on? okay. thanks for having me here today. i want to pause for a moment at the outset and note how unusual it is that we are having this conversation now. and the reason it's unusual is that when a new technology is introduced in the united states, it is generally the case that it is introduced because law

enforcement simply purchases and adopts that technology, the public learns about it many years after the fact, and then there is potentially some debate about the issue. but because of the faa's rule in, for now at least prohibiting the widespread domestic deployment of drones -- particularly by law enforcement, but also for commercial purposes -- we have the opportunity to have a real and engaged public debate about the role this technology should play in the united states. and i think that is a really nice, um, change from how these issues normally play out. the aclu, um, is a organization that focuses on a broad variety of issues, and drones pose particularly complex problems and opportunities. they raise, um, privacy concerns of course. some drones are weaponized, but all drones have cameras.

they could potentially become a new avenue for surveillance in american life. but they also hold promise, for example, as a tool to hold government accountable. in addition to working on a variety of surveillance issues, i also litigate excessive use of force claims, and one of the best things that can happen in one of those cases is when we have footage of the incident that we can use because it is very helpful in determining what actually took place between law enforcement agents and private citizens. in addition, drones are unique because they are tools for free speech, and so, um, especially when it comes to private uses, they need to be regulated in a more sensitive way than your typical technology. i'm going to focus my remarks primarily today on law enforcement use of drones and the privacy implications of those. one question that has been raised is what is the big deal about drones, how is this different from what has come before. as paul put it, is an evolution

or a revolution? and i think there are reasons to think of it as a potentially more dramatic change in what americans experience. it is true that there have been manned aerial surveillance in the united states for a long time, but purchasing a manned aircraft and operating and maintaining that aircraft is an expensive endeavor, endeavor, as imposed a natural limit on the amount of aerial surveillance that can be present in american life. a lot of police departments simply cannot afford to purchase an airplane or helicopter for surveillance purposes. drones will potentially sweep away that limitation and allow smaller law enforcement agencies that have never had this technology to adopt aerial surveillance and potentially raise a widespread availability of this type of surveillance. in addition, drones have capabilities which i think have a real impact on privacy that aerial planes that we're used to

simply haven't had. for example, um, as john has written abdomen extensively, they can potentially stay aloft for long periods of time. we're not talking hours, we're talking, you know, days or when certain technologies get discussed such as the possibility of very light aircraft, that can float up in the higher reaches of the sky, potentially much longer, months or even years. unlike a traditional aircraft which -- or helicopter which can be easily detected, drones depending on how they evolve and are regulated could potentially engage in surveillance without being detected by the people who are potentially targets. i think those changes combined with the rapid development of cameras and our ability to analyze video in a way that hasn't previously been possible, um, make these very powerful -- potentially very powerful surveillance tools, you know,

cameras -- everyone today has a smartphone and can snap photos. well, not everyone, i actually am one of the few who doesn't have a smartphone. but cameras can zoom in the to tremendous degrees that wasn't previously possible, they can be equipped with night vision, and technology is developing to make it easier and easier to see through opaque surfaces. and all of these changes together with the possibility of facial recognition, analytical tools being used to analyze footage mean that you could potentially be possible, for example, to simply film an area for a long period of time and then go back and reconstruct individuals' movements. i think there are a number of privacy risks associated with the government use of, um, this form of surveillance; prolonged tracking of individuals is one of those. um, the supreme court, by the way, steve who argued this case is actually with us today, decided a case called the united

states v. jones in which at least five justices seemed to reach the conclusion that prolonged surveillance of someone's movement in a public space can become a search under the fourth amendment. and so i think to the extent drones engage in that type of tracking, they also raise privacy concerns. um, in addition, drones have a lot of the same privacy implications that cameras have had. chilling effects are one that people talk about. people behave differently when they know they're under surveillance than they do when they have the security of not thinking they're being observed. the aclu put out a report on this issue in december in which we issued some recommendations. i think we are not oppose today the use of drones domestically. i think there are a broad range of valuable ways in which law enforcement can use this technology to meet legitimate law enforcement needs. at the same time, we are concerned that they not become tools of general or pervasive surveillance so that innocent

americans have to worry about whether or not they're being subject to this kind of monitoring. um, in addition, it would be nice -- and i think conversations like this are a start of it -- for there to be a real, um, democratic debate about the rules under which drones are adopted which, of course, is different from how surveillance technologies are usually adopted. i think there are a bunch of complicated issues here not just dealing with government surveillance, but also with the private use of drones that are very thorny. i know you're planning on talking about private surveillance, so i won't touch too much of that. i just want to mention one other issue which is the potential weaponization of drones. i think this is a -- the way the public debate has evolved about this in the past few months i've almost found startling. when i first started thinking about the possibility of drones being purchased by law

enforcement agencies, i almost thought that was far-fetched. but, in fact, law enforcement agents have expressed, um, serious interest in this because it would allow them to, for example, contain crowds without having to have any officers present. i personally find that to be a very scary example of potential use of drones because i think, um, i think the potential for abuse is too great. but it also gets you thinking about the fact that if any private citizen, you know, with enough know-how can attach a camera to a drone, what else can they attach to a drone, and what kinds of regulations are going to need to be put in place to make sure that we're safe from this possibility? and one of the things i wonder about is whether drones will become a tool that's available to law enforcement agents, but the public is severely restricted from using them because of safety and other concerns raising the possibility, um, that drones become yet another tool that enhances the ability of government to control and

monitor citizens, but that citizens themselves don't get to take full advantage of. >> thank you. ken? >> thank you for the opportunity, and i'm going to focus on private party to private party uses of drones and the, really, the privacy issues that arise out of this. and i'd like to start with my, um, late, saintly mother. back in the mid 1960s when she ran the sort of social welfare stuff at our church, and she took a gazillion telephone calls a day. and this was in an era long before ordinary people like us had things like, um, answering machines and the ability to screen calls and do all the sort of stuff we take for granted today. until my father, um, simply stepped in and installed a switch on the telephone that would turn off the ringer. and you guys do not look

sufficiently shocked at what that meant in is the 65 -- in 1965. and my mother's reaction and the reaction of many of the people that she worked with, um, i think today sounds almost unimaginable. she had serious qualms that she was actually being dishonest and that she was lying to people about whether she was, in fact, in the house by having something that turned off the ringer. now, i want to fast forward then from the 1960s to the mid 1980s at a time when i was on the aclu's national free expression committee, at a time before you were born, my dear. [laughter] ..

free expression because it essentially meant that somebody could not get to you. and the caller id was actually a first amendment violation that the state telephone regulators should eliminate because of the -- it eliminated the first amendment right you had to reach somebody and communicate speech to them. now, 10 trillion telemarketer calls later.

[laughter] this attitude is entirely inconceivable to any person in this room and any person listening. that is, our notions of privacy has shifted in remarkable ways, including our notion of privacy about person to person products person's private person. well, let me bring this to the point of drones and how they fit into this. one is on they're own in relation to privacy, and seconds , as a sort of enabling technology, and leveraging technology in combination with the censors, cameras , the possibility of a facial recognition computer enhanced ways of dealing with the material that is gathered through the censors. and then finally the ability to have something which is constantly out there and then connected to the web. now, these technologies, i believe -- and i am echoing in parts.

i think it actually was up pushing our existing privacy structures to the breaking point. an important way that goes beyond simple government, but how we interact with each other and what our social expectation of privacy is and how we believe that there should be embedded. in this as a possessive it pointed out all those decades ago we had trade-offs and conflicts here between free expression, first amendment concerns and the things like that, the notion of the public and the private. at the same time also an evolving notion of privacy. but in a really complicated way. on the one hand we wind up insisting that we have the right to is its alito in the world away even at the electronic level. at the same time we share some much. now, the point that i am

actually making it is starting with privacy is, i don't think that we can actually really talk about drones in relation to their impact on these other areas, particularly their legal regulation between private parties unless we talked, instead, about the prior expectations we have about privacy and the ways in which that is socially constructed and evolves and various kinds of ways. so we have to contemplate -- one could give a very long list of scenarios, but these is one for private parties, a private party usage would be that evolving drones, a lot -- allows you to put a drop in the air pretty much on a continuous basis and have it looking into your neighbor's backyard and seeing everything that goes on there, which may be nothing, and this team that live to the web and attached to that computer enhancement technology that enables it to a pickup particular people and set up an

entire gallery of everything rivera to. and simply have that streamed live to the web plus enhanced collection of reformation stuff which is always dahlia up there, and none of it is commercial commended may not even be particularly melissa motivated. i would suggest everybody in this room believe that there is something profoundly wrong about that. that this violates some set of informal and formal motions that we have about the notion of intimacy, privacy, home, even taking place outdoors potentially behind a wall that is not visible from the streets. ultimately the question becomes in those cases, are we going to wind up going beyond the assumption that you could do things like build a wall, but things like a hedge, and that you did not have all of this sort of stuff that makes everything instantaneously available to everybody else across the planet or are we

going to essentially let those changing expectations have to fit in with the existing set of rules we have come are we going to evolve the rules in various ways? one of the answers to this is very often given in the privacy of all, nobody is actually serious about any of this stuff because if they did nobody would use facebook the way they do, twitter the way they do, none of these sort of existing social technologies would exist in the fashion that we do if people actually cared about their privacy and the way that we have traditionally thought about. people did not think of intimacy as being private any more. then a sort of a weak swiss. on the basis of no data except being the father of a teenager, i don't actually think that is owed works. i have a strong sense that particularly the yen regeneration in this house an

amazingly cystic -- sophisticated notion of what their privacy is about and the way in which they expect that notion of privacy are socially constructed and are, in fact allow fairly close to the bundle of sticks approach to property that they have of you that what is appropriate in one setting for the use of a photo is not appropriate in another setting. the ways and places in which one can collect information coming images about the person that are appropriate for one use are not appropriate for another use. i think that actually we have increasingly haggard generations that are extremely sophisticated in their views about the ways in which one unbundles the notion of the public and private and separates it into a whole series of distinctly appropriate or inappropriate uses his. end of the are profoundly 90's on whether any of that is

reflected in law. i think their expectation is that it ought to be in some way, that is how they ought to see all these sorts of things. but there are profoundly now you and thinking that it actually is . where this comeback -- comes back to drones is jones is a leveraging technology for a thrust of this stuff. you are absolutely right in suggesting that we have a moment to be able to address these things while the technologies are still being set in place and not waiting until effectively they are hardened. when it comes to private to private interaction and these ways i think there will be a small or should be a small but really very limited room for criminal law, peeping tom laws may have the updated to take account of new kinds of technologies. stalking laws that wind up taking account of this stuff,

but by and large most of this is going to fall, first of all, under state law. private party to a private party stuff will inevitably fall under some form of civil law. nuisance law and the notion of what it means to have a quiet enjoyment of your property would be kind of a classic example. so i think that we need to think about ways in which we need to update these things as a set of trade outs, but not all of them run in the direction of protecting privacy. the notion that there is being in public they've really powerful notion of the ways in which other people counts, look, see, take a vote doesn't to various kinds of things. ultimately the best thing that could happen in the private to private interactions would be some form of a model code, models set of laws aimed at states for their adoption in which we have a discussion up front about what the threat of state to be between exposure and

privacy. and finally, and to close on this him, the worse thing in this kind of area would be to allow the law to be driven by a series of really ugly and bad cases in which we had not thought of the trade of the public is driven by something it is particularly ugly and then reaches to something that reflects that but nothing else. the exit you very much. so why should have mentioned in this at the outset, but we are actually -- this event is being a web cast, so we have a group of people who are surveiling this. not from a drone, although the thing over there which keeps turning incensing is eerily familiar. the -- first of all, let me welcome our virtual participants who will also be tweeting questions to us. and so when i go to questions from the audience i'm actually

going to alternate between the physical audience and the german audience. some of our -- being monitored to. it gets worse and worse. voluntarily. it suggesting ourselves to being monitored. i will serve with a few questions for each of the panelists and then we will go to questions from the audience. i want to start with you. you talked a bit about the national security side of this. we have had a lot of conversation about the privacy side of this. it seems to me, the part that is going to guide almost all that is the safety side of it which we actually have not talked about very much which is to say if the fa on safety grounds allows less rather than more there is less capacity for the intrusion of privacy, the size

of the vehicles will be arguably probably smaller if as a result the concerns that you articulated. some wondering if you can talk about the safety side of it. you know, how possible is it that aircraft, how large and how far from the people who are flying them are going to be flying how high and how soon? >> we could have a whole week on that. i think i will let my answer to say i can't agree more that is a complex problem. almost unimaginably complex to think about how in the world we're going to successfully navigate the sticky challenges of having literally potentially tens of thousands of these band aviation systems operated by potentially unconventional or unconventional locations use for all these different tasks. i think the best faugh mines in

the business are on this problem people at the faa are working very hard, and i think there will come up with a very reasoned approach, but the sheer mathematics of the members means that we are going to have some hiccups along the way. let's hope that they are not too much. the other thing of its stake is that is true that if we reduce to very little the monogenic to the, the privacy initial security defense gets reduced, so does the economic poverty and innovation the company's pre selected is very important to have that perspective and balance and to open the skies to jones and welcome them, but obviously with a prudent ride toward the very complex safety issues as well as the nestle security and privacy issues that we talked about. >> and when you describe the of rigidities, when you are thinking about the opportunities that it is important to open the skies to presumably not thinking

about this set of things that catherine and can are anxiously wringing their hands about, whether it is peeping toms or government surveillance of crowds without having to deploy personnel. so what are the things that, you know, we should be excited about? >> of give you a couple of examples. enormous amounts of commercial of which is for surveying and monitoring oil pipeline. there are many small police departments that would not necessarily be able to afford to have their own helicopter, but if they could use jones that could provide it sure life-saving information, so there is really a long list of these very a very beneficial commercial things and the other thing is @booktv diluted two, a spinoff factor, a stunning amount of information that is going on in the draw world, be it with formal companies, some of which are attending this,

albeit university research labs. this is the way it has always worked back in the 60's. the space program. i would argue that for the 2010 drone innovative equipment of the space program and will generate innovations that was panera into beneficial ways that we can hardly imagine here. so for all those things to all those reasons it is important to encourage them. >> i was struck when you were talking. arguably not a contradiction, but certainly an anomaly. you are describing the great promise of drones, purposes of government oversight, and the great terror of drones in the hands of government. and i was thinking, i was trying to think of what the analogy to that is that we have in the past three said what a wonderful technology to use to spy on government, and we are really excited about it as long as

government doesn't use it to spinous. and i am curious just for your thoughts on that, whether there are enlarged to that where we said we love this technology in the hands of private parties and we don't like it in the hands of government. and whether in any other area that has been is in a blind. >> i think you're right. it is a conundrum. there are some ways to promote the good and positive uses with none of the abusive. it is difficult to do that. in some ways this echoes the battle with which the aclu essentially lost surveillance cameras. the aclu does not like the fact that it is difficult to whatever history in many major metropolitan areas without having a very mistaken by tens if not hundreds of surveillance

cameras depending on whether you live in manhattan are somewhere else, and that think that is an example where the aclu has been a staunch defender of the ability of private citizens to take photography, particularly of the police and public, worries about the possibility of the same technology in the hands of government. i think it is a really difficult issue because if you end up in a situation where every real-estate agent is flying at drone for commercial purposes it is a joint to be extended difficult to argue that the police who are either investigating potentially serious crimes can't take advantage of the same technology in that think that the ag unit that the aclu and other civil libertarians make is that the police is simply different because they have powers over a set of the private individuals to not, but no one is saying it is an easy question. >> a really interesting example, though. the police, there was a

real-estate agent in los angeles who was i'm not sure prosecuted, but disciplined for using a drug to take aerial photos of the house as it was trying to sell. but, i mean, listen to you talk about that and the thing that comes to mind is the anchor that people felt up towards the restrictions on the fbi using bugle searches, you know, under the old version of the levy guidelines after 911 which was cut by the fbi is the wonder people or was that under some interpretations, the one group of people who can't kugel your name and see what comes up. i wonder if you end up in a situation in which to go to something like cain said, you have this very restrictive set of rules on the basis that the police are different and tell the day something really bad happens in that you really cannot sustain them because what

you're actually preventing them from doing is what all of us can now do, go to bridgestone, buy a little $300 -- i almost bought one for this event. at $300 thing that you can control which are iphone. and i just wonder about the stability of it in the long run. >> next time you should be beating this from your drone. >> exactly. we will. >> your expense report. >> and not sure. al directed to both. you started your remarks with a cautionary tale, but the cautionary tale seems to me to pull in exactly opposite directions. against cautionary tale is look how fantastically weird my mother's reactions to caller id was 30 or 40 years ago. or turning off the regular and hell of surged the aclu reaction to caller id was 20 years after

that. it's just crazy to think we are going to really anticipate the way we feel about this stuff once it is integrated into society. we can't really anticipated. and paul's cautionary tale is, a government program that did not try to anticipate it, did not try to think this through in advance, and it crashes and burns. so my question to you both this -- and can comes around to paul's view by the end of the remarks, and you have to think this stuff through. i am just wondering, is it realistic, you know, actually to think it's true? is it something that whatever judgments we come to today sitting here in an faa rule making in congress we are going to be your mother, you know, 30 years from now people will be saying, is in decline to that they thought that drones x, y,

and z. >> i guess my answer to you is that there are no new questions, only this same question over and over again. emmy, the concept of government abuse of a new technology is as old as the dispute in london about harming the police. and probably has antecedence that go back to the first time that anybody put somebody in charge of hurting the tribe or something like that. it seems to me that you can and should anticipate the potential for abuse, but instead of relying upon inefficiency and resource limitations, which is how we have kind of defaulted to protecting against these abuses,

you have to turn that around and to the harder stuff which is training, hiring, oversight, regulation. it is not easy. the changes over time with technology, but we don't disarm the police because of the potential for police abuse of the use of weapons. we try and hire the right guys, give them good training, have internal affairs bureaus that examined every shooting. we've discipline that has to do it badly, fire the guys to do badly more than once, and press to keep the guys to do it badly in ways that violate, you know, more and poured social norms. end of that model will apply to the use of drums at least in the government sector. there are other -- the private sector stuff, you have to figure out a different maltol but in terms of relativity that model

addresses the problem. you have to invest the resources and figure out what the rules are. maybe it is that more police force can look in the window without a warrant but flight of 200 feet between 20400 feet only maybe that is the rule. i don't know the rules yet because i don't know the technology, and they will chased the car next year. >> okay. well, i think that the -- it is going to be incremental, and soap going to up bins question, i think the responses need to be incremental as well. they don't need to be in every case reactive, meaning something happens that basically offense people's notions of either privacy of the one hand or alternatively things that people think we ought to be able to do in the public spaces on the other. so i would not want to see a

sort of regime develop that develops entirely reactivity on account of court cases addressing these sorts of things i do think that there is room for trying to think through at least some parts of this on the front-end and think about questions that are already started to rise, even on an incremental basis. i am quite committed to the idea that much of this between private parties releases at the state level and that it exists at a traditional existing bodies of law, particularly if things that i mentioned such as some form of tort or like that. and i'm not sure that i really see -- we know what happens in these cases. some horrific thing that involves something that involves draws together with cyber stocking and some young person tosses him or herself off our roof and despair.

then there is a reaction that index a criminal set of sanctions and all sorts of things like that. that, i think, would be a very bad approach to this. at least to that extent we can anticipate some of those situations on an evolving basis and try to have a discussion upfront about what trade-offs really have to be included. let's go to questions. i am going to start with a twitter question. but when i call on you, wait for the microphone and please start by saying who you are. >> hi. we have our first question from matthew sawyer in illinois. he has a question about using drone this as a tool of free speech. how would the argument that journalism has prior restraint verses regulations and privacy play out. >> well. well, let me take a little bit

of a crack at that. others here who do a lot of first amendment law may have other thoughts on it. it seems to me the answer to that would have to be that there, just as with a lot of aspects of journalism, may be legal limitations on how certain information is collected in, including how you would use drones in collecting certain information. it would be very hard, i think what's argue that once you have obtained certain information barring such an extreme case is that it would be proper to a, even if obtained some al illegally with a drone, that it would be -- you would enjoy the publication of that. did people generally agree with that? >> i think that is exactly right. the press can't be information out of someone, and they can't engage in braking and interested @booktv cheering. it is still a crime, even if they are the press, but we have

our large body of law that says that if the press receives information, even if it is collected an illegal manner, the violation of classification rules that have been around for years, we are not hard to restrain the press. that would seem to be -- plays very much into my mantra which there is nothing new under the sun and it is an evolution. as in the same rules go to drones. >> sir. >> hello. okay. national defense magazine. can you address the deadline of september 30th, 2015 deadline

first in terms of technology, a lot of issues to be worked out. you mentioned the comment issue that would require some autonomy on board these aircraft for them to return safely. also the sense of avoid technology and the regulatory part, their is a lot of associations out there, pilots association, air-traffic controllers association who all said this is going to take a lot of rewriting of the way we do things and a lot of consideration. so i guess that is my basic question. the congressional mandate realistic? >> i can answer all those things for the benefit of those who may be less familiar with the legislation when you came in the room and for those of you on the web cast, there was a two page sheet that was prepared by the center for democracy and technology. he has done as the favorite

going into the legislation and doing computations have 270 days after enactment what that means. in some there are two broad class is of drawings that are addressed in this legislation, what are called civil and man aviation systems, drones' operated for commercial enterprises. then there are public unman the aviation systems operated by police department, fire department,. with respect to public unmanned aviation systems our government drones as some people have referred to them, may 14th this year is the date after which were at which there will be expedited less measure for the use of those government drones. with respect to civil unmanned aviation system is november november 10th of 2000 -- november theft of two dozen 12 when the comprehensive plan develops and that plan will call for the integration into the national airspace by september 30 of the 2015.

also sort of an early in august of this year, the early integration of citron's which provides the option that not necessarily a requirement of the faa to allow certain types of jobs at that stage. so there are about ten or 15 other complex overlapping headlines. .. three and a half years to think this through is not, is not an

unreasonable expectation. >> anything to add? yes. >> kim dylan, for any of the panelists. what is your thinking on that potential uses that foreign governments might make of drones within the u.s.. for instance to do some major spying. will that give them an advantage over overhead assets, or to track and kill a distant -- >> you have given this subject in a slightly different context a lot of thought. so for those of you who don't know, ken has written a great deal about the law of you have targeted killing, including but not limited to buy drones. so what happens when the

technology is cheap enough and the airspace is open enough that other governments want to get in on the action here. >> i think when it comes to other governments that everything that i've said about private party and private party studies essentially needing to evolve incrementally in state law stuff and it's basically civil and liability, none of that i think applies to foreign governments acting in the united states. i think it's a perfectly appropriate area for the u.s. government simply to come down and say either nobody does this at all or if you do you have to come and have a long conversation about what you are doing it for and wide and surveillance of individuals is all going to fall under a whole series of national security concerns. and all of that, and obviously killing somebody is completely off the map. we regard that as a hostile act, possibly leading to war, and so in those sorts of settings the

question is really about surveillance and sort of a practical sense. and i don't think that the united states government has any reason to put up with surveillance using high-tech means by foreign governments or their citizens or hours. i don't think any of these things we have raised here about the usage of these things by various folks would apply to foreign governments at all. >> anybody have -- we have another twitter question. >> a question from amy, who is in washington d.c., an attorney with epic privacy. she wants to know, should there be communications to prevent drones bought our license, to the narrow purpose to be used wisely -- widely? >> what an interesting question. so this is a platform, the more sophisticated ones are just incredible intelligence collection platforms. let's say you are a weather

channel that acquires them for something for meteorological purposes or a traffic reporter. these are great for figuring out what happens to the volume of data that you collect? that then has potentially other applications. whoever wants to jump in on that, it's a great question. >> in the context of the customs and border patrol's use of drones, congress authorized expenditures for custom and border patrol to buy certain drones to patrol the border, both the southern and northern borders and then in december, the "l.a. times" reported a fantastic article discussing how cbt was essentially, not exactly lending but using its drones,

putting its drone technology at the assistance of local law-enforcement agencies and many members -- some members of congress expressed consternation that the technology, which has been authorized for one purpose to secure the border, was now being used for law enforcement purpose by i think a local north dakota law-enforcement agency that they certainly didn't anticipate when they authorize the program. so, i think in that case, the member of congress limiting would be -- >> i imagine you have a different point of view on this. [laughter] but general, to go back to your earlier point that there are no issues, this is the classic example of this. so paul when he was in government dealt a lot with issues of data collected for one purpose. you know the department of homeland security would find out that it would be really good to

use say passenger manifest data that people give to airlines to find out they use for counterterrorism purposes and it's really good to know who is on airplanes, right? so you don't go out with this question of when can you read program data collected for one person. is it one purpose or different purpose? is it different if it's a private party with a drone or is it, is it just nothing new under the sun? >> i hate being predictable. but nonetheless, you have correctly predicted where i would come down. i mean, to my mind, there is the right way to address this and the consequences at the end. think of what we are talking about. we have the cbp. it has a uav, right? it's not being used full-time. it's a valuable asset and notwithstanding the fact that they are cheaper than helicopters and they are not

free. it can be used for another perfectly lawful purpose. i mean, if the north code -- dakota police want to use it to surveilled their wives on their shopping trips, that's a different thing but the north dakota police force wants to use it in a hostage situation or to follow a suspected drug dealer, that is obviously a good and lawful purpose in pursuit of a legitimate public and. you know, why would we began from begin from a premise of purposely making making ourselves inefficient, purposely making ourselves limited. i can certainly see in the end, saying that evidence might not be used in court or something like that if you feel really strongly about, about the particular use. but to my mind, the right answer is to define what are the lawful

uses and no, cbp cannot loan this to north dakota to go and look in on a political meeting of north dakota tea party or the north dakota aclu. no, they cannot use it to surveilled in ways and means and for purposes that would be outside of the zone of their legitimate law enforcement concerns. but if the end is legitimate, it seems do we that we make a mistake in hewing to the purpose opal, the right method, how that is used and whether not you know, that evidence shouldn't be used unless it meets reasonable suspicion standards are some limitation or some gain of some sort, of day to be determined obviously as time goes on and technology gets developed. but i don't believe in enforced

self inefficiency of government. >> do you want a brief rejoinder on that? >> i will try to keep it brief because i think we could go around and around to the rest of the panel but our intentions on technology like this all the time, you can do a title iii wiretap on people in all circumstances. their specific crimes in order to use that technology and others you cannot so i think there's a place. can i just mention one other thing? on the aclu caller i.d. question, it's a side issue that we actually still don't have caller i.d. on our names -- main switchboard line. the reason is people tend to call us and tell us that anonymously and know that they can be secure in doing that. >> sometimes the aclu gets described as outside the mainstream on a variety of issues. i can't imagine there is a single issue on which that is true. [laughter]

than what you just described. yes, sir. >> hi, i'm a private lawyer in private practice here in washington. the faa does have this deadline coming up in august where they have to decide what states drones will be allowed in the national airspace system. you all have concerns about safety, national security and privacy. so my question is, what you want the faa to do it in august of this year about opening up the system for safe drums and let me give you three choices. one is, do nothing and have them put off the deadline until 2015. the second choice is to allow commercial drones with line of sight and under 400 feet restrictions and which a california real estate agent can take a picture, or sort of adopt

the regime of only approving turn operators on a case-by-case basis for showing it's in the public interest. so what do you want them to do? >> i'm not going to answer it in full, and i don't have all the answers in full but i think it would be a mistake to rush into allowing people to operate drones over populated areas without due attention to the dangers that would be related. i will give you an example. the national community-based organization that deals with model aircraft has long recognized the importance of not operating platforms in the general size range in populated areas and i think that is the point of view and experience that needs to be assessed and i frankly don't trust it. even if they have the best of intent, i think we need to be very careful not to rush

headlong into that. >> and what is the size cut off? i mean, you know, everybody you know, you can literally go to a hobby store and buy a model aircraft below a certain size that you can fly at reasonably impressive distances, that doesn't, it doesn't raise anybody's alarm bells. realistically, what is the difference between the sort of thing that nobody is worried about and the sort of thing that raises those concerns? >> the answer to that is the academy of model aeronautics has extremely good safety guidelines and anything that is operating in accordance with their rules i am not worried about at all. so for example, they don't allow these first-person view remote unmanned aviation systems that are over 10 pounds. it has to be under 10 pounds, so

again anything that is compliant with the ama's rules and the language of the faa bill, i want to make sure i get this right, a national community-based organization i believe is the phrase. nationwide, anything operated in accordance with that, absolutely fine. once we get into the heavier metal, something that weighs 200 pounds or 500 pounds or potentially 50 pounds under certain circumstances could potentially raise concerns. that is a potential cause for discussion. >> does anyone have any thoughts on what the faa should and shouldn't do by august? i don't think it should actually touch any of the issues that i raised, meaning that i think a private party to private party stuff isn't really the faa's area. they are not a privacy agency. they have got a different set of concerns and those concerns very clearly from what has been said here are going to be you know,

far and away hugely difficult. i also think there is a sizable concern amongst the existing hobbyist community, the model airplane community. these folks are actually very concerned about what happens if you sort of toss aside the kind of informal standards that have been raised by these folks, and sort of open things up to sort of a wild west out there. but it wouldn't take very many safety incidents of a serious kind that could potentially sort of shut the whole thing back down the other way. >> yes? >> i am a japanese journalist working at johns hopkins university. i would like to ask you about

the battlefield. the drone technology and the history of the war in afghanistan. so what is the achievement of the drone technology? it has lots of positive side, but also negative sides such as drone technology simulated the the -- or taliban. >> okay. so, given of the focus of this event is on to the domestic side, not on military applications abroad. that said, this is a subject

that you know, when people hear the word drones, they don't think of domestic law enforcement or news gathering. they think about predators. very briefly, all of you, how do you assess it, and how does, to bring it back to the subject that it is actually -- how does that legacy and origin affect the domestic discussion? >> i am going to summarize and really reduce it. what i actually suggest is, look at my name in the program and send me a direct e-mail about that and i would be happy to talk about that at length. i think that it does actually drive us away from a domestic side a lot. i am going to punt in part but i

think one thing that i would say about this is, there is an enormous technological feeding back and forth of the development of the technologies in the ways that the requirements of the battlefield and particularly the use of drones as not simply another air platform, weapons platform and conventional war but the use of drones as being a mechanism for gathering intelligence and then using force based on the intelligence gathered. it puts an enormous amount of pressure on the development, but not so much of weapons. the weapons themselves are shrinking and getting smaller, but the real developments that are underway here are in the -- and the ability that will wind up in increasing in a sophisticated and very kinds of

sensors. that feeds back into the domestic sphere and all sorts of ways, especially all the stuff that drives innovation in the commercial sector and all the good things that we are going to wind up seeing in in the way of innovations. but it also raises the ability to look inside of buildings. in afghanistan, and pakistan, we would like to be ideally to be able to use drums to get some idea of how many civilians are inside the building. we would like to be able to use drone sensors to be able to get some notion of what the loadbearing impact is of those particular walls in relation to hitting it with a particular kind of weapon in the kind of collateral damage that it's likely to cause. all of which has enormously important and beneficial commercial applications that domestic sphere, all of which have got to compound your fears about what it is that government agencies can do with that kind of ability, domestic ability as well. so i think it has to be seen as sort of feeding on one another

in ways that are positive. >> we have another twitter question and then in the back. >> i have two questions that are related. the first one is from harley, who is an attorney for the center for democracy and technology. his question is, to what extent does the faa's mandate include privacy and worship congress step in? and then a related question is from jason ko blair, who is a higher education reporter for u.s. news, and he asks, is there a need for the government to be able to track them atwell india think they should be licensed by the faa, referring to private or commercial drones? >> who wants to take either of those? >> the one line answer i have for private center won't

surprise anybody by now. i don't think that the faa should be getting involved in private, private issues and it has its hands full on everything else that it is correctly trying to do with all of all of the stuff. >> do you have a sense of to what extent the faa's mandate -- i actually don't that includes any of the privacy issues you are concerned about. >> i think that's a hard question. the faa's mandate includes protecting people and property on the ground. that it's been has been interpreted as a safety mandate by and large. their old cases dating back to the 70s and the faa interpreted that mandate more broadly. for example, to include things like dealing with the environmental impacts of air traffic. if the mandate can encompass environmentalism, then perhaps it could also encompass other concerns that what are deeply

impact people on the ground. i am skeptical that the faa would want to interpret it in that direction, and so, i imagine this is an area where congress may need to do something. cbp has suggested that at least the faa should be doing an impact privacy and investment to look at the privacy question and i think it's unfortunate that the u.s. is anomalous to not having a federal level privacy conditioner, who systematically evaluates the impact of government actions on privacy. >> paul? >> i agree with catherine. what i would put it a different way which as i can imagine no worse forum for discussing privacy concerns than the faa. no, i mean that would be like asking the epa to think about national security concerns or the department of commerce to think about, think about

education, though they do a little bit. but it's apples and clowns. i do think that the privacy issues, as i said in my open remarks, think the privacy issues are vital and if you don't think about them you will get the wrong answer because you will wind up losing all public support for the program, however they are formulated. but you know, the faa is great at safety issues and it's great at you know, air traffic control issues. all those sorts of things, i would want us to have that privacy discussion somewhere else, in an ideal world in the privacy and civil liberties privacy lord. >> esque yes i am in the back. >> the wrong back, but it's okay. 's the i'm a technology analyst. sometimes we have a habit of throwing out the baby with the

bathwater. here we are talking about privacy issues and all of those sorts of things. but there are times when a lot of it is used legitimately for rescue purposes, that sort of thing, harboring over with repeaters and so fire departments can speak to one another. in new orleans after katrina, they were not allowed to fly drones with cameras, which would have been ideal to sort of help control what was going on. instead somebody got taped into the skids of the helicopters. is anything going on now to assure that these valuable uses are not caught up and tossed overboard because of other concerns? >> yes, i mean i agree completely. there is a huge -- john talked about the commercial value and you are talking about the public safety value. to my mind, the right answer is

regulation. we should all derive the good uses and then be very cautious and careful about the bad uses and the fears that animate people like catherine. my fear is that by not acknowledging the legitimacy of catherine's fears, sorry, you are not personified all privacy now but by not acknowledging the legitimacy of catherine's fears upfront, we will wind up in the same place that we are with the nao which is the exact same thing. we would have had great uses for national technical means in katrina and we weren't permitted those either. >> just that thing out of my role as moderator for a moment. there's one thing i would add to that which is there is something that we are doing to make sure that you know we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, which is that congress step in order for the faa to have a set of rule makings on the subject

and that was a very deliberate effort to jumpstart what it and perceived as a sort of stalled set up obsesses. yes? >> my name is gloria and i'm a public schoolteacher. do you know of any, are there the countries that are grappling with how to regulate domestic use of drones that we could look to as an example or that you could direct us to? >> does anybody -- >> i don't have the full answer to that but i can say that there have been estimates that the drone industry will be $100 billion within the next decade, by the end of this decade. an enormous global industry. i have been told that australia has some very innovative rules with respect to allowing drone use. pretty much every country in the world with any kind of technology for infrastructure

industries getting into the act so we will see all different flavors. >> i am stephen i'm a lawyer in private practice in d.c.. perhaps this would be best directed to catherine. i find the technology model legislation to be pretty good. it might help to have private right of action in there but what is happening with congress? are they doing anything to limit this or have oversight hearings on this? >> privacy wasn't included really as a discussion topic i don't think in the most recent round of legislation that was passed. there is an interesting development since then and my other panelists here who actually spent more time in d.c. than i do come they have more insight into this. i think there has been an upsurge in concern about privacy

the trade organizations that are looking to promote the use of drones have gotten somewhat concerned about the development and the impact it may have on their industry. they have been approaching various privacy organizations and also congressional staffers to try to see whether there is something they can do preemptively to find some potential -- find some potential common ground so this technology can move forward without being completely stymied by the privacy concerns. i don't know if maybe others no more. >> yes, in the very far back on the left. >> i am danielle with unmanned systems magazine. i was wondering, just because of the privacy issues and the biggest technological advances over the next 15 years which is the internet, what sort of lessons learned do you think we

can bring from that industry into our discussion about privacy? >> what a great question. we have already learn the lessons of caller i.d. and turning the ringer off. how does the internet play into this? >> i think, think one observation is who could have known back in 1995 that such a thing as social network would even exist and the complex privatizations that have accompanied them. as suggested with drones, you think the presumptuous know that 15 years from now we can sit here today and say exactly what those are going to be. i think with respect to technology, what we can predict is probably important as we move forward. >> we have about two minutes left so why don't i just give each of our panelists a chance to wrap up. do you want to start? >> i guess the thing that i would emphasize that goes to the

last question that was asked here is, when it comes to private persons and private persons stuff, i would emphasize individual to individual but there would be a whole different layer of that, of large-scale institutions, corporations, non-governmental but private, and we are going to have a whole series of other questions related to their use of drones in this. and second, the other thing i would stress would be although there are certain functions about drones in the private to private setting that really are just about drones and where they go and what they watch, how long they are there and all of those kinds of questions, most of the questions that i think will actually drive the privacy concerns this way are going to be the ways in which drone technology is embedded with other technologies and essentially serve as a leveraging platform for other forms of surveillance and the dissemination of all of that. i think it is a leverage package that ultimately will concern us.

>> i think i will just start where i began, and say this is a unique opportunity for us to try to build privacy protections into the regulations that govern drones. we had to be taking advantage of that and again the aclu was not of his -- opposed the use of technology and there are many valuable uses and hopefully if we can think through these things at the outset, everyone would be better off. >> i think two points. the first one, picking up on the very last question, is that i think the right answer here is developing the right systems. static rules about privacy or use will be overtaken by the technology as quickly as the rules about internet usage were and we try to address internet usage with a concrete set of rules and all of a sudden the ramparts of privacy protections intensely. i don't know what they answer is going to be in terms of its

because i don't know where the tech is going to go. i'm hopeful as john said, so the right answer is systems to systems oversight and the other second i would make is if you fly your drone over my house, i am shooting it down. [laughter] >> countermeasures. >> i see just in closing, in many ways it's like any other technology. i have high confidence that it will all work out. >> thank you all for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> with congress on break for the next two weeks, we are featuring some of booktv's programs in primetime here in c-span2. tonight, look at conservative lives, starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern.

>> if you think of yourself as a family and if you think of yourself as a team, and she said when i get a raise at work he is proud of me and it's like we got a raise, our family got a raise. she had redefined the proviso to include what her husband does doesn't she have a lot of respect for what her husband was doing.

>> he collected photographs and he was particularly interested in the 19th century, the civil war. these are two friends, union and confederate, who knew each other prior to the civil war, who fought against each other in 1862, survived the war, came out alive and remain friends after the war. here they are at age 100 sitting on the porch talking about the old days.

>> are wonderful book called the -- and come on surviving beyond survivable. and she talks a lot about how the arts and the crabs were sort of how they kept their sanity and it gave them something to do. depression was so bad in a lot of the camps and there was a high incidence of suicide. so people would make these little things of beauty to give to each other, just as a way to say, you know, we support you and we care about you. >> the senate rules committee recently held a hearing on campaign finance disclosure rules. they focus on the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act of 2012, a

bill that would amend the federal election campaign act of 1971, to provide for additional disclosure requirements for corporations, labor organizations and super pacs under the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act all organizations spending more than $10,000 on election related ads would be required to public -- publicly name all donors who contributed $10,000 or more. senator chuck schumer of new york chairs the hearing. >> i would like to thank my friend, ranking member alexander, for joining us to this hearing and all of my colleagues to discuss the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act of 2012 which our colleague sheldon whitehouse introduced last week. the supreme court's citizens united decision in conjunction with other cases has radically altered the election landscape i unleashing a flood of unlimited often secret money into our elections. in response to that disastrous decision, we introduced the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act of 2010, which has increased transparency

by requiring full disclosure of the real sources of money behind political ever tightening. the house passed it, the president was ready to sign it, but in the senate it failed to get cloture by one vote. now the problem is no longer hypothetical. the public is now living with the aftermath of the citizens united decision every time they turn on their tv sets. and endless stream of negative ads is now drowning out all other voices, including the candidates themselves. the events of the 2010 election cycle and what we have seen so far in 2012 have confirmed our worst fears about the impact of citizens united subsequent court decisions. two years ago we were warned about these harmful effects, but the results are even worse than expected. just this morning we woke up to the breaking story reported by "bloomberg news" that major corporations, including chevron and merck, gave millions to groups in attack ads in the 2010

elections and no one knew enough about it until now. that means voters two years ago were left totally in the dark about who paid for the attack ads hitting the airwaves. the trends are disturbing. according to the center of response -- responsive politics a study they did show the percentage of campaign spending for groups that don't have to disclose their donors rose from a mere 1% in 2006, 247% in 2010. we can only imagine by what percentage it will grow by the end of 2012. almost certainly over 50, so more than half the ads now running america have no disclosure. that is incredible and awful in my opinion. and the money is coming overwhelmingly of course from the wealthiest americans, as you would expect. a recent study in politico found that 93% of the money that was country but did by individuals to super pacs in 2011 came in

contributions of $10,000 or more. here's the most astounding thing about the political study. half of that money came from just 37 donors. half of the money in the super pacs came from 37 donors. is that democracy? even more worrisome, we are increasingly seeing contributions to super pacs from nonprofit organizations, group said can use the tax code to hide their sources of money and from shadowy corporations. some of these groups are nothing more than a post office box in the middle of an office park. by now should be clear to everyone that their disclosure is desperately needed. the 2012 d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act introduced by sheldon whitehouse colleague senator tom udall and myself among others, is already supported by 40 senators and it's a bill that should be acceptable to people of every stripe. that is how senator whitehouse

and those of us working with him designed the previous bill that oppose bans on government contractors and foreign owned corporations. but those bands have been taken out even though most -- the sponsors thought it was the right thing to do. the 2010/11 legislation also required reporting donations of $600, but that threshold has been raised to $10,000, because as we have seen, these huge donations worth that amount and make the donation of $100 seem irrelevant. the new bare-bones d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act has two key components, disclosure and disclaimer and is very simple. disclosure means outside groups and make independent expenditures and electioneering communications should disclose all their large donors in a timely manner. all of their large donors. the bill includes a way to drill down to the original source of money in order to reveal those who are using intermediaries as a conduit to obscure the true

funders. through this covered transfer provision, even the most sophisticated billionaires will find it difficult to hide behind a five o. one c. organization or shell corporation. disclaimer means that voters who are watching the politico as will know who paid for them. under common law candidates are required to stand by their ads. why should outside organizations engaging in the same kind of political activity be any different? 2012 d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act would make super pacs a five o. one c., corporations and labor unions identify their top tv ads and talk to funders and radio ads. the leader of the organization would have to stand by the ad just like candidates must do. transparency is not just a democratic priority. by colleagues on both sides of the aisle have declared their support for greater disclosure of as a way to prevent corruption and eight of nine supreme court justices in the

citizens united decision support disclosure. the potential for corruption in the post-citizens united era is all too clear and it's time to get serious about full transparency. this bill would do that. that is why we are holding this hearing, to examine the need for better disclosure and to discuss this particular legislation. before we turn to our distinguished panel of experts, i want to ask my good friend ranking member alexander and any other member who is here if they would like to make opening statements as is the usual practice. i would ask statements by members and witnesses be limited to five minutes, so without further ado let me call on senator alexander. >> thank you mr. chairman. it is good to be with you on this beautiful spring day and this hearing is as predictable as the spring flowers in the middle of an election. my friends on the other side of the aisle are trying to change the campaign finance laws to discourage contributions from people with whom they disagree.

appreciate the for the victimized process and i'm sure they would want me to thank you for that as well. this is a quickly called hearing. speier thanks is accepted with gratitude and humility. some comes as the chairman indicated in his or marks, because of the citizens united legislation, which basically says rich non-candidates and corporations have the same rights rich candidates have to spend their money in support of a campaign. this legislation is in the name of full disclosure and i'm in favor of full disclosure, but there is nothing in the constitution about full disclosure. there is something in the constitution about free speech.

i often go by the museum down the street. congress shall make no law that says on the wall, the provisions in this bill shall encourage free speech. fortunately, there is a way to have full disclosure and free speech. and that is to take all the limits of campaign contributions the problem is the limits. these new super pacs exists because of the limits we have placed on parties and contributions. get rid of the limits on contributions and super pacs will go away and you will have full disclosure because everyone will get their money directly to the campaigns in the campaigns must disclose their contributions in ways that we have already agreed don't discourage free speech. i have done some research and preparation for this and i have found an especially compelling statement before this committee that was rendered just exactly

12 years ago today, march 29, 2000. some of you are actually here that day. it was given by an obscure former governor who had run for president, and he would permanently retired from politics, and he came before this committee and these were the words that he said. i have come to washington to argue one practical proposition. the 1000-dollar contribution limit that are nominating system makes it virtually impossible for anyone except the front-runner or a remarkably rich person to have enough money to write a serious campaign. this as a number of bad effects to our democracy and limits choices and the opportunity to hear more about the issues and gives insiders in the media more steak, outsiders less and protects incumbents, discourages insurgents and makes raising money for principle occupation of most candidates which in turn makes campaigns too long. than 1000-dollar limit was put in place and 74 the watergate to

reduce the influence of money in politics. it has done just the reverse. i have also come with this practical solution, raise the limit. that obscure retired former governor was me, and in a few years earlier, senator mccarthy, better known retired politician, came before this committee and said, he never would have been able to challenge lyndon johnson if stewart mott and others who agreed with him hadn't given him so much money in the 1968 campaign. another reason i'm talking about limits is because if we took the limits off, we would solve the disclosure problem. rich candidates can continue their campaigns. the super pacs have actually permitted candidates like gingrich and santorum and others to continue to run. presidential races before this year were like the patriots lose the first three games and we tell them to get out of the

race. if tiger woods shoots 48 on the front nine, we say and the masters. in the nfl and at the masters you play all the way through to the end. having money is what you need to play all the way through the end and senator kerry and steve forbes have their own money, then others ought to be able to contribute their money. so mr. chairman as long as we have a first amendment to the constitution, individuals and groups have a right to express themselves in the best way to combine free speech with full disclosure in a way that does not chill free speech is to take off all the limits which would cause most contributors to give to campaigns. it would drive the super pacs and it would make this legislation of which chill free speech completely unnecessary. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator alexander.

senator weinstein. >> mr. chairman, i thank you very much. year, i really believe we must try to pass the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act. additional vote to move the bill forward now. this new act, is a critical step really to ensure that corporate the dark from one candidate to another but instead our election process will regain the transparency it has lost after citizens united. i find this whole hidden, suspect we are going to have a very discouraging impact on

candidates that have not yet run for office, but might be considering to run for office. can fight. financial reform, go out and get this person with untold, unknown millions of dollars. i don't think it's the american method of electing candidates. i think this is the first step forward. i was really surprised at the supreme court, and you know i want to thank the author and i want to thank you hopefully we can move on with this. >> thank you senator feinstein. senator blunt. >> thank you for holding this hearing today. i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e.

act. i have some concerns with the bill. is a former secretary of state of missouri i've also served as the chief election official, i am particularly interested in these policies that affect elections. i believe this bill would place additional burdens on nonprofits as they seek to advocate for public policies. i'm also concerned, as senator alexander was, about the first amendment challenges that i believe this bill would present. before we consider adding new restrictions, i think we would be well served to carefully examine our current laws and ensure that they are having their intended effect and mr. chairman i would suggest that might be a good topic for another hearing, particularly in this election year, to look at the laws we have on the books now. but i'm pleased we are having this hearing and i look forward to hearing from eyewitnesses and thank you for holding this mr. chairman. >> thank you senator blunt.

senator durbin. >> chairman, thank you for this hearing. we are not talking about super pacs. we are talking about supersecret packs in the question is whether there ought to be transparency so the people of america know who is paying for the information that is being shoveled at them. we have seen a dramatic increase in the independent expenditures to the point where mere mortals who dare run for office have to wonder whether they are going to be overrun by some super pac or some individual or some special interest group, regardless of their campaigns are wet voters may care for in the district. i think what we are doing here is introducing elements into the body politic which is fundamentally corrupting. senators, we have to wonder whether this morning speech on the floor this afternoon's boat or tomorrow's amendment just might your tate a las vegas casino magnate or two billionaire brothers and made a fortune in oil or a retired

plutocrat lounging in jackson hole, because tomorrow the world may change for him. we have seen candidates in this race already for the senate for re-election, with more than $5 million being spent by march before the election in negative ads by super pacs in their states. that is a phenomena which is not conducive to an active, positive and productive debate among voters in this country about where this country should go and how it should move forward. and now for something totally different, i support the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act, but i really believe that we need to get to the heart of the matter. that is why if introduced the fair elections now act, public funding. states as diverse as maine and arizona have voted by referendum to move to public funding, take a special interest in the fatcats out of this picture. shorter campaigns, less money spent, direct contact with voters instead of sitting or endless hours on a telephone

begging for money from strangers. that is what they think is the right thing for the future of their states and i think it's the right thing for the future of this country. major reform unfortunately often requires a major scandal. sadly, this year's campaign for president is building up to a major scandal when it comes to fundraising and the amount of money spent. will it be enough? will it be the breaking point for real change? i hope that this bill passes, and the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act starts basically lifting the veil on, the expenditures taking place. but we need to step the on this or we run the risk of dramatically changing democracy which we all love. >> thank you senator durbin. i just want to thank particularly senator udall for being here. he has been an active member of the task force and is introduce legislation which doesn't come before this committee. it comes before our junior member, most junior members of the committee.

[laughter] chairman leahy, which would undo buckley v. valeo which is the whole decisions that started this. it started in a somewhat convoluted way of dealing with campaign finance reform, and it's been a real leader here but -- so we thank him for coming. >> thank you chairman schumer. this is an important bill and i really appreciate you holding a hearing on it. in january of 2010, the supreme court issued its disastrous opinion in citizens united versus fdc. two months later, the d.c. circuit court of appeals in the speech now versus fcc case, they also decided speech now. these two cases are the cases that gave rise to super pacs. millions of dollars now pour into negative and misleading campaign ads and often without disclosing the true source of

the donations. the citizens united speech now decision renewed our concerns about the campaign finance, but the court laid the groundwork for this broken system many years ago. in 1976, the court held in buckley v. valeo that restricting independent campaign expenditures violates the first amendment right to free speech. in effect, money and speech are the same thing. the damage is clear. elections become more about the quantity of cash and less about the quality of ideas. more about special interests, and less about public service. i don't think we can surely fix this broken system until we undo the flawed promise that spending money on elections is the same thing as free speech. speech. that can only be achieved if the court overturns buckley or we amend the constitution. until then, we fall short of the

real reform that is needed. but we can still do all that we can in the meantime to make a bad situation better. that is what we are trying to do with the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act. it's not the conference of reform that i but i would like to see, but it is what is possible under the flawed supreme court precedence that constrain us. the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act of 2012 asks the basic and eminently fair question, where does the money come from, and where is it going? this is a practical, sensible measure that doesn't get money out of our elections, but it does shine a light into the dark corners of campaign finance. a similar bill in the last congress had broad support of 59 shows in the senate, and it passed the house. now that we are seeing the real impact of citizens united and speech now, decisions on our elections, the need for this

legislation has become even more apparent. the downpour of unaccountable spending is wrong and it undermines our political process, and it has sounded an alarm that is truly bipartisan. i recall the debate when we considered the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act in the last congress. many of our concerns than were still hypothetical. we could only guess how bad it might get. well now we know. unfortunately, our worst fears have come true. the toxic effect of citizens united and subsequent lower court rulings have become brutally clear. the floodgates to unprecedented campaign spending are open and for us to drowned out the voices of ordinary citizens. look at what we have seen already, and we are only in the primary season. huge sums of money flooding the airwaves and an endless wave of attack ads paid for by billionaires, the poisoning of

our political discourse, the spectacle of 501(c)(4), so-called social welfare organizations abusing their nonprofit status to shield their donors and funnel money into super pacs. they spend at will, and they hide it at leisure. the american public rightly so, looks on in disgust. a recent "washington post" abc news poll found that nearly 70% of registered voters would like the super pacs to be illegal. among independent voters, that figure rose to 78%. supporters of super pacs an and unlimited campaign spending claims they are promoting the democratic process. but the public knows better. wealthy individuals and special interests are buying our elections. our nation cannot afford a system that says, come on in to the rich and powerful and says, don't bother to everyone else.

the faith of the american people and their electoral system is shaped by big money. it's time to restore that faith in time for congress to take back control. there is a great deal to be done to fix our campaign finance system. i will continue to push for constitutional amendment. we need conference of reform but in the interim let's at least shine a light on the money. the american people deserve to know where this money is coming from and they deserve to know before, not after they had to the polls. ..

our efforts to restore transparency to campaign finance laws were gutted by a narrow, conservative, activist majority of the supreme court and we cannot wait any longer your. five supreme court justices overturned a law designed to protect our elections of corporate spending. a longstanding precedent, struck down key provisions of a bipartisan campaign finance laws the supreme court extends corporations the same first

amendment rights and political process guaranteed by the constitution to individual americans. corporations are not the same as individual americans. corporations don't have the same rights and morals or interest. if you follow them to logic you would say logically what the supreme sort -- supreme court has said is, well, this country elected general eisenhower, shouldn't we elect general electric? we know we have collected a lot of young whose as vice president. as miller fell more. why not collect yahoo as corporation vice president? the founders understood this. the founders of america across the country understood that corporations are not people in this political process, and unfortunately very narrow majority of the supreme court apparently did not want to to

believe that all americans had. jerry shared democratic process, the chairs the fact that vermont has been the highest sense in the elections and they sit in the union. hurd as vermonters, cut by corporate spending, but that is exactly what is happening with the waves of corporate money being spent on alexis around the country and will continue to happen until we decide to take action bypassing the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act. mike co-sponsor of the first d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act after the supreme court decision, i hope republicans will join and mitigate the impact. who were trying to restore much of the mccain law. all we needed was to have one republican put to restore mccain fine gold, and we could have done it and simply didn't.

and we needed one vote. we didn't get it. i think this is going to hurt both parties hoot of -- if we are unable to do that commensurate that corporate money falling into undisclosed an unaccountable sources continues. as the chairman mentioned, the dramatic effects on primaries, but this can happen on other sides in this price of- advertisement from so-called super pacs that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, this uninhibited, and disclose spending is hurting everyone of us. it is one of the reasons why the american people are so turned off on how government is run and politics are run. it is going to hurt every single person. more importantly it is going to

hurt the institutions such cherished, the congress, the authorities, republicans and democrats to work together for the best interest of the country . vermont is a small city. it does not take more than a tiny fraction of corporate money flooding the airwaves to of spend every single republican and democrat in a state. that's wrong. considered corporate interest ellis stop the corporation from wiping them out. i urge my colleagues, whether republican or democrats who have an interest of getting run back where everybody knows who is involved in the government and those who is spending and the government in the have the chance for the candid it's actually to have their voices heard. i will tell you, if we don't do this the inability of good people to come forward is going

to stop, and the disrespect of our institutions don't the united states supreme court will now this country will suffer. they cute. >> they do, and i would like to read thank all of our colleagues for excellence statements and the last zero witnesses to come forward. okay. i have a brief introduction from each witness, all of whom are well known in this area. mr. cain nine is the presidents of the mark -- democracy 21, which she founded in 1997. he was previously president of common cause and has served as a fellow at harvard university and

visiting lecturer at yale law school, in a nationally recognized leader on campaign financing transparency reform and served as an analyst at cbs and abc news. mr. david keating at the president for the center for competitive politics and former executive director of the fund for growth previously serving as executive vice president of the national taxpayers union and its executive director of americans for a fair taxation. he founded the speech now into does a seven. a chancellor's professor of law at the university of california irvine school of law and is the author of the election law blog, written more than four dozen articles on a election law issues in several books including the supreme court and election law. he previously taught at loyola law school in los angeles and the chicago kent school of law. thank you all for coming, gentlemen. each of your statements will be read into the record we would ask you to limit your opening statements to five minutes each.

>> chairman, members of the committee, of president and founder of democracy 21, a neighbor she attempted to testify today in support of the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act. if the average into the air rises later on i would like to address senator alexander's long-held views about contribution limits, but i will focus my comments now on the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act. the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act restores a cardinal rule of campaign finance laws. citizens are entitled to know who is giving and sending money to influence the votes. this fundamental right to know has been recognized for decades by congress and passing campaign finance laws and by the supreme court in repeatedly holding the constitutionality of the loss. in 2010 more than $1,305,000,000 in undisclosed sum limited such

this amount is expected to dramatically grow and 2012 in terms of the undisclosed contribution adds a new disclosure requirements. this is returning the country to the year of the watergate scandals. when huge amounts of secret money were spent in federal elections. politics is dangerous money. as the supreme court held buckley v. valeo, disclosure requirements deter actual corruption and avoid the appearance of corruption. the this -- the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act would ensure citizens know on a timely basis the identities of and amounts given by donors whose funds are being used to pay for outside spending campaigns and federal elections. new disclosure laws were enacted during the watergate era to address the problem of secret money and federal elections.

from the mid-1970s until 2010 there was a consensus in the country and in congress and among democrats and republicans alike in support of campaign finance disclosure. in 2000 -- in 2012 for example, in response to a disclosure loophole that was allowing certain five to seven groups to spend undisclosed money in federal elections, a republican controlled congress acted to close the loophole. congress passed the new disclosure legislation with overwhelming support from republicans and democrats. the house floor was 385-39. the said bill was 92-6. bipartisan support for disclosure, however, disappeared in 2010. the policy issues of that changed. we urge the senate to return to the bipartisan approach of support for campaign finance disclosure that was the rule for

almost four decades in the senate and in the house. these gaping loopholes in the disclosure laws are caused by a combination of the citizens united decision and in effectual sec regulations. the problem has been made all the more root worse by groups improperly claiming tax-exempt 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations status in order to keep secret their donors. we have petitioned the irs to change their regulations to deal with eligibility for this tax status and i would like to include the petitions in the record. the citizens united decision was based on a false assumption that in striking down the corporate ban there would be effective disclosure for the independent campaign expenditures that followed. justice kennedy wrote, a campaign finance system that

passes corporate independent expenditures with effective disclosure has not existed before today faugh. that effective discloses still does not exist, and that is what we will cure by the disclose act -- the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act. there is no cost to show a problem with this lazar and a constitutional problem with the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act. the supreme court by an 8-1 vote in citizens united up help expenditures that are dealt with in this legislation. the court specifically noted the problem that results when groups run ads while hiding behind a dubious and misleading names and thereby conceal the true source of the funds. the court also is possibly rejected the argument that this closure requirements can only apply in the case of express

advocacy of the functional expressed advocacy. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> inky, had you finished you're a well rehearsed witness as well as a very good one. mr. keating. >> mr. chairman, members of the committee, thank you for inviting the center for competitive politics to present our analysis. while the stated goal of the bill is to increase disclosure of spending to defeat candidates the radical proposal will actually sell speech, force nonprofits to fundamentally alter their fundraising and public advocacy efforts and hijacked 25% or more of the advertising copy during an election year that simply mentions the name of a congressman. i think many of these provisions will generate significant first amendment questions and will generate litigation that has a good chance of success. now, perhaps the most infamous provision of the mccain fine gold the bill was its

restriction of the ability of rick stevenson and have a congressman running for reelection within 60 days of the general election or 30 days of primary. this bill would stretch that restriction to the entire election year for members of congress. that change would wreak havoc on groups that want to use tv or radio ads to lobby congress. in my testimony and give the example of an environmental group that might want to run an ad urging support for a bill to regulate cover backside. it was a bill that might have to disclose all significant others. some might even work for a utility or a coal company. now, these donors might have supported the group's clean water efforts in response to appeals for funds on that basis it had not thought to earmark their checks. if they may be listed on the ad itself to supporting the ad and in fact, they don't support any set sank. now, another thing that is not

talked about in this bill at all from what i can tell is the discovery requirements which are just totally ridiculous. currently under today's law if a radio ad were to run right now and there is no primary within 30 days the ad for -- this group that i listed my testimony which i made up, american action for the environment, the radio ad would just say at the end, paid for by the american action for the environment. well, i think most americans would think that's a pretty good december. you know who's running the ad and the preferred. but the bill would require this. it's going to take it but said percent of my testimony to read december of this radio ad. you would have to say something like this, and no editing really is required. the sec commissioner is behind me. a group that i used to work at once asked and they said that

they could not. it would say paid for by american action for the environment www debt american action for the environment got word or the address or phone number, not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee, and i am john smith -- i'm not really john smith actually -- is chief executive officer of american action for the environment for. american action for the virus approves this message. major funders are ronald the coppersmith and donald wasserman schulz. the december to about 20 seconds to speak. our groups opposed to purchase a 302nd radio ad if you have a 22nd december. and i have not even mentioned groups of lager names such as the american academy of pro laryngology head and neck surgery. this is a ridiculous to have this on a radio ad. now, all this is totally unnecessary. current law already requires disclosure of all spending to the sec for all independent

expenditures and election year communications. all contributions over $200 per year to further such communications, and have given examples of this disclosure in a written statement. there is more in this bill that goes far beyond disclosure and adds confusion to an alexian cut and regulations that are already just too complicated. i tell people to make the tax cut look simple by comparison. there is a new and what i consider indecipherable definition of express advocacy, and that really should go from the bill. so in conclusion, i want to emphasize this bill pyles new costs on nonprofits that are certain to chill speech and that appear intended to accomplish indirectly through costly and arbitrary compliance provisions to long disclaimer's when

congress may not do directly under the first amendment, and that is silenced dissent and speech. thank you. >> professor richard hasen. >> members of the rules and administration committee, thank you for the opporunity to be here today to testify about the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act. i strongly support the measure as a way of closing loopholes and requiring the disclosure of information which will deter corruption, provide the public with relevant information and allow the of force with a loss of such as the bar on foreign money in u.s. elections. high dollar threshold's enables contributors to tax savings exempt organizations to shield their identity when making out election related contributions. the steps to ensure the first amendment rights of free speech and association are fully protected. i hope the senate returns with a prior right partisan consensus in favor of full and timely disclosure. we have heard what justice kennedy thought it looked like

an and forcefully that the act -- that has not materialized. an action that shifted from past . seven organizations which have to disclose all of their contributors to new 501(c)(4) and other types of organizations which require no public disclosure of contributors. under the sec rules most contributors who are funding election year communications are not disclosed. how serious of a problem is secret money? the center for responsive politics found in 2010 the spending coming from groups that did not disclosed rose from 1% to 47 percent since the 2006 midterm elections and that 501(c)(4) spending increased 42% in 2010. furthermore, with the rise of super pacs can serious can easily share their identity behind innocuous names. the public doesn't get the information on who is funding the and when they needed the most and here's the ad.

even worse, contributors concealed their identity by contributing to a 501(c)(4) which in turn donates to a super pacs as recently happened when nearly half of freedom works the super pacs cuts to be sustained from its sister 501(c)(4). disclosing came from freedom works is that helpful to voters. i now turn to the benefits of the bill. the first benefit of all this goes of bills is that they can prevent corruption in the appearance of corruption. while the first might be too interested days before the case to embark corporate spending, disclosure is an importance of the second best alternative limits. second is those laws provide value of a message to voters. this is apparent to california voters when they turned down a ballot proposition that we have benefited pacific gas and electric. pg&e present to the provide almost $46 million to the campaign compared to very little of the other side. thank you -- thanks to a

california disclosure laws if pg&e name appeared on every ad and the measure nearly went down to defeat. taken as a similar provision. third, the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. law would help enforce other campaign finance laws. if you're worried about foreign money and elections where conduit contributions were one person gets to another the only way to find this out is through adequate disclosure. finally, we turn to a question of whether the d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act would face first amendment challenge. we have heard that in buckley v. valeo and a new citizens united and other cases the supreme court has repeatedly and nearly unanimously upheld disclosure laws, going much further than just the requirements of the disclosure as to express advocacy. the supreme court has also stated that a group can demonstrate a history or a threat of harassment it is entitled to a constitutional exemption from those rules.

as to harassment, and a forthcoming article in the journal of law and politics from the university of virginia closely analyzed the clans that have been made a recent court cases ceramic controversial ballot measures about a marriage and rights. both of the district courts found that harassment is not a serious problem and if it is there are entitlements to exemption. the cajun act provisions are ingenious and allowing interest and nonprofit to keep information private when they're money is going to be used are not a collection purposes. the nonprofit is set up a separate account for nonprofits. it simply targets the activity contributed money to election related ads rather than the type of organization offs. if someone is to be money to run an election add that should be disclosed regardless of the name of the organization that is used for. thank you for the opportunity to speak, and that will compare questions. >> thank you, and i think all three witnesses for their

testimony. my first question is to mr. keating. somebody contributes or a great amount of money into a 501(c)(4), the 501(c)(4) shell organization gives it to the super pacs and closes the name of that 501(c)(4). your written testimony does not account for that loophole. don't you agree that there is no effective disposer when a 501(c)(4) is given a large contribution? a certain percentage and large percentage of that money is used to put ads on tv? >> i think there already was a law against cancer reading in the name of another. already. >> let me -- was that answer the specific question.

he said that just having freedom works be the listing is not adequate and does that tell us anything. you could have a false name in your example. citizens against pollution could be funded by people who want to remove pollution controls. just having any name on the at does that tell you anything. the name could be deliberately defective. do you agree with that? the simple proposition that netted at present of all americans and say, obviously. >> if a group like the sierra club runs and that we need to know the donors? ammine -- >> let's say they want to take of somebody who is a defender in a state where coal is used. they set up an ad campaign saying citizens for coal use and then find ads against that

person, that candid, that incumbent on an unrelated issue. disclosure does no good. in fact, it is deceptive. yes, if they use the sierra club people know what the sierra club is. using an obvious example. but they could set of a sell organization with a totally opposite name. the pollution club. >> and under the law today all that would be disclosed, and he seems to be defending it is the name pollution club. >> that is correct. >> that is absolutely correct. >> incorrect about that. it is an independent expenditure . that group needs to report to the donors use to let independent expenditure. that would be listed in the fec filings, so we would know that this year club gave to this group that you're talking about here.

>> go ahead. >> the statute does require contributors to be disclosed. the regulations issued by the sec have gutted the disclosure provisions. that is how. they have limited the disclosure to all the individuals to give for the specific purpose of writing those ads. no one says they do. that is how we wind up with $135 million in undisclosed contributions. >> correct. >> the practical effect is we don't know where this privacy for -- 501(c)(4) money is coming from. we will never know. that is the bottom line, isn't that correct? >> he talked about disclosure independent expenditures. what is happening technically speaking is that these groups are running election-year communications with his

contributions to fund election-year communications not adequately disclosed thanks to sec regulations as well as a deadlock as to how the rules should -- >> my example is correct. >> i believe so. yes. >> thank you. my time is running out. we will try to have a second round, but i want to try to stick to the five minutes. my second question goes to mr. mr. fred wertheimer. senator alexander and others has resisted removing contribution limits for candidates and parties. that was a key part of mccain fine gold, a solution. can you just give us a brief sketch of what would happen in the political landscape? net think senator alexander, you're case would be everything would be disclosed. if someone wants to give before or an independent expenditure there would be disclosure of that if we looked at all limits. >> i am assuming that if the limits were lifted people would

give to campaigns and campaigns and candid it's with this goes in there would be no reason to give to a political super pacs. >> unless you did not want to disclose. anyway. why doesn't mr. fred wertheimer just give us an example. his opinion. >> in my view that would take us back to a system of legalized bribery. something we used to have years ago. and let me give a few comments from people other than me about this. the supreme court has said in buckley v. valeo that got to be says are necessary to deal with the reality or appearance of corruption inherent in a system permitting a limited financial contributions. inherently corrupt system is what the supreme court called the system of unlimited contributions. former republican senator said at the a limited soft money system, the system of unlimited

money from national parties, prostitutes ideas and ideals, the means democracy and debases debates. who can seriously contend that 100,000 elevation this at all to the way one thinks about and could possibly votes on an issue . former republican senator warren rudman said about the unlimited soft money system, no firsthand and from working with colleagues just how beholden elected officials and their parties can become to those who contribute to to their campaign and their party's coffers. individuals on both sides of the table recognize that larger donations effectively purchase greater benefits for donors. a limited contributions to the parties affected what gets done and how it gets down. they affect outcomes as well. one last quote from a former colleague, late former colleague of the senate, said russell

long, chairman of the finance committee do well knew his way around campaign money, he once said that distinction between a large campaign contribution and a bribe is almost a hairline difference. so my view is we go back to a system of buying results in congress, direct purchases if we go back to a system of unlimited contributions, but certainly -- >> and not quite testy to respond because my time is up. my good friend who i have tremendous respect and affection for, go back to the old system. basically he is saying let's go back to the system with no limits which was in existence 30 years ago. >> was in existence where we got watergate. >> right. center alexander. >> thank you. take you for asking me that question.

i was going to ask him that if you did not. of course senator mccarthy in testimony before this committee said the following. watergate was says it as an example of corruption of the system, although there was nothing in watergate that would have been prevented are made illegal by the 1975 act which is the act and to define limits of contributions. i would like to come back to limits on pension beaches. let me ask you, you think of the disk -- d.i.s.c.l.o.s.e. act as written and passed, less spending by the groups affected on elections to back. >> it is hard to say. there is no way of knowing advance. i think there would be less spending. when certainly would be massive disruption in the way many of these organizations need to handle their fund-raising efforts. i did want to mention something, which is my other witnesses identified something, what they say is the regulations and laws.

if they're is a problem with that, why don't we just take a surgical knife and just fix that one, small problem. i can tell you, i recently worked at they cost for growth. a qualified nonprofit organization. before citizens united that group as well as the league of conservation voters, planned parenthood and other groups were allowed to do independent expenditures from the general fund. we did not raise money for independent expenditures from people. we rain independent expenditures out of our general budget. now, that is something that i think most people -- most americans would agree that groups like whether it is the sierra club or something else should be able to fund these out of their own budget. if someone is raising -- if there is consensus that the problem is created by the lobbying vague or the regulations being vague about raising money for independent expenditures or alexian your

communications being used generally, why not just fix that one thing? this bill goes way beyond that. way beyond that to cover a thing that is run in the entire election year. that goes too far. >> excuse me. your using a ball my time. >> okay. >> let me ask you this question. congeries is to campaigns, to you think that would tend to dry up super pacs? >> i think a lot of this money going to super pacs would go directly to the candidate. i don't have any doubt in my mind. >> and if it would to the candidate would be fully disclosed and the current rules. >> absolutely. >> a little different view and a little different experience. i have run in a presidential campaign that limits and other campaigns. here is the way it works. because of the limits in 1985 when i was a candid i went to 250 fund-raisers to try to give money for people who could not

give more than a thousand dollars. i spent a lot of time with the book of $41,000. 70 percent of my time probably every year, 250 events. that raised and are $11 million. at the same time steve forces it to spend $43 million of his own money. that is what he did in 1996 and in 2000 he spent $38 million of his own money. i told that to senator kerrey when i was of the harvard faculty in the early 2000's. you know, there has never been a credible candidate for president to spend his own money. if you're ever in that position and you did it would probably help you. he was in that position in 2003. howard dean was beating him pretty badly in terms of the amount of money raised. needed 14 million carry four. characteristics of 7 million of his own money in and won the iowa caucus and became the

nominee. i watched msn b.c. sometimes. down at the gym with senator shimmer watching television. they run as regularly just the way that -- i mean, their broadcasts are ads for a political point of view. that is their right to do. in countries where we don't have a democracy the first thing that the leaders do is to take over the television stations and keep everybody else from having enough money or resources. this line is we have a first amendment spend their own money, if all we're watching is turning washington into a city of pandarus' $4,000.2 thousand contributions, before 1975 and did not spend all our time of fund-raisers. after 1975 congress did, and the

only reason you do is because he can raise money in sufficient amounts to run a campaign that buys in a television time to compete with the ads and tv stations are already running or the as average americans might buy because they have the money themselves. taking the limits off what's of almost all of this goes a problem because the money would then be given to candidates and campaigns and more people would participate and campaigns would run longer as they have this year in the republican primary. more voters have a chance to vote, and elected officials put a lot less time with people who are trying to give the money. >> thank you, senator alexander. just one. would make, if you don't require disclosure of the super pacs there will be people who will want to give undisclosed. you still have that ability to do it. if you want to give a million dollars to the canada you will have to disclose it. >> if you give to the super pacs

you have to disclose that. >> my only question for clarification because he has put out an alternative is, are you recommending that there be some kind of disclosure in the 501(c)(4) in addition to removing the limits? >> if you are willing to remove the limits i am willing to discuss with you what to disclose a definition ought to be. >> thanks. >> okay. >> appreciate that. senator. >> i have been sitting here reflects the of the changing times. mr. keating mentioned that disclosure, some light criminologist, a radical idea i was really taken aback by that. because i don't see how it possibly can be. this bill is modest. you can give under $10,000 without disclosure to a super pacs.

it is over $10,000. someone that contributes over $10,000 generally has some kind of motivation to contribute. the disclosure simply allows individuals to look at this nc who is supporting the candidate or cause. what about this is such a radical idea? >> well, it sounds like them may have been misinterpreted or misspoke, but i was talking about the bill itself, not the concept of disposer being radical. provisions in this bill i consider radical, and i think perhaps the most radical is the government mandated disclaimer that goes on for 20 seconds or more in many cases on the radio ad. now, this would cover all radio ads that mention the name of a

congressman. something as simple and innocuous as the bill being before congress and is says, congressman smith and urgent to vote for the bill. you would have to run an ad at least a minute long to even hope of getting your message across. you're going to drive up the cost of these ads. i understand why we needed is a flavor that goes on for 20 seconds when something as simple as democracy 21 by americans for action for the environment does the trick. to me that is a radical approach, requiring groups to state a bunch of democratic nonsense and a disclaimer that drives up the cost of advertising. >> i'm running for reelection. big state. i should be responsible for the eds i put up on television. therefore this clever is

importance because it says to people that the ad is speaking for me. and i take responsibility for it what is radical about that? >> at think what is radical about it is the bill specifies something that goes on forever way could be said in for a few words. >> focused on the radio ads. let's move to the tv ads for a minute. its tv ads require the head an organization to take responsibility for the ad in the same way that you have to take responsibility for your aunt said that there is accountability and responsibility for campaign ads. the tv ads also require the add to list the top $5, but that can be done in a crawl and would take up no sign from the content of the ad.

with respect to the radio ad there were provisions last time that are still in this bill that gives the sec the power through regulation to exempt the kinds >> for radio? that such correct. it always ends major donor listings, not the rest of the disclaimer. >> well, -- >> my time. >> well, -- >> let me just -- their is a hardship exception was the sec can use her just for you are talking about. you are correct. >> disclosure is too long a burden. >> it takes eight seconds. of course if you say it very slowly you could stretch it out to 20 seconds if you should want to. it takes eight and they're is a hardship exception. >> says. please. >> i can tell you that we have

rules very much like this. political ads all the time. they mention the top two funders and it is really not a burden. you can get your message out and pg&e case where i wish i had this in front of me.uuuuequuuuuu the pack approximatelymq]ñ]qñuñu $46 million all of which was donated by pg&e. things that i don't want to get into, but at one point it donated 9 million in one day. there is a consumer group called turn, utility reform network. the main opponents, and there were able to raise 303,000.

the pact outspends 500 to one which announced approximately $25 per vote. they lost. i think the reason they lost, the december.

pak without disclosure has a very unfair position on the ballot. you would disagree with that? >> i'm not familiar with the details of california law, but if it were there then great. i have no problem with that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> two points. california, and the hardship exemption i mentioned, if for some reason the man's the hardship exemption is on pace to one lines 5-14 in the bill. >> and it is that exceptions you're talking about eight seconds? if it takes more than eight seconds? >> alan reed. if the communication is transmitted through radio, paid

for in whole or in part through the payment which is treated in the campaign related disbursement under 324, the top two funders are listed unless a basis of criteria established in regulation by the commission the communication is of such short duration, perhaps 30 seconds, then including that would constitute a hardship to the person paying for the communication by requiring a disproportionate amount of content of the communication to consist of the top two funders. i imagine if he had a 302nd ads with 20 seconds, that would clearly be a hardship. i would be happy to say that that is the legislative intent. >> i guess the sec would decide. i don't want to take a lot of time, but let me be sure i understand. you said earlier, the statute currently requires disclosure the sec has dented thepp disclosure.ppxppp

>> hal is the sec getting thexpp ons required to bexp that was given for the specificp purpose of making campaign related expenditures. >> and these would be discloses and dodger beaches to these various groups? the sierra club or democracy 21. >> yes. >> okay. >> see you think we should be having a hearing on enforcingxp the statute to black-white.xpxp >> i think you ought to have axp separate hearing on fundamentally reforming the i don't think a hearing on enforcing the statute of this regulation is going to get us to

the statute there is axp contribution disclosure provision which is resulted, as i said, and more thanxpxpxp $130 million not being disclosed. >> all right. that may be suraya understand. -- let me be sure i understand. they should be able to run ads out of their own budget. is that a fair -- >> yes,. >> and do you all agree with that? groups like the sierra club able to run ads out of their own budget in just a yes or no? >> yes. this says it accounts for that. >> mr. hayes and. >> yes. so long as they comply with the applicable disclosure rules. short. >> and what would that be? >> row, if it is an independent expenditure you must list the independent expenditure to the fec @booktv sec within 40 hours a 12 ers.

if it is an election-year communication you need to discuss the expenditure. if money was given for the independent expenditure, and this is what i alluded to, the confusion from the statute and regulations, different people take different interpretations of what that means. i can tell you, i worked at club for growth, and we interpreted that to mean if you raise money generally for an independent expenditure the donor would have to be disclosed. now, the people may take a different view of that. so that is our group took of you. so we -- when we ran independent expenditures we only did it for art general funds and never asked anyone for money from independent expenditures. >> your general funds, you did not disclose all the donors to club for growth on any report anywhere? >> that is correct. no money was given for independent expenditures.

club for growth today has a super pacs, and he uses that entity to raise money for independent expenditures. all of the donors to that organization are disclosed. >> so the super pacs the donors are disclosed, but the regular donors, the sierra club, the two examples are used to so far. >> correct. now, if the group did raise money for independent expenditures you know, it is my view that would have to be disclosed under the current law. other people feel differently. >> and under the law we are talking about today, is it accurate that a member of the house or senate, some groups, outside groups, which groups cannot mention their names before the year -- the entire year of the election? >> well, any group. if we are talking about this bill becoming law, any group that wanted to run an ad during

the entire election year, if they spend more than $10,000 asked, would have to meet the requirements. >> and could you -- how would you mentioned the name of the house member or senate member? >> you could not alyssa complied with all the provisions in this bill. >> would you like to say something? >> there are no restrictions. there are disclosure requirements. >> research is this a you can't january 1 until the elections in >> that is not a restriction in the bill has reached -- disclosure requirements. >> the bill provides a definition of an election eric communication which already existed. if something is triggered all this does is provide for disclosure of information. it does not prevent anyone. there were limits before. those were struck down. >> we take this 60 or 90 days

that were 30 or 60 days in the law no and we take that same principle and expanded for an entire year? >> as to disclose it to the election year, that's right. >> i would think that members of the house and senate would like that, that they could not have their name mentioned without these restrictions for the entire election. have the house term. one sixth of the senate term and one sixth of the senate term you're running for election. all right. at the dam out of time. >> thank you. >> there is now limiting principle to this. why couldn't it be both? why could it be at all times? i don't see any limiting principle here. >> senator. >> under existing law, have primaries been held where super pacs ran ads and their donors were not disclosed until after the primary? if that is so i think their is a

problem, and how does the bill deal with it? >> it was a big problem in this florida primaries or all run and first disclosures of the super pacs into their founders were. currently functions in an off discloses semiannually and at all of the money raised in the it does fall -- solve the

this serious problem for super pacs that existed in this election. >> that 2010 elections, and i didn't look at all of these, but i noticed end i think the chairman will remember this. i believe senator bennett, our friend in colorado, told us that the combined expenditures, independent, total independent expenditures far overwhelm both the totals for both candid it's still a both democrat and republican. to use the, where we are moving down the road as we get into 2012 and 2014 where we have elections where the combined spending of super pacs and independent expenditures are well beyond what the candid it's a spending, is this a good trend? is this something that better

informs the voters about what the candidate's positions are? do you think this is good for democracy? >> no, nor do i the this solution is to remove the contribution limit. the study has shown that all of the ads are negative attack ads, and that leads me to believe even if you did remove the contribution limits you would still have super pacs of raising large amounts of money and raising -- running negative ads and potentially 501(c)(4) organizations. we believe that one of the steps that should be taken and can be taken is to end the candid it's specific super pacs of the type that we have seen in the presidential election. those can be eliminated. under the supreme court ruled in the citizens united that

corporate independent expenditures took place, they also said they had to be independent of the candidate. they left to congress to define what is independent and coordination. once again, we have very weak and problematic coordination rules. even under those rules we believe a number of the candid it's specific super pacs are operating illegally, but we clearly feel that you could define super pacs in a way that they are not going to be run by close associates of the candidate and they will not be having their money raised by the candidate's campaign. these super pacs are not independent. they are arms of the campaign, and i think most people recognize that. they are hiding behind their own views of what constitutes coordination under the law and also under the realization that

law is not trying to be enforced against them by the sec. the supreme court, when it talked about independent expenditures in the past was very clear and had to be wholly independent, fully independent cultural independence. these are anything but those concepts. i know i only have a couple of seconds here, but it seems to me that the -- in reading about the super pacs in the presidential campaign these are individuals who worked very closely with the candidate in many cases. may have left the campaign recently, left the official office recently or the chief of staff within the last year. these are the kind of people that are running the super pacs and amassing the money and

putting them together, then not? >> that's correct. a candid it's a father. >> it was the major funder. >> i think this is a strange concept that somehow father can corrupt the son to read the nation. it just strikes me as another provision we have been a lot. the husband can run but could not take a contribution from his wife because is wife might corrupt him by giving him a contribution that is too large. as i said earlier, election law has some very strange provisions in it. things that are incredibly vague we have heard the call for texas and simplification. one of the things we need to have his election loss of vacation. i mean, fred wertheimer is a student of this for many years and is saying some things that are misleading.

for example, the idea that a campaign manager can go to a super pacs, their is a restriction in the definition of what an independent expenditure is. you cannot have someone that is going from a campaign working on that independent expenditure. i think 90 or 120, so there are restrictions. there is no evidence that these are illegally coordinating. of course, people that know and understand or maybe support strongly these candidates may feel strongly about starting of such a group. that is not a surprise. the final thing i would like to observe is, money is not everything. look at the republican party very for president this time and look at candid it's that sort during this primary, and it was on the strength of their performance during the debate. other people are watching these debates, so there are other ways to get information out.

many is very important. i think the increased money that we have in this primary, more information up, more front runners. a very competitive race. >> would you like to respond associates of the candidates,

the reality of what is going on blatant.