they also get across the chinese border. we can document human rights abuses in north korea -- >> i understand all of this. to the extent that we have hard currency going into the regime -- this is a regime that built a reactor for syria and a nuclear weapons program for syria, and did it while we were under an agreement where they weren't going to proliferate. they were going to -- proliferating beyond anything we could have imagined while doing a two track nuclear program. ..

regime that tries to get its hands on nuclear weapons and tries to launch a rocket reinforces the importance of fighting in missile defense system because that's perhaps one of the only things that gives us leverage is the we can defend ourselves. also i have been privy as a member of this committee to the debates over the nine years on food aid to north korea. when did the united states assume the responsibility for the nutrition of the north korean people.

this is a loony policy on our side. should we just say that any dictatorship around the world decides they want to spend their money on how weapons production that they are going to automatically qualify for nutritional aid for their people from the united states and we are going to have expressions so concerned that the food aid that was giving goes directly to their people. but dictatorships are we calling out of that equation. they want to spend more money on weapons. it's happened now and it hasn't done any good. given all this money has provided them the resources they need to spend 850 to $50 million

on a rocket launched. i think it's something that we need again to have reality checks when we go in to the debates on such policies i'd like to ask about the chinese. do any of you have evidence that of the rocket that was going up had important chinese components on the rocket, and in the nuclear system that they've been building, the weapons system are there not chinese components to that that are vital to the success of those projects? whoever knows anything about it. specs several of us have had clearances' over the years and there's only so much we can say. i think it is a matter of public

record of the north koreans have put together their missile program, the iranian enrichment program and the reprocessing by chemical precursors, highly refined uranium materials all over the world, and particularly using the network a lot of that comes through china, so that is why beijing following the letter of the sanctions is hardly enough. >> when we see this impoverished regime in north korea they can't even feed its own people there regime that counts its power on the basis of the people marching down the streets during the goose step but this is the regime that is responsible for building these nuclear reactors and this technology.

are we not dealing with beijing -- is beijing not using north korea as a proxy? please, stay calm. forget what i am doing, stockholm, go and blame the other guy over there. >> i tend to think that china hasn't defined the nuclear program. i think china likes having north korea as a buffer between it and south korea, but for, what i've seen china has never been terribly happy about north korea's's pursuit of nuclear weapons. but i -- >> i have 15 seconds left on my time and i'm just going to suggest that china is the big player and just like we don't want to face the reality that we shouldn't be giving food aid to dictatorship like this or that we need a missile defense system we just don't want to face the reality of the downside of china

coming and for whatever reason this has been going on for 20 years to america's detriment and nowhere is that more clear than the policy with korea. >> thank you very much. mr. smith is recognized, sorry, judge poe on the oversight and investigation. just the way it is. >> it seems to me that kim jong il is just like his daddy and follows in the footsteps of his daddy. he's trying to make a name for himself and thanks a bunch of promises to the west and like his dad and granddad he lies and breaks his word. shock. where i come from if a man breaks his word you probably shouldn't trust him the next time he gives his word not to something more to do something. it seems to me here we are come over here in the united states.

okay, we will try again in a few years, a few months. we will promise the same thing if you hold off on this case on your nuclear capability. it seems to me that just doesn't work for north korea. it doesn't work for iran, and we are pushing a decision to do something just to push it off to the next administration. i know we've heard from the other side this is bush's falls, clinton's fault. we are in a situation where north korea is going to be a threat. and my first question is what is the policy of the united states over all dealing with the nuclear capability of north korea. are we going to keep making promises and give them food, help the people, what is our policy towards north korea?

>> welcome a part of the problem dealing with both north korea and iran is we are recognizing the right to nuclear technology. i was at the state department when president bush reaffirmed iran's right to nuclear technology and many of us argued if you pursue nuclear weapons secretly or the technology in violation to the iea e. a. you are entitled to the technology in both administrations endorse that. that may be something congress can look into. >> what do you recommend? >> states that cheat have no right to the peaceful nuclear technology, period. the treaty says differently. we change the treaty and i think there was one of the biggest mistakes of the bush administration. we see that in the negotiation with iran. we have to make it clear they are not entitled to the technology because it will use it to make nuclear weapons. the framework was going to give more after we get the additional

reactors. they were proliferation resistant but they could be used on the right conditions to make nuclear weapons fuel spewed the was a foolish agreement, and i think that -- i guess if i was to find the biggest problem in the policy, that's it and that's something we should work on. >> dr. green, briefly. >> i don't think any administration would want a reactor. that is off the table so defacto the policy is the policy towards north korea. iran is another story and i agree completely on that front and i think there's an assumption if we can cut a deal and basically rent the program and pay them off, and we can manage it until -- the problem as i mentioned earlier they are not going to sit still. they are going to use the time not to increase the nuclear weapons capability and continue raising the asking price. so we need a strategy that focuses on roebuck. missile defense, allianz

cooperation, interdiction, enforcement of sanctions. if we can't do it with china than we did without. i would maintain a diplomatic element. we need a channel for communication from a variety of reasons that we've had it backwards for many years which as we made the negotiations to the center stage and all the other pieces the sort of secondary considerations. >> is seems to me that north korea doesn't take us seriously. would you agree with that or not, dr. green? >> we take very seriously. after the collapse of the soviet union the strategy was to develop a relationship with the u.s. to marginalize us all -- >> i'm talking about sanctions or consequence. >> i suspect the north koreans had gotten used a pattern where we have a very hard time in space societies 99 pressure on them. we move on to other things. even our approach was designed to save our amol, diplomatic

ammo to get china and russia to work for iran and syria. they know that. >> one last question because i now time. long term as the north korea intention, would you speculate? >> somebody needs to answer. islamic long-term the corrupt regime needs to stay in power. that is the purpose of the corrupt group of people behind kim jong il and his family. that is all we're interested in. >> thank you very much. >> the chairman of the subcommittee on africa global health and human rights. >> thank you. thank you for calling this very important and timely hearing. the hearing nature of the subcommittee that last september on the human rights and north korea the way dismayed bustling two important points, but these are the two that i would like to

bring it today any attempt to the nuclear weapons issue will sidelining or ignoring or d prioritizing the human rights issue was doomed to fail and said it is imperative with current and accurate information so that they understand that there are alternatives to the repression under which they are suffering. as mcveigh chaired the hearing on the depreciation of the refugee with the commission on march 5th which pointed out by china's violation of its own obligations of the refugee convention. i'm sorry i missed your oral presentations. with many of the points raised at those hearings to indicate you need a human rights policy that is unflinching the condemnation of abuse and north korea and our effort to muster would prevent action such as those by china to return the

refugees to north korea against their will. they deserve the prioritization on their own merits which shouldn't be linked to the up and down negotiation. mr. snyder, you indicate providing information to north korea may be one of the most, "effective options for influencing the number three in internal choices. and doctor come you recommend that you rests now creates to stand our efforts to, quote, dramatically expand the flow of information into north korea. to seven days a week seem to be having a very positive impact in the country. one doctor that does humanitarian work in north korea wrote to the service according to my friend in pyongyang you are not only the voice of america but also the voice of the victim's in the murphree and dictatorship.

the program includes commentary as we all know by the north korean defectors to help the north koreans understand the border world and how north korea appears from the outside. could any or all of you comment on the role that you think human rights has played in this administration policy towards north korea and what it should play and further elaborate on the means of communication and the kind of information to off sectors of the society that you think we should be promoting. >> the appointment for the investor of human rights he comes from the committee as i understand it, and is doing a good job. i think we should be moving up to a higher level. in particular, i think we need a more robust multilateral strategy. for us, the budget ministry and was hard we have a progressive government that didn't want to play on this and then we had in europe and germany countries that prefer to point at the u.s..

we now have a very different lineup in europe and japan and we could with more effort create more of a multilateral front pressing china on the repatriation of refugees and we know that north korea isn't going to fundamentally change its policy in the short term, but there's evidence that there since it is particularly when there's a broad multilateral indictment of the regime so that is where i would encourage the ambassador and his colleagues to bring it up to the next level. >> i think the human rights have been lacking and that is a big problem. we focused on a handful of issues trying to strike agreements of the nuclear issues and we put other issues such as human rights and the abject citizens to decide because they were destruction i think that's the mistake and we have to hold our principles not just the issues they are interested in

talking about. we have to talk about what we need to talk about >> the cell phones and number three today even though they will only call north koreans it means information can flow from one part of north korea where you cannot move around easily to another part from some more information we can pour in to north korea, it can see been and it's starting to and china is richer than it used a piece of it is no longer a bad example. it's the example but north korea is falling behind because it's trying to prop up the military calling more than a quarter of its weak gdp, 27 dalia large gross domestic product more than 5 million coming from china, the number one patron. we have to expose this and get the information flowing in. we need our ally and there's an election coming up this december and south korea. >> the fact the human rights act has been a major contribution from the u.s. congress, the strong support for funding for information flows targeted at

north korea we still need to work hard on highlighting china's's really terrible policy repatriation of north korean refugees and i know you've been doing a lot of work. i like that. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much pittard although we would normally come quit at this time, mr. connolly has an issue so pressing and urgent that i told him he could have a few minutes to ask it and bring it up so as not to cause extreme stress. acid reflux, coronary disease and any other medical complication that could ensue. so mr. connolly is recognized. >> why do i have a feeling this is going to cost me a lot of chocolate? [laughter] i want to get the opportunity to answer the question i put out there earlier. it seems to me an odd thing we would have a hearing on north korea and not talk about the change in leadership, and i think we would benefit from each of your observations on

remembering we have to be succinct. who is this new leader and what is our understanding of consolidation of power and who really holds the power in the north and what it might mean moving forward for the discussions we've had this morning? >> so far i think what we have seen on the surface is continuity. but as it could be seen from the video, there is something hard to accept in the west about a 30-year-old kid running a country surrounded by 60-years-old generals. so we don't know what is happening under the surface. and we are watching it to through a tv screen. the chinese have better direct access. what we really need is to see how the leader is interacting with those around him directly in order to make a clear determination.

spasso for he is following a clear game plan making him out to look like his grandfather the great leader. he is appearing more for the on the spot government. normally there's a 100 day mourning period after the death of a father but basically following the game plan, i think that the missile and nuclear program is largely in place in terms of that plan and kim jong il called it audibles. he made a judgment calls how to respond to the western of pressuring and so forth. the troubling thing about this successor is how will he handle the automobile when things start getting rough after a future nuclear test of the publications howell will he handle that in the margins coming and that is the sort of unpredictable factor and where we may see tangency emerging between him and the military leadership figures. >> i think that he's probably secure because kim jong il's ill

health was known for some time. i think they did have a transition in place before she died. whether kim jong il is running the country or whether kim jong il's cao wooful brother-in-law or his wife are part of a triumph we don't know yet but we will be watching this just like we used to watch the soviet generals on may day and see who's behind whom and what is going on in the country, but i just tend to think that this is not, the military isn't going to challenge him. they are all part of a regime that want to stay in power. is like the fact that she went ahead with of the deal that had been negotiated last october and outlined in geneva suggested he didn't need one continuity or he couldn't overcome the military first structure that he was inheriting. we don't know is the key point, and i've done many television interviews and the thing that

they don't put on the television is the point that the u.s. government, the south korean government do not really know because we don't have direct access to the dynamics of the leadership and how they make decisions. we need to get much closer to this problem to have a better understanding no matter which policy beagle and then we need a long-term strategy we need to stick to over time because this is a long game. >> thank you. mr. berman and donley thank the witnesses. thank you for your excellent testimony. sorry about messing up the order and totally descanting dr. krone and at the end. my apologies. thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen for joining us, and the committee is adjourned.

the soldiers started telling me that the u.s. government was wasting tens of billions of dollars on totally mismanage the development and logistics contracts. >> i was in a meeting where the brigade commander incredibly -- colonel mike howard this isn't long after president obama took office, and the state department was out there saying okay we are going to give you a bunch of development money. counterinsurgency. we are going to do this. and he said don't send any more money. send contract officers to oversee this stuff. i need people, i don't need more money.

this year's student kim competition asked students across the country but part of the constitution was important to them and why. today's second prize winners selected article 5. >> i am here in front of the national archives in washington, d.c., home of the original copy of the constitution, the framework of our government, the holy grail of our american history. it's reform and change. article 5 of the document is a little-known provision that makes america the growing and changing society is today. >> to better understand what most people's values were in regards to the constitution of began by asking random people what provisions of the constitution they felt they benefited most from. >> freedom of speech. >> freedom of speech. as demand freedom of religion. >> freedom of speech. >> the right to bear arms. estimate the general consensus was that the most important parts of the constitution were the amendment which gave rights

to citizens. >> a lot of the things people think about when you think about the constitution are not in the constitution, editor in the amendments to the constitution. very few people when they think about the constitution think to themselves, you know, conagra's having the power to regulate along the state's and having the power to raise the or me. those are not things people think about when they think about the constitution. the thing about the constitution gives freedom of speech. well, the first amendment gives freedom of speech. article 5 obviously was pretty vital in that when you take most people and ask them tell me three things about the constitution, chances are most of those things are in amendments. >> but what is article 5. i asked people if they knew what article 5 was. >> delude article 5 of the constitution is? >> no. >> no. is to mix of what is article 5?

>> article fight is the congress when two-thirds of both houses this is a racial propose amendments to the constitution, and then it showed the joint resolution passed for two-thirds of the vote in both houses, then it goes to those states where it 38 states, three-quarters of the states would have to ratify the amendment before it would become the fundamental law of the land. there is another provision article 5, which allows the states in the face of inaction by congress to ask for the constitutional convention to be established for that purpose. >> what makes article 57 important? let's take a look at the preamble of the constitution. in the preamble, the framers wrote we the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union. what do they mean by a more perfect union? >> i think it's an acknowledgment of the constitution represented sort of

another try a few will to bring the states together where it was in place prior to the constitution i think and had a lot of shortcomings. people realized it had a lot of shortcomings. i think it represented the idea that the states did want to have some sort of vital central government, but at the same time retain their individual sovereignty over the local issues. as against what not sure the different public figures had different ideas. as the makati interpret that to mean a more perfect one than the

political structure from which they can and have observed and were subject to. estimate the founders of the constitution was a machine that would go of itself and this is the experiment in democracy would be just that, an experiment. we are in pursuit of happiness. that's the key word. the constitution says in order to form a more perfect union. we are obligated to keep tinkering with these things come to keep experimenting, and that is the great beauty of this. estimate there are different schools of thought with the framers intended when they rode a more perfect union, either that it was better than the original articles in the confederation or that there was meant to be adjusted. in any case it was to improve the nation. and america has been made better through amendments to the constitution. so what would america be like without an amendment to the constitution? >> without arbuckle fight if there were no process for amending the constitution, it would have been major problems some of which have been resolved

fairly well by the amendment process. >> it would not be america as we know it without them. to the fact you can't think of everything no matter how careful you are drafting you can think of everything so you have to fix it. >> some people think however that the amendment process has been a failure at times. >> there have been instances where amendments have turned out people have changed their mind and provision is an easy example. estimate of the amendment process seems to have backfired. it enabled the country to repeal certain laws that seem to be unnecessary. >> it's an amazing thing in some ways we talk about all the unintended consequences, but it has positive things. one is it shows that democracy works. estimate they can be flawed deutsch of the public opinion the amendment process itself is

something that makes this country extraordinary. we've a document the changes for us. we can grow and modify ourselves. without article 5i wouldn't be able to speak my view is to write letters to the editor to protest the law, to carry a gun and refuse the soldiers from having dinner at my home to have reasonable privacy stay quiet during the trials to have a quick trial to be subject to the punishment and a ban from having slaves to have my mom vote to drink at 21 and to be a will to vote in the next year. all i along with millions of others would be subject to a document of antiquity. i don't see how you could have an organic document and one that could governor buddy evolving doctrines and populous without an amendment process.

i think it is critical for any document to have it must be a process for revising it otherwise it becomes irrelevant very quickly. >> i don't think that america could have achieved its stature with article 5 and the possibility to the amendment of the constitution, and without passing many of the amendments we now take for granted.

a civil-rights panel looks at racial profiling in the u.s.. senator ben cardin of maryland has introduced legislation that attempts to end racial profiling. we will hear testimony about immigration lawyers, anti-terrorism efforts that target american muslims and the profiling of african-americans. this hearing is chaired by senator durbin of illinois. [inaudible conversations] >> this hearing on the constitution of human rights will come to order. now we're hearing today will focus on the civil rights issue that goes to the heart of

america's promise of equal thstice under the law, protecting all americans from racial profiling. ame fro racial profiling ism not new.ial at the dawn of the republic the roving bands of the freed men to as slatentions and brutal violence.bjected freed men and slaves to detentions and brutal violence. during the great depression, many american citizens of hispanic dissent were deforred to mexico under the mexican repatriation and during world war ii, tens of thousands of innocent japanese americans held up, confined in interment camps. 12 years ago, in march 2000, the subcommittee held the senate's first ever hearing on racial profiling. it was convened by then-senator john ashcroft, who would be appointed attorney general by president george w. bush. and in february 2001, in his

first joint address to congress, president george w. bush said that racial profiling is, quote, wrong and we will end it in america. end of quote. we take the title of today's hearing from the promise president bush made that night, 11 years ago. in june 2001, our former colleague, senator russ feingold of wisconsin, by predecessor's chairman of the committee held the second and most rathering on racial profiling. i was there, there was bipartisan agreement about the need to end racial profiling. then came 9 /11. the national trauma that followed civil liberties came face-to-face with national security. arab-americans, american muslims, south asian-americans faced national origin and religious profiling. one example, the special r registration program targeted arab visitors requiring them to

file with the i.n.s. or face deportation. there were serious doubts if it would help us combat terrorism. terrorism experts have since concluded that special registration wasted homeland security resources and, in fact, alienated patriotic arab-americans and american muslims. more than 80,000 people registered under that program, more than 13,000 were placed in deportation proceedings. even today many innocent arabs and plums face deportation because of special registration. how many terrorists were identified by the special registration program? none. next wednesday, the supreme court will hear a challenge to arizona's controversial immigration law. the law is one example of a spate of federal, state, local measures in recent years that under the guise of combatting illegal immigration, have subjected hispanic americans to an increase in racial profiling.

arizona's law requires police officers to check the immigration status of any individual if they have, quote, reasonable suspicion, close quote, that the person is an undocumented immigrant. what is the basis for reasonable suspicion? arizona's guidance on the law tells police officer to consider factors such as how someone is dressed, and their ability to communicate in ednglish. two former attorney generals followed the arizona case in which they said, quote, application of law requires racial profiling, close quote. of course, african-americans continue to face racial profiling on the streets and sidewalks of america. the tragic, tragic killing of trayvon martin is now in the hands of the criminal justice system but i know note, that according to an affidavit filed by investigates last week the accused defendant, quote, profiled trayvon martin and,

quote, assumed martin was a criminal, close quote. the senseless death of this innocent, young man has been a wake-up call to america. and so, 11 years after the last senate hearing on racial profiling, we return to the b e basic question, what can we do to end racial profiling in america? we can start by reforming the justice department's racial profiling guidance, issued in 2003 by attorney general john ashcroft. the guidance prohibits use of profiling by federal law enforcement in, quote, traditional law enforcement activities, end of quote, and that's a step forward. however, this ban does not apply to profiling based on religion and national origin and it does not apply to national security and border security intear ga s gathgath interrogations. as the nonpartisan congressional research service concluded, the guidance, quote, numerous exceptions may invite broad sir

couple vention for individuals of middle eastern origin and profiling of latinos. today congressman john coniers and i are sending a letter, signed by 13 senators and 53 members of the house asking attorney general holder to close the loopholes in the justice department's racial profiling guidance. congress should also pass the end racial profiling act that i welcome the attendance of my colleague and former member of the committee, senator cardin of maryland, who has taken up this cause from our colleague, senator feingold, and he's here today to testify. let's be clear, i want to say this and stress it the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers perform their jobs admirably, honestly, courageously. they put their lives on the lean to protect us every single day. but the inappropriate actions of a few who engage in racial profiling create mistrust and

suspicion that hurt all police officers. we'll hear testimony to what has been done in a positive way to deal with this issue by superintendent of police. that's why so many law enforcement leaders strongly oppose racial profiling racial profiling undermines the rule of law and strikes at core of the nation's commitment to equal protection for all. you'll hear from the experts today, evidence clearly demonstrates that racial profiling simply does not work. i hope today's hearing can be a step towards ending racial profiling in america at long last. senator graham is running late. senator leahy is out of the senate this morning. but was kind enough to allow me to convene this hearing. and i'm sure will add a statement to the record. i'm going to open the floor to senator graham when he does arrive. but, for the time being, because we have many colleagues here who have busy schedules of their own i want to turn to the first panel of witnesses. at the outset i do want to note

that i invited the department of justice to participate in today's hearing but they declined. we're honored to be joined today by our colleagues from senate and the house. in keeping with the practice of the committee, first we'll hear from members of the senate, then members of the house, practice which i loathe in the house, but now that we're running the show, you have to live with it, house colleagues. each witness will have three minutes for an opening statement. complete written statement will be into the record. first witness, senator cardin, sponsor of the end racial profiling act which i'm proud to cosponsor. this is cardin's second appearance before the subcommittee. he testified last year on the civil rights of american muslims. senator cardin, we're pleased that you can join us today. >> senator durbin, first, let me thank you for your leadership on the subcommittee. the fact that we have the subcommittee is a testament to your leadership in making clear that human rights are a priority

of the united states senate. so i thank you for your leadership. and thank you very much for calling this hearing. it's a pleasure to be here with all of my colleagues but i particularly wanted to acknowledge senator conyers and his extraordinary life leadership on behalf of civil rights and these issues. congressman conyers was a real mentor to me when i was in the house, and still is, and we thank you very much for your leadership on this issue. senator durbin you pointed out the nation was shocked. if i could ask unanimous consent of my letter into the record along with the list of the organizations supporting the legislation that i filed s-1670. as you pointed out, senator durbin, that the nation was shocked by the tragedy that took place in sanford, florida, the tragic death of the 17-year-old trayvon martin, a very avoidable death. and the question i think most people are asking, and we want justice in this case and we're

pursuing that. we have the department of justice investigation and we all very much want to see that investigation carried out, not only to make sure that justice is carried forward as far as those responsible for his death, but also as to how the investigation itself was handled. but i think the question that needs to be answered is whether race played a role in trayvon martin being singled out by mr. zimmerman, and that, of course, would be racial profiling, an area that we all believe needs to be -- we need to get rid of that, as far as legitimacy of using racial profiling in law enforcement. in october of last year, i filed the end racial profiling act, and as you pointed out, carrying on from senator feingold's efforts on behalf of this legislation. i thank you for your leadership as co-sponsor. we have 12 members of the senate that have co-sponsored the legislation, including majority leader, harry reid, as co-sponsor.

racial profiling is un-american. it's against the values of our nation. it's contrary to the 14th amendment of the constitution equal protection of the laws. it's counterproductive in keeping us safe. it's wasting valuable resources that we have. and it has no place in modern law enforcement. we need a hat law and that's why i encourage the committee to report 1670 to the floor. it prohibits use of racial profiling, that is using race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion in selecting which individual is too be subject to a spontaneous investigation, activity, such as a traffic stop, such as interviews, such as frisks, et cetera. it applies to all levels of goft. it requires mandatory training data collection by local and state law enforcement, and a way of maintaining adequate policies and procedures designated to end racial profiling. the states are mandated to do

that or risk the loss of federal funds. the department of justice is granted authority to make grants, to state and local governments to advance the best practices. as i pointed out it has the support of numerous groups and you'll be hearing from some of them today. let me just conclude, as my statement will give all of the details of the legislation, by quoting our former colleague, senator kennedy, when he said civil rights is the great, unfinished business of america, i think it's time that we move forward in guaranteeing to every citizen of this country equal justice under the law, and s-1670 will move us forward in that direction. thank you. >> thank you, senator cardin. i might also add we're at capacity in this room and anyone unable to make it inside the room will have an overflow room in dirkson g-50, two floors below us here.

senator graham suggests we proceed with the witnesses. next up congressman john conyers. the house sponsor of the end racial profiling act. serving in the house of representatives since 1965, john conyers is the second-longest serving member. i think second to another member from michigan, if i'm not mistaken. congressman conyers testified at both previous senate hearings on racial profiling in 2000 and 2001. we're honored to have you here as a witness. the floor is yours. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and to your colleague, who is another former house member if i remember correctly, and senator ben cardin, as well. all of you are working in the

backdrop of a huge discussion that has been going on for quite some time. when i came to the congress and asked to go on the judiciary committee in the house, and that was granted, emmanuel seller was then the chairman who did such landmark work in the civil rights act of 1964. and then we followed up with the voter rights act of 1965. and from that time on, a group of scholars, activists organizations, civil rights people, and americans of good will have all began examining what brings us here today, and accounts for the incredible long

line that is waiting to get into this and the holding room today. i come here proud of the fact that there is support growing in this area. only yesterday we had a memorial service for john peyton, known by most of us here for the great work that he has done and contributed in civil rights. not just in the courts and in the law, but in what i think it is the purpose of our hearing here today. namely, to have honest discussions about this subject so that we can move to a

conclusion of this part of our history. and so i'm just so proud of all of you for coming here and continuing this discussion because it's going to turn on more than just the legislators or the department of justice and i am -- i am with you in improving some of their recommendations and i commend eric holder for the enormous job that he has been doing in that capacity. but this is a subject that is a part of american history. the one thing that i wanted to contribute here is what racial

profiling isn't. racial profiling does not mean we cannot refer to the race of a person if it is subject specific or incident specific. we're not trying to take the description of race out of law enforcement and its administration. what we're saying that racial profiling is -- must not be subject specific or incident specific. and that's what we're trying to do here today. it's a practice that is hard to root out. i join in praising the overwhelming majority of law

enforcement men and women who want to improve this circumstance but you foe, one of the greatest riots -- race riots in detroit that occurred was because of a police incident was started. we have in detroit right now a coalition against police brutality, ron scott, an activist and a law student, is working on that, been working there for years. and so we encourage not only this legislative discussion about an important subject, but we -- we praise our civil rights organizations that have been so

good at this, the naacp, the legal defense fund of naacp, the american civil liberties union, and scores of cool lealitions o community and state organizations that have all been working on this just as we have and are. so i believe that there's going to be a time very soon when we will pass the legislation that you worked on in the house and the senate and that we will -- we will enjoy that day forward but we will celebrate this movement forward to take the discussion of race out of our

national conversation not because we're sick and tired of it, but because it's not needed any further. i thank you very much for this invitation. >> congressman coniers, it's an honor to have you in the senate judiciary hearing. next congressman luis gu tear rez. he's a longtime champion for immigration reform. there are many outstanding hispanic political leaders in america, but none more forceful and more articulate and more of a leader than my colleague. thank you for joining us. >> thank you so much, chairman durbin, ranking member graham, inviting me to testify here today. i'm one of the proudest things i am being in the state of illinois is the senior senator from my state. so i'm happy and delighted to be with you here today. i traveled from coast to coast

to visit dozens of cities and communities and listen to immigrant stories, some of my colleagues have visited their cities that are here today. immigrants tell me they are regarded with suspicion, frequently treated differently because of the way they look, sound, spell their last name. in alabama, i met 20-year-old marta, a young woman raised in the u.s. one late afternoon driving, she was pulled over, arrested for driving without a license, and jailed so her status could be checked. because her u.s. citizen husband was not present their 2-year-old was taken from the car and turned over to state welfare agency. south carolina i met gabino, who has been in the u.s. nearly 13 years, married, father of two south carolina-born kids who works hard, owns his own home. he was stopped because he was pulling into his mobile home community, one of three other hispanic residents stopped that

evening. he was arrested driving without a license and then placed and deportation proceedings. we guess why the police chose to stop them. profiling hispanics and immigrants is the efficient way to get someone deported but you can't tell if someone is undocumented by the way they look or dress or where they live. in chicago, a puerto rican constituent of mine detained for five days under suspicion of being undocumented. and indeed, sadly, senators, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of unlawfully detained u.s. citizens and legal residents in the united states each year in violation of their constitutional rights. some of them have even been deported and then been brought back to the united states of america. that's not an old story. that's a story of today. the federal government took a step in the right direction when it legally challenged the show me your papers laws in alabama, south carolina, and arizona.

because the state laws are unconstitutional and interfere with the federal government's authority to set and enforce immigration policy. but it makes no sense to file suit against unconstitutional laws on the one hand, and on the other hand, allow those same laws to funnel people into our detention centers and deportation pipeline. gabion denied relief from deportation because he's been stopped too many times according to the federal government for driving without a license. the government is complicit in serial profiling because the states cannot deport him and break up his family of american citizens, the federal government is doing just that. and programs like 287-g, securitied communities, end up in snaring tens of thousands of gabinos every year because of racial profiling, the programs ense incentivize. we need to back up our lawsuits with actions that protect

families and citizens, and children and uphold our constitution. i guess the gist of it is, i'm happy when the federal government says, this is racial profiling, we're going to fight it, and they go into the federal court in arizona and south carolina and in alabama. but until we tell the local officials if you continue a serial profiling we are not going to deport those people. they're going to continue to do it, it just incentivizes. i hope we can have a conversation about that also. thank you so much for having me here this morning. >> thank you congressman. congressman keith ellison of minnesota, serving his third term, representing the 5th congressional district in that state, co-chairs the national progressive caucus. congressman ellison enjoys a moment in history here as the first muslim elected to the united states congress, previously he served two terms

in the minnesota house of representatives. congressman ellison, welcome. >> thank you, senator durbin. na thank you senator graham. thank you for holding this hearing. thank you for urging attorney general holder to revise the justice department's racial profiling guidance. it's very important. as you know, that guidance has a loophole allowing law enforcement to profile american citizens based on religion and national origin. while many -- any profiling of americans based on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is disturbing, i think it's important also to note that it is poor law enforcement. law enforcement is a finite resource using law enforcement resources profiling as opposed to relying on facts based on behavior suggesting a crime is a waste of that law enforcement resource. it leaves us less safe and more at risk when we don't target based on conduct and behavior

suggestive of a crime, but based on other considerations informed by prejudice. my comments will focus on religious proproliferation filing of muslims. americans know what it looks to be -- muslim americans work hard and play by the rules and infinitesimally small number don't, many even live the american dream and send their kids to college and earn a living just like everyone else, yet many know all too well what it means to be pulled out of a plane, pulled out of line, denied service, called names, or physically attacked. like other americans, muslim americans want law enforcement to uphold public safety and not be viewed as a threat but as an

ally. when fbi, for example, shows up at homes and offices of american muslims, who haven't done anything wrong, it makes them feel targeted and under suspicion and it diminishes the important connection between law enforcement and citizen that is necessary to protect all of us. when muslim americans get pulled out of line in an airport and questioned for hours, ask questions and these are accurate -- questions actually asked, where do you go to the mosque? why did you give them $200 donation? do you fast? do you pray? how often? when questions like this are asked which have nothing to do with conduct behavior suggestive of a crime, it erodes the important connection between law enforcement and citizen. no americans should be forced to answer questions about how they wheresh worship. i was particularly disturbed when i heard stories kochling out of the controversy in new

york about kids being spied on in colleges at the muslim student association. i was very proud when my son was elected president of the muslim student association at his college. i wondered, was my 18-year-old son subject to surveillance like the kids were at yale, columbia, and penn? he's a good kid, never done anything wrong, and i worried to think that he might be in somebody's filed simply because he wanted to be active on campus. i am a great respecter of law enforcement, and i recognize and appreciate the tough job they have to keep us safe. but i think it is very important to focus on the proper use of law enforcement resources and not to give a opening for someone to stereotype or prejudice. as one bush administration official once said, religious or

racial stereotyping is not good policing. to fix this problem, i urge the attorney general to close the loophole and the justice department's racial profiling guidance and i urge my colleagues and congress to pass the end racial profiling act. thank you. >> thanks, congressman ellison. i could have added in my opening statement comments made by president george w. bush after 9/11, which i thought were solid statements of constitutional principle, particularly when it came to those adherence of the muslim faith that our war is not against this islamic religion but against those who would corrupt it distort it misuse it in the name of terrorism. i thank you for your testimony. congresswoman judy chu represents the 32nd district in california. since 2009. she was the first chinese american woman elected to congress. she chairs the congressional

asian pacific american caucus, formerly served in the california state assembly. we're honored that you're here today. proceed. >> thank you, senator. as chair of the congressional asian pacific american caucus, i'm grateful for the opportunity to speak here today about ending racial profiling in america. asian-americans and pacific islanders like other minority communities have felt the significant effects of racial profiling throughout american history. from the chinese exclusion act to the japanese american interment and the post 9/11 racial profiling of arab, sikhs, muslims and south asian-americans we know what it's like to be targeted by our own government. it results in harassment, bullying, and sometimes even violence. in the house judiciary committee we recently listened to the anguished testimony of sikh americans constant lehoux mill yates as they were pulled out of lines at airports because of

turbines and made to wait in glass cages like animals on display. pulled into rooms to be interrogated for hours, and even infants were searched. this has forced sikh americans and muslim americans to fly rles frequently or remove religious attire. and just last year, i was shocked to learn about the activities of the new york police department and the cia, who were secretly spying on muslim americans. despite the lack of evidence of wrong doing officers were monitoring muslim american communities and eavesdropping on families, recording everything from wear they prayed to the restaurants they ate in. the nypd entered self-stated in the northeast to monitor muslim student organizations at college campuses. these students had done nothing suspicious. the only thing they were guilty of was of practicing islam. this type of behavior by law

enforcement is a regression to some of the darkest periods of our history where we mistrusted our own citizens and spied on their daily lives and it has no place in our modern society. when law enforcement uses racial profiling against a group it replaces trust with fear and hurts communication. the community and law enforcement, instead, need to be partners to prevent crimes and assure the safety of all americans. when the civil libertied of any group is violated we all suffer. in fact, over 60 years ago, during world war ii, 120,000 japanese americans lost everything that they had and were relocated to isolated interme interment camps throughout the country because of hysteria and scapegoating. in the end not a single case of espionage was ever proven, but there were not enough voices to speak of against this injustice.

today, there must be those voices that will speak up. we must stand up for the rights of all americans. that is why i urge all members of congress to support the end racial profiling act. we must protect the ideals of justice and equal protection under the law so that our country is one where no one is made to feel unsafe, unequal, or un-american because of their faith or ethnicity. thank you. >> thank you, congresswoman. the next witness, congresswoman fredricka wilson, she represents the 17th congressional district which is, i understand, includes sanford, florida. previously, she served in the florida house of representatives from 1999 to 2002. and the florida senate from 2003 to 2010. congresswoman wilson, thank you for joining us today, and proceed. >> thank you. to represent miami where trayvon

is from, he was murdered in sanford. thank you. thank you, chairman durbin, ranking member graham and senator bloomen that and other members of the subcommittee. i thank you for inviting me to testify today on the issue of racial profiling. last week, after 45 days, an arrest was finally made in the shooting death of my constituent, trayvon martin. trayvon was a 17-year-old boy, walking home from a store. he was unarmed and sfrply walking with skittles and iced tea. he went skiing in the winter and horseback riding in the summer. his brother and best friend is a senior at florida international university of miami. a middle class family, but that didn't matter. he was still profiled, followed, chased and murdered. this case has captured

international attention and will go down in history as a textbook example of racial profiling. his murder affected me personally, and it broke my heart again. i have buried so many young black boys, it is extremely traumatizing for me. when my own son, who is now a school principal, learned how to drive, i bought him a cell phone because i knew he would be profiled, and he was. he is still fearful of law enforcement and what they might do when he is driving. i have three grandsons, a 1, a 3, a 5-year-old. i hope key can solve this issue before they receive a driver's license. i pray for them even now. there's a real tension between black boys and the police, not percei perceived, but real. if you waublg to alk to any inn school and ask, have you ever been racially profiled?

everyone will raise their hands, boys and girls. they've been followed as they shop in stores, stopped by the police for no apparent reason, and they know, at a young age, they will be profiled. i'm a staunch child advocate. i don't care what color the child is. i was a school principal, a school board member, a state legislator, and now in congress. i desperately care about my welfare of all children. they are my passion. but i've learned from my experiences that black boys in particular are at risk. years of economic and legal d disenfranchi disenfranchisement, legacy of slavery and jim crow led to economic disparities and prejudice against black boys and men. trayvon martin was a victim of the legacy. the legacy that has led to fear, this legacy that has led to the isolation of black males, this

legacy has throws racial profiling. trayvon was murdered by someone who thought he looked suspicion. i established the council on social status of black men and boys in the state of florida when i was in the state senate. i believe we need a council or commission like this on the national and federal level. everyone should understand that ooh our entire society is impacted. a federal commission on the social status of black men and boys should be established specifically to focus on alleviating correcting the underlying causes of higher race of school expulsions and suspensions, homicides and incarcerations, poverty, violence, drug abuse, as well as income, health and educational disparities among black males. i have spent 20 years billing a mentoring and dropout prevention program for at-risk boys in miami-dade public school, it's called the 5,000 role models of excellent project.

boys are taught not only how to be productive members of society by emulating moaner tos who are role models in the community, also taught how to respond to racial profiling. it is sad reality that we have to teach boys these things just to survive in their own communities, but we do. we need to have a national conversation about racial profiling now. not later. the time is now to stand up and address these issues and fight injustice that exists throughout our nation. enough is enough. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, congresswoman. unless my colleagues have question of this panel, i will allow them to return to their senate house duties. thank you very, very much for being here today. now, we'll turn to our second pan of witnesses. and each of them will please take their place at the witness

table. before you take your seats, i'll wait everyone's in place, please stand to be sworn. we have everyone here. ask the witnesses to please raise their right hand. do you affirm the testimony you're about to give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you god? >> i do. >> thank you very much. let the record reflect that the witnesses all answered in the

affirmative. the first witness is ronald davis. chief of police for the city of east palo alto, california, since 2005. before that, 19 years with the oakland police department where he rose to the range of captain. served on the federal monitoring teams overseeing police reform consent decrees between the u.s. department of justice, washington, d.c., and detroit. among other publications he's co-authored the justice department monograph, how to correctly collect and analyze racial profiling data. your reputation depends on it. he has a bachelor's of science degree from southern illinois university in carbondale. he testified at both the previous senate hearings of racial profiling and sorry it's been so long since we've resumed this conversation. but it's an honor to have you return a few years later to bring us up to date. at this point, chief davis, the floor is yours for five minutes. >> good morning, mr. chairman and distinguished subcommittee members.

i am ronald davis, currently chief of police for the city of east palo alto, california. i am humbled to provide testimony at today's hearing, as mentioned i did have the honor testifying at last senate hearings on racial profiling in 2001. when asked to come before the committee today the first thought was a question, what has changed since my testimony in 2001, when president bush then stated, racial profiling is wrong, we will end it in america. my testimony today is based on three diverse perspectives. first, as a racial profiling police reform expert, second, as a police executive with over 27 years' experience, working in two of the greatest and diverse communities in the nation, oakland and east palo alto, and third, as a black man and a father of a teenage boy of color. first, as an expert, i think it it's fair to say law enforcement has made progress, albeit limb nitd addressing the issue of racial profiling and bias based policing. the department of the justice civil rights division, through its pattern and practice

investigations have worked with law enforcement agencies nationwide to provide guidance on racial profiling policies and promote industry best practices. most recently, the cops office and partnership with the national network for safe communities is working on issues of racial remember, silliation and communities to strengthen relationships and reduce crime and violence in those communities. today there are few police agencies in the that do not have some type of policy prohibiting racial profiling and bias based policing. this progress is undermined by two focal points. first, there exists no national standard definition for racial profiling that prohibits use of race, national origin or religion except when describing a person. many state and local policies define racial profiling as using race as the sole basis for a stop or any police action. unfortunately this policy is misleading and suggests use race as a factor for anything other than a description is justified, which it is not. simply put, mr. chairman, race

is a scripter, not a predictor. to use race when describing someone who just committed a crime is appropriate. however, when we deem a person to be suspicion or attach criminality because of the skin, the clothing they are wearing we are attempting to predict criminality. the problem is that we are seldom right in our results, and always wrong in our approach. the same holds true within immigration context as well because a person looks latino or mexican does not mean theundocu. yet, according to reach laws in alabama and arizona, the police are not just encouraged to make these discriminatory stopped, they are expected to do so. most police chiefs agree engaging in these activities make our communities less safe. this is within reason i joined the police chief association and 17 current and former law enforcement executives in filing a brief challenging the arizona law. we need to pass the end racial

profiling act of 2011. this legislation puts forth a standard definition for racial profiling. it requires evidence based training to curtail the practice and provide support and developing scientific-based data collection and analysis. we need to revise the guidance. this will close as mentioned in the previous testimony's loopholes that could permit unlawful and ineffective profiling. it makes no sense to exclude religion and national horry again when profiling. i fear that without the legislation, we will continue business as usual. and only respond to issues when they surface through high profile tragedies such as the case in oakland and the trayvon martin case in florida. the second factor that undermines our progress is the dire need for us to reform the entire criminal justice system. the last top to bottom review of our system was conducted in

1967, through the president's commission on law enforcement, administration of justice. we must now examine the entire system through a new prism that protects against in equiequitieh as racial profiling. i strongly encourage the passage of the national criminal justice commission act of 2011. mr. chairman, interest my perspective as a police executive with 27 years, i know firsthand how ineffective racial profiling is. as an example, in east palo alto, my community, we are more than 95% of color. 60% latino, approximately 30% african-american, and a growing asian and pacific islander community. in 2005, the city experienced the second highest murder per capita rate in california and the fifth highest in the united states. in january 2006, with the six months serving as chief of police, east palo alto officer richard may shot and killed on line of duty by a parolee three months out of prison.

wit the crime rate and violence against the police officer, my community had to choices, either declare war on parolees or engage in enforcement activities that would further the incarration of young men in color or do something different. we chose to strengthen our relationships. we chose not engage in racial profiling. we starred a parolee department, provide re-entry services. police officers now are part of treatment. we provide cognitive life skills, together we were able to reduce the recidivism rate to over 60% to under 20%. after five years the murder rate in 2011 was 47% lower than 2005. our incarceration rates have dropped and i have very confidence in saying we have better police and community relations. for me and my community we recognize that racial profiling,

that the focus on people of color especially young men are more likely to occur when law enforcement uses race to start guessing. i'm here to really reinforce that is an ineffective police practicing, it is sloppy, counting on guesswork. the notion that we as a community or we as a nation must use racial profiling to make ourselves secure or sacrifice civil liberty is not only false, it wreaks of hypocrisy. if we were worried about national security in the sense of compromising civil liberties it would make sense, those engaging in racial profiling, would ask for the prohibition of firea firearms. we have lost over 100,000 americans to gun violence since 9/11. that is more than we have lost in terrorism and the wars in afghanistan and iraq combined, yet there's not an equal call for gun laws. i'm not suggesting there should be, i'm offering the idea of compromising civil rights for

national security does not work. what is equally troubling with the idea of using race, national origin and religion and the national security context, a nation that is equipped with law enforcement and national security experts second to none, must rely on bias and guesswork to make ourselves secure, versus human intelligence, technology, experience, and the cooperation of the american people. i want to strongly emphasize this point, senator, there is no reason to profile on the basis of race, religion, national origin or ethnicity. as a black man in america, i am still subject to increased scrutiny from the community from my own profession and country because of the color of my skin. as i mentioned earlier, i'm a father of three, but i have a 14-year-old boy named glenn. and even though i'm a police chief with over 27 years of experience, i know that when i teach my son glenn how to drive, i must also teach him what to do when stopped by the police.

a mandatory course by the way for young men of color in this country. as i end my testimony today i want to thank you, mr. chairman, and the rheest of the senator forward your leadership. as much as i was honored to be here today, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, i hope there is no need for me to come back in another ten years. >> thank you, chief davis. since september 7, 2001, anthony romero executive director of the american civil liberties union the large effort civil liberties organization with over 500 members. he co-authored in defense of our america the fight for civil liberties and the able of terror, he graduated from stanford university law school and princeton and princeton university's woodrow wilson of policy and international affairs. mr. mero, please proceed. >> good morning, senator durban and ranking member graham, senator franken, senator blumenthal.

i'm delighted to testify before you today. we are a nonpartisan organization with over half a million members and hundreds of thousands of additional activists and supporters. in 53 state offices nationwide dedicated to the principles of a quality and justice set forth of the u.s. constitution and in our laws protecting individual rights. for decades, the aclu has been at the forefront against all forms of racial profiling. racial profiling is policing based on stereotypes instead of faxed evidence and good police work. racial profiling fuels fear and mistrust between law enforcement and the very communities they are supposed to protect. racial profiling is not only in effective, it is unconstitutional and violates basic norms of human rights, both at home and abroad. my testimony lays out how race,

religion, national origin are used as proxies for suspicion in three key areas of national security, of routine law enforcement and immigration. in the context of national security, recently released fbi documents demonstrates how the fbi targets innocent americans based on race, ethnicity, national origin and first protected political activity. some counterproductive fbi practices waste law enforcement resources, damage essential relationships with those communities and encourage racial profiling at the state and local level. in my native new york, the new york police department has targeted muslim new yorkers for intrusive surveillance without any suspicion of trimmal activity. according to a series of associated press articles, the new york police department dispatched under cover police officers into muslim communities to monitor daily life in bookstores, cafes, nightclubs

and even infiltrated muslim student organizations in colleges and universities such as columbia and yale university. when we tolerate this type of racial profiling and the guise of promoting national security, we jeopardy guise national security and compromise the basic set forth in our constitution. policing base on stereotypes remains an entrenched practice in routine law enforcement across the country. the tragic story of ray von martin garnered national attention and raised questions about the role of race in the criminal justice system. while we don't yet know how this heartbreaking story will end, we do know that stereotypes played a role in this tragedy and yet they have no place in law enforcement. racial profiling undermines the

trust and mutual respect between police and the communities they are there to protect, which is critical to keeping communities safe. additionally, profiling deepens racial in america and conveys the suggestion that some americans do not dee serve equal protection under the law. racial profiling is exploding. state intrusion to federal immigration authority has created a legal regimen in which police are stopped based on race and ethnicity inquiry into their rim gragz status. the department of justice needs to continue to expand response to these state laws using probust civil rights protections. additionally, congress must defund the department of homeland security 287-g in security community programs which promote racial profiling by turning state and local law enforcement officials into police organizations. when police officers not trained in immigration law are asked to enforce the nation's immigration

laws, they routinely resort to racial stereotypes about who looks or sounds foreign. but you can't tell by looking or listening to someone about whether or not they're in the u.s. law -- in order to achieve comprehensive reform, congress needs to provide law enforcement with the tools needed to engage in effective policing. we need to pass the end racial profiling act which would prohibit racial profiling once and for all. and we should urge the administration to strengthen the department of guidance to address profiling by religion and national origin and to close loopholes for the border and national security. in america 2012 and beyond, policing and stereotypes must not be a part of our national landscape. law enforcement officers must base their decisions on facts in evidence, otherwise, america's right to liberties are unnecessarily discarded and individuals are left to deal with life-long circumstances of

such intrusion. on what have of the aclu, i wish to thank each of you for your leadership on this critical issue. i also would like to thank you, chairman durbin in particular to partner with our illinois office to address the issue of profiling. i look forward to working with you in the years ahead. >> thank you, mr. romero. frank gale served for 23 years in the denver county sheriff's department where he had responsibility for the courts and jail. captain gale is currently the commander of the training academy in the community relations unit and the public information officer. he has received numerous awards and declarations from the internal order of police and the sheriff's department. captain gale, it's an honor to have you here today. please proceed. >> thank you. my name is frank gale. i'm a 23-year veteran in the denver police department and currently hold the rank of

captain. i am the national second vice president for the fraternal order of police, representing more than 330,000 rank and file law enforcement officers in every region of the country. i'm here to morning to discuss our strong opposition to end racial profiling act. i want to begin by saying that it is clear racism is morally and ethically wrong. and law enforcement is not only wrong but serves no valid purpose. it is wrong to think a person criminal because of the color of their skin. but it is equally wrong to think a person is a racist because they wear a uniform and a badge. this still provides a solution to a problem that does not exist unless one believes the problem to be solved is that their universal training is based in practicing racism. this notion makes no sense. especially for anyone who truly understands the challenges we face protecting the communities we serve. criminals come in all shapes, colors and sizes. to be effective as a law

enforcement officer, it is necessary to be colorblind as you make determinations about criminal conduct or suspicious activity. there is the mistake and perception on the part of some that the ugliness of racism is part and culture of law enforcement. i'm here today not only to challenge this perception, but to refute it entirely. we can and must restore the bonds of law enforcement and the minority community. to do so would require substantial effort to find real solutions. restoring this trust is critically important because minority citizens often suffer victims of crime, especially violent crime. i do not believe that f-1670 will help repain the bonds of trust and mutual respect between law enforcement communities. in fact, i think it will make it more difficult because it lends the suggestion that all cops are racist and that we engage in a tactic that has no purpose but to violate citizens. that can result in a base belief by the community that law

enforcement officers should not be trusted or respected. this bill proposes to prohibit racial profiling which it defines very broadly and is not a legitimate police practice employed by any law enforcement agency in the united states that i know of. in rand versus the united states, the supreme court made et clear that the constitution based on consideration such as race. further, as one court of appeals has explained, citizens are entitled to equal protections of the law at all time. if law enforcement adopt aes policy, employs a practice or in a given situation takes steps against a citizen solely on the citizen's race without more then a violation has occurred. the united states constitution prohibits racial profiling. yet here we have a bill that proposes to prohibit it. the premise of the bill seems at odds with common sense and current law. the bill does not prohibit racial profiling as the definition of racial profiling

and the bill is far too fraud. it inhibits officers aimed at detemperaturing involved in a crime or criminal activity. the bill purports to allow exceptions to these exceptions when there is a -- of a specific suspect's race or ethnicity, but in real life this is not practical. and the practice of routine investigatory action, law enforcement receive and develop information through a wide range of activities and authorized that are designed to identify suspects, prevent crime or lead to an arrest. this bill would ban many of these types of methods. therefore, a whole range of legitimate law enforcement methods would be prohibited beyond the unconstitutional purely race-based activity. the legislation also threatens to personalize local and state law enforcement agencies by withholding federal law enforcement funding unless these agencies comply with the requirements of the bill to provide all officers training on

racial profiling officers. collect racial and other sociology logical data in accordance with federal regulation and establish an administrative complaint procedure or independent audit program to ensure an appropriate response to allegations of racial profiling. the fop has testified before you about the entire and dangerous consequences of budget cutbacks for law enforcement in the past. how can we fight the battle if we also propose to deny these funds to agencies that need them because they cannot afford new training or new personnel to document allegations of racial profiling issues? how can we achieve a colorblind society if the policies of the federal law require the detailed recording of race when it comes to something as common as a traffic stop. will police officers now be required to ask for driver's license, registration and proof of ethnicity, please?

at a time when citizens are concerned about protecting their identification, it seems at variance with common sense and public policy to collect racial or other personal data and turn that data over to the federal government for analysis. why would something as simple and routine as a traffic stop require such an extraordinary imposition on a driver? i smut to this subcommittee that we do have a problem in our nation today. the lack of trust and respect for our police officers, police officers have a problem in that they have lost the trust and respect and cooperation of the minority community. this is tragic. because as we have already discussed, it is minorities in our country most hurt by crime and violence. this, however, is not the conclusion. it will make matters worse, not better. for these reasons, the fraternal order of police strongly opposes the bill and i urge this

subcommittee to reject it. thank you for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee. >> thank you very much, officer gale, for being here. roger craig is the next witness. he's held a number of senior positions including deputy assistant attorney general and deputy assistant attorney general in the environment resources division acting as attorney general in the office of legal policy. he was a graduate of yale university law school. thank you for being here, mr. clag. please proceed. if you would, turn your microphone on. it's in that box in front of you. >> thank you very much, senator durbin, for inviting me here today. i'm delighted to be here. let me just summarize briefly my written statement. the first point i make is that here has to be taken in defining the term "racial profiling."

and in particular, i think that it's important to bear in mind that racial profiling is disprit treatment on the basis of race. good police activities that happen to have a basic impact on race are not racial profiling. the second point i make is that the amount of racial profiling that occurs is frequently exaggerated and that care needs to be taken in analyzing the data in this area. all that said, racial profiling, as i define it, is a bad policy. and i oppose it for the reasons that a many of my copanelists here are giving. there is one possible exception that i would make, and that is in the anti-terrorism context. in brief, i think that it is quite plausible to me that in the war on terror where we are fighting an enemy that has a

particular geopolitical and perverted religious agenda, that it may make sense in some circumstances to look at organizations that have particular religious and geopolitical ties. i'm not happy about that. i think it should be done as little as possible. but the stakes are so high that i am not willing to real it out altogether. the last point i would make is that there are problems with trying to legislate in this area in general. and i think that the end racial profiling act in particular is very problematic. i don't think that this is an easy area for congress to legislate a one-size fits all policy that's going to apply to all law enforcement agencies at all levels of government at all times in all kinds of investigations. and i think it's also a bad idea to encourage heavy judicial

involvement in this area. and these are things that the end racial profiling act does. let me also say that i think that chief gale does a very good job of identifying some additional costs in the end racial profiling act, the fact that it is insulting, the data collection is time consuming, and that inevitably, we're going to either have to guess on -- inaccurately on people's racial and ethnic background or else train the police on how to identify people racially, which is a pretty creepy enterprise. with respect to my other panelist testimony, i would say briefly in the terrorism and border security context, as i read some of this testimony, they would equate racial

profiling with taking a particular look at visitors from particular countries, at considering immigration and citizenship status and at considering language. i don't consider any of those things to be racial profiling. let me make one last point. i think that this is an important point to make whenever we're talking about racial disparities. as i said, mr. chairman, i am opposed to profiling, particularly to profiling in the traditional law enforcement context where frequently it is african-americans who are the victims of that profiling. i'm against that. nonetheless, i think we have to recognize that it's going to be attempting for the police and individuals to profile, so long as a disproportionate amount of street crime is committed by african-americans and there will be a disproportionate amount of

street crime committed by african-americans for so long as more than seven out of ten african-americans are being born out of wedlock. i know this is not a popular thing to say, but i think whenever we are discussing racial disparities in the united states, that is the elephant in the room and it has to be addressed. so ultimately, people like me and everything else i think in this audience who don't like racial profiling is going to have to face up this problem. >> i would ask those in attendance here to please maintain order. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think i'm at the end of my five minutes, anyway. >> thank you, mr. clay. david harris, associate dean for research at the university of pittsburgh law school. he's one of the nation's leading scholars on racial profiling. and in 2005, "good cops, kay case point of view for preventive policing." professor harris appeared at

both of the previous senator hearings on racial profiling. so welcome back. thank you very much, senator durbin, members of the subcommittee. i'm grateful for the chance to talk to you today. senator durbin's statement opened by recalling for us president bush's promise that racial profiling, quote, is wrong and we will end it in america. sad to say that that promise remains as of yet unfulfilled. instead, we have a continuation of profiling as it existed then with a new overlapping second wave of profiling in the wake of september 11th, as other witnesses have described. directed mostly at arab americans and muslims. now we have a third overlapping wave of profiling, this one with undocumented immigrants. but the context and the mission of whatever these law

enforcement actions are does not change these fundamentals. the fundamentals are these. racial profiling does not work to create greater safety or security. instead, racial profiling ethnic profiling, religious profiling all makes our police and security personnel less effective and less accurate in doing their very difficult job. i would define racial profiling as the use of racial, et nick, religious, national origin or other physical characteristics as one factor, among others, used to decide the question, frisk, search or take other routine law enforcement action. this is very close if you look at it to the definition of the profiling guidance of the justice department. and i would note that it does not include actions based upon description. description of a known suspect,

a person who has been seen by a witness. that is not profiling. that is good police work. all profiling falls on the same set of data, data from across the country, different law enforcement agencies, different missions. when we talk about effectiveness, what we're asked is what is the rate at which police officers and security officers succeed or hit when they use race, ethnic appearance, religious appearance as opposed to when they do not? and the evidence, the data on this question is unequivocal. it comes from all over the country. when police use race or ethnic appearance this way, they do not become more accurate. in fact, they don't even stay as accurate. they become less accurate than police officers and security agents who do not use these practices. in other words, racial profiling

gets us fewer bad guys. why is this? a lot of people find this counterintuitive. there are two big reasons. number one, profiling is the opposite of what we need to do in order to address asset unknown crimes by asset unknown suspects. that is addressed most effectively through the observation, careful observation of behavior. and when you introduce race, even as just one factor into the mix, what happens as the option of behavior becomes less accurate? measurably so, by police officers efforts are damaged and wasted. second, using profiling effects our ability to gather crucial intelligence and information from communities on the ground. and this is true, whatever the context is in which profiling is used.

particularly in a national security context, this is absolutely critical. if we are in danger, if there is a threat from international terrorists and if, as some say those international terrorists may be hiding in communities, the people we need right now is our partners like we have never needed other partners are people in those arab american and muslim communities. and i want to say that those communities have been strong, effective, continuously helpful partners to law enforcement in case after case across the country. these communities have helped. but if we put the target of profiling on these whole communities, we will damage our ability to collect intelligence from them because fear will replace trust. in response to some of the comments made by my fellow panelists, a bill like f-1670 which deserves support is not

insulting to law enforcement. it's all about accountability. and everybody who is in law enforcement or any other pursuit needs accountability just like i do as a professor, just like everybody else does. racial identification is not an issue. you will not have police officers asking people what their race or neglect nick group is. in fact, that's not what we would want at all because it's all about the perception of the officer. that's all that would have to be recorded. and black street crime is not the issue. the issue is how we deploy our law enforcement officers in ways that are effective, fair and carry out the most important ideals of our society. so for those reasons, i would support any efforts to pass f-1670, the end racial profiling act and to revise the department of justice's profiling guidance. i thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you and i

look forward to the committee's questions. thank you. >> thank you very much, professor harris. chief davis, you spent your lifetime in law enforcement and you've heard the testimony of officer gale that suggested in various strong and pointed language that raising this question, racial profiling, really -- he says unless you believe police are racist, he suggests this is unnecessary. so what is your answer to this? as i said at the outset, you trust, we trust these men in uniform, women, as well, who risk their lives every day for us. and the question he's raised is if we cannot trust their judgment and assume that they are going to violate the constitution and the law, then we are suspicious of them when we should be more trusting. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for the question. i completely disagree with my colleague. the idea that a police officer

or police department should not be held accountable is counter to the idea of democracy. if any group should be held accountable, it might be the police. we have awesome power and possibility. the power to take life and the power to take freedom. the idea that we could not collect data to ensure that that power is used judiciously and prudently would be counter to sound managerial principals. we collect data every day. we collect data on crime. we collect data for budget purposes. we collect data for our very justification and existence. we use it to tell you that you need on increase budgets to the state. we use crime to justify why we deplete resources. intelligence led policing prevent the need to do guesswork or by state policing. and so where i do appreciate the notion that we should respect law enforcement, as a law enforcement officers, i think there is no more profession that the idea that i'm exempt is counter to why i got into the

job. i don't think it's insulting. i think what is insulting is to allow police officers to come under the threats of accusations of racial profiling and not be in a counter to counter it, not be in a position to make sure that your own policies and practices does not make them unintentionally engage in this practice. laws are designed to set standards, to hold us accountability and to set a clear message. i think that's what we're doing. >> before i turn to officer gale, i'd like to note that this celebrated case involving trayvon martin involved a person being accused who was not a law enforcement official, per se. he was an individual citizen as part of a neighborhood watch. 49 states now, my own state being the only exception, have concealed carry law which allows individuals under some circumstances to legally carry a firearm. in this case, i don't know if mr. zimmerman complied with florida law. that will come out, i'm sure, in

terms of what it took to have a concealed weapon. but it certainly raises a question that wasn't before us as many ten years ago. we are not just talking about professionalizing law enforcement and holding them accountable. we are talking about a new group of americans who are being empowered to carry deadly weapons and to make decisions on the spot about the protection of their homes and communities. which i think makes this a far more complex challenge than it was ten years ago. i'd like your response. >> yes, sir. i agree, the issue for california, we have st issue of open carry, carrying of loaded firearmses with very limited requirement. i think the idea that people should be held accountable including our community is very real. the issue of racial profiling is in many cases, and maybe the trayvon martin case gets into the role law enforcement plays with its community. and so when people call the police and say there's a

suspicious person walking in my neighborhood, what makes that person suspicious? and the police must ask those question. and the idea we simply respond and stop without inquiring why the person's position? is it their behavior, is it because they were engaged in community and is it because they're not wearing a hoodie or because they're black? this is where we need a justification with the law to stand firm and tell community members, i'm not going to stop this person. law enforcement not only enforces the law, they set in many way egz the moral enforcement in the community of how to react with each other. >> officer gale, your statement was very strong. but the conclusion identity raised a question. and i don't have it in front of me, but as i recall -- and is tell me if i'm stating this correctly. you said many members of the law enforcement community were not trusted in the minority communities. can you explain that? you need to turn the microphone

on, please. >> my apologies. i think it's pretty clear from what we've seen in media reports recently, especially, but over the course of several years that there's work to be done by law enforcement in the minority community. rebuild that trust. and i say that -- i say that openly. i think the to be acknowledges that and, in fact, we are engaged in activities where we are attempt to go help law enforcement officers and agencies do just that through community work. so i think that's an important piece. you know, i think the professor talked about the fact that a lot of times in minority communities you have people in those communities that are a valuable resource to law enforcement. i agree with that. in the aspect of law enforcement and the profession of law enforcement, it's necessary to have people in community where crime is occurring assist you with the enforcement activities. and so he think the problem has

become we seem to blame the enforcers to everything that goes wrong. the enforcers show up on the scene to deal with the information that they have available to them at the time. and our job, when we show up, is to stabilize the situation. >> but you don't coral with -- i hope you don't kwarel with chief davis' premise that the law enforcement community has extraordinary power in the moment, the power to arrest, the power to detain, the power to embarrass. and holding them accountable to use that power in a responsible, legal, constitutional way, you don't quarrel with that premise, do you? >> i don't think the fop quarrels with the fact that law enforcement officers have that power, nor do we quarrel with the fact that law enforcement officers are held accountable. in fact, we are accountable. the court in ruled that officers had to be accountable in issues of race and rewe accept that and embrace it because we believe

it's proper. we believe it's appropriate. >> mr. clay said a number of things which caught my attention. and you said that you thought the war on terror justified some measure of profiling. >> well -- >> well, let me come to the question and then you can certainly explain your position. and i wrote notes as quickly as i could. we need to look at organizations with geopolitical and political ties i think is something that you said in the course of that. you've heard testimony here from congressman elison and others about what is happening to muslim americans across the board and many of them are not affiliated with any specific organization. they are affiliated with a faith. and it appears that that has become a premise for surveillance and investigation. i worry, as an amateur student of history how you could television what you just said from what happened to japanese

american in world war ii where 120,000 were rounded up with no suspicion of any danger to the united states and their property taken from them, detained and confined because they happen to be part of an ethic group which just attacked the united states, the japanese, i should say, attacked the united states and, therefore, they were branded as possibly being a danger in the second world war because of some connection they have with a political or geopolitical group. how do you make that distinction? >> no, i don't. and when i say that in some limited circumstances some consideration of individuals or organizations, geography and

religion can be justified in the war on terror, i am not saying that that means that any consideration under any circumstances of ethnic profiling and religious profiling is okay. all i'm saying is that i am unwilling to say that it can never be used. and i'll give you examples in my testimony. for instance, you know, suppose that on 9/11 the fbi had gotten reliable information that an individual on one of the grounded airplanes, one of the grounded jets, jet liners had a backup plane. and that he was going to fly a private plane into a -- >> but there's a clear distinction and let's make that

for the record a predictor and a scripter. >> no, no, no -- >> when you talk about the class of people guilty for 9/11 and say why wouldn't we go after that class of people in training to fly and so forth and so on, that sa scripter that law enforcement can use. but when you conclude that because they were all muslim, we should take a look at all muslims in america across the line. >> well, i didn't say that. and i think that the line that you are drawing between predictor and scripter is inevitably a gray one. this is one reason why i think legislation in this area is a bad idea. isn't it predictive when the fbi, in my hypothetical, says, you know, the individual who is going to fly this plane into a skyscraper is not on somebody -- it hasn't already been done. you know, we are trying to predict who it's going to be. and we are going to look at the passenger list on the grounded

airplanes and we have only limited resources and limited time. we're working against the clock here and we are going to start by looking at individuals with arabic names. that is racial profiling, according to your bill. but i think it would be imminentment reasonable. >> i certainly disagree. >> you don't think it would be reasonable? >> no, i don't. when you start going that far afield, why do you stop with arabic names? why don't you include all of muslim regions? that strikes me as if very core of the reason why we are gathering today. if we are going to say to people across america, you have certain rights and freedoms because you live in americande to law enfor. police state may be much more efficient in those respects, but it isn't america. >> listen, in my testimony, my organization's whole focus is on

the principal of e.plueribus unum. i take that very seriously. but what i'm saying is there are going to be some circumstances where i think it would be very unwise for congress to say that law enforcement agencies cannot give some limited consideration to an individual or an organization's geopolitical and, you know, religious background. >> i'd like to defer now to senator graham who has patiently waited for his opportunity. >> thank you all. i guess what we're trying to highlight, in fact, complicated this issue is mr. gale, do you think you've ever been racially profiled? >> probably. yeah, i -- i can't say i understand because i don't. i've never been in that situation. but the fact that you're a law enforcement officer and you probably, sometime in your life, have been viewed with suspicion

by police makes your testimony pretty persuasive to me in the sense that you're now sitting in the role of a law enforcement official, trying to protect the community. and the zimmerman case is a private individual, not a law enforcement organization. and i just really -- i think i understand the problem. i just don't know where the line between good law enforcement and racial profiling ends and begins because let me tell you one thing about congress. we'll be the first one to jump on you when you're wrong. when you get a phone call that somebody looks suspicious in the neighborhood and you ask a bunch of questions, well, that doesn't seem to justify us going in and that person winds up killing somebody, or robbing or raping somebody, we'll be the first ones to mrai blame you. so you're in an untenable situation. and when it comes to the war on terror, i couldn't agree with you more. the reality of the fact is, i

wish we had done more, not less. there's some websites out there that i'm glad we're monitoring. there's some groups within america the that are saying some pretty radical things. and i hope we follow the leaders of these groups to find out what they're up to because homegrown terrorism is on the rise. how do you fight it without fighting a religion? how do you fight homegrown terrorism without fighting people who are local to america who belong to a particular faith? i don't know. but i know this. if the law enforcement community in this country fails to find out about the major hasans, we're the first one to be on your case. why didn't you follow this website? he said these things in these meetings and why didn't the supervisor tell the wing commander you've got somebody who is really out of sorts here? and as an air force officers, when do you go though your wing

commander and say, this person says something that makes me feel uncomfortable and you do so at your only peril? so i just don't know what the answer is. i know what the problem is. and i think in the last decade, we've made some progress, chief davis, and maybe having lenlis lagz that makes us focus on this problem more might make some sense, quite frankly. maybe we would look at redefining it and collecting information to show exactly what happens day in and day out in america so we can act logically on it. but you know when it comes to finding the war on terror, the fact of the matter is that great britain drance .. some pretty radical ideas. they just expelled someone, i

think, great britain, today, yesterday. i don't know when national security starts and individual liberties begin. what's your thought? >> i want to he doors some of what my copanelists have said. that it's very important in the war on terror that we have the cooperation of the overwhelming majority individual americans, arab americans and muslim americans. >> one of the great strengths of our country is that even though homegrown terrorism is on the rise, generally speaking, american muslims have assimilated in our society and our culture thousands serve in the military and that we're actually the examples of the world of how you assimilate. >> no, i think that's right. stereotyping is very dangerous in this area.

most arab americans are not muslims. they're christian. you can't just look at somebody's name and conclude things about them. as my copanelist said, it's very important to have the cooperation and the trust of the arab american community. so i don't want to give the impression that i think it should be, you know, open season on anyone on account of their ethnicity or their religion. i'm simply saying there are going to be circumstances -- >> what we should be looking for is action by individuals, statements that send singles this is not where practicing religion should be taken on is the activity on the internet. >> well, as professor harris said -- >> but that's the point i want to make. how we do that, communication is very important.

so maybe you catch some innocent conversation so having judicial oversight i think is important. but i guess that's what i'm looking for is sort of objective indicators of, you know, this is getting out of bounds here. >> senator graham, you're absolutely right. it is about behavior. that's the key to everything and making statements, whether out loud or on the internet, that's action. that's a behavior. >> and here is the problem we have. if you're an air force member and you have an american muslim in the group and they say something that alarms you, you have to think, well, if i just say something, am i going to get myself in trouble? >> but, senator, if i may object, i think part of the challenge we have in a country that's dedicated to free speech is how you draw that line well in a way that doesn't quell each -- we know we have not to

protect. i know my organization and you have different points of view on abortion, for instance. yet i think you and i would completely cohen side at anyone who dares to blow up an apportion clinic is not criminal. that's not speech. >> then would you feel comfortable sur veiling the anti-abortion website for individuals who perhaps would be willing to blow up an abortion clinic just because they may share the points of view the radicals who who up a clinic? i know you would not feel comfortable if i put the words in your mouth. >> i know exactly what you're saying. >> so the context is not that different that perhaps we find odeus, perhaps we find difficult, but that is what america is about. democracy is a great many things, but it should never be quiet. but if we all agree it's not the america we know and love, sir -- >> i guess this is where maybe legislation could happen.

there's central against the government or expressioning yourself in a different way. you can radically feel prochoice. but there comes a point in time when the rest of us have to defend ourselves and our way of life. and what i hope we'll do in this discussion is not ignore the threats that do exist. there is a lurking, looming threat against this country. and against our way of life. and i hope we will not get so sensitive to this dilemma that we will basically unilaterally disarm ourselves. and when it comes to basically the immigration issue, if there was ever a reason to fix our em gragz system, this hearing highlights it. you have millions of people who are who are undocumented, illegal, and i would just be

greatly offended if i were a corporal coming back from afghanistan who happened to have a his panic last name and got stopped because somebody thinks i'm here illegally. i could be greatly offended. but the fact of the matter is there's an down side in illegal immigration in terms of crime and the way to solve that fob for me is coming helps iive reform. >> mr. chairman, can i just answer one question? you asked captain gale had he ever been profiled. i'll take a shot at that. unequivocally, yes. but not only that, but as a law enforcement officer, i have profiled. that's the part that we bring to the table that in many cases may be implicit by us. it may be no malice intended. but at the end of the day, the result is you have an effect o people of color that you need most to address some of the

issues that were at the table. so i think for us not to acknowledge that it exists, to acknowledge implicit bias is a human behavior, for us to acknowledge that we hold ourselves accountable is really what we're talking about. and it's easy to focus on the small percentage. i agree with the opening statement. but if the issue was as simple as ratism, it would be a bigger problem to fix. >> thank you senator graham. i'm going to take an extraordinary risk here and put this committee in the hands of senator franken. in all seriousness, we're in a roll call vote and senator graham and i have to vote and senator franken, i'll recognize you and i'll let you monitor your own time used and watch senator blumenthal proceed and then i'll return. >> thank you.

>> you may regret this. i have the gavel. in that case, i'll turn it over to senator blumenthal. >> i have a -- if i may, i have a question, chief, to follow up on the remark that you made at the cloes of senator graham's questions. under what circumstances have you profiled and if you could, talk a little bit more about what limiting principals you think should apply to profiling when it is used legitimately, if it can be used legitimately in your view. >> yes. the example that stands out for me when i was a police officer in oakland, you would have an area that we would identify as high crime. this area was very accessible to the freeway so we had customers coming in from out of town to buy narcotics and quite often, they were white. so the prooms presumption on my

part and others was that any white person in the neighborhood would be buying narcotics. the problem with that assessment, it attaches criminology to the entire neighborhood. that means you're criminalizing everything that lives there. two, that suggested that the only reason why a white person to visit was to buy drugs. back seat besides being insulting, it just didn't work. so as we got better, we learned how to watch behaviors. now somebody yelling signals that a drug buy was about to take place or that the police officer was coming works better. the circumstances in which i think profiling would work would be under the category of aspects. people, when they're selling drugs, they engage in certain behaviors, whether it's how they dry, whether it's something

specific to their actions. i cannot think of any context in which race is appropriate, other than when you're describing someone that's committed a crime. in fact, senator, i would say rates ends up being a huge distracter. we've seen this time and time again. we did operation pipeline where we targeted drug carriers. we didn't get what we were looking for because we were so busy looking for black or brown people driving on a freeway. we were proven wrong time and time again and we lose the support of our community. >> and added to that problem is the difficulty often of using eyewitness testimony where somebody supposedly identifying a potential defendant in a lineup can be just plain wrong because of race being a factor. would you agree to that snch. >> yes. in fact, there's much work in science into looking at some of the danger everies of basing

communicate or arrests on lineup. if i may, one of the questions that came up earlier was about officers guessing on race. it's interesting because we're supposed to assess race. and so the idea -- i don't think we're sucking that race has no place. so if you put something comes out on the radio that you're looking for a black male, 225 pounds, then it would make sense why help minimum. i could understand that. but the officer has to make an assessment at the time. there's a time and place b not just when you're trying to predict criminal behavior. >> mr. gale, if i may ask you to comment on the general principle that race or other similar

characteristics alone are used for identifying or profiling individuals can be distracting or undermining credibilities and really should be used in combination with other, if at all, characteristics, mainly conduct, bhaifr and so forth. what would you think that is? >> conduct is what drives it all. when you talk about -- and because, you know, i'm the commander of the training academy in my department and we're training officers all the time. one of the things we talk about is the stop and frisk, terry stop situations. it's-on-driven by conduct. if you're going to properly teach that, you teach that it's driven by the conduct of the person and you're determining that their conduct indicates that they're involved in criminal activity. race has in order in that. i think the skerming fact will

as a tractioner as their complain for something been arrested of or stopped because of your criminal conduct. i think there's an assumption by some, wrongly maybe, that snow criminals ever don't just acknowledge that they do crime. my experience in 23 years is that it is very rare to roll up on someone engaged in criminal conduct and say, oh, you got me copper. i'm guilty. they look for anything they can to get out of it. >> the distracter is now if you pass a bill like this, you're going to now say, here is something you can use in addition. i think the courts have already told law enforcement agencies you cannot use race as the basis for how you do this. so conduct is this. the bulk of my testimony is

really that i think we're trying to fix something that doesn't need to be fixed because you're trying to fix it with a law as opposed to just saying, hey, there's a problem and the problem is bad police work. >> and i'm sympathetic as one who has been involved in law enforcement for actually more than 23 years combining both federal and state as u.s. attorney and then as attorney general of my state, connecticut. and i would be very low to create what you have called distractions, impediments to effective law enforcement. but i think that one of the roles of legislation, it's also to provide guidance, raise awareness and practice provide direction to police or their departments who maintd be as aware as you are or even other witnesses here.

mr. romero. >> thank you, senator blument l blumenthal. officer gale, i must take some time to visit your fare city of denver because it doesn't look liej any of the major cities i've visited in any 11 years as director of the aclu. with all due respect, you will forgive me for having to point out that your very apt mystic assertion that all is well is not born out by the daddy that we have have. let my give you data that we think very well in new york city, the country's largest police department. there were, from 2002 to 2011, there were more than 4.3 million street stuff. 4.3 million. 88% of those -- that's nearly 3.8 million -- were of independent workers. that means very much eithered arrests or summons.

let's break it down place by place. norfolk is not a very good place for people who are african-american or latino. in 2011, a record 285,000 people were stopped by the new york police department. 88% were totally innocent of any crime. 53% were black. 34% were latino. 9% white and remarkable number of guns were found on 0.2% of all stops. now, with all due respect, officer gale, i must demure when you say this is all conduct driven. the fact is that there is a problem and i would assert that the reason why -- and i think one point where we agree, the fraternal order of police nationwide lacks the trust from communities of color. i think you have said as much.

so you have a pr problem, if you will, with communities of color. and i would assert that the reason why you mv that difficult with the communities of color you are there to serve is that they know these. these weren't it. that's exactly why i think the racial profiling is essential. the data we have is problem. let's collect the data and put in place some remedies. your point about the supreme court and the equal protection clause giving sufficient comfort to those who have been roamed by the police, that's simply not true. the supreme court case in the case of wren basically allowed police officers to make a pretextual stop based on race, neglect nisty at times, this is why we weren't to come to but

may not come to the attention of our supreme court. with all that, i thank you. >> thank you. my time is up. i want to thank all of the witnesses. this has been a ve, very important and useful hearing and we have some areas of disagreement xh iveng we need to explore further. but i want to thank particularly mr. gale and chief davis for your excellent work over the years in law enforcement. and thank the chairman and substituting chairman for their tolerance and patience. >> i think you actually call me the chairman. it's protocol. >> you know, i think i need the advice -- i have a right to remain silent, don't i? >> yes, you do. >> unfortunately, i have an appointment, so i'm going to ask my questions and then you'll get the gavel and you'll be the chairman and get every due

respect being called the chairman. >> thank you, senator blumenthal. everyone here has talked about the importance of law enforcement officers and the communities that they serve. it seems everyone agrees racial profile can undermine trust in the authorities and can cause resentment us among the targeted groups. minnesota is home to a law comfort. in my sxries, reef lernt a few minutes sh come back from there. when i talked to director muller

and maybe more importantly when i went back to the twin citys and talked to special agent in charge there, both said that the somali community had been cooperative in fbi investigations. and i think it was because of actually very good police work and very good work by the fbi in making sure that they earned the trust of the somali community there. my questions are to chief davis and to officer gale. both of you are served as law enforcement officers. how do you earn the treft of th serve? some of which -- some of whom may be initially skeptical of the police? >> thank you, senator, and one stop at a time. one day at a time. one interaction at a time. i think when people -- i think we have to, one, acknowledge the history police have played.

the role of law enforcement with with regard to race in this country. we still have generations of people that remember the segregation. generations of people that are still here that remember when the police were the enforcement tool and rule of law with regard to jim crow and black code laws. we have to acknowledge we might start off with this lack of confidence. the first thing law enforcement can do is acknowledgement. attack our heads out of the sand and acknowledge we have a horrific history. we should acknowledge that we, whether intentionally or not are still engaging in practices that have a very poor result with people of color, whether intended or not. we should put defensiveness down and realize we're here to serve, not be served and only going to be successful if the community engages with us, and the more we engage with them the safer we make them. the safer we make our communities, the more they'll partner with us.

it's shown time and time again with major city, the stronger the relationship between the police and minority communities the less the crime action is going to be. we do it one at a time and accountability and acknowledging what's in front of us. someone look me in my eyes and instault my intelligence telling me there's no profiling when everything about me knows that it is subpoena i think that's what happens in our communities and we need to stop doing that. >> officer gale? >> i think i agree with the chief that you have to do it one person at a time. but i think you have to be more global. you have to look at the community you serve and the different populations in that community and you have to make a concerted effort to be in those communities and having dialogue with those people and you have to listen. and it doesn't matter that you might not agree with the things that they say. years ago i was in the military and i went to a leadership school and they had a moan you'l

that said any problem real or perceived is still a problem, and i agree with that and i've held to that. it doesn't matter if it's not the actual problem. if it's perceived to be a problem by someone or by a group of someones, we have to listen, dialogue and we have to take and train agencies to understand who these populations are. that they're serving. what the concerns are those agencies are. i agree also with chief davis that, you know, we have to acknowledge the history of law enforcement. it has not always been one of stellar conduct and i think that that's being done in a lot of organizations. i think in the fraternal order of police we talk about it very honestly and candidly with our membership and say, this is the way you need to go to improve your relations with the communities that you serve. and so it's important to do those things, to hear what they have to say.

but it's also important to explain to them what the challenges are. what we have to do if we're going to protect people. what, you know -- what we're faced with as the challenges, when we are protecting communities, and it's important for us to illustrate that to individuals in the community. because, you know, no one's perfect. but if we understand each other better and we dialogue more, i think when there are these honest misunderstandings, we can move past them. >> thank you. mr. romero in your written testimony on behalf of the aclu, you wrote about a recent, recently uncovered fbi training materials that rely on bigoted stereotypes of muslims. i think we can all agree that those materials are not acceptable. fbi director mueller acknowledged that those materials damaged the fbi's

relationship with muslim communities and i commend chairman durbin for his recent letter to the fbi on the subject and i'm working on a letter to express my concerns as well. mr. romero, what actions can fbi take to show it is serious about reforming its training programs? >> thank you for the question, senator franken. and, yes, what i would first point out is, of course, those memos and files and training manuals surprised us. when we used the freedom of information act we go asking for documents we continue to know exist. and so we used the freedom of information act as democracies x-ray. thousand get documents we need. that questions, hunches, based on conduct of what we've seen already when the fbi's been tracking young muslim men between the ages of 18 and 33 asking them to come in for voluntary fingerprinting, we had

a hunch they had to have some training materials that were going to be troubling and problematic, and lamentably our hunches were borne out. i think frankly, one thing the fbi needs to, i would encourage, and director mueller is a man with whom we have great disagreements. we've sued him dozens of time, but for the record, he's a man of enormous credibility. he's probably the man in the justice department both under the bush and the obama team in whom i have the greatest personal regard and respect. seen quo none. and with all that i encourage you to encourage him to take a much more active position on these threat assessments, which i fear are only the tip of the iceberg. the attorney general guidelines allow now them to begin investigations on anyone they choose so long as they can claim they're doing it to gain

information on criminal activities, national security or foreign intelligence. and the amount of reporting on those threat assessments is rather limited, as we all know. asking those tough questions, how many of these threat assessments have been opened? how many of them are ongoing? they allow them to collect unlimited physical surveillance. we encourage the attorney general to retire these it's aments but the very first step you can ask the fbi to do more vigorous reporting on you, even if it is encamera. retraining is essential. remember, all the folks that got that lovely little chart showing how the hour of mind is a cluster mind, and i'm quoting verbatim. is a cluster thinker while the western mind tends to be a linear thinker. they were trained on this. so until we retrain them and tell them that that's not the case, was never the case, they're going to continue to do

those activities. and so i think retraining is essential, and probing into the assessments and have those assessments are used particularly in a muslim context would be of importance and focus. >> thank you. mr. chairman i noticed your back. you already took the gavel. didn't you? thank you all. thank you. >> senator kuntz. >> thank you, chairman durbin. thank you for calling this hearing for your long and passionate and vigilant advocacy four civil rights and your leadership in this area for this legislation and for this hearing. in my own role prior to becoming a senator as county executive, i worked hard in a 3 a380 sworn officer to ensure we had an effective and strong outreach not just traditionally to

harassment and communities like the african-american and latino communities but also post-9/11 making sure there was better training and outreach in relationship with our muslim community and given incidents that occurred in our community making sure we stayed as a policing organization engaged. and accountable. and i just wanted to start, officer gale and chief davis, by thanking you for your leadership in the policing community and for your service to the public. i appreciate your starting by just helping me understand what's the impact on a police force? that practices racial profiling, where it's either part of the policy or training, part of history or part of current practice? what's the impact on professionalism, promotion advancement and cooperation with communities? that's been touched on. you noticed because of votes, a number of us have had to step in and out and i'd be interested in your response. >> thank you. i think multiple parts. inside the organization, which we did not talk about, an agency

that does engage in systemic racial profiling usually has very low morale, because now you have ulcers inside the organization opposed. those engaging in it and it causes a conflict within itself. within a community i would also probably argue that the community is suffering, because now you have a practice in which is losing touch with the community, making them very ineffective. in today's society, makes it much more expensive. now you have the cost of crime going up. you have the cost of litigation, because people are now seeking some type of redress through the court system, and you have low morale eschew herb issues incre sick leave and comp time. and most importantly, you have a community that is denied some basic rights. so as you know, as a county executive, you cannot serve the community effectively if they don't trust you. there's historic trust. there's always going to be some challenges and strains but to

the extent that there's a legitimate outreach to the extent in which we're trying to, i agree with captain gale, listen, and respond, and respect, i think we have a better chance of being successful. so the issue of racial profiling, although we're talking about race from a chief's perspective, from an executive perspective, is very, it's poor managerial practices. loss of revenues, support. causes internal strife. is not an effective strategy. >> thank you. would you agree, bad policing? does it have consequences internally? >> absolutely. the consequences of bad management in any agency result in, you know, these perceptions in the community that the police are not responsive, and that they're victimizing citizens and that they're somehow or another a rogue force. that's where it all drives from. it all drives from the management philosophy of the organization. and the chief is right. it does result in low morale.

but it also results in low morale not jut because of people in the thags would disagree with the practice or the fact that there's no appropriate accountability for officers who are clearly operating outside professional conduct. it has low morale when the community that we serve then becomes, you know, complaining about us being unprofessional. or about the reputation of the agency being, you know, that of a victimizer as opposed to a protector. so -- and the chief is absolutely right. it starts with the management. it starts with the very top person and the top level people allowing these things to occur in individuals that they won't hold accountable. as a captain in my agency, i believe it's my charge to hold people accountable when they conduct themselves unprofessionally, and i do so. you know. i think some people have said

here that you know, well, there seems to be some kind of great thing going on in denver or what have you. i'm just going to tell you, and i love my city and it is a great city. please, feel free to visit any time, but i'm just going to tell you, we hold people accountable in my agency. we hold them at accountable and that's expected for, you know, we don't have to have specific rules that say, you can't do this. because we all know what bad behavior is when we see it, and if you challenge people and you hold them accountable, then there won't about problem. the end result is that officers will just shut down and not conduct any type of police work, and then the city doesn't get protected. >> senator, if i may add one point. there's a phrase we have especially for chiefs that it calls for a moment of pause. and what happens is when an agency does not have the type of trust and confidence that we're alluding to and discussing, many cases you have racial powder kegs sitting there.

look at our history, usually some type of incident. quite often it may be a legal incident, it may be something that really by itself would not make sense to call such a response, but it reflects years of abuse and neglect. it reflects the kind of, i think, one of the congresspersons said earlier, enough is enough. so when agencies are blind to this or systematically engaging in it, they're sitting on these powder kegs that an incident like a trayvon martin or an oscar grant in oakland can ignite and then that's when we see large demonstrations and you start having race riots. because it's not the incident by itself as much as it is the buildup to that incident. the lack of acknowledgement of where we were at. >> before and, chief, if i've heard all the members of the panel right, who have said that racial profiling is bad policy, it's not just those powder keg moments. it's also the simmering distrust, the disconnect from the community you seek to protect and to serve that can also have a negative impact on your effectiveness?

on your ability to effective effectively -- something we've heard across the whole panel. i wanted to move, if i could, professor harris to a question about standards. if you look at reasonable suspicion of standard that controls the ability of law enforcement to stop and question an individual, as opposed to probable cause, which covers arrest. profiles appears to be a much larger problem potentially in the area of reasonable suspicion. how you have seen that play out? what is important in fighting that standard and then i want to move to this bill, and why it might be necessary. professor? >> thank you. thank you for the question, senator. you're absolutely right. put your finger on something important. the reason the case that allows police officers to use stop and frisk when there is reasonable fact-based suspicion. the problem is, and where this can intertwine with profiling is that reasonable suspicion is a very low league standard.

it is lower than probable cause. when i'm in class, i like to say, probable cause is somewhere near my waist. reasonable suspicion is below my knees. and you have a standard where you can use very little evidence to take significant police action. and where we see this showing up in the context of profiling to give you one example is in the stop and frisk activity in new york city over many years and it's a good example, because there is very significant amount of data on this. we often find that even though the standard is reasonable suspicion, there is hardly anything recorded. and sometimes nothing at all recorded. reflecting reasonable suspicion or the idea is simply thought of as boiler plate. so with that low of standard, profiling and other ineffective approaches to law enforcement run rmp rampant and we have the

statistics mr. romero state add moment ago. >> this can be a violation of civil rights as i believe it is under a whole line of case, martinez, case i'm not familiar with personally but the line of analysis i think by the supreme court that laid this out. why do we not see more enforcement actions for racial profiles by the department of justice and if you would follow-up on professor harris' comment, how do we in the gap between the formal policies create police entities that, as captain gale describes it, are accountable, are professional and where at all levels are engaged in moving us forward towards a more just and effective policing community? >> when you look -- thank you for the question, senator kuntz -- when you look at our, the testimony we submitted, you see we detail a number of the seminole racial profiling cases.

in fact, some of them brought by david harris. one might be instructed for why this piece of legislation is essential is to track when the incident occurred and when the case was decided. because you'll note that many, in many instances and the one i'm looking at now, you're looking at a span of several years of time between when you get pulled over by a police officer on a highway and the case of robert wilkins, and ultimately when that case was decided by a court. and for many minority group members especially those in our communities and families who lack resources to hire private attorneys, it is not simple or economic to retain private counsel, even when you've been wronged. we turn away many, many cases and individuals who write to us every day simply because we lack the resources to take on every single case. we take on cases where we think

we have a -- an ability to have a high impact, which means systemically at the highest levels. the number of heartbreaking letters i sends back saying i understand you were profiled by the police, but we have them under a consent decree and will throw your fax nair yo consent decree doesn't bring the individual, often egrieved, even if willing to step forward, much comfort. that's really what's at stake here. i think the burden on hundreds of thousands of new yorkers, let's say the 400,000-plus i cited have been wrongfully stopped by the police, the idea you would ask 400,000 new yorkers who were innocent and yet stopped by the police to file all individual lawsuits, i can't believe that any member of this chamber to believe that would be an efficient use of our resources. this is one of the times when by the senate taking action and putting in place a legal regime and being able to stop the type

of rush to the courthouse steps would do both the economy and our civil liberties a service. >> senator, if i may, the one area, going to the question you had about the lawsuits, or why people can't file the complaint is, in many cases, i think the bigger challenge is that it may actually follow a legal stop. this is why the legislation is critical. why data collection is critical. i think when we think of profiling people, people sometimes unfortunately think that the stop itself may not have legal cause. so we have a phrase in policing, give plea a car two minutes and a vehicle code and i'll find a reason to stop you. so the stop maying justified. cracked windshield, bald tires. you know, you'll see those low discretionary stops used quite often to get to, as the decision, talk about pretext to other things. where it makes it hard on an individual basis is a person's complaining about being stopped but, in fact, they did have a cracked taillight, and it makes it hard for that individual case, what you need to do track holistically to see that that's

the 10,000th cracked windshield, 90% may be all of one -- >> i see that and am well past my time and i appreciate the concerns that have been raised by this conversation, this hearing today, about the definition of racial pry profiles, the importance of being narrowly targeted in a legislative response and am grateful, chairman durbin, for your crafting a bill that insists on training on data collection and on narrowly crafted response to a significant problem. thank you very much. >> thanks, senator kuntz. following up on your question, i think one of the obstacles, mr. romero can probably back this up, deal wig the question of whether or not race or ethnicity or profiles was the sole cause for the stop. you run into a real obstacle. our staff did a little research. turns out this isn't the first time that congress has talked about this. arguing the discrimination should only be prohibited if based solely on race and ethnicity has a an unfortunate

congressional lineage. attempted to gut the civil rights act of 1964 offering an amendment based solely on race. senator clifford case of new jersey argued in opposition saying this amendment would place upon persons attempting to prove a violation of a section no matter how cloer the violation was an obstacle so great to make the title completely worthless and senator warren of washington said limiting the civil rights act on discrimination based solely on race would "negate the entire purpose of what we're trying to do." so the courts have set a standard which makes it extremely difficult, and chief davis, your examples, there might be a cracked taillight, as the reason they're being pulled over. what we found in illinois, incidentally, to go to my home state, consent searches by the ill it state police between 2004 and 2010, hispanic motorists in my state were two to four times more likely to be searched. african-american two to three

time morse likely subject to consent searches than white motorists. however, white motorists were 89% more likely than hispanic motorists and 26% more likely than african-american motorists to have contraband in their vehicles. so it made no sense from a law enforcement viewtoint to do this, yet it is done. i thank you for this hearing, and i'm sorry it took ten years to get back together and i'm sorry we need to get back together. to put it in historic perspective, back to our nation's very beginning, our founding fathers started wrestling with issues of race, gender and religion, and this year the presidential campaign wrestles with issues of race, ish and gender and religion, an ongoing debate in this nation. there are moments of great leadership and there have been moments of ig no minnous contact. as far as account about the is concerned, yes, this holds law

enforcement accountable but i hope we hold every member accountable including members of congress. let me concede i came to this job saying, remembering what bill clinton once said when he was being interviewed before he became president. is there any issue you will not compromise on? we said i will never compromise on race. he said that as a man who grew up in arkansas and saw segregation. i thought that is a good standard, durbin. you saw it, too, in your hometown. hold to that standard, and i looked back and remember in my time in the house of representatives of voting for a measure that turned out to have a dramatically negative racial impact. the establishment of the crack cocaine standard and sentencing of 100 to 1. years later given an opportunity in this committee to try to make that right, and bring it back to 1 to 1. i couldn't get the job done. because of the nature of compromise, it's been reduced to 18 to 1. still a terrible disparity but a dramatic improvement. what happened as result of that

bad vote? by black and white congressmen? we lost trust in the african-american community. many people serving on juries said i'm not going to do this. i am just not going to send that woman, that person away for ten or 20 years because of a crack cocaine violation. we lost their trust, officer gale. and i can see it when the judges came and talked to us about it. we moved back to try to establish some trust in that community by doing the right thing, but we need to be held accountable. this senator and all of us. whether we're in elected or appointed office in our government, we serve. we serve the public. and that accountability has to be part of that service. this is not going to resolve the issue. i think it is, i mentioned earlier, more complicated today, because of concealed carry and some of the standards being established in states. more complicated today, as mr. clegg has said, because the war on terror raises legitimate concerns about the safety of our nation and how far will we go to respect our national security, without violating our basic

values under the constitution. i thank you all for your testimony. it's been very positive part of this conversation, which we freed tone gauneed to engage in further. there's a lot of interest in today's hearings bp 225 organizations submitted testimony. thank goodness they didn't come leer to speak, but we're glad to have their testimony and will put it in the record without objection. that's good. it will include the episcopal church, coalition for immigrant refugee rights, japanese-american citizens league, leadership conference on human rights, muslim advocates, naacp. national immigration forum. rights working group sic coalition and poverty law center and these statements will be made part of the record kept open for a week for additional statements. it's possible someone will send you a written question. it doesn't happen often but if they do, i hope you'll respond in a timely way.

without further comment i thank all of my witnesses for patience and for attending this hearing and look forward to working with all of you.

telling us what part of a5 constitution is most important7 to them and why.77 today we are going to new jersey to talk with second prize winner and a 11th grader at the high7 school.77 hi, zach, hauer yo? why did you choose the topic of article 5 of the constitution to focus on? >> when i had a originally it was my idea to focus on article 5i had been brainstorming they were amendments to the constitution and then i realized

eight may be to choose something like that the first amendment and i realized that the amendment to the constitution were not as important as article 5 itself which is the ability to change the7 constitution and that is a part of the original constitution. >> what have you learned from those interviews that you did to get the public perspective? >> when i got the public perspective, i realized that like me everybody has a very esoteric view on the constitution, and it is the understanding they don't get the full picture of what the constitution is and the7777 constitution itself impacts the7 people of the united states. spicules interviewed experts on the topic. how did they help your understanding of the constitution?

>> almost 300 years since. >> so tell us your favorite part in creating this documentary. >> probably my favorite part would be in the editing process and all of my little -- i realized after going into every single persons statements and their different talking points, i realized that this actually could be put into something really excellent and something really interesting.

because when you see each individual interviewer or each individual state that after questions, it really doesn't seem like it can be put into something the would make a five to eight minute documentary. and once it all gets put77 together, it really is something all some. >> would you like everyone to learn from your document requires >> i would like others to learn that the constitution is something more than just the freedom of speech and religion, and i want people to realize how that legislation process works and how everything in the constitution is extremely well fall out. >> thanks for taking time today5 to talk with us.77 >> thank you for having me. >> here is a portion of the documentary. article 5, changing the constitution. >> so what is article 5? i asked people whether they knew what article 5 was.

>> tuna what article 5 of the constitution is? >> no. >> what actually is article 5? >> the congress with two-thirds shall deem it necessary to propose amendments to the constitution, and then it should the joint resolution pass with two-thirds vote in the house, then it goes to the states, where 38 states, three-quarters of the states would have to ratify the amendment before it becomes a fundamental law of the land. there's another provision arbuckle five which allows the states in the face of inaction by congress to ask for a constitutional convention to be established for that purpose. >> what makes article 5 seóul important? >> you can see this entire video and the documentaries that studentcam board and continue the conversation on facebook and for her christmas the general

service administration set up a hot line to allow employees to report wrongdoing. this is such a complicated

concept that we've never had before. it's really complicated. the second thing is what's referred to back in washington as nation-building really is very, very targeted were fighting. when i was embedded in eastern afghanistan the soldiers started telling me the u.s. government was wasting tens of billions of dollars on totally mismanaged develop logistics contracts.

>> i was in one meeting where the brigade commander incredibly colonel mike howard, this is not long after president obama took office and the state department was out there saying okay we are going to give you a bunch of development money. we are going to do this. nation-building. and the colonel said don't send me any more money. send me a contract officers to oversee this stuff. i need people, i don't need more money. now the general services administration inspector general and the new acting administrator testify of waste and mess management at gsa. the senate environment and public works committee hearing is chaired by senator barbara boxer of california.

>> the committee will come to order. the meeting will come to order. trai thank you to the press. meetin first, before i start my statement, before i start i wan enatemer into the record a letter received from mr. gray leader harry reid that makes it clear that the cost effective conferences are productive so in ask unanimous consent to enter senator read's letter into then record.impo if you have a sirtmilar letter from senator hello?animou >> yes i do and i ask that the e statement is of the record.om s >> absolutely. >> i'm going to ask that we eac. have seven mets for our opening statementng to ask that we each have seven minutes for our opening statement. the latest misconduct at the gsa

makes me cringe. cringe for the taxpayers who expect every agency in their government to fulfill their mission with integrity and it makes me cringe for the good people at gsa who work so hard every day and have been humiliated by a few bad actors. to those who is betrayed the public trust, let me be clear. the party's over. it's over because of gsa inspector general brian miller. who was a bipartisan appointee of president george w. bush and president barack obama. and the party's over because of gsa deputy administrator susan brita, an obama appointee who blew the whistle and took this matter to the inspector general. and the party is over because the new acting administrative gsa, mr. daniel tangherlini is a no nonsense leader from the u.s. department of the treasury who aims to clean up this mess. this is not the first episode of misconduct at the gsa.

the carter administration uncovered one in 197 and 1979 when a nationwide investigation noose long-standing corruption resulted in prosecutions for bribery, for fraud, and protections for whistleblowers in the agency. then there was more misconduct during the bush administration. the first occurred when the chief of staff to the gsa administrator traveled with jack abramoff to scotland even though mr. abramoff had business before the gsa. in 2011, this chief of staff went to prison. in 2006, the bush appointed gsa administrator steered a contract to a friend and. 2007, she organized a political call with 30 appointees to "help her friends win their elections." that violated the hatch act. the administrator repeatedly clashed with the inspector general, this inspector general in one report comparing his enforcement efforts to "terrorism." she resigned in 2008.

and now here we go again in 2012. this time, involving what clearly looks like waste, fraud, abuse and possible criminal violations. the most recent example of misconduct involves a few individuals who saw the personal gain and exhibited scorn toward the public and exhibited scorn toward our president. there must be justice and restitution for this, and those who are responsible for in outrageous conduct and who violated the public trust must be held accountable. gsa administrator resigned and she should have. two of her aides were fired and they should have been. others are on administrative leave waiting further action. the acting administrator and the ig at gsa we are very pleased to have before us today are working closely together to ensure that anyone with more information comes forward, they have set up