changed. but i want to walking to the hearing and i want to thank the bureau for the work that it does each and every day, to protect the united states of america and its citizens, and the great work you have done since 9/11 to deal with this, this real focus, focus almost to terrorism, first, second and third. ..

the fbi director ordered an immediate internal review of what the fbi knew about major fy hassan prior to the shootings. the fbi identified several shortcomings in the internal policies and procedures and our training can we started to take corrective action almost immediately. they also recognize the need for a broader more in-depth and independent review on how the fbi handled and acted on counterterrorism intelligence before the fort hood shootings. the director asked former director judge william webster the former commission to conduct that review. several weeks ago as you know and has has been stated judge webster completed the report and has been made available to the congress and the public. the webster commission have full access to fpi holdings and conducted more than 100 formal and informal interviews and meetings and briefings and they reviewed more than 10,000 fbi

documents. the commission also consulted with outside experts on counterterrorism come on intelligence operations, on information technology and on violent extremism. the commission found a number of shortcomings in fbi policies and its technology and training and made 18 recommendations for the corrective action. as you know there are limits of what can be discussed today and an open hearing and nadal hasan missiles the subject of an ongoing criminal prosecution and many aspects of the information related the matter in classified as was noted we did provide a full classified briefing and we will answer as many questions as we can in this open setting. next what we summarize the commission's findings and recommendations and review the corrective actions taken by the fbi already. the committee's recommendations fall generally into four distinct categories. one was information sharing, number to call operational policies as was noted, information technology and training. and i will discuss very shortly

each one. starting with information sharing, the commission found that more information could have and should have been shared with the military headquarters level. that is from the fbi headquarters to the pentagon. our internal review came to the same conclusion within weeks the fbi and the department of defense rated eight -- sorry -- created new sharing and dramas of counterterrorism investigations of military personnel. this agreement made sure that senior pentagon officials as well as the department of defense task force officers on jttf around the country were aware of all cases involving the military. the fbi continues to work closely with the military on these matters and we have clear policies in place to make sure that information sharing continues. turning to operational policy. the commission recommended that there be clear policies covering all counterterrorism leads and for resolving disputes as it relates to those leads. we will get into that a little

more as the questions come out. the fbi internal review found similar issues with the policies. as a result the fbi has set new cleaves, reinforce or x's and policies on who owns the leaves and the responsibility for every one of those leaves and provide additional guidance to make clear in the distance between jttf members must be pushed up to the supervisory level both in the field office and at headquarters. last, the fbi has provided enhanced and a local investigation resources for strategically significant investigations to make sure that all proper steps are taken and there is additional oversight. in the area of information technology, the commission found that improved software and search capabilities and our classified data bases could have assisted the investigators on both jttf, the one in san diego and the one in the washington field office. within months of the shooting the default new software improvements to connect intelligence information

automatically, more effectively and more efficiently with new programs like sentinel which is now up and running, they are also providing greater search capabilities across all holdings. the commission also made recommendations to improve training for all the joint terrorism task force officers related to the intelligence bases. within months of the shooting the fbi completed the training for all task force officers and every jttf, and we have since instituted a nine day mandatory training course for all jttf participants. there are additional detailed recommendations not in these categories coming and we have publicly responded to each of our website. as you know, and as was stated on a daily basis, the fbi and its partners on jttf across the u.s. and indeed across the globe must identify, respond to it and mitigate countless terrorism threats. we do this in an ever-changing and a complex environment. in recent years we have been able to successfully disrupt dozens of terrorist plots. we also know that ret never wanes and we cannot overlook a

single lead, we accepted this responsibility every day and we are committed to improving our capabilities to protect this great nation now and in the future and with that, subject to your questions, sir. >> thank you very much. i see dr. carter coming and ask unanimous consent he is a member of the full committee that of the subcommittee since fort hood was in the district without objection. >> the first question, the reason that hasan first came to anyone's attention is his initiation of contact with anwar al-awlaki. they become very important in understanding how the fbi thought al-awlaki to be. and to understand what the government knew about him at the time. according to the report from al-aulaqi was under full investigation by the washington field office wfo starting around 2001. while report mentions he moved to england in the spring of 2002

but does not mention his return to the u.s. in october, 2002 where the outstanding warrant for his arrest was withdrawn by the washington field office. why was this return to the u.s. not referenced in the report coming and why was a warrant with strong on the investigation by w deacons wfo at time. the two issues of verification so al-awlaki did return in 2002. there was a diplomatic security servic at the dss. we knew al-awlaki was coming that come and the color of the u.s. attorney's office looked at the warrant, looked at the factual basis for the warrant. it was not an fbi warrant, and it was dismissed simply because they did not feel they had the ability to prosecute al-awlaki

for the alleged passport fraud. so, it was of an fbi warrant, and certainly if we felt that florent was good and there was a way we could have incarcerated on anwar al-awlaki at the time of the was a diplomatic state for in the house is a normal course the u.s. attorney's office will get a warrant especially when somebody is coming back into the country to see if the process can be served and the determined there was not enough evidence to prosecute him on the passport. >> it is very unusual though in that time it was early in the morning and it was more there than i think is obvious why was the return to the u.s. not referenced in the report? did judge webster know what he told of al-awlaki's return? >> yes, sir. the commission had full access to all of al-awlaki's information. i don't know why it was referenced other than it was just an fbi warrant and we didn't ask for it to be

dismissed. >> so you are confident in judge webster knew of awlaki return? bernanke have all of the information that would have referenced this. >> okay if awlaki isn't a full investigation from approximately 2001 to 2003, why was awlaki approved by the dod security to speak at the pentagon? >> sir, i can't speak for dod. i can't answer that question. >> what was the fbi understanding of the relationship between awlaki and the 9/11 hijackers in january, 2009? >> so, again, sir, great question. i think as you know, after 9/11, awlaki came up within the commission report and there was obligations that awlaki had supported some of the 9/11 hijackers to extensive investigation done by the bureau and the rest of the intelligence

community to try to determine whether awlaki had anything to do with 9/11. as you know, awlaki early on was the imam of a mosque in zantia over the two of the hijackers lead and then subsequent transferred from there to a mosque in falls church virginia, where again come to of the 9/11 hijackers fled. we interviewed awlaki after 9/11 bonds three separate occasions. he identified one of the line of the hijackers as somebody that he knew us to go into his mosque. we were never able to obtain a stitch of evidence that showed awlaki who beforehand about 9/11 or supported the 9/11 hijackers. >> based on history, do you think that is accurate? >> i do, sir. >> did awlaki ever meet with major hasan in virginia? >> not that we know. >> did he meet with the hijackers in san diego? >> i don't -- i can't -- let me step back.

so, awlaki was the imam of a mosque in san diego where we know that two of the 9/11 hijackers planned. when we questioned awlaki, he admitted that one of the 9/11 hijackers went to his mosque. he knew him tangentially, identified him and gave us a description of his activities. but we were never able to substantiate any of the information that awlaki supported in any way, shape or form the 9/11 hijackers. >> how is the assessment of awlaki connected to 9/11 meeting with hijackers and the report comes in the connection of anybody communication with him i think would have been something is wrong here. the senate, and security committee issued a report for the incident. senator lieberman and kohl once issued a statement praising the webster report. however, they also stated that, quote, we are concerned the report fails to address the

specific cause for the fort hood attack which is violent islamist extremism. and of code. if you believe violent islamist extremism is specific for was the cause of the fort hood attacked? >> i can't say specifically -- mcginn your but do you believe it played any role at all? >> i can't comment on what role and what was in his mind when he made that determination. >> clearly and mark al-awlaki -- anwar al-awlaki was an individual known in the community and was a propagandist at that point beckham at time. we know from some of e-mails hasan looked at in his own words as a leader and activist, but i can't get into mr. hasan's head. >> have there been specific changes in the way the fbi

approaches and response particularly to domestic violent islamist extremist threats that have arisen based on the lesson learned from fort hood? >> yes, sir. there's been a number of changes made started with radicalization, and this comes out of the senate committee report. we have the various lowest levels to include our new agents added class is on radicalization so at your earliest ages our agents are looking for the radicalization of mobilization is the basic course for the joint terrorism task force's advanced courses. there is more training on the requisition from the standpoint of understanding an individual like awlaki one of the things that the report has kind of pulled out is that when somebody is moving from maybe a propagandist to at some point an operation where we saw awlaki

boe plater their needs to be not just the field office prize on what we are recovering like the e-mails but there also needs to be additional look for the headquarters level and from the community and free agency so that we make sure there is a full, for a picture of someone like awlaki and that have come in contact with him. >> there seems to be significantly different view of hasan's relationship with awlaki between san diego and the washington field office. what was the fbi's assessment of awlaki as of december 17, 2008, and when hasan contacted awlaki through his website? >> so, again, sir, it said -- a good question, it's an interesting question. as you know, we looked at awlaki for a number of years, and in that timeframe and 06 [rollcall] 07, awlaki is incarcerated in

yemen, so we interviewed him while he was in jail. as he gets out at the end of 07 at the beginning of 08, he comes on line again very quickly with his website and walks a very careful line i think between what he puts on his website and his e-mails. the interagency committee intelligence community begins to look at awlaki, we look at awlaki to determine whether he has become operational. we don't see that at that point. so at that snapshot in time and 08, early 09 we are just looking at him. he appears to be a propagandist. there is information that he is starting to get involved with individuals that are related to a.q. but our understanding at that time is that he is an individual who was born in the u.s. and spent time in yemen and was educated in the u.s..

for many people she was considered an individual that they went to for advice. on his website. what we also know as he was becoming more radical but that time. so in that snapshot of time, that's kind of the look that we have. >> how many people are radicalized? who were some of the people that we know who were radicalized by him? >> so, there are a number of investigations that we have had and have where we know that they are listening to awlaki sermons online. again, to say that is the one note that radicalize 10g was no doubt part of that radicalization process on individuals like chester and others. >> did chester ever see he was radicalized because of awlaki? >> i can't recall that, but i know that he looked at awlaki. estimate how many others into the category? >> there are a number of others -- >> would you submit it in the record how many you believe for parts like chester that were

radicalized? >> i can go back and look at the descriptions that were touched by awlaki yes i can to be a disconnect in prior investigations were the relationships with awlaki jade de fpi understanding or misunderstanding of the threat that he posed? >> sir, i think that if you look at the -- in your referenced it, the lead that came out of san diego, they felt that they had -- and i feel that they have an accurate reflection of what awlaki was at that time. at that snapshot of time. >> how many other u.s. government or military employees were found to have contacted awlaki during this pogo? have these individuals now been fully investigated? did any whole security clearance as hasan did, and i would like to share if the staff share members of the committee and npr story last month that indicated that the fbi has conducted more than 100 investigations into suspected islamist extremists within the u.s. military pay and how would you assess that threat and tell us what you're doing about it? is that accurate, the fbi

report? >> i can't -- the exact number is classified so i can't talk about it in this setting. i can in another setting. i will. it is something that we look at a very, very carefully. there are many investigations that we are running jointly with the department of defense right now to get to your point, we know who -- we believe we know who has been in contact with awlaki, or at least potentially is listening more has listened to awlaki sermons, etc., and i believe we do have them covered. >> okay. if you would tell us we could get that from here. the e-mails shown in the report between hasan and awlaki are traveling and in his first e-mail to awlaki come hasan raises the question of religious justification for muslims in the u.s. armed forces killing other u.s. soldiers. he praises awlaki's religious

understanding and asking for a reply. it is hard for me to understand the context of such an exchange found to be benign but any significant assessment investigation does that seem unusual to you? >> i think as you know, there's a couple issues here and it's where the commission found we certainly fell short. so, the two e-mails, so that is one where hasan is asking awlaki to make some general comments about muslims and the military. i quote from his e-mail number one. and then the second e-mail, which is pushed forward. in san diego pushes that lead to the washington field office and says while the e-mails may seem somewhat in eight come if he should be in the military, it is something that should concern you. that's the way the wheat was forwarded. >> so a couple things occurred. there were additional e-mails that the washington field office agent was not privy to.

and so, when he looked at these e-mails come he did a couple of things. i think likely and right up front. he went to his dod counterpart so that the task force agent in the washington field office is from the department of defense. he pulls and does database searches on hasan on his e-mail and phone numbers to see if he is tied into any other terrorist group or somebody that we have under investigation. but then he goes to the dod and asks them to provide him reports on him so he goes to his online files. so, she goes to the defense manpower data center through e-mail come petraeus dirty files from the dod. he also received his defense employee interactive data system and retrieved about five or six of his recent performance

appraisals. so, the agent does the checks, find nothing else unusual about hasan. find out he is an active duty military. within that timeframe, within that month had been promoted from captain to major. the other thing that he found unusual is that she held a secret security clearance and at the time was doing his master's degree, getting his master's degree and his m. p.a.. specifically talking about what it was like to be a muslim in the military and the conflict that occurred there. so, when he looked at -- and the department of defense record wants him for his research saying that it's cutting edge and that is looked at by his peers as cutting edge research. so come from his standpoint where he sits in that time he is looking at an individual that

holds the secret security clearance that has recently been promoted from captain to major who is not trying to hide his identification in any way, shape or form from hasan, in fact i mean from awlaki he goes to his website so that the contact is actually for awlaki's website, not a person-to-person e-mail address. and the believes where he is sitting that it is in line with the research he is doing from where he sits. all his performance appraisals are positive. the state that he should be promoted coming and he doesn't want to take a chance to move forward at that time and potentially risk the fact that awlaki is under investigation. so, again, a snapshot in time. easy to go back and second to guess that dod task force officer. and again, i'm not making excuses. i'm trying to put into context what we had available to him at the time when he made that

decision. >> i have a few more questions. and then to go did that is what will the improved guidelines that delineated in the domestic investigations and operations? and if so, does that indicate a problem in that it discourages the progressive terrorist leaves and should be changed to encourage more investigations of leaves? and when of the diag is about it and how does it differ from the previous guidelines? and then i would ask you something. were outside groups involved in the default of the dialogue, the diog? >> i don't think so. i think that was an internal -- >> was care inquired and never asked to speak on the diog? >> yes, sir. >> when the diog was adopted her was a different from previous guidelines, to the leaves based

on the circumstances and the webster report that you looked at? is mentioned in the webster report. >> just to try to get all your points here, sir. so, the first question to the agents' file the diog the way that was written at the time and the answer is they did. >> so if they did, then they would forward that. does that mean the diog should be changed to encourage more investigation of leads? because somehow, as i dig into this as i say here is an individual who follows the guidelines and the guidelines result in 13 people dead and numerous wounded and based on the guy like awlaki also radicalized the fellow from north carolina and many others, should the diog de change? >> just a couple things. so, we have changed a number of things since this occurred. so at the time, the lead was set as a discussion every lead that

gave the discretion to cover the lead and howard was covered in the washington field office that has been changed. there are no longer discretionary needs. in the diog, it asks the agents to use the least intrusive methods possible. so it gives us an escalation of our ability to utilize the tolls that the congress has given us to investigate those involved potentially involved in terrorism. and so what the diog basically states is that we need to use the least intrusive means necessary owsley escalate the tools that are available to us. so acting under those rules the least intrusive the agent felt that with the database is he had checked with the information that obtained out of the dod files and with the fact that hasan used his own name to try to hide his recent promotion that he had done everything he needed to do based on the information he had. to answer the second question,

the diog the way that it set right now gives us the tools to do what we need to do. >> see you don't think it has to be changed? >> we have the tools available to do what we need to do. i believe our investigators are among the most aggressive investigators in not only the country but in the world. and this is a case when we look back and we second-guess what mr. fattah mentioned we need to do to get better at what we do. i believe the tools are there. i believe the diog the way it is written gives us the devotee to do it, and i believe the fact that it requires us to use the least intrusive means to be able to escalate the tools that you have given us, make sure that we are walking that fine balance between protecting civil liberties in this country and taking sure there isn't another 9/11. >> the report has the decision not to interview hasan the

washington field office field of the energy debate to interfere would jeopardize the awlaki investigation but the commission rejects this explanation. what a pretext interview have been appropriate in this instance under the diog? >> yes, sir, both questions. >> washington field office also believed an interview did not satisfy the least intrusive means test. however simple records checked was clearly not sufficient in this case to uncover the threat posed by hasan. what further or could have been done to determine whether hasan was involved in the terrorist activities? are you confident that in a single case today so we don't have another hearing two years from now and another year from now we don't wake up in a newspaper some morning and hear that in a fort something like this has happened again. but further work and have begun to determine whether hasan was involved in terrorist activities but most important, are you

confident and is the fbi confident, is director meuller confident that in a similar case today an agent would feel empowered to pursue with their instincts told them there was something amiss? that becomes -- and i agree with what mr. fattah said. then what we take the current diog, the current circumstances, and are you confident that in a similar case and major would feel in power so we didn't have another fort hood? >> so, there's two prongs to the answer to that question, and i think first of all, the way the information sharing set up is now with the department of defense, so at the ground level, the fbi shared with the dod individuals on the task force the information it had. what did not occur and where there was a clear what else is there was not headquarters to the pentagon sharing of

information. had that happened, there's a possibility we would have seen at the dod looked at him differently where he was and that we have changed the complexity and the direction of the investigation. the second thing that has changed, and we have reiterated is when there is a difference of opinion between a san diego and a washington field office, it needs to be pushed up to management so that they will help steer that direction, and i think that potentially could have changed what happened. i don't think that we will ever know whether an interview would have changed anything. but it certainly would have allowed us to get a better handle on what the fbi had and what the department of defense on the ground had and understood. >> just on that point -- why wasn't that -- why did it not go to the higher authorities?

>> that's a great question and i don't have an answer for that. it happens every single day where there are disagreements on the complexity or the tenure or the tone of how we conduct an investigation. they are pushed up to management. they are pushed to headquarters and headquarters is involved. and in this case, the d.o.t. -- >> [inaudible] >> that's correct, sir. >> was the lack of aggressiveness on their part? >> sir, i think santiago actually felt the washington field office should have done more. they felt they needed to be more aggressive. what did not occur and what should have occurred is a didn't get pushed up the cd deutsch and of command, which i think would have pushed up to headquarters where we would have stepped back and most likely said we wanted an interview to be conducted. >> thank you, mr. chairman. before i go to mr. fattah, the

final phone call between san diego, and i urge members to read the report, too. i commended -- i think the public report has as much information as you need with the classified one. the final phone call between san diego and the washington field office included an exchange about interviewing muslims who visited extremist websites as a politically sensitive subject for wfo. the conversation was said to include in the comments, quote, washington is not seen diego. what does that mean to you? political correctness or reason this lead was not aggressively pursued, and if so, what has been done to prevent the reoccurrence of this? and i periodically will have a number of fbi agents come up to me -- as you know my district is in virginia and will tell me they believe there is a political correctness encroaching into the department of justice and into the department of interior and

justice and the fbi coming and was said -- let me just say so this is a bipartisan thing -- it was said to in the same thing with regards to the former years of the bush administration so the question is what does that mean to you? washington is not san diego. ..

people who are involved. don't want to do it alone. i just want to ask them because my sense is, and i'm making this official request to meet with them. we don't really need anybody else there. last thing, i want to make sure this never happens again and no lead is not pursued because of fear that your career will be ruined that you do something that may well save people's lives. mr. fattah. >> thank you and let me change the chairman. let me try to cover a nim per of piece of this puzzles. right after 9/11 the house

held hearings and former speaker newt gingrich was testifying and i asked him a question, at that point it was how far we needed to go to prevent future 9/11s. and so, and i reminded the speaker that we had criticized countries like china for, you know, locking people up without charges, not having access to lawyers and so forth and so on and what was really going to be our, where was going to be the rule of law relative to these kinds of new challenges? because you know our system of criminal justice in the country basically was on the notion that we would rather someone guilty go free than someone innocent be convicted, right? so we kind of leaned on the side of protecting people's rights and due process. but when you get to terrorism, you, it is a different issue because you're really trying to

prevent the incident from taking place in the first place. so you have got a lot of challenges. i don't very much buy into the notion of political correctionness. i think we have an issue around constitutional correctness. when you have an american citizen, the question whether they can listen to or read something or to associate themselves in some grouping is pretty clear in the constitution that those things are protected. then there is a set of actions that are of concern. now this question of radicalization is not new in the military. there have been any number of unions -- groups that the fbi is concerned about attempting to either get members trained in the military or to radicalize present members of the military and this has nothing to do with any, you know, particular set of dynamics. this is a concern ongoing and i thought that

congressman dicks question was interesting. this issue with dod and the fbi and the issues of coordination is something that we may want to structurally look at a little bit better because maybe we need to try to create a, a, a process in which the fbi could be, have greater access and maybe even some joint alignment with some of the, the investigatory units inside of dod. i was out at the terrorist screening center in virginia and the agency seemed to be working very well together and the agencies seemed to be working very well together and obviously a lot of good work is taking place but we do need to be mindful as we go forward that you have a constitutional prohibitions, or constitutional protections

depending on how one might want to view it. i view it is our absolute responsibility to uphold the constitution and that each of the agencies of our government have that responsibility. so when we determine political correctness, it gives it a certain, i think it cheapens the issue. we have a responsibility to follow these rules. we also have a responsibility to try to creates a safe an environment as possible. so i want to go to what the bureau's response is to these recommendations. now they have been made in a number of different categories. if you could take the time in this hearing, which this hearing is about these recommendations and how we're going to go forward and respond to the, the recommendations, i would appreciate it. >> okay. thank you, sir. i would just make a couple comments if it's prudent regarding our relationship

with the department of defense and how it's integrated. they have increased the number of their personnel on our jttfs throughout the country and the kind of node that we coordinate all these investigations now occurs at the national joint terrorism task force where the deputy is a member of the department of defense. so that deputy for the national joint terrorism task force is a dod person. he sees every investigation that touches the military immediately and then is the belly button that pushes that over to the pentagon. so i think that process, that formal process that you spoke about is in place and i would be glad to talk to you about that more off-line. so let's, we'll kind of go through the recommendations and kind of what was done. and one of the recommendations surrounded training and one of the concerns was that there was not enough training done to our jttf personnel

especially as it related to the number of databases that the bureau has and where collection is stored. we recognize that immediately after 9/11 and bought some 3,000 plus task force officers to be trained on all our databases. we, and the director asked us to look even further at training and to step back and assess whether the training we were giving to our jttfs as a whole was up to speed. whether it had changed enough with the change in the threat. so we went back and looked at that and changed the way we do training as a whole for our jttf personnel and there were a number of online courses they took before they came on and there was regional training that was mandatory but now that training has all moved to quantico, and it has gone from couple days to nine-day mandatory basic training for everybody. >> this training, this new

system, the citadel system and the chairman led the way and we invested tens of millions of dollars into this system, this is to train the 3,000 on this new system, access all of the databases? >> that's right. so the process will continue as sentinel is now on line, the training for that will continue. some of the new software we have been able to purchase again at the behest of the committee to help us do a better job analyzing data is also being pushed out, being trained. the other issues go to your earlier comments and to mr. dicks's comments about the lead being covered, how it was covered and disagreements and in how those were taking place. so there were a number of polish -- policy issues identified and subsequently been changed. it took too long in both our opinion and the opinion of the other committees to cover the leak to begin

with. so we have changed policy there that again reiterates and requires leads to be covered in a shorter time period in duration. >> but in plain english, this lead came as discretionary lead. >> that's right. >> there is know discretionary lead and there is timeline to follow up on all leads from now on? >> that's correct, sir. discretionary leads were discontinued immediately. the timeline for routine leads was tightened up. the other thing we reiterated in a number of venues but we changed the policy, the policy always existed. we have written policy where there is disagreement in the leads and it needs to be pushed up to the supervisor and asec and office and appropriate oversight group at headquarters. i think the other point there, growing back to mr. dicks comment is, that we have looked at other cases like al-awlaki but not

only needs need to be covered more closely but they need another group to oversee them. so there are now a robust analytical group back at headquarters that looks at those individuals like al-awlaki to make sure there is nothing that is missed in those leads as they go out. the other thing highlighted and rightfully so in the committee or in the commission report was the i-t system that was being used to look at the e-mails. it required the case agents to go back and the analysts to go back every time there was a new e-mail to search it and see what other e-mails were in the queue. that was fine for the way we use to do business but on an individual like awlaki, that system simply was not up to par for what it needed to be. so now the systems have been changed if there is an e-mail of interest where a court authorizes to look at or we're able to get those e-mails the system

automatically threads all those e-mails together and it also tips the case agents or the analysts when a lead has been set as it relates to that specific e-mail address. so, the point is that some of those other e-mails that were not pushed to the washington field office would have been teed up by the system automatically, put into a queue so they can look at them as a whole and maybe make a more informed decision. >> and that's to drill down in this in english, to go back to the first point where we have an awlaki situation the point there have been changes, we went through some of this in the classified briefing, there have been significant changes made to the way the pruning of information or the way it is looked at in total so that you're putting the e-mail from, hasan together with awlaki in a way you're seeing the whole picture not just one part of the picture? >> that's correct. the system will allow the e-mails to be dropped in one bucket and looked at in

total. >> now the commission recommendation on the, working through challenges relative to control of the termination on leads, right now you said that will be bumped upstairs. so anytime there is a dispute between two field agents, field locations it will, it won't be just settled through like muddling through or doing nothing, it will be, someone will have to make a decision? >> that's right, sir. so, and that occurs and has occurred every day. what we found when we went back, even though it was the standard operating procedure there was not clear-cut policy that kind of set that out. so that is what has changed there. >> [inaudible]. s. any of these recommendations that the bureau does not agree with, of the 18? >> there is none that we do not agree with.

the only one that we are continue to wrestle with is their assessment that this lead should not have gone to somebody from the department of defense. rather it should have gone to somebody, somebody other than somebody from their home agency. our experience is, and my experience in running a jttf is that when you push a lead to somebody from that home agency, they are in the best position to understand the nuances of that agency, how to cut through the red tape. how to get the information, how to cover the leads. in most cases they are investigators who are from their agencies who have an expertise in investigation. so we're still trying to find that sweet spot between that recommendation and how we make sure there is more oversight from the fbi. >> well, and we've had this discussion before and i will conclude my questions on this point, which is that,

at some point this became a, you know, became a subjective matter, so you can look at the employee file, and you can see the top secret clearance. you can see the recent promotion. one could have saw that as a reason, to be more concerned. and one could have saw that as some type of information that was, would say, well, there is no reason to be concerned. some of it has to do with, you know, one's kind of view of, you know, the responsibility. and so we, when we get to, you know, maybe ordinary, what might be potentially criminal activity, that's one judgment call. when the judgment call is about saving lives, then, that's where the fbi's post-9/11 role, if you would, this prevention in which pushing the envelope, and i know you personally agree

there should been this face-to-face interview. not to say that, that that, that hasan may not have been able to get through that interview in a way that would have alleviated peoples concerns but there should have been at least been eyes and a talk directly with him because they really weren't trying to track down bank fraud or some other, you know, unrelated matter. that the issue here really was, whether or not there was something more nefarious afoot relative to a potentialty that wasn't necessarily based on some rational, you know, criminal enterprise. so i thank you for your service to the country. i would be glad to yield, yes. >> [inaudible]. i apparently came in december of 2008. his first one laid out a question.

what would al-awlaki think of muslims who have joined the military and have even killed or tried to kill other u.s. soldiers? that seems pretty stark to me. >> yes, sir. >> i don't know how you use, that he's doing a master's degree or something to justify not looking into that? >> sorry, i don't disagree. as you to to the next line it says, can you make some general comments about muslims in the u.s. military? would you consider somebody like akbar or all the soldiers that committed such acts fighting jihad and if they did, what would it mean to you? agreed. when you look at it in its context exactly how it is it is, it is startling. the problem is if you put yourself back into the agent's position at the time, and you look at this e-mail with what he is looking at on the

performance appraisal where it states and i quote, says he is going for his masters of public health. hasan has outstanding moral integrity and concern in all matters. he took on a challenging topic for his mph. the project related to the impact of beliefs and culture and views regarding military service during the global war on terror. so without any question, while it sits by itself i concur with you 100%. when you look at this aspects it changes the dynamics of it. i'm not here to make excuses. >> so many times in the history of this country we have information and didn't act on it. i mean people going to flight schools, to learn to take off, to, how to take an airplane off but not land it. and that was sent to the fbi. and people, nobody acts on it. you mean, at some point you have to have some insting, some gut instinct that

something is not right here and to follow through. pearl harbor could have been avoided. i mean all of these things, we had the, what is always so frustrating as you look back 20/20 hindsight. what is so frustrating that we had the information. we knew that this guy had a relationship with al-awlaki and we didn't act. that is what frustrates me. thank you for yielding. >> thank you, mr. dicks. mr. culberson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i could not agree more with mr. dicks's statement and really appreciate chairman wolf having this hearing today and i want to thank you, mr. giuliano, for your service. we deep, all of us admire the fbi and work that you do. it's important though that we all, as mr. dicks said

and the chairman has said, learn from this and it is distressing as to see as mr. dicks has said, the one sentence, looking at that december 2008 e-mail, looking at that one sentence, you don't really need the context. the statement itself is a real concern. and i wonder if i could, zero in on the question that chairman wolf asked in a little more detail if i could, sir. that when the washington field office had assumed because they were the recipient, i understand from, it's a standard practice at the, the fbi that the washington field office in this case looking at page 46 of the report, that the, the washington field office owned hasan and ultimately

the responsibility for its outcome because it had been referredded to the washington field office by the san diego office and the san diego office was not satisfied with the washington field office's response. the san diego agent believed the assessment was slim and was concerned enough that for the first time in his career i see that the san diego office officer followed up with the washington field office to pursue this because the san diego office could not understand why the washington field office would not pursue this lead and actually go out and interview this guy. and i see from the report, mr. giuliano, that the fbi has had a policy and i don't know whether you still do or not, of pursuing an investigation in the least intrusive, using the least intrusive means necessary, is that correct? >> that's correct, sir. >> and in this case the

least intrusive that the washington field office, decided that the least intrusive means necessary was essentially to do the, a check of the records and not conduct the interview because they were, the washington field office was concerned it might affect major hasan's military career? >> so, -- >> that was one of the factors? >> that's correct. so as you, as the webster commission went and talked to the agents as he laid out all the reasons he felt that an interview wasn't germane at the time that was one of the comments. i want to make a comment about least intrusive. least intrusive does not mean and has never meant not aggressive. i will tell you, and i can't talk about it in this setting but the investigations that we have across the nation and the world are extremely, extremely aggressive. this was a judgment call and unfortunately we make these judgment calls every single day and we have to be right

every single time. it, as you look through it, and an interview would have been prudent in this time. it is hard to tell whether it would have changed things but the fact that the least intrusive means, that is just a way to insure that we use the tools that congress has given us in a way that they are ratcheted up appropriately. and that is that the purpose of that. that should not have and does not mean that we can not conduct interviews if we deem it appropriate. >> sure. but in this case looking, the assessment was made by the washington field office, it would perhaps endanger major hasan's career if they pursued this further? >> that was one of the statements made. >> as mr. dicks just pointed out quite correctly, that, the e-mail, looking for example at the december 17th, 2008 e-mail. the, the major hasan asked the question, that, there's,

looking for it in here, that, some appeared internal conflicts or killed or tried to kill other u.s. soldiers in the name of islam. that, clearly he is asking a question to awlaki whether or not that is, if a muslim in the military tries to gill other u.s. soldiers is that a problem? is that fit within the, within the, you know, is that something that muslims faith would, what would the muslim, you know, how would, how would awlaki look at that from the perspective of the muslim faith? if major hasan had been a, what if that e-mail had come from a senior fbi officer? >> i think it would have raised concern from san diego as it did with an individual being in the military. i think the difference here is when you have a guy like

hasan who is doing research on that very issue, so it says, goes on to say, can you make some general comments about muslims in the u.s. military, i think it puts it in a different context. again i'm not here to make any excuses as to whether that interview was conducted or not but it just puts it in a slightly difficult context. >> yes, sir. i understand. what if, for example, what i'm driving is another point. if the e-mail had been sent by a, a senior officer at, in the dea, or to the department of homeland security or border patrol or, some senior law enforcement officer, some senior officer in the law enforcement community of the united states had sent that e-mail, to a maniac like awlaki, what would have been the response in the fbi, similar set of circumstances but as sawn is in the -- hasan is in the u.s. law enforcement

community? >> two things. awlaki, i think it is important awlaki then is not the awlaki now. he had thousands of people writing to his website asking for legitimate islamic advice. so it is a slightly different awlaki back then. that is number one. number two, if the dea or the fbi agent had been writing a thesis that was similar to what hasan did, there may have been a different viewpoint. however, i think, san diego would have looked at it with just as much alarm as they did when they sent this lead to the washington field office. >> what i'm asking you to think about, same set of circumstances but the guy's not in the u.s. army. he is a senior officer in the u.s. intelligence service or he's a law enforcement officer. it seems to me that the statement itself and the fact that the individual is working for the u.s., is in the u.s. military or in the u.s. intelligence services or u.s. law enforcement, the

major hasan's position alone should have been enough to require further action on this? >> sir, again, i think that is the debate of the commission and i think they find we should have done more and i don't deny that. >> have you changed the policy so if it is a officer in, if you find somebody in the high level position in the u.s. law enforcement community or the intelligence community or the u.s. military, make an inquiries like this it automatically kicks it up to a higher level of inquiry including a personal interview automatically? >> sir, there are no automatics in what we do, sir but what we have changed if there was somebody in law enforcement or somebody in say, the department of homeland security we saw something like this, it would come up to headquarters the same way now that it is mandatory an investigation of do. did does. it would go to the national joint terrorism task force where there would be another set of eyes on it so that has changed.

>> i shouldn't have used the word automatic. it would, i heard you say earlier where there is a conflict between two field offices you now have a procedure in place that is reviewed by a senior level official and that's changed an an improvement? >> yes, sir, that's correct. >> i shouldn't use the word automatic but what i'm driving at regardless of the, whether or not this guy was in the military or not, you have policies in place now that would elevate the scrutiny of e-mail exchange like this if the individual is, is an officer, either the military or the u.s. law enforcement community? >> that's correct. so not just e-mail, sir, goes a little further. if we have an investigation that is predicated on law enforcement on somebody holding secret security clearance, has access to military bases so we have even broadened it wider than that. >> the chairman's always been very generous with the

time. i will close with this and do other follow-up when i come back but talk to us about political sensitivity. you do have, reference in the report on page 60 that the washington field office indicated the subject is quote, politically sensitive. what types of things are politically sensitive in inquiries of this type? >> so, i will go back to the comments made by mr. fatah. i don't believe political sensitivity had anything to do with the decisions that were made here. the commission found the same exact thing. there are sensitivities as relates to first amendment. there are sensitivities as relates to civil liberties and civil rights. i think our job, with the powers given to us by congress are to make sure that we keep this country safe while protecting civil

liberties and civil rights. it is a fine balance. >> yes, sir. >> every single day. i don't believe political sensitivity played any part in his decision, sir. >> we know you do, sir and god bless you for what you do and we're deeply grateful for the fbi and all that you do. to your knowledge, do you have any memory or discussions about political sensitivity, whether or not it is politically sensitive or could be offensive to the muslim community or islamic community to pursue, without reference to a particular lead but to what extent have you seen or heard discussions in the fbi or doj about political sensitivity or insulting or offending the muslim community? >> there is very little lk about political sensitivity inside the bureau. the bureau is an apolitical organization and we try to stay apolitical. . .

>> we deeply appreciate all that you guys do. we are very proud of you, immensely supportive of the fbi. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i think, mr. giuliano, you are misleading or overstating something. there's nowhere, i read the commission report twice, and i want you to tell me what page it says that there's been no political practice, no political

sensitivity? it's silent on it so you have led us to believe that the commission just totally has said that's not a problem. so would you tell me the page that i miss where says that is not a problem? >> sir, i think my point is that if you look at the reasons that the committee set forth as to why the interview was not conducted, it does not say that their findings were because of -- >> nowhere does the commission -- so you are incorrect, okay. i just want the record to show that because you sort of, also one of the issue, and mr. carter, i want to get to you but i think he misled to his and another way probably inadvertently. you said, you indicated that the decision to drop the warrant was made by diplomatic security in the u.s. attorney's office, but it is my disdaining that the washington field office agent was wait adamant who made the call to release a lock we.

to the washington field office was conducting a full investigation of awlaki at that time, and also hammerman was involved in the paintball case. do you remember that? >> i do. >> that person is in jail. i believe for life, correct? >> i don't know that, sir. >> no, i think he is. you might want to check that out. and maybe al-awlaki was connected there. so when you answer the question source said that's not our game, that was diplomatic security. this was washington agent of the fbi you call to say to drop the case and he was a very agent who apparently is to with the fbi today, was the fbi i agent on the paintball case. so again, but those two things are sort of misleading, sort of like brush and bump and move. they were involved. this was done at the request of fbi agent hammerman. correct or not correct? >> that's not cricket an agent of the fbi cannot tell a

prosecutor whether to drop the case or not. we don't have that -- >> to drop the war and? >> to. spent hammerman never called that, sunday morning or tuesday more? >> there was a dialogue asked always would be if a case agent has a case, on somebody that is come into the country, the system is triggered and set up so that there will be a call to the case agent. >> what time was that? >> i don't know. >> wasn't sunday, early in a more? >> i can't -- >> i would want to get to the bottom. we're going to send a letter on this. we will get a hearing if we have to. we may even subpoena the thing but i think it's important, and if this was the bureau had nothing to do with it went into was a call from an fbi agent who it works the paintball case, that has a bearing to a u.s. attorney. and my sense was a good and in the morning when most officers are not even open in the federal government. i think it could be, i could be

corrected, i think us like we will get this for the record, to put it and at this point. i think it somewhere before 7:00 and morgan pressel do with the government was not operating. >> server -- >> i think it's been alone misleading. >> and we give the witness an answer to reply? >> i disagree with that comment. that no matter what time it was, an fbi agent does not have the power to tell the prosecutor whether to drop the case or not. if the prosecutor makes that call, based on evidence that is at hand, so if you prosecute at the time regardless of whether a call was made or not, look at that of his -- evidence and decided it was not enough to arrest the insert -- individual as in any case, that work would be dropped but i assure you the bureau would have come if we could've incarcerated awlaki we would have. >> we can go back and forth. and the fbi could have said

something else. >> i don't know. >> with that, let me just, let me just go to mr. carter. >> first i would like to thank the chairman and mr. fattah for lying to participate in this hearing, and i've got a little bit different line of questioning because i had a constituency to entry to, and a couple of questions that have been raised. i want you to tell me what you think i should tell these people asking this question. we are talking about people who were killed, many of whom have been deployed two, three, four times, fighting in the war against terror, which until recently was a subject matter of why we went to war. seems to have changed in this administration, a previous administration it was the war on terror.

they went to fight the war on terror. they went to fight the war on terror that involves people, the islamic community. now, we've got them coming to me saying, my husband when it harm's way for this country three times. or my son went into harm's way for this country four times. and he gets killed where he is stationed by a member of his own military, who begins his shooting career as a murderer by shouting allah law. and it gets invested by the department of defense, and they find it was a workforce violent incident. and nobody seems to even talk about his war against terror even involved in this killing. but my husband is dead. or my son is dead. after fighting for this country on numerous occasions. in the war against terror in an

islamic community. and what i got from the defense department was, a whole series of places where excuses were made for why they didn't catch this. and they have a whole series of recommendations to change their procedures so that they can hopefully catch it next time. and then the agency, the law enforcement agency that at least historically in america, in my lifetime, americans have looked to for the highest and best investigative procedures in the world, not in america come in the whole wide world, at least in my generation anybody that said we need this investigated, who we do with the best, we would say the fbi. and so the same person who comes to me and says now from the

law-enforcement community what do i get? i get the same story. yeah, mistakes were made but really it's more excuses were being made as to why quote procedures didn't work. when did we stop having people who use their brain to investigate and start having people who use procedures to investigate? have we discovered that procedures written by bureaucrats -- action operates better than somebody's commonsense ss look at this, this looks like this guy is talking about shooting somebody. maybe we ought to look into this. what do i say to that woman who's lost her husband, or to that father called me and lost his son? and say, who can do -- who can i look to, my son or my daughter fought for, that will stand up and say, it's our job, it's our

responsibility, we failed. instead of making excuses and coming up with new procedures, can you tell me? >> sir, i don't think there's anything you can say to them that will take away the pain that they have suffered. and as i stated at the beginning, i am not here to make excuses. we will not make excuses. they should and do turn to the fbi to do exactly what you said, and we have to be right every time, 100% of the time. and when we are not, the consequences are dire. so i make no excuses. our goal is to figure out what could have been done better. we strive to be better every single day. this entire commission report was commissioned by the director after the senate already did the review, after we get our internal review, to make sure

that it never happens again. he is committed to. i am committed to. our department is committed to it, but i'm not here to make excuses. >> you just made a statement i would like to know the answer to. the consequences will be dire. what are the dire consequences as a result of the failure of the fbi? >> so the -- >> who got fired? who got changed, promoted, moved, whatever? i'd like to know what the situations were. >> so, any action taken by the bureau, the boss, the director, has to be held until this report was done. this report has been pushed over to our inspection staff, and our inspection division which handles all reviews of how our individuals conducted themselves during the investigation. and once that is done it will be pushed to the director for determination of what action, if any, should be taken. >> what kind of time schedule already looking at on that

action speaks i would say between 60 and 90 days, sir. >> so i think i can tell those people at least as far as the fbi is concerned, there are dire consequences, your statement, that will come to people who fail? >> sir, if i could just -- [inaudible] there are dire consequences to the public. i do not and cannot speak to the public, that's a difference to them. you said when we filled our dire consequences but, of course, we know there are dire consequences. there's a bunch of dead people stacked up at fort hood right now that are dire consequences. >> that's exactly right, sir. so my statement was from where i sit we have to be right 100% of the time every day every time. and if we are not, there are dire consequences, as you see at fort hood. what a cursor internally will be

determined by -- what occurs here internally will be determined by our internal process and will go to the boss once they conduct the review. m sorry if i misspoke. >> okay then, that's a good explanation. and maybe that won't be dire consequences. i just think at some point time we have to decide, we've -- we all know our rights. we are protecting the rights of a awful lot of other people. and i don't have a problem with that, most, if not all my life. but more and more i have people asking me who's going to take responsibility for this instead of just telling us, oh, it's really not our responsibility if our procedures were bad. but if their procedures were bad and you wrote them come you're responsible. and so is the defense department. and both of you have gotten through this, both reports, and

you say there's no political correctness, but how to explain to them that still wicked no indication of a man with a heavily loaded automatic the walks down shooting uniform soldiers who have either been to war or on the way to war, it's not a battlefield, it's not, it's not a war action. they're not encounter the benefits of the soldier at war, and yet they are dead or their wounded or they are shot in the brain and they're having to rehabilitate themselves to just stay alive. all these things that happen to these people, and nobody is taking, even defining the enemy. and i just don't understand why the two, two of the most important agencies of this government still haven't defined what happened at fort hood. by even mentioning that islamic terrorism had anything to do with it.

is it, if he yelled out jesus christ is god, what they had said christians were involved? i mean, at what point does it get to be islamic terrorism? >> so, i'll just -- >> that's a simple question. answer that one. >> so, there's a difference between somebody who is tied to a terrorist group and an islamic terrorist organization which we could not tie us on to during our investigation, as somebody who appears to have been radicalized by them. with the difficulty i can come here to make excuses come with the difficulty lies is when you have somebody like hasan or so many others who are listening to somebody like awlaki and trying to determine the difference between what is in their head, their radicalization, and their subsequent vocalization, and that is just something we did not foresee, and the question

here is whether, if we had moved forward and in an interview with data change the facts speak well you know, once again, getting back to this why for this father who contacted me, how would they say, wait a minute, all the stuff he is talking to awlaki about, isn't this the same guy that our president told us that he authorized a hit on because he was a terrorist and we killed them with a drone? spent again -- >> it certainly is that now is a hindsight is 2020. >> again, there's no doubt that awlaki, who met his demise recently, was a different awlaki that we do and understood back during this time. again, no excuses but awlaki had not been involved that we could tell operation at this point. doesn't change the fact that he is and was a different person at the end of come at the end of his life. >> well, finally i better quit,

but i want to say one more thing. 9/11 took place, but if the american people really look at it, all we did was a we screwed up. we didn't, even though it was all kind of indicators, not only from your agency but for others, that should have kept those people in new york alive, and at the pentagon ally. but we failed. we have spent trillions of dollars to fix that problem. and the next incident we had, we failed. who does the american individual up to to protect us? the defense department? no. the fbi? no. who's responsible? i think i am. i think most of the people think they are.

and we depend on you and the other folks that are involved in this fight with us to be effective, and quite honestly, if the average american is going to be fighting, as to who in our government is protecting them from these people who want to kill us. after 10 years, 12 years. spent if i could just interrupt you for a second to say that, it's a very unfortunate incident fort hood, i want to make sure that the record is clear. there have been many, many, many other incidences where the fbi have prevented circumstances that would've harmed americans since 9/11, so i don't want to say this was the next incident. this was, this was a circumstance in which the fbi didn't hire hasan. they didn't give him a gun. they did have a shot at looking

at his e-mail. they made the wrong call, but i think that you're correct, that the dod, which had plenty of opportunities over a period of years to look at this person, right, and to make some judgments, is more accountable than the circumstance in which someone gets a discretionary lead to take a look at. so i just wanted to be clear that at least for my view of the situation, that there are, there are, this is truly, this was i think preventable. i'm not sure it was preventable in terms of where we put the weight at. i think more on the dod side than on anyone else. so i just want to make -- >> and i thank the gentleman for

the comment and i realize my time has probably run out, but i want to point out that the frustration level, at some point in time, somebody's got to be able, that has some authority, and this was a commission to look into this incident, as it relates to our law enforcement authority, if the dod should have declared it an islamic terrorist event, and they didn't and that had some influence on what happened from the law enforcement side, if not to be part of the report. white shots from these two reports is there's nothing in it. as the chairman pointed out, there's nothing in it to indicate that it had anything to do with what we have spent 10 years fighting the war about. and that just, it dumbfounded me, and you cannot explain to people who lost their families and now are being treated as if they were just casualties of the

workforce. it really is hard to explain. and that's what i wanted to protest. thank you. >> well, i think what judge carter is say, and i share his concerns, is that there were 170 or more people from my congressional district that died in the attack on the pentagon, on the day of the pentagon flight. i rushed out and sat on the hill watching what was taking place. we won't make this into a 9/11 hearing. let me just back up, too. mr. giuliano, you're a good guy. i talked to some ages of my digit and i said this guy mark juliano is coming before the, what kind easy? they said he is a good guy. and i don't think that is the issued and i don't think you should feel personally -- >> no, sir. >> but washington office, somebody in washington missed the opportunity to open the mess

our laptop. if it had been opened, we don't know, maybe, and this is not a 9/11 commission, but maybe her brother would still be alive. maybe ted olson's wife is to be alive and so what dr. carter, mr. carter is saying, and as an agree with, people just don't understand. and it was not open. the laptop was not open and we see that there was recommendations coming out of kleenex with regards to flight schools and who thinks this. and want to make sure that it is not just any future. also i have other questions i wanted to go through, but we are going to do a letter to you on this depressing people just have to think about this. i think you were misleading on the ammerman case. the dates and times were awlaki

came in at 4 a.m. washington time, was arrested up in new york at 4 a.m. that's 4 a.m. denver time. so here at 4 a.m., i know a lot of his attorneys work hard, but for yet of what is he? he's probably at home. at 5:40 they drop the case. awlaki is arrested to they drop the case at 5:40 in the morning. now, denver time. then he takes a flight to washington. the u.s. attorney is in denver, wade ammerman is calling from the washington, d.c. area. so all this decision was done by 5:40 denver time. wow, that's amazing. go right ahead. >> he knew he was coming before that. >> i'm sure he did. i'm sure he did, but while the u.s., while you, if you go back and check, i know you are -- go

back and check him if you don't think you are a little misleading, then i think we went to different high schools. different approaches to things. but your afterlife if you have no involvement whatsoever. now, while the fbi cannot tell them to drop a, the fbi can make in a recommendation. so what will become will give you a letter asking you to comment. but i think dr. carter, judge carter, really speaks for a lot of concerns people have had. i was the author of the national commission on terror in 1998, and there were a lot of recommendations with the bremer commission. guys up here, men and women of both sides they'll didn't think it was any terrorism involved, and some people said why are you doing the. you found at the bush administration and in the clinton administration missed something spirit what judge carter wants to make sure on the committee is it's not missed as we go off into the future. during -- were of ufo agents or

supervises rated on a development of relationship with outreach staff? >> can you repeat that? >> with the washington field office agent or supervises rated on their department with relationship with outreach to muslim groups? >> i -- >> i had someone tell me they were rated on their outreach. >> you mean the committee outreach, but as a regular part of their performance appraisal, i don't know how much that would wait indeed and investors day in and day out, par. >> so he could be any ready? >> i don't know the anti-to that question. >> could you get it and submit? >> absolutely. >> was awlaki or hasan ever confidential informant for the fbi as the san diego office appears to have suspected? >> no, sir spent we understood the fbi has last year

established the counter violent extremist, cd office can for the national security branch. this was done without submitting the reprogramming notification required by section 505 of the appropriation bill. what does this office to? out with a work of the office informed the handling of cases like the hasan lead for political correctness about confronting extremism could have played a role? >> is actually a very, very small office. >> how many in the office? >> there is one gs-15, and maybe less than a handful of analysts. it came out of a requirement from the white house, for all of us, the department of homeland security, to try to get to the root going back to mr. carter's point, as a homegrown violent extremism, but going back and trying to figure out what is causing and whether we can get

on the front end of it rather than being on the backend of it. in other words, is there a way to counter it, can learn from what we and the fbi and in particular which is what this office is set up to do, can we learn from our investigations? can we learn from those that have been radicalized by somebody like awlaki or somebody else, and push that back in some way, shape, or form into the community so that we can prevent it from happening in the meantime. that is the purpose of this very small office that falls under, directly under the national security branch. >> the webster report includes on page 11 a list of 13 violent plots foiled by the jttf. are any of these 13 instances something other than violent islamist extremists? >> i'm sorry, sir. what page are you on? >> page 11, a list of 13 violent

plots foiled by the jttf. >> so, many of them are homegrown violent extremism, not all of them. >> were any of them not islamic extremism? >> so, all of them had some kind of ties to islamic extremism. so i guess my point was, and maybe i misspoke, they weren't all considered homegrown violent extremism so i stand corrected. >> based on report it appears that the most urgent test was to advance a culture within the fbi and prioritizing time and through pursuit of leads that legitimate and aggressive pursuit of leads suggesting

violent islamist extremism will not be perceived as politically correct. it will not be detrimental to their careers. is this what the cve office is doing? >> so, the cve office is in office i think will help and hopefully the other cve offices help us, our investigators better understand what causes radicalization and what indicators there are of those that are being radicalized. and again i would go back to the point that it's not good enough to just understand those that radicalized but it takes more. there are many people that are radicalized after that never do what hasan do. we need to understand what causes it. we need to understand those that are radicalized and we need to be able to understand those so we can prevent another fort hood spent together person is -- in office, but seeming? >> sure. >> just have them call the committee, have them, by. to read and post on the division of authority among the fbi

headquarters and field entities, the report suggests the fbi has a redundant. is that accurate? >> yes, sir reduce. >> can you provide this written policy to the committee? >> i will take that back. i don't see why we can't that it's classified so we will just have to -- >> one of the major finding is like a clarity over the ownership of hasan, were standing in washington field office disagreed over the handling of resolution of the lead. has it been now formalized the process for resolving such disagreements? is there a formal process, this process kicks in because of something like this that happened your? >> we did put out written guidance on that which will go into our corporate policy the next time it comes around. so it's on a cyclical basis. >> one of the most troubling relations in the report is the lack of time that was taken to act on the hasan lead.

the san diego field office simply to wfo on january 7, 2009. this lead was not ready until february 25. at which time a supervisory special agent assigned to lead to a task force officer. that task force officer did not read the lead until may 27, cold, snowy day in january, may, the azaleas are out. sleep good bit of time has gone by. from the time from january 7 to may 27 there were numerous contacts between the sun and awlaki. is the time taken to act on this lead standard for a lead of this type or priorty? >> xircom and would have been then but not now. >> is the indication that this lead was categorize or given a priority incorrect, that was incorrect? >> not have the time. >> okay. is the delay in acting on the lead could have been related to

workload because the fbi counterterror squad, that they were overworked, had too much work? >> sir, it could have been. i think the squad was working on the inauguration and subsequently the shooting at the holocaust easy. but again, regardless of workload, it should have been covered senate. >> and so what was the fbi now believes would be a reasonable deadly? >> for immunity within 24 hours priorty lead would have been seven days, and these leads now from the second is set, it doesn't matter when it's assigned, 60 days from the time san diego would've sent it to the time it was completely covered. >> i think you've answered this but you may want to elaborate because it's the only time i think you're different with judge webster. in this case it appears of wfo assigned the hasan lately task force officer from the defense department, specifically because hasan was in the u.s. military. the report recommends that the fbi should have conduct policy by where the task force officer shall be assigned a lead for an

assessment or an investigation of an employee of his or her home agency. was that, judge webster believe that's because it's critical for some a particular agency to investigate his own people and their 40s or to have somebody outside? i mean, you make a pretty good point to be honest, but it's an outcome and i to some agents, they come and i just think for the record membership, they make the same point. they just had to have spoken to but they make the same point you made. i just -- >> so. >> is there a blend? is there, because it would be very difficult for somebody, and a certain group to than it is gay people in the group. because we'll know each other and to have an objective person to come outside, could you elaborate a little bit more? >> so, again, and i think you hit the point very well. that is the one area where we were still kind of wrestling with it.

it was assigned, and if you go back to san diego the, they consulted with their dod people on the jttf for guidance on records checks, on how to get the records back anytime and fashioned him and his subsequent assigned to dod personnel in the washington field office. the webster commission felt that there is a potential for bias from those investigated within their own organization. our argument is those people are by nature people who investigate either their own organization, the our investigators. so you look at the gtf, the composition whether it's defense criminal investigative service or ncis or army air force, or army cid, that's what they do. they're good at it, and they are value added to the task force. so we think there needs to be a blend with maybe some were oversight from an fbi supervisor on those investigations, and we still believe they are the best people to navigate through the

nuances of dod, for instance,. >> i know mr. carter may remember this. i watched congressman carter, i don't know if you do, i watched i believe chief of staff of the army outside. do you recall what he said at that time? i want to make sure and accurate with to say speech i can't quote it exactly but it's something along the lines that i certainly hope this doesn't, disturb our islamic outreach program. sticks or if you're a major or a captain, and the chief of staff of the army says that, you know, he went to west point, he won a career, that can be tough. and so i think it's one coming or going to have to kind of nail down because that, when the top person in the organization says

that, and so i think sometimes i think judge webster -- but i must say i've talked to others and they have all said pretty much what you said, but i think there has to be some mechanism to catch in case you have that problem. >> yes, sir. >> the fy '13 budget request did not include any increases for the national security program. within a national security portfolio, what is the priority you give to increasing the number of intelligence analysts, and are you seeking such an increase in future budgets? >> sir, i would have to go back. there have been many mechanization's of budget and i don't know where this last bill sets. our intelligence analysts are absolutely critical to what we do, and i would say there's probably not an sec in the field that would say that increase in intelligence analysts embedded in their operational shops would not help them as they move forward. >> the commission recommends

seek funding immediately for acquisition or new hardware from the data warehouse system, electronic data management system your this hardware would enhance search analysis of data management. what is the cost associated with this hardware upgrade and do you intend to seek program authority to require such hardware during this fiscal year? >> sir, i would have to get back to you on that, where we are. we made a lot of changes in our software and hardware since judge webster started his report. the deep system. and now sitting on my face which is to go back and see when this recommendation was encountered a snapshot of where our with our i.t. request and i'll get back to you on the. >> i think if you talk, i think clearly i think the committee would approve of the programming. particularly of a hot importance

that judge webster gave it. so if you could assess possible have them contact the committee i would appreciate. the report highlights the fact that staff members at san diego and washington field office were unaware that keep data systems or were not trained on how to use them. have steps been taken to correct this totally? >> yes, sir. and were taken immediately afterwards. >> and training and data is mandatory as commissioner recommends? >> that's correct us are spent at all task force officers will compete the train with and how made a? >> right now is within 90 days. >> was the recommendation 90 days or 60 days of? >> i think it was 60 days, sir, but just with the number of people worry our pretty through quantico, we are at about 90. >> okay. i want to ask this last question here before i go back to mr. fattah in any other members, and i think mr. fattah made a very good point. the purpose of hearing is too early to find out what happened

so that it never happens again. and i would like to have the opportunity to talk to the person in the washington field office, but the commission did not find any misconduct toward administrative our disciplined action, but declined to express views on whether administrative action should be taken for performance-based reasons. has the fbi taken any administrative actions with regard to any fbi employees perform surgeries in relationship to this particular case? >> sir, all the findings were pushed to the inspection division as his normal course of action for us, and that group, the team, is reviewing it for the action and to determine whether any administrative action or any performance related action is going to be taken. >> what is the timetable for completion? >> i think i said between 60 and 90 days. >> outside of the wfo task force that was given the hasan latham

was anybody else in wfo or fbi headquarters aware of the length of time it was taken to act on this league? >> sir, it was an informational lead sent to headquarters, but they did not track the lead. again, that has changed. we changed under the new system. >> so now the management would monitor this? >> sir, it is monitor so there are 90 day file reviews that would have caught that. that it had lacked. again though, the commission report stated, and we concur, that the time period is still too long. >> okay. i'm going to go to mr. fattah. >> let me try to cover some the details and also get into some of the other issues. so, it's how many months after 9/11 does awlaki land at jfk? >> so, that time he comes back, and he came back in 2002, a

number of times but that was october 2002 i believe. the chairman was talking to. >> so it's almost a year after 9/11. he comes back. he's arrested but then the warrant is withdrawn, right? >> he is held and the warrant -- >> right. you know, i think that the chairman to interest in this has got a lot of merit coaches to find out exactly what the circumstance, because you would think they would be heightened attention, the bush administration is focus on the fact that we just had this attack within a year we have a kind of a full-court press going on. but for some reason he is, this arrest is not pursued. this is i want to get to the broader point. i hear, you said a number of times, that awlaki at one point,

and awlaki at a different point, this is, this is a process that he was going through. so, you know, if you look at 70 at one point and you look at him blowing up the oakland federal building, there's a radicalization going on, but it hasn't taken hold. now, i guess at the time the president obama and the president has been commended and criticized, his administration through drone attacks, killed awlaki, and people said well, you know, he's an american citizen, this and that. so, you know, if you could walk me through where you think he was based on the information that you have, was he at this time, year after 9/11, was he, was he someone who was, who had

moved from having a set of beliefs, which are protected under our constitution, to being active enemy of our country? >> that's a fair question, sir, and i'll try to answer it has specifically as i can. so, awlaki change and he changed a lot over the years. when he went to prison in yemen in '06-'07, and as he came out and came back up online in early '08, awlaki still had somewhat of a moderate tone, but began to be more of a propagandist, begin to show more radical tendencies. but we could not, and the icy, did not see them as operational or in an operational appetite. >> this is years after the jfk incident? >> that's right. >> he's been in prison. he seems to becoming more

radical. >> that's right. >> but he's not necessary, at least at the moment, operational? >> that's right. intelligence community not ssm to be operational at that point. it really comes down to where we see him, where it really odyssey changes, and it changed over the years, but with flight 253, his ties into aqap of flight 253, coming into detroit, then the printer cartridge attempted bombings, clear he was an operational role at the time and much stronger in aqap. if you go back to the 2000-2001 timeframe, he still provided to the time was in the mom at a mosque here locally. and quite honestly was fairly well respected. >> now, a year ago in november or so when the president, in his administration cause his demise, there were members of the house on the for criticizing the

president for taking this action. he at that point was operation operational? >> no questions. no doubt about it, right? >> no doubt about it he was trying to kill american citizens spent and, therefore, it was proper for us to protect ourselves and defend ourselves at that point, right? >> in your judgment. >> i don't want to put words in your mouth. >> right. >> so i think that is important to put this thing in some context. you know, this young man who walked in the movie theater and shot these people, you know, five years before that in high school was a different young man. it's something that happened, right? and so this is where the kind of where we have to kind of get into the kind of content. if you take something out of content it's a pretext. right? it's not the truth at that time. so the truth at this time when a

year after 9/11 when the bush administration was dealing with this question and he was released in 2002, he wasn't operational at that point. he became much more radicalized, using that term, in yemen, in jail in '06 and in '07. then when president obama ordered his demise in november of 11, he was an operational figure, was an act of any of united states of america. now then, you come into the hasan deal, which is what the fort hood issue is about. because awlaki wasn't at fort hood. a connection to awlaki to fort hood is his e-mail, or a number of e-mails from hasan to awlaki, right? rather, they should have caused a more intense effort.

so al-awlaki is getting thousands of e-mails from people who asking him any number of things. >> that's correct, sir. spent in fact, aside is asking asking at one point about, you know, matters of failing -- failure monday issues, but there was reason why this could have taken a different tone, if one had a more, if one's instincts might've taken you in that direction. and that's what this really is about. it's about the judgment call that got made, right? >> that's correct. >> but he just one of thousands of people e-mailing. so the first thing is that we have a circumstance where you thousands of people interacting, that you also kind of connect where these tied together. and that is being fixed by the recommendation, the

recommendation of the webster commission. the bureau agrees with that recommendation? >> that's correct, sir. >> and the software and everything to make that work together has been put in place. this is very important now. so there is a tendency here to confuse national security with politics. this is not about politics. and i think that what we have to do as this committee is to focus in on the effort that when taking place over a number of administrations, one in which he was let go, and the other in which he was sent on to his afterlife, right? but the difference is that in both cases people were acting based on information they have had at the time, and acting in the best interest as they

proceeded of the citizens of our country. so i again want to thank the chairman. i agree with the chairman that we want to know a little bit more about the release, why the warrant was withdrawn. but there's and to look at this under any other basis other than that there is a difference between, you know, this character in colorado at the movie, he wasn't stop for a traffic violation or something a year ago. but at that point he wasn't someone who was gathering 6000 rounds of ammunition and automatic guns, or semi automatic, going to a movie theater. so there are points along a process in which judgment are made based on information in the end. now, there could be different judgments made, and i think that you agree. i know you agree that they should in a face-to-face interview with hasan. how long have you been in the military?

at the time of fort hood. >> i'd have to go back and check on that, sir. >> he had been there for many years. >> many years. >> right? >> a number of years, that's correct. >> right. so, you know, the situation as we see today, we are looking at in the fullness of a rearview mirror in which with all of this information, and it's a little bit different than going at it on a current knowledge bases. i think the chairman, and i would be willing to sign onto his request that we have more information about the warrant being withdrawn, so thank you. >> i want to thank you. and i generally, mr. fattah adecco we generally agree. on this but i think he may be right, he may not. my own feeling, and it's an opinion is that awlaki was a bad

guy from the very, very beginning. and i've talked to some of the 9/11 commissioners. i spoke to one come a staff person the other day. but in the 9/11 commission report, it says with regard to awlaki, another potentially significant san diego contact for hosni, was anwar al-awlaki. in imam at the mosque board in the mister, a u.s. citizen, actually you know he went to school on your taxpayer dollars? did you know that? mr. johanns, did you know he had a scholarship from the federal government? >> i know he did have a scholarship and went to colorado. speak he grew up in yemen and studied in the united states under a yemeni government scholarship. he had an american scholarship to. we do not know how or when they met. they may even have met for at least or talk to him the same day they moved from san diego, the san diego.

hosni and others reported respected awlaki as religious figure and develop a close relationship with them. awlaki left san diego in may 2000, and by early 2001 had relocated to virginia. as we will discuss later. hosni eventually showed up at awlaki's mosque in virginia, and appearance that may not have been coincidentally. these are people 9/11. we have been unable to learn enough about awlaki's relationship with hosni to reach any conclusion. and there is more. so jenna, in closing, if we can have the briefing -- briefing with regard to the npr report with a number in military you agree with. secondly, if you have your budget people come up and tell the committee on if you need the reprogramming so that you can follow through and that one system. thirdly, if there's anything next year that is dealing that

we can -- the c.r. will be put together over the august break. fourthly, i would like to have the cve guy come up, men are one, wants to come up and sit down. lastly, i want to see, talk to the person at the washington field office that made the decision. i guess the question i would have as a think about this, given that -- and webster was really silent. i think it's important for people to know. given the fact that webster was on all the political correctness aspect, get a playable, did it not. have you gone back internally or done an internal evaluation of the people involved privately to ask them? because what's in somebody's mind might be different than what the reality was. maybe some he said i was slighted but maybe they were slighted because the person was looking the other way. but i think it's an board asked the agency called, both in san diego and in washington, did

anything that was going on make them reluctant to act. and lastly, what had begun as an agency, agencywide, to make sure that fbi agents do not have this inhibition to move, as many other members have referenced, and to do something so that we can prevent the next fort hood or the next 9/11. would you just want to cover that before we end? >> so, internally, too as you question, the first one, sir, that specific question, the webster report doesn't really put that to rest. >> right. again, i think we were just disagree on that point. >> show me, then, mr. giuliano, let us recess for a moment. go to the point and show me where it says that. >> it doesn't, but i think what

they did -- >> i become this is the report we are operating on. >> i think the facts -- >> did judge webster call you instead he said there was no political correctness and all? >> no, sir. but if you look at the decision that was made, the criteria that they laid forward as to why that decision was made, i think it lays out why the task force officer made the decision but at least in the opinion of those that did the investigation by the commission. i believe that if they would have found it, then there's no reason for them not to put it in the report. they have no -- it is not in the report. >> they did not say clearly that was not. in fact, there was an inference that it may very well have been. >> okay, yup. spent and heavy done an internal in to ask other people outside, is there any -- does an fbi agent the talk to, is he or she

feel this great reluctance because my grip to be over, or is there some sensitivity now that the bureau wants them to do what they should be doing to make sure we never have another fort hood? >> i think if you sat through any of the sbs session, like the compstat that the director holds with the executive staff of both criminal and national security, with each in the field, and their executives, where they're held accountable for what they do every day, you would see that in his fbi political correctness is not tolerate. he expects us to follow the letter of law and constitution, and to turn over every rock and every lead. so i don't believe that is the issue here, sir. i believe if the commission would've seen that they would've gone down that path. >> well, maybe, maybe not. and i guess we will end with

this. you had sac in washington field office. we see a transcript where he said actually while i was at the function i'm also on the mailing list for my blackberry for care. care is the group that the director said the fbi should have no involvement with. now, mr. hooper, i don't know what he does all day but i know he gets blackberry. must get 10 enough they. if i'm not aware of with care i'll be at a loss but effective these enough constantly, care was a co-conspirator in the holy land foundation. the person working office with that environment could have some feeling. we want to make sure that your men and women do not feel reluctant to feel what attitude to prevent another 9/11 or a fort hood. and with that again, please take back, you know, to the men and women of the bureau, great respect, i asked respected job

they do and we want to make sure they can do it anyway make you. so if there is a budgetary think i hope you'll come. no, nor they should be encumbered by being politically correct. we will have -- >> mr. chairman? >> will have some question we will follow up by a letter to cut a lasting to make sure that washington field office person comes by to talk to me. yes? >> if i could be recognized for just a second. first off, if i anyway felt like i was attacking you, just my frustration, i apologize. and i just want to ask one question. you mentioned all these investigatory branches of the dod, which i also have high respect for, as you do, but one of the things that i read believe is gimmick, the military, is the perception that soldiers have that certain things, if they bring them up, hurt their career. and i will stay away from this for just a second and say, the

perfect is psychiatric treatment when you come back from a war. just, we spent literally billions and billions of dollars convincing our soldiers that if you've got something wrong, please tell us, it won't hurt your career. but they believe in their heart of hearts, and i believe this is political correctness issue, it at least place among the average soldiers en up into the officer corps as a possible career killer. ..

it might break the deadlock that's created by this perception that soldiers half and asking questions politically incorrect. >> is you're point that it would be better if that interview had been conducted by the fbi? >> either that or contact the dod and say we have a situation that involves one of your officers you've been promoting regularly and it looks like he's an officer in good standing but have come up as one of the agents minds that we will look into it or wherever because if what you hear from people in the dod hasan have all kind of indicators clear back to medical school that he took these

positions and get nobody said anything and even you will hear from people at walter reed that they said we will get him out of here and give him someplace lse because he was asking all these questions. >> the young america's foundation is holding its 34th annual national conservative student conference here in washington. we are going to live coverage right now. 300 students from 37 states come to the nation's capital hear from conservative activists and authors. today discussions on emigration policy, u.s.-china relations and student activism and this is just getting under way. >> increasing numbers of young americans know and are inspired by the ideas of individual freedom, free enterprise, traditional values, and a strong national defense. we accomplish this through a central conference of seminars like this one, a number of

campus activism initiatives, a speaker circuit of over 70 conservative speakers that college and high school students can bring to their campuses, and a number of other items including activism material, we preserve the ronald reagan ranch and have it in callow de deacons and barbara california. we have our journalism center that trains speaking journalists, imagine that, and also young americans for freedom and students across the country can start chapters now. i'm really excited to introduce the next speaker because i think that he is the epitome of so many of these ideas that we are talking about this week. professor robert george holds princetons celebrated mccormack chairman of jurisprudence and is the sound of a verdict of a james madison program and the founder of the american principles project. he's previously served on the president's council on bioethics and as a presidential line key

to the united states commission on civil rights. he's the author of in defense of natural law, making minn morrill, civil liberties and public morality and the cautious orthodoxies law, religion and morality in crisis and co-author of embryo a distance of human life. his scholarly articles and reviews have appeared in the harvard law review, of the yale law journal, the columbia law review and the american journal of jurisprudence. he is the recipient of many honors and awards including the presidential citizens medal, the metal for the defense of human rights of the republic of poland, the middle of the becket fund for religious liberty, the sydney memorial award of the national association of scholars and many other awards. the most admirable quality of dr. george is a man of faith, a

staunch defender of the unborn, and he is hailed as america's most influential conservative christian thinker. please give a warm welcome to dr. robbie george. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you very much for that kind introduction. it's really wonderful to be back at the annual student conference i want to thank the administration of the young america's foundation for inviting me back, and i want to say how i especially enjoyed that nice lunch i've been eating for the last six days at chick-fil-a so there's a little difference. [applause] was governor walker terrific? [applause] now, there is a man who refuses

to be intimidated. a lesson for all of us. when mr. don ottilie talked about our role model, is not just for you guys. it's for all americans. all of us. governor walker did what he thought was right. he didn't just read the tea leaves or like the fingers and put it in the year to see which way the wind was blowing. stood up for what his state needed. and you know what? he would have been right even if he hadn't survived that recall. but there is something edifying in the fact that he did. he did the right thing and it turned out to be the right thing not only the politically right thing, but the right thing for his states. too often in the past, even good politicians, even good leaders, even good people have allowed themselves to be intimidated into silence or inaction or into reversing course and heading the wrong direction he didn't do

that so all praise to governor walker. [applause] the governor mentioned the very important concept in the course of his remarks. when you heard about before and perhaps discussed in classrooms in the dorms or with each other and that's the concept of american exceptional was some. some of our friends on the left don't have much use for that concept. michael kinsley, for example, regards it as a kind of arrogance on the part of america supposing that there's something special about the united states of america. that is at best for the deal, maybe even dangerously chauvinistic. president obama famously said

that while she did believe in american exceptional as he believed it is the way greeks believed in greek exceptional as some and the british believe in british exceptional was on and so forth. but it seems to me that the proposition that the united states of merica is an exceptional nation is the proposition whose truth is too obvious even to debate. our nation was as our greatest president said conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. and not only was our nation so conceived and so dedicated, we have as a nation proven to the world that a nation so conceived and so dedicated can indeed long endure, and we have now for more than a couple of centuries.

the history of the nation is the story of we the people, the american people struggling come sometimes struggling against each other to protect an honor and that ought to be exceptional principles in which we have integrated ourselves and constitute ourselves as people. from the very beginning we were unfaithful even to our own principles. slavery was the pri's original sin in this nation conceived of liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. so while the record is not an unblemished, we haven't been unblessed by success. we struggle against the evil and racial injustice and segregation

we fought a terrible war. the cost of three-quarters of a million lives on both sides ultimately to end slavery and to realize the great principal of the equal dignity of each and every member of the family that was articulated in the declaration of independence. jefferson who wrote those words hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. jefferson himself was a slave owner and yet, he knew it was wrong. he knew it was incompatible with not only the spirit, but the letter of the declaration of which he was principal author and so jefferson famously said speaking of slavery did i

tremble for my country when i considered that god is just and that his justice will not sleep forever. he understood as lincoln would leaders say that we are in the nation under god which means a nation under judgment. a nation that is called to account for its deviations, from its own high and exceptional principles beginning with that principle what the declaration, the principal of the profound inherent and equal dignity as every member of the human family. irrespective of race or sex or ethnicity but also of age or size or stage of development or condition of dependency which is why our struggle in defense of the unborn child is a struggle that is entirely in the spirit of this exceptional nation and our exceptional principles.

again, trying to make good for all this great promise of equal become this exceptional promise that makes the united states of america the nation it is. now, no one needs me to remind them that part of what is unique about this country is that our common bonds are not in blood or ethnicity or soil, but rather in a share moral political creed. we do indeed hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. those rights don't come from government, they are not the gifts of princes or kings are presidents or koln versus. they come from a power higher

than any human power, and so they cannot be legitimately taken away by any merely human power. the obligation of human effort, the obligation of the government rather is the very next sentence of the declaration says is to secure those god-given natural human rights. it's the belief that there are such things. the believe that there are fundamental principles of human rights and human dignity that transcend positive law that transcend human authorities. that's the belief that unites us as americans. it's not a common ethnicity we are many different ethnicities. it's not common race for different reasons it's not even a common religion. we are different religions. always have been.

we are a multi religious society even from the start. it was mostly protestants the different set of protestants. some catholics, a few jews now even more religiously diverse society. yet what binds us together even across the lines of theological is this shared commitment of americans be they protestants, catholics, eastern orthodox, latter-day saints, jews, muslims, buddhists, hindus, no matter where they came from what binds us together is the believe in that exceptional idea that we are a republican that honors the principle that all men are created equal. this is the clearest like in the fact that people really can and

beverages, fullest and most robust sense become americans. think about that. millions of people throughout history who do not began as americans. they may began as poles were lithuanians or chinese or nigerians, italians, vietnamese have become americans. of course one can become a citizen of greece or france or china. but can one really become a greek or frenchmen or chinese? and immigrant who becomes a citizen of the united states becomes or at least can become not merely an american citizen, somebody who's got the certificate has been through the

ceremony that can become an american, someone who was recognized as an american by his fellow americans, not in a thin sense having citizenship papers, but in a full and robust sense she is as american as a guy whose ancestors came over on the mayflower. the question is, to meet the interesting question is how has that happened? its exceptional but how does that happen? how did immigrants become americans? in practice it goes beyond becoming an american citizen and even formally signing on to the american creed. the additional ingredient i believe that i want to suggest to you today for your consideration is something that on myself know intimately for my own family's experience. and that ingredient is

gravitate, gratitude. it's typically and immigrants feelings of gratitude to the liberty and security and the opportunity the nation afford him and his family that leads to the appreciation of the ideals and institutions be they economic institutions or cultural institutions, the institutions of our civic life. and from this appreciation, of the goodness of these institutions comes his believe in the goodness, the virtue of american ideals the declaration of independence and institution and from this believe arises the immigrant aspiration to beco an american citizen to shoulder the responsibility of

citizenship and even to make great sacrifices to the nation if it should come to that. if my parents can to the united states hundred years ago like most immigrants then and now, they were not drawn here by any abstract believe in the superiority of the american political system. the oppression visited upon him and his family as members of religious lee small at mick and religious minority group in that troubled country go under the ottoman rule as it is troubled now. my mother's father came to restate the poverty of southern italy. now with my grandfathers worked on the railroads and in the coal mines. my maternal grandfather, my

mom's dad's side settled in west virginia where i grew up and where there was a small the immigrant community of the italians living in three little towns, cities on the river, clarksburg, fairmont and morgantown right of near the pennsylvania river. nicole would be mined near their. they still do loaded the coal into the barges on the river to be shipped up to pittsburgh in those days to make this deal and the steel would go up to teach right to make the cars. now my grandfather from that work in mines and on the railroads was able to save enough money to start a little grocery store, and that soon became a flourishing business. bye contrast, my father's dad, my maternal grandfather, spent his entire career as a laborer mostly in the mines and on the railroads. he died of emphysema no doubt as the result of a hazard of coal

mining in those days. now both of these men come and i did know both of my grandfathers, burt exceedingly grateful for what american made it possible for them and their families. neither spoke english very well. but were they ever proud to be americans, they were proud of this country. they believed in it. and they were ever grateful for it. their gratitude was not diminished when times got hard. as they did for all americans in the great depression. although both my grandfather's encountered ethnic prejudice, the view that as an aberration. a failure of some americans to live up to the nation's ideals. it didn't dawn on them. i knew them.

at what and have crossed their minds to blame the bad behavior of some americans on america itself. on the contrary, american in their eyes was a land of unsurpassed blessing. it was a nation of which they were proud to become citizens. and even before they become citizens they become patriots. then they deeply appreciated what america is and what she stood for. the opportunities america made available to their children my father had a sister she too was an immigrant. and she had a son his son to delete the name was john solomon. my dad's first cousin, my cousin john wanted to be a lawyer.

he was unusual in an immigrant family in those days at least where i was or where my people grew up. the law school in those days was located on what's known as university avenue m. morgenthau near the center of the campus. as a grand building that one entered by walking of this magnificent broad set of stairs. when my cousin john's mother came to attend her son's graduation, she stopped to bend down and kiss every step on that stairway. such was her gratitude. now of course her son was thoroughly embarrassed by this. this was before i was born but my dad tells the story. he was there. my father says that his cousin, john, turned to his mother at

about the fourth step and pleaded with her please, mom, you're acting like an immigrant. indeed, she was. indeed, she was. such was her gratitude for the opportunity that her son had become an opportunity that would not have been possible except for her immigrating to the united states. a possibility that she never dreamed of in her family. malae talked a moment ago about how gratitude for liberty, security and opportunity leads evidence to an appreciation of american ideals and institutions , and in turn gives rise to an aspiration to american citizenship and a willingness to bear its responsibilities and even make great sacrifices. four of my paternal grandfather's sons were drafted into the u.s. military to serve in the second world war.

my maternal grandparents only son was also drafted. all of these men serve in combat and returned with declarations. just about a year ago i had the pleasure of being here in washington, d.c. to see my own father inducted into the legion of honor in france for his contributions to the liberation of france during the campaign in 1945. their immigrant parents were immensely proud of them. proud of them precisely because they fought for america and for what america stands for. it really mattered to them. it wasn't just that they went into an army or the army as they might have done in the oil countries. as my father's father might have done, under the ottoman rule. no, it mattered to them that they were fighting for a great

country that they believed in, a country whose principals they believed in, a country that they were grateful for. america. they considered that their sons really were fighting for their country. not somebody else's country, not a country in which they were visitors or guests. their country. they were fighting for a country that was not only great, but a good. a country whose ideals were noble, a country to whom they were immensely grateful and not merely because it provided a haven from poverty and oppression, though it did do that, a country whose principals they believed in. that is what center of the matter to them. when the boys were fighting, the new that it was entirely possible, all too possible, that ultimately they would be called upon to give what lincoln at gettysburg described as the last full measure of devotion.

during world war ii, everybody knew gold star mothers, mothers that have lost sons in the war. every mother knew that she had a son in combat that she could get the bad news, gethe letter, telegram, any day. you can imagine the anxiety this would cause and an italian family whose one and only son had been sent into the brutal conflict of the pacific theater. but however much sleep was lost as a result of fear and dread, they remained proud that their sons were fighting for this country. for their country, for america. more to the fact that italy under fascist rule was on the other side of the conflict in world war ii to give them so much of a moment's pause. they knew which side they were on. the new which country was now

their country. the gratitude of leading towards appreciation, leading to the conviction and the commitment at the heart of the american patriotism simply left them and no doubt as to their loyalty. now i have a sense that my uncle's service to the nation at a time of peril was not only an expression of their americanism, the americanism of their immigrant parents. it was also a profound confirmation and ratification of it. the war had that effect. if they had any doubt in their own mind about whether they were truly and foley americans, even though they were immigrant come as american as their fellow citizens whose ancestors had arrived here on the mayflower, military service the rest of those concerns were doubts. i daresay the same was true as has always been true just in case any native-born citizens had doubts about whether their immigrant neighbors really were

americans. the willingness of immigrants and their children to take the risks and in many cases to be counted among the fallen leaves to the question of allegiance and american identity and no doubt. and that is true today in iraq and in afghanistan just as it was true in europe and the pacific theater in world war ii. now of course some protestant americans wonder whether the non-protestants, and especially catholics could truly become americans. there was a real question. they were concerned the hierarchical and nondemocratic forms of church governance of the catholic church would hinder the ability of non-protestant immigrants to appreciate and for the give their allegiance to space institutions and principles and civic life. some even believe that catholic immigrants would have to be d could also sized by the public school system, another mechanism

in order to become patriotic americans. well, the national predictable and understandable catholic reaction to that public schools are going to be used to decouple the size or do you think the immigrant kids and parents and religious leaders are going to do? they are going to create an alternative which would then only heightened the suspicion of some of their protestant neighbors. but per differentially need these worries go away was the record of service and terrorism and catholic and eastern orthodox and other non-process dessel terse including countless products of parochial schools by the way. fighting for democracy and against authoritarian regimes and totalitarian ideologies in the first and especially the second world war.

between their fate and their allegiance to the united states of america. they support the patriotic conviction. faithful catholics wanted to be and not merely to be seen to be both at comer too. they wanted to be the very best of good american citizens and as they saw and see it, that doesn't require the slightest the illusion of the catholic faith. i've been talking about how gratitude launches on the path to become americans. it has of course happened to millions and millions of people in this country. there are countless permutations of the story but their permutations of the same story. i expect as you hear me tell the story of my grandparents here today, many of you are thinking

of stories not at all dissimilar of your grandparents were great grandparents perhaps in some of your cases stories of your own parents if you are the children of immigrants. the amazing and wonderful thing is that a family story like mine of immigrant ancestors truly becoming americans sharing the blessings of american life and taking upon themselves their share of the nations burdened is not an exception, it is the norm. my story is your story with the exception of african-americans of course which is a different sat tragic story involving the injustice of slavery. my story is the common story of americans again whether they are from poland originally were lithuania or china or vietnam were nigeria. no matter where they're from whether their protestant, catholic, jewish, muslim.

it's the same story. even in the case the tragic case of slavery the story of injustice upon the nation's history even their our national story includes the great and heroic effort by blacks and whites to right the wrongs of racial injustice and to live up to our nation's ideals articulated at the very founding in the declaration of liberty and justice for all. we should never whitewash the stains on our history. but we should never permit that history to be detected as it is all stain as if we have erased the history of the noble heroics

of sacrificial efforts to live up to our high and exceptional ideas. now, immigration is an issue in our politics today as it has been historically. for my part, on a believe that immigration has been and will continue to be a great strength for the united states of america. i certainly hope that immigrants to our land will continue to want to be americans. does this mean i reject it has come to be known as multiculturalism? that's probably popular on some of your college campuses. well, it depends what one means by that term as it seems to be practiced a lot of college campuses, i'm not so favorable. i see no need to encourage

immigrants to abandon their customs, traditions and ethnic or religious identities, no need for that at all. on the contrary, i think those customs and traditions and ethnic and religious identities are good things. they are good for families and good for america. it's good for them to honor their customs and identities and pass them along to the next generations. evidence of a wisdom and that is fine and good and a source of strength if that's what you mean by multiculturalism, amen, brother. nobody should have to think you have to somehow eliminate your cultural background or customs were the food you eat in order to be accepted as american. that's not the american idea. of course we've got to distinguish this from and ideologies that promotes the rejection of a primary and a central political allegiance to

the united states of america and its ideals and institutions and it certainly to be distinguished from any ideologies of the mine is the fundamental goodness of america's principles of political and civil liberties. it's those principles but are the glue binding us together. we are not bound together by soil, by blood, by ethnicity. if we are bound together is in those shared exceptional principles and it's an exceptional thing about us about our nation that we are a nation dhaka together by a shared political moral creed. that is an essential and any form of multiculturalism that denies or undermines that this to my mind to be completely rejected. where a culture of opportunity flourishes, immigrants will feel as my grandparents fault and no doubt your grandparents or great-grandparents' felt

gratitude for the opportunities they were afforded to lift themselves up to make a better life for their children by hard work ad determination to succeed. however, it appears to be a brute fact that human psychology , governor walker eluted to this, but we are a culture of entitlement prevails as opposed to a culture of opportunity where the culture of entitlement prevails, gratitude even for the charitable assistance will not emerge to undermine the gratitude of the system to fail and that gratitude which enables immigrants to become americans will only flourish and a culture of opportunity. it will be strangled in a culture of entitlement. and part of course this is to be explained by the fact that upward social mobility is always

been banned in circumstances of the culture of entitlement. you want to lift people out of poverty, create a culture of opportunity not entitlement. to my mind the future publicly for what it's worth i'm not dependent of the future politically seems to me given all the facts that we are now in public knowledge, we were reminded by governor walker the future be lost to a party that makes itself a party of opportunity not the party of entitlement. it seems to meet the republicans will be doing exactly the right thing if their policies make themselves a party of opportunity and the democrats will be doing the wrong thing if they give in to that temptation for purpose of short-term political game to make themselves and to essentially a party of entitleme. [applause] any kind of culture of

entitlement will lead to the phenomenon that we know as welfare dependence. i observed a growing up in west virginia dessel destroying effect of that in many non-immigrant families. i was a relatively small minority in west virginia growing up in an immigrant background family. of course i go back far enough and we are all immigrants. i was growing up in mainly white revelation where people's ancestors had come centuries ago. irish settlers and so forth. but i saw this phenomena of welfare dependency. often the was well-intentioned. people want to help poor people but they helped poor people the wrong way making their situation

worse, not better. the problem wasn't wanting to help poor people. that is what we should all want to do. but when you make people worse, obviously that is a bad thing and that's what i saw happening and that happens in respect of race. sometimes people think of poverty and welfare that effect on the minority communities. it has nothing to do with race, nothing with ethnicity. it's been to get everyone the same with respect of a freeze or religion or ethnicity or anything else you create the entitlement mentality in the culture of entitlement it's going to be destroying for white people, black people, people whose backgrounds are croatian formation, it won't matter. dependency is an equal opportunity and this in turn leads to resentment as people persuade themselves that the reason they are not getting

ahead is that those that are already federal for cheating or manipulating the system to hold down people at the bottom of the letter depending on entitlements and you can easily predict even if you didn't know this, you could easily predict how that would shape politics. it's kind to shape politics because it is willing to incentivize a party of entitlement to run political campaigns based on class warfare. why are you not getting ahead? it's because the other guys who are already there are cheating and holding you down and keeping you down. bad politics. it's corrupting politics. now obviously whoever is cheating in the economic system has to be dealt forcefully and

by the force of law but what you don't want to create is a situation where any political party finds that there is bred to be battered and pay to be made by launching campaigns of class welfare trying to exploit resentment that itself is the result of failures to get ahead and opportunity created by a culture of entitlement so the culture of entitlement ends up reinforcing an attitude that impedes the gratitude that enables immigrants to become americans. as i said, i want immigrants to become americans. i want them to believe in american ideals and institutions i want them with all their hearts to believe every bit as much as i do and that is with all my heart that we hold these

truths to be to evident men are created equal and not by their creator with any legal rights but people that believe that the better because it's true and it's the grasp of that truth that enables us to create political order and nurture a political culture which is supportive of the flourishing communities considered as profound dignity to put it in religious terms creatures made in the image and likeness of god. i want immigrants to believe as i want all americans to believe. i want all people to believe and the dignity, the inherent dignity of the human being in all stages and conditions of life. i want them to believe and limited government. republican democracy, equality of opportunity, moral the

ordered liberty, not license. our founders knew the difference between license or fuss and justice and honor and liberty. private property, so essential to and opportunity. the market economy of economic freedom, will fall. this is what i want immigrants and all americans to believe. these are essentials to the american creed. these are the ingredients and the glue that binds us together. i want them to believe in these ideals and principles not because they happen to the hours, but because they are noble and truth and good. if they honor the profound inherent equal dignity of all members of the human family. they call for from us the very best that we are capable of and every domain of life. governor walker said that what

is really amazing about our history is that in all of the key junctures there have been people of courage that have stepped forward when things look tough and it's unclear how things are going to turn out and things were very risky. there were people of courage to step forward because there are filled with hope and faith of the american creed to do what needed to be done. that's right. these principles call for such people. people believe these principles when the sweating that stuff you're going to have people with the courage, the substance of the fortitude, the hope to do what needs to be done even when it's not easy and it's not popular even when it might put you at risk of losing your political office and losing your

job or losing your reputation for standing. but you will have such people and any nation that has such people is going to be an exceptional nation. any nation that can rely on there being such people because its nurture a culture in which such people are formed is going to be an exceptional nation. these ideals and mobil lost. our efforts to live up to them despite our imperfections, those are the things those efforts have made us a great people a force for freedom and justice in the world and of course astonishingly prosperous nation we need to remind ourselves of that in these difficult economic times there's never been a large nation remotely as prosperous as the united states of america. now how did that happen?

it wasn't an accident. conditions including cultural conditions including beliefs including commitments including respect for principles have to be in place to make that possible. it's little wonder that america is as it has always been a magnet for people of every land that seek a better life. when i started as a young professor, we were still in the cold war. i arrived at princeton in 1985. i just finished my graduate studies at oxford in england. in 1985 the cold war was still going on. the berlin wall, the iron curtain was there, the berlin wall still there. mr. reagan hadn't yet called for mr. gorbachev to tear down this wall. and you know, i heard a lot of what shall we say to put it

politely, - stuff from some of my colleagues about america. some people even depicted america as the bad guy as the aggressor in the cold war. but i noticed something even as a young guy i didn't know much noticed something. all the traffic across the berlin wall was going one way. people were not fighting to get into east germany for the soviet union, but people wanted to come to the united states of america. if this is such a bad countrywide people want to be here? that millions and millions of people did want to be here. now the transmission of american ideals and principles to immigrants and indeed anyone in

putting new generations of native-born americans depends on the maintenance of a culture in which these ideals flourish. there are cultural conditions for the maintenance of ideals and institutions. it's very important to understand this. it doesn't just happen. it's not just an accident even our great constitution isn't a machine that goes out itself. it depends on a culture that is supportive of it and that is going to be constituted in significant part by peoples understandings and beliefs and commitments to reduce the maintenance of such a culture is a complicated business that has many dimensions but in this nation of immigrants, this space nation in which we the people have the privilege and the response of the body of the governing ourselves, that is what it means to be a democracy, the maintenance of the sculpture

is everybody's responsibility. it's not scott walker's responsibility alone or barack obama's responsible didier mitt romney's responsibility. it's your responsibility and mauney responsibility. the maintenance of the culture requires every war in the water all of us have to be doing our part. all of us have to be educating ourselves so that we can be influences for good in the maintenance of the culture and it's especially the business of institutions devoted to educating and informing each generation of americans schools private or public, religious or colleges and universities, maybe we haven't done such a good job in those institutions. but we can do it. we can do better and reform those institutions that need to be reformed.

and of course institutions like this one, the young america's foundation. institutions dedicated to forming a generation of americans capable of maintaining the cultural freedom for such institutions, civic education that is education that advances the understanding of the nation's constitutional principles and institutions is a high calling and it's a solemn obligation if as james madison says people can be permanently a free people that's certainly true. with the young america's foundation seeks to do in its programs like the one we are joined in here today is vital to the success of this grand experiment in order liberty that madison and the other founders decreased to less and to our prosperity. i think you very, very much.

[applause] >> thank you. we have time for two or three questions. okay. good. >> - amber morrison from the university of st. thomas in houston texas and coming from the great state of texas immigration is obviously an everyday life and issue. what is your stance on illegal immigration and do you believe that illegal immigrants should have the same equal opportunity access to the constitution and universities and colleges? >> illegal immigration is bad for everybody. illegal anything as bad. there's a reason that there is a negative connotation to the

concept of illegal in a country that is fundamentally just treat illegal in the region is not good for people who are here illegally. they live in the shadows, they're vulnerable to exploitation, so we need to do something about the problem with illegal immigration. the real dispute is what should we do about it. i want a pro immigration policy. i hope i've made that clear. not all conservatives agree. this is a division in the house some people think we've had a net immigration we don't need more. i think the key for me that long. i think we will continue to flourish as a nation of immigrants. i will tell you something i want more americans who are just like my former star student at princeton ted cruce. how about that? [applause] rafah yell, his father came here with $100 sewn into his undergarments, came with

virtually nothing. now we have this young magnificent scene to be united states senator marco rubio same story. [applause] rac emigration as a great strength but we've got to tackle in a serious way the question of illega immigration. i don't have all the answers because we have a big problem with millions of people who are here unlawfully what are we going to do about how do we resolve that in a way that honors the rules law which i think who rules out just the blanket amnesty. i don't think that can be done but deals with the reality that it really is not possible to deport all those people and in some cases there are lots of people children who are born here illegal parents and so forth for whom there would be grave in justices. we have to take that seriously. we need to try to de politicize it to the extent possible and to think rationally how we are going to handle what the foundation of baseline is going

to be pro immigrant, pro legal immigration. the key distinction as republicans should bear in mind the distinction between legal immigration and illegal immigration. they should be for legal immigration we should be doing everything we can to facilitate people coming here in an orderly fashion. i'm not for open borders. there's an as a malaysian order. we are good at assimilating. we do it better than any of our nation - including some that are not about like australia. we are very good at assimilating but you can't just open the borders and let anybody that wants to come and come in. there are also security issues related to that but we should have a generous immigration policy and orderly immigration policy. now as far as the children of people who are here unlawfully from the ore to a significant extent themselves victims and we need to think about justice for

them. at the base here in the difference between legal and illegal immigration we have to remember everybody whether you or you're lawfully or not is a human being made in the image and likeness of god pity we can't just say we don't care what happens to you. we are not that kind of people. there may be places that's how they would treat people but that's not america. that's not what we want. that doesn't mean we just accept illegal immigration. i said i don't have all the answers but we need to work at something in a serious way. i do think a guest worker program is in the essential part of any overall solution and i do agree with those who say that we are not going to get and probably shouldn't get a guest worker solution until we do get border security. so border security, guest worker solution, generous immigration policy, not open borders, but assimilating immigrants in an orderly way.

those are the essential ingredients of the plan and i will leave the details to rubio and cruz. >> university santa barbara. my question is i reviewed the constitution and i believe it's given many opportunities for your grandparents and mine. but in america we have a tradition of common law where a lot can be changed and even our own constitution where theoretically it could be possible murder of one day be constitutional. how can the national law play a role in this increasing tendency in our culture? >> weld you have raised a big issue that would be the subject of another lengthy lecture. let me refer you to an article that i've written called the natural law traditional review in the constitution which is included in my book which is mentioned the clash of

orthodoxies. let me say this i don't think there is any serious question any historian will tell you that the concept was foundational to the american founding. people like madison and jefferson believed they were given effect in the positive constitution to the principles that obtained even apart from the status of positive law that they were principles of justice or natural rights that transcend the positive law and that it should do its best to follow and in corporate. that is a different question than the question of what should the judges look to in interpreting the positive law of the constitution. there i think the role of the judges to give us that understanding of the principles of the constitution that was the public understanding of the

principles when ratified. that's the truth in what justice scalia calls our regionalism. our original was a mystery to this if in constitutional the interpretation is treated as if it was an enemy of the idea of the natural law and opposed the view to the natural law tradition but i don't think that's true and i try to explain how it all works an article in the national law in the constitution and traditional refusal have a look at that and you can e-mail me if you have questions about it. >> jim from harvard university. i was wondering if you think it's possible or if people can cease to be maybe born here or born in american and lose faith in the creed and lose that. do they cease to be an american in a sense that you are referring to? >> will tell me you know there is the principle that we are not speak ill of the dead so i can't

talk about board of all right now there's an example of someone who seems to be starting one continues to be an american citizen of course. it's not that anyone citizenship should be revoked. but if such a person contributing to the maintenance of a culture of flourishing under the regime of constitutional government like ours, no. to the extent that one is attempting to erode those core understandings and believes in the basic principles of our republic one is doing harm, one is undermining the united states of america. so again, without trying to paint this as a matter of absolute i would say yeah, you're not a full american in

the fullest and most robust sense if you distain or denigrate or want nothing to do with or reject the basic tenets of the american creed, the principle that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with any legal rights and in the pursuit of happiness. ..

learn more about young america foundation. visit us on the web at www.yaf.org or call us at 1-800 u.s.a.-1776. we'll be back shortly. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] for those getting in, young america foundation is the principle outreach group for young conservative activist.

we ensure that young students are expose to the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, traditional values and free enterprise. we bring conservative speakers to campus and by putting on conferences like this. to find out more visit www.yaf.org. follow us on twitter and facebook too. i have the pleasure of introducing yin ma. she graduated from cornell university. she ran the -- sorry, the review. she went on to get a law degree from stanford law school. one of the greatest in the country. she is then in the '90s worked on racial and gender preferences in california. and she went on in 1998 to travel to china to talk about religious freedom. on a dell gracious that was appointed by bill clinton. she's well respect forked the writings and the research on the

important topics of china, free market, and international relation. her research is great. it's been featured in publications by the national review online, the "l.a. times," "the wall street journal" asia and the weekly standard. she wrote the, "chinese girl in the ghetto" while at hoover institution at stanford law school. if that wasn't enough, she practiced law in new york city. it was the first mainland china internet company to go on the nasdaq stock market. she served on the u.s.-china security review commission which determines implication of u.s. economic relations relations with china. she also serves on the counsel of foreign relations. she's an incriedble inspiration and young woman who shows hard work and piers sensor and incredible intelligence can make you go anywhere.

please give a warm welcome to yin ma. [applause] thank you. thank you so much. thank you, rachael for the kind introduction. it is always a pleasure, and an honor for me to stand mind the young america foundation podium. back in the days when i was in college, i worked closely with young america foundation to spring sweft speakers to campus. i firmly believed it then, as i do now, that higher learning works better with imejt yule diversity. ly always be grateful to the organization for bringing that diversity to my college campus as well as to college campuses across the country. i was very exited when i the invitation to speak to you

today. i thought of you guys over the weekend when i went to see a movie. it was a documentary about a very famous chinese political man/artist. his the movie describes how and why he challenges chinese authoritarianism. in the movie he said something that struck me. i don't have the exact yoat. he said something like once you know what freedom is, once you've gotten to know it, you can't go back. on so many levels he is right because we know well as men and women living here in the united states that are free that we would not stand for attempt to curtail or restrict our most fundamental political right and we certainly would resent any

government effort to tell us what to say or who to vote, and how to worship. but on another level, as free men and women, we have actually already willingly seeded much of the economic freedom. and this was not done. wasn't doesn't under occur res at the threat of torture or detainment, it wasn't done in any of the circumstance that political distents this man has to face every day in places like china. we have seeded a great deal of our economic freedom to our government because our government made promise the to us. it promised to take care of us and in return we accepted the offer. we opted as a result to limit our choices, and we settled for doing less for ourselves. so government promises to take care of us when we're poor.

we say, okay, because nobody wants to be poor. in this bargain, the government gives us welfare programs and we give it our dependent sei and programses even our pride and dignity. the government subsidizes us when we're old. and we do that because everybody wants to be taken care of when you're old. in the bargain, the government gives us medicare and social security. and we let it take away tax dollars we could better invest on our own. tax dollars that many of you will likely never see again. the government gives us promises to give us affordable health care. and we agree because we think that it would be great if hospital bills are on the expensive. in the bargain, the government gave us obamacare. in that exchange we threat impose a mandator, or according to justice john roberts a tax on

each of us to buy health care coverage whether we like it or not. what the government is doing is not illegal, we -- we are the ones who have given it the power to do for us at which we no longer wish to do for ourselves. in turn we have granted it a license to sap our initiatives and curtail our freedom of action. i wrote a book about freedom repeatedly, it is a politically memoir titled "chinese girl in the ghetto" it describes my family's journey of getting to know freedom to be the broke evens of inner city of oakland, california and let me say what an hon now it is for me to follow dr. robert george after that very inspiring talk about the immigration experience, and

i give credit to my host here for planning the programs so well to, you know, have an immigrant here following someone who just talked about the virtues of legal immigration. just last month, i was on radio talking about this book and talking about freedom and my host having read the book marveled at the fact that my family never actually received welfare benefits when we were in the ghetto. and i thought she gave me way too much credit. i wish i could say that we didn't receive welfare benefits because even back then i had dope convictions and that i this firm devotion to the idea of self-reliance and the free market. i can't say that. i mean, the real reason why my family never benefited from, you know, the huge number of welfare

programs that we have in the country we either didn't qualify for them, or didn't speak enough english to figure them out. we had to fight our way out of poverty the old l fashioned way. we worked. but i would be the first to tell you that i am not high and mighty to, you know, say no to free government money. and most of us are not. that, in fact, is part of the problem. the more benefits social welfare state promises us, the harder it is for us to say no. the more benefits we have receive, the more difficult it is for us to give them up. but there's no such thing as a fro lunch. i certainly don't have to tell you that because numerous other people speakers at the conference have already, you

know, told you that. our government, obviously, is spending money that it doesn't have, and it is spending money that you all have to repay. as we reealing -- more of our ability to charter our destiny. i think this is something that governor scott walker talked about so eloquently at the end of his speech during lunch. it is no accident that the people who want you to -- want to spend more money more of your money are mu of the government money that comes from your tax dollars, and these are the same people want to amass more debt. these people, president obama being the most prominent of them, having been telling you for the past four years that unless our government spends big

on big projects, that they believe in, this country will fall behind in the 21st century. in particular, they like the point to china and tell you that we will fall behind the chinese unless we spend big just like the chinese communism government does. well, unlike president obama, i was actually in china when the economic reforms first took off three decades ago. i was actually there during that time. i remember what it was like to live in a society where the free market had long been suppressed. i describe this in my book. i remember that when liberalization began in 1978 and lurched forward in the years that follow, there was something palpable in the air, it was the excitement of being able to buy goods on the open market rather

than using food stamps allocated to you by the state. it was the sense of liberation that you get from founding your own business, consigned to lifetime government assigned unemployment. it was the happiness of having positions that you never thought you could have, that you never even dreamt you could have, and it was the happiness of assuming responsibility for the most basic things in your life such as where to live, where to work, what to buy and for how much. and for the following three decades china's economy essentially took off. it grew at an annual average of approximately 10 percent. and it lifted that growth lifted over 700 million people out of poverty and vaulted company past japan as the second largest economy in the world. more recently china's economy has slowed.

it's second quarter gdp growth this year registered at 7.6%. that's below us. it's been since the financial crisis in 2009. yet, this is 7.6% is leaps and bounds better than the 1.5gdp growth we saw in this country for our economy from april to june this year. so president obama thinking that china's success has come from spending big on economic stimulants, infrastructure, and renewable energy, and his sporters think that if the republicans and the tea party activist would get out of president obama's way, if these people would just go away, then this country can dream about making big decisions that barack obama wants to make and spending big on the big projectings that barack obama wants to spend on. the reality is that china's

growth actually resulted from the introduction of more economic freedom not less. and even after three decades of jaw-dropping economic growth, a lot of state intervention in china continues to impede the progress of the economy, it continues to impose massive inefficiencies, and let me just give you some examples. the state sector continues to dominate the chinese economy today, and according to one congressional commission, the state directly or indirectly control approximately 50% of china's gdp. as of june of last year, state-owned firms in china made up about 80% of the country's domestic stock market. so imagine for a moment if 80% of the dow jones industrial average or the nasdaq market was

made up of state-owned firms. that's a dray matteddic number. meanwhile state firms in china enjoy a ride range of government benefits and preference. they get cheap loans from banks. they get heavy tax subsidizes. favorrism from regulators. free or cheap land. monopoly status. with all of the government preferences the state sector is not outperforming the private sector according to the world bank. more than one in every hour state owned enterprise in china actually lose money. on the other hand, the private sector has emerged as the most vibrant part of the chinese economy and serves as the largest force of growth for the country's export sector. when it comes to infrastructure spending, the kind of spending that just, you know, that barack obama just fantasized about,

many of china's infrastructure projects actually come at the cost that most americans would never tolerate. for one, most of what has been built certainly in the past couple of years appears at the mom to be downright use level. there are a lot of towns in the middle of nowhere with a lot of concrete and melt -- metal that few people use. additionally china has built the world's largest high speed rail system. that's another thing that barack obama fantasized about. he shares the fainted sighs with us and tells how much america needs high speed rails, and how much we ought to look to china for inspiration. but china has built their $300 billion system with a great deal of cronyism, and crappy construction. repeatedly the former rail

minister someone who is widely seen as the architect of the high speed rail system in china he was kicked out of the communist party because, you know, well essentially he tooks lots of bribes given how rampant you to really, really have been, you know, have been big on corruption in order to get kicked out of the chinese communist party. at one point he also had 18 mistresses no doubt by the money he got from bribery. the infrastructure building that looks so good for the chinese economy also makes global and regional government officials in china look good. in many ways, they their performance is evaluated by how much and how fast they can promote gdp growth, and because infrastructure building does so much for gdp growth on the

surface, many of these global and regional officials actually regular will cocollude roperty developers to grab te land for infrastructure development as well as just f patrol development in general without offering the villagers compensation. unfortunately, it is the chinese people who bear the brunt of the system in which the state intrudes all the time in the marketplace. private firms in china find it harder to access capital, they find it more expensive to access capital and find it harder to compete with state owned firms that get government preferences. when state-owned firms get into the real estate market with all the money they have, they end up driving up prices for regular chinese citizens. it's the chinese citizens who have to cope with realistic prices and stratosphere. when the government unlearns a

torrent of state bank lending, for instance, that was actually how china got out of the financial crisis recently, where as, a lot of other countries borrowed, china unlearned the credit bench through the state-owned banks. that deal with a create deal of inflation. the chinese people had to pay more in a marketplace where prices kept on going up. regardless, the chinese economic took off and it took off in the past three decades because the can-do attitude and the entrepreneurial spirit of the chinese people. it came about, thanks to every man and woman who worked hard, learned new skills, founded new businesses, and took risks. of course, if they lived in this country, president obama would tell them, you didn't build

that! but instead, what he is telling us is just that the chinese state built much of china's success. we ought to imlate it. his supporters tell us that china does 23409 -- not suffer from america's democratic grid locke. they don't have a tea party or opposition party who would stand in the way of their grand plans. so this november, every american has a decision to make, you know, in this country where people constantly complain with cannot make big decisions. we have a big decision to make, it's the decision that china actually does not allow the citizens to make regarding their leaders. we get to decide who our political leaders are going to be, most importantly who our next president is going to be. we must decide whether to continue to feed our freedoms to

the government or not. we continue to let president obama promise to run our economy and take care of us through big government or will we choose a freer market marketplace? we know that even without the act to exercise their political franchise, the chinese citizens have chosen economic freedom every time they have been give the chance. the man in the movie over the weekend is right, once you're a free man or a free woman, you can't go back. so as three men -- free men and women living in america. we have to choose the path that requires and allows us to make more of our own decisions. it's our choice, and hopefully we will choose to take back the economic freedoms that we have relinquished to the state. thank you. i'll take any questions you may have. [applause]

we'll start on the side. >> hi, nathan from hillsdale college. i was wondering what your take on the chen guangcheng and the barack obama administration reacted from his house arrest and escaped to u.s. embassy and the time here in new york city and the d.c. how the administration has taken it and your reaction. >> the administration certainly has gotten a fair amount of bad press for it. i think it did it to itself. when it changed officer, the administration made it very clear it was going on the ungeorge w. bush. it would do the the opposite of everything that george did. one of the things that president

bush did was promote and advocate for political disdense everywhere. the obama administration was the one responsible for giving the impression to the world that it didn't care about the issues. i think there's more rhetoric to that than substance, but regardless, it kind of, you know, it kind of did itself it. when chen guangcheng came along, i think in the beginning, there was a fair amount of confusion. he himself was fairly confused. two, he was under a tremendous amount of pressure when he escaped to the embassy. and keep in mind that he is blind. so, you know, he i think -- no doubt would be much more stressed out than, you know, the rest of us might be in a very stressful situation like that. i think what had happened is they actually crafted the deal according to his wishes. he had a lawyer who is a professor at nyu he asked for which the embassy staff in bay

shinning did that for him. they asked him what he wanted and in the end, you know, everybody thought they crafted an arraignment they thought chen guangcheng wanted. at the time chen guangcheng made it clear he wanted to stay in china. he didn't want to become irrelevant by just coming here because a lot of local distents here in america are forgotten in their home country. he would stay in china and go to law school and continue the fight. the deal quickly unraveled as he left the embassy. you know, part of it was that the embassy staff didn't handle it as well as they could have. they didn't stay with him in the hospital especially after he learned what the government had done to some of the friends and relative. he a change of mind. i don't -- and i don't think i

would give them the benefit of the doubt without knowing all the details all the inside negotiations. when mr. chen guangcheng changed his mind extract him out of china i'm glad he's here. i think that in the beginning, i don't think we did not pressure him to stay in china. he was the one who wanted to stay there. so he's no longer being detained and threatened over there. >> my name is christopher. [inaudible] my question is i have a lot of chinese friends and immigrating to the united states -- what is the obama administration's love affair with china. the policies and why -- [inaudible] regardless to the education that

they are ahead on. what is the policy ? >> i'm not sure i would call it alive affair. i think obama wishes he would make decisions with the kind of speed and authority that the chinese government discuss. i think he fantasized about implementing this big project they can implement without, you know, any accountability to the people. he knows he has to go through the election cycle and democrats and congress too do too. people in china don't have to do that. they can make decisions at lot faster. i think that there are a lot of issues that the administration has actually disagreed with the chinese on. for instance, it's been more hawkish on trade issues where china compared to the bush administration simply because democrats oftentimes tend to be less profree trade, and so the obama administration has, you

know, taken the chinese to task on various trade disputes. i think on the love affair that you're talking about, i suspected it's what i was referring to many my talk which is that the obama administration so eni have use of what's happening in china. for a lot of liberals they are naturally inclined to believe in big government. there is no bigger government that appears to work okay than china. if you look at russia, the big government doesn't seem to be producing the kind of economic growth that china is, and, you know, and then china is constantly working on the big projects that liberals are in love with, you know, renewable energy, high speed rail, infrastructure spending, lots of economic stimlymph. it just sets the fantasyings on fire. and i think it -- barack obama would love to be able to do they do. he can't. he complains about it.

yes? >> ben smith, university of north carolina chapel hill. the past semester, i had a class on modern asia history which covers, china, japan, and korea. one of the things we debated about which was the final was a debate over the future of china, and one of the questions i had for you, what do you see the future of china? will they continue to have a power on state controlled things? or do you think the people will rise up and overcome the government they have there? >> it's hard to say. i think we can looked at this on a couple of different levels. one is on the economic front. there is a raging battle going on in china between the state and the free market. there's battle there just as there's a battle here economic reform has taken place and kind of proceeded for the last three

decades or so but in the past five years or so and certainly since the financial crisis, a lot of reform-minded people have seen the economy take a much more active roll role in the economy and people are beginning to see the state sort of coming back with a war and thing there a lot of people in china that would like to fight back against that and free market reformers would like to see the continuation of opening the chinese market domestically to private enterprises as well as internationally to foreign companies. it's going to be a hard process. on the political front, it's a lot trickier simply because the chinese government allows far less political freedom than it does economic freedom. in fact, it resuppresses

political freedom. you're not going to be able to separate the two. even though the chinese government has made every attempt and has been relatively successful at separating the two so far. it has promises the citizens you can make as much money as you want as long as you don't criticize us, rebel, form opposition parties. as soon as you do any of those things, we'll lock you up. the problem is that political accountability goes a long way to creating a workable free market society. you can't have a truly functioning free market unless in the long run you have the rule of law, you also have traps parent sei and those things off times come from political accountability to in the country, oftentimes, you know, that comes from elections it also comes from having the judiciary be a separate brunch, you branch, you know, checks and

balances. the elements are not quite there in china. it comes a point where you have to -- in fact, i was in china last year and folk a very promarket preformers who ask a government official and he said ultimately the contradiction you see in china they are ultimately political contradictions because you can't get away from the two, you know, argue against the chinese government going to ultimate matily relinquish the control on the economy? communism is all about control. if you're trying to control the political aspect, there are all kinds of things on the economic aspect you're probably going to be unwilling to let go. unwilling to let go of state-owned enterprises that employ a lot of people. you don't want massive unemployment. if there is massive unemployment, the people might be in the street process testing against the political -- your political stances or practices.

i think ultimately the -- i would say that ultimately the contradictions will have to work themselves out. it won't be through violent means, i hope. i give credit to the chinese government for doing a lot to reform within over the years, it has tried to promote grandmother who are competent. it has tried to promote people who are well educated and tech any carats. but, you know, ultimately the party is above everything else. in the system like that you don't have accountability and down the road, that's going to be a huge problem for political and economic reform. [inaudible] bryan from london. mitt romney seems to take a hard line on china. i think he labeled them as manipulate them. for those the free trade europe. whether it's true or not, you know, it suggested there might

be implication in terms of, you know, overt protectionism or trade wars between countries obviously a free -- are we sort of right to be worried about that? >> yes and no. i do wonder whether governor romney would declare china a currency manipulator as soon as he gets into officer. he has few other things. he's supposed to repeal obamacare the first day he's in officer. [applause] , i mean, and i certainly hope he gets to that first. on the trades issue and the currency issue, he certainly talks tough and lot of other presidents both dhm and republican have talked tough during the campaign season about china, you know, bill clinton has done it. george w. bush has done it. once they are in office they tended to take a more nuanced

view. we'll have to wait and see what governor romney does. but i -- i don't know him. i wouldn't pretended i have any insight knowledge of what he's thinking. one thing i would say is that the chinese currency has actually appreciated quite a bit in recent years so, you know, the united states has exerted a great deal on pressure of china to let the their currency slip a little bit more rather than being pegged. it still is pegged to the dplar, but these days compared to some years ago, it certainly appreciates. since 2005, the chinese currency has appreciated over 30 percent. that's not exactly a small number. so progress has been made on this front at one point in 2007,

i think or so china's account surplice was a part of the gdp. a lot of people use that to argue that china's currency was undervalued. today's -- it's smaller part of the gdp. chinese leaders say that, you know, the movement of their currency has actually reached an equal libyan. our elected fishes in congress would agree. case they make today is weaker than it would have been in '05, '06, or '07. but i certainly -- i am inclined to believe that romney hasn't been a successful businessman would stand on the side of free trade when he is elected to office. >> hillsdale college.

what action will be taken if the china invades taiwan? >> our official policy is something called strategic ambiguity. [laughter] according to the u.s. government, we don't, you know, we're not going to tell you. i don't represent the u.s. government. what they have said ever since i guess 1979 or so is that, you know, we're going leave it ambiguous. it's part of the decisions and the call lymph that we're going make to try to defer an attack on taiwan. certainly i think it depends in part how the attack will occur, but it's very hard to imagine that if china invades taiwan the u.s. would stand idly by. >> i had name is math.

i am going to california university. we passed the legislation for high speed rail for california from sphrifng to los angeles. the state tuition has been increasing $200 every semester. how quickly is going bankrupt the state and further what can we do to get in our way of continuing the legislation? >> it's kind of funny but it's not. you know, because it's high speed rail going from nowhere to nowhere really. if i remember correctly, it's from bakersfield to fresno. i hope in is no one there from there. it's going from nowhere to nowhere. it's going to be extremely expensive.

california is full of people who love these kinds of people and governor jerry browne has been talking about it for a long time longer than the president obama has in terms of how you can stop it. i think the key is the citizens have to raise their voices. i don't think it's necessarily a democrat or republican issue. it's an issue of our state not having that kind of money, you know, we can't possibly go on spending money we don't have, and this harkins back to governor scott walker said earlier. and i think whatever the party affiliation of people in california whatever their party afghanistans are, i think we have a huge budget crisis. but californians have always -- i'm from california and californians seem to love the projects that spend a lot of money. i have a lot of regulations high income taxes, we don't seem to

understand those things actually cost our economy, our state economy quite a bit. so i guess, you know, the only thing that we can do specific keep plugging away and keep showing the evidence that things don't work and has to come from the people, and, you know, the people will have to get involved and do their best to deter any more idtic action from the state. [inaudible] graduated from hillsdale college three years ago. i wanted to ask you a few comments on an argument. i can't remember the name of the publication. i saw the argument in. it's a question about the source of the chinese government wealth. [inaudible]

the argument is that money is coming from come sphrg central bank which are themselves getting their money by essential -- essentially cheating the growing middle class who have very few avenues for investment. the families which had only one child, the second generation have one child, one child supporting four grandparents. they can no longer depend on the children they have to invest. and the investments are limit. you have property, life insurance policy, and savings account. because of the monopoly for banks, it's common for banks to return negative interest rates to . >> real interest rates.

>> yes. the saving account. >> the chinese people are -- [inaudible] >> yes. but there's no other way to say it. it's the best they can do. people are being cheated out which is funding the state how accurate is an assessment and how stable is that situation? you're describing financial repression. it's something that the government does. essentially, the government because much of the banking sectors dominatedded by stateback banks and banks set the interest rate for deposit. you go to the bank and get a cd. the deposit instead in china is extremely low and oftentimes it's lower than the rate of

inflation -- if you put your money in a bank in china you often end up getting negative real interest rate back, and, you know, and what happens is that the chinese people who get a raw deal out of this, and meanwhile, you know, chinese citizens tend to save a lot more than american citizens. we consume way more than we ought to. they save a lot. and when the financial repression was put into place chinese people ended up saving more because they knew that oh my gosh, because the interest rate, the real interest rate is actually negative. as a result they had ended up putting more money. i think as a result there has been efforted by people to find other vehicles to invest their money. property is one of those avenue news and it's one of the

property market in china has become the huge bubble. but, you know, but the massive savings that the chinese citizens puts into these state banks ends up funding state initiatives and because the state banks lend to state-owned enterprises a lot, oftentimes they lend to state-owned enterprises at the direction of the government for big projects that the government deems to be important. so it is really the, you know, blood, sweeted, and tears of the chinese people who go into funding the project. i wouldn't say it's the case all across the board. even state-owned imroizs care about making money. and they have become more corporatized than they were during the mall years. they are structured very differently. they do take orders from the state. many of the top officials officials are high level communist members and, you know,

oftentimes you can have the communist government order one go from one quite state-owned enterprise to become a competing ceo of a state-owned imroiz. it would be a bit like one day the government ordered the ceo of jury charge -- jpmorgan to become the ceo of goldman sacs. the things have happened in the chinese economy because the intimate links between the state and private sec sector. this is what happens and, you know, this is how a lot of -- this is how many of china's foreign investments are funded. how the current reserves get so beefed up. i think they recognize the problem, i mean, the economy is also, you know, the consensus is that the economy will slow some people think it'll slow more rapidly than others.

regardless when the economy stops growing so quickly, i think you know what the government wants to do is encourage citizens to spend more -- you know, there's a question of how successful they can be. with that initiative but if in fact they can encourage chinese citizens to spend more than, you know, less of the money will go into the state banks. >> hi how many of a china owning a u.s. debt a significant portion of it handcuff the u.s. government from being more aggressive in the foreign policy towards china. >> well, ab the the moment the chinese don't have anywhere else to put it. they don't like the idea they have so much debt sitting in u.s. -- they have so much money sitting in u.s. treasuries and, you know, they don't like the

fact that we're printing paper money left and right because it devalues them so one reason why they've been very eager to find other investment opportunities, for instance the sovereign wealth funds is investing in, you know, buying companies or investing in other things not just u.s. treasuries. they are -- you know, i mean, what they would like to do is invest less of their currency in the u.s. for us, i think, it's certainly a factor. i don't, i mean, i think in the immediate future we know the chips don't have anywhere else to put their money. but, you you know what we ought to think about more is not god for us to keep borrowing not so much because it's bad for china. but because it's bad for us.

we can't constantly go. we can't go on spending all this money that we don't have, and, you know, at certain point. for instance, you know, there was a question earlier about the currency rate. if china's curres a lot more, i mean, there is a chance that them pulling back, that, you know, that from the market might actually effect our credit market because right now we get a lot of cheap credit as a result of the financial relationship that we have with china. and that, you know, at some point, we're going to have to be careful what we wish for because, you know, you've been so happy with so interest rates. so i think on this question i think it's more important for us to figure out ways to stop printing the paper money and find a way to actually get our

own economic house in order. [inaudible] fellow cornell person. i read your book, i found it to be eye-opening. i was wondering for you could tell us your experience in china and what made you become active. >> it's great to see another cornell person. i'm a huge fan of cornell. i got involved with the cornell review because, i guess, on one of my first days on campus, i went to a student activity there and picked up an issue, and i read a number of the articles and i -- i just thought they were excellent. we had some -- during my freshman year we had a number of seniors there. we a number of seniors and juniors who were incredible writers. at the time, i didn't

necessarily as a conservative. i wasn't registered as a republican. i was very inspired by all they had, you know, all they wrote and i got involved and because there was a small group of people who actually devoted their time to, you know, to conservative ideas on the cornell campus. i quickly ended up with more and more responsibility so i think during my second week on the paper, i became the vice president, and so it was very flattering but it was also, i think, a very, you know, it was a very clever way of, i guess, you know, recruiting people. you give them the fancy title and lots of things to do. during my four years at cornell, i was involved with a paper.

i very much enjoyed it. i thought that debating conservative ideas was, you know, crucial to, you know, to the, you know, my college learning experience as i said at the beginning of my talk. i very much enjoyed working with the young america frown -- foundation. i think that ultimately i became more and more involved because i think that the ideas were more compelling. i think that if let the idea and the facts speak for themselves then, you know, the idea and the facts make a convincing case and, you know, and i think it is on our side. so i continued to be involved in one way or another over the years. cornell was where it all got started.

[inaudible] >> we have seen investment in africa and some of the elements of the media primary liberals -- [inaudible] >> i think they want to make some money [laughter] , you know, they need the resources. they certainly need the resources and so they're going all over the world for the resources not just in africa but southeast asia as well as latin america. i don't, i mean, i think when the chinese companies especially the big oil companies go overseas i don't think they're doing it for altruism. this is definitely a strategic component because the country needs the resources for its economic development. but i often don't think that the big oil companies are going

overseas with the intention of losing money. you know, they are incentives they are economic incentives are distorted compared to private sector, you know, companies from elsewhere because these chinese oil companies or other, you know, big companies that deal in commodities, for instance, a mining dmean deals alumni anymore for instance. they get so much more funding from state. billions of dollars that oftentimes other they are rivals from other countries don't necessarily get. so they don't have the kind of corporate social responsibility guidelines that american or european companies follow. the chinese government are also oftentimes on good terms with what we hear in the u.s. are considered to be rogue regimes. you know, because they are the

chinese government is much less picky about who it becomes friends with. we oftentimes insist that our friends abide by certain set of human rights values. the chinese government is a lot less picky about that. ultimately, i think the sort of the effort to go out and find resources is driven in part by the needs for those resources in part by, you know, their interest to to make the money. >> hi. i'm ray from santa barbara. i read an article from the "the wall street journal" a couple of months ago that the education system is a double-edge sword. there are so many educated chinese adults. -- it is a mixed number and the number of educated has outpaced the number of mens that they could -- how do you think that

increasing rise in china will feature the communist part there ? >> well, certainly more education is always better than less education in terms of how it affects the communist party. .. ..

the most sought after positions in china are probably positions that were microsoft or apple or in fact in these days there are actually some positions that state-owned enterprises particularly those that have a huge amount of money and are enlisted either domestically for foreign stock exchange. some of the well funded state enterprises get out excellent benefits and are extremely competitive people are educated, don't necessarily think the communist party will is what morally bankrupt at this point

that provided states for citizens to do things the economic and financial and perhaps social but wouldn't provide citizens to do things to our political and so i think a lot of people's political ambitions have been curtailed accordingly as a result of the bargain and people become more educated and become better off are they going to continue to put up with the kind of political repression that the institutes and its a difficult question to answer simply because the state isn't just going to sit there and take it it's going to do all kind of things to bolster and strengthen its role. it will reform internally and will also suppress what where necessary. it's going to deploy a combination of tactics and strategies and it's not free to be so clear-cut what's going to

happen but i think that as a society becomes wealthier and as people become more educated and become better informed of the pressures for reform definitely will increase in the beginning man of necessarily be immediate calls for elections or any fundamental reforms people might be calling for transparency and accountability. so and, as i referred to earlier in my remarks, you know, when you watch about him he doesn't really talk about what we want the right to vote or anything like that. a lot of times in the actions he takes a lot of other people take they just want more transparency, they want more accountability and they want a government that is less corrupt and so i think those kind of pressures weld recently built

up. thank you. [applause] >> thank you all. if thank you. wasn't she great. she makes me feel awesome to be an american. i love it. we are going to take a short break. there's cookies and pop in the corner not there and we will be right back. [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] in the america's foundation the 34th and annual student conference that's taking a break here should resume shortly. we just heard from the author and visiting fellow at the hoover institution on u.s.-china relations from a conservative perspective. if you missed any of that you can go online and find it at c-span.org/videolibrary. coming up and probably just a few minutes here, kirby wilbur,

washington state's gop chair and he's going to be talking about general youth oriented conservative movements. the introduction is going to be from jolie stuart davis, the young america's foundation's herman interim scholar and again should be resuming shortly at the young america's foundation 34th annual national conservative student conference.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] people are just joining at home in america's foundation as committed to educating young people on the values of individual freedom, free enterprise, a strong national defense and traditional values.

as the principal average organization and of a conservative movement, the foundation accomplishes its mission by providing the is central conferences, seminars, internships and opportunities to bring a conservative superstar to speak at your campus. to learn more about the foundation, please visit online at www.yaf.org. our next speaker, kirby wilbur is currently the chairman of the washington state gop. although born in washington, d.c., kirby moved to seattle of the ages eight and spent the majority of his life living in the evergreen state. 16 years kirby house of the popular morning drive broadcasting seattle from the last 12 years he's american and world history and american government and economics and several home-schooled co-ops. he's a member of the board of directors for america's foundation, the second amendment foundation, the american

conservative union and citizens united. he's also an isasi official still college and serves on the civil service commission of his home town of deval he's been involved in politics for over 35 years and has bombs in leadership positions. his career on fox news, c-span, fox business channel and many other network news stations. he has received numerous awards from a family and the law enforcement, charitable and political organizations and kirby has a resume that speaks for itself but on a personal note, kirby was the speaker that introduced me to the conservative movement. he's been an inspiration for me to become an activist and get involved in my campus. i admire him greatly and i think him and the foundation for changing my life. please join me in welcoming kirby wilbur. [applause]

i know it's late and you're tired still standing. she didn't tell me i would be the last speaker. between ying ma you've had some great speakers have you not? yes you have great speakers. have you had a great time at this conference? have you learned anything? i want to talk up the issue of the country and the separation of church and state its late and i just a quick joke to make sure you are all alive. i live in the northwest but it's liberal out there and. he's walking in the woods and the birds are singing and the sky is blue and the wind is blowing. he lands and the bares eat lunch

and the farmer starts running end of the baron's after him and he trips on something on the trail and falls over and the bear is about to swat him. my god. the wind stops blowing from the creek stops blowing, the wind isn't blowing, the birds start singing and he says yes, my son. he says who are you? i'm god. you call on me. what you want? i'm busy. well, i don't even really believe he exists. well, come on. what do you want? i don't want to get eaten. what do you want me to do about it would you like to become a christian? he says i can't. i went to college to be an atheist. i believe you exist but how

about if you make the bear a christian? god finally says as you wish, let it be done. and the birds start singing and the wind is blowing in the tabare brings his paul down and says der god bless me this kneal i am about to receive. [laughter] [applause] what you asked for. by the way can we have a hand for the staff? haven't they done a great job? have they not? let's talk about wall of separation between church and state and of the biggest in american history and i want to kind of switch into some things that ying ma talked about and dr. george. i'm glad this is the last topic. we are going to talk a little bit about american exceptional was some that makes us a great country. you know the establishment of a church in the 18th-century meant specifically that a particular the denomination received

support from the state government which means if this was a colony of kirby and the 18th century we succeeded from virginia and we have the anglicans their and the jews are down here you are all free to go wherever what else house of worship you want but you all pay tax to support the church of kirby. what ever that established the nomination was. mellon england you have the church of england for our british friends and france you have the revolution and the church in virginia with the anglican church and the northern provinces it was the congregational as church and then at the time of the declaration of independence from the mother country there were nine that had the established churches. that just meant to pay a tax to support that particular denomination. let's say you pay the clergy and buy the land. you are free to go to whatever church he want to. what the founders are talking

about in the first amendment and what george evans didn't understand about all of separation is that the founders did not want a church of america the same way that there was a church of england. they didn't care the states established the church they didn't want a national church. madison's first draft of the amendment in the congress said simply no national religion shall be established which meant that there would be no anglican church or presbyterian church or conversationalist church getting federal money to aid was changed in committee as things are often changed congress shall pass no law established in the religion. the congress isn't going to support a national church. that's all that says. there is no room for god and the public square. it doesn't say that christians can't be in politics. it says nothing. you can't say a prayer before a football game. it doesn't say that at all.

there will be no national church. jefferson's letter has been really misinterpreted. you read the letter and i urge you to read the letter because jefferson when he was elected in 1800 was to be a friend of religious disestablishmentarian as some. you heard the word disestablishmentarian as some. it comes from this time in history where there removes to disestablish the store will shut its churches and allow no state money to go to any church. it wasn't and i christian, not antifaith. it was anti-government. to favor the churches. when jefferson was elected in 1800 he got a letter from a group of baptists in danbury connecticut that said think the lord you got elected. now we don't have to pay taxes on the garnik congregational lists. we are baptist we don't like to pay them. can you help us? and she emphasized the point they delivered a four and a half foot wheel of cheese to the white house which they assured mr. jefferson was made only with

milk from republican cows because jefferson was a republican by the way and the congregational lists for finalists and the baptists were republicans so there was politics involved as well. so there's four and have achieved which had been moving for months so you can imagine what it would have smelled like and jefferson says i'm going to write a letter to respond to this. and jefferson's letter simply says read it. our congress, our national was later, he puts it, is very wide and a stylish in the long separation between church and the state. and he said our national legislature meaning on the national level. he goes on to say i really can't do anything about the states do because i believe in the tenth amendment and the first amendment doesn't give me the power and so you are kind of stock having to pay taxes for the congregational lists of your a baptist. just read the whole letter. the people of faith have their own little quarter or that we support in secular republika but

states has no place at all in the public realm she doesn't mean that. you just have to read the letter. i'm willing to bet if you went out on the streets of the city and asked 100 people the separation between church and state in the constitution you'd probably get 70% what they ask. it's in the letter jefferson road after the cheese to the baptists of connecticut. it doesn't say what they said. i think it's important to understand that our founders were men with a few women, ladies you were not quite voting yet but they were involved in the movement and were declared independent and thought you guys we can debate that leader but we declared independent. these men and women were of faith. people of christian faith.

you can go to the direct sources and historians. daniel who was a former librarian of congress and a very famous american historian said this about the colony of virginia. the colony of virginia, my home state, i was actually born here in george washington university and was a virginian, not a washingtonian. they declared independence two months before american debt on may 15th, 1776. they called the convention in williamsburg and declared their independence. there were 100 delegates in that convention. 97 were elders in their church. 97 were elders in their church out of 100. "it is hard to name a leader in virginia of the revolution so it's not securely in the anglican church. fer in virginia devotion to the english church nourished that reverence for the english constitution and for the traditional act as englishmen

which inspired the revolution. there is no paradox in the fact that leaders of virginia were and that the same virginians led the revolution. you see the same thing in new england and massachusetts where the clergy every sunday with preach about the tyranny of the christian duty to rebel knew he would write to replace a tyrannical government with a new government. in fact in 1774 averitt to the authorities in london, quote it flows from the pulpits. sedition flows from the pulpits and they also heard every sunday about the need to change the independence. david hackett fischer another pulitzer prize-winning historian they consider themselves the new puritans unquote to overcome

them there are men of faith. the rules of the war that talks with continental congress, jan 38, 1775. call for the provision to the continental army the paying of them and recommended the holding of the devine services twice a day not services to gaith are indian or asian or african by these are defined services around jesus christ. punishment was provided by those that believe in decently or irreverent lee during the service. now the navy adopted their roles in november 28, 1775 and these rules of war commanders were to hold the services price a day and specifically the commander of the shift punishment was a loud and provided for those this for on the ship.

i just point this out to suggest these people state as a part of their daily lives the right into the bowels of the war if they feel that there is a province over them guiding them in the mission i will get to that more in a moment because there are three specific areas that would get to reinforce this idea. first is the view of the founders of america as the new israel. second, i think we need to look to the wording of the declaration of independence and to a kind of god they envisioned in the declaration and we can just read that gentleman's church over here. every fourth of july when we set off fireworks celebrating our independence from our british cousins, and then the third thing -- [laughter] you get to come with us by the way. if everything is i think when you look at the rules of the virtues because as much as we talk about liberty and freedom,

our founders thought a lot about virtue and the need and the rule of virtue in self-government. now of course the use the phrase city on a hill as early 1630 and the sermon coming over to boston we of the great awakening of the 1730 is in 1740's this notion is reinforced america was a special nation picked by god. the thomas jefferson in 1776 was asked along with writing the declaration the idea for the national seal. his idea was moses to the promised land. walter mcdougall, another pulitzer prize-winning historian has written in his book i cannot remember the evidence of the columnist believe america was the holy land set apart it has to be trite.

our founders believe in american exceptional is a miserly rastus 17 thirties and in fact as early as the 1630's except it goes throughout the point of writing a holy land, the new israel that is what they saw america as being. we look at the declaration of independence got his mentioned least four times in the declaration. holly is got mentioned? first he is mentioned as a lawmaker and nature is not so got makes the law. he is a the creator. all men are created equal so he provided all for us and wants the supreme judge of the world. the supreme judge of the world. in judgment upon the world also a protector. because of the end they ask for the reliance and protection of divine providence. so goddess' protector, god is the creator, god is the judge

and for regular. if these men were ds and the guests this definition of god or from the documents doesn't fit the idea that the watchmaker ends up below and then lets it go to do something else in his spare time. this is the guy that intervenes in the world and answers prayer and who created you. this is the god they gave you your rights and that is going to judge the world monday. this is the god that gives us our law and to protect sauce. so this is not as they would suggest the worship. this isn't to say all of the founders are orthodox christians. i don't think jefferson was an orthodox christian. many of the founders just regarded things like miracles and the trinity, they rejected a

lot of christianity. i suspect some did not as much as we think and we always focus on people like thomas paine even ben franklin when maybe we should focus more on this 97 out of 100 men and williamsburg who were elders in their church. they probably have more impact ultimately than people like jefferson franklin. let's just look at the top founders. jefferson is the one the wrote about the creator and the protector and the judge. that's his language. he may not be but he's certainly adopted the judeo-christian world view. he adopted the view of god that jews and christians have. the judge, protector and creator i think there is a view, there is a clue to what these men saw. it may not be the christian god that jefferson specifically refers to but in line with the christian world view and that

played the all important role in the creation of his country. john page virginia statesman and a cost of jefferson of williams and mary wrote two weeks after the declaration he wrote this because he received the declaration a lot of americans were excited and convinced. a lot more interest and excitement about the declaration john roach this trip we know the race is not for the swift or the bottles of the strong. do you not think an angel cries to the ball went and directs this storm? they do not believe we have divine guidance and province helping us and the race doesn't always go to the swift or the strong. do not think an angel in the whirlwind and directs this? and bring to talk about the will of virtue and self-government as an important side of the coin we always talk about liberty and freedom. they will tell me what to do and

how we are going to do before we want. some people take an extreme and legalize everything and have the right to tell me what to do. but there is another side to self-government. that is the idea of virtue to behavior. how do you believe in a society the founders were warned of this? they were smart man, they were historian at they looked at 5,000 years of recorded history that we have and they saw there is no self-governing republic for society that lasted for a decent period of time throughout history. they all felt that corruption, they fell to the external invasion. in the absence why is it that self-government hasn't caught fire yet? what is unique about america why should we even try this. they talk about an experiment churchill, not churchill,

franklin report blease at to a woman outside dr. franklin what have we given up and he reportedly said the republic if you can keep that. the founders had doubts. but if you read the writing you will see they talk about virtue as much as they do liberty because good behavior is dependent on self government is dependent on good behavior. how are you going to govern yourself? they understood people want to order and liberty but if you live in a society people think freedom means rape, pillage, stealing, killing, the people demand order and the government will be big and tyrannical and you lose your freedom. the understood that. if you look at the 5,000 years of recorded history as a ruler to think of it as it will comptroller. it is only the last less than half an inch of these 5,000

years that we have had successful self-government. the first 11 and a half inches life was the same for all of you. most of you would be farmers and would live in the village or your parents land. the kids came to the village come in your chances of moving up or nil. you had the rich and the oble, you have everybody else. and you might be a blacksmith, you might learn a little bit of medicine but your chaes of moving up and prospering were pretty low that was true from ancient greek in ancient rome may be to europe. but what happened in 1776 showing the government was possible and what we've done and prosperity and in terms of benefiting everyone and offend the wealth of nations as well as the declaration of independence

it was america that led the world. capitalism and wealth and prosperity. the founders said they can't do that without virtue because you must beat yourself. you must regulate your own behavior. ed lambert said rightly so the more change you have on the inside the less change you will need on the inside. as of the founders wrestled with this issue how do we regulate ourselves? how we regulate our reviewer? do we have a vote? everyone that thinks we should treat our business partners say aye would everybody that thinks we should kill people, no spirit of course not that's not the u.s. doubles the moral code is your faith as a moral code. the founders understood that christianity was a good factor, had a positive impact on virtue. john adams -- just think of what they're saying. john adams wrote we have no

government formed with power of human passions on bridled by morality and religion. our constitution is made for only the moral and religious people they hope to maintain your passions so you can live with your neighbor and we can live in freedom and liberty. jefferson the liberties are thought secure and we have removed their only firm basis a conviction of the mind of the people and these liberties are the left of god. if you think the state gave you your freedom if you think that people give you your freedom they can be gone tomorrow. door liberties are a gift from god and from what we give this left how to use at to speculate for liberty is religion and

morality alone to establish the principles upon which freakin' can securely stand. there has to be a religious and moral basis to the society for the government to work. benjamin rush the only foundation for the education and a republican is to be waived and religion. without this there can be no virtue in without virtue no liberty. if you cannot regulate your own behavior the state will in the liberty will buy. hamilton, the politician knows that four of the overthrown and morality must fall without religion can alone curb the passions of man and confined him when the bonds of social duty. so we don't of religion, you have tierney the alternative to force you to behave. the founders understood without

doubt and without anyone else contesting it that we are following. we are sinful, we are in a perfect. and this is the difference between our revolution which i don't really think was a revolution of was the war of independence and the french revolution which was a godless attempt by men who do not understand to provide a perfect society when hundred thousand dead then they have to live in france. we got to under 60 years of self-government. all of the revolutions, the russian revolution, the chinese revolution start out to remake man have fulfilled and abroad about worst results. hamilton here says the politician knows that with no braudy it is only despotism that can make you behave. the same thing with benjamin rush to read john dickinson kings and parliament's can't give the right to happiness. we claim them from a higher

source to the king of kings and the lord of all the earth. again, where do the rights come? they come from god. john adams again. the bible contains the most profound philosophy of the most perfect raleigh and the most refined policy ever conceived on earth is the most republican but in the world. republican small are by the way. the most republican -- they met by republicans of government so what adams is saying is if you want a code to live by to bring the government is in the the bible to read to give to charity and treat each other with respect and if you self-government you have to live this way. tierney and despotism will show you how to live. washington of course of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity religion and morality are indispensable supports.

supports of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are going to be in those forces. the religious cult, the moral code for people to be self-governing and we see it in our own country as things fell apart and they don't go like they should they feel violate our moral code of the state grows in power. we don't take care of one another with of the welfare state. remember the good samaritan? the good samaritan comes up the road and find the man that is loved. everyone else walking by keeping sinnott and takes into the town and goes to the innkeeper and says she is my money. take care of him and if it is not enough i will pay you back. he didn't sit on them off the welfare office. he didn't lobby the senate for more welfare. he accepted the responsibility to care for another man in need.

i think you'll find if you look at the ear of the turn of the 19th and the 20th century is you are going to see as you look during that time in the early 1900's when the church moves to other things the state's growth because they have the responsibility to take care of people. you saw an explosion in the welfare state. does anyone think the government can really is fenster ready better than the state? the church or private organization? have you ever look to the reason is a summary for in the state programs an prisons and fellowship? the state can't preached morality. it shouldn't preached morality they say you did wrong because you made a wrong choice and if you don't change your heart you will be another criminal and keep coming back that is the publisher can do. people change their heart. people find religion who

sincerely find religion change the way don't go back to committing crimes. people decline the analysts or the consular to get them out of jail they come back. this is one last thing on this and then i will close and take your questions. my country does of the sweet land of liberty into the music from the famous english song making 32. have you heard the fourth stanza our fathers died to the author of liberty to fi leasing. long our land be bright with freedom fully light protect us by thy might breed dog our king. you cannot be escaped that colonial america was confused at every level with partisan christianity. this is what motivated people. they looked at it and realized that we had to live this way if

we wanted to be free. we had to have a moral code and this is where it was so it wasn't a matter of forcing everyone to be a christian to be a good american. it wasn't the matter of establishing church because they didn't want to establish the national church. they wanted to citizens to understand that we have to regulate our internal behavior and how we do that? they found a way to do that with the bible. now, the society we can change that any time. let's have a vote. let's change. there are other ways we can change that. the suggestion your history teachers and the books that you read in college if they have all this stuff jefferson separation church/state they are lying to you or they are ignorant and i don't mind if we change. that is up to us as a free people. but we should at least change knowing what was in the beginning. anderson and the motivation of the founding fathers and the connection that they saw the trend virtue and the dirty and

understand the link before we can just toss it away. we don't need that were before we lie about that and was never really there. does it was. our fathers have liberty 56 years after the declaration. our founding fathers believed this. america is a very exceptional country. exceptional for a lot of reasons you have heard this week. exceptional because we represent what i think washington calls the sacred fire of liberty. i think of that every time i see the symbol of the torch i was a member of the avalon and i remember that torch and it struck me the freeze by washington that sacred fire of liberty a gift from god that we in america were fortunate enough to fight for and starts out plain and be the example for people what can be done what

they free people can do in terms of productivity and prosperity and in terms of charity and benefiting everyone. there is no law or plus and middle class benefits and any other society like they do in the free market society. there is no where wealth is created for the free market society. but we showed that. again, in 1776 we of the declaration of independence political liberty and we have with the nation's published economic liberty. i don't think it is an acronym for those documents written in the same year because a was an awakening of people what we need for self-government and we saw it here. as ying ma mentioned and dr. george mentioned we don't see people dying to get into other countries. dr. george mentioned on the berlin wall the traffic goes one way. it's still one way. you go down to the board of mexico and we have different

opinions on immigration. i spent a night on the borders mexico on the border patrol and i arrested illegal immigrants. they surrendered. if they are not criminals pricking in the country if they are not bank robbers or racists or murderous what do they are going to come back the next day and when you ask them where you coming i saw a man named randall come over seven nights in a row. he got caught seven nights in a row and kept coming back so she's in the holding so we are about to put him in the school bus and taken back to tijuana to dump him off. what are you doing tomorrow night? i'm coming back. there is no hope, no liberty, no opportunity in the country. in america there is all of that. these people aren't crossing the border with welfare. they simply have no opportunity at home because mexico is such a screw up country that's controlled the top by very few

people and there isn't a hope of jobs there the average mexican history looking for his family and he sees it here. is that right? mo but we should recognize why they come here. they come here for the same reason most of your ancestors came. the camp for the very same reason, hope and opportunity, the chance to make a better life. business still is the city on a hill. it's still the sacred fire and debris for people throughout the world but that fire can go out very quickly and there is no guarantee we will have liberty and freedom here. there is no guarantee at all. it's not a matter of political party as a matter of principles and the things we believe in and the things we try to teach you and promote to here in the conference because you are the future, it's a cliche you are tired of hearing it but you are. you are the kirby wilbur and

scott walker interpol of the future running this nation long after ron and i are having wheelchair races in a nursing home. [laughter] okay? [applause] you're going to be here teaching the next generation about the ideas of freedom. these are internal ideas. we may lose them in the country they will always be there because they come from here and they come from their. man has a yearning for freedom of liberty when he talks to vehicle has the chance they will so it's up to you to keep these ideas alive. can't just come back and is a great conference i have a nice time and that people had a couple parties met scott walker my hero we need you to work. we need you to give a fight. an internal fight. ronald reagan said it's never more than one generation away from extension and that is true

here, too dewitt i will close with abraham lincoln. i was born in virginia but i can say this the president of the 19th century and lincoln in the middle of the summer of 1864 the war was going very badly. the last three weeks and lasted three years, hundreds of thousands dead the democrats screaming the war should be over. they want to cut off funding and they're running a peace candidate in the election. the war wasn't worth it, the union wasn't worth it. they haven't learned anything by the way. they still do those kind of things. but lincoln thought he was going to lose because there was no end to the war insight and he what to relieve his stress and get free time she would go to the station in washington back then a lot of truths for 90 days, 120 days, 180 days they would shift to washington and go to virginia

for most of the world was and then they would go home for a washington so they would go on the train station almost any day and see the troops to the august 20 if from 1864 he talks to them from ohio 106 for ohio on their way home and he says to things to them very fundamentally true that you need to remember. first thing he said was a gentleman, people don't understand what this war is about. they don't understand what is at stake. what is at stake is whether a juror children and my children shall enjoy the very same privileges and liberties that we have enjoyed as americans. isn't that what we are fighting for today? has at i spent our time fighting to make sure that our kids who are now your age or older have the same privilege? i have had a great life. my mom came over from poland they brought here here to have a better life and she didn't have

a great life compared to mine but compared to what it would have been in poland and then she fought i have a great life, a great job i get to talk to you and be on the board of this great organization has a great house, a great wife, the american dream first and my family to go to college. i've lived it. i have a few years left. laughter and [laughter] my concern now was whether you live with in my 25 year old and 30 year old son will live it. well they have the sanchez i had. it's based on you getting the generation a better life than you had and i choose -- i don't think that choice. when they say america is in the decline, it is a choice and i choose not to decline. i want you to choose not to decline. i want you to remember what is at stake. are you and your kids going to have the same privileges we have

had? think about that. when you wonder what is motivating you to about at 2:00 in the morning or trying to get on campus that isn't quite working out right remember what you are in this for. it's not for glory. not because you have nothing else to do. it's for your kids. it's for your country. it's for that sacred fire of liberty that lets the world for the city on the hill. lincoln and office said one last thing by the way. he looked at them and said this nation is worth fighting for. it still is. let's go fight, let's win. thank you very much. [applause]

thank you. thank you. if there are any questions to we have some time to take questions? great. yes, ma'am. naim at kawlija? sorry. >> i should have this don by the now. - gabby from colorado christian university. we talked about today about how we can not a true democracy that functions and protect the people unless they are ready for it both economically and socially curious, i would like to ask you does this mean that countries like mexico who have totally free and jon rand markets but to get the have much poverty and oppression, does tat mean that they don't need a democracy, but they need more government control, and on a different mode does that mean that america

should be an isolationist country and not get involved in countries that are not ready for democracy? >> i think -- i believe the declaration of independence. all men are equal of white men, not american men, not english colonists but all men are created equal. we have a reason to believe with governor romney when he was in israel talking about how cultural impact of economic growth and palestinians are all stressed out he's absolutely right thumb. not everyone for the government you have to have responsible people. you have to have an understanding of what self-government in walz. it helps to have some experience with something that we don't understand. we study our history. the anglican church never said a bushel to america's we spend 150 years of collecting our own preachers and churches. we also have the legislators in

162750 years before we declared independence of self-governing be what the religious leaders we were ready for a. no society. the culture is vital and about palestinian culture that celebrates and suggests that it's a really good things to send your kids out to kill jews because they haven't i don't think they are ready for economic prosperity. but they have to make that decision. true the isolationist? no. we should protect the nation. we should be very picky. but we should never have depression in this country and crush it quickly and let people know we will do that and i think we need to help people better and we need to be the example. the best thing we can do is give an example of how to have a prosperous society. that is the best thing we can do. you're welcome. yes, sir. some guy from the national tea party students' group and my question to do is something related to washington state because i have lived there for

20 years. my question is is your radio show in the portland oregon area --. >> the tea party limits the tea party would be in big trouble. the tea party stood up the republican party wouldn't. [applause] back in 2009 when all republicans were scared about obama and we have to look like him, sound like him? that he parties of the emperor has no clothes. it was the republican party so thank you for that. and at the university of mt. helm and thank you for that amazing speech. it was beautiful. i'm catholic and i'm trying to do research on the only catholic signer of the declaration -- >> charles carroll. >> that's right of carrollton. why did he write of carroll and? i've been told two different stories, one is the home address to prove to the other jumpers

that he was worthy of their trust and he was going to go all in and of the british found about address and hunted him down he would be willing to take it. the second story is he wrote that to distinguish himself from his father. estimate i am inclined to believe the second. there is a really good book on how charles carroll. i can't remember the exact title but come see me and i will give you my business card it cannot like a week ago and of course he plays a big part of national treasure the movie. a very small part by the way because of the movie stands he was the only catholic synar in the masonic plot. doesn't quite add up to me. the movie did a disservice but come see me and i will give you that book and i think you'll find the answer in the book to

read >> i go to ucla regarding your views with the 14th amendment and its application of the bill of rights to the states. >> well all estates before the amendment all the states have established churches. by 1833 there were no state established churches. i don't think the state should establish the church. i pointed out the historical fact and jefferson wrote this. jefferson fought the states had the right to establish churches what is the separation on them. if you read the letter you will see he applied for the national government. he believed under the tenth amendment that states could do that because the had no right to interfere in this. not 1865 demint that obviously is 60 years after that and 30 years after the states for done i don't think the states has published the historical consistency when you have someone telling you there is no

good scholar jefferson didn't believe in this will actually, she did. he thought the states could do it. i wouldn't. they are more conservative than i am. >> how are you doing? one of my store students by the way. >> thank you. >> you talked about virtue and how when there is a virtuous society there isn't as much need for the government to come in and have regulation and say with some certainty that in today there isn't as much virtue is that some of the reason that we see the government expanding so much? so what can we do to bring back about the virtue of society and will we get those freedoms back from the government if we do bring about virtues? >> lots of talk. it ought to practice it. if you think that we shouldn't have been a welfare state helping the poor you've got to help the poor. if you don't think we need drones to find better ways to deal with crime if you don't

think the government should have some of the powers it has come and find other ways to deal with it. final issue in the local level but if we are going to be virtuous people we have to practice it and we practice it by going to the union mission's serving dinner, taking people into our homes, donating more of the church but we don't do it by giving $2 live away to the corner that just shifts defeat. there is no virtue in the in forced to be virtuous. you understand that? will let the state take our money we have people say you know, i'm going to pay my taxes. i don't have to do this. there is no virtue in forcing to be virtuous. i'm trying to remember the name of the gentleman that is now the head of aei three arthur brooks. thank you. he is to be a liberal. he wrote a book and called it who cares. he looked at fred states and blue states and he was convinced that the state's would be the