>> and leading the discussion today is tom perriello. in addition to being a former member of congress, tom is lawyer by training and graduate of the yale law school and has a wide range of experience in issues of rule of law of in the united states and abroad. tom managed teams working on conflict resolution and democratic transitions in africa, afghanistan and other regions and has taught courses on justice and security of the university of virginia law school and the university of sierra leone. tom all serve as a special prosecutor and acting spokesperson to the initial prosecutor to the special courts of sierra leone to the diplomatic showdown the force liberian dictator from power. please join me in welcoming them all today. [applause] >> i want to first start off by thanking andrew and everybody that is part of the legal progress team and the rule of

law program at center for american progress, and we will talk today about the report at the back of the room but i really do encourage everyone to read them. they may not be quite as gripping as the appeal which is also the to be recommended but are very, very important to so i do want to thank them for the great work and hope we will have a chance to read through this. i'm honored to be on the stage today with two real heavyweights of the legal community in the current debate over the state of our judiciary and rule apply here in the united states. it's an honor to be with them and really going to let them drive the process here today, starting with justice nelson. justice nelson, if you could set the stage for us about where we are and what the stakes are going forward in the wake of not only citizens united, but a series of cases and legal challenges that come in the wake of that, including one in which you offered understand just at the end of last week. what is the state of play right now and what does it mean for judicial independence?

>> well, i think in andrew's opening remarks, he mentioned something i think most americans tend to forget and that's the judiciary is coequal court and the third branch of government. with equal dignity and power as the other two branches of government. i think what's in play here is, is the control of the judiciary. politicians, both democrat and republican, doesn't really matter but politicians understandably want to control the executive branch and the legislative branch, at least in my view neither of those and tell you to control the judicial branch. that's not what the judiciary is about. the judiciary is not impartiality, fairness, making decisions based upon the rule of law and giving people their day in court and a fair hearing. and i think that's what's in play here. that's what's important, the

whole dialogue is the control of the judiciary because obviously if people can throw enough money into judicial races and effectively represent, or elect justices and judges who are more interested in promoting some courts part of the ideologue or some particular special interest philosophy, they are going to do that because money talks, as window in citizens united, speech is money. >> justice diaz, you had the unique perspective of being part of both political process and then the judicial process and then a judicial political process. talk a little bit about what it means, what you're seeing in terms of the state of judicial

selection process, and from your own experiences what it means for that to look more and more like the political campaign that failed to inspire so many right now. >> for civil unions in earlier the appeal, john grisham. i'm glad somebody is able to make money off my political career. i certainly haven't. bite him in the unique position. having both been elected and appointed. some folks say appointed judicial system is somehow superior to an elective process. it's not necessary so. the appointed process is i think extremely political as well. you have to be connected, have to know the right recommendations. but the political process is in itself entirely different. we heard and to making the remarks of sandra day o'connor, three course of the american population feel that campaign contributions somehow influence the decision of the judiciary. that's a sad state of affairs

when 75% of the people in the country believe that political contributions influenced just as. was even more telling is another statistic, and that's a poll of judges themselves in the poll of state court judges, 50% of state court judges themselves billy contributions, from campaign donors actual influence the outcome of judicial decision. when you get half of the judiciary thinking that, i mean, these are the folks that are supposed to be completely unbiased in making decisions based upon the law and the facts, but when half of the judges view the campaign contributions actually influence the outcome of decisions, we have a problem. >> talk a little bit about who is bringing the money into these races at to what extent has the amount of money changed over the years, of your career starting with you, justice diaz. who is spending the money? why are they spending it and to

what extent has this changed in recent years? >> i think historically lawyers were basically the focus. that's how it all started. lawyers had an interest in the system, both defense lawyers, plaintiffs lawyers. we as supreme court justices and judges like to think that we are important, or that we are well known, the people know who we are. people don't know who judges are. we are anonymous. there's a few upheld the geeks out in a country who know something about the first -- >> may be here tonight. >> and i'm one of them. but other than that select group of folks they really don't know who the judges are. they don't know much about us. in mississippi, in 1990, of course i'm from mississippi, and winning justice is somebody running for the supreme court spent an average of $25,000 in 1990.

by 2000, 10 year period, the average winning campaign for the supreme court in mississippi was up to $1 million. that amount of time, 10 year period, you saw exponential amounts of money. and it came about through special interests and corporations that decided, i think they thought they did see these elections which turned out to be fairly easy pickings, and they could pump a lot of money in it. karl rove had a really telling quote at one point. he said a couple million dollars in financial tv ads does wonders. and i don't think it was wonders for the judges that were running. he was talking about. he had his interest. people saw the opportunity or and start putting money in judicial elections, and it was very influence it at that point.

>> i agree with the remarks that were just made. montana has historically been, there's less people in montana probably than half of washington, d.c. it's typically been a low-budg low-budget, low campaign contributions date. when i ran, for montana, given the appointed, but then you have to run for reelection, three times, one of them, the last one very nasty and very contested. but at that time the largest campaign contributions that can be made for justice on the supreme court was 250 bucks. i raise $250,000 from my election campaign, most of which was spent on committee.

vision rather contested senate race, a contested gubernatorial race. we've got one contested supreme court race and the other is non-contested. the supreme court races are being sort of under the radar which is where they typically are. it's correct that typically its attorneys the key to these campaigns, but i'll say this. into montana race there was a primary, we knock out all but two and then those goes on to the general election. one person was not elected. one of the people who was elected, over half of the money that was spent in her campaign came from outside pax. i don't know what the affected

gentlemen will be in the election, it remains to be seen by increasing i think montana is going to joan the rest of states, where campaign money and campaign contributions are going to start affecting these races. >> we see what happens with citizens united, went outside interest group owns a lot of money in a political campaign. they certainly try to influence the outcome of that campaign. when you have all this large about the money going into a campaign, there's a difference between, say, a race for president of the united states in or something like that and a judicial campaign. in a presidential campaign we see a right now. it's happening all over the country, they add spin by independent groups. to a mostly negative, but they try to give you some information to base a decision on one of these candidates but no matter how much money these outside groups are putting into the presidential election, president

obama, we know president obama. these outside groups are not going to be able to define them. we know mitt romney. he's run for president before. he has been running for a while now. we know something about it. he can't be defined by the script. in a judicial campaign judges are not known like i said before. and so the opportunity there used to define a judge. and when you can define that person and they don't have enough money or funds to respond or they don't have their own independent expenditure group behind them, they are being defined by one group, then it's easy to pick on. so that's the problem. it's not equivalent to like a national election like for president. when you do the same thing in a judicial election. it's completely different. >> it's not just citizens united. republican party in minnesota versus white, that was another very important case. for those of you not only without, supreme court ruled that while judicial candidates

could not promise how they would vote, they could at least announce their position on various issues. and most states at that time had what they called announced prohibitions to their ethical rules that didn't allow judges to do that. so now in addition to outside groups defining, judges can essentially have a constitutional right to go out and they find themselves. i'm for this, i'm for that. i'm against this, i'm against that. you can't promise how you're going to vote, but the public is stupid, and neither is are judged to if i go out and announced to people, i'm pro-choice, i'm pro-life, you know, two and two is four, common sense prevails and people are going to take that as well. that's his position. >> you both raised issues about differences between the judicial context and accounting context.

one, that you noted is the idea that it's actually in some ways worse in a judicial case because you don't have a countervailing issue of a megaphone. a politician can go out and try to make news, what we call earned media. it's more typical to go out and raise money as a politician than as a judge of this scale. and that's the difference. another as you said is the idea that typically an element of judging has been not to prejudge or as in campaigns is about voters wanted know where someone stands the one other thing that struck many people as the difference in raising between the citizen tonight decision. where the supreme court essentially one might argue in a world where they understood, judicial election, took a fairly different position than it took an something that they may not really understand as well, the perception of corruption in a political election. do we see an emerging potentially split jurisprudence between how the supreme court

treats judicial elections and congressional are doing think it will go away and we are headed in the direction speak with i don't think people will go away but it's important to differentiate between what caperton said and what citizens united. citizens united is the first amendment issue. people can say what they want. they can spend money how they want. caperton was purely a case that said if so much money is spent in a judicial campaign, that is going to affect the outcome of a particular decision for particular predicate, and that judge has to recuse himself or herself. that's all caperton really accomplish. speed and it was very limited. it was not a broad decision speak and what you get the background? i should have explained about the case as well. >> well, caperton basically, caperton involved a case where a

particular person was running for what, alabama, arkansas -- >> west virginia supreme court. >> a person who had a case pending before the court, almost like grisham wrote, a person who had the case pending before the court wanted this particular person to be wanted elected. so dumped millions of dollars into that person's campaign. and the person one and then predictably the person voted in favor of the litigant. it was a split decision so it reversed the lower court decision that was against the litigant to a supreme court decision in favor of the litigant. under no circumstances the lower court held that was just too much ever party, especially given the amount of money that was dumped into the campaign. >> do you see this as being something where there could be a different set of jurisprudence

in judicial election or is this a question of bringing it under process, perception of corruption charges versus the first amendment issue? >> i think that the citizens united decision is broadband caperton decision. i think when you deal with first amendment issues the political speech, it's going to be applied to any election whether the judicial, whether the city counsel, all the way up to present. caperton decision dealt very narrowly with recusal, and when there's enough money that even, that there is the appearance of impropriety or the appearance that the judge should recuse, then that's when it would apply. the supreme court did not even mandate in that instance. they said that they should send it back for a review and let the judges decide. so i think the citizens united decision is much broader. >> what makes matters worse is, if you want to put in the frame,

citizens united was written by kennedy, and kennedy was actually -- absolutely dismissive of the caperton decision, in the citizens united case. so i don't see any light at the end of the tunnel where caperton will be the answer. >> i might add he dismissed without any funny as facts in united case which made the effort to go out and do, the way that supposed to player. one of the things i would posit about this is that some of the issues we're talking about here, issue of pro-consumer versus pro-corporate, what might be the current democrat republican split in ideology. this is more of a populist to corporatist or pro-citizen versus pro-powerful kind of id. the politics in the south has

shifted, i come from virginia, you're from mississippi, at the rocky mount was has more of a libertarian feel. to some people it's been a surprise to see montana, which is not seen as a left wing state really leading the judicial pushback on this. in your sense what are the lines being drawn here? and isn't one that is about different ideologies on the court or is it purely a matter of following the money? >> on the supreme court's? >> on the supreme court but also trickling into the state elections. in other words, when you see this as the montana supreme court having put fairly a forceful pushback, why do see that coming from a state like montana as opposed to something that you might see as a more traditional liberal state? >> well, that's complicated and i'm probably getting way out of

my pay grade here. when i started practicing in montana, montana was a progressive state. in 1994 or 93, whenever the gingrich revolution took place, montana started going more and more in that direction. and although men ghana -- although montana is typically composed of blue-collar workers, farmers, ranchers, that sort of thing, that group of people has filed i think the trend nationally, that group of people has been falling towards the more conservative segment. most of the people on the supreme court are not quite as old as i am, but close to it. so we come from a different era.

i think this election at least for my seed i'm vacating on the court will be the first, well second, kind of the new generation, you should be asking that question. >> it's not an easy left right breakdown i don't think that in mississippi we don't, judicial elections are not run by parties so we are not republican or democrat. judges run nonpartisan as they do in many states. so you don't necessarily get the republican democratic big rent in judicial races. and it is a lot about the money, and the groups that back it. the breakdown that we've seen in mississippi in addition to corporations of courses insurance companies which may be the same thing, and then doctors, medical providers on

one side, lawyers and labor unions on another site. and it's not an equivalency our. i think all of the statistics show that lack of a better term, less side of lawyer groups and union groups are outspent come any times five or six max-one meg to give huge amounts of money coming in. is no equivalency to balance this. >> i think another factor that is underplayed i'm probably not said enough, is the amount of the christian right has played in all thing, too. because that i think has made a difference in my state, in 2004 i guess it was we had a marriage amendment passed in the constitution. 62% of the people voted for the. and i was just dumbfounded.

because it doesn't reflect what i think most people actually, actually believe in montana about that issue. >> one of the interesting things is when the groups, the outside groups come in, i've noticed that they don't normally, that the ads they run don't normally support their positions. when they attack a judicial candidate they do so on grounds other than oh, he supporting places or he's not voting for business in the. what they do is use issues that will inflame the public comment usually using criminal decisions from the judge's past career. i don't know if you saw the movie coffee, susan did an asp is a passionate exposé. my wife tells a story about how these groups came into our campaign. they started running these massive amounts of ads talking about what a horrible person i

was, they piled moneybags up on a bench, a judges bench and said justice diaz is excepting tens of thousands of dollars from lawyers groups. and then he went on to allow a cocaine dealer to be set out of prison. that's and upheld justices job is to review criminal cases and if there's errors you over to do. a judge can't do it himself in mississippi where can i judges, we have got five votes. i was one of five. so these ads were just really, really horrible and we didn't want the kids to seat. we kept the television off as were getting ready for school in the morning. one morning we forgot of course as we're getting ready for school, and my daughter, olivia, is in the other room and all of a sudden we hear her yelling, data, we are rich, we got lots of money being given to us. [laughter] so the ads didn't necessarily

have the effect that they wanted on my household, but they did on the public. >> it's certainly something that comes across strongly in the appeal which i should mention from doubleday press, since we are doing they are here for john grisham. but it goes in detail there, talk about the fact that in many cases the money is spent based on those looking for return on investment, not specific corporate liabilities or more generalized issue of liability, consumer protection or arbitration laws. but largely on culture or criminal issues, and that the groups that are spending money don't care to they just want the justice to decide their way. part of the question back on that is if where you went with it which is does this also affect not just the balance of the scales between corporate and consumer interest, but they

politicization of the bench affect hearings in criminal cases in the sense that, when i was briefly a politician george think about the 30-second spot. he balance the nuance with public policymaking against the death penalty ads. and hopefully we have politicians willing to do what would be a matter of good public policy. but for that to come into criminal case, you have talked about all of it, what you think is the impact of this? and is the problem money in politics or is it the elections themselves? >> it's a combination. and when you have large events of money coming into the campaign it will survey includes both the public and the candidates running. one of the horrible results of the campaign against me, they

use these terrible at stock of drug dealers and things, a fellow member on the supreme court that i served with saw the ads and after that point he refused to overturn criminal cases in the supreme court i thought it was a horrible, horrible thing to do. he lost his next anyway. i think it may be showed his character regardless of the way he went. but yes, you know, judges who were running for election do keep in mind what the next 30-second half of the clock. and, unfortunately, it does have a spillover effect. i knew what was coming when i voted. i wrote a dissent actually calling for the abolition of the death penalty mississippi which is not a popular stand in the south. and i knew what was coming, but i did it anyway. you have to have principled people who ultimately run for

these positions. [inaudible] >> you're not going to get principled people that are willing to run for these offices and get crucified by some high funded campaign. >> justice nelson, i guess one of things i was asking for, we recently had an issue, the president of the university of virginia, there was an attempt to push her out by members of the board. what you saw what was interesting was it wasn't just, it was a liberal versus conservative thing. you saw a lot of southern conservatives who just didn't like the idea of someone trying to come in and use money to determine the outcome to academia, academic liberty like judicial independence is an area where both conservatives and

liberals often feel like this is a place that shouldn't be about who has the most money, there should be some sense of fairness or independence in this case. that are certain areas that we treated differently in that way. do you see the conversation going forward, and one connected to that, primarily about the corporate personhood question. or is it going to be about this idea of corruption and influence and a process that should be above that? >> well, i don't know if it's going to be corporate personhood, it should be. that has nothing to do with decisions, personhood thing is a holdover from the time -- [inaudible]. it should be about corruption, corrosive and anti-disorderliness. and if you think that academia

is sacrosanct now, it will be in a few years. the judicial process was sacrosanct. i certainly have been proven wrong on that, and i don't think that, i use the phrase in my dissent about corporatism. as long as i think our national philosophy is dominated by free market, the market will solve all our problems and take care of all of us. i don't think anything is sacrosanct. because the best way to promote that philosophy is to control everything. the way you control everything issue control it with money. >> i suppose i will avoid attempt to make this about the vice presidential race based on

that answer and keep it on the judiciary committee you mentioned, justice diaz, that this issue about one of the things we talk about is good people not even bothering to run anymore. you mentioned people that you know in the legal committee around the country. did you think that there's something that you people kissing why bother? tarbela want to -- probably in those cases taking a salary cut to go. it's intended to be something to get out of some civic duty, and honor. but now that it starts to look more like running for office, is that going to affect whether good people run, the kind of folks who want to put -- a bit of a leading question but i'll ask it anyway. >> there's no doubt about it. there are a lot of good lawyers out there who simply don't want to get involved in the political -- in the past we could recruit

these wise, old lawyers to cap their career with a judicial appointment and maybe have them run for election. and it seemed to work for a while, but i think folks looking at it now, you've got some guy that has a tremendous legal career, stellar reputation, you know, why solely your reputation, potential your family knowing that your background will be combed through just like any other election? you certainly will limit the pool of candidates who are interested in seeking these higher judicial positions especially. fortunately, you do have trial bench, but even the trial judges, they are somewhat removed from a lot of the large funding that comes into some of the higher judicial position to

even your free trial judges don't want to leave their trial bench to run for a higher appellate office because they can see what's happening and they know that every decision they have made in the past will become through, and if by god, they let a rapist go one time in the past because the prosecutor brought the wrong case, you know, it's coming up in and of penalties. so yes, you're going to limit the pool of candidates who are willing to subject themselves to that sort of scrutiny. >> i'm going to open it up to the audience in the second, but the last question before we do so. you mentioned that you didn't see the corporate personhood challenge has been a particularly promising direction to go with this. we see new ballot initiatives in your in several states that are going to make the process more political, a lot less political for judge selection in several states potentially. what is the right thing?

if one believes that the corporate and financial influence on our judicial process is corrupting come is having distorted disruptive effects, what is the best way for us to try to prevent that? >> i think the best way is to get actual facts out the for the public. not a bunch of sound bites, not a bunch of hocus-pocus about corporate personhood. all organizations have free speech rights, and you have much more speech right about citizens united. so use them. get the facts out. show how big money is being dumped into a particular judicial race unfairly. show why justice diaz shouldn't have been overturned. how these ads were false and misleading. and i think that's the best way to combat it. i hope the public is not swayed

by all the soundbites i see happening now, but at least, i think that this is maybe the attorneys can get the facts out, get the truth out. >> there some other solutions as well. i don't think there's any debate now based upon the united states supreme court ruling that corporations are entitled to speech, but there are things we can do about it. i think it's a great britain that they have a lot of if corporations want to get involved in politics they have to vote as the shareholders. let the shareholders vote and approve expenditures of political campaigns. that at least makes that decision known to folks who are holding stock in the corporation, rather than just a few on the corporate board. so we've got to look at all sorts of different options. >> disclosure is important to even after citizens united. and the states, if they can do

any one thing that i think is important, they can beef up and enforce their disclosure laws. make people aware of who is contributing. i mean, who individually is funding these things. don't let them hide behind corporate shields and layers of corporate organizations. make them disclose, because at least in case we had in montana, these people don't like transparency in government. they want to do their dirty work in private. i mean, don't let them do that. spent and in this day and age there's no reason to have a median disclosure easier. if you, we could make it public that day, or candidates receiving contributions, could make a note that the. disclosure is extremely important and there's no reason we can't do it quickly and openly. >> i will just not on that debate, for much of the last 15 to 20 years that has been the conservative position but as

long as you disclose, then you're just letting people decide they should be limits per se, but should simply be transparency now that the limits have been taken away, apparently disclosure is no longer considered by some to be the conservative position. >> there's two in montana right now attacking that spent i would say the vast majority of people that i know certainly from central and southern virginia, regardless of political affiliation think they have a right to know who is spending the money and what they want a return. so perhaps will open it up and will have some -- someone come around with a microphone here. if you can stage a name and affiliation if you have one spent on mitzi. i was married to a judge for 23 years, but he is here in the district. how long are your terms and want to like campaigning? and income if you don't do it for a party. i don't understand this process at all. >> ours are for eight years.

we run nonpartisan. basically what you do, or what i did, is go out and helped my experience, you know, my reputation for fairness in my work ethic and things like that. and i, even though i campaigned after republican party versus white, i try to stay away from employing that i took a position on any particular thing. people would ask me, i would just say that matter may come before the court and i'm not going to discuss it. >> were you doing that before go to justice diaz, we doing that at county fairs? was it, you know, garden clubs? >> i was doing it every place. in montana, each major party has

dinners, jefferson, jackson day dinner, lincoln dinner. most of the judicial candidates felt compared -- compelled to go to both. i took that position. or didn't take a position i should say. >> mississippi is the same way. we had eight year term. i served in both the court of appeals in mississippi which is the appellate court and the supreme court. and in past it was just like any other political campaign, without taking a real firm stance on issues. you tout your experience. i ate lots of chicken in mississippi and fried fish, go to lions clubs, rotary clubs, jefferson jackson day dinners. but we also relied on lawyers. lawyers generally no the judicial candidates. they are the ones who appear before spring they're the ones

who have cases and watch the decisions of the court that are interested. and in my races, i relied, my friends who are lawyers throughout the state, because lawyers i've who serve as leaders in their local communities. off a lot of folks look to the lawyers in the communities for guidance, especially in judicial election. the problem we've got now is that system is antiquated. when you've got television ads coming in. and my race, the u.s. chamber of commerce came in, bottom of the absent paid for by the u.s. chamber of commerce. they don't do that anymore. i think they learned that they were getting a bad reputation by actually spending money in the name so they started these other groups. but when you get a million dollars as they did in the campaign, it actually influences the election and it takes away the traditional support of meeting folks in the community and relying on recommendations

and things of that nature. >> tom with the american bar association. given the situation now, and the elections that are going on, the money that's going into campaigns, what can judges and courts do to try to combat old overcome the public perception of the judicial perception that money buys decisions? >> it's a good question. i think if i had the answer i might be still a judge. but no, it's a tremendous problem that we've got to do something with.

can judges self police the police? you know, the problem is you've always got somebody wanting to be a judge is not going to play by the same rules. you know, bar associations, we have greater control by bar associations than judicial elections. i just -- public financing rather than just open financing from the public at large. but can you get back into the free speech issues of independent campaigns. there is no solution. >> i can just quickly say, i think sometimes it's easier to get people excited about a solution that is bigger than smaller. in certain areas we think about maybe getting to get agreement on marginal change. if you look at most, this is true on the political side and not just the judicial site, if you actually look at the polling on citizens united, almost nobody disagreed with the

conservative argument. over 80% of people generally believe the problem of too much money in politics. issues, it's always going to be corrupt, it's oz got to be broken. so in some ways we're arguing not against conservative position but against skepticism. that we could make it better. and, therefore, bolder ideas sometimes get a better response from people. whether that is justice o'connor's position that simply says none of these positions to be elected, they begin to the question about what's the merit-based approach, et cetera. i think this is a moment i think the c.a.p. report, where we actually went more people by thinking big the necessary by saying small. disclosure is an example, incredibly important, almost everybody agrees on, even if we can't seem to get to the heads of some of the people down the street. but it still, we can't even win what should be the easiest everybody agrees on position, so we need to fight the but also sometimes that can take away

from thinking more broadly about this question about how broken our politics are. and i think also, just finally, because i'm in an advocacy position them to go back to justice nelson sport. there is a lot of education on this. saying oh, well, this is just people being too easy to manipulate, there's too much money involved, get the facts out there, people are outraged by it. they want something better than what they are seeing. and i think you could see in some cases accept personal leadership and courage as these two men have shown. that by having people who stand up to this, maybe they lose an election, maybe they lose the seat on the bench. but over time the legal community and the american community more broadly see them as having been the heroes of the rule of law in the process, i can have an enormous effect as well. >> it's important to note, too, all elections are local and that's true.

it's incumbent upon people in each state and each city and county and judicial district to do this education process. those are the people that are going to have credibility in their own groups, communities and areas, and those are the people that are going to be on the ground, know the facts in that particular jurisdiction and to get those facts out. >> hi. my name is stacy bridges. i'm a native of northern virginia and isa a victim of the pharmaceutical companies, a 30 day sample of a vilified killed my fiancé and 30 days. the problem that i found that now that we have toward reform, they put a cap and balance on your pain and suffering and you actually have to prove that the pharmaceutical companies were negligent in order to see. you had mentioned something about following the money. well, i follow the money and where it leads to, it's a despicable place. and if their decisions are based

on money that was given to them in a contribution and it affects people whether it kills hundreds or thousands of people or wounds or interest, will there be any criminal time for those legislators, for those judges, will they be disbarred, or will there be limits, term limits set on them? will there be any communism repercussions for the actions of? >> i mean, it's a horrible situation when people are impacted person as you have by this generic thwart reform label that you here. again, i'm going to plug the movie hot coffee, and the family was highlighted in there. there were caps on damages in nebraska at and even their son was born brain-damaged, the result of a negligent delivery by a doctor, he's got to live his entire life at a fixed amount of money, much lower than

what the jury had determined was a reasonable amount. you know, we are seeing people impacted personally by these decisions. there's also a story in hot coffee, a guy in texas who campaigned for toward reform and he also suffered medical negligence problem and tried to bring a suit. and someone said well, texas has this one and you're not able to do doctor because of this. and he said no, no, no. we were campaigning against those frivolous lawsuits, not mine. you know, frivolous lawsuit is in the eye of the beholder. it's only through people like you telling your story that others are going to realize that hey, this might affect me and my family as well. that's what we've got to do. >> your story is heartbreaking because it's such a reoccurring

theme that i think judges are hearing all over the country. again, i think it's important to get those stories like yours out before the public. nobody wants to have their loved one or their child or themselv themselves, they want to have their fair day in court. they want to damages for their pain and suffering. and just compensation for their injuries. they want these things. i think if people like you, you get your story out, but this is what's happening because of corporate money. and believe me, you never heard anybody and whine louder than when one of these big corporations gets bounced out of course. they just come it's the end of the world as we know it.

and i read, i don't recall who did the study, it was some credible organization a few years ago. you talk about frivolous lawsuits but most of these frivolous lawsuits are between corporations. >> exactly. >> lexus the automobile serving lexus the research department, things like that. >> the same people talk about activism seem to have no problem with it -- [talking over each other] >> one of the greatest growth industry of the mississippi legal community right now is business on business losses but they don't want to give up their rights to sue each other if they need to, but i'll be done if a person can actually sue a corporation. spent thank you. roy, retired from georgetown law center. terrific program, terrific report. indeed, it's the best report i've seen in a long time because the fullness of information about the independent spending

is really striking, and you all are to be really commended for it. i thought exactly the right question was asked, what's the best way to do something about this but and i thought exactly the right answer came from justice nelson when he said if there's one thing, its disclosure. my question is this. what, if any, follow-up are you all, that is, the center, going to do about this? twice in the report referred to strong disclosure without a word about what that means. what it means in fact is that we have, no states at all, so far as i know, maybe one or two hiding somewhere, where the disclosure of the independent spending is effectively required in the states that any reference to it, they use the magic word hurdle, which means you just don't get anything. so what, if any, follow-up will the center be engaging in? >> well thank you for the plug on the report, and for the softball question.

[laughter] we, for instance, this is guarded a 24/7 project as it has been. and to give the introductory remarks, and others will continue to do both the research and advocacy. group one of the neat things about this institution is that we're focusing and and and advocacy arm because we believe that action was that ideas can be empty and problematic as it gets better never put into action. and we tried to be at the intersection of those two things. i think we need to think about disclosure in two stages. one is to do the research, which should be easy in this day and age, who is writing the checks to them. out as omar collocated with independent expenditures and particularly the abuse of the c-4 loophole for those are running paid advertisement. the second component is the research of connecting those donations to the impact on people's lives at the kitchen

table, which you've heard about in stories today. one of the things that should in the political wing is what i would consider ideological getting on the right and left where you might have a billionaire on each side who care about a certain set of issues, to what you might call return on investment getting in the political process. post citizens united which just isn't based on the case. it's based on how the case changed norms in society about what it's okay to write a $10 million check or to pledge $400 million. we are looking at how these donors will see a 30, 40, 50% return on investment in a first year. and based on actual policy changes, well, on the judicial level as we've heard, we want to make sure we do the research and not just on where the money is coming from and how much, which i think is shocking people, it would have been means, the caperton case and keep coming back to the appeal or the "hot coffee" for reason which is when people come to see they may run an ad that is about gay marriage

or letting a girl outcome but this about overturning a case where people died and got sick because of corporate negligence and it was cheaper for them to buy a justice than to pay for liability. so i think the disclosure we need to look into how it was not just be getting but also the research, when they have the capacity to do it. to show what this means for people in their everyday lives. so that certainly something we're going to be committed to doing. both these gentlemen in their own capacities will be continuing to fight for this. i will give them a second to give their answers. >> i agree, and one thing, i wasn't trying to be rude here. this is an amicus brief that was filed in the american traditions appeal that montana, mounted by former retired justices of the supreme court, but any poll, it was the attorney that wrote this

brief detailed one part of it. the extreme difficulty that was faced with people that are interested try to follow the money and i think it was in michigan supreme court, that justices were thrown out of office, and it was like looking at a came in bank account. it was layer upon layer up online or upon layer of protective corporation. and again, it just points up what i said, these people do not like transparency. i think it's important but it's difficult. >> yeah, i come it all goes back to disclosure and focusing light on the problem. i'm not the constantly speaking on these issues. i was in seattle this past weekend, and just had a

tremendous reception. folks had no ideas what's happening in the judicial system. and influence that corporations are attempting to have on the judicial system. so we've got to educate and disclose. i mean, those are what we have to do. you know, as a result of what i've gone through, i was a justice on the mississippi supreme court, subject to a lot of the negative advertising, i feel i am compelled to speak out. in the worst thing that happened to me is i'm in private practice and am making lawyer money instead of judge money, which is not a bad thing, and i'm one of those most well-known lawyers in the state of mississippi, which may not be a big thing here, but my career is not diminished because of it. i certainly have been able to take a stand, a principled stand, and i think people have

respected that. i mentioned the corley family who live with their medical malpractice problem that they have for the rest of their life, "hot coffee" all told tells the story of jamie leigh jones was subject to an arbitration agreement she signed with halliburton but she was brutally raped and abused in iraq when she went to work for halliburton in iraq. but she signed an arbitration agreement and couldn't, and couldn't sue directly. al franken took her cause up on capitol hill and she ultimately, because through his efforts and the efforts of others was being able to bring her case and ultimately get her to achieve got to live with that constantly. so we've got these problems, and disclosure an education are the solutions and we got to do that. >> we really appreciate everyone can i think what you think about how deeply this is integrated into the american story from "to

kill a mockingbird," 12 angry men caught coffee, and the appeal we think about how many shows on television are about something as noble, csi, we think about how much we value this idea of an independent judiciary, these are two gentlemen who are fighting to make sure that that remains a great part of the american tradition and we want to thank and deeply for joining us today and for the courage and their profession. [applause] >> the report we put out is the short version. includes a whole bunch of analysis and different cases but if you want a full version of it you should go to american progress.org. thank you. spent coming up on c-span at 1250 peace in the alliance in the alliance for health reform looks the availability of dental care and care and insurance coverage. according to the pew center on the state's dental emergencies

resulted in 800,000 emergency room visits a year. here on c-span2, each day at 6 p.m. eastern this week we have been taking a look back at some of the year's luncheon speeches from the national press club. this afternoon we hear from filmmaker ken burns on his documentary on probation. at 7:00, we conclude our q&a series focusing on the military with our interview of ward carroll, editor of military.com. 's website provides news and support to current and former service members and their families. >> which is more important, wealth or honor? >> honor. >> it is not as was said by the victors four years ago, the economy, stupid. it's the kind of nation we are. it's whether we still possess the wit and determination to do with many questions, including economic questions, but certainly not limited to them.

all things do not flow from wealth or poverty. i know this firsthand, and so do you. all things flow from doing what is right. >> look at what's happened. we have the lowest rates of unemployment, inflation and no mortgage in 28 years. look at what happened. 10 million new jobs, over half of them highway jobs, 10 million workers getting the raise they deserve with the minimum wage law. >> c-span is aired every minute of every major party convention since 1984, and now we're in the countdown to this year's conventions. you can watch our life gavel to gavel coverage every minute of the republican and democratic national conventions live on c-span, c-span radio and streamed online at c-span.org all starting monday august 27.

>> this weekend on american history tv, 7 75 years since amelia earhart's failed attempt to circumnavigate the globe. former u.s. air force flight surgeon an aircraft crash investigator shares his findings on her life and disappeared. also this weekend, more from the contenders, our series that looks at key political figures who ran for president and lost the changed political history. >> i draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the seed of tyranny and i say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever. >> this sunday, former alabama governor george wallace. american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> next we will hear from sister mary hughes, past president of the leadership conference of women religious which represents more than 80% of u.s. nuns. during remarks yesterday the

national press club, sisters used responded to recent criticism from the vatican that her group has undermine catholic teachings, concerning all-male priesthood, birth control and homosexuality. this is an hour. .. representing about 80% of the 56,000 nuns in the u.s. its members are involved in teaching, nursing, caring for

the poor and spreading the gospel. in april, however come the vatican released a surprisingly critical report they are involved in feminism and theology at otsuka pharma catholic doctrine. the vatican said bishops would be appointed to assume control of the group and to reform it. at the leadership conference directors didn't seem to welcome such reform. the vatican moved outrage against any catholics in the u.s. aeschylus preece and friars to support the sisters. many conservatives in church leaders say the leadership conference group should be reined in. the vatican said the leadership conference should focus more on opposing abortion and gay marriage. many supported president upon us help care about them long before congressman paul ryan was a vice presidential contender, the leadership conference said this year they oppose congressman

ryan's budget week as it hurts the poor, a position the catholic bishops council has also taken. you may recall that a group of sisters allied with the leadership conference began a tour in june called nuns on the bass, which went around the country protesting ryan's budget. dispute with the vatican has been portrayed as part of the tension between catholic women and the male hierarchy of the church. a tug-of-war between the church in rome and the religious renegades in the new world. or just another temporary rift with the church, which will eventually subside. with yesterday is past president of the leadership conference, sister mary hughes, the dominican sisters based in new york. she received her bachelor's degree in elementary education in english, and master of science from hunter college from a masters and doctorate from columbia university and certificate of a big administration from st. john's

university. sister mary began her work as a teacher in brooklyn. from the mid-1980s as the chairperson at iona college in new york. but in 1995, her congregation elected her as their priorities. she later returned to iona, but was reelected from her congregation in 2007. she served as the north american representative for the dominican sisters international and was an invited member of the direct torian of the st. thomas aquinas in rome. in 2009 chemie she began a three-year term and the presidency of the leadership conference of women religious, a term which ended last week at the end of the group's annual assembly in st. louis. that assembly announced that it once a day like what the bishop over the issue in the vatican's report that won't sacrifice its integrity. sister uses one of the leaders working on that statement. once again, please give a warm national press club welcome to sister mary hughes.

[applause] >> thank you so much for that warm introduction and welcome. it's really a privilege for me to be here. and all of my time in religious life when i first entered and began teaching him i really never had an aspiration to teach anyone over the age of seven. so i really always been surprised to find themselves in a place such as this and it's truly an honor to be here. first i'd like to maybe stop off with a little background about the leadership conference of women is and is not. the leadership conference of women religious, which is most often referred to as the lcwr was established in 1956 in formally recognized in 1959. and this happened at the request of pope pius the 12th, who asked that the sisters form an

organization. the sisters really didn't want to do it. that the national education association, the catholic health association. that was enough for them. at the vatican requested it, they did it. was it voluntary membership organization, so they were like then appointed leaders of apostolic women's community. and when i use the term apostolic, it is those communities that engage in active work as opposed to contemplatives or cloistered orders and their primary work is prayer and they do not interact with society in the same way. it has a threefold purpose. it tries to assist its members personally and to italy to carry out more collaboratively. their service of leadership and congregation in order that we might better put further the mission of christ in today's world.

it tries to foster dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations within the church and in the larger society. and it also starts to develop models for initiating and strengthening relationships with groups concerned with the needs of society so as to maximize a potential to affect change. the conference is fundamental staff is one of being in full ecclesial communion with the church. but it is important to note that what we are not. we are not a theological society. we are not a biblical society and we are not a formation conference. they are separate entities in the church that cover all of those things. nor are the teachings of the church necessarily the primary focus of our assemblies. remember, it's a leadership

conference and its primary function is to support the leaders in the complex roles they hold in today's world. for instance, one of the most profound meetings that i experienced was seven years ago the focal point of the conference was a panel of religion women leaders who had experienced women leaders murdered, seminal salvadoran sun here and they talked about how they handle that crisis, how they handled the media and so on. he speech of us that their prank would never find yourself in the same role. but it was incredibly moving. or even barbara marx hubbard, research i see this summer was talked about the role that she feels women religious good play in bringing a greater wholeness to our world, a world that is just so polarized. one of the things that has evolved in the discussion is, you know, we hear a lot of talk,

we really love the sisters. this just the lcwr. at the lcwr is sisters. and the sisters who are its members, the leaders are elected by their ancestors. and we don't hold positions for life. so i was a member of the lcwr from 95 to 2001. now i'm a member from 2007 tonight 2013. but then we go back to the ranks of her sisters again. so it's really are two separate in my view the criticism of the lcwr from sisters in general. also because their leaders, as leaders were elected by communities. and to tell you the truth of it is like this or didn't like us, they would stand behind anything they do. there's been a tremendous amount of support and involvement among the membership of all the women's religious congregations

in this country. a typical assembly, just to give you a taste of it, we might have a speaker or two. there's a business at the organization. each year we elect a president elect. there's directional statements that were proving they come before the whole body before approval because the leaders just stand in the place of or the voice of the members. we do not act independently of them. one of the things that we often do is have resolution, often in areas of social justice. and more often than not, the same resolutions: cyprus rather loose ends that are passed by the u.s. can't rent a catholic bishops. so for instance, the u.s. catholic conference of bishops has a stance against the nuclear proliferation of weapons. we have a similar kind of stands. we have a resolution calling for

immigration reform. the u.s. ecb has a similar resolution. we have a resolution that the u.s. ecb has come out against the prime budget, feeling that they thereupon duly cruel to persons who are poor. we would stand in union with the usccb and this particular relationship. although we are situated in the united states, we have sought to keep the lines of community between ourselves and the vatican open. so it has gone democrat dennis on conference to be a director. to visit a number of the vatican office is and communicate about

the work going on there and that we in turn can talk about what's happening here. such offices would include the office i'm consecrated life, to peace and justice office, the office on interreligious dialogue, the office on the pastoral care of migrants and so on. we usually start to see the u.n. ambassador to the united states. revisit the leaders of other religious congregations who are there. often, so often than we were in various vatican offices, particularly the work on immigration, on migrants, they would be talking about the trust that we would be able to augment the conversation by speaking about the work of the sisters here in the united states. and found so often -- more often than not to be short but our work coincided with the efforts of the various vatican offices to go on.

in 2001, the president of the lcwr also requested a meeting with the office of the congregation for the doctrine of faith because they just have not now but then it sometime. we don't primarily work with doctrinal issues as we see it, said they hadn't seen any. they replied that they would like to meet with their presidency, but they wanted them to be prepared to speak about three issues. one was ordination has been reserved to men. the next is on the primacy of jesus and also on homosexuality. the presidency was prepared for the meeting and was never brought up. each year since then we go to the office of the cdf, congregation for doctrine and faith and we said to have any questions come anything?

it is usually very cordial. so then we were surprised, very surprised when an urge to thousand nine a veteran announced in the doctrinal assessment was mailed to the current president at that time who was sister laurie jay jankowski. another way we decide to keep our ties with the vatican as we also met annually with the apostolic nco to the united states that had been archbishops on the way and hope to god this past year and as archbishop figured out. and we've always had fruitful, positive discussions. remember one of my last conversations with archbishops on me. i said to have any questions? this is after we already have the letter announcing the doctrinal assessment. he said to me and is very charming way to mail me wish i could duplicate his italian

accent. he said i receive many questions about many things and many batters, but i've known about you. which is the best news anyone could want to hear one of those offices. so when we have the information of the doctrinal assessment that we responded as candidly, as fully and as completely as we could. and in some areas, we found it was erroneous attribution. sometimes that might have been a comment that someone had answered on the floor, which is not that of the substance of the talk that got reported as substance of the talk. so we corrected some of that information because i will tell you quite honestly the lcwr does not seek to have on its roster to speak against the church. this is not a case of sisters over and against the church. we are part of the church.

the lcwr is recognized by the vatican that we are very aware of that relationship, very grateful for it and very respect of other arab said then, when we submitted and format, we were back in the cdf office again the following year. i specifically asked, are there any new questions? is there anything else you need further elaboration on? no, no new questions. we know now the report was already written. but it is not yet revealed to last until april 18th when were issued the assessment in the mandate. and so, when residents he spoke about how stunned they were, they truly were stand because as you might imagine, we thought things were going well. so then, we met as an lcwr last week from seven to from seven to

10 in st. louis, missouri. more than 900 were gathered about him. i typical assembly might have 65700 during the apostolic visitation there were more. are i do remember the last time we had this many women come together and really a great sacrifice to the congregations. many congregations as they look at their own resources might choose to send two of their members to the lcwr assembly. this year they found the money to send all of their leadership because there were so aware of how important this was. the way the assembly body went about making a decision about how to move forward, i think is as important and as historic as the decision itself. there were no fiery speeches. there is no denigration of the vatican or anyone else. we spent significant time and

contemplative science, contemplative listening in contemplative prayer. we had also placed a priority upon being able to listen to minority voices in the room and i married that perspective. in the end, on the last day, when the press release is crafted and it was read to the assembly body, that was the only time that people got up and stood up and cheered. i often say, if you put five of us in the room and asked us to decide a room color, we might not achieve consensus comes but here we have more than 900 people in a short space of time and there was unanimity about our direction. there's actually wishing some of the members of congress might be able to be in the room just to see another way to do things. you also need to know how very grateful we are for the media attention that has surrounded

this. we did not plan for this. actually with the congregation for the doctrine that put this public. and it ain't the assessment and mandate public. the press in the media coverage i believe has been toppled, probing and insightful. and i think in so many ways the press coverage has encouraged and challenged catholic sisters to be more articulate about who we are and what we do. you know, we did our work before. we just had think it was important to do advertising. this has caused us to step up to the plate. then the password box implemented the use of nine jokes and characters and our eyes were far too prevalent while the level of conversations has been significantly raised them were very grateful to you for helping us to do that. we also hold in her heart deep

gratitude for the thousands of women in an elaborate and in support of the sisters. there were thousands of letters and e-mails to poured into the national office and hundreds sent to the president separately. when we gathered for assembly, more than 1500 letters were delivered right to the hotel that we were out and distribute the letters that was really the centerpiece of the beech table could have some sense of the level of support. i will tell you the letters of support were not just you go girls, this is wonderful, keep doing it. it is people pouring out their own faith stories and in so many instances, their own struggle and pain could you help us find a way that there could be a place to speak?

were not talking about changing necessarily church doctrine. were talking about a place to speak. i raise questions. there is support evidenced in so very many ways was profoundly encouraging to us. there are certain things that are clear i think in our response. first, it is the deep desire to membership to stay within the church and not move away from it. you may have heard speculation of the sisters are moved out of the church or the leadership conference will become what you call an noncanonical arnon church related entity. first of all, only ron can concur that. so we could not ourselves decide to change the lcwr to a noncanonical entity. we could all withdraw, form another thing that is not clearly, clearly not the desire of the membership.

we derive our strength from the sacramental life of the church. we love the gospels. we followed the example of christ that we believe are terrorism are essential and necessary gift to be offered at the service of the church. and it carries some of the religious congregation brought. soon my congregation, dominican, i love for truth and love for preaching is very much what we do. the sisters of mercy of the preeminent focus on the mercy of christ that they manifest. so each congregation brings us guess, is a gift of the total church. at the same time, because we work with those who are unserved or underserved, we also bring challenges to the church that is used is tricky to hold.

secondly, perfecting a document of the second pattern in councils challenged congregations to renewal and reform in 1965. the teachings of the vatican council. religious women took those that were obedient to the holy see. we do that authentic life, the more consecrated by his are very much. we need to find ways to engage in honest, respectful and loving dialogue. pope paul the sixth issued an encyclical entitled ecclesia and sue him in 1964 bit outline principles of effective data. this does seem to be a moment to

reclaim the sake of the church and for all who want to call this church their home. it seems manifestly clear that her annual visits to rome and the committee participation of lcwr are insufficient. whether a diocese in which there are wonderful and honest communication between the bishop of the dioceses and religious congregations that are there, that is not present in every place. so there has to be a way to deepen the communication. you know, as we look at the assessment and went back to some team in 1997, was that if it is disturbing to them and 1997, why did it take so long to say it? been a better have been resolved in 1997 when the current leaders might have been able to respond to it in person.

it is also clear from the membership that they did not desire that we allow the mandate and the assessment to consume all of our time going forward. so we will, immediately following the assembly, the presidency and executive director met with archbishop starkman then that would support of the leadership conference afterwards. so dialogue and the listening asperity begun so that we continue to do. in terms of going forward in addition to that direction, sister pat ferro, outgoing president and her masterful presidential address offered ethics guidelines by which we might navigate these kind of rough waters as we move forward. we are going to continue to do this in a contemplative fashion. if the prayer and the respectful

and contemplative listening could bring 900 women to come to a common direction, we have to believe that deep prayer is going to continue to bring the healing and the direction, the change of heart, that might be real dialogue does not involve winners and losers. it's about a way that we both get stretched so that will really happen. we believe strongly that the kerry sense of our congregation offer a pathetic voice to the church. a pathetic voice is not what my wellies or my intention is. it is haunted by deep asceticism, deep listening. but i've always said that we work so much on the margins. you know, we fall in love with the people we work with. we feel excluded from the church. we go active center of rhesus

questions. that's not the science. it's one in the church be alec v. we can find a greater place that is our ed homan the church. the pathetic voice will continue. to a solidarity march of the last was the head of the missionary. when you work with people who are very poor or even under oppression, they don't have a need to keep up appearances. and so through their eyes, they often see what needs to be unmasked. so we will continue to work with persons who are poor and try to look at our world through their eyes because they inform us. it will be a true community, community with ourselves, community with persons like yourself who want to find a place to solve things differently than the examples in

the very polarized world in which we live right now. it is so difficult sometimes to have a discussion on anything. already the campaign ads are hyped up too much already. and you know, so many things. your right, right, black and white. where is the avenue where people consider work together? we believe strongly the church is the body of christ that all parts of that body have to find a way to be at home and at, to be able to talk with one another, to be stretched by one another. we will do this in a way that is nonviolent. it will not be by yelling or screaming for defamation. it will be for maybe the deeply peaceful place. in order to do that, then relates back to the contemplation. it is allowing the time to listen so that the voice he

might offer is not necessarily our own place, the cubs are a place where we believe the spirit of god is speaking. and that we are going to move forward in joyful hope. there are many who have said to us dialogue, you really think that's possible? as people of the gospel, we always said that hope and we believe that if we introduce, maybe that her gift to the church at this volunteer time, to bring a different stance, to invite into dialogue those who might differ with those so that together we might come to a greater truth. thank you very much and i look forward to the opportunity to respond to yr questions. [applause] >> at the vatican decides not to have a dialogue with your grip and what is your next move? to the plan bnp while the

members and religious order get to for what she do? >> there's a couple questions in there. first of october dialogue is there to begin with archbishop starkman. so i think that's very promising. i had at him. he is very cordial and certainly seems to demonstrate the capacity to listen. as i understand, the board meeting was very honest exchange, said the dialogue has begun. in terms of voting as to what to do, it was the leadership and leaders of the congregation would have the third of what will come next. they also place a vote of confidence in the presidency that as they move forward, they should use their best judgment as they go through and we do have confidence in them that they will. as far as our members, we do the best we can to keep the members of our congregations informed. i think most of us at this point

have had separate meetings with their own congregation to say what has been going on to allow the sisters to have their own voice on this? i know in my own congregation i think because i was one of the people in rome to receive this, they've been incredibly supportive. so again, it's a matter of living and joy and hope as we move forward. >> howard the nun's orders leaders appointed? by bishops or vatican's? >> really by neither. in my own congregation, they elect the leader. so then that is done, there is the whole process by which delegate who have a status on the congregation agreed to a whole level of education move forward and they are involved in an election and/or discernment process, with the congregation might sit and say what needs to a half going forward and who

might be the best women in our congregation who have the gift to do this? there are some congregations who have their offices, had organization in rome. so in a few instances, the congregation itself asunder nominates people and then the affirmation would come from their own leadership headquarters, not from the bishops and not from the vatican. >> have there been other similar tensions between groups of u.s. catholic nuns and rome or u.s. bishop groups previously? >> the one that occurs to me was in south america. the conference of the american religious is called clark. some years back of his doctrinal assessment of them. they were about to publish a book that had to be withdrawn. the leadership was withdrawn in the vatican appointed leadership for that organization.

we have been in conversation with those leaders who were present at that time and they've given some very helpful direction. most of the similar to what we came out with ourselves stay very calm, stay very centered and keep the dialogue open and that is where the understanding grows. >> back to plan b. if dialect fails, but does that mean for lcwr becoming independent? >> i think it is too premature to answer something like that. first of all, we are hopeful dialogue will continue. and if it doesn't, the members have to come back. one of the things we've been very concerned about giving our love for the church is that we don't do anything that will split the conference and have some good some ways, some another way. i mean come you cannot belong to any conference. there is another conference in the country. the conference of major

superiors of women religious. they follow a more traditional life. i would have to look different to join that comes rims. so they would be coming in now, there's different ways and they're all valid. it's all part of the diversity of this up in the church. but it would be to her mature right now to venture a guess on the eventual outcome. >> what authority than he does the vatican and are bishops have over lcwr? >> the vatican has the ultimate authority. i would assume, and i don't know the ins and outs of all of this. they look for feedback from the bishops. as i said come in many dioceses within the country, there are wonderful relationships with bishops who have been so supportive of us. very good at this rate, there's a number of the conference who said -- she raised a question one point, this is a matter of

doctrine or docility? she may have hit the nail on the head, you know, which doesn't mean we should be a great deal more prudent and respectful as we go forward. >> what are you willing to compromise and what are you not willing to compromise on? >> the conference of the body of women religious agreed-upon certain principles that were important to s. one is that we would stand at our integrity and i also believe that they should stand their integrity. but we have to find those ways. i think there'd be resistance if there is anyway to way to be shaped as. we don't see ourselves as a teaching arm of the church, nor do we see it as our ball to discuss church document at our assemblies. a number of her women aren't the illusions. we have a wonderful university system in this country.

and throughout the country can we know that women religious avail themselves of ongoing education, wonderful lectures at various universities and so on. so to us, it seems repetitive to setup a way way to do that at our assembly. again, we focus on leadership skills and how do we prepare our members to live in this complex society? i think the resistance would primarily, if there was some effort to shame shows, to change the nature of the conference. >> your verb is one of several including catholic bishop conferences from the social justice cooper in the nuns on the bus had expressed deep concerns about paul ryan jay saying it's seen as a failure for emulators can point. are you going to continue speaking out about this issue now that mr. bryant is a candidate for vice president? >> first, what of clarity.

the lcwr did not sponsor nuns on the bus. that was a coptic social justice lobby. so while the information was communicated to us, we do not support it monetarily. we may have had numbers that participated, but that was at their own choice. so it might be important to set a rate that. it's network really that is spoken so much on paul rudd's budget and i believe made an effort to meet with them as they went into them. we don't traditionally is the conference speak out against any candidate. we've really tried to keep politics separate. but as they go forward, i would tell you it is our consensus that edger practices that are detrimental to the poor would not be something we could support. >> has your group has to tack to mr. brian about your concerns and budget plans?

>> we have not, but i know sister campbell has and i don't know whether or not that occurred. >> how many members are there in your leadership conference and how many do they rip these? >> there are 1500 women leaders in this conference. and how many they represent? 56,000 in the united states. >> is your group encouraged the church to consider ordaining women as priests? >> now, we have not. we've actually not had a speaker to talk about retaining women. two people at viewpoints on this? obviously they do, but we are very aware of what a economical statuses, so we never had an

assembly where we invited speakers to speak publicly on the ordination of women. >> to think the vatican crackdown is the hierarchy payback for many sisters supporting the health care reform? >> there is a lot of speculation as to the reasons why this is released at this point in time and that is certainly of them. you know, some have drawn the trends that because so many sisters supported the health care reform that were against the church on abortion that is not at all the case. the difference between the bishops conference and sisters conference as we different interpretation of the readiness of the and indeed several court cases have heard he upheld absolutely none of that money has been used for abortion. >> our young women expected to answer the call to the sacrament of holy orders of the most

recent references illustrate bilby sound to you for acting in accordance with their conscience . >> again become a clarification. when it comes to us they cannot present for holy orders. that is reserved for males who has studied for the priesthood. there is a concern about that. i would say some of the letters we received. i happen to read when a particular he said, this is why he terminated my discernment to religious life. on the other hand, if women are looking and interested in joining an intelligent, well-educated, articulate group of women who can speak on behalf of the poor and will not compromise their consciences, we await you with open arms at our doors. >> how do you reconcile your vows of obedience in light of

what is demanded by the vatican? >> obedience at its very deepest sense is listening. and it listening carefully. you know, in the principles of dialogue that will pop the six outlined, he talks about how important it is. the very first thing is each person makes every effort to understand the perspective of the other. every effort you think we are not there yet. but that obedience, when we are sure that dialogue has taken place, i think we'll both be changed by capacity of the dialogue. i think some folks have a concept of obedience that if your superiors says that what you're bishops have said or someone says that, you automatically do it. that was often called blind obedience in the past. in religious communities i wouldn't do that with my own sisters. if i want someone to do some

thing, we set, talk about it. does she feel she could do a? that could be as simple as i would love her to go study for a doctor. we'll sit there and chilled why she thinks she should or should not do we take all of that into account. so that's the kind of obedience we will follow, ones that incorporate the listening and honestly agree that is where we should be or where we should go. >> why have i not heard from you in your organization of women religious that accusation is an indictment of phrase or of children? >> bandanna, the accusations of abuse are an awful scandal in our church and it's been a very, very painful moment for priests, for bishops, cardinals, for so many who are healthy in our church and administer without reserve, without question, with great generosity and integrity.

actually what i would say is that we had any of our sisters have written letters to bishops when one of their members indicted, just offering them prayerful support as we went forward. we would never use the sinfulness of some members to denigrate the reputation of the whole. and so, that it's been a really conscious choice. we pray for those that work with survivors. we work with it comes than try to support them. you know in many cases we were the ones who went and reported things we were very uncomfortable with. so our loyalty and all truth is split and a number of directions. this book was very good people who really desire to govern the church well. it is very much for the sake of those who have been abused in for their ongoing feeling. i don't know how one of her

heels those scars on the ongoing support. but to be available to try to somewhat argue that had there been greater conversations with women much earlier, maybe the abuse scandal would not have gone on so long. maybe that's speculation, but it's helpful to have woman's voice in the mix as well as men. >> do you think the attack on the sisters is an attempt to change the subject from the issue of abuse by children children by priests? >> at the speculative issue. there's a wonderful article of this been a distraction. i think in all truth, you know, there's multiple facets of truth there. in our world is so complex and this is so complex, it's hard to say if anyone thing. could it be a factor for some? the possibility.

>> in 1979, the head of lcwr to a sister came pope john paul the second that all would industries. has that moment that the vatican watch lcwr more closely over the years? >> again, that's a speculative question. she did not ask for ordination of women. she said what is the church open to having more women in roles in the church? and i don't know. sometimes we all have different degrees of comfortability in responding to questions. i'm so i think i was a question that is forward inky minutes time. it was a challenge, but i don't know. i really can't say whether his focus attention on the leadership conference for women religious in general. >> do you believe nuns should develop or their focus focus to

opposing abortion and gay merits? >> actually if i could speak first on the abortion question. i think it's not a matter of either. i think sisters to oppose abortion, but we do it in a different way from the bishops. the bishops have operated politically and their very public and take place in each year and their voice from the pulpit, invoice we don't have and they very much supported that. and they do that really well. behind the scenes, there's so many congregations who work and a pro-life clinic, where they hope to counsel women. there's usually no salaries in those places, so we are supporting women as the duo for. i can't tell you how many sisters have counseled him women in high schools are in our colleges against abortions in and help them to get the necessary support that they need. every time we open a clinic or a

place where mothers -- homeless mothers and children can come to get the support we need, all of that is supported the right to life, even literacy programs help others to be better mothers for children. they say to me, and i can read my children. now i can talk to my child teacher. all of that is pro-life work. so i don't take it's either or i think the church needs both and and it's just a matter of enlarging the conversation of it and actually many sisters hugo to washington for the demonstrations. i sisters age cometh was likely the lack the stamina to be able to endure a red light that, but it still happens and it's very much there. in terms of gay merits, we haven't been asked to speak about it. we've not had a discussion on it and we don't usually speak out

on this doctrinal issues. the bishops have made it clear they are the teaching are on the church. so i'm a little surprised that they're asking us to speak about some of these things because you don't want to get in the way of what they are saying. so it is unlikely we're going to speak on gay marriage. >> pope benedict two years ago changed catholic doctrine to make a pledge that these those condoms need not be too -- should we believe a similar evolution will be made for contraception? >> again, that's hard to speculate. at the beginning of july, the london tauber ran a wonderful article from a something called sin is not simple. and it went into deciding what is involved in committing the sin. said so often people look at the end result, which is what a

priest might have to hearing confession and judge it as sinful when the really important question is what was the motivation. the example that the author used was someone might go in and say i missed nasa sunday, which objectively might be judged a sinful. but if the preset, why did she missed nasa sunday? well, my baby was sick. i couldn't take the baby to church. there was no one to say. others no sin because of the motivation. and so, the issue of contraceptives, the issue of freedom of conscience on any issue that might be outlined by the church would always be guided by the larger moral principles, which are what are the motivation? in some cases it might be violet not to use the contraception. this required a lot of guided conscience and before one comes to a conclusion that is unlikely

that anyone conclusion will necessarily be the conclusion for the second. >> what did this statement made to keep our integrity in the face of vatican efforts at reform? >> i think that is meant in a variety of ways. one is our integrity is leadership conference that we want to continue to offer readers the kinds of opportunities, the kinds of skills and exposure that might better enable them to the dentist very complex time in which we need. and so if they were an effort to turn this into something that only discusses church teaching, that is not as useful to readers at this moment. there's other ways we could do that. i read the documents on my own and i discussed them with people locally. i don't go to leadership to discuss church documents. i do go to be stretched.

i come out of a college background and colleges to put out any number of ideas and you discuss them. you don't necessarily agree with them. you might disagree violently, but it stimulates thought and refines thinking and that is the value i find in the leadership conference. >> in catholicism survived their best to timothy nonmembership which is by virtue of gender alone never is on the power structure to enact change? >> i would certainly hope so and i would believe that it could. you know, back in 1986, joseph cardinal bernadine wrote a reflection on religious life intact but even then he had such an insight for finding where the gaps were in our common ground efforts. he talked about the tension between the ecclesial realities and the kerry sense of religious life. and he said then how important it is to find ways for those

structures come in the ecclesial and charismatic to talk with one another. i'm transit the church is enriched by the tension and not torn apart by the attention and that is exact to what our hope would be. >> the bishops conference has said that paul ryan's budget fails the moral test. does lcwr agree? >> the lcwr is the unit has not discussed this. i would say many members might feel the same way. but as a conference, we have not come out with a stand, nor had a discussion on paul ryan's budget. >> when you talk about dialogue with the vatican, who will be speaking on lcwr's behalf? >> the persons who are authorized to speak on behalf at the lcwr are his presidency and executive are together. each year when we go to rome comes to presidency and executive director together.

but we are a membership organization said they will speak on behalf. but in terms of except any condition for agreeing to a condition, they come back to the membership and come back to the board and its membership. i realize that that structure can appear a bit cumbersome for those who might vote for easier answers, but it's really a safeguard and it's a model of the collaborative way in which women religious work together. >> do you have any message for those who have left to say because of their displeasure church leadership over abuse scandals and positions on social issues such as aids in africa and overpopulation? >> i think my advice would be personal. as a person who was in the office, the cdf office on april 18 to receive this

mandate, i found it personally -- i saw humiliated by the experience of being there and hearing what the vatican had to say, when i know how hard women religious have worked at dialogue, at communicating about their lives and so on. and i know when i came home, as i sat with my own ship and cried. i said to him, sometimes we have to pray to give our hearts back to the church. and you know, for people who have been hurt and profoundly scarring ways by our church, i guess it's just a prayer or would i them to offer themselves, that if they can come and it's slow, but you pray that they can find the grace to give their hearts back to the church because as it is congress sat around the time of the vatican council, the church is holy in spite of those who inhabit it.

so we left for the ways to give our heart to the holy. >> what is the status of catholic religious are in today? are your numbers growing or shrinking, aging? how would you characterize the future? >> if i can use my own community as an example, we began with ford who came over from germany to work with german immigrant philadelphia that were never met at the dot come as we wound up in new york. so many religious congregations have a comparable kind of heroic beginning. then, the anomaly was really that we grew so very large. and some of that anomaly was due to the fact -- i remember a woman who entered with me and i entered in 1968. she said you know, what i'd like to them that they had in school, they were great teachers are going to school, doing these exciting things. my mother come in 1968 was home

washing the floors. she said for me it was a women's issue entered the community. so as we begin to discern more about what really constituted a call into religious life, some women who came for other reasons discern maybe this was a where they were called to spend their life and they laughed in the remain friends of our congregation and they do wonderful work in places that we can't get into. so we are smaller, but we have always had a steady one, two, three people, i was talking to us about coming in. they tend to be more educated. our recent locations come from our latina women. we had our final vows siena at the end of april on the floor was originally an immigrant from el salvador. she's a u.s. citizen now and the whole community just loves her because of her sense of mission. the next final vows of the next spring and it's going to be in her province of puerto rico.

so i think it's a new immigrant population that's entering the church. religious life as a gift to the church and i don't think that is going to take the gift away. >> we're almost out of time, but before asking the last question a couple housekeeping matters. first, upcoming luncheon speaker on august the 20th at general james amos, commandant of the u.s. marine corps will discuss the role of words is the u.s. response force. kathleen turner, actress and chair planned parenthood word of advocates will discuss reproductive rights. on september 13, james p. hoffa, president of the brotherhood of teamsters will discuss protecting america and the american workers. second, make to present our guest with our famous national press club mug. and the last question is, how do you think the perception of nuns

has changed in the u.s. cannot always pictured is holding rulers of of looking stern? [laughter] >> we probably should write a thank you note to the vatican for setting a different light on women religious. and you know come with every challenge the result was a blessing on the other side. there have been so many blessings already associated with this particular crisis as some might see it in a real nice. one of them certainly has been to draw greater attention to the work of women religious, where we've come from since those area to pick days, how well educated women are, how far we've gone to the margin to work with the unserved in the underserved and were very grateful for that. i think as i said in my opening remarks, we are grateful to the media for that, we are grateful for the thousands and thousand of men in concert created life,

men and women who are at to us to support us. we are not perfect, but we are challenged all the time by your example. we are challenged to think more as you confide in us the complexity of your own lives. so there are blessings. i don't know if i've answered the question. i lost track of the question. but i do want to thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. thank you area match. >> thank you offer coming today. and like to thank our national press club staff in journalism institute a broadcast center for organizing today's event. finally, you can pay no more information about. please check out the website at www.press.org. thank you. and we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

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>> it is not as said by the victors four years ago, the economy, stupid. it's the kind of nation we are. it's whether we still possess though determination to deal with many questions including economic questions, but survey not limited to them. all things did not flow from wealth or poverty. i know this firsthand, and so do you. all things flow from doing what is right. >> look at what's happened. we have the lowest combined rates of unemployment, inflation and home mortgages in 28 years. [cheers and applause] >> look at what happened. 10 million new jobs, over half of them highway jobs. 10 million workers getting the raise they deserve with the minimum-wage law.

>> c-span has aired every minute of every major party convention since 1984, and now we are in the countdown to this year's conventions. you can watch live gavel to gavel coverage every minute of the republican and democratic national conventions live on c-span, c-span radio and streamed online at c-span.org, all starting monday august 27. >> this weekend on american history tv, 75 years since amelia earhart's failed attempt to circumnavigate the globe. former u.s. air force flight surgeon and aircraft crash investigator shares his findings on her life and disappearance. also this weekend, more from the contenders. our series that looks at key political figures who ran for president, and lost, but change political history. >> i draw the line in the dust and toss the government before the feet of tyranny, and i say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation

forever. >> this sunday, former alabama governor george wallace. american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> in just a few minutes we will hear remarks from the head of u.s. cyber command, general keith alexander. before the senate adjourned for summer recess, members spent the last several weeks debating cybersecurity legislation, but the parties fail to reach agreement on language to the bill. the measure would create security standards for computers that run the nation's critical infrastructure, including transportation, water systems, and the electrical grid. for more on where the bill stands we spoke with a capitol hill reporter. >> tim starks of "congressional quarterly," cybersecurity legislation stalled in the senate but they feel to advance and just before they broke for the august recess, what happened? >> a few things happen. there was a dispute over the

substance of the cybersecurity bill, but also the process, how they would go about getting it through. the substance complaints are primarily from gop members who think that the bill, the government gets a little too involved and businesses that own these very important computer networks that are tied to things like the electricity grid or the banking system. the democrats say they have actually watered down a lot of the provisions the republicans are concerned about, but they were never that close to find an agreement in the last week on those kind of subjects. then there was an issue of the actual amendment process, the republicans have an awful lot of amendments as did a number of democrats, some of which that were not at all related to cybersecurity like abortion or obama's health care law, that kind of thing that, that they could never come to agreement on what amendments to allow. so they failed on those two fronts, substance and process.

>> there's been a lot of outside discussion, a lot of outside interest groups weighing in on the legislation. who are some of those groups and what are they looking for? >> the u.s. chamber of commerce has been the biggest critic of this particular bill. what they're looking for is none of the provisions that are in there relating to voluntary standards, security standards that would be created with the systems -- assistance of industry, that would receive some measure of protection against lawsuits in the event of an attack. that's one of the things they don't like. there are other things such as who would be in charge of all of this. they are concerned about the provisions, whether provisions that are related to, spread information to businesses and the government would provide them ample or sufficient liability protection. on the other side, the privacy groups were largely placated by changes made to the bill, specifically those information

sharing where u.s. persons would get u.s. persons would get into the head of the federal government and how it would be used. but there were a handful of democrats, in particular who are still concerned about whether there were sufficient privacy protection pics of some of the groups on the other side that have been critical have been the aclu, those kinds of privacy groups. >> you and other news reports have mentioned the possibility of executive action, the white house possibly taking executive action. why would they do that and not wait for a legislative process to go to its logical and? >> one of the executive actions would be to encourage congress. they have lobbied pretty hard for this bill. they have not been successful in winning, over congress to actually do something on this, and as such a look at this as something where they might have to take matters in their own is that they've done this on a number of things with this particular congress, which they have critiqued as being not

particularly effective at getting legislation passed. so they haven't said exactly what they might want to do to take matters into their own hands. they talk about executive orders, but they haven't gone into specifics about what it would actually do. obviously, there are some powers and the federal government to protect computer networks and the department of defense, some of these, some of the bill's provisions are modeled after. what action will happen with the administration, what they can do is not clear because they were looking for more power throughout congress'. some people were described -- surprise senator bill decide to take this up before the last week before august support. y. supporters say cybersecurity legislation is needed to? >> well, if you look at the testimonies from some of the nonpartisan kind of intelligence officials, who are currently working him who served in both administrations, if you look at

past administrations, the national security officials and experts in general, they say that this is the big threat that has not been addressed. you're talking about, the worst-case scenario, the kinds of attacks that could really, really, really disrupt the entire economy, or lead to massive loss of life. now, whether that threat has emerged fully yet, with the people of the intent or capability to do that, secondary question, but the actual dire nature of the nightmare scenario was pretty bad. >> tim starks of "congressional quarterly" with an update on cybersecurity legislation. thanks for joining us. >> on tuesday the armed forces communications and electronics association hosted a discussion with general keith alexander, that of u.s. cyber command. during his remarks, general alexander stressed the need for legislation against the military standing rules of engagement and the authority to defend against cyber attacks on private companies and critical

infrastructure. from the baltimore convention center, this is 45 minutes. >> please welcome to the stage, lieutenant general retired john dubia, vice president at afcea international. >> ladies and gentlemen, we know it's a joint conference i'm going to give you a big -- a big hurrah from the marine corps. of the take a look at where we are today, we started off senator, senator barbara mikulski from the great state of maryland. she gave a very powerful welcome. to those of you who were here, you second that. and others who missed it, you missed an opportunity or somebody who is very, very interested in the subject of this conference.

and also take care of men and women in uniform and those who support them military and civilian. we had colonel chris about it, advanced our major black would tagteam, representing general hernandez as jo hernandez is with the chief of staff of the army and will be returning to be the luncheon speaker on thursday. the panel you just heard under the tutelage and moderator if you woke up at merle dave simpson, great job, great panel. general alexander folks in notches on the department of defense, not just on dhs, but let's bring, let's bring commercial partners into this. this is everybody's fight, if you will, and opportunity to share with the companies that were represented here today, that just represents some of the over 220 companies that are exhibiting here, and others,

other decrease of sponsorship. with that, what i want to do at this moment is to introduce our keynote afternoon speaker, general alexander's intent was very clear to me. we do go back a few years together, and he said keep it short. let me put it this way. field our children, and ultimate intelligence officer, served in combat, served in europe, has had staff assignments and all by the way, in his spare time, for master's degree having graduated from west point. with a complete joy me in a warm welcome for general keith alexander. [applause] >> general dubia, thanks, thanks for that short, sweet, i just found out i was in artillery. i'm just getting.

dan, bob, general smith, i can't believe, steve, they let you in here still. you know, it's an honor and privilege to be here to talk about a topic that it think everybody in this room knows more about than i do. so i'm going to talk about quantum physics. evened the playing field a little bit. it's an entanglement, superposition. no, i think that would be a topic 10 years from now in between we got to get there. so what are the things, and you think about the, you talk about things like quantum computing and stuff like that. look at what's going on in our world today. you know, when you look out, how many here have a connect? how we have an iphone? ipad lux mobile devices, yes. look at this. i'm a fairly young guy. i have 14 grandchildren.

i'm trying to help populate the country ourselves. and the average age of these kids seem to be two or three. and every one of them can operate ds, and ipad, an iphone. they are on the all time. they know how to skype at the age of two or three. look at all the great things they can do. now, you saw that new car by google, drive itself. he said in the back seat. nobody to yell at. i wonder what my wife will do? [laughter] okay, she's not any audience. that was close. but don't record that part. cut that part. i've got one of those hyundai cars, and you have a smart cruise control on it. you put on 72, you go down the highway, cars going 55, all days you would hit them. now it stopped, slows down to 55. they speed up to 62, it will

speed up to 62. it will stay with them right away. they can go all the way to zero and it will stop. it's amazing. look at all the great opportunities that we have in this world. one of the things as you look at that, tremendous vulnerabiliti vulnerabilities. tremendous vulnerabilities. so study the stuff up to operate is really neat. our country leads the way in this area. and its tremendous opportunities for the military, for industry, for academia, for our kids the absolutely superb. we have led the way in building all this stuff. now when you look out, look at all the problems that we have got. if you look at, there's some figures after. some quantities in vegas until some figures and tell you where they come from. it's like this course of the baseball games last night, two to four, there's a close one, three to four. i'm just kidding but i'm not going to do that. can you stay up with me here?

too slow, right? so, mcafee talks about the global impact of cyberspace operations on industry, cleanup and all that, is about a trillion a year. botnets send about 89.5 billion e-mails, spam e-mails a day. that's out of about 294 e-mails that are sent globally. when you talk about the number of cyber attacks, they have rose for mobile systems some 44% last year, and dhs reports the number of attacks on our critical infrastructure has risen from nine that we documented in 2009, to 198 and 2011. when you talk to companies like google, verizon, at&t, they are

tracking these mobile issues. mobile malware. you look at a mobile iphone, a device like that, you have two computers in there. one that helped you communicate, and one that runs your apps. two sets of vulnerabilities. and the problem is the software that connects those two is not normally secure. we worked to put out a secure form of android operating system, nsa did, and now we're looking at, well, how do you develop a more secure platform? what are some the things we can and should be working on to secure this? in the meantime the malware against google android, grew more than 500% since july of 2011, in one year. look at the attacks that are

going on. why does that cause us concerns? as you look at it if you go back and look at all the things that are going on in our area, the good things, the bad things is the attacks surfaced that people can come at us is growing exponentially. and all the adversary has to do is find a way in. and finding those ways in are getting easier, not harder. as we add more things. so we've got to work together to look at how we can close those gaps, and that's one of the things i want to talk about today. so the first thing i'm going to do is ask a question here. so how many of you have heard of the track? backtrack. okay, pretty good, pretty good. so backtrack is a course, something you can get on the network that is a downloadable system linux based system for

penetration testing. many of the folks out of work for nsa, kevin, you guys all get hit with, get up on backtrack. why don't people get up on backtrack. let me tell you from my perspective. here's what i am learning it. i am convinced that we don't train our people to a standard that is high enough to defend our systems. we don't. we say we're going to operate as a team, but each component of our team is trained different. our signal community is trained to operate and defense. our intelligence exploitation team is trained and cleared at a different standard, and normally this information cannot be shared top secret level information cannot be shared with the folks who are at a secret level. and then we have an attack

community, and everybody is trained to different standards over here. so, if you look at what's going on in these networks, the offense has the vantage. and the harder part is defending them. but what we are doing is we're training the defense community not on the attack it goes on to export capabilities that are out there, but we are training them on how to operate and put up the network without really integrating in all the benefits that the exploit, the attack community has. so if you think about it you can go online, and there's a book come is called the basics of penetration testing and hacking by pat into branson, a good book. i don't get a discount on this attacks we got a note from him. i use this in one of the things, i got a no. this is one of the professors at

the dakota state university who has written a book on how do you do penetration testing? and i thought this was really useful for me as a command of cyber command and the director of nsa to look at how we set the standards for how we're going to train our forces as one team, not three games. because it doesn't make sense to me that a defender only defends come exploiters all the exploit and attackers only attack because it's one network. we would never have come up with that paradigm. you have infantry guys come your defender infantry, you're there we can't infantry and your the attack infantry. think of how ludicrous that is, but that's what we have in our networks today. as a military. and dod is different than any other department in our government. we have the responsibility to

provide offense of capabilities and to defend this nation. so we have to train our folks differently. and when you look at what the book teaches you on it, one of the things that it talks about is the first step is know your adversary. this is like the sun tzu stuff. know your enemy. somebody might say you ought to know yourself, too, on the back of that. know your enemy. so what does the adversaries networks look like? how do you do reconnaissance? they teach you things from google to all the things that you can do to look up and find the ip addresses. and i'm actually practicing this myself. i set it up on my system. i had to put too virtual systems on my site don't get in trouble. a rare for me, i know general dubia is saying, how did that happen? so you practice of scanning, you practice reconnaissance, scanning the second step.

any actual software that you can download for a off the internet, there's about 830 some exploits. you can get windows service pack two. doesn't exploit there. if you haven't patched it you can penetrate that system. it took me less than 10 minutes to do that. i was able to then drop a key lock down on it, grab the passwords off of it, since as passwords to a john the ripper program, break the passwords to i was lucky, i was actually racing so depends on what see god and how you work. i won. i just want to put that out there. teresa lost. that's why people hate to ride on a graph with us because it's biased towards my network.

and all that in about 20 minutes. and then it shows you how to maintain persistence. if you look at and you think about what we were just talking about there, how are we going to train for the future and how do we set bring things together. so that's one thing i'd like you to think about, is how we train our force. now, one of the things that we jointly have worked out with the 24th air force, fleet cyber, our cyber, mark cyber, what are the i.t. things that we have to do as cyber command -- five key things we have to do as cyber command and what does the defense department, the intelligence community have to do? and we came up with five key things that i want to talk about those for the next two hours. or until somebody passes out and falls out of their chair.

first, build a defensible architecture. second, improve situational awareness. how do you see inside cyberspace? third, build and train ready cyber force. fourth, transform the we we organize and operate. and fifth, repair ourselves with the right authorities. i want to start at the beginning, start with a defensible architecture. when we talk about a defensible architecture, and i look at the dod architectures today, we make this really hard. we have 15,000 enclaves. think about that. 15,000 enclaves, each individually managed. if you were with cisco, you wouldn't operator networks like that. think about it if you were with google, ibm, microsoft, amazon, you wouldn't have 15,000

independent enclaves, but we do. and the consequence of that is coming each one of those is patched and run like a separate system. and those that are responsible for defending them can't see down be on the firewalls. and so situational awareness, i think hb ss is helping, but practically speaking, situational awareness is nonexistent. the consequence of that is the adversary only has to find one person to make a mistake out of those 15,000. the probability that somebody is going to make a mistake is one. you can bet on it. so we have made some, i think some significant errors in putting together the network the way we have it. we need to change the. so from my perspective, thin virtual cloud where you can

update and patch instantaneously, reduces that a tax surface in a significant way. it is something we ought to all push for. now, the other part of that takes less people, cheaper to operate, and is more efficient. and we can take those people and make them the cyber force that our nation needs. we are working with all the services and i.t. deficiencies to make that happen. the second part is trained and ready force. trained to standard. from my perspective this means that if your signal, your analytic, your cyber attack, you're a computer scientist, without to all be trained to the same standard. to operate on that as one team. so that there are not secrets among the different enclaves, but everybody on the team knows

what the other players are going to do. when you go to the national training center, you go to a cyber flock or you go to any joint exercise, the biggest part of that is learning what all members of the team are going to do. what we don't know today is what the other components of the team are doing. because we have a defend and operate teams separate frame -- separate from and export team, separate from our attack. so we've got to get that one trained and ready force. situational awareness, how do you see cyberspace? and right now when you think about it, if you asked everybody to draw a picture and then show me where the adversary is coming in, how you're going to stop that, nobody has a real good way of drawing that picture. and as a consequence, if you

can't explain what's going to happen, how do you explain how you're going to defend it? we can't see it. we are trying to explain to our young folks how they're going to stop it, and they're looking at us like what's he talking about. i get this from my daughter's all the time. that's a joke, i'm sorry, i will go slower. so how do you see what's going on in cyberspace. we've got to build that situational awareness. it's got to exist at network speed. it's got to taking billions of events, and make them humanly digestible, along with economist decision logic. but something that we can see. and there's got to be a set of those activities that machines can operate on that our policy driven, and then there's a series of things that we are going to use to maneuver our

forces in cyberspace. and that picture is what's got to bring us all together. so that's the third part. transform the way we organize and operate our command and control. from our perspective i think the first big step on that was setting up as cyber command in the subordinate commands. and now is how we reach out to the geographic combatant commands, and their components, one of the elements we're going to put out there and how do we do that. and the fifth area is authorities. what are the authorities we need to operate across the full spectrum? and from deities perspective let me tell you the hardest authority. when we look at cyberspace, everybody acknowledges that its

dod's responsibilities to defend the nation from an attack. okay, good. let's say they attack wall street. are you saying that, when you say defend the nation from an attack, is that defend dod's network or the nation? there is a possum always a cause while they consider that and say, that's a good question. not sure of the answer. what do you think? well, if it's dod we are good to go. we can -- this is like the missile coming in. if a missile is going to hit fort meade, we are okay, we can block the. it's going to hit baltimore, too bad. ..

there goes all your money. you forgot about the military. we don't have any money. it is your money. that makes us all even again. we wouldn't say let them take down wall street. we have to defend against it. you can see wall street. in cyberspace. we have no sensors. part of the legislation push on both sides from both parties is how do you share information so

we can see and someone can call up and say they are attacking wall street, please make it stop. we would consider that -- heart of wall street -- of course we would. the key is they probably wouldn't call me knowing how indecisive i am. they would call somebody like george and do it right away. how do you get a tip from industry or the internet service provider that an attack is going on at network speed that we can react to? that is one of the things we need for legislation. that authority has to be there. the second part is you want it to stop. this is like a missile coming in. this actually happened. you have to have a great sense

of humor in this. a few years back the chairman calls me up and says we are going to have a discussion about cyber. what is going to happen is a cyberattack is going to go on. and what options you have on day 1. they 2 you will present the briefing and on day 3 we will go back to the white house for a decision. i am just thinking out loud here. cyberspace. speed of light. 3.0 times ten to the power meters per speaker wraping 70,000 kilometers around you. roughly 133.x milliseconds. your decisionspace. we want to rack in 34 milliseconds for generating a briefing. 33 milliseconds for the first iteration to go over to the white house. another 33 seconds you have 34

to spare and stopped the action. i suspect they had not considered the speed at which this goes. i pointed that out. they don't have the sense of humor two. they did get the message. we have to come up with a new paradigm. think of new missiles coming in from russia and how missile defense and air defense and how all that works. at one slower speed you have 30 minutes. we are talking a cup of coffee or a bit closer. in cyber you are talking at the speed of light and talking about knocking down something before it can impact wall street.

we need a mechanism with standing rules of engagements. i am not saying go down and let cybercommand beat on a country that it texas and tear them up and start something big. i am talking defense of the nation. those are the authorities we need to. one of the considerations we have to put on the table and had the make a distinction -- defensible infrastructure? all of our networks ride over commercial networks and power grids. and the networks go down and the defense department can't communicate and transportation command, and we have to solve that problem and bring the team together? the most important point when you look at these five.

i started out with cybercommand dod team. the reality is there's a government team that is bigger than the defense department including the department of homeland security and others but the key players, homeland security and fbi and cybercommand are the key players that we have got to get out the rules and responsibilities. that is the government team. they can hit about 10%. industry is the big player in cyberspace. we need to have a construct for industry and government to work together. a way of sharing information especially on malicious software in a way that doesn't give away our most important secrets and we have got to have a way to leverage industry's capability

on what they see defend government that works. we have got to bring in academia and it is important to bring in our allies. in cyberspace if you look at the eastern seaboard there are roughly 18 cables coming into the eastern seaboard today. roughly 12 coming in from the united kingdom. three from france and two from denmark and one from spain. if you want defense in depth, the united kingdom, france, denmark and spain immediately come to mind. that is where the partnership is so important. when you bring that up to our partners in the u.k. they say it is good but goes both ways. i didn't realize that. we thought it only came to us. it goes both ways.

you get our stuff and you get our stuff. they would like us to clean our side and they clean their side. there are some great opportunities for how we can work together as a team and these are the things we put on the table. these are the things we have to resolve. i think within the defense department secretary panetta made some great strides pushing this forward following what secretary gates has done which is still cybercommand and components and we have gone a long way. what the nation now needs we need to get this legislation at some point. we have got to figure out the roles and responsibilities for how to share that information between government and industry and how we help industry hardened without being overly burdensome and bureaucratic on how they do that. but here's a fact.

it is interesting. nobody ones rules put down about what you have to do. but let's face it. we are all getting hacked. in fact when i look at it, the best run networks, services learned over many years, there is a lot we can share here between government industry, most of the i t companies know the problems in cyberspace. critical infrastructure is learning. we have got to bring that up and fix that. war we are going to suffer a huge failure in cyberspace and wonder why did that happen? it is coming from my perspective. is only a matter of time because if you go back and look at that book, what you realize, there are significant vulnerabilities out there and you don't have to be a brain surgeon to figure out

how to exploit those vulnerabilities. you can pull it in off the internet. any one of you within 12 hours to pull that off, don't do this because don't do anything illegal bets that -- hypothetically if you went there you would find tremendous ball bill -- vulnerability in the system. it is a huge. we have to get in front of it. the government can't do this alone. it has to be a government industry partnership and for us government, industry and our allies. i am going to wrap it up and i am supposed to ask you a few questions. see if we get any good answers or we can reverse that. open it up for questions on your part. any questions? if not i am out of here. >> we had a number of questions for you. >> that was quick. >> the first question speaking

of trains and ready forces what are the steps being done within cybercom regarding trading of personnel? are you satisfied with the progress to bridge the gap in training or does more need to be done? >> i am never satisfied. more needs to be done. i am not supposed to read that -- here is the issue. when you think about training i want to train everybody to the same standards so that the team especially management all understand the full spectrum of cyberspace. a linguist doesn't have to have the same training as a non net analysts who is going to operate on the network as one who is going to do digital network intelligence, reconnaissance, they all ought to be trained to serious standards from my perspective brings the team up

here. step 1, the first thing we have got to do, with this really hurts me to do this, but i think the way the navy is bringing to be able -- pulling together is one of the services need to look at. what that means is for the army as an example or the air force looking at a communications signal community equipped analytic community work computer science community and bringing them together as a team and calling that cyber and figure out how we work that between the crypt team -- there is something we have got to address because if we don't what we are going to have happen is the communications environment is going to drop pretty drastically. this has happened in the past

and the first thing people do is say i don't need that. if you think about radioteletype i used to have a company -- they are standing over here to my right. you don't see any and they are gone. what you see as we transform our communications environment the requirement for the signal community and look over here where cyberteam is supposed to be and we won't have either. what we have got to do is transform that force through the training we are talking about and make them all of one team. next question? >> in reference to your point regarding authorities, i read about uscybercom becoming a unified combat command. and the right authorities, to adequately defend our nation. how does this decision that

made? >> it is a long, long process. it is not necessarily an authority issue as much as it is looking at how we are going to operate in cyberspace. it is interesting. in 2007 we drafted -- i don't do -- at the request of the commander's -- ross cart right about establishing cybercommand. what he was interested in is what do we do? unified force separate service or a functional command? we sent some folks to study that and came up with a paper in april, may and june time frame and said probably needing a unified command but the problem is to get to a unified command

is too big a step to jump by pulling these together and making unified command. the most logical set it up as a sub unified and grow to unified. that is the process we are going to work our way through. it will take time but it is important to note that as the nsa director our report to the secretary of defense. i execute authorities on the part of the secretary. it then goes to the secretary. half of me is reporting this way and half of me is reporting this way and not everybody knows what everybody is doing except for one of us. i am not saying who. i suspect it is the secretary. so i think what we will look at is how to streamline that

process and they are working their way through that and it will take more time. next question. >> and important and growing issue is the use of mobile devices and cyberthreats associated with them. this brings up the realm of communication. there are now lots of wave forms in the marketplace being used by the military members. does uscybercom see a role in integrating with their efforts such as the integrated electronic warfare system? >> yes. you want me to enlarge on that? i do think that as we go forward vw is digits. go back to 2006 where you had digital and analog communications going through the networks and it tipped over to complete the digital.

they are essentials the digital and if you look at the electronic warfare it is going to go through the same digital environment. formal communications and in my perspective there is great opportunity to bring those together down the road. that is not something you have got to push on but you can see what we are doing, talking to a system whether you are a mobile device. and radio direction and ranging. and an intentional modulations. scan all these different things and these characteristics or is a radio. so when you think about it the practical reality is it makes sense to do that because when you think about how we are going

to operate especially in the military domain but you are talking about is collecting and preventing signals no matter which area you are in or talking about stopping them from getting into yours. both of those are going to go on. you will see those collapse together. that will really help the community as it goes on. that is my personal thought. go ahead. >> last question is a fun one for you. in your recent speaking engagement you challenged hackers to join a team of cyber personnel. any takers so far? >> we have. they are working clearances. didn't bring up that part. actually that was a flip answer. the reality is when you look out at the hacker community and from

my perspective 90% of the black had defcon communities are penetration testers, hackers who understand vulnerability and how to look at a system and how to get into it. what we need, defense department and government industry how to work together to share those and mitigate those vulnerability is. if you took the death con where i briefed, in that room where we gave a set of problems over a two they period. i am thinking they can solve every one of them. now the question is how do we get them to help us solve the infrastructure problems our nation faces. those of the things that my

feedback to the defcon community and all of you here is how do we do that? as you leave here one of the things i ask you to think about is not just that question but more especially because we are looking at this for the defense department and the government. how do we train our people in this area? how are we going to train them in the future and why don't we train every body of to the same standards? the practical reality is we should. it is the most important thing we can do. and when you look at those folks who are really trained on systems and everyone of you knows when you think about that, he is really good. he can give them that system. that is what we want all our people to be able to do. if they are that good they will be able to find and exploit and attack and that is what the nation needs.

for the industry players the other part is help us develop a way government and industry share information in a way that doesn't get liability for you or lawsuits etc. and meets the race condition we talked about in real time within milliseconds. how do we share information so that cybercommand can defend this nation and perhaps most importantly my final thought as you think about all that, you immediately understand we are not talking about reading people's e-mails. are talking about intrusion protection and defense systems that can see malware and chip somebody that there is malware. nothing to do with the content of an e-mail or phone call. but everything to do with malware we see transiting those networks and ability to

broadcast that for the defense of all of us. most people don't understand that. because they don't understand that this becomes a very emotional issue about all the wrong things and we have got to stop that. thanks for taking the time. [applause] >> un c-span2 each day at 6:00 eastern this week we have been looking back at the your's luncheon speeches from the national press club. this afternoon we hear from ken burns' on his documentary on prohibition and at 7:00 we conclude our queue and a series focusing on the military with our interview of the editor of military.com. is in sight provides news and support to current and former service members and their

families. the independence institute hosted their tobacco and firearms party in colorado. speakers discuss regulation of those products. what some called the net the state. >> psychiatrist will tell us to be beneficial to blame chemistry is the best drugs they can give out. even better than healthy foods. it is true. where did this command and control stuff come from? came from the modern public health movement and more than often than not it is a menace and obstacle to our happiness. originally it was all about stopping academics and that was what was instituted for. 100 years later we eradicated polio and whooping cough and

tuberculosis. something that killed hundreds of millions of people and most people have never heard of. you got to reinvent yourself to stay relevant because there are millions of government dollars and college professorss. if you price yourself by being irrelevant the market drives off. you have to find something else to do. and the public health assignment is about aids and cancer which is what it should be. but it has mostly become a social science instead of a hard science. you have a lot who cannot catch it in a laboratory. they're still regulating and shrinking our desert portions because that is all they know how to do. i used to represent the center for consumer freedom. in nonprofit industry group. they tell me now there is a

professor in san francisco claiming that sugar, a spoonful makes the medicine go down, so dangerous and toxic the government should regulate it like alcohol. on cnn dr. sanjay gupta nods in approval like he received wisdom from the man on the mountain. we see people airbrushing cigarettes out of old movies. i can't wait for the next remake of willy wonka when we are eating broccoli. >> watch the event at 2:00 eastern on c-span3. we will follow that at 3:00 with phone calls, comments and tweets. we have posted a question asking you what is the role of the government in regulating what people sheet and drink. leave your thought that

facebook.com/c-span. that is today at 3:00 following the event on c-span3. now a panel discussion from wednesday on the u.s.'s economic and security strategy in asia. among the speakers we hear from deputy secretary of state richard armitage on u.s./japan relations speaking at the center for strategic and international studies. mr armitage said u.s. and japan relations have drifted but remained stable. this runs an hour and 20 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> ok, everybody. let me ask that you find your seats. we are going to get started. welcome. my name is john henry. ben rich armitage said he was

going to issue his report, he is the latest armitage report on the fifteenth of august i said you are crazy. nobody is in washington. look at this. this is absolutely fabulous and i am delighted to have everybody here. it is because it does speak to the importance of the topic today. welcome to all of you. we are delighted to have you here and we are very pleased secretary armitage and secretary nye who cannot be here today have been partners in a series of important studies and fundamentally saved the direction of the policy trajectory of the united states and has had a significant impact as well in japan with our friends in japan. they see the significance of the

day and the significance of the event of these days and said there needs to be additional attention devoted to this topic and what you have before you is a fine study with true actionable things you can do and that will be the thrust of the day. what you had here i jokingly said look like a dutch master's print except for the two in the end and thank goodness we have some diversity. we are grateful for that. i would say thank you to all of you for being participants in this important effort and secretary armitage, let me turn it to you. we look forward to hearing your questions. >> as always we are gratified to be with our landlord and grateful to csi s for helping with this rollout and thanks to joe and me and our colleagues

who assisted mightily. all who are assembled before you and two others. actually three. kara bue who is traveling and genuzzi frank, looking at a bipartisan group. all three reports have had bipartisan participation and we think that is one of the important things. second if you look at this group we are not all old. some of us have more than others but airway you are seeing a new generation of folks who are interested in asia and certainly interested in japan. that was another message and we are hopeful that this will encourage folks in japan. younger folks in japan to step up the little more on the issue of security studies and japan's place in the world etc.. if i may i will tell you are into today and make a short

introduction. after my introduction i'm going to read a short paragraph from joe nye and asked mike green to talk about where we are in the alliance. these will be five minute segment that most with plenty of time for questions and answers followed by bob mcnally on energy security. something both of us have a huge interest in. kevin is going to speak about the macro issues and macroeconomics followed by david asher who will speak about an idea he came up with which we are calling csa. torkel patterson will talk about relations with neighbors. something quite topical and the last couple days in the region. randy schriver will talk about the rise of china. that is the backdrop to everything that is