times middle east bureau chief, spontaneity and close editing cannot coexist. remember what jody said, it just seems an applet to the form. but there's another issue, one of those more directly to the tens relationship of reporters and their employers. journalists reputations, and by extension, their market value, given increase in on their ability to attract an audience. that's true whether they work for huge news organization or they're part of a small startup. this is hard for many of us to understand. for many years journalists haven't cared that much about how may people read or watched their stories. for one, most reporters see themselves as members of a large team, and that's always been hard to determine with very much precision the contribution of any individual journalist. second, those metrics until recently had been hard to measure. for traditional media you may get a general idea of how may people watching the broadcast are reading an article in

newspaper or magazine that you have a hard time determining how many views each story gets. third, most reporters are largely anonymous to the outside world. the name of us covering the police department or the state department is largely unknown to anyone who isn't already a source. but not reporters audiences can be determined constantly and instantly. those numbers often become a standard by which a journalist values is determined with any news organization and also in the open market. this is new and a laser every journalist who isn't a popular news anchor or a widely read columnist but one can now attest to measure the valley of in the journalist to the overall news organization. so reporters in the digital world have different and expanding sets of obligations to fulfill. it is not enough to simply cover a beat or produce a video or to write a story. indeed, reporters who limit themselves to these traditional tools may find themselves under equipped to handle the growing

expectations of an new sites that want journalists to bring in more readers and generate more page reduced the reporters have another set of obligations. they have a duty to themselves and to their own careers to build up their presence online to prove to employers present and future that they can build and sustain an audience. so the audience is measurable, visible, and here's what's really scary for many news organizations, thanks largely to social media reported audience is movable. let's think about how different that is. for many years when a reporter would lead a news organization, the readers would barely notice. they would by and large stick with that institution. but he journalist was building his or her brand is in another category altogether. let me give you a few examples. howard kurtz had around 70,000 twitter followers when he worked at the "washington post." a few years ago he left the poster boy for the "daily

beast." is twitter audience didn't say at the post. post. it moved with him and now he is 110,000 followers. andrew sullivan a prominent blogger announced a few months ago he was leaving the "daily beast" to start his own media business. and guess what? his 75,000 twitter followers will accompany them out the door. when jim roberts, an editor at the new york times who left earlier this year, his 80,000 followers became part of the thomson reuters audience. the message is getting through to journalist. when i spoke to her a few months ago, i asked her about this trend. she said that she doesn't have personal accounts and social media by she does use twitter as a research tool to learn what's going on in the middle east and to find sources. during the iran uprising of 2009 which she covered, a journal editor told her that her name had become quote one of the most searched terms on our website. her name had become a search term. that's when it occurred to her as she told me, we are turning into branch. i don't know if it's a good or a

bad thing. on the one hand, you can increase your audience, but on the other hand, some of her name brands are becoming overstretched. i know reporters who spend hours figuring out how to time their tweets, wind to send an overnight. this is a why became a journalist. i didn't become a reporter to become a celebrity. you have to have interaction with the real world, not just the virtual world. i couldn't agree more with my former colleague. as powerful as social media become, they cannot substitute the final acts of journalism at the reporters commit daily and in many parts of the world, courageously. it's also important not to see this as an either or proposition. it is entirely possible that not too far down the road social media will be seen as a journalistic tool no less vile than a phone or a camera. and is within the tool journalists need guidelines. chief among them is the reporters must understand the social media post can be as powerful as any story that the right or any video they produced. indeed, as i said earlier, she

found her e-mail, or private e-mail to be the single most vital thing she had ever written. each time a reporter send us a tweet or put something up on facebook, the veteran must engage. but it means reporters must closely, more closely examine who they are and what role they want to play. it's -- if it is your intention, often downplaying or ignoring contradictory evidence, then so be it. there are plenty of examples of reporters acting that mode, going back many years. advocacy journalism as a rich history and the u.s. and around the world, and digital platforms make it only more powerful. but one must also recognize the indications of that role. a journalist may be diminishing his or her potential audience preaching only to the converted. he or she may be cutting themselves off from sources who won't feel they will get a fair hearing.

most fundamentally reporters may fail to invite or consider opinions and facts that will make their journalism more textured, more authentic and more valuable. for those who value the search for truth, a search unencumbered by the obligation, just not a specific point of view, i would say this, whatever you write, whatever you say is now become a part of how your reporting will be viewed. you can no longer separate your tweets are posting articles or your broadcast. the sony see social media as integral to journalism, not as a sideline, the more easily we can adapt to new possibilities and risks. when i began researching this speech a few months ago i took the time to reread the e-mail from 2004. it had been about nine years since i have seen it, and suddenly h they came back to me. this was a piece of journalism that with minor editing onto a gun in "the wall street journal." it is the journals laws that she

felt constrained to offer it to editors like me, and it's the world loss that the message had to be spread as if the were contraband, shared by insiders rather than a vivid description of events that deserve the widespread attention and the claim. when she and i talked last month i asked her how she now views the e-mail it usually. here's what she said and i will give her the last word. things have changed a lot. i didn't have a direct audience as you now with twitter and facebook and blogs. now the conversation becomes public. you are much more conscious that would've used it is no longer private. there's something about technology. there's an intimacy to it that makes you forget it's a public domain. you mistake it for a private conversation with a friend. and as for the enough that she said, almost 10 years ago, she said this. though it was difficult i don't regret it. as a journalist ultimately what you tried to do is to have him back. you tried to get people to see things in a different way.

my e-mail succeeded in doing that. thank you very much. [applause] >> so, i'll be happy to discuss this or speeded i would like to ask the first question. >> okay. >> do want to explain what? >> i would rather not. can you? >> as i recall, she sent out a tweet or a facebook post memorializing someone in a way -- [inaudible] she expressed some regret over his death. >> right. and she was summarily fired, right? >> that's what's been reported. >> okay. >> [inaudible] >> are you asking how do i feel about that? well, i think that's another

example. you know, i wasn't part of that decision and it would be inappropriate for me to kind of get into somebody's employment because you never know exactly what goes into whether some and stays or doesn't stay. i do think it's an even more vivid example of what was talked about. with social media there is this hidden, this false intimacy that we feel we have, that we feel we are just communicate with the people who were on our facebook page or who are in our twitter feed. and so in the same way that you talk to people in a private conversation differently than if you're in a public forum, reporters need to understand that that kind of private conversation doesn't really distance itself from social me. there are certainly balance behind which a reporter

compromises his or her ability to be seen as an independent observer of events. but this of course gets to an even larger issue, which is, you know, i like to think most of the journalists are intelligent human beings and with thoughts and opinions and we are processing information. and so, you know, at what point does the coming to our coverage? and if you remember what fassihi said in the foreword to her book, that there were conventions about "the wall street journal" that were common to most american newspapers that did not allow her to express her view of what's going on on the ground in baghdad, yet when she expresses in the private enough that i a farmer impacted any sty should written up until then. so that has to be some way of channeling those kinds of observations and analysis in a way that is congruent with journalism institutions, but

enables people to really get a feel for what's going on. >> i think you're supposed to go up there, or you can pass around the microphone. >> i have a question about, talking about the difference between your tweets and social media and your role as a reporter. what would you say is the appropriate content of a social media message as opposed to what you are reporting? >> so, well, think about one of the things that social media allows you to do not a more difficult or impossible in a conventional journalism framework. first one is obvious that there's an immediacy to it. daddies are hard to duplicate. and if you're a reporter that is being sent to the scene of a breaking story, twitter is a

very, very powerful way, especially if you're using hashtags in a way that enable people to follow that story to find it. you know, as a bit of a side element, one of the downsides of that is sort of the publisher or the employer of this journalist after tweeting, and then all that traffic is going to twitter can it's probably not going to your own website. and take away some the time that he or she may be using, my to been using in order to kind of build forces on the scene. i think, to me the kind of line are you saying something on twitter or facebook that is going to compromise your ability to develop sources, to come across as a thoughtful and independent observer of what you're covering. and i'm sorry if that sounds a little squishy but it's very hard to come up with, you know, kind of a codified set of rules about what you can and can't do. that was what i said in my

remarks, that a soap header has to engage, something about it since i'm going to compromise my ability to be an independent observer or to be seen as one. if that's the case that i think one has to really think through it. >> in effect doesn't it put more -- i'm with south asian news. class of 72. doesn't in effect put more pressure on you as a journalism professor and editor because back in my day in the '70s and '80s, particularly television can we all wanted to be stores but we all wanted to be provocative but we had the ethics and the teachings of the journalism school that gave us a balance of how to be but i was told in school or public and private comments were on the record. that should be cognizant of that. so doesn't the bold fallback in which you? >> it actually does but it falls back on journalism schools but

it falls back on editors and face managers as well because not all jews go to journalism school. and we been incorporating more social me classes in the curriculum and classes of both students, teach students how to use facebook and would've a more fundamentally what are some of the pitfalls that you run into. so for example, a big problem or big issue with twitter is how do you authenticate and validate information that you are reading in social media. there's tremendous value and a lot of what gets reported on social me, especially in breaking stories. but learning how to authenticate that information and learning how to understand whom it is coming from and at what point you ought to be using it or not using it is a really difficult question. we take them through case studies of times when it's been used effectively at times when it's been serious damage to a journalist reputation.

>> i'm sonia, class of '09 but i'm not reporter with cbs atlanta in the city. >> congratulations. >> i was to so much opinion on a couple of instances that have made national news but one of them is cbs anchor in the cross wisconsin, overweight, a man sent her a letter telling her that she was overweight, and she responded on a are saying that she admitted she was overweight but she didn't think she was a bad role model, blah, blah, blah. that instance, a good friend of mine i worked with her in new york omron delete out of shreveport, louisiana, meteorologist. a viewer had post a comment on facebook page, her work public facebook page saying that she's the black lady who does the news, her hair, why can't she wear a wig or grow her hair out? she is black and has natural hair. so she responded to him saying

something i thought was pretty appropriate. she said, i'm very proud of my african-american and she which includes my hair. for your edification tradition our hair doesn't grow downward, it grows upward. she sort of tried to explain to them and defenders of as well. she was fired. the anchor out of lacrosse was not that she responded on tv. apparently got okie from the station. but rhonda lee was fired for violating social media terms of speed did she send a response on social media or just on air? >> she said on social media. so i was curious about your thoughts on that. >> well so, the first one, i did see that video, the wisconsin woman who was defending her weight. i don't generally discuss women's weight in public -- [laughter] spent how can i say this with c-span cameras on? i mean, i thought i thought it was kind of -- an inappropriate

thing to be doing on tv. i mean, i understand there was a painful incident but the woman suffered, but all of us as human beings and as journalists take those kind of barbs from time to time, you sort of put up with it. on the second incident you mentioned, i've not read this i don't know exactly what the woman said on facebook, but it doesn't sound to me like somebody simply responded to somebody saying, you know, this is my hair and this is my heritage and i'm proud of it, but that would constitute a firing offense. but again i don't have to be more discussions about should some have been fired or not from their news or decisio the statin because it can be hard in all the -- >> [inaudible] >> that when i don't really understand why that would've triggered that outcome.

>> [inaudible] for 43 years in this area. i'm a builder, two. if somebody told you that the american people were never told why we failed in iraq, what do you tell them? >> why we failed, you mean with the outcome of the war, or why we failed and the reasons why we went into iraq? >> both. [laughter] >> i think americans, i think american journalists have done a fair amount of introspection, and you see a lot of this this week with the 10th anniversary of the war, in terms of a failed, the media and of other institutions in our society to discern the truth about the weapons of mass destruction, which, of course, were the primary rationale that president bush gave for invading iraq. so i actually feel like that's

been pretty well opened up. i will say this. i think that the iraq war has so faded from the american consciousness, today i believe they were a series of car bombings that killed dozens of people. you have to look really hard to find a story. it's not something -- is the something about americans, you know, interesting of news beyond our borders. its like we can only handle one crisis at a time. so if it's serious or cyprus, it's like one country and that's where most of the attention go goes. >> i asked for the media tell the true story about why we failed in iraq? you did not answer my question. >> well, you didn't quite phrase it that way. you know, i don't want to really get into a discussion about the opposing -- in the iraq war. the inability of the press to

discern what was going on in iraq before the war is something that the press has actually come to terms with. it took a while, but i know the new york times did a very large story about it and the "washington post" has done as well as other organizations. what i will say again is that i think american media have by and large lost interest in iraq, and have not done the level of reporting essentially censor troops pulled out in 2008 or nine. >> do you want me to tell you why they lost interest in iraq? >> if you can keep your remarks fairly short because i see other people lining up. >> because the truth always comes on top soon or later. and when the truth start coming through the grape vines, and everybody gets very, very upset. thank you, sir. >> okay, thank you very much. >> i'm joe barton. i work at cnn but i was curious, what you discussed with the

people taking their followers with them when they leave an organization. our organizations doing anything to combat out? and is there something they can do? >> well, i know there's some organization that makes people actually attach the name of their news organization to the twitter handle. i can't remember which one it is. does anybody know? several. >> i would be trees, i don't know if come and i know that you are doing some for cox. i would be curious to hear what policies are out there in newsrooms in terms of if you leave your news organization you have to turn over your twitter handle and start a whole new and? or how does that work? >> [inaudible]. spin it would be good if you said that you were and come up to the microphone. >> this is the old trick of turning edge over someone and the crowd. >> by the social media manager at cox media group.

2008. well so, i don't know, i can't comment for other media companies but cox tent city fairly decentralized. at the corporate we are more advised consultants. so in the case of the ajc, the other on social media policy and to decide all their journalists need to have not only get credit as the ajc but it grinned as the agency and to be. so i think rodney is in the room. so -- [inaudible] spent exactly but it is ajc radio tv. i've looked at because i wanted to tweak your earlier. >> and then if somebody leaves the company, do they turn that over to the company or what? >> it depends on the news the other tv station but in the case of tv it depends on the contract that that specific reporter, anchor, personality negotiate with the tv station. that's the question on everyone's mind that is not a

real blanket policy. >> you have a question also? >> i do, actually. [laughter] so you talked a lot today about the middle east and this was about the curriculum at columbia. so i've question that relates, to date has become very famous in social meet in the middle east in the air spring, andy carvin from npr. one of the things he has been acclaimed for is often re-tweeting and acting kind of like a central hub to curate tweetdeck you'll sometimes re-teed -- re-tweet fact that he will label them as such but and one if that is something that you guys teach at columbia, knowing that in the u.s. if you might re-tweet something about somebody who can sue you for defamation, maybe that's not such a good practice.

>> right. so, so, does everybody know who andy carvin isso, does everybodo andy carvin is? he's a social media guru at npr, right? >> yes. >> during the arab spring and even beyond that he developed this very significant following by taking lots of tweets, lots of twitter feeds, especially from egypt, tunisia, the other countries that were exploding, and re-tweeting certain of tweets, specially those that he thought had built the level of reliability over a period of time. but from time to time he would re-tweet something i don't know if this is true but i'm just putting this out there. you have seen that in "the new york times" also ugly. they have a blog called the le

lead, and they do a terrific job on stories like the iran uprising or other big breaking stories. and, of course, sometimes you're confronted with something. there's a video that is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of face views. it purports to be from one side or the other in syria but it shows some horrible carnage and something that you think your readers ought to see. and do you just posted? do you say this comes from a source whom we have used before and we believe there is some credibility, or the old, everybody is talking about is how we're going to go ahead and provide a link to it. i think the key to it is first filtered for the things that really are going to be damaging to the institution or to the person that you are covering. and if, if the consequences of that thing being untrue are significant, then again, the south editor has to engage. but at a certain point if

there's a video from syria that hundreds of thousands of people are millions of people have seen, and the news organizations it seems like some proactive obligation to say here's this video, this is what we know, this is what we don't know. and we're going to keep on this to try to evaluate the authenticity of it. a lot of times you don't know was that it is shot today, two years ago? wasn't something that worked on in photoshop? there's a lot that can be done with digital video that gives one cause. but in the same way, at "the wall street journal" when we get been on the story, not that that ever happens, right, john? you get beat on a story by "the new york times" and you would come back at it the next eight even if you couldn't confirm it yourself, you would say the stock of xyz company is down 8.2% based on the reports that came in some alternate publication that we are not going to mention.

journalists have had to deal with this for a long time. so night in a 24 hours to evaluate. you have 24 seconds. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we like to hang around in and to any other questions? [laughter] >> i'm an independent journali journalist, background tv and print. i just really -- how does social media become part of the journalism pantheon? >> how does it or how did a? >> how is it expected. because no matter how expedient the means of information are, they were always vetted. and radio. and today that's 50 words. it is not vetted and that seems to be sort of a violation of the

most importantly and secondly how much is it driven by the advertising dollars needs? because it does compromise when you were mentioning the story of the colleague, very frequently publications, media outlets that one works for a man should be part of a facebook pages. so it's twofold. >> absolutely. okay, so you can break this into several parts. one is social media is a very important distribution platform. i mean, i don't know how may of you are on twitter or on facebook but a lot of what i read during the middle of the day is come is links that my friends or people i follow on twitter are saying this is something really interesting. and for a number of people, twitter has become the homepage in a way that "the new york times" is not their homepage. and that may be hard to imagine. infected during the 2012 election, if you are following

the 20 or 30 best political journalists on twitter, you had to know what was going on. you knew in real-time and you didn't just know what they were saying. you knew what they were reading. you knew what they were talking about. and that's, you know, think of the value of that. journalistically that is a very valuable thing. >> i will stop you right there. you use data postings in the mail or call somebody up and sync read my article. that's not calling journalism real. the journalistic realm. i mean, it is, be a where. but it doesn't, there's a thin line of saying what's -- the other one of saying i'm following so-and-so because they are a really good reporter but those are two different things. >> they are, but there's also, i mean, when i worked at the camp attribute or even the journal,

and i just assumed if the "herald"'s circulation was 480,000 if i wrote a story for the "herald" iso 480,000 people actually read my story that day. even if i'm on page nine. and believe me, it was a very small fraction of that. i would argue that increasingly journalist to have a responsibility, often one that is encouraged by their employers to get their stories out there. and part of the way that you do that is why, you know. and there is, and advertising mode of that because the more pages you have, the more advertising you have to sell and all that. one more in -- >> the only thing is, getting

people to see the printed word, articles you put out there, the stories. the twitter is 15 words. you are not vetted. it's not vetted. that's really the crux of it. where do you slice that? >> i think, you know, twitter can be a very effective way for journalists to find sources as well, and as we saw from ms. fassihi, she said while she isn't on twitter herself, she uses it in order to find out what's going on. it doesn't mean easily take that and run that in your story the next morning, but it gives you a starting point in a way that is one more tool in the toolbox. it certainly isn't the only thing a journalist should be doing but it could be an effective way to find it. >> christopher dawson at cnn.

i wanted him or on your thoughts around social media policies towards employees. talked to a lot of colleagues at different organizations. seems like a lot of them are going with a blanket policy of you can't especially opinion on anything on any social media forum and a follow-up on that, you mentioned a couple news students you. that generation in particular has gone a long period of time without any filter on their social media. so now their opinions, although young opinions, are out there already which could influence their careers. so where do you think this is going to go? >> the short answer is i don't know, but the longer answer is that, i'm so dumb can you say the very first part of your question again? >> it was basically looking at the direction a lot of the large me copies have gone with, which is this blanket come to have no opinion. >> certainly for many years that

was the way newspapers in particular handled things, especially get to be when most cities became a one newspaper city. it was in the interest of the newspaper to ensure that it didn't lean too far one way or the other because they were trying to get the largest single audience. i think, you know, i certainly understand what institutions are coming from, and you can service a case like "the new york times" that once she starts seeing some of the things that she said, they had to bring her in. because they have an institutional interest in being seen as a this interested observer in the middle east but it's not so much in terms of their advertising. they aren't getting many ads from a bank in cairo but in terms of the ongoing credibility. so i certainl certainly understy the doing and i think what we're going to see is the really big institutions will continue to do it. that's what the "washington

post" policy is strong and stiff. but that in the meantime there's this huge surge of very small news organizations/websites that don't feel that the operate under the same structures. and journalist are going to kind of make up their minds in terms of how they want to point victory. but something is you kind of alluded to which i think is important, that journalist, young and old, need to realize they are leaving a digital trail where ever they go. one of the things that i tell students when they're making a decision whether to come to columbia as i say you know, i screwed up stores when i worked at the baltimore news american in the early '80s, and i dare you to find them. you had to go into like the basement of the baltimore public library and go through reams of microfiche. but if i want to find a correction a journalist is taking today it would take me two minutes. they can be corrections going

back seven, eight, 10 years. so i think the kind of digital fingerprint that we are living, kind of above and beyond the sort of media confederation that can happen when send out a tweet are opposed that goes astray. but the kind of, this long trail you are leaving is a lot of journalists are not that conscious of. >> i'm jimmy cushman. full disclosure, i'm not in the industry though i'm a big fan and avid reader also a big fan of tom and your school as well. the question i've got is similar to a follow-up to the previous gentlemen and it has to do with him to give the. and -- objectivity, kind of the difference and the articles i read, i read an awful lot, and i see that i'm an article to an

editorial, and you know, sometimes that gets a little blurred. also then you get to social media and they can get even more blurred. i'm just curious as to how you teach that atticus that may tie in to that as a. >> what we tried to do at the journalism school and really every good organization i forgot, to try not to frame objectivity as i'm going to devote 50% am a star to one side and 50% the other and just let readers make up their mind. at that point you are stenographer rather than a journalist. you do have an obligation as a journalist future analytical ability and your knowledge of defeat and your understanding of the sources to provide the readers and viewers and in from the other. so i called more independent rather than objectivity, which is if you basically kind of decided which side is right and which side is wrong, then you

basically closures of off to the kind of multiple opinions that might inform it. and the facts and they against -- may go against your brain. you know, it's very hard for a lot of young journalist to cover the anti-abortion movement because they just feel so viscerally that this is a right that has been decided by the supreme court. you know, i often do a session with my students, tried to help them understand, you know, there are reasonable people against abortion feel the way they do. and if you close your mind off to that and if you kind of categorize them as all one, then you're not doing the job as a journalist. whether you agree with them or not is really beside the point. you know, that is a learning process and something that i think the really good news organizations can infiltrate in

the way that they do journalism. >> he is the last question. >> i want to thank you for your talk but it is really interesting. i'm a former "san francisco chronicle" editor. i'm writing for international ngos to my question is about the degree to which your colleagues at columbia and your former colleagues of the journal talk about how to the social media platforms are appropriate for different journalistic function. when i look at friends and colleagues who are in media i noted that facebook seems more appropriate for pundits and columnists to some degree and that twitter is great for reporters. and i wondered if you see a day coming when that will just the difference in the way the technology works will help journalist six come up with guidelines. >> i guess i hadn't quite thought about that way. with facebook it tends to be more defined audience -- like

old high school girlfriend's and cousins, cousins that you are embarrassed that have the same last name of you and that kind of thing. whereas in twitter your audience is, if your interest or provocative enough, you easily have come as we've seen, 75, many people a hundred of thousands or millions of followers which is impossible a facebook unless you're doing it through a whitespace. it is some interesting research around about how readers used twitter and facebook differently. is a different sense of discovery. that twitter offense to be more topic base. in every twitter feed for people are good at covering the atlanta braves or people who are good at covering politics in tennessee or something to rather facebook it tends to be more of a social environment.

i'm not sure that news organizations have kind of thought that through very much. >> last one. make it good. >> no pressure, no pressure. thank you for being here. i worked for cnn. i think like a lot of people who work for sort of a larger news organization, our experience in social media isn't so much with her own personal accounts but it's a lot of managing an account for that organization. so one of the challenges that i find in doing that with one of cnn's brand is sort of having a voice but also staying within the constraints of the brand. and you mentioned earlier in how people are trying to become sort of brash and that sort of thing and how they use social media in order to bring more people to their sites. do you think that there is a

line, or what is that line between sort of having your own voice as well as staying within these constraints or brands in the personal or company account? >> the issue of a company account is interesting because i would imagine bosses are very anxious to get more and more followers when they see that the cbs affiliate and come in des moines, iowa, has communism 30,000 followers and abc only has 10,000, and then that's something that you guys have got to take care of. how could this be true. then, of course, what you need to do to triple your audience on twitter is a lot of stuff that your boss might not be that comfortable with. i mean, i think a lot of it is kind of these organizations try to figure out not just for individuals but what is their social media brand as it were? what do we want to be known as on facebook or twitter, and how

does that overlap with or how does that differ from what our kind of institutional brands. and i don't, you know, i would assume that's a big issue, a lot of news organizations, especially as they see that. but i'm not quite sure commit seems like you may have to draw a somewhat different set of rules around how you portray yourself on one of these platforms and how you do it to just kind of the general public. >> thank you. >> that answer program except for one question. do you have a twitter account? >> i do. it's really boring. [laughter] >> how many followers of? >> i don't know, like 1600, something like that. >> thank you all for coming and thank you very much. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> we have more live coverage from this investment company institute event in an hour or so when two former chairmen of the senate budget committee will speak. kent conrad and judd gregg

talking about budget deficits, taxes, and government spending. that's set to begin at 10:30 a.m. eastern. will have live coverage here right on c-span2. president obama in mexico today, part of a trip that season visiting costa rica as will pick is expected to speak to a group of students in mexico city about 10:15, about half hour or so from now and will have the live for you on our companion network c-span. c-span's road to the white house, 2016 coverage begins later today with two fund-raising events from columbia, south carolina, and vice president joe biden attending the state democratic party annual dinner. will have that live at 7:30 p.m. on c-span. and later, texas republican senator ted cruz in his remarks at an event honoring former senator jim demint. let's take a look at how "the associated press" is reporting the jobs numbers. the ap says u.s. employers added

165,000 jobs in april, and hiring was much stronger in the previous two months than first thought. .. >> the number of female computer scientists have dropped. have is about an hour and 20 minutes. >> my family's huge, crazy. >> all together in this household is eight children. it's a hectic, busy life. >> i'm 16. my father works 15-hour days and trying his best to support us. my life was pretty difficult

when i lived back in brooklyn. things were hard when you didn't have much money. i was in the library one day in the school, and the librarian comes up and says, julia, i think that you'd be a good fit for the program, you should try it out. i looked at the paper, and it said "girls in code," and it clicked. there i learned everything from robotics to web design, and we also learned programming languages. >> i don't know if you want to explain it, or if you just want to play it? >> just my it. >> being exposed to the technology changedded my life, and i want to double major in computer sciences and physics. >> she's an inspiration to the whole family. >> it's a function for animation. what i learned from the program, i'm using it to teach my family including my dad. >> i consider julia to be a ground breaker in computer technology. there's not a lot of women in this field.

>> i'm the only junior in hi physics class, and it's a class filled with boys. there's a whole mess of jobs in technology, and women are going to make computer science way better, and no one's going to stop me. [cheers and applause] >> and we actually have julia in the audience today. before we start, julia, would you stand up? [applause] julia needs to be accustomed to applause and recognition. this, in many ways, is the perfect segue from my mother's speech earlier.

there's a field, stem, science, technology, engineering, and math, but sadly, those are also an arena in which girls and women have lost ground in the united states, and in the mid-1980s, about the same time i got my first computer for christmas, girls were at least 35% of the computer science graduate, and in 2006, 20%, and last year, 12%. clearly, not only what we are doing not working, but it's failing, and, yet, there are many bright spots that illuminate another way forward, and that's what we're going to talk about this morning. joining me is the founder of girls in code, the organization teacher. [cheers and applause] in the video. [applause] we have the founder and ceo of task rabbit, which i'm sure many of us in the audience use.

[applause] esther, the senior vice president for brand marketing, advertising, and partnership at a ten -- at&t, and andrea, a founding partner of ventures that invest predominantly in startups. [applause] thank you. the u.s. department of commerce has said we need a million more graduates in stem that are currently on track just to fill the stem jobs that exist in 2020, and you said through girls in code, you hope to touch a million girls and women, probably not a coincidental number they parallel one another, to ensure girls in women are exposed to computer science and technology more broadly so it's demystified, exciting, galvanizing, and energizing.

how are you going to do that? >> we have to find a million more julias, and they are clearly out there. it starts by acknowledging that girls and boys are good at math and science about the same, but we live in a culture, in a society that tells girls that math and science and computers are just not for them. i can still walk into a forever 21 and buy a t-shirt that says "math sucks" -- >> you can buy them that make math is awesome? >> we have to make them together. [laughter] for them to tell their girls or the young girls in their life to go into computer science, and, secondly, julia wants to change the world, and when she thinks about what to do next, that's what she is thinking about. when we talked to her, what do you think of computer science? she thinks about a guy typing at the computer. that's not exciting to me. what we're doing at girls in code, we're not only teaching them how to code, but exposing

them to female entrepreneurings like leah, facebook and twitter, how you can use technology to change the world m one of my young girls, cora, her father was diagnosed with cancer when she was 5 years old, so she wanted to be a doctor so she could save her dad's life, and not until she came into girls in code, she built an algorithm to detect whether cancer is benign or ma lig inapt. she's 16 years old. [applause] that is -- [applause] thank you. , thank you, cora, but when you give girls the power of technology, anything is possible. >> leah, you're nodding, we all are. [laughter] you went into college wanting to be a dance major. >> i did, yes. >> came out a double computer science and math major. [laughter] >> i kept my minor in dance, but, yes. >> what happened, and how do we ensure that more women

understand when they get to college with one vision that that can still be part of the lives, maybe something else could be more dynamic, particularly in the stem field. >> yeah, it's interesting. for me, it started back in elementary and high school, which is why i'm so passionate about this. i had early teachers that really empowered me to love math and love sciences, and they were female teachers, and i don't know if that made a difference or not, but for me, at the time, i looked to those mentors and leaders and wanted to be like them. i went to a small womens college in virginia called sweet briars college in i thought i was going to be a dance major, and i was a ballerina, wanted to go on and dance in a company -- >> maybe be on stage someday -- >> yeah, in a center, possibly, i don't know.

when i got to sweet briar, i took my basic computer science courses, and, again, the professors there were so engaging and interesting, and not only teaching us, you know, here how you code an algorithm, but this is what you do with it. i took projects back in the dorm room and shows my roommates a robot i built and what i could build with my open hands and thoughts, and that was exciting to me so i followed that passion. >> that's great. esther, you know, cheryl had said that her being so forward has been a great inadvertent recruiting tool for facebook, and you have been so out in front with at&t, has that helpedded and recruit, retain more smart women at at&t? >> well, first of all, the great thing done for all of us is raise the conversation across

the board rooms in the country and across the world, and part of the beginning of solutions is actually to raise the consciousness so that's really important, and i would never do -- there's so many amazing women at at&t, and what i say, though, is that where we can really shine a light, all of us, is that if we think about with technology has come, and so in the 80s it was about the microprocessor, that was a disruptive technology, pcs and computes, and in the 1990s, it was the internet which, obviously, opened the door, but today it's mobile technology, and with mobile technology, technology is about managing our lives. it's about educating our kids and intertaping our kids and managing our homes and thing like that, so i think today there's a line of sight to a participation of women in the

field that's important, and we have really open up that door and ensure women know how great and creative the field is. >> we talked earlier after that kids born today aren't just digitally, but mobile natives. >> loutly. >> i would be curious, andrea, how does kind of the advent in the explosion of mobile change how you think about where you invest? particularly because you said you like to invest in women-founded companies? >> yeah, absolutely. we invested in 14 companies, vote with the wallets as well as time, and they have have mobile air. it's important to have that mobile presence on the internet as well as a desk top, but, absolutely, just to share extra numbers so right now we have 10-15% of the companies founded by women. we definitely wanted to improve that, but i think it's a finding

of right opportunities, and i want to make a pledge today to increase our recognition in that and also our ability to invest in these companies as well. >> see julia. >> yeah, exactly. >> it's it been like to be a woman founder in what is generally a pretty male dominated big brother kind of silicon valley in california or here in new york city? >> yeah, you know, my experience, i think, has been interesting in that i don't think about it. i wake up every morning and think about what i can do to push the company forward in the next 24 hour, and i never think about the fact that i'm a female founder or i'm a woman ceo. i just think i'm a founder, a ceo, what do i do today? i think that that mentality started for me by going to women's college. i think that gave me that foundation early on and empowered me 20 have that mental

mind set because when i graduated with a math in computer science degree, i entered ibm as a programmer, an engineer there for seven years working on lotus products, and, again, surrounded by men, but never thought about it, knew that i wanted to be there, knew that i deserved to be there, and knew that i was passionate about building and things, and building products so that's always, i think, what is at the fore front of my mind and keeps me going. >> my mother spoke publicly about how important going to a women's college was to her for her development and confidence, and then subsequent confidence. how do you ensure that the girls in the girls in code program, and other girls who are not as self-evidence, but julia has

this confidence blazen through and didn't think about it, but, you know, for a lot of girls, being a girl is a prominent thing because others make it prominent to them because of the school environment, home environment, their friends. how do you help girls navigate through that? >> confidence is like the number one gift i would give to young girls, and we saw that in the program when they start started. it was like they were scared to raise their hand. they didn't want to build a website because they didn't want to describe themselves. when they did coding, if they made a mistake, it frightened them, and they wanted to give up, but we taught them about the importance of failure, the importance of try, try, and try again, and exposing them. we're launching girls in code clubs in high school making sure we're inviting female entrepreneurs, speak about their journey, having them talk about, you know, the things they learned, how they are building their business so that the girls see women who look like them,

and i mean, that's also the most important thing, especially for the girls of color in the program, and, you know, when we started girls in code, i couldn't find one black female engineer in the entire scene. could you imagine that? for these girls, and it's so -- we had the application process at google, all the latino, asian-american, african-american girls coming in saying i want to learn how to code, teach me. we see companies -- [applause] one of my girls came from sin gull, and there they don't have women in technology, and we had to show her how to use a mouse, but eight weeks later, she built a website how to teach other girls how to code in 3 # 2 # different languages. we focus on that. [applause] right? if we commit to them, if we frequent, you know, girls in

code is not a non-profit organization, but it's a movement, and you talk about this in the article that you wrote, chelsea, in the huff po knowing this is the most important domestic issue of our time, the train is leaving, the train is leaving. we have to make sure our girls are not left behind him. >> if we leave the girls behind, that train leaves without all of us. >> that's evident. you talked about the girl not exposed to tnch, and, there are, sadly, 200 countries in the world where girls cannot major in the stem field in college because they are being, you know, unfeminine. esther, i'm curious because you brought mobile into the conversation. how do you think that mobile devices can help amealierate that significant barrier in the world so girls can understand what computer science, technology, or engineering can do, and then, also, you know,

really start to educate themselveses in one of the 3 # 2 or -- 32 languages and how to empower and enfranchise themselves? >> mobility smart phones is just beginning. what we work on are things like home automation, connected car, think about the life that goes on in your home and your car. turning on the lights for your kids, things like that. we're really getting into a place where it's about life spacing, not just productivity, and this is where we actually need women at the table to create the right solutions. we had a hack-a-thon in las vegas in january, and interestingly, there were hardly any women, but as an example of the type of technology created, the winning team used this cattier that actually measured

your mood and used our call management platform to create a new technology thatcepses your -- senses your mood and decides whether to put a call to voice mail. [laughter] >> wow. >> so he demonstrated it right on the stage. >> i didn't turn off your phone call, it was my mood. [laughter] >> exactly. the point is, dealing with technology becoming empathetic and managing our lives, we need more women at the table and we know that innew vaition gets maximized when we have a diverse team so women help to make them not just more experimental, but more efficient, lots and lots of reasons why we need women at the table. >> andrea, you spoke earlyier about 15% of the portfolio are women-founded companies, and you have an appreciation for women

founded companies. do you see a difference between the 15% of your portfolio that are women founded companies and 85% that are not? >> a difference in what respect? >> anything. >> oh, well, i definitely think -- i don't know if it's just my personal profession, but women try harder, and i feel part of the venture business is you have to be used to hearing no and saying no as a venture capitalist, but the more noes you get, means you are closer to a yes and closer to getting that financing so one example you talked about is supporting women of color and the international perspective and mobile. i have an example of how we reach beyond silicon valley investing in a company recently called pet collage, and i'm proud to say they are the number one photo sharing application in japan and taiwan and number three here in the united states. that's an example of the women's

led organization tony: sharing, and coming to the valley, to support international women as well because they are, you know, just as smart as folks in silicon valley coming up with very innovative solutions, soing? we definitely look for. >> when the girls graduate from the girls in code program, what are the top three operations they have? >> well, they want to be the first latino, so there's one. they -- all the girls, so when we started only one of the girls wanted to major and minor in cs, but when we graduated, all of them did, whether they want to be a president or a doctor or a lawyer, they want to have this skill set of coding to apply that to whatever it is they do because i think they appreciate that the skill set they are absolutely going to need to compete in the world.

secondly, what they do is inspire to share knowledge with others. all of the gyres, un-- >> [inaudible] >> started teaching other girls how to code, petitioned professors, teachers, and principals to launch girls in code clubs in their high schools. one of the girls is going to bangladesh in the summer teaching girls in bangladesh how to computer program. they are immediately knowing and understanding that they have the knowledge of something powerful, and there's a sister hood they are committed to. they are committed to changing the gender party in this country and abroad, and they are are soldiers in this move the. [applause] >> leah, esther talked about the importance of having women around the table particularly as technology expand into more and

more parts of our lives. >> uh-huh. >> how, at task rabbit, do you think about ensuring that you have the right diversity broadly defined? >> yeahings it's a great question. so a couple of things, so one is that for some reason, we've been lucky enough to attract and recruit more women than men as part -- >> because of you? >> it's possible, yeah, absolutely, that is absolutely possible -- >> probably. >> i think it's the culture that we know, and particularly, in the product and engineering round, we have a team of 16 engineers. we have two female engineers, which is unheard of, that ratio in the valley. we have four female product owners and product designers. all three of the executives, including myself on the

management team are women. when i went out and did the searches, you just brought on recently a coo and cor, a chiefs revenue officer, and i went out, did the searches, interviewed hundreds of candidates, and ended up hiring two very strong female leaders. so, you know, it's important to recruit and retain that female perspective op the teams. i think the other component where our membership and our users are predominantly women, female, and women make up more than 50% of the consumer decision making power in the country. having that female perspective in the companies so that we can reach and provide consumers with what they want and need is incredibly important. >> esther, you spoke about the need to have women at the table. do you think you have enough women at at&t? >> so we actually very proudly

have that. we have 90,000 women working at at&t, and 37% of the management is women. we have 4,000 patents going to women, and one of the audience picked up her 125th patent two weeks ago. [applause] we, obviously, girls in code, girl scouts, girls inc.and a lot of stem programs we work on together, but i think one of the areas, actually, that still requires more participation, even the entrepreneurial area, and we talk about that, companies like ours, we're going to be more reliant on exterm innovators to innovate the process. five years ago, the cto at the time, and now runs the network, changes the way we do

innovation, open platforms, apis, and really bringing innovators into the centers created, there's hack-a-thons, fast pitches, and, again, we found three times the speed with innovation. but we don't this enough women going to the door, and when you think of the solutions to create and not enough women coming to the door, that's a problem. it's how do we also fill that pipeline in the entrepreneurial thing? >> how do we fill the pipeline beyond girls in code? what do we do, and we ensure by 2020 we are close to filling that gap in stem, kind of qualified graduates, what jobs will be on the market? >> yeah, i mean, it's one of the reasons i run for public advocate in new york city is that we have to make -- [applause]

here in new york city, there's not access to computers in schools, in schools. we have to close the technology gaps in so many communities because we cannot start to tackle the problem if we can't -- if we don't close the gap. two is we have to make computer science mandatory, you know, it's -- [applause] if we can teach -- >> back to what my mom said, be cognizant we live in the 21st century. >> exactly, exactly, and the fact that women are 56% of the labor force and can't out innovate the rest of the world unless we're producing more engineers and entrepreneurs and programmers, and so we have to get at girls at the school, and i realize in the educators that i talked to -- and the other thing, part of that is we only have 1500 computer science

teachers in the entire country. >> in the 30,000-some odd high school, we have 6,000 science classes also not offered for a whole year. >> right. >> and microsoft thinks only 2 # -- 2 # ,000 qualify students to be a leg up in college. >> exactly. we got to make sure we are preparing what we're providing support to the teachers yowrks know, so they teach our children. there are a lot of structural changes to make in the education system, and i think it's possible. >> well i'm more optimistic than a half hour ago, and we have a lot of work to do, but what we need to do in the add innocence is ensure that more stories like all four of the women and julias are known so that more girls everywhere are inspired to be like them, so, please, join me in thanking the panelists, and thank you to all of you. [applause]

here in 20 minute, live coverage from the investment company institute event we've been covering with two former chairman of the senate budget committee speaking discussing the budget deficit, taxes, and government spending. again, that's set to again at 10:30 eastern live here on c-span2. more for the daily beast news week fourth annual women in the work force summit in new york city. more from human rights advocates discussing violence against women in india. cynthia mcfaden is the moderate e and we'll show you as much as we can until the technology institute is underway scheduled for 10:30 a.m. eastern. >> i'm joined now by a very distinguished panel who is going to help us think about that and about the way the process works in the country, the justice

system, the broader cultural qualities that have led us to this point, so thank you, all, for being here. i'll start by introducing you briefly to the audience. furthest from me, a television journalist with india, writes the column, and currently a visiting fellow at brown university's india initiative. welcome. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] next to here is the exec executive directer of a human rights organization which he founded with his two brothers in 2001, and those brothers are in the audience, i understand, so -- [applause] welcome. [applause] i want to meet your parents at some point.

his organization studies how the indian courts respond to victims of ram, which is a subject well worth pursuing in more detail. [inaudible] a weekly news magazine, recently published a report from the undercover investigation of attitudes towards rape of police in new deehi, and it is shocking. thank you for being here with us. the president and ceo of breakthrough, and initiative reaching million in multimedia pop culture and grassroots campaigns for human rights and cultural change in india and beyond. she and the organization launched a global ethics, stop violence against women. thank you, all. let me begin with smit that the

bbc reported in january. i want to read you what they said and your reactions, all of you to this. violence against women is entrenched where every women in india is fair game. you're saying -- nodding yes. >> well, i am. i think is seems beyond sanctions for violence in india, but i'm not denying we are a paradoxical nation, we have a position occupied by women known for many other countries in the world whether presidents, prime leaders, the most powerful in the india is a woman. despite the fact that we have privileges of class and education and i think the three women sitting on this stage represent the fact we have been able to be whoever we chose to be, whatever we dreamt of, gone out there and achieved that,

despite that, the fact of the matter that when we are as indian kind to our daughters, we are protecting them, not giving them freedom, and i think that is a distinction we have to draw in this conversation today. where was this a different point? why are young girls and boys being tear gassed by the police? what were they asking for? saying don't scare me saying it's not safe to go out after 10 p.m., don't tell me to wear this, give me the freedom to choose, and i think what we really see here is questioning the underpinning of an entrenched culture bigotry. that is not kind to women, but like a benevolent dictatorship rather than setting women free. [applause] >> i think that discrimination

starts right from birth. there is selections, and it continues during expwier life and combines the patriarch mind set, and the mind sed in the judiciary, the same mind set in the administration, the minds together to do this, what is happening, and even what you call she loved her kids in the book because no one is -- they continue to blame the victim, and it's everywhere evident. >> i think, first of all, you have to establish this entire talk of rape actually presents two complex and very visible. one is that and there's a country where women today, a great portion, great association happening at every start of society. it's a society in greed, profound transition. there's a kind of language of

modernity, the trappings of modernity that everybody accesses, but the essential modernity, the ideal of individual choice is something that has not seeped in. women are allowed to work and given freedom to move out of the hots more -- house more than any other in the world, but they are not comfortable with and the idea of professions, there's a story where we spoke to a lot of men, you know, apat from the police investigation and two voices really struck me as the latitudes to women, one was, you know, a cab driver, and he said, you know, we -- one of the main reporters said when you guys want to have sex, who are we going to have? woman to a woman, that's one

attitude, which is if you've a woman out there who is, perhaps, out with a boyfriend, men immediately think that if she is with one guy, she -- [inaudible] women is like a pearl in an oyster, protects them. there is an imprisonment. that comes from just all religion and all class in the country, but i want to say that's not only endemic, but needs to cross the entire movement, and i wanted to make that point. >> the add yenls agrees there. >> i think actually what we have is a global crisis of masculinity, of the way in which masculinity is constructed within a patriarch construct, and to attribute what happened in india to a few specific

contexts in india is missing the boat because unless we view the conversation about women's right and women leadership with a conversation about how men need to seriously change and how notions of math and science maso be challenged and transformed, we'll see, if not the feet side, what's going on in south africa, i mean, it's time for us to really look at men and as said yesterday, lean on them and say, you know, enough is enough. [applause] >> i only add there's a lot of women's attitudes that need to change, too? all women don't have the same view of this. walk outside the building, you know? >> it's important to come on the issue of sexual awe autonomy we talked about. it's important as much as we call this moment an inflexion point, and it's been a good beginning, we have a new law that's much better than the first one, but the big defeat

for activists is our failure to get rape included in the law, and why is it important? precisely because of the sexual autonomy, and women in india, i think, are struggling to assert why is rape not included? because a parliamentary panel set up to look at whether it should be included determined it was impractical. you had judges who sent in verdicts that it is the marital duty of the women to provide sex to the man she's married to. we have had girls who have been told that if you were in a relationship with this man, it empowers him, empowers him to sexually force himself, and one statistic here, one that our lawmakers ignore, 90% of women who report rape or violence in india know the man who abused them. they know the man which means

that quite often it is something within the four walls of the house. it is the enemy within, and there is a conspiracy of silence that still prevails. we're trying to be heard about this silence, but it's still there. >> very powerful. in an article published in "newsweek," and if you have not read it, you must, i think, if you want to think very clearly on the issue. you described the indian police as being, and i quote, ha bit -- habitually callused. >> in this investigation on the police, it actually reenforced something we already know, but the important thing is to make things visible and make what you know visible, and the police, they are from the same society we live in. there's an absolutely endemic idea that women asked what

happens to them. it's whatever there is a sense that either you are provocative and so you've, you know, you a sexually premise cuous or it's the close you wear or not cautious enough because you're out too late or not with a man or you're with a man, whatever the construct, the woman is to blame, and i think the most -- and, so, yes, not only that, but the police refuse to fire. one of the biggest things this legislation that was passed yesterday by the president yesterday is that for the first time one acknowledgedded police don't fire it, and there's an urpt reported claim and they don't report something. the police officer does not -- [inaudible] that's a human change that's happened. [applause] >> let me just point out only as indiana it, -- as i understand it, 5% of the police in india are female not

helping the situation any. >> yeah, cynthia, this is not a gender sort of distinctive attitude, you know. why are men the way they are? because of the mothers and sisters and the mothers-in-laws, and we are sole commuters against the ones with women, and there's many men. what we have to reenforce feminine principle existing in both men and women, and that's one of collaboration and empathy, understand motivations, and reenforce the idea of individual autonomy and choice. you know, there's many women who want to wear the vail. allow them to do so. they want to wear spaghetti straps, allow them to do so. to have only one thing represent modernity dearnty is oppression. >> yeah. [applause]

>> your organization was actually predicted the crisis that has come to the pinpoint and predicted there was going to be a flash point moment and predicted this horrific crime, not the specifics, but the explosion around it would happen. >> we have been working on human trafficking, sexual assault in the last 12 years, and we have been saying hundreds and hundreds of -- in fact, we interviewed more than 2,000 cases. we have not only rescued them, but ensured many convictions, but many cases no convictions happen. we have been fighting, intervened the police station level, and with poorest of poorest of victims coming, the

victims just don't understand what's happening. they just don't understand what's happening in the police station. they just don't understand what the medical doctor is with them. the doctor is creating a false document, she doesn't understand, and the whole situation was so sad, and in each case, even then intervening the court, how they talk, how they deal with things with lawyers standing on the side of the accused, and the victim will be alope. there is no one to support them, and they have the victim, tried to pin all the things which happen, and they get the verdict in their favor. that is the reason why we said that as we collaborated with the media, and, yes, of course, we highlighted the issue of female and happening and predicted that hundreds and hundreds of reports there, and did a collaboration with them and did a story on human trafficking, we

highlighted this media, went and talked to the media about them, and said that the media was building the momentum. each and every case we dealed with, we shared with the media. the momentum was the media, center stage in the whole debate, and then a flash happened, and -- >> [inaudible] >> law permission gave the recommendation in the year 1996 and 2000, and the law passed. [applause] >> i think what we are dealing with and it's woofer hearing ravi be passionate and what was said, this is not women versus men. this is, as hillary clinton said this morning, women's right, human rights, time to stop treating sexual violence as a women's issue, but it is an issue of principle and concerns us all. i want to pick up on what ravi said about the institutional biases, so much spoken about the

police. i want to just quote two judgments, these are sits judges in india's court. one young lawyer was arguing a divorce case for her client, and she was arguing before the high court judge, and the judge turned around and told her you are not fit for this case. you are unmarried, you are a spinster. only married women should argue family matters. this was one judgment. the other judgment actually said all marriages have to absorb some level of beating, get used to it, adjust. this is a judge. this is a judge. >> a lot of work to do. you know, i also noted in looking at one of the studies that i think your organization did, ravi, that of the 600 rape cases that went to trial last year in dehli, one conviction. i mean, -- >> but, you know -- >> and 50% of the acquittals due

to the police investigation having been botched so there's something that's got to happen. >> in fact, you know, just after this flash happened, india started, you know, the standard operating dwsh we had no standard operating for how to deal with a victim of sexual assault. we have a test. we had no policy, no programs as to how to deal with the victims when they got there, and the investigation, we just brush it under the case. now we are framing all these things. >> you know, -- >> that's why there was no -- [inaudible] >> one of the things i want to point out is that we really have a law enforcement crisis in the country. we have a governance crisis in the country, and we worked there ten years ago, working with women victims of violence, doing all the res around police

chaining, prosecutor training, sirs, how to file them, and all those thing, and what e emerged from that is on the one hand, we have to have laws and have to deal with the end forcement system. on the other hand, if we continue to rely on that, to protect women's rights, we're really going to be lost, and so women that we were working with at breakthrough said to us, look, we understand that you need to protect our rights, and we need empowerment and leadership and all of that, but, please, you have to work with the men. you have to talk to the men in the communities. you have to organization men in the communities to address the issue razz well because without culture change, we can't lock everybody up in jail. >> that's right. two parallel tracks though because, i mean, i was shocked that the indian court system is a mess, one-fifth the number of judges; right? one-fifth the number of judges for 1.2 billion people in india than we have in the just. u.s.. >> yes, you have a hundred

judges for a million people in america, and you have 14 in india. you need 450 years toings you know, finish all the pending cases. >> we don't have that much time; right? >> i want to reenforce a couple things. telling the stories, had her work because of the security issues she's under tread, but one the most important issues that happened out of the rape case is finally the silence is broken, that women want to speak up. her father made a crucial journey, and he didn't want to go, and laws don't allow ewe to name a survivor's name, even when they want to be named, but he's been one thing publicly to let his daughter's name be known. that's the most crucial, psychological change happening out of this global attention that the shame has shifted from the survivor to the perpetrator.

>> important moment, yeah. [applause] i'm so glad that it was brought up because one of the things that has happened is that the media of this time has given this to survivors, and we keep the word "victim," but say "survivors," and give them the space to tell the story. tonight, in this very hall, there is a woman who will be honored this evening. she is here, a survivor of gang rape and now has a wonderful center to stop trafficking of young children, came on the show and said something that stayed with me saying i want to be named, i will not have my face hidden. why should it be hidden? the men who did this to me, they need to hide their face. [applause]

>> bearing down on the case that captured the world's tension, and the details are horrifying. according to the police report, the rain, itself, took 45 minutes, and the woman was disimbowled. all rapes are horrible, but i suspect the horror captures our attention to use it for good. there are those who say, and secretary clinton eluded to this earlier this morning, this young woman represented in so many ways the hopes and dreams of so many. >> yes, and, you know, again, that is, for me, and, you know, i said i wrote the story for "newsweek" that it could have been other ways. the woman could have been nip, but in a way, it's symbolic of

something profound happening in india that the quo is broken. there's a kind of fixity to endure social constructs. because the economic forces pushing, you know, 80% of india out of the land, out of rural india into urban centers which are hostile, no space for the people coming into the cities, there are two forces building up, you know? one is that the new generation, and there's a new middle class, which is hyperconnected, social media, everybody has a mobile phone, and with the girl and the rapers came from exactly the same social network, they are working class, and when we say "working class," in america you have a degree of agency, but when what i'm talking about, they are merely living in a kind of nether region of absolute

disposition. you know, they are construction workers, own one or two dollars a day, but the girl's father had brought up all his three children with a kind of passion for education, you know? she lived in a tiny rat hole, and out of that, shemented to be a doctor. her younger brother wanted to be an astronaut, and her younger brother was an engineer. >> breaking away from this recorded event back live now to the investment company institute event. we have speakers judd greg and kent conrad talking about the budget, deficit, taxes, and government taxes. live coverage now on c-span2. >> they also happen to be distinguished and admired former u.s. senators. please join me in welcoming two former chairman of the senate budget committee, senator kent conrad and senator judd greg. [applause]

>> welcome, gentlemen. "time" magazine rated him one z ten best senators and ten most economically members in congress. senator kent conrad played a vital roll in shaping the nation's fiscal policies in the 24 years in the senate. senator greg also played a vital roll, and a deep knowledge of banking reform positioned him as a key voice in debate on regulatory reform. before being elected to three terms in the senate, he served four terms as a u.s. representative for new hampshire serving one term as a state's governor. like senator cop rad, he was chairman the senate budget committee, served as chairman of the senate health education, labor, and pensions committee,

and as a member of the senate banking committee. both senators were members of the national commission of fiscal responsibility and reform and strong proponents of the bipartisan plan that created the simpson-bowles plan. in fact, the original plan was modeled after legislation introduced by senators conrad and greg so i guess you say the guests today know the plan pretty well. senator conrad is going to lead off our session today with the presentation, which will be followed by remarks from senator greg. after that, i'll pose questions to the senators about fiscal responsibility and the prospects for tax reform. senator conrad. [applause] >> thank you, thank you very much for the opportunity, and i thought i'd just run through a couple of quick slides to put things in some perspective, and then judd is going to have a

chance for a few moments, and then we'll go to the questions from our host. this first slide puts in some per specttive from a long term perspective the revenue and spending relationship since 1950, as you can see on this slide. the red line is the spending line, and the green line is the revenue line, and you see why we have big deficits because we have a big gap between the two, and that gap narrowed in the last couple years, but, still, we have about a $1 trillion difference between the two, and you can see that spending is pretty close to a 60-year high, and revenue pretty close to a 60-year low so i conclude from that we have a spending and a revenue problem, clearly, spending has got to be brought down, but i think also, clearly, we got to have some increase in

revenue if we meaningfully want to close the gap. that's especially important in light of the baby boom generation who puts enormous pressure on as they retire, and that's not a projection. they've been born, alived today, and they are eligible for medicare and social security. this is where we are headed in terms of the gross debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product, and this is the latest projection from the congressional budget office. you can see our gross debt is already over 100% of the gross domestic product, and it's headed for 115% by 202 # 2 unless we take further action. most economists would say when you reach a gross debt of more than 100% of your gdp, you're in the danger zone, at the beginning of what could lead to an unsustainable situation. even more striking is our long term debt outlook.

this is according, again, to cbo and you can see right in the middle there, the dotted line is where we are today. you can see by the previous slide that the gross debt is going up in the near term, but even more striking is where we're headed over the longer term, and this is a course that is totally unsustainable. i don't know of any serious person who is reviewed the data and accountanted anything other than -- concluded other than we have to take meaningful action. there's debt deniers, maybe some in the audience saying, hey, wait a minute, we have 7.5% unemployment according to the latest numbers today, and so we shouldn't be taking austerity measures now. i would agree with them. we shouldn't take immediate austerity measures, but we should make commitments to austerity over the longer term to get us back on track. let's go to the next slide.

this is what's happening to the disgreat-- discession their side of the budget, and as you see as a share of total spending, the domesticking domestic accounts, defense and nondefense are going down to the lowest level that we have seen in decades. in fact, since the eisenhower administration, so interestingly enough, part of the budgets cut is the part of the budget that's already shrinking. here's the other side of the coin, this is a part of the budget that is growing and growing dramatically, and this is medicare, medicaid, and other federal health spending expressing a share of gdp from 1972 and 1950, back in 1972, we

spent 1% of the gross domestic products on the accounts. wee are going do 12%, a 12-fold increase, and that is happening in a way that is, i think most budget experts say it's unsustainable, and, yet, we do little to reign in this part of the spending of the federal government. you know, if you think about what's been done, it makes almost noceps. we're cutting the part of the budget that's already shrinking, scene we are not doing much with the part of the budget that is growing very dramatically. if we look at the reasons why health care spending is growing so rapidly, the aging population is the primary driver of medicare, medicaid, and social security cost growth. yes, there's the effective excess cost growth, that's the yellow part of this chart, but the real -- the real driver is the aging population, and that's

going to continue to bedevil us unless we find ways to effect ofly address it. that takes us to the end of the slides. i just wanted to take you through those so we have it in some perspective. let me say one other thing with respect to the revenue side of the equation. i didn't bring this slide, but i think it's important to know. you saw on the spending revenue slide the first one, the revenue's at 15.8% of gdp last year. if you look at the five times balanced the budget since 1960, revenue is close to 20% of gdp in each of the years so my own belief is we're going to have to get revenue in that range if we're going to have an overall package that gets us back on track, and just to put in perspective how little needs to really be changed in order to achieve revenue levels of that size, i just remind you that the president asked for $1.6

trillion more of revenue in the plan put down last year, but to put that in perspective, we're going to raise $37 trillion in revenue over the next ten years. he was asking for an additional 4.5%. at the same time, speaker boehner was asking for $500 billion of savings out of medicare. look at what we spend in not just medicare but the federal health care accounts which is what he was asking for the savings from, he was asking for 4.5% reduction in federal health care spending over ten years. my final speech on the floor of the senate, i asked the question, we can't do 4.5%? we can't do 4.5% on revenue? we can't do 4.5% on savings out of the federal health care accounts? of course we can do 4.5%. if we did, the country would be in dramatically better shape, on

a sustainable path going forward, and i believe all us would have a sigh of relief and say job well dope, and we may not like some of the specifics, certainly, there's things we all dislike, but we'd be on a path that would put america on a sustainable course. that would be a good thing for all of us. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, kent and greg, a pleasure to be here today. i like your first name, by the way. people think i'm greg judd so it works for me. i enjoyed serving with you on the budget committee and in the senate for many years, and he was famous for the slide, so i gave upcoming with slides when kent's around, it's like following martha stewart with recipes, just can't do it. as a matter, he's depressed all of you with the slides, and he

should have because they are accurate. the simple fact is this country's present course is towards miscall insolvency and bankruptcy. we are on a path where we're not that far from the met tricks which you see in europe in some of the most serious situations in europe. the difference, of course, is we have a huge economy, and that we have a resilient economy and a flexible and resilient people, and so we're not as in dire shape as europe, which is locked down in a single currency that doesn't work for a country with diverse cultures. i'm fond of quoting the statement that was made to bob zellick, former head of the world bank, talking it a foreign minister of australia, a few months ago, not too many, and the foreign minister of australia said to him that the united states is one debt deal away from leading the world out

of the economic dull drumsing and that's absolutely true, and kent outlined the deal. it a very doable event, talking 4.5% adjustments in fiscal policy over ten years, and, in fact, a significant amount of that is already done, about 2.5 trillion of adjustments already put into the pipeline. we need another 2.5 trillion. i chair a group called fix the debt, myself, simpson, bowles, and former governor of pennsylvania chairman, and kent's very active member of the group, and we are basically putting forward ideas how to do that. how you can accomplish changes in fiscal policy to get there. name three because i think it is important to talk solutions now that kept outlined the problem so effectively.

the three areas of concern are entitlements, within the entitlement accounts, health care account, pension accounts, social security and medicare specifically, and revenue. in the social security area, this is a totally solvable issue, if we have the magic wand, i wouldn't think it takes more than a half hour to put in place an effective solution to social security making it solvent for 75 years. simpson-bams, the commission we served oven, did exactly that. , exactly that. you -- it only has a few moving parts, change what's known as the bend points, which is basically a means testing event. you change the cpi, which the president proposed issue and i give him great credit suggesting to go from regular cpi to a changedded cpi, much more accurate, and adjust the edge. that gets social security solved. doable. what's not causing it not to be done? politics, basically.

the second issue is medicare. this is where most of the money is and where the problem is. medicare has an unfunded liability just in medicare of approximately $60 trillion, 60 trillion with a "t," and it's hard to understand what a trillion dollars is, but take all taxes paid in america since we collected taxes in 1789, that's $46 trillion. if you take the entire note worth of america, most of which you folks manage, all the cars, the stocks, houses, that's about $55 trillion so, actually, medicare alone has an unfunded liability, after you get the tax from the hi tax, what is owed on it, it exceeds the net worth as a nation, and that's why we are in serious trouble. medicare has to be fixed. it doesn't mean anything draconian or push people off health care or that we have to radically adjust the health care

delivery system. what we have to do is over a period of time, and this does not have to be fixed tomorrow, and this was a point kent made, the frugality or attempts to get fiscal responsibility in the system do not require we have immediate contraction of our efforts. it means we have to put in place a path which over five, ten, and 15 years makes medicare sustainable, affordable, and continue to be a good system, and there's a lot of ideas in this, but the best ideas come out of hospitals which are responsible. there's a con sore chum of hospitals, 30 of them, baylor, all over the country, studies that have shown that they can do a much better delivery system at lower costs. they took, for example, total knee replacements, amongst the 30 hospital groups serving 70 million people, and they concluded that the price of

these settings, highly regarded, vary from $2,000 to $20,000, but jot -- outcomes are the same. they use statistics to drive outcomes at lower costs. there's something called withholding approach they have proposed, basically incentivizes health care providers to produce better results at lower koss and using a carrot rather than a stick which is what we use in the federal government today. there are ways to get medicare correctly aligned and move it in the right direction. certainly, courses of revenues, simpson-bowles said the way we raise revenues today does not work. the system is massively complex, totally up fair, skewed for all sorts of reasons nothing to do with collecting revenues, and it

is incredibly inefficient, and so we suggested a zero approach where basically we dramatically reduced all exemptions, dramatically dramatically reduced them, and used the savings from that or the revenues from that, if you call it that, of 1.1 trillion a year under simpson-bowles, took a trillion dollar, reenforce deuced rates, and the rates were 9, 15 #, and 23% of. the top rate 23%. we took a hundred billion reducing the debt. of the $4 trillion proposed in debt reduction over ten years, which is what we needed them, two years ago to get to a stablized debt to gdp ratio, and the chart over a hundred percent, 101 trail of that, 4 trillion, came from the revenues by changing the way we collect revenue and creating growth, basically, massive growth, having people invest, not to avoid taxes, but to get returns. this is what you folks do.

we have to have returns, not avoid taxes. that's doable, and interestingly enough, there are a lot of people in the congress who want to do it,ing and the two key players in the congress want to do it. chairman kemp in the house of ways and means committee and chairman baucus in the finance committee. it is doable. the simple fact is we're the foreign minister of australia saying america is one debt deal away from getting our -- from leading the world out of economic dull drums, wii not that far from getting the debt deal. i believe it's going to happen. fix the debt is trying to push in that direction. if we're successful in that, and remember it's not a big number, talking two 2.5 trillion. i think this economy's going to explode, just plain explode. this nation is going to go in a massive shift, a paradigm shift

in a number of areas which are all positive, the most significant is energy, the least expensive energy in the world compared to the primary competitors in the industrialize the world. nobody can keep up with us. energy prices flowing in the economy in a positive way when that happens. on top of that, the great ideas, whether it's facebook, apple, or in my region of the country, biotech. on top of that, you folks have massive amounts of liquidity ready to go to work, and the key to this is the american people are still inherently entrepreneurial and ready to do things to create jobs and prosperity, so, really, i think our future is extraordinary bright as a nation, and i think we can get this one issue behind us and hopefully we will, things look bright for us as a country. thank you very much. [applause]

>> well, thank you, gentlemen, for the opening remarks. i talked to colleagues on the board, and they suggested questions for today's meeting, talking about the challenge the country is facing and that we're working towards a solution, and you called it a "doable solution," and like many of us that are frustrated with what's happening in washington, we all identified the problem, we know it has to be fixed, yet we don't feel like we are getting there to fix it with the deviciveness in the current political debate. the question is what do you think -- what has to happen to git to the point where we have a doable plan or have the president have a drink with mitch o'connell? >> you know, three weeks ago, senator daschle and i were asked

to meet with the new chief of staff of the president, and he was asking us that same thing, and my advice to them was, look, you've got a lot of plans that have. put out there, bowles-simpson, a road map, i think the best produced, but you've got others. senator comin economy and rivlin had one on the table, common elements, and what's needed now, i think, is to be eyeball to eyeball and have the president really pushing the democrats and republicans starting in the senate. i thought it was a mistake to start in the house because i think it's much more difficult to do the deal in the house. i think it's much more possible to get it done in the senate, have the president and the senate agree, and lay it on the doorstep of the house, and i think pressure would then build, and we could get an agreement,

and i agreed with virtually every word senator greg said in the presentation. this is a doable deal, and it would be a profoundly positive thing for the country if we could get it done. >> well, i agree with everything kent says, but niewptioned just a little bit, you don't get things done in washington unless there's a political upside for both sides at the table, and right now, there's a natural political upside for both sides being at the table. for the president, the potential of the presidency being sidetracked by a fiscal event caused by you folks losing confidence in the currency, as is happening in europe, is distinct. it reflects on his presidency. i think there's -- and i think the white house appreciates this, legitimate need to get

this issue of the debt under control. on the rom side, republicans naturally want to do that and act of governing, and they need to show they can govern. i agree with kent. it has to start in the senate, and i think speaker boehner has made that clear that he's acceptable to that and said i want to see something in the senate. my sense is that the senate leadership is not going to be the energizers for this, but it's coming from a strong group of members across the aisle who we worked with for years, and it's a big group, 30-40 # people, who want to do a deal, and they understand the parameters of the deal, but what they need is the president in the room. what's happened in the last four weeks is the president has engagedded, offer on cpi, i think, was huge, unfortunate the house didn't grab it, but they didn't. it's a major accept. he had meetings with members of

the senate, especially republican members, probably getting a better reception than from the own former colleagues on the democratic side, but that's good news. now, that's got to keep going r going. i mean, it can't abade. and external events overtake a presidency. right now, focused on terrorism in boston and what's happening in syria, and north korea, so that's taking energy away from the effort, but hopefully, we'll get reengaged. >> thank you. the next is around just the sequester, and that took a knife to government spending, cutting away tens of billions in spending and senator conrad, you called the sequester a blunt instrument cutting too much too soon in the wrong places, and i think any of us that have flown recently agree with that statement, but that said, there are those in congress who say the sequester is not a bad thing begin spending reductions it's forcing. is there an element of truth to

that type of thinking, senator, greg, perhaps starting with you on this, since i think we know senator conrad's answer on than. i think the forcing mechanism was always supposed to be a forcing mechanism. when it starts to force is the question. ..

but the sequestered continues to be the pressure in the back room that is going to force people into an agreement on the bigger issue which is places of entitlement reform. >> you know, i agree with that entirely to get it was designed to be forcing mechanism. i think over time it will prove to be one. especially when coupled with the need to extend the debt limit. so that creates an additional opportunity. the great thing about washington is opportunities keep coming around. and you know, shame on us if we don't take advantage of some of these opportunities to get the job done. but we would be so much better off if we took some more balanced approach because so far what we have been doing is just cutting on the discretionary side of the house. and that is the part of the budget that is already shrinking. how about addressing the part of the budget that is growing, and growing dramatically over time?

that would make so much more sense. and i do applaud the president for putting the changed cpni on the table. that is an absolutely critical first step. i've got colleagues of mine who don't want to do that. i would say to them look, you say that you care deeply about those populations dependent on social security and medicare. i think we all care about those people. social security is going to be insolvent in 20 years. medicare is going to be insolvent according to the trustees in ten years. so, waiting simply makes changes to those programs more draconian. so if you care about those people, you're not doing anything to help them by reading bye waiting make the situation is more draconian.

it is a mathematical certainty. >> thank you. >> turning to retirement savings, an issue that affects our industry and in this environment everything is on the table and we have seen variations of this in simpson-bowles and the budget in april they would undermine the national priority at helping americans prepare for secure retirement. first there was an overall proposal to limit the value of tax deductions, exclusions and deferrals to 28% and second the proposal places a dollar cap on individual retirement savings accounts. we believe this would add to the complexity and confusion to the nation's retirement system and ultimately discourage employers from creating retirement plans and workers from contributing to the plans. so given the retirement crisis of the media frequently talks about, why do you think such

caps keep being proposed and do you agree with this approach? >> the answer is no. i'm not sure why towards defined contribution plans but clearly there are some policy people sitting somewhere in some basement who want pushback to words defined benefit plans and you see it here. it makes no sense at all. we should be doing everything we can to encourage savings because our savings isn't high enough. we had a period in the post 2,000 period the savings started to go out and now it is starting to go back down. it's critical that we have incentives for savings. the way to do that is to reform the tax law so you don't have a 28% deductibility limit, you have a top rate of say 25 or 26% and you don't have to worry about that and you eliminate a

lot of the deductions and exemptions that don't work so well. >> i opposed the 28% when i was first opposed and largely for the reason what we ought to do is have a fundamental reform of the tax system -- i've never been a fan of the sort of formulaic approach is of reform because what that does is business is the opportunity to do the actual reform, and in the simpson-bowles we did lay out very clearly the strategy and the plan to raise additional revenue not by raising rates but actually by lowering their rates and broadening the base. we are spending $1.2 trillion a year on tax expenditures so we are spending more through the tax system than the appropriate account in the federal government. there isn't a serious economist

out there that doesn't say you would be better off broadening the base, reducing tax expenditures, deductions, credits, preferences and lowering rates. and i do believe that that would help trigger economic growth and economic vitality that would be stunning and it's a fact. >> i think for our industry we wrestle with what we should be doing on this issue and i think we feel like the system that's in place that can always be better as far as a retirement savings vehicle and how successful it's been is the envy of the world. it's done extremely well and yet we continue to be under attack and the question of what's better, you can go to a plan that would be very hard to mandate savings to get that passed. so short of that, it really is a

very effective plan. how can we as an industry be advocates of a plan and pushback on change or effectively working with congress? >> to words: organize and educate. i think the thing that is most effective of my colleagues is to approach them when they are back in their home states and home districts and you get much more of their attention than you can never get here in washington because they are pulled in so many different directions. but it's when they have i think the best opportunity to get their attention and to help them understand how these things all fit together. and also look, if you can help persuade them of the opportunity to get the country back on track, it makes all these things infinitely easier otherwise we

will get proposals like the ones you just described so we are infinitely better off all of us together if we do this comprehensively. >> i agree with that. it's got to come back from the main street to washington, but you know, we have been through some tough times relative to the view of the american public on financial houses and on securities and investment houses as a result of 2008 and what we went through and there is a populist element within our society making hay out of that. i believe there has to be aggressive push back. it has to be a message going out now that the american advantage is tied to the ability of the personal main street who wants to be entrepreneurial and is willing to take a rest to get

the price capital and that that advantage is undermined when you start to attack and are the truly tried to penalize people because of some populous mentality represent part of the integrated system. we always as a nation have had a unique integrated system of financial and fiscal availability of debt and credit and capital and it involves large entities and middle sized entities and retail. and if you start to handicap sections of this or all of that by simply trying to undermine their ability to be effective and to get the resources out to mean street and you undermine the prosperity of main street. i think there has to be an aggressive public policy at first by folks in the asset

management business and folks in the investment business and in the security business. for their livelihood and mean street i think it's got to be aggressive and it's not going to come by luck it's got to be done by a coordinated effort. senator gregg is surprisingly good today >> i flew in from new hampshire. all that fresh air. [laughter] >> let's turn to dodd-frank and both of you are involved in that during the crisis in 08. just looking at today here we are three years later still working on it some would say it hasn't gone far enough and some would say it's gone too far. in just curious what is your assessment of dodd-frank today? >> i would say some of both. i tell you i've got some very

dear friends in the community banking. they've been able to say chapter and verse regulations that have emerged from dodd-frank that make sense at all. it's impossible to deny the complaints on the other hand of the question of too big to fail i believe we have made progress if you are talking about individual institutions in normal times in terms of reducing risk. if we are in a circumstance which there was a systemic risk across the broad front of financial institutions we would be right back added. if you have a very serious again

on a downturn triggered by what your imagination run wild. if we were faced with a very significant downturn and the citi or chase were at risk i believe we would be right back. i think dodd-frank is a disaster. i think it is causing a contraction of credit across the board in the competitiveness of the nation. and it's not accomplishing what is the stated purpose, which is to end to big to fail, not put taxpayers' dollars into a situation where they are being used for risky investment and to protect the consumer, all of which could have been done without a piece of legislation which has about 7 feet of regulation falling on. and it's a classic example of the congress trying to produce and it's going to have to be

revisited. all regulations haven't come out yet and we know that the regulators are having huge problems figuring out how to do it. so you have to figure out how to stay on top of the regulators and try to communicate with them all the aspects of their proposals are and what the unintended consequences may be if you can pursue, if you can see them relative, and it's got to cut back to the simple issue is the guy and the woman on main street going to be able to get credit at a reasonable price, and is the risk to the system being expanded? that should be the simple questions that should be the test of all regulations coming down. >> okay. thank you. turning to the fed and current policies with the market committee wrapped up its recent

meetings and continuing to grapple with the monetary policy and qualitative easing and purchasing of billions of dollars of the bond and mortgage securities. all i for one get concerned if suddenly we have weak factory orders and that's a good thing for the market because it implies that this continues. so how -- i am just curious in your opinion the direction of a fed. is this the appropriate behavior for the federal reserve? >> can i just quickly go back to how we got in this mess in 2008? iphone believe, my own strong belief is we had a very unusual circumstance where we had an overly loose fiscal policy and an overly loose monetary policy simultaneously. if you look at economic history it is unusual to have loose monetary policy and loose fiscal policies simultaneously, but we did. and that provides a seedbed for

the bubbles to form. frankly i am concerned about that today. you have a very loose monetary policy. quantitative easing is a part of it, a big part of it. you have got loose fiscal policy continuing. obviously necessary because we are still in recovery mode and it is relatively weak recovery. i don't gain to say that. but we have failed to put together a longer term plan that is credible that puts us back on track, and that raises to me risks of bubbles to form again. and so, all i would, you know, wish if i could control things that we would at least on the fiscal policy side of this put in place a structure that was credible and sustainable long term. i think that would do we enormous good for us in terms of

the warning bubbles. and on the monetary side of the house, you know, the timing of this becomes an exquisite challenge. it could be very hard to get this transition right. if you can project a reasonable pathway for the federal debt and we will get a lot of growth and economic activity in an orderly way. it has an economic problem as it tries to sell back to the market to put up more reserves. i'm not sure anybody knows the answer to that question.

unlike the prior chairman he has these unique tools that allow him to get money out of the system in a more orderly way which has all of these assets he can sell on the discount if he wants. maybe that will work. maybe that will work with the fed balance sheet has never been expanded the way that it's been extended now. and i sort of come from the old school that inflation is the primary purpose of the fed. i know it has a dual charge of inflation and full employment but it is a priority. and i worry about inflation two, three years from now because clearly what is floating in the market today is the fact that it is pumping billions come 85 billions of dollars into the system and its balance sheet is $2 trillion over where it used

to be two years ago so it's serious everybody knows it's serious. he is right when he can get us out of it in an orderly way. those of us that went through the late 1978 when interest rates were 22% and inflation was 14% i never want to see a time like that again and i don't have to see what happened to this economy as a result of having the chairman do exactly what he had to do which is basically shut him down we have somewhat of a disagreement because, you know, we go back to 2008 and i believe the steps that were taken them and successive steps had averted the depression. >> we are headed for depression had we not taken our steps with unprecedented action as required by the fed, i think that

bernanke will go down in economic history as somewhat of a hero. he and paulson go down in the world, okay we are very much on the same path here so the question becomes when do you transition. i don't think anybody knows that this it is at the transition point where mistakes are most often made. if you look at economic history, it is at these moments of transition when the mistakes are most often made. when we have to hope the people with the fed have an exquisite sense of timing. there are two black letter rules that you can't get around. one, you cannot continually spend massively more than you take in and have a solvent country. member to come you can't print a lot of money without anything behind it, productivity specifically.

we are treading on those grounds right now. how we are going to address them is going to be the issue for the future. but i do think that we will address them. we will do it well because we are a nation that -- where is the image? let's turn to a positive development. energy independence and new technology and it's enabled us access to some positive oil and natural gas that were previously not economically feasible to use. energy experts are saying that near future to the u.s. may become energy independent and become an next fund of exporter on energy. if the u.s. the fiscal challenges you talk about in the federal and the state level. >> couldn't have a heavier circumstance. i've just come from my home state of north dakota. >> well i tell you the whole state is the most prosperous i've ever seen in my lifetime and more prosperous than any

time in the history of the state, no question about it and that is sent only wheel is agriculture as well. i was just three weeks ago i took a friend of mine up to williston north dakota to look at investment opportunities and we met with the head of economic development for that community today he told us they have drilled a 2500 wells using fracking. they intend to drill 40,000, and already the production in north dakota has doubled, and we are going to see increasing dramatic increases of production which is great for our state but very important for the nation. i can't think of a better development for a nation's economy and our competitive position in the world and our

security position in the world than us moving towards energy independence. we've already gone from 60% dependent to 40% and we are going to make further strides. there are some estimates by 2013 we could be largely independent at least beyond our hemisphere. i just can't think of a more positive development. let me say to those that are concerned about fracking, there are places in the country that you should be concerned about giving it more dakota isn't one of them because the oil is down 2 miles and by the way they had a hit. did you all hear about the balkan formation? there is another formation that is underneath. it is down 2 miles, some of it down for miles to the so the risk you have is when you pierce the water tale. if you look at what they are doing on drilling, concrete steel, concrete steel, pretty good protection when you pierce

the water table and you are down so far in terms of where the oil is being found that it isn't a cause for concern. i know places in new york and pennsylvania where it's different, but it's in north dakota we can safely fracking come and we need to do it to have this opportunity for the country. one other point i want to make and that 3/4 formation they have two hits. one producing 5,000 barrels a day and one producing 4800 a day. this could be a game changer even in the williston basin because it is a formation that proves to be as big as some think it will be we are going to he's in our move towards energy independence. it's a great day for america. >> have to figure out how to get it out. [laughter] >> this goes to the fee might

try to end of my brief talk which is if you look at our structural problems as a nation, they are so much more solvable than the other major industrial competitors that we have. i mean, our problems are correcting me before present or post to% of the debt problem on our fiscal problem. we have however this paradigm shift in energy coupled with this fact that we still have a place where great ideas come from and we are inherently entrepreneurial. if you compare that to our competitors, china has a policy that has now been going on for about 40 years, so we have one person with two parents and four grandparents. the demographics are horrible. 1.2 billion people, 300 million are living fairly well, 800 million of which live on a dollar a day to buy a how do you maintain democracy in that situation? russia? who has the gun, that is the

person that has low wall. europe has a massive debt structure they can't possibly result. our problems are so solvable and are going to give such a huge of bandage and we have such a use an advantage in all these other areas if you are going to invest here. you both have been involved on the state level quite a bit and the states we all know have a whole set of challenges with underfunded liabilities and deficits and certainly my home state of california fits in that category. how do you think the relationship between the states and the federal government plays out when you have these kind of deficits? >> there is a huge fight coming of medicaid. states like new hampshire and

north dakota are physically solvent. we don't have an income or sales tax. i think in north dakota they just send people money all the time. [laughter] but we are not about to pay for the patronage is and patronize -- patronage of california so you're not going to get any federal relief coming to those states on their bond or anything else. the bigger issue for all the states is this transfer over the liability on medicaid. the federal government is basically insisting on massive expansions and medicaid, which only plays the lead co-pays in new hampshire about 40% of cost of this thing that we massively expend and are not paying for and this is great but states under huge pressure. what it means, the way that it translates as i can't put the money into my university system but i want to put into my university the federal government is telling me i have

to spend it over here on medicaid, and it's a really -- it's going to be a fight. >> when i was the chairman of the budget committee i was called and asked what my intention was with respect of bailing out a certain state that will remain unnamed, illinois. i said for debt that we are not bailing out illinois. we are not bailing out california. we aren't bailing out any state. i said have you looked at the fiscal condition of the federal government? we are not in a position to be bailing anybody out. member to, if we started down that road, you know, you think of the moral hazard. what would happen if the states that have been responsible are asked to bail out states that have been less than responsible? you talk about a formula for fiscal failure that would be

eight. so it's not going to happen. >> i just want to say we really do appreciate both of you senators being with us today. my take away is that we have identified and fixable problem, so that is going to be doable. we will take that as a net positive. [applause] >> senator gregg and conrad, thank you. thank you all for attending this conference. we've had just a tremendous group of speakers and i think it's been an extremely valuable exchange of ideas. quite frankly all around the globe. don't forget to save the date for next year's 56 general

annual meeting may 22nd. put it on the calendar now. you are all invited to a buffet brunch and i wish you all safe travels back home or back to your offices. thanks again for attending the conference and senators, again, thank you very much. [applause] ♪ ♪

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we believe that opening up the gates we are bringing people closer together. we bring people now to a realization of what a perfect human being, a person, an individual can do. and i can get those who saved lives the of all these christians who saved lives while risking their own. every one of them as a hero. it's been about a minute anniversary i ask you to recommit to replace the connect memories of those who were still with us with the records of this museum so that no one can never

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>> they had this extraordinary roller-coaster. in almost no time at all it is the most popular man in the country saving the union on the battlefield and then president of the united states debut >> chu leal left her time in the white house. she said in her memoir it was like a bright and beautiful dream.

quiet and the most wonderful time of my life. so i can that gives you some idea of how much she enjoyed being the first lady and she felt that her husband had finally achieved the recognition that he deserved. >> now look at social networking and the hiring process. the discussion explores the privacies of the implications that arias when employers used social media and other publicly available electronic information to gather together personnel data on potential employees during the hiring process. this was part of a symposium on privacy and employment in the digital age posted by the university law school in new york city. it is 90 minutes. >> welcome, everyone.

thank you. i am very proud graduate of law school in 1998. after i left i practiced law for a bit and went into the house and ultimately became the chief officer at american express. had that job for six years and then most recently went back to a law firm which is now becoming dentin and the global privacy security practice. we have an amazing panel. i will introduce some of the panelists that we will be talking about employment and social media and the intersection of the two. the first panelist this who is an associate of the business miami school of business administration. she has written extensively and research on the topic of social media and employment and privacy

in both spanish and english i believe, and i think as a very interesting approach not only from an academic and legal perspective but she also is an accomplished lawyer as well but also from a sociological perspective have been dealt with students and young people. we also have jeff andrews, the chief operating officer of social intelligence corporation, which is a company that's focused on leveraging social media in sight to help companies make better decisions and he has a background and technology and data with several companies including steel card which but what ultimately by choice point and before that price waterhouse and finally, we have renee jackson who is with nixon

peabody and the context with specific expertise again at the intersection social media technology and build all. without further ado i will pass it over to patricia. >> thank you, andy. i see my role here today as not only facility in conversations, but kind of training the issue. this is a big issue with a lot of i guess some issues going on in. so for the next ten minutes or so what i'm going to do is present the arguments, the issues, the points from both the employer side and the employee side to create a background for the case study the would be by michael panelists. its focus on the process before.

we are covering everything from employer access to employees' social media profiles whether that access can be willing or not that is a big question. i will go through my list of issues and to get at the end of the q&a we can expand or brought in or deepen the issues. i'm going to start with the issues from the employer's side. the first obvious issue with an audience of lawyers is the idea of liability and risk there's also this idea of a reputation all liability what does it mean

to get a good fit who sergey the ticker shares the values of the culture of the business and who will be a big steward but a good representative of the company. of course that leads us to the legal risk it has been revised by social media which is within hiring of course. and it is recognizing a little bit of than half the states and for the business to not have done its proper homework in hiring someone and so resulted in harm with their party's. the next issue from the employer's side is that prospective employers want and

to some degree must begin to judge an applicant on as much information as possible. the hiring process is discriminatory process. i mean discriminatory in the general sense we discriminate on the appearance of the applicant on the presentation of the applicant and whether the applicant seems to be reliable, responsible, trustworthy, have good manners, and none of these as we all know are protected class's, so there is a lot of judgment going on that employers need to be able to do. we also need to remember to have

this right of privacy and public and right to privacy and things of a publicly acceptable were publicly visible there's a misconception a lot of people feel about that. on the one hand is a behavior of evidence of online research can be grounds for denial of employment there is a red solo picture for those of you that are not familiar and my apologies to the trademark is this is the famous 16 oz red cup that is ubiquitous in the parties and things and usually signals that there is the drinking of alcohol that is a rowdy party and they are detecting in the context that may not be desirable for the

employer. on the other hand, for some employees, just the fact that itself is the employee has allowed this information to be out in the public and ply as either at the very least a kind of lack of technological sophistication how you not figure out the privacy settings or to not do this at all or even worse a lack of common sense or of good judgment. and finally on the employee is i want to notice at least in today's world. it really hasn't evolved that much. it gives us many benefits. dignity, currency for establishing and implementing

relationships and the freedom to craft our identities. about one of the functions of privacy also is to allow us to play different roles in different settings but in a sense that is the corporate persona. and the professionalism it gives us. unfortunately, that also comes with the two words that we don't like: concealment and a lack of freedom. in the workplace as you all know you can't wear what you want or say what you want or act just however you want to act. they are certainly norms that we live by and they are known as

professionalism. since privacy is somewhat about concealment, i think this is kind of a sticking point, something that is uncomfortable for us as lawyers and advocates because the word concealment just doesn't sound good, right? it sounds like a legalized vehicle. to some extent this issue is about it boils down to so the concealment of this playing different roles and different contexts is proper to allow applicants and employees generally. so the to the perspective on the employee's side of things.

for the prospective employee doesn't know that the research is taking place. it's a very intrusive and uncomfortable feeling of surprise. it is less than it was a couple years ago when employers started doing this and we have been at least in business schools very actively educating students from their first day on campus as to creating their on-line persona an inappropriate way. i think that this feeling of surprise is true and happens whether or not there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information. it is a kim to having a guest in your house and finding out they went through your sock drawer or maybe even worse, your medicine cabinets.

it's just to put it in the legal jargon and a key feeling pity if they have knowledge of the search, we also have somewhat of a conundrum. we have the power differential that occurs in the room between 800 job applicant with a family to feed, and someone offering a livelihood. especially in a rough economy. so, the idea of informed consent is one that is troubling him we will have to grapple with. another concern from the employee's side is the concern of misjudgment we often when

they run these kind of searches especially when they are clandestine, they do so in an area absolutely void of context. we all know what happens when there is no context. especially when you are looking for something bad. it's very easy to interpret that read solo picture as something illicit when it really could be, you know, punch at a school fair or something much less controversial than that. there could also be an error or it could be a posting by a third-party. there could be a judgment on content that wasn't a bloated by the person that was maybe a bloated by a friend who was put on their profile. some of the applicant is not only being judged by the content of his profile that may be from

the post, but will post or whenever that their friends have shared and who doesn't have friends went to high year from their employers. so, this has probably been exacerbated by the fact there is a lack of rebuttal. there is no rebuttal. there are no rules of evidence. there is no opportunity in most cases especially for workers that are forming maybe non-executive jobs. employers are not likely to bring them back in and say i saw this picture of you and i know that you want to cruise but tell me what was going on here. that's not really -- that's not really going to happen or has happened to my knowledge and our current world. and then i think probably the

worst is the idea of backdoor discrimination. and now i'm talking about real discrimination. legal discrimination. this idea of an insidious discrimination. this idea that an employer could find out information that the base employment decisions on through a back door, through a clandestine channel. so think of the woman that posts on her facebook page that she would one day like to have a big family and that isn't compatible with an employer's desire or the person who says that he [inaudible] we have that also isn't compatible with what an employer would want. this not only is dangerous because it is insidious but it's dangerous because it is going to be very hard to prove, very hard for the employees to even know what, you know, what happened,

and how to detect in general. so, with those comments, with that kind of framework, going to pass this on to give us how it is really done in real life in the perspective. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning everyone. to follow-up on that wonderful training of the issue, we wanted to tell a story. when the panel was put together, jeff and i were put on the panel and i don't think that the conference knew that jeff is actually my client. when i saw his name and he saw my name on the panel we got together and said wouldn't it be great if we can tell the story how we met and the work that we've done together to follow-up on pretty much all of the issues that were just outlined. some of the work that we've done as confidential privilege so we

will be touching just the top waves of it, but it is to us a good story. so back and i think it was july of 2010, the company was getting ready to launch and again, they do what he would call social media background checks so instead of. it's a reporter for publicly available social media and it profiles on the internet about you. i have received an e-mail from jeff and the ceo of the social intelligence saying that they had read an article that i had written, and they would like to talk to me about some of the issues involved with what their company was planning to do from a legal perspective to make sure that they were doing it correctly. at this time i was a third year as those the it and we set up a

call to kind of discuss what i had outlined which is from their perspective what do they need to do if they are running these background checks? like sure that the employer is only seeing the information that the technically allowed to see according to law. as we talked about state, local, federal, and his condition statutes, how they differ wildly from state to state and how the employer isn't supposed to see the information about the applicant and can't make the decision based on that. we talked about generally about the privacy law, the state and federal level and how only publicly available information could be used that there would be no hacking passwords and however else we might be able to access a person's profile or information in a non-public way. we did talk about negligent hiring and how this would be a good tool to combat a claim of

negligent hiring to say we actually ran a social media background checks on this applicant in addition to all the other checks that we ran and how doing this type of thing could combat negligent hiring, and then at the end of the conversation, i distinctly remember saying have you ever consider whether you have to comply with the fair credit reporting act? and they turn it back to me and said well we were actually hoping that you could answer that. and for those of you that don't know, the fair credit reporting act regulates companies that are called a consumer reporting agencies, it regulates companies that do these traditional background checks, credit history it is a fairness statute written a couple of decades ago in order to protect and the

employment context applicants and employees uncertain such patients. and it requires a disclosure and authorization to the applicant that the check is going to run. if there is information in the report that the applicant thinks is an accurate, it provides for a resolution process and if the employer decides to make an employment decision based on what is in the report it requires an adverse action letter basically telling the employee or the potential employees we are going to make a decision based on what we found in this report. you have five days to dispute it coming here is the process and how you contact the agency. so i said have you ever considered whether you are a consumer reporting agency. we didn't know the answer. at this point there was no other company doing what they do, and i think today there is a lot.

>> that is my response that's why we are talking to you and so if we can't figure it out, that would be great. >> so, we started working together right after that call and one of the first things we did on the business side was set up a human level review. so after the report is generated, someone at the company has to look at to redact the class information and do various other things so that we can compile the manual for the employees of the social intelligence to do that work so that the employer never sees the information they are not allowed to consider. then we set about trying to figure out how social intelligence could comply with a fair credit reporting act. the comporting agency is so broad in the fair credit

reporting act that it applies to what your company was planning to do and there is no way around it so we started working together to figure out how this was written a long time ago without any of this company was doing in line. i highly recommend reading this. it's brutal. it can be. it cross references, it has definitions and very broad definitions. so we decided that if that did apply and set about and we did. we were talking last night. i don't realize it then that i definitely realize now it is very cutting edge work. we are trying to -- we had no

road map on how to do this, just me and jeff and max sitting down with the statute doing the best we can to figure out how to comply with it and kudos to jeff and his company for trying to give it the right way before they launched. really sitting down and thinking through the issues in order to be fair to the employees of the potential and we use and provide a great service to employers. so, fast forward we put this manual together on how to comply with the fair credit reporting act. basically just so that we knew that the company was falling along -- >> at least to the best of our knowledge. >> or ability. >> during the process, we called the ftc for guidance on how we

could possibly follow this wall that is written in a way that makes it very hard to comply. we called anonymously, and i explained this is the company, this is what they are planning on doing. how can we comply? help us understand how this statute applies to the business model and we had a great back-and-forth with an attorney at the ftc who helped us think through a lot of the issues and they were actually really excited on the issues. when i would call and ask a question, the attorney that i spoke with will say you know what, i don't know the answer to that to the this is an interesting issue. but my colleagues and get back to you. so we had this interaction that was helpful and collaborative. then fast-forward to i think it was october -- >> we launched our employment product in october of 2010. >> then at the end of the month we got a letter saying that we were on the receiving end of a

non-public investigation by the ftc. and honestly we don't know how the investigation started. it wasn't from the conversations that i was having because that was always anonymous. i never mentioned the client. but reactor evin -- when you first get the letter, we are being investigated by the government coming and you know you have that moment of pause. estimate is certainly a little overwhelming for in your company for the management team to proceed this letter the 15 very detailed questions. but fortunately because a lot of of work that we have done collectively, we were well positioned to be able to respond. >> and we've -- after we got over the initial shock that we were being investigated, we sought an opportunity to show the ftc here is what we did. we made a good faith, more than reasonable effort to comply with this statute.

here is how. and if we missed anything or we messed it up, tell us and we will fix it because we basically were just doing the best we can and trying to comply. here is all the proof, and again, we interacted with a different person with the investigation but it ended up being a lot of the san collaborative okay, you know, how are you complying with this section, and we would answer that and the ftc investigator would say good but if you do we get a little but i think you are good. ..