to appreciate them at their best. you are staring at me because you have a question or you want me to stop talking? >> i'll tell you when to stop talking when over there. i have a question. can you talk about the process of writing this book? you described so vividly and with a lot of dialogue, events that were clearly painful going back over a decade. were you keeping notes? do you have a photographic memory? >> i've always been a journal or. i write a lot of journal entries and i always have, and then also when it is decided to write this book i needed people. i wasn't on the bus when brian got hurt and actually interviewed five people were on the bus to get there because brian's memories, considering he took shrapnel to the great articles body of that event. i interviewed some of our other

friends and family members that were there with us doing this because based on what i've read, human memory is pretty fallible. eyewitness testimony for example, is notoriously sketchy. rather than assuming that they have a perfect memory of the past decade, i went out and if you could of the people who were there to get their perception of what happened and check it against my own. and tried to use so the combination of my own members, things i wrote at the time, and interviews of other people to make sure i had as accurate a picture as possible. >> thank you. >> welcome back. >> i had a question to if you could maybe contrast your experience with bryant. you guys are doing it at the same time figure two different experiences, yet you are

transitioning your healing to imagine there were some things that were the same in something's different. i'm curious whether those gel and michigan and whether they were different. were you able to provide support for them what he it's not provide support for you? there are two parallel questions. >> i think he would need to be here to answer it accurately. so i struggle with things he didn't experience. for example, being invisible as a woman veteran. when i came home people asked if i was allowed to carry a gun because i'm just a girl. people asked me if i was an infantry which is not authorized under current regulations still, though they're in the process of changing that. when we would all go out in groups to the bar to grab a beer, give the guys a three round, liberal the men would get free beers and they all look like veterans with a haircut and the posture, but women come we don't need the image of what a

veteran looks like. so i didn't get my free beer. but i think that sense of being invisible and not having my own experience is recognized made it harder for me, even when we started singing with other veterans i was often the only woman in the room and people would think i was just a spouse, as if spouses don't go to plenty of their own but they wouldn't assume automatically that i was a veteran. in fact funny story. once was walking my dog in the park, we had a german shepherd who got hit by a car and lost a leg. this old guy walked up to me and pointed at my german shepherd and said, was it an ied? i said what? he said did she lose her leg from one of those iuds in iraq? i said, ied. no. she is not a retard but a working dog and i realize for people assume i dog is a combat veteran and me. like there's something really messed up about that.

brian didn't have to deal with that aspect of things. he didn't have -- it was easier in some ways for him to come home and have people look at him and know he was a veteran. when he kept his hair cut short and no, he is a wounded veteran. in the very beginning he had a purple heart license plate and people asked him if he is driving his dad's car. people really didn't know we were still at war. but pretty quickly he was visible as a veteran, visible as a wounded warrior. if he kept his hair cut short. so we didn't expensive that in -- invisibility, but for me, my symptoms of post-traumatic stress they be within about six months, which is really normal. when you're in a combat zone being hyper vigilant and alert to possible danger and ready to respond with immediate violence, if you're threatened, this is a

helpful and adaptive response. it keeps you alive. it's a good way to be. when you come back to america and you're driving on the beltway, it's no longer adaptive to be ready to kill somebody who cut you off in traffic. it becomes maladaptive. that's a nice word my therapist taught me. adaptive and maladaptive. if you're able to dial that down, dial that like hyper response back down to normal levels within about six months, it's actually totally normal for it to take time to come back to a more even keel. that happened for me. i still have some symptoms, but i never did the posttraumatic stress disorder. for me and never get into that. for brining it did. he had the addition of having experienced a much higher level of drama, both physical and psychological, and he did

develop posttraumatic stress disorder. he also had to struggle with losing his career, losing cognitive function, questioning who he was, if he would ever be able to succeed in the world again. and he turned to alcohol a lot as a coping mechanism, and alcohol abuse was definitely very, very negative aspect of his recovery. the way that i was able to see it later was that every bad thing for him build on every other bad thing, and negative downward spiral. so with ptsd couldn't sleep, not sleeping hurts your cognitive function, having worsening cognitive function may be more depressed which made them drink the which made us fight more. so like it just spiraled down worse and worse and worse. we have to find ways to turn thaback the other direction lat. so for brian it took a lot longer than you did for me, both

the physical, psychological and cognitive. for him it was actually six years after was injured before he could read a book, cover to cover again. when you still at walter reed at one point the one in this case managers said, when he was two years post injury, it's been more than 18 months, you will never see further gains. that was the most horrible thing we heard to be told that he wouldn't get any better. but he did. it just took a lot longer. there were definite ways, the fact were both veterans allowed us to help each other more. so if we went to wal-mart and i had a complete meltdown from the awful mess of it, he never judged me. he never would say like what is your problem? why can't you just make it through the checkout line? you have a full part -- cart of stuff. he never made me, belittled me

or maybe feel like there was something wrong with me for not being able to handle it. that was great, that because he was a fellow combat veteran he just understood. he got it and we didn't have to talk about it. i didn't have to explain it. he just understood. i could do that with him to an extent, though not obviously i could understand the injury. the downside, the flip side to that is that we both had the internal injunction against seeking help. i sometimes wonder if one of us have been a civilian if it would've been easier, if the civilian might have cracked earlier instead no, no. , we have to ask for help. we can do this. in the book i think i lay out our parallel kind of path to recovery, but it would be interesting to see a timeline and see if that works. that would be anything today because the other weird part of

it, one of my -- hyper controlling, like i will make every aspect of our lives and everything will be completely perfectly organized at every moment in time. that was my way of handling the fact that things were in total crisis. and when he got better to the point that they could start doing things again, it was really hard for me to let go and to let him get better, let him take over responsibilities, to let him grow and for me to step back. i had this feeling, like i was holding a cradle and if i let go of one thread would fall apart and it was really, really difficult for me to slowly like lego and realize that the world will not burn down if i'm not personally responsible for it. i don't know if that was

helpful. >> yes, thank you so much. >> first, thanks for your service. but i just want to go back to the process and the challenges of which is sort of, writing this book about, ptsd and reliving those own expenses and writing about while also having to actually relive as you write. what are the challenges of writing this book answered having to again face a lot of the same memories and experiences? >> yeah. so i had a really good outline before i got started. that sounds like a weird place to begin but i had this solid outline and a new what chapters i wanted. and if i couldn't handle something i would just put it aside and work on a different chapter for a while and then circle back to. they were things that were so hard that i couldn't engage with them right away and i would have

to move on and address a different topic and then circle back at a later time. so that's really how i did it. my first book came out so soon after i was in the military and so soon after i got back from iraq that i hadn't processed anything but i was still, i had no empathy. i was mad at my squad leader. i had no empathy for where she was as a leader in that situation. and with this book i waited a lot longer but i waited until brian was further along in his recovery, and i developed this space, emotional depth to look at the arc of his recovery. if i try to do in the middle of it would've been a disaster. i would've been mad or not able to see it. i needed to have this distance in time and emotional and mental space to be able to see the

whole park of our journey together. -- arc. and who have really been that there be and cope with things a lot more before engaging with it. i'm really glad i waited before trying to write this one. >> how did having kids changes those or impact the whole recovery process? >> so there were a lot of years when i thought we could never have kids, because his ptsd symptoms would be really bad. i thought there's no way i could in good conscience bring in new born into a house where somebody has fits of rage like this. so we waited until he was doing really well, and then finally okay, now things are good, now we can try this. and then having kids ended up

being more challenging than i thought it would be because i waited until i was no longer young. but sometimes i actually wonder if i were really wealthy i would find a study on this because i think it would be a really cool thing for somebody to research, but i've read, everybody pretty much knows that when women are pregnant and when they give birth and when you're nursing, their brains kcal nine tons of bonding chemical that makes them like their babies and not drown them very often. but apparently when men live with their partners and are exposed to the newborns, their brains do, too. it reduces the amount of testosterone in the brain and it totally kicks up the amount of oxytocin in the brains. for me, brian had come he had always had called a flattened -- get a tendency to a cold look on

his face a lot of. once we had kids, that changed. when he would look at his son, his face would light up and he was warm and interactive. and i do know if that's brain chemistry or partly just that newborns don't judge you. adult humans, we judge each other, even if we love one another, we still, it's not a pure love the way that it is from children. and it felt like being around our kids as babies kind of let him feel soft again, let him feel nurturing and loving in the way that had been closed off to him in a lot of ways. he had a daughter from his first marriage but she was older, so i would love to see somebody steady oxytocin treatment for ptsd. like i think that would be fun, not mrs. of exposing people with

severe ptsd to newborns but maybe nasal spray or something. but i think it helps his recovery. it helped me reconnect with feeling tender because i had worked really hard to feel tough, and having children reconnected me to those feelings into a greater degree of empathy. it also may become more empathetic towards other military families. when i was in active duty soldier, i had no empathy for army wives. like some of them have this sticker on the car this is army wife. i wanted to key the car. nobody should get you. once i had kids, my husband was out of town overnight and it sucks to be stuck alone, is -- that would really be hard to do that for a whole year or 50 months or 18 months. and also like brian's parents, i developed of opportunity for brian's mom. what it must've been like for

her to have her son go to war and then get wounded. i can't imagine what it's like to see your child that way. thank you. >> being active duty, i served in iraq myself, i wanted to personally thank you for giving a voice to our minority segment of the population. and i just wanted to ask, do you have any advice for any would be writers, veterans, military females that want to start getting into this type of outlook? >> the best advice i can give is to write as much as you can all the time, carry a book and pride whenever you have the opportunity because there aren't enough opportunities sit down and have come like the whole vision of having a writers retreat weekend at all the time. that may not happen such as write all the time. if you can, get involved with other writers. there's and workstation called the veterans writing project, and depend on where you are

facing people out to teach sessions for help facilitate and help you get a group of other writers, other veteran writers and teach you how to share your writing with each other and evaluate and you can form a community where you can show your writing and to save space and help develop your craft that we. if there's anything i wish i'd done is to do something like that sooner. >> thank you. >> thank you. good luck. >> what comes across in the book is that brian's injury and his prognosis and his eventual recovery is somewhat unheard of from the doctors, like he shouldn't have survived, he shouldn't be making the gains, like look at this cat scan, can you believe this guy is walking and talking? you also say in the book that you don't really know what the future holds for your family. and i was just wondering, like

what your thoughts are on where brian might be in a decade or so? >> yeah, so it's true, when the neurosurgeon thought that brian would never be functionally independent, that he would never be able to take care of himself, thought he might never walk again, might be confined a wheelchair, if he did walk he would have a walker. my brother who is a physician's assistant said she never want to be an interesting patient to brian was an interesting patient to th the dr. witt calling other doctors at the look at him, look, he walks and talks. so that's a little freakish and weird. it made it tougher in some ways because when bryant seeks help company says are they any services to help me get further cognitive gains, the response he gets is pretty much like you should just be happy. you're lucky to be alive and

you're lucky to be able to do anything. so, like why'd you want to even do better? just be happy with what you are. that's been tough. there aren't a lot of rehabilitative services for people who are very the high functioning. that the gap that i don't know how anybody can project. is not a lot of research on it. as for what the future holds, right now things are good and i have, i have very high hopes that the next two decades will be good, if he can keep his ptsd well managed, if he can not drink too much, i think the next two decades will probably be great. beyond that i don't know. the prognosis is not great for people with traumatic brain injuries. the chances of people have expressed tbi developing early onset dementia and are very

high. answer that is something that we will always have to be concerned about. be aware of. we don't know if the ptsd could return. abductive vietnam veterans whose symptoms either returned or develop when the iraq war came back. exposure to a new trigger could bring his ptsd symptoms back in full raging force at any point. they're still shrapnel in his brain. it could shift. we don't know. they didn't close the hole in his skull. he still has a hole in his skull, and pretty well protected by muscle but that is still, you know, a literal weak spot. long-term future, 30, 40 years out, i have no idea. might not be the best prognosis but i'm going to stay hopeful and hope that with all of the unfortunate high number of people that come back with

traumatic brain injuries that there will be more research and we can learn more and maybe the dod or va will develop business that can help stave off things like dementia. thank you. >> other questions? shall we wrap up? we have time for at least one more. i don't know what time it is. we have time for one more if anyone has any other questions. yes, sir. [inaudible] >> problems that women have any military. they seem to have been pretty well neglected over a long period of time from what i read in the newspaper. and could you elaborate on any of your expenses, whatever you know along that line? >> so the gentleman had questions about the specific challenges that women face in the military. so a lot of the challenges that

i think when we first invaded iraq, like they are not being good ways for women to urinate with any amount of privacy on long convoys. some of those challenges have been overcome. this is something called the fund because the army loves acronyms which does for the e-mail you know device would just like part of the army logistics change that allowed women to be standing up with little device that can stick in. so little things like that -- [laughter] i think is actually great because there were women who were modest enough that they would not drink enough water and they get urinary tract infections. so the fact that now it's in the supply chain that women can get the fud, which apparently people have done camping are fully with. so some of those problems have been addressed. the military saw some gaps in his work to address them. when women or integrate into the close combat arms unit those

supplied personal may need some additional training on the fact these types of things exist. but those are out there. a lot of the problems that women face in the military are not exclusive to women but disproportionately affect women. so the most probable one example is sexual assault in the military. women expressed sexual assault the military at much higher rates than men, but because women are such a small minority in the military, the raw numbers of those who expressed sexual harassment or assault in the military may be roughly equivalent between men and women. so again that's not exclusively affecting women. but the military is struggling as part of college campuses are right now to forget what to do about that and how to make a dent in it, how to encourage reporting, increased rates of successful prosecution, and

drive down obviously initial incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment as well. it's kind of the 64 main dollars question in my since, in the military -- 64 million-dollar question, draws its members from society and we see with the steubenville great case for example, this is not a problem that is closer to the military, but i do find it concerning that if you compare rates of non-sexual assault murder and other violent crimes within the military to those in a comparable civilian population, rates of other crimes in the military are much lower, just a very small fraction. so if the rate of sexual assault is the same as in so doing this item is still shows that something is wrong. something is not working if the rate of that particular type of assault house not been driven down to the same amount that other types of assault have been driven down within the military

community. if i knew how to solve that, trust me, i would. i don't. i hope that in the long run, opening closed jobs to women in the army will drive down rates of sexual harassment and assault because women will no longer by institutional definition be lesser troops. when they are able to do all forms of military service, that nobody will be able to say some of the things that i heard when i was in which is like, why would you report sexual harassment? what did you expect when you join a man's army? how are you going to run -- ruin his grudges because you can't take it? hopefully when women troops are fully equal, that will improve. but research from other countries and other environment shows that is women's equality increases, it can be a temporary

short-term spike in sexual assault x. is something that we need to be aware of and just be forewarned about am announcing it to kick him kissing if we start to see that we shouldn't say pull the plug, because sometimes you have to work through a difficult process. i am confident that the military, the army in particular, is working very hard to set the stage for a smooth and successful integration of women into closed jobs and units, and that they are working very hard to drive down the rates of sexual harassment and assault. but hopefully the military and universities can learn from each other because unfortunately it is a problem that we see much more widely than just within the military. thank you. [applause] >> and thank you all once again for coming. i hope you will buy the book, but remember when you get to some of the worst parts, that

this is a story of hope, healing, recovery and love. and on that note, happy almost valentines day. [applause] >> caleb will be appear signing copies of her book but if you don't have one, they are still available. [inaudible conversations] >> today, hearing on government surveillance overseas. it will be conducted by the privacy and civil liberties oversight board. a panel appointed by the president has recommended by the 9/11 commission.

we will have live coverage of the hearing beginning at 9 a.m. eastern here on c-span2. the health care program is not going to go anyway. if we do not deal with the issue of innovation, if we do not translate all those findings that occur at the university level into health care programs which are affordable and that treat disease and cure them, as long as we do not understand them how to treat our children, there's no point, really common talking about solution of health care problem. because helping children's coverage, when it comes to drugs them when it comes to the premiums, when it comes to subsidies, without the subsidies going to come from? from taxpayer's money. was not that be what is going to

get the dollars out of the trees. no. people have to pay for that and it's a limit. economy is basically the science of limitations or so if we don't deal with it with a better system of working on prevention of working on understanding how we could take care of our own health, then ther there's no pon just having health interest because what it can happen is what happens in colombia right now. people are covered, but what happens if my mother everybody can have access to health care. what happens in europe, too, which people are covered but when it comes communication and what comes to access to drugs, then governments are having problems affording them spin the future of health care sunday night at eight on c-span's q&a. >> and now live to london for british prime minister's question time. each week the house of commons is in session we bring you prime

minister david cameron taking questions from members of the house of commons life wednesday morning here on c-span2. we also invite your participation via twitter using the hashtag pmq's. part to question time members are finishing up other business. now live to the floor of the british house of commons. ..

no matter whether you abreed with his views or not. he will be missed by both sides of this house and our thoughts are with the right honorable member and other members of his family at this time. i'm sure the house would also join ming tribute to the pgb paralympic team following great success at the sochi games. kenny gallagher won our first ever gold medal at the paralympics. mr. speaker this morning i had meeting with ministers and colleagues and in addition to my duties to the house i will have such further duties today. >> mr. speaker i think the whole house want to associate themselves with the prime minister and the remarks on congratulating the paralympics team. of course the paralympicsed in buckingham. mr. speaker, today unemployment

has fallen 63,000. -- this has been evident in where we have growth in the private sector continue. does my right honourable friend agree with me that we must sustain this growth by continuing to tackle the deficit , the pork industry and continue with our long-term economic growth? >> my right honourable friend is absolutely right about buckinghamshire and came to number 10 downing street recently of she is absolutely right about these unemployment figures. they show employment going up. they show unemployment coming down. a record number of people in our work in our country and record

number of women in work in our country and youth unemployment going down too. i think what is remarkable private sector employment gone up by 118,000. public sector unemployment gone down 13,000. 10 times more jobs created in the private sector. but the important thing here is what this means for britain's families. it means for millions of people, pay packet, chance of work, chance of dignity and changes of civility and security and i hope it will be welcome across the house. [shouting] >> mr. speaker, let me begin by joining prime minister paying tribute to tony ben. he will be remembered as a champion of the powerless and great parliamentarian who defended right of back-benchers in this house against the executives whichever government they came from. he spoke his mind and he spoke

up for his values and everyone knew where he stood and what he stood for. i think that is why he won respect from all members of this house. all of our condolences go to his children, steven, hillary, melissa, joshua and his wider family. in their different ways they took forward what he taught as a father, socialist and also someone of great decency. mr. speaker, i also want to join the prime minister in paying tribute to the fantastic p&g pair are olympic team. special congratulations to kelly gallagher and jay etherington we saw a russian military intervention in ukraine. does the prime minister agree with me that the it was illegal, and in direct violation of the ukrainian constitution? does he share my deep concern that the ukrainian servicemen were shot and killed at a military base in crimea

yesterday? >> well the right honorable gentleman is actually correct the referendum in the crimea was illegitimate and illegal. it was brought together in the 10 days and held at the point after russian kalashnikov. this can not be accepted or legitimatized by international community. we have to be absolutely clear what happened here. this is the annexation effectively of one country's territory by another country. we must be clear about interests to see rules based international system where countries obey the rules. if we turn away from this crisis and don't act we will a very high price in the longer term. we should be clear that this referendum is illegitimate. we must be clear that consequences must follow and we should work with our european partners and with the united states for a strong, consistent and robust response. >> i thank the prime minister for that answer, mr. speaker. i would like to ask him about the meetings that are coming up. the white house indicated their

sanctions will be expanded. i'm sure the whole house will support the idea of list of ukrainian and russian officials about asset freezes and travel bans will be extended in the e.u. council tomorrow. what are the circumstances which he will be supporting additional wider and economic trade sanctions on the russian federation? >> as we discussed previously in the house the european union set out some very clear triggers. we said if the russians did not take part in a contact group with the ukrainian government to take forward discussions, then asset freezes travel bans should follow. those should be put in place at foreign council and i previous further action should be taken at the european council of ministers which i will take part in on thursday. i also think we should be responding to the fact of this annexation. that we said that if there was further action to destablize the ukraine and this annexation is that action, further consequences need to follow. we need to set that out, on

thursday, in concert with our european partners and at the same time i think we need to put down a very clear warning that if there was further destabilization for instance, going into the eastern ukraine in any way, then we would move to a position of sorts of economic sanctions that we discussed in the house last week. >> mr. speaker, the prime minister knows from this side of the house we'll have our support for the toughest possible diplomatic and economic measures against the russian federation given the totally illegitimate actions they have taken. i also welcome to the announcement yesterday that the g7 allies will gather next week in the hague. mr. speaker, given russia's actions it remains inconceivable that they remain in the g8. should this go further and explicitly decide to suspend russia from the group of g eight economies? >> i was one of the first people to say that it was unthinkable for the g8 to go as planned.

we were one of the first countries to sus spend all preparations for the g8. i strongly support the g7 meetings of countries on monday. i think it is important we move together with our allies and partners. we should be discussing whether or not to expel russia permanently from the g8 if further steps are taken. that is the steps we should steak on monday and i think that is the way to proceed. >> thank you very much, mr. speaker. can i add words to the support given to tony benn. it was my pleasure to work with one of his sons on foreign policy, steven. mr. speaker, income tax threshold is 10,000 pounds so far left 2.7 million poorly paid people not paying any income tax make a difference to them. is the prime minister pleased he abandoned his pre-election object to this and -- this policy? >> what i think the honorable gentleman who always brings the house together in his usual way, what i'm sure we can agree on,

is that it has been an excellent move by a conservative chancellor in a coalition government to make sure that the first 10,000 pounds of income you earn you don't pay tax on. that benefits people earning all the way up to 100,000 pounds that has worked so far. over 700 pounds to a typical income taxpayer and it is highly worthwhile and i look forward to hearing what the chancellor has to say. >> is the right honorable gentleman aware that this week i have received from the palestinian friend an email which tells me the israelis have assassinate ad friend in his house and another brother of a friend has been shot dead by the army? so we have spent our time from one funeral to another. when the right honorable gentleman was in israel last week, did he raise with netanyahu this constant stream of killing of innocent

palestinians by the israelis and what is he going to do about it? >> well i didn't raise that specific case which the right honorable gentleman quite rightly raises in this house today but i did raise with the israeli prime minister the importance of how the israeli, israelis behave in the west bank and elsewhere. i raised the issue of settlements which i believe is unacceptable and need to stop. but i was also strongly supporting both israeli prime minister and the palestinian president in their efforts to find a peace. there is a prospect and an opportunity now because the americans are leading a set of talk that is could lead to a framework document being agreed and i think it is in everyone's interest to put all pressure we can on both participants to take part and get on these negotiations which would mean so much i believe to ordinary israelis, ordinary palestinians and indeed the rest of us. >> thank you, mr. speak. unemployment has fallen over past 12 months from 4.9% down to

3 boiling 8%. -- 3.8%. helped by resurgence in british manufacturing. compared to the 1.8 million manufacturing jobs lost under the previous labour government, would our prime minister agree with me that our long-term economic plan is delivering to the north of england? >> my honourable friend makes an important point which is we want to have a balanced recovery. we want to see growth and employment right across the country and it is worth noting, since 2010, 80% of the rise in private sector employment has taken place outside london. the unemployment rate in the northwest, where my honorable member sits for a seat, the unemployment rate in the northwest is lower than it is in london. we are beginning to see a balanced recovery but we got to do everything we can, backing apprenticeships , backing industry to make sure that continues. >> thank you, mr. speaker.

-- it was a drug given to women to determine pregnancy in the '60s and the '70s, the potency 18 times the morning-after pill. as a result of thousands and thousands of babies were born with deformities. there has not been public inquiry or compensation for the victims. would the prime minister meet with me and my constituent and representative of victims association to discuss this? >> well, i'm very happy to look at the case that the honorable lady mentions. yearly this is important issue. anyone who had a disabled child knows the enormous challenge that is brings. i'm very happy to look at the case she races and get back to her about it. >> sir alan hays sell ton. >> will my right honourable friend acknowledge that the benefits of economic recovery in my constituency are somewhat tempered by uncomfortable pressures on housing development and inadequate rail infrastructure? not withstanding the need for these matters to be dealt with

quickly, is it not increasingly clear there's a need to do more to stem the flow continuing flow of population to the southeast by imaginative measures will spend the benefits of recovery throughout all regions of the country. >> i think my right honourable friend makes an important point. we want a balanced recovery, long-term economic plan working. an important part of that long-term economic plan is infrastructure investment that we're making. hs-2 is important in rebalancing between north and south. let's be clear we're spending three types more on other transport schemes in the next parliament as we are on hs-2. it includes projects like rail electrification to bristol, nottingham, liverpool and manchester. all things can make a difference and they're all part of our plan. >> ed miliband. >> mr. speaker, in recent days the country's mental health charities to warn of deep concerns about mental health

services. members across the house spoke out bravely on the subject, impact on those who experience mental health problems in our families and our country. bus the prime minister agree with me that mental health should have equal health priority with physical health in our health care system? >> first let me agree with the right honorable gent man said about the debate that took place in this house about mental health. i read the debate carefully and thought honorable members took very brave and bold steps to talk about issues and problems in their own lives. i think that was incredibly brave and right thing to do. in terms of whether mental health should have parity of esteem with other forms of health care, yes it should and we legislated to make that the case. >> let me suggest specifics that we're moving away from equal footing we won't want to be. mental health share of hms budget are falling. there are fewer mental health beds and more junk people are being treated on adult

psychiatric wards. this is not just bad for individuals concerned but can be a cost for the future. does the prime minister think these things really shouldn't be happening? >> first of all taking the big picture on health spending obviously we decided to increase health spending rather than reduce head spending and health spend something up 12.7 billion across this parliament. we legislative parity as i have said and we also put in place proper waiting times and disciplines actually for things like mental health therapies that weren't there before. of course there is still further to go. we need commissioners to really focus on the importance of mental health services but the money is there. the legal priority is there, we need the health service to respond. >> mr. speaker, the problem is the mental health budget has fallen for the first time in a decade. it isn't getting the share of health spending that it needs. i would urge him to look at the specifics i have raised. we need to insure that the consensus clearly exists in this house is reflected in the daily decisions being made up and down

the country about mental health in the health service. now will the prime minister, will the prime minister agree to enshrine a quality for mental health in the nhs constitution in order to send a message to the decisionmakers about the priority that mental health deserves and ensure those affected by mental health problems get better access to treatment and care they need? >> the right honorable gentleman raises an important point not parity for mental health in law but what we see on the ground. points i makes are these. we have put 400 million pounds in the talking therapies which think are very important in terms of mental health provision. mental health provision is referenced very clearly in the mandate given to nhs england which is absolutely the key document in terms of the health service. but he is absolutely right to say in the way the health service works there is still a culture change in favor of mental health and helping with mental health problems that needs to be changed and put in place and i think there can be

all party support. >> thank you, mr. speaker. many of my small business entrepreneurs said personal incomes below the current welfare cap. with that in mind would my right honourable friend look doing more for small businesses reducing burden of regulation and lowering tax and increasing thresholds as offering extra assistance to help them take on more apprentices? >> my right honourable friend makes an important point which is a key part of our long-term economic plan to help small businesses to take more people on. absolutely key to that is employment allowance, national insurance contributions that will come in this april which is a cut of 2,000 pounds. i think it is very important that we all encourage all small businesses to take up this money and also therefore, to take on more people. at the same time as that we also abolishing employer national insurance contributions for under 21s from april 2015 so

companies including his constituency can start planning to take on more people. >> thank you, mr. speaker. last week the deputy prime minister wrongly told the house, that child care costs in england were coming down while they continue to go up in wales. the house of commons library says it's not the case. this week the deputy prime minister is offering a pre-election bribe on child care which won't come into effect until september, till september 2015. will the, will the prime minister get a grip on this policy? help hard-working families now in this parliament with their child care costs because of cost of living crisis they're facing today? >> i'm afraid to say the honorable member is wrong on both counts. actually, we are seeing some easing in cost pressures in england on child care costs. but i'm afraid in wales they're still going up. but he might want to talk to the

national assembly government about that but the point that the deputy prime minister and i were making yesterday we want to help hard-working families with their child care costs and so from 2015, for every child you have, you can save up to 2,000-pound on your child care costs. isn't it interesting, mr. speaker, we can now heart that the labour party oppose this is move. clearly they don't welcome it. so can have a very clear choice at the election. if you vote for parties on this side of the house you get help with your child care and if you vote labour you get nothing. >> would the prime minister join with me in praising conservative council for -- fifth straight year this year? real help to hard-working people and stark contrast of the three labour parties going up this year? >> well my honourable friend is absolutely right. we should do everything we can

to help hard-working people meet their budgets and meet their needs. that's why council's, freezing council tax provide a huge amount of help. the government is doing its part freezing fuel duty, raising personal allowance doing everything we can to help hard-working people get on with their lives. >> thank you, mr. speaker. the prime minister assured the house on the 27th of november that the government has exempted disabled people who need extra bedroom from the bedroom tax. does he think it is right my constituent who has to pay the tax with disability living allowance, has to pay it because he lives in tory stratford? >> what i said to the house was absolutely correct and i'm happy to repeat that again today. but there is also obviously the discretionary housing payment that is are there, for local counsels to deal with difficult cases. i recommend he take that up with the councils. >> thank you, mr. speaker. russia is not just expanding

into the crimea but also its ships, submarines and aircraft are increasingly appearing off our shores. bearing in mind that we've got great news on the economy, and bearing in mind that the defense ministry sent back an underspent last year, is it possible as suggested by the house of commons defense committee that we should, could have a new maritime patrol aircraft before the next sdsr? >> what i would say to my honourable friend is first of all, we're only able to have these sorts of discussions and these sorts of considerations because we sorted out the defense budget, gotten rid of the enormous deficit in it and we have a successful and growing economy. in terms of maritime patrol we are currently using the awacs aircraft and the sea king merlin and lynx helicopters and royal navy his and submarines. we work in close partnership with our nato allies. i'm sure the ministry of defense

will listen to the representation for the fourth coming stsr. >> -- tax rises evidence of the prime minister's cost cutting instinct? >> this is a great labour campaign. i spotted it this morning which is they have enumerate ad number of tax increases that we had to put in place in order to deal with the deficit. just to remind people, we said it was right to deal with the deficit with 80% spending reductions and 20% tax increases. there's a problem though with this labour campaign. when the spokesman was asked, would you change any of these tax increases, the answer was no i don't know -- [shouting] i'm not the world's biggest expert in campaigns but i would say that was a bit of a turkey. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i welcome the prime minister's

help for those hit by flooding but i'm told this only applies to areas affected since december. my constituency had its worst-ever flooding last september. will he visit the area and will he extend it help to homes and businesses who are still suffering? >> what i absolutely understand the honorable gentleman's concern, the sea surge that took place at there are some. worst floods seen in the area if for a long time. what is key improve the properties from future flooding. my understanding working with partners there is 30 million-pound investment going ahead across three kilometers of coast which will protect something like a thousand homes. there may well be more we need to do and i'm very happy to discuss that with him. >> in 2010 the chancellor said budget deficit would be eliminated by 2015.

what went wrong? >> what we said we'd do, we said that we'd cut the deficit and we cut the deficit. we said we would get britain back to work and we're getting britain back to work. we said everyone in private sector led recovery. we have a private sector led recovery. she asks what went wrong. i can give it to you in one word. labour. >> mr. speaker, mr. speaker, this week bmw announced they're coming and bringing with them 100 skilled new jobs. hundreds of new jobs which are already in the pipeline. when he is next in the midlands, which is the manufacturing heart of our country, will my right honourable friend drop in tamworth and help me deliver our long-term economic plan and make tamworth the place to do business. >> i'm always delighted to visit tamworth not at least to pay

homage to the senate taught of robert peale. important to do that. this manufacturing revival we can really see it in the west midlands with the news from jaguar land rover and new engine plant opening up and what he says about bmw as well. what we now see, one in four bmws with a british-made engine in it. that is great news. we want to see more jobs making things. more jobs exporting things and manufacturing revival in the u.k. >> mr. speaker, can i first speaking to myself, madam deputy speaker and people we served so well for 30 years join with the tribute to the tony benn an condolences for his family. tony benn was from a very privileged background yet he spent political life fighting for working people. with cost of living crisis, wages falling by 1600 pounds here, people queuing up food banks, so much requires the prime minister attention why he

seems so obsessed with plans to bring back fox hunting by the back door -- >> >> if of all, could i join the honorable laid dry to pay tribute to 10 any b-n. n he was busy back-bencher and administer but never forgot about constituents. he was friendly helpful word for new back benchers whatever side of the house you be on. many members like me experienced that from him him in terms of what we're doing to help the poorest. , most important thing is getting people back to work. we've seen 1.7 million new private sector jobs under this government is best way to help people sustainably out of poverty. as they come out poverty they see higher minimum wage and more ability to earn money before they pay any taxes at all. those are the government's priority, that is our long-term plan and that's what you're going to hear about. >> can i, can i join my right

honourable friend in paying tribute to tony benn who ancestral is in my constituency where he was held in high regard by my constituency even though they may have not agreed with his views. is he aware however, that today's figures show unemployment in mald opt n fallen by 27% since the last election? does he agree this is further proof that the chancellor was absolutely right to ignore his critics opposite as a stick to his guns? >> thank my honourable friend for what he said. obviously in the unemployment figures there is good news about women into work about young people into work, about falls in long-term unemployment but it is also the largest annual fall in the claimant account, number of people claiming unemployment benefits is the largest fall since february of 1998. this is really important point about getting people back to work and giving people a chance of a job with dignity and

security in their lives. that is what our economic plan is all about. >> mr. speaker, at the weekend a young woman from my sit whensy, sophie jones died of cervical cancer leaving her family and friends unable to understand why she did not get the smear test she asked for. will the prime minister send his sympathies to her friends and family and will he work with me to make sure once we understand what went wrong we have the right policies in place to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else? >> i think the honorable lady is absolutely right to mace this case. many read in the papers in the weekend. seems absolutely tragic case. we've made huge breakthroughs in this country under governments of both parties in terms of screening programs that are available and public health information is available but something seems to have gone wrong in this case. i'm happy to look into this and write to her and seek any views she has about it too. >> mr. david ward. >> thank you, mr. speaker. today's unemployment figures

show a reduction in -- 14, which i concede is better than an crease of 14 but very disappointing nevertheless, and leaves us highest still in the country. i recently visited a training provider in bradford said there were 600 apprenticeship vacancies in bradford. is the prime minister confident we're actually doing enough to insure that young people in particular are aware of apprenticeships but also prepared to take those apprenticeships on? >> i think the honorable gentleman, my honourable friend makes a very important point, pockets of quite high unemployment right next to areas that have a lot of apprenticeships or jobs available. i think there are two things we have to get right hire. one we have to make sure more of our young people are leaving school with the key qualifications including english and math are absolutely vital to take on an apprenticeship.

we need to stress those subjects are vocational subjects at the heart of education. the second we need to do more to explain to young people in school what is available in terms of apprenticeships an training and that is exactly what our national career service is going to do. . . let me answer, let me answer the honorable gentleman very directly. under our plan everyone in the

nhs will get at least a 1% pay rise, and this is something that i was told was supported by the labour party. this is what the leader of a lady -- labor party said. we're talking about a pay increase limited to one person. i say, this labor party is going to face up to those difficult choices we have to make. how long did that one last? confronted by trade union campaign, he demonstrates once again his complete weakness and i'm fitness for office. >> -- unfitness. thank you, mr. speaker. arenas report and the female -- suggested in the population has been reduced in the uk by 4500. as a proud british asian father to two daughters, can ask my right honorable friend to call for into this most appalling practice? this was a taboo subject must in

quite clearly not just in the uk but in the world as a whole. whole. >> my friend is right about this. it is a simply appalling practice. i think there are areas like this, like female genital mutilation, like forced marriage where we need to be clear about our values and the messages we send and that these practices are unacceptable to the government has made clear abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal. the chief medical officer wrote to all doctors last year reminding them of their responsibility, i'm beating with the chief medical officer and i will raise this issue with her and i think it's right my friend to run this campaign. >> order. order. >> here on c-span2 we will now leave the british house of commons as members move on to other business. you've been watching prime minister's question time aired live wednesday when parliament is in session. a reminder that you can see this

weeks session at camp sunday nights at nine eastern and pacific on c-span. for more information go to c-span.org and click on series to get every program we've erred from the british house of commons since october 1989. we invite your comments about prime ministers question via twitter using hashtag pmq. >> the pentagon has completed an interview on last september shooting the cause the death of 12 navy yard shooters in washington, d.c. yesterday defense secretary chuck hagel briefed reporters on the review which makes recommendations on how to bring workers should be screened at how to create security primers around military facilities. >> okay. six months ago the department of defense lost 12 members of its

family in a senseless act of violence at the washington navy yard. i said at the time that way the art gaps or inadequacies in the departments security, we will find them and we will correct them. and accordingly today, i'm announcing steps dod is taken to enhance physical security at our installations and improve security clearance procedures responding to lessons learned from this terrible, terrible tragedy. these new measures are based on the recommendations of two reviews that i ordered in the aftermath of the shooting, including an internal review, led by undersecretary of defense for intelligence michael vickers, and outside review, led by former assistant secretary of defense paul stockton, who is with us today, and retired admiral eric olson. secretary mabus, who joins me here this morning, also directed the department of the navy to

conduct its own reviews of secure the standards, which complemented our work. i appreciate the hard work and a thorough analysis that went into all of these efforts by all of these people. the reviews identify troubling gaps in dod's ability to detect, prevent, and respond to instances where someone working for us, a government employee, member of our military, or a contractor, besides to inflict harm on this institution and its people. to close these gaps we will take the following actions recommended by the reviews. first, dod will government a continuous evaluation program of personnel with access to dod's facilities or classified information, including dod contractors, military and civilian personnel. wild individuals with security clearances undergo idiotic reinvestigation, i am directing the department to establish automatic reviews of cleared

personnel that will continuously pull information from law enforcement and other relevant databases. this will help trigger an alert if derogatory information becomes available, for example, if someone holding a security clearance is arrested. second, the department will establish an insider threat management and analysis center that can quickly analyze the results of these automated record checks, help connect the dots, and determine whether what action is needed. it will also advise and support department of defense components to ensure appropriate action is taken on each case. case. third, we will centralize authority and accountability for physical and personal security under a single staff assistant, located within the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. currently these responsibility are fractured among multiple components in the department.

this action will identify one person within dod who was responsible for leading efforts to counter inside threats. fourth, the department will accelerate the development of the defense manpower data center's identity management enterprise services architecture. this program will enable dod security officers to share access control information and continuously that individuals against the u.s. government databases. in addition to these actions we're redoing the best ways to move forward on three additional recommendations offered by the independent review panel. we are going to ensure that these ideas are given a full and serious consideration within the broader context of the recommendations from the 120 day security and stability report that was completed by the office of management and budget earlier this month. first, we will consider reducing the number of personnel holding

secret security clearances by at least 10%, a recommendation in line with the october 2013 guidance from the directo direcf national intelligence. second, we will consider reducing dod's reliance on background investigations conducted by the office of personnel management and undertake a comprehensive analysis of the cost, the efficiency, and effectiveness of returning the clearance review process to this department. third, we will consider developing more effective measures to screen recruits, further destigmatize treatment, and ensure the quality of mental health care within dod. i have directed undersecretary victor's to develop a mathematician plan based on the recommendations of these reviews and to report back to me in june on the progress that has been made. everything the department of defense is doing is supporting the broader governmentwide review of the oversight of

security and suitability standards of federal employees and contractors. that review was approved by president obama earlier this month. that review was led by the office of management and budget and the national security council, in coronation with the office of the director of national intelligence director of national intelligence and the office of personnel management. i think we all understand the open and free societies are always foldable, but together we going to do everything possible to provide our people a safe and secure workplace as possible. let me conclude by saying that our thoughts and our prayers go out to the victims and their families of that terrible day. we will continue to do everything we can to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. we owe them nothing less. i appreciate your attention to this. and now let me ask secretary mabus to review with you the

findings of his review and then i think, as you know, we have three individuals who will go into the details, the specifics of how we intend to double but these recommendations and these directives, so thank you. secretary mabus? >> thank you, secretary hagel, and good morning. on september 16 last year, the entire navy family suffered a devastating tragedy of the washington navy yard. for more than a decade, as a military organization, we experienced the pain of combat losses, but six months ago, we lost 12 patriots who made the same sacrifice in the service of the nation, this time here at home. it is with the memory of those three women and nine men in mind today that we are releasing the

results of our investigation into the shooting. in all of this, our first concern has been for those lost and those wounded, and their families. over the past few days, navy liaisons have been with the families all unabridged out individually to provide them with this information. immediately following the attack, we conducted a number of rapid reviews and assessments of our bases and our policy. based on these reviews we've already made changes to improve physical security and protect, force protection on our bases to our units have completed self assessments to ensure their own compliance and our departmental leadership has engage directly with commanding officers around the world to stress the role in protecting our civilian and military personnel. where we identified issues with his security clearance processes that involve changes to broader governmental policy, we forwarded those recommendations through dod to the appropriate agency and department.

we worked closely with the reviews set up in dod, which secretary hagel has explained, and with the broader governmentwide review, supporting them with the information we had developed. we will implement as quickly as possible the recommendations laid out by secretary hagel, including a continuous evaluation program for security clearances. and i want to thank secretary hagel for his unwavering support for navy and our entire navy family throughout and for ensuring that dod is internal and external reviews built on our efforts. i pointed -- appointed admiral john richardson, here today, to conduct an official comprehensive investigation in accordance with the judge advocate general manual, or a jagman report, into the circumstances surrounding the navy yard shooting, to include a review of the policies and programs and how will that guidance was executed. there are 11 major findings and

14 recommendations made in the jagman report, which admiral richardson to speak in detail to. i've accepted all the recommendations and there in the process of being implemented. i directed that additional action be taken to strengthen the department of the navy contract requirements and to provide greater oversight on how a sailor or marine's performance is evaluated and reported. a more detailed list of actions the department has taken recommended by our reviews and our investigations has been made available in written form to you. i want to thank admiral richardson into staff. they put in some very long hours and did an excellent job working against a very short deadline. and i'd also like to once again express my gratitude to the first responders for the prompt reaction and critical actions that day. the naval security force, ncis agents, local and federal law enforcement agencies, and agents responded to the active shooter situation with complete

dedication and commitment to help the men and women of the washington navy yard. they ran toward danger to protect their fellow americans, a brave and selfless action. in the aftermath of the attack, it was important that our response be timely, strong and responsive. i authorized immediate support services for the following a modicum their families, the people of building 197 and those elsewhere on the navy yard, and for the entire navy affected. the outpouring of support from the local community and from across the nation was overwhelmingly, was overwhelming and deeply, deeply appreciated. i appointed the washington navy yard task force, led by assistant secretary of the navy gaining again who's also here today, to ensure that that support was continuous and comprehensive. this task force will be in existence as long as needed to make sure that everyone in need has what is needed.

those who participated in its response have been magnificent, including the casualty assistance calls officers, or cacos 0, who have worked directly with the families since very soon after this event. those who are working of the navy yard that awful they have been magnificent. only two days after the searing event, i went back to the navy yard and an overwhelming majority of the people were already back at work, making sure that we continue have the worlds finest navy. those who were wounded have also returned to work. we expect our sailors and marines to go in harm's way. but even in a theater of war, the danger posed by an insider threat is in cities. in an office building near our nation's capital, it's almost incomprehensible. but sadly, as we saw, can be real. secretary hagel said, we cannot completely eliminate the threat but we can't and will guard

against these types of events by addressing these findings, even if so doing would not have prevented this attack, because it may prevent a future one. that is one objective of these reviews and investigations. a parallel and equally powerful reason is to provide answers to our navy family. it is for them that we conducted a clear eyed and thorough review of how their loved ones, colleagues, friends in to face such terrible danger that day. it is for them that going forward we will do everything within our power to safeguard their security. thank you. >> okay, folks, we have three of the individuals, the three individuals who conducted three of the reviews to come up here and take questions for you. we've got about 20 minutes to do

that. admiral richardson, who conducted the navy's jack investigation, mr. paul stockton, who along with admiral eric olson, retire admiral olson conducted the independent reviews. and then behind me is mr. marcel lettre, who works for mr. vickers, and they worked on the internal review. i will moderate the questions. >> thank you, admiral kirby, and good morning to all. i'm admiral richardson, and has sector made this point out i let the jagman investigation to this investigation began on september 25 and was completed on november 8. we examined during this effort to compliance with existing requirements at the time of the incident with respect to aaron alexis at the washington navy yard. we executed the task with a team of 30 investigators and 10 support personnel. these people consisted of a range of subject matter experts,

including force protection, government contracts, installation management, emergency management, medicine, and law. the investigation was given my top priority. as i told the team, this effort was among the most important work going on in the navy at the time. we organized the jagman investigation along five lines. 19 was the personal history of alexis, including his prior military service and civilian employment history. another line was the personnel security program designed to vet and then in 10 is a value it personal for suitability, for access to classified material, as it applied to alexis. the third line was the force protection plan designed to prevent unauthorized access to secured facility at the washington navy yard. before the line was incident response and emergency management programs at the washington navy yard. and, finally, to this effort addressed the response after the incident. the specific details o of the

shooting, issued his motive and the tactical response on the subject of ongoing criminal investigations and are not part of the jagman. investigation team reported out 11 major findings in five areas and 14 recommendations. the findings address the personal security program as it applied to alexis, a washington navy yard force protection program, the washington navy yard incident response and emergency management programs, and then as i said, post-incident response. the 14 report recommendations encompassed immediate actions to improve the personnel security program execution by navy organizations and contractors, to improve the navy's capability against all threats with a focus on the insider threat to fill critical gaps in the force protection and emergency management programs on the navy yard. and in closing, finally, and perhaps most important, i'd like to add my condolences to those already expressed for the victims and their families. out turn it over to marcel

lettre. >> thank you, admiral. as i was introduced, i'm marcel lettre, i'm the principal deputy undersecretary for intelligence, mike vickers deputy. doctor vickers is the undersecretary for intelligence who was unavailable today. he's on an overseas assignment this week. we were asked by secretary hagel on september 30 to conduct one of two reviews, commissioned by secretary hagel, and into review led by the usdi organization come and i want to thank tim davis, steve lewis and theresa ramsey, our director, deputy director and senior advisor in our security directorate, who led this review for us. as dr. stockton will mention in a minute, secretary hagel also commissioned a second review, an independent panel that dr. stockton and admiral olson

work through over the last few months. our focus was on two areas, installation security and on personal security, and the role of security clearances and security investigation. secretary hagel mentioned, we have four main recommendations which he outlined. in addition, most of the recommendations of an independent panel we found consistent with the work that we have concluded. so a lot of those are not only consistent with, but incorporated into our four main points, as the secretary hagel elicited in his opening comments. three additional recommendations that the independent panel put forward we have accepted as recommendations for further analysis. again, secretary hagel mentioned of those. it's been six months since the tragic events of september 16 last year when we lost members of our dod family. in our view it's unacceptable to have another event such as that occur. we are committed to reducing the risk of insider threat across

the defense department and look forward to working hard putting our best efforts for to do so, and look forward to your questions. with that i'll turn it over to paul stockton for a short summary of the independent panel. thanks. as mentioned, the second appointed retired admiral eric olson in me to conduct an independent review of some of these same issues come and take a bigger picture look at the challenges of reinventing the security glitch processed into united states. we started out by making the argument, and i urge you to get a copy of the report, because i'm open to talk about it in the barest overview terms today, the department of defense should replace the underlying premise behind installation and personnel security. for decades, the department has approached security drum a perimeter perspective. if we strengthened the

perimeter, build our fences, if you will, against threats on the other side, we will be secure. that approach is outmoded, it's broken, and the department needs to replace it. increasingly, threats, cyber, kinetic, all threats, they are inside the perimeter. what the department of defense should do is build security from within. admiral olson and died in the independent review entirely concur with the recommendations made by undersecretary vickers. as you heard from secretary hagel, we also went further and recommended three additional initiatives that the department will now be considering. first of all, it was our assessment that in the department of defense, far too many people have security clearances. since 9/11, the number of those

eligible for security clearances in the department of defense has tripled. and the department has gotten away from determining that personnel have a need to know that they need access to security clearance in the positions that they occupy. we urged that the department of defense go forward, reassess whether people in particular jobs actually be those security place or not, and we believe significant reductions community in the overall size of the cleared population in the department of defense and, therefore, in order to conduct evaluation and monitoring those that remain to give clearances, we will be able to focus additional resources and follow all of the terrific recommendations that marcel and undersecretary vickers have recommended. sica, we believe that there's more that can be done to further de- stigmatize those in the department of defense who seek mental health care. we need to do everything we can to ensure that personnel who

want such care get access to it and are not punished for it. the independent review has a number of recommendations about how to proceed down this path and further strengthen the already good relationship between the veterans administration and the department of defense to make sure that our veterans get access to the health care that they need. and then finally we reached the conclusion that the department should reassess whether it wants to continue depending on the office of personnel and management to conduct investigations, the background investigations that constitute a key step forward in granting security glitches. obm is our making important improvements in the oversight that they conduct for the private sector contractors to conduct these investigations. we believe that the department should take a deep look at the other models that exist, including the state department's decision to be responsible for its own investigations. are our big structural advantages to walking down that

path, and so we urged that the department of defense consider taking back to itself responsibility for conducting background investigations as the key step forward in granting security glitches. a lot in the report. i urge you to take a look at it and i want to, above all, thank secretary hagel on behalf of admiral olson and myself for the opportunity and the honor to address this key issue, to ensure as best we can that future attacks of this sort that occurred at the washington navy yard never occur again. thank you. spent okay, thanks. we've got time for some questions. >> mr. stockton, a question for you. you mentioned the general concept of an outdated approach to building fences, rather than looking inside the workforce for threats. it strikes me as a lesson that was supposed to have been learned back to 9/11 in some respects, isn't something that's, before? is this just an entirely new

concept for you? >> it's not a new concept and i had the honor of helping to lead the investigation of the fort hood incident and the development of recommendations, for example, to strengthen sharing of information between the fbi and the department of defense. some major improvements have been made, including those made already by secretary hagel. the challenge is that the threat continues to intensify. that is, we have inside the perimeter cyber threats, kinetic threats that we haven't historically in the department defense structure for policy and programs to handle. we need to continue strengthen those insider security initiatives in order to match common tour to exceed efforts by our adversaries to attack us from within. >> why is the threat going

inside? >> cyberthreat are especially important it is a classic example, bob. the department of defense, the department homeland security and other federal departments make sure that there perimeter security against sql and other forms of cyber attack get stronger, then the incentives grow for adversaries to attack from within. >> thank you. >> this is probably for marcel. in terms of, can you explain about how the continuous evaluation process would work? doesn't affect anybody with any kind of security clearance? is going to be the kind of thing where someone gets a restraining order are getting divorced, that will be flagged and then they will be evaluated? does it need some sort of approval from odni or somebody else before it can go forward? >> i'll mention a couple things and then admiral richardson, if there's anything from the navy perspective can add. just from the perspective of the department more broadly, our

current system of personnel security is based on a periodic reinvestigation basis, five years, 10 years. the assessment is that that approach limits our ability to understand the evolution that may occur in a person's life that may have been evolved from a trusted insider to an insider threat. with the continuous evaluation approach, we would have a system which would in part be ip-based, but in part a system that would rely on subject matter expert, the ability to link in investigative ability as well. to be able to continuously evaluate information that flows in through a number of appropriate channels, and collected in one place to ensure that insights can be gained that may be relevant for deeming something an insider threat. ..

but clear emphasis within the omb report applying a continuous evaluation practice, and strong leadership role for insuring the effective implementation in the director of national intelligence. >> will that affect everybody with clearance? >> it is intended to affect everybody with clearance, yes,

which in the dod context currently 2.5 billion individuals hold active security clearances. implementation will have to occur over time. we have up to now studied continuous evaluation through research and development and through a pilot approach. we envision building of implementation continuing to do pilots on an expanded basis over time. >> for any of the three of you can you go to more specifics on how exactly dod is stigmatized for appealing to mental-health? >> you want to start with the perspective of the panel? >> the department has made strides in the stigmatizing the

search for mental health treatment. i believe the current standard securing form sf 86, some of us have filled that out, asks you whether you seek mental health care. i believe that this question ought to be drastically changed, despite the best efforts of those who do security clearance process to be stigmatized those who seek mental health care despite their best efforts that question i don't believe gives us reliable answers. self reported is inherently unreliable. there is no evidence that it is a valid way of understanding the degree to which mental health care is needed by a particular person and secondly i believe we need to do more to reach out to those members of the department of defense community to ensure that we know when they seek help for mental care issues, that is

not, repeat not going to in any way affect their ability to serve. we need to go the extra mile especially in today's environment to ensure that message gets through. >> i will lead briefly the department appreciate the work dr. stockman did to incorporate this analysis to the independent panel's work. it is important as we move forward to think about the services that we can provide to our military and our civilian work force, to help them as they determine they may need to seek mental health counseling. we do that in conjunction in parallel with other efforts we are undertaking here to do with the insider threat challenge is. >> to go back to the question, what is the appropriate input for continuous evaluation?

will there be something limited to criminal arrest, that sort of thing, something more than that? what happens for those clearance holders who over the course of two or five or ten years don't have any criminal arrest, or monitored the global demand. >> the input that would go into continuous evaluation system, the same appropriate input that would occur under a periodic investigation model just done on a push basis so we have a periodic investigation model that revisits that data set every 5 or 10 years, we would move to continue with evaluation approach in its first phase is where we could clear the database on demand and overtime as the system matures, moving to a model and a technique that

would allow more real-time push of data. >> we are live at the privacy and civil liberties oversight board holding a hearing on the intelligence surveillance act that gives the government authority to conduct surveillance overseas. section 702 of the provision is meant to apply to non u.s. persons abroad. the scope of the program was revealed to leaks of former nsa contractor ed snowden. >> privacy and civil libri oversight hearing, i am yatsenyuk, the chairman. it is 9:05 on march 19th, 2014, and we are in the ballroom of the mayflower hotel at 1127 connecticut avenue in washington d.c.. this hearing was announced from the federal register on march 10th, 2014. as chairman i will be the presiding officer. all five board members are present and there is a quorum.

board members are "after the bell," greta van susteren, greece and mario draghi. i will call the hearing to order. all in favor of opening the hearing please say aye. unanimous consent to proceed, we will now proceed. i want to thank the board's staff, of brian seaman, for their efforts in making this event possible. last year we provided the president and congress a public report on two counterterrorism programs, under the patriot act and the seminole program. the report on the 215 program was issued on january 23rd, 2014. our focus is on the section 7 program under the amendment act. the purpose of this hearing is to foster public discussion, legal, constitutional and policy

issues related to this program. a few ground rules. we expect the discussion will be based on unclassified or declassified information. however some of the discussion will inevitably touch on classified documents or media reports of classified information. in order to promote a robust discussion speakers may reference these documents but keep in mind in some cases they remain classified. therefore while discussing them neither board members more speakers in a position to do so will confirm the validity of the documents or information. there will be three panels today, the first will consist of government officials who agencies have varying degrees of responsibility for the surveillance program that will be the subject of our report. the second panel will consist of academics and advocates who will focus on legal issues including statutory and constitutional issues. after the first two panels we will take a lunch break. a final panel will consist of a mix of academics, advocates and private sector representatives

that will focus on transnational and policy issues. board members will pose questions with questions and rounds for each board member. panelists are urged to keep their responses brief and to permit the greatest exchange reviews. program is being recorded and a transcript will be posted on pclob.gov. written comments are welcome and may be submitted on line as regulation.gov, by mail until march 28th. today's hearing will focus on the collection of foreign intelligence information, electronic communications service providers under court supervision pursuant to section 702 and foreign intelligence surveillance act. information obtained with court approval with written directions from the attorney general and director of national intelligence to acquire foreign intelligence information. this law permits the government to target non-u.s. persons, someone who is not a citizen or permanent resident alien located out the united states for foreign intelligence purposes without obtaining sufficient

warrant for the target. we will move to our first panel and bob will make an opening statement for the panel. >> thank you for the opportunity to appear on behalf of the group here and talk about section 702. i would like to give a brief overview of section 702 to set the stage and we will allow the points i make in response to questions. section 702 as you noted, against foreign targets to are outside the united states while protecting privacy rights. under section 702 the fisa court requires certification from the director of national intelligence that identify categories of foreign intelligence that may be collected. we then target sectors such as telephone numbers or e-mail addresses that will produce foreign intelligence within the scope of the certification.

the fisa court has to review targeting and minimization procedures. the targeting procedures ensure that we target only non-u.s. persons who are reasonably believed to be outside the united states, that we do not intentionally intercept domestic communication and we do not target any person outside the united states as a subterfuge to target someone inside the u.s.. the minimization procedures ensure consistent with foreign intelligence we minimize the acquisition and retention of nonpublic information available about u.s. persons and prohibit dissemination of such information. i want to make a couple of important overview points about section 702. first there is either a misconception or mischaracterization commonly repeated in section 702 as a form of bulk election. it is not bulk election. it is targeted collection based on selectors such as telephone

numbers or e-mail addresses where there is reason to believe the selectors relevant to a foreign intelligence purpose. i just want to repeat section 702 is not above collection programs. second from a legal point of view persons who are not u.s. persons who are outside the united states do not have rights under the fourth amendment so the constitution doesn't require individualized warrants to target them. in fact the intelligence covered by section 702 targeting foreigners outside the united states has historically been viewed as part of the president's inherent constitutional authority. i am not aware of any other country that brings this kind of collection and did the judicial process. it is subject to extensive oversight for all three branches of government. extensive view of collections 702, inspectors general by the department of justice, the

director of national intelligence includes reporting of all compliance to the foreign intelligence surveillance court. that includes periodic reports to congress and the court. and the documents declassified, the foreign intelligence surveillance court carefully scrutinizes our activities under this section and there have been a number of compliance incidents over the years the court has never found intentional effort to violate the requirements of section 702. the fact that communications of u.s. persons may be incidentally intercepted when we target valid for an intelligence targets is neither unexpected nor unique to section 702 collection. the statute itself with its requirement of minimization procedures and legislative history make completely clear congress knew full well when it passed section 702 that incidental collection of communications with u.s. persons would occur when they are in communication with valid foreign

targets and it is important to note this kind of incidental, attackers all the time. when we conduct criminal wiretap or wiretap pursuant to its subtitle 1 which would likely intercept communications. there are communications with persons, the minimization wills under section 702 which the pfizer court approves is consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment. are designed to protect the privacy, that incidentally collected. allowing the use of information that is lawfully collected and valid for intelligence and law enforcement purposes. i want to close by emphasizing, section 702 is one of the most valuable collection tools i have. many of the specific achievements have to remain classified, we are not revealing who we are targeting or collecting. it is not only about terrorism but wide variety of other

threats to our nation and unless one of my colleagues has something to add we are ready to address your question. >> thank you for that statement. i want to pick up with your discussion of incidental collection, to make clear under this program even though the targets may be a non-u.s. person there will be times when the conversation by e-mail or telephone, will be a u.s. person. this panel, whether you have communications that implicate fourth amendment concerns and if so do you believe there is a foreign intelligence exception to the fourth amendment, and if not, how collection of information of u.s. persons permissible and rising this to the traditional wiretapped. is there a distinction here from on a traditional wiretaps the court has a judicial

determination with particular ready of particular collection whereas here there is only a broad programmatic court that -- approval of the specific election. broadly speaking, address the fourth amendment regarding incidental collection. >> i will take that. this is as bob said collection targeting non u.s. persons overseas who don't enjoy fourth amendment rights and supreme court precedent. that affects the fourth amendment analysis. that is not to say u.s. persons whose information or whose communications are collected incidentally doesn't trigger a fourth amendment review. it does. people still have fourth amendment rights but what the courts have said is that minimization procedures in place render that collection reasonable for fourth amendment perspective.

we think there is an exception to the warrant requirement. before fisa was enacted in the 1970s number of courts held in a number of different circuits that there is a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement under the fourth amendment, in light of special needs of the government to collect foreign intelligence weighed against the privacy interests of u.s. persons concluded you don't need a warrant when engage in foreign intelligence collection and the only remaining question is is it reasonable under the fourth amendment to collect information on u.s. persons when you are targeting non u.s. persons and what the fisa court has held that it is reasonable in light of the minimization targeting procedures that you have in place? i don't know if that answers your question. the warrant requirement not applicable to foreign intelligence collection still have a reasonable this requirement of which u.s. persons, it is reasonable in light of the procedures we have that are designed to ensure we are targeting non u.s. persons?

>> the minimization procedures make a reasonable form of collection under the fourth amendment. >> minimization procedures address the targeting procedures address the acquisition, retention and dissemination of u.s. personal information and so those procedures are designed to protect u.s. persons whose information might be incidentally collected so for example you can only disseminate information about u.s. person if it is foreign intelligence necessary to understand foreign intelligence or is that a crime, you have retention rules and in some cases for nsa a 5-year retention limit on how long the information can be retained. these are procedures the courts have found protecting u.s. privacy and making the collection reasonable for fourth amendment purposes. >> under the minimization procedures i understand the agencies, the fbi, their own minimization procedures are not the same with each other? >> that is correct.

>> why shouldn't i be concerned they are not being subjected to the same minimization standards? >> each of them have their and minimization procedures based on their unique mission and that record the jumbos for cia, fbi, nsa, reasonable for each different agency, slightly different based on the operational needs. >> would it make more ascents at the minimization procedures to apply for the information? >> just to contrast, of using information in different ways, fbi has more latitude with respect to personal information in terms of criminal activity, and as a doesn't have the law-enforcement missions of is important to have differences between the agency in terms of how they handle the information. >> the practice that all information that is collected under 702 is subject to the minimization procedures, some questions could be raised, some comments were submitted to access information that would be

considered communication for minimization or approach that all information collected in 702 is subject to minimization? >> all u.s. personal information is subject to -- >> thanks to all of you for being here this morning, we appreciate your taking time, and to continue on the fourth amendment discussion. could one of you explain the process both inside the executive branch and with the courts of conducting the fourth amendment analysis and seeking the court's approval to fourth amendment analysis and what kind of opinions on the fourth amendment you had that you can talk about and help understand how that works? >> the fisa court operates differently than regular court, that means only the government is there. there is not a party on the other side. other than that we are briefing

the legal issues in the same way as a regular proceeding where there's a party on the other side so we have an obligation to persuade the court is that the collection under 702 is lawful and complies with the fourth amendment and explain to the chair that the minimization procedures comply with the fourth amendment so we would reach that issue at explaining for the amendment procedures in the core issue's opinions and has issued opinions going through the fourth amendment analysis finding that 702 collection including minimization targeting procedures meet fourth amendment standards so it is a full look regular legal briefing on that. >> if i could add something to that, it is typical in matters that involve the collection of evidence for these proceedings to be conducted, wiretap or search warrant applications are all done x party even if they happen to present significant

legal issues. there's nothing novel in terms of the approach that is taken care. >> in addition to what brad was articulating the court has the fourth amendment analysis as you all know, the 702 process requires an of -- certification every year. the minimization and targeting procedures for various agencies which statute has to conduct fourth amendment analysis on those procedures. >> the fourth amendment analysis is once the year, of the program overall. >> consistent jurisdiction all year. the point i was making is part of the annual certification they're required to report fourth amendment analysis of the annual procedures that are submitted annually. it gets evaluated at least once a year. >> can you elaborate on that. what would there be in addition to that once a year analysis? >> point be a number of factors,

to change procedures in mid year. that would prompt another analysis. that could be one circumstance. a variety of compliance matters raised particular concerns in which case the court may do a review of cycle but we wouldn't presume to meet once a year but at a minimum by statute once a year. >> you talked about collection, i want to delve into that, full collection, selectors, you need to elaborate on that little bit. what is it? >> it is helpful to talk about what collection is. if you look at the president's policy directive, collection of communication without relying on some sort of discriminant to

target particular collections, of huge sort of more informally, of bunch of communication hanging on to them and what you want. this is not that. what we want, we get that specifically and targeted rather than bulk election. >> i want to get more into what you are getting. rajesh de can talk about this better than i can. >> it is the necessary predicate to understand how the question occurs. there are two types of collection and dissections 702. both are targeted which means they are both selector based and get into more detail about the selectors or things like the numbers and e-mail addresses. both are legal processes, both types were conducted with the

assistance of electronic communications service provider and most collections are subject to the same statutory standards. the first type is what has been known as prison collection. using shorthand for a moment, under this type of collection communication to or from specifics electors, things like phone-number or e-mails are provided with the assistance of i s ps. the second type of collection is shorthand referred to as upstream collection which is from lack of a better phrase internet backbone rather than internet service providers. it is also selector based, based on particular phone numbers or e-mails. this is a collection to, from or about, the same selectors using prism selection. this is not based on keywords

for example. this type of collection fills a particular gap of allowing us to collect communications that are not available in the present collection. given the unique nature of upstream collection there are different minimization procedures that apply. the reason procedures are not all is the same different types of collection as brat articulated is they are different privacy interest and commission interests. >> my time is up. >> thank you for coming out this morning. we really appreciate your time on this. happy to be a part of this dialogue here. to followup on a couple points that have already been raised. first, we talked about the fourth amendment implications of the collection. we also talked about the fact, it is known the information that is collected can subsequently be queried. do you consider that subsequent

aquarius search for the purposes of the fourth amendment and if not why not? >> i would say the search chuckers at the time the collection occurs so when the information as rajesh de explained is acquired by nsa, that is the time we should search, lawfully collect that information, subsequently querying that information isn't a search under the fourth amendment, it is information already in the government's custody. i don't think there are any contexts in general in which a warrant is required to search information already in your custody. >> following up on that someone suggested whether it is a matter of fourth amendment necessity or policy, as a matter of policy, that you should seek court approval before doing a query of a u.s. person identifier. can you talk a little bit about the operational impact of such a

requirement? >> sure. this is something my colleagues could talk about, the operational impact. in general with other types of collection whether it is collection under title 1 fisa which is regular collection you have already gotten from fisa cord to tie the a particular foreign power or moving over to the criminal side if this information collected and the wiretap act, title free under which you are conducting surveillance on organized crime or a drug case, in all these contexts we collect information. once we collected it we have the necessary court approval to obtain the information, we don't have to go back to court, lawfully and second time to say okay to look at it. and the custody, imagine they

were quite burdensome and difficult -- to address that a little bit. >> turn it to my colleagues on the bureau. one basic point talking about prison query's and two types of collection to clarify u.s. person query's are not allowed to upstream collection. as i articulated there might be different reasons to have tailored procedures, minimization procedures so such queries are not allowed upstream. adding to brad's point about collection information, wins information is collected pursuant to 702, the president will review what is in that information querying that lawfully collected information is one way to think about that. a way to more efficiently reviews at which the government has in its possession to review follow-ups. your question about policy, creating that data, one also

needs to understand that information is that the government's disposal to review to organize. there are standards in place for querying that information for nsa. such a query when talking about prison collection must be reasonably likely. in order to disseminate information, and from publicly available procedures. >> at a high level, i think, you have to think about a new and special category of information. they are acquired pursuant to lawful process. we will query that and look through when something comes in

and look through collected materials. and deal with what we have and move forward as expeditiously as possible. a new category of information is off limits. and pretend to fully understand the implications, the couple that come to mind will be delayed. you have additional processes you have to go through and some emergency carve out and so on. you have to factor in the reality to lay into the system. there is a gap, several types of gaps, the disinclination for people who don't have facts. -- some type of connti