or their family member is who's in the area. and they need to know who you are. so at a local community level, we're trying to get the word out. yesterday we signed an moa with fort gordon that is phenomenal. and the garrison commander came to me and said you guys own the community, and i own the post. we need to figure out how to bridge that so that you can get on post and i can get into the community. so we signed an moa to assist the garrison at fort gordon with transition services for all military veterans ask their families to come -- and their families to come off post. and that in itself is huge. the other partnership is the va. you know, i don't have a community partner stronger than the va. we went to, my team went to another group, and we sort of did this question and answer thing of who were the strongest, who are your strongest community partners. every one of my team members put

the number one community partner as the va. the other group didn't even put the va on their list. and if you think that the va doesn't bring something to the table, you're mistaken. i just want to point out one other thing. we talk about nonprofits. nonprofits are businesses. we're businesses. and you have to speak when you're talking to a community, this is how you get with 'em to work, you have to speak in terms of business. and that's where, what you're doing at the chamber of commerce, ross, is huge. because it resonates. emotions will only go so far. you know, the emotions and the commitment, emotional commitment to veterans is going to wane here in the next few years. but what we point out to community leaders, what we point out to colleges and universities, what we point out to businesses is the economic impact a veteran has on their community. you know, we look at a hundred veterans going to school in our local community brings $2.8 million in federal funds that

are unsolicited into the community. why wouldn't you have a veterans program? and we sort of approach the colleges that way going, duh. it's good business. why wouldn't you do this? finish so it's important to educate, it's important to partner. but you have to look at it from a perspective that resonates within the community. and the community is led by business. it's led -- colleges and universities are businesses. and so you have to resonate that way. and, again, if we can figure out a way that those, that that troop leaving camp pendleton who's coming back to augusta, georgia, or coming back to the community we're partnering with in tacoma or in the pant handle of -- panhandle of florida or in charleston, if we can figure out a way that that person knows they have a sponsor and a person to go touch in that commitment, those will start -- it'll start to trickle across the country. thanks. >> thank you. i think you might have mentioned

this, but just restate this. how do we tap into and capture the skills and abilities of the veterans? >> yeah. so i think the way you have to do it is you have to know who the veteran is. you can't assess their skill and ability if you don't know who they are. so if they go home to the rural community and they hide out in their house, you'll never know who they are if they don't come out. so in terms of skills, there's a lot of things that translate to skills. every university has a different criteria. i like what we did in south carolina. there was a language requirement at the local college that you had to take two years of language. we had these guys coming out of a linguist school, they were speaking russian and farsi and pashtun, but they didn't offer those classes at the school, and the school said, sorry, you have to take one year -- two years of spanish. [laughter] and we said, wait a minute. went back to the national level,

to the state level of and how do we translate it, the state said we'll take dla's scoring. if the federal government's paying them to be linguist, i think that's good enough for us. anyways -- >> thank you. next question is for ken. putting on your nonprofit hat, what would you like nonprofit ceos to know about the contributions veterans can make to their organization as employees, board members and volunteers? >> jim stole my story. nonprofits are businesses, and if there's one thing -- so i come out of the for-profit world, and if there's one thing that i think is missing in the -- i personally hate the word "charity." i think it's dangerous. you know, charity or maybe panhandlers and people that sit

on the side of the street with a paper cup, that's charity. nonprofits are businesses. and in the for-profit world, companies like dell computers can't build a computer without 20 or 30 other partners. in the nonprofit world, what we see a lot of times is this leadership that says i've got the this group of -- this group of donors, i'm to going to get protective of my resources, and i'm to not going to share 'em with you. i'm not going to partner with you. and a lot of times the big difference in the nonprofit world and the for-profit world that we don't necessarily look at our employees as resources in the same way. and i think that's kind of what's missing. so i don't separate nonprofits from for-profit businesses. what i think ceos want are people with great attitudes. and people that want to work hard and people that don't mind getting up at 5:00 in the morning and when a proposal's due at midnight, don't mind working at 11:00.

was they've slept -- because they've slept under tanks, under mraps, they've slept in the mud, they've carried bloody bodies. and it's fairly easy at 11:00 at night to get another cup of coffee and write another proposal. nobody's shooting at you. that's what employers want, whether there's a for-profit or a nonprofit business. >> thank you. next question is for debbie. why is military spouse employment important right now? >> yeah. a couple different reasons. one, right now if you look at the statistics, about 27% of all separations from the military are involuntary separations. so folks who are in service right now who may have thought they were going to have a career in the military are going to find themselves as veterans, and they might find themselves as veterans unexpectedly. and so if they don't have a job

and their spouse doesn't have a job, it's going to be very hard for them to make a successful transition. so that spouse having employment or having opportunities for employment because they have education makes it a much more successful transition for the entire family. overall in the military, only about 17% of military service members retire with a full, with a full pension. you either stay in for 20 years and get your full pension, but most people don't do that. so they're leaving service, and they don't have a retirement comparable to what you would have in the civilian world where maybe you're invested -- you're vested in a retirement plan. if a military spouse is not working, that spouse doesn't have a retirement plan either. so the family's overall financial picture is impacted fairly drastically if the spouse doesn't have a job to piggyback

on some of the things that ross was mentioning. military spouses may have gaps in their employment, but often times they're volunteering at pretty significant rates. and so during those periods of volunteering, they're developing skills. a lot of times they don't put those skills on their resumé, and so that impacts whether they're hireable or not. my husband and i were talking about this last night. there are skills that military spouses have that they don't even realize that they have. if you have managed an overseas move, you've done logistics. [laughter] if you've broken your husband's tv during a deployment and you have to tell him, you've done pr. [laughter] and i'm kidding, i'm saying that jokingly, but there are skills that happen while, during the course of a military career that military spouses don't even realize that that they've had. they may be managing very large

organizations with diverse populations where they're managing a budget doing a newsletter, you know, managing vips, dealing with security issues. those are all skills that they can bring into the work force, and they don't even know to put them on their resumés. and so one of the things that we do with the chamber is try to tell spouses that they can do that, that it's even an option, but also give them the confidence to go into an interview and say i do have these skills even though they weren't paid. so -- >> thank you. our last general question is for ross. as budget constraints spur the military to work more closely with the private sector regarding transition assistance, the messages we hear are are often directed towards employers and governmental agencies. which responsibilities fall upon

service member or family military spouse when checking for employment in a civilian workplace? >> so because i touched on it a bit in terms of the responsibilities that veterans and military spouses have, i kind of -- i'll answer the question a little bit differently. i think as budgets are being constrained and as, obviously, you know, sequester is hitting this community and a lot more intensely than most other communities, i do see this. and i think to the point about kind of nonprofit mentality, this is a huge opportunity. i think that necessity is really proving to be the mother of invention here, and as budgets are being slashed and being slashed not always in the most sort of rational way, what we're really seeing is extraordinary, extraordinary leaps and bounds in the public and private and nonprofit sector collaboration. and so i'll give a quick example ask then a quick plug for

something here in d.c., and then i'll wrap it up. about a month ago, month and a half ago at fort bliss, texas, we had this incredible coming together of va, of department of labor, of joining forces, the army and soldier for life's office, the chamber, the greater el paso chamber, fort bliss installation command, army installation command generally, and what all that means is that all these folks who for years have had their own rice bowls and for years have jealously protected their budgets and their programs saying there is just no way that we can afford to keep on trying to do it that way. so what happened at fort bliss was a two-day summit where day one was focused on employers and giving employers all the education that they needed from all those resources both national and local working together, day two was a job fair for where the army mandated that every soldier who was 90 days out out of getting out and every soldier in a warrior transition

unit had to go. so a lot of those soldiers, obviously, aren't necessarily going to be getting jobs from a job fair, but they might walk up to an employer and come out with their head spinning around saying, okay, i'm definitely not ready, i need to get ready. and i think what was also great in addition to that was you had department of labor there, you had va with claims inspectors coming to really what is a community event, not just a job fair, and they registered 600 people for their career counseling benefits and e-benefits in one day which was 600 soldiers which was twice as many that had happened in all of el paso the year before. so you're seeing this sharing of resources, sharing of space, sharing of turf which i think as we're facing these budget constraints is going to become more and more central. the plug i'd like to do is april 9th here in d.c. we're going to be having sort of the next step of that. the chamber, we're being supported by capital one and the wizards, and the verizon center with all of the federal entities i just mentioned having a full-day job fair, career

summit, military spouse networking session. mrs. bonnie amos going to be joining us as well. and that night at the wizards game giving away 4,000 tickets to veterans, military service members and their families. so it's nice to give away tickets, it's great, obviously, the implement piece -- employment piece is the key there, but would encourage you if you're a veteran, hiring our heroes.org. please come by. it's in d.c., so, obviously, we are -- some of us veterans do live in d.c. and happily so. [laughter] this is actually coming pretty far out for me to be here in virginia. [laughter] so we really encourage you april 9th to come on down to the verizon center. thank you. >> thank you. now for the fun part. we're going to open up the event to questions from the audience, and there's two mics on each side. there's one mic on each side. if you'll just stand and ask a question and try to make it succinct and to the point if that's possible because we want

to get to as many people as we can. so first -- and help me with alternating from side to side here. >> yes, ma'am. my name is tony forbes. just recently retired, so good times right now. but just a general question for the panelists. so as my process in this transition, one of the things i learned as we start talking about major companies and corporations doing things for the military, i'll just throw this out, there's an organization, microsoft. microsoft has a program called the veterans academy. i think it's very great. just recently with my friends within microsoft i've learned that the bottom line which they focus on, and i respect that, but they're saying, hey, this is not what -- we're losing money. so how do we try to encourage these companies to keep programs of such going? i mean, i understand everything with the community aspect, but then when we have corporations

actually doing something viable, doing something positive with the veterans academy, it's a 10-12 week program where service members take a test and see if they qualify or how they qualify within the i.t. field. wherever they fall in that spectrum, they start educating them, and then at the end of that program what microsoft has done is said, hey, we will interview you from microsoft, and then they also have partners in and around seattle/tacoma area to get these veterans out there to interview to get a job within the i.t. sector. so how do we encourage them to keep this going? and, again, i understand the issue about the bottom line, that's what it is. but i see it as an investment. and in time that these veterans, all the points that we made, they'll stay with the company and help it grow. so i'm just curious your thought s on that. >> who would like to take that one? >> i'd like to at least take it first. tony, you know, the bottom line is what's important to every company, right? i mean, even in nonprofits at the end of the day you've got a budget that you've got to

sustain. i will tell you hands down there isn't a ceo in this nation that doesn't want to have great employees who are trained and able to do what they do. and i think this goes back to the point i was making earlier is that it almost becomes, you know, when you separate all these veteran programs and, you know, we talk about this divide, it almost becomes this whole thing about we get this little veteran group over here that's losing us money. but go talk to microsoft about what it's costing them to train the rest of the employees and should we integrate that? those are maybe the pieces that don't need to -- you know, i do believe the cynical side of me believes very much that a lot of people -- i'm not saying microsoft is one of them by any means, because i know that program well. i do believe there are a lot of employers that do this, you know? i've had employers call me saying i really want to get, hire an amputee. they want a poster child, right? to show that they're doing something. microsoft's not in that case.

but that's what we've got to be able to do is make sure that there's more integration, that veterans know the great employers to go to but that these programs aren't necessarily strung out from differences. because every ceo wants quality, trained employees with great attitudes. that's a fact, you know? nobody wants a butthead. [laughter] i won't use the other word. so that's kind of, you know, really i think what we've got to do, is teach these companies that these are citizens. these are just great people. and the great thing veterans bring especially in the i.t. world, i mean, some of our i.t. people that transition have more skills than, you know, anybody else around. just my thoughts. >> thank you. before we go the next question, we want to keep this going, do you have a comment to make, debbie? >> i was going to say i think we need to publicize best practices and not just publicize it to ourselves, but to business world at large. and i'm going single out usaa for a second because they do a

great job institutionalizing these practices throughout the company from the highest levels to the lowest levels. and i think that's what makes some of these initiatives successful is that they're embedded in the culture of the company, and we don't see enough of that. >> thank you. mic two, over there. >> thank you. good morning, and thank you very much for being here today and for your comments. it's been a wonderful panel. my name's russ schneider, i'm with volunteers of america, we're a national nonprofit organization which provides services to veterans, but also we're a housing developer. we talked a lot about employment, you've talked a lot about connecting the community on helping the veterans and their families who are returning and also in the communities. you really haven't focused in on and what i've seen in this jurisdiction is the stock of affordable housingty minishing -- housing diminishing. and really the disparity between employment for veterans and

where they can be employed and living in affordable housing. for example, in fairfax county 10,000 homes have gone from affordable use to now market rate house anything the last five years. i live in howard county, maryland. the other day i was in a county council meeting, and they were talking about new development where it costs $2,000 for anybody to live in a one-bedroom apartment. so my question to the panel is how in the community can we be resourceful to increase that affordable housing stock for veterans so it's affordable? there's a wonderful program, the ssvf program's a terrific program, but it's not enough. so what might you provide us as far as guidance on incentives for developers? what are some things that are working, you've heard about working in parts of the cup? as a housing developer, we're here to do that, to provide housing assistance to the veterans. it's just what's the formula that might work?

>> if i can take that, so not even take it, but just sort of -- it depends where you are in the country. i think, you know, obviously, living in this area is a high cost area. ssvf is a huge partner for us not only in the augusta area, but in the other communities that we're going to through wounded warrior project. you know, i think -- so if you just rely on those two solely, it's unaffordable. and i don't even think -- but if you roll in the qualifying va benefits possibly or social security, but more importantly if you roll in unemployment, even if it's partial employment one of the things that we run into when you start to combine resources and benefits is that one benefit negates another benefit. so you have someone who's fully qualified for, let's say, because they have a disability, but they work more than x number

of hours. now they become noneligible for that benefit that contribute it is to their success. and then it's a trickle-down effect. and before you know it. so how do you do it? i think my, our approach again holistically is just don't look at housing, look at housing with employment, housing with other earned benefits, housing with -- we also have gone to local apartment owners in augusta about 15% of all apartments and housing are vacant at any given time. that's not the case here. but what we've found is that when we bring a qualified veteran to a home ownership or a developer and we say, listen, if there's anything beyond home ownership that you have, if there's behavioral issues, if there's -- anything comes up, just call us. you don't have to worry about figuring out who to go to, just

give us a call and we'll engage the veteran. and we become a partner with them. and i think volunteers of america, you're all over the united states doing great stuff with ssvf, and i'm sure you have that experience in ore places. did that -- in other places. did that answer your question a little bit? okay. >> okay. next question over here, mic one. >> kieran halloran, i'm a senior of georgetown university right now, and i'm just wondering as someone who's very much out of the loop on this issue and knows relatively little, what would you suggest as a way that i can contribute to the many solutions you've mentioned and also just as a sort of common concerned citizen, what would you tell them to get involved on this issue? >> i mean, i would strongly consider joining one of the components of the armed services. [laughter]

[applause] >> thank you. >> go ahead. >> go ahead, jim. >> no, no. i don't want you to walk away go, oh, thanks. [laughter] because there's a lot, you know, with the drawdowns, there's a lot of reasons why people can't serve. but you can serve. you can serve whether it's through americorps vista, peace corps, whether it's through -- there are people in this audience there are probably 10-20 nonprofits that would jump at having a georgetown senior -- there's a hand right here. [laughter] having a georgetown senior that has the passion and the aptitude to stand up and ask that question. go ahead, sorry. >> i was going to say, congratulations. you know, it's great place to be. but i would say the same thing as jim. not only, you know, americorps and these other, volunteers of

america, these other great organizations, but i can tell you for sure we've hired interns over the summer that, you know, for one reason or another don't want to serve. i can't imagine why you wouldn't want to, but i do know that, i do know that a lot of people can't. and especially now as we're downsizing, it's significant. but take a look at the internship. and i don't know what you're studying, but think of this narrative and think of the, at least a group on your campus and how you can get with them and help maybe write a paper, help them write paper. you know, because there's guys at george southern that are former enlisted guys that are not great writers, not great networkers. you can help them. but you've got to go volunteer and get involved. >> we'll have a bidding war at the end here. [laughter] jen, get him quick. >> next question at mic two over there. >> sure. my name's todd olson, i'm vice president for student affairs and, first, kieran is a great student. [laughter] and, second, i just want to ask

from your experience working with colleges and universities, i've heard some complimentary comments, we appreciate that, but what is it you think higher education just doesn't get or approaches in a way that's not optimal with regard to working with returning veterans? welcome your thoughts on that. >> it took me 19 years to get my bachelor's degree, so i'm taking this one. [laughter] what don't you get? where do i start? i think, first of all, i think one of the big problems that we make is -- and i've been in a lot of meetings like this where people say every veteran's got to get an education. well, it's hard. you've got a family of four and you've served eight years, it's hard to go back to work. so extending the benefits that you extend to veterans to spouses and children. >> yes. >> that's where i've got to start. because that's a huge gap in our education.

i mean, the more spouses webbed get into the teaching -- we could get into the teaching world, the better off we would be, i think, in this country. we tried a program in the military when i was a senior enlisted out in san diego called troops to teachers. i don'ti don't even know if it l exists or not, but that's how you make a difference. >> yes. >> the other thing is a tutorship and getting smart seniors, was it kieran? like kieran to help specifically in the enlisted ranks, these enlisted, transitioning veterans especially into the harder schools, the highly selective schools like georgetown. 18% selection rate for undergrad. although they may have passed the s.a.t.s, in a lot of cases we're letting veterans into our schools for different reasons. and helping with tutorship programs, i think, can be huge. i never would have made it through hi master's degree at

georgetown if it wasn't for the army jcs internship program. i mean, i just, i can't tell you how, you know, and i was 50 years old when i went through my master's degree program. so for me with these young captains and majors and what they did to help mentor me through -- i didn't know how to use excel. so i took macroeconomics, and i didn't even know how to use excel. so those kind of mentorship programs, and i've created a friendship be, you know, a network of these classes. it's been unbelievable. so i think those are probably some of the first things i would say. >> i make it quick? i promise i'm make it quick. georgetown is doing a lot of things right. my husband went through the mba program and was deployed partway through, and i can't even tell you how helpful georgetown was to him, so i know from personal experience their doing the right things. second, a lot of university campuses are doing the right things, but they haven't pulled it together, and they haven't integrated what they're doing. and they don't even know what

they're doing, and outsiders can't see what they're doing. so integrating the resources that already exist. >> and just, we work with four schools in our area. number one, focus on the outcome of graduation rate, not enrollment. focus on how do you optimize the g.i. bill. look at your four-year degree program. third g.i. bill's a 36-month program. hour do you match them up? how do you take a four-year degree and do it in 36 months so you keep the vets from having a galt, vets' families and the kids from having a gap this their g.i. bill benefit. we for a lot of our homeless or about to be homeless veterans that are college students, the reason they get in that is because they lose their g.i. bill sty pend be over a christmas or summer break. and we're trying to close that up. and then partner with everybody else in the commitment. lastly, partner with the local

community colleges or technical schools. those who can't make the cut or aren't academically focused, don't just discharge 'em. hand them off, warm handoff, to the next school and say, okay, we're here for you. warm handoff to the next school. maybe sometime you'll, once you figure this out, you may want to come back to georgetown later. but i would just -- that's what my recommendation would be. >> i'm just going to do a time check with doctor. our time is getting pretty short. i'm not sure, we probably won't be able to take the next six questions unless they're very short. if any objections to extending the time by eight minutes, or do we want to stick to the time frame? time frame? okay, all right. i'll take the next question here and one more question, and our other panelist is going to be here, any questions we're not going to be able to answer. we really need to stick to the

time frame. next question. >> okay. i'll try to be as quick as possible. my name is dan sullivan. i'm with the sergeant thomas joseph sullivan center which is a small 501(c)(3) nonprofit named for a marine who died from physiological post-deployment illnesses that were initially mistaken for psychosomatic but were, in fact, real. it's the only 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in the nation entirely dedicated to confronting and eradicating post-deployment illnesses, and we do this through public awareness and grant, research grants to independent institutions. ..

working with politicians, referring sick veterans to specialists across the country who know how to identify rare diseases and treat them. i've noted a lot of the discussion about building, capitalizing on the strength of veterans, focused on employers. and encouraging employers to hire veterans. but i wonder if the panel could reflect on the valley of social entrepreneurship and business onto for sure, programs that might in -- this is on for sure the -- business onto per.

>> we see some of things you're talking about all the time. we have a national presence in d.c., but we are basically chapter based around the country. but a lot of our presence is online. you see military families bonding together to military families and service members bonding together to form these grassroots efforts around a number of different things. they are extremely effective and they can do things that the nonprofit world can't do. because we have boards that we have to speak to. the private sector can't do. they have their stockholders that they have to speak too. some of these grassroots efforts support some of the things that the others of us can do. they can only do. they let us know about things that we may just not know about until they bubble up. social media's been extremely impactful. you know, 10, 15 years ago,

these things might even have been but we did know about them or it would take much longer for us to know about them. >> thank you. last question, unfortunately, over here. time is running out. >> thank you, ma'am. again, conflicts to public policy. i need is keith kelly, assistant secretary for veterans and train service and are used department of labor. i really do appreciate for the first time in probably a longtime hearing the department of labor mentioned. what do we have in this? i just want to share with you that what we can really come is a partnership, i commend jim on what is going on down in atlanta. all hiring is local. all things to happen at the local of the. that's where it is. it's not in washington. i just want to share with you, my legacy is working in the department, our very first female secretary out of fdr days, child labor laws, social security and all those things that we take for granted.

our partnership is 2500 american jobs centers scattered around this country, tied with 50 state governments and territories. there isn't a governmengovernmen t that doesn't want to be just like the business, a real hero to veterans. i am really anxious to give a partnership in any committee in america. a year ago i moved to montana to this position at a rural area. those american jobs centers can be key to help because the chamber of commerce, we work with. all of those things are out and want to applaud you, your attitude, i think your the one who said it, or wanted you to did. i'll give you credit for it. lastly, i really appreciate, that's my experience, is that it is holistic. i really appreciate it, the

veterans and their families. it's not just veterans. veterans and their families. so with that we're anxious to be a partner in 25 and a places out there, the real state is already there. there are probably 20,000 people, including our other primary partner, the labor department, to assist you folks with what happens on the ground. they are local people, so thank you. >> thank you. those who didn't have the opportunity to wasting around and ask your questions. i'm just going to make some closing remarks, some key points from the conference. you heard early on clearinghouse. we need clearinghouse to know where to get the information, it's been very clear that we need to know a point person point of contact, how to get that information. we've heard about the need for the hiring manager and employees to be knowledgeable about veterans, their skills, attributes consider. it's important. we need look of holistic model

of the entire family, not just the military person, the veteran, that spouses and kids. the word integration engagement came up many, many times. it's really important to get people engaged. i've got a few other notes. for example, there's a need to have collaboration and coordination among organizations working locally in the community i sharing lessons learned, successful models, resources and

positive attributes. you've heard all day about spouse attribute, veterans attributes. it's important that we capture

that and use that in helping get employment in the housing. that something really need to put more talent on. and my last point is, consider using this model today. today seminar, this forum, and do the same thing in the local community. it's a great model. it's at the university level. you see many agencies facing programs together, but rarely do you see a university, higher learning learning education to the so this is one of the models i'm sure the doctor can help you with it. and again this has been really wonderful. from the questions today, it's something important that needs to be duplicated in other local communities. thank you. [applause] >> i'd like, there's a handout

going around now. the symposium in may i encourage you to come. everyone here is invited. it's in augusta. the intent is to carry what you started here in georgetown forward, and thank you. >> before you leave, i just want to first of all thank our wonderful moderator, our panelists, thank the colonel for coming and representing the first lady's office. thank you all for your participation. and a very special thanks first of all, i want to thank former colonel john sends who's sitting right here who is a visiting practitioner. he immediately left the service, immediately we took them on as a visiting practitioner and a center for public and nonprofit leadership. this is his project. this is what he did. i want to thank you. he is sitting right here and his wonderful wife. [applause] >> i also want to thank some of

our sponsors, the military officers association of america. and it's not for advocacy. it's also doing a lot of work around transition, and everything we talked about here for veterans, for career, for transition or is, as people depart the military. i want to get a real special shout out to the women in military service memorial. some of you have been familiar with it, others this is your first on your. i think it's a beautiful place. it's a memorable place and i encourage you to have a fancier as well. and, finally, geppetto tailoring, that is because they helped -- they are wonderful caters. they always suppor support nonps so want to thank him for pitching in as well. i want to thank my staff, the center for public and nonprofit leadership. and we can't do anything without or director. so thank you all for coming and i hope we will do this again. we are going, our deliverable to

you is that number one we're going to have a figure of able and we will history be it widely. we are going to have a white paper. john sims will write a white paper that includes the conversation today. [laughter] see, we are doing what they all said we should all be doing, and that is we're definitely engaging. and he's going to write it and we're going to have something in april or early may that we'll give it to you all. and again we will distribute it widely and they will be available for you. finally, there are so many incredible people here, and it's such an incredible network that what we would like to do is send to you after this is over a list of who is here. because this is a great place to start the networking process. if you don't want to be on the list, you will have the ability. but we got a lot of you, many of you have said wow, i would like to know so is here.

this will be your opportunity to do. once again thank you all. it's been a real pleasure. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> and vice president joe biden landed in ukraine today visiting to demonstrate the u.s. commitment to ukraine. he plans on meeting tomorrow with government leaders and ukraine's pro-russian president viktor yanukovych was ousted after months of protests and the white house as president obama and the vice president agreed on the two-day visit to the capital, kiev, to some high level signal of support for the new government and its reform efforts. we'll keep you posted on the latest updates in ukraine on the c-span networks. >> it's time now for our weekly your money segment. when it returns the senate to six peggy to take up legislation that would temporarily restore tax breaks that expired or are duere to expire, those are.

directly aid for the energy industry. care to explain some of the force is "national journal" ben geman. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me on. >> explain to our viewers what the expire act is. >> the expire act is the latest that comes up every now and again that has this huge array of tax cuts. has a he area some of it is for energy but o some for a whole bunch of for et different things, making tv marshals on one that is popular with the corporate world is the research and development credit. when these tax credits that potical cons were, have a fairly strong political constituency, come upl for renewal you get these big sort of catch all bills to cut push them all for for a year or two kind of all at once.ll typically these things are sort of a grab bag is about $85 billd has a pretty significant energy piece to it. host: talk to us about the details of the energy component. -i thinkhe biggest piece

this is the second biggest these of the whole bill -- it would redo tax credit for renewable energy production largely for wind for about two years. it would push it forward for a couple of years. wind developers take advantage of that and there are other renewable energy sources. it provides two point three cents a kilo watt hours and it is one of the prized pieces of policy for the wind industry and is a heavy lobbying battle to get it done. one reason the industry is interested in this credit is it has been around for decades. it has been allowed to lapse, you will see growth in the industry and that falls off a cliff when the credit shows up again, it starts to go back up again so that shows you how necessary it is for this industry. host: say these credits are extended, what do these companies do? industrypending on the

-- sometimes they lay off people. the credit got extended at the 11th hour last year. in advance of that credit, there was not the demand for new orders because developers did not have that level of knowledge about whether the credit will either. -- would be there. you had a big wind turbine reduce her in colorado having layoffs. year, new wind power installations went off a cliff. now that the head of the expiration of that credit -- what i came back into force, companies ramped up again so you will see very little new wind power generating capacity added over last year but in the coming year, it looks like there will be a lot because once it gets extended and the companies wrap up again, they place new orders. host: late last year, you wrote a piece looking at senator max baucus from montana.

walk us through that and what we see from him on this front. guest: before he became interested in china, he did what most chairman of the tax writing committee-he does not want to be just a caretaker. some of the policies they like but because there is a long-term unicorn of a goal of a broader tax reform, he said let's try to really shake up how our existing super confusing patchwork of green energy incentives work. he would boil it down to just a couple and on the electricity say, the main one would there is a technology neutral credit so you could be making wind or power from natural asked or power from other types of sources and depending on how cleaner power it is and how much of a carbon emissions reductions you get, the credit would expand the cleaner you get.

senator wyden is backing him and pushing forward for this bill. they want to put their own stamp on the policy. you can tell from the title of the extenders bill this year that he is not a huge fan of doing it in a rushed way every couple of years. activesled the expire way of saying one more time but then let's have a rudder set of tax policy overhauls. mant: our guest is ben gie with "the national journal."

could you walk us through some of the politics of this? the wind tax credit has bipartisan support because the wind kind of blows in places that are both red states and blue states. texas is the biggest producer of wind power which is a very conservative state. senator chuck grassley of iowa who is conservative is the father of the wind power tax credit. -- whenuite interesting the bill was marked up in committee, you had a republican amendment to strip away these energy tax incentives and it split the republicans. republicans including senator john thune of south dakota and senator grassley, they said we would not vote for the amendment and some republicans did vote for it. they lined up generally for where you don't have a lot of wind power. have gotten of it more difficult for the wind industry over the last couple of

years. because ofel, it's the size of the growth of this industry. when the wind and the tree was very small, the tax credit did not cost the federal government very much. as the industry has grown, the credit has become more and more expensive and more controversial. you could say it's a victim of its own success. it's spending the credit for it decade and that would cost about $13 billion. at the same time, you have had a hardening of political lines on green energy over the last several years. the federal loan guarantee or a -- program became quite controversial and republicans became critical of it when the solar company solyndra collapsed. you have two headwinds working against the credit. the industry has grown and you have had this hardening of political lines ran green energy. host: the senate energy committee member lamar alexander criticize the tax credit.

[video clip] >> the problem here is that congress is picking winners and losers when it gives wind power such a big subsidy that sometimes the subsidy is more than the cost of electricity. our:this does is undercut nuclear plants. what that does is put us at risk as a country. any country that uses that much electricity needs these big plants that operate almost all the time called nuclear to keep the lights on and have the jobs and the cars. we cannot run on windmills. when the wind blows great we cannot run only on solar power when the sun shines. we have to have the baseload power. subsidyof the wind picking and choosing winners and losers, it undercuts the baseload power and its cause the center for strategic c e combination of

this could cause 25% of our nuclear plants to close in the next 10 years. host: what is your take? guest: the senator from tennessee has been a longtime opponent of the wind energy credit. ofmentions the question being right on the issue of intermittency. certain types of renewable sources of energy like wind and solar will not come onto the grid at all moments. policy makersce, are trying to get right is making sure you have both a certain level of baseload power and also being able to integrate cleaner and greener sources. a very small still percentage right now of the country's electricity. i think it is roughly four percent. solar is far less than that.

they have had the growth of the renewables industry and epa regulations soon to come online that are creating some other headwinds for the coal industry. conservatives and republicans are concerned that this could affect the reliability of the electricity grid. has been almost bent over backwards to say they are mindful of that creating these new regulations. the energy department tried to the loan- revive program the other day and one thing they are focusing on is technologies that help integrate renewable energy into the grid so storage technology and that sort of thing. the telephone numbers to call him are on your screen. let's go to a couple of

questions from twitter -- guest: in the main, the tax credit covers geothermal and certain types of i/o mass and wind energy and perhaps a couple of others. i don't believe the existing generation of hydropower is covered by the credit. i want to return to something the senator said -- even in that short clip -- he said we should not be picking winners and losers. if an alien came down to the house and senate hearings and understood what was being said, they would conclude quickly that ticking winners and losers is one of the greatest crimes you could ever have in our society. that is something that critics of green energy policies tend to say.

we should be allowed in the market to decide that. the other side of that question is the fact that some of the fossil fuel technologies and joy some parts of the tax code that are permanent so that don't have to have to your battles to see the extension of their credits because it is kind of there in perpetuity. host: another question from twitter -- guest: that's a good question. beings the question debated. the cost is been coming down for wind and solar. thanare newer technologies some of our longer-term energy sources like coal and natural gas and oil which is used for transportation. these are technologies that have been around far longer at scale. folks in a knowable's say we can

envision a time or we don't need the support but at the moment, even though we are making , we still need the support. there is also a sense that perhaps the subsidies in getting the cost down to the point where you don't need them work in concert. ,he more you are supporting it in the shorter-term, that's what's helping the cost come down. much of the debate around the when the credit -- voted againsthune this amendment in committee and killed the wind credit but his view is let's give a glide path downward but not cut it off entirely. the next caller is john in mechanicsburg, pennsylvania on the line for republicans. thing is going on and they bundy ranch

want the chinese to invest in windmills there. how do you stop politicians from getting their hands in their? we have natural gas, more than the middle east. that sounds like a better energy source for us. we don't have to put all this money into the other green energies. guest: the caller mentions natural gas in pennsylvania. i was up there looking at the natural gas development couple of weeks ago. the shale gas revolution has led the united states to be the largest natural gas producer in the world. that creates both challenges and opportunities for combining natural gas with renewables. than coals is cleaner when you burn it to create power. it creates about half the carbon emissions of burning coal and that's a big reason why u.s. greenhouse gas emissions have

been falling in recent years and are about 10% below the level they were one year ago. one of the questions around whether natural gas is a friend or ally in the fight against climate change depends in part on how successful regulators at the state and federal level and industry is at clamping down on leaks of methane. when you're finishing up a well or you are compressing the gas or storing it or trance porting it could be leaking out at different points. for natural gas to really be a winner on the climate change front, you cannot only make sure that is just not the fact that a person's cleaner when you use it to make energy but you have to make sure it is not springing leaks along the development chain. while natural gas is a much more greenhouse gas friendly fuel than coal, a lot of scientific oddities say that eventually we

will need incredibly steep reductions in greenhouse gases, certainly by the midcentury, to avoid some of the most dangerous effects. of climate change. secretary will say ,hat natural gas is a good way a bridge technology, in the coming decades. from a climate change standpoint but eventually, we will have to find a way to not only get carbon emissions sucked out of coal-fired energy production but we need to de- >> congressman working on energy issues off the floor next week. right now members are in the second week of a two-week recess. neither the senate nor the house has energy on their schedule get. the senate will consider nominations and the house has

yet to release its scheduled for next week. >> if you start with the basic in which is everybody acknowledges consumers have the right to an antenna, everybody acknowledges consumers have the right to make it according of content themselves. everybody acknowledges there's nothing wrong with the combination of an antenna and back than a vcr, now a dvr. so the debate seems be about where that equipment is located because nobody has appealed the finding of fact, which was that each individual consumer controls their own antenna. the antenna actually is dead until the consumer logs into and mistrust the antenna to go to a frequency. each individual consumer makes their own copy, unique, distinct, never mingles with anybody else's and watches, transmits it to them so. none of those facts have been appealed or dispute ever. it comes down to we as a country

as a system, to we permit this idea of private conduct, which the courts have consistently found yes, we do, and congress has been encouraging the idea of consumption to local broadcast television. so the idea that the new way of capturing the signal i am individual should some of the prohibited is just absolutely incorrect, wrong, incorrect policy, and devastating blow to innovation in the next step of our industry which is movement of all of these technologies away from the consumer's phone into the cloud. >> tuesday the supreme court will take of whether aereo is violating copyright law by transferring broadcast networks over the internet without permission. here from aereo had chet kanojia tonight on the committee just at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> and all this week while congress is on break we will have booktv in prime time here

on c-span2. all that tonight during booktv in prime time. "new york times" reported james risen at and the sources and secrets conference. is refused to reveal his cia sources for the coming. the supreme court reviewed this case in january and after his remarks at the conference, a panel discussion with media attorneys and journalists including cnn legal analyst jeffrey toobin and a legal legal advisor to edward snowden. this is from new york city, about an hour. >> can you hear me now? yes. good morning. i'm john darnton, curator of the

george polk awards i want to welcome you to the sources and secrets conference. the idea for this conference came in an e-mail many months ago from william polk who is the younger brother of george polk, the cbs reporter who was murdered on assignment in greece. william was concerned about the espionage act, and he wrote, the issues that my brother's murder brought to the floor were, one, can you silence a story by eliminating the reporter? and number two, can a free society operate with a source of information on public affairs are closed or even severely constrained? is concerned it turned out was felt in fact by many in our profession. over 50 organizations have sponsored and supported this conference, and we thank them for that. it may be that conflict between

the government and the press is inevitable, but rarely has that conflict been as raw and as raging as it is now post 9/11 and in the post snowden world. we hope today to shed some light, and maybe even some needed heat, on the underlying issue here and to start, it gives me pleasure to introduce a man who's been engaged in a long, lonely court battle to defend the confidentiality of a news source, mr. james risen of "the new york times." thank you all. [applause] >> how are you? i appreciate your time. thanks for having me. i thought i would just start by kind of providing a little bit of an overview of the general

issues that all the different panels are going to be discussing today. and i think that i'd like to start with a discussion, as john was just discussing, about the relationship between the government and the press today. i think we're going to look back at this period and realize that since 9/11 we've had, the real legacy of the war on terror of the bush administration and of the obama administration has been a severe erosion in civil liberties in america. and that significant part of that is about freedom of the press in the united states. i think this is the worst time period in my career as a journalist, in terms of press freedom, i think that the obama

administration has doubled down on the kind of reductions in press freedom that began under the bush administration. and they are engaged in the kind of aggressive anti-press activities that the bush administration only contemplated and never pursued. and i think it's a great irony of a liberal democratic administration, our supposedly liberal democratic administration, that they are now proceed i think widely within the journalistic industry as the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered as an industry, and at least a generation. i think it's still not entirely clear to anyone about why that's exactly happened. why this initiation in particular has been so

anti-press. but i don't think, i think the facts speak for themselves now. at first, the obama administration light to say that desperate like to say that the e leak investigations they're pursuing on national security grounds that they had inherited from the bush administration, and they tried to distance themselves from those at the same time that they were pursuing them. and yet they continued to pursue new cases. they continue to aggressively investigate every leak that is not directly from the white house, and they continue to talk in bellicose terms about the need for prosecutorial zeal against leakers. i think the general counsel of the office of national intelligence said this week,

again, repeated again there was a need for aggressive altercations of every major league, and that any leak or in the national security committee has to go to jail. i think one of the things that is misunderstood in the press, however, is the idea that this issue can some of the walled off to a few issues, like national security. the problem has been all leak investigations have been fairly easily, at first were kind of easy to disassociate themselves, the general industry was able to say well, that's just a specific story and this is a specific story. but now there's a general pattern that's developed that

what the administration wants to do, what the government, both the bush administration and the obama administration, they want to narrow the field of national security reporting. they want to make it very difficult for anyone to pursue stories outside of accepted boundaries that the administration itself sets down. agostini what they're trying to do. they are trying to kind of create a path for accepted reporting, and that if you as a reporter go outside those parameters, that you will be punished and the sources that you are trying to deal with will be prosecuted. that is essentially what i think they're trying to do is create a de facto official secrets act through the use of the justice

department, the cia and the white house i think are collaborating in a sense, without congressional approval, be able to make sure that every story that comes out about national security is something that makes the white house look good, makes the cia look good, and that any story that doesn't make them look good or doesn't help their political cause, the people involved in that storage will be punished. i think that is the end result, and if you look back at the kind of stories that obama and bush have tried to put out in terms of national security, if you only looked at the stories that had been blessed by the white house of you would find a very different narrative about the war on terror and what the press

is actually reported. i think the problem for the future is that it will be very easy for them, if they are successful in this kind of prosecutorial zeal, that they will be able to extend of this beyond national security reporting into other kinds of reporting. in washington and beyond. i think also the response of the newspaper industry, the media industry, has been overall i think a little bit too hesitant to take on the administration, take on the government directly. there's been debate, and we will get into this at great length i'm sure today about the shield law, that is been kind of bouncing around congress for the last few years and never really gone anywhere. it's a shield law that has a

loophole so that essentially national security reporting would not be covered by it. and so basically every leak investigation that's been happening is a national security reporting, so this means that the shield law that's been discussed will have very little effect on real life in investigations. so i think that one of the things that should be discussed today is how do you strengthen the shield law, and should the journalistic industry support a law that will not lead any affect somebody get something on the books. so i think that, to me, the real problem we have in the industry today is how forcefully should we stand up to what the administration is doing. i know that people, reporters and journalists don't like to be political actors. they don't want to take on a

role of lobbyists would be a political constituency. and yet, we are really confronting a dramatic change in the landscape in terms of our relationship with the government. and i think it's going, and less we recognize that, begin to stand up against the administration in some fashion. i think it's only going to get worse. so anyway, i will pass this on to adam liptak of "the new york times." [applause] >> good morning. so as jim said, i'm adam liptak. i covered the supreme court for the new times and to do what is

a it's a pleasure to share the stage with him but he's a great college in the washington bureau and one of the bravest and most important journalists of our day. i hope to cover the request he had asked the supreme court to review his case with the disinterested olympian detachment you would expect from "the new york times." but this is also an area where i've practice in this area for 14 is before turning to reporting. if i'm still wearing that old hat and i was allowed to have an opinion, i might see the persecution of jim rice and by the obama admission is a scandal. let me introduce our panel is but as you might suspect from my background, we're going to try to set some legal framework for the discussion that are going to go on today. and we have really, you couldn't ask for better experts on all of this. to my left is been wister -- ben

wizner. of the aclu, and then advisor to edward snowden. after that, dave schultz, who has represented a journalists and national security matters. as has laura handman who practice in both washington and new york prevent jeff toobin who is a horrible company. is a triple threat. i write newspaper articles. he manages to write books and comment on the scene in. so what i think we are to try to do set up a framework and separate out some of the themes that jim was talking about in his remarks. i think as a legal matter there are three categories. mayors what can you do to people who have authorized access to classified information who have taken of some kind of obligation, and then decided

that it's worthwhile to disclose that information? the second category might be the journalist who doesn't have authorization to the information that gets a hold of it and makes a decision about whether to publish about and what can be done to that person. and the two things collide in the third category where let's assume the government is not going to go after the journalist directly and try to criminally prosecute or otherwise punish the journalist, but nonetheless gems of the journalist by asking the journalist to provide evidence about the first category, about the source, the leader. why don't ask ben to kick off the first category. >> in two minutes or less. >> i've also given to practicing lawyers on the panel the hardest assignment they've ever had in allies. i've asked them to summarize their areas in two minutes abuse which they will find very hard. jeff i think will have no problem with it.

>> that's long for me. >> so i'm talking about the legal regime that face some hills a secure declared, a contract with the government not to reveal classified confidential information, but nonetheless dazzle. the first thing he needs to be said about this is that in the overwhelming majority of the cases, no criminal regime is necessary at all. because a loss of security clearance, the government has almost complete discretion to withdraw security clearance from an individual. generally means the loss of livelihood, the loss of community, the loss of the ability to work in a profession. the combination of those things is enough in almost every case to deter lower level leakers. and as we know, higher level figures who leak every day, don't get prosecuted. you can be a top general and you or someone on your staff can actually leak a war plan to bob

woodward, have it published on the front page of the "washington post" in 2009 in order to constrain a first term presidents options. there's not going to be any investigation of that, even though a war plan is the paradigm of information that probably all of us would say deserts secrecy and shouldn't be leaked. the criminal law. the espionage act of 1915 and some other statutes, broadly criminalize gathering, received an disbursement of national defense information to the statue does use the term classified information. you heard from jim rice and that the espionage act has been used with increasing frequency in recent years to prosecute unauthorized disclosures, including but not only was the point. what's less to is most of the 100 year history of the statute it was only used to prosecute spies but it was not used at all to prosecute leakers. the first person he was ever

charged under the espionage act was giving information to the press and not to a foreign enemy was daniel ellsberg. as we know that prosecution fell apart before the kosygin job in of the legal theory could be tested. this was good for ellsberg. perhaps not good for the doctrine. we might've gotten some interesting doctrine at a time when the supreme court might've been more receptive to that kind of critique. just a few years later in 1979, the general counsel of the cia testified to congress that he couldn't say for certain whether leaks to the press, classified information were even prohibited by criminal law. he said the espionage act made it a crime. i'm quoting, we have had in this country for the last few years and absently unprecedented crime wave here because of sure there've been thousands upon thousands of unauthorized

disclosures of classified information, all criminal acts, yet none has ever been prosecuted. how times have changed. i don't think we would hear the cia general counsel testified to that effect in the. in the recent court filing the department of justice argued that leaks to the press are more pernicious and spies mailing secrets to a foreign enemy because when the newspaper publishes it, all of our enemies get the story and not just the one who paid for it. the supreme court has not addressed yet whether the espionage act can without constitutional limits be used to prosecute leaks to the press and the public interest or otherwise. but i think it's a established in the lower court that it can be used that way, and that the term national defense is going to be construed very broadly. and moreover, that the courts are going to look to the executive branch's own classification decisions to help determine the reach of the statute. it should be said that no court

has ever accepted a defense of improper classification in an espionage act prosecution. so while there are some ambiguities, it's reasonably clear that the basically any deliberate leak of classified information to an unauthorized recipient is likely going to fall within the reach of a least one criminal statute. that the government can prosecute most if not all employees, contractors for these kinds of leaks so long as they can prove the information was not already declassified or in the public domain and the defendant knew or should have known that the law prohibited her actions. so to sum up, in other words, a leader can't escape liability by demonstrating that the public benefit of her conduct far outweighed any claims of government harm, or harms national security. nor can she escaped lightly by demonstrating that the information that she disclosed should not in classified in the first place but even if that information revealed criminality on the part of the government.

what we have is, amongst you or nearly amounts to come and we can agree about this at the edges, a strict reliability of legal regime with the executive branch, essentially defines the boundaries of what constitutes a crime without really any meaningful judicial review. and just before i pass it over, to say a word about what the consequences of what this theory are, think about the information that was classified at the very highest highest level of the secrecy over the last 10 years that was disclosed without authorization. that's the case for the war in iraq was a trumped up on bogus evidence, that. >> and soldiers tortured and sexually humiliated prisoners at abu ghraib. that the cia operated a network of secret prisons around the world to use an extra in a rendition program to kidnap people and. that the bush administration disregarded the constraints of

foreign intelligence surveillance act and engaged in widespread, warrantless illegal surveillance. all of these activities were classified. their disclosure was unlawful, and if we allow the executive branch to decide on its own what the public can see and what the public can't see, we would be deprived of that information. >> so ben mention in passing the pentagon papers case which you'll recall was the publication by "the new york times" and the "washington post" of a classified history of the vietnam war. everyone removes it as a great win for the press because the supreme court said we couldn't be stopped before him from publishing it. what people tend to forget is several justices thought subsequent criminal prosecution was a perfectly good idea. i want to turn ou now to laura o talk about another leg of the stool. not about sources but about journalists and what kind of liability they might face. >> imagine a reporter, this is dynamite information.

you have documents to back it up. you get them. that's a conversation that goes on in every newsroom every day. it's what good journalists do. it's what the editors and their lawyers tell them to do. but if the information is related to the national defense, it could be a crime under the espionage act, which makes unauthorized receipt, retention and disclosure a crime. in the 97 years that the act has been on the books, the good news is, there has never been a prosecution of the press. and the bad news is, there could be. as adding indicated, the pentagon papers was a huge victory, but it did definitely have disturbing they get to the fact that the paper could be prosecuted. in 1984, the first time that someone was prosecuted for disclosure to janes defence weekly of satellite surveillance

photos of soviet aircraft carriers. the magazine was not prosecuted, but the fourth circuit rejected morison's argument that the act was limited to class spine and that leaks to the press works and. at least two judges recognize, however, that the leaks could involve and implicate first amendment rights. with the interest of the public had to be balanced against the government interest and national security. but it wasn't until the prosecution in 2005 of two lobbyist for the pro-israel group aipac, before that there'd never been a prosecution under the espionage act of someone who was not a government employee were not employed by the government, i.e., someone would sign a nondisclosure agreement and arguably waived their first amendment rights. here, acute aipac lobbyist were charged under the espionage act for willful disclosure to the press and to officials in

israel, and with aiding and abetting disclosure by their dod source. the source ultimately wore a wire, a whopper with the government and plenty guilty. the freelance reporter who wrote about the investigation was repeatedly visited by the fbi at her home in d.c. until i was retained to represent her. the prosecution begun under bush, was dropped by the obama administration, at least give them plug for that. before the reporter was called to testify and face a difficult decision that now face james risen, invoking the fifth amendment was an option for the reporter because the aipac judge had ruled that the espionage act was not limited to persons in a position of trust with the government. and he said, he refused to dismiss the indictment saying the government did not have to sit back and watch as the threat

to national security multiplies. language that infantry could apply to the press as look at the aipac judge did say that at least with regard to information not documenting the government also had to show that the intent to injure the united states or eight a foreign nation. the government gave up the prosecution presumably because they did not feel they could meet that burden and that's a burden that in all likelihood would protect the press as well. but in the eight espionage act prosecutions that have been brought since the aipac case, all have involve governmental personnel or contractors, all for disclosure to reporters of wikileaks, a blogger and a think tank. but no charges against any of the recipients of the information. in the drake case, the reporter was never even subpoenaed or contacted by the government. they did not need to. they had all the needed from drake himself.

he ultimately pled guilty to a misdemeanor for misuse of an nsa computer, but get no jail time, no fine, and the judge called the four-year ordeal unconscionable. in kim recently in support of the search of the reporters file, the government described the reporter as a co-conspirator because he solicited encouraged him to disclose sensitive u.s. internal documents and intelligence information. the doj has not indicated that it's not going to go after reporters for such code ordinary news gatherings. but what is ordinary? obviously bribing an official, to head of the class of information are stealing the information might not be ordinary. but what is the source such as -- hands over the classified information? is a long line of cases, most recently the carnegie case in 2001 that the supreme court has said the first amendment does not permit punishment of publication of truthful

information, that the press has obtained lawfully on about a matter of public interest. in barnegat it was an illegally wiretap culture that was delivered anonymously over the transom to the radio station. but more difficult is what if there were dot just totally passive receipt of documents or information? what is the reporter asked for the information. when does it become solicitation or aiding and abetting? it did not involve harm to the national security. a government interest of the highest order. and it did not involve the deference to the government's assessment of the charm, such as ben was referring to trick the public interest though is also at the highest order. often involving allegations of government wrongdoing and conduct of foreign affairs. the government so far has wisely avoided this head-on confrontation with the first

amendment. prosecution of the press would necessarily and starkly present. >> so as laura says would not have the head-on confrontation. we've not had direct prosecution of the press for publishing national security information, but the press gets jammed up in other ways and going to ask dave schultz to talk about that. >> i'll do a quick overview just to set the table. just listening, dissing to me that all the issues were talking about this morning are really being driven by two overarching forces that are pushing the government in certain ways. one is the post-9/11 concern about national security, it's like since 9/11 the balance between protecting security and protecting individual rights, ma including reporters rights and reporter privilege, has been terribly skewed. i think all the things that jim risen said about the obama administration are really driven by this, focused effort to protect national security and almost and ambivalence to the impact on other rights, and lack

of appreciation of the importance of the reporter's privilege. so let me just talk briefly as the issues what about the reporter's privilege? is there a zone of confidentiality within which reporters can operate that is protected by of all? the answer is right now that's what is really under threat and the news is not good in any of the three branches of government. in the courts, the issue of the scope of reporter's privilege has been never totally well-settled but it's pretty we'll been accepted that there is a reporter's privilege, except in the area of criminal investigations and ever since a case back in 2003, i think -- >> just say it is confidential. no one will know. ..

that it was available, so it is completely wiped out and we are doing very poorly. what about on the executive branch? the truth is for the last 40 or so years the single thing that has protected the journalists do most dealing with the federal government is the guidelines written by the attorney general

about when the attorneys and people in the fbi and others could subpoena the reporters. these are guidelines written in the aftermath of the enemy list and what has been referred to as using agencies and subpoenas to investigate what the reporters are doing and the outrage at that time led tthetime led the t to impose guidelines that were very strongly worded. they had a strong language about the importance of protecting the newsgathering function from interference by the government and they imposed upon the justice department a qualified privilege it wasn't absolute but it was pretty good. fast forward to the obama administration and the key events over last year we found about in the early spring that the justice department notwithstanding the guidelines subpoenaed a massive number of the press and in the investigation about the story where the cia and the government had foiled an effort to do a

bombing with the anniversary of bin laden. they were very upset and investigated in without getting a notice o they subpoenaed the phone records and there was an up art shouldn't have happened under the guidelines. they said a notice will be given unless it is going to have a harm to the investigation. this was a public investigation that didn't make any sense and then very shortly thereafter it was disclosed almost a year and a half or two years after the justice department secretly obtained the e-mail communications that's been you mentioned again. the huge uproar. because of some peculiarities to get the e-mail communications the justice department had not been an option for they had to get a judge to agree this was appropriate so they swore routes to get to the e-mail they

accused him of being a co-conspirator and this may be the first time in the official court filing that a government official accused a reporter of violating the act. it is quite shocking and when it came out and there was the outrage of that it was odd because they said they never intended to go after him we just had to say that's to get the search warrant so there is a problem there. the bottom line is as a result of those episodes they asked the attorney general to look at the guidelines to be strengthened in july in the number of changes just two weeks ago release the final rule and i will say two quick things about them. one is they do address the concerns that were on everybody's mind of last year that changed the rule about when you can go to get the records under the subpoena the reporters

can go to the court and be heard before the records are taken and it does say that the justice department's never again can swear out a search warrant when the reporter is not the actual target of the investigation to get the records so those are good and it does other things in terms of updating the regulations to reach the modern forms of communication e-mail and other things but what is quite disturbing about the regulations that just came out is that they have substantial new exceptions to the rules. the investigation is pork and id that would trump all of the regulations and put in a number of other legal words that were not in there before and it now says that the rules only apply to the cases of ordinary newsgathering where the old ones and they covered all gathering techniques and there is a member of other things that we can get

in the specifics and it's driven very much by the intelligence agencies having a control on the process in ways that are going to have a long-term harm to the idea to communicate confidentially. so from the jeff committee with a working journalist on the panel and former prosecutor and given some thought how these rules should work on the ground and they are journalistic norms. what is the right way to put it all together? it won't take me long to alienate everyone in the room. journalists are citizens. they do not belong to a privileged caste that exempts us from the rules that apply to everyone else. we have heard a lot of talk you heard some talk today about the reporter's privilege. for better or for worse for decades it has been clear under

there is no privilege under the first amendment and the opinion we could have and a satiric discussion about that, but it does not exist. now, i wish it did. i wish senator schumer was successful in his efforts to create a federal law but i believe that 49 states there are not. there is not a shield law. again it is a federal subpoena and we are not exempt from that and i have to say i take my inspiration in my view on these issues i wrote about this in the bush administration from any reporter that doesn't get talked about a lot in the grand studies and that is walter of the "washington post" who was one of the great reporters of our generation, and i don't mean actually he is somewhat older.

he can speak for himself. but here is a guy that has done more investigated reporting in a month than greenwald has done in a lifetime yet he is the one that gets lectured in the company about how he doesn't care about the freedom of the press. now, i do care about freedom of the press but it's important to be realistic about where we stand and about whether the sky is falling or not. under the espionage act in the obama administration is zero. just as it has been for decades before that. the number of journalists incarcerated by the obama administration is zero. yet it has been found in

contempt coming and i think that cases before the court. i wish that were not the case. it is a bad case and a terrible decision but let's not overestimate how much is happening and we are not exempt from criminal law, from the service of the process and the grand jury investigations and yes there should be very narrow exceptions for certain newsgathering is. but that isn't something that has ever been the law in the united states and the fact that we claim it is, the law is against us, the public is against us, and that isn't something that we need to recognize as we go forward in this discussion. >> can i respond to that is to jump into this? i understand that point of view

and there is an argument to be made but let me challenge a couple things. in terms of what we should be concerned on that there is a whole set of questions we should have about how he operated in whether people are able to operate like that in the future as technology makes it virtually impossible in ways we could end scouldn'tso that is a question n terms of the law and where we are today i think to say that there is no privilege, one gets it wrong. i think what the justice opinion said as he was unprepared to make a constitutional ruling. he did recognize that there were rights at stake in his notes to recognize or not the law that they make it clear we shouldn't constitutionalize but it should be recognized on a case-by-case basis. that is part of the problem that journalists and lawyers and others that care about these things need to make the public and the courts and the legislatures and others understand the importance of

protecting and we have a privilege for the communication. nobody challenges that and says it is a recognized function. when the congress subpoenaed in fbi no one is a source of information that had been leaked from the congress and then the attorney general robert jackson wrote back and said i'm sorry but if we tell you what the sources are we won't be able to function. we must have the ability to make a promise of confidentiality that can be enforced and the congress backed down. the same principle applies to the reporters and what we need to do is figure out how to articulate the value and the importance of the society of protecting that confidentiality.

we didn't know about waterboarding and torture because the government could keep them from coming out and that is also the technology issue. the law didn't recognize for either the reporter that got that information or the source. it is a problematic future. >> the technology issue cuts both ways. when he wanted to leak the papers he had to go to the coffee in cambridge and sit there in front of the machine one page at a time. chelsea manning had to hit a couple of buttons to disclose hundreds of thousands of documents. edward has not favored us with an explanation of how much he has taken or what he has done with it. but as i understand it, he took one or for laptops full of material and gave them to some undisclosed person for the good of the world. now, the scale on which this

could take place with almost no effort i think changes the balance somewhat in the other direction as well. >> why do you think it is wrong? what you think the fourth circuit got it wrong? do you think they just shouldn't do it? they shouldn't under most circumstances. that was mostly a descriptive on my part to that ther that thereo privilege. i just think with all due respect they are not going to get sited anywhere. no one would think of the lawyer because of the attorney-client privilege. the situation from the prosecutor's point of view somewhat committed a crime and there is an eyewitness to the kind thacrime that is the journy

do they get it passed. >> here is the answer to that we are talking about the prosecutor's decision if we don't recognize i'm not to argue for absolute privilege like the attorney exception, but if the courts don't recognize the only person that gets to decide on the attorney's office and we have seen from the recent efforts. when you have those blinders on to get the result it swamps the judgment about everything else. that is why the privilege is important because for them to prosecutor has to go to the judge and someone else has the right to decide whether how that balance works. you are taking the judiciary out and changing the whole way that balance works. >> and about a balance has to include the factoring into the public interest because if you

are just looking at how much does the government needed the information that is the one part of the creation that the other part is how much does the public need information that is being disclosed and to the level of what we were describing those that do definitely require that kind of level of protection that the judges in the best position to engage in that kind of balancing. it isn't page by page delivered in the two cases or whatever, but a grown-up mature intermediary in the times looked at it and made judgments about what to publish or not, whereas now we seem to be in the technological world where daniel ellsberg would have the internet. does that call for a different kind of reasoning? >> i think that he could have published the 7,000 pages on the volume if you wanted to.

they worked on the guardian and the "washington post" and now "the new york times," nbc news and other outlets. he hasn't published a single document that has worked through those institutions. wiki don't think the technology requires us to go outside the normal competition between the press and the government and to use those processes that have developed over decades where the press decides what to publish and what not to publish in the interest but counseled with the government. there needs to be thought about how the government can project its secrets and how we do that. but i think part of the answer is to keep in mind that we needed different rules for the reporters and for the leakers.

almost anybody can become a reporter but when we are talking about the privilege we talk about three different things that don't just apply to someone on the internet. the journalists play a very important function on the press. on the government. they are the ones that can critique the government and help to form the public opinion so that is important that anybody putting stuff on there doesn't play. they disseminate the information that a person does but they also act as a filter. so, we need that in terms of the society functioning. we need organized institutions that help organize information, filter and reliably present it in a way that is trustworth truy into thosandof those type of ins need this type of protection and we need to find out how to carve up so they are treated different and different than the average citizen. otherwise the system isn't going to work. >> the other impact is the first of all one reason why you see more of the investigation is

because they can in fact detect who it is. there have been many. every government wants to pursue but before they could never be successful in part because of the privilege and because the trail. in the case it was an electronic trail. they wouldn't have been made without having to subpoena the reporter and the leakers for the onto him so to some extent the discussion about the reporter's privilege is perhaps a thing of the past. >> to follow up from a second ago i suppose we could agree that banning and snowden are source is in the journalists. it's a difficult question and i

do not have a fully worked out here he. i do have to point out though that when we have these discussions it as often as if every prosecution is simply a mindless exercise messing with the press and well intentioned whistleblowers. you mentioned th that case invod with the government believes is a potential loss of the source of north korea which are few and far between and sources that face torture and death if they are disclosed as well as three generations of their family. you can see why the government is indignant about the sources like this and that to me is not

a concern on the part of the government it is not to me to detour here the government is concerned about whatever it is that he disclosed. not all of the week are created equal and not all disclosures are and not should go unpunished by the government. so that has to be right and the press response is you can trust us we think hard about this and consult with the government and are told the details if they are persuaded that they will decline the national security and the government says that's nice elected you and what is the response to that. i don't disagree with a lot of what you said.

there are legitimate secrets the government needs to keep that there is a gray area. the government can keep everything secret and we live in the open society where the citizens can make judgments knowing what the government did and so the question is there is always going to be a creative tension and that is why i would suggest what the first amendment says is that we protect the press and if they get it wrong perhaps there are cases they could be prosecuted but for the most part, they have the right to disclose information that is true and newsworthy and important for the public to hear unless we have some defined boundaries working on the wall that was written in world war i it talks about protecting national security information and that is one of the things that create all of this concern whether they could go after the discussion that it creates

itself. you could imagine a world in which unauthorized leaks and the free press might play a small role but that would be the world where and which congressional intelligence committees played a larger role not rubberstamping the national security programs but actually seriously challenging that would be the world in which the federal court instead of developing the doctrines like the state secrets and in unity and all of that would rigorously consider the constitutionality of the programs where the federal courts have recently sought out the national security debates and the congress has been a oversee her revised by the free press and the kind of moment that we are in right now. then we actually need the press. we rely on it and we are not just to inform the public about the right to know.

as a footnote i would submit the problems talked about in the failure of the court stemmed from the fact the courts that are dealing with it are entirely secret. when you have a system where secrecy is the norm it doesn't work you don't have the oversight if i have a freedom of the press are the answer to your question is quite clear who elected you. the first amendment that protects the freedom of the press and the government can tell you what to publish or not and that isn't something that is controversial. the government telling you what to publish or not is something that really remains a bedrock principle.

what are the implications of the publication, who can be prosecuted, who can be investigated but the idea that some president, governor, whoever says to you that is an easy one. we have been mostly talking about the press but i want to talk about the leakers for a second. i think that he had strong views about this, but the sort of statutorthis sort ofstatutory cl regime far that might get someone like snowden or manning in trouble but isn't the first amendment really there and have something to say about whether not just as a matter of discretion abou but whether they might actually be in the defense for someone that violated a legal obligation that they would

say is more important? >> i think the answer has to be yes. the supreme court hasn't considered this right now but there is a doctrine about web public employees have a constitutional right to speak and when they don't. there is no question that when someone is under contract in the relationship and the national security has reduced constitutional protection but not none. my view is that at a minimum, the constitution three straight on the government a buddy to criminalize the employee speech where that speech reveals the conduct that is it illegal or criminal or reveals conduct that was improperly held on the public in the first place. it reveals conduct that has a great public benefits and they outweigh any harm it should require the government to show that information was actually properly withheld in the first place into the classification stamp is not evidence of that or even if it is it is not conclusive evidence.

it has to be examined very rigorously otherwise under the current regime they can torture prisoners, classified at the highest level. they could've demanded the prosecution and that person would have no defense under the law. >> part of the problem is that the government has overcharged all of these cases rather than dealing with it as an employee the remedies that you would take those that breached their contract and in case it is a perfect example where they way over theft what was at most something that you could remedy for discipline, take away security clearance between the government and the press is that the government has the rights to control the press access to this information and in the first

place all of these are where the government failed to do that for one reason or another but that is the government's first line of defense hired the right people, check the security clearance. but always going right to the espionage act with the massive criminal penalties is not the way to handle in the first pla place. it has to be part of the answer and again this is another issue that it would've the problem that we have is very little precedent from the court but the one time that it was kind of touched upon was on the 1980s to prosecution under ronald reagan and morrison was an employee that was prosecuted for leaking the information to a british magazine coming an comee raised a sort of a first amendment defense and others and then it got on the appeal in the fourth circuit with the court

said is it is a strict liability or giving there has to be public interest or other defense and the court said you know, without directly articulating what the amendment was they said at least on the fact we don't think this would be inconsistent in the first amendment and they pointed to the fact it was a knowing violation and that he was paid for the information and he knew the harm that it was going to have and a number of things and i do think that there is some level of protection even for a leaker when i was a journalist that has bad in tent and some other knowledge in the face of the statute. >> is there some sort of a defense for the answer is no. he would like that answer to be different. is there a balancing test and the answer is no.

if you have accessed you are not allowed to disclose it, period it is a crime if you do. there is no statute that says it is a crime to disclose classified information. you're going to take us to the court? >> i don't have a citation for you but anyhow -- good luck with that. [laughter] the point about the only route to the disclosure of the misconduct is the press i think frankly is misstated. the other advisors and supporters are like you can't go to an inspector general because they are a joke. no they aren't. it is worth mentioning one reason it is disclosed a if thee

was an internal investigation in the army which isn't made up entirely of tortures and criminals. there are lots of people within the army that are appalled at what went on and they were investigating it. the idea that the press is the only route is not borne out. >> the situations are different. it's one thing where it occurs that most people in the system are unaware the crimes occurred and therefore what is needed to bring it to an investigator i view the snowden situation different that it was one that the situation veto was deemed as secret. you couldn't go to the congress and say i'm here. he couldn't go to the head of the agency and say i would like to report what you're doing without telling the american pe