precisely. second, according to the bones to recent cms report to congress, only 7 percent of all recovery audit determinations have been overturned. third, recovery auditors are accurate. an independent cms validation contractor gary recovery auditors a cumulative factories core of over 95 percent. finally, recovery otters target and properly pay claims of all types. yet medicare data have noted consistent high-$ errors for impatient short stays. ..>> "washington journal"

continues. ben: we want to welcome fitzgerald, program director for technology and national security at the center for a new american security, here to talk about the justice department filing espionage charges against

chinese hackers. let me begin with attorney general eric holder yesterday when he outlined the indictment against these chinese military officials. [video clip] maintainpla officers about this unauthorized access to computers to steal information that would be useful to competitors in china, including state-owned enterprises. in some cases, they stole from secrets that would have been an official to chinese companies at the time that they were stolen. in others, they stole sensitive internal communications that would provide a competitor or adversary in litigation with insight into the strategy and vulnerabilities of the american entity. the hacking appears to have been conducted for no other reason than to advantage state-owned companies and other interests and china at the expense of businesses here in the united states. this is a tactic that the u.s. government at a greatly announces -- categorically and

ounces. as president obama has said, we do not collect intelligence to competitive advantage to u.s. companies or the commercial sector. with the indictment, what is he accusing the chinese hackers of? guest: it is against withination unit 61398 the pla. the department of justice has indicted them for undertaking commercial espionage against american business. host: who are these chinese hackers? west: interesting thing is have identified five individuals. it is not murky figures behind keyboards. their officers within the pla. host: so this is promoted, encouraged by the chinese government? yes, there are a number of command and control documents which outlines the

responsibilities of the organizations. host: what are they doing exactly? they have a sophisticated attack methodology where they go out and do reconnaissance of large american and international businesses. they figure out ways to get inside the network and maintain access for up to three or four years at a time. then they pull out information which is of use to chinese businesses. host: these u.s. companies, are they not aware that this has been going on for three to four years? guest: well, they are now. but this is been an ongoing issue. this is a very sophisticated attack on the chinese and very hard to detect. host: you cannot tell that your information is getting stolen? guest: in many instances, no. host: what do they do with the information? guest: we are finally seeing evidence of how the information is being used, being used to

provide commercial information on pricing, on strategy, on negotiations, on a series of things which advantage chinese businesses in competition with america. ,,st: u.s. companies hacked -- allegheny technologies, steel corp.,, u.s. still workers union, westinghouse electric. can they prove that the companies have been hurt? absolutely. there is specificity laying of the allegations and impact. and if your viewers are more information, there is a company called mandiant. if you google them, you can get all the details. host: the attorney general for national security was at this press conference yesterday. he explained that they have got the hard evidence. [video clip] 61398 to hack into computers

of six u.s. victims to steal information that would provide an economic advantage to the victims' competitors, including chinese state-owned enterprises. in the past when we brought concerns such as these to chinese government officials, they responded by publicly challenging us to provide hard evidence of their hacking that could stand up in court. well, today, we are. for the first time, we are exposing the faces and names behind the keyboards in shanghai from american businesses. thanks to the investigation of the fbi and the hard work of the western district of pennsylvania, this indictment describes with her to give air t specific actions with toticularity pacific actions use computers to steal information from across our economy. it describes how they targeted

information from industries ranging from nuclear to steal to renewable energy. host: from page of the "wall street journal," the names and faces of those wanted by the fbi, the chinese hackers. if the fbi has names and faces, how do the chinese react? is somewhateaction predictable. they have denied it. then said the allegations are absurd. even though we have provided the evidence they are requesting, they say it is untrue and that it is also damaging to the u.s. of a chinese relationship. host: here is a piece this suspense security deal -- deal?what was this cyber guest: it is interesting when

you consider the current indictment. i view it as part of a 12 or 24 month-long effort by the u.s. to try to create more effective norms between the u.s. and china for all sorts of cyber-related stuff. we had the president and china in june of last year talking about this, and we have set up a discussion group your the chinese have reacted now to our strong action and said they want to suspend that. host: what would it have done? >> it wasn't ongoing dialogue to allow us to talk about these issues beyond -- behind closed doors. those private discussions are not going anywhere, so the u.s. has taken them public. that weic holder said do not do this. president obama has said we do not do this sort of thing. is that true? does: it is true, the u.s.

not spy on other countries for commercial purposes. damagedibility has been with the edward snowden situation. about large-scale nsa activity, and they will say we are being hypocrites. davidthis is a piece by sanger today and the "new york ."mes the chinese argued that the distinction is an american artifact to provide for commercial advantage. they believe that looking for business secrets is part of the fabric of national security, especially for a rising economic powerhouse. guest: i think that is exactly

right. what we are seeing here is sort diplomaticower negotiation to establish the rules of the road in the 21st century for how we undertake action online. after commercial organizations? if so, the u.s. can do that very effectively, but we choose not to. therefore, is it ok to spy on other countries? what are those norms? we had to do that during the cold war, but what does it look like now? host: who makes up the rules, the wto or some sort of world body? guest: i think depending on how this current action lays out, we may see it getting through the wto. ultimately, we see this as an ongoing negotiation between multiple states and international organizations, that will balance out over decades. happens next here?

could china retaliate somehow? do they have justification to retaliate? trade war, currency war, something on that front? guest: seems like it will be sort of a tit-for-tat. networksas deeply into , and i think we will see discussion on that front. interestingly, i think the u.s. has been very smart in the way it has laid this out. this came out from the department of justice, not from the pentagon or the state department. the filings were also made in the western district of pennsylvania. a have applied it against specific unit with a small set of businesses. we have plenty of room to escalate if we need, and we have been very specific. host: attorney general eric holder was asked yesterday about whether or not these military officers would ever appear in a u.s. court. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> our intention is for the defendants to have due process

in an american court of law. that is the intention of what we have done today, hold accountable people who have engaged in activities that violate american criminal law. that is our intention. >> it does seem unlikely, doesn't it? have we ever extradited people from china? >> you can never tell. we will see how things play out. we have stated our intention spirit we have brought a charging indictment. it is our hopes to have these people stand before an american jury and face justice. ont: ben fitzgerald us twitter, the same question. how likely these five chinese will be brought to the u.s. to answer charges, realistically? guest: highly unlikely. that is not the point. what we are trying to do is send a message, and we want to engage in public dialogue about this because private dialogue does not work. the united states is playing a very sophisticated hand here.

host: we're talking about the u.s. justice department filing espionage charges yesterday against chinese hackers. i want to get your thoughts on that. ben fitzgerald is an expert with the center for a new american take your comments and questions. democrats will dial 202-585-3880 . republicans dial 202-585-3881. .ndependents dial 202-585-3882 here is a tweet that says it was in the 1980's that computers would change how things are done from now on. this one says that they came in the back door and meanwhile we sell them all our manufacturing technology through the front door. i mean, have the chinese really benefitted that much? do they make these products just as well as the u.s. companies? guest: increasingly, yesterday interesting that will happen in the future, the chinese economy a second moverom

or advantage where they can leverage other people's intellectual properties and manufacture more effectively and cheaply. they are becoming an innovative economy themselves. front page of "usa today" -- spy cases the new normal. more hacking indictments likely by the fbi. this new normal, what does that mean? guest: it is a great headline. i am not sure exactly what it means. cyber domainat the reaching out to people internationally and polling information. we will have to figure out the rules of the road. absolutely, we will see more , more diplomatic negotiations to try to figure it out. -- thisre is the quote

is what you are going to see on a reoccurring basis. diplomatic efforts and public exposure have failed to curtail these activities. we have taken the next step of securing an indictment. "usa today." when will the president next meet with the chinese president, and what is expected from this meeting given what happened yesterday? guest: the timing of this has been interesting and that we just had a visit here in d.c. from a general who leads the pla . i think this action has taken series ofhe end of a discussions to say that the united states is not happy with the outcome of our attempts to have bilateral conversations. so they will set up some sort of future dialogue. host: culturally, you know, the fact that we printed and named these faces of these chinese military officials, what does

that mean for the chinese? is potentially very embarrassing. they have to try to deal with it. interesting will be to see the chinese reaction domestically. internationally, there will be denials. they will say we do not recognize any of this and it is absurd and challenging. the real message is what they do internally. they have to save face and cannot admit any wrongdoing, but they will have to cut back on the activities now. host: how big is the hacking unit or units in the chinese military? how much resources do they put towards this kind of thing? guest: significant. if you look at the unit that these five individuals are from, the sense is that there are at least hundreds, potentially thousands. but that is one of many organizations. there are thousands and thousands of people within the chinese government and also more shadowyith -- some more

hacker groups that are contracted by the chinese government. ha from st. paul, minnesota, democratic caller. caller: thank you for c-span. some ofndering about the multinational corporations who call themselves american in name only but they played fast and loose with their own intellectual property by high rating -- it is getting pirated and they are giving away their i.t. for free. host: can you give us an example? , ge, honeywell, anybody. guest: it is interesting to think about how in the global economy we manage these issues. the key challenge with this indictment is that there is clear evidence that these individuals from within the pla

have reached into american servers and american businesses and taken and information, which is a very different set of challenges. how do we hacked? do we come to this claim with clean hands? guest: it is an interesting sort of thing. when you look at the nsa allegations, it was a very different approach. we got ourselves into a little bit of trouble through mass collection of data, which is different to what is happening here with the chinese. essentially we collect everything and then do analysis on it for national security purposes. these individuals are going out and offensively taking up specific information for commercial uses. host: do u.s. companies internally or outsource hackers of their own to go to other foreign companies to try and get their information? guest: it is an interesting an ongoing debate. it is referred to as active

defense good should private businesses do it? i see this action as an attempt to try and manage that. if the government does nothing, private is mrs. are incentivized to go out and take care of themselves which could create significant international issues. host: are they starting to do that? guest: i think we're seeing some of it. but it is a political risk to do that. we want to avoid that kind of wild west behavior. host: john in buffalo, new york, independent caller. caller: good morning. i wanted to pose one scenario. the sensitive data is out there and can be hacked. if we return back to our old school was before the 1980's and have allot use the information backed up on computers. if it is not out there, they cannot hack it. is that something american companies are entertaining, not allowing the information

downloaded? guest: it is a very interesting technique. we have seen it in some areas. but for some critical infrastructure, and increase in the networks. for businesses, they make the the positivet economic and business benefit of operating in a highly networked environment always has the risk associated with being hacked. do we need to come out with better protection for networks. -- theere is an e-mail chinese hacking problems have been going on for years. this is a way to deflect attention away from the v.a. scandal by the current administration. they have used this tactic on all their scandals and there are a lot of them. christi, texas, democratic caller. caller: i am actually independent. i wanted to know what was

specific about these american companies that were targeted. what is unique about them? thank you. guest: i think that the key differentiator are that these businesses have been willing to come forward. there are much larger and many more organizations who have been hacked, but there is the question of what would be the reprisal against those businesses, so i think you have seen a number of organizations willing to name themselves. there are a dozen others who could have come forward. host: eight tweet -- how does -- how does the u.s. have jurisdiction over chinese soldiers? guest: i think the jurisdictional issue is absolutely going to be question. the point is not to successfully extradite these individuals to the united states. it is to increase the diplomatic pressure on china.

we are now beginning down a path of legal remedies for this problem. virginia,ngton, republican caller. caller: good morning. i am puzzled by your guest. what you're describing are the way the private companies work in the activities they do on a daily basis. i am actively following -- looking to change when it comes id theft and the behaviors of these companies that are actively going in and taking our data, which is no different than what the chinese are being accused of. the if they're going to after anybody, have to go after these companies. that has become a push of the congress.

democrats side, the legislators are realizing that the behaviors of google and is what we are accusing china of. this is just the internet. guest: they're a couple of interesting things. this is qualitatively different. if you sign up for google or yahoo!, use the sick -- except -- you accept terms and conditions. argue that we don't know everything that is in those terms and conditions and we may not like them. there is a legal process that has been served. this is the new normal of living in a society of ubiquitous accessibility for good and ill. this is where we need to figure out the rules of the road. host: one of the chinese say we

are financing the united states anyway? guest: that is an interesting argument. you can question how much of that debt they own. issues ofseparate debt versus international norms. host: is china the only country that is hacking into u.s. --?anies westmark guest: it is all in the area of hypothesis and allegation. you can look at any advanced country that has an intelligence background in undertaking this background. you can look at some work the french have done in the past. host: what about russia specifically? guest: it will be interesting to see how they do things. they are getting using proxies.

it is hard to tell if it is them in particular or some shadowy network of hackers. that is fascinating with this indictment. we have said these are officers within the pla. china.oudin courts he will be meeting with the chinese to show he is not isolated. michael is on the independent line. caller: i want to congratulate your debt -- guest on his presentation. given the facts that the united and china hasna customers on the market, as

opposed to any sanctions or indictments. guest: that is exactly right. neither the united states or china benefits from any sort of conflict. we have more to gain from a positive relationship to in a cooperation and strong economy. perspective, they view economic issues as part of their national security. they do not distinguish those as we do in the united states. host: were these companies aware that this was happening? how did the government find out? earlier,mentioned there are private firms that are in the business of helping corporations figure out who is in the network and what is happening. that is how these things came to light. nsa had somehe involvement in figuring out what was happening and providing

support to those businesses so they could triage what was happening to the forensics and build a case. host: marshall is on the republican line. caller: i want to congratulate and gettingration this right. for is been an ongoing item over six or seven years. c-span has been excellent at covering this area of i called once before. we were covering the chinese cyberattacks on the american electrical grid. some of them went down to florida. i recall when the president in there powerhawaii, system went down on the island of a law who. who.lot

i had asked esther taylor if he had traced that back and if it was a cyber attack. it was lightning strikes on the two elliptical plants. people know there is very little lightning there. twice.ng does not strike in this particular instance, two different places. i wanted to see what your take was on that and how it is related to it. i can listen for your answer. host: marshall mentioned our coverage of this issue. a covertly spoke to story for fortune magazine about one of the companies that does what you were just talking about. they monitor other companies systems to see if they are being hacked. guest: it is fascinating to know.

it is much more dangerous and difficult to make allegations about those types of attacks. the administration has been very wise in taking this issue with these particular actors as the initial salvo that we fire in an ongoing discussion. moreis significantly dangerous in a military area. startconomic matters, we getting rules of the road. host: we should take action through trade policy. what do you think, donna? caller: i think it was eight college professors were sent back to china because they were stealing our stem cell research and rocket technology. withcut a chinese guy chips at o'hare airport.

they have got 300,000 chinese and our colleges. i doubt 10% are covert ops. about 95. government they caught a shipping container ak-47s thata with were chinese. they said they were going to street gangs. they caught to shipping containers with chinese surface to air missiles. here for?hey host: i wanted to ask you about internal hacking in the united states. are there domestic hackers in the united states doing the same thing? guest: i think that is the case. it doesn't have the same international ramifications. we have more tools available to

us as a criminal matter. the cyber things get interesting because giving the ubiquitous nature of cyber technology it brings together a lot of different communities and we are not sure how to behave with each other yet. host: you're the program director at new american security. how are you following this? this is a difficult subject for reporters to report on. where are you getting your news? where'd you find information? guest: it is challenging at times. it is a mixture of keeping up with breaking news and social media. to have to tie that back other academic and think tank analysis. where able to think about deterrence or norm building in international relations.

how do you build new norms with the news of the day. host: this is cheryl in thefornia. she is on independent line. any of the targeted companies have offshore operations? out of theufacture country? americans might lose jobs because of it. do any of these companies have call centers that are offshore providing access to consumers personal financial information? i am not sure of the business practices of these particular entities. they are international businesses. business inen doing

china, which is why the chinese are interested in this. they undertake production offshore. it is also an economic benefit for the united states. chinese steel military secrets to build their new fighter that looks like rf 35? we are using a non-military instrument to talk to a military organization about commercial practices. this is clearly the first step in a longer conversation. there are significant concerns u.s. chinese hacking businesses that build weapon systems. particular, we have seen trends for hacking associated with businesses that build propulsion systems and unmanned vehicles. watching in fort myers, florida. caller: good morning. i believe the nsa and the obama

administration got caught red-handed as evidence by the letter that john chambers put out saying that technology had productsported cisco so they were able to get exported to china. in order to the criticism, they had eric holder come out and show china is the bad guy even though we have been doing it all along. what is the extent of u.s. hacking directed at china? guest: this is the challenge that the nsa program. one of the snowden disclosures is legitimate and wise hacking. it also exposed less wise hacking.

we have significant capability to hack into almost any country that would need access to using backdoors and other means. that is where it becomes important for the united states to say what we think is ok and what we think is not ok. we need to have a dialogue with other nations so we can set up credible for how we're going to behave and the actions associated with noncompliance. host: would there ever be frameworks for however when would behave? guest: it is going to take a long. of time. it is going to continue to change. this is empirical to the cold war. if you look at that, that was a decades long process. what is the threat from the cyber attack? what is the vulnerability?

guest: there are many. one homogenous cyber attack. there is economic stuff. there is political information campaigns. there is a tax on infrastructure. the threat is quite large. tohave lost more power grids squirrels chewing control boxes and we have cyberattacks. thes about getting ahead of technology and having good international measures for protection. washington journal continues.

host: dr. michael bell is joining us. he is joining us from the cdc this morning. we will talk about the mers virus. what is mers? guest: it is related to the sars virus that spread several years ago. it is normally an animal virus. it can spread to humans. it can cause a severe respiratory infection. host: what does it stand for? it stands for middle eastern respiratory syndrome. the arabian peninsula is significantly affected by the virus. we have seen cases throughout the region. there is information that it seems to be a link with camels.

that is not completely pinned down at this point. that is an early clue that that might be part of the animal pathway. host: why would that be the source? guest: it is interesting. when viruses get into the human world, the path can be mixed. the meatth sars that animal in markets seemed to be the original source. who weher infections have seen bats be a source. they are not necessarily the direct source. they transmit the infection to pigs or horses. animals in between the original source and humans can be part of the pathway. they can be very difficult to pin down. host: how is it spread? guest: what we know so far is based on early and limited

information. it does not seem to spread from person to person very efficiently. it does not spread across a group of people like chickenpox in a summer camp. it is not like that. it seems to be related to very close contact with someone who is actively sick erie people who have taken care of a sick family member or somebody working in health care settings, they have had secondary cases. host: what are the symptoms? genetict causes a very -- generic looking respiratory infection. coughs and fever are at the top of the list. some people will have a runny nose. there might be headaches. host: is it fatal? guest: no. a few people have died. more than a few, actually. they tend to be older with other diseases like heart disease or

diabetes. these are people for whom any infection is a bad outcome. the majority of people have a mild respiratory infection. they get over it. we are concerned about the fact that some people have died. those people are at risk. host: this is the headline in usa today. 'third casemers brings more questions. guest: there are two cases that were imported directly from the middle east. those individuals arrived home in florida and indiana. is somebody who had face-to-face contact in a business deal with the end it -- indiana patient when they got back in the country. that person had a mild cold. because we have been careful

about tracing everyone who might have been exposed, this is behind the scenes that nobody ever gets to hear about. when something like this happens, cdc mobilizes a tremendous amount of personnel resources and communications resources to make sure that every last person who was sharing a flight or a bus gets identified and tracked down and alerted so that they know that if they start to feel ill they need to take it very seriously. if they will allow us, we do testing. in the case of the business colleague, we did an early test and it was negative. a follow-up test was positive. it looks like he was opposed -- expose and became mildly ill. he is fine. after he turned positive was another piece of that work. man, is hehe indiana

a carrier now? is it in the system? could other people contracted from them? guest: that is why we are so careful. we don't want multiple people to start new chains of transmission. while we are sick, it is possible to spread the infection to other people liked other respiratory viruses. what you are better, you're not a carrier anymore. -- once you are better, you are not a carrier anymore. host: have you been able to track down everyone on the whatt or on the bus? reaction do you get from people when they hear from you? guest: the impressive thing is not only that we tracked down everyone, and we don't do this alone, we do this with airlines and other health authorities in other countries. there is a lot of cross communication takes place. it happens amazingly quickly. this is the investment that we airports, ourjor

system for tracking travelers and so on. these are things that we maintain because when push comes to shove you do need very quickly. two,the course of a day or the vast majority of people received some outreach. the reaction is mixed. some people are ho-hum about it. some are quite concerned. the value of been able to speak with them directly is we can guide them to information. we can answer questions up front and we can connect them with their state and local public health resources. host: you have seen the headlines about mers. if you have questions or comments about that, dr. michael bell is our guest. he is from the center for disease control. you can start dialing and now.

host: is this preventable? that is a broad and mixed question. yes. in a way it is. heavily insting several ways to make sure that we can control is. part of that control is preventing the problem abroad before it gets imported. cdc has been working night and day since this began to devise tests so that we have a very effective way of testing for this infection. if you can't test for something, there is no way to track it or control it. having that test and being able to distribute it through our oure health departments and gears, that is one of the major activities it takes place.

you never think about it. commercial test for a newly emerging virus. that is something cdc does very quickly because we have a base of capability. one thing we do is make sure that everyone can detect it. you can imagine that if a health department in a state is able to quickly identify a case, we can surround that case and make sure that it does not spread to other people very effectively. if it takes weeks and weeks to get a result tom a there is more possibility it will spread. in the middle east, working with the partners there, we can improve infection control practices where the disease is originating and make it less likely that the infected will carry it around the country. host: in what about vaccination? guest: there is not a vaccine right now. i know they are thinking about

the potential vaccine that might work for this. we don't have one to rely on. it would be wonderful if we had one. this is the most impactful public health item you can imagine. host: is this an issue for the whole world? guest: when you think about what happened with sars, a similar virus that caused very severe illness and killed a good number of people spread very effectively through air travel. instances, in canada, it caused chaos at a major hospital. if you think about what that does to the business world in terms of travel and international location, the ability to do business is significantly compromised when there is a risk of that kind of severe illness. whether it means you can't have meetings or your in country

staff is incapacitated or if chaos, alllogistical of this affects the bottom-line and makes it difficult for business. host: hello, bonnie, you are on the air. caller: i have a question about the test that you do to identify mers. it during the fever stage that this is identified? mentioned one person that was negative and then a positive. some of those were negative and then went positive later on. host: are you in the health field? caller: i worked in the health

department here years ago. host: dr. bell? guest: those are great questions. in the learning phase about this virus. we are collecting specimens from the nose and throat and bless -- blood specimens and stool specimens. we want to know how the virus is likely to spread. was sars, we found that it released in the stool. that changes how we try to control the spread. tothis case, it is due respiratory and found the bloodstream. allows us to refine the testing and better understand the transmission. out, during different parts of the infection, the virus may not be detectable. immediately after an infection, the virus needs to build up in your body before we can detect

it. both of those are targets of tests. it usually takes a few days for those things to become positive. generally speaking, these respiratory viruses tend to have detectable virus during the fever stage. that tends to go away slowly. it is different from virus to virus. with each new challenge that we see, we spent a good amount of time describing that new pattern so that we can understand the. of risk and the best time to test. host: kimberly is an independent color in new jersey. caller: thank you for taking my call. a few weeks ago, i was in new york city. at night and i started coughing. i did not stop coughing for days and days. it turned into a fever.

my respiratory system -- i have never had anything like this in my life. it turned into this thing where i could not get out of bed. took of the pack. i went to florida to try and feel better. i went to a doctor down here. he never mentioned anything about mers. doctors have a notice go out to them? i am feeling better. i am a little achy. host: i will have dr. bell give

a response. guest: you have a couple of great questions mixed in there. i would not blame new york. that wheneat reminder you are traveling or would you are in crowded places, you need to take some precautions and keep yourself healthy. there are any number of viruses that can give you a respiratory syndrome like you describe. contact or touching your eyes, nose, or mouth that may have touched a handrail or something like that. about not touching things. i'm able to make it through airports without touching anything. that is probably overkill. it is a reflection of how i think when it comes to transmission of infection. the most common thing that is going to deliver anything to your eyes, nose, or mouth is your own fingers unless you have

a toddler. or washingg things your hands before you touch her face. i am constantly handwashing. keep a large social distance. again, i am neurotic. i don't get up in someone's face very often because i like to keep my face clear. some contact.d that is why we promote cough etiquette. cover your cough when you're coughing. . think about wearing a disposable mask to make sure the you're not spreading things to other people. the question about should doctors be testing for mers routinely, the answer is no. you are extremely unlikely to have been exposed to mers traveling to new york. there is clear recommendation for somebody who has