are already communities across the country coordinated efforts to counter extremist messaging that is aimed vulnerable youth across the country so we are going to hear in the context from the law enforcement and the political leaders and from boston, minneapolis and los angeles the communities that have devoted a significant time and effort to try to counter that messaging into the communities and the cities and to the extent they can talk about the most success that they have had that the local leaders and other communities can apply i think those are tangible results and tangible ideas other leaders can employ to nick sure they are protecting people in the community. >> quickly on dhs it seems a likely resolution to the funding problem is a short-term

extension. if the president signed that? the >> i'm not sure that anybody knows what the outcome of the situation is going to be. we saw the speaker of the house going on television over the weekend to declare that he is certainly comfortable with not funding the department of homeland security. i am not sure what kind of an of general mlss leads to that conclusion. and i'm not sure that it's in the best interest of the vote tabulation that i can see. but yet he said that it's on the left. and i think that does raise some questions about whether or not this new governing public and majority in congress is committed to actually being responsible in acting at the best interest to get one of the things he said at the end of last year was one of his goals was to make sure that republican leadership didn't appear scary to the american people. he was setting the bar really low. it looks like right now they are prepared to wiggle underneath the bar.

>> we are going to see what should emerge as a plan from the republicans to fund the department of homeland security before the deadline. >> if they don't get an agreement on funding from the department of homeland security and there is a partial shutdown of the department, will this be a national security risk in other words will americans be less safe if congress cannot come up with an agreement on the department? >> the department has specific information about the impact that this would have on their operations. so i would refer you to them to talk about but let me say i don't think there's anybody that would be comfortable making the case is refusing to pay the men and women on the front line actually enhances the national security. >> obviously they looked at the information that stood out and they got a large number of essential employees that most of them will still be going to work so i am just trying to gauge how

big a threat or is it a threat to the safety of the americans if this funding agreement isn't reached. >> i don't think anybody can stand here and make the case it would be good for the national security. >> is there a risk -- >> i would leave it to the department of homeland security to offer a specific assessment of the impact this would have. i don't think there's anybody that could make the case that it would be good or that it would be fair. the president gave a state of the union speech focused on middle-class economics and he talked about a wide range of things that we could do to strengthen the middle class in this country. the fact of the matter is for the transportation security administration trying to safeguard the airports those are good middle-class jobs and american patriot and i'm surprised we have congressional republicans suggesting they should go ahead and go to work to get a paycheck.

>> can you respond to what the speaker of the house said on this he makes the case that house passed the bill to fund the department of homeland security. if that bill is now before the senate and the senate democrats are filibustering the bill would you respond to that and encourage the democrats to drop the filibuster so that the bill can be passed and you can have negotiations to the old-fashioned way if it comes along? >> the house has passed a bill to fund the department of homeland security. >> democrats are filibustering it. >> they don't support the legislation that would actually undo the kind of administrative reforms the president's budget has on the immigration system. >> if republicans want to have a negotiation about trying to fix the system we would welcome the opportunity to have that negotiation. we wanted to talk about the reform literally for years.

we had good conversation with democrats and republicans in the united states senate and we got got it a partisan piece of legislation with congressional republicans blocked for more than a year and a half. as of again i'm not really sure what the speaker's point is. i would assume he understands the responsibility that he has for making sure the department of homeland security is funded and we are hopeful he will get that done before the deadline. >> another topic i want to ask about in "the wall street journal" that the president has received communications back from the ayatollah in iran one back in 2009 and another just in the past few weeks. can you confirm that? >> i'm going to decline to get into any of the specifics about the conversations the president may have had our communications the president may have had with the leaders of the regime. we have been very clear about the priorities and the top

priority is concerned in the nuclear program but there's a long list of other concerns the united states has in the way that the regime has the support of terrorism around the globe and they continue to promote anti-semitism and even to wish ill on our allies in israel so there's a long list of concerns we have with the regime but the conversations we are having right now about resolving the community concerns about the nuclear program are what we are focused on. >> we are also concerned about the status of a handful of americans that are currently being detained in iran wrongfully and against their will. and we are continuing to work for the release of those americans as well. i'm sorry, go ahead. >> the president himself acknowledged in the past that he has written to ayatollah so i'm asking if you can confirm whether or not ayatollah has

responded back. can you at least confirm the president is in receipt of a letter or letters in response to what we know the president has returned. >> i can't do that but let me see if i can get more information. >> to follow-up on that follow up on that eventually i understand you're in the middle of negotiations. you want to keep the correspondent confidential but will you eventually release those letters obviously it is a great interest whether or not the leader of iran whether there has been a letter chain back and forth to the president will you commit to releasing those to the public? >> i'm not willing to commit that those letters exist but let me give you more details on that. >> angela. >> the violent extremism is going on right next door and the president went to great lengths to not say anything about the

islamist extremists but if you look at the groups participating most of them are related in one way or another to the muslim community. how do you square that message with -- >> we are very mindful of the fact that the strain of extremist ideology has tried to insert itself in the muslim community. there is no question about that. it's true in the united states and other places around the world and that will be the subject of extensive discussions at a summit. at the same time we also recognize there are other forms of extremism that has prompted others to carry out active violins and we talked on a couple previous occasions about you know the violent extremists that carry out an attack on the temple in wisconsin for the

radical ideology that prompted someone to go and opened fire outside a jewish community center in kansas. so extremism has taken a variety of forms in the country that have had violent results and we want to be focused on making sure we are countering all of that but that does not diminish in any way the concern that we have had some extremists have made inroads into some of the communities and attempting to inspire them to carry out acts of violence and join their fight. we have worked very hard and diligently with the muslim community in the country and with local law enforcement and political leaders to counter that ideology and that messaging. that is something that we remain vigilant and today the summit or this week's summit provides a good venue talking about the success of that strategy and to

identify the additional steps we can take to safeguard the american people. >> are there any that are targeted at other groups? >> i would refer you to the national security council to provide more information about other individuals participating in the summit. >> [inaudible] the international corruption like airstrikes. >> what i can tell you is right now what we have said is we are supportive of the ongoing efforts of the un special representative in his efforts to try to facilitate the formation of the national unity government and that we believe that is the next appropriate step that we are mindful of the fact there are extremists that are trying to establish or at least

capitalize on the instability in the libya. we saw this brutal killing of the 21 egyptian christians in that country and that is something that we strongly condemn over the weekend and we are going to coordinate with the international community to try to bring about some stability in libya and make that a much less hospitable place for the extremist groups to carry out acts of violence like this. >> -- should be able to call airstrikes and they could be as effective as the strikes on isis. >> what we have said in general is the united states and the coalition partners are prepared to back up the efforts of the local fighters on the ground with airstrikes.

many have noted that track the track record of the local fighters in this syria and battle after battle they succeeded in defeating the rebels. we do not anticipate that with better training and better equipment that they would perform better and that is why there is this american led effort and i'm in close coordination with the region to train and equip the moderate's eerie in opposition fighters. we also indicated we would expect with better training department and the backing of sophisticated military airstrikes that the performance on the battlefield would improve so we certainly would envision a time in which military air power would be used to back up the fighters on the ground. you may be asking a more specific -- >> for the way that those local ground forces would interact

with the coalition military aircraft i would refer you to the department of defense are mapped to know how that communication would take place that's part of our strategy is predicated on the idea that military air power could be used to enhance the performance of the opposition fighters on the battlefield. >> you mentioned this a couple times to counter the violent extremism succeeded to address the legitimate grievances through the democratic process. when it comes to groups like isis what to grievances do you think that they have in the democratic process? >> when we talk about isis leaders there is nothing that if you can use to justify their brutality but we have seen them carry out. this is an ideology that is totally bankrupt and is impossible to justify. that's why you haven't just seen a strong reaction from the united states, you've seen a

strong reaction from more than 60 countries around the world joined the united states to take the fight to ultimately destroy them. >> of the legitimate grievances of isis or any other extremist group. >> i don't have it in front of me but that is a reference to the efforts of the administration and local law enforcement and other community leaders here in this country to prevent isis from succeeding in recruiting and inspiring people to join their fight. one part of the strategy is trying to remove the grievances that individuals may have and that's part of why so much of the outreach that we are doing in the communities across this country is and just threw all enforcement but community leaders that have an interest in trying to protect their youth to make sure they are aware of the

kind of support and opportunities that exist in the communities. >> that governments do not claim violence is the only way to achieve a change and it will only succeed if the system can address legitimate grievances of the democratic process. i'm just struggling to understand. >> isis doesn't have any legitimate grievances. are there any others that have legitimate grievances? >> the plaintiff that element is to make it clear that there is not just a movie but also a benefit to ensure that the countries that are carrying out the counterterrorism operations in the borders do so with a proper respect for universal human rights. a example of a country that i did not cite earlier in the places where they were working to try to counter terrorism and extremism is a nigeria.

they offer to the government to aid in their efforts. they are mindful to remind the nigerian government that it's important to respect the basic universal human rights even if they carry out the counterterrorism operations. they do not have a photo recruiting around that only is enhanced if you have a government that runs over the basic human rights and values of the citizens. >> the president put out a statement on sunday that was from you about the press secretary not a statement from the president. >> in a statement that's what i want to ask you as you pointed out you talked about the murder of 21 citizens and i'm curious

why didn't you mention it was 21 christians killed by muslims? is that relevant? >> the extremist that carried out the attack indicated that the reason they were killing wasn't just because they were egyptian but also because they were christian. and the president has been very clear, the president talked about this speech that he gave earlier this month. there's a response ability of people of all faith to stand up and speak out when individuals try to use the space and distort to try to justify the act of violence. >> i try to be clear i can account for that statement but we have been clear in the op-ed was published today in on a variety of occasions it has been pretty clear we condemn the outrageous killing of these

egyptian citizens because of the state. nobody should ever be targeted because of who they are and what they look like and how they worship a. >> i think that as we indicated the situation in north carolina is still under investigation. and our local law enforcement authorities are trying to determine exactly what the motivation of that individual that has been charged with this crime was. so that's still under investigation. but what is clear is that there is a principle that exists regardless of the faith of the individual in question that people shouldn't be targeted because of their religion and what they look like or what their last name is and how they worshiped. >> they were targeted?

>> we don't know. it's a local investigation right now. in this case as he has with many others to articulate a pretty clear principle and i think that it's the kind of principle that the vast majority of americans should be able to supporters is that people should not regardless of their faith be targeted because of their last name is, what they look like or how they worship. >> we don't know that they were targeted because of their last name or their faith. >> i think it is acknowledged in the statement as well. we also acknowledge this is an issue under investigation in north carolina. as a principle, this is the kind of thing that we should all be able to agree with. okay. >> what exactly is the take away that you anticipate? there is no executive or governmental action. it is a talking shop. what is the point?

>> i'm sorry ed. i mean bill. [laughter] i hope that as a compliment. i hope that's the way that you took it. the take away is this is an opportunity for us to make sure that people all across the country understand what kinds of effective strategies are being put in place in place of like los angeles and minneapolis and boston to try to safeguard communities all across the country. and as a there are effective strategies they use in those communities to counter the radical messaging and ideology that extremists can propagate on social media. and we want to make sure that communities all across the country are aware of the tools that are available to them. and i think that is a worthwhile exercise and i think it certainly is something that local leaders across the country would benefit on. but i would encourage you to do is before you pass judgment wait until someone concludes.

then follow those that participate see whether or not it is worthwhile. >> you mentioned mostly muslim but you won't see that even though that is the subject in the course today. >> i think that i i did i dated a answer to angeles question that we are particularly concerned about the success that some extremists have had of him having some dark corners of the muslim world to try to distort the tenets of the religion in the way that justifies the radical ideology and the violent acts and that is something that we strongly condemn and we devote a significant resources here in this country and in the local communities across the country to counter that messaging. there will certainly be an intense focus on the summit, but not the only one. >> i think that we have been very clear about what we call it and why we approach the challenge in this way.

>> the obama administration plans to send the rest. can i get your reaction? >> i think that over the last couple of years using the attorney general in particular take some important steps to try to make sure that this administration is striking the right balance. between the law-enforcement need to protect national security and to protect the freedom of the press. the freedom that the president believes is critically important to the success of the country. the attorney general has made clear he doesn't believe that they should be prosecuted or put in jail just because they are doing their job. the attorney general in reaction to the situation convened

meetings with well-known and influential journalists from across the country to discuss some of these issues without striking the appropriate balance into the feedback he has gotten has been very positive. even the reporters committee for the freedom of the press and the justice department turned a corner and the editorial board said there has been welcomed evolution by eric holder on these issues. this is certainly the kind of work that the administration believes is important and it's kind of work that we consider striking a balance between the two important competing priorities that we are always going to have to evaluate what steps are being taken to strike the right balance. we are pleased with the kind of progress that we have made. >> i know this occurred while the briefing was underway. but jeb bush had some harsh words about the foreign policy and the administration and a

reckless disregard for the country. can i get you to react? >> will the president be making an appearance? >> we will have more on the chicago trip the end of the day. we will follow up. >> can i go back to some of the questions about the summit? do you hope that by the end you will find ways to enhance surveillance in the muslim communities come is that one of the goals? >> we talked about the fact that we address these all across the country and that it cannot be in law enforcement response. obviously local law enforcement is a important role to play and

those local law enforcement agencies that have worked hard to build strong relationships in the communities that they serve and protect can be particularly effective hoping this counter the messaging. but those are not the only tools in the toolbox. we also needed also need to and list the support of the leaders and teachers and of others and religious leaders who have the interest in trying to protect the community and trying to insulate particularly of affordable young people from this kind of radical extremist ideology and that is a particularly difficult thing to do now and even in some ways you could argue it is more difficult now than in the past. you have extremists that are operating even in the remote locations in the world but because they have access to the internet, they can widely propagate their extremist ideology in the way that can be heard by people all around the world.

that doesn't pay me have to be even more vigilant and creative as we counter the messaging and there's a variety of ways we can do that. some of it involves law enforcement but it also names needs that it is important to mobilize other influential well respected members of the communities and that is the best way to counter the radical ideology for people who have the members and leaders to stand up and say that it's wrong. >> dot using the term islamic extremism there are members of the muslim faith belief that you are picking on them. how do you respond to that? spinet i think a couple things about that. first, it's important for the leaders of any community to not feel as if somebody's taking on them. this goes back to the value statement earlier. it's important people understand we are going to be committed to

and protective of the notion that people shouldn't be targeted because of what they look like or how they worship. and that is just a basic value that is central to the founding of the country. so there is that part. the second part of it is that -- >> you are in a sense isolated in their particular faith in one respect and that is the plan others have asked the question by and large the summit is focusing on these communities. it's in black-and-white. it is in the list of participants that you submitted to the press. the islamic groups are going to be protesting outside because of the concern that this is a focus of the senate. so why not just say it that it is what it is. the concerns of the extremism is

the focus of the summit. it seems like you are tiptoeing. >> i don't think that we are tiptoeing anywhere. we have been clear about what we are trying to fight. this is the summit on the extremism and there is no question that the radical ideologues around the globe have sought and succeeded in infiltrating some elements of the muslim world to propagate the ideology to try to desert the religion to justify the terrible acts of violence. and at the same time they would love nothing more than for the united states to engage the united states or the west to engage in a religious war with them but the fact of the matter is that is not what this is. this isn't a religious war on islam and of those individuals do not represent islam. they say as much and there are a variety of ways that let me just give you one good example. in the operation to recover and

bring to justice osama bin laden, our operators also recovered a treasure trove of material from his residence where they are able to evaluate the ongoing communications and thinking about the state of the al qaeda. and in those writings, there is evidence that he was frustrated that osama bin laden was frustrated that al qaeda was being recognized and acknowledged and thought not as a religious organization, but as a terrorist group. he even contemplated in the writings changing the name of al qaeda to try to more closely identify it with islam. he felt like that would be helpful to the recruiting efforts. that is an indication that the efforts can be crystal clear about what we are fighting and what we are not hasn't just been successful but frustrate the efforts of our enemies and so i guess i would end by saying you

know that there have been some that we have taken and it's worth it if that is what we need to do to make sure we are going to continue to succeed in countering this radical ideology and making sure that we can succeed in mobilizing the international community to take the fight to them and in a case of isis to degrade into the strike them. >> on isis i'm just curious following up to the question about what happened in egypt or libya what is the best sense of how far and how wide isis has spread and how many countries is isis operating in this administration? ..

it seems they're spreading to more and more countries and we're seeing evidence of that almost every week. >> i would caution you because i think it's important difference between the spread of isil and individuals who are trying to attract attention by claiming association with isil. two different things. i think the best example is the

situation we saw in afghanistan a couple of weeks ago where an individual who claim to be affiliated with isil as i mentioned i think at the time that had less to do with isil success and probably their ideology and spoke more to the kinds of controls divisions were starting to see your again we are going to be very kind is up and closely monitored any of this radical ideology in any of the efforts of isil makes to try to spread it around the globe to the contador our focus is where their most dangerous and that is in iraq and in syria. >> the nato secretary-general said the cease-fire has not been respected in ukraine. if the cease-fire is dead, what is the next move? >> jim, what i know is i know the leaders of these four countries, france, germany ukraine and russia have a conversation again today i believe via telephone to talk about the status of the

implementation plan. we believe it's important for all sides to live up to that agreement, also crystal growth -- crystal clear rush has not lived up to the commitments they made in the context of these negotiations. their failure does put them at risk of greater cost. and they should be mindful of that as they consider the next step. but we continue to believe the way the situation can be resolved as around the negotiating table and that's why we will continue to thwart ongoing negotiations but you're right as you point out that those negotiations are going to be successful if the people who participate in those negotiations are willing to live up to the commitments they have made. it's clear that as far in the last few days the russians and separatists that they back have not done it. [inaudible] >> i will have any updates. >> -- i don't have any updates.

>> a follow-up on what jim was saying. you to use the secret password radical islam, you can't possibly defeat isaac. and i heard this breakout beyond conservative circles and wondered because i've heard it described in so many words what is radical islam, which is like a haiti all the -- hateful ideology. any thought to just throwing the phrase in two may be the president's remarks, even if it's in a sentence to make clear the distinction you're trying to make? do you know what i mean? >> well, i guess this goes what i was saying which is at least mostly for myself i'm not particularly concerned about the flight. i just wanted sure we're pursuing the most effective strategy to anyone who wants to evaluate that can take a look at

the way osama bin laden himself described the state of al-qaeda and its frustration that our ability to prevent him from succeeding in declaring a religious war between islam and the west was frustrating its efforts to advance his radical agenda. frustrating the efforts of that organization to recruit new members, and it even prompted him to even contemplate changing the name of his organization to try to get people to dignify them as a religious organization as opposed to what they are which is a terrorist organization. i think that's a pretty clear indication that our strategy is making progress. like i told jim, it is worth of flak. >> the conservative media has been flipping out this morning about, talking it a bit about radical islam, can't explain it and other forms of extremism and she brought up -- [inaudible] as an example of christian

militant, or militant christian organizations. i wonder if you can explain the difference between calling the militant christian organization and using a term like radical islam? in other words, how are you not avoiding the same with christians that you are avoiding -- >> i did not see my colleagues comment on this topic earlier today so don't want to sort of way in and try to spin what you if i didn't actually see them. why don't you check with her the folks at the state department and they might have explained what she was saying. okay? george, you get the last one. >> you do seem to be telling who the victims are. last week when john was questioning you come you did what you say jewish victims and tears, and your statement didn't mention christian victims. assuming this isn't a coincidence, is it the

administration believe it is counterproductive to? >> that's an interesting question. let's do it this way. we'll put an end end to the tiptoe into the stent disdaining, and people assume i have been tiptoeing, let me try to be as clear as i can and we will see how this works. as i tried to make clear to john last week and i made clear in a tweed following there is a doubt about the motivation of the individual who carried out this attack against the kosher market in paris. he was motivated by anti-semitism and to which the market hoping he could kill jewish people. he was targeting them because they were jewish. the public statements of the isis militants what people claim to be affiliated with isis in libya indicated that they were killing these egyptians because of their christian faith. and we have been crystal clear in a statement we put up from the president on friday and the

president prayer breakfast remarks earlier this month that it is wrong and completely unacceptable and unjustifiable to target people particularly with acts of violence, because of who they are, who they worship, with her last name is or what they look like. this is a value that we have carefully subscribed to an ardently defended. not just in this country but around the world. and that is why you have seen the united states take military action in iraq for example, to try to protect the ucd people who were threatened by genocide -- yazidi, the isil militants in iraq when they were making progress in that country earlier this summer. the united states took action to defend them and there's a long history in this country at a proud history in this country of the united states taking action to protect people are being

targeted because of what they look like or because of how they worship that is a proud tradition in this country to sort of blend this was last you good strength is our moral authority around the globe and strengthens our national security when people look upon the united states as a country that's willing to stand up and protect people for being targeted because of what they look like or who they worship. and that is a value that we believe certainly applies in this country but we believe it's a value that applies around the world and it is why when the president goes and visits with foreign leaders around the globe, he makes clear how important he believes it is for those leaders to upholding universal human values that uphold those universal human rights, and to protect their citizens to ensure that they can exercise those universal human rights. this is the subject of, this is work that's going to be ongoing but it is worth the united states has long been committed to. and that commitment is not

flagged under the leadership of president barack obama, all right? thanks everybody. have a good day. [inaudible conversations] >> and you can see this briefing again on our website. go to c-span.org. we will have more from the white house later today with a summit to counter violent extremism. our coverage starts at 2:45 p.m. eastern. president obama will make remarks at about 4:15 p.m. eastern and you can watch that live on c-span. back here on c-span2 we are live again from the atlantic council, hosting a discussion on sharing cyber information. that is light at 3 p.m. eastern. later it's a look at the future of afghanistan, the center for strategic international studies posted a discussion marks from the first leg of afghanistan. that is live at 5:30 p.m.

eastern on c-span. >> this week on c-span in prime time from three nights of tech featuring executives and innovators driving today's most successful internet companies. >> you can least a tax of 40,000, it should be a bentley or something but instead it's just a taxi. and for the privilege of leasing that car for 40 grand a year he gets to be impoverished. impoverished. >> here from inside of facebook, paypal, etsy and more all part of a special presentation while congress is in recess. >> israel probably the top high-tech country in the world when the digital first with gdp growth job creation, including minorities, health care education to every location, movement of the city of south. >> three nights of tech tonight at 7 p.m. eastern on c-span.

>> a couple of news items this afternoon begin with this picture from oregon life. the ap reporting kate brown was sworn in today as oregon's governor following and influence peddling scandal that prompted the resignation of fellow democrat john kids hover within the state's longest serving chief executive. she becomes the first openly bisexual governor in the nation. also from the "l.a. times," congresswoman janice hahn said tuesday she will forgo a congressional reelection campaign next year and instead run for an open seat on los angeles county board of supervisors where populist father served for decades. her announcement ended weeks of speculation and positions are absent early leading contender to replace supervisor who is being forced from office next year by term limits. >> liberia's assistant minister of health spoke to the center for strategic international

studies friday about his country's bonds to ebola. the continuing challenges lessons learned and next step towards achieving and assuring the recent cases of the disease. stephen morrison at csis moderate this event. it's about 90 minutes. >> [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everyone. i'm steve morrison, senior vice president here at csis, direct the global health programs here. and we are joined and very honored today to have with us

tolbert nyenswah, and i will say a few words about him in a moment, and why we are and how we're going about this conversation this morning. i also want to thank colleagues who helped pull this all together katie travis has been very helpful, and jesse swanson, so special thanks to them for pulling this together. we were traveling, catherine, my colleague katherine and i were traveling in january to liberia and sierra leone, and in the course of that we met this remarkable person, tolbert nyenswah, who is an assistant minister of health, deputy chief, medical officer and most importantly head of the incident management system in liberia which is the central and most important institution driving the response and control of ebola in liberia. tom frieden when he is visited

liberia at various points, has declared that this is the most important person in liberia. now, maybe that is arguable in deference to the president and others, but one thing that became very clear was that tolbert was indefatigable, a leader. he brings me trained as a lawyer at the university of liberia. he went on to pursue his interests in humanitarian law at johns hopkins, at emory and elsewhere, and then in 2012-13 came to bloomberg school to complete a masters of public health there. and then as he will describe as a minister of official he became at the center of the response directly empowered by the head of state to really carry forward

this. it became terribly important as the crisis worsened in the august-september time from as the mobilization took off in the mid-fault that up to now. and as we have entered this new phase. so we are really honored to have tolbert with us. i learned also, speaking with him, that he is a malaria expert. he drafted come he is responsible for drafting the first national plant under the presidents malaria initiative the plan for liberia. so he can speak to many different issues in the course of this. what we have asked tolbert to do is to speak for 15 or 20 minutes and take us through the story of the outbreak, and the response and the different phases. tell us a bit about the way the government organized itself in his own role. tell us a bit about the u.s. entry into entry of others.

ellis the bit about where we are now in this current phase of attempting to get 20 in monrovia and elsewhere, within liberia but it's a complicated story. we had the chance to go over this when we were together in january and was the most lucid and cogent and insightful summary of the story. so we learned that tolbert would be in this period, we asked him if he would come and do a public presentation along these lines but there's plenty of seats up front but i also want to welcome the 75 or so people who are here online, and the audience from c-span. so tolbert we are very grateful and honored to have here today. if you could carry as few that they will do a bit of back and forth, and then we will move rapidly to the audience to get comments and questions from all of you. so welcome.

we are thrilled to have you here. the floor is yours. >> thank you. thank you stephen morrison for the kind. it is pleasure to be here. this is very, very important institution, the center for strategic international studies but it's a pleasure to be in washington, d.c. i'm honored and privileged to talk to you all and thanks for coming out to hear the story about the ebola response in liberia, horrible story, about what we did as a country, how we came together as a state and brought our system together very quickly to respond to one of the

major threats major global public health threats to our existing mankind. we as a country were recovering from massive civil conflict, 14 years of civil conflict, rebuilding our lives as a country, as a people under the extraordinary leadership, incredible leadership of africa's premier president america's first female president, president sirleaf who democratically led the people of liberia turn around very quickly and brought the situation after the war years the desperation

i hope of our people. we were under trajectory, very good trajectory of recovery after the conflict rebuilding. rebuilding the education system try to rebuild some of the very bad roles reconstruct our infrastructure breaches and roads -- bridges and roads, and then we got some of the important steps that a government made was to increase the government over all budgetary support to the health care system. we've gone 19% of the budget contributed to the health system as compared to the 2015 target of 15% contribution to

the health sector of liberia has gone, 19% before 2015. in africa there was the number one country that met before the target date. that's the mortality reduction and it falls by two tens for this year but liberia met with a target in 2012. reduction on mortality. we're making progress. and before that gdp growth has reached 8.7% before the ebola crisis in 2014. so 2014 has become a very great difficulty or in liberia and the entire region.

the entire west african sub region. and my description of that is that ebola was not just something only for liberia in the region, but we were really dealing with disease that have serious implications on entire world. it shows how interconnected we are as a people, because the fact that ebola can cross the border it didn't need a passport to enter the united states. ebola needed no passport to enter european countries, and we saw that. and so those of us in west africa that are in the frontline of fighting this disease are sacrificing for the rest of the world. this is the kind of feelings that we got as people, as a country, we came together to

fight this disease. and so under the leadership of the president, when the disease struck in guinea in december 2013, very close to the liberian border, we were the proximity of the border, we knew very well that liberia wasn't safe especially in the most populated which became the epicenter of the disease. we were very aware that we were in a terrible situation. and so by march, precisely march 22 ebola struck. we had a case of the disease and imagine the entire region

guinea, liberia and sierra leone, there was no -- in liberia so we needed to take a specimen across the border to have it tested and know whether or not we were dealing with ebola virus disease. and before that liberia was also battling with lots of feature. the signs and symptoms of ebola are related to some of the common diseases that we were seeing in our health system, fever, headaches, vomiting bleeding from all of the orphans, from your nose, from your ears, from your eyes. those were signs and symptoms of lots of fever. so we could not really distinguish from whether or not it was ebola or fever.

so the first case was that those, our minister of health ebola outbreak was in liberia. we notified the organization we had a strange disease in the region. it was the first time that ebola has left since the history of ebola since 1976 ebola has been in the east african area. we had no knowledge in west africa of such disease, and this was the first time. so the health system was not equipped to the extent of duty with the issue of isolation, testing of people with the disease and all that. so we had to deal with the situation, and to do that we are organized as a government come in initiative health created a national coordinated unit. we were meeting every day

strategizing how to deal with the situation. yet people were getting infected so ahead the first wave of the outbreak in march april. the first wave of the outbreak had only six confirmed cases with six confirmed deaths. so we had a 100% fatality rate of the first wave. we dealt with the situation first wave, and gone at least 60 days without a new case of the disease, but in guinea and then sierra leone got hit in may. guinea and sierra leone were still reporting the virus, so we could not declare a virus over as the country because liberia and guinea, sierra leone we

have enter marriages, we have cross border issues, farming. you can walk across the border and know these close to 100 border crossing points so we could not declare that we were out of the woods as a country. then we had a second wave of the outbreak in guinea. that's major major, terrible fact. it became the epicenter close to the guinea border. we had a number of cases all of the 50 counties for the first time, the capital city of monrovia got hit with the disease. we had a case 14 year-old girl that traveled from sierra leone and settled down with her family in monrovia to monrovia, 1.5 million people, and people

started getting infected from the disease. we had three counties have become the epicenter. by the time we got to tell i june, monrovia got infected in june in june, july, others, the situation was out of control. we were reporting 60 to 70 confirmed cases a day. in august, was terrible. finally, here despair, frustration. the government had to put in place a system to deal with the situation. so my roll from the very beginning of the outbreak, i was chairing one of the groups, the social mobilization component of the outbreak. so my job was to go to all of

the radio stations in liberia, ask them i would go to the rear station at announce that we have a number of cases in the country. we had a number of deaths. so i was giving the daily situation report and explain to the liberian publication pashtun population what ebola was, the signs and symptoms of ebola, how you can prevent yourself from the disease. there was no cure, no faxing. so let's just information that i was talking to international press, the bbc cnn also calling attention. at the time by country offices, our development partners usaid these organizations were focused on development work. so the emergency initiative of these to give that support to

look at this as a threat to humanity have not come. we did not receive that international support by march april, may june, july. so we were calling the world's attention that this was a global health problem that needs the international community support. so by august the world health organization director general did announce that ebola in the region was to be elevated to face three of disease endemic as global international public health problem. then my very, very good friend tom freeney who i must congratulate your, the head of the center for disease control visited the liberia in august, said in some very strong epidemiologist and the rest of

the cdc folks visited liberia and then we sat down and established the incident management system in august, which the president of liberia asked me to lead. so i cheered it, put in place what i will call incident management structure with key areas. those structures did existing before the meeting was established. but it's hard to make it strong with, combined with international partners and experts. so with that the ims incident management system, if you look at the center for disease control, if there's an incident, they have the incident management system to support that. so it's like a replicate of the

cdc's incident management system that i chair in liberia with five areas. number one in august september, the outbreak was very big. 100 confirmed cases a day. people dying in the streets. no treatment there to put people to do with fear desperation and agitation in the community. and so we had to put in place a case management team that's responsible building ebola treatment units. we put in place social mobilization with community engagement in a designated area. we put in a laboratory system, another strategic area epidemiology with contract -- contact and psychosocial support. so those areas were set up and what we did as

commander-in-chief, the president, under the mandate of the president, it was like look, this is a liberian problem. we are in a situation where we have to find a solution for this. so the intervention had to be led by liberians, and so i'm in charge as the commander in chief of this country, and the incident manager was led by liberians. so i chair the incident management system, all of the areas were chaired by liberians but what we did was with our international partners we cooperated in. so each area is chaired by a liberian but co-chaired by an organization like cdc w.h.o. would co-chaired the case management team, social mobilization would be chaired

co-chaired by unicef. psychosocial support, logistics would be co-chaired by the walking program. so we organized this national, multinational response to do with the outbreak. but before we have all of these sophistication's, the liberian people themselves took charge of the disease and then the social mobilization component committed engagement component and the ownership, people change their behavior over time. by september we started seeing him this this in august, this extra measure projection that 1.4 million people were going to die if nothing was done. cdc came up with the report that 20,000 people, w.h.o. said

20,000 people die on a weekly basis. so the liberian people got the message and said look we have to change our behavior. so simple messages were sent out. number one the disease has no cure. the disease has no vaccine. the disease had a very high case fatality rate of close to 25 to 90%. and so but it is preventable. so what you need to do is if someone is sick make sure that you don't touch sick people. make sure that you don't bury the dead. you call the health team. ensure that you wash hands 24 hours with soap and water rain. so everywhere you went in monrovia or everywhere you are right now, they were handwashing corners in shops homes and marketplaces, supermarkets. everywhere there's handwashing corners, people washing their

hands. no touching of dead bodies. so the behavior change alone played a very, very critical role in combination with the huge, huge international support. the international committee community came very late and we are very much grateful when i told you we met in their office under the leadership of president obama and the people of the united states of america. he saw when president obama announced on the request of my president, president ellen johnson-sirleaf common president obama announced that this was this is problem. we started seeing the chinese the europeans the americans and the entire world came to the aid by august september.

we started to construct ebola treatment units with the help of the u.s. government who were working with the u.s. military, the department of defense the first airborne division. major general darryl williams and i were working together. then he left and then major general wolensky, we had a trip. we flew on a u.s. helicopter on the field sometimes to go to construct etus going visit the labs. the country that did not have laboratory system we have nine ebola labs that were installed. we have community care centers about 15 of them reconstructed. community care centers where you move people from the community put in there and get to the point where they have place to be until you prevent secondary

infection. we trained contract -- for you to get ahead of the disease as we did every infected person their contacts must be transferred 21 days. that's very, very important. so it's easier to break the trend of transmission at all of your contacts are on the contact list and if the person is infected and there on the contact list, you can monitor or remove them, but the men and etu, the ebola treatment unit and monitor. so we started seeing the trend of the disease come down between october, september, october and november. and today the exponential measure, increase the number of people going to die from ebola we didn't have that number present.

we had about 3000 confirmed deaths over 3000. we have health care workers. this disease is associated with a section -- affection, caring for your loved ones. so the most infected people were close in the members and health care workers. because health care workers are those that give care to patients. so most of them got infected. we have 300 health care workers that got infection, and 179 of them died from the virus. and so this has really, really struck our human resource development, not only as a country, in the health care sector and i remember a person in october i had to lead a team myself to bury about four human

beings that died from ebola who are looking for place to bury those people. the community people rejected that ebola people should not be buried in the community. so we had to purchase a piece of property from 12:00 in the afternoon up to 2 a.m. in the morning we were still trying to bury these people through a military deployed because there was agitation. the government had to deploy the military help to protect the team and myself. we saw stories where a mother died from the virus, and the little kids would go to suck the mother's breast. we saw those these things happen but we saw stories where relatives would look on their brothers and sisters and they

are placed in body bags and cremated burned, because we have to make sure that people have safe and dignified burials. so the combination of all of these got us to where we are today in liberia. we have 14 of our 15 counties that are freed of ebola for the past 21 days. some have gone 42 days a summit on 60 days. some have gone 90 days. some counties have done more than 95 days without a single ebola case. and this morning i read a report that 14 county are still free from the ebola virus disease. we have transmission still taking place on a weekly basis, sometimes three cases or two cases. but what is important is one

single case of ebola is an outbreak. so the fact that monrovia is too reported one or two cases we are not out of the woods yet. and the fact also that gene sierra leone are still reporting huge number of cases we hope the three countries can get to zero at the same time and then we can celebrate and say okay ebola is over. after ebola is the rebuilding of the health care system. why ebola in the first place? it's because of a weak health care system. it's because of inadequate resources to support the health care system. and so we need to build a health care system, not only pre-ebola but what existed before ebola then we can build a resilient health care system that we can stop not only ebola but other

epidemics in the future. and so this is the role that we play. now we are into phase two of the ebola outbreak. we have for strategy. number one strategy is to continue the community engagement social mobilization campaign. number two strategy of phase two is the rapid isolation treatment of ebola. that is the right strategy. what we do if there's a hotspot of we will move the cases do indeed to you and get the care and put the hospital under control. number four is real-time contact tracing. that is, making sure that every single case case the context are 100% on contact list, making sure we're getting all the contacts to treatment early and

catch secondary infection. and number four, to get us to his ear is the cross-border initiative with guinea, iberia and sierra leone or we can have synergy in our interventions and have the disease under control. but i think the international were and the great hope we got from our international partners under the leadership of the united states government, the major tragic that will happen in guinea sierra leone and liberia is for our international partners, by this time this thing is over to jump on an airplane and move to the capital's in geneva come in washington in new york and leave those health care systems and help us to build the that would be the worst mistake. ebola as i said earlier is not

the only west africa problem. they could have an effect on other part of the world. and so we should take that is very, very seriously. as i listened to the news headlines, cnn, bbc the news headlines which you about nowadays, which hear about these days is syrian more terrorism, and we are not hearing about ebola as we were hearing about ebola in august, september, october and november. that also has an effect because it drives where international sport should go. so we should maintain our focus in the region and ensure that the great hope that we got from the international world take it, getting to zero in countries should be maintained so that we help, to help the national governments, budgetary support make sure the health care

system make sure that our government made a priority, major priorities of madam president ellen johnson-sirleaf. a software company it is agriculture, education, health care and better living for the people of liberia. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. this week we had discussed earlier, this week the president, president obama spoke publicly i believe it was wednesday afternoon to announce that the u.s. response was entering a new phase, that our military would be phasing down to a residual force residual presence of about 100 choose. it had been at its peak at 2800 i believe is the number.

but reaffirming a couple of things very strongly by the president directly, and the messages were that this was succeeding and we were in this new phase, that we were in on the long haul by shifting to a predominantly and overwhelmingly civilian agency, nongovernmental partnership with the government in moving ahead. and, obviously, taking a regionwide approach. it's interesting to remind everyone here, the u.s. response was driven by the tapping into the disastrous assistance accounts, of which by the time ago to the end of the year we had extended summer in the order of $900 million, or made that commitment. actually can how much was expended by the end of the year is not the question, but a

massive equipment on the notice of there was a reprogramming of up to $750 million. the accounting on those expenditures is still not completed. juicy the vastness -- you see the fastest of the response and it was redoubling focus on liberia. and then december congress came forward and made an emergency appropriations of the 5.4 billion, of which 3.7 is outside our borders and arguably 60 or 70% of those funds are going into west africa in his face. there is a focus on building capacity building health security capacity, helping in the recovery strategy. at least for the next two-year period, there is from the u.s. standpoint, there's ample resources. spending those really smartly and wisely been in support of good costed plans is going to be

one of the challenges i think that we face in this period. but we are in i think a fortunate position here. there's always in these emergencies the danger of a sharp, off a cliff, of the emergency phase, the threat fades and interest fades, and there's not that commitment over the transition period and into the longer-term. so having your and reminding us of this is very important. i think some of the athletes have been laid down in terms of the appropriations and the way those are oriented. if you could say a few words in reflection specific about the military engagement and what was the significance in your mind of having a commitment on september 16 by the president of up to 3000 and having the the deployment that followed soon thereafter. if you could say a few words about that. >> thank you. i think by reaction to that is i think the military that their

goal. they met their goal. they were too poor to very wealthy u.s. military able to partner very well with our armed forces of liberia, give them capacity building, that partnership to build more than 17 ebola treatment units in all of our counties. the military did also help with the laboratory testing that got a very fast turnaround time of testing the ebola virus in less than four hours. the results are available. that capacity was built, and logistic capacity also moving around with logistics during the peak of the outbreak. and so i say the military met that goal. so scaling them down from april, i think it's a very good time

timing of time but we have but i do also know is that they need, which we pray for to have more cases, there was an opportunity to get that kind of support back to but i think it met the requirement, it met the goal. we worked together very closely to get ebola treatment unit built, get logistics out of their, make sure that a laboratory system was strengthened build capacity of our laboratory military guys do the job. >> so you feel confident that today you have through the incident with the oversight of incident management system, you have access to sufficient ambulances and laboratories. he had isolation and containment. you have a case investigation contact tracing teams and the data coordination that that

infrastructure is in place but it needs to be sustained and strengthened and as you said, within liberia itself the biggest immediate challenge is in monterey county and monroe the proper, right? >> right. that's correct. our response has reached optimum that we can respond effectively at any time. we can come every county has a well-built unit with the u.s. general was in the last btu second to last btu was installed but we visited every county is having its own ebola treatment unit. that case management component. so if there were any increasing number of cases in any given county, you have at least 50-100

beds that are available. the way to better preposition our labs at regional level. there were nine labs that were taken to liberia place in the region so we can have our technical capacities. it does not affect the contact treasures because they're committed to local volunteers, some of the active case moving from house to house looking for the contact, social mobilization mobilization. the only thing is that how we leverage the resources that were in their within the ebola response to build our normal health care system is what we need to do now with right now the planning processes are going on, building resilient health care system. we have a detailed plan looking

at her health care facilities and how you leverage the resources but it's important to have health care system. raising the kind of resources but yesterday i was at a bank trying to talk to our police their to have some resources that we can raise for our health care system. liberia has -- we are looking up defining additional resources easier to support our clinic and health care centers. it is a critical challenge. we lost a lot of our health workers that i told you about to the conference in health care system has to be built so that people can have the confidence to utilize health care system by doing that. you have to train more physicians begin to train more

physician assistants began to train nurses, midwives. even allowed to we've we have still not gotten to the level yet where somebody can walk less than one hour to get to a health care facility. with those kind of system you need your health care workers to provide services from preventable diseases, improve your immunization system improve your health capacity strengthen infrastructure supply chain and all of these services need to be but how do you leverage of these resources for ebola to get the health care system support? and the united nations has also been very, very much helpful in assistance w.h.o., for the first on the united nations established the united nations the ebola response but for the first time for the u.n. security council to approve establishing a separate nation for ebola.

we think that was very fired much need for. this multinational partnership was critical in the response. >> can you say a word about two issues, and then i would like to open to the floor. first is the regional context. there's a lot of diplomatic activity at a very high level trying to figure out how to coordinate and it together across the county or district on these large border areas where there's huge vulnerabilities of the importation, or just not knowing what's going on. so as you move towards zero within liberia, the bigger regional context becomes ever more important in understanding and beginning to get a better understanding and better control over that. and i know your president has been in the lead in trying to stir action in that area. we are is that leading, in your

view? >> that's a critical point from day one, has been on the mind of the president of liberia. she's the director of a technical team leading the response to give support to the rest of the two countries. so i remember we took some ppe's, that's a personal protective equipment for ebola, the suit that people were provided some for sierra leone. we took some of our equipment and lab services provided in sierra leone. our health care workers have been mobilizing to also support sierra leone so that we get to zero at the same time can likewise in guinea. we have one of our counties which is gone 62 days without ebola. but then across the border with

the guinea you have a town that was very active, huge transmission. they were reporting 50 cases a day. and so somebody left from their traveled because she had parents. so traveled from gaining and got infected. similarly in the area people will leave comments of right now we are very much concerned that it has gone more than 90 days without a single case. so the cross-border i mentioned is very, very, very much critical. we have to work together as a team to address that. we are working at three-pronged approach. the technical team working together as one prong. the community engagement working together, and that a political level the president our head of

this, president sirleaf president conti and working very closely together, having regular summit to the threat, and gave us the support and technical people to move across the border, move interventions across the three border areas. because if you see, right now liberia, all of the counties along the border area with the guinea and sierra leone for liberia was clear. there is no ebola transmission taking place from the liberia side of the border. but across in guinea, there's active transmission still going on. in areas like our last county near the border that got clear with transmission of disease. it has gone over 25 days, and

then transmission. so liberia has been clear with ebola area. so our concentration is how can you go close to the guinea border, and if there are cases in guinea you can bring them across liberia, given treatment and our treatment you know make our active case files our contact community health volunteers, community engagement, that kind of collaboration with guinea, liberia and security alone with cross-border support is part of the intervention. so we are working on that very closely. ..

as a country to find a permanent solution and this is not the first time liberia is making history in the global health community. in liberia we were able to carry on for today we've got 19

countries in the region. it's important to find a solution. and the lasting solution for the background is immunization for the prevention. immunization [inaudible] team led the party in the world and headed to the global effort and in a word he was one of the professors at the university.

we eradicated because of that. today for you also we have three countries in the world but still have -- nigeria is very well now with pakistan and somalia and a few years ago to eradicate and this is because of the vaccination. in our expanded program we have nine and the reason i'm giving this history is for us to have the confidence or the randomized clinical trial for the vaccine on the way right now to go ahead and for us to be hopeful we will

have a vaccine this year for ebola. but before i left liberia on sunday we had about 80% already in the trial. it is expected that by the first of march 02 the trial we have 27,000 people to study the cost. during the health and the liberian government and the institute for biomedical research. on this partnership and we hope that we can have a lasting

solution for the rest of the world for ebola. let's move to the audience. we can have the vaccines if they can work at the end of the year if we can have a vaccine for ebola then i think that's what made significant process. we are going to take a number of comments and bundle them together. i'm the director of the prince spoke cropped center on the national security here at the atlantic council and in the center is our brilliant director of the cyber statecraft initiative who you will hear more about later. welcome to this event on breaking the cyber information

sharing. you see the publication out there for your reference. this will be a moderated discussion on the challenges that limit cyber information sharing, the administration recent proposals to address those gaps in the exemplary sharing that was evident in the identification and remediation of the recently disclosed vulnerability. this event is part of the cyber risk areas that is the monthly speakers series designed to bring cyber experts from government industry together with policymakers to examine topics at the core of the cyber statecraft initiative here. in particular the core mission is building a sustainable cyberspace. today's event is quite timely as i'm sure that most of you know. just last friday president obama visited silicon valley to sign a new executive order that will encourage and promote the sharing of cyber security threat

information between the private sector and federal government rapid information sharing is clearly in a central element of effective cybersecurity because it ensures that u.s. companies worked together to respond to threats rather than operating a load without any collaboration. so the executive order lays out the framework for the expanded information sharing designed to help companies collaborate with the government to protect against cyber threats. removing barriers to improve the delivery of the timely and relevant intelligence to the private sector to the renewed interest and passing the much-needed legislation come of this year 2015 is really shaping up to be an incredible year for the improved cyber collaboration across the public and private sectors. we at the atlantic council pay special attention to the important role that it plays in defending against the expanded list of cyber challenges that face us all in august and december last year j. convened a

panel for the closed discussions about the challenges and opportunities for the increased cyber sharing, cyber information sharing. today's event in the publication that's out there that was just released this morning morning emanates directly from those discussions towards the end of 2014. in the interest of information sharing it seemed disingenuous to keep the lessons learned from those private sessions close to the vest for very long so i'm pleased we're able to post this from all of the representatives of the relevant sectors. with us this afternoon is a very distinguished group of all well-versed in the real world nuances of the challenges and the potential of cyber information sharing delivering opening remarks we are very pleased to have michael daniel specialists to the president and

cyber security coordinator at the white house. thanks very much for coming and good to see you again. as the lead for cyber issues on the national security council staff, mr. daniel has the interagency development of the national cyber security strategy and policy and he oversees the implementation of the policies across the federal government and in this world implementation is really everything. we were discussing that before this event. in the public sector focus mr. daniel also ensures the federal government is effectively partnering in the private sector with nongovernmental organizations in a wide range of the foreign governments around the world. prior, mr. daniel served 17 years with the office of management and budget, a very impressive length of tenure and that is imploding from september, 2001 to june 2012 when he served as the chief of

the intelligence branch national security division as a career senior executive service member. so, not surprisingly we are very much looking forward to hearing from yesterday until today on the initiatives as we work towards a better understanding of the efforts to enhance cyber information sharing. i've talked way too long to let me pass the floor to mr. daniel. thanks very much. [applause] >> thank you. last week when we were out in california, we both lisa my boss the president we were all able to make remarks about how they were happy to be there in the weather and i'm wondering why i left from stanford where it was like 75 degrees. so i very much like the title of this particular events breaking the information logjam because it sort of implies that behind

the logjam there is a whole vast amount of information that's waiting to be shared. and so i think that that's actually not true. several years ago that might not have been the case. but now i think that we are in a position where we do have a lot more information that could be shared that could be relevant to what we are doing. some of us have been talking about information sharing for some heat period of time and i know some that are sick of talking about information sharing that and talking about it for so long. i think that he said there are 200 for this event so that means there's at least 250 opinions on what information sharing actually is. i'm going to tell you a little bit about what we are trying to do from the administration side of getting sued some concrete solutions on improving the

amount of information sharing that goes into the relation of cybersecurity and then hopefully set up the panel by talking about some of the reasons why we want to do that information sharing. you know just i mean, this information sharing has been a pretty consistent theme for this administration since the beginning. but just over the last few weeks, we have had several big announcements including the announcement of the cyber threat intelligence integration center to the cyber summit that happened last week and then the information sharing and analysis organization executive order president signed. so let me go over some of those and then kind of set it up for the panel. so last week lisa announced that we would be developing a cyber threat integration center ctic. we are sticking with the pronunciation right now.

about really, the ctic is designed to fill in a particular gap that we have seen on the administration side. it's not meant or intended to compete with the existing centers and it is actually designed to make their lives better and enable them to achieve their missions more effectively. so what is the ctic really supposed to do? it is supposed to provide that innovative all source analysis of what we know about cyber threats particularly the foreign cyber threats. who are they and what are their motivations, what is the context in which they are carrying out their activities and how is it that we can best to begin to develop the defenses against them based on what we know about who they are and what they are trying to achieve? it is designed to make sure that the existing centers the

national cyber security communications integration center, to the national cyber investigative task force, that cyber command and others get the information that they need in order to do their job. that they are getting the access to the intelligence that they need. so in many ways, you can trawl the parallel to what we did in creating the national terrorism center after 9/11. i'm always hesitant to raise the parallel because instantly everybody's mind thinks that i intended to push forward in building the liberty crossing which is really not what we are trying to do. it's supposed to be a much smaller and leaner organization that will rely on the existing centers. so really it is about the government getting its back in better shape for information sharing, not about interfacing in the private sector, that is the law enforcement job. it's not about sort of directly

supporting and interacting with the private sector. it's about enabling the government to do a better job in the management and incident response. so, that was on tuesday. so then by friday, we had a cyber security summit last week and despite the fact that it was on friday the 13th all the way out in california it actually went off pretty much without a hitch which was rather amazing given the amount of time that we had to put the event together. and it really brought together by government and private sector experts from around the country to expand the dialogue on these issues. one of the points that both lisa and the president hit on at the summit and that i've spoken on before is that cybersecurity really is a shared responsibility between the government and the private

sector. there is almost no other issue in the national security and the economic security space in this way that is shared in that manner. if you think about a lot of the other missions that have a national security focus, counterterrorism border security other things those are very much government responsibilities and the government has the lead. but in cybersecurity that isn't true. the vast majority not just the critical infrastructure but the networks in the country are owned and operated by the private sector. the private sector is the repository of much of the information about what is actually going on in cyberspace. and given the nature of cyberspace and how it functions out the very physics and math that underlie the network like that mean that we can't simply a sign the responsibility of cybersecurity to the federal government or to any government

agency. whether you are talking state, local or at the federal level. and it's one that the private sector will always have to be involved in and that means that we are having to charge some new ways of doing business in this country and some new ways of interacting between the government and the private sector. but they do not fall neatly into the traditional regulatory or contractual categories that we've had. so as a result, we are struggling to figure out what those relationships are going to be and i think what you are seeing in the policy process that makes this part of the policy process so interesting and fascinating to me as we are building those relationships right now. we are defining right now in the next three to four years we will be defining how a lot of these relationships will operate for the next 50. so if that isn't enough to scare you, then i haven't been doing my job because this is clearly some of the most important policy issues and challenges that we have been facing in the

early part of the 21st century. i think that you know one of the key outcomes is the private sector companies made a range of commitments including committing to form information sharing organizations into developing the best practices for those information sharing groups, announcing that they won't use the framework to assess the cyber risk and require the vendors to use it. one even referred to it as a rosetta stone which made him quite happy them quite happy to be compared to rosetta stone. finally come at the summit, the president signed a new executive order to include to encourage the expansion of information sharing in the private sector. so, let me hit on a few things. it encourages organizations to form information sharing and analysis organizations. and if you actually look we are

in washington, we have an acronym that i don't know how to do it otherwise. they already exist in law. they are created in the homeland security act that we haven't used the term much. the very important key form of isao and support from isao will be important for cybersecurity to develop into to continue to improve. but we envision it as being broad and the broad concept but just go to both the steady state, national sharing industry groups but other also types to be coat other types of groups like the area council were one that is temporary based on a particular threats like the working group. and the individual company that facilitates the sharing among its customers like symantec. the public-private partnership

like the national cyber for insect training alliance in pittsburgh. so the call for the creation of a baseline, so dhs will find the private sector nonprofits to develop the baseline and at the baseline will be developed in a multistate clerk processed with the private sector. and it will enable them to demonstrate that they will handle the information that they are being called upon to share responsibly. and so part of the reason for doing this expansion of this concept is so that we can broaden out what is possible in the information so sharing space as much as we can because we believe this is such a foundational capability that we need to have that basis and foundation the as much as possible. now it clarifies the ability to enter the agreement with isao. they don't have to share with the federal government in fact

we hope that many of them will focus on the private sector sharing. those that do share with the government don't need to share although we anticipate that many will. but it makes clear how it can share the cyber threat information. now, tied to the legislative proposal that the administration made, we highlighted the fact that in our proposal we would tie the liability protection to the isao which is another reason why we proceeded with the executive order so that it would be clear what the baseline capabilities and responsibilities for the isao would be if we are going to tie the liability protection we felt that that was a necessary step. it also streamlines the process for the private sector entities to access the qualified cyber threat information. so, that part is rather obscure because it actually addresses the national industrial security

program essentially. but really it is completely in the clickable. but what it essentially does is modifies in the previous year to make it easier for the government to proceed with granting the clearances to people in the private sector. it enables us to avoid some of the overhead that we have been really struggling with. so, isao don't need to have this. but if they want that capability coming and we have heard from many that that is a capability that they would like so it's something that we have wanted to provide. so, one of the things that i hope the conversation can go forward with today is a deeper discussion on the ends that we are trying to achieve. information sharing and and of itself is not the end. we don't want to share information for the sake of sharing information. we want to achieve something

with that and i think that part of the way to break the logjam is by focusing in on some of the outcomes that we want to achieve and deviating about whether or not those are the policy ends that we want to get to so for example if we want to create this concept of a cyber weather map, something that dhs talked a lot about and has promoted. if that is our policy goal and one that we at the white house support, then that necessitates one kind of information sharing and we should explore. so the analogy that we need a different kind of sharing to occur and the policy ramifications of that. if we want to develop defenses so that they can move at the speed that the bad guys move and

undermine their economic and business model that they are using, that is another kind of information sharing. so i think that we really need to be working through these areas and states that we are trying to achieve and really get down to a very detailed session of the kind of information literally don't field level almost of saying here are the pieces of information that we want to share and what are the actual policy and legal ramifications and limitations on doing that sharing debate and i suspect that when we do that we will find that it is much the limitations are much less than we are actually afraid of when we are still talking here at the abstract level. i'm looking forward to continuing the momentum coming out of the summit and i'm very excited about the different lines of policy efforts going on right now. there's a lot going on and we

have the opportunity to make some excellent progress here in 2015. i hope that the panel goes well. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. i'm the director of the cyber initiative here at the atlantic council. it's good to see so many faces here. so this is part of the series. it's usually every third wednesday and it's meant for the cyber topics and we might normally get the think tank event and also the chance to network afterwards we can continue the conversations

because it happens all too often that we will start something interesting here in dc and then we never get a chance to finish it to there yet hopefully we will see at the next fire wednesday that will be at the 18th of march to look at the healthcare internet of things and how we can secure the medical devices for hospital equipment and make sure that we get all the benefits from those that we can in a project the project that we have been doing with mcafee. to continue the conversation on inverse -- information sharing, to my left, marcus sachs here in his hat from the communications isac that has been on information sharing and we've been friends since the early days of some of the cyber and also a longtime friend and one of our non- resident senior fellows here.

jeff hasn't only been involved in a lot of information sharing over the years but also, recent his company recently discovered that came out in microsoft's patch on tuesday and it is a very was a very elaborate information sharing that went on with the vendor. some of you might not have heard about it and that is a good thing. it was potentially bad or worse and heartening. but it got taken care of between the discoverers and the vendors to make sure that it is wouldn't be as significant a problem as some of the other former abilities that hit the internet. i will start to my left. we will talk for a couple minutes here and then go to questions and answers from the audience. >> anything else you would like to add? what do you think is good to be

more important over time, the information sharing in the government or the isao? >> we feel there are different kinds of information sharing and we tend to lump them altogether. we think about it as getting government information out to the private sector. that's one kind of information sharing from government to private. there we have now this executive order that came out two years ago in the critical infrastructure which kind of shifted the presumption that information should be shared and we tried to get that presumption out. we think that made a big difference in getting out more information from the government to the private sector and we heard different things about the effort. one area that is sort of tied up and got held back was in terms of getting the company is clear to get the remaining classified information. >> so if the fbi or the

communities found information about the u.s. companies that have been hacked from whatever sources they had come at the presumption, the default is now -- >> that is what changed two years ago in the executive order 13363 for those at home. so that -- we changed in that regard. the new executive order that was signed one thing you will it will do is make it so that we can make it more easy to clear up the nondefense contractors. one thing that we found is that a lot of the rules for the clearances have been written for the defense contractors specifically because they are the ones that need a clearance the clearance that we are trying to share the critical information companies, so we need to be able to share with them so we are making efforts in that way to share with them. so i guess i'm saying in that

space, sharing the government and the private sector we are taking that regard. we have private to private sharing as well that we are trying to promote more companies to share information among each other in the sectors and the region and the threat-based sharing to expand all of that in the executive order that was just signed and it focuses on that in a new way by promoting the idea of information sharing standards and getting the new standards out so that we can share more information across the board and create this idea of promoting those efforts to share private to private. again it's an extremely important piece. there's another piece which is private sector to government which is also extremely important if we are going to see the threats that are out there, the incidences that are happening. the government is the place to do that across all the different sectors. the government has its own thread so they can tie that information in and how do we get that information into better? then we hear from the government that