trouble controlling that on social media. .. >> in the beginning when a lot of this began, there was a consent called five star jihad where they were putting out, you know, they'd shaken over some guy's villa, and they were swim anything a nice pool in the back, and they were saying, hey,

come on down. for a while, i actually took a lot of screen grabs of food pictures that they had posted. we had swedish gummy bears from swedish jihadis, guys posting ca babs or a manage -- mango milk shake. or the epitome of an identity crisis where you have a pakistani ethnicity u.k. resident living in syria referring to pizza as home-cooked food. so i think to educate people just by using their own mistakes their own failings, this is another way in which we can achieve our objective. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator peters. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to the panelists for your testimony today. i want to explore a little bit more in depth about some of the countermessaging that we need to do, particularly with the broader muslim community here in the united states. i think it's important to remember when we're talking about folks who are engaged in

these activities with extremism it's just a tiny tiny sliver of the muslim community here in the united states. i have a very large middle eastern population in michigan one of the largest middle eastern population outside the middle east, as you know in my community, and it certainly is an opportunity for us to harness that community which is strongly opposed to isis and other extremist groups. in fact, there are regular protests against the activities of isis as a perversionover islam and not -- of islam and not reflective of the broader community. folks want to be engaged in that countermessaging which i think ultimately, is the way you delegitimize the ideology associated with it. i know the white house has made this a priority with their efforts. it was also part of the summit on countering violent extremism this year. but a 2013 rand corporation

report -- [inaudible] among american muslims as well as the oversecurityized approach to government engagement with the muslim community. i've heard from some of my constituents who are concerned about pushing back sometimes against this violent extremism and these lies online because they think it might draw undue attention to them personally as they engage even though these are anti messaging they are doing. some of them have experienced racial profiling, other activities at airports because of their muslim heritage and so have certainly some level of distrust when it comes to law enforcement activities. and yet this is an incredible opportunity for us to use patriotic americans muslim-americans who live here in our country. if the panelists could address a little bit how can we engage in community? what would you suggest? what are the messages that'll be

important? perhaps, mr. shaikh, i know you have dealt with this, but others' comments as well. >> thank you very much. so i was also -- i'm doing my ph.d. in psychology, and i'm looking at community interveners and what works in intervention programmings. and there is this, i call them professional obstructionists community organizations who i mean, they have hyperdefensive. they really mistrust the government, and have portrayed any kind of even meaningful, sincere interactions between law enforcement and the community as just an excuse to intelligence gather. so given that level of mistrust how can we do it? i think there is a way to do it. first and foremost, the muslim community understands that as you're observed, the muslim community doesn't want anything to do with isis. and really if you look at the tens of millions of muslims that are living in europe, north america in total, you know, we

have a maximum amount of 5,000 western foreign fighters. that is a very very small number of people. so i think first and foremost, the muslim community needs to understand that it affects us, first and foremost, i think. i mean, isis kills more muslims than non-muslims. and when they do what they do, it's the muslim community that feels the retaliation, the discrimination the marginalization. so it's a responsibility on behalf of -- i think it's on behalf of the religion. i mean, they -- i mean, we have a duty to speak up and give the correct understanding of the religion, lead by example. and there is a way to still work with law enforcement but at the same time keep them arm's length. and that is to use programming that is developed in house, in the communities where the law enforcement agencies understand what the communities are using so that they can back off and say, yeah we understand that they have this, you know, identifying vulnerable persons guide, let's say, and we understand that they have a

mechanism in place where they can give rehabilitate i programming without it necessarily being a top-down approach. and just lastly i think, of course, people have their views you know, free speech, of course, but we have to be very careful not to perpetuate the isis ideology which is islam is to blame. because if we do that and if we say that, yeah, you know, muslims are terrorists, and islam is all terrorism, that is exactly what icy says -- isis says. and i've seen people who are very anti-muslim, they use the exact same verses of the quran that isis uses. and if you didn't see the name, you would swear it was an isis account doing the promoting. so i think there are multiple layers to this, and it can be done, but it needs solid direction, i think and community leadership. >> and direction from within the community. >> within the community. >> that's an organic process. >> yes. >> but also in that process law enforcement here in the united states understand that to let

the community lead and back it up and to back off if i'm -- >> yeah. >> [inaudible] >> local police, i think, are best suited for this because the local police are the ones who respond if somebody throws a rock through the mosque or if there's a crime that happens in the community. they're not seen as investigating terrorism like the fbi might be. the fbi will be big problems in dealing with them at that level. so there is a way to develop those relationships, and itym needs to be done. >> right, thank you.s anybody else want to add to that? >> just a couple specificu! examples. we can't takeç down all bad speech even though that's desirable, but we can help reinforceç speech. a muslim-american lawyer goes around the country training imams, manyñr of whom really don't understand how the internet works, about how to use itw3 themself google rankings and j so that's one very con treat thing because it's -- concrete

thing. success is where nothing happens. so, you know, but this, i think is an example of something th@d is concrete and working.ñr another is a woman from oxford who is ago regating all saw -- aggregating all satirical content aboutç isis online. and finally for thefá u.s. government u.s. government can't engage in any kind of theological debate for all sorts of reasons but the message that u.s. government officials should constantly say is this group positions itself as a defender of islam but its victims are overwhelmingly muslim. it's a factually correct statement that requires no special knowledge of islam and i think it's a powerfully undercutting message for what this group is trying to say about themselves to the muslim world. >> thank you. i'm out of time. >> thank you senator peters. senator booker. >> i'm going to jump right in. i have to say in preparing for this hearing i was surprised if not stunned, at how we're approaching our messaging and our countermessaging, frankly.

i find it clearly that there are about 2.9 million muslims living in the united states, and half of them are under 30. we're talking about a very young population. now, i agree with senator peters the overwhelming 99 .whatever percent are good young people that reflect the rest of the population. but we're dealing with a population of young people that are on line and engaged in an extraordinary manner. and in the middle east, you have even a greater percentage of people that are under 30 years old. and the new form of communication is social media. 90% of americans age 18-29 use social media. nine in ten 18-29-year-olds watch online video, and almost half of them, that's where they get their news. i know a little bit about social media, i have to say, and when i started going around to the sites that we have in our various agencies, dhs national counterterrorism, state

department, i was shocked at what we're doing in countermessaging. i want to pass this ipad around to my, to my colleagues, and two things to take note of. there are two tabs at the top, and you can toggle between. one is just a youtube video and there's hundreds of hours going up every minute on youtube, and the videos they're doing are incredibly slick, fancy and attractive. you're a bunch of extremist terrorists giving out things to kids and sharing the light. if you toggle back over to the united states and what we're doing, here is the thank and turn away web site by the department of state. if you look if you know anything about social media one of the things you should look at is the engagement of people on our social media feeds and it's laughable. three retweets, two retweets. now, if you think about this, last year or at least fiscal year '13 and you can pass this down to my colleagues, we spent $196 million on voice of

america. this is old school media. it's radio and the like. and mr. garten steven ross, maybe you know, how much are we investing for social media countermessaging? >> they don't specifically budget it out separately, but it's a small percentage of what's being done. and further as you point out, a lot of times what we push out via social media is very crude. >> i mean, crude is a generous statement. [laughter] you know you said a wonderful phrase. you said we need to compete at the speed of social media. mr. bergen, you said in your written testimony that the one thing that unifies these folks is their age and that they're online. and you would think that if this is one of the threats and we've asked counterterrorism people here from the united states what's their biggest concern is domestic lone wolf individuals this is where the majority of

them are getting radicalized which is online in social media. and if we have an inadequate response to that, it's very frustrating. now, if i could -- mr. shaikh, am i -- sir, your work is incredible. i see you online trying to push back on this. there are easy tactics. i know them, as you said, from politics how to get more voice and virility to messaging that we're not using as a government to get countermessagings occupant there. you know, i know something about means -- out there. muslims killing muslims to get memes to go more viral. look at their fancy memes compared to what we're not doing. so i just want to start with mr. shaikh. i mean it looks like to me that you're trying to do countermessaging, but we have a government that's spending millions and millions of dollars on old school forms of media and as you said mr. garre ten

steven ross, very crude efforts. what do you imagine could be done if we were going to do an effective social media/online countering effort? >> thank you very much. you know, in some kind of defense to the center for strategic counterterrorism communications, we have a very small group of people. their trying to con the space and they're -- contest the space, and they're trying to do something, and i get that. yes, crude is a very polite statement. look at the end of the day, if you want to fight back against recruitment of 15-year-old kids you need to work with 15-year-old kids. when i see my own kids showing examples of what affects them and what motivates them and what resonates with them, it tells me that this is exactly what you need to do; talk to the kids. they can do a really good job. with respect to producing material, you know one of the

comments that i said was i mean really, i feel that it is unacceptable -- especially given, you know, you have hollywood in the u.s. you have people who you don't even need to go at that level. maybe this is something that should be done to go at that level, i mean to blow the production capabilities out of the water. but even college levels, high school kids to be giving projects for them to do just as part of a school project as part of a civic engagement project, even organizations. maybe you have ngos who could fund projects within the community to come up with these sorts of things. the government is really not well placed other than if you were to take it to the covert lev of psychological -- level of psychological operations and then you do have individuals who know influence activities, who know to generate stuff which they can employ in a more covert manner. again, multiple layers -- >> and mr. bergen i have very little time left.

when i was mayor of newark we saw the mentions of our city were incredibly negative, and we set out on social media z and used this analysis to see to change the brand of our city. and i'm just wondering, you talk about crowding out the negative messages, and i've seen people do this in many different forms lots of different strategyings. how do you characterize what we are doing to crowd out the negative messages, to arm many of the people within the american-muslim community and others to sort of compete within this space to begin -- is there a better way to centralize and coordinate across numerous agencies a better push for the united states? >> nascent, is how i characterize what we're doing. nctc has been doing some of this work and trying to work with some of the tech companies and the muslim-american community. there's a kiss of death with the

government and it has to be hands off. there are people out there doing the kind of work that's necessary, so -- >> okay. chairman, thank you very much. >> thank you, senator booker. there's an obvious piece of legislation that we need to start working on. i've already directed staff but let's face it, we invented the internet the social network sites, we've got hollywood. we've got the capabilities to blow these guys out of the water from the standpoint of communications. so we need to work on that, we need to work on that quickly, so i hope you'll engage in that effort. senator ayotte. >> i want to thank the chairman and appreciate senator booker's comments as well. it strikes me, though in hearing your answers it makes sense this isn't going to just be a government function, because government isn't particularly well at some of these updated use of technology, and so i think engaging the private sector, engaging, you know ngos and others to help us do that, and we can provide

you know, the support for that, but i think that would be great to establish those partnerships to be able to make that happen. i was very interested in reading in your testimony especially, mr. bergen about women, that there seems to be an attraction for young women that they're recruiting with with more than i think a historical basis to isis. can you talk to me about that? it seems to me that as i look at some of these uses on social media, they almost romanticize what is happening over in iraq and syria and what these women who might want to either join or, i guess, connect themselves in the u.s. or in some other western country with isis. and is so it strikes me that the more we can get the truth out also whether it's embedding

reporters or what's really the conditions -- i know it's very dangerous, so that's challenging, but however we can get truth out of what's really happening on the ground and the caliphate that this isn't some kind of romantic endeavor that you're probably traveling to or asking to engage in. so i wanted to get thoughts on how we address this with women. >> that's right, senator. about 10% overall from the west are women unprecedented. why are they going there? they may well meet their perfect marriage partner. the average age is 19, so -- but how do we contest that? you're exactly right disillusioned former militants who can speak the truth and amplifying their voices, that's by far the most effective thing we can do. so it's finding those people and there are already people coming back. we saw this in the minnesota case when people started saying well, wait a minute, it's not the promised land. but it took two or three years.

and, you know, i'm sure this can be amplified. we're at the point where there are not bad stories coming out. >> yeah. i think when we're looking at trying to undermine isis' messaging, one problem we have is that the information we have that does undermine their projection of strength, of this utopian society is mostly eye witness testimony from defectors, and that's not as compelling as photographs video and audio. so, you know one of the things that i've proposed is inas much as we can deploy intelligence assets to get pictures of what's going on in these areas things that are much more gripping and much more compelling instead of just one person's story which is easy for a radical to dismiss because they're already convinced they have the right idea anyway. >> if i could jump in, there is on the flip side of this there's

a wonderful site which is a twitter feed of what's going on in morocco. there's pictures of bread lines. so the point is there is an alternative universe on social media that's portraying what's really happening that exists, and we should understand and know about. >> absolutely. and we should promote it. >> yeah. >> and encourage people to see what really is happening. because i think there is sort of a row plantized -- romanticized view being pushed that's attractive to people. i wanted to get your thoughts, all of you, on the leader of isis,al al-baghdadi. he seems to have -- using social media, using information to put out a certain image of himself that is not that does not line up with the truth. so how do we -- what's your thought on the leader? i understand we take out the leader and another leader can follow, but he seems to have portrayed himself in a certain way, and what thoughts do you

have for us to try to undermine the leadership of -- to show that they're not really who they purport to be? >> so i think baghdadi's kind of an interesting figure in this context. he's in some ways an empty suit or a rorschach test. he has a basic biography which is carefully calculated to support the legitimacy of naming him ca live. we know about him through independent reporting, but the image that he projects is really somebody who appears rarely, who speaks in jihadist platitudes, and as such he is somewhat replaceable. you can bring your expectations to who he is and understand him in the context that you want. he doesn't have the same powerful cult of personality that somebody like osama bin laden did. he is replaceable, you know, and i would assume that isis has a plan for his succession, because they do have to meet certain cry

criteria. it's not like al-qaeda where you can just give the guy who has the most seniority the job. and he may be an important strategic thinker in the group. there's some reason to think that so replacing him may undercut their ability to operate, but it may not. >> i think we touched on this earlier, but how important in all this context is it that we thinking about what isis is doing, actually, on the ground in trying to establish this caliphate in iraq and syria -- i serve on the armed services committee as well -- that we continue to, you know, work with our partners there to actually diminish their capacity? i think i heard one of you say that the fact that they control territory gives them a greater ability to recruit because it shows their legitimacy, and the more we can -- so it's almost like we have to be addressing this on all fronts, it seems. >> i think the short answer is yes to that. >> one element of this that i would just bring up because we've talked a lot about how their loss of territory would undermine their recruiting, and

it would, but isis is also an apocalyptic group, and traditionally what happens with groups like this is when the prophesies that they are fulfilling turn out not to be correct, they will often double down on violence. so isis could lose its territory, we could undercut its recruiting, but we could see very disastrous secondary effects to that. >> we've seen that with al-qaeda. >> we've seen it with al-shabaab, and they don't have the same platform or prophesy that isis has built itself on. so yeah. >> great. thank you. >> thank you, senator ayotte. senator portman. >> thanks, mr. chairman. thanks for having the hearing and this has been fascinating, and i really appreciate the experts coming and talking to us about this. let me just give you an interesting case study from ohio. you know, the middle of the country. like every other state here, you know, we're concerned about

radicalization, and there were recently two cases. one is christopher lee cornell some of you know 20-year-old cincinnati, ohio my hometown, wanted to come here and bomb the capitol. that happened earlier this year. he's now under arrest. just last month shake mohammed of columbus was indicted he actually became the first american, as i understand it, accused of train anything syria and returning to try to conduct a terrorist attack here in the united states. so one is a classic lone wolf, right? so he's on the internet, gets radicalized, a loner. the second is a member of a community in central ohio, as i understand it, the somali community. i know a number of members of that community. they're very concerned about the radicalization. they are engaged and involved in it. the leaders are working hard to have a productive dialogue about

it, some of the things you all talked about they are doing. and it's two very different challenges. and we've talked more about the community one and i'd like to hear more about that if you have thoughts but also about, you know, the lone wolf. and maybe this goes to more what senator booker was talking about. i looked at your appendices mr. shaikh and unbelievable, you know, the kinds of stuff that they are doing. we certainly have the capability to do more with more resources. so i guess my first question would be do you view these as two distinct challenges with two very different strategies, and just assessing the two strategies, and a subpart of that would be a specific question i've always had. you've got three groups, dhs nctc and fbi, you know, all working together to try to support these community outreach programs understanding that, as mr. shaikh staid, local police -- said, frankly, local

police are not going to have access to that. are they doing a good job coordinating or should there be one agency that has more responsibility and therefore, accountability? and i will open it up. i'd like to hear from all of you. >> you know, training overseas makes you more dangerous. we saw in paris that the fact that one of the perpetrators had trained with al-qaeda in yemen made it a much more effective attack so, yes they're very different, and lone wolfs have a natural ceiling to what they can do because they're operating alone, and they usually don't have training. they are two separate issues. i'm glad you mentioned senator portman, mr. mohamed from cincinnati ohio, because he's the only returnee who's come back to the united states who's alleged to have -- >> columbus. >> columbus. pardon me, sir. traditionally, he was trained by nusra which is the al-qaeda affiliate in syria. so the focus is a lot on isis, but we -- the two cases of americans coming back to the united states, one of whom

didn't plot anything here, one who's alleged to were both nusra. so we need to keep that in mind. >> this is particularly troubling and interesting because it wasn't al-shabaab, even though it's my understanding he came from the somali community and you would have thought it would have been al-shabaab. >> i think in that particular case it was not clear in the court documents exactly who he had trained with. he had started with nusra and then he went to an unspecified training camp and talked to unspecified clerics while he was posting about the islamic state. in terms of the problems these are two different problems. we could see, we could see isis try and bridge the two to coordinate loosely lone wolf type activity with organized type terrorist activity. in the case of this returnee, you know, this may be a dry run to see what happens when you send somebody back. we have seen that isis has had return fighters who have been active in europe. we've seen at least one case of

what was described by investigators as an isis operational cell in belgium. you know there's not much reason to think that they won't try this kind of thing. so, you know, we need to sort of keep an eye on this as it develops. the lone wolf piece of it is easy for them. it's easy, it's something they've proven that they're pretty good at relative to other groups. and it's going to capture a lot of headlines for them without a big investment. so the question is how much they want to invest in a tax -- in attacks, and that's unclear. >> could you talk about the coordination between dhs and the fbi and the nctc? >> yeah. there is a dhs coordinator on cve, on counterrerring violent extremism, david gersten comes from a civil liberties background, which i was pleasantly surprised to see that

dhs is putting that kind of resource in that area. the office of civil rights and civil liberties is also looking at how to avoid the securitization aspect of it. the securitization aspect of it is really poisonous to the cve branding i think. has communities if they perceive especially at the behest of what i call these obstructionist community groups who are really giving a false narrative of what the government is trying to do, it will continue to be a problem. if i could just quickly make a point on the lone wolf. you know, what kind of lone wolfs are we talking about? i call them isis zombies. these are the self-act vaising -- activating, might have mental health issues, really low level of competency. but then you could have directed attackers who let's say, are syria returnees and do have a level of competency where just one person can pull off an effective attack. in paris, of course, only two

guys did what they did. so you could easily have a cell of, you know six people, three two-man teams to go and do simultaneous attacks and would really cause some great disruption. so there are again a number of threats in that spectrum. >> just back to the community for a second. you were making the point that we need to do a better job of providing best practices community by community. it would be different, local face, you said, was important in getting the community engaged and involved, and as i said, the small community in central ohio has engaged in an effective dialogue. is the federal government where we have responsibility doing an effective job of coordinating between the three agencies i mentioned and perhaps even some more agencies that are on the intelligence side? is that working or should there be more accountability that comes from more definitive responsibility? >> it is, it is working. i am positive, optimistic on that side first and foremost

because there was no coordinator before. and so now that there is a coordinator and that that is happening, it's a positive step. it's running into these issues of critics saying, you know with these are just -- this is just an excuse to intelligence gather. but i think dhs and their particular mechanisms that are working on cve are trying to navigate this space as best as possible. >> thank you senator portman. we'll start another round. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i started my opening statement with the description of that posting with the claim that there are 71 trained fighters, 23 have accepted assignments. again, nobody knows whether that's bluster or whether it's real. i will ask the question, is that an unprecedented posting? have we seen similar things like that, similar threats that simply haven't panned out? anybody? >> i think we have multiple times, and i'll give you an example. you remember the blackout on the

east coast i think it was in 2005. some jihadi group claimed credit. so, i mean, merely because they say something doesn't mean it's true. >> what about from isis, though, recently? is that kind of unprecedented from isis? >> no, it's pretty precedented. they, the volume of material they put out is just truly extensive, and it comes in a lot of different formats. so they've made a variety of threats with greater, more or less specificity over time. one of the reasons that, you know, it was frightening about the garland event was it was something they had specifically talked about that then turned into an attack, and that's pretty unusual because they create so much noise that that needle in a haystack can be difficult to detect. >> so you take that posting with a great deal of skepticism. >> yeah. >> the attempt at a winning message. >> yeah. i think that, you know, certainly they have, you know, dozens to low hundreds of passive supporters in this

country, and some of those people may be prepared to act but i don't think there's anything remotely as organized as what that post described. >> mr. garten steven ross,

>> if the caliphate is no longer viable, they can lose legitimacy pretty quickly. if you're able to make the caliphate no longer a viable entity, then at that point they have in effect, lost. now, their narrative won't be completely dead. if you understand the nuances of their narrative and the arguments of it, they have certain outs. for example they believe at some point there'll be a grand battle and they actually will be crushed. what essentially it means is you make this already marginal movement much, much more marginal. let me actually add one final thing because the way we're conceptualizing community and lone wolves. what can the community do to delegitimize the message, what can the community do to continue to delegitimize the message? if the united states had a 5 percent approval rating we would think that was an awful

thing. for isis that's a great thing for them because they're dealing with those who are very much on the margins. they're not even dealing with the whole jihadist movement. there are many within the movement who argue against isis. so the question really is not how do we change an entire community, but how do we stop this fringe group from spurring people to action? and that's why this legitimacy of the caliphate actually will, in my view have a disproportionate impact on their viability. >> does anyone else have a different definition of defeat? >> i think that we're best served by strategies that encourage isis to fail on its own terms. in cutting it off economically an internal -- [inaudible] or a major schism inside the group, i think, would be better for us than a forcible ejection from their territory especially if that ejection was done primarily true american military.

>> but that's the defeat. i mean, how it looks like is the denial of that territory the end of the caliphate, correct? >> well, it's the end of their territory, but it's not the end of the story. they already have presence in nigeria, in libya -- yeah. >> an important point. i'm glad you pointed that out. again, anybody else have a different definition of defeat? so then my next question is, you know, i'm no military expert, and i don't think we have one on the panel, no offense. you have expertise that has been very valuable here. how far away are we from that definition of defeat? >> as you said, i don't think anyone on this panel can say, but i can point to a few things we should look to. number one looking to internal resistance movements is very important. i agree with j.m. that, j.m. burger that at the end of the day if the defeat comes from within, that's going to be a much more resounding defeat. >> but how possible is that? >> we already see resistance

movements in some areas. now, the question is how -- there's two things to this. number one is how robust are they, you know? in the past we saw very robust movements to aqi but the u.s. also played a role in helping to insure that they weren't destroyed. the second thing i should warn is i think a lot of these resistance movements are also people we don't like. you have, on the one hand, probably baathist resistance movements, and almost certainly you have al-qaeda resistance movements which plays into the broader struggle within jihaddism. but that being said, looking to internal defense and internal squabbles. there was a question before about baghdad city. and -- baghdadi. and while i think baghdadi is replaceable, you know, once you have a succession, especially with an organization like this which has a cult of personality internally that might cause some greater fragmentation within isis which could be a good thing in terms of the defeat of isis specifically x. the final thing we should look to given that they're a bit

overstretched militarily, you could possibly see rapid reversals just like when the u.s. engaged in its campaigns early in the iraq war, in the afghanistan war and also even in libya, there were very rapid reversals of the enemy that was trying to hold territory. it is hard to hold territory, particularly when your population is not particularly happy with what you're doing. >> i do have a remaining second, so i just have to ask this question. mr. shaikh, talking about engagement with the communities local police all the better but it's hard to have a coordinated effort. how do we find more people like you that have had a change of heart and that have your capacity and your capability and your willingness to really appeal and try and turn people away from this? >> oh, i wish we could clone me. [laughter] >> i think we all do as well. [laughter] >> you know, i tried to do the right thing. i got here because i believe i did make the right decisions

and it came at a lot of personal cost, i'll be honest. and i think a lot of people may not be ready to do that. i think the, you know, when we say empowerment, i think it needs to be made clear for a lot of these individuals who are back and really the intelligence community knows who these people are. you know, after they've been vetted and maybe they need to have continual monitoring, but to have them step up, have them step up, go to muslim conferences, let them be seen on media, mainstream media where people hear the message. i don't want to be the only person. a lot of times i feel frustrated, i see i'm the only guy doing it. everybody's talking about countermessaging, nobody's doing enough of it. but there are others like me out there, they just don't know how to come forward, and so they will need some direction to do that. >> well, i think i speak for all of us when i say god bless you for what you're doing. senator carper. >> i'm tom carper, and i approve

that message. god bless you. [laughter] this one's for all of you please. i just want to say, mr. shaikh do you pronounce your name mubin? >> you're right. >> have you ever been could mubin? >> yes i have. in high school it was that, and then it became bin, and then it stopped being funny. [laughter] >> we have a bin not like bin laden, in our family. several of my colleagues have said that in order for the u.s. to have success against al-qaeda and against isis you must adequately define the problem and our enemy. and they suggest that we should unequivocally announce that the u.s. is at war with islamic extremism or radical islam. in your opinions is it necessary or beneficial for the to define isis and al-qaeda in

this manner? and let me ask daveed, go first, please. >> the question really is, what is the benefit of doing so. i'm not sure that there's a benefit in explicitly emphasizing that we are at war with radical islam. there is the question embedded in that is what is radical islam? in libya, for example one of the problems with one of the warring factions in that civil war, that being the dignity faction, is that a very high the commander in chief defines radical islam defines the enemy as including both islamists who would work in the political process and also jihadist organizations which makes it, you know if one were to, say support his organization, would make it a civil war that's much bloodier and much more broadly defined than it should be. secondly, the administration has moved away from using religious rhetoric. it's tried to avoid terms like islam, jihad in its own rhetoric, and i think that's a

reasonable thing to do in terms of public messaging. the area where i sometimes disagree is i think if we as analysts aren't able to process the ideological dimension, we're at a disadvantage. but in terms of public messaging, i don't think it's advantageous for the u.s. to make its enemy radical islam writ large. >> thanks. mubin. >> thank you, sir. tics, terrorists in islamic costume. it uses the adjective islamic in the correct way because i believe islamic terrorism is an oxymoron. but because they're appealing to the islamic sources, we need to see something islam. so terrorists in islamic costume. and if i could impose the muslim term for these people, as i have in the khawarij, and i've given scriptural messages that refer to them in the most vile terms.

they are the dogs of hell. in fact, we believe in the islamic tradition that these people subscribe to that the antichrist himself emerges from the last remnants of the khawari jurks. so those are the two terms i encourage using. >> all right thanks. j.m.. >> so i do agree with california vealed that we need to understand the religious dimension of this as people studying the problem. however, in terms of the public dialogue and in terms of the motivation of this we must name the enemy kind of mow tiff, you know, the thing that i think about when i think about this is that in 2013 i did a study of white supremacists' use of twitter and found the people following them on twitter talked continually about and primarily about mainstream conservative republican politics. and we don't insist that neo-nazis be referred to as conservative radicals or republican radicals, and i think that there's a double standard.

it's easier to insist when it's a minority. >> all right. thanks. thanks for that. mr. bergen? >> i totally endorse what's already been seen. the u.s. government should be very careful about using these terms. as an analytical question, certainly this has got something to do with islam difficult as that is to maybe say. but those are two different aspects of the problem. >> all right. as you -- thank you all for those responses. as you know, in religion in this country, i won't speak about other countries but in the protestant faith we have many flavors; protestants methodists, we have lutherans we have baptists, we have presbyterians, the list goes on and on and on. and when we think of the muslim faith, it's not just, as i understand it, not just one or two, but many.

but we often times think of shia and we think of sunni but i realize it's not that simple. but when you look at the, those isis al-qaeda, you look at the folks that are the jihadists and they're bent on whether it's caliphate or just domination, destruction, i don't know notice as much shia involvement. is that my imagination or not? do you speak to that one of you both of you? >> certainly with respect to isis and al-qaeda, you don't have shia involvement. both of them are sunni movements. isis in particular is vehemently anti-shia. al-qaeda is quite anti-shia although has tried to constrain that a bit. when you think of shia movements, hezbollah is the primary one that's the nonstate actor with state sponsorship. you also have shia movements who, you know, are kind of part of our coalition in iraq. these nonstate shia militias

but they pose their own set of problems. a lot of them are quite radical if you look at what they're actually doing they're brutalizing the sunni population there. and that could make this a longer-term problem. so yes in terms of isis, al-qaeda absolutely. but i certainly wouldn't factor out the importance of some of these shia militant nonstate groups. and one person who's done very good work on this is phillip snife at the near east policy institute earlier this year which i think is really essential reading for understanding that particular aspect of this conflict. >> all right thanks. last question, if i could. mr. berger could you share with us the story of omar shah folk hammami, please, and your experiences with him please? >> so omar hammami was an alabama native. he was born in a family to a syrian father and irish-catholic

mother. and he became radicalized and joined al-shabaab. and where i came into the story was after he joined al-shabaab. he got there and discovered that things were not to his liking. so foreign fighters were not being treated well. al-shabaab had a nasty habit of assassinating al-qaeda emissaries who had been sent to try and rein the group in. there was corruption and inconsistencies idealogically, and so he took to the internet and put out a video saying, look, i have all these problems with al-shabaab and i expressed my opinions, and now they're trying to kill me, and i need help. this plea was directed to al-qaeda central. he imagined that somebody from al-qaeda would come riding in to save him, which did not happen. he, in many ways, he was a kind of vanguard of of the emergence of this movement on social media and not the only one, by any stretch. but prior to about 2012, 2013,

jihadist use of social media was much lower. and because of omar but also because of other dissenters from the lockstep jihadi movement, people started getting online. they started coming online to argue with omar. so al-shabaab dispatched people to come out and say this guy's a liar and then people popped up to push back on that, and it sort of escalated out from there. and the same thing was happening in the al-qaeda in iraq context on the jihadist forums. i had an extended correspondence with that hammami -- with hammami on social media which was an unusual experience. some of my comments are informed by that because, you know, when you talk to somebody briefly every day or every couple of days, you can get a sense of them as a person which may be

artificial and inflated in your head but they become much more real to you than somebody you're reading about or somebody you correspond with via post. so -- >> very interesting. very interesting hearing and i think very informative. thank you all. >> thank you senator carper. senator booker. >> again, i want to thank the panel so much for being here today and really even your written testimony was so strong and put my staff to thinking about these issues and the many layers, and i'm grateful for that. in the final minutes of this hearing, i would just like to ask you all if you were a senator -- and i know that's a scary prospect -- but if you all were senators or even in a high level executive position and were looking at this issue of countercommunications, we use words like nascent and rudimentary before, but what is the vision we're trying to get to?

if you could push for two years and the chairperson said this should make us think about legislation, you know, what specifically would, you know, in terms of strategy and tactics would you want to see being i remember presented in a broader -- implemented in a broader scale by 2016-2017? anybody can pick that up, and maybe we can go down the line. daveed? >> i think we often look at this problem in a way that's very inefficient and isn't getting to the solution, and you in your previous testimony -- your previous question, senator spoke to this. i referenced the u.s. government as a legacy industry, and i don't say that lightly. a lot of established companies have actually seen it as beneficial to essentially create a start-up within the company. and that's been a very successful thing for a number of companies to do. i point to intuit, the tax company, as one that did a very good job of creating a very interesting tax app where people through their cell phone could get all tax documents and they did this something very much

like what a start-up would do. by creating a unit which was a start-up within a broader company. with respect to this specific issue, social media, i would want to see a start-up within the u.s. government something where you can get the best people onboard, and there are a few layers of that. one is are we able to work with the right people. i've seen -- yesterday i spent the morning with a lebanese businessman and owner of a media company who had these remarkable aunt-extremism ads on his computer that his company had put together. he knows the region well, and he was looking to shop them around. but the production value was extraordinarily high. are we getting the right production value? do we have the right people in place? often multiple things make it hard to have the right people in place. so one of the things i would look at is not just starting a start-up, but looking at the broader rules that prevent us as a government from having the best people in place to tackle these very thorny -- >> i'm going to interrupt just because i want to get through the whole panel, but anything

you would like to provide in the days after this hearing of that image you just said and we've got it, i would love to pounce on. i think you're speaking not only truth, but you're speaking in urgent truth. but just to move into mubin, mr. shaikh. >> very quickly subject matter experts to guide and train government agencies whether it's law enforcement, whether it's military, psychological operations, whatever it is. and, ultimately autonomy of efforts on the ground, to move at the speed of social media. if i can quote bruce lee to be like water, formlessness. autonomy. >> and i think that's a really important point because somebody else mentioned often you delegitimize the organic voices when you put a government, the u.s. government stamp on that. and i think it's really important to have strategies that create an atmosphere in which those organic voices can emerge without being delegitimized by the u.s. government. mr. berger. >> so, yeah, we're getting

creamed on social media not just by isis, but also by russia and iran and syria. this is a difficult thing. we don't do propaganda well because we have principles that we adhere to. these adversaries don't. >> that's right. >> in terms of truthfulness, in terms of fairness. what we can match them on is volume, you know? we talk about csec as an effort to counterprogram against these guys. they're working with a handful of twitter accounts. what would be, what would have an impact and would get around some of the log jams of government in terms of content would be to have hundreds or thousands of accounts that are putting out even very innocuous messaging just to get us into the space and holding a presence. and we could refine the messaging as we go. i think there's risk aversion in government that prevents us from doing things that are experimental and daring in that space, but i think if we're out there in the space first then we can figure out where to take the ship after that.

>> two ideas about what to do which are not to do with messaging, but haven't been discussed so far. one is there is a sort of good news story going on with turkey. if you look at isis' english language propaganda, they're now saying turkish intelligence is not your friend. so this committee overseas the cuts.coms and border protection. we should be giving every technical assistance possible to turkey and reinforcing and congratulating them for basically changing to a more proactive approach. and the other thing we should be doing as a government is to be building a day the that base of every -- database of every foreign fighter. one of every nine returning to the u.s. are engage in an act of terrorism. and if that continues to be the case in this jihad we need to know who exactly these people are to the best of our ability. >> gentlemen, thank you very much for a really, really great panel and for your work on these issues. i'm grateful. i've learned a lot, thank you. thank you, mr. chairman.

>> thank you senator booker. again, i'm very serious we need to work on this, and i certainly want to engage the members of the panel and other experts you can put us in touch with in terms of how do we do this, how do we set up a center of excellence. is it inside government outside government? do you fund it? whatever. >> i suspect it's both. >> i would agree. but, again it's urgent, like you said. >> yeah. >> one thing i do like to do is provide the witnesses a final bite at the apple here. if there's something that you want to get off your chest final statement, i'd start with mr. bergen. >> looking forward, we have a chance to not have a hearing like this five years from now about afghanistan if we, you know, the idea that we're going to turn off the lights of our presence there in december 31 2016 merely because the obama administration's going to be shortly out of office is crazy. and the afghans want us to stay. and we were attacked from there obviously, on 9/11. it's in our interests to stay, and i think it's in the

interests of both parties to say that we plan to say. we have an agreement with the afghans until 2024, strategic partnership agreement. the work has already been laid out. so i would looking forward, you know, this is a proactive measure to prevent having the same kind of hearing about afghanistan several years from now. >> i hope we have learned that failed states are not good for our security. >> indeed. >> mr. berger. >> i think that isis is kind of the harbinger of radical social change ahead of us and that we need to sort of be prepared to see what happens when people can communicate in these daily routine ways with people of similar interests around the world, and you can travel to join somebody in a relatively easy way. i think we're going to see social networks and societies that are going to be sorting themselves out into groups that are clustered around specific interests and unfortunately we're seeing, you know, what i would hope would be the worst

example of that as the first. but i think there's, you know, potential for a lot of interesting evolution of how we deal with each other as human beings ahead. >> no, i fear that is a future reality. mr. shaikh. >> thank you sir. very quickly on i guess, the muslim side of things just given the things that have happened, we really need to pay attention to the marginalization narrative. i mean, i think muslims are your best partners in this. i think muslims understand that we can't do it without each other. it's a common enemy. they're not going to think twice. if i'm there with my family i'll be killed just along with everyone else. so we're in this together, and let's move together. >> again help us make those connectionings. mr. gartenstein-ross. >> i agree with what j.m. berger said that we are in line for a radical change, and the question for us is are we up for this new

err. i think we've grown content with a system in which a lot of things don't work where we try to address problems, and it gets lost somewhere in the bureaucracy, and there's an interagency process and everybody's waiting for somebody else to do something and what we're getting in terms of outputs is so suboptimal that if the u.s. government was a corporation, people would lose their jobs. i think the questions are can we move fast enough, are there too many bureaucrat obstacles? if so, what can we do to slash them, and are we transparent enough both internally and externally getting buy-in publicly and in the broader world community. we've talked a number of times about how the u.s. has a bad brand. that's absolutely true are. there's no question about that. but i also think looking big picture, we shouldn't be content with this. the u.s. is a great country. we shouldn't be content with the u.s. just having a bad brand and there's nothing we can do about it. i think that's also one of those very big issues that we should

try to change and we should make sure we can have the right people in place who can bring the right ideas. and right now even having the right people in place is something that's hard for the government to do. that should change. >> well, again, having come from a manufacturing background and solved a lot of problems, it starts with laying out the reality, understanding exactly what it is, then set yourself achievable goals. think today's hearing has certainly laid out a reality that i wish weren't true i wish we didn't have to face it, but we can't keep our head buried in the stand. so again i just want to thank -- in the sand. again, i just want to thank the witnesses. mr. shaikh again, thank you for doing what you're doing, thank you all. this hearing record will remain open for 15 days until may 22nd at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and wes for the record. this -- questions for the record. this hearing is adjourned. >> and with this hearing coming to a close, it's live to the

senate floor now as senators get their workweek started. general speeches for the next two hours and then at 5:30 there'll be a vote on the resolution stating the government's policy on the release of u.s. citizens in iran. it urgings the immediate release of two americans held in iran and cooperation in helping to locate robert levinson, the longest-held citizen in u.s. history. he disappeared in iran in 2007. this is live coverage of the senate here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. sovereign lord, you are our light and salvation so we will not fear. you are the strength of our lives

so we will be unafraid. lord, we're grateful for your steadfast love and unchanging mercy. each day you provide us with your power and compassion. sustain our lawmakers today, strengthening them in their challenging work of striving to find creative ways to solve the problems of our time. inspire them to trust you without wavering acknowledging you in all they do. be gracious to them, guiding them with your wisdom, as you gladden their spirits with your eternal presence.

send heaven's peace into all our hearts. we pray in your merciful name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the presiding officer: under the previous order the leadership time is reserved. mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader of the senate. mr. mcconnell: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not, sir. mr. mcconnell: i took a trip up to boston this weekend to address the kennedy institute. it was really a unique experience. i was there in a full-scale representation of the senate chamber to discuss how the real senate is beginning to get back to work. i explained how committees are working again so senators can have more of a stake in the

legislative process. i explained how we're allowing more open floor debate, more amendment opportunities so senators can better represent the voices of their constituents. and i explained how we're getting the fundamentals back on track like passing a budget. that doesn't mean we've ironed out all the senate's challenges, but it does mean a new era of good feelings beckons just around the corner. and it doesn't mean an exertion of will won't be necessary every now and then, but it does mean we're beginning to open the senate back up in a way that will make shared achievement more likely. i recall just last week when we overwhelmingly passed a bill to give the american people more of a say in president obama's negotiations with iran. although we weren't able to consider nearly the number of amendments i'd like to have seen considered to strengthen the bill the legislation did provide for congressional

oversight of any comprehensive agreement. the white house had been threatening to veto the bill but it passed with bipartisan support of 98% of the senators anyway. later this afternoon we'll take up another iran-related measure that i hope will pass with similar bipartisan enthusiasm. the junior senator from idaho's resolution is simple -- it calls on the administration to use the tools it has in pursuit of what should be a bipartisan goal, securing the release of american citizens being held as hostages by the regime in iran. one of those americans saheed abidimi has reportedly been held prisoner for what would be the supposed crime of attempting to build and operate an orphanage. the supposed crime of building and operating an orphanage. beaten denied access to medical

care and locked away in solitary confinement. that's apparently how the iranian regime deals with those who dare to show love and compassion to others. no americans should find this acceptable. just as no americans should find it acceptable to unjustly imprison a reporter or a grandson coming to see his grandmother. i think we would all agree that at the very least the american government should not be rewarding iran for its disgraceful human rights abuses. but we should not be granting iran access to the funding it desires to further its nuclear weapons program and terrorist proxies while this exploitation continues. so i call on every senator to join us in standing up for human rights. let's pass senator risch's legislation later this afternoon. i mentioned earlier that the committees are beginning to get back to work in the new senate. we've seen a lot of bipartisan committee action in recent weeks. one standout achievement was the

finance committee's overwhelming passage of bipartisan trade legislation 20-6. it's incredibly important for american workers that we pass this bill. without it, foreign countries will continue to be able to discriminate against american products and american produce while we have some of the lowest duties in the world. we need strong and fair trade legislation that expands congress' oversight over the administration and sets clear rules and standards for its trade negotiators. that's the bipartisan congressional trade priorities and accountability act in a nutshell and yet some talk about preventing the senate from even debating the bill. i would tell you mr. president i think that would be a big mistake. the bipartisan congressional trade priorities and accountability act reported by the finance committee is already a strong bill and we'll have an amendment process on the floor

that will allow members the opportunity to advance their priorities. voting to proceed to the bill is a vote that says this is worthy of debate, worthy of debate. well certainly this bill is indeed worthy of debate by the president of the united states. so i commend senator hatch senator wyden and their colleagues on the finance committee for getting us this far, and my hope is that we can continue this debate tomorrow. mr. reid: mr. president. the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: i must comment on some of the statements my friend, the republican leader, has made. we have been able to accomplish a few things during this work period and the reason that we have been able to is that we,

the minority, we've cooperated. for four years my republican colleagues in the minority objected to everything we tried to do, everything. i don't mean most everything. i mean everything. that was a plan they had. i've mentioned before, i'll mention again they decided they were going to make sure that obama was not re-elected. that failed. and number two they were going to oppose everything that he tried to do, and that's -- they have done that overwhelmingly, done that. so it was really, really hard for four years to get things done. now, my friend, the majority leader, can talk all he wants about how much we've gotten done. look at what we have been able to accomplish. the majority of stuff that we worked on, we could have done it before if the republicans had not objected to it. stopped us from moving to those matters. so mr. president we're going to continue to do everything we

can to move stuff in conjunction with my republican friends but we shouldn't be hearing a lot of speeches here about how great things are now because every time that happens i'm going to come and tell everybody what's happened for four years. mr. president, government is all about priorities. what do we as senators value the most? with only a few days before the memorial day recess, i'm disturbed and distressed by republicans' priorities. for example the majority leader knows that the authorization for the federal highway program expires this month. not next month. this month. he knows that the highway trust fund runs out of money a few weeks later. why then are republicans making no serious effort to pass a long-term reauthorization of the federal highway program? i can easily answer this question. they do not know how to pay for

america's next jobs bill. so with no as the answer, they again do nothing. another short-term extension. this is one of many, one of many mr. president. i think the last i -- the last i remember, the last my staff brought me up to date, i think it's been 12 or 15 times it's been extended for short periods of time. this is not good. it is such bad news for every state, every state because the directors of the department of transportation can't do anything long term. the only way you could have a good program for construction, you have to be able to look ahead. the senator from vermont said, and openly the other day that vermont's season of being able to do construction work is very short, and you can't do long-term planning when your money's only going to be available for a few months. so this is really unfortunate

really too bad. i say again this is -- this could be america's next jobs bill. it's really too bad. mr. president, we also have the foreign intelligence surveillance act known as fisa. it expires on june 1. it must be extended and reformed. last week, the third circuit court of appeals ruled that the bulk collection program as currently authorized -- is not authorized under current law meaning the law is illegal. it would be irresponsible for this congress to merely reauthorize and not reform. how can you reauthorize something that's illegal? you can't. you shouldn't. why would anyone agree to reauthorize a program when our -- which our circuit courts deem to be illegal? my friend, the majority leader, keeps talking about extending the program for five and a half

years, extending an illegal program for five and a half years. that is not sensible. what should happen is that we should move forward and do something that is needed here. that is, do it all over again. we have the house of representatives are going to send us on wednesday a new fisa bill one that has been vetted by the security committee by those people concerned about rights of our citizens, and they have determined that what the house has done is good. they have passed it out of committee 25-2. and senator leahy has a bill over here that's almost identical to that bill. so i can't understand why we just don't wait until the house sends us that bill and we give it -- we turn around immediately and give it back to them as -- give it back to the president as passed by the house of representatives. the president will sign it. he realizes that the program has

to be changed. you cannot reauthorize a program that's illegal. so i would hope that we could move forward on what the house has done. to his credit, senator leahy is not saying we have to do my bill. he's saying if we don't do my bill, that is senator leahy's bill pass the house bill. that would be good. this is the only bipartisan, bicameral solution we have today that will end the illegal bulk collection program and reform and reauthorize key provisions of fisa. otherwise -- i'm not the only one, mr. president. i'm told walking over here that the junior senator from kentucky is not going to let extension of fisa take place. so why don't we just go ahead and get it done now? that is, when the house sends us their bill, say we're going to send that -- we're going to pass that send it to the white house for signature. i hope the majority leader will reassess his priorities and instead choose to protect

americans' civil liberties. what is the business of the day mr. president? the presiding officer: under the previous order the senate will be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. mr. reid: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

ms. heitcamp: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call bs disppedded w. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. heitcamp: mr. president rise today to continue our efforts to honor the 198 north dakotans who give their lives while sesqui in the vietnam war. together with bismarck high school's is 1th graders and

their teachers, my office is reaching tout the family and friends of these fallen heroes. i'm humbled to learn the tidbits about each man and wish i could dead crate a whole speech to each life. today i want to highlight the service and contribution to north dakota of -- and our country by my good friend rick massner of bismarck. rick served as a navy pilot during vietnam earning many distinguished medals for his aerial service. he then served as a state senator and a member of the state hoirpt. in his 40's rick earned his law degree the throughout his career he has always been a true public servant. and i want to wish rick a very happy 70th birthday. now, i will share about some of the north dakotas who did not

come home from the vietnam war. james freidt was from grand forks, born in 1947. he srved in the army's first cavalry division. james was 20 years old when he died on october 11, 1967. james' father served our country during world war ii and received a purple heart for his service. james was one of 10 children and was one of the three children in his family to die tragically. his family and friends called him jimmy and remembered him as a very protective brother who was always smiling. the siblings have fond memories of playing games like kick the can, together. shortly before beginning his tour of duty, james was able to attend one of his sister's weddings. the family is grateful for that good memory of james. he was killed just over one month after arriving in vietnam.

robert "bobby" schmitz was from martin born february 25, 1944. served in the army's 4th infantry division. bobby was 25 years old when he died on september 16, 1968. he was the oldest of six children. his father eugene and a brother denny also served our country in the army. growing up bobby -- he and his brother denny were both on the wrestling team. bobby graduated from ndsu with a degree in business administration before serving in vietnam he was engaged to be married and was looking afford to starting his life with his fiance after he completed his service. loren "doug" hagen. doug was born in fargo on february 25, 1946. he served as a green bier ray in the army's special forces. on august 7 1971, doug died.

he was 25 years old. doug was the eldest of three sons. he was an eagle scout and an honor student. after graduating from ndsu with a degree in engineering doug enlisting in the army. his goal was to find his best friend from high school who had gone missing in action two years prior. doug was killed two weeks into his second tour of duty which was one week prior to him being promoted to captain. doug was awarded the medal of honor for extraordinary heroism for his actions actions trying to rescue his foal will he soldiers on the day he died. his medal of honor was presented to his father by president gerald ford at the white house in 1974. last month the american legion post 308 was created in west fargo and was named the loren "doug" hagen post in his person. i am grateful to jordon halusak

of bismarck high school for sharing with us about doug and his family. jordan is related to doug and is learning more about his family tree through this project. michael himmerick from valley city was born november 28, 1947. he was a navy medic for a group of 100 marines. michael died on april 6 1967. he was 19 years old. jimmy was one of the four boys of his brothers who also served in the navy. his family called him micky and the marines he served with called him doc. his brother jim said that michael was one heck of a ball player. he was scouted by four major league baseball teams when he was a sophomore in high school but he threw his arm out on the summer of his junior year. jim remembers michael's plans to put his intelligence and

military experience to good use to become a doctor after completing his service. larry sikorski. larry was from fairmount and was born april 1 1947. he served in the marine corps's hotel battery third battalion 12th marine. larry died on february 25, 1969. he was 21 years old. he had two sisters yvonne and arlene, and he had four brothers -- chet, richard daniel and orren all who served our country in the united states military. larry's nephew dale was just one year younger than larry. he cherishes his memories of building a raft together just like huk fin and tom sawyer. they spent three days together building it but unfortunately once sent into the river the raft did not float. dale remembers larry as being outgoing and very intelligent.

larry earned straight a's while studying pre-dentistry at the university of north dakota before enlisting in the marines. before going to vietnam when dale dropped larry off at the airport, larry told dale he'd never see him again. richard "jimmy" gaffaney jr. jimmy was from fargo. he was born october 23, 1948. served in the marine corps's echo company 7th battalion marines. jimmy died on july 13, 1968. he was 19 years old. jimmy enlisted in the marine corps shortly after he graduated from fargo central high school in 1966. during his first 13-month tour of duty in vietnam, he was promoted to the rank of corporal. in letters e-mailed to his family jimmy wrote that he had made a lot of good friends in his fellow soldiers. when his first tour came to an

end, jimmy signed up for a second tour. shortly after starting his second tour of duty, he was killed by a land mine. richard volk. richard was from minot. he was born march 20, 1949. he served in the marine corps echo battery 2nd battalion 12th marines. richard died on march 19 1968, a day before his 20th birthday. richard was one of 11 children. three of the four sons in his family served our country in the military. at one point richard and his older brother steven were both serving in vietnam at the same time. richard was a hard worker, working on the sioux line railroad at his brother-in-law restaurant the pantry cafe. his brother virgil remembered he loved hunting and fishing. richard said that he was the best looking in the family and he knew it.

roger svir. roger was from park river and was born december 1 1950. he served in the army's 109 transportation company called the river rats. roger died on december 25, 1966. he was 24 years old. he was the oldest of four children. his father and seven uncles served our country in world war ii and in korea. during high school. roger worked for a potato farmer and shared his earnings with his mother virginia. his mother cherishes his memory of roger and his cousin playing together along the river and of roger fixing his car. he had plans to buy a piece of land and start their own farm. after roger died, his father start he was too old to start

the farm alone and he gave up on the dream. he was a ship fitter that his father had held during world war ii. willis weber. he was from valley city and was born july 1 1937. he served in the army's first infan industry division. his regiment was called the blue spaders of the big red one. willis was 28 years old when he died on november 11, 1965. at college high school in valley city his friends called him willy. he participated in journalism, printing basketball, football and inter mural sports. he served in the police force and the valley city police department. three weeks after arriving in vietnam, willis was shot and died a few days after because of that injury. he was awarded six medals in recognition for his actions while serving in vietnam. the valley city amvet post 3 and

the auxiliary are named after will lis in -- will lis -- willis. i want to thank all of valley city for sharing the details of his life. edward alec werman. edward was from hensel and was born april 11, 1938. he served adds a green beret in the army special forces. edward was 33 years old when he died on june 1 1971. in addition to his parents and five siblings, he left behind his wife nancy daughter robin and a son alec. his sister linda remembers edward as a hard worker who loved his children. his daughter robin loved traveling as a child with her family to places like myrtle beach and washington, d.c.

edward became a captain in the army after attending west point. he served two tours of duty in vietnam and died when the helicopter he was in crashed and burned. steve escallier. steven listed while living in portal and was born february 13, 1950. he served in the army's 1st cavalry division. steve died on october 31, 1968. he was just 19 years old. steve's siblings remember him as an exceptional good looking with good looks and long eyelashes. he loved truth life, family and god. steve was a firm believer in the united states and the obligation to help those who asked so he chose to enlist. he had plans to become a teacher after completing his service. steve's sister elise believes that the whole town where they lived in, in california, mourned

steve's death. it took the family years after his death to be able to say "vietnam" and even be able to say steve's name. steven hanson. steven spent his early childhood in aneta and was born october 27 1949. he seshed in the -- served in the army's 101st airborne division. he was born on october 24, 1971. he was 21 years old. his family and friends called him steve. while growing up, steven's father gordon served as a lutheran pastor in the small down of daze and the family -- town of daisy and the family traveled all over the state. steven's younger brother by 12 years, david tells of a letter the family received from a fellow soldier whose life steven saved the day he died. the letter describes steven as the pilots of his helicopter crew of four soldiers. steven's helicopter was shot down but he was able to guide it

to a semi-controlled crash landing. a fellow pilot of steven's also had survived a recent crash and steven was heard joking on the radio to tell so-and-so that he now had safely landed one too. one of his crew members was pinned under the helicopter and injured so steven helped to free him and called the evacuation chop at -- helicopter. later a second c chopter dropped down a cable to take steven and his crew to safety but they were drawing fire and the cable gave way. steven fell a hundred feet to his death. in addition to his parents and siblings, steven left behind his wife and a son. leon cox. lee object -- leon was from jamestown and was born may 24, 1934. he was enlisted in the army's 1st inbegan industry division. he was 34 years old when he died on may 17, 1969.

leon or "fuzzy" as he was called by his family, was the youngest of seven children. his father served in world war i, two brothers, john and alex, served in world war ii, and two other brothers, to donnie and jim served in korea. leon made a canner radio of his military -- made a career of his military service. he was deployed to korea in his junior year. after returning from his deployment, he joined the army and was stationed in germany where he met his wife and adopted a young girl named nicolette. leon's family fond the remembers him as a proud man who believed in his country. gunder gunderson. gunder was from walhalla and was born july 25 1941. he served in the army's first cavalry division. gunder was 24 years old when he

died november 23 1965. his fellow platoon soldier paul gulliott said it was an honor to serve in the same platoon as sergeant gunderson. paul remembers gunder as being dedicated, hardworking and very intelligent. he always drove himself to improve on everything did he. paul was injured at the same time gunder was killed, and says that gunder was a brave and courageous soldier. roy wagner. roy wagner was from bismarck and was born february 23 1947. he served in the army's first infantry division. roy died october 2 1967, at the age of 20. when roy's brother toby was drafted, roy decided to enlist.

when the draft board met the brothers together, they decided that toby should go home because he had a wife and kids, and roy was more than happy to take toby's place. while in vietnam roy met a young vietnamese boy whose parents had been killed in the conflict. it was roy's intention to adopt the boy once he married his fiancee on leave but roy was killed before he could marry his sweetheart or adopt the boy. the day that he died, roy was in the field with five other soldiers. the group was led into a tunnel and ambushed. three of the men were shot, and roy knew that he needed to buy them some time. he stood at the front of the group shooting at the enemy until all of the other men got out. he took seven bullets saved all five men and lost his life that day. all five men later contacted their families, his family, to tell them of roy's self-sacrifice.

the amvet post in bismarck is named after roy to honor his it was and his sacrifice. i want to thank bismarck high students kara weitsel and hunter lower for sharing their research about roy wagner with us. these are just a few of the brave men who served our country in vietnam and as we are now experiencing the 50th anniversary of the vietnam war commemorated by an official proclamation of the president i think it is so important that we honor those who were killed in action and that we share their stories with the next generation of north dakotans, the next generation of americans so that they can truly appreciate the sacrifice of those who serve us in the united states military and certainly the sacrifice that gave the last great measure of their life. thank you mr. chairman. i yield the floor and note the

absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. nelson: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: madam president i ask consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. nelson: madam president at 5:30 we're going to vote on senate resolution 16 which calls on the government of iran to release the americans that are held and also calls on the government to cooperate in finding, locating and ultimately releasing bob levenson. robert levin -- levenson, a

retired f.b.i. agent while viefght -- visiting the tourist island in the persian gulf, the kish island, a part of iran, suddenly disappeared in 2007. it is eight years since his disappearance. that occurred march 9 of 2007. and since bob is a part of this resolution, this is just another of a continuing conversation that this senator from florida has had over the course of the last eight years and it is just unbelievable eight years and it

wasn't until 2010 three and a half years after his disappearance, that the levenson family received a video a proof of life and a year later they received photographs of bob april of 2011. and since then, nothing. now if the government of iran really wanted to help, they could. it may be that one part of the iranian government is keeping it from other parts. it could be that the military or the special part of the military the quds force knows. and it may be that the foreign

minister and the president of iran do not have the facts. but there's somebody in iran who can produce the facts if he wanted to. and that's the supreme leader. and so in this area -- era of intense negotiations now over preventing iran having a nuclear weapon preventing them from the ability to develop a nuclear weapon any time in the next ten years without us at least getting one year advance notice so that we can take countermeasures, in this time of intense discussions with iran of course it's constantly brought up by our negotiating team including secretary of the

kerry but it's rather inexcusable that iran all their answer is, we don't know anything about bob levinson. this is, of course, personal to the f.b.i. community because it's one of their retired agents. it's personal to us in florida as well. bob left behind a wife and seven children four grandchildren. christian levenson lives in florida. a number of the f.b.i. agents that have tried to help her over the course of the years also live in florida. and we are hopefully and prayerfully expected --

expectant that if it is a successfully concluded negotiation to prevent iran from having a nuclear weapon, that the government of iran will immediately release all of these americans that are in jail that we know about and likewise, will make the effort to find bob and bring him home to a wife and seven children. that is what humanity would absolutely require. and so on this particular time, eight years plus into the

process, we make this plea for former f.b.i. agent bob levenson. madam president, i yield the floor and i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. blumenthal: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you madam president. i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: thank you madam president. it is spring in washington d.c., one of the most beautiful times of year, as it is in connecticut and around the country. we have endured a tough winter. in the northeast a lot of snow, a lot of cold. and now a lot of loopholes. all around the country spring means potholes, which are endemic not only to the northeast but to our roads all around america. potholes are just the latest reminder of infrastructure

challenges facing our nation. and that's just one reason why this week is, in fact, infrastructure week, a time when we should be focusing on rail and roads the decaying and aging infrastructure that bedevils and hobbles our nation as we seek to compete globally, and our businesses in connecticut seeking to compete nationally as well as globally. this time of year is also the beginning of the construction season especially in the colder regions of the country like the northeast in iowa and nebraska and the midwest. in connecticut construction workers are ready to go, ready to take advantage of this chance to increase our aging and decaying transportation assets. i know that trade is on our

agenda this week. i urge and implore that trade be set aside, that the trade bill be delayed not forever by any means but as the leader of our caucus has urged as leader harry reid has implored, that we focus on infrastructure. we face a deadline. may marks the last month of map-21 the law governing surface transportation funding. on may 31, just 20 days from now, the authorization governing our highway trust fund will expire. that's right. there's a cliff. it's a highway cliff that we are just days away from going over. this nation will go over that cliff unless we act and now is the moment. now is the time.

now is our opportunity and it is an opportunity that will not excuse us from action. 2014 is -- was a record year for auto safety, auto recalls auto problems and issues, and so part of what needs to be done in addressing the expiration of map-21 is to make safety a priority but it can't be achieved if we don't address the fundamental challenges of our aging infrastructure. fundamental reforms are needed at nitsa and other safety watchdogs to make sure that our constituents are safe, so you'd think now would be a time to discuss legislation that will fix our streets and stop potholes from imperilling our drivers and put construction

workers back on the job providing a lifeline to nearly two million americans who have jobs directly tied to the transportation sector. you'd think we would want to cut down on our unemployment, and in the construction sector, unfortunately joblessness remains at a 10% level and you'd think also now's the time and we should be advancing a multiyear long-term bill that would provide certainty to states and municipalities so they can plan for long-term projects. you'd think now is the time to take a hard look at our safety oversight agencies, nit -- nihtsa the federal highway administration and make reforms in the tools they have and the fines and penalties to protect all who rely on our transportation network. but the approach of this

congress unfortunately is going to be as engineers say patch and pray. patch the potholes, patch the roads, patch the railroads even when the tracks are cracked even when the ballasts are failing, patch the bridges patch and pray. we are about to become a nation of patch and pray when it comes to decaying efficient roads, -- decaying deficient roads bridges, railroads all of the vital nuts and bolts literally that transport our nation. and how ironic at this moment when it's spring, when the construction industry is about to relife in the opportunities it has to put people back to work and when many of us in this

chamber and others at school commencements will be talking about the big ideas the big challenges the big dreams and hopes that our graduates have for the future, that we are thinking small. we're thinking about patching, patching our highway transit fund for months, maybe to the end of the year. a nation that patches and pray cannot be exceptional. it cannot be a great nation when it comes to shortchangeing investment in the vital facilities, in the nuts and bolts, in the roads and bridges that make it a national competitor. and this kind of short-term extension of the highway and transit system fails to match the challenges that our nation faces.

we spend less and invest less as a percentage of our gross domestic product than many other industrialized nations. europe and china spend far more as a percentage of their gross domestic product than we do. so i call on the leadership my good friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle to make infrastructure our priority for this week, as it should be for this decade, because within this decade, according to some projections, one in four of our bridges will be 65 years or older, making them even more prone to decay and disrepair. the consequences are real and costly. bridges that collapse like the 50-year-old skagget river bridge

in washington. the bridge collapsed sending cars into the river below. that wasn't a remote bridge. it was over interstate 5 a major united states artery on the west coast. of course we all remember the 2007 bridge collapse in minneapolis. we remember the myannis bridge collapse in connecticut. we remember the bridgeport derailment due to decayed cracking tracks improperly repaired. we remember where lives were lost because of a derailment and the failure to invest in train communication and signaling that could have prevented that tragedy. and we remember the railroad grade crossings where insufficient investment in modern technology causes deaths all around the country hundreds of them every year, not to nonessential billions of dollars

due to these collisions, derailments, crashes on the roads, costing lives and imperiling our nation's future. a short-term patch robs our states and municipalities of the certainty they need to contract that is essential to construction at the lowest possible cost in the most efficient way. certainty and reliability and funding are essential to our municipalities. knowing what their resources will be, not just for this year but into the future, and driving the best bargain they can with contractors and subcontractors. and it's not just because of our rebuilding needs that we need this investment. there are also many other significant related issues that we must address to keep our

roads and rails safer and reliable. we need to ensure that trucks on our road aren't too big that truck drivers have enough rest, that our railroads are properly overseen that positive train control is implemented that testing for physical and emotional health is done regularly and reliably, and the long list of ntsb recommendations need to be finally addressed and implemented. we're in a time when we're talking to young men and women as they graduate from school about those big ideas and about their futures and dreams when we invoke what is best and brightest about america our foresight, our strength, our courage to take risks to invest

in ourselves and our futures. it's the same spirit that led to the building of the erie canal and the transcontinental railroad and the interstate highway system. those initiatives were not about party or partisan initiatives. the greatest generation came back from world war ii and built the interstate highway under the leadership of president dwight eisenhower. he committed to make america one nation in its roads tying us together binding us as a nation through that investment. and he had the courage as we should today to say what's great about america is what we give back, what we're willing to invest not only for today but for tomorrow, and we are in danger today in this chamber in this nation of being one of the first generations that left a

lesser america for our children. think of it. a lesser america at a time when the word exceptional and exceptional trips off the tongues of many of our colleagues here in this chamber we need to match that rhetoric with real action. and so today let us resolve that we will debate and act on a long-term investment program to make sure that our roads and bridges, our railroads and airports the ports that could make our nation the envy of the world are matching our rhetoric and our goals that they truly make us competitive for businesses in connecticut and around the nation, competitive on a global scene where that

competition has never been tougher and where our infrastructure has to be better. thank you madam president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. coats: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: madam president i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coats: madam president i'm back on the floor again for "waste of the week" number 10. as my colleagues know, i have been coming down every week talking about waste fraud and

abuse, ways we can save taxpayers dollars. while we have not been able to address, unfortunately tranltragically the larger issue of the plunge into deficit spending and debt that our nation has incurred over the past several years in particular, every effort every bipartisan effort has been thwarted by the president's refusal to engage in that and yet the debt clock keeps on ticking we keep spending more money than we take in we keep putting more and more of a burden on generations as well as our own. our economy is not growing. one of the reasons is that we have not -- don't -- have not achieved fiscal responsibility here in the united states congress. so while we've not been able to address the larger issue, we can at least address some of those issues that have been documented as waste fraud and abuse

documented by nonpartisan agencies that are established for the sole reason of weeding out some of the spending that is not essential to the functioning of government. and we put up some pretty interesting numbers relative to what we've achieved. we're already at the -- well, we're somewhat well over now the $50 billion of spending that has been documented as totally unnecessary. some of it has been of the character of somewhat ridiculous. some has been very, very substantial. and we're going to continue to do this, pointing out to the american taxpayer and to government agencies that make these decisions that we cannot afford to keep doing this. so today's "waste of the week" will be addressed hopefully --

because i'm urging my colleagues -- and i will be introducing legislation to this effect -- that the appropriations committee, which will soon be working now that we have passed a budget, soon be working to distribute those funds that are necessary for the functioning of government i'm urging them to, in this process use a system and means of identifying what is essential and what isn't essential. now, there may be some things that we would like to do but can't afford to do. they need to be put on hold until we can do them. but there are a lot of issues and a lot of spending that goes on that shouldn't be done in the very first place. significant savings can be made, even though it's much smaller than what we need to do, we certainly can address issues that can save taxpayers dollars and better allocate spending for

government. when our previous governor in indiana, mitch daniels took over he brought with him a resume as former officer of management and budget. then-president george w. bush gave him the name "the blade." the blade looked at every small little detail of spending and asked a lot of questions why -- why are we doing? how can we save? how can we make government more efficient? we don't want to take government -- there are essential things government has to do. but when he game governor, he transferred over some of that knowledge and expertise and started doing some simple things asking some simple questions. why are we spending money on this? why are we spending money on that? let pee give you me give you a couple of examples. he gathered some of his staff and said, i want you to go out

and put pennies on the tires of our state-owned vehicles, wherever they're housed, where every they're parked, put pennies on there. and he waited several months and then said, now go back and write down the license number and the vehicle number of all those vehicles where the pennies are still on the tire. in other words they hadn't been moved. they hadn't even been shifted to another parking spot. they just sumly were simply were sitting there. interestingly enough, he found that 2,500 unused state vehicles 12eu8 had the pennies on their -- still had the pennies on their wheels. if they've been sitting here for months and nobody is using them, why are we paying for them? why we spending money on purchasing these? let's sell them off saving some money for the state. they obviously aren't necessary. it was a third of the fleet fleet's

vehicles. the state had its own printing operation. it was, like a lot of state-held operations and our federal operation, it was kind of bloated with excess spending. and he said, let's shop around and see if the private sector can do this more effectively and efficiently. and of course they did find a private vendor in indiana that did it much more effectively. he said, you know, do these things have to be all glossy and colored, just a lot of pieces of paper that we pass out and read. even in the senate, these are not colored brochures. they're simply black and white. save a lot of money just by going black and white. maybe not quite as pretty, maybe not quite as attractive, but another way to save money. these are small things, but when you total them up for all the agenciesagencies that are in washington, as was determined by the national commission on fiscal -- the committee on fiscal

responsibility and reform, it adds up to a lot of money. this government is more vast than anyone can possibly imagine. well their analysis and their investigations into waste involving travel and printing, along with -- i think it was travel printing and some other provision here -- was -- totaled up to be $10 billion of savings over a period of time on which we look at our budget. so here again is a "waste of the week" that we're going to add to our ever-increasing gauge of waste. all this now is in red. these are what we've added the ten items that we've added. and we're approaching now looks like $60 billion on the way to

$100 billion. i think we'll probably having be having to add extensions to this because, folks there's waste out there. there's fraud out there. there's abuse out there like you wouldn't believe. should we be dealing with a larger question, the runaway entitlements the lack of money to adequately fund n.i.h. or scientific research or education, but we can't because our budget is totaling out of control? should we be doing this? absolutely. that's what we're here for. we made a valiant try -- we have talked about this for the last five years since i have been back here. and despite the many, many alternatives that have been presented to the white house every one has been rejected. so at least let's do sos things -- do those things where we have more control over the appropriations process and better manage government. make it more efficient and make it more effective. that's why we'll continue to

point out these. the "waste of the week" number 10. i can't wait to get down here next week and do number 11. madam president with that, i yield the floor. madam president it appears that we are short of a quorum, so i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

is quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. president cardin: i would ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. morning business is now closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to the consideration of senate concurrence resolution 16 which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 72, s. con. res. 16, stating the policy of the united states regarding the release of the

united states citizens in iran. the presiding officer: under the previous order there will be 30 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form prior to a vote on adoption of s. con. res. 16. the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president thank you very much. i first want to thank senator risch for his tireless dedication to the plight of the three american citizens unjustifiably dandy in -- detained in iran as well as his efforts to call upon the iranian government to call on locating robert livingston, a missing fourth american and return him also to his family. i want to thank my colleagues from the states in which these americans are from, senator feinstein and boxer from california senator stabenow and peters from michigan, senator nelson and rubio from florida, and senator crapo and senator risch of idaho. for their efforts to working with the families of these american citizens that have been held too long in iran. i call upon the government of iran to do the right thing do

trite thing mr. president and immediately release these citizens and send them home to their families and communities as soon as possible. the resolution has a statement of policy that is absolutely unobjectionable in any way. let me point out one last thing, if i might. as the ranking member of the senate congii -- potential committee i will continue to urge the united states government to use every tool at its dizz postal to obtain the release of these americans and i will continue to call on the iranian government to immediately and unconditionally release these men and send them home to their families. i'm very much pleased that we will soon be considering this resolution which unequivocally says that america should use all the tools at its disposal for the return of these americans. with that, mr. president, i will suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i would ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: i ask unanimous consent that during the quorum call the time be adjusted equally to the minority and majority. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. cardin: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you very much mr. president. first i want to -- the presiding officer: we are in a quorum call. ms. stabenow: we are in a quorum call. i ask suspension of the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. ms. stabenow: thank you very much. i want to commend senator risch and am pleased to be oo cosponsor of this resolution which is incredibly important to people in michigan as well as, i know across the country. we have a very special man who unfortunately is being held as a hostage in iran and he needs to come home now. i've had the honor of getting to know the family of amir ahmadi, a patriotic american who served his country honorably and bravely as a marine from 2001 to 2005 in iraq and afghanistan. he is an american citizen but

also became a dual citizen with iran in order to be able to visit his grandmother and other family members in iran. he last in august 2011 was visiting his grandmother and was arrested by the iranian authorities and charged with spying for the c.i.a., which was absolutely false. absolutely trumped-up charges. he was then deprived a fair trial and jailed on totally trumped-up charges. of those americans confirmed as prisoners in iran, none have been incarcerated longer than amir ahmadi. he is the person who has been waiting the longest to come home. he has been tortured and is locked inside a prison notorious

for its deplorable conditions. meanwhile, amir's father is battling terminal brain cancer, and i was very honored to have the opportunity to spend time with his family, his mom and dad, his sister and two brothers who are passionately engaged in speaking out coming to washington meeting with the state department, making sure that we are laser focused on their brother on their son. and my heart just went out to them mr. president. when you think about all of us who have children, speaking to his mom and dad. seniorit -- it is frightening. it is deplorable. it's outrageous, and he needs to come home now. i can't say enough about the love and devotion of the hekmati

family. i've had a number of different opportunities to meet with them. amir's sifort -- sister and brother have frequently been here in washington making sure that we are not forgetting about this brave marine. and they have fought so hard for his freedom. i also want to commend congressman dan kildee who represents the hekmati family in flint, michigan, for being a great partner and for being such a strong advocate and such a strong voice on behalf of amir and his family. this resolution, mr. president is a clear message to the iranian government. you want to sit at the table with the rest of the international community free amir hekmati now as well as all

the other u.s. citizens that are being held as hostages. our thoughts and prayers go out to all of their families. and i can tell you that for us in michigan, we are laser focused on making sure that amir hekmati's name is lifted up at every opportunity and that it is very clear that this brave courageous marine who has served our country so well has the full support of our government to bring him home immediately. again i congratulate and thank my colleague and i'm proud to be one of the cosponsors on this resolution. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i thank senator stabenow for her work on this resolution and for her passion on behalf of her constituent who is being held in iran.

she has been extremely helpful in bringing this resolution forward. i see senator risch is on the floor. i just really want to underscore one last time, because of senator risch we're on the floor tonight with a vote in the full senate. and i want to thank him for his tenacity and his persistence in bringing this resolution forward so that we can focus on this, on the four americans that are being held by iran and our desire to get them home as soon as possible and use every tool we have at our disposal on behalf of these americans. and with that, mr. president i just really want to thank senator risch for his leadership. ms. stabenow: i might just take one more moment before turning it over to our colleague because in addition to thanking senator risch for his tenacity and making sure we're at this point with this resolution, i have to also go back to our vote last week and incredible work of two colleagues in a bipartisan

way. as we saw senator corker and senator cardin coming together and leading us to come forward with a very thoughtful piece of legislation that makes clear the role of the united states senate in a very important process right now and negotiation. so i want to thank senator cardin as the ranking member of the foreign relations committee for his leadership. mr. risch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. risch: a couple of housekeeping matters. first, i'd ask unanimous consent for the committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have approval of both the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. risch: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to add senators portman roberts kirk, boozman sasse and rounds as cosponsors of this senate concurrent resolution number 16. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. risch: mr. president, i want to thank my colleagues for

those kind words. i think tenacity is probably an appropriate description. i would like to have had a little more tenaciousness if it would have resulted in a little better stronger language than we have. nonetheless, we have what we have. i want to congratulate senator cardin and senator corker for their hard work on the resolution we passed here last week which went out of here with only one dissenting vote. it's a -- it was a difficult process, to say the least. obviously it didn't rise to the level that a lot of us wanted to see where this could have and should have been handled like a treaty and indeed it is a treaty no matter what else you call it, it is a treaty. nonetheless, we are where we are. we're better off with these things than without. we're going to wait and see how this plays out as the summer unfolds. we have an important june 30 date.

and once an agreement is reached, then of course we'll be on the floor talking and discussing the appropriateness of the agreement. there's a lot of us been critical of how this started. and for that matter, where we are today. in my judgment, this shouldn't have even started. they shouldn't have sat down at the table until these four people were released and/or counted for. and nonetheless, we are where we are. there are four people that are that we're talking about in this resolution. one, senator stabenow referred to and gave an excellent description of where we are with that individual. next i would talk about the gentleman from california who is also being held. his name is jason resian. he's been held with unspecified charges since july of 2014,

denied access to an attorney in violation of iran's own laws and international laws, for that matter. robert levinson of florida was a retired f.b.i. agent who was pursuing an investigation in iran. he was abducted off kish island off the coast of iran in march of 2007. his where abouts is unknown. the iranians repetedly said they are -- repeatedly said they're not holding levenson but they should cut loose of the information they have and this resolution requires them to do so. lastly i want to talked about saeed abedini. pastor abedini is a constituent of mine from idaho. he has family in iran. at the time that he was arrested, he was in iran visiting family and in the process of running setting up and running an orphanage.

he was detained in what is considered one of the worst prisons in iran. he's been held in solitary confinement, been beaten, been denied medical treatment as a result of abuse and denied access to a lawyer until just before the trial. he had a trial. he was convicted and sentenced to eight years. and his offense -- his offense was being christian and pursuing christianity in a country that this is not permitted. this is shocking when i think to most americans that this can happen in today's age. this is barbarous conduct by a regime that knows no shame and this man should be released from prison and should be released forthwith. he's done absolutely nothing that is a threat to the iranian

people. in fact, to the iranian regime -- and those are two different things we're talking about here. he's done nothing to be a threat to those people, and he should be released. you know iran thinks it elevates its position in the world because it does these kinds of things. it does not. certainly, it shows toughness but a barbarian type of toughness that the world is not impressed with at all. this is a country that pushes the envelope whenever it can. this country is at the heart of virtually every problem we have in that part of the world. most importantly, it is one of, if not the most prominent promoters of terrorism in the world. now, some time ago this was thought of as a good thing by some of these nations that -- that don't rise to what they should be on the world stage as an important nation. terrorism was thought as a way that things could be done.