establishes the policies.you dot i assume you guys are doing it against the department of justice. who have .. not custodial voluntary interviews. or if that is within your discretion. i am sure that you could. the fbi practices and with regard to refugees and with the syrian refugees we talk about the process but is

simply we don't have the death information to make can you, can you expand upon that now after a year? can you tell me if whether or not we've got more information, more capabilities to vet these refugees? i say this because in my district in michigan, in this fiscal year michigan has taken the fourth most refugees of all states, 4178, and or, we have taken the third most for iraq, the second most from syria. michigan has absorbed enormous number of refugees and i think you can understand our concern with regard to the fact we don't have information necessary to identify whether or not they're a threat.ci can you assuage my concern andre concerns of my constituents that

we have a, a system in place that we can vet these individuals and they don't pose a threat to our country? >> i can assuage in part and restate my concern in part. our process inside of the united states government has gotten much better making sure we touch all possible sources of information about a refugee. the interview process has gotten more robust. so we got our act together in that respect. the challenge remains especially with folks coming from syria we're unlikely to have everything in our holdings. people coming from iraq the united states government was there for a long period of time. we had biometrics and source information. we're unlikely to have that kind of picture of someone coming from syria.. that is the piece i want folks to be aware of. >> has anything changed in your vetting process? have you updated it? do you have any concerns withsa regard -- we've seen increased terrorist activity in the lastf

six months including new york, new jersey, minneapolis. has anything changed in the vetting process? can you be confident foreign fighters or refugees entering the country are not planning future attacks in our country? >> as i said before the vetting process has gotten more effective in the ways i described. i am in the business where i can't say there is no risk of someone. we wake up every day the fbi worry about who might have gotten through any form or fashion in the united states or who might be getting inspired while they're here. so i can't give assurance. >> director, i respect your opinion. this is not policy question. i'm asking your personal opinion as law enforcement officer we rely upon to keep everybody safe. is there anything you would do insure our country is safe with regard to this refugee process? >> anything i would do. >> anything you would do? any recommendations you have for

congress, for this country that would insure our safety? >> yeah. on shy away from assurances of safety given the nature of the threats we face. i think there may be opportunities to do more in the social is media space with refugees in particular. i talked to jeh johnson yesterday about it. i know there is work in progress. so much of people's lives, even if we don't have it in our holdings may be in digital dust they have left in different places. are we harvesting that dust on people wanting to come into this country in the best way? i think maybe ground for improvement there. >> thank you, director i would yield back. mr. chairman i ask unanimous consent to enter the referendum i referenced earlier dated may 12th, 2014 made a part of the record. >> without objection it will be made part of the record. the chair recognizes mr. collins from georgia for five minutes.

>> thank you, mr. chair. director comey, i believe you're forthright as you said in any criminal case you've had but imalso still in the military. i'm in air force reserve. i went to my drill back in july. i was hit by an amazing amount of questions from different servicemembers on this issue of how does the secretary, former secretary of state get to do this yet we have members of the military prosecuted all the time. your statements earlier were fairly startling. i don't know anybody else been classified of this. since 2009 department of justice prosecuted seven people on espionage act. all tour very similar cases. now you said go looking at facts. we're looking at facts in these cases. the interesting one, you said that looking back at your investigation, mishandling removal of classified information we can not find a case to bring forward criminal charges on these facts. didn't take nothing but a simple legal search to find a marine fall into it.

their name is not jane or joe. so they did get prosecuted okay? this is issue. 18 usc 793-f. gross negligence. this is what the marine did. they took classified information that was put into a gym bag, cleaned out, washed, simple, mishandling. court of appeals actually upheld this case. this is what they said. that the purpose of federal espionage statute is protect classified documents from unauthorized procedures removal from proper case of custody, how you deal with this, regardless of means or removal apparent gross negligence was a production cause of the documents -- proximate cause of document's removal. it is clear congress's intent higher offense from classic spying to merely losing classified materials through froze negligence or mishandling of. also ironic for me when i had to go back in july this past month when i got back i had to do

annual information assurance training. they went through everything that we have to do with handling classified information. i have been in war zone. i've been -- this is just common knowledge among most everybody in the world. obviously not to the secretary. how can you then explain to me this marine's mistake taking classified documents or mishandling them is more severe than the secretary of state who sent and received classified emails on regular basis including those originally classified, not those classified later but were originally classified. >> i'm familiar with the case. i'm quite certain it is not 79-f case. it was -- >> conviction was under 793-f. i don't think, i will go back and check. i urge you too. pretty sure it is not under the gross negligence prong of 793-f. uniform court of military justice prosecution, not by the department of justice. am i remembering it correctly.

>> this was done appeal court of appeals -- >> regardless i think, i don't think this is under the same provision but even there, that is a case involving someone who actually stole classified information, hard copies. what people need to remember, i don't say this to make little of it. i think it is very serious matter. what happened here is the secretary used an unclassified email system, her personal system to conduct her business. >> let's stop right there. that in and of itself, director, you've been you through a lot of questions i apologize. come back to the basics here. we're trying to parse that i didn't have such sandy burger or other people prosecuted they took a hard copy. in today's society, even understanding if you go through any information assurance class they tell you can not be on personal laptop. there was another chief petty officer who had classified information on a personal computer. went back and forth to work. that is not physical documents. it is on a, to parse words like

that is why the american people are fed up. they're fed up with the irs commissioner when he does it. they're fed up here. i'm not attack, i think you're one of the more up right people i met. i think you blew it. i think attorney general blew it. when we come to this no other way there is no others that resemble this. as a lawyer you're taught all the time to take facts and put them, they may not be exact but fit under the law. you can't, i guess maybe i'm going to change the question because we're going down a dead end. you're -- >> can i respond. >> i want to change the question. do you honestly believe that a lady, a woman of vast intelligence, who is the first lady of the united states, who is a senator that accessed to classified information, all the members here do, who was secretary of state who had even further classification ability beyond what we have here.

can you honestly, she was not grossly negligent or criminal in her acts? >> i don't believe anyone other than my wife. my question is what evidence do i have to establish that state of mind? i don't believe i have evidence to establish it beyond a reasonable doubt. >> then really what we're saying here is this. if she is, this is essence what you're say i can't prove it. i understand. a lot of folks in the law, come to us as well, i'm attorney. not what we know, not what we think, what we can prove. i get it. this is the problem of this. this is person asking to lead this country. if she can hide behind this and get approval from fbi through an investigation which has been covered here thoroughly, then i just do not understand, she either the most arrogant, probably so or insanely naive person we have ever met because when i actually show evidence of

basically the same thing, which you can take facts and correlate to law, this is why the armed forces right you now have the new term, clinton defense. i didn't know. i didn't mean to. it is -- it is the the:defense. with questions like this we have given ability nobody takes this seriously. this is why people upset. when it was originally classified she can tell all the stories she wants. have back up from you, no prosecution which is amazing to me a law enforcement would tell prosecutor, how many times i've been on both sides of this, where the law enforcement agent says i'm not sure a case, when the prosecutor looks at it, yeah there is a case here. i don't really frankly care if i'm prosecuting what law enforce meant officer, if i see the case i can make it, that is my job. not yours. now a whole system has been turned upside down. not because i don't believe honesty of your people, i

believe you blew it because you frankly didn't have the whole situation into effect where the fbi would look political. unfortunately that is all you have become in this. it is a sad thing. because y'all do great work. you have great work. you will do great work. you by think it is too many to start, bring down the curtain. there is wizard behind the thing, miss hillary clinton who is playing all of us. because she is not that naive. she is not stupid. she knew what she was doing because she was simply too bored. if she god forbids gets into 1600 pennsylvania and gets bored with the process, got help us all. mr. chairman i yield back. >> director is permitted to respond. >> two pieces i need to respond to. you said hiding behind something. this case was investigated by a group of professionals. so if i blew it, they blew it too. career fbi agents, the very best we have were put on this case and career analysts. we are a team. no one hid behind anything.

american citizens should insist that we, bring criminal charges if we're able to investigate and produce evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to charge somebody. that should be true whether you're investigating me or you or joe smith on the street. that is the way this case was done. it is about evidence. and rest of it i will let go. >> mr. chairman, i apologize -- i'm not, this is the problem though. when you take it as a whole, it has been said up here this is unique case. you talk about it being unique case. director, this is a unique case because i truly, you can't convince hardly anybody in your own group, i don't think you ever said they couldn't blow it. they blew it. anybody else would have been prosecuted in this. >> that is wrong. we'll have to agree disagree. >> unfortunately there is lot to disagree. >> time of the gentleman has expired. gentleman from idaho, mr. labrador is five minutes. >> i appreciate your testimony

for this committee and i respect the work you do for the fbi. when you made your recommendations to the department of justice not to prosecute hillary clinton i actually disagreed with your decision but i appreciated your candor in spaining to the american people and to us those recommendations. since that decision i continue to view you as honorable and a strong leader for the critical federal agency. in fact i did 20 town hall meetings over recess i was lambasted everyone of them, because i think i lost votes because i defended your integrity at every town hall meetings, i told them why even though i disagreed with your conclusions i thought you came to it from an honorable place. however, as more information has come to light i question the thoroughness, i'm not questioning your integrity, but the thoroughness and scope of the fbi's investigation. in the past week we have learned of the grant of immunity to several key witnesses in the clinton investigation including hillary clinton's former chief

of staff and one of the individuals responsible for setting up her server. i'm really disappointed by this revelation and confused why these immunity grants were necessary and appropriate give the circumstances it appears to me the fbi was very early in this investigation, too willing to strike deals and insure that top officials could never be prosecuted for their role in what we you now know was a massive breach of national security protocol. we have a duty to insure that our fbi is still in the business of investigating criminal activity. so, at what point in the investigation was cheryl mills offered immunity? >> cheryl mills was never offered immunity, not to quibble, she was given letter immunity to govern -- >> at what point? >> june of 2016. so june of this year. so about 11 months into the investigation. >> so to be clear was she offered immunity for interview and potential testimony or for turning over the laptop as evidence?

>> turning the over the laptop as evidence. it governed what could be done using it against her, that laptop. >> to your knowledge was cheryl mills an uncrop rave witness prior to the immunity deal -- uncooperative? >> our assessment was she was cooperative. i forget the month she was interviewed. she was interviewed fulling before that. >> she always cooperated? >> our assessment was, odd way i look at the world, we had no reason to believe she was uncooperative. >> could this investigate have been completed without these grants of immunity in place? >> in my view it couldn't be concluded professionally to figure out what was on the laptops. getting the laptops was very important to me and investigative team. >> in your vast experience as investigator, doj attorney, as fbi director, how many times have you allowed a person who is a material witness to a crime you're investigating to act as the lawyer in that same investigation? >> well to let is what i'm stumbling on.

the fbi has no power to stop someone -- >> no, you're speaking, let's just be honest. you allowed the fbi, allowed cheryl mills to act as the attorney in a case that she was a material witness. how many times have you done that. >> you say as i'm allowing you to question me. i can't stop you from questioning me. >> how many times have you done that prior? >> i have not adhad an experience the subject of interview was represented by a lawyer who was also a witness in the investigation. >> so you have never had that experience. >> not in my experience. >> you prosecuted terrorists and mobsters, right? >> correct. >> during your time in justice how many times did you allow a lawyer who was a material conditions to the case that you were prosecuting to also act as the subject of, as the attorney to the subject of that investigation? >> as i said i don't think i've encountered a situation where a witness, a lawyer for the subject of the investigation was also a witness to the investigation. >> so this was highly unusual? >> in my experience, yes.

>> in your answer to chairman chaffetz you indicated that you had no reason to disbelief paul combetta when he told you he erased the hard drive on his own, is that correct? >> correct. >> however in the exchange on reddit, he said, i need to strip out a vip's email address from bunch of archived emails. basically they don't want the vip's address exposed to anyone. those two statements are not consistent. how can you say that he was truthful when he told you nobody told him to act this way but yet you saw this reddit account where they told him that he needed to act in this way? >> i think the assessment of the investigative team, those are about two different subjects. one is a year before about, in a summer of 2014 about how to produce emails and whether there is a way to remove or mask the actual email address. the hrc, dot-com.

the other is about actually deleting content of those emails sitting on the server. >> seems like in your investigation you found time after time evidence of destruction, evidence of breaking iphones and other phones, all these different things but yet you find that there is no evidence of intent. and i'm a little bit confused as your interpretation of 18 usc 793-f. on one hand you said secretary clinton couldn't be charged because her conduct was extremely careless but not grossly negligent, correct? >> not exact lib what i said. >> that's what you said today. but you also said there was no evidence of her intent to harm the united states. so but you'll agree a person can act with gross negligence or even act knowingly without possessing some additional specific intent. so which is it? is it lack of gross negligence

that she had or a lack of intent >> in terms of my overall judgment whether the case was worthy of prosecution it's the lack of evidence to meet what i understand to be the elements of the crime, one. and two, a consideration of what would be fair with respect to how other people have been treated. those two things together tell me, and i'm, nothing has happened to change my view on this, that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. specific intent he question, i agree harm, specific intent to harm the united states is a different thing than a gross negligence or willfulness. >> so just one last question. you talked about mary and joe. mary and joe could be disciplined at fbi if they did what hillary clinton did. if mary and joe came to you asked for a promotion immediately after being disciplined would you give them that promotion? >> tough to answer that hypothetical. would depend upon the nature of the conduct and what discipline had been imposed.

>> what if they ever asked for a proposition that would give them management and control of cybersecurity of your agency and the secrets of your agency after they had done these things, would you give them that promotion? >> that is question i don't want to answer. >> all right. >> time of the gentleman has expired. chair recognizes the gentlewoman from california, miss walters, for five minutes. >> hi, director comey. despite the absence of an intent mens rea standard in 18 usc section 793-f, you have said that there has never been a prosecution without evidence of intent. does the standard has been read into the statute despite the specific language enacted. what exactly are the legal precedents that justify reading intent into the statute? >> well, my understanding of 793 h if is governed by a couple things, three things really. one the legislative history from 1917 which i've read and the one case that was prosecuted in the case.

and those two things combined tell me when congress enacted 793 h if they were very worried about the gross negligence language and actually put in legislative history we understand it to be something very close to willfulness. then the next 100 years treatment of that, actually tell me that the department of justice, for a century has had that same reservation because they have only used it once. that was in a case involving an fbi agent who was in espionage context. so those things together inform my judgment of it. >> considering the importance of protecting classified information for a national security purposes a lot of people disagree an intent standard should be read into that statute. what is the specific language you recommend we enact to insure gross negligence is the actual standard for the statute, not intent? >> i don't think that is something the bureau ought to give advice on. it is good question what the standard would be. i can imagine federal employees would be concerned about how you draw the line for criminal liability, but i don't think that is something we ought to advise on the legislation.

>> should we enact mens rea standard for extreme carelessness in the statute? >> same answer i think is appropriate. >> should we enact a civil fine? >> a civil fine for mishandling classified information? i don't know actually because it is already subject to discipline which is suspension or loss of clearance or loss of job which is big monetary impact to the people disciplined. i don't know whether it is necessary. >> okay. i want to change subject. >> okay. >> for my next question. as you know the number of criminal background checks for non-criminal purposes such as for employment decisions continues to increase annually. i don't expect that you have this information on hand however would you be willing to provide the committee and my staff with the number of criminal history record checks for fingerprint based background checks the fbi has conducted over each of the past five years. what are your thoughts regarding whether the fbi has the capacity to process the increasing number of background check requests? >> i'm sure we can get you that

number because i'm sure we track it. i make sure my staff follows up with. you i do believe we have the resources. where we've been strained on the background checks for firearm purchases. the other background check processes we run, my overall sense we have enough troops to do that. we're able to, we charge a fee for those. i think we're able to generate the resources we need. >> thank you. i yield back my time. >> cot gentlelady yield to me? >> i would be happy to yield to you. >> thank you. director recalls sometime ago you appeared before this committee and you told us that you had exhausted all of the capability to unlock the san bernanadino iphone, the 5c. did that turn out to be true? >> still true. >> that you had exhausted all of your capability? >> that the fbi had, yes. >> so, shouldn't we be concerned from a cyber standpoint that you couldn't unlock a phone that in fact an israeli company came

forward and unlocked for you and a, basically a cambridge professor or student for 90 bucks has shown also to be able unlock and mirror or duplicate the memory? i mean, this is purely a question of, you apparently do not have the resources to do that which others can do. isn't that correct? >> i'm sure that is true in whole bunch of respectses. first i got to correct you, i'm not confirming, you said israeli company. i'm not -- >> contractor purported to be for you for a million dollars unlocked phone. i asked you to confirm the phone got unlocked? >> yes it did. >> so the technology could be created outside of ordering a company to essentially reengineer their software for you, correct? >> in this particular case, yes. >> okay, so you lack that capability. how can this committee know that you're in the process of

developing that sort of technology, the equivalent of the cambridge 90-dollar technology? >> how can the committee know? >> yeah. in other words where are the assurances that you're going to get robust -- if we have encryption working group that was formed between multiple committees to no small extent because of your action of going to a magistrate getting an order because you lack that capability, and were trying a new technique of ordering a company to go invent for you, the question is, you how do we know that won't happen again? that you will go to the court, ask for something, when in fact the technology exists or could exist to do it in some other way, a technology you should have at your disposal or at least some federal agency should like the nsa? >> first of all, it could well happen again. why i think it is great people are talking about what we might do about this problem. it is interesting question whether we ought to invest in us having ability to hack into people's devices, whether that's

the best solution. doesn't strike me as the best solution. we are, i asked for more money in the '17 budget trying to invest in those capabilities when which need to get into a device we can. it is not scalable and not thrilling to company like apple that we're investing monty to try to hack into their stuff. >> isn't it true we have clandestine organizations that have mandate to do just that? to look around the world and be able to find information that people don't know you can find, keep it secret, get it out there and, my question to you is, shouldn't we, instead of giving you the money, simply continue to leverage other agencies who already have that mandate, and then ask you to ask them to be your conduit for that when you have appropriate need? >> that is reasonable question. may be part of the solution. real challenges in using those kinds of techniques in the bulk

of our work because it becomes public and exposed. that has to be important part of the conversation. >> thank you. yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona, mr. franks, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here, director comey. director comey, i, the last thing i want to do is to to lecture you on anything related to law. i think you have given your life to that whole effort. i guess in the face of some things already having been said here and asked, all i can do is sort of try to reassociate this in reference why there is rule of law. we had that little unpleasantness in the late '70s with england over this rule of law, because we realize

there are only two main ways to govern. that is by the rule of men or rule of law. and, sometimes it's important for all of us to reconnect what this whole enterprise of america is all about. again i don't seek to lecture you in that regard. and i know and you have to forgive me for being a republican partisan here because i am very biased in this case. but i know that when you interviewed mrs. clinton you were up against someone that, that really should have an earned doctorate of duplicity and deception hanging on her wall. i don't know that you probably could have interviewed a more gifted per vary indicator. i -- per vary indicator. i know you were up against the best. when i read the law so many referenced that is maybe the

best way for me to do that, 18 usc 1924, provides that any federal official who quote, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the united states, and knowingly remove such documents or materials without authority, and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year or both. now i didn't miss one word there. it does not require that section does not require an intent to profit. it doesn't require harm to the united states or otherwise to act in any manner disloyal to the united states.

it only requires intent to retain classified documents at unauthorized location. i believe, sir, in all sincerity to you, person-to-person, i believe some much your comment reflected that is what occurred over the last several months. i believe that's the case. and so, i have to, it's my job to ask you again why the simple clarity of that law was not applied in this case? because the implications here are so profound, for your children and for mine, in this country, they are so profound and again, i don't envy your job but i want to give you the remainder of the time to help me understand why a law like this that any, any law school graduate, if we can't apply this one in this case, how in god's name can we apply it in any case in the world?

why does it, why is it even written? so i'm going to stop there and ask your forbearance and just go for it. >> sure. it's a reasonable question. that is the 18 usc 1924 is the misdemeanor mishandling statute. that is the basis on which most people have been prosecuted for mishandling classified information have been prosecuted. it is not a strict liability statute. i was one of the peel when i was in the private sector argued against strict liability criminal statutes. it requires in the view of the department of justice and over long practice proof of some criminal intent, not specific intent to harm the united states but general awareness you're doing something up lawful. so you have to prove criminal intent. two problems in this case. developing evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that secretary clinton acted with that criminal intent. and second, even if you could do that, which you can't, looking at the history of other cases what would be the right thing to do here? is anybody ever been prosecuted anything near these facts? i keep telling folks at home,

when people tell you, lots of people been prosecuted for this, please demand the details of those cases because i've been through them all. so that combination of what the statute requires and history of prosecutions told me, again people can take a different view, it is reasonable to disagree, that no reasonable prosecutor would bring that case. that in a nutshell is what it is. >> you said it was reasonable question. it was reasonable answer but i can't find that in the statute. thank you, sir. >> chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, mr. richmond, for five minutes. >> thank you, thank you, mr. chairman. director comey, and i'm going down a completely different path. our law enforcement in this country have a consistent enemy in a group called sovereign citizens and what i have seen in my district, we lost two

officers in st. john parish about four years ago and we just lost another three officers in baton rouge with another couple injured. in the case in st. john parish we actually had the perpetrators on the radar in north louisiana and at some point they moved to south louisiana in my district and we lost contact. so when st. john parish deputies went to their trailer park they had no idea what they were walking into. they walked into an ambush with ar-15s and ak-47s and the unimaginable happened. so through nccic and other things are you all focused making sure, and i think there are about 100,000 of them, but

are you focused making sure our law enforcement has best information when dealing with sovereign citizen or terrorist cells or other bad actors that information gets to the locals so they're not surprised and ambushed? >> well we sure are. i don't know the circumstances of that case but i will find out the circumstances. in two respects we want obviously people to know when someone is wanted but more than that we have known or suspected terrorist file that is, should have information in that about people we are worried about so that if an officer is making a stop or going up to execute a search warrant and run address of that person we get get a hit on what we call the kst file. that is our objective. if there are ways to make it better we want to. >> now let's switch lanes a little bit because this is one of i think about criminal

justice and fbi and talking about in my communities of color and with he elected officials. there seems to be two standards. one for low level elected officials and one for other people. so i guess the facts i will give you? some of our cases, you tell me if it sounds inconsistent with your knowledge of the law and your protocol but non-profit organizations elected officials have either been on boards or had some affiliation with, when those funds are used in a manner that benefits them personally, they have been prosecuted, and i mean for amounts that range from anywhere from 2,000 upwards to $100,000. your interpretation of the law, that if a non-profit funds are

used to benefit a person, not the organization, that is a theft of funds because i believe that those are a lot of the charges that i have seen in my community. would you agree with that? >> sure. could be. i know from personal experience having done these cases that's often that's at the center of a case involving a corrupt official. >> now, let's take a elected official out and just take any foundation director or board director or executive director who would use the fund of a non-profit to pay personal debts or bills or just takes money. you would i agree that would constitute a violation of the law, criminal statute? >> potentially, on federal side, potentially of wire fraud, mail fraud, tax charge potentially. >> the other thing that i would say is that in our community we

feel that it is selective prosecution. that if you're rich, you have another standard. that if you're an african-american you have another standard. and there are a number of cases that i will give you off-line. but it appears that in my concern is the authority of your agents to decide that a person is bad and then take them through holy hell to try to get to the ultimate conclusion that the agent made and they don't let the facts get in their way and at the end of the day you have business people who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect their reputation and to fight a charge that they ultimately win but now they are broke, they're defeated because when it comes out, it says that the united states of america versus you. so i would just ask you, to create a mind-set within the department that they understand

the consequences of leaks to the press, charges and what happens if when those charges are really not substantiated you still break a person. i think you all have a responsibility to be very careful with the awesome power that you all are given. with that, mr. chairman, i take back, i would yield back. >> chair thanks the gentleman. the director is welcome to respond. >> i very much agree what you said at the end of that. the power to investigate is power to ruin. charging people can be ruinous. we have to be extraordinarily exercising fair, open-minded and careful. i very much agree with that. >> chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan, mr. trout, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you, director, for being here and thank thank thank you r service to our country. when you made the statement at

press conference this r on july 5th i have not coordinated this statement in any way with the department of justice. they do not know what i am about to say. i have no reason to question your integg grit, is there any chance that someone working in your office or part of this investigation knew what you were going to decide and recommend and maybe told one of the attorney general's staff what was about to happen on july 5th? >> anything is possible. i would, i think i would be willing to bet my life it didn't happen because i know my folks. >> here is why i ask. the facts give me pause. investigation started in july 5th -- 15. many of us had asked the attorney general to recuse herself because of her friendship with the clintons and desire to continue on as attorney general with the clinton administration. she had fortuitous meeting on airplane with former president clinton on june 30th. july 2nd, she said i created a appearance of impropriety so i'm going to follow whatever the fbi director's recommendation

is. three days later you had your press conference. in your press conference you said in our system of justice the prosecutors make the decisions about what charges are appropriate based on the evidence. that is not what happened in this case. ultimately you made the decision. is that what happened? >> well, i made public my recommendation. the decision to decline the case was made at justice department. >> before you had that press conference you knew based on the attorney general's public comments that she was going to follow whatever you recommended. ultimately you made the decision in this case you made the decision whether charges were filed against secretary clinton. is that what happened? >> i think that is fair characterization. i don't remember exactly she would defer to the fbi and career prosecutors at department of justice. i knew once i made public the fib we's view this was not produce cutable case there was virtually zero chance the department of justice would go in different direction. part of my decision was based on my prediction there was no way

the department of justice would prosecute on these facts in any event. i think your characterization is fair but you i wanted to add that color to it. >> you see how some of us look addicts and facts leading up to your press conference, for a year we've been suggesting she is not the appropriate decision to make whether charges should be filed. she won't recuse herself. three days before you come out with your recommendation which she already said she is going to follow, she recuses herself. those facts give me pause. >> i think there are two dates that matter. what generated that the controversy around her meeting with president clinton, not interview with secretary clinton. >> is whole another discussion. let's talk about cheryl mills. you said earlier today it really wasn't up to you to weigh in whether there is a conflict for miss mills to act as secretary clinton's lawyer in the interview. but, again you're kind of taking your attorney hat on and off whenever it is convenient. you decided at the beginning of interview wasn't appropriate for

you to weigh in as a lawyer suggesting there was conflict but then again your recommendation is ultimately as a lawyer what is being done in this case. you see a little bit of inconsistency there or no? >> i see the point -- look i rather not have attorney hat on at anytime. i put it on because i you thought that was necessary at the conclusion of this investigation but i stand by that have the agents of fbi it is not to them to try to kick out someone's lawyer. >> what would have happened if you said, miss mills, because of history here you can't be in this interview? >> i don't know. i don't know. >> could you have said that to her? >> i guess you could. it would be well you outside our normal proehl. >> so, number times today you said there is really no double-standard. so i'm asking you as citizen and not even in your capacity as director of fbi can you sort of see why a lot of americans are bothered by a perceived double-standard? because if any of the gentlemen sitting behind you this morning, with the department, had done

some of the things miss clinton did, and told some of the lies that she told, you said in your statement that this is not to suggest under similar circumstances there wouldn't be consequences. in fact they would be subjected to administrative sanctions. and now we have an election going on where she is seeking a pretty big promotion. so maybe your point is, she wouldn't be charged under similar facts but can you sort of see why some people are bothered by the facts in case given nothing really happened to her and now she is running for president of the united states? can you see the optics on that are troubling. >> i totally get that. is one of the reasons i'm answering as many questions as i can because i get that question. again, folks need to realize, in the fbi if you did this you would be in huge trouble, would be disciplined in a certain way and might be fired. i'm also certain you would not be prosecuted criminally on these facts. >> you said that. one quick question, out of time. mr. bishop started to talk about this.

his district is affect as well by this but my district in southeast district has third largest settlement of syrian refugees of any city in the country behind san diego and chicago. that's troy, michigan. you said last fall in front of a homeland security committee you really didn't have data to properly vet the syrian refugees trying to come in. you said that again this morning. last weekend i am grocery store at starbucks and two different constituents walked up to me said, can't you stop the president's resettlement of syrian refugees in detroit, michigan? we're all afraid? they're based on largely your comment that we don't have the database to vet these folks. anything i can tell the folks back in michigan other than we're doing, we have to wait for new president because this inpresident increased number of refugees by 60, 30% year-over-year last two years. we have to wait for new president? i would like to say the fbi is doing something different than they were last year when they

you made those comments. >> they can know if there is a whiff about this person somewhere in the u.s. government's vast holdings we will find i it. the second thing they can know, if we get at whiff about somebody once they're in we can find that in pretty tight way. i can't promise people, i can't query not in our holdings that is the only reservation i offer to people. >> thank you, sir. i yield back. >> director comey, during questioning earlier there was a desput that arose over the contents of one or more of the immunity letters that were issued particularly with regard to the issue of whether or not it contained immunity for destroying documents, emails. the individual who was questioning you about that was former chairman issa of the oversight government and reform committee and i want him to be

able to clarify because we contacted the department of justice and ask them to read the immunity letters to us. the gentleman is recognized briefly. >> thank you, chairman, i will try to be very beef brief under the immunity agreement with one or more individuals, chairman mills clearly one of the individuals she negotiated a very good deal from what we can discover. she did not just receive immunity related to the product of the drive, computer and contents but in fact received immunity under 793, 18 usc 793-e and f, 1924 usc, 18 usc, 1924 and so-called david petraeus portion, 18 usc 2071. and i will focus on 2071. her immunity is against any and all taking, destruction, or even obstruction the way we read it of documents classified or unclassified. now the only question i have for

you is, and i know you're going to put this to justice and we may to ask them separately, for the purposes of what you needed as an investigator because you were the person that wanted access to the computer is that deal make any sense to return for things she could have objected to as attorney and held back which had no known proffer leading to some criminal indictment of somebody else, she received complete immunity as we read it from obstruction or destruction of documents, classified and unclassified and that's based on a review of the immunity agreement. >> i think this, you're right, this is a question best addressed to justice but i think you're misunderstanding it. as i understand it this was a promise in writing from the department of justice, if you give us the laptops we will not use anything on the laptops directly against you in a prosecution for that list of offenses. it's not immunity for those offenses.

if there is some other evidence. with that said i'm not exactly sure why her lawyer asked for it but that point in the investigation we didn't have a case on her to begin with. >> i understand that. based on the reddit discovery and others, they asked me to do it, and you said so yourself, it was probably cheryl mills, they, you have an immuned witness who has to tell you who they were. if they were told me to delete, and that's cheryl mills, in fact you have evidence from an immuned witness of a crime perpetrated by cheryl mills, the ordering of destruction of any document classified or unclassified which clearly she seems to have done. she wouldn't be protected from that. >> we developed evidence that she had obstructed jugs tis from some fashion, all she is protected we can't use as evidence something on the laptop. >> so the information put into the record today which included these reddit discoveries, show that there is a they who asked

to have the destruction of information, under 18 usc 2071, if she doesn't have immunity for that order, she could, and by definition should be charged because ordering somebody else to destroy something as an attorney, well after there were subpoenas in place that were very specific, that's clearly a willful act, isn't it? >> chairman, would you yield? >> of course. >> your line of questioning, first let me show my cards. i believe that cheryl mills has an impeccable character as my line of questioning suggests that director comey and his staff has questionable character, my good friend, there is immunity given, i don't think this applies to miss mills, i looked at question you're speaking of, if you take local, criminal and state actions given to the worst of characters for variety of reasons, that was not the reason given to miss mills.

i am assured it's a lawyer that was trying to be the most effective counsel to miss mills as possible. >> reclaiming my time, the gentlelady's point may be true. i'm only speaking to the director based on things were done that should not have been done. we now have evidence in front of this committee in the record of people destroying records of activities as late as a few days ago. so the fact that there still should be an open question, first of all, could she be prosecuted? and if in fact they have told me to destroy this, under the exact same statute that included david petraeus's, who was no longer on active duty, 18 usc 2071, there is at least a case to be made. now problem we have is, the lawyer negotiated a set of terms which hopefully doesn't mean she gets a free pass even if she willfully ordered the destruction of documents which it does appear she did.

look, my job is not to be judge, jury or hang man. my job is to look at what's been presented to us, ask the highest law enforcement officer in the land to in fact look into it because it does appear it is there. >> brief yield, my good friend. >> of course. >> certainly we have oversight responsibility. director i think he has been very forthright you but an no of the actions of destruction can be attributed, i don't think we have anything in evidence to suggest that miss mills contributed to the dictating or directing of -- >> gentlelady, gentlelady may not have been here. >> we can't speculate here. >> the gentlelady may not have been here at the time but the director himself asked who they would have been in that order to destroy, at least said it probably was or likely could have been cheryl mills. we're not saying it is. >> i hope not. >> what we're saying you have immune witness. >> gentleman will suspend. >> of course. >> the purpose of this was to

set the record straight as to what the content of the document was. that has been accomplished and debate will continue on, continue on outside of this hearing room. >> i would only -- >> let's not speculate. yield back. >> i would ask the director be able to reyou view those documents at justice and follow up with the committee would be very helpful to all of us. >> i thank the chairman. the director has answered in the affirmative that he will do that. >> we'll follow up. >> first of all, i want to thank director comey. we didn't make four hours and 40 minutes. but we did almost make four hours. and i know you have been generous with your time. however i will also say that i think a lot of the questions here indicate a great deal of concern about the manner in which this investigation was conducted, how the conclusions were drawn and the close proximity to that and the

meeting of the attorney general with former president clinton on a tarmac at the same time she then said well, i'm going to recuse myself, then shortly after that, you took over and announced your conclusions in this case which are hotly disputed as you can tell. the committee and the oversight and government reform committee have referred to the united states attorney for the eastern district of, for the district of columbia, referral based upon her testimony before the select committee on benghazi, suggesting that your statement at your press conference and your testimony before the oversight government reform committee very clearly contradicted a number about statements she made under oath before that committee. and i want to stress to you how important i think it is that we made that referral for the purpose of making sure that no one is above the law.

and in many cases, regarding investigations it is not just the underlying actions that are important but they are the efforts of people to cover those up through perjury, through obstruction of justice, through destruction of documents and so i would ask that this matter be taken very, very seriously as you pursue whatever actions the department chooses to take, making sure that no one is above the law. >> thank you, sir. >> with that, concludes today's hearing. and i thank our distinguished witnesses for attending. without objection our members will have five legislative days to submit written questions for the witness or additional materials for the record and the hearing is adjourned.

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>> every weekend booktv features 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors. saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern, charles murray, author of the book, in our hands, a plan to replace the welfare state. shares his plan to replace our welfare system with a universal basic income for americans. he talks with jared bernstein, former chief economic advisor to vice president joe biden. >> anybody whoever worked with people for serious problems knows it is that some people need a pat on the back and a helping hand and sympathy and other people need a kick in the pants. . .

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that is to say that paul was able to convince many black americans that their destiny and fate should rest with solidarity with washington. >> join the conversation with your phone calls, emails, facebook comments and tweets. for our complete complete schedule go to btv.org. >> on c-span2 we are live on capitol hill for a gathering on what congress can do to protect privacy and reduce online sexual harassment including the distribution of sexually explicit images without consent. jackie spear, congresswoman from california is sponsoring a bill to criminalize that activity. she is part of the speakers on the program this morning and the head of facebook global security. it is just getting underway. live coverage on c-span2. >> as the ranking member of the subcommittee in the committee on

intelligence. much more importantly she's a tireless advocate for women's right and a champion for the safety, health of ordinary americans. this is why they have named her. [inaudible] i think one way she has demonstrated this fearlessness is through the writing an introduction of the intimate privacy protection act. it's the first bill in congress that really takes on this issue of revenge porn. not only does this bill outline what i think is a responsible half forward for lawmakers but it has really brought this discussion to the forefront and created an opportunity and a space for us to have this type of conversation. we are very delighted that you are here to talk with us today about your motivations for the bill, the current status and outlook and where you see things going from here. please join me in welcoming representative spear. [applause]

>> good morning everyone. thank you to daniel and all of you for being here because this is really a very important issue special thanks to the information technology and innovation foundation for putting together what is a pretty impressive group of experts on this issue and i really applaud the panelists, all of whom, most most of whom i know and really admire. i hope this doesn't come as a surprise to you, but the internet is not the same place for everyone. for the fortunate it's a place for open and thoughtful debate, for witty banter and cute cap pictures. for some, this includes mostly women and ethnic minorities, it can be a place of unrelenting sexism, racism, verbal abuse and even death threats. as a public person, i sort of

expect some of that and believe it, i get plenty of it. for the average person, this is not what they expect. take the recent experience of leslie jones for doing nothing more than starring in a remake of a movie about fighting ghosts , she was subjected to a never ending stream of racial slurs and sexual attacks. she left twitter but the abuse didn't stop there. it culminated in her personal webpage being hacked and intimate photos being posted publicly. her case is regrettably typical of the experience that many women, and especially nonwhite women have on the internet. for them the internet has become a new age sewage pipeline carrying the worst material

imaginable in endless quantity. as social media proliferates so to these opportunities to destroy people's lives. several years ago, i started reading chilling stories of young people committing suicide because their image was being distributed without their consent. aubrey pot, a high school sophomore in san jose committed suicide after photos of her sexual assault were passed through facebook snapshot and text. a 17-year-old from nova scotia killed herself after photos of her gang rape were posted online tyler, killed himself after his roommate used a webcam to stream him having a sexual encounter with another man. kristi chambers seriously considered suicide after her

ex-boyfriend posted intimate photos along with her name and personal information to more than 35 different porn websites. earlier this year, a woman spoke at a press conference i had to introduce the issue. she deactivated her facebook account, changed her phone number, dropped out of school and moved out of state after her ex-boyfriend posted private images that ended up on more than 3000 websites. she was stocked by strangers including one man who pushed his way into her family's home and made it almost to her bedroom because her ex-boyfriend included a diagram of the house with her address along with false claims that she had rape fantasies.

it should come as no surprise then that more than half of the victims of nonconsensual pornography report having suicidal thoughts. this kind of abuse is widespread the economist have recorded there as many as 3000 websites and millions of images and videos that feature nonconsensual pornography. carrie goldberg who is sitting on this panel today is presenting hundreds of victims of this abuse pair. victims rights groups like cyber civil-rights initiatives have have been at the forefront of this issue and have been contacted by thousands of victims seeking help. there are cases of her is revenge, images and videos of sexual assault being shared from

entertainment as tyler clementi's case. there there are even disgusting cases where trusted caregivers have shared images they came across in their duties. one study found that 35 incidents since 2015 have occurred involving nursing home staff posting graphic images of residents with dementia and other ailments. it makes you begin to wonder what will people stoop to. as nonconsensual pornography continues to spread, survivors have often been left with nowhere to turn. celebrities have hired high price law firms to demand websites remove the materials and individuals with financial means have sought civil damages from those websites for posting the pornography, but even a rear

cases really have the resources to do that, the the images often still can be found on the internet. you can make a full-time job out of searching the internet on 3000 websites to see if there are nonconsensual photos of yourself being posted. a few revenge porn site operators like hunter moore have faced criminal punishment but that's only after they've committed additional wrongful acts of extortion, blackmail and hacking. not for disclosing the images. across the country 34 states have adopted their own ban on nonconsensual. nigra fee. of these laws are carefully crafted, but many lack important elements such as explicit first amendment protections. others only punish nonconsensual pornography when the perpetrator is motivated by a desire to harass the victim which leaves

perpetrators who are only interested in greed or vohra's him to to continue to commit the crimes and abuses that we seek to address. this patchwork of regulatory schemes creates problems for victims and tech companies alike. all victims deserve recourse, not just those in some states and all companies should be able to set policies that will apply nationwide. only federal legislation can address all of these concerns. it was clear to me there was a need for a federal law to address this behavior but i knew it was not going to be easy. some of you may know the long path to the intimate privacy act has taken over two years. i knew to get something done i had to draft a bill that had

teeth and could withstand constant to show scrutiny and would garner broad support from the community and the tech community. i also knew we would need bipartisan support for my colleagues. now, most of this would not have happened without the talented chief of staff to help thread the drafting of this legislation so i want to say to josh connolly who is on the panel, without him this would not be a bill we are addressing today. after many revisions and with the help of professor marianne franks in drafting the bill, we started vetting the legislation with constitutional scholars and legal organizations. after a lot of work we lined up strong support from legal organizations such as the national association of u.s. attorneys and the attorneys association. as well as 12 leading

constitutional law scholars including the dean of uc irvine school of law. the dean has literally written the book on constitutional law and argued five cases before the supreme court. his take on our bill sums up the constitutional question well. he says, and i quote, there is no first amendment problem with this bill. the first amendment does not protect a right to invade a person's privacy by publicizing without consent new photographs or video of sexual activity. i never get tired of reading that quote. we also brought together a broad coalition of supporters including online businesses like facebook, i want to thank facebook for being here today and twitter and victim rights

groups and the national organization of women. in past, they will punish individuals and websites that knowingly pose private intimate material while providing a safe harbor protection for websites that don't advertise or solicit such contact and include strong protections to include free speech so the information that has been voluntarily made public would not be criminalized most importantly, it would end immunity for revenge photographers who continue to do their craft because it does not exist on a federal level.

we have more work to do before we get this pass. we have bipartisan support and i hope when i reintroduce the legislation in the next congress presuming i'm reelected that we will have numbers that are extraordinary in support of this legislation and that we will be able to get it to the floor. today with smart phones and endless social media platforms there is no difference between online and off-line life. it's all just life. the same technology that gives us numerous ways to improve our lives also gives us numerous ways to destroy them. fortunately it's possible to protect both privacy and free speech. in fact the supreme court, and this is very important to underscore, the supreme court has noted, protecting privacy is often vital to protecting free speech.

when people live in fear that there might be private information that can be disclosed to the world with devastating consequences they cannot express themselves freely the first amendment does not require us to stand idly by as real lives are destroyed by virtual actions. not only do victims of nonconsensual pornography deserve justice, society must hold perpetrators of this vicious form of abuse responsible. a civilized society cannot shrug it shoulders and say there's nothing to be done. of course there is something to be done. that's why we must do something now to address this issue. it is already out of hand and it is time for congress to act. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you congresswoman. there is a lot there, do we want to discuss, i'm very pleased to hear your expectation that we will see this bill move swiftly and with great bipartisan support. so we have a tremendous amount of expertise in the room. we also have a tremendous number of people in the audience so we do have some seats in the back if you're coming in, you can can just fill in the back. let me briefly introduce our panelists and we will get right into this discussion. starting on my far left is josh connolly who is chief of staff for representatives fear. then there's terry o'neill who is the president of the organization of women, then we have at the assistant director of privacy at the fcc.

[inaudible] and he has been very active on a number of organization on improving online safety and as part of facebook she also worked for the stated attorney general. i will be asking for some views on some of that previous work you did as well. finally to my left, goldberg, thank you to all of you for being here. let's just start off, terry let me start with you, you have been working so closely with a number of the victims that this bill is intended to address and it's kind of the reason we are here. can you talk a little bit about what you are seeing in your practice and the challenges that they have today.

>> sure. so i'm basically the lawyer that i needed when i was under attack by a malicious acts. i started my law firm focusing on sexual violence online and off-line. i was informed family court, being told by a judge when i was asked for protection that i had a first amendment issue. what i'm seeing is that victims come to me and they are so distraught. their images are all over the internet, often times they've been targeted by somebody known to them and the images are spread from device to device usually ending up on a social media site. my clients are 13 - 65, 90% women but most of them are on the younger side of the scale and they do not know what to do.

they are absolutely terrified that they're never going to be able to get control back of their reputation. at this point in time, nobody can get jobs or a roommate or even a date without being googled so you just have to think about how would you feel if the first five pages of your search engine results are images of you fully exposed and naked, images that you never wanted anybody to see. my clients are distraught. they are afraid of their future. >> thank you. >> let me bring into this conversation because there's obviously this problem that affects both men and women but women have been disproportionately affected by this. you talk about some of the gendered nature of the problem as well is what you're seeing in this space and how your organization is involved. >> thank you and thank you to

representative sphere for bringing this forward read this is another tool that violent abusers can and do use from to stop women from leaving. there's an intimate photograph or video taken and she doesn't think it will be shared with anyone because she trust them because she's in love with him and yet when she decides to leave she holds us out and says if you leave me i will expose this to the world. it's a tool of intimate nation that is available in domestic violence. it's also a tool of intimidation in the workplace, quite frankly. think in terms of, for example, modeling agencies or beauty pageant contestants. there are girls as young as 14 years old that come to work for modeling agencies and you can imagine that it's entirely possible for photographs to be

taken of these girls, they are lied to about what will be done with these photographs and then that material is utilized to control them. it's a common tactic in trafficking, it's a common tactic in other forms of exploitation of women. what i am very excited about this legislation is that this is a federal crime, that it can result in serious penalties and that the women themselves no that the country is behind them and that we will use all the power of the government to stop these abusive behaviors. >> thank you. let me bring you in on this conversation because you've obviously been looking at the broader sphere of online safety for a while and you've seen a number of challenges in this space, how do you look at this issue and how have you seen the issue grow because we are talking about a more now as

opposed to ten years ago even though this type of thing has existed for a while. >> we've always had posses against this type of behavior, we don't allow people to bully or harass but a couple of years ago we saw in increase in this type of activity, we made it much more explicit in our policies that you cannot do this type of harassment. >> have you seen this issue, i guess how would you quantify the issue, if you can't. that's it was been one of the biggest challenges. you have so many clients but yet you're still just one lawyer. we know this happens outside of it when people never even hire a lawyer, they never get to that stage. >> i would actually say the question is in some way not how to week quantify it because one single person having this devastating effect on their lives is enough to make it worth solving. >> josh, let me me bring you in on the conversation, there's

obviously this question of when should government get involved, always and when should the federal government get involved so what was the thought process you guys had between saying that this is the point where we need to step in and start talking about federal law as opposed to state law. >> good question. congress is not always the best at forward thinking technology policies and implementing it, it's no secret so we were very careful and deliberative but we had just heard story after story of how destructive this is and how no legal remedy was in place and obviously technology and the internet doesn't adhere to state orders borders. we also looked at state law, some good, some bad and some just ineffective. it really seemed appropriate to address it at this level in a way that took into account both

the reality of the tech industry and the sheer volume of information they are going through and to put in place something that really had teeth and would serve as a deterrent. >> maybe you can talk a little bit about that as well, i know on your firm's website you track some of these state laws and you've probably been working with a number of these states and responding for victims. how do you see the differentiation of states and their response. >> so we have 35 states plus d.c. that have criminal laws and we also have 35 states plus d.c. that have criminal laws. there's so much variation between the laws. we have another 15 states that are completely holding out and in those dates it's perfectly legal to taken image of

something else's genitals and posted online. it's legal to do that there. the need for federal law, to protect everybody is so necessary, but particularly in the state where there is no lawmaker protecting them, no lawmaker that sees the value in sexual privacy. >> just in terms of online privacy, we certainly have addressed that through federal law, not state law, can you talk about some of the work that has gone on in the past in terms of children's privacy that might be a model or a lesson as were thinking about moving forward. >> that's interesting, we have actually supported the legislation at the state level in over a dozen states, but we also saw the need to support federal legislation as we have done here. i think if you look at children's online privacy, we

have federal legislation to deal with these issues but i do think it provides additional piece of our arsenal for people who are committing these crimes which is extraordinarily important especially when those states that don't have protection. >> the fcc has obviously been involved in this, can you share with us what they have how they have been involved? >> i'm just speaking for myself today and not for the commission or any commission, probably the most relevant was our case against great britain who was running a revenge porn website and we are a civil enforcement agency under section five gives us authority over deceptive or on fair acts or practices.

under that authority, we brought an action against great britain and obtained a settlement. this man was allegedly soliciting photos from people through means such as he would pretend to be a woman seeking a woman on craigslist and basically solicit photos from women with the promise that he would send his own in return and then he would post those with their personal information on the website. as carrie talked about, and when you have the personal information in combination with the photos, and makes it searchable online and they come up to be associated with you so we challenged his conduct as

both deceptive and unfair. in part he was pretending to be an unrelated third-party and charging for removal of the photos from the site. this affected more than 1000 people. that was an action we brought a couple years ago. we've also been involved in related areas, for example we brought a case against a key logger called remote spy that was advertised as something that could be used, you could trick somebody into downloading it and it would get on their device and capture information from them and report to you about location or passwords and things of that nature.

so, that that some of what we have been doing. there's a lot of other types of cases that we've brought as well and i guess one thing i would say is a lot of the debate is colored by the fact that the photos were originally taken consensually in the first place even though with the limited scope so that the individual has the idea while i'm sharing with you but i'm not publishing it to the world. i just wanted to make the point that a lot of our cases have involved situations where there hasn't really been any consent, even of that nature so we brought a case against print net which was an internet -based ip camera that you could hook up and due to poor data security even though you could set your

feed to private, actually hackers could get around that quite easily and they made feeds for something like 800 cameras available online. another case that we brought was the designer where case where people who were getting rent to own computers were, without their knowledge getting computers preloaded with software that allowed the rent to own franchises to determine their location but also use the camera of the computer to take pictures of them without their knowledge or consent. those are some of things we've been doing. >> where are you seeing that the fcc's hands are tied where maybe you see victims, cases that you want to get involved but

obviously the fcc is only one agency, it only has certain scope, where are you not able to act? >> for one thing, where a commercial agency so anything we challenge has to be in commerce. in the craig britton case, this was an individual who was making money, allegedly through this scheme and running a website as well as directly soliciting photos himself. if you had an example of someone who was an ex-boyfriend who was just posting it to some website without a commercial motive, that wouldn't be something we could respond to.

>> terry let me bring you back in on this, i think one of the things that is may be a defining characteristic of this type of problem is that there's so many different motivations or trajectories for how this happens and i think, so there is the angry, there's the entertainment value, the commercial, so the responses have been so diverse. the problem with that as it creates a lot of, it's a heavy cost on the victim and the person affected by it to figure out how to deal with it. is that a copyright issue a privacy issue, commercial issue, maybe you maybe you can talk a little bit about that type of problem because we see this in other areas where people are motivated for many different reasons. >> i really think it comes down to a consent issue and it comes down to whether or not the victim consented to this type of victims of her or him. you can think of to analogy one his medical records. clearly people consent to the

sharing of medical records. you want one doctor to share the medical records with another doctor, but you you certainly don't want those medical records put out on the internet because it might be shaming, that information may be used with your career, your ability to keep your job, that information simply may be something that is so private to you that is crippling in the sense that people really can't continue to function when they think oh my gosh, this is out there, people see this about. i think there's analogy between nonconsensual publication of intimate pictures and the nonconsensual medical information. i bring up that analogy because i am very sympathetic to the first amendment problems with the idea of criminalizing nonconsensual pictures and i think that when we think about

the first amendment, we need to think about why is it that it's okay under the first amendment to prohibit publication of private medical records but not to prohibit publication of private intimate images and photographs and videos. i also think there's another analogy and that is to it sexual harassment in the workplace. back in the 1990s, the first amendment was used to resist the use of title vii of antidiscrimination laws to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. the argument was, these are just guys being guys. just because they put pornographic photos on the locker of the woman, they they need to be able to express themselves. they have a right to say i don't want women in the workplace and i can harass them with these images of a sexual nature. ultimately, when anita hill

testified about her experiences with this constant barrage of sexualized harassing behavior by her boss, that is when people began to understand the first amendment does not give carte blanche to people in the workplace to stop an individual from being able to perform her regular job duties. i think the same thing is here. representatives. said there's no such thing as off-line life and online life. it's life. we are all online a lot of the time. i think the first amendment argument is quite frankly, one that comes from privilege and people who haven't experienced it haven't experienced the

shutdown that can happen to victims. >> let me open it up to the whole panel. where do you draw the line with the first amendment. most people recognize that the problem but then they say she would be concerned about how this could go awry and as you said, it becomes this, if you don't care about the issue, maybe first amendment trumps it and that's been a bigger roadblock until we see movement for a number of reasons. we just need to tell anyone who wants to talk about the first amendment. >> maybe help pick on josh. you deal with this quite a bit. >> i think ultimately critics have said this should be a harassment suit and to have

congressional monster would have to be harassment. as terry said this is a privacy matter and there's lots of jurisprudence that supports that, financial data being another example. this is arguably more destructive to people's lives than an x-ray getting out or someone social security getting out. it's just a reality of the time we live in that this is a very real and pervasive threat to people's lives. i don't know if this becomes law, knock on wood, if sec. clinton is supportive of this maybe this would be the first bill she would sign into law. it will be curious to see if

it's challenged in the courts. >> it's interesting, less so on the first amendment peace but on people's ability to share and speak. we see see on our platform that people don't feel safe it won't share. they won't post their photos or connect with their friends. it's important for us to create a space where they feel safe so that's why we have this policy and that balancing but we want people to feel safe so rules like this help legislation feel safe and communicate in a way they normally would. >> what's bizarre about this situation is after the fcc case with craig britton, it was the individual you took action against, he was using a little bit to try to do list and protect his name so people wouldn't find out that a the fcc

took action against him. the legal public government information about them than getting more sensitive information removed that nobody else had it right out there. carrie i know you've been thinking about this as well. >> i think it's interesting to see this internet privacy protected act as pitting privacy against free speech. that's a false tension it should play out in the hulk hogan case where there were so many headlines, this issue between privacy and freedom of speech. so much speech would be silent if everything was considered a public matter.

really in the case, the question raised wasn't about privacy at all, it was whether it was newsworthy. we've had case after case finding that tapes aren't newsworthy even if they include famous participants. >> absolutely. we have seen the hulk hogan case, the celebrity iphone leak, hack where there was a turning point in culture. we are finally saying wait a second this seems like something is wrong.

i went to open it to the panel, how have things changed in the past few years as we've had these high profile cases and victims how can this policy help >> i can tell you from my perspective, i think there is a growing movement among women online and women in tech to push back against a lot of the quite gendered harassment and bullying that you find online. i think gamer gate sparked an incident in which a number of women who are developing video games which is a very male dominated part of the online industry, they began to be attacked viciously and were docked like the incident that happens with intimate pictures, their home address, all of the

information was put online solely for the purpose of harassing them simply because they were women who was invading the space of gamers. women began to organize and push back against that and i think there's a growing awareness through online about the existence of this and how gendered it is and how it affects women and so when you see these incidents of leslie jones and other victims of intimate, publishing intimate pictures, it comes with a debate. it hits people with a cognitive debate. there are ready being aware of gamer gate and the bullying online and i think it fits this new bill is something that people will recognize.

>> josh, i know you have reiterated this is not the. [inaudible] bill. >> some have interpreted implicitly that our bill was somehow a causal reaction to the case and in fact it was not. the question of bona fide public interest i do think is a compelling one and one that was brought up at the hulk holding case but i think a more interesting example is some news organizations calling into question, what about this photo, would it be prohibited or expose them to criminal liability. just look how, one we don't dispute that very important story and very important picture. when you see most newsy agencies, i haven't seen seen any that didn't do this, they blurt blur out the faces of the individuals and their genitals

but i don't think that detracted from the power of that in mitch or its importance or the effect, but i think it would be gratuitous and unnecessary to not pull those faces out, it would re- victimized them, and in no way would it create any sort of information to the public. i think the question is a real one but i think if you use some common sense and look at where the courts come down on some of these cases, i think it would easily be interpreted. >> i think there's some cultural shift in the last three years. not only have we gone from 3 - 3 - 35 days and we've had some of our most celebrated

celebrities come out and talk, in the entity fair, about being a victim but was also had several civil cases that are resulting in large judgments. we just had a new one for $500,000. we've gotten the fcc to bring a case against the revenge born operator, we've gotten several outcomes against other operators and now we have tacked actually creating policies. all of this happened in the last three years. i think all of this together has given the media the okay to actually be writing about it which never happened three years ago. now there's articles from the perspective of the victim and it's really educating the country about this. >> i want to spend a little time talking about basically what victims can do right now and what's available.

we can start with you and talk about the actual mechanisms in place on facebook. you were honestly one of the earlier movers, how do you see that, maybe walk us through how you would have crafted the policy and how it's actually playing out. >> on facebook, as we said earlier, we do not allow this kind of sharing of intimate images and we make it very, very easy to report and when people report it we will remove it immediately. i think it's more than that. >> let me stop you there, can you talk about what that removal process looks like? is there someone reviewing it. >> yes we have a multitude of people reviewing these reports 247 in over 40 different languages to remove them. in addition, i think there's something that happens with this particular sharing that is devastating for victims is that it shared across multiple

platforms. if it's removed from facebook, it may pop up somewhere else. one of the things that we are working with cyber civil rights initiative was to collect, how do you report this across a variety of platforms in one place so that if you're the victim of this type of crime you can go to one place and report across all the platforms. another thing we've done is we've worked very closely on guides to give people the resources that they need when they are the victims of something like this so they can go and find, can they reach out to the local resources in their area. we've been testing a reporting flow where those resources will be provided immediately upon reporting that. >> great, we can talk about this as well and how you see the. >> we are continuously talking about what victims should do and

whether it's copyright or civil suit, but really, really what we should talk about is how we deter the offenders and that's why we really need the criminal laws. offenders are not afraid of being sued for copyright infringement or being taken to civil court. they're not usually people who have money and there also often abusive exes so they would love to get back together with their victim even if they are dating in court houses. what people are afraid of are going to jail and having something on the public record. there is such a need for the criminal laws. victims don't have to think about what to do because they won't be victims because offenders won't offend at the same rates we are seeing. >> you're right, that's a very important point. that's part of the fcc's role.

the fcc doesn't go after everyone, it's trying to set a culture within the commercial space. do you think that's been set through the actions? or using a change in what people are willing to do commercially in the space that affects individuals? >> i think that our actions probably have the most effect in sort of the legitimate companies face, frankly, so we so we do a lot of anti- fraud work and support and work of this nature against basically individuals and we certainly hope that that will have a deterrent effect, but some of these people, a lot of this is not necessarily rational behavior in the first place, obviously, it's driven by

a lot of really ugly emotions or even, you wonder about mental illness or other things going on it's harder to deter that. i just want to go back to one more thing about helping victims which is that on monday we put out a piece on stocking apps, we do do a lot of consumer and business education and this is a piece for women who basically know where they are at every moment and be able to track them and brag about, i know you went here and there and just about the fact that these stocking apps can exist and how you might be able to find out that your phone has been jailbroken and that these apps might be on your

device and what to do about it. that was something that we put out just this week and then we have another information online, there's another piece for victims of domestic abuse and so forth, advice for them. >> terry maybe you can talk about this as well in terms of the broader sense, this is a digital representation of issues, but the traditional response from individuals, if they feel like someone's done something, they call the police. one of the problems is that when we looked at those, a lot of local police are going to know how to deal with this issue, even if they escalated to fbi because it's cross-border for they call it an internet crime, they're still still not really that same type of response that you would have for other types of domestic violence or sexual violence or anything like that.

>> are you thinking about how this fits into a broader set of resources that are being made available? >> it really is a problem, what women, like victims of sexual assault are immediately not trusted initially, they go to the police and their subjected we don't trust you, what were you drinking, what were you wearing, what did you say, all the real reasons why the victim was at fault. i think what you have in the publication of intimate pictures is the same kind of victim blaming. there's a lot of shaming. why did you allow that picture to be taken in the first place. it's your fault, you should've known, you should you should know to protect yourself at all times. we do see a lot of the same kind of victim blaming and there's a spectrum of perpetrators, the perpetrators really do fall

along the spectrum of motivation for why they're doing what they're doing. sometimes it's revenge, sometimes it's just control. sometimes it's just a predator who is using intimate photographs as a tool to continue to control individuals. it's very much true in sex trafficking and abuse. it's important to have the criminal law of the united states of america behind you. >> let me go to you, i think what we should do, i think this people in the room who probably have a lot of questions i want to open it up but i want to spend a few more minutes talking about the law itself. can you walk us through in more detail, how you you have thought through some of these different issues and put it in the bill and then we can open it up to the panel for their reaction. >> yes, we looked at a lot of stuff. we looked at digital millennium copyright act, the process of

notice and takedown for copyright material, we looked at child pornography which is a center for exploiting children which is kind of this clause i governmental entity that's a clearinghouse for child pornography to come up with a model of notice and takedown regime. this solution seemed to really work. so basically we really wanted to go after, we wanted to deter the really bad actors, like you said , these folks that are uploading the content and then we wanted to get after the revenge porn site so the nam consensual pornography sites and how they're getting this content is they are knowingly soliciting for advertising for this content. so basically, we defined what this content is, we carve out

police activity for investigation and public, but if you're knowingly uploading or sharing this content with reckless disregard as to whether the individual consented for it to be publicly distributed you would be held criminally liable with a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison. then we carve out and touch section 230 which is the third rail of this issues and many others that basically if you touch it. [inaudible] so we didn't want to touch that. the good actors like facebook that really not only in their self-interest to vigilant about taking this content down, but do a good job of it. again, we really wanted to go after the bad actors, the folks uploading it and the ones

trading and benefiting and profiting, the websites, from selling this content. >> let me open it up to the panel in terms of i know everybody here has looked at the bill. reaction to the measures, anything you're particularly pleased about or anything you would like to see changed. >> like i say, i think the most important piece is that it shows that the united states government is on the side of women who are struggling with this issue. i think it's extremely important to get the word out that women will have recourse, we needed a bill, as josh said as the congress woman said, we needed a bill with teeth and this is something that women really can use and i think it sets the tone. if you go back to that spectrum of perpetrators, along the spectrum of people who might not

be the predators to deliberately creating tools that they can use in the traffic world -- sex trafficking world, there's others who just think i want to get back at her and her criminal law could deter that and i think it will and that's very important. >> i'm a fan, the initiative was pretty active in working with josh to draft this bill and we think it's traffic. >> we are fans to. >> in all seriousness because this is actually a very serious crime, the behaviors that people who are sharing nonconsensual intimate images, that impacted that behavior is devastating. it's devastating to the people in those photos and we felt very strongly that it was important

to support legislation at the state level when we saw happening as well as the federal level. >> i also want to say, the exceptions that are in there, i think very much take care of all of the first amendment issues and it's extremely important, the free speech of victims is dramatically increased by this bill. the ability of women to say, to be out there and be online without fear, to know that the internet can be a safe space for them, but it's not just actual victims of nonconsensual porn, it's it's also bystanders who fear they might become victims who are then shut down, don't don't want to go online and are fearful of it. this bill open up a great deal of free speech not for those who are privileged and are ready using the internet but those who really need to be on the internet. >> one thing i didn't talk about

in the beginning, you may be wondering why a group like this is even involved in this issue, and a lot of this goes back to the idea that we've always advocated for the idea that technology was designed by choice and we should be thinking about what type of uses of technology we should be creating and how are going to use it and how we can provide promote more innovation. that only happens when you create the space people want to participate in and that's a role that has a private component and a public-sector component. :