we are talking about the effect of covid-19 on democracies and authoritarian regimes. a part of the quarantine strategy is what many of us consider invasive surveillance, location and health conditions of a citizen and imposition of restrictions based on gathering of data.

it seems on the one hand it makes a lot of sense to combat that health challenge but it creates some problems. you thought about ways to mitigate those problems. can you talk about that? >> guest: our watchword is ideas, defining a free society at the hoover institution. this is a pretty important problem from the standpoint of human liberty. the problem in part is these methods work. they have helped states identify where the virus is cropping up, who has it, who they have been in contact with and then you can alert the people may have been in contact with. it is an automated speed up of contact tracing. on the other hand governments can use them to monitor people

for other reasons and what happens when we surrender our privacy, surrender our freedom from state surveillance and then we don't get that freedom back after the crisis? we can't trust governments, even very liberal governments to surrender these tools after the crisis is over. i think we should have a debate to what extent people want to surrender their freedom even now but in particular after the crisis ends and while it is going on i think we need independent review boards of respected jurists, civil society leaders, religious and ethical leaders who can monitor what the government is doing and claims the government is

making and get authoritative information from the mobile phone companies about how they are using these applications so we can have a full and frank discussion within the society about how much freedom we want to surrender, and when that surrender should be terminated and returned to the people. >> host: being successful at managing south korea, taiwan, israel, two of those have aggressive tracking and tracing techniques involved. how did they navigate the civil liberty governance concerns associated with that? >> i think this is very much a matter of debate in korea where the current president, moon, has a lot of popularity and at the moment strong support and

in israel, israel is a very kind of independent-minded society and people are concerned about the methods that have been used by the it is really intelligence organization to track terrorists are now being used to track the virus, this is ongoing. the problem is less serious in taiwan, enormous success in containing the virus very early on. . and it requires strong public health coordination and digital early action.

the compromise, the temporary emergency has been such an imposition. >> the technologies that allow tracing, joseph suggests these apps for technologies could be billed with self-destruct systems so they would expire 6 weeks out, i wonder if you heard that discussed as a way to balance the civil liberty surveillance issues. neville makes the following claim, playing to protect individual piracy -- privacy. how does that work? >> don't know how they do it. one way to ensure greater

privacy is to use. and rather than the centralized cell phone system. some of the apps limiting the exposure in terms of freedom by relying on the immediate geographic connection of bluetooth. with respect to the self-destruction, i love that. all legal and technological steps toward eclipsing liberty have to have sunset clauses, it could be a time related one or

could just be an independent review board having the authority to order the mobile phone companies to implement the self-destruction button when the crisis is passed. >> host: i want to come back to the challenges the pandemic is on democracies but a couple questions what they are doing to authoritarian regimes. james has the following question, broad-based societal crisis such as covid-19, totalitarian regimes with the command and control structures have an inherent advantage hoping for centralized government and economic structures. if such a thing exists how will they neutralize or mitigate the competitive advantage. covid-19 impacts on

authoritarian regimes in cuba and venezuela. how are the high tightly held authoritarian regimes in the world reacting to the pandemic? >> guest: it is impossible to claim there is an intrinsic authoritarian advantage for managing a pandemic. you see how many democracies have done a pretty admirable job of doing so frankly in terms of immediate and transparent reaction to the first signs of crisis, without the cause in terms of human freedom. i will say korea, taiwan, singapore, countries that have had more success. and the sars epidemic. and there's a need for a lot of the measures.

the intrinsic advantage of authoritarianism, and >> what is going on in cuba. and what is going on, and we don't have honest reporting of information. the population has been so devastated by hunger and malnutrition, who is dying from what. there is actually a website, the data that informs my

earlier point, it is intriguing that countries in the equatorial region cuba and venezuela are either in or border, countries in the hot or humid climates and global south have not been hit with anything like the level of epidemic that europe, the us and so on have been. is that because of their climate? is it because they haven't been in the global transmission quite as this, it remains to be seen but it is noteworthy. iran has been hit very hard by this. we don't know what the real rates of infection are, who would believe iranian state authorities in terms of the accuracy of reporting.

>> there have been no defection in north korea. >> >> the pandemic is not threatening the pillars of democracy. and in democracy generally. will the press a vibrant in democracies. and a vigorous independent press. we would like it to be one that doesn't further feed our political polarization. we want pluralism of ideas, we want to contest of

perspectives, we want print media, online media, television media. different editorial intentions perhaps. but pluralism is crucial. what we don't want his government threatening that pluralism or threatening investigative reporting with laws like what hungary has passed that written 5 year prison terms for any, quote, false reporting about the covid-19 pandemic. who the heck is supposed to determine what is false reporting is what our inconvenient facts government and especially authoritarian or liberal governments don't want their people to know. india has become an important friend of the united states. the relationship with india is a very important one.

i think donald trump's if there was a positive step for the united states, but we do need to be careful not to give prime minister modhi a free pass while he intimidates critics and tries to suppress media and press from this crisis. it is a dangerous potential trend that could develop in india. >> host: i asked george osborne this the other day. one of the responsible acts of the media in these circumstances is to moderate the dissemination of health consequences and policies that can mitigate the developers of consequences. our free society is better able to manage that then authoritarian societies. how do you balance accurate information and consistent

information with the need to have a pluralistic wild west discussion of what is going on. >> guest: i think the major applications whether there editorial line is in one direction like the wall street journal, like the new york times. and, what is in the realm of scientific possibility. we didn't know about the evidence doesn't look promising. and it is speculative. we are hearing the reporting that remdesifir is showing promising health effects.

the media has been pretty wise and responsible in reporting the range of possibilities, and they have a hopeful and early breakthrough. any reporting that is inconvenient, any reporting that can cast them in a bad light is suppressed. when you start suppressing reporting, you handicap your ability to fight this virus. china, you take for granted the world is paying the price, germany is not going to wind up suing china for damages, in a certain moral respect the whole world has a right to do so.

whether the virus emanated from a wet market or whether it escaped from the institute of virology lab, either way, china's incompetence and suppression of the truth from the beginning contributed to the spread of the virus. i will just say this. it is so important. the success story of the democracies, taiwan, and israel. transparency transparency transparency. authoritative reporting of what is happening, intelligent responsible interpretation, question if they want but moderation of it has been very crucial.

and and and vetting the information of its website. facebook is moving pretty soon now. toward an independent review board for its editorial decisions. i think that could help in moderating this content. >> host: are you concerned about the danger that private company's like youtube and facebook will be censoring information as opposed to conducting legitimate editorial activities? >> this brings us to the independent review board. facebook decides to take some post challenging.

and floating the scientific idea that facebook decides his quackery. the thrust of david's question, isn't that dangerous, the value of where we are headed now with facebook's voluntary decision to create this independent review board is the facebook user if they have their material taken down, could file an appeal to the independent appeals board and they would assess it and there would be a noncorporate body of individuals weighing the evidence and making the decision. >> host: another important pillar of democracy is voting. the pandemic affect our physical ability to conduct fair and widely subscribed

voting and elections. i have a question from michael. are there any best practices for conducting elections during this public health emergency. >> guest: the clear best practice is at hand, most election experts think that we should rapidly develop in terms of support, technical, financial support for state and local election administrators to make more broadly available to the public is vote by mail. think about it logically. if we are going to have, if we make progress which i believe we will in slowing or containing the virus in the coming month, if we are likely to have a resurgence of the virus in the fall of this year as we did during the great

influenza in the fall of 1918 a lot of people will be afraid to go outside their homes. we will be short of poll workers like we were in wisconsin but even in cities like milwaukee where they have reduced the number of polling stations by 95%, people can vote by mail, absentee from their homes, for free postage, have the mailman pick it up, it will be a lot safer. a lot of people will want to do that. it is important we give states and localities the assistance they want and need to ramp this up as an option if they want to avail themselves of it.

three that have been, colorado, oregon and washington, hawaii and use the, utah is an interesting case because it is a deep red state, faithfully republican, county by county phasing in universal a vote by mail, voters liked it. it worked out well, they adopted at a state level and political science colleagues who evaluated what happened when counties in california, washington and utah, and what they found is encouraging for the current moment, that there was no partisan impact at all,

vote by mail had no effect in the percentage turnout of democrats versus republicans, no effect in the average electoral result in terms of the balance between the two parties, seems to be partisan neutral. if it is partisan neutral we can get behind it and improve our safety, security and legitimacy of the election by having more comprehensive vote by mail. >> michael talks about fraud, how do you know the person who checked the ballot is the person entitled to make the vote, how does one protect against nonsense in voting by mail? >> they will not get a mail ballot, no one is really raised that is a significant concern. the greater concern is very very subtle that there could be

households, i don't dismiss this where you have an authoritarian figure in the household, traditional father, strong-willed other individual, give me a ballot. you way the downside of every other option. the downside of that is pretty low risk compared to the risk of many people feeling like they can't vote or exposing themselves to greater danger by voting in person, as tweet 7 people who voted in wisconsin came down with courtney kube in the april primary. >> host: maria wants to know why we don't just vote

electronically by internet? >> there will be growing support for internet voting, senator bob carey authored an op-ed and the answer is simple, the technology simply isn't there, to ensure against fraud and subversion and contamination of the vote. it is too easy to hack any internet system. even what we thought would be a very secure one. just ask the pentagon. the best computer scientist in the world and the united states have a very clear stand here and it is in two parts was part one, don't ever hold a vote of consequence that cannot be audited or recounted by paper

trail and internet voting can't do that. we would have to sacrifice the secrecy of the ballot to do that and number 2, don't institute internet voting until we have a technological breakthrough that is not on the horizon. >> host: let's talk about civil society. every democracy depends on a vibrant civil society of people who concern themselves with voting and discourse to solve pressing social problems, freedom to assemble, to associate with who you wanted this is limited in many significant ways, basic ideas, how do you see the pandemic undermining the civil society necessary for vibrant democracy. >> in several ways. first of all there is the

danger of legal action by elected and not elected leaders who want to heighten their power and diminish freedom so that they don't have to suffer criticism and oversight. secondly, i am really worried about damage to the resource base of civil society organizations, nonprofit institutions including think tanks, universities, and oversight organizations as a result of the economic pain we are going through. a lot of civil society organizations prosper from face-to-face interaction, interpersonal meetings, community action not just to depend democracy. how about food to hungry people. one of the crazies food banks

are facing is not only shortage of money to buy the food to distribute but a shortage of volunteers who hand out the food because people are afraid of getting sick. all of these are dangerous to civil society and community spirit. >> host: have you seen new displays of civil action that give you optimism about the future of our democracy? >> guest: i have. we are all seeing them. some of them involve these from a distance celebrations of the amazing work of medical care professionals and first responders being treated like the battling heroes that they

are is when people come to the balcony or play music or sing or so on and the musical tributes including the amazing musical tribute cnn hosted a couple weeks ago and i have to say i think another reassuring thing is we haven't lost our sense of humor. some of the best humor i have seen, almost infantile humor has been generated during this pandemic and if i could share one example, we need a light moment amid this challenge, the new yorker had a cartoon. many of us are dog owners.

they had a cartoon of a bunch of dogs seated around the border with the head dog in your role as director and a cat at the other end of the board room and the director is saying to the other dogs, our covid-19 plan is working, but humans are staying home and the cat pipes of why wasn't i consulted about this? >> >> >> the virtual cocktail party. it is on friday afternoons and i enjoy those. >> mine is on thursday afternoon. >> that is a great conversation, thanks for joining us. our next insider policy briefing will be tuesday

may 5th at 11 am pacific and 2:00 pm eastern with doctor scott atlas and economist john taylor. they will be discussing covid-19 in the reopening of the economy. should be an interesting discussion with doctor scott atlas is senior fellow of the q for -- hoover institution. he had a 25 year career in tertiary care medicine at the top medical centers and served as chief of neural radiology at stanford university medical center. john taylor is the george p shultz senior fellow of economics at the hoover institution and professor of economics at stanford university. he served as under secretary of the treasury for international affairs under president george w. bush. i'm looking forward to my discussion with medical doctor and economist as we examine the salient questions surrounding the economy opening in a safe and productive manner.

the hoover institution at hoover.org and on twitter, facebook and instagram. i look forward to seeing you next time. >> guest: a look at bestsellers. beginning at 8:00 pm eastern author eric larson discusses the splendid and the vile primacy winston churchill at leadership during the london blitz. james patterson, on the politics of the kennedy family. and announcement during. anthony lucas prize, and alex's in american summer. look over the weekend for c-span2.