statute and their exemption to 6, they're right here and they practically protected nothing under the privacy protections in florida and that was what she was used to working with. and she would go over there and give carl the business and he would have to give us the business. but that was the way it worked. but i would say it was easily janet reno. >> i have a two-part question for you, actually. the first is do you recommend this area of law as a good area of specialization for graduating law students? and secondly, i know that the next panel is going to be going over some legislative activity, but in your opinion, do you thing that foya should be amendmented in connection with the millner decision of last year? >> let me do the last one first, the answer is yes, i think

milner probably was appropriately decided, although i sure understood what justice prior said, let sleeping laws lie, it had been the law for 35 years, or 30 years and america had worked seemingly pretty well. i understand what the majority did and how that worked. but i think that particularly some of the folks with d.o.d. and some of the other areas that i'm familiar with where we had this, as dan mentioned, vulnerability studies and things of that nature, we also have some material that are high too for the military that just really are very difficult or can't be protected right now. so dealing with that one first, with your first question, no, i think you shouldn't go into

foya, i think you should go and you should be an investment banker. because that's what i would have done and if i would have been able to do a little bit better. if i would have been somebody who was on law review, somebody like metcalf, and i only knew one person who was on law review at hastings and i didn't know him very well. that was the sort of thing that i certainly would have gone into investment banks. >> the question was for a law student to do, not someone who's deciding which branch to do. a law student should go into investment banking? >> you should become an attorney and learn all you can about corporate law and investment banking. isn't that true, tom? because there's a lot of money in investment private practice. tom is right there.

formerly. tom, do you have a question? >> yeah, some susquin, formerly a lawyer. and this one is to dick, not dan. one of the things from your chronology that you didn't mention is that in the early '90s there was a proposal being with developed with an alternative conference that came into ultimate fruition 20 years later. the justice department and your office opposed that vigorously. among other things saying we do that already. >> uh-huh. >> i had a few occasions over the years to try to get your office to do it. and i didn't succeed. i want you to explain to us, was this really something that your office actively pursued? and why is it that so few people knew about it? >> do you remember what i did

during my 35 years, that was not one of my 70,000 appeals or my 300 classes that i sougtaught. i think that sounds more like policy. i bet we have got an answer to that. >> i wanted dick to spongd. >> obviously it fell in between the cracks. that's the answer to my question. >> when was that? >> dick, what happened, that's what tom did, we had about a handful to a dozen of what we call full office type matters that we had ever year. we tried to advertise that puppy up the wazoo. but as a practical matter, we could only take the cases that came in.

miriam on the other hand has more cases than she knew what to do with. >> and we also had one other difficulty and that's one that miriam suffers under at her agency and that is it is not a class a misdemeanor, not to follow the advice of the office of information and privacy, when we told you you're going to have to disclose that information, when we're talking to somebody outside of the department. we could say -- and the huge share of the time, when we would talk to another agency on an issue like that, a huge share of the time, an agency would do what we told them when we were aware of a problem. i'm going to tell you, there are a couple of them, one of which's initials, i shouldn't say the name of it, but it's initials were e.p.a., that we just once had a terrible problem with them saying you cannot do that and

they had a political person that said yeah, we're going to. and as soon as the organization was ensued, finally the third entity in the department of justice, they had asked us, criminal division, why criminal division is not all that clear. and then the aua said that was one where they had to write the attorneys fees for the cost of complaint. but there was no way we could enforce that in the exceptionally rare case where that happened. >> wasn't there an attorney general's directive at some point that the justice department wouldn't defend cases that it didn't feel were justified and did that happen often? >> sure. but not often enough, perhaps, for many. >> yep. >> was this in every a.g. memo from may of '87 to may of 81,

to ashcroft in october of 2001 and now to holder in 2009. it's in every memo. that's the legal standard that sits there. >> it was my understanding that when this came up, it didn't even go that high up the line. it was the a.g. talking to the office of the supervi visor. that was one of the rare case where is they would not take our advice. most of the time they would. >> dick used to love, more than anything else, when we would have to get on the phone, i was telling this to someone earlier this afternoon and tell no less personage than a general or an admir admiral, sorry, admiral, you're flying wrong. he loved being able to do that because he was only a colonel,

to get to say that to a general, he loved that. >> i was always worried about the word getting back. >> a high draft number. >> '98, yeah. >> i think it ought to be time right now. in fact it is -- >> no, it's not. >> i can't believe you're doing it this way. >> you're trying to avoid my question like you tried to avoid my appeals. >> i thought i responded to every one of those appeals. >> and there's a lot of blood on those 70,000. i want to thank you for your service, we always thought that we got a good hearings, even if we didn't get the right answer over the years. i guess the question, with both of you here, i guess the question i would like to put to you is to think and to maybe expound if you will a little bit about the role of the justice

department in -- as a model and a leadership role for the entire federal foya process, government wide, as well as in the world. but specifically government wide and let me tell you why i'm asking this question which is currently, there is some debate in one of the critics is sitting on the panel here about the justice department's numbers on foya compliance and foya completion and decisions. so there's some criticism as to whether the justice department is being honest in its reporting to congress about its foya program. and so i'm mindful of what that -- what signal that sends to the broader bureaucracy, and since you are reviewing foya over your tenure, if you could speak to the role of leadership for your office. thank you. >> i think that we did a pretty

good job and i think we did provide leadership and i think that the policy guidance that dan gave overwhelmly through foya update and the case law that the two of us put out through the d.o.j. guide and the privacy act overview, was extremely good and we would put in cases, for instance in the d.o.j. guide, where the department lost and sometimes when we lost and we didn't think we should, well, there's going to be a parenthetical in there saying, judge, apparently on in facts, thus and such. >> we used to use aberrational ruling. >> aberrational ruling. >> inexplicably aberrational. >> we wanted to do that in that

we were kind of flattered in one respect that we occasionally would see briefs that would be written by united states attorneys which clearly had taken the information right out of the d.o.j. guide and cited everything and we look down there, and said judas priest, you sighted two cases that were against the proposition. these are not in your district, not in your circuit, you are not obligated to to do this as a matter of ethic ors law. and you abuse inexplicably ruling thus and such and you've got that kind of wording in there, so we wanted to be careful that we definitely put in the good, bad and the ugly throughout that guide in order to make it as straight forward and as honest as we could. i would say in that area i think we did a very good job.

>> i'm not sure if that responds to all of it. >> i have no basis for understanding what's gone on since then, but with respect to the overall backlog, the inescapable fact, speaking of leadership and serving as a model that in the three leadership offices of the department of justice, a.g., deputy and associate attorney general, miriam knows it well, not only did the backlog increase by 33% last year, but after that happened and there was some focus on it, the combined backlog for those three offices, attorney general to attorney general and associate attorney general increasesed this past year like 35.7%. as dick would say, who's counting, i think the people are getting guidance from justice

are counting if they see sort of caesar's wife. that's just one of many things that are sad right now. >> that was kind of the motivation of my question, to speak to any lessons you would draw from being kind of at the crucible for being behind -- notwithstanding the policy that you used that implemented the policy. >> it's good to speak straight forwardedly, to make sure that what you say is accurate and that you're telling the truth. >> sir? >> michael bigert, department of the navy. >> you know the department is facing budget cuts.

>> you always say that. >> there are positions that have been eliminated so you're looking at perhaps lower foya. i'm wondering, does the justice department have a role here? i can tell people, hey, it's a law. freedom of information act is a law, we have to have people to carry out that law. but i don't really count for much in the air force. so should the department of justice perhaps being telling defense department and other agencies, you have to preserve these people because they are there to carry out a law. >> i think there's some difficulty with justice telling other agencies how they should allocate their money. i remember going back quite a while ago when the head foya works in that d.o.d., going back into the a.g. probably in the 80s said i don't mind being told

to do more or less, i just don't like it when i'm told to do it faster as well. that's the sort of problem i think that a lot of us have. sometimes we can get from automation, we are able to increase the speed and improve things a little bit with that, but i recognize automation costs us money as well and once we have made that increase of 17% the first year, it's going to stay at 17%. it's not going to be growing by that every year. so i think that there certainly are problems with exactly that. i have seen going way back, department of state used to have a terrible problem with it's backlog and they went up once to senator leahy and leahy was wearing two hats, one in the senate subcommittee, dealing with foya and he was aware of the problem of state, he also

happened to be on state department's appropriations committee and that was the time, at least with state, he was able to make a difference for about three or four years, where he told them that they were going to get more maund oney and he d want this money used for this, that or the other thing, he wanted this particular $4 million over here that's put into foya and in fact it did make a difference for that short period. but the difficulty is even if justice says something like that, it's not going to through the appropriate forappropriatore might have been a small built of help that could be done through the chief foya officers which are responsible for among other things with agency head with regard to resources. >> secretary of state baker got $9 million one afternoon for

state department foya. that's a standard, even with inflation, that sets the kbar very high. tell them that's what you shoot for $9 million in a single afternoon. >> i think that foyas are sometimes filed by people who -- i think foyas are sometimes filed by people who pose agency's policies but in some cases to require the folks making those policies to spend their time responding to the foya. i wouldn't accuse any one of that in this room. but it's something i have seen from time to time. do you see a way to try to address that? >> this gives dick time to think about an answer. >> i saw that, i think on -- at the department of justice on

fairly rare occasions. one of the reasons why that is not a terrible problem is that there are fees involved in processing most requests. and if you have somebody, you know, assuming that valid fees can be charged, that can calm some people down and help them focus on what they really want. my experience in the department of justice was that was not a particularly frequent problem. every great once in a while, we would have somebody like that, but it was much more likely people seeking records that did not at all qualify as a news media or was not entitled to a fee waiver. once upon a time it could be an employee. employees are entitled to get all sorts of records and it

would be entirely appropriate and there were rare cases where i would hear something like that. and there's case where is you give them the first part and give them the next part and after a while, that is be so. i didn't see that very often at the department of justice. it was pretty rare. dan, you've got a class here. these people are going to be cheated out of legislation which is going to be a lot more interesting than what i've got to say. >> this is an academic institution, dick. one more quick question. >> did your former office at justice have authority -- more authority over the foya people at fbi than at other agencies? >> oh, yes. by far. >> even though they carried guns. >> i would get an administrative appeal. we had a large amount of

authority in terms of general policy. not total, but a very large amount. but on administrative appeal, if the fbi with held something or if the fbi took an inappropriate thing, i could go back and i could overrule them. there was one particular case i remember where they said this is protected under 7-d if you disclose this, it's going to result in some guy being shot out on the streets, some informant, and i would say why? explain to me why. because i've looked as hard as i can and i don't think it identifies him one way or the other. so within the department of justice i had the power on administrative appeals, everybody except for exemption

one, i did not have the power to overrule anybody under exemption one. i only had the power to make sure it was properly marked. then it went to a department committee that was made up of security personnel and they were the ones that made that determination on exemption one. on any other exemption or any other policy fees, waivers, the answer is yes. thank you, we're all done. >> thank you very much. #. >> it's great to be able to back through the years like that.

coming up, we'll simulcast washington today, that gets underway live here on cspan 3. illinois votes in the republican primary today. join us later for results, live from the offices of politico. we'll also have speeches from mitt romney and rick santorum. ron paul and newt gingrich have no plans to speak. that's tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern on the cspan networks. don't forget to make c-span.org your clearinghouse on all things political. listen to president obama from the campaign trail. search in the candidates on the issues section for the candidate's views on issueslike the economy, and immigration.

again that's c-span.org/campaign 2012. deputy u.s. trade representative and ambassador to the world trade organization michael punk monday delivered remarks on u.s. global trade interests. he set a solid partnership between the european union and the united states is essential for moving forward with the wto. his remarks were -- looking at trade priorities this year for the world trade organization. this is about half an hour. >> our grand finale. changing hats now, i'm ralph carter, managing director of legal trade and international affairs for fedex. as christopher said, i'm pleased to serve as the co-chair of their trade task force. i'm very happy to be here today, i hope everybody found the panels as interesting as i did.

i want to thank the chamber for organizing this. and for all of you for attending today. it's important that business stay engaged in the wto and express our strong support for ambitious, multilateral trade agenda, and the statement by the chamber and business europe is doing just that. so we hope today's conference will as myron said, kind of set some priorities and a pathway forward into 2012 and beyond. today we're especially pleased to be joined by deputy ambassador to the wto michael punk. everyone has his bio in front of you. but ambassador punk has worked in the trade from 1995-96. he served as senior policy -- agriculture trade to

intellectual property prosection. from '93 to '95 he served as the advisor to economic affairs. from 1991 to 1992, ambassador punk was international trade council to senator max baucus. he also worked on international trade issues including at the o of mayor brown, row and mah. and from 2003 to twi2009, he advised trade issues along the banks of the riverton in missoula, montana which is a job i want to figure out how to do. he was the professor at the university of montana offering two books a fiction and nonfiction and some screen plays

and he deserves a lot of credit for pressing the wto to acknowledge the december ministerial that it was at an impasse with respect to the dea. but he began to shift the organization towards more productive discussions about the next steps in the multilateral trade agenda. so ambassador punk, thank you for joining us, thank you for your efforts and we look forward to your remarks. >> well, thanks, ralph, very much for that kind spin on my resume. i will say over the years i have heard less charitable interpretations. the very first conversation i had with ambassador kirk and i had never met him before and i was on the telephone in my office in montana. he said to me, i'm sitting here and i'm looking at your resume and you have done some interesting work in washington

but i also see that you went off to montana to live by yourself for six years with a typewriter. i can't tell if you're the right person i need for the job or if you're the unabomber. before i get started today i wanted to do one thing very quickly. and that is to acknowledge my colleague chris wilson. criss as you all know very well is the assistant u.s. trade representative for multilateral affairs. he follows in a very long tradition at ustr of distinguished people holding that job, one of his predecessors is dorothy duwaskin and matt roady. we are very blessed at the mtr with a very fantastic qadry of career professionals and chris

is certainly in the great profession. thanks chris and best of luck in your future endeavors. let me start my formal remarks by saying thank you for the invitation to speak today. this morning's discussions have stimulated some terrific thinking about where to take the wto. it's been an enriching day of conversation and i'm glad i have been able to benefit from your views. it's especially gratifying and important that the future directions for the multilateral trade organizations, it may be a bit of a cliche, but the fact remains that solid partz never ship between the united states and the european union is essential to finding viable paths forward for the wto. this has always been the case, but it is particularly crucial in light of the acknowledgement

of all trade ambassadors last december that this is a strategic moment. we should be speaking with each other about strategy, not just quibbling with each other about tactics. it was the only way to begin to tackle more productive trade liberalizing work in the wto, we know that it also creates some anxieties and uncertainties about the future. the u.s. and the eu had a special share responsibility to address those anxieties intelligently. and create a new sense of momentum in again neef have. our political systems and impulses don't always line up. and our emphasis on the wto as a venue to speaking to resolve really tough bilateral trade disputes. but we simply can't