flights. when they board they are trusting me, putting their trust in the pilots, the people in that cockpit, as mike said when we're in the air, once we're airborne, that's all they have got is us and what we have on board, the redundant safety systems we have. it is irrational to say that we trust these pilots with our lives, but we are reluctant or unwilling to, as the obama administration has suggested, we're going to try to limit or prevent their ability to defend that cockpit with a firearm. it's proven to be safe, it's proven to be effective, i don't know how many federal government programs can make that claim. >> let me just sum this up with one observation. i work on all of the homeland security issues broadly speaking from everything in the air to what's going on in local

communities. to me what's disturbing about this issue i do see it as a larger pattern of behavior on the part of the government. this is not the only area where we've seen this happen. so for example, on immigration enforcement where states wanted to part ofner with the federal government as in this program, helping the federal government do its job, a program called 287-g where in a sense they do a similar process. deputize state and local law enforcement and using some federal authorities do things in their interest and the federal government's. that program has been largely killed off by the administration. there is a provision in the law that established the tsa which allows airports to opt out of federal screeners, and as a matter of fact, i believe there is a half dozen or so airports that were initially set up to do that, they run their own security, it's every bit as effective as the tsa screeners and the administration has been an active obstacle to expanding that to give the options. so look, if we're going to go to

a process where the federal government is going to do everything to protect us, what's going to happen is we're going to wind up being less safe, we're going to wind up being less free, and it's going to wind up costing us a lot more money. we as a nation, the people that live here, have a part to play in protecting ourselves. and it's in finding that balance that advances our freedoms, preserves how we keep our economy free and open and allows for the common defense, that's important. and i think there's two really key factors. i call them right and responsibility. there's goodness in having the people that are responsible for themselves take ownership of that responsibility. and you know, katrina, for example, the most effective

responders in katrina were the victims. there were people in that own community that cared about their community who did more and were more effective at organizing response than anybody else. so it's the people in the local walmart who opened the doors and said we're going to help our fellow citizens, that in many ways were much more effective than anything fema did. if you look at the surveys of katrina, 80% of the people that were helped said the most effective responders were people that were non-government organizations. not saying there isn't a role for fema and homeland security. but when you take responsibility for yourself, you bring a certain energy and commitment and knowledge to that. that somebody else can't. so in this case, the pilot that flies that plane and that airline, they care about that airline. they care about that pilot and they are going to give at degree of commitment that nobody else really can. because they have a sense of

ownership. and exercising that sense of ownership is a very important part of being a free and open society. going with that there is an element of responsibility. when you're owning infrastructure or doing things in the public space and performing a public good, there is a sense that you have an obligation not to just defend your own hereth and home but defending other people. so you have a responsibility to exercise the right to defend yourself with a degree of due diligence. and what you see on the federal flight deck officer program is you really see a quintessential example of doing that exactly right. you have people taking ownership of their own responsibilities and acknowledging that and taking it on. and you have a program which ensures that you have the level of professionalism that they are

going to exercise that right responsibly. and if we can't do something like this in our own defense, then i'm not sure what we can do. the simple fact, when you're at 10,000 feet and you see something, say something just doesn't cut it. let me thank you for coming today. if you found this program worth while, we archive our programs at heritage.org. tomorrow the link will be up and folks can link back. we have a paper on the federal flight program that's out in the lobby but also on our website at heritage.org you can find and share with others. join with me in thanking our panelists and thank you for coming. [ applause ] >> still ahead on c-span3, bill

clinton speaking to a conference of college students about public service. after that a look at trade and u.s. exports with remark from the u.s. ambassador to the world trade organization. and later a house financial services subcommittee hearing on the collapse of the financial firm mf global. >> tonight on c-span3, american history tv, with a look at life for african-americans during the 18th and 19th centuries. at 8:00 eastern lonnie bunch director of the smithsonian museum of african-american history and culture. >> this is c-span3, with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week. and every weekend, 48 hours of people and events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our website. and join in the conversation on social media sites. >> tonight on c-span, pbs's

tavis smiley lead as discussion on poverty and its effects on women and children. >> there is a number in the fact sheet that i shared with folks, in 1990 t average member of congress had net worth of $250,000 excludeing their home. by 2010, the average member of congress had a net worth of $750,000 excludeing their home. so what happened to congress that they could triple their wealth in a 20-year period? meanwhile, for the rest of us, the average person had income excludeing their home of about $20,000, both in 1990 and in 2010. so everybody else stayed level but these members of congress found a way to enrich themselves. i'm not hating on members of congress. i'm not hating on wealth. here's what i'm saying. people who have that kind of wealth don't understand somebody who needs the extra $40 in their bi-weekly check to take the bus.

>> you can watch the whole event tonight starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> the clinton global initiative hosted a initiative for college students in the nation's capital. president clinton kicked off the conference with a discussion on engaging young people. among those joining the former president, singer songwriter usher and former secretary of state madeleine albright. herself a former pledge profe profess professor. this is an hour and 45 minutes. >> thank you very much. and welcome to the fifth clinton global initiative, university meeting. i thank you for being here tonight and i especially thank president and the staff here at george washington university who have been so great to put this together. they have done a wonderful job.

cw is the perfect host for this conference. more than 200 years ago president george washington called for the establishment of a great university to forge citizen leaders, today the george washington sufrt the embodiment of that vision. under the president knapp's leadership the university established the center for civic engagement and service to develop the next generation of public service leaders and last year the steven and diane robinson knapp fellowship, entrepreneurial learning was established. a fellow ship inspired by the deep commitment to service in the community engagement that g.w. students exhibit every week. i'd also like to thank the sponsors who enable us to have this meeting free of charge for all attendees. the victor pench foundition, peter peterson, microsoft,

laureate international universities, john and irwin jacob, the prospect fund and b all allen hamilton. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> tonight there are more than 1,000 of you here, for more than 300 universities, more than 80 youth organizations, 82 nations, and all 50 states of the united states. you have already made 915 commitments to change your schools, your communities, and the lives of people across the world. you represent your generation. young people who have a greater ability to enact change than any before you. in the past year more than 30,000 students, faculty and administrators have become engaged in the commitments to action. as a result of the commitments

in 2011 alone, more than 146,000 people have improved access to health care and social services, nearly 31,000 students improved access to education, more than a million dollars raised for scholarships, relief, hospitals and other worthy endeavors. i am fortunate to see a lot of amazing examples of people taking this kind of action. this september we'll have the eighth annual meeting of the clinton global initiative convening heads of state, ceos, nonprofit directors, philadelphiaists from all across the world. they have in seven years made nearly 2,000 commitments which already have improved the lives of some 300 million people in 180 countries. both cgi and gcgi are global

networks. but you have something they don't. more time, for one thing. all of the years i was in politics, i loved it, but we spent most of our time arguing over two things -- what are you going to do, and how much are you going to spend on it? you going to cut taxes or put more money into education? what are you going to do, how much are you going to spend on it. we didn't spend much time on the third question which i think is the most important question of the 21st century. which is, whatever you propose to do, and how ever much money you have or don't, how do you propose to do it? so that you turn your good intentions into real changes in other people's lives. one of the reasons i think we see so much innovation coming

from college students is that you don't have all of that money so you have no choice but to think about the how question. but if you think about it and implement it you might draw tons of money to it. and really, over the last ten years or so, one of the most hopeful things about our future is that it is now possible to raise very large amounts of money in very small units. when the tsunami hit south asia americans gave a billion dollars. half of it over the internet. first time. and the median contribution was about $56. when the earthquake hit haiti, the americans gave a billion dollars. and the media contribution was even smaller because you could not only give over the internet, you could text the number of

your favorite charity t red cross or the clinton haiti fund or whatever it was, and immediately transfer $10. so, when we recognize the commitments that are made here today, they are worthy in their own right but some of them are capable of dramatic expansion or adoption or modification. creativity is really important. i'll just give a couple of examples of the commitments that have been made this year by you. christine schindler of duke will connect female engineering students with girls age 14-17 for mentorship and partnering to assembly low cost medical devices for distribution to clinics in the developing world. she plans to implement this program in all 40 engineering

chapters worldwide. why is this important? because only 14% of american engineers are women and only 15% of engineering students in our universities are women. it is well known that united states has a shortage in the so-called stem field, science, engineering, math mathics. if we could abolish the difference between women and men in those fields, and the difference between asian americans, european americans and americans of middle eastern decent, within a few years our shortage would disappear. meanwhile we ought to give immigrants more visas, i think. [ applause ] charlie is replicating the haiti

model. in order to increase the employment in food security. she and her colleagues started a very successful egg laying facility in haiti and they want to take it to scale across the country. the country has a serious protein deficiency. that can be remedied partly with chickens and eggs, which ever one comes first, and partly by growing their own fish in an environmentally and healthy responsible manner. you're going to hear later about a student from vanderbilt university now graduated who started a couple of years ago a program to train offenders who had been sent to prison, and in half-way houses having been released from prison but not into society yet, so they were

employable and helping to find them jobs. this is a huge deal. people who go to prison and get out, which is more than 90% of the people who go to prison, are much less likely to become repeat offenders if they have jobs. yet, even though we say we're a people of second chances and once you pay your debt to society you're supposed to get one, the truth is, one of the first have been the job training and job placement programs for former inmates n. is something that nearly every college and university in america could adopt. so, again, i say don't be discouraged if what you're doing starts out helping a relatively small number of people because if taken to scale it could change the future for a huge number of people. we are going to try to address these challenges, step by step,

knowing that as my good friend former governor of new york mario cuomo used to say, in politics you campaign in poetry. but you govern in prose. the same thing is true of citizen service. you work in prose. you take one step and another step and another step, and pretty soon you look around and you walked several miles and a lot of people's lives are better as a result of it. i thank you for your commitment to take those steps. now, i want to introduce our host who has worked tirelessly to make education possible for thousands of students. the president of george washington, dr. steven nab. i want to tell you about him. he has a long history of supporting students. he was a professor of english literature at the university of california at berkeley. dean of the college of arts and

sciences at john hopkins university up the road in baltimore. as president of george washington he's made at priority to increase student opportunities for public service. in order to be accessible and better serve the students here he chose to take up residence on the campus, the first president of this university ever to do that. maybe he was just trying to avoid the well known washington, d.c. traffic. but it looked to me like he was trying to remain open to the students. he's made a lot of green renovation to the residents, demonstrating a strong commitment to sustainability, and trying to make the university a model for sustainability. this kind of complete view of public service, how it permeates every decision he makes, makes president knapp not just a good president for the students of g.w. but an inspiration to

people everywhere. please welcome the president of george washington university, steven knapp. >> thank you. thank you, president clinton, for that very kind introduction and above all thank you for the inspiring leadership that has launched this extraordinary initiative. let's all recognize that leadership if we could. let's do that. [ applause ] ladies and gentlemen, it's truly an honor to host the fifth annual clinton global initiative university and i'm pleased to acknowledge the presence of quite a number of distinguished guests, our distinguished panelists. we have a number of university trustees of our university who are present here, as well as our presidents emeritus, lloyd

elliott and steven joel tractenburg. above all i'm delighted to welcome the more than 1,000 students who successfully competed in this year's cgiu. as the president mentioned you come from some 82 countries, all 50 states of this united states. you represent some 300 colleges and universities. now, president clinton was very kind to mention the fact that the founding vision of our university goes all the way back to our namesake, who dreamed of university in our nation's capital that would educate the citizen leaders of the very new nation he helped to found. and we have preserved that mission except that now instead of training citizen leaders just for our nation, we educate citizen leaders for the world, and at the core of that mission is a commitment to service. it's reflected in the way two

years ago first lady michelle obama challenged us to perform 100,000 hours of service during the course of an academic year, we greatly exceeded that. so she spoke at our commencement. for the third year in a row last spring, we sent more students to the peace corps than any other school our size and we passed the 1,000 peace corps volunteer mark this past spring. for the past four years the number one employer of george washington graduates has been teach for america, but in fact, this generation of students is marked by a deep commitment to serve not just at gw, but worldwide. just to give you one statistic that was published in "the washington post," in 2010, more than 3 million students in the united states alone, more than 3 million students volunteered more than 300 million hours of service. now two nights ago, we held a reception for gw students

participating in or volunteering to support cgiu, and i was inspired by the variety and creativity of our students' commitments to action. they ranged from a plan to make bicycles out of bamboo -- [ cheers ] -- panda bikes, an extremely inexpensive, sturdy and renewable material that would really make a difference in many parts of the world and in fact they're so inexpensive that this program will be able to donate one bicycle for every one it sells. they include a program using art therapy to prevent suicides among adolescents, in the iguali tribe of the lakota people. they include the collection of unsold food from local restaurants for donation to d.c. homeless shelters. but in fact, we could multiply those examples a hundredfold

and you've heard many examples from the president a few moments ago so you realize how much imagination and dedication and creativity has gone into these commitments to action. i'd like to thank the clinton global initiative and the university's department of relations for setting up such a terrific weekend. i urge you all to take advantage of the activities we have in store for you, including the plenary and breakout sessions tomorrow, and the service project on sunday. and let me close simply by saying congratulations to all who were chosen to participate in this weekend's events. you are making a transformative difference in our world, and i hope you'll enjoy your time here at the george washington university. thank you. good luck to you. godspeed. [ applause ] >> i'm going to begin as we always do, first with the announcement of two new

commitments and i'd like to ask the people who made them to come forward. first, the commitment named pay it forward, dave lopez, undergraduate at illinois state, caroline shannon, shelby couch, undergraduates at michigan state. christina lee, undergraduate at minnesota's twin city campus. these students are all involved in a group called students today, leaders forever. they are committing to create new you programs which will provide community service opportunities for young americans across the country. between september of 2010 and september of 2011, just under 25% of americans between the ages of 16 and 24 volunteered even once. abe and caroline will develop community service road trips to new areas of the east and west coast and topics specific

service coolers. shelby will bring community service leadership opportunities to public high school students in lansing, michigan. christina will implement an after school literacy program for multicultural students in inner city schools to give them access to multicultutural mento. these projects together will help the organization scale up by 37,000 hours of service over the next year, and involve a lot more young people in doing this. let's give them a hand. that's a good idea. [ applause ]

now i would like to invite to the stage sam king, an undergraduate at stanford university. [ applause ] he's wearing his commitment's name, code the change. here is the issue. more and more and more, the individuals and foundations that donate money to non-profit, not-for-profit operations want to understandably keep down the percentage of the donation that goes to centralized cost, things

that don't directly touch the intended beneficiaries. that's a laudable goal but there are certain unavoidable costs for computer systems and technologies for example. so to better connect the world of non-profit and computer science, sam will increase the national presence of his organization code the change. it holds code jams, computer science students volunteer up to 24 hours of their skills for non-profit projects. currently code the change hosts six code jams at stanford every year, starting this fall, he will expand the program to ten additional universities, specifically targeting schools with strong computer science programs. each event connects 30 computer science students with eight non-profits for day-long coding sessions. with the proposed expansion, code the change will provide 60 additional days of volunteer

programming, addressing 480 additional technology needs for non-profits. it's a good deal. let's give him a big hand. [ applause ] now i would like to introduce our panelists. and as all of you know, i'm going to ask him a question or two, and they're basically going to tell their stories in a way that makes it relevant to you and your lives and why you came here, after which we're going to take your questions. so supply us some. first, president knapp, who has