it's a natural point of tension, and, again, when you don't know what the repercussions of loss will be for some period, it's really easy to say, okay, security people, you fix that, we're going to keep going down this bring your own device policy and come back to at the when you have a solution but we're not slowing down our business. that leads to hard choices for boards and ceos. >> is there more that the government could be doing to help businesses protect themselves? mike, i know you have worked on the inside of the house intelligence committee. you are pretty strong proponent of legislation of some kind. >> that's right. >> what do you think we need from congress to protect businesses? >> look, i'm not saying that congress through an information sharing bill will absolutely solve the problem completely. i agree with what mike said earlier, you're going to have to use a wholistic approach, have to figure out what to do with standards, figure out what to do with people, policy, and procedures within different

companies, but like i said earlier, the government is in possession of information that if shared with the private sector could help them stave off certain cyber attacks. the government, as you heard from admiral rogers through its foreign intelligence mission has come into possession of certain malware and other information that is of use to the private sector. that alone people like to say, well, that's not very much or it's not a finite amount of information, it's going to continue to evolve, and that's absolutely true, but what congress needs to be able to do is to try and eliminate the baybay barriers to information sharing. most people have written about the antitrust problems. most of those have been debunked so far, but certainly we need to be able to give liability protection to companies. this is where we had a lot of the controversy in the house of representatives on the

legislation that passed twice with bipartisan majorities, by the way, but that was before edward snowden. one of the casualties of edward snowden in addition to the tremendous foreign intelligence loss and the billions of dollars and maybe less confidence in the u.s. intelligence services is that now it's sort of the ghost in the machine. we were just getting to a point where the president was raising cyber espionage as a key issue in our bilateral relationship with china. we were finally moving forward on cyber legislation, but post-snowden that has in a sense affected all of this for the worse and really sometimied progress across the board on cyber security legislation. >> sorry, go ahead. >> i was going to just build on the points. based on my perspective in the government, now in industry, we worked on this defense industrial base information sharing program when i was back

in the pentagon. certainly saw some downside but a lot of benefit in terms of building trust, and to me we have got to move faster in that space. just based on what we just talked about with the threat. i also think that that trust and what i see especially in the private sector is you build it into your either supply chain or a customer base, you're doing joint solutioning, right? not one organization, one person can handle what you need to do with regards to threat mitigation. if you internally try to do it, it's hard, it's really hard. it's information sharing that enables a level of trust where you can do some joint solutioning, and the government needs to reach out, and the industry also needs to reach the other way, and we need to develop much more rapidly cross sector sharing platforms. >> i think the government can be a help, but i think there's a huge capacity deficit and there's clearly a trust deficit, and if companies are looking to the government to solve this

problem, then they might as well just shut down shop right now. the nsa, fbi, they could throw everyone they wanted on this, they still couldn't do 1/100, 1/1000 of what most companies need to do. second, the trust pieces, michael said, i won't belabor it, snowden destroyed in my view any chance of really progressive legislation on this front. finally, you have to be careful what you wish for. a lot of people and a lot of companies in pushing the u.s. government to be stronger on this, i think they did with the indictments. if the indictments are the first step of a multistage international effort to really coalesce pressure against china, that's a good thing, but many of the companies i talked to post-doj indictment said, whoa. i have got a lot of business in china. i'm trying to do business in china. what about my data? >> how worried should companies be about that? where does this dispute go from here? does it keep escalating?

>> companies should be very nervous mostly because there's a lot of uncertainty. so do i think that the chinese are going to start indicting u.s. officials? that could happen. how much does it matter to a company? not that much. do i think the chinese will make it more difficult for certain u.s. companies to do business in china? they already have. you know, two days after the indictments, not a coincidence in my view, some requirements of -- for information technology companies to operate in china in a way they couldn't before. other companies that view china as one of their most significant growth markets over the neck decade looking at this very nervously. i don't think americans should necessarily worry about their employees getting locked up tomorrow in shanghai or beijing, but could this escalate so it's more difficult for them to do business in china? if they're not looking at those possibilities, they're crazy. >> on that cheerful note, we want to leave a few minutes here

for questions. i think we have a couple microphones here if anybody has something they want to ask, just raise your hand. >> so you talk a lot about what organizations, corporations should do to protect, defend, collaborate, to share. what's your perspective on what the technology providers should do, what's the customer provider relationship expectations about what's baked in for capabilities when i buy the solutions? why do we keep hearing about bug fixes for products that were rushed to market instead of being engineered better to start with? >> do you want to take that one? >> well, i'll take it from a couple different angles. one is in a customer technology provider relationship, i think there's a lot more attention now on service level agreements and what's in it and what's out of it and depends on where you sit in terms of responsibility and accountability. i think the challenge is we

typically want to avoid risk and so we try to write in insurances within the slas to make sure that we're not liable, and we haven't gotten to a point going back to the earlier point on trust of how we collaborate. i do see that as -- especially in consulting as well as with a company where i'm the chief security officer, we are getting more and more into this issue as we get into deeper discussions on internal audits, which is helping us. in terms of relooking at slas, are he looking at how we're going to work together. i see it also with -- as we're working through compliance regimes and actually not just doing a check on an audit, but actually exercising to it. so if it's an iso 27,000 cert you're looking for and you have this big issue on business continuity and disaster

recovery, a lot of the bigger companies, critical infrastructu infrastructure, really now building plans, exercising plans, and working through how do we need to adjust the relationship between the technology provider and the ultimate customer. >> whether we like it, a lot of these agreements and arrangements are shaped by litigation and what will happen is when "x" company gets sued because they have a data breach, privacy problem, they're going to say, hey, not my fault. whose fault is it? it's michael allen's company who advised me on cyber or it's verizon who didn't patch or it's microsoft, and that's going to start to drive i think and not in the most efficient way a lot of how those agreements look in the future. >> yeah. >> sorry, michael. >> thanks. i'm getting sued.

>> thank you. andy purdy. do you see any encouraging developments or have any recommendations regarding either of two things. one is following up on bob's point, leveraging purchasing power, not just of government but private companies so that vendors have to raise the bar? and do you see any -- do you have any recommendations or see any encouraging developments about what could happen in the area where china is setting requirements on their import, on the possibility of having global agreements or agreements between the u.s. and major suppliers for a level playing field to addressing the risk of products and services coming into the united states? >> you know, my sense there is when you look at it from the standpoint of within the u.s. you can come to one viewpoint. if you look at it

internationally, especially as you engage other nation states, we're kind of all over the map and there's a lot of suspicious feelings about how we handle the first question of purchasing power or your second question. my sense is it ties into the ongoing policy discussions on internet governance, the issues that we're now dealing with post-snowden revelations on data sovereignty and how that impacts u.s. businesses, indigenous businesses as they move into foreign markets, and so it's really building a credible coalition of companies that would allow you to actually make a difference in a global world, and it's challenging. i don't think we're there yet. >> i think the legal policy front is clearly lagging technology. you look at thee eu decision. google i'm pretty confident that no one who made that decision

had ever coded anything in their lives. and if they did, they got fired. you cannot have a better illustratii wil illustration of a legal policy decision that doesn't sink ron size well with technology. on the international front that will happen in a number of ways. that's going to make any international coalition of standards very, very difficult to apply to the mull tmultitude of business challenges companies face. >> anybody else with a question? in the back. >> good morning. this question is for mr. allen. mr. allen, nick from knfox news channel. we've been trying to sit down with you successfully. how do you respond to allegations that you ran interference for benghazi. >> i'm going to take that

question for michael unless he wants to answer. >> there's nothing to those allegations. >> i'm still going to follow up. i am a registered independent. i was nominated by president bush, asked to stay on by president obama. i take great pride in being nonpartisan on these national security issues. i think many people went into national security did. i work wd michael allen in the bush administration. i have known him since then. michael al sentence a dear friend so maybe i'm just biased but i think it's horrendous that individuals who have dedicated their lives to the u.s. national security when they finally get an opportunity to actually make a living and support their family immediately their motives are impugned for crass political reasons. he's a friend. [ applause ] >> if i can just ask one follow-up. [ laughter ] >> can you tell us when you

began discussions with beacon in terms of employment? >> we already put out a statement to fox news on that so i'd refer you to the statement that we already gave you. >> appreciate your time. >> thank you very much. i believe that we are running out of time here. on that note, i'd like to thank all of you. this is a very interesting panel and very informative for all of us. thank you once again. before we move on to trish, i would just like to remind everybody watching online that you can continue the discussion on twitter at #bgovcyber and submit questions by clicking on the right-hand side of your panel. thank you once again to all of you. [ applause ] a house panel has overwhelmingly backed a measure barring the use of u.s. funds for the transfer of detainees

from the prison at guantanamo bay, cuba. the move is the result of the swab swap of five taliban leaders for sergeant bowe bergdahl. the appropriations committee voted 33-13 for an amendment to the defense spending bill. the amendment was sponsored by republican congressman rodney free ling heissen of new jersey and backed by six democrats. the full house debates the bill next week. this afternoon we'll be live here on c-span3 covering a report on how u.s. money has been spent in afghanistan. a house foreign affairs subcommittee is meeting to hear about u.s. reconstruction work in the country. the special inspector general is going to report on whether that money was well spent. it begins at 2:00 eastern. former fbi director robert mueller was among the many speakers at bloomberg government's day-long summit on cyber security in washington,

d.c. over the next half hour, mr. mueller talks about responding to cyber attacks effectively to mitigate damages. >> i'd like to welcome to the stage robert mueller, the former director of the fbi. he's currently a partner at wilmer hale be a, and we're goi talk about what businesses can do when they recognize a cyber threat and the measures that they should put in place. please, welcome, bob. [ applause ] >> you've had the opportunity to listen to a few panels this morning and the discussion with the admiral. what is your biggest -- >> when are we going to get to cyber security? [ applause ] >> you know, just for you i'm going to start there. what is the biggest issue facing

corporate america right now when it comes to cyber security? what's the biggest -- >> a lack of understanding of the area, the issues, and a policy or a practice generally of ceos and top management to delegate problems, and not recognizing the depth of the challenging and how swiftly a cyber attack can cut your reputation down. and not anticipating, not knowing this arena, it's very difficult for them to come up with an organizational structure that will immediately elevate those facts that could lead to substantial damage in the corporation. i look at what happened to me in the bureau and one of the mistakes i made was in upgrading our information technology, for instance. >> how was that a mistake? >> well, because i didn't ask the hard questions. you rely on persons.

on the one hand you have the technologists, on the other hand you have the business practices, the agents and the like. you have to come up with a new case management system. you delegate that. they tell you it's going to happen, it's going to happen, it doesn't happen. and you look back on it and you reflect and say i delegate an area where i should have been personally involved. it goes back to what admiral rogers was saying. i think too few senior management know and understand that particular issue and, secondly, are uncertain as to how you address it. >> if you're the ceo of a company, you might be a terrific manager. you might really understand sales. you might really understand your product, but you don't necessarily understand technology. >> but you have to understand it to the point that you can know and understand where the money is going in adopting the new technology, upgrading the new technology. you just cannot leave it to

others. you have to be sufficiently knowledgeable and understand enough to ask the hard questions. i fault myself for not asking the hard questions. come a particular point in time, you come in, you turn a switch, and this new case management system will work. in my mind i go i don't really know how that's going to work, and ultimately it did not. we had to go back, restructure and get it done. we got it done but it's one of the areas that it should have taken more of my personal time to make sure it was on track. >> there's a lot of questions surrounding what's the responsibility of business, the responsibility of government when it comes to protecting the cyber arena. how does that break down? where do you see it? >> well, a couple things. i think on one side the federal government has to do a -- we're doing a better job, even a better job in sharing information between nsa, fbi, and department of homeland security, and then on the other side, the business community needs to do a better job coming

up with vehicles for sharing intelligence amongst themselves but also sharing that intelligence with the federal government. if the legislation that is contemplated up on the hill which gafsives a safe harbor fo companies providing information to the federal government relating to breaches and the like passes, that would be tremendously helpful. but there has to be an exchange of information between the federal government on one side and the private sector on the other side. >> that's a lot of trust though, right? >> pardon? >> it implies a lot of trust. a company has to be willing to say i'm going to turn over all -- >> but they have some control over what is turned over. they can protect their intellectual property and still turn over the information necessary to determine what's a piece of malware that was recently used. if it infected their networks, is it infecting other networks. i will say in the wake of september 11th, one of the

things we had to do was develop relationships with other partners in order to be successful. principal partners, state and local law enforcement, we could not have been successful in thwarting attacks without the joint terrorist task forces and state and local law enforcement. in the cyber arena, it's the private sector. we are not going to be successful in getting ahead of this curve without having mechanisms for the sharing of intelligence in the private sectors, sharing it amongst the federal agencies, and then having that information shared amongst -- >> what's your impression how that's currently working? are private companies sharing enough information? >> episodically. most of it i would say is tremendously informal. there has to be a more formal process of sharing in sectors and thanks to department of homeland security and particular sectors, there is a growing body of capability of integrating the intelligence in particular

sectors, particularly the financial sector, for instance. >> why in particular the financial sector? >> because they have gone further than most others in setting up capabilities that allow the sharing of information. >> so you're at wilmer hale now. if a client comes to you and says, i think there's been a breach, what do you advise them to do as the next course of action? >> well, you're on the right side as was put post-breach. one would have hoped they would have taken certain steps pre-breach. you can't say to the cio or the chief security officer and say, okay, you're in charge. a substantial breach implicates, first of all, your own people, your customers. one of the first steps you have to take is determine what exactly was the breach, how defer stating was it, how do you

control it, and that requires forensics, and too often there is a delay between the breach and getting forensics on board to tell you exactly what happened and you captan't notif until you know what's happened. you have to address the forensics, the fact that the s.e.c. is going to want to know if it's a material breach, perhaps the department of justice. there are five or six or seven entities that have to be looked at in order to determine what the next steps are and then you have to orchestrate bringing together those particular strains of responsibility in such a way that you move quickly and you have somebody in charge who is not necessarily just the technici technician, not just a human resources person, but somebody that has the ear of the ceo. >> what does a company need to do to inform the people that have been affected. you look at the target example and target did not immediately come out and tell customers. in fact, there's no law on the

books that requires them to do so. the banks need to let the customers know that their credit cards may have been violated, but target doesn't need to do so. any guidance there for corporate america in terms of communicating with the people affected? >> well, i think one of the things -- circumstances you see is that when there is a substantial breach, one of the first things that comes to mind is the litigation that's coming down the pike which is an aspect of it. but the litigation is not as important as the reputational damage, particularly if you're somebody that has products or sells things. and the reputational damage can way outweigh any considerations related to the inevitable lit gaths that will come down the pike. notification with a fairly firm understanding of what happened is tremendously important, and then assuring your public, your

customers that it's not going to happen again, you resolved it, takes leadership from above. it can't be leadership two or three levels down. >> so leadership basically -- it sounds like overall defining the person who is in charge and that person who is in charge really having a firm grasp of the technology space overall is critical. >> yes, but you need not only -- it's again like developing i.t., you need the technical aspects of it, that's part of it, but you also need the people aspects of it particularly when the most serious contemplated breach would be the insider threat, the snowden point. >> corporate america deals with that like the nsa. >> but you don't find them -- we talked here today and you will continue to talk about protecting networks. there won't be a tremendous amount of emphasis placed on

biggest vulnerability is that disgruntled employee who has administrator's rights who is unhappy and then can do the damage from within. and so that you have to idea very quickly and dress it from the human resources point of view. >> are there mechanisms to do that? >> there's an extreme in the government, for instance. everybody in the fbi has to take a polygraph periodically. >> how periodically? >> every five years. >> every five years. wow. >> every five years. look at your financials. look at what what admiral rogers indicated was happening at the nsa. on one end of the spectrum, you have the auditing of the downloads. you have the focus on individuals or financial situations, the polygraphs for

nsa for the secrets they keep, and on the other hand you have companies that say, well, we trust our employees, and if we instituted anything along those lines, it would indicate a distrust and not only would our employees be unhappy, but they'd be so unhappy they'll go to some other employer where this is not required. and some place in between you have to draw the line. >> it's a challenging balance. let me ask you about something that the admiral and i spoke a bit about, and that is the concern that we're getting ourselves into a protectionist environment as far as our global economy is concerned. china accusing us of spying on them. we're, of course, saying china is spying on us and it's that back and forth. the net result and the fear among many in the tech community is that we are going to lose business opportunities as a result of all of this worry.

how do you see that playing out as we're in this sort of infantile stage of cyber hyperawareness? >> i do think in the short term that the disclosures will affect the relationship, and i would say affect the relationship. i think our technology outdoes everybody else. certainly in europe and elsewhere and the west, ultimately we will prevail despite the efforts of companies to bolster developing internal corporations to take over some of the information capability. in china it was inevitable in any event. china wishes, wants our technology, and to the extent they can get our technology and build their own, that has been their goal for ever and a day. this may be a little bump in the

road, but, again, i think it was either inevitable or our technology is such that a large communities of persons are going to gravitate to it and this will be, as i say, a bump in the road. >> is it naive for other countries to say you guys are looking at us or is it naive of us to say, oh, you're looking at us? >> i think as the admiral said, there are a number of countries out there, some of whom have been our greatest critiquers, who have their own internal capabilities that are not necessarily known to their population, often not known and understood by their parliaments. the one thing missing from the coverage of this is the fact that we are the only country that i'm aware of where we have a court that passes on the request to intercept an individual in the national security realm, that being the fisa court. and that provides a protection that no other country has

whether it be scandinavia, at the uk the home secretary, france, or elsewhere. there is not a court between the prosecutor and the investigator and the interception that passes on the probable cause for that particular interception. and so we have safeguards that i think are in some ways very much more advanced than you would find in many of those countries who have criticized us so heavily. >> at the same time is our technology so advanced that, you know, assuming we've checked off all those boxes, we can gather much more information. >> not so much different. in fact, there are countries around who have far less strictures on what their national security agencies can do. nsa -- whenever nsa picks up an american citizen, they either drop it or i'll get a memo. if there's some criminal conduct, the memo will say we

intercepted individual "a" or individual number one who appears to be involved in this criminal activity. don't indicate the name of the person. we look at it, see if something we would investigate and we have to send another memo back ton sa saying we're interested in investigating, give us the information. when the cyber attacks were a substantial kesh day in and day out, this somewhat burdensome procedure was frustrating in terms of getting information you may need but nonetheless, we have that wall there that protects the surveillance of american citizens that you would not find in any other country. >> i spoke to the head of a company the other day who had been working closely with the fbi, and as a result of the sort of intel they were gathering in the cyber world, they were able to basically figure out that $500 million had been siphoned off from various bank accounts across the globe.

and one of the things that this individual was citing was the cooperation between a private company and in this case the fbi. is that the way of the future? is that how the fbi and you were the director of the fbi, i mean, is that the future for going after these cyber criminals? >> yes. and anticipating cyber criminals. one of the things we tried to do was take a particular sector, the financial sector, you take the exchanges for instance. one would think they would be targets. and what we want to do is as we've done in other areas, go out and develop relationships with the security individuals and those exchanges or financial institutions so that they know who in the fbi has proficiency in this area and a name with a -- a face with a name, and so if there is a breach, then they know who to call and the fbi

agents know what they're doing, know what evidence they'll need from their lawn books and the like. so develop that relationship in anticipation of the probability at some point in time there would be a breach. so we're doing much more of that. we are also understanding the responsibility for disclosing to victims the fact that they have been breached or hacked into by the chinese, the russians, iranians, or others. we had several thousand last year of -- i would knock on the door and say did you know that the chinese or the russians were in your networks? and a full majority of them did not know that, but it's our responsibility to alert persons to that. >> in terms of the fbi personnel you have now, is there much being done in terms of training them to understand technology? >> one of the things in the wakes of september 11th, one of the priorities was that the organization be able to know, understand, and utilize the

digital arena. and in the wake of september 11th, we also understood that our traditional hiring patterns of lawyers, accountants, former military, and former law enforcement was inadequate to the new world. so quite obviously we opened it up to language, area specialists. in the wake of the anthrax attacks, we found we had almost 1,000 interviews to be done of persons who had in some way been utilizing anthrax and we didn't have the checkists or biologists to do that kind of interview. likewise in the cyber arena, computer scientists. we only last 12 years. but also we have a number of persons that are not at the top level of quality in terms of

capabilities but just around it around the country. and we have way over 1 240u,000 individuals around the country capable of doing these investigations. let me make one point when i say that, and that is we focus on protecting networks -- we focus on the cyber aspect but we cannot forget that behind every cyber attack there is a warm body sitting behind the keyboard. part of understanding this is identifying those persons, arresting them and convicts them as we have throughout the years. one of the problems is you don't know at the outset of an intrusion whether it's the chinese, the russians, whether it's organized crime here or in russia, or it's that 18-year-old sitting up in a bedroom some place who has the capabilities -- >> what is it primarily? can you say there is a particular part of this world where we're seeing the majority of cyber crime originate?

>> well, i wouldn't -- i don't think i'd talk about them sort of the gross terms. i would say on the one hand you have -- i divide it into five investigators. the first is the hack to this. those individuals who are tremendously capable but aren't necessarily stealing information for stealing information's sake but want to embarrass you. second you have the criminals, the targets and the like. thirdly you have the theft of intellectual property and the espionage. fourth you have the terrorists and potential use of cyber by tritts, and fifth, the military using cyber. >> tho those are the five investigators of threats that we in the bureau would deal with. >> it's a lot. >> it is, but you have to -- in order to be successful in addressing those threats, you

have to know who is sitting behind the keyboard. is it somebody from anonymous or is it that russian hacker out of russia or the uk? and it takes -- >> and so you can identify that? >> yes, we can. yes, but it takes a combination of investigative skills which we have traditionally had couple with the new medium in the cyber arena. you can't dismiss the necessity of identifying the perps, identifying where the servers are, identify the building that perpendicular is in. tracing an ip address to a particular building, to a particular apartment, to a particular individual. >> let's go back to preventative measures again. i think target had to have been every retail ceo and every ceos just nightmare. i can remember talking off record with some people that said, you know, look in some ways, that could have been me. that there's no reason that

that -- now, forgive me. we're going to see a little bit on target coming up and we've got the business week team that did the investigation into the story. as it turned out, there were actually a number of things that that company could have, should have done to prevent what eventually happened, but it's 20/20 hindsight, right? it's easier to look back after the fact. what is it that corporations, especially corporations that are dealing with consumer information and you talked about it earlier, once you lose that trust on the consumer, that's a very, very hard thing to regain. what do they need to be doing so make sure that they don't become like target? >> well, you have to, again, think beyond just the technology. you have to -- do you have another insider that is a threat? so it's human resources. and how do you identify that?

how do you monitor downloads of your information? you have to map the networks and determine what the vulnerabilities in those networks are and then identify particularized tools to address thosevuler in 5e nenerabilitiev. and develop a structure and a strategy that identifies those vulnerabilities and closes those vulnerabilities, and at the same time understand that you will be breached at some particular point in time. what is going to hahn when you get the e-mail saying, hey, look, we have a breach here. what are you going to -- who are you going to turn to and who is going to be in charge of orchestrating the various elements in the corporations to make certain that you're addressing this particular -- >> the cto then is a pretty important job. >> it is. it's a very important job but it also is a specialized job.

>> let me segue into state concerns. we have talked about corporate america and their concerns. what about state concerns? i mean, you know, we keep hearing of all these cyber threats. we've seen this huge improvement in technology that people are able to access. what's the danger for us? ft. you were still at the fbi today, what would be your concern for the country from a state perspective? >> well, there are a couple cyber issues that rise to the forefront, actually probably three. first, and this is in terms of enhanced capabilities of the cyber criminals, and that is the -- use of a wiper virus to wipe out information on hard drives. in 2012 as i'm sure you're aware, the saudi arabian oil company was infected by a virus that wiped out 30,000 hard

drives, and that's the first large-scale incident we have seen, but i think anybody who is in this business who is responsible for the corporate security is concerned by what would happen if you -- it's not just a denial of service attack which is a problem. it's not ex filtration of information, it's wiping out information you may are may not have a backup for that can wholly disrupt your company. that's a problem. second is the financial arena, and the ability to address attacks that would -- banks have been targets for a substantial period of time. but if it increases in terms of the capabilities and the effect on information, that's tremendously problematic. and the last is internally the systems that run much of our industrial complexes and the fact that those systems were built at a time where the

internet was open and have very, very few precautions and it is very difficult and expensive to tighten down the systems to the point where you could totally preclude individuals from getting in. >> what does that mean? what could they do? >> there have been displays on what can happen if you get in and -- into the computer system and within a couple shifts of controls have a water station blow up. the power grid adversely affected. there was an attack on a power station in california several months ago. i think you probably are aware. it was actually more of an on the ground firing of weapons at the power station, but it is worrisome in the sense that someone took it upon themselves

to undercatake and orchestrate attack on a power station. if you had a hacker with sufficient skills, that would be a substantial threat to us. >> well, here we are talking about what corporate america needs to do better to prevent themselves from being in a bad situation. what does the country need to do better to prevent anything such as what you just described? >> well, on the one hand, as i said, it's important for us to recognize that as we learn in september 11th, so we have to apply here, and that is the best offense is sharing of information. we did not share information before september 11th. there were walls between cia, fbi, and even within the fbi until those walls were removed. when keith alexander was in charge of nsa, janet napolitano and dhs, we met to make sure we understood the lanes in the road and how we can share information with understanding the

strictures you have in terms of those sharings, but again on the other hand, the success is going in large part dependent on finding ways to utilize and harness the talents, the capabilities, the intelligence of the private sector to address terrorism in the cyber arena. >> what have you seen from the private sector? have you seen a willingness to do that. at the same time, as i have talked about, people are worried about turning over information. >> there are models out there where in a particular area, 60, 70, 80 corporations will come together to set up an exchange so you can exchange particular intelligence and then throw that intelligence over the transome to the fbi. so there are models out there that are just beginning to grow that we can follow. the only other point i would make is you have to take into account that the american public wants to understand and know what information is going to the federal government and what that information is being used for. and so it's important to have

transparency in terms of the architecture that is established for this information sharing, but you have to have the information sharing. >> so i'll give you a recent example. eric schmidt and mark zuckerberg and reed hastings, all big tech players at the white house recently meeting with the president, and they were voicing concern that, you know, that basically the privacy of their users was being threatened by all of this. so how do you reach that balance where, you know, you have ceos that say, okay, i'm willing to turn over this information because maybe it's critical to our national security, but at the same time i need to protect my customer in all this. >> well, you don't turn over necessarily the personally identifiable information. what you do is you take the patterns that are established. you may see it as an isp, particular patterns are established that indicate

wrongdoing, and you can cordon off that information that should not be turned over but there's substantial information that can and should be turned over and it would not be to the detriment of the particular company because the company can put persons in places where you establish this kind of connectivity to ensure that that company's information is used appropriately. and by the same token to the extent they join that, they get the benefit of the intelligence that comes back that may enable them to avert an attack. >> it doesn't seem like we're there yet though. >> we're not there yet. >> it seems like there is this resistance. how do you work through that? >> well, there has to be something in it for them that outweighs the downsides in their perception of theft of their intellectual property or identifying them as a breacher in advance of the time they want to do it. but you structure it in such a

way that it's beneficial to them in terms of the intelligence they get and by the same token they control the personnel and the information that's put into this unified intelligence structure. >> okay. so we'll get there? >> we'll get there. we'll get there. as the admiral said, you just hope we get there without a catalyst along the lines of a september 11th. >> is that something you worry about? >> yes. i think everybody -- >> i brought up that term earlier. you know, it's a hard thing to think about because 3,000 lives were lost on 9/11, but are there events that you worry about that could happen from a cyber perspective that would be catastrophic like that? >> there could be. looking at the power grids or looking at our infrastructure. yes. financially it would cripple us if there were a substantial attack on wall street, on the exchanges. it also could lead to a loss of

lives to the extent that we can be -- our command and control knocked out in afghanistan or iraq or some place we're at war and somebody is ahead of us in terms of intelligence as well as technology so that they are able to eliminate our command and control and leave us defenseless when our enemies are moving against us. >> it's a brave new world. director mueller, thank you very much for your time today. >> thank you. thank you. [ applause ] peter dixon, ceo of second front systems, also attended bloomberg government's day-long summit on how to formulate a cyber security strategy today. he spoke for about ten minutes. >> so a scrimmage at a border station, 2,000 pounds of education dropped to a ten rupee. the cramers boast, squadrons

pride. shot like a rabbit in a ride. it's a verse from kipling and those dark words echo in some of my own bitter memories as i recall friends and comrades who were cut down, our nation's pride, and cut down in their prime by nothing more than a jug of modified fertilizer, a battery pack, two boards connected by a bent nail. good morning. i'm peter dixon. i'm a marine combat veteran p.m. i'm 31 years old and i spent the better part of my last decade at war against this nation's enemies and our asymmetric foes. like many in this room, my life and my life path was forever changed on 9/11 when terrorists

armed with nothing more than box cutters took planes out of a clear blue sky and smashed them into the seats of this country's economic and military seats of power. for myself, i ended up commissioning into the marine corps, took a sniper platoon anden infantry platoon to war in afghanistan. served on the border between iraq and syria, worked against cartels in mexico, and mass rape in the democratic republic of the congo, and i executed special projects at the pentagon. but for this nation what made us so vulnerable on that fateful september day was the same exact thing that i saw on the battlefield of both iraq and afghanistan. and it's a technical transformation that occurred in in country and swept through our private sector and it upended

our traditional way that is we communicated and collaborated and even thought. but that technical transformation largely swept by the u.s. government. so when alert fbi agents noticed men in florida were learning how to fly planes but didn't care too much on learning how to land them, that went up a chain of command, was given due attention and went nowhere are else. likewise when we invaded afghanistan and then iraq, we were engaged against asymmetric enemies who bypassed our strengths and targeted our weakness. the improvised explosive devices devastated our forces on the ground. to their enduring credit, the u.s. military and intelligence

community drastically transformed themselves in the face of the new threat. groups like the joint improvised explosive device defeat organization stood up, given authority outside of congress to make drastic change miss the way life saving technology was procured and delivered to the battlefield. organizations like the joint special operations command under general mcchrystal transformed themselves into a network itself. best of breed technologies were sourced from places like silicon valley and advanced analytics and big data process and trance forled how we found and destroyed our adversaries. now as this nation washes its hands in over a decade of bloody

war, we find ourselves all too eager to dismantle the same organizations that the played such a critical role in bringing us back from the brink. the problem is there is a new crop of threats coming up. there is a new crop of adversary threats. while we had those who paid a heavy price to learn lessons in counter insurgency. we have struggled to maintain them against those who believe america will never be involved in a dirty ground war they are gaining ground. they are under written by security and our international patronage and security guarantees. there are three revisionist nations that seek to roll back guarantees, push back our frontiers and carve out for themselves regions of dominance.

these nations -- china, russia, and iran -- are using every are lever under their power, military intelligence, economic, criminal, media in a new form of hybrid warfather. -- warfare. the most promisinging weapons in their arsenal is cyber. they see it as the arrow in their quiver which can strike at america's achilles heel. i do believe in the possibility of a cyber 9/11. i also believe in threats and cyber threats that are deeply tied to the geopolitical world in which we live. i can see that in russia. modernized russia that swept the

crimean peninsula with their military tactical radios, uniforms, knee pads, a conspicuous lack of drunkenness. more than that they executed surprise and integrated tactical cyber operations with every element of their advance. we can also see it on the strategic stage where if russia takes a page from the iranians' books and as they continue, which they will, carve out a spear of dominance in the new russia and if sanctions rides to match our rhett are rick, they will hit back at us. they will hit back with cyber capabilities through the same type of hybrid adversaries on the military side we see it with the green men operating in ukraine like iran has hezbollah or the chinesess has fishing

trawlers. the nations have hybrid par are a military groups, nationalist brigades which do the same thing operating with decentralized decision making and denieblt for the state. but with access to sophisticated cyber state-like capabilities. what's scary about the russianss on this is their hackers are the same guys cut their teeth in criminal syndicates. if they are given the nod by the kremlin to break glass inside our systems it won't be the attack we saw the iranians pursue. it will beer more effective and more lethal to the future of the american banks and financial institutions. now as precision munitions and cyber transform the battlefield and move to the tactical edge

our marines and soldiers must learn how to bring cyber operations into everything they do. both suppressing their own electronic and cyber signatures while raising the enemies. that needs three things. i want to leave you with three points. one, the same adversaries that are hitting our private sector today are the asymmetrical adversaries that will hit our government tomorrow. in the government, we cloak ourselves with clearances and need to know. it's us that should be knocking down the door of the private sector, taking their lessonses learned and looking to adapt technology. especially when they spend 50 times what we are on the same issues, too. we can no longer rely on small

schools that take years to produce cyber warriors. for the next generation of digital natives, and i may be young. i'm 31. i may be young in d.c. but i'm considered a kid here, but an old man in silicon valley and among the marines i served. for the are entrepreneursese an the people in the military, they can't understand why facebook has better facial recognition than we do many cyber security or why we haven't cracked the code on how to leverage the cloud. what's not amusing is the cycle is 105 months long when a motorcycle is 18 months. what they can't understand is

snowden and manning betrayed the country but they are able to. the third point want to leave you is that the innovative organizations that were so effective in confronting, the last asymmetric threatses we faced are the same organizations hungry to confront rising threats. rather than dismantle them to return to the status quo we should be safeguarding and replicating them. this is possible, all of this is achievable if all of us who had our lives transformed by the horror of 9/11, if we commit ourselves renewed to never returning to business as usual. for while we may crave peace after all this war, while we may crave peace, our asymmetric

adversaries are looking for the next ten rupy whether it's a jug are or fertilizer, a box cutter on a plane or whether it be a bundle of malicious code in the wrong place at the right time. thank you. semper fi. [ applause ] >> on c-span3 we are now live at the rayburn house building on capitol hill where the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction will testify this afternoon before a house foreign affairs subcommittee. he'll provide independent oversight of more than 103.2 billion dollars in government funds for reconstruction programs in afghanistan. he'll also talk about congressional concerns over waste, fraud and abuse in the afghanistan reconstructi krucon

projects. this coming as five americans were killed in afghanistan today apparently by friendly fire, according to the associated press. they were part of a special operations unit. the armed services committee tomorrow will meet to take up the release of bo bergdahl. we'll have coverage tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. it will also be on c-span radio.

just leaving the screen is the special inspector general for afghanistan. he'll testify before a subcommittee of the house foreign affairses committee. the members are not in the room yet. the vote is under way in the u.s. house. once that wraps up, the hearing should get under way shortly. one of the bills the house just did pass, 421-0, was a bill that would let veterans get care outside the v.a. if the waits are too long. it would also prevent bonuses at veterans affairs.

we'll have live coverage on c-span3 when it gets under way. today is congressional primary day in five stateses. we hear more from today's wash war journal. >> hello. >> how are you? >> fine. we started with virginia. what's the most interesting state. for you to watch? >> sure. south carolina is definitely going to be attracting attention tonight. senator lindsey graham is looking for another term. this is one of the races people expected at the beginning to turn into a potential match-up in different wings of the republican party, a real showdown. it's turned out to be something less exciting. graham is doing well. he was 40 points ahead of his challengers in the most recent

independent poll. looks to avoid going into a run-o run-off. he's kind of undone some of the tea party anger against him and not allowed it to flourish. >> how much outside assistance were the challengers getting and how much effort did senator graham have to put up? the senator put up quite a bit of his own. he raised nearly 6.5 million in the past year and spent more than that . so you could say, yeah are, he had to put in a lot of effort. this is part of the emerging play book to avoid are primary challenges when they look vulnerable if they blow the roof off with spending. use that advantage of incumbency

to great effect. thad cochran wasn't able to do it in mississippi. his fund raising was low. he put himself in a position to do away with the challenge. >> that leaves maine, nevada and north dakota. >> maine and nevada are interesting. in maine you have mike mishu's district. that's been a fight between two democratic state senators. i think what we have seen there, theres hasn't been much polling. it really seems like one of them, emily kane, has been able to hit her opponent on all sortses of major issues -- gay marriage, abortion, stuff like that, the environment.

even in a more social drirkt. it's pointed to the power of progressive viewpoints in the primaries. out west nevada is an interesting primary. there isn't much going on on the congressional side. but a lot of people are paying attention to the lieutenant governor's race. the top two politicians in the state, harry reid and governor sandoval are involved on their respective side. each backing a candidate for lieutenant government. while that's attract aring most of the attention of the national media, it's very are interesting to watch. sandoval picked sides in the republican primary. this is part of his efforts to kind of are wrest control of the state party back to him. >> then north dakota?

>> north dakota, there isn't all that much going on there. expected to cruise along. >> do the primaries indicate anything about future makeups of particularly the senate? >> not so much about the senate. some of the seat house primaries are interesting and the long-term effect they can have are in congress. on the senate side, things like stabl, at least this tuesday. >> scott bland, national journal, the hotline editor in chief. thanks for your time. >> thank you very much. >> back live to the rayburn office building. the subcommittee holding a hearing on 103 billion dollars. john sopco is the special

inspector general. he'll be joined by charles michael johnson, jr. they are waiting for a series of voteses to wrap up on the house floor. the house is voting on amendments to the transportation spending bill. it could be a while. they've got seven or eight votes left on the floor. we'll have live coverage once they start. one of the other races we are focused on today is the virginia are race. eric cantor's seat is up for grabs. we get more from today's washington journal. >> what's the important race to watch? >> there are two primaries, one outside your door, jim moran retiring from a democratic district. heavily favored to win. an eight-way race.

it's tantamount to election because there is a republican candidate for the general. he's not expected to get much traction. down interstate 95 to the richmond area, the 7th district. this is the district of eric cantor, the house republican majority leader. eric cantor has represented the 7th since 2000. number two in the house and clearly interested in the speakership. it's that ambition that has gotten eric cantor in trouble in the 7th primarily with tea partiers and libertarians. there aren't a lot of votes but there is a good deal of anger and frustration with washington.

>> who is cantor's challenger? >> david brat, an economics professor at randolph macon college, a small liberal arts college in ashland, virginia. he's been an adviser to legislators as well. it was his situation with the democratic governor tim kane that cantor has seized on for purposes of television advertising. cantor is attacking brat as a liberal college professor who consented to higher taxes or proposals for higher taxes during the kane governorship. all of this has been forcefully refuted by the brat campaign. but eric cantor with over $2 million in his campaign treasury, of which he's spent more than a million dollars has a much bigger and louder mega phone than brat.

this will be a thinly attended primar primary. that may give the cantor opposition a an opportunity to ding up the majority leader somewhat. >> when it comes back to the seat held by jim moran, tell us about don bier. >> don bier is an active northern virginia democrat. he was lieutenant governor in the late 80s and early 90s. he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1997. but remained active in national democratic politics. first is a fundraiser for howard dean. the buyer is a man of mean miss the washington area. the name bier is synonymous with oubls,s principally volvos. the family has amassed eed considerable fortune. >> mr. shapiro, we see a picture

of don bier along with candidates and their willingness to president obama and his legislation and efforts. do you see that as far as democratic candidateses running close? >> consider the 8th district of november in northern virginia. this is in the shadow of washington, d.c. it is drawn to favor a democrat. the most liberal democrat in that area of virginia. there is little downside to expressing loyalty to the president. a number of ranking obama aides and political opera are tifs have endorsed mr. bier. >> virginia senate, changes there, especially about efforts to expand medicaid? >> yes. this is not a game for the faint of heart. the virginia senate --

a democrat from the far southwest. now the republicans have a numerical majority. they have used that nascent majority, new majority to force a final -- finally force a break in the continuing budget impact. on thursday, the legislature with now a republican dominateded legislature is supposeded to begin acting on a budget before the june 30 deadline to enact one. had virginias passed that date we entered terra incognita. >> thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> again, virginia, one of five

states having congressional primaries today. look for more coverage on c-span. waiting for the start of the house foreign affairs subcommittee looking at afghanistan reconstruction. john sapco is the special inspector general overseeing 103 plus billion in u.s. government funds for reconstruction funds in afghanistan. they are looking for the house to finish a series of 7 or 8 more votes. the hearing won't start until that's almost finished or finished. we'll have it live on c-span. while we wait, conversation on efforts in congress to consolidate and in some cases cut duplicative federal programs and agencies. >> our first guest of the morning is doug collins, republican from georgia, a member of the oversight and government reform committee, also a member of the foreign affairs committee. welcome. >> glad to be here. >> you are doing an effort in congress, taking a look at

redundant federal programs. what do we mean by that? >> p we have a bill we are introduced looking at programs that are duplicative, outdated or inefficient. it takes away excuses. this should be done already. what we are doing here is taking almost a brak stale that says let's come to an agreement. come together, put it on the floor. up or down vote. you either are for cutting this or not. it takes away excuses. programs that you would deem redune tant. >> you have duplicative and a cat fish program is one. we have the multiple inspection programs for the same basic program. >> cat fish like the fish? >> like the fish. we looked at them, inspected them, said let's throw them in

the bucket and let's go. this is a program that's been talked about for years. they end up back in the farm bill again. we are saying take the political pressure out. something that both republicans and democrats, independents. we all know it's there. let's look, talk, confirm what we can. bring it to the floor and explain. you are either for getting government more efficient or you're not. >> how do you have programs that duplicate themselves. >> it's overtime. it's just government. one of the things where a good idea starts here. you have multiple agencies that do housing. that do other issues we look at from social security disability benefits. you've got duplicative payments going on. there are all kinds of examples. the inspector general reports, the gao. . we see them every year. will we do something about it? >> the gao took a look at the

program saying since 2011 they have addressed 60% of impartially addressed. you say your bill deals with excuses. what are some of the excuseses you have in dealing with the programs. >> we need to do it because we are able to the do this part. from public officials. this is a program that's good in the district. it may not be best for the country. this takes us out of the interest of each of the congressional districts, looks at the budget as a whole and says what are the areas of inefficient programs we can look at. there are no more excuses. we keep telling them let's get it in a way that brings it to the floor. we haven't done it. >> is the best way starving the programs of funding? condensing the agencies.

>> i was a state legislature. we had to balance the budget. from a republican perspective we have said we look at areas for government waste or inefficiency. i sponsored legislation in georgia that consolidated government agencies that did eliminate positions. saved $2 million to $3 million initially. $10 to $15 million over time. that's what we have always said. look at the programs that needed to be cut or are consolidated to make it efficient. the same job is getting done. the same programs are taking place. that's a government function. that's what's frustrating. many of the agencies are government to government functions. they don't deal with the general public but we continue to have them. it's something we have to address. >> who's with you? >> good support from republicans and democrats. we have just introduced the bill working on cosponsors. when members hear the process they say that's something they

like the concept of. it does take out the process. we have had a broken appropriations system over the past few years for many reasons. they work hard. but this is another way to get back to giving another tool in the tool box for cutting and getting our fiscal house in order. >> doug collins, republican from georgia. here to answer your questions about what he's talked about as far as programs and other issues. 202-585-3880 for democrats. 202-585-3 # 82 for independents. if you live, want to send us an e-mail c-span.org. send us twoo a tweet. yesterday a hearing released information when it came to the prisoner trade. sergeant bergdahl. did you have a chance to attend? >> i was. coming back from traveling.

we have had conversations with other members. and those that looked at the issue. i'm concerned. this goes back to what the administration did. i look to folks like sam johnson are, a prisoner of war in vietnam who said this should not be done. this puts us in a very bad position. it goes against the policy for years of not negotiating with terrorists. it is something this administration doesn't seem to get. when you have prisoners of war saying this was a bad idea it sends a es message that our people are up for ransom. especially the taliban that was released. if we had any idea or thought these would be peaceful, loving citizens in the countries in which they come from, we are fooling ourselves. to me this is a scary precedent. >> one of the colleagues in the house took on these issues and

dealt with it. she came to cameras to talk about it. she talked about those who would criticize the exchange. we'll get your response. >> it is likely that at the end of the conflict that those individuals who never were -- there were no specific charges against them. it's likely at the end of the conflict those individuals would have had the to have been released. we then might have gotten nothing. the reason this operation took place when it did is there was reason to believe apparently that sergeant bergdahl's life was in danger. so we got something for that exchange. i am just -- seriously. i don't understand.

all p.o.w.s are captured in a war-time environment are in danger. went to iraq in 2008. the soldiers and military personnel knew if they were captured, their life was in danger. this is not new. this is covering for an administration that failed to do their job again to protect our country in a way that's consistent. both democrat and republican demonstrations not to negotiate with terrorists. to get something in the end of a war is when you have a sorting out of are prisoners of both sides. some that did live, some that didn't. to say we had to trade this, get something for this, we got a reputation in the world now that i'm afraid will say that we'll trade and negotiate if somebody's life is in danger. we are on a slippery slope.

she's mystified. i'm mystified by her comments. you departed from a long-term standing of our country and a long-term policy of the country. at times things haven't been popperly done. from not notifying congress to not doing things that were raised up here. but the basic fact of everything i have heard. to use it as an excuse, why not to train for everything else. >> on our independent line, steve, good morning. >> good morning. >> good morning, steve. >> one reason i turned from republican to independent was that the government can't take care of their own house. like i'm talking about earlier, all the redundant programs yet you want to cut social programs

people need. this is an issue. the tea party especially is one thing that chased me to independent. take care of your own house first. especially as a republican. before you start talking about cutting social programs. >> steve, i think one of the things i have said here is i have not target theed any specific social program. it's all programs in general. if you're going to be honest with the federal government. if you're going to be honest with the budgeting process as a conservative you have to say, we need to get on a path of fiscal stability and that balanced budget. we have to bring down our debt and deficits. everything should be on the table. if you look at my voting record i have been consistent in saying they are areas from defense to other programs in the government. if they are inefficient or wasteful they need to go. simply to make a generalization to say that i or anyone else isn't getting hoour house in orr

we look at it from a national perspective. >> from twitter, a question about state perspective. tell me one redundant program that gets benefits from which you would end. >> that only georgia gets? i'm not sure. if it's redundant, it needs to go. i have them on record. i appreciate it. states do it all the time. states have to look at the programs. in georgia we went through a situation in which we lost almost $5 billion in revenue. we had to look at the programs, at the government. if we are afraid to look at our spending habits, then we are not doing what we should be doing in congress. congress's role is to control the purse strings and do oversight. that's looking at everything. it's a part of what we should be doing. >> another tweet says why not cut funding when you do appropriations each year? don't you see duplicating program bfrs you vote for the

bills? >> we do. it's a reason many of us offer amendments on the floor. the reason we go after the appropriations process. as we have been doing the large spending bills that come in which you're basically not cutting. you may be cutting the growth rate, but you are not actually cutting. if you're projected to raise it 10% but you do it 5 that's still a 5% raise. we have to get away from washington here and get to the honest moms and dads and business owners when they balance their home budgetses and their businesses. we have to take the same approach. debbie from ohio on the independent line. >> i want to say that i cannot believe what president obama is getting away with in our country, everybody needs to demand his impeachment. we cannot keep up with the

scandals and who knows what's coming down the road next. he needs to be impeached. period. we are not going to to be able to move forward. it doesn't matter if he's black, white, purple, democrat. he's destroying our country. look -- >> >> i disagree with this president. we have been many the house saying you can't run the country by executive order. this is a concern. it goes back to something i have talked about. an article one congress that proep rates and does the congressional rule of government. you can use the budget to deal with other areas. these are areas we have to continue to look at. we need to have programs in

place. >> washington, d.c. david, hello. >> thank you for your service, congressman. my question is that you're not the first government official says there is government waste. we are all in agreement on that fact. >> what are you recommending as your approach will be different that will get a different result in terms of consolidating agencies and making a difference. thank you. >> the difference here is up to this point we are looking at it from the process which we have not had a good handle on. it takes away the excuses. there is a look at taking each

individual, the appropriations measures not as a whole but in parts. they can focus on those. if the committee doesn't act it's an up or down vote with ten hours of debate. this is the difference. we say you are not coming trying to offer amendments. you offer it up or down. for instance if we found a hundred billion in waste and we may get that much. you come to the floor and you have to say, i agree with this cut or i don't. if you agree you say i'm cutting this and getting the fiscal house in order. if not, you go back to the people in the district and say this $50 billion needed to stay in the budget and here is why. it puts us on a path of saying, take it out of the appropriations process. it takes away excuses on the floor. >> the committee would be

members of congress or independents? >> independent. nonvoting members of congress. but those appointed by the president and the leadership in the senate and the house. >> oxford, pennsylvania. good morning, bob. >> good morning, c-span. i always watch. we are covering many things but one thing he's talking about cutting the budget with no amendments and everything. i guess every program has faults and waste. i would think amendments would be the thing to cut out the fat but leave the good thing in any program. also talking about ssi. if anybody's dealt with the v.a. it takes two to three years once you apply. they say, you can't work. by the time you hire a lawyer or a group that represents you, it's two to three years. people die in that time.

they commit suicide in that time. families are suffering in that time. one more thing about the trade. i'm sure some of the guys we traded for aren't good characters. if that was your son that came home or any american son i would love to hear what you would say about it then. thank you so much. god bless america. >> bob, i appreciate that. i will start with the last comment, first. the bigger principle is sergeant's family is playstation 3 plea-- pleased he's coming ho. i'm sure they are. in a wartime environment in a world that's a hostile place you have to look after the whole. this set as bad press department for other sons and daughterses in harm's way. when we look at it, this is where the administration lacked foresight. just going against the principle that we have stood by for years.

looking forward to that. i think this just takes it and look at the good. i'm a believer. a government that does what it needs to do. he talked about the backlog. a majority are veterans administration or social security cases. not being able to get deployments. when our constituents have to call my office so they can get a deployment or the things that are promised to them, that's a problem. that's a concern for me in a sense that when you go back to the way they book appointments, record keep, the folks who work in the clinics and hospitals are good nurses and doctors trying to do their best. the administrations of the v.a. let them down. structurally we have to change

this because, if not, we are in a position as one speaking from an iraq war perspective, we are in a position now that the worst is yet to come. if we don't structurally fix this now, five or ten years from now when many were coming back over the past 12 years they will use the system more and more. we're broke now. band-aiding this isn't what we need to do. we have to get it structurally fixed. >> any function of the oversight committee? >> yes. we'll look over that and the armed services and veterans affairs. chairman miller has done a great job. bringing out the inefficiencies that are there. we should not allow the government especially in dealing with those who served our country and fulfilled their commitments and duties. it is now time for the government to step up and fulfill theirs. sending them to a system in which they call their congressman to get help to me

shows a tremendous break down in a system that should work. >> senator sanders and mccain on the senate side have come up with a plan looking at this issue. what do you think about the bones of the plan and would you support it? >> without going to specifics of the plan, looking at the structural integrity, anything we look at now from holding accountability to the administration and the different program is things we have to do. structural change has to take place. those are the discussions we need to have. the systems in which the appointments and referrals and service members get help. those are things as i have been a cosponsor of the legislation, if the v.a., if you're too far or they can't get to you, you

could go to a private doctor with the v.a. paying for it. we have to come up with models that fit the system and problems in the system. the problem is we look and say, let's fix it as it is. what government many times doesn't do is think outside the box. we think of the way it's always been. it's also part of the problem in the veterans administration and others. we think of it as it's been. let's think in terms of what it could be. that's the kind of thinking government needs to have. progression from problem to problem. let's do the role of congress. that's oversight. looking at programs and making sure we are looking 10, 20 years down the road. instead of tomorrow the. >> does that involve more money? >> at this point in time, we have to look at the -- you can't continue to feed. there may be priority changes we need to prioritize. i'm for getting the budget in order to we can prioritize for

veterans, other issues and areas. as long as we are feeding a deficit and a debt like we are, we have trouble prioritizing the issues. when we have a structure in place that works, when we give them the ability here is something worth spending money on. that's when we have an issue and a discussion on money. to spend more money on something is a mistake. >> scott from allen town, pen. good morning, republican line. >> hi. thank you very much for having me on your program this morning. i wanted to touch base about cutting wasteful programs and cutting spending. the other thing i think we should do is bring jobs back to this country. our jobs report is up but our unemployment is still at the same level. we won't touch base on unemployment extensions. we won't touch base on funding

these programs that are needed socially. but also with the v.a. scandal, are i don't understand i want to see a doctor. i don't understand why we need to waste tons of money for this when it's common sense. when it comes to spending i believe in cutting wasteful spending. i believe in bringing in jobs. boosting our economy. letting our country be a nation.

let's think outside the box. get our veterans help. in return, the house has passed the keystone. we have worked on energy policy, reforming our job training structure program. all of these things passed the house. they are stuck in the senate. there's been a roadblock. when we pass jobs, i don't believe -- government needs to promote and have the access that allows the market and jobs to be created. create jobs and infrastructure. those things that make the private sector confident in where we are heading. unemployment being about the same. it's a lot of folks dropped out.

the unemployment numbers as well. >> the president announced perspectives when it comes to college loans and things like that. what do you think? >> i think, again, it's a situation in which you have the president looking and saying, let's help out those who were under water. it's a popular move to do that. can it stimulate economic growth? possibly. i think the issue is when we look at the overall process in government it coming back to this. the debt and deficit issues have to be addressed. we can band aid it, talk about cutting, capping 10% of a student's income. those things which help in the short term. long term we have to make changes to make sure the government is as efficient as possible. we cut the waste and stimulate the economy. that's an example we need to

share. >> up next from centreville, massachusetts, independent line. >> caller: good morning. representative, you sent misinformation as well. the taliban is not a terrorist organization. it's al qaeda. also, do you remember in the '80s with the contra? with ollie north and reagan trading guns for drugs to the rebels? you shouldn't just say this has been unprecedented. every time the president goes to war a democratic. the country has been hurting. ever since. the republicans always try to cut stuff.

and deny the people what's right for them. you get big businesses like the banks. their bailouts. the auto company gets their bailouts. >> okay. thanks, caller. this is a policy. it's not good then or now. trading what went on just now is not right. a man who suffered. you can see nilt his face. he suffered for his country. he said this is not right. this is a p.o.w., not somebody like me who has not been a p.o.w. he would have loved to have are come home. he understood the process. he understood the principle.

it shouldn't be violated. >> this is james on the e-mail saying given the most recent history what assurances can you give the american people this is not a round of service cuts for the people. this practice devastated the middle class. we have no more to give. >> again, the interest of what is perspective here is we are look at the total budget process. what's interesting here is most of my democratic friends have called in. they go straight to saying you will cut social programs. not everything would be cut, changed, con sole dated. when you look at everything, that's the role of government. that's the role of congress. we cannot simply just sit up here and continue to do things the way we have done it.

when you look at it, the fiscal house in order. the deficit, the debt paid down. the budget in order. then we can make priority choices on where to spend money. when you have 82% of the budget you ha roughly that we have no control over. it's mandatory spend, that's a problem. if people have trouble understanding that, all i ask if they look at their own household budget. they say, i will take 82% of what you bring home. you can't touch it. it has to go to one place. you have to live off the other 16. the only -- or 15, depending on the number. they will say, that's not right. that's what's happening in government. we are saying, let's look at everything. >> where else do you go then because sequestration got put into place. the approach paul ryan took with the budget. where do you go from there. >> as far as making cuts to the

budget. >> again, many times we say let's cut x amount off the top. that's not a good way to do budgeting either. there are programs that need priorities. there are other programs that need a larger cut than others. when you take and say because of a process that's not been working, a process that's been especially over the past few years been fatally flawed because you're coming to a crisis to make bugd dadgetary decisions that's not good. when moms and dads make crisis decisions it is the best decision they can make at that point. i'm saying let's go through the process. let's use a bill such as mine to say, let's take the politics. you will never take politics out of everything. say let's look at ineffective, wasteful spending and bring toyota the floor. that adds on to what the budgetary process is doing.

people may not want to hear it. it's something that has to be done. >> here is regina from connecticut. democrats line. joo hi. thanks for taking my call. i'm calling about a statement made earlier. he said that we don't negotiate with terrorists. we are not fighting another country. we are fighting terrorists. who do you negotiate with? i would like him to answer the question for me. thank you. >> we're not going to negotiate with the ones we just gave prisoners away to. however you want to classify it or put it in perspective, people holding the hostage are people we have negotiated with because we gave basically people in return for that. i didn't understand the question completely. >> we are not fighting a

country. we are fighting terrorists. they captured it however it happened, i don't know. but i want to know if we don't negotiate with terrorists, how will we get our people back if they are captured? >> at this point in time, you bring up a great point. i have said before, even in my introduction people we negotiated with were holding hostage at the time. you're very right. this is a different kind of warfare. it remains more of a problem when we have individuals or groups or splinter groups or however it might be that can capture it military or nonmilitary. this is a problem we have in the world now. it's a difficult place. who do we negotiate with? the ones holding them. that sets a very dangerous precedent for going forward.

>> was there a better way of getting them back? >> at this point i'm not sure. the question is what was set earlier by the representative is that we got something for that. >> we got him back. he's no longer captured. what does it entail for later late on? groups may say let's get more out of guantanamo or another country. my concern is in this specific time frame with a specific individual who was in life threatening condition, is that the standard we use? if a p.o.w. is in life threatening condition, will we negotiate with hem? that sets an interesting agenda for anyone who may or may not want the to take a military person hostage.

>> representative doug collins ser serves on committees and is a representative from georgia. next up is kelly from texas. republican line. >> caller: yes. i want to rebut what was said about the republican doing all the wrong and bailing out companies and stuff. that was the democrats and the president that did this. i want to know because the government is not listening to the people. how do the people go about in -- impeaching the president ourselves because nobody is listening to us. >> i think kelly expressed the frustration that's out there in general with not only the administration but with government as a whole not working. it goeses back to the theme of the conversation today.

is that government in its unwieldiness and largeness and size and the instability to control the budget. to control what it does left us in a situation in which people are frustrated. because it is so far from the way, like i said before, moms and dads who get up every morning who only want the best for themselves, their families. as they go forward that's the message washington needs to be sending. we are showing it. we understand you're frustrated. if we can't come together on things like duplicative, ineffective programs, where are we? that's where i want to start with this. taking an honest look at where we are at as a government. what are we doing so we can speak to a country that's in desperate need of leadership? >> a viewer from twitter asked if you were going to put the programs you would like to see cut or consolidated online? >> there are a lot of them already online.

you can go to dr. coburn's waste book, the gao report. some have had things done with them. a lot of them have not. these are the things that when congress being a freshman, i went to oversight hearings and we would hear about and gao report and i'll go straight to one not -- uniform spending in the military. each branch designing their own bdus and acus i'm in the air force and millions that are taken to design a spechk uniform most of which if you end up in the end look very similar. why are we spending hundreds and millions, that's something to be consolidated? it is not. when people call in and say this is something that mean republicans are wanting to cut -- we need to look at it as a whole. i want to be honest with the

american people and say we have a conversation that says we know we're in control and the budget needs to be reigned in. when you get your house in order, they can have confidence again. >> democrats line. >> yes, what i want to know is the republican party had control of this congress, the senate and white house when their tax policies, they changed the tax laws where we outsourced your jobs and sent them overseas, didn't have to pay income tax until they brought that money back. they haven't brought it back. as a matter of fact, the president of the chamber of commerce nationally put on the website there's as much upside to offshoring your jobs. that's revenue that's not coming in. if you're not bringing in enough revenue to support programs, then you've got to cut spending. i believe that that would help if the laws were changed back to

the way they were before, they have to pay income tax. a lot of corporations aren't paying any. when i filled out my taxes for 2012, what was taken in and corporations pay 5% of money taken in. and on benefits for veterans, 3% of the budget went for veterans benefits. that is also including the g.i. bill big corporations to pay their fair share too. thank you. >> i appreciate the call. i think the issue here is not as i've said before especially on veterans, which he ended with, not an issue of the money being spent but is it being spent wisely and on programs that work, or are we going to get into a program where we're giving bonuses for administrators for cooking the books? those are the kind of things that lose confidence and faith of the american people and especially servicemen and women

trying to get medical care they need. when they understand their wait times and appointment times are being rigged, if you would for the benefit of administrators who don't have direct contact. the women and men with contact, when they call in and talk to our constituent folks and get help, most of them will say they get good help, the help they need when they can get it. it goes back to a very sad statement of the fact the system, they have to call congressman's office to get the help they need. that's -- the biggest problem for me as i look at this as we go forward in this discussion of veterans administration, are we going to make structural changes to bring the system to a standard in which we think outside the box and get veterans the help they need and don't think in the end after running a maze of paperwork they have to call congressman's office to get help. >> being a member of the foreign affairs committee, what do you think about the commitment of a

timetable of pullout of troops in afghanistan? >> i think the concern i have is looking at it from a way that is drawn out in a way that provides a stable environment, unlike what we have in iraq, which is last weekend was terrible violence again, in which if we do it properly and process of removing troops, do so in an orderly and timely fashion. again, i'm very skeptical of giving a time line, if i was looking at it saying on this date they are going to be gone, i'll wait to that date. that's the only concern with visible timelines. >> any more we can do after ten years? >> i think at this point we are drawing down and that's an appropriate response. >> arkansas, robert from our democrats line. hi, which. >> caller: i want to ask the representative one question. during george bush's time -- during george bush's time, where was the republican party, every

time he got on national tv -- saddam hussein and george bush said this is the man who tried to kill my daddy, they checked on him the way they do on this president here, we would have went to war in iraq and all of these young kids wouldn't have been killed over there in iraq based on that. and also as far as the jobs, in the united states, if republican party had tried just one time to try to help this man pull ugs out of this, the debt we was in, we would be doing a lot better today but from day one they say it right then and there, they were not going to do anything to help this man. that means they are not going to do anything to help the american people. >> i think robert and i have definitely -- i wasn't in congress when george bush was president. i think the other thing is an

interesting correlation there that i would just firmly disagree with. i may disagree with this president because i disagree with this president doesn't mean i'm against the people. when the comment was made there at the end that we -- i assume he's speaking of the president, if he just helped the president we're helping the american people, i think we have to mainly get away from this idea that if you don't do what i like you're against the american people. we've got to look at it from a perspective of what is the role in congress and what are we supposed to be doing? i believe that is to help the american people. we may have differences on how we get there but if you don't simply line up in support you're against the american people and that's a wrong statement. >> cathy from florida, independent line. >> well, actually, he began with exactly what i was going to say. it would appear that now it's more, if you stand with me or don't stand with me, it would appear there's no real genuine concern for our country. it's just do you stand with me or stand with that person.

do you, sir, believe you can actually make a difference for the people not just be a part of this party bashing that continues to go on? right now, we have genuine concerns in our country that should be attended to and they are overlooked and not even considered. if someone does bring up a genuine concern about our soldiers in harm's way, then we're being unsupportive of our president. i don't understand there's a disconnect there. our president, i don't understand why we don't see this. it's almost as if aliens could land from another planet and set up base in the united states and we might notice them for 15 minutes but then we would go back to party bashing while they set up the earth base. do you see this, sir, there is absolutely no common sense whatsoever, being considered regardless of what side is

making a decision? common sense is out the window now. can you, sir, bring common sense back to the government? >> okay, i appreciate that. i think what we've got to understand, we've got to look at what makes sense to the american people. you asked the question, do i believe that we can make a difference. i have said this before, i don't leave my wife and three kids back in georgia to come here and think i can't make a difference. if i didn't think i could mac a difference, i would never run for congress. i believe we can make a difference. we have to take an honest perspective and look at what we're doing and the article one congress that the fathers intended to control the purse strings and administration, have the administration carry out the will of congress. i'm still one that gets to the right and see the dome and still the greatest country in the

world. despite of the differences and everything we have, if we lose that perspective, then we've lost perspective of why we're here. as long as i continue to have that, i do believe we can get something done. if we come up here and don't believe we can get anything done, i'm looking at my three kids and saying, i'm not trying to make a difference in your life and grand kids i have not seen yet. i believe we can. >> background of the guests including being georgia house of representatives, senior pastor and you owned a small business. where did you get -- when it came to redundant programs, what was the thing that spurred you on? >> from the congress perspective, saying gao report and waste book and goes back to my state legislator days. when i came in and we were looking at our budget and what we could do. i looked at government to government agencies that were simply working between the government and said why are these -- i had some reports from our budget folks, these can be done on a better way. i said if we're looking to save

money, we have other priorities we need to use this money in, whether it be education, corrections, whatever it may be. why can't we consolidate here so we have better priorities here or be able to say this is something we can do? that's where it came to me. >> new york is where film is is, democrats line. hi. >> yes, a very important question beginning with president reagan. things started to change in terms of corporations. there was a very big issue about corporate welfare and corporate welfare means that they have been given money throughout the years before president obama got into office, tech dollars which is corporate welfare. and as the individual that calls from indiana was talking about the outsource so they've made their wealth off of tax dollars. the american people and then