states with foreign intelligence value. second, non-u.s. persons are not targeted when the program has -- government has only a belief that 51% likelihood that they are non-u.s. persons overseas. there is no 51% test. the government is obligated to exercise a standard of due diligence in making determinations based on a totality of the circumstances. if there is conflicting information indicating whether a person is in the united states or is a u.s. person that conflict must be resolved and the user must be determined to be a non-u.s. person in order to be targeted. third, americans' e-mails are not searched for key words that may be used such as osama bin laden that would gather e-mails that were discussing things of contemporary events as opposed to matters of foreign intelligence. only specific selectors such as e-mail addresses may be used. an important mission of the board is to educate the public and enhance public debate by making the operation of counterterrorism programs public

consistent with national security concerns. during the process of preparing this report, we sought and obtained declassification of facts about the still highly classified program in order to allow us to put in context how the program operates. and clarify some public misconceptions. as a result, over 100 new facts were declassified by the government to provide needed context for the program's operation. i want to extend the board's appreciation to the personnel at the office of director of national intelligence, the department of justice, nsa, fbi, and cia who worked constructively with the board in this process. it's the most comprehensive public description of how the section 702 program operates and we believe this description will advance the public's understanding of the program. turning back to the report, it was adopted unanimously. the board also unanimously offers ten recommendations to strengthen privacy safeguards, and to address these concerns. they are in a number of

categories. first is the targeting process. the board calls for the government to clearly articulate the foreign intelligence basis for its targeting decisions. second regards the role of the foreign intelligence surveillance court and the board calls for the government to submit a sample of tasking sheets and query terms so the court can consider them in improving the continued operation of the program. in the parts of the prime minister known as upstream or about, the board calls for a periodic assessment to make sure that the best technology is being used to filter out purely domestic communications and urges the develop of technology that would permit policy decisions to be made concerning whether so-called about collections should be limited. in the area of accountability and transparency, the board calls for declassification consistent with national security of fbi, cia, and nsa minimization procedures and have the government provide more insight into the extent to which it acquires and utilizes communications of u.s. persons.

with regard to efficacy, the board asks the government to develop a comprehensive methodology for assessing the efficacy of counterterrorism programs. and lastly with regard to u.s. person queries, that is queries using u.s. person selectors of data collected through the 702 program, in the case of u.s. person queries cutted by the fbi, the board agree that the fbi should update its minimization procedures to make it clear that in criminal matters its agents routinely query the database for section 702 information. the board agreed limits should be placed on the fbi's ability to use and disclose 702 data. three additional statements are included in the board's report representing different board members' approaches to limiting the fbi's use and dissemination of 702 information. one position is there should be enhanced internal review of that process. another that this question while

not pressing now should be addressed before it becomes urgent and a third that yet such query should be subject to court approval. the board takes the position that the nsa and cia should be permitted to query section 702 data for foreign intelligence purposes using u.s. person identifiers only based on a statement of facts that the query is reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence information as defined in the foreign intelligence surveillance act. judge wald and i would have gone further and we have separately proposed two additional recommendations that were not adopted by a majority of the board. the first is designed to ensure that communications by americans are properly purged if they do not have foreign intelligence value or constitute evidence of a crime. the second is that foreign intelligence queries using americans' identifiers should only be made with court approval. board members brand and cook take the position that oversight of such queries is already rigorous and judicial review is not necessary or appropriate. again, all the board's recommendations are based on policy grounds and in our view

none of them require legislation to be implemented. as part of the study, we conducted two public hearings and one public workshop and the board also solicited public comments through www.regulation.gov. dozens of comments were received and we have reviewed all the comments. we appreciate the public input. at every step of the way the board has received full cooperation of the intelligence community. while the board's report was subject to class faction review none of the changes that resulted from that process affected our analysis or recommendations. the entire report that the board is going to vote on today is unclassified. there is no classified appendix. pursuant to the board's statutory duty to advise the president and elements of the executive branch and congress, the board briefed staff from the house and senate intelligence and judiciary committees on june 2nd regarding the board's tentative conclusions and senior white house staff on june 17th.

as i have indicated previously but also want to reiterate, in the course of conducting this study and also our study of the 215 program, we found nothing but hard working men and women in the intelligence community who are dedicated to protecting this country and we've seen no evidence of misconduct. the 215 and 702 reports fit into the board's broader mandate to balance national security with privacy and civil liberties in overseeing existing programs and providing advice on new programs. it's not our institutional job to always oppose or critique counterterrorism programs but to objectively analyze them. we'll soon be holding a public meeting to discuss where the board goes from here in the near term and get input on the public on the board's long-term agenda. the board has sufficient staff to work on more than one project at a time and we're looking forward to both expanding our oversight function but also our advice function as well. i want to thank board staff who were invaluable in preparing this report and worked tirelessly to study the programs, analyze them, and to

make sure that the classification process went smoothly. i'll now give individual board members an opportunity to address themselves starting with miss cook. >> thank you, david. i wanted to also start with thanks to the incredible work of the staff. for all intents and purposes, we have been building this airplane as we have been flying it, and it takes extraordinary skill and dedication to do that, so thank you. i would also commend the chairman and in particular our executive director for, again, at the risk of flying this metaphor too far, their remarkable work piloting the plane. i wanted to take this opportunity to briefly discuss some of the recommendations we have made. we concluded that the section 702 program is legal, valuable, and subject to intense oversight. our recommendation should not be viewed as an indication of

concern about the current operation of the program. instead, they are targeted and focused recommendations for relatively slight changes at the margins of the program. first and foremost, our recommendations as to queries using u.s. persons identifiers and about collection are not driven by a concern that u.s. persons' rights are being violated. instead, the recommendations are designed to prevent the section 702 program from transforming over time from a foreign intelligence program to a means of effectively surveilling u.s. persons. we have seen no evidence of a backdoor, so our recommendations are designed to make sure one is not built. second, the current requirements for the foreign intelligence purpose of the targeting rationale are the natural by-product of the statutory structure as well as the historical underpinnings of the section 702 program.

section 702 was designed to move away from requiring the extensive justification necessary for a traditional fisa and for good reason. we are not recommending a return to a full traditional fisa packet, just a statement of facts, which will have the effect of increasing the rigor of the analysts' approach and the oversight process. i also wanted to emphasize the board's conclusion as to the value of the program for the government's counterterrorism efforts, to say nothing of its larger foreign intelligence benefits. this program has assisted the government's efforts to learn more systematically about the membership, leadership structure, priorities, tactics, and plans of international terrorist organizations. it has enabled the discovery of previously unknown terrorist operatives, provided the locations and movements of known suspects, and allowed the discovery and disruption of

plots directed against the united states and foreign countries. a program can have substantial value separate and apart from plots thwarted and the section 702 program is an example of that. finally, i believe the greatest value of the board's report may very well be in dispelling the misunderstandings and misconceptions about the section 702 program rather than the recommendations themselves. restoring public trust and confidence can be a matter of education and transparency and does not always require a change in the government's operations. i hope we will now focus on building out our advisory capacity. the last year has been largely devoted to oversight, but our mandate is two-fold. as we continue to build the permanent, meaningful federal agency envisioned by the 9/11 commission and congress, we have the opportunity to really think about how best to protect privacy and civil liberties in

light of the need for counterterrorism programs, and i look forward to that process. >> judge wald? >> thank you. i, too, thank everybody who was engaged in getting this fairly mammoth and complex report out in record time. i want to take just a few minutes to put in context why the chair and i wrote an additional statement dealing with u.s. person queries. as diligent readers of the report will recognize, this is a very complex program, and its main thrust is to be able to collect the communications of foreign non-u.s. persons who are based abroad. in that process, however, the communications of u.s. persons may and are collected where they

are communicating with the foreign target. in many cases the u.s. person may well not know, probably in most cases, may well not know that they are communicating with a foreign target. since we are a privacy oversight board, our focus was on the privacy of the u.s. persons who communicate with targets, in many cases not knowing that they are targets. now, if those communications themselves on their face contain foreign intelligence, it seemed to us quite reasonable as well as to the other members of the board that the government be able to use -- have access to that foreign intelligence. however, the fact is that in the vast scope of the numbers of communications of u.s. persons that are collected without their knowing it in this process, there will be much private and

confidential information which under normal rules would be protected as privacy and with an aura of fourth amendment, whereas these are policy recommendations. the fact is that everybody in this, and this is in the main body of the report, recognize that americans have a fourth amendment -- some fourth amendment interest, protected interest in their private communications. so to get -- to cut to the chase, the two recommendations that we felt were needed additionally were, one, right now these -- when u.s. persons' communications come in, they may contain a lot -- could contain a lot of private, confidential information which is not at all relevant to foreign intelligence. at the current practice, those are not purged in any regularized fashion. the minimization requirements

which we propose be made more restrictive say that the analysts upon review, but there's no duty to review ever, should be purged, taken out, but only if clearly they cannot be of any foreign intelligence value, and the standard, and this is in the regular report, the standard that's used is what we call kind of mosaic standard. the analyst has to decide, but even if right now there appears to be no foreign intelligence value, is it conceivable that in some distant future or some other analyst or somehow it might become relevant? we don't think that should be the standard. we believe that there should be a duty to at the point any query is made of u.s. interests, u.s. persons' interests, that there

should be a purging process going on which takes out the information which is not of foreign intelligence value, and we think as set out in our statement, that that's what the original definitions in the fisa regulation that's still applied to 702 and the thoughts of the original drafters meant to happen. so aside from the purging process, very quickly, the other recommendations we had were for some kind of judicial oversight and in this case it has to be fisa. we think that the fisa court should have to approve a query as being of potential foreign intelligence value. the same thing would be true in the case of the fbi when they send these things through to see if there's any evidence when they're making an assessment or investigation of a regular crime. there ought to be some judicial

approval of the fact that it's reasonably likely to come up with foreign intelligence value. perhaps it's my own experience as a judge, but i do feel that some kind of outside, noninvolved approval ought to be necessary before the private information of the u.s. persons, which is not of intelligence value, should be made accessible in these queries. >> miss brand. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i echo your thanks to our staff who tirelessly worked to write this report and shepherd it through the preclearance review process. turning to the substance of the report, i think it's significant that the board with our varied background and perspectives unanimously concluded that this program at its core is statutorily authorized, constitutional, and highly effective. i believe that our targeted recommendations for changes to

the program will further protect civil liberties and privacy without impacting the effectiveness of the program. i don't plan this morning to address the separate statement of chairman medine and judge wald. i would encourage you to read the separate statement miss cook and i published, but i want to make two brief points this morning to dispel some of the common misconceptions that have surrounded this program in the recent months. first, as our record made clear and the chairman has already said, this is not a bulk collection program or a dragnet. i don't think we can stress that often enough because it has been such a common misconception. under section 702 the government may only target individual, non-u.s. persons located outside the united states whom the government believes will have foreign intelligence information. >> so impact that, the government may never target americans for surveillance under section 702 no matter where they're located in the world. the government may never target

anyone located inside the united states. the government must select specific targets for surveillance and collect only the communications of those targets and even when selecting a particular foreigner abroad, the government must believe he or she is likely to possess foreign intelligence information. second, i'd like to dispel any notion that this program is likely to give the government a complete or even a significant picture of an american's private life. our report discusses incidental collection under section 702 and chairman medine already referenced this. this is the fact that if a targeted foreigner abroad communicates with a u.s. person, that communication will be collected. that's an aspect of the program that was understood by congress when it enacted section 702 and it's unavoidable under the program. concerns have been raised about the extent of incidental collection. we spent a lot of time as a board looking at that. but the fact is that the government doesn't know exactly how many u.s. person communications are collected under section 702. so to address that we've made recommendations that the

government take measures to assess the extent of incidental collection, try to determine the number of u.s. person communications collected. we look forward to seeing the results of that inquiry and deciding whether any additional recommendations to the program should be made on that basis. but it's already clear based on what we do know that the chance that any given american will have any of his or her communications collected under section 702 much less a significant number of them is remote. if the individual is in communication with a particular foreigner abroad who has been targeted for surveillance under section 702, then, yes, his communications with that individual will be collected, but none of his other communications. and if an individual is regularly in contact with a number of targeted foreigners abroad, such that is significant number of his communications were being incidentally collected, then that connection could be very important for the government to know. examples such as the case discussed in our report. demonstrate the value of discovering domestic connections to fisa investigations where they exist.

so i hope these facts and the rest of the board's report will dispel some of the misconexceptions about the program, and i look forward to working with the government to implement the recommendations that we've made. >> mr. dempsey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we . >> i think, mr. chairman, obviously, echoing and supporting the comments of all the board member, both about the work of our staff in getting this report to conclusion, i would say as a person who sort of values his weekend, there were far too many weekend e-mails associated with this report, but that's what it takes to do something like this. i appreciate the time that people put in on this. i think one, there are a couple over arching points that are important to recognize here. one is the chairman said everything we want it to say is in this unclassified report. there is nothing that we really wanted to say to explain this

program that we were not able to say and in the process of producing the report and pushing it through an interagency review process and classification, as the chairman said, 100 additional discreet facts about the program were declassified for release and i think there is a very important lesson there about intelligence and national security in the post-9-11 world, that any government, our government i believe, any government, can talk about programs of this nature, of this important and that it can be done in an unclassified way. sekd secondly, the report unanimously finds that the program fits within the statutory framework that was publicly adopted by congress.

in this awe, there is a major contrast between this program and the 215 program which the majority of the board concluded was not statute tomorrrely deba by congress and written into the statute. and i think that as well carries a very important lesson of intelligence in a democratic society that, the statute on the books can describe the governmental powers that are being exercised. thirdly, as to constitutionality, i remember when section 702 was being debated, there was a lot of questions being raised about whether a program targeting non-u.s. persons overseas people who under current court

interpretations have for the 4th amendment rights under our constitution, whether a program targets non-u.s. citizen ace broad implicated the constitution at all, even though it clearly was going to intercept some communications to and from people inside the united states. the government now recognized. >> that debate, in my opinion, is over with. whether this program implicates the constitution. the government position is, yes, this program does implement the 4th american rights that this program must be analyzed through a constitutional lens and our report is premised on analyzing this program through the lens of the 4th amendment in that it collects communications to and from u.s. citizens and others in this country. and i would really urge anybody, including members of the public, i really think we tried in a

pretty clear way to spell out the constitutional analysis by which a program like this should be analyzed and i think really provide a lot of important clarity to how to think about the application of the 4th amendment to the constitution in the context of intelligence collection programs that collect communications to and from americans. as to some of the controversial aspects of the program, one of the most controversial about collection an to somewhat a lesser extent the so-called multicommunication transing as or mcts. on that the board found after our really digging deep, deep, deep, into this that both of

those involve almost technological necessities or byproducts of the way that the program is operated and the way that technology associated with the program operates and we concluded as to both of them that as of now, it is not possible to avoid technologically speaking, not possible to avoid even about collection, we're not talking key words. we're not talking collections about an american in that sense. we are talking collection of communications that are about the selector that is being searched for, targeted. we spell all this out in great detail in the report and say that more work is needed to be done on the technology associated with collection and upstream collection in general and we urge the government to work with telecommunication

service providers and with other independent technologiesists to develop the technology that will at least allow us to segregate those communications. then you can have sort of the policy debate about how and under what criteria to do so. and finally on queries, a querying of the database of collected 702 data, looking for communications to or from americans, u.s. persons, using the identifiers, again the board unanimously agreed that this clearly raises 4th amendment implication and policy implications and clearly affects the rights of americans. my own view was trying to limit discovery of data in the

database in the hands of the government is not the right of way to go here, that discovery of the information should be permitted under a relatively and under criteria but under a relatively flexible and agile and prompt process. i do believe that littles should be placed on the use of that data and i referenced in my one paragraph on this issue, the president's own policy directive in which he established limits on the use limiting to national security matters, the use of data checked about non-u.s. persons abroad in both collection scenarios. i thought that was a place to look. this issue will continue to be debated. our report is won u one contribution to that. i think the board will continue to be engaged on that issue and i think there are a variety of ways in addition to those

spelled out in the two separate statements by the board members on that question. so, again, thank you, mr. chairman, thank you to the board members. we spent a huge amount of time on this and debating among ourselves and the product is found in this unanimous report, which i do urge you all to read. just don't go for the headline. dig in on the report. it's i think a remarkable report. >> based on the board's review of the section 70 '022 program. i now move the report and the recommendations. all if favor say aye. >> aye. >> the vote is unanimous it is approved by the board. i also wanted to indicate as i mentioned earlier the board will be holding a public meeting later this month to vote on the semi annual report to discuss

the board's short-term agenda and to seek public input on the board's medium and long-term agenda. i now move that the board approve the publication in the federal register of notice announcing that meeting to be held on july 23rd at 1:00 p.m. all in favor, say aye. >> aye. >> it was unanimous in the federal notice affirmed the july 23rd meeting will be published. the board's activities for the day are now complete. the board encourages all those who are interested in reviewing the report as mr. dempsey said to go to the website where the report can be downloaded a. transcript of today's meeting will be posted on our website. all in favor of adjourning the meeting please say aye. we are now adjourned. the time is 10:35. thank you.

coming up tonight on c-span 3, a look at the supreme court decision on the mandate in the health care law. then the report, review the 2013-2014 scream court term. after that, solicitor general donald verrilli discusses his top role as the government's lawyer. later former secretary janet napolitano talks about education policy. next a discussion on the impact of the splooem supreme court decision on the can traception mandate in the health care law. from washington journal, this is 40 minutes. joining us now, pro choice america, their president, welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> we are here to talk in part about the decisions made by the supreme court last week. first of all with hobby lobby,

what happened? what is your perspective? >> my perspective is i am disturbed. what we saw were five male judges essentially say that discrimination against women is not discrimination at all. what happened is that the court decided in favor of a private corporation saying that our religious beliefs trump the civic doubt we have to provide comprehensive health care for all of our employees. this was coming on the heels of there are administration and the country acknowledging if you are truly a religious institution, are you exempt from this. you request do your own ideas about what your health care looks like, but if you are a private corporation, we all have to play by certain rules in civil society and this is one of them. we will provide comprehensive health care. hobby lobby was one of dozens of companies that said, actually, i'm not going to. i'm not going to provide certain kind of contraception. >> more specific, right?

always abortion specifically that caused abortions? >> well, they don't. i'm glad you brought that up. it was an interesting piece of the case not many people knew about. every single medical expert in the country agrees, your viewers will be familiar with. most of them iuds, pedestrian b, do not actually incite abortion. what they do is prevent fertilization. what the justices essentially said during the oral arguments is the medical science the facts are of no consequence legally in this case. because we are talking about someone's belief system. so there is no way for us to adjudicate what they believe even though all of medical society lined up and said the facts are flawed. so they said, no, we're not going to provide these kind of contraception and the court said, unfortunately, you don't have to. why it's disturbing is because what it essentially says is women's health care is different than other kind of health care and in this instance, for

women's health care, my boss gets to decide what i choose and don't choose, even though it's my earning. we have to remember and your viewers know this very well, our insurance coverage is a part of our compensation. it's not something they just willingly provide. in fact, hobby lobby enjoys a very nice tax break on the taxpayers that are paying hobby lobby to pay its employees health insurance. so essentially, it's punished female workers and set off a domino effect. the very next day we had other corporations say, you know what, i don't want to cover component compensation at all. it starts chipping away at what every doctor in the company says. >> wart of what the justice said this is solely a mandate. our decision should not hold an insurance coverage mandate must necessarily fail if it conflicts with a religious beliefs. >> he did write that.

we will see. one of the this i think so that happened immediately after the case was handed down was a number of employees wrote a letter to president obama saying, hey, just so you know, if you actually pass an executive order that says i can't discriminate in my employment against gay and lesbian people, i intend to file ary lid a religious claim. the court tried to say this is a narrow ruling. they didn't prevent anyone else coming back an saying. they said this ruling applies to contraception. they don't prevent anyone else coming back on religious ground, they set a precedent that said, you know, that building over there you think makes widgets, it has a spiritual bleechlt it may be different than your, but it trumps yours. that's part of what i think people are finding so disturbing ability this, we do value religious liberty in this country. our country was actually back in

a minute on it. its what makes our democracy thrive. >> wouldn't certain types of businesses fall under that, not every would follow under the elite system. >> what the court ruled in this case it applies to all closely-held corporations. which is not a matter of size. it is a legal structure and it actually covers 52% of our economy. it just means that the majority of the shares are held by a very small number of people some your viewers will be familiar with closely held corporation like cargils, like coke zrits, like toys 'r' us. these are closely held corporations. so the sweeping effect is pronounced based on the ruling. >> so in essence, what itself the worst case scenario? >> well, the worst case is i case scenario, i don't think we have seen the worst case scenario, we know immediately women will lose access to some kind of contraception many have been using and see them as detrimental to their health. what i think we will start to

see is with the establishment of this precedent, people will file religious claims on behalf of their countries. we might see people saying i don't want to hire gay people, we might see people saying, hiv medication is against my spiritual belief and the court will now, has set a precedent it will have to hear those cases because it's granted that these companies can, in fact, hold spiritual meanings. >> do you know in the lower courts that possibly would work in the mandate up the supreme court? >> not yet. there are definitely cases in the lower court that go beyond the four kind of contraception that say i don't want to cover contraception at all. i think what we will start to see because of the message the court sent is more than we tell in this letter from the employer saying, hey, if you sign in, i'm going to use this court case to say it's against my religious beliefs to hire lbgt people. >> ilyse, you want to ask her questions on it, call us.

our first call is from derek from stillwater, minnesota, independent line. you are on with ilyse hoeg. go ahead. >> caller: yeah, i got a question. so knowing that, obviously, are you pro-choice, it's in your name. so i'm going to assume that. but knowing that men are now the minority in this country and women make up 53% of it, technically the minority doesn't have a voice in this example obviously if you, two people have sex and somebody decides to have an abortion, why is there no choice for the man in that side of the equation and would you support that? >> i think we are seeing an enormous amount of equality for men. up with of the thing noi noted

is hobby lobby covers things like viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs while it's refusing to cover contraception, which as we know is actually the way that we reduce abortion in this country, by providing as much access to contraception at all. as to the caller's question, i this i what we do see is enormous number, couples making this decision together. i also think the law is clear on this and women do have the ul mat choice and when they're denied contraception, they're denied the entire range of choices that stops us from getting to the place that your caller is talking about. >>aup next. providence, rhode island, democrat's line. >> yeah, good morning, i am calling concerning this issue here. i'll never forget. i have a 23-year-old daughter. she was born if december of 1990 and at that time a sonogram

technology was there, but, you know, it wasn't that good and i remember seeing my daughter in the sonogram. her body, you know, moving around, a little small little thing and that conclusively told me, there is a life over there. all right. i'm a pro-life democrat and what i don't like is going on here is the democratic party. i only voted republican once and it was for ronald reagan. i voted for him two times, the democratic party has been taking over. it's not for the working man anymore. even though i'm a retired stock 30 years in the business. it's been taken over by an elite, very wealthy elite primarily located in manhattan and los angeles. she's got a little smirk on her face right now, i'm looking at it. >> so, caller what do you want

us to address? >> caller: that's a good question. >> that conclusively with the advances in sonogram technology up to the year 2000 is definitely a life and she's smiling and you are snuffing it out. >> i'll let our guest respond. >> one of the things that is really interesting that the polling data shows is that seven in ten americans across the board, whether talking about south carolina, kansas, or nationwide support the rights that were enshrined in roe versus wade. one of the things that we know is that when abortion is made illegal the number of abortions don't go up. the number of death itself and injuries to women go up. some people just don't believe that government should be involved in our most personal decision. but that actually spans both parties. it's a really interesting dynamic that we see that every ethnicity. every age group, every party, there is still a majority of support for women and with our partners and our doctors to make our most personal health care

decisions and i'm from texas, so i'm very familiar with all the different kind of democrats and republicans, but i thank your caller for his call. he is certainly entitled to his opinion. we all have opinions. i think the question is what the law should do in terms of taking the caller's opinion and imposeing it on other people and the law is very clear on that. the law is clear this is a privacy whysh that women with our doctors an our families only we know our own individual circumstances and that's why it protects to us make our own personal health care decisions. >> next on our republican line, lowell, go ahead. caller it's terribly disturbing to watch the disposition of the youth in the united states, sex seems to be something that people who know longer have it into ed to pay. i understand both sides, but i certainly look at hobby lobby as standing up for their religious rights, where you were a muslim,

we and the right in the nation would be totally for a mussily. having any kind of desire he have and supporting that. it's i raised my children with god in their lives and it should be respected and my daughter, alexandra, at 21, i think she needs to have contraception and i would hope that it would be only after shelves married, not before. i know that is no longer the moral and ethical stances that people in the united states, but it should be and for a person who atests to do the right thing in life and their parents rayes raised them properly to have the ideas that our grandparent had about morality and ethics, we want to instill in our children.

i don't want to take up any more of our time. what i want to say is if you are moral and ethical. it seems like you should be patted on the back rather than made to feel the fool. >> it sounds like the caller has a lovely family. i applaud him for it. people in this country have all sorts of different attitudes and different kind of partnerships. that's what makes our country wonderful. i think what is challenging about the hobby lobby case is it does actually reject medical science that these kind of contraceptions are used for all sorts of conditions, including preventing unintended pregnancy, including for married people. it's a funny thing to note the iud is used for married, sorry, used disproportionately by married people who feel like their family size is what they've chosen. so it sounds like the caller has a lovely family. but i think it's not pursuant to the case, because if you actually want to make a case, that hobby lobby should be

consistent, the question of why they're not covering contraception that is used by married people, single people, people with medical conditions, people who want to avoid unintended presents a, but they are covering viagra, cialis and the other kind of drugs. that's a really relevant question in this case. that's what leads us to the fact it is a discrimination against one class of people. that's women who work for hobby lobby. >> you use the phrase five mill justices in the beginning, that was a part of your response the decision. they also added a little justice kennedy's language in his writings. he said this, he said this, it's important to confirm a premise of the court's opinion is the assumption of the hhs here is a compelling interest in the health of female employees, kennedy wrote, although the court didn't explicitly halt a compelling interest. the national review goes on to say, kennedy pointed out the government has admitted by coming up with a so-called commentation it could restrict

furthering the interest tan using the contraceptive mandate. did they take the wrong approach? >> well, it's a very interesting thing to lay it out even and put a finer point on it. what justice kennedy is arguing is sort of different than what your caller is arguing. justice kennedy is saying it is in the best interest to provide contraception for women across this country for medical reasons, all of the above. but because the government had said for religious affiliates and non-profit, he was arguing it's less onerous on the government than the business. what's fascinating is the very next day they issued a series of emergency rulings, including the one on wheaton college that shows that they actually don't have to abide by the very accommodation that justice kennedy -- >> those who may not be familiar with the wheaton college ruling. what is it? >> it says you don't have to cover this at all right now.

and that was not you have to find a third party administrator, which is what the government argued. so, basically, we are getting into the legal leads here. but the people have said, oh, but that means that the accommodation will stand, it will be next session. all justice kennedy is saying the burden is on the government to show that they said this is the least restrictive way to accomplish their goals in this case, providing contraception. this is not the least restrictive way in justice kennedy's opinion. they've already shown there is another way t. accommodation is up before the supreme court. with the wheaton ruling, it sort of tipped our hands the very next day. you know what the accommodation may not stand either. we are back to square one. >> frank lives in fort lauderdale, florida. he is on our independent line.

go ahead. >> caller: yes, hi, i want to ask you about the religious component in this whole argument, which you have been addressing from the pro choice side. you know, on notre dame university there was, a you know, there was some people who didn't want obama to speak there a number of years ago because of his views on abortion some of the alumni got pretty mad. georgetown university, obama spoke at that school. they covered up the christian cross in the back drop. i saw obama at notre dame, i sided with him there. i basically was against them putting a white sheet over the christian cross. i thought if obowl is going to choose that venue, he has to put up with the institution or which includes the catholic church that he's at and to a certain extent, i, you know, i sympathize with the ruling.

i figure it's similar to this case to it. could you comment on that? >> well, i'm not familiar with the case of georgetown, i do know our president is a christian. so i can't say anything more than that i think the point the caller is making about religious liberty is a very important one. as i started to say earlier, it was a value our country was founded on. it's what makes our democracy tread. religious liberty means two things, it means i don't have to do anything because of my own personal faith and the government can't force me to do that. however, i don't get to force anyone else to do anything that they don't want to do because of my personal faith i don't get to tell my people what to do. that makes religious freedom thriving and make sure we have the diversity in our democracy that we actually value and we pledge religious persecution from.

i think what's happening in the hobby lobby the owners can say, this is not right for my family. this is not what i want to do. if you enjoy the tax breaks of being in a democracy, you are expected to play by a certain set of rules an part of those rules is, i don't get to impose my religious beliefs on my employees. i am a private corporation. they have just broken those rules, which really does endanger religious liberty. i think that's why we saw a lot of people of faith speaking out. there were a lot of preachers and reverends who said this is not a victory. this is actually a scary defeat for religious liberty and that we value in this country. >> a viewer of twitter says this is a problem, forcing companies to provide specific coverages. shouldn't it be the customer's choice? >> in this case, it would be the customer's choice. the government has a compelling interest in making shoo you are the health insurance plans that again tax payers are subsidizing, they get tax

breaks, are comprehensive enough that it actually affects everyone equally. every employee should have equal access. they can choose to use it or not they have to have an equal lefr level of coverage in their health insurance plans. in this case, that's exactly what this is doing is not making it unequal, what affordable care act did and did so well was actually say we all do better, economically from a health perspective, from a civic perspective, within we:you the most amount of preventative medicines, preventative treatments possible. that's where the contraception got covered. it is a preventative treatment. if you already have the family size you feel like you can afford, that you want, it prevents unintended pregnancies and this coverage or this case actually flies in the face of. there is a story from abc news saying that more than half of privately insured women are

getting health care control under the law. >> which is a great step forward. >> if that is still hang, why is hobby lobby still concerned? >> in america, we believe there is a compelling reason for everyone to get the baseline. right. >> that people shouldn't be excluded simply because of where they work or where they live. it's sort of like what we do with the civil rights laws, you don't have different voting rules because you live in the south. you don't have different health insurance rules just because you are employed by this private corporation, not this private corporation. >> helen from maryland. hi there. >> hi, i'm helen. i like to say thanks, to c span for this opportunity to talk about hobby lob bit. i am a big customer of hobby lobby. i am going to stop being a big customer of hobby lobby. i am practice choice.

i have a religious background. however, i did, i went to the supreme court got a judgment for something that leave that judgment to god because what hobby lobby is doing right now, they're deciding what people can do in their homes with their families. hobby lobby should be doing that for their families and they are making enough money to do whatever they want. but the employees are not and if that's what is a part of their coverage in the past because we just happen that they can stop doing it. but if that was a part of their coverage perhaps hobby lobby needs to inceo es the pay for these employees so they can get the contraceptives that they want and also if they're not getting it from hobby lobby's payment, they're going to get it out of the taxpayer's pocket in order to cover whatever contraceptives they want and my

last comment is hobby lobby is making this judgment on contraceptives when a majority of their products in their store happen to be made in china. china has the worst human rights and the restriction of how many kids you can have and i'm sure they doing something to prevent. thanks. >> you know, i think the caller is making a point that a lot of people are frustrated about that. there is a lot of inconsistencies in the hobby lobby's claim that this is a keeply held spiritual bloef for them t. caller pointed out hobby lobby had the contraception coverage before they dropped it in order to file suit. there has been a lot to talk about the pension funds are invested in the manufacturers devices that they claim to be morally opposed to. i think that as i understand it is legally inadmissible in the case. however, i think it's frustrating to a lot of people

who believe it goes to motive. if hobby lobby was truly infusing its business as it claims to with these spiritual value, neither of those facts would be true, they would be so opposed to these kind of contraceptions, they wouldn't have them in the first place and certainly wouldn't be invested in them as a company. >> from pennsylvania, this is richie on the republican line for ilyse hockey. >> caller: i am a pro choice republican and a medic with 25 years experience. i want to re-educate you guys back in 1973, nine male supreme courts said that abortion was legal and there is planned parenthood for all people. not just when it's for example if a guy wants to get tested forters cal cancer, you don't need a birth control thing. it's not just for women. that's why i support planned parenthood, also. thank you, have a nice day. >> thank you, richie. are you absolutely correct. it was nine male justices who decide roe and i think the point

the caller is making. first of all, thank you, you are gindling brodie, a pro choice republican. although there used to be many, many. the point the caller is making is that the reproductive health field is large and it includes an enormous number of services for both men and women, including contraception devices used for a whole host of conditions, including avoiding unintended pregnancy, but not exclusively that and that these decisions ability when and how to use these devices should be left to the individual, their family and their doctor as necessary and i think that's what we're, you know, we're disturbed by if a hobby lobby cases, it extends the bus's reach from the boardroom into the bidroom into the most private decisions of their employees, which feels count tore what we believe in many earthquake. >> the co-founders had microphones after the decision

to give their thoughts. this is what they had to say. >> the supreme court re-affirmed america's country is founded on and sustained by religious liberty. it's been a long journey but an important one for our family and for those who wish to be guided in all areas of life, including their businesses by faith and conscience. we are truly thankful for a decision that continued to allow us continue operating our family business according to our principles. one of those principles is gratitude and we are deeply grateful to our employees, to our customers, to the many, many individuals from all walks of life who have shown their support through word, action and prayer. we thank god for his many blessings and ask for his continued grace to shine on our nation. >> miss hoeg, any thoughts? >> no, i this i that, you know, again there is a one-sided understanding of religious liberty which is my religion, my

liberty. what we are seeing is their ploem employees aren't afforded the same right if america. an employee that says not only does it go against my morality, it's zbrumt instrumental to my way of life to have access to full reproductive health care coverage. they're being thrown by the wayside. >> when you hear thoughts of tom kellogg, twitter, he says, how is hobby lobby forcing their views? they are just not paying for it? >> so the kind of devices that are at in question with hobby lobby are roughly amount to a month's pay for a low wage worker. that's a lot. it's certainly a lot for people of the means of the hobby lobby calendars and the people we just saw to say oh, go out and get it. the other thing tom kellogg has to say is actually hobby lobby is benefiting from the tax breaks from taxpayers who are

saying you are going to give your employees health care coverage. so we will subsidize your company because we believe in that. you can't have it both ways. one of the things that we were watching that the court could have chosen to do was to say, this is not a substantial burden on your religious liberty. because you can just choose not to give your employees healthcare at all. there is a penalty for that. it probably is about the same as what they're paying for the health care. so it's not a financial burden on the company. so they could have just chosen not to give their employees health coverage at all. they would be gree to get it on full coverage. they're not offering them that option. they're saying, basically, male employees, you will get everything you want. female employees, are you paying the same with your co-pay and labor, you will only get what i tell you you can get. >> laura up next in pennsylvania. republican line. good morning. >> caller: good morning, folks, i just want to say i'm a nurse

practitioner in women's health i am very pro-life. she opened, miss hoeg opened this part by saying that these are not abortive patients. when you talk about iuds and things that prevent implantation. i guess she's not aware that most people, even religious people especially that espouse do not kill innocent unborn babies when they began was when the sperm met the egg and that is when they consider a new human life because that's a new human dna. it's not the mother's. it's another human person beginning to grow so anything that prevents that baby to continue to grow and have one choice at life, that is what they were espouseing. i don't think it's just about religious liberty. it's about science, also. i was watching cosmos, they were

saying scientifically we know it's when the egg meets the sperm. can you tell me how much does planned parenthood make? >> i don't keep track of planted parenthood. i know they have free health care to women and men as the previous caller said thatwise would not have access to it at all. a and you know the caller is totally entitled to her religiously based belief that life begins whenever she believes it begins. the point is it's not my opinion, it's actually the american college of gynecologists the american medical association. it's all of the medical experts that line up and say that there is a scientific definition of abortion and that that's not what these contraception devices do. the court felt that was inadmissible for the same reason your caller says i believe it and in religious liberty cases, they are judging belief. but that doesn't make it 69

tickally true. in fact, we have all the experts saying it is not. >> could we say that insurance or an employer doesn't provide these types of contraceptions, they could go to other means or ways to get them. whether from planned parenthood or other ways of getting hem? ? >> in some places. certainly with refacing a place where women in my home state of texas have to travel hundreds of miles for reproductive health care t. hobby lobby case is one piece of a long terrell and very sustained effort to championship away at women's access to reproductive health care about what's best for us. so there is an expense piece to it. as one caller said, if the companies aren't going to pay even if they are getting tax breaks f. women can find it then you've got the taxpayer paying. they are paying twice for hobby

lobby to be able to hold its religious beliefs in this one case where it didn't have it before and it still has its pension funds invested in the same manufacturers. >> sandy from michigan on our independent line, good morning. sandy, are you there? >> oops, sorry. got to push the button first. sandy, good morning, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i just wanted to say on this case of the supreme court against hobby lobby. they did not say a woman could not have contraception. all they said is you couldn't have it for free. if i'm an atheist. it has to do with the fact that i have to pay for somebody else to sleep around and i don't like that. i never did and i don't expect that i should have to pay for

somebody else that did thank you. >> you know, one of the things that the caller just said is a very common misconception that this is free contraception. our benefits packages including our health care benefits are part of our employment. it's what we pay for when we go to work every single day. in fact, that's where the sort of discriminary fakes and unequal justice comes in. the men are working at hobby lobby with their labor, they are actually getting everything that they possibly could want, including viagra, if they choose to sleep around or choose to use it in their marriage. the women again iuds, which is one of the birth control in question, is just proportion natalie used by married people as a very reliable device are not getting that same benefit even though they're working as hard and even though the company is getting the same tax break. it's not free. it's not necessarily for people

who sleep around, although it would be nice if we could all judge each other's behavior. it's for medical concerns beyond preventing unintend presents as. it's for married people to choose their family size, for single women to make sure they don't have families before they're ready. as i said, the medical experts and the government believe there is a compelling interest and making sure that these resources and medical services are available to women who have paid for them, themselves, with their labor. >> glenda lives in pennsylvania. democrats line. >> caller: hello. >> are you on. go ahead. >> caller: okay. i just wanted to know if hobby lobby pace for the sexing? >> i don't know that for sure. we know they pay for viagra, which has been sort of the comparison i actually don't know. although we have no reason because they are typically

covered in many of these health care plans. i honestly don't know. >> a sec decision mailed by the court dealt with free speech zones, in massachusettes, could you tell the viewers what happened? >> yes. sure t. week before hobby lobby was decided, there was a court decision that came down that said that the protective buffer zones around reproductive health clinics in massachusetts were no longer constitutional that what had been put in place by public safety officers routinely dealing with people harassed, threatened, intimidated, screened at going into clinics were that those could no longer stand and that there would be access by the protesters who are almost always there. >> how many justices decide on this? >> you know the justices decided on free speech grounds, which we found. >> it was unanimous, right? >> it was unanimous, yes, 39-0.

it did leave in place other kind of buffer zones we have around the country. there is one in colorado that has been upheld by the supreme court you know what was interesting was the speech if question was not being impeded. in fact, you have people in the clinic saying i can hear you just fine. i'm just going to continue unimpeded to my appointment inside the clinic and you have a buffer zone larger than this around the supreme court, which became a talking point and around polling places. we've seen it at political conventions, protesters are asked to stay a certain length back from the delegates going into the convention. so we have a history in this country of balancing free speech with public safety and in the case of massachusetts the reason -- >> there was a photo in the boston global. it shows a gentleman behind the line. it looks like he is almost pushed out to the street as far

as the street zone is concerned. >> yeah, it was 35 feet the buffer zone around the vietnam court is 2352. the polling places is about 100 feet. we have a history in this country of balancing free speech and in the case of massachusetts, the attorney general asked for the law because people have been murdered in the clinics. >> that has gotten pushed aside in the wake of this case. you know, people have been routinely harassed that the tension was rising. won day somebody walked in and shot people in the clinic. they said, we have to do something. we can't protect public safety t. supreme court said not this way. not here. we are disappointed but there is a lot of attention going into replacing that law with one that more closely prescribes to the one already upheld by the supreme court because there is a compelling interest in protecting both the doctors and clinic workers as well as the people going to their

appointment. >> let's hear from brad, republican line in texas. are you the last call. >> caller: actually, it's brett. it's not a big deal. i want to say this, i'm glad we have have an open forum here. i do know for a fact hobby lobby does cover 16 times of birth control fda approved. the four contraceptive or and/or you know methods that the hobby lobby is against or will not cover is the plan b, the copper intrauterine devices the iudt. reason they're morally opposed to those four is because they believe according to science or their study or understanding is that these pills or these contraceptives actually have the ability to possibly harm or kill a human that is growing inside of the female.

where i think we are getting off track here is it seems more like we are arguing about free stuff rather than contraception in the health of women. they do offer 16 different types of birth control. >> so, you know, we have already covered the fact that rorls of what hobby lobby believes, medical establishment says this does not disrupt pregnancy or life as medical people understand it. you know it is true they cover 16. the very next day what we saw were companies saying i don't want to cover any of these. so that's a part of the slippery slope. even if you cover 16 but not 20. that's sort of saying i'll cover these 16 drugs, but the one that works best for you i'm deciding you don't get. so there are very specific reasons that women and families choose these specific devices, medical reasons, they have to deal with how our bodies react to things. so it's not mix and match.

it's like saying you walk into the pharmacy and let your pharmacist decide what's best for you, not your doctor, not yourself, not your own experience, that i think is so disturbing to people. we live in a country where we trust individuals to make our own personal decisions. in this case the court famed us, hobby lobby gets to make our personal decisions. we will keep fighting to make sure women have access. >> does this come into the 2014 mid-terms and how much so? >> i can't speak to 2016 yet. we are trying to get through 2014. i do believe it will be a huge issue. the outrage we have experienced on this in a country where 99% of women use birth control at some point our families depend on it. you've got a real marginal feel tlag has 3re veiled that is basically leak i know better than you, better than your family what you should do with your personal life and that's just not the way most americans think and i think they're going to be looking for an electoral remedy.

i think, you know this furthers the idea that republicans are out of touch with women and families need in this country. >> ilyse hoeg, if you want to find out more about the organization, miss hoeg, thank you. >> the white house has requested $3.7 to deal with border security. on our next washington journal, we will talk with arizona republican congressman david schweikert and door his meissner. as part of our spotlight on magazine series, entrepreneur and venture capitalist nick ha anauer will speak. walk journal is live each morning at 7:00 eastern on c span. you can join the conversation on

facebook and twitter. >> wednesday, british prime minister david cameron appears before members of the british house of commons dush prime minister's question time. live coverage from the palace of westminster at 7:00 a.m. eastern on our companion network c span 2. 40 years ago the watergate scandal led to the only resignation of an american president. throughout this month, american tv re-visits the final weeks of the nixon administration. this weekend hear the oral argument as the watergate special prosecutor contests executive privilege over his oefrl office recordings. >> now the president may be right in how he reads the constitution but he may also be wrong an if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so?

and if there is no one, then the president, of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretations. what then becomes of our constitutional form of government? >> watergate, 40 years later. sunday fight at 38:00 eastern on american history tv on c-span 3. next, a review of the most recent supreme court terms, with reporters who covered the court. this event is hosted be i the d.c. br. good afternoon, everybody. thank you so much for coming.

i'm arthur spitzer. my day job is legal director of the local office of the american civil liberties union, but i'm here wearing my hat as a volunteer for the d.c. bar and the first thing i need to say is we apologize for the lack of adequate food for which you all paid. i understand that more sandwiches are being made as i speak and are going to be up shortly and nobody should hesitate to get up and get some food during the program. nobody will mind. so welcome to the 26th annual the supreme court view from the press gallery program sponsored by the d.c. bar section on courts, lawyers and the administration of justice. i have a few other political naers in addition to food before we begin. first our thanks, to arnold importer in whose room we are gathered. they are hosting us again for i don't know maybe the eighth or

tenth 84 and thanks to marsha tucker, their pro bono coordinator for helping to host us and help with all the arrangements. thanks to c span, which is in the back for covering us again the year. you will be able see the rebroadcast of this program at various odd hours for the next now days and then it will be in their archive where you can watch it on your computer at your leisure. if you don't want the being of your head to be on national tv, you are welcome to slink to the side around avoid that. thanks to fritz mullhauser for being the producer of this him practice, coordinating between the d.c. bar and around old reporter ampbtd c-span and making all the necessary arrangements be you he is not responsible for the food situation. the section on courts -- oh and

the d.c. bar tells me i have to announce this session is on the record but you into ted bar's approval if advance if you are going to record it c-span has the bar's approval, but if you don't have the bar's approval, you are not authorized to record t. section on courts, lawyers and the administration of justice is one of more than 20 sections of the d.c. bar, through which much of the br's work is done. that section concentrates on matters pertaining to court administration, rules, relationship between the bench and the bar and all aspects of a lawyer's relationship to the profession, including ethics, discipline and admission standards t. section also focuses on improving access to justice for everyone in d.c.. the other sections -- ten other sections are co-sponsors of today's program. they cover pretty much the range of legal practice and i would

encourage all of you if are you members of the d.c. bar and not yet active members of at least one section to think about becoming an active member. to many of you here for the summer, but are future members of the d.c. bar, when you get back, you should certainly think about becoming active in one or more bar sections. it's a great way to get to know other lawyers outside of your own firm or practice, to learn more about interesting areas of the law and to make a difference in the profession. on a personal note, if you are not yet a member of the american civil liberties union, i have membership forms in my briefcase, which i'd be happy to give you after the program. we are prif leejd to have with us this afternoon a panel of journalists who have been covering the supreme court for, by my count, 107 years. i will introduce them briefly in the order of how long they have been covering the court beginning with tony morrow on my

far left of the national law journal and media. tony has been covering the courts since 1979, usa today. he joins the legal times in 2000 and continued as its supreme court spoern correspondent after its merger with the national law journal in 2009. his undergraduate degree is from rutgers. his journalism degree is from columbia. david savage, next to tony, has been covering the court, has been with the los angeles sometimes since 1981 an covering the court since 1986 and also in the last several years covering the courts for the chicago tribune. these author of a book called turning right the making of the rehnquist supreme court and he's recently authored the latest edition of the congressional quarterly's guide to the u.s. supreme court. david has degrees from unc at chapel hill and at northwestern. joan biscubic on my far right

comfortr covered it for reuters since fine 89. before reuters, she covered the courts for usa today and before that for the washington post. she is also a regular panelist on the pbs washington weekly show. she earned her law degree at george town law school and she specializes in presenting the supreme court through the lens of judicial biography. she has written sandra day oconnor, how the first woman became the most influential justice and more recently american original, the life and constitution of supreme court justice anthony scalia. as a public policy scholar at the wilson center, joan is within weeks of finishing is new book called "breaking in, the rise of sonia sotomayor a and the politics of justice" which has a publication date of the first tuesday in october. one day after the court returns. robert barnes, next to joan,

joined the washington post in 1987, covering maryland politic, always an interesting boat. since then, he has served as deputy national editor in charge of domestic issues, the nationa political editor in the first term of the clinton administration and the paper's metropolitan reporter and began covering the supreme court in 2006. bob has planning to go to law school and changed his mind after a journalism course as an undergraduate that university of florida. the biography on "the washington post" website said it did not occur to him that he could do both. but perhaps a better explanation is that he realizes he didn't need three years of law school to not practice law. kimberly atkins on my immediate right is washington bureau chief for the dolan company's publications, specialized legal and business journals including the new york daily record, the massachusetts lawyers weekly,

the wisconsin law journal, the federal news service and about a dozen others. kimberly has covered the court and capitol hill since 2007. previously, worked at some daily newspapers including the boston globe. before launching her journalism career, he was a litigator in boston so she's a reformed litigator. a graduate of wayne state university, boston university school of law and the columbia journalism school. i learned from the internet that kim is also a fashion designer and the owner of kim eileen design creating custom women's special occasion and bridal wear so if you need legal advice or a gown, see kimberly. last but not least, adam liptak on my immediate left covering the court for "the new york times." he took over that beat six years ago but he has a long history at the times which he first joined as a copy boy in 1984 after

graduating from yale to which he returned for his law degree in 1988. in 1992, he joined the times as corporate legal department advising the paper and representing it in litigation involving defamation, privacy, the right to gather news and similar issues. decade later, he became a reporter covering legal issues including the nominations of justices roberts and alito. and series of deep reports about the contributions, the connections between the contributions to the political cam pans of justices on the ohio supreme court and those justices voting records. his work also appeared in the new yorker, vanity fair, rolling stone and other publications. unlike most of the end of term supreme court panels, this is not a bunch of legal hot shots analyzing the cases as lawyers although they are all hot shots

and we'll talk about some cases plu the plan is to talk mostly about the court as an institution and a collection of individuals and about covering the court as journalists. i plan to save sometime at the end for questions from the audience and so i encourage you to think about questions you might want to ask and i'll try to remind you about that again as we get closer to the end. finally, you'll be receiving through the e-mail an evaluation form from the d.c. bar. we really appreciate it if you would fill them out and send them in. we do read every one. we have made some changes in the program over the years in response to comments. and i encourage you to complain about the food problem so that the bar will do a better job next year we hope. and now i'm going to sit down.

and let's start the discussion with yesterday's front page stories about the hobby lobby decision on monday. it seems to me it's a great example of the challenge of squeezing a complicated decision with many facets into a few paragraphs in a newspaper or on a website. the leads of the daily reporter who is are here on the panel today were somewhat different and i'm curious to ask the reporters about why they made some different choices. and at the risk of taking up more time with my monologue, i'm going to read some of the openings of some of the stories. "the new york times" story began, the supreme court ruled on monday that requiring family owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the affordable care act violated a federal law protecting religious

freedom. it was a decision of startling breadth. the 5-4 ruling which applies to 2 companies owned by christian families opened the door to many challenges from corporations over laws they claim violate their religious liberty. "the washington post" began, the supreme court struck down a key part of president obama's healthcare law monday ruling that family-owned businesses don't have to offer -- do not have to offer their employees contraceptive coverage that conflicts with the owner's religious belief. the decision deeply split the court not only on the holding protecting some businesses from offering contraceptive coverage, but also on how broadly the order will apply. "the los angeles times" began, the supreme court ruled for the first time monday that private companies had a religious right to be exempted from federal law. saying a business owned by christians may refuse to pay for

insurance paying for contraceptives for female employees. it was a victory for social conservatives and the high court's most important statement on religious freedom in years. reuters, in a story not by joan but her colleague lawrence hurley said the supreme court on monday ruled that the owners of private companies can object on religious grounds to a provision of the health care law for insurance of birth control for women. the decision which applies only to a small number of family or other closely held companies. means an estimated several thousand women whose health insurance comes from the companies may obtain certain forms of birth control elsewhere and kimberly's story from one of her papers that i found on the internet says the u.s. supreme court held that the affordable care act's requirement that employer funded health care plans cover certain contraceptives at no cost to employees violates the rights of

closely held private companies. so some stories emphasized in the lead the potential breadth of it. some stories emphasized the narrowness of it. some spoke about emphasized that it was privately owned or family companies. some said only that it opened the door to perhaps challenges by many corporations. so i'm curious about some of the choices that were made and why. adam, would you like to start? >> i thought they all sounded pretty good. but i think we could spend the rest of the session reading our stories aloud. >> i won't. >> you know, the case had many moving pieces and you could focus in the first couple sentences on one aspect or the other. but like the aclu's position on education, admissions and higher education, i think the diversity may be a good thing.

>> art, i was thinking about the emphasis an it's slight in each of them but speaking from reuters point of view and we had several different story that is went out that day. the first one is going to have some emphasis on what it means for business because reuters is an emphasis on business and that's a reference to the companies affected and how many employees. but then, we followed up with another story that talked about where this fits into the whole scheme of the whole term. and then another story about how this might change kind of the corporate landscape with this combined with the citizens united ruling. but even hearing you read these, i know you thought there were a lot of differences but frankly i thought they all sort of captured the essence of the morning with just slight nuances depending on what kind of audiences we all serve and we all do serve different audiences. >> one -- one fact that seemed to me quite important about the decision was the question of whether any women would actually

lose free access to contraception as a result. and i didn't see anything about that anywhere near the top of any of these stories. david savage's has it in the sixth sentence in the fifth paragraph which was higher up than anybody else. he addresses the question of whether anyone would lose access and in other stories it was much further down. >> also wrote about four versions of that story during the day and get to cover different -- i mean, all of us i think now in the same business of trying to write a quick version for the web and an updated version for the web and then another version for the newspaper. and with each version, i get questions from editors just like that saying, wait a minute. are women really going to lose contraceptive? by the end of the day we have a few sentences that said many not many women lose coverage in the end. >> i thought it was interesting, too, what you had here was a

dissent that was saying that this decision is very broad and you had an opinion by the majority saying, no, it's actually very narrow. and they went back and forth on these two things. and, you know, some wondered was ginsberg making it a bigger decision than it was in the way she wrote about it. and then others say, actually what she did is force the majority and justice aloito to go back in the opinion and say it's not about this and not about this and actually just about contraception. i think it remains to be seen exactly what this decision will mean but it's interesting that the two sides sort of went back and forth at each other about this and so it's a little hard at this point to tell it's a really broad or whether it is a narrow decision. >> and did you see what justice kennedy did? he writes a separate concurring opinion