the people involved in drug trafficking work every day to try and beat the system, yes, ma'am. >> my point is, as we're trying to deal with this humanitarian crisis for those who truly are there in that category, we need to double down on the law enforcement portion of this so that we know what, in fact, we're dealing with. and those of who who have been involved in law enforcement know that a jufl can be just as dangerous as an adult. and we need to be very, very careful about who we're letting into this country on documented. the final thing i want to point out, because i'm running out of time, is i had the honor of going down to mexico with cindy mccain and amy klobuchar. we received a number of briefings about the kinds of activities that the mexican government is engaged in on the southern border, their southern border strategy. obviously, their southern border strategy in this case is -- it may be -- their efforts may have

caused this surge. i don't know. we should be asking that question. but where are the mexican officials on pursuing their southern border strategy, and how do you see that as a tactic to basically dispel this crisis? >> thank you, senator. mexican president nieto announced finally on monday this long-await the southern strategy his government had been working on for some time. we expect that it will allow the mexican government to improve its interdiction capabilities along the border, that they're going to be dedicating more resources to disrupting some of the alien smuggling networks and the traditional routes they use up through grauatemala, through southern mexico. in addition, they're trying to also implement better documentation of people who are crossing their border so that

they can track them better in the country. there's no question, it is a very big border with guatemala and belize. it is open in a lot of places. so they have quite a job in front of them. >> i would suggest that there would be a huge incentive to continue that effort on the south border if the refugees were stopped at our border. because one of the things that concerns the state of mexico or the country of mexico is having these refugees in their jurisdiction. so everything that we can do to assist them in their border security but also sending a message that safe passage -- not being accusatory, but turning a blind eye to the movement of young children north won't be something that's in the best

interest of the united states of america, the country of mexico, and the children of central america. and somehow that message needs to be a lot clearer than what it's been. >> president obama has spoken with president nieto about this issue. earlier i mentioned that mexico had deported over the year 2013 85,000 adults and children. the numbers i have of unaccompanied children are over 8,000 were deported last year. its national migration institute operates 35 detention centers. they are committed to working with us to improve their detention rates and return rates to central america as well. >> i can tell you just from having been on the border, unaccompanied minors, it's not a

new issue. it's in crisis because of the numbers. but we haven't been dealing with unaccompanied minors very well in this country or in mexico or all through, i think, the region. so we need to have a regional response to this crisis. and it can't just be the united states responding and processing. it has to be regional. and obviously, all the discussion that you have had here today about prevention, how do you build a better society? but again, i am very concerned that we not categorize all these kids in one basket. that is critically important we understand that this is more complicated than just a number of children being smuggled in for a better life in the united states of america. >> thank you. i have a question for those of you that work in homeland security because i'm getting a lot of reports of pushback from homeland security from the

whistleblowers. so i have two questions for all of you. do you believe that employees at dhs have the right to communicate with us as members of congress? >> yes, senator. >> yes. >> yes, sir. >> do dhs employees have the right to communicate with the dhs office of inspector general? >> yes. >> yes. >> yes. >> finally, will you make sure that message is sent down the chain in your organizations? >> we'll re-emphasize it. >> thank you. commissioner, this past weekend, a member of congress in oklahoma attempted to visit the site. he was refused access. would you comment on that? >> it's a dod facility, so i actually could not comment. i wouldn't be familiar with it. and it would not be under the jurisdiction of customs and border protection, but i'd be happy to work with people to

find out exactly what occurred. >> all right. anybody else have any knowledge on that? >> senator, it is a dod facility that is being operated by an hhs grantee. we are making available tours for members of congress, but we can ensure they are structured in a way that the needed tour guides are in place and that it is consistent with the sent of responsibilities that the staff at the facility have. >> so actually it's hhs's jurisdiction to make sure you want to accomplish what you want to accomplish. but the fact a member of congress shows up for an acute problem of us under homeland security in a supposedly humanitarian crisis and he's denied access. can you explain that? >> we absolutely want to ensure that members of congress are

able to visit the facility -- >> except when he showed up. >> we are structuring towards on a regular basis for members of congress and would very much want to ensure for him and for any other member of congress that we can facilitate making towards available. >> so again, so i understand, so i can report to the congressman, it was because it wasn't structured is the reason he was denied access? >> it is, as i understand it, arriving at the facility without it being a scheduled tour. again, we would want to provide for a scheduled tour. >> i think you would want members of congress to come on an unscheduled basis just to provide a check. >> we want to encourage members of congress to take tours. we are actually very --

>> only at your time convenience. >> excuse me, sir? >> only at your time convenience. i'm saying a random check by a member of congress is great for this country because they get to see what it is, not what it's prepared to be to show. >> senator coburn, i should say we are proud of the facilities. we encourage members of congress to come and see them. we believe that members of congress will be pleased by what they see if they come. >> i think you made agr grievou error in denying access to the facility. i don't know who made the decision, but first of all, i think it was illegal to keep a member of congress from visiting one of these camps, regardless if they come at 3:00 in the morning, they should have access. i want to cover a couple areas with you on the demographics of the unaccompanied children. the administration reports in

2014 there's been increase in the number of uac who are girls and those under the age of 13. according to crs in a june 3rd press release, the administration claims the demographic change of the uac population has influenced the response to the increase in the usa crossing border. however, crs was unable to find any data to illustrate the change, so it noted, it is unclear whether the increase in girls and children under 13 is simply because of the number of all uac is increased or if the number of girls and children under 13 has increased as a proportion of all uac. according to a june 25th demographics report from the nogales processing center, out of the total number of children in their custody at that time, the overwhelming majority were older than age 12, 887, and 557 were male.

so yesterday an i.c.e. memo reported that males between the ages of 15 and 17 compromised 47% of all of the other than mexican uacs. nearly 30% were 10 to 13. so three questions for you. why would the administration claim the demographic of the children as increasingly young when, in fact, it's not, and female? based on the response to their situation on that data when, in fact, the demographic appears to be quite the opposite. that's the first question. second, can you provide us with the actual statistics that show how much of this uac population is actually female and under 13? and according to the conference calls with congressional staff, if a uac turns 18 in the custody of hhs, he or she is turned over to dhs custody. what happens to these unaccompanied children who are returned to dhs custody after turning 18?

are they released on their own recog sans? >> i can respond to the first two questions. first, senator, thank you for giving that question in advance because it involved calls from the white house. it involves crs data, i.c.e. data, data from us. i tried very hard to drill down into that to make sure i could find with all of these different sources exactly what was what and give you the information. so what i can tell you is that in that group, we are seeing far more mothers and far more younger children than we have seen in the past and that i will -- >> so those aren't unaccompanied children. >> both. >> i know, but i'm saying mothers with their young children are not considered unaccompanied children. >> family units. we consider them family yauunit. you're right, senator. the other part as far as when someone turns 18 in hhs custody, i think i would ask that you ask

mr. winn cow ski. i believe they'd be turned over to i.c.e. >> senator, thank you for that question. when they turn 18, they hand it over to us. we issue the nta and put them in removal proceedings. >> okay. all right. one question. what is the percentage over the last year or the year before that of those that don't show for their hearing? >> the overall percentage for the entire population that is issued a notice to appear and is required to appear before an immigration judge is the no-show rate is 17%. that means that 83% do show. as i mentioned earlier, percentage is a little higher for juveniles. >> but you said you didn't know exactly that number, is that correct? >> well, we do have the number

of juveniles, meaning the case is coded as a juvenile case in our database. that's something i mentioned earlier. what we don't have a good handle on because the data is not there is unaccompanied minors. which one of those juveniles are unaccompanied minors. >> and you're going to try to find that data out for us? >> we're working with our partner agencies to try to get more specific data on that. that is a -- yeah. >> i have one more question. i don't know if we sent this one to you. i think we did. we had asked for some information on our internal cpb memo on bottlenecks and the unaccompanied child transfer process. several press reports reported on this memo on may 30th from the deputy chief of cpb. staff asked for this document. yesterday, staff meeting with you objected saying it's p

predecisional material and an inside document, which according to the congressional rules is not a legitimate reason to deny a congressional request. it is for a foyer request but not for a congressional request. the washington times and other news outlets have reported on the contents of the documents, reportedly waiving any privilege. c at a minimum, i would request that the department of homeland security explain the decision to me in writing, citing the actual legal authority that allows you to withhold that document from congress. and i would appreciate it if you would do that. i have some questions on the basis of that, which i think most of them we have covered because we asked for the statistics. one of the things that was concerning to me in that press reports in that memo that the

uac crisis is compromising dhs' capabilities to address other transborder criminal areas. i think we've pretty well addressed that in your answers. i think my time is up. the chairman's back and he's voted, right? >> i have. they'll be happy to receive your vote. >> i have other questions for the record i'd like to submit. >> no problem at all. no problem. i just don't think you've been asked enough questions. i really -- let me say how much i appreciate your willingness to rearrange your schedule in order to be here for the entire hearing. what i'd like to do is i want to come back to this. one of our colleagues, senator landrieu raised this question, but try and understand your role and the appropriations of funds and the authorization of

appropriations of those funds. she thinks a lot about hurricanes in the gulf of mexico. we think about them on the east coast. we're very mindful of the great work you and your team did in response to superstorm sandy. one of the questions we would ask is in terms of the expenses that flow from this all hands on deck operation, how does that affect, if at all, fema's ability to do some of your other work in terms of disaster relief, whether it's hurricanes or nor'easters, that kind of thing. how does it affect it, if at all? >> there's always an effect, but senator you built and fund fema to handle multiple disasters. we've really used the tools you've given us to support the inner agency. we have about 75 people that have been working on this as well as our fema core teams, which we've surged to support

custom and boards and detention areas and in the processing faciliti facilities. we're very much aware that we have to be ready for the catastrophic disasters, but you have built capacity and capabilities into fema that allows us to support this as well as our ongoing responsibilities. >> all right. thanks for that response. thank you for your willingness to take it on in addition to your other responsibility, the overseeing of this difficult challenge and our response to it. question, if i could, for a man who goes by paco. i was struck by a report from the u.n. not long ago that the u.s. is not the only country seeing a huge increase in migration of unaccompanied minors from guatemala, el salvador, and honduras. i saw somewhere where the number of asylum seekers in mexico, nicaragua, belize, had gone up by over 700%, if i'm not mistaken. what does that say about what's

happening in the three central american countries that we focused on today? >> i think it just further confirms that the endemic violence in these societies, the street crime, the gang intimidation and forced recruitment, the lack of educational opportunity, the poor job prospects in these countries for young people are driving people away and out of these countries. and we've got to do a better job working with these countries to address these basic systemic problems that they're confronting. the supplemental has $295 million that tries to get at a better prosperity agenda that improves economic opportunity

but also at the same time maintaining our efforts to address the security conditions in the countries. i have to admit, i was not aware of the high increase in asylum requests in other countries. >> it's a low base but a substantial increase. >> i will look into that and try to get additional data for you. i do know that the mexicans have seen an increase, and i was aware of that. >> all right. in my opening statement, you may recall we spent about a quarter of $1 trillion over the last decade enforcing our immigration laws, trying to strengthen our nation's borders, especially on our southern border. we spent a whole lot less, far less, helping central american countries like the three we're talking about today to address the root causes of immigration. as i understand it during the same decade that we've been spending $225 billion to protect and strengthen our borders along

mexico, we have spent about $2 billion across all of central america, not just in el salvador, guatemala, and honduras, but roughly 1% of what we've spent just on the border. most after that is focused on improving security in those three countries, not on broader economic development and job creation to help give people a reason to stay there and want to live there. let me ask you to react to that. >> senator, i share your views on the need for us to have a better balance in our strategy toward the region. the security investments are important. we've got to improve their abilities to control their own borders, to interdict all kinds of elicit activities that is both trafficking and smuggling

people and other -- and drugs across their borders. but i think it is time for us to take a long look at if there's more that we can be doing on the economic growth side and in atta attacking the corruption in these governments so social service delivery is better, so that education is better in these countries. by holding these governments accountable. i think you had it right in your opening statement, senator, this has to be a shared responsibility. the united states can't fix this problem, but i think we can be a part of the solution with mexico, with colombia, as you mentioned, and we'll do our part at the state department. >> thank you. a quick follow-up, if i could. of the 300 million in the president's supplemental emergency request, any idea how much will go toward addressing the root causes we've been talking about here today? they're in part behind the surge in migration from central

america. >> all of the assistance is designed to focus on having an immediate impact. 120 million of it is for the economic growth side, which contains funds that do get at root causes but also contain funds for the youth outreach centers and for some of the vocational education that we think can help address immediate issues related to the immediate flow of people as well as the longer term solution. i believe there's an additional 70 million more or less for governance activities, and then the rest is in security, which we consider very important. i know my i.c.e. colleagues will agree. we have to be able to expand the repatriation capability of the three countries. that is, we have to expand their

ability to receive more people as our process gears up to return them more quickly and more efficiently. >> i was in -- i'm not sure if it was el salvador or guatemala, where they receive people coming back in. >> the guatemala system is really -- the guatemalans have gotten it down. it's a testament to the seriousness with which they understand the risks their citizens face in making that journey and wanting to welcome them back and helping them reinsert them into their country. but it is guatemala, senator. >> all right. thank you. we talked a little bit already about truth campaigns to message clearly, repeatedly, particularly to the parents of these three central american countries, the perils their

children face in trying to send them north. the likely reception they'll get here, the likelihood they'll be returned ultimately. but the most important message, i think, is to convey a message of hope. there's not frankly in those countries much reason to be all that hopeful. we have law enforcement officers that are corrupt. in too many cases, the judges are corrupt. i remember sitting in a meeting with the president of guatemal . and his interior minister and talking about corruption in their prisons. i said, mr. president, some of your prisons here, the inmates run the prisons. they receive or pay for indirectly some of the guards to bring in cell phones. they operate their illegal activities from the prisons, using cell phones provided by the guards. i said, mr. president, you know, there's technology that can be used to basically wipe out the ability to use cell phones from

a prison. i said, you have that capability in your prisons, and you don't use it. you don't use it. there's a lot of work that needs to be done. we could do so much. they need to do their share as well. key to the success of almost any entity i've ever come across, whether it was government, business, athletics, church, schools. leadership. we have a responsibility certainly to provide leadership as a nation, but frankly these countries need some leadership of their own. fortunately at a time when colombia was on the ropes and it looked like they may go down for the count not that long ago, you'll recall -- i don't know, it was about 20 years or so ago. a group of gunmen rounded up the supreme court of the country of colombia, took them in a room, and shot them to death. 20 years later, colombia's, i think, by most people's judgment s a successful country.

economically strong, viable, great trading partner with us, great ally with us. they're in a position now, having been helped by us through the colombia campaign, to turn north and provide the same kind of assistance to others. i think they're willing to do that. we need to make sure that they do. i think what i'd like to do here is close out. i'm going to ask each of you to give us a closing statement. sometimes i use closing statements, about a minute from each of you, if you would, but i look for this as an opportunity to see where the consensus lies and where the consensus may lie in term of what we should be doing, our responsibilities here on the legislative side, to address the immediate -- not just the immediate problems on the border but also the underlying causes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to just note that i've been doing this job for a while.

i've never seen an inner agency effort coordinated the way this effort is being done from the top down. it's pretty impressive. as you said, it is an all hands on deck approach. we're ready to do our part in the immigration court system by prioritizing these cases of recent borders crossers. we think that will have an effect over time. we ask for your support through the supplemental funding p inin requested by the president. >> all right. thank you. >> mr. chairman, i have an acute personal interest in the work that o.r.r. is doing and hhs and fema is doing and zbp and i.c.e. my mother arrived as a legal immigrant but was orphaned as a teenager in the united states. the work these people are doing to protect these children is really outstanding work.

>> thank you. >> mr. greenberg. senator johnson, what we're doing is asking them to give us a one-minute closing statement, just guidance and advice for us, trying to put it all together. go ahead. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the children that are arriving are an enormously vulnerable group of children. while most of them are older boys, we have seen an increasing number of girls. we have seen an increasing number of very young children. they come with significant needs. it's important we address those needs when they arrive just as at the same time it's important we enforce our nation's immigration laws. >> thanks. >> first of all, mr. chairman, thank you for holding the hearing. i thought it was really a great hearing. really, just several issues i think we need to be mindful of. number one, this -- we're focusing on central america

right now for obvious reasons. but i believe it's important for the committee to also realize that we have other hot spots around the world. this is not going to go away. lots of people want to come to america, and the flows are all changing, as i had mentioned before. the flows of mexicans coming in. now we're seeing other than mexicans. you see hot spots around the world. india, other locations. and we've had some experience with that already. that problem -- those challengers are going to continue to get larger and larger. i think we really need to play a leadership role, not only from our standpoint but from the state department standpoint of capacity building and things of that nature. so that's number one. number two, i think we have some tough choices to make. these are very, very difficult issues. i'm a father. i understand why these children want to come. i've walked the halls of the air

force base with secretary johnson. i've been down to mcallen and other locations. it's absolutely heartbreaking. however, if we want to make an impact here, make sop end roads here, we have to make some tough decisions. you know, we've got to work very closely with guatemala and others. guatemala to shore up their northern border, mexico to shore up their border. we have to be proactive from a standpoint of investigating the networks. and when these individuals make it into the country, we've got to make sure they have their due process, and once a decision is made to remove, be able to remove quickly. i think when you look at the issues that were faced in 2006 with the bazillions and years

before that we had a rash of hondurans. what changed the dynamic of it all was the ability to apprehend, detain, and deport quickly. i believe we need to have more discussion on that. i think that's, to me, the critical issue that we all face. of course, needing the funding and supporting the supplemental. thank you very much. >> thank you very, very much. >> having spent five years in the white house and now working for secretary johnson, i can tell you that we could not ask for better leadership, more heartfelt compassion, more support for the work that we're doing. it's very clear i'm in the twilight of my career, and to be in this position -- >> it hopefully a long twilight. >> and to be in this position and to be able to work with not only the people at the table but quite frankly whether it was watching a border patrol agent or a customs official who was

encountering a child walking up a bridge from mexico, to see the work they're doing really -- it makes you incredibly proud. i would last say that we appreciate the tough questions from the members of congress. we're prepared to answer them to the very best of our ability and to be as forthcoming with you all as we can be. >> thanks. thanks gil. craig? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i don't approach this as these are acronyms. i don't approach this as this is a policy issue. i don't approach this as to why it's happening. it has happened, it is happening. we have very, very small children who early in this process were spending far too long in a detention cell, sharing a toilet and eating food that was microwaved because that's all the agents could provide in the initial push.

our focus has been on meeting the immediate needs of these children. we have to constantly remind ourselves these are somebody's child, often triatimes trying t reunited with a family member here who took a journey none of us could imagine. and when they came here, we should have the compassion to be able to take care of their basic needs while we focus on the whys. but i have to focus in on the now. and until we have enough capacity to ensure that these children are not kept in detention, that there's a bed, medical care, decent food, a shower, clean clothes, we fail these children. the president's supplemental request is very specific and ensuring we have the capacity within the agencies, particularly within custom and borders, but more importantly within the office of refugee resettlement, to ensure these children are properly cared for while they are in our custody until final determination is

made. that has been my focus, and that will continue to be the focus until such time as we have stabilized this. but we should never forget these are children. they're now in our custody. it is our duty to make sure these children are cared for properly. thank you, sir. >> thank you for that comment and thought. all right, senator johnson. then i'll say a few words and we'll close it out. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. foou gait, first of all, i think we all share your sentiment. we're a compassionate society. we understand these are children. we want to show true compassion. i think the point that a lot of us are making here today is true compassion really would be to prevent this from happening, to actually attack the root cause, which i'll restate again is the incentives we're creating for parents to send their children on this arduous journey. i have to agree with senator coburn. as nice as those posters look, they'll do nothing, nothing in comparison to what plane load after plane load of children being returned to their families in guatemala, honduras, and el salvador would do. that is the most important thing

we could do to deter parents from doing this to their children. i do want to get back to -- also, i understand that, you know, you folks are working hard and we appreciate your service and you are constrained by the laws, which we must change expeditiously. you're also constrained by executive orders that i think were misguided. so you're following the law. i understand that. appreciate your efforts. but we have to change those laws. we have to undo some of these executive orders so we have a more rational system to reduce or eliminate those incentives for illegal immigration. i want to go back a little bit to mexico in terms of what they're doing to help stem the tide. if we've got bus loads of children -- i've seen the pictures of children hanging on to trains. i'm actually surprised that they've turned back 85,000. is there any documented instances where mexico officials have actually interdicted a bus and sent it back?

where are we getting this from? >> the mexican authorities regularly send bus loads of interdicted, undocumented migrants moving through their country to guatemala, honduras, and el salvador. i don't have a specific anecdotal case of a bus of children that was perhaps on its way to the u.s. border having been stopped, but we do know that on a regular basis, mexico sends bus loads of people back to all thee countries. >> but we're basically relying on their statistics in terms of how many people we send back? >> their statistics are i.c.e., attaches in mexico city. they work with and talk to these people as well.

i don't think it's just a statistical base. they also have the direct personal relationships that i think are critical to making sure mexico does follow through. >> one thing we've learned is mexico does a pretty good job securing its northern border as the marine sergeant found out. i'm hoping he gets released immediately. if he's not released, what is the department of justice going to do? what is president obama going to do to secure his release? >> i know that the state department has facilitated visits for him with his attorneys, with his family. we will continue to provide the full range of american citizen services we would provide to any and every american detained in a similar situation. >> is the state department, is president obama as outraged as many americans are by the mexican government's mistreatment of the sergeant?

i've seen the videos. i've seen how easy it was for him to accidently get into that lane. this is outrageous. he's been held for over 100 days. are we going to show that time of -- demonstrate that kind of outrage and demand his hurricref he's not returned today? >> it i know my colleagues in tijuana and washington are working vigorously on this case to expedite a speedy resolution to it as we can. >> i hope if he's not released they act more vigorously. let's put it that way. i want to go back to -- as long as we're talking about the state department here, the $300 million request for, i guess, improving conditions if those central american countries. we're finding we're not particularly good at improving our own economy. isn't that a pipe dream to spend $295 million trying to improve the conditions and expecting that is going to solve the problem as opposed to sending plane loads full of these kids

back to their families? >> i think we need to be doing everything we can on all levels, both promoting better economic growth, expanding repatriation, sending more people back. all of these things have to be done. this is a complex problem, and there is no easy, simple solution. >> but there are things that are going to be far more effective and less costly. let's go through the numbers. the president is asking $65,000 per unaccompanied child. if we buy a plane ticket, put them up with a hotel room, give them some good meals, let's say we send $1,000 per child. that would be $75 million to return the children to their families. isn't that far more effective spending? wouldn't we be better off to improve the immigration services in those countries so there's a place for us to return the

unaccompanied children? why don't we kind of reorient our thinking, realize that we can't spend $300 million and really expect to even make a dent in improving the conditions of those countries, and as senator coburn said, the most effective message we can send as opposed to a slick little poster there is literally sending plane loads in a very humane fashion of these children back to their families. >> part of the request will expand the capacity of these governments to receive additional repatriation flights. so that is envisioned in the request. i think what we think a more balanced approach that tries to address some of the underlying root causes is also essential, not just at stopping the current problem, but to creating the conditions so that in the future these people have a better alternative in their homes.

>> haven't we been doing that for years? i mean, literally, haven't we been trying to do these things for years? >> we have, and the scale of how we have provided our assistance, the youth outreach centers is an excellent example. it just doesn't reach a broad enough segment of these countries to make a difference. expanding some of that assistance, we think, can make a difference. >> i'm out of time. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thanks more those questions and your participation. i think we'll come to the end. again, i want to say a special thanks to craig fugate for changing his schedule to be with us and your participation. for all of you, for your participation. this extraordinary panel, good people, hard jobs. we're glad you're willing to do them. we commend you and the teams you lead in service to our country. it's not easy, is it? there frankly aren't a lot of easy answers, but there are

answers. we've had a chance to chew on some of those today. i think it's been called by me and others an all hands on deck moment. all hands are on deck. we're finding out how well this team works. i'm encouraged that given the magnitude of the challenge, it's working pretty well. everything i do, i know i can do better. i think it's true for all of us and true for responses like this. we have to just focus on how to do better as we go along. senator johnson has heard me say more than a few times, find out what works and do more of that. somehow, something worked in mexico. something has worked in mexico. as we've seen the tide surge of mexicans coming across our border has largely stopped. not entirely, but largely stopped. we have a bunch of mexicans that want to go back to mexico. there's some lessons to be learned there. my hope is we're going to learn thos those. in terms of laws we pass and appropriations that we make.

i want to close with -- i think i'll close with a scriptural reference here. believe it or not, we have a bible study group that meets here in the capitol. democrats and republicans get together and pray together, read scripture. we have a prayer breakfast. i don't usually get to meet because they meet early on wednesday morning, and i'm usually on a train. but our chaplain here is always reminding us of the most important rules, commandments in the bible. one of those is found in the new testament, to love the lord thy god with all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy mind. the second one is to love thy neighbor as thyself. that was the response by jesus in response to a bunch of for pharocees. when he said love thy neighbor

as theis, he says, who's our neighbor? you'll recall he famously told the story of the parable of the good samaritan. and it's a good question for us to ask today. who is our neighbor? if we really love our neighbor as ourselves, how do we treat them? the folks in mexico, in canada, and these three central american countries, they're our neighbor. so are the people on the other side of the world. we have a reputation as a nation of trying to treat others, not just in our own neighborhoods, not just in our own communities and states, but other countries as well as neighbors. we have to be very careful here in making sure that we're responding in the way that the scripture would admonish us to do, that we don't create a situation where parents in honduras and guatemala and el salvador literally take their flesh and blood and put them on top of a freight train or in one of these buses in the hands of people they don't know and send them through all kinds of peril

to get to the u.s. border. we have to change that dynamic. and there are a lot of ways to do that. we talked about some of them today. a week from today we'll have a hearing on some -- how we might do that further, how we might further change that climate, that dynamic so that hopefully ten years from now we're not going to have a hearing here that revisits this issue and say, why are we still wrestling with this problem? we want to be able to say, we learned something about mexico a number of years ago. we didn't entirely fix that. we largely have. but we had problems with colombia. we helped solve that, largely. we can do this as well. again, last word i would say, this is not on our backs alone. we have a responsibility. we have a moral imperative, if you will, to try to do the right thing here. we have fiscal imperative because we don't have unlimited resources. we have a fiscal imperative to do is in a cost-effective way.

find out what works, do more of that. we have to make darn sure that other countries that have a dog in fight, mexico, colombia, nonprofit organizations, that they're involved in this as well. we do this together. we'll make great progress. we can feel good about what we've done somewhere down the road and hopefully the folks we've tried to help will feel a lot better as well. with that, the hearing record is going to remain for 15 days until july 24th, 5:00 p.m., for submission of statements and questions for the record. we're grateful for everyone who's participated to make it so. thank you so much. we're adjourned.

if you missed any of this hearing, it is available to see any time on our website. go to c-span.org. check the c-span video library. we've been asking you to share

your thoughts on twitter and facebook as to how the u.s. should address the migration of immigrants across the border. looking at your reaction from twitter, face it says, tom coburn mandating and enforcing e-verify retroactively would stop illegal immigration. this from skipper. it appears to be too late. no one wants to take responsibility to close the border. and from nobody's business, they should build a panama-type canal from the gulf of mexico to san diego. 100 yards wide and 20 feet deep. also, we have this reaction from our facebook page, where we've gotten over 1,000 of your responses so far. rafael says, we need to help mexico overcome the very high levels of economic inequality that exist within their society, which are a hundred times worse than our own. we also need to start cracking down hard on all the businesses and corporations that knowingly hire illegals. and chris posts, seal the border and mass deport families. this is a national emergency. illegal immigration is not part of our heritage.

hoover, truman, and eisenhower all deported millions in troubled times. again, you can weigh in and share your thoughts at facebook.com/cspan. we'll have more about the migrant children issue and president obama's request to address the concern during another hearing. that will take place tomorrow. homeland security secretary jay johnson and health and human services secretary silvia burrwell will testify before the senate appropriations committee on the topic. that coverage starts at 2:30 eastern here on c-span3. of course, we'll continue to illicit your thoughts on facebook and twitter. and coming up this afternoon a senate panel will examine whether college athletes should be paid. ncaa president and author taylor brant are among the witnesses. watch live coverage coming up today at 2:30 eastern here on c-span3. during that event, we'll be looking forward to reading your

tweets and facebook comments. 40 years ago, the watergate scandal led to the only resignation of an american president. throughout this month and early august, american history tv revisits 1974 and the final weeks revisiting 1974 and the final week of the nixon administration. this weekend hear supreme court oral argument, united states v. nixon as watergate prosecutor and claim of executive privilege over oval office recordings. >> the president may be right how he reads the constitution, but he may also be wrong. if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so. if there's no one, then the president, of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interceptions.

what becomes of of our constitutional form of government. >> american history tv on c-span3. >> speaking to diplomats in norway, attorney general holder said it's a rouge of violent extremism. discusses the way international community in europe could confront security threats in syria. this is 20 minutes. >> thank you for that wonderful introduction and thank you all for such a warm welcome. ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, leaders and citizens, it's a real pleasure for me to be here in norway. it's a privilege to be in the beautiful city of oss low today. i'd like to thank the norwegian government and minister of just that is here with us today, whom i met earlier for their hospitality. i'd also like to recognize the

hardworking men and women at the united states embassy for bringing us together and all day every day to advance our shared interest. an honor for them to stand with all of you in strengthening the ties that bind our nations together in discussing some of the most critical challenges, the international must confront and reaffirming mutual commitment to the values and high edials of democracy, liberty and equal justice under law that defined our nation's friendship over the last two centuries. that friendship and values have deep rots. it's played a role in development of united states. citizens and values had an impact around the world. 200 years ago norway ratified a constitution that asserted certain essential and immutable

rights. through centuries of triumph and challenge, our people and government guided by all people born equal. a leader extended worldwide to the quality and justice of its own development and support of international institutions. norway leads global evers to address urgent threats recently where they are working side by side to rid the country of chemical weapons. around the world red cross knifed as a champion of democracy and civil rights. for decades, you've been leading by example. after all history teaches us as we've seen in norway and around the united states, progress is not inevitable. our democratic values, commitment to tolerance and

inclusion must be continuously protected against agents of intolerance, extremism and hate, particularly when hatred and extremism take expression in acts of violence and terror we must be resolute in our resolution, in our protection of democracy and law. we must be aggressive in combating violent extremism in all of its forms. it was 300 years ago this month norway endured devastating attacks oslo and a youth league summer camp. heinous attacks that shocked people everywhere and earned condemnation and sympathy around the world. as president obama stated, our hearts went out to you. horrific crimes like these not only terrible tragedies for nation's targeted they test our fortitude and challenge foundations of who we are. yet norway that not faltered or

changed its values. it's an example for the world in this regard as well. like norway, the united states is all too familiar with domestic threats, having suffered deadly attacks on our soil, including against government buildings, places of worship, as well as sporting events. these attacks might be attacks you suffer here in norway, common theme. they are attacks on tolerance in the name of violent extremist ideologies. under the obama administration, while we have acted to protect our country and allies, we've also redoubled our commitment to civil rights as well as to tolerance. this is what violent extremists most fear, for their goal is to undermine societies. at the same time, we have joined with our international partners to ensure that there is no impunity for those who seek to commit terrorists acts. norway, the united states, and countries around the world face

a new threat, the possibility violent extremists fighting in syria, iraq, or other locations may seek to commit acts of terror tomorrow in our countries as well. united states intelligence officials estimate nearly 23,000 violent extremists are currently operating in syria. among these over 7,000 foreign fighters. among them are dozens of americans. a number that is probably growing. we have a mutual and we have compelling interest in developing shared strategies for confronting influx of united states and european born violent extremists into syria. because our citizens can travel freely visa-free from the united states to norway and other european states and vice versa, the problems with fighters in syria returning to any of our countries is a problem for all of our countries.

this is a global crisis in need of a global solution. the syrian conflict turned that into a cradle of violent extremism. the world cannot sit back and let it become a training guard from which our nationals can return and launch attacks, and we will not. in the face of a threat so brave, we cannot afford to be passive. we need inventive and investigative and prosecutorial tools to confront the problem. if we wait for our citizens to travel to syria, iraq, to become radicalized and return home, it may be too late to adequately protect our national security. that's why we need to adopt a multi-lateral, four-pronged approach to combat this threat, to counter violent extremism in all our forums and keep our citizens safe. now, the first element of our

united approach must be to ensure there are laws in our system that enable governments to properly police that threat. in its memorandum, global counter-terrorism, a group around the world working in partnership with united nations stated, arnold i quote, criminalizing preparatory acts such as conspiracy, terrorist fundraising, terrorist recruitment, planning and training, particularly when a terrorist attack has not yet been carried out vital and effective in the preventive approach to counter-terrorism, unquote. in this regard united states relies on statute decriminalizing support to terrorist organizations. our material support law, originally enacted in 1974 and amend after the attacks on new york, personnel, cash, weapons, other tangible aid to designated

terror organizations but also intangible means of support such as training, service, expert advice for assistance. similarly in 2013, norway amended its laws to decriminalize acts to terrorism including training for terrorism, preparation for terrorism, and participation in a terrorist organization. likewise in 2012, france north dakota add new statute that enables prosecutors to charge individuals with criminal association with intent to commit terrorist acts. earlier this year, french authorities sentenced the nation's first three defendants under this new law. all three were plotting to travel to syria. today i urge governments around the world to consider similar measures that criminalize acts committed by those with terrorist plans. the second part of our comp hence ifr strategy looks to ensure we have in place law

enforcement, investigative tools and techniques both effective but also protective of individual rights and the rule of law. in this regard we have found undercover operations, which the federal bureau of investigation pioneered in fighting trans national organized crime to be essential in fighting terrorism as well. in the united states fbi conducted undercover operations that identify individuals with the intention to travel to syria. these operations conducted with extraordinary care and precision ensuring that law enforcement officials are accountable for the steps they take and that suspects are neither entrapped nor denied legal protections. here to counter-terrorism rabat memorandum calls for such techniques to be applied in countries around the world. one of the good practices that it advocates is that countries, and i quote again, provide a legal framework and practical

measures for undercover investigations of terror suspects or organizations. third, we must strengthen international cooperation in all respects. we must share travel information as a potential way to prevent would be fighters going to syria in the first place and trapping those that come back. united states committed to doing its part in this regard. as we speak to law enforcement agencies such as fbi united states authorities working with interpol to disseminate information about foreign fighters. we encourage other countries to use interpol or interpol notices to combat foreign fighter phenomenon. we are actively supporting interpol's fusion cell which focuses on information sharing relating to foreign fighters. in fact, the united states provided personnel, including

fbi agents to support this specialized office. while we're committed to ensure we protect the safety of our fellow citizen, we're also committed to protecting their privacy. alongside policymakers in brussels we're working to obtain umbrella data sharing agreement between the united states and the european union. that would strengthen the already strong protections already in existence and ensure law enforcement information is shared effectively and in accordance with data privacy principles. this agreement will guarantee no diminishment of key law enforcement information including terrorist information that is critical to the safety of citizens in europe, the united states, and around the world. and as a step to advance this endeavor last month in athens, i announced a united states commitment that the obama administration would seek legislation to create the ability for non-u.s. persons to seek judicial redress for access

and rectification for willful disclosure of law enforcement information transferred to the united states. this is an historic commitment by the united states to present privacy protections beyond u.s. persons in this context. it's imperative we reach an umbrella agreement in this regard as soon as is possible. the time for posturing is long passed. it's time for nations with fundamental views about privacy to act together. countries must also effectively use mutual legal assistance and extradition to counter foreign fighters. he hereto the rabat memorandum is instructive. i quote again, because terrorism often transcends national boundaries, timely and effective international cooperation is indispensable to a criminal justice response to terrorism.

united states justice provided evidence for countries in use of prosecutions of terrorist organizations including terrorist groups reporting others in syria. continue to assist foreign partners around the globe by acting on mutual legal assistance and provide evidence to support those criminal investigations and prosecutions. we believe it's critical that countries dole their abilities to effectively engage in mutual legal assistance including strengthening mutual authorities to work together to counter this threat. international cooperation also means working together to build the capacity of other nations as norway does in so many different contexts. norwegians and united states department of justice legal advisers worked together to build rule of law in georgia as well as moldova. enhance similar efforts on global scale, united states

department of justice provided capacity building assistance to help our partners build fair and transparent justice systems that allow their countries to run, national terrorism including the problem of foreign fighters. applying the standards of u.n. counter-terrorism treat he's, best practices of the memorandum, that of our partners helped police and prosecutors to more effectively investigate and prosecute suspected foreign fighters within rule of law leading to disruption of foreign fighters and dismantlement of organizations that recruit would be fighters to travel to syria. for ongoing programs and places such as the balkans, africa and elsewhere work with partners to help them stem flows of foreign fighters, use tools to more effectively impede their movements and assist in the investigation and prosecution of

foreign fighters once captured. today i challenge additional nations to step forward as norway has. commit to robust privacy sharing, mutual security. pledge support for interpol's national fighter initiative. support legal assistance and capacity building, urge others to do their part by participating fully in these efforts to the affect they are only as comprehensive as possible. the fourth and final element of our strategy is founded on the notion strong laws, effective tools and robust information sharing must be matched with public engagement and extensive community outreach. we must seek to stop individuals from becoming radicalized in the first place by putting in place strong programs to counter violent extremism in its earlier stages. in my time here at norway i've

had the chance to learn about and been deeply impressed by norway's action plan against radicalization and violent extremism. indeed, i found it critical to engage in international exchanges with counter-parts and how we can do better with radicalization and learn from epa other. i will take home with me important lessons from norway's experience. these lessons will help us implement our own national strategy and strategic implementation plan which is led by the justice department, fbi, department of homeland security and national counter-terrorism center. our approach depends when building mutual respect and with members of communities across the country so we can understand their needs and understand their concerns and to foster open dialogue with community leaders and citizens. this enables us to work with them to mitigate tensions and to identify emerging threats. at the heart of these engagement efforts in the united states are

our united states attorneys. the chief federal prosecutors in each of the jurisdictions that they serve in the united states. since 2012, our u.s. attorneys have held or attended more than 1,700 engagement related events. the resulting relationships have not only served to build trust, they have also produced valuable cooperation. in some cases spurring community members to alert law enforcement about individuals who show an inclination to turn to violence. across the united states and in countries around the world, such counter-radicalization programs i think shows significant promise. they serve our broader aim fostering tolerance, inclusion, which are themselves tools against extremism. ultimately our goal must be not just to fight radicalization or apprehend dangerous individuals. at its core, this work is about forging more just and open societies and building a more peaceful world.

that's why i think it's especially fitting that we recommit ourselves to these efforts here in oslo where so many of mankind's highest ideals and aspirations have been recognized. for more than a century, this city has welcomed some of the most devoted peacemakers the world has ever known. the reverend dr. martin luther king advocated for a more noble civilization in the midst of america's long fight for racial justice, to nelson mandela who insisted an injury to one is an injury to all. throughout history these pioneers of peace called us to recognize that our capacity for courage really has no limit. he struggled for human rights, civil rights and equal justice knows no borders or boundaries. they remind us all the progress made possible our journey stretches beyond the horizon and our work has no end.

you know as well as anyone that the work ahead will not be easy. none of the challenges that we face are simple or straightforward. we will suffer setbacks. as long as we remain committed to standing together, to working together, and to striving together as people of courage, as leaders of conviction, and assignations of high edeals, i cannot help but feel optimistic about where our joint efforts will lead us. i want to thank you all once again for your leadership, your collaboration and your friendship, and i look forward to everything that the united states of america and the kingdom of norway will achieve together in the months and years to come. thank you very much. >> coming up later this afternoon, a senate panel will discuss the idea of paying college athletes. ncaa and author historian are witnesses. live coverage at 2:30 eastern

here on c-span3. of course during the event, we'll be looking forward to reading your tweets and facebook comments. the full senate chamber this afternoon confirm mayor julian castro. 71-26 the vote. will replace white house chief. white house continuing work on sportsman bill greater access to lands for hunting and fishing. majority leader harry reid is allowing amendments but the republicans have yet to discuss which ones to offer. you can see the senate live on our companion network, c-span 2. with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span 2, here on c-span3 we compliment coverage showing you relevant congressional hearings and public affairs event. then on weekends c-span3 is the home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story including six unique series. the civil war's 150th

anniversary visiting battle fields and key events, american artifacts touring museums and historic sites to discover what artifacts reveal about america's past. history book shelf, the best known american history writersish the presidency, looking at the policies and legacies of our nation's commanders in chief. lectures in history with top college professors delving into america's past. new series, reel america, archival films from 1930s to the '70s. c-span3 created by cable tv industry and funded by local cable or satellite provider. watch us on hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. a discussion now on digital privacy laws. requiring federal government to show cause for search warrants. this is responsord by the cato

institute and is about 90 minutes. >> good afternoon and welcome to the cato institute, both to those joining us in the auditorium and those joining remotely by the magic of the moving pictures. i'm told young people today enjoy so much. my name is julian sanchez, i'm a senior fellow here. we're here to discuss the digital privacy reform. i refer not merely to unprecedented public strut any on government intelligence surveillance that has emerged over the last year as a result of leaks with former contractor edward snowden. often i find in my experience speaking and writing about those

issues that members of the public are shocked to discover that extraordinarily easy access to our most sensitive forms of digital information is not redistributed to hyper sensitive spy agencies seeking international terrorists and spies but that smaller scale versions of similar capabilities are enjoyed by local prosecutors and police departments on the trail of drug dealers and tax evaders. certainly collectively that can't compete with nsa for sheer magnitude but the explosion by digital is staggering especially when we recognize until extraordinarily recently it has largely occurred out of public view. just to give you a taste of the information scale of this that we've recently begun to become aware of using companies we have

representatives of here today and have voluntarily began providing rising transparency on that score, google in the second half of 2013 alone feel field more than 10,000 requests for information on 18,000 accounts. 4,000 of those accounts were the targets of search warrants. the rest subpoenas and other kind of court orders subject to much lower standards. only 11 were full blown wire trap who require a high standard of evidence, higher even that an ordinary search warrant in which we do have public information about. wiretap orders are aggregated and counted annually in fairly detailed report. microsoft must be jealous. they fielded 5,000 request in a six-month period covering some 13,000 accounts. again, as for other countries did not begin providing transparency reports we simply

have no accurate picture of the scale of government access to either the contents of people's digital communications or equivalently metadata about their online activities. this is somewhat remarkable because supreme court recently held in a unanimous ruling in riley v. california, search of a modern cell phone, the data on that phone, would typically expose to the government far more than an exhaustive accepting of a house bringing out constitutional heavy ammunition since the home is traditionally the most strongly protected domain of privacy. the court further observed showing they are somewhat clueless technologically this kind of sensitive information is as likely to be restored remotely as locally. that as i put it cell phone users may not know whether information is stored on the

device or cloud. it generally makes no difference. the court noted it makes no difference to the user. under federal statute, the 1986 electronic communications privacy act, it makes an enormous difference. under many circumstances statute allows cloud stored contents or metadata about people's internet activities so detailed as to be equally invasive, to be obtained pursuant to mere subpoenas or other court orders with substantially low court orders and search warrants. court orders -- court rulings in some districts, mostly the 2010 rorschach ruling have empowered providers to insist on warrants for content at least. this leaves us with an uncertain patchwork of rules leaving users, law enforcement all uncertain about the scope of legitimate authority to demand

information about users. almost everyone at this point acknowledges this is not tenable. almost half the u.s. house of representatives have signed on to co-sponsor to legislation that would update privacy safeguards for the cloud computing era. even the justice department and fbi have effectively acknowledged the law is out of date and amendments requiring warrants for remotely stored content are appropriate. yet nearly 30 years after the passage, the former stalled. we'll explore what that is and what we might do about it. before i introduce our panel of experts to discuss i'm pleased to say we have with us congressman ted poe for remarks. he came to congress from a long career in the law including eight years as a felony prosecutor and two decades as a

harris county judge where his wikipedia page will tell you he became famous or notorious for creative sentencing although representative poe assures me many of those colorful stories should be marked citation needed. more relevant today, has he been a powerful advocate for privacy reform with his colleague he co-sponsored online communications and g location protection act, which, as he put it, in an op-ed last year aims to revise and protect internet users from intrusive and unwarranted internet surveillance. i'm very pleased to welcome congressman ted poe. >> thank you, julian. thanks for the invitation to be here. it's good to see all y'all this arch. as julian mentioned in my other life before i came to congress, i spent 30 years down at the

courthouse in houston, criminal courts building, which i dubbed the palace of perjury. i spent that time as a prosecutor and then as a felony court judge hearing criminal cases, everything from stealing to killing and everything in between. because of that experience, i spent a great amount of time dealing with the u.s. constitution, primarily the bill of rights and primarily the fourth amendment. to give you a little background and address specific issues that we have here to date, back in colonial days, the british were determined to make sure that goods brought into the united states were not smuggled. because if they were smuggled, they didn't pay -- the colonist didn't pay the tax that was due the king. so they came up with an idea to certainly the colonists, their businesses and homes, to see if

any smuggled goods came in without paying the tax to the king. they invented this document because the writ of assistance, which was a flowery term for a general warrant for the british military to go into someone's residence or business and look for really anything but primarily looking for smuggled goods where people didn't pay the tax that was due the king. this irritated the colonist a great deal. after all, more independence, one of the reasons because of the writ of independence. after the war was over, got our independence from britain, wrote a constitution and came up with the bill of rights, ten of those, that really had their founding and purpose to prevent government from intruding the right of privacy with specific individuals under the new country called the united states.

which led to enactment bill of rights primarily fourth amendment. i have it on the podium. i guess if i was high-tech enough i would have it on a screen but it's on a poster. i will read to you the fourth amendment. you can look at it. there is a lot of provisions in it. volume of legal treatises have been written about the fourth amendment, vol up. we're not going to have a law school endoctrination about the fourth amendment but lets read it and see how it applies to today's society in 2014. the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated. no warrants shall issue but on probable cause supported by an

oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and persons or place to be seized. what this means is this. if law enforcement wants to search something in your residence or in your effects or in your property, the officer that wants to do the searching must go before independent magistrate, buffer between law enforcement and the citizen and swear out an oath, under oath a warrant to certainly a specific place for a specific thing or person. that's on the back end of the fourth amendment. it has to be very specific. it has to be specific enough under our law that if the judge signed the warrant, the judge could give it to a different person and that law enforcement

officer could read this warrant, know exactly where to go, exactly what he's supposed to be seizing and who he should be arresting if there's an arrest. that's how specific they have to be today. that's the reason the fourth amendment was written the way it was written. but the purpose is to secure privacy of the individual. so lets use a hypothetical. it's not too specific but a general hypothetical that i would like to just talk about. we have two notorious outlaws in texas. that's where i'm from. one is ollie oglethorpe and the other is bobby joe oglethorpe. they are bad guys, bank robbers. they rob banks. lets say they decide to come to washington and they plot and scheme to rob the congressional credit union in the longworth

building. they go inside. they rob the place, take the loot and make away their escape and get away and they hide somewhere in washington, d.c. that's all we know. they are not captured. we know probably that the two individuals are somewhere in washington. so if law enforcement decided, okay, we're going to go get ollie oglethorpe and bobby joe oglethorpe, we know they are in washington. they would go to a judge, say to a judge, we know they are in washington. we know they are in zip code 20003. that's all we know. we would like a warrant to go into all of the places in zip code 20003 and find bobby joe oglethorpe and his brother ollie and most importantly get the loot. there is not a judge that would

sign the warrant to allow law enforcement to go into every building and residence. we all know that's absurd. there's no way that could occur. because the residents or place because it's not specific enough to go to that location and find the oglethorpes or the money. that would be a general warrant. that would be a warrant maybe british would impose back in colonial days because fourth amendment prohibits that type of conduct. however, lets assume the oglethorpes have spent some time on the internet discussing that criminal activity, discussing where they are going to height, where they head the money, some of their other criminal enterprises, if law enforcement had probable cause to believe that occurred, they could go to

the appropriate judge and get a specific warrant and maybe go to one of these folks here and get that information, their e-mails. lets say they don't have probable cause. they don't have enough information to convince a judge the probable cause for the information is there. what do they do? they wait six months. all of a sudden on six months and one day without the use of a warrant stating probable cause they may seize that information without probable cause because the law says you can't seize it. one would think that's ensured, just because six months and one day, the warrant requirement should not be required. but that is current the law, because the law was written too long ago to keep up up with

modern technology. the privacy act written in 1986. the internet and all our electronic knowledge and storage has changed since then so. because of that, myself and others have sponsored one piece of legislation and there's other pieces of legislation members of congress have signed onto to fix that problem and guarantee the right of privacy. if e-mail storage is over six months old, stored in the cloud somewhere, will the supreme court independent of this legislation, will the supreme court rule you have a reasonable expectation of privacy if your e-mails are stored over six months in the cloud?

i don't know how they would rule. i really don't. that's why it's up to congress as the responsibility to legally state there's an expectation of privacy because that is the key phrase under our law and under the fourth amendment. what is the reasonable expectation of privacy of the citizen whose information or property or papers is being seized. i don't know what the judges and supreme court would rule. might say there's no reasonable expectation of privacy. people in law enforcement say you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy. others say, yeah, there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy. we can debate that issue theoretically forever. congress must come in and say, yes, there is a legal expectation of privacy when your e-mails are stored in the cloud.

go back to the situation of regular mail, snail mail is what it's called. some of us still use snail mail. you know, of course, if you're writing a letter to someone and you seal the letter and put the stamp in it, you actually give that letter to government and governments sends that letter all over the country until it finally reaches your mother-in-law's house. but there is a general expectation of privacy in the contents of that letter. sure there are exceptions. we're not going to talk about exceptions. there's a general rule government cannot go into that letter and read what you're writing your mother-in-law. can't do it. what if the government hangs onto that letter for six months? does that change your reasonable expectation of privacy? probably not. and this is going to not a private company, it's going to

government as the duty to protect your right of privacy. e-mails, they are not going to the government. they are going through a server through private enterprise, private corpse. that should be more protected not less protected than regular mail. why? it's not in the possession of the government. it's in the possession of a privatentity. yet if the government waits out six months, they can seize all that information through the cloud. i think that's a violation of the fourth amendment and i certainly think congress should weigh in on this issue to make sure it's a protected right under our constitution and legislation. there are other examples. you have a safe-deposit box. you take over your birth certificates or whatever people put in safe-deposit boxes. you take it over to the bank and you leave it there. is your right of privacy, the

right you must government to get in the safe-deposit box six months because it's six months old? i think not. yet for some reason because of the way the law was written, the time when all this high-tech technology didn't exist, the law allows for that seizure of information. not only is it seized, the citizen doesn't know it's seized. they are not informed it was seized or what was seized. going back to the search warrant requirement. now the search warrant requirement differ from state to state but they all require an affirmation or oath by the person who wants to do the searching. by in many warrants, criminal warrants in the state of texas, those warrants are returned to the judge and the judge gets to review what's in the return,

what was seized by government. eventually those warrants can become public record so everybody is on notice as to what was seized. plus the person the property was seized from gets a copy of what was seize the. that's how important warrants are, except in the area of receiving information through e-mails. you not only don't know that your property e-mails were searched, you don't know what was taken. furthermore, government keeps that information forever. you may never know about that, even if you're an innocent bystander. lets go back to ollie oglethorpe and his brother bobby joe oglethorpe. in their e-mail train of criminal activity, if you wait six months, the government can seize without warrant all of

their e-mails. not just between each other and their criminal enterprise but whoever they were sending e-mails to or communicating with back and forth. that third party, innocent party, lets assume, certainly doesn't know about that. my personal opinion, that's a violation of the fourth amendment right to be secure in your persons and your papers and your effects under the fourth amendment to the constitution. so what, it basically applies to the changes in all the legislation applies to the fourth amendment standard to e-mails. there's a lot of reasons why that should happen. first, it puts people on notice as to what the rules are going to be. not wait for the supreme court or other courts to make maybe different opinions down the road whether it's lawful or unlawful now. among notice, congress has the

responsibility to do so. also we have a disadvantage -- i say we. american companies have somewhat of a disadvantage because this rule, people know this is what occurs, so other companies, other countries compete against the united states where people go to some other server where they don't have this problem with the right of privacy. who would have thought this nation being the nation that's supposed to be the most democratic, freedom loving, protects the right of people to be secure in their houses, right of privacy, would second the countries that supposedly don't have that issue but protect that right on their servers. so that puts the american companies at a disadvantage. get a warrant. that's the bottom line. if you don't have probable cause to get a warrant, you can't

seize information. that's what the standard should be. it's been that way since we enacted fourth amendment to the constitution and it should be that way indefinitely. some say constitution is archaic, can't apply, can't make it work based on the constitution, i think it applies easily the general rule to get a warrant if you want to seize the information that belongs to individuals. whether it's in snail mail or e-mail or a lockbox at some bank. now, where is this legislation going? i hope it goes and passes this year. it is a bipartisan piece of legislation. all this legislation is bipartisan. it's in the house, also in the senate, passed the judiciary committee of the u.s. senate, a piece of legislation to protect right of privacy to get a

warrant if e-mails are over six months of age. i would hope, on the judiciary committee, i would hope we could get this through committee and on the floor this year. this is actually something i think will pass. it will pass the house, pass the senate in a bipartisan way. the president indicated months ago now he thought there should be some reform as well. so i think that's something that ought to happen, something we should continue to work on with other members of congress and move out of the judiciary committee in the house and get a floor vote on house bill and floor voice on the senate bill as well. now, i will stop at this point and take a couple questions, see what's on your mind or comments, if you wish. yes? [ inaudible ]

>> treating the disease instead of the symptom. using fourth amendment privacy, a symptom of a bigger disease of government doing things it shouldn't be doing, passing thousands upon thousands of criminal statutes it just shouldn't be doing. so my question is, is there anything that combines the two? >> i think i heard most of your question. i'll try to respond to the parts i heard. you can correct me if i didn't get it correct. yes, this is just one issue of government oppressiveness of citizenry. law enforcement always seems to push the envelope as to whether they can do what they are doing

to get the information especially on a what they think is criminal conduct, based on my experience at the courthouse, based on what we've seen. they will also interpret the law to the extent that allows them to seize the information. that's why when we draft this legislation, it has to be very specific so they know you can do this and cannot do that. it's not just with what's stored in the cloud. you could talk about the nsa, for example. the massive amounts of data that have been seized on americans from the nsa in violation of the patriot act. they still have that information. we don't know all the information they have because they are not telling us what they have on individuals. i will say this, it's always in the name of national security.

nothing wrong with national security but that's the argument. we have to give up rights is what we're told in the name of safety and security. that argument that been used by governments always. unfortunately people historically, whether it's a democracy or not, have been kind of willing to give up their personal liberty in the name -- hoping to get protection and safety. nsa, let me give you one comm t comment. we had under-secretary of the justice department before the judiciary committee, and i asked him of all of the information that has been seized by nsa, all of it, how many people have been prosecuted on this massive seizure of information in the name of national security. do you know what he said?

maybe one so. actually what they are saying is not making us any safer. they are not getting the information that protects us from the bad guys. only one person maybe prosecuted but they store this information on americans. i think it's wrong. i think it's a violation of privacy. certainly a violation of the patriot act. that's why week before last some of us got on amendment to make it more specific on what nsa can seize and not seize. it is a symptom of a bigger problem of government seizure of information on citizens in violation of the law and spirit of the fourth amendment. does that answer your question? >> i think we have further. >> one problem we've heard for many decades now is enforcing the fourth amendment is that the

only remedy provided when the fourth amendment has been violated is excluding the evidence, which means if the fourth amendment rights of an innocent person is violated, there's no remedy. then the legislation provide some remedies to enforce, you know, in case those seizures making legal, in case they are made, no suspects on the evidence also protecting the innocent. >> excellent. excellent comment. you're exactly right. the united states has come up with the philosophy of the exclusionary rule, which means if evidence unlawfully seized in a criminal case that evidence is excluded and government may not use that evidence if the judge determines it was unlawfully seized whether fourth amendment

or whether it's a confession. any law. that's the remedy under our law. i think your point is we will taken as we move forward there has to be some other remedy despite exclusion asking what we do with that information. certainly we ought to eliminate that information if it's unlawfully obtained. we need to have that debate and that discussion. i don't know the exact answer on what it should be but it should be something else besides the evidence is excluded. that doesn't help the individual who is the innocent person out there. it may help bobby oglethorpe and ollie oglethorpe, but it doesn't help the innocent person whose information was seized and stored by government. good point. we need to add that into legislation before it gets out of our committee. one more question or are we done? >> one more quick one.

>> hang on for a second. >> social media and things like secure portals companies use to exchange information with each other, things like this that are all out in the clouds, what's your next step once you get e-mail protected. >> we have to address all those issues as well. right now we want to solve the e-mail issue. i think for passage we ought to deal specifically with e-mails so we can get something and amend it as we progress through technology keeping in mind the spirit of the amendment as well. >> all right. >> thank you very much for your attention. i appreciate it. thank you. [ applause ] >> thanks again. i'll invite panel members to

join me on the stage here. as formidable a panel as one could ask for, joining me here i know quite well center counsel and head of project on freedom, security, technology as well as co-chair of american bar committee on american civil liberties. before that an attorney in private practice and director of legal services for the american arab discrimination committee as well as legislative counsel at the american civil liberties union. a veteran of the fight for judicial privacy and driving forces behind this. several members represented on stage. also to my left we have nick jones, who is an attorney at microsoft where he provides legal and policy advice on a

range of issues related to compliance and government access data of he's also been on the other side. before joining microsoft he was director for counter-terrorism of the national security counsel staff at the white house and also previously counsel to assistant attorney general in the national security division at doj. he's also spent more than seven years working on capitol hill including counsel for senate judiciary committee. my immediate left, david leiber, privacy policy counsel for google, works on privacy issues. previously ecommerce and privacy practice and worked as legislative aid to dick durbin. to my right, americans for tax reform and executive director of civil liberties project. she researches not only privacy

but impressively geeky issues such as spectrum and internet taxation. she previously was a staff reporter for congressman sterns and a radio professional both u.s. and abroad. her commentary has and in a dizzying array of national publications. she holds a masters in math communication and telecom from the university of florida. so welcome our panel. again with greg, few people are more well schooled in the intricacies. as clear an understanding of that byzantine statute as is possible before we talk about the change. so i want to begin by maybe give us a thumbnail sketch how it works and why once upon a time

people thought that made sense. >> thanks, julian. again, center for democracy and technology. i want to thank the cato institute for hosting this event an julian in particular. thank you very much. so the statute from 1986, just to put a little flesh on the bones of 1986, i imagine some people in the room weren't yet born in 1986. one of the leading car models was a ford maverick. i didn't have one, i couldn't afford one. that was one of the leading car models. we had just put away our eight track tapes and now using cassette tapes. that was the world this statute that governs privacy on the internet was born. when we first were using internet, a lot of us used aol, america online, downloaded e-mail from aol servers to computers. storage was expensive.

you know what you did? you printed that e-mail out because it was too expensive to save. another would only save it for a few days after you had downloaded it. of that the world in 1986. fast forward to today. storage is cheap. companies are out there saying, why would you ever delete anything? people don't delete stuff. they leave it forever. it's really cool. you can access it wherever you are. you can use this little device and access information in the cloud no matter where you are. you can be in germany and do it. it's really amazing how much technology has progressed. but the law didn't. the law stuck back in 1986, so it reflects its time. so for example, because the aols of the world would not save your e-mail for you for six months, if an e-mail was that old, six months old and still on aol

servers, it was their property. that's how it was looked at. you had basically abandoned it. it had become a business record of aol, and it was available to law enforcement with a subpoena. that's theenforcement with a su. that's wait the statute is written. if it's a newer e-mail, less than six months old, a warrant applies to get the content of that e-mail. and ecpa didn't account for things in common use at the time. these little guys, cell phones. there were cell phones. you know who had a cell phone in 1996, captain kirk had a cell phone. and so the statute doesn't reflect, didn't set a rule for law enforcement access to the location information that this little guy generates. every few seconds he pings off a tower. i'm here, if the call comes for

greg, send it here. that's what this phone is doing every few seconds. what does ecpa stay about reference to access to that information? nothing. the reason it doesn't say anything it was not an issue to be resolved back in 1986. and now we have to face these issues and judge poe in his credit has got legislation to face those issues in a very good way. >> so, i'll address that to perhaps david in tandem, you can divide these up if you want. but we've had an array of court decisions beginning to address these problems. as we mentioned, location. we now have two at least federal district courts, federal

appellate courts holding historical software information does actually act, because it's not a dial phone number. it's information that your phone is sending automatically with or without your knowledge. it doesn't fall under the third party exempting them basically from fourth amendment protection. but you guys are dealing with some of the practical questions that arise as a result, not just the federal statute, but involving court decisions, a decision called rorschach, holding it that it does apply to e-mail as long as it's stored. there's a whole range of visual-type contents. the u.s. now, those companies across the board require a warrant in forms of content, in terms of transparency. but i'm wondering to what expanse you still get requests

for content or other kinds of information without a warrant. and also an attempt how you draw that thorny line between content and metadata and content online. it's not always clear what is content and what is metadata. you go to a web page, and it tells you what the content is, is that content or metadata. i'm unclear, what kind of problems, what legal puzzles arrive and what kind of pushback do you see from law enforcement. >> yeah, i mean, thanks, julian. you alluded to the case in 2010 where the 6th circuit held that users do enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy in their e-mail. notwithstanding what ecpa says and the distinctions that it makes which candidly frustrates the expectations of users that take advantage of our services. and the court went a little

further in warshack to the extent that ecpa does not require a warrant for content it's unconstitutional. and i know google and microsoft and others have relied on that decision. i think at least perceptually, that application is aggressive. but i would submit it wasn't so much our application of the warshack that should be the focus, but rather, the application of the 4th amendment outside of the 6th circuit. the court's decision in warshack, really sort of rested on, you know, core fourth amendment principles. i don't think we've seen in recent years since the warshack decision, a lot of pushback. we've heard periodically there would be efforts to challenge

the notion that a warrant should be applied from all circumstances. when i see the issue crop up at least from the google side, it comes from state and local law enforcement agencies, which of whom are not as familiar with the warshack decision, they will file, or issue a subpoena for content, will remind them or at least make them aware of the warshack decision or don't come back to us or they will come back to us with a warrant. we haven't seen a lot of pushback on that. one of the bigger risks is not so much the googles and microsofts of the world will gather content. it's smaller provider, some of whom have thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of users but are still sort of fledgling businesses that don't have necessarily the resources or the legal acumen to recognize the differences between what ecpaization and the fourth

amendment. and maybe follow it as closely so they'll see an official-looking subpoena that demands content based on the subpoena. and they will provide it. so those are the bigger risks from the public policy perspective which i think underscores the importance of codifying the warrant for content requirement. >> i agree with everything that david said. and i would add a couple things. one is, you know, we're operating in a global marketplace, right. where people have less familiarity with the legal requirements in the u.s. and particularly, less familiar when you're talking about case law and how that's being implemented. so explaining to people and reassuring them that a warrant is actually required for content is sometimes difficult when you're dealing with people who are less familiar with our legal system and applicable law. so i think there's a significant interest that we all have in making sure that this is clarified in the law.

you know, the second thing i would say, i think what we're seeing here and what we're all talking about is trying to make sure what the law and the protections afforded to it under the constitution. keep pace with not just technological development. and the way people use that technology, the things that are stored in the cloud. you know, i think we're seeing important steps taken by the court. those thing, helpful. we're not getting a lot of pushback on those things but while the court's been a leader in recent weeks and months and with warshack, certainly, there's a problem that we still have, where it's not a comprehensive solution, it does leave a lot of gaps where we know what the law is what we're supposed to be doing or not doing. we've got a case in new york, facebook does as well. both of which raise important

questions about what providers legal rights are to challenge things when they receive them. and, you know, the geographic scope of u.s. legal process. and whether or not congress actually meant warrant when it said warrant, and what the implications of that are, in terms what the tick alert requirement which congressman poe talked about and all the other aspects. >> you mentioned the global market in competing. i'm curious what extent you see this raised. particularly with customers, i know if you're sort of a large corporation, potentially dealing in regulatory agencies or, you know, global u.s. attorneys who might be looking into what another company is doing, you might really prefer that it a request for information come to your in-house counsel, rather than someone's else's attorney. >> yeah. >> to what extent domestically and internationally do you have

a sense that there is a weariness of moving to the cloud for all that it entails because of the practicalness of being to assure all of that data? >> yeah, it's a huge issue. it's probably one of the things i underappreciated when i took this job, just how much time i would spend dealing with customer concern on the enterprise side. and to sort of use an example to sort of illustrate this, i think this is another area where the law really hasn't kept pace with technology and the way people are using it. if you're a large multinational corporation today, and you're providing your own e-mail service. and you have an on-premise e-mail or cloud storage service, the government goes to you to get the information. and they serve an order, a subpoena or sometime, a search warrant, on the company itself. it goes to their general

counsel's office, and they figure out how to respond to it. and there's certain information that they possess that is afforded protections under the law. there is a great fear out there, not just about government obtaining their information, but doing it without their knowledge. and i think, you know, when you're talking about a company considering moving to the cloud, there are a lot of them that are concerned that they're going to serve legal process on microsoft or google or somebody else and get that information without them knowing because of a nondisclosure order. our position is basically, you went to the multinational corporation yesterday, you should go to them tomorrow. and we shouldn't be in the middle of that. and to the extent there are nondisclosure obligations they should account for certainly the government's interest in makes sure evidence isn't lost or lives aren't lost. but there's often, almost always a way to do that without compromising the information. if you can talk with company,