finding out a heck of a lot more about what was really going on. >> but then you move up the food chain. i agree with you that sometimes the best sources are names we never hear about. and no one else knows. but then you have to -- if you're ultimately trying to write about decision-making, you need to get to the generals and the people in the white house, or the pentagon, who are making some of these decisions, or the cia. >> i don't have the bob woodward special sauce to get that access. >> but what gets people to respond is information. if you have the document, or the notes, or the details, if you go in and say, i understand you're launching operation pink starling tomorrow, you know, and pink starling is a protected code word, people will say, okay, we better deal with this. >> the higher level people probably don't know what pink

starling is. if we're just talking about the nsa, there are so many of them. and they are so technical, that i would be really surprised if the high-level people know the details of more than a small number of the most major programs. >> i think you would be wrong about that. >> yeah? >> i think so. many could not perhaps describe the engineering details, but i would be surprised if there are more than a handful of programs that are not -- >> you're right, but there are -- i mean, impossible to count how many programs there are in the nsa. we can talk thousands, and probably more than thousands. and i just imagine it's beyond the capacity of any individual to have significant knowledge about more than a handful of these thousands of programs. >> but i agree with bob dietz, and i agree with you.

but the answer is, work the low level, the mid level, and the top, if you can. and you're going to get a total universe portrait. anybody else -- we have a couple of minutes here before there's a coffee and martini break. maybe not martinis. but to summarize -- i mean, you're the historian of this. what's going on here? when the historians look back at this era, what are they going to say, the snowden era, the prosecution era, the persecution of jim risen era? >> i don't have an apocalyptic vision. i don't think, unlike some members of the first panel, i don't think the west is about to end. civilization as we know it is disappearing. i think there are new challenges. the tension that jane was describing between

administrations and the press, i worked in the carter administration. my god, the wailing that went on there about stuff in newspapers. i don't think that's ever going to end. i do -- i would like to mention one more thing if i may, bob. in these discussions, there's often a lot of talk, as peter did, with reference to the fourth amendment. the supreme court has, in the two cases that really addressed fourth amendment issues, in the criminal context that may touch on national security, they've always drawn a line between, on the one hand, domestic security, you know, stuff that involves criminality in this country. on the other hand, dividing that from national security involving threats abroad. and in the two major cases on this, the supreme court went out of its way to say, all right, we're not talking about foreign

intelligence here, we're talking about domestic intelligence. my experience at nsa is that that line was rigorously drawn, and rigorously observed. i think most reporters should rest easy whether there's going to be a tap. and i don't believe there is necessarily a fourth amendment right when you're talking about conducting foreign intelligence. >> but most reporters who cover issues like terrorism, for instance, have many overseas phone calls. >> from terrorists? >> certainly as close as you can get to them, sure. you're going to try to get in there and understand what's going on. many reporters, you know, john miller, who worked in and out of the government, was famous for going in and interviewing bin laden. is that a crime? should it have been eavesdropped on? >> forgetting whether it's a crime. if somebody is speaking with bin

laden on the phone, and we're not picking it up, the head of nsa ought to be tossed. >> yeah, right, but under nsa rules, if that were the case, and it was jane mayer, an american citizen, her name would have to be minimized. it would not be circulated. >> or maximized. >> exactly. you're dead right. it would have to be minimized. the minimization rules are religiously followed. >> i think we're done. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> you did wonderfully. >> thank you. . our campaign 2014 coverage continues with a week full of debates. on wednesday night at 7:00, live

coverage of the pennsylvania governor's debate between incumbent governor republican tom corbett and democrat tom wolf. thursday at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span, live coverage of the noi house debate for the 17th district between democrat cheri bustos and bobby schilling. later at 9:00, live coverage of the illinois governor's debate with democrat pat quinn and republican bruce rauner. and friday night, the wisconsin governor's debate between republican scott walker and democrat mary burke. saturday night on c-span at 8:00 eastern, live coverage of the iowa senate debate between democrat bruce braley and state senator joni ernst. and sunday, the michigan governor's debate between rick snyder and democrat mark schauer. more than 100 debates for the control of congress. now, more about the

relationship between the government and the press. in august, reuters news president steve add ler spoke about restrictions put on journalists by the obama administration. whistleblowers, national security and media bias, hosted by the national association of black journalists. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon, everyone. here to host and moderate today's session is pierre thomas. 2012 nabj journalist of the year. he joined the network in november of 2000 and reports for several programs including "world news," "good morning america," and "nightline." thomas was also the key member

of the abc news team coverage that won edward r. murrow awards for the capture of osama bin laden, the assassination attempt against congresswoman gabby giffords, and the newtown elementary school massacre. he was a key member of the abc team covering the terrorist attacks of september 11th, winning a peabody award, a dupont columbia university award and an emmy. he also received an emmy for his coverage of president barack obama's inauguration. please welcome pierre thomas. [ applause ] >> hello, everyone. thank you so much for coming to the 39th annual convention of the national association of black journalists. revolution to evolution, shaping our future. this year nabj is focused on preparing and equipping members for the shift taking place in newsrooms across the country. this year, you can look forward to some great panels, workshops

and seminars, including today's session, government and the media. today we will address some of the challenges facing our industry, specifically access by the government, which appeared to infringe on a truly free press. journalists subpoenaed to go to court and reveal their sources, the justice department secretly obtaining months of phone records from the a.p. the white house restricting access to many presidential events. how do we operate going forward. fundamental challenges that stretch to the heart of what we do. today we have some of the nation's top journalists here to discuss these challenges. and they have confronted these issues firsthand. we'll have some time for questions from the audience. but i'd like to first introduce our illustrious panel. first we have steve adler, editor in chief of reuters news. before joining reuters, he was

editor in chief for "business week" during the magazine and website won more than # 00 major journalism awards. he served as editor of the american lordament. please welcome steve adler. next we have dean balke, the first african-american editor of "the new york times." he was the managing editor for news. after graduating from columbia university in 1978, the new orleans native went to work for his hometown newspaper. in 1988 he won the pulitzer prize for his investigative work leading a trio of reporters who uncovered corruption in the chicago city council. please welcome dean bakai. the final panelist is vice president and managing editor for u.s. news at the associated

press. he oversees coverage in bureaus and regional desks. from 2010 to 2013 he served as the asia pacific news director. he led the coverage of the earthquake and tsunami, and nuclear crisis in japan. he's a graduate of colby college in maine. please welcome brian. we're going to get right to it. thank everyone so much for coming. this is an important discussion. and we will try to move it along quickly. james risen is a "new york times" reporter. in 2006, he published a book called "the state of war" and it contained a chapter that the justice department contends revealed classified information. the justice department has issued a subpoena for mr. risen

seeking information about his sources. risen said he will not reveal his sources. the courts thus far have sided with the government and he faces possible contempt of court, possibly jail time, fines if he won't testify. dean, give us a sense of how james is doing, and the impact on him and his family. >> it's had a huge impact on him as a reporter. jim has built his whole career on anonymous sources, from the times he was at the "l.a. times" to the time he was at "the new york times," that's his bread and butter. and it's been a lot harder for him. it's harder for him to make new sources. his current sources are nervous about talking to him. things get slowed down, because it's not like he can exchange e-mails with them, or have phone conversations with them. that said, just as a plug to jim, who is a particularly

tenacious reporter, i would say if you look at over the last year while he has worked up against this problem of the government going after him, he's broken big stories, he was one of the two or three lead reporters we put on the story when "the new york times" had to catch up -- try to catch up with the post and others on the snowden story. he's still in there hanging. because that's what he does. that's his bread and butter. but it's certainly held him back. his mood is -- he's nervous. i mean, i don't think he's nervous because he's worried about going to jail, i think he's nervous because, if you imagine covering a beat, and suddenly all of the people you deal with are nervous about dealing with you in particular, i think that's sort of -- and this is the beat you've covered for a decade, i think that's sort of throws you off your game. >> it's at the heart of what we do in our profession.

how has the paper sought to support him and keep him aggressive? >> you know, it's -- we've actually helped support him in the legal arena. but i talk to him a lot. i make sure that he is deeply involved in washington coverage, that he's in all of our washington national security meetings. and mainly, i'm sort of a pain in the butt to him to make sure that he's working on snowden. we throw big stories at him, we give him ambitious assignments. i mean it would be too easy to tell him to chill out until this plays out. that would be too easy for him and the paper. we make sure we throw assignments at him and they get good play. i think that's been helpful to him. >> dean, i want you to answer this question, and dean and brian to jump in. when you have a reporter asked

by the government, give up your sources, what's at stake for our entire industry? >> first off, i think the answer of any self-respecting news organization to that question is a strenuous no. because what's at stake, it's not only that particular story, what's at stake is our very relationship with the government. and our relationship with the government should be adversarial. i guess that's an old way of thinking of things, but it really should be. i mean, our role in this society is to ask hard questions, to try to find out things government does not want us to find out. and the moment you would accede and give the names of your sources to government, you've sort of wiped out one of the primary missions of the press. which is, to find out things they don't want you to find out and to ask them hard questions. you lose that. >> steve? >> it's interesting what ends up

happening. you go out there and do a story. and the government doesn't like it. in this case, a story about the stock exchange commission. we were kind of inside the room when they made a ruling. and they didn't like the story. and it obviously seems to have come from someplace inside. think about what impact that has on us. they went to our reporters and asked us what were the sources of that story. of course, the reporters wouldn't tell them. they got their inspector general to do a multi-month investigation where they interviewed 53 employees at the s.e.c. they went through the e-mails of 39 employees. they went through phone records. they checked ought visitor logs. and they couldn't figure out who our sources were. but the deterrent effect on that is the message that was sent never to talk to a reporter. your job is in jeopardy.

we don't want reporters to know about these things. the poisoning of the potential of getting transparency in government just from that one event, and it's in all agencies everywhere in the government, it has a tremendously negative effect ultimately of doing our responsibility, which is sharing the information with the public of what's going on in our government. >> brian? >> i think the risen case, and the case that steve just described and the phone records with the department of justice is all part of a troubling trend. i'm sorry to say, i'm not super optimistic it will get better anytime soon. if you play it forward in the years ahead, it really calls into question the ability of journalists to do their primary function, which is to hold the government accountable for their actions to the people. >> you know, given the volatile state of the world, the war on terror and the covert actions that we see our government taking, has it ever been more important for journalists to be digging and finding out what the hell's going on? >> it's never been more

important. if you think about -- if you think about the state of foreign policy, for instance, the u.s. is engaged in at least two, possibly three undeclared relatively secret wars in pakistan, where it's running extensive drone operations, in yemen, and some can make the case for parts of africa, too. these are dangerous missions that have large implications for those countries, large implications for foreign policy in the united states. and they were embarked on with no debate. there was no debate in congress, or no debate or discussion about how the u.s. should manage a war in yemen. and it's our job to find out what's going on in yemen. and it's more important than ever that we find out what's going on in places like yemen, so the country can have its own debate, even if government chose not to have it.

>> it seems like we've reached a point where national security concerns, whether they exist or not, seems to trump the first amendment and the government's operations. in many of these cases the first amendment is not even part of the conversation, except when we're talking about it amongst ourselves. >> right. i want to move on to a story that really struck me as well. a.p. gets a scoop in may of 2012 about terrorists in yemen wanting to blow up a plane using a new kind of underwear bomb. the government wants to know how you did it. the justice department goes out, goes to court and secretly obtains two months of telephone reports from the reporters. your reaction when the government had done this. >> my reaction was outrage, as i think it should be for all journalists, and all citizens, really. the justice department violated

its own guidelines in doing this. there were guidelines that existed governing these types of investigations. and they had existed for decades. and the two primary ways this investigation violated them is these kinds of subpoenas were supposed to be narrowly drawn as possible. this was an absolute hoover operation in which they took phone recovers for 21 phone lines. including our former washington bureau that the a.p. hadn't even occupied for six years. and the hartford, connecticut, bureau where one reporter had worked for seven years before he transferred to the washington bureau and was involved in the story. and that gave the government conceivably insight into the actions of hundreds of a.p. reporters, far from any stories that might have had anything to do with this particular scoop. and the government has no conceivable right to know any of that stuff. the second way it violated the guidelines was there was no prior notification. we found a year after that story had broken, that at some point in the ensuing year, they had

scooped up all these phone records spanning 40 days. and there was no opportunity for us to challenge that. there was no process of judicial review. and they cited this loophole which turned out to be a gigantic loophole which was the prior notice was required unless doing so would substantially impair the integrity of the investigation. and they took a very broad interpretation of that, to say that the leaker would know they were being sought, if this had been made public. actually, they announced the investigation about two days after the story actually broke. so the fact they were seeking legal resources was widely known. >> when you confronted doj officials with what they did, did you get an audience with the attorney general, and what was their reaction to your outrage? >> to the justice department's credit, they convened a high-level group of media representatives and government officials. and the justice department had changed those guidelines. we think they had changed them for the better, so that the

exception for prior notification requires the attorney general to sign off. and instead of a presumption of violating the integrity of the investigation, they have to prove that it will. those guidelines are stricter now. but they haven't really been tested yet. >> how striking was it that something like that could happen? looking at your phone records, and the most senior levels of the justice department not signing off on it, it sounds like that's what happened. >> yeah. that's exactly what happened in this case. in some way, the revelations on the nsa and snowden, the a.p. case seems kind of quaint now. we know the government is able to access everything for everyone, journalists or not journalists. and so i think that journalists who have operated in more restrictive countries overseas have always sort of assumed they were being watched. now we should assume that the united states is one of those countries and we have to take the same kind of precautions as

if we were operating in china or north korea or iran? >> it's a very interesting organization. it's focused for years and years on the violations abroad trying to protect journalists working abroad. it's really illuminating, where they're starting a campaign called start the right to report. what they're saying is, the timing problems that we at reuters are seeing, are current here. to put it in perspective, there are people in prisons around the world for being journalists. way more in turkey and iran and many other places than there ever is going to be here. the fact that we're thinking of the u.s. in somewhat the same category is rather troubling. >> and on a practical level, when you pick up your phone, in the a.p. offices, do you now wonder? >> sure.

i think we should all wonder, whether we're in an a.p. office or other journalism shop. >> when you heard about this case, what was your reaction, and did you think my goodness, what was your reaction, dean? >> i find this case more troublesome than the risen case. it's the most troublesome. you know, just, first the shear audacity and scope of the effort of the investigation. but secondly, as he said, the fact that it's sort of -- it didn't even have to get approval at the highest levels, shows that, i would argue, that -- and i would a tribute it to the post-9/11 era, some people would a tribute it to other things, i think the view of government after september 11th, that

secrecy was so important, especially on national security matters, became so pervasive, became so powerful and so ingrained in a generation of government officials, that they felt comfortable doing something that 25 years ago even i think would have required a real discussion. we're going to subpoena -- we're going to go after the records of a major american news organization. i think the fact that that can be done at the mid level and even surprise eric holder says a lot of how entrenched that secrecy is in the government now. >> the white house has been restricting access to many presidential events, and distributing its own photographs. and then giving access to the photographs of the media, not letting us do the work ourselves. i think we had a case recently involving the astronauts that got some coverage. steve, talk about why this is a

particular problem. >> well, i care about the photographs. we obviously take photographs and it's important. because you don't want the record of what goes on in your administration to essentially dpr. so there's been a blurring in our entire industry. and in the world, between what's independent journalism and what's kind of an institution going directly to the public with their own message. on some level, that's fine, and companies do it as well. and people are using twitter to disclose things. and up to a point that's okay. but on the other hand, you know, you do have to worry that there's not a respect and a value placed on independent journalism. so we were involved and a.p. was involved in lobbying very hard with the white house to give us more access. we've gotten a little bit more access. >> did they get it? >> we've gotten a little more access. but it's not everything you would want. >> did they understand why? >> did they understand? um, you know, i think only partly. one of the troubling things that

we're all facing is, this is the administration that said it was going to be the transparency administration. and there's been a lot of language around the importance of transparency. i think we all viscerally believe that the government belongs to the people and that we're the representatives of the people, and i think we're all fairly idealistic about that. and we think that the government works better when it's transparent. that fresh air, transparency is the best disinfectant. it does not look like the government, or feel that way. you see it not only in the white house but all the executive agencies, where they just make it very hard. it's harder to get press passes, harder to get into meetings. you get handlers who sit with you more. and that's partly a practical problem. but i think it's very important as a symbolic problem. because we really do want to be in a society that believes it's important for the public to know what's going on, and it's important for independent journalism to exist, and to exist in a really robust way. it does not feel as if very often the administration feels that way.

>> i want you guys to jump in. is this administration more restrictive or less restrictive than past administrations? >> i asked members of our washington bureau before coming here what they thought. people have been doing it for a long time. and they do feel it's more restrictive than it has been in the past. they think they're a little more upset about it perhaps than they might have been. because this administration bills itself as being more transparent. i think they feel a little deceived by that. i think there's been an increasing desire to control the news. there's always been some. look, we accept that. we understand that being a journalist isn't for the faint of heart. and there isn't a constant back-and-forth with any government. and that's fine. but i think we also believe the government should -- a democratic government should believe that a free press is important. and should at least try to facilitate that in a general way. that's the kind of place we end up thinking, we're not so sure that's true. >> brian?

>> yeah, i think it's part of a trend that began before obama was elected. but i certainly think it's gotten more dramatic. and i think social media has given the obama administration and a lot of elected officials the plausible cover story that they're going straight to the people with their message. they can manage the message very closely if they're going straight to the people. there's no reason to believe it's an honest presentation of information. i also think that the way the obama administration has handled access, has given other governments, state and local governments a road map for how they think, quote unquote, to manage the media. we saw in new york with the bill de blasio administration, who also, by the way, said he was going to run the most transparent administration in history, that he tried to close his swearing-in to the press. our news organizations and many others protested and they opened it. in the first 100 days of his administration he held 53 events closed to the press that were on

his schedule, and 30 others that had restricted press access. and that was just in the first 100 days. >> wow. >> i'm not -- i think the obama administration is more secretive. but i think i agree that it's part of a continuum. i think there was an amazing confluence of events starting with, and probably more forcefully led by september 11th. i think september 11th, i think the bush administration was more philosophically secret. i think september 11th told them that was okay. i think that the press didn't challenge it enough. and then along came a whole new way of covering candidates. i think social media made it easier for candidates to sort of -- or politicians to sort of communicate with people without going through the mainstream media, which is good and bad. i think all these things came

together. a secret environment. the ability to communicate differently with people. and then the constant campaign that politicians go into. and even while they're in office, behave as candidates all the time. i think all of those things came together. and i think they've sort of reached their full flowering in the obama administration. but i think they began over time and built. >> one thing i would add to this, we're not without our own resources. and nobody should feel sorry for the media. and some of the changes that have occurred actually benefit us. so the fact that there's so much more access to electronic information means we have more ways to get information. >> that's right. >> there's also lower barriers to entry in the media industry. so there are way more players. while on the one hand so-called mainstream media may be somewhat in decline, but you've got blogs, and you've got "the guardian" here because of digital, al jazeera here because of digital and television. then you have all of the smaller

organizations. so i do think that if you're out there trying to get information, and you're working hard to get it out, you have more ways to get it than you used to have in the past. in some ways it's an arm's race. the administration has more tools, but so do we. >> and more outlets to publish it. if you buy the argument, which i think everybody now buys, that the press wasn't aggressive enough in the buildup to the gulf war. i think today there would be a lot more places, including "the guardian," which is more active as a news organization, more blogs, more places where questions would have been raised. and i think that -- i agree with steve, that's healthier. >> i want to get to edward snowden in a moment, but as news executives, how are you trying to manage, deal with the social media, and also the fact that people can go around and talk directly to the public themselves, and how do you try to use the social media to your

advantage? >> there's so many different ways social media factors in the way we do our work. in that instance in particular, it's interesting that when a public official takes to social media, often what they say on social media is news itself. and the reaction to that is news itself. and then, of course, we all use social media as a way to develop new audiences and broadcast content that our journalists are producing. it's also an incredibly news gathering material, where people have something to say about a specific event or topic. it is woven into the newsroom in so many different ways, that it's, you know, it's just part of daily journalism now. >> you know -- go ahead. >> i was going to say, i worry less about the ability of politicians to get around us, and use social media, because that's different than the sort

of some of the secrecy issues we're talking about. i think that's as much of that vexing for us, i think that's probably okay. it's a little weird for the media to make the case that politicians should not -- should have to engage with us to get to the public. so i'm not sure that would be a winning argument that i would be willing to make. >> i'm not a big fan of handout journalism anyway. i think what's the most productive work we do is when we ask hard questions, and we try to get under the surface and find out what's really going on. the politicians are going to issue their handout photos and issue their handout press releases, and it's not our job to just take steno graphy and provide them to the public. but go deeper anyway. >> there have always been whistle stop tours and fireside chats by politicians to engage directly with the electorate. this is just the way to do it from the comfort of your chair. >> in full disclosure, i think

nabj did invite members of the administration to participate in this panel. as far as we can tell, they chose not to. edward snowden. i think everyone in the audience knows was responsible for releasing a boatload, mountain load, whatever you want to call it, load of information about some of the nation's covert activities. there are government officials who say not withstanding what he did was right or wrong, the notion that one person was responsible for releasing this information, relatively young person, they make the argument that it shouldn't happen. question to the panel. is he a criminal, or whistleblower? >> i actually don't -- i'm going to choose to answer it in a

little bit different way. i think that he provoked an important discussion, that the country wasn't having, and could only have had with his disclosures. i think that snowden gets a tremendous amount of credit. i think the country barely knew the extent of nsa spying. i think there had been glimpses of it and stories over the years. but i think he provoked a very significant discussion and a debate that we should have had. i actually think the nsa's position in this case is a little bit untenable. somebody should have said, i would argue, that -- is the country ready for the giant amount of spying that the nsa can do? and without going into the nitty-gritty of it.

i don't know what the result of that debate would have been. it might have been even more intrusive spying. but i'm not sure that answers -- it doesn't answer the question whether he's a criminal, or in a weird way as a journalist, i don't think that is my question to answer. but as somebody whose news organization took advantage of some of the things he leaked, they were really important. >> i guess i don't object to the government making it illegal and attaching penalties to people inside the government to have sworn not to release information. it's reasonable for the government to consider it potentially criminal if they do. which, again, as dean said, is a very different question from what our responsibility is. in my view, as long as we haven't stolen the information or paid somebody to steal the information, our job is to inform the public. and so we're in a different role. it may be the administration's job to protect certain information like this. it's certainly our job to release it.

being careful about not putting individual people in jeopardy. if we get it. being a lawyer, i'm not going to convict him without a trial. but i think, you know, in these situations, sometimes it is civil disobedience, and the person chooses, knowing there are penalties which are appropriate, the person chooses to do it. but more important for our discussion, it is our responsibility that if something is newsboworthy and we didn't steal it, for us to present it to the public and let it be part of the public debate. >> brian? >> i'm also going to dodge the original question. you know, it's not my place to say. think about what we know now with these disclosures. what we know now is really important. i would argue that the people had a right to know that their government was doing that. >> do you think the disclosures helped our cause as journalists or hurt our cause, in terms of trying to get more information out of the government? >> i would argue they help our cause. i would argue they help our cause, because for two reasons.

the government has yet to offer substantial proof that they truly hurt national security. which helps our cause. because that's always the argument. the second thing is, i think that in the case of wikileaks and in the case of snowden, the press behaved aggressively and responsibly. i mean, i have worked, you know, i mean, i've looked at the snowden disclosures in the course of our coverage of it, and there are things in the snowden disclosures that everybody, including glen greenwald has not disclosed. i think it proved that the press can be very responsible, cannot put things -- is not looking to just throw things up that jeopardize lives. i think it helps our cause. the government might argue otherwise, but i would make the case that we were, you know, we did what we were supposed to do, but we were careful.

>> i guess my view is, you know, we in the media are never going to win any popularity contests and we're sort of down there with congress in terms of the public approval. i think that's okay. i think that there's a real resistance to the power point institutions in our society right now. and we're often lumped together with other powerful institutions in this populist resistance, you know, to people who have a lot of power. and perhaps the media does. but i would say that it's our job to do our job well and responsibly, and not to worry too much about whether we're popular as we're doing it, as long as we think we're performing a public service. >> i do worry, you know, about the chilling effect of -- depending on what ends up happening to snowden, which who knows what the future holds. the chelsea manning case, it certainly must discourage people who would be tempted to disclose that kind of information from doing it again in the future. so, you know, while i agree, you

know, that media has credited itself with the way it handles itself, i do worry about the future whistleblowers, in the case that steve described earlier. >> one of the most common things you now hear from a government source is, i'm going to lose my job. you hear that a lot now. and to your point, i think that's a very serious concern. >> i want to take advantage of the years of experience, and your thoughts here, to give some of the young journalists and other journalists out here a sense of some best practices. what advice do you have for organizations or individuals who come under fire of the government, be it city hall, the state, or federal government in terms of protecting their sources? >> i'll start. clearly we're living in a world where you have to assume that your work is being watched.

so you have to be very careful about use of e-mail. there are encrypted e-mails that you have to be very careful about phone calls. particularly in going places where you think you're being watched or followed. you know, at the very least, you want to turn off your phone. but that's not probably not enough. often you don't want to have a phone with you. when we travel globally to dangerous places, we'll take a burner phone, we'll take an electronic device that has no sensitive material on it. there are a lot of things you have to do just in terms of basic self-protection. there were recently reports by the aclu talking to journalists about essentially are you being deterred by this stuff. the main thing they said is they feel like they're in the espionage business now more than in the news business. i do think you have to be careful about all those things. i think we all way overuse e-mail. whether it's a foreign government or u.s. government or perhaps even a local government looking at it, being careful about all those things is important. i think you have to really

exercise best practices. you have to be very clear with your source whether you're protecting them, and under what circumstances. and you have to be very clear with your editors as to what rules you're operating under. will the organization back you up if you're protecting a source. it's really important to work in an organization that will back you up. so to put in a personal ad for all our organizations, i think one of the virtues of large mainstream media, although we all have our faults, these organizations do really support journalists when they're in trouble. that becomes really important in a world where that happens more and more. >> yeah, i think steve just made two really key points at the end there. one is, i would hope anybody who's in that situation as a reporter can rely on the organization they work for to go to bat for them. and the other one is, and i think that this is more important than ever, is to make sure in negotiating the terms of disclosure with your source, that they understand that the risk they're taking on as well as being aware of the risk you're taking on. i think those conversations in the past couple years have

probably -- we need to have a much more detailed conversation with sources about that disclosure, because it's gone up dramatically in the last couple of years. they're possibly risking jail time and other penalties. it's part of a journalist's responsibility to make sure the sources are aware of the risk they're taking. >> i would agree with both of you that best practices, making sure that your editors are behind you. and the only thing i would add is more of a cheerleader point, or just keep doing it. i think that what inspires me about jim risen is that he did not come to me and say, you know what, i would actually like to cover, you know, the agriculture department now. i just want to do something different. he remained in the realm of national security. he continues to break stories. he's hampered, but he's still in the game. i think that sends a tremendous signal to the people who want to chill his reporting.

it also sends a tremendous signal to people who do that kind of reporting. >> for every jim risen case, there are dozens if not hundreds of subpoenas that are issued. and go through a process and end up getting quashed, or dealt with in some other way. not every case ends up with a potential for jail time. which is an important point. that's always happened. it always will happen. it's rare it gets to this point. >> one thing that's really encouraging, speaking to this room, at least the younger journalists, and the journalists coming into the business whom i've been meeting, are amazingly intrepid, are very investigative. they're good at using social media, really good at searching on the web, and figuring out what's going on. there are people working for all sorts of organizations that are doing really exciting work. and i think that's a very positive indication of where the world is heading. and even if you can stifle some organizations, there's so many people out there trying to get information. >> right. >> i think that's a real

positive. >> right. >> and the only thing i would add to that is, this sort of plays off what steve said earlier, the ability to get, especially for international investigative stories, i mean, some of the best investigative work of any news organizations over the last couple years have been international investigative reporting. some of it based on public records. also, if you're trying to cover, you know, what amounts to war in yemen or pakistan, there are ways to report inside those countries, if you're a big news organization, and you can behave safely to keep finding stuff out. so there's still going to be ways. in fact, let's not forget, for all of the restrictions, there have been some -- and i would include the two news organizations on my left and my right -- there have been some remarkable disclosures in the last couple of years that show that the press is still in the game in a big way. >> this has been terrific. i want to thank you all again.

i think we have time for some questions from the audience. so, please step up to the microphone, and ask your questions. >> i don't think it's on. >> someone help her and see if that's on. >> there you go. >> okay. hello. my name is alicia haysley from the virgin islands. an aspiring journalist. research is hard, extensive, and requires copious amounts of in-depth work. you did touch on safety. i have a question in regards to that a little bit more, a little more in-depth. you're talking about burn phones. but if you really are into a story, is there a way for you to be as careful as you can possibly be? like what would you advise as

tips? if somebody's out to find you and stop you, most likely they will do everything in their power, and sometimes that's a lot of power. so if you're on a case, a dangerous case, i say case, yes, because as you said before, espionage, that's what it seems like when we're trying to get information, because you have connections with cops, government officials. and you want to protect yourself as well as your sources. can you go and elaborate a little more on that? i'm very intrigued when you listed burn phones. and i'm like, what else, what else? >> well, again, there are all sorts of tools to encrypt things. but i think your point is, very often they won't work, right? >> yes. >> so, you know, the question is, are you talking about being in physical danger, or somebody -- >> because as you said before, we are entering, as we excel in technology, we also excel in ways we can be caught.

with social media, there are more ways to be caught through social media, just like they can track your e-mails, they can also track your facebook accounts. whatever you post on facebook, you know, anybody else in the future can go in there and peruse and, ooh, that's what she's about, or that's what he's about. >> i operate under the assumption that everything i say somebody's listening to. i think that's a worthwhile assumption. so here and on television i know i'm being looked at. but when i talk on the phone, i assume that, too. when my parents who are 90 years old, ask me what i did this week, i tell them, i can't really tell you that right now on the phone. i'm fairly confident whether it's the syrian government or somebody in china, or somebody in iran, there's somebody listening. so a lot of it is changing your habits and thinking about the fact that there are people listening. but if you're doing journalism in this country, we don't want to overscare people. to my knowledge, there's one

person in prison in the united states, in jail in the united states for doing journalism. so it's very rare that it ends up that it throws you in jail. one thing i've always found helpful, particularly when i worked for small newspapers, was to write about it, when somebody's giving you a hard time. in other words, to make public what the problem is. if you're being investigated, write about it. because again, we have a lot of power. we have tools. you know, we own the presses, is what we used to say. we own the ability to distribute. so if threatened, that threat becomes newsworthy, and frankly, i would report the threat. just a couple of thoughts. >> okay. >> hello. my name is wanda brooks, i am a producer for the department of defense specifically covering intelligence. >> boy, that's interesting. >> i take back everything i said. >> it is very interesting. >> these are the guys you want to go after.

>> so, how do you decide when covering a story when to release a report, or not if the government says, hey, you know, this could potentially put someone's lives in jeopardy? a case officer out in the field. how do you make that determination of, is this legitimate, or should we run this story anyway? and have there been moments when you've held off on an investigation, or report because of those concerns? >> my standard has become, you have to give me absolute detail of what you mean. it used to be, the government would say, if you publish this story, it violates national security and somebody will get killed. that's not good enough for me. i want to hear who. i want to hear the specifics. obviously i don't mean, don't tell me how they're going to get killed.

tell me what you mean. i really want to know. you mean a case officer in tehran? and tell me how. second thing is, i always demand a request to hold something back comes from the highest -- somebody very high in the government. never -- if the press person asks for it, i won't even take a call. it's got to come from somebody in the white house. it's got to come from the head of the cia. it's got to come from the head of the nsa. it can't come from the press person. usually when you say that, by the way, half of all requests go away. because they're not quite willing to ratchet it up that high. so i always insist that they ratchet it up that high. offer very, very specific proof. and i would say, still, most of the time we go with the story. but if somebody offers -- are there stories we have held over

the years? that met that standard? yes. i'll give you a classic one. i think that's now been written about. i think most news organizations did not write corporal -- i think corporal,burgdahl and his disappearance. we knew a lot about tp there was a tremendous amount about in the wikileaks documents, which i was involved in. and we were in an awkward position. right around the same time, a reporter for the new york times, david rogue, also disappeared p. we were nervous about too much detail of his case coming up. so after burg dahl, i think there were cases where we made a mistake, i think there were cases where i made a mistake and

was too cautious but by and large were those are the standards. has to come from somebody high up. has to be very specific. i don't want to hear, i have blood on my hands. i don't want to hear national -- i don't want to hear the vague, you will help the terrorists. i want very, very specific stuff. >> in the case of a foiled terror plot that led to the justice department scooping up all those records, that was held for five days at the government's request because their request was that the operation was ongoing and still hunting guys down. and it was only after the government said it would be -- it wouldn't jeopardize operations that the story was published which makes what happened next even more outrageous. >> right. if it is an ongoing investigation, and they made the case and are very specific and it comes from somebody high up, that is a hoorder one to refute. >> thank you.

>> hi. professor libby lewis from ucla, former news anchor and reporter for cbs and nbc. i just have a pretty general question for each of the panelists. i'm wondering, should we, as journalists, educators et cetera be concerned about relationship between the government and journalists when we see more and more in the news. we hear about journalists covering stories in other countries, being held as potential spies. being accused of spying, you know, for the u.s. and among other things. >> should we be concerned about the fact that the cia and usually the fbi have booths, recruiting booths, here at various journalism organizations. not just nej, but doesn't that sort of beg the question, what

are they here for? being that, you know, these are journalism connen froms and what is the interest. and should we be concerned? >> let me start on that. we've got journalists around the world, almost 300 journalists. it is a fairly frequent problem where foreign governments accuse our reporters and accuse them essentially of being spies, and often for the u.s. and so any ambiguity, and we say we have no association with any government. we are entirely independent. you know, whatever accusation is entirely untrue. but any am ambiguity that any government has and reports to be journalist, puts life in danger. so i'm extremely concerned about it. that's not to say that cia doesn't need people with journalistic skills to do things that they need to do.

so i'm not saying recruiting people for other things who have journalistic skills is a problem. but any time an intelligence organization usees a journalistic cover it puts our people and journalists around the world in enormous jeopardy. >> thank you. >> in many of the countries where our news organization operates, this doesn't resonate because the notion of independence doesn't exist in a lot of countries around the world. you know, and particularly for news agencies. i think the standard definition of the news agency in most countries is something that is tied government. and the type of agency that ap and reuters are is sometimes hard for people to comprehend. when i was based in asia, i often had to explain that ap didn't stand for american press. i think intellectual, it is the

difference between government and independent but there are countries in which every entity is controlled bit government and whether it is industry for education or media. >> thank you. >> andrew humphrey, wdiv if detroit michigan and founder of the journalism task force. thank you for being here. my question is, and for all of the panelists, what other loop holes exist now in the law that you can enlighten us on. for example, from the patriot act, is it -- can electronic equipment be confiscated by reuters by customs and be searched without a warrant, things of that sort. >> i'm not -- to be honest, i'm not actually familiar with them enough to sort of go through the list. i don't know if you guys are. i'm not -- i'm not sure. >> i think we need a media lawyer -- >> on that panel. >> that's the next panel. >> all right. i can speak specifically to the

guidelines surrounding seizure of phone records. there is a loophole and the loophole is that attorney general needs to sign off and that there is a threat to national security or that it would compromise the integrity of the investigation and they can still do what they did to ap. the loophole is small are, but it does exist. >> i think the federal law is that is broadly in the area of attacking surveillance. sometimes it is wildly overused. there was an internet entrepreneur who downloaded a bunch of documents from mit store documents cache and he was indicted on very serious charges, and ultimately committed suicide under indictment. he was parallel to the way journalists would operate. he didn't plan on selling them. he just thought information should be free. there are draconian uses around

electronic information that are still on the books. >> all right. there is more policy journal. something i've noticed over the past few months, buzzing around social media. especially more recently around the conflict in israel and gaza. is this impression among the general public that somehow the u.s. government or other governments are putting pressure on your organizations to color coverage in general, not speaking about specific cases. and about classified documents or operations but in general, to the state department or the u.s. military or the obama administration is pressuring the "new york times" that are associated press to run certain stories, ton run certain stories. to cover a hospital was hit or not hit for a u.n. compound. can you guys speak to that specifically? because this is something which, you know, of course i try to

correct among my colleagues. but maybe coming from your mouths, it may or may not be more persuasive. can you talk about what contact you guys have from the administration or other dposts about your general coverage of certain issues or topics or conflict? >> and that doesn't happen, and i never had a -- i mean, i was washington bureau chief and i was managing editor and editor. i never had -- i have had many complaints about coverage. usually complaints about profiles. people are too negative or -- the obama administration is very sensitive. but in terms of how to cover things, how to place photos, i never had a conversation like that. none at all with anybody in the government. i bet these guys have not either. >> no.

i think if that were ever to happen, i think the obvious answer would be no. subject to our own editorial decision making. >> there is almost no harder story to cover than israel palestinian. views are so harder on both sides that each of us think the other is biassed on the other side. so there is an enormous increase in complaint when that story is flaring up from people on both sides. that leads to conspiracy theories about who is influencing the coverage but we haven't experienced pressure on that either. >> sometimes i wish we could take these the same way i could take the volume -- the e-mails from each side and just send them to each other. >> because they are completely -- i mean, on both sides are completely unrelenting and not understanding difficulty of it or the fact that each side

actually sides have very hardened views and don't see the other side at all. i wish i could just exchange nasty e-mails with others and just get out of way and watch the discussion. >> you know, today we've discussed a lot of issues facing our industry. question for each of you, journalists done a good enough job of skprexplaining to the pu what it is we do and why we do it? >> i would argue no. that we've not. i think that we are much better now than we ever were. but i come from a tradition of when i work in a regional paper in the days when newspapers made so much money that you didn't have to court readers. if a reader called up, i just hung up the phone.

i think we're much better at it. i think we sort of tried it -- i mean, i try to answer e-mails from readers. we invite people into our page one meetings. we talk more at sessions like this about how we make decisions. but sometimes i think we take for granted, i think people are always stunned and in fact the federal government does not call up and say, is this a gaza picture. it amazes us that people think like that. i think some people do think like that. i can certainly do a better job of explaining how we make decisions. >> i agree. even when we do, it is probably pretty hard to get an audience for it. some people have to much information sfloeing out of them,some distractions, that the ideal role of the media is not one that interests many people outside of our -- >> right. >> yeah i think we are much more interested in the public than anybody else.

by and large, the best thing we can do is do our job vigorously. over the last 10 or 15 years the industry is much less swelled and there was an arrogance in our ind truss try that we felt we could go out there and do what we wanted and the public would soak it up. so i do share the view that if we can be more transparent that that's helpful and consistent with who we want to be as organizations. >> that's right. as we wrap up, i would like for each of you for some of the journalists out there to give a sense of how you try to inspire the people that work with you, your colleagues, who mine for the difficult stories and why that's important. steve, just go left to right, please. >> and reuters, trying to encourage more and that is bigger and invest gettive

stories. you can be tempted to chase every story that occurs. this enormous satisfaction in trying to get to the bottom of things. find out why things happen. what's really going on and what is going to. what next. i think as people have done more of that, they discovered both that it is enormously satisfying, challenging and that there is a big appetite out there for it. when i talk to customers, whether the financial customers or news organizations or individuals, i think what they are saying is we have so much information, they are flooded with information. what they always say is helping make sense of the world and i think journalists get excited when they are helping people make sense of the world when they are backed by the organization and when they see the results. a lot of the journalism, best journalism we do has positive results in society. you see things happening and see people freed from forced labor camps. you see good things happening in the world so i think it just up to us to encourage us. talk about it.

insent advi ininvent advise about it and do a job and do it very well. >> i think encouraging a bigger more probing pieces, i'm deeply involved myself in them. i think the best way to send a signal to the newspaper, so your stamp, that you really care about her, is to get involved in story discussions about the biggest stories to actually play a role in line editing. when we do big investigative stories, in the time i've been executive editor, i want to be in on them from the beginning. i want to pli on tay on the edif them. and i think people walk away with the sense of, okay this is important. you get time with executive editor. >> think about all of the cases we talked about today. from snowden to the appoj thing. all of the revolutions were really important for people to know and hugely competitive stories. and there's an imperative do

that because if journalists hadn't been doing that kind of work, we wouldn't know about it. these are disclosures that are important for the public to know about. there t is imperative do this kind of work because, we spoke earlier about how many different media outlets there are. and for some degree they all cover the same story everyday. for things that are exclusive and distinctive are that much more important because it is what you have that nobody else has. there is no bet are way to set yourselves apart and as someone that breaks news that readers and editors can't get from any other source. >> this was a great conversation. i want to thank each of you, steve, dean and brian for joining us. and thank you to the audience for coming. we will take a short break. but at 2:00, we have the news maker with dnc chair debbie wasserman schultz. thank you. >> thank you. [ applause ]

♪ ♪ c-span's 2015 student cam competition is under way. this nationwide competition will award 150 prizes totaling $100,000. create a 5 to 7 minute documentary entitled "the three branches and you." video needs to include c-span programming, show var rig points of view and submit by january 20, 2015. go student cam.org for more information. grab a camera and get started today. now national security agency director michael rogers talks about the nsa's mission and efforts to create transparency. he spoke at the intelligence and national security alliance in august.

it is 50 minutes. well, good evening. can you hear me in the back? can you hear me in the back in excellent. first and foremost, thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to spend time together this evening. to be honest, i was somewhat shocked. when i was asked to do this, i said, you want to do an event in d.c. in the middle of august? i didn't think there would be very many people here. thank you for taking time-out of your busy lives to spend time. i'm grateful because tonight i'm here for several reasons. first and foremost, many of you have heard me previously talk about this as director of national security agency. as commander of united states cyber command. i'm a firm plefer that public dialogue and public transparency

is a public part and an execution of today and in the future. we have to be willing to have a public dialogue. so when i with a is asked if i would be willing to do this, i said no restrictions on media. we will do this. rogers has go in on this with his eyes open. that's important. because there's no doubt that one of my primary missions is to represent the hardworking men and women of that organization and help the american public understand, who are they, what do they do and why do they do it? because quite frankly we haven't had much discussion about that. now the national security agency in simple terms is tasked to defend the nation and its allies, to comply with the rule of law, and ensure we always remain accountable to the american people. that is what we are about. defending the nation and our allies. following the rule of law.

and always remembering that we reaccountable for the citizens that we defend. much debate about areas highlighted about what nsa can do. what we haven't talked about is the context in which those capabilities are. the policy and legal mechanisms put in plis place to ensure those capabilities are not put in place to be misused against those that we defend. what leads us to believe that things that the nsa does are in the interest of the nation and our allies. i took this job in no small part because i believe in the national security agency and i believe in its mission. it doesn't mean we're perfect. you will not hear me say that. what we are, is for the rule of law, we will be held accountable. when we make mistakes, we will

stand up. perhaps more importantly, broader set of external compliance teammates, whether that be the congress or courts, whether that be the department of justice or teammates in the b & i. when we make a mistake, we will acknowledge it. and in fact, much of what you have read has flowed from nsa self reporting where we have made mistakes and not properly follow had our own procedures. you have seen multiple public reviews of what nsa does, for example, in compliance with act 5702 in the 15 section of the fisa. and said hay, nsa is complying with the law and nsa has a robust of mechanisms and that we

abuse the information that we protect and appropriately protect, doesn't mean we're perfect. but i'm very proud of what we put in place. in no small part because we have learned from our past mistakes. we implemented a pretty expensive compliance organization back in the contrary because we realize we have to do things different. my predecessor's idea of compliance and oversight. to do our mission we have to do that. there's much debate and a good one for us a as nation to talk about what is the right balance between the need to ensure our security and the need to ensure the recognition of the rights of every one of our citizens. and it's not either or. we have to address both very

valid concerns. the harder challenge to me in some ways is what is the right balance between secrecy and transparency. and that's challenge for me as a professional. if i'm honest, i submit my whole life thinking about how to protect sources and methods. how to ensure that what we do is not to grow compromise. i realize as that an intelligence leader under the 21st century, rogers, you got to be willing to talk to a broader set of people and you've got to be willing to talk at least in broad determines about what we do and why we do it. and i'm very comfortable with what nsa does and why it does it. because i believe we defend the nation and its jl eyes and follow the rule of law and always remember that we remain accountable to the american people. that accountable comes in many forms. whether the congress that executes oversight of our

functions, whether it's the courts that grants us the authority in many cases do what we do. o we have to make a case in many cases for a federal court and get permission to do what we do. nobody writes us a blank check. we are given permission for a finite purpose for finite period of time. if we want to continue beyond that period of time, we have to go back to court and make that case again. when we make mistakes, we have to make sure we report to the court if we have failed in our compliance responsibility. the other challenge i have, as i tell nsa as new director, we cannot be trapped by the past. we have to learn from the past and drive. we have a mission that nation depends on. in almost every major operation that i can think of that we as a nation have done in the course of the last year for example, nsa and many other elements of

the intelligence community have played a major role in our ability do that p. that is a good thing for the citizens of this country and a good for our allies. and don't ever forget, we are not loin about supporting the united states. we are also about supporting our allies. i spent a good deal as director as does the d and i and remember what brought us together in the first place. my challenge is how do i make sure that an essay remains effective in executing its mission. how i do make sure that we're positioned as the world around us is changing. to make sure we maintain rel vns and capability and obey the rule of law and we are accountable to the citizens of the nation we defend. and what are we doing now that

if we don't do in five to ten years that we will be in real trouble. another area i would give alexander great remarks then, is i was impressed during my early time as direct popper i remember talking to him about and him telling me, what are some investments that we need to make now that need won't be a factor for five to ten years. whoever comes behind me will have challenges. that is hard. and hard do it in an environment in which a budget pressure is increasing, not decreasing. we have enjoyed relatively study courses over the next decade. we have found ourselves in it as a nation and in the two wars with he have fought and in which many, many of our country mep have made the ultimate sacrifice and came back from that mundmentally changed. they sacrificed their lives in many cases and become different

individuals. i think about them all the time. as we move into the future, i'm constantly thinking know self, what do we need to make sure we remain relevant to the men and women deployed around the world. what are they wearing in a uniform or in an embassy somewhere or just like average citizens traveling the world who sometimes find theirselves and we are here to make a difference in all of these scenarios. there is nothing to apologize for. when we do it, we obey the rule of law aep we are accountable to the citizens of this nation. and every review we've had to date has come back and said, hey, look, you can argue is the law correct? you can argue, is the policy what we need to be doing? but nobody has come back and said, nsa failed to follow the law or nsa is failing it meet its obligations at ensuring that

we protect the information that we collect in the course of our doughty. again, it doesn't mean they're perfect. but i fundamentally plef in what we do tp i fund limt believe in how we do it and why we do it. if you are our current employee of nsa or you were where before, will you stand for a minute? i know there's somebody here. the reason i ask you to stand is roger gets all of the attention as director. but what matters to me is men and women like this. dedicated their adult lives in many cases. i just want to say thank you very, very much. [ applause ] >> now as i think to myself about how we build that few tour, partnerships are incredibly important to the future.

i have always agreed with general clapper. the future is about generations and maximizing partnership. i want to be very public in saying that he need the help and capability that many of you in this room and others around the world bring to bear. we can't do this alone. i wish i could tell you this is the 1960s and it is like the apollo space program. this is just not the scenario we find ourselves in in the 21st century. i don't see that changing. nsa needs good partners. before an intelligence commission to gain insights about the world around us, about nations who would like to get an advantage over us, but if they had the way, literally ef one of us would be dead. we don't think about that much

in the society we live in. think about what we take for granted. stable society in which the rule of law is respected. and the rights of individuals are codified in law. and our practice as a society. we've been pressed with that for 238 years. and we take it for granted. we go around the world today and it just flat out doesn't exist in many other places. and there are groups that individuals who if they had their way, the entire idea of the inherent right of the individual could make choices in their lives would not exist. there are groups and individuals who believe everything we stand for is a nation is diametrically posed to their view of the world. and the only way their view of the world can triumph is if we aren't here any more. i'm not someone who jumps up and down and says, see how terrible the world is. i am somewhat amazed at times by

some who act as we have no significant challenges up there. we have been fortunate as a nation that senince september o 2001, we have managed to force stall terrorists on u.s. soil. we have had some domestic issues. but we have been able to foil those external to the united states who attempt to recreate in some form the events of the 9/11 where we lost almost 3,000. people from around the world. not just the united states. but people from around the world where they pick a particular day to do business in an office building. but they went to work at the pentagon. on the wrong aircraft and almost 3,000 of them lost their lives.

the individuals who perpetrated that remain out there an like-minded individuals remain out there. we need to remember that. now, as i said, all about finding that balance. it is not either or. if the price of achieving our security is fundamentally becoming something we aren't. then they have won. and i have no desire to fundamentally capture the heart of what is america. and as the nsa director, i am always mindful of those right, and i'm mindful of what makes america, america. and i'm always mindful of the values of our allies and our partners. we aren't in this alone. as i said, i need your help. i need strong partners. the men and women of the national security agency need strong partners. and you got see some of them here with us tonight.

let me conclude, because i want you guys to have something to eat. we will have a session after dinner where we will teak questions and answers and we will take it from there. but let me conclude again. thank you for being here tonight. thank you for your willingness to be part after dialogue because we need a dialogue. as a nation, we have to make some tough choices. and we want to have a well informed dialogue when we make those choices. and we've got to realize that there's a wide range of opinions out there. i understand that. but the dialogue has to represent multiple view points. that is at heart what is the strength of america. the idea that we can bring together lots of individuals with lots of different view points and yet we can still remain who we are and what we are and what we are about. that is what makes me so proud to be the director of the national security agency because i believe in its mission and i believe in its men and women. i'm proud to stand up and say i'm director.

i'm proud to stand up and say i'm a member of the nsa team. and i will not apologize for that to anyone. i thank you very, very much for your time. have a great dinner. i look forward to the question and answer. thanks very much. [ applause ] >> so welcome to my living room. this is a nice little intimate chat. that we're going to have this evening. i have a few questions that i received from across the leadership, so i'm going to start with those. but i'm hoping that you will send cards and letters. some of you sent cards and letters already. but they are like two pages long. so help me out. and keep them nice and brief and punchy and we will get through as many as we can. welcome. >> thanks, again. >> first of all, i want to thank you for continuing do your engagement in unclassified environments so we can actually have conversations.

meaningful conversations. [ applause ] some of you may not know but mike rogers did his first session unclassified session with me back in 2011. he was the joint staff -- >> yeah. >> this is not something he is just doing because now he is direct over nsa or cyber com. so this is a continuation of something he's been doing for a long time. so i was just reading an article recently that the nato summit is -- >> really -- [ inaudible ] >> a nato summit in two weeks. and one of the items on the agenda is the cyber defense policy. and so i don't know if you are on your team, how directly involved you are. but what do you think some of the key points of a cyber

defense policy from a commander cyber com perspective should vis-a-vis some of our closest allies and nato. >> first, before i answer the question, thank you all again for hanging around. after 2100 i'm sitting in a beautiful comfy chair and part of me is going oh -- stay strong. so we are talking about what is the defense of a cyber defense policy. first thing that i think is important is the recognition that cyber defense is not something that one single entity will do. and in order to be successful in this area, it is about creating partnerships. how do we have the capability resident with the department of defense, department of government and commercial sectors. we are trying to figure out what should the vision of the cyber

defense of the future. number one, it is about partnerships. number two, it is about how do we enable those partnerships this year and what we are trying to do right now and where we need to be and not where we want to be. with the direction that i have is, upon the president or secretary of defense, not only do i do your day-to-day department of defense, but the cyber command mission is to be available for the secretary. to do that, u.s. cyber command can't do it alone. department of defense can't do it alone p. we have to have partners. that includes information sharing both ways. i'm quick to remind people, if i put on my nsa hat, and that information assurance mission i talked about, that's an important set of capabilities to help the government.

and in providing core defensive capability. the challenge for me is i'm not in those critical infrastructure is networks. would you necessarily want me in those network? i want to create partnerships. they are in a position to share information with us and i in turn can share information with them. hey, here's what i'm seeing in that red bottle space. here is what i think will come at you. these are the ttps i think, tactics, technique and procedures, you have to be able to defeat. i think individual groups will come at you. these are the things i think you need to look for. that's only one part that it takes to create good defensive structure. it is that two-way dialogue. great. i told you what i think you will see. tell me what you are actually seeing. one of the situations you see

that i don't know because i'm not monitoring your network, i look at what are the groups an individuals doing. i need that partnership to make this work. in talking to our nato allies, one of the things we try to highlight is this is about ultimately, i think you heard, one of my takeaways after four months in this job, quite frankly having been on and off for 11 decades cyber to me is the ultimate team sport. if there is any one group who thinks they have all of the answers and if there is one person who know everything, then that's probably. the answer. my experience is, that's not the answer. >> i will keep on theant national team for a little while. can you show how you were

working with director clapper and the rest of the national security team to build back plus with our allies an international trust in u.s. companies. >> so the first thing i would say is for the majority of our foreign partners, we don't have a trust deficit. but i will say clearly there are some with some very real concerns. collectively, we are attempting to ensure that we maintain an active dialogue with our foreign teammates. that we each, quite frankly, we need each other. those partnerships you keep hearing me talk about, those relationships, partnerships, the partnerships we have with key allies and friends overseas. i need them, and they need us. this is a two-way street. and can make the relationships work. we each have to acknowledge that

we each get something out of it. we will come to different conclusions. what with the different friends and allies, it is amazing what you can work through. there is no doubt in my mind that even as we work through challenges, all of us remember that ultimately back to my comments on br dinner. it is about funding citizens and the nation. i don't care if you're in europe somewhere, asia, south america, i welcome prtenerships. i also ask my partners what can nsa do to support you. not just, hey, here what i need to you do for pups that's not a partnership. that's not a true relationship. that's not what i'm interested in if i can avoid it. and acknowledge at times we will have a difference of opinion. all i ask is we've got to keep

talking to each other and work through this. >> you're over the first hyundais. >> here we go.uyundais. >> here we go.nyundais. >> here we go.dyundais. >> here we go.ryundais. >> here we go.eyundais. >> here we go.dyundais. >> here we go.hundred yundais. >> here we go.dyundais. >> here we go.ayundais. >> here we go.syundais. >> here we go.undais. >> here we go.ndais. >> here we go.dais. >> here we go.ais. >> here we go.is. >> here we go.s. >> here we go.. >> here we go. >> right now about now, you should have a sense of what your top priorities are for nsa and what your top priorities are for cyber com. >> that's my retirement speech. >> we want to know your stretch goals. >> so, my number one goal of the commander of the united states cyber command, is to create a cyber mission for us that the department is committed to. my view is, if you ask me, what do you think your legacy will be, as you are cyber command, i would say my tenure, we create the cyber mission for the department of defense. we enabled strong partnerships that we will build success off

large term and cyber is considered a very normal operation. not something specialized, unique, that hey a bunch of geeks do. hey look, cyber and the ability to operate and defend in the digital world that we're living in. aep are more likely to be involved in for the rest of our lives anyway. have you to be able to operate in some kind of environment. i try to tell operational commanders, look, you have to own this problem. we're way past the day where you can turn to your key indicator or chief information officer and say be with you know, the cyber network stuff will do good stuff. you just let me know when you fixed it all. that's not going to work. fz you got understand, how that cyber capability and helps the bodder op rigs yl vision.

and you've got to understand when you're taking a risk. in the end, it is all about risk. a couple things, first and foremost, making sure the work force understands we have a mission commit cal to this nation and its allies and we have to ex skies that mission. want do it with our head down, thinking whoa is me. we're going to get our head up an what we've go to remember. following the rule of law and ensuring accountability. as long as we do that, don't cut corners, stay focused on whatter with about, we're fine. second priority is making sure even as we lost capability because of compromises, make sure we can regenerate that. and the third thing really is, what did you hear me say in the opening remarks? what do we do now that won't pay for for 5 to 10 years?

our successors are going, what in the heck did roger do? because i believe you can see the future coming and i know under are things we have to do differently and partner with our broader intelligence partners. we are part of a bigger team. we are just one part. it is amazing what we can do when you think about immigration. i'm honored to partner with cia. and rogue dia, it is amazing what we do when we create strong integrated partnerships. i think that's the future in the intel jengs progression. >> so we have something going on at insa. in my own words, it's sort of taking stock of the national security arena in the digital

age. and how to you maintain relevance and impact in the digital age. and actually providing that extra "so what." so some of us, myself included, believe it might be a time when the paradigm is shifting starting with sensitive methods and seeing what else is out there in the open source or unclassified arena. and perhaps start with unclassified data and inside information and then focus sensitive sources and methods on the gap. is that a culture shift that you're thinking about? and if it isn't, you know, how are you approaching the digital age? >> the the comment i want to

make and i could be misunderstanding. so just tell me. >> sure. >> i'm leery at times when i listen to people, i'm going, you sound to me as if you're characterizing and it is one versus the other. >> nop right. >> one of the projects we are working on for fort meade -- [ inaudible ] >> what is that. >> [ inaudible ] >> right. >> this is a big cultural for them. >> there are unclassified things around you. in a way we don't normally do. very secure level. totally separate the class. go to a different place many times. the vision forness the future is how do we bring the two together? work them both simultaneously,

rather than a linear thing. start off on class five but start off at the highly classified level. the vision i think we have of the future is how to pro provide our analyst. and how do you use both sits of capabilities to generate -- it is amaze ppg the ones who have the clael with us, it ain't the young members of our work force. they look at it and say, this is how i want to live my life. what the the big deal? >> people that haven't been around for a while, oh. but part of me goes look, there's technical challenges. i think we can mitigate those. there is clearry risk. we have to go with eyes open. it is not either or. and living in the individual world we live in now, a single

officer, it just excites the heck out of me. there is opportunity out there. >> there are great opportunity out there to enjoy greater outsights to help the friendly nation and those are allies. that's opportunity for us. it is not a risk. a risk i guess, but not a threat, an opportunity. >> you were talking about the me linna. you have two of them and i have two of them. >> there are real challenges to recruiting, retaining, enabling them in the national security arena and having, as you talk about, the cyber force, you might not do it with military. you might have to have civilians

integrated if there. or you might have to have new ways of integrating contact for your support. there is sort of a die nam ek going on about manpower in general. what's your thinking on how you are approaching if? >> you need both. key components for us, in no particular order, i don't see that changing and civilians and if you look at the national security, they are in uniforms. and a uniform piece both active and reserve. you have to create a structure that harnesses capabilities of all of those. even the biggest thing that i'm interested in try doing as director of nsa is how do we create mechanisms. particularly given the technical

option. we need to work on this, whether it is outside, rainy, elements could come back. i am always amazed by the amount of people i talk to when i work and many of my ship mates are here, i'm a rogers at work. so start by tell meg about you. one of the things i always ask is tell me how long you have been with us and what brought you to us in the first place. i'm always amazed, how routinely these people have been with us 30, 35 years. i just did a dpsh-i'm doing a session next week, a young lady, been with us for 50 years. >> i'm glad you said -- >> i talked to leadership about it. hey. the flip side is, if we're not careful, he will be a very ancillary organization.

what do we do to create a membrane to bring people in and out. i want them to understand what shapes the corporate sector. what drives technical investment. the cutting edge technologies and r & b and if you're a venture capitalist, you are there right now. i never thought as naval officer i would be doing that. why? >> one of the best indicators you got out there. why. you want to invest money, no matter what they say, the technology. two, five years from now we have a baseline. they think it offers mon tirery return. i'm uninterested because i want

to think about the technology five years from now. you have to create a work force where you move back and forth. how would you like do internship at nsa? you want to spend people to work with us, two, three years. i can put in a good show, show them what we do. meet our security requirements. a sign of no compete because what we do is sensitive. but i want you to understand what we do. this will help in the partnerships. one of the experiences is we do not understand each other well and we don't know each other well. i would like to see what we can do to change that. what are the shapes? what are the things that they, that many of you, are concerned about? what shapes your world view? what concerns you. what is it about nsa that you want a better understanding of.

based on everything you know, you say, i'm a little uncomfortable. i want to have that dialogue. i want people to form their opinions from fact. not conjecture or a broad side view of the world. >> so let me poke at that a little bit. we, the royal we, hear a lot of government seniors talk about new kinds of partnerships, new kinds of relationships. with industry and ak demma. we don't see a lot of mechanisms put in place. i'm talking about the ability to have those open betting and sharing of ideas and getting folks within government who are are a fik lating oirmt to have those insights.

is there any part of why you are plan that's about how you put those now partnerships in place? >> okay, rogers sets. the limb knits the broader strategic rhythm. work force, the plen and women who have been doing if therefore a long time. you have great ensights. what i've done is provided the leadership team with a series of tasks. under is one of them. which i said, hey, you going to come back, tell me how you're going to do this. >> okay. we have great partnershipes with d & i. if you lock within the last six months for example, we have been granted authorities to change pay scale for the technical field. we approached a d & i partners. i said, look, we need to do things differently. here are the authorities we ask of you.

it is great to see them come back. that's very positive in the work force because many of the work force tells us, we love what we do. we want to stay with us. but, i could make a whole lot more money on the inside and work a whole lot of less hours. i wouldn't have any neighbors looking at me say willing, you work at nsa an i trust you. one of the reasons i had those men and women stand up tonight is because nsa is about men and women. about motivated people who want to make a difference. not who go to work everyday thinking about, you know, today i'm going to indiscriminately collect against people who i have no idea who we are. i just want to abuse the authority given to us. i could harness this technology and do things that having to to do with my mission. that is not what motivates those

men and women of fort meade aep around the world. they want to dot right thing for the right reasons. they are energized about the fact they tell them so. i go home every night thinking iep keeping them safe. they're not fperfect. but they are just like you. not some sort of tech no geek who has no idea what is going on around them and what doesn't think about the world around them. i'm willing to work with them. [ applause ] >> so i have quite a few questions about -- so i will rope them into one. and it's really about -- >> that is water.

>> i thought it was -- never meen. mind. they are getting established. you have the cyber source now coming on-line. since you've been both, i think you get that. >> clearly, under the current construct, the point i make is cyber command sets the standard. this is what the work force will look like. these are the skills we will have and training standard that it must meet. i and the command team provide that to the services and the servicers are tasked with generating capacity and capability. in broad terms, you have some authority. but in broad terms, under the current construct, u.s. cyber

command does not focus on acquisition. i don't generator buy capability. i have operational commander. don't go out and design them. don't go out and buy them. that's what services do. you know, much discussion, about hey is this a right and wrong term view. we will work our way through that. i just spent about an hour and a half with all of the service components and question i posed and i think we're coming up in about half way through this cyber mission build. we have a good mission for the future. . how are we going to generate through combat readiness?

i said, to me, it's like a ship. we spend, you know, eight years or so building it. the day it's commissioned, contractor turns it over to the united states navy. we have beautiful ceremony. turps out, there is nothing. we did everything we can. every member of that chew has qualifications to operate safely at sea. yet, depending on where they are all on their schedule, 12 to 24 months. a tough demanding operational arena. no difference. today was about how are we going to do that. we focused on commissioning the teams. that's great. but it doesn't get to war fighting skills. that's what we need and that's what department and nation is counting on for us.

we are spending a lot of tile focussing on that. and services keep harder than that. >> as you can imagine we have a few questions. related to snowden. but i think this one is the best. if so many elements of government media in the public seem to be displaying anti-nsa sentiment. how do you get the public to understand that nsa is clearly man tated legal roles and responsibilities and its commitment. you talked about that at a high level. >> right. >> are there some specific things that you and your team are doing? especially with, you know, the new onslaught of articles that

came out today? don't worry, your staff will have it all outline for you tomorrow. >> there we will be. >> so how are you dealing with whatever continues to come? >> so i think there's a couple things. quick, i'm quick to define the organization, look, i'm not going to spend my time, but what we need do is focus on the mission and doing the right thing for the right reasons the right way. follow the rule of law and always remember we are accountable to the citizens of the united states. keep that in mind. always remember that. and we're go tock fine. second thing that i say is that i think about, so, how do we address this deficit, and you can argue a trust deficit in some ways among some, i think

among the component, if you look, we probably declassified partner be with nia an others. i can remember as professional, i messed up my entier career. we are trying to ask ourselves, so, what with we do to make sure that nation has a seps of what we do and why. and i say, look, you got to be willing to do it. sometimes we get it wrong. when we get it wrong, we are going to report that. we have to be willing to acknowledge that. we are not perfect. but nog nobody is going to systematically undermine the rights of our citizens. or trying to systematically bypass the rlaws that we are required to execute. >> do that, i think we look at this in a very public way.

more information than we've ever done before. trying to engage in a broader public dialogue. tonight is an example of that. there's media here. fine, they need to be here. you need to ask what the audience has in mind and we will take it from there. >> another poent i try to make is that it just can't be about nsa, defending nsa. that's a loser to me. it needs to be part after broader dialogue and we are very fortunate and we have great partners out there who are willing to stand up and have that dialogue. i'm the first to admit, if it is just about nsa, we're missing the boat. from my perspective anyway. nsa needs to be a part of this dialogue but it needs to be much broader. people need to understand, there's a legal framework in position out there. we just don't un unilaterally decide how we do p.

we will shape what nsa focuses its foreign intelligence mission upon we have a set of court directed compliance requirements where we have to make a case in many cases to get the authority or permission to do what we do. we have regular congressional oversight where we have to notify and i have to testify. notify in writing and testify as well as privately in front of an oversight committee. part of the challenge in all of this is, if we're honest with each mechanism of governance do not have trust from our citizens. that's a tough thing to acknowledge. it doesn't help us as a nation that that's the case. but it is the case. and so one thing i try to tell the team out of fort meade is, i'm not going to waste my time

wishing the world was a certain way. we will acknowledge the world and acknowledge the way we operate and be effective in doing that. and we just have toing a knowledge that this is part of the challenge. not so much of what we structured initially if you go back historically for us. we insured congress as elected represent tifs and citizens of this nation, among the primary tools to ensure nsa's compliance. and yet we find ourselves in the situation where much of our public doesn't trust many elements or have low confidence in. so what do you do when your strategy is found owned that approach? you have to broaden it a little bit. that's one of the reasons you're here tonight and hopefully you will see things over the next few months where we are trying to find a dialogue. i'm not out here to sell anything. i'm not out here to necessarily convince anybody. but i told the team, stick to the facts and let people make

well-informed decisions with what they are comfortable with. that's what we need do. focus on the mission and stick to the facts. >> one last quick question. >> yes ma'am. >> those of us who support and have worked with both the fort meade area and dhs was in roles and missions related to the cyber arena, what is the partnership that you have in place or are putting in place -- >> i would tell you, for me i'm very fortunate. i would partner with a cabinet secretary in the form of jay johnson who i have worked with before in my career. i love the fact that it is just, jay will just pick up the phone and talk to rogers and rogers will pick up the phone and talk to secretary johnson about hey, i think we need do this, we need do that. he and i meet regularry. we talk to our teams about what

we need do to create stronger partnerships. what i have argued is there is great capability for cyber missions p. but we have got do this in a partnership with others. and the federal government, too big as partner, and dhs and fbi. and that the way it's going to be. that's what we need do. i'm not about control. the team at fort meade has to hear me say, it is about outcome. i don't care who gets the credit. this is about helping defend america and its allies. it is about the greater good. nsa needs to do that as part of its partnership. i would only highlight from my perspective, i love our partnership with dhs. i remember two, three years