would be left to guess what hundreds of actions that the administrator has a non-discretionary duty to perform the plaintiffs were interested in. what the court suggested and what seems like a very common sense way of dealing with the issues is that the parties get together, that the epa and attorney general's offices get together and thrash out request that was -- that was narrow enough and understandable enough so that they could respond to it. i wanted to comment that as i say, this is a relatively common problem. it's a problem that affects both sides of the equation. requesters really don't know much about what the agency's records are like. so they tend to make rather broad requests and often times the requests have do with certain subject matter which they assume falls -- seems to

fall under the agency's jurisdiction. so often times requesters are making rather broad requests. agencies are then faced with trying to figure out what it is and what in the world is it that the person actually wants. one way to deal with this -- we have talked about this for ages. it was ultimately codified in the foia amendments in 1996 was for the agency to come back to the requester and say, i don't understand what your request is asking for or this is really too complex and it's -- too time consuming and if you are willing to narrow the request and here are some suggestions, we can handle the request more expeditiously for you. that's basically the tradeoff for the agency is that the request gets narrow and more manageable and the bone that's being thrown to the requester is that they will respond to it more expeditiously.

that often times still is not -- it doesn't happen in practice. but that's kind of where the statute is supposed to be. i have a friend who is a litigator in the national security area at the moment. and he has been fighting with the cia on several occasions as to whether he had asked for records that had the modifiers like pertaining to or related to. and the agency said, that's way -- that's way too complicated for us to possibly deal with. of course, they didn't bother to ask the requester how he would like to narrow it. but i will say that at least in one case, the agency won that argument. so that's not necessarily a losing argument by any means. the next case that i want to talk about is actually a case brought by alan's organization

against the justice department. what epic was asking for was national security -- the department of defense -- the department of justice's national security division had reports that they submitted to congress pursuant to the foreign intelligence act summarizing. epic asked for expedited processing. the agency gave them expediting processing and a fee waiver but then nothing more happened. so epic filed suit. what epic wanted was for the court to say -- the court to issue a preliminary injunction requiring the agency to respond within 20 days of the court's order. the judge in this case is an obama appointee.

and she looked at the effect of the case that we discussed last year in which case -- i can talk about it more again. the case called crew, which is citizens for reresponsibility and ethics here in washington versus the fec, federal elections commission. and in that case, the d.c. circuit rules that an agency has to make a determination on what it's going to do with the request within 20 working days and what a determination entails is some degree of specificity about how the request is going to be handled and also the requester's right to appeal if they so desire. i'm sorry. crew had sued the fec when it felt the fec's determination --

what the fec thought was a determination was not adequate enough. indeed, the d.c. circuit court said the determination was not adequate enough. and what crew got as a result after 20 working days was over was that they got an opportunity to go to court. that's referred to as constructive exhaustion of remedies. and the plaintiff has an absolute -- under this decision, the plaintiff has an absolute right to go to court after 20 working days. but it's not clear that they have much other remedy. but anyway, judge brown-jackson said that this case, the crew case, basically stood for the proposition that once you had -- once the agency had not

responded in time, you got to go to court. and that was it. epic argued largely because of the -- they won on similar situation in 2006 that there was a presumption that the agency was violating the foia by not responding on time. and that gave them permission to continue -- have the case processed. jackson basically said, well, you know now that the crew case exists, crew versus fec, basically the only thing -- the only remedy that you have is to go to court and hopefully you can get the court to be more amenable to your argument. but you don't get to force the agency to answer the response -- to respond any more quickly. basically, under the expedited

processing provision the only thing you get is to be moved into a separate -- a faster cue and the agency has to respond as quickly as practical. judge jackson said, that's about it. the next case i -- i will come back to this later on, because bernie wanted me to talk about this apropos of when the law enforcement exemption. this is a case denise gillman. she was a law professor at the university of texas. she wanted to get information about the homeland security assessment of how to construct the fence and this and that. and one of the things she had agreed to do was to accept the

e-mails that were being put together to respond to another piece of litigation, again by the organization crew. and she had agreed that -- because much of this review work had already been done. that she would accept that as responsive to her request. well, one of the things that crew had agreed to do in its separate litigation was to not go after any e-mail attachments that were part of the e-mails. gillman said, no, no, i want those attachments. judge howell said, again, you have basically -- you are restricted by the agreement that you made as far as accepting what was available in crew's litigation. again, this is a strategic decision that plaintiffs frequently make to try to get some records that they know that they could get more quickly and wait for other records.

so gillman, who isn't probably an experienced foia litigator, basically again got stuck on the situation of having to accept something that she probably really didn't want to accept in the short run. the other case -- let me see if i can find this one. the other case i wanted to talk about because there's about some interesting decisions in last year, year and a half, maybe the last couple of years, actually, on one of the -- on what's known as exemption 3. exemption 3 is a provision that allows other statutes that meet the criteria of exemption 3 to be considered as restrictive provisions. and provide confidentiality in their own right. in this case, the argus -- this

is a case called argus leader media versus department of agriculture. the argus leader, the newspaper in souix falls, south dakota, had asked for information on food stamp redemptions. and indeed the statute protects redemption information -- redemption data when it comes directly from a retailer. unfortunately, in the district court said, okay, well, this information is basically of that nature and i believe that this exemption applies appropriately much when the case got to the eighth circuit, they said that -- let me see here. that the exemption applied only to the redemption data supplied by a retailer and in today's

world, this information issing agated and collected by the ago culture department through third party processors and through a debit card that food stamp recipients use. so the eighth circuit essentially said -- let me see. the statute makes clear that only information obtained under this provision, which is submitted by a retailer, is exempted. when the statute says obtained, it means obtain, not can be obtained as a district court reasoned. so because the information had not been obtained from the proper party, the eighth circuit ruled that the exemption didn't apply. the other -- when i mentioned exemption, there aren't -- there isn't that much litigation under exemption 3. often times exemption 3 statutes exist in many ways to serve the interests of various

institutional interests but also various commercial and business interests to provide a more concrete sort of confidentiality for records. if you specify what the record is and it fits the -- into the exemption, 24ethen it's exempt. businesses in particular like exempt 3 more than the business exempt because tle thihey thinks more regularity. but there have been several instances in the past year. one exemption 3 statute that's been litigated up and down that has come back to be relitigated is the export administration act, which basically says that you can't get information about the export of munitions. the problem with that statute is that it expired probably 15

years ago. nevertheless, the d.c. circuit ruled that no matter whether it's expired or not, it's still legitimate because of the way it has been -- it continued to be implemented through executive orders and whatnot. but a judge in california said, no, now we're six to eight years further down the line and there still hasn't been any move in congress to reauthorize this statute. so the statute -- you can't use this statute as an exemption 3 statute. the other two statutes i thought were kind of interesting -- one statute -- let me back up just a little bit. at the beginning of president obama's administration, there was an incident in which there was a foia case that was ultimately accepted by the

supreme court having to deal with disclosure of the detainee photos from afghanistan and iraq. to prevent the case from going to the supreme court, the obama administration and democrats -- senate democrats put together an exemption 3 statute that allowed the defense department to certify that these records should be exempt and they would be exempt. and the quid pro quo for passing that was to pass a little piece of legislation known as the open foia act, which basically states that you can't have an exemption 3 statute -- it isn't valid until it cites to the freedom of information act. so recently -- very unusual exemption 3 statute that has been recognized is a statute passed during the bush

administration to protect -- to prohibit the bureau of alcohol, releasing gun trace information. this is a statute basically it doesn't -- it doesn't provide an exemption, it doesn't describe the documents as much as it says you can't spend any funds on dealing with this. this exemption was cited by batf quite recently in a case against a prisoner. the judge ruled that because that statu statute doesn't citee foia, it wasn't a valid exemption 3 statute any longer. he didn't order disclosure of the records. but he told the agency that they would have to scramble for better justification than that one. the other statute that has a name that's so long i can't pronoun

pronoun pronounce, but it came up to prohibit disclosure of the detainee photos. and one of its down stream provisions was that the defense department can continue to withhold these records if every three years it certifies that there's a security reason that out weighs public interest in protecting them. the judge in new york decided after reviewing the affidavits that defense department secretary of defense lee on panetta had given, that they didn't do anything except refer back to the case in 2006 and they weren't adequate to meet the agency's burden. he shot down that exemption as well. again, he said, well, you know, this really is sensitive material. i'm going to let the government come up with -- some other

defense that we can -- you can't just -- this isn't a slam dunk as far as the exemption 3 is concerned. i thought those are several rather interesting cases. as far as exemptions 3 was concerned. the case that got my vote as the absolute worse case of the year is a case called -- a mouthful. public employees for environmental responsibility versus united states section international boundary and water commission, u.s. mexico. this is a case that the d.c. circuit decided in the beginning -- in january of this year. the case had made a request to this water commission -- international and boundary commission for some records.

the agency had withheld some records that dealt with assessments of two dams. the agency's jurisdiction is the rio grande river and its immediate tributaries. and they had reports on two dams on the vulnerabilities of two dams and then they had what are known as flood inundagss, which are plans that project what might happen to down stream populations if something happened to a dam. they had withheld both of these. they sued in sdrith court. the district court upheld the government's claims completely. when it got to the d.c. circuit, they argued in part that these records were not -- this was

not -- its u.s. section was not a law enforcement agency that could take -- could claim the records were exempt under the law enforcement exemption. the judge who wrote the opinion for court said that you didn't really have to show that an agency had a law enforcement function. you just had to show that a record was created for law enforcement purposes. and then what the judge and the court did was it glommed on the concurrence in millner versus the navy. in that case the court decided that that language did not comport with the statutory language of exemption 2 and that

provision that had basically -- a court-created provision that it existed for nearly 30 years was no longer any good. so alito decided to sketch out a scenario under which the government could claim that all these records were law enforcement records. basically, the argument he made was that any records that deal with security issues are clearly created to be used for law enforcement purposes. so if any record fits into that category, then down the line it can be used -- claimed as an exemption. he also said that -- even earlier supreme court decision, a case called john doe corporation versus john doe

agency in which the supreme court decided that an audit that had been conducted by the defense contracting auditing agency, a plain vanilla audit that was more or less publically available when it was created qualified as a law exemption record after it became part of an fbi investigation of the contractor. the argument was that the statute said, it has to be -- to be covered by exemption 7, it has to be created for law enforcement purposes. the court agreed that it can be compiled for law enforcement purposes. so the court, as i say, with al alito's agreement, said all of this information qualifies. this is kind of like -- kind of just in my mind just a disaster

waiting to happen, because i think this expands the category of law enforcement records to such an extent, almost anything that pertains in any way to security or resource management or anything could be law enforcement. so we now have this case on the books. fortunately, nobody hardly has used it. the other case wasn'ted to mention quickly, again, was the gillman case. bernie asked me to talk -- the homeland security, it withheld records about its analysis of where the fence ought to be built in texas. under exemption 7e, which covers investigative methods and techniques. gillman said much of this stuff is public information and it's about the observable geography

of the border and whatnot. it's not about methods and techniques. what howell said was that -- let me see. the discussion of publically available information itself reveals what information customs and border protection considers when analyzing vulnerabilities at the border. this analysis itself is not publically known and may risk sir couple vision of the law. so she said that even if the agency was using information that could be categorized as public information, the fact that it was analyzing the public information along with non-public information made it so that it did fit under exemption 7e. with that, i will conclude. take things up later. [ applause ] >> thank you, harry. for those watching on c-span,

the critical factor here was, ask the agency specifically for what you want. recognize the agency has many incentives not to honor your freedom of information request. and if you are really bored and it's late at night and you are watching c-span switch over to the cable channel that's running monte python. there in monte python, the holy grail, the oger asks the traveller, what is your name, what is your request, what is the capital of syria. you can answer the first two but you can't answer the third. you wind up in the chasm of death. similarly the agency has ways of deals with things it doesn't want to honor. with that metaphor, we are now proud to have with you alan

butler. as i mentioned at the start of my introduction, the bbc radio program this morning spoke of big data for spooky uses. in the era of ed snowden. where he about to go into the subject of big data who in the private sector is gathering your big data, who in the public sector is listening to you and forming big data about you and all those issues that the electronic privacy information center has on its agenda. alan butler. >> thank you. so that's a lot to cover in a brief amount of time. i'm going to focus today, my talk, on developments in the last year and issues of nsa

surveillance and transparency and oversight related to nsa surveillance. just to give a brief background on sort of what we're talking about here, you have heard about a number of different programs likely over the last year if you have been following these nsa stories. i will give a quick overview so we have some sort of common terminology and framing here. so there's really a number of different authorities at the nsa has used that we have learned about over the last year. the first is section 215 of the patriot act which is codified at section 1861 of title 50 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. this is what's known as the business records provision. this is the provision that we heard about most notably with the initial snowden leaks and subsequent discussions and disclosures. the provision that was relied upon by the nsa and the fbi to acquire all telephone call

detail records on an ongoing basis, both local, domestic and foreign records. so this is a provision that was enacted as i said in the initial patriot act and subsequent amendments that provides for the authority to obtain business records or tangible things that are relevant to an ongoing international terrorism investigation. so when this provision was initially enacted, it was sort of -- there was a bit of backlash because people saw it as library records provision. people thought it was all about -- it wassi going to be ud to get people's reading records. there was an amendment that limited the use of this provision to obtain information on a u.s. person based on their first amendment protected actc e activi activity. no one knew that this provision was being used to collect records in bulk and to put some sort of concrete details on what that means, the primary order

from the foreign intelligence surveillance court -- what happens is the fbi files an application with the foreign intelligence surveillance court, a panel of judges appointed by the chief justices of the supreme court. they sit in wait for applications from the national security division of the department of justice. they review the applications in secret in an ex parte decision. the court there we found out last year -- we have found out issued an order to verizon business network services, a sub s subsidiary of verizon asking for all call detail records and defining what is included in a call detail record but basically phone routing information. call time, numbers dialled to and from, duration of the call, identifying information about the phones. they are asking for verizon to

produce that information on an ongoing basis for all calls that it processes. that's what we mean by a bulk collection. 215 is not about a specific record, about a specific investigation. it's being used by the department of justice and the fbi to collect all call records available in the united states. we know from public statements of officials that this -- these orders went just issued to verizon. they were issued to at&t and sprint, the three major telephone providers in the united states. the theory was that in order to find the needles needed in the investigation, the fbi and the nsa had to get the haystack. they had to collect all the tell phone call records to subject them to querying analysis, they call contact chaining, taking a phone number and querying to find out what are all the numbers that that phone number has called in the last five years and what are all the

numbers that all -- all the numbers that that number called in the last five years and so on. referred to as a hop. that's section 215. then we learned about a program has been referred to as prism. which is actually a program authorized under section 702 of the amendment act of 2008 which is codified in title 50. this is a program where in the attorney general and the director of the national intelligence going to the court on an annual basis, apply for the authority to issue what they call directives to internet service providers. so what this means is they go to the court and they said, we have a program that we would like to implement to acquire communications that we reasonably believe are foreign communications from service providers in the united states. and we would like to for the next year implement that program with certain -- what they call minimalization procedures,

procedures used to process -- the communications once it's collected. the court approves this program. then the fbi can issue these e directives and say we have the authority to obtain this communication that we believe is foreign and related to our investigations. please give it to us. so we found out last year that they had been doing this through direct access to these internet service providers. there has been a series of developing stories about that. two other provisions that we have learned about over the last year that have been discussed with the national security letter provisions and the pen register provisions. these are both provisions that are -- that exist in multiple places in the code. some -- they are notional security title 50 versions and regular criminal versions title 18 of both the these provisions. the idea is with a national

security letter, its a subpoena issued by the fbi to a business for certain information relevant to an investigation. so because it's a subpoena, there's no oversight. and because it's a national security subpoena, there are usually attached with it a gag order requiring the provider not disclose any information about that order. the pen register provisions govern the use of technologies -- numbers dialled to and from. but now with internet communication, it could mean other information, including information about what servers are communicating with each other, what sorts of communications are being passed betweene-mail,

rounding information and the like. we learned that up until 2011, the government was using the pen register authority under the foreign intelligence surveillance act under title 50 to collect in bulk communications records about basically communications routing information about entire sets of e-mails related to investigations into terrorist organizations. this included e-mail routing information about doe motion tick e-mails within the united states. then finally, there's another area of surveillance that we're beginning to hear more about, which is surveillance conducted pursuant to executive order 12333. when you hear about 12333, what's happening is the fisa governs electronic surveillance. that's defined in the statute. basically, what that means is the fisa governs surveillance activity that takes place within

the united states under certain definitions. there are surveillance activity taking place outside the united states, both in other countries and surveillance that takes place at facilities, for example, where transatlantic cables connect and internet communications are routed through the united states and other countries. those are not directly regulated by the fisa. they are governed by an executive order issued by president reagan in the '80s and provides for limitations on intelligence community activities. basically, anything that's outside of fisa is governed by 12333. with that background, i will mention just really quickly that building on what harry said, there have been a number of cases challenging the 215 bulk call detail records programs. these cases specifically the main cases are -- have been

brought by three different organizations, one here in washington, d.c., the aclu in t the second unit and one in eff and other groups in ninth circuit. the entities bringing the suit, either individual or organization like aclu, they are all verizon customers. it's not purely the case that they are arguing that the nsa collecting everything, so they must have collected our call communications. they are saying, the nsa -- we know the nsa collected verizon communications because we have this order to verizon. we are verizon customers. our communications records have been -- not content, have been collected. they allege both statutory and constitutional violations. so in the statutory realm in the aclu case, they allege that section 215 itself does not authorize the nsa to collect in

bulk call detail records from u.s. companies. the basic argument is that the statute requires the records be relevant to an ongoing investigation. their argument is that all records cannot be relevant. otherwise, relevance has no meaning. the arguments we have seen both in briefing from the government and in opinions that have been released from the court on the other side is essentially an argument of necessity. the government says we have a need to collect all these records because in order to get the needles, we need the haystack, sch not an argument about relevance so much about necessity. it's not clear why it's the case that necessity should be sufficient where the statute says relevance. that's an ongoing issue. and then the second issue that's being briefed is whether the collection of all the this -- the domestic phone records without any reasonable suspicion or probable cause violates the

fourth amendment. the main response from the government and president in the court opinions in those cases is that basically call detail records are not protected by the fourth amendment because of smith versus maryland, the case from 1979. so the ongoing issue there, especially now post the supreme court's most recent decision in riley versus california is whether smith versus maryland is still applicable to modern communications networks in 2014. that will be an interesting issue to watch going forward. all these cases are pending. the case here in d.c. will be heard in a few weeks. the smith v. obama case will be heard a few weeks after that in december. the aclu versus clapper case had oral arguments. many people predict that will end up in the supreme court within the next few years.

we will see. i will talk about a few more developments in national security law and transparency over the last few years. they fall into four different categories. the first as i mentioned a little bit is transparency in this area. new releases and new information that we're learning about. the second has to do with sort of the president's reaction to the leaks and his decision on how to change the programs going forward. the third is about congress's reaction and where congress stands on the reform questions. the fourth is about the biggest new issue going forward, which is 12333. so first on declassification and transparency regarding these types of surveillance. there's been a few really significant developments here. the first significant development to highlight is that the fisa court, which for many, many -- existed for many years, since the late 1970s and has

heard for a long time only applications for individual surveillance based on reasonable suspicion that individuals were foreign actors or agents of foreign governments was really a niche area that most people didn't pay attention to until recently and especially over the last year. but now the court has public facing website and a public docket. they have a public docket and they are releasing information about public cases. the docket has 200 entries. those are only entries that are dated after 2013. in addition to that, we're also getting on an ongoing basis, troves of historical court opinions that had been with held for years and years on classification grounds that are now being declassified by the director of national intelligen

intelligence. there's too many to go over. but most importantly, i will highlight a few things that have been declassified over the last year. the most -- one of the most important things that has declassified is the original opinion authorizing the internet metadata program. it was issued in 2004. this is the seed opinion for all of the bulk collection. what essentially happened -- another thing that's been rereleased this year in a case that my organization brought is the memorandum of the office of legal council written by jack goldsmith and others that preceded the metadata opinion. it was the analysis said it's legal if the court -- they sought approval from the court. what really happened in terms of the time line is that this -- these programs were in

development and ongoing since 2001, right after 9/11. but they were conducted within the bush whitehouse and within the nsa in secret for a number of years. then there was a revolt within the whitehouse and the department of justice over authorization of the programs. they were subsequently transitioned over to the fisa court under the pen register provision. in 2006, they applied for the first business record call meta data order from the court. that court granted it without writing a opinion. they didn't write an opinion because the department of justice basically pointed at the 2004 opinion and said, this opinion about internet meta data is exactly what we are applying for under the 215 program. that's an important historical document and sets the framing

and context for this debate over the legality under the statute and constitutionally. another thing relevant to the transparency issue is that the director of national intelligence has a public facing website where it publishes declassified documents. interestingly, it's a tumbler page. it's an interesting resource for declassified documents in this context. there's a lot of historical information up there now. they are tcontinuing to publish more information. we have had publish report issued by the privacy and civil liberty oversight board. one report finding the 215 program was illegal and that it was also ineffective and a report by the president's review group that was appointed last year to review intelligence programs that made a similar

finding about effectiveness and made other significant recommendations. so there's been a lot of reporting going on and a lot of transparency there. there's been a battle between internet service providers that are subject to these authorities and the government over what they can release in their annual transparency reports. a number internet service providers, including google and yahoo! and the like actually went to the court and brought their own declaratory suit seeking the permission of the court to release the aggregate numbers of their -- of the orders that they received and the government sort of responded and they had litigation. they settled out of court in that case with a new sort of set of rules and principals that the companies can follow that allow them to report in bands of 0 to 500, 500 to 1,000 how many requests they are receiving. more recently in the last few weeks, twitter brought suit in

federal district court seeking to disclose more information than that. twitter is not subject to that consent order. they want to release more information in their annual transparency reports. moving on to the president's speech. there was a -- the president gave a speech on nsa surveillance last -- this year in january on the 17th. he really addressed two issues in that speech. the first was he made a pledge to end the suspiciousless bulk collection program as we know it. they began to implement that program with certain self-imposed restrictions within the first few months, basically the doj said we want authority to collect all telephone records, but we're only going to query those records when we show -- when we bring the court evidence that we have a reasonable suspicion that the

number that we are using to query the records is related to international terrorism in an investigation. so they self-imposed some restrictions. but they refuse to stop collecting in bulk until congress passed a new bill that i will talk about in a minute that would sort of change the regime that they would operate under. the other thing that the president announced is that he would impose new restrictions on foreign communications data that he had collected. that proposal was summarized in presidential policy directive 28 that he published and released. pursuant to that directive, one of the first orders was for the intelligence community via the coordination of the director of national intelligence to develop new procedures for the handling of the data that they acquire and that report -- the first report by the dni on that

process was actually just released this morning. so now there's a new report there in the dni is focused its inquiry on next steps for the intelligence community agencies on how they are going to modify their procedures and what new rules will apply. one thing that i will sort of mention kind of big picture about pbd 28 is that the efforts of the administration and the director of national intelligence here are entirely focused on minimalization rules and restrictions on the use of data that they have collected. it's the administration's position that with respect to data communications data acquired outside the united states, not on specified individual persons, that they basically don't want any restrictions on collection. so they are focusing all of their energy about talking about restrictions on the use of that data, how that data might be

minimized or sort of processed after it has been collected. but they don't want to accept any restrictions on their ability to collect that data. moving on to what's happening in congress right now. originally, following the snowden disclosures, there were two bills that were competing bills that were developed in the house and senate coming from different sides. one coming from intelligence community proponents and the other from liberals and other anti-surveillance members. now what we have had is a kind of combination of groups. we have had a co-lessed unity between one bill that has two versions, one in the house and senate called the usa freedom act. and that bill has gone through several rounds of revisions that have been significant but in a lot of -- detailed ways, but what we have now is a version of

that bill that's pending in the senate. it's probably unlikely that it will be passed this year. but it's a possibility. more entirely from a strategic perspective, if it doesn't pass this year, next year is actually when the 215 authority sunsets. so there will be sort of forced decision there from congress as to whether to extend that authority or not. that will sort of raise additional points about these authorities. just to give a brief outline of the bill, again there's a lot of detailed provisions in it. but the basic structure of the bill is that there are certain substantive changes to the rules of section 215, section 702 and the national security letter provisions. those changes specifically are within section 215 to kind of cod phi the new non-bulk call detail records provision that

would basically allow the government to rather than collect from the telephone companies all records and then query them themselves, they would actually have the government go to a telephone company and ask for queried records from the telephone company. give us all the contact -- the first two hops of data from this seed. so the government that way would not collect everything and then que querying. it would have the phone company do the querying and then deliver the results to them. there's other -- other limitations on section 702 and the national security letter provisions. there's new reporting requirements, new requirements of inspector general reports and transparency reports and that -- that would require the government to account for the number of queries they are submitting and also provide

diskrdi disdiskripive of how they are limiting the analysis of the data. there's a provision for the creation of a special advocate at the fisa court. available to provide arguments on the other side of fisa applications where a significant interpretation of the law is concerned. the most current iteration of this proposal has basically the fisa court agreeing on a panel of expert attorneys and the fisa court making the decision when to bring those attorneys in for briefing if there's a significant question of law. so i think the current proposal as congress is considering it has certain strengths and weaknesseses. the primary strength is it would fix the narrow problem of phone records in the sense that it has

a provision within the law that clearly says the government cannot collect in bulk and the way it's been doing and instead has to go through a new system where the phone company delivers query results to them. another strength is that it would require the ongoing declassification of significant fisa court opinions. those in the past is a huge root of the problem that we have seen where there's really this disconnect between the intelligence community and congress and the public in terms of what they think the law is and how that develops. finally, another strength would be the addition of adversarial at the fisa court itself. but i do think there are significant weaknesses to the proposal as it's articulated. it doesn't limit what they call back-door searches within section 702. what that means, section 702 is a program of what you might call

bulk collection in the sense they are not collecting every electronic communication that ever gets transited abroad, but they are collecting large categories of communications. it's not tailored to a single e-mail address or a single term. once they collect that information, which they have to target to communications they believed to be foreign, they are going to necessarily acquire communications that are purely domestic and include the communications of u.s. persons. the question is once they have that data in a database, who can search it and how can they search it. what can they search it for? specifically, can they search that information once they have already collected it for the name or seed of u.s. person. can they take a person's e-mail address and search. the 702 database for communications of that person once they have already collected them.

if so, do they have to have a warrant, reasonable suspicion so the law does not address that. it also did you want address bulk collection under section 2515 that aren't call records. there's a pretty strong theory that the government is collecting financial data in bulk. if they are collecting financial data in bulk, that would not be covered by the provisions in the current version of the bill that govern collection of call detail records. also i think the transparency versions are somewhat limited in terms of how the recording would actually be accomplished. there's specifically the fbi, which is one of the major actors on the domestic side of this is exempted from the transparency requirements. finally, looking forward the looming issue and the issue that the club is now considering and others have been discussing is the issue of surveillance under executive order. 12333. this is surveillance that has,

for the most part, fallen outside of the traditional oversight mechanisms that have been in place for fisa. it's surveillance that the public knows very little about. there's been statements made by a former state department official who is now sort of an active whistleblower in this area that said the way this is being used by the federal government in certain circumstances he thinks violates the fourth amendment. what he's implying is that there's a great deal of data communications that's collected outside of the united states, but that involves communications of u.s. persons. this is easy to understand when we think about the nature of internet and telecommunications networks. interpret communications transit the globe in many ways. they transit the globe when u.s. persons sends an e-mail outside

the united states. they transit the globe even if we send it within the united states, depending on how the packets are routed and also that the companies that provide these services like google and yahoo! have servers outside the united states. for redundancy purposes, they are transferring that data back and forth over the border. so a great deal of domestic communications are sort of subject to collection outside of the united states, beyond the rules of the fisa. when those are collected. we ask the same about 702. who can access them, what are the minimization rules and who can search them and who oversees that process. that's really going to be the question -- the main questions going forward in that area. with that, i can turn it over and have some questions. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> a quick administrative point. as you head out when you're ready to go for the break, pick

up the thumb drive that has the documents to which bernie and harry made reference. it if you didn't pick up the printed versions, the thumb drives are available at the registration desk. secondly, this is a cle program and so we have evaluation sheets also available. so please consider rating our presenters. i'm very pleased with the presenters and the quality of the excellent work they have done. now it's your work. unfortunately, we only have about five minutes. so i welcome your question please. keep confidential your identities so we don't know. >> i have a question for mr. butler about the usa freedom act that would impose some limits on surveillance and collection and monitoring. one, are there time limits on record retention? >> yes, so traditionally the time limit has been five years.

i believe that the u.s. current version of the act retains that five-year period. >> and another question is do both the house and senate versions of this legislation now agree that there should be a panel or a special advocate? this is something that was contested by u.s. district court judge john bates who at one time was chief judge of the fisa court. >> right, so the house version, to clarify a bit of the procedural, the house version has passed by the full house. the senate version is different and is, i believe, being considered by the senate judiciary committee or might have passed out. regardless it has not passed the

full senate. both versions, i believe, have the panel at this point. but you're collect that judge bates has been sort of an outspoken advocate and somewhat contentiously he's written in his voice as the administrator -- in the administrative office of the executive courts he's spoken for the judiciary on this position and other judges have written about that. >> next question. >> i have a question. i have a vague recollection that obama either made a statement or issued an executive order that foya should be more generously interpreted, how it was being handled under bush and there was more denials. in your sense, do you think that has come to pass or not? >> the 2009 document which referring was issued soon after the inauguration of president obama. we call it the holder memo, but it was attorney general holder who was replacing or basically vacating what the george w. bush

administration had. so the holder memo in january or february of 2009 was extremely supportive of public disclosure and there's a wide spectrum of opinion of how effective that was. dogs bark and cows moo and administrators don't like to disclose things, regardless who is at the top of the agency. from my perspective as a viewer, the holder memo has not been implemented. >> i don't have any strong feelings, but it would be hard to be more conservative as far as providing documents on the bush administration. so my sense is that the administration is a little bit more willing to provide documents that they would have

an argument withholding under foia, but i don't have any kind of evidence to support that. >> harry? >> i think this is a perfect example of the saying, he talks a talk but doesn't walk the walk. the obama administration -- i would say that the holder memo which implemented a memo that came under obama is not an executive order, but this administration has said some of the best stuff about foia that any administration in memory has said. but when push came to shove, they have been performed much better than the other administrations. i think a lot of people thought that this administration was more open actually there's a legislation that has passed the house and is currently in the senate, but one of its features would be changes in exemption 5

in the process privilege largely because that's considered to be one of the most abusive exemptions used in government, and that has not been the -- the abuses have not been any better under the obama administration. basically, i'd say a lot of people would say this is more talk than action. the talk has been extremely elegant. >> certainly, make your own judgment. when you read the holder memo, it's significantly open. when you sit in ohio and work as i do on issues involving the natural gas fracking and you look at it and say, why won't the army corps of engineers tell us what they have been doing to support the drilling under the lakes? they released one memo that says, let us know how our engineers can help you find more

gas under our lakes. and the bomb trains, utility-sized rail cars full of material coming from the shale in north dakota. it's coming through the rail lines. i have been an elected official in a community. we are trying to find out what's in the trains and how many of them are there, a bomb train is my word, not theirs. and the a answer is we can't find out. it's frustrating for the local elected official not to be able to get this information. i'll spare you my grief and turn to alan. >> i think as a lit gator and requester, we have not experienced a wealth of additional transparency under this administration. partially what's happened is there's been a pivot by the obama administration away from foia towards open data endeavors. so they have done a lot in terms

of creating new portals. sort of opening government data sets. but they haven't been doing much to improve the process for requesters or litigators. i think there's a disconnect between -- also between how foia is handled by the department of justice versus it is handled by litigators in the civil branch. we have seen some really extreme claims by government lawyers in the civil branch that i don't think even the department of justice would support. >> it really has been remarkable the gap between what the obama administration has said on paper and what they are allowing their staff people to do. we have time for one more question. anyone who would like to ask a question? thank you very much on behalf of the committee. we would encourage you if you're not a member, join the section

of practice. please join the committee on government information privacy. because this is really relevant stuff. this is very significant administrative law. we need your brains and your wisdom. thank you very much and have a good afternoon. [ applause ] the defense department tweeting pictures of veteranses on this holiday from events around washington, d.c. some of the veteranses are here today and the names of hr are memorialized on the wall behind us. this one reads, and then a picture of joe jay murphy and his family. u.s. marine corps sergeant murphy served in vietnam from 1965 to '66. it shows the hashtag # share your story. share your story with c-span viewerers on our facebook page.

let us know your message for veteranses. go to facebook.com/c-span. later today, arizona senator and navy veteran john mccain. he'll recount the lives of american soldiers who served in con flicks ranging from the revolutionary war to warses in iraq and afghanistan. he'll talk about his book 13 soldiers, a personal history of americans at war. he'll talk about the book today at the national press club. live coverage at 6:30 eastern on c-span 2. c-span veteranses day coverage continues tonight at 7:00 eastern. day coverage continues tonight at 7:00 eastern. the traditional wreath laying ceremony at arlington cemetery. then the uso gala featuring general martin dempsey. also discussions on veterans

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local cable or satellite provider. watch in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. next, challenges implementing the new star treaty when relations height ed. this is from a panel on u.s. nuclear policy hosted by the fulbright u.s. student program's annual conference in washington, d.c. it's just over an hour. good morning. oh, i know you can do better than that. let's start again. good morning!

all right. now i know it is a good morning. thank you so much. he said retired? what is that? as my mother said, no, you breathe your last breath, then you retire. our theme for the program is "dare to act." the theme for today is "dare to lead." but we have all of these dares and i just want to take a second to speak about them because i want you to own them, at least own one. so it's dare to act for the conference, dare to lead for this morning, dare to impact, dare to include, dare to engage, dare to innovate. now here's one i love -- dare to transform. got it? dare to transform. dare to improve. dare to empower. and then, my work -- dare to educate and dare to create.

so how many of these dares have you had as a part of your life? think about it. i can run through the list and think about the hundred years that i've been alive and i've been daring all my life. what about you? i certainly hope that you will help us as we go into a new age at fulbright, not committed to do. i came back from south africa with many dares. it was the year of 1996 and '97. as that entire country was changing, not only did i change but my husband changed, my kids changed, my community changed, my extended family members. then i came back to america and i said, y'all come. so for 15 years we took about 500 people with us. dare to change, dare to transform. and so those 26 trips totally change me but as i said my entire community. and we have senator fulbright to say thank you. isn't that powerful? dare to transform. and so as we transform we change

our world. yes? so i'm expecting a lot from you. i bump into you in the hallway or in the ladies room or coffee hour or whatever, you need to look me in the eye and say, i'm ready to dare, too, and you have to speak the next word. all right? i'm going to look at you and you've got to talk back to me. my task today is to introduce two very important individuals. i'm just delighted to have this opportunity to, first, introduce dr. hans blix, our awardee for the fulbright prize. he is recipient of the 2014 prize and we are absolutely thrilled to have him. and then i'm also going to introduce tom. let's start first with dr. hans blix. dr. blix is a swedish diplomat and politician for the liberal people's party. he was swedish minister for foreign affairs, 1978 to 1979, and later became the head of the

international atomic energy agency. blix was the first western representative to inspect the consequences of chernobyl disaster in the soviet union on site and led the agency's response to them. blix was also the head of the united nations monitoring verification and inspection commission from march 2000 to june 2003. he was succeeded by demetrius perkoff, and in 2002 the commission began searching iraq for weapons of mass destruction and we know the end of that story. right? so we welcome him and we're so proud to have him as our

recipient for this year. next, tom knight is a managing director and vice chair of morgan stanley, a leading global service firm. he focuses on the firm's global clients and other key constituencies around the world and serves as a member of the firm's management committee and operating committee and reports to morgan stanley, chief executive officer james gorman. prior to rejoining the firm in march 2013, his current role, mr. knight was deputy secretary of the -- secretary of state serving as chief operating officer of the department. mr. knight, graduate of the university of minnesota is

married with two children. please join me in inviting our guests to the stage. [ applause ] good morning, everybody. i was going to talk about retirement here and i confess sometimes i get the question are you going to retire some time? and i'm saying what exactly do you mean?

and then i add that i have done that three times and i'm not going to do it again. it's a great honor to give the first speech at this conference. the fulbright association here in the united states and in many sister organizations all over the world represent unique soft power that deserves to be supported by governments. the vast circle of admirers of senator william fulbright is a force permanently immobilized for better international understanding. for the many who, like me, have benefited from the senator's wisdom and program, there is no lack of issues that need to be taken on with soft power. and we should discuss some of

them in this panel. i woke up to political conscience in 1945 when nuclear bombs were dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki and when the united nations came into being. two issues were immediately then placed on the new world organization's agenda -- atomic energy and atomic weapons. and they are still there. one crucial question is how we can harness the enormous potential of co2-free atomic energy safely to help countering a global warming that scientists predict could threaten humanity with a slow suicide. the other crucial question, one that senator fulbright warned already about in the '60s is how we can ensure that the human civilization does not commit a quick suicide by use of nuclear weapons. in these existential issues two eminent women on this panel crucial roles to help make nuclear power so safe that the world would recognize it as a viable way to meet our energy

needs without emitting greenhouse gases that use the earth's atmosphere as dump site. the under secretary of state for arms control and international security is a key person focusing on the threat of nuclear weapons. she needs to convince the world, especially the u.s., russia and china, that there will be greater security in spiraling down the arms ladder than in a renewed spiraling up. she negotiated the 2010 agreement that capped u.s. and russia's develop deployed nuclear warheads and carriers and we look to her for continuing the reduction of the

piles of nuclear arms that exist around the world. to develop meaningful actions against the threats to the world, we need to understand how they came about. from where did the threat of global warming come. well, i go back to the bible that tells us that when man was driven out of paradise for eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, the lord told him that he would henceforth have to use his own energy to survive. in the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread. men developed a great talent to use energy outside his body. wind, fire. with oil and gas civilization became possible. today developing countries, industrialization and an expanding global population result in a steep expansion in the world's energy demand, but some grave problems result. and one is geopolitical. during the 1979 arab oil embargo, access to oil was used as political leverage. one way to reduce dependence on oil and gas was then to expand nuclear power as france did.

today ukraine is lucky that about half of its electricity is nuclear. it is less jeopardy than otherwise. and this in ukraine despite the chernobyl accident. the second grave problem is the environmental. as developing countries accelerate their use of fossil fuels, we in the industrial world shout stop and explain that we have already put so much carbon dioxide in the earth atmosphere that the climate is in jeopardy already. while this political wrestling between the rich high energy using countries and the poor parts of the world is on, we all seek and look for measures that can result in more effective generation and use of energy to get more miles out of the gallon, to get more mega watts out of the same power plant, and to use energy saving insulation and lamps, et cetera.

replacing co2 fossil fuels is more difficult. many tell us that renewables of resolution, even though the price of solar and wind power has come down, they remain costlier when the subsidies of the tax bill is added to the electricity bill. they also have the problems for the intermittence. to explain to passengers you have to wait for the wind to start blowing again. nuclear meets resistance almost everywhere and i think the principle cause is radiation reaching us through accidents, or through leaking spent fuel. it is necessary to explain to the public that compared to fossil fuels, nuclear radiation has caused little damage to life and environment. but this is clearly not enough. further improved technology, even better maintenance and operations are needed to ensure

that there will be no accidents. i spent 16 years of my life at the iea in vienna to help build and strengthen an international regulatory and service infrastructure for the safe use of nuclear energy. it was a productive and constructive work but the heaviest lifting in this area lies with technology innovation and the national regulatory authorities. for a time i was happy to be associated with those who deal with the innovation with those in american dealing with foreign fuel and with a similar company in norway dealing with thorium. you may never have heard of it as a fuel but it is the other way of producing nuclear power. this is one type of innovation. but i would like to ask miss mcfarland who takes the floor in a while if she thinks that some

types of reactors or the generation three -- that's coming on the stage now -- and new regulatory requirements will be able to ensure against core melts with emissions into the environment, and is there an expectation that generation four, which is on the drawing board and in some experiments, can bring us unquestioned safety, easier operation, better use of energy of uranium and thorium fuel without waste and if so, when do you think we can get it on the market. now i turn to the need for security against war in a world with nuclear weapons. i start not with the bible this time but with the united nations charter in 1945. it created a seemingly muscular system for collective security. and senator fulbright was very

much behind it and encouraged the creation of the organization. it proclaimed the sovereign equality of states as a general principle but it was based on the practical knowledge that some animals aren't more equal than others. the thought was that the powers that won the second world war would continue as a powerful junta within the new security council to maintain world order. why members were allowed to use force only in individual or collective self-defense against armed attacks, the council was given authority to take action, even armed action, to meet the threats and the five members gave themselves permanent seats in the security council and beat the powers added to that. it was radical but as we know the cold war stopped the junta of former allies to act in unison. under u.s. leadership then nato came into being and the

successful policy of containment was up against any soviet and communist expansion. and in a relentless race the military arsenals grew with a number of nuclear weapons peaking at some 75,000 weapons in the world. nuclear war was never closer and anguish never greater than during the 1962 cuban crisis. i remember in the cold war, there was a danish poet who i liked very much and he wrote a little poem saying, the noble art of losing face may one day save the human race. well, president kennedy was wise enough to avoid the void that mr. khrushchev lost face and the u.s. withdrew weapons from turkey. that was the face saving part of

it. the political crisis was formulated in 1984 by president reagan that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. in today's conflict regarding ukraine, i believe that the major nuclear weapon states will, as in the cuban crisis, seek to avoid getting into direct arm confrontations. mutual economic dependence is an added reason for restraint between europe and russia. and perhaps we should not deplore this as some do but rather recognize that globalization, including accelerating economic interdependence is an important factor standing against war. in crisis like the ukraine and cuba, the military body language commands most public attention, yet diplomacy that is constructive, soft power and avoids humiliation must provide accommodation and return to peace.

in the case of the ukraine, it is of key importance to understand that ukraine must not become a member of nato bringing its integrated military system up to the borders of russia. russia's annexation of crimea and incursions into eastern ukraine constitute clear breaches of the u.n. charter rules and of helsinki final act and they are not excused by earlier western breaches of these rules. yet, when looking for accommodation on the basis for future peace, i think we would do well to remember that the west once saw containment as necessary in the face of a soviet union bent on expansion. in today's russia, many feel a need for containment of the north atlantic alliance that has

crept ever closer to russia and that conduct's daily naval operations in the black sea, not only north atlantic but in the black sea. if russia, as i think and many think it is naive of me, is seeking containment and respect rather than imperial expansion, there will be many common interests that can and need be pursued, even though a continued authoritarian order in russia will naturally set some limits on the proximity that we'll have. a resumption of series work on arms control and disarmament is one such common interest. rose will tell us of possibilities and problems. one major point on her current agenda is well known and i hope and trust she will talk about it and that is seeking further cuts in the excessive nuclear arsenals in russia and the united states by a follow-up on the treaty. i could generously add many more items to rose's agenda because i was a chairman of the commission

on weapons of mass destruction and we had long catalog of it issued in 2006. and the book is still very salad because so little has been achieved before. on that agenda, of course on the top of it i would plates comprehensive test ban agreement that needs ratification of united states and china and few other countries to enter into force. and it should be realized that leaving this treaty in limbo as is now done -- it was once rejected by the u.s. senate -- is now left in limbo has grave risks. some of the countries or one or several of them might come to test weapons. then we may be in for another round or race. so renewed testing by anyone could start a new nuclear arms race. let me conclude with some points about the united nations.

despite the iraq war in 2003 and the bypassing of the security council at that time, the council has never returned to the paralysis that prevailed during the cold war. many matters are in fact agreed between the five -- the junta -- and a great number of u.n. actions continue to be taken. there are even what we might term some -- i would term -- many resets. corporation on some highly specific issues. let me mention first the chemical weapons disarmament in syria was a product of american and russian cooperation and of course it was bilateral cooperation but it got its legal form and force in decision by the security council and subsequent decisions in the organizations for chemical weapons. in the case of the controversy raiding uranium nuclear program hold talks in geneva and vienna this week and understanding that a draft resolution will be brought one day to the security council for legal action. in north korean, you'll see some of the p5 working together and

trying to find a solution. it should be recognized that despite much disagreement and tension between permanent members of the security council, the council is gradually emerging as the authority where action to global legality can often be decided. in the under secretary's thoughts about global security i could ask what you think would be the future use of the security council but i would also ask you about the other two concrete issues about your work to continue, get a new start again and on the comprehensive test ban and lastly about the issue with which i was much engaged, namely, the value and importance of independent verification. we faced that problem in iraq during the '90s and i faced that in 2002, 2003, and we know the importance of the independence of verification.

you had it in bilateral agreements, verification with russia and that's long tradition. that's one thing. but multi-lateral inspections are needed in cases like iran and like iraq. and in that -- for that you need impartial independent civil servants that are not subject to any corruption, that will not go to do the work with any of the intelligence agencies that are crawling all over the place. so i would like to ask you your view about the importance of independent verification as a third of the many issues you have on your agenda. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, dr. blix. i've been listening to you, i now realize why you received the award and thank you for your not retiring multiple times. please. [ applause ]

you define what a public servant is. so thank you for your service. and thank you for your continuing to push the government and think about the issues in a holistic way. so thank you. you did a nice job of introducing the panel. that was my job but you've done that well, much better than i, i assure you. but i am honored to be here with madam under secretary. i should say that rose and her colleagues at the state department so i'm biased a little bit. if i'm too nice to her, you'll be able to define that to me later. but i think as dr. blix mentioned, not only has rose been at the forefront of these issues, i worked with her on the new start treaty. if i think about one of our biggest success of the obama administration and working with secretary clinton at the time, that was it. over great odds.

i'm just thrilled by the work you did and the energy in work, the hill and trying to get us to move forward so thank you very much for your service and as you know, she was a senior associate at carnegie endowment before, and served as director of the carnegie moscow center. madam chairman, thank you very much for coming as well. allison mcfarland has led the nrc since 2012 as an expert on regulatory issues around safety. our nation's hundred nuclear reactors. she is a doctorate in geology from m.i.t. focuses on nuclear waste issues throughout her professional and academic career. she was chairman and served as president obama's commission on american nuclear future from 2010 to 2012. what is clear to me is i have the lowest iq of anyone on this

panel. so it is a little intimidating but since i get to ask the questions, we'll see how that works. rose, help me think about russia. obviously all of us can pick up the newspapers and understand that president putin, ukraine, the complications with our bilateral relations, our sanctions that we are imposing on the government, there seems to be an international outcry for much of the activities. but at the same time as dr. blix mentioned we have work to do on their nuclear capabilities. not only to fulfill the obligation of the star treaty but we need to move forward. can we walk and chew gum at the same time, can we divide this idea of our sanctions as well as you going to negotiate. help us think about that issue

in a holistic way. >> thank you very much, tom. thank you, also, to hans blix. very highly respected colleague and someone i've just admired your work so much over the years but it is a great pleasure to be with you today and to be on this panel with tom nye, a very good colleague, and with allison mcfarland who is a good friend but also somebody who is carrying out a very tough job as head of our nuclear regulatory commission and nobody i think with the technical chops to do so like allison does now so i'm really honored to be here today. to get at tom's question, hans already talked about the very difficult period we are in now

with the terrible crisis between russia and ukraine and the international community's profound concern about the way russia has really stepped beyond the bounds of international law in so many ways. i agree very much with what hans says. it simply cannot be excused because international law, territorial integrity, sovereignty, these are the basic principles on which the order of our planet is maintained. and so when a country steps beyond them in the way that russia has done is really a cause for grave concern. and so i think the power of the sanctions regime is an important way to impact to the kremlin leadership the dire consequences of what they have undertaken in pursuing their seizure of crimea and since the destabilization of eastern ukraine. at the same time, however -- and i like to stress -- that historically we have always found at the very top of our national security challenges getting our hands around the problem of weapons of mass destruction.

how are we going to address this existential threat. even in the darkest days of the cold war when we faced grave crisis with the soviet union, we always tried to pursue continuing limitations and reductions in nuclear weapons. and this was following the cuban missile crisis which did bring us to the brink of nuclear conflagration. i think that was a real wake-up call. and leaders since, on both sides of the aisle, republicans and democrats, have recognized that where weapons of mass destruction are concerned, we need to keep pushing that rock uphill no matter what crises are affecting the bilateral or multi-lateral relationships otherwise. so in that context we have worked very well with russia over the past year to get those chemical weapons out of syria. we have working in cooperation with them and the u.n. removed 1,300 tons of chemical weapons and nerve agent precursors from syria and they have not been destroyed. if because of this horrible crisis in ukraine we have cut that cooperation off, we would not be where we are today in terms of international security

and preventing chemical weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists in that region of the world. so i think that's a great illustration of what i'm talking about. new start is another area where we are continuing to work very hard to implement the treaty in the interests of our national security first and foremost, getting the number of nuclear weapons down to the lowest number since deployed since the dawn of the nuclear age in the 1950s and we'll continue that process. now as to whether we can go farther, we need a dance partner. and at the present time the russian federation is noting whether to pick up the very good offer that president obama put on the table last july when he proposed to the russians that we pursue an up to one-third further reduction in warheads below the numbers in the new start treaty. new start when it is implemented, numbers will be 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads. that is still plenty of nuclear warheads and we have more work to do to get those numbers lower. so the president's proposal would bring our deployed numbers down somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 nuclear warheads on both sides. so it's a very good proposal, a very good step forward, i believe. but up to this point we don't have a willing dance partner. the russians haven't been willing. even before the crisis in ukraine began, they have not been willing to pick that offer up off the table. so we are continuing to try to make the case with them and also on the international stage. we have the. nonproliferation treaty review conference coming up.

but we will continue to try to work with them and get some further reductions going. thank you.

>> well, that was brilliant. i would like, as the owning the microphone for a second, as we sit back and look at the press that's been written about the issues around syria, much has been written, but not enough, about the successes of this administration and quite frankly the work that you have done to eliminate chemical weapons in syria. that will historically, five years from now, history will be written that we have done the

world a great favor. so dr. blix, the role russia played in that has been widely publicized. do you concur with their role? do you concur with how they worked with the syrians to get the reduction of throws chemical weapons, or did they view it as a way for them to enhance their own position on the world stage, some would suggest lean some of their activities in ukraine. how do you feel about the combination of those two? >> i think there were great benefits for both sides and for the world in this affair. i do not see the u.s. really warranting to go in with a punishing strike bombing in syria. that's what they might have done on various sites, airports, et cetera, and weakened assad. but it would have been a strange thing if they'd done this penalty and thereafter when it was over they say, okay, boys, go back to your fighting now, but fight clean without any chemical weapons.

i'm not sure that would really stop them but it would have been very awkward. i think what really stopped them was the concern what would develop. it is easy to go in but you don't know what will develop there. i'm afraid that it was not really concern or respect for u.n. charter rules. i think a punishing expedition would have been illegal. there would be no support for the security council. i don't think it would happen. now what were the benefits. i think president obama and the u.s. were taken out of the dilemma first by the british parliament that voted that they would not participate. and secondly, i think in the u.s. public opinion, the war fatigue and did not want to have more boots on the ground. that was a benefit to get out of this. for the russian side there was another benefit.

russia has two great powers. they have nuclear weapons and they have the veto power on the security council and they would like to have such a fast channel through the security council and the organization of international security so they have a seat. so they managed to switch from a unilateral american policeman function to an organized international function where they participate in the security council and for my part as a lawyer and as someone who wants to see them develop institutions more orderly that was a part of it. so the world one. it was more important to have the chemical weapons eradicated altogether without the risk of terrorists grabbing them than to grab a few sites and some would weaken assad. >> i'll wrap this series of questions up with one question from me. i was always perplexed when there was a discussion around the destruction of chemical weapons in syria. people talked, how do you destroy them? where are you going to move them? they had to be dug up, transported. rose, dr. blix, how do i think about that? >> take mustard agent, for example, and nerve agent precursors.

they were removed from syria and taken to a ship that the u.s. defense department equipped with a hydrolysis system that basically diluted with massive amounts of water these chemicals that then slurry or the remains of that were taken to be treated in a normal commercial industrial disposition facility. and so everything was dealt with in an environmentally safe way. no leakage or problems whatsoever. it was a very solid effort. then there were a number of chemicals that -- chemical weapons are very similar to chemical fertilizers. and chemicals that are used in producing chemical weapons are some of the same that go into those industrial processes.

so some of the chemicals were not considered so immediately dangerous they were taken out of the country and taken to commercial sites in the uk, in finland, and also in the united states, port arthur, and they were destroyed as part of a normal industrial process. so that's how they were destroyed. >> thank you. let me talk a little bit about the work the nuclear regulatory commission does. help the audience think about what you do. when you wake up in the morning and come to work, help this group of scholars understand kind of the role you play today both domestically, internationally as the commission. >> great. thanks for the question. i really appreciate being here and being able to speak with you all this morning and to interact with you all. again, as rose said, we're good friends and it is a real honor to be here with dr. blix and with tom. the nuclear regulatory commission ensures the safety of nuclear materials and nuclear facilities in this country so it goes beyond just ensuring that nuclear reactors are safe and operated safely, that they are constructed safely, but there are over 20,000 nuclear

materials licensees in the country. they might have experience, some of them, during hospital visits. there are a lot of radiographers used in the shale gas fracking field in the oil exploration, in a variety of fields, in agriculture, as well as academia. maybe some of you have personal experience with this equipment. and these materials. and we ensure that they are safe and secure. we do have an international role as well that's very important to us. we have both cooperation programs and assistance programs that we do internationally. in cooperation we work a lot with the iaea, the international atomic energy agency. i was just over there for a week in september for the general

conference. and working with my international counterparts i meet bilaterally with them. frequently we have cooperative programs where we work together. we share personnel. we exchange personnel. we exchange knowledge. there are a number of different sort of sub international programs where we work together and exchange knowledge but we also provide assistance to a variety of countries as well, countries that are developing their nuclear regulators, countries that are thinking about developing nuclear power. we work with them in a variety of ways as well. >> so one of the real experiences i had was after the disaster in japan. as you all recall, we refer to this as 311 where the fukushima, they were hit by two. both an earthquake and a tsunami and had enormous impact on japan and the people and the country, prior to that, as you know, was

determined on a path to provide 50% of their energy electricity would be provided by nuclear power. so they were on a pathway -- because we all know nuclear power is a much cleaner power generation than many options right now. once obviously fukushima happened, the country stopped the nuclear production, shut down all the plants. so help us think about the lessons that we in the united states can learn from how the japanese reacted to the disaster and the things that they may have done right or wrong, and is nuclear power the potential of getting japanese back into an area that they need energy from nuclear -- you think that is the -- is an effective path or a much slower path. >> thanks for the question. so japan. first of all, i can't speak for the japanese. i'm the u.s. nuclear regulator.

but we do work very closely with our japanese counterpart. after the accident they redid, basically from scratch, their nuclear regulator and we have a very close relationship with the new japanese nuclear regulator. they've basically been in existence a little over two years and they've been working incredibly hard to try to develop new standards and get work through the existing facilities, all of which are closed, all the power reactors are closed and they are in the process of recertifying them. and they have recently issued a renewed license or -- not a renewed license, but a go-ahead to the sendai plant. that's sort of how it works in

japan. there were a lot of lessons learned from the fukushima accident and of course we in the united states weren't the only ones who learned them. we have learned them with our international counterparts as well. what's very interesting is that many of the countries with large nuclear power programs have basically come to the same conclusions and learned the same lessons from fukushima. first of all, one of the main lessons was that we had never expected at a nuclear power plant, which often has more than one reactor, that more than one reactor would fail at the same time. so we didn't have the right preparations in place to ensure that we had back-up power for a number of plants, not just one. and so we -- we in the united states have been asking our plants through an order initially, and now we are doing

a rule making, that they ensure that they have this back-up equipment. by 2016 they will all have this back-up equipment. many of them already have procured much of the back-up equipment. they've built specially seismically safe bunkers to put these back-up diesel generators and pumps and wiring and piping in and so they will be prepared for something like that. genera. and they will be prepared. they have been asking them about emergency preparedness and a lot of learning about being able to communicate properly with the big problems in japan during the fukushima accident. we asked them to go and reanalyze the seismic hazard and the flooding hazard, both of which were significant issues. >> thank you very much. >> do we have an international pr problem? and nuclear is clean and reliable. do we have a pr problem? >> yes, i think we do certainly. it's very varied and curious why

in some countries they are wrong and other countries they take it much more. he came in and we had long talks and he coined the expression that nuclear accident anywhere is an accident everywhere. you look at what can i learn from that or the general accident. we have to recognize that they have not reduced their wish to use nuclear power. as i mentioned, about 50% of the detective is nuclear. they were not very shaken by this. there was enormous action after chernobyl and after fukushima, the public opinion was so strong they decided they would phase out nuclear power quickly to the

beginning of the 1920s. in italy and switzerland as well, they are also facing out. the italians never had any, but they decided not to go on. in the uk, they are deciding when gas is coming out they decided on building huge plant with swedish technology. in finland they are building the power and have taken the decision on yet another one. with china and south korea. iran as you well know lot of expansion there. what the western world should remember, the competition is very strong. they have an advantage of lower wages. are we going to spend an

enormous amount of money on tollar and wind power, that is coming down in price, but remains expensive. the answer to the questions is the safety. that's what it speaks about. the fukushima accident certainly taught a lot. i think that one of the lessons we didn't mention, but correct me if i'm wrong, i remember that after the three-mile island safety vents were produced. they left out the pressure and they cast that. also the placement about the generators and electric generators. there were lots of thepgs that could be learned. that will have to be learned by the industry that is now in operation to make it safer.

for the future i think it's what i asked you about. the new generation on stage. they have a greater guarantee. it's that generation of superior to what we are seeing now. the generation and can we also hope for the generation 4 on the boards to be for use more efficiently than uranium than now. what can we hope for the future? >> thanks very much for that. and thanks for answering a bit more of the question. >> in terms of the generation three that the doctor spoke of in the u.s., we had four

reactors under construction. the design made by westing house there. there two in georgia and two in south carolina. they will come online in the next time i imagine. we are overseeing the construction and have a lot of inspectors. every day out there in the construction of these plants. and china is and china is under construction right now. they will be starting sooner. you mentioned the french design. the epr design under construction in finland and france. there is two under construction there. the plants there unfortunately have experienced incredible delays. generation three is let's wait and see how it operates when it actually comes on line. our job is to make sure these operate safely.

not to promote them, but make sure they operate safely. we have been at the regulatory commission within a few weeks ago. give a license to a new design. new design certification and application and we approve for the esbwr. that one we will see if that is constructed anywhere too. it's a sort of a wait and see. they are building their model of reactor called the apr 1400. they are building four of those in the united arab emirates that did not have nuclear power. we work closely with their regulator as well. in terms of the designs that are more advance and they are all paper reactors. they exist only on paper.

we have not seen design certification nor do we expect any any time in the next five to ten years. that's further in the future. in the in betweens, something you didn't mention is a small modular reactor, a light water reactor design, all of them are light water reactors. it's a much smaller reactor. right now in the world there only large and extra large reactors. you cannot buy small. the small modular reactors, we have been having discussions with the domestic small modular reactor designers. they intend to submit design certification applications in 2016, a few of them.

they have been delayed and see how we go forward. i don't want to go too far out to the future. the nuclear industry is a changing animal and it's embedded within the larger energy industry. of course there multiple influences all-around. years ago, ten years ago we were facing a very different future. the expectation was that there would be a renaissance that we would be constructing a rot of power reactors. we at the nuclear regulatory commission staffed up and it has not appeared. we are now making sure they will be flexible. >> thank you guys. that's very good. thank you very much. can we switch gears to an easier

problem. iran. obviously with the focus having been on russia and ukraine and isis and ebola, many people have now recognized that in less than a couple of weeks on november 24th, we are hitting another deadline with the iranians. as most of you know and the people on the panel know, the p 5 plus 1, the group negotiating with the iranians have given an extension that expires on the 24th. help the group understand the key negotiating issues.

>> the first part is the long range concern that the international community has that iran is stepping away from the obligations to be a nonnuclear weapon state under the treaty. it said that the program it pursued to put in place, nuclear power reactor to develop their own indigenous enrichment capability, all of that is to produce nuclear fuel for the power program and yet over the