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tv   Key Capitol Hill Hearings  CSPAN  December 2, 2014 7:00pm-9:01pm EST

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level court is to start off as a junior judge at a high level court. you go to a fancy law school and do well, but if you start off in a low level court, you'll probably stay there. there's not now a good system for identifying promising judges at lower levels. and promoting them to different courts at higher levels. which, you know, isn't necessarily a disaster. in the united states, there is no systematic way of identifying promising judges at lower levels and promoting them to higher levels. countries like japan and germany do have civil service judiciaries like that. so at the same time, there's a bit of a problem, because the decision endorses another good thing which is to say, we should have more -- a system whereby more experienced and senior people outside of the judiciary can move laterally into it. they're sort of looking at the american model where you have kind of the senior experienced lawyers, for example, who at the
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peak of their careers will get a federal appointment and move sideways into the federal judiciary. so there's a lot to be said for this idea. but the problem is it contradicts the idea of having the career civil service model where you start off as a junior person in the very lowest court and work your way up. because the whole point of having these sort of experienced dignified people is they're going to start off at a relatively high level, and not want to start out in the low courts making 5 kwi a month. so there's some contradiction there that needs to be worked out. the decision also calls for a significant reform in the court system. and both of these are apparently designed to address the law of local protectionism. courts at a given administrative level tend to be answerable to political authority at the same level. because their personnel appointments are controlled at that level and their funding is
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controlled at that level. so they're not subject to any meaningful control from superior courts. and again, that's different from, say, the system in japan, where the supreme court operates not only as a court of final appeal but sort of as an administrative body. naturally, because of this system of local authority, courts tend to protect any party that local political authority wants to protect. for example, prominent local businesses. the chinese legal community has for a long time thought of this as a big problem and proposed various ways of addressing it. one thing that came out of it is to establish a circuit tribunal with jurisdiction over several provinces. at the moment the top court is the supreme people's courts. there's a proposal to establish some courts that will cover several provinces. there is a misconception about this, though, which is that
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these are similar sort of to american circuit courts, that is, they would be a level of a court below the supreme court, and above the existing courts. that's not what's contemplated. in fact, they don't even use the word court, they use the word tribunal, which tells you that that is really going to be a branch of the supreme people's court. and therefore, any decision of those courts is going to be a decision of the supreme court and not of sort of a lower-level court. then there's another slightly different proposal, which is to actually establish another layer of courts. a fifth layer, that would cross jurisdictional boundaries, and then we'll try cases across jurisdictional. it's important to keep the two reforms straight. now, one thing that's very interesting about the communique is, again, and i'm sorry to say, one of the things that it doesn't say, i won't only talk about what it doesn't say, this thing in particular is
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interesting of what it doesn't talk about, and that is a proposal that was mooted at the third planeem to centralize court appointments and financing up to the provincial level. not beyond, but at least up to the provincial level. at any given province it would be at the provincial level about the appointments of personnel and finances. this was very explicitly with the idea of reducing the problem of local protectionism. so, you know, if it happened at the provincial level, of course, it's not going to get rid of it. but i think a lot of the local protectionism takes place at the local level, not at the provincial level. there was this proposal for it to happen. there was some experimentation in shanghai about putting this into practice. and northt a peep about the decision in the decision. i'm told it's not so popular among judges.
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one reason is apparently that judges fear that a more kind of hire arcual system of authority of decision in general will increase the power of the court leaders over them. and maybe their power is enhanced by moving sideways, and therefore, they can sometimes talk back to the leadership of the court. i'm not sure about that. the other thing which rings much more -- seems much more plausible is that judges in prosperous areas fear that putting court finances under a higher administrative authority would mean a kind of leveling out. so a unified salary scale for all judges within a given province, is going to mean either, you know, raising the salaries of judges in poor areas, or lowering the salaries of judges in rich areas. and they're afraid it's going to mean lowering the salaries of judges in rich areas. so certainly odd that this reform seems to have stalled. and that's odd and kind of unfortunate.
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finally, the decision denounces attempts by leading officials to interfere with court cases. this is, again, a big problem and calls for the establishment of keeping track of such attempts. i think this is a meaningful reform and ambition, but not so much an implementation, because they haven't changed the system of incentives for judges. the same system for incentives for judges that makes them responsive to these attempts by officials to interfere, is going to make them reluctant to report, you know, on these attempts to interfere, and record them in the big black book of interference attempts and then pass them on. so without a change in the system of incentives facing judges, it's hard to see how any traction will be achieved on this reform. the same decision elsewhere stresses the importance of the legal -- the political legal committee, and that is a party body that exists at all levels of the party.
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and that supervises basically the democratic dictatorship. the courts, police, procureci, and they regulate lawyers as well. so it calls for party organization in all political legal bodies, that includes courts, to report important local matters to the local party committee. so on the one hand you're saying, let's enhance party control over the courts, let's enhance the court of the political legal committee over the courts, and on the other hand you're trying to minimize it. it's not clear how that's going to be resolved. certainly one would have to be incredibly naive to think that li's case was decided solely by the judges who presided at the trial, and nobody in the ap
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appellate bureau is going to touch that. one has to doubt the sincerity of those moves. okay. there's a couple of minor reforms, but i think i'll skip over them just for purposes of time here. and talk a little bit about implications for u.s.-china relations. and so the way to think about this is to say, what are some of the irritants in the u.s.-china relations related to the legal system and might be affected by legal reforms? intellectual property. it shows an effort, even if imperfectly realized, to professionalize the courts and reduce the influence of local power holders in their operations. i should say, another thing that does not appear in the fourth planem is kind of the populist language that has appeared recently in discussions about the legal system. criticisms of judges for being too professional, for applying
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the law to kind of mechanically, things like that. again, a little bit mysteriously it's not in the document. perhaps in some way, is perhaps a repudiation of a recent turn to populism and maybe a return to valuing of professionalization in courts, which i think is probably a good thing. so i think this reduction in local protectionism and increased professionalization has got to be good in general for intellectual property protection. since in many cases, you know, the violators are enter prizes with with influence at the local level but not necessarily at higher levels. you've got a particular factory pirating dvds. they're employing local people and paying taxes to the local officials, perhaps bribing the local officials, but that's not going all the way up to the provincial level, that's just at some small town level. if you move control over courts
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upwards, then i think it's much more possible for people to move against those -- against intellectual property violators. so obviously none of this is going to make a difference if ip infringement rises to the level of state policy in some areas, but that's not all cases of ip infringement, or of that kind. there have been some complaints about selective enforcement of anti-monopoly of other laws and u.s. foreign businesses recently. the u.s. chamber of commerce recently issued quite a detailed report on this, talking particularly about the acts of the national development and reform commission, who seems to be the main target. and so i have a long summary here, but i don't have time obviously to go into it at this point. but i guess i would just say that there's not much in the
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fourth planem of decision, because the problem of selective enforcement, and perhaps enforcement isn't even the right word since many times these companies are being told, don't call your lawyers, so they're not really interested in a legal analysis, it's more of the southern sheriff approach, how much you got, son? not much in the fourth planem, because it's not about enforcement of law through administrative agencies. a lot of it is measures they're talking about centers on the court system and not so much about the everyday actions of administrative agencies in enforcing law. another area of irritation is extradition of officials charged with corruption. you know who fled to the u.s. and china says, why would you want these people? why don't you give them back to us? why does the u.s. want them? they don't. canada, you know, the canadian
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government tried for a long time to get rid of chin. many times we have different branches of government, we have genuine separation of powers. so even the executive can't always do what it wants to do. the problem here, of course, is that china and the u.s. don't have an extradition treaty, and unlikely ever to have an extradition treaty and unlikely anyone will be extradited without a treaty. some of the problems are, you know, will the u.s. justice system feel that the defendant will be granted adequate due process in china. in addition, you have the problem of the u.n. torture convention, which forbids signatory members to be extradited to the place where, i believe the language is substantial grounds for believing there is a danger of them being tortured. this is a problem in the chinese legal systems. official chinese sources have themselves characterized torture as widespread, deeply
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entrenched, stubborn illness, malignant tumor. there's all sorts of language like this. there's a recent report for the u.n. commission on human rights who have looked at this issue. there are serious problems there. and it makes it very difficult to extradite people. nothing in the fourth agenda that addresses the problem of torture by police. and so i don't see any prospects for reduction in that area. finally, i would say to conclude with a look at human rights in general, again, i don't see much in the way of prospects for improvement in this area, in the fourth planem decision. there might be some outside the decision, but not in the decision. we do have proposals to make the judiciary more professional. you know, less subject to the influence of local power holders. and those are all good things. but i don't think they really have much in the way of
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implications for the -- on the issue of human rights. the fourth planm decision makes clear that the primary loyalty is to the party. >> two questions before we open it up. if you have questions for each other, for the audience. having had these discussions with both american and chinese critics now for about 30 years, many chinese friends, and some historians i've spoken to, said that some of the things that we criticize chin o being corrupt about, our officials also gain, but do it through ways that are now legalized through mechanisms, their children can go to top schools because they're legacies, they have ways of protecting their wealth, that part of the story of going from the age of boss tweed to the current day has been elite's finding legal mechanisms for protecting theirs. when the chinese do the same
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thing, they can be accused of being corrupt. i was thinking of that critique in light of something that jeremy berma wrote recently. he said in the anti-corruption campaign, xi jinping has not yet gone after any of the second generation of the red founders of china, or the leading officials from the early stages of the people's republic. do we see in tandem with the anti-corruption campaign, or in connection with the legal reforms, do you see any ways that the group of families of which xi jinping is a representative are actually protecting or legalizing any of their prerequisites? is there any process of that ongoing in corruption of the legal angle? >> interesting question. why don't you start while i'm thinking. >> so i just blythely jump on. if you look at china more generally, looking beyond the
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current anti-corruption campaign, china faces a real challenge in that a generation ago there was no wealthy class in china. one of the by-products of rapid economic development, and that the chinese economy is as big or bigger than the american economy is, there's a whole new strata of wealthy chinese. many of whom are linked through blood or marriage to the political elite. now, the popular response is to assume that the princelings all got there through nefarious way of inside connections, et cetera. maybe i'm a cynic, but we've got a whole strata of those in the united states as well. no criticism of chelsea clinton per se, but i'm pretty sure when she got a job at a hedge fund, it wasn't three weeks into the job that someone said, your
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dad's who? you know, we have the similar situation where the sons and daughters of elites, as robert alleges, they have advantages getting into top schools. they're often very bright. they often work hard. and for us, this is normal. they go to wall street. they become investment bankers, et cetera. for china, this is all new. and i think the more general thing that china needs to be sorting out, it's not only the problem of corruption, but also the relationship between power and wealth. they're not separate. they're not separate in most economies. and yet in china, the merger is messier. the separation is more imperfect. and now i hope don has a good legal answer to the question that i've -- that i'm trying to struggle with on the fly. >> no, i don't have -- that's an excellent question, and it's worth thinking about, is there
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some way that the kind of second generation has figured out to entrench their privileges in a non -- you know, in a not so obvious way. so i don't have a good answer for that. but i do want to sort of address an earlier point of yours, which i think is quite -- i mean, it's a good point that, you know, i think if we look at any society, we will find that somehow the rich and powerful find ways to transmit their wealth and power to their offspring. and so i think if one looks at chinese corruption as way of answering the question, is china uniquely bad, that's silly. that shouldn't be the question. i think really, it's the -- the issue, you know, when i look at corruption, say, from a legal
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standpoint, is, what is the government doing about it, what is the government allowing other people to do about it. so for example, if you think about the corruption in the united states in taminy hall, who was it who exposed hall, was a corruption effort by the government? no, it was muck raking newspapers. one has to ask whether those institutions are allowed to exist such that chinese people could make their own informed decision about what kind of privileges do they think are okay, and what kind of privileges do they not think are okay. >> let me just add one other thought. paradoxically, the people who have a real vested interest in creating legal protections for property rights might well be the hong ar die. they don't want to be subjected to arbitrary confiscation because their mother or father on the political side has gotten into trouble.
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if you look at pressure from the property reform, it might come down from the top down in a strange backward manner. >> you mentioned human rights concerns, don. i was listening to andy's presentation, that in general it seems when americans hear about the cases of dissidents in china, human rights questions, and we hear about what happens to no sho boa, or any number of other dissidents who get locked up, and we hear the legal, or quasi-legalistic claims of people that they did this following thing. todi was provoking sedition. and they go into a non-legal disappeared status. we say this is horrible, this is clearly false, why aren't they getting due process. but when the same legal orator can say they have several tons of rmd, we seem to are more inclined to take those claims at face value. and then these people are
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subsequently sort of disappearing into some extra legal system. is there any kind of double standard at work, or what is -- what criteria should we look for when we're judging the claims about evidence or guilt or innocence that come out of the chinese government in these various cases? we seem to look differently at the claims about corruption and those leveled against dissidents in human rights cases? >> i would like to point out that before you said that, you had already blown the whistle on shong way as legalized kidnapping -- well, unlawful detention under chinese law. and extremely problematic. that is what is used against allegedly corrupt officials. but it's a huge problem, because, of course, not everybody corrupt is actually corrupt. and the people who run the internal party system are not necessarily well trained in investigative techniques. they don't know how to trace
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trails of assets from clever people who have been hiding them. so you resort to the next best thing, which is the rubber hose. and so i think that accounts for a lot of the maltreatment that takes place within the shong we system. but i think it's -- you know, sometimes we can have an idea about the substance of the charges. you know, whether they make sense or not. whether they really exist. do we -- you know, is it fair to just -- for example, one of the current charges against pud re chong, the lawyer, is, stirring up trouble and provoking disturbances. that's not as vague as it sounds. that's just the name of a crime. but when you look at the criminal law, there's actually some conditions that have to be met. and there's a supreme people's court document which makes it even more precise. what conditions have to be met to commit this crime.
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so in fact, the government can't just say, oh, you're just stirring up trouble. they have to say, you did a, b or c. it's really impossible under the facts as we know them, to find that but chong did a, b or c, because it lists very specific things that have to be met. but often we're not necessarily going to do know those facts. but definitely we can look at procedure. for example, has the government made the trial open? stirring up trouble and provoking disturbances, there's no state secrets involved in that. the supreme court, people's court has been saying -- and chinese law has been saying since, you know, 1979, the court organization law says all trials should be open. but everybody knows you can't just walk into a chinese court, right? even though trials are supposed to be open. so if trials that don't have any plausible reason to be closed are open, then that's reassuring. if people are genuinely allowed to be represented by the lawyer
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of their choice, which, again, is allowed under chinese law, if witnesses are required to testify in court, which, again, is required under chinese law, even though in criminal cases it basically never happens, so i think we could look at a way of avoiding this issue of, can we really know, right, to what extent are they guilty. we can look at the other question and say, if there's a good case, why can't the government follow its own procedural rules. i think one could ask at least that much. with respect to corrupt officials as well. i think people like kong, he's just been disappeared and we haven't heard anything about him. i think kong deserves a fair process. >> i tend to agree with robert. there is a double standard being applied. when i read about a case, my natural sunls is, of course, they're guilty.
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in fact, we should not assume that. and certainly the way the process works, where you're basically detained by the party, and you are detained until such time as they decide you are ready to move on. either you're ready to move on to your trial, or you're ready to remain in detention. i know from reading some of the confessions, you get the impression that six months, eight years into indefinite detention, people are willing to confess to anything in order to get their case moved out of the party disciplinary system, and into the court system. one of the patterns you see is people get to court and they want to repudiate their confession. and they say, i merely confessed in order to get to the court so i could deny my confession, and of course, what does the court turn around and do, you can't repudiate. i think it is true, that we do tend to assume without too much question that people detained by the party are guilty.
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in fact, if you look at the numbers, that isn't actually true. i gave you earlier the number of cases that were filed. there's an earlier stage in which the prosecutor -- the procurator accepts the case. in the old days, about half of those who were initially investigated never ended up with an indictment. what i assume, and what i've been told is that a lot of those people end up getting an administrative punishment, a warning, a demerit, a demotion, et cetera, because it was determined they haven't committed a major offense. what we don't know within that block how many people actually get off because the procure rater determines they are not actually guilty of anything. i think you're absolutely right, when it hits the discipline
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inspection website and it's announced so-and-so is under investigation for serious disciplinary violations by the gway, my natural assumption is, oh, they're obviously guilty. but it's a reflex that i suppose we probably need to avoid. >> of course, the most important question of the study of chinese law is when we have a different word for procure -- >> two syllables. >> no, we stick with it. the harder it is to pronounce the more we keep the unwashed out. >> let's open it up. if you raise a hand, we'll be happy to pass a microphone your way. yes? >> thank you. thank you, professors. fascinating. i have two questions, one for professor weedman. i have to take the no fear act review for federal employees. and i'm wondering if there's any
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kind of whistleblower protection within the legal system, or within any kind of parallel system? and if you don't mind, professor we'derman, a short question, are there any corruption hot spots? are they generating more numbers even according to your official sources than other provinces, or is it fairly evenly distributed? thank you. >> i'm not aware of any formal law that provides protection for whistleblowers within government agencies that expose wrongdoing, or something like that. >> it does appear that the campaign has fallen somewhat unevenly. the problem with trying to say where it's falling most heavily is, you've got two choices. you can kind of do it as a kind of art, which is, you know, you read the individual cases, and you start guessing, well, you know, my sense is it's hit
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pretty hard in gongdong and shonshi. hubai looks like it's gotten a lot. that's just my impression of reading it. you really need to get the annual numbers from the -- that will come out with the work reports, which will be filed in march. i haven't looked at the ones from 2013 at this point. but yeah, it's uneven. exactly what explains the uneven pattern, i have not had a chance to really think about, or to analyze. >> yes, sir? >> you talked about it's political. so looking forward, do you think it's going to be more political and more principled? it seems to me if you want to sustain a campaign, it has to be
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principled. thank you. oh, and if i can just ask robert, the chinese are looking at sort of the k street, former officials, you know, lobbying for inferences. that was like corruption after retirement. many chinese officials were corrupt before they retired obviously. thank you. >> it's a timing issue. >> i agree with you, that the -- to sustain the anti-corruption drive over a long period of time, the principled has to take over from the political. at some point the political side can be dangerous. it can generate a backlash. you can push things in directions that you might not want to go. my own view is this, the principle part is the bulk of it. you look at the cases and they
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make up the most visible, the most exciting part of the campaign. the really boring campaign is the day in and day out trench warfare, war of attrition against mid and low-level corruption. that's been going on for a long time. xi jinping escalated that back in 2012. i think he'll continue to keep that up. but i would see at some point the political side would have to begin to fade somewhat. i think it will never go away. you'll continue to have scandals crop up, et cetera. but the principled part i think in the end is what carries you on year in and year out, as you slowly move toward a less corrupt system. >> down front and then right there, tony.
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>> what do you think is the impact of all this corruption on the economy as a country? or is it insignificant? >> it's not immeasurable. the reality is, though, when you look at the chinese economy, and you look at the growth of corruption, over the 30 years that the chinese have waged the war on corruption, china has also had the second largest gain in per capita income in the world. it's well over double the number three, which was south korea. it's multiple times what we had. if you look at the chinese economy, you know, the pattern is, worsening corruption, and rising growth, hence the subtitle of my more recent book. does that mean that growth has raised corruption -- i mean, that corruption has raised
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growth? absolutely not. it's shaved something off. a hundred million or 200 million remd sitting in somebody's basement is not a profitable investment. how much it's shaved off is very hard to tell. but certainly, there's been a cost. and as the economy roared out at double-digit rates, you could absorb that cost. as the growth rate begins to fall, the drag of corruption necessarily increases. you're at a point now where perhaps they could look at corruption and say it's a problem, but it's not really killing us, i think now more and more xi jinping has to worry about it. the economy drops -- growth rates drop below 40% and corruption will become a much bigger drag in relative terms. so, yeah, there's definitely
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been an impact. >> tony, and then we'll go to the back. >> i just wanted to push the conversation about political versus principled a little further, because you haven't really defined what you mean by principle. and i'll just say i guess what i think, and then you can comment on it. but it seems to me that kind of a more macro level, you've heard about the problem with corruption is with all these local officials, they do not really listen to what the party is trying to get them to do. so i see a campaign against corruption as being the principle being reestablishing central power over local power. that that seems to me to be a lot of the driving force behind it. and on the legal side, i know legal scholars often don't like this discussion, but again, you hear it a lot lately about, are these reforms about rule of law or rule by law. >> there's no question that a
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big part of the anti-corruption -- or a big part of the corruption problem is the protective umbrellas, the ability of officials at the local level to collude, the inability of jinping to work its will on the local level. that's a perennial fact of chinese political history. i think, you know, the anti-corruption campaign seeks to break through that, but the anti-corruption campaign is continuing to be structured along those very lines. you have not seen a centralization, you've not seen a move. although you have had these three, or now four-nationwide campaigns where they literally send people out to bypass the local level, to go after local corruption. but they have done this before. when they went after chen and lu in shanghai, after they went after the shaman case, they
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literally had to send hundreds of investigators down from beijing because they -- beijing basically said you can't trust the locals. the locals will cover things up. if a sustained anti-corruption campaign means repeatedly having to send people out from beijing to literally attack the local level, that's going to be hard to sustain. you've really got to get a systematic solution, which gets rid of this problem, where you were talking about earlier, don was talking about, where the local prosecutors answer to the local party officials. well, if the party officials are corrupt, you know, what are you going to do, charge your boss with being corrupt? it's career suicide. the other thing i think you need to be aware of is, it's not like the pro curatolaerate is corruption-free itself. battling corruption within the anti-corruption institutions is
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a major challenge. >> can i ask a question? i'm sort of springing this on you. i don't know whether you've been -- whether you've thought about this, but you probably have, which is that the -- you know, i guess the consensus among economists is that china's growth model, which up until now has been sort of driven by investment in things like industry and infrastructure, you know, it needs to change in order to be more sustainable and needs to change to something that's more service oriented and more demand driven. so my question is, what is the relationship of corruption to the type of kind of growth model that china uses? does changing the growth model, will that make corruption, you know, in the way that it's carried out now, more difficult, and if so, does that mean that we will have less corruption, or does it mean we can expect major pushback against this reform from people who want to keep on dipping into the pot the same way they've been able to do up
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until now? >> if you look at where corruption is concentrated, it's concentrated in things like real estate development. it's concentrated in the energy sector, with mining concessions, oilfield contracts and so forth. it's concentrated -- you know, my sense is that a lot of it is concentrated in the state sector, because in many areas, the state sector has either quasi monopoly. if you move and actually marketize the economy and you actually deconcentrate those pools of power, or areas where you can use political and administrative power to manipulate the result, yeah, that should do it. i mean, when i looked at corruption in the book, my assumption was, or the argument was that a lot of the corruption that we saw in the 1990s, early 2000s, was basically a fight over windfall profits in rents.
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the model basically suggests you should see the eventual dissipation of rents. when you've got a piece of real estate, the first time it moves from the state to the market, there are tremendous windfall profits to be made. but in theory, once it's on the market, then market forces take over, and the opportunities for excess profits should disappear. that hasn't happened. and the reason it hasn't happened is that the shift from an investment kind of directed growth model hasn't been complete. is xi jinping going to push that? that's what he was talking about at the third plenum. i don't know how much progress we've made on that. but you're right, there will be pushback. people do not willingly give away ill-gotten gains. people will fight to keep them. so, yeah, i think if you did really see this new model, you definitely would -- you should see -- i should say, you should
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see reductions in corruption. >> don, i wonder if i could bring tony's question back to you. it seems if it's going to be a principled, not even a campaign, just a state of affairs, more principled and less political, you would have a theory of how it got this bad in the first place. the answer seems to be that people are dad, or is it a story about more virtuous, central authorities having to rein in the locals, or do you see in the fourth plenum documents a more attempt to look at the system itself and see what deficiencies allowed corruption, are we seeing the beginnings of a systematic approach to corruption that can be sustained, that can be principled? >> i don't see that in the fourth plenum decision, no. i don't even recall them talking that much about corruption. there has recently been a proposal to have a sort of special unit set up, and this would be a governmental unit
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within the procurecy. it would be headed by somebody with the rank, i guess, of vice president of the procurecy. maybe it's some kind of attempt to construct something like hong kong's independent commission against corruption or something like that. but i don't see anything more than that. in other words, they're saying, let's try to get a state body that will investigate corruption that has a relatively high level official in charge, and so, therefore, we'll be able to overcome some of the obstacles. but that doesn't kind of change the basic nature of the system. it just says, let's get a -- you know, it's like, i guess if you were to worry about why poor people don't have enough food, you know, you just make them richer, rather than -- so you make poor people not poor rather than changing the basic structure of society so you have
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free food distribution or something like that. maybe that's a bad metaphor. but the point is, it doesn't propose to change the system as a whole. it just proposes to make some tweaks within it. so i don't see any fundamental changes like that coming out of the fourth planum decision. >> looking at the way cases are presented, i think the thinking within the chinese system is, it's bad people. because the tendency is, first of all, you're going to get a set of charges that are basically about corruption. then next you get the moral dejen rasy, so on and so forth, where they're saying, this person was just not taking advantage of their authority, or the fact that the system gave them the ability to extract money either in the forms of bribes or embezzlement, rents, et cetera, but they were
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fundamentally morally degenerate. when i read that narrative, the narrative says the system is good, the individual is bad. to me that sounds a lot like denial. >> you see this in dissidents as well. not just that they were stirring up trouble, it's also that they had mistresses or they liked pornography. the question at the middle of the back. then over to the side. and then ryan. other to the side then. and then ryan. >> [ inaudible ]. >> sorry. does the cooperation between china and the u.s. on the fight against corruption, how long do we need to wait to see some real progress on this aspect? thank you. >> i find the question a little vague. could you identify, for example, the barriers that you're waiting to go away? >> yeah, you know, some
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officials from china that travel to the u.s., how many years, i mean, maybe in the next year, can we see some flags from the tigers from china, be sent back to china? >> okay. so the problem with that is, this is what i talked about earlier on. i don't think there's any immediate prospect of any progress on that, because again, that gets into extradition issues. there's not an extradition treaty between china and the u.s. i don't think there's much of a prospect of there being an extradition treaty between china and the u.s. i don't think they have a fundamental faith. china doesn't enforce u.s. judgments. the u.s. doesn't enforce chinese judgments. i don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. i think there has to be much greater degree of divergence of the two legal systems, and i
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don't see that happening soon. and it's not because the u.s. likes corrupt officials. it's just some fundamental disconnect between the way the two legal systems work. the canadian government wanted to send bakley chung shin. they were in canadian court arguing, get rid of this guy. we do not want this guy in our country. but he had gotten in, and the canadian courts wouldn't make him leave. because they had other concerns. they're not concerned about foreign policy issues. they're not concerned about whether or not people who prescribe officials in our own country, perhaps bribing our own officials. you know, they have other concerns. >> ryan, and then over to this side. >> thanks very much. i have a question for each of you gentlemen. professor clark, constitutionalism popped up in the fourth plenum decision document, after a couple of years of sort of constitution being a dirty word on the
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chinese side. you know, i'm curious for your thoughts on what inclusion of the term constitutionalism alongside rule of law means in the context of the fourth plenum. and professor weedeman, where you've seen the corruption cases, the one place i haven't heard much about is shanghai. i've heard rumors that shanghai is going to be next. i'm curious if you have any thoughts on why we haven't necessarily seen any activity in shanghai, and sort of think of the political versus the practical, and if there's any analysis there? >> okay. i guess i'm going to have to disagree with your premise, because i don't think constitutionalism does appear in the fourth document. they do talk about the constitution. but -- and they have always talked about the constitution and the need for people -- everybody in the country to obey the constitution and also for
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the party to act according to the constitution. but constitutionalism, as translated into chinese, shin dung remains a forbidden term. i don't believe it appears in the document. >> but in many ways it certainly is there. they're going to uphold it. we talked about the relationship between shin dung and e -- >> you know, just those two words together, i deny that they have -- i could be wrong, but my recollection -- and people -- if you do a word search, you will not find the term shin jung. you find constitution. but shin jung, constitutionalism as a particular meaning, that meaning is not welcome, you know? because it is understood by both promoters, and detractors, to mean things like, you know, accountable government, elections, et cetera. >> do we not agree that the shen fa then is quite prominent.
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>> they talk about the constitution, absolutely. i mean to say, it's very important not to -- it's very important to see that they do not accept the term, you know, constitutionalism. we can talk about the irony of a party that, you know, proclaims itself to be a marxist party, talking about how terrible western ideas are. but let's not talk about that irony. >> if we have short questions and short answers, andy has a question for you, too. >> it's very hard to explain why something hasn't happened. there's been a lot of speculation. i think a lot of that speculation comes out of those who believe that the ultimate goal of xi jinping's campaign is john sung min in shanghai. i don't have an easy answer, because i don't know if shanghai
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simply is avoiding the blow, or if its turn has not yet come. so i don't have a good answer for your question. >> quick questions and quick answers. yes? >> they are the left wing, and it seems xi jinping did not target the right wing rivals. he himself is a pro left. why the left rival and not the right rival? is there a political reason? >> you can't take on all fronts at once. you've got to pick your fights and you've got to take on those who are your more immediate enemies, while building united fronts with those who might -- you might want to go after later. i'm not surprised he's concentrated on the left. i think that was the more threat to him.
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>> one last question. >> the phraseology issues in the communique. one of the key terms come up in the up in the communique is the rule of law, under the communist party's leadership. so what, i knew some political science or legal interpretation of that phrase, what does that exactly entails or how large it is comparable to, it's being quite similar to a constitutional monarchy or something like that. so, yeah, just some phraseology interpretations there. >> okay, well, i think the distinction between rule of law under the party and constitutional monarchy, is that constitutional monarchy is under the constitution. so constitutional modifies the
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monarchy, whereas rile ule of l the party modifies the rule of law. the rule of law under the party, i don't want to make word plays or something, but it's something as i think made clear, and not just by words, but also by the actions of the party. it is not their intention to themselves, you know, be governed in a sense by law, i don't want to be unrealistic, i mean humans run society, so there is no society that can really be run -- i think there is a difference between, you know, between political regimes where the government feels immediately con trained by external rules and systems in which it does not.
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i think we can look for example at the distinction between the need to have a legal advisor in the white house, who writes legal opinions coming up, justifying the acts of the white house and when the president wants to do something, the president has to think, well, 40-will this fly? and they have to come up with some plausible legal argument, they can't just say oh, i'm going to do it. i really don't think that he thinks that way. i don't think in the standing committee of the policy bureau, when they're deciding what to do, someone says well is this legal? we better talk with this law professor and get an opinion on it. nobody's discussing it, it doesn't need to be decided whether it's legal or not. sometimes we can say the legal opinion of people in the white house, we may think they're disingenuous, they're forced,
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there's a certain discourse and a certain procedure that people acknowledge the legitimacy of, i don't see that going on at all, and i don't see any ambition to have that go on. thank you, professor weederman, professor clark. thanks to all of you for coming, on december 4, we'll have the second annual chinese relations december 12, we have the author of who's afraid of the big bad dragon, why chesapeaina has the and the worst educational system in the world. we'll be looking at issues in united states and chinese educational systems and the way we are increasingly learning from one another, we hope you will join us from this program as well. thank you and happy thanksgiving.
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. richard ruben joins us, he's a reporter with bloomberg news and he's talking about legislation with tax extenders, election that actually expired that we could see come up and be renewed for 2014. give us an overview here, how much does this bill cost? how long is the extension and what are some of the tax breaks involved. >> the bill that the house is going to be voting on this week
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is known as a one-year extension, what that means is they revive a bunch of tax breaks that lacked at the end of 2015, and end them in 2014, so they're only extending through the end of this year. the biggest breaks in there is the production tax credit for wingd energy, the research tax credits for businesses, the ability for individuals to conduct state sales taxes and a division that helps multifinance companies defer u.s. taxs outside the country. it's a mish mash of tax breaks for individuals and businesses and it's got enough support usually to carry everybody to -- to carry enough members to support it, even though there are a lot of provisions in there, the individual members would pick on and complain about. >> one of these need to be revived here at the end of the year here, what's the point?
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why are they coming up now? >> what's driving the -- is a at the end of the congressional year, they want to get out of here by the end of next week. and to the irs says it needs congress to move as soon as possible to decide what the tax system looks like for 2015, so they can get all the reforms and get things ready to get their computers updated to be able to process returns. the irs says they need to move now in order for the filing season to open on time or even a little bit late in mid to late january. >> how would congress propose to pay for all of these tax extensions? >> they're not. this bill doesn't have any offsets or significant offsets, that i would add to the next decade, which is basically they
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all kind of agreed that we're in policy and existence in 2013 and they should all continue going forward. >> this involves two lawmakers, the one that's heading this up in the house, dave camp the chairman ways and means committee, and the chairman of the senate finance committee for now, and so dave camp's bill extends every tax break, one exception is a pet product of ron widen, so you say ouch, what's going on here and what are their roles moving forward? >> they don't know so much about the why of what's happening there, so 59 tax breaks e s exp, one of these is a tax break for a tax credit for two and three wheeled vehicles, electric motorcycles basically, one maker of those vehicles is in oregon, the home state of ron widen, and he's a big advocate of that tax
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break, dave camp left it out and its anti-innovation and he's not happy about that. and going forward, look, those two had a working relationship they and senator reed and the senate were getting close to a deal to make a bunch of these breaks permanent and extended the rest for two years, 2015. that fell apart last week and there's been a bit of animosity back and forth since then. >> ron whitehead is not going to be the head of that finance committee much listeninger, you just tweeted before we started talking about the future chair, orren hatch. what's the likely thing about this moving forward with the white house or the house democrats into next year? >> it seems like something will happen before the p end of this year, this bill looks the most likely to -- you've got tom souse democrats that were fine
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with it, the white house today is saying basically that they're okay with the general idea of a short-term extension, they haven't come out and endorsed the bill yet, we'll see what happens when it gets over to the senate, when they try to make might have been kno minor changes or accept the bill the way it is. when you have a changes at the end of 2014, then you've got to deal with this next year. let's say you got a new team with the same issue coming back with the same problem in 2015. >> and you can follow richard ruben on twitter, his handle is @richardrubendc. thanks ath for joining us. with live coverage of the u.s. house on cspan 3. we complement that coverage by showing you the most relevant
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constitutional hearings and public affairs events fl. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. coming up on cspan 3, the house hearing on come batting isis and the foreign fighters who are joining the militant group. then this year's national conference on citizenship looks
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at civic engagement in america. and later an update on the $60 million restore ration project on the u.s. capitol dome. a joint house subcommittee hearing on combatting isis, and the motivation of foreign fighters who are joining the militant group. witnesses who are joining the homeland security security and state department officials. this is two hours, 20 minutes. >> without objection, all members may have five days to the submit questions and extrainous materials. whether it's isis or al nusra or corson, there's -- the influx of
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foreign fighters far surpasses anything we have even seen in afghanistan. the scale of this mass migration is unprecedented and it results in deadly attacks. more foreign fighters have fought for islamic groups like isis in the last two years and then fought in iraq in afghanistan in the last 12 years. i have a map, i hope we can put that up on the screens. that show the areas that these fighters have come from they have come from all over the world. according to estimates, around 15,000 jihadists from over 80 countries have traveled to syria to fight. 2,000 of these fighters are from th the -- all of these western passport holders can travel
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freely in europe and even to the united states once they have finished their tour of duty in syria. none of this is hypothetical. we have seen returning jihadists go on murderous ram pageses before. a french jihadist killed three people during a -- in october, a wannabe jihadist traveled to kill a canadian soldier. a senior obama administration official in september said that some americans fought with isis in skiera have returned to the united states. one known example is the indication of eric harun. he actually fought with isis and al nusra in syria on an rpg team. he flew to dulles international airport where he was taken into
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custody by the fbi. pled guilty of lesser charges and was released in september of that same year. harun died of a drug overdose in 2014. he isn't the only american we need to be concerned about. european gjihadists are just as much a threat to america as they travel to the united states under a visa waiver program. i doubt that u.s. and european intelligence services know whoever one of these individuals may be, just as a side note, the dod and the fbi were both invited to be here today to testify at this hearing and they would not come. some say these individuals may slip through the cracks. the network is global sophisticated and effective. isis uses it's global network to recruit, fundraise and smuggle
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fighters into and out of syria. this is much more sophisticated network than anything we know from core al qaeda operatives out of pakistan and afghanistan. the best way to reduce the threat that these foreign fighters pose is to identify how the isis recruitment network works and develop a global strategy to destroy it. we need to understand what countries these fighters are coming from but also how they're getting into syria, once they leave their home countries. what kind of political pressure are we using on these countries to go after these networks? we're not sure what that is, that's part of the purpose of this hearing today. complicating issues further, there are a number of gulf countries who are either unwilling or unable to crack down on gulf countries. many of these countries act as a hub of foreign fighters, we need to domore to -- tackle the
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threat but we can't do this without a comprehensive plan. we also need to combat isis online recruitment networks, social media is crucial to the isis network of recruiting. they have a whole media center dedicated to -- this is how their recruitment works, after initial vetting by an isis recruiter, travel logistics are finalized. turkey is the most commonly used route. so called religious and physical training begins followed by testing the foreign fighters with small tasks and after that recruits are given their marching orders to go and fight. they're paid and they're given weapons. this is a well oiled machine and very organized. isis is only going to get better, more efficient and more
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deadly and will turn more attention to attacks on the west in years to come. i look forward to hearing from our witnesses this morning. i will now turn to the ranking member mr. sherman from california for his five-minute opening comments. >> isis is evil and they found ways to convince americans that they are more evil than other forces in the middle east, but the fact is that the enemies of isis are at least nearly as evil and i think demon straably -- if possible in the present decade. begs the question what will flourish in the territory, both the cyber territory, to the ideological territory and the physical territory that isis now occupies. isis's enemies now include the
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shiite axis of hezbollah, assad, the shiite militias of iraq under iranian guidance and of course tehran itself. and those enemies also include al qaeda and of course it's fully authorized branch, to the al nusra front. there is talk that isis may be able to carry on an operation outside the middle east, compare that to its enemies. in 1983, we saw americans die by the hundreds in beirut, in the 1990s, we saw attacks in south america from hezbollah and iran. and there was the attempt by iran to assassinate the saudi ambassador recently right here in washington, d.c. no one can doubt that the iranians, the syrian government and hezbollah have the -- have a
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capacity to get their agents into western countries in the united states after all, there's an iranian embassy just a couple of hundred miles north of where we sit at the united nations. as to al qaeda, their capacity to carry out attacks in the west was demonstrated on september 11 and the khorasan group which we headed in 2002 was headed into syria as a part of and alliance request the al nusra front, just as important as destroying isis is what would occupy it's deolo. we have to prevent foreign fighters from joining isis, but the turks seem much more focused on what they see as their enemies, assad and many of the kurdish fighters.
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they have not allowed us to use interlink to attack isis, unless we alter our policy and decide to use our air force against assad. whether we should do that depends in part as to who would take over syria if assad were destroyed, right now al nusra and isis seem to be first and second in line, perhaps not in that order. in addition to president does not have the legal authority to wage war for more than -- he claims that authority with some support, the authority that is to say to go after isis on the theory that it is a splinter group of al qaeda and in 2001, this congress authorized every effort against al qaeda. we must urge countries to seal borders and to deter their citizens from joining isis and other extremist forces in syria
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and iraq. we must dispel this notion that the people can go fight and then return and be monitored. if a foreign fighter returns, they must be imprisoned. and u.n. security council resolution 2178 passed in september requires countries to pass laws as we have for decades, that would put such terrorist operate tys in jail. that would do a lot making it clear, especially from european countries that returning fighters are not going to be monitored, they are going to be imprisoned, is not only consistent with the united nations security resolution but will act to deter foreign fighters. finally, i will be using these hearings to once again urge the state department to hire people for their expertise in islamic theology and law.
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not because of fatwa issued by the state department would have credibility, but because state departments efforts to persuade legal scholars, islamic legal scholars around the world consists in going to them and saying, these guys are terrible, you think of the legal authority, you think of the legal arguments that will allow you to come out against them. no one would go to an american jurist and say my adversary is legal, you come up with the doctrine, you instead hire lawyers that know the law and that come to plead the -- when we get the recognized legal scholars in the islamic world on our side, that would be helpful, and we are going to courts around the world. i yield back. >> i now reck fly the chairman
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of the subcommittee on west africa for her opening statement. >> thank you so much, judge. since the beginning of this congress, our two subcommittees have held hearings to explore the crisis in iraq and the rise of isil and we have yet to hear of a comprehensive strategy to address these issues from the administration. for more than three years now, the administration has failed to address the syria crisis head on. and instead has let the country become a safe haven for more and more terrorists to seek to harm the united states and our interests. we on this committee have continued to sound the alarm and have been pleading with the administration to be more pro active in syria, to avoid skmilover effects that could destabilize the region. unfortunately, our calls have gone unanswered, even former
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officials from this same administration have been public about their own criticism over the president's syria strategy or lack thereof. the longer the administration delays and fumbles about, we must have a comprehensive strategy that not only remonths assad from power but addressings thor rang issue, and links the iraq, iran and isis together. all this does not give me much confidence that officials have a satisfactory plan in place to address the foreign fighters threat. while it is important that we refrain from -- when talking about isil and foreign fighters, it is equally important that we not downplay the threat. the cia estimated in september that isil. now has between
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21,000 and 31,500 total fighters in syria and iraq and at least 15,000 of whom are foreign fighters from 8 0 countries. u.s. intelligence officials have acknowledged a ---due to, quotes, the changing dping familiar aches of the battlefield, new recruits and other factor, it is difficult to -- what we do know is that the majority of foreign fighters are from nations in the middle east however there is a significant number, according dhs testimony that come from other countries including eover 100 americans. the reach of this terrorist organization has extended beyond our initial assessment as we saw the tragic killing of four people at the jewish museum in
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brussels or to the attack in belgium where isis -- in the hafbd, body and head, offering to after offering to help officials with their investigation, the possibility of homegrown or loep wolf attacks inspired by isil should be a -- the european union which has been soft on terrorism in the past, must take heed of these examples and heighten their terrorism laws as well as increase their cooperation with us. we must also remember that the process of foreign fighters joining isil and the group's radicalization of westerners are still in the beginning stages. it took years before we saw the results of individuals joining osama bin laden and al qaeda in afghanistan, and the complete threat posed by isil foreign
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fighters remains to be seen. yes it is true that the problem of foreigners joining a terrorist group is not a new problem, this should not allow us, however, to be complacent, the sheer number of foreign fighters to isil is cause for alarm and any -- we must look rat all options available to us to prevent fighters from traveling to syria and iraq from returning to the united states and the recruitment in the first place. whether that is tightening travel restrictions on those who try to enter certain countries or go back to the u.s., increasing pejities, providing support to terrorist groups, enhancing cooperation with our allies. we have to have a realistic debate about the measures necessary to take on foreign fighters, to monitor them here
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and overseas to arrest and detain them, before and after an attack all while assuring that our civil liberties are protected. i look forward, mr. chairman to hearing from our witnesses for what exactly the administration is doing to tackle this problem in both short and long-term as well as to encourage a debate we all need to be having. thank you, sir. >> i now turn to the ranking member of the skub committee in the middle east and north africa. mr. ted deutsch from there from for his opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman. the issue of foreign fighters joining isis and other extremist groups in syria and iraq, poses a grave threat to global security and deserves this congress's full attention.
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>> the ri the rise of isis has been truly unprecide unprecident. isis broke away from al qaeda. isis has not just focused it's efforts on the battlefield. it's developed a propaganda machine which is spreading it's message to nearly every corner of the earth. isis producing pamphlets videos et cetera. with twitter and you tube, isis has a direct line across the world and in a grotesque display of disregard for human life, isis has used brutal beheadings of americans as a propaganda tool. young men and women from the middle east, north africa, europe and beyond have signed up to join the fight in syria. estimates now put the number of foreign fighters at over 16,000. three years ago, we were first alarmed by reports of fighters
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coming into syria from other countries in the region, mainly from saudi arabia and north africa. we should be particularly concerned about to the alarming number of fighters coming from north africa. the chaos that followed the revolutions in tunisia and libya have followed very different results. libya has been overruin by competing militias, it is on the verge of becoming a failed state. however, tunisia's young, mostly educated population has struggled with unemployment and tunisia does not have libya's oil resources to keep the country afloat. so despite tune vienne-- factor contributing to the rise of young tunisian men.
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as the article reported, the moderate islamist led government granted new religious freedoms after a half century of harshly enforced secularism. unfortunately, that freedom was exploited by extreme restrest -e new government has struggled to maintain a balance between security and religious freedom. and i raise the issue of tunisia to highlight the attractation of many youths even what should be considered moderate countries. easy trance skit to the continue innocent and the porous borders give radicalized fighters returns home give my opportunities to exploit populations.
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a terror cell claiming al liege jennin -- shiite populations in saudi arabia have been attacked by isis aligned groups. there are over 500 foreign fighters from lebanon, a country already suffering the effects of isis. we must counter isis before it grabs hold of youths in tunisia, and in france and even here at home. government leaderings must take initiatives to speak -- on its return from a visit to turkey last week, pope francis encouraged muslim leaders to issue global dcondemnations of terrorism. the u.s. and our partners should also encourage training for imom s's, the mosques should not be a
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breeding ground for terrorism. and ambassador, i hope you'll discuss in greeter detail the need for counter terrorism communication. we must continue to use our foreign aid to counter violent extremism in schools and among other vulnerable populations. this is a global threat and warrants a global response, no country is immune to the threat of terrorism and even as the united states leads over 60 nations in the fight against isis, we will always be the face of this coalition, and we must remain vigilant about the threat of radicalization or the threat of lone wolf attacks. again, i want to thank both of our witnesses for appearing here today, i look forward to a productive discussion on this incredibly challenging effort to koufbter radicalization, stem the flow of fighters in and out of syria. >> the chair will now recognize other members for opening statements. the chair now recognizes the
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gentleman from south carolina, mr. wilson. >> on sunday both the fbi and the department of homeland security issued warnings to american military personnel will be the united states regarding possible threats from isil. sadly this comes back homeland security secretary jay johnson announced, quote, that the president would have is no credible information that isis is planning to attack the homeland of the united states, he said this in new york city in front of the council on foreign relations. this incredible statement by secretary johnson, preceded his unconstitutional review of illegal aliens, as a member of this committee as well as chairman of the ampled services subcommittee on personnel, i'm grateful to promote the well-being of members and their families both at home and abroad. national radio talk show host today in her program chose a digital probe, restated the fbi
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and dhs warnings of isis threats here in america to military families and i look forward to the hearing today on how we can protect american families from the grotesque threat of persons who seek to conduct mass murder of american families in our country. thank you. >> the chair recognizes the chairman from virginia mr. connelly for one minute. >> thank you mr. chairman and i would hope that we guard against facile answers against the president. some of the president's loudest critics could not bring themselves to support his request to retaliate in syria against the use of chemical weapons and had the president heeded their advice, a year 3456 two years ago, isil today would be better equipped and better trained because it drew from the very insurgents that the president was urging us to arm and train. i think the question is why, what motivates these men and women, especially men to join
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this barbaric movement. it's a very troubling question for the west and for islam itself. secondly how are they recruited? widely reported accounts of the use of social immediate y'all, very sophisticated, once it's appealed do we understand it? and finally, what are our options. option number one, priority number one is to pre-empt or prevent them getting to syria, because once they get to syria, we have a whole different set of challenges that require a whole different set of answers. so i'm looking forward to exploring those questions in today's hearing. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you gentlemen, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. cook for one minute. >> thank you mr. chairman. you know, it's a sad commentary on what's going on in the world right now. just when you think you put down one terrorist group, there's another one that ridesrises fro
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ashes and it's something that underscores the fact that we must stay every vigilant and quite frachbingly we have to have a military that doesn't have its budget cut to the bone, because you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. i have been on this planet a long time. ted, i saw that smirk on your face and it's probably in my opinion, the world is probably most dangerous it has ever been since i have been solved in those things, i've been in combat, been in war and now you strive to go forward and make the wormtd safe, not only for your country, but for your kids and your grand children. so thank you for having this
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hearing, i think this is something we cannot fall asleep on and as i said earlier, we got to be ever vigilant and question got this stuff going on. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. higgins for his opening statement. >> the rapid conquest of a territory covering large portions of syria and iraq is in part owed to the prolific recruitment of foreign fighters, which is now in excess of 15,000, part of the sbeg ral part of the strategy must be an effect tiff program to stem the flow of foreign fighter who not only add to the foreign fighters strength, but who also represent a serious threat when they return to their countries of origin. of greatest concern are the roughly 2,000 foreign fighter e
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originating in foreign countries. until it can be properly addressed, the islamic state's proficient use of social media and other mediums to facilitate the recruitment of radicalization of these individuals. i look forward to today's discussion with our witnesses. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois. >> thank you mr. chairman, under both committees under which i szczerbiak. -- serve. we're bombing isis, that's good, i wish we had started that back in january when there was only a few thousand of them. today we're playing a lot of catch up. i just recently got back from iraq, i guess two months ago now, a month and a half. when i left in '09 as a pilot in the military, the war was won and when i wchblt back just a couple of months ago, it was devastating to see. i hope we begin to see from this
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administration a strategy for syria, i echo what a lot of people have said. 200,000 dead syrians today, many of which are women and children, by the evil dictatorship of bashar al assad, which is no protector of christianity. the reason this rebellion exists, the reason people would even be attracted is isis, some people see him as the best alternative for assad. so i thihopefully we'll begin tr that from to the administration, it's been a few years, but maybe we'll catch some good news here soon and i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from rhode island for his opening statements. >> the mr. chairman, for holding this hearing on this very important issue. addressing that threat with a
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comprehensive and carefully developed and thoughtful strategy must be a top priority of our foreign policy. all options and their constitutions need to be carefully considered. even as the administration ramps up it's response with a $5.6 billion request from the president to aim rebels in syria, isil continues to attract foreign fighters, krug fighters from western countries, we must do all we can to stop this flow of fighter into the region. and we must exam ming how and why isil is -- access to additional fighting personnel and battleal resources. i look forward to hearing the perspective of the witnesses we have assembled on thisz important issues. >> are there any other members tochb majority side? the chair recognizes the gentle
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lady from florida, ms. frankle for one minute. >> thank you very much for being here. i have to confess just a little bit of uneasiness of really what we should be doing with isil. but there are two issues that have been floating around in my mind that i'll try to articulate, just based on some things i have read or heard and i would like to get your reaction as you go forward. one to pick up on my colleague who talked about al assad and hundreds of thousands of his own people that he's slaughtered. and causing such a -- many of them, thousands to flee into countries like turkey deza destabilize those countries and some will say that the isil is enemy is the firest fighter gernls assad. so my question is how do you
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balance going after isil, and are you helping assad, are we helping assad in that regard. and then the second issue that i have read and heard people say is that our actions, whether it's bombing, air strikes or whatever, that we tend to inflame certain folks that will cause them to use our actions as a recruitment for isil. i would like to hear your reaction to that. i yield back, mr. poe. >> anyone else wish to make an opening statement? mr. kennedy, one minute. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you to the chairman and ranking members of this committee for holding this hearing. to our witnesses, thank you for coming here today, thank you for your service to our country. a number of my colleagues have
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already touched on the issues around trying to limit the number of foreign fighters coming in to syria in the region and obviously that's critical. the other as pekts of this is our ability to monitor their movements after they're there and once they return home. this puts an awful lot of pressure on our intelligence agency's apparatus to try and make sure we can successfully identify those fighters once they try to leave and try to gain entry back into the united states and canada. i would love to hear your assessment of those capabilities, how much confidence we have in our intelligence communities, in order to conduct those operations, if they need additional resources if they need to do so and what road blocks you might see in making sure they are right every time and that's something that doesn't slip through the crackses. >> the chair recognizes the
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gentleman from illinois, mr. snyder more one minute. >> i would like to thank the witnesses for joining us today and sharing what ask being done and a very serious concern. it seems that there are three challenges we face, one is cutting off the source of these fighters, i would be interested in hearing your take as was mentioned earlier, why so many are coming from five county are tries, five countries represent half the total, morocco, tunisia, turkey, jordan and saudi arabia, what's being done to predict their progress towards syria and iraq, how do we prevent them from going and how do we make sure that they're not allowed to come back. an i yield back my time. >> anyone else? >> i'll introduce our witnesses and give them time for their opening statements. the honorable robert bradke
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serves as advisor for skierian born -- -- previously served as our ambassador to croatiana. prior to joining dhs, he spent several years in private practice before a decades long tenure where he focused on the middle east. ambassador bradke, we'll start with you, you u have five minutes. >> chairman poe, distinguished members of the subcommittees. few for the opportunity to appear today on behalf of the state department of this hearing on isis and the threat from foreign fighters. i would ask that the full text of my statement be included in the record and i'll proceed with
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a summary of my statement. mr. chairman, the state department along with other agencies, the united states government is deeply concerned about the threat posed by foreign fighters, who have travelled to syria and iraq to participate in the conflicts there. these fighters, many only whom have joined isil, al nu skrsra other terrorist organizations are a serious threat to our allies and a serious threat to the united states. these fighters may try to trourn their home countries or other countries and carry out attacks, in response to this, the united states has been working closely with our syrian partners for over two years. the united states has intensified it's response by building a coalition of more than 60 countries with the-goal of degrading and defeating isil.
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john allen is leeding a comprehensive strategy including military support to our partners, dits disrupting the flow of foreign parters, stopping isil's funding, exposing isis' true nature. today i would like to describe to you how we're fighting the foreign fighter in isil. not only with the -- broader frame work of the threat posed by other terrorist organizations and groups such as al nusra and the khorasan group, critical to countering this threat is our engagement with our foreign partn partners. the state department has been leading a government outreach effort with our foreign partn partners, an effort that's being carried out in all of our branchs of government. the department of homeland security, the department of
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justice u the department of the treasury, the federal bureau of investigation, our military commands as well as our embassies overseas. many my capacity as senior advisor for foreign engagement, i have let interagency delegation vision sits to 17 countries to address this issue with our partners. we and our partners reck nooirz that we must use all the tools at our disposal and correspondent across a wide range of activities. let me outline for you very briefly, seven areas where we are engaging with our foreign partners. first is information sharing, to prevent and interdict the travel of foreign fighters, we are working bilaterally to bolster -- we have called upon our partners to make increased use of multilateral arrangements for sharing information, specifically interpol's sforn
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fighter fusion cell. second is law enforcement cooperation. we're using formal and informal mechanisms to help foreign authorities to bring suspected terrorists to trial. third, is capacity building. we have worked closely with a number of partner countries, including tunisia to help them strengthen their infrastructure to tackle the foreign fighter threat, including stronger counter terrorism legislation and improved interagency coordination. fourth is stopping the flow of external financing to terrorist organizations. together with the treasury department, we have aggressively raised with our partners, cases where we believe individuals or organizations are raising funds that are used to support isil or other terrorist groups. in recent months, as isil has gained control of more territories, we're also engaging with our partners in the region
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to cut off isis from the sale of oil. we have sought to expose the true nature of isil and other terrorist groups through the work on social media. sixth is countering violent extremism. in my meetings with foreign part mes, i have found that all of us are looking for ways to keep individuals from being radicalized. we are sharing our enexperience in countering violent extremism programs that are being carried out in the united states and are working with partners to engage their own communities. seventh and lastly is border and aviation security. my colleague from the department of homeland security will go into this area in greater detail. parallel with this bilateral engagement, we have joined with our partners in multilateral forum.
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approved united nations security council resolution 2178, a binding resolution that calls upon all countries among other things to prevent and suppress the recruiting, organizing, transporting or equipping foreign fighters. also in september, at a meeting chaired by secretary kerry and the turkish foreign minister, the global counter terrorism forum adopted the first ever set of international good practices for a more effective response to the terrorist fighter phenomenon. the foreign terrorist fighters working group, shared with the netherlands in morocco will take place in marakesh december 15 and 16. mr. chairman, madam chairman, in his speech at west point, president obama stated we must shift our counter terrorism policy to and i quote more effectively partner with countries where terrorist
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networks seek a foothold, end quote, as i hope i have indicated in this statement, we are engaging with our partners, using all the tools at our does posal in order to deal with the threat posed by those fighters. i stand ready to address some of the issues the members raiseded during their statements and answer your questions, thank you. >> the chair recognizes you for your five-minute opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman, madam chairman and ranking member sherman and members of the subcommittees. thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the efforts by department of homeland security to protect our nation from terrorists operating out of syria and iraq. i'm going to address how dhs helps protect the homeland from foreign fighters who are not from syria or iraq but who travel there to participate in the conflict and then may seek to attack the united states.
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u.s. persons, u.s. interests or u.s. allies. let me talk about the islamic state of iraq. i'm not going to do a full press briefing on isil, that would be in a classified setting. any credible threat to the u.s. home land from isil, however as has been noted, isil has encouraged it's supporters to carry out attacks and such attacks could be subjected without specific direction from isil with little or no warning. in addition terrorist group skrs shown interest in attacks on u.s.-bound airplanes. terrorists have tried to conceal impro viszed exploeive devices and commercial electronics in years of the body they don't think will be thoroughly searched and in shoes, cosmetics or liquids in order to try to diffuse airplane screening.
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first aviation security. in early july, secretary johnson directed the transportation security administration to enhance screening at a number of oversees airports with direct flights to the united states. tsa increased the number of additional airports to use enhanced screening methods. dhs will work with air carriers in foreign airports to adjust screening measures to take into account changing to the threat. second preclearance. one of secretary johnson's initiate tys is to -- preclearance means that a plane takes off, all passengers and their baggage are inspected by u.s. customs and border protections officers, using their full legal authorities and using enhanced aviation security approved by tsa. we have had preclearance in canada and the caribbean and we
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have recently expanded it to air land and the united arab emretsz. third, tracking foreign fighters. dhs along with the fbi, the national counter terrorism center, and the u.s. intelligence community is making greater efforts to track foreign fighter who is fought in syria who come from the united states or who seek to enter the united states from another country. fourth, we're encouraging other governments to collect their own information on foreign fighters. this topic is almost always item number one on dh s's agenda with european governments. we are helped by u.n. security council resolution 2178 which has provided a new push for european and other governments to use technology like advance
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ed -- fifth, enhancing the elect frontic -- and the visa waiver program, vwp. dhs is increasing our ability to even -- travel to the united states without a state department issued visa under the skrees a waver program. on no 3, dhs began requiring additional data elements that will allow tcp to allow better security screening of vwp travel eve ers. the additional data provides an additional layer of security. sixth, dhs is continually working to help communities identify homegrown violent extremists. secretary johnson regularly speaks of the challenge posed by the independent actor or lone wolf. in many respects, this is the
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hardest terrorist threat to detect and one of concern to dhs. we help detect hves through outreach and community engagement. secretary johnson personally participates in community meetings in chicago, columbus, minneapolis and los angeles that focuses on community concerns and building trust and partnership to counter violent extremism. second information sharing within the u.s. government. reaching dhs personnel in the field, as well as our state, local tribal and territorial partners. the fbi releases joint intelligence bulletins to provide context and backgrounds for them to use. the interagency partners work continually to share information with each other about possible foreign fighters. mr. chairman, madam chairman, since 9/11, our partners in the
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law enforcement and intelligence community have vastly improved the nation's ability to detect and disrupt terrorist plots, we ask for your support as we continue to adapt to emerging threats and to improve our ability to keep our nation safe. thank you very much. we obviously are happy to answer your questions. >> thanning both of you, i'll recognize myself for five minutes for some questions. the united states is conducting air strikes, how have u.s. air strikes affected the flow of foreign fighters into syria? if it has. >> with my sense looking at the numbers is that it's hard to say at this point that what the impact is, it is relatively soon after these strikes have taken place, the numbers that we monitor, the numbers that we
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track, are estimates at best, and again i think it's probably early to determine precisely what the impact is, it's obviously precisely what the impact is. it's obviously something, again, that our intelligence community is looking at, and it's possible that in a classified briefing they might be able to give you their assessment. again, from my perspective, the numbers, again, can vary for a variety of reasons. sometimes it's because we get better information from our partners. and that results in an increase in the estimate. >> so we don't know if it's effective or not? >> i would say that if the issue is effective in reducing the flow of foreign fighters i would say at this point i would want to see more evidence before i come to a conclusion. >> mr. warrick do you have a different answer? >> no. there is an answer to that question but i think it needs to
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be delivered in a classified setting. >> turkey seems to me, appears to be to be a complicit, to some extent of allowing foreign fighters to flow through turkey into syria. would you weigh in on your opinion of what the government of turkey, their position is on foreign fighters going through turkey into syria? ambassador, you be first. >> mr. chairman, turkey is a very important partner of ours in the region. we share a very important common interest with them. we have a shared interest in seeing a political settlement in syria, that removes assad. we have a shared interest in combatting the terrorist organizations that are operating in syria and iraq. we have a shared interest in dealing with the humanitarian crisis and also shared interest in promoting stability in iraq. >> i understand that. that's not my question. my question is the government of
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turkey complicit in allowing foreign fighters to go through their country and fight for isil? >> i was trying to explain some of the perspective on this problem, sir. the turks have more than a million refugees inside turkey. turks have a 900 kilometer border. >> i've bento one of those syrian camps. >> there's 37 million tourist rifle in turkey every year. we believe turkey and we've had an extensive dialogue on this issue for some time is taking steps trying to deal with the flow of foreign fighters. turks have added a considerable number of names to their denied entry list. turks are working with us in funding that might come from oil sales to the foreign terrorist organizations. >> isn't turkey buying oil from isil and coming to turkey from
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isil. >> there's considerable traffic we have discussed with the turks across the border. again the latest information the turks are taking steps -- >> are they buying oil from isis. >> if turkey is buying oil from isil no. are they smuggling across the border, yes. we're trying to cut off working with the turks. the other thing i would mention is sharing of information with turkey. we're seeing much better information sharing with turkey with the united states and also with our european partners. >> they are not complicit. that's my question. >> my answer is they are not complicit. >> social media, we know, obvious recruitment is being done in a very effective manner, appears through social media. there's the argument by some in our law enforcement agency not to shut down social media because that's how they track and keep up with terrorist
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organizations and individuals. what is your opinion on that? doing more or less or leaving it alone, tissue of all of social media, how it's effective in tracking and recruiting of terrorists to join isil, should we be proactive to shut that network down legally, of course, or do as law enforcement says we want to watch this to see where these guys are going. what's your opinion on that, ambassador and then i'll get mr. warrick and then that will be it. >> the issue of freedom of the internet, freedom of expression on the internet goes well beyond my responsibilities. we clearly watch very closely the use of the internet by these organizations. we have a dialogue with the service providers. in cases where the posts that are being used, used on social media accounts is perhaps, in our view contrary to the terms of service. so, again, this is a complex
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question, it's a complicated question, goes well beyond my responsibilities. certainly any use of the internet for illegal activities such as fundraising or incitement to violence is something we would take strong legal action against. but there are gray areas here of the use of massacre net and social media, and the question is how one responds to that. i think we also believe that if you shut down one site you shut down one account, the chances of that popping back up somewhere else are quite high and quite great. so the other tool we use is counter messaging ourselves through the center for strategic counterterrorism communications that was mentioned earlier, we try to put out counter messaging on social immediate area on the internet to push back in that way rather than simply try to take down the message they are putting out. >> mr. warrick, i'll let you put that in writing since we're out of time. i have to recognize the ranking
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member, mr. sherman for his five minutes. >> thank you. first let me clarify a statement in made towards the end of my opening statement. the state department has thousands of experts in american law. you don't particularly need more. we also have experts in international law. those experts help us persuade western countries of the righteousness of our positions. i have been pushing on the state department for, i think the better part of a year, to hire an expert in islamic law. and the response i get is, well we hope islamic jurists will issue statements that are helpful to us and we'll just call them and ask them to come up with something on their own, or now and then he'll call-up a professor of islamic law, we don't need to hire anybody.
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i analogize that if you were trying to get an american jurist. would you say my cause is just please come up with the legal theories that support me. would you rely on hiring advice from any professor you can get on a phone or hire somebody who is an expert in american law to get an american jurist to issue a statement helpful to you? it is incredibly important that we get islamic scholars, experts and jurists to issue rulings adverse toy isis and favorable to the united states. it is about time that the state department hire its first islamic legal expert to work full time on that. maybe a couple. and it's time that at least somebody be hired at the state department not because they went to a fancy american school, or because they did well on the
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foreign service exam. mr. ambassador, security council resolution 2178 requires u.n. members to criminalize those who go to syria and iraq to fight with the extremists. have european allies particularly visa waiver countries complied with that? >> if i may just comment briefly on your first point on islamic lawyers, islamic scholars. >> can i ask the ambassador to move the mic closer to him. >> i have limited time so i'll ask you to address my question first. about resolution 2178 from the security council. >> we having worked with our partners in our sbaes in europe and elsewhere to engage with these countries on implementing 2178. >> can you provide for the record a list of which visa
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waiver countries are in compliance, which have promised to become in compliance and which are not in compliance that have no very serious promise to us? >> we've had two months since the resolution was passed. >> i'm just asking for a chart. >> i would be happy to provide a list of countries. >> their legislative process may be slow but i know your staff will be fast and get a chart for our record and we'll identify those countries. likewise if you can provide a chart of islamic, particularly arab states, five the gentleman from illinois identified as the majorer senders of foreign fighters whether they have passed laws that would criminalize going to syria or iraq and fighting with al nustra or isis. >> i would be happy to do that. >> i take it from your answer we're doing everything we can to push our friends in the arab
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world and europe -- >> there are countries that have already in place as we do laws that prohibit criminalized -- >> are there any countries that have said no we'll just let these folks come back and monitor them. >> no country has taken such a cavalier attitude. there are countries that do believe that some of the fighters who come back have been disillusioned by their participation. have not paid in terrorist activities while in syria. they believe those fighters should be monitored rather than incarcerated. those are decisions those countries make. >> is that in compliance with u.n. security council resolution 2178, that view? >> i'm not a lawyer myself. i have to take a look at that issue. there are different approaches how you deal with returning fighters particularly ones who have not carried out any evidence -- >> look i don't care if you're peeling potatoes in

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