>> okay. do you have any questions? >> the rest of my questions are going to be at our closed door session if that's okay. >> i ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the hearing be closed to public of the rules of the house because disclosure of such testimony, evidence, or other matters would endanger national security or compromise sensitive law enforcement information. any objection to the motion to close the hearing? hearing none the motion is agreed to and the subcommittee will move to a secure location to continue its business.

here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the cspan networks. on book tv, saturday at 10:00 p.m. an afterwards author peter wallison says that they caused the financial crisis and it could happen again. and jeffrey sax on a development plan to counter global issues. and saturday morning at 10:30 eastern on american history tv, a discussion on the last major speeches of abraham lincoln and martin luther king jr. then sunday afternoon at 4:00, the 1965 meet the press interview with martin luther

king jr. let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments or send us a tweet. join the cspan conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. on tuesday, admiral cecil haney briefed reporters at the pentagon. he talked about threats to u.s. security and answered questions about north korea's nuclear missiles and china's anti-satellite missile test. this is 35 minutes. >> good afternoon, ladies and

gentlemen. thank you for attending this briefing today. today, you'll hear from admiral cecil hayney. you should have already received his biography. if you haven't received those, let us know. admiral haney will begin with a few brief comments prior to taking your questions. i would ask that you help us out by identifying yourselves prior to asking those questions. if there's no questions for me admiral cecil haney. >> good afternoon. it's a pleasure to be here and i want to thank you all for your coverage in telling the american public about their military and the world about the brave men and women who serve. i've spent a considerable amount of time recently here on capitol

hill meetings with various members of congress and providing testimony in both open and closed sessions. while it's an important part of my job, i will say i am not unhappy -- i'm not unhappy to be done with all those scheduled hearings. i thought it would be helpful if i highlight add couple of focus areas. in particular strategic commands, role in the context of the global security environment and of course my budget priorities. first, as we look back on events of 2014 and early -- the early part of 2015 we can see that today's threat environment is more diverse, complex and uncertain than it's ever been. against a backdrop of global security environment latent with multiple actors across multiple domains, from under the sea to

orbit you have u.s. strategic command preserving our democratic values and way of life. for 70 years, we have deterred and assured and while our nation's nuclear enterprise is safe secure and effective we cannot take it for granted any longer. for decades we have sustained while others have modernized their strategic nuclear forces developing and utilizing counter space activities, increasing the sophistication of their cyber capabilities and proliferating these emerging strategic capabilities around the globe. you all know russia is modernizing both their nuclear triad and associated industrial base and president putin continues his provocative actions such as demonstrating nuclear capabilities during the ukraine crises, penetrating u.s.

and allied air defense identification zones and violating the treaty. and russia is not alone. china has developed a capable submarine and incident continental ballistic missile force. north korea claims to have possession ofiatureized warheads and iran recently launch add space vehicle that could be used as a long-range strike platform. while strategic deterrence today is reinforced by our nuclear capabilities, it is more than nuclear. it also includes space. a contested congested and competitive environment. and cyberspace where in strugss around the globe are also increasing at an unprecedented

and alarming rate. the president's budget for 2016 strikes a responsible balance between national priorities and fiscal realities. and it supports my mission requirements. but leaves no margin to absorb new risk. as a nation we cannot simply afford to under fund our strategic capabilities. any cuts to the president's budget including those imposed by sequestration will hamper our ability to sustain and modernize our joint military forces and put us at real risk at making our nation less secure and able to address future threats. i will conclude by saying i can't do this alone. no combatant commander can do it all. it requires us all to work together. it's part of a whole government effort so that we can provide the nation with the requisite

capability for our national security. finally, i'm proud to lead the outstanding service men and women as well as the civilian workforce of u.s. strategic command. we remain ready active and effective and aaddressing a diverse con plex and uncertain world. thank you for your time and i look forward to your questions. bob? >> admiral, bob berns from the associated press. i have a question for you about the nuclear reviews that secretary hagel completed last year. one of the changes that reordered as you know is to elevate the global strike command from a three-star general to a four-star. the four-star general nominated has no strategic nuclear background. not making any comment on his

qualification. i'm wondering what does this say about the shallow bench of general officers in the icbm field today and is it going to have the same impact that you had invented to elevate it to a four-star position. >> absolutely, yes. the strategic deterrent enterprise reviews we had in 2014 were important, important to me. because number one, it showed the importance of this particular area the importance of having a safe secure and effective strategic deterrence through that whole process. and quite frankly, it did everything from an internal external and bottom's up review. it is about leadership. and quite frankly i'm pretty proud of the leaders i have today and the leaders i'll have in the future associated with this part of our national security apparatus.

>> but point being the fact that there are apparently no four-star generals qualified for the job? >> bob i'm not going to get into questioning the leadership. i'm really quite frankly thank fful for the leadership. i know a lot of scrutiny goes on in terms of what leaders the air force, navy other services provide. we're a joint military force. each of those leaders bring their joint military experience to what i need in terms of running this nuclear deterrent enterprise. >> admiral jamie mcintyre. you mentioned in your opening comments that north korea claimed to have miniaturized elements of its program. you made refers to that in your testimony about. can you help us understand what is -- does north korea have a nuclear warhead it can put on a

missile at this point? what's your best knowledge about that? >> well, as you have mentioned and as i stated, they claim they have miniaturized a nuclear warhead. just that statement in itself is very important and cannot be ignored. at the same time they have demonstrated by launching various associated rockets as well as their space launch vehicle during the time frame here. and they've paraded this missile called the kno8 around clearly put that on demonstration. as of yet i don't see any tests yet associated with this miniaturized claim. but as a combatant commander, it's a threat that we cannot ignore as a country. >> does deterrence have any effect on north korea? >> absolutely. the fact that we have a safe,

secure and credible strategic capability does have an impact. and it's something that any nation, any adversary that think they can escalate their way out of a conflict has to think about. >> phil? >> on your comments about the threat to space and the threat in space how urgent is that? is that something that's right around the corner? is the united states doing enough to prepare to defend military and civilian spacecraft against these potential dangers? >> the threat in space i believe, is a real one. it's been demonstrated. first in 2007 as we watched, quite frankly, with astonishment as the chinese launched their anti-satellite kill vehicle up in space and created just thousands and thousands of pieces of debris that we are

confronted with even today. they've repeated this kind of test last summer. during that test, fortunately they did not do a hit-to-kill kind of thing. that's good because we didn't end up with more debris. but as a result there's a debris problem up there. but just seeing the nature of these types of activities show how committed they are to a counterspace campaign. so we have to be ready for any campaign that extends its way into space. >> what does being ready mean? new systems, new sensors? how do you take the need to be ready forward in terms of programs? >> we have to be able to really recognize what's going on in outer space. this is what we call the space situational awareness programs.

and this program has to be more than just cataloguing things but really being able to monitor and attribute any misshift that is dedetectived in space. dickly ly additionally we have to have resiliency in how we operate designs, how we work with our international partners and what have you in that regard. and in fact, other mechanisms associated with space protection. i won't give any further details here because going further than that it's pretty classified. >> what do you think the future of cyber command should be? should it be its own standalone command? >> as you know, phil cyber command is a subunified command that works for me today. mike rogers, i consider my battle buddy. we work very closely in terms of dealing with the threats we have in cyber today. i don't impede his operations on a day-to-day basis.

but when it comes strategically, we are linked together. my priorities today that we work to build up our cyberspace capabilities and capacities as a priority. i think if mike rogers was in the room, he would tell you that's a priority for him as well. where this goes in the future, as we develop more and more capabilities i won't speculate here, we'll see how it occurs. as i mentioned it's very important as a joint military force that we work together. we work together to solve the problems today and work together for solutions in the future. and that's exactly what mike rogers and i are doing today. >> yes, please. >> james street from inside the air force. there's plenty of people in washington who don't want to fund nuclear modernization. could you do without a new icbm

or cruise missile? >> i would say it's imperative that we move forward with our nuclear modernization program. we've put some of these programs on hold. as you look at the modernization going on in various other countries, it's very important that we have a safe secure and effective and credible stra teenl ik deterrent, not just today, but in the future. when president obama made a speech in prague, he announced the fact i would like to have a world free of nuclear weapons. but as he also said it's going to take time and patience and it may not occur in his lifetime. so this is an area as we have seen other nations, states invest in. it's important to us for deterrence, it's important to us for assurance going forward because we do not want other nations building more and more nuclear capability. >> these weaponing popping out

that you have at the moment? >> when you say weapons it's more than weapons. it's our warning system. it's our national nuclear command and control and capability, our platforms all the way to the weapons. so we have platform modernization that we have to get to. very important to me that we not delay that any further or we will have gaps. that's just one example. thank you. >> bob? >> how many nuclear weapons does the united states have how many does it need? >> well, i would focus more of where we're going with the new star treaty in terms of 2018 which isn't that far away. we've agreed to go down to 1550 operational nuclear warheads. and quite frankly, i'm very proud of the overall reduction we have had over time. when you look back just a few

decades, how many we had and what we have today, those -- you know, we want to have a safe secure and effective and meaningful nuclear deterrent going forward. >> could it still be lower than those levels? >> i would say as we go further in terms of arms control agreements, going lower, we just need to make sure we have verifiable means, not yunny lateral and that we approach this in a deliberate fashion as we've done other arms control agreements. >> can i take you back to iran for a minute? right now now that they have achieved a long-range albeit space launch, what's your assessment? could they launch a missile that could hit the united states number one? how soon could they do that in your estimation? and second, the current

negotiations on -- with iran about their nuclear program, as you look at that, is that negotiation, if it is successful enough for you to believe it's a sufficient deterrent to iran having full nuclear capability with a miniaturized warhead and a delivery system? >> well, i would say first and foremost as we work deterrence at large, it's a whole of government approach to the problem. and i think you are aware of that. i am not going to get into the work that's ongoing right now. i think that would be too spec la toir and i'll allow the folks in the department of state work that particular problem. i will say, as you have articulated, the business of seeing iran work to work to understand and be able to launch things in space is part of that physics problem.

and that's why we have our missile defense system. and it's designed in order to take on those kinds of threats. both from iran and north korea. and we are continuing to work that system so that it can be ready in time. >> does iran have a long-range missile that could hit the united states? >> at this point in time i would say iran has worked on their capability. and to date, they've only demonstrated their ability to go in space and i'll leave it at that. ma'am? >> thank you. with u.s. news. you say that the north korea nuclear capability missiles they have, but do you think they need system against the north korea, you know, lie level missile --

>> if i understand your -- your question, and perhaps i'll paraphrase it a bit here, is how concerned am i associated with the represent of korea, south korea's concerns for north korea and the nuclear threat that they propose. i would just say we work very close in hand with the republican of korea. in fact, their chief of defense visited me at the u.s. strategic command headquarters last year. and we had great discussions there. associated with what u.s. strategic command has overall in our operations for strategic deterrence and assurance. so we work very closely clearly with u.s. pacific command and u.s. forces korea. >> do you think south korea need some system against north korean

missile threat? >> i still -- >> oh, the thad system. i know there are discussions going on with that today. i'm not going to get in front of those discussions. i think south korea has to determine what it needs. they're a great partner we have worked with in multiple dimensions and we'll continue to do so. >> the chief of staff, general dempsey will be in south korea this week, thursday. what is the official agenda between south korea and united states? were they talking about the -- >> i won't get into what chairman dempsey is going to talk about with his agenda. that's his agenda and we'll let that unfold and i'm sure you'll hear more about it. yes, sir? >> i'd like to follow up a little bit more about your statement under north korean capability on miniaturized

warhead. so you stated the service committee, we think they already miniaturized some of this, that capability. so is it your -- your assessment that north korea is not posing no threat to the region or the u.s.? >> first and foremost, north korea has been very provocative in what they have stated they would do when you look at the last couple years of activity. they have conducted three nuclear tests. so clearly their nuclear ambitions are not new news. they have claimed that they have miniaturized. they have claimed they have miniaturized a nuclear warhead. and quite frankly from my command, i have to assume so and think about that in terms of our deterrence, assurance and associated response option. >> just one more.

related to the -- nuclear weapons, my understanding is that that is something that try to reduce the role of the nuclear weapons in future. but it also seems to be try to reduce your role. so have you ever felt any difficulty to keep your commands every time high -- >> i work with some astute professionals. both there in nebraska at headquarters as well as the men and women that serve throughout the united states and beyond in the mission of deterrence and assurance, space cyberspace missile defense, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance in all of my mags anywheres. and i'm proud of each and every one of them. their moral is pretty high. these are individuals that come to work every day focused on the mission and i'm astonished by the work that they do. david? >> you said that last summer's

chinese satellite test was not a hit-to-kill. so what was it? can you describe that test a little more and why you're concerned about it? and then on a separate subject you mentioned a couple times that the north koreans have paraded the kno8. do you consider it an operational missile? >> first for space in -- i think it was july of 2014 was where the chinese launched a -- a similar test that they had with a anti-satellite missile in space that they did in 2007. the only difference this time it did not impact another satellite. i'm not convinced that was their intention. but quite frankly, just the whole physics and the.com strags and everything they did. i'm sure they collected data and

what have you in order to further make this an operational capability. >> i'm sorry. you're not sure they intended not to hit something? are you saying you think they might have been trying to hit something and didn't? >> i'll give you the facts. they didn't hit anything. but quite frankly, that does not mean that that was a failed test. that could likely be what they intended to do while gathering data associated with their test at large in terms of things. >> in 2007 test was against satellite in low earth orbit. was this test -- >> this was also a test for capability in low earth orbit. now, getting to your question relative to the kno8 ballistic missile. from where i understand as combatant commander i can't

just assume that away i have to plan accordingly. that's why it's so important that we have strategic deterrence as a national priority and while we continue to invest to have a safe, secure and effective capability for now and into the future. >> sir? >> thank you. john harper with stars and stripes. going back to the counter space capabilities, what is the u.s. military doing to improve america's counter space capabilities and do you feel like enough money is being invested in that area? >> i believe president's budget in 2016 provides adequate funding associated with where we need to invest in associated with our -- our capabilities for space protection. as i mentioned earlier here there are various chapters and versus associated with what we need to do.

enhancing our awareness in space and in both working to develop responsive capabilities in space, tactics, techniques and procedures, more flexibility and agility there while also building resiliency in our architecture and resiliency in our concept of operations. >> you mentioned resiliency in defensive measures. but are you developing any offensive capabilities anti-satellite capabilities, anything like that that could be used in operations against -- >> i will leave it at we are working for a space protection program. and quite frankly, when you look at any domain -- and we sometimes fixate ourselves on one versus the other, to me, we have to continue to work on cross domain solutions. and that's exactly what our

sprays strategy said in 2011. we're continuing to work on that strategy and continue to work to operationalize it. >> admiral, i apologize for asking so many questions, but we don't get a chance to talk to you that often. >> i could have you come out to nebraska there. >> i'm on my way. i want to take you back to sort of the big picture. as the nuclear triad sort of outworn its usefulness, could you accomplish your mission just as effectively without all three legs of the triad in the future? >> i would say we have looked at this and validated it year after year, particularly when it started for me more personal was with the 2010 nuclear posture review and that process because i was in the pentagon. and then seeing it of course counted for in the value of the triad all the way through quad

ruenal defense review 2014. when you look at the triad the responsive nature of our intercontinental ballistic missiles submarines and the flexibility and the visibility of our bomber leg each of those provide unique characteristics that are so important so strategic deterrence in the 21st century. >> when you say the critics who say the modernization program is too expensive, unsustainable, in effect overkill? >> i would say to them that when you look at our nuclear capabilities, two points. one is today we sustain it when something less than 3% in the capability and the national insurance policy we have associated with an ex-soe ternl threat to the united states of america and our allies. when we look at this

modernization, we're talking about, you know, instead of 2.6 or so percent of defense spending to be on the order of five to 6%. and i would say as we look at that, we may want to flip it around and think about it in terms of it's part of a national policy that is an insurance policy for deterrence well into the future. and it's something that the cost of not doing it can be more of a problem than the cost of doing it would be what i'd answer that. in the gray sweater? >> yes. air force times. you talked about moral in your command earlier. i wanted to go back to the story from last year, moral among troops in the nuclear community. i was wondering from your perspective, are you satisfied with the progress that the air force improvement program on this, what changes sort of need

to be done going ahead? are there anymore issues that need to be addressed in the near term? >> i would say first and foremost, it's important that we continue to work on things. i wouldn't say i declare victory just because of the improvements we put in place in 2014. this is a business about -- in order to have a safe, secure and effective is a continuum. that requires a requisite and the right training. it requires the right readiness. those two are parts of how our service men and women look at this mission. and then the other part is the business of being recognized is just how important this mission is for our country. so as i've traveled around and visited the various bases that are what i call strategic warriors, whether they're in the missile fields the submarines

ordealing with space or cyberspace. i find each of them today very excited about the mission that they're in. and i think it was air force times that just recreptly had an article about how the moral has improved the retention associated with some of the air force missileers. >> could i ask you again about the budget? you had a discussion last week on the hill just about it not being a suitable replacement for stable base budget funding. you may get your money for 2016 but then after that then what? take some money for other priorities? how important is stability in the budget when it comes to your modernization plan? >> well, stability in the budget is important for defense at large and security for our nation. for my business no different.

very important that we're able to plan more than one year and be able to have that outlook. very important for our workforce as well as for our mission in terms of achieving the ends we ascribe to per our strategy. so being able to look at it year to year is very problematic. because when you look at these programs that s thats that take a while in order to get them built and in operation, even though they last a long time, i mean the b-52 operating today built in '62. will be out there all the way to 2040. the submarine program very similar. built for 30 years. 42 years of service life. we have extended it. we can't extend it any further. but it requires stable predictable funding. and that's the piece that we have to get better than where we are today. number one i would say we've

got to have the president's budget. and then we've got to have a long-term view as we look at this type of spending. >> last question. >> in the red tie. >> admiral going back to cyber for a second. can you describe the cyber capability of isis and whether they have the ability to conduct cyber attacks and is there any evidence of that? >> i think you have seen our outfits like isis and isil, various other organizations you look at a list of cyber activities that have occurred. clearly in the case of that group being able to use it to recruit, use cyber to threaten and those kind of things. so we see more and more sophistication associated with that. this is something that we look at very, very closely.

u.s. cyber command as well as our interagency team are working this piece. and quite frankly, it's looked at on a day to day basis. >> is that evidence of sophistication from isis or perhaps something else? >> i would just say, you know, they were -- wherever they got that information it didn't come from the department of defense's networks. quite frankly it's unfortunate and quite frankly the safety and welfare of the -- the joint military forces and particularly the people i lead is very important going forward. so we do have a campaign where we practice and train on operational security, but not just with the members, but also alert the families in terms of -- of this business of using social media. listen, i thank each and every one of you, as i did at the

beginning of my opening statement, for covering national defense. i think it's very important you are part of that connective tissue to not just our nation, but many nations at large quite frankly, in your connected world we live in. and quite frankly i really thank you for paying attention and saluting our joint military forces for the work that they do day in and day out for the safety and security of the united states of america. thank you. this sunday, eric larson on his new book "dead weak." the last crossing of the lose taken ya. >> the story gets complicated when the question arises as to

what ultimately happened to it. why was it allowed to enter the iris sea without escort without the kind of detailed warning that could have been provided to captain william thomas turner but was not. this has led to interesting speculation about was the ship essentially set up for attack by churchill or someone in the admiralty. it's interesting. i found no smoking memo. and i would have found a smoking memo if it existed. there was nothing from churchill to jackie fisher or something else saying, let's let the lusitania go because we want it to get sunk. nothing like that exists. >> sunday night on cspan's q&a. supreme court justices

anthony kennedy testified on capitol hill monday on the supreme court's 2016 budget request. the court's requesting $78.2 million, a 1% increase from last year. justice kennedy announced a new electronic filing system to track petitions. he also said he doesn't think cameras in the supreme court with a good idea. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> well, this hearing will come to order. first of all, let me welcome justice brieer and justice kennedy. thank you for being here today. i know both of you have testified before our subcommittee in times past and we appreciate you coming back and being with us here again today. we all look forward to this time to have an exchange. not often does the legislative branch and the judicial branch get to talk to each other. i think all of us know that a

fair and impartial judiciary is a corner stone to our academicdem democratic system of government. i think the work that you do is obviously very, very important. not only you resolve disputes between individuals, but also between executive branch of the federal government as well as the legislative branch. to do that you need the respect of the citizens and i think you have that. i think you also give respect to the citizens and their view of what's right and what's fair. and that's important as well. so i think today's hearing is important because we do have a chance to talk to each other about issues that are important. now, one of the things that i want to commend you all for is your work to try to help save money. everybody knows that government needs money to provide services,

but of late we're trying to make sure that every task of government is completed more efficiently and more effectively than it ever has been before. money is limited. and you are to be commended for the work you've done to try to save the taxpayer's dollars. i notice your question this year is almost a million dollars less than you requested last year. and i can tell you my fellow members up here don't see that happen very often when an agency comes in and asks for less money that they received the year before. we thank you for that. i know you've done some cost containment initiatives dealing with technology and personnel. and it's paid off. i know there are some small increases of part of the overall reduction that are basically inflationary themselves. we look forward to hearing from

you about the resources you need and any other comments you might have about the judiciary in general. we're going to pledge to work as best we can to make sure you have the resources necessary to carry out your constitutional responsibility. once again, thank you for the work you've done to try to save money and be efficient and effective. in closing, just let me say on a personal note i'm from jacksonville, florida. we have the chester court. it was one of the first inn of the courts established in florida. every year they have a special occasion on law day. they will be requesting one of the members of the supreme court to come in 2016. be on the lookout for that invitation. i know they would love to have you there and i would certainly welcome the honor to introduce you to jacksonville, florida.

>> the chairman has no shame. >> and that has nothing to do with your budget request. and so we look forward to hearing your testimony. but first, let me turn to the acting ranking member, mr. bishop. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. ranking mr. ser ra know would very much have liked to have been here but he could not. i'm here in his place and i'd also like to warmly welcome you both justices kennedy and bryer to our subcommittee. this is one of the rare opportunities for our two branches of government to interact. because of this our questions sometimes range beyond strict appropriations issues. as our nation's highest court many of us look to you for important insights into issues affecting the federal judiciary

as a whole which can be especially critical in such challenging budget times as we are experiencing. we have to be careful not to allow anything to affect the ability of our federal judiciary to hear cases and to dispense justice in a fair and a timely manner. we have to be sure also to provide the supreme court as both the final authority on our constitution and the most visible symbol of our system of justice with sufficient resources to yurnd take just your journal functions but public information functions as well. we look forward to your testimony, welcome and whatever we can do to make sure that we have a strong independent, well-funded judiciary, we want to do that. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you. now, let me recognize justice kennedy for any remarks you

might like to make. we'll put your written statements in the record. if you could keep them in the neighborhood of five minutes, that will give us time to ask question questions. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you for your welcome and greeting. we bring our -- our messages of greeting from our colleagues. with us today, i'll just go in order of where they're seated is counselor to the president -- counselor to the chief justice. and kevin klein, who's our budget and personnel director. and pam who is the marshall of the court. scott harris who's the clerk of the court. is patricia? kathie and patricia from our public information office. as you indicated mr. chairman, we're always very careful and

cautious about budget tear expenditures. the budget of the supreme court is just a small part of the budget for the course of the whole. and i think a day, you will hear presentation from judge julia gibbons of the 6th circuit on the budget for the judiciary as a whole. she does a marvelous job for the judiciary. spends many, many days and weeks on this subject. the budget for the federal judiciary as a whole it's important, i think, for the congress to realize it isn't just judges. there are 7,900 probation and presentencing officers. this is cost effective because this keeps people on supervised release so that they're not in custody. this is a huge cost saving

without reference to the human factor. and over the years, in the federal system, we have a very low recidivism rate for those on release. it's high if you look at it as one-third. but it's quite low compared to the state. so this is cost effective. the federal courts as a whole, mr. chairman, are a tangible, palpable visible, clear manifestation of our commitment to the rule of law when people from foreign countries come and they see the federal journal system and they admire it. they are inspired by it. and they go back to their countries and say that this is a nation that's committed to the rule of law. and law is part of the capital infrastructure infrastructure. you can't have a free economic system without a functioning legal system. so what you do is of immense

importance and we appreciate it. as to our own budget, overall we have a decrease in our own court operations and expenditures. we have almost exactly a 1% -- a little over a 1% increase. that is for mandated increases for inflation and salary increases that are mandated. over half of that we have absorbed by cost cutting in the court. so we've absorbed over half of the mandated increases within the existing framework that we have. the court is planning to have in the year 2016 an electronic filing system so that all of the papers that are filed with the court will be on electronic filing.

we waited in part until the district courts and the circuit courts could get on that system so that we could then take it from then. but of course this also includes filing from state courts and from prisoners. we think this may require an increase in personnel by one or two people. we're not sure. the pro se petitions of which there are -- i don't know, probably in the area of 6,000 a year. are usually handwritten. prisoner handwritten. when this is put on electronic retrieveable system, you will have a data base from which scholars and analysts can look at the whole criminal system, both state and federal, and make comparisons. how many -- what are the percentage of cases where there's a complaint on

inadequate assistance of counsel or certainly and seizure. so this will be a data base that will give us considerable data for scholars so that we can study our system. we are of course prepared to answer questions about the specifics. but once again, let me thank you for the honor of being here and my colleague and i are pleased to answer your questions. >> justice you're recognized. >> i would simply reinforced what my colleague said and what you said mr. chairman. your here and i think that's a very good thing. so are we because i think our biggest problem is not necessarily the budget. it's right similar to yours. how do you get the american people to understand what their institutions are about? in our case we're not up in some heaven somewhere where we decree things on high communicating

directly with some mysterious force. we're part of the government of the united states. and you're interested in the mechanics of how we bring this about. good. it means we're not totally off on our own. and try to explain to people what we do. we're part of you and you're part of us. that's talking to people of the united states. so i'm glad to have even a little opportunity to talk about our institution and how it works and i'm glad you're interested thank you. >> thank you very much. >> i just might mention, the ends of court that you elude to was the idea of former chief justice warren burger he wanted to replicate this structure in which judges and attorneys and law professors and law students have dinner twice a month and talk about stuff. and he did it with judge sherman christensen of utah.

and cliff wallace also assisted him. it's been a remarkable success. cost the government no money. and in jackson, florida sacramento california boston, they have inns of court. it has made a tremendous difference. it's made a real palpable, tangible, visible difference in the civility we have within our profession. it's been a remarkable achievement. >> that's great. that really is there to promote civility and boost professionalism. as we begin the questions, i can't help but recall the last time you all were here, i ask you how the court decides who they're going to send over to testify before us. and i think justice kennedy, you replied it's based on merit. and so you're back again. good job. let me ask you, one of the

things that i know there have been a lot of work being done the building and grounds. over the last ten years i think this committee appropriated about $120 million to really the first time since 1953, a lot of things were upgraded. i just -- i wanted to ask for an update on how that work's done, the facade was redone i guess north and south. since i've been by of late everything looks really nice. can you give us an update on all of the work that's been done and is that completed and finished? >> $120 million appropriation project for refurbishing of the build something completed. we came in under budget. and the project has been closed.

and it's been very very successful. incidentally, the original cost for that was -- the original estimate was $170 million. and i talked with your predecessor when i got the message and he said, i think we've got a problem. i said it sounds too high to me. we hired our own architect and worked with him. in fact, my recollection is he did most of his work pro bono. the architect we hired he was from the university of virginia we got it down to 120. and the billing came in under that. there were some contract claims. one of the problems was the windows. if you look at the windows on the court, they're these lovely windows. they measured them. they measured the bottom for the width of the window and then the

height. but they didn't know that it's not a rectangle it's a trapezoid. so the window at the top is slightly smaller. brilliant architecture. so that was about a $15 million mistake which we weren't going to pay for. but that's the kind of thing that comes up. it is finished. we had to replace all the wires, all the air-conditions. we had an air-conditioning system from 1938. when it broke, there was a fella that was retired if west virginia. so that's been done. the facade is a different project. that's -- some of the model was falling off. time has not been kind to the marble on the building. so we're still in progress. the entrance, the -- the west side of the building is

finished. but the north and south and the east have yet to be done. >> got you. let me ask you and we'll have time i think for a round of questions or two. the whole security issue, you know the world -- it seems to be getting more dangerous internationally or domestically. i know from time to time the supreme court hears controversial cases and i know that you spend about $18 million a year on security, i guess primarily with the supreme court police. and i just wanted you to tell us is that adequate? for instance if you are going to hear maybe a highly charged case, do you have to increase security during the time those hearings takes place? just give us an overall view of -- because i was just in jacksonville this morning with the folks in the federal courthouse. and they -- that's a concern to

them in these difficult economic times to make sure we have adequate security for a lot of people that are in public service. but give us a little update on how -- is that all being funded and taken care of in terms of security? >> it has been. a few years ago, we projected that we needed more than we ultimately asked for. but we're now survived that we have the right number. yes, of course, in high profile cases or when threat assessments are going up, we have increased security. but we can do it all within our existing staff. >> thank you. mr. bishop is recognized. >> thank you very much. when you were last here, we discussed the very real impact of sequestration. unfortunately, we still need to discuss that. i think most people think of

federal grants and programs where you're able to dial back operations, but it's not the case with the federal judiciary. the courts have a constitutional responsibility and you cannot control the scope of your jurisdiction and you've already undertaken strict cost cutting measures prior to sequestration. what do you see is the continued effects of sequestration and what concerns do you have if it is continued? >> i haven't heard the testimony for the other agencies that come before you. maybe they'll all say we're all unique, you can't have any for us. i don't want to repeat the argument that you hear all the time. number one we can't control our workload. it's controlled by forces and factors that are beyond our direction. number two, we have a tradition as the chairman indicated of

being very prudent and very cautious. with us, if there were cutbacks, it would mean delays processing time of cases and it could mean compromises in security. with the courts in general it's much more significant. as i indicated we have 7,900 probation officers. if they're laid off, that means more people are in prison at a greater cost. so it actually works backwards. >> yeah, i -- clearly at some point you cut back enough and keep going you'll discover that unfortunately in the united states there are crimes. and people are arrested. and they are supposed to be tried. and you need a judge and you need a jury and you need a courtroom. and the alternative is not to have the trial. if you don't have the trial the person has to be released. and there we are. and so there is a minimum and if

you two towards that minimum and beyond it you will deprive the country of the services that basically are needed to run the government of the united states in this area. captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008

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