potentially of concern. i misquoted the number of deaths on the mediterranean. since january of 1776, so that's a number that i should have more easily remembered. 1296 in april but the numbers aren't as precise as we pretend. several dozen in the caribbean this year that we get from the u.s. coast guard, from bahamas, turks and caicos coast guard as well. my short answer to your question is i don't know but i don't think so. i don't imagine that we have relationships as such with traffickers in order to be able to give them some guidance or training on best practice. i don't think that's likely. similarly, the whole nature of

this being as secretive. it is very hard for us to give good advice to refugees or asylum seekers about the best way to manage this travel. that's why and then i'll stop, we focused on the need for states to introduce structures. transparent, predictable structures that address the needs of asylum seekers and to give them legal alternatives through creative and flexible visa arrangements settlement programs, humanitarian admission programs in order to be able or safe points of departure in order to be able to address their protection needs. >> megan, external reconciliation? >> thank you for a really interesting question. you know it is certainly true that historically reconciliation

process, transitional processes are nationally bound, so haven't taken into account the regional cross border dynamics of refugee flows and the ways in which refugees can be as we say in political science spoilers in the context of peace processes, which is to say if their needs are not met they can potentially undercut those processes and jeopardize their success. that said there have been interesting developments on this front. one of the report co-authors has done extensive research on reconciliation and dialogue processes in the arab spring countries which in some cases have had an international dimension to them. in libya in that case particularly there have been individually driven efforts to try to have reconciliation and dialogue with libyans.

these processes have often really been severely criticized by people within libya who are opposed to the notion of reconciliation. there's still as we saw in the research strong relevance of this divide between perceived loyalists and revolutionaryiesrevolutionaries. some suggest since the upsurge in violence since 2014, we have seen that's not so much the case, not surprising, the regime was long-standing and the kinds of divides are going to run deep. the other thing i would say on this question of external reconciliation pro setsz we often focus on reconciliation in terms of formal dialogue, having people sit around a table in a political process.

what i have seen in some of my research is that reconciliation can often be significantly promoted in more informal ways, particularly through reestablishing economic ties for example, supporting families to reconnect across borders, communities to reconnect across borders, and these kinds of economically rooted and informal processes can be just as significant if not more significant than the formal political processes. just on the question of remote border remote management and cross border operations i think it is just important to recognize that libyan red cross has been carrying weight in terms of response that is happening to the idp situation and that moving forward perhaps it will be important to think more seriously about the role of cross border relief, thinking about the experiences that have taken place in syria troubled as they have been but could perhaps have important insights for the libyan case.

>> thank you very much. >> on the area of remote border management, it reminds me that we have another category of refugees in tunisia, diplomatic refugees, the u.s. embassy canadian embassies. thank you for the attention. but to move to more serious issue, difference between asylum seekers. the major flaw the major problem we see now is this concentration on push factors. the push factor is catastrophe out of proportion is something we have not seen for so many years. we are speaking about 14 to 15 million idps in the region.

you take this opportunity to try to smuggle themselves into this wave into europe as asylum seekers. if we deal with the catastrophe try to find solutions security solutions and other possibilities to offer asylum then we can really separate between the genuine asylum seekers but let's concentrate before looking into the factors or some people who would be opportunistic. take this opportunity to travel illegally to europe or somewhere else. yesterday i was listening to npr to the special united nations general and talked about in the '70s, countries like canada,

the u.s. formally welcome thousands from many countries in the asia region, and was successful model. they're now good citizens of the country, have their children in universities and are totally integrated and contributed to the economies of these countries. >> let's open it up for another round of questions. if you could introduce yourself. >> hello kirsten from world bank. thank you for this interesting discussion and taking up the topic because we have also been feeling that tunisia and libyan context have been overshadowed by other developments. i was having two questions. first question we are reading very different numbers in the news on the number of people waiting in libya to cross the mediterranean. we know there are migrants there that were -- most were working in libya had already fled in

2011 but i guess some returned and some are still there. then there are some asylum seekers there recognized refugees unhcr mentioned. i was wondering if anybody had a clear picture of what's happening there because we read a lot of anecdotal evidence about what's happening in detention centers, what's happening in smuggler's houses. do we know because i heard numbers from 1.5 to 2 million waiting, 500,000 waiting to cross, and what is their situation. the other question i would have, we heard a little about libyan refugees in tunisia and i was wondering if we have a little bit more information about different groups that are there, what their economic status is like. my guess this information would be important for tunisia authorities to have to then have targeted approach to how to react to the refugees and how to react in the state of the

tunisian economy. thank you. >> good questions. the gentleman back there. >> hello. matt wilts from u.s. conference of catholic bishops. my question is about durable solutions in this situation and especially in libya and in tunisia for the refugees and idps in those situations and you mentioned the great hope for the majority, vast majority is to return when there's peace. and certainly tunisia is overloaded in terms of integration for people local integration, so my question is about resettlement and what role you think it has in this situation. and both in terms of protecting people and also giving alternatives to that dangerous

flight. >> hi. national endowment for democracy. thank you very much. this is a highly timely panel. maybe even overdue. i have two questions. first, understanding the constraints and limitations of working with idps inside libya, specifically out of benghazi which has been under heavy bombardment for almost the past year. what kind of services are being provided to the idps, be it shouldered by libyan red crescent or other organizations. secondly a lot of discussion about tunisia and that's great. what about the situation of libya and outflow, you know, refugees that are in egypt turkey jordan, other host countries. if you have a little more context, that would be good as well. thank you. >> one last question in the

back. >> i have posted before to libya from 2009 to 2012 and have participated in evacuation of hundreds and thousands from refugees in south of tunisia from egyptians and certain nationalities. i don't have a question i have a comment to shed light on the situation in egypt about the libyans. the number of libyans who are there are not libyan egyptians, you're talking about 700,000 libyans only. before the revolution, we used to have half million living in egypt. now, there are no campus in egypt for refugees. all of these people are living,

they have houses and they have services for their son and universities and schools, there's not any problem for them and they are used to people like egyptians and some situations and services that have similar programs. we couldn't limit to only egyptians, and at the same time egypt used to receive numbers of arab refugees from other countries, not only libya, we received after the war in iraq quarter million iraqis living in egypt, and now we have 350,000 syrian and with the number of libyans we have one million sudanese. all as egypt is suffering

internally from economic problems and still suffering with increasing intensity of the problem of the refugees from arab countries like tunisia actually little bit similar situation. but problem for us actually we have humanitarian and economic problem and as mentioned it is important for us the security. after the revolution again, many libyans, some supporters of gadhafi and some supporters of revolution against gadhafi came to egypt and they have sometimes represented like security threat in egypt because they're used to fighting and shopping malls sometimes in the streets, using armies. not only very big number of

smuggled from egypt. and don't forget very big number of extremist groups in eastern part of libya. also very big challenging for egypt. maybe you hear about incidents that happened last year egyptian border guards when group of them were assassinated by terrorist groups coming from libya. those are complicated highly complicated for us, not only in egypt, not only humanitarian and economy, the security and terrorism as i mention is important for us. that's all. i tried only to shed light on the situation in egypt. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. it illustrates how complex the

patterns of displacement are over time with different groups and different countries economic insecurity and humanitarian concerns, certainly not an easy issue. for the panelists, we have difficult questions. how many are waiting to cross? different groups of libyan refugees, where are we with durable solution, resettlement integration and so forth. what kind of services are provided to idps in benghazi and elsewhere. i think we just had some response on the egypt question. first person who answers gets to choose which questions. >> tried to answer the first question about different groups and categories. i think we cannot come really with precise number first. from one million to one million 800,000, margin is very wide. we don't have precise figures and no clear answers.

and since you are from lower bank, this is one they discuss recently and going to undertake comprehensive study about the impact on the economy of the libyans in tunisia. let me try to say something about these groups. i think most of them, most libyans are from the middle class, do not for the moment have financial problems. there's some gap in wealth but you could maybe detect by the town of residence of libyans. the more you move north, the richer you are. those who are north will stay near the borders. little more rich, i would go to gavis or tunis. but that does not mean there are some who have financial and have

problems of schooling, problems of getting to access to the health system. the other thing about political affiliation if you like, no money that you see the people of tunisia, we have seen minor tension between different libyans in tunisia. fortunately it was contained, but maybe most of them are pro-gadhafi cities but we don't have any idea about that. we have seen some kind of tension that was contained and maybe that gives ideas to possibilities of external reconciliation. we manage to contain tension between libyans and they don't think there are any problems. sometimes very minor incidents but totally under control. thanks to libyans themselves.

they're behaving good. >> my answers here will be short, i don't know. i don't know the answer. maybe somebody else does in the room about how many potential folks there are that will leave by boat. i just don't know. there may be some estimates out there, but i don't happen to know them. as far as the level of assistance, i think i intimated that it is inadequate. it is focused on some nonfood items to those who can get access. we always try to provide protection support for children who are impacted, women specific groups that might have their stories and need counseling but, you know i can't pretend it is more than it is. partly a function of access partly a function of resources.

certainly not a function of will. and megan correctly said, i intimated before we rely on national ngos as well and that's first and foremost libyan red crescent. we have support for folks that have been returned or intercepted by libyan coast guard or navy and brought back who are brought to detention centers where conditions are not good and we've provided some individual support to them in collaboration with the international medical corp. so these are what we can do. it is true, this situation has not benefitted from the level of media public and donor attention as much as it should. which relates to my point about band width and financial

resources. to the extent that the world bank and tunisia are in communication, may want to think about what flexible, creative options there might be. i draw attention here as well to the fact that when we did go for the syrian refugee appeal we had an element on resilience to support the host community. there were chapters in that appeal crafted by jordan and lebanon to speak to their needs as far as services and infrastructure support in a bigger way. that might be a useful reference as well for tunisia. matt's question with respect to resettlement is quite timely and frankly here, too, i must admit that i don't know the answer. i don't know what the realistic

prospects would be for processing out but it would fall within the framework of giving especially for europe an organized legal alternative to receive refugees who are now in trouble in libya. and we have nationalities syrian refugees, they're about half as we are able to estimate and be in contact with them of the 40,000 or so refugees, but they're also -- let me mention some of the other nationalities we've got. palestinian refugees, iraq somalia, sudan among other nationalities on an individual basis. >> anything else on solutions, megan? >> well on the question of resettlement i think when we

reflect on the relevance and this opportunity for libyans we have to recognize that globally 1% of refugees accessory settlement, so the numbers are already very low. the vast majority of exiled libyans are not registered at refugees. for them to begin to contemplate access to resettlement there would have to be a real shift in the approach to start with a much more comprehensive registration process that could identify who is most in need of resettlement given that it is now widely understood that resettlement opportunities should be provided as protection tool. it is also important to recognize that resettlement would be very limited access if any, to idps, so sometimes we tend to focus on resettlement and it can detract attention from larger numbers of people who are trapped within their own countries and who will never have an opportunity to participate in that process.

on the durable solutions question i would stress that it is important to recognize in a case like this that so-called durable solutions are not going to mean an end to mobility, so as the participants the egyptian embassy pointed out and he indicated in his comments, there are long-standing libyan communities in egypt and tunisia. people have historically moved freely and fluidly across those borders and that kind of movement will be part of what a durable solution to this situation looks like, so we shouldn't expect that all of a sudden we will have a more sedentary dynamic in the region. people will continue to engage in mobility as part of their livelihood, strategies, and way of life. in terms of the question on the economic status and well-being of libyans in tunisia, it is great to hear that a study is

being contemplated that would look at those issues from a quantitative perspective. the qualitative research we did for this study certainly can't be generalized to the whole population but did underline that while the majority of exiled libyans are indeed middle class, there are people who are facing real impoverishment and who are being pushed to engage in what we may call negative coping strategies to deal with that reality. so it is important we not lose sight of that population and the particular protection concerns that they have. >> i want to thank the panelists. these are complex issues. beyond the statistics and descriptions and terminology are real live human beings who are caught up in conflict fleeing for their lives, scared and poor. i think these discussions you have to remember these are people that we are talking about and that they have serious needs. thanks to the panelists megan

bradley, shelly. join me in thanking them. [ applause ] on the next washington journal, john lott and ted ted alcorn. on protecting gun rights. and colleen u banks, executive director of national child support enforcement system discusses that system in the u.s. and reporter will discuss the use of executive action.

we will take calls, join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on cspan. here are some of the featured programs this weekend on cspan networks. saturday evening the white house correspondents annual dinner. live coverage begins at 6:00 p.m. eastern with red carpet arrivals, remarks by president obama, and entertainment by "saturday night live," ses lee strom. and sunday former reporter judith miller on time in prison for not revealing the source of her reports before and during the iraqi invasion. 10:00 a.m. on cspan2. book tv is at annapolis. former attorney general alberto gonzales, and sarah wildman on world war ii and the holocaust. sunday night at 10:30

coinciding with release of cspan's book, first ladies presidential historians on the lives of 45 iconic women. they explore the lives of our first ladies. on american history tv on cspan 3, saturday night at 8:00 eastern on lectures in history, stanford university professor on some of the issues debated during the constitutional convention of 1787 sunday afternoon at 4:30, 40 years after the fall of sigh gone, south vietnamese vets talk about war experiences. get the complete schedule at cspan.org. president obama spoke today at an event to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the office of the director of national intelligence. he thanked the current director james clapper and commented on two civilians killed in a drone

strike on the afghanistan pakistan border. this is 20 minutes. >> thank you. you know it is a big deal at liberty crossing when we close down dunkin' donuts. it is my great honor and thrill after lifetime to welcome the president here. this president is a consumer of the intelligence we provide. some time ago i remarked to the president i was convinced he had a better understanding how the intelligence enterprise works than perhaps any of his predecessors. i stand by that statement. even knowing some of his predecessors had ic experience, knowing the ic has grown far more complex and sophisticated

during his administration. and acknowledging that some of that wisdom came to him from what i'll call negative circumstances. so i thanked the president for his understanding and appreciating what we do and for his forebearance and courage when things don't go as we might prefer. and of course, taking time from his incredible schedule to be with us here this afternoon. the president honors us, honors the entire intelligence community with his presence here today. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a warm welcome to our commander in chief president barack obama. ♪ >> thank you, thank you everybody. thank you so much.

please, please have a seat. thank you very much. thank you, everybody. thanks, please. well thank you, jim for that introduction and former director, thrilled to have you here as well. i am here to help mark the tenth anniversary of the office of the director of national intelligence and i'm here for a simple reason, jim asked me to come. you see, as you might say with the ic, jim is one of my best human sources. he is well placed, his reporting known to be reliable. so i accepted his invitation with a high degree of confidence. i want to thank you, jim, and your entire team and leaders

from across the ic for all of you taking time to welcome me here today. i'm not going to give a long speech, but i do have three basic messages i wanted to convey. the first is that i don't know how astute a consumer of information i am but i can tell you, i sure do rely on it and those who come and brief me every single morning do an extraordinary job. i will say the only flaw generally in what's called the pdb that i receive is when jim provides it, he leaves paper clips all over my office. they're in the couch, they're on the floor you know he is shuffling paper and so because i knew i was coming over here, one of the things i did was

return them all. and so this will be available to you. the budget is always tight we can start to recycle these. that's going to be critical. but jim is often one of the first people i see in the morning during the presidential daily brief. jim always gives it to me straight. he gives me his honest assessment, free of politics free of spin. i trust his integrity and i can't tell you how invaluable that is in the job that he has. and that culture is one that permeate our ic. it is a culture that reflects the leaders at the top, and nobody i think exemplifies that

more than jim clapper. so i am very grateful for him. here at odni jim led important reforms both within the office and across the intelligence community. today the community is more collaborative and more integrated than it has ever been in the past. and since no good deed ever goes unpunished, in appreciation of this integrity and outstanding work i sent jim to north korea. and i know he had a wonderful time in pyongyang. but thanks to the role jim played, he returned home with kenneth bay and matthew miller to be reunited be their families. today is also special to him because it happens to be his 50th wedding anniversary to his wonderful wife sue. we want to congratulate the two

of them. [ applause ] and fear not, this is not all his doing for their 50th wedding anniversary. my understanding is they're headed off to a well deserved vacation this weekend. so i am going to move this along. the second reason i wanted to be here is to thank you. i see jim or mike dempsey sometimes stephanie every morning and i know that everything they present reflects incredible hard work on the part of hundreds of people, thousands of people across the various agencies that are represented. and i want you to know that jim and mike and stephanie and all of the folks that give me the briefings, they're the first one to acknowledge that they are just the tip of the operation

and that they can't do their job if it weren't for the incredible contributions that all of you are making every single day. i know that sometimes it can seem like a one way street you push up your reports but don't always know how your work is received by your customers and i guess i am the number one customer. you don't maybe always get feedback. so i'm here just to tell you you do an outstanding job, the work that you provide is vital for me being able to make good decisions and the fact that the work you prepare is giving it to me straight, that doesn't look at the world through rose colored glasses, doesn't exaggerate threats but doesn't underplay it significant challenges we face around the world, that's violately important to me and as a

consequence, vitally important to the security of the american people. jim knows it mike knows it, the people who meet with me are always ex-tolling your virtues. but i want to say we appreciate the hard work and effort you make every day, whether the pdb your daily articles, expert briefs, nies, i could not do my job without your insights and analysis and judgment. more broadly you're dedicated to your founding mission, the 9/11 commission said we needed to unify our intelligence community. the legislation that created the dni made you the stach tori head of the community overseeing the agencies, and that's not easy.

each have different missions trade cultures and craft many of you represent those agencies yet you come here together to create a sum that's even greater and stronger than its individual parts. we see the results. have more sharing of intelligence across the community and beyond it with our other partners. federal, state local and private sectors are now working together more effectively than they have in the past. new technologies and new satellites are being shared, working across various platforms means we are able to do a better job both accumulating information but also disseminating it. there's more transparency than in the past. there's more innovation than in the past. all that is making a difference each and every day. i know that integrating efforts and contributions of all 17 organizations, people, expertise, capabilities is never

ending work. and then there's the challenge of being as open and transparent as possible, even as we continue to protect intelligence that saves lives. but i want you to remember the united states is the most professional most capable, most cutting edge intelligence community in the world and part of the reason is because all of you here at odni bring it together. it makes a difference. which brings me to my third and final point. a message i hope you share with the colleagues who are not in this auditorium. i want you to share it with all of the home agencies. you can take great pride in your service. many of you, those of you with gray beards, goatees or in jim's case just no hair are

intelligence veterans with decades of service. some of you are young and look even younger. a new post 9/11 generation. and over the years i know some of you have lost good friends and colleagues patriots, men and women who gave their lives like those honored in the stars on the memorial wall. days like today we remember them and honor them as well. these are challenging times and over the last few years, we have seen unprecedented intelligence disclosures, we have seen wild swings with respect to our budgets because of sequestration, furloughs, increasing demands for intelligence due to everything from russian aggression in ukraine to turmoil and isil in the middle east. and today like all americans, our thoughts and prayers also continue to be with the families of dr. warren weinstein angied

and giovanni laporte. we are going to review what happened. we are going to identify lessons that can be learned and any improvements and changes that can be made. i know those of you here share our determination to continue doing everything we can to prevent loss of innocent lives. i was asked by somebody how do you absorb news like that that we received the other day and i told the truth. it is hard. but the one thing i wanted everybody to know because i know you, because i worked with you, because i know the quality of this team, is that we all bleed when we lose an american life.

we all grieve when any innocent life is taken. we don't take this work lightly. and i know that each and every one of you understands the magnitude of what we do and the stakes involved. and these aren't abstracts, and we are not cavalier. and we understand the solemn responsibilities that are given to us. and our first job is to make sure we protect the american people. but there's not a person i talk to that's involved in the intelligence community that also doesn't understand that we have to do so while upholding our values and our ideas and our

laws and our constitutions and our commitment to democracy. and that's part of the reason i am so grateful to work with you. because i know you share that commitment. understanding that this is hard stuff. everybody here is committed to doing it the right way. and for that reason i am absolutely committed to making sure the american people understand all that you put in to make sure we do it the right way. i am very grateful for that. this self reflection is to examine ourselves to make corrections, to do better, that's part of what makes us americans. that's part of what sets us apart from other nations. part of what keeps us not only

safe but strong and free. and part of what makes our job even more challenging is that despite extraordinary work that's done here and the lives that are saved on an on-going basis, a lot of our work still requires that we maintain some things as classified. and we can't always talk about all of the challenges. one thing i know about people in the ic they don't seek the limelight. that means sometimes that the world doesn't always see your successes, the threats that you prevent or terrorist attacks you thwart or lives that you save, but i don't want you or folks across the intelligence community to ever forget the difference you make every day. because of you we've had the

intelligence to take out al qaeda leaders including osama bin laden. because of you we've had the intelligence quickly that showed syria used chemical weapons and then had the ability to monitor its removal. because of you we have the intelligence despite russia's object physical indications to tell the world the truth about downing of mal agency flight over ukraine. because of you, we had intelligence support that helped enable the nuclear framework with iranian and you're going to be critical to our efforts to forge a comprehensive deal to prevent iranian getting a nuclear weapon. so you help keep us safe, but also protect our freedoms by doing it the right way. the american people and people around the world may never know the full extent of your success.

there may be those outside who question or challenge what we do, and we welcome those questions and those challenges because that makes us better. it can be frustrating sometimes but that's part of the function of our democracy. but i know what you do. we are more secure because of your service. we are more secure because of your patriotism and professionalism and i am grateful for that and the american people are grateful as well to you and your families who sacrifice alongside. it has been ten long and challenging years, but when we look back on those ten years the american people have been a whole lot safer and i'm confident over the next ten years and ten years after that,

as long as we continue to have outstanding patriots like yourselves, we are going to be okay. thank you very much everybody. god bless you. god bless america. ♪ ♪

the 2015 white house correspondent association annual dinner. watch coverage of the black tie event on cspan, 6:00 p.m. eastern, guest arrival on the

red carpet. president obama will address more than 2600 attendees in the ballroom. this year's entertainment is ses lee strong the white house correspondents annual dinner. saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. here are a few book festivals we are covering on book tv. this weekend we are in maryland state capital foray knap list book festival, hearing from authors like alberto gonzales and "the new york times" reporter james rise en. in may we go to the gaithersburg book festival. they show case upcoming books. june live for chicago tribune printers row lit fest.

a live program with author lawrence wright. and your phone calls. that's this spring on book tv. with live coverage of the u.s. house on cspan and the senate on cspan2, on cspan 3, we complement that showing you the relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. on weekends cspan 3 is home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story, including six unique series civil war 150th anniversary, visiting battle fields key events. american artifacts touring museums and sites. history bookshelf best known american history writers. the presidency looking at policies and legacies of our nation's commanders in chief. delving into america's past. new series real america, featuring government and educational films from the 1930s

to the '70s. cspan 3, created by the table industry and funded by your local provider. like us on facebooktwitter. the constitution project hosts a gala to honor two senators patrick leahy and rand paul. the social media company twitter was also honored for its defense of the first amendment. this is an hour. >> if people can take their seats. we're just about to get started. good evening. i'm jenny sloan and i'm president of the constitution project. i'm delighted to welcome you here to our eighth annual gala honoring this year's constitutional champions, senators patrick leahy and rand paul and twitter for their work in the areas of criminal justice detainee treatment and privacy reforms. i want to especially welcome our

past champions who are here tonight, judges bill sessions and pat wald and bill shields. [ applause ] while ak moan any seems to prevad so much of politics today, the constitution project demonstrates that it doesn't always have to be that way. obviously individuals and organizations may and do disagree vehemently about what the constitution means. but for two -- but for nearly two deck said tcp has surmounted many of these disagreements by sponsoring groups of experts from across the etiologic spectrum to seek constitutional acceptance. it's the bipartisan inclusive nature of our work that leds credibility and influence. this year we're focusening on

three vat lsite l areas. how can we rekeep public safety. we know that systemic failures in our criminal justice system come at a high individual economic and societal cost and that especially since 9/11 the growth of our national security apparatus is threatening some of our most basic rights and protections. the second area is how we should safeguard personal information, provecy and first amendment rights that are increasingly affected by rapid sophisticated and complex technological. finding a balance between private and civil liberties and a need for security is a constant long time struggle.

>> it is more important than ever that our constitutional rights still apply in the digital age. our third area of focus is how can we make government more open and accountable. sadly, it seems the government standard practice now is one of nondisclosure. since an informed citizenry is vital to our representative form of government, tcp is working to break down barriers to government transparency facilitating the oversight we need to monitor what our government does in our name. i'd like to highlight some specific examples of our work before turning to our awards. two years ago our bipartisan blue ribbon task force released a 600-panel report examining the treatment of suspected terrorists in the clinton, bush and obama administrations. the task force and staff of tcp thoroughly examined available

public records and interviews and conducted on the ground fact finding all over the world. our report remains the most comprehensive of its kind. the task force made three alarming findings. first, that u.s. personnel engage in torture. secondly, that the decision to torture was made at the highest levels of government. and third that the public record contains in persuasive evidence that torture produced significant information of fall. as with all of our reports, we use this one to further or education and advocacy work. task force members supported by tcp staff use their expertise influence and access to persist tently lobby congress and the administration to make public the senate intelligent committee's report on the cia's defengs and interrogation

program. finally last december a declassified executive summary was publicly released. its findings and recommendations closely mirror many of those of our own task force. unfortunately the executive branch seems to be largely ignoring the senate report and some in congress want it withdrawn from public view. incredibly representatives of most of the affected justice agencies including the fbi admit they haven't even bothered to open their copy. it's long past time to declassify all information abts post-9/11 detainee abuses. we must understand what went wrong so that it will never happen again. and so our work in this area will continue. [ applause ] task force members and tcp staff

has successfully supported critical steps towards closing guantanamo. while both the bush and obama administrations made some progress including a welcome uptick in transfers at the end of last year detainee transfers have slowed again and some in congress seem set on harsher restrictions to ensure that gitmo remains open. it is an outrage 122 detainees remain untried at guantanamo nearly half of them declared for transfer. our death penalty work is another work our consensus building. we've brought together supporters of capital punishment to ensure that our county addresses the inaccuracy and injustices that plague the system. last may we issued a comprehensive report and 39 recommendations condemning the system's flaws from arrest to

prosecution. anthony graves stated that had our recommendations been in place when we was convicted he would not have spent 18 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. in too many capital cases exculpatory evidence is withheld defense lawyers are ill equipped and outmatched deadlines hissed racial disparities persist and people with intellectual disabilities face the ultimate punishment. in recommending a national commitment to improving forensic science, the report foreshadowed the fbi's acknowledgment that decades have affected thousands of convictions. this includes 32 cases in which defendants were sentenced to

death. 14 of whom have already been executed or they died in prison. and then there's privacy. even before the snowden revelations, we were working to update various laws that were outdated in the face of new technology. our bipartisan committees are demanding disclosure of and strict limits on government snooping and they're demanding that law enforcement obtain warrants to access this information. we're pleased to work not only with the privacy community and the government but also with technology companies who are often caught in the middle of the battles. this past year we helped build broad support in collection of our telephone records and for making the foreign surveillance intelligent court for accountable. we appreciate senator leahy and his staff for their tireless efforts to ensure that congress adopts these reforms.

it is our mission to assume the unlikeliness of allies to promote consensus. we're looking at for example, the consequences of collecting dna from people who have not been charged with a crime. we testified before the president's 21st century task force on policing about constitutional principles that policymakers must consider before equipping state and local police with body cameras and military equipment. we just issued a report condemning the most common and overlooked constitutional depravations accused of poor people accused of crimes. the denial of counsel when a judge determines whether the accused will be incarcerated prior to trial. because of our unusual mission advocates in state campaigns constantly seek our help, as they did last december when we assembled over a dozen

nationally recognized community leaders to plead for clemency. mr. petty's execution fortunately has now been stayed. litigants ask us to organize briefs in important supreme court cases brief that are unusually influence because they're from former judges and prosecutors, national security experts and other prominent and often unlikely voices. you probably just read about one of those cases, anthony ray hinton what was whon rated in early april after spending nearly three decades on alabama's death row because his court appointed lawyer didn't know enough to ask the court for enough money to hire a qualified presencic expert. before turning to our awards, i want to thank jones day for lending us this amazing space. and i want to thank our many

sponsors for this evening and especially those at the defender level, bloomberg kirkland and ellis and twitter. i want to thank our board of directors fsh their support and the tireless tcp staff. and i want to particularly thank the creative lisa banks jenning donnelly and brian for their work on this gala. thanks to all thof you who are here and support our mission. and finally thank you to our constitutional champions who stand up for the contusion and for the rights of us all. for more about our first hon re senator patrick leahy, please welcome patrick. his biography and those of the other speakers are in the program. let me just well come debo to the stage.

[ applause ] [ applause ] ordinarily i would ask for that step to come back here. but tonight since we're amongst friends i'll dispatch with that. good evening. it's a great pleasure to be here with you and to be here celebrating the constitution projects important work. but it's a special pleasure to be here to present an award to my mentor, friend and former employer senator patrick leahy. he is a constitutional champion and tonight i will speak just briefly about sam of the reasons why we know that to be the case. as a senator, a former chairman of the judiciary committee, as a ranking kmeb, senator leahy always e kwipts himself as a member of principle, commitment and somebody who believes in the rule of law and the constitutional rules that we set for ourselves.

most recently, together with another one of our honorees this evening, senator rand paul, senator leahy is a cosponsor of the justice safety valve act, a measure which is intended to restore a measure of fairness and discretion to judges as they seek to sentence people in the context of mandatory minimums. in a post-9/11 world senator leahy had lent his voice to the rule of law and the tensions that we face with respect to our constitution and the need to keep our nation safe. senator leahy has been in all of these discussions and has elevated our commitment to our principles even in the most harrowing times. but one unmistakable aspect of senator leahy's leadership with respect to the constitution is he's not just somebody who voices the important principles

of the constitution but he acts in bipartisan fashion to make sure that laws are enacted to vindicate those principles. in the context of the voting rights act senator leahy was a tireless voice in the 2006 reauthorization and helped to get that legislation signed. i had an opportunity to collaborate with senator leahy and his staff and i know it would not have been signed but for his efforts. in another context collaborating the senator orenrin hatch, he's made sure there's access for post-conviction people who are sentenced to capital crimes to have dna testing done to bring a greater measure of fairness where people face the most severe penalty that our criminal justice system mets out. senator leahy it is a happy evening for me to be here and

top raise tribute to you. i think when this award was named, it must have been named with men like you in mind. i thank you for your leadership for your commitment for our example, for your friendship for the opportunity to stand with you in good times and more harrowing times. i welcome senator patrick leahy to the podium to accept the constitutional champion award. [ applause ] >> thank you.

debo, thank you very much for that introduction. you know, i was thinking, as i listened to jenny giving you her opening on this, we're dealing with people here who have actually read the constitution. what a wonderful, wonderful feeling that is to do that. and debo you're a hero in our family. you're a hero to so many of us here. i know christine is here and david carl we think of you as a hero. you once said that the goal of the constitution was to form a more perfect union was inspirational but also aspirational. i know that i speak for many in

this room when i say your dedication serving the public good and defending the public constitution on behalf of all americans is an inspiration. you defend the constitution for all americans even if it might cost you, if your own career. i can't think of anything more that i admire more in a person than that. and i would admire you even if your middle name wasn't patrick. but i ad mire you for doing that. and i think everybody here knows what i'm talking about. that a few years ago i chose to stay at the helm of the judiciary

committee. i did it because i thought it allowed me to defend the constitution. and -- judge, thank you for being here. that's why it's such an honor to be recognized by the constitution project tonight. we worked arm in arm so many years. we've worked to defeat legislation, was there to limit the right of federal hebeas corpus. can you imagine, we fought them and we won. we fought to end torture in detention. not because just it's the right thing to do, but it's basically un-american. and we fought it. we fought to provide adequate funding for public defenders. something i believe strongly in. i spent eight years as a prosecutor. i want to see good public

defenders. think of the number of people who are on death row who are now free and the person who actually committed the crime is behind bars. doesn't that speak to what america should be? we're going to continue to work. we have to push our great nation to live up to the ideas of the constitution. it's not just a goal. it's not something that happens automatically. i think our found ares knew you have to fight for thatter single day, persistent determination an unrelenting commitment to core american values. it also means that sometimes you got to admit we make mistakes. our nation has faced times of great fear and stress. we sometimes reacted in ways that strayed from our core principles of democracy and

freedom. but in the greatness of our countries we have learn from those mistakes and make sure we don't repeat them. we shouldn't hide from the ore errors of the past. we've had them. we are america. i don't hide them. admit them. learn from them and get better. that's why the founders designed the constitution that contained a way to improve it. each generation has done just that. we've improved the original document by guaranteeing protection for individuals by expanding the franchise, by protecting many freedoms we hold deer, by acknowledging the fact that all human beings are human beings. all, no matter who they are, men or women no matter the color of their skin no matter who they are. we're all americans.

we're all human beings. and we're reminded there's progress to be prepared to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 13th 14th and 15th amendments, the second founding commemoration reminds us of our steady efforts to form a more perfect union. every generation has to do that. we made great progress in the last two and a half centuries. the things that we accepted when the constitution was written, we wouldn't accept today. women were considered second class citizens. can you imagine? the fact that we would segregate based on the color of our skin. can you imagine? and jenny in your comment you spoke of the gave errors we made, the recent decades of the

cia's use of torture and secret prisons in the wake of the september 11th fear riss attacks. these thing did not make us safer. i would argue they demine the great estimation on et. it was wrong. it should never -- [ applause ]. it was wrong. it should never -- [ applause ]ea. it was wrong. it should never -- [ applause ]r. it was wrong. it should never -- [ applause ]t. it was wrong. it should never -- [ applause ]h. it was wrong. it should never -- [ applause ] it was wrong and president obama ended the program the day he took office. but somewhere in the last year we fully understood what happened. we had the work of the senate on intelligence and i commend dianne feinstein on this and the constitution's project finally found out what happened. it wasn't easy to shed light on this. but when we did, we demonstrated to the rest of the world that we're different. we're a great nation in part because we're always trying to

do better. our government has also gone too far on intruding on american's privacy rights in the name of terrorism. something senator paul and i have talked about many times. in 2013 we learned that nsa has been engaging in the dragnet policy of wiretapping. and we found out it did not keep us safer from terrorists attacks. i remember the testimony and i asked, well, how many, how many terrorists attacks? well, 52. well, maybe 20. well 12. well, eight. well, there was one that we were involved in after the fbi had found the people. now, section 215 expires in a

few short weeks. some want to just expand it. i want to work with both republicans and democrats for some real reform. i think we have to end this bulk collection program once and for all. it's not what we are as americans. it does not make us safer. and it is foolish to give this to the next generation. and then -- [ applause ] -- we passed mandatory minimum sentencing laws. that has not made us safer. it has driven our federal prison population to historic highs, nearly 800% increase in eight years, a third of the department justice budget is not in stopping terrorists.

these laws do not help us. i oppose all mandatory minimums. [ applause ] let's restore discretion to judges. and you'll find this is something that will unite people on the right and the left. rand, i think you'll agree with that. you know, senator rand paul and i introduced the justice safety valve act. it restored discretion to judges. it restores sanity of our system. it's not because judges will be right every single time. of course some will make a mistake. but to pass a law and say one size fits all is foolish. it's wrong. it doesn't help our country. as a former prosecutor, i'm opposed to it. so the president has power under the constitution to offer clemency to those hired by

mandatory sentences. very little time left in this administration. i hope the president will step up with this and say let's change this. but i've spoken too long. i'm preaching to the converted on so many things. but dammit, it's nice. [ applause ] it's nice to be with the converted. it's nice to share this award with my dear friend rand paul. it's nice to have people actually care about the constitution. thank you very much. [ applause ]

thank you so much senator leahy. i would like to present one of my friends julie stewart. and i want to tell one story to embarrass julie. and that is that her husband, ron white who is here somewhere he's the deen at the university of baltimore law school. and i went to their wedding how many years ago? 20-some-odd years ago. and even at that time one of their vows were that they would always work together to obtain criminal justice reform. it was a strange wedding vow, but from ron and julie it's what they do and it's who they are. and i can't think of a better person to present the award to senator paul.

[ applause ] >> i didn't expect that. but yes our vows did involve sentencing. some of you in this room were there. thank you, jenny. and thank you so much for the tremendous honor you've given me in introducing senator rand paul, oun of the recipients of the 2015 constitutional champions award. if you look up senator rand paul's official bio, as i did, you'll read he was born in pittsburgh raised in texas, went to baylor before he went to medical school at duke. yada yada. that's what they want you to believe. i'm not buying it. after looking at senator paul's record, i've decided that there's a different theory of his true origins. i believe senator paul was created in a secret laboratory by scientists working for jenny sloan and the constitution project. hear me out on this.

for years the constitution project has defended the guarantee of due process and championed a separation of powers that prevents yor reaching presidents from infringing on our basic freedoms. and then seemingly out of nowhere an ophthalmologist from kentucky comes champion of liberty so well versed in the constitution and he shatters the status quo by standing on the floor of the state for 13 hours in order to remind colleagues and fellow citizens of the importance, the necessity and the near sanctity of the rule of law. how did that just happen? and the constitution project has fought government surveillance and intrusions of individual privacy. and yet in just a few years senator rand paul has become a leading critic of nsa surveillance programs and all

other unconstitutional government snooping schemes. they've sought the build bipartisan support for criminal justice reform including the eliminating of the mandatory sentencing laws. and if on cue senator rand paul enters and coauthors the justice safety valve act that would restore discretion over sentencing to where it belongs not in the politicians hands in washington but in the hands of the courts across this country. see, my theory doesn't sound so strange now. jenny sloan and the constitution project have always believed that safeguarding constitutional values could only be done by bringing people together and to find consensus solution to the most contentious people. how lucky they are to have found

senator rand paul, a leader who proves you can be passionate and still pleasant. thank you senator paul for reminding all of us, politicians, advocates and citizens alike that we can disagree without being disagreeable. i've had the privilege of working directly with senator rand paul and i've even been in meeting where he has told conservative advocates from a not to be named think tank that they can't just support white collar sentencing reform. they must support reform for all people of all colors including nonviolent drug offenders. [ applause ] and i saw senator paul's commitment when he crossed the capital to meet and express his opposition to an unjust but very popular mandatory sentencing

proposal. senator paul's support for justice reform has received a lot of media attention. but it's what's done behind the scenes that he's doing without being watched without being seen that has impressed me the most and makes me very grateful that he's on my side. senator paul is without a doubt a champion of the constitution. so even if you don't believe as i do that jenny and company created him for this award i think you'll agree that this award was made for him. ladies and gentlemen it is my pleasure to introduce senator rand paul. [ applause ]

thaupg you. it really is an honor to be here with the constitution project to share this award with senator he hay or to get an award the same night as senator leahy. thank you for making this happen. martin luther king wrote in the letter from birmingham jail about what an unjust law was martin luther king wrote they's a code that a numerical majority passes on a minority but does not make binding on themselves ps. for too long in this country the law was overtly unjust based on the color of your skin. this time has fortunate lit passly passed and for the post part we still

suffer injustice de facto. i don't think this is a conscious effort. we've had some discussion of this. the fbi director recently talked about how we have to be very, very careful of racial you know, insensitive or racially profiling people. i think that's important. but when we deso the disparities, i don't think the disparities are necessarily coming from an overt racism. nevertheless, though, there is a disproportionate impact. there's something wrong awry in the criminal justice system when you lock at those who are incarcerated. i was always someone who was kind of doubtful about the war on drugs. but i became more aware of the racial implications of this after i read michelle alexander's "mass incarceration, the new jim crow" which is a profound indictment of our criminal justice system. despite consistent evidence that white kids and black kids use drugs at about the same rate,

three out of four kids in jail are black or brown for nonviolent drugs. i think that we miss the boat if we simply say this is just racism. i think that more likely the ultimate source of this is that poor people tend to live close together there's more crime in cities and the police are there all of the time open the police aren't in the suburbs. so it adds up day in and day out. the answer isn't just racial sensitivity training, the answer isn't just more african american police officers. i think the ultimate answer is in understanding the war on drugs has gone too far. that we've treated the war on drugs and we've treated addiction and we've treated the problems that our kids have as an incarceration issue and not an addiction or a health issue. i think we need less incoarse ration of people of all races. the injustice is evident in our

prisons, i think largely fail away if we begin to dismantle the overzealousness of the war on drugs. as i went to ferkson as i went to chicago detroit, all of the big cities i've sensed an undercurrent of unease. it's not the incidents that have happened, the particular incidents of the shooting, but it's that it's day in, day out. it's kind of like what martin luther king talked about being two americas. one america where you feel that you can be treated in life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is going to be there and everything is fair. and other people who feel like they still have no chance. in ferguson and many cities in missouri 30% of the revenue come in is from tickets and fines. who disproportionately get these? poor people.

$29,000 people live in ferguson and yet there were 32,000 arrest warrants last year. child support. every thinks we ought to pay child support. what if you've been in prison. three years and you get out and make 8 dollars an hour and owe 3,000 dollars. it all adds up. people are giving up. george will writes that in california there are 2,000 people who have committed no violent crime, no serious crime and serving 25 years to life. you may recall in california though this year they passed proposition 47. they took some of the minor drug felonies and made them misdemeanors. do you know what happened? this was in november. four months later they're finding that they're no longer mandated to release. people the federal judges are saying overcrowding. you've got to let people out. everybody was being let out. in four months they're finding that violent criminals can serve

their entire sentence because they're not crowding the prisons with marijuana crimes. i think the incarceration bing is out of control and it's time we get together republican, democrat and independent and it's time we fix it. [ applause ] to me it's about the faces and stories. rolling stone did a great expo say of this not too long ago. timothy tyler was 23 years old. he's a dead head. naked in the desert. i don't think all dead heads do that. but here's the thing. somebody could have set him straight in life. there could have been another choice. he went to prison for life. he's 46 years old now. he's been in jail for 23 years. he might be in jail for another 40 years. he made a mistake for goodness sake. couldn't we give him a second chance? that's one thing i want to

compliment the president on he has gotten some people out of prison, commuted some sentences for people who were in for 15 years when the corresponding white kid in college got six months or nothing. he's done a job to equalize this but we need to change the laws. let's make it one to one. there's no reason we can't fix that. [ applause ] people are rotting in prison from these mandatory men mums. the federal judges three-fourths of them, the majority of them reported by republicans, everybody is saying they don't want mandatory minimums minimums. the judges need to be given back discretion. but i think justice will only occur when we repeal once and for all all mandatory minimums. [ applause ]

now i just want to stipulate that the washington post and i don't always agree. they're not always my best friend. but i'm here to pay a compliment to the washington post for doing a great job and it will be a great disservice to the country if we lose or newspapers. if the major newspapers that do the investigative reporting. the report is changing minds it's changing minds in congress. and i can tell you even in the last couple of months we're now talking about it. and i know senator leahy was there talking about civil asset forfeiture. but the stories are what get me. a man has a home, a nice home in philadelphia. his teenage son selling $40 worth of illegal drugs out of it. what do they do? they evict the family from the house, barricades the house and take the house without a conviction. it's insane. but too often this is a grandma

in the inner city who is the only stabilizing force in the family whose grandson is selling marijuana out of the house and they take the house. we've got to do something about this. to my mind it is thoroughly un-american that the government could ever take your stuff, take your property without a conviction and i think we have to change it. the sooner the better. [ applause ] senator leahy mentioned the collection of phone records. millions of people's phone records are being collected. to my mind when the fourth amendment says you need to name an individual, i don't know anybody named mr. verizon. i think your records, when held by a third party -- this has never been fully adjudicated. but when your records are held by a third party and you have a privacy agreement with them i think you do not give up your private property interest in your records and you still maintain an interest in those records. [ applause ]

one unapologetic senator who i've had a few rounds with says if you're not talking to terrorists, why are you worried? he goes on to say he would sensor the mail if he could. really? this senator goes on to say that when you're an american citizen and they ask for a lawyer, you just tell them the shut up. really? have we stooped so low that that is our standard? have we fallen so low that that is our standard? if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. it's a long way from innocent until proven guilty. our founding fathers would be mortified. i think justice will predominate when the accuseds is always afforded a lawyer, always afforded due process and always afforded a trial. [ applause ]

the new yorker also did an expo shay that affected me profoundly. a 16-year-old kid accused of a crime, sent to jail for three years in rikers with no trial. republicans were great with the second amendment. but you know what? somebody has got to stand up for the fourth the fifth and the sixth which says you get a speedy trial. [ applause ] he was kept in solitary confinement. cory booker and i have a bill that gets rid of a lot of the solitary confinement for kids and is going to help us with trying to keep this from happening again. the way i see it the bill of rights is for the least among us, for the least popular those who don't dress and act like everyone else. the bill of rights is not so necessary for the prom queen. the bill of rights is not so nes

say for the football quarterback. but for the least pop you loor among us. the bill of rights is for especially the unpopular, the minority. the minority is not just the color of your skin. it would be is shade of your etiology the shade of your religious faith. what should motivate us all to protect and defend a system that finds justice and protects everyone whether you're rich or poor, black or white, until then i want to be one of those who remains ever vigilant and ever weary of those who would trade liberty or justice for a false sense of security. thank you. [ applause ]

>> thank you so much senator paul. and now for your last award i'd like to introduce marty baron who is the executive editor of the "washington post." and although i guess he's not supposed to be in the paper very much in the past couple of days he has been in the paper for something very good which is the pulitzer that the post just won and for something very bad, which is the fact that the post bureau chief in iran is still in prison and about to go on trial. and the statements from marty describe quite accurately how terrifying that situation is. so congratulation frs the pulitzer and please come to the podium. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you very much.

senator paul these few moments of friendship have been a wonderful thing. [ laughter ] early this year many leading media professionals gathered to address what we saw as an emerging crisis in free expression. it doesn't just that the rights of the press were under assault in countries around the world including our own, free expression itself was under threat. we wanted the circle of advocates for free expression to widen. we needed more than media organizations to take up the cause, especially the broader business community. after all, free expression means more accountability less corruption, the open exchange of ideas. so it gives me enormous pleasure this evening to recognize a business that is consistently taken a stand in favor of free

expression for many years. twitter. twitter's present and future depend on the flow of ideas information and opinion. i am also pleased that this award goes to twitter because of its principle stand on an issue that was at the heart of coverage a year ago by the "washington post", massive surveillance by the national security agency which others have spoken about here tonight. in service of that surveillance system, the government has compelled large technology providers, including microsoft, google, yahoo! aol, facebook and apple to turn over millions of people's private data. disclosures of the breadth of surveillance touched off of debatede debate debate. as the aclu noted surveillance

carries profound implications for press freedom, the public's right to nervous and the right to counsel. in the subsequent fur roar over those disclosures many technology companies sought to tell the public more. they wanted to reveal statistics on broader law enforcement requests than they were already publishing. the department of justice resisted. but it ultimately agreed to allow publication of broadbands of certain types of national security information request, even as it continued to insist on a number of restrictions. twitter, however, felt the compromise did not go far enough. it did not join in the settlement. it wanted to be still more forthcoming. to describe government requests in more informative detail and to say openly whether it had received no requests of a certain type.

the government did not consent. and so twitter sued in federal court arguing that its first amendment rights were being violated. twitter the company said in its filing is a unique service built on trust and transparency. and people it said, expect to share information, quote, without undue fear of government surveillance. the government prohibition twitter argue represented an understand constitutional prior restraint of free speech and i'm proud to say that the washington post is among the medial organizations that filed a friend of the court brief to support twitter. this is a battle that has just begin. but twitter has indicated that it's in this for the long haul. the great thing is that it is fighting and fighting hard. so it is now my honor to present the 2015 constitutional champion

award to twitter incorporated. and accepting the award on twitter's behalf is twitter's vice president of global public policy. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you very much, marty. and thank you jenny sloan and the constitution project. it is with deep appreciation and gratitude for the work that the constitution project does day in and day out year after year in

protecting civil liberties that twitter accepts this award. and i'm here to accept the award on behalf of my colleagues at twitter. and it's also a special honor for us to be recognized for these issues, along with senator paul and with senator leahy as well. senator paul has been a vocal advocate of constitutionally protected freedom. and as he just shared with all of us, he too, is in it for the long haul in protecting these freedoms and has been quite active in our platform and parties ated in a q and a on twitter. and senator he hay has an unparalleled record. and twitter proactivity supported senator leahy's

legislation, the usa freedom act in the last congress and we'll be back, along with our sister companies, as part of the reformed government surveillance coalition and actively involved in that on capitol hill in this session of congress. so we're very proud to share the stage tonight with both of you. and we'll continue to work with you to defend and respect our user's voices and uses' rights. marty touched on this a little bit in the introduction. but what i thought i would do is talk a little bit about why a company like twitter would care about these issues. and so a little bit of background on twitter. because what i find in my job as i go around i know that awareness of twitter is very high. actual use of twitter can sometimes lag a little bit. but by way of background, twitter's goal is to bring people closer to what's most meaningful to them.

as hopefully most of you know, we do that by allowing people to share brief 140-character messages with the world that we call tweets. and over time these tweets have evolved so that they can now include brief six-second looped videos from vine or other short form video fare, photos, screen shots and most recently links to a live broadcast type content from a new service we call periscope. a live conversational way to share thoughts and perspectives instantaneously. one of the facts i learned on my first day at twitter was that from the very first tweet that was sent by one of our cofounder, jack dorsi from that first tweet it took three yours two months and one day to go

from that first tweet to the one billionth tweet. twitter now serves a billion tweets every two days. so the volume of content that is shared on the platform in multiple languages with diverse perspectives is really rich. and another fun fact for you to take home, maybe try out later, is that it apparently would take 361 tweets to tweet out the u.s. constitution. so if you wanted to do that when you get home later fun for the feebleminded. you could try that. so twitter connects people and ideas. it connected elects officials as many people here in the room would know to their vote ares. it connectings causes to constituents celebrities to their fans families to far away loved ones, neighbor to each other in times of crisis. every combination as diverse as

the global community itself. twitters have the ability to make their own experience but they're also exposed to the ideas and perspectives of others. one of the wonderful thingsant twitter is it's often a discovery engine for our users. you will find content on there that you might not otherwise expect to find. a person's time lane can be filled with inspiring content and also searing commentary. it can will filled with breaking news and twitter, as you know, is often an important window into breaking news around the world. and for journalists and activists and individual citizens is a medium that often bears witness to history and also bears witness to atrocity. that's an important feature of the platform.

twitter has seen posted content of painful content natural disasters, terrorism government repression around the world. but it's also a place where people can find greater conektedness. the key thing about that is for twitter to recognize that the role of the open platform for free expression is to recognize that that speech is not our own. that speech is the speech of our users. so as the public sharing of thoughts and opinions of those who come to twitter speaking to share such content with the world, it's resiesly because it's not our own content that we feel we have a duty to respect and defend those voices on the

platform. and to allow or platform to be a place and remain a place where users can discuss whatever they want, whether we agree with it or not. whether we agree with what they're saying, agree with their perspective, the platform is open. the platform in any debate is neutral. the platform doesn't take sides. so the openness, the instantaneous connection to ideas and perspectives and breaking news events is something that we're continually working on to innovate on and protect, improve and enhance as a user experience on the platform. so why would we care about government surveillance and privacy issues here in washington and beyond? it's because these issues now go to the heart of what twitter is all about. it reflect an interest in our koer values a company, a collection of individuals who are working at twitter.

but it is also something that reflects the fact that twitter itself is compelling because our users' voices make it compelling. and for that reason defending and respecting the users' voice has been a core value. we also believe that the work we do to defend and respect the user's voice is an important part of what brings people to twitter instead of perhaps going to other plat tomorrows. so as a result for us, i's not only good ethical practice but we believe it's good business practice. it's a good business plan for us. so our efforts to reform government surveillance practices and provide greater transparentcy stem from this core understanding of our business and our platform. and one of the great things i love about the company and drew me to the company to work for was that it has always been

willing to put its money, time resources, its employee efforts and basically put its mouth put its tweets and people and resources where these issues come to the fore. some of this occurs on work you'll never hear about. and some of this work will be on things like pushing back on a warrant or noticing a user about a subpoena request for their user information and providing links to resources so they can seek pro-bono counsel. some of this work is public but often doesn't get a lot of coverage, such like fighting motion to compel the production of user data from plaintiffs trying to identify a twitter user yudsing a pseudonym who may have been sharing personal commentary or opinion about a ceo or some control controlling authority, a politician somewhere in the world.

those are things that are important to twitter and for things that we work on. and some of you have already heard and has been referenced here the lawsuit twitter versusholder. as our deputy general council explained in the blog post filing the suit, quote it's our belief we're entitled under the first amendment to respond to our users' concerns and to the statements of the u.s. government official by providing information about the scope of u.s. government surveillance including what types of legal process have not been received and we should be freed to do this in a meaningful way rather than in broad, inexact ranges. our lawsuit continues. we are committed to seeing it through. next step will be a hearing on may 5th. on the government's motion to dismiss the case, and we

appreciated the outpouring of support that we received here from the washington post, buzzfeed, other media organizations, and as well as the reporters' committee for civil rights, electronic frontier foundation and many others who agree that this issue concerns core first amendment protections with significant implications for our democracy. we appreciate the opportunity to take those issues and challenges and concerns to the northern district of california. so even as we continue our court proceeding, we'll continue to be engaged here in washington. there's, obviously, a lot going on on these issues here this spring, and we will continue to build our business in a way that makes us proud and constantly reaffirm our commitment to defending and protecting the users' voice. i mentioned in the beginning i was accepting this award on behalf of my colleagues. i wanted to just by name mention several of them.

vigagati, dell harvey ben lee, amy keating, jeremy castle as well as the team -- the twitter team here in washington who are here at the events will cardy, william, tina jessica pham, and i wanted to knowledge them, their work, recognize it's a company wide commitment to the issues, and, again, i thank jenni and the constitution product, marty, for the introduction. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> so we're almost done. i'm chair of the board for tcp

and my job is to thank all of you for coming to support his work and honorees this evening. we have a fabulous venue and great weather, and the thing that i like most about this event is that as the team at the constitution project do in all of their work they bring together people from across the spectrum and find agreement. the remarks you heard tonight from our three honorees are just a perfect illustration of the type of things that the tcp does and what they stand for and so it's just been a wonderful evening. i want to make sure to thank the sponsors who make the event

happen and everyone who turned out for this lovely evening, and as you come away from this first of all don't forget to stop and have gelato, but as you come away from this and think about what you heard from senator leahy, paul on behalf of twitter, remember these issues affect all americans. i think senator paul said a lot of what you think about in the bill of rights and justice reform is for the downtrodden, but the work in terms of protecting privacy and subpoenas to verizon and twitter affect all of us. i don't use twitter, sorry, but my kids do and so you know it affects our kids. so i think we all should care about this and it's fantastic there's an organization here in washington like the constitution project that brings people together to address these

issues. last thing i have to do to bid you good evening is remind you tcp can't do this without your help. obviously, the folks who sponsored, who bought tickets tonight, people -- people who respond to the campaigns throughout the year, the foundations that support tcp, helped make this happen, but i ask you, there's an envelope you got on the way in. you can put something in it on the way out or stick it in the mail, but, please, do what you can can do to help tcp, and for the lawyers in the room, i know there's plenty here, we always look for volunteers to help with the work. reach out. thank you, all, have a great evening. [ applause ]

>> she wrote stories about weapons of mass destruction in effort to reveal her source, she was found in contempt of court and imprisoned in a federal jail for 85 days. sunday on "q&a," she talks about the time in jail. >> i was in jail because i refused to reveal an identity of the source of whom i thought did not want identity revealed. in our business as you know, brian, protecting sources is the life blood of independent journalism, and i really felt unless the people that i routinely spoke to, who had access to classified information, until they could trust me to protect them my

sources would dry up, and then i'd write what the government wanted you to write, and so i felt this was the question of principle, that i did not really have much choice. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." considered modern for her time called mrs. president, and she was outspoken about her views on slavery and women's rights as one of the most prolific writers, she provides a unique window into colonial america and her personal life. abigail adams sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's original series "first ladies: influence and image," examining the public and private lives of the first ladies and influence on the presidency from martha washington to michelle obama sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. as a compliment to the series, c

c-span's book is available "first ladies: presidential historyies on women" providing stories of women creating an illuminate illuminating, entertaining, and inspiring read available as hard cover or e-book through your favorite book seller on online book seller. at the u.n. institute of peace, former iranian and u.s. officials talked about negotiations over iran's nuclear program. speakers addressed the status of the talks and how a deal affects stability in the region. negotiators face a deadline for a final agreement june 30. this is an hour and a half. good morning, everyone, welcome to the united states

institution of peace chairman of the board of the institution, and we're going to get started. the intelligence we've received is there are power outages and metro slow downs and all kinds of chaos which some say made it a typical rush hour in the washington morning, but we'll pass that. people will be joining us as they get her, but we're glad that you are all here. this is the fourth event in a series cosponsored by eight washington think tanks. they are the u.s. institute of peace, woodrow wilson cementer, rands cooperation, arms control association, center for a new american security the stenson center, plow shares fund and partnership for a secure america. which is an unprecedented

collaboration, and special thanks to robin wright who put this consortium together. this event is brought to you by iran primmer usip's comprehensive website with resources on every iran-related ed subject you can think of and animal us from any angle, and i would urge you to take a look at the site. we'll have provided a copy of the iran primmer home page on every seat here so -- if you don't have one you can get one in the back. we're delighted to host this original former involving american and iranian officials who understand firsthand the challenges of foreign policy and particularly u.s. iranian relations. on april 2 the world's sixth major powers in iran announced the frame work for what could be a historic nuclear deal. the terms remain controversial and somewhat