anned a miezed struggle, but we come together in common cause here and beyond. so invest that context that i want to share these remarks with you this evening about the jewish condition and the human condition. about assault on jews and assaults on human rights. about the state of jews in the world today and the state of the world inhabited by jews. about anti-semitism not only being the oldest and most enduring of hatreds. i would say the paradigm of radical hatred is the paradigm of radical evil. but the most toxic, the most lee thal as our colleague put it.

of remembrance and reminder. we are meeting on the 80th anniversary of the coming into effect of the race laws. ended up being prologue on precursor to taking us down the road to the holocaust. we meet also on the 71st anniversary year of the liberation of auschwitz, the most brutal extermination camp of the 20th century. a reminder of horrors too terrible to be believed, but not too terrible to have happened. 1.3 million people were murdered at auschwitz. 1.1 million of them were jews. let there be no mistake about it. jews were murdered in auschwitz because of anti-semitism. but anti-semitism did not itself die at auschwitz.

and jews and the related anti-semitism have emerged and have emerged for some time. i have learned only too well and too tragically that while it may begin with jews it doesn't end with jews. and so the underlying thesis of my remarks this evening that i regret that i have been repeating this thesis tr some time now, but it just intensifies is that we are witnessing a new global escalating, sophisticated and even lethal anti-semitism. grounded in classical anti-semitism, but distinguishable from it. which received its first

international institutional expression in the united nations it gave the abomination the appearance of international legal sanction. they are anchored in human rights and international law in general and equality rights law in particular. it's a discrimination again denial of, assault upon, the

rights of jews to live as equal members in any society and have developed metrics to identify and evaluate this traditional or classical anti-semitism. the antidefamation in a global comparative study in 2014 using some traditional metrics that have questions too much power or control the media. determined at the end of that global study that anti-semitism as they put it was a persistent and pervasive virus. but i want to suggest to you that there is this new anti-semitism with a set of metrics that were not even included in the antidefamation

league and which i want to share with you this evening. but first, if i may, to excerpt from a speech that was given some 16 years ago at the beginning of the 21st century when in observing the developments in the old and new anti-semitism and the intersection between the two stated in a rather pith yan way a process and connection and intersectionalty in a that sense, which underpins my remarks this evening. it primarily targets the jews, the state of israel.

i just might add it was a former deputy prime minister of sweden who emerged as one of the leading scholars with respect to old and new anti-semitism. then he continues. and then such attacks start a chain reaction of assaults on individual jews and jewish institutions. he concludes in the past, the most dangerous antisemimites were those who wanted to make the world free of jews. today the most dangerous antisemimites who might be those that want to make the world free of a jewish state. i want to summarize some five metrics of the new anti-semitism. i have elsewhere outlined 12 metrics, but i want to bore and burden you, so i will seek to limit it to five and even then you might say this is somewhat burdening. but one anti-semitism.

four anti-jewish terror and the one that i think is the most sophisticated and may be the most dangerous in that sense because the others at least are overt and public and clear. it's what i would call the laundry or masking of anti-semitism under universal public values and they are all the things that people care about in their common humanity. i hope then and if time permits to not leave it in an analytical framework, but to suggest some initiatives that we may take as a group of scholars to both not only better understand, but to better address and redress this new anti-semitism. let me begin with the first metric of the new anti-semitism

against the direct and public inciteful in the matter of upholding the constitutionality of the anti-hate legislation. when the court said that the holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers. and where they had come in 1992 and sought refugee status in canada won't go through the levels of proceedings and hearings but at the end of the

day, the court ordered back to rwanda he said how can i on the grounds of incitement to genocide and his argument was i came to canada in 1992. the very incitement constitutes the crime under international law. whether or not acts of genocide follow. in my view, compelling precedent in terms of combatting state

sanction hate and hate to genocide. and i say this because what makes the genocide in rwanda so unspeakable is not only the horror of the genocide itself that would be bad enough. what makes it so unspeakable is that genocide was preventible. nobody could say we did not know. we knew, but we did not act. just as in the case of darfur, nobody could say we did not know. we did not act or now as we just passed the fifth anniversary of the killing fields in syria or some close to 500,000 have been

killed, 12.5 million have been displaced. close to 5 million are refugees. isis came in at the end of the scorched earth policy. it began with the criminality of assad's regime. and those who said atd the time invoking the response, that whenever you have a situation in any country or with any government of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, and the government in places unable or unwilling to do anything about it or in the case of syria is the author of that killing field then there's a responsibility on the part of the international community to intervene and protect the innocent civilians. but those who called four years ago for intervention when

there's only 7,000 dead and quote, unquote, less than 100,000 displaced, we're told that if you intervene, this will lead to sectarian warfare. this will lead to jihadists coming in. everything we were told would happen if we intervened happened because we didn't intervene. and in a parallel similarly with regard to the struggle against anti-semitism, we cannot be bystanders. in locking at the phenomenon of anti-semitism, i found that

there were some seven manifestations of genocidal anti-semitism. i'm not going to go through all of them. just several of them to guf this audience does not need an e elaborate explanation. the first expression came at the beginning of the 21st century though not the first expression by that e person, but the first in the 21st century. on january 3rd, 2000, when the supreme leader of iran said that there could be no resolution of the arab/israeli conflict without the annihilation of the jewish state. to not use the euphemism, without the annihilation of the jewish state.

as we heard earlier today, this continued in terms of the calls for the excising of the cancerous tumor, israel and several weeks ago in the testing of ballistic missiles, as it had been with the missile with the emblem of wipe israel off the map repeated again three weeks ago. is that they are standing violations of the prohibition against this direct and public incitement to genocide anchored in the convention and international law. in effect, state parties have a responsibility. it's not a policy option. i use that term because i wanted to distinguish it from the people and publics of iran who are otherwise the targets of

mass domestic repression where the international community is not sufficiently intervening to redress on that level as well. so here's the first manifestation. the second manifestation of anti-semitism are the covenance and charters and declarations of programs and hezbollah shiite. i'm not saying that hamas in its own public charter calls for the destruction of israel and the killing of jews wherever they may be. you can find it in article 7. but what is perhaps less well known and surprised in the parliament was when i read into the record not simply this

public genocidal column, but the antisemitic tropes that underpin it. calling israel -- calling jews responsible for the french revolution, the first world war, the second world war, the league of nations, the there's not an evil in the world in which the jewish footprints are not there. so you have the juxtaposition of the old and new anti-semitism. with regard to hezbollah, we know of its public threats as well with regard to the reeder not only speaks of israel's disappearance, but he said, and i quote, the old and the new come together and if all the jews were gathered in israel, it would be easier to kill them all at the same time.

but u in a lesser note, but no less defamatory and expression they said that, i quote, if we search the entire world for the person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the jew. notice i do not say the israeli. and as the shiite scholar, i'm author of the book says this statement provides moral justification and ideological justification for demum newsing the jews. this view she went on the the israeli jew becomes a legitimate target for extermination and also legitimizes attacks on nonisraeli jews. i'll leave it at that.

are the religious exclusion calling for the killing of jews. i can give you a litany of that in terms of radical e moms. where jews and judism are held out to be the enemy of islam and where in their genocidal calls iz u real as it were emerges among the nations. the object of a state and so it is under this phenomenon of the genocidal anti-semitism that israel becomes the only state in the world today and the jewish people, the only people in the world today that are the

standing targets of genocidal anti-semitism. i didn't even go into the other manifestations of it, which include pop list anti-semitism, those expressions to which we heard in the streets of paris and ber lib and the like or the genocidal anti-semitism in the social media and so on. it brings me now to the second metric and this i'm referring here now to anti-semitism and move more quickly here. the globalizing indictment in this metric of israel and the jewish people as the embodiment of all evil in the world today. of israel as a racist child killing genocidal apartheid nazi people and state. the embodiment of the worst

evils of the 20th century. so that israel and the jewish people become not only the only state and only people that are the standing targets of genocidal anti-semitism, but the only state and the only people that are systemically accused of being genocidal themselves. for the incitement and assault. all of which serves as a value day or two for a third indicator. the denial of the fundamental rights of the jewish people. in other words, if the first indicator is a public call for the destruction of israel and the jewish people and if in the second metric israel and the

jewish people are the embodiment of all evil, warranting the assaults upon it then political anti-semitism is a denial of israel's right to exist to begin with or the denial of its legitimacy or the denial of the jewish people's right to self-determination if not even their denial as a people. as martin luther king jr. put it, i quote, it is the denial to the jews of the same right, the right to self-determination that we afford african nations and all people of the globe. in short, it is anti-semitism. which brings me to a forty metric u and that is the phenomenon of anti-jewish terror. underpinned by antijewish state

sanctioned incitement and then the glorification of that terrorism and even the rewarding of that terrorism. by both hamas and the palestinian authority. let me just say that the 21st century also began in the year october 2000 with the worst antijewish terrorism i would say more than that. the worst terrorism that we have, in fact, ever witnessed over a period of time. in the first two years from the onslaught of what was called the second, kind of sanitizing term because the notion is simply some kind of resistance to an occupation that really comes with a validating expression. what it really was with the worst kind of terrorism that we have witnessed in contemporary history.

some 600 jews were murder ued in the first two years of that. that is equivalent to a half a dozen 9/11s. and during the same time, there were a series of major attacks that never took place because they were thwarted. the attempt to bomb the israeli towers, which could have been a 9/11 in a particular sense for israel. the attempt to poison -- i can go on. what i'm saying is you had specific antijewish terror which included also the targeting of synagogues and jewish community centers and hebrew university. i can go on in the terrorist attacks. regrettably, what we have been witnessing has been ignoring or marginalizing or sanitizing of

such attacks. let me just give you a personal experience and i'll close this metric with this experience. i was in israel over december/january break. i went there to attend an international jewish parliamentarians conference. i arrived because the day sticks in my mind and my psyche on december 20th. ai arrived at the airport and picked up a post on the front page it said three terrorist attacks. now my daughter and grandchildren live there so these attacks took place while i was flying over to israel. so i immediately called my daughter and said it's okay, we're fine. but it was a neighbor of ours. and she fought the terrorists

off. fast forward january 1st, i'm going to visit my son, who recently u moved to israel and was living in tel aviv. i'm walking in and there's a terrorist attack in the heart of tel aviv. and then the third, just as i was about to leave israel being there for several weeks, you may have read about a pregnant woman that had been stabbed and thankfully the fetus was fine. that happened to be a cousin of mine. so i'm visiting israel. i'm there during a three-week period and all these terrorist attacks occur, which israelis are experiencing this terror day u in and day out. and yet when i and experimented

with this, we have a channel in our tv which brings you the israeli news. every single day for months now, the news has led off with another terrorist attack that took place in israel. every single day that i watched the canadian news there's almost no reference to these terrorist attacks. so not only the sanitizing of antijewish terror but it emboldens the terrorist to not only continue striking in israel, but continue to strike elsewhere. because when we didn't intervene at the beginning of this century with regard to antijewish terror, we then found that that antijewish terror, the tentacles would move on to europe and elsewhere. so our responsibility here to intervene on humanity and that common humanity was conclude israelis and jews.

i'm referring also to israeli arabs who they themselves have been injured or killed sometimes in these terrorist attacks. though not targeted for that purpose. now i come to the final metric. the one that i said is the most sophisticated. that is the lawn drerg or masking of anti-semitism under universal public values. because of the stricttures of time, i'm going to give one example of each of the four arenas in which this lawn derg takes place. the first, the laundering of the u.n., international law, the culture of human rights and, fourth, under the struggle against racism. one could add a fifth because it's becoming much more present of late and that is the

laundering under the indigenous peoples framework as well. let me begin with regard to the laundry under the protective cover of the united nations. i'm not saying anything new when i say yet again in december this year, the annual ritual was repeated of some 20 resolutions of condemnation against one member state in the international community, it happens to be israel and some three resolutions against the rest of the world combined. critical mass of indictment and quality of allstates large and small. that is not the only disturbing phenomenon there. as someone who is a member of canadian delegation to the united nations, there's not only a critical mass of indictment, there's a critical mass of exposure to that indictment.

that process which culminates in 20 resolutions of condemnation proceeds over a three-month period through the various communities and like of the united nations. the delegations are composed not simply of diplomats. they're composed of parliamentarians, of scholars of faith leaders, academics, journalists sometimes even of students. so there is a critical mass of exposure to that on-going process of indictment. i can tell you, many of the people who come to these -- parliamentary delegations, they're unformed. when they listen to that drum beat of indictment over three months with resolutions pass that read like findings of fact

and conclusions of law, then they internalize willie nilly this delegitimizing dynamic. and that was why one of the things that we need to do is address and redress the situation that's going on at the united nations. by the way, we know about the 40th anniversary was designed racism resolution. let me tell you what took place at the exact same time that got no coverage and even no remembrance at all, a process which began then that has been continued since which was portray then as the enemy of all that is good and the repository of all that was evil so it was in 1974 and '75, israel was held up to be the enemy of labor. evidence, the resolution of the international labor organization condemning, i use the word alenl, condemning israeli oppression trade union. the enemy of health, the

revolution condemning israeli mass poisoning of palestinians on the west bank. the enemy of culture, evidence of the resolution condemning israeli desecration of palestinian holy sites and the west bank. the enemy of women, evidence the resolution of the united nations commission on the starter of women condemning israel for its oppression of palestinian women. by the way, recently israel became the only state in the world condemned for its oppression of women. i mean, you can't make this thing up unless you're sitting at the united nations council for human rights.

the enemy of peace, evidence the resolution of the united nations general assembly condemning israel as nonpeace loving nation and the enemy of human rights, the resolution of the then united nations commission on human rights, the predecessor to the present un council condemning israel as a major human rights violator. in a word, in a world in which human rights then, let alone until now, i'm talking about 40 years ago, has emerged as new secular religion of our time. the condemnation of israel has the metta human rights violator meant that israel had emerged new geo political antichrist of our time. so much for the first example. the second example is laundering under the authority of international law. i could regrettably on this forever, but let me just take one example and it was mentioned earlier today deserves a recall. and that is in december last year, the contracting parties of the fourth geneva convention and

armed, the repository of international humanitarian law or the law of conflict, as it was called, met to put one state in the international community in the dark. it was not iran, it was not syria. it was not north korea. it was not i can go on. the only state put in the docket when the contracting parties of the geneva convention could mean was israel and it has precedence. this was the third time that the contracting parties to the geneva convention had met in 50 years and each time they put one state in the docket and each time that state is israel. and let me tell you that this quote/unquote juris prudence without the cave yacht they may refer to the juris prudence of the condemnation but not add, by the way, this was the only state

in the world so indicted. leads me, if i may borrow, i don't want to misappropriate another person's pain, but sometimes when i hear about black lives matter and it is true and somebody who has been part of that and -- movement, sometimes i think when i hear but witness the daily stabbings in israel and the like, someone should also say, and israeli lives matter, as well. because we are all part of a common humanity and it is blacks, each in its own context that we have to remember and to address those situations. a third reference made and will be made is the laundering of -- on human rights by the way, just for purposes of anchoring it in

history, this is the 70th anniversary now of the founding of the u.n. commission on human rights back in 19 -- at the time in 70th anniversary to make the exact time in terms of 1946, in terms of the founding of the u.n. commissioner. the tenth anniversary now of the u.n. council of human rights which was set up to address the singling out of israel that it occurred under the u.n. commission on human rights and to adhere to the u.n. principle of equality for all nations large and small, but which has even been more prejudicial in its singling out in an obsessive way of one state than its predecessor human rights commission. and here, too, i can go through the resolutions and special sessions, the emergency and such. i want to give you my own

personal experience with how this has taken place. you know about the operation protective edge, the u. -- the council united nations council established a commission of inquiry to look into it. what it didn't tell you or what was not always a known was that there was some 18 references in the resolution establishing that commission of inquiry into operation protective edge in the last israel, 18 separate references to israeli criminality in the resolution establishing this investigative inquire and not one reference to hamas. this was the framework under that resolution was set up. let me give you my own personal experience, i received a call in 2006 from the then united

nations commission on human rights, lawheeze, when we talk together, a distinguished judge of the supreme court of canada that went on to become the united nations commissioner for human rights. i'm calling to ask you to invite you to be a member of commission of inquiry that we're setting up to look into killings of palestinians and that come in northern, she said, bishop in south africa, one member and you will be the other. i said, to louise, this commission of inquiry will be going through and she said, no, why would it go? it was because of the rocketing that came from hamas in northern gaza, the rocketing of the civilian starut in southern israel, that israel in responding to that constant rocketing barrage regrettably,

tragically a shell, killed 18 palestinians. we know that we're not going there, but, you can member a member of the commission. you can, of course, make such submissions as part of the commission. i said, louise, i've read the resolution establishing the commission of inquiry that you're asking me to join. the resolution says that israel willingly murdered 18 palestinians. so what is there to investigate. i said, i'm sorry, i don't intend to be a fig leaf for the u.n. i certainly don't intend to be a jewish fig leaf for the u.n., which leads me to the final laundering and that is the laundering under the struggle against racism. let's face it.

one of the worst things you can say about a person, let alone a country, the very label supplies the indictment, no further proof extensively is required. if any further proof is required as in the case of israel, then you refer to israel as on a part time state. referencing israel is not an accidental reference. because those who draw up the indictment knew and know very well that it's defined in international law as a crime against humanity. if you say israel is an part time state, it is a crime against humanity. if it is a crime against humanity, then it has no right to be and if that is not enough, you call it a na zee state. not only does it have no right to beat, there's an obligation to ensure there is no right to be. we should recall five years ago public opinion survey was done in europe where countries were

asked, do you believe that israel is doing to the palestinians what the nazi's did to the jews and an average of 40% in the polls pulled said, yes, followed therefore psychological intellectual from this laundering of delegit maization. and so what we find, at this point, in this last part in the struggle against the laundering and the struggle goes back also to durbin, whose 15th anniversary we're going to be commemorating and where the tipping point for that laundering began. the laundering didn't begin in 2001 in durbin. it began, as i said, way back over 40 years ago and the attempt then to portray israel the enemy of all that is good, but what happened to durbin was a tipping point and i'll just close with an excerpt of the

marches that use to take place, the chanting and the marches in the streets of durbin, dramatically i think conveyed the impact of that laundering and the chanting went as followed, the struggle in the 20th century required the dismantling of south african is part time state and struggle against the parti in the 21 century requires a dismantle of israel as an aparte state. the blueprint for what we're witnessing today in the culture and the like, which brings me, now, to the final part and so the question, what needs to be done and in particular what can we do. and i remember two years ago,

some of these metrics were originally found in the agency. i remember how we discussed how it had been removed from the fra web site, but i want to say that it is still and is part of the u.s. state department definition and is part, also, 0 of both the london parliamentary declaration to combat antisentiment. that's the first thing that we need to do to have more inclusive and common definition. the second thing is, the

phenomenon of intersectionalty, discussed how it had been remove ed from the website, but i want to say it is still ask is part of the u.s. state department definition and is part also about the london parliamentary declaration cocombat. so that's the first thing that we need to do to have a more inclusive and common definition. the second is the phenomenon of intersectionalty, which is anchored in the rubric of human rights, which underpins the movement today, which underpins the fe normal nonof bds that we find in academic groups, but if you look at it it's the organization of health academics or anthropologists. this is the nature of intersectionalty. and it's where all the oppressed groups are victims of oppression come together against the oppressor. when it comes to the middle east and reconfiguration as the conflict with the conflict then defined as a human rights configuration and narrative and where israel is the oppressor and palestinians are oppressed it results in a situation

recently at mcgill university where the bds movement was joined by the environmentalists, the womens groups, black groups and so on as part of that phenomenon of intersectionalty. and you know, one of the things about this when i think about intersection gnat nalty. in a way the soviet movement pioneered intersectionalty. when you think back to the struggle, you had lawyers, scientists women, students, we then did what is come to. known as intersectionalty. which was whz the metaphor for human right was a struggle for soviet jury.

this has now been turned on its head and intersectionalty has been turned on its head recently a group of students when we hosted at our home told us regarding the recent bds dynamic, that it wasn't just directed against israel, it was directed against the jewish students on the campus in the sense that they were seen in the dynamics of intersectionalty, they were seen as part of the white white privileged group that was also dominating the under privileged or repressed groups. so, as i said, you know, it's not that we don't know the case against bds, it's not that we don't know the case about the israeli palestinian. the problems were not seen as having standing to make the case, we are seen as being part of the oppressor classed. until this phenomenon of

intersectionalty is much deeper than we might think. a third thing that i believe we need to do, by the way, what i said to them is return to intersectionalty as it was once patterned by the black civil rights movement and the struggle. you start making linkages with the women's movement with the environmental movement et cetera, et cetera so that the jewish struggle is not defined, as we heard today in terms of israel kind of ethnic state and ethnic, but is defined as part of the struggle for justice and against injustice as a whole. the third thing we need to combative prevent the state sanction to hate and genesis, as i said, it's astonishing that not one state party today the convention has undertaken what is not a policy option but

international legal obligation to in fact address this. a fourth thing is we need to affirm and implement the parliamentary protocall to combat. let me just take as a test, how many people here have read the protocol. very few. this is a -- i'll say that there were more who didn't put up their hands but one of the problems is that some of these things are not sufficiently known, appreciated and acted upon. it contains within it the definition of the metrics of the new, also contains a blueprint for action by government's by parliaments, by civil society and the like, which leads me to a fifth -- an issue, and that is to share with you a unanimous resolution. that was adopted by the canadian parliament invoking the protocol

in that context as well, and i have to say that unanimous resolutions are not that easy to get adopted, just one person from any of the political parties when the speak of the parliament puts the question to them and says does anyone, you know, object, one person says no, you can't adopt the resolution so the resolution was adopted by all members by all parties. i'll summarize the resolution very quickly, because you can use it as a template in other parliaments and other work within civil society. i know as one wag said, cancelled for lack of interest which may be the reason don't know what the ottawa protocol, let alone the resolution. resolution says as follows, number one, it condemned the alarming global rise in antisentism. two, it called on the canadian government and parliament to make the combatting of

antisentism a priority in both domestic as well as foreign policy. number three, it abstracted from the ottawa protocol to say the following with this, i close, criticizing israel is not antise mattic is wrong. but singling israel out for selective appropriate indictment, denying the right to exist, let alone calling for israel's destruction is hateful and discriminatory and not saying so is dishonest. and i believe as scholars, this is a template that we can invoke and apply. number six, we need to combat the laundering or delegit maization on values, which i discussed earlier, not as something which is prejudicial to israel, frankly, if you talk about just delegitimized.

people say israel at this point i hear them say israel should be delegitimatized. what we have to delegitimate alliesed. the laundering without delegitimatization. to make it clear that this is not just perez additional to israel, but erodes the integrity of the united nations under whose protective cover it passes. it diminishing the authority of international law which is invoked in its favor. it corrupts the culture of human rights and it demeans the struggle against the real racism, against the real apartheid and shames and demeans the struggle against the real apartheid south africa. so we have to say that what is at stake here is the laundering

of delegitimatization of the universal public values in the pursuit of the delegitimatization of israel. seventh thing. we should not retreat from the united nations as is sometimes the instinct to do or we are sometimes even counselled to do. but rather, we should engage with the united nations and move out of the docket of the defendant and become a rights claimant, become a plaintiff, and do so not in the name of israel but do so in the name of the charter of the united nations. do so in the name of the universal declaration of human rights because what is happening happening in the singling out of israel is really a standing breach of those principles of equality before the law and

international human rights law and the like. aged i know you'll say it won't make a difference. we can do -- the very process is important. e very making of the case has its own dynamic. very often did bds movement doesn't care if it wins at the end of the day vote. what it cares about is how many people they're sense tiesing to the position of the bds, and that's why i say similarly here, we can be sense tiesing our countries, the international community to the manner in which this laundering is actually taking place under the protective cover of the u.n. and the things they care about. next thing i'm moving -- i'm moving to the close. we need to reverse the paradigm, the conventional paradigm of the middle east, which has taken hold for sometime now, which says that the israel-palestinian conflict is the root of all conflict in the middle east and beyond. the occupation is the root of the israeli-palestinian conflict

and apartheid israel is the root of the occupation. we have to turn it around to saying that it is radical islam tlas the source of all conflict in the middle east and beyond. the denial of israel's legitimacy in any borders anywhere in the middle east, that is the real apartheid. and the call, subsequent call for the destruction of israel and the killing of yous jews is the -- so we should both identify and name the evil and again step out of the docket of the defendant and become the plaintiff, the rights claim manlt. we need to protect the vulnerable north whose cases and causes in the middle east are being overshadowed or not being

addressed at all. i'm referring to the ayazidis, the occurred, the christians the martyred muslims, the bahai alike who are the standing targets themselves of state sanction of incitement, to genocide, mass atrocity and the like. we have to change the channel of the international agenda which is focussing only on israel to call on them that if they really care about human rights, where is their inclusive concern with the targeted -- forget about israel. with all of these targeted minorities in the middle east, or the standing targets of mass atrocity. under the principle of intersectionality, we should make this our case and cause. and finally, may i close with a conversation that i had with aboriginal law students, indigenous law students. took place the day i was appointed minister of justice

and attorney general of canada. i'm saying this because another feature of laundering i didn't go to is the marine it's done under the rubric of indij jus or the foreign interloper and the like and palestinians indigenous people, so on. let me share with you. the an lidge yool students met with me and said we're not just law students. we're indigenous law students. we have our oun religions, our own languages, our own indigenous system. we've been dispossessed of all that. we've been deprived of our history and our heritage, our culture, our spirituality, our language, our own indigenous system. it's not that we go to court because we want to nurture a glooefance. we want to go to court to give expression to who we are. we want to anchor oigs in our

identity. we want to give support to our an lidge nal system. but we are always giving expression and feeling this enormous pain, because we feel that the canadian government and the canadian people don't understand who we are, where we've come from, and what we aspire to be. and i said to them, i was going to share with them a pairble that comes out of our tradition where students come to their rabbi and they say, rabbi, we love you. and the rabbi says, do you know what hurts me? >> and the students say why do you ask what hurts you? the rabbi says because if you don't know what hurts me you can't tell me you love me. as i shared with them, that is a profound principle of human relationships. i said that will be the way in which we as a government and as a parliament will seek to relate to the average indigenous people

in terms of their past, their history, their identity, their aspirations. and then i said to them something, i said, you know, at the risk of being somewhat presumptious, if not pretension, i said i, too, come from an aboriginal people. i said a people that still can have the same land, embraces the same aboriginal religion, harkens to the same an lidge nal prophets, studies the same aboriginal torah, speaks the same language, hebrew and bears the same aboriginal name, israel, as we did 3500 years ago, whereupon they came up to me and said, you know, we thought this was going to be another blah-blah lecture by another white man. welcome one aboriginal people to another. now, i want to tell you, this is not a story that i'm sharing only in the con fines here in the international scholars -- i

repeated it again and again when i was minister of justice and attorney general of canada. not only because i felt it was making the case that hat to be made about why aboriginal justice had to be a priority on our justice agenda, but the subtext of it is i was also speaking out of the authenticity of my own identity. and i think we have to speak out of the authenticity of our identities, whatever the -- be it jewish or otherwise. in that sense, we cannot compromise what we say or what we do on the altars of political correctness, because at the end of the day, if you indulge political correctness too much, you end up becoming a bystander. and my whole plea today is for us not to be by standers but to be interveneants in that struggle for justice and as my mother would say in the best way

to do it is to struggle against injustice. and remember that old jewish proverb which applied to us all -- when i say when i say that jews are indigenous people, i'm not saying that the arabs are not -- they're also aboriginal. we'll have to frame an approach to that in terms of the least injustice. that for another time. but the thing to remember always, that -- and there's the ep gram that i always -- epy gram that i always remember, that at the end of the day, truth and justice will prevail. we are involved in a just struggle. we're not involved only on behalf of jews or israelis or only against anti-semitism or

raid r hatred. we are on behalf of our common humanity and that's the most profound struggle against justice and injustice. thank you. [ applause ] >> tonight on c-span 3, a member of the federal reserve board discusses fed monetary policy. senator tim kaine talks about cyber security. isis. and the leader of the british house of commons discusses why he thinks britain should leave the european union. this event is hosted by the peterson institute for

economics. he talked about balancing low inflation with job growth and the possibility of an interest rate hike this summer. the next meeting will be on june 14th. this is an hour and 10 minutes. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. it's my pleasure to welcome you back to the peterson institute for international economics. i'm adam pos earningsen, the mt. it's an important event to have the honorable jerome powell member of the board of governors of the federal reserve system to speak to us today. his topic is recent economic developments productive potential it is economy and monetary policy, and it is that linkage between the real cyber activity questions and monetary

policy that i think jay and his colleagues and many of us here at the peterson institute are very concerned with. there used to be a very simple translation that if you thought productivity was better, you would grant a looser policy and if you thought it was worse, you would run a tighter policy. doesn't quite seem to be working out that way but also because productivity is doing such strange things in the united states at this moment. so we're delighted to have jay powell with us. just for bio, as all of you know, jay took office as a ebb many f to board of b governors with the reserve in may of 2012. he was sworn in in june of 2014 and in theory, serving until 20928. i say in theory, not because of any doulgtsant his longevity. it's merely myself who gave up

after three years of being on the inside on questions of sanity, but a very fractured political system here in washington with a very fraught appointment process. jay powell has been a hero in standing up and staying and serve i serving at the frif under these circumstances and contributing importantly to many debates. prior to being appointed to the board he was a visiting scholar at the bipartisan scholarship center in washington, d.c. from 197 to 2005, he was a partner of the carlyle group and prior to that, he was an assistant secretary and even undersecretary of the treasury under president george herbert walker bush. he had previously had a distinguished career in the private sector as a lawyer and investment banker in new york city but after this amount of time we claim him as one of

washington's own. i hope that will not be misintercepted in the pres as something scandalous. that's meant as praise for someone who has put public service ahead of personal profit. i look forward to jay's remarks. we will have on the record discussion and questions following. jay powell. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, adam. it's great to be here today at peterson and i really appreciate the opportunity to speak here. thank those of you who came out. so i will begin by reviewing recent economic developments and then i'm going to turn to supply side contributions such as the level of potential output and the potential growth of the economy. and i'll conclude with a discussion of monetary policy. as always the views i express here today are mine and mine alone. on the state of the economy, the u.s. economy has improved

steadily since the recovery began seven years ago with growth sticking right around 2%, oscillating around 2% and our economy is now 10% larger than it was at its previous peak in 2007. employment has now passed the 2008 peak by 5 million workers and the unemployment rate has fallen from 10% to 5%, which is close to the level that many observers associate with full employment. labor markets remain healthy, with employers adding roughly 2,000 jobs per month. so far this year, a pace similar to that of the past several years, and here i will attempt to get a slide -- there we go. so i'm going to go through a few slides as we talk. job growth continues to be substantially faster than the underlying growth of the labor force, so the labor market continues to tighten. despite the strong job gains,

the unemployment rate has flattened out at 5 mischaracterize over the last months thanks to an increase in the labor force participation rate which you can see in the middle chart there. meanwhile there are signs in affirming wages seen most clearly on the right panel, which are rising faster than inflation and productivity. all told, maybe labor market indicators show an economy on solid footing. recent spending data have been less positive. growth of personal consumption slowed notely in the first quarter. business fixed investment has fallen for two consecutive quarters because mainly of a steep deline in capital expenditures. g.d.p. over 2 two quarters ended march has run only at a rate of about 1% on an annualized base is. and that estimate may and probably will continue to move around as more data come in,

including them. there are also good reasons to think that underlying growth is stronger than the recent readings suggest. labor market data generally provide a better realtime signal of the underlying pace of economic activity. in addition, retail sales were reported to have surged until april as did consumer confidence surge in may, suggesting that the pause in consumption may have been transtorrey. more fundamentally, stronger demand would be more consistent with an environment that remains quite supportive of growth with low interest rates, low gas prices, solid income gains, a high ratio of household wealth to income. healthy levels of business and household confidence. in the current forecast for second quarter gdp, it's down around 2 .25%. total inflation on a 12-minute base it measured at three

quarters of a%, both a little higher than a year earlier but still above target. core has been held down by prices owing in part by the larger rise in the dermarr as well as indirect effects of oil prices encore ch as recent financial tensions have eased, oil prices have increased and the dollar has weakened a bit on net. if oil prices on the dollar remain stable, inflation should move up over time to our 2% objective. there is some downward pressures. some are at the lower end of their. they've declined significantly since mid 2014 and stand near all-time lows. so while i see expectations as reasonably well anchored, it is essential that they remain so and that inflation return over time to our 2% objective. the easing in global financial

conditions since mid february and the associated waning and downside risks are, of course, welcome and in part reflect expectations that it would move more slowly in moving monetary accommodation. however, the risks will likely remain until global growth is on a stronger footing. it remains low for most of our trading partners. in china stimulus measures should support growth in the near term but may slow china's investment-led business model. meanwhile, the on yog builtup of debt there is notable. there's also some remaining uncertainly about china's exchange rate policy. elsewhere risks are posted by on going flows of refugees into europe and challenging conditions nor emerging markets such as brazil, venezuela. despite these downside risks i

see u.s. demand going at a moderate pace with the labor market continuing to heal, inflation returning to the 2% objective. the economy is on track to attain the dual mandate of stable pricesaged maximum employment. we generally talk an awful lot about demand and that's appropriate. so i want to take some time to talk about supply side considerations, which of course are more important over the longer term, albeit less to do with monetary president obama. turning to supply side considerations. for several years after the crisis, the need for highly competitive -- as the short fall of potential has narrowed, supply side considerations of rate of potential naturally begin to matter more for policy. the tension that i mentioned a moment ago between labor market and spending data is not a recent phenomenon.

throughout the recovery period forecasters have consistently overestimated both actual and potential gdp growth while underestimating the creation of jobs and the decline of the unemployment rate. to put the blue chip forecasters in the docket, in the dock, this chart shows that for the years 2011 through 15, the these forecasters, every year, overestimated growth and underestimated the amount of decline in the unemployment rate year upon year upon year. this next chart, i think is even more interesting, frankly, and it shows -- if you take just blue chip. it estimated the long term growth of our economy in fwechb at 2.9% and it's now declined to 2.1%. while also underestimating the more impressive than expected decline in unemployment.

other well known forecasts show here such as that of the survey of professional forecasters, the congressional budget office and yes, fmc participants follow the same pattern. that pattern suggests that forecasters have only gradually taken on board the decline in potential in the wake of the financial crisis. output growth can be decomposed into increases in hours worked and changes in output per hour or productivity growth. the united states much of the post crisis decline in estimates of potential youmt growth appear to rereflect weak labor productivity growth. labor productivity has increased only one half percent per year since 2010. the slowest five-year growth rate since world war ii around about a quarter of the post world war ii average.

it averaged 1.5% during what we used to call the slow productivity period from 1974 to 1995 and averaged 3% during the tech broom decade from 1995 to 2005. so this shows that -- this is a familiar regime change chart which shows that productivity incentive go through high and low regimes and is at a low regime for the past five years. the slowdown has been world wide. all oecd countries. you can see the red lines suggest productivity has been lower in this period than in prior periods. so given the global nature of the phenomenon, changes in factors specific to the united states are probably not the main drivers. they're -- i don't know if you have this experience, but i find that people tend to see u.s. economic developments through the lens of u.s. political

events, and this -- i find that when an event -- when a trend has sort of -- present throughout the globe, you have to look beyond u.s.-specific snulal factors. so what's causing this? one factor holding back productivity in the recent years has been the meager growth of capital stock which i show here in figure 4. this shows that capital deepening is at truly anemic levels and in the view of the work we've done at the board, that weakness is zpint with and is well explained by the weak recovery in demand. another important factor is the marked decline in total factor productivity or tfp. it's -- tfp is that part of productivity that is not explained by capital investment or labor quality and it's thought to be mainly a function of technological innovation although the story's more complicated than that.

it may also be that the broad decline in dynamism in our economy across many, many measures of dynamism is contributing to low tfp. there's strong evidence that the slowdown preceded the financial crisis, particularly in sectors that used nfgsz technologies. this is the work of john fehr in nald and many others. the range of opinions, looking forward, on the future path of productivity growth it's wide and historic record processes ample ground for humility. it seems that a middle ground that appears to presume that it's held down by cyclical factors and the crisis. and that labor productivity will move up from a half percent to perhaps one and a half%. that seems to be the general assumption behind forecast side. i can't really disagree with it.

so in addition to productivity, the other principal factor in potential output is labor supply, which is determined by theworking age population, the natural rate of unemployment, and the trend labor force participation rate. both the natural rate of unemployment and the labor force participation initially appeared to suffer cries its e-related -- crisis related damage. more recent data i would say are more encouraging. it reflects the matching of character isks that employers are seeking to match with the unemployed. it was not surprising to see conditions detheater and many raise their rate accordingly. demographic change has pushed the other way. blue chip forecasters and others estimate the rate at about 5% which is where it was before the crisis, suggesting that these factors are roughly offsetting.

estimates of the natural rate are famously and highly uncertain. trends in labor force participation add another element of uncertainly. participation in the united states has been declining since around the year 2000 and is estimated to have a trend rate of decline now of 20 to 30 basis points a year driven by population, ageing and other longer term trends, such as decline in participation by prime age males. but participation rate fell sharply after the crisis, much faster than its apparent trend, and it's been important to understand how much of that post crisis decline is cyclical and amenable to -- to longer run trends or reversible damage. it has been a relief to see it improve over the last two years relative to estimates of its trend and indeed in some

estimates, participation is now close to its longer run trend. still, despite this relative improvement, the performance of the u.s. economy has been poor to most oecd countries. for example, we experienced a decline in our prime age group participation of 2% between 07 and 14 while most countries saw an r a decrease. we now stand -- the united states stands at the low end for both men and women in that prime age group. above italy but well below germany, france and spain. you can see we're at the low end. different countries have different ways of calculating labor force participation, but i'm not aware and i haven't been able to find anyone who would make the argument that there's a systematic overcounting of participation in those other countries. maybe someone can do that here

today but i would say that this is probably a real trend and certainly if it is a real trend, it's not great news. lower potential growth would likely translate into lower estimates of interest rates necessary to sustain stable prices and full employment. so estimates of the long run neutral federal funds rate have declined by about 100 basis points since the crisis and the treasury is close to zero compared with 2% in the mid 200s. some of that will be relative term peoplea and expectations. estimates of the long run potential growth of the u.s. economy have dropped from about 3% to about 2% in the wake of the crisis, much of that decline being attributed to slow growth. it seems to be p driven by low capital investment explained by lower command and lower pft growth. expectations going forward are more a function of slower gains

in tfp. it would mean that interest rates would remain below their crisis levels even after the output gap is closed and inflation rushes to 2%. over time, our understanding of the relationship between recessions and supply side factors has evolved. there's a growing body of work suggesting that recessions can leave behind lasting damage, especially severe recessions associated with the financial crisis. one recent analysis, olivia blanchard along with larry summers and sarudi suggests that about 1 third of the time, there's a reduction in the level of potential output but not in subsequent growth raceth rate and about a third of the time there's a reduction in the rate of output and growth rate. unfortunately, as this chart shows, recent experience suggests that the united states is now at risk of falling into the last category.

the point being that the black line is actual growth and the blue line is precrisis trend growth. you can see that not only is the black line not catching up to the blue line. i'd actually getting farther apart. which is another way of saying our trend growth rate has declined. i would hope that it would go without saying that economic policy makers should use all available tools to minimize supply side damage from the crisis. we need policies that support labor force participation and the development of skills, business hiring and investment, and productivity growth. policies that are for the most part outside the remit of the federal reserve. monetary policy can contribute by continuing to support the expansion as long as inflation remains consistent with our 2% objective and expectations remain stable. strong overmarkets do seem to be averting some of the damage that might otherwise become

permanent. the natural rate of ememployment. potential workers are being pulled into the working force. over a longer period, stronger demand should support increased investment driving production higher. firms have more incentives to get more out of every hour of work. realtime estimates of potential output are highly uncertain. forecasters of potential growth, even more so. we can estimate the growth of the working age population reasonably well. future levels of labor force participation are less certain and least certain of all are forecasts of tfp. there will eventually be another wave of high productivity growth driven by technology. that would mean, of course, higher potential growth, faster increases in living standards and a return to higher interest rates over time. what if the pest mists are

right? the consequences would include lower potential growth and relatively lower living sfds and our long-term fiscal challenges would be that much greater. turning to monetary policy. the implications for money tear policies for the supply side issues. so for the near term, my baseline expectation whether that our economy will continue on the path of growth at around 2%. to confirm that expectation, it will be important to see a significant strengthening in growth in the second quarter after the apparent softness of the first -- of the last two quarters. to support this growth narrative, i also expect the ongoing healing process in labor markets to continue with strong job growth, further reductions in headline unemployment and other measures of slack and increases in wage inflation. as the economy tightens, i expect that inflation will continue to move over time to the committee's 2% objective. so the if the incoming data

continue to support those expectations i would see it as employee to gradually raise the federal funds rate. another rate increase may be appropriate fairly soon. several factors suggest that the pace of rate increases should be gradual. including the assem tri of risks at the zero lower bound, downside risks from weak global demand and gee political events. a lower long run mutual funds rate and the apparently elevated sensitivity of conditions to-mile. uncertainly about the location of supply side constraints provides another reason for gradualism. there are potential concerns with this gradual approach, however. it's possible that monetary policy could push reoutly sayings too high and inflation could move to temporarily above target. in an era of anchor expectations undershooting uh employment should result in only a small

and temporary increase in the inflation rate. but running the economy above its potential growth rate for a extended period could involve extended risks even if inflation does not mean meaningfully above target. a long period of low interest rates could lead to aggressive risk taking and high asset prices and credit growth. macro prudential and other policies are designed to the severity of consequences if it does occur, but it is not certain that these tools would prove adequate in a financial system michigan much intermediatation takes place outside the banking sector. thus, developments along these lines could ultimately present a tradeoff for monetary policy. so wrap up, with the support of monetary accommodation, our economy has made substantial progress. my view is that a continued gradual return to monetary settings will give us a chance

to make up lost ground. thanks very much, and i look forward to our suggestion. [ applause ] >> that's me. that's me. . >> thank you so much, jay. we obviously have a very expert audience and a lot of people waiting to ask you questions. but if i could, i'd just like to pose a couple to start. towards the end of your speech, you mentioned the idea of -- i'm trying to find the exact words

so i don't end up saying something wrong -- the apparently elevated sensitivity of financial conditions to monetary policy. that leads me to two questions. first is, it's interesting to juxtapose that with an apparent diminished sensitivity of real investment to monetary policy. i mean, that seems to be the big up hill battle central banks have been facing for the last few years. is there, given particularly your financial markets background, what do you think leads to this divergence to monetary policy seeping to have more effect on asset markets and less effect than passed on -- past investment? >> o ok. so what i was referring to there and there's so many different ways to try to relate changes in

financial conditions to changes in expectations about monetary policy, but this was a statement based on one look which is to look at the differences between expectations -- forward expectations for rates in other advanced economies in the united states and look at changes in the spread and look at the effect that would have on the dollar. and it seems that that affect has been higher than expected, so by that particular measure -- and that would explain some of the quite large move in the dollar since the middle of 2014. you're asking, though, about the tension between that and really low capital investment in the face of very low interest ritz. so as i mentioned in my speech, we look at it in sort of standard accelerator model terms and other frameworks as well, and you know, come pretty much to the view that low capital investment is explained largely

by weak demand. businesses don't have to invest because command is weak. it's no more complicated than that. i would say also, based on my long career in dealing with private sector companies, if you put yourself in the seat of someone responsible for management of a company, you know, they see weak demand. they cut costs, they can buy back their stock and they can make their numbers that way for a period of time. so investment is low, but it's a way for you to make your numbers without taking a lot of risk. >> right. j if you think about where that takes you over a period of 10 to 15 years is kind of a hollowed-out economy, so it's not a great trend. but we don't see a reil sid yul to explain our basic framework for investment. >> great. and secondly you raised the issue of the dollar. obviously i'm not going to ask you to comment on any particular level or intervention, but just

more broadly, we're being forcibly made aware of various other countries' concerns about the dollar, their reactions -- the reactions of other central banks to the dollar. in the same spirit as my last question, how do you think about the chatter sometimes that the federal reserve can't raise monetary policy as much as they would like -- tighten monetary value as much as they would like because the dollar effects are so large? >> let me begin by echoing your point that, of course, we don't have anything to do with managing the level of dollar. >> no. >> i'm just getting that disclaimer out of the way in case there are treasury people here or watching. i think what happened is since the middle of 14, financial conditions tiedened significantly and not through the traditional channel of interest rates. so in effect, we had to tighten less is what happened. it's not to say that we can't

tighten policy. the point is to tighten financial condition action, not to raise interest rates, right? so we do what we think is appropriate. and i think we have the freedom to do that. but we have to take into consideration, you know, conditions around the world and one of many financial conditions, we've got to evaluate is level of the dollar. >> great. thank you very much. i'm now going to open it up to our audience for questions. the -- some very simple ground rules. please wait to be recognized. if you're recognized, please identify yourself, please pretend you are asking a question. if you do something that resembles a speech, i will cut you off. in practical terms, we have a traveling mike up here up front, which chris is holding, and people towards the back can feel free to stand at the standing mike. who would like to go first under that horrible threat i just issued? right here. >> so one question i had was --

>> identify yourself. >> sorry. jonathan pingle from black rock. the arguments for caution and facing the problems of asymmetric policy response near the zero lower bound sound reasonable as sort of a justification for proceeding gradually. however, trying to understand exactly ha that means for the path forward, say, maybe one hike or two hikes this year, maybe three or four next year, or does that mean two next year? it's difficult to see out of the next two, three years how we intercept that relative to, you know, a historical hiking pattern which would have been, say, faster, or does this mean something incredibly slow? for example, just thinking about the dot plot, the median dots for 2017 have four hikes priced in. how do you reconcile that with assem tri and gradualism? i mean, is that gradual in your

view? does that incorporate the inability to respond to downside risks? i mean, how do we reconcile this gradualism with what we see in the dots? is the dots gradualism? >> or as i would put it, do the dots matter at all? >> so the dots really represent -- i'm sure you know -- individual participants' estimates of appropriate monetary policy, given and in consideration of a moti, will e forecast. so i would say that anyone's ability to forecast much beyond the next few months is really not so great. just the standard error is around everyone's forecast are quite large. so you -- the way to think about it is not a promise, it's not a statement of an intention. it's statement of what someone would think monetary policy would be -- what would be

appropriate given that motile forecast. that's the only way to think about it. if you think of it as doesn't that sound like a lot? no that doesn't sound like a lot if the forecast is realized and if other financial conditions are about as kpmtd. we had a conference about this in new york a couple of months ago. the kmejs of communicating around the dots are substantial. people do tend to take them more as promises and sort of not see the conditional ality. i'm not saying you're doing that, jonathan, but they're not without challenges. >> very nicely put. who would like to go next? please, the gentleman over there. >> thank you. my name is sanch. i'm the obara of mozambique. il wand to thank you for the opportunity and for this illuminating presentation. in your presentation, you

mentioned i would say by passing the geo application, if geo plik, political events, and i wanted to hear a bit more about the impact of politics here in the united states. this is an election year. what effect, what impact that will have on the economy? because there was quite a lot of economics in the presentation. i understood most of it but, i mean, part of it -- not most of it. i'm not an economist. but i wanted to understand the impact of the politics on the economy. >> so i'm now in my fifth year. i'm one day, frankly, into my fifth day at the fed. so this will be my third election cycle and i can say that politics plays absolutely no role whatsoever in our

deliberations or in our decision. so we -- you know, the focus inside the fed is very much not partisan politics or elections. it's very much economic fundamentals, so it can be very jarring to emerge from the fed and talk to people who think of politics -- think of economics in political terms, which i referred to earlier. honestly, it has no effect. you know, we announced a quantitative use program in 2012. we just don't think about it, and i can say empirically, i find that to be the indication, not just the rhetoric. >> please. >> my name is joe marie greasegrabber. i'm with new rules for finance. i wanted to ask you about the hollowing out of the middle class of the united states and how that syncs with your view that wages are rising and the real level of employment is going up, how are we going to

return the middle class to a demand engine? >> let me first echo that there's a on the of research that supports what you've just said, that it's really the middle-skilled jobs that have suffered. david arter at mit has done work. so have many others as well. it's been partly related to the globalization and sort of the plateauing of u.s. educational attainment compared to our competitors. it's a serious problem. it's not really in the wheelhouse of monetary policy. we have one tool, which is monetary president obama. it supports demand at the aggregate level. it doesn't support distributional policies or, you know, or policies that might provide training or might address all of the issues that you talk about. those are really matters for the

elected branch of congress and they're more the management of demand which is what we're more focused on. but it's not something we can take a role in other than by maintaining -- >> can i follow up on one piece of that. you mentioned globalization and a relatively competitiveness. i think david and other people would suggest technology has played a role. leaving that i a side, clearly part of what you describe when you're talking about monetary policy and any good banker would talk about how much you would worry that if we fall behind the curve will expectations become unanchored. does it enter your own personal views or your expectations that labor really is weak now? that for whatever variety of reasons, labory doesn't have the bargaining power, so maybe the risk of an inflationary spiral is less?

or is that just not something that would come up in the discussion? >> it comes up indirectly. if you look at the relationship between slack in the economy and price inflation and then look at the relationship between price inflation and wage inflation, both of those relationships have weakened very substantially oef the past 20 years, so to say it differently, wage inflation which has been weak no longer affects price inflation as much as it used to and price inflation is no longer as response sieve to the economy getting title. so you can be at full employment and you don't see much inflation. this is very different than the world we grew up with wage spirals and such. all of that is i think consistent with a world in which companies maybe substitute capital labor and share goes

down. and it's not something we can -- i mean, it's in the numbers but it's not something i feel we can target directly. >> great. at the back, mike, and then over there. >> hi. from voice of america. thank you for your comments. i've got sort of a flee part question. the first one is are we now seeing a coordinated effort by members of the federal reserve to signal a possible rate hike soon? the second would be how would you vote in june 15th about -- for a rate hike in june, and what do you see as the risks of not acting quickly enough? >> ok. concerted effort, no. i mean, adam will confirm that we scheduled this speech i think it was -- >> two and a half, three months ago. >> wasn't even that. it was late last year, a while back. so there was no thought at that time. it just lapse to be now, and

it's -- happens to be now and it's a coincidence. i'm the first board member to say anything about this, actually. a lot of the bank presidents have been talking and some of the other board members will be speaking next week. but no. how would i volt. the great thing is i don't have to decide until june 15. and i think you discard the opportunity to evaluate incoming information when you decide too early. so i really do legitimately and not just in theory think that there's important incoming data not just about the real economy but about the balance of risks that will come in between now and then. so i don't know. the risks of waiting are frankly not so great. this doesn't feel like an economy that's bubbling over or threatening to break into high inflation. at the same time, i think you have to balance -- really, i think the right plan, as i said, is a gradual sort of rate increases over time and you've got to balance the risks of, you

know, the relatively modest risks of running the economy too hot and having to move more sharply, perhaps causing recession, and you've got to take into account the fact that we've made tremendous progress. we're close to full employment. again, you don't want to wait doing but you don't want to be in a hurry. >> rate hike in june? >> will you please. doug and jason and then we'll go to the back. >> thanks. doug red earnings ker. jail, sort of a two-part question. you mentioned the international applications and how those weigh on your thinking. i wanted to ask you to expand on that. one thing that you didn't mention is the concept of financial stability and a broad question for you, just how do you think about financial stability concerns as they relate to monetary policy? >> on international concerns, i was rereading a paper by barry

ikengreen where he talked about the history of the federal reserve. it sort of comes in and out of focus. i think there -- here lately i think our public communications have had more than the usual amount of communications among them because of important factors. i think that's because of the position we're in. the u.s. is in position to consider removing accommodation gradually and other josh economies are not in that position. so we stand out -- i think global growth inflation are weak, so it's a time when those things are particularly important for us. in terms of financial stability, you may have seen in the last several minutes, if you don't have that much to do, you might have read the minutes and seen that we had a long discussion of monetary policy at the last meeting. i think the conventional wisdom is generally that, you know, that macro prudential and other

supervisorsry regulatory tools have against financial instability and that monetary policy is for stable prices and full employment. i think it's not easy for many, including me, to be particularly comfortable with that. the scenario is the one i mentioned in my speech, which is what if it's monetary policy that is over a long period of time, what if rates have to stay lower than we think they will for a long period of time? upward pressure on asset prices and growth and it's because of monetary policy. we don't see that today at all. the last thing i'll say is at the board and pretty much everywhere, you you have a heightened focus on issues of financial stability since the crisis, and it's a very, very deliberate focused effort to build up the core of the system. i think it's made frankly great progress and more to do on that. >> great.

jason here and we'll go to the back mike. >> jason cummins from brevin. i want to turn your attention back to your discussion of inflation expectations. which you briefly touched on. i detected, although i'll have to read the speech carefully, somewhat a greater measure of concern about risk to the iranian side inflation expectations in the speech compared to some of the other discussions i've seen recently. that certainly reflects some of the same concerns i've had about the same subject. in your mind, when you think about normalizing monetary policy, as you've described you're trying to tighten overall conditions. how do you explain to the public as you're removing accommodation, that you're still concerned about maintaining the sanctity of the no, ma'amle nal anchor when the public -- it's not clear, there's no, sir one public out there. but the surveys or what we're getting from the markets, there seems to be some concern about whether inflation expectations are as stable as they have been

in the past. it's never going to be an easy job to raise rates and get inflation to go up at the same time. we've never done that in monetary policy before in the united states. so what do you do alongside the normalization process to convince people that inflation will be going up anded the fed will be concerned about that without promising an overissue without just repeating gradualism over and over again? >> so it starts with where inflation is right now. and core inflation is at 1.5% and is probably being held down by 30 or 40 basis points, by the effects of the strong dollar and a little bit by the effects of lower oil prices. so if you add 30 or 40 basis points in, you're at 1 money 8, 1.9. pro forma in my former world of pro forma finance, it was a context. pro forma, you're not so far from 2%. in theory all you've got to do

is wait for all things held equal for inflation to return to that level. so that's why i have some comfort in moving at this time, is that i don't think on an underlying basis we're all that far. i also -- you know, we've spent time on this. the issue with inflation expectations, take -- if you take break-evens, market based, and there's a lot of decomposition of what's going on there and many make the case that it's about liquidity and not about people's expectations. i don't want to sound like i accept that at face value and -- i mean, i don't. i get that. when inflation -- when five year forward inflation expectations are down as much as they've been since the middle of 14 and stay there, i think you should be worried about that, and i think it's something to focus on. again, i do think that inflation -- i would still say they are -- they are anchored, inflation expectations, but i would say that it's important

that the public see, as you've suggested, that we are committed to returning inflation to 2% and keeping expectations anchored. >> all right. >> we have quite the lineup at the back mike. >> hi. thank you very much for being here. this is an excellent panel. >> who are you, please? >> my name is goodman. i would like to ask you a question regarding the data dependent monetary policy. so we know that the monetary -- the effects of monetary policy comes with legs. it takes time to see results after the decision. so that's why we hear that the monetary policy should be forward looking. and at the same time, we hear the members emphasizing the data dependensy every opportunity they get. so i'm just curious how the fed

can achieve forward looking monetary policy by looking at past data as they are -- their main factor in deciding, you know, the monetary policy. and also, my second question is, last year at this time we were talking about the possibility of a june rate hike and it didn't happen. the fed had to wait until december and i was just curious, what is the likelihood of having a deja vu this year and what can cause it? >> should have stuck with one question. >> do me a favor. remind me of your first question. >> how can you be data dependent and forward looking? >> ok. thank you. so as you probably know, we -- each member of the flmc, each participant, all 17 of us, gets to write down a forecast, a

three-year forecast of the economy. and so -- and then write down what we think appropriate monetary policy is to achieve that path. for the economy. for the economy. so that's -- so it is very -- you know, it is forward looking. policy is always forward looking. really and it's depending on incoming data, too, because it tells you the state of the economy. it confirms or doesn't confirm your expectations going forward. but policy is of course completely forward looking. you know, in terms of what will happen, i don't have any projections for you. i told you how i think about the problem and what i expect will be appropriate given what i expect for the economy and for risks an if it doesn't pan out, if the conditions that i've laid out don't happen, then i suggest that the committee could move faster or slower. >> very good. >> thank you. >> second question in the back. then we'll come to the front.

you can put down your hand. >> jeremy, uc berkeley. in your presentation, you showed us the decline in the growth rate of potential gdp. yo i also mentioned the decline of the rate of interest. so i was wondering how much of that decline in the neutral rate of interest you think is linked to the decrease in the potential growth rate of gdp. >> soy think they're fairly closely linked, you know. i don't have all the potential models in my head this afternoon, but, you know, i think it's almost a one for one decrease in the neutral rate from estimates of potential growth going ing forward. certainly close to that. >> over here, please. >> thank you, jay. i wanted to ask you -- >> identify yourself, please. >> christian gutob.

i wanted to ask you about the upcoming vote and how it influences how you think in the near term about your policy choices and the benefits of making a decision at one meeting relative to another meeting. is it your view that if the odds of a -- vote going in favor of exit were declining in markets were therefore ponding in a risk positive way in the run-up to your meeting, that would essentially allow the committee to set aside that consideration and focus only on the domestic data and so forth. or would you need to see that risk fall to an immaterial level in order to be comfortable making a policy call at next meeting in. >> let me piggyback on that question. one of the things coming out of the spring imfo bank meetings g7, g20, fed, all this was some repeated statement that breg was at systemic risk. now, don't get me wrong. i love the united kingdom probably as much or more than

any other american. but i've never understood how this becomes a systemic risk. so in your view, why is that a concern? >> i would -- taking christian's question for a second shgt i would break it into two questions, the first of which is how does the vote come out and the second is in the event of a leave vote what are the -- i think it is possible to -- we don't dush know, it's still some weeks until our decision on june 15th. it is possible that we would learn important information between now and june 15th on the first question. i don't really think it's possible we would learn much about the second question, which kind of goes to adam's point. and that is, you know, you -- i mean, there's a modal expectation maybe that there

would be some presenting a factor in favor of caution about raising rates in june. >> interesting. at the back, please. >> thank you. i think from your analysis, mr. powell, there seems to be a disconnect from the real side and the financial side so there a there's capital dipping and labor productivity growth. and don't you think that perhaps

monetary policy might be contributing to the death of investment and to that kind of situation allowing the companies as you say to make the numbers without investment? >> i do not think that is the case. i think that monetary policy is supporting demand in the face of, you know, still significant risk aversion and headwinds in the wake of a global historical economic event called the global financial crisis and the resulting recession. i think we're still digging our way out of that. i think it's still echoing down the years and i think it will do so for some time. so i don't really think -- i think monetary policy on net is contributing to the recovery not pulling it back. >> thank you. >> thank you. another question from the audience. >> dave stockton peterson

institu institute. i want to return to the longer run themes of your remarks and the observation that we're seeing longer potential output growth that's probably been associated with a decline in either the equilibrium or natural rate of interest. i think given that, the implication that we're going to be running in the low nominal interest rate environment for quite some time if that's going to persist, is it time for a more serious reconsideration of the 2% inflation objective? >> i think in theory and in -- you know, that is a logical margin upon which to adjust. it's not at all something that we're considering at this time, and i frankly think that, you know, jerry yellin took that question on in great detail, dave you may remember in a speech i want to say late last year about inflation dynamics and came down strongly that you

know when you embrace an inflation target and expectations get deeply anchored as they clearly are now the costs of trying to move that are uncertain and potentially high. so it's not something that i would be look at doing in the near term. >> it's interesting. when i got to co-author with bernanke and -- a book on bank targeting now a while ago, then future chair bernanke signed on to passage sin the book that indicated the inflation target should be moveable, that we would expect it to move as conditions changed. now, i have sense said publicly and i won't presume to speak for any of my co-authors you know that that was a mistake on our part not from a normative sense that we were wrong but that we were foolish. we should have realized like an exchange rate target zone that

once you put in the number people are very scared to get off of it. but that's obviously a very different place than what you're citing chair yellin's speech saying that it would be bad to move it inherently. i mean, i'm not trying to press you on this. it's just very striking how ex-post the profession seems to have decided it's risky to move the inflation target where -- they were designed to be reset. >> yeah. i mean, again in her telling it and many people's telling of it, it took many, many years to get inflation expectations anchored. when they wsht, we knew there would be a shock and inflation would go up. they would just move around. it's a very costly thing. getting then anchored was a costly thing and took a long time and moving them around is something that, you know, if you -- it kind of undoes the whole psychology of them being anchored and you have to go

through the process again. i get that. but at the same time that was all done in a rate of 4% to 5% nominal federal funds rate and equilibrium. this is not that world. >> thank you. >> question here, please. thank you. i'm from goldman sachs. in the last couple of years we have seen an increase in the amount of information that the fed communicates to markets with the dots and all of the rest of the data and the s&p. and increasing the speeches and in the content of the speeches coming from fymc participants and yet if you take, for example, the reaction of the markets to the march meeting or the reaction of the markets to the minutes of the april meeting the other day and you do a couple of fancy calculations you can see that there were very large surprises from the point of view of the market reaction.

so do you worry about this? and what are we collectively missing in terms of understanding the fed's thought process and their reaction function that has changed? or is it just a fact of life? and we have to live with it? >> so i have thought about the question of are we doing too much communication and also about the difficulty of doing less, which there's not much track record of people reversing gears on that. so i think your -- my main point would be that you're still at a time of extraordinary accommodation and decisions are highly fraught and attract a lot of attention. and that's part of the issue, this would be -- the next interest rate increase will be the second one and it will be important. and it just gets a lot of attention. but i will say that the march sep as i'm sure you're aware had two rate increases this year.

i think any number of bank presidents were out saying that two rate increases and things have probably gotten a little better on balance since march, two rate increases is what the committee thought so, yes, the market was apparently surprised by the minutes but i think it was there in a way. it's not easy nor is it essential that the market understand every word that we utter. >> thank you for that. well said. >> we need to do what is right for the economy and let the chips fall within reason, we need to be doing that and not focusing too much on short-term reactions. >> please tweet that. at the back, mike please. >> jacob keir ka guard from the peterson institute. i first want to commend you for actually putting up the employment rates data in your presentation because i think if i'm not mistaken the fed mandate talks about maximizes

employment, and your data clearly shows that the situation is abysmal. i mean, there is no other word for it in my opinion. so i guess i just would like to have your comment on that. i mean, when you correctly point out that prime age employment in the united states is below that -- or participation is below that of a number of european countries, that is historically unprecedented. so how do you basically -- how do you square that with a policy outlook that suggests that you are close to meeting your employment mandate? i would suggest that you're pretty far from it. >> well, some of this isaddressable on monetary policy and some is not. decline and participation by prime age males has been a trend for decades now, and, you know,

the -- it is -- we can -- what we can do is support, as i suggested we should, economic activity with accommodative monetary policy as long as inflation expectations are stable and inflation is close to target. so we can do that, and i'm pretty confident we will do that. that's not going to turn around these long-run trends txtd's not. as i mentioned in my speech, there are things that need to be done on the policy side much more important things by convict frankly and maybe at the state level that we don't have responsibility for. now, we don't do fiscal policy and we don't do partisan politipoliti politics so i don't want to roll out my personal suggestions here today, but there's a lot that can be done. if you look at all the marmgens of potential growth and productivity, there's a lot to do in terms of education, in terms of encouraging labor force participation rather than punishing it for those of who, for example, are receiving

benefits from the government. there are things to be done with tfp, with basic research. every one of those areas has things that can be done, which is why the focus on the next interest rate increase is just not that important compared to the long run potential growth ever the economy. that's what we ought to be talking about. >> unless you're a fed governor. >> anyone else? this is a rare opportunity. okay. you get a second shot. if everyone else wimps out, you get a second shot. >> i want to ask, when you look at the market implied path for federates going a very, very long way with a forward rates and so forth and compare that with the sort of trajectory that is envisioned bradley speaking by most participants in the sep, even allowing for some

difference between the base case outloong in the sep and the risk adjusted path priced into market, it seems like the market is saying that the neutral rate is lower today than you think it is and it's going to rise much more slowly than you expect it will rise over the coming years. that's the only way i can really make sense not of the june versus july type debate but of this broad difference going out several years. what makes you and your colleagues confident that, given the experience of the last few years where we've overforecast the recovery in the natural rate, what makes you confident that the broad sep world view is a reasonable base case as oppose to the market implied view? >> to make you feel better before you respond, i've already been hoisted on my own petard on this. when i was on the monetary policy in the banking and i kept

saying you can't believe these crazy low productivity numbers, it's not like every worker in britain woke up with their left arm missing. this doesn't make any sense. but then we get to year six or seven of real low productivity numbers and i had to start saying, well, you know, maybe it's not going to pop back up. so just to say this is genuinely hard and lesser beings like me have certainly screwed this up. so what do you think? >> so you're right, of course, there is a significant gap between the committee's most recent dot plot median expectations and between what the market is saying. i haven't looked in the last few days but i would imagine it's closed just a tiny bit. and that can be a function of a couple of things. one would be, of course, there's term premiums as you get farther away from zero, which would account for some of the difference. you also mejsed the difference between -- we're showing the mode and that's really a risk

weighted mean. there seems to be for good reason -- people seem to be looking at long duration securities as a hedge against downside cases because they are very nice liqueur layly correla those outcomes. so you're seeing a lot of that. that explains a part of it. another part of it has to be implicitly or explicitly a lower estimation of the end point which is at the end of a cycle which is our start. so none of that is, you know, in the nature of making anyone -- making me comfortable with the difference. you know, it's hard to know. we have to do our jobs. i've got to do my job, and market has to do its job. and i'm one who is inclined to think that one should listen to what the market is trying to say, not that the market is always right but there may be something wornl saying. i think those are some of the

explanations and we'll just have to see. >> great. anyone else? yes, please. >> thank you very much. my name is ken from the embattscy embattssy of japan. as you know, you are talking about raising the interest rate whereas you know the bank of japan daintroduced negative interest rate and so ecb. and the difference is -- leading causes of the stronger dollars so my question is, to what extent, if any, do you take into consideration of monetary policies outside the u.s. and

monetary to what extent dow take global economic outlook including the slowdown of the chinese economy into considerati consideration. thank you. >> so we're charged with stable prices and maximum employment in the u.s. economy. that requires us to take into consideration all of the factors both financial and real that would affect that. and certainly in this environment, as i mentioned earlier, that does include, you know, financial developments around the world and the fact that other major central banks are adding accommodation at this time. so all of that gets, you know -- is under consideration. i think international concerns as i mentioned are particularly high here in the last year or so. but that's simply because i think of the divergence of growth patterns really between the u.s. and big parts of the rest of the world.

so i think our -- so our job, we're not assigned with anything but stable prices and maximum employment in the united states, and ultimately that's our focus. but of course you can't do the job without engaging with awful the global factor that's you mentioned. >> well, we had a bit of an exchange about whether there's been, for whatever reason, too much communication out of the fed. but such a calm, clear, sober and informative speech certainly is the kind of communication we want to retain from the fed. so on behalf of the american public but also on behalf of the peterson institute, let me thank you very much for your time today. this was terrific. >> thb thanks again. >> i really appreciate it. thank you.

>> on friday donald trump holds a campaign rally in san diego ahead of california's june 7th presidential primary. we'll have live road to the white house coverage on c-span at 5:00 p.m. eastern time. and this weekend, the libertarian party holds its national convention in orlando, florida, where several candidates are vying for their presidential nomination. c-span has live coverage beginning on saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern time with a candidates debate. and on sunday at 9:45 a.m. eastern, watch as delegates elect the party's presidential and vice presidential nominees. part of our road to the white house coverage on c-span. >> this sunday night on "q&a," u.s. senate historian betty coed talks about various events in senate history and the work her office does. >> i came in june of 1998 as a

newly minted senate historian. my colleagues dick baker and don richie said to me, oh, it's going to be nice and quiet. we have an election coming up. you'll have lots of time to settle in and read and get comfortable in your job. and within a few weeks the house had decided to impeach bill clinton and we got very busy very quickly. and had to do a good deal of research on impeevement trials. we had not had a presidential impeachment since 1868 and the senate leaders at that time trent lott and tom daschle really wanted to follow historical precedent as much as they could. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." on tuesday, virginia senator tim kaine discussed cyber security at the center for strategic and international studies. he addressed the challenge in balancing privacy with national security needs. after his remarks, a panel discussed strategies for defending against cyber threats. this is an hour and 40 minutes.

. well, thanks to everyone for for coming out this morning. we should go ahead and get started. ooh, it's live. our speaker today is senator tim kaine of virginia, and he just has too many accomplishments to mention. it would take almost the whole period for me to go through his whole bioso i'm going to hit some highlights. he's been a missionary, civil rights lawyer, a teacher, and an elected official, including governor of virginia for those of us who live there, now the senator. he serves on the armed services, budget, foreign relations and aging committees.

he's the ranking member on the readiness subcommittee for armed services and the foreign relation subcommittee on state department management which must be a trial in itself. his work in armd services focuses on crafting smart defense strategy, reduction of unemployment among veterans. he's done a lot to keep the navy at 11 carriers, which some of us think is important. on foreign relations he's focused on the middle east and latin america, which is close to our hearts i think. he's the leading voice in expanding the role of congress on foreign policy and improving the way that the president and congress consult. and was one of the authors of the bipartisan effort to revise the war powers resolution of 1973. we seem to have this penchant for elderly legislation here in the u.s. he co-authored the iran nuclear agreement. i'm going to do it all.

he's done so many things. one more thing. founder and co-chair of the career and technical education caucus, which i think is really important when you think about workforce issues, how it links with the issues with veterans. an exceptionally distinguished career. we're exceptionally grateful that he took time out of his overwhelmingly busy schedule to come here and speak at csis. [ applause ] >> good morning. thank you. it is good to be back, and i want to thank jim for his kind p words. this is a pretty amazing day at csis. i knew i was going to be here. there's going to be this great panel to follow me that will really dig into these issues. but you've got a speech later in the day, marty barren is coming to talk about press freedom in the americans which is the issue of the deepest importance, something i'm passionate about. you have a speech later on today about higher education in russia. since higher education is sort of a bellwether for predictions

about the future of the economy, that is a really critical topic. if i just didn't have pesky votes and committee hearings i would just sit here all day long. but i'm anxious to come and get this started and talk about cyber. the title of the discussion that the panel will address is cyber security after information sharing. i'm not going to talk that much about the congressional information sharing bill. i'm going to talk about other issues, issues that remain for us to grapple with but we can't just assume that the information sharing bill is going to be implement, no muss, no fuss. there's a lot of implementation issues and i think you're going to hear some of those from the panel as well. but it is good to be back. the last time i was here at csis i was here to talk about the role of the president and congress and especially in my view the add vocation of congress around war powers issues. i'm very happy to be back to talk about cyber security. so i'm a good virginian and when i was here talking about war powers i talked a lot about madison. so let me talk about jefferson. two great quotes of jefferson

that i love. one that was in his notes on the state of virginia, this wonderful book that he wrote when he was ambassador to paris that really was the i think the first work of true american literature that has stood the test of time, and this is a quote that was incorporated into the virginia constitution. progress in government and all else dependence depends upon the broadest defusion of knowledge among the population. jefferson couldn't have imagine a digital world where all knowledge was digitized and internet search engines and servers where it could be at your fingertips to have that broadest possible of diffusion -- he was still talking about the world that we live in and the notion that diffusion of knowledge to all democratically would be great for the individual but would be great for society.

would be a guardian against terror if information was available to all rather than just kept to some. he also said light and liberty go together. openness and freedom go together. secrecy and tyranny go together. so those are two interesting thoughts as we contemplate this cyber challenge we have. the express of bias toward that dif fus fusion of knowledge is both good for individuals and society. there is also a bias toward transparency rather than secrecy. so as we grapple with some of the cyber questions working with privacy versus national security, jefferson had a strong bias towards transparency rather than secrecy. but secrecy is different than personal privacy. jefferson was also a strong believer in individual rights and that the individual should have some sphere that would be secure against any intrusion of government. that is also a jeffersonian principle.

and so as we tackle these hard, hard questions, some of those are just original wisdom of the greatest virginian i think most of us would feel that about jefferson, a flawed person and we're all flawed people but in terms of conceptualizing the future that we live in and beyond, very, very farsighted. i want to offer three observations about signorer after the information sharing bill. about congress and cyber policy but first let me do a quick commercial for virginia since i've started with jefferson. to tell you why this is important to me as a virginian and many of you are virginians in this room. we're an epicenter of a changing daij tal lands scape. obviously many of the key federal agencies that work on cyber policy are headquartered or have significant presence in virginia as do their employees. we have a private sector in the cyberspace that is second to none. it's a great hub for i.t. and cyber innovation. virginia is second in the nation

in the percentage of the workforce that's in technology jobs. it's kind of an interesting stat because our biggest industry sector in virginia is still ag and forestry. to have ag and forestry the biggest by ggdp shows you something about the evolution of an older economy to a new one and frankly now ag and forestry is heavy technology jobs, too. but the workforce that we have is a workforce that is very connected with the cyber questions. we have strong colleges and universities, institutions training that workforce. and this is huge for virginia. we're the hub of internet traffic in the world. 70% of the world's internet traffic passes through loudoun county, which has the highest concentration of data centers in the world. and that really started probably to attain great critical mass with aol and even though, you know, we're now many chapters beyond aol and the kind of

digital space, that really helped defense contractors, other federal agencies aol really helped ground that industry heavily in virginia. and lastly and sadly, we also have a lot of cyber attack victims, the opm breach that took ougall of that data from government employees but also contractors who were doing work with the government has affected virginia very dramatically. and i know probably everybody in congress and the senate has had to deal with the aftermath and questions and people mad about it. but in virginia we got a lot more people who are mad about it than other states. the three issues that i want to spend my time on today and they're the issues that i'm grappling with in my own committee assignments are basically these. cyber doctrine, the debate over the security and privacy balance and then third cyber security investment. let me just tackle three. cyber doctrine. so i'm a member of safk and foreign relations. and have an opportunity in those committees i'm not an intel but

sask and foreign releases have an opportunity to do a lot of cyber related hearings. and let me just give you some snapshots of hearings that i've attended in my time in the senate. an armed services hearing they had a cyber command who was testifying and talking about cyber and used the phrase and you know in some instances a cyber attack could lead to war. so when it came time for me to ask questions i said, okay, so a cyber attack is by definition not war? it's something short of war? it's like electronic vandalism or graffiti but isn't war itself? i could hypothesize where a cyber attack could do as much damage to our nation or others as any war would do. and the witness says, well, i wasn't exactly sure that that's what i meant. but at least kind of in the just description of the key decision maker, cyber attack was somehow short of war.

recently we had a hearing in armed services again with cyber command. this was a posture hearing we had in march. and this was the way the hearing was set up. the testimony was heavily about all the cyber attacks that we've been subject to, the targets and the opms and the sonys, the big ones were discussed at length. then there was also statistics given about the number of cyber attacks we're subject to every day. i'm still relatively junior on the committee so i'm really late in asking questions and everybody asks questions before i do. and this testimony was just frightened us all with all the attacks we're under. so i decided i would play a trick on my witness and when the questioning got to me i said, okay, you've told us all about these cyber attacks we are subject to, the numbers and particulars. give me a great example of an instance with the u.s. effectively responding to the cyber attack. he sewed, and i knew he'd say that, we'll have to do that in a classifiy eied setting.

i said, really? you've been really willing to talk about the particular attacks we're subject to, many of which are in the news and even the numbers of attacks, and when we have other hearings in this committee about the war against isil, we will talk to the number how many bombing runs we've conducted, how many troops are deployed, how many dollars we've sent. so we will talk about what we're doing in other areas and we'll talk about the attacks we're subject to, but you won't even share one example publicly of how the u.s. has responded to something in cyber? well, no, we're going to have to do that in a classified setting. well, can you imagine the american public if they're only hearing publicly of the attacks we're subject to rather than what we're doing? they would feel like pretty anxious about this? they might feel like their government really isn't doing anything? that they're not really responding? of course we are, but if you don't share it, what confidence are you giving your citizens that you're on top of it? we've had other discussions including in this one where senator king has been really

focused on this issue. if you're not willing to talk publicly about what you do, do you have a deterrence doctrine? is there such a thing as a deterrence doctrine that you keep secret? if you keep it secret, is it deterrence? you know, we had a deterrence doctrine and have one with respect to nuclear and other military doctrines but if it's all kind of on the downlow with respect to cyber, then how are we deterring attacks? so we've had extensive areas where we've kind of challenged the administration over deterrence. and then when we have the commander of ucom in and we talk about nato, here's another question we've asked. when is a cyber attack, when would it triggerer the article 5 elect defense under nato. obviously if vladimir putin crosses into a nato jurisdiction with russian military assets that's one thing. tanks or frooptroops.

but what if there is a well documented or clear effort to destabilize the network or destabilize an election. there already has been effort to do that. when does that rise to the level of an attack that would trigger a u.s. defense obligation? and when we asked that question, we're basically told, well, we're starting to have those discussions, but we don't really yet have an answer to them. so i think the real issue and in some ways it's funny because this is what i talked about last time i was here, i talked about doctrine. the real question and in that instance the doctrine i was talking about was war powers doctrine. we're doing things, we're steps, we're reacting. but the doctrine that tries to rationalize what we're doing is sorely laking and i would say the same in the cyberspace. swha a proportional response to a signer attack? how do we make plain we will under take it either in the cyber domain or other domain? and what the right role for the

government to under take steps including proportional responses when the cyber attack is not on the government but on a private sector actor like sony? i think those are big questions. think our technologies have raced ahead of our doctrinal effort to provide answers to these questions and then make them public so that our citizens know we have a doctrine and can feel some comfort thereby and our adversaries know and hopefully feel deterred i do think in this first area that chairman mccain and the other sask members are really starting to focus on this. and as i've had discussions with folks especially at dod and the intel agencies i think they're running to catch up on the doctrinal questions. there are discussions going on in nato about these doctrinal collective defense obligations but more work in the area is absolutely critical because technical solutions and tactical decisions should ultimately advance an overall doctrine rather than being one by one or

one off case by case reactions. so i think the first issue i want to put on the table and hopefully will lead the panel discussion is the need for more dongt rin and the sat status of those discussions of. the secretary thing i want to talk about is the balance between privacy and security which is raised so starkly by the fbi/apple case but there are many other cases that raise it as well. i just want to offer you an observation about this. and i guess my punch line is, though congress is ultimately responsible for legislative activity in this area, we're uniquely unqualified to make these decisions. uniquely unqualified. let me explain why. there's two principle approaches right now being discussed on the privacy/security balance in congress. senators feinstein and burr have a proposal that would require a person or company to provide law enforcement with information or technical assistance upon a specific court order. it would be a defined proposal to try to avoid using the all

ritz act which is more generic and not necessarily tailored to this kind of information. and that is a proposal that is within intel on the senate side right now that's being bandied about. another proposal that's a little bit different is a bi-camera one, proposal from senator warner and chairman mccall on the house side, to propose a 16-member digital security commission to assess the broad issue of digital security not just the encryption question. obviously that would be part of it. but the broad issue of digital security and then make recommendations to congress. hopefully in a relatively urgent time horizon. this is modeled after the 9/11 commission and it would include hopefully technology experts and privacy experts and folks from the business sector who understand if we make changes how that might affect both u.s. companies and u.s. technologies, would it chase people to other technologies.

and obviously national security leaders. and the idea would be the commission that could grapple with this and make a recommendation. now, i know there's kind of a reaction to, oh, man, another commission. just what we need. but i actually think it would be a good idea to do that commission that could then forward material to congress. and i'm good to tell you why i like that. i would prefer to do that rather than jump right feinstein/burr i'm going to give you a reason that you may not have thought of but as soon as i say it you'll get it. the question of privacy versus security is about a careful balancing of really important interests. and as i said, while members of congress should have the ultimate responsibility for voting on legislation to try to strike that balance, wre sort of uniquely unqualified to do it for this this reason. there is no area where a member of congress is more different from the american public than in a reasonable expectation of privacy. members of congress, the 535, we're different than the

american public in a whole lot of ways. but i would argue there is no area we are fundamentally more different in that we have long ago surrendered any expectation of privacy. and we have forgotten what it is to have an expectation of privacy. you know, i started in politics in 1994 and it was pre-youtube and essentially pre-internet in its current -- so i still at that point as a city councilperson had some expectation of privacy. but i have none now nor does anybody else in my line of work. and so if you give us the task of striking the balance between privacy and security, first, we will overvalue security. and of course we should. that should be the top priority of everybody in congress, to protect national security. so we will be be extremely diligent about that, and we should. but we will undervalue privacy because we've forgotten what it's like to have any privacy.

and so if trying to strike that balance is something that is for congress, we're going to strike it in a way that i don't think will fairly take into account the legitimate privacy interests of american citizens. now, that question, what is a legitimate privacy interest of the citizenry, the private citizenry, is a very complex question. it's not easy. there's got to be some to strike the right balance expectation of what is a reasonable expectation of privacy. most citizens knowinglior or unknowingly surrender that privacy every day in the commercial owe sphere and there's sort of an issue of how relevant is that repeated surrender to the question of how much privacy vis-a-vis governments individuals would be entitled to. so there's all kinds of challenges as you get to trying to decide this issue about the scope of a legitimate individual privacy interest. but congress is just not the right body to do that, and we

would really be benefitted by a commission of people that include folks who can remember what it's like to have a private sphere. and who would then -- and would also respect the national security interest trying to set that balance. so rather than rush into a solution where we haven't really sussed out the scope of that individual legitimate privacy interest i would say we should get that done and hopefully get it done with some dispatch because i think those recommendations back to us would really help us grapple with it. so that's my second thought. my third thought is in the cyber security investment area. we have to invest more in cyber capacity, and i think this is one of the areas of government that has been most affected by budgetary uncertainty. if you look at sequester, shutdown, furl los, continuing resolutions instead of budgets it's had effect on everything we do. but i would argue that it might have had as much or more effect on cyber as anything else

because it's first coincided with the time where the need and the acknowledged need for increased cyber investment has really been ramping up. just as that's been happening, we ran into march 1, 2013, going into full-on sequester and then needing to figure it out. the cyber workforce is incredibly in demand right now and so some of the budgetary austerity or budgetary uncertainty if people are looking at career paths and they're going to look at the one with other opportunities, i worry that our budgetary uncertainty is basically chases talent in another direction. on the budget committee i came into office with sort of two goals in mind on that committee. first, a very state centric kind of governor's type goal which is i really like two-year budgeting. every state does two-year budgets. at the federal level we do

one-year budgets when we do budgets. but states do two year budgets as they do that because it's good for predictability. predictability is wonderful for our own people. predictability is even more wonderful for the private sector so that everybody can understand the parameters of what they're going to be dealing with and adjust accordingly. we have now done two two year budgets in a row. it was ulgly getting there. the first one only happened after the shutdown of the government and the second one only happened after the speaker decided, i'll resign and do a two year budget deal. i don't think we can rely on a cataclysm every year to get a budget deal. but at least we're moving toward some levelful predictability. but i tell uf when i go out and talk about budgetary issues to virginians and i try to make the case for why sequester and budget caps the bca strategy that was voted on in august of 2011 and the caps that went into place in march of 2013, when i try to tell them why it's bad i always use cyber as my example. so the bca caps basically in

sequester sort of held harmless safety net spending and core war fighting expenses. those were held harmless. everything else nondefense discretionary and defense other than core war fighting were all affected by sequester so it's kind of like artificially we're just going to hold everything down. and people say, that's great. we should save money. i said, okay, how many of you think we're doing too much on cyber right now? of course no one raises their hand. how many thinks we need to do more on cyber? everybody raises their hand. why should cyber when it's not core war fighting get affected like everything else? the notion of across the board anything is foolish from a management standpoint, especially areas where there's a wide recognition that we're doing too little not too much. so the first thing that we need to do on the investment side is hopefully get this bca and sequester behind us for the third year in a row in the nda

markup on the senate side i've gotten included anti-sequester language calling for an end or dramatic mitigation of sequester both on the defense and nondefense accounts. a lot of work we do in cyber obviously is done in dhs. that is not a non-defense account. do the extent the can caps hit dhs, cyber gets affected. so the ndaa which will be taken up on the floor starting later this week and then after memorial day in the senate, i'm really going to try to do again what we've done in the last couple of years which is if not eliminate at least lift or mitigate the effect of cyber cuts. and if we do that, then we have to make the right investments and the right investments are at least two foerld. then i'll be glad to open it up and take some questions. the first one is work force. when jim introduced me he talked a little bit about work that i do. virginia is a center for technology workforce. not the only center. there are other state that's have a huge expertise in it, too, maryland, california, other states. but even as a center of a technology workforce, second in

the nation of percentage workers in technology jobs, earn even? virg irnlg there's human gaps. there's only one candidate for every three cyber security positions that are open in virginia and there is in the state with the technology workforce. so we have a dramatic need to get more people into this field. this is one of the reasons among others that when i came into the senate i didn't get put on the help committee, health education labor pensions it was a committee i really wanted to be on. but i realize you don't have to be on the committee you just have to pick an issue that nobody on the committee is championing. i picked career and educational -- i ran a vocational school in honduras third 5 years ago. and u.s. sort of systemically downgraded the importance in technical education over the course of a few generation but now there's a renaissance and it's coming back and cyber is one of those areas where trained technical talent does not

necessarily have to have a college degree. there are other ways to get the skills, the verified validated skills that you need to be a player in this area. so this is one of the things we're working on, we put in an important technical and area rear technologies in the no child left behind. we're working on perkins act reauthorization do to do the same thing. higher eld act reauthorization we'll work on cte advances that will include cyber. in virginia the mcauliffe administration and i've got to mention that because my wife is his secretary of education my wife ann they're doing may yore work in the work force area to expand the cyber work force. the redesign of high school curriculum to include more cte and cyber courses. the effort to designate community colleges around the state as national centers of academic excellence and cyber tidewater community college down in ham ton roads just became the third virginia community college to receive that designation.

we have to have both the federal and the private sector work force necessary to meet the challenge and some of that is going to be int gratly tied up with our work on perkins and higher ed act reauthorization to promote this work force. in addition to the work force we just have to shore up our investments in technologies and platforms. i visited fire eye is one of the co-sponsors of today. they're a wonderful, powerful leader in this field in virginia. i visited their office in reston last fall and we had an extensive discussion about the problematic reliance of many federal agencies on unsecure systems that are legacy systems but they're unsecure because there hasn't been the dollars available to purchase the upgrades, to either make upgrades that can be made or to find new systems that would be more secure. and largely this has been because of the budgetary uncertainty sequester budgetary caps. so if we can find a path out of

bca and sequester -- and i'm not talking about just for -- i am kind of a budget hawk. i do believe in the management of debt and deficit. i just don't believe you do it by across the board caps. i think it that's foolish. i think you have to manage that through targeted strategies that involve both sides of the balance sheets, revenues and expenditures. but across the board reductions that hit accounts that are so important in the cyber world are very, very foolish given the need that's we have. so i'll just conclude and maybe take a couple of questions. the information sharing bill that we did was sort of in law we call it necessary but not sufficient. it was very important that we do that, and it was good to kind of have some discussion with folks working on this issue as the implementation is under way, companies are kind of starting to get used to the notion of sharing, companies are starting to get used to the notion that if they do share then they get helpful tips back about things they should, you know, prepare

for or watch for. but there's a lot more of that to do and we hope that will rap p up. we have to talk about implementing it. but i do think these areas of further development of doctrine grappling in the correct way with the privacy/security balance and then getting over some of these budgetary malpractices so that we can make the investments we need to do in people and systems are the next beyond information sharing issues that congress should tackle. with that, jim, i'm glad to take a few questions before i head up to my committee -- we have a committee hearing in foreign relations on the u.s./india relationship to prep for the visit. the u.s./india relationship, india does more military exercises with the united states than they do with any other nation. and the capacity for a good cyber partner, i mean, if you thought about somebody you would want as a cyber partner, india would be a fantastic part never. there's a lot in that situation so we'll be carrying forward this discussion up in the hearing room in a matter of minutes. but jim, i'll take a few questions. [ applause ]

>> let me start. i'm going to cheat and call on my boss jon hammry to see -- since i know that doctrine is dear to his heart, he and i fight about this all the time. >> well, first, senator, i thought it was a superb speech. thank youor for doing it. let me ask, rather, the hardest part we see is how do we get congress to get an integrated view on an issue that cuts across all of the committees? i mean, i think the hardest thing is we've seen efforts by different committees, but the stove pipe nature of committee jurisdiction seems to be blocking us getting an ind gr t integrated view. what can we do about that? >> that ace great question. ask the panelists the same question, too. i want to hear what they say. that is obviously an issue. look, we had an information sharing bill on the floor of the senate a year before and couldn't do it because the committees of jurisdiction, intel and judiciary were arguing

with each other about, well, wait a minute, you put it on the floor it should have been us or we should have worked together. so the stove pipe effect hurts us and obviously we're not just talking about those committees. you know, foreign relations and sask and the appropriators. it's very critical they be involved so this is a topic that cuts across domains. that's one of the reasons i like the warner/mccall approach because i think it will develop -- the idea of the commission and i think i read this right is it's not just about encryption. it's more of a look at digital security questions encryption is key but others as well from multidisciplinary stakeholders. so if we rush into being about a solution because of the apple/fbi case has grabbed everybody's attention as it should, we rush into being about the solution of that issue and we look at it narrow gauge. we'll almost certainly approach it in my view in kind of a siloed way that won't give it that integrated look that it

needs. that's one of the reasons i like the warner/mccall approach. >> do you want to call them? >> yeah. introduce yourself, please, if you ask questions. >> hi, i'm david smith of the guardian. what sort of relationship do you think you have at the moment with companies like apple and google? is it a bit too confrontational and do you think there's a way that you can mend that and cooperate with them? and secondly, if asked about would you like to be vice president, what would you say? >> well, i'm hoping nobody asks. now let me answer your first question. >> you can dodge that one. >> he said, if asked. i'm just hoping nobody asks. on that is it too confrontational, senator warner says this, mark's on intel, most

of you know mark and i are really close, we've known each other in 35 years one of the virtues of being the two senators from virginia you do these xmeetds and i'll do those. he's intel and banking and finance. i'm armed services, budget. they put me on the aging committee i don't know why just recently. but mark, his pitch on sort of fbi/apple is both sides are kind of claiming a moral superiority that is above their actual moral stature. so there is some tough rhetoric back and forth, and the apple/fbi case is the case that the law school professor would write it's got all of the features that the law school professor would write for the exam. and those features make it incredibly compelling for the fbi's case, you know, that it is a phone that was used by people who were actually carrying out attack connected with terrorism. it is a phone owned by the county that said, we give you permission to search it. so the facts kind of mill tate

for the fbi's point of view. but when you dig into it, you really do get into even if you're strongly in support of the security imperatives, which i am, the whole notion of, you know, getting into back doors into encrypted systems that could potentially chase users to other companies, to other technologies that would then end up hurting the law enforcement effort. so there isn't, you know, a complete white hat? black hat in this so i think that we can -- we should just diffuse that rhetoric and really grapple to the extent we can with nuances that will change. i mean, one of the things about this area is we are almost guaranteed in a solution we come up with to do a best effort and then still find the world changing around us and have to revisit it. but again, i would go back on your question about rhetoric to the point that john asked me. that's one of the reasons i like the warner/mccall approach. i think getting stake hoefrlds

from different sides is more like think to gret congress do the informed thing rar than react to one really dramatic case and either miss elements or kind of overcorrect. >> whoa, time for a couple more. maybe one more. how about that one right there. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator. my name is mark. my question is coming from a transatlantic perspective. what opportunities do you see to rebuild that trust or bridge that gulf that exists between the united states and europe on cyber security, on data privacy? >> yeah. obviously, the trust was really damaged, again, at least facially, after the snowden publicity. some of the distrust was public pride of stations by people who are pretty aware of what was going on, but nevertheless

that's real and there's a need to rebuild it. and again, the underlying issue was -- the revelations brought to bear a spotlight on this issue of how do you balance the security and the privacy issues. you know, we look at some of these issues differently, but i think the gap between the u.s. analysis of these or our senseties to the privacy and security side and european sensibilities to the extent there's a gap i think that gap is closing pretty quickly because, you know, obviously and tragically european nations have had to deal with some very, very difficult situations in this space, terrorist attacks in not just europe obviously, not just paris and brussels but the sinai. we will know what we'll know about the egyptair flight. you know, i think as more nations are seeing the security versus privacy challenges in the

same way that we are so i think that, as the security issues become more equal, some of not necessarily that creates trust but it can kind of create a shared sense of mission for getting this right. even though i don't think they've answered the question, i mentioned earlier kind of the nato question we still have a ought of work to do to make this decision when would a cyberattack trigger a collective defense obligation. there is good work going on within nato. cybersecurity cooperation between nato allies and the united states. that's, i think, moved forward in an accelerated pace, that's probably helping. but sadly the security realities of the world are probably bringing all of our sensibilities a little bit closer together in terms of the urgency of answering some of these questions. >> how about one more on this

side and we have to let the senator escape. how about this gentleman here. sorry. >> mike coming up the aisle. >> adam powell with the southern california cybersecurity initiative. let's go back to the 15-person panel that's being proposed. might that be a way of addressing the stovepipe issue and might one of the outcomes be a renlation for a joint committee of some kind of the house and senate? >> possible. i think -- so everybody heard the question. it is possible that a solution might be some kind of a joint committee. you know, my -- i have proposed a similar joint committee on war powers questions, the war powers consultation act that senator mccain and i have been pitching to replace the war hours resolution of 1973 would establish a bicameraal, bipartisan consultation committee that would be -- permanent committee that would be in permanent dialogue with the executive over hot spots

that could develop into needs for military action. and that could certainly be a possibility in this one, i think one of the things we'll want to make sure, if i'm going to remember this right, i think the mccall warner proposal is 15 that sort of 8 by the house, eight by the senate, and one by the president. and i'm trying to remember if there are specified disciplines that need to be included. and i think it really is important to get that right because i want to make sure we've got the full group of stakeholders, privacy advocates, national security experts, business leaders, academics. you want to make sure you've got the full range of expertise around the table. but the larger issue that they're going to grapple with is not just encryption but digital security and if they would identify, and i wnt imagine they wouldn't, stovepiping as an on stack toll digital security then you would expect they would make recommendations to help us get over stovepiping.

and stovepiping as you know it's not just an agency thing. it can be a congressional concern as well. and we've got to figure out ways to get by that. so that's a good thought for what one of their charges could be, is structural reform both in the executive and legislature. you really have a good panel coming up. these are the real experts after me. thank you for letting me come and kick it off. i look forward to following and getting a readout on what the panel puts on the table and i look forward to continuing to work with csce, and thanks for including me today. [ applause ] >> truly insightful speech by the senator. if i could ask the panelists to come up now, we can go ahead and get started with round it. i'll take this one. this is an easy panel for me because so many of them are old

friends that i was thinking if i introduce them the way i know them it will probably sound wrong. so let me introduce people quickly and we will have their bios on the website. in the order they're on my list, andy grotto, senior director for cybersecurity policy at the national security council. we have two andys. they both have the same job, which is a little confusing. andy, before that he was the senior adviser for technology policy. secretary pritzker at commerce. he was very effective there, hearing from other people, including the secretary. and he of course was a professional staff member at ssci starting all this. after him we have kirsten duncan, house committee on homeland security. kirsten is pinch-hitting. for some reason the other speaker we had from the committee had to go to a meeting on tsa. i don't know what might have happened today that would call for secretary johnson to have an emergency meeting, but in any case, kirsten, we're really

grateful for you being here and filling in. she handles cybersecurity infrastructure protection for chairman mccall. she works on cybersecurity and science and technology issues. and most important for you in the room she was a pmf. which is the real seal of approval from the federal government. so thank you very much for filling in. andy ozment is currently the assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at dhs where he has, i didn't know this, a budget of more than 1 billion and 600 employees. that's like real money. right. and he's -- he leads the federal efforts to respond to cybersecurity incidents. and prior to that, he was also senior director for cybersecurity at the white house. and the thing you probably know andy best for in that role was

e.o. -- the executive order on critical infrastructure protection that resulted in the nist framework. and he is that rarity in the discussions of cybersecurity, someone with a ph.d. in computer science. so very rare. and finally, we have tom mcclellan, director national homeland security policy and government affairs at fireeye. many of you of course know tom from his previous work at nga, the national governors association where he helped really reorient that organization to think about s b cybersecurity. he led the resource center for state cyber security there and has worked in these issues as they relate to the state level and to cyber security and homeland security for a long time. so a great panel. what i told them we were going to talk about was cnap, the -- what's it called? >> cybersecurity national action program. >> how could i forget? and i have to admit when i saw

this i thought gee, that's ambitious. that's kind of bold to do something this late in the administration. but as i look at it i think it might actually be something that could work. we'll see. they have six months to deliver. firm deadlines are usually bad. this time it might be good. what i'm going to do is just go down the panel really quickly and ask people, what do they think of cnap, what do they think it ought to focus on and if you could take just five minutes or so and then you could lead to questions from the group and a few others. kirsten, i don't know if you wanted to start. >> sure. thank you for having me here. i appreciate it. let me begin by saying these are my words and mine alone, not representing others here. so cnap is a pretty interesting endeavor. i think reading it over again between -- looking at cyber -- well one of the things where i think -- i'm looking very forward to seeing is cyber

incident response plan. that is something that was put into law several years ago. as you're probably aware, chairman mccall has taken cybersecurity as an issue for the last several years. when i was work on the science committee i had the pleasure of working with him on the cyber enhancement act which codified this framework and the scholarship for service program. a couple of things we've already discussed here. also cementing sort of these workforce issues. getting engaged with the national science foundation. dhs uses the scholarship for service. that same year a number of other bills passed to authorize the nkick and to put force a workforce assessment for cybersecurity across the nhs and provide for more hiring authority at the dhs to make sure we can build up this cyber workforce. so i think cnap, we have the

ability to build on a number of efforts that are already under way. i think one of the elements, as i mentioned, is the cyber incident response plan. i look forward to seeing that. i think right now states and locals, we had a hearing back last month where a number of -- a fire chief, eye a. lieutenant with the police out in texas came and spoke with us and talked about their plans for cyber and talked about other training opportunities that they might be aware of for cyber incident response. we're doing another hearing today at 10:00 a.m. to sort of build on that state and local issue and i think that cyber incident response plan will help prepare all around. >> great. thank you. andy? >> so the cnap, the president announced it in the budget rollout february 9th. it caps more than seven years of

determined effort by the administration to raise our cyber defenses, disrupt malicious activity in cyberspace, and enhance our incident response capability. i thought i'd spend a couple of moments focused in particular on the sort of under the banner arrays of national defenses. there are sort of two pieces to that. one is sort of, you know, providing tools to the private sector and infrastructure to help them raise their defenses. second bucket under that is federal government cybersecurity. i want to focus for a minute on federal government cybersecurity because, a, it's really important. and b, does not get nearly the attention that i think it deserves in fora such as this. and last but not least, i thought senator kaine did a good job of teeing up some of the issues we're thinking about from a cybersecurity perspective. and also i know the president has asked the commission on

enhancing national cybersecurity to look into it as well. so on the federal side this is where the connection to information sharing i think really becomes clear. as you all know, this threat, you know, poses very unique challenges because many of the targets of malicious activity are in the private sector, be they critical infrastructure, be they financial information, be they health information. and that means that combating this threat requires this collaboration, both with the private sector with the government. with respect to information sharing, obviously, you know, with information sharing it's been a priority since the beginning of the administration focused initially on sort of intragovernmental sharing coming out of the cnci work. fast forward to december of last year and the cybersecurity bill finally passed. sort of surreal for me at least. i was actually deeply involved in the first -- one of the sort

of beta versions of that bill when i was on the hill. title 7 of rockefeller, lieberman, feinstein, collins legislation for those of you who remember that ancient history in 2013, or thereabouts. and since then, and this is another kind of point that senator kaine alluded to, passing the bill is just a step in the process toward building out our capabilities to both share more information with the private sector but also receive more information so that we can better understand the threat environment and in turn provide more support to the private sector and other entities. andy can get into this in a little more detail. but, you know, we're focused right now on deploying this capability called automated indicator sharing, aka the portal, for those of you who are familiar with that phrase.

the -- we're finalizing clear and transparent guidelines for companies and individuals on how to share information through the portal. the first draft of these went out a couple months ago. and andy's team is doing a tremendous job getting these materials finalized for public release, transition to the congress next month. i'll leave it to andy to elaborate on that. maybe i'll offer a couple of observations about how this debate on information sharing has evolved. at least in the six or so years that i've been involved. you go to 2011, 2012, i perceived at least, and i'm curious for y'all's reaction when we get to q&a, a pretty widespread sentiment among industry that info sharing was a silver bullet. that if only we could share more information with each other and the government would share more classified information with us we would be able to defend

ourselves adequately from a full spectrum of cybersecurity threats. today i think that sentiment still exists in some quarters but i think there's a much finer appreciation within the ecosystem that effective use of information has numerous critical dependencies. for example, you've got to know your network. pretty basic thing. but if you don't know your network how could you possibly put information to use? obviously, you have to know how to deploy information. you have to know which information to focus on and which is simply noise. today it seems to me that the main barriers to information sharing, if they were perceived as sort of like legal, liability issues, obviously the legislation has helped clear many of those away. so now we're left with barriers such as mainly business drivers. things like the cost of

capability, the maturity of an entity's cybersecurity risk management program to be able to use information in a productive way. i think we're really seeing this, and i think this will be a challenge that we will all need to collectively work on, both the government and our friends in the private sector, is trust. entities will not share information if they don't trust that the recipient of the information will use it responsibly, use it for the purposes that both sides agreed to, and the information will be protected from unauthorized use. so a big question in my mind is what can we in the government do to further build trust among the private sector that sharing information with the government is a worthwhile, important endeavor. i turn to andy for -- jim, if you don't mind me jumping tom, go to andy as a nice follow-up. >> is that okay, tom? >> go for it. just save me some comments.

>> will do. will do. so i think it's useful to highlight where we are on the automated indicator sharing and the implementation as andy, as the other andy pointed out. we're like a twin act here. andy and andy. we actually started this work in 2012. i had some very smart people on my team, one of whom is here in the audience, rich struse, who said we're going to need to share indicators in an automated way. there's no way we get the volume of information we need from the government to the private sector and back again unless we can standardize and automate this. so we had to have first standards. dhs led the development of two standards called sticks and taxi. and those two standards are what have enabled us to implement the legislation today. we started that work in 2012. we handed those standards over to a standards body oasis last year. so a normal industry standards consortium is now taking them forward. in 2014 we took those standards, we said all right, we've got to

pilot this stuff. so we worked with the financial services sector and set up a pilot for sharing indicators back and forth. and it was very successful. so successful that the financial services sector spun off a company to productize, to sell as a product the outcome of this pilot. and then of course we worked with the congress and with folks in this room to bring about the legislation. and i really thank the congress for the cybersecurity act of 2015. which gave private sector companies liability protection for sharing this information with the government. we formally -- the secretary formally certified our system as live on march 16th. and since then we've got about 30 entities right now, companies, federal agencies, state and local governments. part of that system, we're growing by a handful of companies every week. we've shared thousands of indicators to date. but obviously we're still in the early stages of that system. but it's working. it's live. and people are receiving value

from it already. what i would say is my charge to you and the audience, is the only way we collectively succeed with this system is if we all put information in and take advantage of the information that's in it. my message when i'm out talking to companies now is we built it, we've given you the tool that you've asked for, i need you to join, i need to you share back with us. that's really the next stage of where we are on the automated indicator sharing effort. with cnap, a brief additional comment, a lot of people are confused about dhs's role in government. and the analogy i've sort of settled on is i think of every cyberincident as being like an arson in the real world. and when you have an arson you want both a firefighter to be there, you want the firefighters there, and you want the cops there. we're the firefighters in that scenario. law enforcement has a hugely important role. fbi, secret service, hsi and all the other federal law enforcement arms. but you also want a firefighter

there who's concerned with let's put out the fire and let's help you rebuild this building so it's more resistant to fire in the future. so we have is this role at dhs and cyberincident response where we help victims, whether they're companies or the government, find the bad guy in their network, kick them off the network, and rebuild to be more secure. we are not law enforcement, although that's a hugely important role. our only customer is the victim, and our job is to make them more resistant to future attacks. as part of that i have a former firefighter on my team and i said how much time did you spend fighting fires on your job? he said almost, if you rounded it, we'd be about zero percent. i said okay, what did you spend your time on? he said our goal is for there not to be fires in the first place. and that's the same thing with dhs. in addition to doing this incident response we share information and we promulgate best practices to help companies and government agencies not have incidents in the first place. this automated indicator sharing is a key part of that. it's sharing the information that will prevent incidents from happening in the first place.

>> great. my turn? >> yeah. >> great. >> first off jim and csis, thank you for having us here. it's been a long time since seeing you but i know we go back quite a ways. i'm the private sector guy up here. i work with a company called fire eye. and we do incident response. you probably heard about us many times in the news. we also do services. kind of a big move. and it's an augmentation to the challenges out in the field with the challenges of workforce shortage and so forth. i'm also a late addition to the panel. i'm going to focus on cnap but also broader about some of the challenges with respect to information sharing. so just my background, i'll help you understand, i spent 16 years working on the state level with governors through the national governors association working on cybersecurity and cybercrime and so forth and also kind of was integral with the development as was andy on the development of

the joint action plan for state and federal unity of effort. i come from a state policy background with this overlaid view of what the threat environment looks like. i really have four opening comments with respect to both cnap and to the information sharing writ large. and the first is that in general the traditional approach that we've got in this country and elsewhere really isn't working all that well. and i think we really need to rethink our posture, we need to rethink our capabilities, and i think the cnap and the information sharing bill that's been passed really is a step in that right direction. but you've got to keep in mind that the adversaries are changing radically every day, every hour. so things like hygiene and firewalls. they're still important, but we've got to get more active. we've got to get more proactive. we have to get out in the networks and begin to hunt. and i think some of the steps that we've just seen, some of the bills that are going to help us get there, they're not going

to get us all the way. there's another big step in terms of having a very proactive defense we're going to go out and hunt in our systems. the second is i really view and have always viewed cybersecurity as a shared responsibility between states, locals, feds, the private sector, and ngos like the msi sack and some other groups that are out there right now. so when you look at the bills that have been pushed out there, cnap, cisa and so forth, one of the questions i have and having worked with states and governors and heard governor -- senator kaine, i worked with him when he was a governor. is that notion of what's the right missing between what the states are doing, what the locals are doing, what the feds are doing. it's not a criticism but just kind of observation that the cnap and the system, they're really kind of more focused on the federal level. and i do know that states and locals really want their own

resources. they -- their needs are so esoteric with reblth to their networks, their critical infrastructure. higher education is a tremendous target. health is a tremendous target. right now states don't have the resources that they really want. and i mean grants and dollars. people say what about the sisgap grant out there right now. it's been spoken for. so the states have resources they can draw through the federal level, through the msi sack, through a variety of things. but i do know states hunger to build up their own intrinsic capabilities. and the third thing i want to mention again is that privacy. privacy is paramount. and in this context what i mean by private isn't the right to be left alone. it's not the expectation of privacy but it's really that fair use of information. and so as companies begin to contribute to whether it's ais or some of the other sharing

arrangements that are out there, they have to be very, very careful with respect to respecting the privacy insomuch of the fair use of the information. a victim or victim company. and lastly i want to say that information sharing is a great goal but it is not enough. information sharing is a step in the right direction. and there are also some inherent challenges with sharing information. and the first is, and i think either one of the panelists or the governor or the senator mentioned it earlier, is the notion of the more information that's out there, the more noise you get for the same amount of signal. maybe get a little more signal. sought question is information has to be actionable that's being shared. so how you begin to take all the information when you're pulling in all these indicators to really kind of turn that into something that's actionable for the agency or for the individual or for the organization. and lastly with respect to the information sharing kind of

thing is that notion of sometimes when you share information the bad guys know you're sharing information and they're going to change their ttps, their tactics, their techniques and their procedures. so that may also kind of push the cycle faster. in and of itself, as a component of a larger strategy, information sharing is very good. our company, we just recently announced the development of -- or the launch of an information sharing network where we're sharing indicators of malware and atomic indicators. we certainly value that notion of sharing. but it's the end. what's next? >> when i look at cnap, five or six things kind of leaped out at me. as interesting. to kind of blast us out of the debate we've been having. since 2012. i can't do all the names, rockefeller, feinstein, collins and lieberman bill. boy, that is ancient history. >> five years ago. >> yeah, it seems like forever.

so the five things i think that leap out are assurance, the emphasis on assurance and particularly it's interesting to look at some of the things that might be done for internet of things. budget, manage services, the whole series of workforce efforts. and then maybe the rethinking of the nist framework. we may not have time to hit them all but i wanted to hit a couple right up front and see what the panelists thought. budget is always a good one in washington and the president's calling for 19 additional billion dollars. when's he going to spend it on? what do you think he should spend it on? anyone want to take first -- andy, that might go first to you. >> so yeah. so i mean one key element of the budget is this proposal that we offered last month for $3.1 billion information technology modernization fund. so taking a step back from cybersecurity, you really can't separate cybersecurity from i.t. acquisition and i.t. management.

we don't do cybersecurity for its own sake. we do cybersecurity to support, you know, reliable i.t. and we use i.t. obviously to deliver mission and services to our customers. and what the information technology mod urbanization fund is about, itmf for short, for shorthand, is, you know, we have a long list of legacy i.t. spread across the government. we can bubble wrap it. we can wrap it in duct tape. you know? these systems were not necessarily built with cybersecurity in mind, so what we are doing to protect them is kind of, you know, again, bubble wrap it and duct tape and what we're finding is in a lot of cases -- what we expect to find in many cases is that it is more cost effective both from an immediate budget perspective but also because today's legacy i.t. becomes -- we don't want -- potentially legacy i.t. in five,

ten years. it's cheaper to replace it today than it is to keep bubble-wrapping it and duct-taping it. what the i.t. modernization fund does is provide a revolving fund for agencies to basically identify systems that they have as eligible, potentially eligible for being replaced through this revolving fund. i think, you know, senator kaine mentioned -- i believe dr. amory as well mentioned the congressional angle here and how in particular -- the way we do i.t. budgeting, which affects cybersecurity budgeting. also has that same kind of congressional jurisdictional challenge that some of the more strategic issues that senator kaine discussed, meaning that one of the goals of cnap is to try to encourage and push and incentivize agencies to go to shared services because shared services are ultimately more efficient from a cost

perspective but they're also easier to defend from a cybersecurity perspective. the challenge with that is, you know, right now each agency's i.t. budget for the most part is authorized and appropriated in that agency stovepipe. sought real challenge for us is going to be working with congress to figure out how you actually get -- how you, you know, get to that -- get to that model of shared services. it's actually incidentally one of the challenges or questions that we've asked the president's cybercommission to look into, is this very question. >> i personally will be upset to see the government finally stop using windows 2000. but -- >> i know. it's a collector's item. we would just be missing out. >> we're using cobalt on some systems still. >> let's footstop. everyone hear that? they're still using cobalt. if you don't know what that is, we can explain later. talk about antiques. >> let me foot stop one point

that andy made which is the i.t. modernization fund, the idea here is, i'm running a legacy i.t. system. it costs me a lot of money to keep it running. and yet, congress is, you know, understandably reluctant to give me a pot of money to buy something new. they want me to have the same amount of money, run the old thing and replace it with something new and that doesn't work because when you're replacing a big system, you have to spend money to run the old one and build the new one and for some period of time you have to have essentially doubling the money. the idea hopefully is you end up with savings replacing the old one and for a period of time you have double the money and obviously an approximation. the fund is intended to bridge that. it will give agencies what will essentially be a loan to run -- while they pay for the old system with the current budget, it gives them a loan to build the new system and pay it back over time with the savings from having replaced that legacy system. that's a pretty novel approach

to running things in the government from a budgetary perspective but i think it's a huge improvement and really the only way we're going to be able to replace these legacy systems because there just isn't the money or the congressional will to fund us to run the old things even as we build new things. >> kirsten? >> from my perspective, i think following the passage of the cyber security act, watching how that is implemented, you know, our role and my role in oversight of that, not only the automated indicator sharing but also the growth and strengthening of tools like einstein and cdm. we haven't talked a ton about, you know, homeland security's role in securing federal networks or helping to secure federal networks arriving at tools to be readily available and one of the things the try to take on in the cybersecurity act

was making sure that those tools are flexible, dynamic and can continue -- are not stagnant. we hear a lot that, you know, perimeter defense isn't only defense and i think watching einstein, cdm grow, be implemented, what? the deadline is end of this year for everyone to be accessible in the federal government. right? so i think one of the things in cnap is to support those sort of activities. >> so -- but in terms of -- so from a budgetary perspective one of the things that my role, both -- prior to fire eye and now is really to educate state policy makers to rethink budgeting for cybersecurity, that it's not an opex or a capex where you're going out and buying things but you're buying infrastructure. when you look at the budgeting process for all of this, and, you know, the feds actually do a pretty good job about it for budgeting dollars for cyber.

12% to 15% of their overall i.t. budget. states are 2% or 3%. there's a number of reasons for that. so your question about budgeting is raising the awareness of are we spending enough to buy down our risk one of the questions i would throw out to the andys is, you know, so as you buy these things, are you developing or buying? so the question is, you know, how do you leverage the private sector? how do you leverage some of the things that are already out there with respect to the development and the implementation of these new systems? because in terms of scale it's almost a defense industrial base for cybersecurity. you've got the big players out there that build ships and airplanes and they sell them and the question is how do you strengthen those types of partnerships and leverage things for cybersecurity in it represents a very different way of thinking about the relationship between the private sector, between states, between locals, between higher ed and so forth. >> that's a good bleed-in to managed services. let me start by saying i'm a big

fan of managed services and i think the conversion experience for a lot of us was opm, where you had 12 guys manning an agency's i.t. system doing cybersecurity and also doing password restoration. kind of -- and against them you had the people's liberation army. so it wasn't entirely a fair fight. sought idea of managed services is good but it's easier to say than to do. so in talking to people in the government they say, well, there's networks, there's e-mail, there's the application that's are running. what is it you're going to be managing? what is it you're going to move to? then there's the question of who is it that's going to manage the services? do you go to commercial contractors the way gsa does it now? do you have it be a central agency like dhs? i don't know if you want to talk about managed services. if this works, it and the budget will profoundly change how the federal government does cyber security.

i'll stress at this point the way if. so i don't know who wants to go first. >> i'll take a first stab. i think the answer to your question depends on the answer of who. commercial. is it another agency? is it dhs? depends on the nature of the service. right? and, you know, i think in a minimum we need to be flexible and, you know, approach this from a pretty dynamic perspective. if i could pick one shared service, i would start with the e-mail i think. wave of a magic wand. that's the vector by which bad guys and people in the private sector know this as well. it's one of the most common -- if it's the most common way for bad guys to get into a system is e-mail and if you'll harden e-mail you'll go a long way towards reducing your risk. >> i would just jump in and say

i think part of the goal is not just managed services and shared services and may be situations where it makes sense to have, for example, centralized provision from one agency for other agencies. my -- the one closest to my heart there is the continuous diagnostics and mitigation program or cdm and partially accelerated and enhanced by the cnap and it's dhs's way of agencies secure the inside of their network so if the einstein program is perimeter protection, cdm is what gets inside their network an it's really three things. it's a new approach to acquisition, a new approach to governance and capables. capables first. that's easy. they need security tools. we're buying them security tools. nothing too sophisticated about them. how we're buying them is novel, though. we've brought together the agencies and we're saying, and this is a common private of the

private sector. you buy a lot of individual tools, it doesn't get you where you need to go. you have to tie those tools together. and so we're saying, we are going to buy you a suite of tools with integration to tie them altogether and give you a coherent picture of the internal security and that's the acquisition approach so we're using gsa to do an assisted acquisition on this, essentially helping us run the acquisition. we're buying a suite of tools. we've grouped agencies into buckets. each of them is getting a different suite of tools. there were different competitors and different contractors chosen for each of the buckets of agencies. so we're getting some diversity in the tool set but we're getting integrated outcomes. and the final win there is governance. which is where see a coherent picture of how agencies' risk is being managed across the federal government. so they get all these capabilities, they get them cheaper, dramatically cheaper because we buy them in bulk as a government and we get an integrated roll-up of all the data that comes out of these tools. it's a win for everybody

involved. and it's a really different way of looking at a shared service for the federal government. >> anybody else? kirsten? tom? >> from the -- you know, i think -- i think andy's right on. you know, but i want to kind of go back to the notion of signal versus noise that i think one of the areas where a managed service can be most useful is helping that poor cio working in an agency who's getting hit kind of make sense of, you know, you get -- you know, you always hear the numbers. we have been hit 400,000 times today. of the 400,000 times today, when's most important? my guess is maybe only 1% or 2% and when you begin to look at the targeted, sophisticated attacks, if you can help that cio leverage, you know, extensible capabilities where they can say i have 400,000 but only two of those are important. you have the term of art contextualize it.

you say i know this is going on across the world and that's the type of managed service that would help make things actionable. >> i think seeing the outcome of the cdm dashboard and seeing that put in place is very interested for the idea of managed services. >> great. i have more questions but i don't know if anyone out there has a question. go ahead, please. we have one here. >> thank you. nick farmer. is there any effort going on from the either the federal government or the governor's association to move to web services? something like aws for the government instead of doing discrete individual services for individual agencies. >> so, that might be a cloud question. >> yeah. >> so i'll -- you know, i'll

tell you there's a few answers to that. one of them is the government put in place the fed ramp program in 2009, '10 time frame. the idea of the fed ramp program was to make it easier for the government to use cloud services like a.w.s. and the idea there is when the government buys i.t. normally, the agency that's bought it does its own security assessment. so they test the i.t. and make a decision like is it sufficiently secure? the problem with doing that with the cloud services company is do we want 20 agencies testing the same company? because it's no longer i'm buying something you're installing it here. it's i'm going to use the thing you're providing in the cloud and doesn't make sense for 20 agencies to all test and fed ramp said we'll test it once. each agency can look at the outcomes and make a different decision. for this agency, what you got out of the test is sufficient. for another agency they may want more and not redoing the test 20

times. that was a very foundational way of making cloud services available to the government. now, is it perfect? of course not. but it's a really important foundation and we're building on that and we do see agencies taking advantage of this. there are agencies on the d.o.d. and the intelligence community side, there's a goal to build a private cloud just for them but using commercial technologies. on the civilian government side, there's increasing use of public cloud providers and through this fed ramp process making it more efficient to use those cloud providers. >> sometimes cloud raises privacy questions. where is the data held? who owns it? how you control it and so forth. i think cloud is coming more and more. you know, probably the same answer andy had within the states that it's going to depend on the state and depend on the agency and depend on how they

need to protect that information and where it can be stored. >> maybe one question to ask raised by this and services is how does the federal government compare to the private sector in how it manages cyber security? if there's a private sector best practice and that could vary big companies to little companies, how does the federal government stack up? i don't know who wants to go on that one first but when i look at what companies are doing it seems to be different from what agencies are doing. >> i would say one key difference i see is in governance. cyber security is increasingly centralized in large private sector companies. even for companies that have fairly autonomous business units, the level of centralized oversight is increasingly significant and directive. we're still fairly distributed in the government. fatara, legislation that the congress passed, was intended to help that strengthening cios at the agency level. cnap is intended to help that by creating a federal siso. but comparatively speaking, we are still very distributed from a governance perspective.

in terms of the technologies, i don't think we're that different from very large private sector enterprises in the sense that private sector enterprises that are at large scale are -- that are not technology companies, are actually being somewhat delegate about the move into the cloud. they do struggle with their scale. they are often ahead of us in terms where phase one which is coming out now in the government is probably a few years behind where the private sector is, but in general the large enterprises not tech companies are not dissimilar in the approach of the government other than that centralized governance. >> i think just, you know, as you find within the private sector pockets of excellence with respect to management of cyber security risk and also some real players. the level varies across federal government as well.

there are also budget issues we talked about earlier come into play here. one-year budgeting. senator kaine mentioned that as a real challenge for the federal government that's unique to the federal government. even the state governments don't even have that. as to your budgeting. so i guess -- i always caution against when comparing the federal government to the private sector yes, there's a lot we can learn. i don't want to say it's apples and oranges. maybe it's oranges and mandarins. >> okay. kirsten, tom, i don't know if you want to -- no? there's no way in hell i'm going to compare the private sector to the federal with andy sitting right next to me. >> i'm a big guy. >> let me add one thing to that. we risk falling hint if we don't

sufficiently fund our efforts. the '17 president's budget with the cnap if it is literally the minimal amount we need to get progress. we cannot go below that or we will absolutely fall behind. >> i do think that the processes, the governance we're talking about, i think we're going to come to an flx point where the difference between what the feds do, what the private sector does, whether organizations -- i think we're moving, i think we're years away from that but i think we will hit a point where there is more parity there. i think it's going to depend on the agency because not every data system, not every critical piece of infrastructure has the same value and i think that's going to really kind of weigh on how much dollars get spent to reduce risk. >> i have heard that the president sometimes thinks of himself as the ceo of the federal enterprise and he's a little frustrated at his ability to manage it, which explains some of the rationale for cnap.

we'll see if it works. but any other questions? we've got -- goodness. i said the wrong thing. we have four questions. we'll take them -- why don't we start there and we'll work our way across the room. can you move up here? go ahead, please. >> hong kong phoenix tv. i have a question on china. last year when the opm happened the united states was about to put sanction on china and then the chinese president came, the attention was sort of relieved. and recently we had u.s.-china high-level experts conversation on cyber. so could you please shed some lights on what happened, what is going on right now. is the united states still face the same challenge from china as it had before? thank you. >> so our relationship with

china is complex. has many, many dimensions to it. cyber's obviously one. we were very pleased with the commitments that were made in september during president xi's visit here. obviously, we are watching watching china's adherence to those commitments very closely and with great interest. we've got i think a very robust dialogue with the chinese government on cyber among many other issues. i think it's a productive dialogue and one that ought to keep happening. >> i will say one positive sign is eugene caspersky complained that after the agreement it looked like russia was getting more attention from china than the u.s. that's probably a good thing. we had another question right here in the front. we'll go across the room.

>> hi. my name is john gudgel. i'm a ph.d. student at george mason university school of policy. we know that cyber information has value. obviously fire eye has a business model for managing cybersecurity. i'm wondering, what is the business incentives for a private industry company to want to share with the government? i think it's part of what i'm doing my dissertation on. >> sure. so what i'll tell you is first of all, you need to separate the companies that do have a business model of selling indicators or selling cyberthreat information from the companies that are just defending their networks. right now there's a lot of value, shared value locked up in companies who are just defending their own networks but not taking information they gained from that and sharing it on ward. and our goal is first of all

town lock some of that value. if you're the acme corporation you're not in the cybersecurity business, you're just defending yourself, you're still learning valuable things every day, and if you share that through the automated indicator sharing system, we can help other companies protect themselves. on the -- now switch your lens to look at the cybersecurity industry companies and obviously thomas is going to have an opinion on this as well. but when i talk to those companies increasingly what i hear from them is they realize that indicators themselves are going to be commoditized. and if you think about an indicator, an indicator is something like the i.p. address of a malicious computer or the e-mail address that a phishing e-mail is coming from. these things are becoming pretty widely known. i think the business value is not as much on the indicators themselves. it's going on the contextual information that surrounds those indicators. i think there's still going to be a huge market and a huge need for cybersecurity companies to help provide the context around indicators even as we more

broadly disseminate and rapidly disseminate the indicators themselves. i think the business models are shifting in that sector and that's really how we're reaching this goal of broadly sharing indicators. >> i would say not all indicators are going to be commoditized. certainly there's already commoditized. a company like fire eye brings -- and i'm not here to pitch for identify eye. but a company like ours, we're in 20 or 30 different countries. we've got tens of thousands of end points. we're on many, many, many systems. we gather intelligence and information. and frankly, if indicators -- first off, we hold the -- our clientele. their privacy as paramount. that we don't share information about particular clients unless it's already on the news, unless they've already, you know, agreed to do that. so when the skater geindicator pushed out there it loses its value. the bad guys are going to change their -- you can still stop them

and track them down. there is a value for a company, for the whole private sector to be involved in this. my notion earlier of a dib for cybersecurity, a defense industrial base where there's a balance between what the feds do, what private sector do, what higher ed does and ngo' we all have an intrinsic val krewe. i think cybersecurity is different from a kinetic response. for example, if there were a substation that was under attack by an armed -- you know, an armed group, big green is going to be there. the army's going to be there. someone's going to show up. and there are a lot of instances right now where those private substations or universities are under attack by nation states. sometimes it's organized criminals. and it's not always going to be dhs going to be able to respond or the fbi be able to respond or whoever. you need companies like fire eye and others because we fill a

very, very important need. and what dhs does and what the feds do, they provide some great services but it's not going to be ubiquitous and it's not going to be esoteric for every single need that every single state has. >> we had one. please. >> rick webber at inside cybersecurity. i guess this is for andy ozment. you mentioned when we were talking about information sharing and sisa implementation. have any of the participants in the nk evoked the liability waivers under the new law and in addition to that dhs has said you'll be revising and reissuing the guidance on sharing between non-federal entities. if you can talk about that also. >> just by sharing you received the liability protection. you don't have to sort of formally invoke it. the act of sharing is protected under sisa and the cybersecurity

act. in terms of revising the guidan guidance, as we were talking with about earlier, i'm proud of the fact that dhs has hit all the deadlines. they were very aggressive deadlines. we had a lot of people working very late hours. but the next deadline for us. one of the more recent deadlines was first to publish initial drafts of guidance documents in mid-february and then final drafts in mid-june. and so we are on track to meet those deadlines. either there is out now or we'll very shortly be out, a federal registry notice that we're going to have a workshop on june 9th to go over where we are on those guidelines and sort of show people final drafts and elicit their feedback. and then i do expect us to meet that mid-june deadline of finalizing the documents. by the way, we got really positive feedback on those first set of documents we published in february. i think we were pretty close on the mark even in those draft

documents. what i've heard from industry is they were very clear and they were very helpful. the biggest feedback we've gotten is actually they want the documents to cover a topic which we just hadn't intended them to cover which we weren't expected to cover, which is the liability protections that companies receive for sharing with each other. that was really we thought outside the scope of that first set of documents but we are going to address it because we have heard a hunger to get more information on that. we are going back and forth right now. the final will be mid-june. but we have shared these documents. we're eliciting comments -- i mean we've 3ub8d these documents in mid-february. we're illiciting comments, talking with sector coordinating councils. we're going to have this in mid-june and then issue the final in mid-june. >> i have one final question. do we have one more question over there? one in front.

>> good morning, everyone. my name is elias akora. with the global governance institute. thanks very much for that really interesting presentation. i have a question about this issue and i'm wondering if you can put it in a global perspective and really hone in on the question of alliances. senator kaine talked about nato as a natural ally partner to build a cyberdefense frameworks to be mutually beneficial. i'm wondering how much progress has been made or how much work has been done toward this effort on the administration side. and of course i'm wondering if congress has looked at it. >> kirsten, do you want to go first? >> sure. in the cybersecurity act there are some interesting provisions about international cooperation with indicator sharing and things like that. so we were definitely i would say thinking about this and about the importance of that global conversation. on these sorts of ideas.

as we negotiated the cybersecurity act. >> let's close out the session by asking the question that no one has asked so far but we really need to hear about. i'm going to pick on kirsten first. which is what do you any congress ought to do? what's on the congressional agenda? you've done a fair amount. what's next? let's get the views from the others. what would you like congress to do? that's going to put some of them on the spot. kirsten, why don't we start with you? >> sure. what we are continuing to do is oversight. obviously, we've talked a couple times about the deadlines that are sort of ahead of us for the implementation of the cybersecurity act. june 15th i think there are a handful of additional documents due, final guidelines, privacy and policies and things like that. so we'll continue our oversight. we are considering two potential hearings to look at this implementation.

sort of an industry perspective. and then having folks from dhs come in and talk to us about the implementation. the committee is also very engaged in sort of outside cybersecurity acts. but internet of things, cybersecurity insurance. the security versus security debate that senator kaine spoke about. obviously chairman mccall is one of the leaders -- >> senator warner. >> with senator warner. >> yeah. >> that obviously is as the senator said looking at all digital security technologies. so that will continue to be at the forefront for us as well. outside of our normal oversight duties. >> pass the president's budget request, please. >> i would just say two things in terms of what i think congress should do. i think they should continue to

look at the mission, the whole of nation approach. when you look at what the role of d.o.d. is, what the rovell dhs is, what the role of states and locals are, and to continue to look at a way to build out a mission that is truly national that really -- it's not just fed centered because i just don't think that's going to work in the way we want it to in terms of getting security. i think the other thing they should do is look at how they are really supporting states and locals with respect to dollars being pushed out to support their own esoteric needs. >> great. >> i'll have two as well. npbd has made a proposal for authorizing legislation to the congress in terms of our own organizational structure. i think that's a very important bill to move on. and i'll be frank. just from a managerial perspective we have to come to resolution on that issue. it creates enormous uncertainty for us. we really need closure there. the second thing i would say is really to foot stop andy grotto's message.

the fy17 budget is a make or break budget. the department of defense has i think gotten from my civilian perspective pretty steady and good funding for what they're trying to do in cybercommand. we have relatively speak not put as much funding into civilian government and cybersecurity. and if we're going to be serious about this, we have to put the dollars there. it's not going to magically happen without the resources to support it. and i think the '17 budget is truly a make or break budget for them. >> we're doing a report at css looking at the progress made in the last decade, which has been substantial, both from the congress and from the bush and obama administrations. but we're also looking at the next things that need to be done. so i think a lot of the issues you've heard, building up dhs, thinking about governance, moving to managed services, some of the things we didn't talk-b authentication, figuring out d.o.d.'s role, these are all going to be big problems.

let's see how far cnap gets in moving the ball forward. it's a great last effort. we'll see if it works. thank you very much for coming. please join me in thanking everyone. >> thank you. [ applause ]

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directser for the center of american progress. he'll discuss efforts to reform the system, and author and george mason school of law foundation professor, buckley, will be on to talk about his new book about american's ability to go up the economic ladder has been hampered and what can be done to reverse that trend. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal every friday at 7:00 a.m. in addition to the graduating classes all over this planet, i wish you'll graduate into a world of peace, light and love but that's not the case. we don't liver in a fairy tale. but i guess the 1% does. >> this memorial day, watch commencement speeches in their entirety, watching advice and

encouragement to the graduating class of 2016. and founder of oracle larry elson at the university of southern california. and maria contrarau sweet administrator at whitier college. >> you can can't on yourself. what makes you special? what distinguishes you from others? in business, we call it your unique value proposition. figuring out yours is key. >> senator jeff sessions in hunts vill. senator barbara boxer that university of california berkley. >> to be strong and curages and to learn to stand for who you are and what you believe is a way that you've changed here. and will carry into the balance of your life. >> and white house officials.

vice president joe bide en at t university of notre dame and president obama at rutger's university. >> is it any wonder that i'm optimistic. throughout our history, a new generation of americans has reached up and bent the arc of hirsry in the direction of more freedom and more opportunity and more justice. and class of 2016, it is your turn now to shape our nation's destiny as well as your own. so, get to work. >> commencement speeches, this memorial day at noon eastern on c-span. britain's defense secretary discussed combat operations against isis in a parliamentary meeting thursday. he and other military officials also talked about strategies for stabilizing the middle east and russia's roll in the fight against isis. this is just under two hours. >> welcome to this inquiry on

british military policy towards iraq and syria. and welcome back, secretary of state. we saw you only two days ago on the subject of russia. would your two colleagues mind introducing themselves for the record. >> good morning, my name is mark kaulten smith and i'm the director of operations at ministry of defense, a post i've held for the past four weeks. >> wilson, director operational policy for the ministry of defense. >> i'm afraid our numbers are slightly depleted because of a break down on tube services, but i hope we will be augmented a little bit later on. so, our first question is from johnny mrsa. >> good morning. i was wondering if you could start buyout lining, please, what is the uk's national interest in the middle east and

north africa. >> it's fundamental to its security, stability and prosperity. we rely on a series of partnerships in the region to help us manage threats from the region. crime, terrorism, and now the challenge of migration. but we also need to insure that the energy supplies that we rely on are secure; that our trade routes are secure and that is why we maintain in the region a credible and persistent defense presence. this is a region that is extr e extremely important to both our security and our economy. >> thank you. and we've done a lot of sort of traveling around.

trying to understand what is the west's -- what is the strategy, what is their holistic, you know, bringing everyone with you type strategy that we're engaged in at the moment in that part of the world. i was wondering if you could outline what that might be and whether the whole of government is working towards that. >> well, the strategy is to help stabilize the middle east where there is instability. the war in syria has been raging for some five years now. the instability in iraq is back much further than that. it is to help stabilize the middle east, which is one of the key regions of the world. and more recently to counter the

global terrorist threat that dash presents. and which we all have an interest. thats are e's the basis on whic assembled this extraordinary coalition of over 60 countries and helping to support the legitimate governments of iraq and elsewhere. >> what is -- because we've heard from some like general and others that it doesn't seem to be all embracing strategy that everyone is sort of bought into and wants to see. what is the vision that we are selling, not only to the uk population for them to get behind in terms of supporting military operations, buts for the area that's taking place.

what might success be conditioned as? >> first, i mean, the general was a key advisor to us and to me. in this work and made a huge contribution in his period in office. and we look at this, in answer to your earlier question, we work at this across government. it's the foreign office, it's home office where security is concerned. we work across government and you see that captured in the most regent strategic defense and security review. the end state is a situation in the middle east where these countries are stable again, where we can rely on the trade routes and the energy supplies and the partnerships we need to keep this country safe and in which elected and legitimate governments are able to provide a future for their people that

does not involve them immigrating. >> and just finally, if i may, what is the -- i mean, that's the end state. that's very clear. how do we get there? what is the thinking around operations? how are we actually going after this threat? how are we stabilizing these countries? people buy into the fact that this is what we're trying to do but how are we doing this and how does what we're doing fit s perhaps with the united states? >> as far as the campaign against dash, it was probably at its peek in the summer of 2014, just before i arrived at the ministry of defense and we're now well into this campaign to counter dash in iraq where considerable progress has been made in pushing dash back on the

you freig euphretes and the tyiigres. and again, dash has come under some pressure from the kurdish forces and the syrian moderate operation and overall, in the coalition we've mobilized and you're right to refer to united states leadership in which we and other countries are supporting the united states. the coalition overall, i think is making progress but that military strategy against the dash is only part of a much wider strategy, which includes communications work and dealing with the way in which the dash has been able to promote its ideology. that work is actually led by the united kingdom, by the communications team in the foreign office by work against dash's finances and by work across the security agencies and

departments to stem the flow of foreign fighters. so, this is a -- you know, this is a multiple effort right across the raicnge. s >> thank you very much. >> you used the words struggle, that it's going to take a long time and a criticism that some of us have heard from somebody who, from a military background who is working in the cabinet office, has said that the civil service, a military expression, ne never seemed to have a break, which is when you sit down and understand what they do. i find civil servants that don't understand what's happening in

counter radicalization and your department. can you reassure us that if that is the case it's being doctor'sdoctor' addressed. >> it might have been the case but now we have the national security counsel and the national security secretary with that key coordinating function and you see that well reflected in the most recent sdsr. and i have been -- i've worked in other departments but since coming to the ministry of defense, i've been pleasantly surprised at the degree of inter-departmentmental coordination and you saw that with ebola in sierra leone, the ministry of defense worked along side them and we do that now in our work of stablization, of peace keeping and indeed of

operations. in iraq, we're working closely on the stablization efrfort that's going to be needed as each of these scities is liberated. >> if i can take you back to the middle east. in terms of lessons learned. what have we learned from the libya campaign of 2011? i'm thinking in relation to the impact on neighboring states, if you would, secretary of state. i'm aware that in syria, there's been huge stabalization in turkey, saudi arabia, kuwait and in libya, aljeeria, and tunisia and egypt, so, what are we doing when we make our decisions to make sure we're not deflecting the conflict and the impact into neighboring states? where currently there may not

have been any problems. >> well, i think there have been issues in many of these states in north africa in particular. and i'm not sure that necessarily military intervention in one state has increased instability in another. but i think you're absolutely right to say each time what are the lessons that we learned? and i think the principal lesson i would draw from the libyan campaign, which applies today to iraq and syria, is that military progress has to be matched by political progress. you can, to some extent combat the terrorism, push the insurgency -- push the insurgency back and defeat it militarily. but that's not going to be lasting unless you have a

military settlement that genuinely has the trust and support of the people where the insurgency was. >> secretary of state, i absolutely agree about the importance of having a civilian settleme settlement, a political settlement that builds a new and viable state but in terms of libya, i do think the impact on nigeria in particular has been great as thousands migrated and added to the conflict in those states. so, i would have to disagree about the impact there. >> libya has been unstable for a long time. we have been working hard to bring about a political sett settleme settlement. we thought we would have one last autumn. we now have a prime minister in

triply in charge of a government of national accord. we're beginning to see sh of the inhad stustitutions of the stat going to need fall in around him. i was able to speak to the new defense minister and we will be ready to help. because whatever the insurgency, the only way it's going to be defeated is by a political settlement that everybody in libya can buy into. >> we've had quite a few witnesses that have lived the fight. the impact has been negligible, a very small impact. but from your perspective what you think the impact of uk -- the role of the uk has been in the international coalition and

especially -- >> well, i'll give you my answer. we've made a huge contribution and i don't agree. we have made a huge contribution to the overall coalition effort. we're one of the very few countries that has been providing the intelligence, aircraft flying almost nightly, we've been flying strike missions daily, six days a week now for merely two years. and we have made huge contribution on the ground to in training a very large number of the iraqi forces and the peshmurga forces and the progress that the iraqi and the kurdish forces are making on both river valleys would not have been possible without that training and without the support that the coalition provides and

i'm proud of the role that the ref has played in that. perhaps general mark might be able to add to that. >> thank you, secretary state. we've always described dash and its counter part as having three dimensions. the fiscal manifestation and the geography associated with that and its wider virtual footprint and subsequent connection with an affiliate network and with respect to both upsetting the conditions for the subsequent defeat of dash in its core hardlands in the counter fit itself, the trick was to grow, regenerate, and train the iraqi security forces in the first instan instance, so they could stabilize the security of the

capital. that they could secure the hardlands across the central belt, predominate lant anwar province and then they could focus their tactical forces to secure mosul, which was effectively the iraqi second city but acting as one of the twin capitals. so, the geography suggests that the irresistible momentum that characterizes dash's advances in 2014 and early '15 have been halted. >> a quick subelemented question. i think -- you suggest taking place of security forces and so on in iraq really hadn't materialized in terms of its effectiveness long term and we had a visited to baghdad as

well. we're still moving between green zones and safe zones and unsafe zones. and it's a country not at ease with itself in any sense. so, we've already put lot of resource into tuning and making sure that these -- that iraqi forces were in the position to protect their own state. what confidence have you got that we're not going to keep that cycle maintained at that level and we're going to consistently have to go back and go through the same process again and again? not from this committee but outside in the wider world, probably that's what's going through their head as well. >> well, i don't think we've reached critical momentum and yet delivered a critical tactical mass for the iraqi security forces.

when they're effectively -- in 2014, they had 280 thousand that seemingly evaporated overnight. it takes a while to recruits from a base into a security apparatus that has skillsets, the moral component to fight a tactically dangerous and resilient enemy and the equipment to undertake sustained operations and we're only now into the second full year of this commitment. and certainly the coalition commanders would expect this to be a minimum commitment in the range of three to five years. >> just another question. in terms of the coalition as a whole, the progress is slow but

deliberate; that -- you've been there and acted as part of a coalition and perhaps there's parts of the coalition not moving as quickly as you would have wished. what's your assessment of the current military operation in syria and as a key component of the coalition yourself that you would want to accelerate or see change? because obviously, slow and deliberate progress is perhaps good at this stage but using valuable resources and so on from our country. so, how do you actually make sure that -- determined to see if we can see light at the end

of the tunnel and then we can reach the tunnel a bit quicker than expected. >> i think there's real momentum in the campaign now in iraq. there is real momentum from the campaign in iraq. clearly progress has been made. i think it took eight months to l liberate ahmadahmady. and so, there is a real sense of momentum now of the iraqi and kurdish forces. now advancing. that needs to be sustained. so, and the united states has made very clear to the coalition that this is the moment to step up and have asked all members of the coalition to look and see what more they can do and we're looking to see what further we can add to the particular fight. i'm announcing today, as an example, mr. chairman and perhaps this committee ought to hear it first. we're sending an additional

aircraft seeker into the theater to improver the surveillance capability that we have. this is an aircraft that collects and analyzes intelligence, but which helps us better, quickly identify and select targets in the campaign. so, we are continuing to step up. we are urging other countries in the coalition to do the same and we've seen some very welcome announcements from other european countries that they're prepared to do more. but general mark may want to add something about the effort in syria. >> i think there's a clear distinction between the coalition's contribution in support of the the iraqi government and that it's able to manage in syria, because clearly in iraq, we're supporting the sovereign entity. and a unitary, military command

against a clearly, recently clearly identifiable military threat. those relative advantages don't pertain in syria, where we're marginally engaged from the air only. across a much less homogenous battle field, where the identification of the multifaceted parties, agencies and militaries is much more difficult to determine. and therefore, with respect to harnessing a significant ground component that might maximize the tactical advantage the coalition might provide, clearly proves that much more difficult. >> okay. just in terms of decisions made by parliament to move into -- any idea how much the cost of that progress has been to date? >> i don't think we've -- well,

we do. very carefully. i'm very happy to provide the committee with an estment of that. i don't think we've completed it yet. or released figures for the cost in '15/'16. i think it would be best if i read it. >> thank you, douglas. gentleman, from what you just said, unlike in iraq, in syria we are to your honor words "marginally engaged from the air only" and that this is partly because of the question of who are we supporting on the ground? one of our terms of reference is to ask the question will air strikes alone be effective in degrading and defeating dash? so, from the purely military perspective, would you give your

opinion as to whether air strikes on their own could defeat dash or simply degrade them to some extent? >> well, my view is that on their own, they're not going to defeat dash but they are going to both degrade them and constrain their ability to develop. and materially, they are already having an effect. of course, our contribution to syria isn't exclusive to striking. we're also delivering very substantial surveillance and recognizance. which is more crucial for syria where it's far harder to make precise targeting decisions without having a footprint on the ground. so there, are a number of particular target sets. the first is the ability of the caliphate to command and control itself. the second is to tackthal file

finances and redice liquidity. and reduce infrastructure. and i think in all three respects, air strikes play a vital role but incomplete. >> this is what i expected to hear. so, if this organization is going to be defeated, it has to be by the use of air power in close support of forces on the ground that we feel able to support. can i just run over some of the statistics just to make sure that i've got them right that have been supplied in various tables. now, in iraq, taking the figures from the beginning of december, because that's the point at which we began air strikes in syria as well. in iraq, my understanding is that there have been over 760

air strikes in iraq against 1,349 targets in iraq. over the same period, from the beginning of december when we begin in syria, there's been 43 air strikes against 133 targets in syria. isn't this pretty much what we would expect when we are working closely in cooperation with active fighting forces on the ground in one theater, iraq, but the same cannot be said of the other theater, syria and to completed the set of statistics, my understanding is that our estimated number of inoenemy

competence and in syria, it's only 22 and the 22 are made up of zero in december, six in january, 16 in february, zero in march and zero in april. would you like the comment on whether or not that is precisely what we would expect given the different circumstances of having fighting forces on the ground in one theater that we are closely supporting by air strikes but not having the same helpful situation in syria. >> well, let me start by saying i think it's extremely misleading to look at statistics in that particular way. we're only able to estimate enemy killed in action. these are very crude estimates

because we don't have people on the ground. we can't investigate every single attack. the aim of these missions is not to kill as many dash as possible. it is, of course to degrade them from on occasion by tackling their leadership but again in to try and undermine their will to fight by attacking their command of control, their infrastructure and so on. so, it's far too simplistic to mesh armission measure a mission by the number of people killed. many of these missions are to gather intelligence, rathern on the inflict casualties. it is the preplanned missions that are usually targeted at infrastructure, where of course we take great care not to kill people. we take care to avoid civilian casualties. but perhaps general mark would

add to that. >> i think your statistics don't currently characterize the nature of the campaign. we have a strategy of iraq first and now we're in the second year of building up the iraqi security forces and they are beginning defensive combat situations up both river lines and therefore it's a logical extension that the weight of air effort will be to insure a tactical over match as they come up against the opposition in these river valley terms and cities. by comparison, in syria, the object is to disrupt command and control and to disrupt lines of communication and that speaks to a target array that is prince pale infrastructure based and

once you've destrieed stroyed you don't need to revisit it nearly as much. >> that's precisely what i expected to hear and i'm sorry secretary of state thinks i'm trying to extrapolate too much from the numbers of people killed. the point i'm trying to put to you is that in iraq we are having something like 15 times as many air strikes as in syria. i don't think that is open to dispute and the question has already brought out that where as many of these air strikes are in close support of ground forces fighting one country, they are not in the other. so, they are indeed in syria, targeted largely at infrastructure. can we have any idea, if you

can't tell me today, can you write to us on how many occasions out of the 43 air strikes that have been carried out in syria in december, january, february, march, and april. four months period, how many of those were in support for forces fighting on the ground and if there were, how many of those were in support of kurdish forces fighting on the ground in syria or other what you call moderate forces fighting on the ground in sear eye? have any of our air strikes in syria been in close support of non-kurdish fighters fighting on the ground in syria? >> now, yes, they have. and most recently in the last few days.

north of aleppo in the fighting that's taking place along the maro line. we have had the ref engaged there. i think we probably could get you that kind of information p. i don't have it immediately to hand. we are part of a coalition. the selection of whose aircraft, a part of each particular mission is something that's decided on, on a coalition basis. but we will do our best to get you that kind of information. >> could i amplify the sense that in terms of coalition targeting, there's much less of a distinction made between syria and iraq because the plan is to tackle dash across its length and breadth and it's clearly important to pressure it in its rear areas which is a job associated with syria. and so, while the geography

battle might suggest that it's in support of iraqi kurdish forces, we're not doing necessarily as much as we like in syria. in fact, we're pressuring the entire dash network in the areas where it's most vulnerable. >> the reason behind this questioning and i would like to know if the secretary of state is able to tell us that which forces other than kurds the air strikes were in support of north of aleppo. the question that's in my mind is the much wanted figure of 70,000 moderate fighters and if there were 70,000 moderate fighters whom we began air strikes in syria in order to support, one would have expected there to have been a considerable number of our air strikes in support of such forces fighting on the ground in

syria. and that doesn't seem to have happened. >> well, you haven't seen the figures yet and we will provide you with the figures. >> considering there were only 43 raids in all against 143 targets over four months and a large proportion of those you've already heard against infrastructure, there couldn't have been men ea. >> you're simply referring to the ref strikes. there have been strikes by a series of aircraft, every night, striking. but we will get you the figures. a significant proportion of even the ref strikes have been support of the syrian democratic forces and so far as the figure of 75,000 is concerned, when you say it's much vaunted, we continue to confirm that figure. all our intelligence suggests is that there are still of that order of people fighting the syrian regime and there have been fighting them now for over five years.

and which itself, i think is a testament to the size of the opposition that there is. >> well, we'll come back later to the composition of that and to what extent it is or is not islamist. and in relation to raqqa, which has been described by our prime minister as the head of the snake, in relation to raqqa, the syrian defense forces have been built up largely by the americans. but my understanding is that force which is going to launch an assault, hopefully to defeat dash and raqqa is predominantly made up of the kurdish ypg forces, about 80% of it, i believe is made up of the kurds. so, my question is actually this. supposing the kurds and limited number of nonkurdish syrian forces succeed in taking control

of raqqa, to whom will we then hand over control? because i can't imagine that kurdish forces would be willing or able to remain in control of raqqa indefinitely. so, who would we be looking to hand raqqa -- under whose government would raqqa proceed to be? who would supply the occupying forces? >> well, there are a number of assumptions. i think i would question at least some of them. there will certainly a arab components along side the forces that i hope will incircle raqqa. it's clearly going to be a long campaign and we're off that at the moment.

but we see kurdish and arab elements under regime. we already see them taking on dash in the northeast and northwest of syria. >> well, the military contribution of the syrian democratic forces has suggested thus far that they represent the single most capable maneuver force within an exclusive focus on fighting dash. wider opposition elements find themselves in a multidimensional fight against regime, regime-backed foreign militia and other elements within the opposition itself. so, it represents in some respects, the most capable and homogenous organization. with a tactical ambition in the first instance to secure their traditional northern syrian

kurdish. >> so, we have a force that hopes to take control of raqqa, the center of headquarters of dash. and about three quarters of them are made up of kurds, this force. they will not be welcome there indefinitely, even if they are -- even if they are successful in taking control of raqqa. and so, the problem arises is it so often arises in these circumstances, what do we do after the initial military success in terms of creating political stability? and the problem that we have in syria, as you know, is that apart from the kurds, you've got assad on one side and you've got a variety of fighting organizations on the other side. the majority of whom are islamist. so, who did we hand over control

of that city to in the long term? i'm still not clear. >> in the long term. >> or the median term. >> we want to see raqqa return to legitimate authority in syria. and when you say there are all these different factions that have been doing the fighting, they are now starting to do the talking. and they're meeting as part of the forum that we've started working to work syria towards a new settlement that does not contain assad and can start building the institutions that syria will need, not least its own moderate syrian forces. >> well, mind you, secretary of state, of a written answer that you gave last year.

in october last year. and you were asked which moderate non-islamist groups with credible ground forces other than kurds are fighting dash and syria. and your response was "there are a number of moderate opposition forces focussed on fighting the assad regime, many are also fighting isil, in areas of strategic importance, for example, north of aleppo. the vast majority of these opposition groups are islamist and similarly, the prime minister on the 12th of january said in referring to the 70,000 moderates, he said i repeat though that yes, some of the opposition forces are islamist, some of them are relatively hard line islamists and some are what we would describe as more secular democrats.

but this seemed to me to be something of a deconstruction of this idea that there are 70,000 moderate forces in support of whom we are waging a military campaign in syria. >> well, i think you're continuing even now to cast doubt on this figure of 70 thousand ,000, which we continue to confirm. it's odd that a battle has been fought for five years if there wasn't a substantial opposition number of opposition fighters. >> the question is -- and no one doubts there's a lot of opposition fighters. the question is whether they're moderates or islamists. the prime minister himself admitted that a sniffer significant number were relatively hard lined islamists and we've had witnesses that

make it quite clear that the overwhelming majority of opposition forces with guns are islamists, which is exactly waut you just said in october in response to the written question. >> first of all, i'm glad you're not resigning anymore from the figure of 70,000. because we've had loose talk of bogus battalions. >> i am because i'm saying that the 70,000 so-called moderates are in large part islamists and that's why bogus battalions of moderates. there are battalions of islamists, the question is are there 70,000 moderates and you and the prime minister seem to admit that these forces are overwhelmingly islamists. >> well, the test is are they prepared and this is a test that

since october, we've had to consider who is the right people to engage in the talks for political settlement. the test of all these groups is are they prepared to live? within a plural political settlement that can, in the end be democratic and take syria towards elections and that is one of the tests that is applied and i think should be. perhaps dominic here would like to say a word. >> sure. and the nature of these islamists. we are clear that within the 70,000, they are a group of non-extremists opposition which we we could imagine buying into a broader political settlement in syria. that isn't to say that all of them aren't exactly the same. essentially they are what we

view as nonextremists. >> let me close and then give ample time to develop a thesis as well. what dr. kagan said to us in america. he said "virtually all the opposition is islamists one way or another at this point" and went on to say "we make distinction between those, referring to jihadists, and political izislamists groups tied to the muslim brother hood, the likely assaults of acceptable allies that we could work with." so, it appears to be and we've had similar evidence from other experts. it appears to be fairly well conceded that the majority of the opposition fighters as said in your own written answer, a

heavy majority of them are islamists, it's a question of distingishing between those regarded of beyond the pail quite rightly, such as jihadists and so forth and other islamists who might be more closely affiliated to organizations like the muslim brother hood. that seems to be what we're getting from the experts. do you concur with that? you're saying that the so-called moderates, are like the muslim brother hood? >> well, i think we can start -- we can argue for a very long time about these precise definitions of what is a moderate muslim and an islamists or beyond the pail. the political process now getting underway does enable us to start to ask these various fwr groups to make their choice. and to be part, eventually of a

democratic process and to my mind that should in the end be the test as to whether they can live under some form of secular and plural settlement. >> as long as assurances can be believed. >> we're trying to bring peace to this country. what is really important is to get the civil war stopped, get people to focus on the danger of the dash and get them defeated and give syria a future to which its own people can have confidence in, rather than be driven to make a very dangerous crossing to europe. >> richard. >> try to bring peace to this commission. can i suggest, ask you to comment on this. 70,000 as a percentage of the precivil war population of syria is 1.5%. i would be surprised if there were not that number of

relatively secular individuals who have, given the right incentives, would be prepared to coordinate activities in fighting dash or the regime. the key point i would like to ask you about is what are we talking about here? we're not talking about little green men, and civilians on the other. our activities in iraq and syria can be in support of a structured force of some sort or to alleviate the pressure on two individuals with ak-47s protecting their village and i think the committee would benefit from a clear understanding of whaurt we're dealing with here because this is a fluid, multifaceted conflict with individuals protecting the house, their village, their valley, their faith in some cases and in some

cases a concept that might be wider from that. and i hope that you might be able to bring to our report a clear understanding about what friendly forces exist out there, deg radations and moderation in the conservative party, so i'm sure there are in syrian politics. >> i do, just to start, do think the committee ought to ask itself, given the might of the syrian forces, the might of the syrian war machine, how it is that they've been defied for over five years, since march 2011, if there weren't 70,000 people taking them on? i hope the committee will reflect on that. >> that's not in dispute. the question is whether they're moderates or izlamests.

>> they're fighting the regime. >> on the question of the moderate or islamists. what it come s down to is nonextremists we believe will be committed to an enduring political settlement in syria when it comes. i don't have the details in front of me but they're for various levels of military capability. is that the question that you're getting at? some more organized than others. i don't know if mark knows anymore. but we can possibly write to you. >> i would say, i think your characterization sounds broadly accurate. that at this stage, in a very brutal and bloody struggle, a degree of prag mutism characterizes the approach of a kaleidoscope of multifaceted organizations fighting for their

lives, their freedom and their families. and therefore in the local tactical circumstances in which so many of these individuals and small pockets of organizations find themselves, all sorts of compromises and majors of necessity are made to survive. and whether they're more or less extreme, i would expect that they all demonstrate a kaleidoscope of loyalties, interests and objectives. some of which converge and some of which are distinct. >> thank you. >> obviously, we're working with a great deal of forces and the iraqi army, as it stands, but there are have been concerning reports of human rights abuses by the iraqi army. so, i wondered what we're doing to investigate them as number one and number two, have we

incorporated additional training to the our engagement with the iraqi army about what is and isn't acceptable in the 21st century military world? >> absolutely. this is formally part of the training that we offer and we start with assurances from both prime minister and from the kurdish regional government, that any allegations that are made will be properly investigated and that they too are committed to respecting the rules of armed conflict. but general mark might want to add. >> you make an important point and it's one that has been recognized by the coalition that it's absolutely fundamental in growing a new iraqi forces that

we do so on a basis that's compliant with hume anitarian l and armed conflict. and so, it underpinned all the training now being applied to the iraqi security forces and instances where it's breached and is evidenced, clearly, therefore is recorded with the iraqi government. >> so, it's being -- one of the concerns is this is the counterterrorism force, but when we were out there was viewed as the most effective force but also given that we think this is about sunni and it's not going to help us with long-term counterterrorism efforts, or counter counter-radicalization either. what happens next? >> well, where allegations are

made and sometimes of course they came come through ingest and we hear about them. they are then raised by our embassy in baghdad with the government of iraq, they're raised by the consulate general and we do have these assurances that these allegations, when they are made will be properly investigated and we have assurances from both, as i said the prime minister and from the president of the kurdish regime and we have that already instances where the kurdish regional government has conducted internal investigations. for exampleal, there were allegations about ill treatment and those allegations have been properly conducted. investigated. >> i think the key point is where those allegations are held up, then they remove the material suports it's providing

t thothose services. so where there are a variety of militia, they're not giving additional support of those ground organizations. >> thank you. >> do you think that dash is now adopting strategy and changing their tactics and do we need to change our strategy? are they adapting to it themselves? and therefore, changing their tacts? and secondly, if we take down one city at a time, on up to mosul, is this going to allow them to reinforce other areas of control and where we in a position where we can attack dash simultaneously in mosul and raqqa? >> so, dash right now are -- whereby, their strategic

strength is drawn by the geography. and so, in terms of protecting that, they're drawn increasingly into a tactical effort to hold and defend the ground against the iraqi security forces in particular. who will only grow in strength, confidence and capability over time. and they have to make a judgment in terms of the preserving firstly critical combat, to protect their strategic secente of gravity, particularly mosul and raqqa. and secondly, the weight of effort that they might then allocate to an indirect approach, which would see them mutating slowly to a high-end insurgency. and at the moment, they're demonstrating a degree of

ambudeks tearty and clearly able to run large suicide truck bombs into baghdad. that's effective in destabalizing iraqi government, and it leads to the transfer of combat forces from the battle field and back to baghdad to protect the city. but their ability to sustain will become a much more different balance of resource over time. as to whether it's correct for the coalition to be conducting simultaneous concurrent activity up the euphretes valley, i think it's important that we view dash as a wider network and that we tackle it across its depth and

its bread, which includes overwhelming it with a degree that it's confronted by. because they will find it increasingly difficult to allocate forces, particularly when their own command systems are being effectively derailed. >> so, you want to come in on that particular point. >> general, i'm sorry. you said troops, because of the threat from dash, the iraqi troops heading back to baghdad, when we were there, there was already a concern that there were too many troops in baghdad and they weren't be deployed elsewhere? >> what i was saying the dash strategy in terms of mounting a suicide bombing campaign in the capital will be designed to fix an excess of troops focussed on the scourge of the capital and

therefore moving them. >> a third of the iraqi army is deployed around baghdad. >> that's not a statistic i'd recognize. >> as far as mosul, raqqa are concerned, you say we're getting to a position where we can simultaneously attack these locations in these scities. >> there are two principal fronts in iraq, well, three actually in iraq alone. because the iraqi security forces are in axies both up the euphretes river valley and in terms of stabilizing its front lines is attacking mosul from the east, north and northeast and it's perfectly feasible for the iraqi security forces to manage that degree. and yet, at the same time across

the border in syria, dash is clearly having to absorb an air campaign against it and the prospect of having their main supply routes to turkey being cut by syrian democratic forces. >> i was going to ask about the supply routes. how successful is the coalition in destructing the supply lines for dash? >> we're being very successful on the principaled main lines of communication. so, in february, shadadi, which sits on the main route between raqqa and mosul was recaptured by syrian democratic forces. it looks today as though they're maneuvering to cut the main route north into turkey that runs into raqqa and on thursday/friday of last week, the iraqi army secured which ships between amman and jordan and baghdad and so it looks as

though dash are now struggling. to retain their hub and spoke concept. >> and that's communication -- that's a line of communicati communication -- >> raqqa is considered to be the principal attacker for aid with the access routes running north into turkey. >> the next point is there's been concern that dash is using chemical weapons in some areas. what are we doing to support the allies and what kind of chemical weapons are -- where do we get them from? >> well, we think there have been credible reports. prince pale from opcw. >> sorry? >> that stands for the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons and they

have independent reports that they graze in their works with the utmost confidence, that there have been some isolated use by dash of improvised chemical weapons, probably drawn from a variety of industrial chemical sources. the products that they are reporting is predominantly sulfur mustered. it hasn't proved particularly effective on the battle field. thavl they've put it in explosive projectiles and land mines and it renders the agent neutral. >> thank you very much. richard. >> gordon gave evidence and he said he's seen cases coming to hospital and he lhas been tryin to find and source and

equipment, very basic equipment, particularly to the kurds. that is one of three very quick questions i got for you. do you think we could provide more protection, particularly as difficult operations like the taking of mosul become nearer and the possibility of improv e improvised chemical weapons became part of the legacy, certain.ly there have been machine guns we've given to kurds, reported to us as being battle winners. and there's a shortage of ammunition. it would be a great shame if we weren't able to continue to support that and the third question is about training. it was reported us to that kurdish commanders were saying that those troops that have gone through british army training programs were four times as effective as those that hadn't.

and can i answer your comments as to whether that sort offer assistance will be continued or forthcoming and particularly the ammunition point that was made us to. >> as i said earlier to the committee chairman. i had been asked by the american leadership of the coalition. each country's been asked to look and see what more it can offer. we continue to look all the time on whautd more we can do to support the momentum of the campaign. in terms of protection, this is something that has to be done across the coalition, on a collegiate basis, rather than individual countries making offers. we are specifically asking the iraqi s to use the coalition mechanism so we can determine

exactly what they believe the risks are so we can help meet those requirements when properly identified. so, on the ammunition, yes, the heavy machine guns we supplied, which i've seen in training, have proved very effective. we're now looking at a further package of ammunition to support them that goes through various processes, including approval by this house, beuti hope that additional ammunition can be supplied in the next few weeks. training, general mark may want toed ed add. i tink our training is highly valued by the iraqi and kurdish forces there. we selected iud training. i think right pieces of niche

training because there's so mufrp in terms of how they've been driven. but general, further training p. . >> the training issue is clearly progressing positively, the question is the degree to which the infntry trained soldiers are in our wider arms capability that is both lugistically sutainabsutai sustainable and sufficient combat engineering support. because it's mostly static defense along the peshmurga line and we would expect to sustain the effort we're doing at the moment. coalition are not yet reflecting to the specifics that there's ye yet a deficit in the training pipeline and its capacity to

push through. so, there's clearly a minimum critical math to the reserve recruiting pool and reservoir of available man power in the krg and at the moment, you know, it seems to be in balance, those that are coming through. people are not waiting to be trained. we're able to train all those that present themselves.