and one of the things we've tried to do to combat overclassification is to give them a list of categories and these types of information. these are unclassified. so as you bring your information, saying something is unclassified is a real option. we are going to give you real examples for it. i think that has been one of the big cultural shifts. it is something we need to do more work on. flat out. >> i'm going to get to the secret law question. >> okay. >> one last question on the tension between transparency and secrecy. ask you this, jason, do you think there's overclassification of information in the intelligence community, the cia? >> i think there's been studies that actually back that up. >> right. >> how would you define the

legitimate line on what should be classified and what should be offered to the public? >> it's a great question. i'm certainly understand sources and methods. and, you know, i know actually, you know, had conversations and discussions when people's lives would legitimately be put in danger. i think it's a case you happen to make when that comes up. if i'm trying to confirm something. i do, that's something i take very seriously. so, it's -- i think that that is really the line. you know, the sources and methods and people's lives are in danger and i know that this, you know, certain instances that actually has been true, but i

think it's, it's on the agency to actually show real harm. what is the harm? you know, what is the harm that, you know, that would result in? and look, you know, there've been many conversations over the course of the past couple of years with the release of this, you know, sissy report about harm. i read recently about, you know, odni putting out some sort of discussion points about harm. the report came out there wasn't any harm. at least i don't think there was. certainly, if you want to let me know, i would be happy to write that story, but -- >> there is a bit of a catch 22 in there, right? >> yes, but if you can make that case that would be okay. i mean, that is, you know, i think that as journalists, what i'm trying to say is to take that seriously. obviously if something is

legitimately, you know, classified, and it kind of, you know, round about way discuss what the harm could be -- >> can i add on to something that jason said? what i found in recent years, there are occasionally times when, you know, i have -- i'm reporting something or one of my colleagues is reporting something more often than not in disclose a tactic, but more often than not, lately, anyway, when i've been sort of digging into the reporting and trying to understand why the intelligence community is -- or parts of the intelligence community, often there are debates, strong debates about whether the information should be disclosed or not.

i often hear that it's the lawyers in the government lawyer who are opposed to disclosure and it has nothing to do with sources or measures or anything to do with protecting national security, it does have a lot to do with protecting their litigation stance in foia lawsuits brought by this guy. i can't say that's necessarily illegitimate, and you know, and there is the delib rative privilege and others that lawyers talk about. not on the same level as protect vitally important operational methods or, you know, making sure that we're not getting our

officers or their agents killed. and i think that is an issue that deserves some scrutiny. >> do the lawyers on this panel want to jump in on this? >> quick comment. i think this speaks to sort of where's the community going to go in terms of it's transparency projects because -- i don't think that the model of pushing it to the work force and i'm not sure this is exactly what you're saying. i heard a little bit of this. the model pushing it to the work force and that we're going to have a default of things that are unclassified. i don't think that's fair to the work force. because in this business, that's a mistake that people who are doing this as a part of their daily work can't afford to make. i think if we're really talking about sort of the very, very high level how do you fix the problem that dan and jason are talking about? it's going to be really heavy lifts. and the two big heavy lifts are going to be foia reform and classification guideline reform. and that is going to be top down

from a policy perspective, we're going to implement a whole new system, it might require change in the law with respect to foia. but it's not going to be at the work force level. it's going to be at a high level of we're going to change how this system works, because this system is decades long and was meant for a paper environment that doesn't reflect today's environment at all. >> go ahead. >> i want to push back a little bit. i'll only talk to my own experiences. i have found in more than a few that lawyers draw a really bright line between two groups of issues. one is, is this underlying fact actually have an identifiable or harm to national security? that's the standard and the executive order. it's a broader standard that is someone going to get killed? but it is not certainly not a limitless standard.

and that, that swing not one that lawyers should be involved in. there will be litigation consequences to that. whether it goes to the left or to the right. but it is not truly a legal issue. and at least in the my own experience when people have gotten close to that line, they've been reigned in immediately. now, separate issue, once they were talking about the lawyer privileg privileges, the lawyers are usually involved. they are looking at what is going to be a presidential case and to the larger environment about whether in the future, folks who work on these issues. lawyers are not going to be able to bring issues properly to lawyers, yet a legal opinion and areas that are inherently very sensitive. and then in that context, yeah, there is a lot of legal involvement to making those

determination nations, sometimes that determination is the public interest really outweighs that privilege and it is waived. and i'm certainly seeing that happen. there are a lot of instances where it isn't. and including in instances where, to be honest, we would love to get the information out there. >> they're worried about a slippery slope. >> i think there is a worry about a slippery slope and, particularly, i would say with del delibbertive privilege. if someone put out my first drafts, yes, it would be embarrassing, but it would just change the way i wrote. it would change the way i came up with ideas and how i brought up ideas to the deputy director. that to me, that's a real worry that i have. but i do want to pushback in terms of if something is classified or not. that's a very different discussion and really, truly not a legal one. >> so let's do secret law.

dan, you raised that as a concern. as i understand the issue of secret law there is obviously a body of not secret law that established the guide posts of how to intelligence community operates, how the cia operates. but then in the practice of intelligence there are interpretations and guidance given to officers, to practitioners in how to go about staying within the bounds of the law. it's that second category, i take it, that you're interested in. >> right. and sometimes those interpretations, you know, if they were exposed to the light of day, there are are a lot of people who would think they took us out of the bounds of law. the primary example is section 215 of the patriot act in 2011,

i think. now that may be a very complicated issue. it may be that if all of the sudden congress was disclosing that the administration was interpreting that section of the law differently, that's a tip-off to jason and every other national security reporter, there's something going on here. and then they -- and then -- so i understand that there are -- that it's a complicated issue. i just think that there's something just broadly stated to democracy and secret law. you see it not just in those cases. you saw it obviously in the lochte case which you talked about before but also the -- this is slightly different. but invoking the states secrets privilege in litigation, which

this administration had -- i think president obama when he was campaigning had been opposed to or criticized it but when he took office continued the practice. they tweaked the policy but essentially it still happens. and there's still something -- you know, everyone deserves their day in court. a pretty basic principle. and i think that's an area of law and legal practice that deserves scrutiny as well. >> so if i can add, so first off we have to start from the premise in terms of the united states intelligence community, we have the most open laws and most public executive orders and policies available publicly than any other country in the world when it comes to our intelligence business. so if we start from that premise, i think this area of legal opinions particularly, pfizer related matters is where we've seen the most change

significantly after legislation last year that has led to more transparency on that issue. that said, the president also issued a new executive order the beginning of 2014 which was really remarkable for its transparency about how the united states intelligence community conducts signals intelligence. then each intelligence community element released their own implementing procedures for how that presidential policy directive would be implemented. not a whole lot of interest in each individual agencies implementing procedures, but i expect quite a lot of work and effort went into that. two thoughts to close that thought. one is i think the community is going to have to think about, and the cia is going to knead to think about where they're going to focus their transparency initiative efforts in a way that really has return on investment.

it's nice that the order was issued publicly. i think that was important for the time in history that we were in. these implementing procedures came out. i don't think they made much of a splash but they're out there if people want to read them. but i think there's other areas that potentially can also be important. and one area that i want to follow up on, as you mentioned congress, i think you mentioned congress, one area of transparency that people have to think more about is we have been operating under a structure of intelligence oversight with the two intelligence committees and congress basically doing the work and that system has been in place for over 30 years. i think another area that perhaps is an area to focus on is how can the community better inform members of congress other than those who sit on the committees. not that the role of the committees is going to be diminished in any way or it's an important or valuable or servant's function.

but we do, in the last three years, have been instructive in that we need to find other ways for the community to inform and engage with members who are going to be voting on legislation that is relevant to national security. i think that's an area where we can do a better job. >> so i have two roles at the cia, the private civil liberties officer and the transparency issue. because of that, i think of this issue of scribb law. >> you didn't add that last title when he spoke last. >> it was classified. i think about this issue a lot. and for a variety of reasons. here's the thing about secret law. first, it's secret. and because of that it has a lot of weaknesses. it has the weakness of a lack of public buy-in. it has the weakness of the lack of a healthy public scrutiny. i think it is difficult to argue with that. here's the other thing about secret law. it's law.

and in this space where you have officers who are acting on our behalf in a secret environment, you want to give those officers, or at least i do as a private civil liberties officer, very clear, very specific, very fact intensive guidance. but to the degree you give them the fact intensive guidance you inherently view it and make it difficult to release the legal interpretation. as a private civil liberties officer i want the guidance to be very, very specific. as a transparency officer i look at that saying if we don't have public buy-in, we have a real problem. so what are we doing about that. one of the things we're doing about that is this new change, and it is a change and expectation of greater transparency on these issues where we're finding way to disaggregate the specific

guidance that goes out to the officers from the broader they areties. one of the things that the agency is currently doing is we're updating our guidelines for the acquisition and dissemination of information across the board. d.o.d. put out their revisions about a month ago. we are certainly working on ours. we have our current guidelines out. if you look at them, you will find about half of them are redacted because they have that very tight tie to specific facts that have to remain classified. one of the things that we're looking to do is create guidelines that are clear to our officers but also as much as humanly possible are releasable that we can put out there. and the other thing that we're doing, and that is critically important, is when we put that out there, it will be more than a document dump. and i think this is one of the issues where the intelligence community has fallen down a bit. we have sometimes taken those procedures that we worked very very hard on, we've put them out there to the public and we

haven't explained what they mean. we just kind of wait for questions. i don't think that's real transparency. what we need to do is go out in forums like this, accompany the documents with explanatory material, accompany the materials with examples. this is what it means. you might like it and you might think it's a problem. >> and meet with people who actually can explain these things. >> on the record. >> yes, that's right. >> yes. >> okay. >> so i'm going to open this up to questions from the audience in one second. before i do that i want to follow up on one thing that carrie said to you. carrie suggested that we ought to rethink the sort of legal superstructure that governs transparency, whether it's how classification is defined or how foia operates and the foia law. you are an avid practitioner of the foia law. >> amongst other descriptions, but yes.

>> what's your sense of how well foia works today in sort of the demanding transparency from, whether it's from the agency or other elements? >> good question. i think that -- i'll keep it focused on the intelligence agencies. largely everything is classified. so if i'm filing a foia request or subsequently a lawsuit that, you know, requires the declassification, i think that on the administrative side, just sending it in, it's terrible. it does not work well. it's only when moving to the litigation stage that it actually has results. and that's just results in terms of production. but then you have to deal with a whole different set of issues,

which is what we have been discussing, you know, the whole time, which is this is redacted for this reason, this reason, this reason. and i challenge it. sometimes i win. and then, you know, we find out that oh, this really didn't have to do with national security. it's a tedious, tedious process. i will say that i check the cia's foia reading room on a regular basis. i appreciate it being updated. thank you for that. there's some great documents there. the crest documents that have been hundreds of thousands of pages, i believe -- >> 12 million. >> 12 million. that being made available. >> but who's counting. >> so foia is not perfect yet. there's a long way to go. the cia has the cia act. the nsa has the nsa act that can be invoked. >> right.

>> to essentially, you know, deny certain information. but i think that, you know, going to your point, ben, with internally, there can be proactive disclosures whether it would essentially mean that, you know, perhaps i didn't need to file a foia request for an ig report or 400 of them. but that, you know, could be something where you just put that out there. d.o.d., as an example. again, the cia is a secret agency and everything is classified. department of defense inspector general, they put their ig reports out there. some things are redacted. there are proactive steps that can be taken that can minimize that. but largely everything is, you know, is secret. just trying to get at that is difficult. and that is certainly, you know,

part on congress and you know responsibility for changing that. >> one follow-up question on that. there's been recent legislation that requires if there are three requests, i think for the same documents that it needs to be put out in the public reading room, put out publicly and not just given to the requesters. do you think that as a general practice when the agency responds to a foia request that they should deliver it to the requester, him or herself or put it out publicly for everyone to see at the same time. >> i get slammed no matter what when i say this. i'm a journalist. what am i going to say. just give it to me. everyone else, give it tomorrow. i think it is a good practice. i think it's important to get it out there.

but there's also something to be said for the analysis of the document. and how to read a document. and understand it, and write about it in an accurate way. when i receive, you know, documents from the agency, and i have questions, i call up before i'm writing the story. i think that for journalists there could be at least a week lead time. i do think that it's good to make that a very positive step to make it available across the board to everyone. and i know that with recent release of certain documents it was posted on the, you know, on the cia's foia reading room. last year, great example. there were 9/11 related documents and there was a press release that was distributed and that was made available.

and i think that -- of course it was on a friday night. but that's a positive, you know, way of practicing transparency. >> any other comments, i'm going to turn it out to our audience. are there folks in the audience who have questions they want to ask? sir. microphone coming. >> hi. i'm allen day and i'm a retired cia officer. there's a certain arbitrariness as to what gets released that i'd like you to talk about. i have a case in point. as a retired cia officer, i have an approved resume, approved by publication review board. i had a supervisor call me and

ask me to write a recommendation for him for a society that he wanted to join, and i drafted it up based on my approved resume, and i sent it in to publication review board. the only thing they changed were some things they had previously approved. can you comment on this? >> i cannot comment on your specific example for a variety of reasons. i don't know your specific example. i will say this. this is going to sound like a complaint but it's not. it is really hard to get this right. in your context, in some of the context that you brought up. and the reason it's really hard to get this right is that there requires a couple of different things. there needs to be a lot of knowledge of what the underlying classification of rules are. there needs to be a subject matter expertise in what is the identifiable threat to national

security in the particular field. and another aspect of it is there needs to be knowledge of what has previously been released. our folks spend a lot of time when they're doing a release trying to identify what additional information has already gone out. maybe it shouldn't have gone out, maybe it should have gone out but we try to make it as consistent as humanly possible. i will admit that we do not do that with perfection. at all. but there is a lot of work that goes into it. i think the other thing that we face -- and this is some of the frustrations that we see with foia and sometimes with frustrations with the publications review board is to do that right, to try to release as much as possible and do all of the steps requires resources and a lot of time. so we can do it one or two ways. we can do it really poorly but quickly or we can do it really well but a lot more slowly. i don't have a great answer in terms of how you fix that problem.

i think that's inherent to what it is. but i do encourage people when they get something and they think this isn't quite right, the right response is to come back to us and say this isn't right and provide specific examples. and to say, i don't think that you have properly redacted this based on the information that's out there or based on what the national security threat is. sometimes you in fact will get a change. we see that in our foias, we put documents out, people come and challenge them. they'll get a second look. and to the degree that people provide more specific information, here's why i think what you redacted needs to be released, that is incredibly helpful as we do the process. >> basically i don't need to sue then. i could wait and talk to you because the government lawyers are like nope. this has to stay redacted. >> one of the things with the suits and with foia is it is

certainly the case that we're inundated. and when a foia request comes in, they are processed in the order that they come in. and some of them are about some of the most important national security issues that we have. and some of them are including a release we did about four months ago about cia officer's complaints about the cafeteria. we got a lot of press about that one. apparently a lot of interest. i'm not sure it was as important as some of the other work we do. what we don't get to do, though, is chose to say look at our, all of our requests and say, you know, these five we think are more important. and i think that's important. i don't want to cia -- >> totally agree with you on that. >> -- to do that. but we are stuck until at least we have some sort of foia reform, in this spot where there are many more requests than we can deal with in as timely a fashion as we should. we have thrown a lot of resources at it. i think that problem is going to get worse.

and the reason i think the problem is going to get worse is as we move on into our digital environment, just the search aspect of it, the amount of documents out there to make sure that we're doing the search in the right way required by foia takes longer. and it gets more complicated as we release more information to look to the public and see what we've publicly released and make sure we're not re-redacting stuff that we've already released. each time we do that, we are looking at a broader porpoise. that's a long term challenge for the agency. >> more questions? >> hi, my name is amanda. i'm the middle east and north africa librarian here at gw. i wanted to ask a question about congress because that should be one of the checks and balances involved in this transparency issue but it's barely been

talked about at all today. i just wanted the to get your reactions on that. what role do you think congress serves in this whole issue? >> really good question. who wants to -- i'm happy to answer it but go ahead. >> go ahead. >> i would just say -- it's an excellent question. a hugely important part of this whole process. congress, you know, since the intelligence reform way back after the pike -- >> church. >> -- and church committees set up this oversight system where you have these committees that serve as proxies for the american people and to the press to some extent because there's a lot of information that our government has decided can be shared with congress that can't be shared with the public. and the -- you know, i think

congress -- their record is uneven. and they have to make judgments about what should be secret and what the american people ought to know as well. they're also bound by all of these classification laws. i think one thing that's important is that -- i'm not speaking for jason here. but we in the press i think have to be a little more aggressive about reporting on the intelligence committees and you know hold them to account for the kinds of judgments that they make in dealing with national security information. now i'm sure there's another perspective for people in government, which is that congress leaks all the time, so you can't trust them. but i think it's more complicated than that. and i think in the context of, you know, the harsh interrogation/torture, whatever you want to call it, policies.

they were briefed on those issues and didn't speak up or didn't find a way to hold the intelligence community to account for those activities. it's a hugely important part of the process and i think i bares more scrutiny and reporting from the press. >> agreed. >> agree. >> we've got an agreement over there. >> so, you know, we have this deal that was struck in the late '70s, where the intel committees are the primary repository of who's going to do the oversight over the intelligence community. one of the lessons is that we need to find a better way to do the job to inform other members of congress from a positive standpoint so that they are well-informed and can make informed judgments when they're voting on national security matters or when they go back to

their districts and are trying to explain to their constituents something that's of interest in the national security world that is relevant to their constituents. from a cynical standpoint, they need to be better informed so they can't come back and say i didn't understand what was voting for because we've had a little bit of that too. i think there are a variety of reasons why that can be another area to look at. >> other questions. sir in the aisle there. >> doug samuelson, consultant here in town and contributing editor and feature writer for my profession's trade magazine. i think the elephant in the room when it comes to transparency is what happens when a public affairs officer or somebody else responsible for making these decisions is looking at a close decision. if i fail to release something

that should have been released, if i fail to release something to another agency that would have been helpful, gee, we wish you would have shared that. if i release something that shouldn't have been released, it's probably my clearance and my career. and when you start looking at unequal incentives of that nature, people are going to err on the side of hold on to it every time. >> so what's the default rule. how do we address the question on those close calls, and you mentioned, ben, a lot of this is hard. how should that default rule be created? >> the executive order gives us the default rule. and it is if ultimately we can't determine whether something should be classified or not, it's not classified. and ultimately if we cannot determine whether it should be classified at a secret level versus a top secret level, it is to be classified at a secret level. i would say this as someone who

has been privy to some national security secrets from time to time, those releases that you're talking about where something is released and shouldn't have been, those happen. i'm not going to tell you which facts are, but those definitely happen. and many of those people are still employed. i think you're right there is a perception that if something goes out that shouldn't have gone out, there will be drastic consequences. it is something that needs to be taken seriously. but the fact that the intelligence community hasn't pointed out that mistakes have sometimes been made on both sides, the left and the right is not indicative of the fact -- in fact that is true. they've made mistakes from the left and the right. >> but wouldn't it also be right, correct me if i'm wrong, the types of issues and releases that are issues that jason and dan are working on are not the type of decisions that are being made by a public affairs officer. i mean these are decisions that

are -- if it's a story that you're working on that's the result of investigative reporting, these are the types of issue that is are going to be going to the deputy director and the director and perhaps the top level decision maker, the director of national intelligen intelligence, right? >> maybe not that high but it is certainly the case that on the truly important issues, those are going to a higher level for determinations and i think properly so. but sometimes you would be surprised, particularly insofar as you take the ig reports on the president's surveillance program that were released about a year ago. that program used to be very highly classified. a lot of information was released when those reports came out pursuant to a foia request. there was high level involvement. but ultimately there was about 1500 pages of material. we expect our senior leaders --

we can't take them off to review line by line all 1500 pages. for the big questions you're absolutely right. but there are lots of follow up questions as well. >> ma'am? >> hi. patrice mcdermott with openthegovernment.org. the issue of changing the foia and foia reforms have come up a number of times and i wonder if you could expand on what that means a little since we've just had a change to the foia and on the other side we fight all of the time to keep new exemptions to the foia from creeping in other bills and committees due to jurisdiction. if you can expand on that a little, i would appreciate it -- in your mind. >> sure. with the national defense authorization act there is, you know, a provision that's been slipped in by the pentagon or the pentagon asked for it that

would essentially add a new exemption to foia, meaning that wide range of documents could be withheld that are not even classified. so that's kind of going backwards a bit. how that would sort of -- hopefully that does not sort of extend to, you know, any other agencies. and you know the interpretation is kind of very open. but i think with reform, certainly the reform that's been put into place or that congress passed is -- will be very interesting to see how agencies respond to that. so there is the reform that as you noted that has been passed. but then it becomes how will you guys respond to that. for example, you know, there is that what we call the b 5 reform, the deliberative process reform.

you guys have not released part of the bay of pigs, you know, history. now there's a new reform in place. how will you respond to that. i certainly am very curious by the way. i think that is part of the reform. so it's what is in place now, how it will be -- you know, how the government agencies will respond to all of that. and in addition, you know, i think we have this conversation before the panel about what goes on behind the scenes, how are the security officers or foia analysts actually interpreting you know these exemptions, what happens behind the scenes. and i think part of the reform is not necessarily needs to be legislative reform. it needs to be institutional reform.

and that goes to the whole issue of overclassification. so it's -- the reform to foia can be institutional. the law is there. >> can i just follow up very briefly on this point? because i think -- thinking of it in the same terms that jason just talked about, i think it's very much in the interest of the intelligence community. i think it's in the interest of the cia and other agency to get ahead of the inevitable. i mean, you know, these things that we are very focused on, some of these collection programs and you know paramilitary programs that weave been writing about for years on. stuff comes out. it's going to come out. why not get ahead of the story. why not be more proactive. i was just listening to a podcast, of course where i get all of my news now, the other day with michael hayden.

he was being interviewed about the metadata program and he said, you know, in retrospect, we should have showed a little more ankle on section 215 on the metadata program. we should have gotten out there ahead of time so that we could have, you know, we could have been part of the narrative. we could have explained why it was important. we could have explain why it's constitutional in his view, you know, as opposed to losing control of the narrative. and it seems to me that that's, you know, part of the mind-set that cia ought to have. and it's hard to get there. but going back to what carrie said at the outset, we're not going back with digitalization. and changing norms and the rise of a different kind of crest. we're not going back. and it just seems

institutionally in your interests and in our interests -- >> yes, very much so. >> funny how those things coincide. >> yeah. and all of your interests too. >> yes. >> to just put it all out there. >> okay. seeing no more questions from the audience -- we have time for one last question then we're going to close this up. >> thanks, katherine hawkins from the constitution project. i wanted to know one of my biggest frustrations is when information that has been in the public domain for in some cases over a decade is classified. now i've heard the explanation about how official acknowledgment can be problematic. but to give a specific example. if i'm talking to someone with a clearance, i can't discuss the fact -- or they can't discuss the fact that the cia has prisons in afghanistan during the war on terror, even though

the afghan president acknowledged that. decisions like that make it hard to trust the legitimacy of the classification system. i wonder if someone can explain the rational for continuing to classify that information. >> if you want to explain the reason for things being rationale even if they may be talked about publicly. >> there is -- to start, there is that aspect of official acknowledgment, that there are some things that we are just not permitted under the law to acknowledge. those rules on classification come directly from the executive order, or in the terms of covert action, come from covert action. it is not actually a decision that we're able to make in those instances, particularly with covert action to go ahead and

decide this is declassified. that's not within the scope of our authorities. and particularly if you're talking about individuals, those determinations do have to be made as a government to do that. i have certainly come into situations where i've seen facts and thought, i can't understand why that's classified. and i know i've read it in the "the new york times." and have asked those questions of some of our experts, why can i not say this in public. and very often i have gotten answers. answers i can't always share. but i have gotten answers about why that's the case. is it frustrating for you? yes. is it frustrating for us? also yes. but that is the system of law that we live in and it is very important to me as a lawyer, but as a private civil liberties officer that we do the

classifications through these proper channels. that is the rule of law. >> can i follow up on something that's a little related but also something that dan says? >> sure. >> when you're talking about the mutual interest, sort of a half joke, sometimes it's in the agency's interest. i think that's going to be one of the biggest challenges of the community thinking about transparency going forward. so you can have events like today and that remarkable panel with the four intelligence chiefs talking about the business of what they do, and that is part of obviously this whole day is part of a push towards being more open about how the community does business. but the piece about the agency potentially releasing information because it might be their interest is where there's going to be a real area of caution. because the more the community becomes public, they're going to have to think about how do we become public without becoming publicists. and i think it's an aspect that they're really going to have to think about and be cautious about.

the more you are out public and on social media and engaging more with the public, you want the community is going to want to be very careful that it's not perceived as doing things in their interest or doing pr. >> i think there are a lot of instances where the agency in terms of their interest very much would like to come out and talk about some of these issues. but again that's not the legal standard that we operate. i think of in particular i did a lot of work on the 702 program. we were extremely proud of that program. still are in terms of the oversight that was involved in insuring that we properly operated some fairly large authorities. we couldn't talk about them for a very long time. and there were certainly, particularly with respect to either 2008 or reauthorization, a lot of things that were said about those programs that were

fundamentally untrue and at the time we still couldn't talk about them. we wanted to talk about them but we also knew there was going to be a real impact, threat to national security if we did. it was in our interest to release. that's not the legal standard. the legal standard is, is there going to be a discernible and identifiable threat to the national security for reelising information. we're not allowed and shouldn't be allowed to make determinations beyond that. >> well i think the -- where there is a convergence between the transparency motivation of the agency and the desires of the media is in the cia twitter feed. so you should all subscribe, cia on twitter. we put out lots of great stuff. in seriousness, i want to thank the panel. i think this was a lively interesting provocative conversation. i think there's obviously more

work to be done in this area as we -- go back to my intro, figure out how an organization that is dedicated to preserving our democracy can operate in a democracy and still operate effective lip. that's a tension that we'll be enduring and appreciate the thoughts from all of you on this panel on that subject. thank you very much. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you david and thank you to the entire panel. i mean who would have thought vice news and cia on the same panel. even my kids will think i'm cool. thank you for that. and i will be very brief, which is not my strong suit. everyone knows i've never had an unspoken thought. but i will be brief. it's been a very long day.

it's been an enriching day, an invaluable day. but we also want to make sure that you all can get home at a reasonable time. let me just start with -- and i think my friend and the always incisive carrie cordero started that panel, transparency is here to stay. it is. and i think it's emblemmatic and reflective of the fact that the central intelligence agency also recognize zs that and has been such an amazing co-host the past two years on this particular conference, and far beyond. but in addition to obviously transparency being here, this weekend is another reminder, and the terrorists understand accidents that we face, we deal with bad actors, bad adversaries and another reminder that intelligence is going to

continue to be the life blood for our campaign not only against terrorism but against all threats that are coming at us. as we heard, the agency is doing a lot to retool itself to deal with a moving threat of -- a mg target of threats and challenges. but as much as technology will change human nature remains consistent. unfortunately we will continue to have bad actors. and fortunately we continue to have some of the best committed to defeating those bad actors p.m. many of whom were joining us today. many of whom were at the central intelligence agency and broader intelligence community. so i tip my hat off to the men and women and women and men who fight day in day out to keep not only our country safe but also our democracy a democracy. my thanks to all of them. a particular note of thanks to the office of public affairs at the central intelligence agency.

deen boyd, preston boston, these are rock stars. and i kind of have a bad joke that opa, office of public affairs, cia in the same sentence is a bit of an oxymoron. nothing could be further from the truth. they really are the best at what they do. it's been a privilege to work with all of them. let me also very briefly thank my own team. they burned a lot of midnight oil, christian beckner, alec, lisa, christina, katelynn, taylor and the list goes on. they did a whole lot of heavy lifting all of which -- and of course all of the staff here at wisner, there are a lot of moving parts here and a lot of thank yous are deserved. let me just close very finally with -- i mean, the threat unfortunately is with us. but i hope that after today's

event you also know that there is a commitment, a commitment to mitigate the risk, minimize the risk and to ensure that we are giving the men and women who are actually doing the hard work the tools to get their jobs done. transparently, yes. but there's going to continue to be hard work and irrespective of how things play out in november, we need to make sure that those at the very pointy end of the spear get what they need to get their job done. i'm going to turn it over now to the deputy director of the central intelligence agency, david cohen. thank you, david. the floor is yours. thank you for the opportunity to work with you guys. it really is an honor. david. [ applause ] >> thanks to all of you for joining us today. >> we've reached the end of another terrific conference on the ethos and profession of intelligence.

a lot of ground has been covered today. every aspect of this program has been outstanding. i think i learned a great deal. i hope everybody else learned a great deal. i'm very grateful for all of your attention in making this such a huge success. i want to thank our wonderful hosts at george washington university, including president knapp and david, and the team for everything they've done to help put this conference together. from day one they've gone above and beyond the call attending to every last detail with professionalism. we couldn't ask for more gracious and capable partners. i want to acknowledge all of the panelists who participated today. i share my sincere gratitude to you. it's been nearly eight hours since we began. so i'll be very brief. i want to make a couple of points before we adjourn. i want to say a couple of words about the subject we just

discussed in the last panel. the themes of open transparency. that is really what brings us together today. transparency is not a term that's often associated with cia. we don't call press conferences to announce the latest penetration of a hostile government. we don't publish our plans for covert action. we testify before congress, often that testimony is closed to the press and to the public. but we recognize that we have an obligation to share what we can with the american people. and at the most basic level were our system of government is based on the idea that the people are sovereign, and so we the people, as the first words of our constitution proclaim, must be informed about what we do. if we responded to every inquiry about our work by invoking the need for secrecy, we would be flouting the democratic

traditions on which our country was founded. but as an intelligence service we can only go so far when it comes to informing the public. disclosing information about our sources and methods can put lives at risk, jeopardize our programs and severely damage or nation's security. so for us it's not a matter of secrecy or transparency. it's a question of striking the balance between the two. and i can tell you from personal experience that it's a difficult balance to strike. when i came to cia from treasury, i had a fair amount of experience in speaking to the media about what i did, about what my agency was involved in. i was an important part of my job at treasury and something i enjoy, strange as that may seem. but when i gave my first press interview at cia, i struggled to give answers that were responsible yet didn't reveal classified information.

it's an art that i'm still learning and one that i think even our most experienced professionals would admit to struggling with every time they speak in public. but i think we all believe that this tension is actually a good thing. those of us leading the intelligence community should always be asking ourselves if we're finding the right balance between secrecy and transparency. it's not an issue we can put on auto pilot. it requires constant adjustment and self-examination. i would also add that the debate between secrecy and transparency is very much an american debate, one that goes back to the nation's founding. arguments in favor of secrecy may not be widely taught in our classrooms but the claim that secrecy is somehow alien to american tradition is inconsistent with our history and our laws. as early as the american revolution, george washington wrote about the importance of

secrecy and intelligence gathering, saying they were critical to the war effort. in fact we have a statue of nathan hale outside of cia headquarters, the nation's first spy, who personifies the importance of intelligence in the founding of our country. and in peacetime the founders acknowledge that secrecy has a place in democratic governance. in article one of the constitution they wrote that each house of congress would publish a journal of its proceedings quote expecting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy. and of course the constitution itself was drafted in secret with tight restrictions on what the participants could say publicly during the convention. so both transparency and secrecy are part of our nation's heritage. the key for us is drawing the proper line between them. this is a complex and never ending challenge and today's conference is a testament, i

think to the cia's commitment to continually strive to get this balance right. but this conference is also something else. something a bit more self serving. it's our chance to learn from the panelists and from all of you by sharing your views with us, we are enriched in our own internal debate about the challenges we face and ultimately make us better at what we do. engaging with you benefits us in countless ways. may highlight an issue that we've been neglecting, might point out a new approach to an old problem or identify a connection we've missed. whether you're an established expert on national security or a student pursuing your degree, you all have something to teach us. that's why cia is committed to engaging with the public and to seeking out ideas and perspectives beyond our walls. this conference arises from that impulse, the impulse to break out of the intelligence community bubble to avoid group think and to make sure we're

considering the widest range of perspectives as we carry out our mission. the diversity of view points on display today was remarkable. consensus was a rare commodity, although we had a little by of it at the end of the last panel it at the end of the last panelf it at the end of the last panel it at the end of the last panel. but there's one thing we can all agree on, and it's the idea that when it comes to making the world more peaceful and more secure, those single person, no single organization has all of the answers. it's a job for everyone requiring a range of voices from inside the government and out. and that means if cia is to perform its mission effectively, we must do everything in our power to encourage open, honest and informed debate. exactly the kind of debate that we've had today. so thank you for your contributions to our lively discussion, for fostering a lively exchange of ideas that's become the hallmark of this conference. it's been a privilege and a pleasure to be here today and to

learn from all of you. have a great evening. and we look forward to seeing you all again at next year's conference. thank you. [ applause ] ♪ ♪ c-span's washington journal, live everyday with policy issues that impact you. and tomorrow morning josh kraushaar, following the second debate, looking at key senate and house race answers what to look for in the weeks ahead. plus, media bias against presidential bias with tim graham of the media research center and media matters president. c-span's washington journal live beginning at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning. join the discussion.