regulatory, the environment we've created here? and a good example would be, when we look at some of our environmental rules, i can come to you with a way of saying, you know, if we crowdsource much of this area, we can clean it up, do it cheap and her faster. instead we still engage in a regulatory model, command and control, put paper in file cabinets, and say that's good environmental policy, it doesn't have anything to do with cleaning the air, it has to do with office buildings full of people shoving paper in file cabinets. our labor policies, some of these things. if you wanted fiscal policy to increase demand, don't we need to be doing a series of things where we rationalize some of the crazy regs we're in, whether it be labor, environmental, all the way down to some of the creative destruction aspects that actually create new lines of economic growth, that we've created barriers of entry? is demand available up there not

from a bastardized helicopter money which all of us are involved in, and actually it's a regulatory arbitrage that we need to move through? >> the demand is the drop in investment that we have seen. and it's not picking up in the private residential sector. and it's not picking up in the public sector. >> but -- >> so we know we are down in terms of pupil/teacher ratios. we have -- >> no, no. hold it. hold it. >> that investment is necessary both for -- >> the gentleman from arizona -- >> hold on one second. in a line where i've gone a decade now with falls in productivity, how do you equate just even those couple of statements of teacher/pupil ratios with the fact of the matter is capital isn't moving

into acquisition of things that make us more productive? >> education does make us more productive. it's our foundation. because workers have to be trained and have to be trained at all. so deinvesting, as we have done, because our public sector had to live through not having a lender of last resort, they have downsized their operations to -- >> it's not -- >> -- so we have to invest in our people. we have to invest in higher education and we have to invest in k-12. >> that's not what -- it says embrace online learning, embrace apprenticeship programs, embrace these things, yet we have a regulatory barrier right now saying we can't do that because it's not collectivized, it's not unionized. i hope there's a second round, because in many ways we have to be willing to tear down many of

the very bureaucratic structures that have been built that actually stop the very thing you and i want to see, which is more demand, more productivity. you can't say i want to support the very bureaucratic institutional structures that are dysfunctional in a modern data driven -- where this is the driver of the economy, not a mechanism that was designed in the 1930s. and with that i'm way over time. thank you, mr. chairman. >> the gentleman's time has expired. with that the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington, mr. heck, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i also want to express my appreciation to the panel for your presence here today. i want to go back to, briefly, a line of questioning that dr. foster pursued, which was population maldistribution, and preface my remarks by calling up one of my favorite adages, namely the two most powerful

forces on the face of the earth are compound interest and the status quo. and the latter point certainly seems to be at operation here. what i heard said in answer to the question of whether or not we ought to reexamine the population distribution among fed districts was, it wouldn't make a difference, things are fine as is, i.e. let's not mess with the status quo. i guess i want to pose a question in a slightly different way, which is, does anybody on the panel genuinely believe that if you were starting from scratch to design the federal reserve system, and you had x number of federal reserve districts in mind, let's use an arbitrary number, 12, would it look anything -- can you honestly say it would look anything like it currently does?

>> i think it's fair to say if you were starting today, it may not look like that. it may be that every state would want its own regional reserve bank. your point i take, which is the world looks different today than it did 100 years ago. >> 103 years ago. with all due respect, the largest federal reserve district now, by population, is more than six times larger than the smallest. and i daresay that its gdp is probably ten times greater than that smallest one. i actually like what mr. jones said very much, which is diversity includes reflecting the neighborhoods and the communities. i don't know how you can achieve that without some semblance of a more balanced population distribution. dr. spriggs, i want to ask you about this underlying issue, the

elephant in the room, if you will, the hoc dove issue. it's my reading of history, if you look back over the last 25 years, the fed has actually been involved in the achievement of its full employment goal exactly 60 months out of 25 years. they've generally had more tangible targets in that regard than on the inflation side. but i think it's fair to say that they've been more effective on the inflation side. i think it's therefore fair to say that they've been much more willing to put their foot on the brake on inflation than their foot on the gas pedal to achieve full employment, as evidenced by the data. would you agree, sir? >> yes, i would. and my third slide emphasizes

one good product of full employment. a condition for wages to rise with productivity is we have to be at full employment. so we get the allocative efficiencies of the labor market so that we workers quit low productivity forums and move to higher productivity forums that really can only happen once we have full employment. we have other institutional factors that help to make that happen. but when you look at that third slide that i had, you see that productivity continued to grow, but wages don't. and when you don't have full employment, you don't have the competitive forces that the labor market can bring to bear on making sure that we get as much out of workers, but they also make something that reflects it. and so we all benefit. the best policy, and the reason congress passed the full employment act in the '40s and

reemphasized it under the humphrey/hawkins act, the best policy is for americans to be at work. that means all americans need to be at work. the workforce is greatly diversifying. in a few years, the majority of new entrants to the labor market, beginning in 2021 -- >> dr. spriggs, i have 13 seconds. i want to get another point in here. >> -- will be workers of color. >> i still want to get another point in here, which is, i think, and have said so on this committee at hearing after hearing, that it's time to reexamine how we measure full employment, that the continued use of the u-3 measure is inadequate in the wake of the great recession, that u-6, which takes into account part-time workers who want to be full-time

and more discouraged workers, is still stubbornly just under 10%, and that if we are measuring achievement of our goal of full employment as we traditionally have in u-3, then we are missing the boat, and in fact not achieving what it is we should. and i appreciate the chair's indulgence very much. thank you, sir. >> no problem. with that the chair recognizes the gentleman from new mexico, mr. pearce, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you for being here today. a fascinating discussion. i'm going to follow up a little bit on what the gentleman from washington was just talking about. you just got back from jackson hole, and if you're looking at the full employment mandate, what is the sense of all the members? are they pretty satisfied with the 5% unemployment? are they concerned? mr. jones, i'll take you.

have you got an opinion about what the outlook was about the employment, the full employment mandate? >> i can only speak to the regions that we serve, indiana -- >> you didn't go to jackson hole? >> no. >> did anybody on the panel go to jackson hole? did you read the online comments or anything? >> the focus of jackson hole was on looking at monetary policy frameworks for the future across global central banks. the issue that you raise, though, is one that is routinely discussed at the fomc meetings, to understand how are the labor markets performing in the economy today. and judgments about how close we are to full employment. >> so what's the judgment? fairly close? 5% is okay? >> i believe we are at or near full employment. >> okay. so when you reverse that mirror,

then you look the other direction, then we see a labor participation rate of 62.8%. so we're saying, in your words, we're near full employment, so 62.8%, which is back -- you have to go back to the '70s to get a labor force participation rate at that level, you and the federal reserve are saying this is as good as it gets? that's alarming, because i see the difficulty of spreading the cost of the government between fewer working participants. and it's alarming that this is as good as it's going to get. you put that up against the 1.1% rate of growth, and then you get into the monetary policies. and so, dr. lacker, you mentioned had your more expanded paper that the fed was created to furnish an elastic currency. so when i go to my town halls, my seniors tell me, we lived our life correctly, we've paid for

our house, we put money into secure investments, we saved, and now then, you're making our savings worth nothing because we get nothing, and the value of our house is down to 50% what it was before 2008. your policies are killing us. and so this function of creating this elastic currency, as you're talking about, do you all ever sit behind closed doors and ask yourselves quietly what the hell are we doing this for? >> that hasn't happened, in my experience. monetary policy is a blunt instrument. its capacity to influence real economic activities is quite limited. it was true at our founding, it's true now. i think we're all painfully aware of that. when i look at the graph dr. spriggs put up of the unemployment rate going back over the last 50 years, several

of those recessions were not recessions we could have prevented. but we were left to cope with. some of those recessions we did -- >> i was worried more about the effect of the elastic currency on the lives of seniors, especially, but on the lives of people in the poorer states. my district is one of the poorest in the nation. >> i understand. >> when the price of food goes up because of this elastic currency, it hurts our constituents, my constituents, worse than any other. and i was just trying to -- i didn't want all the history, i just was trying to get, did you ever talk about the effects on the poor and the effects on the seniors of these policies. that was my question. if you want to try it again, i'm running out of time, so i recall do want to ask one more question. >> the answer is yes, we do. >> okay. thank you. so the idea that you've got information on local economies, i met with the federal reserve

branch in el paso just last week, the week before. they have the correct information. in other words, the thing that troubles most employers in our district is they cannot find workers who will show up for work. yet when i ask janet yellen personally about this, she said she had no knowledge. so if the information is not going to be transmitted from those branches who are out there tracking the specific problems of the economy, what difference does this all make anyway? >> we do bring forward that information. and i think the anecdote that you described is one that i hear regularly in the region. and it gets to understanding what is it that monetary policy can affect and what are more structural issues that will require other sorts of policies to affect. when you described, i would argue, is one we'll have to have other remedies brought to it as opposed to low interest rates. >> thank you.

i assume my time is exhausted. i appreciate the answers. >> with that, the chair recognizes the ranking member, ms. waters from california, for five minutes. >> thank you very much. i would like to address a question to dr. spriggs. dr. spriggs, in your testimony you discuss how african-americans continue to suffer from overt employment discrimination. as concrete evidence of this fact, you point to evidence that the unemployment experience to better educated african-americans is worse than the unemployment rates for less educated whites. to what extent can and should the fed take such discrimination into account as it sets monetary policy? >> first, thank you, as the ranked member of the full committee, for joining us.

when we look before the great moderation, the unemployment experience of blacks with more education looked like the unemployment experience of whites with more education. there was a significant closing of the gap that occurred between the passage of the civil rights act and as we came into the late 1970s, so much so that if you looked at young men who were college educated, there was virtually no difference between being black or white. and that gap was shrinking for other african-americans with less education. once we went into our high unemployment of the 1980s when the black unemployment rate never fell below 11% for the entire decade, that gap grew for all levels of education, and has remained. and so that gap can close. we saw in the late 1990s, as we

did push towards full employment, and the fed allowed the unemployment rate to fall and did not intervene despite a lot of people thinking they needed to be worried about inflation. by letting the labor market tighten, we saw once again the power of competition in the labor market to reduce those disparities. so if we are at full employment, and the humphrey/hawkins act clearly anticipated that market forces would address discrimination. it's one of the findings in the act itself. and so -- and you knew congressman hawkins as well as i did. he meant full employment. his language, the preamble talks about full employment, full opportunity for useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation. it's way down at the bottom that there's a sentence about

reasonable price stability. these aren't on equal footing. the preamble of that act says full employment. and then these other things should be considered. and full employment gets us a lower rate of discrimination. >> well, that is very interesting. thank you. and i think that we on this committee who are concerned about full employment should pay attention and engage the bank, the feds on this. and you're absolutely right, you know, i nknew gus hawkins, and e was very serious about it. as a matter of fact, when i was first elected to office here, it was in the seat that he held. with reapportionment, that has changed somewhat. but i have an appreciation for how you have helped us to understand what we need to encourage the feds to also set

some priorities for and take into consideration. let me thank the feds for something that may not mean a lot to a lot of folks. the recent meeting at jackson hole, where fed-up was invited to participate, was very significant. i have a great appreciation for that. thank you so much. with that i yield the balance of my time. >> the gentlelady yields back. the chair recognizes the gentlelady from utah, ms. love, for five minutes. >> thank you. i believe that the united states house of representatives is a branch of government that's closest to people. and hearing the concerns on both sides of the aisle on the structure of the federal reserve system is a concern of mine also. if you couple that with the fomc

structure and the interests and the economic priorities of americans, especially in western states like utah, with the answers we've been given, i'm still not convinced that the western states are represented as well as the eastern states. so with that thought, and knowing that concern, i don't think it's enough to just say, well, we believe that it's working well, because you do have members on both sides of the aisle that are expressing concerns. and i happen to agree with those concerns that they're expressing. so i guess i would like to know what you think might be done to rebalance the federal reserve system to ensure that all americans are equally represented in monetary policy discussio discussions. president -- do i call you president george, is that okay?

>> yes. so your question is an important one for the federal reserve. and as i've listened to this discussion, i remain convinced it is a question of accountability and not of the structure of the federal reserve. in the case of western states, i happen to have a few of those in my region. wyoming and colorado, the northern part of new mexico. we are intentional in picking up information, in fact today you will see coming out of the beige book which is released by the federal reserve a sense of each region, which directly includes those kinds of -- >> okay. so i guess the question i'm asking is that i know -- i know that you are convinced that it's working. but like the reason why i mentioned the house of representatives being closest to people is that every single one of us are talking to our people. we're talking to our bankers. they share those concerns also. so again, i know that you feel

as if it's representative. but i'm trying to look for different ideas where that thought, they may feel like they're being more represented. yes. >> so the important thing to keep in mind is that although the federal reserve, as we've described, is deeply engaged in understanding the entire country, we have just one monetary policy for the whole country. the set of interest rates we set at the fomc apply in financial markets, and they set monetary conditions for the whole country. so while president george or president williams from san francisco or myself can go and explain what conditions are like in our district, it's still, you know, as in this body, we have to make the case that it's good for the country as a whole, one policy change or another. so there's a matter of understanding, and then there's a matter of what tools do we have. now, here, in this body, you have tools that can address

things in one particular district or another. we do not have that. we do not have a way to target monetary policy to a particular region. >> okay. so if all else were equal, what difference would it make, then, if there were, not to say whether i agree or disagree with this, but if there were more representation on the western side, that shouldn't change things either, then. that's the argument that -- >> so in my view, you know, the question was asked earlier, you know, if we would -- you know, what our prediction would be for how the districts would be drawn if they were to be drawn today. i think it's a fair prediction they would be different. would we be worse or better off in terms of how the fed engages? i think we would be about the same. and i think this goes to the way president george framed it, the structure doesn't impede us. we probably would be as good as we are now, perhaps better, but it wouldn't make a big difference, the degree to which

we are connected. >> of course i end up with about 30 second. president lacker, just to switch gears very quickly, in one of your speeches, investing in people as an economic growth strategy, i just want you to give a brief description on why district presidents would be interested in workforce development and why that would be a good thing. >> so when i look around my district, carolina is deeply affected by manufacturing and the like, and what's gone on in the last couple of years. it's hard to think about economic conditions without thinking about workforce and labor markets. and when you think about how labor markets work and what kind of transformation the caroline in a carolineas have gone through, for example, it's hard not to think about skills. then you think about how to people acquire skills, how does

changing demand for skills affect people's choices, how do we adapt to the changing mix of skills our economy seems to needs. >> i'm out of time. thank you. >> the gentlelady's time has expired. the chair recognizes mr. pittenger. >> you've spoken about the federal banks in various regions of the company. i happen to be from charlotte, we're certainly in your district. can you walk me through how the fed is a fully public institution and how it affects the american public and the economy. >> how we affect the american public and the economy? so it's paramount to keep inflation low and stable. i understand that maximum employment is part of our

mandate. but keeping inflation low and stable is our best way of achieving that. the recessions of the 1970s and the early 1980s were deliberately engineered by the fed, essentially, in response to spikes in inflation. we're very concerned about that. when we're thinking about are we at full employment, is there a chance we've gone beyond it, is there a chance we're approaching going beyond it, because the risk of overstimulating the economy is the risk that inflation expectations and inflation get out of control. it may be an unpopular notion these days, but if that were to happen, it would be hard for to us calibrate our response without risking causing a recession. i point out that in recessions, minority groups tend to do very badly. >> with that in mind, i guess i would ask you, with the fed's extraordinary policy stance, it's been in place now for a full decade.

has it produced the robust economic growth that we've seen since post world war ii. that's been the norm in the country. give me an explanation for why you believe that's true. i'll go down the line, i would like all your perspective on that. >> there was a discussion of labor force earlier. the fraction of the working age population that's looking for work or employed has fallen. we're no longer benefiting as we did in the second half of the 20th century from the increasing engagement of women in the labor force. the rate of growth of productivity has fallen as well. this is the byproduct of a confluence of forces, including capital formation. neither of those is under the direct control of the federal reserve, i would point out. while we can achieve price stability with low growth or high growth, we have limited ability to shift to a higher growth economy. >> president george? >> i would simply say that the fed's accommodative policies

have i think been important to the progress and the recovery. but i think to see where the economy is at this stage, after this many years, suggests that there are other economic policies that should be considered and come to bear on further progress that the economy needs. >> and could you elaborate on that specifically? >> for example, i absolutely agree with dr. spriggs. it will be important in the united states that any individual that is willing and wants to work is able to find a job, a healthy labor market will be important. but we must address issues that were raised earlier about businesses that aren't able to find the kind of workers they need, whether that comes from training, education, and other things, we should seriously look at all policies at our disposal to make sure that workforce can continue to contribute to the economy. >> mr. jones? >> i would just elaborate on

what president george said. the single biggest issue i hear from our clients is the inability to attract workers. i think as dr. spriggs said, workforce development is critical. full employment needs to go beyond what we normally realize full employment to be. and to do that, we need to have more workforce development and training programs to assist with the growth. >> do you agree that the federal reserve district presidents bring important regional local knowledge to fomc deliberations? >> i absolutely do. as sitting six years in st. louis and speaking for southern indiana and western kentucky and listening to the voices from agriculture to community leaders to, as i said, the head of toyota, i can tell you dr. bullard and his team took those inputs very seriously and passed it on. i think it's critical. we represent diversity. i understand the need for more diverse in terms of race and all.

but we represent a diverse economy. i have clients that, you know, sell on the corner of main and high and i have toyota as a client. those voices are all critical to the process. >> president lacker, do you agree with that? >> yes, i do. >> my time has expired. thank you very much. >> excuse me, mr. chair. i apologize. i do need to leave. i'm sorry that i won't be able to stay for the second round of questioning. but i do appreciate you extending me the invitation and thank the ranking member as well for the invitation. i apologize. >> not a problem. and we appreciate you, dr. spriggs, sharing some time with us here today. we are hoping to do a quick second round. but first we still have a first round questioner here. the gentleman from indiana, mr. stutzman, who is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i apologize for being a little late. i just came from a budget committee meeting. it's good to see mr. jones, a fellow hoosier.

and i would like to ask mr. jones a question. first i would like to address president george. in a recent article you observed how carter glass, the house sponsor of the federal reserve act, and the legislation's key author explained the challenges of establishing the federal reserve system. in a report to the 63rd guess our article quotes congressman glass's observation that, quote, in the united states, with its immense area, numerous natural divisions, still more competing divisions and abundant outlets to foreign countries there is no argument either of banking theory or expediency which dictates the creation of a single central banking institution. no matter how skillfully managed, carefully controlled, or conducted, end quote. my question is this. are observations like those of the democratic leader carter

glass, does the decentralization nature of her federal reserve system bring with it a considerable level of integrity under which we can conduct the most basic economic policies, monetary policy? could you address it? >> so i think from the start these issues were debated a long time, and coming to the conclusion that a decentralized structure would best serve the country. i think that remains true today. and i think its value comes from drawing from many parts of the country, not just washington, not just new york, in bringing those views to bear on something that's very important to the lives of every american, and that is decisions about money. >> and again, i think that, as mr. jones can probably attest to this, what's going on in indiana, because i see this frequently i mean, i believe that our economy, it's pent up right now. and that it's ready to go, but it needs certainty and it needs to know the rules. and if we don't get our monetary

policy right, can our economy grow? >> so as i said earlier, i think monetary policy has played an important role. but it is not the only factor in what can stimulate an economy. as i listen to voices in my region, there are questions about other kinds of economic policies that come to bear on their decisions. so i would not want to overburden monetary policy as being the answer to all the issues that can be affecting our economy's performance today. >> sure. and i agree with that. i mean, but we're focusing specifically here on decentralization or centralization. again, sound monetary policy is really a foundation for an economy that's going to be strong. mr. jones, it's great to see you. and i know that your work in indiana has been recognized not only in indiana but across the country. could you talk just a little

bit, you know, just for the benefit i guess of others, but, you know, indiana, we have seen -- indiana is pretty strong. the economy is strong in indiana. can you talk maybe a little bit about the differences between some of the state regulation that's encouraging growth but also i feel like there's this conflict with washington policy where they're kind of butting heads against each other. and i think not only indiana could be doing better but the country as a whole could be doing better. would you be willing to touch on that? >> i would. first of all, thank you for your service to indiana as well. i mentioned earlier, workforce development is a critical issue we hear from our clients. the other issue we hear often is regulation. and it's both current and pending regulation that is challenging businesses to know the roadmap to success. and you think about coal, which is critical to our state. you think about agriculture and some of the changes in agriculture. clearly, congressman, you know that as well as anyone. businesses need a clear path to

success. and part of that is understanding the regulatory environment they operate in. access to capital is a critical element to all of our customers and in our clients. so you think about just banking regulation. i'll make an observation, you've seen flat tony. i spoke to our head of compliance yesterday. and getting ready for our first cfpb exam, which is going to be -- is very, very important, we submitted 7 1/2 feet of paper. if you stack it from the ground up, it's 7 1/2 feet. my head of compliance is 5'9". i'm sure there's a lot of good information in there. but it requires a lot of people to do that that can't be out giving access to capital. we're symbolic of other industries as well, whether it be coal, agriculture, manufacturing. regulation is a real challenge for our clients. >> mr. chairman, i saw flat tony, he was about my height when he first visited him, but now he's much, much taller. it's unbelievable to see the

amount of regulation our institutions have to deal with. not only flat, but he's tall now. >> all right. the gentleman's time has expired. we would like to quickly move into a brief round two of some questioning, if that is all right with our witnesses. i will start by yielding myself five minutes. and mr. jones, while you were chatting a little bit, this struck me, as you were talking about your business and what you do. obviously we've had conversation, not just here but other places, that the federal reserve system is, you know, lacking diversity and not doing enough to serve their communities. i used to be a licensed realtor when i got out of school. and as i said, my family has been in construction and those kinds of things. one of the fundamental cornerstones of my licensure as a realtor was to recognize that

people aren't black. people aren't white. people why not yearen't yellow. people aren't red. people aren't any other color than green. meaning they can either afford it or you can't afford it. that's how you had to treat customers and how to deal with people. it was an equitable way to look at that. it seems to me there's a similar translation, we need to make sure there's an equal opportunity. i see our fed-up friends have left, i wish they have could have heard this. we ought to have opportunity for everybody, no matter where they live, no matter what their income is. we have seen time and time again that being thwarted, sometimes for maybe a good goal, but certainly the ways that it has gone about hasn't gotten it there. i notice in your testimony that

your organization is remarkably diverse and heavily involved in various communities. and i know you have a business to run as well as part of that. and so my question is, do you feel a conflict between, say, reaching out to literally tens of thousands of people? i know you did i think it was 900 plus sort of seminars on how to better manage the financial affairs on one hand, and making money, and having an ongoing business with employees and for your investors on the other hand. do you feel any conflict in that? >> not at all. just the opposite. it's good business. if you think about what we do as community bankers, our moral obligation is to strengthen our communities. that means dealing from the underbanked and unbanked all the way up to the large corporations. in doing so, we strengthen the markets that we serve and there is no real conflict there, because that's what a community banker does.

every day there's 8,000 of us throughout the country that every day wake up and worry about what we can do to make this a better place for everyone. and those are the voices that we also bring to the fed as we think about what we do as members of the federal reserve board, is to talk about all those voices. so clearly, mr. chairman, there is no conflict. it's just good business. >> and what i'm very concerned about, as i too, like one of my colleagues, i can't remember who it was, as they sit down and talk to employers, a couple of things that they expressed, they said we have a hard time finding somebody that will show up every day and be able to pass a drug test. those are two basic thresholds that they need to meet. and they say, you know what, we will take care of so much of the rest of it. we need to have people who will show up and who can show up clean and who are willing to work. and that is -- that's a struggle that we have had in michigan, and i saw a chart earlier today, michigan is doing different or

better than other states in the region of chicago, interestingly enough, illinois is the lowest performing. and michigan is the highest performing. i would say that it's not just about regulation and taxation. it's about the environment that's been created. and we in michigan know that we have very much attempted to create an accommodative, growth-oriented atmosphere, and illinois has gone the opposite direction. that's why you see billboards at the intersection of illinois and indiana, saying welcome. >> illinois is what it says, move across the board. mr. chairman, i would just say you took the hoosier handbook and took it to michigan. >> we did, because indiana tried that on us for a number of years with those welcome home billboards. >> it worked for a while too. >> it did work for a while. we got that turned around. i want to make sure that as we

are moving forward on this, we're not losing sight of main street. and, you know, wall street is doing just fine. we've got to make sure that this economic recovery is slow, it's long, as sluggish as it's been, reaches down and goes to all levels. and we're seeing that, because of that upward pressure, we're seeing wages come up in michigan. we're seeing some of that, some of those things restored. but not fast enough. and ultimately that's about demand. and so i filibustered myself, my time is up. i appreciate your time. with that i'll recognize the ranked member for five minutes. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. thank you all for agreeing to stick around for a little bit longer. and i too, mr. chairman, am sorry that mr. spriggs left and some of the other folks who were observing left. but having said that, i do want

to engage the panel on some things that i heard dr. spriggs say. and he got a lot of pushback for this in the context of other things that i've heard here today. you know, there has been -- we've put a lot of pressure on the fed to grow our economy. there is a lot of criticism or praise on both side of the aisle regarding your -- you know, your fixes, what you have done. but that being said, i think it was mr. jones that said that you guys have a blunt instrument with monetary policy. i think it was dr. lacker responding to the gentlelady from utah, saying that, you know, monetary policy has to fit for the whole country, we can't have a monetary policy for new york and then another one for montana. that being said, so you're

limited in terms of what you can do. that being said, i guess i'm wondering what you think about the slow growth, the lack of a recovery in certainly parts of the country among folks like african-americans, with regard to, number one, what congress is doing. we focus a lot on austerity. and we believe that that has hurt growth. for example, there's a gap of $1.7 trillion in infrastructure spending, something that used to be partisan. and it's predicting it could put 20 million people to work, if we could do that versus given tax cuts. i guess i'm wondering. dr. spriggs said that there's a lack of demand. so as we talk about regulation

being too great, the debt being too great, he made the point that, you know, 70% of our economy depend on people having money so they can spend it. i know in the african-american community, they spend every dime that they get. so if shops are closing down in african-american communities, it's because they don't have any money. i wonder what you all think about what we do with regard to hurting growth in this country. what is your opinion on sequester and austerity and cutting pell grants, and so on? and i will yield to maybe dr. lacker. >> you've asked a difficult and troubling set of questions. you ask me to stray outside of the bounds of federal reserve policy. i can tell you, though, that we do think about that. and it's hard not to in our

country. baltimore, for example, inner city baltimore is part of my district. and thinking about the events that have transpired there in the last couple of years, it's hard not to think about why it is that african-american communities have lagged so far behind, despite the last 50 years of efforts, despite the vast array of interventions we've made, despite the vast array of policy initiatives we have brought to bear on that. dr. spriggs is right that federal policy can influence the broad sweep of demand in our country. but there's nothing we can do to guarantee where it's going to show up. is it going to show up in silicon valley? is it going to show up in the carolinas? >> specifically, though, is this a time to be doing austerity with slow growth? >> i would think you would want to evaluate programs on their merits, not for what they add -- >> i mean, a transportation bill

or infrastructure bill that was adequate, do you think that that would help your efforts to -- >> i think you should evaluate a transportation bill based on what our transportation infrastructure needs, not on -- >> we have like 80,000 bridges that could collapse, just like in minnesota, at any point. it's not like we don't need -- we don't have to go out and do a survey to see if we need to fix the roads and bridges. >> that sounds like a legitimate reason. i have no reason to disagree with it. >> would that or would that not spur our economy, mr. jones? your jumping at the bit. >> jumping at the bit is strong. clearly creating jobs, creating demand will help all of our markets. the economy is not just one subsection. the economy is a multitude of policies and procedures and input. one of the biggest ones we see is confidence. and, you know, if we had a

consistent message that said it's okay, and i think you'll see more and more people respond to the economy. but it's awfully difficult with all the negativity that surrounds our economy creates challenges. >> i yield back. thank you for your indulgence, mr. chairman. >> you're welcome. with that the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona, mr. schweikert. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and to my friend the ranking member, we partially agree here. but infrastructure, if the left would be willing to work with some of us who want to adjust the capital stack and how you pay for it, there's a way to get there. as the discussion we had earlier with mr. stutzman, when you have seven feet tall of regulatory paperwork for a bank examination, how does that improve productivity in our society? because functionally you have paperwork that goes into file cabinets. that's what they said earlier, that was the testimony 20

minutes ago. for many of us, we are fixated that we believe monetary policy has probably gone as far as it can, and now it's our responsibility here, but we need to get creative instead of just trying to do more of, we're going to throw a bunch of cash at something. we see a well that crashed and burned in 2010 and '11, the years when all these models said it would happen and it didn't. can i go on off -- this is just a different discussion. ms. george, you're someone i wanted to sort of ask, because -- walk me through first the services your federal reserve branch provides. just sort of, you know, from someone that was on one of the old check 21 committees many years -- yes, i'm that old. walk me through the services you provide. >> so the regional banks are involved in the payment system.

>> payment of ach? >> ach. we're still clearing checks, believe it or not. we distribute cash to financial institutions in our region. and we are involved now in an effort to look at how to modernize the payment system by working with the private sector on how that might happen. >> okay. so you already know where i'm going. i see now fascinating discussions coming out of silicon valley of using a distributive ledger model to basically -- it's functionally a debit ledger with mechanics to move money and dramatically cut down the cost, where if i'm -- let's use paypal because they're in my neighborhood, or a substantial portion of them are, they have the utah industrial bank to move money, they pick up those regulatory costs, where is if i use a block chain, put it into value that's cleared on this side, i move money for fractions of a penny. that's outside your mechanics.

is -- from your discussion, because you have lots of really smart people around you, are you ready for what you and i would call the destruction that will help us bring dramatically more efficiencies in the movement of money, the distribution of those resources, and are you looking at these alternative transmission networks and how to lower the cost? >> so our responsibilities in this area are to make sure that the payment system is efficient, that it is accessible, and that it is safe. and so the nature of this technology holds some interesting promises. and as part of our work with the private sector to think about how this will affect the payment system going forward, we are very much engaged in learning from them and trying to see where this intersects this -- >> you already know -- we

already have a handful of our large money center institutio institutions -- two of them -- that are already engaging in the movement of money using a distribdi distributive ledger. this is important for a lot of us who care with economic vitality for millennials. you are the uber driver. you decide to put 50 cents into your retirement or savings account every time you drive someone. we do a smart contract in the back. the payment hits, the 50 cents goes over. except on some networks it cost 18 cents, 27 cents to move the 50 cents. you cannot do the sort of micro-management of small dollars. i need a network -- i need a backbone that's dramatically less expensive. safe. because this is soon going to be our banking institution. and my great fear is, as we've

had the conversation of efficiencies in our society, productivity, i desperately hope the federal reserve doesn't become one of the barriers to the adoption of the dramatically more efficient society that we desperately need for that productivity. and my fear is silicon valley is about to run around you and build optionality that says the federal reserve is my barrier, not my partner. and with that i am out of time. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. and for our last question of the day, we will go back to the gentleman from indiana, mr. stutzman, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to all of you for your testimony and thoughts and advice today. it's really helped. this is a -- it's been a fascinating discussion. miss george, you made a comment about distributing cash and things like that.

then, of course, mr. schweikert holds up his smartphone and that's where i wanted to go. i think it falls under maybe gove governance. you could share with us. online banking, security, access. i just found products just recently that are extremely easy and almost feel like they're -- they're very easy, which is nice. but the security of them -- can we trust the technology that's coming along? and i know this is -- i don't know if it's been talked about at all today. if some of you could address that and what's your role, and mr. jones, if you could talk. maybe if you could lead off, mr. jones, about what you all are doing as a banking institution, online banking, how much of it is being done on smartphones. web sites are being adapted to fit smartphones because that's where most of the banking is being done. if you could talk about that. miss george and dr. lacker, if

you could talk about it. >> great question. our industry. your question really revolves around cyber security. i would offer, as a commercial banker, this is an area where great cooperation between our regulatory agencies and the commercial banks has made a significant difference. both the federal reserve and the o.c.c. and now the cfpb have come together and are working together to make sure the systems are safe and secure. richmond, where dr. lacker is, is the head of i.t. for the federal reserve. when i was the audit chair in stlu st. louis we experienced the controls they have in place. 8,000 commercial banks can't work separately on things like cyber security. it takes a collaborative approach. as i said, the ability for the

fed to convene to do that has made significant improvements for us. >> there are rapid changes going on in our payment system, as you know. and the initiative that we currently have under way is to carry on a tradition we've had for most of our history, and that is to work with the private sector as they come up with different ways to conduct payments, to make sure at the end of the day safety, accessibility and efficiency is part of that. so the effort we've undertaken right now is in the process of looking at those issues around new technologies to see how that can be best managed on behalf of the public. >> we do, as mr. jones noted, invest a tremendous amount of the federal reserve system to secure our systems to make sure they're safe and effective but that we keep up with the latest cyber security threats and cooperation from agencies based around d.c. have been very important to that. for the banking system as a

whole, we cooperate, we share what we know and can share, and it's certainly led us to focus on the extent to which cyber risks are being managed effectively in the banking sector as well. so it's a supervisory focus for the teams that oversee these large organizations and small as well. it's something we take seriously. it's an evolving landscape. we'll have to continually keep up, in essence. >> how do you do that? do you hire teams of experts that know their industry that are on your side that are working together but also making sure that there are safeguards in place? how much do you have -- do you have to invest more down the road? or are you already making an initial investment and focusing on banking? our investments have increased substantially over the last ten years in information security. and yes, talent is something we

look at, the particular skill sets you need are highly available in the marketplace and we work very hard to find the skills that we need. >> all right. thank you. anybody -- i don't know if -- any other further comments? 20 seconds are left. if not, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. i would like to thank our witnesses for taking the time and coming. deeply, deeply appreciated by all of us. i think -- i have had a number of colleagues as they've been going giving me thumbs up. we thought this was a very informative, very helpful hearing, as we're looking at what the future of this monetary system is and the effects of it. so, without objection, all members have five legislative days within which to submit additional written questions to the witnesses to the chair which will be forwarded to the witnesses for response. i ask the witnesses to respond as promptly as you are able and without objection all members will have five legislative days

within which to submit extraneo extraneous materials to the chair for inclusion into the record. with that our hearing is adjourned.

our campaign 2016 coverage continues on c-span with live debates for u.s. house, senate and governors' races. tonight at 8:00 republican senator mike lee and misty snow debate for the utah u.s. senate. on thursday, just after noon, the pennsylvania eighth district congressional debate between republican brian fitzpatrick and democratic steve santesiero. account 57 richard burr and deborah ross debate for the north carolina senate. on friday night at 8:00, the wisconsin u.s. debate between ron johnson and russ finegold.

at 10:00. joe heck and catherine cortez debating for the nevada u.s. senate. watch our complete campaign 2016 coverage on sc-span and online t c-span.org and listen on the sxn radio app. coming up, a look at community policing practices. then officials from the clinton and trump campaigns discuss their candidates' views on the u.s.-east asia policy. after that the cyber security summit hosted by the "washington post." and later, a conversation on the global financial outlook. > c-span's washington journal live every day. thursday morning, kelly jane torrence, deputy managing editor for "the weekly standard" on the

latest developments in campaign 2016, including the rift between donald trump and many republican leaders nationwide. she will also talk about women's attitudes towards mr. trump. then jesse moore from rock the vote will be on to discuss rock the vote's efforts to reach millennial voters and ways to get them to the polls on election day. and the "wall street journal's" financial regulation reporter will discuss challenges facing the consumer financial protection bureau following this week's decision by a federal appeals court that the bureau's structure is unconstitutional. she'll also talk about what the cfpb was designed to do and where the agency goes from here. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern thursday morning. join the discussion. next, criminal justice analysts discuss community policing practices, including the use of body cameras, police militarization and the use of social media surveillance.

this one-hour event is hosted by the cato institute. good afternoon everybody. i want to welcome the audience and our c-span viewers who are tuning in. i am peter russo, the director of congressional affairs at the cato institute. i want to thank you for coming today. this is a capitol hill briefing entitled "fall fables and fallacies, the truth about policing in america. before we begin, if you'd like to the join the conversation we'd love to hear from you. tweet us at #catoevents. today we are resuming a multi-part capitol hill briefing series examining a number of policy areas of particular interest to lawmakers as well as the electorate at large entitled "fall fables and fallacies." we'll try to set the record straight on a number of issues and attempt to dispel the prevalent misunderstandings that are, in our view, adversely influencing public policy discussions. last month we looked at economic and income inequality.

in we'll address free trade, u.s. foreign policy and more. today we'll explore the state of policing in america. the recent events in oklahoma and north carolina provide a reminder that these law enforcement issues that dominate headlines and broadcast leads need to be carefully and soberly examined and addressed. to do that i brought together the principle members of cato's project on criminal justice. this effort has become a leading voice in support of the bill of rights and civil liberties. it's led by the director tim lynch whose research interests include the war on terror. over criminalization. the drug war, the militarization of police tactics and gun control. since joining cato in 1991 lynch has published articles in a variety of periodicals and law journals and has appeared on innumerable public affairs programs. he's filed several amicus briefs in the u.s. supreme court in cases involving constitutional rights. he blogs extensively at the cato institute's national police misconduct reporting project found at policemisconduct.net, a site i wholly recommend. he is also the editor of in the name of justice, leading experts

reexamine the classic article, the aims of the criminal law. and after prohibition. an adult approach to drug policies in the 21st century. he is a member of the wisconsin district of columbia and supreme court bars and earned a b.s. and j.d. from marquette university. jonathan blanks is a research associate and managing editor of the aforementioned police misconduct.net. his research is focused on law enforcement practices, over criminalization and civil liberties. he has appeared on various television. radio and internet media including huff post live and voice of america. his work has been published widely and most recently in the case western reserve law review with an excellent piece entitled "thin blue lies: how pretextual stops undermine police legitimacy." we did have copies available on the outside table but i am told we are now out of them. if you want a copy, send me an e-mail or contact me after and i'm happy to get one for you. he is a graduate of indiana university. then we'll have adam bates, a policy analyst at the project. his research interests include

constitutional law, the war on drugs, the war on terror and police militarization. bates received a b.a. in political science from the university of miami and both an m.a. in middle eastern studies and j.d. from the university of michigan. he is a member of the oklahoma bar. finally we'll hear from matthew feeney who is a policy analyst at the cato institute. before coming to cato he worked at reason magazine as assistant editor of reason.com. he has worked at the american conservative. liberal democrats and the institute of economic affairs. matthew received both his b.a. and m.a. in philosophy from the university of reading in england. we'd do the usual format. each speaker will have ten minutes or so and at the end we'll open it up to audience questions. to set the stage, let's please welcome tim lynch. [ applause ] thank you, peter. good afternoon, everybody. right now i think it's safe to say that american policing is being discussed and debated like

never before. to take just one example, the "washington post" some months ago earned a pulitzer prize for tracking fatal police shootings across the country. it's really astonishing when you think about it. of all the things the government keeps track of, it never kept an accurate tally of fatal officer-involved shootings. so that's why "the post" earned its award for throwing resources and trying to come up with an accurate number for everybody so we can put police shootings in some kind of context. is it going up, is it going down, is it staying the same. recent surveys also show citizen confidence in the police has dropped to its lowest point in more than 20 years. so this afternoon what we want to do is offer our ideas on how policing can be improved. but before we get into a

discussion of specific reform ideas, we thought it would be useful to start off with an overview of policing in the united states. so once we have some perspective on the big picture, then we can get to some concrete reform proposals. law enforcement in america is heavily decentralized. we have federal police agencies and we have state and local police departments. everybody here knows about the major federal law enforcement agencies like the fbi, the secret service, the d.e.a. and the border patrol. but there are dozens and dozens of smaller federal agencies that have police powers. talking about the bureau of land management. there is a federal reserve police. and we discovered another one recently, the u.s. government publishing office police. if you go to their website, you'll see that their agents are armed with automatic weapons. so there are dozens and dozens

of federal agencies out there with police powers, and even though the number of federal police agents has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past 30 years, most of the policing in the united states is done at the state and local level. we have about 18,000 police departments spread across 50 state jurisdictions. and we have about 800,000 sworn officers. a sworn officer is someone who is authorized to make arrests and carry firearms. on the federal level there are about 150,000 sworn officers. now, sometimes people ask me why cato would bring its police reform ideas to capitol hill when most of the action is taking place at the local level, at the county level, at the city level. it's a fair question. there are several responses to that. the first one is that policing issues -- some policing issues apply to both federal agents and local police agents.

back to police shootings. most of the controversial shootings that we have seen on the news over the past two or three years, walter scott, tamir rice, laquan mcdonald, these are shootings involving local police officers. just yesterday the supreme court announced that it is going to be reviewing a case involving a border patrol agent who shot an unarmed 15-year-old mexican boy. so federal agents do get into controversial shootings and the supreme court will take up that case this term. second, the relationship between the federal government and local policing has become rather complicated over the years. adam bates will explain how the department of defense has been sending military weaponry and equipment to our local civilian police departments. congress also sends millions and millions of dollars in assistance to local police departments with various rules and regulations that come

attached to those funds. matthew feeney will be discussing body cameras in that context. body cameras is a subject that hillary clinton has been talking about on the campaign trail when criminal justice issues come up. and john blanks will be touching on how federal and state police work together in the context of civil asset forfeiture in a program called equitable sharing. the department of justice has also been called in to investigate many local police departments, to see whether or not there is a so-called pattern and practice of constitutional violations. over the past few years, the department of justice has been called into cities such as new orleans, cleveland, newark, miami, albuquerque, oakland, ferguson, and recently they issued their report on the baltimore city police department. and a federal investigation is now under way in the city of

chicago where federal investigators are looking into that department for a pattern and practice of constitutional violations. we expect a report on that to come out anywhere in the next four to six months. we're also seeing the federal government get more directly involved in prosecuting local law enforcement agencies. or agents, i should say. just yesterday the famous sheriff in arizona, joe arpaio, has been cited for criminal contempt by federal officials. he is going to be going on trial, it looks like, in just a few months, and there is a possibility that he'll actually face jail time. it's a remote possibility, but he is going to be prosecuted in federal court, and that is a possibility. and the former sheriff of los angeles county, lee bacca, is also under federal indictment. so there is a lot going on. i should also note here at the beginning that we are aware that, when a police department is performing well, when it is

maintaining high standards of professionalism and gets good reviews from the community, that's not considered to be news. it doesn't get as much in the way of a lot of media attention. so we do recognize that. but at the same time we also have to face the reality that many departments are beset with serious problems. and what we want to do is identify constructive policy proposals that can help to minimize those problems. so that's just a quick overview of policing in the united states. my colleagues will now dive into some of the more specific proposals we're offering in the way of reform. thank you very much for your attention and interest in this subject.

>> good afternoon. i want to talk today about something most of us have gone through at one point or another and that is the mundane traffic stop. when that comes to mind most people think, oh, you know, oh, crap, i got busted. i was going 65 in a 55. you sit there, you wait for the cop to come up. you're just thinking, i don't really want a ticket. can i get out of this? that's how you go about it. that's the peek of your concern. that's not how all traffic stops go in this country, particularly for minorities. there is a different kind of traffic stop known as an investigatory stop. an officer can follow you for a while as you are going through a neighborhood. you're just wondering. it's been a mile, two miles, following closely. you're like, what's going on? and finally his lights pop on and he pulls you over. and he comes up to the car. you're like, officer, what did i do wrong? he's like, well, that little

light above your license plate, it's out. or you swerved a little close to the yellow line. you're thinking, i have been aware of you for the past three miles. i know i didn't go near the line but there you are. and so, as you are waiting for your license and registration -- him to run it, you are nervous. when he returns, instead of just handing you the ticket or giving you the pass, he immediately starts asking questions about why you're there and what you're doing. and you realize he doesn't really care about the light above your license plate. he is running an investigation. and he is going to try very hard for you to give up your right to not be searched. he can use all kinds of trickery. he can pressure you. he can say, you know, you should just make it easier on yourself, just give me consent. it's not about -- we can bring the canine out here. we're going to search you anyway. you may as well make it easy on yourself. now, here you are. you have done nothing wrong and you have a police officer sort of implicitly threatening you

for doing nothing wrong at all. you know the names philando castile and sandra bland and you know this can get really ugly, maybe even fatal. so you consent. you sit on the side of the road. sometimes in handcuffs. cars drive by as police officers rummage through your things. and to all the world, you look like a criminal. and you're being humiliated. the officer may find nothing. he'll send you on your way. maybe with a warning. no apologies. and in your mind this isn't like a speeding ticket where you know you got busted, you know you did wrong. this was illegitimate. you are just wondering -- that's not what's to serve and protect is supposed to mean. the stop was done under pretext. the entire reason for the stop is he thought you looked suspicious. chances are he thought that because you are black or brown skin. we all realize that curbing

dangerous driving is an important police function, but, you know, when you get a ticket for speeding, you don't like it but it's not really a problem. when you have these pretextual stops that cause antagonistic interactions with the police, that's -- that has shock waves that go through a community. there are studies that show that one in three black men between 18 and 35 have gone through this exact thing. and even more know people who have gone through it. that resonates. and it erodes police legitimacy in that community and actually makes law enforcement harder. it makes the police less -- it makes the community less safe because criminals feel emboldened because this contributes to the animosity between the minority communities and the police themselves. so you may be wondering, why am i talking about this on capitol hill? there's nothing more local than being pulled over in your neighborhood. well, as tim alluded to, the equitable sharing program is

part of the doj's incentive program to get people -- to get police officers to enforce the war on drugs. and part of this is known as civil asset forfeiture. it's when a police agency can seize property that is tangentially tied to a crime. you don't have to be charged with a crime. you certainly don't have to be convicted of a crime for them to take it. unlike criminal forfeiture where there needs to be a conviction. in civil court you have to go into court and prove it's legitament. it's expensive and time consuming. the way this works is if this officer was not a traffic cop at all but part of a federal task force, he was there in order to look for drug trafficking. one of the perverse incentives of this, because the police department gets to keep 80% of whatever cash they seize, is that, instead of stopping drugs and guns, we have police officers on tape saying, oh, no,

we get them coming out of the major metro areas because they will be cash laden and they can seize it to pay for overtime, to buy new toys that adam will talk about. and it's just -- becomes this very nasty policing for profit motive. so what we -- what we have is a perverse incentive on a couple different levels. again, we're not -- if the police are incentivized to stop the cash but not the drugs and the guns, what exactly is the war on drugs for anyway? this is supposed to be a public safety issue, right? if it's just to make police officers more money, that's not helpful. i am not saying that every police officer who goes through this is a bad person or that, you know, they don't care about what happens in the communities. but their incentives are all wrong. congress can make these little changes to diminish this and perhaps improve the relationship between these communities and the police. thank you.

>> how's it going? thanks for spending your lunch listening to me drone about the police. as tim and john both mentioned, i am going to discuss the militarization of police and to show how that dove-tails with the federal involvement that john mentioned. so, to carry on the theme of the federal government providing perverse incentives to state and local law enforcement, yeah, i want to talk about the militarization of our police over the past few decades. so i think we all saw the images in ferguson of the police with gas masks and body armor and assault rifles and in some cases sniper rifles. i think, for a lot of people, a lot of people, especially people in communities like ferguson, they're familiar with this image of american law enforcement. for a lot of people, people like

me especially, this was a bit of a shock. you start to think, is this what law enforcement is -- looks like in america right now. so there is a long standing myth in america that s.w.a.t. teams and these paramilitary tactics are isolated incidents or that they're reserved for the worst of the worst. and in fairness, that's how s.w.a.t. teams started. s.w.a.t. teams were initially designed to be used for hostage situations, active shooters, barricaded suspects, things of that nature. emergencies where routine law enforcement equipment and tactics were not good enough. but with the advent of the drug war, that changed rapidly. a few hundred s.w.a.t. raids a year turned into thousands. the best estimate we have right now is that police across america conduct -- how many raids do you think misconduct? in your head, how many s.w.a.t. raids do you think go on every year? our best information say 80,000 s.w.a.t. raids occur in america

per year. contrary to conventional wisdom, these are not hostage situations, these are not active shooters. the vast majority of these s.w.a.t. raids are serving search warrants. only 7% according to the aclu, only 7% of these raids are those initial purposes, the hostage situation, active shooter situation. the vast majority of these are search warrants. the vast majority of these search warrants are looking for drugs. just recently, you may have seen in the news a s.w.a.t. team in massachusetts reportedly accompanied by a national guard helicopter descended on the home of an 81-year-old woman in order to seize a single pot plant that had been spotted from the air. so -- that woman is fighting with all of her heart, bless her. and -- people need to understand, these are not peaceful law enforcement operations. they have become a bit normalized. we're talking about aggressive, paramilitary style raids. and they're dangerous.

they're dangerous for the officers involved, and they're dangerous for the people who live in these homes. so we're talking about showing up at your house at 3:00 in the morning, 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. in many cases not even knocking on the door. battering ramming in the door. throw everybody on the floor. shoot the dog, perhaps. a side note. how many dogs do you think the police kill every year? this is shocking. the department of justice estimates police in america kill 10,000 dogs a year during these police procedures. so, again, these are high intensity -- with a high potential for violent escalation and a high potential for violence. what does this have to do with you and your bosses and the federal government? well, that's another myth. that the federal government does not have much to say about what goes on in local police departments. while criminal justice is historically a state or local practice, the war on drugs and more recently the war on terror

have provided the basis for the federal government to become deeply entangled in state and local law enforcement. and that -- the result of that entanglement is a big distortion of police priorities and police practices. through huge federal grant programs such as the urban area security initiative. through weapons transfer programs directly from the pentagon transferring weapons -- military weapons and military equipment to local police, through programs such as the 1033 program that many of you are familiar with, and through the aforementioned equitable sharing program, that is, the federal government creating a legal regime to help facilitate state and local police taking cash and property from people who are not charged with a crime or not convicted of a crime. they're merely suspected, usually of a drug crime, losing their property to the police. the federal government, through this program, provides incentives for state and local police to edge gaungage in this.

state and local police then start to forsake local concerns and priorities in the name of fighting the federal government's war on drugs and the federal government's war on terror. some examples of this distortion, police in keene, new hampshire, applied for and received federal funding, almost a half million dollars for a mine-resistant vehicle by arguing that the keene pumpkin festival was a target for terrorists. i am sure it's a fantastic pumpkin festival. i have not been myself. but it stands it reason that the keene pumpkin festival was not actually an al qaeda target. in fact, a keene city councilman admitted as much when he said we're not really concerned about the threat of terrorism but that's what you put on the application if you want the money. another refreshing bit of candor. the same official said -- by the way, what red-blooded american cop doesn't want to drive around in one of those?

it's surely true. it's surely true that police and anyone would like to play around with these toys, but that is not the purpose of law enforcement. that is certainly not the reason that justifies the existence of these federal programs or the federal intervention in state and local police. another councilman called it a tremendous waste of money. the important thing to remember, because these are federal grant programs, it was not the money of the taxpayers of keene, new hampshire, this did not go through the keene legislature or the normal appropriations process. this was money from the federal taxpayers. the federal government to keene to provide the equipment that otherwise they simply wouldn't have because nobody else would be paying for it. another example. police in tacoma, washington, decided the threat of i.e.d.s, improvised ex pinellplosive dev. th they cited the threat of i.e.d.s for another mine resistant

vehicle. again, there is very little evidence that there has ever been or will be an i.e.d. threat in tacoma, washington. but that's what you have to say if you want the equipment. oklahoma put out a report in 2012 to highlight the prof la gacy of these terrorism grant programs. specifically the urban area initiative. the study put out in 2012 had then given $7 billion to state and local law enforcement through the terrorism grants. yet according to the report there was little evidence to suggest that the communities were any safer. that this massive expenditures of federal tax dollars and massive intervention of the federal government into state and local policing was actually producing anything on the back end except for enriching these departments and producing this militarization effect. president obama commissioned a task force after the events in ferguson to explore the 1033

program and other weapons transfer programs and they concluded that there was not adequate training, there were not adequate concerns about civil rights and, in fact, per the recommendations of this task force the 1033 program was reformed so that police were no longer given tanks or tract vehicles. vehicles with wheels they can get but nothing on tank treads. they couldn't have weaponized aircraft or rifles larger than 50-caliber, no grenade launchers and for the love of god they could no longer that bayonets. i can't figure out if they were ever actually deployed. but no longer. we're es chewing the local concerns and priorities. when this funding comes through these programs, you are not going through the normal process. you're not going through the representative process and finding out what the community needs and what the community wants. you are getting your incentives

and mandates from the federal government instead. i do want to say i don't just want to rip on abuses of this program. some police departments, to their credit, have rejected participation in these programs for exactly that reason. brandon del pozo, the chief of police in burlington, vermont, voluntarily removed his department from the 1033 program and said, i do not like the way my officers seeing things through a military lens. this does not look like law enforcement to me. it looks like military. that's not what we want police in this community to be about. this is not just us up here saying this. there are people in the police community out on the streets saying, this is not what law enforcement should look like, and we don't want to take part in this anymore. so, from equitable sharing to terrorism and drug war funding to outright military equipment transfers, to the secretive transfer of invasive surveillance equipment such as stingray cellphone trackers and

some of the things -- things such as drones that my colleague matthew has written about, the federal government has forcefully injected itself into everyday policing, and the priorities, tactics and most importantly the legitimacy of law enforcement has suffered greatly in this country as a result. so the federal government may not be able to solve all the problems with policing in america but it can stop exacerbating the ones we have. some of the police departments will have this regardless. some police departments will have s.w.a.t. teams, mine resistant vehicles and things of that nature because they can go through the local appropriations process, they can go to the local community and convince them that they need this equipment. places like keene, new hampshire, and all these places -- i can say because i'm from there, podunk towns in middle america will not have mine-resistant vehicles if they're forced to pay for it through the local process instead of getting what one

police officer called pennies from heaven to pay for this equipment from the federal tax budget. so that's why the federal government does have a role to play here, despite the history of criminal justice being a state and local issue. now i'll turn it over to my colleague, matthew feeney. thank you. good afternoon. this has been very cheery so far, hasn't it? i hope to -- so i hope to follow on from what adam and jonathan were speaking about to discuss police body cameras and the role that the federal government is playing in body cameras and also the costs and benefits. i see -- if you are on the right side of the room you may be regretting that you are not in view of my great powerpoint presentation. i assure you it's mostly -- there won't be too much that's informative. it's mostly pictures so you don't have to stare at me for the entirety of the talk.

i thought it would be important to begin by discussing a town that they all mentioned by is ferguson. many of you all know that in november of 2014, a st. louis county grand jury declined to indict police officer darren wilson for the killing of michael brown. his killing sparked protests across the country. in the wake of the news that wilson would not be facing charges, the obama administration proposed a $75 million three-year, 50% matching funding program for the purchase of 50,000 body cameras. and this isn't a surprise. body cameras have been a staple in policemen's conduct discussions. there is widespread believe that they bring on some kind of observer effect, that people behave better when they know they are under observation, whether you are a citizen or a police officer. there is some evidence to back this up. the most widely cited study on this took place in rialto, california. a police chief outfitted his

photographe officers with body cameras. they recorded the incidents and compared that to the years before the cameras. in the years before the body cameras was deployed there was a dramatic reduction in complaints against the police and use of force. last month 4200 officers shifts in seven sites were examined, and they compared, again, the year before and the year of body cameras and found a 93% reduction in citizen complaints against the police. there are a number of reasons why it may be so dramatic. for one, i think the study required officers to inform citizens that they were on camera before the interaction took place. i don't want to paint too rosy a picture. here are results from san diego. they were found in the year when body cameras were used there was

actually an increase in use of force. although there was a decline in what's called greater controlling use of force incidents. tasers, pepper sprays and things like that. the only benefits may not be on the behavior of police and citizens. body camera footage and other footage have proven valuable in investigations into police misconduct. many of you will be aware of the walter scott shooting that took place in north charleston, south carolina. the officer involved will have a murder trial at the end of this month. another killing was captured on cellphone footage, though the officer involved was not charged. when it comes to body cameras, many of you are aware of the samuel due bose shooting in cincinnati. ray tensing is facing murder and voluntary manslaughter charges and his trial begins at the end of this month. the prosecutor in that case described the body camera

footage as invaluable in bringing charges. this piece of footage -- this is from albuquerque, new mexico, the killing of james boyd. he was a homeless, paranoid schizophrenic camping out in the foothills of the mountains. and it was actually announced yesterday that the second degree murder charges -- the trial here ended in a mistrial. this was announced yesterday. but the district attorney, when this began, said that we have evidence in this case to establish probable cause we didn't have in other cases. so there seems to be pretty good evidence that body cameras have some beneficial effect on officers and citizens, though to what degree it's affecting citizens more than police officers remains to be seen and it's proven useful in investigations into police misconduct. it's also worth thinking about the costs here. police regularly interact with people who are drunk, high, mentally ill. they talk to children who have

been sexually assaulted. they're first on the scene at many accidents. they talk to informants and agents. we have to be careful about the privacy concerns associated. i've taken pictures from footage to highlight this. the top left. a man stabbing a police officer. in the bottom left a man is undergoing a drug overdose in his car. the top right and bottom right pieces of footage show a s.w.a.t. raid that took place in indiana. i am highlighting these screen shots because they give, i think, a good idea about what police are seeing. the s.w.a.t. raid footage is particularly, i think, disturbing because you are seeing the interior of someone's home. you can tell a lot about someone by what they watch on television or what's on the book shelves. political posters, religious icons and things like that. the man in the car is not a violent criminal. he is undergoing a medical trauma. i found that very easily on

youtube. the man stabbing the officer, his face has been blurred but still has distinctive tattoos. it wouldn't be that difficult if you knew the jurisdiction to figure out who the man was. in light of these concerns i wrote a paper for cato highlighting what i think the right policy should be so we can get this balance right between accountability and privacy. i think the important thing is that incidents that take place in private homes, that body camera footage should not be available to members of the public. it should be available to the home owner, their attorney or next of kin but not anyone to request. i don't have the same view about incidents that take place in public. i think members of the public should be able to see body camera footage that shows searches, shootings and detentions. now, today we have been discussing that, of course, law enforcement is primarily a state and local issue. but i think there is an important role here for the federal government. as i mentioned earlier, the

obama administration, shortly after ferguson, indicated a strong interest in body cameras. body cameras are not cheap. they impose a bit of a fiscal burden on a lot of departments. the department of justice has issued body camera grants. what i want to stress today is that the department of justice has issued body camera grants to departments that do not have good policies in place, that do not promote accountability or transparency. in 2015 the department of justice gave $23 million in body camera grants to 73 departments in 32 states. the los angeles police department was one of these departments. it received $1 million. despite the fact that the los angeles policy requires police officers under investigation to view body camera footage before they make statements. and the policy also did not explicitly have prohibitions on using body camera footage for general surveillance. this year there were $20 million awarded to 106 departments in 32

states. and one of the states where these departments were is north carolina. and many of you will, i am sure, have followed the news out of charlotte and have heard something about the law on the books now in north carolina which prevents members of the public like you and me to access body camera footage absent -- without a court order. this is not a policy that promotes accountability or transparency. i think if the federal government is going to be involved in funding body cameras, the very least it can do is ensure that money only goes to departments that have demonstrated a commitment to transparency and accountability while also protecting privacy. and i'll finish very quickly with this note. body cameras are just a tool. they are not good or bad in virtue of their existence. they are made good or bad tools by the rules that govern them. with the right tools in place, they really are great tools for accountability and transparency as the samuel dubose shooting i think highlights.

we shouldn't forget that, without the right policies in place, they're a rather terrifying tool of government surveillance. there is a number of things on the horizon that i want us all to keep in mind. very few departments have policies explicitly banning the use of facial recognition software on police body camera footage. it's also very important that departments have policies in place that limit the access that photographe officers have to body camera footage. we don't police in their spare time to troll through footage to see who was where doing what, especially if there is no probable cause. that said, i am a long-term optimist when it comes to these tools. but i do worry about the federal government's role, the policies that it is adhering to. but ultimately it's up to people who work up here on capitol hill to ensure that those strict policies are put in place. thank you.

[ applause ] all right. so we have 20 minutes or so to entertain questions about the topics we've discussed. we can start with whoever is ready to go. anyone? anyone? you, sir. >> my question is directed towards adam bates but open to everybody, if you wish to give an answer. and it's regarding -- police militarization. i was wondering if you could talk about whether civil asset forfeiture funds are used to fund the militarization of police that we see in some of these cases. whether those two are related or not and to what nature they are related. >> they are absolutely related. it's important to understand when you talk about aseth

forfeiture that all 50 states have their own laws about forfeiture. where the money ends up going can differ by jurisdictions. by and large it goes straight back into the budget of this police department. so, again, this is not going through the appropriations process. this is not going back into the general fund. it's going straight back to the police department, and they can use that money, in most jurisdictions, for anything related to law enforcement. that includes, you know, paying for federal equipment transfers, paying for new equipment, weapons, things of that nature. so yes. there absolutely is a connection between the use of civil asset forfeiture and militarization. not just the financial connection. it's also the separation of powers issue, right? because now we're not going to the legislature to say, hey, we need a s.w.a.t. team, we need a mine resistant vehicle. .50-caliber rifles. you are not going through the normal process where people

would have the ability to comment on the acquisition of this equipment, where you would have public debates or public notices and comments to say, hey, maybe we don't need this stuff. we're just skipping through all of that -- all of that legislative appropriations process and we're going straight to buying the equipment. so there is that angle to it as well. >> also, it's important to note that there has been some significant victories in the area of civil asset forfeiture reform. new mexico, for example, has abolished civil asset forfeiture. it was one of these legislative battles where it was mostly behind-the-scenes opposition, but once it came up for a vote, the vote was unanimous in new mexico to abolish this controversial practice. in california, just a few weeks ago, they also significantly scaled back on civil asset forfeiture powers in that state. so there is some momentum but there is clearly a lot more that needs to be done. >> yes.

>> there are a lot of other developed countries across the world that are a lot less problematic when it comes to their policing practices. when looking at policing here, do you guys also look at foreign countries, and if so, what examples can we take from them? >> the drug war has come up a few times and we've done international comparisons looking at countries that take a different approach than the united states' historic, hard-line approach to waging the drug war. for example, a lot of people do not realize that portugal decriminalized all drugs in the year 2000. and so there was a lot of predictions that they were making a big mistake when they went to de-escalate the war in that country. and we did a study by glen greenwald who went over to study the results to see whether these dire predictions would come true, and he found that they're doing very well there. there is no movement under way to say, you know, we've made a

mistake, we need to reverse this policy and go back to the american approach of ramping up the drug war. so, actually, more and more officials from around the world are going to portugal to see what they've done, to study the results, and to de-escalate the drug war in places like brazil and other countries around latin america. of course, we have got upcoming elections here where marijuana legalization is on the ballot in many states. so these are steps in the right direction, moving away from the drug war approach, moving towards decriminalization and legalization. it's a tremendous waste of police resources to have agents doing these s.w.a.t. raids, helicopters over the property of elderly women with a pot plant in the back yard. tremendous waste of resources. these police resources should be redirected towards the fight against violent crime. >> and -- am i cutting somebody off over there?

another -- i mean, a big aspect of this is that, if an interaction between the police and the citizenry doesn't happen, then obviously it can't escalate into violence, right? when we talk about things like marijuana legalization, we're not just talking about limiting drug-based interactions with the police, but we're also talking about something jonathan mentioned with the pretextual stops. if the scent of marijuana or the dog hitting on your car can no longer serve as probable cause to search somebody's car or to start escalating this scenario, then the escalations that we see in a lot of these cases that end up with people dying simply don't happen. so i understand -- and you'll hear the argument that policing is a dangerous job. it is a dangerous job. that police officer is worried about his safety, but if we can limit the interactions between police and the community by decriminalizing behaviors that shouldn't be criminal in the first place, those situations never have a chance to blossom into violence, right?

>> i will only briefly -- so, yes, i actually have an uncle who served as a policeman in england. it is true that the united states does stand out among developed countries when it comes to the number of citizens that are unfortunately killed by law enforcement. and i think everything that adam and tim said is correct. i will only add that i think it's worth examining treatment or response to calls that have to deal with people with mental illness and those kind of things. there is very disturbing footage that came out of dallas recently of a mentally ill man with a screw driver who was shot and killed very quickly. that's something else, when it comes to training, that i think could also help. >> it was briefly mentioned the idea of the militarization of regulatory agencies. i'd like to hear more about the perspective on that.

>> well, so -- as tim mentioned in his remarks, many federal agencies -- federal agencies that most people don't even know exist for some reason have been part of this militarization ramp-up in the federal government. it's not just the military equipment. it's also the surveillance equipment. i mentioned stingray cellphone surveillance devices. they're used to track people's cellphones and their locations. the irs has stingray devices. why? why does the irs have a s.w.a.t. team? why does the epa have a s.w.a.t. team? aside from the general "we want the stuff" and it's available, i don't have a lot of great ideas about why that can't happen except that that's the natural growth of government when nobody's -- when it's not being checked in any way. if you live in d.c. and walk around, you start seeing police cars from government -- the u.s. secret service has their own police, the fbi has their own police, the treasury, the mint has their own police. yeah. i have the same reaction you

have, which is wait, why? >> i think tangentially from that, another thing about -- the mission creep is you have, as he was talking about surveillance, that the information that is collected from federal agencies is sometimes trickling down into local law enforcement. and they'll be doing a terror investigation and they'll come across drug trafficking so they'll pass it on to a local law enforcement and say, okay, this is the guy who is doing this. can you -- we can't give you this information. we can't tell you how to get this information, but you can set up what's known as parallel construction, come up with a plausible way that you came across this information and build a case that way. a lot of sometimes because so many people plead out, they don't go to trial, they don't find out how they got the information. when the government is scacallen it they usually say, we drop the charges. >> i should also mention, going

back to a point that was raised earlier about the shooting of dogs, this is something that doesn't get enough attention in our view because, if you talk about, like, why there is growing resentment in some communities against police work, you know, when you shoot the family dog, i mean, these stories ripple out among relatives, neighbors, friends of people. and when, you know, everybody agrees that officers have to be able to protect themselves, but when more and more of these incidents are caught on tape where you can see the situation and come to your own conclusion about whether that dog was threatening or whether the officer over-reacted and shot the dog, these boilerplate language that used to go into police reports, the dog was threatening, therefore, i had to shoot him, that's not cutting it anymore because so many of these things are caught on tape. an incident in new york city recently the civilian review board concluded an officer

overreacted by shooting a dog. at another one of these things that's caught on tape. and, you know, this is an example where we can learn from what other agencies have been doing well. for example, the agencies have doing well. for example the united states postal service. all of these postal workers receive regular training on how to deal with dogs and it turns out there maybe a few bites a year but no serious incidents involving postal workers because they have been given training on how to handle recognizing a threatening dog versus a dog that's nonthreatening and what to do in these situations and we have so many local police officers that don't receive this training. mental distress and have that training done for local police

officers so some of these horrible violent ibs dents in the community can be reduced. >> it's my understanding that the police don't carry guns. i'm wondering if you can comment on the success or failure of that policy. >> so it's not just british police don't carry guns not just in london but not anywhere. they can get access to them if they need to. there's specific units that can respond with weapon ifs they have to but britain is actually not unique but it's not necessarily the norm in other developed countries. there's other developed countries where police regularly carry guns. french police carry weapons pretty regularly as to finish police. not just american police that are armed. the discussion has to be when

they use the weapons and under what circumstances so disarming the police might sound like an initial good idea but of course there's plenty of citizens in the united states that also have guns and that's something that police in most of the other developed countries don't have to worry about so i don't think disarming the american police is necessarily the right way to go but certainly training and under what circumstances they use those weapons is something that should be looked at. >> i'd like to follow up on that a little bit. some people have -- excuse me, some agencies tried to move more toward tasers or other non-lethal uses of force although of course we also hear stories of people dying after excessive taser use. what some have found is that the use of a taser goes up when they're dpichb tasers instead of guns or in addition to guns because they're like it's not as legal so i can use this and it's quick to escalate so i can only reiterate that training is just

as important or more important. >> one of the benefits of having a decentralized system and having police organized at the local level is they can try different policies and we can learn from one another. so there maybe a few jurisdictions out there that may want to try the english approach of going unarled. we learn from those experiences the same way we're learning from colorado and colorado has stepped forward in the marijuana context. a lot of people said it would be a disaster so policy makers around the country are closely following what is happening in colorado. predictions have not come true so when the state experiments with a policy we can learn from it and then other policy makers and jurisdictions can make their own decisions based on the evidence. >> one question i had to another is we talked about federalism

when we started. is there any merits to federalizing police misconduct in term of crimes? federal penalties? >> i mean, it's good that we have -- i think, given the decentralized nature of law enforcement that we have 18,000 law enforcement agencies. yeah, i don't want to say that the federal government has no oversight role especially when it comes to things that represent constitutional violations. and pattern or practices sued and the section 1983 lawsuits that are federal causes of action against state and local officials. those are necessary to protect the constitutional rights but as far as some idea of federalizing law enforcement or federalizing the entirety of law enforcement that's probably a bad idea because the federal government itself is not -- it's not very easy to hold those people accountable. it's not as easy to hold the

federal government accountable as it can be at the state and local level. so i would be very concerned there about the federal government being the soul and only word on police misconduct. >> well, we should maybe address, how about the war on cops? does it exist? what does the data say on that? >> i'll let tim have it. >> so, tim do you want to -- >> yeah, there is much discussion in the literature and on television about a war on cops but the evidence for that is rather thin. if you look at, for example, the violence against police officers despite the awful tragedy and ambush in dallas this year, pu look at it overall the statistics to violence against police has been going steadily down and the term or expression is more being used in the debate

over policing. we're having a debate over how to handle police misconduct. we're having a debate over what police tactics are appropriate and should be immemented so we have people on different sides of these questions and people that don't like the policies being at dematerialization and civil asset forfeiture. these things are upset about the way in which the debate is going and they mischaracterize i think as being some kind of war on police. it's an unfortunate mischaracterization because we all know other dpovrnmental institutions like our schools, we have to address them and it doesn't amount to a war on teachers because we want to reform our schools. we know that many of them are dysfunctional. and some place versus been

dysfunctional agencies for a long time and to dress them and to fix them should not be mischaracterized as a war on cops. >> it varies from department to department. running the police misconduct website i find all sorts of different -- how different departments handle it. sometimes a small violation like, you know, an inflammatory facebook post is going to get someone fired. and other times like the dog that, killed the dog in new york that tim mentioned he got off with, this is -- the review board said he violated the rules but he got off with a light reprimand. it just depends on union

protection. it depends on the transparency in any given department with poid camera policies and how this goes through but what ultimately it comes down to is people paying attention to their own communities and bringing political pressure on the prosecutor and the mayor to make sure that they're in line because they're insulated but most places don't elect a police chief. a lot of people aren't thinking oh what did he do today. >> we have time for one more. last year we did a full day conference on related issues and criminal justice reform area and december 7th we'll have another conference. so if you're interested in that please go and the next in this series will be on free trade and that will be on october 27th. so check your e-mail for that. i want to thank everybody for attending and i think we should

thank our speakers. [ applause ] >> we'll have more come pain 2016 coverage tomorrow. pennsylvania republican congressman michael fitzpatrick is retiring from congress but his brother will meet democratic state representative in a debate. that is live. 12:15 p.m. eastern on cspan.

north carolina republican is seeking a third term in the u.s. senate. later in the day he faces deborah ross, a former north carolina state representative. live coverage starts 7:00 p.m. eastern also on cspan. on friday, former wisconsin democratic senator is seeking to win back the seat he lost to republican ron johnson in 2010. the two meet at 8:00 p.m. eastern in a debate. live coverage on cspan and senate minority leader harry reid's retirement nevada has an open senate seat this year. he's running against former nevada attorney general. the two candidates debate at 10:00 p.m. eastern live on cspan. >> before the final debate between hillary clinton and donald trump were looking back

to past presidential debates. and 1984 debate between president ronald ray dpan and former vice president. we must understand that we are a government by the people and when we move it should be for very severe and extreme reasons that serve our national interest and end up with a stronger country behind us. >> i will not make age an issue of this campaign. i am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponents youth and inexperience. >> then the 1988 presidential debate between vice president george h.w. bush and massachusetts governor. >> you have a president that will work with the congress and the american people. you can bring that deficit down steadily. 20, 25, $30 billion a year. build economic growth. big a good strong future for

america and invest in those things that we must invest in. economic development. good jobs. >> i wish he would join me in appealing for the american people for the balanced budget amendment for the federal government and for the line. and that line item detail for the president and i think that would be extraordinarily helpful. >> and the 2008 debate with illinois senator barrack obama and arizona senator john mccain. >> the situation today cries out for bipartisanship. senator obama has never taken on his leaders of his party on a single issue and we need to reform and so let's look at our records as well as our rhetoric. that's really part of your mistrust here. >> so we're going to have to make some investments but we also have to make spending cuts and what i propose, you'll hear senator mccain say he is proposing a whole lot of new spending but i'm cutting more than i'm spending so it will be a net spending cut.

the key is whether or not we have priorities that are working for you. >> watch past presidential debates. saturday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. watch any time on cspan.org and listen at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the cspan radio app. >> next, officials from the clinton and trump campaigns discuss their candidates views on the u. s.-east asia policy. other topics include u.s.-china relations and the nuclear program. they hosted this event. >> do you hear me?

>> good afternoon, i'm the president and ceo of the korean economic institute and we welcome you here this afternoon. we have two surrogates of the respective presidential nominees. the honorable campbell for hillary clinton. and peter for donald j. trump discussing foreign policy and security as those issues relate to the korean peninsula, greater asia, and the world as a whole. north korea's nuclear development is not just an asian problem. i've had the pleasure of knowing both of these speakers personally for several years and considered them to be extraordinary statesmen. extraordinarily qualified. let me stress this is not a debate but a discussion seen from the eyes of two viewpoints.

you are not expected to leave believing either or both are correct or incorrect. foreign policy and security are did he recalled by the times. the world political players and develop over long periods of time. their influenced to an extent by the president, the cabinet and by congress. the development of foreign policy is not like planting a seed in a green house and waiting for a fruit of vegetable and totally predictable results. there's the variety of seeds and nutrients and is it a giant outdoor area subject to win. and of course human interax. >> their perspectives are different. the diplomat and the member of the u. s. house of representatives. >> the university of california, san diego. certificate of music and

philosophy from the university. >> the u.s. navy and the joint chiefs of staff and the chief of naval operations special intelligence unit. he taught in harvard and scored with annual rouse capacities including deputy assistant secretary of defense and deputy special counselor to the president for nafta. i know him from his position and east asian and pacific affairs where he served from june in 2009 and served as the chairman of the u. s. house and foreign affairs committee. and and internationally businesses and organizations.

and peter was born in holland and he moved to holland michigan at the age of 3. he received an a in political college and an a from the university of michigan and school of business and became affiliated with the furniture maker hermann miller where he stayed for 15 years eventually becoming vice president of marketing. he's one of the few members of congress that's been a high ranking executive in a fortune 500 company. 1992 he decided to run for congress opposing and then defeating an incumbent in the primary and succeeded in the general election in november. and subsequent elections. congressman in 2004 was selected

for membership on select committee and intelligence when he served with the congresswoman that's now the president and ceo of the woodrow wilson institution. he eventually became chairman of the permanent select committee and intelligence and that that capacity is one of a hand full of members to be briefed with a sense of information concerning the security of the nation. he also served on the education and work force committee. he left congress after nine terms. the founder of his own consulting firm and he is a visiting fellow with a concentration on educational reform. he joined the investigative project on terrorism in 2014 as a senior fellow. he's a frequent contributor to cnn fox news and other television and media. members of the audience will be given an tubt to ask questions

and i remind you the questions are about foreign policy and security. the questions are limited strictly to 30 seconds. that's it. no speeches because a lot of people will add questions and these people and not you. just your questions. both of these men are our guests. they have been very gracious with their time. and now i have the opportunity to hand the program over to our kei vice president. mark is a 38 year veteran. career democrat. forgive me. >> saying it wrong. mark is a 38 year career diplomat. served as dcm in korea. and mongolia and other posts. and political affairs at

american embassy in london. in marks various capacities he helps organize among other events in london the g-20 and international security conference in 2012 and the 2014 nato summit. he was awarded the award on his work on implementeding the peace accords. >> congressman -- >> you'll never forget that will you? >> long forgiven. before we start let me emphasize again that this afternoon the event is not a debate about general politics. we're going to have a conversation about foreign policy. so the way we're going to proceed is, i'll have a few questions of my own.

>> my friend congressman for that organization. thank mark for his service and it's a pleasure to see all of you here today. i agree this is an opportunity to explore. if you listen to conversations carefully there's the obvious concerns. what's going on in china. a more assertive foreign policy. concerns about provocations in north korea. anxieties about regime change prospects in countries in southeast asia. big problems lurking in terms of maritime security. and territorial issues but right now i have to say probably at the top of the list there's not any of these concerns. the number one issue that animates the thinking of most people in asia is what's going

on in the united states and i think that we have to recognize the united states has played a central role in nation's history. and operating system that has brought unprecedented peace and prosperity to asia and also it's been tremendously effective for the united states as well. bringing prosperity and opportunity and it has linked us in a specific community that has been in the best strategic interest of the united states. over the course of this campaign, fundamental issues associated with that role have been called into question. will we support the continuation of the non-proliferation regime or will we encourage nations to break out of that? how will we treat our treasured and trusted allies? japan, south korea and others? how will we engage with china? will we take a purposeful approach or will we cut deals on

the side? and in addition to the tone, timber of this campaign, the questions that will remain even after the resolution of this unfortunate political contest will continue and i believe personally the best person to address those issues and secretary clinton and hopefully president elect clinton and the person that has -- than any person that has ever run to the highest office. and we'll be in a position to reassure asian friends of the strength of our commitment. the role we seek to play in asia going forward with the recognition that the share of the history of the 21st century will be written this. and just a down payment on what i hope will be a deeper

discussion on specific issues. thank you. >> thank you. >> yeah, great, thank you. it's great to be with you today. i wasn't sure exactly what my friend is going to say but you know, i'm one of those individuals that has made what many believe to have been a successful transition from the world of business to the world of politics. people are, you know, questioning can someone from the business world actually move many to politics and be successful? and what we have seen is that, yeah, that can happen because many of the values and many of the practices that you learn in leadership in the private sector are very politics and business are very very different.

and i got ready for this and one of the things that it seems that everybody has been. and a number of years. and the processes that develop together jointly. that it hasn't worked. they haven't been successful. and korea and other places that are looking at the situation and said it's time to go back and start from ground zero. and go to ground and how do we work with our friends and our allies.

and a successful strategy and have not been successful. and practice of using business all the time. and issues and bring people together and to develop a consensus and move a strategy forward. we recognized and i just wrote a book on libya where we confounded a lot of strategies that you should have integrated into a foreign policy and turned it head over heels. and our objective from the trump

campaign standpoint and president trump is to recognize that the strategies that we have in place and some of the key issues have not worked very effectively that we need to work with our friends in the region. and strategies to move forward and that it has to be developed in a colab arangers tif frame work. and perhaps most important is that we need to develop those strategies in a collaborative manner. not only overseas but perhaps most importantly here in the united states because foreign policy is hard. it's difficult. there are no easy answers. no quick fixes to the issues and the challenges that we face. we need to develop the strategy that has by part is on support.

and that is sustainable. we cannot be in a position where our friends and allies look to the united states. and elections become the topic of discussion because the fear is that with the change in administration that our foreign policy will take a dramatically different course. foreign policy is hard. to move a ship and move it in the right direction and foreign policy takes a long time and need to develop policies that may have adjustments between administrations and you will not see major differences that

people worry about in foreign policy and there has to be something sustainable. if america is going to continue to be effective on the international stage, we have to be a trusted and relied upon ally because we are predictable in the future. i hook forward to any questions that you have. >> let's check into specifics and we'll start with trade i think. and suggested that u.s. credibility and dependable are in line with a transpacific partnership. the ttp. and are there changes that could be made to it. >> thanks. first of all, just as a general observation about the making a policy, the greatest aspect of foreign policy toward the asian pacific region is that it has

been bipartisan and republican and democratic administrations working together based on common assumptions about the importance of alliances and the importance of our economic engagement and the durability and defense commitments in life. the shared goals in a constructive and careful responsible engagement of china. that has animated most of our foreign policy security apparatus for 40 years. and it's important to note here that i didn't know of a foreign policy expert that works on asia that has endorsed plflt trump. most of them, many of the people that served so effectively in previous administrations have either suggested that they will not participate in this election or they will support secretary clinton. the hope in my perspective will be that we will have a continuation of bipartisan goals

and objectives and i will suggest that some of the things that donald trump is suggesting is very much out of the mainstream. and will, in fact, risk the kind of things that the congressman has suggested he wants to avoid. look on the trade and economic piece there's an undeniable recognition. there has to be a commercial component for the pivot and rebalance to asia. we uphold the operation system and includes and strong defense commitment but at the core of it is the recognition that the united states is an active optimistic player in the regional dynamics of the region. now the united states still today by far and away is the

largest investor in asia. what it's primarily about is the term of trade going forward and i do not need to tell you that secretary clinton has been very clear that she cannot accept the trade agreement as it's currently been negotiated. at the same time she also recognizes that some form of commercial engagement will be necessary going forward. my personal view is the united states has to be prepared to engage the cross the board. we have a commercial opponent and build new institutions and make sure that we're not reaching out just to our partners but new partners like vietnam and indonesia in addition it's a tall order but i believe that the united states is up to the task and it's also the case that frankly most of

tin novation will be in asia. >> you know, the shot at mr. trump, you know, really isn't, really isn't necessary or essential. he's not going to threaten or challenge the relationships over allies. you have seen frenlds be leiend hanging. in regards to ttp. we have gone through an administration and i think, you know, our friends and allies

probably after they have negotiated with the united states for a number of years and signed an agreement that they're going to take back to their respe respective legislatures or whatever approval process they go through with the expectation that -- a high expectation that they have all negotiated in good faith and that there has been a collaborative process between the branch of government that's been negotiating and the branch of government that will have to vote to implemented it here in the united states and it is disappointing and a mark against american credibility with our friends that rely on us that we have gone through this long

negotiation process and hammered out all of these things and that this administration won't even get a vote in congress on approving it before it leaves office and that as it's going out the door that the two major parties and the candidates representing the two major parties both disavowed the trade agreeme agreement. so what everyone knows is that ttp in the way it was negotiated is not going to be voted on by congress. will not be approved by the united states but will result in a new round of negotiations and yeah, that is disappointing and you would hope as this process moved forward that there would

have been much more collaboration between the executive branch and congress. so that you wouldn't get to this point where it says oh by the way, here's now an agreement and the congress looks at it and the representatives of both political parties look at it and say, wait a minute, we can't buy into this. as a matter of fact, you're not even going to get a vote and when i'm elected president we're going back to the negotiation table. that's a terrible place to be and it's a disappointing place to be and it doesn't have to happen that way and it didn't have to happen this way if there would have been more collaboration between the executive branch and the legislative branch as this agreement was being negotiated. it's disappointing. >> both candidates expressed concerns about china. either by trade policy or by security so how should the u. s. work with allies to manage

china's rise? but specifically should you have more of a role to play on the south china sea issue? >> thank you, so china represents for the united states and the countries of the region an unprecedented challenge. we, going forward, are going to have areas where we have profound issues of disagreement. areas like cyber security. issues related to dumping of certain materials in u.s. markets territorial relationship like the south china sea and relationship with neighbors and the like and the military and overall more asserted foreign policy than we have seen in years past. at the same time, the inner dependence is perhaps greater

than between any other states in the national economic system and our destiny is to try to figure out ways to work together and to deal with those challenges but also have them offset by areas of cooperation or very specific national reasons the united states and china work together in 2007 and 2008 in the aftermath of probably the worst financial crisis in our lifetime for sure rebalance the global economy. it was through the substantial of international pressure negotiated again largely between

the united states and china. we have seen the maintenance of peace and stability across and we have been able to work as the united states engaged on a process that made clear our interest there is and how much we wanted to see china allow that process to play out. we have had imperfect but necessary communication and mark will get to that as we go forward. in truth, this is what it's like to deal with a rise in power. it's going to demand more and more of our time and attention i will just tell you there's going to be friction in the relationship. that friction is almost a given. and, in fact, the absence of friction in certain circumstances probably means that someone is not doing their job. the key is going to be to recognize that this balanced relationship of cooperation and some areas of competition is

going to be our destiny going forward and we have to manage carefully going forward. >> i think the issue that gets a lot of attention is how mr. trump talks about trade and trade obviously is a key component with china we have a very complicated issue but one that needs constant reassessment to make sure that it's working for all of the parties involved

i was there when nafta passed congress in the early 90s and in the business world kwour constantly going back and evaluating the relationships with customers and vendors and people that you may be in partnership with but isn't it amazing that after the trade agreement that's been in effect for over 20 plus years between the united states, canada and mexico there's not been an on going assessment of every three years of every five years of every 7 years. is it working the way we intended it to work? is mexico working the way we thought it would work? is the united states benefitting and gaining the rewards that it thought it would get from the

trade agreements? and if not how do we go back and adjust the trade agreements to make sure that closer to the original objective roles and working for all the partnerships and make sure that these greelts and protocols are working for each of the parties involved and that they a and those will be fixed through and collaborative process. >> what issues come up during the campaign has been the relationship between u.s. and south korea? should south korea defend itself

against a potential north korean attack or should they be integrated in a combined fwors the u.s. forces? >> this is one where i talk about earlier where there's so many people in asia looking for a reassessment to go back and figure out how not only that relationship is but also how other relationships now change and adapt based on the new reality that north korea has a nuclear weapon. it's advanced it's capabilities of the last number of years and the new reality that says sanctions will be much less effective moving forward because with the iranian deal we have empowered one of north korea's key allies. you take a look at the leverage, so there's been so many changes that have happened but one of t you know, you have china has always been identified on what happens in north korea and

another place was the relationship and what we did with iran. it's a key not only trade partner with north carolina but they have been in ballistic missile development and with this agreement what do you have? a newly unleashed power house with iran. and then the numbers are all over the map but they're staggered in the low of 56 or $60 billion to as high as $150

billion at the disposal of iran to determine how they will use it ooechbd just last -- even just last week the banking and financial transactions. that's the frame work we're dealing with that's going to enhance iran's capabilities as an economic power house and the agreement is going to provide north korea with more options and a new reality developed over

the last 8 to 12 months and that's why there's a sense of angst in asia and it's the recognition that one of the people that helped prop up the regime in north carolina and iran is now a much more powerful and financial power house than what it was 12 short months ago and you sit down and develop the strategies as we move forward. >> thanks. to the specific question about how to conceptualize the relationship between the united states and south korea going forward i know of no other bilateral relationship that prospered and asended so much over the last 10 or 15 years under both the bush administration and the obama administration and the u.s. free

trade agreement. and more responsibilities globally and the key is to sustain that momentum and that going forward. now on the security side it's a combination of the two. we want to continue steps to integrate the united states closely into the alliance on the korean peninsula for the peace and stability because we're still facing a deeply provocative regime in north carolina. and south carolina is seeking to play a larger role in international peace keeping and other circumstances that i think we should support it. and when we talk about what works and what has not worked in asia, my suggestion would be the non-proliferation regime as it

applies to many countries in northeast asia. it's an outliar that all the other countries are trying to find the best matter to deal with but to ensure that south korea, japan, taiwan, other countries do not reconsider their nuclear choices requires a strong, steady, capable american for a deployed role and what we have done is raise questions about this nonproliferation regime which i believe is the greatest success of the united states and region going forward. if one country decides to go down this line it will set off a chain reaction that i believe will have very negative consequences for the region as a

whole. we talk a lot about sanctions. there's those that have been unsuccessful. i think there are more serious, more sustained sanctions that the united states and others can take. and what is necessary going forward is a substantial internal reload between the united states and south korea and a quite dialogue in terms of more significant pressure on the regime to make clear that the provocative actions that they have taken will not be allowed and we have to roll back north korea's capabilities to allow the maintenance of peace and

stability. >> will me follow up with you about the relationship. would secretary clinton want to reexamine the burden sharing? >> well, mark as you noel, if you look at our two alliances and particularly in northeast asia and japan and south korea, by some measures they're the most generous providers of support of any countries that we station troops in. they're always difficult. and korea less. a much smaller country and smaller footprint. i would say that the calculus by which these decisions and agreements are examined has to be looked in a more wholistic way. i believe the deploiyment of ou

forces in asia is a force multiplier for the united states. we do not do this to help protect and support our alabama li -- although that's a central role. it allows us to play a larger role and integrates us in a way that puts boots on the ground in a way that serves the interest of the united states. i think a calculus of the kind that mr. trump suggested that i do not believe is in the best strategic interest of the united states and misses the entire role of the partnership between the united states and those countries. >> do we need to adjust or take a look at it. >> what i said earlier, you go back and you take a look at the role and how that has evolved over time. in the 1960s there was probably a burden sharing agreement that

was necessary and appropriate. and that has adjusted. in 2016 and 2017 there's nothing wrong with going back and reassessing it and it will be a wholistic approach. recognizing the factors that go into it. benefits for korea and the benefits to the united states and the benefits to the region. and there's a responsibility that we play as a global leader and investments that we make for global leadership but at the same time there's responsibilities to american taxpayers to make sure that we create an environment and

structure with our allies that does not -- that is fair to our taxpayers and to our workers. i drive a car. my wife drives a car. it was made in korea, all right? so we have strong interrelated agreements on trade and national security but if american, that's why it's so important to get these relationships on burden share manage that right because if it's the reality that american workers competing on a regular basis. but if the added cost of building that car in america includes providing subsidies that go beyond our global role

and those types of things, it puts american workers at a disadvantage. just like they have a responsibility to their citizens to make sure that they provide the safe and secure environment, they also have a responsibility to their workers and their taxpayers to make sure that they have negotiated fair agreements that enable them to be competitive. and that is the same responsibility that donald trump has to american workers and to american taxpayers and when that is in balance between korea and the united states of america then we have a good agreement. and an agreement that can move forward. that's all donald trump is saying. i will assess those agreements and make sure that they're fair because i have a responsibility and america cannot be in a

position where we have slow economic growth and whether it's other places around the globe it's that we're carrying a disproporti disproportionate cost for doing that because it puts america at a disadvantage in other parts of the extremely important relationships that we have. so yeah, you would expect the leaders in asia to do exactly the same thing that we in america are asking donald trump to do. >> can i just -- i actually like very much the way the congressman has laid this out in terms of the need to constantly reevaluate. in fact, that's the purpose of government. whether executive or legislative branches. you have to in a very measured

careful way examine does this work. they both believe that any agreement has to be in the best interest of the american people. i actually listen carefully to plflt trump. i actually do not hear him saying what you're saying. i hear you talking i think in a very responsible way about needing to evaluate and be careful in the process. i hear more sweeping statements. we're going to put sanctions on and we're going to lash out and i don't hear language that suggests a process of evaluation. i hear much more that i made these decisions. i'm going to do this on day one. things that i think would be very destabilizing and i also listen carefully and i don't

hear mr. trump talking about our alli allies. it seems more negative and competitive and i wish the way you're describing the overall views were the way he's talking about it but i don't hear that approach generally. >> you and i have been in this part of the world and developed political speak. for me it's been 20 years and maybe a little bit longer on your part but we have both been involved in a significant part of our professional careers we are perhaps a little bit more sensitive to exactly how the words come out and the flip side is sometimes people give the mitt cal answer and you in the audience will be scratching your heads saying what did that

person just say? they talked for a couple of minutes and i can't really hear them -- i didn't really understand exactly what they were pointing to. donald trump speaks with these that makes people in the political class a little bit nervous but he also comes from the business world and knows well when you're negotiating a contract, a major contract, you're never in a position to go in and dictate the terms to anybody. that it's a process of negotiations and you may come in with certain expectations. someone else may come in with other expectations but donald trump very much understands as i think is the name, the art of the deal, how you get from point a to point b and the same way i

did it in the business world is getting from point a to point b is a collaborative process and negotiation process and a process that at the end of that both parties believe that they -- that it's beneficial to them and only then do they have a contract and agreement to move forward. so having done that in the business world for years and years donald trump understands that's the same type of process that you're going to go through when you're working, when you're working and trying to come to agreements and he doesn't have the 20 years of developing how to talk and code language that sometimes it comes out a little bit more coarse than what some of us in the political world might be comfortable with. >> let me finish up with a

couple of questions about north korea. how would a clinton or trump administration deal with

sanctions regime on north korea. and to take steps that send a very clear message that the testing of nuclear message, the most recent, you know, tests of ballistic missiles i believe with the congressman, this stated purposes and objectives of the leadership with the united states, you know, is one of the animating features. we have to regard that as an extraordinarily serious matter and we ask to realize that our previous experiences have not been successful with regard to inhibiting north korean decisions. i think at the center of this is a different kind of conversation with china. so i would say almost the exclusive economic and social

partner is china. china has played a remarkable role in facile tarting some kind of interactions and -- facilitating some kind of interactions and we have to go directly to china and make clear we want to work with you with some of the sanctions and the like. if you have inhibitions about working with us, we'll be prepared about taking these steps alone. and we'll be clear that the developments in north korea are such that when the -- when they were talking about our primary responsibility. our primary responsibility is the well being of the american people. what's happening in north korea are steps that not only threaten the region, but potentially could threaten the united states over time. it is incumbent on the president of the united states to form that partnership, to make that case to china and to take those

steps to make clear that the path that north korea is on is acceptable. i think that's the first step. a lot of people want to talk about the negotiating pair dime that follows. let's wait on that. let's focus now on the activation of a much more engaged purposeful sanctions regime that sends in unmistakable message to north korea. that's remember the steps they have taken are not just provocative from our perspective, but the most recent tests of missiles were launched in the g 20, which was an enormous embarrassment. we've got to make sure what's going on in north korea -- what's changed is relations between south korea and south china have improved. united states supports that process. the whole pool being that

they're aligned with the korea, the korea that's not serving their best strategic interest. i agree with the congressman. it's very challenging. it's very complex. it requires partnership and steadiness with our friends in asia, but it will be in asia pretty much job one for any new administration that comes to power in january. >> follow up a little bit. north korea said repeatedly and loudly will never give up its nuclear weapon. i think you said that there's an option that we might have to any -- negotiate. do you see us ending at that position? >> i think that's a discussion -- that's what i said, you need to outline what your objective is and once you outline with your allies what the objective is, if the objective is to rid the pepe

sla. . peninsula of nuclear weapons that leads to a new set of strategies. if you say, you know, it's a cap or containment, that is, you know, that's the process that needs to take place right now. >> personally i cannot imagine accepting a weigh station or an agreement whereby we would simply cap north korea. so i believe that the basis of the sixth party arrangement has always been a verifiable, elimination of nuclear, of capabilities in north korea. in addition, frankly, the other issue that we have to be highly attentive to is the proliferation risk that north korea provides. so we again, mark, i think we all can agree on this, we have our work cut out for us. ultimately the northeastern asian community has to be much

firmer and clearer about why it's in the best strategic interests of all the countries involved to see north korea backtrack substantially on the steps that they've taken over the last several years. >> that's a significant change of policy. because for the last, you know, the last number of years, you know, we're not talking about -- it's hard, okay. you know, you're talking about the country that's muf been moving forward steadily on this path at a quicker pace. and, you know, there's one strategy that says, man, which i'm not sure that's in place right now, how do we just stop them right where they are. it's a whole other thing that then says, wait a minute, you know, hallelujah, we've got them to a point where we've got them to stop. what steps do you put in place that says, by the way, roll back all the progress that you've made in the last number of years, i mean, you're right. whoever the next president is

has their, you know, has a very tough -- had a very tough assignment handed to them. >> i've got one final question. my last question is, some come men taters believe there can't be an issue without a summit meeting. so under what -- let me just say, what i'm frankly most focused on, mark, right now, is a different kind of summit, which i hope will be a summit between the first summit of its kind between a woman leader of south korea and the united states. frankly that will take place as soon as possible. i'm much for focused on ensuring the partnership, the strength,

the durability and the trust that's developed continues. frankly, i've had a lot of conversation with south korea, this is no time to rest. we've done a lot well together. i think both country's opinion polls have never been higher. we've worked together in so many different ways. the key is not to rest, but to set even higher goals, to continue up the summit, up the mountain and that would be our expectation going forward. i believe that securing the ramparts of that relationship, mark, is essential feature of anything as we go forward. as i said, my primary focus would be on orchestrating the surrounding states in a way that sends an unmistakable message across the board in terms of

financial sanctions, other u.n. sanctions and the like, what north korea has done is unacceptable. >> all right. >> i can't imagine any set of circumstances in the shorter intermediate future that would see the united states that would see president trump in a summit meeting with a leader of north korea. >> okay. now, we'll turn to the audience. we'll start here. >> this question is for secretary campbell. you earlier said that if there are not tensions with china, then, in some areas, then somebody isn't doing their job. and then you also said that we need to work with china to implement much tougher sanctions on north korea. but considering that rougher seas are predicted for u.s. china relations, how do we

address china's concerns about a reunified korea, you know, under sol leadership while tensions with united states continue to worsen in order to get china to take a more aggressive stand on north korea? >> there's a good question. there's much that's wrapped up in this. i would simply say in terms of relationship between the united states and china, we, the united states has been blessed with a number of different kind of relationships. but, basically, we've had two different kind of big relationships. we've had very close allied relations with strong cooperation and then we've had relations with the country like the soviet union deeply antagonistic. try china represents a new that will be difficult for us going forward. i think we need to recognize that. i think it will embody elements of necessary, inevitable, purposeful cooperation, but also

areas of tension and the most important thing in a relation like this is to be honest about those areas where we tend to disagree and where we have problems. confront them, try to address them honestly and avoid circumstances where we can have mistakes or miscalculations that spiral a lot of control. that's going to be difficult but it's going to be the necessary challenge of the 21st century. the chinese want to avoid instability in north korea. they want to avoid refugees and other things that are -- that could cause problems for their own country. i think we understand that more generally. i still believe that much short of a scenario that you have laid out, it's possible for the united states and china to set very clear parameters for what is unacceptable for north korea.

i believe there's leverage that china has not used that they need to use that is in their best strategic interests as well that falls far short of these scenarios that some describe associated with uncertainty or instability in the grand peninsu peninsula. >> if i can just add, if you go to mit, you can talk about -- it's management theory. it's a business theory that the relationships that are the healthiest relationships are those that have tension in them in that, you know, it's the kind of relationship. and i want to say in a very positive way with international relationship, the relationship where you have tension, where partners are pushing against each other and they're challenging each other to make sure that these things worth for both parties. it's a dynamic relationship. that is a great relationship to have. it says that, you know, you're being open and honest and moving

forward and you're willing to put energy in the relationship. in business world that's healthy and i think in foreign affairs it is a very healthy relation. where you don't want them to go. you don't want to go to the rubber band, there's no energy in it at all. nobody is investing in it. it's like a company that has no energy or tension, it dies. the other thing that you have to worry about that you don't manage the tension properly and you pull it too far apart and the rubber band snaps. okay. and so that's the kind of relationship that you need to have, i think, in international affairs and those are the most comfortable, that's the most comfortable, but the most effective relationships. this is how we're going to manage through a lot of these types of challenges that we face by engaging other people on a healthy debate and healthy discussion to move forward. so tension in and of itself is not negative. it can be a very positive force moving forward.

>> managing professor at georgetown. i want to be a little bit more specific. the last three years north korea has been pretty much unconstrained in its production. those are really the hard parts of a nuclear weapon. we heard just a few months ago defense intelligence agency analysts saying they probably have about 20 weapons now and they're working toward about 100 weapons in the future. in that context, have we -- are we correctly changing our posture in south korea to defend south korea? i ask that because the last ten years we've been building this new base, $5 billion of u.s. taxpayer's money, $5 billion korean taxpayer's money, concentrating all of our focus,

forces down at tech. from a layperson, it looks to me like we just created a target for north korea on nuclear armed missiles. is that the right kind of approach or do we need to radically change our defense posture and maybe be much more provocative against the nuclear arm competitor here. >> yeah. i think the -- again, this is -- this is why you've got, you know, the in asia today because of the significant progress that north korea has made in both of those areas. and that the -- our strategy, you know, the combined strategies have not evolved to take into account the new reality. and so, you know, north korea just continues moving down this path and you haven't seen a recalibration, and that will

be -- there are enough things to focus on and national security right now when mr. trump takes office on -- in january. but, you know, this will be one -- you know, pushing for that reassessment to respond to what we've seen. and that has not been a proactive initiative by the united states and our allies to address exactly those kind of questions. so, no, the specifics aren't right there. because number one, the u.s. can't dictate and we can't come up with specific steps at this point until you have the collaborative process. >> thanks, bill, for the question. i appreciate it. look, i would simply say that i believe that the deter rent capabilities and intent united states are unwaivering and have been in place for decades and i have very little doubt that they will continue going forward.

in terms of our conventional capabilities. i think as you know well there is no -- and i want to be careful as we discuss here both the chairman and i have been both briefed on this and i want to be careful. there are no set of that are subjected to more scrutiny and innovation than the particular capabilities, the joint capabilities that have been put in place on the grand peninsula. i can assure you that our capabilities involve manifest more than simply one base in south korea. we are able to articulate and active -- activate capabilities from across the pacific and in deed from other theaters in short order to support our objective and i think a number of senior leaders in the states have made clear, our goal is to avoid a conflict, which would be deadly on the -- but if that did come to pass, it would end

unmistake bli with the end of the north korean regime. and we have the capabilities to actually ensure that out come. ultimately, the key here is to ensure the terms and are steps as a partnership are strong to deter any of those actions and also to explore diplomatic options if they surface. i will say in the current environment, i see no sense that north korea is prepared to entertain the entire agreement that will be necessary to sustain peace and ability on the korean peninsula and northeast asia. and that, again, is going to require a substantial activation of surrounding nations. i believe all, privately or publicly are deeply concerned by the provocative steps that north koreans do.

>> hi. my name is tara. i'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit, you talked about donald trump's clarity and language and how that might be, you know, people in the political class might not be use to it. can you tell us about his statement, having nuclear weapons? >> the -- >> maybe you can clarify, i guess. >> the clarity there is that is an issue that will be decided once korea, south -- korea, japan and the united states identify what their objectives are going to be vis-a-vis minority korea and the strategies and the tactics that they are going to put in place to address that objective and state it very very clearly that as we go into those discussions with south korea and japan, that everything is on the table. >> can i just say, look, i

accept there's often, you know, this difference between, you know, clarity and diplomacy and i think the congressman makes a point here. but there are also things that that's not the appropriate dividing line. the real issue here is this strategically wise and i think it is undeniable that maybe in the heat of the campaign or in a circumstance where he's feeling some passion, i think mr. trump has said some things that have been deeply unnerving in asia and that if he went through them would not be in the best strategic instance of the united states. i appreciate the congress saying, look, it's a starting point and, you know, i don't want to hurt anyone's feelings and let's talk about it. but the problem is that's not what mr. trump is saying. if he began the conversations the way congressman has done i think very effectively, i think most people would agree with that. but the statements about, you

know, whether japan and south korea are allies and friends, what's going on with nuclear weapons tend to create more problems than just simply start a conversation. >> from csis. prime minister appears ready to open up a major debate in japan about gratifying, about revising japan's 1947 constitution, a constitution that the united states basically fashioned after world war ii. what we're hearing about proposed changes would include either a radical of article ix.

so-called no war, no belligerent si clause that the americans imposed in that constitution. now, if this kind of debate begins in japan, it will be c controversial. the chinese and south koreans are going to react strongly to that kind of debate. however, the article ix and for japan major options for military expansion, including a nuclear option. when this begins given mr. trump's do more, to support the united states. and also given the fact that the obama administration two years

ago quickly endorsed the nuke self defense policy, you think -- would be willing to make american views known on the article ix issue if the debate, as likely, begins to unfold in japan. >> a couple of things. japan is actually, and the prime min ser is bringing that up, reinforces what he said at the u.n. a couple of weeks ago where he said it's time to reassess and basically put everything back on the table because of the lack of success that we've had on the korean peninsula and reigning in north korea. so that is one. that's a much more dramatic

statement than donald trump saying that they should have nuclear capabilities. >> the point is, we saw that here, i think, donald trump administration would be very very restrained in expressing our views on a debate that's going on internally in china. excuse me, in japan. okay. i think you've got to be very very careful about that and you're not ever sure when you insert yourself into someone else's internal policy debate as to whether that actually helps move the ball forward in the direction that you would like it to go or whether it actually hurt. so i think we would be very very restrained. and i can't let this go, the

comments about mr. trump are not unsettling relationships with our allies because of the statements that he's made. because i think we have a very good example and if i'm taking a look at the people in asia and they're wandering about the reliability of the united states, vis-a-vis its allies. some of the things that have happened under president obama and secretary state are much more concerning than what donald trump has said. in egypt we have an ally who for 30 years, for 30 years pretty much was a full partner with the united states maintaining

stability and the relationship with israel. and when we were contemplating going into war in afghanistan and in iraq, said to the united states and i met with them and i listened to him and his intelligence, folks. and they said, you know, we're not sure that this is a good idea. and they went and outlined the reasons why they weren't sure that this was a good idea. and as we walked out the door, his staff indicated just remember that if you go to war in afghanistan, if you go to war in iraq. we may be told it wasn't a great idea. but we will support you. and tae did everything we asked them to do. and we threw it under the bus. in 2003 i was asked by a friend of mine on the house floor pete,

you go want to meet in libya. no, not really, that's not on my bucket list. and he said, no, serious. the bush administration is seeing the fruition of, you know, 30 to 35 years of consistent american foreign policy of republic cans and democrats, the same, republicans and democrats putting sanctions on the gadhafi regime and putting a tremendous amount of pressure and awe industry sizing them in the world. we're getting hints that maybe republicans and democrats for that period of time were having a successful strategy, he wants to flip sides. so we went and i met with them two more times after that. so in 2004 and 2005, we achieved a bipartisan success of a long-term, consistent american foreign policy where we flip

gadhafi. we got rid of his nuclear weapons program, he paid reparations for the families for those who had paid a tremendous price because of his terrorists acts. and then for seven, eight years he did everything that we asked him to do to fight radical g gihadist, helping us confront, contain, with the ultimate goal of defeating radical groups. 2011, this administration flipped sides. you've got a lot of people in the middle east who were wondering, i wonder how great this relationship is with the americans in it. what did it really get gadhafi. and in the end it came back to bite. and i've got to believe that there are other people around

the world wondering, too, how reliable as america as an ally. if we're going to take a shot at what mr. -- some words that mr. trump may have said that had been less than diplomatic, it's also important to take a look at what this administration has done to some of our friends who have stood by us side by side for a long time and see ultimately with we left them. >> last ten minutes, if i can ask people to keep the questions short and try to get more of them. >> yes, ma'am. and i'll go to the back, right here. >> so far, we. >> a new reality north korea has

nuclear missiles that can date united states. so the reason why the pre-emptive strikes the options of this these days. i think it may be because united states are dealing the north korean situation not as an asian policy, but as u.s. also see caribbean issues. do you think that changing is going to happen. >> i think increasingly the north korean challenge is not simply a regional challenge, as you describe. because of proliferation concerns it is a global challenge and ambitions that they've outlined with respect to the united states, it is a direct challenge to the united states. so it has to be looked at through all of those lenses and

it should animate our attention and our focus substantially in the time ahead. i believe it is not any one of those issues, but it is all of them together that unify each of the countries that surround north korea to take more activists stance. >> it's a global issue. it's very important to the next president that's going to take a look at it. it's a national security threat to us, the regional. it is the secretary outline. this is also a global issue because of proliferation issue. you know, what -- who might gain access one way or another to this capability from north korea. something -- something that we -- all of us, at least, need to be conscious of is that that

is a possibility that may occur. however, that may be an issue we confront sometimes in the future, you know, george bush, when he went into office on in january of 2001, who would have thought that his presidency would have been dominated by al qaeda and an attack that ended, that happened nine months later after he got. you know, president obama, secretary clinton face challenges that were not anticipated when they came into office and, you know, a couple of weeks ago someone asked me, and i think you can throw the north korean proliferation into here, you know, when the next president is sworn in on january 20, what is the issue that's going to develop in their administration that no one is talking about today. >> yes, sir. >> thank you. kevin lee, how are you. let me ask a question about the

pre-emptive military action, the possibility. it's kind of area sensitive but also very crucial, at this point. senator tim kaine, he said the president should take the action to defend u.s. on the imminent threat if you have to. and yesterday wendy sherman senate korea said that the every single tools should be used to north korea and these words are being understanding korea that the campaign. the using of pre-emptive military action is not unconceivable. i want to ask them, what is exact -- the opinion of the secretary clinton on this issue and also to the chairman, the last -- during the first debate, mr. trump said nothing can be taken off the table to deal with

north korea and, can i ask that that also included this kind of pre-emptive military action towards north korea, thank you. >> i can give you a straightforward action. north korea is an urgent matter that requires focused american attention, working closely with allies and partners, number one. and number two, as secretary sherman, vice president elect kaine, others have indicated, we're not going to take any options off the table at this time. >> i think mr. trump has been very very clear about, you know, when it comes to threats to our national security, whether it's throughout the middle east or whether it's in korea or whether

it's the continuing involving threat from russia that, you know, hell eel do two things, he won't take options off the table and he won't really send a lot of clear signals to people about at least short and median turn objectives as to what we may be doing. obviously, you've got a established parameters in terms of where your foreign policy is operating from and what's acceptable and what's not, but, you know, i think the statement that at least as we enter into the next set of negotiations with our friends and the region as to where we're going to go, you know, all the options, at least, initially, are going to be on the table.

>> will donald trump ask south korea and japan to increase their defense budget? and to mr. campbell, what specific role will the administration ask of japan in the region? >> i think what mr. trump has made clear both to, you know, those folks who work with us and have the military relations that they will be expected, after a comprehensive review, to pay their fair share, that the united states taxpayers and american workers can't be expected to pick up a disproportion gnat share of what global security require, far willing to pick up our fair share and recognize that, you know, some of that comes with additional costs of being a global leader and those types of things, but we can't -- we are not in a position to subsidize and pay for other people's

national defense needs. so, yeah, we, again, it's the healthy relationship of a, you know, there's the tension in the relationship. if it's saying, yeah, don't worry about it, we'll pay for it. i'm sorry, that's not a healthy relationship. if national security and the priorities for korea or our friends in other places in the world, the threats that they face, if they're not willing to pay for it or they just go into it and say we don't have to worry about it, the united states is going to pay for it, that is not a healthy relationship. healthy relationship is where we pick up our fair share with our goals and objectives as to what we want to accomplish globally and for our national security and that these countries will pick up their responsibilities, that is a healthy relationship because we're both getting what we're willing to pay for and what we are willing to invest for. if we're -- if the criteria of the agreement is don't worry about it we will pay for it, that is not a healthy

arrangement. >> so, thank you. i would say that, you know, the relationship between the united states and japan is going to take on added and increased significance in each of the specific region going forward. and not just in each globally. one one that has supported our activities in the middle east, appropriately in terms of civil society is japan. we work with them on a global basis. i expect that to continue. we had a very good question about debates going forward in japan around national security. i agree with the congressman that we have to tread very carefully with the democracy about how you communicate matters associated with critical issues around national security. i will say these issues are controversial in japan. they are controversial in the region. prime minister and his team have

committed to strong consultations, active engagement with the public about the way forward. i think that is appropriate and we would support that more generally. in terms of specific things, perhaps the most important thing that the united states will want to work with japan on is to ensure that the japan's economy continues its forward progression and success, forms, the so-called third arrow. i would like to see japan relationship with china continue to improve and i think we can all be ambitious about the prospects and possibilities of even tighter, closer coordination between the united states, japan and south korea. these are things that i think are appropriate. it has been the case for de decades. there is no relationship more important, more important relationship barnone.

i will say it's more than in any period during the cold war and that's something that, i think, is deeply recognized by the both the japanese american people like south kroo ya, attitudes of japan about the united states and the united states about japan have never been more poz tiff. we need to capitalize that. deepen our people to people exchanges, our understanding of our role and recognize that japan will not only work with us in partnership as they have done for decades, increasingly they will also demonstrate areas of an independent foreign policy. as a nation, we have confidence in japan, with prime minister has done in india, southeast asia, in africa, recent trip to cuba. these are things that we support and we encourage. i expect the japan relationship will continue. >> we have time for one more

question. >> here comes the microphone. >> how critical is the deployment to u.s. interests -- to u.s. interests, is it that important. >> i think it's important to south korea. my own personal view is that this is a decision primarily for south korea and i think south korea is taken the decision. we're facing a deeply provocative missile capabilities that threaten south korea. this is an appropriate step, the step that united states supports and we're prepared to follow through on. >> i think that's accurate. i think the other thing that you need to realize is that -- as we're talking about some of the challenges throughout asia and, you know, much of the discussion appropriately today has been focused on the korea peninsula.

if you take a larger look, you also have to take a look at, you know, there's going to be another pressure that is starting to rear its ugly head and that is the pressure from the radical radical gihadist th. people were dying as a resultover the radical ghiadist. in 2015 that number is approaching 30,000 people per year. that threat was limited and focused primarily in the middle east, today it's the middle east, it's northern africa, but it's spreading down into other parts of africa. but it's also spreading into asia and these types of things. so this is another -- it's going to make the situation more complicated. again, it may be one of those issues that, you know, in 2018

and 2019 people are going to be talking about, well, you know, this threat of radical islam and parts of asia may get to be more significant than what it is today and so, you know, this is not just, you know, the issues here in this part of the world are growing more complex and more deadly each and every year and it's, again, not because of it's coming out of the middle east, but it's coming -- excuse me, not that it's coming out of asia, but it's coming because of its actions in other parts of the world and you can't view what's going on in asia in isolation. you have to take a look at what's going on in other parts of the world, as well. >> okay. i think we'll end on time. i wish we could all have this thoughtful political dialogue this year. very illuminating and struck tif. i'm going to ask you to stay in place for a minute. before i let them gorks i would like to ask you join me and

thank them in a traditional way. [ applause ] . >> here is an article from the -- the headline "independent candidate evan mcmullin in statistical tie with clinton and trump in utah." the statewide poll released by the news found that trump and clinton are tied at 26% and mcmullin, who has been campaigning for only 2 months, garnered 22%. libertarian gary johnson also received double digit support with 14%. the clinton and trump campaigns released web videos wednesday. here is a look.

>> we're going to go on -- >> mr. trump, we're going to move on. >> oh, please go -- >> allow her to respond, please. >> what do you think if aleppo falls? >> what do you think it will happen if it falls? >> how stupid is our country. >> there are sometimes reasons the military does that,warfare.

>> i think the subpoena from the united states -- we have to move on. >> we wanted to give the audience a chance, here. >> let alone, after getting a subpoena from the united states. >> secretary clinton, you can respond. we have to move on to audience question. >> mr. trump, mr. trump, i want -- >> i'll -- i just one thing. >> first of all, hillary, everything is broken about it. >> please allow her to respond. >> no it hasn't. and it hasn't been finished at all. >> kim has a question. >> nice, one on three.

>> white house homeland security and counter terrorism assistant lisa monaco was part of cyber security summit. a number of panel issues, cyber warfa warfare, and infrastructure security. this event was hosted by the washington post. >> good morning, i realize people are still coming in. please don't be shy. there are still seats. thank you all for being here today. i am the vice president of communications and events here at the washington post. thank you to those of you who

are watching us online. this is our sixth annual cyber security summit and it couldn't come at a more interesting time this summer, the democratic national committee was hacked, likely by a foreign government, just last week. yahoo announced a breach effecting hundreds of millions of people, just yesterday and nsa contractor was arrested for stealing the agency's codes. so the question is, what's next? this morning you'll hear from government officials, security experts, industry leaders talking about sort of the top cyber security issues facing us today and we want to hear from you, including those of you watching us online, so please tweet your questions to hashtag wp cyber, we'll be taking those questions throughout the program. so right now i would like to quickly introduce john davis, he's the vice president and chief security officer of palo alto networks. today's presenting sponsor of the program, he's going to say a

few words. thanks [ applause ] >> good morning, everyone. it's an honor to be a sponsor for this event today. i'm really excited about the agenda and really looking forward to hearing all the distinguished speakers. i joined palo alto networks about a year ago after a 35-year career in the u.s. military. most of that career was in special ops doing some really cool things, but the last ten years was in cyber operations, cyber strategy, and cyber policy. and i can tell you that the u.s. military really takes cyber seriously. became a mission for us. and i say that because at palo alto networks, just like in the u.s. military, we have a mission, protecting our way of life in the digital age. very important to us. very important because the digital environment is the under pending for everything that we do as a society, as an economy, even in national security.

i'd like to quote another general, famous -- much more famous than me, i'll paraphrase, he said, basically, know your enemy and know yourself and in a hundred battles you'll never lose, or something to that effect. what do we know about the enemy. the modern cyber threat, well, we know that it's a professional marketplace of information sharing, these days. and we know that the decreasing cost of computing power and the use of automation and cloud kablt capabilities by the threat means an ever increasing number of cyber attacks that are coming at us. and with the explosion of poll moore if i can malicious codes we know these attacks can happen at the thousands and millions in terms of every day, every hour, and sometimes even every minute. there is some good news about the threat.

i can tell you from being on the inside, there are certain number of limited techniques that every cyber actor and every cyber organization uses, buffer over flow and heap spray are types of techniques. there are about two dozen of those. and every cyber threat and organizati

organization. >> while the defender uses a series of isolated point products that simply add complexity to the environment and we use technology to -- the defense uses technology that's mostly oriented from a legacy view on detection and response, instead of prevention. the adversary uses a marketplace of information sharing, very effectively. we have trouble with cyber threat information sharing from the defense side. what is a good model of ourselves look like, i think that there's no silver bullets, has to be comprehensive, has to include people, processes and technology. i think one of the keys on the people side is education and training, that's for the work force that deals with i.t. and o.t. as well as the general population and let's not forget leadership. today is about that, it's about education. on the processes side, i think

one of the most important processes we need to improve is information share. we need to do it at scale and at speed and that means automation and standardization. and, finally, in technology, we need to move from a legacy view of always standing at the crime scene by detecting and responding after the fact, to a prevention first mindset. and we need to be able to leverage automation in ways that the threat is using today in order to keep up with and even exceed a threat and we need to get out of a manual response that's largely based on having to hire more and more people to deal with this and move to an automated capability that let's us save our people for only what people can do. those, to me, are the keys to success and moving to a successful view of ourselves at cyber security specialist. i really look forward to today and the conversations that are coming up.

i hope that you enjoy today and, once again, it's an honor for me to be here and sponsor this event. thank you, and i'll turn it over to chris. >> thank you. thank you so much, john. and thank you, again, to palo alto networks and to our supporting sponsor. i know there are still people coming in. there are still chairs, don't worry, we'll get a seat for everybody. don't be shy. i will like to introduce robert o'hare, he's going to lead our first discussion today, thank you. >> i'm a reporter at the post. for years on and off i've

written about technology about cyber security. interestingly enough, the issue of cyber security was very very urgent in the early 2000s and it's only become more and more important, literally, i would say by the week we've all heard about massive attacks and varied attacks that have exposed people's information, led to theft, created national security v vuner abilities and left us all a little more easy. today we have people that are on the front lines that are trying to fight that on behalf of their clients and by extension on behalf of all of us to make the cyber world a little safer for all of the social engagement that we have, all of the business that we rely on and, once again, for national security. patri patrick hien is the head of the

trust. he's responsible for securing the compliance for securing the company and drop box service. he's the chief executive and founder, consulting company here in a consulting company here in the dc area that works with industry and government on cybersecurity issues and policies. she's a veteran of the telecommunications industry, which is fundamental to cyberspace. brian reed is the chief marketing and product officer at zerofox, which provides cybersecurity services for social media channels. we'll start with a little bit of the news. we can almost cherry pick the more interesting and unsettling bits of news. it was announced this week that yahoo! scanned the e-mail of users at the request of the nsa. the company said they were abiding by the law. what are the margins here, to what extent should companies comply with the law, even if they have philosophical and internal ethical differences with those requests? why don't you start off.

>> wow. i'm not going to comment specifically on the yahoo! case, i don't have enough details to have an opinion, whether they're right or wrong. on the philosophical issues, i think companies do have a responsibility to abide by the law. but they also have a responsibility to the trustworthiness of their service, providing a service to their customers. to the extent that they are compelled to do something like that, i would say that has to be balanced with a certain degree of transparency to their users as well. >> in this case it was a request from the nsa. if there's a subpoena, that's a legal obligation. how do you mollify customers and protect this vague notion called price of? >> it's a balance. as the former executive in a large company, the first step is

to figure out the legal obligation. the next step is, you obviously want to do right by your customers. sometimes it helps the customer if you don't notify right away. if you take the time to look at the intruder in your network, watch them sometimes to figure out is it really a material, big issue or not, before you notify them. so there's a little bit of a judgment call. the first thing is figure out what law applies. in terms of breach notification, there are different laws in most every state. with 15 plus bills in congress over this session talking about how that should be structured, should it be harmonized across the states or not so companies know what to do, that's a question congress is still debating. >> brian, do corporations have any civic role in pushing back on government requests for data as part of an effort to either embrace or encourage the change or reform in the type of laws that give the government access to information? >> certainly this is a situation

where you could leverage sort of the classic public/private strategies that have occurred in the past, in terms of business should be working with the government to try to establish a set of standards that meet everyone's needs for trust and privacy, right? so i don't think we want a world where the government automatically creates new rules nor do we want a world where business gets to do totally whatever they want with your data. so having established privacy and norms. in the financial industry there's a set of established industry norms, rules, and regulations about how the banks operate, how they deal with privacy, how they deal with your financial information and so on and so forth, how can we get those kinds of relationships developed between individuals, business, and the government to get to a level of understanding and cooperation. >> let's stick with the news here for a moment. and we all know that there are a whole variety of cyberattacks that can occur. there are the vaunted zero data attacks where they use -- the bad guys use heretofore unphone

vulnerabilities in code. there are social engineering attacks which we'll come back to in a little bit. we all i believe agree that the social engineering attacks, which is about as simple as you can get, poses an enduring and profound threat to our security systems. but i want to talk about a threat that doesn't get a lot of attention because it's often not considered a hack, which is the insider threat. we know that t-- the insider hack, i should say. we know that the nsa, it was reported this week, arrested another contractor who either took or was trying to take some really powerful code that the government was using to hack into systems abroad. i would like to hear your thoughts, maybe you can start this time, about the nature and gravity of the insider hack and how corporations and other institutions can prevent it.

>> well, i think from the perspective that i have at zerofox, looking at the insider threat is really how does social become a source of data leakage, right? you have the inadvertent leakage, someone will share confidential information. we've had this happen to our customers, someone stands in front of a whiteboard, takes an instagram picture, snapchat, on the whiteboard is confidential information, and it's on the internet. there's an interesting situation to deal with, to what degree should the company be monitoring their activity and looking at perhaps who they're associating with on an external basis. am i communicating with, you know, certain known bad actors in the social realm, for example, and should the company be allowed to monitor that, and should the person be held responsible for that or not. >> i would argue that companies in fact have total right to monitor their own networks and the behavior of their employees, because they're the ones that

are responsible and in charge. so let's think about that for a moment. companies are allowed to do that. let's accept that for a moment, for the sake of discussion. when does that kind of surveillance inside a company, now let's extend it more broadly, the government has a right to go to yahoo! and look at e-mails, i don't think anybody here would disagree that that kind of surveillance can improve cybersecurity. but when does it become onerous and how do we strike a balance between security and the emotional wellbeing of the rest of us who don't want to be spied on all the time? >> i think that's a line everybody is trying to figure out right now. everybody who looks at insider threat realizes there's a lot of data from which to draw, data that isn't necessarily offensive on its face. the company has information on when you show up, when you leave, when you log on to your computer, the sites you go to

generally, your routine when you get to the office. hr might be aware that you have issues at home or are bullying an employee. if you took all those factors together and look at them holistically, you can paint a pretty good picture of when somebody is going to do something. >> that's very interesting, it sounds like something you would read in john le carre. >> what i think people fall down on is putting all that together. >> do we have a choice to not to take those steps? the human elements here in cybersecurity is pretty important, isn't it? >> it is very important. but i don't think we've struck the balance yet between the capabilities of technology, the what can we do, and the policy behind it. i believe right now the capabilities may actually exceed the policy discussion. and the assumption that was made around an employer's ultimate right to monitor, that's not necessarily something that's held to be true in europe and other countries that have different legal frameworks around privacy.

>> that's a good point. we talked a little earlier about social engineering. i know you've given a lot of thought so social engineering. would you describe the difference between social engineering and a zero day, and which is prevailing now as the attack vector of choice? >> at dropbox we have a half billion users around the world and we see a lot of the attacks that happen. the vast majority are very unfistu unsophisticated. this doesn't very, very sophisticated attack tools. it involves organization and individuals working on these. the sophistication of the threat factor is high but the threat level is relevant low. >> quickly, what is password reuse? >> sure. i would say that's currently the number one risk that consumers

face. there is a tendency to use the same password across many different sites. what happens is it's the weakest link. if one of those websites is compromised and those passwords are stolen, they're automatically tested against many other sites to see what can the bad guy get into now. there is sophistication on the testing tools. >> so you're saying if i use tr trekkie or live long and prosper everywhere, it's not a good idea? >> not at all. we've been advocating for two factor authorization for a long time. the white house has an initiative to drive higher enrollment. >> give me an example of that. i'm sorry to interrupt. some of us are lagging behind the current jargon. it's very important stuff, right? >> so two factor authentication very simply is on top of your password there is something else that they need to get into your account. it could be responding toen asms

message. it could be an app on your code with a token code that changes every minute. or it could be a hardware device that you have to activate. and those options are made available on many sites. but they're not -- they don't have a high degree of visibility. they're not always turned on by users. at dropbox for example we offer three different methods. we see approximately 1% of our users opting in to turn those on, which is a challenge. >> what about social engineering? how important is that to your business? >> social engineering is very interesting. our mission is to protect and safeguard our customers on these social networks, facebook, twitter, instagram, linkedin, a corporate social network as it were, and other networks. when we look at what's happened with social engineering, our research team spent a couple of months in black hat and showed how many offensive tools can be built in social engineering. snapper can profile the user.

it basically learns from your tweet stream, engages with you and gets you to click on malicious links. >> let's pause there. what's a mal-i gueicious link? >> a link to download malware, a link to download credentials like a fake credit card site where they gather your information. >> when i'm cruising through twitter and clicking on things, i could be exposing myself to a virus? >> exactly. i bet you've learned that you shouldn't click on links in e-mail from people you don't know. people on social think it's safe and click on the links. the human condition of socialization that maybe i shouldn't click on bad links in e-mail hasn't carried over to the social media world. the bad guys know that.

what we've learned is social media attacks are typically six times more effective than e-mail-borne attacks at getting information. >> first of all, as the lawyer, i want to make sure there's the expectation of privacy at the outset. as an employee, what are your expectations? make it clear that every device they use, byod poses an interesting angle, what is the expectation for privacy. i say lock that down at the beginning so there's no question. and then employ the tools that are there, tools like his where you can find out on social media what they're doing, the sandboxes, that fireeye or someone might use. two factor authentication is key, educating employees about that. i agree, the white house has been fantastic about that. there's a great site out there

called twofactorauth.org, that can tell you what services are using two factor authentication, and employees if you're in the corporate teccontext. >> it sounds like there's a theme that's emerging here, that to stay ahead of the threat, it's not just a technical response, it's education, it's all of us in the air, learning how to behave properly with good digital hygiene. that sounds so boring compared to the sophisticated cyberworld. how important is this stuff and what about the technical solutions? >> it's incredibly important. and the challenge has been that billions of individuals that are online across the planet right now, and the education that i've seen reasonably effective is in corporations. but when you look across the broad consumer base, getting individuals to change behavior has been very, very difficult.

i'm not quite sure whether that's the long term answer. so i think much more research has to be done, especially on the part of large technology companies. and how can we help them, how can we compensate for some of these weaknesses? as an example, right now we build sophisticated systems that detect fraudulent log-in activity. even when somebody comes in with a stolen password, 85% of the time we have enough signal there to identify that it's actually a bad guy and we can block that very accurately. that's an example. i think large tech companies have the power to do that kind of work, to protect the users when they have not done their part in protecting themselves. >> terrific. any thoughts on the education? >> what we're finding when it comes to the corporate enterprise and the agency side of the house is that education is just as important as the technology behind it.

simple socialization strategies where most of you in the organizations are probably already promoting good hygiene on e-mail and good hygiene on web. simply amend that with good hygiene on social, where you can say, just like you don't click on bad links, don't click on them in social. use two factor authentication on everything, including your personal social networks, not just your company or agency technology. >> let's go away from the grassroots of the users and the behavior up to the top of corporations for a moment. it's been my impression, going back a long way, that corporations will sometimes make short term decisions very profitable, that create massive, even hellish cyber situation,

companies issuing instant credit cards at retail outlets that help spur blossoming of identity issues. when should corporations be held accountable for cyberthreats, that because the world is so interconnected, create threats for the rest of us, and how do we address that? >> they should be held accountable if they haven't taken the right precautions. that could mean any number of things for many kinds of companies. if they're not looking at cybersecurity at the board level as a risk issue, that's where they should be held at fault. >> so you're advocating deeper government regulation of companies that use technology? >> no, i'm not doing that at all. i think the securities and exchange commission took one of the most influential steps when it published guidelines reminding companies that they

had to include cybersecurity breaches and issues in their materiality statements for disclosure. >> what about private companies? >> that's a trickier question because you don't have the sec guiding them. >> and you also don't have insight into their activities because by law they don't have to tell us what tear doinhey're. >> what is the risk? is it the consumer, you're losing their business because you're not protecting their data? what is the risk and react accordingly. >> not to be good morning and doom here, but i visualize a giant map. it's all the companies in the world. it's all the users in the world. and based on what you just described, there are huge black holes that lack information in this giant interconnected world. and those giant black holes represent unknown security threats because of the behavior and the corporate use. how do we, when we all of us around the world rely profoundly on cyberspace for everything

from -- and this is not trivial, our social interactions, and our national security, and our power grids and our credit grids, how do we fill in those black holes? >> the question is how black are those holes. and i think in the consumer space versus the enterprise space, there are some differences. but obviously when a company is selling to other companies, they generally go through a variety of certifications around their security and their processes. they do testing. as a consumer, i would say one of the interesting indicators i see that is a gate tereat test maturity of the company you want to do business with is, do they submit themselves to open hacking? do they compensate hackers? there are businesses where if you find a vulnerability in their product, they'll pay the hacker, which is amazing, it gets hackers organized in a positive direction to make money and solve issues.

it's a great indicator that the organization that puts that out there feels comfortable, they want to learn more. they have a culture that is trying to identify new holes in the system to protect themselves and their users. >> any thoughts on the black holes? >> yeah, i think what's interesting is in all my years of technology, we will invent something new every five to ten years and create a new set of potential black holes, right, in the waves of innovation, right? the social media of today, we couldn't have fathomed 15 years ago. i think it continues to be this notion of mixed public/private, right? and trying to coordinate across those organizations. i do think most businesses mean well, the agencies mean well as well. so finding more ways to partner, finding more ways to work together to make sure that we're covering things. you know, if you look at my bad guy database, your bad guy database, and every vendor's bad guy database, how come we don't have one bad guy database? there are interesting places where federal agencies are now trying to encourage sharing

across organizations, encourage sharing of that information, encourage sharing of ttp, tactics that the bad guys are using in the adversarial space. >> it's a fascinating world unto itself. i'm sure the panel later is going to be getting into the policy of information sharing between government and private, because that's a profound long term piece of the answer. we have some questions from twitter here. one of them is very interesting. can you offer advice to bring along slow adopters who are still interested in protecting their turf? maybe each of you can take a crack at that, if you want to start, kristen. >> sure. the white house issued a few executive orders, they created the nist cybersecurity framework a few years ago that provides a laundry list of standards, and a framework for assessment. so companies of all sizes can go to this framework and it will help them assess what is my

level of risk and what should i do in response to that. it is voluntary. it's also self policing so nobody has to do it, to your point about black holes. but it definitely helps raise awareness of what standards and processes are available and what might be appropriate for the level of business you have. >> my advice would be focus on the problem we articulated earlier, which is around your own passwords as a consumer. use unique passwords. use a password management tool, a data save of some kind, like 1password, there are lots of them out there, that make it easy to have different passwords, and turn on two factor authentication. >> we were talking about things that people put in e-mails. what does that have to do with superb security? that seems so banal. should people be careful of what they put out on themselves on social and in e-mails? >> sure. one of the rules is don't do something you don't want on the

front page of "the washington post." that is the reality. i talked earlier about the instagram inadvertent posting. it happens a lot more than you would think. inadvertent sharing. people don't tend to think about it. you're on a trip, posting like crazy in hawaii. someone surveilling your property knows you're in hawaii and now is a good time to rob your house. you may be in a social world where you want your friends to know how much fun you're having in that part of the world, but you have to think about the prudence of sharing that information. there's an interesting human condition now where we have this sharing economy, this sharing communities now, especially around social networks. and you need to make some conscious decisions for yourself, for your family, for your children, on what is the appropriate level of sharing of that information, and who do i want to be able to see that? not only do i have two factor on, but do i also use the privacy policies to restrict my social posts so only my friends can see me, not the rest of the world? >> what a fascinating audience -- excuse me, a

fascinating panel with interesting ideas. thank you much for joining us. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> hi, everyone. welcome to "the post." happy to have everyone here this morning. i'm elise viebeck. i'm a national enterprise reporter and former cyber reporter, although fan of all things cyberstill, and happy to be on stage with this panel to

talk about political leaks and hacks, the vulnerabilities of dc institutions to our cyberadversaries, something that a lot of people here in town are thinking about. i also want to say hi to our viewers at home. i hope that folks in silicon valley are fully caffeinated because it's a little bit early. michael sussman is a member of the dnc's privacy, security, and cyberboard, lots going on a there. brett dewitt is staff director of the cybersecurity infrastructure protection and security technologies subcommittee for the u.s. house homeland security committee. then thomas hicks, commissioner of the election assistance commission. and finally, rich barger, chief information officer and co-founder of threatconnect which many people in the audience will be familiar with. i actually want to start with rich and talk a little bit about the motives of our

cyberadversaries online. obviously we know russia and china are constantly probing if not gaining access to institutions around dc. and it's not really an overstatement to say that they're interested in the intelligence value of the information that they find. could you talk a little bit about that? >> right. with regard to the intelligence value, i mean, it really depends on what motive, what operation, what effect they're trying to deliver. you might look at some of the traditional chinese espionage we've seen that has gone after a variety of, you know, companies, businesses, as well as organizations such as opm, that they could use or leverage that information for a variety of purposes, to bolster an economy, get to market quicker with a certain technology, or perhaps buttress counterintelligence activities, if they wanted to

look at various targets or recruitments or operators within their borders. with regard to what we've seen recently with some of the russian attacks, you know, we're still kind of looking at this activity and trying to kind of tease out what their motives might be. it certainly looks that they're being very aggressive in terms of trying to shape a narrative around just hanging a question mark over our system. and in the case of the wada hacks, american exceptionalism, the fact of whether or not our medals really belong to our athletes or not. there could be a variety of different motives in what these types of groups are trying to do in trying to affect for their own national objectives. some of the things we've been kicking around in the office is just for every story that runs

and every conversation in and around the elections, what is the thing we're not talking about? we're not talking about syria. we're not talking about what's going on in the ukraine. and so there is some broader issues, what russia is doing and the rest of the world, where we are still hyperfocused on ourselves here, in particular the effect we're seeing that might serve as a convenient distraction to keep us locked up at a very interesting time and in a very polarized event. and so -- >> i would follow up on that by asking, do you think that there is special attention being paid to the democratic party given hillary clinton's run for president, do you think that it's possible that adversaries are as tuned in as we think they might be to the goings-on of our election, that they're interested in one party and the outcome that way? >> you know, i think that ultimately what's at hand is

that they're seeking leverage, and that i would not necessarily seek that leverage in one party alone. i would buy insurance. i would make sure i covered my bases, depending on however this falls. and so i would be very surprised if this wouldn't affect both parties and, you know, perhaps might be the new normal. we've seen campaigns targeted going back as far as 2008. the president indicated his campaign had been targeted. so might we want to consider this in the next election cycle, and just really start to kind of focus that this is maybe a new way of life. >> michael, i would ask you a similar question. do you think that our cyberadversaries are politically astute in that way? do you think that they paid special attention to the dnc

because of the potential to see a clinton presidency? >> well, they're certainly politically astute. we really don't know what they're doing. i think that we're in the middle of a book. someone is going to write a book about these events now and we're in the middle of them, we don't know how they're going to play out, and we really don't know what -- it's big political theater, to figure out who is trying to do what and why are they trying to do it. we know they're astute because we know it's russian state sponsored and we know the groups doing it are very sophisticated. in fact this is their day job. when we're looking at activity, we saw the most activity begin to come from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. moscow time. there were people, when we talked to the victims in the political parties, we would say that unlike a company where a state actor would say, let's find a company we can get into, this one the doors are locked really tight, we'll move on to someone else. for these organizations, it's someone's day job to get into this organization.

and they're not going to go away. they're going to be persistent. they're very sophisticated in what we are doing. but it's really a guessing game now why they're doing what they're doing. >> do you think we could see more e-mails and documents out of the dnc hack? do you think it's possible? >> sure. i wouldn't just call at it dnc hack. this is a broad campaign to hack party and campaign systems, personal e-mail accounts of people, and collect it all. there certainly is more out there. we don't know what we'll see. an interesting thing is that when we see documents, we don't know whose they are very often. so initially, when the gucifer documents were posted, with whatever organization i was working with, they would say is this yours, is that yours. it's not clear. a document may have been created by one group, circulated to other groups. some of the documents have been altered, some haven't been, some

have malware. the campaigns are really busy trying to elect candidates. it's become a side job to deal with this but it isn't a full job, and there isn't a full-time effort to figure out if something is authentic or isn't it, they're trying to move on with the business of the campaigns and the parties. >> brett, your boss, michael mccaul, said the rnc was hacked and then walked that back. i'm wondering whether you're aware of specific gop operatives who have been either probed or hacked, and whether your boss was really telling us the true story at the first point. >> i would say this. the point that chairman mccall was trying to make when he was on cnn, the point that both political parties have been hacked, trying to make the point that this is bigger than that and you have to look at the motives behind what these hacker groups are doing, looking at the

psychological warfare, trying to undermine the integrity of the entire system, looking at harvesting americans' personally identifiable information, looking at voter registries. those are the motives we've been briefed on. the both he was trying to make is both parties are being hacked, this wneeds to be a bipartisan issue and there needs to be strong consequences when those actions take place, whatever the actor is. and so that's the point my boss was trying to make. >> do you think republicans are equally vulnerable? >> absolutely. i mean, if there's anything, like i said, there have been reportings that republican political operatives have also been hacked with their e-mails and campaign-related issues. so both parties have been. i think looking at the political organizations, i think we all need to be vigilant that this is

real, this is the way of the future. we need to be vigilant. it's almost as a warning that all political parties and all state, local -- local, state, and federal, need to be aware that this is the new world that we have to live in, and we need to be prepared for that. and we need to be looking towards november 8th. there's a lot that we need to do to ensure that we're prepared for that. so it's about being vigilant, everyone should be aware. >> thomas, let's go to you. for our younger viewers in particular, the question of online voting always pops up about this time in the election cycle. and many of the people watching will understand why that's a bad idea. i'm hoping you can kind of walk us through what you think of that idea. >> thank you for having me here today. one of the things that i know that a lot of folks probably don't know about the election assistance commission, it's a small federal agency that deals with the administration of elections. it was formed after 2000.

in terms of internet voting, there is a small portion of folks who are allowed to use the internet to vote. and those are military and overseas voters. most of them have to be in harm's way. but it's a very small segment of the population. in terms of expanding that out, it has to be more of a discussion that we need to get into, when we have things about these incidents that have been occurring in the last year or so. we need to look at best practices and see how we can expand that out. what our agency is doing now, we're working on our voluntary system voting guidelines which haven't been updated since 2007. so 2007 was basically when the iphone came out. so technology has changed. and so our processes have changed as well. and so at that point we should be looking at ways to make it more convenient and more efficient for people to use their technologies to vote. but also make sure that those votes are secure and counted accurately as well. >> absolutely. internet voting is just one piece of the puzzle as people

talk about this. obviously electronic voting machines, if they have an access to the internet, can be vulnerable on their own. i'm wondering if that's something you guys are thinking about headed into next month. >> yes, we think about all of that. we've been thinking about that for years on end. it's not something that's going to change overnight. i'm hoping this conversation doesn't end on november 9th, that we continue it on in january and february on. and so that we can look towards the 2018 election and 2020 election to make it more convenient, make it more secure. our elections right now are the most secure they've ever been. but we can do better. we must. >> rich, about this election issue, i'm wondering if looking toward november 8th there's anything on your mind in particular when it comes to threats. >> with regard to threats, you know, i never cease to be amazed. you know, i kind of -- i'm never surprised when i start to i have see these sorts of things.

you know, you just think, you know, we just continue to think creatively around how might, you know, the adversary continue to meet their objective. short of a crystal ball, it's very hard to say what we might see. but there's certainly precedent for the leaks. i think leaking of some of the audio communications that we saw, you know, recently might, you know, be indicative of some things that closely matches some activity that we saw occur in the ukraine during their election. really we just have to kind of look at a precedent. what did we see in and around some of the ukrainian elections? might they be playing and operating from a similar playbook? i can't say for sure. but maybe that's a good rubric to look at and think creatively as to what we might expect to see. >> michael, when you think about

the threats facing dc institutions in particular, everything from party committees to campaigns, transition operations, think tanks, everyone is being probed all the time. what would you suggest that people who haven't been ahead of the curve on this begin to do now? how would you kind of introduce them to this problem? >> well, i think they've been introduced by reading the papers and seeing what's going on. and the big change is this broad doxing. the idea that people looking at your things and learning but, this intelligence collection, is one kind of threat. but now people are seeing their personal e-mails and communications and papers are being posted to embarrass them. and i don't think anybody here would like or be proud of everything in their e-mail in-box posted on the internet. it's a threat for companies, it's threat for people. the education is in investing for it. i think for the political parties and campaigns now,

republican or democratic, there are really two time periods. there's the next month before the election in terms of cyberpreparedness, readiness, response, and then really important work after the election in thinking about what to do. because all these political organizations want to put all of their resources into winning races and promoting candidates and building their party. traditionally this hasn't been like in a corporate analog where our annual budget has a line item for $4 million for cyber. it just hasn't been the case. it needs to be the case now. there's thinking about financing, how we're going to find the money to spend on this on a dedicated basis, and then thinking about longer term plans, that it's not just about keeping the boat afloat now, but to continue the metaphor, building a stronger ship. and the one point that i wanted to make or maybe a question i wanted to ask about the safety of the elections is, my understanding is that one of

the -- is that the elections system, the voting system on election day is reasonably safe from cyberattack, because the 8,000 or so districts that we have are not interconnected. they all run different systems. some are purely paper. some are not, they're backed up. my understanding is there isn't a -- maybe one of the other panelists want to comment, there isn't a voting virus or voting malware that's going to go out or an attack on the nation's voting system. we're very safe that way because of the diversification and heterogeneous nature of all of the districts, none of whom are connected to the other. >> one of the things i would say is our system is decentralized. so with a decentralized system, you would need an army of folks to basically try to get into the systems. the eac certifies voting equipment. 47 out of 50 states use our certification program in one way or another. so every system that we certify,

none of them are connected to the internet. so there will not be any sort of internet hack into our incidents on voting machines themselves. >> michael, just one other question. when it comes to individual looking at their own cyberhygiene and e-mail practices, is there anything that you have i seen people as we all go about our days and say things in e-mails that we might not want to be hacked, do you think there's a culture change sort of going on as we approach this technology? >> there's a culture change. and therefore a couple of simple things everyone should do, everyone in this room, everyone listening, and that's turn on two factor authentication in your e-mail and social media accounts. that means you need two ways to log in. when i use my personal e-mail, i put in my e-mail address and password and i get a text message with a code and i'm prompted to put in the code. two factor makes a huge difference. the bad people use your social media and your personal accounts

and all sorts of information to create spear fishing attacks. these are really targeted e-mails that look authentic to try and get you to click on a link or open an attachment. these attacks are so sophisticated, but most of them start with a really simple piece of human engineering which is to get you to click on something. so think more about your privacy in the social setting. and facebook has a one-click solution that in your privacy settings, there's one thing you can click to make all your future posts and everything you've done in the past friends only. you know what it's like when you're going to meet someone, you look someone up, you say, what's this person about. some people on facebook, it's like, oh, there's this person in the bathing suit, drinking a beer, with their kids. and people don't have that awareness. you can take care of that with a click. and then lastly, there are peer to peer encrypted appearance like facetime audio and signal and other apps that allow you to

have fairly guaranteed private communications. so those are three quick tips. >> i would ask the same thing to you, brett. the culture on the hill, is there attentiveness to the idea that you're being probed all the time? do you have two factor authentication as part of your system there? >> you look at the house of representatives and the systems we have, i mean, like any other organization, there needs to be training. it's a whole -- to your point, it's cultural. you need to have everyone within the organization aware of it, because it just takes clicking on a malware in an e-mail from a phishing attack that can really undermine the entire system. i would say we're very vigilant, we have training programs. and we're -- i think we do -- i think we set an example of what we do internally for that. so i would say yes, for sure. >> thomas, jeh johnson really talked about the idea of making our election system count as critical infrastructure

officially. could you explain a little bit about what that would mean and whether you agree with the idea? >> i can't recall speak to what dhs wants to do. but i can talk about the fact that states are looking for resources to help make sure that their systems are secure. and so if dhs wants to offer those resources, i think that that's a great idea. >> additionally we pass legislation through the congress back in 2014 that also last year basically says that dhs can provide voluntary, upon-request assistance to critical information, but also to state and locals, for various tools. it's all optional, it's voluntary. there's a suite of tools that are available if asked upon. it could be those tools, or it could be private sector tools. but the bottom line is i think states, localities, need to -- need to invest in these technologies and ensure that they're secure, the capabilities that dhs has, more than half

have now signed up for this voluntary assistance. in the congress, we have legislation that passed out of our committee last year, that passed the house of representatives in december, it's pending in the senate, that basically even further clarifies that the role of dhs in providing this voluntary assistance to states when they request it. and so about clarifying the law, we think that will make a big difference, ensuring that, you know, absolutely not do we want to federalize the election system. that would be unconstitutional. the u.s. constitution reserves the rights to states to administer elections. but we do think that providing tools and capabilities would be a good thing, if it makes sense for those localities. >> while we're on this topic, could you give us a quick forecast for the lame duck? what do you expect to happen there? >> i will say, we're working on several pieces of legislation right now. one would reorganize the

department of homeland security to more effectively carry out its cybermission. we passed several bills through the congress back in '14, as i said. the big one, the cybersecurity act in december, giving dhs authorities. this bill we're trying to move through, our committee moved it back in june. and we're working now to get it to the house floor. it would basically restructure, streamline, reorganize, so it can more effectively carry out those authorities that we just gave. so that's a big one that we're trying to get through. there's a lot of other committees involved, so we're doing the best we can to hopefully get this done by the end of the year. it's a top priority for chairman michael mccall, my boss. the cyberprotection act provides assistance to states and strength the state and local crime fighting act that would basically provide voluntary assistance tools to state local and state law enforcement,

judges, to go after cybercriminals. so we think these kind of assistance tools to states will go a long way. but those two bills are pending in the senate. so we're trying to shake them loose over there. these are the various bills that we're trying to get enacted in the lame duck. we'll see. we're doing the best we can, though. >> we've gotten a couple of questions from twitter here. i might go to you, rich, on this one. isn't the u.s. involved in cyberespionage as well? discussions seem to suggest that the u.s. and americans are innocent victims. comment? >> innocent victims. well, i think everybody -- large countries and even emerging economies are seeing the power of cyber and how the world has adopted it and how we work, live, and play. the internet permeates every way of life. it's how you execute your -- and go after those national objectives within that respective domain.

some countries might seek to bolster their economy. others might seek to go after terrorists. others might seek to undermine an election. it really just depends on probably their perspective. you know, as to who is a good guy and a bad guy. and the motives behind leveraging that domain to enable that respective nation. so -- >> the next question sounds a little bit like the plot for an action film. we talk about international attacks, but is there a chance or enough sophistication domestically to see hacks between parties? michael, any comment on that one? >> i think and hope that everyone is working on their -- supporting their candidates winning the election. so is it possible for there to be another watergate-like break-in? sure. hopefully people are smarter than that now and will leave that to good fiction reading.

>> absolutely. i know that our video team has a clip queued up from the last presidential debate, clinton and trump's comments on cyber. there weren't very many of them. we might take a look at that and lead into our last question here. if we've got that. >> we need to make it very clear, whether it's russia, china, iran, or anybody else, the united states has much greater capacity. and we are not going to sit idly by and permit state actors to go after our information. we don't want to use the kinds of tools that we have. we don't want to engage in a different kind of warfare. but we will defend the citizens of this country. and the russians need to understand that. i was so shocked when donald publicly invited putin to hack into americans. >> as far as the cyber, i agree to parts of what secretary clinton said.

we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we're not. i don't think anybody knows it was russia that broke into the dnc. she's saying russia, russia, russia, maybe it was, i mean, it could be russia, but it could also be china. it could also be lots of other people. it could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? >> the 400-pound hacker, that's right. if we could go down the panel, i would be curious what questions you think presidential candidates should be able to answer about cyber in this day and age, and what do voters need to know most about this topic in order to evaluate the candidates. michael, you want to start? >> wow. they need to take it seriously. they need to understand how serious it is. they need to understand the seriousness of the consequences. one of the most difficult things about considering retaliation are the consequences of that

retaliation, and keeping in mind, and i hope -- and i'm sure both presidential candidates are aware of this, that our economy, our internet economy, our internet lives, is very fragile. so going to cyberwar with a big country like russia or a smaller sophisticated country could result in grave consequences to our economy and our critical infrastructure. so it's a difficult thing. since it hasn't been that kind of large scale conflict hasn't been waged before, there's a lot of thinking and a lot of caution going into what the next steps could be. >> brett, what about you? >> i would say if you look over the last several years, we have worked in the congress on a bipartisan basis to get important cybersecurity legislation through, going back to the five bills we passed in '14, the big one we passed, the cybersecurity act in 2015, those were bipartisan efforts to address a threat, a national

security and economic security issue. and i think going into the next administration, i think it's important that we realize that this is the number one concern that we've heard from -- the mike went off -- that this is now the number one threat we're facing as a nation. i think looking to the next administration, investment in cybersecurity, there's a lot that needs to be done. we need to beef up and make stronger the cyberdefense strategy. i think we need to do more to show our adversaries that there will be consequences when cyberattacks take place. anyway, i think that would answer the question about. >> sorry about that. thomas? >> i would answer it twofold. one, one of the best ways -- is my mike not working either? can you hear me now? how about now? >> speak up. >> speaking, speaking.

no? no? well, i'll try to speak loudly. two of the boast things that can be done is on the front lines, is basically to have additional poll workers. so basically having additional poll workers so that they can see what is actually -- so the best way to see the administration of elections is from the inside. so becoming a poll worker allows you to do that. that's one of the things i would say. the other thing i would add is that both president bush and president obama added millions and billions of dollars for the administration of elections. so i would hope that whoever becomes president looks at elections not just for november coming up, but elections happen every two years, and states and locals are at their wits' end in terms of funding for roads, schools, military and so forth. we all know those things are

important but our democracy is also important. we have to make sure we have that investment into it. >> rich, you want to close this out here? >> sure, i'll go analog here since it seems we've had some issues. i think all -- you know, our next leader and/or any new world leader is going to see and understand how important the internet really is, again, to everything from our economies to elections. it is really a new domain that wields a lot of power. and i think that it needs to be respected and understood. and it's certainly complex. and so these asymmetric threats that seek to wield it, you know, there needs to be norms that are established. there needs to be greater understanding in and around what the art of the possible is.

and, you know, it's certainly interesting times, we can really see, again, the effects that the internet holds, not only here in the states but maybe the world writ large. >> great. help me thank our panel. [ applause ] >> there is actually a long history of the russians trying to interfere with or influence elections, going back to the '60s, the heyday of the cold war. there have been several documented cases of previous elections that -- where it appeared that they were trying to somehow -- there is actually a long history of the russians trying to interfere with or -- there is actually ray long history of the russians trying

to interfere with or influence elections, going back to the '60s, and the heyday of the cold war. so there have been several documented cases of previous elections that -- where it appeared that they were trying to somehow influence the election. and of course there is a history there of -- there's a tradition in russia of interfering with elections. their own and others. and so it shouldn't come as a big shock to people. i think it's more dramatic, maybe, because now they have the cybertools that they can bring to bear in the same effort. you know, it's still going on. i will say that it's probably not real, real clear whether there's influence in terms of outcome. what i worry about more, frankly, is just sowing seeds of

doubt where doubt is cast on the whole process. >> i'm craig timberg, the national technology reporter at "the washington post." we're here to talk about cyberwar. and this is a reminder to tweet your questions and comments to us using the #wpcyber. i'm not going to rome the audience like phil donahue, so that's the best way to get your question, if you like. to my left, maybe to your right if you're watching tv, is juan zarate, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism under president george w. bush. richard bejtlich is the chief strategist at fireeye. he was previously director of incident response for general electric and started his cybersecurity career as a military intelligence officer in the air force. on the far side is frank

cilluffo, associate vice president at george washington university where he directs the center for cybersecurity. let me start with a general issue that as a journalist i wrestle with all the time. what do we mean when we talk about cyberwarfare? i think we know what hacks are. a lot of what we read about in the press, some of the stuff i write about is really he espion. what is cyberwarfare? let's start with frank on the end. >> thank you, craig. a lot of the coverage today reminds me of kids' soccer, everybody chasing the ball, the shiny object. not all hacks are the same, nor are all hackers. their intentions vary, their capabilities vary. if you were to stack the threat environment, nation states are obviously at the top of the list, countries that are

integrating computer attack and exploit in their doctrine. you have criminal enterprises, and hack-tivists. not all hacks are the same. they're very different. countries that are marshaling and mobilizing cybercapabilities into their war fighting strategy and doctrine are the countries at the very top of the list. when from a u.s. national security perspective, obviously russia and china are at the very tops of that list. in terms of capability, a lot of what we've seen is computer network exploit or espionage in cyberspace. they've also done integrating the cyber into their war fighting strangltegy. you've got other countries who may lack the capability of russia and china, but what they lack in capability they make up for in intent. this is where you put north korea, iran, more likely to turn to a disruptive or destructive

cyberattack. that's got fewer constraints in terms of some of those capabilities. i'll shut up at that point. not all hacks are the same. not all nation states are the same. not all capabilities are the same. ultimately it hinges around intent. in other words, if you can exploit, you can attack. the line is very thin. it's all hinging upon the intent of the perpetrator. >> richard, do things need to blow up, do things need to break in order for it to be considered cyberwarfare in your mind? >> my answer to that question is cyberwarfare is either what you call your book or your documentary if you want people to pay attention to it. >> or your conference panel. >> it will be sure to get someone's attention. my definition of cyberwar is the imposition of will using a digital means. now, there are two schools of thought. one school of thought, which is the school of thought of my ph.d. adviser who wrote a book called "cyberwar will not take place," and the reason he called the book that is he believes that war equals violence.

and if you don't have violence, you don't have war. and he believes that cyb cyber cannot be used to impose violence, therefore cyberwar will not take place. that's one school of thought. another school of thought says it's much more expansive, this is the way the russians and chinese tend to think about it. they believe that war is not just violence. war can be any means by which you're trying to get your way. in fact they tend to come from a tradition, especially the chinese, that say you're much better off not fighting and achieving your way. that's the highest acumen of skill is to not fight. i tend to take the position that if you're imposing your will, using a digital means, that could be war. just to step a little bit further, though, we may be in a situation in five, ten, even 15 years where this thing we call cyber is just so integrated into every aspect of life even more so than it is now, that it makes no sense to talk about cyberwar. because i mean, an f-35, is that

a cyberweapon? an f-22 right now could be considered potentially a cyberweapon, because one of the benefits it has is it networks with other fighters in order to get a better picture of the battlefield. that's the way i tend to think about it. >> and juan, if iran, for example, if they use cybertools to attack a big u.s. bank, for example, is that an act of war? >> it's a great question, because i'm a bit more forgiving for the five-year-old soccer problem. we are in sort of uncharted territory, because you have a blend of actors, state and non-state, both in attempting to acquire data as well as to disrupt and potentially even destroy systems. you have this change of concept of what warfare even means, right? and so the very notion of russian hybrid warfare combined with cyber capabilities becomes interesting. we don't have doctrines to define what those clear lines

are. currently as we think of it, we don't think of these tools as true cyberwarfare tools until there's an element of destruction, something that is demonstrable. that's part of the reason we haven't had as much awareness of these issues as we've seen, nation states and non-states engage in cyberespionage and data exfiltration. we do have nation states attacking private actors. we've had syrian entities attacking western banks as part of a denial of service, not destructive but intended to send a message. you've had north korea attack south korean banks as well as sony. you've had other state actors like russia attack various systems, government and non-government. so what you have at play is really an open field in the cyber domain where actors are feeling out the bounds of what's

permissible. one of the great challenges in this space is how do we define the boundaries of what's acceptable or not, how do we responde respond. that puts great stress on how do we respond in a proportional and commensurate way without unleashing other forces or warfare. that's why you hadn't seen officials wanting to be too open about, for example, russian attacks, despite what klapper said above our heads. there has been reticence to do that because it raises questions on what the end game is here. >> can i pick up on a couple of points? all forms of conflict today and tomorrow, almost 100% unanimously are going to have a cyber dimension and component to it. to pick up on some of the points my esteemed colleagues raised, cyberis i is its own domain.

those integrating computer attack tools into other domains, air, land, sea, space, that's where cyber is not its own entity but it enhances the lethality of conventional weapons in other domains, enhances the ability to seize territory. and i think it's important to recognize that the battlefield today has been extended to incorporate all of society. and companies are on the front lines. that's what makes this different, is that the targets are not merely government on government targets or the like, but the financial services sector, the recent swiftack is one of the incidents that rises above the fold, not because the central bank of bangladesh lost money, bad day for the bank and its customers, but the global economy can absorb it. what it did recognize is a systemic risk.

the entire financial services sector is dependent upon swift, and it's an attack on swift, we're talking about billions and billions of dollars of transactions being settled daily. these are the different targets. and the ukrainian hack, that was a big deal, the ukrainian grid hack, not because of 250,000 people losing power for a couple of days, but the rubicon was crossed wherein a cyber weapon had a kinetic physical effect that took down power. >> if there is a kinetic physical effect, that's a cyberwar. we have these weapons, if we're actually at war with someone, they're going to be -- we're going to be sending bits and bytes at them and they'll be sending them back to us in some capacity. i want to pick up on your attributions problem. this is one of the things we think about a lot. when we hear sometimes on the record, sometimes not on the

record, that so and so attacked so and so, yahoo! said it was a state sponsored actor. it's hard for us as journalists to find out if that's true, right? and it's also hard for technical experts to even find out that it's true. this creates, it seems to me, enormous problems, right? in the old kind of war they shoot at us, we shoot back at them, right? that sort of makes -- it fits into a kind of strategic and sort of moral framework that makes sense to all of us. i guess i would ask, let me start with you, richard, are we ever going to know who is shooting at us well enough that we feel comfortable shooting back? i'm not talking about private companies, i'm talking about at a nation state level. >> absolutely. we know all the time. there are certain elements of the private sector who know all the time. >> how do you know? >> our 2013 report, mandate report on apt-1, that was -- there were indictments that were levied based on that. there are certain elements of the technical community that

they wouldn't even believe that there were a camera on a person typing on a keyboard, hacking into an american bank, they would say that's a fake that the cia created. >> after they landed on the moon. >> yeah, because they didn't land on the moon, apparently. it astounds me that people doubt the ability of the government to do attribution after the snowden revelations. if the u.s. says north korea is responsible for the attack on sony, you better believe it. for example, just looking strategically, president obama is not looking for fights. he does not want a fight with 9 north koreans. to actually come out and say it was the north koreans, that introduces a whole new level of complexity to his life. >> depending on whether the next

president is hillary clinton or donald trump, maybe your comfort in the assertions of the u.s. government may go up or down. as sometimes who as a journalist sometimes lives on the outside of these things, let's talk about the gulf of tonkin attack which precipitated the u.s. move into the vietnam war, it turned out not to be true, and we promoted it as true in the press because we didn't know any better. how can the public be assured to any extent that it's worth engaging in hostile action with another country that may eventually involve other kinds of weaponry and death and destruction if we just have to kind of believe, you know, the nsa or the president? ju juan? >> it's a fascinating and important question. there has been an attribution revolution. >> largely in the private sector. >> yes. and the technology has really, you know, advanced in ways that are incredible in terms of

cyberforensics, not to mention overall cyberintelligence assessments that the government can bring to bear, not just the forensics online but everything else they have at their command. that's there. the problem is all of this is cloaked. to your point, there is a sense in the public and internationally of, well, how do you prove it? and i think part of the answer is, much of this has migrated to the private sector. companies like fireeye, some would argue they're too close to the government, but there are these private sector entities that are serving as external validaters. you do have private companies that are doing this work internally. and so this is a space that isn't being left to just the u.s. government. but you're absolutely right, i think the challenge that the u.s. government has faced is twofold. one, how do you prove this that way that doesn't demonstrate and reveal sources and methods that will make it more difficult in the future? so that's the first barrier. and that was a criticism in the sony hack. in fact one of my colleagues at harvard law raised questions as

to whether or not we could believe the fbi's assertion, to your point. the second problem, is what richard said, which is, okay, let's say we do attribute the attack as we did with north korea, what then?