supreme court decision on corporate personnel, person to persons making corporations persons? this is the problem that we are going to have forever, unless someone gets 10 to $20 million, which is what it will probably cost, to take it up to the cour courts. is there anyone working on this? >> from what i understand, there are, like, i mean, even i know bernie sanders is working on pushing to get citizens united overturned and a lot of other major players, like even hillary clinton claims she is going to. who knows if she will. also, elizabeth warren wants to. i know there are organizations that are working to.

i know is there a supreme court vacancies that are going to be filled. and so if you can have like a liberal majority in the supreme court, then you could technically get it overturned. i think it is a matter of time hopefully. you're absolutely right. it is crucial. the entire system is run by corporations. they get to decide who gets picked in the elections. it is not democracy. >> i think it doesn't matter how much money you spend to overturn it, it is not going to work, as long as the supreme court, the makeup of the supreme court is in the hands of conservatives. it depends on the election. if a democratic is elected, they will appoint, the next president will appoint at least three of the new supreme court members, and that will sway. that's why it is so important for republicans as well as democrats. and if you notice, in many of trump's campaign, he keeps reminding republicans that the supreme court, if you don't elect me, you're going to lose the supreme court. he is playing this well. not only the issue of citizens

united, it is also obama care another important issue in the future of abortion, all these things. >> lots of groups are working to both educate and galvanize around overturning citizens united. as everyone has said, it will be before the supreme court and the type of court we have when it makes its way back up through the system is going to determine whether it is overturned or remains part of the system. i will say with regards to mail-in ballots, which is what oregon does, there has been a substantial improvement in turnout in oregon with the mail-in ballots. that speaks to one of the things that we're hopefully going to be focused on after the election, reform and improving the system and get rid of a lot of rules that keep us from being able to

be able to fully participate in the system. >> one more question? >> i want to thank rania and samer and khalid of the events that took place, but my question is, my few questions, actually, one is what kind of strategy that adc and the chapters and the ngos and the social media can do to whatever, time left, for the elections and for future elections? not only the strategy, but also,

communication process that can really yield positive results not in the near future, but in the long future as well? so this is what -- what is happening in the arab construction is -- structure, i mean, is it is reaction, what we want to do or to develop pro action. thank you. >> just to -- >> hello, i think a problem in this election is a lot of statements are made which are not factually correct, but are not followed up, and i really respect the panel, but i do think when you talked about immigration, the fact of the matter is that the number of mexicans coming from mexico in

the last few years has gone significantly down, in fact, in sometimes, mexicans were leaving the united states to go to mexi mexi mexico because there were better economic opportunities there. reenforcing the imagine of being overwe overwhelmed by immigrants, when it is down. >> i was going to bring that up. i just want to really ask everybody when they speak not to fall in the same trap that trump falls into it, in talking to the electorate. it makes presentations that are not grounded in fact. because this is a huge problem. and i want to just point a few things that were said here that, now, for someone who lives in texas, actually i can tell you about. first of all, you know, in texas, people are very excited

about elections. republican candidate is leading by only six points in texas. right now at this point. i also can confirm what the gentleman just said. we do not have a border problem on the border at all. also, we can see that nafta did not destroy the mexican economy. it did not. there are problems on both sides, but it did not destroy the mexican economy. the other thing is that the sky actually is not falling. it is not falling. if you look at the economic conditions that we have, we can see the increase in family income. we can see an increase in jobs created. we can see an increase in many areas, but yes, there are some pocket, and maybe large pockets of disparity that we can point those things out, but let's be realistic about the picture that we paint around here. the other thing that i really want to point out, i have never heard that the democrats want to destroy social security at all.

that's just not -- i mean, it is okay to repeat some of the things, but let's be practical. facts can be checked. and we need to build our own credibility when we present our message, and not repeat things that other people are saying. that are driving this election into the gutter, where it is now. >> let's handle these three and then we'll move on. we have a couple of more minutes. so first, the strategy aspect. let me talk on behalf of adc. that is sort of the subject of our lunchen workshop. we're going to try to flush out the strategy and work on that. i don't want to avoid the question, because that's the primary subject of our lunch. so we're going to bring it in. but that brings up something i want to ask you along those lines. what can we do to make things better? how can we push back? what are some of the -- because this sort of the -- the convention is about change through action. what is that action?

>> well, as someone who is a journalist, for me, apart of the action ties into what you are saying, which you do have to correct the narrative and correct with facts. the fact of the matter is that the democratic party, obama tried to mack a -- obama was prepared to do a grand bar ggai. during bill clinton's administration, he was making back room deals with newt gingrich. in terms of immigration, it does not present the problem that it is portrayed as whatsoever. that said, nafta did, did ruin the economy for many mexicans. a lot of farmers in mexico lost their land. a lot of them had to work for various corporations. every american corporation, you can possibly imagine, produces

products there. so we have to be honest about the economic reality for people. maybe some people that surround you it is easier, but what i see is in lots of communities, there is a lot of economic devastation. people trying to get by. even middle class people right now are what do they say, one catastrophe away, one, like, catastrophe away from complete bankruptcy. if they get cancer, like they're done. people don't have savings. people are struggling to get by, especially young people leak myself. we're mired in debt because we went to school. yes, jobs are being created, but not good jobs. they're like jobs at walmart that do not people like a living wage. people have to have two jobs at this point to feed their kids, and still are having trouble doing that in some communities. so that is a real problem. not saying everybody that supports trump is economically

devastated. there are rich people who support him and they're just jerks. we can't put this blanket over everybody and say they are a blahs k basket of deplorables. you have to be able to offer a message that reaches out to all people. >> i don't want to change the subject, i don't want to get in this back and forth. i know there are less mexicans coming, but two or three days ago, people coming from el salvador, illegal immigration, there should be a way to solve it or resolve it. it is not lost message from trump. he is addressing something that many people care about. and that's not on defense of trump. in regard of the rhetoric, i think this is everybody's job to do the fact check and to write to the editors, write about these are not facts. for example, one of the things that trump keeps throwing that

illegal immigrants causing more crime. well, statistics prove they're causing less crime. most of them are worried about committing crime, getting deported, so they don't commit much crime. but they always highlight, when somebody illegal alien killed that girl in the -- that student in san francisco, it was story on fox news for five days. illegal alien, city of san francisco allowing illegal ail ye -- aliens, which i think is wrong. but focusing on that crime is wrong. but during the debate and even in the discussion that lots of stuff that comes out that is inaccurate, i think everybody's job. we should direct people and even have letter to the editor forums that people can go to the website and have a list of the addresses or to send it, whether

it is e-mail or "usa today" or wall street journal, including abc. on the issue of strategy, i heard cornell brooks, the president of the naacp that i'm going to use. protest polls policy. and you know, we focus a lot on elections, but we also need to pay similar oh attention to the policy that comes after the election, and engage and ensure that we are engaging with our elected officials, because we vote for someone, and then you know, we disappear and we come back in the next two or four years to have our voice heard again, but we really do need to engage on the city councils or state legislatures, as well as within congress to make sure that the policies we care about are the ones that they're talking about and voting on. >> we're going to take two quick

questions back-to-back. and then we're going to wrap it up. one there, and this gentleman over here who has been patiently waiting. >> thank you. i am, i come from tucson, arizona. we are close to mexico. this month, bodies were discovered. and this is a very mild month. since 9/11, actually thousands of people have been killed as a consequence of policies, not natural disasters.

tom talks about the wall. there is a wall already. there is something called militarization of the border, that the nation is, they consider themselves occupied by border patrol. these are policies, and somebody mentioned nafta was good, just across the border and see what is called the maliqadoras, okay. these are all so many bad policies over year that are destroying a lot of people, and it is not just people coming and overstaying their visas. there is really war going on on the border, okay. war on people.

and these are results of policies that you people need to really focus on. and that's all what i want to say. >> thank you, sir. >> two more questions. >> please, let's -- >> thanks. earlier this year, there was a case in brooklyn where nearly 100,000 voters could not find their names registered, and i'm curious if you know if that correlated with certain demographics, and what is adc or arab and muslim activists doing to make sure that registered voters can find their names? >> in brooklyn -- >> take the two together. >> sorry. >> i think just wanted to make a

point, because i don't think it was addressed in the panel of what the gentleman asked about, how to get, i think if i got it right, younger people or people who don't think their vote will matter. and what i have heard, and you can correct me if i'm wrong, that especially the millennials, the young people, because of having rallied against sanders and felt so disappointed, feel their vote won't count, because either hillary or trump will win. and i think was very, really shocked. i don't know if any of you saw the post debate, little groups that they have. in one group, you know, i don't know how many people changed, you know, or decided they weren't going to vote for trump. there was one guy who is going to vote for trump. he was a young university student. and he said, well, you know, once they got to foreign policy, i mean they lost me. it was not fun any more. and so my question is how our

whole culture has become entertainment and show, especially with the media. and how that is affecting this election cycle, in terms of the young people especially, and that may not be true to all of them, of course, they see this as a reality show. which is really kind of sad. but also, thinking their vote is not going to matter, and that's sad, too. >> the two questions, one specifically about the -- what occurred in brooklyn and then about voter protection, an then the second question about getting millennials more active within the system. >> right, yeah, so during the primary in new york, there were thousands of voters in brooklyn who found out they were purged from the election rolls and there has been a lot of follow-up on that to ensure that what, you know, it is still a

bit unclear why that happened, but that both the state officials, the new york board of elections, as well as civil rights groups are working to ensure it doesn't happen in the general election. one of the messages that we do with election protection is to ask people to verify their voter registration. so you don't find -- you don't have to wait until you show up at the polls to find out you're no longer on the rolls. if you've registered or call, or there is a lot of on-line tools now and you can look it up to verify your voter registration, because often now, we as individuals have to do some groundwork, legwork before the elections to make sure that our registration is in order, we know what documentation we need to vote, we know where we need to vote, so that we don't

encounter these unexpected problems and we show up on election day. it is a problem that's being addressed, both by the state and civil rights groups, but we need to take the extra steps to make sure all is well to know about the problems ahead of time. >> from what i understand, this was basically a general purge. it was not a specific demographics that was actually targeted. but it was -- >> it did have a disproportionate impact on minorities. >> on minorities, but not specifically on arabs and muslims. the adr will be conducting a voter protection campaign. in fact, one of the panels after lunch is where we'll discuss voter protections and getting out the vote, and we are looking for volunteers to help us monitor local polls where there is a large number of arab

americans and we'll be setting up a hotline and getting people to help if they do need that. so the second question is about the, you know, getting the millennials more psyched up or excited about the elections and getting them out to vote. as opposed to that. >> i can touch on that one. i also wanted to say thank you for the comment about the border, though, because that -- there are thousands of people that are dying of thirst in the desert trying to get to safety. it is a matter of policy, because there a law at the border to push people into the most dangerous drain. it is called death by deterre e deterrence. the border patrolm manuals. it is against the people trying to get to safety. so on the question that you said about entertainment, my nephew is, he is six years old, and a few months, it was like recently, over the summer,

before the conventions, because we talk about, like, a lot. i think everyone's families have been. at one point, you know, he like, during dinner, he was like wait a second. are donald trump and hillary clinton real? like he thought it was just like a tv show that everybody was watching. and even, like, i have a little sister, she just graduated from college, she is not the most political person. she texted me and she was like are you watching this republican debate. i'm like are you. like she was why are you watching the republican debate. because it was so entertaining. it has been like this reality tv series of like survivor, and who will make it to the next episode. it has been very, whether we like it or not, even entertaining. so that aspect of like the entertainment, i mean, trump is really, that's been something he has done very, very well, he has used it to his advantage. that said, he isn't winning over young people, so i don't think

that works so much. but i do think that's a good point. but as for millennials and the fact they don't vote, i don't know why. maybe someone else, as a millennial myself, i don't know why, because we're this big demographic group and i guess a lot of it is probably like disillusionment and politics are dumb and stupid and distracted by other things. bernie sanders, this old guy, was able to excite young people because of the message he was offering. it spoke to their needs, student debt, climate change, in a way that politicians don't usually talk about. people who are closer to my age, that weighs heavy on us. 20 years from now, i don't know what it will be like climate wise. it is scary to think about. so there is a lot of things, if you look at someone like hillary clinton and she takes money from the fossil fuel industry, she

won't ban fracking, she wants to sell it around the globe. her advisor, ken salazar, is this guy who basically says fracking doesn't cause climate problems whatsoever. it isn't pollution. young people look at that, and of course they're disillusioned. somebody who will still destroy the planet or somebody who will destroy it even more. the lesser evilism has left people confused and not wanting to participate. the best way to get people involved is, you know, with lower level candidates, maybe in more local areas. and we also have to think about in the future, the kinds of people who will run and back and support for smaller offices. that's another thing with grassroots issue, you guy also talk about strategy later, but that really does need to be geared toward this huge generation of young people that isn't voting in big numbers. they need to be brought into the

mix. >> i'm not going advocate what i don't do. i personally, if i don't like any of the candidates, i vote for the libertarian candidate, and that's what i did in the past. but i think it is very important to vote. that's very important. not to go to the polls, not to vote will remove you entirely from the system. participating and making the decision. even a protest vote, it is a vote. so i think everyone should go and vote. if they don't like hillary or trump, they should select someone. there will be about seven or eight usually in the ballots. >> i'm just going do a quick -- real quickly, i want you to address two questions. very quickly. one is do you believe that donald trump actually believes most of the stuff, the hate stuff he puts out? two, is there light at the end of the tunnel? is there something positive that may come out of this, or do you

see somehow this ending? real quickly. >> i don't know whether donald trump believes what he says or not. but it has been very effective in getting him to where he is right now. you know, serious, in serious contention for the presidential -- to be president. in terms of the light, i believe we are in the light. and we are the ones that are responsible and have to engage. and there is a lot of rhetoric before elections. the polls and who knows whether people are really going to act on what they say in the polls, but if we don't collectively show up, and have our voices heard on election day, then that determines what our future looks like. >> i frankly don't believe he beliefs half of what he says. i think it is the same with hillary. they both will say whatever will get them elected. the only honest man that was in

the last primary was bernie sanders, frankly. i disagreed with lots of his stuff, but i think he was more honest. he is a socialist, and pro-free market. i don't agree with him, but i think he is honest. the other two candidates are i would say big liars, and everyone knows their history. i know a businessman who did business with trump. i had lunch with him a year ago, and he just had dinner with him earlier, and he said we're good friends, great guy, we've been doing business with him for years. so i mean, the guy i've been doing with many people, if you saw the last debate, he complemented dubai and so that means he traveled to these countries, he traveled doing business with them, you have friends there, but now saying anything to get him elected, including trashing his arab business partners indirectly.

>> yeah, i mean, i think trump is a con artist. i don't know what he actually believes, but i think he is a pseudo populist. alex jones that ties through, like a xeno phobe, because he really harps on that. it could be bs. who knows. all that matters is he is saying it and it is working. that's the scary part. what was your other -- >> a light at the end of the tunnel. >> know at the moment, i don't see things getting better, but i don't think we should all -- no, i think there is light at the end of the tunnel. that's what sanders, bernie sanders was able to galvanize, a whole generation politics has been placed by by bernie sanders. that's huge. people 30 and under, that's going stick with them. they'll have those politics the

rest of their lives. even pollsters are saying that this whole generation, it has shifted dramatically, but socialism, is like an exciting concept to younger people. we didn't grow up during the cold war era, and socialism is a good thing. i think we need a lot of it in this country. so i think going forward, like, the fact that that -- you have the generational change, and i have friends who are now involved in -- on capitol hill. like, a friend of mine, who was like an activist, you would in never see this kid in a suit is now a staffer for a congressman. things are changing. millennials really do, they're going to be that future generation that's going to have to change everything. not all of them are good, but i think a lot of them will have better politics than the generations above us. sorry. >> that's okay. i want to say, you know, again, our theme this year is change

through action, inspiring change through action. what the one action that we're getting from our panel, you need to take into your own communities, one, off he got to vote. you can't complain and then not vote. two, it is up to you guys to go out out there and get your friends involved and to again, to double-check the facts. somebody is perpetuating these myths, it is up to you to correct that. as a program note, we're going to have a few minutes break here, we're then going to have lunch at 12:30. the lunch is going to be something brand new. we've never done this in adc. we're going to have a working lunch. a working lunch here. we're going to hear from four or five individuals regarding certain issues and topics that we think are important, and then from there, we're going to breakdown into smaller groups, and we want you to discuss issues that you think we need to focus on as adc, and issues that you want us to bring to the new

administration, whoever that administration is going to be. so we're going to ask you now to fully participate and you're going to be the panelist for the next session. thank you. sure can. we're here all day today,okay. thank you very much. and the -- real quick. the marketplace will be setting up at 3:00. congress is on break until after the november elections, we're featuring american history tv programs normally seen weekends. tonight, congressional history, at 8:00 eastern, former senators bob dole and nancy castlebaum. shortly after 10:00 eastern, the histor historic preservation act, the thomas edison statue dedication

in the u.s. capital. former minister nabil fahmy was in washington, d.c. and talked about the political challenges facing nations. this is an hour. we have folks coming in and they're filling in the audience while we're waiting. welcome to all of you and thank you for coming. this is the first for this year of our statesman laureate. i'm welcome nabil fahmy. i was working at csis, and the first time i had an opportunity to interact with the diplomatic community. i learned more from nabil than any other diplomat in

washington. that doesn't set me apart. half of the diplomatic core would say the same thing. this is a man of exceptional experience, and has the capacity to frame both the details that matter, but also, put it in a strategic context that becomes invaluable to understanding the forces. a remarkable diplomat and remarkable individual. obviously, he left here to become foreign minister, and he was needed for a larger things, and now he is retired, but he is hardly retired. he is very active. we pleaded with him if he would be willing to come and share with us his insights about the remarkable developments in the middle east. how we should be thinking about them. i know for myself, i will be guided so much by his perspective, as i always have been. can i ask you with your

applause, please welcome, nabil fahmy, foreign minister from egypt. thank you, good morning. thank you, john, very much. as you can see from jon's introduction, he is not only a superior intel elect, also a much better diplomat. i couldn't have done that. to tell you the truth, i gained tremendous knowledge from coming to his breakfasts in my nine years in washington, and talking about the region, and you were going through an active role in the region at the time, and things were happening also here in america. i want to thank you for that, and thank you jon alterman for many years. i'm not going to recognize all of you in the crowd, because i

would spend 40 minutes doing that. i come to you how we work together as we move forward. the departure is like the world, like the middle east is going through a change. our change is a more fundamental than in other regions for particular reasons that i will deal with. but change is occurring, and it has to be our point of departure. so while dealing with the past and the present is important, it is also very important to look forward and see what we do in the future. over five years have passed now since what we call the arab spring or arab awakening started. it frankly took all of us by surprise. although it shouldn't have, because the basic reasons for it had been percolating for well over a decade, if not two. and i will summarize them quickly. first, the extremely substantial

and significant demographic change. population in the middle east has doubled in over three decades, and the youth in particular had reached 30% of the population. with that, you saw rapid organization, people looking for jobs. following the money. as you would say here. and that wasn't always a rational systemically well managed process. you saw unemployment increasing, particularly with well educated and those who had university graduates. that is a recipe for people wanting change, and for frustration, and people who are educated and know how to create change, so it shouldn't have been surprising that this was going to happen. the other element that is extremely important globally but also in our age was the communication revolution. the fact that my grandchildren

or everybody i know can get information that they want to get, not through government sources, not through a centralized source of information, and they can also connect and contact anybody they want. this in effect broke the monopoly on providing information, but it also broke the basic tenants of centralized government, which is communication. the governments in the region were not changing their management style to deal with a society that wasn't centralized, wasn't going through a pyramid scheme, but frankly moving horizontally. and the results of all of that were too significant, if you want, deficits, that i think

were extremely important because many of you will say, well, the whole world is changing, technology affects everybody, why did it create such a mess in the middle east and why the volatility and violence and so on. because of these deficits. managing change deficit. as i said, you had governmental stagnation, and i'll give you some examples of it. in the countries where we saw what we call the arab spring, all of them republics, the term of office of the four presidents in those countries was between 30 and 40 years. even though they were going through election cycles. so you were basically having ruler stagnation. i don't mean this in a personal sense, but with it, you get governance stagnation, because the system repeating itself over and over again.

that created a system where the governance authorities could not cope with the changing landscape that was moving and changing so quickly. the second reason equally important, but the second deficit, frankly, was what i call a national security deficit. both in the military and political sense. this is in essence a result of arab states and beyond arab states in the middle east, but particularly arab states for generations. from the atlantic, down to the gulf, crossing of course, my country as well. depending on foreigners for their material, direct national security concerns, in other words, hard security, and/or their political security as well. now, again, i can go on and give you a list, but i'll take my own country as an example.

because it is something i know. we started off initially trying to move towards the west after '52, the west wasn't interested, we moved close to the soviet union at the time and then shifted back towards the west. if you go towards the north africa, you'll see it was western europe mostly, and the west, go towards lavont, you will see more soviet union and go down to the gulf, completely to the west. that led to a dependency factor, which defined and limited their capacity, our capacity to deal with our own national security issues. and if you look at the national security capacities of the non-arab states in the region, turkey, israel and iran in particular, you'll see that their capacity is higher than any one of the arab region nal

states, even though they had with super hub. if you're depending so much on foreigners, then logically, when there is a problem or opportunity, the priorities, interests of foreigners will come into play. you can't then argue it is only a domestic issue if your stability and your security, your success or failure affects someone else's interest and you brought him into the game. so why is what you sigh in the lavont becoming so complicated dealing with domestic and international issues coming into play. because all of these people are players. it doesn't mean agree with them or with their policies, but we've made the mistake of bringing them in too far. now, i'm not an isolationist. i strongly believe we need to be

part of the world. i've always promoted egypt reaching out and engaging people. so nobody is calling here for isolationist. but the proper balance between what you need and where you compliment your interest has to be proper between what you can afford domestically and what you can do regionally or internationally, because otherwise, the priorities are mixed, and foreign powers will help you if there is an extensional threat or if their interests are concerned. regional power also define their terms, depending on where they see the imbalance. actual fact, complicating the agendas, but also led to regional aggressiveness, particularly by the non--arab states. with these two deficits in play,

it shouldn't have been a surprise. what we saw was revolutions other than evolutions. it is a natural consequence of the inability to manage change, and weakness in national security, vis-a-vis your neighbors and consequently weakness in policy-making. five years since the arab awakening, anybody you talked to in the region, you will sense a level of frustration. some feel that -- they're frustrated they haven't been achieve. others argue that change is so difficult. maybe change is bad, and status quo was a better option. and the third group believe that change is a big conspiracy by a lot of people, some of them in the region, but others abroad.

nobody is particularly comfortable. i'm not surprised now, although i have to admit, it has been a learning process for all of us, it is very difficult to make the fundamental changes that we want to make over a three or five-year period, especially with two seldeficits i mentione. the next few years, i think we'll move forward, but i think it will be tenuous and up and downs, and it won't be a straight line upwards. we're trying to create a new culture. now, i just want to make a point of caution. don't generalize when you talk about the arab spring or arab awakening. they're not all the same.

each one has a common element, the two deficits, but then some of them because of the variation in the balance here, are more domestic. others are more regional and the third party that has become both domestic, regional and international. the common element, however, the results of this instability is a huge identity crisis. people are trying to identify who they are. that's what you see in common. even if they speak different variation of arabic or other ethnic languages, but the attempt to define identity is really the main challenge. there is tension between identity and revisionism, which people like to call fundamentalists, but should we move forward or backward is the answer. moving forward or moving backward. there is tension between the national identity and the

religious identity. should -- eem a practicing muslim and i'm proud of it. should i be in, i can argue, arab, egyptian or muslim. that's being debated now. but mostly throughout the world and a little in egypt. there is a third identity among the many about the national identity and the ethnic identity. am i arab or kurd. even if you look at iraqi examples specifically, when it went after saddam, in the new iraqi constitution, it talks about iraq in the arab world, because they have so many ethnic constituents. they didn't want to exclude anybody by saying arab. the national versus ethnic is serious to play here. now, with all of that, there is an overarching issue here. if we start defining ourselves

differently and consequently develop systems of governments that are different, then you -- then what you really have is a drie direct challenge between the nation state order and the ethnic or non-nation state order. how are you going to define yourself. is this the muslim world. or is it muslim states in the arab world. so consequently, what elements do you need to do and how do you define national security. and so on and so forth. so i underline this point. you're also seeing here the very dangerous challenge to the nation state order in the middle east. and that should not be taken lightly. i frankly don't see enough focus on that internationally or domestically and regional. now, since we don't like to do things easily, and because of

the two deficits i mentioned, you also see a very large number of non-state actors. let's leave aside the positive ones. civil society, multi nationalists and so forth. mostly the extremists and terrorists, and they are part of the game. trying to feed on the frustrations that exist in the region and/or the imbalances and take advantage of that, and isis is just one of them. not only. my final two points on this issue of identity and challenges, the region is trying to define what actually is the role of religion in society. it is a much more religious society than many parts of the world. but what actually is that role. is it simply an issue of faith, or is it faith and culture, or is it faith and politics. when i use the term role of religion, i don't mean simply

political. i mean the larger meaning of this. but it includes the issue of political islam. my last point, my last point that i think is challenging, we need to find a way as we determine our identity as we determine -- as we deal with the challenges between a nation state and other identities, we need to find a comfort zone with power shared. and that's frankly not only applicable to the arab world, it also applies to israel, turkey and iran. i can expand on that but the issue of holding power and sharing it at the same time, region still doesn't have a comfort zone in that respect. well, where do we go from here?

first thing, anybody who thinks it is going to be fixed quickly, should leave the room frankly. it is not. so it is going to -- and if you are really interested in this and want to make an investment, it has to be a strategic investment, not something that you're going to get early hanging fruit, which you may, but it won't last long. if you look at morocco for example, they've done well in the transition, father to the son and dealt with the issues reasonably well, frankly. it is not -- the story hasn't ended but they've done reasonably well. if you look at algeria they had their problems a decade or two ago, and they are just for natural reasons, clearly going to have a change of leadership over the next decade, so one will see whether that will lead to a reemergence of the old problems or whether that transition is done smoothly.

tunisia, what happened there was essentially domestic. not regional or and we all tend to applaud tunisia because it is something they deserve applause for frankly. at the same time, the story is ongoing. something that's alarming is if you look at the strength of the movement in tunisia, it seems logical given the secular nature of the country -- and they were much more progressive very early on in the region compared to other arab countries. i would add to that given the sense of compromise, given the progress that we've seen, why are so many tunisians leaving the country going to isis?

so again, there are larger problems that need to be dealt with, but they're on the right track. so i mean i applaud tunisia for what they've done, but one thnes to look at these things more deeply because they're about the disease, not whatever the remedies are. libya. when i dealt with this, i was trying to figure out whether i wanted to call it a failed state or a non-state. that's not two good options, frankly, to deal with, but look. i believe if one wants to see whether libya is reversing track and getting back on track to

creating a state system, the first test will be are government authorities being able to exercise authority on land. it won't be about political consensus. it will be -- it is such -- there's so much chaos there. the first indication we may be on the road to solving this is can a government body decide, okay, i'm going to police this particular area or manage this particular area. the second frankly is the politics. i think it is imperative for the government to find some political compromise, even if it is gradual. after clearly with his recent achievements in the east, has more political weight than he had in the past. and on the west side, the government exists there or at least a government exists there.

neither side can show conclusive authority throughout the country. and we're in the middle east, not egypt, per se, but we're all talking about is one side going to lead this or -- sorry, is it going to be divided into east and west, north and south, or for that matter, are they going back to the monarchy? that's the state of play. it's so fluid. people don't know actually what the options are. i would keep my eye on the authority of the exercise of the government and secondly is there room for compromise, and there should be between the east and the west. for either of those to occur, an important element here is to try

to contain the ability on non-state actors and their acquisitions of money. i propose unless somebody helps the libyans do that it's not going to happen, and i don't see one party taking on that burden alone. so my suggestion is we should create a u.n. arab league, possibly african union force not to manage libya, but to monitor and manage the borders as a first step to allowing the government authorities to slowly be able to manage what's happening inside. and frankly, algeria, egypt and tunisia should play a prominent role here. it does not mean they should put forces inside libya.

that's not what i'm suggesting. what i'm suggesting is we need to monitor the borders. it should be frankly a u.n. arab league african union force. i was going to skip egypt, but i didn't think it would be fair to john if i did that, so i'll talk about egypt for us in a second. look, egypt is going through a fundamental sociopolitical and economic transformation. all the numbers i gave you are essentially egyptian, but they apply to the rest of the world. and we're trying to do that at a point in time when all of our borders are on fire or problematic. the egyptian case was domestic. it was not a regional issue and it is not today a geopolitical issue here. but for us to be able to solve all of the questions i raised, it's not easy when you look across their border and there's

a problem on every side of it. i would joke frequently when i was foreign minister that my nightmares were more pleasant than my days. first of all, they were shorter, they ended, and they weren't real. but that is the problem today. how, for example, are we going to respond to the economic needs or the need for security or the projection of our influence because it is of interest to us in the region? if not only i'm trying to define myself domestically, but i have fires on all sides here. you had four presidents from 2011 to 2015.

that in and of itself shows the amount of change and the different forces in play here. it's not whole story, but it is one easy example of understanding the magnitude of this. we went from a system of long stagnation to now at least from '11 until 16', until 14', with the elections to a system where the sense of authority broke down. everybody had an opinion in egypt and that's fine, but everybody exercised the authority and that's not fine. that was in a country that in the past you always knew where the sense of authority was. there was for decades and decades an erosion of public politics and an emphasis on centralized government and that shifted, as i said, to a breakdown on authority and to this day we are a pluralistic society, but we need to develop

pluralistic political ethics that embraces everybody, everybody that's ready to put their nationality as the primary definition of his commitment and to follow the constitution. now, as we do this institutional changes, people want to have a better way of life in the immediate sense, and it is very, very difficult not only because of the political issues, but we have approximately close to 3% population growth rate. my client imagined to reach the objectives or the responses to that kind of growth with very strong challenges to many of our direct sources of income because of the five years that have occurred, tourism, exports, and frankly the reduction of world

trade. when we argue, well, we're growing at 3%, that's better than 0%, but we need to grow between 7% and 8% for a number of years just to meet demand. and we can't do that by taking traditional steps. it's important for us to take decisions and focus on projects that will give you exponentially gains, not simply traditional incremental gains. and i argue here that i believe more and more focus has to be done on technology on state-of-the-art technology projects. now again, let's now belittle what has been achieved. there has been very significant work done on infrastructure projects. the government has taken very difficult decisions. my professional career, which is quite long, we were always discussing reusing subsidies.

well, they decided to reuse subsidies at least on energy, and for 35 years we were discussing it they never took the step. they put in a new va trkvat tax. what's important in this case is not the income from the tax, but it starts defining the informal economy which is almost equal to the official economy in egypt because you get the tax benefit incrementally if you participate, so i think this is a very important issue. and security today is much better than what it was two years ago or four years ago. there's still problems on the western border with libya and there are problems in certain areas in the sinai. now, where i think we can do better is as the government knows from one challenge to

another it's important to enunciate more clearly what is the political and economic agenda, what's the vision. not the goals, what's the vision. what kind of country are we trying to achieve so that we can all figure out whether the benefits or the cost to each one of us individually are worth this process? and then also the projects, but i really believe it's important to understand that there are multista multi-stakeholders now. so it's not enough to send a memo to those who have authority. everybody has authority. so strategic vision is very important on that point. so we finished the road map. in other words, we have a new president. we have a new government. we have a new constitution.

but we now need to see a new and active vibrant political system where all of these bodies are engaged and fulfilling their obligation while respecting the separation of powers between one and another because that is what will allow the checks and balances to perform fairly. while i was joking about the challenges, they are of such a magnitude that if we don't get political public support for them, it could be very difficult to take the difficult decisions that are required domestically or for that matter to replay our role regional, in particular in a region that's on fire because that will require public support for whether we decide to be active in sub saharan africa and

so on. if you talk to any egyptian, he'll always -- and i smile at some of you looking up at me -- talk to you about the importance of us regaining our role in the middle east, and i would tell you the same thing as well. i would tell you it is important not only because it is something i'm proud of, but also because it helps our national interest. it is in egypt's national interest to preserve the nation state system. we promote ourselves as a nation state, not as leaders of sunni islam, shiite islam, kurds. secondly, our leading role the majority of the time was not about material assets. they're always important, but it wasn't about that. it was about being a pioneer in establishing nation state systems and developing new trends in peace and war and

pushing new social concepts. look, women had the right to vote in egypt before switzerland. people forget that, but that's actually true. and war and peace in the middle east was basically defined by egypt. we need to regain that. and the way we did it in the past wasn't by promoting policy. it was by having a country that others in our region felt was a model that they would like to emulate. we never went around telling them you have to do what we did, but they wanted to have the arts and the sciences and the music and the education that they found in our system. so the beginning of regaining our role is actually creating for the egyptian people a 21st century modern society that they are proud of and that others would want to emulate not

necessarily 100%, but in different forms. and that's, i think, comes very closely with this issue of enunciating policy, dpomestic ad regionally. let me spend a few minutes on foreign policy. four or five days after i came into office, i held a press conference because i believed in the importance of speaking to the public and projected what i thought was the elements of egypt's new foreign policy. we had two revolutions. what did they say? what is a common word in both of them? freedom. what does freedom mean in foreign policy? you can either isolate yourself or have multiple choices. it's either or. you can't be a foreign policy player with two seas importing

food and energy and being dependent on national security issues. you can't have one. you can't be free unless you have multiple options. so the first point we made then -- and it is still the policy today -- is we will defend the june 30th revolution. that's point one because that was imminent and urgent, but secondly it was to ensure we had freedom of choice in foreign policy. and that's why we did not -- and we said this publicly and we say this today, we do not want to replace america by russia and jap japan. this point of diversifying your relations is an extremely point, and it remains today a core issue in egyptian foreign policy. the second frankly was to regain our regional focus. we cannot claim to be the

leaders of latin america. well, we can, but nobody will believe us. so seriously speaking, where can we actually have influence and be taken seriously and where is it a priority for us in our neighborhood? so regaining our foothold in the arab world and africa is extr e extremely important, so we try to do this. i would like to see in egypt's foreign policy a wider, clearer explanation of scenarios for the future, what we expect to happen in the future, and how we would like to deal with it. i think our society is strong enough, healthy enough, and has the depth to engage or at least lead that discussion. it's remained the only country in the region, especially in the arab world, but in the region

generally, that has interests down to the gulf and will comment and has commented regularly on everything from war and peace in our region, climate change, social issues at the u.n., and so on and so forth while most of the countries for understandable reasons started off with priorities that are immediately close to them. so i urge my colleagues back home -- and i do this publicly. it's not secret -- that we are the only ones who have the ability to put forward options and visions for the future. they don't have to be accepted by anybody, but they should set the parameters for the discussion as we move forward. and i would foreigners to look at egypt that way. and i say this in america in

particular because americans have tended to look at egypt for decades. egypt is the country that made peace with israel. we are and we did that for our own national interest, and we still do that, but there is more to egypt than that and there's more things happening in the middle east than that. egyptians need to promote themselves as the country that made peace first, but also the country that has influence on a, b, c, and d. and this is how we look at the future. i remember in my past functions, especially as a diplomat, when we talk to our colleagues in the west about the arab spring, they wouldn't even bother to smile or pay attention. now when i talk about a new proposal. n they'll say well is anyone

going to follow you? now it is the worst humanitarian disaster in history and it has political ramifications that go far beyond and could shape the middle east completely and the tensions between the u.s. and russia could go beyond that if anyone miscalculates. i would add i don't see any end in sight. i don't see an end on the battlefield. no battlefield success will bring all the forces together and lead to resolution. at the same time, there are no regional players, arab or non-arab, directly or through surrogates that can resolve this on their own.

the superpowers obviously can't solve it on their own, so the logical answer, therefore, is if and when there's a solution. it's going to have to involve the two major powers at least, russia and america. it's going to have to involve a number of the regional players as well as of course the syrians. not necessarily in that order, but as well as the syrians. the syrians can't solve it. the regional players can't solve it. and foreigners can't solve it. it requires a grand bargain, and i don't see a grand bargain developing in the next six weeks or for that matter until you have a new president, possibly a new administration. but this will drag on. nevertheless for the sake of the hundreds that die every week in syria or those that move from their homes, i nevertheless

would highly recommend -- again, i say this back home -- even after your elections before a new president is inaugurated, some quiet diplomacy, feelers on both sides to see, okay, what are the ground rules here, where are we going. i don't think anybody in america thin thinks we can solve this alone. the russians know they can't solve this alone. nobody has a magic wand. it's not going to be solved with one proposal on the table, so i would urge all of you, as i do my regional colleagues, let's try to get some quiet diplomacy ongoing until we have a new american president and then we need to look for a grand bargain. yemen was also initially a domestic issue. the efforts by the u.n. emissary are frankly the only game in

town, and it's not a particularly active game frankly. it's become now a domestic issue, a subregional issue in the gulf, and also an issue that involves tensions between the arab gulf countries and iraq. again, it will only be resolved either if you have a sense of fatigue where the parties feel this is simply costing too much to continue and therefore let's look for a compromise or you have a rebalance in who has influence and who doesn't have influence in the region and that can't happen quickly. therefore, the real issue is the political rebounds.

i think -- and i've said this before -- for the middle east to stabilize -- yemen is just one example -- there has to be a serious dialogue between iran and saudi arabia, and there has to be a serious dialogue between turkey and egypt. but before you start tweeting, i don't see either of them happening very quickly. and i actually believe that what's necessary is something you americans used to tell me frequently and i opposed are so quiet confidence building steps and to try to build up a little bit of the deal with the lack of trust that exists so over time we can get into a more serious

dialogue. many talk about the arab spring, but they forget a major component of the frustration and anger that exists, which is the lack of the balance of the palestinian state. their lack of resolution of the palestinian-israeli track while quiet on the ground in comparative terms is only so because there's more blood happening in other areas in that theater in particular, but it is the longest ongoing conflict and it will continue to create problems for us in the future if we don't solve this. personally, i don't see progress, but i don't see a solution except for the two-state solution. either we find ways to move forward toward a two-state solution or we're going to end up with a one-state solution. and i don't think a one-state

solution will respond to the national aspirations of the parties involved here, but one should be very careful. we've gotten to the point here where you have the choice to make now. you want to keep your national aspirations? it has to be in two states. you don't want to engage in that? then, you're going to play with demographics, and it will be a one state, but you can't continue to have people under occupation for a century. now to get there i suggest the following as an interim step until again you finish your elections, but that's not the only problem frankly on the peace process. i suggest four points, a package of four points. first of all, i want the palestinians and israelis to announce they support a two-state solution based on 1967 boundaries or territories. let's put it that way. that's the first element, because i frankly question whether the support is there,

particularly with the present israeli government. i don't think the present government in israel believes in a two-state solution. number one, give me a reaffirmation of the commitment. number two is let's have direct negotiations between the israelis and the palestinians, and while they're occurring cooperation should continue and settlement activities should stop during the negotiations irrespective of the legality of the settlements or the arguments about settlements in order to move things forward. i would hold these direct negotiations under regional a auspices with superpower support. specifically, i would hold them under egyptian auspices. our relationships with the israelis are good. our relationships with palestinians are good, but they

would have to have an endorsement from the u.s. and russia. and i would give them a 12-month term limit maximum. now, these three points i would add to them the fourth, which is to give this a little bit more sense of purpose. i'd want these four points to be put in a security council resolution simply saying you're going to negotiate on a two-state solution. you will negotiate directly under the auspices of egypt, russia, and america. let's get a resolution from the security council. this would be the basis for what we do the next 12 months and the basis for the next administration. it's not a solution, but i'm very worried about ignoring this problem for too long and wonder why are they shooting and why are they throwing stones so on and so forth.

let me close with very few points. first of all, again, what's happening in the middle east is fundamental, and it is very serious and institutional in its composition. it will take time. don't assume that things can be resolved quickly. you can't ignore it. the region is on the precipice of implosion, but we need to be wise and patient without being complacent. we cannot afford apathy or complacency. i would nevertheless urge them to look forward rather than backwards, take a larger role in

defining their own destiny, particularly on the management of their societies and on national security issues, and it is imperative for the leaders in the arab world to put forward models for 21st century pluralistic arab states with strong national security capabilities that deal with the threats for tomorrow. you won't be surprised that i would reiterate that egypt should play a prominent role in this respect. i would urge the united states -- again, when i go to russia, i say similar things. i would urge the united states to adopt a three-dimensional policy in the middle east. first, you should embrace a strategic approach, not a tactical one. these issues won't be solved tactically. so you need to embrace a

strategic policy, one that is focused on enhancing the domestic and regional capacity of your friends and allies so that they can play a larger role in their own future while at the same time providing the necessary support for existential threats or major challenges. long-term capacity building should be the doctrine that you embrace in the middle east rather than quick fixes or immediate returns because they won't have a lot of shelf life whenever you want to keep them. secondly to everybody, arab, u.s., international, we need to keep our eye on the nation state system. if we allow the system to break

down -- because it's easier -- okay, let's divide syria into three sectors. let's divide libya into three sectors. they're more manageable. well, they are different, but they are part of one country. i would argue that african union, one example, in its founding document basically and correctly blamed europe for colonization and all that, but took the position that despite all these failures and faults it is more dangerous to try to redefine borders and the nation state system than it is to move forward and look towards the future. again, i underline. while world war i conspiracies were conspiracies, i don't think trying to dismantle the world is the best way to move forward, and it won't stop in the middle east, by the way, if you start

doing that. let me stop with those points, and i'm open to any questions. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much for those very thoughtful and wide ranging comments. i'm the senior vice president. i direct the middle east program and i'm the chair of global security and geopolitical strategy here. as we contemplate very quickly going to the audience, i just want to pick up on the idea you expressed about egypt being the model and egypt being the kind of place people would want to come. you described a much more decentralized world, a much more

decentralized arab world, where old patterns of governance that don't work as well, but egypt has had centralized government for a very long time. how do you think egypt now has to think about decentralization to become the governance model, the economic model, for the rest of the arab world? >> well, let me start by saying i think it's important that we all admit, including egypt, but all of us that decentralization is occurring. the issue is is it occurring in a managed fashion or not. anyone can therefore effect public opinion. i think we have to go beyond the

idea that we can prevent multi-stakeholders. egypt is a large country with big problems, so there will have to be -- and i support this -- a strong government, but it's the managing of governance. we have repeatedly talked about decentralizing municipal authorities in egypt. we have repeatedly talked about giving more authority to gove governors locally. everyone should stop assuming they can prevent decentralization. you can't, so let's manage it in a proper fashion. and it's going to take time. we have some laws on the books in egypt that go back almost as long as america exists frankly, so it's not going to happen overnight. that's why i said let's be wise and be patient, but let's not be

complacent or apathetic. >> thank you. we have some microphones if you wait for my friend, the lady, over here. >> first of all, thank you. this was a fascinating talk, and we all learned from it. i'm vice president of an ngo called global peace services. i don't need to tell you that economic issues have been one of the triggers of the arab spring and the concern of young people that the future looks bleak. had a vision of technological sharing of some of the countries in the region. of course, that would be egypt. where do you see the economic power in the coming years, the future for young people? what are some of the creative initiatives going on to give them a sense of investment in their future and in the growth and strength of egypt? >> that's an excellent point.

the egyptian government has put emphasis on implementing projects, and frankly, it's an executive government. they want to get things done. they don't really want to talk a lot about it, and you see this in the very large amount of transportation changes that have occurred on the roadways, what they've done around the suez canal and so on and so forth. that's all good. what i'm talking about is i'm trying to find a way to couple that, in other words, building a larger economy. if you listen to the president, he will repeatedly tell you i need to build a larger economy in order to satisfy the aspirations of my people, and that's correct. the point i add to that is while we have do that because we have gone through political change in the middle east it is important to make sure everybody feels they're a stakeholder in this process. therefore as you take the right

steps in implementing projects, we also need to develop a culture of public engagement in politics and the ability to have different points of view as long as they're within the constitution of the country. just today, i was watching television in egypt, and they were showing these six tunnels they had built under the suez canal. all of them were -- the general manager of one of the tunnels was 32 years old. you couldn't do that in egypt five years ago. yes, we need to respond to youth in particular, and we need to get some real work done. it can't be all talk, but again talk is important in order to provide direction. >> we have time for one more question, if there is one. yes, sir, in the back. >> from american jewish committee. i want to go back to when you were talking about the identity

crisis in the arab world, particularly modernity versus tradition. can you talk, at least in egypt, how that has altered since the start of the arab spring where we are now? how would you gauge where egyptian kind of understanding on this issue is? i mean, this is an issue that's been going on for 200 years plus, but i would interested to hear your thoughts on that. >> that's a great question. if i had an answer, i wouldn't have raised them because then it wouldn't be an issue. the question is valid, but i'll give you an example of why i raised in. in 2011 and 2013, you would hear people of my age talk about what the youth did and what they want. the year 2000, 2005, you would have heard the same people saying what the youth should do in following our direction. so there is a clear

understanding today that we're going in a different direction, that the younger generation are going to define success or failure. it is our role to provide them an opportunity to do that, and that's why again people will say, well, you keep talking about public policy and putting forward scenarios. well, young kids -- i made mistakes when i was young, and i succeeded in different things. i want to be able to provide them different opportunities, different scenarios, and the ability and give them direction, but ultimately it will be their choice. i am worried that with the frustration that exists in the middle east today be they the deficits or the frustrations or the different challenges they may be driven towards extremise. that's why there is this role for the enunciation of public policy, but it is also important, as you had said, it can't be all hot air. it needs to have some concrete

evidence as well. >> last question right here in the front. >> thank you. welcome, nabil. i was wondering about the regional fragmentation that you spoke about in the last decade or so. the center of gravity of the arab world has moved from traditional centers of cairo and baghdad and damascus into mostly the gulf region which has been able to maintain a certain amount of power through economic means. they had the sources to do that. some in positive ways. some in negative ways like yemen, syria, things of that type. my question is that now that the gulf region's money is drying out and it's declining, where is the center of gravity going to shift? is it going to shift back to egypt? with egypt being in a relatively weak position, how will it maintain that kind of force?

>> in centers of gravity are not theoretical. it's a real effect. if you don't play a role, if you don't create something on the ground, it will shift somewhere else, and that's exactly what you said. it's shifted in certain areas to the gulf. i'm not sure their money is drying up, but i understand the point that you're making. where it will go will be defined on what we do. we can't argue. when the arab league was established in cairo, there were six countries. we were the ones helping arab countries get out from under european colonialism. but because we did that, we then had more stakeholders and more shareholders in the arab system, so it's quite logical that the arab system becomes more complicated to deal with because there are now 22 rather than 6 members. well, nobody's going to give us

back our role. you need to gain it, and it should not be the same role we had in the 50s, but it should be a role that's consistent with multi-stakeholders, but multi-stakeholders with some leadership. again, when i have these debates back home, i look at my egyptian colleagues and say, let's get our work done. then if we do something that's good enough, others will logically want to emulate at least parts of it. if we don't, then it's a moot point anyway, because you can't regain your role. i mean -- let me be careful here. we can gain our role positively or negatively. i preserve to see egypt as a centrist modern society. >> i will try to exercise my own leadership in leading the group

thanking you for that excellent presentation. while congress is on break until after the november elections, we're featuring american history tv programs that are normally seen weekends here on c-span 3. tonight, congressional history at 8:00 eastern. former senators bob dole and nancy casidon. at 10:45 tonight, the dedication of the thomas edison statue in the u.s. capital. c-span brings you more debate this is week from key u.s. senate races. this evening at 7:00 live on c-span the pennsylvania senate debate between republican senator pat toomey and democrat katie mcginty. on wednesday, a debate between marco rubio and patrick murphy. thursday night at 8:00 eastern,

kelly ayotte and maggie hassen debate for the new hampshire senate seat. c-span, where history unfolds daily. what are the vulnerabilities of the u.s. election system? the institute for critical infrastructure technology hosted a series of discussions on cybersecurity threats. over the next 50 minutes, a look at ways voting machines and data can be compromised. >> good afternoon, everyone. thank you for joining us for today's briefing. my name is parham eftekhari. i welcome you to today's

briefing on a recent series of publications entitled "hacking elections is easy." we're holding today's briefing because of the factual conversations on the cybersecurity of our election systems have been replaced these days with two extremes. on one hand, we have conspiracy theories filled with doom and gloom scenarios and basically banter that inflicts widespread distrust of the democratic process. on the other hand, we have statements from ill-informed commentators who believe hacking an election is impossible and could never happen because of the decentralized nature of our election system and that state officials are prepared adequately to defend against the adversary. neither of these schools of thought are accurate. we felt it was necessary to introduce a hacker mind-set to this situation to discuss the

realities of the vulnerabilities that exist at the local, state, and national level. we'll hear from experts on how hackers engine their way into our system. during the second panel, we'll talk more about cyber hygiene best practices, which should be implemented by every public and private sector as a whole. we're here to educate the public and educate our election officials on what is possible so that they can then shore up the vulnerabilities that plague our election systems. with that, i'm very excited to kick off our first panel which is an analysis of the publication series "hacking elections is easy." i'm going to introduce our panelists. to my immediate right is james scott, a senior fellow at icit and the primary author of the paper. to his right is jim walter, a

contributor and senior researcher from a silent spear team. and to his right, is tony cole, the vice president of global government at fire eye. to start with, i'll be identifying three major problems in the current voting system and asking you the panelists to keep this in mind as we go through the next several minutes. problem one is the black box proprietary systems. the greatest threat to every election is the dependence on black box proprietary systems because voters and election officials don't know what code is running. the reliance on vendors or outside contractors to manage these systems is extremely worrying because it is an enormous security risk. problem two is the defenses. state election boards believe state elections are secure because the vulnerable systems are isolated from hacking via an

air gap. finally, decentralization is not a defense. to point to this common belief, i'm going to go to a quote from director comey who said, the beauty of the american voting system is it is dispersed among the 50 states. the beauty of this is it is not exa actual exactly a swift part of the internet of these things. digitizati

gore and bush had a disputed election. as a result of this, congress passed the help america vote act. fast-forward to today. there's about a dozen evoting manufacturers out there, and there's two primarily types of machines that are used. panelists, my first question for you is since moving to e-voting systems, have we, as a nation, done enough to ensure the integrity of our systems across our country? >> i would say absolutely not. throughout the history of their use, there's been numerous vulnerabilities in these systems across all the manufacturers. they're not at all designed with security in mind from the ground up, and they seem to sort of exist in a bubble outside of the normal sort of hardware/software security life cycle in that when vulnerabilities or issues are publicized or disclosed in these systems, nothing seems to occur. you never see any cbes assigned

to the issues. there's no follow up from the vendors, so there's definitely not -- little if nothing being done to address the issues within these systems. >> there's a security aspect that starts at the manufacturing level and takes it through the entire life cycle of the technology. it would be great to see something like that. >> great. can we really briefly touch on what security requirements and mandates have been put in place for the states and if they've been effective and is there adequate funding for states to actually deliver on these? >> yeah, i think the funding is adequate, but the people that are in charge, the election officials, are no longer qualified to fulfill these tasks in the digital age. so we need to start bringing in people that are familiar with

the cyberkinetic threat landscape that is plaguing our election systems. >> i would add that i think there needs to be a minimum state of standards that are equivalent across all 50 states and the territories as well. i mean, this is what our democracy is based on. it is trust in the system that you vote and your vote is counted. if we can't trust those systems because they've been compromised, then we chip away at the foundations of democracy. >> most of these certified systems are certified against a standard that was drafted in 2005, the voluntary voting systems guidelines, voluntary being the active wording there. there's been some revisions since, but it's still proceeded with the voluntary word, so there's no requirement for these things to follow the standards that do exist today. >> talking about machines for a

moment, do you think that manufacturers have done an adequate job of building security into the life cycle in the maintenance of these machines? >> yeah, dre and optical scanner just dilapidated bare bones pcs with minimal, if any, pinpoint security. when you have black box technology with minimal transparency, it's pretty difficult to get in there and forensically analyze a malicious payload or hidden features that may be in that black box. >> this is a 16 megabyte compact flash card. this was taken out of a voting machine that's still in use today in i believe 13 states across 170 some-odd different precinct, cities, counties, however you divide it up. these are the kind of systems that these things are based on.

this is a very ancient version of dos running the thing. it is very easy to open up the box and yank this thing out. the poi-- when you're talking at operating systems that, a, run on something like this and are running code between 1999 and 2001 and they're in use today, i would absolutely argue that there's no security being paid mind there. >> i would add to that we need to take a completely different path on that where security is baked into these solutions because the people who are running these systems out there generally have no training as part of the paper that was done. some of these folks are being paid $15 an hour, so they're not highly trained individuals that can monitor, maintain, and ensure that these machines are

doing what they're supposed to do and have not been modified. >> we have easy to breach networks. we have employees that are not adequately trained or volunteers. and we have an election system that are run off black box proprietary code. james, what do you think is the most likely adversary that we're facing given the environment that we just described? >> could pretty much be anybody. you can look at the sophistication of state actors, sand worm projects. from a mercenary perspective, you can look at poseidon patchwork. what we're going to go over now are tools that are available on dark web forums. things that used to be sophisticated are just point and

click at this point. >> so we'll start. >> well, that's the big thing right there. we hear about illinois and arizona, but the reality is for a while now voter registration databases have been able with recently infiltrated data on dark web forums. if you look at the minimal sophistication of the state governments, i think nasa, center for disease control, united states postal service, these are pretty sophisticated cyber defenses. they defend in layers. ftp access is readily available for a fee. i would estimate by the next election cycle they'll be selling access as a service to state tabulators. this is just downloadable guide

for information, internet information servers. another example of data access as a service -- little difficult to see. this one was interesting because they offer a refund. you pretty much just give the url. they achieve access. you check it out. then your bitcoin comes out of escr escrow. this is interesting because this is a hacker-for-hire service, but this is an ad by a handler. you described the project, what database you want access to, what type of malware you want customized, and this individual will have maybe 10, 15 hackers that he can pull from. this is a vulnerable port sniffer. we'll talk more about that at the state level, injecting

malicious code. same type of thing. just a different -- it's more of purchasing the software as opposed to a service. sql injection tools so easy anybody can do it in about ten minutes. brute force, we're going to talk about that as well. you can brute force your way into anything, especially with the web exploits. probably going pretty fast here. trying to catch up. this is interesting because it is an all-inclusive inpsyencycla like software to do script attacks with minimal capability. zero day for microsoft office is a still at just under 350 bitcoin. excel is important because state

tabulators will use excel as their spreadsheets. finding an exploit that will work with excel, bare bones voting machine or a scanner, black box technology, which nobody can get into. there's a lot of things that can go bad there. another 0-day. this you can build your own exploits with this -- this is just another nifty tool for people to figure out you can start doing your own exploits. >> perfect. thank you. that gives you a good example and a good visual of some of what's out there. many of these and other images can be found in our hacking elections which can be downloaded from the website. we're going to get into a part of a conversation that is going to be quite fascinating, and

that is how a local election system can be compromised. so we're going to walk through this process. i wanted to start off by making a statement that there is no consistency across particular states or precincts in how precincts or what they are using. a very, very high level, the process is simple. votes are tallied at a local level and the state level using memory card, e-mail or transfer. this is constantly a changing process. there may be processes that are introduced for the upcoming election that we are not aware of. keep thag in mind, what characteristic would malware have to impact an election? >> depending on where your starting point is, you mentioned right off the bat, the transfer base of voting data or ballot data talking about a system with ftp data outward, anything that can monitor that traffic or anything that can monitor the initiation of that traffic.

that's any number of off the shelf tools like has been shown or, you know, it doesn't take much to write stuff that sniffs or scents or redirects elsewhere. you can get deeper into stuff it can run or be injected into code on the voting machines themselves. those that run windows, it's simple to craft a piece of malware for the machines or use something that already exists. they are typically not running protection. anything you dump on there in regards to how old or ancient the malware is will run and do the job. we have seen scenarios where people test out these machines and drop things like poison ivy or dark comet which are very well known, very easy to detect in the security world. they will run on these machines as needed.

>> i would add, the other thing we ought to think about, too, is many times this data may be taken back to the state level to be tabulated or regional level, the county level out of localities. if you have people sitting in the room who are working on their own systems and maybe more modern systems. if you have those other systems for the election that are air, all it takes is one, you know, piece of removable media moved over to one of those and you can do a compromise. a lot of people think if you are air gaffed, you are safe. there are a number of reports that have shown how air gap systems get compromise zed quite frequently today. >> air gaps, i would say you would have to know how to leverage exploits, specifically microsoft operating system, excel, access. but, with bypassing the air gap, since 2005, it's pretty common. we had usb sealer in 2005.

air hopper, project this year. all easily achieved bypassing the air gap. the air gap is no longer a defense. it's interesting to hear state officials say that it is. kind of shows how unqualified they are for their positions in the digital age. >> so, gentlemen, there's three viable scenarios for this part of the situation -- >> oh, i had one other thing. >> the payload should target the tabulator. that's where we are headed. we'll talk more about that. then it should also activate on election day and self-delete after tabulation. >> so, there's three viable injection scenarios at the manufacturer level, at the local level and the state level. james, i want to start with you by talking about the factor at the local manufacturing level.

how are you able to compromise machines at the manufacturer level? >> so, at the manufacturer level, that's actually the easiest place to inject a malicious load that will carry through to the tabulator at the state level. so, you could use a port sniffer, certain type of credential stealer, gain access, you could sniff for vulnerable ports with something like we showed in there. the easiest way to exploit and overall campaign is to inject -- to poison the update at the manufacturer level. what will happen then is because it's a black box technology, because the code is considered proprietary, because there's no transparency, you can poison that update. that poisoned update will carry through to the contractor and

reps in the field. also the election consultants and the local and state level officials that are updating and certifying. >> any additions? >> there's typically no strong checks between the update process for these machines and the code that it is updating on the machines. so, there's been a lot of academic and published research on poisoning firmware updates for sequoia and premier where you can take a poisoned firmware update. because there's no signing in place or checks or weak krip toe doing the check summing, that update will run on the box and generate, cause the box to be running malicious code from that

point forward. in most of these manufacturers have open ftp site that is are easy to find that they receive data or distribute updates. if you can pop the server and stick up your malicious update, then that takes care of it. >> we are going to move on now to the local level. we have a graphic here that can help facilitate the conversation. let's talk about what you would do when an attacker would do at the local level. >> sure. i mean, we can look here or i can just walk you through it. so, what jim had showed, one of the first things is to exploit open ports, injectable media, memory cards. if anyone is familiar with the h

hursty hack. they took a memory card that could manipulate the actual tabulation process of an election. then self-delete. >> yeah. i was going to say, there's so many ways to go about it with all the varying machines. i'm sure everyone in this room probably voted in the past. so you know a good percentage of the time when you vote, especially toward the end of the day, those people that are making $15 an hour, $16 an hour are really not paying attention, not only that, do they really know what you are doing when you are back there on the machine. it's not difficult to go in, one had a switch on the back you could flip. sequoia pop the panel off and reset it. another one had a panel you could pop off and stuff the ballot box directly. there are a number of things you can do. i want people to think about this, the fact that it was 400

votes in 2000. 400 votes is all. for people to say you can't hack an election, that's crazy. it was 400 votes. you know, a large effort, you could certainly have a much larger impact than 400 votes, very easily especially in a swing state or swing county. >> the focus is swing regions of swing states for a local attack. poisoning the update, you could add a targeting feature to the code so you are only focusing on particular proximities in swing states. >> at the local level, you have the technical side of it and the human side. going back to the sequoia machine, it takes maybe eight to ten seconds to tilt the machine sideways, take it out, replace it or leave it out and the machine is rendered useless for the rest of the day or replace

it with your own flash card. there's two media ports in the back nec to the activate button that allows you to vote multiple times. you can remove the pc card that stores the results from the back of the machine. pop over a latch and yank it out and then off you walk with all the results for that machine. so, there's that sort of technical side and the human side. you touched on the employ eye side of it. it wouldn't be uncommon for malicious actors to insert themselves as employees/volunteers or pay off others. it works in the way that mirrors the carding universe. you have paid individuals to look the other way while you tamper with other things and they make sure no attention is called to it. there's all different kinds of ways to go about it. >> most of the election volunteers have no social engineering training at all. they couldn't identify a physical attack on a machine if

they saw one anyway. you know? >> so, we are going to move on to the state level. there's obviously at the state level several layers of technology that can be looked at. seven primary attack factors. exploiting, reaching state server, insider threats, infecting state pcs, poisoned updates at the manufacture lefrl. spreading mallware and compromising state tabulators. we are going through each one by one. we have another graphic to help facilitate the conversation. first, we start with exploiting website vulnerabilitievulnerabi. >> domain systems own sequoia and premier, i believe, which used to be dibolt. they have a portal for all customers. something like