mexican guys. there are no black americans over there. we need jobs and they are giving them to them. it is really hurting us. guest: not only are illegal immigrants taking the jobs that americans can have, they are also suppressing the wages that americans could do in the same industry. when you pay people off the books, that suppresses the wages of everyone else in construction, food service, what ever it is. i am hearing rumors and hearing talk that other states want to adopt arizonas law. that is why the obama administration is getting very uneasy. this is kind of the equivalent of an immigration tea party movement. it is long overdue. host: next call from washington, curtis on the independent line. caller: thank god for legislators such as yourself.

what you're doing is long overdue. i am an african-american male and i cannot believe that the african-american community has not supported in this. i sought out sharp in the of the day and all he spoke about was -- i saw al sharpton the other day and all he spoke about was racial profiling. there is a high murder rate of young black males in chicago where they are considering bringing in the national guard. this illegal immigration is heard in black america more than any other thing. thank god for you. you are doing a wonderful job and i hope the rest of the nation mirrors what you are doing in arizona. guest: i thank you. and that is the voice of america. in arizona, 3-321 for the law. in the rest of -- 3-1 for the

law. and the rest of america, 2-1 for the law. host: next telephone call, buffalo, this is phillip, good morning. caller: can you hear me? host: yes. caller: this country is in dire straits. thank you for much of the work you are doing, but until november rolls around and then 2012, we have got to get different people in office. we cannot have people who are holding power -- not just obama, but everybody that is in theire.

i cannot understand where the democrats are because they are driving our country into socialism just like they are in europe and we will go down the same tubes. they believe that and that is exactly what they are doing. immigration, they want this course. and i believe this immigration deal throughout the country now is going to be the trigger for mr. obama to declare martial law. guest: i will tell you one thing, all of this talk from the obama administration about dealing with immigration now and certain incentives, they are not. right now, they're on the losing end of this issue. republicans have the chance of making significant gains in the u.s. senate and the u.s. house. if they try to push through this amnesty bill, we will make gains and takeover boathouses as a prelude to 2012. -- take over both houses anas it

relates to 2012. the only thing i do hope they do is secure the border. because all of the enforcement because all of the enforcement in >> and reminder, you could watch this program and all of ""washington journal"" online. we're live in this to go live to the national press club. ray mabus his life. live coverage. >> who covered me, all of those years ago, when i was governor -- i am glad to see you again and see that you are gainfully employed. and, tom, he was an astoundingly good governor of iowa. he is continuing that as

secretary of agriculture. i will speak about the agriculture-navy partnership. i'm fortunate to have him as a friend, and america is fortunate to have his talent as secretary of agriculture. i am honored to be here today, to be speaking with you my understanding is, the very first speaker at the national press club was teddy roosevelt. i do want to point out that both theodore roosevelt and his cousin franklin were assistant secretaries of the navy. [laughter] >> today is a navy birthday. 212 years ago today, congress authorized the department of the navy. it was a pretty different place

and organization from the navy of today. then, the navy only had three commissioned units, the united states, the constellations, and the constitution, still in service in the boston naval shipyard. we had a tiny navy, and one that had never fought. since the revolution, the navy had been pretty quiet. you could make a pretty good argument that the reason why america changed from the articles of confederation to the constitution that we have today was because we could not field a national maybe. that was one main impetus of getting together in philadelphia in 1789. in 1798, then secretary of the

navy, -- the then secretary of the navy, had three ships, very few squadrons of marines to sell on the ship, and it was a regional maybe. today, things have changed a little bit. some of the things that allen spoke about, today, we have 286 ships in our battle fleet, 3800 aircraft, over 900,000 people, 4.4 million acres, 72500 buildings, and a budget north of $150 billion. the numbers did not tell the story. what i would like to do is spend a few minutes doing what i call

navy and marine corps 101. what do we do? why do we need a navy? why do we need a marine corps? we are everywhere. we are america's away team. if we are doing our job, we are usually somewhere far from home. we are in combat today, in the things that you see and what you report on, day after day. more than 19,000 marines in afghanistan. there are also, today, in the middle east, a iraq and afghanistan, 12,000 sailors on shore, doing things like running prevent reconstruction teens and doing counter ied duty. we have more sailors on the

ground than we do at sea, in central command. today, we have ships off of africa fighting piracy. we have ships around africa, engaged in the african partnerships station. ships in asia, engaged in the asia partnership and around south america, doing the same thing. we can do everything from high- and conventional warfare, to be regular warfare, through humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and partnership building. we do it all with the same equipment, the same platforms, and we do it all using exactly the same people. we have to be flexible. we have to be ready for whatever comes over the horizon. as smart as the people who do

the planning -- as far cited as we can be -- we simply cannot provide for every eventuality. we have to be trained. we have to be ready. we have to have a frame of mind that does not get us into one way of thinking, but is flexible to meet whatever challenge comes at us, whether it is that rescue operation in haiti, whether it is flying combat over afghanistan in support of our soldiers and our marines there. one of the overlooked things about what we do in the navy is the engagement around the world, days inn, and day out. you can surge people. you can search equipment. what you cannot search is trust. day after day, american

warships, american sailors and marines, are going to countries and partnering with those countries, doing humanitarian assistance, training the local navy and marines, and meeting with local citizens and leadership. oftentimes, the navy is the only face of america that the leadership of these countries will see, and particularly the population of these countries. i think, the navy, in that engagement, that partnership building, has become an integral part of how people view america and our diplomatic efforts around the world. the big difference in the united states navy in the 40 years that

has passed since i served is not so much the equipment, although that has gotten a lot better, and it is not the technology, although that is advanced beyond my attention four decades ago, it is the people who served. i served with a lot of very dedicated, very skilled, and very motivated people. they simply could not touch the sailors and marines we have today. they could not touch them in terms of skill level, education level, in terms of commitment, in terms of all the things they have to know how to do. we are the only country on earth that can produce the numbers and the quality of

people that served in our -- that served in our armed forces. we're the only country on earth that pushes our responsibility down to a second class seaman in the engine room, to a lance corporal on patrol. the marines have a term "the strategic corporal." we have that in spades in the navy and in the marine corps. i want to talk about one specific thing that we are doing that allen mentioned in his introduction. we are trying to change the way the navy jets and uses energy. -- debts and uses energy. we are simply too dependent on foreign fossil fuels. we would not let, we would not allow our warships, or our weapons, to be built by the

countries that we do allow our ships to be powered by -- and their fuel. this is a strategic vulnerability for us, and one that needs to be addressed. we are doing a lot to make sure that we meet this strategic imperative. it is a matter of energy independence. it is a matter of our security. it is a matter of making sure that when we need the ships at sea, those aircraft in the air, the marines on the ground, we have the energy produced right here, in the united states, to do that. we use a lot of energy. the federal government's use bridge to the federal government uses about 2% of all of the -- if the federal government uses about 2% of all the fossil fuel

use in america. the department of defense uses about 90% of what the federal government doesn't -- does. outside the overall strategic reasons to do this, and there is the tactical reason. example that i like to use is getting a gallon of gasoline to a marine front-line unit in afghanistan. you have to put that a gallon of gasoline and a tanker. you have to take it across the pacific. you have to put it into a truck. you have to talk it over the hindu kush and down through afghanistan. as you do this, you have got to guard it. one of the most dangerous assignments today in afghanistan is convoy use. we use -- -- convoy duty.

we lose marines and sailors in convoy duty. we take marines away from what marines should be doing -- fighting, engaging, helping to rebuild that country. if we can reduce the demand for energy, and we can produce it locally, there, we have made our marines better fighters. today, we have solar powered water purification units in afghanistan. today, marines are using spray- on insulation. they are reducing the amount they need, and they are changing the way we get energy. i have set five goals for the navy in energy. the biggest one is one allen

mentioned. one decade from now, half of all energy use of the u.s. nation -- of the u.s. navy will come from non-fossil fuel sources. there are some others. hour basis in 10 years of to be at net zero. we have one base today, china lake in california, thanks to geothermal energy, it produces more energy than it consumes and it is putting the excess energy into the local print. we have -- into the local grade. we have done something sets some of you have reported on. last week, we flew the green hornet. if you recognize the green hornet, i know you are of a certain age. [laughter]

>> the green hornet is a regular f-18 that flew last week supersonic, on a mixture of regular gasoline and biofuel. biofuels made by family now. it is in the mustard family. it can be used with week. it can be grown in every single state in this union. this brings me to one other thing this energy push is doing. we can, through partner in -- partnering with the department of our culture, we can help american farmers. we can help move america to a new energy economy. it is a move that america has to

make. it is a move that we cannot afford to fall behind on. we signed and mou, the agriculture and navy did, in january, to corporate our research and to work together. we had our first big event in hawaii. hawaii has a big maybe, a big green presence. hawaiian farmers are -- hawaii has a big navy, a big marine presence. when farmers are having problems as sugarcane is leaving. hawaiian is the most dependent on imported foreign energy. will help all three of those. the two obstacles we have identified, one in the price of alternative fuels, and second been the lack of the truck to

deliver those fuels -- and the second being the lack of infrastructure to deliver those fuels. if the navy comes, they will build it. if we create demand, if we create a market, if the military does with the military can do, be a market leader, we can drive the price down, we can help american farmers. we can cause the infrastructure to be built. at the same time that we're moving toward these new forms of energy, it is imperative that we also used less to do the same job. we launched our first hybrid ship last fall. it was built in my home state of mississippi. it uses an electric drive for

speeds of 10 knots or less. and its first voyage, -- on its first voyage, around south america to its home port in san diego, the uss ship saved almost two million dollars in fuel costs. over the lifetime of that ship, if you prices remain absolutely the same, we will save about one-quarter of $1 billion in fuel. we are protecting that engine to be retrofitted onto our guided missile destroyers, so that we can begin to move back into the fleet. we are doing a lot of things. we are getting a lot of help. operation free, which is a

group formed a former military, just out of the military, who has made it their goal to waned, and not only the military, but the united states off of the dependence on foreign sources of energy. we are getting help from the department of agriculture. we have five working groups with the department of energy to make sure that we are coordinated. we are working with karen bills, the administrator of the small business administration, to make sure that small american businesses are included in the. so many of the good ideas, so many of the things that will affect us in the future, from those small, ultra per no real businesses that have the -- of japan real businesses that have

the capacity and audacity to think of things in a major way. we are doing it for one reason. it makes us a better force. it makes us better at being the navy and marine corps that america needs. america, america's maybe, has always led when we have changed source of energy. we changed from sale to coal in the 1950's -- in the 1850's. we changed from coal to oil in the early part of the 19th century. we went from nuclear in the 1950's. every single time, every single time that we made one of those

changes, there were people that said you were abandoning one source of proven energy for one that she did not know will work and, by the way, is too expensive. every single time, there were those naysayers. every single time, they were wrong. i have every confidence that they will be wrong again. the navy and marine corps to not back down from a challenge. the navy and marine corps official every mission given to them, including helping us become energy independent. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, very much for your time, mr. secretary.

the questions are being passed along. in terms of the approach you're taking, could you talk about some of the initiatives you are using to reduce fuel use and recycling the fuel your use incurred >> for reducing fuel use, i gave the example of the macon island. we are installing and smart- grade technology using stimulus money. and i do want to say that this administration, the president, has laid out a vision about energy conservation and the source of energy as an independence, an energy issue, as well as a climate issue and a security issue. we are doing that, and we're

also doing a lot of smaller things. in san diego, they did an analysis of where their energy was going. a lot of it was going to move water, to irrigate plants, grass. so, they went and changed it to artificial. when they told me that, i thought this was going to be ugly. i was thinking about astroturf in the 1970's. i could not tell the difference most of the time, and their energy bills have dropped a dramatically, as well as their water usage. those are the a few of the things. we have 50,000 non-combat vehicles that turnover about every five years. just by changing the vehicles that we buy, buy more electric, hybrid, more flex-fuel vehicles,

we are lowering the amount of energy that we are using, and we're going to cut their fossil fuel use at least in half within five years the >> related to energy questions are questions of climate change. last year, a task force try to respond to arctic forces. what steps is the navy taking in the newly opened arctic ocean? >> the arctic could be free of vice -- free of ice within the quarter century. it will require us to make that a normal part of our service and our navy patrolling and protection, in making sure the sea lanes remained open. i do not think we need any different kinds of ships or aircraft. we will just need to think about

it did fit -- differently and include this as a part of our strategic operations. >> how will the navy's ships' structure be effected by meeting the demands of competition by the expanding chinese navy? >> we have 286 ships in our fleet today. we put in, earlier this year, the president's budget, which calls for building an average of 10 ships per year over the course of the next five years. over the next 10 years, we have put in a 30-year shipbuilding program that shows as getting to 3320 by 2020.

in order to do that, we have had to be realistic about what ships are going to cost. we have tried to be realistic about how much funds will appropriate for naval ship- building. in order for us to build the ships that we need, to build the ships that we put into this plan, we cannot afford cost overruns, or schedules to slip. we owe it to the industry. we no mature technology -- we owe mature technology. if technology improves, wait until the next block of ships. we go industry stable design. we should not be designing ships

at exactly the same time we are building them. on the other hand, if we do that, and i think the navy is doing that, the industry opposed us some things as their largest client. -- those of us some things as their largest client. they have to make the infrastructure. that to train the work force. they have to show us that prices and the number of hours taken to construct a ship go down with each successive ship in the class. i will give you two programs that are working very well, virginia summer rains, which are coming in on budget and ahead of schedule, and take dry and supply ships. they have had a reduction. they are building no. 12. the number of hours it takes to

build the chip has gone down 40% since the first one of the class. we have to pay very, very close attention to how much these ships cost or we will not be able to build enough. >> you have been publicly addressing the navy's transition to allow female serve aboard submarines. could you comment on the progress? have you select the candidates and when will the planet begin? -- had selected the candidates and when will the program began? te>> we are starting today. there was a notification period that expired yesterday. we'll be looking at the naval academy and ocs. the first group will be officers the golan -- it is about the 18-

month pipeline from the initial selection to when they report to their ships. the first two types of submarines that women will deploy on are the ballistic missile submarines and the guided missile submarines. we have had a lot of interest from some very impressive young women. we're going to look case-by- case at a lateral transfers. for every ship, there will be at least one more senior female officer who will transfer latterly, probably from the supply corps, to be a mentor for the newly-minted officers that are going on board. we have 20 years' experience with women on service ships. frankly, we could not run the navy without women. this is something that is

absolutely the right thing to do. will make us a better needy. >> what does the deployment of women say about changes in naval culture and american culture? >> i think whatever it says it is good. more than half the technical degrees, engineering, science, are being granted to women today. we simply have to be competitive and recruit in that group. i think it also says that we have recognized that when it comes to serving your country, there should not be a gender impediment to that. >> in terms of training, what can be done to help train soldiers that lead to actions in foreign deployments that make people do them more as helpers

rather than potential outsiders, who may not have their best interest at heart? >> you are seeing that kind of training today with sailors and marines. every marine that goes to deployment takes a small paperback book that talks about the importance of cultural awareness. you get a lot of training before you go. marines, in particular, have been very innovative in the. in afghanistan, for example, they have seen the female marines go into areas and talk to women that simply will not talk because of their culture, to our male marines. marines are involved a lot in the engagement and involved a lot in making sure that what they do it is not culturally offensive, wherever they are.

part of it is the partnership building that i've talked about. it is becoming a very comfortable in a lot of different cultures. i talked about the marines notice -- notion of the strategic corporal. that corporal, that lance corporal, a lot of times, is the only american people have seen, and he or she is the face of america, and they have been incredibly well trained at that. >> moving to current issues, could you comment on the bp's request for naval assistance in the oil spill cleanup off of of the gulf of mexico? >> this administration has been heavily involved ever since this began. homeland security is the agency that has the lead on this.

no. -- no. come and is the department of -- no. come and is the department that has the lead. we are standing by and ready to provide the assistance they need homeland security is the one agency that has the full picture of this. they are doing a very good job, right now, of coordinating all the different responses that are being made to this crisis. >> are you anticipating that the department of common security will ask you to play a role? >> we are standing by for whatever role they would like us to play. they have a great grasp on the subject. whatever they need, we will try to provide. >> during the cold war, we had an incident at c. agreement with the soviet union to assure the accident would not cause world

war three. would you support such an agreement with iran? where you doing to ensure that such an accident does not become a major international incident? >> i think our sailors, marines, the commanders of our ships and task forces, again, are very well trained. -- they are very well trained. they understand what steps have to be taken before -- they have under the rules of engagement. i do not think an agreement like that is particularly necessary. i think that the navy and the people who command the ships, and the people who serve on the ships, have a good handle and are trained to respond to things like this in the appropriate way.

>> how will the role of men and women involved as fewer personnel -- evolves as your personnel are needed to operate future ships? >> the navy has shrunk by about 60,000 people over the last few years. we are down to a core of about three have a 24,000 sailors today. -- 320000 soldiers today. the ship i served on, the light cruiser, had 1000 people. the ships of today, the guided missile destroyers, which is as close to an equivalent ship as to what i assert -- served on has 280. a combat ship, which is very fast, able to fight in much more

shallow waters, has a core crew of 40. with their weapons system, the crew grows to only 80. i think it's a couple of things. people have to be weighed more versed in which more things. they need to be good at a lot of things, instead of just one simple thing. it also says that we have a lot of faith in those people, those 40 people that are commanding and running this pretty big warship. as time goes by, the world always changes. the things that we have to deal with are inevitably going to change. that is why, in our training, in what we buy, in how we plan, we

have to be incredibly flexible. we have to not get stuck in one way of thinking about issues, and we have got to be ready for what ever knew -- new issue comes over the horizon that we have to deal with. i am comfortable and confident that sailors and marines can deal with anything, and that we are buying platforms that are flexible enough that they can meet any eventuality as well. >> congress has required that new service combatants be nuclear powered. is that feasible? >> action come what congress said is it we should take a look -- actually, what congress said, is we should take a look at it over time. to make the business, the financial case for nuclear power, a whale has to be at

about $150 a gallon -- a barrel, sorrell -- sorry. $150 billion a barrel for a sustained period of time. absent that, the up-front costs are too big for us to build the number of ships that we need if there were nuclear power. but, again, we do not know what is clear to happen now in the future. we do not know what is going to happen to the other types of fuel and we do not know what other technology will affect the other fuels. we're trying to move away as rapidly as we can from fossil fuel spilled >> do you support the house bill renaming the department of the navy as the department of the navy and marine corps. >> i am going to " the commandant of the marine corps

who is more of an expert on this the time. things have been working fine. he thinks it is not necessary. my position is that whatever is named, i want to be the secretary. [laughter] >> when will we see the first nuclear destroyer or cruiser? >> we have already seen them. we have had nuclear power cruisers in our fleet. they have all been retired. they came into the fleet in the late 1970's and began to de- commissioned in the 1990's -- to be de-commissioned in the 1990's. we >> with the u.s. navy expansion be able to keep up with the expansion of the chinese navy, ship for ship? does that even matter? >> i do not think that is the test, regardless of who you are talking about the test is your

capability, and not simply the ship number. >> looking at budgetary needs, how is the navy going to pay for its new ballistic missile sub without torpedoing its budget? >> i talked about the fact that we were trying to be realistic in the 30-year shipbuilding plan that we put in. where try to be realistic in what ships cost, in what congress would appropriate. we are also trying to be realistic in what is coming down the road. the replacement for the ohio class submarines, -- deal hire class will begin to recover -- retired in 2027. the ships, if they cost what we estimate they will cost today,

will not a big hole in the surface navy and attack submarines. 17 years is a long time. the reason we put that in there was to be realistic and to start the discussion on what sort of capabilities we're going to need as a navy, not just in our ballistic relief. what i can control, what this congress can control, is about 10 years, in terms of what ships we are going to build. that comes a good ways after that. there will be decisions made along the line that will have an impact on that. but, truthfully, and realistically, five years to 10

years -- past five years to 10 years, you are getting into more speculative decision making than i am willing to get into. >> a question from the audience, why is the navy buying another destroyer when you have all said that the other destroyer it is better suited? >> we are buying three. it started off as a 30 some odd ship program. secretary robert gates, last april, almost exactly one year ago, truncated it to three ships. one and two are already under construction. we are in training for the third one. the reason that secretary robert

gates, and now the navy is going back to restarting the other line it is that it offers us far more capabilities than the 1000 model at a lower price. the president has given the navy a large responsibility in terms of ballistic missile defense for the world. the 51 is the platform that can do ballistic missile defense. the 1000 cannot. that is the reason that the 1000 was truncated and we are opening up the line and beginning to build more 51's. we of requested eight 51's over the next five years toward >>

will you released information investigating congressman john murtha point of death? >> i believe it will be released when we are finished. >> what is the minimum number of sailors and marines you can see a teacher warships in an effective navy -- on future of warships in an effective navy? >> i talked about how we are reducing the number of crew. the rest of that question is one of those that i hope i learned pretty early in my career. it is hypothetical. nothing could has ever happened when i have answered hypothetical questions. [laughter] >> hypothetically, how many ships the think the u.s. navy should help? >> -- should have?

[laughter] >> actually, not hypothetically, the navy needs a minimum of 113 chips in our fleet. -- ships in our fleet. 313 is a floor, not a ceiling. the combat ship is going to be one of the backbones of the navy. it is a very different kind of ship from previous u.s. navy ships. >> a couple of follow ups. you mentioned the challenge posed by piracy. how was a navy participating in these operations, and what progress is the u.s. making in coordinating these operations with a non-and naval -- non-

nato forces? >> we have a task force combating piracy. nato also has a task force, as does the european union. there are a lot of other countries, 16 in all, at last count, that have individual or more ships under the tasking of their home country. we engage in routine, and navy- to-navy communications in these waters. we have to. we are all out there for the same reason. we are all fighting the same people. we all need to know where other people are. the coronation, so far, and i anticipate record nation, so far, and i anticipate in the future, has been a good and a ship-to-ship, maybe-to-navy

level. >> he said the navy is standing by to help with the oil spill. given that it is already hit short, why are you standing by? >> what i meant is that whatever is being requested of us, we are furnishing. homeland security is the overall agency in charge. they are controlling this up very big response effort. i have a piece of the picture, and i do not want to piecemeal it in terms of talking about what is the extent there. >> if industry has to look at the efficiency of our ships are built, it should they be looking for ways to reduce maintenance costs, and what signs of those efforts have you seen? >> when the marine corps of the

army comes back from the war, they do a thing called a recess. the equipment, vehicles, the weapons, that have either been lost in combat or worn out, and are no longer useful, they have to buy new ones to get ready for what ever is coming next. the navy resets every day -- -- every day. our reset is called maintenance. we have to maintain our ship. we are looking at ways, working closely with industry, in ways to reduce maintenance costs, but also, we are looking internally because we have to make sure that we get the maintenance and those shipyard availability is that every one of our ships need if they're going to meet their life span. for the navy, it is an

operations and maintenance account. it is a crucial, crucial account. we have to make sure that we have enough funds and make sure that we get the maintenance on a routine basis. >> how was the navy been effected by the prolonged process of enlarging the panama canal? >> we could not get big -- we can't get big ships through. i will digress for a minute. the width of the panama canal was determined by a navy ship. it was exactly two feet wider than the eye along class battleship. that was the largest of its kind. we, in the navy, have since bit -- built much larger ships than the iowa class battleship. we have adapted very well to

getting to places other ways than through the panama canal. i do not think that operationally, it will mean much one way or the other in terms of how we operate. >> when will the navy decide whether they will have a multi- year deal for new super hornets? >> we are working on that now. we have had proposals from the manufacturer. it is being worked in terms of whether or not the savings are there that would justify a multi-year, and we're hopeful that it will be resolved very soon. >> how do you anticipate the u.s. nuclear submarine fleet to be effected by president obama's proposals to reduce the size of the u.s. nuclear arsenal and the reliance on nuclear weapons? >> ballistic missiles and nuclear submarine fleet is one

of the three legs of the deterrence triad, along with long-range bombers and land- based ballistic missiles. i think it will always be an important leg of that triad. it is probably, arguably, the most survivable leg. it will be important. the other thing is that a very large part of our fleet is not a ballistic missile submarines. it is attack submarines, which are one of the most flexible platforms that we have. >> we are almost out of time, but before i ask him the last question, there are a couple of matters to take care of. please be patient. first of all, on may 19 we have the hon. tim kaine, chair of the democratic national committee, discussing his party's prospects.

on may 30 force, the owner of the washington capitals will be addressing a luncheon. on may 26, we have barbara bush, the daughter of former president george w. bush. second, as is traditional, we would like to present our guest with the traditional national press club mud -- mug [laughter] [applause] >> we appreciate the time you spent with the. winners and you will be having a meeting -- we understand you'll be having a meeting. this underscores that this has been a nation that has been in wartime for a decade. as sailors and marines find themselves the plane four or

five times, how was the navy and marine corps coping with high multiple deployments? what is the name been doing to help those families cope without their father or mother, serving on multiple tours of what will soon be nine years. >> you are absolutely right. we have a very high operational tempo. there are a lot of deployments for marines and sailors. on any given day, 40% of our ships are deployed, and morton 50% are at sea. -- and more than 50% are at sea. it is not just the sailors and marines. it is the family. the navy and marine corps are doing wonderful things in terms of reaching out to family, helping with child care and some of the stresses that multiple deployments have.

health-care issues -- things like that. it is a truism, but it is nonetheless true that the people in our force, are the most about evil things that we have. the last it -- are the most valuable things that we have. in spite of a high operational tempo, multiple deployments, the stresses that and put on the navy and marine corps, this is the most resilient group of people that i have ever seen. demirel, the level of dedication -- the morrell, the level of dedication, and the level of recruitment and retention that is going on right now in the navy and marine corps is simply astounding. you, and all americans should be exceptionally proud of the young men and women who wear the cloth

of this country. it is fewer than 1% of our country. they're the most skilled and most resilient people that i have ever had the honor to meet. thank you. [applause] >> thank you again, to secretary ray mabus. would also like to think the national press club staff, including its library and broadcast center for organizing today's the event. for more commission on how to join the national press club, and how to acquire a copy of today's program, please put your website. thank you, once again, this meeting is adjourned. [applause]

tonight, a tribute to dorothy height. we will hear remarks from bill clinton and secretary hillary clinton. that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. saturday, on america and the courts, a discussion with the fourth circuit court of appeals judge. he is the first african-american to serve on the court. that is tomorrow, at 7:00 p.m. eastern. following that, almost 3000 journalists, politicians and celebrities will get together at the washington hilton for a

correspondents' dinner. that begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern said it, here on c-span. a c-span video library fact -- there are nearly 6000 references to abraham lincoln in our video library. you will find lots of interesting programs online. for a contemporary perspective, there is c-span's book, "abraham lincoln" now in paperback. . ..

>> there is lots of money being spent in the british campaign. the political parties cannot advertise on television or radio. there is a legal ban on advertising. they spend a lot of money on direct mail, phone banks, posters, things like that. they spend much more nowadays on direct mail campaigns and e- mails. because they cannot buy television time, it has a profound affect on the amount of money. we have tight limits on spending because of the constitutional restraints that apply in the west.

>> during the campaign which lasts four weeks, there is usually one broadcast aired each day except sunday. these are produced by the parties and the main national broadcasters are required by law to provide tv and radio air time for free. here is a look at the labor party's broadcast earlier this >>yep?

>> he just told us [unintelligible] >> that's absurd. he doesn't have kids. >> within a few weeks of being representative, the conservatives will stop child tax payments to hundreds of families on middle and modest incomes. >> what are you doing this? >> we need to make some changes. [laughter] >> within a few weeks of being

elected, the conservatives would stop baby bond payments for families with incomes over 16,000 pounds. >> how can i help you? what do you mean? >> the conservatives would end the right to see cancer specialists within two weeks of referral by your gp. the tories don't want you to know what they would cut if they win on may 6. there is only one way to protect your tax credit, your child

trust fund, and your right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks. the vote labour on may 6. >> you were watching the british political parties election broadcasts. in the u.k., political ads are not permitted on tv. the law requires that the parties and broadcasters to agree on an allocation of air time that is free. conservative party leader david cameron released this broadcast earlier this week. >> today see the dawn of a new era in britain. >> we, the hon parliament party, will end the -- will change the fate of politics.

we listened to the hard working people of this country. we feel the dissolution that to many of you have with modern politics. we want to do away with the old conventions and set out a new vision for britain. it is time for real change. we are going to bring in behind closed door politics, no public allowed. >> we want to end transparency. under a hung parliament government were no party has a majority, under the table deals with the order of the day. >> party political wrangling will dominate and policies will the bickered over by secret committee's. >> those more interested in serving their careers than their country. >> pledge, but to, in decision of weak government at a time when our country is crying out for clear leadership, we, the hon parliament party, promises to deliver in decision and half measures. we guarantee more differing policies from the different parties which in real terms means no change to

underperforming schools, no change to the nhs, and no change to the violent crime rate. our third pledges to paralyze the u.k. economy. votes for a hung parliament risk killing economic recovery. we can promise this because we know that 2/3 of business leaders are concerned about the impact of the hung parliament on the british economy. a drop in confidence could lead to a run on the pound of the disastrous increase in interest rates. finally, we pledge to hold a new election within the calendar year. we promised you, but voter, another chance to be faced with the same problems and same arguments all over again we will waste tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer money doing it. this is our vision for britain. we hope we can rely on you to create a brave new world of un- democratic progresses', any

other party should do the job. >> the british election is may 6. during the official campaign, there's usually one broadcast for each day except sunday. here's a look at the liberal democrat election broadcast that aired this week. >> boats and promises, there have been to many in the last

few years, to many in the last 30 years. in fact, our nation has seen a trail of broken promises. you remember them, their taxes, a promise broken. better schools for everyone, a promise broken clean up politics. a promise broken. i believe it is time to do things differently. i believe it is time to expand. i believe it is time for promises to be kept. britain is a strong country. despite everything we have going for us, life is still too unfair for too many people. people like you who made as the nation we are today and you deserve fairness more than anything. but in fairness back into office is in my view the single biggest challenge we face. we can do it. if we do it together. and here is how her. fair taxes, no tax for the first

10,000 pounds you earn. it means 700 pounds back in the pockets of almost everyone. it gains tax freedom for millions of people on low pay and pensions. everybody knows that money is tight but we have to sort out the mess from before. we can pay a fairer tax by closing the huge loopholes that only benefit the very wealthy and make sure week -- they can pay for the damage they caused. that is fair. there starts for all our children. cutting class sizes in primary school to just 20, investing in catch-up class and our secondary schools so that no one is left behind. imagine, opportunities for every child. that is fair. imagine, too, a pair of sustainable economy. just break up the bank to make sure they pay for the damages because, as well.

let's invest billions in new green infrastructure, affordable housing, green renewable energy, high-speed rail to build a new economy beyond the city of london with jobs that la forever one in every part of the country. that is fairness. finally, fair politics. if your mp is corrupt, you will be able to sack him. we will fix the system so that your vote will count no matter where you live. that is the way to put them back into politics this election is different from every other election. the trail of broken promises can come to an end and a new road can begin. it is the road into the future, opportunity and fairness for everyone, you can say goodbye to broken promises and welcome back to hope. we can make britain the fair country we all wanted to the current -- we all want it to be.

choose fairness. choose real change that works for you. choose the liberal democrats. >> you can see these three political election broadcast on our website, c-span.org. just look for 2010 british elections under the featured links section of the home page. the british election is may 6. >> more election coverage this sunday. the third and final debate between the three letters. this will be courtesy of the bbc at 9:00 on c-span. now a senate hearing on children's privacy on the internet. we will hear about efforts to update the childrens' on-line privacy prevention act which was

originally passed in 19908. -- in 1998. this runs one hour, 45 minutes. >> i will go ahead and call our hearing to order this morning. i want to welcome our witnesses and thank all of you for being here. this morning we will examine children's privacy and how well the children's on line privacy protection act or coppa is working. consumer protection subcommittee has jurisdiction over the federal trade commission which enforces the statute. the ftc is currently engaged in re-examining the implementation and effectiveness of coppa >> protecting our children's on- line safety cannot be overstated. abuses such as harassment, threats, cyber bullying, should never be tolerated. discuss

and today could not, a more pivotal time as technology developments and innovations will while greatly beneficial, contribute to the complexity of today's online space. i am concerned about our kids on-line safety for a number of reasons. first, we know that while some companies are making great strides to take young people from predators and online dangers, the disclosure of personal information by young people this problem. researchers are still looking into the implications. second, a recent report has suggested that location-based advertising is tied to social that working. it also appears that certain technologies such as a gps tracking capabilities could track children without their knowledge markets have access to phones and tracking devices and mobile technologies increase in sophistication, greater understanding of how children can be infected is essential.

third, we know that our young children are using the internet now more than ever before we know they represent a large portion of total online activity. according to one report, in the last five years, we have seen the time spent on line by kids ages 2-11 increased by 63% children of that age make up almost 10% of online users. i am interested in all the witnesses thoughts regarding the appropriateness of the statutes age limits. , what constitutes a children's personal information, how parental consent is best achieved, and how operators maintain the confidentiality of the information that they do collect.

the fcc is considering to prevent the authorized collection or use of children's information and how to educate parents and educators about encouraging children to protect themselves on-line. i look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses, especially the ftc on what they are doing. i want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. not all members of the business community were willing to present their views. specifically, we had best apple and google to come. they declined. i think that is unfortunate because they are major players. in this area . we will have a long and in-depth conversation that start today but this will go on into the future. this unfortunate that apple and googled chose not to participate in this discussion with that, i would like to turn it over to mike ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman for

all in this important hearing, to examine the childrens' on- line policy protection act, coppa. as a subcommittee, we are responsible for consumer protection. we are mindful that protecting our children is essential and i applaud you, mr. chairman, for your commitment toward this goal. the internet provides the opportunity to share information for adults and children. this has led to our current revolution and the availability of information to almost anyone who has access to computer. a flood of information, however, breeze new challenges. one such challenges have to ensure the privacy of information by children when they use the internet. coppa was created to address the concerns with internet users under the age of 13. they have work to maintain the security of children's personal information when it is placed on line. it also ensures that parents

know what resources are available to help them be more aware and have some control over what their children are doing online. i commend the ftc for its continued efforts to enhance parents' involvement in children's online activities. i want to highlight the consumer education efforts at the ftc, making consumers and businesses aware of their rights and responsibilities is one of the most effective ways to ensure that all law achieves its culprit of the best examples of this is the ftc's netcetera guide which teaches adults how to explain to children the risks that can be associated with online activity. even with these efforts, there are many challenges in protecting children's information online. it is important about blobby he quipped to meet those challenges -- it is important that the law should be equipped to meet those

challenges. many industries face this difficulty. every day, a new service, a new application, or a new product is on felt that as a little faster, a little better, and a little more complicated than we were using yesterday. this present new and unique challenges in efforts to make sure that technologies are safe for consumers. i have been apparent for many years and it is important to me to keep my children safe. i'm also a new grandparents. i am amazed to think about the opportunities that my five-week old granddaughter will have. her generation will be able to access information and learn some much more than those in this room ever imagined. a significant portion of those opportunities will be available for online technology and innovations occurring today kamal, tomorrow, and years of the future.

these technological changes can make it difficult to consider regulations for the internet. our first priority is to ensure safety. we must also take care not to stifle innovation and business development that runs our economy and makes possible some many opportunities available to our children. there have been many suggestions about ways to improve coppa and help a meat the goals of congress in today's world. -- and help it meet the goals of congress in today's world. i think it is important for us to take time to consider these conflicting concerns and better understand the ramifications in both childrens' on-line privacy and children's online experience. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator rockefeller. >> thank you. you have pointed out the 60

million children who were availing themselves of these technologies these days. -- the 16 million children who are available themselves of these technologies these days. i am understand the need to encourage innovation but every time there's a choice between protecting children or protecting privacy and protecting innovation, we always seem to go with innovation. we just don't go with privacy. that is what coppa is all about. i am shocked that children from 2-13 -- it should be children that should be 25. [laughter] it is ridiculous. they get youtube, google, facebook and some of less these

in terms that no parent would want their child searching for on the web. that is the point. accessing these websites whether they are well known or popular or outright illegal have enormous considerations. this is not an innovation meeting. this is a privacy meeting. we do then this committee. we protect people. particularly, we protect children because they are the most vulnerable of all. many of these sites are collecting personal information. that is benign until becomes un be nine people are giving up all kinds of information and have no idea. we started coppa and the idea was to keep information private but the whole world has changed since that happened. the entire world has changed, technologically. the ftc began an important effort to review its rules. the public should have done so earlier and i want to talk about

that but at least they are doing it. i really think that congress has to take a hard look at weather coppa should be updated. lfbut it might need to cover new businesses and i look forward to working with senator pryor. i appreciate the fact that microsoft and facebook are here. i do not appreciate the fact that apple and go on not here. i'm curious as to why they are not. was it too expensive to send an associate or legal counsel? were they trying to avoid something? were they trying to hide something? when people don't show up when we ask, i have this power of subpoena which i would love to use. i have not to this point. it increases our interest in what they are doing and why they did not show up. the made a stupid mistake by not showing up today. i say shame on them.

this is an introductory hearing. we are starting an important public discussion. all of us here are tremendously interested in this part o. children's safety comes first always. we begin and as the chairman has said, this will be the first of a number of hearings. children are to be taken seriously they are not. they are part of an age that we are not part of in technology. it is dangerous for them. there are all kinds of horrible things they can see and parents don't know about it. they don't know what the rules are. we have responsibilities. i thank the chair. >> thank-you. i would note for the record that german rockefeller has a long and distinguished career in protecting children. >> thank-you for all the work you have done in this area. it is remarkable, as my colleagues have noted, how

quickly technology has changed over the last few years i still remember the old joke where people say if you want to program your vcr, ask your kids. vcr's are a thing of the past. new technologies, devices, programs and applications have completely changed the way we work and communicate. from gps and geo-locations on smart phones to text messages and twitter and posting our photos of social networking site, the world is quickly changing. no group adapts to new technology quicker than young people. i am really -- 16 million kids aged 2-11 are active online. these numbers are growing as more and more young people are logging on. the average young people spend more that 11 hours per month on the internet. that is a 63% increase over five years ago.

one survey found that the top 5 internet searches for children under 13 are youtube, google, facebook, sex, and corn. clearly, the on-line world has changed dramatically. if you look back when these coppa rules were adopted 10 years ago, you probably could not have checked what kids were checking into. it is very important that we examined this rule to ensure that it keeps up with technology. i have heard a lot of stories in our state of changing technology while it is great and so many ways for innovation has also severely hurt people's privacy rights. when it comes to kids, we reach a whole new level. i am according -- i'm looking for to working with my colleagues on this role and make changes that are in the best interest of everyone. thank you very much. >> thank you.

all of our witnesses, we have a very distinguished panel today. we could spend a lot of time introducing them and going through their experiences and degrees and all backgrounds. does an impressive group but that is part of the record. i'll just go down the line and introduce each one and ask each one to make a by-minute opening statement a. like you to pay attention to the lights in front of you and when five minutes is over, we would love for you to wrap it up. first, i would like to introduce jessica rabbit, the deputy director of the bureau of consumer protection at the federal trade commission. second is timothy cerapani, director of public policy of facebook. next is mike hennessey, the

associate general counsel at microsoft. next is kathryn montgomery, she is the professor of school communications at american university. next is marked rotenberg, the executive director of the electronic privacy communications center. last of the children's table [laughter] i'm sorry that our table is only so long this morning. we have baron soca, the director of the center for internet freedom at the freedom foundation. thank you all for being here. mr. richards, you can lead us off. >> -- miss richards, you can lead us off. >> mr. chairman and members of the committee, i am a jessicarich, deputy director of consumer protection at the federal trade commission.

i want to update you regarding our to protect children's privacy and in force coppa. we submitted a written statement today which represents the views of the ftc. this expressed -- these views reflect my own feelings. the federal trade commission is deeply committed to helping to create a safer, more secure online experience for children. our role implementing coppa became law 10 years ago. the statute and parole apply to operators of web sites and online services to or directed to children under age 13 and two other website operators that actual knowledge that they are collecting information from children. covered website operators must provide notice that their information collection practices obtained verifiable collection used for personal information of children. operators also must give parents

the opportunity to review and delete personal information that their children have provided. the commission has taken a multi-pronged approach to roll compliance that includes enforcement, education, and implementation of the statutory mandated coppa program. on the enforcement side, the commission has brought 14 actions of coppa violations for the early cases focus on children's sites that collected extensive personal information without providing notice to parents and obtaining their consent. more recent enforcement actions have been focused on operators of general audience and a child- directed social networking site. these permie their personal information online. the crucial complement to our law enforcement efforts is educating businesses about their responsibility under the law. the ftc has published comprehensive compliance materials which are available on our website.

we devote significant resources to answer individual requests from companies about rule compliance and conducting out reach two industry groups. our goal in these efforts is to prevent coppa violations before they occur. the consumer education material -- materials and to inform parents and children so they know what to expect and what to look for. these materials are available through the commission's online safety portal, onguardonline.gov. this includes articles, games, videos. our most recent addition is the netcetera giude. in light of significant changes to the on-line in pharma including the explosive growth of social networking, multiple web technologies and gaming, the commission initiated a result -- a review of the role.

on march 24, the commission lost the public comment period on a wide range of issues whether the role definition of the internet covers certain types of communications that are mobile. whether the rules definition has kept pace with the canal -- technological developments and certain the commission that is not named for listed in the role such as static ip address could allow a website to contact a child pretty effectiveness of mechanisms -- another topic is the effectiveness of mechanisms used to authenticate children's information. the commentary to these questions closes on june 30. on june 2, the commission will host a public roundtable here in washington to hear from stakeholders' including children's privacy advocates, website operators, businesses, academics, educators, parents, anyone who would like to come. on these important issues. the commission seriously looks

at whether coppa continues to meet its original goals. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. >> thank you for your leadership and for inviting me to share facebook's perspective on child safety and how are innovations promote a safer online environment for teens. from our inception, we provided a safer environment for all its users and was generally available on the web. facebook is not directed at children less than 13 years of age residing in the u.s. and does not knowingly collect information from many children under 13 in the u.s. nevertheless, we take seriously our responsibility to protect children under 13 and enhance teen users on-line safety.

facebook was built with coppa requirements in mind. our commitment to keeping children off the side starts by requiring those who want to enter an account on the first regarded as prohibits children under 13 from establishing an account this technology places a persistent cookie on the device used to attempt to establish under age account. it prevents the user from attempting to modify their birth date. when facebook becomes aware of an account established by children under 13, we terminate those accounts and the legal information. we emphasize two points. facebook's orlin culture and innovative technologies and policies enhance online privacy and two, congress should not over all coppa but support and encourage, not discourage or prohibit companies innovations to advance routine online safety and privacy. the facebook approach begins

with the recognition that no existing system today can verify aged users online. as a result, facebook developed a multilayer system to act as a technological proxy for age verification. these letters are enhanced by the roman culture which helps us identify accounts. internet users were avoided -- or want to avoid using the romans. facebook was the first major internet site that require people to build their profiles using real names. this made facebook less attractive to predators and other backers who prefer not to use their real names and identities. people are less likely to engage in negative, dangerous, or criminal behavior when their friends can see their names, their speech, and their information they are sharing. this culture creates accountability and deters bad behavior. facebook users understand their actions are recorded digitally. when users by like our site rules or the law, we can pinpoint corrective action to

the specific account. our real name culture also empowers users to become community police and report violations facebook users can click our "report" and when they see inappropriate behavior. this multiplies the number of people reviewing content and behavior which we think greatly enhances teen safety. facebook innovative private toll allows users to exercise direct control and share what they want with whom they want and when they want. this empowers users of all ages to protect themselves on-line. if a user feels uncomfortable connecting with a particular person, she may declined that french requests. if they feel a a friend as a knowing or dangerous, she may block or de-friend a person. facebook's proprietary technology allows improvements on online security. although we do not generally

discuss these matters publicly for fear they may be circumvented a compromise, these technologies allow facebook to perform ongoing authentication checks. we look for behavior that does not that the patterns. by the aggregate data from our 400 million users. suspicious behavior stands out. this initiate a facebook inquiry and immediate remedial action. facebook uses additional technology and reduces the opportunity for adults to pose as minors. facebook automatically limits minor-sharing to a much smaller subset of users like the minor's friends, friends of friends, and those in their verify networks, typically in their schools. this reduces the visibility of miners to people they do not know. facebook recognizes the importance of collaborate with others in this area. we are proud of our relationships with child and say

the security experts and law enforcement. we're very proud of our relationships with the attorneys general. in conclusion, although facebook is not a service that is directed at children under 13, we built our service, policies, and tools with coppa in mind. congress need not amend coppa at this time. in fact, and the amendment might undo any -- many of our safety rules. congress can assist companies like us in advancing on-line child and teen safety by eliminating disincentives for child safety innovation. congress should insure innovators are not discouraged and policy safety advances are encouraged. thank you. >> thank you. >> chairman rockefeller, a germanpryor, thank you for the opportunity to share microsoft

abuse on children online privacy. microsoft has a deep and longstanding commitment to protecting the privacy of consumers including children who use our software and service. i want to begin by discussing the microsoft comprehensive approach to protecting children's privacy, but i will identify those areas where coppa has made prof -- has made progress over the past decade. this hearing is timely. 10 years ago this month, the federal trade commission's coppa rules that took effect. that goal remains essential to that. research has found that children can important educational and social benefits such as increased opportunity for learning and creativity while engaging in internet activities of life. to realize these benefits as they increasingly use new technologies to access the internet including mobile phones, video game consoles, and portable media players. as we all recognize, these

interactive technologies often enable consumers to disclose personal information online and children may not fully understand the terms of the trade-off involved. coppa was designed to address this issue. microsoft fully support those objectives of financing parental involvement and protecting children's privacy. while children's use of the internet has evolved to the last decade, these objectives remain just as if not more important today. privacy failures can have a real impact on children's safety. therefore, microsoft takes a number of steps to protect child safety through our own products and services, educational initiatives, and partnerships. first, microsoft requires parental consent and offers parental controls for a number of our products and services including xbox, hot mail, and there is a message for service. our windows live family's safety tool enables parents to limit their children searches, block or allow websites based on the

type of content, restrict with whom the child can communicate, and access detailed activity reports that show the websites their children visited and the gains in applications they use. second, microsoft engages in educational efforts around the world to help parents and caregivers make informed decisions about children's internet use. third, microsoft partners with government officials, industry members, law enforcement agencies, and child advocates to address children's privacy issues. the attachment to my written testimony provide more details on this. in the past decade, coppa has made important progress in raising awareness with children's privacy issues. for example, many website operators now limit the amounts and types of information they collect from children and provide parents and children with education resources to foster conversation about online privacy and safety. by encouraging what said

operators to be more transparent about their privacy practices, and encouraging them to implement a parent's consent mechanisms, coppa has unable parents to take a more active role in deciding how the children can take them as of the internet's many benefits. we do not believe a legislative amendment is necessary at this time the statute enables the ftc to update its rule and we appreciate the ftc's efforts to implement its implementation of coppa in light of new technologies. i would like to highlight two aspects of the ftc rule that we urge you to consider as part of the review. first, the commission should provide clear guidance on how companies can better meet the spirit of law. microsoft goes beyond the letter of the law by proactively requested age information and seeking parental consent for children's use of many of its services even when those

services do not target children specifically. we take this approach to encourage parental involvement. this enables children to participate in and benefit from interactive activities on line. other companies take their approaches. we encourage the commission to use coppa rule review process to help web operators of on-line services understand how they can honor the spirit of coppa, the new technologies. second, we urge the commission to work with technology companies to develop more consumer-friendly, effective, and scalable met its for obtaining a parental consent for the ftc has approved five parental consent methods for the disclosure of children's information,. iá[these methods can be cumberse for parents. these issues become more pronounced as children increasingly access services for mobile devices or providing notice and obtain parental

consent. microsoft recognizes that the task of approving the parental consent process is not easy. there is no silver bullet. coppa provides a good opportunity for productive dialogue about consent. we are committed with working in the short and long term with congress, the commission and other stakeholders to address privacy challenges raised by new technologies. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. >> thank you. >> thank you so much for inviting me to testify about coppa. it is a lot i care very deeply about. during the 1990's, while president of the nonprofit center for media education, i played a leadership role in passage of coppa. i work with members of congress on both sides of the aisle as well as a coalition of prominent education, health, and

consumer groups. i think we need to remember that in the early days of the world wide web which was really a wild west period, the business model of one-to-one marketing, combined with the increasing value of children as a target market for advertisers, created a perfect storm or marketers who wanted to use the internet to take a badge of young people. we and others documented many of if we need to remind ourselves of where we were, we can remember websites like the young investors cite that as for reams of personal financial information from children or one of my favorites which was the batman site with as children to be good members of gotham and fill out a census. that is what we were looking at at the time. that is where the internet was headed. my colleagues and i recognize there was a broad spectrum of stakeholders a one to craft rules that would balance our

interest while protecting the privacy of our children. coppa has served us all very well. it has created a level playing field by creating a law that applies to every on-line commercial player from the largest children's media company to the smallest start up. it sends a signal to the industry that if you are going to do business with our nation's children, you will have to follow some roles. because it was passed during the early stages of e-commerce, it has greeted rules of the road that has helped guide the digital marketplace. it curtails many of the egregious practices that were coming into place. i think the safe harbor mechanism is very important because it permits self regulation but uses the context of clear government rules and enforcement authority by the ftc. as others have pointed out, recent developments and online marketing really warrant renewed attention by the ftc and the congress. today's children are growing up in any mercy of that ubiquitous

digital media environment. it is 24-7. many of the practices we identified in the 1990's have been eclipsed by a new generation of tracking and targeting techniques. i will highlight 12. one is the april targeting which is an invisible process and a covert process that tracks individual users through cookies and other data files to collect information about them and design personalized advertising to target them. that isav based on their psychological profiles and behavior. this also raises the question of what constitutes personally identifiable intermission. to not just a matter of giving your name. the marketers can note to you are and get to you and to argue. the second is mobile marketing which people have mentioned. the important thing is it combines the april targeting with location target. the research that i have done on food market for children and

the obesity crisis has found these companies creating discount coupons being sent to children's cell phone sprins. i am working with the agency to update law as it was intended to do. finally, i want to say that while coppa has established important safeguards for the youngest consumers and the digital marketplace, adolescents have no such protection they use social networks like facebook and myspace and others. they are living their lives on line in many ways and they are increasingly relying on these social networks and on the search for personal information and for handling sensitive, personal issues that they cope with in their lives. i would argue -- i am not arguing for a parental verification system but i think we need a set of their

information and marketing practices that are tailored to the unique needs and vulnerabilities of adolescence. i hope the committee will send a message to the ftc that coppa remains important but needs to be updated at all so that the ftc should develop to the civic recommendations for protecting the privacy of adolescence as part of its broad new initiative on online privacy. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to be here today. i'm with a nonprofit researcheg company. i want to thank professor montgomery for the leadership role she played in helping to ensure passage of the act. we wrote to the ftc back in 1995 and ask the commission to look of the business practices involving the collection and use of personal information on children.

following that letter, congress passed import legislation and that legislation set up that particular principle that in this environment, it was important to protect young people from the exploitation and manipulation of their personal information. it is obvious there have been dramatic changes since the time that coppa has been enacted pretty obvious change is the emergence o a social network services. our kids live on-line, exchanging intimate information with their friends and that information is then collected and used for marketing purposes. the disclosures to their friends appear to them to be very transparent to give them a great deal of control over what they choose to post or not post, what is going on behind the scenes in terms of the transfer of their data by companies such as facebook to their advertising

partners and application development partners and now to third-party websites is they proposed to transfer information about -- that is much more opaque. facebook said earlier and i think this is true that they have tried to discourage the use of the service by children under the age of 13. kc÷this is so they remain complt with coppa. what they haven't addressed is how do we deal with the collection and use of this personal information on teenagers? children between the ages of 13 whose data is being collected in this online environment and undisclosed to marketers and others for purposes completely unrelated to the reasons they made available parent the problem is more serious still. in this setting, the user has to rely on the privacy policies and the privacy settings they are presented with. that is essentially the only way self regulatory environment you are going to get privacy

protection. what we are seeing increasingly is that companies have been collected the data on teenagers, will change the privacy policy. they will change the privacy settings for the purpose of making this data more easily accessible to business partners, for marketing purposes. this is a problem that coppa never anticipated and i think it is the single biggest problem facing children in the on-line world today. the self-regulatory approach that relies on privacy settings and privacy policies is not working. it is also not working in part because i don't think the federal trade commission has been as aggressive as they need to be to go after what are essentially unfair and deceptive trade practices. they do a good job of education side, no doubt about it. they have provided very good materials to families and teachers and educators and others about what people need to do to protect the safety of the

children online. they have not done enough to enforce these unfair and deceptive trade practices. i think they need to do more of what to tell you one extraordinary story, a complaint that we filed with the federal trade commission last year the was offering a product ostensibly for parental control. it was supposed to protect kids on line. from risks and dangers that parents by the word aboutwñ. the same company was gathering the data through this product that they made available for marketing purposes this is how they describe their own product -- every single minute, we're aggregating the social media outlets to extract meaningful user generated content from your target audience, the teens. they are talking to a marketing firm about how they are able to surreptitiously gather information on kids on line. we went to the ftc and we said to them, you need to shut down this company. the ftc acknowledge the receipt

of our complex but never acted on it. the story does not end there. when the department of defense learned about how this product operated and they were planning to make it available online to military families for their online store, they said this poses a risk, a privacy and security risk to military families. they will not make it available. the department of defense acting on information that anyone who had taken a close look at the product would have quickly recognized it was a serious problem, made inappropriate decision. the ftc, which has the authority and expertise to police coppa, never acted. in both of these areas, the need to update all loss of the protections for teenagers, those between 13 and 18, from the use of commercial information and also for the ftc to get much more aggressive on enforcement. case and is not enough in this area. they have to go to these companies that are now acting

appropriately when they collect personal data. thank you very much. >> thank you. mr. soca. >> thank you for inviting me here today. despite sitting at the kids table, i'm a senior fellow at the freedom foundation so you can imagine how young my colleagues kenbei. -- can be. for an internet jr., as we refer to it, the sites directed to children under 13, coppa requires sites to do age verification and prevent children from making public -- personal information public. coppa imposes the same requirement general audience sites when they have knowledge they are collecting information from a user under 13 or enabling them to share information. because of this separation and

the cost of age verification, coppa may have limited the choice of competition and the marketplace for children's content by driving consolidation in the marketplace. on the other hand, coppa has been a reasonably successful to protect children online privacy and safety. i am here today to caution against expanding coppa beyond its original purpose. they're unique value lies in its freight -- uniqueness my concern is not about innovation but free speech. coppa is flexible because it applies to the entire internet. that includes services that did not exist in 1998. coppa is subtle because it requires verifiable -- parental consent. if they enable children to make that information publicly available online, coppa has a

creative solution to age verification. on like the child on my protection half -- act or copa, sz9coppa . congress considered in 1998 but did not apply coppa to adolescents. reason average to expand coppa output child safety and online privacy on a collision course. several states have reports what we call coppa 2.0 lost it -- laws. with this in small change, coppa was set to converge with copa.

that would require a to verification for sites used by adults and other states have proposed extending coppa to all social networking sector requiring adults and older teens to prove their age by identifying themselves constitute a prior restraint on anonymous communication. this would raise the same concerns that called to the courts to strike down copa. age verification ended and required more information to be collected from kids and adults including credit card information. government should not coppa -- put coppa in the best position of protecting privacy. coppa expansion would not make children say for online. ptechnology for reliable age verification does not exist. the ftc says it does not

consider coppa's methods as equivalent to age verification. coppa = = = -- some consider the real marketers to be a real predators. advertising is the great hidden benefactor. coppa already applies to the collection of personal information and could potentially allow the contacting of children under 13. if coppa or expanded to require general advertising sites to age verify all users, it would devolve to an unconstitutional approach found in cop,. that would raa. this could discourage innovation and raise prices for consumers and potentially restrict speech.

ultimately, concerns about tailored advertising would be more about the fear of persuasion. that is the idea that advertising is manila and grows. -- is manipulative and grows more and more. . . equally important act of suspicion of what advertisers say. if the government has a role to play in addressing the concerns about the tayler marketing it relies on educating kids about advertising to help them become smarter consumers to be of last week the fcc launched such an education campaign with its tutorial website. the ftc excels in consumer education and should be encouraged in these efforts as a less restrictive alternative to communication. finally briefly i want to caution that h.r. 4173 passed by the house in the fall would give the house in the fall would give the ftc the capabilit unilaterally change coppa including the age range and i would simply suggest such changes should be made by congress and not the ftc. if congress wants to help the ftc implement coppa it should

consider additional funding for education and indeed for enforcement. thank you for inviting me to testify. >> thank you. i want to thank all the witnesses for your testimony and we are going to start off with senator rockefeller. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have this odd feeling about this panel except you and you and you. it's like we are discussing some kind of a breakfast cereal good for you or not and children are somehow already disappeared from this process, and it comes down i think, and the both of you, microsoft and facebook, had a good things to say, but you always end up with the idea will we will do this by ourselves. and we really don't need the government telling us what to do. and i have to leave very shortly

because i have to give a speech on cybersecurity to a business group. cybersecurity is the nation's number one national security threat ahead of 9/11, dirty bonds, weapons of mass destruction according to all analysis. the private companies, this is parallel, they always said at the beginning, some of you saw that i've been working on this for two years. we could do this ourselves. we don't want the government to be involved in this. we know that couldn't happen because we know that they even have any idea what they were doing about how to take on cybersecurity. some of the larger companies did to a certain extent but most part they didn't. that's like parents. we want parents to make these judgments which is like seeing people don't know how average fare millie's have to live where people are trying to keep down

to jobs and they don't, you know, they themselves might not be skill on the internet and an event they're tired and have things to do so we have to do this for the parents. let's not let ftc do this let's let the congress do that. maybe that was the idea because he thought congress wouldn't be of a tacit. i thought your testimony was not particularly helpful to be honest with you. i thought both of your testimonies were terrific because you are focused on the problem. and either one of you, we haven't discussed really what the problem is. the problem is the kids are watching filth. they're watching phil from the end of lascivious horrible things and we are trying to argue about 13, as you said should be 18 or 22 or whatever and the companies here are in favor of cleaning this up but not at the expense of being

regulated. they want to do it themselves. they would appreciate working with the ftc a little bit. the clear message is they want to do it themselves. my clear messages i don't really think they do. i think that money tromps on this. money always trumps when it comes to information. money always trumps. this committee has come up with so many scam hearings in the last year or so where money drives that behavior and then kids and people that internet users and pop up all these things are left to the side. so i would like you to describe what damage do you think is being done to children by the inaction? i agree with the ftc they are not heavily staffed or funded and we need to change that. we are trying to protect them from being wiped out all together under the financial

services thing and i think we have. i think we have done that. what is the damage that you see being done to a generation of kids coming up with parents who are reportedly hovering over watching every move they make when you know perfectly well they are not? >> senator, i think the primary problem is that young people are being coaxed to reveal a great deal of intimate information and the data is gathered and collected and disclosed to strangers for any purpose that generates commercial value and as a parent of two teenagers, i have a problem with that. i think technology is great and i want my kids to grow up and be technologically literate and make smart decisions on line because i can't always be there. they need to have the tools and experience to make those decisions for themselves. but i know that there is a point

where i can't help them and they can't figure it out of the business practices are designed to conceal from them what is going on and that is why i think the congress needs to act. i think the congress needs to give kids the ability to control how the information about them is being used by others. my time is up. >> i would agree. we have created, the industry has created a system of ongoing monitoring and surveillance of teenagers encouraging them and it taps into the natural the telemental needs to reach out to their peers and to become independent encouraging them to get out a lot of information and tracking everything they do without their knowledge. salles socializing them into a system where privacy is not valued and i think that is a very deep loss to the society and i do want to respond to what was said about advertising.

we are not talking about traditional advertising by the way we are talking about by rall advertising and the environment and interactive gaming and after cars and things that are not what you traditionally think about as advertising. and recent research has found teenagers can be quite susceptible to this advertising and not necessarily aware of all of this and they don't know what is being done behind the scenes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> senator rockefeller, could i make a brief comment, please? >> i want to apologize if i gave the impression that microsoft doesn't want the government involvement and we want to do this on our own. it is not the case. we've been supportive of them all to us to approach of online not just for kids but all consumers including support for comprehensive federal legislation which we think is essential. since the self regulation play a role in the best practices we can play a role in education,

regulation and enforcement as well and we are very supportive of all of that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator record. >> thank you for a much and this is a very serious topic for implications for the next generation. i appreciate chair's willingness to get into the weeds on this and i think the testimony of all of our panelists has been helpful. i think it's important that we hear a variety of viewpoints and all sides to this and i do think that there is a way to -- there must be a way to have it both ways to encourage innovation and

to protect privacy of children's information at the same time. so i will ask the panel what do they think about what i just said? has the law reduced innovation and cost consolidation on childrens website? have we created a barrier to entry into the children's websites market? has filled all result donner limitations on content specifically for children? so if we could just start with ms. ridge and good on the panel that will be my question. islamic obviously tama keeps helping me with the button. that is one of the key issue is that we are going to look at in

the review is specially since i >> we are going to break away briefly to bring you the latest on the gulf of mexico oil spill. gov. bobby jindal joined by lee said jackson from epa, ken salazar, and secretary nap olitano. >> thank you for coming down to louisiana to see not only the spill, but the effects of the spell and the response efforts. i appreciate the call yesterday. we are urging the federal government to commit more resources to lessen the impact of the oil spill threatening the coast of our state. we are doing everything we can. i am certainly worried that the

measures currently deployed will not be effective. these next few days are critical. we must do everything necessary, everything possible to protect our coast. i do have concerns. i have shared these concerns that bp's resources are not sufficient. i have urged them to seek more aid from the federal government. our three goals are protecting the coast, preparing for the cleanup -- we are working to request a record -- resources from bp the coast guard. it is important to provide resources to coastal areas that could be impacted. on the state side, i want to update you on steps we're taking. we're taking every step we can to protect our coast, our wildlife, our people. i sent letters to secretary gates and secretary napolitano so we can mobilize resources.

i want to think the secretary. they are working very hard on that request. this will be 90 days of military duty for 6000 soldiers and airmen serving on active duty in response to our threat of the deep water rise in oil spill. this will provide medical facilities, communication response to the threat. after helping us recover from four storms, they are particularly well disposed to help us deal with this oil spill. we will immediately activate 600 guardsmen and have them on the ground. they are ordering 1500 protective suits to support the cleanup efforts. we're also making sure our fisheries and small businesses are protected from the oil spill. we have written the u.s. secretary of commerce, as well as support from the economic development administration for commercial and recreational fishing businesses.

this will provide financial assistance to our individual fisherman and assistance for commercial fishing businesses. louisiana is the top producer of commercial fisheries in the lower 48 states. this will certainly adversely affect the ecosystem across our state. it is important for fishermen and their families have the support they need to get through this event. we thus the u.s. malt administration -- small business administration act enable all the clauses that would help the small businesses in our state that will be heard by this oil spill. specifically to consider temporarily suspending loan repayments for businesses impacted by the oil spill and also the sba disaster and economic injury loans. we are working hard to support the response efforts. we have declared a state of

emergency. our coastal protection restoration agency officials have been deployed to try to prevent any oil from penetrating deep into coastal marshes. authorities are working a second line of defense in the wetlands where they can anchor booms in place. today the office of homeland security is reaching out to other states through the emergency assistance compact. there also deploying staff to help their emergency response. we've set up a mobile command center. we're also setting up another mobile command center. the wildlife department of fisheries is closed. the upper area will be closed at 6:00 p.m. tonight. the lower area was closed at 6:00 a.m. this morning.

168 additional biologist will be staged for wildlife -- biologists will be staged for wildlife rescue. residents of coastal areas of louisiana may be detecting an odor related to the oil spill approaching the coast. they are undergoing continuous air quality testing. daq will be increasing air quality testing. the oil be expedited. i do want to think the epa administrator. she is from this area and nothing she understands the importance of the air. she will lead announcements about monitoring the water. we've also activated the joy department of transportation, department of social services shelter team in case it becomes necessary due to deteriorating at yale -- due to deteriorating air quality.

the department of wildlife and fisheries is also training national guard trainers so they can train guardsmen to assist in cleanup efforts. we have offered these resources repeatedly to bp. we are still awaiting a detailed response on how best to deploy these assets. the department of health is working with fisheries to close fisheries on the louisiana coast. they will be closing areas 2 through 7 tonight. we have been told by bp they have 20 rapid response teams, 10 that have been mobilized. ultimately 50 will be in place. with offer tell from the state police,, daq, and other agencies. i will be travelling too impacted areas. i will be accompanied by the st. bernard parish president to

assess the need of local officials for their response efforts. we will take every step we can to protect our coasts, our wildlife, our environment, in our people. i want to again thank the federal officials to become personally to see this bill, the impacts of the cleanup and relief efforts. it is my privilege to introduce to you secretary napolitano. >> good afternoon. i am pleased to join you on the gulf coast. i am pleased to be here with gov. jindal. just had a flight over the area affected by the bp oil spill. we have had a meeting with our state and local partners on what needs to be done to protect plants from the spill and also to be sure we can -- to protect lands from the spill and also to be sure we can ensure an

effective cleanup. we're facing close -- we're paying close attention to the work being done here. british petroleum is the responsible party. it is required to fund the cost and the response of the cleanup operation. we continue to urge bp to leverage additional assets in this effort. it is clear that after several unsuccessful attempts to secure the source of the leak, it is time for our bp to supplement their current mobilization as the oil slick moves toward shore. as the federal court nader's thebp's efforts -- as the federal coordinators overseeing bp's efforts, we need to minimize environmental risk. the president has ordered that the administration use every single resource at our disposal in response to this issue. as the oil nearest shore, it is

important to note that we have anticipated and plan for the worst-case scenario since day one. -- and planned for the worst- case scenario since day one. let's not forget that the first response was an effort to save lives. our visit is also looking into the causes of the explosion which left 11 workers presumed dead and three critically injured, in addition to the ongoing oil spill. following the explosion, we also immediately began responding to the environmental implications of this spill. and we began to direct oversight and support of bp's cleanup in containment efforts, setting up a command center here and working across the federal government to ensure a strong and steady battle rhythm.

i acknowledged this bill as a spill of national significance -- this spill as a spill of nashua will -- national significance. it will require sustained involvement of senior officials across the government. aside from being an acknowledgement of the seriousness of this spill, it also commits the coast guard to committing additional senior agency staff i need in response. the environmental protection agency has the same authority with respect to inland waterway spills. the departments of homeland security, defense, commerce, interior, and the epa continue to oversee bp's deployment with a combination of tactics. bp began conducting controlled burns designed to remove large

quantities of oil from the open water in an effort to protect the shoreline, marine and other wildlife. they continue to use chemical dispersants, which will address a large part of the slick. when hundred 89,000 gallons of dispersant has been used today. -- 189,000 gallons of this person has been used to date. there are significant booming efforts to protect mississippi, louisiana, alabama short lines. -- shorelines. there been six staging locations. approximately 1900 personnel are currently deployed, and over 853,000 gallons of oily water have been collected so far using 300 vessels and dozens of

aircraft in response. the department of defense is fully integrated into the department of homeland security-led team. navy assets have been involved since day one, and d.o.t. continues to offer what is needed -- dod continues to offer what is needed. the secretary has approved a request for two c13 aircraft0 , -- c130 aircraft. they are currently on -- en route to the affected areas. additional assets have been requested of the department of defense.

that we have with them. -- the naval air station is serving as the staging facility in pensacola. we will continue to push bp to engage in the strongest possible response will taking steps to ensure the protection of our shoreline and our wildlife and our precious land. and with that, i welcome the secretary of the interior, ken salazar. >> thank you very much, secretary napolitano, and to all of the federal team who are here. administrator jackson from the epa, the undersecretary, as well as the admiral and the deputy secretary of the interior. gov. jindal all the other elected officials who are here. i want to recognize the terrific leadership of admiral

landry from day one and the rest of the team who has been here on site. has been a team effort across all the agencies of the federal government. my deputy secretary david haye of wass dispatched down here when the incident occurred. we've been monitoring this minute by minute. -- my deputy secretary david hayes. we do not know where we're going. we're confident the federal team of united states of america, as directed by the president, is doing everything we possibly can do. as soon as we learned about the explosion, which came down here to help in the search and rescue efforts, and we know that today the situation is still a dangerous one. british petroleum has a massive spill, for which they are responsible. the oil threatens communities, wildlife, and natural resources from the gulf of mexico.

our focus remains, as it has for the last 10 days, on overseeing bp's efforts to secure their wellhead that is spilling oil in minimizing the damage that could come. at the bp you're in houston, i tasked the ceo's engineers to work harder and faster to get the job done. i've asked leaders of the oil and gas industry to bring their global expertise to the situation to make sure that no idea that is worth pursuing is not pursued. as president obama directed, every resource is being made available to respond. we cannot rest and we will not rest until bp permanently seals the wellhead and clean up every drop of oil. the weather presents a challenge, but with strong interagency effort, we have

resources deployed, and the people we need to fight the fight. at the same time, this bill raises questions about safety on drilling rigs -- the spill raises questions about safety on drilling rights. i've ordered immediate inspections of all deepwater operations in the gulf of mexico and we have issued instructions reminding operators of the responsibility to conduct a full and thorough test of their equipment, including blowout prevention stacked. i am also signing in order to establish an outer continental shelf safety review board. the assistant secretary for land and minerals, along with the inspector general for the department, will lead this effort. it will provide recommendations or steps we can take to strengthen safety and improve overall management. they will look good all options

and it will provide oversight and support -- they will look at all options and they will provide oversight and support. i am confident that we will get to the bottom of what happened here. those responsible will be held accountable. and lessons we learn will help guide us as we responsibly can safely develop our nation's energy resources. and not introduce the administrator for the environmental protection agency, lisa jackson. >> thanks, everybody. the situation began as a human tragedy, and my heart and my thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who are presumed lost. it has evolved. it has evolved into an environmental challenge of the first quarter. unprecedented in is situation, but not in terms of its need to respond, using all the lessons

learned in the past, but realizing we must be flexible and willing to move quickly to adjust to the situation as we find on the ground here. epa is certainly a part of that, and from the beginning of been in support of the coast guard as they moved swiftly to search and rescue and the efforts are around it, with noa's assistance in trying to predict when this would make landfall as situations in weather have made the situation worse. we have had to change our approach. the epa is a team. this will require a team of people focusing on multiple aspects, some of which we know and some of which presented challenges. we will work with the state first and foremost. we began air sampling yesterday. we did that because we called

the states with permanent air monitors along the shoreline and asked them to work with us, and all of them absolutely on the spot, to increase the frequency of sampling from the six air monitors. that gives us a piece of the picture. we set up a web site -- www .epa.gov/bpspill where you will be able to get the results of that air monitoring. and we set up monitoring for contaminants we would not normally look for, and we have two mobile labs, when making its way here. i believe the other -- it may already be here. we will start taking samples of the the data up. there is a concern about odor. and we do believe that odor is probably due in part to the spill. there's a large machine. is a very thin layer. with increasing wind and wave activity, you get an aerosol out

there. that might live. what does that mean? we have no reason to believe it will move. we cannot answer that question until we have the data. as we get the data, we will put on the website and we will interpret it because it is important to know where it really means. water sampling begins today. we clearly know there is a problem in the water, but in order to understand -- this is on top of efforts by the local and state governments and noa, who were already out, getting information, and it builds on an existing database that we have to our gulf of mexico research center. so we are working to answer the questions that are beginning to be posed in people's minds. what i've said to people is that being from this area, it is not unusual for us to face and

into that we know is coming in be prepared. the resilience of the people of the gulf coast has gotten us through many of a challenge. -- many a challenge. we have to get the people who know these coastland like the back of their hands to make sure the high tech solutions are met with low tech or no tech solutions to preserve culture and livelihood. we will be here. i will stay for two days. i am thinking about calling my family and saying it will need to be longer. but we will stay as long as we need to to make sure we are ready and able to be partners in response and support all the local governments more out there, were trying to stand up their people into their communities -- who are trying to stand up their communities and get their communities ready for response.

>> thank you. i am pleased you all have joined us as we try to address this unfortunate event. since this began april 20 at, we have only had three priorities. stop the flow of oil, minimize the impact, and keep the public informed. so far, we've mounted the largest response effort ever in the world. we utilize every available technology. we've applied every resource requested. we have tried to stop the source of flow. we continue to develop new options to address the continued flow of oil at the seabed and also to minimize the impact to the environment. welcome every new idea and every offer of support from the state and federal government. -- we welcome every new idea. we had an idea submitted about the sub-sea application of dispersants. that will begin in less than two

hours. we have invited experts from other oil and gas companies. members of the department of defense are with our team in houston looking for new ideas. we completely agree we need to bring this event to closure as quickly as possible and we need to address the impact as fully as we can, and bp's resource is will be made available to do that. thank you. >> [unintelligible] >> ray henry, associated press. can anyone from the coast guard or bp talk about the role cement played in the explosion? particularly what happened in

this process and whether the figures into the investigation? >> we do not know what caused this event. clearly, the government has an investigation they have initiated. we launched our internal investigation as well, but as you imagine, since this began, we have had only one focus -- stop the flow of oil and minimize the impact. through good time and as quickly as possible, we will find the cause. equipment on the seabed, it will eventually be recovered, and hopefully we can discover and learn things from 7 to make it never occurs again. -- from this event to make it never happen again. >> we have signed a memorandum for a joint investigation between the department of interior and homeland security. those investigators are on the ground, trying to determine the

facts, and obviously this is going to be an investigation but will be ongoing. at this time, there are none -- there are no clear answers as to what caused will was an unprecedented event. -- what caused " was an in reject unprecedented event. -- what caused an unprecedented event. >> thank you. i am from bloomberg news. i was wondering if you have an estimate of current cost of the operation? has the so-called relief well drilling started? >> the current costs are between $6,000,000.7000000 dollars a day. those costs will -- between $6 million and $7 million a day. those costs will increase.

the drilling rig has arrived. it is in final preparations. the second drill ship will be arriving tomorrow. that will be ready to deploy the subsidy recovery system or attend additional interventions on the existing wealth. -- well. >> governor jindal. a lot of people in venice, louisiana are very angry with bp and they are considering filing suit. and they want to note the state of louisiana is considering filing suit against bp also and how does that change the dynamic of your relationship with the company if you are considering filing suit? " it's a couple of things -- are focuses on mitigating -- >> a couple of things, our focus is on mitigating the damage on our ecosystems.

one of the suggestions we made is we are concerned and we have encouraged bp to seek even more assistance from the federal government, because i think the response could overwhelm the capabilities. other states may be potentially impacted. our focus is making sure we deploy the resources to protect our coastline and that the cleanup starts as quickly as possible. i know there will be time later for folks to consider litigation claims, financial reimbursement. right now the focus has to be protecting our coasts. a lot of people's livelihoods are going to be negatively impacted. our commercial fisheries, a recreational fisherman -- our recreational fishermen. we've got the small businesses ministration to help the small businesses. we have to do everything we can to help them get back on their fate. >> you said you're calling on bp to do more --

>> who are you asking the question to? >> i am directing this to secretaries salazar and napolitano. you called on bp to do more. where you think they are dropping the ball? >> bp has all hands on deck on this thing. this is a problem of global proportions. they have global resources working on this. we of asked british petroleum to reach out to the and higher oil and gas industry run the world. indeed at the department of the interior meeting last night, and met with executives from other oil and gas companies. i ask bp to put together a swat team to take the best ideas from other companies to make sure we are maximizing efforts here. this particular incident has huge ramifications for what happens with respect to energy

in other areas around the world. with a lot to lose in terms of resources -- we have a lot to lose in terms of resources and environmental values that our chairs. the oil and gas industry has a tremendous amount to lose in terms of their economic value here. they're putting tremendous resources in trying to figure out the problem, in stopping the flow from the well, and at the same time, under the federal law that applies to this bill, the responsibility for responding to this spill is with the company. the highest levels of british petroleum, in writing, have assured us they have the resources to respond to the challenge. >> [unintelligible]

operator? >> operator, you want to go to challenge -- >> [unintelligible] >> [unintelligible] >> i've spoken to two industry experts whose jobs are to estimates oil spill sizes based on satellite data and radar data. using the mms and coastguard satellite data and information from bp in terms of how thick this bill is in certain areas, they are estimating this bill is five times what -- this spill is five times what bp is saying. they are saying 25,000 barrels a day. are you confident in the 5,000

barrels a day number? what are you basing them on? the bp umbers? >> i would caution you not to get fixated on an -- on a number. we have worked on corralling resources. i think the demonstration of those who are here today shows that from day one we have solicited help from the entire government to approach this response. >> so you are confident with those figures? >> yes, this is doug suttles from bp. from -- since this event began, all we have monitored -- once we discovered the oil was flowing into the seabed, we could monitor with remote-operated vehicle cameras. which done that. the amount of flow looks essentially the same. we cannot meter that flow.

as events unfolded, we can monitor what is on the surface of the sea. as the event started, ourselves with the rest of the unified command, our best estimate of the time was 1,000 barrels a day. as we gather more data come from satellite images and from over flight data, we revised that number to 5,000 barrels a day. we did not indicate a change in the mouth of flow. it indicated a change in the estimate of the flow rate. this is highly and precise. highly and precise. as the admiral said indicated, there is a change in the flow rate. we are prepared for that in the eventuality the rate is higher. >> next question please. >> [unintelligible] >> hi. there has been talk this morning

about how this could affect oil production. is that even on the table? is that a consideration? >> [unintelligible] >> the oil and gas, which this nation currently depends on very much, comes from the gulf of mexico. about a third of the domestically-produced oil and gas resources come from this region. we want to make sure that those operations are operating safely until we have the inspections to do what we have to do to make sure they are operating safely. the president this morning directed the department of interior to call back again with recommendations of any kind of enhanced safety measures. at this point in time, we're still doing additional work and

resources to determine whether any other safety procedures have to go into place. but the oil and gas production continues to come from the gulf coast, it essentially fuel still economy -- it essentially fuel'' the economy. we will work into the foreseeable future until we can determine there is a problem and we can go in a different direction. we want to base this on the best science we have. >> [unintelligible] >> and to follow up on a question asked earlier. secretary napolitano, sounded , soundedbp's response so far -- you sounded critical of bp's

response. are you critical of it? >> well, i think -- i think there is reason now to know more than we knew originally. originally, this oil was thrilled with the expectation that if there were an explosion a blowout preventer would close off leakage into the ocean. originally, the bop would have failed, bp took actions designed -- took other actions along the riser of the well to close off leakage and to close off the oil flow. none of those works. i think i share the disappointments of all in the

fact that none of those who worked. now we need to move more speedily to protect wetlands, marshes, the ecosystem here. the federal government stands ready, not just to support bp, but to move aggressively to work with the state of louisiana, to work with the parish presidents anin the affected areas. and to work with the businesses, the shrimpers, the stores, who have their livelihood endangered by this oil spill. and because of the fact it is approaching landfall -- we need to make sure there is an effective and easy claims

process so that people can know that they will not be financially damaged themselves, personally or in their businesses, because of this bill. and we also have to have an effective process where we have all of the resources of the federal government linked up with the states. as i said before, with mayors, parish presidents, not just in louisiana, in mississippi, alabama, and perhaps even as far as florida. we will make sure and are making sure that that response is there. the response is strong, coordinated, and designed to minimize the harm to our coastal lands, and to the extent there is harm, there is swift and effective cleanup. and we will work to ensure that

british petroleum meet its financial obligations. an obligation it undertook in exchange for the ability to undertake this drilling. so, it is a partnership or an effort in which everybody standing here is involved, in which we all have a lot at stake, but the most to have the most at stake are the men and women who live in the coastal areas of louisiana, mississippi, alabama, and florida. they are at most in our minds. >> -- they areupmost -- upmost in our minds. >> [unintelligible] >> this is a question for whoever might know. of the vessels brought in, --

[unintelligible] c-span.org can it work? >> earlier, someone actually said the weather is a challenge. several days ago, we had two good weather days in a row and we had very good success on the water, including this burn test, looks like a good tool we can use for work. when the winds come up and the seas,, there is not much we can do -- when the winds come up and the seas come up, there's not much we can do. when the weather comes up, there's not much we can do. unfortunately, we're not able to operate our skimmers. >> thank you, ladies and gentleman.

>> and as this briefing wraps up, we are going to take you back to the hearing we were showing you earlier, a senate hearing on children's privacy on the internet. we're going to return now with the mississippi senator questioning. >> the very serious topics with implications for the next generation. i appreciate the chair's willingness to get into the weeds on this. i do think the testimony of all of our panelists has been helpful. we hear a variety of viewpoints and all sides to this and i do think that there is a way to -- there must be a way to have it both

ways to encourage innovation and to protect privacy of children's information at the same time. so i will ask the panel what do they think about what i just said? has the law reduced innovation and cost consolidation on childrens website? have we created a barrier to entry into the children's websites market? has filled all result donner limitations on content specifically for children? so if we could just start with ms. ridge and good on the panel that will be my question. islamic obviously tama keeps helping me with the button. that is one of the key issue is

that we are going to look at in the review is specially since i was one of the goals of coppa is to preserve that axa's even if kids were protected. we did review that issue the last time we reviewed coppa which was 2005 and we published a report, we said a report to congress and said at that time all of the call mentors and people we spoke to in the research we conducted indicated it had not half that children were being protected and they still have access and innovation wasn't being stifled but we are very interested in the answers to those questions today. >> speaking only for facebook i can say i have seen a strange disincentive because of the law. my testimony was focused on trying to identify the innovative things facebook has done for the teenage users of the site but what you didn't hear me say is we are not spending a lot of energy on the under 13 side because they are typically not on our site there is a linus drawn between 13 and over and 13 and under and i

think that line has created a disincentive for companies to work towards innovative on the side and we need to look at that. i think that is the point i was trying to make in my testimony, senator. >> i look forward to seeing what comes out of the ftc current role review. i can speak for our own company that yes, some of the parental consent mechanisms required under coppa can be challenging and sometimes frustrating to implement, but i think that for the most part it has not discouraged us from continuing to provide services to the general audiences including the young children and some specifically tailored to children as well. it does create additional work and it's a barrier to entry in some cases because any time that you are designing a finite process where there is a speed bump or even significant barrier having to involve the parent

yes, consumers will go away and go elsewhere. but we think for the most part is the right thing to do involving the parent is the right thing to do creating those speed bumps so you can inform children about the appropriate use of the surface is and help educate parents as the right thing to do. irc on the whole coppa has been successful encouraging website to the right thing even the author is a cost involved. >> one of the goals of the law was to minimize the mass of data collection that was becoming state-of-the-art in the early days and the .com boom and e commerce and that is where the business was headed so what we were able to do and i repeat that we worked within the industry to come up with the set of principles that what honor the privacy rights of young people but at the same time not interfere with the healthy

development of e commerce. but if you are going to markets the kids what we are able to establish is there needs to be some operating principle here and i think the industry has done a very good job of working that out. it wasn't easy to sit around the room and try to give okay how do we do this. the final verification mechanism was a tricky one, it was not easy to do but the idea was first enable the parents to know what their children are doing and secondly, make the industry aware that they have a responsibility when they are collecting personal information from children. we've seen a healthy growth of lots of websites for kids, lots of terrific content areas and i think that has been a very good development and i am happy about it. as i said i think that the search team -- kids will become automatically mature at 13 as any parent can tell you. but at that time we decided let's create this cui earmarks for where we both have these

guidelines, and now i think that we've seen a whole new be flat with the weather that raises the issue about okay again and not the same model but what can we do to ensure that they are treated fairly in this marketplace. >> senator bayh wanted to say i appreciate your question about the relationship of innovation and privacy and i suspect we are going to you're a lot more about this and if i can say directly the relationship is not generally understood i don't see this as a trade-off. my wife is a public-school teacher when we talk about innovation and privacy we think in terms of the privacy of safeguards that enable children to to get into of new technology in other words in the absence of privacy protection i think we diminish the opportunity for technical literacy and training and education that the parents would like to see happen.

the innovation people are talking about is what they are not singing explicitly is on the marketing side did not like the privacy rules because they don't want to do the types of behavioral targeting brandt based targeting get your child to friend and advertising figure targeting and that is why they object to the privacy rules but it would take a step back and talk about technical literacy bringing more children to the on-line environment, creating great products and services so that they get excited about new technology. privacy actually plays a very big part in helping to make that happen. sprick let me follow-up, mr. rotenberg. use if you have children. i take it your teenage? >> yes, sir. >> you might telling us how old they are? >> 15 and 16. >> in terms of knowledge about

the protections children need you are probably in a percentile of 99.9 nationwide. what do you -- is it that big of a case what do you need the government to do for your above age 13 children that it's not doing now because you are a good parent. >> i appreciate that, sir, but i mean the government to step in to control the things we can't control in other words if we sit down with our children and go through the privacy settings and say this makes sense or doesn't make sense or that is your call and that is how the understand privacy protection and then the next week the company says we have a whole new approach now we are going to do something different and we are left with this sense that the tools of the

company provided us to try to safeguard our privacy and the privacy of our children i basically become meaningless. so i am not saying the pair and stop the an important role. i think the parents do. but i am saying that it cannot be made so difficult and the businesses cannot hide the way they are collecting this data as they do because there is nothing that the accuser the parents can do to change that. that is completely on the business side and it's done because there is no regulation. there's nothing that prevents them from saying to all of teenagers who 50 on right now the of the great idea and we want to go ahead and do this or not tell them to go ahead and do it. can control that. >> thank you. you can respond to that but also respond to the question of innovation and privacy. spec what may be clear about three points. first there are always trade-offs involved in the organization and hear the tree of is not simply the question of

economics versus privacy but indeed the tree often false free speech. and again, i stress that is because the collection as the term is used in coppa does not just apply to the collection as we need in the colloquial sense such as used for marketing purposes but it is a sharing of information, the enabling of sharing generated contant so when i talk here about the trade-off i want to be very clear i am talking about the ability of users to join the tools and innovation and those tools that allow them to share and communicate and collaborate and this is the flourishing of webb to plato and that is what is at stake here if coppa were to be expanded which age scope so my question is i want to emphasize one of the duties of coppa and is it gives the ftc flexibility sitting the rule within congress of the ftc has given the need to define the personal information on the internet and i encourage you to do so. my caution however is we ought to be very careful about having

congress reopen the door to the one thing that the ftc cannot on one thing that the ftc cannot on its own change which is the scope and i mentioned the financial reform legislation only because it could indeed get a future ftc ability to change things like the age scope which again presents a trade-off in terms of free speech. my final point is there was a rich mosaic of parental control tools and software messaging available today. my colleague, adam at the progress and freedom foundation published a comprehensive compendium of the tools and again and again in the context of the bill as senator rockefeller referred to, of wanting to prevent or censored kids from accessing the courts have repeatedly said that the tools need not be perfect but the government regulation must yield to the tools where they exist so our point has been to highlight that these tools exist and we should be encouraging innovation and not just in the sharing of information bill also in the controls available to the parents as well as all users to

take really control over their own information and how it is shared and so our answer in a nut shell is the solution to all of these concerns should first and foremost the enforcement of the existing law which applies to again children under 13 and then also education and empowerment and the government has a role to play on every important one and the ftc does this extremely well in highlighting those tools, methods and education and i encourage you to do so but again, caution against changing the statute itself. >> thank you >> thank you for being here. i know you have to slip to another meeting with and you for your leadership and we will leave the record open for a few days for the senators to submit their questions as they want to. what we think all the witnesses and i want to think facebook and microsoft for being here because i know not everyone in this industry chose to come today but let me start if i can with a question for facebook.

in your written testimony, you talk about facebook's culture of authentic identity. could he be leverett on the little that? >> yes, senator, i'm glad you asked. one of the interesting things that happened when facebook was first launched his we defied conventional wisdom at the time about privacy and security. we decided the beginning we were going to ask people to put their real names and build their profile around that and i have to tell you it has been the ball spring of a number of advantageous security privacy benefits for users of all ages of our site it is unconventional at that time that what it meant is it could distort and peter to identify bank accounts quickly and able to target corrective action at inexplicit accounts and more importantly and there's this community effect that takes place where individuals feel

some sort of preparation when they take an action that is tied to the name. it tends to discourage that speech of bad behavior, etc. so we've been the beneficiary of these deficient what we refer to as a name culture. >> you also mentioned in your testimony that you didn't want to see any changes to coppa >> we are not really needing changes at this point because we feel we have done a very good job of implementing the statute. >> you are saying that is true from your company. you are saying that is true industrywide. is a pretty good actor? >> no, of course not and there certainly are companies that are out fliers. they're always will be at that is frankly why we need stepped up ftc enforcement find the bad actors and take action. >> your view is we've the statute as is but beef up the enforcement. >> that is the right approach.

the ftc folks to the generally good job and they would do better to have more resources. it's really easy to focus on the microsoft and facebook and goebel and -- because we argued and we can show up and testify. it's the companies that don't have people here in washington and don't have lawyers on staff that probably deserves the lion's share of attention and they don't get because the press and focus on them and can't be found. >> tell me like dee dee to one like the age 13 and why that should change? what general inclination of the behavior of children's issues should make it 18 and under or something like that, move it up a few years. but tell me why you like 13. >> senator first all i expertises privacy and not so much child psychology or social development, so i can only speak from this perspective. we have found that teenage users have really had a very successful experience of facebook. there socialized well. they learned the rules of behavior. they are able to actually

advance themselves and learn about the world around them. >> would not want to see us deny teenagers the opportunities of living in a digital society. i think that there would hamper kids are not our country and cut them back children of the same age and other countries if we were able -- if we were to prevent them from having access to the site or services. >> thank you. dr. montgomery did you have a comment on that? >> yes, and on but agreed social networks and the internet in general are terrific tools for the young people and i'm also the mother of a teenager and on a can see what a great role the new digital technologies are playing in her life and they really do tap into the key developmental task of adolescents and adolescents are exploring their identities and they are trying to reach out to their peers and separate from their parents this is something the need to do and be more autonomous, so i can see that in

a number of my colleagues have done terrific research the documents that and i think that is great. and i think the problem is teams are out there in very public and transfer and sometimes the parents, social networks. but the business practices of data collection and surveillance that is taking place on facebook and other social networks is not transparent. it is a black box in many ways and i would not be talking about restricting teams from having access to these platforms. i think we need to give them that access. they are very important. but what i would be calling for and what i do call for is for the government to play a role in ensuring that all of the social networks and all of the platforms, mobile and otherwise that young people are engaged in our operating by a set of rules. these rules can be crafted in a

way that will balance free speech and balance business and innovation when we started talking about coppa and what people said we will never be able to do this, this is impossible we were able to work it out, and again, not the model that we have for coppa, not the model of parental verification and restricting access. but a separate set of principles that i think we could work out that would apply to teenagers. >> let me ask you, dr. montgomery, are there a set of principles that exist right now or is there a model rule would apply what we have to start from scratch? >> i think there are certain ec principles for an example that about transparency into the things that we would expect. i don't see a model out there has yet. i think we are inventing some of these things as we did with

coppa but this is the right moment to do so. >> and while i am on you, dr. montgomery, should we leave age 14 as ase or change it? >> i think coppa operates well as it is. i am not necessarily talking about revisiting the actual legislation but we do what to think about protections we could provide for teams and again i think we need to be careful about the model that we create that don't want to see teams totally ignore. >> mr. sparapani, let me ask you, you all apparently have a report button. how is that used? what are the numbers on that? >> senter i don't have the numbers immediately in front of me but i do have to tell you it easy enough to keep a huge team of employees busy all day and night from around the world which of 400 million users which we do.

and they are trained because they become comfortable with self reporting to consider to be inappropriate behavior by others on the site. it does produce a large quantity of reports and of course we treat ghosh those and take the ones that might have a law enforcement component because the top of the list in terms of responding. we put the ones that concern potential threats that only happens rarely. we put those in prioritize those and so these other reports about other militias peter or inappropriate speech drop down a certain knowledge. >> does your company have policies that go beyond coppa? it sounds like you have to set policies that go beyond the wall. >> i guess the place i would suggest is in marketing i went to distinguish facebook from all other companies i know and some of the generalized discussions that been happening about marketing with teenagers with respect to the marketing to teenagers, facebook never, ever

shares information with the advertiser about individual users. it doesn't matter the age of the user. what we do is when we get a request to advertise on the site by a company we offer the hand but never share the actually personally identifiable information with advertising company. i think it's important -- >> notte specific information? >> that's why it's an important protection and i think it has helped our company succeed and i hope other companies will follow our lead on that. >> mr. hintze i know that microsoft for through the various software products offers a lot of parental control. do you know what percentage of your users actually utilize the parental control? do you have a sense of even a rough percentage of what that might be? >> i don't have the actual numbers of me and it probably depends on the service itself.

things like a xbox live for example of the parental controls are built in as part of the account creation process so that when a parent buys an x box were signs of for a xbox live subscription part of that transaction of creating secondary accounts for their children put those parental controls choice is in front of the user so it is a high percentage of users who are children where their parents are utilizing those controls to some level and there's all kinds of different baliles and how deep the parents go it probably depends on the parent but a large percentage of users using it. other services we've got this windows life family safety which is a free download for people to use to help control and help kids surfing the net and using search services. you know, there is a challenge of educating parents and making them aware of the tools and something we try to do and it's even hard to reach those parents. one of the reasons why we've

implemented parental consent process even in cases where we think coppa doesn't explicitly require the general audience site for example we think that is an opportunity to provide that kind of education for the parents to get some of the tools and information, so it really depends across the service. sprick let me ask about to call the windows life family safety. let me ask about that product. that's free? >> yes it is. >> how do parents find out about that? >> we provide messaging and a variety of different ways. we have worked with a number of organizations, children's organizations to provide information to the boys and girls clubs and other organizations like that. we have provided information through our own sites. we have got dedicated with pages of around privacy and children's safety on the web sites to provide information to parents so there's a variety of means and we try to get the word on

these different tools available to parents and get them educated about the risks of children online and the risks the children face and the tools available to them to help protect them. >> i think it would be helpful for parents and you may already be doing this and i am just not aware of it with this product but i think it would be helpful for parents if you guys could take the aggression and periodically whenever the time is appropriate offer almost like a parent toolkit on how to stay safe on line and there's a lot of aspects to that. there's identity theft, there is a lot of fraud issues and privacy issues with kids, just really kind of runs the gamut. as microsoft offer that in the one place as a semi regular reminder that these tools are available and you need to update your settings etc., etc., do you will do that or is that --

>> we do have proper etiquette in the company. we have the equivalent of tool kits available. we've got a website that has a list of resources available to parents and information available to them to help educate themselves and their children about the risk of online. again, the challenge is making them aware of that and there is certainly things we have done in the past sort of clause i marketing campaigns to the parents to get the information in front of them and there is obviously more that we can do in the future. >> i am not personally a huge internet users. ina user probably a pretty but not extensively everyday and usually not three extensively at all but i wasn't aware of that. so if i am kind of an average parent here i didn't know that was out there so i would hope we've microsoft and other companies would think about race to be a lot more aggressive and letting people know. let me go ahead and ask

mr. szoka about the age 13. you want to keep 13 where it is? >> senator, yes, if you just the most important question of the day the raises this is the well understood aspect of coppa and the point here is not necessarily just to deal with child psychology all those 13 does have to be the age at which the jewish kids have botts misfud dee dee to -- marmots. romeo and juliet were 13 there are reasons it has been a major transition and indeed was chosen by congress but the point we tried to stress in our work has been it would be far more important reason for keeping it at 13 is that when you raise the age of 14 the coppa framework breaks down because again as i said, coppa basically applies them into ways, to the sites required to preserve to become presume all of the users might be a child and in the sights of factual knowledge so if you to set up at 18 for example he

would end up in a situation where sites that might be considered directed at adolescence or might be afraid to be the ftc would be afraid to define the besso are sites to differ profoundly from the sites the are today like what pain when directed at kids at 13 and the difference is adults use the site's the teams use as well and so as a practical matter if you extend coppa free marked a higher age you would for the first time have a government be requiring age verification of a large number of adult users and we've already been down that road before. the courts have clearly held in the litigation of a child online protection act or coppa that to do so would be unconstitutional because it would infringe on free speech rights of the users to access content without having to identify themselves such as the use of credit cards but also the free-speech rights of the sites themselves to reach the audience which is diminished by the road block of age verification so i want to be clear that from my perspective this is the most important issue that we've talked about here today understanding of why that

age for coppa must be kept at 13 for the framework of what i disagree statute otherwise to function effectively. >> thank you. mr. rotenberg, you've agreed that coppa breaks down if you change the 13? >> i've been sitting here listening to mr. szoka's clemency dandridge confused. i actually helped litigate against the copa that raised the first concerns and on that side we are on the same page. but it is almost completely unrelated to the discussion we are having about age verification and coppa. as mr. sparapani explained in a person of any age who wants a facebook account has to in the first instance provide information about their actual date of birth. that is how they make the determination of whether someone is above 13 or below 13 and presumably they could do the

exact same fy natural and exercise at age 18 so this argument actually doesn't make sense to me. but what mr. sparapani said which i think is something that needs to be considered more carefully, and i understand where he is coming from, he said basically facebook the decision for shall from under 13 we just don't want to have them as users. in other words it is too complicated and because of the coppa obligations you're just going to say, you know, wait a few years basically. .. services to teenagers should have some legal restrictions on the collection and -- on the collective views of data on this

children. i think that can be done without too much difficulty. they were probably be based on that and you probably want to make changes. that is the main legislative recommendation i would make. create some legal protection for teenagers. it is a good service but as it is, it is not providing adequate protection. >> let me ask about age verification. i know that some companies may differ with me on this but my impression is that there really is not a way that exists yet to truly get rock solid age of verification. filling in your birthday, children can just put in a different date. am i wrong on that? there is not a really good, solid way of doing age

verification? >> this has always been a challenge. been a challenge and i think you are exactly right to say there is no rocksolid way to do it. there are a number of different techniques or go facebook itself i think as developed some pretty good systems to do age verification. i think they probably get it right at a very high level, which is to say i would be very surprised if it were a large number of accounts for kids under 13. there may be some out there. i would suspect that is true but i don't think it is a very large number and i think a similar effort to move the age line to 18, there will probably be some people who get in under but i don't think that is reason enough to do it and i think it would be a mistake actually to say because we can't get it 100% we should just give up. >> senator, if i may respond. you are exactly right that there is no perfect age verification that there is another important

distinction we have to understand here and it is+çt as simple as the fact if you sign up on facebook you are indeed as marcus mentioned required to give your age but you can indeed live making the critical difference here is, as the sites function today sites like facebook and the many other sites because this is not just about facebook but indeed about every site that allows you to share and poster comments like the blog that i run for example. when you sign-up for those that do are not required to verify your age for the use of a credit card. this is the key issue. my point here is if we were to move to a world where coppa apply to children under 18 you would have large numbers of sites that enable the sharing by users of information about themselves called user-generated content to have to age verify and that is the fundamental difference from the current regime in which the site simply asked for age and if you admit you are under certain age they block you as they are required to do and at that point you start to run into precisely the

same constitutional issues as an coppa because coppa in a nutshell requires certain sites to assume again that older users might be children and therefore require all users to verify themselves with a credit card or similar tool. >> dr. montgomery let me ask you about the state of academia on this, and that is are there studies out there where people have really analyzed maybe child psychology or how the industry really operates? is there a body of academic work on this but the subcommittee can look at to get some insight on how things really work out there? >> there is a growing body of research about how young people are interacting with on line social networks and other digital media. the mcarthur foundation deals with work in that area. none of it i have to say has really taken into account or

looked at the commercial dimensions of the digital. >> or the privacy. >> or the privacy. there are some studies emerging on privacy that they are not looking at the whole picture of digital marketing. i will say also the experts in the food marketing area and i'm working closely with a number of them, because of the concerns about childhood obesity and the role of food marketing in that crisis had begun to pay more attention to the digital marketplace and i have been doing a lot of research in that area and in working with experts who are looking at adolescent development and the role of adolescents in the digital marketplace because they very much are at risk for childhood obesity and they are not necessarily in a position to be asking their parents about their decisions about food. and, we know that many of those food marketers are using behavioral targeting and behavioral profiling to target

and interactive games and other kinds of on line settings. precisely those kids who may be most vulnerable to that kind of marketing. so we are working with a number of people to conduct more research in that area. i would be happy to supply the committee with some of that research. >> i would like to see that. when you are talking about marketing, give me a scenario where that works. it sounds like to me that some kid may be walking down the street and there is a fast food restaurant and he may get a message on his or her phone that they should go in there. they get a coupon or something. >> that is where location marketing is going and first of all you know who the individual consumer is and as we are finding, it isn't always necessary to even know the name. you simply need to know who that person is, using that particular mobilephone and put the ages and the other demographic characteristics as well as the

behavioral characteristics, what kind of sites they go to an massive amount of data that are being pulled together by various tracking technologies and yes, the idea and we have seen some trials with this, with some of the fast food companies, would be that when you are near that restaurant, you would get a coupon that could say, you can get a discount for this particular product. we are also looking at interactive games and the kinds of behavioral profiling and targeting that is going on there. let's say you are a pizza lover. you are also addicted to interactive games and interactive games on line can then target you when you are most aroused by the game and offer you pizza and even provide you with direct access to an on line site to order that pizza. we know also we are looking at i felt that enable you to order

things right away so it is this kind of impulse buying. all that is tied into behavioral targeting. >> let me ask a follow-up there. you mentioned the iphone which is an apple product. so you have the manufacturer of the phone, but also what about the wireless companies, the cell phone companies themselves, the at&t's and verizon's of the world. are they providing this type of information to marketers? are they giving age and things like that? do we know that? >> mark you may be able to answer that better but they fall under a certain set of policy-- that apply to those companies that are separate from some of the on line companies. >> were not specifically aware of how the telephone companies collect the data on customers but there was a very interesting proposal to do a so-called deep

packet inspection by internet service providers which would actually reach much more deeply into the personal activity of people on line, literally looking at all of the e-mail traffic they were sending and trying to take pointers to commercial activity. i do want to make one further comment. i think mr. sparapani was correct when he said earlier that facebook doesn't the close -- might disclose user data to advertisers. that is right that facebook does disclose user data to application developers so that when a facebook user installs a facebook app, a favorite city or snowball fight or whatever it is, facebook at that point is making a decision to send a lot of the users social graph over to that company and what they announced just recently had to do something similar with third-party web sites like cnn and pandora. so it is not the whole story, i think at least in the situation to say in terms of facebook

that the data doesn't go to advertisers. there are other ways the data is released. >> thank you and mrs. rich i have not forgotten about you. let me ask you a few questions. first, did you have any follow-ups to anything you heard he wanted to qualify? >> i do have one follow-up from mr. rotenberg's statement that i do agree wholeheartedly with coppa privacy is important and we are very proud of our enforcement record. just in the last year even six months, we brought for data security cases, which process close to 30 data security cases that we have brought. we have issued an on line behavioral advertising report in done at least one case involving deceptive tracking. we have been a case is designed to promote the integrity of self-regulation and i could go on and provide you mr. chairman with more but i did want to comment on that.

>> in your statement, you said, and let me see if i got this right. whether the rules of admission internet adequately encompasses certain technologies like mobile communications. is the ftc looking at what we even mean by internet today and the definition of internet and local technology? are you reevaluating all of that in light of the explanation? >> yes, there was a standard definition that was very sci-fi sounding that says we are using in the statute, the worldwide infrastructure and it is a very strange definition, and it is not clear whether that encompasses traditional on line activities or whether it would extend to interactive activities

that don't actually go through the internet. so, we are looking at that very seriously. >> knowing what you know now in terms of the technology but also what ftc has done with looking at the statute, would you recommend that the senate revisited some of those definitions in the underlying lower right now? >> we are taking a hard look at that and in a few months we will have the benefit of hopefully many comments on it and at that point we will figure out what her next movie is, whether it's something we can address or not address in the world, meaning we have the authority or something would have to come back to congress on. >> one of our staff guys here just gave me a little device that is a nintendo ts. i don't know if it is his or his trials but it has a pokémon attached to it. it has a phone on it and i don't know if it plays music or

exactly what, but obviously it is a little game and has a little game cartridge in it but it also very easily and very quickly allows the child to connect to the internet. it has the camera. you can do shopping in that type of thing, so you know, this is a device that obviously didn't exist just a few years ago and i guess i would encourage the ftc as you were looking at this to think through all of the applications and maybe not, you know, i think it is probably hard to make a list of all the devices that just the functionality of it. if it is connecting to the internet and if it is mobile and things like that, because hopefully electronics industry will continue to innovate and will continue to do great things in bring great things on the market and hopefully when ftc goes through your process you will define things in such a way that he will work with us to

define things in certain way that when new products like this come onto the market, the statute captures that and we don't get out of date. speak and i just say that we have two of those in our house, one for my 12-year-old and one for my 9-year-old. when it does access the internet, i think we would be safe to say that is covered, because it is accessing the internet of the question is, if they are just speaking to each other and not up to the internet, this functionality can go machine to machine, is that covered? >> right. it is just an example of things the federal trade commission has to think through. i could actually spend a lot more time asking questions because this is a very interesting and i know our members here had to move bond to either speaking on the floor or other committee meetings they had to get to, so let me just do this at this point. let me just ask the panel if

there is anything anyone would like to say before we close down the hearing, because we have had a little bit of back-and-forth and i just want to give everybody a chance to respond or make one last final point. is there anybody who wants to add anything? >> very briefly i want to thank you for holding this hearing. i think there are a lot of people who appreciate coppa and believe it plays an important role in safeguarding on line privacy but also feel given new technologies and new business practices something more probably needs to be done so this is a very good place to start that discussion. >> if i may say just briefly, i wanted to stress in my testimony that cop is mutual. the example you gave i think ms. rich is exactly right, we may not need changes to the statute. i think the ftc probably has the flexibility to apply the internet very broadly to all

those services that touch upon and are integrated into the internet so again i want to stress here my concerns are not with the ftc updating the rules consistent with the statute that simply not making broad changes to the statute that have greater consequences for speech. >> thank you. yes maam. >> i again tank of the committee for holding this hearing. it is very heartening for me to hear, having struggled with many others in the '90s to get this law passed, that it has been a success and i'm very pleased about that and i'm very pleased to be working with the ftc to ensure that coppa is able to address the continuing rapid changes in the digital marketplace, but again, i would just like to make a plea that we as a society and as a government and the industry not ignore the needs of the nation's teenagers. >> i again would like to thank

you for holding this hearing today and the members of the committee for participating. a lot of discussion today around kids in a lot of discussion today around teens, and the age is not currently by coppa. our position and a number of the other panelists that coppa not be the right-- the teens face on line are somewhat different from what younger children face and the sites are quite different in many cases but others have expressed the need for some legal protection for teens and we agree, so we would encourage the committee to continue to look at the privacy issue more generally but looking at privacy legislation that would address privacy protections for not only teens but for adults as well. >> what is new from our special guest-- perspective since the dawn of coppa is we are entering a moment in the information for the first time when we actually have the opportunity for technology to re-instilled

privacy through new tools and user control model that facebook and a number of companies like us are trying to put forward is a really bad thing and it actually holds real promise for user privacy. what is more difficult is getting users to understand the new tools and use them and a wise manner and to frankly find them and exercise them. is specially hard with teenagers so that is someplace we will expend energy but thank you again for holding this hearing. >> i will echo the thanks to you mr. chairman and the other panelists were engaging on these important issues and also say that we should have a lot more to report after her comment period closes and after we have our workshop in june so we look forward to talking some more. >> thankthank you. out would like to ask the ftc one last question and that is as part of your evaluation are you also looking at your manpower/resources there at the

commission? some of the witnesses have said if you had more resources you could do more enforcement and be more effective in enforcing coppa. are you all evaluating that as well? ps we are. >> can you come back to the senate with a recommendation on that? >> sure. sure. >> thank you very much. in closing i would like to say we are going to be the record open for two weeks so don't be surprised if some of the senators are the staff here want to submit to more questions because there are some i didn't go into because i have taken too much of your time already, but we will probably submit some of these over the next couple of weeks. we would ask you to get those back as quickly as he can and always work at their staff but in closing i would like to say this is maybe one of those areas that i think senator wicker kind of alluded to earlier. there is an old abraham lincoln quote that says government should do for people but people can't do for themselves and this

is an area where we want people participating in the marketplace and using this technology and enhancing their lives but we just have to make sure that that marketplace is secure, that the right to privacy parameters are they are, the right legal structure is there and in the right enforcement and we just have to make sure that marketplace is working because people can't do this themselves. i think there is a level of government, certainly the private industry has got a lot of good actors in it that there are some bad actors as well so we are trying to find that balance. anyway, thank you all for your participation today. i know chairman rockefeller appreciated and i do to abella subcommittees of thank you very much and with that, we will adjourn the meeting. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> tonight on c-span [applause] 2, a tribute to dorothy height. we hear remarks from former president bill clinton and hillary clinton at the surface at shiloh baptist church in washington d.c. that is it 8:00 p.m. eastern. saturday on america and the courts, a discussion of diversity with roger gregory. he is the first african american to serve on the court. that the saturday at 7:00 eastern on c-span. following that, almost 3000 journalists, politicians and others will gather at the white

house correspondents' dinner. that is live at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> what i think is vital is that americans agreed to talk to the taliban leadership in the course in 2000, this author wrote about the taliban and the rise of osama bin laden. with the 10th anniversary edition of his book, he looks at what is next. sunday night at 8:00 on to spend. >> president obama's remarks on the latest gdp figures. he begins with comments on the response to the gulf of mexico oil spill. this is about 10 minutes.

>> good morning. before i offer remarks on the economy upon to -- on the economy, i just want to talk about the gulf of mexico oil spill. i have spoken with the administrator of the epa and several other officials and they ensured that we continue to do everything necessary to respond to this event. i expect there reports later today. as i said yesterday, bp is ultimately responsible under the law for paying the cause of response and cleanup operations. we are fully prepared to meet our responsibilities to any and all the affected communities. that is what we have been working closely with local communities. there are now five staging areas to protect shorelines. approximately 1900 federal

response personnel are in the area and more than 300 response vessels on the scene 24/7. there are more protective booms on the way. i have ordered secretary salazar to conduct a thorough review and report back to me and 30 days on what, if any additional precautions should be required to prevent accidents like this. we are going to make sure that any leases going forward have the safeguards. we have also dispatched teams to the gulf of mexico and to all deepwater rigs and platforms to address those concerns. let me be clear, i believe that domestic oil production is an important part of our overall strategy for oil security. it must be done responsibly for the safety of our workers and our environment. local economies and livelihoods in and the ecology of the region

are at stake. we will continue to update the american people going forward. it determines whether our economy is shrinking or growing. the single broadest measure of our economic health. at the height of our crisis, that measure all too often was delivering the grim news. today is a different story. in the first quarter of last year, our economy shrank at a rate of 6.4%. today, we learned that in the first quarter of this year, the economy grew at a rate of 3.2%. what this means is that our economy as a whole is in a batch -- and in much better place. the economy shrank for four straight quarters has now grown

for three quarters in a row. that growth has been a condition for job growth. after the single biggest economic crisis in our lifetimes, we are heading into the right direction and moving forward. our economy is stronger and the economic heart beat is growing stronger. but i measure progress by a different polls, the progress the american people feel and their american lives day in and day out. i spent a few days visiting with people in small towns in the midwest where damage done by this recession is profound. they are still trying to recover from a shock wave of lost homes, lost businesses and more than 8 million lost jobs. a tragedy that have families dealing like they are on life support. while the gdp report today is an

important milepost on the road to recovery, it does not mean much to an american who has lost his or her job and cannot find another one. for millions of americans, our friends, neighbors, and citizens are ready and willing to get back to work, your hire is the only economic news they're waiting to hear. moving this economy forward remains our focus every day. the government cannot replace every job that has been lost. that is not the role of government. it is america's a business, all across the country, the private sector, that have always been and will always be the engines of our job creation. our task is to create the conditions necessary for those businesses to open their doors and expand operations and ultimately hire more workers. that is precisely what we are trying to do. cutting taxes for small businesses.

backing billions of dollars of lending and loans. by making targeted investments in areas of our economy or potential for job growth is greatest. areas like clean energy. as an example, i visited workers at a plant. just a few short years ago, that plant was shuttered and dark. today, it is alive and humming with more than 600 employees manufacturing some of the most advanced blades for wind turbines in the world. that facility capitalized by taking advantage of in advance manufacturing tax credit that we passed last year. this allowed us to add equipment, boost output and hire new workers at that plant. this program was so successful, it was oversubscribed by a ratio of 3: one. i have applied for an additional $5 billion for these

types of initiatives. every time a new factory or plant opens, it becomes important to more people than the workers it employs. it becomes an economic lifeline to a community capable of supporting a dance or even thousands of jobs in directly. the workers that we have here today can tell you the same thing. we have the ceo of a company. this is a company that produces smart meters to analyze real- time data about how they use energy. these meters help reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency and save consumers money. there are critical components of the smart electric grid of tomorrow. the $3.40 billion investment the recovery act made toward that smart grid increased demand for these products. they competed for and won its

own advanced energy manufacturing tax credit. it is using that to meet that new demand, adding production lines in minnesota where it has hired 40 new workers and south carolina where it has hired 120 new workers. two of the workers that have just been hired are here. james is an native of where the plant opened who found himself laid off after punching in at another plant for 28 years. he and his wife both work at the new plant forging a future for their three daughters. we also have the president and ceo of a123 systems. it produces advanced batteries for next generation vehicles. last august, following a nationwide competition, vice- president biden traveled to michigan to announce that there

were one of the 48 companies to win a recovery grant for advanced battery technology. that the grant felt for them hire 44 new workers. that grant is supporting the manufacturing of three new plants in michigan which they suspect -- which they suspect will let them hire more than 1000 workers by the end of next year and more than 3000 by the end of 2012. two of those workers are here today. they lost their previous jobs in the recession and they were hired to manufacture the batteries of tomorrow. a123 has already begun construction on a facility which is scheduled to go on-line in july. they are designing another facility and have announced plans to build a high-volume factory elsewhere. truth be told, they were looking

to build that factory in asia but because it received that the grant, they went to michigan. that plant will be one of 30 new plans to go fully operational over the next six years manufacturing electric vehicle factories -- the electric vehicle batteries right here in the u.s. this is what is possible in a clean energy economy. these people right here are doing extraordinary work. this is what happens when we place our best on american workers and businesses. we are going to continue to help them manufacture more success stories across all sectors of our economy. we still have a long way to go on the road to recovery. there will be more ups and downs around the way. today's news is another sign we are on the right track. we are going to keep doing everything we can to help our businesses power our recovery and lead us to a more hopeful and prosperous set of days into

the future. thank you, very much, everybody. >> taking a look at the $787 billion stimulus program. $378.50 billion has been committed to recovery projects while nearly $219 billion has been paid out so far. we have a website divided -- devoted to the economic stimulus program, c-span.org/stimulus.

>> sunday on book tv pause in debt, three-time presidential candidate pat buchanan on conservative ideologies in today's political climate. he will take your calls, e- mails, and tweak eets. >> to the state department for a preview of next week's un conference on the nuclear non correlation treatment. -- non-proliferation treatment. the iranian president has applied for a visa to attend the conference. >> good afternoon and welcome to the department of state. we are thrilled to have a couple of guest stars back into the briefing room.

susan rice, our intrepid force of nature at the un and our undersecretary. we are here to pre-brief the relief conference for the non- proliferation treaty next week. this is really about the strengthening of our non- proliferation strategies and about what all countries in the world do. it is not about one country. you will hear from our speakers momentarily. we will stay behind afterwards if there are other subjects you want to talk to us about. the secretary, a short time ago, was speaking with her counterpart from kuwait about an agreement with the arab league

that we will begin proximity talks on middle east peace next week. we will start with susan and we will alternate questions between washington and new york. >> thank you. good afternoon, everybody. last spring in prague, president obama stood before the world and set a new direction for the nuclear weapons policy of the united states. to take us out of the cold war posture and meet today's security threat. he declared america's commitment to seek the peace and security of the world without nuclear weapons. the president also spoke of the work that would be required to realize that goal. and the security benefits we would gain as a result. in the year since, the president has backed up his words with concrete progress.

the u. n. security council summit last september on nuclear non-proliferation garner unanimous endorsement of many elements of his agenda. a new start treaty that will bring our stockpile of strategic warheads to its lowest points since the 1950's. a nuclear posture review that reduces the role of nuclear weapons and our security strategy, strengthening our- security assurance and in compliance with nuclear non- proliferation requirements. the president also directed a review of our arms control objectives to achieve a future reduction in nuclear weapons. he reaffirmed our commitment to work toward senate ratification.

our non prolific -- on non- proliferation, we moved forward. we had the largest gathering of world leaders convened by a u.s. president since 1945 to agree on steps we can take collectively to prevent nuclear terrorism and secure all vulnerable nuclear material within four years. the u.s. has worked with other states to help them adopt and reinforce effective laws prohibiting proliferation consistent with the resolutions of the un. in addition, the u.s. has helped lay a foundation for an international agreement to end the production of materials. we have strengthened our commitment to the rights of parties that are in compliance with their obligations to access to nuclear energy and technology for peaceful purposes.

the u.s. has enhanced infrastructure cooperation and and the past two years alone, we have led technical cooperation delegations to 100 countries in the middle east, north africa and southeast asia. the united states delegation, led by secretary clinton, will join the 188 other nations that are party to nuclear non- proliferation treaties and they will gather as an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the importance of the treaty as a cornerstone of our national and collective security. it is an opportunity to undertake a constructive balanced review of where things stand and steps we can take together to strengthen the treaty. as the president said last spring, the basic bargain of the

treaty is sound. countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament well countries without nuclear weapons will not require -- will not acquire them and all countries can access peaceful nuclear energy. we expect the conference will demonstrate the critical plate in the international non- proliferation framework and reenforcing global security and stability. our goals for the conference is to strengthen the treaty across all three of the pillars, disarmament, non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. we do not just come to this conference with the resolute commitment of president obama to make progress across these areas. we'd come with months of hard work already under way and already bearing fruit. we will focus on ways to improve compliance with the non- proliferation requirements and

to strengthen and support the niea. we will emphasize the fundamental importance of safeguards for ensuring parties that their neighbors and others are complying with obligations. without these assurances, stability will go -- will grow both regionally and stability -- if one country violates, other countries are forced to reevaluate. in the end, a single violator can potentially undercut longstanding efforts to achieve universal adherence. we also strongly believe that it must have the resources and authority it needs to carry out its mission.

at the same time, we will work with others on preventing parties from misusing the treaty by seeking nuclear assistance under the treaty and withdrawing from when they wish to violate terms. . .

>> i just want to make a couple of points because i think that dr. rice did a very good job of getting a comprehensive briefing of what we are hoping to do. april has been quite a month for

the obama administration. the nuclear posture review, the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty being signed, and the nuclear summit. i just want to make a couple of a point about the non- proliferation treaty conference. it is not a silver bullet. our yardstick is that we want to get our point of view out. this is a strong, central pillar of the president's agenda on non-proliferation. we believe that the united states and other countries very much want to move to consensus, but in the end, if there is not consensus because of the activities of some outsiders, we believe we will still be able to have great agreement on three central pillars and moving

forward to strengthen the nonproliferation treaty. i think it is best to turn to ambassador burke. i will be here to answer some questions. >> thank you. i agree with everything you have said. i will not take a lot of additional time on the point you have made. i do want to welcome the members of the press corps here in new york who have shown up for this briefing today. let me briefly make a couple of points. the u.s. is not approaching the impending review conference in any "business as usual" spirit. president barack obama strongly believes in strengthening the non-proliferation treaty, and as a result, the united states are taking a series of steps to achieve that goal. the united states cannot realize the non-proliferation treaty vision on its own.

it takes all of us are working to gather -- working together. we believe that all parties should share responsibility for strengthening the treaty. you heard what the united states is doing for its part. the review conference that begins next week provides an opportunity non-proliferation treaty parties to take this direction of our responsibility, and to restore confidence in the authority of this tree. we are looking forward to working with our treaty partners and to find areas where we can reinforce a global a non- proliferation of regime. in areas where further agreements may be needed, we would like to identify those. we will be working over the next month to agree-evaluate -- re-

validate the central tenet of the treaty. >> we will take questions. >> ambassador rice, you said that you want to use the conference to strengthen the npt across all pillars, but in fact, you are not going to change the treaty at the conference. it seems a foregone conclusion that you will not have a consensus. where do you -- how do, actually, to strengthen the treaty? is that something for a later date? >> i am going to pass that to susan. >> let me say that you are right about not changing the treaty. that is difficult if not impossible. consensus, as you all know, is

an elusive goal. we cannot count on that. we do think that through a good discussion over the next four weeks we can come up with a broad agreement for the agenda of the future. the real work of strengthening the regime is not going to have been in the next week. it is going to happen in the months and years to come. we do think we can reach broad agreement on an agenda, and that is certainly what we are going to be working for. >> what we want to stress is that while next week is very important, it is not about a final product that comes out, other than an ambition to move upward together on doing the things that we believe we can get consensus on. we want to be very clear that we are serious about this, but we are also having our eyes wide open about it.

>> is all it from an egyptian newspaper. -- i am from an egyptian newspaper. talk about the israeli nuclear program. is there any push for the israelis to unveil their nuclear program? >> we are working with our friends in egypt and many members of other arab states and the 1995 middle east free-zone resolution. what is important to see is that we have a very good opportunity to go forward but on balancing the requirements of the 1995 resolution for an opportunity to look to have a free zone in the middle east, and the areas of

noncompliance also in the middle east. >> will there be an american push in the israeli state to reveal its -- ? >> the united states will avoid is pushing for a free zone. >> we will take one more question. >> would the u.s. delegation to support a conference on a nuclear-free middle east? would it support coordinator in that position, and what it supports the egyptian proposal for member states to produce regular reports on the transfer of nuclear material to israel? >> the united states was an original sponsor of the 1995 resolution. the united states does support a conference that would work toward an opportunity in the future when conditions in the middle east are more favorable.

for example, when there is a comprehensive peace plan and generally much more ability for states to participate in a regional wmd a free zone conference. what was the second question? >> member states supplying a regular reports on a transfer of materials to israel. >> we have said that we want universality. we would like all states to agree to the non-proliferation treaty. >> we will go to new york for a couple of questions. >> my question is for ambassador rice. the egyptian ambassador said the other day that with iran and israel, how can you solve the problems simultaneously?

you cannot solve the problem of iran's noncompliant without addressing israel. could you address that specifically? to what extent do you think people are raising -- do you think people raising iran and israel simultaneously will overshadow your effort? >> i will answer the second part. we agree that it is important to move forward on the final delivery of the 1995 wmd-free zone resolution. a number of parties, including egypt, are working on this. i think it is important to say that we believed that is something that should be delivered upon.

we are working to get the elements together. when it comes to non-compliance, we also believe that in another part of the conference, when a non-compliant issues are dealt with in committee, that it is important to look at iran. that is something that is very important to do together. >> dealing with issues of non- compliance is obviously one of our priorities as we work to strengthen all three pillars of the non-proliferation treaty regime. with respect to iran and sanctions, as you know, as we continue to pursue a dual track approach. the purpose of our efforts with respect to sanctions is to clarify the joys that iran faces. if it remains out of compliance

not only with its treaty obligations, but also with its security council obligations, the purpose of the work we are doing toward a new sanctions resolution is to seek to persuade iran that it is in its interest, and indeed required, that it uphold its international obligations and do so promptly. we are going to continue our efforts in new york and in capitals through the beginning of next month, and as long as it takes, to get a strong and sound resolution passed. we are not in any way deterred by the fact that there is a coincidence of the calendar which means that it may coincide with the national -- with the

non-proliferation treaty review conference. >> i know there has been a lot of dancing around this, but how realistic is it to have a nuclear-free middle east if the united states does not declare publicly that israel has nuclear weapons and must then give them up. >> the 1995 resolution calls for a wmd-free zone, which would also include a nuclear-free zone. the mechanism is a conference that would go forward with all regional parties in attendance. as i said, we believe that this is a very worthy goal, something we have supported since 1995, but we are concerned that the conditions are not right, and unless all members of the region participate, which would be

unlikely, unless there is a comprehensive peace plan that is being accepted and worked on, then we could not have the conference that would achieve what we are all looking to achieve, which is for the region to make its own decisions, and come together, and find a way to do that. we are supportive of nuclear- free zones around the world, but in this specific case, we want to help facilitate and make clear that this is still a goal of the united states and many of our partners fit, but at the same time, this is something that the region has to embrace, and they have to embrace it at the right time, when all parties can participate. >> we will come back here to washington. we will go back to new york shortly. >> i want to ask you about what kind of pledges you made in regard to additional resources for the iaea, and regarding

nuclear energy for civilians. can you tell us anything specific on that plan that you may have to offer? >> we are working to support an increase in the iaea budget both for non-proliferation activities and other activities, also for their science lab. that is a very good science lab but it has gone under disrepair. it is important to us to get that back up. secretary clinton will be making an announcement about other investments in that area on monday. >> what about additional authorities that they are going to need to carry this out? quite obviously, we want not only a fully funded iaea, but part of our responsibility is to understand what mechanisms we

need and what the iaea needs as far as authority and funding to accomplish what the world wanted to, which is to be a watchdog. >> there are reports that china is about to sell nuclear reactors to pakistan, a respected of the feelings of the nuclear suppliers group. this is something of the door has opened to because of the u.s.-india nuclear agreement. how would the united states respond to allegations that it was the united states that open the door to this, and in doing so, may have inadvertently weekend the npt? >> we do not believe that we weekend the npt in our peace will deal with india. it is a deal that comes with its

safeguards and other transparency mechanisms that we think, frankly, add to the security and the non- proliferation concerns that we had prior to the deal. it is not our bad it something else happens, but certainly what we have made very clear that we are for is that we want a wenpt, a strongiaea that is well -- a strong iaea that is well funded and has the authority it needs to be a world watchdog. >> how would united states feel about the sale of nuclear reactors to pakistan, which is a country of concern when it comes to proliferation? the united states seemingly has not actually made a great deal of public discussion about pakistan's blocking of the missile material cut off treaty.

we have heard the united states talking about how cooperative pakistan has been vis-a-vis the afghanistan's. >> i am not going to speculate on a potential future sale between china and pakistan. these things take a long time, so i will wait to see how it develops. i will tell you that i think everyone shares the disappointment that the united states shares, that there is a country that is blocking the program of work that was a very hard-pot agreements -- card- fought agreement -- hard-fought agreement. president barack obama made very clear in his prague speech one year ago that the united states would move toward a cut off treaty. many of our friends and allies

are trying to persuade that country to step away and let the program moved forward, because it would be a long negotiation, and that is a good opportunity for them to make their opinions and concerns a noun. >> back to new york for a couple of questions. >> i would like to ask the ambassador about some of the stipulations and agreements between the u.s. and russia. a paper circulated to arab diplomats and believed -- and middle east diplomats concerned a common approach and putting more pressure on people

creating nuclear energy in the future. this could widen the disagreement between the arab groups and the u.s. what is your reaction? >> it is always hard to control paper at times. we were looking at some elements with the russians. this is regarding the wmd-free zone. an early draft of some of the elements we were discussing but circulated, but let me tell you that we have a much more comprehensive draft that i think will certainly, amongst our friends and the egyptian government and other allied arab states, we will have support on. this is an effort to get consensus on our strong commitment to the 1995 resolution.

at the same time, and want to make clear that we need to go forward along with language that would deal with the iran and noncompliance of their npt obligations. >> i was going to kick it to the undersecretary. >> both pakistan and india will not be participating. will the u.s. be addressing the actions of pakistan and india or addressing the issue of their absence? >> the u.s. has had a longstanding policy of supporting universal adherence to the npt. i am confident that that issue will be raised during the conference.

>> just to follow up with ambassador rice, simply stated, however the negotiations going forth? do you discern any progress? >> we are working continuously with our partners in the p5 +1. the first step is a larger consideration and consultation with the whole of the security council. those have been happening with a significant pace and intensity. i think they have yielded progress and we have some continued work to do. i think they are worthwhile, and we expect further progress to

come. >> is there any reason that you mentioned early may? >> on the because it is april 30th -- only because it is april 30th. >> do feel like they might actually come to closure in early may? >> we are working to complete this effort as quickly as possible. we attach urgency to securing a strong, meaningful resolution with the security council. we are working with that sense of urgency in new york. i cannot tell you exactly when it will all be cut -- will all be cooked, but we are pushing for as soon as possible. >> outside your post at the

united nations is concerned, you are on the human rights council, what role do you play among the road nations -- rogue nations? as far as this conference is concerned, when it comes to india and pakistan, and how will you -- how can you say that you will have eight nuclear-free world -- a nuclear-free world, when rogue nations baby selling weapons from north korea to

iran -- may be selling weapons from north korea to iran. >> first of all, as you know, the human rights council is in geneva. the united states took the decision last year to seek a seat on the the human rights council after many years of not choosing to do so. we ran and won overwhelmingly, because we took the view that despite the council's many and manifest plots, that it was a body whose mission we are -- manifest flaws, that it was a body whose mission we are committed to. we thought that we would serve as our interests and the interest of human rights in a universal application by working constructively from within the

body, however flawed, rather than standing on the outside and complaining about its behavior. we think that was a good decision and the right decision. it gives us an opportunity to engage in the process that we think is important. it gives us an opportunity to play an important role in the review of the human rights council's work, which will come up before the general assembly in new york next year. faugh while there are -- while there are a number of state, not the majority, but a number of states on the council whose human rights record does not merit to their membership in the council, there are states that we work with very constructively that are committed to strengthening and improving the human rights council and making it more credible. i think it is notable that many countries joined with the united states in making the point to a

broad swath of countries around the world, that a country such as iran, which had sought a seat on the human rights council, and campaigned hard for it, did not merit membership given its human rights record in general, and in particular what has transpired over the course of the last year. i think iran found that it did not have anything like the support it would need from the general membership in order to obtain that seat, and therefore last week withdrew its candidacy for the human rights council. >> president barack obama strongly delivered on two elements that we talked about. the first is in the nuclear security summit, where he brought together 46 heads of state, including himself. keep in mind that he was in the

room engaging with heads of state for a day and a half on the issue that has been animating him for well before either became president, the question of nuclear security, and the necessity to make clear that whether you are a nuclear weapons state or not, it is a worldwide responsibility to keep the world safe from nuclear power restoration. the second element is that the president made clear that he puts a president -- put a premium of adherence to the npt. he said that if you are a non- nuclear states that is in compliance with the treaty obligations, we will not target or use nuclear weapons against you. the president is working very hard to make clear that we

support the three pillars, that we are working very significantly on the three colors -- three pillars. we are working on disarmament and nonproliferation fit by making clear that we are for universal -- by making clear that we are for universality and that we put a premium on membership in the non- declaration treaty. >non-proliferation treaty. >> u.s. diplomacy is a dual track, but engagement and tougher measures if necessary with iran. given that the president of iran is coming here, is there any way in which it would be useful to pursue the negotiations of this track at the same time that you

are pursuing sanctions? >> secretary clinton said that there is no planned contact with the iranian delegation coming to the conference. >> can you tell us, what is the position of the u.s. government to make the conditions for withdrawal more difficult, at parties are suddenly inclined to withdraw? >> let me just say very briefly , the u.s. and many countries are looking at this issue. we are not proposing to change the withdrawal provisions, or to

in any way abridged a party's right to withdraw. what many countries are looking at, the u.s. among them, is a question of a country that might violate the treaty and then attempt to withdraw to avoid the consequences. that is really the issue here is ensuring that there is an understanding of and need to hold countries accountable for violations and not allow them to attempt to use this provision to try to avoid that. >> president barack obama is concerned with defense and central europe.

can you tell us what is the state of the missile system in central europe? >> the president, after a thorough review, and a new intelligence estimate, changed the architecture of the proposed missile shield for europe to deal with three things. one, to deliver it faster, in 2011. secondly, to use a proven system both on its ships and on a plan that can be deployed faster and that can be used to defeat short-range missiles. third, to have universality of coverage and other nato, which is very important to this administration. the president did not cancel it. what he did was change the architecture.

we will have a deployment of ships in 2011. we will have a deployment in 2015 in romania. we will have a deployment in 2018 in poland. we think it is an improved system, not only because it delivers a security and deterrent sooner, but it also uses a proven system to promote universality. >> we will take one or two more here and one or two more in the new york. >> will you be supporting a china sending nuclear materials to pakistan? >> i only heard about this 10 minutes before i got here. i know we won't have a feeling, but we will have a position. i am sure we will get that to you. >> you used the word "altairs"

to describe countries in a non -- you used the word "outliers" to describe countries in a non- compliance with the npt. what steps will you be using to deal with those countries? >> our equities are to keep the treaty as strong as possible and to make sure that those allied with us in the treaty who are not in compliance are held accountable. i think we know we are talking about specifically in this case. once again, the review is not about that country, although they are in a compliance area in the committee work. we certainly would expect and

promote dealing with that country's non-compliance. >> we will take two more questions from new york, and then we will wrap up. >> as you well know, russia has a different stance on iran and sanctions. do you see any progress on changing russia's position. will russia joined the u.s. in their position? >> i think i should let the russians speak for themselves. we have heard from the russians and the last 24 hours. they have addressed their perspective on this. from my point of view, and would simply say that as we work

together on the p5 +1 to craft an appropriate package, russia has been a very constructive partner in that regard. >> i work for a global newspaper in brazil. i have two questions. do you still see a chance of negotiation and to avoid sanctions in the un? i understand that you are also working for to strengthen the u.s. sanctions against iran. do you have a timetable for that? will it happen before the un sanctions?

>> as i said earlier, the purpose of pursuing renewed sanctions in the security council is to give meaning and the test to a dual track approach -- impetus to a dual track approach. we remain committed to both tracks, especially engagement. the aim is to persuade iran that it would be the wiser course is to engage in negotiations on its nuclear programs and agree to end its effort to obtain a nuclear weapons capability, rather than continue on the past that it is on. obviously, if at any stage it chooses to take those steps, we and others would take notice.

we certainly hope that they would. we have two feet planted firmly on each of these tracks and the pressure continues. >> the answer on our legislation is that eight u.n. security council new resolution on iran would be a free market from which it then other countries could stay -- could take steps nationally. our congress and other countries are talking amongst themselves about steps that they might take in light of a un security council resolution. >> you are not taking advantage of the opportunity to talk to the highest levels of the iranian government that will be here, yet you say you have a foot firmly planted on the

engagement track. >> what i am referring to is a the p5 +1. iran has something new to say, they know where to find us. we think that the discussions that have occurred, the proposals that have been made in that context are credible ones that iran has a choice to make on. so far, it has chosen not to embrace them, nor even to the bill the commitment it made in -- even to fulfil the commitments it made in geneva to do so. there has been a clear-cut way for iran to communicate its intentions to us and others in the international community. >> thank you very much.

>> here is what is ahead on c- span. next, an overview of the upcoming british election. then, two of the contenders, david cameron on a one of his recent campaign stops, and later, remarks by the liberal democrat candidate. >> tonight, on c-span2, a tribute to the civil rights leader who died last week. we will hear remarks from former president bill clinton and secretary of state hillary clinton at the service in washington, d.c. that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. saturday, a discussion on the diversity and the federal judiciary, with fourth circuit court of appeals judge roger

gregory. following that, almost 3000 journalists, politicians and celebrities will gather at the washington hilton for the white house correspondents' dinner. our live coverage includes remarks by president barack obama and nbc tonight show host, jay leno. that is live, saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, here on c-span. >> our content is available on television, radio, and online. you can also connect with us on a twitter, facebook, and youtube. >> the three candidates to be britain's next prime minister held their second prime-time debate this week. we showed it to you live. we will show it again on sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, here on c- span. a quick look now at their

election broadcasts. >> in the british election is may 6th, and in a moment, we will look at the three political parties' election broadcast. paid political ads are not allowed on british tv. under the law, the bbc and itv are required to bear equal time election broadcasts on their channels. >> the amount of money being spent on british campaigns are much smaller than the amounts in the u.s.. primarily, that is because there is a legal ban on advertising. they spent quite a lot of money on direct mail, phone banks, posters and things like that, particularly much more nowadays. but because they cannot buy

television time, it has a profound affect on the amount of money. there are also very tight limits on spending. there is a limit of about $30 million on spending by each of the main parties during the actual time running up to the campaign. >> during the official campaign, which lasts about four weeks, there is usually one broadcast aired each day, except sunday. these are produced by the parties. national broadcasters are required by law to provide television and radio time for free. here is a look at a broadcast released earlier this week. >> by the clock. >> i will get that. [doorbell ringing]

>> no, you do not have to eat that. >> yes? >> they just told us they are cutting the child tax credit. >> that is not there. we work hard for our money. >> within a few weeks, the conservatives would stop child tax credit 200 of thousands of families making a middle income. -- to hundreds of thousands of families making a middle income. >> there you go.

[knocking] >> within a few weeks of being elected, the conservatives would stop a baby bond payments for families with incomes over 16,000 lbs.. -- 16,000 pounds. >> how can i help you? sorry, what do you mean? christ the conservatives could endure right to see a cancer -- >> the conservatives would and your right to see a cancer

specialist. the tories do not want you to know what they would cut it collected on may 6th. there is only one way to protect your tax credit, your child a trust fund, and you're right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks. vote u.k. labour on may 6th. >> the law requires that parties and broadcasters agree on an allocation of air time for free. conservative party leader david cameron released this broadcast earlier this week. >> now, a broadcast from the conservative party. ♪ >> today seized the dawn of a

new era in britain. we aim to change the very face of politics. we listened to the hard-working people of this country. we feel the disillusionment that some many of you have with modern politics. we want to do away with the old conventions, and said at a new vision for britain. it is time for real change. we are going to and behind- closed-doors of politics, no public allowed. >> under a parliament where no party has a majority, under the table deals will be the order of the day. policies will be a bickered over by secret committees. those more interested in serving those -- serving their careers and their country. pledged two, in decision and weak government. we promised to get rid of -- we,

the hon the parliament party, promise in decision. our third pledge is to paralyze the u.k. economy. a vote for a hung parliament risks killing economic recovery. we know that 2/3 other business leaders are concerned about the impact of a hung parliament on the british economy. >> it could lead to a drop in the pound and an increase in interest rates. >> finally, we pledged to have another election within the same year. you, the voter can hear the same arguments all over again. we will waste millions of pounds

doing it. we hope we can rely on you to create a brave new world of economic stagnation and dithering. we are the hon parliament party. -- hung parliament party. >> the british election is may 6th. during the official campaign, there is usually one broadcast each day, except sunday. take a look at the liberal democrat broadcast that aired earlier this week. >> [siren]

>> broken promises. there have been too many in the last 30 years. in fact, our nation has been littered with a trail of broken promises. you remember them, fairer taxes, better schools for everyone, cleaner politics, all promises broken. i believe it is time to do things differently. i believe it is time for fairness in britain. i believe it is time for promises to be kept. britain is a strong country. despite everything we have going for us, life is still too in there for too many people. people like you, who have made as a nation we are today, and you deserve fairness more than ever. but in fairness back into office -- but tim -- putting

fairness and back into office is the single biggest challenge we face, but we can do it. here is how. fair taxes. no one will pay tax on the first 10,000 pounds they earn. that means money back in the pockets of everyone. it means freedom for many people on low pay or pension. everybody knows that money is tight. we have to sort out the mess in government finance. but we can pay for fairer taxes by closing the huge loopholes that only benefit the very wealthy, and making sure that polluters pay for the damage they have caused. that is unfair. -- that is fair. we want to make sure that no one is left behind in our schools. imagine, opportunity for every

child. that is unfair. imagine a fair and sustainable economy. let's break up the banks and make sure they pay for the damage they have caused. let's build a new, green infrastructure with affordable housing, and move the economy beyond the city of london with jobs that will last for everyone in every part of the country. that is unfair. finally, -- that is fair. finally, fair politics. there will be no more corrupted donations. we will fix the system so that your vote will count. this election is different from every other election. the trail of broken promises can come to an end, and the new road can begin to a future with fairness, opportunity, and

promises kept for everyone. we can make britain the country we all want it to be. choose a real change that works for you. jews -- choose the liberal democrats. >> you can see these three political election broadcast again on our website, c- span.org. the british election is may 6th. >> the british election is may 6th, and c-span is covering the three main party leaders as they campaign to be the next prime minister. on monday, david cameron

visited south hampton university, about 75 mi. south of london. he talked to students there, and toward a renewable energy research lab. later, you will hear comments from southampton university students, and hear interviews with two journalists on an david cameron's campaign business. [unintelligible]

>> do not believe what you read in the papers. >> i am not voting and labor. i want real change. >> i think it is better to be up front and say that we cannot eliminate tuition fees. we will always help people from low-income backgrounds to go to university. we cannot afford to get rid of tuition fees when we have this big deficit. today, there are 80,000 people on preschool meals. that is terrible. it will change with our

government, because we are going to change the state of education. we are going to open up the system, allow new schools in, have greater diversity, and excellent teachers. the ones arguing for real change in education of us. -- are us. i was at a rally in your chair yesterday with parents who want to organize a new school. conservatives have a very radical education policies. education is so unequal in our country. >> i do not believe you. [laughter] >> and what did you say to mr. cameron? >> i asked him about the working class. what about grant, tuition fees,

things like that? he said, do not believe what other people tell you. well, why don't you tell me something? he pretty much told me that labor were talking rubbish, as he always says. >> you were not convinced? >> know. -- no. >> para will you vote for? >> i will not disclose that information, but it will not be him. he said they are potentially going to raise tuition fees. i am bright, but i could not afford 7 belsen per year per7000 -- 7000 per year.

i would not be getting a degree. i would not be doing an awful lot with myself. people like me have been given so many opportunities. people from a modest backgrounds will not have that opportunity if the cap is taken off. >> are you a member of any party? >> [whispers] >> ok, but you are here of your own abolition -- on a -- own volition? >> yes, i just came from the jim -- gym.

>> david, why do you think it is there if students have to pay back their loans faster if their parents are richard? -- are richer? >> tell me all about this. >> [unintelligible] >> how does that generate electricity? . .

>> i say. when you are using the energy of the sea to do desalination. >> why this system is using converters is reducing in california. [unintelligible] >> because you are pushing water up like a pump storage station. when you let it down, you can turn it over. >> what we are going to do is generate potential energy and you can store it. >> yes, yes.

that helps you with the problem of pace slowed because the services are not turning but you have stored in the wake energy somehow. >> you can store it. >> it gives a solid performance. very clever. >> argued trying to drag me away? -- argued trying to drag me away? -- are you trying to drag me away? tell us about this. >> we are looking at the theory of dam spillway and the energy lost when the water comes over the spillway, there is a lot of

energy left. [unintelligible] >> you are trying to stop the damage otherwise done and work out how much energy you are using. >> this knowledge is very important with hydraulic structures. >> and all of the green technologies you are learning about, this that offer a different pathway? >> it definitely, yes. >> you are going to rebuild all of this? brilliant. thank you.

[unintelligible] >> this is a small model of a turbine. it could be a wind turbine. >> how big could they be? how many of them do you have? >> [unintelligible] crested that is actually what constraints you. -- the death is actually what constrains you -- the depth is actually what constraints

you. compared with a similar size to wind turbine, walked is the capacity in terms of energy generated? 1.2 megawatts. there is a lot of potential there. >> what is the challenge and the difficulty? what is the breakthrough you need? >> it is just funding the companies so they can build more of these and employing devices. >> what are the problems? >> fish. >> this is a green energy source, we have groups worrying about this being chopped in half. how do we get around that?

>> you could produce things to scare the fish away. you did not want fish coming into contact with the blade. we believe that since they spend so slowly, -- >> that is an argument you are going to win. >> thank you very much. >> we need to measure the velocity. [unintelligible] [unintelligible] >> you can model exactly how much the blade can turn.

>> the energy is proportional to the velocity. [unintelligible] >> how long have you been covering the day vercammen campaign? >> since its first day. since the formal election announcement. conservatives are not allowing traveling press attacks to go with them. americans might be used to presidential candidates being

followed by a bus full of reporters. these candidates are going with a smaller press operation. newspaper reporters like me tend to attack a long afterward -- tag along afterward. it is quite fun. >> about how many event a day does he do? >> he usually does two or three. he often starts with one in london and leaves for one somewhere else and do one at lunchtime and one towards the end of the day. they are being presented as a community meetings. he is meeting members of the public. he is meeting normal voters. he has just been confronted by a student who is on happy with his proposals on higher education funding.

we caught that on camera, david cameron interacting with voters. >> do you expect he will be next prime minister? >> only a fool makes predictions about the future. the polls would suggest that he has the biggest share of the vote and is on course to have more votes than anybody else. that should give him a better chance of being prime minister. nothing can be taken for granted. i say 5 pounds on david cameron being the next prime minister. >> how we describe them to an american viewer? >> in american terms, he fits somewhere on the spectrum of a moderate republican in many ways. but you could argue that this may be a conservative democrat. a strong emphasis on the environment. he is keen to start cutting

spending. there is a deficit hawk element to david cameron. and foreign policy, he is not a- year -- bought a george bush. -- not a george bush. he is more like a liberal realist. he says you cannot drop democracy from the payload of a bomber. a less adventurous foreign policy. he would tell you that the most important policy relationship is with the u.s.. there would be no dissolving of u.s.-british relationships. >> can you describe a day and your life on the campaign trail? >> on a good day, i know where i am going the night before. it that today, i know it 7:00 a.m.

i tried to go with whatever morning event or i go straight to a station that will get me to the same town where david cameron is. i follow him around until he stops moving. i did not know when that will be. i get home anytime between 7:00 p.m. and midnight. my wife would be a better indicator of these things. i have seen her awake a couple times in the past few weeks which is nice. >> it seems like the event here are much smaller than u.s. presidential campaign rallies that we are used to seeing. can you comment on that? >> that is true. there are a few reasons for that. we cannot have a full presidential system. we do not look to our party leader in the same way that an american voter will. the more frequent, when you do

two or three of these a day, you cannot organize a big rally three times a day. they are often relatively late notice. they like to control it and keep things on a relatively small scale to keep an eye on what is going on and control coverage. courts i think the strategy connected with this location is they are talking about work on sustainable energy, wave energy and one of the vestiges of today -- one of the passages of today is his green campaign.

he has tried to make the conservative party sound more ecologically friendly. there are people who are not particularly interested in that agenda and the party. there are people in the party that do not believe that global happening -- global warming is happening. he is trying to say that this is something that could appeal to people who want to vote liberal democrat if they're interested in global warming or other means of renewable energy. >> do the leaders tend to campaign in constituencies where there is a close race going on? >> they do. it is a mixture. they also want what ever it is they are visiting to tell a story. piston sichuan city is about the work being done in terms of renewable energy.

-- and his constituency -- this constituency is about work being done in terms of renewable energy. they are the ones that can determine if the conservatives have a majority or not. >> what are you focusing on today? >> how on earth are we in this situation where you have not sealed the deal after 13 years of the labor government coming out of recession. you should be cruising and you are not. this has gotten worse in the past couple of weeks. >> what brings you here today? >> word of mouth. i heard the conservative party was down here and i wanted to see what it was about. >> are you planning on voting? >> i am voting in this constituency. >> do you know who you are

voting for? >> i am undecided. i will decide after i watched them. >> did you watch both of them? >> i thought they were really interesting and good for us having having -- never had them before. it is a much better way of seeing what the candidates have to say. >> what issues are of interest to you? [unintelligible] >> the environment. >> can you describe to an american what a [unintelligible] is? >> we have to pay $3,000 per

year for our tuition. we have to pay it off with interest. however can change that policy will win our vote. >> i was told that david cameron was here and i wanted to ask him some questions on student loans. >> what is your opinion about student loans? >> i understand the need for student loans. there is a funding gap in higher education but i do not believe that students should have to pay interest on their loans. >> do you have loans to go to school? >> i do. i will have about 20,000 pounds that when i use -- when i leave university. david cameron want to charge me interest. >> how old are you? >> 21. >> have you voted yet in an

election? >> only local. this is my first general election. >> do you know how you are voting? >> yes, the labor party. >> what is labor's position on student loans? >> i was not amazingly happy about it but they have a commitment to not pay interest on them and i do recognize the need for funding and higher education. >> what other issues matter to you? >> environmental issues are a big concern to me. education spending in general. [unintelligible] i recognize we have a massive deficit but i do not think the way to get out of the recession is to cut. it is probably to keep spending. >> what about foreign policy? do you have an opinion about british foreign policy, in particular, relations with the

u.s. and the wars in iraq and afghanistan? >> i oppose the war in iraq. i thought it was wrong. i recognize we have a certain relationship with the u.s. but i am not sure how strong it should be any more. afghanistan, i recognize the need but i would like us to be out as soon as possible. >> how do you feel? >> his view on homosexuals, his party has voted against the last five bills. he has publicly said he does not support homosexuals. i got a phone call from my dad and told me that he was on campus. i was trying to find him. i have not found him just yet. i have a couple questions. >> what questions? >> the main one would be about fees being 7,000 pounds per

year. this probably would not affect me but my little sister. given the fact that my parents [unintelligible] out today expected the university education? -- how do they expect to get university education? >> short-term quick changes that would appear all -- appeal. [unintelligible] because of that, i need a party that has a strong economy and allow me to prosper and not -- we have two parties on pushing the state forward. and that has never appealed to me. i always wanted to be as free as

i could to prosper. >> is your family political? where did you get your political views? >> it is quite funny c, actually. my grandmother would read and read the sunday papers. that was it background influence. i was not overtly political until i did a project at college which exposed what politics was about. mechanisms and that sort. since i have moved forward from that and came to do a politics degree at university.

that original sort of interest in media and automated with politics -- amalgamated with politics. >> what do you hope to see as his goals as prime minister in the next few years? >> the one thing that we will see is the state moving back and allowing the people which is the best thing he could do. taxes are massive and this country. we have seen in efficient investments and we are going to see a lot more savings.

conservatives to not believe in throwing money at a problem is the solution. that makes for inefficiency. allowing the people to set up their own schools and where the state is failing them to come out and do something about that. public-private partnerships are what i would like to see more. they have been successful under labour. with a conservative at the helm, you could really see some vast improvement in public services. in a word, the conservatives would give power back to the people and not involving the government in everyday affairs.

the three candidates held their third televised debate earlier this week. we showed it to you live and we will show it to you again at 9:00 eastern on c-span. next, remarks by a liberal democrat candidate nick clegg. this is about 40 minutes. quit the british election is may 6 and we are covering the three party leaders. wednesday, nick clegg held a question and answer session with students at oxford university. [applause]

>> there are a number of things i want to talk about. and who is going to vote? a north korean style vote. who is not going to vote. who has not registered? that is absolutely fantastic. one of the most exciting things that has happened in this election campaign is that more and more first-time voters, more and more young people, who have been turned off for years from the traditional, old, tired politics of the past are getting engaged and getting registered. you are saying that this is your election as much as anybody else's and i think that is absolutely wonderful. this election is one of those rare opportunities where we can

do something seriously different but we can only do things differently if you assert your rights to have your say about your country and about your future. i am not silly enough to assume you are going to vote liberal democrats but the fact you are voting at all is a wonderful demonstration that this election has engaged and excited people and that is exactly what we needed. after the hemorrhaging of political trust in the very foundations of our democracy. let's talk about some of the ideas that we're putting forward to reshape your future. one issue that is being pushed to the forefront of the campaign is our politicians

going to be open with you about decisions needed over the next several years to fill in this huge black hole and our public finances? the institute of fiscal studies has been absolutely right and have provided us with a great service saying that nobody has come clean about how bad and how difficult these decisions are going to be in the future. the liberal democrats have gone a lot further in spelling out exactly what savings and cuts are needed but the institute's is right when it says all politicians will need to do more. one thing i will not do, one thing the liberal democrats will not do and only the labour and conservative parties are doing is to fool you into thinking

that you can fill one of the biggest black holes and are economy in generations by stanton efficiency savings. it is an insult to your intelligence that they pretend that you can fill a structural deficit the size of which we have not seen since the second world war through savings and paper clips. it is nonsense. it is a joke and they are treating you like fools. when you next here david cameron and gordon brown talking about billions in the efficiency savings, do not believe a word of it. that is why the rest of the liberal democrat team took the decision to spell out and are manifest, if you cannot have it, some good bedtime reading, turn to the back and you will see

black and white, a list of numbers we have set out item by item, savings by savings, $15 billion worth of pounds. we would reallocate 5 billion of that to smaller class sizes. and a decent starting wage for those in the armed forces and over a six-year period, the gradual phasing out of tuition fees altogether. the rest of the 10 billion is a down payment to deal with this structural deficit. we have further to go, all of us. we have a long way to travel as a country to restore the damage that has been done because of the implosion and our financial services sector and our public finances. do not let anybody fool you into

thinking you can have something for nothing. that is politics of the past. we are not. i think that we have got changes about how to restore trust in politics. that is obvious. we have challenges about dealing with the great black hole in our public funds. in many ways, i think that the challenges we have on so many other friends are equally large. and we have seen the industrial scale of decimation of our civil liberties over the last 10 years, the likes of which we have not seen in modern british history. labor has passed over 4000 new laws making things a criminal defense -