the fact that there is more of a holistic approach to this thing where we have the ability of talented peop all driving towards the same goals, maintaining a strong safe and sound financial system with the kindf stability that's necessary in it as well as restoring that -- that level of trust and confidence in the system, which to me is the most critical element of all. if the american people and others feel that sense of trust and confidence about financial systems, that will have its own reward. so, again, i'm very grateful to you and your staff and others for the tremendous effort you put into this. i look forward to getting together with you again to really get down to the details of how this is going to work. senator shelby? >> mr. chairman, some observers warn of growing risk in the 2.8 trillion municipal debt market. parts of californi as well as municipalities in illinois, michigan, new york, seem to have been vulnerable to market-driven widening of spreads on their

bonds relative to treasuries, especially when market anxiety over fiscal conditions in the euros -- i have two questions regarding municipal debt what is your assessment of the state of the u.s. municipal debt market? secondly, do you believe there's any merit to a recent characterization by warren buffett that there is potentially, quote, a terrible problem, end quote, ahead for municipal bonds? >> well, first, the -- it's certainly true that states and localities are under a lot of fiscal and financial stress. their revenues have fallen considerably and they're trying to maintain services and so on. clearly we've seen some deficits and some cuts at the state and local level. my view, though, is that first of all that the municipal debt market is functioning pretty well. that at least state and localities that -- states and

localities that have good credit or seem to be sound are not having any difficulty accessing the municipal market and that yields are pretty low. which is, i think, fortunate because there are a number of states and localities that being forced to borrow in the current circumstances. certainly there may be some localities in particular that -- that will have trouble, but i would draw a distinction between, you know, say, california and greece, which is that because of these budget balance requirements, the outstanding debt of states is generally much less than the united states or other countries. so, you know, my -- of course we always have to pay close attention. there are a lot of stresses at the state and local level. but i don't at this point view the municipal debt market as being a major risk to the economy.

>> deflation in the japanese experience, some people expressed fear that the u.s. could find itself in a period of deflation and like japan have difficulty escaping. do you -- what are your -- what do you believe are the differences between the u.s. and japan in terms of structure of economic policy that would ensure that we do not follow the japanese experience? is that a concern to the fed? >> again, we're -- forecasts are ry uncertain, but i don't view deflation as a near-term risk for the united states. if you look, for example, at inflation expectations as measured by government bond markets or by rveys, there has not really been much decline in -- expectatio is one important factor that will keep inflation from falling very much.

so, again, the forecasts are for gradual increase of inflation towards mre normal, say, 2% level. and there's not, at this point, i think a very high probability that deflation will become a concern. i think there are very important differences between the u.s. and japan. some of them are structural. the japanese economy has been relatively low productivity in recent years. its growth rate is lower than the u.s. it's been a less vibrant economy in that respect. also in japan, much longer problems with their banking system, which were not addressed for some years. for better or worse, we were very aggressive in addssing our banking system issues. i think as i mentioned to a couple of folks, we are seeing a

strong -- our syst is strengthening and looks to be doing much better. i don't think that will be a source of long-term drag either. and finally, i would comment that i -- i think the federal reserve does have the capacity, the tools, should deflation occur, which i don't believe is very likely, to reverse it. and we would be -- i don't consider this a very high risk at this point, but we'll continue to monitor the economy and the price level. >> senator corker? >> tnk you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i thank you for your testimony and coming here today. i know there's been a lot of probings about monetary policy. i very much appreciate the fact

that you stayed consistent with your report and so i want to probe in another area. and that is senator brown was pursuing the whole issue of china. i do ink -- i know you said we should focus on the overall trade deficits, not the bilateral deficits. but i do think with the -- with the economy being as it is and just the relationship as it is and -- there may be attempts to try to deal with that. i don't know. i just wondered if you would share with us -- the fact is, you did say it's a subsidy, and it is, to the chinese people to have a currency valuation relative to the dollar that allows them to export to us. what are the things that all of us who want to mak sure we try to do good things, what are the things we should think about as it relates to -- to the chinese currency? and what are some of the unintended consequences we

should all be aware of? >> of the -- >> well, i mean, there are people looking at -- there's all kinds of things. and i understand. especially folks who come from orientations and all of that -- i know we've looked at some things. what -- i think there's going to be a push. i just think as this economy moves along slowly and that trade gap widens, i thinkhere may be some legislative efforts to deal with that. i'm not saying i'm going to be a part of that or not part that. but what are the things we should think about as it relates to that issue and some of e inuntended consequences of dealing with it inappropriately? >> i fully understand the concern. again, it is felt more in specific industries than it is for the economy as a whole. >> say that again. i didn't hear that. >> i understand the concern. i think that it's easier to

identify effects onpecific industries than it is to find effects of the currency policy on the economy as a whole or unemployment as a whole because there's not much relationship between ou unemployment rate and our current account deficit. take an obvious example, unemployment has soared and the deficit has gone down. but i do understand the concern. all i can really say is that it would be to take some of the steps that have been suggested would be quite severe steps and would cause considerable concern about our overall relationship with china and other countries and about our training policies. again, i understand the concern. but i would just reiterate first that this is a complex problem and that it's not just the currency that's involved. the chinese are also involved in

trying to come more reliant on domestic demand. first of all. secondly, i would note that united states has got a vibrant bilateral relationship in terms of our dialogue, for example, strategic and examine dialogue, which was created by secretary paulson, has been expanded and continued by the current administration. and one of the things that's evidenced from that is that the u.s. and china have a wide range of issues not just the currency but a wide range of issues relating to energy and environment and tourism and investment and trade and many other things where we have common interests where we need to work, you know, cooperatively together. so i hope that congress will ink very carefully before taking any strong action. at the same time, i recognize it's incumbent upon particularly the treasury has a special role because they are the spokesman for the currency, but forhe

federal reserve as well to try to maintain a constant dialogue to persuade the chinese and to apply pressure to them that they need to adjust their currency, which is their current policy is -- is -- distorts capital flows globally. it's not evegn good for china. it distorts their economy as well andakes them too relit on experts and reduces their dome domestic consumption. we're hopeful that -- i think they have become more appreciative of those concerns over time. >> in most recent statements that they made, they gave a tilt, if you will, prior to some g-20 meetings as to what they may be doing. what do you read into that? and what is your sense as you talk to counterparts about what their longer-term efforts will be?

>> with reect to the currency? >> uh-huh. >> they've gone back to the -- this managed float, which allows for small changes in the currency. i think the amount that they let it move will depend on their own views of the stability of their own economy and global growth. we're going to have to see. i honestly don't -- i don't know exactly what their plans are. i suspect they will be responding to how they view the evolion of global economic conditions. >> well, mr. chairman, i thank you for coming. certainly look forward to talking to you about those issues going down the road. we had a good hearing yesterday. i think in any bill that passes, ere are good things and bad things and people have to make decisions about what they -- how they vote based on the net effect. i think that all of us are

hopeful that as it relates to our relations with the other countries that we end up with a regulatory regime that works well for all of us and i wish you well in those efforts and look forward to talking to you as you move ahea >> thank you, senator. >> i -- again, this is the same kind of question that senator corker has raised. some have suggested that we would have been better off if we had not acted in this area of financial reform. some have even suggested that even the opportunity, they'd like to repeal this effort we've gone through over the last year and a half. assuming that what you're talking about is going back to the status quo, are we better off with this legislation? i know a lot of work needs to be done. than we would be if we would have just maintained the status quo as things were prior to the passage of this legislation? >> yes, i think we are.

there were gaps which became painful painfully evident during the crisis. we've increased our capacity to take a macroprudential approach. and the ability to wind down large firms and avoid the bailout problem ore -- avoid the situation where we have to choose between a bailout and a financial crisis, that's an important step also. all of those things are going to require a lot of work to make them effective d useful tools. but it's very important to address those

>> of the $787 million economic funding signed into law more than one year ago, over $417 billion, more than half of the total has been committed to states by the federal government to spend on stimulus projects. that is up $14 billion from last week. over two minutes $61 billion has been paid out for those projects. go to c-span.org/stimulus for hearings and debates on the economic stimulus as well as links to government and watchdog groups tracking spending. >> both chambers of congress are in session this week. the house returns tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. eastern for morning our speeches and legislative business at 2:00. on the agenda this week -- 2011

spending bills for military construction, veterans affairs and the department of transportation and housing and urban development. as well as a revised supplement spending bills for the war's in iraq and afghanistan. the senate is also back tomorrow at 3:00 -- they will begin work on the campaign finance bill, a legislative response to the supreme court decision in the citizens united case earlier this year. a procedural probe -- procedural vote takes place on tuesday. senators are expected to return to work on a small business bill after members voted to limit debate before leaving for the weekend. i follow the senate live on c- span2. >> c-span -- our public affairs content is available on television, radio and online. you can connect with us on twitter, facebook and youtube. signup for our scheduled alert e-mail's act c-span.org.

>> president obama's nominee for director of national intelligence told a senate panel on tuesday that he will work to end turf battles within the u.s. intelligence committee -- intelligence committee and promised better cooperation with congress. if confirmed, he would fill the post vacated by admiral dennis blair who resigned in may. we begin with his opening statement. this is about to a half hours. >> in your introduction was very touching and thoughtful. being nominated for this position was an unexpected turn of events. i'm in my third tour back in the

government and my plan was to walk out about a millisecond after secretary gates and i had no plan to take another position. but i have always been a duty guy at heart. when approached by a secretary gates and the president of the united states of america, both of whom i have the highest respect for, i could not say no. i am honored president obama has expressed confidence my abilities. i submitted a longer statement for the record subject to your concurrence. if i could deliver one message to you today, it is this -- i have served over 46 years in the intelligence profession in many capacities -- in peace, crisis, in uniform, in and out of government and in academia. i tried hard to serve in each capacity with the best interest of our nation first and foremost. should i be confirmed of developed -- a director of national intelligence, i assure

you that would continue to be -- we have the largest intelligent enterprise on the planet. it is the trust to make that work for the sake of this nation as a people. intelligence is a team in denver and dni is in the distinct position to harness the ability to make it run as a current enterprise. i want to repeat something publicly that i have said to many privately. i believe strongly in a need for congressional oversight and of confirmed, i would continue to forge a partnership with the committee. it is the highest distinction of my professional career to be nominated for this position in this herd -- in this difficult time throughout the world. this concludes my formal statement. i am prepared to respond to your question or if you'd like, i could respond now to your commentary as well as that of

the ranking member. >> that is up to you, general, if you like to proceed, otherwise we can take that up in questions. it's up to you. >> we have members waiting to ask questions, so i suggest we go ahead with that and perhaps i will get to these points or perhaps i will get to them subsequently. >> we will begin with 10-minute rounds and we will proceed in order of seniority. we will alternate sites. i hope that is acceptable. as i mentioned in my opening statement, i believe the dni must be able to be a strong leader as well as a coordinator. in the oxford handbook of national security intelligence from february 2010, you wrote -- "i no longer believe as strongly as i once did in greater centralization of intelligence activity or authority. i realize the individual needs

for each department for tailored intelligence outweigh the benefits of more centralized management and control. secondly -- in your initial questionnaire, you wrote that the responsibilities of the dni entails supervision and oversight, which seems weaker than direction and control. here's the question -- if you are confirmed dead dni, in what -- if you are confirmed as dni, and what ways would you -- can you give specific examples of where you see more forceful leadership is necessary? >> i think with all the discussion about the lack of authority or the perceived

weaknesses of the office of the director of national intelligence, i believe it already does have considerable authority either explicit in law or implicit that can be exerted. it is my belief that the issue in the past has been the art form by which that authority has been asserted. it would be my 10th -- my intend to push the envelope on where those authorities could be broadened. i refer specifically to programming and financial management, since that is the common denominator in this town. that's one area where having been a program manager twice in the national intelligence program as well as the executive for military intelligence program, i think i know how the systems work and how it can be leveraged. when i speak of centralization, i do not think everything has to be managed and run from the immediate confine of the office

of the director of national intelligence. i think the director of national intelligence authorities can be extended by deputizing or delegating to various parts of the community things that can be done on behalf of the dni but do not have to be done within the confines of the dni staff. i would not have agreed to take this position on if i were going to be a to chiller figurehead or hood ornament. i believe it is necessary, whether the construct we have now -- there needs to be a clear, defined, identifiable leader of the intelligence community to exert direction and controls over the entire community. the 16 components that you mentioned.

>> given our present budget problems, this growth of the entire community which has doubled in budget size since 9/11 is unlikely to continue. we have all had occasion to discuss this with recent heads of individual departments. it is my belief that everyone is well aware of that. in fact, the budget may actually end up being decreased in the coming years. here is the question -- has this growth, in your view, as you have participated, been managed correctly. are there areas where you believe work remains to be done to consolidate and better manage prior of? -- prior growth?

>> i go back to the immediate aftermath of the cold war where we were under a mandate to reduce the community on the order of 20%. put another way, one of every five employees we have on the roles had to be relieved from those roles. through the '90s, the process started before i left active duty in 1995 and continued through the '90s. i left the government, was away for six years, and came back and took over two days after 9/11. that downward profile is in progress. we were restricting people and the 9/11 occurred, we put the brakes on and had to rejuvenate

and greenspan the intelligence community. -- rejuvenates and read-expand the intelligence community. that happened in my case i was director of nga for five years and in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. the questions raised in the article you point out about the profligate growth of contractors and attendant facilities and that sort of thing is badly my view part of a historical pattern, a pendulum that will swing back and we're going to be faced with an analogous situation like we faced after the fall of the wall when the charge was to reap the peace dividend and reduce the size of the intelligence community. with the gusher, to use secretary gates'very apt term, which has accrued from overseas

continuation operation funding which is one year at time, it very difficult to hire government employees 1-year -- one year at time. the a lot of that has been the growth of contractors. to go back even further in history and to think back to world war two where we had the arsenal democracy which turned out ships and planes and trucks and jeeps and in an ending numbers -- that is actually how we won the war. we're doing the same thing analogous lee today, but it is much more of an information- driven war. in intelligence in my day, my first tour in vietnam, intelligence was [unintelligible] it now drives everything. it is not surprising in my view that intelligence is so prominently assembly contractors doing so many things. the article is in some way

testimony to the ingenuity and capability of our contractor base. that's not to say it is all efficient. it is not. there is more work that needs to be done. i think this is a great area to work with the oversight committees. what is lacking here is some standards -- should there be limits on the amount of revenue that will accrue to contractors? should there be limits on the number of full-time equivalent contractors who are imbedded in the intelligence community? those are issues i propose we work together on a fight am dni and i would start with the office of the dni. -- if i am confirmed as the head of dni. with respect to the buildings that have accrued -- most of the buildings -- there is a $2.1

billion facilities that will go in in springfield, va., was instrumental in that and that came about because of the base relocation and consolidation round that occurred in 2005. so, nga facility, the consolidation at under intelligence at quantico, the support agency at fort meade all came about because of the brac grounds. what the business case was is that we got out of leased facilities which overtime cost more than a government-owned facility, not to mention the quality of life working conditions that will demonstratively improved for nga. >> it is my understanding that a

contractor cost virtually double what a government employee does and has cost that. we have set as a mark and% reduction per year. -- 10% reduction per year. i don't know that is achievable. i know the cia has tried to be 5%. what is your view on this as to what would be a practical and achievable number to aim for the reduction of contractors, assuming there 20% to 30% of the entire work force today? >> and 20 to try to come up with some organizing principles -- i think we need to try to come up with organizing principles about where they are and where they are not. since there are wide variances in terms of percentage and prevalence of contractors in various parts of the community. in the case of the services, except for perhaps the army which is understandable, it's a

low percentage of contractors working in intelligence. in the case of the agencies, the percentage is higher. one agency in particular is a classically, traditionally relied on contractors not a lead for acquisitions but operations. if you want to come up with some organizing principles and standards and formulas that would determine where contractors are appropriate and where they're not, rather than keying on a fixed percentage which could in some cases be damaging or not, i certainly agree that it is time for the pendulum to swing back as it has historically. i'm reluctant to switch to a fixed percentage because i would want to see what the impact was in individual cases. >> we will ask you for that assessment as soon as you are confirmed. >> let me pose a hypothetical --

let's pretend to dni are the and worked for years with the oversight committee -- work with committees to produce and intelligence authorization. assume the director rights to the committee and the president will sign the act. let's pretend an undersecretary of defense intelligence sends up a discussion draft to the majority staff of the armed services committee of alerting them to provisions in the tax the needs modification because they conflict with longstanding authorities of the secretary of defense. let's also pretend you did not -- the under secretary did not clear it with you or the intelligence oversight committees. how would you view this action of your undersecretary of defense intelligence and how would you view his meddling in

this operation and how do you think you as the dni would react to this? >> i probably would have chastised him for not having provided a copy to the staff paper that was exchanged in response to the request from the house arms races committee staff. in retrospect, it would have been better if i had seen to it that a copy went to be respected intelligence communities -- intelligence committees. that happened anyway without my noticing it, i would have taken a course. i have been the under secretary of defense for intelligence and considered it my responsibility and obligation to defend and protect the secretaries

authorities and prerogatives to the maximum extent by could. if i were confirmed as dni i would make sure the dni's prerogatives are protected and advanced. >> we had a good discussion last week and i believe you said the senate intelligence committee should have jurisdiction over the military intelligence program budget which is currently under the jurisdiction of the armed services committee. could you clarify that for me? >> i'm probably risking getting in trouble with the armed services committee who apparently likes me now. [crosstalk] it would be better and i don't want to get into jurisdictional gun battles, but having done this in several incumbencies, it

would be better if the oversight were symmetrical. the house intelligence committee does have jurisdiction over the military intelligence program. it's a different situation here in the set. -- in the senate. >> i appreciate that. you have entered into the most deadly mine field in washington d.c. when you do so. step carefully, we appreciate you taking that step. a very important question about habeas. a number of habeas decisions have resulted in the release of the guantanamo bay detainees. the government conceded in some cases and in others, the government argue against the release. recently, the government won a case on appeal. we know the recidivism rate for

guantanamo detainees is above 20%. do you agree with the public statements of the national security staff reset a 20% recidivism rate is not that bad? >> he was comparing it i believe to the recidivism rate is here in the united states. in this case, the recidivism rate of zero would be a lot better. that would be a great concern and i think it is incumbent on intelligence institutionally to make the soundest, most persuasive, authoritative and acrid case possible in the case of when these cases are addressed when decisions are being made to send people back to those countries. the particular case in point, in yemen, as we discussed in

february as a closed hearing. that is something you have to watch carefully in yemen because of their ability to monitor and rehabilitate anyone is problematic at best. when these decisions are made, this is an interagency thing, process, in which intelligence isn't important, but not the only input into that decision. >> do you agree the committee should be given the intelligence assessment on guantanamo bay detainees which we have not fully received yet? >> as far as i am concerned, yes, sir, you should have that information. >> i have some concern that i would like your views on having the dni sit in a policy-making role for the purposes of voting on the disposition of guantanamo

detainees. is that over the line of intelligence gathering and at getting into a policy area? >> i do not know the exact mechanics of how those meetings work. i would say as a general rule that i don't believe intelligence should be in a policy-making role. it should provide a range of options for policymakers, but i do not believe intelligence, other than for intelligence policy, should be involved. >> i assume you would not hesitate if the intelligence agency's conclusions. to a different direction in the ultimate policy decision, that you would share your honest assessments with the oversight

committee in our confidential deliberations? . >> yes, sir. >> one of the questions we have is whether there should be a statutory framework for handling habeas corpus challenges. a redefinition under the new circumstances of the law of the war because we are in a different kind of battle and we have been. do we need a lid -- do we need a new law on habeas with terrorists who not belong to any nation's army? >> that is a legal issue, a little out of my domain. off the top of my head, i'm not sure i can answer that. >> if you are confirmed, we

would ask to work with your legal counsel and with us to see if something is appropriate and if you have any recommendations. in our meeting last week, you said it the department of justice meddling in our agencies was not an acute problem. i respectfully disagree. the department justice prevented agencies from [unintelligible] to share intelligence with the committee on the times square attack and the department justice did not defer to the decisions about whether to mirandize terrorists. i think those are acute. if you are confirmed, what input to you expect to have on the decision whether or not to

mirandize a terror suspect? >> we hope to be consulted in the decision making process is such a situation arose. >> have you ever had an opportunity to discuss these issues with the attorney general? >> i have not. >> what ought to take president -- making sure a defendant's statement can be used in court or obtaining intelligence to prevent future attacks? >> my interest, the entrance -- the interest of intelligence institutionally is gaining information. how the detainee is treated legally is another decision that i do not make. my interest is in procuring information. there is some commonality here between a straight intelligence interrogation done by the military as opposed to interrogation done by the fbi.

in both cases, the interrogator is trying to achieve or develop a rapport with the detainee or person being interrogated. factor for the fbi. when they are interrogating, even in preparation for mirandize in somebody, i think the interest of intelligence is gating the information. >> do you believe there are legitimate reasons for the department of justice instructing entities within the department not to share intelligence information otherwise under the oversight committee. >> i'm not sure i understand the question. >> are there situations, do you see situations in which the

department justice can or should say to an intelligence entity or even to the fbi, don't share that intelligence with the intelligence committee? >> i cannot think of a situation like that. i certainly would not be very supportive if that were the case. >> i cannot either. >> thank you, mr. vice chairman trade center widen -- senator widen. >> it is well known that the world of counter-terrorism and homeland's security is a sprawling enterprise. yesterday, the "washington post" made what i believe is a jaw dropping assertion -- i would like to get your comment on it. its an extraordinary assertion

of fact. i will quote -- "nobody knows how much money it costs, how many people employees, how many programs exist within it, or exactly how many agencies do the same work." they made this as an assertion of fact. do you agree with it? >> no, sir, i really don't. the statement implies this is completely out of control. i believe it is under control because in the end, the common denominator for all of this is the money that is appropriated, whether it is intelligence or for other purposes. the money is appropriated with the fairly specific strings attached. there are allegations of a program by program basis.

in the end, the intelligence community can do many things, but printing more money is not one of those things we can do. that does serve as a means of control over the allegedly profligate intelligence activities. >> let's take the various judgments made in that assertion. is it clear how many people are employed? >> they can count up the number of government employees we have, absolutely. counting contractors is a a little more difficult. i was a contractor for six years after i left active duty. depending on which company i was working for, i might charge four or five different contracts.

when you have different parts of people, it gets to be a little more difficult to count up up on a day-by-day basis how many contractors may be doing worked -- may be doing work for a contract in intelligence. that makes the head count a little more difficult. >> the answer to that is it is not clear how many people are employed. is it clear how many agencies do the same work? >> again, this is a determination -- i do not believe that. i do not believe as a general commentary -- there are cases as are have been in the history of intelligence where there has been a conscious decision to have some duplication. one man's duplication is another man's competitive analysis. there is a certain amount of that which does golan which i think it's a healthy check and balance. i would not -- there is some of

that which does go on, which i believe is a healthy check and balance. the community does work to try to eliminate that. >> let me ask about another important area -- the relationship between the director and the central intelligence agency. let me use a hypothetical to get your assessment of how you deal with it. supposing a particular foreign and got -- particular foreign government has solid intelligence on al qaeda but refuses to share with the united states. you have dealt with the government before and under your judgment, the best way to get the information is to fly there, confront them directly and insist they share the information. let's suppose, for purposes of this hypothetical, that the cia disagrees with your judgment. they would say it's not the way to do it, the best way to get their cooperation is to be patient and wait six months before asking for the information. what would you do so we could

get some sense of how you would see your job interacting with the cia? >> if i felt for what reason that the only way to secure that information would be for me personally to engage with that foreign government, i would do so. i would certainly, though, consult and discuss it with the director of the cia. >> do you believe you would have the authority to overrule the cia director? >> i do. >> the third area i want to ask you about in balls contractors. we have talked about it in a variety of ways. one of the areas i have been most concerned about is i think this is a real magnet for conflicts of interest. often, you have a situation

where one of the biggest potential sources of conflict is when you have expertise on a particular topic residing mostly in the contractor based rather than the government work force. you get into a situation where the contractors are being asked to evaluate the merits of programs that they are getting paid to run. i would like your judgment as to whether you think this is a serious problem and if so, what would you do about? >> it is a problem that you have to be on guard for. when i served as director for the nga, have the force was contractors. you do have to safeguard and have a mechanism for watchdog in that to prevent this conflict of interest where you have contractors who can gain an unfair advantage in terms of competing for more work. he must be on the lookout for it.

-- you must be on the lookout for it. i do not believe it's a widespread thing, but you must have the management mechanisms in place to make sure it does not happen. that is the crux of contractors and their management -- the maintenance of the cadre of government employees who do have the expertise to assess and evaluate the performance of the contractor. when you are in a situation where the contractor has a monopoly of knowledge and you do not have a check and balance in your own government work force, you have a problem. >> i think you are going to find it's a more widespread problem than you see today. i appreciate the fact yet indicated you understand there are conflicts there anyone to be watchable. the last area of want to get into is the question that the classification abuse. it seems to me -- declassification abuse. it seems to me that the

classification process that is supposed to protect national security and that being designed to protect political security. you and i have talked about this on the phone. i would like to get your assessment about how you would way the protection of sources and methods with the public's right to know. as far as i can tell, there really is not a well-understood process for dealing with this. in the absence of well- understood process, the political security, some kicks in. everything is classified as out of reach of the public and the public's right to know is flouted. how would you go about trying to strike that balance? >> first, i agree that we do over classified.

my observations are is this is due to default. it's the easy thing to do rather than some nefarious motivation to hide things for political reasons. that does happen, but i think it's more of an administrative default. in the end, it is the protection of sources and methods that all underlies the debate about whether to declassify or not. having been involved in this, my general philosophy is we can be a lot more liberal about declassifying, and we should be. there is an executive order we are in the process of gearing up on how to respond because this is going to be a more systematized process with a lot

more discipline which will also require resources to pay attention and attend to the responsibilities we have for the classification. >> this is what i am driving at -- will you be the personal and hold accountable? in the past, there has been a sense on classification issues that is the president's responsibility. then you try to run down who at the white house is in charge. i want to know there is somebody who will actually be responsible. i appreciate your assessment. >> it is for intelligence -- classification, if it is broader than just intelligence, but if it is just intelligence, i believe ultimately that the dni is the guy in charge. >> senator hatch. >> thank you. general, i would like to thank you for your long years of

service to this country. you have impressive experience in the intelligence world and experience i think you can draw on to help you in this job. there is no question that we're grateful you are willing to serve again. i appreciate your courtesy call last week. when i asked my first question of why you could possibly want this job, you responded with two points. first, he said was not -- you said i was not the first to ask that and second, you said you're taking the job but of a sense of duty. i appreciate that. you told me in our meeting that you had no intention of shaking up the dni structure and that you intended to make it work as it is. you told me that the dni can enhance its authority that has the support of the oversight committee.

you are certainly right about that. to have our support, you're going to have to spend a lot of time here sharing with us your problems and proposed solutions. chairman feinstein a initiative series of meetings with your predecessor and i was always grateful for the participation. i know vice-chairman bond would agree that one of the reasons we manage to pass the fis the amendments act, a particularly prickly paying -- -- prickly thing -- you are only a dni fourth, but there are lessons of note you have learned from your predecessors. reform transformation has as much to do with new ways of thinking as much as new boxes in an organization chart. congress is good at legislating

new boxes but it's much harder to legislate cultural change with an organization. we have seen new ways of thinking about threats, doctrine and training. it's hard to adapt in well-strap -- well-establish bureaucratic cultures. you need leadership to do this and [unintelligible] do you believe organizational culture is important and how do you define intelligence culture? do you believe cultural change is important and how would you address it? >> great questions, sir. if i may clarify something i may not have made myself clear on. >> here comes our expert, right behind you.

tea >> thank you very much. >> i should probably clarify that no intent to shake a dni p -- i do have that intent. to clarify that remark, i do not -- i'm in the mode of making the model we have work rather than going to the trauma of yet

another reorganization, whether it is to some other structure. i believe the model we have with all its flaws and legal ambiguities can be made to work. that is my intent and i would not have taken this on if i did not think that was the case. >> that is the way i took it. >> a very important point which was alluded to by senator bond in his opening remarks, and i have said this to the president, and we spoke again about this morning. the manner in which the dni relates to the oversight committees, the manner that the dni relates to the president are very important in both the optic and substance of those relationships can do a great deal to compensate for the ambiguities of law and perceived weakness of the position. that's why i'm so intent on

forging a partnership- relationship with the oversight committees. you play a huge role, despite what the law says, you play a huge role in compensating for those ambiguities. it would be incumbent upon me as dni, if i am confirmed, or anyone else who serves in that capacity to make sure constructive partnership relationship with the committees. i want to make that point clear. the president assured me, and i asked him specifically, about his support for the position as the leader of the intelligence community. he affirmed that when we spoke this morning on the phone. cultural change has some experience with that. particularly atnga -- particularly at nga. i was brought on to look at the commission that did great work mandated by congress on reorienting and refocusing and

bringing the vision to life of what the original founding fathers and mothers had in mind. i learned a great deal the hard way about how to forge cultural change in a large bureaucratic institution, which is the case with nga. i'm very proud of how nga has evolved and it is moving to a new campus and will further bring that cultural change about. there is indeed a unique culture in the intelligence community and there are, in fact, subcultures very much built around the trade craft that each of the so-called stovepipes foster. that term is often used pejoratively, it is the source of the trade craft which allows us to conduct those very important endeavors. the trick is to bring them together.

to synchronize and mash them and bring together the complementary attributes each one of those skills sets bring to bear. there is an important dimension and you are quite right -- it is one thing to enact laws and draw diagrams, but the cultural aspects are quite important. that is where i think leadership is huge and that is something you cannot legislate. >> have you read the july report cataloging and analyzing the iraq wmd steady prior to 2002? >> i am familiar with that and familiar with the i'm very familiar with the flaws, and i believe there have

been substantial process improvements to preclude such an event from happening again. it was an unknowable experience for me, and how we did the country agree to this service. >> what do you make of assessing the presence of wmd in 2002? the blue lessons were learned it? -- do you believe that lessons were learned? the whole process used was quite different. these were began when he was still the dci, and have continued to this day. i think -- one of the first

things we did which we did not do with that nie, the standard practice when the meat to approve one is to assess the sources used in the nie, not done in the case of the infamous report. the use of red-teaming, of the use of the outside readers with their input, and use of other options --" if we are wrong? all those features are now standard part of national intelligence efforts, drawn primarily from the bridges experience we had with that one. report you laid out showed what was wrong. it was not because of political pressure, but because of

ineptness. >> james clapper, the previous administration and this one made explicit efforts to say that our response to global terrorism was not against islam. in my opinion, the fact that the majority of adherence to islam are not violent supports that -- the believe that we have adequately analyze the the real logical component? do you believe closing down guantanamo would undermine terrorist ideologies? if so, why the? >> that is a lot of questions. on the first issue concerning the it theological dimension, i think that is a very important one. my experience there, most recently was my involvement in the aftermath of the fort hood shootings.

in the issue -- the question has been a huge challenge for the department of defense. it is the discernment of self- radicalization. when people internalize and ideologies, use it for radical purposes. in my view we have the challenge and how to discern that, explain it to others, particularly a 19-year-old chairman or marine. -- airman or marine. on the question of the closure of gitmo, when we get to that point, it would probably help the image of the u.s. if we were able to close it. >> thank you. senator?

>> first of all, i want you to know i have enjoyed listening to the questions raised by you and other members. once again, we're learning from each other. i would just like to suggest to you with the presence of senator levin, presuming you are in charge in november, or whoever is, the first area of reform has to do with congress. my concern is that dni appears before so many committees and subcommittees, over 88 between house and senate, [unintelligible] half and that we really press for the reform of the 9/11 commissioned and establish another subcommittee.

i think that mr. james clapper makes a great point. it is not the subject of this conversation here, but we need to get together among ourselves to discuss how reform begins with us, meaning the senate and house. >> with respect to the appropriations committee, the three of those who serve on it -- we have all supported that. the problem is, we are only three of the couple of dozen members. it is those couple of dozen members that need to be convinced. >> i think they will be. general, dana has done her series. i believe once again that she has done a great service to the nation, having brought to the public's attention the terrible stuff going on at walter reed,

secretary gates and the president responded. i'm not saying there's a scandal within the intelligence committee, but it has grown. if confirmed, will you look at the series in the post, and similar ones, for a review of the allegations about the growth and duplication? and make recommendations to the executive and legislative branch for reform? >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you. the second, to the issue of cyber secured. we have worked on a certain kind of intelligence -- cyber security to your part of the task force. we have looked at four issues,

governance, technology, development, work force, and the beginning of civil liberties and privacy. governance has befuddle the us. we know how to maintain our technology, have a qualitative edge. we see turf warfare and confusion. i wonder, as dni, what role do have and you assumed to straighten out this governance issue? congress has a propensity to create czars, and those by proxy. we have a white house now that is very talented and dedicated -- we have you in the dni, a

czar by proxy without power and authority. now we enter into cyber security, and i think the governance structure is mush. there is no clarity, no answer to who is in charge, and no manner for the constricting turf warfare. any comment? >> first, i will start with commentary about nsa. it is an organization near and dear to your hard. it must serve as the nation's aenter of excellence from u technical standpoint. the challenges of to parlay that capability in serving the broader issue, supporting the civilian infrastructure.

the department of defense's response has been to establish cyber command. in a war-footing context, that is how we organized. we need something to fill that void on the civilian side. there are 35 pieces of legislation throughout congress right now. the administration is trying to figure out what would be the best order of march. the bill that senator hatch has sponsored gets to some sound organizing principles. >> but what would your role be in this? >> to ensure the intelligence support for cyber protection is

provided, and visible to the governing structure. but not believe it is the province of the dni to decide on the structure, but to ensure it gets sufficient and adequate, and timely intelligence. >> what advisory role do plate to the president? howard is a great guy, but has no power. [unintelligible] when it gets to the department of homeland security, to the fbi, to the civilian agencies -- what gateways to the private sector have to go to? it gets foggy.

>> one solution is in the legislation that has been proposed by senators bond and hatch. >> i'm asking what the role is of roledni to help formulate within the next couple of months of the answer to the question -- who is in charge? who you think makes that decision? i presume you will say the president. but how the president get to that? will he have coffee with brennan, you, howard? >> i don't believe it is the dni makes the of the decision. a do not believe the is a determination or decision that should be made by the dni. >> what role do think that you

should play with whom? >> for the provision of adequate intelligence support, the threat posed in the cyber domain to this nation -- and i think that is the oversight responsibility of the dni to ensure that that is adequate. >> let's go to the role of the dni with the civilian agencies, the fbi and the department of homeland security. what authority do you have and those domains? do you see bringing them in more, particularly the fbi, which i think has done a great job? here it is 2010, july 20th, and there has not been an attack on homeland. >> i think those fbi has done some great work. i spent some time with them in the last week or two.

the transformation they are affecting to become an effective part of the intelligence community has been very impressive. they have a rigorous management process to ensure this to expose of the field. they also have a cultural challenge -- the pre-eminence of the law enforcement culture, and how they bring along their intelligence arm to match that. it is a work in progress. the conversation i have had with the director who has been marvelous and supportive, of making the dni function work. the fbi has been one of the

elephants in the intelligence living room. i intend to work with the closely if i am confirmed. >> my time is up. >> senator snowe? >> well,, general clapper. you bring an illustrious career and qualifications to bear on this position, and it comes at a critical juncture. we continue to struggle with this office in terms of this definition, and the type of leadership to be brought to oversee the intelligence community. that is what i like to explore with you this afternoon. first and foremost, on an issue i have been advocating since before we passed legislation that created the position, and even before the 9/11 commission report, now is to have a

community-wide inspector general. one of the issues that has evolved from all this is being able to look across the spectrum. one of the things that has developed is this given review of what happened on the attempted christmas day attack, and the systemic breakdown in terms of policy and follow- through, information-sharing, technology. clearly, it is something that emphasizes the fundamental problems we continued to have. we have an unwieldy bureaucracy with this department. additionally, with the

"washington post" series written this week, it is a manifestation of many problems that continue to exist. we have had many definitions of the type of leadership brought to bear in this position, whether as integrator, coordinator, facilitator. and whether we should have a strong, acknowledged leader that oversees all these agencies. i would like to explore with you today whether or not you would support community-wide inspector general. it is pending in current position between the house and senate. i have fought for in the past because i think it could initiate investigations and produce the types of reports put forward by the paper this week

in illustrating their redundancies. and producing the type of information that is sorely lacking because you cannot reach across all agencies to ascertain what types of problems have emerged and how to solve them. that is where an inspector general could play a critical role. i believe it will break down barriers and stovepipes and the parochial concerns that have evolved. i believe you would find this a tremendous asset in having someone who can conduct an overview and examine those issues independently. and it to give you the vantage point of being able to see the forest for the trees.

to address the problems that have emerged, and most recently in the christmas day plot -- it certainly could have been averted if we had someone looking across the spectrum. i would like you to respond. in your pre-hearing questions you said you supported a strong and independent inspector general, and will make sure that off person has access to information from the office of the dni. if you limit it in your wording to imply the excess would only be accorded to the 1500 personnel in that office, as opposed to other agencies, and most notably the dod that has the proponents of personnel. >> first of all, it is some

risk, but i would refer to my military background, and having served as a commander, and having used ig's. i think they are crucial tool for the commander ordered to. the two times i've served as director of two agencies, and considered and i.g. crucial. i feel similarly about a community-wide i.g. my only caveat would be to ensure that i use the inspector general -- the have limited issues as well, to apply across more than one agency. using the i.g. agency or 's to focus on the agency or component specific issus. -- issues. there's great merit in having a committee-wide >> the inspector

general > you said that a committee-wide i.g. would oversee those for the entire committee. [unintelligible] suggesting they would duplicate those efforts? >> no, now i am saying there is merit in having a community-wide i.g. who can look across intelligence as an institution for systemic weaknesses in problems, and identify those. boatwright to foster a complementary relationship rather than a competitive one.

i would just try to use, marshall, manage those resources judiciously so that they're not stepping on one another. there is great value in having a community-wide it inspector general. >> i appreciate that. it would be critical to ferret out many inefficiencies and anticipate problems. was there anything that surprised you in "the washington post" series this week the? >> no. i did not agree with some of that. i think there was some breathless and shrillness to it that i do not subscribe to. i think she has a separate it from anecdotal experience and

interviews with people. i'm very concerned about the security implications. it is great research, but making it easy for adversaries to point allegations of contractors working for the government. i would not be surprised if that engenders more security on the part of the contractors, which will be a cost return to the government. >> are you going to evaluate this on that basis? it is disturbing to think in terms of the number of agencies and organizations of more than 1200. >> cites -- she cites thread

finance. it is one that i would want to take on with the director of intelligence for the department of treasury. it is my view that the treasury should be the lead elements for fred finance. that is one area i will take to heart. but i think the earlier discussions is germane to the number of contractors and what they are used for. this article brings that to bear a.

>> i hope you will not dismiss it out of hand. i think it is worthy -- having other people doing this kind of work to examine it carefully. given the mega-cure or pursue that has developed, we ought to look at it -- the mega- bureaucracy that has developed. one other question, in april the response you gave -- you mentioned these grants of unilateral authority referring to the intelligence authorization bill, expanding authority to the dni -- and a program especially for personnel in acquisition functions. you said some functions to be decentralized and delegated to components.

i'm concerned on the one hand you would subscribe to embracing some of the cultural and territorial battles we are trying to overcome. when you are using words such as in french or decentralized to all the other agencies, to have them execute any of those functions, it concerns me. it is a time when i think your position should do more centralizing with respect to authority. i'm concerned about the type of culture you will inculcate as a leader. you should be moving in a different direction to break down as territorial burials. >> i agree, but don't think everything in the entire intelligence community needs to be run in the confines of this

director. there many things that can be delegated to components that can be done on behalf of the dni with its visibility, but does not have to be directly executed by the dni at its headquarters staff which i think is too large. >> thank you. senator whitehouse? >> i yield to chairman levin. >> let me ask you first about the information-sharing. used to you believe obstacles remain to adequate information sharing. our investigations and recent terrorist attacks reveal that the cia one not share its database with the dod, or with

the nsa and a the watts center physic cannot allow certain personal to access the other databases. can you comment on that question and information-sharing among agencies? >> it continues to be a problem. it is better than it was, better than before 9/11, but needs improvement. nsa is understandably conscientious about the protection of potential data on u.s. persons, are very sensitive about compliance.

that is one inhibitor to collaborative, full sharing. it is an area i intend to work on it, if confirmed he. >> you said you will achieve progress of the discipline application of incentives, both for words and consequences for information-sharing. what do we just need a directive by executive order? why do we need incentives, rewards, and consequences? >> is one way of inducing change in the culture. to provide rewards for those who collaborate, and penalties for those who do not. and the directives are also affected. >> should they be needed? >in this kind of setting where t has been going on for so long? >> yes, sir. i will look at it if confirmed,

to see if there's a need for further direction, or look for another possible remedy. >> him relative to related subject on the minds here in the congress, the need for a single repository of terrorist they did. an integrated repository of terrorism they capable of ingesting terrorism-related information from outside sources remains necessary to establish a foundation from which a variety of sophisticated technology tools can be applied. i gather that does not exist now? >> sir, this is my own observation, watching from afar, the christmas bomber evolution.

i believe what is needed from a technology standpoint, is a robust search engine that can range across a variety of data constructs to help connect the dots. we are still spending too much manpower to do manual things that can be done easily by machines. if confirmed, i intend to pursue that area. >> the know that certain kinds of analysts have to search dozens of databases separately? they cannot submit one question that goes out to all of them simultaneously. is that true? >> it is my impression although i don't know the specifics. what is needed is a very robust, wide-ranging search engine/s the

can do that on behalf of analysts. >> a way to go to some structural issues now. the prevention act says the director of the cia reports to the dni. is that your understanding the? >> yes, sir. >> is that clear enough? is the reason for complications in this area? >> yes, that language is clear, but there is also language -- for example, the governments of foreign relationships which are the province of the director of the cia, and they are to be overseen by the dni. that is an area of ambiguity. >> section 1018 of the arts as the president shall issue guidelines to ensure the effective implementation and execution within the executive

branch of the authorities granted to the director of national intelligence. these are the key words -- and a man of that respects and does not abrogate the statutory responsibilities of the heads of departments. have those guidelines -- were they issued by president bush? >> yes, sir, there were promulgated with regard to an executive order. secretary gates and i, and the admiral at the time worked to attenuate some of the ambiguities created by that famous section 1018, specifically the involvement in the dni with the hiring and firing of leaders embedded in the department of defense. >> are you satisfied with those guidelines?

>> yes, sir, at this point. my view may change if confirmed, though. >> do you know an advance that your view will change? >> no, i do now. >> at this time you're satisfied? >> yes, sir. and our wer to your's committee's role, with respect to the different agencies, you said the dni supervisors says standards and insurers they fulfil missions -- use of a set the standards and ensure the fulfil the missions. you noted that several are combat-support agencies. do you believe that authority which mentioned is a shared authority with those agencies, or is this exclusive in the dni

of? >> you mean the combat support agencies? >> yes, the believe they must insure they fulfill their missions, that they supervise their performance? is this a shared responsibility, or are you, if confirmed, exclusively responsible for those functions of supervision? >> i believe it is a shared responsibility. the secretary of defense has obligations in both law and executive order to ensure that the war-fighting forces are provided adequate support particularly by the three agencies designated. the dni obviously has at least a paternal responsibility to ensure that works, also.

>> did you say fraternal? >> >> paternal. >> institutional obligation -- i will amend. >> have you taken look at the county network? have you determined whether or not they have engaged in terrorist act of these that threaten u.s. security interests? if so, do support them been added to the state department's list of foreign terrorist organizations? >> sir, i would rather not answer that off the top of my head, and will take it on advisement for the record. close we got conflicting pre-war intelligence efforts from the previous administration. do you believe the importance of congress as a consumer of intelligence products, and advice, is no less than that of

senior officials of the administration? 0 all those the unvarnished -- and do you believe the congress as a consumer of intelligence products is entitled to have no less than that of senior officials? >> i do believe that, and it is required by law. >> on an equal basis? >> sir. senator chambliss. >> as i told you on the phone, i'm not sure what you wanted to come back before this committee for the job.

this is probably the toughest job in the intelligence community. your willingness to serve, particularly with your background says a lot about you, and we are fortunate to have you. obviously, in general, there are some problems within the office of the dni, and within the community itself that will have to be addressed. these issues are not just matters of the size of bureaucracy, but are very serious -- there will have to be some major changes. we cannot afford another christmas day situation, or new york times bomber situation to occur because we were fortunate there. it was not necessarily the great work of the intelligence

community that prevented a serious situation from occurring. you do bring a wealth of intelligence background to this job, but so did the three predecessors. you probably have more experience than them all, but still, you have been involved -- these are friends of yours, individuals you have worked with, associated with, and somewhere along the line there have been some systemic failures that will have to be addressed by individuals who have worked with. it will not be any easier for you than for your predecessors. knowing that we cannot afford another situation like christmas day or the new york times

square, or the foot hoods situation to occur for we had an awful lot of signs, and where nobody connected the dots, despite the statute being clear as to who is to connect those stocks -- and i will be under your jurisdiction. what specific changes the now that you think must be made going forward to make the committee better, the office stronger, and college to work with daily more responsive to you? >> first of all, thanks for your comment. i would hope i could bring to bear this experience over the

past 46 years of having run a couple of the agencies, having been an intelligence chief, having spent two years in combat and knowing the value of intelligence, and understanding the intelligence community, that i can bring about a better working arrangement. to be candid, i think our most successful dni was admiral mike mcconnell for the same reason -- he had experience in the business, had run an agency nsa , and then other things in intelligence. it does give a person an advantage in understanding where the skeletons are, and how to work those issues.

hmm that is the value added potentially of the dni, to get those seams, and work on those issues. to spend much time learning the abc's of intelligence. if confirmed, i will want to get back to the committee on specific things. i have some things in mind, but some people affected don't know what they are. if confirmed, i would want to consult with the committee on what i would have in mind. >> as part of your communication with the president prior to your nomination, have you engaged him in the fact that there are some changes that will

need to be made? >> yes, sir. i have also done that in writing, before i was nominated. weather with me or someone else as dni, secretary gates suggested i write a letter to the president to tell them and make that clear. >> and we were hoping the white house would share that with the chairman and vice-chairman. do know whether that has been done? >> i do not know. >> i have known you for a long time, you operate, and you're suddenly well-qualified. it is going to be a tough job. i hope you understand this committee is here to help you. from an oversight standpoint, we want to make sure you have the

right kind of policy and political support from at this side of pennsylvania avenue. we assume it will be there from the other side. >> i appreciate that. that is absolutely crucial. i don't believe oversight implies an adversarial relationship. if confirmed, i would need the support of this committee to bring about those changes you have just talked about. >> thanks for your willingness to continue to serve. [inaudible] >> thank you. >> congratulations on your nomination. i agree that you are clearly

well-qualified for this. please put a stigma and the record -- since our meeting last week i hope you have had a chance to review the qualifications in the national security act. have you the? >> yes, i have. >> the you agree the particular provision applies only to covert action and not to other activity is? >> you are quite right that section 502 from the saturday act only cause of covert action as requiring more limited notification. in the opening statement, however, it does allude to protection of sources and methods. in the past it has been used to expand the subject matter beyond covert action which would require a limited notification. that all said, i will be a zealous advocate for full

notification and timely notification to congress. >> i appreciate your statement and the spirit of it. the preliminary language is in both sections, but the additional language about the gang of eight and covert action means in my view that limited the vacations' were not intended for all intelligence activities. >> yes, sir, but that opening for ridge has been interpreted to expand that. my personal attitude i can tell you, but at the same time i don't feel it is appropriate to preempt what the president may want to decide. i will be a zealous advocate for timely and complete nullification. >> for the record i think that is an incorrect interpretation. but you're not alone in your view.

while many of the operational details of intelligence picked of these are justifiably classified, i believe the american people are entitled to know how the intelligence committee, department of justice, and the court are interpreting the law. the you agree with that general principle of? >> yes, in general, i do. >> i have identified a number of areas where i think the american people would be surprised to learn the law has been interpreted in secret. >> as you consider requests for the classification, we keep this principle in mind? >> yes, sir, i will. >> the department has had a perception that provisions of the law might be intentional -- bowing to focus on the reason these are in there in the first place. i have in corporate them --

incorporated them into my own bill. they would save taxpayer dollars. last week to tell me not all problems require statutory solutions. how would you go about fixing cost overruns and other problems this legislation is designed to address? >> i would continue to support the management mechanisms established, specifically an agreement on acquisition oversight, signed by then- director mcconnell, and a secretary gates. that said, acquisition is in general a huge challenge, whether in intelligence or elsewhere. i do not have any magic, silver bullets here to offer. if so, i would not be here to

solve these significant acquisition problems. it does require systematic program reviews. it requires integrity on the part of program managers to make sure they are honestly reporting problems and identifying issues early enough that remedies can be afforded. >> the intelligence authorization bill would also establish an independent commission that would recommend ways to integrate the intelligence community with the u.s. government personnel, particularly state department personnel who openly collect information around the world. this reform was first proposed by senator hegel and myself, and is critical if we anticipate crises around to a. would you be open to a fresh look and recommendations from this commissioned the? >> i would. >> concerning yesterday's newspaper story, concerning the redundancies' -- given finite

resources and budget constraints, to what extent should we prioritize efforts as regards parts of the world of? >> we discussed earlier that in some cases one man's the petition is another man's competitive analysis. in certain cases, as during the cold war, when you have an enemy that can really damage or mortally wound you, that is merited. in many cases will was labeled as duplication, a deeper look, may not turn out to be. it just has the appearance of that. but when you look into what was being done particularly on a command by command bases, or analytic element, it is not

really duplication. the important point you raised us to do with [unintelligible] that has been a classic play good for us. i know what the state of our ngo special basis were on 9/11 in afghanistan. there were awful. the priority afghanistan had in terms of priority. we cannot take our eyes off the incipient threats that exist in places, an area and to your interested in -- for example, africa. it is growing in the concern to me, personally. >> what is your view of gaox's? >> sir, i have had several

incumbencies over my time. gao has produced very useful studies. recently, the isr roadmap we are required to maintain -- gao has critiqued us on that. have been deeply involved with personal security clearance reform. gao has held our feet to the fire, ensuring compliance with guidelines on timeliness of clearances. lately has also insisted on quality metrics to ensure appropriate clearances. it serves a useful purpose. >> i appreciate your attitude on that solving a meaningful reform will also require some reform of the oversight process. is it time for the senate to this inappropriatappropriationo

committee for that to work? there must be an unclassified topline budget request effect that would allow for a separate bill. would you support the decalcification -- declassification of the president's top line report the? >> yes, i would, and i also pushed through and got secretary gets to [inaudible] frankly, i thought we were being a bit disingenuous but only releasing the national program. secretary gates has agreed we could also publicize that. i think the american people are entitled to know the totality of investment we make each year for intelligence. i was questioned earlier by members of belt building into

congressional jurisdiction issues. of the then to observe it would be nice if the oversight response of police were symmetrical in both houses. i have looked at taking it out of the dod merger. the original reason for having it there was for classification purposes. if it is going to be revealed publicly, that goes away. it gives the advantage of reducing the top line of the dod budget that is quite large. we have been working on the notion of plan that of the department's budget, which would also serve to strengthen the dni's hand in managing the money

of the committee >> > senator? >> welcome. we are delighted to have you. i think you will be dni the be, hopefully sooner rather than later. i say that for the chair and ranking member whom i hope will move this expeditiously. as i have said publicly, i think you bring a rich experience the benefits of one's ability to be successful. our intelligence community needs that desperately right now. as it relates to the members references to "the washington post" articles, it pains me. i do not believe what happens within the intelligence committee is something that

needs to be as public as it sometimes is. it disturbs me as we promote unmanned aerial vehicles on tv, and with the full knowledge that we give away something every time. the american people understand if you have sufficient oversight in place, you trust the individuals you have chosen for those roles. i see this explosion of publicity about what happens within the intelligence community as a blow to the oversight committee, and the inability for us to work effectively with those within the community. i hope you understand from myself that i believe the committee needs to be robust and oversight.

it is not a reflection of the leadership, but of the overall corporation between the intelligence community and committee. i have to work as partners to gain the trust of the public, and of our colleagues. that we're doing our job, and have our eye on the right thing. earlier you said the dni off used to be the leader of the intelligence community and provide direction and control. can you define that for me in this context? [inaudible] >> we to just a minute, and nothing that will get swapped

out. >> ok. i think what is intended in the word direction and control is that the dni is responsible for the performance of the intelligence community at large, both producers and users represented in the 16 components. under the auspices of the president who would believe intends to hold the dni responsible for that performance, and therefore that empowers the dni to direct the intelligence chiefs as to what to do, with the focus and emphases should be, if it should change -- at 22 established at how organizations to perform

specific tasks, have studies done, whatever it takes. i believe inherent in the legislation was that the person would direct that in be responsible for. >> do believe there are times the dni must be a referee? >> there could be. yes. >> this has already been covered, but i have to cover it one more time. i believe off this committee is to be notified quickly on any significant attempt to attack, once an attack is carried out, or there is a significant threat that we have credible as evidence of. do i have your commitment today that you will in a timely

fashion, or a designee by you from a brief this committee on that information to? >> absolutely, sir. it carries with it the potential for the potential not being exactly accurate. my experience has been the most critics are wrong. but what you ask is entirely appropriate. >> in general, do you have any problem if this committee asks for a lovell of raw data >> i do not have a problem with that, philosophically, sir, but i would want if i am confirmed, i would want to and shore at any given time that i could give you the most complete picture i can and as accurate as possible. oftentimes with the raw material

that is erroneous or misleading, so with that caveat, i do not have a problem with it. i want to understand what you are getting. i think the raw data is absolutely essential for us to do the oversight role we are charged with. it is certainly not needed on every occasion, but on those that it might play a role, i hope you will in fact provide it. you covered the history of the intelligence community, especially as it related to the 1990's and how that affected our capabilities post-9/11. would we have been able to meet the intelligence community needs had we not had contractors we could turn to post-9/11? >> no, sir. >> do you believe we will always use some number of contractors in the intelligence community? >> yes, sir, i do.

i know this has been a focus of a lot of members about downsizing the contractor footprint. i am 5 with that. fine with that. there is tremendous talent out there, that we were able to tap into. i would hate to see us become so adverse to the use of contractors that we would sacrifice potential. i applaud the effort to try to downsize the footprint of them, but hope we leave the flexibility to use them were prepared >> i could not agree with you more. i've worked as a contractor for six years myself. so i think i have a good understanding of the contributions they have made and will continue to make. i think the issue is, what is the magnitude, and most important, regardless of numbers of companies or contractors or

employees, is how the government, and specifically the intelligence community, how do we manage them? how do we insure we are getting our money's worth? >> leslie, it is covering ground already discussed. -- lastly, it is covering ground already discussed. you say the community efforts need to become exclusively managed of the odmi, that they can be delegated were proper. do you have any concerns that that might undercut the dni. >> no, i do not. when i came into this job in may, 2007, i prevailed upon the secretary gates to designate need as a director of defense intelligence as a way of facilitating communication and bridging dialogue between the two staffs. i think the record will show

that we worked very well together. i would propose it to director blair, to his great credit, i thought breeds life into the concept. if i am confirmed, i would propose that i would have the same relationship with my successor. and i think that same approach can be used in other relationships, perhaps with the department of homeland security to cite an example. all i am saying is i do not think everything has to be executed from within at the confines of the office of the director of national intelligence. there are things that can be delegated and done on behalf of the dni as long as they are visible to end up with the approval of the -- as long as they are visible to and with the approval of the dni. >> in our conversation, i said

that your tenure would determine whether the structure we set up actually can work, will work, or whether we need to rethink this. i think we have the best chance of success with your nomination. and i look forward to working with you. >> thank you, sir. >> finally, senator white house. >> welcome, general. near the bitter end. i would like to go back to cyber security and ask you about five topics areas within it. the first is the information that the public has about cyber security. are you comfortable that the public is adequately aware of the scope and severity of the cyber security threat the country faces? >> candidly, no, sir.

i do not think that there is a general appreciation for the potential threat there. i think there is widespread knowledge in the cyber community, meaning the cyber industry, if you will. i think there is a less acute awareness perhaps out there in what i will call the civil infrastructure, but i think the general public is not aware of the potential threat, no. >> the reason that i asked that is that it is difficult in a democracy to legislate in an area where the public is not adequately aware of the threat. i hope as we go through the 35- 45 pieces of legislation out there, that you will help us bring to the attention, and we do over classified, and we do over classified year, but in areas where it does not

adversely affect national security, there is a real advantage to getting this information out to the public. i hope he will cooperate with us in trying to do so so that we are dealing with an eligible public. >> i will, sir. i believe that is incumbent on the intelligence community to help provide that education to the maximum extent possible without revelations, and do revelations -- undue revelations. >> the basic sort of protective hardware that is out there right now could protect the vast majority of cyber intrusions that take place. it seems that -- do you agree that trying to establish and monitor basic rules of the road for participation in our

information superhighway is in area that could stand improvement? >> if i understand your question, sir, if you mean conventions or rules that in order to participate, this is what is required? minimum levels of security? >> for ordinary folks who are getting on to be aware that there laptop is compromised and willing to do something about it. we put a structure in place so that you cannot do the cyber equivalent of driving down the road with your headlights or tail lights out at 9 miles per hour. >> i personally agree with that. i think there will be a sales job, a marketing job required to get people to buy into that. >> and in terms of, if you step businessamerica's

community, deerfield the private sector, the business community -- to the private sector, the business community, do believe that they are adequately situated against cyber tapped or debt -- cyber attack or does the networking of private business by industrial sector and the relationship with government need to be improved so that our major businesses can protect their critical infrastructure better? >> sir, i am not technically a fluent here, but my general sensing is, given the sophistication of some of our major adversaries, nation-state adversaries, i am not sure that given the rapidity with which new ways of accessing computers,

i am not sure they are is current on that, those sectors to which you refer are as current as the could or should be. >> and if we are to the point where a a private business which provides critical infrastructure, a major bank or an electric utility or another form of infrastructure upon which american lives and property depend, were were to be the subject of a sustained and damaging cyber attacks, are you confident that at the moment we have adequate authorities for the government to be able to step in and do what it needs to do in a clear way to protect american lives and property? >> again, i am not an expert on

this but my general sense is, no, we are not. i think this is -- the whole law on this subject is a work in progress. it is still an issue, frankly, even in a war-fighting context. should we have a declaratory policy or not on what we would do? i would be concerned about the rapidity of response, which i think is quite, is the key. i think if you speak with general alexander about that, i do consider him an authority, and i think he would raise that same concern. >> lastly on this subject, are you confident that the rules of engagement for our covert agencies in addressing a tax and

intrusions that take place on our side or infrastructure are adequate and fully robust for the challenge we face, or is that another area of work in progress? >> yes, sir, it is a work in progress. and i think, perhaps the best left for detailed discussion in a closed session. >> i will not go any further, but i did want to get your general perspective on that. i have only been in the senate for three years. you are my fourth director of national intelligence. are you going to stick around? >> yes, sir, i will. i would not take this on without thinking about that. and i do think my experience has

banned it does take time to bring these changes about. when i was asked to take nema in the summer of 2001, i was specifically asked, what i'd be willing to stay for five years and i agreed. i did not quite last that long. ran afoul of the previous secretary of defense, but i believe that kind of commitment is required. i also would be less than forthright if i said that i sit here and guarantee that the intelligence community will that 1000 every time, because we will not. i am reasonably confident i can make this better. >> and i am not going to hold you to this, it is not intended to be a question of that friday to pin you down, it is intended to be a question --

is not intended to be a question to pin you down, it is intended to be a question to focus on. if you go into this job no knowing what you know, when it comes time for you to go, and let's hope it is five years from now, what now would you think would be the most important things at that later date you would like to look back on as having accomplished? >> well, for starters, that i kept the nation safe. i think, obviously, this is somewhat a hirewire act with no safety net. and i think that is the thing that will keep you up at night -- this is a highwire act with no safety net. if the intelligence community has at least contributed, whatever my tenure is, to preserving the safety of the nation and its people, i think

that would be the main thing i would worry about. >> i wish you well. you have got a hell of a tought job, if you are confirmed, and any support we can give you -- there are significant questions about what the role of your authority should be to complement the role of the dni. some of that is a chicken and egg question. we look forward to working together with you to try to get this settled for once and for all. thank you kurt >> thank you, senator nelson? >> the congress created this position to try to exert some control over the multiple

intelligence units that were, at times, going off in their own directions, and in the compromises that we had to make in enacting this legislation that creates the post you seek. a great deal of control was still left within the department of defense at the insistence of then the secretary of defense or feld.s how can you bring the department of defense intelligence operations in under your orbit so that you can function effectively? anticipateir, i don't a problem there. i know the department of defense of pretty well, and that is where roughly 2/3 of the manpower and the money for the national intelligence program is embedded. i would argue or suggest,

respectfully, that having run two of the agencies in the department and having served as service intel chief, it will elp empower me to sustain having a positive relationship with the department of co defense components. i know how to take advantage of that. >> the old adage, he pays the piper calls the tune. and a lot of that defense intel activity does not have to report directly to on the operations. how do you get into that, when somebody wants to go off on their own? >> well, i would intend to further crystallize the

relationship that secretary gates and the dni established in may, 2007, designating the under secretary of defense for intelligence as the director of defense intelligence. i have fostered with the two dni's i have served with in this job a close working relationship on synchronizing the two programs. the national intelligence program and -- director blair and i testified together on those programs. we have had an aggressive program effort. it has been going on for a couple of cycles now to further synchronize and de-conflict the two programs and court made between them. i would certainly want to continue that -- and coordinate between them.

frankly, ink, although there is much made of it sometimes, i think it is somewhat hyperbole about the strained relationship between the dni and the department of defense. i have not seen that. and i have certainly endeavored, working with secretary gates, to enhance and strengthen the role of the dni. it is one such approach. certainly, secretary gates and i worked during the revisions to the executive order to strengthen the position of the dni. >> why don't you share for the record what you shared with me privately about your forthcoming relationship with the director of the cia?

>> i will provide that for the record. yes, sir. >> i mean it share it now. >> basically, you saw the relationship was strained. there was a little dustup between the two in the immediate past -- and the immediate past dni. how you intend to smooth that out -- how do you intend to smooth that out? >> the intelligence community, is composed of 16 components, 15 of which is in someone else's department. the most strained relationship is the central intelligence agency. that has been true regardless of who the incumbents were. it has nothing to do, really, with the people involved. all of them are good people. i have had some excellent discussions with director panetta about this.

and i am very encouraged and pleased by his support. he has been extremely gracious and supportive and i think he wants to make this arrangement worked as much as you do. >> will you participate in the president's daily morning brief? >> i plan to participate, yes, sir. i do not plan to give it necessarily, but i plan to participate. >> will the director of the cia participate as well? >> he could, depending on the subject matter, i suppose. i would not object to that. >> do you get the sense that that was a little bit of contention, since suddenly what had been historically the role

of the cia director was suddenly not the role, once the dni was established? >> that obviously has been a challenging transition. but it is my belief and my observation from somewhat outside perspective that that is an arrangement that has evolved for the better since increasingly more input finds its way into the -- from other than the cia. the cia will provide the lion's share of the finished intelligence analysis that goes into the peb, but under the new structure and under the auspices of the dni, it is much broader and involves more of the community. i have recently reviewed some statistics that bear that out.

>> recently, we have had some cases of homegrown terrorists. colorado, the times square folks, the fort hood person. you want to comment for the committee on what you think ought to be done? >> sir, we did speak about this earlier. this is a very serious problem, and i was pretty deeply involved, intensely involved in the fort hood aftermath appear, particularly with respeo the e-mails exchange. what is points up is a serious challenge that i do not have the answer for and that is the identification of self- radicalization, which may not lend itself to intelligence

detection. this requires, in the case of the department of defense, some instructn on how to people how to identify self- radicalization that is going on in front of them it is almost like detecting a suicide ahead of time. it is a very daunting challenge. you cannot depend on intelligence mechanisms to detect that self-radicalization. >> on page 23 of your testimony, you consider counter intelligence to be under- resource. do you want to share with us why and also where you would increase resources? >> i think, given a profound

threats posed to this country by nation states and others, that are trying to collect information against us and have an aggressive foreign countries that are doing as, and convinced --am not and this is more intuitive or judgmental or impressionistic -- that we have devoted sufficient resources to counter intelligence in the department of defense, which is a major player in counterintelligence, or the fbi or cia, the three polls involved in counterintelligence. this is something i intend to explore to see what we can do to expand the resource investment in counterintelligence. this is crucial in the case of cyber. they have the same challenge in cyber with counter intelligence as we do conventionally.

>> are we going to a classified session at any point? >> weekend if there is a request. we will not do it today, however -- but we can if there is a request. in general, let me say i think you have done very well. what comes through very clearly is your expertise and the specifics of intelligence. i think it is appreciate it and i think it will make your job a lot easier. i do have a couple questions, and i know the vice chairman has a couple questions. so i would like to continue this a little bit longer, if i might. have you had a chance to take a look at the 13 recommendations we made on the abdulmutallab situation? >> yes, i have. i had a session with mike lighter and he went over that. >> then the problem clearly is

connecting the dots. huge expenditures in computer programs, often bought separately by various departments, organizations, etc. cannot connect in some critical but simple areas. i would like to suggest that that be high in your portfolio and that you take a very careful look at it. because i would think we are spending billions of dollars on high technology, which candidly, does not work nearly as well as it should. and particularly in this area where an identification can be really critical and one letter or number should not make a difference. do you have a comment? >> i agree with you. as i alluded earlier, i think, despite the huge investment in

i.t. we have made, that we still depend too much on the minds of analysts to do something that we should be able to do through i.t. >> the second is predator reaper oversight. i think this is an area that i think we have been very concerned about, and this committee is taking an oversight seriously. and we have been very active in seeing that this is carefully done, that the intelligence is excellent. i am one that believes that the cia, in particular, has had remarkable record and with very good intelligence, and in some ways, really the best of what can be. i hope it will have this at a high level for your own oversight. >> absolutely.

>> thank you. the third is afghanistan. i read of quote via the major general michael flynn earlier in the year that said it and i am paraphrasing, that eight years into war, the intelligence community is only marginally relevant to this strategy. u.s. intelligence officers can do little but shrug in response to high level decision makers seeking knowledge. would you take a look at that and perhaps talk with him and see where we are, if we are, in fact, lacking? >> well, i already have had extensive dialogue with him when the article first came out. a careful reader of it -- i think it is a pogo article. the enemy is ourselves. the article talks to the situation in afghanistan, much

of which is under his control. i think what occasioned the article was the change in our strategy from a classic counter terrorist mission to a much broader counterinsurgency mission. and it is true -- we did not have the intelligence mechanism to make that shift that quickly. i think what he is getting to is the cultural, the human terrain if i can use that phrase, perspective and insight required to understand the village dynamics down to the very needy gritty level. and so that is what his complaint was about. as i told him, if he felt they had too many intelligence analysts, it is up to him to move them. we are certainly not going to sit back and the confines of the beltway and orchestrate intelligence in afghanistan. he is a senior intelligence

officer. that is his responsibility, and we will certainly support him. >> ok. finally, contractor analysis. could you put that high on your agenda? i very much appreciate what you said, and that was that it all depends on what, where, the necessity, the type of thing, and i think we needed to get that under control. and we do not currently have it under control. we needed to know where from an intelligent perspective, contractors should serve a vital use and where they do not. as you know, the cost is about 70% more than a government employee. so it is a very expensive enterprise as well. >> yes, it is. and of course, per our earlier discussion, the reasons why we have gotten to where we are and

the sudden re-expansion of the intelligence community after 9/11, and intelligence being an inherently manpower intensive activity, so the natural outlet for that was contractors whom we can hire one year at a time which it cannot do with government employees. you can also get rid of them more quickly. so expansion and contraction. for example, the army has about 6000 contractors as linguists. i am not sure we want to keep them on as government employees when the need for pashtu linguists goes down in future. rather than wrote numbers or percentages, and i do intend to get into this if i'm confirmed, but what are the ground rules, the organizing principles that govern where it is proper to use contractors and were is not? >> we will schedule a meeting in

your ascendancy to come in and brief us on that, so be prepared. i would like quickly to tell you what my intention is. i am going to request that all members submit questions by noon tomorrow and ask you to answer them as quickly as you can. as soon as we receive the answers, members have a brief opportunity to digest them. we will schedule a markup. if we can do it in a week or 10 days, that is fine. hopefully, we can. is that agreeable with you? >> yes, ma'am. i would hope that whatever action is taken would be taken before the senate adjourns in august. >> we will certainly strive to do that. the questions become a vital part. of us in getting them and of your responding. you have very prompt in your

responses. i have no reason to believe it would be otherwise. we will try to do our best to accommodate that. let me just end by saying i think you have performed it really well, and once again, your expertise in this area and very much appreciate it. and i think it will be very well-used. general, thank you. >> madam chair, thank you for making clear that we will have more questions for the record. i frankly have some questions for the record. i would like to have your full explanation, because they seem to be inconsistent with previous positions and some are not clear. i do want to have those. , madam chair, if it is possible -- senator nelson said that he would like to have a closed hearing. i think there are some things that you are interested in that might be best covered in a

classified hearing. i have a couple of areas of overlap between military and civilian that i would prefer not to discuss in open session. so we will do that. and i would join you saying that the nominee has certainly stayed with it for a long time. we appreciate that. i do want -- ok. >> he says he does not need one. >> we might be able to have a classified, some classified questions at least that we can submit for response, because there are a couple of things that probably i would prefer not to discuss in an open session.

but let me go back, the general question you'll be asked in writing -- and i think it is good to have it on record -- will you cooperate with both the chair and the vice chair as well as with our staffs, probably responding to written and telephone inquiries, been corrected in sharing information with us? >> yes, sir. >> that is something we talked about. we mentioned that. i wanted to make sure the staff knows that on both sides, and we will look forward to your full answers. but i want to go back -- i was going down the road when i ran out of time the first time -- talking about guantanamo detainees and their release. when i communicated to the national security adviser that

members of this committee had been told that the cia and the dia did not concur in sending a person early detainee -- in particular detainee back to yemen, the national security adviser told me that those agencies would be reminded of the administration decision. now', as i think we discussed was before, the administration's decision is their decision, but if there is an implication that the intelligence committee should not be told honestly and frankly of advice that you give to the policymakers, whether it is accepted or not, that troubles me.

so will you commit to providing the committee the honest and forthright recommendations and assessment that you make, regardless of whether they are accepted ultimately by policymakers? >> yes, sir, i would. as we discussed before, there is an inter-agency process. intelligence is a very important but not exclusive determinant. it would be my view that intelligence should be as thorough and accurate as possible on making such assessments. i do not see any problem, once we have spoken are peace and if that is ignored, that is the process -- i certainly have no trouble conveying that to the committee. >> in case you are advised of the position, we want the

intelligence, regardless of what the position may come up with. let me go into another interesting area. you get a conference speech which my staff manage 2008 to track down and you said that i hope the next administration would give some thought, mainly congress as well, to another look at the national security act of 1947, maybe zero goldwater-nickels, for the inter-agency. but in the answers to the committee question here, you said you had no plan to recommend any dramatic change to the president, but rather look for improvement. there are some of us to think the goldwater-nickels recommendation was a similar to what came out of the project on national security reform that

general jones and steinberg could dissipated in before joining the administration. -- participated in before joining the administration. did your recommendation change as a result of the administration's position? or do you think we need to take another look at the national security after 1947 ? >> i think what has been discussed -- i do not exactly remember the discussion -- i think it had to do with the discussion at the time, i remember specifically of former chairman pete pace, who was a proponent for a goldwater- nickels for the intra-agency. that might have merit. i do think it is a different proposition, as secretary gates points out, that goldwater-

nickels in its original form only applied to one department. so perhaps the principles of goldwater-nickels could be applied perhaps in an intra- agency contact your coeds basically that is what the dnio is. >> -- that is what the dni is. it is inter-agency. we will discuss that further. are there any particular aspects of goldwater-nickels you think should apply to the inter- agency? >> one of the benefits of goldwater-nickels, and i was a round and was part of the people that wrote papers in the pentagon against it in the 1980's, but now that is the accepted norm. what it meant in the department

was placing a high premium on joint duty. that is one of the principles that was taken on, particular by director mcconnell, which i certainly agree with. we are experiencing a lot of mobility in the intelligence community, so that people get out of their home stovepipe and move to their own. i think that is one that could apply to the intra-agency. >> you suggested answers that the areas of greatest ambiguity is the relationship and authority of topekdni over the cia. >> the iotpa does stipulate that the director of the central intelligence agency is in charge

of foreign intelligence relationships. that gave rise to the dispute between the dni blair and director of cia. and i think the law says the dni oversees those for relationships, whatever that means. i think it is an area of ambiguity. >> all right. three changes that i think might go a long way. i think you have addressed one of them. it would be giving the dni milestone at a decision at 34 intelligence programs -- funded by intelligence programs -- intelligence programs funded in sectinon 1018. the third is appropriating nip

funds directly to the dni. what are your feelings on those measures? >> [inaudible] >> 1018. milestone authority over intel. >> there is in agreement now, which took the form of a memorandum that governs milestone decision authority. it is a shared arrangement, depending upon the predominance of the funding, whether it is in the department or in the nip. non-abrogation of addressed in the revisioned executive order 12333. there was language appended to that that was basically amplifying the process for a potential resolution of

disputes, if in fact, they had to go to the white house. at this point, i am not prepared as a nominee to make any recommendations about amending section 1018. on dod funding, i have been a proponent for taking the nip out of dod. that carries with it some baggage, in terms of the staffing mechanisms and processing, but i think the long-term impact would be to strengthen the dni's authority over the national intelligence program. given the revelation of the top line at a prorated number of the national intelligence program, the original reason for bearing that number in the department of defense budget goes away. i argued and this secretary approved, publicizing the

military intelligence program. for the sake of completeness, both for the congress and the public, to know that the totality of investment in intelligence in this country. >> finally, you mentioned that you had looked over the bill that senator hatch and i had on setting up a national cyber defense alliance. are there for their thoughts that you have to share about that bill or where we should be going on cyber? >> well, sir, as you know, there are 34 or 35 legislative proposals now in play which address a range of cyber-related issues. i do not want to preempt the administration on picking and choosing which bill i like. i do think there are appealing features in the bill that you and senator hatch are sponsoring, which is putting someone clearly in charge,

having an identifiable budget aggregation, co-location. so those features -- i have not read the bill itself. what i have read it is appealing. >> the other thing is the importance -- i think the thing that was different in the cyber defense alliance is that it would be a means for the private sector to come together with government agencies and each other, protected from anti- trust to discuss and share information on the threats coming in. if you have any further information on that, i would appreciate hearing it now or later. >> sir, i would recommend, if you have not already, some dialogue with the deputy secretary, who has been very

much in the lead for engaging with the civilian sector, particularly the it defense intelligence base on doing this. he has done a lot of work and given this a lot of thought. i would commend a dialogue with him. >> thank you. we have talked with many different private sector elements who are concerned that they do not feel comfortable, do not know where to go or how to get information and share. i think they can be very, perhaps helpful to each other into the government in identifying threats. well, madam chair, thank you very much. general, as i said, we will have some questions for the record. i think there may be several, some classified questions for that. response.await your

thank you for the time you have given us. >> thank you, mr vice chairman. general, i think we have come to the end of the afternoon. staff, if you can let your members know, please get your questions in by noon tomorrow. the general will address them as quickly as possible. we will decide whether we need a closed hearing. perhaps these questions can be asked in a classified fashion in writing. if not, we will have a closed hearing, and we will try to move this as quickly as possible. so well done, general perry thank you, everybody. the hearing is adjourned. -- thank you, everybody. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

northeastern state university hosted a debate among democratic and republican candidates running for governor. we will show you that debate at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> this weekend, former "the new york times" public editor hoyt on the changing world of the newspaper industry. >> i worry about the standards and maintaining journalistic integrity as we move from one media world to another. t"q &aght on c-span's

." >> deputy prime minister nick clegg stands in for the prime minister this week. he takes questions on government -- to a steel manufacturer, support for the elderly, and infrastructure development. prime minister's questions, tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. now a discussion on the united states intelligence community from wednesday's "washington journal". this is 45 minutes. ite, c-span.org. host: the increase will be joining us. a three-part series in "the washington post" called top- secret america. the confirmation hearing for the new director of the national intelligence director. this is fro the intelligence committee yesterday. >> it is well known the world of

counterterrorism and homeland security is a sprawling enterprise, yet, yesterday, "the washington post" made a job dropping assertion, and i would like to get your comment on it. it is an extraordinary assertion of fact. "no one knows how much money it costs, how many people in employees, how many programs exist within and, more exactly how many agencies do exactly the same work." they made this as an assertion of fact. do you agree with that? >> this statement implies this is completely out of control. i believe it is under control. in the end, the common

nominator for all of this is the money that is appropriated, whether for intelligence or other purposes. the money is appropriated with strings attached. there is an allocation on a program-by-program basis. the intelligence can do many things, but pnting more money is not one thing that we can do. that does serve as a means of control over the allegedly profligate intelligence activities. host: clips from the nomination of james clapper. dana priest is a co-author of at story. thank you for being with us. your reaction to that exchange? guest: i can refute the fact

that they do not know how much money they are spending. the is this contractor called an idiq. these are for the largest contracts, billions of dollars, and they give it to a contract to figure out how they need to use it. over a given amount of time, they do not know how much of that money has been spent. they do not know how much it will cost. and nthey know the cap at the ef the year, but they do not know how much will be spent. it is not unusual to try to defend the system, but printing money is the bar to making sure you know what is going on, and that seems pretty low. host: your point, 70% of the

budget is spent on private coractors. they are refuting that. they say 70% is spent on contracts, not contractors, including major acquisitions like rent, food service, facilities management. guest: the directorf national intelligence put this fact sheet out even before they sell our story. the list of the about10 myths that have been corrected, but none of them are in our story. i think they have come up with them by themselves and have put them out. host: what is located in fort meade, maryland? guest: there is really this

alternative geography. to get there, you need to look at this map that we have put together. in order to tell you how big it is, we tried to count the number of organizations that operate at the to secret level, the number of contractors that operate at a top-secret level. we do not go that specific, but then he looked around the country -- we looked around the country for the high concentrations around the country. this is where the concentration is the most tense. the reason is because the national security agency is there, the largest intelligence agency in the country. the concentration there is based on the needs of the nsa, so you

have hundreds of contractors that have gathered around the national security agency to serve the agency. so between the agency, other secret government organizations in the area, contractors that have come to help the agency do what it does, the largest concentration in theountry. it is an interesting way to look at the country. we have sort of called this the top-secret genome project. we did not know this was going to happen, but we found this concentrated area around fort meade. host: 854,000 that have top

security clearance. how did you get to that? guest: that is one number that the government does not have. one shocking thing to me was how little the government knows about the system over all. in this regard, we took what we knew about the different agencies, and what we calculated was each of their individual top secr employees. then we took those calculations to some of our best sources who knew parks of it, they looked at our methodology and they said you have this correct. the government has contractor split up into categories. nobody looks along the whole thing. that is what we did, looking at the post-9/11 world. we asked people in government to look at our methodology.

several high-ranking officials who know a lot about number crunching, the nature of the employers, how many employees work at the agency. we had been asked informally by people in government if they could use those figures. host: how much is redundancy and how much is competition, something that many would argue was not thereefore september 11? guest: i hope it is competition because that is healthy. you come up with one set of facts, we debate it, and we determine who it is right on. but the kind of redundancy that we looked at, we do not believe it is that kind. we looked at this from a more general level. how many government entities are working on x?

trying to catch the flow of money to and from terrorist organizations. there are not thousands of terrorist organizations out there. there are a finite number that people pretty much know about. we found 41 different units looking at terror financing. we put that together and show that to some of the bigger players in that universe, and a number of them said, i did not know that they were also new in this -- doing the best. --doing this. -- doing this. if you listen to his response today, he acknowledges that that isn area that needs direction. if you are going to have overlapping agencies doing

this, should they know that another agency is doing this? should they the court made it? on our website -- they be coordinated? on our website, you can see the data and see how many agencies are doing this, where they are. that begins to giv you a sense of what we mean by redundancy. host: we have a link on our website as well to the story on o. next phone call. caller: it is about time somebody dug into this contractor nonsense. it started with president bush. he did not want to do a draft when he started the war. let's do what we have to do without having a draft.

i guarantee, if we had a draft, the work would have been short and sweet he thought he would go into iraq ando in there, start pumping oil, and would be a hero it is a shame that these contractors are making all this money. people who are dying for this country are not getting what they should be. guest: i think your facts are correct, that president bush and his advisers, and even democrats, did not want a draft. and they underestimated the length of the war. once it became clear that this was going to last longer, they needed bodies to do the job. they pretty much said we do not want more federal employees doing this, so we will have contractors. congress said, okay, we do not

want federal employees doing in either. so they started them to spend billions of dollars a year extra. and instead of hiring federal employees, they hired contractors. they heard them so quickly -- this will sound silly -- they did not even signed in. they did not keep a list of all the contractors they wer hiring. you had to many departments hiring so many contractors at the sameime, this is one of the thing that we found shocking. they do not know how many are in their employment. the second part of the series comes from robert gates, making a concession, but he could not get a head count on the number of contractors working in his office, the civilian leadership of the defense department.

we have a list. in a couple of days, we are going to be putting it on our blog site, not only to continue e conversation, but to put more information out. how many companies are involved total? guest: about 1900 total. why did we do come secret? -- top secret? we started wanting to do classified because we thought that was the most important. when we started looking at the top secret levels, the numbers were so big, buwe could not track it. we thought, we should go there, where we know there are fewer. still, at that level, you had

2000 contractors working on top- secret work. host: next phone call. republican line. caller: my question is we have so many people that are doing so many things and they are hired by a government that is paid to do a job, how come the government does not do the job, how come we do not do it directly? guest: 9 is a fair question -- and that is a fair question. right after 9/11, everybody was worried there would be another atta soon. they said we have to do better, we have to do a lot more. but we do not have the people that are experienced to do it. we have a slow process to hire people, so let's get the private sector to help us. nobody questions that at all for

awhile. they thought it was going to be in temper refects and they did not really see that in was quick to become a more permanent solution, maybe they did not care. it is only now that people are saying, let's revisit this. and this is a politically unpopular thing to do, but raising the ceiling on the number of government employees that you are going to hire. neither the republicans o democrats wanted to appear that they were growing the size of government because that is always a campaign slogan to be used against a candidate. so instead, they grew the private sector. now you will see people make the argument and castigate the administration for doing this. congress went along with this 100%. i guess we will have to see whether or not they really mean they want to roll this back.

host: next phone call. . . . caller: there were comments i heard earlier that there may be as the was a congressman in the entire congress who are really aware of what is going on, and maybe their allegiance is not to us as the taxpayers and citizens anymore. it kind of appears to me that, you know, if you follow the flow of money for campaign contributions, small districts in this country that have just a few hundred people in them, congressmen are receiving millions of dollars in campaign contributions and about 3/4 of that money comes from the very people that are involved in all of this hiring. there is a correlation between that -- just the last point i

want to make -- looking at the magnitude of all of these employees and all of these different contractors, it rivals the domestic auto industry, at least in terms of ford, chrysler, and general motors. that is a scary thing. finally, the amount of information that did not use to be classified in our government that is now classified. it appears to me -- i wish you could comment on this, please -- it appears to me that things that were never considered classified, open to all congress people and therefore all americans, are now so secretive, and at really scares me. i just really wanted to see what you thought about that, please. guest: you made a couple of points. let me go to the first one about classification. if you listen to the hearing yesterday, listened to it c-span radio of that, you will see that general clapper and

generally the administration and its and agrees with you that there has been too much classification of information. the question is, how do you change that? it is easier to classify them to declassify, because then you cover yrself, and that has been the dynamic for the last 10 years at least, and certainly after 9/11. in order to get gernment to really classify things, there needs to be continued pressure for them to do that -- in order to get government to really declassify things, there needs to be continued pressure for them to do that. it is sort of the nature of politics that if you are on a certain committee, you get contributions from the people who you oversee, whether that is the auto industry or the banks or this world, the intelligence contractors. you can see who the contributors are for every member of congress, so you can go yourself to look on the web to find out

the members of the intelligence committee, and you can see who they get contributions from. but this is the difference in this sector versus any other, which is that you cannot actually see what the corporations are lobbying on, because if they are lobbying on classified programs, they are prohibited from telling you in their filings which programs. that is, again, the nature of secrecy, which makes it much more difficult to probe into this area. that is why the oveight of congress is so important, and it needs to be robust, because we can only do so much and you can only see so much, and it is vy limited. the eight people you were talking about- that is n a number that is that while the. i really think that on the intelligence committees in the house and senate, there has been just a handful of members of the staff who really dig into these issues. i have always been amazed that

programs that you probably have never heard of, the national reconnaissance office, which spends tens of billions of dollars to create satellites that can snoop on other countries -- there are just a handful of members to know about the organization, what budget for it -- what budgetary doors they can look into. host: you have outlined in great detail not only how the intelligence community works, but contractors involved, and some may argue too much information in the post-9/11 world. your response. guest: we have to weigh the amount of information to puout their versus the security concerns and what the public has the right to know. we had months and months of conversations internally about that. we talked to the government for months and months trying to get their opinion on it to get them

to be helpful and specific as they could in the end, we did not put out nearly as mh as we know, and wdecided only to let our zoom function on the map on the website to go to the city state level. there are 10 -- i am making this up -- and government organizations doing top-secret work in chicago, but you will not know what agencies those are specifically or what street they are on as they are the headquarters of, f instance, the cia. that is the same with companies. it is only the headquarters of the companies where we actually tell you where they are. we don't tell you where the sub- headquarters of the offices are we just tell you what states and cities they are in. host: is there one factor, one nugget that surprised you the most doing this research for two years?

guest: what surprised me the most is how little the government knows about this. it is not comforting to go around as a reporter and not find people who can give you the overview. when that started happening, i thought, i'm just not finding the right people, but after two years, i just don't think the government knows -- they don't know how much costs, they don't know how many people are involved, and they don't know how many programs are under this rubric. that was the most shocking thin to me. host: the piece is called "top secret america," 4 "the washington post." claremont, california, a republican line. caller: hi, ste. i'm originally from erie, pennsylvania but i don't remember -- i don't know if you remember that night were you and brian lamb came in with those mercer's gross spread was that night to remember. -- mercer's girls.

was that night to remember. let's get serious now. na, what is wrong with all these clearances? the more clearances with contractors, that is competition. that is small business dying for work. under bush we had safety. under obama, weave had four terrorist attacks, beried, in new york, -- detroit, new york, killings and the oklahoma, the muslim at major. what is the purpose of your piece? is it to denigrate the military men and classified clearances? be sensible. there is a need to know. stress that word. there are lots of clearances, but only certain people have at the need to know. steve and i and brian remember that night, which is all fictitious, but the way, and it is probably just like you and your slanted anchor -- not

anchor, co-writer, unknown leftist r -- a note leftist. what you try to do with america? guest: if you read the article, he will see that -- you will see that we're not trying to denigre anybody will try to perform the basic function of the media, -- we are trying to perform the basic function of the media, which is to hold people accountable. we're not trying to say that clearances are bad. we are saying, look at the number of people who have clearances at the top-secret double as an indicator of how large this work force has become. look at all the government agencies that do this sort of work and agencies that do the same sort of work, and start to ask questions about whether or not that is the best way to spend money and the best way to focus, even more than the money,

really the focus in the community. you can look back on what we found out about the attempted christmas day bomber, and what you'll find is that even the head of the -- even the director of national intelligence said that the lines of responsibility had often blurred. what we found is that part of the reason for that is that the whole system has become so big that the many parts of it are not really sure who is in charge of x. should we be there ones that run -- the ones that run on every tip on counterterrorism? the national counter terrorism center, employing 1200 people now, as big as several wal-mart stores -- there will job is to do this, but they did not do it on that day. in fact, there is a passenger -- it was a passenger who alerted and tackled the would-be bomber.

everybody in that system said come in the end, we have a problem. they did not say it has gotten so big. it is that nobody knew exactly who was responsible for looking at all the tips and learning -- running each one to ground. if you go back and actuay ok at the article, you will see that we are not mean denigrate anybody. in fact, the reason a journalists actually take on accountability of government is, in their heart of hearts, we want to make it better. at least that is the way i feel. host: dana priest is a graduate of the university of california-santa cruz. she won the pulitzer prize for her story, "the other walter reed." the caller brought up the issue of bill arkin. "politico" or about him as well. -- wrote about him as well.

"is one of the first times the -- it is the first time that one of the paper's bloggers has had a byline on a big front-page story." guest: he is not a blogger. he has been a military analyst 4304 decades but i will put out there, because someone else will. he does not have a typical journalist background. he has done research for groups like greenpeace and human rights watch. what a lot of them are bringing up is that it goes deeper than that. he was an analyst for the u.s. air force for years and years. he has been one of the contractors we are talking about. he dropped out when he decided to do this. theectured and taught at

advanced or college for the air force. -- advanced war college for the air force. what he is great at, and the reason whye brought him on board, is that he is a phenomenal researcher. he has this database and it took him more than two years. he had been collecting this for more than that time t he and i knew each other for a long time and i used him as a sounding board. as my time got free up and his interest grew in it, we said, should we finally try to tackle this? when we ok at our different skill sets, it seemed complementary enough that it might work. i could ever put together a database that has -- i think he said like 30,000 data points to it.

what i can do is talk tsources that i have known and acquired over the many years and washington, and he has some of those, too, and together we can come up with not only and empirical data base, but also the context of the database. that is how we are working together. people have questions about his background because he is not a typical -- he does not have the typical journalist background. we put on the web is by no -- we put on the web his bio to make it clear we're not trying to hide anything. he has fact checkers, he has me. i grill him over and over again about the methodology in the database come out wanting to make sure it would be bulletproof, as we say, to make sure that every point in the database has two public documentsources 28.

we don't show you, but that was our -- has two public document sources did it to we don't show you, but that was our standard. hopefully, people will see his bio and see that yes, he is not a usual journalist, but we are confident of his abilities and contributions to this. host: shelton, pennsylvania, democrats' line. caller: thank you, steve, and thank you, dana, a very, very much for all of your hard work and investigative reporting on this very i opening topic. -- very eye-opening topic, as well as the walter reed issue and so many of the pieces that you have written. here is my biggest concern regarding this article, though. well, let me promise my comment -- let me preface my comment by

saying that the internet has made this -- i would say it has been 50% beneficial for the u.s. and 50% detrimental. now, my only problemith this article is this, and i will approach the map, concentrate on the map from two different standpoints -- by pinpoint all the headquarters c-span.org - -y pinpointing all of headquarters regarding intelligence, you have given people in it for the countries -- in foreign countries a clue as to where it might be safe for them to possibly conduct illegal activities, if they were to

come to this country. for example, i noticed in the northern plains, it is very sparsely populated with headquarters, ok? there are not too many up there. host: we will get a response. thanks for the call. guest: those are good questions. let's say it in starker terms, providing a road map to terrorists, targetg list. we have long considered this question. the only specificity we give you are the headquarters of those companies, those dots, and in the northern plains, not the headquarters, we put in precise -- put an inprecise got there. you would be underesmating the enemy if they did not -- if they did not already know a lot about

these agencies. there are signs on the road that say where they are. you can go on the internet and google them. a part of the issue was what as the internet and to the flow of information? -- what has the internet and to the flow of information? it has made very international. -- it has made it to very international. that is part of what went into our thinking, and the thinking of what he cannot go underneath those dots -- most of the dots you cannot go underneath and say, what is it? yesterday i got at least 3 e- mails from people saying, this is so silly, i clicked on the dock to see what it was and i cannot get the information. you do have to balance it. host: the national security agency, navy, air force, army

-- that is in it yesterday's estimate of this three-part series. naomi is joining us from florida. caller: the gentleman who called for me it tooky thunder. i ha been listening to th and listening about dana end of this -- and this arkin guy, how they are starving to death out here. i know which is as about -- how they are scaring me to death out here. i know what they said about how the enemy already knows, but why make it easier -- listen to me one minute. it is all right to see who is overlapping who, but why are you putting maps out there? why are you targeting areas where top secrets are? guest: ok, well, i hate to

repeat myself, but the map is a general map, except for the headquarters. we not giving enough information to know where all of these are. secondly, i think that if we just generally said this has grown so big, you would say, well, ok, what does that mean, and not have a real sense of what we mean. the reason why people are responding to this, even senior government officials, is because these are specific, not general, and you cannot get away from specifics. what are we putting specifics out there and doing it at this level of debt? it is because the issue is rious. we believe the obvious and we are sure that you do, too, that the intelligence community should be keeping us safer, and if you cannot tell for sure whether that is true anymore, it is an effort to make it better,

not worse. host: let me read just a part of a piece today's "new york times." it points out that james clapper, a retired general, ill be the fourth person in five years to hold the post, a job that most intligence experts believe lacks any real authority to wrestle with 16 different intelligence agencies and effectively combat waste and abuse." guest: that is right. it is on top of the whole heap, a person who will be accountable for the next attempt or worse. and yet congress and the administration did not give the position the authority to do that. it is an open sect, and members of congress criticized the position,ut they created it. they want to have their cake and eat, too. they say, you or the guy, the

one we put in charge -- you are the guy, at the one we put in charge, but we did not ve you any authority to be in charge. it does not look like they are going to pe. we are relying on personal relationships to do the work, which does go a long way in washington. when you have the other dni, mike mcconnell, who has been in the intelligence world for so long, who knows bob gates, they know each other, they knew michael hayden, director of the cia, it was a good working relationship between three men who worked togher for decades. that is why they were able to come together on some issues and do somethingbout them. as secretary gates said to me in an interview, that is an ad hoc way of doing things. it works when you have the right people in charge. it is not the way congress

portrays but ty did. host: a picture of secretary gates from yesterday. where was this picture and why was this photograph included? guest: it happens to be a photograph taken for another story, a story about individuals and their long workdays and especially at night. i think he is going out othe ntagon. i have to double check that. host: it looks like a residential neighborhood. guest: whenever we take pictures, we store them in our own database. it is a more personal picture, gives them -- he looks reflective. he is reflected in the stories, too. he and the cia director but had on-the-record interviews with me, pushed that hd on the general theme -- that we had -- he and the cia director both had on-the-record interviews with

me, and neither one of them pushed that hard on the general theme that we had. host: democrats' line, good morning. caller: ms. priest, what i first decided to call in, i was going to be a bit negative towards you as a veteran of the air force and the 1970's -- as a veteran of the air force in the 1970's, i had top-secret clearance based on my job in the military. i feel like the nature of america -- this country is such a powerful nation, and for that many top secret clearances to be awarded to people seems to be understandable because we have such a diverse military and intelligence service that it is just basically necessary for this country to have. guest: again, the reason why we

tried to figure out how many people had top-secret clearances is because the number is so large that we thought we cannot get our arms around it. but it is also a demonstration of how large this has become. there are things we tend not get into and cannot get much information on, because so much of it is classified, and we had to find symbols come out the ways to show the size. that was one of them. the other what i particularly like is the buildings that we found it one of the ways we could show you how big it has grown is to look at all the office buildings within the washington area that were constructed or under construction since 9/11, and we found 33 office complexes -- that is t even buildings, that is complexes, multi-building complexes. i think the figure week on it is so -- the figure we counted was

17 million square feet, something like three pentagons. three pentagons worth of office space just for intelligence services. these are services that live somewhere else, and a smaller buildings, and are scattered out, and now they are building three pentagons worth of intelligence buildings but th. that to is the visualization of the size of this system. host: who benefits the most to keep these wars going? guest: i think that is way too cynical. i have never met anybody in the contractor community or the government who says to just keep this war going because we can make a lot of money outf it

there might be people like that, but i don't think that is how it works. host: frank is joining us, independent line. caller: i don't kn why we got so many. the american people are strong if the government would give us a chance. we would not be all secret services. i feel like they are spying on us rather than the enemy. they tell the americaneople, here is 18 pilots that escaped. give it to the news people and let them look for it. we don't need thousands of people out there. we have the money to give someone else. -- give somewhere else.

guest: well, i guess as a journalist, i would agree with you, but the more information you give the american people, the better it is, because people debate whether -- once you get beyond whether giving the information is good or not, the issues get debed and that is why the country is the strongest and the world, because we can debate even sensitive things hopefully reasonably. so i would agree. host: where to you think this story goes from here? what is next, for the story and for you personally? guest: one of the things i would like to do is that we are creating a blog -- i hate to call it that, because i do not even read blogs -- but we are treating an on-line discussion, hopefully at a level that is mple and deep. people go on and discuss the

issues. but also because we can do more troublesome online. -- we can do more journalism on line. it is not just videos and opinion, but we can turn it into new facts and discoveries, which is what we do as journalists. i think that what is in a couple of days -- that launches in a couple of days at washingtonpost.com/topsecretamer ica. we want people to give us information that we can potentially create new stories from. we can work as journalists to the extent that we can without endangering or compromising our own sources. we see it as a real opportunity. that is why we put some much of this online. it is supposed to ba story that is a richer online than it is and the paper. -- than it is in the paper.

that is why we spent much time creating the database. you can find the level of depth in the facts that you cannot find in the stories. it is >> oklahoma's university hosted a debate for those trying to become their next governor. we will show you that debate today here on c-span at 6:30 eastern. >> this weekend, a former new york times editor on the changing world of the newspaper industry. >> i worry about some of the standards and maintaining journalistic integrity as we move it from one media world to another. >> takomaclark hoyt tonight on

"q&a." >> this week on "prime minister's questions," someone stands in for wanted cameron. korea foreign dick cameron. -- for dick cameron. that is tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's period -- don c-span's. on c-span. >> , we have three guests joining us for this discussion. we are joined by the former president of the naacp, and also

steinhorn.u bolts of the story that have come out this week. what was the underpinning of that as far as race relations in the united states? what did we learn from that wholtopic in the time we have left? what did we learn from it? guest: we learned that the whole flap from last year is still with us. that race is still our unspoken. it is still with us and we don't like to talk abt it. that's what we learned this past week. host: why are we still at that point? guest: that's a big question and i'm going to defer to my more esteemed wiser colleagues. i just don't know. on a serious note, i think that eric holder said itest when

he said, and i know, we're a nation of cowards when it comes to talking about race. maybe coward was a little strong but we certainly like to believe that because we have a black president, i hear this all the time with my friends and peers who say are we still talking about this? we have a black president we have a black first lady, we have black people running corporations, we have blacks doing all these things. race is notn issue any more. and i think white and black really see this very differently. a book i would recommend to folks is, separate unequal black and white. and americans see things different and how segregated we still are. today's sunday morning i know when i go to church it will be largely an african american congregations and most churches will be very segregated. host: where are we in this discussion? guest: i think she's pretty accurate. due boys wrote the problem of

the upcoming century would among other things be the race problem. and that's still the issue we've gone beyond 1900 and 200 and we're still talking about it. this causes us to recognize that in the north they are able to get over the fact of 300 years of legal slavery, 100 years of segregation. if you don't acknowledge that, talk about it, and kind of wash it then you're going to always deal with it and we always end up dealing with it. now, in the shirley sherrod situation it was overreaction. the media overreacted, the naacp overreacted. the administration clearly overreacted. it's almost that we're so sensitive that all you have to do is hear that somebody is acist or said something racial tha everybody has this reaction which is out of place, it's an overreaction, and in

many essences it leaves buy heend casualties. but the bottom line is the issue doesn't really get discussed in a way that's logical where people are talking about it with some of the emotions removed. it's glenn beck versus the world. it's someone else saying that this person doesn't understand. d we find ourlves sitting at roundtables saying what are we going to do? why are we still dealing with this? host: leonard you talked about the idea about having a hair trigger on some of these issues and finding a way to talk about it and the need to still talk about it. guest: i think we have to go back to the modern root going on and that's the southern strategy. when you look at what a conservative activist, the narrative of his little clip was white people are vims, black people have advantage of government and are sort of doing this to white people over time. that was the narrative of willie horton, the narrative of the southern strategy. that's been the narrative all

along about conservative resistance to affirmtive actio that government advantages black people to the disadvantages of white people. so that's the narrative that he used. but what's happened is that the democrats over years were very gun shy about addressing that narrative ini about losing this mythical white middle class of voters. so you see the obama administration's reaction as pulling away as if let's say due cackcassight have pulled away in 1998. i don't think the democrats have moved beyond tir fear of the southern strategy right now. so think that's an important part of it. but let's also remember another important thing here. that this incoming generation, young people are the most inclusive and diverse generation in our nation's history. and they're obably looking on this sort of whole scenario in washington thinking it's sort of an alice and wonderland thing coming out of the past, because their experience, whether it's in media, persol context, social lives and their

cross ethnic and cross racial personal lives, they're saying this isn't tt america that we are living right now. so in terms of the hopeful side of all of this, we have to keep our eyes focused on where this next generation is going and how they internalize the norms that baby boomers and the civil rights movement struggled hard to put in place in the united ates. host: we have divided our numbers by location in the united stes. our numbers are on the bottom of your screen. you can send us a twitter. generationly, do african americans are those concerned about race look at these issues, was the story of last week looked differently? guest: absolutely.

i think if you're below 40 years old, maybe 35 and below, you see the world very fferently than thosef us who are 40 and over. my generation, my parents are the baby boomers and so they were the civil rights movers and shakers. my grand parents are the greatest generation. so i still have the vestages of their baggage, i like to say. i have a book about the african american 2t century woman and it's called redefined and we talk about how -- michelle obama is pretty much i like to say the muse for the book. she is the person that shifted a lot of perceptions negatively about black women in this country from the 2008 campaign she was perceived as angry, unpatriotic, et cetera. that's howhey made the cark that tur of her but it shifted. we did a lot of polling for this book. we found that, again, those of i guess you would call them jen y they have a very different perception of race, stereo

typing. they see the world very differently than we do. so there's hope. i agree with you. host: in light of the hope that shirley nelson sees, in light of the political background at mr. stinehorn talks about, where do we go from here as far as discussions are concerned not only talking t generations but political strategy about these things? guest: we've got to be frank and honest and stick to the facts. and the facts are that racism, sexism, antisem itism is wrong. that black bigotry, white baggetry, gay bashing, immigrant bashing, all these ways we try to put blame on somebody else always works against the best interest of our country. it depleets our ability to get to the greatness that is there. so if we keep focusing on the facts and run the discussion around that and let that be the litmus test, not what somebody said on a blog or website or what somebody says at a 6:00 p.m. nscast that's uncontrollable. it's got to be around the

facts. people have discussions about race every day in communities that never get on tv. they have it at the corner store, they have it when they're meeting the postman, they talk about it on their jobs. we can't assume that it is such a situation where nobody talks about it. i think the people who should be talking about it are not. the bully pull pits are not being used except to react to it. host: you mean the president? guest: well, the presidents got to be able i think free enough to talk about this. there's no real post racial america that came into being with this election. we move closer to that. but we are still a nation that has to find a way to get beyond the legacy of the past, and we don't do it by acting like it never existed. so to those who are younger who look at this and say what in the world is going on? i think there's got to be an explanation of how this conversation came about why these things are still in the a lot of people regardless of their race or their region in the country. and we ought to be honest enough every time we can at

least to recognize that there's no superior race, i mean,ost of us are average. we have a few geniuses and a liberal sprinkling of fools. and if that's the definition of the different races. so we ought to focus more on our similarities, not so much on our differences. hostyou said the president has to be free to talk about it. does that mean he has to free himself toalk about it? guest: i'm certainly not going to tell the president what to do but i think he has the greatest leverage to talk about it. he has more leverage than george bush, bill clinton, ronald reagan. he is the nation's first african american president and sozz there's an expectation i think among a lot of people that of course if it has to be talked about hell discuss it in a reasonable way and help us as a nation to incremently move past it. guest: i actually disagree with my friend the congressman on this point. i don't think he is free to talk about it because he is the first black president and i think we saw that with the gates situation when he made

that off the cuff comment about the massachusetts police acting stupidly, or whatever he said, a fire storm erupted. i think that's why he's been quiet. i think that he has got advisers telling him, you need those independent white voters come the mid terms and come 2012 and if you isolate them by talking about race that's going to be a problem. guest: but if we get elected just to figure out how we get reelected, we've got a problem. and i think he ought to be free nouf talk about ifplt now guest: we agree. he ought to be. guest: but this whole thing about advisers saying don't do this because, i never believed that you get elected to office to try to figure out what can i do to get reelected. it should be what can i do to make the nation better or my constituents better and lou do doy that. guest: i think to some extent he's caught between his own dilemma and contradiction. he would prefer to be that race

to be not descriptive of his presidentssy. yet it seems to be defining and not descriptive in the country so the dilemma heaces is how do you become a president that race is incidental not necessarily a central part of his presidency. yet, at the same time, it remains an influential not just an incidental part of our nation's culture right now. i think that's a very, very difficult dilemma that he faces. host: during the course of this conversation we will hear from calls and callers. thank you for holding on the line. we will ge to you in just a minute. but to give a little context we want to show some clips of the speech that ms. sher odd said and also the president himself talking about these issues of race. >> the fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of reverend wright's sermon simply reminds thause the most segregated hour

of american life occurs on sunda morning. that anger is not all the productive. indeed, all too often it distracts the attention from solving real problems. it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity within the african american community in our own condition. it prevents the african american american community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. but the anger is real. it is powerful. and to pli simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. in fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. most working and middle class white amecans don't feel that

they have been particularly privileged by their race. their experience is the immigrant experience. as far as they're concerned, no one handed them anything they built it from scratch. they've worked hard all their lives, many times only to se their jobs shipp overseas or their pensions dumped after a lifetime of labor, they are anxious about their futures, and they feel their dreams slipping away. and in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes be see seen as a zero sum game in which your dreams come at my expense. so when they are told to bust bus their children to a school across town, so when they hear an african american is getting an advantage a good j or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never commited, when they're told that their fears about crime and urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company but they have helped shape the political land scane for at least a generation. host: quick thoughts on what he said then, what it means now. mr. stinehorn. guest: well, i thinkhat he was trying to do is to cast a wide net of common experience. what the congressman was talking about earlier. that we are in this together. we have to understand historical wounds. but be able to work together as a common americans irrespective of the color of our skin today. i think this is the same message that shirley sherod was actually communicating. the irony of this whole thing is that she really in that little sittion was speaking in the exact same way that then candidate obama was communicating. we're inhis together. we have to get beyond our internal anger, get beyond the past. host: ms. nelson. guest: i think justice harlemen

said it best in the plessy decision. those who must be color blinde must first be color conscious. so i think you have to acknowledge that this is an issue and that has been, in the 21st century i think we see that there's a real disconnect. this post racial thing doesn't exist. and i think what candidate obama had to do, the reason he has to because the speeches were so incindiary, he was trying to give a context for this is a 70-something-year-old man. he grew up in a segregated angry hostile america. and he is saying exactly what he said here, we need to come together and we need to stop being at each other and realize we do have a color issue. we need to talk about it. host: whan. guest: well, we are whole in this together. i know it's cliche. this is our nation. we want it to get better. we want our children to grow in a community that is better. we want to make sure that all

the hurdles are not as high for the next generation. and we would like to know that one day when we finally go to our graves that this nation will continue to be the greatest nation on the face of the earth because it has the greatest calling in the sense of equality. making sure that there are not barers based on religion, based on race, based on sex. it is that context that we have to live our lives. it is not always easy, but it's the greatest calling there is. and i think that this nation over the years, over the centuries has proven over and over again that it will find a way to get beyond hurdles but we onl get beyond hurdles when we acknowledge them. because if you don't see the hurdle there's nothing you can do. host: north hollywood, california. thanks for waiting go ahead. caller: yes. i'm just calling regarding this sherod issue. first of all, i was under the

impression that -- i know the congressman, i believe that's what he continues to bring up oromeeople to bring up glenn beck, like if glenn beck was the one who started this when he wasn't. you can't expect for everybody else to get everything right. i think these people need to get it right as well. again, he did not glenn beck did not end up the day after. he was, continued to be on sherrod's side saying that what was said, you know, that he was on her side. and i really think that people need to pay attention. host: let's go to one more call and then we'll get some input. charles. caller: good morning. first thing for history before i make my two comments. obama is the first buy racial president, bi racial. ok. my first comment is. sleeveport, louisiana, is a

killing field at night. black on black crime is completely out of hand. they are killing one another. the inner cities have got to do something about this. this is black on black crime. my next comment is, until republicans and democrats, we cannot have a welfare state of unwed mothers rewarding them to have more babies, we're going to pay them more food stamps, more shelter, more hospitalization. we have got to get a grip on it. it is the unwed mothers, white, black, yellow, pink or orange. i don't care what color they are. host: he brought a lot of things. where would youike to start? guest: i think glenn beck is an interesting one. to some extent, irrespective of his individual activity in this

situation, he is sort of a metaphor for the type of insendry media that we have, that somebody, that you have actual talk radio people, glennbecks of the world calling obama a racist saying thing that is are wholely iestimony pratt, fanning the flames. that's what creates this sense of hostility and aggression that we have in our society when what is perceived as a good common discussion gets tost tossed up into these fireworks. so this is why glenn beck, whethe he was involved in this particular situation or not becomes a metaphor for some of the hostility and anger that we have in our cult tur right now. guest: i think to the first caller's point i'm not sure what she is getting at. i don't think any of us blamed glenn beck. i think in the second instance, however, he played to a lot of racial stereo types on the racial point. he is trying to say black

people need to get their own house in order. black on black crime. we need to deal with some of our economic deprivation. we've known that for a long time. but that really misses the point of the larger discussion i think. you brought up a point earlier which i think feeds into this culture. he talked about nixon southern strategy and i would agree. but that now has moved to democrats enal bracing it. because jim web had a piece that was so offensive i had to read it five times. because for a sitting u.s. senator to write a piece and say white americans are being deprived by the diversety programs and other efforts to right historical wrongs with african americans i agree with the piece about asians, hispanics and other whose have not traditionallyeen discriminated should not be the beneficiary but he forgets that white women are the biggest ben fish riss of o affirm tiff action. so i think we have scape goating and race baiting going on at t highest levels

moonchingsed our leaders. that's my respect for him but i mean, it is concerning to me that as he says those in the bully pulity keep dividing us. not just thoys on the wacky tv shows but it's our leaders who think, i get an election coming up and i don't want angry white voters taking it out on me. i don't want white voters thinking that they're disenfranchised. and the fun thing about web is he will expect 90% of the lack vote and he'll probably get it which really makes me nuts after writing an article like this because it won't be talked about. host: how did you take senator web's peeze? guest: i haven't read it? guest: probably with a couple aspirin. she going to have to explain that. we're living in a different world. we're not in that world that he is in although there's a lot of people that wouldn't to drag us over back there again.

i had to kind of smile when the lady said we're blaming glenn beck. he had nothing to do with this. he did call the president a racist and he has played on racial fears. so beck not with standing, the other gentleman from i think shreveport, last, said a coue interesting things. the president is bi racial. he is also african american. hisather is from american, the fatser is from africa. but this cal about anger on black on black crime. i think we ought the be upset about all crime. not whether it's black on black. then we say we'll separate that out and not worry about the rest. all crime brings us down as a society. it has a greater effect i think when you're living in a black community and you see it being perptrate by people livi there. so we've got to have a broader discussion about that. and the issue about unwed motsers. what about unwed fathers? here is one, i had four or five kids by the time i was 21 years

of age, high school dropout, no where to go. didn't choose to abort. found myself a way to get working, taking odd jobs because i had a basic set of values that i think is missing in many instances among a lot of men. we were taught work hard, play by the rules, take care of your responsibilities. and give back. and so this discussion just can't be about unwed mothers. it's got to be about unwed fathers. and how do we get beyond the mistake of having a child out of wedlock and how do you find a way to blilled a family on top of that? so i want to respond to that part of his comment. guest: and i thinks there a larger issue culturally. if we remain in america when we're all on our own, that it's not my problem, it's somebody else's problem. get your own house in order type of thing, then we're losing what unites us. if we don't see that it is my problem, that some young kid in

aplashea or the inner city isn't getting a good education or isn't growing up with the right resources and support systems, then in the long run our country will lose. my kids, my grand kids' country will lose and will be in far worse shape. so what we don't want to be is some sort of third world country in which everybody lives behind a gate communi and thinks that their situation is the only one that matters and let the rest of them take care of themselves. that's the problem right now. so reorienting our culture in a way that gets us to looks across the tle is th one we really need. host: i want to play a little bit of ms. sherrod's speech and particularly comments that she made that talks about this issue but also talks about the issue of class when it comes to race. let's list t what she had to say. >> i couldn't sayears ago i couldn't stand here saying what i'm saying, what i will say to you tonht.

like i told you, god helped me to se that it is not just about black people, it's about poor people. and i've come a long ways. i knew that i couldt live with hate, you know, as my mother has said to so many, if we had tried to live with hate in our hearts we would probably be dead now. but i have come to realize that we have to work together. and you know, it's sad that we don't have a room full of whites and blacks here tonight because we have to overcome the divisions that we have. we have to get to the point where, as has been said, race exists but it doesn't matter.

we have to work just as hard. i know, you know, that division is still here but our communities are not going to thrive, our children won't have the communities that they need to be able to stay in and live in and have a good life if we can't figure this out, you all. white people, black people, hispanic people, we all have to do our part to make our communities a safe place, a healthy place, a good environment. host: how would you add on to those or what do you take away about the discussion of class race? guest: i think she is right. i think she is bringing up something we don't bring up enough, we tend to focus on black and white. we do forget the kids in

aplashea and people in rural america and we need to remember them and i think she's the perfect poster person for that, if you will, because she comes out of rural georgia, the farmers. how our farmers have been through a lot in this country, black and white. certainly the black farmers, they had the big class action suit they won an award. but i think that we have left behind a number of our people who are at the lower socio economic rung, because the elites, where we talk and we owe pine and we think, we have these raised up discussions. we don't get down to the down and dirty of dealing with what's really wlong in our country. host: when we look at discussions of race, are discussions of class intermeshed with that? or should they be? guest: of course. especially when the legacy of race has had an impact on the reality of class. you can't have a society for 350 years that enslaved people, took their sweat and labor, refused to allow them to buy

homes. i mean, when you have the returning gis from world war ii and the black gis are the only gis who were told that they couldn't buy homes in levt town and it wasn't just there, it was everywhere, you had the issue of race and class completely intermingled. now, there's another factor in all of this, which is in the last 30 years we have seen a greater disparity of wealth in our society. so we can talk about economic growth and talk about aggregate numbers and all that but those hide the fact that the rich have really gotten richer the middle have gotten squeezed and the poor haven't done that well. so we wha we haven't seen in this era of racial progress, which arguably nobody shoulde able to argue with that. we've had enomples progress. but we haven't had the type of economic progress and security that will give this sort of lower classes, the poorer people the opportunity and the hope to be able to raise themselves up.

guest: well, one of the things that's so interesting about class is that the groups populate nowadays, regardless of color. and so wealthy people are not just wealthy and white. they're wealt and black, they're wealthy and latino. and poor people are not just black but they're poor in all those other categories as well. and everybody else is in this middle area. i mean, there's a great big middle area where we're all at. we're fighting for what we can get and we all recognize even though we don't talk about it that we are part of aituation where there are people above us and below us. so the class structure and the class separation becomes just as pronounced in some respects as it does race. it's an interesting dialogue and the fact that the two things overlap makes it more difficult sometimes to discern which is more problematic or which might be the area that requireshe greatest attention. host: let's take a couple of

calls. caller: yes. the characterization of blacks as a depraved culture is constantly perpetuated by the political right. but those who make such comments are involved in context dropping. they don't see how making a living is extremely difficult for blacks and especially black men and has been exacerbated by illegal yl aliens. black men haven't had the legacy of taking care of their families like most in this country because of the extreme degree of discrimination. and this kind of situation can have all kipeds of ramifications. did you loo at any group, i don't care if they're asian or european, arabs, you will find

that they have a legacy of taking care of their families that hasn't been given -- that black men haven't been given the opportunity in this culture. and when they speak of illegal aliens, reagan let 10 million in here. and after that there's another 20 million. where are the jobs for the blacks? host:ne more call. arizona. go ahead. caller: i'm just calling in to make a comment and kind of a question i guess. asking about don't you believe that or probably be that the powers that b they basically want us to be distracted or little trivial things such as race, which is of no importance, because the main thing is one we should be doing the will ofia shoosha, the savor, the savor that was, the father. and martin luther king did say that we should not be worrying about the outside of someone's skin but the inside, the

character of a person. and i think that's very important. just worrying about the aracter because you definitely can. i mean, if you push yourself to do things you can achief anything. host: mr. steiner, he talks about it in terms of a distraction. guest: well, i can't imagine 400 years of hisry being a distraction when you talk about people beingble to tak care of each other. there's a fascinating story about how white middle class grew in america. it grew because of manufacturing in urban areas. but in a terrible twist of fate at the exact moment that black people were getting civil rights, the manufacturing jobs began to pull away from the cities so the same ladder that white people were able to climb up to be able to become part of the middle class was pulled away from black people the moment black people got the rights to join unions, the right to become part of this middle class. so when you think about the rise of the underclass, the first siting that i saw of th word underclass was in 1964 by

the secretary of the naacpnd it was because he saw at that moment in time that the jobs were disappearing from the place where most black people lived. so if we wonder why there has been are so many problems in urban americ over the last few decades and why those problems have led to all sorts of dysfunctional issues, you can take it back to the roots of the time that black people weren't allowed to climb that ladder and the midder that they were there wer't any jobs left. guest: i think he raises a valid point about the role of the black male. it has its vestages in savery. however, if he we look through history black families were largely intact until you see this decline starting in the 670s. and at a pro-- 70s. a fabulous professor offrican americantudies said a black child born in slavery had a better chance of being with both his parents than one does

today. and you think about the context of that, that ourhildren, single heads of hsehos, these are all issues i talk about in this book redefinion of what it means to be black i america and the issues we're grappling with, still rooted in many cases in the slavery and reconstruction and the aftermath. so i think his point is valid about that but the question is what are we going to do about it? host: congressman. guest: i don't necessarily know what we're going to do. i can tell you we're not going to do it if we try to do it individually. it's not going to work. it's got to be an effort where everybody who is agreeable joins in and tries to change things. which gets back to the point about class again because it's hard to separate that out of this discussion, particularly now when you have wealth being acaccumulated by people not because of their race but in spite of it. yet when a factory closes and the lights go out and people lose their jobs, they don't lose the as black people or white people, they lose them as

people who happen to be black, white, latino. when a baby cries for food at night, living in a household that's below the poverty level in this country, the baby doesn't cry in black or white or latino. the baby cries in lunger. so there is shthu of race, class embedded within race that has to be part of the discussion. and the way out kind of like the way we got in. one shovel at a time. it's not a quick fix. but there clearly has to be efforts to mark our progress. and i'm not saying that shirley sherrod is an effort or a marking but i can tell you that every time something like this happens, we tend to be better not worse as a nation because we are forced to come to grips with thing that is we don't always want to discuss. joo host: wung of the things that came out is little bit of her history, econcerning the farmer she was helping. guest: she was 17.

her father was shot in the back by a white man. it was never found guilty. she could have been bitter the rest of her life and used that as an excuse. and what she talks about is how she overcame the legacy of her past and became a better person. host: thank you for the segway. here is a little bit about what she said. >> i grew so much about moving north and getting away from the south, the farms especially in the south. and i knew that if on the night of m father's death i felt i had to do something. i had to do something in answer to what had happened. my father wasn't the first black person to be killed. he was a leader in the community. he wasn't the first one to be killed by white men in the county. but i couldn't just let his death go without doing something in answer to what happened. i made the commitment on the

night ofy father's death at the age of 17 that i would not leave the south, that i would stay in the south and devote my life to working for change. and i've been true to that commitment all of these 45 years. you know, when you look at some of the things that i've done through the years and when you look at some of the things that happened, i wasn't sure what my first two years, inow there's some here too i did my first years at fort valley but so much was happening at home and hen i met this man here, i'll tell you a little bit about him, that i transferred back. and but two weeks after i was at school at fort valley they called and told me that a bunch of white men had gathered

outside of our home and burned a cross one night. now, in the house was my mother, my four sisters, and my brother who was born june 6, and this was september. that was all in the house that night. what my mother and one of my sisters went out on the porch, my mother had a gun. another sister, some of the stuff that you do it's like moving some of the stuff that happens through the years, i won't go into everything, i will just tell you about this. one of my sisters got on the phone because we organized a movement started june of 65, shortly not long after my father's death. that's how i met my husband. he wasn't from the north he's from up south though in virginia. but anyway, one of my sisters got on the phone and called other black men in the county and it wasn't long before they had surrounded these white men.

and they had to keep one young man from actually using his gun on one of them. you probably would have read about it had that happened that night. but they actually allowed those men to leave. they backed away and allowed them to get out of there. but i won go into some of the other stuff that happened that night but i do know that my mother and my sister were out on the porch with a gun. and my mother said i see you i know who you are. she recognized some of them to tell you that she became the first black elected official just 11 years later. and she is still serving. she is the chair of education andhe has been serving almost 34 years. host: you opened up discussion as far as her history. what can you add as far as what you heard?

guest: well, it's just an eloquent story. it's an american story. it's overcoming the legacy of the past and becoming a better person. and so whether you're black or latino or white, i mean, we all have a story. that's the interesting thing about this country. we all have stories. we get better because of them or we shrink and get worse. and she clearly got so much better. and i think it's a testimony to the fact that if you have values and you believe and you trust and you work hard and you play by the rules and you fight when you have to fight to make things right, things eventually become better in your own life and you'reble to stand up and talk about nout where you came from but where you are now and why where you came from made such a difference iget wrg you are. host: she addressed the younger people several times in the speech. and we talked at the start about generational and how they view which. what can we learn from her history and what does it say to the younger generation? guest: let's mie away fromace

and class. let's talk about human beings and the fact that the past is something we all have. and power of forgiveness is incredible as human beings. and when i talk to young people all the time, i constantly say to them you could have a lot of bad things that happen in your life and your family and your history. but if you have the courage to face those things and use it as a means to propel yourself forward, forgiveness is a powerful tool. irblely she could have said i'm not going to help this white farmer because all whites are bad. she didn't do that. and in fact, she went according to the couple over board to help them and to save their farm and they're actually friends. so she showed -- and i don't think anybody of us would fault her had she been bet bitter about her experience, having her father shot to death. i can't imagine what that's like. i'm not old enough to remember the civil rights movement or whatever. but i'm making the point that power of forgiveness is what we

miss in this story and how fabulous it can propel you forward if you allow it. guest: it's interesting to me that her story of redemption and reconciliation only came about after there was a controversy involved that completely miss it had story. and this is the larger point here. that we see so rarely in the media stories of people reaching out and working together. weill hear so often all the stories of people at each other's throats and the anger because the media reward outrage, they reward controversy, they reward drama rather than the types of stories of people working together on aday by day basis. plus, he story would probably never have been told if it weren't for this controversy. because when you look at the newspapers and yo look at tv, you have minutes on tv and pages in the newspaper about wall street and high finance. you don't have any single reporters at major dailies any more having a regular labor union beat or a beat that deals

with the rural part of america that shirley was part of. and telling those stories. so to some extent w have found this very skewed image of what america is if we just look at this media. it's an image of conflict, controversy, and an image that wall street is the decisive factor in america and not the stories of theverage people which we ought to know more about because that would humanize each other and allow us to have those interactions on a very personal basis rather than the basis of fear and conflict. host: good morning. thanks for waiting. go ahead. caller: i have a lot of respect for everyone on the panel and i believe everything what they're saying is absolutely true. just an observation. basically i think that as far as race goes in this country we've had the marches forward at great cost, great human cost, which i have nothing but deep respect for. and basically i'll say that with regard to moving it foard i believe that the paradigm is set up where you're not going to get any further because there's no open dialogue here. and i believe the

administration is too afraid because you have an election coming up and they don't want to alienate white voters. butt the same time, who in the administration is running the political strategy? i just have to ask. that this is the a good opportunity to bring it up in a strategic way where they didn't have to be cuppable at the same time but by a loss i guess someone was out to lunch or who knows what was going on. but whoever missed this opportunity really did the country a disservice. the right wing in this count rirks and i won't say all plidges and all people on the right because i believe there's a lot of good people. but they've been running this campaign of race in code for the past two years. not in everything they do. but on a lot of issues. and i'm a white 43-year-old male and i see it. but the fact is that this has been going on for a while and they just got caught this time because ts idiot. but at the same time the administration is sitting back not taking the whole that i believe they should to step out and represent the interests not just of black people, not just of poor white people but all of us as americans. i'll take my responseff the air.

thank you. host: all of you were nodding. who wants to go first? guest: i think oba as sort of a critic of his administration, i woulsay he has been more head of government than head of state. i think what he has done in fact is done a great deal for the average person in america. health care reform, credit card reform. is the stimulus package which arguably saved mlings of jobs. we just don't talk about it becaus these jobs were lost. and the unemployment -- weren't lost. and the unemployment stayed the same when in fact it might have spiked up without the stimulus. but he's been sort of a somebody who sees government's role in terms of how you can regulate the worst excesses of pitalism and make sure that people are not harmed in that process. but it's head of government. it's policy leadership. it's not sort of the type of moral leadership that franklin roosevelt that talked about as esntial to the presidenc so i think what is interesting

is that obama g elected because he would be a good head of state and he flipped that has become a very good and effective head of government but not a good head of state. not the type of moral leader that people expected him to be. and i think that's where some of the discontent is coming from. host: the op ed section of the "new york times" talks about this issue as far as race being too hot to touch. the writer says that in some ways mr. obama's elections seems to have somewhat confused the conversation. guest: i think we've got to get away from that for a moment. 57% of white americans did not vote for barack obama. 43% did. which was higher than clinton and gore got, by the way. they got 41%. so he did better with the white

vote than both of his predecessors running before him. my point is 57% of any group is a large number of people so in that group you have a number as web points out in his piece, white america is not a mono litsdz. i agree. just like i don't think black america is. having said that, i do think race is too hot to touch. but this president is in a uniquely difficult position because he's got to balance between not being seen as the black president. as you know, miley and a bunch of these guys got into a dustup four months ago about whether there ought to be a black agenda. and of course the white house doesn't want to deal with that because they don't want to be seen as the black president but the president of eryone. so i think he's in a difficult position. he should be more leader of state and this was a lincoln moment for him to address the nation and say like he did in philadelphia and talk about shth issue of race. but think his advisers once again and david axel rod and

rahm emanuel are running strategy to answer the caller's questions at the white house, i think that's fair to say and they're not wanting to deal with this because looking at his poll numbers free fall and i think that's a problem for them. host: you talk a little about it but the second type like we heard in 2008? guest: i don't know if one is there, quite frankly. i agree that this was an opportunity. this wasn't something that was just bad that happened politically this was an opportunity to take a bad situation and to elevate the discussion, to elevate our nation and to give us focus and get beyond it. but in the absence of that it continues to drag along and drag along. here we are day eight or nine still talking about it. so what happened with wall street reform and the extense of unemployment benefits got kicked under the rug because people did not see thiss an opportunity to take a dialogue to be to take leadership. and to from a statesman's position elevate the discussio in such a way that we felt

better about it not worse. so i'm just a little conflicted there and i again go back to the fact that i have real problems when advisers want to suggest that you shouldn't do a, b, c or did becauseou won't get reelected. and i'm not saying the president is listening to adviseers but i know that they are talking about they talk to everybody. at some point in time you've got to govern from your moral center from what you knows right and wrong. . .

guest: his moral leadership ultimately became the release that he spoke with shirley rashad. and that's not why he was president, but on the leadership role, and he's not filled that role. and even though his policies are popular, his numbers are disjoined. guest: look at the numbers, and

then he owed an aapology, i will apologize for t president, they don't know what they are doing, i agree with what they both have to say. guest: the naacp's role in this? i think that they overreacted and following the blog in this instance. i have met at the white house with every president since jimmy carter. and i can tell you there is one defining thing about presidents it's what they believe, a once they believe something, you don't deter them, and i believe that this president wants a better america and clearly wants us beyond this issue of race. and not to get the credit but

helped ithe process. but he's got to step forward and take the conrsation and lead and then we will be reacting to what he said. and that's what we should, but not to glenn beck. host: tennessee valley, go ahead. caller: yes, i want to make a statement, i mean when it comes to race relation in this country, we have to look the everything. we are the only race forcedo come over here. and still forced now to even talk to each other about race. when it comes to the president, and i hear a lot of people, they don't call him president, they say barack or mr. obama. and dealing with the presidency, we know that he's just really a puppet figure. if it doesn't come from the advisors, like everyone is saying, if the poll numbers are

down, it's time for us to ask the president and to get the government and for us as people to give an honest discussion about race. stop waiting for government to do it. host: caller thanks. guest: he's right, i think that was mary matlin and her husband had a spat about race. and iwas funny,hy can't we just sit down at our kitchen table and i go to a black church and start the discussion on a microlevel. i think that's one part but that simplifies it. it has to be raised all the way up from the highest to everyone's kitchen table. and by all means we shouldn't wait and have a discussion about it now. host: he said that we are forced to talk about it.

guest: interesting. guest: the last time that a president spoke about race was in 1965 i believe lyndon johnson. this is one of the most powerful races in nation's history and haven't had thateadership since way back then. i agree that it has to come from the grass-roots and believe that it has to come from the top. i don't care who is our president, it's not just a black issue but an american issue. if we don't begin to have this conversation from the highest levels to e kitchen tables throughout america. then we are not doing our job. he had an opportunity to make this into a lesson and algory, and what we did right. and if he h framed the

discussion in that way, we would see the dcussions at the grass roots and people talking and breaking bread and at synagogues and rotary clubs, and people talking about these things. you have to take the leadership on top and it has to come from the white house. guest: i think what we are ignoring on this discussion that the country doesn't know how they see this thing. i have talked with colleagues and they believe we have a black president and they have id, well, you got a black president, what is wrong. why are we still talking about this. there is a perception and i see you sophia, you are an attorney and where is this inequaty. there is a difference in how this is perceived. and that's where the advisors

need to come in, and you better watch this and you talk about race and piss off half the country, you will have a problem. that's real. host: let's take a break and look at this speech and the role of pitics and how money plays into it. >> you know, i haven't seen such a mean-spirit people as i have seen lately over this issue of health care. some (inaudible) thought we thought was buried resurfaced. we endured eight years of the bush bushes' and (inaudible) because of a black president. host: so the issue of health care and the issue of meanness and what she was talking about. congressman, how do you react to

that? guest: well, i feel strange always reacting this morning. let give me a take, i believe that that mean-spiritedness is there and the double perception that you talked about earlier is there. because people don't have the same experiences. and when they look at someone else that is not where they think they should be, and they get angry because you dare asked, especially a job and angry because they are in a situation they feel threatened. when i leave here and go back to baltimore and drive there, you will see the kind of poverty and deprivation that wants to make us all want to do something about society. to say how do you make things better when you have a black

president, doesn't make sense to me. he could be polka-dot, it's in appalachia and poor black-and-white in baltimore, it's everywhere. we can't assume that we have a black president and what are you crying about. people have t recognize take the president out of this, there is a systematic problem, you can't escape that we have immigration system out of control. and you can't get out of the fact that people are still seeing things in black-and-white, black-and-white. host: how do we change that? guest: it doesn't have to be any of our leaders, it doesn't have

to be president obama but anyone talking about a central issue in our culture. i don't think there is anything wrong with the president saying look at what we have accomplished in our country. look at what we have overcome. look at how we challenged history and made progress on pleuralism and race-ethic advantage. he could say that and still say, but we still have our work to do. and that would address the people that say, what is the problem, we have a black president. the problem is that any society is not erased by the fact that barack obama was elected. and there is nothing wrong looking at the positive things on race, and look at what you

are, an inclusive generation. but also to say that we have our work cut out and these things we need to get done to be that perfect nation. >> one thing i loved in the speech, is this political part. and i don't think tt this naacf food fight, and they pass the resolution. guest: foolt fight. guest: yeah, but it went down from there and someone lost their job and having this discussion now. but because someone doesn't agree with policy. for example, the tea party people in this country have legitimate grievances and concerns. and we shouldn't smear them as racists. i called this out in the post on sunday, and i am glad they

dispelled about the letter. but the naacp has a better charge in my mind of someone being a due-paying member and stopped. and that's another conversation for another day. i disagree because

guest: what he is talking about being a lost tribe of people. one thing i admire about my jewish brother, they never forget the holocaust, and never let anyone forget it. and they are sticking together. and what he is talking about, correct, we don't know who he are, and that's a casualty of how we came here and 300 years of slavery and 100 years of segregation. but we have been defined by circumstances, unlike our italian brother and irish, they came here for the bette life. we didn't have that option. i am a direct generation of those slaves. and our familys are pieced together.

and our pieces are scattered. i have been doing ancestory and found fascinating things. and my friends know their family tree, and know their legacy better than we do. host: congressman, you want to assist? guest: yeah, i haven't been called a negro in a while but we grew u that way. there is an african-american comment, it's not what you call me but what i answer to. the gentleman didn't tell his race. and it has been talked about how to find a way to work together to stop pointing fingers. and he lead his country in a way that was clearly balanced and clearly without blame. now let me just if i might say

one thing about this -- i will go back to the food fight that you talked about. which is an interesting term. and it was, you did it and i did it, and then got out of hand. i don't have a problem with the people on the left or right or conservative or liberal. that has never gotten to me than other people, and the older i get, i am more conservative than i have been in life. we are better as a nation when we have different views that can debate the issues. because the people that want the leadership have something to choose from and as a barometer to figure how the who they want to lead them. and that's the good part that moves back and forth. it's the extremes that scares all of us. and one thing is clear and how

you talked about ms. sharod and we have missed an opportunity to take something that was paramount and central and shape in such a way to make us better. this may be just an asterisk now and a year before now it was last year mr. gates. if we allow this as an asterisk and be a lost moment and miss the opportunity to take advantage of this and help all americans understand who we are, and where we are going. host: it was a teachable moment from gates, what would we lrn from that? guest: we should stop jumping to conclusions. everyone jumped to conclusions

including the president. and saying that the police overreacted. we are in a society if someone puts it on a website and puts on a private publication, we react. than to sit back and understand and then react. host: ben jones has a piece today in "the new york times" and talks about the influence of the internet. and said that the only solution is for americans to adjust our culture to new media and technologies to give us data faster than ever before. we don't have the wisdom in place to deal with it. in time we will it, public leaders will learn to be more transparent. we will teach our children not to rush to judgment.

technology will evolve to better exposed. mr. steinhorn, do you agree? guest: i have students coming in with tons of information and not a lot of knowledge or culture. and when you have a media and there is a food fight on the latest thing on what was said. without going to the original roots, and the source, that's where we have some of our problems. you are right, we have to step back and think and not react. newspapers used to wait on a story until they had named sources. now they are worry if they don't jump out with a story, someone else will take it and that news outlet will get the crit. we don't have the time to check things out and think them through. it's an obligation a all of us o

spend the time of history. my hunch if we did a poll including african-americans about the history and slavery, very few people would know the actual facts and have the knowledge of what the history is. it's incumbent on us as a society that talks about education and the media to make it deeper and full of more facts d wisdom. and that's what he is saying. guest: he makes a great point, context is everything. and as i wrote my book i spent time in a slave cabin and wanted to spend time as a black women of the women that lived there. and as i wrote that chapter, that chapter didn't make it into the book. and i was upset about it. and they said, you can't talk about that, everyone knows about that. but you have to talk about the

hear and now. and you made an excellent point we don't want to talk about that and the fact is that everyone doesn't know it. if we did that poll and even looked at aican-americans and white, i bet that the knowledge poll would be the same. of not understanding the slavery in this country and back to the civil rights movement. guest: if i can make a comment about media. it was important to hit the story of the who, what, where, how and maybe the why, and then check it twice. these are not the days of walter cronkite, but the days of entertainment tonight. let's get it on tv, coming up at six, and guess what, no fact checking whatsoever. and this fact capturing serves

as an incubator to happen over and over. and something is crazy about the facts and how do we get the next set of eyes watching tv and the next set of ears listening to radio station and that's what is driving this. host: pennsylvania, good morning. caller good morning, we live in a very reactionary white america. we live in a very media sensational america that happens to be white. black people we don't have the luxury of being racist, because we are too busy trying to catch up to white america. there is one america as a nation, and as a physical country. but there is black and there is white. and everyone's reality is not the same.

we do have a black president. he's a man that happens to be black. and it's just sad that race in america it's a systemic problem. and once something is systemic, it's like disease. systemic, it will take much, much surgery. it will take many things to make it whole again. host: thanks caller. guest: i would say back again to context, racism, people have thrown that word around so much i don't think that people know what it means. prejudice is the issue that we don't talk about. and what they call unconscious bias, that new theory you don't know that you have these prejudices because we live in white communities and black or

whatever. racism deals with systemic oppression and regression and disenfranchisement. which again is slavery, jim crow, do the process. when we say that someone is racist, we don't know what we are talking about. he may be a bigot but really racist. i don't want to have this discussion, but main street needs to be a part of this discussion. but i think you know what i am talking about, we have words messed up in this dialogue. guest: we have to go back and look at system, so much of politics was driven by the 60's and 70's. lyndon johnson said that when he passed the civil rights laws

that societies would lose much to come. and when you look at white southerns, they were democratic because they liked the water projects, the power authorities and the farm subsidies. and all things that government brought their way. they liked government back then. and now they don't like government, why? because government came in and was the standards for civil rights. they don't like government today because it was the agent that brought civil rights upon their culture. i am not saying that everyone in the tea party and white southerns have problems with prejudice. that's not the point, but the point is why w are in the roots we are today, and a lot has to do with the racial politics from the 60's and 70's and how politics, including richard nixon played on that to get the

votes. we have to hold history accountable to have this discussion. guest: and how black politicians have used it to be elected. and it's wrong altogether, it doesn't elevate us, had keeps us at each other's throats. we need more time, we really do. [laughter] because everyone is looking at this and saying, i have something to add. and they do have something to add. i hope this discussion leaves this sdio into washington and people carry it on in their own ways and communities. because we have toigure out how to get better, not how we stay where we are. and take out the situation where you are democratic and republican and independent or

conservative and liberal. the labels at some point in time, they mean something in what we think and want and believe to be true. but the larger question, do they move us to be a greater nation and into the future. host: we have one more caller from north carolina, alexis. caller: thank you, and thank you for c-span. and i want to say, maybe i am an extremist, but i think there is a consortium going on to keep people from coming together. that started out with slavery and has evolved to poverty. there was a comment made that the gap between t have's and have-not's. i read recently it's quadrupled

since the 1980's, the wealth gap between black and white families. and i think that spills over to politics because that is the way it's controlled. and so the perception is to make it continue that there is this argument between the races. and at poverty level it's how am i going to get food on the table today. that's all they are concerned with. and there is a lot of camaraderie between black's and white's that are impoverished and next door neighbors helping how that fashions out. host: caller, thanks. guest: i am not a conspiracy theorists, and i think that

humpty dumpty didn't jump but was pushed. there is something to keep people at this level of race, and not allowing a larger discussion to come about, how to create a more perfect union. guest: i would like to say to my fellow american and they watched this discussion and we largely agree with each other and have different backgrounds. and one thing i would like to see us do, i don't believe there is a conspiracy consciously. i believe that race is the hottest ticket going. it has been as you mapped out. and johnson's worse fear came true and we know that nixon was a cynical and unhappy man and clearly sad. a guy that could have greatness he had have a different bent to

his personality. we need to sit down and talk to each other. and you don't have to be afraid, no one needs to get a black eye, we don't need to call names. if you disagree, help me see it where you see it. and that's where we need to start. guest: one institution that hasn't been talked about is labor unions. today the most integrated institution is labor unions and represent 9-10% of the economic employees. for people to get together and talk about these things on a common united front, that took place over labor unions for years. but the current incarnation is very inclusive. but they don't have the power that they once had. i don't believe in conspiracies and i don't know who pushed

humpty dumpty, but it's true that the one institution that could provide a voice for people at the bottom. or in the middle of our socioeconomic culture, they had been routinely dismissed, dismantled and attacked. that's one institution that didn't provide this venue. host: the book, color of our skin, and sophia nelson a commentary

"washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span is now available on over 100 million homes, bringing you a direct link to public affairs, politics, and nonfiction books, all as a public service created by america's cable companies. >> this week, "newsmakers" welcomes the senator. field and and, we're