case. our week-long series on the military continues. we will discuss the pentagon's effort to rehabilitate soldiers with traumatic brain injuries. from the nation's capital, this is "washington journal." . .

>> host: it's being held north of the capitol building. james hope, where did glenn beck get the name of restoring honor? >> he said that had goes back to george washington and that the idea is to restore the honor of george washington and other great americans like him. host: i know that he said that the lincoln memoriol was not

chosen on this date to be the march on washington in 1963, but why the lincoln memorial? >> he holds the lincoln memorial as a classical showing in washington. and has said on his show that the national will not prevent these large rallies and he wanted to use the lincoln memorial before it's not able to be used. host: have you heard of the numbers for this rally? >> they are saying 100,000 people, we don't know, it could ten's of thousands and it's hard to get a grasp of the number of people there. host: we are showing the set-up

for the glenn beck historical rally, this was the day before. have you talked to the hotels to see how full they are? >> the hotels around the base of washington are busy. and it's coming up on labor day weekend, and end the summer. but the hotels are expecting an upswing. a lot are bussing up from the mid atlantic and those are filling up. host: why has the gop stayed away from this rally? >> glenn beck is polarizing the rallies and has been accused of reverse racism, and has said a lot of things on the air that are insidious of president obama. beck says this is not a tea party event, that it's about raising money for the special warriors foundation. that gives scholarships to the

kids of people in the military. part of it is that beck doesn't want it to be political, and that's why politicians are avoiding it. and more that politicians don't want to link themselves to beck, with the exception of sarah palin. host: and there are exceptions of family members of martin luther king. and stating that his dream and to avoid all forms. and martin luther king, iii is

speaking. i think we have lost mr. helman. we will move on. and thank you, and now joined by bob ccusa k of the hill. when did al sharpton decide to hold a rally? >> he decided in march, and this is in direct response to the beck rally. and he will be talking about what glenn beck's agenda is the reverse of martin luther king. and that glenn beck and others are pushing for the expansion of state's rights.

and dr. sharpton says this is opposite of mr. king. host: you are talking about the march, and they will end the march near the lincoln memorial. are they marching down? >> yes, it's unclear how many people will be there. but he will be joined by a lot of people including liberal tv personalities. al sharpton was not allowed to speak at the political convention, where mr. obama put some distance between he and sharpton. but sharpton like beck is a political figure. and even though both sides is saying it's not about politics.

it's hard to believe how it's not politically charged with these two competing marches. and you have the right, and you have the left. they are in the same area. there is obviously going to be some racial politics there. and some concern about what will happen this weekend hos. host: and you have alvito king speaking at the beck rally and another king member speaking at al sharpton's? >> yes, those competing speaking and a news rally. about but this is also getting out the base. both sides, we are two months away from the election. this is about it, getting the

base. whatever side you are for, you are going to come out. and it's a test, that both sides are making a case. our side, more people showed up the our rally than theirs. and the national park service will not being doing a count but estimating. host: martin luther king iii is a member of mr. kings' family. we have the numbers to call for republicans, democrats and independents. and if you are planning on participating in the march or rallies, the number for you to call. by the way the reverend al

sharpton will be on this show tomorrow morning as will mr. reid. good morning. caller: hi, how are you. i want to be sure that glenn beck knows that honor was never gone in the first place in america. that his ideals are way out of, you know, out of base. he's not for the majority of america. it really sounds like he is speaking for himself. and i see reverend al sharpton and others trying to stifle this before it's bigger. i see beck publicizing on fox

news and i believe before that he was on msnbc and took off and went somewhere place. i believe he has to have a reality check and realize that america has not lost its honor and no one here, and it's going to stay that way. host: from washington d.c., sandy. caller: hi, i am here for the rally. host: for the glenn beck rally? caller: yes, i have been with glenn beck since the 9/11 and a lot has to do with people that are mormons and religious. and al sharpton did this with others and glenn called him on it. and when he started his bigotry

against mormons, that's what this started to. i never called this a racial thing, i never thought this rally was for that. i thought it was all people that are americans coming together. host: sandy, are you for the tea party as well? caller: you know, i am kind on the fence about that. i am a gop member, and have given a lot of money to the gop. but we don't shy away from glenn, we don't shy away from anybody. but glenn is an independent and always been. host: what do you think of your party shying away from glenn? caller: sometimes i see people

embracing glenn. i don't see it with true republicans. i was never a mccain person. i held my nose and voted for him. that's not our gop. our reagan is our gop. host: derrick, on the independent line, what do you think of the two rallies? caller: i am part of the beck party, i am part of the tea party movement. i give you this, i will give it one more try. i am tired of the economic decline of this great nation. i am tired of the control of this nation by the wall street financial. and i am discouraged because the tea party understands that we are squashed by these entity. but you have other entities and

have turned this into a political issue, and all of those things are nothing but paradigms that have nothing to do with america but the economic decline. host: we will leave it there, if you can't get through for phone lines you can go to facebook, and i want to read some of the comments we have gotten so far. this is from taka simmons and i won't try to pronounce the third name. i would rather stick hot pokers in my eye than to watch that glenn beck. by the way where did he come from? it seems that he puts on a show for fourth grade level.

and wanda grubs shore writes, i think that beck is dangerous, i wish he got less attention and maybe he would go away. there is another comment down here from james galucio, i think it's appropriate for c-span to cover, but i won't be watching. new orleans, democrat, hi. caller: good morning, i want to comment, first of all glenn beck is a former alcoholic. he left cnn because of things he was saying about president obama and others in the political party. and now at fox news, and he is doing this for money. and say what the racists would

say. i won't watch the rally, and he does operate on a fourth great level. host: i want to share some other news with you as we continue to take your callthe two rallies. the beck and the sharpton rallies. but the front page of the "washington times," spending cut plans have gop flinching. a broad plan for spending cuts from the top republican on the house budget committee has posed series heft in the conversation, the road map for america's future has attracted support from some of the gop's most conservative members. but top leads have kept their distance, one being house

majority leader, after blasting the obama administration for spending. and there bane is for making it stick. next caller on c-span's "washington journal "washington journal." caller: hi, tomorrow i will be doing a health seminar and teaching people how to eat healthy and work hard. that's what i will be doing. people need to do that type of thing and not doing rallies. they need to be working in our community. host: barry, austin, texas. independent line. caller: good morning, c-span,

and thank you for taking my call. i am one of those people in the silent majority that i will vote when i am politically aloof. and people like glenn beck open my eyes and to see how people are using politics and utilizing the fear of the unknown to pit us all against each other. and i haven't seen glenn beck, to be the kind of person to reach out to people. and one thing i have learned, you learn more from the people that you disagree with, and he's the master to use that ledger to divide. and that's one reason i find him speaking on the anniversary of dr. king's speech so offensive.

because dr. king was all about sitting down with people that he disagreed with and find a medium. host: dawn, what do you think of the rallies? caller: i wish i could be there, and i was driving through in washington yard, and they had signs up. and we need to get this country back in order again. host: what specifically you would like to see changed? caller: i would like to see us get our factory jobs back. obama has taken this away from us and our cars. i want to see that again. host: if you are participating in the rallies, call us at this number. here is the number section of the u.s.a. today, bernanke may

discuss new tactics. just 200 miles inland where ben bernanke may offer clues about what the fed may do to reinvigorate for economic challenges. in recent flow a down-beat data on business spending on computers and equipment disappointing this week. today the government is expected to lower their estimate of second quarter growth to less than 1.5% of annual rate. the hope was a v-shaped recovery are essentially dashed. from an economic professor from university of oregon. donald, the independent line. caller: good morning, peter. this rally is for a group of

republicans to get together to knock president obama again, disgruntled republicans. i will give the group credit for shunning away from this guy. i have tried glenn beck, i will be honest, i sat down and the guy doesn't make sense. the word is in the dictionary, but he is an idiot. i don't get it. host: rictchie, on the republicn line. caller: yes, no one is calling to say he is a liar. (inaudible) and he's pointing it out, not only what is wrong with

these people. host: joseph in roseville, maryland. you say you are attending the rally, which one? caller: i am go to reverend al sharpton's rally, i am going in honor for what dr. martin luther king died for. glenn beck is against this, saying that obama is a racist against white people. that's ridiculous, he's nothing of the kind. but that is what he's committed to, to be decisive, and i have heard ignorance of obama (inaudible) with reagan and was obstructive after congress passed. host: after weakening some

senior democrats are pressing party leaders to extend the full array of bush tax cuts at least through next year. john, independent line, you on the air. caller: good morning, i am really getting tired of people calling in and making false accusations about glenn beck. i am sure that 90% haven't listened to what he actually says. and people call in and don't have specifics about when they talk against him. if you are going to make accusations against him, please be specific. host: karen, i would love to see all support mlk together and hopefully all will come together

as mlk would want it. carl, you are on c-span, what do you think of the two rallies held? caller: thank you, both rallies are essential when we compare the bible, because basically we have to look, you come to the table. and when we come to the table, we are supposed to, if we criticize, we are supposed to come with a solution. so basically when we compare, since we say we are founded on religious principles, not having to serve but we now have a new country. despite we took the property from the indians, we now have a president. and here we have god, and that's what we should stay focused on,

what god wants. and we are putting ourselves in god's position. and we don't realize it, and what we need to do, a house divided against itself cannot stand, and we are hurting only ourselves, our children, and great grandchildren because of our idiosink -- host: good morning. caller: glenn beck is more of a teacher to me, he teaches more about my country and history, than any class i have ever sat in. and i would like to ask the other ones who have been

speaking this morning. what about tolerant of the way we believe? what about the tolerance of glenn beck and what he tries to get over to the people. have more tolerance. thank you. host: again, glenn beck will be live at 10 a.m. on c-span. and the reverend sharpton rally, the dream, will be taped and aired tomorrow, and the reverend sharpton will be a guest tomorrow morning. next caller, good morning. caller: yes, good morning, everyone in america. three short points. really, i would like that c-span when they have a caller, any caller that calls in and makes statements that are really ridiculous. statements like obama got rid of all the manufacturing jobs, that

obama is taking away the banks. that's not reality. if we are going through the learning curve, and let's really teach. and for the student of glenn beck that hung up the phone, and that he taught her everything he she knows. did he teach her about his drug abuse, and it would be good if glenn beck was not biosed. and did you know that fox news was involved. host: how many points is that? caller: to listen to my fellow americans spew ignorance. and to my fellow american, god is god, religious is what got us confused in the first place.

people, wake up. glenn beck sits in connecticut, making millions of dollars. host: tony, we will leave it there. curtis is calling in, and attending. which rally? caller: i will be attending the al sharpton rally. this thing that glenn beck is doing is racism and division. host: why? caller: because it's sponsored by rupert with tsaudia arabia money. and we have to understand that rupert given a free platform for the hate monsters over there. he gave the republican party a million dollar, and gave glenn

beck a $20 million contract. host: dellpo, indiana, steve, independent line. caller: yes, this is all profiteer, al sharpton and glenn beck. beck is to ruin the tea party and doesn't stand for the constitution or anything. and on the phony wars. and for the left and right paradigm is split further. and to explain this, watch alex jones obama deception to explain this mess. host: and that call was from indiana. this page, time for obama to pull a clinton.

mr. obama must face a repositioning to turn around those in his party. once he's makes a case for fiscal prudence, he can emphasize that the republicans failed but he must offer the electorate a choice, a negative campaign that focus on the past, is doomed to fail after almost two years of the obama policy trying to win elections on blaming bush and self-destruction. gayle, on the republican line. caller: good morning, you got your hands full, don't you. number one, one thing, let's get straight. nancy pelosi has called the shots for the last four years. for where the money goes, what jobs are created that democrats

have held the money purse. there is no spending that or any other thing. and glenn beck has the right to do what he wants to do. number two. we are going to get through this as a country, but there is a tidal wave taking place out in this country now. you have democrats are running ads against obama and nancy pelosi. people in the democratic party. i wish you would uncover ads running, against obama and pelosi now. host: jason wright, via facebook, both of these clowns need to have their heads knocked together as larry and curly, to use their names in the same sentence with dr. king. amy, good morning to you. caller: good morning. i want to comment there is so

much venom here with the democrats that are calling in. i think that glenn beck has a right and the people with him have a right. it's just regular people trying to turn this country around. i mean they need to see what is happening here. it's not racism, most of the people going would gladly vote for herman kaine or j.c. wright. we need to see what is happening here, no one is upset about all the money that obama is receiving from b.p. it's all george bush. this needs to be a peaceful thing and have people with their say. host: we will leave it there. heck of a time from the line of fema, put yourself in my shoes,

you just came out of a meeting where i can't make it happen, and the federal government isn't doing what they are doing. and he comes out and says i am doing a heck of a brown. yes, that mr. brown, mr. brown of fema and all that went wrong after hurricane katrina is in new orleans and the event that made him poster child. he is delivering his program from downtown new orleans, and from his callers that call him brownie. and doing a heck of a job, and you are doing the show from louisiana, wow, that's gutsy, for a few minutes mr. brown discussed the newspaper article and the behavior of the police,

and suggested an america that lost its mojo, to use his phrasing. harry shear, was posted and the failure of the levees. and mr. shear that spoke about the failing in new orleans, and was sent after the storm. in "the new york times," what do you think of the glenn beck/al sharpton rallies being held? caller: well, i tell you, this glenn beck a complete and total lunatic. host: why do you say that? caller: because he tries to

revise history. he's a revising history buff. this is is a failed shock-jock, and in this area of division, and he's a wedge issue in and of himself. this guy is a complete and total lunatic, no one, i repeat no one should pay attention to this person. host: mike, good morning. caller: i don't watch glenn beck all the time. but half of my family is black. so i watched his black history programs. and everybody in the audience who was black was astounded that they never heard of these kinds of things. so i give glenn beck credit for

at least teaching above the fourth grade level. host: karen, facebook in and you are airing the beck rally live, and it seems you should program both. why preference? it's not a question of preference but resources. and beck will be live, and sharpton's will play on this next at 4:30 p.m., and reverend sharpton will be a guest tomorrow. glenn, which rally are you atte attending? caller: i am going to the glenn beck rally. host: when you are leaving fayetteville? caller: i am leaving soon. host: did you have problem

getting a hotel room? caller: i am having to stay further out in the normandy hotel. host: why do you feel strongly enough -- the normandy in virginia? caller: the normandy hotel in d.c. host: sure, why do you feel strongly to drive seven hours to spend the day at a rally? caller: i think one only has to listen to the comments on c-span this morning about the division. and the concern that a lot of americans have for the way we are going. i have been a fan of glenn beck for i guess six or seven months. and i don't watch him everyday, but i do watch him probably two or three times a week. i believe strongly in what he is trying to accomplish for america to take us back to the roots of our constitution and our founders.

i believe that we as a people need to pull together. conversely it's the al sharpton rally, i think, kind of indicative of what happens, we are still trying to be divided. but i think tomorrow is going to be a successful demonstration. there is seven buses or people leaving at 4:30 in the morning from fayetteville. i don't know what it looks around the rest of the state but expect that winston/salem too. host: thank you, this is an indepth look behind the oil spill. this is an indepth article of a behind-the-scenes look of the activities of b.p. and the

federal government. by the way we have been covering all of these hearings that have been held currently in houston, texas. if is a topic that interests you, you can go to c-span website and everything we have, you type in deepwater horizon, and get that. a couple other news articles, a lot of interesting stuff. new yorks daily news, the attack of the current rogue predecessor would be held to his behavior. my dad would be turning over at

the league of the women. and elected at the house in 1944 and one of the greatest of his era. but with a trip to the bahamas, lead to expulsion, that's in the daily news. and we have an article about the news of the bush re-election chair came out. nelman's outing stirs, with the electoral party officials, walking out of the closet, and many suspected who ran george bush's re-election is gay. and to work actively for

same-sex marriages and classed with social values. quote, i could care less if ken is a gay, saying the republican national member, co-founding the first caucus within the rnc. and that's the writing in the "washington times." this full-page ad, a message from the egg farmers, the potential eggs have been removed from store shelves. and you may be wondering if the eggs are safe to eat, yes they are. this is sponsored by the american egg farmers. this is the front page of the business section of the "new york times" this morning. and an odd article, a picture of a wind turbine, and on the

radar, and that's the problem. the u.s. military has found a new menace hiding here in the vast emptiness of the mojave desert. these could be indistinguishable from radar, turbines could reach 400 feet, and making it hard for air traffic controllers to give accurate information to pilots. next call, bob. caller: good morning, peter. i am not calling in anger, although i am a democrat. but i am not calling as a democrat, i am calling as a very concerned citizen. i was born in 1939, so consequently by the time i

started in school. and one the big burning questions, and it kept coming up all the way through high school. how could the german people allow naziism, and hitler to happen. we are seeing a bit of same thing now. there is concern in the country. there is fear. there is uncertainty. and these elements make people think irrationally. we have to stop looking for scapegoats. and consequently we hear from beck, limbaugh, these scapego s scapegoats, being blacks, and muslims, and these people are acting in anger. and this is how hitler came to be. having his ministry early on.

host: where you are going with this? caller: where i am going with this, the same mood, the same attitude is present in this country. and people are being -- because they are frightened, because they are concerned, they are becoming a little irrational, and being manipulated by this so-called movement to get our country back. host: ok, we will leave it there. next call dave, newport, florida, hi. caller: hi, i am calling and want to thank c-span for taping al sharpton tomorrow. tomorrow i won't be watching, but i watch you every morning. the whole c-span, and it's a good thing. i appreciate it. thank you, peter.

host: ok, scott on the independent line. caller: hi, i want to say i am libertarian, and i don't really buy either of the party lines. i think what is comical, you had a couple of callers early this morning say that they felt that glenn beck's show was like on fourth grade level. and then you have another gentleman call in and said he couldn't watch it for more than 10 minutes because he doesn't understand it. i pretty much think that says it all. host: this tweet from lg 22, 38 one, sharpton never cared about "if i have a dream," what has he done on this occasion. here are some national stories,

somotayor spoke and c-span will bring this speech. the front page from florida, doubts about glenn's integrity and honesty. that's in the herald this morning. chicago tribune, ex-governor, now lone target. the charges have been dropped against his brother, robert blagojevich, only now on the governor. here from new orleans, katrina rewrites the books on education in history. this is an interesting article about education and what has happened because of katrina, in the education system down there. and our "washington journal" on sunday will be all about the

fifth anniversary of katrina. including the superintendent of schools for st. bernard parish. michigan michigan race in and that poll. and new jersey, govern christie and his wife making money. and from london, nine fold wise in patients turning to surgeons for obesity. that's on the front page of the "guardian" out of london. george, you get the last word. caller: i get the last word?

that's strange to my life. there was a caller that called in about hitler, and said that people were just angry. and had finished two world wars and had their rights cut off and their commerce was in shambles. and it was a reaction to fear. and the sad thing is happening in america, the exploitation of racism of the rights. gathering from an extreme minority of people trying to be seen into a majority. i think that the exception is the south where racism is pervasive and continues to be pervasive. and the people that go on the direct voice of the plantation owners, will have these opinions and fears because it's talked to

them in the public system. it's been talked to them in their church system. but the rest of america is peeling away. and the sad thing, you have google and all of this technology today. if you are going to plan an event, one thing to know what else is happening on that day. and for glenn beck to say he didn't know it was martin luther king day. that's a lie. and those following glenn beck -- host: george, we will have to leave it there, we are running late. if you want to continue this conversation, go to facebook.com cspan. and you can go to our tweeter

site, and here on the "washington journal," we will turn our attention to the fifth anniversary of katrina and how to prevent the next one. >> we got plenty of people in government that all of us can talk to inside of d.c., what we need to do is get out beyond that beltway in d.c., out across america and hear from the constituents. >> while congress is on summer break, some are holding townhall meetings in their district, we are covering some of them, go to the c-span library and hear what your congressmen are saying, all

searchable and free. >> we have a generation that didn't have the arts in the public schools, these are now the 20 years old. i am considvery concerned about group of people. >> michael kaiser on c-span's "q & a." tonight america's industrialist, david nasa, stephen wat's covers his book, book tv tonight in prime time and every weekend on

c-span 2. "washington journal" continues. host: stephen flynn is the president of the center for national policy. and they have issued a new report called, before the next katrina. from president and congress on gulf coast issues, what are you looking at? guest: i took a group of folks to new orleans the middle of this month, and we are looking at how b.p. oil spill would affect this region and how it would work with the gulf to respond to a katrina-type hurricane, and we have issues to tackle those. one reason that we have approached in this country

disasters, we wait until they happen and time to respond. you need to do a lot of stuff in advance of a forecasted disaster. this season is to be a messy hurricane season. so far so good. four to six major hurricanes are still likely to form for the rest of the season. and if one of those hits the gulf coast, on top of the spill, you have a real mess. our recommendation is to do some things up front, and how do we assess and mitigate the damage. and the second piece, while we are good at getting people out of harm's way. we are not good at how to get them back. a community is not a community if you don't reoccupy it. and the concerns of the

hazardous spill, and the longer it takes to get people back, the less likely they will go back host: so you may end up with a ghost town problem. so the recommendation is on the events of the disaster, and post-disaster. we are better, we have lessons learned from katrina. but what can we do upfront of the insurance issues and how this disaster would play out. that's why we need a lot of work. host: stephen flynn, did you look at the levee and flood protection issues, and how are we five years later? guest: some good news of the work done around the flood control system. i was a national security guy, and i looked first at the levee system in the new orleans area in the 2000 time frame.

i was like everyone after 9/11 looking at things what would terrorist do. and i looked at new orleans and it's like a bathtub around it, and the risk was a lot of wind coming at it and not being well maintained. two things have happened since katrina, the maintenance is improved. and still only ready for a 100 years storm. that sounds like 99 years is go to go, but it should be a 300 years storm, and not category iii. and as big as katrina was, it veered to the east. so new orleans didn't take a direct hit. but the system still failed. and so here if we are talking about a more direct hit at that

force, we don't know how well the levees would work. we are working at getting people out of harm's way. and the response is not people stranded like on the roof and in the stadium on days on end. but to get people back to their homes. today five years after katrina, and still wrestling and those would be compounded. host: preparing for the next katrina, stephen flynn is our guest, and the numbers for republicans, democrats and independents. part of your plan talks a lot about b.p. and their responsibility. how does that play into

preparing for the next katrina? guest: one issue that we found that was really quite distre distressing. the b.p. solution is not working well. and there is a big cash economy in the southern louisiana area, and people don't have all the documentation to say, i have had this impact because of the spill. the economy for the gulf is tourism and fishing and the boats and the moratorium of offshore drilling and the boats out to the rigs. so a lot of people have been displaced and sources for that. their is no claim process that his worked well for them. and they have gone to the nonprofit organizations for

help. so those organizations, we know after disasters, the red cross and salvation army, these folks are down on their knees to provide support as a safety net for the people of the b.p. oil spill. and they have no extra wherewithal to deal with a post-disaster. and b.p. should be made whole on what they have spent up. host: another recommendation is clarifying the federal chain of command. does that seem that the federal chains were not coordinated? guest: yes, we looked at the response of the disaster, the oil spill did not use the typical disaster framework for an earthquake or hurricane. it's under a national law of

1990, and the retired of the coast guard plays that role. and you have b.p., being the responsible party with a much different role. that has not worked so well. so one issue is that we have a hurricane, and oil is mixed into it potentially. and a storm surge picks up a wall of water and move its like a tidal wave, and hits the gulf coast, and if it has oil in it, we see a lot of conflict between the two. and the federal government needs to work this out. to know this plan, and now they are confused. host: preparing for the next katrina, james from florida. caller: hi, i have a question

for mr. flynn. the area around new orleans and the mississippi river, they are so experienced with moving barges, and why couldn't they have barges stored in an area fit out with moeb ho-- mobile he trailers and hospitals and to areas that people could access and move those barges anywhere. guest: james, i love that, i wonder why we don't use the mississippi river, the greatest transportation highway ever designed by act of god. it's a powerful tool. clearly some of our options and

some are explored. but one that i like better, the navy is leading now a major center that is a huge facility right on the banks of the mississippi. one thing that new orleans is looking at, and i commend this effort, is to use that as a shelter for the many people that are more disabled and would have challenges getting away from the region. why is that important? now we would have to spend 60 hours to get them out, and now a hurricane could move from yucatan to florida, and if you could move those people and not have that false alarm. we need to think of the shelter evacuation issues . . documented and

should be acknowledged and celebrate celebrated. we have done some of this very well. but because you have this spill, a major disaster but we didn't treat it like a traditional natural disaster and you put potentially on top a hurricane we are forecasting ahead, met with nonprofits and business leaders to look at their concerns and share recommendations. one of the suggestions is to build on like what houston did. we had small businesses are the back of every community and we know right now if they are knocked out as much as 30 days, almost impossible to get back. so one thing we sucked is the small business administration and chamber of commerce work

with systems outside the region to allow companies that don't directly compete but know each other have backups. so they could have a buddy on the gulf coast, gulf coast is hit they have a buddy in nashville. that could work well. it just builds on what happens spontaneo spontaneously after katrina and formalizes it. host: patricia, in gaithersburg, maryland. independent line. caller: i was calling, i have a comment and a question. i live in maryland now but i'm a native of south louisiana and grew up in the baton rouge area. i wanted to know if you know specifically what they have done about the levee situation.

when i grew up in louisiana we used to hear all the time when i was in high school that the levees were not going to hold if new orleans ever got hit by a major storm, that the levees were not going to hold around lake pontchartrain and this has been going on since i was in junior high school. they knew way, way, way beforehand a that those levees were not going to hold. host: we got the point. dr. flynn. guest: this is a very serious issue still today. we were talking earlier, but the fact the army corps of engineers is working to build it to a one in 100-year event. most of everything around the country when we build for things that could pose a water challenge is at least a 300 to

500-year event. we know new orleans is more exposed than it was because it lost at who of coastline. we know that the system is a fragile one. it is a combination of flood walls, earthen levees and cement walls and pumps. a very sophisticated system, not still ready for the direct hit. so there are serious problems. they are better at handling the evacuation. the broad issue is as a country we are letting our infrastructure not keep pace with what is designed and what we need it to do. this is something we need to look seriously at. we need to look seriously at these investments to make sure we can ride out a storm. host: do you know how much has been spent in federal dollars rebuilding new orleans in >> i do not know that number. it has been a lot. the city was absolutely devastated.

almost drowned from the event and destruction of homes, loss of property, schools in the thousan thousands, all these problems. we need to remind ourselves that the gulf coast was hit. the direct hit was just a little bit to the west of gulfport, biloxi area. and you still drive along the gulf coast which hugs the shore and you will see cement slabs that used to be where homes were and where businesses were. we had folks who talked about going back and there is nothing there. homes that were moved several blocks away by the water. that region got hit pretty hard. host: rock hill, maryland, joan, on the air. caller: hello. there is a new documentary coming later on this month called the big uneasy. and the theme of this is that

the disaster was not a natural disaster, it was a man-made disaster. the author puts the culprit on the corps of engineers. he discusses a whistle blower action, and this whistle blower, who was vindicate d, stated tha the pumps that were put in, the new pumps at the post-katrina that the army corps of engineers put it are defective and everyone knows it, it seems, it the government and it is being silenced. and i'm wondering how any insurance company can function in louisiana. host: that is one of the recommendation that are made. guest: clearly we have an issue with the challenge of dealing with the complex system and making it work. the corps of engineers took a

black eye on this. there is lots of blame to cast around on why the flood control system failed when katrina hit and why it still has challenges. the control of it is not purely corps of engineers. parish president thaz have a piece of it and on it goes. a concerted effort has been made to upgrade it under a tight time frame. i'm not aware of the specific issue you highlighted here and i hope we are addressing it. the bottom line is one of the issues that does happen is when we lose faith in the systems there you can't get insurers to take on the risk. they have to have confidence that things will work out the way they are advertised. insurance is a huge issue there because we know that is how you recover. people need help. if they bought insurance they expect to get a claim paid. one thing we worry about with the oil issue is the oil will mix with the water damage and flood and wind damage and you

will get into a liability free for all that will leave home and business owners in an insurer's no man's land. host: the video we were showing was taken in august of 2006, one year after katrina. eric hansen was down there. those regular viewers of "washington journal" will know we did a complete program with both state senators and house in the lakeview area with the toyota in the pool. this is some video that was shot while we were down there. on sunday, to let you know, the full "washington journal" will be about the fifth anniversary of katrina. we will be joined by the host of the greater new orleans data center and look at schools there. the superintendent of st. bernards parish will talk about the schools then and now. we will talk with a professor of

the university of new orleans about the population demographics of the area, who left, who came back. right now we are talking with steven flynn. they have come up with a list of recommendations for preventing another katrina-like disaster. the numbers are on the screen if you would like to dial in. george calling from pennsylvania. caller: good morning. you just mentioned about preventing disaster in new orleans. my recommendation is to ban all new residential housing and move the residential people outside of the city on high ground. louisiana -- keep saying louisiana -- new orleans, i believe, is 12 feet below sea level. it takes constant pumping, 24

hours a day, to keep the water out. then you have to maintain the levees. you should move the residents out gradually over a period of time and create a rail system for people who want to work there. guest: i think you have hit a very important issue broadly about how we have to think in this country with regard to preparing for disasters. the fact is 90% of americans, if they just stay put for the life of a mortgage, 30 years, 90% of us are likely to be hit by some form of natural disaster whether earthquake or flooding or major high damage. where we live and how we live puts us at minister exposure. -- more exposure. climate change challenges says we will see a greater frequency so we have to think hard about where we are living and how we locate our homes an businesses. i will have to say you need to

be somewhat surgical. in new orleans there is some high ground. we have to remember why new orleans exists. it is at the mouth of the most important transportation system this country has. all the stuff that we have up in the midwest, farming, moves by barge down the mississippi and you need people to live where they work. i like the public transportation link being to the region -- linking to the region. we have to discuss them versus putting it back to where they were. host: we have a tweet. what about taking electrical transformers off poles and pwrubg the lines -- burying the lines. they are the number one reason for power outage. guest: there is a who the we could do. i would say our overall infrastructure whether power grid, electrical lines, utilities, water systems, most of it goes back to the 19th century. certainly in the northeast and south and was built in the early part of the 20th century. we have to upgrade it.

we need to upgrade it thinking of mitigation, designing to withstand disasters and thinking in these ways. some parts of the country with less exposure you can keep them above ground. areas that will continue to get hit you need to think of burying them and we could put fiber on particular -- fiberoptic lines and other needs as we think of it. but we have to be willing to take a more serious look in advance of disasters of how we can withstand them better. host: is evacuation the big issue? how low do you want to go? new orleans is below sea level. you can't hold back nature. guest: up to a point. we can hold back if the system works with as advertised. there is high ground in there as there is in any city typically. some areas are more exposed.

one thing that happened, between 1970 and 1990 it was one of the quietest periods for hurricanes in our history. if you track back as we did to 1800. we just had a lull. during that time we said let's move people into areas that were traditionally heavily exposed. those decisions don't make of sense. you have to recalibrate where we let people live. in terms of some tools, the bottom line is most disasters are man-made because of things we didn't do up front or how badly we managed the aftermath. that is how we lose lives and property. but as a continent, 90% of us live in a place -- west coast the big crack. heartland it is floods. we live where we live because that is where communities are. that is where the economy works. but we have to invest more up front and after to manage these risks. host: mike in biloxi, mississippi, on with steve

flynn. caller: yes, sir. i live down here and just the other day i was over in the city on the other side of the coast and there is still houses there that all that is left are slabs. and people haven't moved back and they are not going to move back. i heard that there were 250,000 people who had moved to dallas and over that way and that is a huge chunk of our local economy. host: mike, were you there five years ago? caller: i was there but i left and came back. i lost my home. it was terrible. and while we have made strides back we still haven't come back 100% and it probably will be 20 or 30 years and by the time it is done the culture will be

different, the economy won't be the same. there are 200,000 or so people who just up and left. without those people being here we have a tourism economy, we have gaming. those people gamble, eat at restaurants and when you take 250,000 people away and they are not spending money, that is going to hurt us in the longer term and it will take that much longer to get that tax revenue back and money back into the economy. host: what kind of work do you do there? >> i was doing boat work, working on boats and stuff. it is going ok so far. i'm thinking about moving because i haven't really found much work recently. host: can you give us a quick update on the oil situation? any oil coming up on the beach?

people still cleaning up? caller: yes rb, they are findin oil. it is not as much as was coming in. but b.p. is covering up a lot. i don't know what they did. i don't know if at the paid somebody off or whatnot. but there is a ton of oil there below the water and it will be coming in the next 20 years. and nobody will be buying our shrimp or seafood. so the next 10 to 20 years these guys who bought boats and took out mortgages on boats, when nobody buys the shrimp and seafood essentially the sales will go down and they won't make money. guest: we heard a lot of of that when we were there in our visit on the coast, and we know the three legs of the stool is the economy, tourism and fishing and those have been taking direct hits.

one thing we heard of real concern is should you get hit again people have to evacuate, mandatory evacuation. they may not come back. some surveying that was done for the coastal community by a public health school before capping the well in late june and early july, they found that 25% of the folks were thinking like you, maybe i have to move. communities don't behave like communities when people pack up and go. that is why our recommendation this time we need to think in advance of the hurricane and be front-loaded to help the region. i don't want to see it turn to a ghostown. it is a beautiful part of the word with a unique culture and hardy group and we as a, knowing that this is a foreseeable risk, a hurricane on top of the spill, need to be front-loaded to help. that is one message we tried to

drive. we are releasing the report today at the newseum and we have media folks. our hose is the recommend -- our hope is the recommendations are something the congress and government acts on. we are also praying that you don't get hit by another hurricane. host: tina a republican from alexandria. caller: i'm calling because was it really katrina that caused the broken levees or think about installing levees properly? shouldn't they have properly installed levees or do we keep saying this is katrina? so if there is another hurricane shouldn't we make sure the levees are installed properly more than what happened during katrina? host: we got the point.

guest: most disasters are not the result of the force of nature but what we did in advance and failed to do afterwards. we see continued problems with levees not just in this region. i wrote a book about the edge of disaster and i looked at the left she system -- levee system in california in the fruit basket of the world. the sacramento river valley and san joaquin area. the levees are in terrible condition. they have homes not being well maintained. governor schwarzenegger has raised the focus. people in new england sit behind earthen works and dams. it is across the country. our forbears were pretty smart. they were taming a continent to make it a place to live and work and invested in an effort to make the environment safe. we have stopped making that investment. that is something that will come

back to haunt not just people of new orleans but every where. you will find systems that we have expectations that will be visible when disaster hits because they will fail. host: do you guesstimate the cost of a necessary rebuilding of the infrastructure? guest: the ones that we rely on by the american society of civil engineers just had a report card in 2008 and bakley we are -- basically we are getting d's. we drive by, there are potholes. water mains break. we know that we are tied pickup traffic. electricity. we have to pray every summer when it gets hot that the lights stay on. this is how a third word country works, not the greatest superpower. so the price tag is high, in the trilli trillion-plus investment like when we bailed out wall street. but it is an investment. our forbears invested with their

sweat, treasure and ingenuity because it made us competitive. the idea that we can't afford this investment today and leave our grandchildren with the ruins like rome is unacceptable. host: joan is in new orleans. please go ahead. oops, melanie is in new orleans. sorry, melanie. caller: has anyone investigated the fact that all three of the levees that broke at the same ti time? 17th street canal broke. london avenue. mystical all at the same time. host: where are you going? caller: i believe that all three could not have pwrepb on their -- broken on their own. >> are you seeing conspiracy? caller: that is what i'm led to believe. host: were you there five years ago? caller: yes, i was. and i have rebuilt and i'm back. host: tell us your story very

quickly. caller: that saturday we left, the saturday post-katrina we left and went to repaprairi pra. host: how long were you gone? caller: we came back it prairieville and i'm in my home now. i had 8.8 feet of water in my house for two weeks. host: before we get an answer from stephen flynn, melanie, i'm going to tell you, two of the recommendations that the center for national policy is recommending to prevent another katrina-like disaster, address the mental health crisis. did you suffer after katrina being out of your home? caller: i had a feeling that someone died, you know? the feeling that someone died.

and i guess no one died. thank god all of my family was ok. then i came to realize -- i didn't go to a mental health professional. i came to realize that i was mourning over the city. it hurts me. host: i appreciate that. one other thing, they recommend insurance carriers need to conduct aggressive outreach. what was your experience with your insurance carrier? caller: the insurance people were terrific. i was with louisiana citizens fair plan and they did everything -- they did not want to give everything. everything was because of the flood, flood, the flood. and the flood insurance, i didn't have enough flood insurance because that was the first time i had been in that house since 1976. that was the first time we ever flooded. host: thanks for calling in and for sharing your story.

guest: a lot there that we have heard particularly on the community is where the identify city and it is not just the house or the property. it is a big part of our lives and they were hit bad. one thing that happened with the b.p. oil spill that is a disaster was it brought flashbacks. people back to katrina. we heard from a number of folks who say they don't think they could do it again. i think some of them are so hardy they probably will take again. but we need to recognize that they are hurt and the mental illness issue is a serious one. people are depressed and understandably with what they are facing. and there are investments we can make. the insurance morass is almost insane. you have a federal flood insurance, private insurance that course pieces. there is some when oil is involved. a recommendation is that the president and state insurance commissioners should direct companies to do two things.

reach out to the policyholder and make them clear they shouldn't have to hire a lawyer, to explain the coverage. people need to know that in advance so they know what to do. the other is locate the insurance people in the shelters, in the places that are the evacuation centers so that people can get answers right away. those are important things. on the conspiracy challenge, when systems break they tend to break badly and cascade. we know the system was poorly maintained, had a lot of problems that are well documented. every evidence that i have seen is it just failed across the board. there was no malicious intent. mother nature gave a nudge but the system was not maintained and with most engineering systems it is cascading and that is what seemed to happen here. host: robert, burlington, north carolina. caller: good morning. i was an architect for 27 years in the city of new orleans. levees will never hold on a

category four or five, even a three. guest: right. host: they will not hold because they are sitting on gravel. they have no cantilever strength, no piling strength. they have nothing to hold them directly up. the reason they failed, they fell over just like a domino would. the ground in the new orleans area, by the way, for the person that previously spoke, the one that said it was like a 15-foot below sea level, it is only 10 feet to give you the correct number. but when the levees failed, they failed by falling back, not toward the water. guest: there is a lot that the corps has done. but these huge environmental challenges are the soil, they created different systems to

deal with the fact they would flip over like a card. but it is not up to category three or beyond. and we know with a loss of coastline and probability of hurricanes the region will be hit. our recommendations are focused on right now, getting information to people, providing the support up front to things like the nonprofits and others we turn to, make sure they are whole and have plans to get people back and support them instead of winging it again after a hurricane. we should have learned this. if there is one thing we should have learned after katrina, it is that these things are predictable. disasters are often caused because of what we fail to do up front and what we do about recovery. we have to get out of the mindset that they are unpredictable. you can't plan for them. that is nonsense. we can and we must. host: last call for stephen flynn from new orleans, joan, republican.

joan? caller: good morning. i wanted to say first of all that the person who did say we were 10 or 12 feet or 15 feet below sea level was wrong. we are between five and 10 feet in some areas below sea level. the second point i wanted to make was that the retaining walls or flood walls which the national media have been calling since katrina happened levees were not levees. they were built several years ago about -- by the army corps of engineers with substandard materials and bad engineering practices. and the 17th street canal retaining wall was caused to break by the new orleans waterboard directing in that canal several days before katrina hit which was a ridiculous thing for them to do and they weakened an already

substandard material and therefore when the surge hit the canal, the levee on the lakeview said broke. on the orleans parish side. host: were you there, tell us your story quickly. caller: we were there until the day before it hit. host: what area of new orleans do you live in? caller: metaire, which is a half mile from new orleans. host: close to the 17th street canal. caller: yes. the only problem we had, we lost the roof on our place. but we came back and lived in a suburb of shreveport. guest: new orleans is a beautiful, one of my favorite cities and there is some higher ground and some lower so it needs a flood control seal that

works. this is something everybody needs to ask questions about because we are sort of facing it. let me leave with a final thing, which is one thing that struck me when our group went around the mississippi coast. we stopped at the campus of the mississippi, the three old academic buildings there are still shells. on the lawn stands a 500-yard line -- 500-year-old live oak tree. that tree, since columbus, has been standing there. it was built to adapt to the environment and to bend, not break. we need to draw lessons from that live oak. host: this is stephen flynn's book, "tedge of disaster." this is the report out and this being released today. if people want to read this for themselves. guest: it is on the website.

center for national policy all one word, dorg. host: our weekend programming will have fifth anniversary katrina programming. on the "washington journal" on sunday the entire program is from new orleans and about katrina. allison plier, the greater new orleans data center will talk about the economy, along with the superintendent of st. bernard's parish schools. and the professor at the university of new orleans will be talking about the population demographics. now on book tv also there will be some archival anniversary programming on the air. there is a set of "dallas morning news" photographers who took a lot of pictures during katrina. they have a book out, had a book out.

and doug brinkley, "after the deluge" will be airing on spao on the weekend. bush on c-span 2. coming up a discussion on g.p.s. tracking, a police and the fourth amendment. first a campaign 2010 update. >> today we are focusing on the tennessee governor's race because c-span's digital bus which is visiting different cities is in knoxville. aboard the bus is jack mac em roy -- mcem-roy. if you could begin with telling us these two candidates and their 10 newer in tennessee politics -- tenure in tennessee politics. the republican is the mayor of knoxville. he is completing his second

term. mcwherter has not held political office but he is the son of the very popular governor of tennessee from the mid 1980's to the mid 1990's. it looks lake we are going to have a -- looks like we are going to have a pretty spirited campaign. they are both businessmen and touting their background and ability to bring jobs to tennessee. >> the mayor survived a primary challenge earlier with 48% of the vote. has he since then gotten the backing of his fellow republicans? >> the republicans will rally very much around bill haslem. he and his family have been republican stalwarts in tennessee for quite a while. the lieutenant governor, one of his opponents in the primary, certainly will be a strong

backer. he will be working with bill haslem if haslem is elected and they will be political allies. a congressman who ran second in that race, i think, was a little bit embittered at how things went. i don't know how vigorously he will work for the haslem campaign. but he is a solid republican and i'm sure he will be getting on board, too. >> the latest polls in the race show that mayor haslem is ahead a little bit of his challenger.r what are the issues in this race and undercurrents? >> the big concern for tennesseans as for most is the jobs and the economy. a recent poll showed that about half rated that as the top is e issue. both of the candidates will be

talking about jobs and the economy. bill haslem is the son of the finder of pilot corporation, the largest travel center owner in the country. he is very wealthy and i think mike mcwherter will try to make an issue out of haslem's wealth and connection with gasoline and diesel distributing and such. so, i'm sure that will be an undercurrent. but i think the real core issue will be the state budget and bringing jobs to the state. >> does mcwherter face an uphill battle in that he is trying to replace the current governor who is term limited? >> i think actually the current governor is mcwherter's

strongest asset. they are both democrats and they both have business backgrounds. he has been a popular and successful governor and he endorsed mcwherter. all of his ads say he has the governor's endorsement and i think that will play heavily to that. >> let's show our viewer the latest ads in the race. >> imagine a governor more interested in fixing things than playing politics. born and raised in rural tennessee where he bit a successful business and raiseed a family he has a tennessee first jobs plan to cut taxes for businesses that create jobs at home. he will veto any proposed income tax and cut wasteful spending. he won't just fix his four wheeler, he will fix his economy. >> tennessee first, tennessee skwrbs. let's roll up our she was and

get to work. >> i'm darrell waltrip. my friend is running for governor of tennessee. we have a lot in common. we love or families and have strong favorite and we love tennessee. he is an exceptional leader. he has an incredible ability as mayor of knoxville. won't you join me in vote fog are bill haslem and we can all end up in victory circle. >> is there a large contingency of nascar voters there? >> there is. and the university of tennessee football fans, i think bill haslem wants to make sure he doesn't come off as appearing elitist and will be touching on those popular cords as much as possible. >> your paper the knoxville news

sentinel will be hosting a debate between the two candidates on october 7 at the university of tennessee knoxville which is where our bus is headed later this morning. thank you for your time. >> my pleasure. i enjoyed it. >> later we are traveling to the university of tennessee. then this afternoon the bus will go to the farragut middle school on behalf of charter communications. for more information about our digital bus and the outreach go to our website. c-span.o c-span.org/bus. host: the fourth amendment reads the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers an effects against unreasonable searchs and seizure showers shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or

things to be seized. now on the washington judge is professor oren kerr of george washington university. there have been recent cases particularly in the tpheupbt district in california -- in the ninth district. what have they been? they have mostly involved g.p.s. surveillance by the government mostly in the narcotics setting. the government is installing g.p.s. devices usually about the size of a bar of soap and they have adhesive on them and stick them to the underside of a car of a drug suspect and watch where it goes. it allows the government to learn where the car is over time and can watch it for weeks or months. then the question is what to do with this part of the constitution back to the 18th century when applied to a set of facts that are 21st century. host: do you need a warrant at this point for the police?

you say the government, but it is the police department branch of the government. guest: it is the police department branch but it would applied to the government more broadly. most courts have said no warrant is required but a few have said it is required. so there is a division among the judges as to how to apply the fourth amendment to this. host: can you tell us specifically about one of the cases and who are the defendants and the litigants? guest: one arises out of california the united states versus moreno involving narcotics in which the government went on to someone's driveway to install the device and watched the car and the location was critical because it was driven to a place where marijuana was being grown in a field. as a result, they were able to show by showing this individual drove the car that he was involved in the growing of the marijuana. so it is basically the government is using it to tag location of a suspect by

reference to where their car is to known criminal activity. host: so, in your view as a law professor, is this an expansion of government rights? is this a necessary thing to combat drug trafficking? guest: to answer that you need to go back to two cases from the 1980's. one from 1983 and one from 1984. united states versus both of them. they were the first kisses the supreme court -- first cases that the supreme court decide on this kinds of location surveillance. the technology was a little different back then in the 1980's. it involved radio beepers that were involved on cars. they would give a signal that would give the police indication of whether the beeper was nearby. the government could follow, say a mile behind and get an idea of where the car was. in those two cases from the 1980's the supreme court said there is no warrant required if the government's only monitoring the location of the beeper in

public. however, a warrant is required if the location is revealed as inside a home. those are the sort of twin results of the two cases. the idea behind the cases was that what the technology is doing is basically substituting for a police officer who could be watching somebody in public. the police are allowed to watch an individual on a public street. they are not allowed to watch an individual inside a home without a warrant. therefore the technology sort of updating that to a new technology means the government can install the device in public but can't use it to obtain information about what goes on inside the home. quiet the courts are confronting is whether cases from the 1980's with radio beepers apply to new g.p. sfp g.p.s. devices. the devices can give a lot more information, record over several weeks or even months and also don't involve a police officer

riding behind the car following it. so the government can get a lot more information. the question is whether the old cases apply in the same way or whether they are different. host: the numbers are on the screen for republicans that want to talk about g.p.s. tracking. as well as the democrats and independents. a car is parked in a driveway. the cops place this g.p.s. on it. if the car is on the public street is that even a question of whether or not a car is considered public or private property even though on a public street? guest: that is one of the issues is whether it makes any difference that the device was installed on a driveway. the majority concluded it department make a difference. a few skwrupbls said they -- judges said they thought it made an enormous difference because the driveway is part of home and

they should need a warrant to install it on the driveway. so there are two issues. what is the rule that governs in installing the device and what rule governs retrieving the information and getting the monitoring information. host: what if that car happened to opinion a garage? -- happened to be in a garage? guest: most courts have said a garage is part of the home. there is one recent case from florida i think it was that indicated that a garage was not part of the home. but the court is agreeing to rehear that. so once you add in the high tech g.p.s. issue it gets complicate and courts are having a hard time. host: what if somebody lives in an apartment building with a big parking lot? guest: i don't know if the courts have grappled with that yet. host: or somebody has a gate in front of their house? at what poeupint does it become the car become your property and

if the police put a tracker on it then it is a violation? guest: the tricky aspect is the supreme court in united states versus dunn from 1987 said there is a four-factor test they look to to determine whether the area is part of your home or what they call open fields. the distinction goes back hundreds of years between the open fields and curtilage. but so the area around the home it is part of the home but a little more distance it is part of the open fields so the government can go on open fields but needs a warrant to enter and the question is how do you apply the test and the courts are having a hard time grappling with that. >> the 1987 case was that a supreme court case? guest: yes. host: so it is a law of the lands. guest: it is. host: here is a little bit about our guest. he worked for senator john

cornyn and he was a visiting professor at the university of chicago and he was a law clerk for justice anthony kennedy. bachelor's degree from princeton, master's from stanford. j.d. from harvard. he was raised in wilmington, delaware, talking about g.p.s. tracking, their use by police. we will put the numbers on the screen in kiss you want to -- in case you want to participate. we have a tweet. of the current g.p.s. technology features minimum and maximum speed information. will this ever be in use in determining a traffic citation? guest: probably not. the government has more important cases to worry about. it could be in theory where they are criminal rather than civil. there is a lot of places that have civil traffic laws that would be unlikely to use a technology like this. but you can see the power of the

g.p.s. device if the government is allowed to install the device was no judicial oversight. the possibilities for abuse are really what get people understand bring upset and worried. sure, in the cases we have seen we are dealing with narcotics traffickers and people that are up to bad things. but what about the power of the government to install them on entirely innocent people? if no warrant or cause is required, only the common sense of the government stops them and a lot of people are not willing to rely on that. host: what is the breakdown of the ninth district particularly or in any of these cases in is it liberal versus conservative judges? guest: it is a mix. if you had to draw the lines you would say more conservative law enforcement oriented judgments on one hand saying no warrant is required and a mixture of liberal judges and more libertarian judges. so, one judge that wrote a

particularly stirring opinion in the area saying there should be a warrant was a reagan appointee on the ninth circuit. however, he is a very libertarian judge and has strong views about the fourth amendment and he was joined by other liberal judges on the ninth circuit in his opinion. host: do you foresee any of these cases coming to the supreme court in the near future? . probably the next five years. it is not clear it will be immediately because most of the disagreement in in the other courts is between the federal courts and state courts and what state courts can do is decide them under the state constitution. for example the new york court of appeals which is the new york version of the state supreme court said a warrant is required under the new york state constitution for this monitoring. that means the u.s. supreme court can't review the decision because it is only concerned with the u.s. constitution. the effect is to say state police need a warrant, the

f.b.i. would not but it not up to the u.s. supreme court so we are a couple of years from that. host: oceanside, california, mark, independent, on with oren kerr. caller: one thing about the fourth amendment on traffic stops because it is often violated. it is interested he mentions california because often in california when your car is stop on the highway or in town you can have your car searched by an officer and it will be searched under the guise that he is looking tpfor your insurance papers or something like that and he won't allow to go back to your car and give him your insurance papers. he has to do it. and i have heard this is something called a protective sear search. as i understand it a protective search is only for somebody who is suspected of being armed and dangerous. but this is something that is

routine to have police officers search your car and of course the danger is not some issues, some fictional issue of privacy and the constitution. the issue the danger that a krut police officer could -- a corrupt police officer could claim he found something in your car that was not really there. guest: there are a lot of issues raised by traffic stops. traffic stops have been the subject of dozens of u.s. supreme court cases. the u.s. supreme court has given the police a significant amount of latitude in traffic stops. any traffic violation with justify a stop. a search of the car generally requires probable cause that there is some sort of evidence in the car. but the police can, for example, ask questions about whether the individual is willing to consent to a search so they have a lot of different ways to get inside a car. typically most often in a search for narcotics. that is a little different from g.p.s. because we are dealing

with location information that primarily of interest. but certainly often most often the interaction of the police with drivers is not in the g.p.s. setting but task stops. host: but there is about technology and the expansion of the fourth amendment or use of the fourth amendment. guest: that is correct. host: next is jacksonville, florida, dave, democrat. caller: you mentioned common sense on the part of the government. i can't believe in that myth, but maybe i read george orwell's 1984 once too many times. it is going to take about 30 years until we have just a total surveillance of everybody everywhere unless there is strong intervention. what is going to happen to the city council when the people who

manufacture the devices get hold of them through lobbyists? i'm pessimistic about the whole thing and there are large sectors of the society who don't believe in any privacy for anybody anywhere. so, are you part of the effort to stop this kind of thing, and do you see that maybe we can bring it under control? guest: your concerns are well-founded. this is the objection that the judges are raising. what are the limits on the government installing these in a routine case, a noncriminal case? to watch people that maybe the government doesn't like or political enemy he is or any abuse. that is absolutely the very serious concern that is motivating the view that a warrant should be required in this setting. in fact, in the 1983 supreme court opinion i discussed earli earlier, the defendant in that case raised this prospect and

said a warrant should be required in his case because of the possibility that the government, police, could have used the powers in the future. what the supreme court said is we are not going to follow those concerns here because we don't see evidence of abuse. however, if the government starts following people around in a dragnet fashion there will be time enough for us to consider whether there should be a different constitutional result. the reasoning of several of the opinions that have said a warrant should be required for g.p.s. surveillance say g.p.s. is that dragnet and it is time for a different result because g.p.s. technology makes this so different from the case of beepers. where i think it is difficult, it is a difficult line drawing problem for the courts. you can see in the supreme court kisses from the 1980's -- cases the line between public surveillance and surveillance in a home trying to draw a line to allow technology aided surveillance in some but not

others. i would guess the u.s. supreme court of today with want a similar line but it is very hard. the broad question is what is a several under the fourth amendment? is it in public? i think the courts will struggle with this and the u.s. supreme court will struggle when it reviews this. host: we have a tweet courts allow property to be seized if drugs are involved even if they don't own the property. a g.p.s. will make that easier. guest: well, a g.p.s. device is mostly used in the cases to determine location. so, the key questions usually arise at trial where the government tries to show an individual was engaged in narcotic trafficking by showing the location of the car. that could be used to show that a car was used in the drug trade. usually that will be something that is easier shown through other means. it could be used that way.

host: next call is from dallas, michael, republican. caller: i want to say a few things, maybe more than a few and i want to make a response to understand the connections with what we have been talking about. i understand but i want to say that i went to the republican -- it was in 2008 -- it was a gathering of the state convention and i saw above me maybe 50 feet i saw a few signs and one was northrop tkpwrupl,and there was another defense corporate sign. i don't understand all the connections with this. i do disagree with the fact that if this technology was used to actually get people who were committing violent crimes, rapes, hurting other human beings, i agree. but i do not -- i realize

myself, i'm disagreeing with the dug laws. i -- with the drug laws. i don't agree this technology should be used to get people who are in their own homes and not hurting any human beings at all. host: any comment you want to make about the drug laws? you don't have to. we can move on. guest: different people will have different views about drugs or general narcotics investigations. that is a separate question although certainly a lot of these cases involve drugs and investigations. host: have any of the cases not involved drug investigations? guest: yes, the new york court of appeals case in weaver i think was a robbery. host: next is cleveland, john. caller: let me extrapolate the more fundamental question. as conservative people talk about the original intent some of the skwrupbls don't understand the -- judges don't understand the technology. however, you don't have any expert witnesses that can give

the briefs. oral arguments can be narrowly decided unless justice roberts brings up the citizens type of thing and papbdz it. -- expands it. my question is talking about i tip the police. can i [inaudible] the original intent is at least the founding fathers said you could amend the constitution. i think some of them would go to another planet to exhume the body. guest: let me make two points. one, the constitution, regulates the government but not private individuals. so, i didn't hear some parts of the question but if it was what about private individuals, they are not regulated by the constitution. maybe there should be a law, in fact i think there should be a law regulating use of

surveillance devices without permission to phorpblt other people -- monitor other people by private individuals as well. but that is not that can be regulated by the constitution. the second issue was original intent of the constitution. one of the difficulties here is that we know the fourth amendment was really designed to deal with searches of homes, searches of private spaces. those were the situations that led to the passage of the fourth amendment in the 18th century. the question is how to apply that to a new technology. i think that there are just different ways of looking at it. what one side says is you look at the kinds of information that was obtained and whether that is information that is public information that generally would be obtained by public surveillance versus private information, and from that perspective these 1980's cases are right and a warrant shouldn't be required unless the surveillance reveals information

inside the home. other perspective is this is too spooky and orwellian to be consistent with a broader view of what the framers had in mind. they wanted to limit government power and we should say g.p.s. does violate the fourth amendment without a warrant. two different ways to get to something consistent. host: another tweet. guest: this is another question, what to do with tomorrow as it continues to change. how does that impact or expectation of privacy? should the government be allowed to get those records? what makes it different when it is a g.p.s. device with a car is the records generally will be stored by a third-party provider. the manufacturer or some company hired by the manufacturer. there is a set of privacy laws called the stored communication

act that regulates government access to the records. so there are statutes that apply rather than the government installing it. .

caller: i don't want to see so much stress on the streets because people are afraid of the violations that to police -- the police can do and can handle them so roughly and violently. i want to see a change in america, a new to gatherne -- togetherness. to put this on a privately owned curve without the permission of the owner is wrong -- host: all right, we got the point. orin kerr. guest: to the extent that there is a broad consensus that the government should not install these devices on cars without

specific cause, there is a very straightforward way of enacting that you into law, the legislative process, a privacy a law that would ban the use of gps device is to monitor someone else's location and would require the government to get a warrant to do that. it may be time to consider whether to add a gps privacy laws to the privacy laws that the government has spre i don't think -- that the government has. i don't think a warrant to be required for everything. the government needs tools to determine whether there is probable cause. generally the law enforcement tool kit should consist, ideally, of certain types of surveillance methods that don't require a warrant. it could be watching somebody

walked down the street and following somebody in a car, in order to determine whether what they're doing is suspicious or not, get a warrant, and then have the most invasive kravis -- privacy-invading tools require a warrant. the way the government has enough ways to justify the probable warrant and canceled criminal cases at a decent enough level without -- and can solve criminal cases and decent enough level without the government having so much power that they can abusive with invasive techniques that don't require the warrant. host: are wiretapping cases also fourth amendment cases? guest: they are fourth amendment cases and they indicate the federal wiretapping law. -- implicate federal wiretapping law.

caller: i have a few questions for the professor. he mentioned putting the tracking device on a car in someone's driveway, and he mentions private space and opened it went as private space bonito and went as opened again? the second question is, say i am a bad guy and i find gps on my car and i removed it, throw it away, especially, whatever. would that be illegal, or purposely all right? that is my question for today. thank you, gentlemen. guest: two great questions. where is the line drawn between private space and public space? great question. because the supreme court has used this four-factor test, the distance from the space to the home, whether there are offenses used, all sorts of factors that are hard to apply, it is hard to

answer that. most courts have said that a driveway is part of a public space, on the theory that the mailman got things off, the ups truck comes, visitors come by and use the driveway. investigators generally can go on to the driveway. in this particular case, the government actually conceded that the drug fight was on -- the drive was on this private space. -- driveway was on this private space. your question is one that law professors and students share. and if you find the gps device and throw it away, i don't see why not. it should not be there, and you should be able to throw it away. off the top of my head, i cannot think of our reason why that would be unlawful. maybe if there is a theory of

obstruction of justice, but i think that would be a huge stretch. if you find a bar of soap stock to your car, pull it off and throw it away. host: how frequent is the gps being used by the police? are we talking a few cases? is it becoming more prevalent? guest: it seems to be becoming more prevalent. we don't have statistics on this. it is hard to know exactly how often it is being used. but the cases are starting to follow. generally speaking, if it is used a lot, we will see a lot of cases involving these. it seems to be on the rise. host: next call for a professor orin kerr on gps trackings and gps trackings, san antonio, independent-minded -- gps tracking and police departments , san antonio, independent line.

caller: one thing he touched on shortly ago, that your state legislature and the united states congress can write laws that are much more protective than the fourth amendment or your state constitution. the u.s. constitution only creates the most minimum rights on the search and seizure for federal law enforcement, and then the states have to provide the minimum also. your state constitution then can provide its own productions, but it also is a minimum. everybody was concerned about search and seizure -- everybody who is concerned about search and seizure, and those kinds of rights should go to your local legislature and the united states congress and right for a much better fourth amendment that gives more protection.

you don't have to hope that appellate judges will do that for you. host: are you a lawyer? caller: yes, sir. i worked as a lawyer and part- time magistrate in the state system in san antonio for several years. the second point that people need to understand, and that the professor is well acquainted with, is what is called the exclusionary rule. even if you have a warrant, the big question is whether the evidence that is gathered with a warrant can be admitted in the court against you or not. interestingly enough, kind of related to what we are talking about, texas has had an exclusionary rule since the early 1900's that keeps out any evidence gathered in violation are of federal or state laws. however, in the federal system,

the u.s. supreme court passed -- handed down opinions in the 1980's that created a so-called good faith exception to the exclusion rule, which is allowed if the fbi agent or law enforcement official who wrote the affidavit does not have probable cause in the affidavit to support the search -- pardon me, my voice is not working well -- host: thanks for the info, but bring it to a close. caller: if probable cause is not in the warrant, it is ok as long as the officer drew up the affidavit in good faith. guest: there is a history of the u.s. supreme court -- after the u.s. supreme court rejects the fourth amendment claim, especially in the surveillance. out, congress in enacting the law -- surveillance area,

congress in enacting the law does what the court declines to do. in a supreme court from 1979, smith v. maryland, which raises the issue of whether the government can monitor phone number is of people dialing from company offices -- essentially a caller id system, but installed at the phone company -- the supreme court said the phone number is dialed or not protected by the fourth amendment, raising the prospect that anybody could use one of these surveillance devices. congress, six or seven years later, at the statute that said it is a federal crime to install one of these devices, and that the government and install one of them only if that has a court order. it turns out that the threshold congress chose to allow the government to get the court order is low, and should be

increased at the same time, the idea is absolutely right, and the congress can easily regulate these types of problems, and they can do something to the courts cannot do. congress can regulate private parties to constitutional rule can only apply to the government. the supreme court and address of the government uses gps surveillance, but only congress can address how private individuals to use these tools. congress can regulate the private sector and the government to another, and can do a good shot from the standpoint of privacy law. -- can do a pretty good job from the standpoint of privacy law. host: next call, a democrat. caller: you should always require a summit or a legal reason -- summon or legal reason to attack anything to any vehicle. because of 9/11, people are more

afraid and we are losing rights right and left, and i do not want to end up in an orwellian society. we need more protections from arbitrary attachment of anything to any vehicle or surveillance thing. host: professor kerr, actions of this nature picked up in the last 15, 20, 30 years? guest: there were a lot of these in the 1970's and they pick up in the 1980's, and they have been amended over time. going back to the patriot act following 9/11, it was not its own new law. it was a menace to pre-existing privacy law -- amendments to pre-existing privacy laws. it is constantly evolving over in congress, even if the courts

were largely framed by the 1980's supreme court cases. congress had hearings just recently on some of these issues involving the location surveillance. it is something that congress is looking at right now. host: our last call for professor orin kerr comes from san diego. it helps if i -- they are all gone, so that was last call. professor orin kerr, george washington university, we appreciate your time talking about these cases and the fourth amendment. guest: happy to be here, thank you. host: we have our final segment of the week on the military series. we will be looking at brain injury and troops coming back from iraq and afghanistan, specifically some of the brain injury issues that some troops are facing. first, here is on c-span news update. >> 9: 15 in washington, here are

the headlines. the economy grew at a much slower pace this spring than estimated, due largely to the largest surge in imports in 20 years at a slower build up in inventories. gross domestic product grew at a 1.6% annual rate in the april- june period. the commerce department says that is down from the initial estimate and slower than the previous quarter to 0.7% pace. hurricane danielle is a category four storm and could get stronger. it threatens to bring dangerous rip currents to the u.s. east coast, but so far is not a direct threat to land. five years after hurricane katrina, former fema director michael brown says there was a disconnect between what was

being said and how bad things were really were. he said "today show," that the washington mentality was to "with the best face on everything," but also that the information given out at the time was acted. on tuesday officials in alaska will start counting absentee ballots. joe miller says that if is lead -- his lead against lisa murkowski is reversed, he does not want to see things thwarted by a lawyer game. jimmy north korea agreed to pardon a man who was sentenced to years of hard labor for entering the country illegally. those are the headlines on c-

span. >> saturday, the aftermath of working to teaneck, and the argument that businesses and -- aftermath of hurricane katrina, a document that businesses and fake based organizations are better equipped -- had a face based organizations are better equipped to handle crises. and sebastian mallaby on "after words." c-span provides coverage of public affairs and american history. it is available on television, on-line, and on social media networking sites. find our content any time through the c-span and video library. we take c-span on the road through the digital boss. now available in more than 100 million homes. created by cable, provided as a

public service. "washington journal" continues. host: the "washington journal" summer series continues this week with a look at defense issues. monday, we look at the f-35, tuesday we look at mraps,, wednesday, the military use of drugs, yesterday, a look at military -- military use of drones, want to come into the military benefits, and today, rehabilitation for those injured in iraq and afghanistan, specifically brain injuries. joining us as katherine helmick of the defense centers of excellence. describe your job to us. guest: i ever see a lot of the

programs and initiatives -- oversee a lot of the programs and initiatives to assess and treat and ensure optimal recovery for our veterans who sustained dramatic brain injury. we are -- trauma brain injury. --a traumatic brain injury. we are located in silver spring, maryland. one of the first lines of business, when you look at how many folks are coming back, we had to make sure that we were able to code traumatic brain injury correctly there is not want system in the health care are we not like someone with a heart attack would have. traumatic brain injury is quite different. we have had to really isolate what that means in terms of the coding system.

we monitor how many service members and veterans are found to have traumatic brain injury. these numbers are posted on a few websites. we're looking at, a team in the tivoli, 178,000 since the year to doesn't -- we're looking at, cumulatively, 178,000 since the year 2000. over a decade, about 178,000. host: a lot of people have said that brain injury is the signature root of this war. do you agree with that -- signature wound of this war. do you agree with that? is that because of the helmets being used, or what? guest: we certainly have a greater awareness of the brain injuries from the war. when we talk about traumatic brain injury, that is a wide

spectrum of injuries. it to be somebody with a mild traumatic injury, or a severe or penetrating brain injury. through this awareness, better protection of our service members, we have seen increased rates of compassion than in previous wars -- concussion than in previous wars. early on in the conflict, we were seeing people come back with memory disturbances and headaches, and you could not make sense of what was happening here. through our screening efforts, we found that a lot of this was related to concussive events from a theater. that is why it is branded as the signature injury of the war. events?oncussive guest: same thing as a mild traumatic brain injury. we see this from bombs,

grenades, blast-related injuries, explosions. host: the center for excellence -- 137,000-plus mild tbi's, mild to being concussion, right? guest: correct. host: fully recoverable? guest: it can be fully recoverable. it can be minutes to hours. but there are quite a few that continue to have symptoms and sustain problems after they sustained the injury. host: these other cases that you have documented. guest: that is correct. in theater as well as come back to the states. that is consistent in terms of not knowing how many people a sustained a concussion and go undiagnosed. we know that every week folks

hit their head while plumbing or other things and they do not seek care or go to the emergency department. host: what is a moderate tbi? guest: it is somebody who sustained an injury that we can scan or some sort of imaging study. we talk to them. some of these patients do have -- 18 moderate -- when a moderate tbi is a sustained, sometimes cannot talk to you. you look at what kind of blood clots or imaging changes might be in the brain. host: severe, 1891 cases. guest: somebody who comes in in,

and are not responsive to your commands. -- comes in in coma and are not responsive to your commands. most of the patients that had severe brain injury it many times need near a surgical -- need neurosurgical intervention. host: finally, penetrating. guest: when you have a device or fragment or some kind of artifact that punctures what we call the dura of the brain, the outlier and covering of the brain. we learned a lot about penetrating brain injuries from the vietnam era. we did a lot of studies looking at the folks who sustained penetrating brain injury. most of these are very obvious. you have fragments coming out, and you sustained a gunshot wound to the head, or perhaps an injury from an improvised explosive device. host: katherine helmick is our

guest. a senior executive director for traumatic brain injury for the defense centers of excellence. iraq and afghanistan veterans, we have set aside a fourth line for you all. according to the department of veterans affairs, tbi is estimated to affect some 20% of troops injured in afghanistan or iraq. is that a higher number than in previous wars, when you look at statistics? guest: that is in rather good alignment with previous conflicts. what that usually is relaying is the screening great, where you -- we'ree flag on it mailbo

not sure if they sustained a concussion, but we want to look further. it is a screening process to identify folks who need for their care -- further care. host: what is the recovery process like? guest: there are many folks to recover quickly and clearly and are able to return to their mission the following day. there are some patients that end up having a more convoluted trajectory, or a course of recovery that is a little more complicated. they continue to have complaints of headaches, dizziness, memory problems, problems with the balance, sometimes irritability and depression. we don't understand this point why some people sustained their

sentence longer than other people. we do know that there is one important factor, how many concussions you have. the more you sustain, the longer it does take to recover from those symptoms. this is especially important as we look at sports and athletes and our high school or arena, the n.c.a.a. and the professional sports are green as well -- sports arena as well. host: since the beginning of the iraq and afghanistan war is, how much has been learned about brain injury? guest: we have learned a lot. we still have a ways to go. one of the ways that this war has elicited, not to the degree that we want, is blessed dynamics, and how that affects the brain --. blast dynamics and how that affects the brain. this war has given us the opportunity, unfortunately, to

learn quite a bit about it. host: we had the director of operation helmut and they talked about the fact that the helmets design or not built to withstand these concuss of explosives -- helmets designed were not built to withstand these kinds of explosives. guest: i don't have full visibility on the helmet and development sector, but i know there have been numerous conditions in personal protective equipment, ensuring that helmets are the maximum -- pads, ort is more whatever dynamics prevent members from sustaining concussion. we also learn about what the last exposure is by looking closer at -- blast exposure is

by looking closer at the blast. host: how much money is dedicated to your department? guest: the department of defense? host: no, tbi work. guest: to clearly put it in traumatic brain injury, i am not prepared to give a number specifically for traumatic brain injury. host: $200 billion, according to the department of defense budget, for all health programs, including $1.1 billion for tbi and psychological health. guest: those go to the department of defense and a portion of those go to the defense centers of excellence. we absolutely realize that this is the time and place to garner

all the information and learn everything we can and treat it as we go along, treat as we learn. we're taking full opportunities to learn everything we can to help provide the state of the art care for this service members and veterans. host: katherine helmick has bachelor's and master's degrees in nursing from virginia commonwealth university and a bachelor of science degree from virginia tech. how did you get involved in this area? guest: traumatic brain injury has always been a passion for me. in the more severe patient populations, the patient comes in severely devastated neurologically. many times cannot talk, cannot move. you see after the these interventions improvements. that is very satisfying to see somebody who came in

catastrophically injured, but within a couple of weeks or months was able to reintegrate with their family and have a great quality of life. when i located to the washington, d.c. area, i was very interested in helping with the military cause, realizing that this was a golden opportunity in history to learn as much as we head about -- as we could about brain injury as a whole. host: do you get a chance to go to walter reed and the patients hospitals anymore? guest: not much anymore, but i do go to facilities and talk to service members about their care and what are they struggle with it. as the war has gone on, our clinicians treating service members with traumatic brain injury it face new challenges. a lot of patients have issues such as substance abuse disorder or other disorders, and it makes

the picture more complex. part of our work is understanding what providers to on a daily basis to improve the lives of service members. host: katherine helmick is our guest. traumatic brain injury and war is our topic. y'all have been very patient. bonnie, you are on first. caller: good morning. thank you so much for c-span. i know this may be one of the outstanding injuries that came back from iraq and afghanistan. is this not true that this could have also been a lot of the problems of the vietnam veterans? guest: thank you for that question. it is a question that has been posed to oust numerous times about previous conflicts, even going back to world war ii, ma'am. we believe that they're very possibly -- very possibly there

could of been concussions sustained in other conflicts that continue to pose problems for the veterans back in the united states trying to acclimate with their families. we looked at data from previous conflicts. and we try to understand -- of course, it has been a couple of decades, but trying to understand further what types of assets concussion could have played in those previous -- wars -- what types of defects concussion could have played in previous wars. host: tim, good morning to you. caller: this is a great topic for me. i'm not a vietnam veteran, and i was -- im vietnam veteran -- i'm a vietnam veteran, and i was a grunt, but i remember we

got a lot of new guys in because we lost a lot of people, and i was sleeping on the side of the hill and they were in the hole and were very scared -- i was, too. at a were shooting are rpg's spread -- if you are in a confined -- shooting rpgs' at us. if you are in a confined space -- they will be up and said, "get in the whole." if you get in there, your brain will turn into chjelly. it is just amazing how knowledge gets lost when a simple private or lance corporal understands the whole thing. it takes forever to get up to the people who can do something about.

guest: 90 for those comments and thank you for your service. -- thank you for those comments and that you for your service. 1 then we have that is very new is a partnership between line commanders and medical. the line between medical assets and armed forces and commanders that are fighting the wars, and the medical folks taking care of people that need care -- one of the promising an exciting new initiatives that came out in june 21 of this year is a theater guideline that mandates evaluation to be done by the medical team if you are expected to sustain concussion. we believe this to be a boots on the ground initiative to hit the private and all the folks who are discussing. instead of having privates raise their hand and say, "i think i have a headache, i want somebody to check me out," and all that

that entails, that they may perceive that you are weak and going off mission -- we want mrap orbe -- if you'rur vehicle has been damaged, you are sent off for a comprehensive evaluation to see if you have concussion. our aim is early detection of concussion, so that we do not have people languishing at home and suffering from any sentence that we could have treated way back when the injury that symptoms thatspan.oany we could have treated way back when the injury if that happened. host: is more being done in theater than in the past? guest: absolutely.

we had simple cognitive evaluation strategies, therapists who can help with balanced disorder. you can imagine that if your balance is off and you have a mission that is vitally important that you have your balance -- we are doing more and more in theater in keeping service members in theater as opposed to it evacuating them to germany and then back and forth, either to the states or to afghanistan or iraq. host: are their mri machines in iraq and afghanistan? guest: there are not. there are a ct scans in both. we have capability for mris when you get to germany. host: pat, independent line, please go ahead. caller: i have some questions to ask you. i had a neighbor man that i was

very close to. he passed away this spring. he had been in desert storm, and he was exposed to chemicals and also the oil wells. when he got out, and he started having bad headaches. he ended up having brain tumors, and over a 14-year period and he had three of them. last year he got his fourth one and passed away this may, and left behind a wife and four little kids. the oldest one is 14. at that time, he never went to the veterans hospital, because it was -- the veterans place there was so bad. host: is your question regarding katherine helmick and her work

about brain tumors in the first gulf war and the chemical? caller: yes, and if his wife can do anything -- host: i am not sure if she can answer that, but talk about the gulf war syndrome that we've heard about and the lessons there and if that is part of your coverage as well. guest: one of the programs the defense department has instituted -- its whole purpose of a post-deployment held assessment is to capture all exposures of service member has undergone during their deployment time. this is a process that every service member is mandated to go through when they come back to the states. sometimes this is done before they get back to the u.s. at the end of their deployment cycle, they are required to fill out a survey that talks about

exposures they had while in theatre, any symptoms they may complain of. this is one of the lessons we learned from the gulf war i and the unexplained medical illnesses and exposures. what to capture and document what each service never went through -- we want to capture and bachmann what each service member went through during their experience. host: steve. caller: third battalion, third marine division. we had howitzers, and we had a mobile unit of about at least 10 at howitzer's moving to other -- howitzers moving together. i am a vietnam-era veteran. what happened to me -- i sought an interview when clinton was running for president, and she

interviewed at a guy from the iraq war and he did not have any memory of his past. i don't remember anything before i was 18 years old. i put in for memory loss. maybe the counselor did not put it in right. my symptoms were the same thing. people would say, welcome home, i love you, and i would say, no, i don't remember. they denied me -- "you don't know nothing about memory loss." i had a memory test, and also, i was in the marine corps boxing program, like leon spinks was, and i had a lot of blows to the head.

i don't know if they give me tbi. i still remember a thing before i was 18 years old. -- i still don't remember a thing before i was 18 years old. guest: there is a lot of science coming out related to cumulative concussions. you talk about your boxing history and being in two different wars. the more the grain is exposed to even subtle injuries that can cause, but -- more the brain is exposed to even subtle injuries that can cause concussion -- you may have read about recent nfl findings with some players come in even though those are isolated -- with some players, and even those those are isolated cases, we are understanding more about the correlations and relationships

between having a lot of concussions and your brain being injured multiple times. a lot of us to do with how far apart the injuries occur and how well you get better after each subsequent one. we are trying to understand what that does to the tissue and whether there are long-term hanges and whether they are related to changes in the brain. having problems with attention and memory are two of the very common complaints of people that have concussions. in terms of how long despitthis ensues, that is an area of a very fast-paced research to understand a little bit more about why people with concussions continue to have problems with memory and attention. host: katherine helmick is our guest, the senior executive director for traumatic brain

injury for the defense centers of excellence. we have our normal call lines, but also a line set aside for iraq and afghanistan war veterans who would like to talk to her about brain injuries. next call is from pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: my name is stuart earhart and during the supposed democracy elections, my son was blown up by a bomb and was in at coma for months. he is still traumatically brain injured to the point where his mother will not allow me to see him, even though he wants to see me. i predict god you are helping, and not just helping other people -- pray to god you are

helping, not just helping other people's wallets -- but you don't know the extent of people's homes are. my son was wearing -- basically -- extent of what people's helmets are. my son was wearing basically a world war ii helmet. and you said that thank god for the war so we can study these brain injuries. if people were not fighting for greed and power, we would not have these brain injuries. host: i guarantee you that katherine helmick did not say thank god for the war. but if you could address his concerns. guest: there is no doubt that these injuries are serious, they

affect not just service members of their families, extended families, their spouses, their children. we want to be able to look eyeball to eyeball had everybody to share with them our deepest commitments to ensure state of the art care is being delivered to our service members, state of the art traumatic brain injury care. one of the purposes of our organization is to understand research out there, at databases and programs that help support families and pchildren during these very serious injuries. there is a deep commitment to ensure that we are providing the very best care that we can, but on the battlefield and as well when service members return home. host: yvonne, connecticut,

you are on. ok, you know the rules, you have to turn down the volume. rachel, independent line. caller: my sister had a brain injury, and when she goes to department stores or doctors' offices, she goes into seizures. are you noticing any young men having seizures? guest: sure. epilepsy or post-traumatic seizures can be a significant occurrence after more severe brain injuries. we are not seeing rates of the seizures at a significantly higher level in concussive population. it sounds like your sister suffered a more penetrating injury.

many times there are these areas that don't fire correctly. that is one of the reasons that a patient who has sustained a severe or penetrating injury on the battlefield it immediately gets medications, even before you get to germany or combat support hospital environment. epilepsy and posttraumatic seizures are extremely significant complications and concern after serious brain injuries. we're not seeing any significant rates in the concussion or mild tbi population. host: going back to the department of defense's chart on traumatic brain injury categories, do you know offhand how many of those folks have fully recovered, partially recovered, still in rehab

hospitals? guest: most of those folks fully recover. they may have a minor contacted deficits, physical complaints, -- minor cognitive deficits, of physical complaints, but the majority to improve to the point of having gainful employment, a good quality of life, able to enjoy time with family members. this is due to a lot of aggressive upfront interventions, and getting to the culprit, whether it is a blood clot or something else that needs to be treated. when the bullet goes in, many times there is damaged tissue around where the bullet is. one treatment that is rather common is to get rid of damaged tissue, because the causes

swelling in the brain. -- that causes swelling in the brain and increases brain adema. host: is the brain able to regenerate itself? if you're cutting out a chunk of the brain -- guest: what we like to say is that there is rerouting of pathways. whether it can around the area of damage is still a question mark in research circles. but it can reroute around to accomplish whatever function. from our mri studies, we know that people who sustained brain injuries require more endurance to complete the same action than someone who did not have if i am

trying to solve a math problem i had and i did not have to bring injury, it would not show up as much on my staff as someone -- on my scan as someone with an injury. host: what about pharmaceuticals? guest: when we speak about penetrating and traumatic brain injury, unfortunately we have not succeeded in the neuroprotection meds that we desire. at least 40 clinical trials have not yielded fruitful results that would allow us to, let's say, have a little syringe of medication that could stop some of the negative at cellular events that happen after brain injury. we're working very hard with the national institutes of health and neurological study, as well

as the department of defense, but unfortunately it has not yielded results. host: are you working with the nfl? guest: dod and nfl are working together partly on signs but also on strategic communication. -- partly on science but also on strategic communication. elite athletes committed to the game and to the mission. one of the old lines is that troy aikman had an injury and right afterwards was great, so i should be ok, too. we are working to adequately highlight the serious nature of getting it checked out. go and get it checked out by

somebody and give your brain time to recalibrate and then go back out into the game or the fight, whatever are read out. -- whatever arena. host: yvonne from connecticut, you ready? caller: i am. thank you for taking my call. i have been dealing with the brain injury for the last 25 years and am aware of everything you are saying. but you have to understand that, depending on where the brain has been hit, that is where the damage will be given to the human being and the care they will get rid they lose a lot of the loading capabilities, so does -- they lose a lot of the learning capabilities, such as math. seizures is a complicated thing. and medicine -- we are still

working in the field to control seizures of any kind. host: can you tell us how you have the 25 years of experience? caller: i have a son who was brain damaged. host: from the military? caller: no, not the military, but i have full sympathy for these men and women coming back. i know what they have to deal with. it is a long, long process. the behaviors can be very crucial to the family, and can break up a family. and on the outside world, if they do have a problem, people think that they are dangerous when they are not. they have a problem. and they are brain damaged. i need to thank you so much, ms. helmick, for doing whatever you can for our poor men and women over there. it is an ongoing problem.

guest: that you for that. i appreciate your story. we know that families struggle quite severely, and there is brokenness, pain, suffering. we want to detect these things early. we think we have adequate treatments that help people get better, and we want to support the families as well. this gives me a good opportunity to share with you that the department of defense just released a caregivers' g uide. it was a congressional mandate to help service member is going through the journey after the brain injury. talks about finding meaning in this situation, in the whole

dynamic. i would encourage you to take a look at that, and maybe that would help even this far out, 25 years later, to provide support. can i give out the e-mail? host: sure pr. guest: traumaticbraininjuryatoz.org. host: a lot of what the dod is learning -- is it being transferred to the general population? guest: absolutely. multi-trauma patients -- if you get into a car accident on a highway, many centers are screening and looking for compassion for patients with

these multi-trauma scenarios. before, many centers were looking for critical injuries, as they should continue to look for critical injuries, but they should also be mindful of the awareness that they should treat the concussion early on. that is one of the large relations to the civilian sector. we are very close to having an objective marker for compassi -- for concussion, sort of like a blood test. or pregnancy test. yes, but you had a concussion, no, you did not. we know that we are rather close to having an objective test for concussion. , but't want to say if

when we have that, how wonderful to translate that to civilian sectors so that you can go to your local emergency room and get a test taken and you can know definitively whether you'd sustained a concussion. host: is that a fair statement? guest: i don't know if his question is directed at traumatic brain injury -- host: it is. guest: i think we have come out through communications and technology, the capability to learn more than in other wars. i am not sure anybody has the answer to know if we are comparing apples and apples or apples and oranges. the capability of being able to research this more and have the data come in real-time will help

us to understand more whether or not this is unique or this is something that has been throughout the ages. i think that is very much a question mark. host: pennsylvania, mary, thanks for holding. caller: i read an article in the doctor's office that made me openly weep, about people sentence that go away -- people with symptoms that go away, and months or years later, it swells up again and they are not able to think or to work. it renders them almost in a vegetative state. it was really sad. thanks. guest: i have not seen the article you were alluding to, but it makes me think