have said this, quite frankly, throughout, the concerns that the people of egypt have cannot, will not and should not be addressed through violence. it shouldn't be addressed through beatings and detentions and the like. and i think the pressure is only going to be lessened and the demands for greater freedom met through a concrete process. >> but the administration, even though obviously you aren't dictating what he needs to do, the government has offered guidance and suggestions as to what the obama administration thinks would work wealth well and what needs to happen and not dictating. and one of those suggestions has been, you said from the podium that transformation process, transition process cannot start in september. others in the administration have said that they have concerns about anything being

watched, because you just can't go to a democracy in 60 days and fear that the muslim brootshood would be in control. if we say two months is too soon in -- and september is too far, what exactly kind of time line would the administration like? what's the understanding that you aren't dictating, what kind of suggestions are you making? . . >> a couple of things. first, i guess i would reject the notion of there being just two answers to this. in other words, i think you have seen and heard the government of egypt as well as those seeking greater recognition and freedom. they've all acknowledged there are some real and genuine constitutional changes before we can have free and fair elections system of right now,

in order to qualify for ethe ballot you go through a process of getting those in parliament, elections that we criticized to basically sign up and bless your candidacy. whether it's it's that those who are seeking greater freedom might not think it's the best way to get to free and fair elections. the notion that what you have is september or immediately in terms of all these changes, i don't think that's necessarily the case. >> i'm asking, what are -- >> i'm saying there has to be a dynamic process to meet and aggress many of the concerns and the grievances to set up a system where the world will watch an election that we all agree is free and fair. what timeline that takes i think is not for us to determine but unless or until those that are seeking to have

their grievances addressed, until they believe that's happening, the pressure is going to continue. that's why we've continued to advocate for a genuine process of negotiation to see this through. >> lastly, in an interview with abc news, president mubarak said he told the president that he didn't think he understood that president obama didn't understand egyptian culture did he say that? what's president obama's response? >> i wouldn't read out the specifics of the call. i think obviously the president and administration have respect for what egypt has accomplished over three decades and what president mubarak has

accomplished. but i think what is clear is what the president said -- has said over the past few days, the people of egypt have moved and they're not going back to what was. >> as you track the progress on the ground in egypt what can you look at today that's different from yesterday? >> again, i do not want to be the -- just as i'm not going on the ar bitter of what freedom of speech is in egypt, i don't think it makes sense for us to be the ar bitter for -- the arbiter of whether today meant good progress, whether today was enough progress. i think the world understands what needs to happen. we've enumerated some ideas, many of which i just said, that would demonstrate to the egyptian people that a process

that is serious, immediate, and irreversible is under way. and that's a process that must continue. we've got a long road to go to get to free and fair elections. >> yesterday, he talked about -- >> what the president alluded to and what many have alluded to is there is the beginning of a process to do that. but setting up and having a process to do that is just part of it. now we've got to see, we've got to see some, and you heard vice president biden say over the weekend in his readout, we immediate to understand what the arc of this is, and we need to see arks the egyptian people do, most importantly, need to see progress along that arc. >> has the president gone through his intelligence community and sort of pressured them to take a look at some other hot spots, perhaps, see if something like what happened

in egypt could be at risk of breaking out in other countries? >> obviously the intelligence community provides daily updates on what it sees happening in countries both in the middle east and throughout the world. >> has the president applied more pressure now to say, hey, i need you to go take a look at this? >> i -- the preface of your question is somehow that that hasn't already happened. >> you said earlier it's not about personalities, but when you talked at suleiman and said he -- talked about suleiman and said he made some comments so you have a personality that may be hurting the process, it is about personality, isn't it? >> i think people have looked at what some people have said to believe we determined who should be the next leader of egypt and that's not for us to determine.

the vice president -- vice president suleiman, has been tasked with the process of including opposition groups, those in civil society who have not been represented in government, along -- institute a series of negotiations along this process to end in free and fair leches. that's a process we support. that certainly has to happen. but the notion that we somehow laid hands on a particular person to lead egypt is just not the case. >> i'm not saying you've laid hands on them to lead but you can voice an opinion that he's not the right person to be in there if he's saying unhelpful things. >> look, i was pretty clear

yesterday on what i don't think anybody in the thinks represents progress. the process, though, chip, can't -- we cannot determine every actor in that process the timeline of every action in that process. >> but you can say, we would prefer he not be there. >> i'm not going to be the play-by-play announcer and neither is this administration for what represents progress in egypt. the people in egypt are not looking for anybody in this country to tell them what constitutes the meaning of those freedoms. why would we think we can do that? why would we think we could determine who should be in charge of -- that's -- that is only something that can be determined by those in egypt and those that are changing part in that process. i do think, chip, that the world will know and we'll see it through the eyes of those

who desire greater representation. we'll know if progress is being made at a pace in which the egypt people believe it should be happening. >> i think you're right that the egyptian people -- i think you're right that the egyptian people, the protesters, you are just so right. it's his last week. >> i realize this -- >> but he's not a play-by-play announcer. >> right. somebody can update the video, i'm not a play-by-play commentator. >> protesters say they understand the united states is not in in a position to determine what happens here. on the other hand, they are so deeply frustrated that the president says the right things about human rights and

universal rights and freedom of speech and everything else, then they don't understand how he can then not demand that mubarak and suleiman get out of there, since they're the people who have implemented this oppressive system. >> but then i guess the question would be -- i guess the question then, would you have us determine who that next person is? would you have us determine what this council looks like that does that? would you have us determine what that council can debate matches the definitions of freedom of access and freedom of speech and freedom of assembly? that is not a task or a series of tasks that i think many in egypt want us to do. i don't think -- i don't think that the cares and concerns of those that we see each day is doing to be met by a process that's dictated by somebody else. it has to be a process that

involves directly the egyptian people. and again, we will see, based on what happens with those that continue to protest, whether the pace of what we understand -- we all understand needs to happen, what the government of egypt hasage no -- acknowledged needs to happen. we understand if the pacing meets the demand. >> tomorrow is that going to be a regular thing a weekly thing? >> i don't think it's a weekly thing, we sent senator mcconnel in late last week. i think the president, as you heard him say at the beginning of the lame duck session, that we needed to do better to reach out and have those discussions and i think this is certainly part of that. >> just before, the three

republicans -- of course. >> is the president comfortable if mubarak stays through september? >> i don't know how many times i can say two things, we're not going to be the play-by-play commentators and that's not for us to determine. >> at one point last week you said the transition needs to start yesterday. the impression we all got was that mubarak needed to go. now we're trying to get a sense tissue >> but i think we've been very, very clear and very, very consistent that we are not going to pick those leaders. we are not going -- as i i've just said, we're not going to define membership in this process. the transition -- the transition -- remember the transition we will see throughout this process happens many, many time thobes road to free and fair elections. quite frankly, there's a lot to

do in that process. the fact that that transition has to start, as the president said, no, and as we've repeated since, is because many of the things that i outlined are going to require those discussions and those negotiations. so it is again, it's not up for us to determine the personalities and who is going to lead and when they're going to lead and when they're not going to lead. that's the job of the people of egypt and that's the tough work that's involved in a democracy. >> last crack at it. does the white house believe the protest will stop as long as mubarak is there? >> i think that -- i think that you will continue to see those exercise their great desire to be recognized and to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that

they wish to. i think you'll continue to see that unless or until the process of an orderly transition that is broad-based begins to show immediate an irreversible change. i think that's what the egyptian people want and i think that's what the world is waiting for. >> based on the o'reilly interview you said he did not raise taxes, a taxpayer group says in effect he has raised taxes on a couple of things, i'm wondering do you guys disagree with that assessment? >> i have not seen what the deprupe has said. i would note that i think the con fwregsal budget office released figures yesterday that show that for the third consecutive year, the american people are paying less in taxes than they did in the previous administration.

>> is it fair to say that our policy toward egypt is forever changed? >> well, we -- let me give you a broad answer to this. i think obviously we want to see the continued robust partnership we've had, the stability in the region and around the world that that partnership has brought, i think egypt has forever changed. i think that what the president said -- again, i don't want to get into hypotheticals about what things look like in a year or five years but i think there's no doubt that what the president said, egypt is not going back. what we've seen transpyre over the past 10 -- transpire over the past 10 days has been nothing short of remarkable. i don't think that anybody --

you know, we have other administrations have, called for the type of change you're seeing now, it's happened in a very, very short period of time but it is -- when you look at the size and scope of the announcements that have been made, it's astoppishing. >> i ask, i guess, when does our policy change toward yemen, toward sashe, toward jordan? when there's a ground swell like egypt? >> let's be clear. this was the case when the president -- when the president talked to the president of egypt several weeks ago, about what was happening in the middle east, he reiterated that our calls for the government of egypt to institute the type of reforms that we had long thought needed to be enacted. >> actively, after there were protests, we as the u.s. government actively got involved in trying to push democratic reform. >> no, no, no.

>> we didn't send an ambassador? >> you've now generalized across the sweep of the entire middle east. let's go backwards just a tad. we have, in saudi arabia and in yemen and in many of the countries that you discussed, talked to them as our administration and as previous administrations have about greater access to freedom, greater access to freedom of speech, assembly, all of those things. our position on bringing democracy to the middle east and bringing greater freedoms to those people wasn't developed as a result of what happened in tunisia or what we've sneen eyipt. the ambassador went with a specific message and specific conversation and to report back. there were -- that was an instance that based on the fact that we were seeing rapid change, but the broad notion of what we want to see happen in

countries in the middle east and throughout the world is shaped by the values with which we started our country. >> but what happened in egypt spurred your administration, the administration to get more active in the situation in egypt. is that now going to forever change or is the administration planning to get more active in yemen, get manager active in jordan, or are you waiting for the ground swell? >> i think you're generalizing broadly, obviously we have a team that is -- that monitors and works through a whole host of bilateral relationships because many of the countries that you just mentioned, we have very important relationships with. but -- look, as events dictate, we will respond to them. i don't want to generalize across countries. i think what's happening in -- >> that happened before we

change our policy. >> i have throughout this as we've spoken about our universal values, i think it's important not to generalize across the platform of countries that again as i've said may be at different stables in their own political development. >> earlier today you guys set out the, basically, a position on you want congress to re-enact, continue the powers you have with the courts, how do you address opponents who didn't agree with the law to change these powers, how do you assure that they're not being abused? >> there are fisa courts to do that. this was a debate that happened in 2005 and 2006 and 2007 and even in 2008, that, look, there

were some that wanted to do away with fisa warrants and the court system that, as the president said, it is important we have a mechanism that watches the watchers. that's -- that is, in this instance, an important aspect of what the judicial branch does. >> at some point, do you allow some sort of scrutiny on this? >> again, the role in government to do that is through a very specialized set of developed courts in order to ensure that what is done meets the law. >> you want changes in the law? >> again, obviously this is -- we -- there are important activities that need to be re-authorized and that's what our focus is on.

>> the president -- did the president vote in chicago? >> the president requested an absentee ballot, i don't know if that's been filled out but i'll put that on the list to look. >> are you at all concerned that this is going to be read as an increased tax on business at a time when the administration is working hard to mend its relationship with the business community? >> no, because this specifically, this policy, if enacted, would prevent further federal tax increases, would help states make up for the shortfalls they have, and give them time, as i said, to rationalize what they offer and how they pay for it. in other words, you have, in 2011 and 2012 and parts of 2013, the ability to make the type of structural changes that a state would need to make in order to ensure that, again,

what they offer and how they pay for it, that's met up, we can do this responsibly. >> do you think that the states will take the opportunity to increase the tax? >> i think what you have to understand -- what we think has to happen in those out years is that you cannot continue to offer something at a state level, right, that is not ultimately supported by the base with which you're funding it. that's -- those are the discussions that are happening and have happened for many years at the state level, they're happening now at the federal level in terms of getting our fiscal house in order. i think that whether it happens at the federal level or state level, we have to make some tough decisions about ensuring that we can pay for what we're

offering. >> one other issue, how does that, in term os -- in terms of the announcement from the vice president about the rail investment, how would you pay for that? >> that will be in the budget on monday. >> back in 1978, president carter was criticized for allowing the shah to come here for medical treatment. if it came to the point where mubarak had to flee, would the u.s. allow him to come here? >> i think getting in that sort of hypothetical doesn't make a lot of sense. >> your comments on the c.b.o. report, didn't the report say the americans are paying less in taxes but tax receipts are down because so many people have been laid off. would you like to clarify? >> i pointed to the report. >> accurate to say that the administration has extended its, for want of a better expression, expectation timetable for change in egypt?

>> i think that -- i think it's accurate to say that vice president biden in discussions with vice president suleiman and discussions that we've had government-to-government, we want to understand that they have a timetable to make change, yes. >> what would you say to someone in egypt who, especially people on the streets who told reporters there that they think pressure from the united states for change is easing up after hearing some of the things that have been said in the past couple of days? >> i hope they'll listen to what we've said. i think if there's anything -- i don't think i've eased up in any way. i don't think that -- i don't think what we've said, i don't think what the president has said, has in any way eased up on what we need to see. i said that the transition should begin yesterday. when i was asked the day after the president spoke and the day after president mubarak spoke.

and i think again, you're going to continue to see pressure within the people of egypt, unless or until the process makes those type of changes. so i think that we have enumerated the universal values that we believe everyone should have and i think we have been clear in making sure that the government of egypt understands that they have to take those concrete steps. >> where do we stand on the aid review? >> we -- it's no different than when i mentioned it, i think, a couple of fridays ago, which is we will monitor the actions in response to what is happening in cairo and in egypt and make determinations as to whether that would affect our aid. we continue to monitor that.

>> on the unemployment insurance, is that the primary way that the administration sees this federal government aiding states with their fiscal situation? >> well, look, this is obviously a particular situation because as was mentioned in an earlier question, if states are borrowing off a u.i. account, not able to pay that back, then the law says that the rate has to increase at a federal share on businesses. we don't think that makes sense right now. we think that we ought to make sure that that doesn't happen, that states have a chance to rationalize, again, what they offer, and that in the meantime we're helping other states that might fall into things that you've seen in michigan and south carolina and indiana with that fund. >> can we expect other proposals in the budget that would go toward helping?

>> i shouldn't preview the budget. >> does the administration consider the fiscal situation that states are facing to be in crisis category yet? >> i think that -- would getting into a specificed were or series of words, obviously i think at each stage or each year that we've been in office you've seen tremendous shortfalls, obviously there are a a number of states experiencing particularly acute shortfalls and that has an impact on the economy. >> on the lunch tomorrow, talk about having just house republicans, as opposed to house and senate or republican and democratic leadership? >> i think the president will take an opportunity to see and meet with a whole host of different leadership entities and things like that. as i said, i think it was friday that senator mcconnel

was here to have lunch with the president, so i think over the course of the next many weeks, you'll see folks in here to see the president and the administration as we move forward. >> is there a sense that he can get more done if it's just republicans as opposed to the republican and democratic clash that might come from having leaders of both party there is? >> i think, again, i go back to what the president said in december, i don't remember, december or november, late last year, that he needed to do a better job reaching out. i think, you know, hearing what their concerns are, and quite frankly, understanding that the house republicans now play the important role of governing half of the legislative branch, they're going to be -- they're involved in the responsibility of governing and i think the -- an exchange of ideas on the issues we face are important. >> on a different issue, since

this is your last week, do you have advice to your successor you'd be willing to share with us? >> no. we have had many private conversations about that. >> one domestic and one international, israel is threatened, if its existence is in danger, would the u.s. come to israel's assistance? >> i think regardless of the situation face anything government in the region, our friendship and our partnership and our alliance with israel is unchanged. >> on "the washington post" story, we'll be taking up arms, it's an engrossing story, what does that say about the level of confidence of the american people? >> i read a lot this morning but i don't know that i read that one. i will. >> vice president suleiman, i

just want to be clear of this, the call that the vice president made, did they say, we've got to say something about that? did you object to that? >> i said what he said yesterday was unacceptable to this process. i think as we talked about yesterday, i think there's a counterpart to counterpart relationship with vice president biden and vice president suleiman as a continued channel to discuss the process an the pathway to free and fair leches. >> on that process, one of the criticisms that's been made of it is that it has not been terribly inclusive at this point. has that point been made to the egyptians? >> it has. both privately and publicly. again, i -- you -- unless or until there's a broad base of those that are not currently represented in government,

unless or until those are involved in this process, i think you're going to see the reaction that you see from the people of egypt. >> if i may, different reports that the three-way meetings, americans, pakistani, and afgani foreign ministers is in some question because of the u.s. diplomatic problems in pakistan. >> i think state has better details on that, i'd point you to them. >> as you wind down here, have you given advice to your success oor on press policy, on access, and do you have any regrets about -- do you have thoughts about things that have gone on the last two years that you wish have had gone bet her >> i'll say this, i don't want to answer for you all or anybody in the country but i think if you do a job for a specific amount of time and look pack and say you wouldn't

have done anything differently, you probably haven't spent a lot of time thinking back about what you did. i take my transcript home every night and read my transcript. i think if there's a time in which i've read that transcript and i thought, wow, perfect, i did it all just right, that -- it may happen on thursday night wherk don't brief that day, but -- the notion that somehow you don't look back and think you would have done things differently, look, i will have quite a bit of time to more apt hi focus on it. i will say, look, i think, and i'm going to go back to ari, because i've avoided doing this and you repeated his question almost verbatim and i swallowed the hook, so, look, i think you have to have -- we've discussed

in pretty broad detail and great depths the situation that's transpiring thousands of miles away. this is -- when things like that happen, it's more than just a conversation that's happening between this side of the room and this side of the room. it's happening and people are watching it, not just throughout this country but throughout this world. and your questions and my answers are being translated in languages that are spoken in continents far away. i think it demonstrates the importance of a strong freedom of the press, a sharing of information, i think the reason that we can speak about the

universal values we hold so dear and we can speak about it halfway across the world is because it's something that we think is so tremendously important. >> have you given advice to your successor? >> that was ari's question. we have talked a lot about -- i am not going to share that advice. i'm going to let that counsel remain private. but jay and i talked a lot about the -- the importance of this job. and i don't mean that as a personal thing. this will long outlive -- in a country like this, it will long outlive the personality of myself just as it long outlived the personalities who came before me and will long outlive those who come after me.

>> have you written your notes for -- >> i'm not going to answer that. >> there was a story in the "new york times" that the united states was involved in discussions with the egyptians to have mubarak turn over power immediately. is that story incorrect? >> i'm not going to get into conversations that are had between our governments. >> you've been pretty clear that the united states is not supposed to be getting into when mubarak should leave and suggested very strongly we have not tried to get him out immediately. have discussions like that taken place? >> i am not going to get into the details of every conversation that is had with our government and other foreign governments. but i want to be clear that these are decisions that can only be made by the egyptians. >> the united states has not tried to remove mue par rack

from power right away. >> you talk a lot about what the egyptian people want. everybody adeprees that mubarak's regime is an oppressive regime and we know there are a lot of people out in the square but how do we know what the egyptian people want? >> that's why we don't -- that's high we're not the ones who are checking off on what the process has to be. again, as i said -- >> you've said what the egyptian people want several times. they may want exactly what you're saying. but how do we know? >> i think the reason you can ask me questions about why the egyptian people don't think they have greater freedoms is because those freedoms are enumerated in many of the stories that i read around -- from different outlets around this room. it's written on signs in tahrir

square. it's held up by people -- again -- >> people out on the mall with lots of signs that doesn't mean the majority of americans support whatever they're asking for. >> you are enumerating far better than i could why it is not for us to ar by trait. -- to arbitrate. if somebody holds up a sign on the mall here in washington, it probably doesn't constitute the majority of the opinion of the people in america but it probably constitutes the majority of the opinion that person holds. that's the greatness of this country, anybody can walk out on the mall with a sign that expresses their viewpoint. what you are saying is the exact reason why our government isn't going to determine the definition of individual or group freedoms in a country like egypt. we can talk about the qune versal values of free speech, of freedom of assembly, of freedom to communicate across

the internet or social networking, but it is not up to, and it should not be up to, our government or some entity in our government to determine what the scope of freedom of speech looks like in egypt. that is for the precise region that we give the answer that this is up to the egyptians. it's not simply a way of saying that phrase over and over again. >> but you're insisting on them doing certain things and justifying it based on the will of the egyptian people >> i think you should get any newspaper or turn on any television set inside of this building and i think you'll see many -- do i know every person's concern in egypt? i will go way out on the limb and say, i do not. again, i don't think you have to have -- you could put up

your rabbit ears and know what's the concern in cairo because it's all over the tv. >> what did they discuss? >> the same thing i think will be discussed in the lunch tomorrow. >> does the -- did the president have any democratic leaders over last week at the white house? >> none that i'm aware of but i'll double check. >> on the issue of the meeting and finding common ground and civility, realistically, how long does the administration think they'll be able to have stability and find a common ground, this whole era of that? >> i don't know how many months the presidential campaign is away but it's a long way away. there are important things that have to happen in congress and around the country to meet the

concerns and to meet the problems that we face, the challenges that we have, that require that we take action on well in advance of the calendar of a presidential election. >> but right now -- >> that's what happens in this town. that's what -- again, i think that the clear message from the american people in the election was that they don't need that. they don't want that. they're looking for two parties to be able to sit down and have those conferrings. and work out answers to those problems. it's what's required. it's not what may happen. >> also, i asked you last week about the president's involvement with rahm emanuel. >> i'll ask -- i'll see if i have any update on that, or if i find out the president and first lady have voted. >> let me ask about your

departure. you consciously made a decision to leave. from tai one, you have enjoyed that podium and you want have been beyond professional. >> as i've said a hundred times, maybe 10,000 times if you didn't enjoy some element of this, you would do about tree tais and turn in your pass and hope nobody found you again. if you don't have some enjoyment in -- >> so you enjoy this? >> i assume you do, too. some of you have contracts that require you to sit here. first of all, i don't want to turn this into my fond farewell, it's the least favorite topic i have, which is me. but i think if you were to have somebody in this job that didn't enjoy doing this job, like people who -- it is one of the most challenging jobs, i think, that is in all this

government for the precise reason that we're up here talking about a subject that can influence what happens 10 miles and 10,000 miles away. but if you didn't have some enjoyment in doing this job, like i said, it would -- it would compound how -- you couldn't do it long. >> there's some skepticism about the president's call for corporate tax reform because he hasn't produced key specifics like what the rate should be, what the treatment of foreign taxes should be. what is the difference between a preference and a loophole in his opinion. how long do we have to wait for the specifics of this plan? >> i think it's important to understand that this is not going to be -- we put out a plan, we say hey, this is our man, take this or leave, you know, i think the president started a series of discussions

about this with business leaders at the blare house, those conversations with secretary geithner have continued to happen. this is a process that is not going to take a mat ore of days or weeks. it's going to take months if not years. so i think this is a long process that will involve stake holders at all levels with both political parties weighing in on their ideas about how we meet the goal of reforming the way corporate taxes are done, lowering that rate but keeping it deficit neutral. >> going back to egypt you said many times that you raise the -- praise the egyptian army. considering the history of the middle east, many of the curn and present leaders came from the egyptian army. three men in charge now in egypt are military men. do you trust them that they will lead the transition to a free election?

>> two things. one, i think we have rightly, i think, given some praise to the actions that haven't been taken. that many feared might be take with an army -- -- might be taken with an army deployed with an army of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of protesters. i think it's important also that we have -- we talked about today and we have talked about this previously, about continued restraint and adherence to nonviolence and assurance that anything involving harassment or beating or detention is ended immediately. so we will continue to watch, as i've said, throughout this,

the process of their reaction. secondly, again, i think the determination about the progress that's being made toward free and fair leches will be determined by those in egypt. >> i have a second question, should the british foreign minister william tait said today that the demonstrations take a bold step in israeli-palestinian relations. is this something your considering? >> i think the president and this administration have been actively involved in seeking a lasting peace between israel and the palestinians. and we understand and we know that our lack of involvement by this country is not likely to produce the outcome that the world hopes for with peace. only through active engagement

and involvement can that happen. we have, and we will continue to do that, but just like in this instance, we cannot construct or force on those two entities something that they're unwilling to take steps to do themselves. >> you started off calling for the journalist, reports show that the egyptian police were involved. do you think the egyptian military have restraint? >> i refer you to what i said a second ago, the restraint we saw in the square has been important. without getting into who may or may not be involved, any involvement -- the fovet of egypt has a strict responsibility to its citizens

to ensure their safety and security to ensure that they are table exercise their right to protect in a peaceful way, and that goes for foreign journalists who are there to cover that story. i watched yesterday a couple of interviews with two journalists from fox that -- the pictures were -- the pictures were hard to watch. the aftereffects several days late ore of whomever that was beating derek taining, harassing those reporters and -- that has to stop regardless of what is either in charge of or involved in that. >> can you tell us quickly why the meeting with mcconnel wasn't on the schedule? >> i'll have to check. >> there's been talk on the

hill about reopening the individual mandate in health care legislation. how firm is the president and the administration's commitment to that provision, considering that at one point in time he was not supportive of it? >> look, we -- the president had to make a conscious decision about how to ensure that the legislation would prevent the problem we've seen with free riders, in other words, people that never think they're going to get sick and don't get sick but they get hit by a bus and show aupt the more than room and then basically charge us to pay for it. the protections that we will have as part of this law that are derived from ensuring that it's not just a certain segment of the population that's covered but that everybody has coverage is an important foundation in this law.

the president supports it. we've gone to court to maintain it, and as the president said, we will work with those who want to see improvements in this law regardless of policy. i'm sorry, regardless of party. but we believe that -- we believe that individual responsibility is a foundation for -- >> is there another provision that can do what that provision does? >> i think if we thought there was a better way to do that, we would have done it. >> i want i want to talk about the topics that came up with senator mcconnel. there's one topic that wouldn't come up with the house leaders. does the president raise the issue of judicial confirmations and are we going to see a push by the president -- >> let me go check on that right thousand. >> back to egypt, has there been a certain amount of soul

cherging and re-evaluation in the administration about how to deal with undemocratic governments that are nonetheless helpful to the united states? >> well, look. we have -- we have important, as i said earlier, important bilateral relationships throughout the world. we cannot -- we cannot institute or force change on any of those governments. we can speak out directly, privately and in public, on the universal values that we support. i think what you've heard the president say and i think what my guess is governments throughout the world are seeing is that what happens in a country when a government appears not to be responsive to

the needs of, the concerns of its citizens. i think as the president said, each and every one in government has the responsibility to do that. >> we had a wire cross us that said the first hay disays the president quit smoking and hasn't smoked in almost a year. >> i think that goes along with what i said, i don't remember when we last discussed this. i said he hadn't smoked in nine months. >> do you know what helped him finally kicked the habit? >> i don't doubt that the first lady -- i don't mean that in a funny way. i have not quit. marvin doesn't smoke.

eugene, i hope you're still not smoking because i just mentioned you, there are a number of people that have decided not to -- that have decided to make that -- i think, look i -- they did it around the same time. i will say this, and i didn't mean to be, i didn't actually mean what i said about the first lady to be humorous as much as -- i think that when somebody decides to quit smoking, try to overcome the physical adick that they have, they do it not just because they want to but because others want them to and because others around them give them the type of ep couragement that they need to break what is a tough habit to break. thanks, guys.

>> no briefing friday? >> there'll be a briefing, thursday because we travel. >> robert gibbs announcing in the briefing that the president will host house republican leaders for launch on wednesday, john boehner, majority leader eric cantor and kevin mccarthy. the u.s. house will come in in under 10:00 minutes. a couple of bills, expiring provisions of the patriot act and also extending trade measures. live house coverage at 2:00 here on c-span. al at 2:00, transportation secretary ray lahood holding a briefing on the safety of toyotas, they've just released a study that determines in electronic-based cause of those acceleration problems, that's at 2:00 on c-span2. the press secretary fielding a lot of questions about egypt. we want to show you comments by

a former bush administration official, former defense policy chief doug fife was at a discussion this morning at the hudson institute critical of the administration's response to egypt. here's some of what he sad had to say. >> officials interested in developing a strategy have to start by clarifying some points, i believe, about democracy promotion or the promotion of liberal democratic ideas and u.s. national security policy. i'll offer a few thoughts that they might want to consider. one, the u.s. has practical interests in the spread of democratic institutions and the development of democratic institutions. the contrary view, the so-called realist view, which tends to equate authoritarianism with stability is being refuted in the streets

of tunis and cairo now. i think that's one of the important lessons to see that this -- the view that tends to deprecate the importance, the practical importance of democracy is not a view, according to polls, that has much resonance with the american people but it's important for the american people to understand that in their key national security institutions within the government, the state department an the c.i.a., the so-called realist view is the predominant view and there tends to be a general down playing of the importance of the practical importance of democracy promotion to the united states. now, promoting democracy has obvious moral, and i would say less obvious practical

benefits. it can help create a more peaceful and stable world and just to illustrate the point, compare europe today to europe at the start of the 20th century. you can begin to see the benefit the practical benefits of successful democracy promotion. it can also help diminish the ideological appeal of islamism. democracy is not a cure-all for that problem but it can be important. the sec point i would make is that democracy promotion is not a simple matter of overthrowing authoritarian regimes and quickly organizing leches. i think that all of my colleagues on the panel here have issued very important and intelligent warnings, cautions, about simplistic approaches to democracy promotion. the term democracy, as paul

marshall and others have mentioned, is shorthand for a set of liberal democratic concepts, attitudes and institutions. concepts such as individual rights, limited government and rule of law. attitudes such as compromise, respect for contrary rues, and institutions such as multiple power centers, independent judiciary, as was just mentioned, property rights. so when we talk about promoting democracy, many people think that all we're talking about is rushing to organize elections and i think it's extremely important, part of the problem with using this kind of shorthand, it's extremely important to understand that sensible people talking about promoting democracy are talking about promoting these concepts, attitudes and institutions.

and not just looking at the one institution that gets -- that gets first and foremost attention by most people, which is leches. free and fair elections are an element of democracy but in the absence of other elements, they're not only insufficient to create democracy, they can produce anti-democratic results. democracy is not only about process but also principles. so it's not hypocrisy for supporters of democracy to oppose the use of democratic processes to give power to people who rejeck democratic principles. nazis, communists and islamists have all in various places and various times used democratic means to pursue power even though they reject liberal democracy in principle.

this is one of the great challenges for liberal democracy. they have to understand that not every element of liberal democracy is a good thing to rush forward with in societies where the use, for example, of quick leches can produce results that are deeply, philosophically hostile to the principles of liberal democracy. now the third point i would make is, as important as democracy promotion is for u.s. national security policy, it doesn't always trump every other policy consideration. officials with broad responsibilities are continually forced to make tradeoffs among important interests. now, what that means is that serious policymaking in this

area requires arguing against the so-called realist view that democracy promotion is essentially irrelevant to american interests and also fighting against the purists who argue that anything that is -- that seems to be at odds with the immediate promotion of democracy and the rushing toward elections is a violation of principle. >> you can see all of that online at our website c-span.org and we'll show you the entire event later in our programming ke jewel. we are leaving this because the u.s. house is about to gavel in to start their day. after a period of general speeches, they'll take up the short-term extension of certain patriot act provisions and votes after 6:30 this evening.

[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father coughlin.

chaplain coughlin: eternal and gracious lord, nothing escapes your attention. you read the intentions of our mind and the true desires of our hearts. may everything we do begin with your holy inspiration, continuing with your sustaining grace, and reach your divine purpose for the good of your people, not just some people, but for the good of the entire nation. so both in word and deed may we give you glory now and forever. the speaker: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from south carolina, mr. wilson. mr. wilson: everyone, including our guests in the gallery,

please join in. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker: the chair will entertain one-minute requests. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. poe: request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker: without objection. mr. poe: mr. speaker, juarez, mexico, is one of the most dangerous places in the world. more than 3,000 people were murdered there in 2010 alone. three triple homicides occurred just this past weekend. also two american teenagers, carlos and juan, were brutally murdered in the weekend shootings. juarez across from el paso, texas, as well as the rest of the border, is a lawless war zone controlled by the violent

drug cartels. despite the continued loss of american life, the united states government refuses to admit that there's a war on the southern border. this violence is a lethal cancer that is spreading quickly into the united states. the narcoterrorists do not recognize international lines. this is a matter of national security and is the responsibility of the federal government to protect the border. meanwhile, the administration has proposed a whopping $53 billion in high-speed rail subsidies, instead of more choochoo trains, that money should go to the national border security defense. that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan rise? >> thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent to address this house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore:

without objection. mr. clarke: thank you, mr. speaker. a couple days ago during the super bowl a tv ad was aired that highlighted the grit and spirit and ingenuity of metro detroiters which gives us the ability to make some of the greatest cars in the world. that spirit of detroit is rooted in our american values of life, of liberty, of the pursuit of happiness. and it's that spirit that transformed the world war ii into the arsenal of democracy that saved this country, saved this world from the threat of fascism. mr. speaker, i believe today that that same spirit of detroit will help build the new cars that will be powered by electricity, to help build new homes and offices which will be heated by the sun and manufacture the best products in the world. you see, when you make it in detroit, you help make it in

america. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? mr. wilson: i ask permission to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, as americans recognize black history month, i'm honored this month in the midlands of south carolina that history is being made by reverend charles b. jackson jr. he's being hailed on february 27 for serving his extraordinary 40 years ever dynamic leadership at brookland baptist church in west columbia. he began preaching at age 9. he energized one of the fastest-growing congregations in southeast. he encouraged the 65 ministries of the church. he promote add new sanctuary that sits 2,300 followed by a 68,000 square foot community resource center. in 2008 they acquired a 94,000 square foot educational

facility with 11 acres downtown while employing over 160 dedicated personnel. a second location was launched in rich lapd northeast pastored by dr. johnson. dr. jackson is married and the father of two children. reverend jackson jr. and candice jackson an associated attorney along with daughter-in-law, former iva gayman, and four grandchildren. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget spetch and the global war on terrorism -- september 11 and the global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio rise? mr. kucinich: i request permission to address the house for one minute. revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. kucinich: this afternoon the house will debate extension of the patriot act. i have here a report from the "l.a. times" dot-com that says f.b.i. intelligence investigations have compromised

the civil liberties of american citizens far more frequently and to a greater extent than previously assumed. the report goes on to say that in 2007 the justice department's inspector general told congress the f.b.i. may have violated the law or government policy, as many as 3,000 times since 2003. in the course of secretly collecting telephone, bank, and credit card records without warrants. instead using so-called national security letters that give them the ability to demand this kind of information and get it. the patriot act is a destructive undermining of the constitution. we started this congress off with a discussion about reading the constitution, many of us carry constitutions with us in our pocket. how about today we take a stand for the constitution to say that all americans should be free from unreasonable search and seizure and to make certain that the patriot act, the attempt to re-authorize the patriot act is beat down. it's time that we really

remember the essence of what that motto, don't tread on me, means. it means you protect your liberties. you stand for freedom. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. burgess: i ask unanimous consent to rise to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, on november 5, 1994, former president ronald reagan announced he had been diagnosed with alzheimer's disease. you now begin the journey that will lead into into the sunset of my life. at that time four million americans suffered with alzheimer's. today over five million now carry that diagnosis and for members of my generation, that number will double to 10 million. president reagan's 100th birthday would have been this past sunday. this week i'm introducing the mind act. if passed it will establish the issuance of united states alzheimer's bonds to aid in the funding of alzheimer's research. proceeds of bond sales would fund the program and be available to the director of the national institutes of

health solely for alzheimer's research. the revenues generated by the sale of bonds would be funds for research in addition not instead of regular appropriated funds. in his letter president reagan said, i know for america there will always be a bright dawn ahead. i know he is correct. there could be no more loving gift for members of my generation to future generations than to provide additional nonfederal funding to help people who are inflicted or will be diagnosed with alzheimer's. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will remind all persons in the gallery that they are here as guests of the house and that any manifestation of approval or disapproval of the proceedings of this house is in violation of the rules of the house. for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana rise? mr. pence: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. pence: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, it comes as a surprise to most americans to

learn that the largest abortion provider in america is also the largest recipient of federal funding under title 10. it's heartbreaking news this morning that planned parenthood of america has now been the subject of one more undercover video showing someone posing as a pimp being facilitated by employees at planned parenthood in how to secure secret abortions, s.t.d. testing, and contraception for child prostitutes. as a father of two teenage daughters i see the video that came out this morning and last week and it's an outrage to me. that employees of planned parenthood clinics across the country are facilitating the abuse of minor girls in this country. it should be a scandal to every american. the time has come to deny all federal funding to planned parenthood of america. i'm authored title 10 prohibition act which would

deny title 10 funds to parenthood or any other abortion provider and congress must act and act now to move this important legislation. pro-life americans and all americans should not be forced to subsidize america's largest abortion provider or continue to provide -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. pence: to title 10 clinics that engage in this abhorrent behavior. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? >> to address the house for one minute. revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. wolf: in the wake of the devastating attacks targeting christians in iraq and egypt last year, it is clear that religious minorities in the middle east are facing a grave threat. there are even reports that christian women who have fled iraq are living in ghettos in syria and having been driven to pros pi constitution in an attempt to provide for their families. with the exception of israel it contains reference to ancient iraq than any other country. abraham, evidenter, daniel --

esther and daniel to name a few. a christian mother of five in pakistan remains in prison charged with blast familiary. if found guilty she faces the death penalty. in the face of these grim realities, i have introduced bipartisan legislation, h.r. 440, which would create a special envoy at the state department to advocate on behalf of religious minorities in the middle east and south central asia. i urge all colleagues who care about the persecution of christians in iraq and pakistan , equipped to co-sponsor my bill. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> mr. speaker, this past weekend -- mr. stearns: mr. speaker, this past weekend americans came together to honor the 100th birthday of president reagan.

president reagan believed that personal accountability and hard work are the corner stones of the american dream. he understand america's greatness and exceptionalism. no american will ever forget how he touted america as a shining city on a hill. and quote, built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace. in these drubbled economic times, we would be wise to follow reagan's lessons that limited government, low taxes, and free enterprise foster economic growth and job creation. reagan knew that freedom was america's greatest export to the world. whether it was promoting freedom overseas against a communist threat or at home through free markets. president reagan left an unparalleled legacy to his country and we honor his extraordinary life on what would have been his is00th -- 100th birthday. the speaker pro tempore: for

what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin rise mr. sensenbrenner: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. sensenbrenner: mr. speaker, a few minutes ago the distinguished gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich, called for not re-authorizing temporarily three expiring provisions of the patriot act. allegedly because the f.b.i. had found several liberties violations. in his one-minute address, the gentleman from ohio unfortunately missed the point. he used the law on national security letters to show abuses of the patriot act. the patriot act did not authorize national security letters. those letters were authorized in 1986 under legislation sponsored by the senator from vermont, mr. leahy, who opposes the patriot act and always has. .

i would hope as we debate the temporary re-authorization of three expiring provisions of the patriot act that we in the paint that act with a broad brush but if there are specific abuses of these expiring provisions we should confine debate to them. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, madam, we have the honor to transmit an enrelope containing an addition

to the federal register first declared in executive order 196 of february 2, 2006. be west -- with best wishes, i am, sincerely, karen l. haas, clerk of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will reread the message. the clerk: provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless prior to the anniversary date of its declaration the president publishes in a federal register a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. in accordance with this provision, i have sent to the federal register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency declared in executive order 133-96 of february 7, 2006, with respect to the situation or in relation to the cote du'ivoire through 2011.

the situation in or in relation to the area which has been a subject of the united nations security council in resolution 1572 of 2004 has resulted in the massacre of large numbers of the civilians, widespread human rights abuses, significant political violence and unrest and fatal attacks against international peacekeeping forces. in march, 2007, a political agreement was signed by two protagonists in the conflict. as recent events surrounding the presidential election in the area, the situation continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign snoifl united states. for these reasons, i have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency and related measures blocking the property of

certain persons contributing to the conflict in the area. signed, barack obama, the white house, january 26, 2011. the speaker pro tempore: the message is referred to the committee on foreign affairs and ordered printed. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. pelosi: today marks the passing of our dear colleague jack murtha of pennsylvania. i rise to pay tribute to him. he was a giant of this chamber, an unsurpassed talent, a political servant a public servant to the end. those of us who served with him are honored to call him colleague, those of in this body, many of us were

privileged to call him friend, colleague and friend. the outpouring of accolades that came forward at his passing was something quite remarkable and i hope that it was a comfort and has been a comfort to his family. certainly to those of us who worked with him who knew his love of his district, who remember the way he held court in the pennsylvania corner and gave out his blessing and his advice, jack murtha's wisdom, counsel and knowledge will continue to inspire us all. to watch jack murtha legislate was to watch a master at work but more indicative of his character was to watch him communicate with the men and women in uniform, whether near the battle feel or near their bedside he thanked them for their courage and listened to their concerns, he always answered their needs, responded to their calls for body armor, uparmored vehicles and reliable radios among other things. in those moment he bonded with

them with his own personal military experiences. he was awarded the bronze star and purple heart himself. the nation saw jack's courage on the battlefield, in congress as he spoke out against the war in iraq, and in doing so he made the distinction between the war and the warrior. always commit ited to our national defense, forever bound to a cause of our national security, jack murtha measured the strength of our country not only by the might of our military, behe also measured it by the strength and well being of our people. a much decorated champion on the battlefield, he was a hero in advancing scientific research to fight against breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, h.i.v. and aids to name a few. today, we remember him always thinking of the motto of the marine corps, semper fi. that motto of the marine corps,

which jack served proudly for 37 years, was the motto of his life. to the end, he remained always faithful to god and country to his hometown of johnstown, and most of all to his wife joyce, his children and his grandchildren. patriot, champion, hero, giant, jack murtha. we will never see his like again. again, i hope it is a comfort to his family that this one year later so many of us remember jack murtha and pray for their -- pray for his family. i yield back the balance of my time. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the yealt yields back. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk receives the following message from the secretary of the senate on january 26, 2011, at

4:50 p.m. that the senate passed without amendment h r. 366, appointment, ronald reagan centennial commission, with best wishes, i am, signed sincerery, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2h of rule 2, of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the nat on january 27, at 4:03 p.m. appointment, congressional budget office. with best wishes, i am, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2h of rule 2 of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk receives the following

message from the secretary of the senate on february 1, 2011, at 10:52 a.m., appointment, board of regents of the smithsonian institution, with best wishes, i am, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to permission granted in clause 2h of rule 2 the clerk receives the following message from the sec the rare -- secretary of the senate at 12:00 p.m. that the senate passed senate 1 8, appointment, migratory bird conservation commission, president's export council. with best wishes, i am, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2h of rule 2 of the

rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk receives the following message from the secretary of the senate on february 3, 2011 at 10:33 a.m., appointment, senate national security working group, board of trustees gallaudet university, holocaust memorial council, commission on security and cooperation in europe, united states-china interparliamentarian, interparliamentary group conference, united states-mexico inter parliamentary group conference, british-american interparliamentary group conference. with best wishes, i am, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the ho honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2h of rule 2 of the

rules of the u.s. house of representatives the clerk receives the following message from the united states house of representatives, at 11:52 a.m., appointment, senate national security working group. with best wishes, i am, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1, the following enrolled bill was signed by the speaker on january 22,2011. the clerk: h.r. 366 to provide for an additional temporary extension program around the small business act and small business investment act of 1958 and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the chair will postpone further motions to proon which the yeas and nays are ordered. record votes on postponed questions will be taken after 6:30 p.m. today.

frrp does think gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 514. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: a bill to extend expiring provisions of the u.s.a. pay to the improvement of 2005 and intelligence reform and terrorism provepks act of 2004 relating to access to business records involving individual terrorist and agents of foreign powers and roving wiretapping until december 8, 2011. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from texas, mr. ship, and the gentleman from michigan, mr. conyers, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. smith. mr. smith: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on h.r. 513 currently under

consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman may proceed. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: mr. speaker, next september 11 will mark the 10-year anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on the u.s. in history. america is fortunate not to have suffered another attack of such magnitude in the past decade but we must not take this relatively secure country for granted or let our safety become complay seasoncy. america is safe today not because terrorists an spies have given up their goal to destroy our freedoms and way of life. we are safe today because the men and women of our armed forces, our intelligence community and our law enforcement agency work every single day to protect us. congress must ensure that they are equipped with the resources they need to counteract continuing terrorist threats. on freb 28, three important

provisions of the u.s.a. patriot act will expire. these provisions given investigators in national security cases the authority to conduct roving wiretaps, to seek certain business records and to gather intelligence on loan -- on lone terrorists not affiliated with a known terrorist groups. these provisions have been used by domestic law enforcement agencies for years to apprehend typical criminals. it is common sense to give our national investigators the same tools to fight triffs that our police officers have to fight crime they have ongoing threat from al qaeda and other groups have continued. terrorists have attempted to blow up a plane over detroit, to bomb new york's subway system to destroy sky scrapers in dallas, texas, and springfield, illinois, and to detonate a car bomb in new york city's times square.

most of these plots for thwarted thanks to the priot nationd other safe. we must continue these intelligence gathering measures to win our fight against terrorists. president obama agrees. in a letter to congress last month, director of national intelligence admiral clapper and attorney general holder urged us to re-authorize the expiring provisions, noting they are critical tools that, quote, had been used in numerous highly sensitive intelligence collection operations, end quote. this bill re-authorizes the expiring provisions through december 8 of 2011, the last day that the house of representatives is scheduled to be in session. this extension serves two important functions. . sec, it provides congress with the opportunity to engage in a thorough review of these provisions as we pursue and consider a longer

re-authorization. i urge my colleagues to support our ability to continue to protect americans against terrorist plots and attacks. mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. conyers: i reluctantly rise in nonsupport of this provision to extend expiring provisions of the patriot act because of section 215 of the patriot act which i'd like to call to your attention. this is the act that allows a secret fisa court to authorize

our government to collect business records or anything else that a person or business to produce virtually any type record. we don't think that that was right then. we don't think it's right now. and i feel obligated to oppose any extension of these expiring acts since we have had no hearings, no markup -- mark up, no committee vote, nobody's done anything about it. we'll get to it after it. well, i can't go along with that.

this provision is contrary to traditional motions of search and seizure which require the government to show reasonable suspicion or probable cause before undertaking an investigation that infringes upon a person's privacy. so i urge a no vote on the extension of these expiring provisions and reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: i yield five minutes to the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. sensenbrenner, who is currently the chairman of the crime and homeland security subcommittee of the judiciary committee, and who previously as chairman of the judiciary committee itself was responsible for writing the patriot act provisions. i yield to the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. sensenbrenner: i thank the gentleman for yielding. at the outset let me say i'm a little puzzled by my friend from michigan, mr. conyers, is opposing the extension of these

three provisions of the patriot act today. because last year he called up a senate bill that provided for a year's extension of these three provisions and manage the time and voted for it. and after hearing his comments, i'm wondering why he has changed his mind. mr. conyers: would the gentleman yield? mr. sensenbrenner: on your time. if you yield me an additional minute i'll be happy to yield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin will proceed. mr. sensenbrenner: i thank the gentleman from texas for yielding. in 198 -- three national security laws will expire unless congress re-authorizes them. h.r. 514 temporarily extends these laws. fisa business records, roving wiretaps, and the lone wolf definition until december 8 of this year. as chairman of the house judiciary committee in the last decade, i oversaw the enactment of the u.s.a. patriot act in response to 9/11 terrorist

attacks. title 2 of the act addressed enhanced foreign intelligence and law enforcement surveillance authority. 16 sections of that title were originally set to expire on december 31, 2005. also set to expire on that date was section 6001 of the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004, which is the lone wolf definition. in 2005, i again spearheaded the effort to re-authorize the patriot act, recognizing the significance of the act to america's counterterrorism operations than the need for thror row oversight, the house judiciary committee held nine subcommittee hearings, three days of full committee hearings, then a robust full committee mark up re-authorizing legislation. u.s.a. patriot improvement and re-authorization act of 2005 made permanent 14 of the 16 intelligence provisions. the act extended the sunset on

section 206, fisa roving wiretaps, section 215, fisa business records, and the lone wolf definition until the end of 2009. but the three remaining temporary provisions were not re-authorized before that deadline. instead, the then democratic majority chose twice to extend the provisions, first for two months, then for a year without ever bringing a re-authorization bill to the floor. this congress things will be different. we must approve a temporary extension today to keep these critical national security tools in place. but this extension will afford congress sufficient time to hold hearings and markups and adopt a permanent re-authorization of these provisions this year which i intend to introduce soon. the time for multiple temporary extensions is over. the terrorist threat has not subsided and will not expire. and neither should our national security laws.

it is equally important that congress make permanent the lone wolf definition. this provision closes the gap in the fisa act which allowed to expire could permit individual terrorists to slip through the cracks and carry out his plot undetected. when fisa was originally enacted in 1978, terrorists were believed to be members of an identified group. that's not the case today. today more than ever we are confronted with transferring loosely organized terrorist groups or individuals who may subscribe to a movement or certain beliefs but do not belong to or identify themselves with a specific terrorist group. without the lone wolf definition, our surveillance tools will be powerless to act against this growing act to america's security. section 206 of the patriot act authorizes the use of roving or multipoint wiretaps for national security and intelligence investigations. this allows the government to use a single wiretap order to

cover any communications device that the target uses or may use. without roving wiretap authority, investigators would be forced to seek a new court order each time they need to change the location, phone, or computer that needs to be monitored. section 215 of the act allows the fisa court to issue orders granting the government access to business records and forward intelligence, inlnasht terrorism, and clandestine intelligence cases. the 2005 act expands the safeguards against potential abuse of section 215 authority, including additional congressional oversight, procedural protections, application requirements, and judicial review. each of these provisions are integral to defending america's national security and must be kept intact. i urge my colleagues to join me in passing h.r. 514 and yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i am pleased now to recognize the gentleman from new york, jerrold nadler, who has been the chairman of the constitution subcommittee longer than any member in the congress. three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. nadler: i thank the gentleman. i rise in opposition to this extension of the expiring provisions of the patriot act, the intelligence prevention act. i cannot support this extension when the house has done nothing to consider these provisions or possibly reforms through a hearing or mack up. in the past members had the opportunity to receive classified briefings, we have dozens of new members who have received no such briefings. section 215 authorizes the government to obtain tangible thing relative to a terrorist investigation even if there is no showing that the thing pertains to suspected terrorists or terrorist activities. it is sweeping in scope and the government is not required to show reasonable sussspippings or probable cause before

undertaking the investigation that infringes upon a person's privacy, including the records of what he's read in the library. should either ensure things collected have a meaningful nexus to suspected terrorist activity or allow the provision to expire. section 206 provides for roving retire taps which permit the government to obtain intelligence surveillance orders that identify neither the person to be tapped. this is supposedly what the deal with cell phones and the like and modern technology. it goes too far. without the necessity to specify either the person or the facility to be tapped, this is for all practical purposes a general granted authority to wiretap anyone and anywhere the government wants. there are almost no limits to this authority and the requirement the government name -- and no requirement the government name a specific target. this is very kin to the british which led to the colonial outrage which led to the american revolution. section 6001 of the

intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004, the so-called lone wolf provision, secret intelligence surveillance who are not affiliated with the foreign government organization. according to government testimony, this provision has never been used, yet it remains on the books. it's never been used because there's other authority to do that. surveillance of an individual is not working with the foreign government or organization not what we normally understand as foreign intelligence. there may be good reasons for government to keep tabs on such people, but that is no reason to suspend all our laws under the pretext this is a foreign intelligence operation. while some have argued each of these authorities remain necessary tools in the fight against terrorism, and that they must be extended without any modifications, others have careful review and modification. some have allowed some to sunset. i believe we should examine how it's working, where it's been successful, where it's failed, where it goes too far.

that is the purpose of sunsets and to extend it without that review undermines that purpose. i introduce the national security letters reform act which would make vital improvements to protect civil liberties while ensuring it remains a tool in national security investigations. i hope we can work to strike that balance in a responsible manner but the record of the abuse is too great for congress to ignore. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. nadler: i hope we'll be examine how these provisions have been used or abused. that was the purpose of sunsets and i hope we can take advantage of that opportunity. i thank the gentleman for yielding. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: mr. speaker, how much time remains on each side? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas has 12 minutes. the gentleman from michigan has 15 minutes. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i

reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i am pleased at this time to recognize the distinguished gentleman from texas, mr. ron paul, for three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. paul: i thank the gentleman. i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to this bill. i was opposed to the patriot act in 2001 and do not believe now that it's a good idea to extend it. the fourth amendment is rather clear, it says we should be secure in our papers, our persons, our homes, and our effects. and that if war rents are to be issued, we have to do it with probable cause and describe in particular the places, people, and things that we are going to look at. and i think what has happened,

though, over the years has been that we have diluted the fourth amendment. it was greatly diluted in 2001, but it started earlier than that when the fisa law was originally written in 1978, that really introduced the notion that the fourth amendment was relative and not absolute. later on it was further weakened in 1998 and of course in 2001. i think our reaction to the horrors of 9/11 we can understand the concern and fear that was developed, but i think the reaction took us in the wrong direction because the assumption was made, of course, that we weren't spending enough money on surveillance and even though then our intelligence agencies received $40 billion, they didn't give us the right information. now we are spending $80 billion. but also looks like the conclusion was -- the american people had too much privacy. if we undermine the people's

privacy, somehow or another, we'll be safer. i think another thing that has come up lately, has been that the purpose of government is to make us perfectly safe. it is good to be safe, but governments can't make us safe. i question whether or not we have been made safer by the patriot act. a law makes us somewhat safer, is that a justification for the government to do anything they want? . if i want tub safe from child abuse and i wife beat, the goth could put a camera in every one of our houses and bathrooms and maybe somebody would be made safer this way, but what would you be giving up. what we want from government is to enforce the law and to protect our liberties. this, to me, has been, especially since 9/11 a classic example of sacrificing liberty for safety and security. now, i didn't invent those

terms. they've been around a long time. it's easily justified. i can understand, because i was here in 2001 when this came up, people become frightened and the american people want something done but i think this is misdirected and it doesn't serve our benefit. so i think this time we should really question why we're extending this. we're extending the three worst parts. why were these sunsets? because people had concern about them. they weren't sure they were good pieces and maybe they were overkill and therefore they said we better reassess it. we have already extended it twice and here we're going to do it again, with the intent, i think in a year to reassess it but this bill doesn't make things worse, doesn't make anything better but it does extend what i consider -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. paul: i ask for a no vote

on this legislation. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman if texas. mr. smith: i yield three minutes to the gentleman from pennsylvania pennsylvania, mr. dent. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. dent: thank you, mr. speaker, for allowing me to speak on this important issue, the re-authorization of the patriot act. for a variety of reasons, we need to re-authorize this bill. first and foremost, there are three provisions i think we're all very familiar with. the wiretaps, something we very much need to do and the business records provisions. with respect to wiretaps, i think it's been stated on this floor put should be stated once again, law enforcement has been using roving wiretaps for years against drug dealers and organized crime. since 1986. extending that to terrorists makes good sense. we have been doing it. we need to give law enforcement and our intelligence services

the tools they need to take down the terror plots before they become operational. that's why this extension is needed. another provision noted is also important, many plts are being carried out by lone wolf's. jihad jane, major hasan an others. lone wolves. we need to pursue these lone wolves, just as we've got terrorists who are part of a terrorist organization or an agent of a foreign power. that is essential. with respect to the issue of the business records, often people would say that we are somehow trying to examine one's library records what books they're reading. that's not the case. we know that 9/11 terrorists were using public library computers. we knew that they were also using university library computers to make plane reservations as well as to confirm those reservations. the idea is to be able to access one's business records. that's what we're after to make

sure that we cannot only apprehend that individual who is planning an attack but also the network of individuals with whom that individual may be working. that's why we need this issue of business records contained in this re-authorization. in fact, i'm not certain that the word library appears anywhere in the patriot act. this has been dubbed the library provision, which it is not. i think it is critically important that we continue to provide our law enforcement with the tools they need, our intelligence services with the tools they need to stop terrorism. we cannot tie their hands, we cannot tie the hands of local law enforcement. we are asking them to do more and more. the critics of many of these legislation often say we need to give local law enforcement -- let law enforcement to fight the battles. this gives them the tools they need. i urge passage and support for this re-authorization of the patriot act. thank you, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan.

mr. conyers: i'm pleased to recognize the gentleman from virginia, bobby scott, who has been the chair of the subcommittee on crime in the judiciary committee for four years. three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia. mr. scott: thank you. mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to h. reform 54, which would extend for one year sweeping governmental intrusions into our lives and privacy that were authorized by the u.s.a. patriot act and the 2004 intelligence act. without meaningful oversight nonstraiting that these extraordinary powers are needed, we should not extend these provisions for one full year or for any period of time if that matter. i therefore oppose the bill. i'm opposed not simply because i -- i am opposed because i do not accept the argument that in order to be safe we necessarily have to sacrifice our rights and freedoms. i adepree with benjamin

franklin who stated in the formation of our nation that they who give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. one of the provisions the bill re-authorizes is section 215 of the patriot act that gives the government the power to secretly invide our private records, such as books we read at the library by merely alleging they are relevant to a terrorism investigation but without having to show the kecks in connection with any specific suspected terrorist or terrorist activities. there's no requirement to show probable cause or even reasonable suspicion of being related to a specific act of terrorism and therefore there's no meaningful standard to judge whether or not the material is necessary. another provision of h.r. 514 is section 206 of the patriot act which is referred to as a roving john doe wiretap provision. it gives the government the

power to wiretap a phone conversation without having to be shown which phone had been used or who will be using it an without requiring a court order for the specific roving tap. third provision is section 6001 of the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004, referred to as the lone wolf provision, it gives the government the power to spy on individuals in the united states who are not u.s. citizens or permanent resident aliens even though they are not agents san francisco oa foreign government or any terrorist organization. unfortunately, this means that if those targeted have any interaction with an american citizen, then that u.s. citizen is spied upon as well. we already allow spying on such noncitizens outside the united states or even in the united states where there is probable cause that they are agents of a foreign government or members of a terrorist organization but this is an extension of that power which could envelop

anybody simply as a result of the occasion of interacting with a targeted perp even while we're in the united states. the third provisions give the government power to invide our privacy even when there's no probable cause or reasonable suspicion or cell evidence of any wrongdoing and without alleging -- without allowing the kind of detached oversight covered by a court warrant with ch is generally required when such power is extended. could i get an additional 30 seconds? these oversight protections even after the fact in the case of emergencies all three provisions should be allowed to expire unless we demonstrate in hearings and oversight hearings that these powers are necessary and narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling national security interest. freedoms and protections of these -- that these provisions

take away are the core of our values an liberties and they should not be legislated away without rigorous oversights to protect against abuse. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: i yield myself such time as i macon same. the speaker pro tempore: you may proceed. mr. smith: there's been some criticism today of the business records provision that gives agencies too much access to confidential records. but section 215 has more strict requirements than grand jury subpoenas used in criminal investigations. unlike a grand jury subpoena, which is not issued by a jum, a 215 order can only be used by a fisa court judge. section 215 only grants investigators the power to get records held by third parties such as a hotel or car rental records. there's been criticism that section 215 violates fourth

amendment protections against unreasonable serges and seizures. however a request for business records held by a third party is not a search under the fourth amendment. the target of an investigation does not own the records and therefore has no reasonable expectation of privacy in them. section 215 cannot be used to acquire records of u.s. persons based solely on first amendment protected activity. mr. speaker, i'll reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: no one has worked more carefully on this matter than dennis kucinich, the distinguished gentleman from cleveland who i yield two and a half minutes to. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio. mr. kucinich: thank you, mr. conyers, i appreciate that i certainly never seek to impugn the feelings of those who say

we have to have the patriot act in order to protect our country. we're all tai pais tots here and we want america to be protected. we have to remember our constitutional experience here. the reason why we have a fourth amendment that protects people from unreasonable search and seizure but from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their lives. when we look at our constitutional experience, and all of the efforts that made and build up to it, we didn't hear give me liberty or give me a wiretap. we department hear, don't tread on me but it's ok to spy. what we heard was a ringing declaration about freedom an it was enshrined in the constitution. i stood on the floor of the house way back when the patriot act came forward, voted against it because i read it, understood that it opened up the door for broad -- for a

broad reach, the possibilities of broad reach by the government into our daily lives. the gentleman from wisconsin who is my friend, correctly pointed out earlier the difference between national security letters and the patriot act. but it also is true that section 5055 of the patriot act tissue 505 of the pay to the act gave the government the ability to greatly expand who could issue a national security letter so much so that nearly 50,000 national security letters were issued by the f.b.i. in, i think, 2006. they don't have to use section 215 of the patriot act they can invoke the national security letter authority and reach into people's financial records, medical records, their reading material, what's happening to our country? why are we giving up our basic liberties? we need to take a stand here, this is as good a day as any to take a stand. many members of congress, including those supported by my

freppeds in the tea party, maintain their goal is to get rid of big government. get government out of their lives. how about the patriot act, which has the broadest reach and the deepest reach of government to our daily lives? shouldn't we be thinking about that? some want to get government out of health care, some want to get government out of retirement security, how about getting government out of people's bedrooms, out of people's financial records, out of people's medical records. vote no on extending the patriot act. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: i yield the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. sensenbrenner, as much time as he may consume. mr. sensenbrenner: there's been a lot said about national security letters. the authority for them was made permanent in 2006. it is not a part of this bill. so we ought to completely forget about the complaints about national security letters. what i will say is that in the

2006 re-authorization of the patriot act, there were provisions in the -- to give resip yens of the national security letter the right to obtain judicial review. i'm proud of that fact because i think whatever constitutional infirmities there were in the this part of the patriot act were solved. we hear an awful lot about no oversight the people on the other side of the aisle who are complaining about this have the authority to have oversight hearings. there is only one of them in the last congress. you compare that to the nine subcommittee hearings, three full committee hearings an the full markup that we had in 2006 when this side of the aisle had the majority. people who have been doing the oversight have been the republicans, not the democrats. the people who know this law is making americans safer are the republicans, and the democrats once again are complaining. i yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i am pleased now to recognize mr. rush holt of new jersey for two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey. mr. holt: mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman. the powers of intelligence and enforcement are among the most important powers of government. but also the most fear somdev. they must be wielded very, very carefully. for decades our government routinely collected information on potential and has collected on potential foreign threats through various forms of surveillance. these selection activities enjoy broad bipartisan support in our country because of their value and helping to protect american citizens and interests. however, in the 1960's and 1970's these collection capabilities mp turned on the american people -- were turned on the american people and agencies engaged in spying on the american public. sometimes even for political

purposes. the ensuing public backlash triggered the adoption of legal reforms that gave us laws to help prevent a repeat of these abuses. subsequently the tragedy of september 11, 2001, gave proponents extended domestic surveillance a powerful political and rhetorical weapon which they used to reduce constitutional protections against surveillance and seizures without appropriate warrants. when the congress passed the patriot act in march of 2006 it included sunset requirements, the three provisions you've heard about today. since 2005 i've voted against extending these and other provisions because these provisions are overly broad and frequently abused, while still not improving truly the security of the american people. my concerns are supported by the revelations of abuses of those authorities during hearings of the house judiciary committee in 2009 and in multiple reports issued by the inspector general of the department of justice.

the bill before us today does nothing to fix these problems or prevent future abuses. this bill does not raise the standards for intelligence collection to ensure that the right people are targeted in the first place. the law was not meant to sunset so that we could periodically re-authorize it unchanged. we're now on the verge of the third temporary extension. with no remedies for the flaws identified by this body and the department of justice inspector general. for all of these reasons -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. holt: i urge members to vote no. can i request an additional 30 seconds? i thank the gentleman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. >> mr. speaker, we have no other speakers on this side and i'm prepared to close. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i am proud now to recognize a senior member of the committee from

houston, texas, ms. sheila jackson lee, for two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from texas. ms. jackson lee: i thank the distinguished chairman and the ranking member of this committee. and i want to remind my colleagues of a sing important moment when -- single important moment when those of us who were republican and democrat came together after 9/11 and out of this judiciary committee came a singular initiative that dealt with the crisis of which we're facing. i have in my hand the constitution and i'm reminded that when the founding fathers came together and declared that we all were created equal, they too were concerned about treason , spying, the undermining of government and maybe even the threat of violence as we well know how this country came into being, we had to fight a war.

but yet they had in this constitution the rights of the fourth amendment, that we would be protected against unreasonable search and seizure, fifth amendment of due process and they believed that americans should be protected. this bill, however, comes to the floor again without amendments and i'm very proud to say that over the series of my tenure on the judiciary committee, i have submitted very vital and important amendments to protect the civil liberals of americans but as well to recognize the responsibility of awful us to secure this nation. i'm a member of the homeland security committee. i'm not unmindful of the everyday threats that we receive. but this bill would extend provisions that were created in 2005, that also were included in the intelligence reform bill. it extends a provision that allows for a rolling electronic surveillance authority and a provision revising the definition of an agent of foreign policy to include any non-u.s. person who engages in international terrorism or activities known as the lone

wolf. without protection. as a member of the homeland security, i recognize that that is vital but there needs to be a variety of protections. the other provisions, of course, are ones that invade privacy, create a lack of recognition that we have a constitution to abide by. so i would ask my colleagues, as we move on this legislation, to remember it is -- it has not been amended. we've lived on a constitution that's protected civil liberties and also remember it took a lawsuit to allow someone to even say that they had gotten a national security letter. we must do things in a constitution al-manar, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. -- constitutional manner, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. ms. jackson lee: i ask my colleagues to vote no on this legislation, go back to the judiciary committee and abide by the constitution. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers.

mr. conyers: i yield now to the distinguished gentleman from georgia, a member of the judiciary committee, the remaining time on our side. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. conyers: which is 2 1/2 minutes. mr. johnson: i rise. without important modifications necessary to safeguard our civil liberties. while the threat of terrorism is real and law enforcement must have the right to protect americans, any counterterrorism measure must have a solid constitutional footing and respect for privacy and civil liberties of the american people. this legislation fails to address shortcummings in the

original patriot act legislation -- shortcomings in the original patriot act legislation and for that reason i will vote against it. one of the major problems -- problems with this bill is its failure to address the issuance and use of national security letters. these letters permit the government to obtain the communications of anyone deemed relevant to a terrorism investigation, even if that person is not suspected of unlawful behavior. if congress re-authorizes these provisions with no changes americans will remain subject to warrantless intrusions into their personal affairs. a gross overreach of federal investigative authority that should not or that could be abused. it's just not how we do things in the country. rather than taking the time to craft reforms that would better protect private citizens' communications and privacy from overbroad government surveillance, the republican majority simply wants to cram

this bill through without providing any opportunity for anyone to offer amendments that will improve the bill. we all acknowledge that law enforcement needs new tools to keep up with 21st century threats, but surely it is the responsibility of congress to re-examine legislation that was hurriedly passed through congress in the wake of 9/11, to make sure it lives up to our national idealless. because this bill fails to contain any checks and balances to prevent law enforcement abuse and protect civil liberties, i will be voting against it and i urge my colleagues to do the same, mr. speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas, mr. smith. 7 1/2 minutes remaining. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i'm prepared to close when the gentleman from michigan yields back the balance of his time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. all the time from the gentleman

from michigan is expired. the gentleman from texas has 7 1/2 minutes. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself the balance of my time. mr. speaker, extending the expiring provisions of the patriot act will ensure that america's law enforcement officials and tense agents are equipped to identify terrorist threats and prevent terrorist acts. the patriot act is an effective tool in the war on terror. as terrorists show no signs of ending their plots, neither should our laws that stop them be allowed to sunset. this temporary extension will facilitate further review and re-authorization of these provisions and, mr. speaker, this extension is supported by the obama administration. i urge my colleagues to support this extension as well and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 514.

those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended -- mr. conyers: mr. speaker, on this vote i ask for a roll call. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman requests the yeas and nays. the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. and pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the national foundation on the arts and humanities act of 1965, 20 u.s.c. 955 b-note, i'm pleased to reappoint betty mccollum of minnesota to the

national council on arts. thank you for your attention to this appointment. signed sincerely, nancy pelosi, house democratic leader. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to section 4404-c-2 of the congressional hunger fellows act of 2002 2 u.s.c. i am pleased to reappoint mr. james p. mcgovern of massachusetts to the board of trustees to the congressional hunger fellows program. thank you for your attention to this appointment. signed sincerely, nancy pelosi, house department leader. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to section 4-d of house resolution 5 111th congress, i am pleased to appoint the following members to the house democracy partnership. the honorable david e. price of

north carolina, the honorable lois caps of california, rush d. holt of new jersey, the honorable allison schwartz of pennsylvania, the honorable donald m. payne of new jersey, the honorable sam farr of california, the honorable keith ellison of minnesota, the honorable macey hirono of hawaii. the honorable roybal-allard of california. thank you for your attention to these appointments. signed, sincerely, nancy pelosi, house democratic leader. >> and -- the speaker pro tempore: and the house lays before -- the chair lays before the house a chunecation -- communication. the clerk: the honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to section 4 of the ronald reagan centennial commission act, public law 111-25, i am pleased to appoint the honorable sylvester reyes of texas for the commission. thank you for your consideration of this appointment. signed, sincerely, nancy pelosi, house democratic leader.

the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house

some of them do have reservations about the powers that this renewal would give to the federal government. and they have constitutional concerns about them. so it is not -- it is not unanimous that if you look at the last extension of this, i think it got more than 300 votes and that's when there were more democrats than republicans and i don't know that the percentage of republicans that came in from the tea party will be desicive in any way right now. maybe later, perhaps, it remains to be seen. >> is there a unified democratic view on the patriot act, on these provisions in particular? >> no, there isn't. the democrats have tended to be more skeptical of the patriot don't get 315 or so votes in the house last year unless you have a pretty healthy number of democrats voting for there it. there are democrats who are

kind of in the blue dog or the moderate strain of things and see this as a national security priority. but you also have a pretty strong element of the democrats in the house that are, you know, sympathetic to the civil libertarians and sympathetic to the idea and think that this is a bit too intrusive. >> chairman patrick leahy in the senate of the judiciary committee is pursuing a longer term authorization of the patriot act. tell us about that and what else we might see in terms of debate on the senate side. >> well, the senate now has actually three different proposalal -- proposals that are in the mix. the senate leaders have set up a procedure to make it so they can come directly to the floor. time is running out. they only have until the end of next week then in the senate to do something. and they have not indicated which bill they prefer. the leahy bill goes through 2013 and restricts some of these provisions, you know, puts additional civil liberties

on them. there's another proposal by senator grassley and some of the other republicans that would go ahead and make all of them permanent as currently written and then there's a proposal that somewhere, maybe in between, that would also set up through 2013, but as krntly written, and then also add in some expiring provisions that are due to expire next year for the fisa renewal that was done in 2008. so, shoot somewhere in between. it's unclear as of yet which proposal will win out and senate leadership has not kead -- indicated their preference. >> tim starks with an update on where things stand with the patriot act. thank you for that. >> thank you. >> and members have wrapped up debate on those expiring provisions. they'll come back for a vote at 6:30 eastern. we'll have it for you live here

on c-span. also this evening in washington, the tea party express is holding a town hall meeting, speakers there include republican senators rand paul, mike lee and hatch. also scheduled, minnesota congresswoman michele bachmann. that will be live this evening at 7:00 p.m. eastern over on our companion network, c-span 2. >> it's my great honor today to speak on the floor for the first time as a united states senator. >> the new class of freshmen senators have been givinging their first speeches on the senate floor. follow their appearances online with c-span's congressional chronicle. track the daily house and senate timelines, read transcripts of every session and find a full video archive for every member. congressional chronicle at c-span.org/congress. >> on television, on radio and online. c-span, bringing public affairs to you. created by cable, it's washington your way.

>> president obama said yesterday that egypt is making progress as leaders there try to negotiate a path out of the political turmoil. george washington georgetown university hosted a discussion yesterday evening on the political unrest in egypt, tunisia and the arab world. speakers include professors at georgetown and from george mason university. this is just under two hours. >> we're going to get started here. i'd like to welcome you all. and i'd like to welcome you for the first installment of a lecture series that will be taking place this spring entitled, revolution in the arab world, the lone view.

tonight's talk to introduce this is called, the unpredictable presence, reflections on revolutions in the arab world. the lecture series and tonight's events are both spurred by recent events first in tunisia and then still ongoing both in tunisia and in egypt. and a desire on our part to put together a set of interventions into public debate on the subject, on the events that are unfolding, and not be merely reacting to current events. but trying to situate this in longer-term contexts, histories, cultures, positions, actors and so on. and so try to tease this out in as many ways as we can and not thinking of it solely as a set of events that could be understood by one academic discipline.

tonight we have four speakers. our first speaker will be osama who teach notice department of history at georgetown university. with a focus on north africa. our second speaker is james collins who teaches early modern french history, also here at georgetown university. our third speaker will be the director of the middle east studies program and a professor in the department of public and international affairs at george mason university. he is also a visiting professor here at georgetown university. and, finally, myself, eliott. i teach arabic here at georgetown university. i will be the last speaker. so please, professor.

>> thank you, everyone, for attending. and i'm very glad to be able to speak in tandem with my colleague, jim collins, tonight, because somewhere between the ousting of tunisia on january 14 and the beginning of the democrat stations -- demonstrations in egypt on january 25, he and i had initiated a conversation by email about how we, he as a historian of early modern europe and i -- >> speak into the microphone. we cannot hear you. >> ok. and i would situate the protests. historically and comprehend them in theoretical as well as -- [inaudible] terms. now obviously our exchanges were somewhat complicated by the pace and the magnitude of the events. and it's beyond question that the recent developments in tunisia and egypt mark a watershed in the history of the two countries, with fundamental, even pragmatic implications for the political

landcape -- landscape of the region as a whole and by extension for its relations with the world at large. and, you know, from the perspective of historians of after carks the repeated consensus that the region is now fundamentally transformed is more a thesis than it is a verdict. and the thesis in question is whether the theoretical frameworks which which historians have typically analyzed movements in the region are still able to interpret and explain the recent developments in meaningful ways. and there's nothing academic -- in the academic training of historians that would give them the superior tools or the confidence to interpret events on the quick. in fact, historians are notably reluctant to leap into the fray without caveat. and they're also notoriously inept at producing any grand -- [inaudible] . however, because historians are not bound by philosophy,

they're happenpy to borrow from many social scientific disciplines and employ conceptual frameworks that render meaningful and both structural terms, the pat erns of human behavior and historical change. and this kind of theoretical cross examination may prove particularly desirable and useful in the case of the recent protests in the arab world. because these demonstrations are dictating paradigm shifts of both political and conceptual dimensions. like the iranian revolution of 1979, the protests of 2010-2011 are seismic in that they're sweeping away not only political regimes but a particular world view as well. tunisia and egypt have already shattered a number of doing matic assumptions and presumptions about the exceptionalism of arab societies and they are challenging basic historical conventions on how revolutions will play out.

as a result it follows that we may need to re-evaluate the notions on the nature of social movements and political action in the region. now, at first glimpse, the protests are proving that the conventional wisdom on the middle east and north africa is out of step with developments in the region, especially at the level of ideological pluralism, popular culture and mass media, or at least social media. the larger problem is that the fields of middle east and north african studies remains mired in other studies. and in addition when it comes to the specific chapter on popular action in arab muslim societies, our historical understanding is still conditioned by the standoff between two philosophical and mythological -- [inaudible] . now on one side we have the

proponents of the sociological histories and the associate psychological their ums of -- [inaudible] and to put things ske matically this school holds that every action, the commitments to a particular belief system and studies inspired by the school have focused almost narrow mindedly on which the way elite it's make use of ideology to gain political legitimacy. and in the context of the middle east and north africa and especially since the iranian revolution of 1979, this school of thought has regarded -- [inaudible] and its history of collective movement. those of you that have certainly nourished the narratives of the arab authoritarian regimes themselves and of the conservative elements in western and israeli academia and policymaking. now with accordance of this school, the arab security

apparatus is the last against islamic theocracies in the iranian mold. if anything, the recent events in tunisia and egypt should expose the limitations of this viewpoint. and one sense of -- [inaudible] on the part of some commentators at the reality that something other than islam may provide social and political cohesion for a mass protest movement in the arab world. now, this consternation comes across in the haste with which some scholars have rushed to describe the to you initialans and the egyptian results as post islamist. it also comes across in how western media channels have reported on the deployment of religious symbols by some of the protesters. in the lens of the western media, and this is especially true in the early going, it seems to me as i was watching the news that the moment an

egyptian demonstrator kneeled to pray, something significant happened in the way these events were reported. this egyptian demonstrator suddenly ceased to be a worker or a student or a trade unionist or a human rights activist and by automatic reflex he was returned to the category, he or she, was returned to the category of a muslim who by definition was mobilized primarily by appeals to his or her religion. but it bears noting that this perception was among the first to be revised and the protests were on and their pluralistic profile came to the floor. and so one sense is that maybe something akin will take place at the level of scholarship. now, the second school is composed of neomarxist historians for whom shared aims and beliefs derived from shared interests. and social movements therefore are the result of shifts --

[inaudible] . now here, too, is an interpretation, i think, that doesn't apply seamlessly to the to you initialan or the egyptian context. especially when one takes into account that the demonstrators themselves have not justified their -- [inaudible] . actions by invoking the classic themes, symbols and arguments of class struggle. the egyptian and tunisian protests may well be a vote of the poor, but for the mass of the demonstrators can't be neatly categorized into ideological or -- [inaudible] notions of justice. at least that's not very obvious to me. and to one cohesive, yet largely leaderless movement.

and it's clear that due to our near obsession with the islamist pillar authoritarian dichotomy, we have not paid enough attention to the remarkable pluralism that has developed at the level of local politics and popular culture in arab societies and at least over the last two decades if not longer. for the last two weeks, as i've speculated on how scholarship may respond to the recent developments, i found myself turning to a european historian whose corrective notions of social class and ideology may suggest promising new perspectives or studies in the middle east and north africa. this wouldn't be the first time that historians of the region have referenced the seminal writings of e.p. thompson and the making of the english working class and the moral economy of the english crowd in the 18th century.

[inaudible] at the time it's especially ripe to revisit his central notions as they may pertain to arab societies. and what i have in mind specifically is thompson's redefinition of social class as a set of relations rather than structures. i think that this is one way we may understand how unified political actions are able to be reconciled with broad, even transregional sociallogical interests. likewise, another seminal notion in thompson's writing is the idea of the moral economy. now, he uses this theme to show how the -- [inaudible] writers in the 18th centuries were impelled by a socially and culturally grounded sense of justice and i think that this is one notion that may help historians of the middle east and north africa, it may also shed light on the -- on what's

guiding the political actions of the prodemocracy demonstrators today, how this idea of a moral economy may be shaping the rituals of protest that we've been witnessing and providing them with some of the symbols that they've been using. in other words, what i'm trying to say is that thompson's study of how social relations and cultural values coalesce into a moral economy has important things to say about the dual dimensions of the egyptian and tunisian movements. vertically i have a lens through which to analyze mobilization across wide segments of society and horizontally to comprehend why and how the tunisian riots have inspishe -- inspired similar movements that have resonated with local residents from morocco to the gulf. now, we have heard the common slogans from morocco to at least jordan.

we have seen the -- [inaudible] flags among the demonstrators and we've also witnessed the tragic recurrence of self-emulation. so what are political and cultural historians to make of these commonalities other than may be that they must be connected to some sort of transregional moral economy that emerges from a shared, lived experience? there's another dimension to the idea of a moral economy that may be interesting to investigate further and it's that it may help us trace the impact of new technologies and mass media in shaping a shared popular culture and shaping a platform for political mobilization. now, as one journalist recently noted, where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools and i think that this is something that we as historians of north africa need to start taking a little more seriously.

it's obvious that electronic devices and the innovations and wireless, and media may now cultivate and sustain moral economies with which to knit together larger coalitions for political purpose. and then to connect them to national, regional and global developments. in this sense, the micropolitics of protest can translate very quickly into a hinetted awareness of political possibilities and of local gains to be made from extra local developments and i think that this is obviously in the case of egypt and the inspiration has been getting from the tunisian president. finally, the moral economy may also clarify how the changing relations between government and society can determine the patterns of protest. and at minimum the events of tunisia and egypt should prompt us to re-evaluate the notion of governmentality as it applies to arab authoritarian

regimeless. now this is an established relationship that is a paradigm in our studies, the authoritarian of those governments. but this established government between arab political authority and will have been shaken. if these regimes survive, as seems to be the case in egypt for now, their immediate move will certainly be to rethink their control over the state's apparatuses and as scholars we should reflect on ways that arab regimes may react to the growing vitality of the transnational and virtual networks that are at the heart of the new moral economy. now some in this room may remember the 1970 song, "the revolution will not be televised." this was a revolutionary song, obviously, that par died state control over the media and its

ability to marginalize, if not oppress the scent. as a means to measure how much times have changed since 1970, let's consider a revised slogan like the revolution will not be tweeted instead and speculate on some of the virtual wars we have witnessed in egypt. from the attempts by the authorities to shut down the internet to the counterattempts by anonymous hackers to cripple the government's mainframe commuters -- computers. now today it seems that it makes just as much sense to leave government buildings behind and stage protests against firms that sell internet and wireless tracking technologies to autocratic regimes and this is a new dimension in the way we're trying to understand governmentality and political authority and how forms of power get -- are deployed throughout society. basically, as students of the middle east and north africa, we've known for some time that

the common thread of ruthless regimes has translated into a regional, social and political fault line. and what remains to be seen today and i hope that we can at least start at a debate today, is to consider the reasons why or why not, the moral outrage of the tunisian and egypt people will remain isolated eruptions or whether they will ignite a bolt of fire along this once dormant fault line. and i think i will stop here and thank you for your attention. >> our next speaker is professor james collins from the history department at georgetown university.

>> i actually remember that song. it has been fun to watch the revolution being televised, i have to say. i was telling soama the other morning, i was watching with my grandson who is 10 and it was dinner on monday last week and he -- we obviously had been watching al jazeera a lot and he said to me, why are the people in egypt demonstrating? and i said, they want to get rid of the president. and he said, well, why do they want to get rid of the president? and i said, because they think he's been there too long. he said, how long has he been

there? i said, 30 years. he said, that's too long. then went back to eating dinner, never said another word. that's pretty good analysis of the situation, frankly. now, i'm not a specialist on egypt or the middle east, although i have been to egypt once. and i'm going to focus on two issues, the conflict between what i call state and republic and on language. i'm going to start not in cairo but in another revolutionary city, warsaw. which has my favorite hero statue, a shoemaker. the statue of a shoemaker. the only one i know. he led the warsaw uprising as the russians in 1794 and after poland became an independent country after world war i, they put up a statue, right from front of what had been the

russian governor's residence in warsaw. i wonder why. so if there's any justice, tunisia will have a statue. the polish led one part of the revolt against occupying -- naud. i'm going to focus on lank language, let me stop to emphasize that word, revolution. what happened is not fundamentally a crisis, it's a revolution. i finds it fascinating that the media are happy to talk about the revolution in tunisia but as everybody else puts it, crisis in egypt. now why do i emphasize the difference? mubarak's resignation might end a crisis. but it will not end a revolution. crisis is the word of choice for the forces of order of the clintons of word because cot cosmetic change can end a brief crisis, but not a revolution. i studied as a historian and i think my future colleagues will

call this a revolution and i think we should -- [inaudible] . another remarkable difference is that today's revolution is above all the work of a specific group. i think we should call them the liberation generation in honor of those who have fallen in cairo's tahrir square. revolutions must be judged not simply on immediate results but on long-term structural changes which is what sets them apart from a simple crisis. most textbooks, for example, would say the revolution of 1848 in europe failed, that in the short run that's true. yet their main goals, male democracy, universal primary education, workers rights, came to pass almost everywhere within a generation. that's a pattern that goes back to the middle ages. the rebellion in 1381, they fought against serfdom, king was then in, serfdom disappears

in that region within 25 years. the same thing happened in germany in 1525 when 80,000 peasants were massacred. in reprisals for revolt against serfdom and yet 25 years later serfdom had disappeared. so we can see also in other examples in the 19th century. the liberation generation in the middle age, that is to say in 2030 or 2040, will remember what they fought for. egypt in 2030 will be a more democratic society. what is less certain is that it will become democratic in the coming years. the thousands of older demonstrators, long -- demonstrators long to see that happen. the u.s. acting like a state will move even -- heaven and earth to prevent that from happen ing. state and republic, eusually use them interchangeably but they're different. in the last four century, rulers have -- [inaudible] western world and due to imperialism convinced the rule

that republic and state are one and the same thing. tunisians and egyptians have risen up to denounce this fraud for the lie that it is. the citizens collectively form the republic whose supreme interest is the collective good of its citizens and other inhabitants. which can be achieved over the long run by ruling according to law, reason and justice. the supreme interest of the state is self-preservation by any means necessary. the republic appears to be chaos but represents a deeper order, justice achieved by reason. the principle around which it is organized. philosophically it's everything. the state appears to be order but is merely ordered chaos. the state has no principle beyond its own existence, philosophically it's nothing. practically the state matters a great deal. that's a different issue. because it must carry out an extraordinary balancing act as the servant of the republic it must provide the order necessary for the republic and its civil society to function.

seeking to serve it must never become the master and of course that's what the problem is in all these states. it is the master. states always use the same technique to attack the republic, fear. we've seen plenty of that in the united states in the last 10 years. the conundrum facing citizens is how to create a state powerful enough to protect the republic but weak enough to be unable to destroy it. the constant use of the term failed state ignores the fact that such places like somalia or afghanistan have failed politically systems. they have no -- [inaudible] like a group of citizens committed to the rule of law. at least not a large enough one. without a republic, only a state built on brute force can survive. even such states create moral justifications for their exercise of power. states all over the world do rely on brute force to vimb, -- survive, the greatest possibility difficulty of evolving into republic's like

in egypt today. repub hickland based states like the u.s. often conduct their international relations on the soul basis of state to state interaction. which gives premsy to vimet means and end guaranteed by force. we will see how ends guaranteed by force can be in both iraq and afghanistan. there was a piece in "the new york times" yesterday that without dealing in these same terms it was talking about this conundrum in american foreign policy with respect to supporting dictators which is one of our national sports. we cannot ignore the state to state dimension of international relations, of course, but an exclusive focus on that dimension creates a warped value system that leaves the u.s. and france to support dictators like mubarak. in egypt we hear a steady drum beat of remarks in favor of, quote, democracy, unquote, from american officials, but a cynical policy of dumping mubarak and keeping mubarakism.

what could be more embarrassing than the revolution that ambassador which is in her, the u.s. special envoy to egypt, works for the law firm which to quote the firm's own statement, quote, advises the egyptian military, the egyptian economic development agency and has handled arbitrations and litigations on the mubarak's government on behalf of europe and the u.s., unquote. the ambassador pulled back the curtain and the state department's immediate denial convinced as few people as the wizard's plaintiff, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. remarkably the u.s. did not recall him in response to the revelation of his conflict of interest but only in light of his embarrassing revolution of the u.s.'s real policy which was very embarrassing. now, in understanding the policy and public discussion of it, we have to go beyond the ambassador. egypt pays more than $1 million

a year to its lobbyists in d.c. , one of whom was the former house of the -- head of the house appropriations committee. he knows where the money is. p.l.m. has represented egypt since 2007. all the clients include boeing and lock heed martin who make the military sold to egypt. the press to hillary clinton. if you turned on your television, for example, to pbs' news hour on the 27th of january to get analysis of the egyptian events, you had to listen to graham baderman identifyified by the middle east institute. he said some really stupid things and i was thinking, who is this guy? some of the stuff he said was awful. the news hour did not tell viewers that in 2007 he was

himself egypt's chief official lobbyist in washington, d.c. you'd think they might reveal that before we had to listen to him. quote, the way you make changes is that president mubarak is strong and gives, unquote. let me ask you to keep that in mind, that key word, gives. speaking of al jazeera's empire this weekend, getting rid of mubarak is meaningless. egyptians must overthrow the security police state. he pointed to the tunisian case where key members of that apparatus have in fact been fired. i would disagree with them slightly. i think it's far from a done deal. moreover the internationally renowned legal scholar, long time advocate of human rights, heads the governmental reform commission in egypt, as in tunisia, we see the classic case of a state that denied the existence of civic society, and i contrast civic and civil. civic society is fear of

politics. many states have civil citizenship. you have protection from loss, but not civic citizenship. they define the highest goal of the state order as the highest goal of society. citizens in egypt and tunisia demand their collective interests as citizens, not the privileged few. as invariably in the states that have muzzled public debate for years on edge, -- end, they've lack the public's fear on which to air differences within the context of a politics built on reason and justice. so only revolution in the streets could break through and start the civic process. one danger of abolishing sifpk live life is that opposition to the state must shift to a nonpolitical dimension of legitimacy. and so religion often offers an ideal method. whether it's france in the 18th century, lutheranism in germany

, shi'a in islam. why we would -- [inaudible] one of those as opposed to the other without thinking of the broader pattern is i think very revealing. the state will stop at nothing to save itself. no lie is too blatant, no deed too evil. here in the history department -- [inaudible] by cate brown of the university of maryland, baltimore county, offered a chilling modern example of her talk in the soviet and american nuclear states and their common reactions to the problem of plutonium disposal. ben ali's regime about foreign terrorists or criminals being behind the demonstrations reminded me of when i was in demonstrations back in the 1960's and 197s to. we were outside agitators, that was the phrase of the day. king abdullah says as much about those in egypt. they really do not understand the new world of communications. accusations of foreign terrorists can be immediately discredited by those attending the demonstrations, using

twitter, posting movies on facebook or whatever. everyone can see and hear fors themselves that the demonstrators are -- for themselves that the demonstrators are those living across the street. regimes have no way of discrediting themselves when the old ways which are hard wired into their d.n.a. as for evil deeds, what could be use -- [inaudible] as the prime minister rightly said, government sponsorship of such activities is, quote, despicable, unquote. those of us familiar with european history have seen this trick many times. you cause disruption in the streets and claim you'll bring order. well, hitler used that trick in the early 1930's. he put thugs in the street, caused all kinds of disruptions. they elected him, called off the thugs and it was civil order. hitler kept a lot of his promises -- promises. pretty scary, isn't it? mubarak fears, chaos, yet he's

causing the chaos. another old trick neatly described by orwell in "1984." blame your opponents of precisely what you're doing. so that their accurate charges against you look for rhetorical reprisal. stalin was also a master of this employ. if i may steal a phrase from someone who knew a thing or two about peaceful revolution, linguistically the acting president of tunisia, king abdullah, mubarak, remind this french historian of louie xvi. much like in then, he betrayed his fundamental misunderstanding of the new reality. quote, and i decided total freedom from the media with all its channels and no monitoring of it. and i decided. that critical phrase. the acting president of tunisia

is no better. unconsciously revealed in his acceptance speech the same attitude. in his first and foremost, quote in the state's supreme interest that the upcoming government be a national unity government, unquote. so ewe initiala has the forces allied around those two fight for the supreme interests of the state, against those led by those who stand for the republic. they hope his commission will turn out to be that frankfort assembly. that was this group of german intellectuals and university professors who gathered together in 1848 to create a unified german state with a democratic constitution. 18 months later, after fighting about where the comas should go, the king sent a squad of police and told them to go home and they did. discredited academics in european politics for 100 years. they just can't help themselves. i have decided as the only way that ben ali can phrase a

decision about the war. poor luis xvi. poor mubarak thinks he can give reform to the egyptian people. he thinks he can ask the parents to make their naughty children go home and behave themselves. what's far more troubling is that the western powers led by the u.s. seem ready to betray our own traditions by accepting the principle that a dictate consider give rights to anyone. states do not give rights, legitimate states -- [inaudible] our inalienable rights. so a warning. demonstrators cannot negotiate about creating a democratic political system with someone like mubarak because he's incapable of thinking about politics in such terms. for mubarak, the pate yarkle figure, gives the rules.

tunisians and egyptians must not focus on its strength of violent force but on its weakness, ideas. they do not want to destroy this, the state so necessary to the functioning of the of the republic, but to make the republic its servant, not master. removing criminals from the apecks of state power will not change the fundamental relationship of state and citizens and only a legitimate political process that places authority back where it belongs, with the people, can affect permanent change. they cannot stop with ben ali and mubarak. they must rid tunisia and egypt of their corrupt states. that's one of the lessons of the revolutions in europe. so long as egypt has a security please apparatus, so long as egypt has a heavily -- [inaudible] a.k.a. presidential guard of 20,000, no free and fair elections are possible. the process will not be easy because egypt's institutions of civic life have been destroyed

by the state. with the liberation generation must learn from past revolutions is that the problem is not simply one man and his close allies but a political system that defines the state's supreme interests. >> thank you. our next speaker is a professor of george mason university. >> i'm actually standing up, so. [laughter] i'd like to be a bit brief. because i have to go to the bathroom. my talk is going to be a little

bit disappointing because it's not really about revolution and i think some us who have been -- well, all of white house have been glued to the tv and to the print press have got an good deal of analysis on the basis s so i will be addressing -- basics so i will be addressing economic reform and how it got us in part to where we are today. so i'll be talking about reform and social polarization in egypt. we have been witnessing a magnificent set of developments in egypt that many of us did not see coming. at least not this fast. my recent work on the broken economy of egypt and its growing social unrest has focused on issues that we are seeing today on the streets and these are outcomes of various kinds of reforms that i'll be addressing but i never thought it would have this much relevance to squickly. the topic -- quickly.

the topic of polarization is right front and center of what's happening today in egypt it's just that we're not talking about it very much. in fact, analysts rushed to dismiss economic factors as though those are assuming that they're single-handedly producing the outcomes and they are not. it's just an important crucial factor. as we are inundated with news on the egyptian uprising and revolution, it would be good to take pause and consider history that both illuminates the effects of reform on mass mobilization, i'm sorry, on mass mobilization there, whether or not this uprye rising took place. in other words, i could have presented this a bit earlier and it might actually be relevant to other countries in the region and beyond. so will you not hear very much about revolution. instead you'll hear history that is replicated in many other cases in developing

countries but has other arab regimes and of course tunisia comes to mind. the caveat that i want to start with is that social polarization did not single-handedly, i want to stress, produce the uprising. it is one element without which we cannot understand the magnitude of what's happening. we have the tendency to focus on the matters on the surface and i will try to dig back underneath and it will be quite boring. beginning in 1991, the world bank and the i.m.f. economic reform program, i will henceforth say ursap, was implemented to manage the egyptian financial crisis and remove impediments to future growth by pend putting an end to state management of the economy through market liberalization, privatization, budget deficits reductions and refusal of foreign investment

capital and a shift towards an export-oriented economy. while these reform efforts were intended to improve egypt's macroeconomic health, very little consideration was given to the affect these policies would have upon society. the impact on unemployment, poverty and the redistribution of political and economic power. in practice, it succeeded in ne reducing the state's explicit role in managing the economy, privatizing state-owned assets and attracting foreign investments. however, the reforms also succeeded in creating greater social polarization between rich and poor and this is an understatement, deteriorated living standards for most egyptians and resulted in uneven geographic and secretarial developments throughout the country that further exacerbated the negative side effects of reform. this is why what we are witnessing is not something that's happening centrally in cairo, it's happening in the

countryside. the second is debate about what caused the failure, is it the policies themselveses or the obstacles to implementation realed to the regime in egypt. this calls into question the nature of these scrippings in light of the same obstacles that any cursory review of the playing field would have made clear at the time. furthermore, ed from the research of economists and practitioners inwluding people -- including people connected to the world bank and the former vice president of the world bank, the outcomes related to inequity and polarization. in other words, the awe thoirtarian nature of the reyeem or the capture of these policies, though they play a role. we must go back to the drawing board that emphasizes trickle

down economics. within a few years after 1991, egypt had managed to drastically reduce budget deficits and control the macroeconomic imbalances, i will not list them. the state accomplished this not by managing the economy better or by adopted new, innovative techniques but by altering the contract between state and society. prior to the 1990's, egypt took respopsability to extend services to the people, including services for hell and education and income support such as subsidies. in return, the population was somewhat acquiesce sent veeze ari the regime, though this was not across the board. a state support apparatus provided a broad safety net that prevented many from falling into the depths of

abject poverty. while improving economic conditions it stripped away the safety net by stripping away programs to a great degree. they enlarged private sector employment that led to lower wages, lower benefit and higher unemployment eventually. reforms of policy affect the countryside. particularly illustrative of the ways these policies have fuppedmentally altered the state society relationship while also contributing to a great polarization of society between the winners and losers, at the forefront of economic liberalization was agriculture. among the first measures to be implemented was the new tendency measure, the notorious

low of 199 that brought the end to tendency guarantees and rent ceilings for farmers. while the government argued meant it would lead to greater agricultural productivity, in reality, the measures were motivated by the desire to open the agricultural sector to market forces. when the law came into effect, rents jumped significantly, sometimes as much as 400% and became prohibitively high for most. thus as the agricultural center has been privatized and run according to market forces rather than state run, there have been no gains in productivity nor have they led to lower poverty. instead, agricultural reforms led to a greater social

resulting from disposition of -- dispossession of small holders. can i have some water, please? i'm a little under the weather, i apologize. with high unemployment in the country side, many sought work in the manufacturing sector in what is already a strained you are pan labor market. those who lacked the experience, skills necessary to find employment find themselves with few options. the primary reason there exists macroeconomic growth alongside deprowing rates of poverty is because of the privatization and the abrupt remufle of the state from economic management. that has been the goal of economic reform. it has in the been the elimination of poverty or improvements to egyptians' quality of life put rather the transformation of the economy according to standards that

don't benefit eyippingses or people in late developing countries. to understand why it's resulted in social polarization, it's helpful to apply, for example, the growth and equality triangle which states that policies that address economic policy distribution. we see that neither of these policies were being promoted in a way that would reduce poverty or alleviate social problems. it concentrated land holdings while dispo possessing small scale farmers as part of what's happening in eyipt. similarly, there's no evidence of aggregate growth in egypt at all. factor responseable for economic growth have been those such as oil and gas extraction, tourism and other services

benefiting a small handful of people that we now hear about in the news. high employment sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing have seen the contribution to economic growth declean considerably. commick growth has not positively affected workers or society as a whole but have been concentrated amongst small economic sectors in terms of power. poverty has in the been alleviated either, instead from 17% of the population in 2000 to at least 20% in 2005, and it's actually probably a few percentage points higher at this point by conservative standards system of living standards. or where did the constant supply of protesters come from?

deteriorating living stan tards result from economic reforms also -- i should read this again. also accompany polarization or dee tieror ating living standards from economic reforms that have abruptive removed state social welfare mechanisms, devalued the currency and exposed a vulnerable labor class to market forces. this has worsened their conditions or done little to improve it. with regard to consumer prices and spending, they have had the effect of reducing state food subsidies, the immediate cost of food over the single egyptian rose considerably. cuts to oil subsidies increased costs to the consumer on all

commodities. the devaluation of the egyptian pound led to an increase in imported commodities and the cost of production. finally, high inflation, which was not alleviated by reform, further eroded consumer purchasing power dramatically. added to this is the rise of private sector employment whose workers receive considerably lower wages and benefits. the confluence of reform measures have combined to worsen the living standards of most egyptians to the point where we've gotten to the point in egypt where in 2005, as i conclude in a couple of minutes, where it became almost unbearable to most egyptians in 2005 so we're talking five years after that kind of threshold and these things cannot be measured, that's why revolutions cannot be

preticketed. eursap policies have not only increased the costs consumers must pay on existing goods but added costs to the state services, costs that affect every single egyptian family, especially the disadvantaged ones economically. after the 1952 revolution, education became free and universally available while health care expanded to benefit all seasons. however, beginning as early as the 1980's, the world bank began advocating cost recovery measures to reduce waste and en hance budgetary measures in practice this meant charging using fees as a meevens discouraging not so serious students, and i quote, from wasting precious resources and putting pressure on the teachers to improve the internal running of the educational system. the result was regressive as

the poor paid a considerable burden for private session. -- for private education. education accounts for 40% of household budgets, by some estimates. there's also mappeder to tutoring, whereby teachers pressure students to take extra due -- tutoring lessons and charge students for notes and other materials, increasing the costs of education in significant ways. a similar thing happened to health care. as user fees increased the purd on poor families and -- the burden poor families, something we see the results of in

popular culture such as tv shows and sitcoms. higher commodity price has led to further indebt ness. it has encouraged people to remove families -- students from school. this in turn has compelled many families to remove students from school and sell off family assets such as yulery and more importantly life stock. while it may alleviate short-term problems, in the long rupp, the effect were self-defeating. without education, they have virtually no chance of improving their status while selling off livestock, putting farmers at a disadvantage. many resort to sharing livestock, which results in decreased productivity. they have few options but to strategize for the short-term. they simply cannot afford to plan for the future and this also produces its own effects

for the economy and so on. because economic with the primary goal of transforming egypt into a free market economy, many functions were abandoned or curtailed and had a profound impact on society which i have discussed but it's actually much more severe than that if you look at the forest. macroeconomic conditions may have improved a bit but in terms of some indicators and egypt was considered one of the best places to do business just in 2008, it just gives you a sense of how this bifurcation between what's happening on the ground and what certain institutions and patron countries are interested in in terms of numbers and quantity final things. macroeconomic conditions may have improved but for society as a whole the situation remains precarious. in the previous previous era,

conditions may have been strainedthrambings social safety net to mitigate poverty. i'm skipping a lot because i would like to conclude and leave time for q&a, because of the deterioration of social safety nets and resources, workers are much more vulnerable to shocks such as unemployment resulting from privatization policies, illness, disability or death from budget cuts to public health care. enough people in eyipt have experienced all of the above by 2005, which is a very scary prospect and between 2005 and 2006 and last year when the numbers were calculated, more than 6,000 to 7,000 protests have taken place depending on how you would basically identify a protest. worsers' protests all over egypt at various levels at different times and of course

what we are seeing today for us is new. we're watching this really fascinating picture, but i was in egypt last year, and many of you have been following, probably, this is a combination -- culmination of various microcomes of protest throughout egypt. economic reform sought to reform the economy to a free market. this was always the idea. absent was economic development which sought improvements to aleve yage of unemployment and broad based unemployment that benefits most equippingses. they have not benefited society or even any significant portions of it. rather, reform has diminished living standards considerably for the average citizen and failed to address chronic problems of poverty and unemployment leading to social

poe czarization and massive gaps between haves and have nots. it's a cliche but also seeing something on the tv sets that might also be a cliche. i'm not sure if it's good enough to dismiss things as cliche when it comes to these things such as gaps between rich and poor. it's also led to the creation of a huge gap between rich and poor leading to the social poe czarization -- polarization that produces keep and wide sed vulnerability. so i'll conclude, though economic factors do not in and of themselves explain the outcome we are witnessing, as he used to say in books and in class just a few feet down here, we cannot understand this outcome without paying a good deal of attention to these

factors. my concern is what i just discussed might not be part of the lessons learned, whatever the outcome of these arab uprisings. thank you. [applause] >> ok, i'll introduce myself, i'm eliot cola, from the arabic department here at the university. i want to begin my colleagues tonight thinking about mathew arnold, a 19th century english poet and literary critic who

watched as social classes began to exert themselves in the english polity and began to reflect on this. this is precisely the same process that e.p. thompson was reflecting on in his work. for arm, this process was alarming. it was a potential threat to what it meant to be english and for him, culture could be used as a weapon, he used the word culture, as a weapon to fight this new class war. the title of this book, "culture and anarchy" was exactly that, posing a very stark choice between on the one hand culture and on the other hand anarchy. on the one hand, the order that people had known as what england was and the new anarchy posed by new classes of people demanding to be recognized as

citizens. in latin america, the same bifurcation and use of culture comes out in places like civilization and barbarism. in egypt it has reared its head in very interesting ways. i want to talk about those today. culture is really not the issue. -- issue of the revolutionary movements we are watching in tunisia and egypt. but culture is much a part of how these movements are unfolding, in two ways. first, even if the state promotion of official culture and authoritarian regimes of the arab world is not the explicit issue of this revolutionary moment, it does have something to do with what is happening right now. i'll come back to that in a bit. if you've been watching al-jazeera, you've been listening to poetry, those slogans that you're hearing are actually poetic couplets. they rhyme, they're really creative and they're really fun to listen to as well.

the second point i want to make that i'm going to begin with tonight is that from the very beginning, people with very little understanding of the movements or very little sympathy for them have often decided to shift discussion away from what the protesters are saying and to vague conversations about culture. egyptian culture, arab culture, the culture of islam and so on. now while often meaningless, this outpouring of culture talk is by no means without significant or usefulness. let me show one use. the demands of the revolutions in tunisia and egypt have been pretty straightforward. first of all, an immediate end to the tyrannical regime, first of bmbing enali and sec of mubarak, an end to one-party rule, abend to police brutality and official corruption, more transparency and accountability, an increased, meaningful participation of ordinary citizens in the process of governance.

obviously, the details of the demanded changes might be more -- might be complicated, we can get into that, but there's absolutely nothing am bigus about the demands themselves. they don't need to be translated even though an op-ed piece in the "new york times" attempted to translate one word as freedom, as if we somehow didn't know what people were talking about in tahrir. no one can say the demands are culturally specific. that doesn't mean they're universal but they're not culturally specific. it also seems that culture, in other words, would have very little explanatory for the situation but surprisingly, or not really to me, since i study this, culture was front and center in mue bar rabbling's english language public revons ott -- response to the revolt. supposedly who told amman pour,

-- told christiane ahmanpour, if i resign now there will be chaos and i am the trade the muslim brotherhood will take over. i said to obecause mark you do not understand what will happen. the mention of egyptian culture in this interview figured as a way to change the channel from issues at hand, issues which are crystal clear. we shouldn't miss the fact that mubarak has been talking this way for 30 years now, telling egyptians and the world that with his regime, they'll get stability and with the existing alternatives, his code word for the muslim brotherhood, they'd get nothing but chaos and ruin. it's a 30-year-old policy of fear mongering and this is the same message that's always been at the core of the regime's official cultural policies that i'll get to soon. it's also noted that this choice between stability and

chaos links the attitude of lord cromer, egypt's colonial viceroy under british rule, who used to talk about the natives understanding only the whip, it leads to commentators here who talk about the muslim brotherhood as if it were some nefarious monster that suddenly had gotten loose in a bad neighborhood. mubarak's remarks about the demonic culture of tradition were chose ton resonate with the is lamb phobia in the west. but that were also intended to resonate with state paternalism within ewript. this gos back to what james was talking about, the state and the republic. that the state, in some instances in egypt, has put itself forward as the strong father, certainly throughout the 19th century colonial

period and even before under mohammed and even under nosser. by this, i refer to the way in which there circumstance lates a belief in which the egyptian people need a powerful state to get things done. the egyptian state or the idea that the egyptian state takes care of its citizens and provides for them or that egyptians cannot be expected to rupp their own society. unlike previous eras of authoritarian rule, under mubarak, only a small fraction of egyptians have benefited from the role that the state plays in the economy. many of them, these who have benefited, have been taking their money out of the country as fast as they can in recent weeks, fixing up their houses in dubai, perhaps even contacting s.f.s. for positions.

but the vast majority of egyptians would not be mistake ton believe that they benefit very little from the state. and here this goes back to what assam was talking about in terms of economic reforms under the plans in the 1990's. in terms of education, to list some things we might associate with state, with benefits that might accrue from a state, in terms of public education and health care, state services have been abysmal for decades. the salaries of doctors and teachers working in the public sector are the subsistence level and midwest public schools and hospitals are a risk to public health. if not -- it's not for nothing that the egyptians joke about the arabic word for hospital, and use the word for, you won't get better. with some of the highest

pollution rates in the globe, it's not a surprise that ejippings suffer huge rates of cancer and kidney disease, some of the highest in the world. the transportation infrastructure is likewise in tatters and road fatalities remain a leading cause of death among egyptians. so to say that it's egypt's infrastrkture has been crumbling under mubarak is not really a metaphor, it is literally the case. egypt has been collapsing since the late 1980's and certainly since the 1990's. when -- to give an event that really brought this home, a 5.9 degree earthquake hit cairo in 1992, 370 people were kill and

roughly three times that number were badly injured. while the cause was natural, the disaster was in many ways manmade. an inept and corrupt system of billing permits and nppings meant that many thousands of subpar buildings had been built so when the earthquake happened, i remember vividly, it was terrify, the state had virtually no way to respond to it at all. most of the first responders were citizen volunteers. medical and humanitarian aid was provided largely by n.g.o.'s including many run by the muslim brothers. many egyptians would never forget the lesson in that month. when disaster struck, the muslim brothers and other groups were there. the state was almost nowhere to be seen. promises to rebuild the daniel, especially in the heritage districts of cairo, are slow in

coming. now, many years later, including this one, remain in dangerous disrepair. because of the lack of governmental oversight for building and maintenance, egypt does not need earthquakes for this to happen. so i'm just going to give you highlights of this. 2003, last slide, 2004, 2007, every few months a building falls down in egypt, leading to the deaths of. many the cause, invariably, is connected to contractorsing are having bribed their way around state building codes. in its history of slow collapse, though, the 2008 landslide that demolished a slum is most telling. the disaster left 119 people dead and thousands of people homeless.

what was not immediately apparent from this -- from the beginning is that once again this disaster was likely manmade. this area stands at the foot of the hills, in recent years, the emply bluff, the site of development projects sponsored by the i.m.f. and other international economic actors encouraged fierce real estate speculation and development for elite housing. new homes for elites were -- who were seeking to flood -- rather to flee the crowded city began to be built. new gated communities went up along with all the trappings of good life. local residents of the area had complained that water seepages through the cliff began soon

after the development began weakening the soil and rocks in the neighborhood -- above the neighborhood. when the enorm i have to the disaster caught international attention, even amnesty international got involved because it was clear to them that some of this had to do with building schemes sponsored by the government which is to say some of the ruling crow nees. the government finally -- cronies. the government finally initiated an investigation. the cause they later determined, was fate. all of this raised the important point, what benefits has the state brought most equippingses under mubarak's rule. the historian of egypt, a colleague of ours at george mason university has reflected powerfully on this issue just last week and she shared her thoughts with me, i want to read them. she writes, one of the achievements of the protest has been to show the irrelevance of

the mubarak state. egyptians have shown self-reliance a renewed sense of community and nation. states -- streets have been patrolled, food and medicine distributed. garbage collected. all undertaken without the police, army or any other state institution. in particular, tahrir square itself has taken on the attributes of an independent and sovereign state. the people have established their own borders, their own foreign policy with regard that those outside it, their own police for the maintenance of law and order, a system for the distribution of food, shelter and medical care and for their own forum for public expression, giving lie to the assumption of a paternalistic state. the egyptian people have clearly shown they don't need it. this is actually quite remarkable. in fact, the violence that -- the need for protection wasn't -- egyptians got together --

banded together to protect themselves from the state. they didn't need it. in fact, the state, clearly, has been the problem. i want to argue in what follows is that what developed was, in the last couple of weeks, is really a do it yourself spirit. i want to quote one of my favorite twitters that came out of the twitter feed of a human rights activist, twittering, he writes, from the rare -- the interesting an exdotes of tahrir square. he writes of seeing a boy who says [speaking foreign language] i'm a poor street kid, my pants are falling down. we just made a revolution here. what have you done? this is the kind of attitude

that you see springing up all over the place. now, i want to say a couple of words about state and culture that i began with. i want to ask you to consider something slightly remarkable, in my opinion. on friday, as -- i'm sorry a week ago friday, mubarak fired his previous cabinet and installed a new one he filled five of the top posts with three generals, a former ambassador and crony and one of his close businessman friends, or business associate, i guess. then while 30 other key ministry posts remained vaycapt, he report -- he put in a new ministry of culture and a minister of antiquities headed by a media celebrity and one-time egyptologist. the polarization of the min

tri-of culture is nothing new. back in the 1990's, the mubarak regime faced threats toits rule by an islamist insurgency fueled by the social inexyties. it discovered the glor is of enlightenment culture. it was an unlikely marriage given the repression, control and censorship of the arts suffered under mubarak and the two military dictators who preceded him. but there were carrots and sticks. those same artists were attacked by muslims for their godless secularism. one prominent intellectual was assassinated, a sec barely survived an attempt on his life, other leading intellectuals also faced serious threats to their life while many others, filmmakers

and artists, suffered serious harassment, legal harassment, personal harassment, career harassment, abuse and worse. the crisis of the mubarak regem was ambiguous. it waged a nasty low-level war against the islamists in the slums and southern egypt. it also increased investment in state religious institutions, presenting itself as the true representative of moderate islam. while attempting to co-opt and outfrank the moral positions held by islamist critics. on the other hand, it opened new investments in the ministry of culture. headed for many years by the co-larful and divisive artist hosni farook. they built and rebuilt institutions like the cairo book fair, the culture palaces and the opera. while theaters fell into disrepair and eminent museums

began to molder and libraries nearly collapsed, the ministry busied itself with flashy new projects that ranged from the intlime like the new alexandria library to the now, like a reading for all series of cheap paperbacks. besides these activities, there were opportunities for employment and reward for mfment in the literary sector, the one i know best, the ministries' agencies developed new publishing venues and prize competitions. in this, egypt is not alen. this is precisely what ministries of culture have done across the arab world. the example about egypt is one that could -- that actually is quite close to many other situations from the gull to have morocco. many writers who might have otherwise been unemployed or employed elsewhere were brought

into a subsistence relationship to their new government patrons and thus within a decade, the state went from being one of the chief obstacles to cultural production to one of its chief protectors and subsidizers. this would have profound effect in terms of buying and co-opting and bringing intellectuals into the state fold. given the eclectic and shallow character of many of its activities, it's really up clear whether they were ever working from a single strategic plan. however, whatever that were doing, there was a single rhetoric and that was this -- that the egyptian nation was engaged in a battle for its life and that on one side, stood the forces of religious ignorance and on the other, the forces of secular enlightenment. and osama was talking about this bifurcation of the secular authoritarianism versus realus threat on the other.

now, as i said this tale of the egyptian mip industry of culture is not significantly different from the way other ministries have not only weaponized, political po lit sized knowledge but also weaponized it. the ministries of culture in other authoritarian regimes play the same role, attempting to provide and co-opt the intell hent seea. in this sense, we can say the dwig of culture and anarchy in light of the kind of state violence brought to bear and the way in which the state brought culture into that war, simply doesn't hold. if anything, culture was, state culture, at least, was a significant part of the state program, which is one of violence, even anarchy. to conclude, i want to say a couple of pieces of good news, first of all, state culture was never really a deep culture in

these places and there has always existed outside and alongside it a very vibrant popular culture, some of it classical, some of it cloak wall and this is in fact -- -- some of it co-loke weall and this is what is coming to the fore now in protesters marnling, they are using old and new forms of expressive culture. i've mentioned the slogans being chanted are poetry. ethere are bands playing in the square as we speak an this is happening all over egypt, from what i understand. in other words, there's good reason to think that after this movement, the relationship of egyptians toward culture is one that is going to probably be characterized by this very same do it yourself spirit. we don't need a ministry of culture to tell us what good poetry is. we don't need to believe in a bifurcated world of culture

versus anarchy. and that this poetry of this revolution itself, in fact is a good and beautiful thing. i'm going to stop there and leave us room for questions and answers. thank you. [applause] >> ok, questions. >> i've had a question for -- i have two questions. we had revolts against colonialism, can this be seen as a revolt against neocolonialism? and professor you said among

the paradigms you gave us, how should we take stock of the post-world war ii american discourse on human rights? where is the place of that in what is going on in egypt? >> well, i mean, i think part of the dichotomy we've been mentioning at the level of academia and policy making is not entirely driven simply by a world view but by hard political calculations and it's obviously been up with of the great tensions in american foreign policy. that when it comes to certain strategic areas, it's not necessarily a question of value that shapes policymaking, but rather one of calculated interests. i don't necessarily see this as an essential nature, as something that cannot change

over time, and we're witnessing here at the level of the administration, depending on how you interpret yesterday's episode, or the day before, this was a personal, freelance opinion or whether it was simply an inept diplomat who blurted out the secret policy of the government. these are issues that not only dominate the way -- the hist -- the way the history of the region is interpreted but how the interpreting as feed into policymaking. there is a tension, obviously, between the values, the rhett ribbling, and the plcy -- policy itself, which is basically on political expedience. this is going to, i think, feed nicely into the professor's answer into whether this is a neocolonial protest. these calculations were there at the height of the colonialism, when we talk about the rhetoric of the civilized english and what was being done on the ground in terms of

exclusion and discrimination. there's always a disconnect. >> most of us know what colonialism is. but i don't think most of us would put the same components under the title neocolonialism. i don't know how to -- how to answer that exactly. it depends on what you mean by neocolonialism but i want to point attention to a literature that actually is very important in recognizing what is happening in the developing countries. the masses of the marginalized have been studied by historians an scientists and so on and i think the work "life as politics" and the notion of quiet encroachment is a fantastic way to, first of all, debunk argues that try to impose order and meaning to

what people are doing that they're not aware of. i mean, are these people revolting against neocolonialism or even neoliberalism or anything of this sort? i personally do not think so, not because these don't have effects that are problematic and affecting people's lives. i think that most of these people are fed up with the life conditions in which they find themselves and there is something to the fact that what we are seeing today is a result of a series of small uprisings and various kinds of investigations that have been taking place over the last five years. the tunisia example is the last of them, of course, but it's a big one. i rally do not know if we can characterize this as a revolt against neocolonialism, despite the fact that you know,

whatever one might put in that category might actually explain the deteriorating conditions of these people. of people. >> one of the things that i've noticed in a lot of media coverage in these events taking place across the region is a comparison with either, you know, they pose a question, is it 1979 or 1989. is it the iranian revolution or is it like the fall of the berlin wall? i think that kind of juxtaposition says that on the one hand, either their world can open up more to the west or it can go the opposite way. but i think maybe, can we say that there's a comparison also with 1968, may, 1968, with their being a cultural revolution that seems to go in

a different direction than either one of these? that's my first point. also the second one is, is it the role of twitter -- is the role of twitter scrover played? i think, you know, considering january 28, all communication was off and because of that, that forced people to the street. nothing challenges, you know, the state's monopoly, like people in the street that won't move. >> i'll take on that one, in a competely different way, maybe, than you had anticipated. if we look at lots of different hoss toric revolutions and get away from the american fixation on recent events always, so it's got to be 1979 or 1989, a lot of what we've seen and omaw

ba -- osama can tell you, bev been emailing back and forth about this for a couple of weeks, bears a close resemblance to pattern os 1838 or 1930 or the things we talked about at the start, would the egyptian army shoot its own people. historically, armies don't like to shoot their own people. it's one thing to shoot a few striking workers, you know, call out oh national guard and shoot coal miners but shooting large numbers of people down in the street, police will do this. armies do it sometimes but most of the time they won't. i thought if the start it would be surprise neg ejipping army shot its own people which has proven to be the case. what's more dubious is whether the presidential guard would shoot people. i thought the police would shoot people and the police did shoot people. that made perfect sense. the kind of response we predicted before it happened

that thugs would be used on the demonstrator, government thugs, we were accurate in the beginning that a lot of looting was done by government agencies and hired thugs and as soon as i saw the footage of the museum it looked to me like deliberate vandalism like police thugs because nobody stole anything. if you're a poor guy breaking into a museum where there's stuff that's real question, really value usual, -- valuable, you probably take it if you're there as a vicious looter. some of the kind of things that are very dangerous, this idea where you bring in a few people from outside, louie blanc in 1848, you have a national unity, you hold elections back to your 1968. what happens in france? there's all these demonstrations in the treat, students and workers don't get together very well.

the government talks about chaos and calls an election who wins the election? the right sweeps to power, crush he theft -- crush the left. elections held after events like this will favor the right. in almost all examples. it happened in 1948, you have riots in the streets of par race and they shoot a thousand porkers -- a thousand workers. what's going to happen, a brokered deal with suleiman and the americans are happy because we have, quote, leches, which is our fetish of democracy, no matter how illegitimate they might be. then around about may and june, start arresting people. they've opinion on television, a lot of them named thems, a number of people in the square talked about the fact that this is going to happen to them.

a number of leading people in 1848 were shot. that's a very likely outcome an so i don't look so much to 1989 or, you know, there's another islamic revolution around the corner, i look to something like that. it's fascinating. financial markets already got that take on it. back to your point about social and economic, one of the ways i look at this, why didn't louie xvi shoot his own people? because a lot of them were children of the middle class. the middle class doesn't like the government to shoot their own kids. he couldn't shoot the demonstrators in paris and still float loans. what happened in egypt? the government's borrowing rate on a 5.5% interest bond drops to 7.2%. it's dropped again today. the government -- credit rating

on the bonds has been lowered. it suggests the big players, maybe saudis bought some of the bonds. this tells you the financial markets think there's a deal in the works. one of the key guys negotiating the deal is one of the biggest businessmen in egypt who is a billionaire, looking at it as a historian, that's what i see is going on behind the scenes. i'm not saying that's going to happen but it's a pretty -- the parallels are very strong. is so i look more to those early things except in the case of 1968, the elections. i think that that's very much likely to be the case, if there are quick leches, the forces of order, right after chaos, even if they cree aed the chaos, tend to be the beneficiaries midwest of the time historically. i'm not saying will happen, but it's what the americans are counting on. what's a point that wisner made obvious last week, that's what

they're trying to do. >> on that point if you want to look at the comparison between 1978 and 1989, the position of the international community was relatively unequivocal in both instances. there was very little ambiguity in the u.s. message in 1989 or in 1979 but this is not exactly what you're seeing today in the case of egypt. there's a lot of ambiguity going on. that's a lot of impact. your comment about twitter, it's not necessarily to look at twitter as a form of social media but start thinking about how governments must renegotiate the way they control, disseminate and control information. i say now it's more complicated than taking control of the radio and tv stations and that managing this explosion in virtual communication is going to radically change the way governments interact with their citizens in the arab world.

that's what i was trying to say. >> one point, the egyptian government today announced a 15% wage increase for all state employees, right. so this ties right in to the kind of package of things that is very typically done, there are other early revolutionaries who buy off a significant portion if you have a big state sector as you described to us, that affects a lot of people. they want to get paid. >> but that's only the price of one plate of cushioning. >> right. >> next question. >> could you comment about the order versus anarchy and the do it yourself spirit shows that even without the government the people can organize themselves. do you think that's overly optimisticage sthoifs situation because it's one thing for a society to be unified in the

face of a commonly recognized enemy, but once that enemy disappears, then there's differing interests, there's competing ideas manifest thems an then without some type of institution that can prioritize and pour it out, there becomes warring factions. and anarchy again appears. so again, you have these interests, there needs to be another dominant-suppressive organization that comes up again like the society. >> i will leave james to talk about, or to address the 18th century political philosophy that's informing the question,

i will grant you that the -- there's no reason for us to be optimistic. in other words, there's no reason to think that this -- at no moment was there clear reason to think that this would succeed and in fact, since maybe the 28th there have been signs that whatever the momentum the movement had, had already been co-opted and deflecked by larger players even outside of egypt. but the -- i would take seriously the notion that without a state, people must necessarily fall into chaos. it simply isn't the case in egypt. what i was trying to show and i think it's actually -- it's not really a stretch, the history of the last 20 years in eyipt shows that by and large, there hasn't been an effective

ruling, an effective state in most people's lives in egypt in the sense of a state that would provide any benefits. there has been a strong state in the sense of a state that will wield violence, either for a perceived enemy or in the case of egypt indiscriminately. i guess i would say that the people -- no matter what happens in the coming weeks and months, i think people know quite clearly and understand quite clearly or at least a significant number of egyptians know that the state is not their friend, the state is the enemy in this case. i was trying to give expression to that. without being overly optimistic. though i would say i wouldn't buy into that view of the world. would you say anything about hobbs? >> well, you know, hobbs obviously has had a huge influence on american foreign

policy in the last 20 years, people like john voke talking about how you shouldn't keep international agreements because in the hobbsian world, there's no one to enforce it but that kind of approach ignores the fact that we have a lot of historical evidence that the existence of norms modifies behavior. that doesn't mean they behave perfectly and follow the norms completely, god forbid, but it does in fact modify international states' behave quors as well. the hobbesian approach is state-to-state, it's not about republic oprub. to me, osama an i talked about this many, many times, and i've talked about it with my dear friend and former colleague, talking about in the 1990's and early 2000's, last no two-state solution between the israelis and palestinians on an

intellectual level, apart from the -- quite apart from the one of the ground. you could argue there's a two-republic is solution but not a two-state solution. the reason the gos fail is they're trying to achieve something that's intellectually impossible. i think some of these ideas matter on the ground a great deal when you start dealing with them. >> i thought your thoughts on the republic was fascinating, i wonder in some unlikely case that some co-lig comes to power, whatever it may be, is there a profound anti-american or anti-western or anti-colonial sentiment in egypt will, i mean, i think

there's a general attitude of sort of, we need to search for some nativism, whether it's islamic, egyptian, arab in egypt. i wonder if that may produce a backlash or if it's some hindrance to the emergence of republican ideals in egypt? >> in all these cases, there's lots of hindrances. one of the first hindrances in egypt with its relationship to the west and the writes is, as a couple of people pointed out without using the term, the essentially racist take on this of the west that the egyptians aren't up to that sort of thing they can't rule themselves and they can't rule themselves and the assumption there is partly