mr. kreski, i turn the microphone over to you. >> is great to be here with all of you. i have been to some new places, and what of my favorite movies is "my cousin vinny." it is great to be here with our panel. we're talking this morning and for months now and years about the way that independent voters and the burgeoning independence movement are shaking the pot -- the political scene in america. they have determined and are determining the outcome of presidential and congressional elections. they've introduced a new politically movement that addresses the problems of partisanship. i like to ask each of you from

your point of view how you see independents changing the political dynamic today. what does that change look like today chris byrd --? . >> this is the most important issue today and the political parties are in denial about it. independent voters are the largest and fastest-growing segment of the like men -- the electorate. if you watch the way debate is present in america, there is this cost the economy between red state, police state, and we know that is alive. there is a huge change coming down the pike. and it is in direct reaction to the two parties, the polarization of the two parties, and that there is a mainstream beneath the independent movement, broad diversity of viewpoints, overwhelmingly generation away, it is closer to republic -- fiscally conservative but socially

liberal. and that is a generational no- brainer. we have a whole generation growing up with a multiple situation. this is one area of politics where we are affected to be satisfied between the choice between brand a and brandy. it does not reflect the way that we live our lives. the two parties are deeply invested in their roles. they have not woken up to information as reality. that is something that will have to do. we will need to all fight and unify and try to ban the franchise. the things that they have been using to rig the situation, the rig district -- redistricting program. it is deeply and democratic and partisan critique is deeply undemocratic. it is one of the most exciting things happening in america today. [applause] >> can you hear me?

i have a long list to add to the rig the system in terms of complaints. not just the clothes primaries and not just redistricting, although those are major problems, but we also face a ballot access. and itsrenchment protection plan, they write the rules for everybody else. it is hard to have a growing movement of independents if you cannot have independent candidates to vote for. we have to open up the system in order to be able to say, this is our candidate, not that we will be stuck with one of your two major party candidacies. [applause] it is not tolerable but 30% of the american people say, you can only vote for one of the two major parties. or you have to wait 18 months

like you heard earlier today in order to be able to go out to run and get the votes of independent voters. we cannot stand for that anymore in the united states and that is not how we should define democracy here. [applause] >> i was thinking earlier as i often do when i think about the role of independents and the changing political dynamic in the united states. there is a story about a river. there are two folks walking along the river, to people. and their babies in the river drowning. one person jumps into the river to start saving the babies. the other person starts running, and the person in the river looks at their friend and says, what are you doing? we have all of these babies in the water. and that person says, i'm going

upstream to find out who is throwing the babies into the water. our political situation today is where there are a whole lot of babies in the water. and nobody is going in to save the baby's in the water, nor are they looking upstream to find out who is throwing the babies into the water. and what the independent movement has to offer, it is very focused on looking upstream and seeing who is throwing the babies in the water, and what are the structural reforms necessary to change that dynamic. but i think the independent movement, a lot like to challenge us to also think about the babies that are currently in the water that are drowning. and i see this every day at community clinics where i worked, where people are literally dying from the lack of health care. for children are being poisoned because they live and poor

housing. ever republican proposal coming into the appropriations committee which would literally eliminate $100 billion in domestic spending without cutting the military, which out of the party without touching corporate tax rates. whether it is the role of progress of independents in not only looking upstream but also in saving those babies that are drowning in the water right now, and i find myself as an independent as having both of those responsibilities. [applause] >> there's really no question that the movement is growing. this event would not be happening if that were not the case. there is progress for sure, but really if you want to figure out how we can ultimately try to defeat the entrenched interests currently in power, we have to define herself more broadly than i think we do right now.

we looked it issues a political process, the open primary, nonpartisan elections, things like that, in the matter deeply. but what does that mean? and and there. if you look around the country right now, you see education reform and people rising up around the country in different forums to take on the entrenched system that ultimately controls state legislatures, congress, and everywhere else. we have made progress but we want to go further and not like these one-off battles where we get excited when we win, but we get focused on one and we spend a lot of time and money on 15 and one initiative. we have to branch out and find out what independent means. anyone trying to take on the status quo right now in government, take on the entrenched powers, that is what an independent really is. we can do that and see that and

then we have the critical mass and resources we need to win. a lot of progress and the political way that we in this room look at independents, but we have to take the next that if we want to really win. >> bradley, this is something that we teach the kids. i agree with that. it is also important to help people who are fighting educational fights and health care fight, and against all of these, we need to recognize that these decisions are not made because people have good or bad thoughts. they are deeply connected to how our country and political system and electoral system is structured. in many cases, you have people getting on buses and going up to albany in new york city to demonstrate -- not even to demonstrate, to request from the

people out there who have created the problems the two then joined out -- to join them out in the protest. that often times do not recognize that it is the structure in which those people are participating, it keeps us from being able to move ahead. i think actually independents and the independent movement's, the people identified as mayor -- as independent they are not. a lot of people did not vote who are ticked off at the system, who look at things and say, i do not even know how i can participate because i cannot impact. we are bigger and broader than we do define ourselves. but we also have to educate our people to let them know why it is that the people that we elect to not do better. it is not because all of them are evil. [laughter]

>> i think they want to pick up where dr. newman left off. at least from where i come from, by first recognize that there are a lot of people who are very much tied to the parties. and some for good reason, because for instance, african- americans are very tight to the historic role that the parties played in their liberation, if you will. whether you're talking originally about emancipation or you're talking about civil rights. in some respects, sort of like the declaration of independence, you have to give due deference to the fact that there is a history there. and sometimes people will bear the evil of it because ask fred was saying they have not yet been liberated and their voices have not been freed. i think the role that we play now is sort of like harriet tubman, in other words, i could

have freed many more slaves if they only knew that they were slaves. so we have to free these voices of democracy and make them realize that they are in the situation now that has changed and they need to be liberated. [applause] >> when i think about this question of how we are changing the political scene, one thing i think about is i think independents are changing the conversation in the country. that is a very important role for us. what i mean by that is that you just dig back several years ago, the issue of open primaries, nonpartisan elections, semi- closed primaries, this was back run. a few states added. it was not a major issue being debated in our democracy. that meant that millions of americans as you are describing

in many ways, our voices were stifled and we were not able to play a role in deciding who are elected officials are. it is very hard to change the political conversation, particularly for a movement that labels -- which is talked about is just a swing force between the two major parties. it is a major accomplishment happening all over the country. i also think that what we are seeing is that as many panel says spoken, i think many are waking up and some interesting ways. obviously have this adulation is so eloquently doubt in your presentation, a process that our president has been through, and he is going to a very partisan town in his own party and getting very caught up in the partisanship and seen what happens and how independents respond.

i think that is very important and i also think that probably the most important thing that we are doing and the most important place we are changing the conversation in american politics is with our neighbors. it's on the college campus. it is in every telephone call that we make. the most important conversations happening right now are those that are happening as independents reach out to fellow independents, to fellow americans, who so eloquently we say, are not found in the two parties. they are on a registered democrat and republican because they want the right to vote in an election that matters. but they are with this and they are independent of-minded. changing that conversation from the bottom piece by piece is absolutely critical in advancing on changing the kind of solutions, the types of conversations that they had about what is even a viable, " are the innovations in education and health care?

we have to change the whole process of change in the conversation among the american people. >> i'll let them make three points. the first is a personal one. i have come in a variety of different capacities and participated in three or four of these national conferences. when i began, jackie, i started as a hard core mainstream if not lead to a senate democrat, then i come here where most people who watch and listen to me say, you have moved to the right. you sound like an independent. truth be known, while i'm still a registered member of the democratic probably rigid party will probably demonstrated democratic party is for the reasons cathy mentioned, my orientation is much more that of an independent now than a mainstream democrat.

that is something i'm proud to say. [applause] i don't think i could ever become a republican because there of lawrence and a lot of their views. -- they are abhorent in a lot of their views. but they are controlling one houses sustainably and another house in the congress, it is hard to cast them aside. the other side of it is, what kathy said is an issue, and it also ties in with what lenora is saying, process does matter. if you cannot run, you can now participate or make a difference. i want to conclude by echoing something that he said. he said something profound. i think everybody here has to understand. the system is now so closed that if you want to let that change, what you're doing is very important, it necessarily,

because you're focusing so much on a closed process, requires a lot of work that does not interest people the way is used to, as dr. newman suggested. so what bradley said and i think it deserves to be underscored, is the people working on education reform, health care reform, and i daresay issues like fiscal reform, because we are in an unsustainable economic condition where the two parties are not at all talking in a way that is constructive and whether you are for more money for health care or for less money for health care, i can tell you, if we bankrupt the federal government and states, there will be no money for anything. i will still you that what bradley said is what i would conclude. we have to be inclusive of people who were working on issues and concerns of importance, to bring them in whether they participate

directly in processes like this are continue to work on their issue, it's really an important, and what finally conclude by saying, tacky, if you take my example as illustrative, at the level of success you had when you expose people to the broader ideas that john avalon has written about. it is a very good and positive one. >> thank you for those opening remarks. i had some things i wanted to follow-up on. i think you left and became an independent. [laughter] we won't talk about that. part of what i am hearing is that a number of view raise the issue of needing to more broadly defined ourselves.

it says this in his remarks, jim, bradley reference to it, i hear this in your comments, michael, as well. perhaps another way to combat that issue is can i ask each of you to share your thoughts on whether you see a connection between political reform and social reform? in other words, and the first round we talked about them as perhaps separate panes, political reform and then the social reform, and we have to broaden the definitions, that is what some people are advocating. i am going advocate for the position that there is a connection between those things, and i wonder if everyone on the panel could speak to that, if you see dead, and how you see that, and what does that look like from your vantage point? and we know in any order. >> i would start. only because it may be in the

news right now but take a look at cairo. that is a combination of social reform and political reform. and so even here, we look, if you were to look what was happening inside the parties, it is almost like there are millions of for people who are outside of that. and some point, they are going to realize, wait a second, what is going to realize -- what is going on here? we have to change the dynamic and i think that tarpons part as social reform and change in the political process. >> now that the that what is going on in cairo is still unfolding, but it was an extraordinary moment. i compared to 1989 in the fall of the berlin wall. and but what is different and a harbinger of a larger social changes, the role that technology is playing. the internet, twitter, facebook. the google executive in egypt helped spur this often credits that technology.

i think that has dramatic potential generally for aggregating the independent movement the way that it is never existed before. the two parties are joined by activists, people to design -- define themselves as partisan. that does not mean could america -- they're good americans who do not think you have to be partisan. this is a way to aggregate the spectrum and whenever possible before. and that is exciting stuff. >> jackie, that is the point you're making about the connection between political reform and social reform, a critical one. if you look get just recently, happenings in congress polling does show that when asked how we should plug the hole in the deficit, 80% of the american people said that we should increase taxes on the ridge. -- rich.

and what you had was increase in tax breaks for the rich and a bigger hole in the deficit. and where we're going to take that money from is from the social progress, social justice, initiatives. they keep -- the reduce the disparity of wealth. it was interesting that we watched robert wright -- reich on the video of earlier he said that the fact that the disparity in, is directly related to downturns in the economy. the middle class spends a lot more money on goods and items. the more money that you put into the hands of the rich, the less consumer spending and less economic development areas. the less economic movement that

there is. the more disparity in wealth, the more dangerous and more significant the economic crisis will become. and what we are continuing to see is that an increasing maldistribution of wealth in the united states. i think that is directly related to your point, because if it were up to the american people, and the american people had the opportunity and had the choice and had the voice to run this economy the way they thought it should be run, they certainly would not have allowed wall street to do what they did. and i cannot imagine -- [applause] that they would support the tax cuts for the top billionaires' in the country at the expense of the poor. >> there is a direct connection between political reform and social reform, justice reform,

all of the matters that we wake up as americans and say, why can we do something about this? why can we do something about the war on poverty, the war on drugs? all these issues that face this decade after decade after decade. the reason we cannot do something about a lot of them is because the two parties are taking you for granted. they're taking your votes because as independents, they look at you. pollsters will it independents -- that will look at independents and say how will they break it? you know what i'm talking about. in order to get reform coming you have to say, i am not one to break for either one of the two parties. i am going to vote for someone who represents independents. [applause]

if we do not break from the two parties and have candidates to represent the independent voice in the united states, the two parties will continue to do what they have always done and take your votes for granted, and not get punished for the votes they make or fail to make in washington, d.c. to change the policies jackie is talking about. [applause] >> a couple things i would add to what you're saying. i think i agree with what we have been saying here. i see an absolute direct connection between political reform, reforming our process, and social will form. but i think that the one thing i would say to dthe -- theresa as an add to what you're saying, the critical thing for independence to do is to vote in ways that create new opportunities, new challenges to

the system, and so but canada too support reform, be there -- be they democrats, republicans, or independence. we have to challenge our own parties and we have to look at trying to break out of that as well. and that is very important. i think a couple of things i would add here, some of our experience with the new york city independent party in a state that allows heuson, which means that you can support the best candidate however they are registered, be there democratic, republican, or independent. it is only allowed in seven states in the country. it is totally within the framework of the two major political parties to want to keep minor parties and third parties and independent part is relegated to a stepchild position. that said, what we have been able to do in new york city is

make very good creative use of that. here i am speaking of the partnership with my bloomberg. michael bloomberg is not mayor of new york city without the new york city independent party and the independent voters working with the african-american community, working throughout the community and the city. there was a new engine created. and while i do not agree with mayor bloom work on a whole host of things, he did give the new york city the opportunity do experience a less partisan mayor, a measure that did not come up to the party system and does not owe any political party anything and was able to govern in a way that many new yorkers saw some real benefit from. this is what it means to have someone who is not operating based on party loyalties to a system that you try to grow up through forever, and i might add, the mayor became a registered independent and i think we have a lot to do with that. that has been the experience of independents been practically smart and looking for a

partnership that could put the issue of nonpartisan elections in full voting rights on the table. i think we need to recognize voting rights, independents having the right to cast a meaningful vote, it is very fundamental and we do not have been that -- we do not have that in new york city. many do not play a role in who wins most elections, city council, state council, state assembly, and that means there is no connection between our desires and those elected officials. the. lenora was making is that many good people get elected and mean well. i'm thinking about some of our colleagues in color broader sharing their experience of getting elected in having good ideas and then going to serve and a legislature that is not run on state democratic principles. it is run by two political parties. before we can change that or couple that to educating americans about the connection between the process you go

through in the how come you get, our public policy remains fairly backwards, and created, not up to date with the current scientific breakthroughs happening all through the world and our country in education, in health care. i was completely apolitical as i went through my nursing education and began public service until they realized this huge disconnect between capacity and how our health care system was structured, and that delivery system was going to have to be changed to the political process. just to add to some of our conversation. [applause] >> let me make one quick point. i think there is consensus that political reform and social reform are inexorable linked, but let me make a hopefully larger point. if you look at what just happened yesterday in egypt, you look at what happened in tunisia, you look at the so-

called color revolutions in central and eastern europe. it is hard to escape the conclusion the political independents produce that change, people on aligned with the system who would basically be pounding their fists and joining insane, that is why we're doing it. he attacked them with the technological change, and having written about the obama movement, it independents, and the tea parties, the commonality is technology bringing people together in the way that the mainstream media does not understand. what i would say is ultimately, there is a worldwide movement towards exactly what we're talking about, political freeman, political freedom, social justice, and ultimately what we have to see is that this is both part of and in the vanguard of a degree of broad

based social change that is fundamental to understanding our world today. [applause] >> one common element here is that it is time for us to bring the curtain back. we've all been basically indoctrinated one way or the other with a lot of labels, frankly, and definitions that do not actually fit the reality of what is going on in america or around the world. this is an evolutionary process. when you tell people that there are mores independence that democrats are republicans, that six of their model. they have been led to believe of the country and the false choice between the far right and the far left that they have to choose between. and the parties want to keep it that way. you start showing them that that is not only alternatives, but it is fibrin and growing, and guess what, only 50% of americans said they are conservative republicans.

only 11% said that they are liberal democrats. that six of the possibilities. -- that shakes up the possibilities. we have to play offense and say this whole left-right divide in politics, the choices that we're given to not reflect the reality in america. it is not always been in play. go back to the progressive reform movement 100 years ago. it's very useful and social change. they said the choice was between radicals, reactionaries, and reformers. i think that too is also creates that sense of balance and a wider view of our politics, reactionaries one of choice, radicals what social change, and you should think beyond the two parties, tried to focus on the common ground exists and move toward political reforms that can liberate full participation.

it is absolutely insane that there some many districts that do not have open elections. the people get so used to it that even in the city of new york, they think it is normal that they do not have local elections on election day. the lessons are decided and closed partisan primaries. we need to pull the car and back and say that is insane. you should be of race. that is not democracy. -- you should be outraged. that is not democracy. >> i am responding as someone who became political because that was the way that we had to engage what was wrong with this country. the first, voted, i voted for myself and nancy ross some. the reason why we need political reform is because we need to respond to help partisan the two parties began.

it is where the corruption in this country lies. and that is not saying every democrat and republican person or elected official is that. but that is corrosive. the partisanship is responsible for the barriers and our health care system, our housing prices, and in our education system. as far as i am concerned, the graduation rates which are awful and the failure for poor black and latino kids can be directly traced to the party should ship -- the partisanship of our political system. it is not the measure of our kids, is a measure of the failure of political, political leaders in the educational it is. partisanship is anti-american, anti-innovation, anti-middle class, it is anti-people. we have to deeply embrace that

there are solutions to all kinds of things, including the failing rate of black and latino down people in this country. people are discovering and have all kinds of discoveries internationally. it is on the internet, it is in the world, they are making changes, and talking about ways in which it can grow people. which is put out a paper called "let's pretend," which we hope irritates people and let people see that innovation is very important. but you cannot touch innovation when you have these institutions that say, we're not interested in your opinion if you do not belong to discover that club. you cannot be a part of this. i think it is important to recognize and the thing i find so of spending as i watched our young people suffer and are humiliated, the communities are

suffering, and you can be bigger and smarter, is that we know how to do some of these things. we have made -- there are innovators, but we cannot innovate or get in front and the public in a way that we absolutely should be able to because of partisanship. is there a middle ground between political reform and social issues? absolutely. we need to stand up to the forces to make it impossible for us to put innovation on the map and on the ground. people the big discoveries and we should be able to make use of them so that our young people can be smart so they can develop and so that they can learn. [applause] >> we need to be thoughtful about not being focused on electoral changes. if you think about what everyone is set of the last 10 minutes or

so, there are three main levers. they're more independent voters than democrats are republican. an incredible disenfranchisement, anger and frustration among the american people. there's technology now they can unite people and galvanize them away that they never could before. and also fundamentally we need natural reforms and a lead for change, no question about that. but a lot happens between elections. it is important not to wait for the next cycle of that referendum. i look which they work with politicians all the time. it is not that hard defuse some of these things intelligently to motivate them to do the right thing now, not even waiting for the next election. they either react in one are two ways, a mass political gain or to avoid political harm. if you can leverage the numbers,

the frustration, or the technology to show them that now, and i am all for the electoral changes we're talking, but we should not wait for then. we should look at the issues right now that need to be improved and force change, not to the extent that you saw in egypt, but nonetheless real change that could matter now. and i think that in some ways we're selling ourselves short if we just focus on political process. every issue has its own sort of a rigid set of answers and issues and approaches. we need to think about of it in every focus in legislatures and political sessions and not just every quite true years. that is where we sell ourselves short. >> one of the things that you think about and i think in many ways it is so instructive, you

could not identify political parties and that movement. you had a coalition of liberals, a google executive, and then people to deny use the internet, poor people who saw this as a way to get self expression to themselves as human being and address some of the tremendous inequities in egyptian society, and technology is a way to create new ways of communicating. i guess what it raises for me and i think for us -- can you do politics without parties or are -- one of the things that is happening, and in some ways i am involved in some litigation, the american people

-- the political parties get more aggressive about the arrest -- part. that is what the coburn primary process is about. in this politics without parties, is it the 21st century and people are typical of spreading beyond this or does that something you're talking about ideology in part is, where are we going in all this? >> you make a great. favored the parties are in a defensive crouch. they are lashing out because they realize this. if you have more more people registering independent -- arizona went from 80% to 31% independent in the last election year alone. -- 18% to 31% in the last election year long. these people were deeply invested in high for

partisanship. that is how they know the game works. and they're scared of change. if the rules change immediately you find a bunch of consultants to get the message gen. but i think the larger chains around the world, if you take a big step back, one of the things that has happened is that you have had an expansion of freedom around the world since 1989. you had individualism taking hold. people define themselves as individuals outside their own tribal identities. in reaction to that, the people who hold very dearly to those tribal identities have been a defensive crouch and lashing out. that is why you see the party prolific rigid party. vacation rentals. if you're not a conservative republican, they want to kick you out. you see that happening in the democratic party as well. they are scared to death. >> john is exactly right.

what i think the larger question here, falling on all the comments, is defined objectives of what you're trying to achieve and used both the political process as it is and changing it and social reform in whatever way you can impacted to achieve objectives. are we trying to elect a president, create jobs? i am struck by lenore's question. i wrote a piece earlier this year, trivial story but i want to make it, about basically the same issues that lenora raised. we have a national emergency which is black and latino kids.

can get jobs, can i get educated, can i get ahead. -- cannot get jobs, cannot get educated, cannot get ahead. you can comment from the right or the left with a whole host of different solutions which we could agree or disagree about. but what is so startling to me is that having raised the issue, which is outside the mainstream or thet these rino's democrats are wanting to talk about. for a variety of different reasons. no one was interested. when i say no interest, i mean, just nobody. to my way of thinking, it is up fundamentally definitional question. bradley is absolutely right. you have to think broader, but what are the goals, what are we trying to achieve? s because ultimately unless we focus on a few large initiatives and use by

partisanship and independent politics to achieve those goals, ultimately, not only does the movement was, but the larger loss is the citizenry who does not at t the benefit of addressing issues that our party who does not achieve the benefit of addressing issues necessary for our democracy. it is not written in sand of the constitutional principle that we of all started off with an taken with credit, it is not written in sand that they're going to be there forever. >> i wanted to respond to what you're saying, some people were not interested in whether or not the crises in our country and are black and latino students could be resolved. >> i am saying they were not interested -- a positive as simple point. with a black teenager unemployment around 45%, with the educational system largely failing them and not training

them, however you want to look at the problem, from their respective of the conservative republicans, house central interest, or a little democrat who believes in large-scale social welfare spending. that problem remains an address because it is not part of the agenda of the two major parties. and that creates for us a national crisis and i would argue national emergency, because you know what are your mark when those kids get mobilized, angry, frustrated, and take to the streets, we will have potentially calamitous unrest like we had in the 1960's. >> lenore. before you answer, we have to wrap up in two minutes. your comments and then four others who have not commented, keep them brief and then we will wrap up. >> this takes me back to what fred newman was making earlier today.

there many people who are interested in the come from many different walks of life. we have been working in the all stars project with hundreds of thousands of kids over the last 30 years, and their parents in the community, and also keep people in the business community and the cultural world here in new york who are interested, who are caring, who are givers, and we have created solutions. the issue is getting the stage on which you can express it and share those solutions, beyond what we are immediately doing, when you have partisan politics regarding the doors of dialogue. a lot of people care in their tens of thousands of young people who are not taking to the streets, which i mean, i am for the streets, but they are taking to development and growth. and when you offer the circumstances for that, they grow and develop. they exist.

call me up, i'll tell you exactly what to do, and we can in the additional crisis -- which end in the educational crisis because there are solutions. [applause] >> going directly to harry's question and harking back to kentucky, the center in kentucky who says -- the senate there in kentucky who says, you don't like the way we run the country -- the fact of the matter is, the notion of political parties running government is what is on american. if you look it what happens inside -- un-american. families are now run based on parties. they're run on the best interest of the family. corporations are not run based on parties but on the best interest of the company. i think the short answer is, yes, we can effectively run

government without partisan and we have to try to get there. >> we have 30 seconds. >> i will be quick. i've a slight disagreement from some of the things said. i really do not believe that the democratic party is captured by the cultural left. i wish that it was. frankly there is no political course that is moving to dialogue to the left. i think everything is weighted to the right. i think that is what partisanship breeds. the political system we are currently in inevitably moves everything to the right. and that is the goal of political parties. the center keeps shifting to the right and they keep trying to capture the center. the reason i am an independent is that i believe the two-party system and the partisanship the results from that has caused a serious move to the right in the united states over the course of many years.

>> you can take us out. >> the word party is not in the constitution. let me put in a good word for third parties, minor parties, because there are a lot of common ground between independents and members of minor parties. at the risk of being the heretic in the crowd, there is a lot of energy there to be allies. the two parties dictating who else can have a seat at the table and who can participate in power in this country, that is the problem. we need to look at ways to break down the barriers that the two parties have set up for the rest of the people not being able to be participants with full and equal power and ec to the table to make the policies in the united states. -- tennessee that the table to make the policies in the united states. -- and a seat at the table to

make policies in the united states. >> next, i use -- a forum on social networks and internet privacy. then a discussion on the recent investigation into russian spying in the u.s., and then a panel on financing health care options. live, maryland congressman chris van holland, ranking member of the senate -- of the budget committee. the republicans are weighing a short-term proposal to run the government. he will talk about funding the government for 2011, and tackling debt issues. live sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> now a discussion on the importance of managing information your user expectations, and potential government regulation in the area on one privacy. this is from a conference on digital privacy hosted by

mediabistro, a website founded for journalists and others who work in media-related industries. this is one hour and 15 minutes. >> to reason why the lights are so bright is because we do have c-span in the back, which is exciting, an indication of how cutting edge you are to be here today, the fact that c-span is here. i am going to be your in see today and make sure that the speaker's run on time and make sure you get questions and answers after each speaker, provided they do not run too long. a lot of the speakers will stick around at will. at the coffee break you cannot cost them by the decaf -- you can accost by the decapitalize.

it to media workshop at mediumbistro and i also has corporate websites. burke, a couple of housekeeping notes. wifi is medianbistro and the law again is nymbistro. i also wanted to mention that the first coffee break is that 1015, so you get a chance to speak to some of the speaker's stand. at 12:30 p.m., there will be a box lunch across the hallway. if you have not found yet, the bathrooms are tricky to find. it was a personal request that someone said, tell everyone where the bathroom is. you go across come antigorite, and then you go across and the upstairs. plan for about a good five minutes to visit the restrooms.

also, i want to mention the way the we of our program, there has been a change. in the morning we'll be looking at bigger issues, the bigger picture, laying the groundwork. in the afternoon, looking at the business, challenges, and opportunities for people. i wanted to point out to you, right after alexander from the kill group, we will have jeff jarvis. he is not on the program but he will talk about the benefits of publicness. we are not sure that that is a word but we will make a one by the end of the day. we want to get an informal poll to see who you are. how many of you are an advertising or marketing? ok, how many of you are in charge of security or privacy policy for your company? famine if you think you're going to soon have to be in charge of privacy policy? ok. how many of your concerned about

too much regulation? how many of you are concerned about too little? i think there are a couple of raese hands twice. as it started with our first session, understanding privacy in the connected age. we will start off with the bigger picture and to do that is the founder and publisher of the website personal forum, i have interviewed him about how the web is changing politics, and he is good at putting internet issues into context. please welcome social touch upon your -- entrepreneur and truth rasiej -- andrew rasiej. >> i sought information artists

peak three years had a conference. in an interesting story to tell. in his work as an artist, he would travel the world and it just so happened that he moved out of a storage facility in florida on september 12, 2001. he left on an extended trip across the planet showing his work. and when he came back into the country in detroit, he was shocked at the immigration desk, asked if he would go there was actually told to go down to a interrogation room and discovered very quickly that the fbi wanted to question him about the content of his locker, because the people on the storage facility claimed that he had stored explosives in his locker, and because he was arab, looked arab, they suspected that

he was a terrorist. so he turned white and got very scared, when in the survival mode, told them as much as he could, it is. >> no connection to any explosives, and his history where he traveled all the questions about where he was going. but the fbi was not satisfied. they kept reminding him that they could throw him into guantanamo and put him into limbo if he did not cooperate. eventually they let him go. when they did, they said, we're going to be following you, we will keep track of you, and you should just be aware that you are on our watch list. when he got home, he was shot and worried. he decided they would do something about it. he could not imagine not going back to the light that he had before this happened. so he invented a little ankle bracelet that would identify where his location is all the time and posted it on a google map. he started time stamping his

life, every meal, every booking, every phone conversation, every single step of his conversation -- of his life, i he would recorded and then send to the fbi. he did this for about six months. he inundated them with more and more photographs, more and more information about where he was going, who he was sleeping with, who was talking with, all the records of his phone calls, and after six months the fbi said stop. you realize something that was important and he saved himself. in a market where information is the currency, he flooded the market. you devalue the currency. i'm not a privacy expert. i was interested in speaking here because at the same time that the invitation came, the wikileaks saga started to unfold.

i'm sure all of you have been falling and in its various turns. but as a relates to this particular event, what is interesting is the recent decision by twitter when asked for government -- when the government as them for information about the wikileaks account, they decided to fight the secrecy order and succeeded and inform the owners of that account that they were being investigated so that the owners of that account could take steps to fight the subpoena. and until i heard that story, i did not really think about -- is twitters behavior different than google's? or is it different from facebook's? i started to do more research on the subject and started asking myself questions, and some of the questions are questions are

like to ask you. how many of you have read and entire terms of service from beginning to end -- and to you do it each time you sign up for a new service? not a single hand raised. how many times have you seen lines at toll station at the lincoln, in his seat of of going through and see all these other people in cars, some very nice cars, not paying -- paying by cash. and you think why did they not sign up for ez pass? they're not destitute, they are driving mercedes. i heard an interview with a number people like that and they said they do not want the government to track as. but they are sitting in their cars on their cellphones. [laughter] and they are taking pictures of their license plate when they go to the toll plaza.

many of you may not notice, i did not know this until i did the research, but if you use google books, he keeps track of your ip address the entire time that you are logged into gmail, and it can keep track of the pages that you read. amazon will do this too, keep track of the books that you have purchased. but they will not in for new if law enforcement -- they will not inform you of law-enforcement ask them for that information. facebook consulate changes is privacy policies. can you recite facebook's privacy policies are know what they currently are? every time we connect with facebook, our universal law again, we do so because it is convenient but we do not realize what we're giving up in the process. recently the supreme court ruled 5-2 that the police can

search your phone if they stop you and find it on your person. without warrants and without cause. and that the rifle through your e-mail, your tweeds, your photographs, they're very likely to find some form illegal behavior. an errant photograph, a comment about the transfer of some funds, funds i always heard the thought that if you are driving in new york, you are always doing something illegal. i did not realize how much i was doing illegal until i was in an accident. i was letting my car after some shopping and a car sideswiped my door. fortunately i was not hurt. but all it was an open and shut

case. i was part. i was going to get my insurance company to pay me. there was a all that you're not allowed to load your core from the street side. you are only allowed to get in as closely as possible. you should keep your eye foam or blackberry in a concealed bag. if you keep it in corrected, if you put a password on it, then you are protected by the fourth amendment -- you are protected by the first amendment about not incriminating yourself and you are not required to give them your password. most people do not think about these issues. they do not think about the impact on their lives as they collect a link for convenience. another important aspect is remarking. how many times have you been on

the website and looked at a product, what of the site and went someplace else, and all the sudden there are -- there is that pair of shoes staring you in the face. there are a number of companies doing a massive amount of data collection. they are repackaging that data and selling it in the hopes of generating huge amounts of profit and creating convenience for you and their customers. but personally identifiable information being stripped is a fallacy. i highly recommend you look up a university of colorado professor who wrote a seminal piece about the fallacy of canonization -- and ionization -- animization.

although 70% of americans do not have the same birthday, zip code, or sex -- if you add information about how late rated movies or what movies they rate on netflix, 80% of the time the individual can be identified. the more databases emerge, the strong light they become. h. exceeding piece of information provides more clothes -- more clues to identification. utility and privacy of data are intrinsically connected. no regulation can increase data privacy without also decreasing state utility. as the utility a date that increases, privacy decreases. to increase privacy means reduction in values like free speech and security.

privacy and security are two different things. sometimes all of this data leaves -- leads to good. go researchers are allowing people to sense when flu epidemics might be starting. we all love the convenience of having our basic information available when we visit a web site, but every time we do, we give something up. i want to digress for a second and talk about wikileaks for a moment. how many of you know who bradley manning is? for those of you who did not raise your hands, he was charged with the crime of leaking the 250,000 cables to wikileaks and to a previous video of two

reuters reporters. it was the first major wikileaks release. the reason why bradley manning did that at was that he was charged with reviewing the security of individuals who were arrested in iraq for protesting and for trying to undermine the government of iraq. as he was reviewing their files, the 16 or so insurgents, he discovered they were asking for more government transparency on the street. when he realized they were just freedom fighters for democracy and not insurgents trying to take the government down, he

went to his superior and said the people should not be in jail, they should be on the streets supporting democracy. his boss told him to shut up and keep researching insurgents. he was so angry he decided he would take some action. he said the system was unfair. he also leaked the reuters of video. when he saw the video of the reporters being killed, he saw the date stamp on the video. theent back and do googled date and discovered a report in the new york times that said two reuters reporters were killed in a massive fire fight in iraq. he realized there was not a fire fight. they were people walking on the street and a helicopter gunship

pilot demanded permission to fire on an ambiguous situation that resulted in nine people's death. the reason i tell you this story is that we should not be thinking about whether wikileaks did or did not do the right thing. we should be thinking about whether or not the systems we have are beyond reproach and whether or not we have systems of accountability to make sure security is applied wherever possible. it is not just wikileaks. it is a broken sense of trust. my recommendations to all of us and to the world in relation to this issue are that we need to start looking at major changes because the reality is technology is moving so fast that our laws and regulations literally cannot keep up. lost need to be updated to reflect the reality of our

connected networks and hand-held printing press lives. it is not enough for the government to promote these tools as instruments of freedom around the world and then be angry when those same tools are being used against us by people who believe we are repressing them. we need to make sure that we encourage the use of those tools wherever possible or that our own policies are simply beyond reproach. next, for those of you who work at companies that are focused on privacy issues, companies need to make this technology more transparent and consistent about what information they are gathering about us and giving people direct and easy access to

opt in or opt out. they also need to develop standards for informing people of what information they will or will not share with government authorities and under what circumstances. they need to inform us so we can take the same steps up protecting our own information as we would document -- as we would do if we were protecting documents in our own home. finally, these companies need to take responsibility for the fact that much of the public discourse is actually happening on the networks they are profiting from. and that they should not necessarily run for the hills because some angry rhetoric is being touted by some politicians where there is a hint of criminal investigation against one of their customers. when paypal took wikileaks of

its networks, it was still possible to make a donation. lastly, maybe the most important thing is, we need to educate ourselves about what is at stake each time we buy a new ipad, sign up for another two-year contract with horizon, where simply drive to a tollbooth or swipe a mastercard. we join a never ending dance of data collection without a clue of what the consequences might be. some will argue that all this data, every click, every download, every credit card swipe will make our lives more convenient, efficient, and state -- convenient, efficient, and easier. what price are we going to pay? what will we do when the machinery become so powerful we cannot stop it or undo its and

get back to the personal privacy that we thought we had in a free society. i hope you agree with me that to ensure a future where citizens are ultimately calling the shots, we need to arm ourselves with the best and most accurate data and information we can. ironically, this is the same reason julian assange says he created wikileaks. thank you very much. [applause] >> can we get this microphone on, i think we get time for a couple of questions. step up to the microphone or i can get the microphone to you. talking to the microphone or no one will be able to hear you on c-span. does anyone have any questions? i know you do a lot of work about the obama administration.

how would you give them in terms of breaking them and their use of technology and transparency? >> it would probably be something like a c+. one little-known fact that people do not realize when we changed administration is that we have to go back eight years when we changed parties. there is only nine months in a transition period -- nine weeks in a transition period in that nine weeks, you've got to find the people who know where the steering wheel of government is. democrats back to the people who had their hands on the steering wheel eight years before. what we got with the obama administration was the clinton white house. with it we got government thinking top down. even though there are some great

21st century thinkers in the obama administration even though obama was known to use the internet very extensively, getting every s agency to actually comply is very, very hard. there are those who say it costs too much. there are those who do not understand it. there are those who are just lazy because of civil service rules and regulations. i envision, i would give them and a. >> we have time for one more question. >> i am from mediabistro. it was a very i opening presentation. what do you say to people who say, "i had nothing to hide. it the police, the state myself all, let them have at it." how do you warn people who are not concerned about the

potential dangers? >> i think they are naive. they might not think today that they are in any danger, but that is because they live under the false impression that our democratic and free society will continue to protect them. there is an inherent responsibility that every citizen has, not to just think about themselves, but about their fellow citizens. why are we always so distraught by stories of injustice being served? if we felt that way, we would not be creating a legal system to adjudicate different points of view. the notion of "let's live in public"-- i think there are some benefits to doing it. the benefits are only there in the illusion of the construction of laws that were built in the

20th century. if we are to be connected, this information will be used in ways we do not know and we may not want. i am not sure people would be saying the same thing. >> thank you so very, very much. [applause] we are moving on to what is called the personal data ecosystem. our next session is with one of the people behind what is called the "personal stake that ecosystem." there is a website and believe that we should have control over how we present ourselves. she calls herself "the identity woman." she is taking it all school with a presentation on paper. please welcome kaliya hamlin. [applause]

>> their i am. -- there i am. you cannot be on c-span with slides. some guys with heavy black ta pe back there will help us. there you go. perfect. move it over a little bit. move it closer so it is in the light. perfect. thank you. this needs to get tight. -- taped.

thanks. perfect. that will do it. >> if you are going to raffle this off, right? >> yes. at the end of the day. put your business card in the fishbowl in the back. you can take them home on the subway. i think we are good. thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. the purpose of my top is to explain this new future in possibility for personal data. it is between two ends of the spectrum. on one hand you have "do not track." it is a proposal so end users

can say not to collect any data. on the other hand, it is "business as usual." we need more innovative data collection and interested. there is a third possibility. there is a growing industry of personal data services that allow individuals to collect their own personal data and manage it. it gives permission up -- it gives access to their digital foot print, to the businesses and services they choose to provide better customization, and real value for their data. with other leading industry thinkers, i have come to believe there is more money to be made in an ecosystem that allows the user to determine which businesses have access to what data and under what terms and conditions than there is under the current system.

i am articulate this ecosystem and talk about developments in the industry. for those of you who know me, you may find it unusual that i have such a keen focus on money and business models. after all, i am saving the world. after first learning about digital identity technologies, i had been an industry advocate for these technologies. i can be in the internet identity workshop every six months for the last six years. it brings together independent developers, major web companies, companies to sell identity

solutions, and a range of others interested in our work. our focus is on user century technologies -- how users can be empowered with their own identity online and how to be persistent, autonomous, and under their control. many of you had recognized that -- our logo symbolizes a three human rights we believe our were fighting for -- the freedom to be who you want to be online, the right to anonymity, the right to cure rate information about yourself that can be found on line, the ability to express verified claims about yourself and to give detailed information when you want with people and organizations. there is a system in which

everyone unknowingly participates and pays no heed to these rights. h. of eskimos limits information about ourselves and our activities. -- each of those limits information about ourselves and our activities. it is collected by a wide range of institutions and businesses that people interact with directly. they are then assembled by date to brokers and subsequently sold to date it users. this chain of activities happens with almost no participation more awareness on the part of the subject, the individual. then the date is used to affect the individual's lives. the "wall street journal" has given several examples. life insurers are beginning to explore how rest can be assessed by using people with

unhealthy lifestyles. data is connected to, and e-mail addresses to build profiles of people. political campaigns that solicit a malice pay to determine the name and demographics by the individuals behind the address. banks are now asserting advertisements -- inserting advertisements and coupons into on-line banking experiences. you can clearly see there is value in personal data it because of all the money being made. the community of technologists focusing on identity have focused on information cars sped have that element -- limited success. unless businesses see a return over and above the cost of

installing new technologies, nothing will change. being good for end users is not sufficient motive is it -- motivation for this. the business value we are missing with these early generations of users must be built into the personal data ecosystem. i would like to highlight a few distinctions. there is a fundamental difference between being watched and being seen. being seen as an act of mutual social recognition. i see you, you see me. we see each other. we are seeing. -- we are seen. being watched is done without the subject's acknowledged. being stalked is when someone watching the activities is aggravated and the subject is

followed through time and space without their knowledge. the behavioral marketing and advertising are stocking subjects. people all over the web are collecting information about them and their activities without their awareness. that wall street journal series list the top 50 web sites and fouled out checking cookies on their computer. many sat information about individuals to third parties and identified over 100 mil-man in the aperture is the market for data. the reaction to these industry practices, many advocacy groups have proposed do not track technology and systems. in the u.s. and in europe, governments are working on regulating those industries.

some web companies are moving -- bugle anatomizes information after nine months. previously, they atomize it after a year. the writing is on the wall. they see the current business processes as selling masses amounts of aggravated -- aggregated data. he may only be allowed to keep information about people for a short about of time. the current model is not sustainable. not only our government's moving to regulate these activities, it is not even the best way to get useful information about people said they can get the services they want. the community i lead is approaching end user accounting by the whole by asking this question -- what if individuals

were given tools to manage their own data, their digital footprint? what it there were tools for integrating all these things on behalf of the individual? location lots, personal history, medical history, all the books, movies, and other media the owner has consumed -- the list goes on and on. what if we gave people the power to see themselves and collect this information? information that no one else can integrate? what if they could choose to retain all the information they wanted for as long as they wanted? on this next draft, you can see this red dot.

it shows us what is happening today. they get agar gaiters, brokers, and users are collecting information. if this along the bottom is time and this axis is the data, this is being pushed towards zero. the green dots shows us what would happen if people were given the capacity to store and manage their own data. if they could keep as much data as they wanted for as long as they wanted. a lifetime could be shared with future generations. a user-centered model with the individual can aggregate information about themselves will enable new class is of services that are more valuable to the individual. these would be based on access- data with permission and notice.

data storage services are totally under control of the individual. we can see early examples of these in the marketplace. they are not bright ideas. there are startups doing these things already. one start lets you put your data together. utility records, health and fitness records, transportation records. they give you instructions on how to get to your mobile caria or electric co. and export your statements. it involves dozens of steps and is labor intensive. it is not easy or something everyone will do, but it is possible. greplin does personal file search.

you shared the information about where you are linking. all the services you are accessing that you cannot release search on your own laptop. you use them to search your own user services. personal.com does not yet have services available on our web site. there are two open source projects in this face. -- in this phase. in the u.k., there is a company called midax. it is not a for-profit or a non- profit. it is somewhere between. they are helping constituents and get information with governments. >> excuse me. [unintelligible]

>> there is a "t." where is a pen and i will fix it. with these new data sets and new opportunities, new opportunities emerge for media and advertising. there is one more company i wanted to talk about. it was founded by my colleague. it is a language that can look up your personal data and published data and help match them together. you can imagine a navigation

system that combines the birthdays of your friends, their wish lists, and your appointment calendar and it will record -- it will recommend places to stop on your route that day to get a present for someone usa birthday next week. all this data put together to make people budget lives easier. l allows for permission marketing where people are choosing third parties they trust to get better services and also allows for the emergence of relationship management where individuals or specifically choosing to share featured buying intent with companies they want to do business with. it is a corollary to customer relationship management. in conclusion, you can see that

this model is a metal plate in between -- middle way in between leading business as usual with more pervasive stocking and do not track where individuals are put in control. it is a when for everybody. -- it is a win-win for everybody. users when because they get all of this data. they are not just telling it all away. innovators building on this new ecosystem have huge opportunities. we think more money can be made in this way. i, along with others, our founding a collaborative. we have a web site right now that is aggregating, a pot

dcast we are doing weekly, we are building documentation in this emerging space, and our first major project is to work on the current because system around data. with that, i invite you to participate with us in three different events -- the identity collaboration day in san francisco on february 14, and a internet workshop in may. thank you very much. [applause] >> i think we have time for one or two questions. >> last week there was an

announcement by the commerce department about identity and it created a hubbub in the community about whether or not this was an easier way for the government to track us. >> the government has been working on a national strategy for cyberspace. they released a draft this summer and have continued to enter rate. they announced that the program office would be at the department of commerce. it is about supporting citizens using commercially embedded identities because the commercial sector allows them to use them all the time. they ask people to use those identities to log into government sites so it does not have to issue identities to millions of people. it is light lot in credentials. you can use our credentials from the bank to log in to the irs.

there is also an article i wrote that covers it more comprehensively. >> would you be around at the coffee break? >> i will. >> if anyone has any more questions come up again, find you. i love the idea collaboration day is on valentine's day. thank you so very much. [applause] we are never doing that thing again. when we heard that c-span was coming, we were so thrilled. we thought that we could not have slides for some of the speakers. that is not true. the message got to kaliya.

i think it is kind of retro. i kind of like it. i in any case, let's move on. we are going to have a break after our next speaker. i want to start out with privacy location and social networking. you have heard of foursquare and other software that lets people know where you are. our next baker is a chief scientist. he created a software that tells you who can find you and win. please welcome norman sadeh. >> good morning, everyone. when i was told about the note slide rule, i knew i did not have the graphical skills that kaliya has. lesson number one, never take no for an answer. what i would like to do today is

ask the following question. i am not a lawyer. it is a very clear that the kind of issue we are looking at are going to have to be looked at from different perspectives. what can technology do in this place? i would like to ask with you a couple of questions revolving around whether we can reconcile privacy and social networking. obviously, there are some extreme views on this as you can tell. one view is that you cannot argue with success. you look at facebook. they are going to get 600 million users sen. -- soon. you know what you think about their approach to privacy.

you can make the conclusion that nobody cares about privacy anymore. there are quotes from marke zuckerberg that indicates things are not that simple. giving users control over their information is ultimately going to result in more sharing. it will make people fear more comfortable. we care very much about our privacy. obviously, if things were that simple, we would not have seen the kind of things we see every day. this is an example of something people were talking about six months ago. you would go to google s.a. "how to" and you would get a response on how to delete your facebook account. some people were considering

deleting their facebook account. it is not something that is completely straightforward to do the number of users on facebook continues to grow quite impressively. the question now is, "what is going on in?" do people care about pollock -- privacy or have we entered a new era? as a technologist as someone who works in academia, i like to try and answer these kind of questions by selecting data and running experiments. i had been engaged in deploying different locations. we try to see whether we could come up with some answers to these questions. this will be illustrated with the results of our studies that we conducted, looking at help people fill in different kinds of conditions, their preferences

when it comes to sharing. for those of you who are not familiar with application sharing -- this is is cecily the idea that you may want to share your location with others. it allows you to push your location, check in at various locations. i have been here so many times, i would get a guest outbreak. before that, you have a number of other applications that take different variations on the same thing. google would beht bug one thing. we have our own application. you are basically subject to whatever policy people have and

they will decide overnight with the policy changes. we decided it would be safer to develop our own. the latest incarnation is called kachino. what you are seeing here are the preferences of 30 different people when it comes to sharing their locations with different numbers of the carnegie-mellon community. each square represents eight user. the vertical axis represents 24 hours in the day. red means don't share. green means share. this is what we are seeing. the joke here is to challenge you to come up with a good default policy. as we can see, there is quite a

bit of diversity. three people are completely green. they say they have nothing to hide. the people who are completely read. the majority of the people fit in between. they are willing and interested in disclosing their location in some conditions. when you look at these charts, you can come up with a good default policy. it will be very challenging. as we know, facebook decides everybody is green. somehow we are not completely convinced that this is the right way to go. another challenge with this policy is that when you come up with default policies for people, you decide not to change them. a band o 80% of the users on

facebook never touched their privacy settings. whatever facebook decides for them, that is what they do. it does not seem to be entirely satisfactory. what is more interesting is that not only are people very diverse when it comes to how they feel about what information to share when, but their preferences are very rich in terms of sharing when they are sharing their location. these are the results of another study that we conducted. try to understand how rich these preferences or. we look that different groups and attitudes. from their close friends and family, facebook france, the university community, and advertisers looking at these types of models were you go to a

place and checked in. feel free to use my location to give me a discount of some kind or whatever it is you're doing with my information. the question now is what kind of attributes what i have to disclose to users? if i want to do a good job of capturing the conditions in which they want to disclose their locations. when it comes to close friends, you do not need to give them that many settings. people have a small group of people -- maybe three, four, or five -- that is a very tiny number. as soon as you try to do sharing beyond that, for instance with the numbers from the university, it turns out that just sharing is just not going to cut it. if you look at any application

today that does look patient sharing. it allows you to only share based on a list of people who are considered ok. if you are very courageous, maybe you can toggled them on and off. what we have done is said "what if people actually specified rules where they would be able to actually constrain the conditions in which their applications are made visible to these different groups subject to things like time of the day or day of the week or the location where they are?" this graph shows in different colors how much better you start doing when it comes to capturing the preferences people have. the vertical axis is called accuracy. it measures how well you are capturing people's true preferences when it comes to sharing. you're saying that the list does very well with his friends and

family. if it comes to sharing with members of the university community, the accuracy is about 20%. this is what you are seeing here. as you start adding more and more attributes, sharing their location with these different groups -- you start seeing the accuracy goes up. all these attributes actually are part of what people are going to need ultimately if you want to do a good job of capturing different scenarios where people might be willing to share the litigation with others. one reason why applications like these have relief failed is that they do not really expose that function to people. i had been to google a few times. in spoken to their latitude people.

you ask them what you mean by fellow users? it must be at the same latitude. the answer is, "our users are people who have five friends or more. what latitude has been able to do is capture this sort of thing, but it is really not capturing any of that. what people will do, they are not crazy, they tend to err on the safe side. they are going to let a small group of people see their locations and nobody else. it turns out in social networking, that is not necessarily a recipe for success. social networking is all about sharing. if you end up with controls that resulted in very low sharing, the application has no value. what is very interesting, if you measured the amount of sharing

these settings can lead to, you are seeing along the vertical axis is the amount of sharing -- as you increase the settings you make available to users -- you can qualify users based on time, location. as you make these things richer and richer, you could conceivably enable people to specify those kinds of sophisticated preferences they might have. that would ultimately make them feel comfortable sharing. what i am talking about? it is a comment presidents that you cannot specify that you are willing to share your location with your colleagues, but only on weekdays. most people have that reference, you just cannot express it.

as a result, i would assure my information with my colleagues. that is unless facebook decides the settings will be different. as you make the settings richard, you see there is a lot more sharing taken place. you can actually increase the amount of sharing by a factor of two with facebook. the foursquares of the world should care that it increases sharing by 2.5%. we can reconcile privacy at least on the surface. obviously, we have taken a few short cuts. these are results. what if you had those settings? how well would i be able to capture your preferences? things are a bit more complex.

to get more settings to people, you somehow be to convince them they should use the settings. as i pointed out earlier, most of the time very pete -- very few people actually use the settings. why? it takes time. they may not understand what is going on with the settings they have. as long as they do not see how bad the settings are, they do not have the incentive to go back and tweaked them. the question we have been asking is how can we actually achieve those kinds of results i have shown you? they are based all looking at how people really feel. here are the kinds of things to start thinking about. the first graph i showed you was actually an illusion. it looked very complex and very diverse, but as it turns out, if you move away from the idea that

you should only have one policy for all users, it turns out you can come up with answers seem to fall profiles. the idea is that perhaps i can come up with three or four things people can pick from. yet the completely open type. you can capture a good amount of their preferences. how can i do that? as it turns out, these issues look very different from the others. it has a lot to do with showing you absolute times. if you look at people more costly -- closely, we all have something called lunchtime. we would typically have an afternoon or an evening. some people have weekends that happen to be sunday and monday. some people are early risers. others do not get out of bed

before noon. if you want to start increasing the chance that you can identify these guys at the full profiles, you have to represent the preferences in a better manner. i mean projecting bays on things that mean more to you. the morning for you is very different than the morning for somebody else. those things have very much the same meaning for different people. chances are these things are very interesting to their preferences. here is something we look at specifically. we looked at the measure that we call plication atrophied. it is a term that comes -- that refers to help confused things are. in the case of location, you can

define the notion of entropy by the people who visit a location. a good number of people in this room have a lower entropy. one question is how does this entropy tell people how i share about -- how i care about sharing these things with other people? places with a high entropy that to be places where people would advertise their presence on foursquare. more people are continuing to come mayor of their own place. those kinds of observations can

lead to the definition of privacy persona's which you can been exposed to people just by asking them a small number of questions. this is nice, but it is not the whole story. how you motivate people to engage with these policies? how did they decide for themselves if they are happy with what is going on? all the thing is something that has been known for very years to make a difference. it allows people to beast -- to note u.s. been looking at them and let them decide if they are happy. maybe this guy is stalking me? maybe i should change my rules for this person? maybe i should take them out of this group.

we have been playing a lot with these kind of auditing features. it allows people to see who has been looking for them. the allows people to provide feedback. we allow people to ask questions. i thought might rules were doing what i wanted? which rules will allow for this to happen? had you correct these? what is interesting is that when you look at the result of exposing all the think functionality to users in these applications, you enable them to seek u.s. been looking at the location. it is a very interesting result. this is not true for everyone, but on average you see people tend to open up somewhat. they opened up very selectively. initially they tend to start with very close rules similar to

what you may find on of latitude. as they see that other candidates are looking for them , they will essentially carve out special rules to allow this to happen. it means the application has more value if i expose this additional level of expressiveness. it gives people more insight into what is going on. most people have no idea about the application they are going to be using. had we let these applications note how we feel? we have no clue. this is not true -- this is why people continue to be extremely conservative or wish years later they did not pose that picture on facebook. the next level is -- the next level attempts to collect feedback from people.

it asked users to tell them the kind of things they are comfortable with. we have been developing something different from -- it allows users to remain in control. god knows what it will come up with. it may be the wrong thing of the one scenario that matters to you as something that happens. we always want to be in charge. we can learn, but also work with you said you always remain in charge and you are ultimately responsible for any changes. you can do that in a way where the user feels in control and understands the way things are done. these are essentially the kind of things we will be looking at. the point i am trying to make is that is social network and

privacy necessarily reconcilable? i do not think so. those two different technologies are ultimately going to be needed and not just in a way that gives ultimate answers. these are just examples. the essential to make a difference. what are we talking about? we are talking about providing people with a better set of defaults. helping them understand what these profiles of the two. giving them an auditing interface. you have to essentially engaged the user and get the user to better understand what is going on. if you do that, you'll end up with work sharing, but sharing the user feels comfortable with. it is not an accident. it is not a case that nobody understands anything about privacy.

it is a sense of liking the idea of doing some sharing. among some privacy advocates, you sometimes hear the right solution would be to close down facebook. you're not boy to get a policy makers that will go in that direction -- you are not going to get any policy makers that will go in that direction. here are a couple of other things we have been playing with. i have been assuming so far in a very nice manner that you can give users the ability to specify exactly what they want and that will make them comfortable. facebook may have been very happy at the time their posting a picture.

the promise that two years later you'll feel differently about it and will regret what you have done. can we somehow help users? you do not want to force users. people should have a choice. one of the emerging [unintelligible] one of the emerging concepts is nudges. one idea is to see where we could potentially use information that we had from other users who are essentially like-minded users. for instance, at people using a location sharing app for six months. actually use these preferences so that they don't make the same mistakes these other people have made. those are the kind of things weir actually playing with these days in the lab. and beyond that. we've also been looking at this.

it's not the case that when someone says, where are you, either you disclose your latitude and longitude or you say i'm not willing to tell you. english is so much richer than that. people say, well, i'm out of town. that's good. doesn't exactly say where you are. i'm busy, i'm working, i'm shopping. as it turns out, we've been able to show that you can come up with a dichotomy of expressions that people use to refer to their location that can actually predict based on the number of different factors, such as what is your social relationship, whether or not you're currently very close to one another or not. what is the term that someone will ultimately want to choose in describing their location. then you might actually be able to move away from this black and white format where you actually move towards a more

sophisticated way of showing information. maybe i have exceeded my time, i hope not. but i don't have a watch. that's my excuse. technology can also help change the landscape and change the set of options you have available. facebook allows you to share so much more information. your cell phone will allow people to act says a a -- abscess a have a rye si of attributes. ultimately, my belief, and this is sort of the long-term vision. this is not the solution for tomorrow. my belief is the kind of technology that we are developing since we've been

commercializing more recently, these technologies will eventually evolve into some kind of intelligent agent. we are talking about, you know, your own website where these things started. we are talking about android and the manifest it publishes. who is ever going to be able to evaluate these things on his own? you are going to need some level of information. people are very hard to understand. you can never assume. but you need functionality. that's what i like to call an agent. it will help a user. occasionally we'll know what is the right question to ask that user that ultimately the right decision is made. you look around and everything is collecting information about you.

tomorrow it will be even more things collecting. this is roughly where i would like to finish my talk. i would like to acknowledge your many sponsors at carnegie mellon who have been funding this work. we believe there are lots of innovation. maybe it's time to commercialize some of these ideas. thank you very much. >> thank you so much. [applause] and we do have time for a couple questions. does anybody have any questions out there? are you going to be around for the coffee break as well? >> yes. >> we have a very shy audience today. if you would please speak into the microphone and identify yourself. >> sure. i'm scott. there's been a lot talk made about the difference between utility. and you laid that out in an interesting way. have you found anything in your research about the difference

between people -- what utility is so bad they're willing to give up the privacy? it almost feels like a sense of learned helplessness rather than accepting it. my question is more along the lines of -- i'm from the marketing side. when we try to explain to people, why is privacy important? why do people even care? people say, they don't care, because look how they're behaving. is there anything in your research you could say, they do care, and there's a backlash coming, and here's how they're showing they care. >> so it's very clear that people care. and people have been asking these questions. and it's been confusing studies, studies suggesting that people don't care. so the most recent research that i'm aware of, and the one that seems to be the most convincing to me is research that has been conducted, for instance, with internet shoppers where people were asked to go shopping for different kinds of items. it's a colleague of mine who

has been conducting this research. she's developed a search engine that evaluates websites back on their policies, essentially being machine readable. and how much information they collect about you, who they share that information with and so on. and so the findings there show that when it comes to items that are not privacy sensitive, people will tend to be driven by price considerations. but when you move towards items that are going to be considered more privacy sensitive, then you start seeing a very different behavior. what people actually are willing to send more to go to those sites that offer better privacy guarantees. so for a long time, these results were not entirely obvious, because many studies were not looking at privacy sensitive items. there were lots of examples where you could get people -- and we still see this today. giving away your location in

return for a coupon, right? but perhaps you're willing to do that at starbucks, but maybe at the h.i.v. test clinic, maybe you're not necessarily going to be willing to do that. so those are the kinds of things that we're talking about. so yes, all the evidence that we've collected suggest that people do care about privacy, but it's not a flat level of preference. this is in part what i was trying to convey with location. we are willing to share location with a wide variety of people, but not across the board. i might be willing to share my location with some of my colleagues under very specific conditions. with my family much broader. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> you mentioned that you have found that people would look at privacy recommendations from other people down the road that

are six months ahead of them. sounds like a really interesting recommendation system. have you quantified the number of paths that people tend to follow over time? is there a strong correlation there or is it fairly weak? >> we still need to conduct excerpts to quantify that. this will happen probably over the next six months. any one of these experiments is actually very challenging to conduct, as it turns out. you need to control conditions properly, otherwise you get a lot of noise. so we try to work very hard on recruiting a representative set of people, trying to make sure they all work on their control conditions so that we can essentially construct these things. this is an example of experiments we have not conducted yet. >> thank you again so very much. [applause] we have a break now. half an hour. i'll see you back here at 11:20 for mark, which will be very exciting. and there is coffee in the lobby there.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> next, a discussion on the recent federal investigation into russian spying on the u.s. then a panel on financing options for u.s. health care. after that, d.n.c. chairman jim cain and white house chief of staff bill daily -- daly at the committee's winter meeting. >> i think our system of government is breaking down. i think the system of checks and balances we have in our system are not operating properly. >> winslow wheeler at the center for defense information.

he's also written two just published essays in the pentagon labyrinth. >> congress has three essential key powers, the power to go to war, the power of the purse, and the power to investigate. the first two powers, to go to war and of the purse, are meaningless if congress doesn't exercise the power to investigate. and it's not doing that. >> see the rest of the interview sunday night on c-span's "q&a." >> in june of 2010, f.b.i. agents arrested 10 people of russian decent on charges that they spent years in the united states spying for russia. the u.s. government operation was referred to by federal investigators as the illegals program. now former see yea -- sigh yea mark stout talks about it.

this is part of the spies within undercover in the u.s.a. series. >> good morning. and welcome to the international spy museum. we're delighted to have you here for the next in our series on spies. >> i am peter ernest, executive director of the museum. the number of people who come up to me, visitors, people who come to programs, and they'll hear a spy story and say, gosh, is this sort of thing still going on? ok. these are your friends and neighbors, all right? and they are fascinated particularly by stories like the one you're going to hear today. on june 28 of this year, two

things happened that caught our attention here at the museum. the first was we got a new historian, so we were delighted to have him, and you will be hearing from him today. the second of lesser importance was the apprehension of the 10 russian illegals. and you will hear about them. it is a fascinating story. it is a part of the story that i think -- i like to think of as part of the government's new catch and release program. [laughter] that's more associated with the department of agriculture. let me ask you as a courtesy if you would please turn off your cell phones, p.d.a.'s, and so forth. that will be a big help. let me tell you something about our historian mark stout. he worked some 13 years as an intelligence analyst with the state department's i.n.r., bureau of intelligence and research, and also with say.

-- c.i.a. he is a lecturer where he teaches on intelligence and strategic study. he holds degrees from stanford and harvard an recently earned his ph.d. from the university of leads in the united kingdom where he wrote his dissertation on american intelligence in world war i. and he is the co-author of some three books, and has written a number of articles in intelligence journals. i will tell you one final story, and that is this. that when mark joined us on june 28 and the arrests were made, the museum and those of us who have a background in espionage tend to be sort of the go-to people. they know we'll probably talk to them. and in the next few days of that period, mark and i did

something over 50 interviews with radio and tv. we find virtually all of those interviews about a mile wide and inch deep in terms of depth. shortly afterwards, i heard from colleagues and mark's staff. he said after about the 45th interview, he said, is it always sort of like this? and so it got to the point where he and i were in respective taxicabs and being coordinated from the museum as to where we should go next. it was an exciting time for him to join, and i know you will find him a very stimulating presenter on this very, very unusual case. mark? [applause] >> well thanks very much. it's a pleasure to be here. sounds sort of strange since i'm speaking in my own office. [laughter] but pleasure to be speaking on

behalf of the museum, and also with the smithsonian today. as peter mentioned, my first day on the job was the day they announced the arrests of the russian illegals that i'm going to talk about today. 4:00 in the afternoon was my recollection. our phone started ringing. the next day i spent with peter at places like cnn, and on wednesday, i was being interviewed live on n.p.r. it was all very disoriented. particularly when you come from the defense community where most people have to spend about far away are from the press. peter is right. the question we got most often was, why are the russians spying on us? i didn't know this still happened. so i want to address some of that today. but also, the other thing that really became clear to me in the course of doing all this media was that people really don't have a good understanding of how these russian spies, or the way they were doing their business is different from the way that most often espionage is done, not only by western

powers, but against western powers. a lot of ways that you're going to see, this case, or this family of cases, if you will, are very different from the three you heard about earlier in this lecture. let me mention one other way. another way in which this talk will be a little bit different, in that the last three talks have really been from the point of view of people who were either involved in or very closely connected with the information. a lot of the stories were about the information themselves. here, publicly and speaking personally as well, we know very, very little about how the u.s. government got on to these cases and how they unraveled all of this. a little bit has come out in the russian press that i'll mention towards the end, but mostly, this talk is going to be from the point of view of what were these russian intelligence personnel doing? as opposed to how did we find them out. and also, since their

techniques are so strange and unusual, a little bit of historical context for why it is they were doing what they were doing. and i just also note that this is something that, though i did work on russia quite a lot, most of my government career, this is something i never really -- not never worked on at all, but if you start looking what's out there, you can actually put together with the individual bits and pieces, good historical work, good analyst work, really a very interesting picture into this strange corner of the espionage world. so the first thing i want to say is that the russians who were arrested were different from the way most intelligence operations are conducted. you've got three basic categories of cover, if you will. i.e., stories that provide excuses that intelligence officers can use for being where they are and talking with the sorts of people that they're talking with. most commonly, what you hear

about is so called official cover. where an intelligence officer would be assigned abroad pretending to be, say, a diplomat with the russian foreign ministry, or the soviet foreign ministry. there's a lot of advantages to this. diplomats in the course of their normal business get to meet a lot of people who have secrets. that's their job is to talk with people, other government officials from other countries. in addition, of course, diplomats have diplomatic immunity, which means that if you're dealing with most countries, that the worst thing that can happen to you is you can be arrested and expeled from the country. sometimes official cover doesn't get you to the people you need to get to. this is something that the soviets and subsequently the russians have used quite a lot. instead of pretending to be diplomats, they may pretend to be journalists.

give them something flexibilities that diplomats may not have. one example well-known to us here is general kalugen, now on our board of directors. career kgvs guy. i don't see him here today. i'm slightly insulted. but he worked for a time as a reporter. at one point his cover here was as a journalism student and then he came back later as a reporter while all along he was actually a k.g.v. officer. then you don't have diplomatic immunity. if you found out and yourself arrested, you're likely going to jail. and then there's the third type. that's the so called illegals that i want to talk about today. i would note that both the soviet k.g.b. and its successor agency, the s.v.r., the russian foreign intelligence service, and also soviet and now russian

military intelligence, the g.r.u., have both used this technique. i'm not going to talk about the g.r.u. today, but suffice to say the same general considerations apply for the g.r.u. as applied to the k.g.b. now, don't read this. but what i wanted to note here is that this concept of an illegal is one that's strictly defined and is a fairly well-defined term of art in soviet and russian practice. what this basically boils down to is an illegal is an intelligence officer, an actually no-kidding employee of the k.g.v. or the s.c.r. who is sent abroad with a completely new identity, a completely new life story, documents, passports, birth certificates, that are not actually really his or hers. and sometimes even with new ethnicities. and unlike people who are sent abroad, diplomats who might be sent abroad for a two or

three-year tour, or however long a business person might be abroad, illegals are often sent abroad for many, many years, often even decades. then there's a whole class of people. here's where the definitions start getting a lot more squishy. a class of people who may be associated with the activities of illegals. and among them are people that the russians tend to call special agents, or spc agents. what you find here, these special agents may be foreigners or could be russians, but the key thing here is that while they may be working with illegals, they're not k.g.b. officers or s.e.r. officers, and they're usually working under their own name. and i make this distinction here because in the current case that we're looking at, we

appear to have both. we appear to have come who fall into a middle definitional ground as well. not everybody i'm going to be talking about today appears to have actually been a no-kidding k.g.b. officer, though most of them were. now, because this is a very special, very sensitive and difficult form of intelligence collection of espionage to do, there's a special organization within the russian foreign intelligence service within the s.v.r. that does this. the s.v.r. has a variety of direct rats to do both regional and functional sorts of things, and then they have a special directo'rate that does illegal operation and sabotage and diversion. you can see how they divide up their functions. the special reserve there, that's a place where people who served as illegals, very experienced officers who have been around the block are

assigned to do basically sort of special tasks in support of illegal operations going on around the world. you can see that there's a lot that goes into the care and feeding of illegals, if you will. and we'll talk in some detail about some of these. and then there's the various regional departments. this wiring diagram is as of the early post soviet period. i just want to note that the illegals are about something which there's very, very little information. really various body stuff. this is very hard to put together from the open sources, and i imagine similarly difficult inside the classified world as well. and so i highlight this by way of saying asia. one of the few defectors that we've had who's written a book out of this organization talked about how at one point they did have a department specifically

aimed at asia primarily china, and they had precisely zero illegals they had actually successfully placed china. so this established that group and spread its functions out among other records. it's not clear where the function of sending illegals to china and asia is. so this is all back in moscow. this is all sort of the bureaucratic infrastructure that supports these illegal operations, but then out closer in the russian embassies around the world, including here in moscow, you will have s.v.r. officers who work for something called line n, n being the first letter of the word "illegal" in russian. they operate out of the s.v.r. residency. if we were talking about the c.i.a., we'd talk about the station. this line n officers thing, their purpose is to work in support of the actual illegals

who themselves do not live at the embassy, of course. one of the interesting things is that not only do these line n officers in the residencies work with illegals in whatever country they're assigned to, but very frequently they work with illegals from other countries as well. for example, one of the defectors who has written a book about this, talks about a line n officer, an illegals support officer in mexico who was actually working with an illegal who was posted in the u.s. and he had occasions to travel to mexico sometimes. and the reason for this was very clear, of course. let's say you're an illegal posted in the united states. you can reasonably expect -- well, you're in a very sort of hostile environment. the f.b.i. is here. it's watching lots of things. i'm sure the f.b.i. would be able to watch more. but when you're on the side of trying to do something clandestine, it probably feels like the f.b.i. is everywhere. whereas the f.b.i. has very

little presence in mexico. and the mexicans probably don't care a whole lot what's being done by, you know, law-abiding americans in their country, so if you go to mexico, you've got a comparative freedom to meet with people from the russian embassy with much less expeck taking that anybody is going to watch you. these line n officers are not only working with illegals in the country they're assigned to, they may be working with illegals from completely other places as well. because they will be sent abroad for very long periods of time, basically sent out there alone and unafraid, you're looking for a special person to do this. and typically, as you might expect, these people are selected quite young. if you haven't gotten into the illegal business by the time you're about 30, you're probably not going to. they're looking for good 20

something's. makes sense. and there are a lot of challenges associated with this. if these people will be gone for 15, 20 years, you have to choose people who are trust woorthi and who will remain on a mission. this was a serious problem the soviets had in their time. i would imagine the russians still have it, though probably not nearly as bad. but you send an illegal from moscow and you send them to some place like the united states or, say, canada, and they get here and they discover, gee, this is a whole lot nicer than the place i left. and the k.g.b. is very far away. and maybe we just don't have to answer the mail. [laughter] you laugh. you probably wonder why i have this toy truck here. this is a truck that was actually loaned to us by the canadian government. the gentleman responsible for doing that is in the audience.

i'll allow you to do your intelligence officer thing and see if you can identify him. this toy truck belonged to the son of an illegal who was sent to canada in the early 1960's. and the canadian police had this function, their watchers came across this general. it quickly became clear that he was an illegal. they were watching him and they got him fairly on and they discovered that he was from time to time pulling down short wave radio broadcasts from moscow to relay his introductions. but he stopped receiving those broadcasts. he just didn't even turn on his radio. he wasn't listening anymore. and to make a long story short, eventually moscow sent somebody to kick him in the backside and tell him to get to work. he flew to montreal for that meeting. met there with a russian officer and came back to edmonton where he was living

and started listening to the radio again briefly, and then again, it sort of eventually tailed off. and for about five years, he did nothing. and ultimately, the royal canadian mounted police approached him and he basically told all. he had decided canada, a whole lot nicer than the soviet union, and what's interesting is that he had come to canada with his wife and his young son. this was one of his young son's toys, which you can see here on display here in the museum. and the hood of that truck lifts up, and inside of it, this soviet illegal kept a one-time pad, a cipher device, and some other spy gear. this was his concealment device for it. i mentioned that he came with his wife and children. marriage is a real issue here. sometimes the illegals may leave spouses behind in their home country. sometimes they are issued spouses by the service, who are strangers to them. and sometimes, as you might

imagine, those marriages work and sometimes they don't work. and then once you're married or quote unquote married, you're liable to start having children. in fact, you're encourage to have children. it maintains your legend that yes, i am really am married to this woman or this man. there's a case discussed again about a couple of soviet illegals serving in france for quite a long period of time. were recalled to france. recalled to the soviet union, rather. brought their children with them. only when they arrived in moscow on what they billed as a business trip do they tell their children, oh, you actually think you're french kids. you're not. you're soviet kids. imagine that. and then, of course, there's all sorts of extensive training you have to go through. training that lasted many, many

years. all the standard spy stuff. operating short wave radios, secret writing, countersurveillance, concealment, all those sorts of issues. one of the key issues is how do you document yourself? and the illegals director back in moscow likes to give these illegals genuine documents when they can. they don't like to forge documents if they don't have to. so one of the implications is that he likes to recruit people who have the ability to issue genuine documents. so they'll often look for people who do things like work in passport office, work in consulates, work in police stations, work at the department of motor vehicles, maybe work in churches to provide baptism records, that sort of thing.

they also like to find birth certificates of children who died young. and it's especially good when those children have no close relatives. so one of these defectors wrote about how it's really great when an entire family with young kids dies in a car accident all together. we can go in and swoop up the identity of that child and they don't have relatives who are going to say no, say no, this isn't my kid. and also, then, once the illegal is abroad, they're encouraged to build their legend, if you will, so they'll frequently go to universities and get degrees if the country they're assigned to. you'll see a good bit of that in the cases coming up. join professional associations and just carry honor mall lives. what are they doing? all your standard spy stuff. most particularly, when it

involves either getting to people you can't get to with official cover or in an easy way with non-official cover, and also handling particularly sensitive cases. for instance, kalugen was involved with running john walker, the really damaging spy we had inside the u.s. navy who was working for the soviets along with friends and family. he was involved in running walker. walker was an absolutely golden source. this was great stuff. and one of the results of that was at one point it was decided back in moscow somewhere, walker is such an important source, such a sensitive source that it's insufficiently secure to have somebody assigned to the embassy handling him, which kalugen was at the time. illegals are just this whole added level of security with no visible connection with the embassy or ideally even with russia.

in most cases even with russia or the soviet union at all. but one thing they typically don't do is illegals -- even though they're living here among us as normal americans, living the suburban dream, they typically don't try and get jobs in the government. you're seldom going to see them applying for jobs in the state department, the c.i.a., these kinds of places. not that they don't want information, they very much do. but they're aware that, as good as our documentation is, it may well not stand up to the kind of scrutiny that a background information going to work for the u.s. government, something that would require a security clearance is going to subject them to. so more often, you're going to see them trying to be in places where they can get to people who have jobs in these places, or where they can get to people who can get to people who have jobs in these places. there's one other thing that sometimes -- i don't want to overplay this. we have no reason to think it

played a role here in this. but sometimes, at least historically, that illegals have been associated with, and that's sabotage and so called special operations. this really came to western attention back in 1971 when a k.g.b. officer defected, he was working in the soviet embassy in london, and defected. he turned to be a combat specialist. and he told the brits about this role -- well, about k.g.b. special operations generally and the role they played in supporting k.g.b. special forces who would attack military targets and assassinating government officials in the west and doing other things like supposedly poisoning water systems. big scandal erupted here. the british expeled a large number of soviet intelligence

officers from their country at this point, and the k.g.b. itself reorganized this and took this special operations function and put it into directory s. kuzmenov who now works with the new zealand government was in the k.g.b. in the first days of the post-soviet s.c.r. he says this function continued in his day up through 1992, 1993. this is something we know very, very little about. but it is always something to keep if the back of your mind that illegals potentially could have a role in facilitating or even directly conducting sabotage operations. if there's a war between us and the russians, we probably have worse things to worry about for sabotage. but quick question, why do cun communist countries or post

communist countries like russia use illegals with the possible exception of israel -- i'm not aware of any russian countries that do this at all. and i think there's a number of reasons. you could hypothesize, i suppose, that in some sense, you're really asking somebody to sacrifice very large portions of their life to do this. so it may have something to do with the way these various societies think about the value of the individual. in a more tangible way, i think one of the key things here has to do with immigration, right? the united states and canada are by no means the targets of illegals. they're among the main ones. the united states and canada and western european countries as well, which are also big targets of illegals, have lots of big immigrants. lots of people come here. enormous numbers of people come to the united states and canada every year. they're of all sorts of

different citizenships, ethnicities, skin color, native languages. you name it, you can find somebody fitting that description who has come to the united states last year. and so this is a great population inside which you can sneak illegals. and we don't think twice as americans about legal immigrants. contrast this with, say, the soviet union. the c.i.a. would have been silly to try and run illegals into the soviet union because nobody immigrated into the soviet union. and the soviets were quite well aware of this. and those rare people who did were watched like hawks. there's a very famous case of. this everybody in this room is familiar with lee harvey oz waled. he actually at one point immigrated into the soviet union. the soviets thought one of two things. he's either crazy or he's an intelligence officer.

turned out he was crazy, but the result was the k.g.b. never trusted him and they watched him day and fight. -- night. whereas as a government, we're not interested in watching immigrants. we want them to come here. i talked about this being an issue in terms of getting jobs in the state department of the c.i.a. the government isn't demanding to see your papers a whole lot and isn't really prying a whole lot into your business affairs, certainly by comparison with some of these countries that use illegals. so your legend, if you will, is much more likely to stand up in a laissez faire kind of place like the united states than it is in a police state. now, a couple of -- a little bit of historical context.

then we'll get right to the cases. back in 1990, as the soviet union was in its death rows, it offered a series of stamps. you see king right there in the middle. two of these five were illegals. i show this not only -- because the fact that two of the five sort of great heroes that they chose to honor on this series of stamps is representative of the fact that illegals are sort of the rock stars in the soviet and russian intelligence world. and that's in the context of a society that really emphasizes and popularized and makes a big deal out of intelligence officers as being this grand, heroic thing. if you're an illegal, you're really somebody once you come in out of the cold. a couple quick cases. rudolph able. you've probably all heard of him.

his real name -- the story that he gave was that he was able -- his name was emile goldvuss. the real emile died in infancy. he used to talk about how he had been a lumberjack in his early days in the pacific northwest. when the real story was that, in fact, that he came to the united states through canada in about 1948. he was linked to a number of high profile soviet agents. notably sobel, a friend and associate of the rosenbergs. and the coens/crogers who were also associated. the first break in the rudolph abel case came when somebody

found a hollow nickel. they pried open the nickel and this came out of it, which was clearly cipher material associated with somebody up to no good and basically long story short, the investigation followed, which ultimately led to the arrest of rudolph abel. he was arrested and convicted in 1957. here's his art studio, by the way. for those of you who have been to the museum, we have a couple pieces of his actual own personal artwork here on display. and he was exchanged in 1962 francis gary powers. another famous one is gordon longsdale, whose real name was conan -- sorry, how did we get all the way to last? computers, you can never trust them. sneaky things. gordon longsdale. wasn't really gordon longsdale.

this was the name of a canadian child taken to finland where he died apparently during world war ii and the soviets just appropriated his name. you find that canada shows up in this story a lot. he was sent to california at the age of 11 as a potential spy to sort of familiarize himself with the united states. came back to the soviet at age 16 where he was commissioned into the k.g.b., trained, and back into the united states. later he served in the u.k. where he went into business renting jukeboxes and manufacturing bubble gum machines but also running agents who were spying on the royal navy. a polish defector gave information that started the investigation that led to him. and he and his ring who also included the krogers, who had gone to the u.k. by this time, were convicted enultimately exchanged for a british citizen. just by way of noting that your legend always has some holes in

it somewhere. turns out that when they really started looking at their records, the real gordon lonsdale was circumcised, and he wasn't. so there's always something. other quick examples. rosa and roman. we don't know their real names. they were operating in the late 1970's and early 1980's in the united kingdom. rosa was a research biologist. he was working at a buy logic research institute near london, which the soviets thought was associated with the buy logic weapons program. she'd send back to the soviet union live samples of pathogens. i just hope they were shipped well. they sent her roman, a molecular biologist to back up and help her. they were ordered to get married, which caused the k.g.b. -- they were the ones

that issued this order. but caused them a little bit of concern because he seemed the best candidate on substantive grounds to be hooked up with her as her partner. the problem was she was jewish and she was a muslim. [laughter] but the marriage was by all accounts actually very happy right up until when roman died in a car accident in 19 4 while they were on holiday in italy. more recently, just to some briefcases, james peafield and anna marie were expeled from finland in 1992 with british passports. they were establishing their credentials as brits. but they just made a bad step and the fins caught them. 1996, ian and lorre lambert.

s.c.r. illegals whose directed marriage had not worked out so well. they were married but separated in canada, using the names of dead canada children. demetri was living with his common law wife and working in a photo lab. they were found out in 1994 when a passport application turned up irregularities in their documents. 2006. the canadians again expeled somebody calling himself william paul hampel. his birth certificate was assigned to somebody else. he had a job as a travel consultant. and is a lifeguard. and in 2008, the head of security for the estonian ministry of defense was found to be spying for the russians. he was actually living under cover of being a portuguese man

living in madrid, spain. what's interesting about this, and this is something you'll see showing up in the russian cases from last summer, you had a portuguese guy living in spain. taking somebody and giving them one ethnicity and then making them live in a country not associated with that ethnicity is a very common thing, it turns out. the case also for a soviet illegal pretending to be a west german operating in iran. why do you do this? one of the reasons you might do this is that however much training you go through, frequently you won't have the right accent and you're not going to speak with 100% portuguese or german or whatever it is. so if you're not actually living in portugal or in germany, if you're living in some other place, nobody knows -- nobody in iran knows what a german accent is really supposed to sound like. they're not going to catch some

grammatical error in german. you can get away with it much more easily. that brings us to 2010. what i want to say here is look for some of these themes here that i talked about already as this discussion goes forward. i'm going to illustrate this along the way, largely with "the new york post." what you're going to see here is -- i do this for a reason. not only because they have just deliciously lurid front covers. [laughter] you'll see worse. but also because i think really it shows how the press and, to be honest, the public, present company excepted, of course, really gets distracted by the minor ancillary points and really fails to look at what's really going on here. and this is all by way of saying, this story is not about anna chapman. anna chapman is the one who

always makes the headlines because she's really attractive. she's a trivial player in this whole thing. these were the folks who were arrested. some of them were definitely illegals. everybody from the left there in red was actually a russian. and then there were some people who were special agents or who otherwise fell into a different category. vicky was not a russian, she was the only one who wasn't russian. she was peruvian. chapman, smenko, and karetnikov were not russian but appeared to be k.g.b. officers. christopher was pretending to be a canadian. i'm pretty sure that he was

actually probably a member of this special reserve that i talked to you earlier about. so christopher, in some ways, he appears to have been the glue that was holding big hunks of this whole community of illegals together. he claimed to be a canadian and he lived in cyprus, in that apartment building right there. he had occasion to come and go from the united states quite a lot. so for instance -- and which then he would use to pass guidance, money, equipment, that sort of thing to various illegals. in 2004, he received a large amount of money from the russian mission to the united nations in new york. and he then takes about half of that money and gives it to the murphys, who i'll talk about in a little bit. and later on, the other part of that money goes to michael and patricia.

the murphys were also later providing money, computers, and flash drives. so metsos is tying together at least this part of this. in the public domain, we don't have any information tying him to any of those other people on the list that i mentioned to you. when all these russians were arrested here on the 27th of september, metsos fled actually. fled back to cyprus and then was attempting to get from cyprus to budapest from whence he presumably was going to go to russia. he was arrested on june 29 trying to fly to budapest. cyprus doesn't normally release foreigners, so whatever this guy was, he was clearly a foreigner. they don't normally release foreigners on bail, but they did let him go on bail. in fact, the police escorted

him to the bank, where he withdrew, depending on which news story you read, either $33,000, or $24,000 in cash, which he handed over to the government. they said, congratulations, you're on bail. please come back for your court date. and he fled. he's never been seen again. i have looked in the russian press and have not seen any references to him appearing in the russian press except in a retrospective sense of, yes, he disappeared from cyprus. so i don't think we'll ever see him again. next one is donald heathfield. he's interesting because most of the substantive information that appears to have gone back to moscow from this group of illegals appears to have come from him. whether that's because he was particularly good, everybody else was particularly incomp --

incompetent, or my personal guess, it was more a function of the surveillance that was being done on him. the government just happens to know more about heathfield. most of what they seem to have collected, which i'll talk about at the end of this, came from him. he claimed to be canadian. he solved this problem with the accents by saying, yes, i am a canadian. i'm a son of a canadian diplomat. and you may have noticed that i have a little bit of an accent, because i went to school for a number of years in the czech republic. his birth certificate was a real birth certificate from a canadian who died some years before. he entered the united states in 1999. got himself naturalized. he came with tracy leanne foley.

after they were arrested, the f.b.i. went to her safe deposit box and they found pictures of her as a young woman probably in her 20's in the safe deposit box in cambridge, massachusetts. that's their home where she and donald were living. the negatives of these pictures were on a brand of film which was a soviet film company. donald and tracy had two sons, a 20-year-old son, who was actually here at george washington university as an undergrad, and a 16-year-old son, who is studying at the international school in boston. i mentioned that one of the things they do to sort of build their legend as real people is go to school. donald went and got a masters degree in public administration at the kennedy school of government. i have a masters degree from the kennedy school of government as well. he got that degree in 2000. interestingly enough, after this whole story broke in 2010,

harvard rescinded his degree. he did do the work. on the other hand -- i don't know. i don't know what i think about that. they said they wanted to maintain the integrity of the degree process. everybody at harvard knew donald as a joiner. which when you think about the role of an intelligence officer, kind of makes sense. he was the guy who always kept track of all his classmates and was eager to know where you went and what you'd been up to and wanted to catch up with you. interestingly enough, there was one v.i.p. in his class, and there's no information to suggest that this relationship led anywhere, but mexican president felipe calderon was in his class at harvard. and he was also a member of the world future society, a professional think tank on

future technologies that had occasion to hold conferences featuring top government scientists, a opportunity that he took advantage of to try and find people he could cultivate. also, he was on linked in. i want to show you his linked in page. for those of you that don't know, linked in is sort of the facebook of the professional world. so here he is. he appears to still be maintaining his linked in page, but now he says he is donald heathfield, a.k.a. andre -- what i want to point out here is not only was he on linked in and advertising his professional background and saying i'm interested in business opportunities and getting back in touch. but also down here, look at all the groups and associations that he's a member of. world future society, the association for strategic planning, the harvard

university alumni, all of these different organizations. the soft power network. etc., etc., etc. this is precisely what you'd expect from a guy who had been sent by russian intelligence to go hang out at harvard where allegedly the best and brightest go. i may be a counterexample. but all sorts of people go who will be movers and shakers in the united states and many of whom will go into the united states government. after he got out of harvard, he continued to work that network and sort of use his harvard credentials, which can take you far in terms of getting people to talk to you. it was a great thing. it was a great opportunity for an intelligence officer to get into the kennedy school of government at harvard. from 2001 to 2006, he worked for something called global partners incorporated. and among the clients which was sort of a corporate education organization, among their clients were companies like boston scientific, g.e., and

t-mobile. and t-mobile -- all organization that you can imagine the russians having an interest in. in 2006, he founded a company called future map, which eventually grew and expanded to have offices in paris and singapore as well. i haven't seen whether anything interesting was happening there. but future match was a company -- map was a company that was supposed to help other companies understand the future challenges and issues they were going to be facing. sort of about strategic planning, if you will. there's some interesting things here. you probably can't read it very well from where you are. he's got these three paragraphs of text. there's a couple things that caught me eye here. i would guess he personally wrote this text. russians, because the russian language doesn't use articles. like the word "a" and "the."

russians are really frequently shaky in using those in the right context. if you look here, he has a future map, the future map, and future map all to basically refer to the same thing. i think he's a little unclear on which one is the correct one, the correct construction for his context. and down in the middle of the middle paragraph, he has a sentence that says, in its core, it is a patent revolutionary conceptual approach to doing x, y, and z. i would argue that he probably meant at its core. the english is a little bit wonky which is odd for a naturalized american that was canadian. i sort of wonder if he didn't write this and as his first language of russian and hiss unfamiliarity of english may not have been showing through here. while working at future map, he had occasion to make contact with leon firth, who used to be

vice president gore's national security advisor. and after firth spoke in an event, heathfield introduced himself and said, hey, looks like you and i have common interests and future long-range projections. and basically they exchanged business cards and briefly corresponded. heathfield actually wanted to basically go into business with firth. he suggested that firth and his organization jointly pursue atht have been the research perce. leon firth down the proposal not very interesting, but heathfield tried. he also reached out to a professor at george washington university. he did some business with them. this was a professor