it is one of many companies where the intellectual property owner, the engineering work and other people that want to compete with us who don't have to do that r&d. that sense of the espionage, which is having a massive economic impact of well. >> back -- >> back in the '80s were worried about the japanese and leaping ahead of us, and china as well. and through the effect of our intellectual property. is a national security concern. but under policy, how one response to espionage verses an armed attack is different. there are different rules as to what one does. using law enforcement efforts, possibly, verses internationally recognized authority to use force.

>> sometimes people say, well, the u.s. stalled in partial property from -- intellectual property from britain. shouldn't we not criticize the chinese for doing so? my answer is always, we should tell the chinese, steel as many books as you like. that is not what is going on. it is the ability to download massive quantities of information, entire plan sets. if you have ever read a book about how to build your own and 16, you make a lot of mistakes. if you get the law -- your own am-16, and make a lot of mistakes. if you get the electronic version it is a lot different. >> could a 9/11-size attack occur through cyber warfare? >> if your question is, could 3000 people died based on a nuclear accident that was

facilitated through -- not caused entirely by, but facilitated through cyber, yes. >> capt.? >> maybe i am a little more optimistic or i hold out hope that we are not there yet. the anniversary is very close. i think, still the biggest threat, especially on an anniversary like this, is still similar to 9/11, conventional terrorist attack. >> there is a classified example of a cyber attack resulted in multiple deaths. and what we know from that, we can start to assess the effectiveness of this as a weapon. it is not that powerful. you can hurt a few people. that is bad, of course, but i do not think you could get a 9/11. you could have more fun doing something else. you could mess up a financial system, turn off the electrical power. but casualties in the thousands

would be difficult to achieve using cyber attack. >> and we are out of time, unfortunately. very quickly, jim lewis is the director of policy program at he got his ph.d. at the university of chicago. also joining us is the director of this cyber security project at georgetown university. ph.d. from new york university. and alan taylor, founder of the research sans institute. degrees from cornell and mit. very quickly, what is the sans institute and how did you get involved? >> it trained 20,000 people per year in the vast techniques that are used to protect computers. i got involved because i work for software companies and i learned it that way. >> and do you train a lot of government folks?

>> more commercial and defense industrial base, but a small number of government folks, in law enforcement in particular, and the intelligence community. >> how did you get involved in working with the general counsel office at the cia and with cyber security? >> my start was that the cia when i was given the information warfare account in 1987 as a lawyer. -- in 1997 as a lawyer. i kept the interest at georgetown, obviously. and outside government, what i could bring as a mold of disciplinary approach. -- multidisciplinary approach. >> in school, it occurred to me that i would have to write computer programs. i thought about dropping out and i eventually got through it.

if a few years later, dick clark was walking down the hall one way and he said, you know how to program computers, don't you? i should have said no. instead, he said, i want you to go up to nsa and talk to them. that is how i got involved. >> also joining us today is siobhan borman, who covers security-type issues for the "wall street journal." thank you all for being on "the communicators." [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> sunday on news makers, represented emanuel cleaver. also, a look at federal spending. that is live sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> but the judge, paul jennings, obscure people with little known stories. american university professor

clarence lusane discusses many people who left their impact on the white house. >> i began to discover fascinating individuals whose and on the presidencyies his mark on the white house were virtually unknown, except for a few scattered short -- stories here and there. everyone knew that george washington and thomas jefferson had slaves, but most people probably did not know that eight out of the first 10 presidents had slaves. >> sunday night on q&a.

♪ >> for the next 45 minutes will be talking about divorce laws and federal policy. if we begin with john crutcher who is with the coalition for divorce reform. he is also a divorce lawyer. been the impact on divorce of federal policy? particularly, with regard to states that do or do not have no fault divorce laws?

guest: allstate said unilateral divorce in one way or the other. -- all states have the unilateral divorce laws in one way or the other. they mostly due divorce or a family law problems. state courts -- there are other social costs that come from moving to one-parent families, but what it really does is, everyone who gets married or has children one way or the other is entering a lottery where they could have the divorce from hell, they could have children but not any role in the children's lives, they did in of emotionally and financially ruined by divorce, and you never know who it is going to be. it takes two people to have the

good divorce. we have not figured out ways to get that good divorce from most people. my work is a divorce lawyer, being involved in heartbreaking cases, trying to improve divorce, i decided we should go extreme and work on preventing a lot of the divorces. we should see if we can more effective in reducing the damage through prevention men by patching people up. host: nelson garcia is also weighing divorce lawyer. what is the role of federal government in divorce? guest: wherever it can, it should streamline things as well as possible. encourage states to pass laws that protect people in the

emotional, difficult process of divorce. i think that the laws have developed to the point they have to wear the courts, the party is at the end of their marriage, they aren't as good a financial position as possible. they certainly make it easier for them to also enjoy their children and be able to provide for them. host: john crouch, you are with a group called coalition for divorce reform. what makes up the divorce reform movement and what is the goal for your coalition? guest: it is people that have experienced divorce in their personal life and people like me who experience it through their work. we've decided to look at how to

do prevention. people did not know a lot about how divorce and marriages work at the time that we passed no- fault and dealt with the unexpected consequences over the past few decades. for the past 15 years, a lot of people in the helping professions had been moving toward trying to change marital therapy said that actually -- so it focuses on a marriage therapy. for those who do not need therapy, people can be taught skills like health education, a lot of skills that people can learn to work on their marriages before it is too late. a lot of the policies of intervention that we have been offering people aren't too little, too late. they are after one person has decided that divorce is over.

you cannot stop the genie back into the bottle. we're looking at policies to move back to before people make that decision. the coalition for divorce reform is proposing not a federal, but a state law in various states that would require divorce education, and a little marriage education, in place of the waiting period that a lot of states have. instead of a wedding period, it forces people to separate and then wait, not europe which is good to save the marriage, it is a requirement that find -- filed notice after which they would go to divorce education and marriage education and find more resources to work on the marriage. host: this marriage education that you're talking about, and not to belittle it, but it would be like driver education, in

that you could not get a driver's license and move on with that process unless you get a license for the course? would people be prevented to get marriages unless they had the marriage education and got a certificate from the state? guest: that might be a good idea, requiring some sort of education in some cases. they are states to give incentives for that. but this would be for divorce, in every case except domestic violence. people would have to go through this step before divorce. it is not any longer than vote waiting period that states already have, but it would focus on educating them about what they are getting into. host: nelson garcia, what is been year results and how you

see them changing how of force works in the u.s.? -- howl divorce works in the u.s.? guest: forcing people to engage in counseling, that is a difficult thing to understand. our court system right now is substantially clogged up. mainly with family law cases, which comprise 60% to 80% or more of the caseload of courts. when a case gets to court, their incentive is to move it along as quickly as possible. what i find in my experiences that people who are interested in marriage counseling, that sort of thing, do that before they come to see me and john. that is the best way that that will happen, when it is voluntary. i can tell you that there are

many times when people come to me and say, they have gone through therapy and it has not worked, or they are very much for it, but the other side does not want to do it. they have decided the marriage is over and they will not cooperate. the court has a lot of power and make an order you to do a lot of things. bake in order you to go through marriage counseling, but they cannot or do you to try or put forth a good faith there -- good faith effort. it is like ordering a teenager to go to a school that they do not want to. cannot order the teenager to pay attention, to try, to do their homework -- and that is the same roadblock you'll run into here. when the court systems are so clogged up, that presents a tremendous challenge to go through another hoop in order to get a divorce. guest: this is not forcing

everyone to successfully treat counseling, but to offer people some knowledge about what is out there as far as skills and education that they could use. it will not save all of the marriages. but this could save a lot of marriages and could also make people who are all going to divorce be better marriage partners in their next marriage. host: we're talking about divorce law and federal policies with john crouch with the coalition for divorce reform, and nelson garcia, who is with a maryland-based law firm. if you like to get involved with the conversation, give us a call. the telephone numbers are on the screen.

you can send this message is by e-mail and twitter. first call from camden, maine. linda on our line for democrats, you are on the "washington journal." caller: having been married and divorced, i find it disconcerting because anytime you put education in place for something, you tend to talk about the ideal. there are so many different reasons why marriages and. i do not have a problem with people voluntarily doing marriage encounter are going to the other process. if you're catholic, there is a pre-marriage thing. you're talking about relationships, and if you do not have skills and relationship, and your marriage will not be as successful. i do not think the government or anybody else can realistically

assist people with this. i applaud the effort, but i am concerned when we talk at this level about legal requirements to get married beyond what we usually have, in terms of how people will be a pyrrhic people behave very differently after they are married. if you are married, you would know that. guest: there is marriage education for the premarital situation. what is in this proposal is divorce education for people on the brink of a divorce. it includes information about a lot of resources for divorce, and marriage resources. marriage preparation has improved a lot in the last 20 years. they are working on getting more realistic about how people actually operate in their

relationships. there are a lot of improvements that people are not aware of. as for government involvement, once you get into divorce, all the sudden the government is very involved in your marriage. it seems to control every aspect of your life, as a parent in the custody case. but before you get into divorce court, there is really nothing that people can do to get their spouses to be a, to do something to save the marriage. host: pine hill, new jersey, christopher on our line for republicans. you are on the "washington journal." caller: i have been through the wringer as a divorced man. but that your panelists are so out of touch. and this amazes me.

divorced man, how about father'' rights? how about men's rights? host: give me an example, christopher. caller: they are infested with feminist lot of politicians. the same as what the family courts, especially new jersey. i do not know a man alive who has not been sodomized by family court judge. host: we will leave it there. to the courts tended to favor the rights of the mother over the father? is there a way to balance that out? guest: it is a sensitive issue. my colleague wrote a book on father's rights. we pride ourselves in trying to fight for the plotters rights just as much as mothers. father's rights as much as the mothers.

nowadays, with equal rights and women being so strong in the work force, most of them to work full time. you have situations where it is the man who is at the home, who is caring and does most of the things at home. you have a lot of wives working even more hours than men, and judges are very sensitive to that. i have seen that they do care more about that. and there are times when men do get primary custody of the children. versus the mother. the judges will tell you, no, there is no presumption here for the mother. you do run into those situations, of course, where if the children -- if the judge sees that the mother has been the primary caretaker, they will bend over backwards to accommodate that situation.

but they are becoming more prevalent where the man has that superior role, and i find that judges are sensitive to that situation, a lot more than they were even 10 years ago. host: going to the phones. dallas, texas. caller: i think the courts are putting blame on this person of that person, and the personal aspect, but as far as the family divorce or marriage license has a compact, they impose a document that you fill out when you apply for your marriage license, saying, yes, yes i will agree to splitting up our assets at the end of this contract, i like that clause, for the end of the contract that says this is

what will happen to our assets. decide thatose not to beforehand and we split everything 50/50. guest: we have a very strong culture of freedom of contract in this company -- country. many in this area at want to have a contract that would have limits on someone just leaving the marriage for no reason or what have consequences for adultery. that is very hard to do. most dates do not hold -- day of all prenups, but not -- they of prenups, but not those kinds of contracts. we let that child is a long-term

enterprise. even building a house involves a lot of contracts that require people to do things over a long amount of time. in family law, you really cannot do that anymore. things like waiting periods and education requirements are what we're trying to do instead, where people are not able to protect their marriages and their investment in their families through free contract ing. instead the government needs to provide some information to people as they go through the process. host: ottawa, tim on our line for republicans, you are on the "washington journal." caller: with the amount of government interference in our lives already, now you're talking about a state

certificate to get married? in some cases, which. also, forcing a process to get divorced? that is more bureaucracy and more getting into our personal lives that the government has no business and. guest: once you get into a divorce and you will have a lot of cover man in your personal life. a judge can really control a lot of the things in your life all the way into your kids are 18. -- until your kids are 18. i certainly understand feeling threatened and violated by the government. the law lot more of the people i deal with in family law are more like the caller before last, who

felt that he felt sodomized by how the judge treated him. that caller was not out of line. that is what most men and women feel about the divorce process. that is unfortunately on soluble -- insoluble. if you make things better for the fathers, it is worse for the mothers, and vice versa. i focus on prevention instead of trying to make divorce work for everybody. although i am trying to improve divorce with nelson. there is a lot of hearings to explore with prevention in trying to strengthen and improve marriages. host: austin, texas on our line for independents. caller: on the counseling

situation, your panelists have been focused toward counseling to repair the marriage. a lot of times, a divorce is preset. there is a fault, and the coming together of a couple. counseling going out into the divorce period would be more productive to help the ex- spouses come together for the children. your topic is on federal policy related to divorce. my comment on that is why we cannot get a tax deduction or a recognition on our taxes for child support? that is a big problem in america. men or women being able to pay their child support and economic

restraint there. if we can get a deductibility, the child has a deduction for the primary possessor, but no resignation in our tax code for paying that child support. -- no recognition in our tax code for pain that child support. that would help people comply with child support payment. guest: the irs does not allow a deduction for alimony where it is stated to be taxable. it can be deducted. when you get into child support, and specifically deducting child support, you have to think about, well, who will be taxed? you cannot talk about deductions without talking about taxes. in alimony, when it is deducted, the recipient of the alimony paid taxes. that child support is determined

by the child support guidelines for is essentially the needs of the parties. if it is not deductible, it will also be taxable. so the recipient is going to receive what it is that the needs are. so you get into a quagmire. if we allow this child-support to be deducted, how are we going to grow set up so that we give the recipient a reasonable amount of that meets the child's needs? it is all about the best interest of the children. courts are particularly concerned that the reasonable cost regarding the children are met. when you introduce a deduction portion, and now they are not going to get that. so you left to account for this other thing. states have decided to make it -- leave it alone. everyone agrees that it is a

reasonable amount. if someone believes it is not reasonable, you can appeal your case. appeals courts are very sensitive to that. but the bottom line is that is the dilemma you have. host: these are marriage and divorce statistics for 2009. there were 2.1 million marriages in the united states. the marriage rate was at 6.8 per 1000 people. the divorce rate was just about half of that. this is 44 states reporting for the national center for health statistics. james is on the line for republicans. caller: my statement is that the federal government has no business in divorce or marriage.

that is a constitutional issue left to the states. they already have their nose under the tent with child- support. what is left? in thatt's also throw according to an article in the "washington times" on august 15, they write that the average split costs a couple $27. a new single parent families with children can cost the government $30,000 a year. that is $33 billion to $112 billion a year total in divorce- related social service subsidies and lost revenues. john crouch, in terms of what the caller was saying about keeping the government out of our personal lives, it seems

divorce can cause the government up to wonder $12 billion -- up to $112 billion at a time when congress is looking to reduce the cost of government. where does that leave divorced couples and their children? guest: $2,500 is a misleading number. beware of averages. some people have no property, kids, or custody issues. they may get divorced for $1,500. there are a lot of other people who are going to pay tens of thousands and sometimes into the six figures for their divorce. you never know. i work a lot with international divorces. people of the kids to foreign countries. there are savage things happening to people in

international cases and domestically. -- people abduct kids to foreign countries. it is not just with the averages, is what everybody is exposed to. one thing where there is a federal role is in welfare reform. in 1996, we change welfare so that the rolls were cut. part of the grand bargain was that the money saved was not going to be used for fat cat taxes and would be used for property prevention programs. one of those was marriage education. in 1996, the clinton administration have that as part of the mix of what the saved money should be spent on. in the clinton administration and bush administration, there were a lot of federal grants going to these marriage education programs to try to

reach out to people who were not being served by them but needed marriage skills and healthy relationship skills. that has been a federal world. there is not so much of it now because there's not the extra money to go around. that is where a lot of the ideas and creativity about how to do these programs can serve white populations -- wide populations came from. caller: i want to talk about my divorce and how bad it went. i got child-support and alemannic -- alimony payment on top of it. i lost my job. i make $10 an hour. i am been tarnished its 65% of all of my income. i am $97,000 behind in my child support/alimony. how will i ever be able to pay

this off? i want some advice. host: bruce from wayne, mich., let's add this tweet to this. what is your response, nelson garcia? guest: you need to file a motion to modify. if you cannot do that, you have a problem. your ex does the the cause of action against you for contempt and non-payment. the defense to content is the inability to pay. if you do have modifiable alimony, filed a motion right away to get reduced. -- file a motion right away to get it reduced.

the judge and courts cannot pursue in the poorhouse -- put you in the poorhouse. they have to look at various factors in setting alimony. the two most important ones are the need of the dependent spouse and the ability to pay. that is along with things like standard of living and duration of the marriage. they are very careful to balance those things. i hope he can succeed with a modification of the alimony. host: in cases like this, if the spouse legitimately cannot make the child support payments and until they get the situation resolved in the court, do the kids in the upon some sort of assistance for the most part?

does the custodial spouse in up having to go to the government for some kind of public assistance until they can get the child support situation resolved? guest: it depends. child-support is always modifiable, and like alimony. -- tells supporters always modifiable, unlike alimony. in situations where the government house to become involved, -- has to become involved, children may have to become wards of the state. that is where states are careful to have the party involved paid a fair share for the needs of the children. when it comes to alimony, the needs of the ex-wife. to the extent that they become -- go below the poverty level because a father or ex-husband

stops paying child support for whatever reason, that is a really serious issue in our society. our laws are intended to prevent that sort of thing. they require parties to provide for the children within reasonable means. host: gov. ronald reagan from the first no-fault divorce law in the united states in california 42 years ago. now just about every state in the union has some sort of no- fault divorce law. is it good or bad that you can have these laws where couples say nobody is at fault and it is done in a day? caller: if it is a couple, that is fine. but these decisions are usually not made by couples, they are

made by individuals within a couple. our divorce laws do not pay attention to the dynamics of how people make decisions. it is funny that the law signed by gov. reagan, the effort to pass it was lodged by his predecessor, gov. pat brown. in the early 1960's, he wants the commission -- launched a commission that was going to try to roll back the unprecedented of divorce they thought they had at the time. what they proposed was to have conciliation courts. before people would even go to divorce court, they go to judges and counselors connected to the court that can help them work out their problems before it gets to the point of divorce. there were programs like that.

initially, the idea was to replicate those all over the state and country. what happened instead is they ended up with the no-fault part and dropped all of the therapeutic parts because they cost money. when it got out of the legislative meat grinder, all is said was that divorce is even easier to start than before but even harder to stop. we have lost that history of what no-fault is really supposed to be about. they thought there would be judges making individualized decisions about whether the marriage was really irreconcilable and offering people all kinds of help. that did not happen. they still had to have the therapeutic court system for all of the other problems that cannot divorce later on. but it does not help people trying to keep their marriages together. host: a family court judge said

it is easier to force my wife of 27 years than to fire someone i hired one week ago. red has more hi legal clout than the person i married 27 years ago. guest: the laws were instituted by states to provide parties who believe their marriage has ended with a path to the bourse -- to divorce. before these no-fault laws were implemented, it was difficult to tie the end of a marriage with in the particular fault ground. this was promulgated to provide a catchall for that and allow people who have decided that the marriages over -- marriage is

over to have a way of getting divorced. that is what these no-fault laws do. it is not really true to say that no-fault divorces result in an easier divorce. divorce based on a no-fault ground can be just as lengthy and costly as one based on a fault ground. you still have to go through the litigation process. you have to go through discovery. is just as costly and lengthy. to a certain extent, it reduces the emotionalism because you do not have to prove fault. a lot of people with fault decide they're not going to go the route because it is too hard on them and the children to put them through that. no-fault gives them an

opportunity to take just a few minutes to end that segment of the case. host: barbara is on the line for democrats. caller: i am going through a divorce. i have been 42 years. i was married 42 years. -- i am going through divorce and have been for two years. i was married 42 years. when does this end? is there a thing for ending this divorce over a certain amount of time? host: john crouch? guest: that is highly is experienced for a lot of people. -- that is how it is experienced for a lot of people. the legal process can take a

couple of years. the emotional process takes longer. there is a divorce lawyer from boston who wrote a book about the myth of divorce. she said in divorce after a long marriage, people will stay in meshed for leased to the years after the initial shock of the has been cheating or announcing he wants a divorce. if you get them into the process of litigation and negotiation to early, it will be a horrible divorce. they will not be able to let go of the conflict. that is one of the things i looked at in proposing the two- year waiting period. people need time to emotionally of just before they can be rational about how to approach the divorce and get it over with.

host: daniel on the line for independents from pennsylvania. caller: you have talked a lot about the interest of the government in marriage, why it got involved and why certain policies were instituted. who was originally advocating for no-fault divorces? was it husbands who want to talk about of marriages? was it more of the feminist issue? who was really advocating for no-fault divorce in originally? guest: there were a variety of courgroups, including the court system. the judges saw that the system was so clogged up by only having full divorces. it was creating a problem.

if you have to litigate every single allegation of fault, just imagine. cases are quite a bit longer and more complex. the court system is tremendously clogged up right now. if you have to litigate every single allegation of infidelity or abuse, the whole system would explode. the system tepushed for this to ease the strain on the court system, to make it simple for people to go this way because it is easier on them and the courts. it is emotionally easier on everybody with less stress on fault by the courts.

d.c. and maryland are different. the courts do not place as much emphasis on fault in some states. they tried to get away from that. they tried to get people to come to some sort of agreement. the thinking now on the part of the court is to have people in their marriages -- end their marriages on as good of a financial footing as they can. it is not good when they are sharing a custody arrangement where the men feel raped by the court system. it is not good for them afterwards. these parties have to deal with each other for years later. it is u

>> to varon washington journal, damen wilson with the latest on libya and the role in the area. and michelle bernard from the center for public policy. and the naacp president and author leonard stein horn discuss the nature of bareez relations in the u.s.. "washington journal" is live had 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> obscure people loan stories, american university professor who reveals who they were, as well as many other black men and

women who left their imprint on the white house. >> i began to discover just fascinating individuals, whose marks on the presidencyies and whose marks on the white house were virtually unknown, except for a few scattered stories here and there. everyone knew that at george washington and thomas jefferson had slaves, but most will probably did not know that eight out of the for of m. president had slaves. >> c-span's interviews with presidential candidates continued tomorrow night jon john huntsmanith john's matter if he will discuss trade relations with china and why he decided to run for a and the impact of running on his family. -- running for president on his

family. that will begin sunday at 10:00 p.m.. >> ouattara the latest political -- watch what the latest political reporters are saying. campaign 2012 helps you navigate twitter feet and facebook updates as well as the latest polling data and links to the c-span media partners in the early primary and caucus. -- caucus states. >> president obama, visited the headquarters staff federal emergency management today. the president has declared an emergency in seven states in the path of the storm. here's a look at his remarks from that visit.

[applause] >> good to see you. how're you doing >> how are you doing, sir? >> what do we have here? >> this is where we are looking to move stuff. this is the team that on behalf of the entire federal family gets things court needed to the governors. >> you guys are doing a great job, obviously. you are my dream situation closely. but i will tell you that -- you are monitoring the situation closely. i will tell you that when i was on the phone with the governor today and i -- the governors today and i aspen, was there anything they could think of that our team, meaning you, couldn't be doing to help them get prepared -- could it be doing to help them get prepared,

there was quiet on the phone. that is a good sign. it means you were going above and beyond the call of duty in terms of asking state and local folks what they needed and getting those resources to them in a timely way. this is obviously still going to be a touch and go situation for many communities. but knowing that they have an outstanding response team like this makes all of the difference in the world. keep it up. thank you. >> thank you. [applause]

>> there is a press conference here at noon today to declare a state of emergency. we are ready for 24-hour operations, which will begin tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. and run 24 hours as long as we need to. our liaison is here with others. if they have been such a super help for the last week. for our utilities, bringing in extra crews from canada to help them. our two largest utilities have actually doubled with the number of cruise from canada -- and the number of crews from canada.

teams will be in place by noon tomorrow. and the national guard is also standing by, ready to support us. >> any additional items that you need for any additional -- or any additional support from fema that you are still waiting for? >> know, there is not. -- no, there's not. everything that we could ask for or have needed has been right there. it has been a great relationship. >> terrific. before we leave the regional report, let me mention the folks from maryland. they had asked for the land fall declaration. if i wanted to mention that had been approved for reform

governor of malave returns -- had been approved. when gov. o'malley returns let him know. >> as you work, north carolina is getting ready to respond. virginia is getting ready for heavy rain. again, we are following this storm literally of the i-95 corridor. the secretary has been in contact with the governors. we have been building the relationship so as we start that response we are not just meeting each other. we are working as a team. >> each conversation i had with the state and local officials,

they have confirmed to me that the relationship with fema has been outstanding. interagency cooperation at the federal level has been outstanding. they recognize this is going to be a tough slog igetting to this thing, but it has been outstanding work that all of you have done in preparation. i have not yet heard from many of the region's -- from any of notregion's that we have done our job. we have to make sure with the response and recovery phase that we are just as effective and on top of it. but fortunately, because of the strong relationships that have been formed to we have a good

start it is going to be a long -- have been formed. we have a good start. there will be enormous strain on a lot of states. and that may take days, even longer in some cases, depending on what the track of the storm is going to be. we are really going to have to stay on top of the recovery. do you have anything you want to add? >> no, mr. president, i think you really nailed it. we are at the end of the beginning and we are going into phase two. >> on behalf of the team, i just appreciate fema. and out of times they are the unseen faces. -- a lot of the times they are the unseen faces. we have a long ways to go and they know it and will be working

to support you. >> thank you. >> tomorrow on "washington journal" damen wilson, the former deputy director to the nato secretary general has the latest on libya and nato's role in the area. michelle bernard, president and ceo of the bernard center for women and public policy, a former maryland congressman and the naacp president and dr. leonard stein horn discuss the path of the future of race relations in the u.s. washington -- "washington journal" is a life every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. ♪

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> watched more videos of the candidates. help with unedited in the

political landscape appeared in canada it via send the latest polling data and links to c- span media partners. >> coming up, justice elena kagan talks about life on the supreme court. then the situation in afghanistan. after that, eric schmidt talks about the launch of googled tv. and now the supreme court justice talks about life on the supreme court. from the aspen institute, just over one hour.

[applause] >> good evening, ladies and gentleman. [applause] thank you all for braving rain and welcome to listeners on aspen public radio. and most of all, they welcome to you, just as kagan -- just as kagan -- justice kagan. >> thank you. it is my first, but it will not be my last.

[applause] it is great to be here and it is great to be here in this terrific community can i have been taking advantage of all of the music and all of the beauty. it is a wonderful place pierre >> comparing notes on hikes. many of you will see her on the shelves over the next few days. we will take your offer seriously to come back as often as possible. in 1998, a profile of the young in a kagan -- young elena kagan after being promoted to the chief of domestic policy in the clinton white house, she was discussed as the white house's all purpose brain. an adviser to the president on all things legal and constitutional, she developed a reputation that just grew over the years of being able to bring together people of diverse ideological positions with enormous skill. in the white house, for example, she was the one who convinced john mccain and the republicans to allow the fda to have regulatory authority over tobacco, which was not a mean feat. after her experience in the white house, she returned to

her roots in the law. she had been an editor of "the harvard law review," a assistant to thurgood marshall. she became the first woman dean of harvard law school. [applause] interestingly, there again, she became highly regarded for her ability to bring conservatives and liberals together in a very fractured faculty. she was appointed the solicitor general of the united states by president obama in january 2009. i think i am correct say that you were also the first woman ever in the opposition. [applause] and then, of course, she was nominated to be an associate justice of the supreme court by the president and was sworn in just about a year ago this week. she is now -- she has not completed her first term. when she began, there was a lot of discussion about how there would be havoc because of all the opinions you have to recuse yourself from, having been solicitor general. perhaps a third of the cases this term. but there was not that much difficulty as a turned out. >> as it turns out, i was not indispensable to and how the court managed without me perfectly fine. i was recused from about a third of the cases, about 30.28 of them -- about 30. 20 of them, it was up to the judges to decide. on two, they split 4-4.

the only thing that made me think was that i appear to be expendable. next year, i will now be recused in so many. >> we will talk about the term in a minute. even though it was her first term and even though there were recusals in a third of the term, i think it is fair to say that, after this term, she has received extraordinary high claim for her opinions in this first term and her influence. indeed, linda greenhouse, who is probably the dean of supreme court reporters and a professor actually report that justice kagan was the biggest winner, which is really remarkable for someone who is just in her first term. let's start with questions about the expectations you had about the position given the kinds of experiences you had before.

you are the only member of the court who has no prior experience of being a judge. what did that mean for you? were there things you had to learn that your brethren did not? >> i think that there were. i separate out two things. i think all justices, when they start, they find some things difficult. it does not matter if you have been a judge or not. my good friend and colleague, justice sotomayor, said this she had been a judge for an empty number of years. but the expense of the supreme court was different because all the cases were so much harder. and you do not have any kind of backstops. the decision you make is a final decision. that increases the sense of responsibility and the pressure. even when you come from a circuit court, there are real

differences in the experience of being a justice that my number -- that a number of my colleagues have talked about. but because i had never been a judge before, there were some things i had to figure out that my other colleagues have already figured out. that was certainly true of what i call the mechanics of the job. my colleagues had been judges before. they knew things like when it was most valuable to them to read the brief. do you read them three weeks ahead of the argument or one week ahead of the argument? or the prior day? and people have very different styles in this respect. they have figured out what to do. the question of how you deal with your clerks, what do you last year clerks to do? what functions do they perform? exactly how do you write

opinions? do you read the first draft? or do you ask the courts to right the first draft? if you ask the court to write the first draft, what do you do with it exactly? -- if you ask the clerk to right the first draft, what you do with it exactly? [laughter] their experience clerking for me is different from any clerks i will have in the future. it was in some ways exciting as i tried to figure it out and in other ways not so much. in terms of the mechanics of the job, it was a little bit of a trial and error and trying to figure out what works for me, how i learned best, who wanted to with -- who wanted to talk with when, when to read, all of the stock. i was definitely trying things

and seeing what worked for me. i think i will continue to do that. >> what about the fact that you had spent most of your career as a scholar in the academy? did that affect your experience in ways that perhaps surprised you? >> i was thinking about this recently. it occurred to me at one. that i it approach writing opinions in the way -- it occurred to me that the way in which i approach writing opinions is with of the teaching part of legal academia. i think what makes a good law school teachers not how much you know. everybody knows a lot if you are a professor at a law school. but trying to figure out how to

communicate complicated ideas to people who know a lot less than you do about a given subject. not only how to communicate them so that they understand it at the moment, but also how to communicate them so that the points kind of stick with them, trying to figure out a vivid ways of explaining things that stick with people and make them look at a subject in a particular way. i realized one day while i was sitting, writing an opinion, that i was going through the same kind process, really trying to figure out how would i teach the class and if i could figure that out, to make people really get something, then i could really figure out how to convey the idea is in an opinion to make the reader's get that sense. >> what about your experience as solicitor general? you argued six cases before the supreme court.

how did that help you in your first term? >> for one thing, it gave me a lot more sympathy with the people on the side of the podium. [laughter] i share that with a few of my colleagues did a few of them have argued before the court. the chief justice may have been the best oral advocate in the history of the supreme court. he has had a great deal of experience. justice alito has. justice ginsburg has. i think it does give you a sense of what they are up against. it is a lot easier to ask the questions than it is to answer them. i am reminded here of the thing that a lot of law professors say to their glasses. it is just as hard to write the exam as it is to take it. [laughter] truly, that is no. [laughter] that is the same thing here. being solicitor general, i

think, give me this great perspective on the court in some ways. this job that is most like being a supreme court justice is being solicitor general could you were not decide in the cases, but you are focused all the time on the supreme court. your job is trying to figure out how to persuade nine supreme court justices to take a particular position. now my job this figuring out how to persuade eight supreme court justices. [laughter] the solicitor general, for those of you -- i know a lot of you're not lawyers -- but the solicitor general is the lawyer who represents the united states in the supreme court and supervises appellate litigation generally. the solicitor general actually participates in about three- quarters of the cases that the supreme court decides each year.

so the supreme court decides 80 cases and the solicitor general is participating in 60 of them. sometimes as a party and sometimes as a friend-of-the- court, somebody who is not a party to the case, but has interests in how the court rules on the case and participates in the court's decision making. when the solicitor general participates this way, it is almost always given argument time. it is treated for most as if it were a party. and about three-quarters of the cases during the time that i was solicitor general, i was there and i was watching the lawyers who work for may argue to the court. sometimes i argued to the court myself, about once a month. and watching the justices, trying to figure out what they were concerned about and what their questions were all about and what it showed about their various interests. so you learn a tremendous

amount about the court by doing this job, which is just to focus on the court and tried to convince the court to do things. >> let's bring you back to your very first supreme court argument. if i am not wrong, it was a case called citizens united. >> the big case. [laughter] tell us what it was like to argue that case. then i will ask you to tell us what it was like to hear the decision. >> obviously, it was a big case. it was my first supreme court argument. it was my first appellate court argument of any kind. i had argued in district courts as a young lawyer, but i had never made an appellate court argument. so that was a little bit nervous making. it was this big case. the case had been argued. but forget what the year's work, but the prior term, it was argued by a wonderful lawyer

in the solicitor general's office. it was the day after i was confirmed by the senate. i went to my job and my first day and the first thing i heard was the wonderful lawyer in my office arguing citizens united. he would be the first person to tell you that that argument did not go well. so everyone thought we would lose this case. but then the weeks that by and the court -- the weeks went by and the court did not make a decision could then issued an order that it was to be reheard the next year. it is something that the court very rarely does. accompanying this order with a set of questions that the lawyers were supposed to focus on the next year could basically, what the court said was that we want everybody to argue that the court should overrule two prior supreme court decisions.

when they say that they want to review this case and you want to tell us whether you think we should overrule two prior supreme court decisions, it does not take a great supreme court expert the same the court is pretty much of their. -- expert to say they are pretty much there. [laughter] as the solicitor general, i was going to take over this case. it was an important case because any time the solicitor general's office decides to defend the constitutionality of legislation, it is important. this was very important legislation.

it was this campaign finance law that had been in the making for many years it was extremely important piece of congressional legislation. my job was to defend it. the only thing that made it in little less nervous-making was that everybody i talked to said, you know, you will lose. [laughter] it does not matter what you do up there. just have a good time. but i prepared. i work hard. i prepared heard that summer. i went up -- i prepared hard that summer. i went up and argued one of four lawyers. i was nervous. but when i got up to the podium, the words started coming out of my mouth and i thought, i can do this, i guess. actually, it was a very thrilling and exciting experience. but it was also clear to me when i sat down again that all those people were right. i was going to lose. [laughter] there was no fifth vote out there. >> so there was no surprise. >> i was not all that surprised. >> let's talk about a different kind of surprise. given all of your experience

before, studying the court, arguing before the court, and now being one of the nine justices, what was your biggest surprise being a member of the court compared to what you expected the institution to be like? >> i am not sure what was the surprise surprise. i suppose just how warm everybody is, how collegial the institution is. i think that this comes as a surprise to many people when i talk about my experiences on the court, and to me as well. you read the court's decisions and, often, there are some pretty sharp given takes. -- give and takes. people accusing judges of a wide variety of conduct.

[laughter] and you think, my god, they hate each other. if they did not hate each other before their that opinion, there will hit each other after. and the truth is completely not so. it is an incredibly collegial and warm institution with good friendships throughout the court and across whenever people think of as ideological divides. that was the nicest surprise or the nicest feature of joining the court, feeling that, feeling what a warm welcome people gave me but also just how warmly people feel toward each other and how well and respectfully the members of the institution operate together. >> why do you think that is? it is really remarkable when you consider the kind of partisanship and lack of collegiality there is across the street.

[laughter] one would hope that there would be some way to follow this. i wonder if one of the reasons actually is that everything you'd do is in writing and it is all recent. there it -- even if the language as strong, there's a degree of mutual disrespect -- mutual respect across the divide our political branches are just sound bites and things are not reasoned and argued. there are just conclusions. why do you think it is like that? i was a law clerk to there. i remember how collegial it was. it was a shock then could it still is that way despite the appearance of ideological divides. >> wright. >> it is wonderful. too bad it is not contagious. [laughter] >> your theory is an interesting one. i had not thought about it is interesting in part because

sometimes the writing makes you think how could they really like each other after that. but you're exactly right. it is not for the most part sound bites. it is reasoned argumentation. i think some part of it may just be locked. -- just be luck. although, when you court it was collegial -- there have been times in the supreme court's history when it has not been so. i read a great book about the supreme court in the 1940's and 1950's recently. it is a fabulous book. it really makes you feel that you're lucky having this collegial court. the court in those days, he focuses in particular on four justices. they're all appointed by fdr and when they were appointed, they were thought to be natural allies. and they hated each other in the relationship with pathological. >> scorpions in above.

-- scorpions in a bottle. >> partly, it could be just lock and contingency. -- just luck and contingency. i felt we will be dealing with each other for a long time. [laughter] the minute after the senate confirmed me, the first phone call that came into me was from the chief justice. i took the phone call and he said, i wanted to be the first to congratulate you and tell you how excited i am to serve with you. he said, you know, we will be serving together for 25 years. [laughter] and i said, only 25? [laughter] it's true. i think that makes people -- i do not want to say that it is an incentive to like each other. you can live in an institution

happily or you can live in an institution sadly. you can live with people respectfully or you can live with people without that. if you are going to be someplace for a long time, boy, it makes you value collegiality. >> i think it is fair to say that the supreme court is by far the most respected institution in government today. it is certainly true today. yet it is also the least understood. >> i hope that is not related. [laughter] >> i hope not, to. -- too. >> if they knew more about us, they may dislike the smart. [laughter] >> they would know more about you if it would allow cameras in the courtroom as we have here. would that be a good idea? >> with the light glaring in my eye right now, clearly, no. i have said before that i think it would be a good idea.

in this, i differ from some of my colleagues. in this last year, i have come better to understand the opposite position. i guess the reason that i thought -- i came to this view when i was solicitor general. i was sitting there watching case after case after case. this is an unbelievable court to watch actually. this was the court before i got onto it. everybody was so prepared, so smart, so obviously deeply concerned about getting to the right answer. i thought if everybody could see this, it would make people feel so good about this branch of government and how it was operating to and i thought it was such a shame, actually, that only 200 people a day can get to see it and then a bunch of other people can read about it.

reading about it is not the same experience. it is actually seeing it. it is an incredible court the court that i watched appeared the level of preparation and encasedness and intelligence and-- and engagedness and intelligence and real concern. i thought it would be a good thing. some of my colleagues disagree. the reason they disagree is because they are worried the that would change. they worry that, if you put cameras in there, everybody will start playing for the cameras. the actual thing that is so good about the institution will diminish. it is a fair point. i think i am still coming out with trust that we would continue to do the same thing and that lawyers would continue to do the same thing.

but i and stand the concern. >> in the spirit of greater understanding of how the court works, i wonder if you can take a minute to talk to us about how the court decides, particularly from the perspective of the junior justice and the significance of oral argument. then describe the conference where, as the junior justice, you have to give your opinion before anybody else does. if you could just walk us through that. >> i wish it with that -- i wish it were that. [laughter] it is actually the opposite. i go night. -- nineth. i think it has changed over time. so i go ninth. let's start there. the chief justice starts in every case. he sort of introduces the case. then he says what he thinks and how he would vote. it goes around the table in seniority order. i am the last to speak. there is a rule that nobody can

speak twice before everybody has had a chance to speak once. you think that that is a sort of artificial and formal role. -- rule. but let me tell you, when you are the ninth justice -- [laughter] it must've been the ninth justice who thought of this rule. [laughter] after i speak, it is not so bad. the ninth is actually better than the eighth or the seventh. there is some drama to going ninth. [laughter] rarely, but you can -- then there is more general discussion. the general discussion varies. sometimes it can be very quick and sometimes it can be very lengthy. it is not a tremendously -- it is not tremendously related to the case in the public eye. i remember my first conference.

it was a case that was kind of a front-page newspaper case. we voted and then we all went around. then we discussed it a little bit. then there was another case which no newspaper in the united states would write a sentence about. we discussed it for 40 minutes. i thought why is that? but the discussion is relative -- we discuss when we think there is something really to discuss and votes might change and consensus might be reached. there are some cases where, in the end, you go around once and it is pretty clear that everybody thinks what they think and a ready can discuss it until the end of time and it will not change anything except make people mad at each other.

but there are some cases were discussion goes really well. there we talk a lot of money to other to try to do that. so that is the way conference will. oral arguments come a few days before conference. so we have time to think about the oral arguments, to think about what we learned. i find that very valuable. there are some courts were the judges go straight from oral argument into conference. but i find it valuable to digest what happened in oral argument. that gives time to think about what the lawyers thought about questions and to think about what my colleagues have said. the value and function of oral argument is to listen to each other. oral argument is the first time that the justices talk about a case together.

when justice specific -- when justice scalia word justice ginsberg asked something, i know what bothers them about a case and where they are leaning. that can be extremely valuable to think about, both because it may be convincing to me and also because it may help me to try to figure oral argument is an important part. >> he said that it takes five years to go around the track once here. it takes a long time for a new justice to find his influence.

it is fair to say yet that quite a remarkable influence. you are really the winner of this in terms of this. convincing. he broke that one of the remarkable things about this year was the elegance and eloquence of your pros and how you have emerged as a convincing writer. it used it takes a very long time. it compared it to holmes and brandeis. >> showing he has no credibility whatsoever. >> it will actually bring some context of what you said

earlier. the other opinions are very forceful. you write in a way that is so understandable for anyone. let's talk about this term. the clean systems act was one where they wrote the majority opinion. you have some very strong language. i wonder if you can describe what it is about and why he felt so passionately. -- and why you felt so passionately.

one provision was the way the arizona one word. they had decided that if all candidates are privately financed that they will be too great a chance of production. they have all this private money. people are gillian's billions of dollars. people are bundling billions of this. they will have the ability to go to eight candidates and rep. public financing systems are immense for political corruption.

it worked by way of a matching funds. at a particular point, the amount of money that they would get depended on how much money there privately financed opponent would spin. if we get a certain amount of to a certain ceiling. the reason they had this system is to make it work. either you do not give them enough money to people say you're not giving enough money to run a competitive campaign or you say in order to prevent that they will give you a lot of money.

it turns up a lot of mixed waste some money. they tried to say you're going to guess them enough to run a competitive campaign. this will strengthen our public financing system. do you want me to keep on going? it burdens the candidates speech. this counted as a burden on the publicly burden finance speech. my response was that this was not the case. the majority kept on thinking about this in terms of the language.

if you looked at this system and do the debt the way it works, it was producing more speech and competition. this should not count as a first amendment injury. it is subsidized. there is a long line of first amendment cases that say that when the government pays people to speak that is okay as long as the government does not discriminate. anybody could have this money if the person decided to enter the system. they point of my dissents was to say that the same role should follow.

we should not use this as a restraint. even if we did, it would reduce political corruption. that was a dispute. >> to any of you have a dell? >> against all this, they claim to have found three smoking guns but review the nefarious attention to level the playing field. this is the kind that goes with mirrors.

[laughter] [applause] if you like -- >> i will not read any more. >> let's stay on that. have we lost power? i do not know if we can do anything about that speaker. i want to the time for questions from the audience. there are a number of first amendment cases. it was a banner year. this was for purveyors of minors.

they were considered outrageous protesters. there were victories for rich people who defied funding and drug companies the wanted access to dr. prescriptions. is there something you can say about all of these first amendment opinion sex but obviously did not agree -- opinion that? you obviously did not agree with all of them. >> i think it is the case that justice kennedy and justice scalia agreed with all four of them. and none of the other people to be most speech protected position. we did have some cases where

they decided against the expense. there is one case which dealt the public employees. it was rejected. there is another very interesting case where we rejected the first amendment claim of an elected official who says barry's loss. -- use of various laws. you are right. we have to say is that this is a court that is extremely protective of the first amendment's ban speech. to the extent that they see something as restricting, it is likely not.

that restriction is going to go down. there are disagreements about what counts as speech. there are disagreements about what counts as a restriction. there is no question that this court has a very expensive mmm. >> was one of those cases particularly difficult for you? >> i thought that the video game space was the toughest that i decided all year. there is the case where i struggled most and thought most often i am on the wrong side of this. this came out of california. it involves extremely violent video games. there was a question about how

big video games was defined and whether the definition was vague. the question was whether the states could prohibit the sale of video games to minors. you can see why why the government would want to do this. this is what they have on young people. in some ways, it was very easy to say i understand what the state was doing here. it seems kind of reasonable. i cannot figure out a way to square that with our first amendment precedents. it is very important to me. a shy to think about what they have said and what analysis is needed. it seems to me that they required us to evaluate the legislation. it is to say that the state had

to have the most compelling kinds of interest they are doing it in the most narrow way possible. i thought this that she cannot guarantee that. it was clear that the standard was the one that had to be applied according to our various precedents. i ended up coming out in that case.

i sweated over that. i told the president two things. i said ok. he said the first thing was that i did not want another circuit court judge. the other thing was that i did that what a person from harvard or yale. i said i hope one out of two is good enough. there are lots of great lawyers in the world that did not go to those two schools. it is ridiculous that they have all nine justices between them. he said aided them had been

circuit court judges. most of us have of us of our lives on the amtrak of this. most of us come from this picture in the problem is is that there are so many measures of what people think of as appropriate diversity. there is the ability to dominate them one by one over the course of many years. it is hard. it is hard to figure out how to do this.

>> we cannot see this. we want to have questions from the audience. we have microphones. if you can just give us your name? >> when is this country going to get tough on immigration, porn, and toughen criminals? [applause] >> they're likely to come before the court next year. a do nothing she can answer that.

we function as an institution in a very particular way. we decide cases. we do not decide big issues. we decide controversies between two parties. we take seriously the idea that we really look carefully and closely at the controversy before us. this way, we function very differently from the legislatures. there's always the way i am going to go. this is limited to cases or controversy.

>> i'm going to london. we had the extraordinary experience. in your decision making, are you looking for the moscow justices? -- too bad. it is to resolve ambiguities and fill gaps in the ways the u.k. congress -- ways you think

congress intended to do so. you are doing law. you're trying to figure out what the competition means for the constitution means. -- you are trying to figure out what the constitution means. >> we have a question somewhere. i have to rely on our runners. what is given what you said the

same thing is sure because of the more open and a provision. you're dealing with constitutional law. you're trying to figure out what the constitution means, looking at the history, of the confidence. looking a legal sources to try

to figure accepted -- out the meaning of a particular issue. >> we have a question somewhere. given what you said about what you had to do during the first term, i'm wondering what you are going to do when the health care legislation comes before you? >> i do not announce it prior to the case. there have been cases. if you make a study of this, you will see this before. i never do this. no member of the accord does a.

>> still have a question someone in the middle? >> i am a lawyer in washington, d.c. they have expressed their views. one is the domestic standard. there is the authority of multiple countries around the world's us to what should be considered in deciding a thin mints -- deciding opinions.

>> the standards to be applied. and may relate to the particular issue. >> there are some kind of cases where you have to look there. if you're interpreting the treaty, you're looking to international law. the cases in which this has been controversy all are not those cases. there are particular provisions of the u.s. constitution. they have made reference to interpret this. when you are interpreting the u.s. constitution, what matters is we have a very distinctive constitution with a distinctive set of provisions.

another thing a country does will settle that question. on the other hand, there are some people who say he can never say a foreign one. this seems wrong to me as well. they have a good idea in it. you may say a former president. in doing so, you have to be really super cognitive that it may be entertained a provision with a very different history and tradition. neverothing that we're going to look at what they do is appropriate.

it is tremendously important that we realize that there's not some sort of transcendental body of law out there. we are looking at the american constitution. they have made choices that other countries have done. >> my name is ryan. if miners are allowed to buy videogames, why then not a lot to see r-rated movies in the theater? not because of any legislation. that is a voluntary system.

the video game industry has a rating system of its own. one of the questions they argued about was whether it was more are less affected than the system for movies. there is no law that says you cannot see and our movie. the reason you can is because the industry has said that you should not be able to. the video game industry has decided the same thing. the question and california is whether in addition to a voluntary rating system that the state can, but various restrictions on it. >> no. time for a couple more questions.

you were handed a position to argue. how did you handle this? what i had a job to do. there were a whole set of rules and traditions that enabled them the interest to the united states. as you say, sometimes it is not the position that i would have favored. they are saying that there was an inappropriate establishment. the solicitor general argued against the standing of the parties. i said they did have the right to bring a claim. as a judge, i said they had no doubt that i would have taken

this. this is consistent with a whole tradition that they have with respect to cases involving this. this is consistent with what they have with respect to this. this is the job be take. if you cannot do that, you should not take the job. your job is to represent the

long-term incentive. others have defined those interests. you better put it in a box and keep it there any other use the might have. >> one final question in the back. >> politic he can speak to how this has changed? >> she has been in a few locations this year. she came in a couple of the arizona cases. there were three.

they're seeing how this statement are ferrying. fairing.- the way it works is that justice sotomayor and i sit on the far right of the bench. justice ginsburg sits near the middle. justice o'connor said, "i was hearing women's voices coming from all over," that was a remarkable thing to her. i am sure she remembers those days when she was the only one. i think it is kind of great that has happened. i think -- i am glad to be part of it. >> i think that is a great way

to end. we would like to thank you very much. [laughter] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> up next, general james mattis

discusses the situation in iraq and afghanistan. after that, google executive chairman eric schmidt talks about google tv. then microsoft founder bill gates talks about the work of the bill and melinda gates foundation. tomorrow on "washington journal ," the former deputy director to the nato secretary general has the latest on libya and nato's role in the area. michelle bernard, ceo of the bernard's center for women's politics and public policy, a former maryland congressperson and naacp president, and leonard stein horn discuss the past and future of race relations in the u.s. washington journal is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> obscure people with little-

known stories. an american university professor reveals who they work, as well as other black men and women who left their imprint on the white house. >> i began to discover fascinating individuals whose mark on the presidencies and the white house were virtually unknown, except for a few scattered stories here and there. everybody kind of knew that george washington and thomas jefferson had slaves, but most people probably did not know that eight out of the first of presidents had slaves. >> sunday night. >> thursday night, general james mattis spoke at the marines memorial association in san francisco. he described the turbulence in the middle east, and said the u.s. is winning in afghanistan. he talked about the planned

troop withdrawal from iraq by the end of the year, and the current security situations in pakistan, iran, and other countries in the region. this is just over an hour. [applause] >> i remember when i took over as the director of the office of management and budget and bill heirs was secretary of defense. i said let us get one thing clear. what the commandant wants, the commandant debts, ok? -- gets, ok? we have a great privilege, and i am looking forward to it eagerly, to hear general mattis speak to us this evening. he has the central command. that means afghanistan, iraq, and practically everything in between, including the pirates,

i believe, that played a lot of our activities. a huge, huge, responsibility. -- a huge, huge responsibility. you have seen the responsibility he has had, one command after another. he was in the leadership in iraq and afghanistan, executed with a brilliance. he has had experiences, and he will talk to us about them. he is the originator in his insights into what it takes on the battlefield to win these days, in a battlefield that has lots of civilians and it, and

the good marine saying -- no worse enemy, know better friend. that is a way of providing security, but also making friends, making things better for everybody. general, i have looked at your background and i understand that you are a general who likes the unorthodox. there is a quotation that says you like the guys in sloppy pants and muddy shoes, or something like that. i looked into your background and i do not think you ever went to marine corps boot camp, did you? let me educate you a little bit about what happens. [laughter] i can remember when the sergeant handed me my rifle. he said, "take care of this rifle. this is your best friend. never point this rifle at anybody unless you are willing to pull the trigger. no empty threats."

i told that to president reagan once. he liked the idea. i said we have to be careful with our words. if we say something is unacceptable, it means we are not going to accept it. if we're going to accept it, let's not say it. let us be careful to mean what we say. never point that rifle at anybody unless you are willing to pull the trigger. back on this theme of wanting the unorthodox, muddy shoes and so forth, i signed up for the marine corps at the start of world war two. i thought i was coined to become a marine. but you find out you become a boot. it is only if you can emerge from boot camp that you become a marine. i remember one day my group was waiting around and we were in this place, and some guys were sitting down and other guys were standing around. in walks our drill sergeant.

he looks at this motley scene. down until i't sit say said down." everybody stands right up. he says, "sit down." we all sat down. so no on orthodoxy. -- no unorthodoxy. there was a little island we managed to take. there were a few of us there, a platoon, my guys. there was a church with heavy walls. along come the japanese, coming back. we had nothing. we were just there. we went all over the place and secured it as best we could. when it was over, we saw the japanese had placed a bomb in the dead center of the church. afterwards, i said to our guys

we learned two things. never underestimate your adversary. they are good marksman. do not do what they expect you to do. that is the muddy shoes, i guess. it is a great pleasure for me and a privilege for me to introduce this wonderful man leading our forces in the central command, general james mattis. [applause] >> thank you very much, secretary shultz. certainly, the word can be overused, but you can understand why it is a great honor to be introduced by a state's man and

world war ii marine like secretary shultz. as far as muddy boots co, we are looking for people with discipline, which you have demonstrated, and a problem- solving ability, which you have also demonstrated, and a jazz ability to improvise, which you set the standard for. i am grateful to be here. the ceo of the marines memorial club was my division commander. he had certain reservations about me as we attacked kuwait. i remember we worked that out ok. i learned to say sir, and that made it all worked out after that. [laughter] i also acknowledge some other former bosses here. secretary perry -- serving as your executive officer taught me to ask the right questions. you know what i mean. it was an honor to serve under your command in the secretary of

defense office. i have grown to admire you tremendously. our centcom commander was my marine expeditionary unit commander. i could go on and on, but i am violating a cardinal rule, and that rule is to never talk to a group that knows more about a subject than i do. i think i am going to be in trouble when we get to the questions and answers. i will also tell you it is adding years to my life to be on the west coast rather than in washington, d.c. it is refreshen to be out here. i love the pacific ocean, the vibrancy of the city. when you think of the technological, refreshening ideas that have come out of california, i will tell you it is a godsend when you come out

here and feel it in the air. i am also happy not to be giving this talk in washington because i understand 48 hours ago washington buckled under the weight of its own bureaucracy. it will come as no surprise to a former secretary of defense that the pentagon got more work done after the evacuation than before it was evacuated. but we should have anticipated that when we have energy stored up in opposing memos and it is suddenly released, is cracking apart of the earth that can happen. i thought i would speak for a few minutes. i hope you will find some value, something to challenge me with any question and answer, which is always the best part. i have spent a lot of years outside the united states. since i left the united states

in september 2001, for obvious reasons -- we had been attacked. i have been gone a lot since then. i hope you will throw questions that are in your heart. i do have a thick skin. i did go to boot camp and developed the skin we all have to. the area in which i answer to secretary panetta is the central region. you all heard that. i have served in the region off and on since colonel ken jordan, my battalion commander, took me out there in 1979. i have been out there a fair amount. the region stretches from kazakhstan in central asia and siberia down to the southern tip of the arabian peninsula, yemen. it stretches from egypt and

lebanon on the mediterranean over to pakistan, on the indian ocean. it includes the persian gulf. in the northern part of the gulf, iraq and kuwait. obviously, afghanistan, saudi arabia, jordan, and i run. -- iran. in over 30 years of service in this region, i have never seen it so tumultuous -- full of promise, but also full of danger. as military commander, i am supposed to look for dangers while seizing opportunities for keeping the peace wherever possible, one more year, one more month, one more day. sometimes, you look to keep peace for one more hour. it is not peace everywhere. we are heavily committed in parts of the theater. there are other parts we try to keep a lid on. i would like to speak first about the arab awakening.

i would call it the arab awakening, not the arabs bring, and how we adapt to these changes right now, the changing times, keep hold of our american values with consistent policy that matches those values, but balanced with pragmatism. your military service our foreign policy, and foreign policy must deal with reality in a world that does not always comport to what we would like it to be. i am also charged with the readiness of our forces and crafting military options for the president. you understand that part of the job, i am sure. when i meet with foreign leaders in the middle east, i cite four diplomatic pillars for our approach to the region in transition. that region will never go back to what it was a year ago, to what we grew up seeing since the tunisian and egyptian revolutions broke out last january.

everything that has happened since, including syria -- it is never going back to what it once was as a result of these changes and pressures that have been unleashed. the four pillars we used to frame our diplomatic approach within -- we support each country's political reform efforts to adapt at their own pace. the middle east is not one thing. every country is different. it is a very diverse area. each country will have to adapt to changing times with its own formula. it cannot be imported from the outside. there is not one size fits all in the middle east. the first thing is our country supports those reform efforts so people have more of a say in their government. second, we support economic reforms to broaden the fruits of the economic boom many of the

countries are having. more people have to feel hope as a result of the economic situation. it cannot be constrained to just a few. there are good things going on with that. there are also states in flux, where they are not close to doing this. we support a renewed middle east peace. the status quo right now is not sustainable. it is a flame that keeps the pot boiling to some degree in the middle east. i will tell you that we have got to take its advantage of this time and try to move middle east peace forward. that is one of the pillars of the american foreign policy. we adapt to changing times. fourth, we support regional security. by that i mean we stand by our friends -- old friends, new friends. we stand by them and their territorial integrity. we stand against terrorism. they work with us, quietly at times, publicly in other cases.

the bottom line is we do this in league with the international community. this includes trying to rein in iran's bellicose impulses. we are working along the diplomatic lines, economic sanctions. but much of what we do in support of these pillars is done very quietly. the orchestration of military activities is done to support those pillars and the state department's efforts. our military to military efforts can and do play a very positive role when fully integrated as a supporting role to our foreign policy. we reassure our friends and temper our adversaries. no matter how uncomfortable we get about the changes going on, we have no option of disengaging from the world, and for my area, no option of disengaging from the middle east. but it will demand our best

diplomatic instance. we have to build common cause with old friends and new, using americans pragmatic idealism as a guide. in egypt, we have seen the people gain a voice in how they are governed, and a military that shepherd its people -- shepherded its people through tax and circumstances. i think it was somewhat a reflection of our quiet, strong military relations over decades. we are proud today of their overwhelmingly ethical performance. they were not perfect. nobody is. when you compare the egyptian military to what is going on in libya with the gaddafi military, what is going on in syria right now, you can see a military that kept its ethical balance during very difficult conditions. i thought what i would do is tour the region, touch on a few of the countries that would give a deeper understanding. i want to start with egypt,

because it is the most critical country for setting the arab spring on a positive path. it has a traditional leadership role in cairo that goes back hundreds of thousands of years. it has perhaps 30% of the arab population that lives in egypt. we have very close military to military ties between the u.s. leadership and their military leadership. they will, i assure you, conduct the elections, coming up soon. the military is eager to turn over control of the country to civilians. it is going to be a very long road as they build the political parties and political framework designed to build a democracy. i think there will be some disappointments. an election will not suddenly give them the jobs they want, the reformed education system, the things that are going to satisfy their deepest desires.

i do anticipate that cairo will return to its historic leadership role in politics, education, commerce, religious thought, and the arts. it is not going to come back soon. it will be internally focused for a year or two. i think it is optimistic that they get their internal act together and find their own path forward. there are several points. will egypt sustain its traditional, moderate soupy position -- sufi position as it looks toward the future? i believe they will. at the same time, the muslim brotherhood bears watching. furthermore, iran has tried its own mischief in cairo, trying to meddle in other people's affairs. we have to keep an eye on that and see if it gains attraction. i do not anticipate it will. moving up the mediterranean coast, i will talk about

lebanon. they are putting together, as you are aware, a new government. that country is home to one of the most well-armed non-state organizations in the world. you know it as lebanese hezbollah. the military works with the lebanese armed forces. it is the only multi- confessional organization that is trusted in the country. we do it to offset lebanese hezbollah's influence. we do that because the a runny and-backed "-- the i ron meehan -- the iranian backed hezbollah was implicated in the assassination of the former prime minister's father. they arm and train -- they are armed and trained by ron -- iran's special forces.

that is why we stay engaged with lebanon. it is not perfect. there are tensions between israel and lebanon. but we do not want to leave a vacuum there. vacuums are not filled by a pleasant things in the middle east. let me speak to two countries where our military is heavily engaged, one where we are pulling down quickly, iraq. it has been instructive over the last three months to realize i read my intelligence reports, watched tv, and did not see, in the midst of the arab spring, mobs in baghdad demonstrating and demanding a voice in their own affairs. i do not have all the answers for you, but i found it fascinating that in that country they do not feel they have to demonstrate. they must feel they do have a voice. they may not be happy with the way things are going. some of us in this room may not be happy with the way things are going in america some days, but

we still have a voice. that is important. violence has been reduced to very low rates. al qaeda still exists in iraq, but it has been pummeled. it is still capable of spectacular attacks. on the 15th day of ramadan, last week, we saw al qaeda concentrate their killing on the shia parts of iraq. they killed and wounded over 300 people in one day. they are still dangerous. they still go after the innocent. they go after women and children. they have no regard for any of the rules of warfare. the bottom line is they are a wounded, weekend, but still dangerous animal. iran is providing direct support to malicious in iraq -- militias in iraq, she a melissa's -- shia

militias. they are irani and proxies' because it is not in iran -- they are iranian prozies. -- proxies. the single largest threat in iraq is these proxy militias backed with money from iran, as well as training and weapons. iran is trying to influence the decision about u.s. troops remaining in iraq as a training mission. we are still on plan to come down to zero by december. if the iraq government acts and president obama agrees, we could see a training capability remain in iraq. there has been no decision on that yet. afghanistan. i want to spend a little time on this. on the securities side in afghanistan, our strategy is working. we are winning. i am delighted to defend the

strategy. if you want to get into detail, i am eager to do so. but what we have is a civilian military plan, an international plan under nato command. there are many nations that are not part of nato that have chosen to join. there are 49 nations fighting together, the largest wartime coalition in recent history. it is important we remember that. you can wander, reading the u.s. news, if we are in this by ourselves. believe me -- the afghan boys are dying at a higher rate than ours are. in canada, they have lost more troops per-capita than the united states, as a custodian -- as have estonia and the netherlands. i do not say this to lessen our country's pain over the price of war, both physical and in the lives of our young people.

but i do want to assure you we are not in this alone. this is a coalition and it has grown by six more nations in the last year. nations do not usually join coalitions that are losing. that is not their nature. why do i say it is working, that our strategy is working? first, the insurgents are losing territory, losing leadership, losing weapons and supplies. without these, the enemy is significantly weaker today than they were a year ago. most importantly, they are losing public support. what that is doing is causing our enemy to do spectacular attacks, often on innocent people, which erodes public confidence in the taliban. they are infuriated by it. as they lose that, their own troupe will to fight starts dropping off. the enemy attacks are down 5%.

how can that be? we have more troops than ever. they are in more areas. why isn't the enemy initiating more attacks? they have lost the initiative 25%. our groups are starting the fight much more often. that is an indicator that the enemy is in trouble. there is a caution. that is your military is hard wired to see things in positive terms. i do not think it is unpatriotic to question the strategy and see if i can stand and deliver here this evening. i am not a marine. i am a u.s. marine. i belong to you. i am accountable to you. i believe in this strategy, or i would not be standing here tonight, saying this. one of the most difficult challenges, as you look at this fight and try to understand it -- you would not be here tonight if you were not interested in

world affairs. one of the most difficult things to grasp is that progress and violence can coexist. the violence is so heartbreaking, the number of innocence killed, this sort of thing, so tough on us that it becomes the headline. the news people are not being evil, not trying to cook the books. the violence grabs attention. we forget that violence and progress can coexist. that is what is going on right now. the enemy is only hope is that they can erode political will. they cannot stand against our troops. their ferocity is far beyond what the enemy is prepared to accept. as president obama has said, it is a war we did not seek. we did not ask for this war. but in security terms, we are winning. our mission there is to disrupt,

dismantle, and defeat al qaeda. that remains our goal. we will prevent al qaeda from returning. remember that. some people forget the last part of the mission statement -- prevent them from returning to pakistan or afghanistan. our job is to defeat the taliban and al qaeda, the caliban being the ones who took in al qaeda and embraced them, and defeat their hope for victory. iran is not helpful in this, of providing weapons systems. our job is to set conditions for reconciliation and reintegration. all wars come to an end. our job is to end it as soon as possible. reconciliation is top down. that is where we work with the leadership of the taliban. we find which ones are not committed. that is afghan-lead.

-- afghan-led. from bottom up, you have reintegration. you convince young fighters that are on the wrong side. we have propaganda operations. we have infiltration of our ideas into their midst. we get them to change their mind. for example, over 1700 of the enemy have come over to our side. people do not join the losing side. it is not their nature. they are coming over to our side. some of the headlines are not reading is afghan army platoon and goes over to the taliban. you never see afghan battalion went over to the enemy side. it has never happened. again, we are putting this enemy on the horns of a dilemma. if you fight us, we will fight hard. if you come over, our arms are

open. secretary clinton has made a point about how much they have to do to come over. what is it they have to do? they have to renounce violence. they have to live by their constitution. they have to break with al qaeda. that is all. they can come back again. they can argue their political views. they can do whatever they want to do inside that system. we are trying to put it together on the fly, under great pressure. we started at a low point, because after the soviet invasion that society was turned upside down and inside out. it is a tough job. we believe we can break off the reconcilable from the irreconcilable. we protect the afghan people. we can open the door to getting this war stopped. how're we going to do it? we're going to feed the insurgent networks. we're going to build up security

forces. you will see the enemy capability going down as the security forces capability goes up. the firebreak, the windbreak behind this going on, is the international coalition that helps to stand up those afghan forces while treating the enemy very rough, protecting the people and going after the enemy leadership. we will support their governments and economic development. this is part of making afghanistan in hospitable to the enemies return. we are not in it alone. as part of the government and economic piece, the united nations, world bank, imf, and nato are all working together. it is not a u.s. military plan. it is an integrated, international plan. the level of violence is not a good indicator of success or defeat. let me show you an example.

people say the level of violence has gone up, so something must be going wrong. if i go back to march of 1945, i would show you that the level of violence was so high at that point we were clearly losing. we were only months away from winning. i am not saying we are months away from winning now. i am discounting what you often see touted as a way to measure the success, the level of violence in the country. that is not a good measure, especially when the enemy is seeing more and more times the violence is beginning as our forces against them as we catch them. there is a nation intimately tied to this, and that is pakistan. it is a difficult relationship between the united states and pakistan, one of paramount importance. there has been a disappointment on both sides, questions from both sides.

if i am asked why do we continue to work with pakistan, i will only tell you that my counterpart in islamabad is probably being asked the same question when he talks to his people. would you talk to the americans? look what they have done to us. we have no choice but to maintain a relationship. a reminder on several issues that do not get much play in the press. pakistan has lost more troops fighting these terrorists then all of nato combined. it does not make our news. they have had 30,000 civilians killed or wounded in terrorist attacks. we have around 3000 on 9/11. they have had over 30,000 in their country. we will continue to work with pakistan to reduce the safe havens. in 40 years of wearing this uniform, i have never been in more difficult terrain than the border region between

afghanistan and pakistan. you know the problems the americans have maintaining border security along a flat and not very difficult terrain border south of here. you have to recognize that pakistan -- fear of india drives much of their behavior, yet they moved a quarter of their army, 140,000 troops, off of the indian border, and moved against al qaeda and the terrorists. that is a heck of a statement from the country that has lost several wars with india, and is very fearful of the indian power on their eastern border. to move those troops all the way across into the high country on the western border is quite a statement. countries have interests. that is why we work with them. not all interests aligned perfectly. rough patches to develop between

countries. i am reminded of winston churchill's statement that the only thing worse than fighting with our allies is fighting without allies. it is a difficult relationship between us. i will tell you in my personal background that i left california in september of 2001. in october, i went and talked with the pakistan leadership in islamabad. i had been ordered to take about 300 -- had been ordered to take marine's 350 nautical miles in helicopters at night, where fuel them in the air, and land behind kandahar. the pakistan general staff through my -- they knew my objective in plan three weeks in advance and never revealed it to the enemy. for all of the disarray in our relationship at times, privately, behind closed doors, there is more now we are doing

together than we are not. for example, over half the al qaeda senior leadership is now not in a position to collect their 4 01 ks -- 401k's, okay? [laughter] that is largely due to working together quietly against an organization we and the pakistanis have an intense dislike for. we're not one to solve all the problems, but we manage the problems and work against our enemies. let me close. i want to get to the questions and answers. but i want to talk about syria, because it is very important. when you look at where syria is, and look at their western border, the mediterranean, and lebanon, going a little further south -- they about israel. they share a border with jordan,

the single of sought -- the kingdom of saudi arabia. excuse me. right down close to saudi arabia. and of course iraq and turkey. when you look at that geopolitical center of the middle east that the occupied, you see a very bloody transition already going on. it is clearly time for assad to go, but if it goes, it will be the worst strategic blow iran has taken. iran is supporting the bloody repression of the syrian people by the assad regime. i saw yesterday the eu condemnation fort iran providing assistance inside damascus to keep assad in power. no outside power should help him murder his own people. the syrian people should be allowed their own future. assad is standing in the way.

iran's's help is the only reason he is able to. iran is problematic. you have heard me mention it time after time as i talk. you may have picked up the theme that from cairo to baghdad, lebanon to yemen, afghanistan and beyond -- sudan, bahrain, latin america. iran's destabilizing influence can be seen. the centrifuges continue to spin. the policies have isolated their country. they have been ignoring the u.n. security council resolution to suspend its enrichment activities. if you look at the security council resolution, how often do you see china, russia, france, the united kingdom, japan, austria, the united states, and more all vote together on an

issue? how often do you see that? how often have we passed economic sanctions with that group of countries all voting the same way? it says something about how destabilizing iran's behavior has become. the gulf cooperation council, countries in the persian group -- to wait, a saudi arabia, -- kuwait, saudi arabia, the united arab emirates, and others -- have held together. it is iran which has stimulated this unity. iran has no significant strategic ally left. their support of assad is costing them what little patience the surrounding countries have had. in closing, i will tell you the middle east is a wildly turbulent place right now. not all of it. some countries are quiet and

everything is going well. a lot are going through severe transitions. america has a positive role to play. the dangers are real, and must be considered as we look at our foreign policy, which must be guided by pragmatic idealism. let me close with a couple of words about your military. it is a national treasure. i have been wearing the uniform over 40 years. i have never seen it so strong in spirit and experience. it is filled with volunteers, high-quality young volunteers, all volunteers, young patriots who have looked beyond the political rhetoric swirling around some little-understood wars. they have answered their country's call. we have taken some heavy hits recently, but those losses have only made us more determined to carry out the mission. it has not in any way dissuaded

us. in this regard, and as a reminder as a talk about strategic decisions here this evening, we are joined by a gold star mother whose son, and marine infantryman, was killed under my command in 2004. are you here? i did not get to see you ahead of time. could you stand? if we could just show our respect. [applause] her son travis fell to try to keep this experiment we call america alive. i will tell you that young men have been my strongest inspiration. thank you for being here tonight. we will pass on this experiment to the next generation because of young men like your son. thank you. i will be happy to take your questions.

[applause] >> we have a stack of questions. let's begin with the horn of africa, a couple of questions about piracy and what is going on in djibouti and the ocean. >> piracy -- i am responsible for the waters off africa. africom handle somalia. it is a destitute area. young men go out to sea and take over ships. they climb on board. they take them into port. they hold them, sometimes for an excess of the year, until a hefty ransom -- $2 million -- is dropped in by parachute. then they let the ship go.

it is very lucrative for these fellows. i will tell you, there are military solutions, but this is a political problem. there is no international piracy court. each nation has to decide, if they grabs somebody for doing this, as our nation has -- we just put several people in jail who killed american sailors out there. but without an international criminal court that deals with this, and without some sort of effort to have a cohesive naval presence out there, we just have too many people doing their own thing. we do not have a good policy for how to deal with the ones we capture. until we get our political act together and say that is enough, we're probably going to continue to have this problem. i will tell you that it is offensive to me, professionally,

the we have innocent seamen held prisoner, sometimes abused, held as hostages for up to a year at a time. the world is not doing a lot about it. it is one of things you look at -- one of the things you look at and do not feel good about. but this has to be an international effort and i do not see it being coalesced. >> can you give us your assessment of al qaeda, particularly the upheavals since last winter? >> al qaeda it is a franchise outfit. i mentioned in iraq they are really on the ropes right now. they have very little support. they are being hunted down, turning to bank robbery to finance themselves, this sort of thing. still dangerous. up in the high country in the borderland between afghanistan and iraq, that is still the

epicenter of the al qaeda senior leadership. it is not a safe haven anymore. it is under enormous pressure. they are not doing well. but that are able to maintain a certain degree of command and control. dropping down into the arabian peninsula, that are for the first time in the last 90 days holding to rein in yemen, where the political stalemate between president ala -- salah, who is not giving up power, and the opposition has distracted the military. al qaeda is gaining strength in yemen. for those of you who are history buffs, if you look at the queen of sheba's old area, if you go down the coast, what they are doing is trying to set up on the peninsula, routes on the old smuggler routes that came into the heart of saudi arabia from

the coast. you can understand the freedom of maneuver that gives them. i think they are gaining strength there, but will run into trouble with the tribes, who do not like the sword of islam al qaeda promotes. at the same time, date are gaining ground. al shabab in somalia has made some connection with al qaeda. that is not looking well for somalia. at the same time, there are a lot of competing interests down there, and whether they will maintain their primacy is subject to question. moving over, there is the al qaeda in the mob grabbed -- magreb, due west of sudan, the south of the sierra -- of the sahara. there are a number of forces, both locals and european allies,

working against them out there. they also have sleeper cells in europe. they are trying to do it here. the fbi have been very successful. they are definitely losing in a number of areas. they are gaining in some. the epicenter has been pressured more than ever before. >> there have been several questions about the country's outside there. the couple are worth commenting on. specifically, the relationship of israel in the arab countries and how the unrest in the last year has affected their relationship. >> clearly, israel is watching what is going on very closely. when you have what is happening with lebanese hezbollah in southern lebanon, and you know what happened with the war there a few years ago, you have syria , unrest upsetting everybody in

the region, all around the borders. obviously, israel has to keep an eye on that. jordan is doing fine. they continue to be a quiet, stable relationship. egypt has maintained its military bigger ship, has maintained the peace treaty provisions. they have also maintained close working relationships with the israeli military as they try to reduce the threat out of the sinai. it is going ok. we just have to watch how that develops. the biggest concern, clearly, that israel has is not egypt. it is not jordan. it is not serious. it is iran, for obvious reasons. when you think of statements by the iranian leadership and what the u.n. structure is to stop the enrichment, and it has not been stopped -- obviously,

israel has a very focused interest in that issue. they're keeping an eye on that. there will be rough times going forward. this is an area where i am somewhat of an optimist. >> the emergence of turkey as a regional power -- how has that affected things? >> i think that turkey -- i have seen positive impacts, because in many ways turkey is seen as a way for a nation to mature toward a more democratic approach. i have spoken to several leaders who traveled to turkey to talk to them about how they create the kind of state they have created. they have also, i think, been very helpful in regard to trying to restrain assad. they have not been successful, but they have made clear that

what he is doing is not going to receive any sort of solace or support out of ankara. the turks are the one nato nation that fights against an active terrorist group in their own southeast corner. they are also a nation that we work quietly with in a common cause. >> the next question relates to command relationships. could you talk a little bit about special operations command, and its relationship with cencom, and how that is coordinated for individual strikes? >> any special operations command troops come under my command when they are inside central command. special operations command provides me navy seals or army green berets, army rangers, air force special tactics, marines,

and they come in under special forces. i have a navy commander, army commander, air force, marine, and special forces. they worked in an integrated way. we picked the force with the right skill set that will accomplish the mission. it is a close, warm, and respected relationship. we have been -- the combatant commander has used most of the special forces over the last 10 years. after 10 years of working together, we have grown up together. we know each other. there is a bond between us. it is a very smooth, integrated effort. sometimes, we put u.s. conventional forces under special forces command. sometimes, i will put special forces under conventional forces command. it is whatever works for the unique situation on the ground. due to the initiatives you initiated when your secretary of

defense, those have matured to the point where the young officers think this is completely natural, the way we always fight, because for 10 years we have. those 10 years we did in the 90's have paid off significantly. >> can you talk a little bit about the threats to see in a military sense from a run to its neighbors, specifically in the persian gulf? >> i think most of the threat will be unconventional, or ballistic missile. they know that if they take on their neighbors, our friends, in a conventional sense, they will be exposed immediately. that is not to say they would not do it. wars are often started by irrational impulses. but i think they're enormous and growing ballistic missile capability is the one thing that has received a lot of attention from our military friends out of

the region as they realize how vulnerable their civilian populations are if the iranians start throwing ballistic missiles around. they have special forces, unconventional, sleeper cells. they have paid terrorists, that sort of thing. there is mr. fay are up to all the time. -- there is mischief they are up to all the time. there is the ballistic missile threat that is more advanced, more accurate, and much more numerous in terms of missiles than it ever has been before. the nuclear piece -- nobody out there wants iran to have a nuke. at the same time, they are unconvinced the international community will be able to stop it. that is not necessarily the american view, or the eu view.

>> would you comment on the value of the all-volunteer force versus the draft, and how that has affected the country? >> it is an interesting question. an all-volunteer force is more expensive. we have to compete for the best men and women with colleges and business. but i will tell you that i have seen the military when it still had draftees, and i have seen it today. when you have everyone there who wants to be there, it does change the tone. because we do bring in very high-quality young men and women, we also have a highly capable force. it is truly a national treasure, and the envy of any country in the world, and it is not just the technology. it is what these young people are able to do.

one of the reasons that i am out here tonight is i believe we are growing as a military somewhat remote from the mainstream of american life. that, i think, is something we have to look for. is that good for the republican -- the republic in the long run, where the sense of commitment is not there when you turn 18, where it is just a choice? i am not saying i want to see it reversed, but it is something we need to consider, even if it is to come up with another way of serving your country. we do not need a lot of people in the military. we are meeting our recruiting and retention quotas. they are reenlisting. we were doing that before the economic downturn, so do not think it is just an economic decision. these young folks believe in what they are doing. it is a great military.

is it a society we want that has a military that is a little out there, outside the mainstream? >> one of the things this part of california at is noted for is our technological advancements. can you talking little bit about what has been done in recent years to make our job easier, and what remains to be done that would continue to improve our ability technologically to defeat our foes? >> we have to have good technology. we have to be at the top of our game in this. it is the sort of world. it is not a perfect world. the most radical thing i have seen over the last 15 years or so is the role of the remote- piloted vehicle, the unmanned vehicle systems, whether it is a drone with the camera that allows you to look over the

next hill, or an armed drone that can with your four hours, waiting until you spot the enemy you want -- that can loiter for hours, waiting until you spot the enemy want, as we try to avoid killing innocent people. they have given us the capability. that has been a wonderful asset to have. it has unleashed a lot of boldness by our commanders. they know what is over the next hill, or what is on our flanks. it allows movement with a higher degree of certainty. if there is one area we need some help, it is premature detonation of i edie's. -- ied's. this is a militarily incompetent enemy, but we are losing a lot of lads to ied's. if we had a way to prematurely detonate them, it would change

the face of this fight. we have had great advances. our body armor is better than ever. but you can only do some things on defense to ied's, sold much armor. they will make a bigger if we could somehow find a way to prematurely detonate hthat ied, we will save a lot of folks lives. that is what i just put a pitch in for, general. >> can you give us your thoughts on the relationship of the relationship both in afghanistan and with iraq with the press? what has changed is the embedded nature of many of these men and women that are serving on the front lines. has that made a difference? do we get a better story today than we did the years passed? >> got to be a little careful here.

[laughter] secretaries shultz, it is a privilege to be invited. after some of my statements, it is a privilege to be invited to any play company anymore. -- polite company any more. the press has done a fantastic job. they have had cutbacks, which means that we have your embedded folks out there. where they are out there and they see what we're doing, i am comfortable with it. 95% of them are great guys and gals out to tell the story and they want to do a good job. they are not all good. there are always a few jerks anywhere. but even jesus of nazareth have one out of 12 with mud on him. you will not have everybody be perfect all the time. at the same time, i think the press tells the story very well.

the challenge comes when a very complex war is looked at through a soda straw. and that can make for our problem, because you can then extrapolate from what was seen in one village. if you do that in world war ii, i can prove to you that normandy was the biggest defeat the u.s. armed forces had in world war ii if you saw what happened to our paratroopers. they were shot down. you have to make sure that you have people that are giving as good an overall picture as possible. it was probably, i would say, six months after the tribes in iraq turned in my area out in western iraq against ipad -- al qaeda. it was six months before grudgingly, in some cases comes some media folks basically -- some media folks basically a knowledge of they had come over. let me give you an example.

in 2002, january, we're in kandahar. these grizzled afghans came in and they said they wanted to open the school. i said, of course. it is time to get the kids back to school. he said, we want to open a girls' school. i said absolutely. have added. they were so proud of themselves. it took me downtown. and here on the day the open school, these little kids, little boys with long shirts, and girls with shawls over their heads and white blouses and long , plaid skirts and black shoes with white socks and book bags, it was like somebody took dehydrated students and poured water and it popped up. these older guys were so proud. i doubt if any had been to school. they have learned to give the american comes up. as they walked down the street,

because we heard some people, the taliban were upset with that. they fear real education. they know what it is a free people's thinking. we had u.s. army special forces and marines, navy seals, along the streets with automatic weapons and grenades adhndand ammo. and these little girls and boys walked alongside the soldiers very proud. they knew the good buys it -- good guys and bad guys. we were an ethical force and they trusted us. there are some people, news people, frankly, and you know i do not mince words. there are some news people who are not yet at the intelligence level of those 8 year old girls in kandahar. [applause] but i will also tell you, i remember pulling into one of my battalion positions in baghdad after a difficult night and have

or 80 of our boys killed and wounded. as i pulled in, there were news men sitting there holding plasma bottles over wounded marines. so, believe me, there are some eople outs p there. i should not focus on the couple that led us down. any human organization has some of that. the press is doing per well embedded inside the military. i tell them what word i give them when they come in, go down there and admire my troops. that is so confident that the bare naked truth of what i am doing -- what we're doing will sell less ethically across the world. >> we will wrap up with that one. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you, general mattis.

that was terrific. thank you so much. secretary shultz, again, thank you for sponsoring this series. i do want to thank joel daniels for his performance and i forgot to mention the 23 marines that provide a color guard. what a great group of people we have in this area. thank you all, and i want to thank the audience. part of the success of any program involves the audits. thank you, thank you. -- part of a success of any program involves the audience. >> coming up on c-span, a google executive chairman eric schmidt on a launch of google tv. then bill gates talks about the work of the bill and melinda gates foundation. after that, justice elena kagan discusses her life and work on the supreme court. on "newsmakers", we will

talk with missouri congressman emanuel cleaver about the u.s. job situation, federal spending, and the dead and the cbc's relationship with president obama. "newsmakers" live sunday at 10:00 a.m. on c-span. >> watch more video of the candidates. see what political reporters are saying and track the latest campaign contributions with c- span's web site for campaign 2012. helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds and facebook updates from the campaigns, biographies, and the latest polling data. plus links to c-span's reporters in the early caucus stages. >> eric schmidt, executive chairman of google, recently

spoke at the annual edinburgh international television festival in edinburgh, scotland. he talked about how the growth of the internet is transforming how people watch television and the choices available for viewing. he also talks about the launch of google tv and addresses some of the criticism against his company, including allegations of copyright infringement. he is introduced by this year's chairman of the edinburgh festival. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> it has taken us 36 years, but i think that we can admit that the world has changed. which is why we have invited the executive chairman of the biggest internet company of the world to give tonight's lecture. when i came to think about

finding a few words to say by way of introduction for eric schmidt, executive chairman of google, i did what most people these days do when they are in need of facts. i googled him. it is very interesting what you could find on google. under the very men treat -- many entries, i found a c.v. for eric which saysed 2011, he has the math degree from oakland university michigan and can successfully operate windows '95 and this up. he is currently looking for a job as a contract programmer. under honors and awards, he listed the fact that in 2010 he was a football champion. and then i found that eric schmidt is a licensed acupuncturist. he lives in the state of

california and on sundays he can be found leading a local youth choir. he is a qualified cardiologists and specializes in preventing out attacks. he can also rearrange your furniture because he runs an interior design company out of first avenue, new york. in fact, i discovered 50 entries for eric schmidt registered in california alone. by googlling these people, i can also access the public records, including birth and marriage certificates, and court judgments. google -- it's an amazing thing. the vast majority of the 750 google entries along to eric schmidt, ceo of google for 10 years, and now its executive

chairman. he was born in 1955 in washington, d.c. he went to yorktown high school and princeton where he got a degree in electrical engineering as well as a ph.d. in computer science at the university of california. he joined google in 2001 when it was a small internet start of. based on an ingenious search engine which use a links to determine portions of international web pages. google now has offices in 60 countries. it maintains 180 internet domains and offers search and 130 languages. ther eric schmidt' tenure company launched google news, google maps, it acquired youtube, established g-mail, it launched google chrone and google plus.

what's to come? in barely a decade, it is become a bigger brand bigger than general electric. as recorded more wealth faster than any of the country in history. it has become a verb. google is where we go for answers. tonight and tomorrow and this question and answer session, answers are what he will give us. answers about what their intentions are for its partnership with our industry and its plan for original content. iic schmidt once saidm, " do not believe society understands when everything is available and recorded by everyone all the time." also tonight's speech is being stream flood on youtube. it will be read, listen to, and viewed by many more people that are in this theater. and it will be stored on servers and databases around the world for a long, long time to come.

i'm pleased to introduce tonight's lecturer -- the second chairman of google, the one and only eric schmidt. [applause] >> thank you. is my mike on? let's see, can you all hear me? yes? hi. thank you very, very much, alain. let's see, i am excited about the people in the circle. thank you all for coming. i wanted to start by saying it is great to be in scotland. many people do not know how strong the initiatives are in computer science in scottish universities in greater edinburg.

there are a number of companies that i personally invested in. i think there is every reason to believe that there will be quite a renaissance here in a plce you might not of thought. i also wanted to say that it is an honor to be here, especially because in my growing up, i have always assumed that there were people from the media and television world and people from the scientific world. there has been one person who managed to actually live in both worlds. and i wanted to take a minute to say that i think that we have just seen steve jobs step bown a down. he was the only person i have ever known who has been able to merge the two worlds completely with an artist high as well as the definition of what a great engineering is. i'm sure that he and the company will do very well in the future.

from my perspective, that is the perfect example of the kind of union that we should see in the future and other companies and other collaborations. from my perspective, again, this is the first time that the lecture has been given by someone not employed by television broadcasting or production. i am not sure whether it means the borrower has been raised or lowered, but i will do my best. sarta kurds it is an honor to be here -- it is an honor to be here as an outsider. james murdoch described himself as the critic relative everyone is embarrassed about. i guess where under would be what he would say no -- i guess i wonder what he would say no. shame is the family outcast, i am not sure what that makes me. am i did speak in the corner. am i the alien species? miam i the android?

don't worry. charles allen called this the longest job application in the industry. is not it great to have google to look this stuff up? sorry. i am back. a plug there. i'm committed to google. thathat's changed is larry has the keys. i promise i will stop the doctor who clips. we have a private joke atkins actually from the future. i am indebted to might friend mark thompson who gave last year's lecture for his tips on what makes a classic lecture. according to him, the recipe borrows down to anger, arch

villains, impossible proposals, and insults. i am not sure about the anger, but i will do my best to come up with the rest. it is usually a choice between the bbc and murdoch for candidates to demonize. i must say how refreshing it is that google is not on this list. so thank goodness. i don't kid myself. i know some of you have suspicions. some of years -- some of you blame us for the havoc wreaked on your businesses by the internet. some people accuse us of being unresponsive, and karen, or even worse so today, i am going to try to set bang the record straight -- set the record straight and demonstrate on why we should be optimistic about television's future. and a little bit about my industry. one man said this lecture is the

closest most television people get going to church. hmm. that's what he said. in my casde, i'm a tech evangelist from way back. i will take any excuse to preach about the internet. in less than 30 years, the internet has grown from almost nothing to more than 2 billion users. and we have a ways to go. it is available on mount everest, on the south pole, half of the adults in the european union use it every day. and our goal is to get the other half as well. as become such a profound part of life that four of five adults worldwide now regard internet access as a fundamental human right. hmm. today, it is hard to imagine life without the internet. we take for granted, but it is worth reminding ourselves just what an incredible force for good the internet has been. without the internet, a child

growing up in a remote village is unlikely to reach their potential with little access to books or learning. without the internet, people worldwide could not band together. we saw this in haiti and in other places, so quickly in a crisis helping to raise the alarm and never support. without the internet, repressive regimes, of which there are far too many, can deny the people of voice making it far harder to expose corruption and wrongdoing without the internet, europe will lose of the biggest driver of much-needed econmic growth. in the uk alone the internet accounted for 7% of gdp in 2010 -- 100 billion poudsn. nds. companies to use the internet are growing four times faster than those who are not. but for the rest, -- so in short, the internet is not

making inevitable change faster. has become an engine of change itself. it has recast the way that we communicate. it has transformed the way we learn and share knowledge. it is empowering people everywhere, making the world more open, fair or, and more prosperous. think about how far we have already come. i encountered my first computer and high school. it was enormous and very clunky. today, my smart phone is 100 times faster and it fits in my pocket. when i first became a programmer and to relay information to the first computer, you had to use punched cards. today, you can talk to your phone and do voice search. you can point the camera, and the phone understand. when i started working in computer science, the technology could not deliver the big dreams. i remember being blown away by the demo in 1968 of the

experimental prototype of a mouse. it was utter science fiction to imagine one day that a computer might be able to respond to your facial expressions or decipher the nuances of human behavior as we can today. it is literally magic. optimistic while i'm that computer science and the internet our forces for good, i am not naive. john f. kennedy said, i am an idealist without illusions. there are many, many challenges that we are grappling to address. for example, how do you make the world more open while respecting privacy? it is an important balance, very important to get that right. how'd we empower people without provoking anarchy? are really important question. how do we ensure technology and

riches rather than the values the relationships and the culture around us? these are hard and important questions. why does this have anything to do with television? in 2010, uk adults spent as much time watching television in four days as they did using the web in an entire month. so television is clearly winning the competition for attention. you all representing the television industry. and the other hand, all of us ignore and you ignore the internet at your peril. the internet is fundamental to the future of television for one reason. it is what people want. and ultimately, what people what they will get one way or the other. technologically, the internet is a form for to predict the force for making television more personal, more purchase of a tiff, more pertinent. people are clamoring for, no were more so than here in the united kingdom. i will give you some examples.

the team behind the bbc's iplayer has my utmost respect. it is now used by more than 10% of the u.k. population every week. it is a great product with a vast range of content. it is much more advanced than anything else i have seen. it was just launched in a european version, soon to be global, and as an ipad subscription. another example of innovation. i am sure it will be a success. by the way, i have one more request of them. please get in android version going, too. separate discussion. ipad is not the only show in town. there are numerous services out there, including itunes. youtube has long form content thanks to partners like channel four who became the first broadcaster in the world to put their full pack catchup service

online. long form is the fastest-growing youtube category in terms of revenue with a deep content partners. pretty good. -- with 80 content partners. more choice can backfire if you are not careful. just remember howard felt when you would go to the video store -- just remember how would sell. renting videos, face-to-face with thousands of movies. picking just one was probably a struggle. that is why recommending content is so vital. it is what channel schedulers have done since the beginning of television, but traditional television is one size fits all. sometimes the recommendations suit me or someone else, but sometimes they do not. and on line, for those who wish and grant permission, things can be vastly different. online, through a combination of algorithms, suggestions could be individually crafted to suit your needs. the more you watch and share, the more chances the system has

to learn and the better its predictions get. taken to the ultimate, it would be a perfect television channel, always exciting, always relevant, sometimes serendipitous, surprisingly good at new ideas but most importantly, always worth your time. we have already had a glimpse of this, if you take a look at netflix. take a look at the recommendations. around 60% of their rentals are as a result of algorithmically generated recommendations. there are others who bought this, others about this also bought -- you have seen this. they are compelling. in recent years, they have accounted for between 20%-30% of amazon sales. but delivering on the promise of personalization is tricky, both

technologically and culturally. personalization requires the data and the more data the better, the more we can compute a better personalize result for you. as i have learned firsthand, and the on-line service that involves personal data will be an absolute magnet for privacy fears. it will be vital to strike the right balance so that people feel comfortable and in control. not disconcerted by the. accuracy of suggestions -- the eery accuracy of suggestions. i do not want you to underestimate the challenge of this. now, i have talked about how the internet is transforming television choice, but there are changes in how we watch. i remember the excitement about interactive television a few years ago. all of that drama of over pushing a red button. remember that? it was not that great.

riding a second wave of interactive. seems more real to me this time. it is a convergence of television and internet screens. this time, the interaction is not happening by a red button. it is on your web. three or laptop, your tablets, or mobile. but most important of all, this time, it is social. for some shows, the online commentary that swirls around them, be it through twitter or chat forms or blogs has become a part of the experience. think about bbc question time. how they are using twitter to engage the audience. once, all you could do was shot at the television. this is what the average american does all day, shouting at the television.

at the politicians they see. and now you can tweet your rant to the entire world. a much larger audience for you sitting at home. adding to social layer to television will actually increase in my view television viewership. it is interesting, we have some data that a new product in beta called google plus. it has been out for about a month. as a cool feature called hang outs. and you can watch a youtube video in such a way that it is like being in the same room. so while the video is playing, you can chat over the top and anyone in the hangout cacn grab the control and rewind or fast ford and it keeps everybody in sync around a shared youtube experience. what improvement over static, lynn your television. how interesting that this might become a significant way in

which people collectively view content. a social layer is something that viewers seem to want. and i would argue it is great for broadcasting. trending hash tags and raise awareness and boost ratings. they help to predict what will be hot next week or next year. it could be a metric for of your engagement, a vehicle for feedback, a channel for reaching people outside of broadcast times. it can also provide an incentive for watching live. i don't expect television viewing to ever completely switch to the on demand. it will always be a cultural pull. i think this is obvious. for some shows on some occasions to watch in real time. the data is interesting. the viewing remains robust.

in 2010, 90% of broadcast television remained live, but i sense the default mode will shift to more of the dvr type over time for obvious reasons. try forcing a six-year-old, your son or grandchild, who grew up on a dvr to watch to only watched live television. once you have gotten used to such things, it is hard to go back. in homes with sky plus, it claims 20% of the viewing has time shifted. it gives us some of the data. if you look beyond the headline figures, especially for shows that appeal to younger demographic, again, no surprise there. i must confess that i have not seen this high-quality show myself. [laughter]

despite almost every broadcast outlet showing the footage of the royal wedding, 70 two million times on youtube to 168 countries. interesting. so what are the trends to watch? there are three. mobil, local, and social. already, mobile search traffic on google surpasses that in some countries. 40% of the google map usage is on mobile. and there are two hours of bloated just from mobile devices every minute -- two hours up loaded just from mobile devices every minute. i think genres of online content and services is

interesting. one of the most important contextual signals as location. if you search for coffee from your mobile, hogs are you are not looking for a wikipedia entry. you're looking for the local place because you are on thursday. social signals are another powerful driver of behavior. if three of my friends highly rated television series, odds are i will check it out even though reviewers say it is rubbish. we are at the early stage of learning how best to use the indicators to use provided content. remember, this is just the beginning. in technological terms, we are scarcely at the end of the first act of the internet. i get this represents a big upheaval for your industry and i do understand that. i am trying to be respectful of

this point. i know what it feels like. i did not get a social networking as fast as i should have. but if any industry is poised to rise, the challenge is yours. i say this with significant conviction. your creative talent is unrivaled. we're not debating that. your producers are famed for your entrepreneurial zeal. your managers have one hot fought battles for efficiency and you won. face it, bridge television industry has an unparalleled global reputation, including journalism, comic, and drama. i grew up watching your stuff. i know this to be true. you cannot turn the clock back.

even if you could, why would you when you have such interesting strengths? the opportunities are ripe for the taking. i have lots of examples. apples have reported that they have 200 million customers with accounts tied to credit cards .oul amazon has not released a similar number, but it has to be roughly similar. thank you to the internet, it is far easier than ever before for content owners to sell to a global market. do not forget that the u.k. is the per capita the commerce capital of the world. thank you very much for all of that business. more generally, but about what on demand means for traditional business models. most television channels seem to practice a drip, drip, drip

whatever you call it, approach to raising content. but the on demand of you, it is -- but on the on demand view, is outdated. they will make of a suit available in clusters rather than once a week. this is experimentation. we will learned something. we will see a new model. we will measure it. we'll see how well it works. consider the way first-run and market data. it is first run to you no matter how many times it is broadcast. you should be able to get a higher rate in the context. as it becomes more personalized, add models should adjust accordingly.

this requires new process is, the way in which tv viewing and marketing is measured. they are investing in research to see how yours are consuming television and the web in multiple clot forms -- multiple platforms. there are big opportunities for creative processes as well. recognize that there is new opportunities for and freedoms, maybe we should say, storytelling. david simon, a writer, he said that tv is no longer an appointment. it is a lending library. that is an interesting way of thinking about it. he said you no longer need to worry about your audience missing episodes.

they will watch at their own pace. the consequence of this is that riders can craft more complex stories. they do not have to keep putting signs next to plot reminders, the references where you ask yourself why are they reminded me of this. it is for those who missed an episode. do not underestimate the internet's potential as a venue for talent spawning. more than 48 hours of content is loaded to youtube every minute. remember that two hours is mobile, the rest is from traditional sources. more and video is a bloated in a month than all three major networks broadcast in the united states in 60 years. that -- those are frightening numbers. i am not insisting that the quality is the same. [laughter]

amid the avalanche, the next news of creativity can be found. what is exciting for all, especially for technologists as myself, are the opportunities to integrate content across multiple screens and devices. we're busy exploring this with some of our experiment will apps for mobile. you can use your phone to control youtube videos, watch them on a bigger screen, and receive background information on the video while the play. other people have commented that more than half of television watching seems to involve having another screen next to you, a phone or computer or something or die pad, what have you, or a game council. .- a game console let's pause and say that that is magic. they can listen to the show and figure out what show your

watching. how did they do that? it is magic. [laughter] of give you another example. -- i will give you another example. that is the notion of orchestrated media. in this case, the show your watching triggers extra material on your tablets or mobile synchronized with the program and it will do it automatically. that is another way to make the experience deeper. let me pause here and say that no matter what i say and no matter how enthusiastic i am and all of you are about the possibilities before us, there will always be some who fear the internet as set to destroy everything. that is nothing new. almost every invention has been reinvigorated -- that has reinvigorated and help the media and and -- media industry

was first forecast. in the 1930's, u.s. newspapers fought a fierce campaign to keep radio for news gathering. ity were terrified ithat would drive them out of business. they lost eventually. it did not matter. newspapers retained their influence and continued to rake in profits. later, they had the new target. "they should handle their own news and not capture our brains and experience." does that sound familiar? it's from 1957. as newspapers complained about tv's muscling in on the news turf, their fears were proven

unfounded. hollywood is a special case. in 1952, jack valenti compared the vcr to the boston strangler. [laughter] pretty rough. these guys are pretty rough. the calamity that he predicted never happened. in 2005, dvd sales alone accounted for more than half of studio revenues. shocking. the boston strangler is profitable. [laughter] in fact, the dvd sustained the industry through its inevitable and very tough business cycles. later it was said that home video was the bonanza that saved bank -- that save hollywood from bankruptcy. a decade ago, t. rowe was -- tivo was lambast said for stealing programs without

advertising. thesetake heart from parallels. if i can say anything in historical context, it is clear to me that history shows that in the face of new technology those who adapt to new business models not only survive but prosper. this is always a surprise for every generation. technology advances and no laws can preserve markets that have been passed by. just to be a little obnoxious, listen to the entrepreneurs, not the lawyers if you want to revitalize your business. listen to the people who invent a new business. they see a new way of building an audience. they see any way of monetizing. your customers are moving. i would argue that the onus is on u.s. producers and managers. it is to develop business

models to really work in the digital age. i believe this is possible. i would not be surprised if you looked back in 20 years' time and say that the internet is the best thing that ever happened rather than the worst. in 2007, it was dismissed and that there was ever a golden age of television. i completely disagree. the hands of others pointed out at dawn this year -- at cannes this year ensuring that there's something wonderful to watch every second of your waking moments. you can watch what you're sleeping. we do not care. just watch. the option to sit back orlean ford, to watch alone or chat with a community, have that -- to lean back or lean forward, to watch alone or check with the

community, this is something that can be ticketed manager. the u.k. as well on its way. the pioneering formats have gone worldwide and have become global smashes in ways that everyone here is familiar with. the u.k. is home to one of the most competitive broadcasters. i was looking at the numbers. in 2010, sky spent as much on content as channel 4 and channel five combined. there is no doubt that they will be a formidable player in the online-television revolution. they will do both. itv appears to be in strong shape. profits are up 45% in the first half of this year, a tremendous feat. it shows that courage -- it

shows courage in responding to and that only is bbc the world's most or finest public-service broadcaster, but it is arguably the most traded and technologically innovative as well. after necessary pruning, the long-term settlement means that bbc can count on whether anyone -- think of it as a mouthwatering income check. you can see it in their plan. it has to -- it has a recognized and mired plan globally. it has the promise to two billion people. it means that the world is, in many ways, bbc's oyster. what can go wrong? well, everything can go wrong. if i may be impolite, here is the insult that mark advise i should throw in.

your track record is not so good in some cases. the u.k. is home to some immediate conventions. you invented television and computers. the first office computer was built in 1951 by lines chain of tea shops. none of the world's leading players come from the uk. how can you avoid the same fate for your television innovations? this one is a hard question. it requires a lot of serious discussion. there is no simple fix. but i have some suggestions pin with apologies, i bring them forward. i think you need to bring art and science back together. think back to the glory days of the victorian era, which i so much studied on television

growing up. it was a time when the same people who wrote poetry also built bridges. lewis carroll did not just write one of the classic fairy tales of all time. he was also a mathematics tutor at oxford. james maxwell was described by einstein as one of the best physicist students, but he was also a published poet. over the last century, the -- the u.k. has stopped nurturing .ts polymaths pi both sides seem to denigrate the other. to use what i am told by british friends, you're either a lubby or a buffin. not good. [laughter] i am sorry. i hope i did not offend one group or the other. to change that, you need to

reignite children's passion for science, engineering, and mathematics. in the 1980's, another interesting thing about the bbc. they natalie broadcast programming for children, but in partnership with a corn shipped 1 million bbc computers into homes. that was a fabulous initiative. it is now gone. i have been working on this question about math and science education global way. how does the western world compete with asia? all of these questions that are on everybody's minds. i was flabbergasted to know that computer science is no longer instructed in u.k. schools. it teaches people on software, but not how it is made. you have this great computing

heritage. the you can use to provide more encouragement and opportunity for people to study science engineering. in the united states, president obama announced a program to train 10,000 more engineers a year. there is an example of someone sticking his neck out in the obviously correct way. the other day, alan sugar said that engineers are no good for business. [laughter] ok. show we checked a few facts here? [laughter] really? i do not think we have done so badly. sorry. i could not resist. if the u. k's creative industries want to thrive in our joint digital future, you need people who understand all facets of it, integrated in from the very beginning. take the lead from the

victorians and ignore large sugar. bring engineers into your company at every level, occasionally including intertop. second -- that was complete number one. sorry to be blunt, but might as well. no. 2, you need to get better at growing companies. the u.k. and this is very well established, it is an issue that your government has identified and many people have talking about it. you are the world leader at finding interest. but there is little use in getting 1000 fees if they are left to whether or are transmitted only overseas. you need to change in global car crosses without having to sell out. when they are literally forced to sell out to foreign-owned companies, including google -- if you do not address this, the

u.k. will continue to be where inventions are born and not for long term success. thank you for your innovation. thank you for your innovative ideas. you are not fully taking advantage of them on a global stage. you have to figure out a way to get smarter about the divide between the public and commercial sectors to get the most out of your public-sector innovations. i told you before about the iplayer. it is a great product. would it not be better if it were extended to more channels? there was a project called project kangaroo to do this. it looked great. despite several valid attempts, lobbyists and blocked its seemingly on the basis that it would be too successful. [laughter] so much for you. [laughter] [applause] it does not make sense. so let's start from the principle that we will have a really successful product.

there is a product that is coming along that has -- it's called uview. it looks very good to me. even if it means the beach -- even if it beats the time trial of 2012, it will still thruway many years that the u.k. could be in the lead. it is a complete life time in my world. since we are in a critical moon at least for this minute, this is as good a moment as a need to address the criticisms leveled at the will -- at google. one i face a lot is that we're big, scary, and trying to take over the world. that takes many forms. i love these. in january, luke johnson claimed, "just as rockefeller's standard oil was an oppressive enterprise that became so powerful it had to be broken up for the public good, so i

believe that google must be seriously tackled in the national interest." i trust investigations in both the united states and europe. obviously, i do not share this view. i do respect that there should be a debate about it and so forth. it is only natural that with success comes scrutiny. that said, it is hard not to perceive an undercurrent of protectionism in some of these attacks. here is the other side. john singleton, "while lots of people have talked with us about harm competitors, nobody has articulated to us harm consumers. and that is the key." i would argue that consumers are in the driving seat could all of us are hitching a ride and the door is open to anyone. i think that the internet brings the consumer to the for any way

that -- in a way that we have not seen in any industry before. competition is a click away. it is easy for people to come, sample, and move. if you cannot not -- if you do not get it right, they will leave very fast. in our case, history has shown that is common for one on-line service to be out taken and outdated. doing is we have a survival tragedy which is to place big bets on technology trends. placing big bets that sounds risky, but considering the trends, is a reasonable results. now we need to place even bigger bets to try to anticipate what consumers really want for the next few years. not every bet will succeed. but it is safer to into high then too low, to strive for game

changing progress rather than to fiddle at the margins. it is better to launch at a rate fast, fast, fast, to fill fast, to learn from mistakes rather than spending years of planning and remaining miles off the pace. if you look at the online social world, which is where a lot of froth in this is right now, you will see it is rate every day. imagine working at a company where everything changes every day and indeed they are. it is possible were the focus run continuous innovation to drive change at that speed. one of the downsides of this approach is that it can be quite disruptive. at times, we have inadvertently made things worse by sharing our delight in innovations without appreciating the discomfort that we have caused. for that, i do sincerely apologize. we could have handled those things better. i'm actually sorry about it. i do not think we will ever stop

at some level ruffling feathers. it is an occupational hazard of innovation. but i think we are engaged in a conversation to be sensitive to everyone's concerns and be more responsive in a fundamental way. of thinking of an example. google tv is an example. we launched it in the u.s. this past year. everybody feared that we were competing with broadcasters and content creators. our intent was the opposite. we seek to support the content industry by providing an open platform for the next generation of tv to evolves. -- to evolve. i think, we think, that google

television can create more value for all. it is a platform that combines the browsing and web world with all of the things that broadcasters can already do. it is a platform that has never been offered before. expect this in europe in a year. the u.k. will be in our top list for reasons. one criticism that is thrown at us is this. we are accused of jumping on the back of the others content. "google takes more ad revenue at of the u.k. than itv makes. it is not fair that it is not reinvesting it in content and production companies in the u.k." some have suggested that google directly invest in television content. i think it reflects a

misunderstanding of what google is and what we're capable and knowledgeable of doing. we provide platforms where we show ads next to content that owners have chosen to put up. but we have neither the ambition or the know how to actually produce content on any large scale. can you imagine what would happen if you put us in charge of programming? bad sci-fi, strange looking viral videos, and weird colorful things? [laughter] what you do is hard and we are no good at it. let's be clear. there's no confusion here. every once in awhile, we have to explain this to people atgoogle. we are not good at this. what we have to do is help fund content. last year, we shared more than $6 billion with partners worldwide. we have been investing in deep relationships with channels 4

and 5 and many other partners to provide these catch of services on youtube. what is happening instead is that we have growing audiences and on-line revenues. these enhance rather than cannibalize existing viewers. we also invest in a variety of other ways that also benefit television and the industry. this is an aside, but worth noting. over the years, we invested billion dollars of capital expenditure with direct benefits to tell code -- to telcos and content owners. we do not foresee isp to go all the way to the u.s. and all the way back. we cut transmission costs. we make everything happen much faster. in the world where speed is everything, the fast loading, the fast submission content, gives your content the edge. do not understand the money and

brain power that goes into maintaining our software platform. we employ some of the best engineers in the world. search is one of the great intellectual challenges of our time. we hosted last year about 20,000 improvements and we launched 500. even we do not get it right the majority of the time. we have to test and test and test. the most disturbing statistic is that 15% of the queries we get each day we have never seen before. our scale shows you how far of a problem this is. we have those that are trying to gain a the result for one reason or another. there is this constant vigilance of innovation and investment. it grew faster than any other company worldwide last year. who benefits from this?

users get a better search tool. there are some exceptions. on occasion, we find content that is groundbreaking that uses our platforms. i am proud of some of these examples. sometimes, you have to build a prototype for people to see it. here was something unique. the goal was to show the commission in platform by creating an entire feature film from a user position. it is not for the faint of heart. we had 80,000 computers sharing and hours of footage into a two hour film. mirrored in sundance in january to rave reviews and even got picked for a theatrical release. it can work. we are trying to show the way.

we are willing to experiment with this. the new content is entirely different to do on a professional scale. we care about it. our strength is in developing platforms. we are under no illusion that the great content is what makes them useful. we want to support this as they embrace the on-line medium. this is one way we can help. more broadly, we are investing in initiatives to put the next generation of talent to push boundaries. we have a contest that offers training in feed. in a similar vein, we are partnering with the national film and television school of young filmmakers in the u.k.

these are examples. it is one of the world's most successful film schools, which i think everybody knows. i suspect quite a few of you are graduates from the program. starting in january, we will invest two support in on liming -- an on-line film making in distribution. we are always on the lookout for more of these kinds of ideas. to bring them to us in one way or another. the bulk of our investment should focus not on creating content but on platform. we would have money in the distribution. we have a pretty good goal. that is where our strengths lie. we can bring the biggest contribution to the television industry future. i want to talk in context with

the issue that has generated some of the most vitriolic criticism of google. this is something that we all care about. viacom sued us over this a few years ago and alleged that we made a calculated business decision to profit from copyright infringement. one person said serving a power site when you search for our shows is something unacceptable. we respect copyright. we have taken steps to prevent imperium search of a complete, which goes to copyright infringement. we have built tools to report violations for copyright owners. we want to remove sites from our

index within 24 hours. that is faster than any other web series in the uk. -- weather service than any in the uk. this is pretty good given the scale that we have stuff coming out of. most of you have used youtube as a free promotional tool, sharing trailers and so forth. the power of youtube as a platform is well proven. viacom was up loading clips while they were busy suing us. they found it very useful. [unintelligible] we had to pre-that every video -- we cannot exist if we had to do that.

we thought about this for a while. this is a new and unproven area. we worked hard to find a technology solution to give them control over their content, including ways of making money from us. this is called the content idea system. many of you have heard this. anything that shares the same fingerprint, if a match is found, you decide what to do. a few companies want violations taken down immediately.

most prefer to leave it up, a decision i prefer. we respect your deficit -- decision, whichever one you make. to help you with getting to the right decision, hundreds of content owners are making a substantial sum of from their share of ad revenue on content that was originally illegally up loaded, caught by our system, converted to popular and illegal activity. google once content to be free. this is not the case. when it comes to free or paid content models are the right ones, it is up to the content owners, literally up to you to decide if you wanted to charge. do you want to have a prescription model?

it is up for the users to decide if they want to pay you or not pay you or do whatever they want to do with the ad. is the content acceptable, digital -- as many people as possible. it does not mean it has to be free. we built a range of tools and money from the content online. this year, we launched one pass, a tool that helps publishers have a pay well for their content. we are experimenting with pay- per-view and other transaction models on youtube, clique to buy. we would argue that google arafat -- advertising is the ultimate tool. i hope i have made my point clear that we are not your enemy, and we want to help. i am not suggesting that we have

all the answers. we do have insights into where things are heading. we want to support you in this transition. now you may be wondering who i am going to single out as the bogyman. there must a guilty party here. no one has filled that war -- role. i think we should keep a close eye on your regulators. very interesting. the broadcasting industry has done a remarkably well -- it is quite good. i looked at the numbers. has it happened because of or in spite of the broadcasting regulation in the uk? the world is changing. television is no longer a domestic affair. online, in a broadcaster can

have a global reach. to play into this wider audience, when it comes to laws and regulations, overall, my amateur inspection of this, british television is subject to far more stringent regulations then your counterparts in the united states. this means less flexibility and scope for you cape companies seeking to compete on the global stage. even though europe is much off, it is irrelevant. your major competition through shared a language, your former colony is us. across the atlantic. i am not suggesting that we should mirror u.s. regulation. we have our own problems. it may say -- seem counter intuitive, when you have been through the scandal. here my argument. it is important to be heard.

no exaggeration to say that decisions made in the next year will determine the long-term health of your broadcasting and content industries for decades to come. these are critical times, because of all these changes. economic growth is a priority of the government. your regulators need to be cautious for making new laws in this state. risks stifling -- stifling the growth. i can give you some suggestions. the government should put innovation front and center a regulatory strategy. television is going global. television is going global. you should own it. you invented it, you should own it. there are parallels to the internet to compete on the world stage, your content needs the freedom and legal framework to

behave more like internet companies. i was surprised. the starting point for every new piece of legislation should not be how to regulate this but how to protect the space needed for innovation. how do we get the contras and he entrepreneur? there was her they harbored a review of copyright law. there were examples of how you can make small changes to create space for innovation. putin more flexibility in the copyright law -- putting more flexibility in the copyright law. it is estimated under one steady to add 8 billion more pounds to the u.k. economy. that could be helpful. the direct corollary lakis you d

to stop all of these things that the broadcasters are doing. nothing more stifling to innovation -- imagine if facebook had to endure the regulation you face in television. there would have to be separate face books for each region. there would be willing to enforce the diversity of all posts. you can forget about poking. [laughter] have i made my point? i can give you example after example. i have another example now that i think about it. advertising. it is around television advertising. would get the creativity in television for advertising.

it does not get jammed in by policymakers. it is the opposite. liggett tv ad training. in this tough climate, even more -- they should make it easier by removing market and distorted -- market distorted constraints. a similar principle applies to the use of data, both in advertising in content and distribution. you need a data protection roles that reflected the realities of the digital age. i discussed privacy earlier. it is important not to overreact and prevent any kind of sharing at all to those who wished to have a personalized service. i want this service. in many cases, euro rules do not

even allow it. europe needs very sensitive data protection laws to make sure that when people share their data, it is shared across national boundaries. when you opt in, and when you choose it. this would significantly enhance or change the outcome of innovation here in the country. the internet sector is at the forefront of the debate. if you follow my reasoning and look at the number of people watching television, the technology opportunity before us, combining these two. as you spread your wings on line, it will not be long before you are with us in the spread. on this particular topic, we have a loss of experience at google. the key is to be transparent about what the data is collected and why and give them the tools to control it themselves. they are the customer.

on a broader note, i went from micro -- let us talk about openness. it is very important that we keep it open. it is a prerequisite to innovation. the more attempts to curtail the internet's openness, the harder it is to become a success. it is not good for the echoes system. -- ecosystem. it makes all of us stronger. the adoption to new technology, all of the new content and innovation, all require openness. i am not suggesting a laissez- faire approach. there is constant and behavior that none of us want to encourage, whether copyright infringement or sexual abuse imagery. none of that is good.

when legislators try to figure out how to minimize the harm of online content, technology solutions rather than law should be their first thought. give us an opportunity, as we did with content id, to come up with a solution that is a fair balance on these issues that works well and to scale -- scale. whether filtering or blocking the whole thing, turning the off switch -- of that nasty internet. i will just turn that off. terrible mistake. i do not blame them for wanting to apply a simple approach. the problem is that things are far more complicated in practice. for every filter, there is a work around. for every blacklist, there is a process server. for every well-meaning attempt, -- policy to, the government,

people that think about policy, should work with the grain of the internet, rather against it. a huge user engagement that we have online to find solutions. innovators must find new ways -- working with the grain rather than against it. allowing the sharing of online data. sharing laws that allow innovation to flourish. these principles would really help the television industry succeed globally. thanks so much for spending so much time with me tonight. it is a great opportunity for me to speak to an audience that i have not had a chance to speak with before. if you told me 10 years ago that an engineer like me would deliver the highest industry lecture, i never would have believed it.

the computer -- industry is a remarkable journey. sometimes it intertwines where we least expect. sometimes there will be false starts. sometimes i hope there would be stunning shares of success. in this journey, the google seeks to be your partner. we do understand and are trying to listen. i would argue that we should focus on these vast opportunities and that british television is well-placed for the reasons i outlined quite convincingly. you did in event of this stuff. you are better than anybody else. you occupy a global stage. let us think big, think global, and think beyond the tv box to what we can do with this extraordinary medium that you

have invented. content is coming. you have a fans all over the world. thanks very much. i hope we see each other very soon. thanks so much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] --2011] >> eric schmidt, ladies and gentleman. >> coming up on c-span, maker sought -- microsoft founder bill gates talks about the work of the gates foundation. after that, justice elaine a cake and talks about her work and life on the supreme court. then an update on iraq and afghanistan by the commander of

the u.s. central command. the c-span series of interviews with presidential candidates continues tomorrow night with john huntsman. he will discuss his strategy for winning the republican nomination, the u.s. economy, and trade relations with china. why he decided to become president obama's ambassador to china and the impact of running for president on his family. road to the white house with jon huntsman, tomorrow night on c- span. microsoft founder bill gates recently promoted his foundation's health and the development efforts to members of the european parliament. the bill and melinda gates foundation has launched a living proof campaign, which presents success stories in the area of development and the need to change people's perception of foreign aid. he discussed strategies to

combat description -- corruption, and how to use global technology to advance development in foreign countries. from france, this is just over one hour. >> i am happy to introduce a bill gates. he and his wife have an open up a foundation to work with the united states in developing countries. he has a series of high-level offices in paris, berlin, and here. we thank you for that.

in 1994, the foundation has provided millions of dollars for developing countries, most of which have gone to health. this exchange of views is a for an opportunity for us to examine the developing role of private and public and the relationship between the two. this is taking place in a time where there are debates about the way in which we finance development aid. considering the importance of the subject, we invited members of the budget committee in and the special committee on political challenges. the european union 2013. we welcome many to this meeting. i am sure he would like to talk

us about living proof, which is an effort to have development aid to transform a millions of human lives. mr. gates, you have the floor. >> thanks very much. the fantastic. good afternoon. it is great to be here. i thought i would make some opening remarks. we will have most of our time together for the questions people have. i am on a tour called living proof. it is to spread the good news about how a particular part of a budget made a dramatic difference. it is really about success stories.

to thank the voters in the places i am in, for their generosity and to encourage them to continue and grow that generosity. the majority of all aid that goes to support countries comes from europe. the european union has encouraged the date set at the national level and devoted a substantial part of its budget to these development activities. likewise, my wife and i have committed all of the resources we have to our foundation to work in the same areas. i think our goals are the same. we want to lift these countries up and put them in a position where they will be self sustaining and in a situation where people are healthy, they have jobs, where the environment is affected, and where the investment in the

future in education is very strong. i first got into this about 15 years ago when i was first setting up the foundation. what i saw then was the health issue was really the one that made the biggest difference. at the very beginning, the foundation was mostly focused on reproductive health and issues allowing mothers to decide if they wanted to have a family size tool on a voluntary basis, that they could do that. once i got involved in that, if you improve the health of a family, contrary to what you may think, where you would increase population -- what happens is substantially the opposite. parents choose to have less

children. they are trying to make sure they have two to survive to be able to support them as adults. what we find out is improvements in health, with every issue we care about -- stability, the environment, food, or jobs, these investments are dramatic in their fact. with canada's health area, with their technology, the vaccine is often very inexpensive, particularly after it has been held for some time. one of the greatest achievements of mankind was done back in the 1970's, before i was involved in any of this. that was the elimination of small pox, which had been killing over 2 million people a year, and now kills no one,

because it is the only disease that has been completely eradicated. that was done with foreign aid and a vaccine that was very effective. the second diseases that we hope the world can 11 -- eliminate is polio. that is achieved with the generosity of a foreign aid, almost $1 billion a year. that is for the eradication campaign and the use of a vaccine. the good news is we have gone from over 300,000 children being paralyzed to only about 3000. we only have four countries left with the disease is often eliminated. with any sort of continued financing within the next three or four years, we will succeed in getting the number of cases down. that would be a very exciting thing. what is incredible is almost all of the things that killed

children are? in preventable. -- are vaccine preventable. some diseases, the vaccines exist, but they are giving only to rich children in the world, which is somewhat ironic, given that these diseases are far more prevalent in the poor countries. a group -- europe has been generous to this country on the government levels and other levels. some money coming from the union levels that have made a huge difference. they are giving new vaccines out to children and having incredible success. over 5 million lives have been saved by this work. one of the most important

statistics that i track is the number of children under 5 that die every year. barbara 20 million back in 1960, now it is over 8 million. my belief is if donors do the right things within the next 15 years, we can cut it in half to be less than 4 million. vaccines will be a major part of that. another area of help that europe plays a major role and the union has been very important in terms its donation is the global fund. it was created not only to help treat aids but also tuberculosis and malaria. it has been a very effective organization and has had an impact.

we have put money into agriculture to help poor farmers help their productivity. not only are some farmers faced with the problem of feeding themselves, where their children do not get enough nutrition, the weather today is often challenging for them. the weather in the future will be even more of a challenge for them. we can help them be more productive and solved their problems, and have enough money to send their kids to school and give them enough nutrition so they can develop fully. we also can deal with the challenge that the world needs more food. we see that very clearly once again with food prices continuing to go up. that is an issue in that only

for the world, but also the urban poor as well. there are a lot of investments that individual farmers and countries cannot make improvements in agricultural technique, using a variety of techniques that can help these farmers more than doubled their output. in africa, the level of a farm productivity is about one-third of what it is in the united states and europe. clearly that potential is there. that is a very important thing. as i said in the beginning, we have some goals in common. we are learning to be smarter about our aid spending. i am a big believer in measuring the outcome. in some cases, we do not get the outcome, we should shift to the resources. we should shift to what we work

on together. there are a lot of great things being achieved. we need to get the word out about these successes. we are focused on the needs of the poorest countries, and it does make a huge difference. a lot of it are the people that vote and funded these things that do not understand the incredibly positive things that the their generosity is allowing for. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. i will ask that people be brief in what they say. amax of two minutes. menino i am fairly strict.

i will be asking you to respect speaking time so that everybody can have an opportunity to take the floor. i will start with passing the back for four -- microphone to mr. mitchell. >> thanks for your presentation. i will keep it in the time limits. it is important to stress what has been achieved. we will not continue to support this driving -- it is important that we do that. where people are dying in africa from non-communicable diseases according to some statistics. what do you say about that? if it is a fact, are we concentrating on the wrong thing? [inaudible]

>> it is important to concentrate on the right thing. communicable diseases, what do people buy from at different places? if you are a child, there are two kinds of of vulnerability. 30 days to five years and up to 30 days. during 30 days is about having a skilled birth attendant, having the mother educated about keeping the baby warm in the starting to breast feed. a few antibiotics. that is about half of what occurs in the first 30 days. from 30 days to five years is almost all infectious diseases. malaria, acute respiratory infection. all of those are vaccine preventable.

between those two areas, that covers -- not communicable diseases kill people when they get into their 60's and 70's. cancer, they become all significant. people should want to live to get a non communicable disease. there are no epidemics in the sense that you cannot catch a not a communicable disease from other people. the pharmaceutical people have been working on heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. in terms of aids budgets, when you save a life in those countries, an entire life, that is 70 years of life, you are spending over $1 million in order to do that. in the poorest countries, if we cannot save a life for $10,000, we are miss spending the money.

aysha spend the money on putting out more vaccines and drugs. you are only doing the things that are an expensive. those are the things that allow people to live into their 60's and '70's. once the rich countries soft non-commendable diseases, then those solutions should be made available universally. groups like the u.s. and are effective and aid is effective when it is a very low-cost intervention. vaccines can cover almost all of that. >> we will take questions in groups of three. i think that would be easier. >> thanks. thanks for what you have been

doing the last 16 years. private philanthropy is a very important aspects. you mentioned diseases. hand washing is very effective. getting young children to have their hands clean and to stop the spread of viral diseases. i wonder if there are in a hand washing programs that you are undertaking as a preventive measure. the second is about clean water. it is a huge problem and water shortages are a problem. we need to think strategically about how we can address these problems in the near future. thank you. >> thanks very much.

i would like to congratulate you before the philanthropic engagement. another are important meetings. we count on you -- [unintelligible] make sure that the members -- we are trying to get the development funding to be maintained a for later. how do you view the corporation? it is very important to have this example. it is great for us to see this here.

and a private foundation. thanks very much. >> thanks very much. " what about unemployment amongst young people? that is a problem in africa. today, many young people have risen up partly because of the fact to say they are jobless. there are business people that

want to create new jobs. the problem is that they will not go into these countries unless there is stability available for them. i would like to hear from mr. gates. is it possible to develop the possibility in these developing countries? >> those are all good questions. in terms of hand washing, we have worked with some on that. we have made modest progress. we are not clear how substantial it can be. for viral diseases, there is a virus that will eliminate 40% of that. it is not so much the drinking water coming in being a mclean, but the lack of sanitation system.

what happens is that some point, when a kid is out playing on the ground, somehow they get contaminated. that spreads the disease. in the current design for sanitation, is a flush toilet system that is in terms of expense and water usage is not feasible in poor countries. the amount of innovation in this area is very low. it reminds me of the time that we gave a malaria vaccine and became the founder. we gave a 50 million for an innovative toilet the design. we became the largest funder. i do not know why it is not a popular area for people to get involved in. the good news is that designing something that will be low-cost, i think it is possible. water and sanitation is an important program. we need more partners involved

in that. i meant to bring up the 0.7%. it is a phenomenal commitment that 15 european countries have made it to get to that level. the very generous countries, norway, sweden, netherlands -- they are already above that. we see some that are working hard to get to that level, which is to be commended. the increase, it would be 28 billion euros, additional to what has been given today. given what we know about how to spend that money well, would make a huge difference. i have outlined in my living proof paper exactly what you can get for that additional money. it is not by 2015, but within 10

years, and you could achieve these mpg. queen need more philanthropists. we need companies. the number of the drug companies have been great. we have a rating we do with the drug companies every year. it this access to medicine index. the companies that do well call us up and say we want to do better. those that do poorly say they want to do better. it is a very good dialogue that we want to see with banks, mobile phone companies, municipals as well. in terms of employment, if you have an open economy into

educate your labor force, there is a wage rate at which they will be employed. what happens is these countries do not open their economy up. egypt is a great example where the quality of the education system is not a very high. look at what would happen in turkey over 15 years and egypt. it is quite different where turkey did the right thing. egypt, in terms of creating the economy, did not. it is not aids-related. -- 8-related. -- aid-related. there are policy things related to this. in africa, over a third of the children, by the time they are age 5, they have some disease

episode, either malaria or malnutrition. their brain will never fully develop. some of the health issues can hold you back. that is part of the reason why things have been so tough in africa. >> thanks. the next speaker are these. >> thanks very much. welcome, mr. gates. today you are visiting our community, because you are a major private donor. you also could have come for another couple of a very important reasons. the first is you descend meritocracy. when it comes to inheritance is common you prefer to socialize the inheritance that you have accumulated and to lead it --

rather than to leave it to your children as a form of privilege. there is the revolution in communications technology. there is a new one that has done more to develop the technological revolution. i would like to know whether you have concentrated all of your efforts on health, or at some point, you are trying to see if there is an education. and if you have any communication or cooperation with a columbia researcher, who is trying to develop a vaccine that could combat hundreds of diseases. >> good afternoon, mr. gates. i am happy to have you here as well as the others. you mentioned egypt and turkey.

the difference with these countries is that egypt was a dictatorship and turkey was not. we should make sure to develop the country in a more equal way. the european union should promote and enhance the role of law and democracy. in our country, we have a huge political pressure against involvement policies. -- there is a huge campaign against government policy. i am glad he started a campaign, but what do you say to those people that advocate to diminish aid by half because it does not work? if it does not work, i say it is because of political reasons, foreign policy reasons that we did not allow it to work. it should, it kept things in place. we closed our eyes to

corruption, etcetera. i would really like you to raise this argument in favor of a development with all of the conditions that we have to put on. you give a good example. we need a strong voices. >> thank you. i would like to ask you two questions. the first is concerning the dollar in different developing countries. donors in -- and dono different developing countries. -- what are the driving forces

with lives in technology? technology in -- [unintelligible] [inaudible] >> in terms of a meritocracy, it is interesting, some countries should try sending me the children and grandchildren of their 1900 olympic team to the olympics and see how they do, see if they -- the inherited approach is to compete with the american -- america's attic approach. i think the results would be quite clear. i think giving children a large wealth is not a favor even to the recipients. although they may not feel that way immediately.

in terms of the technology and education, i am very optimistic about that. it is the one part of our foundation that right now is focused on the united states, which is piloting the use of technology and education. if we are successful, which we are not yet, i would hope it have a worldwide benefit. if you want to get a glimpse of the future, there is a website that i would encourage you to look at with great lecturer's -- lectures and chris is being put up so a student can take them directly. a teacher or parent can watch what they are doing and help them along. i think there is a lot of promise there. it is not yet known and how we mix classroom learning and

technologically enabled out of classroom learning to get the right motivation for all of the students. there is a lot of investment and it has a lot of promise. in terms of the history of aid, i completely agree with what you have said. a lot of the eight historically was not given expecting it to improve human lives. unfortunately, now, where we are mostly justify our aid, vaccines save lives and allow kids to grow up -- and we are getting compared to cold war spy policies that were about buying french ship. even today, a lot of aid -- when he made the grant, you do not say, this grant will do this, raise the number of the vaccines. will raise the income of the farmer. a lot of this very traditional

type of it by giving any given through governments that do not, are not using it in the right way. a substantial portion, including a loss of the high impact count and agricultural aid is different. we have to improve, have clear goals, and communicate what has gone well. most of these people attack aids and attack in a blanket way. we need people serious about which 80 you are criticizing. you cannot criticize vaccines. you cannot criticize -- you can criticize budgetary support aid. i agree with that. in terms of coordination of donors, the complexity of the aid system is higher than you

would like. that is why things like global fund stand out, because they managed to use everything about those diseases and bring in real experts in a move very quickly. everyone realizes, we will work with them. there are a lot of different actors. if you go into a poor country and look at in number of people there, we can fine-tune that. i do not think it is realistic that we get a perfect symbol system. someone may find a valuable approach. people can learn from them. as far as technology goes, if you invent a new seed, and use the internet and the new technology, it is technology to important people.

if you invent a malaria vaccine, that is technology helping poor people. in terms of benefits, the idea that people will have a cell phones, overtime should mean that checking about vaccines and getting health advice and agriculture and vice, and organizing women's groups and making financial transactions at minimal cost, digital technologies will play a role there. we have to be very cautious, because the cost, complexity, coverage, there has been a lot in that area. we fund a lot, but i would not say there has been a breakthrough yet. over the next five years, we will see some breakthrough. including digital money, that will allow these poor countries with terrible taxation systems, to allow them to have a very

effective taxation system. when >> we ask people to be particularly brief. following questions. you are at the biggest private donor in the world, which gives you a certain amount of prestige. what would your message be to institutional donors? they could -- they have committed themselves are ready to have a 0.7% of this going

into development policy. the european union -- as part of the contentious for development in 2005. trying to do it in hopes -- the country that you come from is coming up with 2.2%. it is not bound -- isabel by a promise made in the 1970's? i would like to hear your views on that. a message to public donors. i cannot think your actions can be explained by application of public donors toward their promises and commitment. i do think the public is doing less, because you are doing more.

conditionality, with the european union, which has been linked to values. in other type of conditionality from china and is putting in infrastructure, which export duties, for and minerals. what do you prefer and what do you think you are about? i would like to conclude about this. [unintelligible] what would you espouse? >> you have made a tremendous work for helping disadvantaged people. people are efficient. they can change the lives of many people. your example of private donor is -- [unintelligible]

in the european union, in terms of changing the fiscal philosophy, or other things, to motivate the private donors, the country would work on different projects, education, charity we [unintelligible] tick in order that this project would not -- in order that this project would not be financed by a certain budget, but would also extend from private funds. thank you very much. >> thanks for coming here today and that the work your foundation does. when thinking about the budgets, it is the transparency issue and the evidence of how it is changing lives on the ground, which is living proof that they are collecting to show you the aid and the investment they have made.

what from your experience can we do to improve the transparency when it comes to aid and how to you best communicate the message? and the importance of businessman and how we can give eight while encouraging trade at the same time and how it may help it better? >> thank you for being here with us and thank you for your fantastic work. i would like to stick one problem. in poor countries, the lack of health professionals and terms of medical professionals and nurses, poor countries and not a train enough of these professionals. and tug of this, -- and on top

of this, they can lose is professionals because they can be better paid and have freedom of movement. you have an idea of how to repair this state of professionals? what advice to you have for the policy makers in europe where we are also tracking some of these professionals from africa? thank you very much. >> a key point that came up in multiple questions was the relative size of philanthropy to government aid could if you take international aid, private philanthropy, even with our foundation and others, is less than 2% of what is given to poor

countries. i think we can grow it and i think it has a special role in terms of funding research, trying out new things. i think philanthropy contributes more than its proportional share. but in terms of the big things, really helping poor countries with health and agriculture, it is government foreign aid. unfortunately, even though we want to maximize philanthropy, it will not offset anything done from the rich governments. it is absolutely fair to say that the united states is not exemplary in the scale of its foreign aid. there are some things it has done very well. it is substantially the largest aid donor, the largest malaria donor. it does find a lot of scientific

work into these diseases more than other governments and there's lots of room for others to plan to that. but it is about a third of what it should spend. i certainly do everything i can to push for that to increase. there was a commitment to double it in the campaign. but it is clear today that not only will it not get double, but we're fighting for it not to be cut and fighting for it very hard telling these stories. i wish i had better news for you on that front. but we will keep trying. in terms of encouraging philanthropy, nobody knows what magic mix of things let's plan to feed get dealt in the united states. there is something like an estate tax and foundations having a minimum level. but those things would not

explain it. this it is an expectation that buildup or you would expect the will of the to do it. i expect it will catch on in many countries. i have carried on discussions with the new people who are wealthy in both china and india in the last six months. i think there are some real momentum. it is not that there are not philanthropists. it's just not as much as you like them to have. in terms of transparency, yes, it is very hard to study these aid budgets. and understand where they go and what their goal was. in the age of the internet, where it is country budgets or something else, we need to help them understand these things. i find it difficult to understand these things. it means that it is very

complicated how it is presented and laid out. in terms of health care workers, the fact that health care workers move from a poor country and go to a rich country for a better job, the remittances that come back from those health care workers on average is double the salary they were receiving in the poor country. what we need to do is increase the amount -- we need to do two things. we need to increase the amount of training in the poor countries. if more of them go to rich countries, that is ok. we need to up that capacity, which we do invest in. we need to make sure that the health interventions that we do in these poor countries, if they can be done with less trained personnel, then that is better. vaccination's does not require a doctor. the delivery of a child, you do want to have a doctor around. you do what a sterile location

where, if you had to, you could do a see section. you can avoid it. you need somebody trained. if you want less maternal deaths, you do need more doctors and more facilities. as you say, it is very difficult. but we will have to invest in more training. >> we still have 10 people wanting the floor. i will give one minute each to two groups of five. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. gates. i want to ask you about the problem that still exists here in europe. this is the poverty amongst the

room a population. can you tell us more about your experience with this. do you believe that business is a possible partner in creating jobs for these people instead of spending money for social problems? thank you. >> thank you. mr. gates, we are coming up towards the next international food crisis. you have said that there are a lot of small farmers in developing countries who cannot produce enough food. 60% to 80% in the sahara.

for mayor, it is not a question of the amount of budget for me, it is not a question of the amount -- for me, it is not a question of the amount of investment, but the form. do you not think it is more effective in investing and the environment that would bring about more effective change? you agree with financial tax that would go into combating famine and poverty? favor ofould not be in favorit it, can you say why? >> thank you. >> you were referring to the earth policy and democratic change.

this is a big change in terms of development. what about the migratory flows from the more poor countries to the richer countries? can you comment on that? >> thank you very much in all your turn to do. in your opening remarks, you referred to the potentially largest disaster for the world, climate change. it could potentially overwhelm all the work you're trying to do. does your foundation and work include two fill the kind of controversy or do you try to stay out of it? >> thank you. thank you very much for coming and all your work. last year, there was some confusion about your taste mintz -- about your statements

on vaccination. this health care improved in children for parents with your children? vaccination can be seen as both a life-saving measure and a tool to reduce the increase of population. we have also seen a vaccination program by unesco that has been currently used to sterilize women. knowing that one of your main goals is also to reduce population, i would also like to ask you if you could assure that the vaccination supported by your organization would not have any negative aspects on the sterilization of women?

>> our foundation is not working specifically on the issue of the roma population. almost all of our work is in the forest -- the poorest countries. one of our programs is putting computers and libraries in middling countries, like romania and latvia, a number of countries where we are doing those library programs. but that is not aimed at any particular group. in terms of the food crisis, we invest in any technique that avoids starvation. most of our funding is actually what we call conventional breeding. but there are some traits of crops, the ability to deal with the drought, for example, techniques in the united states have shown pretty

substantial gains. in those cases where we funded asked if they should take for free without royalties, take that and look into it, we said yes if it can prevent starvation. you should. we also funded regulatory groups in africa that, five years from now when those crops mayor may not be available to examine, -- may or may not be able to examine, may have extraordinary capacity. we may find techniques to feed the world. higher productivity is very pro- environment in the sense that, if you do not have the productivity, you put land into use that you should not put in. that is a terrible thing locally and in terms of environment change. in terms of migration, yes, migration is a great thing. it allows very energetic and

talented people to come into rich countries and learn things. many of those people go back. i wish there was more. the main limiting factor is the tolerance of the people in rich countries. they seem to have a limit on this, including in the united states. it is too bad because that kind of circulation is very helpful, particularly if you have countries whose populations are not only not growing, but actually are going down. in terms of climate, i am personally very involved with climate issues. there are in number of speeches i have given about these topics. when i think of climate, there are two things we need to do. we need to be met less co2. that has to do -- we have to less co2. that is something that by foundation is not involved in.

i do invest in biofuel companies and nuclear companies. i ended in all sorts of innovations. the role of the foundation is much more in the adaptation. i wish there were more people investing in crops that sequestered more co2. i wish there were more people pushing for no-show farming techniques. i wish there were more crops that could withstand extreme whetheweather. in terms of population issues, we do work with reproductive supplies. in plants and injectable that women can use on a voluntary basis. my wife is catholic. we are not involved in abortion. we are not involved in

sterilization. we believe that women should be healthy and be able to have as many children as they want to. some of their anti-aids programs, for example, our sex worker per gram in india, it does promote the use of condoms so the woman will protect yourself and not die of aids. >> thank you very much. >> mr. gates, you come here to talk to us in your capacity as a philanthropist. in hearing your questions, you know don't realize that we are talking to you or listening to you in terms of policies.

considering the crisis we have today, i have a very direct question to put to you. as an entrepreneur, a very successful entrepreneur, and given that you have said that you are always in touch with your accountant and so on, perhaps you can have an opportunity to think about how we can get out of this economic crisis and what the solution might be. 2011 is the year for voluntary action. perhaps we can link that will enter action to philanthropy. >> next, quickly as you can, please. >> thank you very much, madam chairman. mr. gates and the european parliament, why question is very simple and very short perio. you spend a lot of money for the nation and everybody knows that

a very big amount of money should have a very strict control. how can we sure that the control of the money that goes to africa goes to the right people? >> thank you very much, madam chairman. welcome to you, mr. gates, to the european parliament. mr. gates, alongside the humanitarian aid that you offer and given the success you have talked about today, there are none the less a number of cases where we have seen a radical change in people's lives because of violent action. we have seen this in indonesia and haiti and the japanese disaster we have seen recently.

the european union offers the prospect of humanitarian aid. does your foundation also offer aid to these foundations? >> mr. gates, you're very welcome. when the irony that we perhaps see in front of us of you -- of the lilt nations who are willing to except the vaccination of children where measles are on the rise and you're taking your campaign vaccinations across the third world, my question is simple. we think what you're doing is wonderful. does everybody thinks that -- does everybody think that what you're doing is wonderful in the receiving countries? if not, how you deal with them? >> in terms of the euro crisis,

i wish i had some great advice. it is a very tricky problem in terms of instilling confidence while knowing that some bills are so large that you do not want to be responsible for them. i do not have the answer. in terms of grants, you always know that some of your money will be misused. what you want to do is make sure that that is less than 5%. and you want to have a very quick detection system so you can see that, if i send money for vaccines, then i conservancy can see if the kids get them or not. if they do not, and then something is wrong. such as the aids drugs, if somebody does not get them, then the money is cut off.

you do not want the measure meant to be so expensive that it hurts their lot. i think there are some fairly innovative ways that are quick and low-cost measurements in getting what we want. the world bank has gotten very good on these issues. probably because they have some new problems. they have learned the lessons of how you find infrastructure of the hard way. and they have now gotten quite good at. they are very good at tracking. they were good at catching some of the problems that they had and i was very impressed. although, it is her thick -- although, it is terrific, any

fraud. we like to give before the disaster takes place so that you have people trained and you have the food packs ready, the doctors ready, the transport critic, the tracking system is ready. we give before. there are six organizations that are really good at this stuff. then we also give some during because they need to buy some supplies. even in the japan case, we gave, even though in some cases it is more of a statement of solidarity because they do not have some huge money shortage. but we chose to give because of our feelings about what a tragic situation it was. in terms of anti-vaccine people, these people exist everywhere in the world. that is a big challenge. they exist in the united states

where people say, no, my children should not have vaccines. and then people start getting rubella and measles and hundreds of kids have died because of the anti-vaccine movement. and then there was an article that attempted to show the effect of optimism from a vaccine preservative. that article was a complete fraud. only in the last year was that article withdrawn because it was doctored evidence that cast a shadow over vaccines. we do need to be careful with vaccines and only licensed vaccines that work very well because we're giving them to help the kids. we have to track that very well to maintain the reputation of the vaccination system. there is a problem with existing -- resisting new vaccines in india. they're very reluctant to take on new vaccines. we have made some progress.

they are ruling out some new vaccines. i was there two weeks ago and i feel good about that. it is not this movement combined in any single country. >> thank you very much. i will conclude now. but i will also put my name on the questions, but they have barred been asked. i think all too often we see different forms of structures that are not being used or finished. we saw that in haiti. i was there eight days ago. there were projects that were funded by the un and the eu and they have not been exploited. that is a shame. i think this is absolutely indispensable. you said earlier on that, yes, water is good, but waste management is very important, too.

we do not have more time. on behalf of all of my colleagues, i would like to thank you for this very useful and very important exchange of views. i would above all like to thank you for the work that you do. this is a great honor to have you here. thank you, mr. gates. [applause] >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> president obama visited the headquarters of the federal emergency management association today. the president has declared an emergency in seven states in the

path of the storm. here's a look at some of his remarks from that visit. >> this is where we get the request for the governors. this is really where we count of resources. on behalf of the entire federal family, we according to get down to the governor's what they need. >> you guys are doing a great job, obviously, in monitoring the situation. i will tell you that, when i was on the telephone with the governors and the mayors yesterday and i asked them if there's anything they could think of that our team, mainly you, could be doing to help them get prepared. there was quiet on the phone. that was a good sign. [laughter] that meant that you guys were going above and beyond the call of duty to make sure you were

asking state and local folks what they needed and making sure that you perform those resources in a timely way. this will obviously still be a touch and go situation for many. but we really appreciate you. especially since you will probably not get any sleep for the next 72 hours or so. [laughter] keep up. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] [cheers]

>> a state of emergency has been declared for the state of vermont. we're ready to report 24-hour operations that will begin tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. and run 24 hours, as long as we as long as we need to. our elective utilities are bringing extra crews from the west end of canada to help them. our two largest utilities have doubled their number of crews using these present contractors from the u.s. and canada. the weather service says that every river in the state will probably flood over the next two days. we are preparing for that.

ha and the national guard is they're ready to support it. >> any additional items that you need or any additional support you need from fema that you are still waiting on? >> there is not. in fact, the field office here in the state from a previous declarations that you give us and everything we have asked for and needed has been right there. it has been a great relationship. >> terrific. >before we leave the regional support, the folks from a maryland had asked about the declaration. that has been approved. when gov. o'malley shows up here, you will be able to tell him that that is done.

>> thank you for your support. >> as you heard, north carolina is getting to respond. virginia is getting heavy rain. others are still in the preparation phase. we are following the storm of the i-95 corridor. here at fema, we have been in contact with the governors. we have been doing this since early in the week. we are not starting new. you. not just startinmeeting ad we have an ongoing relationship. >> each conversation i have had with state and local officials, they confirm that the relationship with fema has been outstanding.

the interagency cooperation with on the federal level has been outstanding. they recognize that this will be tough getting through this. but there are very appreciative of the outstanding work all of you have done in preparation. i have not yet heard from the of anyone suggesting that they have not received what they needed. that is a good testament of your work. because of the strong relationships, they do not seem to be hesitant about asking for stuff and we are turning it around pretty quick. i appreciate it. it will be a long 72 hours. obviously, a lot of families will be affected. the biggest concern right now --

that will be an enormous strain on the states. [unintelligible] we will really have to stay on top of the recovery efforts. do you have anything you would like to add? >> no, mr. president. i think you have nailed it. we are at the end of the beginning and now we go into phase two. >> on behalf of the team, i appreciate that you came over a lot of time, there are unseen faces. that goes a long way. we have a long way to go and they know it. >> thank you. good job.

>> on sunday, fema will give an update on hurricane irene and the federal response to the storm. homeland security secretary janet napolitano will brief along with the director of the national hurricane center. that is live at 11:30 a.m. eastern on sunday here on c- span. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," been a wilson, the former deputy director to the secretary-general has the latest on libya and nato's role on the area. michelle bernard, ceo of the bernard center for women on public policy, former maryland congressman kweisi mfume and leonard stein horn talk about the future of race relations in the u.s..

"washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c- span. >> paul jennings, obscure people with little known stories. american university professor clarence hussain reveals who they were as well as many other black men who left their imprint forever on the white house. >> i began to discover fascinating individuals whose mark on the presidency's and whose marks on the white house were virtually unknown. except for a few scattered stories here and there. everybody kind of knew that george washington and thomas jefferson had slaves. but most people probably do not know that eight out of the first 12 presidents had slaves.

>> now supreme court justice elena kagan talks about life on the supreme court justice and

interpreting the law. from the aspen institute, this is just over an hour. [applause] >> good evening, ladies and gentleman. [applause] thank you all for braving rain and welcome to listeners on aspen public radio. and most of all, they welcome to you, just as kagan -- just as kagan -- justice kagan. >> thank you. it is my first, but it will not be my last. [applause] >> it may be pouring down, but when i left, washington, d.c.,

it was at record heat. [laughter] it is great to be here and it is great to be here in this terrific community can i have been taking advantage of all of the music and all of the beauty. it is a wonderful place pierre -- a wonderful place. >> comparing notes on hikes. many of you will see her on the shelves over the next few days. we will take your offer seriously to come back as often as possible. in 1998, a profile of the young in a kagan -- young elena kagan after being promoted to the chief of domestic policy in the clinton white house, she was discussed as the white house's all purpose brain. [laughter] an adviser to the president on all things legal and constitutional, she developed a reputation that just grew over the years of being able to bring together people of diverse ideological positions with enormous skill.

in the white house, for example, she was the one who convinced john mccain and the republicans to allow the fda to have regulatory authority over tobacco, which was not a mean feat. after her experience in the white house, she returned to her roots in the law. she had been an editor of "the harvard law review," a assistant to thurgood marshall. she became the first woman dean of harvard law school. [applause] interestingly, there again, she became highly regarded for her ability to bring conservatives and liberals together in a very fractured faculty. she was appointed the solicitor general of the united states by

president obama in january 2009. i think i am correct say that you were also the first woman ever in the opposition. [applause] and then, of course, she was nominated to be an associate justice of the supreme court by the president and was sworn in just about a year ago this week. she is now -- she has not completed her first term. when she began, there was a lot of discussion about how there would be havoc because of all the opinions you have to recuse yourself from, having been solicitor general. perhaps a third of the cases this term. but there was not that much difficulty as a turned out. >> as it turns out, i was not indispensable to and how the court managed without me perfectly fine. i was recused from about a third of the cases, about 30.28 of them -- about 30. 20 of them, it was up to the judges to decide.

on two, they split 4-4. the only thing that made me think was that i appear to be expendable. next year, i will now be recused in so many. >> we will talk about the term in a minute. even though it was her first term and even though there were recusals in a third of the term, i think it is fair to say that, after this term, she has received extraordinary high claim for her opinions in this first term and her influence. indeed, linda greenhouse, who is probably the dean of supreme court reporters and a professor actually report that justice kagan was the biggest winner, which is really remarkable for someone who is just in her first term.

let's start with questions about the expectations you had about the position given the kinds of experiences you had before. you are the only member of the cour you are the only member of the court who has no prior experience of being a judge. what did that mean for you? were there things you had to learn that your brethren did not? >> i think that there were. i separate out two things. i think all justices, when they start, they find some things difficult. start, they find some things difficult. it does not matter if you have been a judge or not. my good friend and colleague, justice sotomayor, saithis she had been a judge for an empty number of years. but the expense of the supreme court was different because all the cases were so mu harder. and you do not have any kind of

backstops. the decision you make is a final decision. that increases the sense of responsibility and the presse. even when you come from a circuit court, there are real differences in the experience of being a justice that my number -- that a number of my colleagues have talked about. but because i hanever been a judge before, there were some things i had to figure out that my other colleagues have already figured out. that was certainly true of what i call the mechanics of the job. my colleagues had been judges before. they knew things like when it was most valuable to them to read the brief. do you read them three weeks ahead of the argument or one week ahead of the argument? or the prior day?

and people have very different styles in this respect. they have figured out what to do. the question of how you deal with your clerks, what do you last year clerks to do? what functions do they perform? exactly how do you write opinions? do you read the first draft? or do you ask the courts to right the first draft? if you ask the court to write the first draft, what do you do with it exactly? -- if you ask the clerk to right the first draft, what you do with it exactly? [laughter] their experience clerking for me is different from any clerks i will have in the future. it was in me ways exciting as i tried to figure it out and in other ways not so much. in terms of the mechanics of the job, it was a little bit of a trial and error and trying to

figure out what works for me, how i learned best, who wanted to with -- who wanted to talk with when, when to read, all of the stock. i was definitely trying things and seeing whaworked for me. i think i will continue to do that. >> what about the fact that you had spent most of your career as a scholar in the academy? did that affect your experience in ways that perhaps surprised you? >> i was thinking about this recently. it occurred to me at one. that i it approach writing opinions in the way -- it occurred to me that the way in which i approach writing opinions is with of the teaching part of legal academia. i think what makes a good law

school teachers not how much you know. everybody knows a lot if you are a professor at a law school. but trying to figure out how to communicate complicated ideas to people who ow aot less than you do about a given subject. not only how to communicate them so that they understand it at the moment, but also how to communicate them so that the points kind of stick with them, trying to figure out a vivid ways of explaining things that stick with people and make them look at a subject in a particular way. i realized one day while i was sitting, writing an opinion, that i was going through the same kind process, really trying to figure out how would i teach the class and if i could figure that out, to make people really get something, then i could really figure out how to convey the idea is in an opinion to make the reader's get that

sense. >> what about your experience as solicitor general? you argued six cases before the supreme court. how did that help you in your first term? >> for one thing, it gave me a lot more sympathy with the people on the side of the podium. [laughter] i share that with a few of my colleagues did a few of them have argued before the court. the chief justice may have been the best oral advocate in the history of the supreme court. he has had a great deal of experience. justice alito has. justice ginsburg has. think it does give you a nse of what they are up against. it is a lot easier to ask the questions than it is to answer them. i am reminded here of the thing that a lot of law professors say to their glasses. it is just as hard to write the exam as it is to take it. [laughter]

truly, that is no. [laughter] that is the same thing here. being solicitor general, i think, give me this great perspective on the court in some ways. this job that is most like being a supreme court justice is being solicitor general could u were not decide in the cases, but you are focused all the time on the supreme court. your job is trying to figure out how to persuade nine supreme court jusces to take a particulaposition. now my job this figuring out how to persuade eight supreme court justices. [lghter] the solicitor general, for those of you -- inow a lot of you're not lawyers -- but the solicitor general is the lawyer who represents the united states in the supreme court and supervises appellate litigation generally.

the solicitor general actually participates in about three- quarters of the cases that the supreme court decides each year. so the supreme court decides 80 cases and the solicitor general is participating in 60 of them. sometimes as a party and sometimes as a friend-of-the- court, somebody who is not a party to the case, but has interests in how the court rus on the case and participates in the court's decision making. when the solicitor general participates this way, it is almost always given argument time. it is treated for most as if it were a party. and about three-quarters of the cases during the time that i was solicitor general, i was there and i was watching the lawyers who work for may argue to the court. sometimes i argued to the court myself, about once a month. and watching the justices,

trying to figure out what they were concerned about and what their questions were all about and what it showed about their various interests. so you learn a tremendous amount about t court by doing this job, which is just to focus on the court and tried to convince the court to do this. >> let's bring you back to your very first supreme court argument. if i am not wrong, it was a case called citizens united. >> the big case. [laughter] tell us what it was like to argue that case. then i will ask you to tell us what it was like to hear the decision. >> obviously, it was a big case. it was my first supreme court argument. it was my first appellate court argument of any kind. i had argued in district courts as a young lyer, but i had

never made an appellate court argument. so that was a little bit nervous making. it was this big case. the case had been argued. but forget what the ar's work, but the prior term, it was argued by a wonderful lawyer in the solicitor general's office. it was the day after i was confirmed by the senate. i went to my job and my first day and the first thing i heard was the wonderful lawyer in my office arguing citizens united. he would be the first person to tell you that that argument did not go well. everyone thought we would lose this case. but then the weeks that by and the court -- the weeks went by and the court did not make a decision could then issued an order that it was to be reheard the next year. it is something that the court very rarely does. accompanying this order with a

set ofuestions that the lawyers were supposed to focus on the next year could basically, what the court said was that we want everybody to argue that the court should overrule two prior supreme court decisions. when they say that they want to review this case and you want to tell us whether you think we should overrule two prior supreme court decisions, it does not take a great supreme court expert the same the court is pretty much of their. -- expert to say they are pretty much there. [laughter] as the solicitor general, i was

going to take over this case. it was an important case because any time the solicitor general's office decides to defend the constitutionality of legislation, it is important. this was very important legislation. it was this campaign finance law that had been in the making for many years it was extremely important piece of congressional legislation. my job was to defend it. the only thing that made it in little less nervous-making was that everybody i talked to said, you know, you will lose. [laughter] it does not matter what you do up there. just have a good time. but i prepared. i work hard. i prepared heard that summer. i went up -- i prepared hard that summer. i went up and argued one of four lawyers. i was nervous. but when i got up to the podium, the words started coming out of my mouth and i thought, i can do this, i guess. actually, it was a very thrilling and exciting experience. but it was also clear to me when i sat down again that all those people were right. i was going to lose. [laughter] the was no fifth vote out

there. >> so there was no surprise. >> i was not all that surprised. >> let's talk about a different kind of surprise. given all of your experience before, studying the court, arguing before the court, and now being one of the nine justices, what was your biggest surprise being a member of the court compared to what you expected the institution to be like? >> i am not sure what was the surprise surprise. i suppose just how wm everybody is, how collegial the institution is. i think that this comes as a surprise to ma people when i talk about my experiences on the court, and to me as well. you read the court's decisions and, often, there are some pretty sharp given takes. -- give and takes.

people accusing judges of a wide variety of conduct. [laughter] and you think, my god, they hate each other. if they did not hate each other before their that opinion, there will hit each other after. and the trh is completely not so. it is an incredibly collegial and warm institution with good friendships throughout the court and across whenever people think of as ideological divides. that was the nicest surprise or the nicest feature of joining the court, feeling that, feeling what a warm welcome people gave me but also just how warmly people feel toward each other and how well and respectfully the members of the institution operate together.

>> why do you think that is? it is really remarkable when you consider the kind of partisanship and lack of collegiality there is across the street. [laughter] one would hope that there would be some way to follow this. i wonder if one of the reasons actually is that everything you'd do is in writing and it is all recent. there it -- even if the language as strong, there's a degree of mutual disrespect -- mutual respect across the divide our political branches are just sound bis d things are not reasoned and argued. there are just conclusions. why do you think it is like that? i was a law clerk to there. i remember how collegial it was. it was a shock then could it still is that way despite the appearance of ideological divides. >> wright.

>> it is wderful. too bad it is not contagious. [laughter] >> your theory is an interesting one. i had not thght about it is interesting in part because sometimes the writing makes y think how could they really like each other after that. but you're exactlyight. it is not for the most part sound bites. it is reasoned argumentation. i think some part of it may just blocked. -- just be luck. although, when you court it was collegial -- there have been times in the supreme court's history when it has not been so. i read a great book about the supreme court in the 1940's and 1950's recently. it is a fabulous book. it really makes you feel tt you're lucky having this collegial court. the court in those days, he focuses in particular on four

justices. they're all appointed by fdr and when they were appointed, they were thought to be natural allies. and they hated each other in the relationship with pathological. >> srpions in above. -- scorpions in a bottle. >> partly, it could be just lock and contingency. -- just luck and contingency. i felt we will be dealing with each other for a long time. [laughter] the minute after the senate confirmed me, the first phone call that came into me was from the chief justice. i took the phone call and he said, i wanted to be the first to congratulate you and tell you how excited i am to serve with you. he said, you know, we will be serving together for 25 years. [laughter] and i said, only 25? [laughter]

it's true. i think that makes people -- i do not want to say that it is an incentive to like each other. you can live in an institution happily or you can live in an institution sadly. you can live with people respectfully or you can live with people without that. if you are going to be someplace for a long time, boy, it makes you value collegiality. >> i think it is fair to say that the supreme court is by far the most respected institution in government today. it is certainly true today. yet it is also the least understood. >> i hope that is not related. [laughter] >> i hope not, to. -- too. >> if they knew more about us, they may dislike the smart. [laughter]

>> they would know more about you if it would allow cameras in the courtroom as we have here. would that be a good idea? >> with the light glaring in my eye rit now, clearly, no. i have said before that i think it would be a good idea. in this, i differ from some of my colleagues. in this last year, i have come better to understand the opposite position. i guess the reason that i thought -- i came to this view when i was solicitor general. i was sitting there watching case after case after case. this is an unbelievable court to watch actually. this was the court before i got onto it. everybody was so prepared, so smart, so obviously deeply concerned about getting to the right answer. i thout if everybody could see this, it would make people feel so good about this branch of government and how it was

operating to and i thought it was such a shame, actually, that only 200 pele a day can get to see it and then a bunch of other people can read about it. reading about it is not the same experience. it is actually seeing it. it is an incredible court the court that i watched appeared the level of preparation and encasedness and intelligence and-- and engagedness and intelligence and real concern. i thought it would be a good thing. some of my colleagues disagree. the reason they disagree is because they are worried the that would change. they worry that, if yo