host: host: in abilene, texas, joe on the republican line. caller: i'd like to say if i were a republican i would be happy to vote for rick perry. v. he is a -- is very good with money. the state invests wide sweep it wisely. i'm not a republican. i have big political issues with the republican party. since i am a demrat, and we are talking about the economy and job creation, i will tell you that the economy has been run by closed doors. basically, our economic decisions have been made behind closed doors.

all of this information is classified, probably. it is not given to our democratic president, who we elected democratically, president obama. i do not think he has never really had a chance, and had all of the real facts of our economy, and is not capable of making the decision because he does not have all of the facts. guest: the president has some very smart, and very bright advisers that he works with, and work for him. you know, i think the information that he wants to get, he can get his hands on. i do sense from a caller that he is right - there is a lot that happens in washington that impacts the economy, and impact business, that we just -- the average small business owner,

the average american, does not know about. if you look at the regulatory agencies alone, but they said, there are 420,000 regulations go into the business -- to the system. -- through the system. most small-business owners did not know how the process works, if they can have input, and before they note, there are required to fill out paperwork, or comply with some rule that impacts their business. so, the size and ope of government is such that there is a lot that is happening that we do not know about, and certainly transparency is a huge issue and there has to be more down to give individuals access to the system, and from a small business perspective, we are fighting to get more input into these regulations we want more of the agencies to have to be able toonvene round tables, before they finalize a

row, they had to listen to small-business owners. they will listen to how it would impact them, and either they decide not to the regulation, or they move forward with the regulation that perhaps might have alternatives for small businesses, or perhaps they are exempted from that regulation. it is interesting that the caller did bring up rick perry. he just entered the race, and, clearly, texas has been very successful in terms of its policies, in terms of tax policy, in terms of legal reform, and some of the other pro-business reform the state has done to attract business and investment, and also a huge number of people into that state. the state is growing phenomenally. we have a small business survival index that ranks the states. ople can go to our web site to

see how states rank. texas ranks three on our index. they're very competitive. they do quite well. i think rick perry will be one of the candidates that have crossover appeal to independents and democrats. i mean, we will see, and he is not, with a big proposal like tt romney or jon huntsman,ut i think it will get que interesting after tonight. host: is anyone emerging as a front-runner among small- business owners for the gop nomination? guest: i did not think so. we have not see if that is the case, but from what i hear there are some pepper for one or the other, some that hope there are other contenders to get into the race, looking for that elusive candidate, but now i think we are beginning to see more specifics. we are beginning to see governor

mitt romney's plan. jon huntsman put out a plan. the candidates are beginning to articulate more specifically how they stand on the issues. peaps,fter tonight's debate, and perhaps if there are additional plans that are released, and if the candidates have the opportunity to articulate specifics in their debate tonight and moving forward, there will be. ght now, there is no front- runner. i would say that. host: arnold, another small business owner in memphis, tennessee. guest: good morning. morning. good i'm skeptical about rick perry. when you call back the layers, the majority of the well-paying jobs have been a result of the oil industries that have kept a lot of the other jobs are

minimum wage jobs with no benefits. i'm not sure what that is doing forolks. beyond that, you say you represent really small businesses, and i have been a small-business owner for a long time, and i'm in trade organizations, and our discussions are never about regulations that are coming down, or tax increases. that is not the kind of things that we talk or worry about. i hear that, but nobody in small business that i ever talk about covers those things with their concerns. entrepreneurship, at its core, as uncertainty. that is a big part of it. if people have ideas that they want to explore, i do not think they think about regulations, and whether taxes will be increased two years from now. that never seems to come up. host: arnold, what kinds of conversations are you having

with fellow business owners? caller: what can be done about demand. the fact that lending has contracted. how it is impossible to get small business loans. guest: right. well, i wish small business owners were not talking about taxes and regulations, but they e talking about these things. particularly, when you are looking -- one example is the new health-care bill. the health care law, the patient protection and affordable care at -- they are concerned about what that is doing for their cost of coverage. it continues to go up, and not down. there are concerns on how the regulations will be written, in terms of their -- the employer mandate. they are concerned about what

makes up an eential benefits package, and whether that package is much richer than what ey currently offer which would drive their costs up. they a concerned about the health care tax credit that was passed as a part of this bill. many of them do not qualify for it, or they say it is too complex. we did a survey that found that only 7% of business owners actual utilize the health care tax credit, which is quite low. and the regulatory front, you know, might vary depending on the industry, but if you are in the agricultural sector, manufacturing, many of these sectors are very concerned about regulations in the pipeline, and how they will imct their business. i do have to say, the top issue

is revenue, and demand, and increasing revenue, and then -- what was the addition he brought up? and acce to capital-letter access to loans. that continues to be a major project to capital. -- access to loans and capital. those continue to be issues. the business owners then i talked to do talk about the role of government, and its role -- that i talk to do talk about the role of government, and the poteial burdens as well. host: karen kerrigan is our guest. we were just talking about the republican debate that is tonight. here are the details. 8:00 p.m. eastern time at the rate in california -- great library in california -- the

reagan library in california. host: last year from andrew, an independent scholar in los angeles. -- and independent caller from los angeles. caller: [unintelligible] host: we are having trouble to understanding it. i understand you're talking about the post office. let's go to our guest. the senator brought it up yesterday 1 folks from the post office appeared before a senate committee, and there was concern about saturday's service being stopped, and how that could hurt

small businesses. our small businesses. with potential closures and ?utbacks nex guest: that is an issue we have not heard much about. perhaps as it becomes more of a reality, we will hear more from business owners, by i i am one that says there may have to be some changes. this has been an ongoing issue. in terms of fiscal stability, and its ability to ally survive in the modern economy, with people paying more bills onlineand more electronic transactions -- anyway, that is something we will be listening r as it becomes more of a reality, to see whether this will have a major impact on

small business owners or not. i have not gotten one e-mail on that issue yet. host: james asks from twitter -- guest: we have to start with the big one, the health-care bill right now. h guest: there is a bunch of multiple regulations that is impacting small businesses. you know, one for for example, the grandfather regulation or rule that they put together, i mean, when president obama signed -- or talked about the bill before it became a law, he said you can keep the health-care plan that you currently have. we will not take that away. so, small business owners, when that issue was in the law, we thought that to mean that the current health care plan that we have right now, even though they

read all of the new rules, we ll be able to offer the insurance plan that we currently have right now. well, that is not the case. this is going to be huge for a lot of small-business owners. again, they will have to meet all lot of these requirements of the packages, whether it is the new essential health package that will be richer than what they currently offer, if they currently offer a consumer- directed plan, or a health savings plan, you know, whether those will be legal plans when all of these new regulations are written. that is a major issue for a lot of small-business owners. the employer mandate in the new health care law -- i would get rid of the individual mandate -- that will impact point to 1

million self-employed individus. some have insurance, some did not. this will have a huge impact on their ability to grow. host: we had done a congress watch director with "public citizen. , he talked about the dangers that he perceives in rolling back regulations. the obama administration it is in the process of rolling back regulations. let's listen to what we have to say last week. guest: we have experience with that a number of times. we just experimented with radical deregulation in the financial-services sector, and the banking sector imploded. it destroyed itself. before we had good regulation of good drugs and medical devices, those are the days of snake oil, where anybody could sell you anything from the back of their

truck, and there was no effective maet. the point here is not just at things were not saved, but the market itself did not exist or broken down. so, there was no market for companies to do research and produce safe, effective, sound trucks, and so there was a government regulator overseeing that government. until yohave somebody separating the good from the bad, bad behavior does not go punished, and bad behavior will win out over the behavior. host: david r. tisch, speaking on washington journal -- on " washington journal" west 3. guest: i do not think anyone is talking about radical deregulation. the president is basically looking at outdated regulations, ways to streamline the system for small binesses and all

size businesses. perhaps they could get rid of some things that really are not necessary in the modern economy. so, that type of review should happen on an ongoing basis. we think there should be codified in the law, and all agencies should be doing that every day on a regular basis. if there are applying new regulations, they need to look of the things that are not needed. there is legislation to make this process permit. -- permanent. but the president has done is not radical. getting 500 recommendations, $10 billion worth of small -- cost savings, when you have a $1.75 trillion deficit, we need to bring some common sense to the regulato process. we need to do cost-benefit

analysis, get impact from small business owners to find out the direct and indirect consequences. what are they for our economy, small businesses, competitors, workers? what are we doing? there are a lot of regulations on the books, and modernizing, streamlining, bringing common sense to the process, it is very important to get our economy back on track. host: frank, on staten island, a republican. caller: democrats want high- speed rail. republicans want to build the border. why no build a border from texas to california and throw a high- speed rail on it? we have be losing the war on drugs for 30 years. legalize marijuana.

tax it, and take that money and put it into a special, for just for social security, or for health care. i think if we could come to some sort of consensus, and some sort of mutual agreement, we can get the economy started. host: let's leave it there and get a response from our guest. guest: i agree. there is room for common ground. i do not know if the franc plan will fly on capitol hill in terms of legalizing drugs, or even -- i get what he is saying about the high-speed rail, but even if we look at infrastructure projects, and our crumbling infrastructure, and what we need to do to upkeep the bridges and the roads, etc., that definitely is important for the competitiveness of the u.s.

economy, but we would argue as representing small business honors, and construction companies, that if you have these types of projects, there should not be requirements or it should not be strongly suggested there project-labor agreements. these contracts should be ope to the entire business community, and they should not have these conditions placed on them. that way, you get the best value. you will open these contracts to more small-to-mid-size businesses, which we should have if we have these infrastructure projects. host: john is a business owner, and joining us from philadelphia. good morning? did we lose them? we lost compared let's go on to saying louis, missouri.

dee, a democrat. caller: the clip he showed from david and stole thehunder from my point, but not entirely. i believe in a community that at -- i live in a community that has been impacted by regulation. there are so few people and so few regulations with regards to how they dispose of their material, that my community is impacted by these "small businesses" and the lack of regulation that exists for them, and if it is not the lack of regulation, it is the lack of manpower that our local

governments actually have to monitor their activities because of the political impact of some of these small businesses. host: linda writes on twitter thathe tnks the bulk of regulations do not apply to small businesses and are geared more toward bigger companies. guest: there are two things. no one is saying that we will got all regulation, and there is not a place for regulation when there is a problem, a severe problem, or if there has the market failure. so, regulatn does have a place, and, certainly, we're not for getting rid of all regulations. we think there is to be common sense. host: the caller sounded like she believed more regulations should be in place. guest: right.

there are some regulations and actions thateally needs to be more in the state and local governmes. they need to step ahead and provide that type of framework for the regulations, -- stepped up and provide that type of framework for the regulations. if someone. washington at this epa, or what -- is someone here, in washington, at the epa, or some organization is going to be more effective. there are a lot of regulations. you have workplace regulations, health care regulations, a range of not only federal regulations, but local and state regulations that do impact small businesses. for the really tiny businesses, for those working from home, someone that is maybe not labour-intensive, they will not feel the weight and the burden of regulation.

they will not have so many requirements placed on them, but even if you look at the direct impact of regulations and the indirect impact -- certainly, when you regulate a large corporation, there are certain things they have to do. they will raise prices. they will do a number of things. this has no direct effect on the economy. so, certainly, regulation of large industry will impact, or does have an intent of small- business owners and consumers -- impact on small busesses and consumers. host: let's get one last call in. marshall is a small-business owner in illinois. caller: i think the problem has nothing to do with regulation. deregulation actually hurts

small businesses because of a level playing field. i think this is politics mixing with business. and the reality is it is the demand. if our customers have more money, they spend more money. if you degulate things, it is the bigger businesses and their rich, small businesses, an advantage over the genuine small businesses. i did not think this has anything to do with regulations. the statistics show that companies are sitting on more capital than they have ever had. how do they have that in this regulated world? this is a ploy from a political perspective. i am an independent. who cares to the president is. i am doing business. i do not have a political bone to pick with anyone. host: let's get a response. guest: in terms of corporations sitting on cash, they are sitting on a lot of it, several trillion.

certainly, the state of the economy, a lot of uncertainty, that is driving that. we need these corporations to be spending this money. the average u.s. modify-national does business with 6000 small- business owners. -- multi-national does business with 6000 small-business owners. there holding onto their money, they're not helping the economy or hiring people and is now helping small-business suppliers. in terms of regulation, there are things on the books that are impacting business, things in the pipeline that will impact businesses of all sizes, but the issue, again, is getting the economy back on track. but consumers' confidence. get more disposable income in their pockets. again, if small businesses have more of those resources, they

can hire more people. i'll be interested to hear what the president has to say about all of this in his speech, and then listen to the republicans as well. host: the republican debate is at 8:00 p.m. eastern time, and the president speaks at 7:00 p.m. etern time tomorrow night. thank you, karen kerrigan, the president and chief field of the small business and >> and we'll have complete coverage of the president's joint session speech on jobs tomorrow night beginning at 7:00 p.m. congress is back in full swing with the senate in today and the house coming at 2:00 eastern. the senate back at 2:15 to continue debate on changes of u.s. patent law. the house at 2:00 considering

three bills later this afternoon. one to continue duty-free products in the u.s. and later this week in the house they will take up a bill on charter schools. live coverage in the house this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. eastern. c-span3 throughout the day is showing you -- bringing you a look at terrorism threats. it includes former and current intelligence and humanitarian officials. it is live at c-span3 this afternoon. and oral histories from the day of the 9/11 attacks. with the pentagon's protective services chief, john, and mary beth cahill. she was with senator kennedy and first lady barbara bush when the attacks occurred. that is tonight at 8:00 on c-span3. >> this weekend the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 on the c-span networks with live coverage from each of the memorial sites. new york city, shanksville, pennsylvania, and the pentagon.

here's our live schedule -- >> "9/11 remembered" this weekend on the c-span networks. >> n.s.a.a astronaut mike fossum says the space crew is planning to keep the station running should it have to be temporarily abandoned. he was joined yesterday by ronald garan. a new crew set to arrive this month was placed on hold after a russian rocket carrying supplies to the station crashed into siberia.

the briefing here is about a half-hour. >> houston, we are ready for the event. >> please call the station for a voice check. >> station, this is jacfpao, how do you hear me? >> j.a.c., we can hear you loud and clear. >> abc news, we'll start with ron. the observations you have made from the space station of the hurricanes, the troorms, typhoons and we're -- tropical storms, typhoons and we're hoping you'll get the fires in texas today. tell me your perspective as you look at these powerful storms how you feel about that and your response? i'd like you to go into a little more detail, though.

>> sure. actual he, i'm just the junior weather apprentice. mike has been doing most of that. i've been focusing on taking pictures when mike has been focusing on the video. i tell you it's scary from here as well. it's just -- when you see these massive storms and see how powerful they are, you realize the destruction they can wreak as they pass across land is just really awe inspiring and terrorfying. mike, do you want to add to that? >> three years ago right around now you and i and our families were ripping all of the carpet and the furniture and everything out of ron's house in houston because he had 3 1/2 feet of water in it from a hurricane so they're scary on the ground and scary to see from up here. >> now, we are aware of the negotiations in the research and investigation going into the failure of the progress launch. the impact that could have on

you. what additional training are you getting for possibly having to deman the stays -- demanning the space station? tell me about that process. >> we're -- just as the investigation is kicking off, and it's finishing up its second week now, there's a lot of work to do in that arena. the teams mostly on the ground, there's a lot of effort to look at all of the different options that could possibly come into play. first obviously we're going to have a shorthand over with a new crew if any at all. it's possible we will have a station without people on it for hopefully a short period of time. those plans -- we haven't started anything specific up here pertaining to that except for documenting some of the things we do on video so that we can, you know, use video products for part of the training for the next crew. we'll be getting into the details what it takes to turn off the lights in the weeks

ahead. >> and, ron, one last question from me to you. you have been talking about the fragile oasis. how does it seeing it from up there bring to you how fragile this planet is? >> well, you know, i don't think it's possible to look at the earth from up here without being moved in some way. you know, looking down at the earth, you know, we've been saying this for 50 years, we've been coming to space for 50 years and you know everybody that sees this, you know, has a very similar thing to say and that they're just struck by the frew jilt of our -- few jilt of our planet, the thin atmosphere and everything else and, you know, we say you can't see borders from space as well but apparently you can. i got some pictures that shows some border scenes at night that i'm going to get out very soon. but the point is not, you know, whether or not we can see a border from space.

the point is whether we look down at the earth and empathize with the struggles and challenges everybody faces on the planet. that's something i think is apparent up here when you look down and you're struck by this beauty which really is indescribable. h.d. cameras and everything we have, all the technology we have really doesn't do it justice. you know, we get as close as we possibly can but you're struck by this beauty on the one hand but also are faced with the unfortunate realities of life on our planet for a lot of its inhabitants. i think that's the main thing over the past 5, 5 1/2 months being up here, we are in this together. we have big, big challenges to solve on our planet. one of the things we can do is through the international cooperation we've proven on the international space station and the amagse research facility that we have built. a really good question.

looking forward otry and explain this -- forward to try and explain this best i can when i get back to earth. >> representing the "times tribune" in scranton, pennsylvania. how would you describe the hometown support for stationed astronauts especially that the shuttle has retired? and how have your wife and her relatives supported you from scranton over the past six months? >> hi, jill, and hi, everybody, in scranton. it's good to be tough for the people in scrantovepblet it's a wonderful place, very near and dear to my heart. i had the happiest day of my life there when i got married there. the hometown support is critical. i really think it is. just support on the ground is important up here. we are isolated. we are off the planet.

we have a lot of technology to keep us connected. you know, we have the internet. we have phone and video conferencing and everything else but we're not seeing flocks of bird fly buy. we're not smelling the flowers. we are not living on earth. we are not experiencing life on earth. it's something we really, really miss. one of the ways we can overcome that and still feel connected is through the support we get from hometown and from our family and friends. i have regular contact with family members in scranton. every time we fly over pennsylvania i'm there. i try to get good shots of scranton and the surrounding areas. it's very -- i know you know -- very, very beautiful part of the country. so thanks for that country. >> thanks for the good words. as you know chris ferguson is a native of philadelphia. what would you like to especially share with readers in scranton when they visited

and also shuttle's retirement, especially from your unique perspective on orbit? >> yeah, chris and myself and mike and the whole crew of the 135, the whole crew on the space station, we were here during a bittersweet time. we got to experience crossing this line of a sand if you will when we went from the construction of the space station to full utilization of the space station. we went from one chapter of our history, the space shuttle, we'll see humans exploring the rest of the solar system. it was very bittersweet. you know, to see the end of the shuttle on one hand but see all the opportunities that lie ahead and see this amazing research facility that we've constructed. we being the 15 nations of our international partnership have constructed up here. we -- chris and i and everybody onboard, we kind of reminisce

and kind of discussed and postulated what was going to happen next, what was going to happen down the line. you know, we are very, very optimistic and very excited about the discoveries being made on this orbital facility because we are conducting research here that cannot be conducted anywhere on earth. i think we are going to see very shortly some of these breakthroughs that are going to be possible through this research. that's one of the big things that we all felt really proud to be associated with. >> hi, robert with collectspace.com. one of the points of pride with the space station has been its continuous human presence. record of now more than 4,000 days. considering the small chance that the presence would need to be interrupted as a result of the loss of the progress, is that continuous human presence symbolcal or do you see a

substantial value in having the crew constantly on orbit? >> yeah, robert, good to talk to you. you know, i think it's a source of pride that we've kept cruise up here continuously for over -- crews up here continuously for over 10 1/2 years. close to 11 years. >> close. >> it's a source of pride. i think it's important, too. the space station does require some care. it's important for us to be here if we possibly can. if -- as events unfold and that's not possible and we have to shut it down for a little while to leave it in the best possible condition to make it through that downtime and have it prepared for the next crew to open the doors, turn on the lights and come onboard. >> let me work off that question. with the talk of demanning the space station, the end of the

shuttle, high profile robotic missions to mars, jupiter and dextra and robonaut, the fault 2001 -- there will be no show with people in space. do you think people are trying to deassociate humans with space exploration and what do you think can and should be done to reverse that trend? >> well, i'll give that a try. is there a risk of perhaps, you know, there's really nothing that beats the power and majesty of a space shuttle launch to get your attention off of american soil and that's really an attention getter. it's huge. it's dramatic. it's over for now. and so it's a little different when we're taking off on a different rocket in a foreign

land. so i understand that. but we're not here for publicity or those kind of things. we're here to get our job done. our nation asked us to do this and we are here to do that job, to take care of the space station and to produce the results from all of the different experiments and investigations that are going on to the best of our ability. i think we need to do a good job telling the story, explaining why we're here and what we're doing as well as sharing some of the adventure of space. looking out the windows to marvel at the planet below us as the stars and heavens above. >> and i was speaking with apollo command pilot warden who spoke about putting humans into lunar orbit to do observations of the surface below. of course, the space station does a similar purpose for observing earth and so do satellites. what's the advantage of having

a human behind the camera, such as yourself, that satellites do not capture or provide? >> robert, that's a really good question. it kind of -- it's very similar to the question that mike just answered. you know, we've always had robertic exploration and human explore -- robotic exploration and human exploration. what we're proving now is the most effective exploration is a collaborative form with both robotics and humans together. and i think we're really seeing that. now, earth observation satellites are, you know, serve a wonderful role and they are very important. but, there is something to be said for looking out the window and spotting a fire and grabbing a camera and taking a picture just because we happen to be there and happen to be looking out the window. there's also, you know, a feeling you can get when you're up here and we try as best we

can with our video and cameras to capture that feeling, to capture not just views, not just, you know, the ones and zeros on the digital media but capture this moment, capture this experience as best we can to try and show you what we're seeing. and you really can't do that from a satellite being controlled from the earth because it's just a different view. that person who's controlling that or that algorithm, that computer program controlling that is not experiencing it like we are. >> hi. mark carow for "aviation week" and "space technology." i wonder if you've already taken or soon take any measures to sort of enhance either general operations or science research on the station for a period of time if you do have to unstaff the space station?

are you doing some things to sort of keep it operating as best it can, keep the scientists active as best they can be it there is no one on the station for a short period of time? thank you. >> hey, mark, it's great to hear your voice today. so far we have not begun any of those actions on the space station. the teams in houston are in the preliminary stamings of deciding everything from what ventilation we're going to leave running, what lights we're going to leave on, what condition each particular experiment will be on, every tank, every valve, every hatch. there's a lot to do and they are just beginning that work right now. and it's -- it's too early for us to get too worried about that frankly. it will take us a few weeks to finish that up. we have another nine or so weeks here. our crew of three. so we got plenty of time for those kinds of things. if we get to it right now we're

working to get something out of the door next week and continue operations up here and we're concentrating on the closest thing or the first thing which would be how to complete a full handover, you know, in less than two weeks when dan burbank and his crew come aboard because that will be the shorter handover we've had in recent days and there's a lot the space station usos has grown a lot since we had those quick handovers. we won't to be as effective as that as possible. and how we handover when we go face to face up here. >> mark, if i could just add -- the science operations onboard are going full speed ahead. we have broken records every week with the number of hours -- a crew-based hours of scientific research which is

over and above that research that's autonomous that doesn't require a crew. in the unlikely event we have to unman the space station there will be science conducted onboard. it won't be the crew-based science. we are on the very utilization mode right now and we are running at a sprint pace conducting the scientific research. >> thanks very much. i might just ask -- follow-up with mike fossum on the prospect of having three crew on the station for a longer maybe than you anticipated a couple weeks ago. what kinds of demands for the larger station are you going to face with that prospect? >> mark, i don't have any concerns of that at all. they have left it in good shape. there are no big things hanging

out there that i consider to be an issue. the three of us that will remain here when these guys head home, i've talked about it all. we are going to be busy. we came here to be busy and we're used to it. we're completely, you know, climatized to living here and working here. we've learned almost everything from ron and i have his cell phone number so i know how to get a hold of him when he gets home, i never found out, where's this? those kinds of things. so we're ready to take over. i have no concerns at all. the care and feeding of the station will take a higher percentage of our time than it does right now with spreading that work amongst two people. instead of three for the part of the station for which we're responsible. we're working at a really good pace and no worries. >> station, this is houston a.t.r., that concludes questions.

please stand by for a voice check from kennedy p.a.o. >> this is kfcpao, how do you hear me? >> k.f.c., it's loud and clear. welcome aboard the international station space. -- space station. >> hello. this is marsha from the associated press. couple questions, number one, for mike i guess, are you still going home in november, is that your latest plan? when is the most tentative launch date you've heard of the new crew coming up, what's the latest you got? and what do you both see is the weak lincoln the space station if it did have to be temporarily abandoned -- link on the space station if it did not have to be temporarily abandoned? >> on time, middle of november. it could be slipped a couple of

days. much later than that gets hard, also, because of the landing conditions in kazakhstan which can be very severe in the wintertime. and the whole crew rotation schedule is actually set up to avoid that. and so -- but, again, the plans are for us to head home in mid november. if things hold, the tentative plans is for the next crew to launch about november 2 or around november 2 to come on. but the investigation is still ongoing for what happened with the soviet booster and the whole path from here to launching humans. there's a number of steps along the way. finding the problem, fixing the problem, having one or two test launches of unmanned progress vehicle probably using the same booster. there is a lot of things that has to stack up for that to happen.

i missed. what kind of things do we need to do to prepare the space station to be unmanned for a period of time? again, we're not tied into those meetings and stuff. we have our work to do as the guys on the ground need to hash out. every module has a hatch on each side of that interface between the different modules on the station. there's also valves to allow water and airflow and things like that, so i think we'll be doing things like closing the hatches and preparing for the -- maybe sealing the airflow because they don't need to be moving air around the station. if we had a small leak somewhere it wouldn't depressurize the whole stack. it will be along those lines. >> thank you for that. actually, my second part of that question was, what you both see is the weak links --

you know, the couple of things that would really worry you that might have more of a tendency to break down with nobody there, that sort of thing? >> that's hard to say. i think folks in the program office would be better suited to answer that but it's things like the pump module that failed a year ago and required an extensively -- three guys to swap out the new pump module. that failure of that one component takes out half of the cooling on the space station which limits -- puts you in a precarious situation where you don't have the fault tolerance or remitent redundancy. if the crew is here to take the action to do the recovery, it's no big deal to be down something like a pump module for a week or so as you get your plans together and take care of the problem. it can become a bigger deal

over a period of time as more things have the opportunity to stack up against you. so a short gap, you know, not a big deal. but i've seen the same reports that you and your comrades have written. that short gap turns into many month then your probability starts to stack up against you and it leads toward a greater possibility that we would have a problem up here that became very significant with nobody to take action. >> good morning. it's peter king with cbs radio news. for either or both of you, we're told that the station is well supplied. i wonder if you begun to cut back on some things organ to cut back on things stretching out supplies for either period

of time. >> no, peter. from a supply point of view, we are in good shape. we have a lot of water onboard. we have a lot of food onboard. we have consumeables onboard. we're in really good shape so the normal consumption rate that we've been using all along we're still using that. we haven't gotten to the point where we need to start to conserve and, you know, try to, you know, the possibilities out there. because we have already done that. that was one of the whole reasons we wanted to fly 135 so much is because we wanted to be in position if something happen we would have everything onboard that we needed. we did fly that mission and got all those supplies onboard and we are all in good shape. >> hey, guys. phil with cbs. just one quick one for me. all this talk of demanning the

station is taking me aback a little bit because given the history of the soif yet years. it seems almost inconceivable they wouldn't get this resolved by november. how realistic do you guys think -- i understand you don't have the answer to this thing. do you think this probably won't happen? i'm trying to get your sense on this. thanks. >> thanks. you've been around this business, shoot, longer than i have, and you know it's a complicated thing. when you have a problem where a robert stops functioning in flight, shuts down, that's a big deal. and so, you know, we're not part of that investigation. but you know what's going on. they're going through that -- that rocket has had hundreds of successful launches without any problems. so you look what changed. there is no fundamental design

change. that's what you look for. a hardware change, a component change or a process change. you hope to find something in those arenas. that's where you usually find it. if those things don't pop out then you look at harder things. that gets to be a lot moneyier and harder to solve. in the weeks that we have or months, you know, just a few months we have to solve it before it's my time to go home, and so the possibility's there and there's a lot of details we have to work out before we get there and that's why the teams on the ground are pushing hard to come up with plans. again, the ones i think we're going to use are the ones a shorthandover, how do you train people to do the hands on stuff in a short amount of time? then you got to start working ahead. you have to start saying, what if. >> it's peter king with cbs with one last one. we are in a tough political

climate where everybody is counting every dime and every dollar and i'm wondering if either of you are worried that leaving the station uncrewed might have the politicians thinking about permanently calling it quits saying, we really don't need to be spending this money? >> yeah, peter. you know, we can't really answer that. however, you know, what i can say is that the money that has been spent on the international space station, and i think history will prove this, is the best investment in our future we have ever made. the money that has been invested will be returned you know, many, many times over in the new materials -- new medicines. just improved life on earth. not to mention, you know, the stuff they're starting to explore the rest of the solar system that this is a very critical link to doing that. you know, i think that, you

know, if we get to the point where we have to unman the space station, i hope, you know, that we've already demonstrated at that point how valuable this is, this global asset is, and i would hope there would be an uproar of keeping it manned and making sure we get that return on investment. if we're not here to utilize what we've already invested the money in, then we've wasted that investment. i think it's important at that point. i think mike wanted to add some words. >> no, you got it. >> stand corrected. >> houston, that concludes the event. thank you. >> thank you to johnson and kennedy space centers. i.s.s. will now be resuming operational space to ground communications. >> ok. thanks to everybody for the great questions.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> u.s. house live momentarily here on c-span. c-span3 has been live throughout the day with a look at terrorism threats since 9/11. panels include members of congress, current and former intelligence and homeland security officials. in fact, the director of the national counterterrorism center speaking at this hour. that's live now on c-span3. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, oral histories from 9/11 with the pentagon's protective services chief, john jester and mary beth cahill. she was with first lady barbara bush when the attacks occurred. president obama tomorrow night will go before congress, a joint session, to hear his jobs plan. we'll likely to hear some of that when the house comes in momentarily. it is live 7:00 p.m. eastern on

c-span. >> in 1844, henry clay ran for president of the united states and lost, be-- but he changed political history. he's one of 14 men in c-span's new series "the contender." henry clay's kentucky home friday at 8:00 eastern. book tv features 9/11 authors this weekend. saturday with richard, thomas and philip and sunday mary, patrick and lawrence and joel. also this weekend on "after words," dana priest suggests that the federal government's efforts to protect america after september 11 are secretive and dangerous and needs to be exposed. she's being interviewed by former secretary of defense. also "in my time," dick cheney talks about his experiences during 9/11 and the lessons he

learned since then. you can look at the former vice president interviewed by bob woodward on after wards. find a complete schedule online at booktv.org. >> given the downpours and flooding in the nation's capital this afternoon it wouldn't be surprising if some members are late as the session gets under way. the u.s. house about to end its month-long summer recess. they'll come in for short speeches and expected to recess and return later this afternoon to consider three bills, including one to extend duty-free products in the u.s. tomorrow, the house takes up legislation to authorize $300 million to expand charter schools throughout the country. then tomorrow evening the house meets in joint session with the senate to hear president obama's jobs plan. on friday in the house, authorizing u.s. intelligence programs for the next budget year. the senate coming back in in about 15 minutes to continue work on changing u.s. patent law. you can follow the senate on c-span 2.

and just a political update, the debate tonight, the msnbc political debate at the reagan library, we'll follow reaction to that on c-span.org. that will get under way at 9:45. and we will reair the debate for you this evening at 10:00 p.m. eastern. next up, though, the u.s. house here on crope. -- c-span. the speaker: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray. loving and gracious god we give you thanks for giving us another day and for our safe return to washington. bless the members of this assembly as they set upon the

important work that faces them. help them to make wise decisions in a good manner and to carry their responsibility steadily with high hopes for a better future for our great nation. may they be empowered by what they have heard during their home district visits to work together. may they realize that each of them represents voters who side with their opponents and that there are millions of americans who voted for their opponents as well. the work to be done must benefit all americans. give them courage to make difficult choices when they are faced with them. may your blessing, o god, be with them and with us all this day and every day to come and may all we do be done for your greater honor and glory. amen. the speaker: the chair has examined the journal of the

last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led today by the gentleman from texas, mr. poe. mr. poe: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker: the chair will entertain for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? polaris project i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker: without objection -- mr. poe: i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker: without objection. mr. poe: the first amendment rights of veterans have come under attack by the federal government. the director of the houston veterans administration cemetery has led a quest to remove christianity and religion from funerals.

she had banned the words god and jesus christ in the burial ceremonies of deceased veterans. she censors prayer, took out the bible and locked the doors. they have fought and died for country. it's unacceptable, it's unconstitutional and it's un-american. the policy of the director is anti-christian, anti-religion and anti-veteran. today i filed a veteran religious freedom right. it will protect the constitutional right to freedom of religion and prohibit the veterans administration from censoring free speech and censoring religion. it will require the directors to be veterans. the first amendment is sacred. funerals are sacred. when veterans are buried that soil becomes sacred. it's the constitutional authority of the government to protect speech and religion, not censor it. and that's just the way it is.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask permission to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. dingell: mr. speaker, i am saddened by what i heard while i was home in august. people are disappointed with us, their elected representatives, and they want us to do our constitutional duty of solving the nation's problems and to start working together. they want to get america moving again. they want the problems of the economy addressed. they want jobs. they want opportunity. and they want a government that works for the good of the country. it there anyone amongst us here -- is there anyone amongst us here that we caused a

downgrading of u.s. government securities, that we causing disorder and confusion in the market, stifling economic combrothe and job creation and contributing to the hopelessness and misfortune of millions of americans? failed leadership and failed followership -- we must do better. i hope those of you here who are ashamed of the performance, as i do, will join together. it's our duty to solve the nation's problem and to stop this nonsense. if we do not, the people in their righteous and justified outrage will get rid of us and as well they should. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. burgess: to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection.

mr. burgess: the easiest money to save is money you haven't yet spent. that seems like common sense. you know, we can reduce the deficit by eliminating spending that is to begin in the future. spending americans simply can't afford. this select committee could achieve their target of reducing the nation's deficit and most surprisingly almost every dollar would come from benefits that do not yet exist. new mandates give the federal government far too much control and taxpayers far too much responsibility for financing health care in this country. given our deteriorating debt, we simply can't afford this new spending. the select committee will look to strengthen existing entitlement programs, medicare, medicaid and social security, but also these existing entitlements are on the table. so why shouldn't new entitlements, created by the affordable care act, be as well? we have this choice moving forward. we can make the select committee negotiations as painful as possible or we can have a logical discussion about cutting back on spending that we simply cannot afford.

the select committee is getting to work and i encourage both parties, all 12 members, to put the affordable care act on the table alongside other entitlements in need of reform. failure to stop will threaten the very fabric of our republic, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from california rise? without objection. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to honor george calagridis who is the president of disneyland in my hometown of anaheim. ms. sanchez: george will be celebrating 40 years on september 11 in just a few days and i wish to offer him mize congratulationses for his 40 years with the disney corporation. george started as a busboy at the age of 17 at walt disney world, and he has worked his

way up to numerous positions including being the chief operating officer for disneyland in paris and now he's the president of disneyland in orange county, california, where he oversees 21,000 employees. george's outstanding record of achievement has increased the value of disneyland in our community in orange county and i know that he continues to try to improve and to provide the leadership that that wonderful world known resort needs. the story of george's rise from a busboy to the president of disneyland is really the accomplishment of the american dream. and i am proud to extend him my best wishes and congratulations . thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? mr. wilson: mr. speaker, i ask permission to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, on friday the bureau of labor statistics released the august jobs report. unfortunately the news was grim. unemployment remained at 9.1% with zero jobs being created in august. this is another tragedy for millions of american families. today congress returns from the district work period after having spent the past weeks with constituents in the district i represent, their one clear concern is jobs. people are tired of the president's lofty words with actions that destroy jobs. americans want a change in course, from the failed stimulus plans of borrow and wastefully spend. let us work together to adopt real reforms that have an immediate impact on job creation. it's time to implement meaningful spending cuts, passing legislation designed to encourage small businesses to hire employees and help with job creation in the american economy.

house republicans have passed dozens of job bills since january. now it's time for the liberal senate and president to really help families who want jobs. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, this is to notify you formally prount to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have been served with a subpoena issued by the united states district court for the central district of california for witness testimony. after consultation with the office of general counsel, i have determined that compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the house except to the extent that questions put to me seek information that is privileged. signed sincerely, margaret mott, casework director.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on september 7, 2011, at 9:47 a.m., appointments -- joint select committee on deficit reduction. with best wishes i am. signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i send to the desk a privileged concurrent resolution and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the concurrent resolution. the clerk: house concurrent resolution 74, resolved, that the two houses of congress assemble in the hall of the house of representatives on thursday, september 8, 2011, at

7:00 p.m. for the purpose of receiving such communication as the president of the united states shall be pleased to make to them. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the concurrent resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until approximately 5:30 p.m. today. >> on friday the house is expected to authorize u.s. intelligence programs for the next budget year. when the house returns we'll have live coverage here on

c-span. on c-span3 this evening part of our preview of 9/11 coverage. the 10th anniversary this weekend at 8:00 tonight. oral histories of 9/11 with the pentagon's protective services chief. mary beth cahill was with senator kennedy and first lady barbara bush when the attacks occurred. tonight at 8:00 on c-span3. >> this weekend the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 on the c-span networks with live coverage from each of the memorial sites. new york city, shangsville, pennsylvania, and the pentagon. here's the live schedule. saturday on c-span at 12:30 p.m. eastern the flight 93 national memorial dedication ceremony from shanksville, pennsylvania. and sunday morning at 8:30, a memorial ceremony from the world trade center site with president obama and former president bush. on c-span2 at 9:00, vice president biden from the pentagon. and on c-span3 at 9:30,

honoring those who lost their lives on united flight 93. 9/11 remembered, this weekend on the c-span networks. >> in 1844 henry clay ran for president of the united states and lost, but he changed political history. he's one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new weekly series, "the contenders" this week live from ashland, henry clay's kentucky home. friday at 8:00 eastern. >> shortly we'll bring you a hearing, a senate hearing on computer fraud and a reminder also tomorrow evening about our complete coverage of the president's joint session speech. lay out his jobs plan will get under way at 7:00 eastern. that will be here on c-span. ahead of that this morning on "washington journal," we got input from c-span viewers. ]ç

twitter at twitter.com/c-spanwj, or reach us on our facebook page. this story this morning from "the washington post," -- host: "the new york times," as of the top rate down for his plan -- has the top a break down for the mitt romney plan. we lost our connection, but we will be reporting again tonight.

the topic this morning, focusing on mitt romney and the plan for the economy. we will get back to those points in a moment, but first let's hear from derek in atlanta, georgia. caller: i think that the mitt romney job plan is a piece of garbage. president obama is a democrat with a democratic administration, and they are still pushing republican policies. change these things. get out of these wars in afghanistan and iraq. if if the economy is slowing to stay stagnant, it might regress. it needs to charge up with a

lithium in afghanistan and the opium. lithium can be used to make lithium batteries to start a new electrical and battery power plant. these things need to be manufactured in the united states. i have a whole lot more ideas. host: republican line, bradford. caller: i am sorry that mike allen was not there. i m and 85-year-old republican. i am still a capitalist. we do not have an industrial policy. without an industrial policy, you do not realize the problems. i will give you an example. i meet with my friends. we are all pretty old. my problem is, do you think that $10,000 per year in health-

care for those chinese that they employ, do you think they would be in china? i invested in companies and i could tell you truthfully, they are overseas. the one big investment we made in the united states just announced it was folding. it was in the finger lakes area. we went to canada all along the 202. it was 40 people. now it will be 200. healthcare is a detriment to business. a big change, because the lobbies are all health care. those golden parachutes, we have not had a discussion on why health care costs so much. when the doctor gets a couple of million, health care gets a

couple of million. to darryl ino sterling heights, michigan. caller: good morning. thank you for letting me be on c-span this morning. >> we'll take you live over to the senate. republican leaders speaking to reporters. >> welcome back, everyone. i can tell how excited you are to have us back. we are equally excited to be here. i think what we'll hear tomorrow night is some additional spending items recommended by the president. the only thing i would say with regard to that if government spending were the answer we would be in the middle of a boom right now. we have been on a spending spree over the last two years that's increased our debt by

35%. we have lost $1.7 million jobs since the last stimulus. and we certainly intend to listen politely to the recommendations the president has, but i think i can pretty confidently say everybody in the republican conference in the senate thinks we need to quit doing what we are doing. quit borrowing, spending, and quit threatening to raise taxes and quit having a big wet blanket on top of the private sector economy by this explosion of regulations. i think the president's decision last friday to delay the ozone regulation in all likelihood will produce way more jobs than anything he might recommend tomorrow night by way of additional government spending. so we'll listen politely to what he has to say and take a look at it, but our view is we need to go in an entirely different direction, a direction that reassures the private sector. over the last month i had the

opportunity not only to be over my own state but the country, the single most oft repeated problem was overregulation. too many new regulations. too many new regulators. all of that is producing a kind of caution that's keeping the private sector from growing and expanding. with that see if anybody else would like to -- >> we don't hold the president responsible for problems that he inherited, but we do think he ought to be responsible for making the economy worse by throwing, as the leader said, a big wet blanket over job creation. we are ready to work with the president in order to make it easier and cheaper for job creators to create private sector jobs. a good way to start would be for the president to send to congress today the three trade agreements that have been sitting on his desk since the inauguration which would create $10 billion to $14 billion in

new exports and put farmers and manufacturers to work selling overseas what they make and grow in the united states. >> somebody asked me earlier today what i wanted to hear from the president tomorrow night. something different from what he's been saying. what he's been saying and what he's been doing hasn't been working. if you look at the record today the president's policies continue to make the economy worse, need to make it more difficult, more expensive to create jobs. there are two million more unemployed people in america today than there were when he took offices. gas prices have doubled. the federal debt has gone up by 39%. food stamps have gone up by 41%, the number of people on food stamps. and health care costs by 19%. that is this president's record. and that's why i think the american people want a change of direction and i hope that the president will say something different tomorrow night, but from everything we hear it sounds like it's going to be more of the same which is more job crushing regulations and policies.

we all heard it from our constituents and small businesses in our states, making it more difficult for them to get people back to work. >> just want to draw the line between the reality of the red tape and regulations coming out of this administration versus the rhetoric coming out of this administration. in july and august alone there have been 1,200, over 1,200 proposed and finalized regulations at a cost of over $17 billion. the white house conveniently forgot that when they said over five years they were going to try to eliminate regulations and save $10 billion over five years. so the reality is they have added in two months alone $17 billion in regulations and these regulations continue to be a heavy wet blanket over our economy. >> as i traveled my state in addition to historic 100-year drought and wildfires, it seems

like everywhere, i heard people talk about their concern that unemployment remains unacceptably high. and how they believe that the short-term fixes that are coming out of congress are creating more uncertainty, more debt, more questions about taxes and the future of our tax policy and thus keeping the very people who are sitting on trillions of dollars worth cash who could create jobs if they were properly incentive advised. keeping them on the sidelines. rather than quick fixes or let's get rich quick schemes like we seem to be getting out of the white house, we need consistent pro-growth policies starting with tax reform. >> the president is expected to announce proposed extension of payroll tax break, and i'm just curious, is that something that republicans think has been successful and are likely to support as one of the initiatives? >> as i said earlier we are

happy to listen to the president's proposal and take them under consideration. >> given the arguments that the five of you are making here, i'm wondering why you choose not to have a formal response tomorrow night? >> there's going to be plenty of response to the speech tomorrow night i assure you. >> would you like -- >> let me say this about the joint committee. failure is not an option. the committee is instructed to succeed. we have put very serious people on there who are interested in getting an outcome for the country. and we fully anticipate they will meet their goals and we'll see whether they can even go beyond that, but we certainly know they will meet their goals. and i'm confident that the people, the majority of the people who have been appointed by both parties really understand this is an important

moment for the country. as i have said a number of times, i would say again briefly, divided government is sometimes the best time to do really challenging things. there are numerous examples of that over the last quarter of a century, we think this is one of those moments. and we are looking forward to getting recommendations before thanksgiving. >> are republicans prepared to filibuster the nomination to become the first director? >> i think we made it clear, 44 of us in a letter, have made it clear we do not favor the appointment of a director of the cfpb until we get structural changes. remember, this is a new entity that answers to no one. that can determine essentially on its own if any entity in america is a systemic risk. this is an extraordinarily

powerful entity, and it ought to answer to at least somebody. and that's the view of enough republicans to take the view that we are not inclined to go forward on a nominee until we get some structural changes so that it answers to someone for what it might choose to do to our country and the economy in the future. i'm going to take one more. i'm not going to prejudge what the joint committee might do. it has broad array of options, but its goal, obviously, is to do something significant about deficit reduction with a floor between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion over 10 years. frankly some of the most significant things they could do would have the biggest effect beyond the 10-year

budget window, but i don't have any particular instructions that i would give to them or if i did i sure wouldn't announce it here today. see you later. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> while the republican leader was asked about the joint committee on deficit reduction, the democrats and republicans meeting, huddling separately today ahead of that first meeting of the joint committee which is coming up tomorrow. we'll have live coverage of that on c-span3, tomorrow getting under way at 10:30 eastern, the joint committee on deficit reduction. he was also asked about the hearing yesterday about the nominee, richard quarterray

been nominated by president obama to head the new financial protection bureau. that hearing was yesterday and you can find that in our video library. we are staying live for a moment or two to see if the democratic senators come out to speak with reporters. the senate has gaveled back in at this hour to resume consideration of the bill changing patten law dsmdsm patent law. president obama's speech, 7:00 tomorrow night, we'll have that live for you on c-span. a little political coverage to tell you about this evening. the republican presidential debate is happening in california. the reagan library. hosted by msnbc and politico. we'll re-air that debate on c-span radio this evening at 10:00. we'll also bring reaction at 9:45 in the spin room at c-span.org. >> are you glad to have us

back? the caucus today spent a lot of time on a number of issues. but i think we spent the most time on disaster relief. fema. this summer almost 200 people were killed in joplin, missouri. when a tornado struck that community. we have had a series of hurricanes here on the east coast, i'm sorry, irene we know the damage that it did because of the winds. and senator leahy and senator sanders talked about what happened in vermont. it's hard to explain what happened there. maybe as many as 200 bridges are gone in vermont. hundreds and hundreds of people

out of their homes. the largest office building in vermont is under water. 1,700 people are unable to work. we just had lee, that's what this rain is about out here, that's the tropical storm lee that has been someplaces dropped as much as 20 inches of rain. as we speak in texas we have 150 fires burning. 1,500 homes have been destroyed in texas because of these fires. the washing monument is closed because of an earthquake -- washington monument is closed because of an earthquake. all of these disasters caused americans to suffer. the reasons for these storms are the subject maybe of another discussion, but they are coming fast and furious.

i don't see how we as a great nation we have can stand on the sidelines while our people are suffering. we should get relief to people when we need it and joplin, missouri, fema is basically broke and the money has now been shifted to irene and lee. the emergency happening as we speak. they have withdrawn the long-term help joplin, missouri, is planning on rebuilding schools, communities. so they stepped out of there. we need to get this relief funding to the american people as quickly as we can. if we are going to do that, i'm going to bring a freestanding bill we are going to have a chance to vote on. some of my republican colleagues are trying to -- i was going to say something that was vulgar and i'm not going to

do that. trying to cater to the tea party by holding up relief efforts. for example, representative cantor suggested we should hold up disaster relief to meet the tea party's demands. fortunately all republicans don't agree. in fact, i bet most don't. governor kristi stepped forward and said that's not the right way to go. governor mcdonnell in virginia stepped forward and said that's not the way to go. keep in mind as we are here having this little press event, we have thousands of troops in iraq. tens of thousands of troops in afghanistan. none of that is paid for. none of that is paid for. all these tax cuts that have been initiated are now in effect not paid for. does that mean americans who

are suffering, we are going to say we can't do this. we are going to pay for this. we can fight the wars in iraq and afghanistan. we don't have to pay for those. but as senator sanders said, a trailer park that was ruined, i think he said 170 people in that trailer park, 85-year-old couple, have no place to live. winter's approaching. so i hope my republican colleagues will put politics aside and work with us to get the relief to the american people who need it now. questions? >> could you outline a little bit more-- >> i think that's so rude. >> no. i don't think that. >> could you outline a bit more of what you expect to be in the

fema disaster supplemental i assume? >> we'll mark up a bill in the homeland security today that will be $6 billion. second question? >> what do you plan to do with the trade -- what do you -- when will the white house send those up? >> i have a meeting this evening with chief of staff daley and rob neighbors, person that works with us on money things from the white house, and i think we have a way forward. my concern is trade adjustment assistance. we'll get trade adjustment assistance done before we do the trade bills. otherwise we won't do the trade bills. >> i'm going to send that back to them. that's all it will be. trade adjustments. >> what assurance do you have

-- >> unless it passes the house, we are not going to take up any of the trade bills. the speaker has said that he will get this done, but i think that we have to make sure something does go awry. i'm going to make sure that the trade adjustment assistance passes before we do the trade bills. >> regarding the supplemental disaster relief money, when you said $6 billion in homeland security appropriations -- >> yes. some of the issues that are so bad, on the mississippi river we have three million acres of farmland, not 3,000, not 300,000, three million acres that are covered with water.

>> have you talked with president obama about the jobs proposal? do you expect to have votes -- >> i talked to him frankly in generalities. so i have an idea what he's going to do, but i haven't helped write the speech. i haven't seen it. there are a couple ways we can do that. if there's a legislative package we can have a vote on that. or we can take it in pieces. >> do you feel that -- could you just comment on what you want to hear from the president on thursday night? is $300 billion package, is that robust enough to do the job? >> i told the president when i talked to him yesterday that i thought his speech in michigan, i matched parts of that on the tv and i thought it was tremendous and i hope he keeps that same pattern of speaking. he said he was going to do

---it's a new day here. i have to see what the $00 million consists of. if it's only the extension of the tax holiday i'm not sure that's enough. i have to see how much that is. >> senator reid, what will you be discussing with mr. daley? >> trade. trade. thank you. >> is a deficit reduction package being put together, what percentage will be impacted higher taxes? >> it was really difficult for me to do. everyone knows here it was my idea the supercommittee. but everyone else was out doing whatever they do on a break and i was making scores of phone calls talking to senators, democratic senators, about this supercommittee. so the first week or so that i was not sure it was a good idea to do the supercommittee, but i have done t i'm very happy with the people i was able to put on

that committee. i've been very pleased with my conversations with all the other leaders. as senator mcconnell said to me today, he was a little disappointed. he told me, on my comments. he said i saw your comments about the supercommittee and you said there was a 50-50 chance. i said no better than 50-50. he said that's not good enough. he said, failure is not an option. i feel good about the leaders talking about the importance of this committee to avoid sequestration and to do big things the country needs. but i'm not going to micromanage what senator murray, senator kerry, and senator bach -- baucus is doing. thank you, everybody. >> senator reid laying out some of the senate schedule. also talking about this so-called supercommittee, the

joint committee on deficit reduction. remember we will have live coverage of their first meeting tomorrow at 10:30 eastern on c-span3. meanwhile the house will come back this afternoon at about 5:30 eastern to consider three bills, including one to extend duty-free products in the u.s. votes at 6:30. tomorrow the house members consider legislation to authorize $300 million to expand charter schools throughout the country. and tomorrow evening the president address to a joint session of coverage. we'll have live coverage of the house when they return. about 5:30 here on c-span. on c-span3 today all day coverage of a 10-year anniversary of 9/11 and look at terrorism threats and the panels today include current and former members of the intelligence community and homeland security john pistol, the t.s.a. director is speaking live now on c-span3. at 8:00 eastern on c-span3, oral histories from 9/11 with the pentagon's protective services chief and senator ted

kennedy's chief of staff. she was with senator kennedy when the attacks occurred. the oral history is tonight at 8:00 eastern. just a reminder about the president's speech tomorrow night at 7:00 to a joint session. we'll have complete coverage including your reaction, 7:00 eastern is when the speech will start. we'll have it live on c-span. >> in 1844 henry clan ran for president of the united states. and lost. but he changed political history. he's one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new weekly series "the contenders." this week live from ash lapd, henry clay's kentucky home, friday at 8:00 eastern. >> the senate judiciary committee today held a hearing looking at consumer fraud and computer abuse. senator patrick leahy chairs the committee's hearing. it's 1:25.

>> good morning. protecting american consumers and businesses from cybercrime and other threats in cyberspace has been a priority of this committee for many years. i might say bipartisan priority. we continue that tradition today. and i do want to thank, before we start, i want to thank senator grassley who has worked with me on this. and worked closely with me on this hearing in a bipartisan way. and i think cybercrime impacts all of us regardless of political party or idea olgi. i -- ideology. i look forward to our continued partnership in this congress

and as we continue on this. developing a comprehensive strategy for cybersecurity, one of the most pressing challenges facing our nation today. i think of the days not many years you worry about somebody going into a bank and robbing a bank, maybe getting $20,000. they are usually caught. or looting a warehouse. now it's a lot different. a study released today estimates the cost of cybercrime globally is $114 billion a year. just the last few months we have witnessed major data breaches at sony, r.s.a., international monetary fund, and lockheed martin just to name a few. it's not the masked person with

the gun walking into a bank. it's somebody maybe sitting thousands, even another country away. and committing the crime. our government computer networks. we saw the hacking involving the senate, united states senate. also the central intelligence agency website. we can't ignore these threats. we can't ignore the impact of our privacy and security. as far as the committee will carefully examine the obama administration's proposals to prosecute cybercrime today. i do want to thank and commend the dedicated men and women at the departments of justice and homeland security and elsewhere across our government who are on the for what purpose doeslines of cybercrime. every day they are successfully investigating and disrupting growing threats to our cybersecurity. in july the f.b.i. announced it

arrested more than a dozen individuals associated with a group of computer hackers called, obviously, anonymous, after the group launched a series of cyberattacks on government and private networks. according to the charges made. the secret service recently announce add successful cybercrime investigation that led to a federal indictment of an individual that hacked into the computer system at the massachusetts institutes of technology, m.i.t., resulting in the theft of more than four million scientific and academic chronicles. just two examples. with every new victory we are challenged by even greater threats. even more cutting cyberthieves. a recent report by the computer security found that any given day 6,798 websites hiber

malware or other unwanted programs. that's an increase of of 25%. so i'm pleased representatives of the department of justice and secret service are here to give us their views on this. the committee will consider these proposals and other privacy measures. and privacy and security legislation. i hope the committee will promptly report this legislation on a bipartisan basis as we have done three times before. these -- we are talking about the security of our nation and our people in cyberspace. we have to work together. again this is not a democratic or republican issue. some issues unite us all. it's a national issue we have to address. so i'm hoping all members of congress will join in that.

again i thank the distinguished senator from iowa for his help. i yield to him. >> before i go to my statement there's a couple things i would say. i think the fact that majority leader harry reid had a meeting several months ago on various committees that were involved in this, and you and i were involved in that, plus the fact that in our party, senator mcconnell has had hearings, i think that highlights the bipartisanship as well as the national security reasons for these pieces of legislation. and also the second thing i would say that i think you have correctly stated that you and i are very, very close on this legislation and i can say from the standpoint of this committee's work, very close with the administration's legislation. i may have some ideas that vary a little bit. and i'll refer to a couple of those in my remarks. i thank you very much for

today's hearing. given the growth of the internet and our society's increased dependence on computer systems, this is a very important copy. cybercriminals are no longer confined by the borders of their community, state, or even country. cyberspace has allowed criminals to steal money, personal identities, commit espionage without even leaving their home. cybercriminals are now using the internet to conspire with other cybercriminals. they collaborate to install ma lashese software, commit -- ma lashese -- malacious software. they also target the point of sale computers to steal millions of credit card numbers as they did companies such as b.j.'s wholesale club, office,max, sports authority, and i suppose many others. moreover, they are online

criminal forms traffic in stolen credit card numbers. cybercriminals also continue to engage in phishing attacks, denial of service attacks, and web application atags. cybercriminals are smart and they learn from their mistakes. they learn from evaluating other cyberattacks and they learn from successful prosecution of their peers. cybercriminals designed relentless newer -- new computer viruses and malware as they attempt to stay one step ahead of the anti-virus programs. all of these attacks are serious and dangerous to our nation. however, i fear that the threats we haven't heard about, or even thought about, are likely to even be more dangerous and devastating. so we must take these cyberattacks seriously and

ensure that our critical system infrastructure is well protected from cybercriminals. accordingly, the federal government must take every single breach of our computer system or potential vulnerability seriously. for example, i have asked the department of defense inspector general to properly investigate serious allegations that department of defense employees purchased child pornography online and were never adequately investigated by the defense criminal investigate -- investigating service. these allegations include d.o.d. employees possibly purchasing child pornography from their own work computers. i remain deeply concerned that d.o.d. employees who purchase child pornography continue to work in key positions that retain high-level security clearances, putting the federal government and our military computer systems at risk for intrusion. i want to know what the defense department is doing to stop

this sort of behavior. whether these individuals will be brought to justice, and whether government systems could be compromised because of criminal behavior. aside from this example, i generally support the efforts of the administration undertaking to work towards a bipartisan solution on cybersecurity. however i have some concerns with part of the administration's proposal. i also have reservations about how these sweeping policies will be implemented and how much they add to an already large government bureaucracy. on top of these concerns, i also question the wisdom of the administration, some of the personnel appointments they have made to crital positions. example, the administration recently hired an individual at u.s. cybercommand, an agency charged with securing our military computer network. i'm concerned that the obama administration seemingly failed to conduct an adequate background investigation of the individual's qualification. if they had, i'm confident they

would have easily seen that she played a role in the clinton administration's alleged subpoena email during the investigation of the 1996 presidential campaign, or that she paid a diploma mill thousands of dollars for a bachelor's, masters, and doctor's degree in computer science. ensuring that our nation's most sensitive network are safe for international cyberespionage should not be a sign to someone who obtained their degrees from a diploma mill. these types of personnel decisions weaken our ability to protect our nation from cyberattack. essentially putting us at risk. further they raise questions about whether the administration is truly serious about protecting our nation's critical infrastructure and military computer system. external threats continue to target our infrastructure. whether that is the financial services industry or the retail. accordingly, to a recent data

breach study conducted by the u.s. secret service and verizon, 92% of the breaches were from, quote-unquote, external agents. i appreciate that the secret service continues to aggressively combat worldwide financial and computer cybercrimes. in 2010 the secret service arrested more than $1,200 suspects for cybercrime violations involving over $500 million in actual fraud and prevented another $7 billion in potential loss. i plan to ask the secret service and the department of justice witnesses how we can improve our protect of cyberspace. i'm eager to understand how they are proactively engaging in emerging crimes -- threats of cybercriminal, and also want to know more about why they feel they need new criminal laws, new bureaucracy, and thousands ever pages of regulation that is could hamper virtually all businesses large

and small across the country. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. our first witness is james baker. he's the associate deputy attorney general u.s. department of justice. i know he was planning to be here once before for this hearing and we had to cancel. and through a schedule change i told him earlier this morning, i'm glad he's here. same with you. he's worked extensively on all aspects of national security policy and investigations. as an official with the u.s. department of justice for nearly two decades. his provided the united states intelligence community with legal and policy advice for many years. in 2006 he received the george h.w. bush award for excellence in counterterrorism. i note that's the c.i.a.'s highest award for counterterrorism achievement.

he also taught at harvard law school and served as resident at harvard's institute of politics. it's always good to have you here. please go ahead, sir. >> thank you, senator. chairman leahy, ranking member grassley, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the department of justice regarding the administration's cyberlegislation proposal. this committee knows well that the united states confronts serious and complex cybersecurity threats. the -- it could damage vital national resources and put lives to risk. intruders have stolen confidential information and intellectual property. at the department of just we see cybercrime on the rise with criminal sinned cats operating with increasing fix to steal from americans. even more alarming these intrusions might be creating future access points through which criminal actors and others can compromise systems

during times of crisis or other purposes. that is why the administration has developed what we believe is a pragmatic and focused legislative proposal for congress to consider as it moves forward on cybersecurity legislation. we think that the proposal will make important contributions toward improving cybersecurity in a number of respects. today i would like to take a moment to highlight the part of the administration's proposal aimed at improving the tools we have to fight computer crimes. the administration's proposal includes a handhold changes to criminal laws aimed at better ensuring that computer crimes and cyberintrusions can be investigated and punished to the same extent as other similar criminal activity. of particular note the administration's proposal would clearly make it unlawful to damage or shut down a computer system that manages or controls a critical infrastructure such as electricity distribution or the water supply. this now focused approach is intended to provide deterrence

of this class of serious and potentially life threatening crimes of the moreover, because cybercrime has become big piss for organized crime groups, the administration -- big business for organized crime groups, the administration makes it clear that the crutcht organizations act applies to computer crimes. also the proposal would harmonize the sentences and penalty in the computer fraud and abuse act with other similar laws. for example, acts of wire fraud in the united states carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, but violations of the cfaa involving very similar conduct carry a maximum of over five years. such disparities make no sense. in addition, the administration proposal would expand the cope of the cfaa's offense for trafficking in passwords, and cover other methods of confirming a user's identity such as single use pass codes or smart cards used to act as

an account. it should cover log-in credentials to cover all computers not just government systems. the means to access computers at hospitals, nuclear power plants, and air traffic control touters are no less worthy of protection. this proposal will help equip law enforcement to fight a key area of cybercrime, the left of passwords and means of access for the purpose of committing additional crimes. the administration also proposes several amendments to the cfaa related to forefuture, including adding a forfeiture provision. the lack of authority in the cfaa currently forces federal prosecutors to use criminal forfeiture authorities in instances where civil forfeiture would be more appropriate or efficient. our proposed provision is consistent with similar provisions in federal law that have existed for many decades. finally, some have argued that the definition of exceeds

authorized access in the cfaa should be restricted to disallow prosecutions based upon a violation of contractual agreements with an employer or service provider. we appreciate this view but we are concerned that restriggetting the statute in this way would make it difficult or impossible to deter and address serious insider threats through prosecution. my written statement goes into this issue in more depth. i would note that we have been working with chairman leahy, ranking member grassley, and their staffs on a common solution to address this issue. mr. chairman and members of the committee, this is an important topic as you-all know. the country is at risk and there is much work to be done to better protect critical infrastructure and improve our ability to stop computer crime. i look forward to answering your questions today. i would ask my full written statement be made a part of the record of the hearing. >> thank you. full statement will be part of the record. i appreciate the statement. and first we'll hear from mr. martinez. he serves as deputy special

agent in charge of cyberoperations for the criminal investigative division of the united states secret service. nearly two decades at the secret service, he oversaw the agency's first major cyberoperation, operation firewall. in which over 30 online criminals from across the globe were apprehended. incidentally very impressive. . prior to his assignment, he supervised the new york electronic crimes task force, oversaw multiple transnational fraud cases, pointing out that none of these things happen just in the locality where you are. he's a 1990 graduate of the virginia military institute where he received a patch lohr of arts in economics and a

commission in the u.s. army reserves. please go ahead. >> good morning, chairman leahy, ranking member grass lee an distinguished members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to participate in this morning's hearing. one of the significant challenges in producing an analysis of the cyberer criminal underground lies in the diversity of the online criminal community. for example, criminal mace cluster around a particular set of internet relay chat channels or web-based forums. in some instances, a group of online criminals may come from a geographic area and know each other in real life. in other instances, they may be dispersed across the globe an know each other only through online interaction. many groups have members whose online practice is not that

sophisticated, others have members whose -- who have a lot of experience. their focus will change. one group may have little or no interest in underlying technological issue bus will happily use exploits developed by others to harvest data of commercial value. still over online criminal communities show less interest in coding and exploit bus use the internet as an operating base, taking advantage of the anonymity the internet a-- the internet affords them. two of the things that distinguished online groups are online exposure and organization. this shows up in the web-based forums that began to show up a decade ago. the established by hacking

groups or groups of criminals who traffic in or exploit stolen financial data. many of these forums have a strong representation of members from eastern europe. though membership often expands the globe and includes members from multiple continents, by utilizing the built in forum software, they are able to set up moderators and administrators who maintain order at the site. some of these developed into marketplaces for criminal goods and services. forums such as dumpsmarket, shadow crew and carter planet were already well-developed criminal marketplaces overseen by an experienced group of administrators who were often established criminals hsm in reality, they serve as a business platform for a fuelings of business communities which provides its own contribution to the development of the organization's capabilities by making a greater variety of

reliable criminal services available to all members. some of the major classes of participants in these forums include the following broad categories. hackers, spammers, mall wear -- malware developmenters and others. the development of diverse online criminal organizations has greatly enhanced the criminal infrastructure available to pursue large scale criminal productivity. this presents a global channel to law enforcement which has found itself forced to adapt in order to apprehend and prosecute online criminals. the administration is aware that in order to fully protect american citizens, certain sections of our current cybersecurity laws must beup dated. this past spring, they released a proposal to address the needs of our country.

the legislative package address keys improvements for law enforcement. credit service investigations have shown that complex and sophisticated electronic crimes manage and perpetuate online criminal enterprises dedicated to stealing commercial data and selling it for profit. it will equip tools to enhance penalties against criminals who attack infrastruck sure and by adding computer fraud under the racketeering fraud act. members of the committee this secret service is economy mitted to defending our country's infrastructure an protech american consumers and constitutions from harm this concludes my prepared statement. thank you again for the opportunity to testify on

behalf of the secret service. >> thank you. i assume you have no doubt in your mind that these attacks will continue? no matter how many you've been able to stop in the past. is that correct? >> yes. >> mr. baker, like most americans i'm concerned about the growing threat of cybercrime. we worry about, if off business you worry about that. if you're just an average citizen you worry about somebody stealing your identity or anything else. i understand the f.b.i. national white collar crime centers received more than 300,000 complaints about cybercrime last year. that's an astounding number. so you discuss in your testimony, the need to keep the computer fraud and abuse act up to date.

how would the administration's proposals to update the computer fraud and abuse act ensure the statute keeps up with the chames in technology? >> in particular on the question of keeping up with changes in technology, i would focus on the provision regarding trafficking an passwords and other identifying information. we think that, right now we think the language is broad enough to enable us to to what we need to do. we think expanding it will clarify in the future as hopefully security systems advance and other new technologies are developed to protect access that this would be, this would be an easy way to make sure we can get at defendants who were table bring to court and not have them escape on some technicality because the court thinks that the definition is not precise enough with respect to this new type of technology. that's one example, senator. >> i can imagine decades ago

any predecessor of mine talking about how to get the bank robbers, the train robbers, how we get others, and that's very simple. this, i have to assume that no matter how good the defense any major company has or anything else, somebody is constantly trying to figure out a way to get around it. >> yes, they're urn constant assault. that's why you have the large number you cited. >> one criticism is that the statute has been interpret sod broadly it could say that relatively innocuous behavior, violating terms of service, for

example. what kind of assurance do we have if we pass the statute that this administration or future administrations might abuse the authorities under the law? >> one thing is that we're accountable to this committee and the congress in terms of how we enforce the act. we have to come up here and explains -- explain what we've been ding. if you look at the record of how we enforced the act over time, we've done it in a responsible way. we would be happy to work with the committee to address those concerns. there are a variety of things, increased reporting, for example, that might be effective but we're willing to work with you to make sure that you -- this committee -- believes you have the right information to assess how we're enforcing the act. >> i'm saying you can have in the normal criminal code, you have some kid takes a car joyriding and you can charge

whim a minor offense or grand larceny. most prosecutors wouldn't charge grand larceny, we want you to concentrate on the real cybercrimes, not the minor things. >> we agree with with that. we have limited resources, the threat is large and we do, we have resources but they're limited in terms of the number of people. >> how many investigators and prosecutors are there in -- at the department of justice investigating and prosecuting cybercrimes. >> in terms of prosecutors dead kayed to cyberintrusions, there are approximately 230. if you expand and include other types of fraud, child exploitation types of crimes, it's a larger number than that. i don't have that exact number. >> investigators? >> in terms of that, the difficulty is that the exact numb of investigators that the f.b.i. has in particular dedicated to this, because of the national security aspect of it, is classified.

we'd be happy to share that information with you in a different setting. >> if you could let us know that. >> absolutely. >> thank you. do you have sufficient resources? >> i think we can always use more resources, we put forward -- we the administration put forward a proposal for f.y. 2011 that included requests for an additional 60-something personnel. the key is to make sure we have the right resources. this isn't something you just throw bodies at and solve it. you need people train over time. we need a long-term goal and objective in terms of bringing people in -- people in, training them and having them be able to work in these issues. >> same question to you, mr. martinez. how many people do you have dedicated to this? and do you have adequate resources?

>> chairman leahy, we have put over 1,400 special agents through some type of cybertraining. we take cybercrimes very seriously. part of the training we provide all our special agents when they become agents is a specific two to three-week block of cybertraining. it's now become part of our basic training for every special agent that goes through the academy. in addition to that, with the assistance of the committee, we now have 1 electronic crime task forces throughout the country, 29 of them domestically and two overseas. what we have done with that in addition to the special agents we have that have cybertraining, we've also partnered with our state and local law enforcement officers throughout these task forces and provided them with this training. we do that training through the national forensic institute down in hoover, alabama where

we only train state and local law enforcement on computer forensics, network intrusion an the basic skills of computers. those individuals, when they leave the ncfi, are then either members of our electronic crime task forces throughout the country or are providing assistance and support to state and local municipalities throughout the country. we are proud to say we've had law enforcements from all 50 states of the union and two of its territories and in addition we train state judges and state prosecutors because we feel as ponch as it is to train our investigators, it's that important to train prosecutors and judges so these cases get prosecuted an judges know how to prosecute the cases. the other thing we take with the electronic crime task force model is we've partnered with academic institutions. a good deal of reserm is done

by universities. for the last 12 years we've been at carnegie-mel lon university an been part of the -- carnegie mel lon university -- we have developed software and hardware that help ours investigators. noigs that facility we partnered with the university of tulsa where we have a cell phone/perform d.a. forensic facility to boost the capabilities of our agents and state and local partners. >> i know my little state of vermont has had people down this. i appreciate that. senator grass lee. >> i want to zero in on cyberattacks on our infrastructure, power grids, traffic control, these things where they can be interfered with control most of our important day-to-day operations. as such our criminal law should

reflect the need to protect critical infrastructure by sending a signal to would-be criminals that these attacks including even attempted attacks won't be tolerated that means not only criminalizing the conduct, but including tough sentences that federal judges cannot play games with. so mr. baker, i'd like to ask you questions along this line. the administration's cybersecurity proposal includes a new crime for aggravated damage to critical infrastructure computer. this proposal includes a three-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for those who knowingly cause or attempt to cause damage to a critical infrastructure computer. why did the administration include this mandatory minimum for this crime but not other crimes? >> because we understand the concerns that members of -- some members of congress have with respect to the use of

mandatory minimums. we believe it was appropriate in this circumstance, given as you recited that it's involving dg to critical infrastructure systems that result in the substantial impairment of the systems. we thought urn those circumstances, given the gravity of the offense a mandatory minimum of three years was appropriate. we thought it was a judicious use of the mandatory minimum concept which is why we attached it to this defense. >> we're scheduled to mark up a senate bill, it does not currently include a crime to aggravated damages to critical infrastructure computer. it is my understanding that it may be added in at markup, however i understand it may not include mandatory minimum. would the department support including mandatory minimum as the president's proposal does in >> the administration's proposal is to include a mandatory minimum. we want to work with congress in this area.

we understand the concerns. so we're happy to work with the committee. but duo think that this prohibition, new criminal offense is something we do need to address and try to include. >> this would be for mr. martinez. as i stated in my opening remarks, i believe we must take sign attacks seriously and ensure that our critical infrastructure is protected from cybercriminals. however i'm concerned we provide too broad a definition for things like sensitive, personal, identifiable information that we may desensitive -- desensitize that information and create complacesencies within the public. individual -- complacencies with the public. individuals who receive notifications from their bank may continue to -- may begin to ignore the. this definition could overburden businesses by

requiring them to make unnecessary notification for what amounts to public information that's easily obtainable through internet searches. so how does the secret service define sensitive, personally identifiable information? >> senator grass lee, we -- grassley, we identify it as it is laid out in the bill and as it appears on 1028-d-7. what we also need to take into account is what when -- when we look at what constitutes a data breach, it includes the information you're referring to but also includes section b which states, which present a significant risk of harm or fraud to any individual that is taken into account along with the definition of personally sensitive, identifiable information in order to make notification. the other way i think we address it also is through triggers. i think there's triggers in the

bill that define when notification needs to be made and when it doesn't. in reference to the broad definition of personally sensitive, identifiable information, i will tell you there are individuals in the online criminal community that can take that general information and put it together with with additional information that they've already compromised to give you a better idea as to the information involving your victim target. so for example, i can take the first initial and last name of an individual, his home address, and provide to it one of these and say, can you run a credit report on an individual at this address with this first initial and last name that combined information can then cause harm to the vim. >> if banks send their customers breach notification that involving nothing more than their name, adress or mother's maiden name, do you agree that this definition

could potentially desensitize the public perception and maybe create a boy who cried wolf situation? >> there's a possibility that something like that could happen. that's why i go back to the administration's proposal that talks about significant risk of harm of fraud. i think the organization the company meeds to make sure we take that into account before we start desensitizing these intrusions by sending too many of these notices. >> if you would support narrowing the definition of that term, to cover information that leads to a significant risk of identity theft, how would you narrow the definition? >> i believe in the definition or that area as it's submitted, it's part of the administration's proposal, it talks about combining the psii information with the sec part of it which is, presents a significant risk of harm or fraud to the individual. i would add that section to the

bill as it's laid out in the administration's proposal. >> lastly if congress were to give rule making authority to modify the definition in the future what agency or combination of agencies would you suggest be given that authority? >> i believe the f.t.c. and i think also the department -- in consultation with the department of justice, because the department of justice is responsible for prosecuting these cases, i think that the f.t.c. has the expertise in this area and i think consultation with the department of justice would also be good. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. baker, i think the house of representatives would find it very difficult to accept the mandatory minimum and certainly i do not intend to include it in the bill that i will put forward just in passing.

i want strong penalty bus the mandatory minimum is something that i worry could be abused. senator? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to start by thanking the chairman and ranking minority for convening this hearing. we've heard from the chairman from the president from many leaders in the private sector, public sector, that this is one of the most grave threats facing our nation, that the numb and complexity of cybercrimes continues to grow year after year and the cost of the impact on victims lrge and small continues to grow, so i'm glad we're continuing to press on this. i hope that the nat will indeed take the opportunity to move in a bipartisan and responsible way to reconsider this to deal with the lack of clarity and strengthen the tools available to law enforcement. i want to focus on a few simple points. one is about training and the skill set available both in the department of justice and the secret service. mr. martinez, i was struck,

especially mr. marquee nezz, i was struck in your written testimony about the scope of agents, the 1,400 agents going through train, the institute in alabama that i know law enforce -- delaware law enforcement has benefited from and other states but i'm concerned about the depth of training and the breadth of it. there was an inspector genre port from the department of justice that suggested that the national cyberinvestigative joint task force, a third of the agents engaged lacked the necessary expertise in networking and counterintelligence to be able to effectively participate in intrusion cases and that many of the field offices also lacked the forensic and analytical capability. i'm clear that training is expected and we have lots of other things on our needs list for the country but this isn't a want, this strikes me as a critical need. i'd be interested in comments from both of you if i might, about what more we can and

should be doing to strengthen the train big law enforcement and as a follow-on to that, special agent martinez, you have, i think, a reserve commission. in delaware we have a national guard that takes advantage of a lot of private sector strength and kills -- skills in our financial services committee to bring them into training and make them available as a resource. i wondered if both of you might comment on the possibilities or the risks of engaging the national guard, the reserve, as a way to get some of the most skilled private sector folks also engaged in some of the national security relevant pieces of ongoing forensic and network defense and investigation. >> thank you, senator. yes, it is an expensive undertaking to get these folks trained. that's why we try to force multiply working with our partners. cybercrime is not something that can be solved by any one organization. we have to work in collaborative way to do that.

we think that's what we've been trying to do with our task forces, not only partnering with the state and local law enforcement but bringing up the private sector. there is a segthosme administration's proposal which talks about having folks from the private sector come in and acyst, so there's some mechanism being used and other parts of the government that can be used to help here. one other issue we see from cybercrime is we have a lot of organizations, in speaking about the national guard, there's potentially something we should probably look into that is similar to some of the activities that other department of justice organizations, law enforcement organizations have done in the past with the assistance of some national guard entities in other parts of the country, specifically in the area of linguistic capabilities. you know, that is one of our biggest challenges is the fact

that a lot of these criminals are eastern european and speak russian or russian dialect. there's probably a way to get that same model that we set up in markets enforcement for language translations and have that supplement what we do in cybercrime because these individuals primarily communicate through some type of online method, whether it's instant message, email, or peer-to-peer. so there probably would be a good venue to get that type of linguistic capability up to speed and utilize it in furtherance of cybercrime investigations. >> thank you, i'll be happy to work with you if i can in on that. >> just a couple of quick comments to amplify on that. with respect to the use of national forward, i agree we need to use our available resources. the key is to make sure we understand what hat they're wearing when they're engaged in that role and make sure what they're doing is consistent with the law and executive branch policy and then to make

sure we have appropriate privacy protections in place and appropriate oversight to make sure when any element of d.o.d., assuming they're acting in that capacity and that way is, engaged in these activities. i adepree that we need to make sure we have the resources, use all the resources that are available, perblesly if people are -- people are coming with skill sets from the private sector. real quickly, on the i.g. report with respect to the f.b.i., note that the f.b.i., it was my understanding, accepted all the recommending as from the i.g. they understand it and place a huge amount of importance on that and they get it as well. >> thank you. as we try to move responsibly to strengthen law enforcement's tool kit, i want to make sure we are striking the right balance between privacy and continuing to be certain that there are robust dwigs between d.o.d. authority and domestic law enforcement an we're respecting the rights of americans and proteching

individual areas. thank you for your answers. >> i'll be chairing the remainder of the hearing that means i'll be here until the end. to expedite my colleagues, let me defer my questioning until the end. unless a republican colleague arrives, we'll start with you. >> thank you. i'm glad we are holding this hearing obviously but also that we are moving ahead on our legislation. i've heard time and time again whether it's our confidential briefings with our defense secretary and others about the concern for the cyberattack issue and i certainly have seen on a -- in a much smaller way, my previous job as prosecutor for eight year the growing, escalating number of cases we have involving individuals being hacked or data stolenism

introduced a number of bills in this area. i wanted to talk through some of those and how they can work with the larger bills that we're working on. senator hatch and i introduced a bill aimed at child pornography, requiring internet senior vis providers to keep the i.p. addresses they assign to customers some providers keep it for honger periods than others an the bill would set a minimum retention period. the providers would not be required to retain any content of a person's online activity, it would simply mean that if law enforcements sees illegal activity online, they can tell it is emanating from a certain computer or device. they would then go to the internet service provider and get information on who owned that computer or device and they would need a subpoena to do that. it seems that this could be an important reform, not just for

child pornography cases but also the types of crimes we have been talking about today. i don't know if either of you would like to comment on that. >> thank you, senator. briefly, we agree completely that this is a significant issue and a po ten -- it potentially impacts a whole range of cases, including child exploitation, gangs, other types of -- terrorism, potentially, national security crimes. we think it's a significant problem. we don't, unfortunately have a clear administration position on how long and what types of data to retain and so on, but i agree with your characterization of the basic ideas with respect to the proposals we've seen. it's something we'd like to work with you on, because it's a very, very important issue. >> senator. digital crime scenes tend to -- tend to evaporate more quickly than real rhyme scenes. preserving data is an important part of any tiche cyberinvestigation. we concur with mr. baker's

congressmens that some type of retech would be good to -- retention would be good to cyberinvestigations. >> then another area is cloud computing. we see more and more of that. however we need tone sure that our laws are keeping up with the new technology. cloud computing represents a unique challenge, the way data is stored and accessed makes it hard to prove the damages that are currently required by the computer fraud and abuse act. we're looking at how we can make sure that those damages can be proved when you're dealing with the cloud and i don't know if you want to comment at all about that and what's happen with hacking. >> again i go back to the crime scene. a cloud crime scene is much more difficult to solve than to try to get evidence from a traditional crime scene. it's going to be a challenge to make sure that when we respond to an organization storing

information in the cloud, that that organization knows exactly where that information is at and make sure that law enforcement can access that information in a quick manner. i go back to the fact that digital evidence evaporate -- evaporates quicker. it's going to be incumbent on those organizations that establish a cloud computing environment that they know the layout and topography of their information. if the information is stored in the cloud and that cloud is out of the jurisdiction of the united states, what challenges might that pose to us? >> and that's why we're trying to put in some structure for other countries to work together on these things. that's going to be key as we move forward. shifting to another topic, do you think the jail terms an the fines are severe enough to have a substantial effect in detering or reducing cyberattacks? and how about in the proposal before us? >> i think the administration's proposal does a very good job

of addressing that. if i could use some examples where we've charged cybercriminals with other offenses as identified by mr. baker, where these individuals were charged with either wire fraud or credit card fraud or bank fraud, that received significant jail terms in the excess of 10, 15, 20 years, that's a deterrent to criminals that conduct this type of activity. if you look at our verizon data breach investigative report, we see a larger number of intrusions occurring now but not as many of the large scale intrusions we've seen in the past. we think part of the reason is the deterrent factor that these stiff sentences have had on the criminal organizations. so to get a statute like the 1030, the computer fraud and abuse act, up to par with some other ones, we believe will make a deterrent against criminals that are undertaking these types of intrusions. >> then just one last question, if i could. economic espionage is clearly a

drain on the american investment in our country, our talent, whether it's blueprints to the way a manufacturing facility is set up or the design of a dress. those, you believe the computer fraud and abuse act can adequately combat the problem of economic espionage? and do you think the administration proposals helps with this? are there more things we should be doing as we look away from the cyberattacks on government and look into what's been going on in the private sector? >> i think mr. paychecker could better answer that. >> absolutely. the focus of the computer fraud and abuse act is on the means used to perpetrate the crime. we would fully support efforts to try to make sure we can address the type of crime you're concerned about because we're concerned about it as well. i think our proposals are -- proposals in the administration's proposal legislation would besquive in

addressing the type of crime but if there are particular things we should focus on, we'd be happy to work with you on that. it's a huge problem. the theft of our intellectual property is a big concern. >> have you seen retaliatory attacks where groups go after those working on the issue? >> the groups go after a lot of people working on a whole range of issues. i defer to mr. martinez on the cases. >>ic no one is immune from these types of intrusions and attacks. i think we've seen a lot of these types of attacks have been reported in the media an there's a lot that haven't. i don't think anybody is immune from this type of cyberattack. >> thank you very much. >> senator franken. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. baker, i want to ask you a question, follow-up on a question from chairman leahy. in recent case the department

of justice has actually argued that the violation of websites' term of service or employers' computer use policy can constitute a federal crime under the computer fraud and abuse act. in other words, thunder interpretation of the statute, people could conceivably be guilty of a federal crime for checking their gmail or their weather if their employer's computer policy prohibits them from using their computers for personal reasons. two federal judges have found this reading of the statute to be unconstitutional. because people don't read those policies and when they do, they can be, as you know, complexen anden confusing. don't you think it would be worthwhile to address the concerns of the federal judges in updating the statute? >> as i said earlier, senator, thank you for the question. as i said earlier, we're happy to work with folks to address

these concerns. i think that the challenge is to address those concerns and at the same time, not create a sig cabot loophole that would allow somebody, for example, who worked at the social security administration, the i.r.s., the u.s. passport office or a bank to take information in violation of their pler's policies and misuse it for some purpose, either to spy on somebody that they know or to take information and pass it to others to steal, actually steal money. so i think that this insider case where somebody violates the rules of their employer in in using a computer is a very challenging thing to address and at the same time, address the concerns that you suggest. the difficulty is, we have to think about how and whether we should have a regime parallel to the actual, physical world. if an employer says, you can use the petty cash for certain purposes but not other purposes

and somebody takes the cash and spends it on something they're not supposed to, we would prosecute them, potentially, depending on the amount for fraud. so the question is -- the issue is, employers all the time set rules about what can be done with their resources. do we want to make a difference? or how do we want to differentiate the cyberworld from the physical world in these are real challenges. we understand what what you're saying, we've heard those opinions and heard loud an clear what the judges were saying. in the drew case in particular, we decided not to appeal in that case. >> again, mr. baker, i know that this is not technically the subject of the hearing but since you're hear -- here, i want to ask you about the administration's data breach proposal. the administration's proposal would require certain companies holding, quote, sensitive, personally identifiable information to notify customers if that information is breached.

i'm surprised to see that the administration's definition of sensitive, personal, personally identifiable information did not incollude an individual's geolocation. today many companies have minute-to-minute records of everywhere a smart phone user has been. in my mind that information can be just as sensitive if not as sensitive, as a home address. would you consider amending the proposal to include geolocation in sensitive, personally itent final information. >> we would be open to looking at the issue. there may be parts of this that would cover that type of information depending on how it was stored in an account or something already but in terms of focusing on it directly, we would be open to that. i would note that, because we looked at the geolocation question, defining geolocation

information is tricky. we have to make sure we got that right in order to include the stuff you're concerned about and not sweep in a bunch of other stuff. i would be happy to work with you on that, or the department would. >> i notice that the policy gives companies up to 60 days to notify customers of a breach of sensitive, personally identifiable information that period seems long to me, a criminal can do a lot of damage with swup's social security number in two months. why can't we have a quicker deadline? or shorter deadline for notification? >> on that as well, i'd be happy to work with you on that. the one thing to think about, there is invariably some lag time. there will be a breach, it might take a short period of time for the company to become aware, i want -- i think you want some time where the

company goes to law enforcement and makes an a assessmenten about whether they want them to report. maybe there's an undercover operation and we don't want them to know we're on to them, we may ask the company to hold off on the notification because it might harm system of we want some period of lag time the trick is to find out what that is, so i think we'd be happy to work with you on that. i don't think there's any magic with respect to the 60-day number. >> ok. looks like we've got a lot of little things to work with. >> sure. >> thank you. >> senator blumen that will. >> thank you -- senator blumen thall. >> -- senator blumenthal. >> i want to second the concerns about the 60-day period, which is way too long in the minority of -- in the majority of instances. it seems to me that an exception can be carved out for that kind of specific, an i do

mean explicit and specific law enforcement activity that justifies a delay rather than having a blanket 60-day period which seems excessively long. i want to focus, and i was very interested and impressed by your comments on infrastructure vulnerability and potential assaults on that aspect of our economic and security activity. we hear a lot of talk about potential cyberassaults on our infrastructure, whether it's electric or gas. should there -- should there be a stronger requirement for those facilities or companies themselves to take proactive and preventive measures? right now it seems to me if there are any provisions, they are egregiously weak in the

public responsibility of private institutions. so i wonder whether you'd care to comment on that. >> yes, senator. thank you. i think that's addressed in other parts of the bill where the role of the expect of homeland security with respect to helping to set standards and monitoring compliance with standards. i think that's more directed at the kind of concern, the very legitimate and correct concern that you have with respect to that. i'm not sure, i'd have to think about it for a minute, i'm not sure that the specific proposal we're talking about, but i think that the larger concern about the critical infrastructure and the -- i mean, again. the whole point of all this is to prevent anything from happening. it's one thing to prosecute after the fact, but we want to prevent things happening, we want to deter activity and make sure ebtities have in place the appropriate means to protect themselves.

i think we'd be happy to work with you in any way that would further those goals. >> deterrence is one way to prevent criminal activity put not always an effective way in light of the interest and stakes and you mention extortion. potential penalty of three years, even if it's a minimum, may not be enough to deter someone. do other parts of your, meaning the federal government's, proposals include penalties for the -- whether civil or criminal, for the failure of the -- these infrastructure institutions to take preventive measures? >> they don't include criminal provisions -- criminal prohibitions or penalties for failing to take these types of measures. i think the idea was to have a lighter touch with respect to building incentives into the system to try to get entities to enhance their sign security. i don't think that that is part of the proposal. >> what about civil penalties?

>> same thing. i think the idea is not to incur civil penalties but to provide appropriate information and disclosure with respect to the state of affairs work respect to particular entities. >> that really is the thrust of my question to you, whether there should be, taking a broader view, i recognize it's homeland security, not the department of justice, but if there's no effective remedy -- remedy for the failure to take those measures, i wonder how effective the standards an advice and counseling will really be, given the economic pressures that these companies may have an given their relative lack of sophistication in this area, financial institutions are much more likely to be deep into the subject because of the nature of what they do, their entire business is conducted with computers and so they're familiar with making those computers. more so the other

infrastructure every day where smart energy use involves this type of work. my point to you is that i think we do need to consider some kind of stick as well as carrot in this area. >> i agree, senator. and i mean i think there are existing incentives that some folks have not focused on. there's a loss of good will with your customers when you face a serious breach, that's one thing. you lose money you lose intellectual property, you have obligations to share holders to inform them, and there are a range of different incentives built into the system today

that i guess you'd say don't seem to be effective because we still have a significant problem we need to address, as you have suggested. >> and my time has expired but i thank you and i would just suggest that if we're that concerned about the infrastructure vulnerability, maybe those incentives aren't working as well as they should. thank you. >> mr. baker. welcome back. >> thank you, senator. >> quick cloud. is it true that the cloud is a computer within the meaning of the current statute? >> i would think that the elements of the cloud are. i'd have to look at it. i can pull out the definition of a protected computer but because it generally includes any computer protected -- connected to the internet, the cloud itself and a particular cloud provider is included in the definition of a protected

computer. >> if it's -- >> that particular -- i think that's right. >> so that is, believe it or not, in cybertime, a generation or so, and it kind of dates back to when it was presumed that data was in a computer. since that's no longer the way this works, i just wonder that you may find that you run into definitional problems, particularly if criminal statutes are spened to be narrowly construed. stpwh i adepree with that. as i suggested we need to make sure we define that appropriately. >> where do you think your defendants are most likely to be under this provision of law? >> we face substantial threats, i'll defer to special agent martinez on this as well, but

we face substantial threats from domestic actors and others. there's a very substantial threat we face from actors based overseas. >> and it worries me to go back to chairman leahy's question, you said that there are 230 prosecutors working in this area. where do you get the 230 number? does that include the people asiped to the u.s. attorney's offices who are the designated cyber-- >> yes, that includes those people plus folks at main justice who are dedicated to this type of activity. it doesn't include necessarily the fraud prosecutors, the child exploitation prosecutors, they're dealing with criminal activity on the net as well. >> we know that in the u.s. attorney's office, the designated cyberprosecutors are doing other stuff. >> absolutely >> so the numbers in terms of

f.t.e. is actually considerably less than 230. because these cases very often involve overseas activity, you've added a rico predicate here which i think is great, but rico cases are complicated. i don't know to what extent the department requires departmental oversight of this, if you do, for instance, a corruption case, and you're a u.s. attorney, you have to check in with the department all the time on that and it adds a lot of work an effort and burden to the case. probably with good reason. how closely does the department supervise and require engagement with a u.s. attorney's office that is prosecuting a cybercase? if you're doing a some cases,

you're on your own. where on the spectrum is this in terms of the department requiring a lot of back an forth with the u.s. attorney's office? >> just a quick comment by the recrow case. the rico provision would be subject to the same oversight by the department. with respect to existing criminal activities, with respect to cybercrimes, there's a range. some u.s. attorney's offices have significant number of trained prosecutors who know how to do this an they're in large offices and so they consult with main justice as needed. other districts where they don't encounter this type of activity as much, they're going to rely more extensively on our -- >> so the u.s. attorney's office has the internal capability to handal significant cybercase, they can run with it on their own without a lot of supervision by the -- by main justice? >> that's essentially correct.

>> that lets at least one burden off this. but still when you divide the 230 down for the extent to which those people are actually doing something different and you look at the complexity of rico cases, of chasing people down, internationally, of strog coordinate with intelligence services to get information about the foreign bad actors, i just continue to worry that we are sorely, sorely understaffed for this. how would you evaluate, how does the department evaluate the risk of a cyberattack on the country and the constant regular day-to-day onslaught of cyberattacks in the nation's priorities? >> in the nation's priorities, i think the threat of a cyberattack or addressing the threat of a cyberattack is high on the list of priorities for

the nation, not only for the department of justice but for the entire defense department and all elements of government. we're concerned about that kind of thing. it's very high on the list of pyrities. >> and just day-to-day, there are tens of thousands of attacks, we are having a hemorrhage of our intellectual property, mostly over to china, but tore places. there's an immense amount of crime and fraud that takes place. that's the baseline. if you put the baseline together with the risk of a significant knockdown cyberattack on the country, doesn't that equate in terms of risk to national security to, for instance, our exposure to drug crime or our exposure to the hazard of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and ex-close i haves? >> as you know, there's a huge problem and with many elements to it. we have to address all of them, base which i simultaneously, there's an onslaught of attacks

every day. there's an onslaught of intrusions and computer activity, malicious activity all the time. whether something is an attack or not, let's put that aside for a sec. let me back up one sec. i mean, it's important to make sure we have adequate resources to deal with these crimes and these activities. it's also important that we make sure we have in place when we catch someone the appropriate penalties, the appropriate language and various statutes to make sure somebody doesn't get out on a technicality. i think what we'll focus on today, at least any comments, is to make sure we have the statutory structure to address the crime. what we need to do then is go after the criminals and we need to have the kinds of resources we've been talking about today, secret service, f.b.i., other elements of the government have. >> i'm just worried we're going to pass this bill as it ends up being amended, it will go into

effect and we'll pat ourses on the back for having done something good about protecting america from cybercrime and cyberattack and in fact we've overlooked the resource disadvantage we've put ourselves at. >> when we -- i adepree completely. when you look at how the nation has faced the threat from counterterrorism since 9/11, we haven't just done one piece. we've done a whole range of things since then. we need to dedicate ourselves to that kind of effort for long a long period of time in terms of dealing with the cyberthreat. it's going toe involve over time. the adversaries have significant resources thems devoted to it and we face substantial risks when they're successful. >> when he had his confirmation hearing, he listed the threlts to national security and number one was cyber. i want to follow quickly on the question that i think senator

franken asked and i think chairman leahy did also about violating the terms of a service agreement and criminalizing, basically, the contract with your violation of contract with your provider. when you were asked that question, you responded with an example of somebody who was stealing large amounts of petty cash. i would just suggest to you that there's a difference between stealing petty cash, which i think every american understands that stealing cash is a bad thing to do, with violating the terms of fine print in contracts. i don't think there's ever been a society more bedeviled by fine print in contracts than america is right no. the average american has so much fine print in all of the computer programs they down load, in all of their service agreements an the cell phone

contracts, wherever you look, everything you do at the bank has pages of fine print. americans are tormented with fine print. and i do think that it would be very salutary for the department of justice to put out a proper, solid, prosecution policy that would reassure americans that it is not the department of justice's intention in pursuing these criminal offenses to go after somebody who comes in under the wrong name on face pook or who, you know, one way or another is out of compliance with a private contract that they've entered into that is probably a contract of adhesion in that they didn't really negotiate it and it's multiple pages long and the average person doesn't read it. i think you want to be out of that business. i think the cases that raise that question really throw the

department's prosecution in this area, activities in this area in a bad light. we've had a lot of attention today, it's attention i don't think you need. i think there's a clear difference between going after somebody who go into the petty cash drawer and takes money out which everybody knows is wrong and somebody who sends an unauthorized email or accesses a program they're not supposed to, i just think you need to be a lot more careful about that and make sure you're going after who you should be and i think that would calm down a lot of concern about this. it does lend itself to abuse if it becomes a federal crime to violate the fine print of the all the contracts americans are subjected to. >> i don't think we have done that. i think our re-- our performance has been better than that. i would submit that consistent

to and pursuant to the oversigh of the committee in particular, we haven't done that. i think the case people are concerned about, the drew case, did not involve, it was just some random case of somebody who violated terms of service agreement, it was a case of individuals goading a 13-year-old girl into committing suicide. it's understandable that law enforcement would take a dim view of that and try to address that situation to the fullest extent of the law. in p that particular situation, the judge disagreed strongly with our interpretation of the statute, we reviewed his decision and decided not to appeal. i don't think it's accurate for those who -- we understand why people are concerned about the kinds of issues that you've raised with respect to terms of service agreements an all these contracts and so on, we get that, we understand it completely. we're trying to find a way to address those concerns and at the same time not let people

off the hook who are insiders, in particular companies, and the key thing is this term exceeds authorized access in the statute. as you well know. and the key is, how do you avoid the kind of cases that you're very concerned about and yet at the same time not let off the hook somebody who works at the i.r.s., social security administration, you name it or some bank to go in, take information, and misuse it for some particular purpose. we're happy to work with people to address the concerns, i'll take back your suggestion about issuing a policy statement. >> i think you're better off doing it yourself than counting on congress to draw that fine line and that moving line. i would recommend that. well, i've gone well beyond my time which i was able to do since nobody else is here, no prejudice to any colleague and i want to express my appreciation, especially agent martinez to you, for the work you and the secret service are

doing in this area, and to you, mr. baker, for the work the department of justice is doing and your long and meritorious service to our country in the area of national security. as you know, i continue to believe that we are sorely underresourced. in this area and that if you put the 230 prosecutorsmark of whom are part time, or no time, depending on the nature of the district's case load, up against, say, the drug enforcement administration and a.t.f. and major organizations like that, that are working diligently and properly on threats to our national security and to our national well being that are probably no greater than the threat that we have from cybercrime and cyberattack. there's a huge disconnect, and i would urge that you or the

administration ramp up a more energized proposal about how we can go after these folks, particularly bearing in mind how immensely complicated each one of these cases is going to be, you have to track down people in foreign countries and work through all of the complexities of engaging with foreign law enforcement authorities and dealing with rico statutes. these are not easy cases. it takes an immense amount of work to do the forensic preparation of the case. so as i said, my message is good job on the statute. obviously we are not going to agree with everything you've put in, but i do think we need to improve it. but the rhinoceros in the living room is the resource question and it's trying to improve the statute.

but it's really got, i think, -- but we really got to, think, be more aggressive of this. it's not your fault there isn't more people to do more on this but it's important for congress to work in this area. thank you very much. we will keep the record open for one week, and if anybody cares to add anything to it and the hearing a adjourned. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> and just want to let you know, one of the hearings we will be covering tomorrow is the joint committee on the deficit reduction. their first meeting at 10:30 on c-span 3. meanwhile this however the house expected at about 5:30 eastern with votes at 6:30. they'll consider three bills including one to extend duty-free products in the u.s. tomorrow in the house the members will take up a bill authorizing $300 million to expand charter schools in the u.s. then tomorrow evening, they will hear from president obama in a joint session. we'll tell you more about that in a moment. we'll have live house coverage when they come back at 5:30 eastern or so. meanwhile, this evening on c-span3coming up this evening on c-span3, the oral history of 9/11. we'll hear from former pentagon protected services chief john

juster and also the state chief of staff for senator kennedy, mary beth cahill who was with senator kennedy and barbara bush when the attacks took place. that's at 8:00 eastern. and also coming up tomorrow, as we said, president obama in a speech before congress. the joint session speech. he'll talk about jobs. it gets under way at 7:00 eesh. you can watch it -- eastern. you can watch it here on c-span and follow it live on our facebook page as we live stream the event tomorrow night and offer your comments at facebook.com/c-span. >> in 1844, henry clay ran for president of the united states and lost, but he changed political history. he's one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new weekly series, the contenders. this week, live from ashland, henry clay's kentucky home friday at 8:00 eastern. >> a couple of comments from the administration on libya

today at the white house briefing, jay carney said they are urging libya's neighbors to detain muammar gaddafi and members of his family if they seek refuge in another country. victoria newman said that they believe senior libyan officials have been detained in an african country. we hear part of today's briefing next. >> well, the u.s. ambassador did meet with the mijiran president yesterday to discuss the movements of these libyans. our understanding is the convoy included officials under gaddafi's former regime. they are now being held in the capital in government villas and they are being monitored closely by mijiran officials. it is also in direct contact with members of the libyan

transitional national council to discuss the future of these folks and their property. in that -- we've been contacted by chad, to emphasize the important of respecting the u.n. security council resolutions. we are asking these countries to make every effort to contain any gaddafi regimes officials, to to conif i indicate any illegal contraband, any wealth that might properly belong to the libyan people. so those efforts will continue. i can't speak to the podium to the specific identities of the individuals. i'd refer you to the government of mijair.

there was reports of a massive convoy of 200 cars. those reports appear to be overblown. and it is our understanding that the government is taking measures now to strengthen its own border controls. i think they are being talked to by nigeran officials. i don't know what their attention is. >> you suggested that they should be returned to libya. i was curious under what authority should that happen? i don't believe any of the individuals who were reported were under the travel ban by

the u.n. resolutions. what's the reason for that request? >> well, where we have been and what we suggested to the government of nyjer and they have taken these measures, in the first instance they -- nigger and they have taken these measures, in the first instant they should be de-- niger and they have taken these measures in the first instance they should be detained. they need to know what the future course will be. you were right here, i was mistaken yesterday in thinking that some of these folks were on the 1970 list. our information at the moment is that none of them are on the specific list of individuals and under 1970, but, again, the information pictures have all been here as well. >> and you said that any wealth

they may have taken should be returned. how do you describe it, a cap? if they have $300,000, it should be returned? >> again, it's not for the united states to decide. this is for the transitional national council working with the government of niger to evaluate whether these folks have in fact absconded with some of the wealth of the libyan people and they can work it out together. our intention here is to ensure if there was a stipending of national wealth that it is returned where it belongs. >> you listed three immediate neighbors but all those three is what the state departments not to be in africa but in various regions. do you refer to countries that fall under the a.f. burrow or were you suggesting that --

bureau or were you suggesting that tunisia, egypt and algeria don't need to be reminded of what's -- >> yeah, tunisia, egypt and algeria have been working on this libya issue for many months now and we have been working closely with them and they have been working with the u.n. on border issues. we've been particularly concerned with the flight south into the african countries in recent weeks. >> do you have any information about gaddafi's whereabouts? it was surrounding the place where gaddafi is residing. >> i'm seeing the same reports you're seeing but i don't have any definitive to give here. >> and, again, jay warn ear, the white house spokesman delivering the information to niger to detain muammar gaddafi and his family and many are believed to have flew into

niger. jean chris spoke to the middle east institute talking about the humanitarian issue there and this is 35 minutes. >> thank you, wendy. it's a pleasure to be here. it's especially a pleasure to be here after these last six months which have been i think for all of us involved in this very intensive and finally we've achieved something i think very few of us thought would happen so quickly. if this was leading from behind, i don't know those of us exhausted don't see it that way. wendy mentioned the meeting in paris. let me go back a little ways to talk about the international communities' response to this crisis and then move on to the several different topics that she mentioned. prior to the meeting in paris last week i think you were all aware that there were several international meetings starting

with sum its in london, in -- summits in london, in paris and then heading on into contact group meetings in doha, rome, the united arab of emirates and istanbul and a nato ministryial in berlin all of which secretary of state clinton participated in and which certainly showed the commitment of the united states to this effort. i think each of the meetings, each of them built upon the other and over the time period i think you found over -- we found -- we built an international consensus. number one, in support of the nato mandate. number two, in support of trying to aid the libyan opposition to the extent that we could and number three, an increasing comfort with the n.t.c. as time went on. i remember from the first days that the -- this had started

within two weeks of the crisis the secretary kd me to go out and find out exactly who were those people. we have had a sense a bit of who they were. i admit some of them when i was ambassador and some of them were ministers, some of them occupied different positions in the libyan government. but we really didn't have a sense beyond that of who they were so i traveled to rome and cairo to meet them. i think as time went on the international community became more comfortable with them. as each meeting solidified a particular consensus leading up to the july 15 meeting in inns tan bull in which the contact group basically offered recognized to the n.t.c. as well as the united states did and called upon the international community to support the n.t.c. with funds and also congealed around the

sense that gaddafi had to go. up until that time, as you know, there were several attempts in trying to find a political solution. in fact, the libyans were sending out enjoys to everyone in an attempt, we think, to play the one party off against the other. and in istanbul the contact group kind of put its foot down and said they will no longer be a difusion of enjoys, and that the -- envoice and that the effort of the international -- envoys and the effort of the international community would be through through the u.n. special representative, mr. hatif. so that basically brought us to -- so in fact istanbul was a turning point, i think, in the international community's view and approach to the issue. last week in paris was really quite extraordinary.

the atmosphere -- you know, some people said while this was a victory lap, i didn't get that sense at all. i think the people in that room including, you know, several prime ministers including, you know, president of france, prime minister of britain and the prime minister of italy and several other high level officials, including ban ki-moon of the u.n. and the arab a lot egg, the head, the secretary -- league, the head, the secretary general, there was a sense of pride in what the international community had done over the past several month but it was in no sense a victory lap as such because i think everybody recognized that while the situation had reached a more positive point than it had over, you know, these past many months that certainly there was a lot more work to do. and there's no doubt that a muammar gaddafi along with his sons, saif, the most dangerous

of the lot, having them continued to be free anywhere in libya, much less outside libya, posed a danger to whatever efforts the t.n.c. was going to make in terms of establishing a new government and a new way forward for this new libyan country. so for their part i think the -- at the paris meeting some things were common among all the different presentations made. number one, there was a further calling on nations to recognize the t.n.c. as a legal representative of the libyan people and up to date i think we have approximately 65 nations now that have formally recognized the t.n.c., including several african nations that just came onboard in the last few days. there was a certainly a sense of pride in talking to the

leadership of the t.n.c. the international community was simply amazed at the courage that the libyan people had shown over these past months in taking, you know, taking to the streets and actually fighting this dictator who had suffocated them for the past 42 years. there was a call for everybody in that room to try to do what they could individually and through the u.n., of course, to unfreeze the assets which we hope now would be made available to the t.n.c. as they cope with some very, very difficult problems in the several days, weeks and months which -- my colleague will be able to address more fully. and there was also a call that the international community was very proud to have helped them through this effort and now

expected them as well to uphold the commitments that they had made during the past several months from the start. basically with respect to observing human rights, with respect to treating prisoners of war according to the geneva conventions, with respect to unifying libya because, you know, part of the problem always was a part of the concern was this was a very benghazi centric government and no government in libya could survive as a -- and unify the country if it retained that kind of perception. there was also a sense -- an appeal to the libyan leadership that they needed to take care of these assets, and when they get them to be very careful with them and that the international community expected transparency and some kind of accountability so that in effect that money was used for a good purpose and would be

tangiblely seen as time went on. for their part mustafa -- gentleman drill, the two leaders of the t.n.c., gave a very moving thanks to the international community for its support. they were very clear they intended to fulfill the obligations they had made with respect to human rights, treatment of prisoners,est, and that they would do everything they could that they heard the international communities pleas on these different issues in terms of unity and all, that they understood them and that they really didn't need to be told what they needed to do because they understood those particular problems. they also agreed and they said they would be a governing authority that would make sure the way that they handled these billions of dollars of assets would be handled in a

transparent and up to international standards. i think as we look forward to the next days and weeks in terms of the interest of the united states, particularly in the international community at large i think there are a few things that we need to stress. number one that we will continue the nato mission. that there was certainly a clear sense in paris that this was not over and that the t.n.c. continues to face problems on the security front and as i mentioned especially with gaddafi and his sons still running around the country. so there was certainly a very strong sense that that would continue and when the circumstances were right then a decision would be made as to what the future of nato would be if anything in libya. number two, what we would hope to promote over the next days and weeks is to welcome libya

back in the community of nations for it to regain its seat at the u.n. number three, that we would support the t.n.c. in its efforts to meet the need of the libyan people. two key things as they begin to establish themselves and they are making their way back into tripoli day by day. the minister of tarhuni has been there. we expect prime minister jabril and mustafaial jalil will establish themselves in the upcoming days in tripoli. number one, establish security and also making sure that the humanitarian needs of the libyan population withhold at large are fulfilled because i think there is an understanding that in order to begin to put this country back together again -- and i've said it's not recreation. i called it a creation of a new country because what they have

inherited i think from gaddafi is a very, very difficult and hard climb. when you think about the east-west problem, when you think of the tribal problems, when you think of the minority problems, the north and south, it's really quite a challenge that they face. and like i said in several interviews, i think gaddafi was one to take the concept of divide and conquer to unprecedented heights. they need to deal with these issues as well as to build new institutions as well as to deal with the issues in dealing with over hundreds of billions of dollars worth of contracts. they have said they will honor contracts but certainly there's going to be a lot that needs to figure out as they go forward on the economic side and also, of course, getting their oil

resource back online. they are committed to a u.n. lead in helping the libyan people. ian martin is on the ground now with the u.n. assessment team. i think he will at some point report back to the u.n. to secretary ban ki-moon in terms of what the scope and size of that u.n. mission should be. i think at the end of the day the final goal is that we are committed to helping the t.n.c. pave a path to inclusive peaceful democracy. none of us can prekict what that democracy is going to look like. it's probably going to be messy as they try to put this country back together again. they are going to have to create an n.g.o. society. they are going to have to create new institutions.

but their commitment seems to be to a democracy of some kind. i think we've seen in the first days of the t.n.c., you know, assuming authority in places like benghazi and other places in the country that the libyans seem to have an idea of what democracy is. certainly in the first several weeks we saw, you know, debates taking place of what a constitution is, what democracy should be. we saw tens of newspapers published. we saw an n.g.o. springing up in the hundreds. so it seems that they do have a sense of what democracy is. and that the t.n.c. leadership will have to harness that and see what makes sense what will be the new libyan political and economic and social fabric. let me say a few words about planning. i know there is a lot of questions. there have been a lot of

questions of just what kind of planning is done in terms of this crisis. and from the start we had an advantage in fact in washington because i had my embassy team basically transported back and we were able to work together out of the state department and so we exploited that knowledge on the ground that we had. we then worked with the interagency process here to basically lay out various scenarios that we thought would play out in libya from the worst to the best. the one that's played out is kind of next to worst. the worst obviously would be a gaddafi leaving or being overthrown in tripoli but ending in an apop little bitic rage of some kind and bring diagnose -- apocalyptic rage of some kind and bringing him down.

it precluded or prevented that kind of apocalyptic scenario. we did have different scenarios we would face and that the t.n.c. would face and that the international community would face and i think by and large after we had done our planning we had hooked up with the u.n. with ian martin and then beyond that we went to the e.u. and finally we went to the t.n.c. planning cell which at that time several weeks ago was in doha. and i think that all of us were quite pleasantly surprised that the t.n.c. group had done an amazing amount of planning. much along the lines what we had been doing so we were able to compare notes what kind of political issues they would face, what kind of issues, messaging, all these different things that we had taken into account in the planning phase they had also done and we were able to kind of fill in each

other's gaps. so i am not sure at this point we can definitively say that the planning process that we all engaged in is in fact paying dividends now. but i think there are issues being brought to the floor now which are being considered previously and which are being played out now. for example, on the proliferation of weapons, we all recognize that this is an issue that needed to be dealt with and i think the t.n.c. is certainly aware of it and at some point over the next few weeks i think you'll see efforts to decommission the militias and to get people to turn in their weapons and to bring those militias, which had been heretofore independent within the last six months bring them under a national security force of some kind or another. w.m.d., you've seen and the other weapons, you've seen a lot of concern i think in the news what's happened to the site that was under the

supposed guard of, you know, gaddafi and some of the c.w. sites and the scuds, etc., etc., and we had also in our planning and in their planning as well had considered the -- what needed to be done. and right now we have people there on the ground, the t.n.c. is working closely with the international community to make sure those sites are secured. man paths and other weapons that might be, you know, proliferated, they've taken the same attitude. all of the planning we have done is kind of playing itself out. we also noted that migrants could be a problem because, you know, we had predicted and i think it didn't take a genius to figure it out that a lot of the wrath of libyans would be directed against black africans who were seen as having played

a part in terms of mercenaries and all and we are now working after having received fairly credible reports from international organizations that there was some -- that there has been an ongoing sense of mistreatment of some of the black africans. we are now very intensively engaged with the t.n.c. and with the international community, including the i.u.m. and u.n. to make sure we get some protection and we figure out a solution to bring these mige rants out of harm's way. we -- migrants out of harm's way. we don't think it's a systematic approach by the t.n.c. but it's being done at a lower level who doesn't have a sense of what is fair play and how do you not accuse a whole, you know, race of atrocities that can be done by a few of them. so we are working very close to them. i think in talking to the

t.n.c., i think their priorities include number one pursuing gaddafi. i think this is very important to them to put him on trial. there will be a lingering problem as long as he is free. number two, i think they're very geared toward stabilization and providing security and providing a new regime of the rule of law. they have established special courts for those who have done special crimes. demillerizing the -- demilitaryizing the militia. and the gaddafi regime -- i think the t.n.c. is also looking for ways to also -- also looking for a way to confiscate those of the families that have martyrs who played a role in this revolution. and also to come up with a budget process that will prioritize public services, public salaries, and rebuilding

and upgrading infrastructure, housing and utilities. so they have a massive challenge ahead of them. the united states certainly along with its allies will do what we can. we are not going to be in the nation building like we were in iraq and afghanistan. it's clear we don't have the resources to do that. and this situation doesn't lend itself to that. the t.n.c. said they are not looking for a massive handout or massive, you know, financial infusions from the international community. they're looking for training and they're looking for help in helping to set up the institutions that they know are necessary in order for them to build their new country. so with that i think that we're -- we got a lot of work ahead of us. i think we are all looking forward to going back at some

point. this has been a tremendous opportunity for us to watch these brave people. i think it will serve as a model for historians for hundreds of years to come who took the curbling and actually, you know, overthrew this dictator. we now have a very important role to play in helping them, according to the kind of needs that they will lay out for us in helping to build this new society. i think at the end of the day the international community and certainly we as americans can be very proud of the role that we have played in this. i think we stand our reputation and libya is very well-thought-of. i look forward to hopefully helping american companies and get back into libya because i think they have the expertise that the libyans will need. but we will take this to -- the key to this is that it's going to be libyan led and we're not

going to dictate the terms of how they should proceed but we will be there should they need our help. at the end of the day, you know, maybe five or 10 years from now we may have a conversation and we may be able to say there is a democracy in libya and that the united states had a role to play in it. i think we are all very proud of that. i think that i certainly having worked for the last six months with the president and secretary of state can say that we took the right path on this one and i think the concept of smart power has been a good one and we look forward to going back to libya and helping them build their new nation. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, ambassador cretz, for that clear, candid and comprehensive account. ambassador cretz has agreed to

take a few answers -- questions from the audience. this is on the record. come front and center and state your name and your affiliation. and then after he -- after very few questions then we will continue with the rest of our panel on the humanitarian situation in libya. thank you. >> hi. i'm leah from the international law and policy group. i was just wondering if you had any concerns how the international backing of the t.n.c. might affect the legitimacy going forward. >> i think by saying number one this will be a libyan-led process that we recognize, that we have to be very sensitive about the position of the t.n.c. it's clear that the no boots on the ground was not only a rose

out of a domestic comparative here in the united states but out of a sense that that would be a very difficult issue for the t.n.c. we have been very careful and i think our allied partners have been as well. i don't -- we understand the sensitivities there. they are in a very difficult position because they have to -- they have to really establish legitimacy and credibility for the population, parts of which don't know who they are, parts of which are very skeptical of them. for us to be seen as quote-unquote western imperialist attempting to, you know, reimpose ourselves or intervene would be a very dangerous thing for them. i don't think it's going to be a problem, quite honestly. >> thank you. we already had quite a long line so we are going to cut the line off there so if i could just ask you not to join the line after we complete this. >> ken meyer. you have echoed secretary

clinton's statement that the libyans should be able to decide their fate on their own. their belief that nato will continue its involvement implies that without nato the rebels would lose. doesn't letting the libyans fight it out amongst themselves come closer to letting the libyans decide that having nato continue its devastation of the country? >> what i meant by the fact that nato would continue its mission, would continue its mission to protect civilians. that's it. >> but it is continuing to bomb ? >> but i think it is being -- as has been the case throughout the six months -- throughout the five months that nato has been involved in this, they have been very careful in terms of the targeting and i don't think there has been many instances where one could argue that the nato mission has veered very much from number one making sure there was a no-fly zone and number two that its main mandate of protecting civilians was honored most of that time or all of that time.

>> jim from al-jazeera. you mentioned during your remarks that you hope to go back soon. can you put a finer point on that because other countries have put up their establishments? do you know if you will go back to set up the embassy? >> there is a small team on the ground assessing the situation. you know, our mission was torched along with the british friends and the frempling and italians that night -- french and italians the night that allarah in a fit of apocalyptic rage by gaddafi and his goons. chris stevens has been in benghazi all this time. we are taking a very measured approach to our return. i expect us to be there as the days go on. i think you'll see an increased american presence given the

security is stabilized even further and that we can find facilities in which to house our people. >> i'm proud to being libyan and being american and would like to state here are the fact without the interference of the alliance and then of nato we would not have achieved in getting rid of gaddafi. my question is to -- two. libya in 1950 and 1951, nato helped build it. it's a great color and a great -- [inaudible] today, it's the making of second libya. second independence of libya. i think the united nations and i'm asking you as ambassador of the united states is to wish that the united nations play the same role of rebuilding libya politically and seeing that the program of political

rebuilding will be there for sure and it's very much respected because of the 1970 and 1973 resolutions. my questions to you, ambassador, cretz, i was in libya, i just came last week and they were asking me, who is going to pay for the nato expenses? that has not been clearly explained in the media or in other places. and i know it's -- and the second one is the rebuilding of the country needs to rebuild the -- they need to rebuild an infrastructure. it's a great role for the united states to play. i hope to tell them what kind of plans you have. thank you. >> in terms of the u.n. role, i'll let my colleague, mark, address that because he's been hooked up with ian martin for quite a while. it's clear since the start of the international community has placed great faith in the u.n.

certainly in the secretary general, in his representative of mr. hatif from jordan and certainly now with ian martin whoess on the ground in libya as we speak. the question of paying for nato expenses, this has come up. i've been several congressmen have asked me, will we ask for reimbursement? this is a question, very complex. it has to be dealt with at a later time. i mean, i think there is a certain recognition, let's let the t.n.c. get established before issues like this and other ones i'm sure you're well aware of will come up in a bilateral relationship. civil society and what role will the united states play, we will intend to do that. mark will address that as well because i think that's the area where we will be most effective and we have the most comparative advantage with respect to other potential donors as well. >> dave, former "washington post" middle east

correspondent. i'm curious how you would explain qua tar's amazing role in overthrowing gaddafi. what do you think the motives were for the royal family to become so involved in so many different ways in overthrowing another arab leader which generally speaking is not part of the way arabs treat each other. >> well, look, there's no doubt that the emirates and another played an upfront role in this, including in the military campaign which is unprecedented. don't forget, one of the main reasons that we were able to intervene, and this is because we had arab backing, not just from the g.g.c., but from the arab league from the start. so i think there was a consensus, certainly, a strong consensus in the arab world that had to -- that had to

exist in order for them to overtly approach us and the nato group to take action. so i can't speak to the motivations, i don't think, of the two. obviously they had their own national interest as well as other interests at stake but i think those will probably come out as we -- as history -- the history is written of the crisis. but it's clear they played an important role, along with the emirates and along with our nato colleagues. >> obviously trappings infrastructure is the lifeblood of a country and even before the regime fell, there have been some projects started to improve the transportation infrastructure in the country. can you elaborate just a bit as to what should we be expecting for the international airport

in tripoli? it was already contracted out. the number of roads and if you have any knowledge about that situation, it would be very welcomed. >> yeah. you're absolutely right. i mean, look, libya in the pre-february 16 under gaddafi was a place that was, you know, booming with contracts. they needed everything from a to z, from roads to airports. it gives you a sense of the deprivation which this country suffered with all that oil wealth and yet all of this was being done in very much a helter-skelter way. i think there was -- as i recall, the last figure i had seen there was approximately $150 billion worth of contracts that were under way in one form or another on the eve of the crisis and so this is going to be one of the issues that the t.n.c. is going to have to be very diligent about to go back and review them, see which ones

are still operatives, see which ones need to be redone, which ones need to be discarded completely. i think there will be a tremendous amount of work for the whole international community in this. that's why i said, you know, the european companies are already, you know, knocking on the door to get back into libya and i think that american companies should be in that position too. but i think we have to give the t.n.c. a bit of some breathing space, number one, political place to get themselves established and number two to begin to rationalize how they want to proceed on the development course. they said they were going to honor a lot of the contracts that they've signed. especially with the oil companies, which is a positive step. but i'm not sure the extent to which they really completed the thinking about how to go and take that massive amount of products that were under way on the eve of the crisis and to bring them either back online or whatever.

i think it's going to be a very intensive undertaking. but at the end of the day i think companies from around the world are going to have a fairly good opportunity to contribute to the rebuilding of this new lib the gentleman from >> thank you very much, ambassador cretz. we very much appreciate your time. we know it's a pressing time for you. please join me in welcoming -- [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> house members returning to a wet and in some places a flooded washington this afternoon. they'll resume at legislative business at 5:30 eastern. three bills including one that will extend duty-free products in the u.s. votes around 6:30. on thursday members will consider legislation to authorize $300 million in expanding charter schools in the u.s. and on friday we expect them to take up the intelligence re-authorization bill for fiscal year 2012. house coverage when they come back in about 45 minutes here

on c-span. in the leadup to sunday's 10th anniversary of the september is 1 attacks, we will bring you coverage this evening on c-span 3 of oral history of john juster, the former pentagon protective services chief and senator ted kennedy's chief of staff, mary beth cahill. that gets under way at 8:00 eastern. president obama speaks to a joint session of congress tomorrow night about his jobs proposal. that gets under way at 7:00. and by the way, you can also watch on our facebook page and post your thoughts there, facebook.com/c-span. we got a small business perspective and preview on this morning's "washington journal." mail to you. >> "washington journal" continues. host: karen karrigan is the president and ceo of the small business council. we want to hear your take on jobs and the economy this week.

what is happening on that front as far as hearing the plans from some of the gop presidential candidates? the president, what do you want to hear from him? guest: small businesses are really looking for some more leadership, definitely. more than just hearings. there have been a lot of speeches, a lot of different types of plans that the president has attempted to implement over the last couple of years, and they have not been beneficial for small business owners and the economy, from their perspective. frankly, i think that their expectations are fairly low. they would like to hear him address their key concerns. obviously, revenue is weak.

we do need to see an uptick in revenues. the economy performing, overall, very well. they would like to see some additional moves, like the one that he made last week, reining in epo. there are a variety of motions moving to agencies right now. over 200, many of which impact small businesses. the reining in of regulations. i think that every time the president talks about tax increases, it creates uncertainty for small businesses. i do not know what the taxes are going to be in the future.

there are a lot of items that are expiring. stability in terms of the tax system. relief on the regulatory and. being open to listening to ideas to improve the health care reform he listed. there will be many elements of that that will continue to raise the burden and cost on small business owners. host: we do have a line set up for small business owners. and democrats, 202-624-1111. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for independents, 202-624-0760. if you are a small business owner, 202-737-2579. let's look at the coverage from "the new york times," on the

president's plan for this week. host: going on into the story, in "the new york times," moody's has reported -- tax cuts expiring in 2012, what you think of that? guest: extending it? it would put more money into the pockets of consumers and continues to be a decent idea. from the small business perspective, it is not enough.

certainly, we continue to see increases in prices, fuel costs, things along that line. it is more of the same and i think they are looking for more bold ideas and action. what is happening with the tax code, are we going to extend the current tax group? are we going to rein in an additional regulations? what else can we do on health care front? without continuing to see the upticks that we have seen that have been unbearable for small business owners, who have to provide insurance to compete in this economy. host: c-span will broadcast the president's speech tomorrow night. he will address a joint session of congress from the u.s. capitol building to the house chambers. let's hear from janet, small

business owner, joining us from baltimore, maryland. caller: good morning. host: go right ahead. caller: one question. i would like to know your guests definition of small business. host: good question. let's start there. guest: the government's definition is any business with 500 employees or less. in terms of the makeup of our organization, our members, the employee sizes are much smaller than that. 90% or more members have 10 employees. if you look at the $5.9 million in employer firms that exist in this country, many have 100 employees or less. those small businesses that have employees with five, 10, 15, 20,

even 100 or less, you get more to mid-sized choices in this range. caller: i have a small business. i understand what she said as far as president obama, but i think he has done the best that he can with what he has as far as trying to get revenue for small businesses. my business thrived when president clinton was in office. i was able to employ individuals in my small- business. that is why, when i asked for the definition, i am not

thinking of the small business making over $1 million per year. i am talking about someone who only employs two people to five people. guest: that kind of business is really the heart and soul of the american economy. in fact, 21 million of these small businesses are self- employed. they do not have any employees, though some may aspire to that. i agree, moving forward, particularly now, we are facing the prospect of a government recession will the president and congress need to find common ground on issues. i think that they can do. there are bipartisan bills before congress waiting for more

small business input into regulations. perhaps there are tax proposals or additional ideas for precluding the health-care laws in place. there are areas of common ground that they just have to work through. host: ohio, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you. listen. the trouble, nowadays, with all of the people who are making -- host: i think that if you turn down your television -- caller: i do not hear the television. host: ok.

caller: the people who have retired and are making 100% of their top dollar, they have 100% of their health-care and everything like that. i know someone who is making $120,000 and he is 86 years old. he has been retired for 37 years. host: we will leave it there. guest: i think that what she may have been addressing was the area of entitlement. social security, perhaps. medicare reform. certainly, that is a huge issue that needs to be addressed.

certainly, there should be income testing into those programs, as well as, in terms of social security, looking at the retirement age. i will be interested to hear, tonight, during those republican presidential debates, the specifics from some of the candidates and what they address in terms of those issues. oif you what spending and control, you have to address the issue of entitlements. reform ideas out there, that issue can be tackled right away. there just needs to be political leadership on this issue. host: