the abortion. right to privacy is left over here. the right to an abortion under roe vs. wade. this is a new low in extreme provisions that we've seen in the congress from my republican colleagues. . the very idea of even introducing a bill that would deny the constitutional rights of one jurisdiction is an outrage in and of itself. sure, bills are introduced on this floor all the time that are on their face unconstitutional, but it takes a great deal of bullying determination to pick out one jurisdiction, because you don't have the courage to

come forward with a national law. a national bill. by no means do we believe a national bill is appropriate. this bill has also been introduced on the other side. by senator mike lee of utah. apparently someone asked him if there is a 20-week abortion bill in utah, or if congress might introduce one for utah. he was quick to say, no. they don't have such a bill in utah. nd he would have -- if the congress tries to enact it in utah, he would oppose it. so here we have a tea party

republican of the senate who applied his tea party principles until he he just doesn't want to. and that happens to be when it comes to the district of columbia. anybody who thinks we are going to stand up here and let that without protesting and rallying americans who believe in fairness to our cause, they o not know us very well. we will not. we'll refuse to be a vehicle for the extreme views or pet projects of some republicans. they have their own outlets. they have the right to come to this floor and offer bills. they have the right to speak on this floor in any way they choose. we will not be a prop for those views. these are the supposedly small

government tea party republicans who are now using the big foot, federal government, against a lone jurisdiction that doesn't have a vote on this floor, that could not vote for or against it if it came to this floor. hat kind of courage is that? it's a bully's task to make an ideological point. you got an ideological point, make it, don't use my district o do so. potentially should this be the case for the extreme right wing part of the republican party, does mean what the federal

government and what the federal government ought to be doing. now they got the federal government in something that even they said the federal government should never be doing. interfering with the local rights of people to govern them services. this is a country in which there are wide differences about many subjects. perhaps none more so than the right to reproductive choice, but it is also a country that respects one another in the various states and localities where we live and to not try to reach over and somehow compel people in one jurisdiction to do what people in another jurisdiction in fact do. that's the difference between this country, a federal republic, and other countries. and it's one mean to hold this congress, and it's a principle we mean to hold this congress to.

there is a saying that well, the district doesn't do enough restricting of abortion. so that's why we simply have to step in here. on the contrary. there are nine states that do not restrict abortions any more than the district does. the district abides by roe vs. wade. but this bill is directed against only one jurisdiction. of course, of course i take exception to the bill itself, ut i take particular exception against being bullied by people outside my jurisdiction in order to sea -- satisfy their own personal philosophical concerns.

i can tell you this much. the notion that you can use the district and abuse its women on reproductive choice and nobody else will care should have been put to rest last year. the kickoff of the republican attack on reproductive rights was, in fact, this bill which went to the floor and failed. but they didn't stop there. back to abortions was not enough. they went all the way back to contraception. contraceptionmade a campaign matter. in the last election.

well, i hope you learned your lesson because women put all of this together, and showed what they thought about it in the presidential election. i am very grateful to women all over the country for how they sponded specifically to this very bill, this 20-week abortion bill that applied only to the district of columbia. they were not fooled for a moment. men across the united states vote thousands of emails and letters indicating that they understood this bill, the very same bill that was defeated last ear, to be a vehicle for inroads into the reproductive rights of women across the

united states. so far from ignoring it, after all it's only 600,000 people, they are the one who is live in district of columbia, they live in california, wyoming. who cares. we saw them coming out of the states in large numbers making it clear that they saw it for what it was, that special interest groups are going from state to state to pass anti-choice bills. they begin at personhood where there is absolutely -- would be no right to an abortion, or hardly contraception, because in their view life begins at conception. and then they come up and some have six-week bills and there are other 20-week bills. they are all over the map. by the way, they are quite divided because they are all over the map. they settled on 20-week

abortion, however, for this bill , and we need to do for this bill what we did last year. to turn it back, to make women all over the country understand it for what it is. just as they did last year. for them to see that the only way to resist these attacks is to be as persistent as our opponents are in coming back to attack women, using the women of the district of columbia. the women of my district are the chosen vehicle, but the targets are a national campaign against the reproductive rights of women in the nation. they can't come to the floor, or they won't with a broad side

attack on the reproductive the s of women, so they do cowardly thing and come again to the district of columbia because of the technical jurisdiction that, of course, i can see the congress has but no principles congress would ever use against the local jurisdiction. so i come to the floor this afternoon to put everybody on notice that you can come as many times as you want and as many ways as you want, but i represent 00,000 tax paying ericans, and they -- 600,000 tax paying americans, and they insist they are equal to americans everywhere else. for 100 years they did not have any rights.

they didn't have the right to vote for president. they didn't have a right for a local government. for 100 years they were ruled by three commissioners appointed by the president. during the civil rights era that the congress became ashamed of having a local jurisdiction, that mentions capital, that did not have the same rights as other people in the united states, not even a local government, the mayor, or city council who could enact legislation affecting the local population, although this population has been paying federal income taxes ever since our country has been collecting ncome taxes. our residents have fought and

died in every war our country has ever fought, including the war that created the united states of america. when you are american citizens in a jurisdiction as old and historic as the nation's capital is, you better understand that we will not have our citizenship rights taken away lightly. and we will not be used and abused by members of this ongress, whatever their party. our union is not perfect, but it strives to be. t can become perfect only when it hears about its

imperfections. there is no imperfection greater than having members of congress focus on one jurisdiction that does not have the same ability to defend itself as every other jurisdiction. it is hard enough to see members of congress come down and vote on the district's local appropriation, which they had nothing to do with collecting, t which is still a part of ,hat is allowed in the congress but it is disgraceful to see one issue picked out and one jurisdiction alone the target of that issue. if you feel strongly about your issue, step up and air your

issue in the way this house allows. and i ask that whatever the it ask itselfthat when it deals with the district of columbia is what we are doing consistent with the principles that we profess on this floor time and again? i ask reconsideration of any such attempts in the future, and i must say that there is no possible way that any self-respecting jurisdiction would accept such treatment. so, mr. speaker, i put the congress on notice. we will never -- we do not accept the discriminatory

reatment in the franks bill or in the bill that i discussed previously to bar abortions in federal legislation permanently, which somehow tucks the district into the same bill. we do not accept and never will accept second class treatment by the congress of the united states. we will always protest it and we will always find a way to find the solid ground that american citizens must stand on to protect their rights. i yield back the remainder of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majori

d mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. thank you, mr. speaker. it's my privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the house of representatives. and in listening to the gentlelady from the district of columbia, of course a different opinion comes to mind. and that would be that regardless of the discussion about the supposed anti-choice bill here, didn't hear much discussion about dr. -- i put that in quotes -- kermit gosnell, who murdered babies while they were struggling while they were born and snipping the necks of babies. at least the jury has concluded that that is murder and now it's come down to this point where society needs to ask the question, what's the difference between that baby that's born

because he induced early labor to bring that baby into the fresh air, what's the difference between that baby and a same baby or maybe a twin that's 12 inches away? and i would say there's no distinction from a moral perspective. that little innocent baby is a life, is a unique human life that needs to be protected in all of its forms. and that's the argument that's going on here. you'll not hear people on the other side of this argument bring up the brutal and bloody and goolish and ghastly gosnell . but you will hear the argument about choice. because that sanitizes this argument and it tends to scrub the image out of our minds that we get when we think of that cruel gosnell who is now -- has now plea bargained himself into life in the penitentiary without the possibility of parole, in an effort to avoid

the death penalty. but think of this, mr. speaker. he executed we don't know how many babies. hundreds, perhaps thousands of babies. many of them struggling for life. we don't know how many. he did that, he gets to spend the r his life, three squares a day, in a cell with exercise time. and reading material. and that's supposedly justice in this society. and the gentlelady from the district of columbia talks about not having the right to vote. not having the voice of representation. there's a constitutional foundation for that. the early people that put this constitution together wrote in the original document how to establish the district of columbia. part of it was formed out of maryland. part was formed out of virginia. and if it's their determination that they want to be part of that senatorial representation, they we simply draw a circle around this federal complex and the balance that have can revert back to either maryland or virginia. and there's your representation

. t i would make a point about representation that is far more important than the dialogue that the gentlelady from the district has brought out within this last half hour or so. and that's this point, that if those babies that have been aborted since roe vs. wade, if they had choice rather than the mothers having choice, if they had a vote, if they had representation, if they could magically come alive today, 53 million of them, and if they had the right to vote in all of the districts across america where those babies have been aborted, we would by now easily have seen the end of roe vs. wade and this debate would not be taking place. this society would have a full respect and appreciation and a reverence for innocent, unborn human life, if those voices of the silenced could be heard in a vote. that's the contradiction that is the undercurrent of this discussion that's been presented to us, mr. speaker.

i have a couple of random things to clean up on before i get to the topic that i came here to discuss. but i can't resist bringing up a resolution that emerged in my attention today, h.con.res. 36. it's a concurrent resolution that's introduced by representative lee of california and it's for herself, mr. ellison, mrs. capps, mr. johnson, mrs. christensen, mr. grijalva, mr. honda, mr. israel, mrs. maloney, and ms. mccollum, and ms. schakowsky and ms. speier. these are the names that are the original co-sponsors and this resolution catches my attention, mr. speaker. it says this, recognizing the disparity impact of climate change on women and the efforts of women globally to address climate change. now, that was news to me. i hadn't considered the idea that if the climate is changing they think they know why but they dare not have that debate

any longer because the data was fraudulent. but now they're suggesting that the earth is getting warmer, that it's man's fault and it's women that are disparately impacted by it. i hadn't seen such a theory, mr. speaker. it goes on to say whereas, it has a whole series of whereases, whereas women in the united states are the lynch pin of families. i agree. women are the lynch pin ofs of families and it would be better if we had more men who were playing a more significant role. i don't think that's the position of the authors of this resolution. but it goes on to say, whereas climate change contributes to the work load and stress on women farmers and suggests that women produce 80% of the food in the developing countries. maybe, that would be a surprise to me. whereas women will be disproportionately facing harmful impacts for climate change. different than men, for example? whereas epidemics such asthma laria are expected to worsen -- as malaria are expected to

worsen and spread, putting women at risk. malaria discriminates on the basis of gender, mr. speaker? that also is news to me. and as i rdo through this resolution, the resolution on the disparate impact of climate change on women, this is the one that caught my attention above all others, mr. speaker. and i'll quote from the resolution, whereas food insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex and early marriage that put them at risk for h.i.v., s.t.i.'s, unplanned pregnancy and poor reproductive health. climate change, mr. speaker? who would have thought? who would have thought that that temperature change, perhaps the humidity change, was going to bring about these kind of earth-shaking discrimination on people based upon gender or, more technically, sex, mr. speaker? i'll go on.

whereas women in the united states are also particularly affected by climate-related disasters such as hurricane katrina. i went down there, i made four trips down to hurricane katrina . men and women were both affected. children too. i didn't ask them what their orientation was. i took it as when weather strikes when a hurricane strikes, it universally affects everyone in the zone, without regard to race, sex, creed color, national origin or whatever your ethnicity might be. when a hurricane hits, it hits everybody. here's another whereas. despite a nike capacity and knowledge to promote and provide for adaptation to climate change, women are disparately impacted. earn cudge -- encourages the use of gender-sensitive frameworks in addressing policies to address climate change. so, that's a little bit for our levity, mr. speaker. my constituents sometimes wonder why i come back from this town and that i have a

little bit of trouble engaging in the debate and rebutting things that come at me. i'm going to ask for a little help from around the countryside on how to actually rebut this argument. it's news to me and i appreciate your attention, mr. speaker. i came to this floor, however, to address the situation of immigration and particularly illegal immigration. first thing is, the people that have advocated for open borders have for years now worked to con flate the two terms -- conflate the two terms immigration and illegal immigration. they did that by the way if you remember with health care and health insurance. when they conflated those two terms, what they did was they blurred the topics. so they can say anti-immigrant congressman -- i don't want to use a last name because i can't think of one we don't have in these 435, x, y or z, anti-immigrant, what when they really mean someone who upholds the rule of law. and we have them from many of the states but not from every state. we have one who has stood up and defended the rule of law since well before he arrived in

this congress. and hails from the state of south carolina. he happens to be the lead dead eye in the entire united states congress, the man who brought the shooting trophy home again to the houserepresentative republicans and a man whom i have known since he was one of a group of about seven who ran in the primary in south carolina for his congressional seat. i'd like to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from south carolina, mr. duncan. mr. duncan: i want to thank the gentleman from iowa for his comments and his dedication to immigration reform in this country. when i was running for congress, i remember congressman king coming to south carolina and attending some of my events where we talked about immigration and we talked about the border. and so i applaud the gentleman for his past work on that. i look forward to continuing our efforts. you know, the past two weeks the discussion in washington has been about trust. it's been about trust on whether we're talking about the

thoughts of misleading talking points that were used by the administration in benghazi, the wiretapping of reporters, specifically the a.p., by the justice department. or the i.r.s. illegal targeting conservative groups. the public trust in our government is rightfully at an all-time low. so when we're debating immigration reform, obviously trust is the number one issue on people's mind. because they know that the government often promises to do things but never follows through. and that is the case when we're talking about immigration. and we're talking about the laws that are already on the books that i'll talk about in just a few minutes. but people have made it very, very clear. americans have made it very clear that they want two main things. they want us to secure our border, primarily we're talking about our southern border, where the issue seems to be at hand today. but they want our borders secured and they don't want amnesty. they don't want to give away

citizenship rights to folks who have broken the laws to come here. because what happens is you waterdown what it means to be a united states citizen when you just carte blanche give those citizenship rights away to folks that are law breakers. that have broken the law to come here, regardless of how honorable and good-intentioned their reasons for coming here are. they still broke the sovereign laws of the united states of america by crossing that border without permission, without legal immigration paperwork. they have broken the united states law. and what's interesting is that currently almost half the people in the united states who are here currently illegally, they didn't walk across a southern border. or they didn't walk across a northern border. they came here legally. they applied in their host country, their home country, at a united states cons late or a united states -- consulate or a united states embassy and theyd

tourist here on vacation, they asked to come here to attend one of our fine universities in this country under an f-1 student visa, or they came here on some sort of work visa. and they probably flew into this country through an airport or got off a ship. and we know something about them. america, these visa overstays we call them, people who came here legally, they had those interviews, we know who they are. we have their name. we have what they were coming here to do. usually we have a last known address for that person. folks, this is low-hanging fruit. and if we're going to talk about addressing illegal immigration in this country, we ought to first address the visa overstays. we ought to first address america, the folks that came into our country illegally, they ask our permission to come here and we grant them that permission and they just decided, and i understand them deciding because this is a

great country, but they just decided they liked it so much they would decide to stay. and how do we know that? well, we really don't know that they either have or have not left the country because this nation has a failed exit system. we have an entry system where we know when they come into this country from another country. under a visa. where we've granted them permission. but we really don't know when they leave. japan knows when you leave that country, if you're there as an immigrant or you're there as a tourist. other countries do as well. currently over half or almost half of all illegal aliens in this country came here legally. and we're not doing enough about it. we're not enforcing the laws that are on the books, and that doesn't do anything to build what i talked about at the beginning and that is the people's trust. and then you throw into the fact that the immigration and customs enforcement, i.c.e. we call it, they just released thousands of detainees, people that they had detained for

immigration violations, and they just opened the door and let them go. many of which had criminal records. and this was a pre-response to the sequester. before the sequester actually kicked in, the across-the-board budget cuts, our immigration enforcement officials decided, you know what? we're going to go ahead and apply sequester because we don't want to do our jobs, we don't want to detain these people, we're going to open up jail cells and let them go. take that, guys in congress. we're doing the sequester the way we want to do it and they let these people go, many of which have criminal records and they're on the streets now. . that doesn't do anything to build the people's trust. not a thing. we are talking about trust. we've got to secure our border. we've got to enforce the current immigration laws that we have. we don't need some comprehensive

immigration reform package. we already have the laws on the books. to deal with immigration issues in this country. and we are not enforcing those. so why are we going to create a whole other set of laws and fail also to enforce those? if our government can't first prove that our legal immigration system works and that they can enforce the laws that are currently on the books, why in the world would we believe adding more stress to the system will improve things? i think visa overstays are the low hanging fruit of the immigration debate. it's a canary the in the coal mine. if we can't trust the federal government to enforce those existing laws on people we know a lot about, how do we expect the government to do what we are talking about and government having to do in the new immigration bill? talk about entry-exit, we need to fix that. we need to be aware, america, we need to know when people come here legally and we know when they leave our country. when they don't leave our country in that allotted time

that they are allowed to come in, we grant them permission, we need to knock on their door at the last known address, at that university, at that hotel that they put down they were going to be staying at, at that place of business they were grant add work visa to come here and work at. we need to pay them a visit. that's low hanging foot. we don't have to chase footprints in the desert. we know who these people are. they didn't just come across the border on their own. we know who they are. so that builds trust. i ask people, mr. king, around my district, what does a secure border really look like? they struggle with that definition of a secure border. what that truly looks like in their minds' eye. i do as well. but first thing i think of is concrete, steel, and barbed wire, a fully secure border where we control who comes across. we control it through natural ports of entry. but i realize, i have been to the border, i realize that's not feasible. concrete, steel, and wire does

not work in a loft mountainous areas in arizona. i get that. but a lot more concrete steel and wire, a lot more fencing or what not that will basically push the bad guys, the folks, smugglers and others, into corridors and we can nor actively enforce those corridors to apprehend those people when they do cross our border illegally. that works. congress believed it worked in 2006 because in 2006 we passed the secure act. we already have a law on the books that decides we are going to build a secure fence on our southern border. 2006. it's 2013. seven years ago we decided we were going to secure our border. what have we done about it? we've got several hundred miles of fencing out of several thousand mile border. we need to build more fences. and i realize before the american people that fencing isn't an answer, but it is a

great start. let's do that. and then we need common sense reform to our immigration system, our current immigration system. i talk to farmers in my district who are concerned about the comprehensive immigration reform package we are working on. the farmers in my district work with farmers all over this country to deal with the guest worker program for agriculture. and they are able to get the american farm bureau and some of the other farmers to finally agree on some language. i'm all for that. i think we need to expand the legal guest worker programs for this country. that's my personal opinion. to provide legal workers to the necessary industry. whether it's agriculture or others. i'm going to focus on agriculture because that's what's on my mind today. a legal immigration system that provides the workers, whether it's h-2-d. some sort of new program that increases the number of legal

workers that come here. we get biometric data, a thumb print, and it's not transferable. that paperwork is solid for that individual and you have some sort of tie-in with the employer so the employer has some ownership, so to speak, of that record that they ask for that employee, the employee's gainfully working with them. when that employee decides to work for somebody else, that employer notifies the government. he's not working for me any more, but he did work for another company. that's why z company says, yes. he's a working in my facility. let's continue that. these are commonsense approaches that we need to talk about in this country before we grant nam it's at this. before we grant -- amnesty. before we grant citizenship rights to folks who broke our laws. that word amnesty, mr. king, is thrown around way too much and it gets watered-down in the eyes of americans. what it means? it means everything you are granted in the united states constitution as a citizen of this country. what it means to be an american citizen gets watered-down. when we give those citizenship

rights away to people who broke our laws coming here. that's what it means. we need to remember that in this debate about immigration reform that those amnesty guys, no amnesty. and then let's approach a secure border. let's talk about the low hanging fruit of the illegals that are here that we granted them permission. let's deal with those issues. that's half the problem right off the bat. and we stem the flow of others coming here so we are not adding to those numbers. and then that other 50% that aren't visa holders, we can start dealing with at that point in time. these are simple things, mr. king, that we have got to deal with and every time we grant an amnesty in the -- granted amnesty in the past we regretted it as a nation. we have regretted it. we truly regretted it because we failed to truly secure our borders. we failed to truly reform the system and every amnesty that's happened before, rewarding lawlessness and those who break the laws only encourage more lawlessness and more illegal

immigration. it's time to stop that cycle. with that i yield back. mr. king: reclaiming my time. thanking the gentleman from south carolina and yielding to the speaker. the speaker pro tempore: would the gentleman suspend for a moment. the chair will receive a message. the messenger: mr. speaker, a message from the president of the united states. the secretary: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: mr. secretary. the secretary: i'm directed by the president of the united states to deliver to the house of representatives a message in writing. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from iowa may resume. mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate your attention here and i appreciate the gentleman from south carolina coming here and delivering a perspective on the rule of law that we need so badly. i am a bit flabbergasted by the lack of the reason on some of my colleagues, that's on both sides of the aisle. seems a little more irrational on the other side of the aisle. a lot more rational because there is a huge political gain on their side. on our side of the aisle, two

plus two doesn't seem to add up to four for them. they come up with some number like 3.0 which would be teddy kennedy's amnesty bill 3.0. we had the 1986 amnesty act which was amnesty 1.0. and that was teddy kennedy involved in that, too. ronald reagan let me down in 1986. he only let me down twice in eight years, but they were a couple of pretty big times. this one i think that he was influenced by the people who surrounded him and out of a sense of decency and compassion, signed the 198 amnesty act, all the while knowing it was going to erode the rule of law, but judging that out of all the amendments that there would be enforcement, the trade off was worth it. i remember him saying that to us and i remember him being honest with the american people. he called it the amnesty act. he didn't call it the comprehensive reform act. he called it amnesty because that's what it was. i appreciate the definition of

the gentleman from south carolina. i hadn't heard that definition before. all the rights embodied in the constitution. granting all of those rights to someone who is here illegally would be amnesty. i defined it this way, not contradictory definition, it's the one i have long used. to grant amnesty is to pardon immigration lawbreakers and reward them with the objective of their crime. it's a pardon and a reward. and i don't know why they came here necessarily. we don't know. they might have come for a job. many did. some came to trade in contraband. some came to live with their families and not to work. but the presence in the united states is unlawful, becomes flaul with amnesty and the path to the reason they came here is opened. they didn't all come to be citizens, and they didn't all come for a job. only 2.5% are working in america today, not 100%. that's a little better than five out of 12 that are actually

working. we should also remember that 80% to 90% of according to the drug enforcement agency, 80% to 90% of illegal drugs consumed in america come from or through mexico. mexico doesn't produce them all, but 80% to 90% flow through mexico. that's a huge number and the price for that is in the tens of billions of dollars in this society. i yield to the gentleman. mr. duncan: you mentioned the folks coming from mexico. i was recently down at the king ranch in texas, eastern texas, 830,000 acres. a larger ranch than the whole state of rhode island. i was talking with a security force about the illegals coming into this country that travel, they traverse the king ranch. one thing he he said, a term he used was o.t.m., i asked him what that was. he said other than mexican. i thought that was a little bit harsh. he said, well, what that means is they are not mexican. they are not nicaraguan, they are not guatemalan.

they are african, middle eastern, and asian. and i said you're kidding me? he said, no. congressman, we have ahe preherseth sandlinned folks that were middle eastern that didn't speak spanish or english, that spoke farsi, africans and/orentals or asians that were here that have come across. and it took me aback because i started to think, i know that the latin american, hispanics that are coming are generally coming for work, to provide for their families. i have been to guatemala, mexico. i understand that desire to come to america and chase that american dream that i'm living today and try to make a reality for your -- future for your children. these were people other than that. and so being on the homeland security committee and the foreign affairs committee, i'm concerned we've got others coming here from those parts of the world, africa, middle east, asia. what are they coming here for? i'm reminded that iran and its

special revolutionary guard hatched a plan to deal with the drug cartels, to help them, assist them to come across our southern border into this country, into this very town, to assassinate the ambassador from saudi arabia at a restaurant in washington. they were trying to utilize connections with the drug cartel in mexico to come across our porous southern border. when i hear we've got africans or middle earns or asians coming into this contry, i have to wonder as an american, understanding the homeland security nature, i have to wonder what they are coming for. and i also wonder if we had a truly secure border. would we be seeing that? i thank the gentleman for mentioning that other than mexicans, others that are coming or may be coming into this country, i believe that are coming into this country, what are they coming for? we need to ask ourselves that question. mr. king: reclaiming my time. i apprentlen from utcarolina br

amount of time on the border. i have gone down there, sat at night text to the border fence, no lights, no night vision goggle. just listen to the sounds, the fence creaking, listening to the vehicles coming through the mesquite. the doors open, close, the packs get dropped on the ground. they pick them up, whisper, come back across the desert and come through the fence. you can put your ear down on the steel post and it transmits that sound. as they flow through you understand the flow across this border isn't just where i'm sitting on that night, but in many locations across the border. the testimony before the immigration subcommittee from the border patrol where they said they thought perhaps interdicted 25% of those that attempted to cross the border. 25%. and you look at those numbers and they had interdicted that year, the number was equivalent , if you do their formula,

11,000 people a night. that meant four million people a year that were coming across our southern border. 11,000 a night, mr. speaker. so i ask the question of one of my friends from texas who happens to be on the judiciary committee and as a member of the immigration subcommittee, congressman ted poe of texas. he always pays attention to what went on with santa ana and the battle of the alamo and he can quote for you colonel travis, his letter. i asked him, what was the size of santa ana's army when they invaded texas? he said, 5,000 to 6,000. think of that, mr. speaker. twice the size of santa ana's army, 11,000 people a night, every night. that's just the peak. probably half that by now. more likely now, although it's increased over the last few months since we have this dialogue of immigration going on and those border crossings are up dramatically, but during the

lull we still had the equivalent of santa ana's army coming across our southern border every night. we are not alarmed? when 80% to 90% of illegal drugs consumed in america come from or through mexico? and of all the pain, price, and heart take comes from that, it's not all the fault the people here. we have an illegal drug consumption and demand in this country that is a magnet for those illegal drugs, and that's something for this society and our culture to address. i don't deny that, mr. speaker. in fact when i go to mexico to have my dialogue with the mexican members of their congress, i just start out the dialogue with that because otherwise they are going to remind me america's demand for drugs has brought out a lot of violence on both sides of the border, particularly the southern side, and the numbers of fatalities in this drug war in mexico over the last six or seven years, number 50,000 to 70,000 people killed in that. .

it includes those victims of the fast and furious fiasco that we still haven't put entirely to bed, mr. speaker. but the price for open borders is high. it's high in blood, it's high in treasure, it's high in the value to our families and our society. and drug enforcement tells me when i ask them, if magically everybody that's illegally in america woke up in their home country tomorrow morning, magically, of course, what would happen to the illegal drug distribution system in the united states? their answer -- it would immediately stop. it would be -- all of it would be suspended overnight in that hypothetical scenario, if magically all those here illegally woke up where they could live legaly. because at least one link in every illegal drug distribution chain in america is a link from someone that's you unlawfully present in the united states -- that's unlawfully present in the united states, is an

illegal alien and likely a criminal alien. at least one link. in many cases it's every link. and the mexican drug cartels control the illegal drug distribution in all of our major cities in america, also most all of our minor cities in america. when i see the numbers of those cities, it's so appalling. the scope of it's so broad that i'm reluctant to say so into the public record because it seems beyond reality. when you think back 20 years when it was localized, within some of the cities in the south and southwest, mostly southwest, and now it's pervasive across the entire country. taken over the illegal drug distribution in america. and at the cost of tens of thowlses of lives in mexico, -- of lives in mexico, tens thousands of lives in the united states. i've long said that we should build on the southern board ar fence, a wall and a fence. so that we can have a couple of zones in between them that are no man's land.

and an area where the border patrol can respond when a fence is breached and be there to interdict so we can assure people, don't bother to try. we're going to be there to enforce the law. that's what a smart and sane country would do. i'm not suggesting, mr. speaker, that we need to build 2,000 miles of fence. although there's 1,960 miles of double fencing to go. i'm just suggesting that we build a fence, a wall and a fence, triple fence, with two no man's land zones so that -- and build it until they stop going around the end. as the gentleman from south carolina suggested, some of us -- it is a little mountainous, some of it's a little rocky. so you build a fence where it's practical and if they climb the mountain, i'll tell you it's not impossible to build a fence on a mountainside either. we can build it on a vertical face, if -- face if we need to. i don't know if we can build it upside down but i don't think it calls for that. i've spent my life in the construction business and we spent our life moving dirt and

building fence and setting up structural concrete and doing underground utilities and many other things and at one point i came to the floor and designed and demonstrated really the simplicity of building the kind of barrier that would be effective. and if you think that it's not, take a look at israel. that's put up a fencing system. and, yes, it takes monitoring and guard towers along the way. and it takes the virtual support so that you reduce the amount of man power that's necessary. but we've grown this man power on the southern border dramatically over the last decade. and the results that we get are directly proportional to the will of the chief executive officer to enforce the law. and we're spending at least $6 million a mile on our southern border. $6 million on 2,000 miles. now, i've got to boil this down so it gets a little more simple for some of the members in this congress because the scope of that's beyond their imagination. how do you build a 2,000-mile fence? i didn't say we needed to do that.

we ought to build it until they stop going around the end. i remind them that the great wall of china was finished, connected together about 245 b.c. and it's 5,500 miles long and it's wide at the top and they marched armies down the top that have great wall of china. and so if they could accomplish that in 245 b.c., we can accomplish a much smaller endeavor here with a much simpler structure, with some modern technology with it, in an efficient way. did the manhattan project in a short period of time. you cannot convince me that we can't build a border that's effective. and $6 a mile. here's the equation -- and $6 million a mile. here's the equation. i live on the countryside and there's a mile of gravel going in four directions in from the corner i live on. if i take one of those miles and i would think that janet napolitano would assign me to provide the security for that mile. and pay me $6 million to guard that mile for a year.

what a lucrative contract that would be. wouldn't it? and now it's a 10-year contract. so it's a $60 million contract to guard one mile of gravel road in iowa. there's more population along that gravel road, there isn't much, than there is along much of the southern border. and so the pressure on that might be enforced to the urgency that people wanted to get across. but i wouldn't hire myself even more boots on the ground. i would take some of that $6 million a mile and i'd start out maybe in the first year i'd take two of the $6 million and i'd build myself a wall. and then maybe the next year i'd take another $1.5 million and i'd build a couple fences, one on either side of that wall and then i'd put a little technology on top and after two or three years, just tightening down my budget for my man power, boots on the ground, you're always going to need guards there, some humvees and retirement and benefits packages to go along with that, and uniform costs and all, but

i would cut about -- i would take about 1/3 that have budget and roll it into infrastructure and in about or 2 1/2 years, i'd have a fence and a wall and a fence built and parole road built in between those and i'd have the modern devices at the top. we'd have video games -- video cameras that if anybody breached that fence, wall and fence, even in the first barrier, video cameras with infrared would zero in on that location and we would deploy our boots on the ground to that location. and as soon as people figured out that we were going to have 100% security on my mile of road, remember i've got a $60 million contract, i can perform with a high degree of efficiency, far higher than we're getting right now, but as soon as people figured out that we were going to respond and it didn't pay to cut or try to climb over or try to dig under, because we were going to be there with our vibration centers -- sensors and with our new technology, then we would have 100% efficiency along those stretches of the border and i would take some of that money for the next year and the next year and then i would

widen our legal ports of entry and i would add a little man power to those legal ports of entry so that we could move the legal traffic through and still moderate it even more effectively than we do today at those ports of entry. that's what a rational nation would do. and that would then shut off the bleeding at the border. and there's a lot of pressure from the illegal drugs coming into america. something greater than $60 billion a year would be the street value of illegal drugs in this country. when i first came to this congress, the d.e.a. couldn't tell me what that number was. they still won't. that number is more published from the news media than it is from the people that are supposed to know the answer to that question. but -- and that pressure from those illegal drugs, they'll find another way into america until the demand is shut off. but i can tell you that we could raise the price of illegal drugs in america, the street price, by locking down and stopping the bleeding at

our southern border. then they'd have to find another way to get it in and the price will go up and when the price goes up, fewer people will use it. that will be a helpful thing. but we can shut off the bleeding at the border, mr. speaker. and then we need to shut off the jobs magnet. now, there's a bill that we had a hearing on just yesterday in the immigration committee and it's a bill that has been drafted by mr. lamar smith of texas, who is one of our lead voices on immigration enforcement in this congress, and perhaps the lead voice and he's done an awful lot to introduce and see to it that the 1996, there was immigration reform legislation that was passed that has an extremely useful utility today. and i'm glad he's here to defend the basis of that language. making e-verify mandatory so that employers, government employers, government contractors, and all new hires in private sector too would need to be verified under e-verify. the internet-based system where you you punch in the i-9 data, i call it name, rank and cereal

number, -- serial number, and it will go out and come back and tell you, if it can affirm, that the individual identified by that data can lawfully work in the united states. it doesn't verify that the biometrics of the individual who applied with that information match the biometrics of that social security number, it just says, this social security number and the data that's associated with it is the right -- someone, someone can work under that. we can't identify necessarily applicant a and applicant b, which one it might be, if they're using the same data. but it's a good step in the right direction to make e-verify mandatory. it falls short in a couple categories. one of them is it remains, leaves the existing law that prohibits an employer from using e-verify on current employees. now, why would you do that? don't we want an employer, if they have a reasonable suspicion that someone is unlawfully working for their company, w

wouldn't we want them to go on the internet and check that applicant to see if they verify to be lawfully able to work in the united states? i would want them to do that. if they're sitting in the break room and one of their employees said, you know, i'm an illegal immigrant and i duped you and you can't do it a thing about it, that employer might be able to report them to ice and maybe something happens. but -- i.c.e. and maybe something happens. but they're prohibited by current law from going on that internet, accessing e-verify, and running that employee through to verify and then taking the action accordingly. and some of the people that are advocating for this e-verify bill say, well, we have to protect employers from potential liability. they could be accused of discriminating against someone. and i point out that that computer doesn't know, doesn't know race, ethnicity. it might know national origin. but you don't get to queue it for that. there's no query for that. you put in the information,

name, rank, serial number, as i said, and it only comes back to you and says confirmed or can't confirm. that's all you know. so i don't know how someone uses that -- the e-verify to discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, language barrier, whatever it might be. they make that decision when they hire. if h.r. is interviewing someone , then all of the things that go along with an interview, they can sort all that out in their own head and make their decisions. if they've already hired someone, if that individual's worked for them for years, then they've made their decision on whether they're going to discriminate or not. that's an entirely separate question from e-verify's usefulness. and i think we need to encourage employers to clean up their work force and by doing so he we should allow them to use e-verify on current employees, especially if it's a reasonable suspicion. i wrote a drug testing bill in iowa that uses that standard

and it's not even been tested in court it's so solid. reasonable suspicion, to point to somebody, one person out of your work force, this he meet the standards or if they don't meet the standards of work, if they cross a line, if they're chronically late, if their eyes are bloodshot and their work is slow, if they're temper mental, those things are eratic, we have an officer who is trained in that capacity and he can say, you're going in for a drug test. because we want to make sure that we have a drug-free work place. well, that's a responsible thing for an employer to do. it's also responsible for an employer to want to have a legal work force. it's what we'd encourage employers to do. but the law diss them from utilizing the tools -- disturges -- discourages them from utilizing the tools that they have. i'll be urging to change that component. second thing is, it preempts local government from utilizing e-verify as a means of requirement for enforcement. it just simply says the federal

government's going to have the exclusive authority to regulate and enforce e-verify. that would be fine if they actually enforced. but, mr. speaker, you'll know i have very little confidence in the federal government's will to enforce e-verify. there will be those who will comply because it's the law. they will be good citizens. some will be very good corporate citizens. but we're not going to have the kind of enforcement that's necessary so it's universal. i know, i lived through this. ronald reagan wanted to enforce the 1986 amnesty act, the i-9 forms. i got those i-9 forms. we had applicants come into the office. i made sure that they carefully filled out those applications according to the law and we took the copies of the support document that were necessary and we carefully kept those i-9 forms and associated documents in our filings for the day that i.n.s. would show up and say, i want to see all of your job applicants and all of your hires and all of your employees to verify if you have followed

the 1986 amnesty act law compliance terms for i-9. they didn't show up in my office. they didn't show up in thousands of employers' offices. if the enforcement wasn't there after the 1986 amnesty act, why in the world would we think there would be an enforcement there for -- with an administration with a president who has suspended immigration law because it's his whim? from a president who has defied his own oath of office to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. he even gave a little talk, i was going to call it a lecture, but i think it was a talk, to a high school group here in washington, d.c. the date was march 28. i think it was 2011. but i know the date. and they had advocated to him that he should by executive order establish the dream act. and so the president answered correctly. he said, i don't have the authority to do that. that has to be congress passes the laws. i as the executive branch carry them out, and then the court

system rules as to the intent of the legislation, the constitutionality of it. that's the kind of explanation you would get from a former adjunct constitutional law professor which barack obama is at the university of chicago. a simple, clear answer, he gave it a simple, clear answer, he gave it to the high school student, he defied his own explanation and his own oath of office just a little more than a year later when the president had a press conference within a couple of hours of the time that janet napolitano, secretary of homeland security, and director john morton issued the morton memos and the memo from the executive branch that set up four classes of people. not individuals, four classes of people, that we're going to exempt them from immigration law. seven different times in that memo, janet napolitano's memo they referenced on an individual basis, oen an individual basis,

i could repeat it five more time thasmsewret it in there because they understand that constitutionally they have prosecutorial discretion to decide where to implement the resources for prosecution and they can't prosecute everybody. so -- but they have an obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed system of the courts have carved out, after years of litigation, this term called prosecutorial discretion. but it can only be applied on an individual basis only which is why that memo has seven references to an individual basis only in it but it doesn't apply to individuals, they carved out four groups of people, exempt from immigration law, and then to add insult to constitutional injury, the president also created a work permit out of thin air. all of the visas that we have, all the lawful precedents that exist in the united states,

other than natural born citizen, is a product of congress. congress has the full authority o establish immigration law. so we set up visa this, visa that, temporary, permanent, lawful permanent resident status, fwrone card, we set up conditions for naturalization. but the president wanted one more. he wanted a work permit for the people who granted amnesty to by executive edict and that's what he did new york an unconstitutional fashion, we've lit gated that in court and a judge in texas has upheld nine of 10 argument the 10th argument is -- has been sent back and they said to the government rewrite that, it's unintelligible and i don't want to rule on it until you straighten it out. it's like getting a term paper that a portion of it is so bad you can't give it a grade, go rewrite it and come back to it. i'm hopeful and optimistic that all 10 of those arguments will

be supported by the federal judge. now if that follows through to the united states supreme court, i expect they will litigate this out to the end, either the end of the obama administration or a conclusion at the supreme court, i would be aston herbed if the supreme court would conclude that the president has the authority to identify groups of people and waive the application of the law against groups of people and declare prosecutorial discretion to apply to groups rather than individuals, i would be astonished if the supreme court would rule that the president can man ewe fact injure immigration work permits or a lawful presence out of thin air. there's no reason for article one then if congress would have no function if the president could just write the law, waive the laws, to whatever -- that's what a king does. that's not what a president does. the damage to our constitutional structure and system has been

appalling. i don't know that it's settled into this society yet, mr. speaker, but the president has violated the constitution and his own oath of office and litigated in court for the first round, it might be a long march to the supreme court but we are on correct constitutional grounds in this case and the lead plaintiff is the president of the i.c.e. union, where the executive edict actually orders i.c.e. to disobey the law. they take an oath to take care that the law is being faithfully executed as well, mr. speaker, so then we have the situation of how do we shut off the jobs magnet if they're not going to enforce everify? if they prohibit employers from using everify, how do they expect them ever to clean up the illegal work force? i have a simple bill that's been introduced in the last two or three congresses called the new idea act. there aren't have more new ideas in this congress. i think i actually just was able to get one passed, an amendment

in the farm bill a couple of nights ago a new idea. but this is a new idea on immigration, it's about five or six years old. new idea. the acronym in idea stands for illegal deduction elimination act. it tpwhrings i.r.s. into this equation and the -- and declares that wages and benefits paid to illegals are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes. it gives the employer safe harbor if they use everify. it grants them the authority to use it on current plose. and then the i.r.s. who would not be accelerating their audit bus simply during a normal audit they would punch in that i-9 data i mentioned earlier into the everify for the employees of the company they were auditing and if they kick those employees out as unlawful to work in the united states, the i.r.s. then would say to the employer, you're going to have 72 hours to cure this, but we're not going

to let you deduct the wages and benefits paid to illegals. why should those wages be deductible, especially when we give the employers safe harbor? and so the result of that would be, your $10 an hour illegal would take the wages that are paid, they would come off the schedule c and go back into the gross receipts, show up as taxable income so if you paid $1 million out in wages to people who are working unlawfully in the united states as an employer, then that million dollars would become a taxable income rather than a business expense. the net equivalent is this, a $10 an hour illegal after you add the interest and the penalty and the tax liability, i think i calculated that at 36%, comes to about $16 an hour. now it's a business decision, mr. speaker. now the employer takes a look at that and thinks, well, just a minute now. i've got a discount on this cheap labor at $10 an hour but i've also got this contingent

liability of another six bucks an hour if the i.r.s. shes -- shows up. and if they show up this year at six bucks an hour but if they wait another year and they audit me for the past two year, now it's 12 bucks an hour. and there's a six-year statute of limitations on this. so your $6 an hour becomes sibblings years of liability so now it's $36 an hour over six years. that becomes at some point it's compelling and as an employer you decide, i'm going to clean up my work force, i'm going to use everify and get to this point where my work force is legal. so two simple things can be done. one is build a fence, a wall, and a fence on the southern border, we can do with the money we have. if you gave me janet napolitano's job and a president that didn't tie my hands behind my back, i could do it with the resources we're committing to it now. and ps newed in, the new illegal deduction elimination act, let

the i.r.s. come into the equation, provide an incentive for employers to make a positive decision to clean up their work force, it shuts town the jobs magnet, then people make decisions as that how much opportunity there is here in america, that means there's more opportunity for americans. we have 100 million americans of working age who are simply not in the work force because we have created a cradle-to-grave welfare system that's an incentive for people to stay home rather than to go to work. we can't always blame them for that decision. some dumb decisions were made here on the floor of the house of representatives and the united states senate but none as dumb as the one that seems to be emerging from the united states senate today or maybe is churning around in a house gang of eight. this this bill that is moving through both chambers is the largest, most expensive amnesty bill that's had credibility and momentum in the history of this country.

it is the always is always was, always will be amnesty bill. if you is in america, you'll always -- amnesty will always be available to you. if uffs in america, it sends an -- if you was in america, it sends an inviteags to come back. and if you ever come into america if you will be in america, you'll get amnesty someday too. that's what they're saying. and a nation cannot be a nation if it doesn't have borders if we don't secure those borders and determine what comes and goes across those borders, we lose our sovereignty and if we don't put americans back to work and give them opportunity, we're wasting a massive amount of human capital and that wasting of human capital then diminishes our potential as a nation and we have this work force in this country that is oversupplied in the unskilled and low-skilled categories. and so the more people we bring in that are unskilled, the more it's going to suppress the wages

andhe in the un- and low-skilled places. high skilled pays good and has good benefits, they're net contributors. t the people that are here unlawfully that are high school dropouts, they're not. this group of 11.5 million that's the subject of this bill which likely will be 33 million or more, this group can never be net contributors to our economy. not in a single year of their lifetime. and neither can the next generation compensate for that loss. $6.3 trillion according to robert rector of the heritage foundation. so mr. speaker, i hope that there are a lot of people that realize the magny tured of this colossal proposed mistake. and i hope that the good judgment and the constitutional sound think theaninged good conscience that comes from the american people as manifested in

the united states senate and house of representatives and that we will put an end to any kind of an idea of an amnesty bill and restore the rule of law and restore american opportunity and do what's good for ameri. that's our job, that's our oath. it's a patriotic thing to do. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. the gentleman yields back. the chair lays before the house

a message. the clerk: to the congress of the united states. section 202-d of the national emergencies act provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless within 90 days prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the president publishes in the federal register and transmits to the congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. in accordance with this provision, i have sent to the federal register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency with respect to the stabilization in iraq that was declared in executive order 13303 of may 22, 2003, is to continue in effect beyond may 22, 2013. obstacles to the continued reconstruction of iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in the country and the development of political administrative, and

economic institutions in iraq continue to pose an unusual and ex-troirtnary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the united states. accordingly i have determined it is necessary to continue the national emergency with respect to the stabilization of iraq. signed, barack obama, the white house. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the committee on foreign affairs and ordered printed. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, i have enclosed a copy of the resolution adopted by the committee on transportation and infrastructure on may 16, 2013. pursuant to section 3307 of tite 408, united states code, the committee on transportation and infrastructure met in open session to consider a resolution to authorize and -- an alteration project included in the general services administration's f.y. 2013 capital investigation.

and leasing program. our committee continues to work to cut waste and the cost of federal property. the resolution authorizes $10 million to reconfigure the existing federal courthouse in green belt, maryland, in lieu of the original plan to construct a new $128 million annex, saving the taxpayers $118 million. this resolution is in line with the committee's goal of descreetsing the judiciary's real estate footprint and increasing utilization of encreasing courthouses. it has been adopted by the committee on transportation and infrastructure on may 16, 2013, signed sincerely, bill shuster, chearm. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the committee on appropriations. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 30 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker.

i certainly appreciate and agree with the gentleman's concerns about the failure of the administration to secure the border. we're quite aware that the border did not get as secure as we would have hoped under the prior administration. but there's no excuse for not getting it done now. and especially when the claim is made that we'll secure the border when you basically give am left iny to people that were already -- amnesty to people that were already here. that's like putting the cart in front of the horse as the cart's going off the clitch. it's a problem -- cliff. it's a problem. there are other problems, as, mr. speaker, you have surely noted with regard to this administration. an article that came out today, may 17, from the daily caller points out that the homeland

security guidelines advised deference to pro-shari'a muslim supremacists. and of course, mr. speaker, we're familiar with the fact that homeland security has reports warning their employees out the dangers of people, people that may be involved in such heinous activity as being classified as evangelical christians. or as being concerned about the constitution and that people should be following the constitution. and concerned about people who may have tea party in their name. you know, thank goodness that the i.r.s. was not around to help the founders when they found the -- founded the country, or otherwise they probably shot the boston tea party participants.

they would have killed off over half of the signers of the declaration of independence. and this country would never have gotten started. if this homeland security had been around to be helpful, so-called, to our founders. but in looking at the guidelines, this article says that the department of homeland security, which under secretary janet napolitano, has shown a keen interest in monitoring and warning about outspoken conservatives, takes a very different approach in monitoring political islamists, according to a 2011 memo on protecting the free speech rights of pro-shari'a muslim supremacists. in a check list obtained by the daily caller, entitled "countering violent extremism

dos and don'ts," the d.h.s.'s office of civil rights and civil liberties notifies local and national law enforcement officials that it is obama administration policy to consider specifically islamic criticism of the american system of government legitimate . and i must insert paraphernalia thetically, it's so interesting -- par enthetically, it's so interesting that people who believe the constitution means exactly what it says are deemed by our secretary napolitano in her homeland security as being threats to the country. because they believe what the founders did. how dare they? and someone who believes the teachings of jesus christ is somehow to be feared, wow.

because they may go into all the world baptizing them, making disciples. they may end up being like mother teresa and helping the poor and needy. they may actually do things without the government telling them they can do that. like mother teresa. just going in and helping. well, you got to watch those evan yellcal cyst januarys -- evangelical christians, if they are true christians. if you're part of this janet napolitano homeland security office. the article points out, this policy stands in stark contrast to the d.h.s. office of intelligence and analysis 2009 memo, quote, right-wing extremism. current economic and political climate fueling resurgence in radicalization and recruitment. unquote. which warned of the dangers posed by pro-life advocates, critics of same-sex marriage

and groups concerned with abiding by the u.s. constitution, among others. the advice of the dos and don'ts list is far more conciliatory. don't, quote, don't use training that equates radical thought, religious expression, freedom to protest or other constitutionally protected activity including disease liking the u.s. government -- disliking the u.s. government without being violent, the manual's authors write, in a section on training being sensitive to constitutional values. the manual which was produced by an interagency working group from d.h.s. and the national counterterrorism center advises, quote, trainers who equate the desire for shari'a law with criminal activity violate basic tenants of the first amendment. well, and that is interesting. and it goes back to my point

about how problematic it must have been for an f.b.i. who have had their lexicon purged, where they can't really talk effectively about jihad because that might offend someone, even though it is critically important to know what someone believes about jihad. does an individual believe, as an islamist, that jihad is just the internal changing of one's self into being morris lambic? or -- more islamic? or is jihad a violent jihad, that, as the 9/11 bombers and killers believed, you kill as many innocent people, especially americans, especially jews, as you possibly can? but this administration is concerned to ask about jihad, may certainly offend someone.

it was intriguing to acquire of our attorney general, the highest law enforcement officer in the country, about just what e f.b.i. did ask of tamerlan czar. -- zark. what they did they find out that he believed about jihad? what did they find out that he supported in the way of jihad? what favorite authors did he have about jihad? and the attorney general didn't seem to know but by the end of his testimony he says, i don't -- obviously i've said something untrue because all of a sudden now he testified, he doesn't know what they asked. all of a sudden he felt like he did know. but here's the interesting chart which the article was referring. very interesting. it's from the u.s. department of homeland security, office for civil rights and civil liberties.

and it is important to know, we call it countering violent extremism, just as ms. napolitano calls not countering terrorism, she had to set up as the countering violent extremism working group, even though she couldn't previously answer my question as to how many members of the muslim brotherhood were part of her homeland security countering violent extremism working group, or even her homeland security advisory group. and i found it interesting that a publication in egypt knows more about the muslim brotherhood members of this administration than her own homeland security secretary knows. she didn't even know when i asked her at a prior hearing that there was a known member of a known terrorist group that

had been allowed to go in the white house. but she did find out before she went before the senate so she could say, oh, we vetted him three times. well, yeah, probably about the way the f.b.i. vetted tamerlan and said, oh, there's nothing to see, we'll just move on here . which left him able to plot and plan to kill people, innocent people, men, women and children in boston. but it's interesting, when you talking , it says, about the things you should not do, don't use training with a political agenda. this is not the time to try to persuade audiences on the views about the israeli-palestinian conflict, reformation within islam or the problem role of islam in majority muslim nations. don't use trainers who answer primarily to interest groups. for example, trainers who are

self-professed muslim reformers , may further an interest group agenda instead of delivering generally accepted unbiased information. very interesting. u use if you can't inquire about what people truly lieve about jihad, about radical islam, about killing infidels, if you really can't get into the weeds on this thing, then how in the world do our officers know which muslims will be good to have training and which ones won't be good to have training our own officers? we do know from a couple of years ago, when the administration stopped a seminar that was about to take place over at the c.i.a., because there were some people who had spent their lives studying radical islam and knew

and were classified as experts around the country, unless perhaps you were part of the organization of islamic council and who actually came up with the term islamophobe and pays money to major universities to have seminars and courses on islamophobia and characterize people that way. so tso that they can try to scare people away from talking about radical islam. but it is interesting, though. i mean, this is our own homeland security. this is the kind of stuff that led one of our intelligence agencies to -- agents to tell me, congressman, we are blinding our own ability to see the enemy that wants to kill and destroy us. we're blinding ourselves from our ability to see the people that want to destroy us. , we'd be more realistic

there would be people alive in boston that are not. when the russian government gives us a heads up and says this guy has become radicalized , that can't be normal. man, this is a big deal. you better look thoroughly into it. this is an outreach from the russians. hey, i'm not sure you realize just how radical this guy's become. wasn't enough clues that he and his family got asylum from a country that they were comfortable going back to. wait a minute, if they needed asylum you, how would their family be comfortable going back there? perhaps they didn't need asylum. if not, why don't we send them back? well, no, we wouldn't want to do that. gosh, we might offend somebody that wants to kill us.

heaven help us if we were to offend somebody that wants to kill us. don't use training that equates radical thought, religious expression, freedom to protest or other constitutionally protected activity with criminal activity. one can have radical thoughts, ideas, including disliking the u.s. government, without being violent. for example, trainers who equate the desire for shari'a law with criminal activity violate basic tenants of the first amendment. well, i would submit to whoever put together this chart, those who want to do away with our constitution and instead impose ari'a law on all americans for acting with trees news to intent. because you can't -- treasonous intent.

because you can't want to replace our constitution with and still be wanting the america where everyone has freedom to worship as they wish. what you are wanting is the kind of situation that you now find in afghanistan, where the last public christian church had to close, or in egypt, as the muslim brotherhood has taken over and coptic christians have been persecuted measureslessly, or in iraq where you have radical islamists in charge who find it is a crime to believe that jesus is a savior. a crime worthy of going to prison. they believe sharia law is the law of the land in those

countries, so anybody who wants to replace our constitution with sharia law should be looked at by our homeland security as being a threat. and any plots or plans to replace our constitution with sharia law should be looked on very carefully. and not be given a pat on the back or invited in to give advice to the white house or to give advice on how to to train our intelligence agents or to give advice on how to train f.b.i. and homeland security agents but this is exactly what this administration is doing. when you blind our intelligence agencies and you know -- and you blind our protector whors willing to lay down their lives for us to be free but when you

blind them to their ability to see the enemy, then people get killed. and people that want to prevent it are left with guilty consciences because they wonder what could we have done more? and it's not their fault. it comes from the top of homeland security. the top of the justice department. and when it comes from the white house as it did to stop the seminar at the c.i.a., it comes if the very top. and the message is clear. we don't want to offend anyone who may be a radical islamist because gee, that might be bad. ok to offend evangelical christians, sure, they're the only group in america it's politically correct to persecute now. it's ok to persecute anyone who believes what most of humanity

has for most of mankind and particularly the founders, the signers of the declaration of independence, those who represented each of the states at the constitutional convention. they believed marriage is between a man and a woman. however, today, according to this administration, anyone who believes in that same traditional marriage is to be hated and vilified and despised and persecuted. and to be watched out for. by our homeland security. because they're a threat. because they want the freedom to believe in traditional marriage that was taught in the bible. the kind of marriage that jesus himself attended and performed his first recorded miracle. and yet those of us who believe in that are to be vilified. and it's also amazing to me, i'm

not pushing my beliefs on anyone else, but it's part of who i am, as a christian, there are people whose lifestyles i believe hurt hem, hurt our society, degenerate our society, but i would give my life for them. as a christian, i love them. i have no problem embracing them. and i find it interesting that people who have come to hate me and christians like me they can't understand how you can disagree with a lifestyle or disagree so profoundly with a political belief, and yet love them through and through as an individual. i hope and pray someday they'll understand but in the meantime,

it is important if we're going allow the people in our federal government who have sworn their lives to protecting all americans, if we're going to allow them to do their job, they must be able to have a full, total, complete discussion on radical islam that incorporates political belief from, or into, their religion and vice versa. and there are radical islamists who want to destroy us, therefore you have 9/11/2001, you have 9/11 of last year, you have 9/11 of the year before. we've got to wake up. there's still time that people have been killed needlessly. and this kind of stuff, this

kind of political correctness, that ends up making it ok through some of the other documents we have seen to go after evangelical christians and fear them and potentially persecute them and as we've seen rom the i.r.s., it's good to persecute tea party. people at the low levels didn't make that up. they were encouraged, allowed to do the kind of things they were, otherwise it could not have gone as long and as widely as it did. these things are very, very telling. very telling. now it is helpful, this is a helpful comment. note that -- note, too, that not all arabs are muslim and not all muslims are arabs. for example, there are christian abs who arengerseted

in egypt, in iran, in iraq, in afghanistan, in places like libya, where we help radicals ake over and have given way to people who just want to worship god. being persecuted. it is tragic what has happened and the blindness that has okurred. and it's -- that as occurred and it's embarrassing. and particularly embarrassing when i embrace family members who have lost lowed ones and -- in benghazi -- who have lost ved ones, in benghazi, or on 9/11/2001, when a family member told me secretary clinton advised them, what we now know is at the time she knew very

ea s advised them, hey, we're going to get the guy that made that video, as if that was going to give them some comfort. they weren't out to kill someone. they weren't out to get somebody. but they do want justice. and it turned out the secretary knew at the time she said that that it wasn't about a video. or as part of confusing attempting to confuse the issues and mistakes that were made by this administration. so it was worth noting, though, when we look at the i.r.s. and the problems there, this article today, by labor union report diary, may 16, yesterday, and it says, meet the partisan union behind the partisan internal revenue service.

it asks the question, where do the anti-sequester federal government workers turned protesters work? they work at the internal revenue service and they're unionized. the article points out as the scandal involving the i.r.s. targeting of conservatives and tea party groups consumes the news psych northwesterly moment and barack obama who so far has claimed ignorance of the targeting has thrown a sack trirble -- sack official lamb out to appease government that they targeted anti-government anti-tax groups shouldn't come as a surprise. beginning in 2009, democrats and unions, including government union have spent the last several years demonizing tea party groups as well as other small government groups. on thursday, despite the escalating scandal, barack obama told reporters he did not see the need for a special prosecutor, say, quote, probes by congress and the justice department should be able to figure out who was responsible

for improperly targeting tea party groups when they applied for tax exempt status, unquote. while that may appease reporters from cnn and the mainstream media for the moment, one must wonder why there shouldn't be a special prosecutor to look into the wrongdoings of an agency with such vast powers over the american populace unless, of course, there's a smoking gun that people within the administration don't want skred -- discovered. in december, 2009, during the first term of his presidency, in an effort to make the federal government, quote, or more, quote, union friendly, unquote, president obama issued executive order 13522, in short, as noted in 2011, execive order 13522 establishes, quote, labor management forums, unquote, between union bosses who may or may not be federal employees and federal agency management. as part of the directive under

executive order 13522, agency heads are to engage union bosses in, quote, free decisional discussions, unquote, before decisions are made and those discussions are to be secret. and outside the purview of the free dm of information act. free decision -- predecisional discussions by their nature should be conducted confidentially among the parties to the discussions. this confidentiality is an essential ingredient in building the environment of mutual trust and respect necessary for the honest exchange of views and collaboration. that was the pgs of -- the position of the administration. coincidentally, the article says, among the agencies covered by the executive order 135 2 is the internal revenue service, which is part of the department of treasury and news agency employees represented by the national treasury employees union. the fact that under executive

order 135522, federal agencies are being co-managed by union bosses and it appears that the perpetrators of the i.r.s. scandal are likely to be members of the i.r.s. union makes one wonder how coordinated the attacks were, especially as four of the alleged perpetrators are claiming their bosses made them do it. more importantly if their bosses made them engage in potentially illegal activities, why didn't they go to their union to file a fwree advance. well, apparently, under think president's executive order 13522, the union bosses and the agency heads are complicit. in making these decisions and making them secretly and privately while part of the most transparent administration in

history, we were told it was going to be. the union bosses and the agency heads making decisions secretly beyond anything that anybody in america can get with a freedom of information act request is just outrageous. we need the transparency. andest pearblely -- especially now that we know the most powerful, the most feared agency in america, the i.r.s., is being co-managed by union bosses. it's time to clean house, it's time to get back to smaller government, less intrusive government, and government that is truly of, by, and for the people. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the house would yield to the gentleman from florida.

>> thank you, mr. speaker. i'd like to thank the gentleman from texas also for yielding back. i'd like to address the floor on why we need immigration reform. washington has failed to lead on this issue for the last 30 years. and it's weakened american security and stressed our economy. and america deserves better. it's our duty and our responsibility to address this issue for the health, for the strength, and for the security of our nation. as the immigration debates come forward, our goal should not focus on what is best for this group or what's best for that group, or cater to this industry or kater to that industry. mr. yoho: if we d that, we lose sight and we miss the wark on what really the focus should be on and that's what's best for america. if we focus on what's best for america and do what is best for america, then america wins. if america wins, we all win regardless of where you come from. the real issue is to preserve the opportunity that if we nurture it and put forth that

effort, it will grow into the american dream. isn't it the american dream that this is all about? the american dream defines who we are as americans. it defines, it's the essence of what it means to be an american. it says that no matter where you come from, or what your background is, that if you're willing to work within the confines of the law, and do that four letter word called work, you can achieve the american ream. the very issue that we're struggling with is the preservation of the american dream and the opportunity in this country. and if we lose that, we lose what america stands for. and that's what sets america apart -- sets america apart from all other countries. it's the ability to achieve the american dream. as we move forward, let's keep in mind that if we do what's right for america, we will remain that shining city on the hill that ronald reagan talked so eloquently about.

that beacon of hope, of what free men and women can accomplish in a society that protects our god-given rights with a constitution that protects that. and if we do that, we can guarantee that america will stay strong and i yield back, mr. speaker, thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair would recognize the gentleman from florida for a motion. mr. yoho: yes, sir. i motion to adjourn, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the motion is to adjourn. the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands adjourned until monday next for morning hour debate.

>> and he told the committee that foolish mistakes were made by the tax agency but they ren't motivated by partisanship. steven miller has resigned and the president has already pointed the -- his replacement. his is three and a half hours. >> the meeting will come to order.

on may 10 the director of internal revenue service division that oversees tax exempt group acknowledged that the agency was targeting political leaning organizations. four days later they confirmed hat "the i.r.s. used inappropriate crier the to identify political organizations applying for status." this began as far back as 2010. this goes against the principles of free speech and liberty upon in which this country was founded. the disregard that the agency has treated congress and the american taxpayer raises serious concerns about the leadership at the i.r.s. let's establish what we know. based on the report, we know for n 18-month period i.r.s.

employees em employed key words to target applications for tax exempt status. these groups were subjected to further investigations. i.r.s. employees expanded their search to include groups about government spending, debt, taxes, the constitution, the bill of rights, or trying to "make america a better place to live." let me repeat that. people were targeted for making america a better place to live. these americans had their applications delayed for nearly three years. 98 applicants were asked for inproper information such as donor list and if family members were planning to run for political office.

during that delay, other applications with names like progress and progressive were approved in a matter of months. the headline in "u.s.a. today." says it all. i.r.s. gave liberals a pass, tea party groups put on hold. some those cases should have been set aside due to concerns of their related political activity but no such review was done. i enter the "u.s.a. news today" report into the record. he i.r.s. officials knew about this since 2011. despite a two-year long investigation by this committee, the i.r.s. never told the american people or their representatives about this simple truth. we were told no such targeting was hni that is not just

being misled, that is lying. we know the truth, at least some of it. we know these revelations are just a tip of the iceberg. it would be a mistake to treat this as one scandal. his maybe the one generating headlines but i count five violations of taxpayer right, the right to be treated fairly, impartially by their government. a white house official discussed the status of a private company, the tax status of a private company. second, in june of 2010 the targeting began. hreaten . started to t donors that they were liable for certain taxes. n march of 2012 the huffington post published the donor list or organization of marriage.

unlikely the final transition it was announced that i.r.s. leaked confidential applications from conservative groups. mr. miller, with all due respect respect this abuse cannot be fixed with one or two resignations. the reality is this is not a personnel problem. this is a problem of the i.r.s. being too large, too powerful, too intrusive, and too abusive of honest, hard working taxpayers. there isn't a person that i come into contact at home or anyone in this country that does not fear the i.r.s. they fear getting something wrong on their tax filing. ey fear the i.r.s.'s ability to audit them and wreak havoc in their lives. they are all -- only trying to

make their lives better and make america better. every group in america is at . sk i'm sure your aware of the saying the power to tax is the power to destroy. under this administration, the i.r.s. has abused its power to tax and has destroyed what little faith the american people had in getting a fair shake in washington. this will not stand. trimming been ches will not save he tree when the roots are rotten. only then will the american people get a tax system that treats them fairly and honestly as they deserve. that is larger discussion it is tied to the issue before us today. how and why our tax system has combon so far off track, -- gone

so far off track. who started the targeting? who knew? when did they know? how high did it go? who leaked the private taxpayer information? why were the names of donors asked for and what was done with the lists before they were supposedly discarded? when did the administration know about each of these and what was the reaction? listening to the news this appears to be the latest example of coverups in this administration. it seems like the truth is hidden from the american people long enough to make it through an election. the american people have a right to the truth, a government that delivers the facts good or bad. president obama promised to be different and deliver a better government, the most transparent in history. he was right. america deserves better. it is time to end the corruption

at the i.r.s. and fix tax code that allows washington and the i.r.s. to pick who wins and wlose loses in america. i expect nothing less than the cooperation from the i.r.s. i recognize ranking member levin for his opening statement and thank for his commit to pursue his issue. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm going read my opening statement. i will expand on it a bit now that i heard the opening statement of the chairman. this committee on a bipartisan basis takes seriously its oversight role and we're fully committed to ensure an i.r.s. that serves the american people fairly and efficiently. what is now completely clear is that the magand

oversight of the agencies tax applications have completely failed the american people. i emphasize that. as we know from the inspector general's audit, the agency used inappropriate criteria in its review of tax exerpgs applications. singhing out organizations based on their names or political views rather than their actual activities. these criteria changed four times over two years with little management review or oversight. applications for years, work stopped for 13 months while one department waited to hear back from another. questions were asked that were not necessary. again, no oversight, no

accountability. all of us are angry at this on behalf of the nation. we are determined to get answers to our questions about how this happened to ensure that it does not happen again. finally, throughout this time, the i.r.s. leadership has demonstrated a disregard for the oversight role of the congress and this committee. former i.r.s. commissioner testified in front of us in march 2012 and said that "no targeting" was going on. two months later he was briefed on the i.g.'s investigation and was fully informed that indeed singling out by name had occurred on his watch. he had an obligation to return to this committee and set the s

miller. neither fulfilled their obligations. little more than a week ago, lois learner was in front of our committee. she has been directly involved in this matter. yes, she failed to disclose what she knew to this committee, choosing instead to do so at a conference two days later. this is wholly unacceptable. one of the reasons that we believe, as i stated several days ago, she should be relieved of her duties. chairman camp and i put together this hearing on a bipartisan basis to get the facts. e must seek the truth, not political gain. in that the add

egard, mr. camp has said listening to the nightly news this appears to be the latest example of a culture of coverups and political intimidation in this administration. it seems like the truth is hidden from the american people just long enough to make it through an election. i totally, totally disagree. if this hearing becomes essentially a bootstrap to continue the campaign of 2012 and to prepare for 2014, we will be making a very, very serious meeting our ot obligation of trust to the

american people. you're here today, mr. miller. you're here the inspector general to talk about what happened. how it happened, where it happened, who knew what, when. if instead, this hearing essentially becomes an effort to score political points it will be a disregard of the duties of this committee. i conclude with the sentence that we must seek the truth, not political gain. we look forward to full and forthcoming answers to our questions today. areefore the witnesses recognized, i will first swear them in. this is the prerogative of every committee chairman, it has not been the custom here at ways

and means, but there for it is not customary to have been falsely led. there's the gravity proceeding in the need to tell the full and complete truth. please raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? thethe record reflect witness is answered in the affirmative. j.would like to welcome russell george. i think we'll wait for them to leave at this point. j. russell george has been the

general inspector for the tax administration from 2002 and the current acting commissioner for the irs, steven miller. you will each have five minutes to resent your testimony with your full written testimony submitted for the record. mr. george, you're recognized for five minutes. levin.rman camp and as you are aware, the organization i am a part of the, the inspector general, protects the integrity of the federal tax system. this was initiated based on concerns expressed by members of congress because of taxpayer allegation that they were subject to unfair treatment by the irs. the report issued early this week issues 3 allegations. thet, the irs targeted spas groups applying for status. second, they delayed these

groups applications, and third the irs request of the necessary and permission from groups they subjected to special scrutiny. all three allegations were substantiated. the irs used inappropriate toteria to target for review party and other organizations based on their name and policy. this started in 2010 and continued to involved. followings inappropriate criteria. let me read to you these criteria from a briefing held by the irs's exempt organizations function. the criteria included the words 912 party, patriot, or roject." another listing criteria was education of the public by

advocacy or lobbying "make america a better place to live." there were any statements in the case file criticizing how the country is being run. the reason for these criteria were inappropriate in that they did not focus on tax-exempt bonds and treasury regulations. organizations may not engage in political and campaign organizations. not bean but it may their primary activity. political campaign prevention, action taken on behalf of or against a particular candidate running for office. although these criteria appeared documentation, they began selecting tea party and other organizations for review in early 2010.

arough may 2010 and may 2012, team of specialists in cincinnati, ohio, the determinations' units selected cases for additional scrutiny. according to our findings, the first time executives from washington, d.c., became aware was june 2011 with some executives not becoming aware of the criteria until april or may of 2012. criteria inappropriate remain in effect for approximately 18 months. after learning of it, the director of exempt organizations changed the criteria in july 2011 to remove references to organization names and policy positions. however, they changed the criteria back to target organizations with specific policy positions, but this time they did not include the tea party or other name organizations. in may 2012 dr. learning the criter h,

the exempt organizations director changed the criteria to be consistent with regulations. the organizations selected for review for political campaign intervention, 298 in all, experienced substantial delays in the processing of their applications. the organizations included tea party organizations, patriot organizations, 912 organizations, among others. as shown on the monitor, the status as of 2012 with the cases we revealed was 108 cases have been approved, 28 cases were withdrawn and 160 cases were still open. zero cases had been denied. of the cases still open, some have been in progress for over

three years and crossed two election cycles without resolution. approved, 31 were t party, 912, or patriot organizations. the necessaryt and permission for many political groups. 98 of 178 cases that received follow-up requests for information had unnecessary questions. our evidence indicates that staff at the determinations' unit in cincinnati send these letters out with little or no supervisory review. the irs later determined these questions work and needed but not until after media accounts and questions by members of congress in march 2012. the names of past and future donors, listings of all issues important to the organization, and what their positions were regarding such issues and whether officers or

directors have run for public office or would be in the future. months after receiving these questions, 12 of the 98 organizations either received a letter or telephone call from the irs stay in the application was approved and they no longer needed to respond to the additional requests. another 50 form organizations as they did not need to respond to previous requests for information and they were sent there revised request for information. regarding the donor and permission received, the irs informed us that they destroyed that intermission. in closing, our audit found clear evidence that each of these three allegations were correct. was the irs using inappropriate criteria in its review of organization the plan for tax- exempt status -- yes. was the irs delaying their applications -- yes. finally, did the irs asked inappropriate and unnecessary

questions of applicants -- yes. these have raised troubling questions about whether the irs has the effect of management oversight and control at least in the exempt organizations .unction so the nation can be persuaded doing so fairly. thank you for the opportunity to present my views and i look forward to your questions. >> mr. miller, you are now recognized for five minutes. >> thanks for the opportunity to be here today. given considerations, we have received the notice of hearing within the last two days and the irs was unable to prepare written testimony. i will have a very brief statement before it take questions. as acting commissioner, i want to apologize on behalf of the internal revenue service for the mistakes made and the poor

service we provide it. affected organizations and the american public deserves better. partisanship or even the perception of has no place in the irs. it cannot even appear to be a consideration in determining the tax exemption of an organization. i do not believe that this motivate the people engaged in the practices described in the treasury inspector general's report. i have reviewed the report and i believe its conclusions are consistent with that. i think what happened here is foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in the workload selection. the listing described in the report, while intolerable, was a mistake, and not an act of partisanship. the agency is moving forward. it has learned its lesson. we have worked to correct issues in processing described in the report and give them the mets -- implemented changes to make sure this type of thing never happens again.

appropriateill take action with respect to those responsible. i would be happy to answer your questions. you, mr. miller. are you still acting director? >> i am. >> were you appointed by the president? >> no, sir. designated as acting in november of 2012. >> of i'm not mistaken, you actually hold two titles. deputy commissioner for services and enforcement? in your role as deputy commissioner, according to the irs web site, in that capacity you direct and oversee all major decisions with regards to tax- exempt and government entities division? reports toision that

the tax-exempt government entities office. >> of the website is accurate. you do your report to in that position? in both positions? commissioneruty role, i report to the commissioner, if there was one. report toth hats, i the deputy secretary. >> of dock >> the treasury. -- of? >> the treasury. have not a violation to all taxpayer information? >> un not sure what that means. >> it is not just the return but any taxpayer information. >> 61 03 obligates us not to disclose taxpayer information. >> were you ever made aware that a white house official in a conference call disclose the confidential tax structure of a private company?

>> there probably read it in the paper, sir. >> you were made aware through news reports? >> that was a long time ago. >> did you take any steps when you learned of it? >> i dnot recall. would have to go back and look. theou did not inform inspector general of that, or your superiors that he recollect? >> un not sure why would have to notify the superiors it was in the papers. i do not remember whether we made a referral or i made a referral at that time. the inspectoro general's audit, the targeting of conservative groups began in march 2010. when we made aware? may was aware of that on 3rd, 2012. >> how were you made aware? aware not of the targeting of the process that

was described in the report. and when i asked our people to go look at the cases subsequent to the public discussion of the letters coming out. >> that would have been in your role as acting director as well as the deputy commissioner for services? >> i was deputy at that time. >> when you say you had "some of your people, close "to would that have been? >> the senior technical adviser for tax exempt and government entities to lead a team to see oft was going on in terms who had gotten those letters. >> did you inform anyone of that action you took? >> i asked the senior technical march 23rddo that on

or 26, something like that. they came back to talk to me in may. subsequent to that, i'm sure ryan for the commissioner. he was aware of the letters as well. >> did you inform anyone other than the commissioner? >> up the chain at? >> i do not believe so. he had made it clear to west they were whereupon at the time. -- they were aware of it it. >> was there a time when you became aware of the irs launching audits against conservative donors? that would have been in about may 2010. the date,t recall sir, but in that timeframe there were press accounts and individuals' coming in to talk about it. >> did you learn from the press or inquiries from congress? >> it could have been either.

thenme up in a meeting and it hit the press. event, after learning of that information, what steps did you take? >> investigated what happened. we took a look. ultimately, we issued a directive that said the walk in was not thatthe law clear and we had not been in force in that area substantially since i believe 1982 or something like that that talked about gift taxes and c4 organizations. let's not in force right now. let's talk about it and we will put out guidance and it will be pushed back. i thought that was the fair thing to do. >> when you say you investigated, who would that have been? >> i don't remember, but we took

a look at the issue and how it happened. you're looking at it as well, your committee. >> when you say "week," to do you mean? >> the irs. >> what department? was an not know if it exempt organization.on not goino answer with particularities. >> were you ever made aware of the confidential 2008 donor list for the conservative tax- exempt organization? >> i was. >> when was that? >> i would have to get back to you on that. >> how did you find out? >> i don't remember. it might have been the press or someone coming to us with a congressional complaint. >> when he learned of that, did you take any steps? >> i believe we made a referral. >> you are not sure when the referral was made? >> would have been in the same

timeframe. "shortly after you became aware of it? >> it would have been. >> were you ever made aware of the leak of confidential applications for the tax-exempt status of conservative groups pro public cut? again, i cannot give you a perfect time line. the approximate time it became public is when i was aware. you would know about from the time one. >> did you inform anyone else of that? >> i believe in the service informed me at the time, yes. >> in each of these incidents, did you ever come forward to inform the congress? >> i do not believe so unless it came up in conversation or testimony. can i suggest something? on those two just to let you know, this to be the national organization -- those two

situations, we went and, i think, they can speak to what they had found, but we made the referrals and, i believe, what they found was that those disclosures were inadvertent and that there had been disciplined in one of those cases, for someone not following procedures, but i will obviously let mr. george speak to that. >> never informed the congress of any of these things that you are aware of? >> they were in the press, sir. >> all right. obviously, the irs mission statement says the role of the irs is to help american taxpayers understand and meet their tax responsibilities and enforce the law with integrity and fairness to all. clearly, your mission is not being met. i guess i would just

have one last question for mr. miller. when asked the truth, you know the truth and you have the legal responsibility to inform others of the truth, but you do not share it, what is that called? >> i always answer questions truthfully, mr. kemp. -- mr. camp. all right. mr. george, were you ever made aware of the alleged disclosure of the confidential tax structure of a private company? >> we have been alerted. >> you're personally made aware? >> in specific for in general? >> you specifically. >> to a specific company or in general? >> there was a disclosure of taxpayer information. the confidential tax structure, any information, is considered confidential. it was particularly the tax structure of a private company. were you made aware of that

disclosure? >> we are made where public disclosure that is protected by title 26, yes. >> are your the incident by referring to? >> i am aware of that, yes. >> when we made aware? >> i do not have the exact date, sir. >> how we made aware? >> i believe it cantor the office of investigations or it could have been through a hot line. i'm not completely certain. believe yout learned of that from an irs employee? not below the do commissioner or deputy commissioner level interact with the others. "that would include the commissioner. no other employees informed you of disinformation? >> it would have come from one of my principal deputies in may had received information from

someone, not that the commissioner level, but maybe at the deputy level. >> your not aware and you cannot tell us for sure? >> at this time, i cannot. >> we made aware of a confidential donor list of the national organization for marriage? have read in the newspaper the allegations to that effect, but i have to make it clear, mr. chairman, the at the internal revenue code has very strict rules as to the way that confidential tax parents' permission is revealed. i have to be very careful as to how i respond and whether i can even acknowledge publicly some of these revelations you are inquiring about. thatd you respond to information? >> a review has been taken.

>> is an ongoing? >> i would have to confer with my colleagues if you give me a moment. >> is an ongoing? it is not. >> there are daily reports of irs misconduct and it's clear more work needs to be done. is your office continuing to investigate the allegations? >> yes, we are. >> mr. levin is recognized. >> thank you very much. i want to go on to other things. the incident that mr. kemp has been talking about, the disclosure, what years were those? mr. miller? >> i apologize for not having the date at hand, but it has been a couple of years now, i believe. >> the was the commissioner at that time?

>> to appointed him? >> mr. bush. me start with two key issues. thee's no question about inappropriate criteria. i wanted to focus on that. ask the right up , mr. russell,y during the course of your audit, were you allowed access to anyone requested to interview? >> to my knowledge we were not denied access to anyone. you can interview employees in cincinnati and both d.c.? >> yes, we did.

>> they stated they were not influenced by any individual organization outside the irs. is that correct? >> that the information we received. >> did you find any motivation and the tax-exempt notification? >> we did not. >> during your review of this matter coming you indicated when you had started, did you find any evidence of political motivation on the part of employees involved in processing the applications of this this year? >> we did not, sir. >> if we could put on the organizational chart, is that possible? is someone going to do that? it is called high-level organizational report.

mr. miller, the inappropriate criteria that singled out applications for tax exempt status was developed by what office? >> it would be developed by an office that is actually not on here but is under lois' lerner's jurisdiction. >> where are those employees located? >> for the most are located in .incinnati >> they found the director of exempt organizations on this chart, which is not on the screen yet, but this is as her position became aware of the inappropriate criteria.

she ordered the criteria changed and it was changed in 2011 to no longer refer by name, "tea party or patriot." is that correct? >> yes. deputy, were you aware of the criteria in june- july 2011? >> i was not. january 2012, the criteria was changed again to "organizations involved in limiting expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, and social economic reform movements." the ig report indicates this was made in the cincinnati determination office without executive approval. mr. george, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> it was changed without

executive approval? >> that's our understanding. the may 2012 criteria today states organizations with an indicator of significant intervention. the ig report states that it more clearly focuses on the activities permitted under the treasury regulations. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> i have no further questions. >> i yield to the chairman of the oversight subcommittee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. on march 22nd, 2012, the subcommittee held a hearing in this room and i specifically asked the then commissioner shall men about reports that they have been targeting tea party and other conservative groups and i would like to play the video of his response.

coule deo? [video clip] of back-and-e kind forth that happens when people apply for 501c4. march 22nd, 2012. knowing what you know now, was his response truthful? incorrect, but whether it was untruthful or not -- when you talked about targeting, we should really get into this, because when you talked about targeting it is a pejorative term. not defending the list. what happened here, and by one like to go through the application process, is that someone saw a tea party cases come through and there were the knowledge and that they would be engaging in politics. this is the timeframe in 2010

when citizens united was out and there is a lot to discussion in the system about the uses of c4. there was discussion about centralizing and grouping these cases. the way they centralized it is troublesome. they are not targeting people in that sense. what they're doing is making sure that they are putting them in -- >> let me ask you this. you said "incorrect but not been truthful." was he not informed of this process? >> to my knowledge, i do not think he knew at the time. you set the technical adviser to cincinnati. there were press reports and there were notices from chairman camp and myself dating back to 2011. and you are saying he was not informed of this?

divide this into a couple of pieces here. there was the processing of the cases. we were aware there were issues in the processing of the cases. we were not aware of the lists. i asked in late march, after the hearing, for us to go in and take a look. i thought there were problems and they came back with both pieces. with thee problems cases and the listings. >> were given a briefing on the improper selection based on political belief and everything was, i think, may 3rd, 2012. is that correct? yourwe characterize question. >> i was informed of what we had been informed of to date. there and there was a use of the list. the list seems obnoxious to us,

as it does to you, and we are going to take action. that was in may. >> you say it was not targeting, but was only one side of the political spectrum singled out? >> look. they get 70,000 applications in 4150-200 people to do. 150-200 to do. they triage them into a mix to get technically fixed up and some go for substantial of questioning. politics is an area where we always ask more questions. it's our obligation under a lot to do so. indicated, a c3 cannot and a c4 can do some. >> we have received letters describing process and we're trying to get to the heart of this letter. you were told tax-exempt

organizations were being targeted they contained terms like tea party, we the people, and so forth. knowing these practices can be sent letters to congress of knowledge. our investigation of these allegations but consistently omitted that such discriminatory practices, that are allegedly, are in fact taking place. you mislead congress and the american people on this? questions as the they were asked. about did you not tell us the terms? >> the time has expired. george, you are the inspector general at the treasury? >> correct. there are three inspector general's in the department of the treasury. i am exclusively for the irs and

the system of tax administration. what's your appointed by then- president bush. >> correct. >> you were appointed by then- president bush. >> your report was no outside groups were involved. >> as of now. >> was the previous commissioner? >> douglas schillman. appointed by then-president bush? >> correct. when was commissioner these outrageous activities were going on, which both sides of the aisle recognize as

outrageous. rior to commissioner shulman, the last political head or political appointee of the irs was mr. mark everson, is that correct? appointed by president george w. bush. it is believed that groups like the naacp, progressive churches and environmental groups were targeted by the irs. mr. miller, while you were appointed acting commissioner at you are a career civil servant. is that not the case? >> yes. >> you are not a political appointee. >> i am not. >> what i'm trying to basically the blanc is the notion or idea -- tryin gto debunk are the

nonfactual statements by chair camp to link these candles to the white house or solely targeting of conservative groups -- link these scandals to the white house. i asked the questions of ms. lerner last week as to whether or not the irs was investigating political not for .rofit organizations she got involved after she was at a pressstion event and that is simply understandable. what i also think is important, at least at this point in time, i would hope is in a bipartisan context because we want to find

the facts. we want to find out who knew what and when and what steps were or were not taken. i was just as outraged when i was learned when she was asked the question why she did not .ell congress i asked her and she did not answer. we are outraged. i did not believe any political organization should be targeted because of their thoughts. that's on both sides of the spectrum. i would dare say during the prior administration by mr. and mr. everson that there was targeting a political entities as well. it has to end on both sides. the president has been very forthright and very strongly condemning that type of action. the entire administration has has as has mr. lew.

let's get the answers. ask the questions, get the facts, and then we will draw our own conclusions. i yield back the balance. >> mr. green. >> thank you for getting to the truth in this scandal. let's look at one of the tea party groups in my community. the founder, a small businesswoman, applied for tax exempt status in july 2010. in february, 2012 she received a letter with numerous follow-up questions that were intrusive but she answered every one of them and return them well within the two week time frame. three years to the day that she application isr still pending. let's look at what happened to her in the three years since she replied. beginning in december 2010, she

was visited by the fbi domestic terrorism unit. her personal and business returns were both are edited by the irs -- both audited. she received four inquiries and business received unsolicited questioned audits by osha and the atf twice. citizen and a small business woman who had never been audited by the irs or any of these agencies until she applied to you for tax-exempt status. there's a broader question here -- is this still america? is this government so drunk on power that it would turn its full force, its full might to harass, intimidate, threaten an average american who only wants

her voice and their voices heard? in the irs iso responsible for targeting conservative organizations? speak to a given case. we talked about 6103. >> this is not just one case. you know we are talking about the whole list the inspector general put up there. who was responsible for targeting these groups? >> again, i take exception to the context of targeting because it is a loaded term. -- listing was done >> this is not a listing. you created a beyond the lookout list. it is not a centralized or mandated listing. you had a "be on the lookout" list and the inspector general already verified. who was responsible for

targeting these conservative organizations? >> again. if you read the report, it answers your questions. >> there are no names in the inspector general's report. so i'm asking you not only of the acting commissioner bud the deputy commissioner of this organization who is responsible for targeting these individuals? >> i do not have names for you. i'm willing to try to find thatt ing out.gta = = find tigta is looking into it. ." of whohave no knowledge is behind this? >> ipad knowledge what tigta has put out as a fact. >> can you of knowledge none of this shared or given to many other federal agency? >> that would be a violation of law and i do not believe it happened. >> you can assure us there was

sharing of this information? will look into it, but i would be shocked. >> if your earlier answers are any indication, we will all be reading about it in the media. we are to be getting the truth from you. >> mr. rangel is recognized. x. we are all out raged by what has occurred under the bush as well as obama appointees. >> there were no obama appointees. i apologize. i'm not sure -- water talking about? >> once it was discovered that people were put on a book out list, that type of thing, regardless of what you call it, were the people responsible in

the treasury department appointed by president bush as well as continuing service under president obama? it is basically the question you have already been asked. >> at the irs, the commissioner was appointed under the bush administration. at the treasury, those individuals would be obama appointees. the outrage is not democrat and republican. the president has indicated outrage. you have indicated outrage. assume we are on the same side in trying to determine how this happened, who was responsible, how far does the cancer go, how quickly can we cut it out?

so that tens of thousands of irs employees have this stigma of corruption taken away from them that you, mr. miller, a career employee, does not have to explain to your kids and friends that you are not involved in a scandal, that all the people who serve the government -- it's too late for the congress, but it's not too late for the government to try to get its reputation cleaned up for america. i don't want to see anchor, but i certainly hope before this hearing is over that you share with us how you intend to have your voice is heard so that america would know that whether this was criminal activity or a mistake, i don't know, but we have to get on with it.

under 501c4, you can make political donations and without saying how much and who made the donation, right? >> under 501c4 organizations, donors and their contributions are not public intermission, is that is the question. >> you can make political contributions? >> beacon make a contribution to a 501c4 for political purposes. >> and can do that as long as it did not the primary purpose. it can do that for 49% of whenever the activities are without technically violating the law. is that correct? >> the text -- the test is whether your primary activity is social welfare in nature. 49% political. >> we have never been that precise. >> you could say that.

after the supreme court decision in citizens union -- citizens united, whenever. this type ofon for corporation increased dramatically, did it not? >> they did double. >> he did not have to be a political expert to realize there was an increase in political donations given to 501c4's. >> if you look at the reporting on forms 990 on political activities, it will show an explosion of money there as well. >> again, it's almost an invitation as the law is written for abuse in terms of political activities for corporations are primarily are supposed to be doing social service work. is that not correct? >> it is something we have to look at closely. >> you should have wanted to look at this earlier before what

my friends are calling a scandal. it's wrong to abuse the tax system. this screams out for tax reform, does it not? >> it is an area ripe for redefinition and reform. of whetherss republicans or democrats did something like this, the outrage should still be there. >> outrageous to -- yes. >> this law has been abused by government employees. not by all of them, but by some come and our job is to find out who they are. all i want to get from you, mr. miller and mr. george, because it is your integrity on the line, the president, the administration, the irs employees who work hard each and every day. and unfortunately the congress is involved. people are losing confidence and

i hope that you feel the same sense to find out what caused this, how could happen, and to help us restore confidence that americans should have in their government. i yield back the balance. >> mr. ryan is recognized for five minutes. >> mr. miller, we have now established and you have the knowledge that you were briefed on may 3rd that there was improper criteria used for tax- exempt applications. you were told that tax-exempt applications were being targeted the they contained terms like tea party, we the people, bill of rights, and those criticizing how the country was run. toer that, you sent letters congress of knowledge in our investigation of the allegations but omitted that discriminatory practices were allegedly taking place. was made in 2012.

then, you came here to a subcommittee hearing on this we were july 25th where investigating the discriminatory filters to hold up the 501c4 applications of groups, specifically told that these groups fell like they were being harassed and you're asked this question. "what kind of letter or action is taking place at this time that you are aware of?"knowing full well these were used to target certain groups you said, "i am aware that some 200501c4 applications fell into the category. we did a group these organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality. we continue to work those cases." that was your answer to this committee after you had received a briefing that the targeting was occurring, which you already of knowledge was outrageous.

the law governing how he must respond to congressional inquiries requires you to tell not only the truth but the whole truth. you cannot conceal or cover-up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact. how is that not misleading the committee? party ands tea patriots were being used. you just admitted they were outrageous, yet when you're asked about it after you were briefed, that was the answer you gave us? how can we not conclude that you misled this committee? >> there were a lot of questions there. >> its one. how can we conclude you did not mislead the committee? >> i stand by my answer is then and i stand by it now. that implies political .otivation there is a discussion going on. there is no political

motivation. >> let me ask you again. >> may i answer the question? >> let me give you some clarity. hear the question you are asked. what kind of action is being taken place at this time that you are aware of? >> the discussion of the context of that, and again we need to go back

>> we've never been that precise. bei know, but they could 49% political. after the decision in citizens union -- united, whatever. the applications for this kind of organization increased dramatically. >> they did double dramatically. >> you do not have to be an expert to see that there was an increase of donations given to 501 c4's. >> if you look at the political activities and money is spent,

it will show an explosion. >> is written for abuse for groups that are primarily supposed to be doing social service work. is that not correct? >> it is something to look at closely. what she should have wanted to look at this earlier before what my friends call a scandal. it is wrong to abuse the tax system. this screams out for tax reform, does it not? >> it is an area ripe for redefinition and reform. >> regardless whether democrats or republicans did something like this, the of rage it should still be there. is that not correct? >> outrage as it to -- >> the abuse. >> yes. >> this law has of being -- has been abused by government employees, not by all, but by

some. and our job is to find out who they are. all want to get from you mr. miller and mr. george, because it is your integrity on the line is the administration, the irs employees to work hard each and every day and, unfortunately, the congress that is involved in this. people are losing confidence and i hope that you feel the same sense to find out what caused this, how could happen, and to help us restore confidence that americans should have in their government. i yield back the balance. >> mr. ryan is recognized for five minutes. >> mr. miller, we have now established and you have the knowledge that you were briefed on may 3rd that there was improper criteria used for tax- exempt applications.

you were told that tax-exempt applications were being targeted the they contained terms like tea party, we the people, bill of rights, and those criticizing how the country was run. after that, you sent letters to congress of knowledge in our investigation of the allegations but omitted that discriminatory practices were allegedly taking place. this briefing was made in 2012. aen, you came here to subcommittee hearing on this issue on july 25th where we were investigating the discriminatory filters to hold up the 501c4 applications of groups, specifically told that these groups fell like they were being harassed and you're asked this question. "what kind of letter or action is taking place at this time that you are aware of?"knowing full well these were used to target certain groups you said, "i am aware that some 200501c4

applications fell into the category. we did a group these organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality. we continue to work those cases." that was your answer to this committee after you had received a briefing that the targeting was occurring, which of knowledge was outrageous. the law governing how he must respond to congressional inquiries requires you to tell not only the truth but the whole truth. you cannot conceal or cover-up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact. theis that not misleading committee? andy terms tea party patriots were being used. you just admitted they were outrageous, yet when you're asked about it after you were briefed, that was the answer you gave us? how can we not conclude that you misled this committee?

>> there were a lot of questions there. >> its one. how can we conclude you did not mislead the committee? >> i stand by my answer is then and i stand by it now. that implies political motivation. there is a discussion going on. there is no political motivation. >> let me ask you again. >> may i answer the question? >> let me give you some clarity. hear the question you are asked. question you were asked. what kind of action is being taken place at this time that you are aware of? >> the discussion of the context of that, and again we need to go back to look at the context. there with a listing and the treatment of cases. mine understanding is that the treatment of the cases, because all the letters that they were talking about, i'm hearing that people are complaining about

letters. we have dealt with them as have been explained and we went to them to talk about the ways they could answer it and we delta, i think, fairly and successfully with this issue. >> union of our concern with the targeting in the allegations reported to the committee. we brought you here to talk about it. -- you knew of our concern. you said in your answer that you were aware of some that fell into the category to ensure consistency and quality. you did not miss -- you did not mention targeting based on of buzz words like tea party, patriots, or 912. do you not think that is a very

incomplete answer. >> i answer the question truthfully. >> you give us a list the other day of approved tax exempt applications for advocacy organizations through may 2009. we do not know how long these applications sat or how long it took to process them. just from mr. rangel's question in earlier testimony, the irs was doing this because they're concerned about political actions by nonprofits. some of these approved art chattanooga organize for action, aggressive leadership alliance, and progress of usa. if you were concerned about political activity, did you have targeting lists that contain less like "progressive" for "organized" in their name? >> let's take a step back and i walk you through the process. we centralize cases based on political activity.

on some ofhortcut it, but we collect, to be blunt, more than a tea party cases. mr. george's own report -- >> there were and >> in week to more people because any time it was seen that political activity was part of the file -- >> these days congress can't seem to agree if the sun is shining, but these issues have brought us together. we agreed these applications were poorly handled and the irs stiff-armed us. arab servants should be held to a higher standard. the irs is an easy target, and everybody wants to get a

pitchfork when the tax man comes, but with the 24-hour media cycle, it is harder to get the facts and six what is going on here. there is a difference between stupid mistakes and malicious mistakes. of overwhelming majority applications for tax-free status for political activities were from far-right groups, and examiners took a shortcut which they clearly regret, deeply regrets. the report says in black and white on page seven, the determination unit says they considered the tea party criterion for the shorthand for all clinical places. these applications were singled out not for the activities, which is what they should have been singled out for. some of these groups were

delayed in getting their status, and that was wrong. touch as i dislike the right, it is wrong to be on the evenhanded in government application. the inspector general report says no one acted out of malice or political motivation. mr. george, i want to know, do you still stand by that? >> we have no evidence to contradict that assertion. >> we need to talk about campaign finance laws, citizens united, when this all started, right after citizens united. could saw the door open, do political advertising, and will not have to report anybody 's names. applications for secret organizations increased fourfold after that supreme court decision. the small group of people in the

cincinnati office screwed up. nobody will deny that. they screwed up. -- thiscongress committee messed up by not giving any clear criteria for what a real charitable visitation is. the law is not clear, and people have to make judgments and that means they have to collect a lot of data to figure out what people are actually up to. in miller, it is a problem the current way to determine i an organization's primary purpose is, but as i watched this conversation shift from what is right, wrong, and fix it to the irs is broken and let's repeal it, imagine a country -- we could have repealed that with obamacare yesterday -- i am reminded it is only part right, or wrong, but also about republican storylines in this agenda.

ru, and i have heard members of this committee talk about it. the irs cannot access your medical files. is that true? >> >> that is correct. >> their job in obamacare is to collect financial information on which a determination is made as to whether somebody can get a subsidy for their premiums. is that correct? >> that is what they would be getting. >> it is not a fascist takeover of the health care system. let's not forget the irs has one of the hardest and most hated jobs, and there are thousands and thousands of good, solid, hard-working americans who work every day to run the system. and a couple of people make a

not damagethat does the organization, in my view. you get rid of the people who made the problem. i would like to hear, what do you need that would make it so that this would not happen again? >> there are two things. i appreciate those words because we are incredibly hard-working and honest, and that seems to be forgotten in all this. with respect to political activity, it would be a wonderful thing to get better ,oles, to get more clear rules and in terms of our ability to get to this work am a it would be good to have a little budget that would allow us to get more than the number of people we have to do 70,000 applications and do our job in looking at whether an organization is tax- exempt or not. .> time is expired >>

she testifiedare before this committee last wednesday on may 8? am. believe i >i was engaged in other testimoy that they. >> were you aware the irs was preparing a statement to put ?haout last week >> yes. >> would she not have known that last week? >> did you know she was going to atear last friday on a panel the american bar association conference? >> i knew she was appearing. i did not know the topic. to makeou direct her the public statement at the panel discussion acknowledging

the targeting of tax-exempt groups? >> it was a prepared q and a. >> do you know a member of the advisory council on tax-exempt entities? >> i do. >> was her question planned in advance? >> we talked about that, yes. >> did you ever have any contact by e-mail, phone, or in person with the white house regarding the targeting of tax- exempt groups from 2010 until today? >> absolutely not. >> how about the department of treasury? >> i would've at conversations with treasury in my role of acting commissioner because i reported to them. on this topic it would have been very recent to that conversation.

but how about president obama's reelection campaign? >> no. question did you have any contact with an organization or its nonprofit? >> no. >> did you have any contact with pro-public ? >> i do not believe so, but there was when this whole thing came out that was previously referenced, i think the irs might have talked to them, yes very >. >> to clarify your involvement, it would be if you submitted to this committee your e-mails, phone records, personal schedule .rom 2010 until you resigned would you be willing to do that? >> i will have to see what is appropriate. >> we could subpoena those records. >> i understand.

i do not know. we will talk. wemr. chairman, i suggest work hard to get those records. i would also encourage you to them to testify before committee at the earliest possible times. i have one last question, mr. miller. you're not taking any acknowledgment that you knew anything, that you did not do anything wrong, you have said that numerous times on the record today, that you did nothing wrong. i find it hard to believe why did you resign or why are you resigning? >> i never said i did not do anything wrong. it was contained in the questions. i can't resign because as acting commissioner, what happens in the irs, whether personally involved or not, stopped at a desk.

so i should be held accountable for what happens. whether i was personally or not, a very different question, sir. >> i hope you would be willing to submit all your e-mails, phone records,sol meetings that you had in the last four years, and i think that wouepld rea in good standih this committee and the american people. >> we will have to talk about that. i'm not saying no. i just do not know. neale is recognized. , you records -- >> you referenced an article from earlier today and i would like permission to insert an article that appeared on may 14 indicating that there were democratic-leaning organizations that were the focus of the irs as well. >> without objections. this morning, up

as i do every morning, ient at what the word of the day would he, and the word of the day - you have rejected the term architect, is that correct? implyis a term that is something that is not existing here. merriam-webster used the term litmus test, which they define as a single factor as an attitude, event, or fax it is decisive in choosing these organizations. would you say there was a litmus test >? >> no. the litmus test would be political activity. >> there was an outline of a pretty egregious organization, a

volunteer organization, i should note, and their association was told by the irs employees they pernod ricard to file a form 990 because of their small five >-- size. last november they received a letter that there status was revoked. told them they no longer needed to file the forms, but instead of notifying them first about the problem, and allowing them to fix it, in light of the advice they were given by irs, irs revoked their tax-exempt status. they now have to reapply and pay. this is a nonprofit that has been around 60 years. taxpayers should not be intimidated i the irs. there is broad agreement on that. the people should not be afraid of the irs. ron agreement on that today. we should rely on advice they provide and not be punished for it. i hope we will have an

opportunity to work on this specific issue. i want to turn toward topic of recent focus i the irs, and that is the question today, and the allegation that their political views that have caused them to become that focus. we know that is outrageous and not acceptable, and a thorough review will get us to the bottom of this and i sure it never happens again. let's not forget something -- even with the egregious actions that have been acknowledged by the irs, there is a problem here, and that is 501d4 . engaged in politics after citizens united, the irs was flooded with applications, as you have indicated. c4 status, and why was that? because supertex must disclose doir donors while 501 c4's

not. disagreements between parties, but we should be able to agree on that notion of disclosure. the cases that unleashed the torrent of money in public life vs. vellejo in 1976. but the caveat included in that opinion which, while never fully acknowledged, was written by justice brennan, " the theestion that some -- is most efficient policeman." as part of our scrutiny, i think we should agree based upon this problem here today that the simple act of transparency and disclosure would alleviate much of what has happened here. there was not this rush because

they wanted to join the sisters of mercy for the purpose of engaging in politics. donors.oto hide i hope we can get to the bottom of this in full or context, but i want to ask you specifically, has anyone been disciplined rectally related to this development, review, approval, and use of inappropriate criteria and have any actions been put in place to assure that this is not happening again? >> the answer to that is yes. what happened in may when i was thethis, i asked management there to reassign an individual who was involved in these edgers that were objectionable. i asked worl counseling be giveo the person at the time who was responsible for the listing.

was lookingthat -- at this, and now that they are out with the facts, we will be able to look again. i should note because -- i have to be careful here -- the oral counseling, it turns out that that person why not have been involved, so all the managers in that group were brought in and walked to the new processes and explained that this was no way to behave as the irs. the last thing is that in terms of the future, the listing cannot be done and cannot be changed have sent a high level of approval at the executive level. >> thank you. >> in january of 2010, liberty township tea party in ohio apply for tax-exempt status. there is no resolution to this

day. liberty township tea party received 35 questions, but there were really 94 questions. the letter directs the applicant to provide under penalty of perjury some of the following information -- copies of all activity on facebook and twitter, resumes of all past and present employees, whether a past or present employee or their family numbers plans to run for office in the future. i would like to summit a copy of a dispatch article from yesterday that references this, and in fact, in the article, i quote a board member, who is in the audience today, " we are an educational group. we do not endorse candidates. we do not and phone banks grade he did not do those clinical

activities. >> the article will be placed in the record. >> question 26 of the irs questionnaire to the tea party providedas follows -- details regarding your relationship with justin bennet thomas, an american citizen, who is in the audience today does not know why he was number 26. the article says thomas said he was shocked when he found out the irs is asking questions about him of a group he barely knew. he was involved in a cincinnati tea party. he served as a spokesman, but had not worked with the liberty township tea party. the question that comes to mind are, why am i being targeted amongst the others, where does this information go in the end, but doesn't get shared with other agencies?

do i get an audit, and if i do, is against my business? all those things go through your mind. question number 26 for aname organization still has not received approval since january of 2010. the article goes on to say democratic governor ted whockland, his top aides i know, very political, filed for tax-exempt status in august of 2011, they were approved nine months later. mr. miller, another organization in ohio, the ohio liberty coalition, this is their >-- part of their document in response to irs requests. this is only part of it. were not documents enough for the irs to approve their application.

in fact, a former president of the organization who is here today said they applied in june 2010. they finally received approval -- this is not enough , by the one- in december 2012, month after the novemr election. another lady i met in the audience them all high oh who indicated her group had a book club, and the irs demanded a list of all the books they had ad at a book report from the group explaining what was in the books that they read. you cannot make this stuff up. this is unbelievable. mr. miller, i do not know how you can defend any of this and i do not know how you can say this is not political when a liberal group got an exempt status and another did not for over three years.

in 2011?her boss and 201 sarah ingram? >> part of that time. >> that other gentlemen has said in his resignation? >> y >> what is your job title today? >> she worked on implementing the affordable care act. >> who promoted her? >> i di. >> why would you promote somebody who was in charge of that organization which has had controversy over the last couple of years under an investigation? >> because she is a superb civil servant. harel customer service here. we will admit that. horrible customer service.

>> a very direct question. you targeted an individual. >> time has expired. >> thank you. thank you for your testimony, and let me key off something you said, mr. miller. you said fully takes were made. i think the president said it better. of thosehe handling tax-exempt applications in that process at the irs was outrageous and intolerable. no excuse. theas much as we know that folks at irs have a thankless job because they have to go and tell their fellow americans that they may be audited or they have to do this work understaffed, we have to maintain the confidence in the system, because it is a voluntary system of payment of

our tax. >> agreed. >> it was a fully mistake, but the president is more correct that it was outrageous and intolerable. let me focus on something you said, mr. george, when you were asked if there were any finding or evidence of political motivation here, you said no. >> that is correct, sir. >> what we find is a situation where inexcusable activity took place because it erodes confidence confidence of the american people in a system or they participate all entirely. if there is a place in public service where you have to have conductest level of and standards, it is at the irs. esther miller, it is unfortunate for those who are in positions of authority, but the buck has to stop summer, and that is exactly what we are seeing. that should not diminis by

over the the irs years. you're talking to us today because we need to get to the bottom of this. we need to clean up and clear out because we can go active business of making sure people respect the fact we have a voluntary system of paying taxes. having said that, let me ask a question of mr. george. in your report you indicated there appeared to be some confusion by the determinations units specialists and applicants on what activities are allowed by internal revenue code section 501 or by 501 c4 organizations. this could be due to the lack of specific guidance on how to determine the primary activity of a c4 organization. treasury regulations state c4

organizations should have social welfare as the primary activity of their mission. do not, the regulations define how to measure whether social welfare is an organization's primary activity. didgeorge, a question -- some of these delays in processing these applications, could they have been avoided if there were guidance on section 501 c4 organizations and whether primary activity constitutes? >> direct answer is yes to muster, but i should also note soughtterminations unit clarity from washington headquarters, and it took months before they received a response. >> that is a great way to lead to mr. miller. what we have been saying for quite some time, many of us, is there is not clarity in what is

social welfare. you have many c4 organizations, nonprofit organizations am a good guys, i will call them, who are trying to do good work, and they are being tainted by some of these organizations out there doing nothing more than political activity, because the supreme court gave them license to go ahead and use a nonprofit status to do you politics. is the law clear, mr. miller, on what is political campaign activity? >> no, it is difficult, sir. betweenou distinguish 501(c) four organization's and political organization? >> that is difficult, but that level of political activities and expenditures needs to be less in the 501(c) four organization's. >> let me suggest that you go the irs, and, mr.

george, thank you for your service, to communicate that we need to get you all to give us your sense of what is the best guidance so we do not have this liberation of organizations that are abusing the nonprofit status at taxpayer expense, because they get all these write-offs so we will not run into the situation again and the people can have confidence in their system and the government. i thank you, and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have about 15 minutes to question you, but i only have five. i am hearingnted i do not remember, i do not recall, i do not believe, you do not even know who investigated the case, that you do not know who investigated it. i am puzzled why that.

you are not instilling a love of confidence in this panel and the people across this country. i want to go back to your ,ersion to the word targeted and you said there was no targeting because there was no intent. notwithstanding the intent of irs personnel, would you not agree that certain groups were treated differently because of their name or policy position? >> i believe -- >> workgroups treated differently -- that is the question -- because of their policy position or name >> mp/ -- no. >> no one was treated differently? >> may i answer? my understanding of the cases isth it included elements

throughout the political spectrum, that of the 300 cases by there looked at treasury inspector general, 70 of the 300 had tea party in the name. my understanding is the organizations-- >> mr. miller, it is my time, and i will take it back for now. i am not going to be delayed here. your answer was no, no one was treated differently am a but i take you back to mr. ryan's question, you knew that groups with terms of tea party were automatically subjected to extra scrutiny. you admitted that today. you acknowledged your investigation into whether certain groups were treated differently, whether there was intent or not. didn't this committee have the right to know? >> i answered all questions truthfully and, sir. >> did they not have the right

to know that groups were being treated to early, and you have this group of 200, 300, whatever was --did this to many not have the right to know? >> i answered all questions asked. >> so your answer is a non- answer again. do you not think congress has the right to note all the information that you knew? mr. miller, does this committee have the right to know the information that you ?new -- yes or no [indiscernible] you testified before this committee --please, mr. miller, you testified before this committee and you did not write the information, you did not share the information you knew. my question is, do you not believe --this is the united

states congress that you are accountable to, accountable to the american people, the citizens across this country. the you not believe it is your job to provide us with information that you knew so that, as you said, the people at this country can be properly served honestly -- you are a law enforcement agency, for crying out loud. i was a cop for 38 years. did this committee have the right to know what you knew, yes or no? >> i answered questions on truthfully. i will also tell you that -- i am going to-- go to mr. george. you're not going to off great great with me, mr. miller. you have not cooperated with us during this committee. we have heard an early draft of your report indicated he were unable to determine who initially directed employees to

target groups based on political beliefs. is that true? >> yes. >> mr. miller, you are the commissioner. who was responsible >> i do not have that name, sir/ >> why don't you have that name? ?> did you ask anybody >> let him answer the question. [indiscernible] >> who did you ask? >> the senior technical advisor. >> the name? >> nancy marks? >> what did she tell you? >> time has expired. there are votes on the floor of the house must've the committee will recess for 15 minutes. votes committee broke for on the floor at this point and

return later to finish the hearing. tonight we will show you herein in its entirety at 8:00 eastern on c-span. next, technology and law experts testify about unmanned systems, known as drones. held by house judiciary subcommittee, this is an hour and 20 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] the subcommittee will come to order. today we have a hearing about the domestic use of unmanned aerial systems. this is dealing with the use of

the systems within the united states. there are a lot of privacy and civil pretty concerns that are raised in there. we are supposed to have the votes at 10:00, and to to get the hearing over with prior to the time he have votes, because i do not think many members will come back, i will theunanimous consent that chair be authorized to declare recesses when there are votes on askfloor, and, secondly, unanimous consent that all members'opening statements be placed in the record, including mine and the ranking member's. at this time i will yield to the ranking member, mr. scott, to say whatever he wants to say. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i look forward to work with askrs on the committee and

the rest of my statement be placed in the record. >> without objection. we have a distinguished panel today. we will swear in our witnesses. please all rise. do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give to this committee will be the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? let the record show that all the witnesses answered in the affirmative, and please be seated. i will be very brief in the opening introductions. -- first witness is mr. john a non-resident scholar, a senior fellow in the center of technology and center for technology innovation at brookings. he is a professor of electrical engineer, auto policy at ucla and a member of the world council global agenda on the intellectual property

system. mr. mcneil is a professor at pepperdine school of law, and he's previously served as the assistant director of the institute for global security and directed a counterterrorism program for the justice department. is a professor at boston university school of law. do next is the consul for issues in a legislative office. he served as a project council on the aclu technology and liberty project. , i will sayt without objection all the witnesses' . ms. will be placed into the record. each of you will have five

-- fivedecember 8 minutes to summarize your statement. you are first. good morning, chairman, ranking member, and members of the subcommittee. thank you to testify today on the important topic of privacy and unmanned aircraft systems. i am a nonresident senior fellow for the center of technology at the brookings institution, or fester at ucla -- professor at ucla. the views i express are my own represent brookings or the university of california. when discussing privacy it is helpful to keep in mind the variety of platforms a possible by this developing technology. some aircraft such as the global

hawk are as large and nearly as fast as business jets. some can stay aloft for long times. in the summer of 2010, a solar powered airplane with a wing span of 74 feet stay aloft for over two weeks over arizona. boeing is under contract to develop a solar egagle. some aircraft are small. the hummingbird developed by -- weighs only 2/3 of announce. a team of researchers reported the successful flight of a roboti. 1/300th ofess than an ounce. the majority of them are

beneficial, that can help to skewer's identify people -- that can help rescuers identify people in need of help. scientific applications include air quality assessment and measuring internal dynamics of storms. they will provide a neutral for newsgathering as well. they will generate economic benefits by creating jobs and by spurring advances in robotics. unmanned aircraft can also be misused. there are privacy concerns. for unmanned aircraft operated by non--government entities, there are -- it is extensive, but not unbounded and ends when it crosses into an invasion of privacy.

the fourth amendment is the central to the privacy question. while the court has never considered torrents with observations using unmanned aircraft, and exemption -- an examination suggests -- the for the moment has served as no reason toe is suspect it will not be able to do so where these aircraft are used. this does not mean there's note need for additional privacy protections. it makes sense to consider balance legislation. when considering new law for unmanned aircraft privacy, it is important recognize the difficulty of the future of any technology. initiatives to heavily reckon they the internet would likely have impeded the internet's growth.

when considering new law for privacy, it is important recognize the power of existing legal frameworks. they can play a role in preserving privacy in the face of a lengthening list of technologies that might be misused. some of the press protection --but ine drafted constitutional texts drafted over 200 years ago. thank you for the opportunity to testify. >> thank you very much. > >> good morning. please to be here to testify on this important issue. want to commend the subcommittee for the approach you are taking. this is a difficult issue to legislate on and the approach the committee takes is a wise one, beginning with the fourth amendment resident --

precedent. the looming prospect of expanding vehicles known as drones has your raise concerns regarding privacy. those concerns have led some to call for legislating mandating all uses a prohibited unless the government has first obtained a warrant. such an approach would lead to perverse results that would pivot views and restoration together by a drone, but would allow the same information to be admitted if gathered by another means. a technology centered approach to privacy this is the mark. legislation should address the use of information and a technology -- neutral fashion. remains should ma cognizant of this. congress should reject a areirement that -- overbroad and ill advised.

legislation treats information information from a drug differently than information gathered from a manned aircraft, or an officer on patrol. under jurisprudence police are not required to show their eyes until they have a warrant. congress should reject use restrictions. congress should prohibit the use of evidence gathered by drones in any proceeding. ifngent risk >> congress chooses to impose a requirement, which consider codifying exceptions. -- codifyout of five suppressing evidence has serious consequences for the justice system and should present an obstacle for those urging for its application. it should be our last resort.

the measures for when we should apply the rule should not be whether a drug was used, but whether the benefits of deterrence outweighs the cost. congress should spend time defining terminology and specifying what places are entitled to privacy protection. when theyperson sees see the word search and what the court may think a legislature means could be different things. congress should specify what terms mean. this definition task should be the most important part of the drafting process. should consider adopting a set of depositions if necessary and be prepared to exist -- to reject existing terminologies.

considermay want to crafting simple surveillance legislation rather than detailed drone-based legislation. some of the ways congress might look at this would be to craft a sliding scale for surveillance that looks at to from which surveillance might be conduct and rather than the platform in which it is launched. should consider transparency and accountability measures in lieu of a warrant requirement. transparency measures may be more effective than suppression for controlling wrongful government surveillance. congress should mandate the use of all drones be published on a regular basis on the website of the agency operating the system. this should include the detail of who operated the system, where, when, gps coordinates, and what the purpose was. congress may mandate ineffectual or's of systems make their

systems equipped with software that allows for the easy export of flight logs. such logs will allow advocates and citizens to monitor how drones are used and enables the process as a mechanism to check government action. the emergence of drugs into the of drones -- congress should consider legislation making use of these systems more transparent and empowering able to make government more accountable. thank you. thank you. [indiscernible] members of the committee for inviting me to testify about the fourth amendment issues.and

the constitutionality of drones for purposes raises questions that are not easily answered by the supreme court tossed fourth amendment jurisprudence. turns can be equipped with sophisticated cameras, license plate readers, and laser radar systems. according to a recent paper, drones will be able to operate with facial recognition or soft biometric equipment that can recognize and track individuals based on attributes such as height, age, gender, skin color. because of the advanced technology available, comparing a drug to a traditional airplane is like comparing a frisk to a modern x-ray machine back and see the neat one's clothes. that helicoptering

surveillance does not implicate fourth amendment was predicated on available equipment. thelifornia vs. -- opinion to screeners concerns about future electronic developments from what he called simple visual observations from a public lace that would challenge -- the court signaled that more intrusive and sophisticated police surveillance would raise difference and more difficult fourth amendment issues. i agree with previous speakers that the court's 1980 rolling stenotic troll the use of drones that are capable of capturing much more detail unavailable to the human eye. it is important to recognize even among the justices of what

constitutes a search and what triggers the fourth amendment is subject to change, and is in a state of flux. in a recent gps case, five justices in the cave and a willingness to reassess traditional notions of privacy under the court's analysis. herice so mayor encouraged colleagues to reconsider the analysis for short-term monitoring of a person tossed public activities. hisice alito was indicating willingness to consider the court's jurors prudence, and i state, the use of longer-term gps monitoring investigations of most criminal offenses impinges expectations of privacy. what i read from that are five justices say you have an

expectation of privacy vis-à-vis long-term electronic monitoring, when you are in the public. if you have that dissertation in the eyes of five justices in the public, on the public streets, you should have that level of expectation of privacy when you are on your own property, notwithstanding the fact that a drone maker may not be in navigable airspace. the final point the committee should consider is when considering whether drone surveillance constitutes a search under the fourth amendment, i urge the committee to avoid resolving this question as a litmus test or legal terms of art. the expectation of privacy is a fake subjective test, and most of the justices have acknowledged that. even a justice who is responsible for the expectation of privacy test disavows that in a decision which was a 1971

decision. alln judges will simply say fourth amendment requires is [indiscernible] and they will judge the case accordingly. in these cases, the courts apply what amounts to a rational basis test deciding whether or not the government activity was related to a legitimate governmental interest. tos degree of deference police intrusions i suggest is at odds with the central meaning of the fourth amendment. the fourth amendment was not asserted in the bill of rights so judges could do for the governmental intrusions on privacy. rather, we know the amendment was put in the bill of rights so that -- >> thank you very much. members you, chairman, of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify. the a.c.l. you believes the

widespread domestic use of unmanned drones raises significant new privacy issues that cannot be adequately addressed by existing law. characteristics with unmanned aerial surveillance, such as planes, but the privacy invasion they represent is substantially greater in both the scope and volume. manned aircraft are expensive to purchase, operate, and maintain. the expense is imposing a limit on the government cost aerial surveillance capability. at a limit.e platforms can peer in windows and large static blips enable continuous long-term monitoring for much less than the cost of a plane or helicopter. ongoing improvements in technology exacerbate these privacy issues. night vision towe cameras provie

that are detailed. imagine technology like the naked-body scanners at airports. -- uses anacebook extent all the way from high- tech terms or valence to traffic enforcement. while drones have beneficial uses for search and rescue missions, firefighting, dangerous police tactical operations, these realities point to significant possible harms if left unchecked. with the use of video cameras, have seen ongoing problems with voyeurism and racial profiling. if there is a persistent danger of monitoring, it creates the danger that people will change how they act in public, whether at a protest rally or sunning themselves in their backyard. drones must be integrated into the airspace by 2015.

while the use of this technology is poised to explode, law has not caught up to this technology. the supreme court has authorized aerial surveillance and photography of private property. the court may extend fourth amendment protections to ongoing automated tracking, but no cases have been decided around drone use. protections are spotty .nvitation >> are spotty the government is in the best position to create rules. they should be based on four key principles. no mass surveillance. no one should be spied upon unless the government believes that person has committed a crime. it should only happen with a search warrant. the same standard used to search a house or business. it may be permissible under to

monitor individuals and public at a lower standard, but the key is to prevent mass searches of the general population. in order to prevent this use of benes, exceptions should limited to emergencies connected to life and safety ordinarily drawn administrative exceptions. information collected from drugs for one purpose to combat a fire should not be used for another purpose. information collected by drugs should be kept securely and destroyed probably once it is no longer needed. drones should not carry weapons. weapons developed on the battlefield have no place in the united states. there is a consensus forming on this issue. the heritage foundation support sharp limits on what an iced drones oversight is crucial.

must play a central role in whether to purchase a drone. drone used must be monitored to make sure it is a wise investment that works. drones should only be used if subjected to a framework that regulates their use. the aclu believes some members of the committee have taken great strides to find this balance with a bill. andort this legislation urged the committee to make marking it up a priority. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. the chair will recognize members to answer questions under the five-minute rule. the first gentleman is mr. goodlatte. .> thank you i asked my opening ent be

made a part of the record. >> without objection. do you believe the courts, congress, or the states -- which do you believe are the best to regulate this use? >> is the question specific to privacy? the am on record saying fourth amendment will provide more protection than is generally recognized. that would be through the courts. with respect to private-party , it is at the state level there isstatutes, and a role at the state level to ensure those statutes properly anticipate what would occur with unmanned aircraft.

>> should congress regulate the future herschel use of unmanned aircraft, or that could be left to the states? am not sure. with regard to privacy issues, i am not sure that congress -- that you can get around privacy without looking -- without congress doing it. let me rephrase that. concernedcial uses, about privacy, congress is the most appropriate body to legislate the way we would have equal law across the board. i am in the same camp where we think that fourth amendment protections are sufficient, we could copy those for personal purposes and about those as our statutes for privacy protections. the problem with commercial is we have a body of law on privacy with regard to what law

enforcement does, but fewer rules with regard to what private parties and commercial parties might do. this is one of the things that people get concerned about, commercial use is being my neighbor flying around doing video for photography or for his youtube page or for real estate purposes that can then look a lot like snooping or peeping tom types of things. some of that is covered by state law, but when you look at cases where people have been able to successfully sue, you do not see a lot of success. it is a high are for people to overcome. there might be room therefore congress to regulate. when you look at the big time commercial uses, unmanned systems for fedex and whatnot, privacy is not the issue that is driving our concern there.

it is more safety concerns. .> thank you i take it from your warrant- based approach to the use of uas by governmental entities, you emergencyception for situations. tsarnaevle, if the brothers had been detected by thatone -- by a drone, evidence would still be admissible in court, if they were following them by the street down the street coming peeping them from placing the explosives or were not impeded but that evidence was available to show that they were the perpetrators of the crime? >> yes, that is correct. there is a strong emergency exception that allows, in the

cases of danger to life or limb, will stop younes have to play up the scenario little more in terms of where they are in the investigation. but there is a strong emergency .xception will stop policeyou talk about discretion and limited by statute? >> i think there should be limited statute. reasonablet have cause or reasonable suspicion, if we are going to require warrants, we should allow reasonablerrants on suspicion.

need a warned, it has to be based on probable cause. >> the gentleman from virginia, mr. scott. >> mr. calabrese, could use a word about how the technology has, could this issue in terms of the difference between one photograph all the way to tracking someone even in public for long amount of time with the expectation? >> certainly come a great question. it is not just drones, right? if you figure the technologies at issue, you can imagine tracking the drown her couples drone, allowing them mass people all

the time. drones can penetrate more deeply, at night with smaller and greater camera. a nova special recently indicated one camera called the argus could cover multiple square miles and do detailed surveillance of an entire city. it changes the way people think of what public spaces. it really merits further regulation by congress. are weapons ever appropriate with drones? >> i think we need to explore the question of weaponization carefully. the immediate answer is no. weapons should be used because a drone is not in the same kind of as a police officer is. barely, a police officer has to be able to defense himself.

or take appropriate action to apprehend someone. a drone will not need to defend itself. it will not need to apprehend anyone. and a drone operator may not have the same judgment oryx reduce grain. through a little camera as a police officer does on the ground. when. same judgment through a little camera as a police officer does on the ground. it goes to a couple of important issues. one is having the community be involved. you should know if there is surveillance. the community should be able to decide if they think adding a drone is an appropriate tool and how it should be used. also, just in the question of discrimination generally, we have seen in monitoring video cameras that video surveillance

is free only a very boring task for an operator. it's adult. minds 10 -- it is dull. minds tend to wander. they tend to focus on pretty girls and then they follow their vices and look for particular -- follow their biases and look for particular minorities that they think are more likely to commit crimes. we think that would happen with the drone as well. >> image selecting the areas under surveillance? >> not just the areas, but the individuals that they might choose to follow. they may be picking up particular individuals and decide to follow them around and see if they will commit crimes. >> if you have a legal exception for surveillance and a recording, what happens when you did notthing that you have probable cause to suspect, but you know this because it is under surveillance? >> i think that will be relatively uncommon. we do have an exception for --

>> you have an entire traffic area that you're doing surveillance and you say that is ok and you see a drug deal over on the side, do you get to use that? >> first of all, we would hope they wouldn't -- we wouldn't have mass surveillance like that, cameras up in the sky all the time. we would assume the surveillance would be largely directed and targeted. so it if individual acts were already being monitored i law- enforcement, we respect that they would likely come under an existing reasonable suspicion standard if the investigation was done, for example come in public, because we would already have a court order that would say that it is ok to do drone used in public at these particular times. the stuffhave all of recorder, could there be a limitation on what you can do with it after you got it? >> i think that there has to be, yes. i think that we don't want

people to be recorded all the time. we don't want to feel like those drones are constantly monitoring them. and we want people to know that they are safe, but not just in private, but also in public, to live their lives without worrying that what they do will end up on youtube. >> the gentleman's time is expired. under the procedures that have been announced by the chairman of the committee, full committee members were not members of a subcommittee are entitled to sit on the desk, but not entitled to ask questions unless a member yields them time to do so. under the procedure, the chair yields his time, his five minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. paul. >> thank you. i appreciate your yielding and all four of you being here. decision,counting the concept is the supreme court's dicta, for lack of a

better phrase, of expert ration of privacy down the road will be not expanded, but made smaller will stop i think that is what the members of the court to me are saying, which concerns me. so it seems to me that congress in the area rounds -- of drones -- of dronesandard needs to set a standard. i am from arizona. of dronesse any kind because he doesn't know what the loan will be and he doesn't want to wait for the supreme court to rule 10 years from now on a search, throw out a case that he has arrested some bad guy and put him in jail. so he is not using drugs. so he is waiting for somebody to give him and other law enforcement agencies some direction on the use of drones.

there seems to be two issues. law enforcement use and private use. and what is the expectation of privacy in those areas and should we do anything about it or just wait? -- there have been comments meant that the court should make these decisions about the fourth amendment, which the court has been doing, applying what is lawful in the fourth amendment, what's not lawful in the fourth amendment. should the courts the responsible for answering the shoe shoe on the fourth amendment? >> i think your legislation does a good job of creating a careful balance, something that congress is very good and the courts are not particularly good at. when we think of how we would want to use a drone, it is ,lear that most of the uses finding a missing person, fighting forest fires, are not

uses that particularly implicate the fourth amendment. and your legislation is very careful to carve those out. i think that by creating clarity, you allow the use of drones for all of these good or process them including commercial from since -- commercial or process where people don't have to worry that that drone in the skies spying on them. so while you allow for the growth in the industry will still protecting people's privacy and resemble you -- reasonable way. so, yes, i think that congress has a strong role. >> what about the faa? right now, they decide who gets a permit. the president has weighed in on to betold the faa sensitive to privacy concerns when giving you permits. have aink the faa does role clearly in some of the things, like deciding what will happen with information once it is collected. providing notice of what

particular drones are being flown or how. but i think thomas has the central role in grady -- in regular in the government. so congress has to be the one to decide how the police, the fourth amendment should be interpreted. because congress has a role in interpreting the constitution as well. you are constitutional officers. so the faa can perform an expert function. i think congress has the decision. >> if we talk about the fourth amendment, let's expand the and revisit the whole concept of the fourth amendment and not just with the drones, but with all new technologies. what do you think about that? >> i certainly believe in expanding the fourth amendment. i know you do as well. i think the committee is doing that right now. you're not just considering drones. you're also considering

surveillance with cell phones, another hearing on electronic medications, privacy. so you really are revisiting the entire issue and i think you're doing it in a very intelligent and very deliberative manner. so this is a piece of that. >> once again, on the other technologies, some yet to be invented, should congress set lawstandard parameters on enforcement and civilian use or should we just come again, wait for the supreme court to make those ultimate decisions? , in the 21stat century, as we get new technologies, we have to make have to make sure that our values come with us. thosee don't lose constitutional values as we move to new technologies. you, of course, are perfectly suited to do that. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the gentleman from michigan. >> thank you. ,> could i ask mr. rea señor

professor mcneal and professor macklin -- have you heard about whole legislation 637 preserving the american privacy act and are you able to comment on it at all? please do. >> first of all, i am very appreciative of any attention the congress is giving to this very important issue. one of the concerns i have is the overly broad warner requirements, that the problems that can arise, i certainly agree that we should not have government fishing expeditions with unmanned drones, but monitoring a traffic intersection after an accident and on the sidewalk next to the intersection, a term will

assault takes place and in the case, the aircraft is the only evidence. i think it would defy reason for us all to save the victim, well, we know who the perpetrator is, but we will let the perpetrator go because we didn't have a warrant and there's legislation this is we can't use it. i think we need to be cognizant of the potentially that an unintended consequences of what sounds at first brush like something that will only be good. >> mr. mcneil. on-e highlighted one of the site made in my written testimony. i provide a few examples where the legislation, the current preserving american privacy act, the one of 2012 as well, where they both create a circumstance where we might be suppressing inadvertently discovered information. so we are doing a search and rescue mission, for example, in a public arcand come along way,

while looking for the loss either, we come across evidence of a crime and now that evidence can't be used. some privacy advocates want a ban on the use of the secondary evidence in all circumstances. i understand the impulse. the ideas that come if you say you are using it for search-and- rescue purposes and you use the evidence for crime collection purposes, it presents the surveillance that we are all concerned with. >> the give. >> i'm not in a position to comment on it because i have to study it and i wouldn't like to experts. >> of course. >> let me turn now to the very disturbing consideration of this general subject. you know, this is a prime

example of technology and iking established law think that we will have to go beyond the fourth amendment. they will have to -- there will have to be a body of statute that go into some of this detail. it is not all about privacy, but privacy is, of course, always a continuing exception. do any of you want to recommend to the subcommittee, which might be the ones that take on this responsibility, any courses of action that we might take to examine all of this that has been remarked? this goes on the on drums because new technologies coming out to further complicate it. the nail onou hit

the head when you said that this goes beyond drones. i will give you an example. in new york city, the police a helicopter that has a camera at the can observe activity two miles away. can see details on peoples faces faces and read a name tag on their shirt up to two miles away. so this is not a drones pacific. it is really an advancement of technology. so i think the approach, if commerce wanted to legislate on this come is to look at the issue of surveillance, define what surveillances. i have some definitions in my written testimony. and then create a line based on the duration of surveillance, in their owncers discretion to observe for seven days. maybe they -- maybe then they need to have continued

suspicion. anything longer than that would require a warrant. the times i throughout is my is just at what -- is just my guess at what would be best. but other than that, we are dealing with technology the same. they camera trained on someone's home that today would be treated the same as a camera on a drone or someone standing on a rooftop using the camera. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the gentleman from arizona. but thank you, mr. chairman. i had the religion being on the armed services committee where we quite often had to struggle with issues about unmanned aerial vehicles. more and more, the technology is allowing us almost to pilot from the ground in many different circumstances. and this is also true of missile technology.

guided missiles and piloted on ,he ground aerial vehicles this technology is beginning to emerge and presenting some pretty significant challenges. we like to say never send a man to do a missiles job. but the reality is that the technology is becoming more and more difficult and raises constitutional issues. i think the previous gentleman kylie and astutely articulated it. so i guess my first question is how to apply the time-honored constitutional transpose according to regional intent in a way that is reasonable and appropriate? let me give this example. just result, the city of boston endured obviously a terrible terrorist attack and street cameras recording the scene from every angle were key to law enforcement in the hunt for the terrorists.

then the police used thermal images from helicopters to locate the armed suspect as he hid from the police. that any of these images could have been derived from unmanned aircraft. so constitutionally, mr. macklin, and this is not a trick question. i thought mr. conyers point was very spot on. does it matter to you constitutionally whether the street images in that particular case came from a street camera or from an unmanned aerial surveillance? rex constitutionally speaking? no, i don't think it matters. what matters is who is responsible for those cameras. but i believeken, one of the cameras was from the lord and taylor store. but let's assume that were put up by the city of boston. constitutionally speaking, it

doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. >> then let me direct the question to mr. salaries. you stated in your testimony that the ua yes would be acceptable to you for "reasonable non-law-enforcement purposes by nonlaw enforcement -- wherefor privacy privacy will not be affected and where surveillance will not used for secondary law-enforcement purposes." ancestor macklin's comments, it is your position, that the fourth amendment applies only to law-enforcement agencies for law enforcement purposes. .> to the government, generally the fourth amendment applies to government generally. >> but for reasonable mom law- enforcement -- nonlaw enforcement purposes, that would no longer apply >> i wouldn't

say that it does not apply. i think the biggest -- does not -- would no longer apply. >> i wouldn't say that it does not apply. >> i am reading what you said. that law enforcement will use dron in an invasive manner. thewe still want to create ability of government to use drones in a noninvasive manner. for example, a firefighter is obviously a government agent. they should still be able to use the drug to investigate a fire. we don't want to keep that from happening was that whether or not the fourth amendment applies there, but it does, but it is not a search for law enforcement purposes. >> it seems to be a pretty if one triesarse to apply the fourth amendment to nonlaw foresman agencies to friend from law enforcement agencies when the effect is the same. i know this is one of those issues we will grapple with for

a very long time. would anyone else on the panel like to address either of those questions? just want to direct you to page six of my testimony where i try to thread the sale, which is i think the fourth amendment -- thread this needle, which is i think the fourth amendment applies to this policy concern. they might go beyond the fourth amendment. the big thing that we have bandying about here is the distinction between a general search versus a targeted search against a particular individual. i think we would want to address those two different types of searches in different ways. new york city, for example, you are subject to a general search at all times because of the cameras. that is different from the individual search. >> i want to ask in general what

laws and restrictions you think should be placed on drug use by private citizens to conduct aerial surveillance. it is my understanding that, if a private citizen wants to use a drone, they need faa approval. but beyond that, i wanted to know if you had suggestions. >> i will try to at least a dress that question. the question. they are under the process of drafting those regulations. but the question is -- >> that is to come, right? >> yes. by late 2015, those regulations would be complete.

those statutes are usually tied to this concept of reasonable expectation of privacy. so if a private property uses an aircraft in a manner that does invade privacy, it is actionable under multiple grounds. so i am confident that there are it istions, although also a good reason to look at those statutes to make sure that things like a restaurant and stocking statues also cover potential misuse of an unmanned aircraft. >> in my area, there is a concern over the paparazzi, which has gone to some extreme lengths to invade people's privacy. invade -- i want defend the privacy invasions that the paparazzi commit. that is not a technology problem. that is a paparazzi problem. >> anyone? >

>> the private use does raise some first amendment concerns. it is intentional privacy .nvasion under peeping tom laws where we spend a lot of time talking wordlessly unregulated come i think there is a fair amount of existing law that may be appropriate to see how that plays out before we do a lot legislating in the private use area. >> anyone else? >> when i learn about some of the drones being so small, about the size of a bird or whatever, how do you see that in the future regulated?

what is to stop an individual just getting that without faa approval? quarks i think that there is already a hobbyist exception for unmanned aircraft, model aircraft as defined in the legislation. , it is verynkly important to provide exceptions for hobbyists so that a parent who goes and flies a model aircraft in the find field with his or her child is a need to get faa approval before doing so. certainly- there is going to be some flex ability in terms of acquiring these platforms. again, it is the use where we draw the line. it is the threat that he may be used in an unlawful manner. we would then address that behavior. >> ok, thank you. from utah.leman >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the panel for being here. this is an important topic.

the rapid advancement of technology, the technology is gratis long as it's used in the proper way. let's talk a little bit about the jones -- technology is great as long as it's used in the proper way. thus talk about the jones case. a 9-0 ruling is fairly conclusive, but it does beg the question of what other areas should this be applicable to. from your perspective and experience, our current justice department and the implementation by the fbi and taken theve they jones case and implemented it the way you see it, the ways should be implemented or are they missing something here? what should the justice department and the federal government he doing with the jones case? obviously, the jones case

does with location tracking. and in their view, the promises and sufficient. systematic tracking of individuals over time is an invasion -- it implicates the fourth amendment and it is a search. given that rationale, we believe that all manner of tracking currently undertaken by the government, whether that is cell phone tracking or with a gps device by a car, it implicates the fourth amendment and it should be done with a warrant. i think it is a very interesting question as to whether that same rationale should be expanded to drones. clearly, drones could be used to track an individual for long durations in a very detailed manner. perhaps u.s. v jones will also come to regulate how drones are used as well. >> i would just say this about jones. i think the story on jones and the scope of jones is unwritten.

certainly, justice sotomayor and justice alito's opinion talk about electronic monitoring. justice scalia is very careful not to rely on any sort of electronic concerns or controls of -- orhis opinion was solely e physical intrusion and the purpose for the governmental conduct. i think if you read the most scaliaruling o, justice writing the majority of the opinion, you see the scope of the concern on physical intrusion. what is your opinion of that? it seems short-sighted to think just a physical intrusion -- >> i agree with that. the concerns of the monitoring are more important because we are at a time where government does not need a physical intrusion.

>> you can triangulate things without physically attaching things. i have a deal location bill that was done in a bipartisan way. you have been very supportive of this. i don't think it is a physical intrusion of attaching a device over time. let me get the other gentlemans opinion of this. aerospace, if you have private a 5erty, let's say you have acre parcel of land, i think there is the reasonable expectation of privacy that is not just limited by walking down the street and you put up a fence. but the aerospace is something that we should look at in general. >> what you have articulated is that you expect something

broader than the supreme court has articulated. aerialack to the other surveillance cases, going to what we normally exposed to the public as a matter of fourth amendment concern. it will require legislation because the court does not seem prepared to identify that yet. i am more optimistic than many with respect to prohibiting long term extended surveillance. sotomayorito and agreed that long-term tracking violating a reasonable expectation of privacy. it may be unconstitutional. and i am quite encouraged that

the supreme court would find that unconstitutional. >> the gentleman from louisiana. a lot of conversation and the reason alike -- reasonable expectation of privacy, do you think it will get to a point where we have to say what a reasonable expectation of privacy is? evolve, thet things more that i think i have any expectation of privacy. i agree with you and i think that this committee can use their powers under section 5 to enforce the fourth amendment and say yes, a reasonable expectation of privacy includes the following. factu talked about the

that there are governmental actors. newe was an incident in york where a guy took pictures of people in adjacent buildings and did not capture their face but very intimate moments and those pictures are now in a gallery and the subjects are very upset. the lawyers said there is no recourse for them. that sort of thing that concerns me in terms of if we get to drones, how do we reconcile that? >> they are very difficult aretions, because they potential invasions and because of the powerful need to protect the first amendment. laws deal with a drone. amendment protect our

right to gather information for really important reasons. regulating how government operates, giving people the ability to talk about what is going on in their lives and share information. theobvious need to protect press. we are going to have to balance those. i think we are going to have to tread carefully in regard to the first amendment and there are more distant protocols are around first amendment activity for private use than the fourth amendment. >> we talked a bit about the drones and they have the capability to read license plates. everyputting readers on stoplight.

thinkt point do you police would need authorization to record and store the data from license plate readers? burglaries', can they go back and see if there is in a car that went through the red lights close to any of those homes? >> i believe that there is a reason that we have those readers. looking for stolen cars is a perfectly appropriate reason and that information should be destroyed once the purpose that you gather it for is no longer operative. because if we don't do that, we are going to live in a society where we have mass surveillance. we live in a world of records now.

if wsa keep it just in case, our entire lives will be out there to be investigated. >> that is what i was worried about. else want to comment? , butfully and sympathetic there is a gray area here. these records are destroyed at the end of a shift, if there is a kidnapping that was not reported for 48 hours, i don't think anyone would deem it a positive thing if we had intentionally destroyed information. i don't claim to have a perfect answer, but these are hard questions. of the gentleman from south carolina. in i think they said new

technology might provide increased security at the expense of privacy and many will find the trade-off worthwhile. how will we know if we find the trade-off worthwhile? who gets to make that decision? >> that is a catchy statement but the problem is, i know it is not your statement, but my because members of society would be willing to make that trade off, the individual would be the one that suffers the harm and i think -- i assume that is why you are holding these meetings. this body should make a determination of that because if it is a matter of what society would prefer, individuals are

going to be the ones that suffer. >> if i remember, the bill of rights sets the minimum and if states for this entity, perhaps, wanted a more arduous view of the fourth amendment, we could do so? >> i would caution because the the caseence under does not lend itself to a congress going beyond what the supreme court has done. however -- >> i thought that allowed congress to set the jurisdiction of the courts. >> under section 5, the court has been somewhat restrictive, the city is the main case and there has been president since then to see what they do with

the shelby county case. invalidatedt has congressional statutes where congress has imposed restrictions that the court has found constitutional. >> how does the expenditure of manpower or womanpower impact a fourth amendment analysis? see and analysis were if you had to invest detectives or line officers, that is what analysis. it would be a different one to have the computer do it. am i dreaming that the investing of resources would be part of that? deal -- a bill dealing with gps tracking. at least when you are having a person doing it, you are investing time and resources which is a different analysis

than having a device to do it. a case where the court said the degree of resources invested makes any difference. >> i think there is, but you guys are the experts. >> i think i agree with you, congressman. the uproar replaced the calibrate these expectations is in the legislature rather than letting judges right things out. your best to know what your constituents are in regard to privacy. congress can pass legislation to require a warrant before getting that rather than allowing it to be obtained through a subpoena. >> do all of you agree that technology can impact whether or not a search is considered reasonable?

>> i think i can partially answer that. as the government uses a large follow agents to somebody are round, it is not a violation of the fourth amendment whereas the supreme court is on record performing that same tracking with technology might be a violation of the fourth amendment. >> do you agree that technology impacts our reasonable expectations of privacy in it is a scale that changes from culture or generation to generation? >> to some extent, we are comfortable with photography that in the late 1800's when it became possible to capture an irrefutably accurate image.

weimpacts our views but still are allowed privacy. >> i would like to ask about the issue of the storage of data and the implications for privacy. we know that local police departments are applying to obtain permits to use a drones for law-enforcement purposes and i understand there is potential that a large amount of data could be collected and stored. i am concerned that limitless data collection could pose a threat to privacy. can you tell us what types of data these drones can collect and of those law enforcement agencies have data minimization policies in place? goodose are incredibly questions that don't necessarily

have clear answers at this point. widespreadt the collection of detailed hugemation can create privacy implications and early changes the way we consider public space. we canbe in public, but apply face recognition to that detail the video. orcan use it to close at examine particular things. every police department should limit the amount of collection for particular purposes and discard it after they no longer needed for those purposes. whether that is happening now, it is tough to say.

>> what is considered drone usage? >> i would say that it is bounded by the other reasons for collections. they put a drum for a particular reason. you know longer need it, discard the data. you will not worry about keeping data for a long times. >> we have to update many of our other federal laws, but what can we learn from our experiences when it comes to protecting individual privacy? >> we have powerful frameworks

that the principals would apply here. framework a powerful and clearly, we don't want to discard things like the wiretap act, listening to people's communications. those have to remain in place. thate some of the things we believe should be in any only for acted particular purpose, and discarding it when it is gone and notifying people. >> i would like to focus on the positive benefits of drones. we face many dangerous and costly wild fires each year and we can benefit from additional tools to fight these fires.

for example, the station fire killed two firefighters and burned 160,000 acres. is the modernization act helping to accelerate production of the prevention drones so that they can have these tools in the near future? are there any barriers that warrant congressional review? well awarethey are of firefighting, and are working diligently on the regulations that enable the use such as firefighting that nobody in this room find objectionable in the least. >> i yield the balance of my time to congressman sheila jackson lee. i just have a simple

question. what is the opportunity for racial profiling? how dangerous is that with the utilization of drones? >> we have certainly seen racial profiling. time isentlewoman's expired. >> i appreciate you being here .nd i would like to follow up the line of questioning she had, i will give an example. friend said his incredible new camera sky word and took pictures of a shuttle going over and later saw it had broken up and got to the paper.

it was a photograph that has been on more front pages than any other. he pointedr hand, if it in someone's window from a long distance, then you would get an issue. technology makes a difference and it seems to me that we get to some intent issues. i wasn't sure which area you were talking about, but i am curious, if congress went about setting what we believe -- and there is room for agreement on both sides. if we came to an agreement on what we believed was an appropriate and reasonable expectation of privacy, how are

you guys aware of a law that would create a problem for us setting such an expectation of privacy? >> i don't believe so. i think you have a very powerful piece of legislation that is a very good beginning on setting the parameters for how drones' should be used. , i wass of the areas largely talking about private use. >> us trying to set a reasonable expectation of privacy -- >> i am not aware of that, but i would urge precaution that the courts have had decades to try to identify reasonable expectation of privacy. he might be better served by

focusing on the government conduct that you want to control. defining terms like surge in public places and focusing legislation there rather than .rying to define privacy >> she has a lot of papparazzi. in east texas, we don't. not just public government entities, but if you have a nosy neighbor that points to your backyard or inside your house instead of sky word, there ought to be some point that you can expect privacy, right? >> instead of focusing on the conduct, it would be the collection of that or the

subsequent use of that information. sometimes you walk down the street and people leave their blinds open and you can see the houses. privacy isfeel their violated, and but if you start using photos, maybe the use of that information is the thing that we would want to control. in thee is one example united states vs. miller. the supreme court said we don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect to banking records. that rule and gave individuals more privacy. laws anybody aware of any shooting down a drone in an area in which you are allowed to shoot? i had this question come up with somebody. , ii o aerospace

think it would be a very bad idea. >> and they could be charged with reckless -- the time has expired. mr. appreciate that, chairman since you normally allow people to answer questions that are already asked. >> it is members that have either used or yielded their time. without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned. >> the allegations of the irs targeting conservative groups, this is a portion from outgoing acting commissioner steven

miller as he apologized for mistakes and how management plans to deal with them. >> thank you for the opportunity to be here today. we received the notice of hearing in the last two days, the irs was able to prepare a written testimony. i would note a very brief statement before i take your questions. i want to apologize for the mistakes we have made and the poor service we provide it. the organizations of the american public deserves better. the perception of partisanship has no place at the irs. it can't even appear to have the tax exemption of an organization. i don't believe partisanship motivated the people engaged in the practice is described.

believe the conclusions are consistent with that. i think that what happened here is that foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection. was aintolerable, it mistake. we have worked with the groups to make sure that this does not happen again. management will take appropriate action with respect to those responsible. i would be happy to answer your questions. >> you can see today's entire hearing tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span or you can watch any time on line. earlier today, president obama

announced an executive order that would streamline the permit process for federal infrastructure projects. part of the middle class jobs and opportunity to work, this is half an hour. >> hello, baltimore. it is wonderful to see all of you. give a dunk and a round of applause. i want to thank all of you for the warm welcome and a great hospitality. i will return the favor by hosting your super bowl champion, the baltimore ravens, at the white house this summer. we will have rayless in the china room. what can go wrong? andntk yo

your plant manager and your entire team for showing me around this great facility. of your customers named a dredge after president clinton. i have never had a dredge named after me. i am looking forward to that. today to talkre about the single most important priority of the country right now. that is reigniting the engine of the economic growth with a rising and thriving middle class. mahan as i said, -- as i said in my state of the union, that is the north star. we have great people chanting middle-class families every

single day. your outstanding governor. come on. [applause] your outstanding mayor. [applause] outstanding members of congress led by your senior senator. and your own leader in the house of representatives is doing a great job every single day. steny hoyer. [applause] have got some extraordinary folks here. elisha cummingses' here. -- elijah cummings is here.

and elijah's mom is here. proud of elijah, but his mama apparently praise for me every day. for me every day. all of your members of congress are working and fighting on your behalf in terms of making sure sure thatwing to make there are outstanding and middle-class jobs. i know it can be frustrating when it seems like washington's priorities are not the same as yours. others may get distracted by

chasing every issue that passes by. the middle class will always be my number one focus. that is why i ran for president and that is what drives me every day. that is what i will keep fighting for. that is why i am so proud to have these partners. john sarbanes i saved for last, because congressman sarbanes, he himself is doing a great job, but when i first came in, his father was one of the people who i so admired in the senate. he had served for a long time. and i remember just a conversation that we had -- he probably doesn't remember it -- but i asked him -- i came and paid him a visit, and i asked

him, "what's your advice?" he says, "just keep in mind the people who sent you." because here in washington, sometimes people get distracted. but you're here to work on behalf of your constituencies. and if you stick to that, you're going to be just fine. and that's what's happening here in maryland. under governor o'malley's leadership, maryland has won back almost 100 percent of the jobs that were claimed by the recession. [applause] so you might not know it if you were just watching the news and you're exposed to all these partisan battles and brinksmanship in washington, but the truth is there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about where this country is headed, especially after all we've been through over the past several years. and that's got to encourage us to roll up our sleeves, and work together, and take on the challenges that are still holding back the economy andnowa

little over three years, businesses like this one have created more than 6.5 million new jobs. and while our unemployment rate is still too high, it's the lowest it's been since 2008. [applause] that's good news. because's not enough we've also got to create even more good, middle-class jobs, and we've go to do it even faster. corporate profits have skyrocketed at an all-time high. now we've got to make sure that middle-class wages and incomes are going up too - because families all across america haven't seen their take-home pay rise for nearly a decade. that's the next phase. it's good that companies are profitable. i want you to be profitable. i want you to be taking a little more home in your paycheck. [applause] our housing market is healing. but that's not enough. moree've got to help

families stay in their homes, or refinance to take advantage these historically low interest rates. our deficits are shrinking at the fastest rate in decades. that's the truth. that's worth an applause, sure. [applause] because you wouldn't always know that listening to folks in washington. but the fact is our deficits are going down faster than they have gone down in decades. but we still have to create a budget that is smart and doesn't hurt middle-class harm our critical investments into our future. barbara mikulski is on the appropriations committee; she's fighting hard to make sure that

this sequester that is slowing down growth, and we're starting to see growth slowing down because of furloughs and cuts in defense spending, and a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't well thought through -- we've got to make sure that we've got a budget that doesn't push our economy back down. we need a budget that pushes our economy back up. the american auto industry is thriving. american energy is booming. american ingenuity in our tech sector has the potential to change the way we do almost everything. and thanks to the grit and determination of the american people, we've been able to clear away the rubble of the crisis. we're now poised for progress, but our work is not done, and our focus cannot drift. we've got to stay focused on our economy, and putting people back to work, and raising wages, and bringing manufacturing back to the united states of america. that has to be what we're thinking about every single day. [applause] the middle class has taken a

beating for more than a decade. you deserve folks in washington who are willing to fight back on your behalf every single day. because every single day, you and americans like you all across the country are working hard and living up to your responsibilities. so you've got to have the same seriousness of purpose in your leaders. now, i see three areas where we need to focus if we're really going to keep the recovery going but take it to new heights. number one, we've got to make america a magnet for good jobs. number two, we've got to make sure that workers are able to get the education and skills they need to do those jobs. number three, we've got to make sure that, if and when you're working hard, that that leads to a decent living. and that's why i wanted to come to baltimore -- because a lot of people here in baltimore, they work hard. baltimore has gone through tough times in the past, but baltimore has come bouncing back. [applause] i started a few hours ago at a pre-k program at moravia park elementary school.

[applause] there, kids are getting a head start learning skills they need to succeed in college and the workplace. and, by the way, this is a center that was named after steny hoyer's late wife, judy, because she and steny share my belief in the importance of giving every kid every chance as early as possible. i got to help with one of the lessons -- we were having to draw zoo animals. [laughter] and i've got to say, my tiger was not very good. [laughter] the kids were unimpressed. they kind of looked at it, they said, that doesn't look like a tiger. [laughter] but they were amazing. and later today, i'm going to visit with a program that helps people who have gone through some tough circumstances,

especially low-income dads, and this program is now helping them get the training and the guidance they need to find work and support a family, which is a priority. [applause] and probably some of these folks who i'm meeting, they didn't get that early childhood education that put them on the right track. and what we want to do is, first of all, make sure our kids are getting the training they need, but if they missed out early on, we still want to give them opportunity on the backend. but obviously, the training of kids, giving them a good education, training older workers -- none of that is going to make a difference if we don't have great companies that are hiring. and that's why i wanted to come to ellicott. ellicott dredges, you guys are

an example of what we can do to make america a magnet for good jobs. after all, you all know a thing or two about growing the economy -- you've been doing it for more than a century. this company was founded in 1885. you've been right here on bush street since 1900. this company built dredging equipment that helped dig the panama canal. [applause] that's impressive. what that means is this company, right here in baltimore, literally helped create our global economy, because that was one of the first connectors that started to allow us to ship goods and cut the distances that integrated the world economy. and yet, after all this time, this company still has a set of core values that's lasted for generations. just like the folks who came

before you, you've got that drive to make the best machines that money can buy; to sell products all over the world; to grow not just a business, but a community, and by doing that, you're growing our country. and these values have seen you through an era of enormous change. your leaders saw the potential in developing markets like china and india and brazil and bangladesh. so you ramped up your focus on airports -- on exports -- maybe on airports, too -- [laughter] -- but on exports. and the federal government has worked with you as a partner to sell dredging equipment right out of this shop all over the world. you maintained your quality. you built a sales force that travels everywhere, outhustling the competition in search of new business. all that hard work has paid off. today, this company, you have sold equipment to more than 100 different countries. you've made new investments here

at home. you employ more than 200 people in baltimore and wisconsin and kansas. and over the past few decades, during some of the tough times for our workers, you were able to keep building equipment stamped with those three proud words: made in america. and you're selling it around the world. [applause] as steny hoyer and some of these house members like to say, that means you're making it in america. >> all right. >> see, steny gets excited. [laughter] you're actually making stuff here in america, but it also means that we're all making it here in america when you do what you're doing. and this is a great example. and the good news is, more and more companies are following your example. after shedding jobs for 10 years, our manufacturers have added more than 500,000 jobs over the past three years. ford is bringing jobs back from

mexico. caterpillar is bringing jobs back from japan. [applause] after placing plants in other countries like china, intel, which is making the chips in your smartphone and your ipad, all of these gizmos everybody is holding up right now -- [laughter] -- intel is opening its most advanced plant right here at home, right here in america. washington should be helping these kinds of success stories take root all across the country. that's why we've boosted -- my administration has boosted our efforts to help businesses export more of their goods and services. that's why we signed trade agreements that will protect american workers, but open up new markets and support tens of thousands of good-paying jobs. that's why we reauthorized the export-import bank. and we are proud to have the bank's chairman right here, fred hochberg.

he's here this afternoon. he's helping this company as we speak sell more goods overseas. and so today, exports are at an all-time high. we are selling more stuff around the world. we've added more than a million export-supported jobs since i took office. [applause] so all these steps are making a difference, but there's more we can do. we need to pursue new trade agreements with europe and the pacific region. techeed to invest in high- manufacturing centers, because i want the next revolution in manufacturing to be made here in america. our workers are at our best when we're building stuff. so today, i'm also announcing the next step in our effort to cut through red tape that keeps

big construction projects from getting off the ground. now, some of you, if you've heard me, i'm really big on us rebuilding our infrastructure in this country. [applause] i want to put people back to work improving our roads, our bridges, our airports, our ports. [applause] we were talking about the panama canal. the panama canal is being revamped down in panama so that it can accommodate even bigger ships. and these cargo ships are so big that if we don't remodel our ports here in the united states, they can't dock at our ports. they'll dock someplace else. we'll lose that business. so we've got to up our game when it comes to infrastructure. and the good news is, when you

do that, you're putting people back to work right away, operating dredging equipment and doing other stuff, and you're also laying the foundation for future economic growth. now, the problem is we've had some trouble out of congress just going ahead and funding -- [inaudible] i know, it's surprising, isn't it? [laughter] but we've had a little difficulty getting our republican friends to work with us to find a steady funding source for these projects that everybody knows needs to happen. but in fairness, one of the problems we've had in the past is, is that sometimes it takes too long to get projects off the ground. there are all these permits and red tape and planning, and this and that, and some of it's important to do, but we could do it faster. so a while back, what i did was i ordered everybody who was involved in approving projects to speed up the permitting process for 50 different big projects all across the country, from the tappan zee

bridge in new york to the por o charleston in south carolina. ble to, in some cases, cut approval times from seven years down to a year. so we've made progress. [applause] today, i'm directing agencies across the government to do what it takes to cut timelines for breaking ground on major infrastructure projects in half. and what that will mean is, is that construction workers get back on the jobs faster. it means more money going back into local economies, and it means more demand for outstanding dredging equipment that is made right here in baltimore. [applause] now, as some of you know, one the guys who has been working on this, he's deputy transportation secretary john porcari, your former transportation secretary here in maryland before governor

o'malley generously agreed to share him with the entire country. [laughter] so those are some of the ways that we can create the conditions for businesses like this one to generate even more good jobs. and these are the kinds of ideas that we have to stay focused on every single day. this should be our principal focus: how are we making ourselves more competitive; how are we training our workers so that they can do the jobs that need to be done; how can we make sure that we stay on the cutting edge in terms of technology; how are we making it easier for businesses to succeed. to i'm going to keep trying work with both parties in washington to make progress --

because our challenges are solvable. i travel all around the world, and i meet people from all walks of life. and i can tell you, there's not a country on earth that wouldn't trade places with the united states of america. that's really true. [applause] they know we've got all the ingredients to succeed. we've got the answers. the only thing that's holding us back sometimes is a lack of political will. sometimes our leadership isn't focused where we need to be focused. and that's where you come in. it's up to you and all the people across the country to tell the people in washington, focus on getting stuff done. we may not agree on the way to do certain things, but i think we all love our country. we all want what's best for our kids and our grandkids. ifldn't we be better off every american could find a good job that pays the bills and lets you afford a home, and

maybe take a vacation, put some money away to retire? wouldn't we be better off if we knew that all of our kids were getting a good education from an earliest age; if we reformed our high schools for this new economy; if we're helping more young people afford to go to college? wouldn't we be better off if every worker's wage was a wage you could live on? nobody wants to be on welfare. nobody wants to have to rely on a handout. they want to work. but let's make sure that work pays. wouldn't we be better off if every american could afford quality healthcare, and the peace of mind that comes with it? that's why we passed health care reform. [applause] wouldn't we be better off if we did what's necessary to protect

more of our children from the horrors of gun violence? [applause] there are going to be disagreements about how we get there. thatet's remind ourselves when we work together nobody can stop us. when we do the right thing -- that's what i believe. that's what i'm going to keep fighting for. all's what drives me -- is the stories of people like you that i have the great honor of meeting and working with every single day. you deserve leaders with the same dedication and commitment and focus that the people who work at this company bring to their jobs every single day.

and you lookgeth there -- and io have worked here 38 years, some who worked 40 years, and the pride that they take in their product and the way they all work together, that's the attitude that we've got to bring to bear here. here,k about a woman myrna labarre. myrna labarre -- where is myrna? [applause] there's myrna right here. [applause] myrna labarre. myrna has been at ellicott for more than 50 years. [applause] now, that means she started when there were no child labor laws, because it was clearly illegal. [laughter] she was about four or five, and they started putting her to work, put a broom in her hand. but when somebody asked myrna what lessons she learned after 50 years working at the same company, she said, "be honest, be helpful, accept your mistakes and improve upon them, be good to people, keep a good sense of humor, have the best work ethic possible, and handle the good times and get over the bad." that's a pretty good recipe for success right there. that's who we are. that's who we are. [applause] thank you, myrna.

i mean, that pretty much sums up everything. [laughter] that's who we like to understand america to be, who we are as americans. we're honest and helpful. we work hard. we're good to others. we handle the good times, and we get over the bad times. if we keep that in mind, if we just all keep myrna's advice in mind, keep plugging away, keep fighting, we'll build an even better america than we've got right now. audience member: we're praying! the president: and i know you're going to -- we can pray too, we'll add that in there. [laughter] [applause] if we work to create more jobs, if we give every american the tools that they need for those jobs, if we make sure that hard work pays off and that responsibility is rewarded, then once again america is going to be the place where you can always make it if you try. and we'll all prosper together. and we'll make sure that america remains the greatest nation on earth. thank you, everybody. god bless you.

god bless america. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> here is a look at our prime time schedule. 8:00 on c-span, the house ways and means committee on allegations made against the irs for targeting conservative groups. aboutpan2, talking unmanned systems, bronze, and their use in surveillance. on c-span3 looking at the global rise of malaria. all these programs starting tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the c-span networks. today, defense secretary chuck hagel and joint chief of held aartin dempsey

briefing in the pentagon on sexual assault in the military after reports of sexual abuse allegations against two military officers assigned to prevent those crimes. this is 40 minutes. >> let me begin by making an announcement regarding a nomination the president will be making. for is a change of command our forces in korea. general curt scaparrotti is going to be nominated by the president to replace general j.d. thurman in korea. thate're very proud of announcement; i know the president is. to general dempsey may want address that in a little more detail, since he's worked very

closely with general scaparrotti. we'll have more to say about that announcement as we go on and as the president makes his formal nomination. but let me just note a couple of things about general j.d. thurman. he has done a tremendous job for our country, for our forces of that region. he has credibility. the confidence that people have in him everywhere is really pretty special. he's been there, as you all know, at a very uncertain time. and his steady, wise leadership

has really counted, so i wanted to note that, and, as i said, we'll have more to say about both those -- those generals at the appropriate time. yesterday, as you all know, i participated in a meeting with the prime minister of turkey, with the president, vice president, secretary kerry, and others. long meeting, very productive meeting, good meeting. if you want to talk about any of that, i'd be glad to respond to any of the questions you have. this morning, general dempsey

and i hosted the turkish minister of defense and foreign minister for about an hour-and- a-half, and we talked about many -- certainly the regional issues and followed up on a number of points that were made in the meeting with the turkish prime minister and president obama yesterday and would be glad to respond to any of those questions. this afternoon, after this news conference, i -- i will host french minister of defense. and we will spend a considerable amount of time talking about different mutual interests in nato and certainly what we're doing together in a number of areas. and so if you want to pursue any of that, i'd be glad to respond. before i ask general dempsey for his comments and we take your questions, just a couple of

updates on the sexual assault issue. you all know that general dempsey and i met with the president, the vice president yesterday, as well as our senior enlisted and officer leadership in the u.s. military. i thought it was a very important, productive meeting. it was important because it gave the president an opportunity to ask questions directly, and get the sense of this huge problem, serious problem in our military, ask questions of the military leadership. the military leaders in that room answered and responded and, at the president's invitation, gave i thought very honest evaluations of what they thought about the issue and clearly articulated what we're all going to do, and are doing, to address it. it was also important for our leadership, our military leadership, to hear from the president on this. the president was very constructive. he was very clear.

there wasn't anybody in that room who wasn't disappointed and embarrassed and didn't recognize that we've in many ways failed. but we all have committed to turn this around, and we're going to fix the problem. as the president said in his comments after that meeting, there's no silver bullet. this is going to take all of us. the problem will be solved here, in this institution, and we will -- we will fix it and we will do everything we need to do to fix it. there's not a military leader who was in that room who's not completely committed to that. these are men who -- and women

in our services who have devoted their lives to this institution and to the men and women who serve this country. so no one understands the depth of this more or more concerned or more committed to fix it -- than those people in that room with -- with the president. and i will be glad to respond to any particular questions on that. this morning, i had the first meeting with the congressionally mandated sexual review panel that was mandated in the fy 13 national defense authorization act, which i think you're generally familiar with. i noted a few days ago that i had selected the final five panelists. it's a nine-panel review board, four selected by the congress, five selected by me. we had about an hour-long telephonic meeting this morning to go over what the expectations were, what the president's expectations were, what -- what my expectations are, what the congress's

expectations are. and i think we've -- you've all seen the membership, they're all highly respected, highly regarded, experienced men and women who understand cultures, society, command, and i think it's an exceptionally well- balanced group of men and women who we look to, to help us. and they are charged with reviewing everything we're doing and then coming up with recommendations to the congress and to me and to our military leadership on what we need to do to fix it, how can we fix it. and they will have their first meeting physically impaneled -- most likely it'll be in this building -- next month. we're putting that together. so if you want to get into any of that here in a minute, i'll be glad to. also, i wanted to note that this afternoon, after the meeting with the french minister of defense, i will hold my first weekly review and progress meeting on the sexual assault directives that i started about a month-and-a-half ago. it's not good enough to say we have a zero-tolerance policy.

we do, but what's that mean? how does that translate into changing anything? and i want to know -- and i'll get weekly briefs. they will be on my schedule, in my office. i'll chair the meeting. what are we doing? what did we do? how do we continue to break through this? for just not good enough people to walk out of my office and say, "well, we're doing it." i want to know how it's being done, and i want to know everything about it. who's being held accountable?

and i just signed off on a directive here today on another part of this, and that is the recertification and the review and the retraining of everyone associated with the united states military who has any responsibility for any sexual abuse offices, sexual protection offices, in any way dealing with this program across the board. it will be standardized in all the services. and all our military recruiters, every military recruiter, regardless of the service, will undergo this. we've got timeframes on it. you will all be given, i think, copies of the directive here after the conference, so you'll see exactly what i said.

but that was signed off on today. there will be more of these directives. there will be more action. you know a number of the things that i've done, we've done. and i might add, because i ask general dempsey for his comments, this wasn't done just independent of everybody else. i've spent a tremendous amount of time with the chiefs on this, the secretaries. chairman dempsey has led on this. this problem can't be fixed by the secretary of defense alone. i can direct it. i can hold people accountable. and i will. the president's held me accountable for it. and there's not one of these people in leadership today that wants this to be their legacy. and so we will continue to work this, and we'll work it hard. it is as big a priority as i have, for obvious reasons. our force structure is the core of who we are. it's the fabric of our system. no matter how many new technologies we employ and how much the quality of our technology and our weaponry gives us an edge -- and it does -- no matter how much money we have, it won't work unless your

people make it work. and so it has to be at the center of our focus of leadership and our priorities. so with that, let me ask general dempsey for his comments and then we'll open it up. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i can think of no finer officer to be promoted to general and to take command of u.s. forces korea than mike scaparrotti. scap's an exceptionally competent leader with the moral character to match. like our current commander, general j.d. thurman, he's extraordinary well-suited to sustaining our strong alliance with the republic of korea. scap's quiet confidence has delivered success throughout his career, whether as deputy commander of u.s. forces in afghanistan or, most recently and currently, as the director of the joint staff. as my director, he has helped advance my priorities to include our urgent work to eliminate sexual harassment and sexual assault from our ranks. as i've said before, the risks inherent to military service must not include the risk of sexual assault. it betrays the trust on which our profession is founded. it's a crime that demands accountability and consequencesr

implementing a campaign focused on prevention, investigation, accountability, advocacy and assessment. the additional actions recently directed by secretary hagel will strengthen those efforts. the emphasis on prevention is especially important. as the president made clear to us yesterday, we can and must do more to change a culture that has become too complacent. now's the time for us to recommit ourselves to our profession. now's the time for character to be valued as much, if not more than competence. now's the time for moral courage at every level. there can be no bystanders. i remember my early years in the army when racial issues and drug abuse tore at the fabric of our service. the army was broken. with moral leadership and a recommitment to professionalism, we changed that course, we restored trust in the ranks, and trust among -- between us and the american people. today the joint force is not

broken. in fact, it's remarkably resilient, something i spoke to last week when i was presenting the commencement address at arizona state university. but we have a serious problem that we must solve, aggressive sexual behavior that rips at the bond of trust that binds us together. we need -- actually, we must change course. every single member of the joint force in every unit at every level must be alert to the problem and be part of the solution. working together, we can and will restore faith in ourselves and the trust and faith of the american people. thank you. >> bob? >> mr. secretary, you mentioned that the president said yesterday after your meeting that there is no silver bullet to fixing this problem, but what is your best bullet? and also, do you think that -- is there any reason to believe that alcohol use and/or abuse is part of this equation and there needs to be more attention to that? and i've got a question, also, of the chairman. you were quoted the other day as saying that you see a connection between this problem and the effects of being at war for more than a decade.

i wonder if you can elaborate on that. and also, with the war winding down, does that suggest in any way that this problem would wind down with it? >> on your question regarding the use of alcohol, yes, alcohol does play a very big factor in sexual assault, not every case, but in many cases. and i don't have all of the demographics and all the on this, but there's no question it does. that is a part of this, but -- and it can be used as an excuse, but it is -- it's part of the larger context of, why is this happening. to your bigger question, what are our best bullets, well, as the president said yesterday, and i've said, and certainly our leadership, both at the enlisted and the office corps level, has said that this is -- and you've heard it -- this is cultural, this is an accountability issue. it's sometimes a structural issue. are we going far enough up and

down the chain of command? there are so many dimensions to this that i don't think you can come at it in one simple way. you know, i -- i get a lot of advice on this, and i listen to everybody. well, why don't you just fire some people? well, yeah, we could do that. and, you know, who are you going to fire? now, the people who have been charged, they, as you all know, are moved out of their billets and the responsibility until they have due process. whoe we can find people have actually perpetrated these crimes and we prosecute, and so on, yes, we get rid of them. and -- but there's no simple way to come at this. and so, you've got to come at in -- i think from the entire

framework of starting with, why is this happening? and try to understand that. and there are a lot of dimensions to that. and the chiefs got into that with the president yesterday. then you get into the reporting process. now, when you look at the -- those numbers that are essentially spiking, and i -- and i suspect they're going to continue to rise on the reporting, as vice president biden reminded us yesterday, there is a glimmer of hope in that. there's no good news in this, but there's a glimmer of hope, because in many cases -- and we're going back in and trying to understand this better and

asking a lot of questions -- is at least there some new confidence being built out there and developed that, when people come forward and report something, that they have some assurance that, first of all, the victim will be treated fairly and -- and that there will be something done about it. then -- then you have the victim's rights here. the protection of those victims, what does a victim think about and expect if they -- before they come forward? will they be treated fairly? that's part of it. then you -- then you've got to look at the prosecutorial side. then you look at the penalty side. you look at all those pieces, and you can't take just one or two or three of them and -- and fix just one or two. it's -- it's everything. the's why the panel, outside independent review

panel, is so important here, because as you all know, i think the last count i got this morning, there are 10 pieces of legislation in the house and the senate that change components of -- of all this reporting and the structure and who's accountable and some of it -- even taking it out of the military command structure. and we're going to have to do something. we will do something. we're working with everybody. but whatever we do, we want to make sure it's right, because there are consequences to whatever we do. and that's why the panel is so important. it was congressionally mandated. and we need to see what they come up with, and we're listening to everybody. we're talking to everybody. we're talking to other militaries, by the way, from around the world and -- and see what they think. the president noted that yesterday, and i told him that we were talking to different militaries around the world. how are they dealing with this? and what kind of command structure have they changed and what works? so i think it's all of those things, bob. it isn't just one or two things.

general? >> bob, at some level, this is actually a continuum of -- of a challenge we've had. you know, you were around in the mid-'90s when we had -- within a space of about 18 months in the mid-'90s we had tailhook, aberdeen, and a military academy scandal. and then i think, you know, we went to war and maybe some of that was masked. and you asked, do i think that there's an effect of 10 years of war? yeah, instinctively, i do. and we've been looking at what that might be. and, you know, you might -- you might argue that we've become a little too forgiving because, you know, if a perpetrator shows up at a court martial with a rack of ribbons and has four deployments and a purple heart, you know, there is certainly the risk that we might -- we might be a little too forgiving of that particular crime. so we're looking for game- changers, really. and some of these congressional proposals could be game- changers. and so we want to make sure, as the secretary said, that as we take a look at the -- the

proposals, that we understand how they fit together and, more importantly, how -- what are the second- and third-order effects? because, look, in our system, we give a commander life-and- death decision-making authority. i can't imagine going forward to solve this issue without commanders involved. >> well, can i follow on that? because if you listen to the women in the military who are sexually assaulted, they say the best thing that you can do to change this is to take this out of the commanders' hands, put this in civilian courts. they are afraid to talk to their commanders, because they know the men who are assaulting them. are you considering at all changing that? and where do you all stand on that move? and then i do have another question on syria. we -- we've learned that assad is being provided with anti- ship cruise missiles and that the russians are putting a dozen or so extra ships in the med off tartus. do you consider this a provocative act designed to sort of push the u.s. out of involvement in syria? >> well, i'll start on your first question. we're looking at everything.

and we are listening to victims carefully, closely. and i addressed this in my -- in my first answer to -- to bob's question about the rights of victims and what goes through their minds before they come forward. and are they afraid? are they intimidated? obviously, yes, yes, yes, on all those questions. so we're looking at everything. we're not taking anything off the table. and we want to understand all that's best. so that -- that's what i've said, that's where i come down. as to your syrian questions, just a couple of general responses. one of the reasons -- one of the primary reasons that secretary kerry went to moscow to meet with president putin and foreign minister lavrov was to talk about all of these issues and try to find some common ground that the russians and the u.s. can come to, some intersection of interests, because we all have interest in the middle east. what's happening there,

everybody knows, is very, very dangerous. and what we don't want to see happen, the russians don't want to see happen, is for syria to erupt to the point where we -- we may well find a regional war in the middle east. so we continue to work with the russians on their interests and everything we can do to convince the powers that are involved in the region to be careful with escalation of military options and -- and equipment. we'll continue to work through that. i this is complicated, and think i would leave my answer that way. to if general dempsey wants

add anything... >> well, just on syria, i mean, you know, it's at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering. so as -- it's ill-timed and very unfortunate. >> mr.secretary... (crosstalk) >> you're talking about which -- which missiles, the anti-ship... >> the ship -- the ship missiles. >> so they have made clear, the russians, that they're going to keep delivering missiles in accordance with arms sales they made years ago. how does that change -- and particularly i'm thinking about the s-300 air defense system -- how does that change your thinking about arming the rebels? and how does that complicate your planning for all of the military contingencies that you're planning for? >> well, we plan for every military contingency, as you know, and every option. as general dempsey said, the

escalation of weaponry in the middle east is dangerous, and we are working with our partners in that area, as well as other countries, to make sure that whatever influence we have, that doesn't continue. veryal dempsey made it clear that, on the specific areas of the missiles, whatever else is involved with the russians, does not help. it makes it more dangerous. and i think, to summarize my thoughts on this, is that we continue to keep every option open, as the president has said. we are already doing a lot in syria on the humanitarian side, on the non-lethal side. toare continuing to try

bring some consensus with all the different countries involved in the gcc. a lot of the conversation with prime minister erdogan yesterday and this morning and their entire delegation was about this issue. and certainly my opinion that to -- to de-escalate, to find some common ground to assure that syria doesn't disintegrate and the middle east erupt into a regional war, we continue to obviously keep every option open and what further action we may take, but also working with the other players here. >> just on the -- on the shore- to-ship missile capability and the -- and the sa-300 system, there are more capable systems. the sa-300, for exame, highe

altitude, longer range, multiple tracking capability. it pushes the standoff distance a little more, increases risk, but not impossible to overcome. what i'm really worried about is that assad will decide that, since he's got these systems, he's somehow safer and/or more prone to a miscalculation. an you know, again, unfortunate decision. >> yes. >> yeah (inaudible) from al jazeera english television. one hundred days since the hunger strike began in guantanamo, 102 detainees currently on -- making this protest. and i wondered, can you fill us in on what the department has done, what the overall military has done to try to address some of their concerns, to try -- what -- what is being done to try to end this hunger strike?

>> well, first, we have a responsibility, an ethical responsibility, to assure the health and well-being of every detainee. and certainly, we're doing everything we can to do that. as you know, president obama noted a couple weeks ago that ands going to come back -- he's in the process of that now -- to find some resolution to guantanamo. and i think our role, the military's role there, is being handled with -- with as much responsibility as we should and need to with our detainees. and so i think -- i'll ask general dempsey if he's got any other thoughts, but we're doing everything we can to protect those detainees. and we do need a resolution to this. the president has said that, and he's working toward it.

>> the only thing i'd add is that, you know, the united states military guards guantanamo, and our responsibility is clear. that is the -- the safe -- the well-being of the prisoners, the safety of both them and the guards, and that's our job. that's what we're doing. the rest of this is really policy decisions. >> okay. >> you talked a little bit earlier about looking at the various congressional proposals on sexual assault. just to -- to follow up on justin's, do you at this point support senator gillibrand's

legislation to take sexual assault and battery cases out and put them in the hands of a prosecutor, as opposed to the chain of command? and what do you think about some of the new proposals by senator blumenthal about creating a victims compensation fund? could that encourage people to come forward? >> well, i've spoken to all of those senators a number of times, as many of our leaders have, on their proposals. we're working with their staffs on all their proposals. we're talking to all the members of congress, both in the house and the senate. and i've got two more conversations this afternoon on their proposals. we are -- and i appreciate this -- we all do -- accommodating house and senate members and working with them on what we think is workable, giving them our best assessment.

they are listening, and they are giving us that opportunity. we are not taking any position on any bill, that this is our favorite bill or this is not our favorite bill. we're looking for components of all the legislation that we think make sense. but i also would say that -- going back to what i noted earlier about the congressionally mandated panel, i would hope that we -- we would have some time here, everyone would have some time, to listen to what the panel comes back with. this was a congressionally mandated panel and give them some time here to go in and really assess the problem. why do we have the problem? how can we prevent the problem? what should we be doing better? it may well end up those recommendations are exactly what -- one or two are the same way that congress have been -- have proposed in their bill. so we're looking at all of it and working with all of them. >> yeah, i'm actually in receipt of a letter from senator

levin and senator inhofe, senate armed services committee, asking me to provide my military advice on the specifics of those bills. and i'll -- i will communicate with them before i communicate with you. >> barbara? >> mr. secretary, you've talked a lot about the concept of accountability, but this isn't a new problem in the military. this has been going on for military women for some time. yourat -- what's philosophy, your decision-making about accountability? when do you hold someone accountable? and with respect to both of you, the joint chiefs, as an organization, they -- they're in charge of training, and they know this problem's been going on for many years now. when do you hold somebody accountable on the senior level for -- i'll be very quick -- not getting the job done as you would if there was a major accident and lives were lost, if

it was drugs, racism, attacks against gays in the military? very quick follow-up for general dempsey on syria. should this -- given what you've said about your fear of a wider war, do -- do you recommend the syrians be stopped militarily, if they have to be, the s-300?g >> i think, when you come at this, as you noted, specifically focus on accountability. and i have. you're exactly right. i have felt -- by the way, it isn't just applicable to this issue. it's everything in life. if you don't have accountability, you don't have much. in fact, our constitution, our country, our government was founded on accountability.

coequal we have three branches of government. and what we're looking at in every way, many of the directives that i've given this week, two weeks ago, back a month-and-a-half ago, were focused -- if not every one of them -- on some element of accountability of every chain of command. the division commander is in charge of that command. regardless if there's a brigade commander, battalion commander, company commander, that connection has to work all the way up and down the line. we are looking at how we can do that better. we are -- one of the reasons we're going back and we're re- certifying everybody that i talked about earlier, the directive i gave -- formally gave today, announced a couple of days ago, is -- is to go back

into that chain of command, go back into that accountability. the president talked about it. it is an essential component that somehow has been lacking or broken down. i don't know. but it is -- is a central part of how we fix the problem. there are other pieces, too. >> but the accountability (off- mic) united states military on the issue of sexual assaults against military women and men, seems to me that is more than just -- i mean, that's an extraordinary thing for a secretary of defense to acknowledge. if accountability is lacking, what do you do about it? >> well, i responded in the -- in the general sense of your question of accountability. the accountability of any institution, especially the discipline of the military -- and i'll let general dempsey, who's devoted 39 years of his life to this, understands it far better than i do -- if any component of that breaks down, if it's lacking anywhere, there's going to be a problem. of course there's accountability in the military, or we wouldn't have a military. the chairman couldn't make

decisions and the combatant commanders couldn't give orders. and if there wasn't accountability in the chain of command, things wouldn't happen. of course there's accountability. i was referring to the specific area of what's broken down in sexual assault, starting with reporting, starting with reporting, and the follow- through of that. and of course, we -- that -- that's a key part of anything to get to a resolution, how do you fix it? starting with some of the questions about victims saying -- and rightfully so -- that they didn't feel their commanders were accountable enough to be able to come forward and -- and register a complaint, file a complaint, because they thought they would be subject to many things, which is true, which has happened, and then also having no confidence that anything would be done about their complaint. so that's what i was referring to. and that needs to be addressed, as well as all the components of this.

>> you want the syrian question? >> yeah. well, first of all, they don't have these weapons systems. syria doesn't have control of them. >> right. right. if they have control of them, there -- there are several -- there are several capabilities that syria has not used or potentially has not used responsibly, chemicals, long- range rockets, and missiles, and high-end air defense. and so the things that are in their control, we have options to deal with that. we -- we do not have options in any way to prevent the delivery of them. >> (off-mic) delivery to syria militarily? >> i -- i didn't say that. i didn't say we couldn't. i said we do not have options to prevent the delivery of any military sales to the syrians. george little: last question. >> yes? >> actually, on -- on syria, can you just both update us on -- you mentioned the humanitarian aid the u.s. has provided -- has there been any change in thinking on providing any lethal weapons to the -- the rebels since the last time we asked you? and then also, general dempsey, could you just clarify, earlier you were talking about -- to bob's question about the war and any -- any impact that may have on sexual assaults. and you said that the military may have become a little bit too forgiving when they see someone walking in with all these and whatnot.

have you -- have you seen specific instances of that happening? i mean, presumably you have a lot more clarity on what turns a panel as it deliberates. you are not afforded the opportunity to go back and scrutinized. what i am suggesting is that after 10 years of war, there is the potential that we should examine whether we have become a little bit too forgiving, and not just of sexual harassment and sexual assault, but other forms of misconduct as well. what you're hearing me expressing is the commitment to try to gain a deeper understanding of what we are dealing with and an instinct that suggests that 10 years of war might be a factor. the answer is we continue to look at every option