principles in order to own and run a business is not merely troubling but unnecessary and unconstitutional. end quote. and they've gone to court over this. americans should not have to sacrifice their religious rights when they enter the marketplace. >> 34 million a year for not providing government-approved insurance, but only $2 million for not providing any insurance at all. this is madness. clearly, this law is out of control. many others are fighting for their rights in court, but here in congress, we have an obligation to defend the constitution. the founding fathers established the bill of rights because they knew the government would always

be tempted to abuse its power. democratic elections do not protect the rights of unpopular minorities. in fact, all too often an unbound democracy becomes trirny. the bureaucrats may feel they know what is best, but being an american means the freedom to decide on your own to let your convictions guide your life. what kind of nation will we be when the i.r.s. decides who gets to assemble, when the department of justice decides who reports the news and when h.h.s. decides what religious beliefs are worthy of first amendment protection. i'm not a catholic and we don't share the same moral beliefs but i don't believe my ideals should be forced on them. under obamacare, we can't choose our doctor, our health insurance

plan and now we lose our first amendment rights. at one time, pennsylvania was perhaps the only place in the world where people could freely practice their religious beliefs without fear of persecution, in a world where people were killing each other, william penn established a safe harbor and penn's once radical idea became the foundation for our nation's concept of religious freedom. the actions of the h.h.s. remind us that our rights are not guaranteed. we must stand up and protect them. we must demand that the government respect that which has been granted to us by god and i'm proud to stand with my colleagues tonight in defense of religious freedom, to stand with my quints. we -- constituents. we should pass the act and make it clear that this house of representatives will not stand by bhime minority religious

beliefs are under attack. what a sad day for america when our fundamental rights like religious freedom, freedom of conscience are under attack by the heavy hand of government. we must pass this bill. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. mr. fortenberry: thank you for your forceful words and your leadership. i would like to call upon dr. john fleming from louisiana. i know you can provide us with extraordinary insights onto the problems of the implementation of the new health care law. but i think it's important to point out you are the co-author of the health care conscience rights act. we are thankful. mr. fleming: i thank you for bringing us together this evening and with a number of colleagues talking about an

extremely important topic today and that is health care conscience rights. and you heard some of the major points here and i'm going to touch on more. on august 1, 2013, the administration's health care mandate will take effect. it will force religious organizations, american family businesses, universities and countless others across the great country of ours to violate the deeply held moral and religious beliefs we have. it is a serious afront to religious freedom and leaves businesses, nonprofit religious organizations and individuals with three terrible decisions. first, it could violate their conscious and comply with the mandate. purchasing items and services they find morally objectionable. second, they could resist the mandate, not complying with the regulations and face fines $100

per employee per day or third, they could drop employee health coverage all together, which defeats the purpose of -- the basic idea of obamacare. leaving employees to fend for themselves and still pay a federal fine of $2,000 per employee per year, according to the business that employs that person. these are not actually choices, but a top-down, burdensome federal regulatory scheme that forces the american public to participate in a government-run health care plan that violates their values. who are we talking about? who will be affected by the h.h.s. mandate? mr. speaker, today, 61 cases in over 200 plaintiffs have filed suit against the federal government to preserve their first amendment right of freedom of religion. one of the nonprofit lawsuits was filed by louisiana college, a private baptist college in

louisiana just outside of my district offering degrees in art, music, science, nursing, social work and teaching. this central louisiana school has over 70 programs of study. has a student enrollment of 1,00 students and a faculty ti to student ratio of 13-1. the mandate requires that the louisiana college provides employee-health insurance covering abortion-inducing drugs and counseling on the use of such drugs. this, mr. speaker, is a violation of louisiana college's belief that all life is sacred, including the life of the unborn. who else? hobby lobby another example of a well-known business throughout the country. we have 11 stores in louisiana employing more than 22,000 people in 41 states.

the business practice of hobby lobby mirrors their religious principles. their hours of operation are family-friendly and closed on sundays. employee pay is important. well, what is the answer to this problem created by obamacare and the rules rolled out of this administration and i'm going to quickly touch on them and yield back to my good friend from nebraska. section 3 provides much-needed protections to ensure that the federal government cannot force individuals, charities and businesses to buy plans for their employees that provide or facilitate coverage of items or services to which they have a deeply held moral or religious objection. section 4, provides much-needed protections to ensure that any government agency that relatives federal funds cannot force pro-life health care entities to

be complicit in abortion or discriminate against them because they are pro life. amending which is is title 2, includes a private right of action for victims who have been discriminated against. you see at this time, mr. speaker, people who are discriminated against, coerced or forced by this mandate don't have access to courts. so this opens up a private right of action. we can have, those of us who may object through our conscience, will have our day in court. just in conclusion, i would like to say, mr. speaker, that obamacare has provided many, many problems. and really no solutions. but there are unintended consequences and that is forcing people of conscience to have to make that decision on whether to

end providing certain care for their employees or for their eally to their patients or suffer large fines or just give up on health care coverage at all for their employees. i think it's time that this country comes together and decides let's make health care attractive and affordable and protect life and protect those who want to protect life and not have this top-down bureaucratic coercive system that is now in law that will require us to do many things against our conscience. that is simply un-american. with that, i yield back. mr. fortenberry: thank you for your leadership, to know that you gave up a medical practice to enter into public service and stand here today defending this deep, essential american principle and as it affects those who are most vulnerable in

our society. deeply moving to me and i'm thankful for your leadership. i would like to call on congressman chris smith from new jersey and if you don't mind me calling you the dean of the tireless efforts on behalf of so many of us to fight for human rights and the poor and the marginalized around the world. i'm grateful not only for your mentorship and your friendship. mr. smith: thank you for your extraordinary leadership. this has been a very tough fight and you have been doing it with great class and great precision and your opening comments for your special order which you have sponsored just summed up the issues so eloquently. i want to thank you for your leadership. it is making a difference. and while we may not have success in the short-term, i do believe on the long-term, we will prevail over time and i

thank you for your leadership, mr. fortenberry. president obama today is using the coercive power of the state to force tens of millions of people of faith and people of conscience to violate a fundamental conviction or suffer a severe penalty. when mr. obama has done is unconscionable, unprecedented and violates religious supreme. by forcing all insurance plans including those offered by faith-based institutions, the drugs that are contrary to their deeply-held belief including subsidizing drugs like plan b, president obama has a reckless disregard for conscious rights. everyone must comply regardless of moral convictions or because his ts

sfration so. it is $100 per day per employee that total up to $36,000 per year per employee, people listening at home are members who may be listening to today's important special order, $36,500 per employee per year. when faith-based organizations refuse to comply, obama's mandate will impose harm on millions of children educated in faith-beathed schools and frail elderly who are served with some come bags passion and dignity. and honors an honorary degree on president obama in 2009 will be crushed by this cruel mandate,

it was president obama in his 2009 speech at notre dame university who said, quote, let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion and draft a sensible conscience clause. mr. speaker, another promise broken. more empty rhetoric from the president who has exceled at that. mr. speaker, approximately 4,600 employees are covered under the notre dame self-insured health plan which means it will face over $100 million a year when they refuse to comply with the obama mandate. if mr. obama's attack on conscience rights aren't reversed, employers will be discriminated against and fined and employees who benefit today provided by their-faith-based

employers will be dumped into government exchanges. and the fines on faith-based organizations are also without precedent. if a faith-based entity scraps its own insurance coverage because of the obama mandate, they are then fined $2,000 per employee. mr. speaker, mr. obama's attack n conshens rights fits a pattern. the united states conference on catholic bishops had a grant, had a trafficking protection act of 00 and did a great job assisting trafficking victims in this country. in 2011, however, the catholic conference of catholic bishops was discriminated against and thrown out of the program simply because they would not refer for

abortions. that was it. thrown out of the program. the health care conscience rights act reaverts and restores conscience rights, mr. speaker, by making absolutely clear that no one can be compelled to subsidize certain so-called services in private insurance plans contrary to their religious beliefs. and i thank mr. fortenberry. he introduced the legislation in the last congress. first individual in this house damaging e just how that barack obama anti-conscience initiative really is and we need to move on this and we need to protect those men and women of conscience, those of religious beliefs who will not bow and will not go in the direction that this administration is demanding. i thank my friend and yield back.

mr. fortenberry: before you leave, i should say this we value your leadership you stood in this house well, even when it wasn't the most popular thing to do, as it is now, to talk about that what is right and just, provoke the conscience of this very body to more meaningful engagements. i want to thank you for your strong leadership. let's turn now to my good friend dr. bill cassidy, another physician in the house of representatives from louisiana. like i told j. john flemming, i think it's bornt -- like i told dr. john flemming, i think it's important that everybody knows you left a medical practice to come to congress. i know you have some broader concerns about the issue of conscience and religious freedom so we look forward to hearing your comments. mr. cassidy: i associate myself with the comment moifs colleagues. i think there's concern about religious freedom in the united

states. but i want to draw the attention of those here to pastor david zaradini. he is incarcerated in iran for eight years for crimes, as they define it, that happened 13 years ago. s that question of religious freedom that involves an american citizen who happens now to be abroad. the professor is 33 years old, born in iran, converted from islam to christianity. here, that would not be a big deal because we have religious freedom. theoretically so does iran. in his early 20's, it was threel do system of at some point he moved to the united states, married his wife who i gather is also originally, her family, from iran. they have two children and live in idaho he went to iran to work in a non seq.tarian orphanage. he was arrested by the state

police, he was incarcerated at first they said for activities against the state, now they're attributing it to house churches around the year 2000, but he's incarcerated imprisoned and tortures. he's been taken to the hospital on a couple of occasions, the doctor recommend head be admitted to hospital but the government won't allow it. he went to seek medical care another time, saying because he was a christian or if he'd been bhife, either -- pbhy, either, she -- bhy, either, she wouldn't touch them. so we have a country a signatory to the u.n. declaration of rights, in which have real jus

freedom. if you're a person of religious faith, pray for this family. if you are a person who believes in rights, this should concern you. s that 33-year-old man whose wife and two children are back here, alone. he was imprisoned were trying - trying to start an orphanage to give children who wouldn't have a chance a chance. this should offend you. we need to draw attention to this and we have called on the state department to intervene on his behalf, and they have tried to do so in the past, but there's some thought they could do more system of we have this resolution before members of congress, if you're watching this, ask your member of congress to sign on to this resolution. it has bipartisan support now. number two, contact our state department and ask them to redouble their efforts to free

the pastor. number three, include he and his family in your prayers. we can only imagine if our loved one was abroad, in prison, being tortured, without access to health care and without wife, children, and parents. and join us all in admiration for a man in his commitment to the people whom he loves, was willing to risk something that he knew might be a possibility as he was living out his faith, caring for those, treating those as he would have them treat him but going to those who were otherwise without care. so thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of the pastor and i thank you for having this discussion of religious freedom here tonight. yield back. mr. fortenberry: thank you for your powerful words as well. i was reminded as you were speaking of the fact that this is america.

we disagree with what the president and the secretary of health and human services have done with health care, particularly imposing this harsh mandate, we need the right type of health reform, one that's going to protect our liberties and not simply shift more unsustainable costs to the government, we have that debate, we can have it right here without fear of that type of retribution that so many people in other places who are exercising their deeply held beliefs, their rights of conscience, their faith perspective but they do so under grave threat. this is still america. mr. cassidy: the united states has historically been a beacon to the rest of the world. it's no accident that someone come here's seeking religious freedom. but there's a thought that our religious freedom is under siege by secularism. you can be secular if you wish

but the first amendment ss the right to practice religion is not to be trampled upon. so this trimming away at the margins of religious faith affects us and affects those who do not have the same freedom as we. if others see our example as substituting religious freedom for something which is less so, how much less will our beacon be dimmed? and that will have tragedy not only for us but also for them. mr. fortenberry: that's an outstanding point to make, it's something that we take for granted, our rights of conscience, it has been embedded in our culture and therefore in our government until very recently until this measure has come along and coerced -- is coercing people unjustly into violating that

sacred space that right of conscience. this is not just people of faith who are speaking out. other persons of good will can see the fundamental principle here that if we erode that, we are eroding something that is essential to human dignity and the very flourishing of democratic ideals itself. thank you for pointing that out. the gentleman from michigan, you're ready to speak, i'd love to hear from you. congressman walberg a good friend who has been here a long time, champion these issues standing up for what he believes to be right and just and being a good partner in trying as well to exercise his rights before this body of good conscience about what is essential and good. thank you, congressman walberg, for coming here. mr. walberg: thank you for the opportunity to stand with principled legislators. we're not talking about parties here, we're talking about people who understand rights

and responsibilities. the first amendment to our constitution says so clearly that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. tonight, we are talking about rights of conscience. our first amendment liberty. affirms that for us. it affirms us for greater principles than just political r even governmental. in approximately the year my father was born, 1903, abraham kiper a thee y low january, and i take great -- a theologian, and i take great comfort in the fact that theologians sometimes aspire to political life, coming from a pastoral role myself, pastoring for over a decade this theologian who

became prime minister of the netherlands said this. he said when principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling and peace has become sin. you must at the price of dearest peace lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith. that's a powerful statement. it's a statement that i'm sure mr. kiper would have said to his brethren in the netherlands is not coming simply from my religious quicks but rather coming from my conviction for freedom. and the right given by a greater god. so he fought, sadly, as we know the course in the netherlands, they have gone away from the freedom of life and we know the

impact upon the unborn, we know the impact upon the infirm, we know the impact upon the elderly. we know the impact upon the frail, upon the disabled in the netherlands. their lives are cast off. their lives are not as secure. and so here tonight, mr. speaker, we stand for rights of conscience that go way beyond just issues of medicine and issues of government. it goes to the core of life and the sanctity of it and the humanity of each and every individual. so we've talked about some people who because of their convictions about things like abortifacients, contraceptives, and people who are compassionate to businesses and compassion using their

businesses for the good of people, like the greens already referred to with hobby lobby, who allegedly have given over $500 million to charity. and give to their employees. and benefit them and see that as an outflow of their religious life as well. r we go to st. louis where kris and paul dries deck who run a 105--year-old business they carried on from their father and grandfather with 150 employees who have take an stand for their religious briefs -- beliefs as well and it clearly stated that they will not abandon their beliefs in order to stay in business. the impact is upon all of their people. we look at a gentleman, 85-year-old gentleman by the name of charles sharp, also from northeast missouri, who

has made millions in insurance business but he's taken that and founded heartland ministries in 1992. providing rehabilitation services to men and women battling drug and alcohol addiction. and employeing 170 employees. and yet if this h.h.s. mandate comes down on them, those employees will lose their job because of millions of dollars of fines. and i could go to businesses in my district, eden foods, who has challenged the insurance rule on religious grounds. , weingart's garden cent employing many, many employees, providing benefits and now being challenged with this h.h.s. mandate. and i could go on and on. mr. speaker, it is time for us who understand what america is about to stand firmly with our

convictions and uphold liberties that go way beyond ourselves. our framers and founders understood that. onathan witherspoon said a uphold its t either virtue or lose its liberty. we're losing our liberty. john adams, second president of the united states, said our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. mr. speaker, the people of the united states are great people. this government is a great government. but when the attack comes on what makes america america and that it's liberty and it's -- and its freedom and its moral and traditional heritage that's being impinge -- impinged upon

for violating rights of conscience, we must stand and stand firmly. i thank the gentleman from nebraska for pulling us together to speak out clearly tonight and i would hope, mr. speaker, that those who are listening and watching tonight on c-span will speak out very strongly to their communities and families, calling us back to decency, order, conviction, and a conscience that even god can honor. i yield back. mr. fortenberry: i thank the gentleman for his powerful remarks. the rights of conscience go way beyond the issues of health care. thank you for your leadership on this issue as well. i want to turn to congressman dan lipinski and i yield to him. as i said in the beginning of this hour, this is not about politics or partisanship, but about principle. we don't share the same party

affiliation, but share the same principle. he is one of the lead sponsors on this and has stood side by side in helping promote this effort to revive an understanding of this american principle that transsends the philosophical differences that dine the pushing and shoving that goes on goes around here. mr. lipinski: thank you for yielding and leading us here tonight and i'm glad to join you here from this side of the aisle. mr. speaker, religious supreme freedom is our first freedom and stated right there in our first amendment and this is not just freedom to worship as we hear now it is defined down. it is not just freedom to worship in our own homes, our

churches, synagogue, mosque, temples, it is freedom to practice and live out religious faith here in america. on june 21 through july 4, the you conference of catholic bishops is having a night for freedom to pray, educate and act religious freedom. but this just is president a catholic issue, but an issue for all americans. this is not just a republican issue. freedom is what our country was founded on. we just recently celebrated or commemorated memorial day for all of those who have died for our country and for freedom. friday is flag day. again, remembering what

america's all about and our freedom. and on 4th of july, we celebrate the freedom that our country was rn to serve and live out and be a beacon for the rest of the world. we need to uphold that freedom and the h.h.s. mandate, amongst other efforts, other things that have been done by the federal government, unfortunately, in ecent years, has really really run counter to freedom. i want americans to understand what this is about. this is not about birth control. or abortion. although we were told in the health care law, obamacare was not going to cover abortion but requires mandate abortion-inducing drugs. it's about freedom.

it's about taking away americans' freedom. requiring them to participate in activities that violate their conscience. unfortunately i think there has been a lot of misdirection on this and i think it's important for all of us to focus back on what this is about. it's about freedom for all americans to live their lives according to their conscience. whether or not they are practicing a faith or not. if you live according to their conscience. and so, mr. speaker, i'm happy to join my colleagues here, join with them in helping to support, protect and call upon americans to speak up, rise up and bring that message to congress to their representatives that freedom must be protected.

we must do it now. we cannot continue to let freedom slip away and i'm happy to join my colleagues tonight and i yield back to mr. fortenberry. mr. fortenberry: let me say first of all, thanks. i'm deeply grateful to you for two things. one is your personal friendship. second is, the gift of your leadership on these essential american issues. and i think most american people want to see what we just did, republicans and democrats standing right here and focusing on that which can be constructively achieved for the great good. for you providing that example in strong bipartisan effort, i'm grateful. how much time do we have, mr. speaker? the speaker pro tempore: 12 1/2. mr. fortenberry: i turn to my new friend, mark meadows.

he was newly elected to this congress and i'm going to say this, but i consider you a rising star. your thoughtfulness, your immediate engagement, your willingness to look for good outcomes has been a good example. we are grateful for your willingness to come here tonight and i turn it over to you. mr. meadows: i would echo the fact that we are friends and i appreciate your leadership and your heart that it represents. i rise today to join with me colleagues in the strong opposition to the obama administration's attack on our fundamental religious freedoms that we have. our first amendment rights that must be protected. this h.h.s. mandate that has been mentioned many times tonight has been unprecedented, government overreach that forces charities and businesses to provide coverage in areas that violate their deeply held

religious beliefs. we have heard about hobby lobby and the fact that they are facing fines of $1.3 million a day just for believing and upholding those values that they have. and i would love to say that i wish that it was just with obamacare that we were having this attack but it's not. throughout our nation, we are seeing our religious liberties being attacked. in new york, the school board has been working there for two decades to block bronx household of faith from meeting in a public building. in montana, canyon ferry road baptist church faced election law charges just for passing out petitions to place a marriage amendment on the montana ballot. in louisiana, we saw a federal ntractor ordered calvary

baptist church to stop feeding people who were left homeless during hurricane katrina's aftermath just because the group offered voluntary prayer service. these are painful examples, mr. speaker, but one that comes home to me and i'll share this and close with this. in my home district, a writing a ride -- poem about her grandfather put in there that he prayed to god for peace and he prayed to god for strength, and yet, they wanted to strike the word god from that poem. we have created a culture that we cannot support. we must stand up and stand against it. so tonight, i join with so many of our colleagues and those that are watching, i hope you will

understand the true point of which we've come that we must tand up and fight and in the building is a painting of a mayflower where they had a rticular person, william brewster and the founs of our country was about religious freedoms and we have it there as a reminder. to me that is a special meaning, because william brew steer, it's my 11thbible, great grandfather and i'm a direct descendent and i'm joining with my colleagues to say we must stand and we must fight back and make sure that we protect this freedom and not yield. thank you. i thank my friend and colleague and with that, i yield back. >> powerful and beautiful story.

i have no idea of your family being one of the founding families of this country and now 13 generations later you stand here with the mantle of authority on your shoulders directing the affairs of state. that's got to be very gratifying for your family and proud for me to know given that i consider us to be good friends. thank you for your congressmen tear. i recognize my friend congressman huelskamp. thank you for your tireless and strong leadership on these fundamental principles of protecting that which is necessary for all of us to understand at the core where our liberty comes from. mr. huelskamp: thank you, congressman. pleasure to be here and i will warn you as i warn those who are listening i will be frank and short with our time and i will be candid and truthful but it will be uncomfortable to hear

what is happening. h.h.s. mandate is a religious tax. if you morally or ethicically disagree with abortion, constraseppings drugs, it doesn't matter. you will pay for it for your families, your employees and if you don't want it. actually practice your faith and refuse to participate, you will be fined. you will be taxed and forced to give your hard-earned money to washington even if you disagree. that, my fellow americans, is a faith tax, a tax on conscience,al direct attack on our freedom of religion, a shocking attack on that first right and the first amendment, the right to believe in and follow the god we choose. as of now, there have been 31 lawsuits by nonprofits filed over the h.h.s. mandate. another 30 lawsuits filed

for-profit. this includes hospitals, businesses, charities, religious colleges, catholic churches. and let me illustrate the impact. one in six patients are treated in catholic hospitals. catholic charities feeds millions of americans each year, serves thousands of homeless eachier. takes away health from the sick, starves the hungry and punishes the entrepreneur. the administration has issued multiple updates. these are smokescreens and if the accommodation did exist in the language, the first amendment is to be protected, not accommodated. like accommodating our freedom of speech like saying use it on sunday, monday and tuesday. w can the beekcon be home to

religious intolerance? frankly there is a war on religious liberty and no one else to write in defense. it is up to us. we must be in defense of our god-given rights and safeguard the protections and laws of those rights and be vigilant for standing of that first right of that first right, religious liberty. thank you for your leadership. i yield back. mr. fortenberry: we are grateful you were willing to share those powerful sentiments. i turn now to jim jordan of ohio, a former national championship wrestler in college who wrestles with some of the toughest issues right now on the house floor. mr. jordan: i thank the gentleman for yielding and i thank him for his leadership on this most fundamental, most basic of issues. you think about the folks who

started this place, this experiment in freedom we call america. in europe they said you have to practice your faith a certain way and they said, no we don't and we are willing to get on a boat and come to america and practice our faith and they did. they risked everything to come here for that fundamental principle. the greatest nation in history was founded on that simple and yet simple and pro found principle. the document that started it all , the declaration of independence, we hold these truths tosh self-evident. so the document that started this experiment and freedom started where this simple concept that there is a creator and that's where we derive our rights from. not gifts from government. not grants from government, but gifts from the creator, gifts from god. and here's why this is so

important. because this attack on this basic and most fundamental principle is not isolated. think about what we are witnessing in this country today regarding so many of your liberty, start with the one we are talking about. your first amendment right to practice your faith. there is an attack on your first amendment religious liberties and religious liberty rights. but there is a first amendment attack on freedom of the press. we now know that what this justice department did relative to mr. rosen, first amendment attack on freedom of the press, there is an attack on your first amendment rights to free speech issuedenced by the i.r.s. and this week, first amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

. . this is critical when viewed on the overall attack on the constitution, the ofrle attack on the boifl right, that's why i applaud the gentleman from nebraska for his leadership. as he said, mr. hi pinskey on the other side of the aisle who understands these basic principles and basic freedoms and how central they are to the basic experience of what we call the united states of america, with that, i yield back. mr. fortenberry: thank you, mr. johnson, for your words, thank you for coming tonight. i think it's most appropriate that my good friend, congresswoman diane black gets to close the hour. she's the primary author of the health care conscience rights act and we've been proud to stand in partnership with you as you've take then lead on this term, congress, so i'll turn it over to you now. mrs. black: i thank the

gentleman from nebraska for yielding. i am getting a signal from the speaker that i have one minute left and so i am going to reserve what i have written up in so many words to just talk very briefly about what my colleagues have already addressed up to this point in time. the bill we are talking about, the health care conscience right bill would simply take us back to where we are before a cision was made by ms. sebelius to change the way in which we were operated in this country now for over 235 years. all we're asking is to take us back to where our founding fathers had us from the beginning as has been talked about with mr. jordan about the founding principles of this country where people came here to be able to practice their deeply held beliefs without having government intrusion. this is so important for the american people to understand

that this is not about the issues that sometimes are talked about from the other side about birth control. this is about religious freedom. and i thank the gentleman for leading this this evening, we'll have much more conversation and once again, thank you for being a leader in this arena. mr. fortenberry: thank you, congresswoman black, we're so grateful for your leadership, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. pursuant to clause 12a of rule 1, the hair declares the house in recess subject to the call of the chair.

>> this hearing is two and a half hours.

>> this afternoon i'm opening a hearing for cybersecurity. we will address efforts to protect the american people from sovereign threat and to protect .gov.mains of .com and we need to make sure the american people know what we are spending our money for and to make sure that we make wide use of taxpayer dollars so that there are no -- we hope to make sure we know how to to help the private sector were and to perfect -- protect real-time information and

helping the private sector to the secure technologies we need. we need to prevent hackers and cyberals from stealing identities, cyber espionage, against online commerce or our critical infrastructure. i have two goals for this hearing. first, protect the american people from cyber threat while working together across the .com andt to protect .gov. agencies will use cyber in the budget. the administration is or resting over 13 billion dollars for fiscal year 2014. $13 billion for fiscal year 2014.

the government is good at spending money, that we need to make sure we spend money well. failures and inefficiencies in government i.t. programs we do not want to happen as he moved forward in the cyber domain. walking across the subcommittees at making sure as we look this, the questions that we have -- are we developing the right technologies to protect ourselves? are we investing in the workforce we need? how do we protect civil liberties? i'm proud of my subcommittee chairs. i want to acknowledge the work of senator durbin and another on defense. i want to acknowledge the work .f a ranking member for me, we will have the fbi

and the great vice chairman, senator chubby. this is a committee that is loaded with talent in this area and comes with enormous expertise from authorizing committee. a staunch protector of our liberties. senator feinstein on the committee. chair of theormer homeland security committee. senator collins. rarely has a committee had so fromtalent coming together appropriations and optimizers. our country -- i hope our country has a sense of urgency.

we are already under attack. we are in a cyber war every day. every time someone steals identity or trade secrets, we are at war. we see the growing next this between cyber criminals hacking our networks. director mueller of the fbi says cyber crime will surpass terrorism as the number one threat to america. secretary hagel and general dempsey continued to warn us against cyber as an insidious threat. these are such critical concerns that president obama in his recent meeting with the chinese president raised cybersecurity as one of our great international tensions between both countries. --t year, we try to put side

we work on a bipartisan basis. but it didn't happen. authorizingause has not happened does not mean that nothing will happen. in february, the president anded his objective order it protects critical infrastructure provides critical infrastructure and cyber risk -- into thede but federal service. today we will do something different. i bring to your attention the president's fiscal 2014 budget on the areas of cyber security. this would be the worst time in -- first time in one place we can look across all of the

areas to make sure we know what and the effects necessary to protect our country. .t is significant it is a public document that we have in one place, a one-stop .hop the president of the united states in his budget message to congress has asked for $13 billion in order to execute the cyber security strategy across the agencies of the federal government. the purpose of this hearing today is to look at the cybersecurity threat. from the program

department of homeland or the department of justice. it is focused on cybersecurity. this is a committee first. a senate first. no other committee has tried to hold a hearing across the different domains and agencies and to do it in an open and public way. from thetise subcommittee chairs and authorizing is wonderful. we know we will be able to do it. the president has asked for $13 billion. $1.3 billion in homeland security. today we will hear from

governments lead people in this. general examiner am of the director of the national ,ecurity -- general alexander the director of the national security dr. gallagher, and richard feeley, the fbi assistant director in charge of criminal cyber and response. theso want to acknowledge and the last several days, many intelligence issues have been in the press. i understand that these are issues that are very much on the public's mind, and the members of the senate. this topic of our surveillance program came out.

a former chair of the intelligence committee, well- that wen the topic, would have a full committee hearing on that to kill her program. that is not today. that is for another day. i understand that our colleagues, senator feinstein, the chair of the intelligence committee, has scheduled a briefing for all senators tomorrow. this is the second hearing that senator feinstein has opened area did -- opened. continues toelby brecht and that this committee hold a hearing on this matter, i will be happy to comply, and toe led to that -- i pledge that. we certainly will.

today's hearing will focus on cyber threats protecting the american people, printing -- protecting the taxpayer. i would hope today we will focus on this it important issue. this is a committee hearing. it will not be the last one on this topic. i now want to turn to my ranking member, senator shelby, who has been active in this matter. >> thank you. a you pointed out, this is very important hearing on a topic that demand significant congressional involvement. the cyber threat, as with -- as we all know, is increasing, as our adversary become more bold. we have seen stark reminders of

this threat of constant cyber threats on the financial sector, the chinese hackers of the new thattimes, and reports information on our most advanced weapons system were stolen by the chinese. earlier this year, a company publicly reported that chinese attackers are running cyber espionage campaigns with the likely support of the chinese government. all recently, the same company expose iranian hacking in the u.s.. these of elements remind us of how urgently we need a coordinated effort to counter and to respond to these things. madam chair, this committee may be the only one with jurisdiction over the couple met of gore -- organizations involved with cybersecurity. it is appropriate we take a

lead role in the oversight of this effort in working with others. i would like to hear how each of you today perceive the threat, and about your continuing efforts to protect critical infrastructure against attacks, and to address the cyber threat outside of the recently issued executive order. cybersecurity is an immediate priority, but the framework envisioned in the executive order will take time to develop, and even longer to implement. there are still areas that need more attention, and may require legislation. such is the information sharing. additionally, the working relationship between the government and the private sector's are still a work in progress. on the requirements remain unclear, clearly a lot needs to be done. ilook forward to dave for -- live for today for hearing from our panel.

to strengthen our infrastructure across the board. thank you. >> thank you. we will turn to our witness panel, and then we will go with questions him a starting with senator shelby. i would like to suggest that general alexander go first, followed by mr. beers. the microphone is yours. >> thank you very much. i think what you and senator shelby have pointed out with respect to cyberspace is absolutely important for us to discuss. the threats that we face today continue to grow. a takes for the government team to work. before i go any further, i want to point out that the team is here. it is great to be a part of that team. no one government department

arranges he can do it sell. 4s is going to take a a partnership between homeland -- fory, the fbi, and us to work together. when i look at what is going on in cyberspace, and the capabilities that are growing, this is an incredible opportunity for us as a nation for usthe world to -- as a nation and around the world. the ability for education, this is a tremendous time. when we look at what we can do with this with respect to medical care in the future, it is a fright -- bright future for us. it is complicated by the fact the cyber espionage, and threats that senator shelby talked about. i do want to hit on that. you mentioned the evolution of this threat. when you look at the threat as of the thingsme

the fbi and we see in the department of home security, a series of expectations into our networks. fixissue is how do you that? that issue is complicated by the fact that it is not only expectations that are going on, but we are seeing a district of attacks against our nation's infrastructure. as a nation need to step forward and say how we going to work this? the government team that is here today cannot do it without support from industry. we have to have some way of working with industry. they own and operate the book of our nations infrastructure. --have to do in a transport transparent way, and a legal way. we appreciate the efforts of many on this panel for what you down -- what you have done to move the legislation along

great we do need a way to work with industry. dr. gallagher will talk about parts of this. we couldn't have a better person to lead it from this. thank you for what you when the team are doing. we need to begin a dialogue of industry. part of what the executive order is doing is giving the opportunity for that dialogue. we have to look at what we need and get that moving forward. thank you. from my perspective, you asked what it is it we need to do. i think there are key things we are working on. first, we have to create a defensible architecture. both the intelligence community and the defense department are moving forward on what we call the cloud architecture. a joint intelligence environment for the defense department, and the intel communities i.t. environments. the same thing for both

communities, moving forward to what is a more defensible architect. we need to move it. that is the first thing. the second, we need to be able to see what is going on in cyberspace so that we can work with industry. and amongst ourselves. getting information after an attack only allows us to police it up. we have to have some way of stopping it while it is going on. we need to be able to see it. we have to have a constant for operating in cyberspace, not just inside the defense department, but amongst all three of us. we offer role in this. we all play vital roles. from the department of homeland commercialrole with industry, to the fbi's law- enforcement investigative things, to the defense department's responsibility to defend the nation. get have to bring this together. then reach out and say, how is that going to work with industry? how can we share information

that is vital to our common defense? we have to do that. we need trained and ready forces. i think that is one of the most important rings that congress expects of may. -- expects of me. to create trained and ready forces that are trained to a higher standard. both on the defense, and on the. those capabilities that our nation needs, that are trained to that standard, then a how to operate lawfully, to protect american civil liberties from privacy, and to protect this nation in cyberspace. we have to be able to do all three. we have to have the capacity to act would authorize. the rules of engagement and the other authorities. we are working those. from my perspective, the minimum and of cyber command and nsa, we have tremendous technical talent. we really do. these are great people.

our nation has invested a lot in these people. they do this lawfully, they take compliance oversight, protect civil liberties and privacy, and the security of this nation to heart. every day. i could not be more proud of the men and women of the nsa and cyber command. what we now need to do is take next up and moving that forward. that is all i have at this time. i will defer now to my colleagues. .> thank you chairwoman, ranking member, we all welcome this opportunity to appear before you. as you said, this is a unique opportunity to talk about the range of cyber security activities across the government, and we welcome that. as most of you know,

cybersecurity is one of the five major missions of the department of homeland security, and one that we take very seriously. the threats that we face are very -- buried, and serious. in that regard, our mission focus is into a primary area. they are to protect the federal civilian networks, and to work with the private sector to protect america's critical infrastructure. in that regard, and as the chairwoman mentioned, the president's policy initiatives to the year ahead are secure federal networks to ,rotect medical infrastructure to engage internationally and shape the future. with respect to the first, this is one of the major areas that dhs is responsible for. we are investing about $600

million in protecting federal networks through our intrusion protection assistance, and through our contingents -- continuance diagnostics. we are also working heavily with america's critical infrastructure both private and public. we are working under the executive order, with our partners in this to create the cybersecurity framework, and this is as you know an important initiative on our part. executive order, as you know, is the administration's effort after an attempt to get legislation last year, that isn't to say that we aren't interested in getting that legislation. that is having that we want to talk about. in addition to that, we are working through incident response, working with our

partners in the fbi, and with the national security agency, and this is a call to one, call to all initiative in which we work together both in our headquarters, and operation centers. in terms of sharing information, where we were together in the field in the deployment of teams to go to particular sites of particular incidents in order to determine what happened, and provide information to other parts of the private sector that will help them prevent the same kind of incidents. there also involved in international area, which individual countries and partners around the world. also, we -- with the european union as well. while it is a small program, it is a very important program. we have a lot of key partners that we work with. that is just in terms of the

engagement in terms of face to face. in terms of the information sharing, our whole incident response structure, the nationals up -- cybersecurity communications integration center. it shares information internationally with other computer emergency readiness teams around the world. in order to do with them what we do for ourselves nationally. in order to protect cyberspace around the world. ourlly, we work in terms of research and development and other activities to try to shape the future. this is an important effort that is ongoing. , as general alexander said, we could not do if we were doing it individually in dhs. it takes all this year to make this work. i want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

and to talk about dhs programs. thank you. .> good afternoon to overstatecult the potential impact cybersecurity -- cyber threats posed our economy, our national security, and infrastructure on which our country relies. as why the fbi, along with our key partners at the table here, are strengthening our cyber capabilities in the same way we enhanced our intelligence and national security capabilities in the wake of 911 -- 9-11. 'secho both of these gentlemen comments this is a whole government approach when it comes to addressing this issue. in the last year, within the fbi, we had undergone a paradigm shift in how we conduct the cyber operations. while we previously watch and

collect information and added to our understanding of the adversaries intentions, we do not we take action by seeking to disrupt them as in my in a counterterrorism base. we are now working with our partners successfully disrupting an impact in the individuals behind the would've made it their mission to attack, steel, spy, and commit terrorist acts against our nation and citizens. instead of watching foreign countries steal our intellectual property, we are going out to companies and tried to prevent it. for example, working with dhs, we now routinely provide private industry and von force the partners overseas with ip addresses that are responsible for launching attacks against our country. just last week, the fbi and microsoft, and the services industry, conducted cordon operations to successfully disrupting within 1000 bought -- cover my computers that have been infected with a virus.

that is estimated to be responsible for more than half $1 billion in financial fraud. these actions are part of a larger u.s. -- the example fly how the fbi and our partners are using private- public partnerships to protect the public from cyber criminals. at the nci jps, which serves as agencies,ng 19 u.s. the government is coordinating its efforts and an unprecedented level. this coordination involves senior personnel at the agencies. while it is led by the fdi, it --

we must recognize that to work together, we have to make sure that we keep pace and surpass the part -- capabilities of our cyber adversaries. fbi, dhs,s of the and nsa met last fall and clarify the lanes and roads of cyber jurisdiction. i believe that the collective of the worker levels is that there is now an unprecedented level of operation not seen since the immediate post-9/11 era. in addition to strengthening our partnerships and government, we have significantly enhanced our cooperation with the private sector. as part of that, we have begun the process of the briefings, and other information in terms to help dispel intruders.

notice i guarding, it is based on the successful guardian terrorist threats system developed after 9/11. we are also developing an automated malware analysis tool to which von forstmann and industry partners to submit samples of malware for triage and analysis. we expect an unclassified version of the system to be piloted for the private sector this fall. while we have been primarily focused on cyber intrusions, as we see as the greatest cyber threats or national security, we are working with our state and law-enforcement partners to identify and address gaps in the investigation and prosecution of internet fraud and crimes. the fbi and secret service should not bear all responsibility for this. we believe that there is a huge space for partners to join us in this fight. to address these gaps, we have developed a pilot program in

cooperation with international chiefs of police, and other law enforcement organizations to enhance the internet fraud targeting packages that the fbi complaint center, -- revised to state and local law-enforcement for prosecution. i think for the opportunity to be here today. i look for to answering questions. >> dr. gallagher. >> members of the committee, it is a pleasure to be here today. to join my colleagues and talk to about cybersecurity. since i am batting cleanup, i would touch on two topics. the all of government approach. good teamwork is based on playing your position. in this position, it is based on our mission. we are a measurement of science and standards organization. our role is to support industry. the owners operation or's, they

respond to the information that they get from our television -- our intelligence committee, and from home and security. this is a top priority for this. our budget is a $24 million increase. this is on top of our total investment of $68 million. this funding enables our r&d performance, and critical areas, including the national initiative for cybersecurity, the national strategy for trusted identities in cyberspace, and a moment haitian of executive order 13636. secondly, i like to give you a quick update on the executive order. as most of you know under the -- that supports the

performance goals established by the department of common security. for this to be successful, two major elements have to be a part of the approach. first, the partnership between the agencies. as occurring. we memorialize this with the understanding between dhs and my colleagues here. the cybersecurity framework must be developed for a process that is industry led, open, and transparent to all the stakeholders. we end up with an output that is technically robust, because it draws on their expertise, and a line with business interest and practices. this is not a new or novel approach for this. we have utilized a similar approach in the recent past to address cloud computing and smart grid. i appreciate the challenge before us.

the executive order is very oppressive. it is to be developed within one year read the first draft is due 120 days. we have issued support this effort, and gather input from industry and other stakeholders. we have held the first two of four planned workshops. we will use these to finalize and develop the framework because it is this type of approach that allows us to have the appropriate levels of cooperation with the industry. in may release the initial findings. that release marks the transition from gathering facts to actually building the framework. at a monthly will have an initial draft draft of the framework, including an initial list of stand my -- standards and practices. we will work with our agency partners to finalize the framework. even after the framework is

done, the work is really only just beginning. adoption and use of a framework as going to raise new issues to address. the goal at the end of this is to have industry adopt the framework themselves. so it becomes an ongoing process that enhances cybersecurity. the present -- the president advocate order lays out an ambitious agenda. it is designed around an active collaboration between the and private sectors. i hollered we believe that partnership is the essential ingredient for its success. the cybersecurity challenge in the.gov and.com domain is better than -- greater than has ever been. it is the only way we can leave this challenge. leveraging both roles responsibilities and capabilities, and we have a lot of work. i look for to working with this committee to make it happen. thank you. to allk you very much

four witnesses. follow function today is the five-minute rule rule. we will go with order of arrival. we also know that this hearing does not preclude the subcommittees from continuing their own hearings for this, to probe more deeply am a and after we have concluded our questioning, we will understand that there will be certain aspects to drill down, we will also have an additional classified for him this afternoon in the classified section. , not precluding further hearings. >> to all, just to reiterate the budget, the president has --uested nine $.2 billion

$9.2 billion. for all of justice, including the fci, $589 million. $215 million for commerce, primarily in this. department of state, nerdy $7 million. when one hears $13 billion, that is a lot of money. however, we are in an endearing war where our citizens are under attack from identity theft to state secrets, business secrets, etc. our question today is $13 billion added in the various $13s, and when we spend the billion, will we also avoid the kind of things where sometimes

we throw money at a new problem, sometimes we have technical boondoggles. we've seen in the past. this is what we are doing. let's go right to the president's request. as i understand, from the administration's priorities, the ministrations priorities, if you look at the budget, the federal networks. lead by example, and make sure our networks are safe and secure. protect critical infrastructure, engage internationally. shape the future. general alexander, you will be getting, if we pass this budget, $9 billion. i understand that $3.5 billion will be to protect the dod network.

we understand that. what will you use the other $5.8 billion to do? how will we get security for that dollar? >> thank you. it is a lot of money. i can tell you that from our perspective, what we're talking about is not just protecting protecting our networks, but developing the forces that we need to. part of that money goes to training and outfitting the teams of cyber command. part of that ghost the information in fixing the networks you hit on. look at this, from my perspective, i believe this is right. the right amount. i know that the ministration and the defense department has already looked internal to this budget to see where we can take cuts, and we did. we cut it back to what we thought was the minimum that we could use, and still do this job. you pointed out that for the

defense department, our job is to protect the nation and our networks. that is where that five $.8 billion goes. .t doesn't go to one goes to in sa for doing their job is part of the intel community budget. the is rolled in there as well. 582 million dollars goes to u.s. cyber command. that is for five key areas. teams, setting up the teams, training, charting the military construction to have a place to house these teams for headquarters, and research and development. i think is the right number. i think we have looked at where

we can take savings, and i've done that. i also think it is important to state that the department sees this as an area to help ensure the nation is ready as we look at the rest of our course of action. this going to be key -- key to our future. >> let me follow one question. in your testimony, this goes to protecting critical infrastructure. this is a big we concentrated on when we were working on authorizing legislation under collins lieberman. in your testimony, you say, from it at a three.ed a three to protect our grid. a three to protect our financial services.

my question is the money that you are getting, and her stand homeland security is supposed to protect us against domestic threads, where do you come in, and where does, security common -- come in? is part of your money used to do the services to support them? >> we do work together. our money is there an overlapping in this case. specifically, the defense department has to set several's and responsibilities here. one to build, operate, and defend the dod network prayed as the one responsibility. there is a big cost because because that is our forces globally. that is the biggest bulk of the money that is here. the for second part, to develop -- the second part is to develop the teams to defend the nation. we work with fbi in setting up the ops centers, and funding

and supporting those centers, so we can communicate amongst us. dhs has that responsibility to work with industry to set the standards. fbi has the responsibility to the law enforcement and investigation. new -- we have responsibility for for the foreign intelligence, and to defend against an attack. what we are doing is developing the capabilities and the teams. we're going to need legislation to do those operations. >> i could have follow-up questions. i'm going to turn to senator shelby. >> thank you. dr. gallagher, my first question is to you. could you explain since this is been tasked under the executive order, to reduce cyber risk, could you explain how the process works question mark how the development of a framework to reduce cyber security differs from the development of standards to review such risk?

what you believe will compel private industry, which is important, the moment the framework that it has developed question mark and given the evolution of technology, thank you very much need, in cyber threats specifically, how useful is it of a broad-based generic framework long-term? sol it be chasing its tail to speak, or will you be able to get ahead of the curve question mark i would be interested to share your thoughts here. how the framework and the standards will apply. , or could apply. >> thank you. .'m going to do my best the idea behind the framework is very simply to get industry to develop a set of practices, standards, methodologies, what

every would take the it implemented to sit -- to improve cyber security. we use the term to refer to whenever you would put into place that would result in enhanced cybersecurity performance. that will include a large measure of standards, and the idea behind the industry doing as a couple of motivations. first of all, it addresses the capacity. the industry is the one developing i.t. technology and communication technology. therefore, they know where the technology is going. they can bring that skill and expertise into the process to develop the standards. secondly, these companies, this internet is a global infrastructure previous companies operate at a global scale. securitying performance into the products and services themselves, we can

achieve it broader than our borders. it embeds in the market. it gives her companies the power to shape the technologies around the world. in terms of chasing her tail, i think in a time when this technology is moving so quickly, and when the threat is changing right in front of us, this is going to be an ongoing challenge. i think that the bottleneck cannot be missed. we are simply not large enough to support this on our own. our role has to be viewed as, did we help industry come up with the vehicle so they could organize and be responsive question mark feeling way that technical capacity could be brought to bear. >> levitate on that if i could. -- i may pick up on that i could. the discussions of a broad framework, which presumably, i would think, means it will be generic in order to have broader applicability, to all

medical infrastructure sectors. how well a generic framework address the inherent differences in our critical infrastructure, and the unique needs being protected against cyber attacks? if we are not addressing sector specific needs, how can we be sure that we are actually helping protect any of these industries from a cyber attack? how do you bring industry on board with those -- they have system secrets. formulas, everything, to protect. the government would have to protect those, and should. how would that work? >> you are exactly right. i think that the challenge, the question you asked about industries capacity to come together and carry this out is

the central question. how generic and sector specific this looks? in spitenews is that of the long differences across sectors, looking at energy or , they areture dependent on the core set of communications. one of the advantages they have two working together to set up common platforms is that they can drive that performance into the market, and they can buy these computer services and i.t. equipment that better cost because they are helping to shape the entire market. that really gets to what you raised earlier. how to drive the adoption of this framework. the bottom-line is, doing good cybersecurity has to become the business. the end, this is going to be about alignment. these frameworks have to be compatible with profitable and

well-run companies. that is really -- it may be turn up at the framework discussions are more about management than they are but technical controls. that is ok if it helps those achieve the level of performance were looking at. >> thank you. >> senator leahy. >> thank you madam chair. i am -- i have a lot of concerns about section 215 of the patriot act. , we have a number of comments and proposals in the judiciary committee to improve these provisions, but the intelligence community has told us that we obviously don't have the ability. and so it is not the changes. critical toey are

counterterrorism efforts. congress shouldn't tinker with it. we should sibley trust you to use them the right way. they shouldn't be made permanent. i do not think that his wife. i think there should be sunset provisions, and we should look at them and debate them in a free and open society. we have information to declassify, and i'm not going into questions of whether he contradicted himself on a couple of answers. 702, itrs in section was critical to disrupt the case in new york city. but it is not clear that it is pursuant to sexual 215 of the patriot act, reasonably critical or crucial.

-- critical to the discovery of terrorist threats. >> i do not have those figures today. >> are they available? >> we are going to make those available. >> houston? >> over the next week. it would be our intent to get those figures out. i talked to the intel committee on that yesterday. notink it is important -- >> you talk to the intel community but you didn't have the figures yesterday? >> i gave an approximate number. it is dozens. terrorist events that have helped prevent. >> we collect millions and 215.ons of records through

dozens have been approved crucial. is that right? >> both here and abroad. in disrupting or contributing to the disruption. >> they've been critical. >> that is correct. >> would you give me the specific cases you're talking about? >> we will. we're going to the intel committee to do this. tomorrow, i will give as clear as we have connected resizing what we have done on each of those. the reason that i am wanting to get his exec lee right is that i the american people to know that we are being transparent. >> you're not giving it to the american people. you are giving it classified to specific number of congress. >> that is two parts.

i think for this debate, what you are asking and perhaps i misunderstood this, you are asking what we could put out unclassified. the intent would be to do both. >> you can do that within a week? >> that is our intent. i am pushing for that. perhaps faster. we do want to get this right. it has to be that it across the community so that what we give you, you know is accurate, and back andverybody here say this is exactly correct. was quite --2 critical to the plot to bomb the new york city subway system. is that correct? likes non--- >> that is correct. not just critical, it was the

one that developed the lead. i would say it was the one that allowed us to know it was happening. >> that is different in 215. >> that is different than section 215. i do think it is important that we get this right. i want the american people to know that we are trying to be transparent here. to protect civil liberties and privacy but the security of this country. on the new york city one, it started with a 702 set of information based on operatives overseas. we saw connections into efforts -- a person in colorado pray that was passed to the fbi. the fbi determined that was, and phone numbers that went to that. the phone numbers were the things that allowed us to use the business records to going

find connections from him to other players throughout the community specific in new york city. >> how was 215 critical? >> it is critical in cooperating, and in helping -- >> was a credible here? >> -- was 215 credible? >> some on the business records were cooperating three i think it is important to understand that this is an issue that only part of the debate. i put on there also the boston -- we need to walk through that so that what we have on the business records, all we have

on 702, what you debate, the fact that we can give you, how we to lead to the fbi. if we took that away, what we could not do, and is that something that women look at this from a securities perspective -- >> you could pass on the permission to the boston authorities. they said they did not. my time is up. we areon this because going to be asked very specific questions. >> i want to make sure that we are clear on one point. when i say dozens. why i'm typing about is -- what i'm talking about it this authority comment each other to identify terrorist actions. the column at each other pray what you're asking me is to state unequivocally a or b current to be two.

-- contributed. senator cochran. >> thank you. let me first ask general inxander, and jen -- testimony that was received by the armed services committee, was a discussion about how to provide incentives to talented military personnel who may be interested in the cybersecurity field to become involved. i know it is hard to .ontemplate what do you see as a first step in trying to get an inch or structure -- infrastructure

organized appropriately to carry out these missions? >> thank you. i think the most important part of top to bottom is the training. ,oming up with a clear program which we have done with the services and nsa, to develop a set of standards. the training in of itself helps us build a great supper force. -- great soup -- great cyber force. we are standardizing that training amongst the services, and between nsa and cyber command. raising the standards has a couple of benefits. the soldiers, marines, they get great training. it is something look forward to. the operations they do are significant. they feel good about what they are able to do for their country. it starts with training and building that kind of force. you mentioned incentives.

adding incentives is going to play a key part in this. pay plays a key part, incentives for our cyber force is also going to play a key part. we had discussions with services about how to start that. we cannot have that in this this program you predict something we are looking at. a question also about whether or not the department of defense has the resources to maintain a number of cyber tests across is services and agencies. ,gain, in the training phase there has to be exercises with conventional weapons, and other weapons systems. could you share with the committee what is your thought about cyber ranges so that you

will have opportunity to dedicate certain areas exclusively for these purposes? >> there is a great question. one that we are putting a lot of effort into. i do think we need to bring the ranges together so we have a joint approach to this. one of the things that i would point out is the service academy. this gets into range issue when you look at how do you defend your networks anyway these service academies can compete against each other? when you think about that and a cyber range, what you want people to do is to practice their tactics techniques and procedures in a sterile environment so nothing bad happens. so they can learn. we have seen in the military side. we need to do the same here. those that have defended our networks, that know the adverse

ironies are going to do, and prepare for those, it helps raise that. bringing the ranges together ensure they are operating at the right level as a joint team. >> my staff and for me that last --k emily received a notice our committee received a notice that half of personnel in the cyber threat center could be for load as a result of sequestration. that is a find. how do you find it welcome aboard -- has there been any intention given to what you want to do if somebody jumps up and says we have been sequestered? your fines have been sequestered? >> we have worked this across the defense department. the sequestration for all the military has been standardized across the departments. the nsa on intel side is not there.

civilians will be sequestered. as an 11 day or one day week for the last last 11 days of the year. that has a significant impact on us. , andnk that is a key issue has significant impact on our people. it goes right back to how do you hire good people, and then for furlough them? >> thank you. >> thank you for raising the sequester issue. it has been raised at the intel hearings when we mention the worldwide threat. we are precluded by the house from playing the in the bill.

i think that the intel community, which is primarily dod, a civilian force, you need that flexibility. we look forward to working on both sides of the aisle to be will to do this. i would like to share with the committee, we're going to go to , tomn, merkley, collins udall, senator landrieu, senator feinstein. we will go right to you. then we will go to senator rosen, and then senator fryer. >> thanks to senator mikulski for bringing the cyber issue

into sharp focus for the entire senate with their bipartisan briefing. i was under the intelligence committee after 9/11. it was automatic investment in intelligence resources to keep us say. a dramatic investment in the personnel to execute the plan to keep us say. i trust, and i still do that we were hiring the very best. trusting them to not only give us the best in terms of knowledge, but their loyalty to our country. i would like to ask you about one of those employees. who is now in a hong kong hotel, and what we know about him as follows. he was a high school dropout. he was a community college dropout. he had a ged degree. he was injured in training for the u.s. army. he had to leave. he did the job as a security guard for the nsa in maryland.

shortly thereafter, he did the job for the cia in what is characterized as i.t. security in a piece that was published. at age 23 years old, he was stationed in an undercover manner overseas from the cia him and was given clearance and access to a wide array of classified documents. it -- at age 25 years old, he went to work for a private contractor, and worked for booz allen, working for our government. i am trying to look at this earningnd background, between -- i'm trying to look at the resume background for this individual that access to this highly classified information at such a young age, with a limited educational work if younce, and ask you

are troubled that he was given that kind of opportunity to be so close to important information that was critical to the security of our nation. >> i do have concerns about that over the process. i have great concerns over that. the axis that he had, the process that we did. that is the bad to look at my end -- that is something i have to look at from my end. the absolute needs to be looked at three i would point out that in the i.t. arena, and the cyber arena, some of these folks have tremendous skills to operate networks read that was his job -or the most part from the 2009 2010. he had great skills in that area. the rest of it, you have hit on

the head. we do have to go back and look at these processes, we oversight in those prayed we have -- we need oversight in those areas. ago i first introduce legislation known as the safe act, i bipartisan bill to reform the patriot act. it included chuck halal, john kerry, and barack obama. my most significant concern with 215 was that it would be used to obtain sensitive personal information of innocent americans who have no connection to any suspected terrorism or spy activity. when the patriot act was re- under this05, standard, the fbi would have broad authority to obtain any information, even tangentially connected to a suspected terrorist.

72 information could have led to 215 of record information on any suspect. under microvision, innocent americans with no connection to any of these would be protected. the republican controlled senate approve my -- the bush administration objected. it was removed in the conference committee. in 2009 i tried again with no success. now that the focus has been lifted, the nsa obtained phone records of innocent americans with no connection to terrorism, the data includes the numbers of both parties to call us the locations, the time and duration of the calls. i have been briefed on these. i have -- i will not discuss their details here. it appears to me that the government could obtain the useful information we need to

stay safe and still protect innocent americans. my question to you is this. section 215 can be used to obtain any tangible thing. that could include medical records, internet search records, text records, credit card records, -- last year the government filed to one of 15 -- 215 quarters. there is an increase. this authority is being used for something more than phone records. let me ask you, do you think section 215, giving you authority to secure tangible things could include the category of things i just listed? >> we do not. i do not use those. i'm not aware of anything that does that. all we use this for today is the business records of pfizer --

fisa. as you know, this was developed -- and i agree with you, we have this concern coming out of 9/11 -- how we going to protect the nation? we didn't know where he was. we didn't have the data collected to know that he was a bad person. because he was in the united states, the way we treat it it, he is a u.s. person. he had no permission on that. -- we had no permission on that -- information on that. on specific times can be clarity that data. every time we do that, it is auditable by the committees the justice department, but cordon the administration -- the court and the it ministration.

>> if you know i suspect made a call to the city of chicago, it defies logic that you need to collect on the telephone calls made in that area code on the chance that one of those persons might be on the other end of the phone. ,f you have a suspected contact that it's clear, i want you to go after that person. i'm concerned about the reach beyond that that that affects innocent people. >> the agree at least on that part. the next day -- the next step we need to talk about is what happens if you don't know he is in 312 yet? something happens and then now we say who was he talking to? let's take midar. midar was talking to the other 14 under the business record fisa -- other four teams.

under the business record fisa, we can take that number and go back and see who he was talking to. if we saw those other groups, of interests looks and pass that to the fbi. we don't look at the identities of it. we only look at the connection. >> i went over time. an illustration we have specific information about telephone contacts. what i quarrel with is collecting all the information in california on telephone records define a that specific case. that seems overly done. >> thank you. senator? , i want toalexander talk about cyber command but senator durden has raised an interesting question. would this lead, the scenario

he has laid out, to a telephone omaha? search for all of walk us through that. methodology would be let's put into a secure environment all detailed records. these are two from records. we don't know anything that's in there. we won't search that. unless we have some reasonable art -- some reasonable .uspicion if we see that, we have to prove we have that. given that, we can say who was the guy talking to an united states and why? >> you can search the breath of telephone records? >> all you are looking for on that is who did you talk to. the system gets respectfully was talking to.

>> if you do not collected, how do you know who he was talking to? give you any connections by number and say find out who he is talking to, you don't have the information. the issue is -- you bring it up because this came up ten years ago. how do we solve this problem? we want to protect civil liberties and privacy and protect the country. reasonable was a approach that we all agreed on this in a way that we have tremendous oversight by the court. can goime your people in, they have to have a reason to go in and look at the data. when they get something out, they have to look at it and say that this media reporting guideline? only a few reports a year go out

on that> >> does this extend beyond telephone records? could you see what the person is googling> whoo that person is emailing> >? >> monthly identify person of interest, ghost the ei. the fbi will look at that and -- once we identify a person of interest, that goes to the fbi. >> so the answer is yes. you could get a court order to do that?> would that take a court order? >> it would. >> you've gotten into phone recrodsords, who they might be

begline, whg, who they might emailing. what else do you feel you can get? >> i'm not sure if your question. >> to have this reasonable suspicion which is funny from you havecause -- this reasonable suspicion which is not even probable cause. >> wait, wait. let's just stop here a minute. we're not going to inhibit your questions but i think we need to clarify the activity which your operating. you will be functioning also with the warring.

myif i may, it's understanding you have the records of what appears on a phone bill. if you want to go to the content, then you have to get a court order, the same thing you would do in a criminal case. it would permit you to collect the content of a call. you can ask if that's right or wrong. >> that's correct. >> i assume that. i'm not talking about content. i'm assuming at some point there would be a legal standard by which you could do that. what i am only getting to is you've identified that you can get phone contacts. i'm asking can you get google contacts? contacts?et email

i'm not talking about reading the e-mail or seeing what they're saying back and forth. youi worry about is how far believe this authority extends. reading theng about email.' >> is a couple things i want to make sure we've got. fisa only talks about phone metadata. that's all that program talks about. -- program that we have senator feinstein, if you want to get the content, you would have to get a court order. in any of these programs, we have court orders for doing that with oversight by congress, the courts and the administration.

my concern is i think this is an area where we have to give you the the details -- american people need to understand it's a vacancy but we're doing and what the results are. understand it and what the results are. we had this debate several times. this is one where we need to bring out the rest of the story, show what we do, what it protects the country from,a nd have the debate. that's part -- to do that, we have to give you the rest of that data. tomorrow we will put that in a classified session with the intent to get as much out in public so everybody has the information. is reason i hesitate here

i don't want to make a mistake that causes the statements i have for our country to lose some form of protection and we get hit with a terrorist attack because i made that mistake. for thenk the chair additional time. the american public is fearful this massive data that you get, there is the ability of the federal government to synthesize the data and learn something more than maybe what was ever contemplated by the patriot act. the second thing is the more personal issue and gets into concerns about cyber command.

you are and this unique role. we've always had this idea of separating civilian leadership of the military leadership yet you have ths dual -- this dual hat and it creates a concern. not about you because you've got and i thank record you for your service but it is a concern and will we find you in. and i just think we've got to get infomation out -- information to the public,. . we are all getting bombarded with questions he cannot answer. i am not the chair of the intelligence committee. i don't are on the committee -- serve on the committee and the impression has been created that people parked in our office are given daily or monthly briefings on this and that is not the case. >> i think you had minus questions -- i thin k you

had an excellent line of questions. we are going to move on from this question topics. what we are now moving into is a domain that is not the parameters of this hearing. not senator will prohibit any senators from asking any question they want. tomorrow in the feinstein hearing, many [indiscernible] i hope your questions will be as cogent as they are here today. >> thank you, madame chair. thnank you, general. you referred to section 215. 215 requires for an application

for production of any tangible thing. it says this application but have -- must have a staement of facts showing reasonable grounds that attend both things sought relevant to an authorized investigation. so there are several standards of law and that it's. a statement of fact, reasonable grounds, tangible things that are relevant to an authorized investigation. as it's been described in this conversation and in the press, the standard for collecting phone records on americans is now all phone records, all the time, all across america.

how did we get from the , relevant grounds authorized investigations, statement of facts, to all phone records all the time, all locations? how do you make that transition and how has the standard of law been met? >> this is what we have to deal with the court. ,e go through the court process a very deliberate process, where we meet all those portions of the 215. tolay out what we're going do. we don't get to look at the data. >> let me stop you there. user requirements to acquire the data --these are requirements to acquire the data. here i have my verizon phone. my cell phone.

what authorized investigation gave you the grounds for acquiring my cell phone data? >> i want to make sure i get this exactly right. on the legal standards and stuff on the part here, i think we need to get the department of justice and others. it is a complex area. you are asking a specific question. i do not want to shirt that. i think we should walk through that with the intent of taking what you've asked and seeing if we can get it declassified so they can see exactly how we do it. i do think that should be answered. >> thank you. >> senator, i would like to help you out. you want to get it right.

the answer should be in writing.tha that way you get it right and he gets his answer. we'll take that for the record. >> i asked i get -- i asked that get answered tomorrow. i would suggest both in writing, the hearing and into his hands. >> i thank both chairs. if i can elaborate, is tahhat okay? in between these two pieces, --a is in competition gives an interpretation of the law. into what is governable.

i have an amendment that said these findings of law that translates requirements in the law into what is permissible, needs to be declassified so we can have the debate. i believe what you just said is you want that information to bd class i -- to be declassified, that explains how you get from these standards of law to the conduct that have been presented publicly. did i catch that right? you support the interpretations forhe fisa core to be set the american people so they can have this take place? >> i think that makes sense. i want to make sure i put this exactly right. jeopardize the security of americans by making a mistake and say yes, we're going to do all that.

but the intent is to get the transparency there. senator, i will work hard to do that. if i can't do that, i will come back to you and tell you why. i defer to the chair of the intel committee but i think that is reasonable to get this out. the legalve background perhaps you have in this area. i want this debate out there for a couple reasons. i think what we're doing to protect american citizens hear is the right thing. our agengy takes great pride in protecting this nation and our civil liberties and piracy. doing in partnership with this committee and congress and the courts, we have everybody there. we aren't trying to hide it. you're trying to protect america. we need your help help doing that. this is not something that is just nsa or the administration doing it on its own. we expect our

government to do for us. we have to put those two together. i just want to put that one caveat there. if i can make it happen, i will. ask thank you for your expression of support. i also want to thank chair feinstein who helped develop and sent a letter expressing this concern about this secrecy of the interpretations of the court. i do think it's time that become understandable in public. otherwise how can a democracy do you have a debate if you don't know plain language means? i have concerns about the translation. i will continue this conversation and thank you. senator collins. >> thank you, madam chairman. i'm going to ask a question about computer security. before i do, i want to give general alexander a chance to answer a very good question that

has to do with americans concerna about their own private computer security and privacy. i saw an interview in which mr. snowden claimed that due to his position at nsa, he could tap into virtually americans phone call or e-mails. true or false? >> false. i know of no way to do that. >> perhaps that's one issue we could put to rest. now let me switch to computer security. >> oh, boy. >> in the president's budget, it is mentioned that the nation has four top cyber risks.

the first one has been of great concern since we produced a bill last year that could not get past. att is a tax better aimed our infrastructure. the general has alluded to the fact that much of our critical infrastructure is owned or operated by the private sector. it's 85% in the private sector. our fbi witness has talked about the eye guardian program which encourages private industry partners to report cyber incidents to the government in real time. had agislation last year

requirement of the owners and operators of critical would becture required to report major cybersecurity incidents. is the administration still support mandatory reporting in such cases? our position then. that remains our position at this point in time. we are prepared to work with congress. you all ultimately write legislation that remains the administration's position. >> thank you. in that legislation, we did pay to the need for a more expert cyber workforce. that such aaccount

great job of going to the resume of this individual. it underscores how much work ther ie is to be done in making sure that we have a well qualified cyber work force. i would like to hear from all on whether you are having difficulties in recruiting individuals who have so youlls that you need of avoid having the hiring a young high school dropout, community college dropout, did not complete his military service, young person with so little experience being given access to so much classified information.

i would like to say first that in the military, we're going to hire young folks out of high school to work in this area. the key will be the training we give them. ideally we would like to get four years of a top knowledge, top-notch engineering school for some of the military positions but we won't get that's what we have is the responsibility to train them. it takes several years to get somebody trained in this area. in effect what we are running as a cyber college for many of our young enlisted folks. on the nsa site, we are able to hire more college graduates into the government side. what i need is greater scrutiny.

what am i getting with my contract support, what other capabilities and how we manage that from a government perspective? that's something i have concerns about and have to address. >> we have a major initiative underway. we have defined our cyber workforce, we are matching the positions with the skill set required to serve in those positions. we are also in the process of looking to hire another 600 individuals to augment that 1500 person workforce. we have a series of programs, one with community colleges where we are looking to find people who have taken the correct courses at any college as beginning hire

workforce members and train them up. we also have a work force program in conjunction with nsa that goes to college is to have centers for excellence that provide us with top-notch, four year graduates. out toeffort to reach the private sector to find individuals there. i think we have an x workforce. but we have a provision that was in the building you work on and that we would like to see in any cyber legislation that gives us some assistance in terms of recruiting and retaining that kind of a workforce which will andw us comparable pay benefits to what nsa is able to offer to its workforce. >> thank you. and my time is expired. the other two witnesses to submit their answers for the record.

>> i think you're absolutely right, senator collins. thank you for asking question. we going to turn now to senator udall. we keep hearing snowden had skills. reviewed it. - mayebe he did. but just because you're a champion summer does not mean we need to make you a navy seal. i will leave it at that. >> thank you. i think the entire panel for their service of his country during these difficult times. i would like to welcome dr. pat gallagher. although his career took him away from albuquerque, he is a native of new mexico and i want to recognize him for his leadership and his commitment to public service. it's good to have you here

today. american citizens, businesses, and government agencies face serious cyber threats. you've talked about some of these here today. data, trade secrets and national security secrets are at risk from an fusion by independent hackers and foreign governments. i supported cybersecurity legislation in the senate and i support funding for our cybersecurity defense. the elephant in the room today is that many americans are also becoming more concerned about what their own government is doing with domestic surveillance. last week, we learned of widespread collection of american phone numbers under the patriot act and the massive scale of online surveillance through the prism system. the patriotinst h

act in 2001 and the fisa amendment act in 2008. i have also voted against the reauthorization since then. several of us attempted to add privacy protections to these laws but faced strong resistance is. today i am sending a bipartisan letter to the privacy and civil liberties oversight board, asking them to make it dirty to it atigate -- to make priority to investigate the phone records collection and the prism program to determine whether they are conducted within the statutory authority granted by congress and take the necessary precautions to protect the privacy and civil liberties of american citizens under the constitution. the board was created by congress based on a recommendation of the 9/11 commission but it has taken years to get a full membership

and the chairman. i have been working to get this board operational since i was in the house. i believe it can provide an important check against civil liberties abuses. was the clark, who counterterrorism aide under three presidents, wrote an article recently on this and suggested we would not have the problems today if we stood up the sport much more quickly. general alexander will the nsa cooperate with any investigation conducted by the privacy and civil liberties oversight board into the agency's collection and analysis programs? mywe well and i think dignity met with the board deputy met- my

with the board yesterday and beat them. from my understanding -- and briefed them. from my understanding, it went well. i do think what we are doing does protect american civil liberties and privacy. the issue is to date, we have not been able to explain it because it's classified. that issue is something we are wrestling with. how do we explain this and still keep this nation secure? that's the issue we have in front of us. this was something debated vigorously in congress. .oth the house and the senate when you look at this, this is not us doing something under the covers. this is what we are doing on behalf of all of us for the good of this country. now what we need to give his bring as many facts as we can

to the american people. so i agree with you. but i want to make it clear. the perspective is we're trying to hide something because we did something wrong. we are not not. we want to tell you what we're doing and say that it's right, the american people see this. i think that's important. but i don't want to jeopardize the security of our country or our allies. so that's what we have to weigh in what we look at what we're going to declassify to allow this public debate. >> i appreciate your answer but it's difficult to have a transparent debate about secret programs approved by a secret court issuing secret court orders based on secret interpretations of the law. know there are many other questions here. i will ask the ones in closed session woman get together later in the week. i have several other questions

on cybersecurity but i see my time has expired so i will submit those for the record. thank you for your answers. i appreciate you meeting with the board and briefing them on what you're doing. i think they are a good counterbalance in terms of what's going on here. i hope to have the credibility to answer these questions also. thank you. >> thank you. i want to respond to a tweet about me from rosie gray. she said, senator barbara is trying hard to keep the other senators from asking general vendor anymore about data mining programs. i want to say to rosie, there is no attempt here to muscle,

stifle any senator from asking any line of question. we have an open hearing the purpose of the hearing is the enduring war of cybersecurity. we might be concerned about data mining we are also concerned the cyber fraud going on against senior .itizens, identity theft, so we're here in cyber but any senator can ask any question at this hearing that they want to. it's an open hearing, high, look forward to keeping in touch. [laughter] >> i want to send a message to rosie as well as a member of the other party. senator mikulski, chairman of

this committee, has been extremely tolerant of our diversion from what the purpose of what this appropriations hearing was. this is the appropriations committee. our purpose is to determine what kind of financial resources are agencies need to address critical issues facing our country. we have diverted thanks to the tolerance of the chair to critical question but one that is scheduled to be and will be thoroughly discussed with every member of congress and with the public to the extent that is. general, i appreciate your .nswer to the question you're walking a very difficult tightrope here. there are demands that you

release previously classified information to not just members of congress but to the general public. and if you don't do that, this frenzy of mischaracterization of these programs will continue in the public. so you're caught the train rock and a hard place. i regret that. i've been urging my colleagues -- beforey thought they draw a conclusion to go learn about the program before they go public. madeormous effort has been to respect the privacy and civil liberties of americans. and the hurdles you have to go through to get the most minimal .nformation as the public is more -- learns

more, the public interprets that everything has been said over a phone is stored go in andand you can retrieve it and there can be abuse of that. you tried to clarify that a number at different times in terms of what you collect and what you don't collect. and how you have to go through a legal process to even begin to ascertain information necessary to come to some conclusion about whether or not this country is about to be attacked by terrorist. given the fact that this issue has swept across the country and you're in a position where we have to disclose more about it to calm the public misperception of what it is, are there consequences?

we have to look at both sides of this question. being transparent, addressing civil liberties and the importance of keeping some missions and activities in a classified manner so that those intending to do us harm don't learn about this and therefore the adjustments to bypass very methods we have to potentially prevent a serious attack against the united states. a little bit more about the -- open thisof our up for the whole world. that means people sitting in

places where they are trying to determine how they can best attacked united dates. >> thank you for the question. that is my concern. great harm is artie been done by opening this up. and the consequence is our security is jeopardized. there is no doubt in my mind labeled those capabilities as a result of this. not only the united states but those allies we have helped will no longer be as safe as they were two weeks ago. i am really concerned about that. i am also concerned that as we go forward, we now know some of this has been released. so what does it make sense to explain to the american people so they have confidence that their government is doing the right. i believe we are. and we have to show them that. you said is right. we have great people working under actually difficult conditions to ensure the

andrity of this nation protect our civil liberties and privacy. they do a great job. i like the american people to know that. they would be tremendously proud of the men and women of nsa could've done this for the last decade. it's a great story. the issue is we then have to andte how much we give out what does that do to our future security? that is the issue before us. there is water, broken glass and everything else on the floor. as a nation going forward, we have to say what can we do? that is where congress has to stand up. on behalf of the american people, some of these will be classified and should be. if we tell the terrorists every way we will track them, they will get through and americans will buy. that's wrong -- americans will

die. that's wrong. part abouthe great the program was rebuffed congress, the administration and together -- broughtram was we the congress, the administration, and the quarks together. and it this is out there is right we have that debate. what makes sense to put out there so people we know what we're doing is right, we should do that. apple be good for the country. there's other parts -- that will be good for the country. there are other parts where you need to say don't do that. that's where you and potentially the courts should

come together and say now what do we do? >> thank you. i appreciate that statement. i think it should be made in the record of published across the nation. byi would like to follow up saying general vendor, i am so proud of you for being in charge of this. your demeanor to the scaring has proven to me that you are the right person for this job -- your demeanor during this whole process has prove tn to me that you are the right person for this job . u.s. says there are 250 -- 250,000 attacks on u.s. government networks every hour. 6 million a day. among the attackers are 140 foreign spy organizations.

what our men and women are up against. we are not in a scrimmage. we are in a war. it's a very serious issue and we are way behind the eight ball in terms of allocation of this new in balance war that we have never fought before under the constitution is probably the best and most open in the world. i think they need a little space. have every confidence to provide leadership. this is one of the best earrings either participated in -- best hearing i have ever participated in in almost 18 years. i have great confidence in senator feinstein. i don't think there's anyone who would question her integrity on this this issue as head of our intelligence committee, trying to balance the

civil liberties representing the state of california which probably has the strongest views on this than any state, and the military which has been engaged since the beginning of war but never one like this. i am very proud of our military and that you, general alexander. i hope more of this can be brought to light. i want to say one other thing to you. your staff is terrific. they greet me privately yesterday. me privatelyed yesterday. somebody described like this -- the department of defense is the coke bottle cap.

the federal, civilian government is like the coke bottle itself and the companies and citizens is the entire room the bottle is in. while all questions are being peppered to the top of this coke bottle, the room we are in is the battleground. it takes you to resources -- huge resources and an unbelievable amount of commitment and compromise between the government and private sector. i want to ask the secretary of , when the president issued his executive order on improving critical infrastructure cybersecurity, it requires not only you but commerce.

treasury is not here. to come up with a report. the report is due today, 120 days from it. do you have the report? if you don't have it, when are you going to have it? and the tope finisnid -- the top findings in the report. >> yes, the report has been done and sent to the omb. it will be subjected by omb to an inter agency process. the expectation is to release it comment.r public a meeting in pittsburgh to draw in the private sector to give us their ideas about incentives to have critical

infrastructure adopt the cybersecurity framework. that report will cover such as insurance is a possibility, i will cover such things as certification with liability protections. these are all ideas and a formative stage. i don't think it's appropriate at this point to make the initial reports public. but the intention of the administration to make the reports public to you. >> but not because they're sick of it because they're incomplete. is that correct? not because they are secrets but because they're incomplete. is that correct? >> yes. crocs my time is up. i will ask to render in writing

of the role of and i shall guard and cybersecurity the nation. i've written you several times about it. i will write again to clarify the role. the department of homeland security under your leadership has awarded a $300,000 grant to a center in the louisiana starting a scalable model to create the cyber warriors of the future. i look forward to talking with you more about that in conjunction with the chairman. >> thank you. as a chair of the homeland security subcommittee along with senator coats, i would hope you would do the due diligence and getting ready for the bill to pursue this topic. we covered a lot of topics today but we really count on you

and homeland security area. >> thank you for holding this hearing and thank you to the witnesses for their service to our country. , if any to bed corrected, i would like to read my understanding of section 215. business records provision was created in 2001 and the patriot act for tangible things. hotel records, credit card statements, etc.. things that are not phone or e- mail communications. the fbi uses the authority as part of its terrorism investigations. the nsa only uses section 215 for phone call records, not for google searches or other things.

215, nsa collects phone records pursuant to a court record. it can only look at that data after a showing that there is a reasonable, suspicion that a specific individual is involved in terrorism actually related to al qaeda or iran. at that point, the database can be searched but that search only provides metadata of those phone numbers of things that are in the phone bill. , so the vast majority of records in the database are never accessed. and are deleted after five years. to look at or use content of a call, a court warrant must be obtained. is that a fair description?

>> that is accurate, senator. >> thank you very much. oncee express my hope again. you expressed some things to us yesterday. i think it's very important to show the cases where this is been used and has been effective as ao that tomorrow classified briefing for all senators. though you do that? what he will bring those -- >> will you do that? >> we wil bring those and work with the agency so aggregate numbers can be released. >> that is appreciated. betty go to cyber. -- let me go to cyber.

saxby chambliss with whom i work closely, we have been trying to forge a census information sharing bill. and members of this committee. is thethe main things extent of liability protection, the importance of the domestic portal of entry for cyber attacks. i would like to ask that you described what is meant by a civilian portal for senators assembled here today and also, the rationale. why this is important for privacy and other reasons. seehe reason of a portal into the civilian infrastructure is of the nation knows somebody is not going directly to an intelligence or military thing with secret information but caner give it to dhs and it

be pushed to fbi and nsa cyber command because we all see the data at the same time. atst at the fbi and then the i can shoot it to both of us. so you have a way doing this. i think that's critical. given the discussion we have on other parts, the american people know we are being transparent. the cyberook at infrastructure to know what is going to wall street as an example. if there is an attack on wall street, i won't see it until afterwards. make of that as a missile coming up to wall street. people that do see it could tell us that there is no guarantee and there's no quick way of doing that. cyber legislation is needed for that. we need to share that information because all of us needed.

our role would be to defend the country. if this is a nationstate trying to take on wall street, you want us to act. a thriving all that is needed >> let me go to another subject to a. of liability protection. you talked about what liability protection standard should be in a bill. there are two parts of it. one is for use of e-government countermeasure. the other is voluntary information sharing between two companies. i think many members feel companies won't share unless they have immunity from identity. could you comment on that? >> there are two different aspects as you stated them. one is how do you share with the government which action you take? here's where i think my personal

thoughts on this are. if the government asks the company to do something to protect the networks or do something and a mistake is made and was our fault, then they should have liability protection for that. they should not stand up and be sued. but if they go company to company and a sharing data back and forth as they do today, i'm not sure the government needs to provide liability insurance that way. i think they're two different things. this is something the administration, your folks, and we are to bring everybody together. i think we want to get it right. there are subtleties to adjust said. . they're different cases and conditions upon when and how would act and what level of liability you would have. those are the ones we truly have to get exactly right. from my perspective, we can't grant everybody gets

liability protection. there is something in the middle we have to get right. from my perspective is when the government is asking to do something, which heavily as part of that liability protection. >> thank you. >> thank you all for being here. theve some questions about situation we are in. i would like to wait until we get into the classified. i think you said about as much as you can say in a setting like this or it -- like this. we're probably not talking about enough. this is a far-reaching program that has tremendous implications to the general public.

, you are amilitary tremendous american. i do think the idea of having military control, we have had those firewalls inte the past. point, i would appreciate your contribution in that. we're not talking about about that. in regard to cybersecurity, what paying us? countries who is involved in this? >> we do have an answer for that. that would be a more appropriate discussion in a classified setting.

ok to say he was getting after us? >> i don't believe in this setting based on the fact that our information and assessment is based on our classified work, i don't believe be overstepping a line. >> you -- you mentioned the fbi's connection with state and local law enforcement. ishillips federal government doing enough to aid -- do you feel the federal government is doing enough to aid when faced with a cyber attack? >> yuou mean stay in law local enforcement? the short answer to that is no but i'm happy to report we have a working plan moving foward. two months ago, we met with

variuos associations are presenting police -- we met with various associations representing police and other organizations. going through a discussion of where law enforcement is with the cyber threat, we realize collectively that information is not slowing down to the state and local departments. they do not have the capability or level of confidence to address it. we decided we needed to address that. we have worked a private plan out. the centerpiece is the internet crime complaint center really get thousands of complaints in a year from people who have been defrauded over the internet. most of the complaints do not meet federal prosecutors

guidelines. it's not something a united states attorney's office would routinely prosecute. it is not something the >> because the competence level is not where it should be, it is simply falling off. i could not hear your word. i could not hear you. are you saying confidence or top tents -- competence? capability, competence. we are working out a pilot project where we are going to package these types of threats and actually disseminate them straight to the major departments where they are located. at the same time, we're going to increase our outreach to state

in local law enforcement and give them the tools and the training that they need to get them to that level of technical competence that they need. >> working with the fbi and a number of cases, as you indicated in the joint task we have a national computer forensics institute in alabama and we have trained over 1300 state and local law- enforcement, prosecutors, and judges in order to be able to deal with this. what we are dealing with here the competence or not the national security threats or the criminal fraud threat. credithe stealing of cards and other identifiable information and using it to take money out of banks around the world. milliond about the $46

taken out including a large amount in this country. that's the kind of training where we can give them the confidence and we can work with them. it's something that we and the .bi are trying to do very much the outreach we have had to various police associations and others as part of it. the main thing is to get the training to work together. a lot of this happens overseas and it's where we have to be involved to trace those overseas. they do not really have the ability to do. reallyjoint program and quite successful. >> thank you, madam chair. thank all of you for being here, particularly general alexander. thanks for your service to the country. i have been looking at the slide you have provided and it is very helpful. seven agencies are involved

including the defense that every agency must do. according to my notes, after the wikileaks incident, a directive order told them to increase security and created committee. you have three years to improve classified of networks and information. it looks like we lost a bit of the problem that is internal, not external. you tell me the president has requested $13 billion in cyber andding for fiscal 2014 someone not even accountable to your chain of command or anyone else in your government is able to get his hands on a court order allowing for the collection of metadata from verizon. how on earth does this happen? wide as a contractor have access to information when we are spending $13 billion to keep

outsiders from getting their hands on it? -- why does a contractor have accessed? >> in our networks, the system administrator, the i.t. infrastructure, it was push more of our work out to contractors. as a consequence, many in government, not just us, have system administrators who are contractors working and running .n networks they don't have total visibility of the network, but they get key parts to it. case, the individual was an assistant administrator with access to key parts of the network. have to address it. it is a serious concern to us and something we have to fix. , dorom your perspective you anticipate a recommendation coming forward that this will be

done in house instead of contractors? to makeot prepared that statement yet. i don't want to react because there are good contractors out there doing a good job. we have to look at the oversight mechanism that we have, the checks and balances in the system, the automated checks and balances that exist, and what we can do to improve it. theou may know, what department is going through in the joint information department wouldn't -- would assist. jie is a huge step in the right direction. it is things that we can and should do, but that will take time. i don't want to mislead you. i know i have personally talked to the secretary about. we are pushing this. it's the right way to go. i wish we could go back in time. nsa is doing the same. >> financial services.

almost every night, someone is trying to hack the system. do you have a mechanism by which you can follow up if a bank gave you an ip address that they think is doing the problem? affect the not -- if that's not the right question for you, you can let me know. almost assuredly if it's a criminal or another, we may have people on the team. they would tip that over to us. we have made great accept -- strides in bringing it together.

it would be fbi, dhs, and us. ipwe gave out 200,000 thoseses to block when distributed denial services are detected. some are overseas. we also send them to friendly governments. we do this on a regular basis as part of this .ripartite team >> of they come to you with an ip address they think is trying to hack the system, do you follow-up? >> and exactly the same way. the three agencies that we represent a go provide some forensic assistance with respect .o that particular incident then we provide a larger mitigation message out to the rest of the community so that particular form of attack cannot be replicated. >> do you go back to the bank that has initiated this investigation and tell them what you have done? .> we do

when we put out the information, we do not necessarily indicate which bank was affected. we make it anonymous unless they want to make it public. to men a bank comes up and said, we give them ip addresses and they do not follow-up, do you classify that as being baloney? >> i cannot be to each and every one of those incidents, but i'm telling you the proposal, the way we work as a team in order to try to do it. if a bank has spoken to you about it, we would be happy to get back to them if they are prepared for you to say. there are multiple banks will talk to me about it. i just want to say thank you very much. there's been a lot, if i might editorialize, there's been a lot of concern about what has happened in the past couple of weeks and i don't serve on the intel community -- committee.

i thinkell you that it's positive for this country to be having the discussion that we're having. there may be some negatives involved, but i think it's positive to have the discussion so that we are thinking about civil liberties, thinking about freedom as it regards to our national security. you have a tough job, but we will get through this and hopefully we will secure both our security and freedom when it's done. thank you very much. madam chairman, thank you very much for having this meeting. to refer to cow excrement. >> then we are lucky. but me start by saying that a thinker nations most important cyber security research is the cyber workforce. using it andple even the most sophisticated technology is even only of limited use and that is why i

think it's important that we successfully identify, recruit, foundation ofthe any of our national cyber security plan. dhs is really important tools in my state and we host a number of the centers of excellence. we have the information and we haventers the information of assurance research centers in seattle and the two year education center. together, those programs really offer cyber security education and training at the two year, undergraduate, masters, and phd level. how youould comment on think these centers of excellence play in to the cyber hiring pipelines and workforce development, i would love to hear your comments on that.

>> we absolutely are dependent asn that form of education a way to get qualified individuals into our workforce. have an outreach program to community colleges but also the centers of excellence as well as universities. the only comments i would make is that we do not have enough people around the country training to do all the jobs that we in government and the private sector need to have done and i think that's really one of the educational frontiers for this country, create that kind of a workforce for all of us. that is certainly something that we support very much. >> thank you for the question. that is a huge program that we work on with over 100 40 different schools collectively between dhs, nsa. the curriculum we set up with the schools, it's not just you get a thing and do it, but you

set up a curriculum to help ensure the students going through that will have the background we need in information assurance and the knowledge of cyber security. activations you can get done. these are difficult to get into. it is not something we just grant. bring ithe schools forward do not meet the qualifications and do not get the creation. -- accredation. tos great for our country build that workforce. >> i agree. i know a coherent strategy really requires cooperation. you have tough collaboration between government, industry, and academia. as we saw with the information economy and the internet, clustering these in the

appropriate government agencies together offers some really great benefits. within the cyber security industry, the puget sound in my state, it has emerged as a leading cyber cluster, if you will. unique and nationally recognized in what they have to offer really creating a great environment for cybersecurity to flourish. they have some really great stakeholders. they have the center for cybersecurity assurance and we have great influential technology and defense companies, microsoft, amazon, boeing and we have two military installations. i've really seen personally how those relationships have benefited the region. secretary gallagher, i would love if you could talk about the importance of the so-called cyber clusters like we have in my state and the steps they're taking to really promote those.

>> the notion of a cluster as a way of creating this amplification effect is broader even thean cybersecurity. is you getto happen a critical mass where you have enough expertise that it creates a pole and the talent base really starts to create wind. you attract the right kind of companies on the government agencies, academic programs. i think it has to be a key part of the cybersecurity education effort as well because in the end, you are talking about workforce development. you're going to have to bring public-private partnerships are going to be such a key element. anator mikulski provided program through the national science security center of

excellence which leverages maryland and virginia, who have also been looking to bring in companies to work collaboratively on cybersecurity to create this tipping in effect that you so eloquently described that are parts of clusters. >> i'm a great proponent of that. i'm out of time, but i did want to submit a question about the national guard. we are going to make sure that we are coordinating with them because they will be our boots on the ground and i'm hoping we are doing the right thing there. on that, i would just like to submit that question. >> thank you, senator. hope that the subcommittees will be having follow-ups that will go even deeper into this in terms of the clusters. we have the national security headquartered there. we have the national institutes of standards headquartered there.

we hope to have the fbi quartered there. >> but thank you very much. senator shelby, did you want to say something? one last observation. i want to thank the panel, all of you, for your service to the country and the way you have conducted yourself before you got here today and what you have done here today. thatnk it has to be said we work together. thank you. said, senator shelby. if there are no further questions, senators may submit additional questions for the committee's official record and we request the witnesses respond within 30 days. as previously announced and in part of our practice for security issues, we will now move to a closed briefing. before we do, i would like to

make some general closing comments. i really do want to thank the witnesses for participating. a good hearing. people do have the right to know. people have the right to say their voices which is why we responded. i think the big national debate that started after 9/11 is the inherent tension between security and privacy. it is now time for a fresh national debate. the second thing is that many of us are concerned about the access to people and businesses information? because of the snowdon revelation, what about governments access to that information? whether it is through the nsa, the irs, whatever before asking,

what is the government doing? the purpose of this hearing is who is rating the information that we have? maybe the are concerned about what the nsa is doing, but i'm concerned about the people every single day who are trying to get access to someone's social security number, their medicare number, their checking account number, their smartphone information so that they can -- stealill from them from them or have other kinds of access. i'm worried about that. i'm concerned every day about the number of people out there that are coming up with new ideas and new products to create new jobs for the 21st century. they are being stolen in the

greatest cyber espionage highest. from the fda it or the patent office. i'm worried about that. then i worry about things like access to those who are trying to raid the grid. tonight, there's a gathering storm. dorecho may be hitting and we know when the grid is shut down, it's a terrible consequence in terms of our society. don't ever want to have a grid shutdown in the greater capital region or anywhere in the united states. for the purpose of this hearing, it was to go after those who ,ave predatory intent predatory premeditated intent against either an individual, business, or critical infrastructure. those who are also concerned about if government is now passing beyond a red line on civil liberties. i think we ought to have that

debate. we have to have that discussion. it could be the subject of another hearing here. there will be the feinstein hearing, the judiciary meeting. you know what? this is america. people have a right to know. they have a right to have their public officials explain. i think it's been a great hearing. this committee will now stand in recess after the closed briefing on till the morning of thursday, june 20, where we will vote on spending allocations and also take of the very important legislation of veterans affairs and agricultural appropriations. this committee now stands in recess. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> outgoing fbi director robert miller will be testifying expected to cover the boston marathon bombing, the benghazi attack, and government surveillance. live coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 3 and c- span.org. >> the c-span video library has reached a milestone. since its online launch, there are now more than 200,000 hours ,f public affairs, policy

nonfiction books all searchable and free, a public service created by private industry. >> this morning, we spoke to democratic congresswoman loretta sanchez about the electronic surveillance programs. this is 45 minutes. host: we want to welcome back loretta sanchez, a member of the intelligence subcommittee. you were at yesterday's briefing of the nsa is surveillance program. what did you hear? guest: we had several i would say not upper level but people who were involved in the situation from various agencies, two or 3.

i would say that the mood in the room was not a happy mood. and generally speaking when we go into these classified -- this was a classified meeting. some of us believe that people do this, they label them in such a way so that we cannot walk out and say what we heard. yesterday they talked about walking us through the program and came back with, you'll authorize this and you knew about. host: is that true? guest: the patriot act and the fisa act. these programs are legal. maybe people on the intelligence committee may have known more in

detail about all of this going on. it is hard for a member to get the full picture of what is happening. you had democrats and republicans in the room and that was a group of very angry people. host: what types of questions were members asking? guest: how did this happen? how did we not know about it. this was so important. you had access. we did not have access to top- secret type of information. not all congress people have the same access. i sit on armed services. i push it to get information. when i get information on

programs, i have to go into a room. it is time consuming. you have to schedule it. you have to schedule people from the outside to be there. i does this as part of my living. someone on transportation or the education committee, many times they do not have an idea of what is going on and they are relying on us. i think that tactically there may be a possibility that most congressmembers' could have gone to that. there were a lot of obstacles.

host: what was the response when you ask how this happens? how a low-level staffer working for a government contractor getting a hold of these documents? guest: the standard comment is this is under investigation and we cannot speak about it. there has to be a monumental change. this process, as representatives of america's people not only to see the policy but to see the money. "we are still investigating and we know nothing right now." those are pretty much the answers. host: so what happens? this is the front page of "the washington times."

there needs to be a rotation of lawmakers who sit on the intelligence panel, according to "the baltimore sun." guest: you cannot sit more than six or eight years. people like to be on that committee. in my personal opinion, what starts to happen with some of the members is that they -- it is almost like the intel committee becomes their friends. the more nicer they are, they get more tidbits of information. it is hard to get up to speed on the intelligence issues. you cannot just beyond for two

years and get off. we do need to find some way in which to get that out. host: this comes from "the washington post" this morning. host: in other words, this is legal. guest: this was all legal. there was so much pressure after 9/11. i refuse to vote for that and spoke up about that. we are putting our civil

liberties on the line. i am an american. i do not want the government to monitor our phone calls. so that was legal. we found out inadvertently that president bush and his intel committee will listening in on phone calls. and that was not legal. you had a group of congress people who write up the fisa act and retroactively make it ok. "we can collect this kind of data." host: what needs to be done? guest: i think there are some

good provisions in the patriot act. we need to have a serious debate, conversation. it is a very difficult. i saw mayor bloomberg today. "it is a very hard." i get that. here is the thing. at what cost? -- and they are good at this. the government is good at this. "danger, will robinson. it is terrible. everybody is going to kill us." let's sit down. let's not stampede over people's individual rights.

host: tony agrees with you. this is "the hill" newspaper. guest: she is the senator of my state. he told us about the information. the laws are there. he is not -- he has a lot of problems. host: do you consider him a traitor? guest: under the current laws, he would be considered a traitor

in this country. he definitely should not have done what he did. host: he is on a whistleblower, then? guest: not in that sense. i have worked with a lot of whistle-blowers. joe wilson talked about whistleblowers. one reason he is not a whistleblower is this was all legal under the current law. under the current law. some congress people understood it. the section that allows this to happen was the biggest concern i had. host: this is from the washington times."

guest: well, i cannot speak to what is in mr. obama -- president obama's mind or in his intel. i want to say, wakeup, congress. this has been going on for awhile. it is difficult to get information. some people stand back. they might have the nsa in there. the nsa can do no wrong. we created a whole new structure within the department of

defense. there is a lot of intel being collected. is it getting in our way? why does dod and nsa have to have it? and why is it so secret? we are just throwing money at it. you might go off and read the budget. it is so difficult. no one wants to explain it to you. host: we are talking about the nsa surveillance programs. this is the headline from "the washington post." hi, bret.

caller: i have a twofold question. i'm very upset about the way the conservatives are characterized when it comes to immigration reform. almost every conservative has no problem with legal immigration. we resent our tax dollars going to welfare programs that came here illegally. that is the contingent. no problems whatsoever for someone that wants to, or legally. when you come here illegally, you have committed a crime. explain what would happen if i went to mexico. what would happen to me if i expected the same benefits? guest: thank you for calling in.

that is a valid question. i understand the american laws pretty well. i try to understand what i'm voting on. because of my constituents and how we handle them when they go afoul of the laws. i am not familiar with the mexican laws. if you contact the mexican embassy, you might get some information with respect to that. i do not think we're anti-

immigrants. we believe it is important to have new blood, immigrants, a need for workers and new ideas, a neat to have immigrants from every nation coming here. as we work for immigration reform, it is to make the law that allows people to come to this country and to get status and to move back and forth. the biggest problem we have is that we need more people. when we look at immigration reform, and it is about redoing the law so that people who want to have fear and that we need can in fact come here legally.

host: this is from sea of tranquility. guest: we have as much power as we are willing to take. the power of the purse. i have to take the hit if i tax you. we have the power to tax and the power to use that money. we can withhold money from programs. the congress has a lot more power. when it comes to intelligence and these very precarious policies and situations, it is not willing to assert itself as much as they should.

those with the power to do so do not talk a lot about it to us. the intel community -- "i need to know this and this and this" in a meeting that they had behind closed doors. "do not worry, little lady. don't try to wrap your head around it. just know that we are doing the right thing." i think that was pretty condescending. host: there are efforts to push for the surveillance court to open up when they approve some kind of a subpoena or allow the government to do these different types of surveillance programs. would you agree with that? guest: i would have to see the details. i think it is time the

intelligence community understands we are sick and tired of being told not to worry. we need to be briefed on some programs. homeland security. that is what we do. we asked some of the intel people to brief us and their answer is, "you are not important enough. you're just the homeland security committee. we don't have the time to come." that is pretty much the answer we receive.

or they say they will send somebody. "we weren't too busy." they put barriers up. host: you control the purse strings. guest: yeah, i would say that it comes back to the issue that i believe our government tends to classify to a much higher level so that everything can be done in this black hole. if you don't have a security clearance to move documents, you have a security clearance. there's a lot of that. since 9/11, this area of the government has grown leaps and

bounds with nobody putting any control over it. "take this money and go do it." that is pretty much what has been going on. host: there is a chart of the top tech providers to the defense department and the money they secured in government contracts. james, go ahead. caller: yes. i would like to make a comment. mr. snowden is a traitor of this he should be persecuted

to the fullest of the law. and to you, you sat on the intelligence committee. i do not know how long you have been in congress. each one of you is trying to tell the nation that you didn't know anything about this and that you are very upset and each one of you were upset yesterday. why weren't you upset when you if you were there and voted against the patriot act, why were you upset when it first came down? host: ok, james. guest: i am a democrat. it doesn't matter what label i have on me. i voted each and every time

against the patriot act. on the fisa act, i voted to each and every time. i put statements into the record and i have been on television. "why would you be voting against this?" this is one of the concerns that i had. i outlined this particular case. i was upset and voted against it. i sit on the intel subcommittee of the homeland security committee. if you heard what i said in the last few minutes, being on the intel subcommittee of the homeland security committee, the intelligence community does not want to brief us or deal with us and makes it difficult to get any kind of information. so yes, i am upset.

maybe this will all of some of my colleagues to start to say, maybe you are right. let's go back to the table. maybe we need to expand the intel committee. maybe we don't need as many intel people. this is all for debate. right now the patriot act and the fisa act passed with a lot host: mark, norfolk, virginia. caller: good morning. greta, i appreciate you taking off your partisan hat. mr. wilson was killing me.

going straight to the topic. when i hear you and other representatives talk, what we need to be concerned about is it seems that the corporate piece of this is having more sway in the dialogue. anytime a member of congress basically gets shooed away from getting questions. if you cannot get answers, can you imagine how far off the grid the typical american is? maybe a couple of decades ago, i was only one of two links away

from having a conversation with a representative. now with the advent of all of this technology, it doesn't seem to have the same impact. until campaign finance laws did change, we're heading towards a ditch. guest: thank you so much for your call. that piece of the budget has been growing since 9/11. it is difficult to understand what is in there. it is like reading a book are going to a lecture from a prof essor's class. you can ask him if there is

something you don't understand. that peace is not available to most congress people. if we ask our colleagues, they have been in top-secret meetings. they cannot talk to was on the outside. everybody is so busy. host: explain me." the schiff. guest: there are several rooms. there is the capital and the individual offices. there are offices for people to do their work. there are some special meeting rooms that are made to secure so that we can talk about top- secret things and classified things, etc. i have to ask to reserve the room. i am in the minority.

i have to ask for republicans if i can have the room for 30 minutes. then i need to have the person showing me the information to agree to have a meeting at that time and for them to come here and do that. i have to get rid of all of my gadgets and electronics. and then one of the things that i do, let's talk about this, we will tell you this, we will tell you this. you walk out of there and if you take away one, too, or three things it is probably a lot. and it is difficult, difficult, because we are really at a disadvantage. they get to tell us what they want.

how do we contrast that against someone else? is this guy lying to me or not? you have read the stuff in the newspaper about senator in oregon asking in open session if the nsa collects information from the people out there? no, sir, we do not. the answer to the question in my opinion was so farcical. host: can you tell it? guest: basically they said -- you did not understand the context of how that was asked and if you have listened to the stuff before the poor guy that was answering the question thought that it meant whether people had dogs, that information. when he said no, he was thinking i did not get the names of dogs of people.

i am over exaggerating, but that is really how ridiculous that is. host: referring to the question about whether they were surveiling americans. guest: i do not know. my answer is i just do not know about that. host: could that have been some sort of classified information? guest: it could have been in a classified section or an intel bill. those budgets are huge and big. yes. but remember, when you read a bill here, it is interesting, in the california state legislature the current law, when they want to amend that law four bills going through to amend it, they strike out what exists and put

in a different color of what they want to change. you can do the research to see what type you want. here in the congress they do not do that. they just say they're putting this behind section 13. what does that mean? people say to me all the time, did you read the law? no. what i did was look at the committee and they told me -- this is the bill you want, what the heck does it mean? i do not know what it means to go to section 13 of the 1963 amendment to the law amended 14 times? that is what you want your congressperson to do. leading this stuff is like reading hieroglyphics. here, we really should go to a system like the state of california has, so that everyone could follow what was going on. even americans. even the general republic --

general public. but we might learn things that we do not want to know. it is interesting what happens around here. host: pat, republican line. caller: thank you for your honesty, but i must tell you, if you look at the way the public feels about congress and the senate right now, you know the numbers are down, ok? i am still waiting to hear more information on benghazi. will that ever happen? all i hear our meeting after meeting and nothing gets done. it seems like you send things to the white house, he throws it over his right shoulder into the rose garden, does what he wants, and it is back two years later. i was a democrat my whole life until the health bill, when

someone introduced it as sign it or read it later, 2000 pages. i said -- [laughter] i was on wall street for a long time. no one asked me for my signature unless i knew what i was signing. guest: you sound like a very smart woman. thank you for calling in and putting some context to things. you know, yes, the answer is that congress people are generalists. we have everything coming at us, national security, transportation, health care bill, all of it constantly. we have staff that specialize in particular areas, but we have all seen the last few years. they have taken a 20% cut in staff and it is becoming harder, we are trying to do more. i am not excusing that, but it is difficult to get into the meat of a bill. usually the people who do, they

sit on transportation committee, defense committee, and when a defense bills come in -- i am looking at every line. why? when i go to take the vote on the house floor people are pulling me aside and saying -- what do you think about what is going on with the f-35 with a joint strike fighters? should we continue? loretta, what is happening with -- the answer is that it is not obama throwing things back at

us, it is the congress that is in a stalemate, in a sense, between the senate and house, between the house republicans -- the democrats in the house side are in the minority right now, we have very little say in the bills that are moving. we try to impact them but it is difficult to do because the house is a winner-take-all system. remember, i told you i had to reserve a skiff if i wanted to preserve something? that is at the favor of the republicans, you see what i am saying? it is a much more complicated job. most of my colleagues were very hard at trying to get this right. it is just a lot comes through and there is a very real batch of contentious members, more so than 17 years ago when i started. host: this twitter message -- "the financial times" this morning put forward this idea -- a model for a thorough reexamination of the power and scope of u.s. intelligence agencies.

guest: my answer to you would be to push your congressperson to put aside partisan politics, push your congressperson to ask that we do a revamp and a discussion around the nation for americans to understand. listen, if the majority of americans told me they were not doing bad things, 80%, i would probably look at them and say that i do not like it and personally do not like it. host: the polls showed 54%. guest: and a lot of them did not even really understand what was going on. that is why we need a discussion around america. i know the america that i grew up in. i believe in red, white, and blue, in individual liberties. my parents came to this country, immigrants. they have two daughters in the

u.s. congress. we are american. when i think of america, i think of america and i think of all of the amendments, all of the protections. i particularly think of amendment number 4, which says that no one is going to be eavesdropping on me. we have laws right now that say that they can. host: congressman loretta sanchez, a democrat from california, her sister also serves in the house. what about a committee? guest: but, if you are talking to someone for a long time and i know we are from the intel community and i do not doubt that you do good work and do not doubt that you are american and care about this country. but i think, though, as my father used to say, congress has given you a very long leash and maybe you are doing things out

there that most americans really do not want to to be doing. maybe we need a committee that takes a look at the liberty on individuals as opposed to the security for the good of the whole. i think that is a real dialogue we should have. host: democratic line, wilbur. caller: i did a lot of catering up there on capitol hill. i know all the rooms you are talking about. my question is, about the immigrants coming inside this country, i worked with a lot of spanish people across all my

jobs. i think it is the right thing to do. they are hard workers across the country. some of these mean-spirited republicans need to stop, because they are doing that >> definitely the debate is raging. kicking up some dust. it would be my hope for the real viability of a good economy of family unity and homeland security that the congress can come up with a law that would allow us to have immigrants here in this country so that they do not have to hide in the shadows create when they hide in the shadows, they get taken advantage of by some wages are more

depressed when these people cannot turn around and say they're paying me less than memo -- minimum wage. they are a part of what is happening right now. if we get the law good and i think we will be a much better america. several amendments have been filed create our coverage at 930 a.m. eastern time on c-span 2. the nsa chief is expected to be testifying on cyber security threats, that is what he was scheduled to testify on.

we will be asked by the about the surveillance programs. 3. will cover that on c-span the military chiefs will be testifying before the senate budget to many this morning at 1030 and will have that on c- span3 and the same chiefs will go over to the house side to testify before the house budget committee on their 2014 budget request likely also to be asked about government contractors and the intelligence community. you are just a breath of fresh air. i have been a c-span junkie for years. i have come to the conclusion that the congress of the united states no longer runs this country. it has come down to being run by the executive ranch all most entirely. i am not even so sure how much the elected -- the president and

vice president at the national level have been running even the executive branch because the professional bureaucrats within these agencies, they can crow -- they control and revised the rules and they wish. this latest round, in the last election cycle, i donated to someone running for congress. i noubscribed because longer trust anything about what is going on with the government. i think what we have to have is people like you who will lead a congressional revolt. unless congress takes back their power, people are going to be afraid to donate to because they are afraid it will end up on someone's enemy list. >> let me begin by telling you sometimes i'm not very popular with some organizations. sometimes the businesses for

example. they have ahat bigger ability to sway the congress these days. then just your average person who used to be able to walk right into the building and come right up to our office and say, i am from your district and i wanted to talk to you about something. i go home every week as a congressperson, and i lived in california, so it takes me 10 hours to go there and tend to come back. i work 20 hours before i ever start work. when i go home i make sure i am out in the community. i go to the macy's and make sure that people see me shopping their, because they stop me and ask me what is going on with this, what is going on with this? would you do this? would you do that? i think a good congressperson tries to do that. it takes a lot of effort.

before they told me that most congress people stayed in washington, d.c., and that they kind of made their community here. they all knew their kids and had a lot more trust in each other. for that reason they were a better block, if you will, a better institution. they believed in each other and provided a strong contrast for the administration. that does not happen anymore. how i do not know how we get congress people to actually understand -- take back the power because you represent the people. host: yesterday with national security officials and the nsa program, we were told by a green wall of the guardian that there was more to come, more

than they had received from edward snowden. were officials asked about that? how are they planning to respond? guest: what we learned in there is significantly more than what is in the media today. i cannot speak to what we learned in there. and i do know know if there are more leaks, war information's somewhere, if someone else is going to step up. but i will tell you that i believe it is just the tip of the iceberg. but again, all of these things were legal. host: can you categorize this type of information? you know more than what is in the public. is it worse than what the public knows now? guest: i do not know about

worse, but it is accumulating. it is broader than most people realize. host: you suspect that they told you this because this is the type of information that could be leaked out? guest: i do not know who leaks, but again i want to caution everyone, these programs are legal. under the law. i mean, you have aclu's saying that this is unconstitutional and, you know, congress passing laws, the administration doing this and running with it. the supreme court coming in and saying -- maybe not, guys. that is the balance of power. that is what we have to been to. i will tell you that there is probably more to come. certainly the congress people realize that these issues are not going away. i hope my colleagues have

realize that we need to get on top of this. host: you have done a lot of work on sexual assault in the military. the word today is that a measure will be replaced to make a special prosecutor decide whether or not a case is tried and instead have a senior military officer to review decisions by commanders who declined to prosecute sexual assault. guest: kristin is a good friend, she was a blue dog in the house. she's doing a good job representing new york. i declined to be a house sponsor of her bill. 17 years working this issue way before there were other women on the committee. getting a good understanding of what is going on.

i do not believe it was in the best interests of people who have allegedly been sexually assaulted or rates to have things taken to the outside to look at situations. i think that we told everyone in the chain of command responsible for what is going on because this is about discipline and unit cohesion. if you as a leader cannot handle this correctly, then you should not be a general. you should not be a kernel. the issues and the legislation in the house side, there is a prevalent amount of the work i have done in it on the floor today. the women are coming together in a way where we think about what we have to do, but it does not

include what senator gillibrand wants to do. i have not seen what chairman lebron is proposing, but more -- might be more along the lines of what i think needs to happen. host: thank you, congresswoman loretta sanchez, for speaking with us. guest: how fast the time goes. >> discussing the national security agency's surveillance programs and congressman randy forms of virginia talks about nsa surveillance programs. sexual assaults in the military and other issues. leader, a look at the espionage act and how the obama administration is using it. our guest is brian fong.

live at 7 a.m. eastern on c- span. >> the senate armed services committee worked on the defense authorization bill today, specifically on the issue of sexual assault in the military. they offered ideas to address the problem. >> i want to thank my colleagues for their absolute determination to stamp out the scourge of sexual assault in the military. there are -- they are truly undermining our military readiness and there are so many important and good ideas in this bill that will certainly make a difference. , i do not this crisis believe that it will be enough if we do not see the opportunity and embrace the cut of systemic reform that will truly increase accountability and objectivity and trust in the .ilitary justice system

by having trained illegal military professionals handle the serious crimes from the beginning. this is not a radical idea. it is a common sense proposal that is carefully crafted to leave many crimes within the chain of command including 36 serious crimes that are unique to the military. it is simply the right thing to do. it has been done throughout the world by our closest military allies without any negative consequences. fromo not have to take it me or my colleagues who support this measure. take it from the victims who have said to us over and over again that they do not report because they do not trust the chain of command. ticket from the military leaders who just testified in front of us, that they themselves say i'm a "they do not trust us."

if we are going to achieve our goals of reducing the number of unwanted sexual contact, sexual assaults and rapes that are 26,000 a year, we have to start by increasing the reporting of such cases, up from the current rate of 3300. then we have to get those assailants out of the uniforms that they do not deserve the honor of wearing. the chain of command has told us for decades that they will solve this problem. they have failed. we have heard the words zero- tolerance for over two decades. starting with secretary dick cheney in 1992 when he said, we have got a major effort under way to try to educate everybody to let them know that we have got zero-tolerance policy where sexual harassment is involved.

that was over 20 years ago. it is our duty to act on behalf of of the sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers who so bravely serve in our military and make us proud. if you look at the surveys, a lot of the victims talk about retaliation. in the civil system it is more that is is painful and personal and private and the kind of money -- moment you would never want to say out loud. in the military it is all that plus. what impact will it have on my career? what i tried to look at is where with the victim boast me -- the most protected from retaliation? a victim goes back into the unit. are they more protected from retaliation of this case is going to trial because some outside prosecutors that nobody knows said it should question mark or are they more protected from retaliation when the commander of that unit says we

are going to court-martial. we are having a trial. i can make a strong common sense argument that the latter is true, not the former. not only does common sense tell me this is true, it is also what i have been told in numerous conversations with military prosecutors and with victims. thatestly do not believe the chain of command at the disposition phase which in the military means at the beginning, not the end, is not our main problem. our main problem is the military does not even know how rapes in sodomy's they have. i have no idea. because the only anonymous information there gathering is under the broad title of sexual contact. some people anonymously are saying whether they have had unwanted sexual contact. that could be a lot of things. and thatnot criminal are certainly not rape and

sodomy. so first, we need accurate data as to how big the problem is and then we have to make sure that the mission of the chairman referred to is getting after that. of focus on supporting victims that is the problem. ofis a lack of resources high-level investigations, it is an inability to track offenders because of restricted reports. . got news for everybody it is very unusual for anybody to do just -- this one time. and what a better place to be a roving predator than the military that moves you all the time. from country to country, from base to base, if we do not get a handle on tracking these perpetrators, in a more aggressive way, we will never accomplish this mission. >> the committee voted against her amendment that would have

taken sexual assault cases out of the military chain of command. and instead approved a measure to require high-level review whenever a commanding officer decides against prosecution of these cases. the house continues work on its version of the defense bill tomorrow. our live coverage of the house begins at 10 a.m. eastern here on c-span. ceo discusses mobile technology and consumer privacy. then nsa director keith alexander answers questions about government surveillance programs at a senate hearing. the senate armed services committee debates how the military response to sexual assault. >> in the early 1900s, cocaine was used by a wide number of americans. it was in coca-cola, for example. it wasn't a number of products. there was concern when black

people started to use cocaine, the new york times ran an article in 1914 about like folks being the new southern menace black cocaine fiends being the new southern menace and the way that cocaine was talked about, black people being under the influence was talked about was that it caused them to be more murderous, it caused them to rape white women, it caused them to be unaffected by bullets, all of this nonsense. this was going on then and it is going on now although the language has been tempered. drugs are such easy scapegoats. >> professor carl hart argues that drug laws are based on race and class rather than behavior resulting from drug use. "after words" on cspan2.

>> they are very optimistic up -- operationally because we believe he has got the situation he needs. on the evening of june 27, he has a conversation with one of his subordinates. it is isaac trimble who is along as a commander emma as a general officer with no command. he is going along with the army. he talks to lee and lee says they will,, talk about the federal's probably through frederick. broken down with hunger and hard mont marching. overwhelming in force on their advance, crush back on another and by successive repulses and surprises, before they can concentrate, create a panic and virtually destroy the enemy army. rafuse is one of the scholars you can watch during

the 150th anniversary of the battle of gettysburg. live on c-span 3. >> the head of brookings institution. the ceo of at&t talked about how they would protect customer privacy and his company's compliance with nsa's data collection program. we will hear from senator mark pryor. this is one hour. welcome. you can pose questions or comments through twitter if you

would like to. the number of smart phones worldwide has increased this year to more than one billion devices. mobile phones are being used to improve education, healthcare, and entrepreneurship around the globe create given the growth of mobile, we're wanting to address the topic of what american policymakers should do to respond to this accelerating revolution. where are we going to get more spectrum in order to enable wireless applications come a what can the public and the private sectors due to stimulate greater innovation and investment in mobile technology? to help us understand these issues, we have two outstanding speakers, one of whom is here. the second one will be arriving and i will introduce him when he arrives shortly. we are pleased to welcome randall stephenson to brookings.

this is the ceo of at&t. since becoming chairman he has transformed the company into a global leadership position in mobile internet services and ip- based business communications solutions. under his leadership, at&t has to radically expanded its wireless business and enhanced its advanced enterprise tape abilities. the company has expanded its fast-growing form for integrated television data and voice services. at&t has initiated the largest education initiative in the company's history. at&t aspire which is a philanthropic program designed to help college and career readiness for students at risk of dropping out of high school. welcome to brookings. we will start with the conversation with you. how do you evaluate current

telecommunications policy and where can we do better? this is going to surprise people. if you were to do a scan around the lobe on public policy concerning our industry, you would probably have to conclude that the united states has the been the mosts pro-competition. it has been by a long ways -- has driven the ,reatest amounts of investment more than anywhere in the world. it is probably -- it has driven the greatest amount of innovation in this industry of anywhere in the world. there are

a number of places where he you could point to to demonstrate that. i really believe the place that stands out most readily and most apparently is our policy on spectrum. it has evolved rather significantly over the last five or six years but what we have done in this country from the spectrum policy standpoint, giving, more than anywhere in the world. it is probably -- it has driven the greatest amount of innovation in this industry of anywhere in the world. more aire market, putting it out in a fashion that the people who buy it or that license it treated like an owned resource. we are exploiting our spectrum in this country more than just about anywhere else in the world. i give a classic comparison of spending a lot of time in europe. in europe, you're not seeing mobile internet technology take off the way you have in the united states. one of the key verys i .2, they are in a difficult situation so there is probably some lack of investment that you could attach to that. i believe primarily you attach it to the spectrum policy in europe. it is a policy that tends to -- it is different i a country which is another interest -- --

by a country which has another interest. when you have a license for a limited time, you think differently about how you invest into an exploit that technology. as a result you look at what is happening in the united states to mobile technology versus europe. .urope was the leader europe today in the developed world unfortunately is among the bottom in terms of developing these technologies. the u.s. i believe is at the top in terms of developing these technologies. >> the fcc has proposed a new incentive option as a way to free up additional spectrum. how should that be structured and what are your expectations in terms of how it will go? isi would hope that it structured consistent to how it has been done in the past. when you had the type of success that we have had in this country, one would ask why you would change it too much. what we have intended to do in this country is the regulators

have set -- welcome, senator. entrance.out a big we like that. >> how are you doing? good to see you. >> why don't you continue? just from a policy standpoint what we have done is the fcc, the regulator that oversees this set caps and terms of how spectrum should anyone carry or be allowed to hold. well overerved very time but i will tell you over the last couple of years, there -- been another policy policy is overstating it. i would say practice. the fcc has combined this with -- they have been far more efficient at dealing with the secondary market transactions inspector -- of spectrum. .hey will not but it to work allowing companies to trade and sell and buy and sell the licenses have basically

facilitated ensuring that spectrum is being moved by market forces to its highest and best use. that is an important aspect. you have to pair that with really strict bill requirements. someone cannot just acquire the aectrum and house it on speculative basis. if if you put those policies in place, what is the government they shouldw much hold. and this is critical. requirements on building out into the spectrum within certain limits of time. >> i would like to bring senator prior to this conversation. he is smart because he survived arkansas politics for 23 years now. in 1998 he was elected attorney

general where he tough and the laws against drunk drivers and enacted legislation to protect children on the internet and the event unwanted telemarketing calls. he was elected to the senate in 2002 and reelected in 2008. he serves on six different senate committees including appropriations and homeland security and government affairs, among others. chairs the subcommittee on communications technology and the internet where one of his major priorities has been in helping rural communities meet their growing infrastructure needs. on this themep of spectrum and what we need to do in order to get more spectrum so we can enable greater mobile applications in the future, what do you think we need to do on spectrum policy? >> we have been having a series of what we call state of hearings in the subcommittee.

we are having a total of four. we have had our wireless. the reason we call them state of is because we have probably 30 to 40% of the subcommittee is new to the subcommittee. in some cases, new to the senate. we're trying to give them an overview of what is going on in the telecom world and internet --ld. also we are trying to give us a chance, the other members of the committee and even the community at large to hear where these senators are coming from. this is kind of a blank slate. one of the things we talk about in the wireless hearing was spectrum. --seemed like every time whatever issue it was we kept coming back to spectrum. obviously that is the name of the game when it comes to wireless services.

you have to have adequate spectrum to do this. lots of pieces to this that we talked about. we talked about the fact that the government owns a lot of spectrum right now. some of the intelligence agencies and a few other agencies here and there. and kind of how we make transition -- we may transition some of them off. one of the things we did is we had a classified hearing in the full commerce subcommittee. it was classified with dod and the intelligence agencies and a few more in there to talk about. one problem there is we do not have a great inventory of what they have and how they are using it. there is some baby steps we have to take, some building blocks to .now where that is going one of the things that came through in the classified hearing was that just as there demand for more

spectrum and more gadgets and gizmos and uses for spectrum in the commercial sector, the private sector, you saying that same phenomenon with our military and with our intelligence. they're using more of it, they are much more interactive. things are much more errorless and much more mobile. and all these things. this is kind of background. when you talk about spectrum, there are lots of pieces to it. i think that what the chairman said here is that there are some basic criteria that you have to do to get it right. we need to get it right long- term. if we are going to ask the department of defense to move off an area of spectrum, that is a big deal. they have a big investment in infrastructure. they have a big investment in technology. they have handsets, all these missiles and drones and all

kinds of things that are using the spectrum right now. we will work through those issues but i think it is critical we get this right. we also need to find ways to make our use of spectrum much more efficient. we need to maximize the use of spectrum. where i see it is you are growing up in oklahoma, i am growing up in arkansas. we had no idea what it was good for. we felt when day we might need it but no one ever thought about it. now it is an absolute premium. what we're are doing is there is this never ending set of ideas on how to use it. we need to understand it is a limited resource. it is a huge, extremely valuable national resource and there are good reasons why companies like at&t want to get certain blocks and certain bands of it. there are a lot of good reasons

but we have to do it in the right way. that is one of the things we got in the hearings. , very welleople intentioned. they may come down on different sides of this issue they have good rationale to do it. we're going to have to sort through some of this. >> one more question for the senator. you mentioned the importance of getting it right. how should those auctions be structured and what is your sense of how they're going to go? , we think that here again had two different witnesses that talked about this in our subcommittee hearing. basically one said that we should allow the larger companies to come in and buy these huge national -- i do not know if you call it tracts. >> footprint.

>> lots of good reasons you would want to do that. his conclusion was that is how the government makes the most revenue off the auctions. his rationale was this is the right policy, the right way to go. we had another witness, another panelist say this needs to be more regionalized. smaller blocks, etc. created that is how you maximize the revenue. both of them made their case. someone is going to have to make that decision. is be the referee on that. going to be be the fcc with a lot of congressional input. >> it is kind of interesting. i think you are spot on. , makingtalking comparisons about the u.s. versus europe in spectrum policy. you nailed it. what is it you want to accomplish? is what you want to accomplish

maximizing revenue, that may be a difference tortured spectrum than one that says we want the lowest prices possible. that could be very different answers and if you want an answer that says what is important to us is that the u.s. not only maintain but extend its lead in terms of innovation development and exportation of these resources, that lead you down the different path. the senator is right on. we have to ask the question, what is it you want to accomplish and you structure a spectrum. >> it is a hyper-competitive world right now. there are ways to structure spectrum or create more or less competition. a lot of those are judgment calls. >> there has been a lot of attention to the national security agency and the requests for added data from telecom and internet providers. google, facebook, microsoft, and yahoo have called for greater

transparency. should the government allow companies to publicize the number of records and internet data requests they receive? >> should they allow us to? i'm glad the senator is here. it is probably a question for the senator. >> as a real we do not comment on matters of national security. you think about all the things we have been talking about here already. just on very short order. and how if you go further in terms of how we envision all these technologies to be taken advantage of by the consumer and by businesses, we are motivated. we want everybody using these devices for every functionality conceivable. we actually anticipate five years from now that your primary identifier in the marketplace will be your mobile phone number. as you conduct commerce, as you identify yourself, we believe the phone number is how you will

be identified. one of theandpoint most important things that we have to achieve as an industry and as a society is the consumer and the business has a high degree of confidence. start with that, that is a high priority for us as an industry. has -- they will get subpoenas and we strictly comply with those orders and warrants. i cannot go much further than that. >> i think that a few years ago

some of the companies came in and talked with me about this very issue. there was another context a few years ago. they were looking at possible liability for complying with these court orders. i do not think that there are companies in that position. >> i think thatthat was the cone talked about before. these companies felt their patriotic ud was to comply with the court orders. when various federal agencies were coming and saying we need your help, we are trying to prevent terrorism in the future, these companies by and large said ok. they turned around a few years better and they're looking at massive amounts of liability. i have tried to help on that over the years. with all that said, any of these programs that we are learning about that nsa and others run, we have the eight best we have to be extremely careful. we have to make sure that our court system works and there are why compelling reasons

these agencies would want access to that data. and we need to make sure that there is a lot of integrity in that process. it was interesting, after this -- the guardian made this story , i cannotetty much think of an exception. the members of the senate and house intelligence committees came out defending the programs. again, a lot of this is when you get inside the programs and know what they're doing and what is going on, you get more comfortable with it. sometimes the headlines do not always tell the whole story and the president has been very aggressive in defending the as well. i am sure that we will have some hearings. the intelligence committee has made arrangements for any of us who want to sit in on not just the classified briefings but the per in a classified setting,

explanations of these programs. >> why do we open the floor to some questions? we will have to take off and 15 minutes. he has his job i guess on capitol hill. could give us your name we areanization. >> talking about that in the subcommittee and the full committee level and the senate commerce committee. onave not made a decision that. i want to see where the fcc comes out on that. i hope to and plan on having lots of input and lots of discussions as we go through this process. not just with the fcc, that is

important but with stakeholders to make sure that we get this right. i do think fcc wants to get it right. it is hard. one of the things that -- spectrum is one thing. it is extremely important. these policies have long-term ramifications. in a little different context. i had someone come in my office and said we need to rewrite the telecom act of 1996. the telecomou read act of 1996, the internet is mentioned twice. the battle back then was long- distance versus local. we have moved beyond that. >> i said i hear what you're saying but if you think about the amazing innovation that has happened in this space, the amazing competitiveness, the technology, the deployment, all

these things. it has been an off the chart success. why do we want to go in and rewrite this law, it seems that it is working pretty well. the same thing with spectrum. you want to be careful that you're not limiting these companies from innovating and investing. you want to make sure you're not hurting consumers are making it more expensive or limiting choices or whatever. it is -- there is a sweet spot in there somewhere. everyone is trying to find it and i hope i will be part of that solution. >> if i could just respond as well. i keep coming back to what do you want to accomplish and what is your motivation? i know one of the key motivations is money into the united states treasury. to the extent that we have an auction where two of the players who had had the most interest in participating are excluded or limited

arithmetically, you're going to affect the amount of money the treasury yields from the auction. those who come in and bid the highest are going to be those who had the greatest need for the spectrum. and so it is not as though the rules are set up so if one company were to acquire a bunch of spectrum it is affecting the competitive dynamics. they need it and they will put it to work. there are strict requirements so someone is not just going to be housing it. 2007 was the last big government auction of spectrum. the companies that people talk about they want to inhibit from competing for the next auction are the companies who went and acquire the most spectrum in the last auction. the two companies are the ones that did not even participate in the last option. inhibiting a couple of competitors from bidding in the hope that people who have not competed in the past might come

in and try to buy the spectrum feels like a big gamble. >> there is a gentleman right here on the isle who has a question. last month at an investor conference you were talking about an ovation and data plans and you were talking about the prospect of content companies defraying the cost of their content by either paying carriers or doing some kind of advertising. people have since -- before that comment have said big content companies like espn that have the money to do that could do that but that would give them a leg up on smaller companies. that might run afoul of net neutrality principles. when do you think those kinds of plans might be commercialized

and how do you think they would stand up to net neutrality scrutiny? how the mobile .nternet world is developing mobile internet technology is unique from it telecom technology standpoint. what i mean by being unique is it does not scale like the way telecommunication technologies have in the past. in the past you run a strand of fiber and it is a step change capital requirement. a step change cost structure. you have a lot of capacity for long time, it is a fixed cost investment. in the world of mobile data, you had one megabyte of data capacity. there is a direct and immediate cost that goes with it. a capital requirement and operating cost that goes with it. as the requirements go up, the cost track with it.

there are efficiencies and productivity gains but it is more of a less scalable technology than what we have seen in the past. the pricing has followed those economics. the pricing tends to be more user sensitive. there are a lot of companies, i fully expect market forces will take you to a place where a lot of companies say i would like market customer segment, segment to be able to access our content. they might be more inhibited to use it because there is a direct and immediate cost to the consumer by virtue of this pricing. maybe we would like to do something where we help defray the cost to get them to come access our content, our website, our application or whatever. this is no different than what you saw in the 70s when long- distance costs were the same way and companies like sears and 1ebuck and -- we developed

-- 800 -- 1-800 services for them. we will take for the call to get you to do business. why will you not expect the same thing to happen on the mobile internet as you have aliens of people accessing it. why would companies not be interested in overtime seeing a model like this develop? we have developed api's where they get access to the network. any application developer that wants to do this can absorb soe portion of the cost they can access their content. we will see if it evolves. i would be surprised if these models do not evolve. i do not see net neutrality issues. it is open and available. >> other questions? overe microphone is coming

to you. i want to ask you a follow- .p question that is the main thing people are talking about. there have been a lot of questions to how much by and we will get from the broadcasters. we do not know who is going to be making some of the final recommendations in terms of the fcc staff. i am wondering how certain is it at this point in your -- from your perspective that the incentive auction will be a success, or is there still a big question hanging over it? -- i do not have a clue. the success of the auction will depend upon the questions we have to -- and debating here. you made a very important point.

if you want to raise revenue, particularly from the you not only have to have a structure that incentivizes people to come in and buy but you have to have a structure that incentivizes spectrumat on this -- to bring it to market. they're kind of like a broker. to the extent that the auction is structured in a way that a large number of tv broadcasters do not bring their supply of spectrum to market, companies like at&t or sprint will look and say -- for this to be useful to us, we need a broad footprint with a certain amount scale theyou technology and the service quality is important.

if you do not get enough rod casters coming into the marketplace, putting their spectrum in their where companies can acquire these broad footprints of spectrum, the option will fail. structure isuction critical to make sure you have people with supply and demand coming to meet and bringing revenues to the table. >> i do think that it depends on designs the auction. they want to see it be a success and they have a lot of motivation to make it a success. is truehe things that about this, if you look around the country, we talk about this spectrum crunch. there is not a spectrum crunch in most areas.

35 states do not have a spectrum crunch. if there is a problem with access to the wireless communications where i live, it is more infrastructure buildout. it can be expensive and rural america. there is a spectrum crunch in some areas and there will be more so around the country. one of the questions is where you need the spectrum the most is in the urban areas. i am guessing those broadcasters, that is a very valuable asset for them. they made be the least reluctant to give up their spectrum. structurec tries to this to get all the policies right, we do not know the answer to that yet. i will hopefully be heavily involved in this. i will be talking to

stakeholders and the fcc and listening to people to make sure they get it right. there are still question about it. >> there is a question right here. >> i am a law student. this is a question for both of you. also with regard to the incentive auction. you mentioned earlier that one -- we reasons the 96 act have so much innovation. if one of our primary goals is should not one of our goals be fostering competition? >> that is good and that goes randall said a few moments ago. depending on what your goal is. some of that depends on what you mean by competition.

you look right now at the largest carriers, they are extremely competitive with each other and with everybody else in the industry. it is a hyper competitive industry and has been for a long time. scott is on your board. he is hyper-competitive. a total entrepreneur. he is great. he is sitting on the board. i guess on that depends on how you define competition. you need to look long term. there is lots of different aspects to competition in this area. there are some that get down in the weeds about how technically, , how thingsnically

work out there. these guys are huge competitors. they are not afraid of competition. competition is good. you have seen the net effect of competition and it has led to tons of investment. making the u.s., it is one of the strong points. there is nothing i disagree with. ferment intive and this industry, the u.s. mobile industry is as intensely competitive as anywhere i go in the world. you can determine how you want to measure that. is that utilization of the services, is it technological leapfrogging in the industry, is it pricing?

any of those dynamics, it is the most competitive in the world. i know of no place in the world where you can go and between zero and $200 walk out of the store with a $600 iphone. i do not know anywhere else you can do that. i compare the u.s. to europe , the averagetes is 200 minutes of usage a month. in the u.s. that number is ordering on 1000 minutes of use per month. the dynamic on data utilization is the same and the price per megabyte is among the lowest in the world. this is a hyper competitive environment. to talk about structuring an option that incentivizes greater competition, he you can if your objective is to drive prices and services to low commodity levels, if you want low price commodity services, we have a model for that in europe.

you can look at how that feels from an innovation and from an investment standpoint. it is not what i think is the model that we in the u.s. would like to attach ourselves to. andting competition incentivizing competition, those do not record -- reconcile in your mind. i got to tell you, the model as it has been derived in the u.s. and if it is great foresight and planning, i take my hat off to them. this is the best in the world right now. >> you have time pressure. thank you for joining us. >> i wish i could stay longer. good to see you. >> we will continue. we're going to continue the

conversation. if we can get the microphone over to this young lady right here. i wanted to follow-up on the national security, everyone's favorite subject. you said that reassurances to a highrs -- they are priority for you. i can tell you that despite the fact the news was focused on verizon and internet companies, most people out there are pretty much spreading that across the companies and there is talks about you guys being involved. what can you tell consumers right now about the privacy and can you reassure them their information is not a provided in bulk to the government or how else can you show them you are seeking more transparency? >> what i can tell you again, these are limited to what we

can and will say on matters of national security. rbc andeiterate, security of data is critical to us. what we do -- we receive subpoenas and court orders for information. we comply with the law and for filling those orders. to the extent you go beyond that that becomes a public policy debate. that we have to engage the senator and like-minded people on. can you talk about the process, still on the national security issue and are you comfortable with the process, are you comfortable with how much control you have over how your company is able to respond to that? are you in control of the responses to national security? >> i am comfortable with how at&t response to subpoenas and

quarters for information, yes. i had to be. right there was somebody with their hand up. >> i am wondering is there something that is competitive about the asian market or something that companies can learn? one.ia is a fascinating asia i would say rivals the u.s., some would say asia is ahead of the u.s. and deployment of these new fast mobile internet technologies. we are deploying the same technologies. japan isor example, much more broadly covered than the united states with these technologies. fortunate or unfortunate for the japanese, the population density is 30 times greater in the

united states of covering one million people in japan takes less infrastructure than covering one million people in the u.s. if you would evaluate the dense urban communities in the united states, everybody -- the key asian markets you are beginning to see them exploit the capabilities far more dramatically. they are ahead of us in mobile commerce and some of these types of applications. we are in very comparable places in terms of the technology. i think of innovation, we lose sight in the united states often times of this gem that we have developed in silicon valley. the innovation surrounding this technology is highly concentrated in california