this is a center that has the names of all known or suspected terrorists. it is a large number because there are many aliases that people can use and you can spell mohammed 40 different >> i've not know what was going on the fbi's mind. that was the first thing i thought of what i read in the papers. you are right. we need to learn from our mistakes. one of the issues and learning experiences is the to 15 program today. we are trying to have an ability

to look back and see if there is something we missed along the way. that is one of the things. not, i do not or know. that is one of the lessons we had the time. >> you worked on this issue for a long time. come to mind.ngs if i could make three points. first of all, we need to be cognizant and recognize it is not just the role of the media when an event is plain out. it is the legitimizing or magnifying role of the media that is frequently sought by the lone wolf terrorist or the small organization. itself is done in order to maximize and gain recognition or media attention. that becomes part and parcel of the objective of the exercise.

in the forestt when no one is around does not get you much at the end of the day. the media role is significant and we don't fully understand it. turn the boston the cover of rolling stone magazine. who would've thought he would be the first guy in his class? the second thing we are fact thatof is the only oneterrorism is thin slice of that continuum when we start looking at those people who we would terrorize as lone wolves. if you look back at american history over the last 100 years, we have time and again had

homegrown lone wolves and done things like bone up the los angeles times or schools or carried out one act or blown up backpacks in olympic park in atlanta. has to do with islam. it had precious little to do with anything other than their own bias or concern at that point in time. regrettably, we are not in a the guy who gets drunk and looks for his keys under the light at the street. finally, one of the points i would make is i remain concerned and ambivalent and not terrifically happy when i hear metadata and it is not protected.

is canond question society survive? the third question to ask is society can survive almost limitless numbers of lone bomber attacks. if you do not believe we can do it then look at what happens in down 10 -- downtown baghdad every day. -- if that level of carnage were played at the united states, we would all be hiding in our basements. is ifncern i would have we are going to pursue perfect security and perfect protection maximize our and ability to look at every clip on the internet as a way to look for that person who might be a radical or radical environmentalist or antiabortion or might not like people with we are not then

sliding down a slippery slope. we are headed to the bottom fast. >> i would like to pile on there. this is a technology angle to the whole thing. wolves or been lone lone wolf packs since mankind grouped together and crawled out of the cave. it is well documented that a certain percentage of us one to four percent is just nuts. people. guns and kills motivated by ideology or somebody just going over the edge and killing a handful of people, it is part of human nature. the question is, how does technology provide tools to

these nuts to do harm? as that technology gets more lethal and more available, the impact of those lone wolf packs grows exponentially. it used to be that just a few guns or a handful of hand grenades or even a panel truck with fertilizer, you could kill maybe hundreds of people. one person could kill four or 500 people. timothy mcveigh is the most successful lone wolf we have seen in 100 years. what technology is making available today, what will it make available 20 years from now? 30 or 4050 years from now? gene sequencers are available on the internet. can grow unthinkable biological organisms are graduating daily.

who tellsiochemist you it only takes a bachelors degree today to know how to get a gene sequencer and create something really bad. as technology builds the capability to do harm, and our individuals out there who will use that, when they get past getting a gun or something more lethal, what will be the needs of society to make sure that doesn't happen? itay we look at it and say is going to happen a few times a year and it is not worth sacrificing our civil liberties for. if the potential grows to the point that sooner or later one of these nuts is going to get something really lethal, we will look at it differently. that are sacrificing significant portion of our population is not put in

jeopardy. we will have that discussion. we should be having it now. we will have the discussion about whether we got to find the nuts and terrorists the day after one of them kills one million people. it is not a question of if, it is a question of when. how much longer? the thing is in our academic studies for a long time, the first lone wolf attacks took when in the garden of eden we talk about cain and abel. sun.ng is new under the you spoke specifically been

mentioned the weapons of mass destruction and the cyber, i fully agree with you. if they are trying to bring society to its knees, hundreds on trains or trying to to turn off electricity. we havet i am making is to be vigilant as a society. now i have my colleague, professor wallace. >> i usually make closing remarks. this discussion raises profoundly the issue which principally mine ever touched

on. when you think of the sheer that they'revents going to be energetic and restless and nutty and ingenious, assume something big is going to happen. lifery intelligent english once society to protect itself. i teach a course on the subject of what the nsa is doing. i think this will be the issue. society is going to have to -- the nsa is try to do more all the time. we have to assume in good faith and was to protect us. it has part -- technology. the issue is can society learn that our leaders can

intelligently decide what to do. my students write about this all the time. there are constitutional issues. i agree with that. maybe the metadata collection does not constitution -- constitute a search. nsa is making quasi-cause and determination. people point out if you look at my travel records and my doctors , that is the real issue. you are quite right. america will not want to lose its fourth amendment protections. as citizens we do not know what our preferences should be. we will learn. i have said this before, i have no use for edward snowden.

i have no respect for them whatsoever. he is in arrogant and self- important person. which raised these issues are political and intellectual leaders did not. i think that is what comes out of this. many lone wolves as there are wolves. we want to keep wolves alive. i think that is the issue. we have not yet defined it. terrorism has meant political action to intimidate as results. i don't think the sandy hook killer would fit under that. or evenly harvey oswald. we need to focus on this plague of unpleasant things and figure out how to focus.

we should not be focusing on the definition. of points inouple response. firstly, given the resources that we have and women financial resources, it is hard to monitor something when you do not know what to look for. so muchwhy there is talk about a risk based monitoring measure. when you look at dresses that assessment, that is one constraint when you look at that. of having a lone wolf having the means to perpetrate a terrorist act, my understanding it is notnking is

just having the means, it is having the environment and the space to-- breathing do the kind of ask a lone wolf is capable of launching. it is an interplay between having the facility and the resolve to perpetrate something and having the environment to perpetrate it in. i think these are all salient points. there is a lot to be taken from this. back todd, i want to go question number two. i raised baghdad as a model of a society that continues to function under horrific conditions. there are others around the world as well. the question has been raised, what if that were happening here.

the united states is argued with the most resilient society in the world. we are not capable of looking at this. 9/11 did not destroy the united states. it was a horrific event. is wereomic have to >> magnified because of our reaction. theevent itself, and i say respect, 9/11ll itself was a very small blip in terms of the american economy and america's ability to do the things that america needs to do. yet, it dominates every conversation we have had in the last decade for good reason. don's wife is british. and her people survived the blitz.

they survived two world wars and they soldier on. they survived the irish. at the end of the day, as a nation we need to be prepared that to go forward when the to effectively identify the .elltale signs if it means getting into every internet search or being able to look for the ultimate filter of filters going through the metadata, things are going to happen. there is a degree to which the nsa and the fbi and our media and our politicians and others have defined our response to

pursuit of abeing risk-free society. upst of all, we set or set -- ourselves up to fail. a disservice to the population by suggesting to them that somehow we can have this risk free society or future and not pay prices. not having that discussion of what those prices are, i have no respect for richard snowden but i will say he has gotten the conversation on the table. my name is steve duncan. i'm going to follow up what mike said. in 1936 when germany was building its air power as fast as it could, there was a guy named churchill who on that house of commons was arguing for

defense spending. said wee minister should not do that. he said there was no political mandate. churchill got up by himself and said we must remember that the protection of the british entry -- country does not require a mandate. it is the first order of duty. when i was in the government hired to 9/11, i made a visit to israel. i was meeting with their security leaders and i was impressed with the security. i was talking to one individual and he expressed the view that when i asked the question what is your strategic approach to fighting terrorism his answer was we know we cannot eliminate it but we hope we can reach a point where it is politically

the number oft events. and wes fine before 9/11 were not thinking about weapons of mass destruction. aboutday we had to worry missiles on soviet warheads. now we're getting to the point where we have to worry about one individual carrying a suitcase across an unprotected border. if that is the case, how do we get our political leadership to be honest with the american people instead of avoiding the discussion. be candid. we may have to pay a big price and our civil liberties to do with the constitution says which is to protect the american people as the first priority of government. it was lincoln who suspended habeas corpus. it might make sense to cut off a limb to save the body.

it would make no sense to kill the body in order to save the limb. we discussion along these lines. amisslitical leaders are to tell the american people that there is a real technology to be paid. right oft have a privacy until the 1970s. with what take this is at stake and we need real leadership. we need political leaders to discuss this with the american people. >> i would like again to call our attention that it is not just an issue for the dead states. it is a global issue. nations.s many other

we mentioned some of the democracies in europe and no one in norway dreamt about this possibility of massacre. again thert to you conversations we had several days ago, discussing the likelihood and possibility of a in some cityacking in north africa or in egypt. it is not a question of if, but when and where and with what impact. that is why it is is critical to look at this not just on a national level, but on a global level as well. >> another comment on the

technology. when we have this discussion, we have also had in our think tank at the potomac institute there is an issue of the technology that always comes up. surprised that the general public does not realize this. i want to point out this issue about the technology. it is important that the general understands the capability to find outliers and global's and where that technology has progressed. not just in the civil -- government but in the civil sector. andou take your credit card try to take a dollars worth of gas out and go to the bank and withdrawal all your money, it will go dead.

the credit card companies have built a profile of fraudulent behavior. cards isior of stolen so well understood that the computers will manage it and your cards will go dead on the spot or you'll have to call in and verify who you are. all of your frequent buyer is computerized. all the minute that -- minute data -- metadata is available. if you buy something and it prints out certificates for you or discount cards, those cards are tailored to you. they have in profiling you. if you buy a bunch of books on amazon, it recommends books exactly like the ones you bought before. this profiling is so sophisticated one of our young in terms -- interns gave me one of the best stories. he was talking about a friend of

, his wife got pregnant and before she had a chance to tell them she was pregnant, he got an e-mail from one of the stores they shop at recommending baby products for him and congratulated him. they sell understood and profile and just -- profiled him and his wife that he knew before his wife told him. compare that to the fact that the guy who killed 21 children in the northeast earlier this year, the guy who killed half a dozen people here in washington a month and a half ago, they stood out in their backgrounds. all the neighbors said they stood out. their behavior was profile a double --ofiled profiled.

i joke with the people upstairs. amazon and microsoft built such good profiles that if some radical went postal and killed my children, could i sue one of these companies and say you had the ability to find them. thepoint of all this is technology has gotten to the point that if we want to find lone wolves, at least some of them, we probably could. the question of whether we want to compromise our civil liberties is not an academic question. question, whether does tie together not. >> any other comments? would you like to come up. >> i've said what i said.

it is hard to pull together all the things that he knows. especially with all these lone wolves. we are all cannibals in a way. we were talking about america and the great society we think it is. issue is how do we cope with it. we're not want to be baghdad. we want to survive with our values. i predict we will. it is going to take hard work and we will work at it and the fisa courts will have to be a little bit different in the future. scoops. down to the there are about 500 queries a year. it is hard to spike.

it is not because he has read anything, he just knows. we will definitely make it. some good probably be business to be done along the way. do you want to close it? >> yes. only with the comment that these seminars are meant to be the beginning of a discussion. not the end of the discussion. hopefully we have stimulated your thoughts and your desire to be involved more on hopefully that will lead to greater involvement with us and greater help on your part in informing the public and keeping the discussion going. it is only through that process that we can resolve these issues. a queue for coming and your participation. i hope you'll come back. >> thank you very much. [applause]

>> on our next washington thenal, robert rector from brookings institute and isabel saw hill will talk about poverty in america. were different. there were a lot of things and aing involving race breakdown of the structure of society. seminary and in new england. there were no rules. things were falling apart.

ishout structure it difficult to navigate. i was fortunate. fortunate toly of the way isidual was raised in the structure the nuns had given me. --as also unfortunate fortunate because i had been in predominantly white schools. black kid in my school. the transition to a school with very few blacks, i had a jumpstart. i was ahead of the game. i had something. it allowed me to continue to do well even though it was difficult. >> thanksgiving on c-span, hear from two supreme court justices. elena kagan and clarence thomas.

also this weekend, four days of book tv on c-span2. including deborah solomon. american history tv, the 150th anniversary of the gettysburg address. sanesident obama spoke in francisco about immigration law. during his speech he was interrupted by protesters who urged his ministration to halt deportations. this is 30 minutes. [applause]

>> hello, everybody. hello. hello, san francisco. it is great to be back in california. it is great to be with all of you. i love san francisco. [applause] food andgot great scenery,ple, beautiful no more super villains because that kid cleaned the streets . love that kid.

thanking forrt by the great introduction. [applause] i want to thank your mayor ed lee. lieutenant governor gavin newsom. members ofecognize congress who are fighting every day for the people of california . [applause] judy chu, they are all doing great work every single day. [applause] we have a special guest, janet thelitano who is overseeing uc system and doing a great job. [applause]

we miss her back in washington. she is going to be a -- outstanding leading the university of california. i'm here to talk about immigration reform, but i am here as commander-in-chief. this weekend with our allies and partners, we reached an iran.ent with a ron -- some of you may recall that when i first ran for president, i said it was time for a new era of american leadership in the world. on thet turned the page decade of war and began a new era of our engagement with the world. as president and commander-in- chief, i have done what i said. we ended the war in iraq and brought the troops home. osama bin laden met justice.

the war in afghanistan will end next year. as the strongest nation on earth, we have engaged in principled diplomacy, even with our adversaries in order to begin to destroy his -- destroy syria's chemical weapons. i firmly believe in what president kennedy once said. he said let us not negotiate out of fear but never fear to negotiate. i believe that. this is diplomacy backed by sanctions we brought on iran. it has brought us the product would -- progress we achieved this weekend. ron's -- iran's nuclear program. [applause]

international inspectors will have access to their facilities. iran and we will continue diplomacy with the goal of achieving a conference of solution that deals with the threat of iran's nuclear row gram once and for all. if they seize this opportunity and choose to join the global community, we can chip away at the mistrust that has existed for many, many years. going to be is easy. it is a huge challenge. we cannot sit -- close the door on diplomacy and roulette peaceful solutions to the world's problems. we cannot have an endless cycle of conflict. tough talk and bluster may be easy, but is not the right thing for our security. [applause]

this progress and potential reminds us what is possible when the united states has the courage to lead. not just with the force of arms but with the strength of our diplomacy and commitment to peace. that is what keeps us strong. that is what makes us a beacon for the world. that is how i will lead as long as i'm president of united states. spirit, we can criticize and tear down, what we can build together is what brings me here today. to fix ourpast time broken immigration system. [applause] we to make sure washington finishes what so many americans just like you started. we have to finish the job.

it is fitting that we are here in chinatown just a few miles from angel island. in the early 1900s, 300,000 people, maybe some of them your ancestors, passed through on their way to a new life in america. for many a represented the end of a long and arduous journey. they finally arrived where they believed anything was possible. for some it represented the beginning of a new struggle against prejudice in a country that did not treat its immigrants fairly or afford them the same rights as everybody else. asians face this. so the irish. so italians. so the jews. many groups still do today. that did not stop those brave minimum and from coming. they were drawn by a believe maybe i never had a

chance for a good education, but might daughter can go to college. maybe i start off washing dishes, but my son can become mayor of san francisco. [applause] maybe i have to make sacrifices today but those sacrifices are worth it. it may mean a better life for my family. that is a family story that will be shared by millions of americans around the table on thursday. broughtthe story that my relatives from ireland. and my father from kenya. it drew so many of your ancestors here.

america as a place where you can make it if you try. here is something interesting thomas today more than one in four residents born outside the united states came here from asian countries. many came through our failed immigration system. they are doctors and business owners and laborers and refugees. hero -- center was a was named after a hero on 9/11. she was the daughter of immigrants who grew up not far from here. we are honored to have her family here today. too often when we talk about immigration, we focus on our southern border. the fact is we are blessed with

immigrants from all over the world. they have put down their roots in every corner of this country. 30 --n separate cisco, san francisco, 35% of immigrants are business owners. your economy is one of the fastest growing in the country. that is the impact talented immigrants can have. they are hungry and striving and they are working hard. thatare creating things were not there before. that is why it is long past time to reform and immigration system that right now does not serve america as wells it should. so much moreoing to unleash our potential. if we just fixed this system. i know out here in california that you watch the news and you

y's not veryuntrie sunny view of washington. you see the partisan bickering. courses of action harm our business or economy. they want to refight old political battles rather than create jobs and grow the economy and strengthen the middle class. totake 40 more void -- votes undermine the afford will care act. passing a serious jobs bill. america's -- americans want us to focus on jobs. californians are signing up for new health plans [applause] .

even as we are getting the darn website up to speed, it is getting better. states like california are people want the financial security of health insurance. , talk to ar insured friend who is not an help get them covered. when it comes to immigration reform, we have to have the confidence to believe we can get this done and we should get it done. most americans agree. the only thing standing in our way right now is the unwillingness of certain republicans in congress to catch up with the rest of the country. ofet with the ceos of some america's biggest companies. i am positive not all of them voted for me. i'm pretty sure. [laughter]

some of them, but definitely not all of them. the thing they wanted to talk weut was the fact that invite the brightest minds to then we do not invite them to stay. we end up sending them home to create new jobs and start new businesses simply sells. we are training our own competition. invite those incredibly talented young people to stay here and start businesses and create jobs here. i hear from people who been separated from their families because of green card backlogs. they want their loved ones here in america. dreamers whooung are americans in every way except on paper. they just want to study and serve and contribute to the nation they love.

[applause] i talk to business owners who play by the rules but get frustrated because they are undercut by those who exploit workers and a shadow economy. they are not required to meet the same obligations and those companies lose business. right now i am seeing brave advocates fasting in the capital in an effort to get congress to act. say, to the fasters that are there, i want them to know we hear you. the whole country hears you. there are plenty of leaders who

do not think it is fair that we includingllion people more than one million from asia with no way to come forward and get on the right side of the law. it is not smart or fair and it does not make sense. we have kicked this can down the road long enough and everybody knows it. the good news is we know the solution. there is bipartisan hope of getting it done. this year the senate passed an immigration reform bill by a wide bipartisan majority. it addresses the issues that need to be addressed. it will strengthen our borders and level the playing field. system todernize our eliminate the backlog of green cards. it will make sure everybody plays with the same rules by having a pathway to citizenship

for those live in the shadows. it includes passing a background check in learning english. every of these pieces will go a long way to fixing the system. each of them has been supported by democrats and republicans in the past. there is no reason we cannot come together and get it done. we know the immigration reform we are proposing will boost our economy and shrink our deficit. economists say if the senate bill became law, over the next two decades our economy would trillion and it would reduce our deficit by 850 ball in -- $850 billion. you don't have to be an economist to know workers will be more productive with their

families with them or worried about deportation. this is not the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. just because something is smart or fair and is supported by enforcement, itw- does not mean it will get done. this is washington, after all. everything is looked her up local prism. -- look through a political prism. some people think if obama is for it, then i have to be against it. it before.as for everybody, tond his great credit my republican predecessor, president bush, was for reform. a profile -- he proposed

reform like this 10 years ago. the senate bill that just passed had a dozen republican votes. that i amem forget not running for office again. michelle does not forget. you don't have to worry about this being good for me. it is good for the country. it is the right thing to do for the american people. ultimately, good policy is good politics. look at the polls right now. the american people support immigration reform. by a clear majority. everybody wins if we get this done. there is no reason we should not get immigration reform done right now. none. if there is a good reason i have

not heard. if there is a better plan out there than the one democrats and republicans have a danced if there are additional ideas it would make it even better, i am willing to listen to new ideas. my door is always open. is up to republicans in the house to decide if we can move forward as a country on this bill. if they don't want to see it happen then they have to explain why. the good news is, speaker boehner said he is hopeful we can make progress. that is good news. i believe the speaker is sincere. i think he generally wants to get it done. that is something we should be thankful for this week. i think house republicans want to get it done. some of them are hesitant to do it in one big bill at the senate did. this is thanksgiving, we can carve that burden to multiple pieces. [laughter]

as long as all the pieces get done soon, and we deliver on the core values we have talked about, i think everybody is fine with it. they're not worried about the procedure, they want the result. it is going to require courage. some members of the republican caucus think this is bad politics that -- back home. folks let the minority of block something the country desperately needs. we cannot leave this problem for another generation to solve. if we don't tackle this now, we are undercutting our own future. my message to congress is rather than create problems let's get

something done. this has broad-based support. we have been talking about it for a decade. will benefit everybody now on for decades to come. it enriches this country in ways we cannot imagine. example.ve you one andrew lee is here today. andrew has an amazing story. he grew up in vietnam. he and his four brothers tried three times to flee to the united states. the country was going through all kinds of difficulties. they tried and failed. on the fourth try their boat with 140 refugees was attacked by pirates.

they made it to malaysia. animated to severn cisco. -- san francisco. they learned english. eventually they earned enough money to bet -- by a small bakery. they started to make donuts. they started selling them to chinese restaurants. work and aof hard little luck, the sugar bowl bakery is a $60 million business. [applause] the humble in striving immigrants from vietnam employ 300 americans. to coscoly pastries and safeway.

i don't know if andrew brought me any samples. they must be pretty good. says we came here as boat people. we don't take things for granted. we know this is the best country in the world who work hard. that is what america is about. you can reach for something better if you work hard. our parentsuntry and grandparents and immigrants built for us. it falls on each generation to keep it that way. liberty does not have its back to the world. the statue of liberty faces the world. raises its light to the world.

city,vidence came to the there were not looking for riches, they were looking for freedom and opportunity. they knew what makes us american is not what we look like or what are, we look like the world. you have a president named obama. [applause] that makes us american, our in certaineve enduring principles. our allegiance to a set of ideals. to a creed. to the enduring promise of this country.

our shared responsibility is to lead this country better than we found it. if we stay true to that history, if we get immigration reform across the finish line, if we can get folks in washington to do what needs to be done, we will grow our economy and strengthen our families. up to our character as a nation. that is exactly what were talking about. that is why we're here. >> halt deportations. we agree we need reform at the same time. you have the power to stop the

deportations. >> that is why we are here. stop deportation. >> what i would like to do. they don't need to go. he can stay there. [applause] hold on a second. respect the passion of these young people. they feel deeply about their concerns for their families. and i comeed to know if i couldmunity,

solve all these problems without passing laws in congress i would. we are a nation of laws. that is part of our tradition. the easy way out is to try and yell and pretend like i can do something by violating our laws. i am proposing the harder path which is to use our processes to achieve the same goals that you want to achieve. it will not be as easy as shouting. it requires getting it done. [applause] so for those of you who are committed to getting this done, i'm going to march with you and fight with you every step of the way and make sure we are welcoming every striving and hard-working immigrant who sees america the same way we do.

no matter who you are or what you look like or you are from, you can make it if you try. if you are serious about making that happen, i am ready to work with you. [applause] it is going to require work. sayingot a matter of us we are going to violate the law. that is not our tradition. the great thing about this country is we have this process and it is messy and hard. justice and truth when out. that has always been the case and i will continue to be the case today. thank you very much, everybody. i bless america. god bless america.

moment onup the washington journal, we will take your calls, e-mails and tweets. later today a discussion on national security. at 7:00 p.m., a conversation with nasa. span2, a debate on the nuclear deal with iran. that is live at noon eastern time. coming up this hour, a conversation about poverty and budget cuts. later, jason campbell gives his

perspective on the possibility of an agreement between afghanistan and america to keep troops in the country past the host: president obama was confronted by protesters monday demanding he do more to push the issues on immigration. meanwhile, he argued congress was standing in the way of comprehensive immigration reform. republican run house has not taken action on the issue. time is running out. there are few working days for congress left this calendar year. that is our topic today. should immigration reform be a priority? welcome to " washington journal"