have a areael about that in the the united states we grow up believing it is due s. >> yes. >> the people in >> the people in egypt and yemen do not. into then also fall opposite trap, to think that somehow we have got a and it is , and it is not an aspiration that other people necessarily want. i am only speaking from my own expense. -- experience. once we lifted the lid in that part of the world, it turned out wanted to be free. maybe it was to live more within their own sect.

so it is going to be different for different people, but i've found in my own travels and experience their, it remains a very, powerful and deep emotion. >> i do not think there is any doubt about that at all. in an american context we know that the first amendment to the u.s. constitution lays out a certain set of principles of freedom. togress cannot do anything abridge our freedom of religion, speech, press, the right to peaceably assemble, to petition our government for redress of grievances. they are laid out there, and they are large concepts. they are the underpinning, really, for the society. they have been described as god-given. i'm wondering if you share that view. >> gosh, i confess i have never whetherabout, you know,

they are god-given, but again, when i think of our own society -- i will give you the journalistic response. >> that's a duck. >> no, it is because i am not a philosopher. tellays, when ever people me china's stealing our secrets, ook, iwer always is, l don't encourage industrial theft eft, but only when they still a bill of rights. tell me when they steal the constitution. tell me when they steal the words off the lincoln and jefferson in washington memorials. then they will have stolen something. all the things that are worth stealing in this country are hiding in plain sight, because as long as we have got those, we

can always come up with another secret, another industrial advance, another innovation and breakthrough. the things that i think are of great value. and we sometimes, i find myself bristling at times when i hear our own lawmakers trashing o ur institutions. russiauld people in today give for one day of the sec? what would people in china today give for one day of the justice department human rights division? this countrykick around like it is a football sometimes. it is not a football. it is a fabergé egg. and it is one that a lot of people around the world would appreciate in terms of these bureaucrats -- washington, d.c. these institutions are precisely what enable our freedom to, to do all these things.

>> how do you think we got those? and this takes me to to origin once again. it happenedhink that this country has the first amendment that it does? does it have anything to do, for example, with the fact that there is written into the first commandment of the bible the idea that i am the lord who brought you out of the house of bondage. that there is something there having to do with an almighty force, liberating people from bondage, from bondage to what? you are talking about from-to. >> the early settlers in many ways were reenacting their own version of the exodus story. in leaving what they thought was monarchical tyranny in europe and coming to the shores as part of our core dna. in terms of origin

you are not going to go with me go any particular path? >> i'm going to stay away from that path. >> is it really possible in this country and in others to separate church and state? me,ou know, that reminds itt question, marvin, of is possible to be an objective journalist? dodging her question. because whenever i am asked that, i always answer, i haven't asked that. that. gotten > question before i will go to the next one then. >> and the answer to me is always that objectivity is not the thing. it is attention. the tension between understanding and disinterest. i cannot possibly write an objective story about you unless at some level i really try to understand you almost see the

world through your eyes. at the same time i cannot write an objective and story if i were to only see the world through your eyes. objectivity is a tension. sometimes in the middle east you have to think about these things a lot. and sometimes i may be a little bit too understanding of you, sometimes too disinterested. judge me over a period, but it's a tension. in a country like ours founded by people escaping religious freedom but also inspired by their own religious ethic, there is always going to be a tension between church and state. you hear in the state of the union when the president says god bless america and whatnot. as long as there is a tension, i have no problem with it. >> since 9/11, there has been a lot of tension certainly in this country and in other parts of the world as well. do you feel, as both a journalist and a citizen of this country, that since 9/11 you

have lost any of your freedoms? i don't feel that. that, um, i feel that, and what i wrote about 9/11 at the time was i do most,e it was one of the maybe the most dangerous challenge to our open society in this sense -- oft what this generation terrorists were doing were taking objects from our daily life, the backpack, the car, the airplane and turning them into weapons. and when you take objects from daily life, literally human beings at the end and turning

them into weapons, what you do the very thing that keeps an open society open and that is trust. we trusted that everyone came in this room tonight, was not wrapped in the suicide vest or caring a bomb in their shoe or purse, in their pen. lifeblood ofvery an open society. and what is so dangerous about this generation of terrorism is that what it tries to do is attack that very thing. so that we close ourselves off. we search everybody. i went to a lecture this morning at johns hopkins on tunisia. it was just a lecture. i had to show my driver's license to sign in. show my driver's license to a private security guard. there are those kinds of things that i find them -- they are still at the level of annoyance. >> because you have written that 9/11, youere another

would fearful that that would be the end of the open society. >> what i deeply worry about is another attack on the scale of 9/11. then manyfear americans would say, do whatever you need to do, do whatever you need to do. and i think our response to 9/11 in many ways has been remarkably restrained. how many years was that after 9/11, we elected an african-american whose middle name was hussein, whose grandfather was a muslim, who defeated a woman to run against the mormon. ok? who does that? ok? [laughter] that was an amazing thing. now, we have learned since then that we still have a lot of work to do, you know.

when you see some of the racial has been subtly and overtly directed at the president, but in many ways, the fact that we did -- that was the greatest repudiation of bin lade n. >> and yet, the tools that the bin ladens use remains such a threat that you can imagine and and to our society as we know it, were there another major attack. >> i do not think it is a joke. before i came over, i was reading the news. it is an amazing, perverse, bizarre story -- a suicide bomber trainee in iraq blew himself and 22 other trainees up, blew up 22 trainees who he was teaching and preparing how to build a suicide vest. this is not a joke. you know, there were things that

we see in the middle east in the last five or six years that that kind of thing, that you have to take it seriously. >> absolute. ly. let's talk a little bit about modern technology, of which i am not an expert. >> then you have really got the wrong guy. >> you are pretty good at this stuff. but a number of people of my point of view might look at all of that modern technology and say, ech, leave me alone. i want to go back to an old typewriter. is an technology to you good thing, and inspiring thing, and uplifting thing, or is it simply too heavy to lift? what is your sense of it and what is it doing at this point in our national lives to the wouldof privacy, which i like to get your gut feeling about? >> oh, so i do not know where to

dive in exactly. >> due to privacy. -- do the privacy. >> i read the israeli newspaper every day, and as some of you may know, i am a golfer. a couple months ago -- i buy golf clubs online occasionally. i pick up the israeli newspaper and there is an ad for golf clubs in the middle of the front page. how did that get there? >> you put it there. >> how did that get from golf smith threw some cookies onto my front page? and so i find that a little creepy. >> they knew you were a golfer. soldat somehow golfsmith when i went to the israeli newspaper an ad for a golf swing comes up on the front

page. i am reading the beirut daily. i get a call about trade a couple months ago, sharing economy site for women's apparel. and i wrote a column about it. the next day, i call up political and there is an ad. does it all mean in terms of -- you have given an illustration of how they have moved into your privacy in the area of golf. >> ok. >> what is it -- >> any purchase. it could've been anything. >> what is it about modern technology that would allow something like twitter, if my information is right here, to find out where you are on any given time of the day? are there no limits any longer. because i have a feeling that a certain generation of the american people have no problem

with yielding privacy. in fact, are quite happening about telling everything about themselves. what is that? and what is the danger if any exist at all? facebookot have a page, and the times tweaked my column. so i'm really not, i try to because i would be overwhelmed a little bit. i cannot deal with people wanting to friend me or whatever every hour. i can write my column or answer the mail, but it is one of the other. it cannot be both. it has been said by many people, privacy is over. get used to it. havingas, you know, breakfast at up in new york with a middle east diplomat friend of mine from the arab world, and u m, at a hotel, and a couple days later, he e-mailed me and said, what's this? st from is a blog po

would say an anti-arab site that thomas friedman giving his instructions fomrom a middle eat diplomat. it was like somebody was there with a cell phone, took a picture. i did not know was going on. boom, and you just have got to go with it. i do not know how to fight it. >> is there a danger, and this thought just occurred to me, that at a certain point if you amount of your privacy you are also yielding aspects of your freedom? >> oh, there is no question about it because it is on your mind all the time. you start to edit yourself. i'm doing that right now. in the sense that, you know, i that therelip up now is no such thing as local anymore, ok?

when we did this seven years ago or we had done this 20 years if i mixed up something -- if i make a mistake, make a full of myself whatevermething angry, -- it would, maybe somebody would tell somebody. there is no such thing as local anymore. you are in a search engine. marvin kalb, bam. and you just, you got a live with it. i do not particularly like it but it has upsides. you can learn about, you're in contact with more people all the time. i have just sort of given up on privacy in that sense. >> edward snowden. you have written that from your point of view you would like him to come back to united states, stand trial, and let's see what happens. he would be given a fair trial. does that mean that you consider that he has committed some kind of crime? >> you know, i have not really delved into that issue.

what you just referred to is about as much as i have written. that is a reason for because i find every week i read another set of revelations, and i read another set of arguments, con, that make me feel one week one thing about him and one week another. orthis idea of traitor whistleblower? >> clearly, what he has exposed to me in the mega sense is the fact that the technology has gone way ahead of, you know, i think some of both the legal protections and even society's understanding of what it can do on one side. i think what he is also expose, though, there has been no specific case of abuse unless you count listening to angelo merkel's cell phone. someone at the nsa saying, i

want to know what my ex-girlfriend is doing. we have had several investigations that have also shown us that. i think it is a very vital case that was inevitably going to happen, and i think it is helping that it happened -- happened.at it has i also believe we do need protection from these rising threats, and i find myself really torn. and what i said in that one column is that i also trust the fairness of the american people. and that i do believe, if snowden came back, and got a trial where he could properly make his case, it was not done in secret and could actually present his evidence, i just trust the judgment of the american people. i do not know how it would come out, but i think that trial could be a huge teaching moment and one that would trigger a healthy debate and reform. >> tom, i want to ask you a question about the relationship of journalism, as you have

practiced it and i and many others, if a journalist comes upon the big story, he did not know it was there, he discovers that. and writes a big story. and that is terrific. that is what it is all about. but supposing you come upon the story in the sense that you know someone who has a lot of secrets, like snowden with the nsa. and you participate with that ich thatn the way in wh information is going to be given to the public, which the number of reporters in the snowden case actually did. are those reporters, not the others, are those complicit in what may be a crime? a and i'm going to give you very unsatisfactory answer. i am not going to play the hypothetical game. >> that is not hypothetical. that actually did --

>> i realize that. and my answer is, i will answer for my own reporting and my own judgments, but i am not going to sit in judgment on others, especially in this case where my own newspaper was involved. >> ok. now toto take a minute identify ourselves for our radio and television audiences. this is "the kalb report." i am marvin kalb. and i'm here talking with "the new york times" columnist thomas friedman. >> very frustrating -- >> only on certain issues. a you have been at this for long time. 33 years with the times. upi before that. if you had it to do all over again, would you still do it as a journalist? >> oh, god, this is the most fun you can have legally that i know of. [laughter] growing up i only wanted to be gave it over stem, -- be david

him.ham, i got to meet i have had, this is been the most amazing run. i have never had a bad day, and i have never gotten up in the morning and said, you know, i just do not want to do this anymore. it has been an amazing privilege to do this for "the new york times," and the people i met along the way, the experiences i had -- some tragic and some uplifting -- i would not have traded a moment for it, and i wish i could be 30 again. >> that is marvelous. that is wonderful. i heard that and still are perhaps a very good golfer. >> i do play golf, yes. but i am on the staff of "golf digest." ever consider being a golfer is your number one goal? wanten i was young i did

to be a professional golfer. i had it in the 1971 the u.s. open in minnesota -- i caddied. it was one of my great experiences in life. i always tell people the story that back then, it was a time, it was an amazing time when you think about before sports was so professionalized, that in the u. s. open, you can not bring a pro caddy. what they did is they took caddies from each club and brought them to haseltine and they had a big bowl and all the names of the 179 players, and you stuck your hand in that bowl, and you could've picked jack nichlaus, and i picked chi chi rodriguez. he made the cup. we won all four days. 20 years later, some family

friends of ours were down in puerto rico which was his home course, and they ran into them in the pro shop and they said, chi chi, do you remember who caddied for you? >> and without missing a beat, he said tommy. >they said, do you know he is more famous than you are today? [laughter] chi chi said, not in puerto rico. >> you have done every other bit of journalism. have you ever considered at this point in your career shifting over and being a sports columnist? >> i have. i am literally on the staff of "golf digest." because they are owned by "the new york times," and for while they are owned by conde naste, so i write for them regularly. i have thought about it. i've always wanted to write a golf book. myer i wrote a book,

publisher came to me and said, what do you want to write for your next book? and i said, john, i really want to write a book on golf. and he said, the persian gulf? i said, no, i want to write a golf book. >> now, you have been a columnist for almost 20 years. >> yes. >> what are the changes that you have felt and experienced over the last 20 years being a columnist? is it the same now as it was 20 years ago? >> um, you know, the -- nothing has changed in the craft, marvin, of how you write a column. that is still, you know, you got to get an idea, you got to report it out, i believe i write a very reported colin, i think the best columnists are toorters - or bring heart their column.

what changes is a couple things -- one is your reach. we have 20 web, million unique visitors. that is huge compared to the 1.6 million on sunday for "the new york times." even to syndication. you have comments on your column now. so there's your opinion and less are 300 more or every day of readers. everyone is in a two-way conversation now, columnists. >> do you have to answer the tweets or the messages that come into you? >> maybe some people do. i don't because it is just too exhausting. i have mixed feelings about the comments if they are anonymous. so people can be disparaging and you dive into them and sometimes i have time to and sometimes i don't, you always find one or two just amazing gems, also. kernel for a news story. >> that is just so smart.

that is a big difference. i,, when you think about it, reston'srited james office, the office he used his last office in the washington bureau of "the new york times." when i became a columnist in 1995. inheritreat honor to his office. i often tell people, you know, when mr. reston was doing his column, i'm sure he came in and said, i wonder what my seven competitors are going to write today. and he knew them all personally. i knew them all. do the same thing. i come into the same -- now, and i's office say, i wonder what my 70 million competitors are going to write. i feel i've got 70 million competitors. >> but that doesn't change how

you approach your responsibility or what it is that you're actually writing? >> no. know, i did aou book with michael mandelbaum that used to be us. and we have a chapter in the book called "averages over," and beis about robots that can above average. average is over for everybody, including me. i the example i gave is a, have 70 million competitors now. and hopefully i was never writing average columns, but i am just saying, i go to china, been going to china once a year for the last 22 years. it probably, when first started going to china, i had one goal in mind and that was to write something that my mother-in-law in chicago would not know about china, something that she -- my mother-in-law in chicago back then had never been to china.

so the truth is, i can go to china. but, theyi never did, have panda bears here. people use chopsticks. i could really write and average:. today, "the new york times -- you have the nytimes.com in chinese. when i go to china now, i have a different goal, and that is to tell people they do not know about china. >> you want to pick up and distribute it in china. >> right now we are shut down because we reported that wen jiabao's mother is worth $2.7 billion. you cannot get it in china unless you can get through the firewall. if you go to new york times.com, you'll notice -- one says international. that is the old international herald tribune. in over the next one is chinese letters.

it is our chinese edition. that is a great thrill for me to have my column twice a week in chinese. and i am so frustrated that we are shut out of their. but there are a lot of chinese speakers outside of china and there are chinese who know how there -- to find their way into the site. but i am keenly aware when i write about china now i am being read not but just by my mother-in-law but by chinese. does raise your game. again, i hope by -- >> it takes me back to a question that you sort of ducker onlie --- ducked earlier new technology and the effect that has. "the new york times" benefited from the wikileaks story. "the new york times" decided that it would send a team of reporters to another newspaper the information ofeady was, so it was no act journalistic genius to go over there and pick up that

information and then put it into the times. so what does that mean about the times and a fitting from wikileaks? is that a good thing? are they to be proud of the fact that they made that decision? >> you should really ask arthur sulzberger that. >> bill keller. he was seated here, and i did ask him. >> what did he say? >> he made an effort to answer it, which is more than you are doing. [laughter] you see, i'm trying to understand. >> the reason i am dodging this question and i am dodging it is because -- >> did you notice? >> is because it is a hugely complicated question, and i have not dealt with the raw material, the legal bit. i have not been deeply involved than i do not want to freelance on it. >> ok. then i will put it this way. [laughter]

tomorrow morning, you are sitting in your office, and you get a call from the guardian in london and the guardian says, hey, tom, you are one of the greatest columnists ever and we want to bring you in on something. we have just received from bin laden's mother-in-law who does not live in chicago, should live somewhere else in the middle east, and she has his personal plans for taking over the world. this is what he was going to do. we want to bring you in on that. you have to come over here and take a look at it and then run with it. would you do that? >> i would definitely go over there and take a look at it. whether i would run with it would depend on the veracity of it. would depend on what the real content was. the journalist in me get -- would definitely do that. >> let's move along. "the new york times." i love to pick it up in the

morning. ten years from now, will i have that privilege? >> don't know. really don't know. you know, one of the themes of my columns in the last seven or eight years has really, what i call, i think we are in a gutenberg scale moment of change. is, i believe that we're in a moment that is a kin to gutenberg's invention of the printing press when the way in which information is generated, turned into knowledge and transforms into products and services has undergone a massive transformation. i always tell people, someone was alive when gutenberg invented the printing priest. some monk said to some priests, now this is cool. i do not have to use this quill anymore. we can stamp these things out, holy mackerel! i believ ve we are at a similar

mom, and i call it the move from connected to hyper connected. and it happened just in the last decade or a little bit more, and it was completely disguised by the subprime crisis and post-9/11. we are living it. we are living all of the innovations that it is throwing off, all the incredibly rapid change. is really describing it. my sound bite on this, you may of heard me say is that when i sat down to write "that used to thing i didfirst was go back and get the first "dition of "the world is flat to remind myself what i said. i started that book in 2004. so i waited up to the index. i looked under abcdef -- facebook was not in it. so when i was running around the world, last time we talked, and saying the world is flat. we are all connected.

facebook did not exist. twitter was still a sound. the cloud was still in the sky. 4g was a parking place. linkedin was a prison. big ddata was a rap star and skype was a typo. ok, so all of that happened after i wrote "the world is flat." it tells you something really big just happened in the plumbing of the world. we went from connected to hyper connected, and it is changing every job, every workplace. >> how is it changing journalism? is that a good thing? what would you say? >> we now have -- when nytimes. com, we have the most e-mail lists. so we are using big data, to track most tweeted.

on the one hand, any "the new says,imes" journalist who i do not look at the list is lying to you. do they go up or down. but it also is very, that can be dangerous, because i write about foreign affairs. m, there are times when i should write about foreign affairs issues that may not make the list at all. you can tell. there are certain issues that just do not make the list. you write a political, sizzling piece about you know governor chris christie, goes to the top of the list. but if you write about the problem of water in chad, you are not going to make the list. as a journalist, as a columnist, do you start saying, i am not going to write about this whole set of issues because they are not going to make, most tweeted. >> so what do i do? >> i write about them and

despite that. some days it does not go up the list. is going tok times" have more of a lefty readership, onlinee new york times will have more of a young and left readership. just by its nature. if you were to write a pro- george w. bush column, it is not good to make the list, baby. it is not going to get near. in the way you would a pro-obama one. >> dan rather sitting here a couple of years ago said that in his judgment what rules ina newsroom these day is fear. he was talking about the consequences of 9/11, and the way in which journalism covers these events. of have introduced the cause my question, you have introduced an element now having to do with the new way in which journalism

has to be mindful of the new technology. >> right. >> does the new technology, in you view, pervert or force into places you would not want to be dealing with stories that you would not want to deal with? simply in order to get the ratings boost? >> um, i think it is an important question to be asking. i cannot give you a specific example right now, but what i can tell you is that you sit where i sit, it is just incredibly noisy now. thatm, you know, i find more and more, i'm shrinking my aperture. i got to filter out a lot of stuff. you are constantly being written about, basically. in,ou take otoo much of that it is really paralyzing and i start to write for you, and that

is really. dangerous i think this applies to young journalist, old journalist. i remember my daughter was in college, and she called me one day, there is an issue on campus that had disturbed her. and i said, honey, why don't you blog about it? in the campus newspaper. and she said no, everyone will blog about me. it really stuck in my mind. and so, to now be, i think a columnist at a place like "the new york times," wall street thick l," you need a fi skin, but you have to keep your balance. >> if you could imagine yourself being a very important politician for example responsible for making decisions affecting all of us, the question that --

>> the feedback loop is so fast now. and so immediate. people tracking, twitter. i stay away from that stuff because i do not want to get knocked off my game. affect, if has to you are a politician, the way in which you think about voters, getting votes, saying certain things to attract certain constituencies. have you in your coverage, so i am putting you as a journalist -- going to be hard for you to duck it -- >> please. >> have you met a president since you have been doing these opinion pieces ejwho is a great man? >> um, you know, that's -- i think all the presidents i have moments ofe had ofatness and a lot

moments of not greatness. of affection,ot this may come as a surprise, i don't know, for george bush, the coveredhe father, who i as a reporter. i was the diplomatic correspondent for the times at the time. and the reason i have such great respect for him has to do with a very specific achievement that i think he forged that he was affectedn that so everyone that he has never quite gotten credit for. he brought the end of the cold war -- >> two germanies. >> the unification of germany and he brought the soviet union for a soft landing, and other than the one incident -- >> did he do that or gorbachev? >>he, gorbachev, that whole generation i think was amazing.

he, margaret thatcher, gorbachev. but he was there and had it not gone well, he would've gotten the blame. that,think hois role in the decisions he made were really, helped pave the way for the world that came afterward. >> are you optimistic -- maybe that is not quite the right word -- are you positive in your nteling that the curre generation a political leader in this country can cope with the dimension of challenge now facing political leadership? >> it is funny. i was just in israel and i was thinking about that issue. there. can the leadership there handle the lift. i begin to wonder. u.s. a very important question. first of all, i know how noisy it is if you're just writing a column for "the new york times." how noisy it is for the president of the united states. just all of the stuff coming in now.

someone checking twitter and facebook in the evening in the morning news and cable tv. and so it think that is a real problem. and i also think that thate complexity of the problems you have to deal with. think of you and your brother wrote an amazing biography of henry conditionkissinger. kissingerk of henry 1973 -- 1974. he goes to the middle east to forge the first real peace agreement, disengagement agreement between egypt, israel, and syria. in egypt, he negotiates with one egyptian pharaoh named sadat, syria, negotiates with a syrian dictator, and it is really negotiates with the prime minister golda maier whose majority in the knesset was so big no one had ever heard of the likud party. let's flash forward now. you are john kerry. in syria, who do you negotiate

with? who answers the phone that comes off the wall, basically. in israel, you have a kind of minority/majority coalition. not know who is in power but it is a really complicated set of coalition partners. --benjamin netanyahu is in power. the ministry of interior. 00, he will end his political life. hop over to egypt, it was the anerals and morsi, and general again. think of what a difficult time this is. i also have enormous sympathy for anyone in these jobs. >> you mentioned before your most recent book which is called "that used to be us." here i want to ask you about whether i'm right in my belief in my many years of radio that you are a very optimistic and deeply patriotic --many years of

reading you that you are a optimistic and patriotic person, and yet in this book, the title as well as part of it are for from a pessimistic. you seem to be suggesting that we are at a tipping point, and if something goes wrong, we're going to be up the creek without a paddle. what happened to your optimism? >> so, you know, let me start with where it came from and where it might have gone. so i grew up in minnesota, in time in a placea where politics -- the year i graduated high school, the then governor anderson was on the cover of time magazine holding in thelleye, holding headline. the state that works. i grew up in this place where brothers,he cohen

franken grew up at the same time. our congressmen were liberal republicans. the companies in minnesota, 3m, dayton hudson thought it was their obligation to build a theater. it was not a diverse place. we had one african-american person in my high school. i do not want to suggest it was a perfect or a snapshot of america, but i grew up in a place where politics seem to work and solve problems, and that really formed, that was really a formative thing -- i am always looking for minnesota in some way in my journalism. and by then i have gone off, to the middle east and obviously, that cheered me. i saw some horrific things in beirut and jerusalem and i covered the massacre in syria.

but i have never lost that sense. one of the things that journalists have lost, a bright dividing line today sometimes, some journalists, is the line between skepticism and cynicism. don'now, the skeptics -- i know. i want to check it out. i will not take anyone's word for it, but i want to report it out. show me. a cynic says, i already know who you are. one of the things that worries me is i did a call about this once where i came back. i was hired by upi, and spent two years in beirut. there was a reporter in the business section at that time. nathaniel was a wonderful, looks like a choir boy and he was a born-again christian and he loved to hear about the whole event. so we did have lunch and talk to

him about israel. when i went off to beirut for said, i am going to pray for your safety. i said, i will appreciate that. two years later after i got out iruter room alive -- be alive, he was one of the first people i called. i said, thank you. it was, i thought you were my good luck charm. was on ronel nash brown's airplane when it slammed into a mountain in bosnia and he died in that crash. he was suchbecause a -- she was someone who taught me the difference between skepticism and cynicism and i kept that in my mind. >> we have got about a minute left, and i want to know whether deep down you are an optimistic about america now. >> deep down i feel this -- that most important national foreign-policy issue

global issue in the world is the health and vitality of this country. if we go dark as a country -- >> go dark? if wewe are pessimistic, cannot emulate these values were restarted -- freedom, opportunity, perl is an -- growlism -- your kids will up in a fundamentally different world. that is why i invest so much of my time in writing about itrica, because i do believe is the most amazing country in the world and the world will be a very different place if we cannot be all we need to be. >> i am really sorry that our time was up because i would like to continue with that saying but we have run out of time. and i want to thank our audience first and i want to thank our audience around the nation and the world by way of the internet that, andnd all of most important, our guest new york times columnist thomas friedman for sharing his

thoughts, his insights about big questions. i am very grateful to you. that is it for now. i am marvin kalb. good night, and good luck. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] now have about 15 or 320 minutes, and we can, that is to say you can, ask tom questions and what i would like to do is suggest you come up front where there are two people with microphones, and your voice will be heard if you come right up here to the microphone. please identify yourself. let us know what you're associated with, university or whatever, and please ask a question and not make a speech. navy captain,red and thanks for all of the great thanksu do and mr. kalb,

for putting this on tonight. first, i have a book from paul brinkley -- >> oh, good. >> i have a two part question. how would you rate the trust factor of america in the world right now? and two, since we are in the press club, how does the international press look to the american press and what is your assessment of that? ands are very fair question a big question. it is hard for me to generalize about how the whole world, how much it trust us are not. if you are saudi arabia right now and your fear is that we are going to make up with iran, you do not trust us very much. japan,f you raare and you are worried about china, maybe you trust us a lot because you have to. it would be really hard to generalize.

kind of know what is behind your question and on balance, you know, the trust level if we have put it -- quantify -- i think it is going down, not up. the second question was? >> the american press -- >> again, i think it really is, it really depends. and i think it depends the country, the newspaper, the tv outlet, the radio, the specific journalist -- i would be reluctant to generalize. there is international press here. you should ask them. >> thank you for that question. yes, please? >> hi, green connections. one of the issues -- >> your name? >> i did. one of the issues is energy and energy security. you mention it in your book and obviously energy security and independence is critical to the future of this country being its

potential and the freedom to and the freedom from. and we have stories like the clean tech crash from "60 minutes," and we have other journalism that is sometimes covering it and sometimes not, what is your assessment of the coverage, what army missing, and can you give us your take on this component of the issue -- what are we missing? >> i have not looked at all the coverage and i am not going to make, i would not want to make a grand sweep on the coverage per se. i think it is a hugely important utes", and i think "60 min did that story and the next week google bought an amazing clean teach company. people really have to be careful about, i think, generalizing about some of these things. so i spent a lot of time

covering climate, water, energy issues. i think it is hugely important. it is also from a journalistic point of view really interesting. you have given me a chance to make a plug that i just completed a documentary with showtime. "years of living dangerously." it begins on april 13. on climate andne environmental stresses and the arab spring, showing how underlying the arab uprising were a lot of climate, water and environmental stresses. they did not cause it but they contributed. harrison ford did deforestation in indonesia. matt damon the water issue. it is an amazing series, and we hope it will be something that helps rekindle interest and debate on this. coming over here, i mentioned to marvin at dinner, i had to start with 60 degrees in sochi today. in the winter olympics.

that is why i always use the term -- i never use the term global warming. i try not to, because that sounds so, so cuddly. global warming. it sounds like golf in february to me. i much prefer global weirding. what actually happens is the weather gets wird. eird. you get two feet of snow in new york and 60 degrees in sochi. the hots get hotter and the dries get dryer. you see what is happening in california. that is what climate scientists predict will unfold. giveam going to ask you to answers that are little brief because we have got so many people. just please. >> thank you very much. "the boston globe." um, since we are talking about

freedom, i would be interested in your take on this. 9/11t of freedom post online was couched in terms of spreading freedom by military force. i'm curious your take on the lessons learned of the post-9/11 approach to spreading freedom. what did we do wrong? where are we now, and what can we do to maybe improve that trust which is obviously down in part because of that reaction? >> hard to give a short answer to that very valid and important question. so many things went wrong in iraq and afghanistan. hard to know where to start. the first was obviously, one of the things i think most went wrong and iraq, which you can understand now. you are talking to someone who really wanted that war to work, who believed in the opportunity and necessity of trying to build an island of freedom in that

part of the world is that if you look at the arab spring today, which ones have succeeded and which one not, and your question deserves a long answer but i will just give you this part o f f it. there is one common denominator that tunisia and yemen have and that is the principle of no vic tor, no vanquished. somehow everyone has to be included, including the ancien regime. iraq a little bit of what we did iniraq iraq -- the one thing we did in iraq not only with saddam hussein. we also had to deal with the baathists. we created a victor and vanquished. because one side thinks sunnis in iraq think that that they can have it all. sunnis in iraq think they can have it all --

i was speaking about serious. that-- syria. that was the biggest mistake of all. >> thank you. yes, please? >> a former white house foreign-policy adviser. i want to ask you about the current israeli-palestinian discussions that are going on, and do you feel optimistic that they will be a final resolution to this debate that has been going on for decades? more, um, i am, i'm optimistic than i have been in a while. and that means i think the chances are 50/50. you know, so that is what optimism really constitutes today. on the one hand, when i was just there last week, i just don't se this current leadership on both sides can make the big lift, the huge concessions they

have to make in order for a deal to be forged. and on the other hand, i do not see how they do not do it, because if -- what is really at stake to put into the context of middle east diplomacy, i truly believe, and there had to be at some point, i d believe that uso kerry mission will tell whether the two state solution is still possible. believe,ohn kerry, i is the last train. and the next train is the one coming out them. >> ok, thanks, tom. yes, please? >> hi. i'm working at brookings. i wanted to circle back to the freedom and freedom of the press. i did my graduate work in europe and ireland specifically, and i found that the news coverage of the irish times was fairly

different than the -- what we would get here. when i spoke to my peers about it they said, your press is so sensitive. my question about it is do you put any stock in that snap judgment or do you think it is more of an audience issue or just what we care about? try to avoid gross generalizations like our press is censored. i have heard that. i went to graduate school in england. i know what it is like to look at america from the outside in. all i can tell you is -- you beirutike i served in with a lot of european and american correspondence, and we covered those stories very differently. and i don't think there is anything -- i really disagreed sometimes with some take they might have. theknow, you pick up typical european prep on israel, for instance.

the baseline starts at a much higher level of hostility, not just skepticism, frankly. and so they might say, well, you america.red in we might say that you start out with a bias. that is why like to read papers from all over the world and i like to see everybody's perspective, but i cannot pass judgment on who's censored and who is just coming at it totally straight. >> thank you, tom. yes, please. > i am currently with >> it's very different from what is written in the first amendment in america. if people respected freedom so much someone would have

intervened. if you look at the activities in the middle east and afghanistan, the killing of innocent people in iraq, yemen, so moll yarks how do you as a journalist econcile that. >> one of the problems you always have in this job is people and when you are a journalist as well, bad things happen all turnover world all the time -- over the world all the time. because bad things are happening, it doesn't always tell what you you should do. you might say we should have intervened in ro wand da. a lot of people felt that at the time.

like what we've already learned from some of our interventions already in iraq and afghanistan, maybe we don't know what we're doing and sometimes intervention, that gets you through day one. you stop people from doing bad things. but i think what we've learned from the whole middle east experience, we can stop people from doing bad things, but we can't always make them, we rarely can make them do good things. once you get done stopping bad people. we stopped what we thought was .oing to be a masacre

be my n lead to it can answer. mentioned your high regard for president bush in his work at international. your so mentioned secretary kissinger's work in the middle east. looking at bush the elder, does that high regard in respect also extend to his secretary of state jim baker? >> i covered jim baker. i was the diplomatic correspondent so i have high regard for the job he did as secretary of state. >> thank you very much. admirer of your

olumn and writing. i was here for one session when ted copple was the guest about the changing state of news and i read "the new york times" a lot, i'm reading bbc to avoid reading cynics. how do you feel about how businesses like fox news and if our news -- >> one question please. >> all i can tell you is one of the sites i go -- people ask what do you read? i read "the new york times" first. wall ashington post," the treet journal financial times. and i really enjoy real career politics because it gives me a

wide range and one of the questions international opinion. some a one-stop shop of so i really, i'm a news junky and i'm an opinion news junky so i love reading opinion and i love reading other people's opinion and a wide range of opinion. and i try to every once in a while, i don't have time and i'm not going to do it as a habit because you have to do a lot of preparation. asked me last year to be on their tough challenging debate. and an issue of debate was is america forced for good in the world and i took the affirmative

at the oxford union debating society. i do that to test myself. and i think it's real important when you is it where i is it to give people a shot at you every once in a while. something like bush never did. go to the heritage foundation and have no questions. and so again, it's not something i'm dog to do all the time but i believe from time to time you should do that. >> we have time for two questions. >> thanks for your talk. you mentioned early on a quote. i don't remember the exact one. but it's long the lines of those who give up their freedom to preserve security deserve neither. >> that was one of the introducers. >> i want to get your take on hat because my feeling is that freedoms are something we've given up in favor of security.

i'm wondering whether you believe there is any way and if there is what way people might be convinced to give up their security to preserve values. >> it's a very important question and all i can do is go back to what i said. my overwhelming reaction to the whole snowden affair is two things. this was nevtable and healthy we have this discussion. because if you see where technology is going now, it is leaping ahead as the world gets hyper connected, so much faster than human beings can adapt and adjust. at the same time you have to be aware. i go back to why i'm seeing ads people are voluntary giving up or in my case not voluntarily giving up freedom and information that is being used and crammed at me. you think we have to have a very

big discussion about this. >> last question please. >> thank you for the discussion. >> bill clifford. you mentioned your concern if america goes dark. i'd like you to assess the american education system and how good it does a job of keeping the lights on, of creting globally minded citizen what is would be the prescriptions to do a better job? that's like a whole new column. i do write about this occasionally. we have work to do. i write about education a lot. i'm not an educator, i just play one on tv. i'm interested in mesh power, that got me into industry and jobs and that takes you into education. so i kind of back into it.

i would just say that i think we have a lot of work to do. there is no question about it. i think the single most important issue in my view is parenting. that parents who snill a love of learning in their kids and hold them to high expectations and everything else, teacher, reform, technology is third, fourth and fifth as far as i'm concerned. these are great questions. i dodged as many as i could. but this issue of pessmism and optimism is run through. my column does run fairly regularly. eight or nine years ago i was in israel having dinner and i said why do you run my column. and he said tom, you're the only optimist we have. i was getting up to go to the

table. i know why you're an optimist he said. i said why. he says it's because you're short. you can always see that part of the glass that is half full. i'm not so short, but i am still an optimist. thank you very much for coming. >> thank you. > [applause] >> thanks for joining us ladies and gentlemen. >> white house cyber security coordinator michael daniel will deliver the keynote address at a conference on suber security challenges hosted by u.s. telecom. our live coverage begins omorrow morning on span 3.

>> president obama will talk to house democrats at their retreat in maryland. live coverage tomorrow morning t 10:30 eastern. >> we spoke with a energy regulator on thursday's "washington journal". >> >> host: jon wellinghoff is joining us from san francisco this morning to talk about a 16 "wall street journal" front page story last week, mystery assault on the power grid. general wellinghoff what happened? >> guest: good morning, greta. what happened was basically a eam of individuals went into first a number of cable vaults,

a number of hundreds of yards outside of a high-voltage transmission substation, cut the fibro optic cables are the 9/11 raffic there, then moved the cable vaults and moved into a pasture adjacent top the substation set up firing positions and fired pproximately 120 rounds from ak-47-style weapons into the substation and knocked out 17 transformers. >> host: who was involved? >> guest: well, we don't know. the fbi is continuing to investigate.

the only evidence that was left were 120 shell casings, that had no dna or fingerprints. there was virtually no evidence of these individuals. there were some video frames from cameras that the utility had that were extremely rainy. can see the firing from the k-47's and some of the bullets hitting the chain link fence as they go through, but you cannot make out the figures or see who they are. you could see that there was, apparently, a leader of the group who was signaling them to commence firing with a flashlight. then he or she signaled to stop firing 19 minutes later right before the police arrived. the police arrived and apparently, these individuals 17 stopped firing and left that area 70 seconds before the police arrived. >> host: was this an act of terrorism? >> guest: it was certainly a

purposeful act. we know that. we know, also, it was an act buy a group of individuals who were dedicated to destroy or severely disrupt one of our most important and most vital areas of our electric grid, these high-voltage substations, and that they also put together a very, very professional plan, and they executed it in a very, very professional manner, so we know, ultimately, that these individuals were not, for example, you know, a random group of people who are, you know, that out, to have some fun. i was somebody who had the intent to if into this facility to do they did. they had pacific targets they shot at they, they avoided other targets that would have caused immediate attention to what they were doing, so they knew exactly what they were doing. they carried it out in a very professional manner. >> this incident has been brought up during congressional hearings with the current chairman of the commission. and in those hearings, it has been talked about how details should not be disclosed because its an ongoing investigation. why are you talking about this now? >> guest: where will, i am talking about it because i think

it is important for both the administration and congress to 18 understand how vital these individual transmission system assets are to this country, and how important it is for us to put together an organized plan to put in place mitigation measures to protect against these type of attacks. >> host: let's break that down. why are these grids valuable? >> guest: well, they are valuable because we all depend on electricity. ultimately, every system in the country is dependent upon the electric system. so as such, if in fact, there was an organized coordinated attack on a number of the substations, it could take down very large portions of our electric grid. if that attack was conducted in such a way that it actually destroyed the vital pieces of those substations, that is the transformers, we could be without power for a very,

le! very long time. >> host: what would be the economic impact of that? >> guest: trillions of dollars. >> host: how do we know that? >> guest: bus our entire economy, our entire society depends upon the electricity continuing to fuel all the systems in country. we would not have any commerce whatsoever. we wouldn't have any transportation because you couldn't pump gasoline. you know? we would be in complete chaos. am sure we are soon the tv shows where the grid goes up. well, that is are we would be if here was coordinated attack on these critical high-voltage 19 transformers in the country. >> why is there no plan to deal with such a sophisticated attack? >> well, because there mission to specific agency who has been given that authority. there are agencies and my former

agency folk was one who had authority to deal with the den are reliability of the grid on the long-term basis. no one has been given authority to look at what they call known vulnerabilities. and hazards of vulnerabilities. ultimately, in the short term, ultimately, we need to assign some agencies, some response k to put together a comprehensive coordinated plan. this is part of a number of proposed pieces of legislation over 200-2007-2008. i testified multiple times on this issue before congress asking for the authority to be given to somebody, i didn't care which agency would be give than authority, but there was no movement, unfortunately, on this legislation. so there is no one to coordinate this. the individual utilities, you

know, have other priorities and it is not really an individual utility problem. it is, in pack, a national problem. if we had blackouts in large portions of the country it would affect us nationally. >> host: where is the resistance coming from? is it the companies? is it congress? why? > guest: well, i think at this time is the legacy of the fact 20 that a number of industries, you know, not wanting more regulation? that is certainly understandable. i think this raises to the level

hall we need to have some kind of coordinated effort at the federal agency level. it not, certain hi, a state problem. it is not a utility problem because there are a number of the substations that are owned by the utilities. yes. hardening them and reducing them, the vulnerability to these physical attacks will help ebb. it will help all the neighboring utility and help all of the customers that are outside of those utility areas because they will be protected from these types of attacks and the results in blackouts as well. it is something that the cost should be spread to everybody. perhaps we need some tax incentives. maybe there is some other way to approach this other than a regulatory one. you know, i am exploring those with a number of individuals, but ultimately, there needs to be some coordinated man to start protect these substations now that we know that there are individuals who have the capability to carry out an attack as sew fess indicated as this within we saw on april 16th. >> i want you to respond a column written in "the wall street journal" yesterday buy jenkins who says there is nothing new about americans shooting up the grid. 21 this has been happening for a long time. he says this, that if the implication is that more attacks

could be expected they can because they have been happening for decades. one expert suggests the assaults were widely replicated around the country. it could take down the grid. he says, yes, it would require an army. every substation is different. what has to be scouted separately. wouldn't such an army be keen not give away the presence. why do the terrorists have trained fighters to deploy, why would their target be a substation? >> guest: that is a very interesting col loam. i disagree with most everything that he says in that column. i haven't read it, fully. i will tell you this. number one, yes, there have been people who, you know, they have taken shots at substations. you know? people, on a random basis, have gone out and shot at ubstation. no one, no one has ever planned and executed the level of a sophisticated organized attack that you saw on april 16th.

that is undisputed. number two, you don't need an army. you just need a very few number of people with some fairly unsophisticated weapons to target the most critical substations in this country and tris not very many. i am not going to reveal specific numbers because that would be revealing things we 22 shouldn't be talking about. but what was there, we did pacific modeling on load flows to show that you can, in pack, take down the entire grid by hitting a very few number of these substations. so this gentlemen who wrote this column has not done the analysis. he has not done the studies. really doesn't know the details of, in fact, what could be done. >> host: let's talk to al in watertown, tennessee. republican caller,en the air with jon. go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call.

how do you know they were ak-47's. >> guest: because we had the graph. >> caller: i am letting you know for those of us who know what we are talking about. it could be any number of weapons. who do you work for now? are billed as the former chairman? are you not energy attorney that is probably also registered as a lobbyist? is that true? >> guest: that is not true. >> caller: ok. who do you work for? >> guest: excuse me, sir, if i an answer. i am a partner in the law firm in san francisco. work on the emerging technologies at that firm. >> caller: what i am getting at is that your bill here as former chairman as if you are coming to this from a non-bias perspective and you already said things that 23 were unprovable primarily the ak-47.

it is just as important for eople to know the context of your presence there. thank you. >> host: ok. al before you go. you seem interested in the topic. why is that? what do you do? oh, we lost him. jon wellinghoff, would your company benefit from any reforms that were put into place to protecting the grid system. >> guest: no, i done do work in this area with respect to physical security that is not my client base. >> host: why do you think he took issue with the evidence of the ak-47. > guest: i don't know. my under standing the round is, in pack, an, a k-type round. don't understand what the point was there. was a specific round to have low

enough velocity to instead penetrate the cooling fans which was their target. they targeted the cooling fins. >> host: ok. we're talking to jon welling how far, hes the former chairman of the regulatory commission and served from 2009 under the bush administration then became chairman in 2009 and served before that under the bush administration then carried over to the obama administration. the wall street journals the topic. rebecca smith had the story. a must ry assault on a power

grid back in april of 2013 in california. 24 susan is in california, san diego, go ahead, susan. >> caller: yes, good morning. thank you for c-span. mr. wellinghoff, i am very interested in your conversation. also saw you this week on the pbs news hour talking about this same topic. as a person who lives in san diego and who was here when our grid went round, a couple of years ago, do you think it is some kind of unexplained accident in arizona, apparently. just want to back up what you are saying about how frustrating and disastrous this could be on a longer-term basis. luckily, the grid came back up in san diego after four to five hours. everything was ok. but had this gone on for any length of time, it could have been a problem. that is all i need to say. want to thank you for bringing this up and focusing attention on it. >> host: ok. jon grab ahead. >> guest: thank you, susan. that the point. the only outages we have seen in this country have been relatively short duration. the out oink that susan talked

about in sentenced, then, this was the big 2003 outage in the northeast which took out 50 million people for three to four days. it was from a tree touch on a transmission line. it shows you that ultimately, you know, again, a coordinated attack by a few number of individuals on a number of substations could have a much 25 more prolonged and devastating effect on this country. >> host: what were the economic impacts of those outages? >> guest: tens, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars. certainly the figure on the 2008 outage, i am sure it was in the tens of millions of dollars. probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars. >> host: right. in alaska, republican caller, go ahead, dwight. >> caller: hi, i think the whole ssue with the thing with the power grid is overlooking one of the more important aspects.

ure. some radicals are going out with their weapons. i think, you know, the power grid could be hardened enough to ordinary bullets are not going to cause any more problems. the things like solar flairs and outages that cause outages that could be not just, you oh, in america. it could be the whole planet. right now, you know, there is no safety devices on our grid like, you know, like metal things or ultra that could protect our grid against power surges from the sun. you know, i have written letters to the power companies saying various times here, even though i get no response from them. that is, to me, a bigger issue. our own sun could knock us out quicker than a terrorist group. those things are totally rounds. they could not penetrate the shell of one of the big transformer. there is no way. they may knock out the minor or smaller pieces of equipment and 26 take the thing down for a short period of time. that is not going to do it. it would take antitank fun to blow up the big transformers because the shell on those

things is three to four inches think, i think. >> host: ok. jon? >> guest: i don't want to comment on what the gentlemen said because i would be getting into details the traps former case that probably shouldn't be disclosed. but ultimately, he is right about the solar flair issue. those vulnerabilities. those vulnerabilities, i know folks are looking into now, and look at, you know, working with americans and gaining reg lagses to put in place the type of commitment the gentlemen is talking about it. it is important to ensure that from the major solar flair or any other type of electromagnetic pulse situation like that, that we don't, in pack, have an out age. we do need to protect against that as well. will say that he is wrong

about the case of the transformer and you would be very surprised as to what type of weapon, in fact, could destroy one of those transformers. >> so it needs to be better protected? >> absolutely. >> and we certainly can do that. there is multiple techniques, and litigation measures we can take. i mean the simplest one. every single one of these 27 substations that have the high voltage transformers is surrounded by simply a chain link fence that anybody can see through at 1200-yards with the scope and the rifle. we could make them ok. you can not see the individual targets within the substation. in addition to that, we could putt in better cameras and better lighting as well. we could even put barriers up which are inexpensive of concrete movable barriers that we have used overseas multiple

times before. that will ensure that, you mo he, some bullet ballistic projectile could not, in fact, penetrate through them. there is lots of easy ways, farley inexpensive ways to protect the systems. >> what's the cost? >> that's the first point we have to understand. there is 45,000 substation. there is only less than 100 that are the high-voltage critical substations that need to be protected. so numb per one, we're talking about a limited number. number two would be the cost, you know, i don't have an exact estimate. you can imagine what it cost to put a fence around a perimeter that is maybe several hundred yards. and to put, you know, more sophisticated camera lighting and think concrete barriers. i cannot imagine that it is more than, you know, $1 million or a couple million per substation. spreading that over the cost of 28 the entire taxpayer is about

of the united states, you know, would be very minimal amount of money to spend to in shore we do not have a major outage that has consequences of extreme economic damage and also potential, you know, health and safety issues as well. >> host: all right. we are talking to jon wellinghoff about a snipe are attack at a substation in california back in april of 2013. kevin, you are up next in ohio. democratic caller. >> caller: yes. >> host: ok. go ahead. >> caller: all right. yes, sir. am just wondering. work at the sites. the last few transform hes we put in big transformer. they were made in india and just to hear about the wait time on these huge critical pieces of equipment it boggles my mine we don't have a stockpile of these.

many of the utilities house their spares at the same substations. you know, you shoot out the operating ones. cue shoot out that spares at the same time, the other issue is there is a very long lead time for the transformers, minimum of six months and. >> usually you know 12 to 18 months to make the transformers there is only three companies in the united states that make them and, yes many are made overseas in korea and india and other places, so you know, the supply chain is along and very difficult one and replacing 29 these transformers would not be am easy thing someone were to knock out a large number of them in a coordinated attack. how much do they costs? what is their role? what do they do? each one of them costs tens of millions of dollars. the role of the transformers is to step up voltage from a number

of generators that are in the area so these substations are located where there are a number of large generating stations and step up to the voltage so then the voltage can be electricity can then be transmitted on high voltage transmission lines to the centers to our city and towns where we immediate the power. >> well, so, that is what a substation is then basically ma yes. it is on the grid that allows us to step up voltage of power and some instances step it down as well when we get closer to the loads. but these high voltage ones that i am speaking of are primarily to step up that voltage so that ultimately it can be transmitted on these very high voltage transmission lines. the other 345 or the 500 or in some instance the 765-kilo vault line. >> what does the united states'

grid stim look like ingest guest well, three separate parts. there is three grids. there is western grid, there is eastern grid, then there is texas. texas is not strongly interconnected into the rest of the united states. in fact, texas is not under the 30 jurisdiction of the federal egulatory commission for transmission with reception of reliability so that does have the responsibility. these three grids are separate. they operate separately malt lit. once you are into the grid area, if you do something that one portion of the grid for example. if there is outage in florida. it is actually felt in maine. you can, you can sense the frequency incursion in maine if there is power plant, for example, that goes out in florida. so because of that, because of that because of this interconnectivness of the frequency across the entire interconnect that is why taking out a number within the interconnect can destabilize the entire connect and bring it down.

>> host: here is a tweet. was the super bowl power outage a few years back an indication of potential problems? >> guest: well, that was a local small distribution substation transformer, that was my understanding. i don't think it was necessarily an indication of problems, certainly not anywhere near to the magnitude of this april 16th purposeful attack that was just, you know, a random outage that was an equipment failure. >> i want to show the viewers a map of the grid system in the united states. then john welling off, another tweet from our viewer. he says looks to me like we are burying the lead here that the

national media sat on a major 31 story for nearly a year. >> guest: well, it is interesting that, you know, it took rebecca to dig this out. you know, certainly, you know, i provided her some information but she got the vast amount of information from multiple other sources and really, you lo, flushed out the entire story, it is, it is curious that no one else picked up this story for such a long time. > is the fbi talking about it? >> i done have any contact with the fbi. >> should they be addressing it, though you? are addressing it publicly? guest test i cannot speak for the fbi. it is my understanding it is still under investigation and it is also my understanding that their policy not to talk about ongoing investigations. >> host: rebecca smith right writes in her story, ho one has been arrested. >> guest: yes. again, this particular investigation of who did this, you know, talking about the led, it is not the story. in my opinion, the story is ultimately that we need protect the substations across the

country and that we have it now known to us that there are individuals capable of carrying out these kinds of attacks so because of that ultimately let's us protect these things let's not see any future attacks to succeed to this level. >> another tweet from the viewer who says attack could have been buy anyone angry at u.s. government for any incrust is such as the persecution of mar 32 mr or something else. andrew in new jersey, independent caller, hi, andrew. >> caller: hi, good morning. >> host: good morning. >> caller: first of all, let's not forget the lessons of 9/11. okay. we have not learned nything. you got the immigration and service that is charged with keeping track of who comes into this country, where they are, and there was immigration service out in california that pressed a few years ago was backlogged and shredded the documents which means no more paper trail. you done know who these people

are. second of all, how easy is it to go and buy a high-powered rifle at a gun show but no background checks or you need the money to put down, they don't do any background checks at a gun show. the gun laws in this country have so many in them you could drive a mac truck through them. >> i know you are not a gun expert. the first part of the comments. >> i am not a gun expert. i am not, i would not advocate doing anything to restrict our second amendment rights. i think again, what we need to do is protect the facility which is fairly easy and inexpensive thing to do. >> on twitter, though, so we need more federal regulations, which means more bureaucracy, bigger government control of energy sources, would that be the result come? >> well, i am not suggesting that they control the energy sources. 33 i am simply

suggesting there be an agency who put together a coordinated plan, give that plan over to the owners of this infrastructure to ensure those owners carry it out. >> then another tweet from redding, what should be done to protect american infrastructure wireless power transmission alleviate vulnerability. >> well, one thing that would alleviate vulnerability if we have our own power source and certainly people are moving to that. many people are starting to put in solar systems on their houses and put in natural gas generator and small cogenerators in their businesses as well and if, we go to a more distributed system, that obviously will be one that is much, much less vulnerability to this type of centralized attack on a system that is vulnerable to that type of an attack. >> the caller from alaska said that up there, they are on some

sort of independent system. what does that mean? well, that is true. alaska is on an independent grid as well. i mean, their grid would not be subject to going down, for example. you took out the western grid in the united states. it would not affect alaska. their grid is not interconnected with the grid in the united states. >> host: yeah. because canada is between us and them. >> host: ok. >> guest: we are interconnected to the canadian grid. 34 it could effect the canadian grid in part going down but alaska parts are so remote that they, their grid is an independent system from the rest. just like texas is an independent grid from the rest of the united states as well. >> host: kim, republican caller. >> caller: the question i have is, number one, regulations

really is not one of bush's big deals. all i can hear is that he is saying he wants taxpayers to pay for the infrastructure upkeep. that is what i hear. >> host: chairman. guest well, that is true. i think the taxpayers are the ones who should pay as opposed to the individual rate payers in each individual utility area that has these high volt ago in transformer substations because protecting those is going to protect throughout the country. everybody is going to benefit so everybody should pay. dave in ohio, democratic caller. >> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning. >> caller: i got a few points. first, when the caller awhile back talked about various weapons. there is pistols that shoot 7.65's for him to think they

were all ak-47's is ludicrous. second, it was stupid to bar ry this story. everybody knows that when a crime is committed, you have got to take care of the -- you have to bring it out. you have a short window that things can be taken care of or citizens or, you know, information can be gleamed, you 35 bar ry it for a year then bring it out. you know? it makes it look like it was some type of black operation. >> host: mr. wellinghoff? >> guest: well, it was a sophisticated operation. in fact the 7602 round that they used was very carefully chosen for the job because they were not targeted the cases. they were targeting the cooling fins which were much, much thinner material. so those bullets very easy penetrated the cooling fins. their target. they knew exactly what they were doing. >> here is a tweet from one of

the viewers ob the topic. related to power outages. can your guests explain the great new york city blackout that occurred years ago? guests there was one in 2003 that blocked out new york city and the northeast. the explanation there was, again, a tree that you know was in a storm touched on the lynn and caused a fault on that line and that fault then cascaded through ohio and throughout the northeast and ultimately brought down that whole center of the country which makes my point that these interconnects are set up in such a way that one event in one area can have a devastated effect on a very large area very far away. >> what types of company, what types of companies or how many companies operate the nation's grid system. oh, there are-dreads of

companies that operate different parts of the grid system, 36 different parts of the transmission system in the grid, so they there are multiple companies. there are large operators that are independent in some areas called independent system operators regional transmission organizations and but other areas have just private companies that own the grid as well or in some instance publicly entities look the tba, it is a mix. it is a huge mix across the country. that is why it howled -- that also makes my point. that is where we should come back to it being a national problem, organized at the national level, because there are so many multiple different kinds of private and public companies who own and operate hese assets. >> the attack on power grids are a reason to keep aspects of surveillance programs. she wants to know were there any pictures or film of the attack

of this substation in california in april of 2013. >> yes, there are. there are. there are camera videos very granny camera videos that was released by the santa dollars are sheriff's office. i believe in june or july. but they only show, again, you know, very shadowy figures you can see the muzzle flash from the ak-47's, you can see flashes of hit hitting the fence or the bullets hitting the fence or going through the fence and i saw evidence of that when i was there touring the site and you could also see the flashlight 37 very clearly before initially signaling the commencing firing and also signaling to stop firing. >> during recent hearings it came out when you were for chairman pe n investigation into this and you were also briefing members of congress about what happened.

while members of congress thinking about moving forward howled they think about moving forward on some sort of legislation? we talked about this earlier. then, who gets the power to prevent something like this attack happening on a larger scale? >> guest: well, i think congress should consider giving some agency the authority to address known threats and vulnerabilities that this is one of those in this in tans. it would include cyber security, things like net and other cyber vie viruses that, in pack, can infiltrate the electric system and have devastating effect. so i think it is something that congress ultimately should consider because, again, i have stated, it is a national problem. >> what about smart grids? what are they? what role could they play? well, smart grids are ultimately systems that embed intelligence into our existing grid and

existing equipment into our existing grid, we are putting on to the high voltage transmission system, for example, they call phase monitoring units that monitor every four second, the phase angles and other data from the grid that can come back to 38 grid operators and do things like help prevent the 2003 lackout by giving grid operators a quicker view of what is happening and then, you he, separate parts of it if possible to ultimately reduce the possibility of these outages and improve the reliability. so smart grids can help these things. other things that can be done with respect to gritted configurations as to put them into more regional and more local micro grids with dc direct

current buses or switches m between them that can separate these grids if one part starts to go out, separate it from the other part of the grid and it can be done with the smart grid technology. that is expensive to i do. is much more ex pensive than protecting the substations, but it would be another technique or another means by which you could reduce the impact of the outage if someone went after one of these substations. >> jon, the former chairman of the federal energy regulatory commission served as the chairman from 20089 to 2013. hes with on the panel in 2006, put on there by george w. bush, but served under two different administration. we thank you, sir, for your time this morning. getting up early in san francisco and talking to the viewers. >> guest: thank you, greta. >> on the next "washington journal" patient privacy rights and privacy laws in the future of employee retirement benefits.

then we lack at security issues in american's access to food. plus your phone calls, facebook comments and treats. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.

>> there was something about abraham lincoln and saw the potential and helped encourage it. she helped polish him up. the political parties they had where they invited a lot of important people. she wielded a lot of power both over mr. lynn cooned over where she was going. >> the involvement of mrs. roosevelt in the political career of franklin roosevelt was right in the beginning. she becomes much more active in her role after he contracted polio.

she would encourage franklin radios strolet continue with his political ambitions. >> first ladies influence and images. live on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> supreme court justice e lane na kagan as an attorney and junl at an event hosted by the new york city bar association. she highlighted three cases justice ginsberg took on early in her career. we'll hear briefly from justice ginsberg at this 90 minute event. think i am predicting that you are being interrupted for will be worth being interrupted about. thank you for coming out tonight in what seems to be our weekly

snowstorm of the season. i am the president of the new york city bar association. this is a terrific night for all of us as we have the honor to be in the presence of two supreme court justices. that may be a record here in this room. both of whom braved the snow and the train tonight to be here. we especially are honored that they made that sacrifice to come. as you can imagine from looking around, the response to our invitation about this event was immediate and overwhelming. within minutes, it was sold out and tickets being sold on stubhub and other places. i apologize the seating is tight, but it is usually the case given the honor read -- on honoree.

we are happy that there are reportedly over 100 law students -- law students in the crowd. the city bar established this lecture in justice ginsburg's name a number -- a number of years ago. her achievements as a law year, law professor, and judge. this is our 12 ginsburg lecture and justice ginsburg has been involved in every one of them since the inception of the series. we are happy for her continued presence. [applause] she has been a voice for justice and gender equity and civil rights for many years. in terms of her own background, not to spoil the agenda, but she

will be introducing the other justice who we are honored to have beer here tonight, justice elena kagan. to be here tonight, justice elena kagan. [applause] ofill not steal the thunder justice ginsburg by talking about justice kagan. justice ginsburg was top among the women in her class at cornell university before attending harvard law school, where she was only one of nine 1959 in the class of before she transferred in graduated from columbia law school. upon graduation, she clerked for the southern district of new york. she became the second woman to join the faculty at rutgers university school of law. jeter at columbia, she became the first tenured woman on the faculty. she founded the women's rights project and is director of the

project, she argued many court cases, including many before the u.s. supreme court, which challenged sexual stereotypes and pave the way for better opportunities for women. during her time at columbia, she served on our city bar executive from 1974-1978. prior to her -- to the supreme on the u.s.erved court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit. it is my privilege to invite justice ginsburg to the podium to introduce our distinguished speaker justice kagan. after that, i will come back up the cuts we will have a q&a following justice kagan's remarks. people in the audience will be allowed to ask questions of either justice. thank you, justice ginsburg. [applause]

[applause] >> thank you. i am glad to see the snow did not discourage the members of this intrepid audience. it is my great joy to introduce to you this evening's lecturer, my dear colleague, the most honorable elena kagan. justice kagan has worked in the law in just about every

capacity. she has served all three branches of our government, , anded private practice devoted many years to legal education. a professor at the university of chicago and then as a harvard law school she became harvard untiln 2003 and served 2009, the year president obama appointed her solicitor general of the united states. kagan'sstice appointment in 2010, what a wise and witty participant she is in oral arguments. ,er opinions display the best

she never seeks to carry the day and her style is engaging. clarity, fluency, and giddy humor, that she was an assigned an altogether easy case , but i know the hours and hours one must spend to make it sound that way. endeavors, she has been a star performer, first woman to become dean of the harvard law school, first woman to be confirmed as solicitor general, and in 1973, first woman to inaugurate a ceremony at manhattan's lincoln square synagogue.

you likely do not know she was commandeered by the first branch for a special assignment in the summer of 1993. commissionedbiden elena to prepare him for my confirmation hearings. she may have read some of my , articles i wrote in my law teaching days. asked, but i hope it did not include reading this during book i co-authored in the early 1960's, civil procedure in sweden. [laughter]

more in the did you know term whenin the 1987 she served for justice thurgood marshall, she was a regular reliable guard in pickup basketball games played on the of ourr -- top floor marble palace, the highest court in the land. she showed how sharp -- how far she would go to foster collegiality. under the tutelage is of justice scalia, she became a fearless hunter. the personal trainer with whom she boxes has been my physical 1999ss already and since -- fitness guardian since 1999. folk cross best job combination on the federal bench.