a band, organ. -- bend, oregon. >> a conversation with the three journalists who received files from edward snowden. all appeared via skype at the conference in new york city. toenwald has not returned the u.s. since the story because she fears arrest or subpoena. this is 45 minutes. >> hello, please take your seats. and welcome back. this next event, i promise, is going to be interesting. it's a skyped interview on the snowden revelations, and it involves actually four skypes.

that's a miracle of modern technology and it will either work or not work. it's very tricky. so somebody may go down, somebody may have a time delay, which is happening with one of our three guests. i guess it's analogous to the quadruple somersault ringling brothers done by miguel vasquez in 1982. so please bear with us, we'll have problems from time to tim so please bear with us, we'll have problems from time to time, but we have an excellent team of techies, i know, because i can't understand anything they say. and it is now my pleasure to introduce our interviewer, roger cohen, the op ed columnist for the "new york times." thank you. [applause] >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. so we're going to rely on much

maligned technology to try and bring this about. and ignore who ever may or may not be listening. i think it's fair to say that in the media landscape there is before and after edward snowden, his revelations about global n.s.a. data vacuuming, backed with concrete evidence, the feeling, i think, that many of us have had since 9/11 that something had gotten seriously skewed in the appropriate balance between national security and press freedom, the state, the surveillance state to some, and civil liberties. and as a result of this, edward snowden is a rock star to some. to others of course he is a tray for. a traitor.

here today by skype we have the three journalists who were entrusted by snowden, chosen by snowden to be the recipients of top secret n.s.a. archives. here with us are an award winning documentary filmmaker and journalist, finishing a trilogy of movies on the post 9/11 america and this last movie focuses on snowden. and along with glenn greenwald she traveled to hong kong last may to interview snowden. bart gellman is a senior fellow at the century foundation, author and pulitzer prize winning reporter over many years on national security issues. glenn greenwald is an investigative journalist, author, and columnist now at first look media which is the new journalistic venture, which

as you know is backed by the ebay founder. he's also a former constitutional and civil rights lawyer. hi, everyone. the most obvious fact about the three of you right now is that you are not here. and i remember glenn when i met you in rio, you saying that there was a nontrivial chance that if you traveled to the united states you would be arrested. so could i begin by asking you if you still feel that way and why you do? >> i feel that way even more now since you were here, which i don't recall exactly when it was, but it was a couple months ago, there have been other episodes where international security officials have made it clear that they view what we're doing as being not just improper

or dangerous but actually criminal. james clapboard the senior national security official in the u.s. government has been running around calling the reporters who work on this story accomplices, perpetrating the term. the house of the intelligence committee said that he thought that what i was doing in particular was criminality and thievery. he propounded this theory that those of us freelancing around the world have been selling documents, which is what a lot of people have been doing for decades. so i think there's been an attempt to create these theories that could criminalize the journalism that we're doing. but as i said to you back then and i believe more so now, i think it would be wrong to allow that kind of intimidation to prevent us from doing what we have the right to do, including returning to the country we're citizens in. i do still think it's a nontrivial risk. i'm sure there are factions that

don't want that on the legacy. so my belief is still that they would do the right thing. >> so are you going to come back? >> yes, definitely. i mean it's inevitable that i will, we're still figuring out exactly when that will be. obviously we were honored, the three of us, there was a ceremony on april 11 that will be an interesting opportunity to go back to. there's other opportunities like that that we're still figuring out. but certainly at some point relatively soon i intend to have the proposition that the united states guarantees press freedom through the constitution. >> laura, you've been much harassed at airports and elsewhere over several years, and i'm sure you share some of the same concerns and maybe you could tell us also how you feel about coming back. but let me add in question.

edward snowden appeared recently via skype at south by southwest, with a backdrop of the american constitution. is mr. snowden an american patriot, in your view? >> thank you for having me and for having this event, it's great to be here with my colleagues. let me take this in stages, so in terms of coming back, i mean it's been well documented that i've, across from the border that i've been sought for several years, for things like having my notebooks copied and computers confiscated. actually i'm not worried that i'd be arrested, i was worried that they would subpoena me or take my electronics, so i don't think it's trivial, and it's real. yes i will come back for sure and right now i made the choice

to stay out of the country for source protection reasons. as much as journalists, the real topic, the urgency of what we need to do is talk about the resources it takes to bring information forward. in that context, we put our lives on the line to reveal illegal government spying perhaps or spying programs that were being done in secret, and that were collecting, that could have entire countries' information. so i think he put his life on the line and i think we all owe a debt of gratitude to him. >> bud, are there legitimate government secrets? >> sure there are. if i could just step back for a

second and talk about the legal environment, it is significant that director used the word accomplices, that the inspector general of the united states uses the word agent in reference to us reporters. since those are terms that have criminal law implications. but we've had the legal framework, and the in the espionage act of 97 years ago with which a government could prosecute journalists. and it's been a political culture that's created the barriers to that. the question is whether, what was clearly a debate inside the u.s. government is going to begin to shift that. as far as secrets, sure, i think there are legitimate national security secrets. i think the government is charged with protecting security of its people against external threats.

and the question is whether that concept is -- the question is whether the boundaries will be drawn by the people to some extent at the level of principle, that the government represents, or whether the government gets to do all on its own in secret. >> do you systematically run by the government response on these stories you've done on the snowden revelations or other stories about the n.s.a.? do you feel that is still an essential part of what we do as journalists? >> i talked to the subject of my stories about every story and always have in my career, and certainly a national security story, which i spend most of my years reporting on, i've done the same. so there are times when i'm confident, i understand what the documents say and what my independent reporters say, and i tell them what the story is

going to be, sometimes you learn things, often i do. every now and again i discover that something i thought i knew might not be right, i have to go back to the drawing board. and sure, it's an opportunity for them to say we would ask you not to publish this or that, for the following reasons. first of all, my sense is that we need to require them to stipulate the authenticity and the truthfulness of the fact before we have that conversation. and second of all i'd like to know the reason. and i and more importantly the executive editor of the washington post have to be persuaded that there actually would be damage, that is meaningful that outweighs the public end of the story. >> do you feel the same way, glenn? >> i think in all of the n.s.a. reporting that i've done, i haven't, but people with whom i

have worked, editors, have gone to the n.s.a. the same way as bart said they would go to anybody else and say this is what we intend to report about you, what is your comment, i think it would be ridiculous not to do that. why as a journalist would you want less information rather than more. i have though been critical in the past of the process where by journalists spent lots of time sort of collaborating with the government and almost negotiating what it is that can and can't be published. i think he often spent months with senior officials talking about the stories he wants to publish. that to me seems like we're crossing a line between an adversarial press and one that becomes collaborative where you put the government on your editorial board. i don't think that the "washington post" and other

papers have done any of that, but i think there have been cases in the past, and i do think that newspapers erred on the side of surpressing information, the most infamous case being the "new york times" holding onto the bush n.s.a. wash eavesdropping story for 15 months and finally publishing because it was about to be published in a book. so in general i think that process is important legally, lawyers will tell you that you give the government an tub to have their input. but i think it's really important that it not become a means by which the government can overly influence the reporting. and in the case of the stories i worked on, 99.5% of the time when the government said we don't think you should publish that, those views have been disregarded and we published it anyway because they didn't have any convincing rationale. >> glenn, there's a strong feeling among some people that edward snowden has threatened

the security of the united states, that he took an oath and then reneged on it. and there have been stories since his revelations revealing n.s.a. intercepts of transmissions between taliban fighters or intercepts of e-mail recording -- regarding intelligence assessment on iran. that's not domestic surveillance, it's not spying on allies. it's what intelligence services all around the world do. so how is that illegal or immoral, and how is it not damaging to the united states of america? >> well two things about that. first of all the oath that snowden took is actually an oath that a member of the intelligence community through the constitution and he -- i think it's really important to understand the process that he

used to do this as a book. to get it so distorted. edward snowden has not published a single document in the last nine months. >> but you have. >> i have. bart has, laura has. dozens of others reporters have. >> what's the difference? >> because he did not think that he should be in a position to decide which documents ought to be published and which ones ought to be suppressed. he came to well established well regarded newspapers and asked the journalists in those institutions within he was working to make those judgments about what is in the public interest to publish and what is not. specifically a lot of what is giving the u.s. for back ground, for contact, for understanding, but i don't think all of this should be published, if i just wanted all this published i wouldn't need you, i could just upload it through the internet

myself. so stories about things like, think of a story that has been published that shouldn't be, i think the question about why was this publish ought to be posed to the journalist who decided to publish it and not necessarily to snowden. but i will say that things that countries do to one another are incredibly newsworthy. the "new york times" reported that the israelis and the americans were engaged in cyber warfare against the iranians using sophisticated viruses. >> glenn, do you in your head draw a line somewhere between newsworthy and endangering? >> sure, and the reason why nine or 10 months into the story we published many hundreds of top secret documents but not all the ones in our possession is because we're constantly engaged as our source demand that we do in that analytical process. to avoid harming innocent people. and i think we've done a very

good job of that, and the proof is that there is zero evidence, zero, not a little bit, but zero that a single story with snowden material has harmed any individual or endangered national security. all we get are the very familiar vague scripted rituals that government officials always use, but nothing specific or concrete about any harm being done. >> laura, please feel free to jump in on any of that that you'd like to. but i'd also like to ask but the question you raised and i know it's very dear to your heart, of how our sources to be protected, the obama administration which was earlier described as the most hostile to the free free ever, has embarked on a very aggressive antileak campaign targeting leakers, and the

technology is there to trace them. so going forward, what's to be done about that? >> sure. that's why i thought we were gathered here today, and i would love to talk about those issues. i think first of all our job as journalists are to protect sources and that we have to do that. that we know from the experience we can use in james rise' case and james rosen that the government is using technology to find out who terrorists are talking to. so we have an obligation to use means to protect our sources. and not only that, i think that mainstream news organizations also need to learn about how to use these tools if they actually want to get sources to come to them. one of the things that's been most shocking to me is the lack of technological awareness among news organizations in terms of using basic things like encryption, which are not that

complicated to use if you want to protect your communication, and there are tools we use every day when we log into our bank account, we're using encryption, and for journalists to have tools so they can speak privately to sources. >> but laura, the most familiar accusation for any foreign correspondent certainly in a sense tough situation like a war is that you're not a journalist, you're a spy. and if we start using encryption or even elaborate encryption, somebody that just going to reenforce the perception of those who might be detaining you that in fact you're an agent, you're not a journalist? >> well, we use encryption every day when you connect to the internet. i think a result of this is that encryption will be easier to use.

i think that's going to become you big which us the, because people do expect privacy. the e-mail is not meant for the government, it's to their friend, and i think there will be repercussions. now that we learn what the government decembering with our information. so i don't think that will endanger or flag people. i think we need more encryption. >> bart, you wanted to jump in? >> yes, i do. it's a cartoon issue that the n.s.a. wants to know everything about everybody, that's not accurate. it wants to be able to know anything about anybody. and so it regards encryption as a threat, specifically uses the word threat when it talks about encryption products, antivirus

products, anonymity products. it acknowledges no realm, no state in human communications which is prepared to be denied access to. it wants all of your secrets, it wants anybody that it wants. the problem is that does include journalists in a number of cases, not only in the n.s.a., but the u.s. in general. that's because leaks, which by definition are anything that the government is doing that it does not have a press conference about, the counterintelligence threat, having intelligence is one of the principal missions of the u.s. intelligence committee. when you start regarding journalists as a counter intelligence threat and you do open up all of the criminal most extreme kinds of surveillance tools become available to you,

and you start using that sort of technology, and also i completely agree with laura about the necessity of learning the products, and that includes encryption and anonymity which makes it hard to tell who is talking to whom, there are some problems that can't be solved that way. and the one that comes to mind is first contact problem, which is to say almost all the sources i've developed over the years have been people i've met, say, in iraq, i ran into a group of military folks looking for weapons of mass destruction. or at a promotion ceremony in washington. and maybe that leads to a conversation or a coffee or a phone calm. so for the first five, 10 conversations it's all normal, and gradually you develop a relationship of trust and interest, and you start straying

closer to the line at which they are not supposed to be talking because their bosses don't want to talk about that subject in public. by then you've got a long digital trail to connect to that person. i would say edward snowden is one of a very small has beenful of people in my entire career whose very first contact with me through laura was entirely nonen crypted. there is some progress here. there's a terrific program, a terrific technology that is beg developed at the freedom of press foundation called secure drop, which makes it easier to make a first contact with a reporter through anonymous and encrypted techniques, but we have a long way to go on that. >> sounds like maybe we should be learning some different

things at journalism schools these days. encryption? >> the basic technology of privacy is encryption and anonymity. >> i find, on the government's side that we won't need to subpoena journalists any more because we know exactly who they are talking to anyway. do you think that describes the state of affairs, glenn? >> yes, definitely. i mean, i think that there's been a lot of attention paid to the threat, to the fourth amendment and by systems in which there is surveillance, by which i mean what bart said, not that every person's every wore is being monitored, but is susceptible to being monitored. everybody from or well to -- to, it's the campaign ability to

surveil. so there's a lot of attention paid to -- how do we as human beings adapt our behavior in a world in which you can't be certain that what we're saying and doing is actually being monitored and what are the implications for our freedom. but there's very little attention paid to the implications for the first amendment, in particular the freedom of the press, which is how do you engage in free journalism, how do you have a free press if the government is able to know every person who is communicating with you and with, how can journalism be done that way or how can attorneys investigate important legal issues on behalf of their clients. or how can informants talk to human rights organizations and to do so with the security that they're not willing to be

exposed of having implications for a wide range of -- i think that is critical. encryption is vital, but it doesn't actually shield meta data. it shields content. anonymity tools, you can shield some parts of melta data, but it's a real threat to press freedom. when people like jane mayer warn that investigative journalism is coming to a stab still in the united states because of what the u.s. government has been doing, they don't mean the journalists in prison, they mean that that's become unnecessary to do that because the climate of fear that is created by source prosecution, by threatening journalists and by surveillance makes it almost impossible for people to

communicate with one another. president putin has just invitedded and then an ex-ed -- invaded and annexed crime yea. there's even talk misplaced in my view of a new cold war. how worried should we be that mr. snowden is vulnerable to the russian intelligence services in this tense situation between the two countries. >> at the time he arrived in russia the united states government canceled his

passport, making him for travel purposes a stateless person. putin had a press conference at one point that's been forgotten, i think, in which he made fun of u.s. intelligence services and said what kind of trade is it. edward snowden is under you know international asylum in russia to criticize the u.s. as far as the security threat, he deliberately did not break, not only did he not bring any of the documents with him to russia, to the purpose of making

sure that he could not be compelled to disclose them, he didn't break any means of obtaining those documents and i don't think i should go any further into that. so his intentions, which was quite effective, was to make sure that he could not be forced to disclose it. so he told, said in a letter even under torture i can't give the russians, he meant i literally can't produce it. >> thank you. just that one statement that you referenced has been so widely distort bid so many people for so long now, the idea that -- >> how can you distort a statement like that? it says what it says. >> i'm about to plain to you how, as the way you just did actually. >> i just read it. >> i know, but i'm as i'm sure you know, you can take a

sentence out of context and distort its meaning. he wasn't standing up and praising russia in general as a defender of human rights, any more than when somebody is granted asylum by the united states. it doesn't mean that they are praising guantanamo and the invasion of iraq and all the other things the government has done. he was simply saying in this particular case thank you for granting me asylum from persecution i would face at home and for defending my particular human rights. but i always think the question -- >> do you think he feels uncomfortable in russia right now? >> i'm going to let him speak for himself on those questions. but i think for us as journalists, it's convenient, i mean, bart is right about the recounting of events and how he's in russia because the u.s. blocked him from leaving, not only did they take his passport but they prevented cuba and other countries from giving him

safe transport. they demonize him by saying he's in russia. to me the bigger question is why did somebody who comes forward with information that exposes programs that our own court said is illegal and unconstitutional, feel a need to flee in order to escape being put into prison, several deck a the prison, that to me is a much more substantive question than trying to figure out the details of whether snowden should be standing up and holding a press conference on something he knows nothing about such as crimea. i think the pressing question is why does he feel the knee to flee after watching the parade of whistle blowers that have been put in prison for a long time for blowing the is whistle on improper government conduct. >> people can judge for themselves what they think of snowden, his motives, the quality, it's a legitimate

question. but i'm always baffled when people, i'm not saying, when people pretty much only want to talk about no den, whether he's right and wrong and his personality, rather than the big issue that we're here today to talk about, which is the conduct of the u.s. government. >> glenn, do you worry sometimes that in your determination to be adversarial to the u.s. government you're insufficiently adversarial to some other governments around the world? >> no, i don't ever worry about that. [laughter] my principal role as citizen of the united states to hold my own government accountable for the bad acts that it does. i think that good reporting means you present all facts including what other governments are doing. but the reason we are have a first amendment and a free press is not because we need american journalists to criticize government several thousand

miles across the world. it's to make sure that the people who exercise power within our own country aren't abusing that power. so that's my focus, and i think we need a press adversarial to the u.s. government, at least as much as we need people reporting on things around the world. >> laura, i'm sitting here in the "new york times" building bastion of the mainstream media. glenn and you too have been pretty critical of establishment journalists. what do you have against us? >> well, let me correct a few things, i've actually published a few things at the "new york times." >> i know that. >> i published a short documentary about guantanamo, one about n.s.a. surveillance. and i was very happy that the times published that, and -- >> still there's a feel that -- >> let's face it, there are

people who tow the line and we've seen that. withholding of jim risen's story for a year. it's very hard to justify, or not using the wore torture when we were torturing people for many years. why didn't the "new york times" deal with torture, i don't think it's a proud moment for journalism, and i don't think the invasion of iraq is a proud moment for journalism. but there was great journalism done about the war in iraq and about torture, in the "new york times" and the "washington post" and the new yorker. so there always be journalists who will try to get to the truth. but there will also be the fact that large institutions that have relationships with governments are going to, you know, be persuaded by what the government thinks can and should be public.

and i think the fact that the n.s.a. is now spying on congress and not releasing a report on torture, as u.s. citizens we should be ashamed. this is not a proud moment. so i don't think it's particularly radical or outsider to find these things objectionable. what i think is radical is that we're spying on congress or spying on entire countries and we're doing all this in secret. those things i think should be part of a public discourse. so i don't fell that i'm, i feel what we're doing as citizens and what our obligation to do if we have a voice, if we have skill sets that can contribute to greater understanding. so that's our job. >> more than radical, it's unconscionable. do you think, as a result of your extraordinary work, all three of you, laura, do you feel

that the tide is turning in some way, that this great post 9/11 disorientation, this abuse of power and technology, do you think the awareness is growing of what went wrong and the great power of american society, or one of its great powers, it's its ability historically to correct course, to change. do you think that's happening? with the new federal shield law proposals, other things. >> right, i don't think that is actually going to signature until a change. i think that that's, the pendulum shifts back, but it's been a long time that it's been swinging in one direction. so why is guantanamo still open? it's a national shame that it's still open. that we have a prison where people are being held without being charged of a crime. so i am hopeful that there would

be a corrective when the obama administration came in you, but that hasn't happened. i do think that, the thing that has been positive in terms of disclosures is it's reawakened an adversarial press, and the people have been shocked that these things, these decisions about surveillance are being made completely in secret, completely without public debate. and that there does seem to be some kind of an awakening, but i wouldn't call it a shift of the pendulum. >> bart -- sorry, go ahead. >> in the same vein, the crucial thing that's happened here is an increase in transparency. obviously information is power. secrecy is very powerful especially when coupled with surveillance.

because of this transparency you've seen not only journalism building on itself, but all kind of other things in the private sector, you have now for the first time in my memory a real marketplace for privacy. there were small outposts of that before, but they were boutiques. you now have large companies competing to demonstrate to consumers because consumers are worried about their privacy, the because these revelations. as a result of some of the reporting encrypted all the traffic between yahoo, encryption by default between its computers and now computers have now promised that it will encrypt all of it by last january. so it has done so.

in the legal field, you have lawyers challenging whether some of these programs violate a statute or the constitution, which was thrown out before on grounds that it plaintiff could not prove they had been personally affected. now they are effective. so the lawsuits and we will find out which of these programs are constitutional and which are not. u.s. advocacy has changed, u.s. members of congress who happily went along with these programs are now hearing from constituents that are changing their views, and all of the mechanisms of accountability are showing a political and civil society are looking at this. and then we get to decide collectively where we are looking at this.

i agree with all that, but i also think that one of the most interesting aspects about what has changed is just the way people think about all of these issues, not just in the united states but around the world. one of the most underappreciated parts of the story was how global it was. ,ou look at the nsa in 2005 involving verizon, sprint, at&t, those are all companies. google, yahoo!, skype, and the internet generally, talking about the principles globally of communication. we have done reporting in all these countries all over the world. i think the political discourse in so many countries around the world about how the united states is perceived, whether the value of privacy in the digital , theallowing the dangers role of journalism and the media need to be powerful factors. once you start impacting

consciousness that way and shifting it a little bit, i don't think the primary change is going to come from legislation that the u.s. government introduces to limit itself. i think it will come from significant, per frown shifts in how people around the world -- profound shifts in people around the world think about these revelations. they impact hundreds of millions of people around the world. >> that is encouraging. maybe american reinvention is alive and well. we're getting towards the end of our time. i make i would like to ask all three of you briefly to say, try to leap forward in your mind a decade or two and say how you think mr. snowden will be remembered in american and global history. i know daniel ellsberg, something different, starting with you perhaps, laura.

how will he be recalled in your view? think we are at a crossroads in terms of how we decide to treat cases of privacy and i think you will be revered as a person who created a talking point. if we find ourselves in a more orwellian universe and a decade or find ourselves with more freedom of communication, i think everybody will look back at this moment and say that he at least gave us an option of making these choices. >> glenn? >> i think daniel ellsberg is the most constructive example. because in modern times, he is considered, widely to be a rogue. if you point out he was a defender of edward snowden, almost everybody will try to distinguish the two. if you don't look at how daniel ellsberg is talked about a 1971 and 1972, the court, the

government, the media, by most americans, you would talk about him in the same terms as edward snowden. over time he was vindicated. i think history still appreciated the information he let us know about what the government was doing. all that died away and we realized he engaged in an incredibly heroic self-sacrifice he did not need to do for the public good, and i am convinced edward snowden already today around the world is very much viewed in those terms and in in a store ago view will be viewed in more of those terms around the world and in the united states. >> he is a change agent. i think people understand this much too narrowly. you only get to be a whistleblower, first of all, if you do certain prescribed steps to blow the whistle and what you're talking about is illegal. knowingic's interest in thing still goes way beyond what

is legal. sometimes it is not a scandal of what is legal, it is a question of what the law should be and where we draw the line as a society. that what he has done is enabled us to figure out what the balance is. and let me be clear about balance. nobody gets to maximize their interest. there is a fight between security and accountability. when you get to work in secret, a perfectlyas done, good motive of defending the country, and you use every tool available to you. but by doing so, by doing so in secret, you are removing the ability of the people that you are protecting to respect their boundaries. what snowden has done is allow us collectively to make that decision. >> thank you all very much. we seem to have lost glenn at

the last minute. i hope it is nothing sinister. [laughter] but anyway, thank you very much. thank you laura, thank you glenn, >> the weekly addresses a president obama. and south carolina senator jim scott. >> on the next washington journal, the practice of high-frequency trading. which according to her colder consists of advanced computer algorithms to institute trades. and a review of the elections in

afghanistan. we will take your calls. you can join the conversation via facebook and twitter. washington journal, live on c-span. >> let's take a case like hsbc, which got a $1.9 billion settlement levied at them i think a year ago. in that, part of it was the deferred prosecution agreement for hsbc. they admitted they had laundered as much as $850 million for drug cartels. not only did they commit minor financial infractions, technical infractions, we are talking about an organization that was operating at the top of the illegal narcotics pyramid. this is a major criminal enterprise, and they admitted it. and if they did not find any

evidence to put those people in jail, that's on them. that's a failure of the regulatory system. if you have somebody you know is guilty, who has admitted they were guilty, who are in league with truly dangerous and violent people and helping them out with the worst kinds of behavior that a bank could be involved with, and nobody does a single thing to be in jail? that's outrageous, but it's even more outrageous when you look at it in comparison with who goes to jail in america, and that is people who who are at the very bottom of the illegal trade pyramid, the consumers, people who are caught in possession of drugs, who are caught selling dime bags on the corner. they are the people who go to jail for real-time, five years, 10 years at the same time we are letting hsbc off with a total walk. nobody pays any individual penalty in that case. >> the latest "the divide"

explores injustice in america, sunday night at 8:00. >> next, a discussion about the obama administration and the american dream. elbert guillory is a republican member of the louisiana state senate. he switched to the democratic party in 2007 and went back to being republican in 2013. he is the first african-american republican in the louisiana legislature since the reconstruction era. he spoke at the annual leadership program of the rockies retreat, a colorado institute that provides economic and political research training. this is 45 minutes. >> it is an honor to introduce our next speaker, who made a bold political move, switching his party, his affiliation, as a sitting state senator, from democrat to republican. , as a

sitting state senator, from democrat to republican. senator elbert guillory defended his party transformation in an inspirational youtube video that received over one million viewers. those, by the way. i watched it. i was stunned and moved. it was brilliantly done. i don't forward a lot of things on facebook, but this one i did send to everyone. it was very powerful. his message in the video focused on putting principles before quick results and freedom above all else. senator guillory became active in the civil rights movement in the 1950's before john dingell before joining the united states navy. he graduated from rutgers law school. if you do not see the youtube video, you'll get a flavor of it right now. it is and gentlemen, please welcome senator elbert guillory with a speech entitled "american

dream report card." [applause] >> good morning, colorado. it's great to be back in colorado. i first stepped onto colorado soil when i was a young law student and young skier. the last time i was here, i then-wife's and my then-eight-year-old daughter and i climbed a mountain. i tried to explain to her on the earlier ski trip that i had saved a young man's life in a ski accident, and he turned out to be the governor's son, so he named mount elbert after me. [laughter] she was 8. she said, "oh, dad." i couldn't sell that to her. speaking of young people, as i was coming in this morning, i

noticed a lot of you young folk who cut your teeth on powerpoint presentations looking at me and saying to yourselves, "that old geezer will not have any kind of powerpoint." i'm going to for you today. last night a lot of people asked about my hometown. is it in louisiana, because they had not seen it or heard of it. so i brought a powerpoint map of the state of louisiana with me today, and i will present it to you now. let me just get it. powerpoint map of the state of louisiana. [laughter] [applause] as you can see, new orleans is clearly outlined over here. lake charles, right here next to the texas line. this is mississippi, arkansas here.

and right here is my town. this is the heart of cajun country. we are the descendents of the cajuns who were expelled from canada many years ago. names like guillory and allodeau and font know originate in this area. and i welcome you to upper luces. let me just put my powerpoint away, please. [laughter] [applause] i would like to tell you just a little bit about my family. six yearsd at 102, ago. he was an educator, among many, many other things, but a very serious educator. my mom died two months ago at 10 4. she spent 44 years as an

educator and teacher and principal. and as you know, i spent one year at rutgers law school, teaching. so education, teaching is an important part of our family and an important part of what we do. today, i would like to do what teachers do, and that is to analyze and grade the performance of our president's in one aspect, and that is the american dream. thousands of people every day try to get into this country because they want to live the american dream. how is it working for us who are here? is it being protected? is it being uplifted, or not? so why will present to you a report card -- i will present

you a report card of the mayor can dream. let's take justice, for example. this is the first of the subjects that we would grade this administration in. man months ago, a young named trayvon martin was killed , and the president stepped right up and said, "i demand justice for trayvon martin," and he said that trayvon look like his sons would look like if he had sons. so he sent people from the justice department down to florida to ensure that trayvon martin receive justice. and i watch that. a few months later, a young australian student was killed. you probably don't know his name. it's christopher lane. christopher lane was killed, and christopher looked just like my sons. i have sons. he is a little paler than my

sons, but he has two arms and two legs. he has two eyes and a nose and a heart, just like my sons have. and so i waited. [applause] i waited to hear the president say, "i demand justice for christopher lane." and i waited, and i have yet to hear that same passion and fervor. and the only conclusion i can justicem that is that hinges on the color of one's skin. when the value of life is dependent upon this thin little in, weeter of melon

are in deep trouble, we are a nation deeply divided, and we have to deal with the president for his failure to protect justice an f. [applause] well, the american dream is really dependent on three things. safety, jobs, education. let's look at jobs first. this administration has created hundreds of thousands of new built thousands of miles of roads and bridges, built new civic projects. the only problem is that he has done that in foreign lands, while our roads and bridges our familieslle

remain unemployed, their families go to the food stamp lines. for failure to protect jobs, provide jobs in america, mr. president, you have earned an f. [applause] let's look at education. childana is the poster for this administration's session on education. louisiana schools in are poorly performing schools. we have addressed that, "we" being the government and legislature, we have addressed that in three basic ways. we have work to uplift the public school system. we have also created probably the nation's best network of charter schools. and we created a voucher program . [applause] students. 8000. 90% minority.

poor, 100% in the poorest performing schools in louisiana, some of the poorest performing schools in america. you know i'm a child of the civil rights movement. in the 1960's, someone wearing tobacco-stained sheets crawled out of the backwoods of louisiana and stood in the schoolhouse doors to prevent children from getting education, to prevent access to those school houses in louisiana. today, thugs wearing brooks brothers suits crawl around the halls of government and crawl out of.c., the justice department, and come to louisiana and stand in the doorways and prevent little louisianans from getting an

education. [applause] thugs! z, mr. i have to will ward president, for your failure to support and send 8000 little taking them out of private schools, out of public schools, out of charter schools and sending them back into the worst-performing schools around. bad job, mr. president. america has been a godly country from day one, from day one, quite literally. america and god. in god, we trust. one nation under god. so how are we faring with respect to prayer?

during the recent government shutdown catholic priests were ordered not to say mass and not to serve communion to our military soldiers. they were ordered not to. by this administration. that is correct. that is absolutely correct. and christian organizations today are listed as terrorist organizations by this administration's military minions. and today in louisiana sabe yen parish is turned gun, the justice department is teaming with a buddhist family who moved into louisiana. they found that there was too much prayer in the public schools of sabian parrish.

we know there is not a whole lot of public prayers in schools. so apparently there were a couple of moments of prayer down in louisiana and so this family now joined by the justice department, they're having problems with that little bit of prayer. there are some rules that dictate behavior when you are in someone else's home. if i went into your house today just walked in and sat down and sat on your sofa, picked up the remote and started flipping through the channels or turned on your television set when it was off, that would be a violation of the rules. if i walk into your house this afternoon, walked into your kitchen, opened up your refrigerator started rummaging around to see what i felt like munching on in your

refrigerator in your house, that would be a violation. i would have crossed the line. we need to let people know that this house is our house and this house is god's house. and we cannot let people come in and change the rules in our house. [applause] we want to be welcoming to the buddhist family and to the any muslim family or any -- any -- any family of any religion come and worship in peace. but there are some rules in our house. if you don't want your children to pray in our schools, they don't have to. but they should sit quietly and respectfully while we pray in our house. if you don't like our nativity scenes when you walk down the

streets of our house turn your heads. you don't have to look at them. this is our house and these are our nativity scenes. [applause] if you don't like the 10 commandments that we have on display in our courthouses stay out of trouble. stay out of our courthouses. [applause] but respect our house. america is a godly country. and we will practice our religion here in freedom so back off. go home. mr. president, for failure to protect prayer and godliness in this country. you earned an f. let's look at guns. now, i guess you know where i stand on guns. if you don't elbert

guillory.com and you will see d guns. my ancestor's guns sit in my house passed down. there is a cultural violence in our country. and that's an unfortunate thing. there are shootings and that's unfortunate. now, those shootings -- a gun is an inanimate object. there's a lot of potential but it is an inanimate object. you set it down and you can come back six weeks later, the gun's going to be right there. it's not going to explode. a gun is just a tool. now, unfortunately, there are shootings there have been shootings and people have used the tool called gun. but our president has used

those opportunties each of those shootings as an opportunity to attempt to limit legitimate gun ownership to attempt to limb the number of bullets you can put in your gun, the types of guns you can ave if there was a shooting in mouseville, montana of a mouse he would use that shooting to attempt that shooting to limit our gun ownership. we have to do something better than that. now, we -- one of the things that we have to make everyone realize is that guns don't have anything to do with the culture of killing in our country. if you take a 3-year-old child and you put him in front of a television set. the set is blaring violent video games and you let this child play violent video games

day after day, month after month, year after year, what you will have in 10 years is a 13-year-old who has been completely programmed in a certain way. if there's conflict, he's been programmed to shoot it. if there's some discomfort in his life, he's been programmed to shoot it. and so you have a group, a large group of teenager who is have been programmed to shoot to kill. now you can take all the guns away this morning but that kill willing continue this evening. it will continue with knives, with sticks, with stones, with bricks, planks, with any tools -- any tool that can be picked up and used. it is the culture of killing that is the problem. guns don't have a thing to do with it. [applause]

for failing to protect our second amendment rights, mr. president, you have earned an f. we as americans are guaranteed life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. before you could have liberty and before you can pursue happiness you must have life. our nation is participating in the slaughter of babies. st year 1.3 million babies lost their lives, had their lives taken from them in their mother's wombs. this nation has participated in that level of genocide of whatever it is that you want to call it, murder, slaughter of our own people. the president of syria had some

-- some weapons of mass destruction and they thought he must use some gas on his own people. and so the president rushed once again. we better do something about this gas that he might put on his people and kill his people while he supports the killing babies. erican baby -- and so mr. president while failing to protect life in america, you've earned an f. [applause] >> let's talk for a minute bout fiscal soundness. the sound of a dollar bill. you young folk have probably not heard that. but when i was a boy it was a big expression. it was a statement about the --

a stame of confidence in the american economy, a statement of confidence, solidness of strength of the american dollar. the sound of a dollar bill if you went to buy a truck, the salesman would open the door and slam it. listen to that. listen to that close. that's the sound of a dollar bill. you can trust this truck. you combine this truck. that's how pervasive that phrase was in our national lexicon. you don't hear it anymore because the dollar bill is no . nger sound as difficult that could wrap the human behind around something that large -- there are economist who is say we will never be able to pay off that debt. whether we can or can't is not

that very important at this moment. whether we address the problem properly is important. [applause] wherever you go is to cut down and pay down the debt. those are the only two rational responses to a $17 trillion debt. what is an irrationale response s, oh, it's only $17 trillion. let's raise it $17 trillion more and drive our nation deeper and deeper into the hysical crisis that we are in. giving or children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren with an credible hole to dig -- to big to dig themselves out of.

mr. president, for places future generations of americans in danger, you have earned another f. [applause] now, i can see it on your faces, a lot of you saying elbert guillory you just chose a bunch of subjects where you knew our president was going to get an f. you just came in here to beat up on a real good man. . saw that on somebody's face [laughter] well, i'm a fair and balanced kind of guy. so i look at some topics where he would receive better grades than f's. and here's one. lying. [laughter] the lies of benghazi, the lies of the i.r.s. the lies of military death benefits and you've got an a

for that. let me give you something better than that. i know you remember this one. you may keep your health plan, period. a-plus for that one, mr. president. surely there are some other topics where he's excelled and i certainly did search out one. , an a. and vacations a, mr. president. now, you're going to have to work with me on this one. want you to take a look at old photographs and old video of the present president and if you see them and you look at him walk this is what you see. ow, if you look today at him

walking, watch when he gets off the helicopter. he's walking up to the helicopter. and this is what you'll see. a walk right out of the ghetto of chicago. he never lived -- probably never visited but he is massacre -- masquerading at something that he's not. it would be funny but it goes much deeper than just his walk. he's masquerading as a constitutionalist at the very moment that he's sending his thugs into the newsrooms of our ca to make sure that free press rights are slanted in the direction that he wants them slanted, an unprecedented

attack on the free press of our nation. foreign policy. he has implemented a foreign policy that makes us unsafe at home and abroad. our interest overseas, our bodies overseas when we travel are at risk because of his foreign policy. he's pretending that he's interested in american people. no jobs for american workers. no education for american children. i told you about those thugs in brooks brother suits forcing people to buy a commercial product for the first time in this history of this nation, we are supposed to go out and buy some health insurance. the first time the government reaches into our pockets and says you've got to go buy a private product. mr. president, for your masquerade for your bad walk, i

give you an f. [applause] >> i have another one, how about getting along well with others. every teacher wants students to get along well. we have a student whose ego is so great that he places his ego above the interest of all americans. so get along well with others, mr. president, an f. let's take a look at one more topic and that's immigration. now, i'm from the country and we tend to simplify things. we see things that some people see as big and complex. we see them as small and simp. if we have a family of eight and we have one thin chicken for supper and we're cooking

that one chicken, that is not the night that we go down the street and invite the johnson family and the robinson family to come to dinner because we don't have enough to share. the president is attempting to 46 million ion -- new americans in our school systems. now, these 46 million are not educated or they are poorly educated and they are poor. so they will come because they fit the mold of the democrats who can be kept on the plantation with a few handouts, a few free housing or some food stamps. so they're brought. they're being brought. he intends to bring them and they're going to impact our schools which are already fully

performing. they're going to impact on our hospitals which are already overcrowding. they're going to impact on our jobs and we've already talked about the fact that we don't have jobs for americans here today. so why would you bring 46 million new people to share what we do not have in the beginning? >> our social security system is fragile. they're already talking about cutting back on the benefits that people have earned, people who have worked and put their money -- what the government took and put their money into the social security system. when you add 46 million new people to that social security system which is already fragile, you have a disaster happening. lp, for your plan to keep --

mr. president, for your plan to keep your party in power in america, you've earned another f. when a student has earned that many f's, a good teacher would put that child in timeout. and that is what we need to do. we need to put this president and people who work with him and his party and people who think like him into time-out. let me tell you about my cousin. klovis. cousin named she's from the mother country, from louisiana where all of the fought knows and hillarys come from. he went to mardi gras one year in new orleans and he met a new creole and moved her

. ad like that one day she went shopping. it was a saturday afternoon and klovis was sitting at home in the kitchen. he had a bowl of fresh oysters right in the front of them. he was picking them out one at a time. he would pull it and inspect it and look at it. and he would put it down and pick up another one. and he did that with several oysters and so klovis. his wife didn't know what was happening. her hand on his head. she said what are you doing those oysters? my cousin told me that if i use these it would increase my performance but i can't figure

ut how to put them on. klovis was clueless. and that's what this administration is, absolutely lueless. he does not understand how to manage a country because they've never had to manage anything. professional politicians, they don't know how to manage our nation. i'm not sure that they were steeped in the traditions of america. i don't know. i don't know what happened in the households where they were raised. i don't know where they were raised. but i do know that there's a

disconnect and a cluelessness between the people who are running this country today and those of us who love america and live in america. my brothers and sisters, we've come to a point that all nations reach where we can either go up, back up to the top where great nations dwell or we can go down into the valley and be washed away. -- as many former nations have been. ancient greece, ancient rome, portugal. go through the long list of formerly great nations. when they reached a point where they had to make hard decisions and either go back up to the top of the mountain or go down into the valley they went into the valley. they made the wrong decisions. and that's where we are.

that's where we are today. in order for us to get out of this problem, i respectfully suggest to you that there are three things that we need to do. the first is unity. we must be unified. we cannot afford to have our mily torn apart, tea party republicans over here. neo con republicans over here. log cabin republicans over there. we must all work together. and in rooms like this, we air out our differences. we air it out. but when we walk through the door we have to be one family. in here we're the fingers. but in there, we are the fist of unity. e must remain unified.

>> and the second thing that we must have is work. i was telling you about -- about my cousin klovis. they celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. they went back to the same hoe nell new orleans where they spent their honeymoon. and they drank some champagne and having a romantic interlude. and she said to him, klovis, you remember what we did 30 years ago when we got married. man, we're going the do that tonight. she said, yeah, yeah. first, you put your arm around me and you hugged me real tight. and so he did. he put his arms around him and gave him a good squeeze. then you pucker your lips and

you kiss me right on the mouth. that's the way we talk in cajun land. so he did. he puckered up and gave her a fantastic kiss. and then you remember you bite me right here on my neck. he jumped up and started running. he said where are you going? come back here. he said i'm going to the athroom to get my teeth. as we not ready to work must be. we must work. unity is important but we must roll up our sleeves and work. we must work. we must get those out and watch those other people to make sure they are not stealing elections as they have done so many times. we have o work my brothers and

sisters. if you look around, if each of us brought in five new people, we're an army right now. we can just increase their army but we have to do it. it takes the work of each other us to excite people, to educate people, to let them know, let them understand why they should become active. so please don't leave your teeth at home. roll up your sleeves and get to work. the final thing that we must do is to expand our party. we must define ourselves ecause others are defining us. and there are definitions of her are unkind. we have to let people know who we are and what we are. we have to walk to walk and not just talk to talk. there are -- let me give you a couple of examples. there are a lot of teen mothers

who don't know how to be mothers. who better to teach them than ? publican mothers [applause] there are a lot of young men who don't know how to be daddies, don't know how to be fathers. who better to teach them how to be a man, how to be a father, how to be a daddy than republican men? we need to walk the walk. go and teach them. let them see us. let them understand this. let them know that we care. we have to let them know that republicans are the party of freedom. republicans are the party of free press. republicans are the party of small government. we are the party of equal rights. we are the party of fiscal responsibility. we are the party of energy and jobs. we are the party of education. we are the warriors. we are the protectors of the

american dream of the american value of america. god bless you and god bless our ome. [applause] thank you. thank you. [applause] >> we've got two microphones. one there and one there. >> it's all yours. >> all right. we've got time for two questions. we'll take yours. >> ok. >> you're first and then, ma'am, you go second. >> ok. l.p.r. class of 2014. the ask you considering cornucopia of a cren sus we -- census we have seen from this administration, you think we hould see or will we see civil disobedience? will louisiana say we're going to continue to pray?

we're going to continue to give out the vouchers? do you think it's time for civil disobedience along those lines? >> i absolutely believe it is. and i believe it's all time for our new federalism for our states so to show that they can still flex their americans, american who is will do what is problem. in louisiana we're going to continue to pray. we are going to continue our sponsor program and le have to send federal marshalls and federal troops and marines and he will be met by whatever force he sends, he will be met by force because we are tired of washington, d.c. and what it's doing. [applause] >> your presentation today explains exactly why your video -- your youtube video went viral because you speak, your y

is so powerful that you attract other people to your y. i'm melanie sterm and i'm from aspen, colorado and i'm an l.p.r. wannabe. such a delight to be among conservatives. it rare thing for me. i know. i know. and i'm jewish. and a woman. my question for you, i loved -- people in this room are desperate to make a difference in this coming election. and i want you to turn your persuasive powers to addressing this conundrum and in so doing help us. this is the conundrum. in the last election, the exit polls showed that rom knee beat obama on all of the exit poll questions including leadership and policy preferences. but he lost on the one, cares about people like me. and he lost 81-19 which means

that a lot of republicans actually think that obamacare is more than romney about them. and yet i'm sure there isn't a single person in this room who wakes up in the morning not believing that our policies and ur values and our principals -- principles are best especially for those most vulnerable. how can we do a better job of conveying that people as we look it play a role in the political discourse in 2014 sh >> great question. thank you. i believe we have to first go out into the communities where we want to expand. so that we can take our message to them. and it's -- a couple of minutes ago i was talking about walking the walk. f we go into churches and to schools where people are, and we start to teach them, to share with them our wisdom and our knowledge, and let them