approximately six month into the 106th congress, whereupon i shall vacate my seat and ask my governor to call a special election to take my place. i thank my constituents for the opportunity to serve them. i hope they will not think badly of me for leaving. i thank allen martin mitigating circumstance chief of -- chief of staff and all and i think my wife most especially for standing by me. i love her very much. god bless america. >> find more highlights on our facebook page. c-span, created by cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. in a few moments, a look at a bill that would shield journalists from prosecution that are protecting their

sources. then the bipartisan policy center hosting a discussion on the future of long-term care insurance. then an update on how many people have signed up for health insurance under the affordable care act. >> what we need is something akin to the grace commission ring the reagan administration commission during the clinton administration. with integrity, former members of congress, no current elected politicians, to do a complete audit of government. every agency of government has a piece of legislation or charter that created it. it has a purpose. if it is not fulfilling that purpose or doing it within a reasonable budget, it should be cut or eliminated. this came in with the highest motivation. do you know -- and i did not know until i researched it -- there are three had starts.

two?do we have the other because the first one was not working. washington,broken saturday night at 10:00 eastern and sunday night at 9:00, and then a book party. year'sekend, this national black writers conference, saturday at noon eastern, with panels on race, literature, shifting identities in africa. then sunday, strengthening communities. as a panel of publishing. next eight discussion about a national shield law that would protect journalists from prosecution from protecting their sources. you will hear from the bill's sponsor, charles schumer, and a panel of journalists and

lawyers. this is part of a conference focusing on government and the media. >> i will talk to senator schumer for little at about his free flow ofs the information act, and he will make his escape and we will have a panel of journalists who will pick apart everything he has to say. i assure you all of them will be here live and in the flesh. as you know, almost every state has your shield law or the traditional equivalent of it, but the exception being wyoming is the one state that does not. are we going to get a federal shield law? >> i think we are. it is i think the odds of getting a shield law passed

certainly by the senate and maybe buy a house are very large. it is very likely the senate will pass the bill this year. just about every democrat is for the bill. that is from my own personal lobbying as well as the publishers and all the other groups and a journalism lobbying them. we have five publicans on record being for it. three are cosponsors. committee, pleasantly enough, grassley and hatch voted for it. the fact that grassley is the ranking member of the judiciary committee helps. we will get a few more republicans, but we have 60 votes, and we are making an effort -- lamarr talks enter and i are trying to put bipartisan bills of significance on the floor that will actually pass. i have spoken to harry reid about four time, which is precious, and he seems very sympathetic. i think we will get up bill on

the floor and pass it. >> in reporting for column on -- subject like years lester, i was surprised to see that there are conservatives that support this. somebody like ted poe who may agree with you in one out of 10,000 issues, a house sponsor of the bill which at that point was more liberal than yours. so who is against it? the mostole -- republicans are against it. they do not want any exception to national security. present law is if the government says it is national security, a journalist has to testify. what people mistake is there's no first amendment right for gathering information. there is a first amendment right for putting forth information, but not in the way you gather it. there are a lot of people,

particularly the national security side of republicans, who are against it. until we made the compromise that is somewhat controversial, having more limited protections in national security, the obama administration and the attorney general were against it. it mainly comes from the national security side. the obama administration is now in favor of it because there are limits in terms of national security. thing testr a talent for national security, leaving it to the judges they pay could weigh the interests of national security versus the need for a free press. until we put limits on national security, it is a lot better than present law where they can say national security, testify, period. ours has to go before a judge. you have to prove it is national

security, so you cannot just make it up or say or stretch it. and not just -- you have to nationalis security. yet prove" to future damage. it gives notice so journalists will not have a recent situation where there was no notice at all. >> one of the issues in the drafting and debating of this legislation is a question of what is journalism? anybody calls

we put in a safety valve that if you are in that situation, you are not automatically covered, but if the judge finds -- and i wanted to get the words right here, that it is in the interest of the justice and necessary to protect lawful newsgathering activities, you're covered. both -- most judges have been quite liberal in applying this law. friendly, we did not get too much opposition from the blogger, new media community, and they did not like this. a goodought it was compromise, given the fact we need those. if we did not have a unified front in the committee, i would not be able to give you an

answer about the bill passing. panelistsevious included glenn greenwald who lives in brazil and said during the discussion that he worries about consequences might befall him if he returns to his native land, this one. would anything in your bill set his mind at ease yes, bottom line. this clearly is a national security case. it would be a judge who would have to rule that bringing glenn greenwald forward to reveal his sources would protect the future security of the united states. that is a lot better than the justice department saying you have to reveal your sources, no contents, no independent art work her -- no independent arbiter, etc. if the judge thought there was future damage, potential damage to the security of the united states, he would have to testify. there is a chance he would not.

i would be up to the judge, and you would have to look at the ramifications of the case. and he would get notice so he could prepare as opposed to someone just swooping in on him do,telling him twhat to looking at his records. it is probably not enough protections to satisfy him, that is for sure, but it is better. >> his concern is not only that he might be compelled to testify. they did not have edward snowden here to prosecute so they are not proceeding where he could be compelled to testify, i guess. his concern is judging from the language of some of the national security officials the administration has used, like co-conspirator and accomplice, that he might be charged under the espionage act. >> i would have to examine the law specifically to see whether he was in jeopardy or not. i cannot give you an answer on the top of my head. >> can you talk about julian

assange, another famous nontraditional media figure of recent years. in ancurrently encamped embassy in london because of his various legal consultations. would he be protected under the shield law and be protected more generally for being with a broker and publisher of the wikileaks -- >> on the first case of if he had any kind of commercial relationship as a journalist, i do not know the details of how he operates, he would be protected. if he did not have any commercial relationship, you test of in thes interest of justice and necessary to protect lawful and legitimate newsgathering, and there would be an independent arbiter to decide. depending on any details of how he operated, he would have protection. if the risk a commercial

relationship, which is there? i do not know how he makes money, as my money with it -- as my mother would say, how does he earn a living. because he is a former colleague and a friend, i cannot ask about a "new york times" reporter who has refused to identify his source about u.s. intelligence activities in iran. >> he would have a day of court with an independent judge to term and whether he had to reveal his source. >> it would be a allen contest that the judge would -- >> national security, it is the test i mentioned before. you gore going to let every panel out, but i wanted to ask something that is a contexts question that i sensed is in the air and that at this event today.

the obama administration has not particularly been regarded as a great friend of leakers and reporters who make use of leaks. in their litigation they argued there's no inherent constitutional privilege protecting reporters. they have indicted leakers under the espionage act in all indicted more leakers under the s espionage act. >> i would put it more broadly. i have heard this from various presidents, not just obama, but bush and clinton as well. that is when you become president, you see all of the national security dangers out there. it is a revelation that as a candidate, senator, as anybody else you do not really have. so you end up being pushed a little bit more to the middle, and whether that is right or

wrong, i would not comment. they made an effort as you know -- i would figure it out for you here -- they put out guidelines which are not good enough, but an improvement over current law. the great weakness in their guidelines is not their fault. judge. no independent still under the guidelines, if the director of national intelligence says national security, that is it. journalists really need notice in any situation so they can defend themselves so they can prepare and all of that. they do put that in. the guidelines in the administration's defense are improvements. administration, after we made these compromises on national security, is now for the bill. that is a good thing. >> senator, thank you for being with us today. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> good to see you.

all right, we need some more chairs. am i supposed to stay in the middle or what? play musicalng to chairs, we could at least have some music. [music plays] [laughter] ok. all right, i will introduce the panelists as they make their way out. wainstein spent 19 years

in the justice department where thestablished and led brand-new national security division and served as the homeland security advisor to president bush. welcome. landay is a correspondent for the mcclatchy papers and has been awarded every honor that our business confers. he is most admired for his reporting in the run-up to the war in iraq. whon norton is a writer likes to hang out in the dead and alleys and rough neighborhoods of the internet, where bad things can happen to defenseless little packets. her reporting on hackers and many other subjects has appeared wired." horton is a lecture at columbia law school.

he's is the author of a thehcoming book about rising role of secrecy in national security. wimmer is a counsel of the newspaper association of america. i have a lot of questions of my own, but i will strongly encourage you to jump in and challenge one another as the opportunity arises. ken, i'm guessing you're outnumbered here. [laughter] the first pitch is to you. in a presentation at the heritage foundation in september, on the future of anti-terror efforts, you said congress should maintain its record of largely resisting legislation that unduly restrict the government's taxability in the fight against international terrorism. does the shield law fall into the category of the undue restrictions? >> that is a good question.

i think that was more talking toolsthe investigative and limiting investigative tools. such as scaling back on national street letters, scaling back on electronic surveillance, the kind of thing. i put the free flow of information act in a different category. it does not limit unduly or not the government's effectiveness in terms of its ability to detect terrorist plots. we will talk about terrorism for now. terrorism in a kind of thing. what it does is it undermines the ongoing effectiveness of government operations. obviously, as we have discussed here all day today, there is a balance to be struck between two principles, the need for transparency and the need for secrecy. i assume we will hear more about this the other panelists, but the last 12 or 13 years, there has been an enhanced -- the zone of government operations that

are very secret has increased because of that counterterrorism threat, because that by definition needs to be done in a ofert manner, and the type investigative activities that the government is undertaking to take on that threat have moved into new realms that raise new concerns, concerns about privacy, about overreach, concerns about whether the government is going to hard on not going hard enough against terrorists. all are matters of intense public interest. that has sharpened tension between public discussion about what the government -- what the government does and the need for the government to maintain secrecy's. i would say the shield law does not necessarily curtail the government plus investigative -- t's tools,men but it limits their effectiveness in some ways. it undermines their ability to

launch operations, to do so without worrying about compromise, to the global sources come and all you have to read the 9/11 commission report to see that one of the main reasons 9/11 happened was we did not have human intelligence. we have not developed sources. we only develope sources if this sources have confidence that they will not be unmasked and killed. it undermines the ability to use methods like stuck sets and codes. on a range of areas, leaks undermine the government's effectiveness, and if you have a law that makes difficult for the government to prevent those links from and one way of preventing them is finding the people to do it and punishing them in order to incapacitate them as leakers, but the turk others -- but the turk other leakers, you have more links information,ied and that in the long run will degrade our effectiveness. >> the two biggest leaks since

the pedagogue papers, the wikileaks drove in the edward snowden revelations, happen without a shield law. you would argue though that we will get more of that if there is a shield law? >> it depends on how the law was crafted. i would not say you will get more leaking necessarily if you have a shield law. it depends on how the law is designed come and i know senator schumer made the point that the one right now has what is called the national security exception, but it does address the need for national security, to maintain national security, and be able to ferret out leaks. i do not think leaks are going to go away. i get that. but the reality is that government is very constrained already in the way it goes after leaks.gative every day in newspapers and media across the country, there's classified information

being published. that is actually against -- the government has shown restraint for all the right reasons in pursuing these cases. those that are particularly egregious or include particularly sensitive information have been selective about this as well. my concern is if you have a law that overly handicaps the ability tos investigate this case is, then the leakers we really want to go after, and i submit like snowden and others, the government would be constrained in their ability to investigate this case is, and that one encourage more leaks. >> jonathan, you spent much of your career dealing with the confidential sources and classified material. a lot of it in the area of national security. has that job become appreciably harder, as i imagine it has

since 9/11, and would a shield improved -- maybe improve your ability to do your job? >> it has become much harder, and not dealing just with classified information. i understand why the government would go after leakers of classified secrets. but i have had conversations orh sources about issues things that are not classified and ireland are talking to someone in the department of the government who says it is not classified. i cannot talk to you about it because if they find out they will kill me. that was a bit of hyperbole. literally, it is evidence of what we like to call a chilling by as a result of that crack down on leaks. let me talk about, because laura talked about this, the susceptibility of people within the government and the protections that they do not

that as hardsubmit as the government cracked down on lee, it prevents the disclosures of things like abdel grabe, torture, this kind of thing, the more people inside the government some people are going to be impelled and encouraged julie, because they do not take an oath to defend and protect the current administration. they take an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the united states. when they see in their views the constitution being violated as a result of government that goes way overboard in trying to attack terrorism, for instance, i think there are people who will feel it is their duty to leak. as far as doing my job, it has become much harder. s whipped out maa his iphone and said i do not use

this anymore. that is absolutely right. i do not e-mail sources. we just broke the story of the fight between the cia and the senate intelligence committee. most of the work on that was done by a 22-year-old freelance paid freelancer who did nothing but doorstep committees on the hill, go to people's homes, got me doing that again, going out andight to visit people, that is how we were able to do that without sitting in the office and taking phone calls. we do things like what bob woodward did. we get code -- we give codenames to our sources, so we do not talk about them even in the office using their real names. i do not know if any of you have touched the hbo series "the wire," so you know what a burner is. you go to cvs and buy a cheap cell phone. you use it. you do not register it on your own computer. you use it just a little while

and then you throw it away. i'm not going to go into other things we do except to say that i know there are a lot of payphones still in washington, d.c. [laughter] metro, thishotels, kind of thing. it is absolutely impossible given the technology and technological power to the government has now to evade an electronic -- to leave an electronic way, to leave an electronic shadow behind you come as you do this kind of thing, and, yes, it is a hugely constraining problem. >> the shield law does nothing to protect you from -- it does not do anything to reassure you in other ways. >> i appreciate senator schumer's efforts and the people i'm this, and i have to point out the president when he was in the senate was a cosponsor of a similar bill like this. the fact is when it comes to my reading of this, and i suggest that there is some profit to be

made by google translator if they were to do a translation of senate bills, because reading these things is really quite cumbersome. [laughter] , yes, youion is that have to go before judge, but this bill said the judge has to give afferents to the government -- give deference to the government's argument that they need to be compelled to testify because you have violated some kind of national security regulation. so i am disturbed by that. threat,e definition of current threat, or future threat to national security is so broad that we know that when for instance if you look at a government program called insider threat program, which this administration has instituted, which says -- which makes it incumbent upon government employees basically to inform on each other and let their superiors know that this person is suspicious, their

drinking, or they have come into money that i did not know they had or this kind of thing, you is that thise fact gives weight to the government's argument. the government goes to a judge and his national security. the security office in the cia -- every single government department, including social security administration, the peace corps, the department of education now has an insider threat office that is tasked to determine who in the future might be an insider threat, right disclose government information, and the department of defense, their guidelines say leaks to journalists are akin to espionage. it treats us journalists, patriotic journalists -- [no audio]

national >> you deal with a sort of netherworld. you have had your own run-in with federal authorities. does the shill not have any relevance to your life at all, or is it a kind of legacy media issue? >> one of the interesting things about this is that i never set out to be a national security reporter. i work on technology and culture and i have for many years. national security came over and started squatting on my lawn. so now i'm kind of transformed into partially a national security reporter because you guys took over my internet in early 2000.