grade class was -- i do have a it's competition with myself, but i had a 5th grade teacher who did something a lot of teachers don't do now, which is she would give you a gold star every time you did well on an assignment. and i wanted to collect those and i wanted to collect those gold stars. but i didn't know how to study. so i was trying to figure it out, and i couldn't because if i had known how to do it, i would have done it. ok? [laughter] what i realized -- in part it came intuitively, but i understood that there was something i was doing wrong or not doing right, as the case may be. and that there were other kids who knew how to do it. so i went to my friend, donna -- she's still a friend now -- and said to her, "how do you study?" i think she was a little shocked and looked at me and said, "you don't know how to study?"

and i said, "no. how do you do it?" she explained her method. i went home and tried it. and after that i did pretty well in school. and obviously over time i figured out my own shortcuts, my own ways to do things. i'm often asked what's the greatest obstacle in your life. what's the greatest obstacle to success? i tell them it's the fear of being embarrassed, of not asking for help when you don't know something. how many lawyers -- i'm sure you saw it in the year that you were with me on the supreme court and i know i've seen it in my 20-plus years as a judge in my different courts. you ask them a question, they don't know the answer. and instead of saying i don't know the answer, they blunderbust and try to make something up.

and then they're skewered by the judges. ok? it's not much fun. but they seem to fear more the saying i don't know, the embarrassment of that, than the embarrassment of failure in finding the right answer. and i think for me, i understood very, very early on that asking for help is the most important thing to do. that's what finding mentors is about. for me, who should be your mentor? someone who can do something you can't do. and someone who can do something you can't do and knows how to do it well so that you can learn from them, so you can take from them their experience, their knowledge, and try to adopt it to fill in a hole that you may have in your learning. that's how i define a mentor.

and everybody -- one person doesn't have to do everything for you. a lot of people think that a mentor has to be the only person you go to to ask questions. i think you look around in every part of your life and you try to figure out who is doing that thing that i would like to do better, knows how to do it, and what can i learn from them. now, obviously when you pick a mentor, please pick somebody that you respect and like. it should be someone whose values, whose sense of integrity, whose sense of interacting with people are things that you think are worthwhile to emulate. if you do that, you're likely to be picking a person, a, who has a heart and, b, who will take the time to teach you. if you find somebody that you can't make a mentor of through your efforts, then they may not be worth it. look more broadly as to why not.

because i do think that people who have those qualities i spoke about -- integrity, a sense of fairness, a sense of caring -- they're people who if you work with them will give back to you. >> those values fit perfectly with another theme i wanted to ask you about which is the importance of public service. there's many moments in the book, in your life, that you've had the opportunity either to seek out some important kind of public service or that somebody has asked you to participate in public service. so i wanted to just ask you to reflect a little bit about why and how you sought those opportunities out and maybe what they taught you about yourself and the world.

>> there's nothing more boring to me than living in my own head all the time. seriously. if you spend your life in the i, i need, i want, i think, i feel, that becomes pretty boring and very limiting because your sense of self is only fed by you and that's limited by you. and by that i mean you can only give so much to yourself because you need to feed yourself in positive ways to be able to create and give back in more meaningful ways. so i understood that from public service mostly when i got to college where i began to do a little bit of it and realized

that each experience gave me so much more in return, than i gave it, because it taught me about people, about their needs, about the structure of society. some of its weaknesses in helping people. in one of the first community projects i got involved in in college, it came as a result of reading in the local newspaper that a gentleman had been coming from puerto rico and the plane had been diverted from a new york airport to newark. while at newark, when it landed, he became a little bit upset because he didn't understand what was happening around him.

today we think of the u.s. as being filled with bilingual people, but remember, we're talking about the 1970's where there was a sizeable hispanic population but it was not as sizeable as it is today. and bilingualism wasn't as welcome the back then as now. anyway in his agitation he became a little bit unruly and the police stepped in and took him to trenton psychiatric hospital. it took weeks for someone who understood spanish to interview him and to determine that he wasn't crazy but that -- what had happened and reach out to his family before he was released. that story shook me. the idea this a group of

patients in a hospital had no one to talk to in their own language really bothered me. so i went to the latino community on princeton's campus and i asked them whether they would join me in volunteering there once a week. we would take turns. and just go to talk to the people there. we had holiday parties. we had get-togethers. we played games with them, for those who could participate, obviously. and we just provided companionship. it wasn't as if we were treating them. we didn't have any capacity to do that. but that experience actually made me feel better about not myself but better about understanding the world and trying to change it a step at a time.

a lot of people think that the only change you can do that's meaningful is change that i do in the position i hold. it's pretty impressive sometimes when i get to write a really great opinion or when i'm in the majority in a really great opinion. [laughter] when i'm in the descent, it's a little disappointing but even then i've been a voice in the conversation. those big things impress a lot of people, but they're not the things that matter to most people. it's those little things. it's the human companionship. it's the trying to make the community you live in a little bit better, a little bit happier. so that's what i think public service is. it's the kind of public service that says to people, you don't have to be a politician.

you can work in almost any endeavor you want and make a difference in people's lives by just giving some time and some effort to that enterprise. judge katzmann mentioned dean treanor earlier. you know that dean treanor here and as he did in his prior deanship, has always believed that the law should have some practical effect and that students who are in law school should be working in that area so that it's not always theoretical. you can remain theoretical. and boy, do i do that a lot. ok? that's what a lot of my job is about. but the other part of it is being a human being and giving in those small circles around you. >> i'm going to follow up on that -- >> so hence my first day of

meeting the people in the cafeteria. >> right. right. right. right. so i'm going to ask you now a little bit about your day job but also in sort of the context of the previous two judicial day jobs you held. i think when president obama nominated you, i think he said -- well, you had 17, i think, years of judicial service, which i think he said was more than any other justice had had in the past 100 years. that's a lot of experience. so you are sort of uniquely qualified to talk a little bit about the differences in the kinds of work you've done at each of those levels. maybe for the students here you could just talk a little bit about your role as a district court judge, role as a circuit court judge, and how those things contrast or compare with your current job. and maybe if there's anything you miss about your work on the other two courts that would be interesting to hear also. joern new york. we know you miss new york. >> horribly. the supreme court would be

perfect if i could cut it out and put it in lower manhattan. [laughter] some people are clapping. i actually miss all of my two prior jobs because each was very different and important in meaningful ways. quoting a colleague, rina rodgey who once said work a district court is controlled chaos but chaos nevertheless. ok? the pace of a district court judge is like -- judge's life is non-stop. you are running from, every day, 200 and whatever days a year you work if not more, from one judicial activity to another. you're having hearings, but you're having multitude of different kinds of hearings, whether they're suppression

hearings, discovery hearings, plea hearings. i could keep naming them. there's a wide variety of types of interactions that you're having with lawyers and different kinds of legal situations that you're dealing with. this is on top of sitting in on trials where a wide variety of procedures take place that are each different in and of themselves -- picking the jury, working with lawyers on opening statements, the presentation of evidence, the preparation of charges afterwards so that can you tell the jury what it's supposed to do, and then supervising the jury's deliberations. all of these things are constantly taking you from one point to another. at the end of one activity to another, all day long, at the end of my first year i once said, "i now know why the brain is a muscle. this job has showed me how much

it can stretch." there was so much new information my first year on the bench that i was absorbing that i didn't have a headache, i had a head that ached. there's a big difference. that was what continued for my five years on the bench on the district court. you do get to interact with the lawyers in the courtroom. you get to see a lot of human nature in terms of witnesses and what they're talking about. but the job of a district court judge is to develop a record, to get the evidence out, and then to rule on it. and i've often described their job as doing justice in the individual case. they've got two parties.

they have to resolve that dispute according to the law. and so they're worried -- basically their attention is focused on these two people who sit before them. you get on an appellate court and you're no longer the master of your courtroom. you now have to share responsibility with three people. and things that were routine as a district court judge now become a conference. the first day that i had to confer with my colleagues about giving an extension on the number of pages that somebody's brief had to be, i thought to myself i'm going to hate this job. it seemed like such a silly waste of time. ok? it was a silly waste of time, but, but not institutionally. because that collaborative decision making is what

appellate work is about. it's sharing the responsibility of thinking through whether a lower court has made an error of law. and that is a process that takes some of the burden out of judging. because when you can share your thinking and your analysis with two other people and when you can work at convincing them that either you're right or they're wrong or however you want to approach it or them convincing you, it's a very satisfying job. what circuit court judges are doing is more deciding justice for the law. you see, circuit courts are announcing what the law is for that circuit. there's 13 circuits in the united states. a number of states are divided up among the circuits. mine was three states. but the 9th circuit out in california has nine states.

and some -- three i think is the minimum, if i'm remembering correctly. but some have four or five or six. the circuits were divided according to their historical entry into the union. so the second circuit was actually the mother court. we take pride in claiming that we were the first court, the first circuit got started right after us. maybe on the same day, but we still call ourselves the mother court. at any rate, what you're trying to do is find the legal errors in the decision below. in doing that you're trying to determine what you believe the law is as dictated by precedent. so what happens when you get on the supreme court? if you didn't think you were master of the courtroom when you had three people, when you have

nine, you're nothing, alone, because you have to decide something with at least a majority, with five people. convincing five very independent, sometimes hard-headed -- myself included -- people is not an easy -- not an easy task. but what you're doing on a supreme court is announcing what the law says in a case where precedent doesn't necessarily control. by definition, the supreme court generally only takes, with few exceptions, only takes cases when there's a circuit split. what that means is that circuits below among the 13 have

disagreed as to what the answer is under the law. assuming, as i think you should, that most judges, and certainly in panels of three, are trying to do what's right under the law, the fact that they've disagreed means that there's no clear answer. and what you're asking the supreme court to do is to provide that clarity. but that also means that the responsibility on us is enormous because our decisions generally involve matters that affect not the law of your circuit alone but the law of the country and sometimes of the world. and so the supreme court is really the court operating where there is no clear answer in virtually every one of their

cases. there is a real problem relying on the news to tell you what supreme court cases say. and i know we make it a little bit hard because when you pick up our opinions, they tend to be long and they often have a lot of jargan. i encourage you, however, not to rely on the news as citizens. read the opinions. when you do, and if you actually read them with an open mind, you'll often come out saying they both seem right, how can that be? well, that can be because the law is unclear, because precedents don't really settle that question. and you have to believe, the way i do, that this group of nine are each passionate about trying to find the right answer.

and even though we disagree as to what that answer may be or may not be, we all are filled with the same passion. that's how i can stand being, sometimes, on the losing end of a case. >> a more personal question about your day job before i turn to the student questions. what has surprised you about the day job, working with the nine or the kinds of cases that you get? maybe we'll leave it at that. what surprised you? and five years in, are you doing something different now than you did when you started? >> worrying more. seriously. after you're a judge for 17 years you don't take your responsibilities lightly, but you do understand that you're not the final word, that there

are courts ahead of you. if you're on the district court, there's an appellate court. if you're on the appellate court, you know there's a supreme court. so on those unclear cases there's a lot of comfort from knowing that you're not the final word, that if you're wrong, someone can fix it. when you're on that last, final court, you recognize that if you get it wrong, you are really affecting people's lives if not forever for a very, very long time. it takes a long time for congress if it can at all, to change any statutory decisions we make that they think are wrong.

and obviously if we're wrong on our interpretation of what the constitution means, then it takes even longer to undo that if at all. and so the burden of this job and how much i feel it came as an enormous surprise to me. it's not a bad one, but i have more restless nights. >> in a way that i hope will not give you more restless nights, i have some student questions. so i'm going to turn to them now having been instructed that now is the moment to do so. >> ok. i don't know who pointed that out. whoever asked the question -- asks the question, would you please get up? if you're up there, with the lights, i can barely see up there, just say "i'm here" or something like that. at one place i said, "say yo." [laughter] i just like knowing who's asking the question. so i don't want to embarrass you, but please do stand up. >> so the first question is from maria mendoza.

hi. >> hello. >> now i feel silly reading her question since she's there. but i will continue on as instructed. hello. her question was, what's the one piece of advice you would tell your younger self as a female? and that's underlined. [laughter] >> not to lack confidence so much. i was afraid an awful lot. as i have lived to almost get to the age that i am -- if i'm saying it, it's because it's surprising me. and my friends know this. i'm about to turn 60, and i'm shocked. ok? [applause] it's a little disturbing. because the problem is that

inside myself, the image i have of me is still that 9-year-old kid with the curls running down that street in puerto rico i end my book with. ok? that's the image i still have of myself and the idea of having grown to what they say is the new middle age is shocking me. ok? but in this i've had a lot of opportunity to talk to a lot of women of all ages, older and younger. i know that for many of us, and it's still a problem, we don't come to our lives with the same self-confidence that sometimes men do. and i think part of that may be because of societal gender treatment differences. but whatever the causes are, i think women are more afraid of taking chances. if i could talk to the younger sonia, i would spend a lot less

time in that state of constant fear, include doing this job. eloise can talk about it. i spent my first year petrified. it takes -- zaps a lot of energy out of you. and i still have moments of it and probably will forever. and i wish i could change that. as i said, embarrassment or the fear of embarrassment holds you back. and the lack of confidence may not hold you back but it certainly burdens you unnecessarily. >> here's the question from josh. >> josh, where are you? ahh. hello. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you all for coming.

i know i've taken you -- some of you or a lot of you -- from classes. so thanks. [laughter] >> i'll, again, read josh's question. with a career in the law, particularly one which involved so much time on the bench, have you found it appropriate to set goals or are you weary of having an agenda? >> oh, i'm assuming from the question that you're talking about professional goals or goals as a justice. josh? he's shaking his head yes. i don't know if i'm afraid of having an agenda. i don't think that that's what motivates me against having goals. i think what motivates me is understanding that it's not within my control, meaning we respond to cases as they come to us and it does happen that a lot of those cases are important but when they come and how they come, in what factual setting,

is not within our control. and neither is are you going to have colleagues who are going to agree with you. and i think if you're a sensible person, you understand that although you might have confidence in what you think your vision is and what the law should be, you might be wrong. and you should take pause when people are disagreeing with you to think through carefully their side of things. now, that doesn't mean that principle won't lead you to still disagree. i've had already my fair share of single descents, but i do them because i think there's an important reason to do it. but my point is that i don't

think i do it from fear of setting an agenda but more from the recognition that my agenda may not be the best. that's really dangerous to think that you have all the answers. so i do try very hard to grow with my job, to teach -- to deal with each case on its own terms, and to understand each side of the arguments being presented so that i can render a decision based on that set of facts, that issue, and not my idea of what's right or wrong. the most dangerous thing in judging is playing god. that, to me is the most dangerous thing.

>> here is a question from bibi -- >> hi. >> [inaudible] >> thank you. >> again, i'll read her question. [laughter] >> well. >> i follow direction. which aspects of your childhood have been most salient in your legal career? >> you know something? i don't think that there's one salient aspect of anything you do in life that should take over who you are in your work or in your personal life. the person we become is a mesh of a whole bunch of different experiences. who i am as a judge is not sonia from the bronx.

ok? [laughter] it is being a prosecutor. it's become a civil litigator. it's being a trial judge. it's being a court of appeals judge. it is all of those things that i learned about, about our society, about how it functions, about our place in. and all of that influences my career and has influenced my career. i think, and i hope -- you may have gone through my book. but if you didn't and you read it, i wrote it so that people would take my life journey with me, to understand how each stage of my life, what new understandings it gave me and to, i hope, evoke in people as they read it reflections upon what they learned from each part of their life.

i talk in the book -- i start the book with describing when i was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes and the discipline and determination that it taught me. and that condition will be with me my entire life. it has been and will be. and that discipline and that determination have been with me and will be. but so has every other experience, whether it's the sort of love that my grandmother gave me and the understanding of family and loyalty to it that has been a part might have career -- a part of my career in the sense, as the chief judge said, i make time for my family and friends and i was taught that from my childhood. so everything influences you.

you can tell i'm very spanish. can't you? i talk with my hands. actually, i don't know if it's only spanish. it's very mediterranean. [applause] >> here's a follow-up question from chris, college 17. [laughter] >> hello, chris. >> so chris asks, what challenges have you faced reconciling your hispanic background with a traditionally anglo-american institution? he's got a sneaky follow-up, which is, what do you read for pleasure? [laughter] >> there has not been a lot of that. a lot of my reading has been legal reading. if you talk about the times i did pleasure reading, i love sci-fi.

i really -- it is a perfect escape from this world, ok? even with all the lectures, lessons it does about human nature -- i just adore it. if it has dragons and elves and dwarves, i like it even more. i was a harry potter aficionado. [applause] i often think of myself walking to the supreme court -- when you come to see the building, you know what i mean. lots of marble and lots of portraits, mostly of men. not a lot of women except sandra day o'connor up on the walls.

i would walk through on the weekends and hear my footsteps on the ground, and think, these paintings are going to talk to me. [laughter] and, you know, it was a little bit scary. i will tell you my favorite story that first year. i came to work one day, and i was leaving to go to a meeting. i walked around the corner and i stopped. there was a stairwell there. i looked at the stairwell. i looked around and i said, did i turn the wrong way? i looked all around, thinking, i am lost. how do i get to my office? i went back to my office, with my face in a total state of shock. i looked at my assistant, who had been justice souter's assistant at the time. i said, "shelley, i think i am going crazy."

she said, "justice, they took the wall down last night." [laughter] they had been doing construction in the building, and they had walls up in places i did not know were artificial balls, you -- walls, you know? i'm so sci-fi is really important to me, ok? [laughter] anyway. but that is what i tend to read. going back to your question, this is a line i say in my book, about talking to hispanic students who share my background, and who find themselves going into institutions where they are not in the majority, or which are, as princeton was to me, completely alien environments. and i talk about the need to -- to find comfort in your own

community, because i do not think that without the latino students in princeton, who had more similar backgrounds to me, that i would have felt at home there at all. and i could not have stayed unless i found commonality somewhere. but i also understood that i was being given an opportunity to learn about a world i knew nothing about, to learn about people who did things and came from places i knew nothing about. and that it was very, very important for me to use my community as an anchor, so i would not fly away, but not as an anchor that did not let me reach out and fly away when i needed to. it had to be a removable anchor, up and down. it was important to me, when i

was there, to be a part of every world i could be, to learn as much about other worlds as i could. and that is how i have navigated. i still do that, you know? i certainly had continuing involvement with the communities i came from. but i also am very and mashed -- enmeshed in the world i am in, and i am navigating and by learning about it, but becoming part of it. not separate from, but building bridges between the worlds. that is what my book is about, to show the wider world what my life was like, but also to show them the commonalities we have.

i cannot tell you how many people from vastly different backgrounds than my own have come to me to share stories about how similar something in their life was. justice ginsburg read my book, as most of us have yet to read anything during the term, with small breaks at a time. she read it in chapters over a series of a few weeks. every time she finished a section, she would come and tell me, share something about her life that is similar. and yet we have very, very different lives, and yet the same. i hope everybody who reads the book will experience that. that is what the book is about. not to talk about our

differences, but to talk about our commonalities. >> here is a question from marta. >> thank you. >> [inaudible] >> she wrote that on a card, and i was going to read it to you. she also wrote a big thank you. her question is, what do you think is the most significant barrier to female and latino leadership? >> it is a slightly different question. not that i have not been asked that before. i am trying to think, what can i think that is. i think we are getting better at it.

but we do not have one culture. we come from very, very different countries and backgrounds that the larger community in the united states paints us with the same brush often does not mean that translates to us feeling like we are one group. we laugh. i was at dinner with some friends the other night, and we were talking about the differences in words that guatemalans, puerto ricans, dominicans, and mexicans use. those were the people there. and we were having fun trying to figure out each other's words. we were having fun about it, but it is a reflection of the difference in our cultures. i think we are, as communities, going to understand that at

least here in america, we have to create our commonality. we have to work toward understanding that that will give us greater strength. and once we do that, i think it will be easier for us to recognize leaders. because until we do that, we will not be able to speak with a common voice. not one voice, by the way. i think that is a mistake. i do not think any ethnic group speaks in one voice. there are common issues we talk about. if we can do that, leaders will form. >> here is the last student question we have. >> i am going to ask them to pass up some more. >> there is water right now. >> pass up some more questions. i think we are early. pass up some more questions, you guys.

[applause] [laughter] >> i need ricky. >> where is ricky? did she leave? pass up some more of those questions. >> i will ask the last question. here is a question from thomas. oh, people. this is why professors like it when you type your exams. thomas's question is, how has your status as a minority giving you motivation and strength during your professional career? >> thomas, where are you? hello, thomas. >> could you describe your

experience? like how do you -- during your undergraduate career, how was your identity as a minority important in terms of integrating yourself? >> i think there are two different questions. your first question, the one on the paper -- i know i use my minority status and people's lack of expectations of me to my advantage. and i still do that. by that i mean, you will read in my book about my being in law school and being asked by an interviewer whether i felt i had gotten into yale simply because i was a minority. it helped a little bit that i was summa cum laude phi beta kappa from princeton. [applause]

and that is what i told him. and i remember being in the courtroom as a district court judge. here i am, all of 38 years old. a young hispanic woman. sitting in a courtroom with an attorney who i know had to have been practicing about 40 years. and he was treating me dismissively. i could respond to that, or i could do what i did. i kept asking him questions.

and i kept asking him questions. and all of a sudden, he who had been standing there, just looking to the side with a note of being exacerbated. all of a sudden, i asked him a question. i saw him turn around and looked up and look at me. i realized he realized, i had better be careful. she's not dumb. i got his attention all right. i do not worry that much about what others expect of me. i try to worry about what i expect of myself. sometimes, one others expect of

me does bring me down. when i do that, i end up not liking myself. i realize i am setting the wrong standard. when i concentrate more on proving what i can do, i am a happier person. i think that is what can give you strength as a minority. it is not to go through life living to the expectations of other people, but just working on advancing yourself. every step you take to become a better student, to become a better professional, to educate yourself, both in terms of knowledge and skill -- that is what counts. i think that if you are a

minority, where people are not having expectations of you, it is really satisfying to prove them wrong. you can take well-earned pride from that. the question you asked when you are standing up was -- you were talking more about, what do you do when you are here, either to take a ride in that identity or to prove it in some way. and i do not think that is a helpful way to look at it all stop as i explained earlier, i think it is more helpful to think about, how do i build bridges in this larger community? what do i do to learn more about people and community who have lived different lives than me? and how do i share with them the life i have lived, recognizing that both have equal value? if you can do that, you will

live in both worlds relatively comfortably. and occasionally still feel a stranger in both. you are at georgetown. if you come from the background i did, you are going to find that people in the communities you came from -- they are going to start treating you differently. the reality is that you are no longer going to be completely like them. you are going to be better educated. you are going to have more opportunity. in some ways, you are going to speak differently. these are not bad things. this is the reality of the opportunities you have been given. it does not mean you have to feel badly about those things. it means you accept them and give comfort to the people who

love you, by reminding them you are there. the first year i was on the supreme court bench -- as you know, i got a lot of public attention. i went to my family holiday party, which my cousin miriam hosts every year. i walked in and sat down. for about 10 minutes, everybody was silent, waiting for me to talk. and at some point i said to them, [speaking spanish]. [laughter] [applause] what is wrong with you? i said, do not tell me you have fallen for the stories they are telling you out there.

they started to laugh and started to do what they always do -- talk over each other, screaming each other. [laughter] i guess they had come to the white house and seen the sworn in at the court. had a reception at the white house. it is a little bit scary, scary for me. imagine for my family, who had never visited washington. i had to take time to remind them that sonia was still sonia. >> i saw two more questions passed up for me. thanks. ok. so, zaiyajawadi?

thank you for reading that. >> you are welcome. he asks, what are your thoughts on the retirement age for supreme court justices? [laughter] >> you know something? when i started my job as a judge, i was 38. and my assistant, teresa, who is still with me, started with me. from the first week or so, the other judicial assistants in the court took her out to lunch. she said, justice -- actually, she called me sonia. sonia, i feel kind of stupid. would you please tell me what senior status is? every one of those assistants knew when their judge would take senior status to the year, month, week, and day.

senior status is when a judge can retire. i looked at her and said, teresa, i am 38. we are far away from thinking about it. it is never going to come. i am now 60. it would be five years away. and now i have a job for life. [laughter] the only person who is a few years away from retiring and takes a job that is longer, but i did. i do not know the answer to that. i worked with john paul stevens, who retired at 90. he was smarter, more active, and more insightful than any judge i have ever met at 90. and i was heartbroken when he left the bench.

but he said to me, when he talked about his decision, that he wanted to leave on top, and not in his declining years. and that he still felt that he was on top, but that he feared that the turn might happen and he would not realize it. justice souter retired at 70. when i asked him why, he said to me, because he had lived at a time when some justices who had stayed longer than they should have. so what is the answer? it is not making fixed rules, because fixed rules are very, very dangerous. they deprive you of the wisdom and the knowledge of people.

because of your fear that one or two people might stay a little longer than they should. we have a vibrant court of nine people. if one of them is a little bit not quite at the top of their game, you have another eight that can hold on until they make their decision with big day. -- with dignity. i think the founder's belief that keeping us immune from political pressure by giving us life tenure has made our institution as strong as it is. i think that has value for our society. i am not quite sure that i think there is an actual age. the reality is that age tells you nothing about a person's capacity. it is more complex than age.

>> i think this really is going to be the last question. >> i know i have probably run over a little bit. i do that all the time, and i am sorry. >> this question is from yvonne hernandez. >> hello. [speaking spanish] >> on the card, how do you build consensus around an idea or a position? >> one at a time. [laughter] that is seriously. one at a time. it is not easy when you are working with a group of nine. it was much, much easier on the court of appeals. a group of three is more

manageable. each person can talk more, longer. and because there is a sense of each being so vital to the conversation that each engages more. when there is nine, there is sort of the group dynamic that smaller groups can support each other around ideas. and that makes it harder to be able to heal off one vote at a time, on occasion. but we end up doing it one person at a time. sort of talking and re-talking. we do vote on cases, but we continue to talk after the voting in smaller groups. and our writings, as they get circulated, there is still conversation going on. there are still discussions with those people who have expressed doubts or expressed reservations

about the votes they have cast. it is a dynamic that is ongoing. frankly until the day the decision is issued. i should not say quite that day. you know when it is finalized? when we clear the decision for announcement. and that is usually the friday conference before the week of announcements. that is basically the end of the conversation. >> this has been an incredible conversation. and in a minute, i know the audience is going to join me in thanking you. i have been asked to do two more things before i bring the conversation to a close. the first thing is that if i read your name, or if your question was asked, please after the event is over, after you do get a chance to clap, which i know you want to, please come to the front row. the justice is going to come say hello.

and the second thing i have an asked to do is to -- >> and take a picture. >> and take a picture. and the second thing i have been asked to do -- i know it kills you -- is to invite professor bailey on to the stage, chair of the government department, who is going to make a few closing remarks. then i know we will all thank the justice with enthusiasm. >> thank you. being here and having this event makes me realize how good we have it here at georgetown. not only do we get the chance to do the theory and the history and the analysis and so forth, but we really get a chance to see this on a personal level -- see the law, the justices, how it plays out, and the personal connections. that is not what everyone gets to do, so that is pretty neat. not only do we have a good georgetown in general, we in this room have it good that we

are getting books. i want to give you a couple notes on how we are going to do that. this set of folks is going to exit first. when everyone else is exiting, you will take your orange ticket, and in the main lobby, we will be distributing a book. you exchange the orange ticket you will take the orange ticket, and in the main lobby we will be distributing books. they have been generously and perhaps laboriously signed by justice sotomayor your. there are a lot of people to thank for this. we appreciate that. we appreciate the lecture fund students.

we appreciate the friends of margot bernstein, who made this possible. i learned when they set this boundia up they basically judge kassman to this. they had the foresight to say he would be involved in this whether or not he was in georgetown. they seemed to know what your future was even back then. that has been very fortunate for georgetown. big thanks to judge kassman for all he has done. fors a huge asset georgetown and the government department. they q4 really guiding of fun you for really guiding a fun and stimulating event. i am sure everybody joins me in thanking justice sotomayor. the event has been great.

[applause] >> you stay at the front and take a picture. >> thank you, and have a good evening.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> next, the former military analyst daniel ellsberg is part of the discussion on national security whistleblowers. then an update from the supreme court, which today heard a case on the technology company violates copyright law by letting consumers remotely record and watch broadcast television on their computers. also the court upheld a michigan voter initiative that banned racial preferences in admissions to state public universities. iraqi general elections are scheduled for april 30. tomorrow we will get a preview of the elections and hear from the iraqi ambassador to the u.s.. that's hosted by the center for strategic and international live at to eastern. the former russian minister will talk about u.s. russian

relations and the situation in ukraine. live coverage begins at five eastern. >> president obama pledged action bold and swift not only to create new jobs but to lay an new foundation for growth. today we are passing historic legislation that honors the promises our new president made from the steps of the capitol. promises to make the future better for our children and our grandchildren. only eight days after the president's address this house will act boldly and swiftly by passing the american recovery and reinvestment act to create and save 3 million jobs by rebuilding america. that's why they will have the support of 146 imminent economist, including five nobel prize winners, who in a letter

to congress this week stated, "the plan imposes important investments that can start to overcome damaging loss of jobs by saving or creating millions put the united states back on a sustainable long-term growth path." >> find more highlights on our facebook page. our cableeated by companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. next washington journal a conversation on prison sentencing reform. food company general mills announced last weekend it was reversing plans to make consumers forfeit their right to sue the company. we will talk to the consumers union about that decision.

later as part of our spotlight on magazines series ryan miller will discuss his recent article on trends in the u.s. gambling industry. we will also get an update on the supreme court. and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. mixed, three whistleblowers talk about the challenges national security -- next, three whistleblowers talk about the challenges national security faces. in the discussion, daniel ellsberg, who lead the pentagon times.to the new york we will also hear from a former ethics adviser to the justice department, who now advises edward snowden. from the university of southern california, this is two hours 10 minutes.

[applause] i played a leading role in defending snowden as a lawyer. i love having her here because i am all for models of people who don't sell out. >> she has played a leading role in protecting snowden. because iing her here am all for models of people who don't sell out. and so much of what we teach is selling out. we test people so they will be able to make a lot of money, go on to great success and rarely asked the questions what are you going to use these skills for? and here is who clearly excelled in the american university system and is -- and has devoted her life and went to yale and really doing her like work that puts her at risk. without taking more time, one of you set the stage of why we are here. >> thank you, bob.

thank you very much to the annenberg school for communication and journalism in partnership with my organization, the government accountability project. the government accountability project is the nations leading whistleblower organization. we been around for 35 years and have represented whistleblowers from all segments of the government, as well as private corporations and other entities. recently, in 2008, i began the national security and human rights program which ended up representing people in those communities and i quickly realized that those are the people who have virtually no

protection. i think in our country right now, we are at this crossroads. where the first amendment is under attack and that implicates both you as journalists and us as whistleblowers. i was a whistleblower before i went to work for gap. a lot of people want to know what a whistleblower is and the government thinks it gets to decide who is a whistleblower. the government in this case, often the wrongdoer, does not get to decide who is the whistleblower and who is not. a person becomes a whistleblower by operation of law through disclosing fraud, waste, abuse, illegality, dangers to public health and safety. the term weaker is often used synonymously with whistleblower. but these are quite different activities because a leak, for example, when richard armitage

leak cia undercover operative valerie plane's, that served no public or whatsoever. that was done surely to punish ambassador joseph wilson. wilson blowing on the other hand is done to serve the public interest and the public's right to know so when i began this program, i was used to representing whistleblowers who often experience retaliation, such as being demoted or transferred to a meaningless position or having their security credentials told. but that has escalated astronomically because, in 2010, thomas drake to the right of me

was indicted under the espionage act, one of the most serious charges that you can level against an american. and he became the second person in u.s. history to be indicted for espionage for non-spy related activity since daniel ellsberg to my left. the pentagon papers whistleblower who did much of the same thing as another client of mine, as snowden is doing today with the help of journalists like yourselves. you play a critical function. that's why journalists are considered the fourth branch, the fourth estate in our government. we, the whistleblowers, are considered to fit -- considered the fifth estate. we are considered pillars of our -- as they have been failing over the past decade since 9/11.

the united asserts the state secret privilege to shut down these cases. when you have two important branches of government not functioning, you, the press, play a critical role even more. that is when we need whistleblowers even more. but since 9/11, the people who are out to expose government, incompetence, ineptitude, and things that embarrassed the government get hammered. but god forbid you should discover -- disclose government illegality because then the hammer will really following you and you will face being

imprisoned for the rest of your life. this is not hyperbole. this is not exaggeration. i just wanted to set the stage and each of us in turn will talk about our own stories and our own role in this war that has been going on in which journalists have been the saving grace for a number of us. and they have also been all too willing to cooperate with the government in other cases. so with that, i will pass it back to bob. >> i thought you were going to go much longer. >> i can. >> what impressed me so much about your own work and you were a whistleblower is when john walker land from marin county, california was caught up with the taliban.

i looked at this guy's story and picture in the paper and he had been beaten and tortured. without feeling any sympathy for what was involved in all of this, i taught, if there is a tradition of everyone deserves a legal defense and a tradition that due process applies universally, this was the guy that was going to challenge that tradition. what i find so amazing about your career is that, in the justice department, you decided that he deserved legal representation. why don't you tell us a little bit about that case and how it entered your justice department career. >> i worked at the justice department as the ethics advisor. i happened to be on duty the day that i got a call that we had captured our first prisoner in the afghanistan war, john walker lindh, quickly dubbed the american taliban. i was told unambiguously that he

had a lawyer and the criminal division wanted to know about the ethical propriety of interrogating john walker lindh without his attorney. my office got that kind of question all the time. . . that was routine bread-and-butter question. and i advise, no, you cannot question and interrogate someone if they are represented by counsel. meanwhile, there was the famous trophy photo of him, naked, blindfolded, gagged, and with epithets written all over him. it very much foreshadowed what later happened at abu ghraib. clearly, this was an individual who was being tortured so i am under a gag order and cannot go into that aspect of it too much. suffice it to say the fbi ignored my advice, interrogated john walker lindh anyway and then wanted to know what to do.

so at that point, i said, not to worry, you can see a lot the interrogation and use it for national security and intelligence purposes but not for criminal prosecution. which is exactly what the justice department turned around and did. again, i didn't say anything. there is a press conference held by the attorney general announcing the charges against him and a reporter, one of you, asked, hey, it looks like he's being mistreated here. this photo, he looks like he's been tortured. what happened? and the attorney general said that his rights had been scrupulously guarded. i knew it was a lie but i didn't do anything. he had another press conference a few weeks later, john ashcroft. during that press conference, another astute reporter asked i thought he had legal counsel. and the attorney general said, if we were aware that he had a

lawyer, he would have been provided that lawyer. again, a complete lie. but i didn't act or do anything. it was the prerogative of the attorney general to say what he wanted to. however, the criminal prosecution continued and i inadvertently learned from the prosecutor that there has been a federal court order for all justice department correspondence related to john walker lindh's interrogation and he said that he had two of my e-mails. i was immediately concerned because no one had told me about the court order, which discovery orders go far and wide within the justice department. and i knew that i had written way more than two e-mails. being a naïve 29-year-old, i went and checked the hardcopy files because back then we kept everything in analog form as opposed to digital because we

barely had the internet in 2001. and when i checked the hardcopy file, my heart sank. there were only a couple of pieces of paper in what has been a inch-thick file. i consulted with a colleague of mine who had been with the department for 25 years and he said very matter-of-factly this file has been purged. that was inconceivable to me because the department was simultaneously prosecuting arthur anderson and enron ford district -- for destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice. i wasn't sure what to do but i knew i couldn't be a part of this. i called tech support and i was able to resurrect more than a dozen of the e-mails, including

the ones that documented the f eei -- the fbi committing an ethics violation in the interrogation of john walker lindh and i given to my boss and i said i don't know what is going on here but i'm not going to be a part of this and i resigned. i thought that was the end of this ordeal for me. but the criminal prosecution continued and there was a suppression hearing coming up. the key to john walker lindh's case was the validity of the confession he gave during the interrogation i had advised against. and i heard the justice department continued to say that they never thought he had a lawyer. which said to me that the justice department didn't turn over the e-mails. i didn't think they would have the temerity to make a statement like that, that he never had a lawyer. i tried to get copies of my

e-mail. i had taken a -- i had taken home a copy in case they disappeared again. i taken them to the judge but i no longer had standing. and this weighed on me a lot because someone might die and face the death penalty because i hadn't turn over information or the information i tried to turn over didn't reach the court. i struggled with this. one morning, i saw michael isikoff who was with "newsweek" repeating the party line that he never had counsel and i picked up the phone and call him and said, yes, he did and i have the e-mails to prove it. i gave the e-mails to is to cough. he wrote -- to michael isikoff

and he wrote an article which quickly settled with john walker lindh pleading guilty to two minor and mistreated infractions. i thought my part in this was over. but i didn't realize that by going to the press i was unleashing the full force of the entire executive branch. and when i say that, i mean that i was put under one of the first federal criminal leak investigations. in reality, there is no such crime as leaking. i was referred to the state bar's at which i am licensed as an attorney. and for good measure, i was put on the no-fly list. after that and many years in the wilderness fighting this, i decided to dedicate the rest of my life to representing whistleblowers. i knew when they would come in and say you'll never believe what the government is doing to

me. i could look them in the eye and say, yes, i can so i was representing whistleblowers. usually, the retaliation was getting fired or transferred, demoted, having your security clearance pulled. that kind of thing. but then one day i read about a man named thomas drake, who from everything i could tell by the article had gone through every single internal channel to blow the whistle at nsa and was being indicted under the espionage act, which is the most serious charge that can be leveled against an american. and right now, while i've got -- while i thought tom's gaze was a one-off, it wasn't. it has turned into a brutal war against whistleblowers that include espionage, act, prosecutions more than any president before obama and more than all presidents combined

against people who are not spies but are accused of mishandling, allegedly, classified information and this implicates journalists because you are in every single indictment in these cases. >> let me introduce an old friend, daniel ellsberg. he mentioned daniel ellsberg as setting the marker for whistleblowing and such cases. he is the most well read person i know and he never gets anything wrong i think when i met you, i thought of u.s. sort of a conservative originally because you had been not only in favor of the vietnam war, you actually participated.

you've been in the press corps and the marines before that and in the defense department and so forth. we were having in our unit in this country over whether this war ahead any sense, whether it was justified and i wrote a pamphlet called how the u.s. got involved in vietnam and it was based on what i could find in interviews and so forth. lo and behold, we had the pentagon papers. the pentagon papers settled those debates. basically, if we think of democracy being based on an informed citizenry, we had no way of knowing what was really going on in our name because it was all classified. but the pentagon had decided to do a study of what this war was all about. and this study, which daniel ellsberg revealed, and tony russo, first of people in government and they will tell you all about it, and then to

newspapers. it really was a lesson to me and what this is all about, the people's right to know. because what this was was nothing more than an honest history. it was writing history. it was information used to make intelligence decisions that ended up being an event causing 3.5 million indochinese to die as well as over 59,000 american soldiers. so here you have this karen bass development. there is a defense department study that says that what we are being told about this is bogus and this guy releases those documents and now he's considered something of a hero even in establishment circles because they use him to say snowden is the bad guy, ellsberg is the good guy. but i remember at the time when

he was on trial at the federal doping in downtown l.a. and it looked like they were going to put him away for a real long time. daniel ellsberg was not getting support he was deserved at that time. >> it had a lot of material in it that wasn't into the pentagon papers. you had more than they had in many ways about the origins. on the other hand, you had quite a bit that was in the pentagon papers. 1965, was it? >> i went to vietnam in 64 and 65. the study was published by robert hutchins center for the -- >> which year did he go out? >> >> 1965. but when i delivered my study, there was justice douglas, henry luce, the establishment organization. and this goes to how you. prove something they told me you are full of it. this couldn't possibly be. and they all have their friends. the public debate was always a loser because we were not given information to validate. >> people on the left like bob

at that time had been saying when it came out, this is not news to us. this is what we have been saying. to a large extent, that was true but they were not being heard and those who heard them like myself had to ask can this be true? who are these guys? what do they know they are not insiders? the president saying what the motive wasn't what the aims were, what we were doing. it was so different it was hard to believe. by the time i read your piece,

which i would not have seen it in vietnam. i was in vietnam in 19th -- in 1965 to 1967. by that time, i was ready to believe having been there for two years. and i remember thinking, if i had read this before, in 1964 or 1965 when you were working on it, i never would have gone to vietnam. the had i read in 1965, i think my reaction would have been can this be true? what is this? what the pentagon papers showed was that people inside were not saying something different from what the radicals were saying. they were saying much the same. they were saying totally differently in the public. in other words, they were lying. they knew they were lying. to some degree, some of them showed particular realism about what was happening in vietnam contrary to the impression they were getting -- we're giving. -- were giving. i remember one of the joe pfeiffer cartoons. how could johnson not know this?

the answer is he did know it. he was just lying to us. the government is able to keep secrets very well. and the secret they kept was what they were up to, what they thought the complex were, what they thought the costs were pretty much. they were simply lying about it and they were able to keep secret the fact that they did know that much about it and that the prospects were as bad as they actually were. it's hard to believe that they could have gotten us into vietnam specifically had that information been made available in 1965. there are two ways that might have happened. bob scheer putting it out in a

pamphlet probably doesn't do it. you have to think of somebody else. or i could have put it up. i was just a staffer in the pentagon, but i had the i was just a staffer in the pentagon, but i had the documents in my safe at the time in 1964-1965. had i put them out at that time, i actually believe that it was very unlikely that johnson could have escalated the war in 1965 and 1966 the way he did because he had a senate that was very skeptical of it, that was like two and couldn't believe he was lying to them as blatantly as in fact he was. and there was no whistleblower and i wasn't one. told me in 1971, when i put them out, if you had given this information to me on the

committee on foreign relations committee in 1964, the talk and golf resolution would never have gotten out of committee. and if they had brought it to the floor directly for a vote, he would have lost. and at the time when he first told me that, well, they would have found another excuse. to be sure, talking golf was a set of lies. in fact, we had not been attacked and he got a declaration of war out of it. but they would have found something us to get it. but when i thought later, what if i put out everything that was in my safe about the planning for escalation that was going on before the election or during the election campaign when his rival, general -- senator on reserve, general goldwater was a senator on the foreign relations committee was saying we should escalate and the president was saying we seek no wider war and i had ace -- a safe full of arguments planning a war after the election.

could johnson have gone ahead at your -- ahead? i don't think so. hundreds, maybe a dozen people at least had access to those documents. anyone of us could have avoided that war. second, no one asks me or anybody else. nobody in the press was really pressing what's the truth behind this thing? we were looking critically at what the president was saying. there weren't to my knowledge, to this day, making an effort that was rebuffed somehow to get the truth about what was happening. and the upshot of that, the meeting to this day -- we don't

have nearly as many whistleblowers as we could and should have. how many with debbie? bob -- how many would that be? anyone who had that documentation would have realize that the constitution was being thwarted and violated. later in the year, when the escalation occurred, they weren't even attending there had been an attack on the united states. yet we were moving ahead, lying to congress, fairly unconstitutional. each one of us in the executive branch had taken the same old that i'm sure is the same with you, tom, which is to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic. and i think we all at that time, my colleagues and i, all violated that oath.

i don't think we even asked ourselves what would it mean to disobey the oath? it didn't come up. we were beyond the constitution. we worked for the president. he decided what we should have, which wasn't especially constitution, but it was the trend. president truman took us to war in korea which was not constitutional. we were killing but not dying so that was not a war. what i'm saying is whistleblowers have the ability to avert a disastrous, hopeless, bloody war and not only that one. iraq could have been stopped that way by anyone of a thousand people who knew what we were getting into.

not one of whom told the truth. nor did any -- actually, there were in that particular case, unlike vietnam, a couple of reporters, walter pincus and others, some dissenters talking about the lack of evidence for wmd's. but the leaks, the top seek it leaks to judith miller and michael gordon that there were wmd's, that there were cylinders and dealings to get hello kate for saddam, that's not on the front page. it helped get us into the war so the reporters in washington failed across the board on iraq in exactly the same way they had failed years before on vietnam.

and the people in the government all failed to carry out their oath to the country -- to the constitution, all without any exception known to me except for a two anonymous like acus and a few others. the government can keep secrets, does keep secrets, even when thousands of people know them and know that they are critical to a deadly war going on. and its ability to keep secrets, then the incentives to reframe -- to refrain from crimes, lies is pretty much eroded. without accountability, they can go ahead and they do. and the price of that is wars like vietnam and iraq. i think it is leaks about to ciber in particular and others, about the military resistance to nuclear weapons and other

attacks on iran that i began leaking in 2006 and leaked again about syria this week, about false flag operations in syria done with the support of the turkish government about the serum gas in syria. we need more efforts by the rest. >> i want to pick up on that. the fact of the matter is we get most of our news on national security, foreign policy from leaks. >> true. we get false stories. you get plenty of false stories. >> you mentioned judy miller. you have been in those official circles. what i wonder, in those circles -- let me get the background. you spent time in the air force and the navy, but one of the

interesting experiences you had is you were in east germany so you became familiar with the horrors of the official propaganda system. you understand the need of information for a free society and then like snowden, you are a contractor but then you rose to a high official position. surely, living in washington, as two of you do, probably rare. enormously leak. let's we had lunch today. i remember when i was reporting for "the l.a. times and the development of a star wars system, i think it just goes to the point i was on tsa or a southwest airlines, a plane going from l.a. to san jose but

the father behind the h bomb god reagan to support star wars. he said, where you going and i said i am going to the stanford arms-control program. i said make sure sid tells you about the great results we had on the cottage test. we got raising. if it were two, that would be the biggest change in the military balance. it was the thing that any enemy would want to know. and here he is telling me, a suspect character that no one should trust, right? telling me the result of this test. the very name of the test had to be secret. the very result, so forth.

so i went to the office control and i managed -- i mention this to sid and he said i cannot talk about this because it is of the highest confidentially out. what is interesting about thomas drake is that it was a very important story but it was boring from a kind of cops and robbers or national security thing. it really has to do, if i understand it correctly, with efficiency, wasted resources, and an important issue of privacy as well. but the nsa had developed a system with a very brilliant fellow who had developed a system for a thin thread that would allow you to go through information but in a selective way still preserving privacy.

this was after 9/11, very important. before 9/11, it could have been used to good effect instead, they rejected that system and went for an enormously expensive system that has never worked and has a bludgeoning effect. >> this was really the thing that turned you into a whistleblower, isn't that true? >> in part, yes. you don't wake up one morning and decide to be a whistleblower. it is not a profession you would normally seek. i don't remember going to my high school counselor and saying, hey, i want to be a whistleblower. [laughter] it just wasn't on the list. i grew up in vermont. as a very young teenager, i witnessed seniors earning their draft cards in the back lot of the high school. i was 14. and i remember that because dan

ellsberg was a key individual in my understanding of what can go wrong with your own government. my cynical way getting as a young adult took place in the 1970's. awaking -- awakening as a young adult took place in the 1970's. pentagon papers leaked by dan ellsberg. the horror of vietnam as a it continued to unfold. watergate. woodward and bernstein. that is where they got their beginnings and their fame, to sit that way, in terms of reporting. it was a really cool profession to be in. then i saw a president of the united states resign from office.

yet when i became eyewitness to just a few short decades later -- in fact, in reality, it was only about twice six years later -- makes the nixon era look tame by comparison. and much of what was actually illegal during the 1970's and terms of government act tvs violating the law became legal. i mention all of that because that is the context in which i came the context in which i was brought up. her mantra is to be a republic for 14 years until he joined the union. in 1791. we have to remember the beginnings of this country and that the first amendment, which

i ultimately have to confront after 9/11, what is happening to our country, that it is our cornerstone of who we are as americans. if we don't have the first amendment, everything else becomes propaganda. information control by the government. it is important to note that vietnam's lessons were learned quite well by those in power. they actually said in a book published about this that, if we ever find ourselves in conflict of this nature in the future, we have to control the message. because the fact remains that vietnam was really the first

television war. it was brought right into the living rooms of america. they got to see it all played out over a number of that backdrop. we also have to remember something else. because history is really important here, especially for the profession you are looking to go into. because you are reporting on the news, you can't understand the news without understanding the history. and one of the things that becomes so seminal in your understanding about that period is that there were congressional hearings. just look up the church and type committing meetings. detailing, cataloging a whole series of violations by the government. but i am not here to give you a litany of all those violations and all that wrongdoing. one of the things that came out during the 1970's, which is often forgotten by the apologists of the national security state in the post-9/11 era, is that nsa and the cia and

the fbi were routinely violating the rights of americans with impunity. nsa formed the deepest of secrecy not by congress but by the virtue of a presidential signature in 1952. a military organization headed by a three-star general now a four-star general. it had been routinely violating the rights of americans on a program called operation shamrock, the first mass surveillance program, truth be told. all telexes coming into the united states and exiting the united states were routinely elected and copied and given to the nsa. and guess who was providing them

under the greatest secrecy? the very corporations like rca global, for example, as well as several others, just turning this over to the government. total violation of the fourth amendment of the constitution. i'm saying all this -- look up operation minaret. nsa using its extraordinary power back in the 1960's and 70's to spy on americans that they didn't like, that posed threats to the state, were activists, dissenters, journalists and reporters. providing in the public interest critical information about what was going on inside the government, finding themselves on the other end of an nsa surveilling them with the technology of that day.

i say all that because a lot of reforms were instituted in the 1970's, including something called the foreign intelligence surveillance act passed under the carter administration. also establishing to standing committees on intelligence to provide oversight so it wouldn't get out of hand as was demonstrated before -- by all of these disclosures. daniel ellsberg, turning over the pentagon papers in the public interest because the american people have the right to know what their government was doing in their name. now, accelerate to 9/11. i'll ask the question rhetorically, what were you doing on 9/11? for many in this room, including my own son who is 18 and a freshman at virginia wesleyan -- 9/11, he doesn't remember the

pre-9/11 world. the only world he actually knows is what occurred after 9/11. some of us actually remember 9/10. some of us would like to return to 9/10. my first job was 9/11. i did not know when i was sitting in the legislative affairs office listening to my immediate supervisor attempt to explain why nsa needed billions of dollars to meet the challenges of the digital age, a program that i actually blew the whistle -- i didn't know what was about to happen while i was in that room. and while i was in that room, both towers were hit and then the pentagon shortly thereafter. and yet that was a trigger event. almost 3000 people were murdered. it was a trigger event in which i am going to say this in the

strongest possible language. it was the reality of what i confronted, the horror of what i confronted that my own government unchained itself on the constitution. a silent coup against the constitution, placing itself, granting itself authority to engage in emergency powers -- emergency powers. we've been operating in that mode ever since. truth be told. and he serious of -- and a series of decisions were made. we have to remember 9/11 was fundamentally a failure but it was used to cut is the government is too big to fail --

it was used as an excuse to engage in a whole series of the committees and -- series of activities and operations that are total violations of what we actually stood for. and none of it was necessary. none of it was necessary. the very best of american ingenuity had already been ready to go. well before 9/11. we never have to go to the dark side as vice president cheney himself said on public broadcast television five days after 9/11. so what did i confront? within days of 9/11, the power of nsa being turned on the united states, full power. nsa was supposed to do for intelligence. but apparently, the united states was now a foreign nation for all intents and purposes. my moment of truth occurred three weeks after 9/11 when i confronted a lead attorney in the nsa in the office of general counsel.

i said what are we doing? it's the prime directive that you do not spy on americans without a warrant. and now we are just separating ourselves from the fourth amendment? there is an entire directive, a regime in which i was fundamentally accountable and had been ever since i was in the military, flying reconnaissance. there were procedures involved. all of this was tossed out. i wasn't just looking at the wheels coming off this thing called the constitutional republic. i was actually looking at an entirely new vehicle that i did not recognize, an alien form of government. remember, i had taken the oath four times to defend the constitution.

now i witnessed a subversion of the constitution and 9/11 was a trigger for billions and billions of dollars being poured into nsa. failure was really profitable. and fact, my immediate supervisor, as we went around the complex attempting to console the workforce, they knew that we had failed the nation. they knew that we were also responsible for not keeping people out of harms way. just read the preamble of the constitution, the two is possibilities of the government, provide for the public defense. 9/11 was a gift to nsa. we will get all the money we want and then some. and congress really provided link checks to nsa for the next several years. so that was fraud, waste and abuse.

then i discovered there was critical intelligence that had been kept by nsa and never shared with the rest of the government. the real truth here is what i was confronted by. in terms of what the government chose to do -- no public debate, no need for the public to know -- and fat, they were doing everything to keep us away from the public. so what do you do? my colleagues resigned from the agency that i work with. and i chose to stay on and fight. i made a conscious choice that i would fight them from within because that moment of truth set into motion my whistleblowing within the system for a number of years and then ultimately

leading to a choice to go to the press with what i knew. and here is where i looked at dan ellsberg in terms of living history. back during the nixon administration, the president actually had said that, if the president says it's ok, it's legal. here is what the leading nsa attorney told me. you don't understand, this program is all legal. it was approved by the white house. as soon as i heard that, the hairs went up on the back of my neck. we are the executive agent for the program. it was a dragnet surveillance program. you cannot understand snowden. you cannot understand any of the disclosures to date without understanding the foundation of those surveillance programs. so i went through all channels. i ended of the a material witness for 29/11 investigations.

i gave them thousands of pages of material evidence and i wish i had actually kept that evidence. and and i have talked about this, just like he shared with you that he wished he had exposed the pentagon papers years earlier. it might have stopped the war, may have prevented it from occurring. so a material witness for two 9/11, no investigations. all of the evidence was censored and suppressed. the only evidence that i had any contact, material contact is the fact that i was interviewed. there are people right now, for

a number of years, trying to track down where did all of my material witness evidence, both verbal and in documented form and up? and everybody is playing dumb. i wonder why. because buried in there are things i is closed publicly later. buried in there is the reality of the foundational programs of which you have been hearing so much about june 2013. thank you, ed snowden. buried in there is the evidence of nsa having critical intelligence that could have prevented, stopped 9/11. nsa conveniently said how kinsey meant it was for nsa to hide behind the fbi and the nsa. let them take the hit. this is the stark reality of our government turning into something other than what it is supposed to do. and as i recall from the nixon era, the cover-up is often worse than the crime. i am eyewitness to high crimes and misdemeanors and they are

all covering it up and billions are being spent because it was a really big failure so it chased a lot of money. none of this needed to happen. the very best technology had already been developed. the fact is i discovered when i was the executive program manager, we were actually able to look at the critical or the critical database at nsa and discovered pre-and post-9/11 intelligence, information that had never been shared, information they didn't even know they had.

and in thread fundamentally protected the fourth amendment rights. they took a portion of thin thread and without any controls at all, no fourth amendment controls, everything was just taken. all phone numbers, e-mail a dress is coming internet usage. linking all internet usage. watching all the disclosures from edward snowden, i'm aware there is far more that has been going on inside the government than what edward snowden has disclosed. truth again be told. this is really, really disturbing knowledge in history about our own government. trailblazer was launched to great fanfare a year and a half before 9/11 ostensibly as a flagship program to deal with the digital age.

nsa was going deaf. it was literally being drowned in all this data. they were in violation of the federal acquisition regulations. they decided to buy the solution, not make it. it had already been made. look up eisenhower's farewell speech before kennedy became president in 1961. i get all the way to 2005. this is -- there is a new director of nsa. there is a final report from the department of defense. i was a material witness on that as well. umpteen thousands of evidence pages given to them on all that was going on with thin thread and trailblazer.