>> i think you are right. >> my mother was the first woman judge in delaware. rosalie came many years ago to speak in delaware. see you today. my mother was appointed i the governor. -- by the governor. electaware we do not judges. in many areas where it was an appointment, and the olden days it followed the male line. over time appointment of judges has given the appointing party more than an opportunity to bring diversity. have many places in the united states where judges are did. -- are elected.

that's where you may see an agenda. my question really is, i know in the united eight we have places inre judges are elected. canada and israel, are there some judges and court systems where there is an election? >> are you kidding? i remember in judgment at nuremberg there is a scene where marlena dietrich is walking with spencer tracy. i love movies. oscar night for me is a religious night. she said, this is your country? i remember it was so odd the notion that you are directly responsive to the public for the decisions where you have to choose a side that may not be the one giving you the money. who do you go to for fund raising?

i'm not saying there are very good judges who are elected. theory ofg about the an election where you are directly responsible to the majority for decision-making. , ifou are doing sentencing you are doing constitutional rights, you are having to decide a minority versus a majority interest, and if you really like hearing a judge and you want to go back for another seven years, you are going to work very hard at not annoying the people you are going to go back to for money and reelections. i know sandra day o'connor is working really hard on this. the notion of populism is so that onehis country -- democracy is not just about elections.

about institutions that work and check and balance off of each other. some are elected, and some are not. the judiciary scrutinizes the elected officials. you have to be independent. you have got a different mandate. people always say, who are these people anyway? they are not elected. they are not supposed to be elected. they are performing a different function. >> it's the most frequent question i am asked when i go abroad. impartialu have an judiciary when you elect your judges? we know how it originated. there was great distrust of the kings justices. people wanted to have a say in who would be there judges. their judges. it isn't something i can explain when i am asked that question.

i can say i am glad to be part of the system. >> i am a guest in the united states, so i'm not allowed to say what i want about the system. against the principles of independence of , but i understand the historical background. sometimes when you have a tradition based on historical background it's very difficult. this is why it won't be easy to change, but it's against all the principles we believe in. >> question? >> yes. >> i am greta van softer in. en.suster

my question is for the visiting judges. i am curious when you look at our trial system if there is anything you could tinker with. when i see the british system and the defendant in the back i think he looks guilty. i like the way we put him in the court. is there something about your system that you think might be a little bit very -- a little bit that we should perhaps tinker with? to both of our judges? >> i just said what i think about our system. serious, i think nowadays the privilege -- we have a wealth of communication, and we and werom other systems referred to the canadian system. we have a lot in common, and we learn from each other.

it's not only a matter of majority. it's the values. >> is there any procedural difference that might be a little bit different and something to look at? odd and weis sort of might do this that are? we don't have a jury system. we are different because we have a different background. you carry your history, but we can learn from each other, and we try to do that all the time. >> in canada, juries are used for what? >> most references have civil juries, but we have big criminal cases. >> i think that is a good question, and here is why. the one thing all of our countries has in common is we

have a real problem in court. that is the access to justice problem. we were talking about change before. findf the expressions i least comfortable is they think it is a valid rebuttal when they say we have always done it this way. there is a light old joke about lawyers. how many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb? change? here is my story about what frustrates me about the way we resolve adjudication everywhere. in 1906 the dean of harvard law onool wrote an article based the speech he gave to the american bar association called civil -- public dissatisfaction with the civil justice system, and in the article he talked was, how slow the system how expensive it was, how it was

becoming a trade instead of a profession, how it was too adversarial, and i thought about that. i thought, people probably went to his lecture with the horse and buggy. still using leeches. i don't know how we listened to music. maybe that thing that goes around and around. look at every profession today and compare it to 1906. doctors have experienced in order to find better ways to save lives. what engineers do is totally different. we didn't have planes then? if you took a lawyer from 1906 and gave him training, he would feel perfectly at home in our court room. i don't get that. doctors, experimenting with life, and we won't experiment with justice? i think we need a fundamental shift instead of tinkering

around the edges. systemook at what the would look like if we were starting it today. how would we resolve civil disputes? criminal cases are different? anyway, i have views. an agenda. >> greta, see what you stirred up. a question in the very back. address thiske to to the justice. you have a very complicated ,ourt system in israel particularly in family law. i am really interested in how you deal with religious and cultural aspects of law when you are dealing with secular jews and ultra-orthodox jews and arabs in the same court system. >> it's true we have a complicated system.

again, we only have religious not onlyand divorce, for jews. for arabs and muslims and christians. we have only their religious tribunals. totry to do more and more achieve. i would daresay i may have an achieve civil rights, but our court, our supreme court can and does review the decision, not from the substance of religious law, but through procedure. it's not perfect, but we can review these decisions and more and more to apply our civil

in religious courts. it's not easy. that kind ofccept tension. i think if we are talking about women's rights, equality for women, they still suffer because we have this system of religious marriage, and this is a very difficult issue that should be changed. just speaking of israel, or are you? >> to clarify what the question family law has given over to religious authorities. under jewish law as i understand cannot get a divorce. you can only receive a divorce. me if this is true.

there is supposed to be a man who said, let's see what the courts are doing. they are going to put me in jail. and there was a man for years and years in jail because he refused to give his life. that's how the civil court tried this one-way direction of religious law. law forve sacred family every purpose. and other things, but divorce is in the hands of the court. all other courts -- this is a very serious problem. the court may send a man who refuses to get a divorce to prison. we had cases.

this was a very famous case where he was ready to die in prison. not to get a divorce. it happened. there is public work trying to change the law. >> may be one more. this gentleman right here. >> i would like to ask the of question. during the process of negotiation leading to a hopeful palestinian and israeli peace, new conversation has arisen on the side of israel as to the recognition of israel as a

jewish state. constitutionalhe implications of this new theersation in terms of rights of minorities in israel? >> i don't want to go into the question of political conversations or trying to reach but israel,, according to the basic laws we -- this is our inc. -- our constitution -- it's a jewish democratic state. jewish and democratic. colors of thesic israeli law. constitution, legislation. what does it mean? we have a minority of arabs.

according to the declaration of have thence, they right to quality. the question, what does this mean to be a jewish state. toon't need palestinians recognize because i believe we are a jewish state. this is our law. we have not always agreed what does this mean. all a home forof all the jews. this is the idea. this is the home of the jewish people. parties whogious think it should be a religious state. this is not what we mean when we are talking about a jewish state. there is no

contradiction to be a jewish state. , yes, ity other state is a democratic state and has to reflect the rights of the minority. i see no contradiction. the political matter is completely different. think what he means is to recognize this is a home to the jewish people. >> one last question. you both have your hands up. >> i am going to try to sneak in. i think what is understood to be the liberal side of the spectrum. is that a coincidence or something more? you talked about what it is like to have eight husbands on the court. i am curious about what it's

like when those are wives and what is the impact to have more than one woman on the court at a time. >> she got two questions. follow-up. >> what about the question of women on the left side of the court? >> the breakthrough in the wased states supreme court the appointment of justice sandra day o'connor. and the arizona senate, but we in every case that involved women's opportunities.

i didn't hear the first question, but i would like to .ay how great it is it makes a difference in the picture that has been made. i sit close to the middle. justice kagan is on my left. justice sotomayor or on my right. children in school, and watch what is going on in the and they see the women are not there just to look good. my colleagues are likely participants. anyone who has been to the court knows that. journalistsveral counted the number of questions each justice asked, and they decided justice sotomayor or won

the prize even more than justice scalia. the women are not shrinking violets. lonely being the only woman. for sandras better who was a more imposing presence. >> i don't think there is anyone questioning how imposing you are. you can take both questions. >> if i am asked if it's a coincidence, this is for social logical research. i think you are right that women are more on the liberal side. not only when we are talking rights,nder and women's true that mosts

of the women justices are on the liberal side. you have to be very careful labeling judges. there is something in it. there was a time when we were five women in the court. we sat sometimes in groups of three. we had a panel of three women justices in the court. you could seeng they were suspicious. what are these three women doing here? it doesn't matter anymore. having women in the court is not an issue anymore. believe we will have a vacancy

and there will only be three more women to the court. >> i actually never thought about why or whether women are more liberal. it's true in canada we deny onen -- we have nine women the supreme court. i would say all of them are progressive. the supreme court in canada is generally progressive anyway. let me tell you how great it is to have a lot of women colleagues. when i joined the court in 2004, i was appointed with another colleague from the interior court. we became for women on the court. in not only normalizes the perception of the public that your supreme adjudicators can be of either gender.

courtreat inside the because there is a collegial spirit when you have got people who have gone through the same experiences. it always put my colleagues back when a couple of women are arguing and it goes something like this. i don't think the charter was meant to deal with this issue. don't forget the decision we decided in 1903. i like that necklace a lot. that we -- [laughter] in the middle of the most sophisticated debate, we will notice a piece of jewelry. that ist few times of remember them going, are you allowed to do that? am i allowed to notice your socks? it is a much more collegial and

i would say less pretentious -- it's not one ought to behave this way because one is a supreme court judge. just nine people, many of whom happen to be women, and it's a privilege. so many more questions but our time is up. let's just say thank you to these amazing women. [applause] >> thank you. >> the supreme court heard a case this week that will decide the fate of a technology company that streams local broadcast television to customers' computers, phone and tablets. the supreme court is looking at

whether aerial is violating copyright law and must play licensing fees to broadcasters. we will have that oral argument tomorrow 8:00 eastern on -span. >> on our next "washington journal" a conversation to reduce poverty in u.s. cities. our guest is robert woodson. then steve bell of the bipartisan center will talk about retirement savings planning. next month marks the anniversary of the brown v. board of education. we'll be joined by nicole hannah jones who wrote an article for "the atlantic." you can join the conversation by phone or on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" live each morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> next, a panel of supreme

court reporters, former law clerks and professors discuss transparency in the nation's highest court. freedom of the press and the coalition for court transparency hosted this n.y.u. event in washington. ng. my name is tony morrow and i am on the steering committee of the reporters committee for freedom of the press, which is co-sponsoring this. and i want to thank n.y.u. also for sponsoring this event. supreme so covered the court for 34 years and have been immersed in these issues for pretty much all of that time. this is the second discussion we have had on the subject of transparency at the supreme court. the last one was a few months ago.

the theme then and now really is that transparency in the case of the supreme court is about way more than just allowing cameras in the court. of course, that is very much on our wish list. we will see these other issues elated to transparency develop even more this morning than over the last event. we have a terrific panel to discuss these issues, led by dahlia, it's my great pleasure to introduce her. she's also on the steering committee of the reporters committee for freedom of the press. another panelist sonny west used to be an intern at this reporters committee. dahlia covers the courts since before the turn of the century. when she arrived on the beat and ever since she's been a breath of fresh air bringing tremendous insight as well as a touch of

humor to covering the supreme court beat. when she writes about a supreme court argument, you almost don't need cameras. emphasis on almost because her writing is so vivid. before i turn it over to dahlia, i want to mention if you would like to give the supreme court a piece of your mind on these issues there's the scotus booth of truth upstairs where you can tape a brief video with your views on these issues. i will turn it over to dahlia. >> thank you, tony. i want to redouble tony's thanks to the various sponsors and to n.y.u. for this absolutely gorgeous venue. and you all probably know that last fall for the first time in story some advocacy groups knocked a camera into oral

argument for the first time ever we got to see live video of oral argument, which actually looked more like a sighting of the loch ness monster. it was awfully blurry and confused. but america went kind of crazy and people were interested in it, reminded -- especially those of us who go back and forth to the court and get to be in those arguments, the extent of which the branch that is meant to be the most transparent and open and everything that you need to know about the courts working is contained in the four corners of the opinion is actually completely unknown and unknowable to 99.9% of the american public who were glimpsing for the first time blurry judicial shoulders and getting very excited about it. so we're here to talk about transparency. not just cameras but all of the aspects of transparency. but i want to 0 just open by saying that transparency means not just that we can't see the workings of oral argument.

but it means we also can't hear the workings of oral argument until the court releases audio on fridays. we can't readily access their website when we on the day the health care cases came down tried to access their website, it crashed. the best source of getting information about the court is not, in fact, the court's website. it's other websites. we don't know the justices' speaking schedules. we don't get copies of their speeches. it's very difficult to get their financial disclosures. don't get me started on their papers. so this branch that's supposed to be open and one of three coequal transparent branches of government is awfully hard to get into. and so that's what we're here to do today. and we thought in lew of me -- in lieu of me reeling off introductions of panelists who are amazing each in their own right, i'm going to ask each of them to just introduce themselves to you and tell you

for half a minute who they are, why they have skin in this game. then i want them to answer a question that is completely open ended because that's the kind of hipsters we are. and the question is going to be, what does transparency at the supreme court mean to you? we will start right here with willie and go down the line. just ten seconds on who you are and why this is an issue that's important. and if you would sort of develop an idea about what transparency means to you. >> sure, thank you, dahlia, very much. it's a real pleasure to be here. i'm a partner at the partner goodwin proctor here in d.c. why am i here? i'm here because i'm a lawyer who briefs and argues cases before the supreme court. i used to work for the justice department and now i'm in private practice. much of work -- my work is before the supreme court as well. what does transparency mean to

me? as lawyer and advocate, it's not about the cameras, it's not about the papers, it's not about the speeches and certainly not about financial disclosures. it's about the decision of cases, which after all is the justices' a number one job, to decide cases. when they decide cases, what do they decide and what do they decide them based on? those are kind of transparency things that get me up in the morning. because the courts will often say we're a transparent branch because everything is public. the briefs are public. they're on a website, not the court's website. the oral argument is public. it's transcribed easily, peruseable on the court's website and so on. does the court limit itself to what's in the briefs or not? and i think one striking example of that is through buried in justice kennedy's juvenile life without parole opinion from a couple years ago where he was

developing some statistics about how many young offenders were incarcerated for interment life without parole. you see in that opinion very unusual citations including letter to supreme court library from federal bureau of prisons. letter to supreme court library from i think district of columbia, department of corrections. basically the justices had asked other parts of the federal and municipal d.c. government to do research for them and provide that information, secretly, not copied to the parties and i'm not revealing inside information because i don't have any but the solicitor general did not participate in that case. it may have been a surprise the attorney general, slit iter general the bureau of prisons report that the bureau of

prisons was opining or providing factions on this fairly complicated and nuanced issue. i think it was a surprise as well. so when you're standing in the court, you speak your piece, sit down and chief justice says the case is submitted. the briefing is all done. oral argument is all done. then researching begins so the transparency concern i have is justices of on view that as the beginning and not the end of the fact at law and science gathering process. justice breyer i think is also fond of citing social science and other secondary literature in his opinion. in most cases none of which is cited by the parties, his own research. that's how he decides cases. he finds it useful. how do you respond to citations and convince hem not to rely on them because you have not seen them until they appear in his opinion? >> hi, i'm clay johnson. i'm the c.e.o. of a company called department of better

technology. i'm a former presidential innovation fellow. used to be director of sunlight lab at the sunlight foundation and before that founder of blue state digital. we made barackobama.com in 2008 and a bunch of other things. i guess i'm here to present the technical aspect as you can tell by my lack of tie. what does transparency mean to me in terms of the supreme court. i think it means three things in desending order of primplete first thing is means to me is education. there are no other fields in the world i can think of where the players at the top of their game are obfuscated from public view. imagine if you will, we took every beautiful skyscraper and wrap td in a cardboard box before you could see it, or the scores to the super bowl were the only thing you saw from the big game.

and this has an adverse effect i think on people who aspire to these jobs or to aspire in the legal profession not to be able to watch people who are at the top of their game deliberate before the court and argue before the court. i think that that's a remarkable law. the second thing is history. transparency means history to me . disservice great to the dignity of the court to make bush v gore or citizens united are captured in low resolution audio files and that's it. and moreover, because of various technical things, oftentimes webpages are cited and arguments all of the time but someone did a study more recently that said, about 30% or so of all of the links cited in these arguments are now gone. so we're not taking that sort of

technical step of archiving the context of these decisions at all and as we further rely on technology, especially the web in order to do that, this level of context being removed seems to be a great disservice to our children and to the people that are going to come after us. and finally, it's about accountability. i don't find that argument to be the biggest and most important one. although it is important. i just find that my work both inside and outside of the federal government, you know, going to someone, anyone and saying hey, i would like to place a camera behind you so i can watch and scrutinize everything that you do in realtime tends to be a tough ell. so i tend to lead with more substantial arguments like, this does not reflect on the dignity of your job. so i think those are the three things that matter the most to me around transparency.

and why i care about this issue. >> good morning. i want to thank gabe for inviting me and tony and dahlia for hosting it. i'm excited to be here. my skin in this game is pretty serious. i teach constitutional law at georgia state in atlanta. it's ironic to me that the supreme court might be the least transparent court in the united states because at best i am with judge pozner that it is a political court. i in fact don't think it's a court at all. to the except there are transparency issues to begin with judges i don't think the supreme court really counts as a court. i will give you a great example of that. every year thousands and thousands and thousands of people send surpetitions to the supreme court. lawyers spend hundreds of hours working, fee are paid, parties are incredibly vested in this. maybe the most important decision the justices make is which cases to hear because if they don't hear a case, then whatever happened at the appellate level is the final say and we're done. and we don't even know which

justices voted to grant cert in a particular case. this is an incredibly important public vote on a matter of public concern and there's simply no reason why we shouldn't know this. and it's relevant, truthful information about a public body. now, they may argue that too much would be read into who decides to grant cert and all of that. but the bottom line is, i was litigating supreme court cases in the 1980's with some of the leading litigators at the time, and at the trial court level, we had a short state case and the entire effort was to make the record such that justice o'connor would be pleased. and this was five years before o'connor would even see the case. so much speculation going on anyway. if we know that four moderates vote to grant cert in an abortion case, we have some idea where justice kennedy might stand or at least where they think justice kennedy may stand. that might be wrong.

it may be right. but who votes should be a matter of public record. which leads me to my overall point. with the president, with the congress, with state lectures, there is a presumption of transparency and then there has to be a good reason for secrecy. if there's a good reason for secrecy, to print that and presumption can be overcome. when it comes to the supreme court of the united states, there is a huge presumption of secrecy and only if that's overcome do we get transparency. and that to me doesn't make any sense at all. i have now run this by a lot of supreme court litigators and law professor and no one has yet given me a good reason why we can't find out who voted to grant cert in a particular case. if we don't have a good reason for it, the public should know relevant, truthful information. >> i'm bruce brown. i'm executive director of reporters committee. for freedom of the press. and i'm here because the committee was underrepresented as a -- i thought we had to

balance the panel out. for the reporters committee, which represents the interests of journalists and covering institutions like the supreme court, obviously, we care deeply about the immediate access to see and hear what goes on in the building. just care about it not for us but, of course, public at large. there's a groit moment described in the book, fourth estate in the constitution, about the oral argument in richmond newspapers which came along at the time when the press had been losing access cases when it had been arguing for some kind of special privilege that it had. laurence tribe, who argued the case for the newspaper petitioners is after just another example of the press coming in and asking for some kind of special protection for its own interest. and tribe responds and says no, the access we're seeking is the

access that belongs -- excuse me, to the general public. and that was the core for the access law, that was the moment that tipped the scales and the court in richmond newspapers then grant this historic decision recognizing the right of access. again, not just for the press but for the general public. and when we at the reporters committee think about access, we're thinking not just in the short term. can we get reporters into the court to cover the hum of what happens in a particular news cycle building, but also the long term? dahlia mentioned papers and supreme court papers. and one issue we're also very interested in is trying to really force the court away from this ad hoc system of each justice deciding on his or her own when and how and under what circumstances to make papers available and to move instead to

something more regularized like what you have in the presidential system now, which was put in place by legislation 1978 deem those papers property belonging to the public. and not subject to the particular decision making of any particular justice when he or she leaves the court, and when you ask what access means to me, everyone that responded in terms of extreme particularity, i wrote some statistics down. my wife's grandfather was a friend of justice douglas and we discovered when he passed away that he had a number of letters from douglas and we were kind of trophy hunting going through the papers and seeing the stuff. so i looked it up online to see what i could find out about the papers of justice douglas and where they were. and, of course, you go to the supreme court website and immediately send you someplace else because it's not the kind of thing that they are collect and gathering, although they should. as you make your way through a

number of other websites, i found with great particularity great information about the papers of justice douglas, which i will share with you. they're at the library of congress. there are 1,787 containers of apers making up 716.8 linear feet. there are a total of 634 -- excuse me, roughly, i will give you anaprox mitt now, 650,000 items. one box of classified documents and seven oversized documents. that is transparency. that gives a member of the public, reporter, some sense of a particularity with which it's disclosed there a confidence that a justice who served on the court for what, 45 years, something like that, that those papers are preserved, they're out there for scholars, journalists who are writing books. when you see something like that

in relationship to one justice, it begs the question, why can't we have that for them all? thanks. >> all right. i'm sonya west and i'm really honored to be on this panel today because this is an issue that is really near and dear to my heart. i was very briefly a reporter in my college and post-college days, including internship at the reporters committee, which was amazing. but decided to go to law school with this hope of defending journalists, which i did for a few years after law school, including in california, trying and usually failing to get cameras into the courts in california system. so this is an issue i had a great honor of clerking for justice stevens so i got to see sort of behind the scenes what was going on with the court and also became very interested in what the court coverage was of what i was seeing. and that's when i became a big fan of dahlia's work. because she did such a great job

and became an even bigger fan of tony's work, who i already had been following. and i'm now associate professor at the university of georgia, where i teach constitutional law and media law and i write about press issues. and so in terms of what transparency means for me, i'm going to mimic a little bit of what eric said but i feel like what transparency means is the presumption should be a right of access. and that the burden should be on those who oppose access. in this case the justices, that whether or not there's actually a first amendment right of access in some of these issues, i think there are arguments that there could be. we should nonetheless have sort of the first amendment presumption that we're going to have public access to this information. and the problems i'm seeing right now, and here i am going to talk about cameras in oral argument even though i agree we should not be completely focused only on that issue. there is a wide range of other issues that matter. is the reasons we're getting the responses we're getting to the

arguments clay laid out really well are not meeting that bar in terms of why we can't have cameras at the oral argument. and the arguments we're hearing from the justices, and we just get this piecemeal when they're asked about it. and they're asked about it all the time when they appear at law school or panels, basically fall into three concerns. one is concerns about participants. that they will engage in show boating and grandstanding. that just doesn't add up when we look at what's going on in all of the other courts that are allowing cameras in, all 50 states have cameras allowed into their courtrooms in some form. canada's had cameras for more than 20 years. this issue of showboating just doesn't stand up. it also doesn't make sense when you think about what a big deal oral argument at the supreme court is. justices already know that everyone is watching who asks the first question, who sounds a little bit critical in their question. they keep track of who makes the audience laugh. they know they're on stage here.

advocates know, willie attests to this. they're not thinking about the audience. they're thinking about justices and making their points and reading justices. the idea showboating would occur i think just doesn't add up. the other concern is about what the media would with w camera access. concerns about snippets and sound bites. belief there's concern with jon stewart and stephen colbert would do with these clips. but again, that doesn't add up with the fact that already what we tend to go from the court is snippets and sound bites. we just get it in audio form or we get it in quotes in the newspaper. we just hear about this question or that question. and so the area we're hearing more these days from the justices and i find concerning is that we're hearing from the justices, even justices sotomayor and justice kagan at the confirmation hearing supported cameras in the courtroom are starting to say these things. this is the trend. we see nominees start out in

support. get on the court and start to change their mind, which suggests we can't really just weight out this issue. it's not just an age issue. this is a concern about the public. we keep hearing this concern that the public won't understand what they're seeing. they won't understand oral argument is just part of the process. they won't understand that the justices have to be harsh on both sides. they might think someone is getting ganged up on. i type this to be a very concerning issue because it suggests that more information is actually going to be bad for the public. that the public needs to be shielded from information. and it does seem to have an elitism to it, that already those of us who do read the transcripts and listen to the audio or read the reports from the supreme court press corps, that we're the types that can understand where oral argument falls in the process but tv would reach a different kind of audience who wouldn't understand it. so i find this very concerning and i certainly believe it doesn't meet the bar of is this

argument good enough to go against our presumption that i think we should have of accessibility and openness. >> i want to give you a chance to react to one another but i want to ask another question. and i think it clicks at one theme we're hearing today. undergirting this conversation about why the courts are different from the other branches of government is just i think this sort of chronological argument we're different because we're different. we're just different. if there's more transparency, we will stop being different. yet almost every variation of the problem of transparency comes down to the idea, look justices are different. that means their papers are treated differently. it means their decisions are treated differently. it means access to them is treated differently. we can't see the texts of their speeches because they're different. i wonder if anyone wants to take a crack at this question of are they different? are they just different?

and if they are, you know, some of these arguments begin to make sense. so, clay, looks like you want to go. >> i think to an extent they're different because these are the only people inside of government that don't need television in order to get their jobs. you know, i suspect that a member of congress cannot get elected without television. i suspect the president cannot get elected without television. without stepping in front of a camera. without being in the public. whereas a justice can. so this idea of i guess the confirmation hearings or that r, but this idea television or video or their rency is part of duty becomes sort of difficult because it wasn't part of the job interview process, right?

so i mean that would be my case for culturally why they are different. i also think that, you know, you have to look at the supreme court as a leader, so to speak, for the entire judicial branch. for all of the courts. the interesting thing is it when you look at the supreme court's use of the internet and start comparing it to the lower courts, the supreme court is actually doing quite well. sort of like my 1-year-old is doing quite well at speech compared to my cat. but still, you know, he's doing quite well. and i think that you're not going to see much change in this field until the supreme court changes because the supreme court represents the end of someone's career all without cameras, all without television, all without transparency. and as such, why would i -- why

i never hange now when had to do that my entire career? i never found the people at the end of their career are the first to embrace new technology. so the point is not different in any way that would justify reversal of the presumption of transparency in government. >> sure. i meant culturally. >> and also they do have the nomination hearings -- not really hearings, but they're on tv. and there's no problem going on talk shows to hawk their books. but the truth is, the supreme court justices are less like judges than any other judge maybe in the world. they're the only judges in the world with life tenure that serve on the nation's highest court. only ones. their decisions as judge pozner repeatedly said are essentially political. the only secrecy -- i don't want to see their draft opinions. that is fair. i don't want to hear

deliberations with law clerks. that's fair. everything they do that's public it's just a small thing but it's thing.mall at ace scalia was conference in atlanta last friday. only person who said you can't tape record, video record scaliaents is justice and then it turned out that it theally something happened, supreme court justices, and now no one gets to see it and a a publicficial making speech, ranted about how same abortion are not in the constitution and shouldn't be protected and ranted and got embarrassed at the end and no one saw it. if he's going to come to atlanta and go to the governor's mansion for a reception and appear in front of 500 people in a room speech, itpublic should be recorded and there's no good reason why we should

had to cede to his request that it not be recorded. why did you? >> he wouldn't have come otherwise. on these remarks, it's self-evident that they are thatrent in the sense other than justice kagan, they've come from one cloistered life to another. to the priesthood is through the federal appellate these institutions are bundled up so when they get to the supreme court, they don't range of professions and exposures in public life that other government people would have by the time they got high rung. >> you're saying they're different because they have super thin skin? not because -- >> no, it's because they're -- transparency is not a technical issue or a legal cultural issue. when transparency is a technical

issue, it fails, it almost always fails. if you look at the president's open government agenda, when the president on day one was like we're going to open up all of .gov data and you go to data do and look at the last time the data sets were updated, it was 2009, 2010, and that's because technicaly much a issue and not a cultural one so if an institution isn't ingrained with the culture of technology, those transparency will often fail. >> willie, did you want to respond? lunged. >> i just couldn't see. i think if anyone who agrees eric that the core is just another political body and what they want, they are imposing their will in all of these -- anybody disagree? >> absolutely, i'm willing to firmly and i you think that because they are not public officials whose job it is

the public, right, if a member of congress or the president does something that does not stand the light of public scrutiny meaning it people, they of may be doing their job wrong. that is not true of judges or justices. that is what they are paid to do and for exactly that reason, the that their -- and their opinion might be unpopular, who cares. fact that their private votes, the reasons they give in conference -- do you think their votes in conference should be public? >> no. -- political vote, preliminary vote, it can change. >> their deliberations are not public. oral argument is part of their deliberation, too. it's supposed to be a fleshing out of what is important here. it's public already, though. >> absolutely. that's a separate question. what way, but i think what we need to focus on is who what jobs dople, they do and which parts of it kind of are -- they're just

officials running around giving speeches, selling books, the publicmoney from treasury. fact that they operate a branch of government, they have know --s, they, you they, you know, take gifts and travel, accept travel and so on, that's all fair game but when you're talking about the job that they are doing, as judges and justices, i think it's different and equating them with of congress and the president is a false -- would throw in there that the ways that they're different for openness even in terms of a legal branch and not the political argument. they don't deal with witnesses, they don't deal with juries, raise validcould issues about those sensitive things. the issues they deal with have national importance. so, yes, they have tenure which

other government employees don't have except some so ifl appellate judges anybody should have this openness, it would be them, i would think. they are the only governmental officials in the western world anywhere that are leaving aside the constitutional amendment process, they are final, they automobile and -- unreviewable and have lifetime tenure. they should have the most transparency for those reasons. >> one more veilance to this is are they different from canada? remember, itays always comes back to canada but badermber hearing ruth ginsburg and beverly mclaughlen, justice of the canadian supreme court talking about this they say canada has cameras in the court.

>> nobody cares about canada. that was justice ginsburg's argument. >> the canadian supreme court the time can be overturned by a super majority the legislature. these men and women are final. question thatsk a i think sweeps in some of the things you just talked about and work-around tore all these rules because not just the pin camera. and interesting workaround but when justice going toys nobody's cover my speech, what happens if clarenceweets it or thomas came to u.v.a. a couple were sworn toyou secrecy and every word was inlished the next day politco with mistakes. speak at ato goes to dinner and someone just takes a theo of him and suddenly media has captured it so it seems to me that more and more

the court puts up barriers to transparency, what happens is is less than what theywould afford us if would let us in so i wonder if about, iss has that's there a tipping point -- i'm thinking about the healthcare down what they were handed and for the first couple of minutes, it was wrong and maybe no no obligation to get it right. >> last friday, they got it they did in this case it to his benefit but it could have been to his detriment and ifwould have been better someone could say, let's go to the videotape. >> i have screen shots of the of fox news, msnbc and cnn on the day of the -- and the fox news said, obamacare said, down, and msnbc

supreme court upholds obamacare, and cnn said, breaking news, response.urt issues we'll tell you more in a minute. andnd that apropos demonstrative of our media environment but the interesting thing here is that we're in a more -- i think because of the because ofd technology, we're in a more ploticized environment than we've ever been. look at what happened to shirley thead at the beginning of administration when a 30-second sound bite ends up on the glenn show and you end up fired for words taken out of context a level ofthere's strappable fear and healthy fear of public scrutiny. the i was working at sunlight foundation, part of my issue with sort of transparency

a panacea is not only are you lawyers butmart you're also arming the glenn olbermann's of the world to advance things that may not be the truth. unfortunately, the only real a good transparency and i look at the political, thingst discourse around like citizens united and i wonder how much better our public discourse would be if deliberations were a bit more public. oralerstand that the arguments are public but a bit more public. those public could see arguments, and i wonder what harm this lack of transparency the public because our discourse has to be what getsinto delivered to us through fox

whichmsnbc and cnn, seemingly on that day couldn't make up its mind. questionair to put the back to you, with an analogy. last summer when disclosures were made, the department of had subpoenaed a. p. phone records and seized emails a fox news reporter, holder to work the process with the press on trying to toure out what reform needed happen on media subpoena policy. i would wonder after some of the in reporting the healthcare decision, why doesn't the chief justice wander down the hall at some point or up thers try to wander hall. >> there's no wandering up the hall. >> we need to start talking. was a mon monumental of iton, the reporting was flubbed and the press needs to work with the court because

court's own legitimacy at stake. is that a possible conversation au could have to launch dialogue the same way we've d.o.j.? one with >> it's a great question. i'm not in that conversation. i'm looking at tony, he would sper spearheaded. the court disaggregates the media's problems from the court's problems. story of theous press going to then chief saying rehnquist and please don't dump six 100-page decisions on us and ask us to it all right. can you space out decision days jobs and get it right and the response literally was, why don't you just only them today and then you can cover some more though the news happens magically at the caprice thehe court so i think that court thinks these are the media's problems and the court tos not feel there's a cost

fox getting it wrong or cnn getting it wrong for two minutes. very substantive problem underlying this procedural transparency issue. i know there will be disagreement about this but the substantive problem is the justices really feel historically they are special, they are different, they are not on aical and it's a temple hill. they really feel that way so they're not going to worry about the press. they're not going to worry about all kinds of things that other governmental officials have to worry about. this today butp they're not special. their opinions are not based on law, they're based more on and not politics republican and democrat but experiences, politics and they are far less special than they think and the transparency,more the more that will be clearer. >> to circle back to canada, this differently in canada and from my understanding, the press corps, someone comes from the court and says this is what the case is

about, do you have questions, we can explain it and i think there's quarantine for a couple of hours where figures reads and things out. i'm not sure how i feel about and they do let them know big cases are coming a be prepared but there is different way to do it and i think what we're hearing here is from the political branches, understanding, a love-hate relationship with the press, the press hurts and helps what they're trying to do and with the court it's more just the ideay/hate and that the press could help them in terms of if they worked with terms of public understanding of what it is they're trying to do is what's thatng and it's a shame they can't get more into that mindframe. >> willie? i'm curious. when they let some people into and give them a peek of the opinions, does it include bloggers? does it include interested members of the public who might a radiotalk about it on

show? >> i wish we had that problem. the answer tow that. we have a supreme court that gives out press credentials so it's making those decisions on questionable grounds. reserved seats to members of the institutional press and denying them to people who might blog but everybody gets the decision at the same time, right? >> right. do thingsvocating we exactly like canada because i think the two-hour quarantine is questionable constitutionally. >> scotus blog doesn't have a credential on the supreme court. if any other branch of government would making a decision so unbelievably stupid, be -- scotus blog is where we get our information about the supreme court and denied a seat at the table. that is district crazy. that's an argument that tom goldstein that owns scotus blog and argues cases, it's a

conflict of interest but that's court tohe supreme decide. >> respectfully, isn't that a circular argument? scotus blog has covered the court and made itself essential has to let them in? >> yes, of course. it's the press. yes. sure. i certainly agree with you that they're the press but what it that --ess is what are you focused on? it's not a hostile question? access for scotus blog are you focused on? simon, a supreme court reporter for the "new york times," gets to hear the oral arguments, gets to hear the announcement, gets to see justice alito doing this, he gets to see that firsthand, in person, and he was talking about this last friday in that it's hard for him because he'd rather be inting but he wants to the room because that's the most important over time.

not inblog's amy howe is the room and she doesn't have that benefit of seeing it firsthand with all the emotions attached and at this moment in time, i think scotus blog deserves a seat in the room more than the "new york times" trying to live blog it. >> isn't lyle in the room? >> because he has an independent credential, not as a representative of scotus blog. >> one thing i like to tell people is that when we had to decide when the healthcare cases -- sorry to keep the healthcaren cases, it was traumatizing so over it yet but i'm working through it. one of the things that was super eric isic of what describing is you literally had to make a choice between either chamber, watching this historic handdown, watching john watchs read his opinion, ginsburg read and then knowing that when you were finally to leave, 19 hours later, because they were

right, itt was over, had been tweeted, it had been discussed. been talkinghad about it for an hour and a half. for purposes of my editor, it was over but i chose to be there but the other choice was to be in a room where you could hear it but you couldn't -- if you left, you were stuck so you could hear it but not leave or be in a room where you could neither see nor hear but you could write. it was the three monkeys, hear evil, see no evil. you had to choose which monkey to wanted to be and it seems me that in 2012, was it 2012? up the ante on the monkey. that's not how to cover a major opinion and i think it loops back to bruce's question which is does it affect the that we didn't -- maybe it doesn't. maybe the court didn't care. you, there's two ways to look at this in terms of

transparency, goes back to my opening argument. maybe the court didn't care. maybe the court shouldn't care. releasedideo could be a year later or five years later and it would still have an impact, right? profoundlyill be useful to the legal profession, to the --dents, whatever the 50,000 law students weren't allowed in the have and i think that we to start thinking about transparency as being a bit larger than helping reporters. and it being about reflecting the dignity and majesty of the importance of the law, which is -- i mean, the other part of this argument is that the law itself is completely locked up from the only thing that's more morally offensive to me

than the judges being locked up is that i have to pay as a citizen of the state of georgia, i have to pay a company called lexus nexus $800 to get access to the official code of georgia. is gross that we've is -- that our basicallyr courts are paying westlaw hundreds of accesss of dollars for to its own records. this is preposterous. it's a thing that i think is hampering the legal profession. it's hampering our own history think it's something that does not reflect the values of constitution or the united states. >> that's -- thank you for saying that. that's a useful frame. we've got questions and you're encouraged to write questions and hand them to a person who's going to collect them so i'm going to ask the first question i've got.

since asking nicely appears to ineffective strategy so far, how do you or your organizations propose to make and increase transparency? >> in 1802, i think it was, congress shut down the supreme year for really bad reasons but they did do it. candles off.he i think congress will probably never do this, i think it will be fully constitutional for the congress which funds the supreme court a give the choice, either televise your arguments and decision with noments or do it heat, no air conditioning, no lights and fund yourself. that's a fully constitutional use of congress' power and i think they should do it. anyone have a less radical notion they'd like to float? the issue, the credentialing of the scotus blog been kicked around for a while and i think it would be interesting to see that taken to

level to force the court to examine its own practices , in a transparent way part of thishat effort, that we're engaged in ongoings part of an initiative to focus public and toon on these issues hope that the people in the building who are there to the long-term reputation of the court, we just touched on you few minutes ago, how do get them to focus on the fact need to protect their institutional legitimacy and essential to that is this

transparency initiative. you look back at the richmond cases that were important to the media, at least were in sync court lack then and what seems so discouraging today when you get reform trying to by bringing lawsuits is that we're so out of sync. press and the court are so completely out of sync today and there was something special about that moment in the 1960's when they were working together and they're not today and it does make me think that the kind of strategy that we used in those decades probably will not be the most one today. the litigation strategy, in words it. >> i think the cameras in the courtroom thing is sort of a done deal. years out the, you know, i'll have a small camera in my eye glasses or like that that will be -- the pen camera is the it, but what's the supreme court going to do? ban people from wearing glasses

in the supreme court? yes. >> with cameras in them. undetectable. i think cameras will be within years undetectable. the pen camera is like the tip and that that technology will solve that problem. >> right now if you walk into the d.c. federal courthouse, you you have to -- i think they make an exception for case,s showing up for a but they will make you surrender your phone that might have a camera. 5 years from now, you might surrender your eye glasses. removing my ability to make phone calls is significantly different than removing by see.ty to >> yeah. >> right? stuff, though, personal financial disclosures like that, you know, who knows how that will happen it can and ever well. >> let me segue to the next

question because we have heaps of them. who gets -- this just an informational question. decide on the changes in the policies about transparency? are these decisions taken by the the court vote in is the staff voting? know.don't >> it's really unknown whether if congress passed a law, would applyot that to the court, whether they could make them do that. know.lly don't >> the closest indication we got was when they closed the front they published a dissent breyer saying we should still allow people to walk in the front door of the building. >> congress could do this. if the political will was there, they have the money, they could it. >> justice scalia, i'm sorry -- it's the chief justice making the decision about audio policy,

we know that, right? that the chief was making the decisions about which cases were be audio, same-day audio. i think that was -- i think it was clear. that's my understanding, right. >> it was a case-by-case -- buty we'll release this one the other ones you'll have to wait until friday but when they releasing audio on fridays instead of at the end of the term, i don't know if that was schoolia. when justice douglas got sick stroke, the justices took -- americans don't know -- secret votete and that they decided they would not decide any case where vote wouldglas' matter. the eight justices secretly decided they would not decide justice douglas' vote would matter. the only reason we know that today is because justice white offended, he wrote a public letter about it. not done that, he would never know.

havingew themselves as no obligation to tell the american people that justice couldn'tas so sick, he decide a case and they would decide arbitrarily which cases vote might not matter. >> they goes to the justice scalia recuse, where he refused himself in the death gate oral argument and did america the courtesy of writing explaining whyr he didn't think he had to recuse. the legitimacy of them not just as individuals but the court but be raised in the eyes of everyone to see the thinking.-scenes it's incredibly material when they recuse and why and the idea know today why justice scalia sometimes chooses is not acuse himself standard, right?

>> don't get me started on the healthcare case. we'll be here all day. the -- eric, you're not allowed to answer this one. fundamentallyes afraid we're going to learn they're not as neutral as they are when they're deciding cases? is that the fear? eric? yes, unequivocally, yes. they spend -- i'll do it real fast. they spend so much time and energy in their written opinions toch is their arguments as why they don't have to be transparent, because everything comes out in the written opinion, hitedding the reasons do they do the things they because they'll have text, precedent. >> where do you want to take the cameras that will find the hidden -- i'm just suggesting the answer to the lack of transparency can't be the written opinions is what we the public because they're dishonest written

opinions. the real reasons why they decide they do is not in the text, history and precedent. aat's important but it's in whole different set of values is life experiences which why scalia and ginsburg who are good friends and go to the opera disagree on virtually every contested issue of constitutional law that gets to the supreme court. not because they have different skills. that's because they have different values and they would never admit that in public and that's crazy. transparencyt that won't solve that problem. >> i know. >> just because you turn the lights on in a roach filled kill the doesn't roaches. >> i didn't use that phrase. that wasn't my phrase. to be clear. i'm saying, it turns out sunlight isn't a good disinfectant, alcohol is much better. when you turn the lights on, shine the lights at things, the shadiness just moves to the corners. the roach crawl under --

>> disagree. scalia's a little bit inlish attitude comes out oral arguments, i don't think he would change that and knowing as character, a little bit of bully, with all due respect, is important to the american people. we should know that he is a a bully.t of we should know that justice thomas never speaks. we'll know he's a bully but as you said to begin with, it's final. he's there. lifer. so it's not going to change anything. it's true that general fear is part of this. breyer has said, fear of the unknown, we've done it this let's notlong time so change anything and a sense that institution we need to protect and we don't want to make changes and fear of loss of clearly fortunate justices alito and others and of anonymity so there's fear that's part of this.

have to look at the deeply and popular nature of the other branches and think that ignorance of what what is their approval rating? >> higher. >> that is what is so sad. anyway is then to oral arguments, it is majestic. the questions are so smart. everything is prepared. it is a terrific experience. >> if he would remain the same with cameras, that would be great. but that is what worries them. it wouldn't be exactly the same. everyone else is convinced it would be exactly the same. >> no. no. i'm not sure. that is not true. i don't know what would happen. i'm not smart enough to know. the question is presumption. the presumption should be an openness. only with a good reason should be secret. be onrden of proof would the justices per you can't say i

don't know. that's not a good reason. we don't know. aboutare having a fight today. theypoint is that if videotaped them for history, and release them later, that would have its own value. their fear is that the reporters committee will never give up. they will want it today. not in 10 years or 15 years. >> i agree with you. the video would have tremendous historical value. the question is whether you could hide that. >> prop comedy in the united states has taken off. make -- uld >> there is a hotel to block my law school that didn't take african-americans in 1965. they could have seen the oral argument, it would have made so

much more powerful, the fact that we can't do that is criminal. >> or bush v gore. or the health care case. you can listen to it. you can't see what ted olson's face looked like. >> in my misremembering. a british the print court in the u.k. had the cameras trained not on the justices but on the advocates. the idea is that they want students to be able to learn oral advocacy. --re are some hybrids were bruce doesn't want that. at least you can say there is this education purpose. there is somewhat historic purpose being met. students can learn and watch and still protect judicial privacy. there is something in the middle. >> even if you're against cameras, and i can't fathom that.

how can you be against cameras -- nst millions of americans would've had a citizens moment of unbelievable historical and present-day significance. what possible downside could there be to hearing justice kennedy announced this historic decision? how could you be a downside to that? >> i think one of the arguments would be that the opinion announcements are not the opinions. they are not signed off by all the justices the offering justice right. i agree with you. i think it should be there. >> here is another question.

i'm trying to get through as many as i can. does true transparency require that justices records must be available online? isn't it too limiting to have access to some in a library somewhere? >> the answer that is yes. when i try to figure out where justices papers were, you saw how few of these archival materials are available online. a very small percentage. , you havere available to go to a research institution somewhere. >> that is a money issue. lee epstein has gone and had in with aotocopy digitize digital camera on a tripod and took pictures of the memos that whoks to the justices produce pate in deciding whether to grant the petition or not.

she had someone take pictures of every page. they are on her website somewhere. the vibrant congress did not do that for us. now they are there. it is a great resource. >> 50 years from now the supreme court justices working with papers will be absurd. the people as they work through at a- who would look keyboard as the first method of creating tasks? saying that i'm not so sure about the quote on page seven. ah, that issaid bl going to be lost to history. .hey may save the paper drafts that is one reason to be glad that they still use paper and messengers and photocopiers. that will be saved.

>> on the other side, yes and no. the digital records are much easier to preserve. >> i'm not saying they should preserve them. the fact that they don't, there'll be something left for history. >> nobody's arguing we have a right to the discussions between justices and their law clerks. i don't think anybody is. >> 100 years later, perhaps. >> i think we have time for this last question. a few questions i didn't get to. i apologize. what if any problems have high courts in other countries or state courts, what problem or unintended consequences have other courts had after allowing cameras in the court? question.e >> the supreme court justice in ohio is a getting a whirlwind

tour. i'm proud about this. i have canvassed other judges. nothing that has come out. they can't find any evidence of any harm. >> name a case decided by the supreme court of ohio. [laughter] name one. >> why does that matter? >> the amount of attention. yes they are all broadcast pretty none of attention is not comparable. it is not comparable situation. >> if we were in ohio. >> do you really believe it is going to affect behavior of judges or lawyers. >> have you ever between oral argument in which a state attorney general takes the electorate and argues for the state? it happens today. >> you're going to be careful what you say in front of the supreme court. i don't know the cameras are going to make a difference.

>> it is too late. it is a public hearing. some people get to go when. -- go in. we are done. institution of government would have to televise. >> it follows the exact same pattern, skepticism and concern at the beginning until acceptance, and then enthusiasm. it follows the same archetypal get used to it. iowa had cameras in their court for more than 30 years. their chief justice has come around and said no problem. it has been great. we put them online. people have access to it. as far as this dear of the unbound, what other way can we casted out other than these similar cases? other than running an experiment, that is our best

guess. the evidence is extremely in favor of it. >> it can't be the case that only unimportant things, only ohio. that was the core argument when they decided to pull the tv cameras out of the prop 8. when the district court was ready to roll. when the court issued, that this is too important. people care too much to have cameras. what is that argument? unimportant things to be televise? tha>> that decision had a substantive effect. they would have seen ted olson destroyed any plausible public-policy argument against same-sex marriage other than religious. that would've had a greater effect. that procedural decision was

hugely important. >> it is interesting when judge walker handed down his decision in that case, this is true of the ninth circuit -- the ninth circuit, everybody got an e-mail. here is the decision. everyone opens up. the supreme court, they put their robes on and take the bench, they go up there and read a summary of their opinion because that is an exercise in transparency. it'll have to do that. no other court does that. i understand that you think they ought to televise that. because it would be meaningful and historically significant to hear it. it is important to remember that that is something the supreme court does. lots of other courts don't do it. if congress decided to pull their funding, they might say they won't do that anymore. >> let's stop us there. it is time. you guys should write articles about this.

but, i really want to thank gabe ross and his team for putting this together. i want to thank nyu. willie jay, and all of you for being here. this is a terrifically important issue. this is been one of the best panels on the issue i've ever seen. >> i agree. [applause] >> on c-span 2, the afford an 9:15act, live today at eastern. last summer the city of detroit filed the largest chapter 9 history.y in u.s. this afternoon the city's will deliverager remarks to the american bankruptcy institute, that's at here on. eastern, live

c-span. according to the national council for behavioral health, of active duty and reserve military personnel deployed in have mentalhanistan health conditions requiring treatment. the organization held a mental health care issues for veterans. we hear from former congressman kennedy during this one-hour event. >> thank you for being with us. i'm thrilled to have so many left served our country or whose spouses or sisters or brothers, or children have served our country. i am linda rosenberg. i am president ceo of the national council for behavioral health read as a was coming and

i was thinking about the fact that we are in a press club. how appropriate that is given that we will be talking about the military and about veterans, the very people that rejected our first amendment. the right to speak -- that have protected our first amendment. i am grateful we are here and in this pace. i have several tasks this morning. one is to briefly play but the national council's involvement in mental health first aid, to talk a little bit about why for veterans, to knowledge our congressional champions. some of you are policy people and you know how important is champions are rare -- are to you and helping people in their communities. and lastly to introduce our speakers and to facilitate your questions and, hopefully, our answers to your questions. the national council is an association of 2200 not-for-profit organizations.

our members are in every state in communities across the country copper and they serve men and women with mental health and substance use disorders. they serve about 8 million people a year, so their reach is wide and deep. over the years, i have been involved with people with mental health, particularly with people with serious mental health, for well over 30 years. during those years, but when i ran programs or was in a policymaking position, i was involved with and sometimes even funded anti-stigma campaigns. there is something that we have seen and done a lot of and there are many still going on, and they're all very well intended. but i always wondered, they felt elusive to me. it was about what really is the call to action? in 2008 when i was at the

national council, i was talking to a colleague who is based in new zealand. and he told me about a program that have begun at the university of melbourne in australia called mental health first aid. and he not only taught people about mental illnesses and addictions, but it helps them help the people they knew and loved. whether it was family members or friends and colleagues. and having had this long anti-stigma history, i thought to myself, now, that sounds fabulous. first of all, it is first aid and everybody knows first aid. it is like cpr. we wanted to be part of health care and part of the world, and this was another way to get there. at that time, mental health first aid was in a few countries and it was started by two people, a nurse in melbourne who

herself suffered with depression and her husband -- her name is betty. her husband tony, who i understand spoke this week. he was at john hopkins talking about mental health first aid. he is a mental health services researcher. they were walking on the beach and said, why don't we have first aid for the mind? they actually went to work at the university to create the curriculum. working with experts from across the world. so we and our partners, the departments of mental health in missouri and maryland, went ahead and said, we are going to bring this to the usa and we did so in 2008. it is now in 20 countries. we have a youth version in the u.s.. i the summer, we expect 250,000 people to have been trained in mental health first aid.

it has just had an enormously welcoming reception in this country. it is an evidence-based program. it has inrep. withrow her long and arduous procedure to get that. -- went through a long and arduous procedure to get that. research began in australia and it is going on in this country and other countries. it teaches people how to reach out and help someone in crisis and make sure that they get the care they need. we trained instructors who come from local communities. those instructors know their committees. in addition to teaching people about how to feel comfortable working and talking and having the difficult conversation, they can also tell people and help people get connected to the

resources in their community. and for veterans, it could be a v.a. or local physician or it could be anyplace there comfortable. so the fact this then becomes locally driven is very important. let me now just for a second talk a little bit about why we thought about mental health first aid for the military. it was the early 1980's and i was running a mental health center in peekskill, new york. we had a whole bunch of programs we ran in peekskill. it is very close to the montrose v.a. and the montrose v.a. had people in their psychiatric unit who had spent years there. they became disconnected from their families and their own

communities and wound up in what are called board and care homes in peekskill. a place where you live and gives you meals, but for much of the day, did not have much to do. so we ran a drop in center and they began coming to our drop-in center. we went camping and we even went to olympic city with all the quarters these to give you on the bus -- atlantic city with all the quarters these to give you on the bus. we worked on a dude ranch in the local immunity. i got to know -- these were men. i got to know many of these men quite well. what a began to realize is, most of them had served in vietnam and we even had a few who had served in korea. and how when they came home, they began this journey of disconnection from their families and their communities. i just knew we could do better. i had had personal experience. my dad served in the pacific in world war ii. like others of his generation, he never talked about that. never. not a word.

nor did any of my uncles that had served or my friends parents. but it had taken a toll on him emotionally and physically. i did not understand that until years later. now, obviously, we know better, but we also know the statistics, right? we know 30% of active duty and reserve military, 3/4 of a million people, men and women, deployed in iraq and afghanistan, have a mental health condition. and we know the military has made great strides. i think the v.a. is an amazing organization that has raised the bar on understanding mental illnesses as well as treating them. but we still have work left to do. less than 50% of returning veterans in need of treatment get it. and the results of that is really a national tragedy and some of you in the audience are actually from suicide prevention organization. and we know now almost 22 veterans a day commit suicide. so we are here to launch mental

health for veterans because we really are our brothers and sisters keepers. each of us can help. each of us can find something we can do to help someone we know who served. if you have been trained in mental health first aid, you have the skills and confidence to do just that -- to help. we have had the support of some extraordinary policymakers on the hill. senators mark agates, kelly ayotte, and represented of lynn jenkins and ron bobber. really representatives and senators from across the country. their advocacy secured $15 million that is going to state and local school districts to train school personnel and mental health first aid for you.

we are very grateful to them, what they have done will live on and now we need their help in terms of moving mental health first aid for the military. and we will do that. the other thing that has happened is eight state and eight more are considering it, are allocating money from state budgets. they are supporting local instructors and local communities. so this is an amazing program that people understand, they can feel, they can touch, and they can support. i am very fortunate today to be with some great speakers. before we do that, i want to introduce and acknowledge jeannie campbell, the executive vice president of the national council. she is way in the back. she served for 22 years in the navy, is another reason why this is so important to the national council. and in addition to everything else she does at the national council, she leads all of our military initiatives. so thank you.

with us today, and i'm going to introduce all of them then they will speak and then i will help moderate what we hope will be a robust q&a period. we have patrick kennedy, a tireless champion for those living with addiction and mental illness. we would not have parity and equality with physical health is a were not for him. he continues to do great things in so many ways, including in the cofounder of one mind. tom tarantino, is the chief policy director for the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. he is also a former army captain. he served in iraq in both the calgary and mortar platoon leader and was awarded the combat action badge and the bronze star. theresa buchanan is the director of youth initiatives for the national military family association.

she manages operation purple, which supports ella terry families expressing the challenges of reunion and reach integration. we also have two very exceptional mental health first aid trainers. they trained instructors and local communities. sharon thomas parks served three years active-duty in the marine corps before cofounding a suicide and crisis center. she is a licensed professional counselor and has been a national mental health first aid trainer since we began in 2008. liz reagan has also been a trainer since 2008. she has worked with a wide variety of groups as a facilitator and a trainer and she is the wife of a veteran. her husband served in the u.s. air force and southeast asia. and we have a student of mental health first aid, the lovely tosha barnes. she is from taxes, a i've gotten

to know in this role and come to really admire and love. and she is a decorated military veteran, discharged just in january after eight years of service. formally a member of the 82nd airborne, she is currently the volunteer coordinator for the military veterans here network. we are committed to doing more to support our veterans. and mental health first aid is just one piece of a very important puzzle. with that, let me turn the podium over to patrick kennedy. >> thank you very much, linda rosenberg, and thank you, daschle council, for spearheading mental health first aid and today for spearheading it for none other than our nation's heroes, our returning

veterans from iraq and afghanistan and for all veterans and for their families. i had the honor of being a cosponsor of the mental health parity and addiction equity act, which simply said the brain was part of the body. that was the law. the brain is part of the body. it is shocking that that law did not even doesn't -- signed into law until 2008, which means it was historic in this country that insurance companies in addition to the federal government would not recognize the brain is part of the body, would not reimburse for brain illnesses the same way they would reimburse for any other organ in the body. so we have come a long way in just a few years. we have this law in the books. and now in this next two months, in july, that law will be in effect for all insurance companies in this country. so they will have to treat equally all illnesses of the brain as they would any other organ in the body.

that is why the timing of mental health first aid is so appropriate to really support now more than ever, because with this treatment now being reimbursed -- of course, you have to do a lot of work to make sure this comes to fruition, no doubt. but with the system in place, we first need to make sure the people who need treatment get that treatment. and as someone who is a consumer of mental health services, who suffered a long time with a mental illness, there is this phrase -- the elephant in the room. when you're in the midst of suffering from a mental illness, everybody knows it that you, and no one will tell you that you need help. i know i probably would have ended up getting help earlier or staying in recovery earlier had i had the support of people who would have known that by trying to give me help, they were not interfering in my personal life. they were trying to save my life will stop so we need a change of

our attitudes and our mindset when we see someone suffering from a mental illness or addiction. we need to not look at it as a character issue, but the chemistry issue. their brain is ill, but he can get better with treatment. in the first step toward treatment is identifying they need the help and referring them to the appropriate resources that can get them that help. under the parity law, will be reimbursed for that help. so why veterans? we understand brain injury and posttraumatic stress, or the signature wounds of this war in iraq and afghanistan. you know what we call them? invisible. it is shocking that we still call these wounds invisible when

in fact the trauma of serving in a combat zone changes the brain's chemistry because of the stress associated. we know if you have a traumatic brain injury, you suffer a physical wound of war, and yet because we cannot see it on the outside, the government still does not award purple hearts for the signature wound of this war. shocking. shocking. i think that will someday come to change if we begin to do what we need to do to be there for our veterans. let me make this final analogy. our heroes, if they were trapped behind enemy lines by al qaeda or the taliban, would have our first responders, our special forces go in there tomorrow to kick down the doors and bring them home. why don't we apply that same

idea to our returning veterans who are held hostage, who are literally prisoners of their war injuries and their behind the enemy lines up shane and stigma that are associated with having a brain illness? what i see with these mental health first aid, veterans and to help first aid, first responders, is our 911 force. here at home. it has what they are doing is just what our special forces do. they are kicking down the doors of these returning veterans who are alone, isolated, and no one is reaching out to help them but the people who are not trained to know how to help them and to bring them home, not only in body, but to bring them home in mind as well. thank you for letting me be here.

now have the honor of turning the microphone over to one of those heroes who not only served our country in uniform, but is also serving his fellows in uniform and his fellow veterans through his advocacy at the iraq afghan war veterans of america, one of the premier veteran service organizations which is changing the landscape and how our government and how our country receives its returning heroes. tom tarantino. >> thank you. god, i don't think i really deserved all that. but i appreciate it. i want to thank the national council for having us all here and talking about this. and the chief policy officer for iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. we are the first and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization fighting for this generation of lawyers. i myself, being a soldier, i was

thinking last night about first eight. i was thinking about all of the training of had my life. i am not a medical professional. my job was not to kill the people, it was to break things and hurt people. i'm thinking about everything i have learned through the military. everything i learned in high school. you star first aid training in high school. they teach you cpr and how to identify heatstroke and all the stuff you learn in health class. in the military, they teach you skills like how to run an i.v. line, how to treat someone for shock. they do this because by giving first aid for these immediate injuries, it saves lives. it saves lives. and yet the one thing we don't learn how to treat and we don't learn how to identify are the mental health injuries. is it because these injuries --

as patrick said, aren't invisible, but they are not readily apparent. it is absolutely critical across america that we learn to treat these wounds as they are, as wounds. i talk to soldiers and they say, i don't want to get treatment, i can deal with it. i say, look, man, if you had a hole in your chest and got shot, you would not walk around with it will stop a say, absolutely not. why would i do that? it's the same thing. if you have an injury, walking around that injury is dangerous. it is dangerous to you because you are basically letting your wounds faster. we are on the front lines of the fight to combat suicide. 22 veterans a day are dying by suicide. suicide isn't the problem. it is the end result of a series of problems, of a series of

failures that could have been alleviated at the beginning if someone had known, just like we know how to run an i.v. or check for heatstroke, how to identify mental health injuries from the start. this is critical. this type of training should be everywhere because the only way we're going to get to a point where we can adequately treat mental health women's early on is if we break this down across the american culture. that is one of the things that is so impressive about this mental health first aid program is that it isn't just about veterans. there are not that many vets out there. there are 2.5 million iraq and afghanistan veterans, about 29 across the country. if we only speaking to the

veteran community, we will never fix the problem. if we give everyone armed with the same knowledge as we do about basic first aid in high school and do that for mental health, we will be at a point in this country where nobody has to live with the mental health injury in the shadows. they can get treatment. the one thing we do know is that getting treatment is the most effective way to prevent the tragic consequences of mental health injuries later on. i am incredibly appreciative that this program is out there and incredibly appreciative this is starting to move across the country. i hope we get to a place and i can come back in a few years and talk about how we have all been armed with this basic knowledge. we have these tools in our toolkit, and we can all identify these issues early on. not just to help our bodies, but also to help ourselves. thank you very much. following the is theresa buchanan. she works with operation purple, one of our best friends and

partners in the veteran community and an absolute tireless advocate for quite often the people who are forgotten and are committed, the military families. i thank her for her work. theresa buchanan. [applause] >> tom, thank you for those kind words. i'm delighted to be up to join you, patrick. thank you, linda, and the rest of you, to be on this panel today. as tom said, the families are critically important in this journey. we certainly, since 1969, had been an organization that is advocated for the military family because long before we recognized that our senior leadership were not willing to accept the fact that there were social services and what it would need to provide any type of support to the family, there

were those women and years ago sitting around a kitchen table who formed this organization, who went out there to lobby for those friends who were left destitute after the service member died because the pension at that time went with the death of the retiree. we were part and parcel part of that very first success of the survivor benefit plan that today is commonplace throughout the military services. mental health first aid for veterans. i think what we are hearing today from everyone who up here will continue to hear, really should resonate with us all that the mental health needs and the call for nonthreatening opportunities for veterans, and most important, their families and those in their community, to have access to resources that increase knowledge of the issue