a good thing to have a mom as a chief executive. we recently -- you agree with me? we recently had a blizzard in rhode island, and we got through it. the things they don't teach you in school. you learn about taxes but not dealing way wlizzard. i immediately called for a travel ban baud -- because i wanted everybody to be safe. i wanted everybody to stay home. my kids said you use that'd serious mom voice that's why everybody listened time-out but i heard over and over that i was the first governor who talked about the safety of the guys driving the plows and just keep off the roads so we can them and their families safe and they can do the work. so i think i bring a different perspective as a woman and as a

mom. >> you are also an economist. is there an actual economic benefit to inspiring girls to reach higher? >> absolutely. i fall into the camp that the single greatest underutilized resource we have as a nation is women and girls. 50% of the talent tool -- pool, the brains, the innovation and creativity, that is underrepresented across the board and it is -- it's not a woman's issue to help get women and girls into science and technology and business and go. it's a societal issue. if we could figure out a way to totally empower half of the brains in america, imagine how much better and more productive we would be? >> you think a woman president can do that better than a male president? >> i do. i think if a person is committed to making that happen we'll get that done but on balance it is powerful.

you can't underestimate the value of a role model. >> great. well, governor raimondo, thank you very much. we've run out of time. time to wrap up. next i'd like to welcome governor susan glasser with governor terry mcauliffe for our last conversation. thank you all. thank you. >> what is going on here? gina must have wowed them so much! >> we just got started out

there so we'll pull the rest of you into our conversation. many thanks again. we were saying, this is the fifth annual version of these conferences that microsoft has sponsored and we had the republicans this morning and you get to bat cleanup here. democratic governors are kind of a vanishing species. so. >> do i need to answer that? >> you're the fourth the we had rick scott and -- bill haslam. we're talking pog -- pentagon the great starting point for our conversation. perhaps more than anyone else in our face -- race today you straddle politics and how you play the game in washington but you're a governor and you need to get stuff done. does it look different to you sitting where you are signature

here? >> yeah. obviously as governor of the commonwealth of virginia we're the number one recipient of defense dollars. the c.i.a. is in virginia, quantico, so any time we have dysfunction up here it impacts us greatly. just in the last five years we government more than $9 billion in contracts mostly in northern virginia. sequestration is a real problem for virginia. i just left the president's council, five democrats, five republicans and jeh johnson came in and gave us a presentation. it really woke every governor in the room. if. d.h.s. shuts down. even if the d.h.s. has a continuing resolution, you cannot fund the states as they do today. so all our funding for the department of emergency management sheriffs,

localities all our first responders we deal with in training all get shut off. even with a continuing resolution the i don't think people realize the impact for every state. the million -- money that goes out for grants and emergency management, that all stops. so the idea that for partisan political reasons you are going to slut down a vital entity that has important purposes and many of these employees who may be furloughed live in the commonwealth of virginia. so i don't have time for partisan politics. got to create jobs, economic activity. the dysfunction in washington today, they're really doing a real disservice to the constituents the >> it's striking that we are already talking about government shutdown again. it was only in december that the new republican congress

came in and made a deal to avoid the shutdown and that seemed to be part of their pledge, that we're going to show we can govern no more shutdowns. they're back to brinksmanship. were they serious? >> i don't know. speaker boehner and mccollum were serious but may not have been able to get their members to do it. it's too vital for our nation's security interest. as i governor, it will have a tremendous impact on our economy and it will hurt people. they're not going to get paid. the secretary made it clear to all those governors understand next friday, every check will stop to your states. >> quick question. what's the percentage chance today that that really happens next week? >> i asked the secretary that.

he asked us all for help. but i read all the papers today and they've all gone home. i just find this whole -- and every time these shutdowns happen, of course, it adversely impacts the republican party and elements of the house of representatives that loves to do these types of things, they pay a huge price for it. i'm sure speaker boehner is trying to get it worked out but you've got to control your caucus. >> one thing about how the president and the congress work together or don't work together any month, you have a perspective on that over multiple administrations. one said this is something more on the deal-making side that democrats don't understand the extent to which obama with this immigration order is just waving a red flag in our rank and file bases and that is

really very much about president obama at this point? >> i wouldn't disagree thrats -- that it's a personal issue against obama but this is something he ran on and i did the same thing in virginia. i ran on a lot of issues. i ran a unique campaign, ran on women's rights on protecting members of the lgbt community rolling back and putting restrictions on folks -- on folks who have -- should own guns, i talked about that a lot in the campaign. it's not normally what you talk about when you run for the governor of the commonwealth of virginia but i tied it all into, we have to grow and diversify our economy. we have to be less reliant on the federal government. i can't bring businesses to virginia if we don't match what 95% of companies do with their

nondiscrimination clauses. i broke a 38-year trend that whoever wins the white house, the other party wins the democrat -- governorship. now i'm doing exactly what i said i was going to do. we've had had -- had a great year of job creation. i just announced our lowest unemployment rate since 2008. we are creating the jobs, but i'm also doing the things i said i would do. no women's health clinics have closed down. i just put out what i thought were very responsible restrictions on people who want to purchase guns. if you are convicted of being a stalker or domestic abuse you shouldn't be able to buy guns. i'm the first southern governor to perform a gay marriage the on the second day i signed an

executive order to allow loving gay couples to adopt children. president obama is doing exactly what he said he would do. people got to together. we got to work together and we got to compromise and unfortunately up here, the word compromise is gone. you don't get everything you want in life. you got to work together and come to the middle and give and take. that's what's missing here. >> this is another thing that connects to president obama and his agenda but also to your agenda. the medicaid extension and connecting that with obama care. . you have not been able to get that down and across a broad swath of the south it basically has undermined the affordable care act the >> governor haslam, he just tried, his legislature, he is a republican governor and legislature, 27 states have closed the coverage gafment i

tried to make the argument, hey, listenicious -- i knew that my legislature was never going to pass it but that doesn't mean susan, you don't try. i worked my heart and soul out traveled all over the commonwealth. whether you go into a clinic and some woman comes ub -- up and grabs your coat and says, governor, if you don't fix this, i'm going to die. in virginia we have the ability to close the gap and provide coverage for 400,000 virginiaians. i said, you can dislike the president but it's the you la of the land. about 13 different taxes you now pay under the new law you ship $2.5 billion a year to washington. that's done. i can't change that. we have a right to bring our share of that back here. it will help our hospitals save our clinics.

as a governor competing for business, all my neighbors maryland west virginia kentucky arkansas, they all closed the coverage gap. every single chain ber of commerce most of them very republican all endorsed my effort to close the coverage gap. but it was unfortunate that partisan politics overtook common sense and folks were worried about a primary challenge. be it a tea party challenge or whatever it may be if they vote for so-called obama care. but i'm going to continue to work for it. it's the law. i can provide coverage for 400,000 virginiaians. i weant -- went to the rand clinic last year. thousands of people who come saturday and sunday, free health care for one weekend. thousands of people show up. >> we ran a photo essay on that -- >> supposed to get health care, one day a year for free.

they come down out of the mountains and that -- this is it for them. i walk through them, there were bed sheets -- it was out in a field. in the morning they hit capacity and turned people await one guy had all the teeth pulled out of his mouth. i asked him why and he said, we equate teeth with pain. if you get in a quarter and drive to west virginia, they can get care 365 days a year -- >> we had annie vent with kathleen sebelius and she said we shouldn't have embraced 9 name obama care. >> i couldn't agree more the >> can you pass it in virginia? >> we changed the name a bunch of times. it didn't work. it's beyond changing names.

but listen, i put it back in the budget this year knowing it wouldn't pass. i just have to keep the dialogue going. i've had the leadership in my office time and time again. i say i know i could structure a deal where all the money i could bring into virginia, the private providers and hospitals would cover the difference so the state would have no obligation. it would not coast -- cost us one single penny and as governor i could bring $2.5 billion back to my economy. there are hospitals throughout the commonwealth of virginia today that are cutting services because as you know part of that law you've got dispo portionate share payments. if you took care of indedgents, you got 100%. all those reimbursements are ending but they're giving you this pile of money over here

the we are taking the worst part and losing the dish payments for our hospitals. they're how's -- lowsing -- losing hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. >> i know. it's a classic unintended consequence. >> it's because they allowed them to opt out that was unfortunate because it, then it got into the politics. governor haslam and i talked about it today. he tried to do it in tennessee. other states are lining up. the perfect example, i bring everything back to jobs. lee county, southwest virginia. rural, rural county. parts of virginia, the southwest side coal, text -- textiles manufacturing, so many jobs have been lost. lee county just lost their hospital. i'm pretty good at sales and i love to try and convince

businesses to move to the commonwealth. i have no chance of bringing a business to lee county. aim manufacturer is not going to bring his business to a county -- county that doesn't have a hospital. what if one of the employees has a heart attack? are you going to take an ambulance 110 miles? so unfortunately the most rural parts of virginia are the most impacted by not closing the coverage gap. >> i know we have a lot of questions baw -- but they're going to get mad at me if i don't ask about the elephant in the room. >> donkeys? >> speak of a particular donkey. is hillary -- pick your metaphor the >> i just broke several ribs and punctured a lung so i'm sensitive to animals right now. >> obviously the metaphor is

here. when is she announcing? what's your role and how is she going to do in virginia? >> if she chooses to run, she's going to win virginia. listen, she's going to do this on her timetable. she's in a very good position today. no rush for her to get in. the other side, they're all in. the republicans have a tough primary going on. no need to get in the middle of that so there's no pressure for her. in 2008 i was chairman of her campaign. now i'm governor of the combealt of -- commonwealth of virginia and i think the most i can do to help her is the model hef -- we have in virginia, job creation is working, pro-business governor, socially progressive, brings automatic the sides together works in a bipartisan way to get results. i think it's working in virginia and if i can be a successful governor in virginia it's probably the best thing i

can do for hillary if she decides to run. >> does that mean you won't be helping on the fundraising? >> listen, i've known the clintons since 1980. i'm personal friends with them and going to do everything i can. but i'm now governor. i have to be governor. it's my top priority. of course i'm going to help her, but i honestly believe that listen, virginia, any electoral map up cut up, virginia is going to be a key swing state. there's no electoral college numbers that get you to 270 without putting virginia in it. i don't know what is going to happen on the other side. if jeb is the nominee -- every time you come back, you have to win virginia. working hard in virginia, creating jobs, people are very happy today, both sides. we have bi partisan agreement on the been. the washington post just wrote a huge story about how the

reporters are mad because nobody is fighting in richmond. we're meeting with the been chairs and we privately work together to do what's in the interests of virginia. that is a great message and a message hillary should run on as well. >> a lot of people have said if you look at her economic message it's going to be framed around president clinton's economic ideas. do you think that still works in 2015 and 2016? >> clearly things are different than in the 1990's. booming economy. our economy today is in very good shape. it's come back out of the great recession we just had. so it's different than what president clinton inherited because when he was in office we were still in a recessionary mode the jobs are coming back 230,000 jobs last month.

it's all good news. so she will focus just as her husband did about bringing, if she runs, i just want to -- listen, she gets it on the economy. she gets it that job creation is critical. she will work in a bi partisan way to move the economy ford -- forward. i think the big issue, susan, is going to be the economy is coming back but the middle class feels squeezed. in their take-home pay, they're not feeling it. and there is still a lot of angst, even with the numbers going up. i think the whole knish income disparity, inequality, whatever you call it, is really making sure the middle -- middle class here, quality jobs. a job that pays well and has benefits. a job that doesn't pay well and you have to work two or three and no and i'm to see your

children is not a job. >> there are some among democrats that feel the clintons are wall street democrats. they've obviously become multimillionaires themselves. is that a problem for the clintons? >> if you look at the upbringing of both hillary and bill, neither of them has ever forgotten her roots. if you look at the biographies of hillary think -- they scrimped and sarveinged. neither will ever forget their roots and that's what they're going to focus on. you look at the two of them and what they have done in public service through their careers they clearly could have gone off and done a lot of things with their lives. they chose to stay in fub -- public service. i used to be on the board of the clinton foundation. what he's done in africa and all over the globe helping

people. that's who they are. they like to help people. that's what her focus will be. >> let's get the audience in. in the back there, sir, would you identify yourself for us? >> larry goldman. nice to see you again, sir. >> hello, larry, how are you? >> great. good virginian too. >> there was an editorial in today's "post" good the gerrymandering issue. what can you do so that we have in virginia good competitive elections to find the best people? >> great question. i've already said i'm going to veto this particular bill. we had a member of the state senate that draft -- drafted a bill that took one republican senator from one and put it on

-- of course i was going to veto that. i'm not playing that game. but the issues we have and what's going on up here goes back to, i put everything back to partisan gerrymandering the what --. what happens in elections today sitting members of congress often have no chance of losing an election. in business, competition keeps you thinking, moving, working hard. . i'm all nor nonpartisan redistricting. we want to get lines as close as you can to 50-50. i think it's important. so what happens today is the only way you can lose an election is go -- to get a primary challenge within your own party. so it pushes you to the extreme. the middle has somewhat evaporated. nobody should be guaranteed of anything in life.

they should have to work hard for it. that's what happens. you worry about winning elections, about a primary opponent and sometimes you're not always working the best interests of your constituents. i would love it if we had nonpartisan redistricting in virginia. i've advocated for it and i'm going to continue to push for it. there are certain things we can do. we are now under a court mandate to redraw our congressional lines. by april 1 we have to have a map approved. so right now we are under a court order to redo our congressional lines. but it's a great point and we've got to get the districts back to where we are competitive. competition is good. it keeps you working harder and this partisan rancor, at the end of the day you are supposed to be there doing the constituents' work instead of fighting. it's unfortunate. >> i wish we could flash back

to your d.n.c. days. >> listen, i was supposed to be tough and parss. you were the head of the party. but it's a different job now. quite a few hats. >> yeah. it's great. it's great. thank you so much. in the back there sir? >> governor mcauliffe, since you were associated very close to hillary clinton and actually she decides to run you will be summoned to join her trusted advisors group, give then -- given that, my suggestion is one of the reasons she lost against obama during the first term was her hawkish position on international sphere and in the wars and so on and that's the reason i didn't vote for her. i've always voted democratic and so my suggestion would be that she should focus on jobs as the lady earlier the woman

governor emphasize -- emphasized, you should do that and play an even-handed role that america is the victim, the war has been imposed on america and not america is doing it unilateral war, which is the impression most people get from the current administration. >> thank you. no question. we'll just move right on here. >> sort of a follow-up question to the gridlock and the word compromise being a four-letter word in waushtds. how do you feel about term limits for congress? >> i've always been an advocate for term limits. lust -- just as i believe in nonpartisan redistricting. i believe people spend too long in politics if you look at my career, i've done 30 different things and i just think it's important always to try to

recruit and get fresh blood someone with new ideas. if you do anything too long you just don't have that same vigor that you had what -- when you started. i've always been an advocate for term limits. move on and do something else the serve, be a public servant, that's great but there are a lot of other things you can do in life. it's time to bring fresh ideas. anything you do in life you are not going to be as excited about 10, 20 years after you started. i support term limits. i'm the only governor in america that has one four-year term limit. they ask me about it all the time. i'm fine with it. i can get a lot one -- done in four years. you're focused four years, boom, get it done. >> all right. two more questions. linda. thank you very much. >> in the metro area, i'm a constituent as well. when you are talking about

having the insurance coverage i always get more into does insurance coverage translate into better health or outcomes for citizens? in california, for instance, i don't know what the numbers would be for virginia but they've had a large increase in the expansion participants but they haven't seen an increase in doctors so often there is a gap there. do you any like, assessment of what that means? it and you mentioned rural health care and i believe virginia has some rather stringent certificate of need regulations. are you interested in working on that side too? >> i just have -- they will think this is a planted question. i just have a bill passing through the senate on the certificate of need. it allows more folks to come in

to have more competition. always a good thing on the question, the health of the work forces, let's be clear here. business folks understand this. these 400,000 virginiaians today, if they get sick, where are they going? they're going to an emergency room. that's happening as we speak. the point i used to make to the business community, who do you think it is say -- paying for that? you are. but now you pay twice. you've already paid through the a.c.a. taxes. that's done. they're going to emergency rooms and places like that and totally tying up the whole health care delivery system. i don't blame them. they have noo -- no other option but if you're a mother were a sick child you're going to do everything you humanly possibly can to make sure your child gets health care the the 400,000, these are working folks. i mean if you don't have any

income, you're already on the medicaid, you've got that. we're talking about the gap here. they make too much to get medicaid here but don't make enough to have a high deductible or high premium. they're in the gap. they're working the when i talked about the folks having taking care of an invalid in someone's home drive drive driving, they don't get to see their kids at all. to provide them with health care will be life-changing for them. it will be better for their health, better for their outlook and we should be doing this. as i said, we already paid for, in west virginia, they're now getting that care paid for somehow by virginia because we paid into the big pot. it doesn't make any sense.

so yeah, we want a healthy work force. jobs is my whole issue. we're doing it, it's work, part of my pitch is you've got to have a healthy work forest. this is part of that. in addition to the economic driver $2.5 billion coming back from the economy, it's having a healthy work forest so i can vince the c.e.o. -- you know, i went to china, the biggest deal done in the history of china, we did that in virginia. 2,200 brand new jobs. a factory that had been shut for years and years in appomattox, we are reopening that plant with chinese investors. reopen the plant first deal in 44 years. reopen it, going to manufacture pollution control devices and guess what? after the manufacture we're shipping them back to china and

sell them to them. that's the new virginia. just getting warmed up. just an appetizer. >> you know, i think we're out of time. but that's a perfect note to end on. governor mcauliffe i want to thank you and thank all of you for coming to this, it's been a terrific conversation today. >> thank you, susan. >> thanks. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> the national governors' association winter meeting starts saturday in washington, d.c. the chair john hickenlooper of colorado and vice chair herbert

of utah will chair the meeting. watch it live on c-span. coming up on c-span, the american bar association hosting a discussion about cybersecurity and the law. then a discussion about u.s.-cuba relations. and a boston university law school conference looking at gender equality law and the civil rights act. >> the c-span cities tour takes book tv and american history tv on the road, traveling to u.s. cities to learn about their history and literary life. this weekend, we partnered with time warner cable for a visit to greens bro, north carolina. >> after months and months of cleaning the house, charles halpern who had been given that task was making one more walk through. in the attic he looked over and saw an envelope with a kind of

gray seal on it and walk over, and noticed the date an 1832 document he removed a panel in an upstairs attic room and discovered this trunk and portraits. this was this treasure of dolly madison's things. we've had this story veable to the public, display different items from time to time, but trying to include her life story from her birth to her death in 1849. some of the items that we currently have on display a carved ivory calling card case that has a card enclosed with dolly's signature as well as that of her niece, anna. some small cut glass perfume bottles and a fair of silk slippers that have tiny little ribbon this is tie across the

arch of her foot. and the two dresses are the reproductions of a silk -- peach silk gown that she wore every he in life and a red velvet gown which intrigues because there's lasted and is part of the collection and also there's a legend that accompanies this dress. >> watch live from greens bro saturday at noon on c spab's book tv and on c-span3 american history tv on sunday at 3:00. >> earlier today, the american bar association held discussions on cybersecurity issues and the law. they outlined national laws and integration. this is 50 minutes.

>> good morning again. i promised i would be back in a few minutes and i am from a different podium. and i'll talk about that in a few minutes. this is a new format we're experiencing with. we're trying to throw c-span off. they had to widen the lens or you got it. thanks for braving the cold. did everybody get a copy of the book outside. the blue law review article? that's your reward for coming this morning. there it is, thank you very much. please be sure to get one. show your friends and neighbors and put it on your coffee table because it marks you as special you came out the coldest day in the last 100 years. allow me for just a second to let you peek behind the aba's bureaucratic curtain. i say that with all fondness. every year the standing committee is reviewed by a group of folks at the aba they look at topics such as programs publications outreach, things the committee has done in the

legal community. holly of course puts our reports together and every year we receive top reviews. in preparation for this year's review, we were looking at our previous year and what we had done, what our speakers have spoken on and we noted something interesting and that is this. all of our programs, all of our publications and all of you are -- all of our legal community outreach mirrored the current issues of the day. and that's what set us apart from all the other aba committees. i know that's shocking. we are both timely and relevant to the national security discussion. in keeping were with that tradition of timelyness and relevance, today we have a unique format. first of all for this breakfast summit we have a tag team. they both work for suzanne spalding, an alumni of her

committee. please tell her i said hello. they will talk about their challenges and opportunities in the cybersecurity world. you have their very, very impressive bios, so i won't take up precious time in reading them to you. i will just note that, yes, they do work for d.h.s. and we'll have donations at the end ohelp pay their salaries at the end of the week. let me welcome them to our breakfast. [applause] >> good morning, thank you, jim, for the introduction. holly for arranging all this. holly always does such a great job pulling off these events and enjoy working with her. if i can just give you a tiny bit more introduction. i'm the associate general council at the department of homeland security, i'm the associate general counsel for

programs directorate. andy is my client. we're having some attorney-client discussion here this morning. it's privileged so please don't tell anybody about the conversation that we're about to have. but we originally -- i had reached out to holly and harvey and jim and talked about the idea of doing a briefing on some of the new legislation and the new legislate i proposals new executive order that we knew was about to come and they said great, let's do that. and the more i thought about it, the more i thought, this is a great way to put an audience to sleep, to have a lawyer talk about the mechanics of new legislation. so andy agreed to come with me and we get to do a tag team. i'm the play-by-play commentator, he gets to do the color commentary. he's going to tell you what these laws meep, what the new

authorities mean in daily operation. >> absolutely. >> so, i was trying to think of a good comparison and you look like a sports talk radio crowd out there, don't you? we're like "mike & mike" on the radio. well no, maybe -- well he's mike and i'm mike. andy is not a big sports fan, so i have oto explain that. "mike & mike", mike is the brains and mike is the brawn one is the armchair fan, the other was an actual football player. so i don't know how that works with us exactly but you're the actual practitioner and i'm the straight man. >> i think i just got called the brawn and not the brain. so i'll take that back. >> i had the opportunity to characterize it so i'll take that opportunity. we hope this will be a discussion back and forth and will be very interactive for you, and we'll have a good

opportunity for you to ask questions later. what we thought we'd do is start by giving you a broad sense of why this is an important time for us to be talking to you. this is a significant moment for d.h.s. in the cybersecurity field. in late december, the congress passed and president signed several new pieces of legislation that provide d.h.s. and others with new authorities in the cybersecurity arena, then just a few weeks later, early january, the president sent a new legislative package to the congressed on cybersecurity again, several would strengthen d.h.s.'s role and address other issues as well. the president then came to our work site and gave a speech about cybersecurity issues from our work scythe which was a great experience for our work force. of course the white house cybersecurity summit was last week. that was -- our secretary was very involved with that, a number of the rest of our leadership.

and then at the summit, the president released a new executive order on information sharing that we'll talk about in a bit that talked about strengthening d.h.s.'s roles. this is a significant moment for us. do you want to expand on that at all? >> when d.h.s. first started, they pulled together agencies from across government. but they were already started. cyberwas new for d.h.s. didn't pull upon an existing historic agency with a great capability. we've been in the mode of creating something since the inception of d.h.s. and what i would say is the last few months really recognized that we've come into our own in the last years. we have a level of capability now that we have extraordinary demand from our customers and i would say that our customers are

three-fold in cybersecurity. federal civilian, government agencies. state, local territorial governments. and the private sector. a few years ago you had to go out and sell people on what we could do for them and now they're beating down the door. i think we see that recognized by the president coming to speak, by the congress formalizing our roles and responsibilities and authorities, and by the executive actions that have come lately giving us more work to do. i think it's a recognition that the reward for good work is more work. we're definitely in that position right now. >> i think there are some great opportunities for d.h.s. but my client is recognizing there are responsibilities associated with the new opportunities and i think it's great that we have such a capable team, one led by secretary osmond on this. we thought we'd give you a sense of what d.h.s.'s unique

contribution what we see as d.h.s.'s unique contribution in this field supports many organizations in government and outside that have an important role to play we were talking about breakfast about the national association of attorneys general and their role there are so many players. andy and i thought we would emphasize three particular areas where d.h.s. plays a unique contribution. the first is that d.h.s. has a strong record of embedding privacy and civil liberty into its programs. d.h.s. had the first statutorily created officer for civil rights and civil liberties and chief privacy officer. when the department first started the homeland security act incorporated a number of interesting endeavors, first, and one of them was to create these two positions civil libertarian positions that reported directly to the secretary. many of you may know i was the

first officer for civil rights and civil liberties at the department so i started the first day with the chief privacy officer, who is now the president for center for democracy and technology and i remember the first day we started, the first day in orienting a, looking at each other like what do we make of all this now? and we had offices next to each other and shared an assistant and tried to figure out where to go with all this. i was at d.h.s. until 2009 and then left for a number of years and then returned a couple of years ago. and that perspective has helped me as i've come back and really been so pleased to see that it didn't just stay on an org chart but these commitments to civil liberties and privacy have been encorporated into the daily life of national program directors and others in the department. it's the commitment to privacy has been written into strategy, it's been written into standard

operating procedure so at an operational level, and fay daley, tactically, the folks who work with andy are trained on how to get p.i.i. out of material they've got to push along before it is pushed along. so just, it was very fwratfiing to me to see that the concept it started with has begun to take hold within d.h.s. in these regards. i don't know if you want to comment about that. >> i think what i would add from a cyber security perspective it's strategic. i say that as a citizen concerned about privacy in my own life but also as a cybersecurity practitioner where i recognize and i think most people in this field recognize that to effectively secure cyberspace, we need to -- we need the trust of the people we're working to secure. if we don't build in strong privacy and civil liberties

protections and ideally enhancements, we're not going to succeed as cybersecurity practitioners. i think that's a critical point of strength for the department and as he said, we have two really strong organizations to draw pob. we have institutionalized privacy and civil liberty into our processes. i agree that's a core strength for us. >> the second of our distinctives is d.h.s.'s ex- expertise in public-private partnerships. one thing i read recently said the development of public-private partnerships is key to homeland security. that's a distinction we have and it's very important in the cybersecurity field, isn't it andy? >> absolutely. when i came onboard with my organization i really made explicit something that had been implicit which is within mppd,

the part of d.h.s. where we work mitigating circumstance cybersecurity organization, we're a customer service orlingnyization. we don't have any competing interests other than helping those three customers i mentioned before become more secure system of public-private partnerships are one of our core avenues for doing that. we've been given the job of making the private sector more secure in cyberspace. that's a pretty beg job. you don't do it by reaching out and touching companies one at a time. you have to do it through a structure that scales and an ability to reach -- partner with a few core organizations and have them reach out thems to cover the rest of the united states. that's what the rest of the public-private partnership means for us. >> the third distinctive i'll touch on is d.h.s. provides a civilian nonlaw enforcement interface with the private sector and the public on these issues. that's a critical part of the

cybersecurity environment. >> we should be clear. d.h.s. obviously does have key law enforce. organizations thart part of it, secret service homeland security investigators and others, but within nppd, cybersecurity organizations, my organization, is not law enforcement and we're not intelligence. that goes become to the customer service ethos. when i go to help a private sector company that has been hacked they know my only point is to get the company back on its feet again. i'm not trying to prosecute anybody or gather intelligence. those are important actions for the government to think. if i'm on scythe helping a company i'll encourage them to bring in law enforcement to help prosecute whoever broke into them but if the company is not comfortable with that, they can still get help from me. it help ours customer service

focus, thatve any competing goals. >> that's just an overview of the directives we bring to this field. we thought we'd talk you through five pieces of legislation, executive orders and legislative proposals. we'll run through them one at a time, i'll describe the technical aspects of the piece of legislation and then andy will have the fun part and describe what it actually means and what it means for his preerities in his organization, his daily operations and that kind of thing. all right? so the first is in december, the president signed the national cybersecurity protection act of 2014. let me describe it quickly. it establishes in law the national cybersecurity and communications integration center, or the nccic. raise your hand if you've been there or know about it. it codifies the nccic as a

central player in the government's information sharing about cybersecurity risk and codifies the nccic as a community that provides technical assistance and response capabilities to the private sector. every time i talk about this i feel like we need to describe the nccic first. can you d that? >> you're an organization that needs to secure itself. you're a company, a government agency. what does it mean to have cybersecurity? we talk to a lot of folks who are just wrapping their heads around this concept. what we tell them is it's not that complicated. as an organization you need to do three things to secure yourself. first, implement best practices. that gets you almost 2/3 of the way home. strong i.t. management and implementing best cybersecurity practices like those in the cybersecurity framework, that's

a core part of what you're doing. that takes care of sort of the noise. you get 80% of the threats you solved just by doing that. but when you have the more sophisticated bad guys. the nation state adversaries, the organized crime that are particularly capable and maybe they're after your organization. you implemented the best practices, raised the bar pretty high now you do information sharing. the theory of information sharing is this. it's nothing particularly complicated. the bad guys can try the same attack against a thousand companies and if they're not picky, they'll hit 10 of those companies successfully and that's enough for them. actually, right now, they can probably hit 200 out of a thousand that they try and be successful. the cost for them, extraordinarily low and they have a high return on investment. the idea of information sharing is they try a thousand companies, the first one they succeed in breaking into, learn something or in fact, maybe even the first one that just

successfully defends against them learns something, says be on the lookout for this activity. shares that. the other 999 companies receive the information and are able to protect thems. and suddenly the costs of the bad gry is reversed. what used to be a scapeable thing they could keep trying at no cost and just keep trying until they succeeded has been inverted where every time they true -- try, somebody is likely to learn what they do, share that information out inoculate everybody else, so suddenly trying itself has costs for the bad guy. that's what information sharing does for us. that's part two. first part is best practices. second part is information sharing. third part is ince tavent response. ultimately this is about risk management and risk management almost inevitably means that there will be risk that is not -- that is accepted and that there will be intruges, for example, that happen. so you have to be prepared for when that happens and you have to be able to respond effectively. how does the nccic help organizations with this?

it's not the part of the organization that focuses on promulgating best practices. it's more on the operational side. so to prevent incidents by information share, we send out information every day. ea also send out cyberthreat indicators. this is tactical information. if you net information from this email address it's a phishing organization and they're trying to break in or this i.p. address is sending malicious traffic. be alert if you get traffic from this internet protocol address. that's the preventing intrusion through information sharing. as i mentioned before, sometimes incidents happen. so we also put nccic help

response. 59 the midwest basic level, they say, we can -- ewe found this tool on our network, a bad guy left it, what does it do? we can break it down and analyze it so you, the victim, can figure out what happened on your network, we can take the information about the tool and share it ourt to our partners. or company can say or a government agency can say, we've got bad guys in our networks we need your help. we'll send a team on scythe to help them out. clean the bad fwice off the networks which is often difficult. once you get a hacker on your network, getting them off can be a real challenge. we'll help them get them off the network and get restored and be providing their services again, whether it's a private sector critical infrastructure company or a fwoth agency, we want them up on their fete and running again. finally, we coordinate national incident response. if there's a cyberincident that has implications beyond one agency beyond companies it's a

mass i incident, it's our job to coordinate what the goth does in response and provide that common operating picture for what's happening on the ground. and all of this activity generates information and we take that information and share it back out. so it's a cycle where the more people ask for our help, the more we're able to help the individual country and -- company and then derive information to push out so other companies can other goth agencies can secure themselves. what i can tell you is it happens in a flashy looking, cool room. we have all these screens on the wall showing all this stuff happening on the internet across the world. a lot of serious work is done there but it is a cool room. i highly recommend you take the opportunity for a tour if it presents itself. >> let me give you the nuts and bolts of the legislation. the first thing is composition of the nccia. under the new law, the center is

authorized to have representatives on the floor from federal agencies, primarily those that are leads from different sectors energy, treasury or the like, authorized to have law enforcement there, which is an important part of the nccia. state, local tribal, territorial governments are there, authorized by law and there. and the private sector which includes both owners and operators. but also information sharing and analysis organizations. organizations that group together sectors and represent sectors on the floor. by statute now the nccic is authorized to have this multidisciplinary, eclectic group of people all interacting together and it's extremely helpful to have in statute that these people are authorized to be there and work together, those of you who are lawyers appreciate some of the legal issues we have dealt with other the it's -- other the years is

now in statute. do you want to expand on that at all? >> no. >> the next thing is the statute talks about the roles and responsibilities. the nccic is authorized, charged with being an interface for cybersecurity information sharing, providing share situational awareness and quote, coordinating the sharing of information relating to cybersecurity risks and incidents across the federal government. so the act provides the authority for the nccic to provide upon request technical assistance to those who need it and incident response capabilities to federal, state, local partner or those in the private sector that could include attributions, mittation gation or remediation. you've referenced some of that. flyaway teams that we reference within the nccic, they're authorized by statute to do that keen of work. anything else you want to add there? >> other than -- the only thing i want to add is, you will prarly appreciate why this is helpful to us. now i found that most general

counsels are happy go lucky people who are willing to just let things fly, whatever happens b happens. maybe not. general counsels are there to help manage risk for their organization and they see a lot of risk in bringing in an outside organization to help them out. so having in statute our responsibility to send, for example, a flyaway team to help a company out, isn't going to eliminate the risk that general counsel sees but does a lot to mitt gare their concern. when we have an incident where we think it's important for the nation that we go and help them out and every minute matters, the fact that the general counsel can see we're authorized in statute to take this kind of action helps speed the process along. s that process, again where minutes and hours matter. that's extraordinarily helpful for us. one example of where a positive authorization is valuable for us. >> i have to defend the lawyers. andy is not a lawyer. he's going to criticize our profession.

but i will defend the lawyers. i think what andy just said is absolutely right but also i think approaching c.i.o.'s and those on the information side with this organization that says we can help you and who are you? where does this come from? well now it's laid out in statute, directly. in previous years the nccic operated under this ebroad authorities of the homeland security act it's -- we have the authority to operate the nccic but it was under the broad authorities of the homeland security act and required a complicated exegesis of look at this, and here's this, and here's this and here's the presidential directive and that takes -- it takes precious time away from what should be focused on the response. congress decided we're going to put this in statute establish what its authorities are eliminate that issue of time. so i want to really echo what andy said, at an operational

level, as attorneys this is going to be extremely helpful. ok. we've been talking about the private sector mostly, let's look at the second piece of legislation which talks about the .gov environment. i know that fisma is everyone's favorite topic it's a great way to start a new day with a bang to have a riveting discussion of fisma but that's what we'll try to do. those of you who don't recognize sarcasm -- but anyway. the federal information security modernization about of 2014 puts in statute t.h.s.'s role to administer cybersecurity policies and practices within the federal civilian executive branch. many of you know that the fisma has been around for many years and it has primarily produced paper reports that agencies

submit through o.m.b. to the congress on their information security practices. that is an outdated system. so the fisma modernization act of 2014 brings us into 2014 and establishes d.h.s.'s role. what are smofert implications of the fisma organization act? >> you make a fisma joke to a room full of c.i.o.'s and they're rolling on the floor laughing. we think fisma is a great source of humor when we make jokes about it. technologists are known for our rich and normal sense of humor. so fisma lays the groundwork for how the government manages its i.t. risk. and that makes it critically important. i think the combination of fisma and other acts to pass this congress really recognize how the world has changed. and that we're moving from a world in which i.t. happened at

the very edges of the organization, at the far you know, at the most outer edges of the department or agency to a world where to manage your i.t. effectively, there has to be some level of centralization and governance whether at the agency level or department c.i.o. has to have cognizance over what's happening in their department which believe it or not has not always been the case. to the government level where d.h.s. can play that role across departments and agencies, hand in hand with o.m.b., understanding how agencies are secure where they need to make improvements giving them that feedback. and really holding agencies accountable with o.m.b. for whether or not their effectively managing their cyberrisks. the fisma modernization act gives uh the tools we need to do that. so it's really two-fold in my mind. first, it establishes and

clarifies d.h.s.'s role as a goth-wide for the civilian government measure and mote vayor -- motivator of cybersecurity for departments and agencies. the second thing it does, helps us move away from this thick binder compliance approach to cybersecurity to an approach where we gather, use computers to measure how secure computers are. that's where we need to be. when you have millions of computers in the federal government, going around with a clip board is not the way. you have to use computers to assess how secure they are. one of the things we got out of fisma is the positive authorization to do continuous diagnostics and mitigation, which our program for helping departments and agencies automatically measure how healthy their computers are. they get a tool where they have a dash board that gives them the status of their own environment. we get a tool where we have a rollup dash board across federal departments and agencies to help

them understand how they stand next to each other whether one department is particularly lag, whether one department is doing a great job and we have lessons we can take from that department and share with other departments. this is a profoundly important tool for us. >> just as general counsel from private companies have questions who is this organization that's going to come in and look at our networks and work with us, agencies have counsel who also ask that question. you have capability to input on our network, where does this come from? what's this about? now it's laid out in statute that the d.h.s. working with o.m.b. has the authority to deploy technologies onto the networks of other agencies. i think that would be enormously helpful in a daily way. it also makes clear the strong role for o.m.b. in these thsh -- in these issues. o.m.b. and deform h.s. enjoy a strong relationship here and the

statute solidifies that in terms of working together. do you want to reference that at all? >> enge that's a great point. ultimately if you've been in the federal government you recognize that departments and agencies are most likely to listen to budgets. so o.m.b. has the budgetary hammer that departments and agencies are responsive to. we at d.h.s. will never have that we look to o.l.m. -- o.m.b. to be the bad cop and we're the good cop. that's a more pleasant role for me to be in. i hope nobody from o.m.b. is to hear -- is here to hear me call them a bad cop. but i think that's a valuable role. we are helping agency sess cure thems and they're saying, this is what is acceptable and not acceptable. >> third area that we want to talk about, just talk about briefly is developing the cyberwork forest. this is obviously a major issue. how do we develop people who know how to do this kind of work long-term. so the border patrol agent pay reform act of 2014 actually

includes language that addresses the cyberwork forest. i want to ask andy how many more border patrol agents you expect to have deployed in the nccic, but that would be taken from the wrong direction, it happens to be in that statute. there's a provision that gives d.h.s. the similar authorities to the defense department in terms of setting pay scale and census for cyberprofessionals. do you want to comment on the cyberwork force development at all? >> all i'll say is meab we're patroling the borders of cyberspace? i cannot overstate how important this is. we literally lose people every day who are willing to come to deform h.s. and work long hours in the luxurious government office environments we provide them flickering fluorescent light and somewhat dingy carpet but they're willing because they

believe in the mission and know how important it is but ultimately, after a few years, they look around and say, oh, my goodness i could make literalry six times the salary in the private sector. you know it's one year of work in a private sector worth six years of work in the government for me? and we lose them. some of that we just have to recognize. we're never going to have the normal government lifetime career employee in the cyberfield. we're not building ourselves to work that. we recognize we'll always have people going back and forth to the private sector and that's healthy. at the same time we have to have the best talent. when the pay differential is so incredibly vast as it is reeth now, it's a wonderful compliment to us that the private sector is poaching our employees left and right but it's not sustainable for us. this is really important for us. >> fourth area. friday, the president signed a new executive order. we want to address that. the new executive order on the

idea of information sharing and it's designed to try to encourage more sharing of information between the private sector and the government. the executive order builds on a foundation of the nycic legislation i talked about previously. we need to have a private sector willing to share that type of information so that's what the executive order is going about or trying to tackle. it encourages the development of strong associations of private sector partners. we're, in washington, very comfortable with this. every company can't have an office here to lobby the hill, you fwoup together and from that grouping you approach the hill or others here. the same thing happens, or needs to happen in information sharing system of this executive order tries to encourage the development of strong associations that will allow the type of information, these sorks are called information sharing analysis organizations. which i think we're pronouncing as isa -- i-sow.

so these groups can approach the federal. there are a number of isaos now. there are a number of these already. under the executive order, the president is directing d.h.s. to enter into an agreement with a nongovernmental organization to identify a common set of voluntary standards or guidelines that will deal with the creation and functioning of these organizations. essentially this nongovernmental organization is going to establish standards for these private associations. this will, the thinking is, develop and deepen the development of these private sector information sharing organizations.

do you want to comment? >> absolutely. i mentioned before that there's no way that the government is going to be able to help every company in america secure itself. we view ourselves as an enabler. we're trying to help companies understand what best practices are, implement them, share information and effectively respond to incidents. those three things i talked about as part of seener security. we have some extraordinarily successful information sharing analysis organizations right now. they are sector based and have been doing a great job of helping their members protect themselves against cyberthreats. we need more. we need every company in america that has the capability and interest to have an isao available to them and that matches their needs. and so what this executive order tries to accomplish is it solves two problems we were hearing repeatedly from the private secor. one is there were organizations, firms, coming to us saying, we want to be part of an information sharing organization

but we don't fit in any of the sectors where we have isao's or isac's, informing sharing analysis centers. they said look, we're a law firmful there's no critical infrastructure structure for law firms. but we face cyberthreats, what isac do we join? what's for us? so that was one of our first realizations. trust comes in all shapes an sizes. and our job as the government is to encourage the creation of trust groups, help them share information with each other an help them, if they're willing and interested, share information with the government so we can connect them so an intrusion over here, attempted intrusion over here shares information to help everybody inoculate themselves. that was the first recognition. we need to work with organizations beyond just the sector-based isac's which have

been extraordinarily successful and will remain and thrive under this new regime but we also need to accept other organizations geographically based organizations, there are folk that was come together in differentcies -- cities, asking us, why wouldn't we reich -- recognize them? and we said, you're right. we will work with you. you decide what shape you want to take, we'll work with you. the second problem we're trying to solve is companies would come to us and say, we understand information sharing is important, there isn't an organization that currently fits us so we'll form an organization. let's do it, ok, what do we do? and we said, well, you know, here's the kinds of things an isac does. let's connect you some of the more effective existing isac's and you have -- then it's on you. you have to do the work. we're here for advees and to help but ultimately we don't have a system set up to help you build a new organization. and we kept giving a lot of

companies coming to us saying we want to do it. don't make us reinvent this wheel every time and again, that was exactly the right thing. and so we said, ok. we're going to help you come up with best practices that delynn yat what an effective isao is. when you want to start a group, you don't have to start from scratch, invent the whole theory and come up with it on your own. what we're going to do, is work with a private sector or nongovernmental organization to run a standards process to come up best practices. that's going to take some time. you want it to be a con all the -- consultative process. but that led to the cybersecurity framework, which has been a successful way of promulgating best practices. and our hope and intent is this will promulgate best practices for an analysis sharing organization. that will lead to the creeeags of lots of these organizations

that are successfully serving their members. >> so the last thing we want to talk about is the president's information sharing legislation propoal. this we could have spent the entire -- proposal. this we could have spent the entire hour on. but we're going to give it two minutes and then turn et over for questions. this legislate i proposal sent to congress in january is on information sharing. there were a number of other cybersecurity legislative proposals in the criminal area and some others we won't touch upon. the relevant one for us is to talk about information sharing. it encourages the private sector to share appropriate cyberthreat indicator information with the nccic and does it through providing targeting liability protection for companies that shear that information with the nccic, specifically the proposed language would state no civil or criminal cause of action shall

lie or be maintained in any federal or state court against any entity for the voluntary disclosure to the nccic or private information and sharing of cyberthreat indicator. moreover, the federal government would be restricted in how it can use that information for example, the proposed legislation states no federal entity may use a cyberthreat indicator received pursuant to this act as evidence in a regulatory enforcement action against an entity that diskiloed that information. so it's trying to establish a regime of some targeted liability protection. again, we could spend literally an hour on this. we're just going to give you the wave talks of it, andy do you want to comment on what this adds to the landscape we have been describes? >> first, you called me the brawny one earlier, i think you called me the long winded one

but i'll do what i can to be fast. companies share information now. we have formal agreements with over 110 significant companies and isao's. they share information with us every day. and that information in turn helps protect other companies and the nation at large. but it's too hard. we need more companies to share. this legislation will accomplish that. i think there are a few key aspects to it. one is that it's narrowly tailored. a lot of proposals have foundered because they're very broad. trying to eat the whole apple at once. this is a bite from the apple but we think it's the right bite and will do an enormous amount of good for our national security. what does it mean to be narrowly tailored? you're sharing an indicator doesn't mean you are breached. a company that's defending itself successfully will learn about indicators all day, every day. they'll see attempted intrusions

and block them and say, that one was different, let me share the key information so others can protect themselves. sharing an indicator doesn't mean a company is having to come forward and say, somebody broke in. that's a keyties distinction. it helps the company beless nervous about sharing but also it's the information we need. this is the information that network defenders use all day, every day, to defend themselves. so it's the right information. at the least sort of concern for the company. second it's not infi nate information. as i just said -- not infinite information. if you have an incident that needs law enforcement, that's outside of the scope of this legislation. if you have a law enforcement investigation that's a much more rich and deep interaction with the government than sharing a threat. that's one reason the legislation is clear to say existing relationships with law enforcement or otherwise are not tutched by this legislation.

it's only focused on the cyberthreat indicator. and that i think, also gives comfort to those who are concerned about privacy and civil liberties. -- liberties. there's a lot of protection in place for civil liberties. we think it strikes the right balance. it will give us the information we immediate to help network defenders defend themselves and lower that bar so companies are more comfortable shearing. >> we have thrown a lot out. i think we have maybe 10 minutes or so for some questions or jim i don't know if you want to moderate it. >> to bridge the generation gap for someone over 30 i found the last half our not only fascinating, interesting, but understandable. i hope c-span producers move this to some time other than 3:00 in the morning. we do have time for questions, i know we're in billable hours for some of you, i'm sure you can

find a client to bill this time to. first question. identify yourself, an your question is. >> dave from politico. andy, can you talk a little bit about what well happen to cybersecurity and d.h.s. should the shutdown actually occur? there's been some very vague statements. i'm kind of assuming most of the operational personnel are essential personnel and would remain on the job. is that accurate? what about other programs like c.d.m. could you talk about what would happen in terms of operational versus programmatic and acquisition. >> i'm greatly concerned about the impact on our cybersecurity efforts if there's a shutdown at d.h.s. roughly half of our work force left last time as a rull of the shutdown.

it would be similar number this is time. what does that mean day-to-day? people standing watch 24-7 on that watch floor will continue to work there. what i will say is numb of contracts could be disrupted that provide support to that. that help those folks. that means there would be less timely analysis you send us a file of malicious software, we have fewer people available fewer resources available to disassemble ate figure out what happened. we'll be left timely in our -- less timely in our information sharing and you'll see a showdown in operations that need to be happening in second. that's a real concern. for programs like continuous diagnostics and mitt fwation that gives us the help center inside the department and sidget a-- agency networks to enable people to know the health of their networks, that would ground to a halt in a shutdown. we are currently working with departments and agencies to select those sensors and roll them out. that would not happen at all during a shutdown.

we also run a program called einstein and we're rolling out einstein 3 which is, think about it as a guard house. a fence around the government. the guard house checks the traffic coming into the government and stops malicious traffic, stops attacks. it blocks attacks and intrusions against the government. we plan to roll that out over the next few weeks. moving our coverage o-- coverage of the government from 20% to almost half of the government covered. that rollout would be delayed. there would be no action taken on it. during a shutdown. now you might say the government hasn't had this protection in place for a while, what does a few extra months hurt? honestly, we suffer attacks and intrusions every day in the government. you never know which attack will take a critical piece of data, remove it from our networks and give it to a foreign nation.

so the time we go unprotected, day, week, month, is of grave concern to me. >> are you referring simply to the -- >> i am. >> i have so many questions. law firms are organizations that have a tremendous amount of information that directly relates to clients who we're trying to protect. what group do they fall? where does that come in? or does it? >> we have talked here to this committee about that issue. we need to continue talking about that issue. it's not just law firms, i think of accounting firms as well, you know, even -- -- this is -- firms are an aggregators where clients come and they'ring a gators so it's -- and they're reag gators so we've talked to this committee about trying to

develop more awareness in that maybe even an isao, i still mess up the pronuns yankees, for accounting and law firms. that's a project we're talking about with you. but currently, law firms don't fit in one of these particular sectors which is what andy is referencing. doupt to take it from there? >> what i would add is law firms are absolutely a target of the most sophisticated adversaries out there, nation states,ing or this niced crime, you name it. i urge each of you to go back to your firm and ask what the firm is doing to protecter that data. >> please joan me in welcoming mike and mike for a terrific present eags. the committee coin which under the regulations has no value

whatsoever. thank you everybody for coming out. that concludes our breakfast program. >> on the next "washington journal" reporter anna maria andriotis on the recent growth in subprime lending. and the policy issues facing u.s. states. "washington journal" live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> the guard towers are gone but the memories come flooding back for so many people who, until today, had lost such a big part of their childhood. for many, released after the war, some buried the memories and with it the history of this camp. now more than 60 years later -- >> this sunday on "q&a," january

russell on the only family internment camp in world war ii in crystal city texas and what she says is the real reason for the camp. >> the government comes to the fathers and says, we have a deal for you. we will reunite you with your families in the crystal city internment camp, the family internment camp, if you'll agree to go voluntarily and then i discovered what the real secret of the camp was. if you -- they also had to agree to voluntarily repay treeuate to germany and to -- repatriate to germany and japan if the government decided they needed to to be rere-pay traited. the truth of the matter is the crystal city camp was humanely administered by the i.n.s. but the special war division of the department of constituent used it as roosevelt's primary prisoner exchange in the center of roosevelt's prisoner exchange program.

>> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." the political landscape has changed with the 114th congress. not only are there 43 new republicans and 15 mu gunmen -- new democrats in the house and 15 new republicans and one new democrat in the senate there's also eight -- also 108 women in congress including the first african-american female republican. the congressional chronicle page has lots of useful information including voting result and statistics. on c-span, c-span2 crambings span radio and c-span.org. >> next a look at u.s. diplomatic relations with cuba in a panel that included the former head of the u.s. interest section in havana and an activist who participated in the

bay of pig invasion. they met in fort lauderdale. this is an hour and 10 minutes. is hour and 10 minutes. >> thank you, i am happy to be here and proud of the panel you are about to your from starting with the moderator -- healed from starting with the moderator. tim, you may know his name, he works for radio in miami and is the americas editor. the hotel latin america for 25 years with newsweek and time magazine -- he has covered latin america for 25 years with newsweek and time magazines. using hand of person you want to asking questions and i encouraged him to the is the kind of person -- he is the kind

of person you want asking questions and i encouraged him to share his comment. >> thank you very much and thank you to calvin and to the tower forum for the invitation and the opportunity for this important discussion. i would emphasize that this is a constructive discussion. this issue can arouse passion here and i would remind everyone that everyone agrees that our aim is to change the status quo in communist cuba. the debate we are having is the best way to bring that about as we now need or the castro era -- near the end of the castro era. i would remind us of the sign i saw on the methodist church, let us slander no one. [laughter]

it is there, you can check it out. i would ask the panel to come over and let me introduce them our distinguished panel, i should say. at the end of the table where is grown theaters -- there is coral gables mayor head of the human interests section in havana. he was best known for traveling the island to help dissidents set of libraries and for his work the human government barred him from leaving havana -- cuban government barred him from leaving havana. [laughter] it was ambassador in countries like paraguay and was elected mayor in 2011. let's welcome him. [applause]

his left is frank, the executive director for the center for a free cuba and washington, d.c.. they promote human rights and a transition to democracy. he was born in cuba and is a strong defender of the trade embargo and has been repeatedly featured in national newspapers and appeared on television programs ranging from the pbs news hour to foxnews. they also testified before congressional committees and often speaks at universities. thank you very much for coming. [applause] to his left is alfredo, the founding director of the human committee for democracy. he was also born in cuba and is a veteran of the bay of pigs invasion. [applause] he was in fact the president of

the day veterans association -- eight of veterans association but his call for peaceful -- bay of pu pigs veterans association but his eventual call for relationships with cuba would do is break with that group. [applause] and then carlos is the national director of cuba now. he is the son of an attorney and human exiles. he is a former director of the miami-dade democratic party and served on the 2012 presidential campaign of venezuelan opposition leader and enrique. his articles have appeared in the huffington post among others and frequently on tv including

cnn. welcome, rick. [applause] i want to start with you and i want to start where we left off a few weeks ago during an owner conversation on wlrmnn that has to do with the central premise that president obama laid out for why he undertook this very dramatic, very historic change in the u.s. policy towards cuba. and that premise was, as he's dead in the state of the union address as well, if something -- the said in the state of the union address as well, if something is not working after 50 years, you have to change. you pointed out that the central premise, you felt, was wrong. that while the of isolating cuba and the embargo of not -- three

policy of isolating cuba and the embargo had not led to a regime change, it has been a success. i wonder if you can tell us what you think it has worked in the central premise of obama's policies flawed. >> first of all and want to thank the tower forum for inviting me. my views stem from my experience, three years in cuba. my personal view is that nobody's policy has worked in cuba. if you look at what has happened over the last 55 years, you find that all of the countries in the world except the united states have engaged with cuba. you have created, such tourists, invested -- very have created sent tourists, invest -- they

have traded sent tourists invested. it is a policy that, unless there is something, american exceptionalism or we have democratic picks he does the fact that americans want to go there, pixie dust, -- pixie dust, the fact that americans want to go there, i don't see it. >> i wanted to ask you all the what made you -- off the bat what would you do to the conclusion that engage in communist and what was the best way to? >> when the soviet union disappeared in the cold war was over i came to the conclusion

that if we continued on the same path that have not worked for so many years and that every president from kennedy for the present president have tried to negotiate with cuba and every time cuba does something so that the embargo will not end because the embargo was the one thing that protects cuba and gives it an excuse for everything that is wrong within the island and keeps it from doing what is right. denying civil rights, denying political rights, denying everything because they are at war with the united states because no friendly country embargo is another friendly country, therefore they are embargo is another friendly country, therefore they are at war -- embargoes another friendly country, therefore they are at war. i thought that the future of cuba would continue to be going

on as it has been going on and i thought that it was time that humans started talking to each other in a civic dialogue that would bring about -- cubans started talking to each other in a civic dialogue that would bring about human rights. unfortunately that has not happened and the reason it has not happened is the same reason the embargo was still in place because the cuban government does not want the embargo lifted or opening to the political situation in cuba. what is a simple cuba and to do? -- cuban to do? continue arguing the point? after the two or three historical figures are dead changes will come about, and it will be generational changes? the united states government and the cuban people in exile must

begin a dialogue with the next generation of government, that is the only thing that will about a better cuba, civil rights and political rights. -- bring about a better cuba, civil rights and political rights. >> if i could ask you to refrain from applause. when president obama announced he wanted to reestablish diplomatic ties, you said that he could not have made the decision at a worse time because cuba seems to be at one of the weakest points in terms of international patrons, venezuela is on the ropes and therefore this is the point to tighten the screws rather than engage cuba and i wonder if you could elaborate on why historically this was a mistake? >> first of all, let me thank the forum for inviting me. like most humans i would like to see the day -- cubans, i would

like to see the day when there is a group of people that can come together to talk about an issue without being afraid of being taken away by the police. that is something we have to keep in mind. what i said when the president made the announcement was a little more than that. i said for example that the president had talked about transparency and conducted for 18 months a secret negotiation that you peoplkey people in the state department did not learn about. i also thought that being a cuban i do not know why the president thinks that talking to run castro -- raul castro could determine the future of cuba. i also said that the president announced a policy that is full of misunderstanding and misconception. he read some things from the

teleprompter that are really nonsense i am sorry to say. when people say the president wants to reestablish relations with cuba, the united states has had diplomatic relations with cuba since 1977. the american mission in cuba is the largest diplomatic mission in cuba and has been for many years, there are more american medicine cuba then canadians or russians. it is not for a lack -- american diplomats in cuba then canadians or russians. i question the notion of saying that if something is not worked, you have to do something else. the something else has to work. as the ambassador on my right said, the french, the canadians the japanese, the spanish, all

of them have sent millions of tourists to cuba. all of them have treated with cuba. -- traded with cuba. that has not changed the oppressive regime in cuba. what the president is doing is changing from a policy that many people think has not worked to a policy that we know has not worked and that is my answer. >> why do most cuban-americans of your younger generation believe that it is time to engage the islanders? >> we have lived under this policy our entire lives and have yet to see it yield any sort of result whatsoever. sorry. we have seen that for as long as i have been around, almost as long as i have been around our policy towards cuba has been dictated by south florida

politics, not by the sober assessment of the right approach to that country or what is in the best interests of the united states. i have seen that process, i grew up in a household where my parents were staunchly in favor of the embargo and believed that trying to choke the economy was going to be the best way to bring about change and i grew up believing the same. it was not until i had an opportunity to visit in 2000 that i realized that the policy was grossly overreaching and was aggravating the issue. i got to go on a family trip where i got to meet a couple of young entrepreneurial cubans in havana who were basically street hustling, making ends meet by working with tourists and doing whatever they had to do to raise money so they could feed families. their dream was to start their

own businesses in miami, leave the island and start their own businesses in miami. and i would ask them why and they would say there is no opportunity here. if everybody that is young and with any sort of drive and initiative, if their dream is to get out of this country, this is never going to change. and i thought, what are we doing to help remedy this? and that is what i realized the answer was absolutely nothing. our policy is aggravating the situation. instead of bringing the international community together to exert pressure to the castro regime, we have isolated ourselves from the international immunity, they have run the other way because they do not want to be seen allying with this overreaching policy. it has done nothing to help civil society on the island, to empower them in any way.

it has given us no leverage with the cubans to help push for changes. they do not respond to basically anything that we say on this side. overall it has not achieved its objectives, it has not ushered in a democratic transition. when you grow up your entire life seeing that this is the approach and it is not doing anything and that when we engage with cubans and open up the flow of resources they take every opportunity to get ahead you see that there is an opportunity to do something that can render the old system irrelevant and that is why folks my age seem to be open for a different policy. >> let's again go back to the rationale for president obama's policy changes. he believes that while the new policy will not democratize cuba

overnight, i think his feeling is that it will at least position the united states more effectively to take advantage of change should come when the castro's disappear from the same -- should it come when the castro's disappear from the scene. you made the point a few days ago that you do not think that normalization is really going to have a chance to occur under this process. >> i don't think it will because i think the cubans also said very clearly, read my lips recently, that we will not allow anything that you do to change our view of what we want to be with the political system. they have been very clear, we want to the money that he you will give to the military which runs the economy there and use it to continue to perfect communism.

there is a different definition of diplomacy, we have diplomats in each other's country. we have the largest embassy except we do not have the name of the door and cannot use the american flag. i do not think that diplomatic relations help much, what we need is normalization and are at least 15 things that need to be done and i have been in talks over the three years i was there. they need to allow our diplomats to normally pursue what diplomats do in part of what we do is defending our values. -- and part of what we do is defending our values. the cubans restrict us to 51 employees and restrict the number of tdys we have so that we cannot be effective. to interfere with the diplomatic pouch, they refused to have --

they interfere with the diplomatic pouch, they refused to have a postal system, they will not allow the internet for normal cubans. if you are a canadian anyone but an american diplomat for your residence, -- and you invite a american diplomat to your residence, cubans will refuse to go. the point is, unless we think they are dumb, they listen to what the president says. we are going to do this because we will empower the cuban people. the cubans have said we will not allow them to be empowered. the view that somehow they are so dumb -- they know they can control it. they have controlled everybody else's efforts to do this they are not going to do it and allow normalization is that would mean that diplomats can travel around -- because that would mean that

diplomats can travel around. normalization i predict will not happen, i hope it will, when the castro's are gone there is a chance. until the cuban government begins creating institutions to allow cuban people to participate. >> do you have --i know you want to make a rebuttal but if i could ask you first, to follow up, another point that you have made, this cannot work because we gave too much away to the cubans we made too many concessions. i wonder if you can address that point. >> if you look at what the president has done some of the president is talking about doing, it is basically what the cuban government has been asking for a long time.

when you hear some folks talking about cuban policy, after put that on a blackboard and say this is what the cuban government wants. the cuban government wants the embargo lifted, they want to be removed from the list of countries that support international terrorism despite the fact that in cuba, an american terrorist who killed a police officer escaped to cuba and if you go to the fbi website you will see that one of those terrorists is one of the 10 most wanted. cuba is the only country in the list of countries that support terrorism who has publicly acknowledged that there is a murderer of american police officer was welcome better. -- who is welcome there. the other thing, i wanted to say

something which again, when you hear the cuban government talk, they say that the american foreign-policy on cuba is based on south florida. as is the cuban americans have not earned the right to have a point of view. -- as if the cuban americans have not only right to have a point of view. cuban americans have been here for 50 years, they pay taxes they serve in the armed forces, they have a point of view. if you want to go to the vietnam war, i can show you where you can put your hand on the names of cuban-americans who have died serving the american flag. i think the cuban-americans have the same rights as the jewish community and the black community and anyone else to have a point of view. what controls american policy towards cuba is not the cuban-american community.

what controls the american policy towards cuba are the actions of the castro dictatorship. it is not the cuban-americans who send a large police contingent to venezuela to beat up dissidents and train the venezuelan police forces. it is not the cuban exiles would like to go back to the cold war. the president would like to forget raul would like to go back. . while the american diplomats were in cuba, a soviet spy ship showed up in havana. fidel castro has in cuba's national bank, look it up in your newspaper. there has been a lot of fraud with medicaid and medicare and at least in one case, $300

million were stolen from medicaid and medicare. that money is now in cuba's national bank. is a savings account -- is that a savings account? from the administration say to give up the money, it is your -- you wouldn't the administration say -- food the administration say to give up the money, it is your money. >> if i did ask you to follow up on that point. -- if i can ask you to follow up on that point which is a central one, the cuban policy in the united states has been based on cuban exile anger which, albeit justified, obviously, is not the basis for sound foreign-policy perhaps. i wonder if you could address that. >> that is precisely the point

and that is why it is so important for president obama has done. "now u.s. foreign policy towards cuba -- up until now u.s. foreign policy towards cuba did not exist. it was to get political contributions wealthy cubans -- from wealthy cubans in new jersey and florida, that is what has determined policy until now. for the first time there is a foreign policy towards cuba and that is what obama is doing, he is taking the best interest of the united states into account and not electoral policy or political contributions. the fact of the matter is that we are going to have to deal with cuba because changes are coming. like i said before, there are only two or three still walk around and they have more than 85 or 89 years old. we cannot last much longer.

-- they cannot last much longer. you have a new generation taking over and if you look at the central communist party, 90% are under 55 years of age. they were not with fidel castro, they do not have the same ideological link like fidel castro. those people want changes in their going to do their own form of government and the united states -- and they are going to do their own form of government and the united states should be already talking to them because you know what will happen when castro disappears. miami, florida and havana, cuba are going to be china and hong kong. that is what is going to happen. a tremendous flow of businesses going back and forth and you better start looking forward to that event which is coming sooner rather than later. >> this policy is essentially a

new bet replacing an old bet in that we are betting that when the castro's are gone we will see a gorbachev-like presence in cuba that we are situated to take advantage of. >> i do not know anybody who thinks that something that has not worked in 55 years will work in 55 years. the policy has not were because it has nothing to do with u.s. foreign policy, -- worked because it has nothing to do with u.s. foreign policy, it has to do with political policy. you can contribute to two or three subcommittees and most of those germans or from states that do not know were cuba is. -- chairman come from states that do not know were cuba is.

> if you can follow up on that point. >> to respond the year that castro shot down the rescue planes, 1996, was a presidential election year. clinton was up for reelection and there was a bill making the rounds in congress that was not seen as having any shot of getting past because it was so -- passed because it was so overreaching, it had this constitutionally suspect extraterritorial provisions. it did not seem like it had much traction. codified all embargo sanctions and puts them in the hands of congress and conditions the lifting of all of them on a series of conditions that the cuban government must meet and it must meet all of them before we can with even one of these. the bill was not expected to go

anywhere but the cubans shot down the rescue planes and it was an election year so clinton signed the bill. he recognized in his biography that it was good election year politics in florida but that it tied his hands to lift the embargo in the future in exchange for negotiations for positive changes so it very much is about south florida politics. as far as what the bet is, you cannot micromanager transition from coral gables -- micromanage a transition from coral gables or washington. it has to be homegrown democracy, they have to want it and the best way that we can help facilitate that is by opening up the flow of contact resources, information through the cuban people so that they can be in a better position to

make demands from that government. that is the bet of the policy, that we are empowering all sectors of the cuban people so that they are in a better position "for on the table -- they can put food on the table and provide for their basic needs. >> what about this argument that in so doing we are giving too much away? >> we are not giving anything away because we are not making any concessions. part of the problem with helms-burton is a created the idea that somehow removing sanctions -- it created the idea that somehow removing sanctions that have not produced intended outcomes for steps that we want the cubans to take our somehow critical commodities. they are not. we are replacing a bad policy

with a more promising policy in the best interest of the united states and the cuban people. we are not giving anything away. the value of failed policy is zero for everybody except those who have benefited from the status quo that the policy create. -- creates. it is not a concession, it is a reform of policy. >> when i first visited cuba in 1990, the soviet union are just collapsed and the special period, one of the worst economic periods in cuban history --the economy was in freefall and the suffering was terrible -- and every day i would walk around and see empty shelves and empty tables and houses etc. i kept saying to myself, there is no way they can survive this. and yet somehow they did. we have come out to a point

where venezuela is about to collapse, the newest sponsor. again, people are saying there is no way they can survive this. but journalistically and empirically i have to look back and remind myself that they always seem to find a way to survive it. i think that one of the reasons is that unilateral embargoes do not seem to work. one of the reasons we confronted apartheid in south africa was because that was a multilateral international effort and those do work were as unilateral efforts historic -- whereas unilateral efforts historically do not. because venezuela is so weak right now i would like to go back to that point your argument that this was not the right time to do this because this was the time that we could've put the squeeze on cuba. >>