cooperated efforts. for this we need champions. ahmed: the problem is multidimensional and looks like a puzzle. each is the puzzle has its own characteristic. we will not restrict ourselves from going as deep as we can to tackle each link of the change to give proposals and solutions for each piece of the puzzle. my experience in this regard was very humble. also very realistic. we need to take each fees on its own and reengineer it and start

an initiative with the concern to bring together all those pieces come to free the global image of the puzzle. this was done under the leadership of his majesty, who happens to be the commander of the faithful. by the way, that is not only include moslems because morocco has jewish citizens. we are having a christian presence and dealing with this in an open way. we are trying to be as inclusive as we can, because the wisdom of rigidity is not the specificity of one religion. this approach of recognition is crucial to respect. the commander of the faithful ensures the coherence between all those links of the chain

the pieces of the puzzle. so we have choices. those choices are three choices, major ones. the choice of the ritual, the junction between text and context. the junction between text and reason. spirituality, was makes -- which makes it junction between texas spirituality. those choices were successful at the time. they influenced the reason in africa and the middle east regions. the orders -- sufi were raised in morocco. this is part of the vibrant relationship between morocco and

sub-saharan africa. we have five dimensions along with the commander and the faithful. we have a high council of scholars which ensures proximity with citizens and ensures training for the imams. 50,000 of them, twice a month talking with them, discussing with them matters that is worth it. then it is to tackle the fact was -- the prayer, fasting, this is in the books and we are just bringing it up again. if it is not governed in a --

those manner, this may generate some chaos. this is the first dimension between the commander and the faithful. the second dimension is reflection and research. this is ensured by the institution that i have the honor to moderate. we have 15 centers of research and five special units that do research in specific domains such as addiction, violent extremism, and so on, peers education, producing cartoons. we're trying to do something tangible and factual deliverables. the third dimension would be the training of scholars and imams.

i'm talking about the universities and centers and capacities in those domains. the third dimension would be the sufi elders. there is a risky in the region of some institutions that would have a political nature that would use the proximity in the approach of the respects of the centers that the sufi orders infiltrate some other dimensions which would disturb the equilibrium in the region. i am with the opinion that says there should be some mutual respect between those branches of islam and some mutual recognition between those branches of islam, but with the total respect of the

specificities of each one of them. last but not least the final damage and would be the dimension of trying to ensure this coherence and harmony between those components. this is the major role of the commander in the faithful. this is what his majesty faust -- files -- vows to be done in the country. what we can claim is that we are tackling it. we are aware, as my friend said this is quiet intricate. we are confident that we shall overcome. [applause] thank you for your attention. [applause]

>> i would like to switch to our panel discussion. we are delighted to have these two join us. jeanette is a scholar at the middle east program and has the religion working group within the task force on middle east strategy at the atlantic council. she comes from a long and distinguished career in journalism, was the first american journalist posted back in iran since the time of islamic revolution, the author of three books on religion islam, and politics especially that is why prophetic, a decade

before the arab spring on egypt and predicted that. stephen is the executive director for the middle east task force on middle east strategy here the atlantic council. he also comes from a distinguished career at other think tanks as well, and brings us his particular expertise as well. welcome to both of you. i will just turn it over to ge nieve. geneive: thanks to both of you for such wonderful comments and for great insight into what morocco's success story is. i think this event is particularly important because we often hear about the failures of countries to counter violent extremism, and today we are hearing a success story. before i ask a few questions, i just wanted to highlight some of the points that i think were very important that were mentioned by our two prestigious

speakers. one of which is the value of training local scholars, and the whole academic approach to religious interpretation, and i think that is particularly important because here we are 30 years after the evolution of what we know now to be modern political islam. many countries have tried this. we had egypt as the most primary example, where a state has tried to have some sort of association with an institution of religious scholars so that there is some compatibility between what the official interpretation of islam is and what people understand on the street. as was mentioned, the book that i wrote about egypt was actually how the street interpretation of popular islam became more prevalent than actually the states official interpretation

but official orthodoxy of egypt and that is why there was sort of a disconnect between what was the official more moderate interpretation of islam that was being practiced in egypt over 25 years and what was interpreted in the street. i think that this point is very important in the value of trying to, as we say, not control the message, but manage the message. i think it is also important to note that here in the united states actually 10 years ago a group of religious scholars in california began our own seminary in the united states, which is now affiliated with the university of california berkeley. it began from a scholar. he was actually a convert to islam. he was not born moslem. this notion that of training and educating religious scholars i think is a very important one, and obviously morocco is a great

success story. the other point that i think is worth highlighting as her excellency pointed out is that morocco is very successful in reducing the number of foreign fighters that are fighting in iraq and syria. again, this is another success story. we hear about countries, to an easier for example -- tunisia has a high number of fighters who have gone to fight. but morocco has been able to reduce the number of foreign fighters. i just wanted to briefly note a few points that were made. generally speaking, it is very important as he in great detail explained to us, that isis did not develop out of a vacuum. there is a long history. people -- the media has tried to persuade us that this movement developed overnight, that developed out of a vacuum, and

as was eloquently explained, it has a long history. many other islamist movements have developed out of these points that he mentioned. the need for dignity, a desire for unity. what has happened over the last 30 years though is that as these movements have evolved, they have become more violent. they have not only become more violent, but as he pointed out they have tried to return to an originalist sort of school of thought in islam that had been combined with the use of modern technology. and so, it seems a bit of a contradiction, but actually we had seen the evolution of these movements try to return to this originalist school of islamic thought. as he mentioned, that refers to the first three generations of moslems after -- generations of

moslems. this combustion has produced this violent movement, isis. the last point i want to highlight is that this is also not just a sunni phenomenon. in the early days of the air uprisings, many of the clerics in iran, particularly -- they emphasize the islamic awakening. there has always been this feeling among sunnis and shia that there is a need for a pan islamic era that would unify the shia and sunni and would be an islamic waking. unfortunate, that has not happened, and we have seen a. of sick arianism -- unfortunate, that is not happened and we have seen a time of sectarianism.

unfortunately, as a result of the air uprisings, as a result for a question or identity unity, dignity these two communities within the islamic tradition have not come together. i guess the question i would like to begin our discussion with is -- should i turn to you? >> i'll let some questions and we'll go from there. geneive: what do you think it is about morocco that has been able to succeed and achieve this kind of progress that both of you have outlined, that we have not seen in other countries, especially in a country such as egypt, which of course, as you mentioned, has a long tradition of the moslem brotherhood, other islamic groups, can you it's going to us why do you think that morocco is -- has been so

successful? ahmed: sure. i will respond to the question. stephen: thank you for joining us today and for your thoughtful and thorough remarks, and for peter for putting this together and for the deputy foreign minister for her informative comments. as peter alluded to, i am part of a middle east strategy task force at the atlantic council. we are coordinating it and conducting it with other experts in town and around the region. we are trying to look at the entirety of what is going on in the middle east right now, and trying to drive toward some sort of bipartisan consensus on a possible strategic approach going forward. all that is to say, i am in

question mode. what i have for you is a set of questions that we could build upon. the first is that i know you have done such interesting work with imams, such interesting work with the radicalization, including in prisons, prison reform, and i would be interested in hearing a little bit more about that. in particular, what you are most excited about and what you think are sort of best practices that others can adopt, whether here in the middle east, in europe, wherever it might be. the second is, you talked about the need for passion in individuals. that is morocco and other countries are going to counter the narrative of isis, you need independent-minded, very

creative, very resourceful people who are committed to the cause. i guess that is often hard in the region, where politics and religion are so tightly meshed. i wonder if you can speak to that, just to the ability of the imams in particular to be independent voices at a moment like this when politics are so tightly held. and then, it's clear that you have seen some positive things happen in morocco, but i would like to ask you your assessment of what's happening in the rest of the region, if you can be candid about that. where are you seeing promising things happening. where are you concerned. as you look to partners, where are you finding the most interesting partners. we have seen a number of new organizations rise up, just to

mention one, i know in the united arab emirates there is a council of elders. there have been some institutional changes could what institutions are you finding most promising and interesting? where do you see scholars coming together in a meaningful way to try to counter the messages of isis? finally, what is your assessment of the trajectory of isis over the long term. is this something we are going to be confronted with for a long, long time? is this something that will grow bigger rather than smaller in the next decade? what do you see as it's likely shelflife and how long will it remain a problem? thank you. ahmed: thank you for those insightful questions. i will take it from what you said earlier genieve, when you

talked about those nuances between official interpretation of popular interpretation of islam. this is a very crucial item. official islam, because it was carried by functionaries who were there as functionaries, the least i mention was there, but it was not present enough. those institutions of official islam, and the region suffered from several matters. the first of the stigmata of satisfaction. we are there, we are the the scholars of islam and our dimension proves it. the way we pronounce words proves it.

our organization also endorses it. we are there. there is no need for institutions in the previous time to tackle the comprehensions. i would like your to highlight the fact that innovation and renovation was also present in the 1900s when they were tackling this very specific issue when talking about other scholars. there is a need of renewal of the discourse. this did not shake those fixated states of mind enough to generate a change.

it gave some dynamics, but those dynamics were not enough. where the holders of the dream of purity produced some very simple discourse. that was comprehensible. it was accessible by everybody. islam in the 1900. , after the rise of the state and alliance with the descendents, the discourse became very simple. no scholars, no quotations, we can't have direct access to the text, and then we have the authority to interpret the text. there is no need to involve the other sciences of islam. go and you will get it, and you

will have some organizations of big scholars who would assist you if you do fail and who would produce some very accessible booklets. this would not be very hard to understand. this is the islam that has infiltrated populations through cobra midge and through the offered free copies of millions and millions and millions of copies that were there in the region and deducted by the imams , who announced they were willing to go to the extended versions of the books of knowledge of islam, and this was there, and it was a burning issue in daily life. this was the understanding. the first stigmata was this, a fishy à la to.

the second stigmata -- the first stigmata was this, officiality. the institution suffered many sorts of humiliations. it was not as present and respected as it used to be before. the third is with the ottomans in the late 19th century started to combat each other unfortunately, the others were brandishing this fact as well. you are on payrolls. we are independents. we do not depend on any other official institution. we are free minded, and you are

not. this also relinquished some of the credibility of this institution to the fourth stigmata -- this relinquished some of the credibility of this institution. the fourth stigmata was that some of these colors were not the most efficient. the payrolls were very poor. -- the fourth stigmata was that some of these scholars were not the most efficient. so, this was not gender rating -- not generating enough motivation in these institutions, which weakened those institutions and now there is a very crucial need to avoid the waste. i was talking about hundreds of thousands of those officials.

we need some building of capacities and some and in those institutions. why morocco? well, we had a chance to be the far west before those wonderful lands were discovered by the european and asian mind. they existed, and people were here. they were discovered by those minds and cultures in 1492. this position gave us the luxury to witness the waves erecting from the epicenter of the world. they were there somehow. we had the time, and the french

would call it the deconstruction of those concepts that were erupting from the epicenter of the world. we did this as frank sinatra would like to say. we did it our way. [laughter] we made the difference between islam and moslems in morocco we made the difference early because we said that we are welcome in islam, but we are refusing all those dynasties that came afterwards. we have our own dynasties. there was even some extremity in this regard. i do not want to go into details, but we made a difference. this is why the ottomans never came in to morocco. we have our own proper schools of thoughts in morocco.

also, we succeeded solving a very crucial problem in the moslem area, which is the fact that she is and sunnis are having this difference. the descendents of the profit need to be in power. this is a shia condition. for the legitimacy of the power. and the sunnis would not care much about this. in morocco, we made a junction. we have the descendents of the profits in power from centuries ago. this is how it started with the first, and since then, this was the case. we did not lose what was left -- lived in damascus, baghdad, or

the other capitals of the region. this definitely contributed along with the choices i mentioned. they solve some of the problems in the region. i do evaluate very much the atlantic council initiatives which is to approach is a problem in a multidimensional manner to relies that there are links in the chain and pieces of the puzzle and each piece has its own engineering and its own architecture that needs to be tackled on its own. there is this concern of harmony and coherence between all those pieces. the terms that i am talking here about comprehension wise. this goes along with research

and collection of data to be analyzed. this is proficiency you alluded to is very efficient and deathly would make some difference in tackling the extremist issue. i also would like to highlight the facts that we do believe in the deliberation of efforts in morocco. nothing comes easy. we need to construct it from scratch. we need to have the passion to look after it and clean it. and to follow it up.

we cannot just initiate it and then leave it. we need to follow up. for this, at certain points we have been suffering. we lack human resources. we need to make the junctions between those two dimensions. it is hard to find them in one person.

it will be attacked by those who claim the dream of. he. -- the dream of purity. we have to make sure, but this takes some effort. and respect for the people who would do it. and respect for the people who do it. also, those people when we do train them, they have offers from other countries, from other places and very handsome offers. so to conserve them is not very easy. this is another problem we have to tackle as well. they would come from the windows

community. we are in the era of the internet. i can work from a distance and keep up with what you are doing whereas now it needs some daily work. this is why i do come to your second question, which is passionate and visuals. because there is passion in the other sure of the other chess square. passion is very vibrant there. and this is why it is contagious. you cannot face such a passion with a fake attitude.

and imposing an attitude of kong and serenity which serenity is very useful at some point, but well efficiency needs to be was serenity. otherwise, it might be efficiency free, which is not a desired result. one of the wife people of our institution once said, you want to talk to tigers you want to get tigers. we need some good tiger trained scholars to go and talk with those tigers. this is a paradigm shift that needs to be performed. we see this as a disease

incomprehension and an understanding. because they simply are not getting it. they have this very big desire for unity,. he dignity. is there and it's a fact. anybody have the same desire, but this is not the way. and we need to be very good at demonstrating that this is not the way. and give them alternatives. this is the way. and the needs to be on the field to be touchable, tangible and this is what we are trying to do, trying to say it is possible. we are trying to say, look, we are not there yet, but we are getting to it. this is why in morocco, we do approve the senators to come. and once you praise them and

tell them no, you pretend to master the text, and handily and lovingly we need to demonstrate they do not answer the text. we are here to complete this to be able to do that, you need to build society. otherwise, no one will listen to you. who are you to pretend that you will verify my work? this is my previous work was done, to produce others to create initiatives, to present studies and propose solutions for the burning issues. talk about human rights in islam. talk about women's issues in islam. talk about extremism, global warming.

but in a very sound manner that will be recognized, adopted by the masses. once you create this authority and you have a crew of scholars that are charismatic and that do have, minimum in, -- men and women, who are there and are verified to be listened to, then you can start the work. you need to listen to them not to come and impose on. the time of the state imposing on the scholar he is not a scholar, she is not a scholar is over. now it is a tangible authority that needs to be built. then we will have the context.

what are your tools to decipher the context, to understand it and to knows its value engine mentioned? -- its value and mentioned? -- dimensions? then we can talk. but it is a true tango that needs to be danced before commencing those tigers to join the crew. also, the question before last yes, there is hope in the region. because the awareness is there. and we as humans, homo sapiens we have in our views competitiveness. we love to compete.

we love to measure ourselves to others. moroccans are doing so we can do the same. and we love it. seriously, we appreciate it. this is what we are targets in those as well. let's get some true competition over there. then people will measure themselves and look at your participation. this is what we are responding for. in morocco, we do not we -- we do not want to be there redemptoris. we just want to be a part. there are some group rectus is. unfortunately, sometimes they are amalgamations of some

politics. and they are insulting of some of the intelligences. some countries would aspire to in -- two instruments allies -- instrumentalize we need some recognition. why you? why them? it ruins it at some point. this is why we need some psychological companion to make it happen, because it's not very easy to make. it takes some expertise. good things are happening in the region, but there is still some work to do and it takes a very sound realism.

but this should not take away from you hope and confidence. this is another equation to solve. there is indicated version of al qaeda, which is a mutated version of the muslim brotherhood, which is a mutated version of others in the region. you have the movement that is islam, and you have the southern movement, and other movements that are quite alike with the slight difference that those movements claim to contain the

secrets and the knowledge of the prophet. that is the mutation and there are many actors in the region. those have efficiency because of three main factors. the first is this venom of fear that spread in the psyches of the world. in indonesia, they are 30,000, and drop the world, and on the internet -- throughout the world, and on the internet, and you can count millions. we are talking in a world of 7 billion homo sapiens. are we not able to face this? but the venom of fear just stops

you from taking initiative. because you lose over 50% of your capacities. but once this fear becomes rotten fear, then becomes more dangerous to cure. and they are banging on this really relying on that, how to fight away the fear of venom from the psyche. satire works, but we are not very accurate in using satire. these, you could do, -- movies you could do, but they are not spending money in this direction. video games you could do, but they are not doing the job. we are just giving ourselves

this very serious format of discourse, which is not the true arena of this. the first factor is a factor of fear. the second factor is the mastery of technologies. it's like me talking use a microphone -- using a microphone and having an argument with my friend back there without a microphone. i would be heard, whereas she would not be hurt. we need -- would not be heard. we need to provide her with a microphone. empowerment is a solution to this building of capacities. and for this, we need to engage. new dynamics, this would convince people who are professional in this domain to join. and i think that the white house summit that happened last month

-- last month, yes, as a matter of fact, triggered some of those initiatives. the third factor is the counter narrative. the counter narrative is very important. it tackles the content dimension. we need to be able to do so. these are the characteristics of the joint project that you all aspire to, and i would like to congratulate the atlantic council for having triggered these initiatives from those layers and commentary perspective. thank you. cracked before turning and opening up -- >> before turning and opening up for discussion,

just one additional question for you, dr. abadie. one of the conditions that you have outlined is essentially prophylactic, trying to prevent the spread of violent extremist ideologies, or perhaps to counter the argument. there are unfortunately, it however small a number, those who have gone to the other side. and you have given us hope that at some point in the future they will be defeated and then we have these people and we cannot jail them all. one aspect of what barack has been doing -- first, i would invite you to say a few words about what to do about reintegrating those who have gone over, converting them back if you will. a hero ago, his majesty went over to tangier and the mohammed

saw the, who many people do not know used to pray to the group that the 9/11 attackers went to. could you talk about bringing back these people? dr. abadie: thank you. i would like to come back to one question. the seeds are here and those three dimensions need to be inserted to stop the spreading of those seats. because the growing process is there. and especially as minister -- the minister said if we do not grow the other dimensions, economic military, and other dimensions -- humanitarian, and

other dimensions to stop the process. but the seeds are there and they will spread, unless there is more efficiency, a more appealing reality that would rise and give other venues to this. reintegration is capital, of course. this is what i was alluding to what i said tigers need to be recruited to talk to tigers. this is what i said when i said that we need to proceed to a paradigm shift to counter this phenomenal disease that we can cure, because it is a disease incomprehension and understanding and approach. we need to present, like when you are trying to prove that water is polluted, you need to produce some pure water in exchange.

this water should be delicious. it should be all of the characteristics that will allow the picking up of this initiative. we in morocco are inspired about what is happening in the science field. the most efficient agents to combat addiction were the former addicts. those people have the conviction to do the combating of addiction. they were the most efficient. it is the same with former foreign fighters. i do recommend that we want professionals that would work with those people, rather than just put them in jail. we definitely need to extract the network and the names to

prevent dangers. but we also need this work to be done as well. and they would be efficient. this is what you have witnessed in morocco with many of those former foreign fighters in morocco. this is just one example. we have some other examples undercover who operate very efficiently in this field as well. this definitely takes the development that it would allow. once you experience a former addict and the training provided to those people are not the simplest, but they are very fruitful. it is worthy to invest in this direction. >> thank you. let's open it up to questions, not just for dr. abadie, but miss abdo and dr. grant.

please wait for the microphone to come to you. >> hello, thank you so much for your comments and for the information you are giving us today. i'm from american university. my students are here. i have a question, because you mentioned a religious education reeducation counter narrative, but what has that done in terms of economic empowerment -- but what have we done in terms of economic empowerment and redevelopment? you mentioned the young people being drawn to violent groups suggest, you don't have a job, come work for us. can you explain more specifically what could be done in terms of economic empowerment for both women and men in morocco? also, how does the rule of the

change, or what project has been done in morocco in the past years? also, my third question, sorry about funding. we know a lot of funding goes to groups such as isis, or comes to countries through the internet into different organizations in different countries. can you tell me what you are done to make sure it is not being channeled through morocco? -- what you have done to make sure it is not being channeled through morocco? dr. abadie:: on behalf of my students and a buddy, you have made my day. everybody is important but students definitely hold the future. in morocco after two or three, his majesty, the king, issued in

the new initiative, which is a national initiative. this initiative started in the most deprived areas of the nation. there were areas in various cities, and they were very important fronts for this issue. if you ask my opinion how it was governed, i would frankly say not in the most perfect manner. but it started. it didn't go as it should be going. this is why a new great responsible lady was appointed

by his majesty to follow up, along with the observatory that was initiated for this purpose to make the follow-up in detail and to make this money be spent on virtual projects. it has taken also some energy and some work but the process is there, and the awareness is there. we have witnessed that there is an amalgamation of the facts. architecture is one of the factors. when you build cities or waters without playgrounds, without gardens, without green space this generates frustration. human need to be in proximity with beauty.

as a matter of fact, this is the bottom-line of any religiosity beauty and happiness. some form of frustration, anger, it means it was not aligned in the proper way. this dimension that i mention of beauty -- the dimension of beauty is to allow a decent style of life, decent education and decent prosperity. it is realistic, yet optimized and for use in some service of this dimension. young people need to play. they need to have fun. they need to learn. they need to interrupt, and we

need to assist them with this. but making it therefrom, not dictating what needs to be done. -- but making it bears, not dictating what needs to be done. -- making it theirs, not dictating what needs to be done. there is a wonderful lady once again, who is doing a wonderful job in this regard. the work is started and we are trying to do our best. funding for that, of course economic intelligence is one of the forms of efficiency in any

approach. if we lack this form of intelligence, it's very dangerous. and this is why in morocco we have had some questions about flow and the change of flow. you are aware that three years ago a commission was launched to reform justice and the system of justice. this is a great work, of course. but we have had some texts about combating terrorism and about having the right to follow the data in that accounts and so on to discover their activities. and i can say that we have dismantled some initiatives that funded al qaeda before, and now it is not there in morocco.

>> thank you very much. i am with the moroccan american center. i think you have made clear today in your presentation at what we really have here is a battle of ideas at the end of the day. i fear there is a certain skepticism, both in the united states and in europe, about the prospect of winning this battle of ideas, in part, because i believe it is not very visible to the people here in the u.s. or in europe. -- or in europe what it is the people in the muslim world are doing themselves to take on this battle of ideas. if you share that point of view, what do you think can be done to provide some encouragement to the people in the u.s. and in europe that indeed, you are tackling this battle of ideas at home? dr. a bodbadi: simply to say, to

extend the invitation for someone to come and see the process. it is definitely based on training, on time investment and money investment, and also engineering of the purchase because you cannot conduct an approach that would take from you as an individual 250 years and conducted in an effective way. governance has all of the same things. it is a crucial dimension. it is why we are talking about person-years and a work that

would be delivered may be in one year without taking 300 person-years. because then it was done by many who collaborated and gave birth to the product. the government dimension is very important. government definitely indicates the less it's the -- the necessity to know how to after questions. and we need some verification system and processes to verify if the questions are really rightly posed. because sometimes you can pose a wrong question and will work on providing an answer to it and it will take from you years, and maybe millions of dollars without any results.

this link, which is how to pose the questions, is very crucial. talking about ideas. what made them very appealing is that they came to those three things dignity humanity, and purity, and hijacked them. a geographical, tangible, factual piece of land using all in the region to market that they are doing it while providing unity and peer the -- purity and that this is islam without hypocrisy. those are the ideas at the end of the day. so we need to provide counterbalances as well. and this definitely passes

through asking the right questions and having the decent, efficient capacities to answer those questions. then implementation-wise this definitely takes some channels. because to communicate an idea -- in think tanks, we talk about making it neat. you cannot just produce an idea and then leave it on the shelves. you need to market it. and to market it, you need to have logistics disposal to do so , and it takes some ideas. this cannot stand the capacity of the world, the free world. the muslim world could be a partner in this. but we need to be aware of the fact that those are, at the end of the day ideas that are invading psyches of young

desperate youngsters and of course my candidates to be recruited by those ideas. -- and of course, candidates to be recorded by those ideas. cracked many mcdaniel and i'm a student at new york university. i don't know about asking the same question as the person before me, but in a non-muslim country, such as the u.s. or other european nations how do you combat the number -- the rising number of fighters going to iraq to join? because you mentioned morocco has a lot of social programs to help educate young scholars and imams, but how do we translate that to a country that doesn't necessarily have a muslim

background or system in their country? dr. -- dr. abaddi: thank you for this very timely question. this requires another counterintuitive. the context is different. -- counter narrative. the context is different. but it definitely passes through this course that is being -- the discourse that is being eyed opted by those who recruit these people. they use guilt for this. they will talk about colonialism. they will talk about the invasion of the west to the rest of the world. and that you come as free citizens of the west, you need to do your mea culpa and join and serve in the ranks of freedom soldiers to free the world.

we need to demystify such discourse and produce counter narratives. this would definitely face those items that are used to recruit youngsters from the west as well. >> and the challenge now also is the power of social media. if you look even recently at these young teenagers who went to turkey to join crisis in syria. they were informed by social media. it is a big problem. as you point out, social media has no parameters. there is no real way to control it. there is a big discussion even in the private sector of trying to shut down twitter accounts. and as was mentioned, it's not just isis. it's all sorts of other nonstate

actors who have really active social media accounts. they have millions of followers. some and saudi arabia have 12 million followers. it is almost uncontrollable, unfortunately. but it is through this kind of messaging, and as he was running out, how do you counterbalance that? -- as he was pointing out, how do you counterbalance that? because your microphone is much more powerful than anybody else's, but a big problem is with social media. but of course. of course. >> thank you -- dr. abaddi: of course. of course. >> thank you for your cooperation. i would like to ask about what you call about this intellectual to fight the ideology. i do agree with you that it is

not enough for a tiger to war if you cannot -- to roar if you cannot be heard through social media. what is being done to close this gap in social media? dr. abaddi: of course, to your second question, it is computer engineering simply. we need units of computer engineering in all the universities through the world to be aware of those challenges. and definitely look again at their programs to fit the new changes and the new context. it is professional work. yes, passion is omnipresent in all of the initiatives, butt it is professional. and it needs to be funded and

reengineered to respond to those challenges. of course, the element of appeal is crucial here. you can have the most professional people in the world of social media, but if the discourse is not appealing, it will not do. you can have some very simple tools and moderate, and yet appealing. it will not be sufficient if they are not appealing. as to the first part of your question, i cannot prevent -- pretend that now in the region there is some serious words about deconstructing the discourse and the counter narratives as much as we would hope it to be. but at least we are doing our share of the work. at least let's say it's

possible. for the very efficient american slogan, "yes, we can." >> thank you very much dr. abaddi:. i work with common ground and we partner with you and morocco and very much share the perspective that you are bringing today. when we use this word counter narrative, we are often mistaking it for a narrative that is trying to demonize the other side. that is what is so refreshing with what you are saying, that it is about attracting the people and trying to respond to real need for dignity and unity etc. my question is, how can we continue this effective work in a context where other actors acting in the same environment are choosing to use violent or kinetic force and actually

further demonizing and inadvertently contributing to the narrative that attracts more people to these groups? how do we continue and ensure there is effectiveness in what we are doing to address these causes juxtaposed with other actors that are using violent force? dr. abaddi: thank you. success has a tremendously delicious taste. once you taste it, we get addicted to it. with such mega initiatives, we definitely need to generate some samples to be tasted. and just by the stages of the job, the work come and make it possible to take the outcomes of what you are doing. -- the work, and make it possible to taste the outcomes

of what you're doing. you just let it grow and grow without presenting samples to be tasted, then it will be very hard to continue and to persevere. this is why the approach should be based on this, to make it possible to evaluate and to measure through indices and indicators how successful we were in tackling the issue. this is what provides sustainability in tackling the job. >> thank you very much. please join me in thanking not just dr. abaddi: but dr. grand and miss abdo for their time with us today. [applause]

collect the last metaphor of taste, if there is any out there, there should be some moroccan delicacies outside if there are any left. please, do enjoy. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] collect today, an encore presentation of q&a with journalist ntb news reporter and compton. she talks about her 40 when your career covering the white house and shares her personal experiences reporting on presidents ford to obama. she was the only tv reporter with george w. bush on september 11, 2001 and she recalled how the days events unfolded. she recalls that on monday on c-span2. also california representative

norma torres. she spoke about a range of issues, including how money and politics make it difficult or ordinary people to run for office. here is a look. representative torres: it is incredibly hard to get here. the money involved in politics makes it almost impossible for someone like me. i'm an average mom from the mona p --omona. it's incredible that i made it this far, but here i am. >> why did you decide to seek office? rep. torres: i answer the call as a dispatcher of a little girl who died at the hands of her uncle. it pushed me into a literal world that, friendly, i did not know existed. >> just some of our profile looking at congressional freshmen and california democrat

norma torres. you can watch the entire thing tonight at 9 p.m. eastern here on c-span. and after that, a panel of american indians discussed the stereotyping in their culture in sport and society. we will hear from the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against the washington redskins, and an advocate seeking to eliminate thousands of mascots with native american imagery. -- american indian imagery. that is a 9:30 p.m. tonight on c-span. >> this sunday, the senior editor for the weekly standard andrew ferguson, on his writing career, the gop candidate for 2016, and what voters are looking for in a candidate. andrew ferguson: they want family who looks like he has stood up for them. i'm amazed now the degree to which primary voters on all sides are motivated by resentment, and a sense of being

put upon. those people don't understand us -- "those people don't understand us." here is a guy who understands us and he is going to stick it to them. hillary clinton will give her own version of that kind of thing. i don't think i was actually true 30 years ago. resentment has always been part of politics, but the degree to which it is almost exclusively the motivating factor in truly committed republicans and democrats. >> sunday night on c-span q&a at 8 p.m. eastern and pacific. >> earlier today, the national press club hosted a discussion looking at the policy implications regarding hillary clinton's e-mail account while serving as secretary of state. we heard recommendations about improving the freedom of information act as well as record-keeping.

this is an hour. >> good morning, everybody. we had a very distinguished panel here today to focus and talk about the hillary clinton e-mails that started in the media and is continuing to be the focus point. and if you go to press.org, you can get all the details of the national press club.

if you're not a member, consider becoming a member because we have more than 3000 members all over the world. with that, let me introduce our panel. mr. jason baron. everybody knows he is a friend , of our press club. we have missed patrice. -- ms. patrice, miss liz and mr. tom. he has written the book and has brought it with him. let me start with mr. baron with his opening remarks.

jason: privileged to be here. on march 3, the new york times published a story about ms. clinton and i was quoted as saying "it is difficult to perceive a scenario short of nuclear winter where agency would be justified to allow this officer to solely use private e-mail communications channels for the conduct of government business." when i was first informed by mr. schmid of the new york times of the allegations regarding clinton's use of a private e-mail server, i was incredulous . whatever the original motive may have been that led former secretary of state clinton to adopt the use of a private server for government business, it was -- presumes -- inconsistent with the

long-standing policies and record act that presumes that agencies set up record-keeping controls -- adequate record-keeping controls to ensure that will be documentation of the activity of the agency. the average employee and average high-level official implicitly understands that these rules exist and do not need too much in the way of instruction. their daily communications on matters of official business are conducted using approved government networks. the 2009 narrow regulations that were in effect during worst of test during most of ms. clinton's 10 year allowed for -- ms. clinton's tenure allowed for cases. but only to an extent. agencies that allow employees to send him receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record-keeping system. up until march 3, 2015, i would've imagined that two

aspects of this regulation were understood -- that few aspects of this regular sugar understood by officers and government. first -- that steps agencies -- that the regulation was intended where it might occasionally be used for records. that steps agencies second, must take to ensure that e-mail records sent or received on a private system are making sure that all records are forwarded and preserved into an appropriate record-keeping system. no later than the date on which the employee or the official exits government. not 18 months later, not at a time to be determined at the discretion of the agency employee or official. the fact that the 2014 amendment to the federal records act set an outside time of 20 days to forward e-mail help to clarify government policies and put an express date into fashion.

-- in the statute. but it would be wrong to think that the policies in place during the first obama administration allow for any cabinet official to privately maintain tens of thousands of government records in his or her possession for months or years after exiting government. i am glad that a substantial number of e-mails, 30,000 or so, have now been returned into government custody. i remain mystified by the fact that the use of a private e-mail account apparently went unnoticed or unremarked upon during a four-year tenure in office of the former secretary. simply put where was everyone? , is there any record indicating that any lawyer, any records person, any high-level official ever respectfully confronted the former secretary with reasonable questions about the practice of sending e-mails from a private account? it is unfathomable to me that this would not have been noticed and reported up the chain or

reported to the state inspector general during all of this time. in my view, there has been an institutional failure to challenge what amounted to -- what became a strained and unreasonable reading of existing policies. we will get into the important directive and other measures that are outstanding to try to improve government during the remainder of this hour but that is my opening statement. host: let's go to the ladies. patrice: i'm patrice mcdermott. tom is one of the founding directors of our coalition. i am the executive director of openthatgovernment.org. the coalition works to make government more open, get better access to government information and push back on secrecy. when i first came to washington, i worked at the national

archive. when i left the archives to go to omb watch which has now changed names, one of the first people i got to know was tom blanton. at the national security archive. you were at carnegie building at that point. brookings. brookings. this was right around the time of the armstrong case, which was about how electronic records how e-mail records were supposed to be handled in the government. i think a lot of our problems date back to that case. we can go into that in more detail. i think the key, because the government was told how to handle e-mail but it was not told how to handle it same way as correspondence or memos or other files that were created by the government. not by the office of the person that created. -- that created them.

i think this case has -- that was more shocking than it was to jason has highlighted and really broken loose the problem that exists across big government. that problem is that very few agencies, if any, are managing their e-mail in any sort of record-keeping system. they are not managing it systematically. this has been a problem for many years. i can talk about reports that were done and works that the archives did in the late to thousands -- the late 2000's. to get agencies to self assess on this. it is stunning but it is not isolated. it did not begin in this administration. it goes back through all of the administrations that have been on e-mail. it goes back to the managing of our electronic records, not just e-mail correspondence.

we were all as shocked as jason and as disturbed but it has served as a salutary moment to force government to actually look at what they are doing. i think the pressure is going to be on all of us to keep that attention focused. it is going to drift away all too soon. host: thank you. liz: i'm with arma international , a professional membership association that serves those in the records and information management and governments community. we are a membership of 27,000 individuals. a large portion of those are in the united states. i'm their director for government affairs insomuch that

arma believes good information policy ought to be throughout all organizations. we also follow issues within the federal government. we believe the federal government has the ability to be a catalyst for good information governance practices throughout our nation. when we look at federal practices as they currently stand, we see there are holes. as far as it relates to the issue of secretary clinton's e-mails, it is not that surprising. it is not surprising because the government has used insufficient approaches to information governance, as patrice mentioned. what i mean by that an example , would be e-mail records are records. they are not electronic records. they are records if they have

the information that ought to be kept. until the government looks systematically at the way they preserve their information and look at information holistically, these issues will continue to pop up. it is our hope that this example -- and there have been many examples in 2014. secretary clinton is not the first secretary of state who has managed their e-mail in a way that we would look at as insufficient, meaning that those should all be within an e-mail capture system and looked at holistically. what that tells us is, the government of to this point, has -- up to this point, have holes in how they manage information. it is our hope that we can help from the private sector help the government as they bring best practices up to speed. to that degree in january, and jason is part of this on his

work on information governance initiatives. igi. we have announced that we have come together as a coalition with six other -- five other organizations -- our hope in the coalition is that we can support the government's efforts to bring their records management practices up to speed and bring our private sector know-how into the government and not just the government but for federal practitioners who are doing this work that are challenged every day with insufficient funding and support. it is our hope that we could make a small dent as our government looks at governance practices.

host: thank you. tom: i'm tom blanton, the director of the national security archives and the author of that book. title "white house e-mail." it is, i should remind you, 20 years old. it has a little floppy disk in the back of everything that was cut from my book by my editors which i insisted had to be published so we put it on a disk . you now cannot buy a computer that can read that little disk which is a part of the challenge of preserving e-mail. i want to disagree with jason as i've been doing so for 25 years, ever since we appeared in court against jason who was representing the government in our lawsuit to save white house e-mails. i would say that the scandal is not a private server. the scandal is the state of government e-mail record-keeping.

that is this gamble, because the -- that is the scandal because the silver lining of the entire issue is missing. without mrs. clinton's private server, state.gov likely not have saved any or a mere fraction of the 30,000 e-mails she has turned over. that is how bad the e-mail record-keeping system is. from my point of view, that is the headline of this issue. when you ask, using a private server, that is terrible practice, i agree. it is terrible practice. the problem is, everybody does it. 88 staff members president george w. bush used private national committee servers to run their accounts. colin powell used aol.com for his e-mail, not state.gov. governor jeb bush of florida who has posted online over 100,000 of his e-mails as governor, it turns out those were all hosted on a private server in the

governor's office that mr. bush took with him when he left office. private servers are what everyone has done. it is actually against the law. you should not do it. it is bad practice, but everybody does it. my bet is that mrs. clinton asked, what did everybody do and said, we will do that. why did she get away with that? that is the tougher question. where were the watchers? it is the lesson of our original lawsuit. our first director, scott armstrong, armstrong the clinton -- armstrong versus clinton, that is more we wanted in 1993. -- armstrong, for who the suit is named. that is when we won it in 1993. over 30 million e-mails. present george w. bush, --

they jumped the archiving system. we brought a new lawsuit. national sakura -- national survey archive and crew against george w. bush. against another president, a guy named obama. the obama white house put in an archiving system so the white house is practically the only agency in the entire federal government that say's it e-mail -- saves its e-mail electronically even though the courts ruled against jason's best efforts that e-mail not only were records but if you did not save it electronically, if you saved it printing and filing which is what the national archive's policy was for 25 years, it degraded the record. now, we're in a situation where all those printed and filed e-mails, of which no one knows how many exist. we have had some produced in free information requests and so forth.

as files are now going to have to be -- the taxpayer is going to pay for them to be re-digitized and uploaded into electronic systems. what you had is a dereliction of duty by the national archives of the united states by every agency had, including mrs. clinton when she was secretary of state. it was her responsibility to see that records were saved. that is the scandal. host: thank you. we can see that we have some great journalists here. before i open the floor to q and a, i would like you to mention your name, your organization and

be loud and clear. please no opinion pieces here. just stay with the questions. >> i'm charlie clark with government executives media group. could you talk about mrs. clinton's attorney. he has asserted that no laws were violated. could you analyze his arguments. ? jason: it is clear there has been inconsistent action with the underlying expectations of the federal records act and the narrow regulations in several respects. good lawyers can attempt to parse language well. the 2009 regs say that e-mails have to be kept in an appropriate record-keeping system. everyone understood that to mean by the time that an individual -- either contemporaneously

sends the messages or by the last day in office of that individual. there is an inconsistency with the regs. the fact that 30,000 or so e-mails have been sent back cures the defect in substantial part but there are questions about whether we have gotten all of them and whether the actions were appropriate at the time. the larger point -- i agree with much of what time says -- i

think all of us in government have treated the e-mail with -- effectively that it is like around holiday, the movie with -- groundhog day, the movie with bill murray. every day waking up, the government has adjusted. we hoped that individuals throughout government would comply with what are in the code offender regulations. what we all came to believe is that we have a large compliance problem, much in agreement with tom. we needed to move forward. i'm happy that we have this forum here. what i did not get to but want to emphasize to everyone here is that the obama administration has done something significant. in 2011, president obama issued a managing government records

memorandum to all executive agencies saying that we live in a technological era. we have to get smarter about federal record-keeping. he drowned the gauntlet -- he threw down the gauntlet and it issued the managing governor -- governments directive. by december 31, 2016, all federal agencies must manage their e-mail in an accessible electronic format. no more print to paper as the default policy that tom and i, patrice and liz, we all get it. it is difficult for people to comply with and do it on more

than an occasional basis. the managing of electronic e-mail will be the first priority in that directive. the second, by december 31st 2019, all federal agencies need to begin ensuring that permanent records of the u.s. government are in a digital or electronic format so they can be added to the national archives. no more paper on a day forward basis going into the national archives after 2019. on records created after the end of this decade, they are expected, if they are appraised as permanent under records schedules, they will be in digital or electronic format. that is an inflection point in the history of archives. a very big deal for this administration to put forward. there are hundreds of thousands of people that will be affected by these policies who create

permanent records in government. the last point i want to make is that the capstone policy at the national archives has put forth is a step forward beyond print to paper or the failed methods of the past. what the capstone policy, if implemented by agencies by december 31 2016 will say, the top level of e-mail communications from senior government officials will be presumptively decreed to be permanent with everyone else's e-mails saved or captured for some period of time. recently, a drafted general records schedule into terms. you will have a permanent set of e-mails that would include mrs. clinton's e-mails if she had used inappropriate system and every cabinet official would be captured under a capstone policy. these are good developments. i would like to think that the obama administration should be applauded for their steps forward in recognizing something beyond the veil policies of the past.

patrice: i think one of the major problems since 1995 has been the adoption of the trust but do not verify. the projection -- beep resumption has been that agencies will do what the r egs said and would do it appropriately. that has not happened. there were studies done that the current archivist asked for from the agencies in the late to thousands -- in the late 2000 costs. 's. these agencies assessed that 90% of the records were at risk of loss. they stopped doing that after a few years. i absolutely agree that the steps that this white house took with the archives are significant. it took a lot of struggle to get them there. we have been told with regard to for you and other things by this administration that when we complain to them about what is happening with foya, they say

these directives are not self implementing. that is the problem. the statute that was passed in november, the directives, the capstone's are not going to be self implementing. it is going to take oversight to make sure that agencies actually address these problems. they are significant problems. jason is right that the capstone proposal, i urge all of you to take a look at it, would allow agencies to designate top officials whose e-mail would be presented we saved. -- presumptively saved. in my community it was huge, the proposal that the cia put forward. out of 22,000 officials, they

need 20 whose e-mail would be saved permanently. that not only got our community up in arms, it got members of the intelligence committee up in arms because the senate torture report, the executive summary, was heavily reliant on those e-mails. the ones they were able to get access to. the director of modern records went through the executive summary. he may have had access to the full report. line by line and made note of

what was important. they asked cia to withdraw -- that is the risk. that somebody has to be paying attention. the openness community tries. it is something the white house, nora, the ig's and the press need to be paying attention to. this is in the weeds. it is generally not something that gets people's attention. this is history. at risk of going away. liz: from the perspective of those in the information governance community, what i think is important is to drill down into -- it is not just agencies that -- it is not an

issue that nara ought to have done something differently. there continues to be a barrier to focusing on information governance holistically. what nara has been doing his groundbreaking for the government. imagine a private organization saying everyone's e-mail has to be retained by printing it and then we're going to file it. anyone in the private sector would say that is not a good use of our resources. it technically eliminates a lot of the information through metadata in terms of best practices. it is hard to get the ship righted. we are getting there. i can speak for a number of records and information practitioners i have spoken with , it is hard for them to get attention. it is hard for them to talk to their superiors, let alone their

ig's or the heads of those agencies and impress on them the importance of their work. it is largely gone unnoticed. it is a battle for people within the agencies to do the job they are hired to do because it is not something that has been looked at as important until secretary clinton's e-mails come to issue or the issues we saw -- the interests with the irs or the epa. pemex a good news headline and that brings to light -- that makes a good headline and it brings to light issues we have faced for a long time. until we pay more attention to this issue, we will see secretary clinton's coming up again. we will see these headlines. why haven't things changed? the directive goes a long way in doing that. one of the items that jason had not mentioned was the office of personal management was asked to put out a job classification series for those doing federal work. this is way in the weeds but it

represents an important mile marker in that the federal government is recognizing that their federal employees are doing a specific job that requires specific skill sets and a specific knowledge base. can you imagine being qualified as administrative and other duties when you are actually trying to put together an e-mail retention schedule or policies? you're not even recognized in terms of an hr perspective as having specific skill sets. that is what up to this point has happened. they are small strides but good strides. representatives cummings' bill that changed fra took us leaps and bounds. they allowed us to look at -- electronic records as physical records. we were looking at definitions of records from the 1950's. the way our industry has worked in the private sector has changed in the last month, the last year, the last five years. the federal government had not kept up as they were barriers because it is not something you look at.

is not that sexy. it is in the weeds. everyone here is now wondering what other private practices for their organizations and that their inboxes probably too full. it is a challenge that will keep coming up until our government has the resources and empowers those who are doing it not only with changes to regulations but also funding. the state department does not have, to my knowledge, and electronic e-mail capture system. most agencies do not. it is very expensive to put that in. it takes a lot of work to do that. if you're going to implement capstone, it is taking them seven to eight years to graduate into making sure that is an entire policy throughout their agency.

you wish you it is a lot of work and it is a skill set. it is money. until we look at those and have our agency inspector generals and heads of agency focus on it, we will keep talking on it. i welcome the opportunity to keep talking about it, but i hope not.

host: there was one interesting word that got mentioned. as a journalist, that is one thing we are looking forward to. foia. we need information. i would ask tom and jason, what do they think is the present condition about these requests at the state department and other government agencies? if there are some specific people whose e-mails are permanently kept and the rest destroyed, how do we get an honest answer to and foia request? tom: president nixon's secretary fell on her sword and took responsibility for an 18.5

minute gap in one of the key watergate tapes. she said she accidentally had her foot on the pedal of the transcription machine while she reached over her left shoulder to pick up the phone for a phone call and that produced the gap. for government e-mail, we will have a 30 year gap in the historical record. the white house, national security council used e-mail six the medically starting in 1985 -- systematically starting in 19 85. the total numbers and volume are getting enormous. only a few hundred thousand individual messages saved from the reagan years. the white house has become the gold standard for saving because of a series of lawsuits. at every other agency, and let's just look at the state department. i have so much sympathy for the

project director who tried to get it going. an e-mail archiving system. the acronym is smart. the smart system. he probably worked years to get this thing into place and come up to a standard that instead by state department's regulations in 1995 in reaction to my book i'm sure. the reality when the state department went into look at that smart system to see how much is being saved, he concluded practically nothing. this contradicted mrs. clinton's statements that she sent most of her state.gov e-mails so they would be saved. the system was not working. the inspector general tried to figure out, why weren't people using the smart system. it might've been because mrs. clinton was not using the smart system. that comes back to charlie's first question, did mrs. clinton break the law? the hard answer to the question is, yes and no. it is a hard answer. it is no because there was no prohibition on use of a private server.

as jason recognizes, moving those 30,000 e-mail messages to state addresses -- begins to cure this deficit. the answer is, yes broke the law because the federal records act has been around for decades and it puts the responsibility on the head of every agency to have a record system that saves its historically valuable records. ms. clinton did not do that. there is going to be a 30 year gap in the record. jason: let me address the foia

aspect of this. the fact that e-mails were sent to a.gov address begs the question of, which.gov address. if there is a.gov address at state, we did talk about it before you officer would be asking enough questions to make sure state response by searching the e-mail addresses of users in state. if the.gov address that was used went to a different agency, a foia respect to the state department would not capture that.gov. it would be a.gov someplace else.

one would need to file a foia request with that other e agency -- with that other agency. there is a four yeah -- a four ia dimension of this controversy which is important. the foia offices are not leaders in technology. what we need is to have a high-level conversation, what we in the private sector call information governance. to have a conversation with government senior executives officials, people who are like a cio, a cfo of agencies, to empower foia offices with the tools to do adequate searches across all of the e-mail that exists on networks. the capstone policy factors into a better foia world in the future. if agencies were capturing all of the high level e-mails of individual officers in government as permanent records, that would be a repository that a foia requester would expect

the officer to go to. the officer would know, we have a capstone repository for e-mail. we should start there with respect to government records. if agencies are saving everyone's e-mail for some period of time, whatever the bottom line is, and then temporary e-mails are disposed of for all of the non-capstone accounts, at least one could file a request and have confidence that for some period of time, all e-mail could be searched. we need to have repositories in place. we need to have better search tools. i've been on the soapbox in the legal space for the last 15 years to make sure that lawyers understand that there are smarter tools to do searching across digital objects. we should have that conversation in government as it goes forward to improve foia. if you improve record-keeping actresses, you get a leg up -- practices, you get a leg up to respond to legitimate foia

requests. host: next question. >> mining is bill earle. a former federal cfo. the buzz it -- the budget is not there to do what you are talking about. when we would go to congress and asked for money to fund the four oia office, we were regularly shut down. the question for you and the panel is, we're talking about e-mails, which in some ways is an archaic form of communicating these days. people are communicating by text messages now. they're talking to syria and having that transcribed into messages of various types. -- they are talking to siri and having that transcribed into

messages of various types. i think the other parallel is the body cameras on police officers. now police officers respond -- a body camera on the police officer, will we have a himofficer, will we have a microphone on people to record conversations as well? i think the body camera records

conversations, not just video. does that get extended to every federal employee to capture that interaction? host: thank you for that question. i will let tom or jason say a few words. jason: you are right that we are in a world of social media beyond e-mail. there are billions of e-mails sent in the government. it is still an important means of communication although there are others. the federal records act applies no matter what the application is, whether it is social media tweeting, messages, video. if it is appropriate for preservation as government business, it is a temporary record or federal record. the government needs to figure out ways of preserving not

e-mail digital communications. as for the cost point, this is a conversation we could have off-line. there is a tremendous push in this administration for cloud computing. my challenge to every federal agency is, if you are getting on the train to do cloud computing, putting e-mail of the mccloud and lots of data in the cloud, you could build in record management considerations on the front end of those procurements. it can be done at minimal cost in the delta. the extra cost to a cloud computing environment is relatively modest. i agree that there are costs

involved but it is not as much as you think. tom: to further that point, we give and award every year made after rosemary woods. we give it to agencies for the worst open government performance. this year, the repeat winners were the chief information councils of the government. $81 billion a year of our money on information services hardware systems and the like. if they do not bake in, as jason says, their legal requirements of preserving and accessing freedom of information requests, we are wasting money. they are wasting our money. we have to do that. there is 20 of money to do this. you have to -- there is plenty of money to do this.

if you do it on the front end, you can maintain for long-term. of the same thing will have to be done with social media and tweets. i would add one piece of the puzzle. it is a huge universe but the reality today with the cost of computer storage declining and the power of search engines increasing, we are in a place -- i used to make a joke, there was an old magazine called soldiers of fortune. it had a bumper sticker, kill them all, let god sort them out. fascinating idea for records management, save them all and let the algorithms figure it out. it is not hard to manage it