any clinician that would say it's medically necessary you terminate this pregnancy for whatever reason. it could be a genetic abnormality or chromosomal or a congenital defect or even a and and severally, for example, uses that. we don't say they are going to die after they are born. there are women who choose to terminate. afterthe patient's choice a fully informed decision making process. in time for her to process that. >> we have time for one more question back here.

>> thank you so much. one of the questions i wanted to ask is about making sure women have the information they need. having access to contraception. it is more of a technical one. guidelines for women that are exposed or that are testing positive for zika. when they might give information about potential problems for the fetus. they had been saying 28 to 30 weeks is when they might be able to. i was wondering if you could comment on the state of the research, when women are getting information. or is it really just dependent on an individual pregnancy.

>> there is no answer to your question. they are presumably infected in the first trimester. it is a wide range. report. one case the fetus was severely affected. the councilwoman. third --kely likelihood of that, how long it

might take to develop. >> it would be difficult even in insurance context. how does it get paid for. and i think that is also what we have to bear in mind.

>> there are guidelines asking women to get tested. insurance coverage has also been an issue. aboutl continue to talk this issue and i thank everyone for being here today. dr. mullen.to thank we will think of new analysis around how zika will disproportionately impacts low income communities. thank you all for being here. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its

caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> a couple of live events to tell you about this afternoon. starting at 2:15 p.m. eastern , government officials look at the president's new plan for how government will respond to cyber threats. obama is celebrating his 55th birthday today. and much of the day at the pentagon meeting with military officials.

and c-span's road to the white house coverage continues friday at noon eastern time. atarks from hillary clinton the annual meeting for the national association of black analyst. it continues friday evening in green bay wisconsin with a donald trump rally that gets underway. responding to local radio. donald trump said he was not ready to endorse paul ryan in his primary battle.

ryan dismisses trumps non-endorsement. he swiped back on thursday. the nominees endorsement to win the primary essay that trump has had a pretty strange run. it wisconsin talk show. the endorsements i want are the ones of my own employers. promising to stand up. let's take a look at that. >> what do you think about trump? i don't care for him much and i

certainly don't trust him. i'm a marine. country comes first. i will hold you accountable. >> and news that the former ohio congressman died yesterday at the age of 62. environment, transportation, housing. steve latourette dying at the age of 62. the man replacing the congressman last night, lost a

friend and the region lost a titan of public service. god rest, my friend. you will be missed. he replaced him. protecting national security, classified information. looking at the people, the presidency and the press. it is one hour and 10 minutes. >> he was executive editor of the washington post from 1991 to 2008. , he won 2517 years

pulitzer prizes. a premier global advisory firm. michael hayden is part of the premier global advisory firm. he served as the director of central intelligence from 2007-2000 nine. he was responsible for overseeing all information concerning the plants, contingents and capabilities of america's adversaries reducing timely analysis for decision makers and conducting covert operations to thwart terrorists and other enemies of the states. jill abramson is an author, lecturer, and teacher. she spent 17 years in the senior the turtle positions with the new york times. managing editor and executive editor. before joining the times she was deputy washington bureau chief and investigative reporter covering money and policies at the wall street journal for nine

years. leon e panetta is the cofounder of the panetta institute for public policy and former secretary of defense. his long and distinguished public service career has spanned united states army, united states house of representatives, the office of management, president clinton chief of staff, director of central intelligence and the 23rd secretary of defense. our moderator is a staff writer at the new yorker. the author of seven books of nonfiction and a two-time winner of the pulitzer prize for he has been a reporter, foreign correspondent, senior editor managing editor and the dean of columbia orissa graduate school of journalism. please join me in welcoming our panelists and a moderator. [applause] >> thank you all for being here. looking for to this discussion. no one appears congenitally shy so i'm hoping all of you can

ignore me and ask each other questions. have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of lively subjects. let's start with the basics and then towards the end of the conversation i want to move into

the world we are in now, the digital age, age of social media which creates a whole new set of questions. jill, let me start with you. editorial decision-making, for our colleagues in the audience, it is a little bit like case law. yesterday principles behind you, certain standards and then case-by-case try to apply them to complex stuff. when the reporter come to you with a story that reveals national security information. what are the principles that you have in mind when you evaluate what to publish? >> certainly in that example, i would unless it was something externally sensitive are innately i would know that lives were at stake, i would encourage the journalists and reporter

with the story to find more about it. in order to make very difficult decisions about what stories to actually publish or whether to hold a story or in a very unusual situation, to actually not publish something, information really helps you. in the end, these decisions should say explicitly, are the most excruciating i confronted both as washington bureau chief because stories involving national security and intelligence rigid in washington and as manager of the times and executive editor. the balance that i always applied, as one of the panelists this morning pointed out, we have a constitutionally protected mandate to hold power accountable and keep the public informed. that is our first responsibility. in the balancing test, that has to be balanced. with, is the story really going to cause harm to the country? as journalists, we are citizens

too and want to do everything we can to keep the current country safe. our professional duty is really to inform and i had these jobs during a period meagerly after 9/11 but the war on terror and alter the end of the bush administration and by the obama administrations, and it certainly closer to 9/11 there were fewer of these requests but you have to ask yourself the fundamental question that actually one of down his colleagues put brilliantly which is if they were on terror is being waged in the name of the people, shouldn't the people know about it and its dimensions? with all the new programs launched, they had not really had a chance to -- some of the dark side programs being carried

out. in the end, you responded to several constituencies. one is the public because you are balancing the importance of keeping them informed and holding power accountable. the country. you don't want to make a precipitous decision that could actually harm the country and then you're on reporters because you get into -- and as to the true shooting nature of these decisions that the reporters have worked really long on the stories and to get them ironclad, the sources have put themselves in harms way. they feel the credibility is on the line because the sources expect the story to be published and all of those are in the air. the first thing that i did is when an administration raised serious national security

concerns and asked the near times to either hold a story or not publish it entirely, you hit the pause button. i worry that a lot of the public has the impression that we get these leaks. intelligence programs and then we just publish them right away. i cannot be further from the case. i don't think it is right to just assume that administrations and presidents and their chief intelligence aides are a firing wall and that being cavalier to publish something quickly i think it's not the right response. i know over time because the request became more frequent to various news organizations to hold stories or kill stories. that there are news organizations that no longer call the white house for comment on some of the stories which is sometimes, not always, the administration finds out that you have a sensitive story. >> to stay in addition for one

i worry that a lot of the public has the impression that we get these leaks. intelligence programs and then we just publish them right away. i cannot be further from the case. i don't think it is right to just assume that administrations and presidents and their chief intelligence aides are a firing wall and that being cavalier to publish something quickly i think it's not the right response. i know over time because the request became more frequent to various news organizations to hold stories or kill stories. that there are news organizations that no longer call the white house for comment on some of the stories which is sometimes, not always, the administration finds out that you have a sensitive story. >> to stay in addition for one more beat, in search of principles, here to refer to one easy to agree on, if you judge that publishing will directly lead to the death of individuals or the publishing of gratuitous operational detail where the

messing up an ongoing battlefield movement, no public interest in -- reason, is a relatively easy principles. but when you get to the assertion of harm to the country, national security damage may involve less direct effects.

exposure of agreements between allies or other sensitive matters. how do you think through that territory? how did you define national security damage why you considered whether to withhold a certain detail? >> we seek information about that and then try to make the best decision after having as much information as possible, including from experts on our own staff. the best answer with an illustration, the pulitzer prize winner, the intelligence agencies, she is a very gifted reporter who had many sources from the top to the bottom of

intelligence agency and there came a time some years after 9/11 when she realized that her cia sources worker concerned about something, very worried about seven. this was not a leak. nobody dump this on her, she was just picking up this. it's and pieces of information. there was a puzzle and it turned out to be the cia secret prisons abroad, particularly eastern europe were high-value terror suspects are being held and questioned. we know some cases with course of questioning techniques.

once you piece together a lot of this, she did what she should do and when to resources in the cia and including the person in charge of public information and then she was sent to the senior person in charge of the entire operation and listen to them about what was going on. first, you want to know if this is true. you need to talk to the government to know if they it is true. you what to establish the veracity of it and established international security concerns. what different can -- decisions doing to make? she kept me informed all through this. when we conclude that we were going to publish some kind of story and newark try to figure what to include, during my quarter-century of making these kinds of decisions, we surrender story but we often withheld very specific details. things like conan's operations. names of individuals. locations of where the earliest drones were shot from. cap the name of the country -- i still don't want to say the name

of that country. not because the government was not to, but they said if we can do country at the time, it would end. we do not want to do that. we went to the cia at the invitation of the director of the cia or director of national intelligence and listened to them argued that we should not run the story at all and as usual i asked lots of questions. what is the specific harm involved here? harm to human life? and it would just be bad for the agency reputation. secondly, it means our allies would not trust us. that is your problem, not ours.

and we got to two things like shutting down secret prisons. and there are other types of operations going on with more these countries. counterterrorism cooperation. they were identified as the country holding some of these resins. you could bring that governments or under security cooperation. my ears perked up because you can do the storage without necessarily name in the countries. i told them as i always did, we will consider this and she was with us and she asked questions.

for were more one form that my work. we were invited to the white house and donald graham, ceo, and publisher and myself, the president was there and he was sitting in the couch and the national security adviser was hovering around. and the president made the same conversation and it kind of harms. i asked a lot of questions you most of which were answered by stephen hadley. on the way out, i asked specific questions and we would make a decision and it was my decision whether would be read by him. which is what we always do. on the way out, when an adjustment in the room with his arm around my shoulder, i had nothing for some time and said you're not putting in those countries. he could tell that is where is headed. after some further thought, that is what we did. as a result, we took a lot of pills from people who thought it was terrible for us to reach the secret on the one side and a lot of people saying that we do not mean the countries, chicken. >> from the other side of the camera, and i'm sure running through some of these conversations from the cia or the pentagon, what rules would you write? frankly, my experience with

leading newspapers like the times and washington post and wall street journal and others, was that they really did try to exercise good judgment. these are tough calls. it is not easy. and the only times that i have those discussions was where we had the potential, if a story went out, that is sensitive source would probably be revealed and it meant jeopardizing the life of that source and when i had the discussion. reporters doing their jobs, that is what they go after. a lot them have good sources in the agency whether you like it or not. when you pick up these stories, you look at them and, frankly, i would say that nine out of 10 stories, they go. the reporter is doing his job. you don't particularly like the story getting out there but that is the name of the game. but, on that 10th story where somebody's life is in jeopardy and you can make that case -- frankly, most the time i talked to reporters and confirm the reporter's story. the reporter would be sensitive enough to take it to his bosses. i think the very fact that a

light was in jeopardy was enough to kind of balance the scales. i was never in a situation where it involved a broader policy issue similar to what you described. thank god. but, i always felt that -- there was one time where it involved the "post" and i actually talked with the editor of the post and i got a fair hearing. in the end, they delayed the story and then ultimately, they said we will delay it for a while and then we would like to come back to you. and they did. i have to tell you, my experiences were that this was pretty straightforward and that i was really pleased that -- when you are making these decisions -- and don't forget that they have a reporter and they have a story. if it is a hot story, it will make a lot of news. to be able to call back from that because the national interest is involved is not an easy call. but, at least in my experience, the papers always made the right call. >> i would welcome your comments on the principles question. you have been speaking in a very

striking way about the need for transparency in agencies in order to build the credibility with the voting public that democracy requires. i.r. number when you are at nsa being surprised that a reporter would call up and the phone number was answered and he used to be called no such agency. though i asked for some help, the next thing i knew i was having lunch or coffee with you in your garden. i was struck that you seemed to have a self-conscious strategy of trying to build some kind of balance of visibility for a secret agency. what was on your mind in those days and what is the broader and they did. i have to tell you, my experiences were that this was pretty straightforward and that i was really pleased that -- when you are making these decisions -- and don't forget that they have a reporter and they have a story. if it is a hot story, it will make a lot of news.

to be able to call back from that because the national interest is involved is not an easy call. but, at least in my experience, the papers always made the right call. >> i would welcome your comments on the principles question. you have been speaking in a very striking way about the need for transparency in agencies in order to build the credibility with the voting public that democracy requires. i.r. number when you are at nsa being surprised that a reporter would call up and the phone number was answered and he used to be called no such agency. though i asked for some help, the next thing i knew i was having lunch or coffee with you in your garden. i was struck that you seemed to have a self-conscious strategy of trying to build some kind of balance of visibility for a secret agency. what was on your mind in those days and what is the broader goal that you think you can

reach? mr. hayden: a lot of things to comment on. the traditional answer when someone called the public affairs office was, how did you get this number? we made a conscious effort. the phrase we used was to put a more human face on the agency. at the time, for nsa, we knew that we were getting into very uncharted territory. there was no national debate about the appropriateness of nsa intercepting soviet strategic rocket placements, looking for words of interest like "launch" or something like that. [laughter] mr. hayden: but, we knew that the 21st century equivalent of those isolated soviet command and control networks would be out pursuing terrorists, proliferator, traffic or associations. e-mails at hotmail or gmail.

we felt that we could not get the political sanctions or the money that we needed to pursue 21st century targets if we were still in the bunker at fort meade and hadn't built up a stronger sense of confidence that we could be on those networks, we could bump your e-mails, but we wouldn't miss

treat them. it was a conscious effort to raise our profile. very briefly, the last great nsa story was the snowden revelation. the 215 program, metadata stuff. my old agency and administration was horribly flat-footed. they needed to be out there more telling their story. the way it was rode up took the story to a very dark corner of the room. it was very hard to explain what the agency was doing. the agency felt they were fine. after the great intelligence scandals of the 70's, the grand compromise with to take the oversight of intelligence which used to be and still is in most democracies, the province of the executive, and actually share oversight with the legislative branch. we have to select committees on intelligence now. also, a special court whenever it touched americans. the 215 program, authorized by two americans, legislated by

congress, overseen by the oversight committee, and were checked off by the fisa court. that is the madisonian trifecta. without thought we were good to go and we weren't. there was a sharp reaction from the general population and not just the wing nuts with tinfoil on their heads but really serious americans. what happens reinforcing what we tried to do in 1999 and 2000 -- what happened was that a lot of good americans now said that no

longer constituted consent of the governed. that may be consent of the governor's. you may have told them, but you didn't tell me. that social contract that we had built on the compromise, we had real -- the social contract was gone and now american democracy wants to have a more personal knowledge of what its intelligence services do before

they willingly validate the activities of the intelligence service. >> i want to follow up on that about the communication you are talking about between the intelligence and government services on one hand and the journalist on the other. i am familiar with some of how it is being done. it has been very important for the protection of national security or communication to go on between the journalists and the government. it is to the advantage of the journalists for one thing to make sure it is accurate. in some cases it is complicated stuff where you don't understand if you don't have help and in other cases it might have been a proposal that never went into action and you don't find out

and let the government cooperated. there are some things that will never be public because the national security arm would greatly outweigh the public reasons to know that you are talking about. mr. hayden: the problem is, the "post" has been more responsible. then you go over here to "the guardian". then you go to laura poitras. >> attorney general eric holder was quoted last week as saying that he thought in the end that snowden had done some sort of public service. i don't know the context but that is what he was quoted as saying. he didn't break the law but what he did may have been public service. coming from an attorney that saw the great number of press leak

prosecutions. i wonder, in the end, if it was necessary to bring the public in? mr. hayden: i've spoken a lot about this. my bottom line is that that young man accelerated but badly distorted a necessary national conversation. the other 98% of the stuff he gave to these reporters had nothing to do with it, it had to do with your nation, great britain, and australia collects legitimate foreign intelligence. i was offended by the attorney general thinking that that slice there somehow ameliorates all of that. mr. panetta: you have an

individual who, we in the intelligence agencies, we are dealing with national secrets, classified information. the president of the united states has the responsibility to defend the country using both covert and overt operations to protect the country. so, in order to maintain covert operations, you have to maintain classified information and you need people who swear and of to basically protect classified information. intelligence agencies could operate if everybody decides on their own what they think should be revealed and what they think ought to be held. the reality is that things are classified and you are sworn to protect classified information. when you have somebody who decides, i am going to dump a bunch of classified information because i don't like some of the things i am seeing, he violates the law antioch to be prosecuted for violating the law.

he ought to be subject to justice and he tried. i think if you really felt loyalty to this country, there is no reason why he should hide out in russia. the outcome back here and face justice on that issue and he can present whatever defense he wants. so, it is wrong. now, if the debate on the issue that he discussed, is that a good debate for this country to have? of course it is. but that doesn't justify what he did. willie lohman used to rob banks. it doesn't make him a hero because we now know we should protect our money in the bank's. the same thing is true for snowden. he violated the law. he is subject to being prosecuted under the law. let me add to that that the information that was revealed in

fact did damage the security that we had developed in terms of being able to track terrorist. the reality is that terrorists don't use the same system anymore. so, we have got to redevelop our approach of how we track terrorists. it is impacted on lives that were out there because there were sources out there whose lives were jeopardized by virtue of revealing that information. so, understand the damage that was done. should we have a debate on transparency and what we are doing? absolutely. but, you don't do it by dumping a bunch of classified information that could jeopardize and damage the

security of this country. mr. hayden: the secretary and i are talking about snowden. that is not the way the conversation would go in some other countries. >> can i go to prior restraint and also let you join in on this. given that snowden did make a decision to use journalists as interlocutors and gatekeepers and he turned over the judgment to her the balancing tests lied to gelman, "the guardian", "the intercept." let's suppose he built a website and decided to dump the document itself, it brings us back to the question of whether the government will again after the pentagon papers case, make an argument for prior restraint on the press. you mentioned to me when we were preparing for this that there were a couple of times after the decisions were made that you guys feared prior restraint. talk a little bit about whether you think we are close. i am not a lawyer, but my understanding is the supreme

court decision on the pentagon papers does not preclude prior restraint. >> i don't think the snowden -- >> snowden website wouldn't have crossed that -- >> i don't know. but, you're right that i worry that the decision that the supreme court reached in the pentagon papers case in 1971 isn't ironclad. the bar is really high as you said. i just wanted to make a further point about -- the precursor in a way to the snowden story was the 2005 story that the "times" broke about what was illegal,

warrantless is dropping of conversations between people in the u.s. and people overseas. that was not legal. >> and i remember this correctly, when you were washington bureau chief, they asked you to withhold portions of that story. ms. abramson: i was the washington bureau chief. i received the urgent request that they cease all reporting on

this story. and, that i think any responsible editor wants more information. the reporters who cover intelligence tend to be very careful just on their own. i said no to stopping reporting and then there was a request from the white house when we had enough confirmation for a story that we not publish. the editor was the ultimate decision-maker, and he consulted with me, and a very difficult decision was made to hold the story. in part that decision was made literally days before the 2004 election.

the story, when we get published yet, caused a huge ruckus and some uproar. mr. coll: if you could do it again, you would do it differently? ms. abramson: i certainly would not have held the story for a year. there were two occasions where i made the decision that we would withhold the information. i regret them both. when i had a history as part of the balancing test, that is an important part of it. i felt that, in that case, the information, but it weighs as a difficult question for both of

you that, if there's someone in your agency that knows that something illegal is happening, are they under the same blanket? you agreed to not disclose classified information. mr. coll: just before we leave the prior restraint question, general hayden and secretary panetta, did you ever hear anyone propose -- mr. hayden: i never heard a whisper of prior restraint. there are a range of views on the lawfulness of the program. the primary source was not somebody from the intelligence agency, but somebody from justice, and someone from justice who have not read into the program. we don't need to relitigate this.

i cannot let this stand that it was presumptively illegal. ms. abramson: although you had to go back to the congress to have the program -- mr. hayden: actually, we continued the program after your december story until 2006 and 2007 to actually put what was then done under presidential article 2 authority into a was described as a safe harbor of the other political branch. ms. abramson: but you got a fisa decision. mr. hayden: we got it on the part that jim didn't know anything about and we got it before the story. >> every other country of the world has it, including great britain. the government would have simply send a notice to her saying that you have to stop. you can't even tell anybody we sent this notice. ms. abramson: that is why in the

snowden case, "the guardian" is in britain, which has no prior restraint protection, they literally had to let government officials watch as they took sledgehammers to the computers. mr. hayden: we were talking about this depending on who wins the next election. for instance, when -- >> making a record here. >> we were going to publish something involving the cia and we went to the university club around the corner of the washington post. they immediately called the justice department and they said, casey was just over here saying that he wanted us to

prosecute you if you run the story and we laughed him out of the office. i am not sure that would happen now. attorney general holder has prosecuted a number of government sources and in one case, a justice department brief and a u.s. court of appeals decision cited him with aiding and abetting and essentially called him a criminal. that was prior restraint but with criminal prosecution afterwards. mr. coll: general hayden, i want to go back to your theory of sort of transparency about secrecy and democracy. it is an appealing subject. just to wait into another sensitive case. i think, on enhanced interrogation techniques, you and secretary panetta, as i understand, you thought they were valuable in producing

intelligence and defensible under international law. secretary panetta, i thinks, acknowledges they produced reliable information but on the holocaust outweigh the benefits. in your view, was anything lost by keeping these operations so secret for so long? mr. hayden: it is easier to explain a program that actually started, like the one we are talking about here with the jim risen story. i inherited the program and was trying to reshape it and resize it. in this case, one of the big itches in the story -- one aspect was actually the 215 program that snowden released that had pretty much gone on largely unremarked even in the

press exposes of the program. that is metadata, very closely guarded, under tight restraints, which is the good part of the story that unfortunately the administration didn't tell. it is part of a database that seems like it might be very ominous. in retrospect, we might have seen the community against the public reaction by simply being more candid about metadata, how metadata is used, and even pointing out that metadata is not constitutionally protected. demands of security have placed on security agencies so you have a better idea. i'd use the word transparent on a panel about this about a year

ago. i said, we're going to have to be more transparent. michael leiter, he turns to me and says, i agree with your principal but it is not transparent. we need to be translucent. it is actually a very elegant distinction. transparent, when you turn the gain up on the telescope or microscope, get to the fine print and begin to make the things that were the reasons for doing it in the first place not worthwhile. translucence, to the public -- not the oversight committee,

they get transparency -- but the public gets translucence. they get to see the broad shape and broad movement of what the intelligence services are doing. to get a broad sense of what is going on and to build up that level of foundation that i think we are going to need going forward. mr. panetta: i think the fundamental principle here is trust in the american people. the reality is that if the american people know that steps are being taken to protect their national defense and their

national security, and they know what those steps are, the american people will be supportive. if you try to keep that from the american people or hide that from the american people, obviously there will be a lot of concern about what exactly is going on. i always get asked the questions about the things that are going on. i remind people that, when 9/11 happened, this country rose up in anger, asking, how the hell did we let that happen? the national commission came together that was established in order to determine why did that happen, what went wrong. they determined that intelligence agencies were not sharing information. they determined that other agencies were not working effectively to track terrorists and be able to determine who was trying to attack this country. as a result of that commission's report, a number of steps were taken to improve our intelligence operations, our intelligence sharing, law-enforcement operations or

counterterrorism operations. basically aimed at trying to protect this country and making sure we didn't have another 9/11. it is important that the american people be reminded of the fact that these are steps being taken to protect them. i don't believe that we have to choose between protecting our freedoms and protecting our security. in a democracy, we have checks and balances. you do have laws that are passed, you do have an executive branch, legislative branch, judicial branch, all aimed at making sure that we protect our freedoms at the same time as protecting our security. i think part of that responsibility is with the president. i think part of that responsibility rests with the

people who had some of these agencies, to make clear that we are not just operating behind a wall, that what we're trying to do is to fundamentally protect this country from another 9/11 type attack in order to protect you. if we can be transparent about that, that i think this country would support the steps that are being taken in order to ensure that another attack doesn't happen. ms. abramson: i think that when that was actually put to the test a few years after 9/11 with the disclosure that there were these secret prisons, torturing some of the terrorists who were being questioned, the photographs of abu ghraib and what was going on there, that really tests fundamental issues of how our country behaves. i think there again was such a huge reaction to that because it came out of the blue as though

the public had no idea that such things and such methods were being used. the president is charged with defending every word of the constitution. that's what happens on inauguration day. and with these first amendment concerns, they should come up. of certainly in the case leak investigations, i don't think there was anybody in the room when they were discussing , whatrove a criminal case

is the role of the press? it has to be informed to make informed decisions. i was always uncomfortable when there were requests for the story that came from the nsa, the department of defense, the cia. mandate.a specific the president's mandate is a little different. the importance of informing the public into account. one of my trips to washington, i asked the dni james clapper if

many of the request were coming. asked if we could get together .nd talk through i thought that it helped. >> the weight of the responsibility and the actors here, i am probably almost as uncomfortable as you are. not that these weren't bad things in these people did bad things, but the collateral damage to the free press

by the same token you mentioned abu ghraib. so let me mention the burden. i think the pressure was gone. i don't think they should have gone with the pictures. i'm here to tell you in my professional judgment there are americans today who are dead because the press published the pictures of abu ghraib. now, we can argue about were the pictures necessary or not for the intent of the story. my judgment is probably not. and certainly if you weigh the influence not that those pictures had on the american public but the influence those pictures had on our enemies. >> so the structure of the digital age is global. that's one of the reasons why your case has extra credibility because of the distribution structure of those photographs, it's instantly global. so i want to ask you, back to our editorial decision making.

the "washington post," "new york times," they're seeking global audiences. they're seeking to make money from global audiences. everybody is in the digital age. judgments now judgments now affected by whether or not the public interest of the democratic federal republic of germany is served by disclosing that we're listening to angela merkel's phone? >> that doesn't particularly concern me. but the possibility of harming human life in germany would, just as the possibility of harming human life in fairfax, virginia, if we published the story of the kidnapping of the rich family's kid while the police have asked us not to while they continue to try to find him and keep him alive would be part of our decision. i can't see difference in germany or thailand. in terms of political impact, no, i was not concerned about the political impact in the

eastern european countries of the secret prison story if we named those countries. i was concerned about what i was convinced of by american authorities the harm that would have been done by counter terrorism, the relationships that might have harmed the american national security. >> we're a fy minutes away from taking your questions. if you want to make your way to the microphones, please go ahead. i want to get in one question about the time we're in now, because we talk about how the structure of disclosure of national security information by the snowdens has changed in the era of big data you can take out all this information on a thumb drive. but so has the structure of publishing. e're having a conversation where the "washington post" and "new york times" were all that mattered. unfortunately that's not the case any more. one manifestation is the rise of social media platforms like

facebook and companies like apple and google that are global in their business models, have interests that are very divorced from the way the "new york times" news room would have defined such judgments. so general hayden, i was struck as i'm sure anyone reading the news was by your statement about the am encryption case when you came out and thought that -- against the f.b.i.'s pursuit of breaking that encryption. so could you explain why you ended up on that side of that issue, and also where the dominance of the social media platforms as distributors of information and news takes us as we wrestle with the issues we've been talking about. >> i think you're all familiar with the bureau of wanting apple to bust through the encryption. it's not a constitutional question.

i think the government has the authority to direct apple to do it. it was on a privacy question and he's dead and there's no privacy implications. it's a question of security. although the government had the right, i didn't think it was a good idea. there are lots of dangers to american security. terrorism is one, criminal activity is another, so are cyber attacks. frankly, you are going to be better defended by apple and american industry in the cyber dome main than you will be by the american government. it's just the nature of the domain. so why would you then for an arguably legitimate counter terrorism needs here? i would think three or four times before i went over here and cripples what the american industry provided loorks like pretty good encryption to keep you safe. so in the security lane alone, just security, i think i side

with apple. in the broader social media and what's -- >> what's the most important thing that's been said on this panel. >> on the broader social media thing alone -- i just finished a book and i did a lot of research sitting at my home computer. one of the things like the secretary and i and our successors are going to have to live with is even though you have sources and they may give you a point of light here and there, the ability of a good reporter to fill in because of the nature of modern communications is greater than it has ever been brfer. so it may not -- there may be more secrets out there but it may not be because there are more leaks. it actually might be the nature of the modern communications environment, which leads to all sorts of fundamental reconversations as to what is necessary or legitimate secrecy. >> let me comment on this,

because i think it's kind of a sign of the times. but the fact is whether it's apple or whether it's silicon valley or whether it's the u.s. government, hopefully we're all on the same side when it comes to dealing with people who would attack this country. and i don't know what broke down in the situation. i don't know -- usually behind every problem in washington is a personality problem where somebody got pissed off. usually what happens. and it's just the reality of things. the fact is, when i was directer -- and i think it's true for mike. when i was directer we had a very close relationship with companies in silicon valley. and i had very close relationships with people in hollywood. and these were all good patriots. they were very loyal to this country. they were willing to be helpful. we have to keep it

confidential. and i understood that. and we did keep it confidential. but we were operating in the same -- on the same team. and if we needed help, they would give us help. and that's frankly the way it should be. and i don't know what broke down here and why suddenly justice takes apple to court and apple of course has to defend itself in this situation. but my recommendation was that both sides need to get back in a room and agree, look, apple has the right to protect its consumers around the world. i understand that. protect their privacy. but when it does come to clear evidence of a terrorist whose going to use that information to attack this country, there ought to be a way to be able to get that information. and we ought to be able to work together to be able to achieve that. but it isn't going to be done if it's done out in the public, if it's done in the courts or

if god's sake if congress tries to get in. the reality is it has to be done in a room where people are sitting down and talking through and developing a process that both sides can agree to and work with. >> looks like a couple of questions. ma'am. >> good afternoon. this has been a wonderful panel today. jill, there are two things i wrote down that really caught my attention during your discussion. one was holding power accountable. and the second was a discussion about a pause button. perhaps secretary panetta and general hayden can explain to me, if that pause button was hit several times and perhaps set during the attack on benghazi. and the reason i ask that is i happen to be tuned in to al jazeera in qatar during that event and it was already being

reported. yet it was several several hours before i heard anything n the media here in the u.s. >> i'll defer to the secretary who was in government at the ime. >> you can't get away from this stuff. look, there was no pause bulletin. there were no discussions with the press -- button. there were no discussions with the press. that event took place. the press was made aware. they knew that the attack was taking place and they published whatever they wanted to publish on the effort. there was no effort to try to impact in any way the press and how they reported. please believe that. there's enough screwy stories going around already. don't believe that. >> the prosecution question.

secretary panetta mentioned if somebody disclosed classified information there probably should be repercussions. but is there any -- edward snowden, david petraeus, sterling. are these all the same? and if they're different who makes the decision for what is allowable and what is not? is that the president? is that the attorney general? does nobody make that decision? >> well, the justice department is the one that looks at these cases and then makes a decision as to whether or not they're going to prosecute these cases. and in both the petraeus case as well as the stone case they made clear that they're going to prosecute those cases. they prosecuted the petraeus case and i would assume if snowden came back here they would prosecute the snowden case. as to what the factors are, as to the mitigating circumstances are that an individual would present to the court, that takes place within the confines

of an individual case. and then a judge makes a determination based on that. but the law is there. if the law is violated, a prosecution takes place. and that's the way it should be. >> the rule i had and the one i can talk about because i had most contact was the jeffery sterling case, the risen being the reporter. i strongly opposed criminalizing what mr. risen did, i was really upset over what mr. sterling did. so as that investigation was unfolding i was asked as directer of c.i.a., how many more secrets are you willing to put into the public dome main in a court process in order to pursue the prosecution? and the answer i get from justice is whatever you need. because that -- our view was this was an actual serious breach of faith on the part of the c.i.a. officer. jim was doing his job.

i'm talking about what sterling had done. what had happened is, because of that dynamic, how many more secrets do you want to make public before you go to court, when you go to court, we had made individually correct narrow decisions saying, don't want to do that. with the strategic effect that there were serious leaks without consequence. and so i actually -- that was my contribution. everything after that is justice. >> i want to say two things about this whole classified area. number one is, many times when there's -- in my experience, the number of times when there's been leaks of important information, it is from a relatively low-level person and you kind of wonder how do they have access to that in the first place. chelsea manning being a good example. so there are real breakdowns in the intelligence services about how secrets are being kept. and that needs to be remembered

when you consider these things. the second is overclassification of information, which i know the general agrees with me about. it's ridiculous. again, the chelsea manning case. when you saw all those documents that were classified, some of them were newspaper stories. or in the case of -- this is the respect we have. right. and it's rampant. and everybody knows that. and there was a commission, a presidential commission created to deal with this. it made very good recommendations about how to straighten out the classification system. and the obama administration -- >> just a couple minutes left in this discussion. we'll go live now as white house cyber security coordinator as government officials examine the president's new plan for how the government responds to cyber. >> today week talking about cyber coordination. i'm pleased to welcome a good

friend and partner of ours, michael daniel. joining him today will be another good friend of ours and long-time partner of the chambers, andy oz meth from the department of homeland security. vj johnson rgs from the f.b.i. the intelligence integration center, the department of of y, from the department treasury. and let me just set the stage for you a little bit before we dive right in. over the past eight years, and some would say longer, the country is facing an alarming increase in the number of cyber incidents against the public and the private sectors. incidents which have ranged in scales of sophistication and severity. last week president obama issued policy directive 41 on cyber incident coordination and

today michael and i are pleased to convene this group of industry and government experts to discuss the directive and provide feedback. it's so important that we provide feedback on how best to implement this new cyber policy. the policy directs the department of homeland security in coordination with a variety of different federal agencies to submit a national cyber incident response plan within 180 days. we understand that a draft plan will be ready for you in september for your comments. in the meantime, we hope that you will use today's events to talk about the plan to ask questions about it to ask questions about how the writers intend to coordinate with all of you, the stake 40e8ders. many of you have participated in the chamber cyber education and awareness campaign and you've come to the events held around the country. we appreciate that. one question unfortunately that we still hear is far too often, is who do we call for help? who is in charge?