women touring the united states were here in 1917, just after we declared war, and presented this painting to president wilson. >> and at 8:00 -- >> at 8:00. ♪ you like ice, we'll take ice to washington ♪ of political ads. for a complete schedule, go to c-span.org. >> c-span created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable satellite provider. host: james lewis is a former

state department official who now serves as the senior vice president of the center for strategic and international studies. he's our guest on "the communicators." the topic cyber security. what proof is there that the russians are behind the recent cyber attacks and united states? james: there are three kinds of proof. pthe first is forensic evidence. computer,ack into a something will be left behind that points to the perpetrator, not intentionally. it is like a footprint. in this case, the footprints lead back to moscow. the second source of evidence is our own intelligence agencies, which now are fully confident it was the russian government behind these hacks, using their own sources and technologies. the third is the smirk on vladimir putin's face. he seems to be enjoying it. so, the evidence is pretty solid

it was the russian government. host: how did they get this information? how did the attack happen? james: it is pretty straightforward. most people still suffer from e-mail ison that somehow private, when it is like a postcard. and most people don't secure the data they keep on their networks. that is large what happened. russians got into one of the traditional techniques, probably a phishing e-mail and were able to get control of the network and extract data, including e-mails. host: joining our conversation is mark -- with reuters. mark: tahank you. my understand it, and we reported this a while ago, the u .s. government, the intelligence

agency briefed the gang of 8, the leaders of both houses of congress and the leaders of the intelligence committee, this -- a year ago this summer that this was going on. the u.s. government has known about this for quite some time. i've spoken to people in the democratic party and say they were approached by the fbi a month after the -- about maybe a year ago. and then the fbi were very opaque in the way they broached this to the people in the democratic party. they were asking questions. they did not actually tell the democratic party email had been hacked. the democratic party did not realize it until march or april. finally they found out they had been hacked. the clinton campaign as an organization still denies as

organization it's been hacked, although i have heard and reported that leading figures in that campaign had thei personal e-mails hacked. literally the russians got 50,000 of john podesta's email s. and they're dribbling it out. which gives them enough to dribble out every day between now and the election, which they seem to be doing via wikileaks. james: wikileaks has become the favored tool for the russians. there is some question about the relationship between the russian government and julian assange. he knows where the stuff is coming from. it took a while for the u.s. to decide whether to go public because they did not when a confrontation with russia.

mark: they also did not want to compromise intelligence. opet they had the pious h they could get some sort of deal on syria. host: it sounds from your conversation that the fbi knew prior to the dnc knowing that there, they had been hacked. how did the fbi know that ahead of time? mark: the fbi and other u.s. agencies knew well before they told the dnc. and because they had intelligence. james: that is little difference from my experience because the fbi came to csis and told us we had been hacked by the russians and they are usually pretty forthright about who is responsible. yeah, they have their own sources. they monitor russian activity. when they see it coming in, usually, i'm a little surprised at that. i think the victim not knowing for months, that's commonplace.

normally the sdi is pretty straightforward. i know they were very explicit in briefings to the hill come some months ago. mark: it is clear to me that what i told you is true. the reason behind this has to do with sources. i had the spoken to the democratic people who directly dealt with this and they said, they did not tell us. they said, we were very confused as to what this was about. james: it is not that unusual because the russians hacked into both campaigns in both 2012 and 2008. what is different this time is the release of the data. e-mail,hey took donor lists, campaign strategy, opponent research. this is third time. what is different now is the overt political use. host: i don't mean to beat this lewis, you said that

the fbi came to csis. was csis surprised to learn this? james: may be the first time. host: you did not have any knowledge was happening, correct? james: no. this is one of the interesting things about this incident, that russians, if not the best in the world, they are tied for being best in the world, in the past prior to these incidents, they were very discreet, very determined not to be caught. one of the things that was a hallmark of russian activity was not seeing them doing things for months as it turns out. veryis case, they were overt. they are sending us a signal and it is not a very polite one. host: vice president biden brought up the potential of a cyber attack back on russian. you laugh, but what would that entail? james: they have gone through a

lot of scenarios. almost all of them are silly. one of them was weekly records of vladimir putin's botox treatments, pictures of his girlfriend or his bank account. you are not going to embarrass vladimir putin. then there is we should unplug their network. that's probably not going to work. it looks like it will be factions and some covert activity against the attacking of a structure. the: my sense is also that white house, which is not said anything about this, they left it up to the intelligence community, that obama's not that interested in this stuff. any such retaliation may have to await the swearing in of presumably, anticipated swearing in of hillary clinton. james: i would like to see the

botox pictures. conducting on.s. a regular basis cyber warfare against other countries? james: currently the only place where you could call it cyber warfare would be the decision to isis.ber command against that is the only place for you can say the military is engaged, that we have publicly admitted. the intelligence community, both cia and nsa, are routinely engaged largely an espionage efforts. so, it would be unusual and perhaps unwise to start a cyber war with russia. mark: i have actually looked at this a little bit. the real power of islamic in cyberspace is not so much their hacking. it's known to be pretty pathetic. but it is their use of social media for recruitment purposes. the state department and the

british government as well. fairlyet up extensive efforts to try and counter that messaging. the western efforts, including american efforts, are just terrible. they're pathetic -- they're counterproductive. in terms of social media use, the bad guys in this case theway, way ahead of governments which is really disturbing. james: traditionally, we have always been better propaganda. host: can you put a dollar figure on how much the u.s. government spends on cyber security? james: the last number i saw was $14 billion, i think, and that might be, that includes both network defense and some of the, it probably underestimates the intelligence spending because that would be part of other intelligence budgets. host: is it well allocated? think so.

the problem we have is largely ellitical, how much can we t critical infrastructure companies that they must do something? that leads to angst among those rand.ke reading ayn on the military side, we have done quite well. host: you had one of your e-mails involved in the john podesta leak. mark: one of my e-mails turned up and has now been, become the subject of trials attacking me on the internet. onof trolls attacking me the internet. i did not remember the e-mail. it is a completely genuine e-mail. i do not suggest it was forced. i sent john podesta in e-mail, i guess it was in the winter of had run across some document related to the benghazi committee which seemed

to suggest that the benghazi committee was not operating honestly. i wanted to show him the document and asked him what he thought of it. again, i'm almost positive i never showed it to him. i am not even sure with a document is. accuse me ofrolls getting a secret document from the benghazi committee and feeding it to cleanse campaign. i didn't do that. a story after this e-mail about how the benghazi committee was getting more e-mails from the state department. prove hillary clinton knew or was making huge decisions about the situation and benghazi right around the time of the attack there. in so far as i could tell, the public record and history has indicated that story. there is still no evidence. i reported literally within tack, that itat

was a terrorist attack, not that it was a protest against the film. i stuck with that story, even though the administration tried to tell a different story. things are taken out of context. james: it would be a badge of honor to have russian and trumppiaian trolls go after you. mark: nobody inside that circle has attacked me. james: one part of this that has not gotten much attention is the russians hire hundreds if not a few thousand people to go on to western websites, to go on to newspapers and put pro-putin, a nti-obama comments. you cannot always tell, is it a russian, trump supported? they have an active disinformation campaign. mark: vox as well.

somehave used vox to swing postdebate polls. the actual swinging which showed trump winning the debate was done from inside the united states in terms of the majority of the -- james: it is a new kind of politics. host: what is that forensic evidence referred to look like? james: we have not seen it. it has not been released. one of pocketful story is that ocryphalthe -- ap story was the code has references that pointed back to the fsb. that issue for what it is, there are traits that point to the identity of the attacker. you can also trace back the command and control network to find out the computers from which the attack was launched and to which the data was

sent. those also point to the fsb. so, there is both remnants left behind and pathways leading back to moscow. mark: julian assange had some fairly obvious links with russian. i know witnesses involved in the original discussions with edward snowden in hong kong and then he went to moscow. they said, julian assange personally arranged for him to go to moscow in the company of sarah harrison, julian assange's girlfriend. a talk show on the russian international government supported propaganda station. he claims he did not get money directly from the russian government. james: that just means it went through a middleman. host: let's say all this information we are seeing, if it were in the u.s. postal service

in a letter, would it be illegal to publish it? has given thernet russians and others opportunities they did not have before. if you think about pre-internet elections, they would have had to send hundreds of agents with bags of money. it would have been detectable. they would've had to do a watergate style break in which we know did not work out. the internet makes it so much easier. you can get data, cover your traces. it would not have worked without the internet. he watergate t analogy, what is happened here and we have not seen the proof that the russians did it, but whoever did it, i believe that the russians did it, -- james: there should be no doubt. mark: i certainly have been reporting that myself. the amount of data involved is

much bigger than watergate. it's just -- james: they had to rent a truck. mark: watergate is tiny by comparison. host: is it illegal to publish this information? james: that is a good question. it is illegal to break in and take it. the argument has been, wikileaks is receiving stolen goods. i do not think that would stand up. if you have a mysterious doctrine with the trump tax returns, it is probably not a legal. in of the complications trying to determine what a proportional response would be is the u.s. wants to be careful not to do anything that would appear to compromise people's first amendment rights. a complication we have in the russians don't. not shut downd we their internet? james: we could shut down the internet.

the questions that senior policymakers ask at the white house, they asked two questions -- are you sure it is them? we are sure it is the russians. the second question asked his, tell me how you will keep this from escalating out of control? that one is some risk. the president of russia, perhaps not one of your more stable actors, although certainly better than kim of north korea. he could do something violent or unpleasant in response. the samebound by constraints. they are careful to do something that is both supported by fact and yet does not lead to a greater conflict. mark: our concern as journalists is not so much the law, is it legal? our concern, much more importantly, is it real? again, the united states government has tried to put out stories saying be very careful. they could be fake documents.

that is entirely true. there could be fake documents planted by russia or assange. in terms of the wikileaks stuff, it's all real. james: this is a russian tactic amend documents but there appears to be no evidence so far. mark: it has been suggested that maybe what we are seeing is just selective and that there is other stuff in there that somehow mitigates the meaing of some of these things -- the meaning. that could be true. but i have not seen any evidence. i went back to my own e-mail and looked in my archives. e-mailt was the only between john podesta and myself that i found. it was not taken out of context. host: are there any dangers to the u.s. electoral system? illinois in arizona had experienced hacking of voter files. james: probably not. one advantage of being a federal

system is that you have dozens of actors at the state level. you have the 50 states, plus the districts. then you have thousands of counties, each of which does its own thing. they have different systems. that would be a very hard target to break in and change the vote count. what you can do is you can create doubt, uncertainty, you can perhaps mess up the ability to vote on election day. but we are not going to see, it is not going to turn out that one candidate will appear with 98% of the vote. things like that are only possible in russia. but our system is too complicated to be easily hacked. but our politics are such that they lend themselves to this kind of disruption. mark: uzbekistan in context on zakstan.ha evidenceliterally zero that any voting systems have been compromised in any way. as you are saying, in fact, my

understanding is that state voter registration databases have been faced with hacking attacks. the two you mentioned, but less than six have been attacked. electionu can see on day that people show up to the polls and there is difficulty in verifying their legitimacy as about it, that would add complications or delays. it could affect the vote. mark: republicans have a history openly engage in efforts to increase voter i.c. d. or voter -- voter registration hurdles. and, you know, the democrats say justification, that this is voter suppression. it has nothing to do with the russians. james: to be clear, i don't think --i think the russians

have identified and exploited patterns in american politics. i do not think it is one party or the other is in any way cooperating with the russians. so, the russians know how our politics worker they take advantage of it. host: have the republicans been hacked? james: chairman mcauliffe said they were hacked. wo previousin the t elections. mark: we reported that multiple republican individuals and organizations have been hacked. somebody in the trunk campaign got hacked. the only evidence i know of offhand of hacked republican materials being made public is believe related senatorey graham and john mccain, have -- they're not friendly to donald trump. so that is kind of interesting.

james: there does seem to be a pattern. mark: in terms of large-scale, i do believe the republicans have probably for intelligence gathering purposes. there is no evidence of anything like the publications of material like as is happening with the democrats. host: james lewis, i do not mean to beat this, but how is it the fbi knew before the organizations that were hacked? what is the evidence they saw? james: in some instances the fbi has gotten the authority to monitor some networks, not always in the u.s., but you could monitor a russian network and see outgoing traffic. you could monitor with the help of nsa some domestic networks to see if they were being hack ed. it is hard to explain in it open

setting but if you knew what a russian attack looks like, you could look for that attack on the network and trace it back to where it might live. host: a a few weeks ago there was a story in "the new york times" about a man in siberia who has a set of servers in his thece and that he's been source of this. he was very open talking about it. mark: it is kind of a switchboard. james: he'll sell a server to anyone. dutch pornographers, you name it. he's just the mailbox. lot of this kind of traffic go through him? james: no, the russians are good. they use multiple individuals like that around the world. some of which they have used in the past. and that was one thing that pointed to them being responsible this time, is they -- to be, look, the fsb does not call itself fuzzy bear.

that is something in american p.r. firm made up. it is hard to see a guy say, i'm fuzzy bear. bear.re not fuzzy they do have a collection program that has a global scope that goes after politicians, intelligence targets, that emanates from the fsb. this was part of that. and that is what is detectable. if you are going after 30 countries, you're going to leave some kind of fervent. m-- footprint. mark: the government of ecuador confirmed the other day that they cut up julian assange's access to the internet because he has been hanging out in the ecuadorian embassy in london since june of our years ago. but, but the wikileaks twitter feed is still going. my understanding is he is the principal writer of that.

moreover, wikileaks is continuing to publish these rate ofe-mails, at the several thousand and eight, which suggests that he has found outside mechanisms that can do this stuff. i think he had servers and sweden but maybe iceland. so, there are ways around this for both, again, people like julian assange but the russian government. james: within the limits of the law there is not a lot you can do with assange. devices but his that would probably not be legally justifiable. stuxnet-like attack against russia be consider an act of war? james: an act of war is a political decision. the legal terms are that it is supposed to be an armed attack that triggers your right to self-defense. and no one has divined what --

defines what an armed attack is. it would be up to vladimir putin to decide. probably was the use of force -- he could be justified in calling it an act of war. it was a political decision when the russians -- pardon me, the united states allegedly hacked the iraninan nuclear facility. when the russians hacked a g furnace last year, the germans chose not to call it an act of war. it depends how much you want to have a fight. he might be in the mood to have a fight. that theis also true law, and the u.s. constitution, were not drafted to account for the issues of cyberspace. particular in the united states government. i was talking to lawyers about this in a slightly different context. they believe that basically the constitution of the united states in terms of dealing with

some of these cyber issues is out of date, obsolete. james: those are government lawyers? mark: they were. they are trying to figure out some way to alter statutes or convince the courts to hellp p them get around this issue. james: the president feels like he has the authority he needs if you wanted under title 50 or ti tle 10, he has the authority to do some sort of retaliatory act, but the politics of whether to do that, the wisdom of doing that -- mark: i'm talking a little bit more about surveillance activities than offensive activities. guest this lewis our week, senior vice president of the center for strategic and international studies. thank you, gentlemen. [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] c-span created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. >> when you grow up in an environment like you did, you need a lot of people to play a heroic role in your life for you to have a chance. i had that. i had my aunt, my sister. this is really the story of how they impacted my life and a lot of positive ways. >> sunday night on q&a, an author talks about growing up in a poor white family. in his memoir. clearre wasn't this connection that exist between education and opportunities, because even the people who did pretty well in school did not necessarily make a whole lot out of themselves. you saw so many people not really making are having good opportunities. it's hard t believe that school

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