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and security -- what are your priorities or chief concerns besides cyber or land-type attacks? to me, it is a concern that the attacks could be more -- could be generated from the outside but also less sophisticated and harder to stop or even know about. mr. clapper: you have touched on what is of great concern to us -- not so much the massive complex attack that we suffered on 9/11, but rather those caused by individuals or small cells of people. that is a tremendous challenge for us. one of the things i have tried to work in my time as dni is promoting not only the horizontal integration across our agencies, but also vertically with the state, local, and private sector. i think we have made a lot of

improvement there. i will for example be meeting with my homeland security and law enforcement advisor group tonight, which is an outstanding group of chiefs of police and law enforcement intelligence representatives who do great work. i think the creation and operation of the fusion center network across the country which are increasingly becoming more interneted is a great bulwark against foreign attacks. but i will leave this job concerned about the impact of so-called lone wolves or homegrown violent extremism. that is a very complex problem that requires i think first and foremost community involvement. intelligence and law enforcement can do so much to help clarify

the picture of what that threat is. >> congressman, may i say that in in addition to counterterrorism and cyber threats that the director mentioned, on the military side, we also think about threats to the homeland regarding more and traditional military capabilities involving missiles. one of the main projects we have underway is to look at how to improve our intelligence indications and warning to better be able to respond to those types of contingencies as well. i think it is important to think about the full spectrum of threats to the homeland that we face. >> i have heard several talk about the effects of sequestration on our protection of the homeland. what concerns me is if you could add a thought and i note this does not come out of this ran committee, but homeland

security grants to local and governments cut by 50% roughly in the last five years -- transportation security grants 75%. infrastructure aspects were zeroed out. your thoughts? mr. clapper: sequestration -- the specter of sequestration, which runs through 2021, continues and potentially has impact across the board. that is something we struggle with every program year and of course the uncertainty that creates and the painful trades and we have to make -- it is a fact of life. programmatically it has become the new normal, having lived with it for five years.

mr. pompeo: i sit on a joint task force along with others looking into the manipulation of intelligence at central command. have you had a chance to read the interim report filed by the task force? mr. clapper: i have read that. mr. pompeo: there are clear cases of intelligence manipulation. what accountability for any person associated with that has been held to date, mr. work? mr. work: what we have been waiting for is the completion of the i.g. investigation -- mr. pompeo: we have soldiers in the field and we had intelligence not getting to the right place. to tell a soldier that they are waiting for an i.g. report is

unacceptable. tell me who has been held accountable. mr. work: i would have to ask if any particular people have been held accountable. what the secretary and i have said over and over again is we expect the highest standards in the intelligence been a day. mr. pompeo: did we get that? mr. work: as director clapper spoke to the overall assessment is that we are improving. >> congressman, i will add that we are not able to take authoritative personnel-related actions on these instances and allegations until the i.g. investigation is done. it has taken quite a while. we are as eager as this committee is to get the result in an of that i.g. investigation and be able to take action on those. in the interim, there are some systemic and management actions we have taken on the dod side

working closely with director clapper and his team. first, as director clapper mentioned, in the natural changeover of duties at central command with the commander and the j-2, we both have along with the director of dia strongly emphasized the need for the j-2 to look at its business practices. we have also taken a number of initiatives to reinforce the importance of analytic integrity. we are in the process of ensuring that there is an and ombudsman in place, that analysts can come to anonymously. >> i am glad you are doing those things. they sound great to me. i have to tell you that the american people and our soldiers deserve not to wait to hold accountable those folks responsible for putting that in the field.

there are indications that information was withheld from a presidential daily briefing. are you aware of the reports, and if so, are those reports accurate? mr. clapper: i am aware of the reports and the examination done by our analytic integrity officers found no substantiation of that. mr. pompeo: there are also press reports that you had groves frequently circumventing the chain of command. you testified that they come to the national level only through the dia. how do you square conversations you are having with the j-2 at one command with that testimony? mr. clapper: the conversations i

had with the j-2 were only for tactical updates. not to discuss a broad assessment. and i would also comment that in every one of these it was a split screen and the jcs j-2 was always represented in these dialogues. the reference to assessments finding their way into national intelligence estimates or pdb articles is done through the defense intelligence agency, not direct from centcom or any other command. mr. pompeo: director clapper, president obama removed iran's designation as a proliferator. did iran change its activities in any way to prompt this removal?

[no audio] mr. clapper: i believe, if i am correct, iran is still a state sponsor of terrorism. mr. pompeo: the president removed the designation as a proliferator of wmd. can you tell me if iran's behavior has changed to justify such a removal? dir. clapper: i cannot say that

iran's behavior has changed. it has continued its aggressive missile development and missile fielding. in terms of its proliferating to other countries, i cannot -- i would have to research that and provide on a classified basis if we have information on that. mr. pompeo: thank you mr. clapper. thank you mr. chairman. >> i want to devote my five minutes to the topic of cyber security. and in particular, let me start with you director clapper, and thank you for your service. we really appreciate all you have done over the length of your long career. i would like to start with you. let me give you the bulk of the time. what i am interested in is not achievements and the progress we have made, because clearly we have with integration system but as you think about withdrawing on the field, what would you identify as the most specific weaknesses, unaddressed vulnerabilities, areas of focus for both the ic and this committee in terms of our defense against cyber threats?

dir. clapper: we need -- i think we need to make a healthy investment in the national intelligence program on intelligence to support cyber threats. obviously, it is always good to have more money, but i think as a proportion of everything else we have to look at, i think we are in reasonably good shape. i think the challenge for us is always going to be the fundamental fact that the internet is insecure and any time you have a dependency on the internet, we are going to be playing catch-up in reaction to defending our networks. the other issue i would mention is the creation of both the substance and the psychology of

deterrence in the cyber realm. that has been a challenge. the issue there is whether you react on a binary basis or asymmetrical basis via cyber assault and you react in the cyber context or do you retaliate some other way? i think that is going to be a challenge for the country -- mr. himes: is the challenge as you identify it one of the development of the doctrine or is it a technical issue? dir. clapper: i think it is more the development of a doctrine and policy. and developing a body of law through experience. it took hundreds of years to

develop the law of the sea, which may be a rough analog to where we are with cyber. and we have not had enough time get to develop that body of law. and until such time as there are some norms developed and we have a firm definition of what deterrence means and that is recognized by both state and nonstate actors, we're going to have a problem with cyber defense. mr. himes: let me ask one specific question on that topic. the committee has spent a great deal of time in the cyber security information sharing act. how are we doing with respect to the private sector, working with security agencies to address the cyber threat? is there enough communication, or can more be done? dir. clapper: i think there is. i think this is a shared responsibility a cross the ic. fbi is involved. importantly,, very

the department of homeland security. this also, when you say engagement with the private sector, that is as big as all outdoors. and finding the right and keeping active the right conduits so that we can share , and by the way, the sharing needs to be two ways, down to us and from us to them. i think there is a lot of improvement that have been made. the department of homeland security has made huge strides here, but that is not to say that there is not more to do. mr. himes: i yield back. >> in terms of cyber security, the number one thing we are trying to do is secure our networks. we have made progress on this. we are building up our cyber workforce. we should have all of the cyber mission teams in fy 17 and making sure that we have the

right people. the other thing we are really worried about and we are looking internet ofhe things. all of our weapons systems that we generally operate today were designed in an era where cyber security threats were not that stressing. so going through all of the different systems that we have, identifying cyber vulnerabilities and prioritizing those has been a big focus of the department. we have a cyber scorecard that is briefed to the secretary and i every month to six weeks and we are looking at all of these different factors on trying to improve our cyber security. we have a long way to go but we have made a lot of progress. >> thank you mr. clapper for your service. i would like to get back into this centcom discussion. and the reason why we

investigated this in the first place. as you remember, general jim mattis left abruptly in 2013. the director of intelligence remained in place for the first part of 2014 under general austin. and around june, that changed. there was turnover of people over at centcom. intelligence started coming out regarding mosul which was inaccurate. i think everyone can look back at that now and say -- mosul did fall. it did not have the capabilities that some people thought. but the intelligence since then has been in dispute. as you know, 40% of the workforce, twice the number of typical combatant commands felt

that the final product had been somewhat distorted. and through our review, many of those employees to this day believe that the culture at centcom has been somewhat toxic , to use a word that came up time and time again. right now, we are back in mosul again. we have people there. how do we know that the intelligence coming out of centcom today is anymore reliable then it was coming out two years ago? dir. clapper: we do not depend only on centcom for intelligence reporting. in fact, one of the reasons i do consult with them is to ensure that we are on the same page. so, we have other national assets that tell us whether what

we are seeing operationally or what we are hearing reported operationally comports with what we are seeing through intelligence. and my observations through the current campaign are that they do. rep calvert: as you know, we have the largest number of folks working in intelligence at centcom than at any of the commands. we spend quite a bit of money to make sure that these folks are well-equipped and well manned to make sure that they provide the best intelligence to the were -- war fighter and the combatant commander as possible. are you confident that is occurring today? that the intelligence coming out of centcom has improved? i think it is beyond dispute that we had a problem to years -- two years ago. has that been cleared up?

dir. clapper: i am somewhat removed from the command but from what i have observed, that is the case. i don't know if you were here earlier when i quoted the latest statistics from our analytic survey which reflects a positive trend. the number of respondents reflecting analytic integrity issues has declined. and importantly, their comments on management response when they did have issues has increased. the behavior -- the reflections of this at centcom are beginning to level out and comport with all of the other combatant commands. i do think by virtue of the change in commanders and the change in the j-2, that that has been a change in the atmosphere there. i have been encouraged by the trends, particularly this year. rep. calvert: thank you.

>> i am going to tell members that we have three votes now with a motion to recommit. i will try to keep this open so members can come back. at the end of the motion to recommit, we will have to end the hearing. mr. murphy is recognized. mr. murphy: how important is it that we have rules of engagement with cyber so that adversaries know, state-sponsored or not, that they know that there will be a response? dir. clapper: this gets to the point about developing a body of law. and conveying those messages is much easier with nationstates because everyone recognizes that there are mutual vulnerabilities.

the greater challenge for my part is the non-nation state entities which over time are going to develop more capabilities in the cyber realm to commit to render a tax. so i think the notion of building a sense of deterrence, the psychology of deterrence is going to be difficult. i think there are is certainly progress with the chinese as a result of the agreement struck in september of 2015. and we will have to see whether that is continued. but i think the greater challenge is non-nation state entities. rep. murphy: with things moving as quickly as they do with technology and cyber, how has

your experience been for recruiting the best talent in the world to make sure we are a step ahead? dir. clapper: we have sustained a level of recruitment and we continue to be able to bring great young people into the community. the greater challenge is retention. they will come to us either as young civilians or as military and then they become very attractive and appealing to the commercial sector. so then, we have a challenge with retaining people in the face of some pretty appealing compensation packages that a lot of our people have had experience in the intelligence community get and that makes them very attractive. rep. murphy: i think we would be remiss if we did not pick your brain briefly in what you think and based on your experience

, over the next 5-10 years, the greatest threats we face as a nation, what we are doing to address that and what we should be doing especially with a new administration coming in. what is your advice? dir. clapper: are you speaking only of cyber? rep. murphy: in general. dir. clapper: that is a hard question to answer because from an intelligence perspective, we have to be a alert to all of these threats. i wish i could rank them and pick and choose which ones to worry about but unfortunately, they are all a problem for us. so whether it is the nationstate challenges posed by the likes of russia, china, north korea, and iran or transnational concerns like counterterrorism, like proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which is personally a growing concern for me. the challenges posed in the cyber dimension.

we have to, and our approach has been to try to maintain a balance so that we can protect and to address the full range of threats. i am hesitant to try to pick one and say this is the one that is us into be the worst for the next 5-10 years. rep. murphy: thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am pleased to hear that things are better at centcom. i served on that investigation and clearly we have concerns 2015.one went on in i know that has been addressed to some degree. what are the root causes in your opinion of the unacceptable command climate that was existing at centcom at the time?

>> this is something that secretary carter and i have discussed. we want to know what happened and why it happened. we have been looking to director clapper and the undersecretary of defense to say -- this is what we think the problems were. we have tried to get after it. the thing that the secretary and i, trying to stay above the ig investigation is simply to say, we expect, we expect all of our intelligence analysts to have full freedom to say what they need to say, to speak truth to power, we expect the chain of command to pass that information up the chain. every decision we make on the campaign is based on the assumption of good intelligence. so, it is very important to us and we are waiting the judgments of the intelligence professionals on how we can improve. rep. wenstrup: when do you

expect that we will get that? we have gotten a lot of information on our committee and our investigation. open source news has provided much information. when do you expect we will get something back? right a wrong if you keep playing with that. how do you avoid it happening again when we are taking far too long to figure out what happened and why it happened. we have honed it down to the sections that seem to change. why is it taking so long when we have gathered so much information? work: one of the largest jobs is to be patient when these type of investigations are ongoing. i cannot tell you when it will be finished. rep. wenstrup: i don't know that

you should be patient actually. i think it is time we come forward and let the american people know what was taking place. at least let this committee know what had been taking place. hopefully it is corrected. frankly, i am surprised you are content with 25% in this survey as being acceptable. i would be shooting for a lot less than that. and you are free to comment, director clapper, if you would like to. dir. clapper: i think it is important to bear in mind that we are having -- this is a debate about subjective subjects. where there can be room for honest analytic disagreements because we are always operating from incomplete or less-than-perfect facts. and so, people who are experts in this can have and do have honest disagreements. so i do not find the figure,

again, given the subjectivity of the subject matter, i do not find that alarming and that is pretty much on a par with the behavior. i would be more concerned if it was zero. if there were no disagreements , no dissent anywhere at anytime. that would be disturbing to me. i would want to know why that is so. rep. wenstrup: i can understand that argument for the 25% that i i surethe 25%, but cannot for the 40%. that does not fly in the face of what is going on at the other commands and that is unacceptable. the fact that we have had so many whistleblowers come forward speaks volumes. we have an obligation here to have oversight. lives depend on this as you well know. lives depend on the type of reporting that is going up. so, we have had plenty of testimony on our side.

there should be something that the ig should come forward with and very soon. not just try to run out the clock. i would think that before you go, this would be something you would want to have resolved and taking care of. dir. clapper: yes it is. your report took me and the rest of the intelligence community to task for seemingly sitting on our hands and not doing anything and not taking corrective action about this which we were enjoined not to. i would like to get this resolved. in the interest of general grove , who has moved onto another assignment, exactly what the ig finds will be important and it would be great if it happened before i leave. and if i may, i do need to clarify my statement about resignation. it is not effective until noon on january 20. not immediately. rep. wenstrup: i appreciate your

time and service to the country and i hope this is wrapped up and rectified so that we can move forward in a positive way before you leave. thank you. >> mr. castro is recognized. mr. castro: director clapper, thank you for your service to the nation in this role and so many others before it. we appreciate it very much. come off of unprecedented intrusion from a foreign government in our democratic process in an election that just finished last week, and also unprecedented intrusion in a director of our intelligence community in our democratic process. based on those two things, i have a few questions. the first is, do we know whether the russian government or those responsible for the hacking of the democratic committee, share

d any information with americans during the last year or year and a half? dir. clapper: i would rather not respond off the top of my head. in any event, this would probably be best left to a classified session. rep. castro: ok. i will be sure to follow up with you on that. the second question, as head of the u.s. intelligence community, do you believe that the fbi director breached any protocol in his actions during the last month? dir. clapper: i have no reason to question the director. i have -- i think extremely highly of him. so whatever actions he took, and he did so with what he thought was best. i have no basis to question him. >> thank you, mr. castro. i am going to get back to the

remaining questions that i have. so i will try to get through them quickly. secretary work, are you familiar with the decision by eucom in 2011? work: i do know that an aoa suggested that we should consolidate. >> but the requirement was specifically to be an hour outside of london. are you aware of this requirement? sec. work: i am not aware of a specific requirement. i am aware of the analysis that was done to support the move. >> director clapper are you aware of this? dir. clapper: no, i am not. >> this committee has learned

that the decision was made before an aoa was ever completed. the gao claims that despite dod's claims that they looked at 16 locations, 15 of the 16 alternatives, there is no documentation on 15 of the 16 other alternatives. do you know what happened to this documentation? dir. clapper: no sir. i do know that the investigation occurred approximately six years after that was done. one of the things they did say that we were lacking documentation, but the most importannclusit th made was that our actions were sufficiently reliable for the 's fore of describing dod

choosing raf. that to me is a slamdunk. rep. nunes: except for the fact that this committee cannot find any documentation of any work done on 15 of the 16 sites that you supposedly looked at. dir. clapper: all i can say is that three different secretaries of defense, two undersecretaries of defense for intelligence, we dni, three successive aoa's. they were looked at in an audit by the gao and they said our conclusions were sufficiently reliable for the purpose of making our decision. in my view, we have looked at this three different times. congress itself has agreed with our finding by funding phase one of the project. and they also approved phase two

, subject to my determination and certification that we spoke to earlier. rep. nunes: so, you think it is ok that there is no evidence that shows you ever looked at 15 of the 16 sites? sec. work: i will have to go back and look -- it was described by gao as the dod body of evidence. another finding. straight out of the report was that dod provided the required information in response to committee direction and statutory provision. rep. nunes: we have evidence that a commander's brief was done in 2011 where the requirement was an hour outside of london and we have had people testify to that fact. after the fact, it appears that there is no information. you can do all the studies you want, but if you have people

come to this committee and say we are not going to give congress the answers because we do not like the tone of the letter. you delay those answers. i am sorry, there is no evidence here that shows essentially someone just wanted to go there in 2011 and that was the decision made then and everything since then -- there is no documentation to document why that decision was made. memento back to the director. me go back to the director. on july 27, 2015, i visited you in your office and informed you that a whistleblower had approached the committee and indicated false information had been provided to the committee regarding the intelligence center. do you remember that meeting? dir. clapper: yes. rep. nunes: on march 21 this year, you told the chairman and myself that if we moved to the intelligence center outside of the london suburbs, that civilians and contractors would

not move to the new location. can you explain why that is the case? dir. clapper: i don't think i said that. i think what i said was that based on briefings i had received at jac molesworth that the civilians probably would not move to lodges. that was the specific reference. but a general statement that they would not go anywhere else , i do not believe i said that. rep. nunes: they would go other places. dir. clapper: i don't know. the specific issue that i was briefed on was reaction to the possibility of a move to the air base in the azores. rep. nunes: this was a briefing by civilians? dir. clapper: this was a briefing from the commander when i visited there -- i am not sure when. the commander of the jac. rep. nunes: he said that the civilians would not move there. dir. clapper: yes, these are

older people that have children in schools, particularly of high school age. i do not think that the general reaction to that, to move to an island in the middle of the atlantic ocean, was not very positive. that has been compounded by the section 414 of the intelligence authorization act, taking away their housing allowance, which is discriminatory and has had a negative impact, not only on dia civilians but ic employees in general. rep. nunes: it sounds like we are making decisions based on where people want to live. dir. clapper: this whole issue of moving was a wash to me. i did not get involved until there was the potential of

expense to the national intelligence program. when i got into this, and discovered that it would have potential morale impacts and people would probably not take their families to that airbase. in light of the facilities that they knew were not there. rep. nunes: are you aware that the azores islands are a popular vacation spot and have daily flights? dir. clapper: no, i am not. rep. nunes: do we have trouble getting people to move to hawaii? dir. clapper: actually, we do, because there are issues there with compensation for the very high cost of living. that is problematic as well. rep. nunes: the cost of the living in the azores is low.

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and then i have the excuse as an audience. [laughter] sen. sasse: i was heading into this to remind you of it, and then i was going to have an analogy of religion in the early modern. . -- early modern period. i also think there are probably a whole bunch of cultural and religious pluralism jokes i can a time a protestant at when the supreme court has a vacancy and my people are unrepresented on the court. [laughter] [applause] sen. sasse: i had a disparate impact joke and an affirmative action joke but i will spare you all. there is a really important thing that happened in the 10 years after the reformation.

it starts as an intellectual debate about how people are saved and theologians are in aing in latin and specialized institution of a hierarchal church. by the 15 80's, there is a reformation movement and a countermovement that are laity. involved with how you went from an intellectual debate from clergy in latin to a mass movement relates to a moment in the 1527-1528. period, when that is surely reaching the people. and went out left

into saxony and started interviewing pastors and mothers and fathers and children and he came to the conclusion that they don't have any idea what we are talking about. this movement is not actually penetrating, it is having political implications, and the world was being turned upside ,own in a whole bunch of ways but it was not reaching the masses. in catechism movement starts 1528 and 1529, and what i had come to originally speak about was that appeared i was coined to talk about the difference between the movement you have been so successful at, the fact yale andre 1981 at in982 at the conference, and 1985 when general lee's addresses the aba and talks about original intent and the debates that followed for the

went fromears that original intent to original public meeting, and all the jokes we have about history doesn't matter. you go through this moment where you get to a place to think how stunning it is when justice kagan is at her confirmation and she proclaims we disagree with her about what she thinks she means when she says it, but it is a pretty stunning thing about the success, the founders, the nurturers and investors in this movement that justice kagan would say, we're all originalists now. we don't think she really gets it. [laughter] sen. sasse: and yet, you cannot just say the texts are irrelevant. that is a fascinating thing. when thinking about what it was going to say, i admit, my

skepticism about the nominees of both of the parties over the course of the last 6-9 months to not have to do with speculation about how the election would turn out. the concerns i had about executive restraint in both parties. i admit, i was surprised by the outcome last tuesday night, and i realized there are all sorts of new moments of opportunity from this not just because there are policy preferences that will be advanced by president-elect trump that i appreciate more than the policy preferences that would be advanced by secretary clinton, and not just because i think it is highly likely that his first nominee for the court will come from that list of 21. those are really great things. but i think there might be a new moment of opportunity, and i would like to explore the own little bit tonight about what the opportunity for american citizenship might be in the strange time we are now entering. i did not pivot what i am going

to talk about because i thought of it on my own. i will admit a little bit of butterflies to say this. i am pivoting what i'm going to talk about because of how many of you in this audience reach out -- reached out to me recently concerned about your own organization. what is it like to be the nonattorney given the barbara olson lecture and then tell you that you need introspection. you have two big and important projects on the agenda. your talked about the article one project and you have talked about regulatory reform, and you have a standing mission to serve as gatekeepers of the kind of people who should be on the federal bench. and all sorts of fundamental ways, you are about advancing an organization that teaches at law schools across the country, were not a lot of other people are advancing this vision, the founders understanding of

separation of powers, of limited government, of checks and balances. these are beautiful things that our people do not understand. right now, current polling data shows that 41% of americans under age 35, 41% of americans under age 35 think the first amendment is dangerous. because you might use your freedom of speech to say something that would hurt someone else's feelings. that is not quite the point of america. [laughter] [applause] sen. sasse: for those of you who need a trigger warning or want to flee to a safe space, let me -- inrn you, our founders virginia, they were commercial a stick -- commercial a stick

folks, so we will ignore those. by large, the american founding was led by a whole bunch of people who differed about the nature of god and heaven and hell and how salvation might be achieved, and they came from a continent where people had been thinking for about 100 years that you should kill each other if you disagreed about those things. you should spill blood over those questions. hear me clearly, i think those questions are critically important. i think those questions are more important than policy and politics. the american experiment is the most glorious experiment in the history of the world because it takes seriously the human soul, it takes seriously conscious, it takes seriously persuasion and the idea that if you differ about big and important things, you cannot solve that i hardly violence. instead, we have this crazy idea that we will come together in a

community, we will expand the domain or the reach, as madison would have said, to incorporate more and more people with more and more disagreements so we can get to a place where everybody understands themselves to be a minority. and if everybody -- every american understands themselves to be a credo minority, and less you are watching on c-span, i am not talking to you -- [laughter] sen. sasse: the founders were scared to death about the tyranny of the majority, said wanted -- so they wanted to create a minority consciousness for all of us. amendment -- our constitution is glorious because freedom comes first, net for rights comes first, god gives us with dignity, and we come

together as a people to form a government as a secular tool to sit -- to secure those rights and our constitution says the rights of the people are limitless. that is what the bill of rights is trying to tell us. it is outside the document. we will run all the way to the nine and 10th amendment, that says by the way, if they were not any enumerated powers given to the federal government, only states and local governments can do those. we will start with the most important topline, freedom. what is the most important freedom? the first amendment is a dog's breakfast. it is free speech and press and the right of redress of grievances, and that means all of you who have sold out the

calls and became lobbyists, you're still an important part of the first amendment. [laughter] sen. sasse: let's hear it for the lobbyists. [laughter] [applause] are sasse: those freedoms what the first amendment amendment is about and the idea that any american to think the first amendment might go too far means that we as a people have not done the first things of teaching it. than justs much worse something you might think emanates from the campuses right now, the 41% of americans under age 35 who think the first amendment goes too far. if you ask the general voting public, can you name some of the freedoms in the first amendment, what is the bill of rights about, what can you name? speech.name freedom of 57%. 19% name freedom of religion as

think about that.ists when you think of benjamin franklin gambling out of constitution hall in philadelphia in 1788 and the little old lady and the may be apocryphal story where she comes up and says mr. franklin, what kind of government have you built? and he says it is a republic if you can keep it. i would hazard to guess that most of our founders in philadelphia, if they knew the state of civic understanding today, they may have made another run at george washington about accepting that monarchy. [laughter] there are fundamental things that we are not getting done and they are a crisis. i thought i might be standing in front of you talking about this at a time when we were about to fill justice