lee hamilton has provided extraordinary bipartisan leadership in creating a safer, more secure nation, and we are thrilled to have him/her today today to introduce today's discussion. -- to have him here today to discuss -- to introduce today's discussion. >> thank you very, very much. both lee hamilton and i are very proud to be part of the bipartisan center, addressing all sorts of questions now from energy and debt reduction to housing to health and democracy. never weree me, bipartisan approaches to these subjects needed before. we are proud to be part of the center and head that project on homeland security. one of the great challenges we are all facing is the use of drones and targeted killings. it is a real challenge. now, we have to talk about how to engage our enemies abroad and respond minutes threats here at home. we have always done that in the past in this country through some sort of a legal framework. we need that legal framework in order to have this kind of discussion. now, another thing lee hamilton and i agree on is one of the keys to a great democracy is transparen

break from the university through the council on foreign relations to advise them congressman lee hamilton who chaired the house subcommittee on europe of the middle east and this is the time when the cold war was ending and i went to the middle east in the spring to write a report on how the end of the cold war was like the influence regional politics. on that trip i made a stop in baghdad just exactly two months before iraq invaded kuwait my hostess was then ambassador april glaspie who obviously became part of the history related to that she took we were headed that evening to the house of a talian ambassador in baghdad because it was italy's national day and there we learned that yasser arafat's palestinian leader with whom the u.s. was not communicating at that time was still in baghdad and she suggested that i meet him because i'm up obligated to adhere to official policy of the united states and she thought he might want to send a message to washington i may want to convey to him how washington feels the meeting was a range of next day was a long meeting it was interesting you know

also a pleasure to be here on behalf of governor tom kean and lee hamilton who are the chairs of our homeland security program for sponsoring this morning's event. the core aspiration of our work on homeland security is to be an accident bipartisan voice looking at these key homeland and national security questions. there are a lot of themes as you can imagine that animate the conversation but there's none that's more pervasive in my mind or dynamic than the sun and the question of the relationship in our society of security and liberty. it is a theme that has been at the core of our governments imagination about the role of government really since the very beginning of the republic and its one we believe we will be wrestling with for hopefully the millennium to come. today's program will focus on the sharing of classified material with the american public that this is an issue very much in the news, highlighted recently by the aggressive efforts of the justice department recently confessed addition t but i think we found whether we are discussing striking the right balance has been

the house leaders were lee hamilton and dick cheney, who was the ranking republican. report of the select iran committee, senatet number 1000 -- 100-216 said "the constitutional plan, referring to the united states constitution, does not prohibit the president from urging other countries to give money directly to the contras, the rebel group in nicaragua, but the constitution does prohibit receipt and collection of such funds by this government absent an appropriation. this prohibition may not be evaded by use of a nominally private entity if the entity is in reality an arm of the government and the government is able to direct how the money is spent. the report also said, quote, congress' exclusive control over expenditure of funds cannot be evaded through the use of gifts or donations to the executive branch. were it otherwise, a president whose appropriation requests were rejected by congress could raise money through private sources or other countries for armies, military actions, arms systems or even domestic programs. let me read this again. this is the joint co