mr. bankston. mr. rosensweig. >> senator fraenk, senator flake, members of the subcommittee, i thank you very much for the invitation to appear today. it is always an honor to be asked to provide one's views to the senate of the united states. and i thank you for affording me that opportunity. i should begin by saying as a current holder of a top secret clearance for some of the work i continue to do for dhs i have limited what i have read to what has been lawfully declassified by the dni, as have most of the people in my position, which somewhat constrains how i can speak to the issues today. that having been said, i would make four basic points. the first is that transparency is a good thing but unlimited transparency cannot be our end goal. secrecy itself has its virtues in any number of circumstances. one can think of everything ranging from the attorney-client privilege to the identity of an undercover officer in a gang in los angeles to any number of reasons why governments legitimately keep secr

mr. bankston and the center for democracy and technology organized and led the coalition of companies and civil liberties groups that call for greater transparency and that now is advocating passage of this bill. paul rosensweig is the founder of red branch consulting, a national security consulting company, and a senior adviser to the chertoff group. in 2005 to 2009 he served as deputy assistant secretary for policy in the department of homeland security. also teaches at george washington university law school. richard salgado is google's director for information security and law enforcement matters. he served as a federal prosecutor in the computer crime and intellectual property section of the department of justice where he specialized in technology-related privacy crimes. he has taught at stanford law school, georgetown university law center, and george mason university law school. thank you all for joining us. your complete written testimony will be made part of the record. you each have five minutes. about five minutes for any opening remarks that you would like to make. mr. banksto

mr. bankston, what do you think? >> speaking generally we think transparency is critical to restoring trust in the u.s. internet economy and in the u.s. government itself. but it alone is not sufficient and that indeed substantive reform is necessary. cbp supports the bill you have introduced, u.s. freedom act aand we thank you for it. we look forward to working with you and the committee as it moves forward. >> i'm worried about overclassification. i find oftentimes every administration's been guilty of this. it's easy to classify a secret -- classify a mistake rather than try to explain it. let me ask mr. salgado, are you permitted to tell us whether google's received any fisa court orders? >> i'm sorry, mr. chairman. i would have to decline that answer until the bills that we're discussing today is passed. >> is our country safer because you can't answer the question? >> i can't imagine the country is safer as a result of that. >> thank you. that answers my question. and mr. bankston, concerns have been raised com

mr. bankston, on your argument that companies' first amendment rights have been violated. the question of prior restraint. please take a look at the question. i really would like your answer for the record. it's important to me. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you. all right. dick, thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman and mr. chairman, thank you to both chairmen. and thank you all for being here today. i was interested in a number of your points, particularly, mr. salgado, that additional measures are necessary, especially in response to chairman leahy's questions to not only provide additional transparency but also assure that individual rights are protected. as you know, i proposed that there be a constitutional advocate to in effect provide some adversarial process within the fisa court. you know as lawyers, courts make better decisions when more than one side is presented. very few judges would permit a proceeding before them in which only one side is presented. because they know that the core principle of our judicial system is that it is