to tom o'connor, firefighter's 798. thank you for being patient and being here as well. i know have been through some hard times in the past year, year-and-a-half. i want to continue working with you and gary to make sure you know that this administration will work closely with u.s. we welcome in these new classes and make sure that our overtime is lower and that excitement of working in these departments continues. i look forward to working with everybody together and for our community to continue and make our world-class city even more safer. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, mayor lee, not just for your comments but for the staffing that has just been announced. i also have to say thank you to the three members of the board behind me. supervisor scott wiener. supervisor malia cohen, supervisor carmen chu. and the other members for their support in making public safety a priority. the president is here somewhere. and the rest of the police commission. this is just a tremendous day for san francisco. we have made tremendous inroads in impacting vio

our first witness is chief john o'connor, currently serving as chief of police for amtrack. he has responsibility for development of security strategies, the implementation of counter measures and delivery of uniformed investigative and special operations for amtrack and chief o'connor served as chief of patrol for amtrack's metro pal tan development. before joining in 1998, he served as the long island police department and commuter railroad in the u.s. for 25 years having risen through the ranks he retired as chief of police. the chair welcomes back chief o'connor and you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you and good afternoon, chairman rogers and committee members. it's an honor and a privilege to appear before this committee. in my opinion, the threat against surface-based transportation systems is as high as it has ever been. all too often we hear news of another overseas attack or a foiled attack in this country. the manetta tut detailed the tax on transit systems since 9/11 and resulted in over 3900 deaths and countless injuries. in 2012 heritage foundation re

chief o'connor? >> we've seen an increase in the canines and increase in public and employee training. >> mr. bling and chip? >> the increase is in the baseline inspection that has occurred. >> mr. morris? >> i have not. >> we have been joined by my friend and colleague from texas who's come from the intelligence community wearing shorts she's made the world safer and we are glad to have her here now and i recognize her for in the opening statements she may have. >> thank you to the witnesses for their testimony. the chairman has been gracious thinking mclaurin to become members and mr. davis, mr. turner for your courtesies. we are also in an immigration subcommittee, so i think you very much. this is a subject that is enormously close to my heart, and i thank all of you for your participation in this value will hearing that will provide and that is providing insight on the critical issues. as a ranking member of the transportation security committee we continuously support the allocation of adequate

chief o'connor, what did you mean when you said tsa should have more operational focus? what does that term mean to you? >> as i said in my testimony, amtrack's approach is prevention, partnership, and participation. i think that's where the tsa inspectors should be focusing their efforts. they should be helping agencies in direct prevention efforts, you know, like supporting the vipirs. they should help partnering with the communities and not going out enforcing regulations. >> have you noticed the tsa assets in your stations? >> we get a lot of support, you know, on the normal vipirs in terms of the inspectors, we're getting sporadic reports across the country on showing up and efforts that i'm sure are well intentioned and i'm not sure add to the value of security. they did assist us with our base program but, again, once the program is in place, where do we go from there. >> as you know, i'm a big supporter of that. mr. elliott, i'm aware that alabama participates in the security program. can you elaborate more on that, mr. chairman? >> yes. and first of all i'd like

. >> even while he was in the senate when president reagan nominated sandra day o'connor to be in the court and he said he would nominate a woman and he took that literally, his own promise. and jesse helm spoke against her and she wasn't sufficiently solid on the rights to life movement for helm. and goldwater was in arizona, a friend of mine went out there, and he runs out there, where are you going. he said like goldwater had his hair on fire. he said i'll going back to washington and i'm going to explain to jesse helms that i'm most conservative man in the senate. well, in some ways he wasn't anymore. and farwell made a statement that any loyal american should oppose o'connor's opponent, aunen fortunate choice of words. and so he's a transition figure and you can see through him and his career the change, the he have evolution of the rep party. >> he's also a crank i didn't guy.i didn't guy. bob dole used to tell me if goldwater was pis schlpissed of something did you or said, he'd take his kacontai cane and let . >> these programs are 14 in number. they're every friday night at 8

. >> suarez: paul solman talks with journalist and author rory o'connor about privacy concerns and social media web sites. >> its he a social network that didn't abuse our privacy and could be trusted comes along, we abandon facebook. >> brown: mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> suarez: and i sat down with veteran reporter lindsey hilsum. her new book chronicles the revolution in libya. >> i spent a lot of time up and down the desert roads reporting on the rebels. they were probably the worst guerrilla army i've ever come across. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> growing up in arctic norway, everybody took fish oil to stay healthy. when i moved to the united states almost 30 years ago, i could not find an omega-3 fish oil that worked for me. i became inspired to bring a new definition of fish oil quality to the world. today, nordic naturals is working to fulfill our mission of bringing omega-3s to everyone, because we believe omega-3s are essential to life. >> and by the bill and melinda

particularly would like to recognize gene o'connor as the executive. she told me she bought 10 years for this, so we want to make sure she will be happy today. warren browner, ceo of cmpc. ron smith from the president of the hospital council. this will be the only time you will be able to write graffiti on a city building. without him coming after you. we want to introduce the director of public works.

, sad, but it's true. [ laughter ] and the huge part i played here did not go unnoticed by brian o'connoroice of dressage." jim? >> first of all, i'd like to give a big shout out to mr. steve colbert. we're very pleased that you were able to give us a wonderful prep for our national championship. we have had a great response from the wonderful and understanding fans of dressage or dressage usa here in gladstone, new jersey. >> stephen: oh, that's embarrassing. i've been pronouncing it "dressage." evidently, it's "dress-age." thank you, brian, for that mess-age. [ laughter ] and, folks, to thank me for the bump, ann romney and the united states equestrian federation made me this video using my contribution to dressage -- budweiser and red foam fingers. ♪ that's it. i've created a new dressage tradition. i'm going to be as famous as viscount heinrich fusselbridge, inventor of the fancy trot! [ laughter ] rafalca is now america's sweetheart. we're all going to love her just as much as ann romney does. >> i joke that i'm going to have to send her to betty ford for addiction to horses. [ laugh

her and justice powell occupied for o'connor. >> we'll talk more about justice roberts, but there waslso a worry that if this came down along line debates, certainly shows how divided almost equally this country is, but we got the opposite here, clear decision from this justice who was appointed by george bush, we can't say that enough, i think, here. >> that's really important, and i think that's what's going on here is we got some partisan tactics in terms of the commerce clause, we can't lose sight of that. we already have randy burnett who was the inflexible opponent of obama care. he said the court actually gave us a very -- however with respect to the taxing power, we actually have a much more expansion notion of the taxing power than we have hitherto had. so that expands federal power, on that, it's an expansion of federal power. >> and some provisions by way of the health care law are already, if you don't know, in effect. they include, children can stay on their parents policy until the age of 26, and children 19 and younger with preexisting conditions can no longer beç deni