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A general advisory firm. He served as the director of from 2006 elligence to 2009 where he was responsible for overseeing all information oncerning the plans, intentions, and capabilities of adversaries, producing timely analysis for decision conducting covert operations to thwart terrorists and other enemies of the United States. Author, lecturer and teacher. She spent 17 years in the most editorial positions at the New York Times where she was the first woman to serve as bureau chief. Managing editor and executive editor. She e joining the times, was Deputy Washington Bureau chief and an investigative eporter covering money and politics at the wall street journal for nine years. Leon is a cofounder and chairman of the pineta institute for policy and a former secretary of defense. Secretary pinetas long and service shed public career has spanned the United States army, the United States ouse of representatives, the office of management and budget, president clintons chief of staff, director of Central Intelligence, and the 23rd defense. Y of steve, our moderator sa staff writer at the new yorker, the of seven books of nonfiction and a twotime prize. Of the pulitzer he has been a reporter, forn correspondent, senior editor, managing editor, and is the dean of Columbia University graduate school of journalism. Please join me, ladies and welcoming our panelists and our moderator. [applause] steve thank you. Thanks everyone for being here. To this oking forward discussion. No one up here is congenitally so im hoping to invite all of you to talk over your moderator, ignore your moderator, ask each other questions, weve got a lot of ground to cover and a lot of lively subjects. I think lets start with the basics and i think maybe toward the end of the conversation, i move into the world were in now, the digital age of creates a a which whole new set of questions looking ahead. Editorial decision making, our colleagues in the audience know, law. A lot like case you have certain principals behind you, certain standards, nd casebycase, you try to apply the complex facts and make good judgment. When a reporter comes to you that sensitive story reveals Sensitive National security information in one sort another, what are the principles you have in mind as you evaluate what to publish, night to publish . Well, certainly, in that steve, i would, you now, unless it was something extraordinarily sensitive, where i would know that lives were really at stake. I would encourage the journalist and the reporter with the story to find out more about it, to make very er difficult decisions about what stories to actually publish and to hold a story or in very unusual situations to something, publish you know, information really helps you. In the end, decisions, i should say explicitly were, you know, the most excruciating. Confronted both the washington because stories involving National Security and rooted in e were washington as managing editor of as times and certainly executive editor, and the i ancing test that applied, use me as one of the panelists this morning pointed out, you know, constitutionally hold power ndate to ccountable and keep the public informed. So that is our first responsibility, but in the test, that has to be with, is the story really going to cause harm to country, because as ournalists, were citizens, too, and we want to do verything we can to keep the country safe. Professional our duty is really to inform. I had these jobs the period immediately war on terror the and all through to the end of he bush administration, and through both obama , certainly ons, and fewer to 9 11, there were of these requests. You had to ask yourself the question that, actually, one of downeys kaiser, put ob brilliantly, which is if a war on terror is being waged in the of the people, shouldnt the people know about it . Shouldnt the people know about dimensions . New se with all of the programs that were launched during that period, they hadnt consent d a chance to to some of the, you know, dark programs that were being carried out. End, youre, in the responding to federal constituencies. Ne, to the public, because youre balancing the importance f keeping them informed and holding them accountable. You know, the country, you dont a precipitous decision that could actually arm the country, and then your own reporters, because you get you know, what adds to thesecruciating nature of decisions is the reporters usually worked really long on to get them and ironclad, you know, their sources have put themselves in harms way. They feel their credibility is n the line because their sources expect the story to be published. All of those balls are in the air. Least first thing, at hat i did, is when an raised serious National Security concerns and asked the New York Times to ither hold a story or not publish it entirely, you hit the pause button. I worry that a lot of impression as the that we get these leaks about programs, like we hone into the Washington Bureau them right publish away, but that could not be case. Er from the but, you know, i dont think just assume that president s ons and aretheir chief intelligence crying wolf and, you know, being cavalier and to publish i think, is ckly, not the right response. Because the ime, requests became more frequent to organizations to stories, ies or kill that there are new organizations, big ones in no longer call comment on use for some of these stories, which sometimes doesnt always have the administration finds a sensitive have story in the works. Steve so on one more beat, in principles, you could refer to one thats probably if you judge on, that publishing would directly to the death or survival of an individual, or the publishing gratuitous operational detail, or its messing up an Battlefield Movement thats of no Public Interest reason, of course, those are relatively easy principles to behind you. But when you get to this assertion of harm to the country to, national erred security damage may involve less effects, exposure of or ements between allies other sensitive matters. How do you think through that are there nd times ive worked with you, watched you make some of these judgments, but how did you define National Security you considered whether to withhold a certain detail . As jill said, we seek information about that and try to make the best decision after having as much of that possible, and including experts from our own staff. You were an expert in one part for example. I think its best to answer with one illustration, which is a Pulitzer Prize winner dana priest, regarding intelligence agencies, she is a reporter who had many, many sources from the top to the bottom of the agencies. Nce and there came a time some years after 9 11 when she realized sources were very concerned about something, very worried about something. Leak. As not a nobody dumped this on her. She just was picking up little pieces of information from a variety of sources and piecing it together, and it was turned out to be the cias secret prisons abroad, particularly in eastern europe, where highvalue terror suspects questioned. Eld and cases know also in some there are questions with the questioning techniques. Once you piece together a lot of this, she did what you should do. She went to her sources in the cia, including the person in for public information. She was sent to the senior person in charge of this entire to them and listened about what was going on. Im sorry, first of all, you want to know if its true. Know if this is right. So thats another reason it goes that news rnment, organizations may be publishing things without talking to the government at all is scary, it may notst of all, be true. So you want to establish the eracity of it and you want to establish National Security concerns and know what are they, what different kinds of decisions do we make . And she kept me informed all through the all whole matter. Finally, when it became clear to hem that we were going to publish some kind of story, when were still trying to figure out hat to include and not include in my quarter century of making these kind of decisions, we but often the story held specific details, obviously in code names of operations, of individuals, locations of where the earliest drones front. Hot up we didnt want to publish story warfare. Ne and kept the name of the country. Not because the government told us not to. But if we named someone, it would end. We didnt want it to end because they knew what was going on. In this case, we went to the and either the director of the cia or director of the Central Intelligence that was installed at the time and argued that we shouldnt air the story at all. Usual, i asked questions, what is involved here, whats so harm to human life and on. The various types of harm, we would just do that for the reputation. Well, you can strike that. [laughter] secondly, it means our allies trust us with secrets. Thats your problem, not ours. And then we got into serious things, they had to shut down the prisons most likely once located. Ore importantly, there was other kinds of operations going on with one or more of these countries in eastern europe, the counterterrorism organization, that yes, they were identified country hold iing the locations, that it could bring governments or certainly end the other security united ion with the states. And my ears perked up to that, because you can do this story naming the ssarily countries. Did, told them, as i always were going to consider them again, it was along with us. We were able to ask questions that were well informed. And then we were invited to the graham, who and don was the ceo, and bo jones, the myself, and the resident was there, you know, the chairs that you see here, hes sitting in the one and don graham is sitting in the other and im over and opposite me is cheney who didnt go out with me the whole time, and the National Security advisor was around and there were other folks there. Nd the president made the same presentation, the context of the war on terrorism, specifically about context of harm. Whichd a lot of questions were answered by steven hadley, the National Security advisor. Again, i e way out, asked specific questions, and said wed make a decision. That it was my decision whether to be made by him or the publisher, which is we always do things at the times. Of the he way out, one gentlemen in the room, id known off, and ime on and said, youre not going to name those countries, are you . I wasld tell thats where headed. I could tell thats where he was headed. Nobody else mattered. And thats what we did. A lot of t we took hell from people who thought it was terrible for us to breach this National Security secret on side, and we took a lot of hell from other people who said you didnt name those ountries, what are you, chicken . Secretary pineta, from the and side of the camera, having, im sure, run through these conversations from either cia or at the pentagon, what write . Ould you whats your reaction to what you leonard . Jill and do you think theyre on the right track in the way they balancing test . Frankly, my eta experience with leading newspapers like the times, post, wall street anetta frankly, my experience with leading newspapers like the times, Washington Post, wall street journal and others was that they tried to exercise good job here. Calls. Are tough its not easy. And the only times that i had we e discussions is where ad the potential if a story went out that a very sensitive probably be revealed. Meant jeopardizing the life of that source. Discussion ad the and, you know, look, reporters job, thats what they they go after those stories, and a lot of them have agency, rces within the whether you like it or not. He fact is, they do get their stories. And when immediately you pick up these stories, you know, you frankly, i and, would say 9 10 stories are, you they go, because report ser doing his job. Particularly like the stories getting out there, but thats the name of the game. But on that 10th story where you life you know, somebodys is in jeopardy if, in fact, this and you can make that case and i, frankly, most f the time, i talk to the reporter. Confirm he reporter, the reporters story, and the would be sensitive enough to take it to his bosses very ou know, i think the fact that a life was in jeopardy as enough to kind of balance turn the scales. Wherenever in a situation it involved, frankly, a broader youcy issue similar to what len, and thank god. I always felt that and there where it involved the post and i actually talked post e editor of the and i got a fair hearing. In the end, they delayed the story and then, said tely, you know, they well delay it for a while, and to wed like to come back you. And they did. So i have to tell you, my xperiences were that this was pretty straightforward, and that pleased that when youre making these decisions forget, they have a reporter, they have a story, its a hot story, you know, it a lot of news, and to be able to pull back from that orause the National Security National Interest is involved, is not an easy call. My experience, the papers always made the right call. Steve general, welcome your comments on the principles that,ion, but to go beyond youve been speaking in a very striking way about the need for threeletter n agencies, in order to build the credibility with the voting ublic that a democracy requires. And i remember when you were in nsa being surprised as a call up and the phone number was answered, and sed to be called nosuch agency, and when i asked for some [laughter] for some help, the next thing i knew, i was having lunch or coffee with you garden. And i was struck that you seemed selfconscious strategy of trying to build some kind of balanced visibility for secret agency. What was on your mind in those days, and whats the broader we can t you think reach . General a lot of things you commented on. Make the call. The traditional answer when someone calls the nsa public with, howd you get this number . [laughter] hayden we made a more ous effort to put a human face on the agency. We he time for nsa, we knew were going into very unchartered territory. Debate s no national about the appropriateness of nsa intercepting soviet Strategic Forces communications fields, out to icbm looking for words of interest like launch or Something Like that. [laughter] we knew the n but 21st century equivalent of those networks would be out pursuing terrorist, proliferator communications, that were coexisting with your hack mail there in or gmail. Get the t we could not political sanctions or, frankly, 21stoney we need to pursue targets. If were still at the bunker in mede and hadnt built up a stronger sense of confidence hat we could be on those networks, we could bump your emails, but we wouldnt we would do , that only our duty. Conscious effort to raise our profile. Thats how it got more dramatic. Briefly, the last great nsa story is the snowden metadata stuff, fort mede ills up at and i think my administration was wholly flatfooted in responding to it. They needed to be out there more telling their story. The way it was rolled out took to a very dark corner of the room. It was very hard to explain what the agency was doing. One of the things the agency was faced with was they thought they were fine. After the great intelligence scandal of the 70s, pike and that, the compromise was to take intelligence, which frankly in most democracies, the province of the executive and actually share oversight of with the legislative branch. We have two select committees on now, and then a special Court Whenever it touched americans. Authorized bygram two president s, not one, two, overseend by congress, by the intel committee, which of it, and e fans checked back every 60 days by the court. Thinking, all right, thats going to be a bad one or twoday story but we checked. The macedonian check, executive, legislative, judicial. And we od to go, werent. Reaction from the gnl american operation, and not tin foilwing nuts with on their heads. [laughter] general hayden really americans. Serious and steve, what happens, reinforcing what were trying to now were nd 2000, doing it 11, 12, and 13, what had happened was a lot of good americans would point to that, congress, court, and now said that no longer constituted consent of the government. That may be consent of the governs, but its not consent of the governed. Them, but you old didnt tell me. Contract we cial had built on the church pike compromise, we had real nine ubsidence, and the social contract was gone and now, act can democracy wants to like it does with every aspect f government this was not unique, wants to have a more personal knowledge of what its do before e services they willingly validate the ctivities of the Intelligence Services. To be clear, if were moral, well shape the effectiveness. How this business works. But if were not more open, step away from us and we wont do anything. Now, the great challenge is, how the public to a degree we have never informed them before in order to have the legitimacy that the ublic used to concede to us simply by keeping a couple of committees informed . Leon may i Say Something . I want to follow up on that about the importance of the youre talking about between Intelligence Services and government on the ne hand and journalists on the other. The snowden case is a good example of that. Of that been in charge coverage at the post. Im not there anymore but im amiliar with how its being done. And the it has been very protection of he National Security for communication to go on between the journalists and the in a case at the post. Very good policy with working them. And its for the advantage of the journalism, for one thing o, make sure its accurate because you have a bunch of memos and complicated technical stuff you dont understand if help. Nt have in some cases, it turns out to be a proposal that actually went which you dont find out unless the government cooperates with you in going things that d many still havent been published and may never be published because response of the government was unbelievable that the harm greater outweigh what the public needs to know in order to give consent for this program. Is, the post has been most responsible with the writing, and then you go over to the london guardian. A little less so. Then you go over here to glenn who are plagiarists,. D there are no limits theyre offshore, not in the a ted states, which is question i want to come to. Snowden or the attorney general as saying last week that he thought in the end, that snowden had done some kind of public service. The context in which he made those remarks, but quoted in he was saying. He broke the law. Steve yeah, he broke the law, but coming from an attorney who saw the greatest number of pressweek prosecutions, so a little bit of something to discount. [laughter] end,e but i wonder, in the starting with you general hayden, do you agree . Suggests it saying was necessary to bring the public in to this. General hayden ive actually spoken a lot about this and my is that that young a badly erated distorted distorted necessary national conversation. The other 98 he gave to the do withs had nothing to your privacy or mine. It had to do with how reat britain, your nation and australia collects foreign intelligence. Was thinking that somehow somehow emilerates all of that. Second . Youve got an individual who e, in the intelligence agencies, are dealing with our national secrets, classified information. The president of the United States has the responsibility to defend the country, using covert and overt operations to protect the country. O in order to maintain covert operations, you have to maintain classified information. Need people to swear an oath to basically protect classified information. Intelligence agencies couldnt decides on verybody their own what they think should be revealed and what they think to be held. And the reality is, things are classified. And youre sworn to protect classified information. So when you have somebody who im going to dump a bunch of classified information because i dont like some of the seeing, it violates the law, and he ought to be prosecuted for violating the law. He ought to be subject to tried, and i think, you know, if he really felt loyalty to this country, why he should on hide out in russia or hide out in china. He ought to come back here and on that issue, and he can present whatever defense he wants. So its wrong not to happen. Issue the debate on the that he discussed, is that a good debate that this country should have . Of course it is. But that doesnt justify what he did. You know, willy loman used to rob banks. Oesnt make him a hero because we now know we should protect our money in the banks. And the same thing is true for snowden. He violated the law. Hes subject to being prosecuted law, and, you know, let me add to that, that the nformation that was revealed, in fact, did damage the security that we had developed in terms of being able to track terrorists. Terrorists is that dont use the same systems anymore. And so weve got to redevelop ur approach to how we track terrorists. Its impacted on the security of this country. Its impacted on lives that were there are ecause sources out there whose lives virtue of dized by revealing that information. So understand the damage that was done. Hould we have a debate on transparency and what were dealing . Absolutely. But you dont do it by classifying a bunch of information that could the rdize and damage security of this country. Secretary and i are talking about snowden, not talking about gillman. Thats not the way the would go in some other countries. General hayden can i go to prior restrain and let you join in on this . Snowden did make a decision to use snowden as locket ers and as keep ers and turned over the judgment as to where the balancing test lied. The guardian, the intercept, so he made diverse choices. Had built a web site and decided just to dump all the documents themselves, not out of the realm of possibility in the world were in now. It brings us back to the of whether the overnment will, again, after the pentagon papers case, make for prior restraints on the press. Mentioned to me while we were preparing for this, that there were a couple decisions that were made and you guys feared prior restraint. Me a little bit about whether or not you think were close it because the pentagon lawyer, im not a bought my understanding is that Supreme Court decision does not preclude prior restraints, by far. I dont think the snowd den Steve Snowden web site wouldnt cross that far . That. I dont know. Youre right that i worry that the ecision Supreme Court reached in the 1971, n papers case in is t iron clad, but the bar really high. Wanted to makest about, you know, the precursor, in a way, to the story was the 2005 story that the times broke. Likblal aboutric , warrantless, l eaves dropping, and of between people in people overseas, nd that was not, you know, legal. And that in the balancing teve if i remember this correctly, when you were Washington Bureau chief, the white house asked you to that ld a version of story. You chose to do so. Then later, it was published its confusing. Jill i was the Washington Bureau chief. Received the urgent requests wise and eric reporting oned all this story, that when they actually i said, no to that. I think any responsible editor said wants hat len more information, and you would the reporters who cover tend to be very careful just on their own. To stopping eporting, and then there was a request from the white house hat when we had enough confirmation for a story that we publish. Has been eller, who the ultimate decisionmaker and, me, know, he consulted with and the reporters the very difficult decision was made to you know, iny, and part, that decision was made, days before the 2004 election. And, you know, that brings up just another kind of sensitivity that,e have in journalism you know, its very because this story, when we did publish cause, you know, a huge ruckus and it again,you could do youd do it differently . Jill i certainly would not have held the story for a year. And, in fact, you know, there were two occasions when, you decision that e withhold the know, information for a very, very long time. Them both. So when i added history as part test, you know,g thats an important part of it. Did require that. Steve before we leave the prior restraint question case, the t if that information you know, in its a difficult question for both of you, that if theres someone in your agency who knows that something illegal is appening, are they under the same blanket you agreed to not classified information . Its just a slightly different facts. Steve yeah. Just before we leave the prior estraint question, general hayden, secretary panetta, did anyone propose in your counsels . Eneral hayden i was in the circle for all the conversation. I never heard a conversation. On e are a range of views the lawfulness of the program. Steve i would imagine. Primary ayden and the source was not somebody from the intelligence agency. It was somebody from justice and justice who was not bred into the program. Dont need to relitigate, but i would not i let it just stand that it was presumptively illegal. Didnt think it was. Jill although, you had to go back to the congress to have the program. General hayden actually, we continued the program after your until 06 and 07, to actually put what was then done under raw article 2 authority into the branch. Bor political jill you got general hayden we got a feisty on the part of the program that jim didnt know anything about. Fica e had gotten the decision. That was a prior restraint, and, in not e, thats unique having prior restraint. Every other country in the world britain. Including great yeah. Ellen the government would have simply sent a notice to her guys have to ese stop. You cant tell anybody we consent to this notice, thats else youll go to prison. Jill thats why in the snowden case, the guardian in britain no prior restraint protection, they literally had let, you know, government officials watch general hayden but they were talking to the prosecution, which is serious. We were talking about this depending on who wins the next election. So for instance, when making a record here. Was, whenyden when i i was here, ben bradley was executive director. We were going to publish something involving the cia and we went to the University Club around the corner of the Washington Post. And they threatened to have is prosecuted if we published that story. They immediately called the senate, and then the Justice Department and they said yeah casey was just over here saying , that he wanted us to prosecute you if you run the story, and we laughed him out of the office. I am not sure that would happen now. As the aforementioned holder has prosecuted a number of government sources, and in one case, the Justice Department brief and the u. S. Court of appeals decision cited him with aiding and abetting and essentially called him a criminal. We are getting closer and closer. There were some, not with prior restraint but with criminal prosecution afterwards. Steve the criminalization of that reporting process. General hayden, i want to go back to your theory of sort of transparency about secrecy and of democracy, because it is an appealing and complicated subject, just away into another sensitive case. I think, on enhanced interrogation techniques, you and secretary panetta and did up in different places, as i understand. You thought they were valuable in producing intelligence and defensible under International Law and necessary to National Defense. Secretary panetta, i thinks, acknowledges they produced valuable information, but on the whole, could outweigh the benefits. In your view, was anything lost by keeping all of these operations so secret for so long . General hayden yeah, in every case. In fact it is easier to explain a program that actually started, which is the one we are talking about here with the jim risen story. I kind of inherited the detention and Interrogation Program and was trying to reshape it and resize it. So it would be politically acceptable going forward. In this case, one of the big issues in the story of this theram, what we called what New York Times program was about was actually the 215 program that snowden released that had pretty much gone on largely unremarked in even the press exposes of the program. Again, that is metadata, your phone bills, nothing very closely guarded under tight , restraints, which is the good part of the story that unfortunately the administration didnt tell. All you heard was they got your phone bills before me and as part of a good julian record gajillion record database, it might seem very ominous. In retrospect, we might have immunized the community against the public reaction by simply being more candid about metadata, how metadata is used pointing out , and maybe even that metadata, yours and mine, is not constitutionally protected. In other words, begin to let the public broadly in on the broad trajectory of demands of on securitye placed agencies so that you have a better idea. Id use the word transparent on a panel like this about a year ago up in aspen. I said, were going to have to be more transparent. Michael, he used to run the National Terrorism center, great guy, he turns to me and says i , agree with your principal but it is not transparent. Talking about the Intel Community now. We need to be translucent. [laughter] general hayden and he is a very, it is actually a very elegant distinction. Transparent, you can turn the gain up on the telescope or microscope, get to the fine print and begin to make the public those things that were doing that stuff in the first place not worthwhile, because the adversary knows as well. But translucence, for the public now, not the oversight committee, they get transparency but the public gets translucence. Which is, they get to see the broad shape and Broad Movement of what their Intelligence Services are doing. Destructive, but to see enough of the shapes movement to see abroad sense of what is going on and build up that level of validation that i think we are going to need going forward. Please, go ahead. Secretary panetta i think the fundamental principle here is trust in the American People. And the reality is that if the American People know that steps are being taken to protect our National Defense and National Security and they know what , those steps are, the American People will be supportive. If you try to keep that from the American People or hide it from the American People, obviously there will be a lot of concern about just exactly what is going on to protect our National Defense. I always get asked the questions about the things that are going on. I remind people that, when 9 11 happened, this country rose up in anger, asking, how the hell did we let that happen . The National Commission came together that was established in order to determine why did that happen, what went wrong. And they determined that intelligence agencies were stone piped, they were not sharing information. They determined that other agencies were not working effectively to track terrorists and be able to determine who was trying to attack this country. And as a result of that commissions report, a number of steps were taken to improve our intelligence operations, our intelligence sharing, our Law Enforcement operations or Counterterrorism Operations basically aimed at trying to , protect this country and making sure we didnt have another 9 11. It is important that the American People be reminded of the fact that these are steps being taken to protect them. I dont i dont believe that we , have to choose between protecting our freedoms and protecting our security. In a democracy you have got checks and balances. You do have laws that are passed. You do have an executive branch, you do have the legislative branch, you do have a Judicial Branch all aimed at making sure , that we protect our freedoms at the same time as protecting our security. But there is an additional job there which i think might is getting to, which is that you cant just keep this to yourselves. You have got to be able to define this in a way to the American People. I think part of that responsibility is with the president. I think part of that responsibility rests with the people who had some of these agencies, to make clear that we are not just operating behind a wall, that what were trying to do is to fundamentally protect this country from another 9 11 type attack in order to protect you. And if we could be transparent about that, that i think this then i think this country would support the steps that are being taken in order to ensure that another attack doesnt happen. Put another way jill i think when that was actually put to the test a few years after 9 11 with the disclosure that there were these secret prisons, torturing of some of the terrorists who were being questioned, the photographs of abu ghraib and what was going on there, that tests somehat really of the fundamental issues of americans, is that how our country behaves . I think there again was such a huge reaction to that because it came out of the blue. You know, the public had no idea that such things and such methods were being used. And i agree with you that, you know, where in the end these decisions, it has to be the white house because you know, the white house is the president is charged with every word of the constitution. That is what happens on inauguration day. And i believe First Amendment concerns should,. But in the case, certainly in the case of leaking investigations, i dont think there was ever anybody in the room when they were discussing whether to approve a criminal case against a source are not isut how, in you know, what the consequences for informing the public are. Int is the role of the press a society that has to be informed to make informed decisions . And so i was always uncomfortable with the request to hold this story came from the nsa or the department of the defense or the cia, because i dont you have a specific mandate on agencies. I just stood and respected how carefully we take that. The president s mandate is a little different. It is supposed to take what we do and the importance of informing the public into account. In the end, that is why i actually went on one of my trips to washington. , asked the dni James Clapper because many of the requests were coming from him. Asked him, could we just get together and kind of talk through all this . He was very open to doing that, and you know, i think it actually, as your guarded visits with steve may have held, i thought that it helped for him to understand sort of my mandate and the discussion we just had shows the weight of the responsibility of all of the actors here in the play. I am probably almost as uncomfortable with the prosecutions in the last several years, not that these werent black bad people. They did bad things, but the carnal damage to the free press and legitimate inquiry was going to be very, very considerable. By the same token you mentioned abu ghraib. Let me talk about the burden on folks like this. I dont think they should have gone with the pictures. Im here to tell you in my professional judgment there are americans today who are dead because the press published the pictures of abu ghraib. Now now, we can argue about were , the pictures necessary or not for the intent of the story. My judgment is probably not. And certainly, if you weigh the influence not that those pictures had on the American Public but the influence those pictures had on our enemies. Steve so the structure of the digital age is global. Thats one of the reasons why your case has extra credibility because of the distribution structure of those photographs, its instantly global. So i want to ask you, back to our editorial decisionmaking the Washington Post, new york , times, theyre seeking global audiences. Theyre seeking to make money from global audiences. They are global publishers. Everybody is in the digital age. So are your judgments now affected by whether or not the Public Interest of the Democratic Federal republic of germany is served by disclosing that were listening to Angela Merkels phone . Are you global [laughter] that does not particularly concerned me, but the possibility of harming human life in germany would, just as the possibility of harming human life in fairfax, virginia, if we published the story of the kidnapping of the rich familys kid while the police have asked us not to while they continue to try to find him and keep him alive would be part of our decision. I cant see difference in germany or thailand or anything like that. In terms of political impact, no, i was not concerned about the political impact in the Eastern European countries of the secret prison story if we named those countries. I was convinced by american authorities the harm that would have been done by Counter Terrorism, the relationships with them that might have harmed the american National Security. Steve we are a few minutes away from taking your questions. If you want to make your way to the microphones, please go ahead. I want to get in one question about the time we are in now because we talk about how the , structure of disclosure of National Security information by the snowdens has changed in the era of big data. You can take out all this information on a thumb drive. But so has the structure of publishing. Were having a conversation , remembering a universe where the Washington Post and New York Times were all that mattered. Unfortunately thats not the case any more. One manifestation is the rise of social media platforms like facebook and Companies Like apple and technology Companies Like google that are global in their Business Models have , interests that are very divorced from the way the New York Times newsroom would have defined such judgments. So general hayden, i was struck as im sure anyone reading the news was by your statement about the apple encryption case when that,me out and thought against the fbis pursuit of breaking that encryption. So could you explain why you ended up on that side of that issue, and also where the dominance of the social media platforms as distributors of information and news takes us as we wrestle with the issues weve been talking about . General hayden i think youre all familiar with the bureau of wanting apple to bust through the encryption. Frankly in my mind, i think its not a constitutional question. I think the government has the authority to direct apple to do it. It was on a privacy question and hes dead and theres no privacy implications. Its a question of security. My judgment was, although the government had the right to do that, i just did not think it was a good idea to do that. There are lots of dangers to american security. Terrorism is one, criminal activity is another, so are cyber attacks. Frankly, you are going to be better defended by apple and american industry in the cyber domain than you will be by the american government. Its just the nature of the domain. [laughter] [applause] general hayden why would you than, for it arguably legitimate Counter Terrorism needs here . I would think three or four times before i went over here and crippled what the american industry provided loorks like looks like pretty good encryption to keep you safe. So in the security lane alone, just security, i think i side with apple. In the broader social media and so one thing that is the most important thing that has been said in this panel. General hayden on the broader social media thing alone, i just finished a book and i did a lot of research sitting at my home computer. One of the things like the secretary and i and our successors are going to have to live with is even though you have sources and they may give you a point of light here and there, the ability of a good reporter to fill in between those two points of light because of the nature of modern communication is exponentially greater than it has ever been before there may be more secrets out there, but it may be because there are more leaks. It might actually be the nature of the modern communications environment, which leads to all sorts of fundamental reconsiderations as to what is necessary or legitimate secrecy. Could i let me comment on this, because i think is kind of a sign of the times. But the fact is whether its apple or whether its Silicon Valley or whether its the u. S. Government, hopefully were all on the same side when it comes to dealing with people who would attack this country. And i dont know what broke down in the situation. I dont know usually behind every problem in washington is a personality problem where somebody got pissed off. [laughter] is that secretary panetta that is usually what happens, and is just the reality of things. The fact is, when i was director and i think its true for mike. When i was director, we had a very close relationship with companies in Silicon Valley. And i had very Close Relationships with people in hollywood. And these were all good patriots. They were very loyal to this country. They were willing to be helpful. We have to keep it confidential. And i understood that. And we did keep it confidential. But we were operating on the same team. If we needed help, they would give us help. And thats frankly the way it should be. And i dont know what broke down here and why suddenly justice takes apple to court and apple of course has to defend itself in this situation. But my recommendation was that both sides need to get back in a room and agree, look, apple has the right to protect its consumers around the world. I understand that. Protect their privacy. But when it does come to clear evidence of a terrorist whose going to use that information to attack this country, there ought to be a way to be able to get that information. And we ought to be able to Work Together to be able to achieve that. But it isnt going to be done if its done out in the public, if its done in the courts or if gods sake if Congress Tries to get in. [laughter] secretary panetta the reality is it has to be done in a room where people are sitting down and talking through and developing a process that both sides can agree to and work with. Steve lets take a couple of questions. Maam. Good afternoon. This has been a wonderful panel today. Jill, there are two things i wrote down that really caught my attention during your discussion. One was Holding Power r accountable. And the second was a discussion about a pause button. Perhaps secretary panetta and general hayden can explain to me, if that pause button was hit several times and perhaps reset benghazi. Attack on and the reason i ask that is i happen to be tuned in to al jazeera in qatar during that event, and it was already being reported. Yet it was several, several hours before i heard anything in the media here in the u. S. General hayden ill defer to the secretary who was in government at the time. [laughter] you cant gettta away from this stuff. [laughter] secretary panetta look, there was no pause button. There were no discussions with the press. That event took place. The press was made aware. They knew that the attack was taking place, and they published whatever they wanted to publish on the effort. On the issue. There was no effort to try to impact in any way the press and how they reported on that incident. Please believe that. I mean theres enough screwy , stories going around already. Dont believe that. Yes, sir. The prosecution question. Secretary panetta mentioned if somebody has disclosed classified information, there probably should be repercussions. Edwardthere any grave snowden, david trias, Edward Stirling are these all the same . And if theyre different who makes the decision for what is allowable and what is not . Is that the president . Is that the attorney general . Does nobody make that decision . Secretary panetta well, you know the Justice Department is the one that looks at these cases and then makes a decision as to whether or not theyre going to prosecute these cases. And in both the petraeus case as well as the stone case, they made clear that theyre going to prosecute those cases. They prosecuted the petraeus case, and i would assume if snowden came back here, they would prosecute the snowden case. As to what the factors are, as to what the mitigating circumstances are that an individual would present to the court, that takes place within the confines of an individual case. And then a judge makes a determination based on that. But the law is there. If the law is violated, a prosecution takes place. And thats the way it should be. Hadral hayden the rule i and the when i can talk about because i had the most contact was the jeffery sterling case, reisen being the jim rison being the reporter. I strongly opposed criminalizing what mr. Reisen did, i was really upset over what mr. Sterling did. So as that investigation was unfolding, i was asked as director of cia, how many more secrets are you willing to put into the public dome main in a Court Process in order to pursue the prosecution . And the answer i get from i gave to justices whatever , you need. Because that our view was this was an actual serious breach on the part of the c. I. A. Officer. Jim was doing his job. Im talking about what sterling had done. What had happened is, because of that dynamic, how many more secrets do you want to make public before you go to court, or when you go to court we had , made individually correct narrow decisions saying, dont want to do that. With the strategic effect that there were serious leaks without consequence. And so i actually that was my contribution. Everything after that is justice. We had nothing to do with it. Steve i want to say two things about this whole classified area. Number one is, many times when theres in my experience, the number of times when there have been leaks of important information, it is from a relatively lowlevel person. And you kind of wonder, how do they have access to that in the first place . Chelsea manning being a good example. So there are real breakdowns in the Intelligence Services about how secrets are being kept. And that needs to be remembered when you consider these things. The second is overclassification n of information, which i know the general agrees with me about. Its ridiculous. Again, the Chelsea Manning case. When you saw all those documents that were classified, some of them were newspaper stories. Or in the case of this is the respect we have. Right. [laughter] and is rampant, and Everybody Knows that, and there was a commission, a president ial commission created to deal with this. It made very good recommendations about how to straighten out the classification system. And the Obama Administration has done nothing with it. I think that is terrible. We probably went through this ien we did our books, but referenced some operations that my agency was involved with. And you know, talked about some stories that were in the New York Times. And the Washington Post. Said, when we have all this stuff presented to the agency, the agency said, no, it is classified. [laughter] and the president of United States spoke to that. So what am i missing here . I could not general hayden if you want a hammer, you want a nail. But for both of you from your experience at cia, authors, good authors a very useful memoirs and books, i have an office groaning with the memoirs of cia officers. There is no other secret agency in the world i think that has produced so many books. [laughter] so how is your bookstore . What is the inside the agency, i think there is some pension about this. He can only keep your mouth so long. General hayden there is a reality here, all right. Leonard the euphemism i will use is abuse. You do have a generous and generation of cia officers who want to get their view of the story out there. Prettythere has been a strong rush of fairly senior and good officers who have attempted, but is not the way i saw it. And he just want to put that out there on the public record. To the first draft. So if you ask a short question, we will get out of here on time. One of the things here seems to be trust and you are talking about trust in the American Peoples judgment. One of the root causes of these lack of of these problems is a lack of trust in the agencies you guys run. The nsa revelations would have corroborated. But something secretary said about snowden, he should be prosecuted. You said there are other ways to have that conversation. But that conversation was not being had, and there is no evidence it ever would have been illegalnt is [indiscernible] we need to talk about it again. I disagree with you. I think frankly if snowden and taken the time to go up and talk to dianne feinstein, chairman of the intelligence committee, she would have been more than willing to listen to that kind of information. That is the kind of chairman she was. Mike rogers, chairman of the house side, he would certainly be open to anyone coming in and providing that kind of information that concerned snowden. He did not even try, ok . Wasnt even an effort to at least talk to somebody in a responsible position has a way to minutes, i am concerned about what is going on here. Wasthe fact is, there response. People dont drop a ball on that. Once somebody talks to somebody, they note dam well if they dont do anything about it, they will not have a story. At least in my experience, working with good people in some of these responsible positions, these are the people that you want to turn to to say, i am concerned about whether or not our freedoms are being protected in this program, and here is the evidence that i have to show that. , if a historical footnote you dont mind, i will make it quickly as we have made many references to the pentagon papers. And in that case, daniel ellsberg, who was the source of the pentagon papers, he actually did approach a senator. The senateh wanted to hold hearings on what was in the pentagon papers including the fact that the Johnson Administration had told epic lives about the war. We aintsically told getting anywhere near this. It is almost as a last recourse. We could go on for another halfhour about whistleblowers and inside government systems. I think as reporters, our impression is that if government iraqis in general were able to manage internal dissent in a fair and consistent way without ruining the lives of dissenters repeatedly than we would be out of business. You need the press because in fact, not because anyone is ill of intent, is just the nature of bureaucratic culture makes it very difficult to dissent incredibly inside. It is a hard thing to build and sustain. You need the First Amendment. The Founding Fathers were wise about that. To me conclude by asking you join me in thanking this great group of americans. [applause] thank you all. [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] the white house coverage continues with the Green Partys National convention houston. Earlier today, the green party chose jill stein as their ajamuential nominee and baraka as their Vice President ial nominee. Next, cspans issue spotlight looks at police and race relations. Cia directorsrmer Michael Panetta and leon panetta and Michael Hayden take part in a discussion on freedom of the press and National Security. s issuext, cspan spotlight on police in race relations. Some headlines from recent weeks. In the New York Times obama faces growing expectations on race and policing. Talks ill, obama obama calls for continued talks on race. Headline of your stor

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