Freedom information act, and they do not try to point any exemptions for National Security or classification reasons, it would be an unprecedented event as far as i know. The state department is incredibly aggressive. All agencies of the federal bureaucracy are incredibly aggressive impacting information that could be classified. The notion that the secretary of state, in the course of her duties, could write 55,000 pages or receive 55,000 pages of email and not one ioda of it is classified, would be very difficult for me or for anyone who is somebody with the freedom of information act to believe. I am confident it will be an interesting thing because the state department, as they process request, will have to decide they will look at an email and say, this is classified but if they try to read acted as such, they are making a liar out of the Hillary Clinton defenders. It will be interesting to see how they perceive when they hit that conundrum, but i would be shocked if there is not
The committee will come to order. We meet today to consider two of president obamas nominees in the Intelligence Committee. Mrs. Caroline dianne krass, nominee to be the general counsel of the cia, and ambassador Daniel Bennett smith, nominee to be assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. As we would say, inr. Welcome to you both, and to the family and friends with you today. I also understand that senator bennett will be introducing ms. Krass and should arrive shortly from another hearing. When he does come in, i will give him the opportunity to make his remarks, and then we will go back to whatever we are doing. We have received answers to our prehearing questions from both nominees, and those can be found on the committees website for anyone whos interested. And we look towaforward to hear both of your opening statements. This committee has the jurisdiction over all nominees requiring Senate Confirmation within the Intelligence Community, and we try to move that p
Contributions to the Intelligence Community analysis over the years, but i do have concns about whether i do have concerns if it is doing enough independent analysis, especially with terrorist attacks on u. S. Facilities overseas. I hope that he will be at the forefront of intelligence issues that concern the policymakers on matters involved in the state department. We have many embassies and missions and consulates that frankly, as we have found, they are no doubt unsecured. And i know that that is not directly under you in this position, but its an issue that we are looking at with your experience. And ca has worked with covert action that is vital to National Security and it carries risks, especially with the leaks of classified information. As you noted in your responses to the committees questions, unauthorized disclosures and requests for information can compromise sources and damage our relationships with one partners and decrease the effectiveness of intelligence activities. An
Every time we find a way through one of these crises and say this is the last time and say isnt it great we found bipartisan agreement and we can use this momentum Going Forward to make sure we avoid this kind of crisis in the future. Ive seen this play before, and yet it seems that within days or weeks we just fall back to our old habits of digging trenches and fighting each other more than we talk to each other, and again governing by crisis. I think this time is different just because the depth of the dysfunction was different than ever before. The cries from the American Public were greater than ever before. But we should remember, as this report from the Bipartisan Policy Center on deliver system reform tells us, that there is still enormous room for the two parties to set out goals that we agree on. And if we push aside the most strident extremist voices that largely come from the Tea Party Caucus in the house of representatives, there is so much that we can do. And as my europea
Chairman Julius Genachowski and former fcc commissioner robert mcdowell. Thats followed by our discussion with congressman greg walden, chairman of the house subcommittee on communications and technology. Guest were in a landscape thats absolutely shifting, and there are areas of the statutory scheme where it would make sense to look at and say are those keeping up with the changes in the marketplace. Fundamentally, having this kind of competition, programming innovation, access by new players to consumers and access by the traditional players to viewers in new ways. Obviously, whats happening on tablets is amazing. Whats starting to happen in the living room is very exciting. Were in just an incredible time when it comes to the delivery of video programming to consumers. There are issues. We heard it at the commission, both of us did, from distributers who were concerned about the costs of programming. Consumers are concerned about the costs of programming, so thats an issue of i thin