A discussion on Ted Kaczynski, the unit bombers. After that, a discussion on the legalize marijuana use. After that, senator bernie sanders. On newsmakers, transportation secretary anthony foxx discusses infrastructure and a new report calls beyond traffic that looks at transportation needs. On cspan. The Political Landscape has changed with the 114th congress. There are 108 women in congress. And the first Women Veteran in the senate. The congressional chronicle page has lots of useful information there. Lots of statistics there, on cspan cspan 2 and cspan radio. Ted kaczynski, also known as the unit bombers killed three people between 1978 and 1995. In november, the attorneys talk about the case. From the u. S. District court house in sacramento, this program is one hour and 50 minutes. It was in may of 1978, that a professor from the university of illinois and chicago found a suspicious package in the parking lot. Attempted to open the package, it exploded. It injured the officer. This was just the first of 16 bombs delivered over a span of the next 17 years to individuals in various locations across the United States. All but two of them caused serious injuries. Three resulted in death. Law enforcement shortly came to the conclusion that the bombs were all being sent by the same person, whom they doubt the unabomber. Understandably, the public was struck with fear, not knowing when or where the unabomber which strike next. The investigation came to a head in 1995 when the unabomber sent a 35,000 word essay to the New York Times, the new york post, penthouse magazine, and other publications. It contains his socalled manifesto. It offered to cease the bombings if they would publish it. With the approval of Law Enforcement, the times and the post published the manifesto. When David Kaczynski red the contents of it, he began to think the unthinkable. That it was written by his brother, ted. Working with the information provided by David Kaczynski, Law Enforcement was able to obtain a search warrant for a cabin occupied by Ted Kaczynski and an area near lincoln, montana. Law enforcement had enough to arrest Ted Kaczynski, and the decision was made by the United States department of justice to bring the prosecution here in the Eastern District of california. The decision was also made to ask for the Death Penalty. The defendant was indicted in april of 1996, and the trial began in the courtroom of the United States district in 1997. After a lengthy jury process in january 1998, the defendant simply suddenly agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole. In our Panel Discussion this evening, we hope to discuss among other things how the fbi managed the investigation of such series crimes, expanding over such a lengthy. Of time and such a vast geographical area. We will also discussed the effect that those crimes had on their victims. One of particular. We will talk about why and how the decision was made to allow the publication of the unabombers manifesto. We also hope to discuss what was involved in seeking and obtaining a search warrant. And, how the decision was made to bring the prosecution here in the Eastern District of california. We hope to learn about the prosecution strategy including a decision to seek the Death Penalty. We were also in the defense strategy. Finally, how the agreement was ultimately reached to the defendant to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. We have a distinct panel with us this evening to discuss the subject. Therefore resumes are found in your program. First to my immediate left Terry Turchie was a special agent for the fbi for 35 years. Between 199419 98, he was the assistant special agent in charge of the unabom task force. He is coauthor of four books, one of them is entitled, hunting the american terrorist, the fbis war on homegrown terror. The most recent one, which has the most relevance to this discussion, is entitled, unabomber, how the fbi broke its own rules to capture the terrorist Ted Kaczynski. Our next panelist, to his left, is gary wright. He was the victim he prefers is a survivor, of the unabombers 12th bomb attack on february 20, 1987. He has since developed a friendship with the defendants brother, David Kaczynski. To his left, judge Robert Stephen left him lapham is a judge. He was the assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District handling several highprofile cases between 19842013. He was a member of the Prosecution Team in the kaczynski case. Finally to his left, quin denvir is a sacramento attorney who served as the public defender from 19771984, and at the time of the unabomber trial, he was the federal defender for this district. He was lead counsel on Ted Kaczynskis defense team. I would be remiss if i did not introduce one other individual who is present, but not on the panel, the judge who presided over the kaczynski proceedings judge burrell. To get off the discussion, why dont you tell us how you got involved in the unabomber investigation and how that came about. Like most agents, it was reluctant involvement. I can give you the seconds, down in the palo alto section. I received the call of the he said i just got off the phone with joe freeman. Which had just been established in 1993, after the simultaneous i smiled to myself and said thats a nice offer, ed, im good here. I love palo alto. I love being around stanford, so im good. But thank you. There is a pause and he said it was not a multiplechoice question. [laughter] i would like you to consider coming up here as soon as you can. So i said, ok, how about one month. That will give me time to wrap up everything here and we can find a new active supervisor and i will head up to San Francisco. He said, how about in a couple of hours. Most of us because of the length of the case, and i will use the words sheer hopelessness, thats how we thought about it, we all try to avoid that corridor that you will walk down in the Federal Building that house the unabom task force. Thats how i got started. The investigation had been going on for a number of years. Can you summarize what the fbi had learned . The investigation had gone since may, 1978, and even though they were 14 bombings, there would be two more bombings while we were assembled. We did not know a lot, but we knew certain factual details where we had questions, but we had no answers. In looking back, particularly at the first three crimes, they became very important to us as we try to look at a new way to put this case together. The first bombing, one that happened in may, 1978, the main question was this, there was a package found at the university of illinois campus in the scientific and Technology Building parking lot. It had 10 in on canceled stamps uncancelled stamps. Somebody went to pick it up and eventually got it to the police and was harmlessly exploded, but we were never able to answer the question as to why we had a package with the return address of Northwestern University in chicago and 10 in uncancelled stamps. Why wasnt this package mailed . In may, 1979, another bomb was found, only this was found inside Northwestern University. That struck us is very interesting because the first on we had with the return address with northwestern, and now we had a bomb actually at northwestern. So, we thought a lot about that and we tried to look at what possibly could be a connection between the two bombs. Then the third bombing in november, 1979 occurred, which got everyones attention. A bomb was laced on American Airlines flight 444 headed for washington national. There was a bomb placed on the plane via the mail that had been built with a barometer and fashioned as an altimeter. When it didnt go off because it was under a lot of luggage, it started a fire than rather explode as it was supposed to. But time this plane did an Emergency Landing at Dulles Airport and the pilots were able to get down and take a look at the damage when the fire was out, they were prepared to say that years later had this fire burned just a couple more inches closer to the main hydraulic line, this plane would have crashed and there wouldve been nothing we could have done to stop it. So, at that point, the fbi lab expert looked at this bomb and the parts and thought that its very strange that we have not seen any other bombs built by someone who would do this. He sent out a bulletin and an alert to all kinds of agencies. He got a call from the atf. They reference the first two bombings in 1978 and 1979, brought all this together, and then we realized in november of 1979 that we now have a serial bombing case. How did the name unabomber or unabomb get point . Get coined . The first two bombings were involved at universities Northwestern University and rpi, the first bomb with a return address of northwestern. The second bomb in the graduate student room in may, 93 night at northwestern gave us universities as targets. At the time this bomb was placed on the American Airlines flight, we have universities and airlines. The fbi likes to attach fancy names to its cases, and they certainly got the public attention. University and airlines bombing, unabomber. We had a chart behind us of all of the bombings. Without getting into all of the details, what was the sequence of events after the first three . After the first three bombings, we would eventually have 13 more bombings, for a total of 16. In 1980, the airline aspect of this got another boost. Percy wood, the president of United Airlines in his lake forest, illinois home, received a package in the mail. But a week before he received the package, he received a letter, and the letter was written to him by someone named who signed the letter. In this letter, he said, you are going to be getting a package, a present. You dont know me, but anybody like you, president of United Airlines, who makes decisions affecting the Public Welfare needs to read the book that im sending you. The book turned out to be a novel that was written at the time, even the author really did not have social significance, so i do not know what they are talking about. I just came up with a oneday. Percy would receive that package the next week. When he went to open it, the book had been carved out and it was a bomb built into the book. He suffered significant injuries when he opened this book at his house. That was the fourth event. All of those had annexes to chicago. Then, no more nexus to chicago we are done with chicago. In 1981, we move on to Salt Lake City. In 1981, a bomb was left in a hallway at the university of Utah Business building. It exploded in the bathroom harmlessly because somebody had noticed it and the police to get in there. They detonated it. We were not able to do much with that. A few months later, we had another bombing. This bomb was mailed from Brigham Young university and ended up with a professor at Vanderbilt University in tennessee. The next bomb in 1982 was at the university of california at berkeley. That became a very important bombing. The victim, the person who fortunately was able to survive his injuries, had gone into another graduate student room on the fourth floor of the university of california at berkeley and corey hall worried when you go and does it that and look at that area, you realize that someone who came up and had the presence of mind and was not anxious about coming to this location on the fourth floor to leave this bomb here. It was very similar to what happened in northwestern with bombing number two. They really made us start to think about that. Then, no more bombs between 19821985. We then started calling 1985 the year of the unabomber. There were four bombs in 1985. One was at boeing corporation addressed to the boeing Fabrication Division in seattle, washington. All of the evidence from that bombing was gone, never to be seen again because it was detonated harmlessly in a tar pit of theirup there. We could never get anything back from that bombing. After that, another bomb at corey hall at the university of california berkeley, this time as you walk off the street onto the street level and go down a very narrow corridor that was occupied by graduate students. Again, just like the bombing in 1979 at northwestern. By the fall of 1979, we had a bomb going to Professor James mcconnell. Finally, in december of 1985 the unabomber had his first success with one of his bombs. That was right here in sacramento, california, out here at the old Century Plaza strip mall, a place called red Tech Computer store, the owner of that store came out from the door into the back parking not parking lot oneday around noon and he saw on the ground line by a cart what appeared to be a road hazard. In his mind, it was kind of a combination of two by fours nailed together. There were nails protruding. Unbeknownst to him, inside these pieces of wood, the bomber had carved into the sides and built a bomb. When he went over to move this so it wouldnt cause problems for any harmless passerby, as soon as he reached over to break the contact between that the device and the ground, it exploded. It killed him almost instantly that morning. The next bomb was an Salt Lake City and that involved our next panelist, gary wright. Why dont you tell us what happened. Sure. Similar to what kerry was saying with the structure of the bombs. 1987, i owned a Computer Company in Salt Lake City. My family worked there with me. I had been out on calls working from route 6 00 in the morning and got back to the old is around 10 30 a. M. And pulled in the rear parking lot of our building at that time. As i pulled into the parking lot, i looked down at it next to my secretarys car, so i pulled next to her. There was a piece of wood that was similar to what you say, but different. It was two twobyfours put together and had four nails sticking out of it. Those four nails have always stuck in my mind, because i can always remember one in particular that was on the righthand corner. It was bent just a little bit. They were also the shiniest nails i had ever seen. They looked like chrome, something handmade. I walked out of my car and went over and said there is something i need to get out of the road. When i went over and went to pick it up, there was something really quiet wrong. There was an immediate feeling of huge pressure and the sound of a jet fighter going over, a screaming sound, if you will. Instantly, i had moved a long way. I did not know how i got there. I realized that i was jumping up and down like was on a pogo stick. I was hollering for my family. Everybody worked for me, my mom, my dad, my brothers. They came out the back of the door. As im jumping around back there, the only way i can describe the next thing i would saw was like the matrix. Everything went into slow motion. You hear this at times. I can tell you it is true. I was looking at the power and the telephone lines that went into the building and they were moving in a slow wave. I was watching pieces of things drift down around me. There was a piece of red tape that was spinning around like confetti. I was thinking this is the weirdest thing ive ever seen what happened . At that second, i really thought well, im not going to make it. I thought somebody had come around the corner of the building and shot me with a shotgun for some reason. My family came out at that point and i could see my dad was trying to Say Something to me. I was reading his lips because it was like being underwater in the swimming pool, youre kind of here, but not really here. He had been a state trooper in salt lake and had seen lots of things. I could tell he was pretty upset. I was thinking that my dad is upset, maybe this is bad. Slowly he and my brothers took me over and sat me on the edge of the tailgate of one of the trucks and sat there for a few minutes and i started to get shock coming at that point. While i was sitting there, i was was dressed nicely and i saw my pants were gone from the knees down. I had on a White Dresser and there were these things i couldnt figure out what they were in the beginning, they were just like threaded through my shirt like needles. I thought, what the heck . I kept trying to put my head down to look, but i was having trouble understanding what it was good when the bomb exploded, it was inside of two by fours before spending been hollowed out. It was all of the slivers. They had, been impaled themselves for the doctors later told me that you look like a porcupine. That is something where they say life changes in a minute, but it changes in a millisecond. You just never know. We walked into the building. I got really calm and took everything off, my hat, give it to my mom, and laid there. I guess i really realized it was pretty serious because the next thing i see coming to the back door was like 25 police officers, and the ambulance crew comes in, five of them. I dont know how you fit