Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20141107

Obamacare was a huge legislative mistake has fouled up the Health Insurance market, put states in a deep hole in terms of the Medicaid Expansion in their own ability to finance it a few years from now. If i had the ability carl obviously i would get rid of it. Obviously its also chair he is still there so we will be discussing how to go forward on this issue when we get back. I will say this for sure there are pieces of it that are deeply unpopular to the American People. The medical device packs which has exported an enormous number of jobs, the loss of the 40hour workweek, a big mistake. That ought to be restored. Individual mandate. People hated so i think we will be addressing that issue in a variety of different ways. Host Jackie Kucinich this morning the Washington Post george will talks about what he says is a fresh start for congress and he makes reference to what senator mcconnell referred to as the medical device packs following a 29 billiondollar blow to an industry that has a 40,000 jobs. The president yesterday saying, to me with good ideas in the tail on a look at them but i wont undermine a key component of the Affordable Care act and thats one key component because it funds the Affordable Care act. Guest i think i will probably get vetoed and i want to point out that mcconnells rhetoric changed from im going to repeal that he had during that campaign so he sounding softer. The tough thing for mcconnell when it comes to obamacare is going to be conservatives in his caucus. Theyre going to keep pushing this. They are going to keep pushing obamacare related measures and attaching them to all search of bills. He will have to find a way to manage that. Host does it help having someone like senator ted cruz as a foil for senator mcconnell . Guest i can help in her. Its a doubleedged sword in a lot of ways because republicans get blamed again for derailing any progress in the senate if they keep on talking about obamacare for the next two years. Host if you are in the cabinet room tomorrow morning if that is where the meeting will take place between the president and congressional leaders do you think the dynamics will be most notably between the president and senator mcconnell . Guest their relationship is not as bad as people think. Mcconnell is a professional through and through. Nobody knows procedure better than he does and probably no one knows his caucus better than he does. Dont underestimate him and you heard in the president s speech yesterday a lot of respect for him because he felt this as someone who when he says he can deliver his caucus he can. I think thats going to be a basis for working relationship of sorts. I think the president s real problem is actually with democrats who bitterly resent the impact that he had on their races. The occasional remarks he makes. He said at one point its good that there is a Republican House and Republican Senate because now we can negotiate it. What does that sound like to a House Democrat . Who in effect gave him everything he wanted at the beginning and since then have seen their ranks continue to decrease. Host let me pick up on that point because interesting insight from your colleagues and extensive Pieces Available on line at Washington Post. Com the battle for this and how the gop did it. As a a name and is that most viewers may not be for me with, david crow who is a key player in his role as chief of staff to harry reid. He said quote the president s Approval Rating is barely a 40 pay what more is there to say that he wasnt going to play well in North Carolina or iowa or new hampshire. Im sorry it doesnt mean a message was bad but sometimes the messenger isnt good. This is coming from a democrat who is the chief of staff of the Senate Democratic leader. Guest he is not off the reservation. Hes a very close confidant to senator reid so its not like he ran out and decided he would talk to this was obviously something that was sanctioned. That peace throughout shows the frustration Senate Democrats have with the president throughout the election particularly when it came to money. The president can raise tons of money and wanted him to raise money for the Senate Majority pac. His advisers kept on coming up with these legal reasons why he couldnt. I feel like they felt obama uses network just for his reelection and kind of let them out to dry. There are also the comments the president made during the course of the election in the last two or three weeks where he said my policies on the ballot, every single one. I was looking at the debates. Republican candidates and democratic candidates. On cspan, indeed and it was like an echo when you look throughout them with republican candidate saying the president said his policies are on the ballot. That didnt help. Host lets go to don from valeo california on the democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Steve you talk too much. Cspan is another conservative station. That election was nothing but another example of supremacy in america and america is going to forever going to be white supremacists. The earth is given into the hands of the wicked. The book of job in the bible and that is my comment. Host okay. We disagree with your perception of the network but thank you for sharing your views. We go to danny in South Carolina on the republican line. Caller good morning. I wanted to make a comment about the what the president had stated. His figure is that one third of the people voted and because of that he is going to invalidate the Election Results but if you look at the time he was voting as president in 2008, 49 of people voted. He was elected with 27 of the people that voted in that 49 blocked. Does that invalidate his presidency and . Thats my question but i have a comment. The only way that this man is going to be stopped is to impeach him. I would rather have a buffoon like biden than a thug like president obama. Host would you like to respond to that . Guest i would love to. Can i talk about it . I was struck by his remarks. If you go back and look at what he actually said he said he has i heard what voters said but that twothirds of voters that did not vote said. The turnout in american elections compared to almost any other standard is very sad but when you break down the states and there are some preliminary things that are just coming out on this. I think its the 535 blog that did the first test that i saw. Its only eight states that hu hurt had turnout below one third and they are interesting states. Texas was 27 or 20 . New yorkers on that list, very low turnout. Maine which is why i hope hope the choleric state on is the highest turnout state in the nation to get Something Like 59 so turnout is an issue but the president didnt say he was going to invalidate the election. I think he was making the point, i dont want to use the word spin but its Something Like that to have people look at it in a different way. Yes one third of the eligible voters that voted the republicans had a resounding victory that went to the other twothirds think and democracy thats an important question. Host the House Democrats losing at least 14 seats in the house presents a presence in office the democrats have lost 69 seats in the house of representatives. That is on par with the worst Midterm Election dating back to harry truman. Guess i think the underlying issue for all of this is the economy great when people can feel the economy Getting Better where they live in their lives than politicians lose elections and particularly for the party that is in charge of the white house. I think thats why we keep seeing this happen. Host . Host jody makes this point in our twitter page. When when the party of no take no for an answer in repealing the Affordable Care act . 50 plus times . It i thing going to happen republicans. Guest i think while president obama she is is absolute right and even if he starts going to be a hard battle to undo. Thats an issue that generates the Republican Base base. They give them out to vote and for a bunch of donors to give them to donate. Host lets go to rick from auburn washington on the independent line. Good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. First of all want to start out by saying that they develop caller from california is an absolute idiot but im stating something thats obvious and i apologize for that. I just want to say the president acted like it was a spoiled little child when he went on and talk about the twothirds that didnt vote. Are you kidding me . This is is what libertarians and independents back in republicans are all about. You talk about the twothirds on the couch not doing anything and unemployment and all their benefits and we are talking about people that want to get up and do something about this country . Are you kidding me . Host rick, thanks for the call. Guest again i go back to what gale said. I cant elaborate any better than what she said. The president said to look at this in a different way and to acknowledge that. Host let me followup on that point because this is from lynn, do you think of the democrats ran on the progress we have made with a campaign up in different . Guest some of them tried but i think the president so unpopular in this country that they couldnt surmount it. You heard several democrats try to run on the fact that an Mary Landrieu daughters of control because she said he still supports the Affordable Care act. That has been a really tough thing for her to make a good thing even in a state like louisiana. Host she asked for six debates with congressman bill cassidy and whether six or two or one will cover them on the cspan networks. Our guest Gail Russell Chaddock of the Christian Science manager and Jackie Kucinich of the Washington Post. We will take your calls and comments on congress the election and what the 114 congress will look like. Before we get to that point we have to get to the lameduck session. This is a headline from Huffington Post that the lameduck congress will duck the issues that matter most to voters. Guest one thing that matters to voters is the government is still funded which has not been a trivial issue to get to pick i was interested that practically the first thing that Mitch Mcconnell said was there will be no drama over funding government. There will be no drama over debt limits. We are not going to use this as an occasion to leverage concessions. He was really speaking straight to ted cruz who a couple of days earlier senator cruz from texas we have a new majority. Now is the time to press these issues with the power that we have. Mcconnell has said quite the opposite. We are going to go for what is doable. I dont know why the first thing that the house or senate wouldnt do would be to have a boat on obamacare and just keep people on record and have the president veto it and turned to the cameras and say its mouth. We can either keep running this bill by inducing because we dont have to hundred 90 votes or 67 votes in the senate or we can make the best that we can and do something good for the American People at a time when they need government to function. I think that is whats going to happen. Guest wasnt that h. R. 1 . That was h. R. 1 two or three years ago. I dont think thats something they are going to be able to for said members of the Republican Party 50 votes isnt enough. Sure. Host let me get to your reaction about what senator mcconnell said about the current majority leader harry reid. We have had such spirited debates on the Florida Senate about the way the place is being run but we dont have an acrimonious relationship personally. Anyway will usher question . What was the conversation like and are you two going to work Better Together . Well he called obviously having been a leader in a tough race himself a call to compliment me on what a skillful campaign we ran. He obviously paid very close attention to it and as many of us have discussed that has been a new paradigm since daschle was defeated. You have a president ial Level Campaign if you are leader of the senate. So harry said he called followed it very closely and complemented me on a campaign will run. Host he said its not an acrimonious relationship Jackie Kucinich. Do you believe him . Guest i think they have their moments but i thought actually one of the more interesting stories is that moderate democrats in the Senate Senator manchin wrote adam okeefe had a story in senator manchin saying he will have to give give us a insurance is that republicans can get an upordown vote on amendments and some other things. Not that they have control of the floor anymore of course but the moderate democrats were very frustrated with how harry reid ran the senate. We will see degette challenge. Host any chance that joe manchin would switch parties and become republican . Guest thats great speculation at the beginning of any cycle. Their set piece a few days ago that angus king from maine was going to switch end and 13 seconds he was giving an impromptu press conference from his house denying it. I dont know what the incentive would be for joe manchin to switch switch. He has such a wonderful position going back and forth between the two parties. Olympia snowe and Susan Collins has achieved a great deal by being a person in the middle middle and i dont know why you want to give that up. Guest we dont know if Heidi Heitkamp is going to be one of those people and senator warner who narrowly escaped gillespie. That was one of the Biggest Surprises of that race. Host its not yet certified. Guest not yet certified and also not certified alaska so begich could manage to pull out. There is a group of senators that were important before but now are more important being moderate members of the minority apartment. Host some aloe, jessica is on the line with Gail Russell Chaddock of the Christian Science monitor and monitor and Jackie Kucinich of the wall street journal. Caller i would like to ask the guests to give their opinion on the gerrymandering, voter suppression, citizens united, a buyers media unpopularity which i consider to be classic racism. They have the republicans get out to vote strategy and messaging. Thank thank you and i will take my message off the air. Host would you like to respond to that . Guest as far as gerrymandering and how the map looks that has not had an effe effect. We have this urban rural divide now when you look at this map and its map and thats why its been so hard for democrats in recent years to make back the gains that they had in 2006. Guest this is such an important issue. Everything you mentioned is important to talk about but i think the biggest thing again goes back to turnout. When when i started out Walking Around in political campaigns when you registered voters he went while the doors and registered as she went to shopping malls as many as you could. Its completely different now. What if you end up registering someone who is going to vote for the other side . How bad would that be . Who exactly is one of her people and we mobilize them. I think to break the lock on politics as you are describing that thought has to change. I dont know why it ever went because it seems as long as you win by one vote it doesnt matter if five people turned out to vote or 5 million turnout to vote before but for the public it matters a great deal. There has to be a public move to get away from this frankly disgraceful turnout level for the worlds greatest democracy. Guest you are right about the turnout levels. They are sophisticated now. I was out with americans for prosperity North Carolina canvassing with them and they had tablets that had pins and each pin was either someone who they need to vote, they been to that house or was a house they had already hit. We went to the neighborhoods and knocked on doors and reminded people to left and had a conversation with them. If the printer and bring you into the next house. It was an incredible level of sophistication that they have. Host the former and likely chair the Senate Judiciary committee has a piece in the wall street journal and he makes his point. After harry reid the gop should not unilaterally unilaterally disarm it will take years to undo the damage done by Senate Democrats barring filibusters of judicial nominees. Some call it the Nuclear Option put in place by harry reid and Senate Democrats. Now the republicans have controlled dont expect anything. Guest i think you just heard it. One of the very sad things about this business of seizing power, president obama as the senator had great concern about the executive powers that president bush had seized. The same thing happens at the congressional level. When the senate pulled the socalled Nuclear Option this have been bubbling around under the surface for a long time could it really flies in the face of senate tradition. The senate is not the house. The senate is the place where youre allowed to debate. You know its not the filibuster thats the problem. Something more bisguir and when we talk about the Reagan Mcconnell like each other, they are professionals. It doesnt really matter whether they like each other. What matters is one thing. The only power the majority leader has is to start out the day with a motion and in effect setting the agenda. He can also do something called silver tree, the amendment tree. Once thats done theres no room for an amendment on the other side. The old movies work that you see where senators rise up and propose something that senate is gone. Now you have to break through that trade. Whoevers in the minority defies a tree and the minute they become a majority they embrace it. Sadly we are about to see the same thing play out again but if anyone is serious about restoring the senate to its position as the worlds greatest Debate Society they have got to do something about that tree. Host joining us from lakeland florida on her line for republicans, whats on your mind this morning keynote . Caller cspan is a gift to america and brian lamb is the true santa claus for america. Host i have heard many things but never santa claus. Caller he has given america get to cspan. The guy from california, the other guy called him an idiot. Lets not call people names. I am a moderate republican and i sent a letter memo to my congressman dennis ross republican and ive been in correspondence with marco rubio and sent letters to Elizabeth Warren and Deborah Wasserman shourd Deborah Wasserman schultz. I won a bipartisan Congressional Study group on phosphate and how we will deal with it. I promote Mitch Mcconnell shelby Prime Minister and we have to govern and work with obama and jon huntsman will be your inspiration. No labels which indicates projects which indicates projects we can work on together for america pain economist magazine there was an editorial in economist magazine about a month ago. Mitchell, will be Prime Minister. We have got to govern and be partisan and not negative like Rush Limbaugh talk about obstruct. Thats crazy. Thats fundamental deficiency to talk like that so i promote the most herder republicans in honor of Teddy Roosevelt and our agendas to push for cooperation and to fix obamacare and Mitch Mcconnell will be Prime Minister and jon huntsman will be your inspiration. Could you give us some publicity for the agenda . Is an Informal Group now but the proposed agenda for the most herder republic and asked dennis ross and marco rubio and Elizabeth Warren and Deborah Wasserman schultz if they got my letter memo asking for the study on phosphate . Host we will do that ensure do that ensure, and to brian lamb to brian lamb is well soaking up thank you very much. Guess one of the things im looking forward to in the new congress is seeing who emerges as the dealmakers. With the new people that will be reaching across the aisle. Some unlike tom coburn coming, who is very conservative ideas im working with democrats and the senator lankford going to i think senator manchin is one. He is obviously not new but with all of senators coming and it will be interesting to see where they fall. Host this is Jenny Beth Barton from the tea partier cassation gives you a sense of pressure house and Senate Republicans will be facing from the right. Lets watch. For Republican Leaders Speaker John Boehner in john boehner in the house and pursue majority leader to be Mitch Mcconnell in the senate i have two words. Earned this. Live up to your promises. Repeal obamacare. Use reconciliation to pass a bill repealing obamacare and put on the president s desk. Let him veto it and draw a line in the sand. Secure the border and block the president s planned executive amnesty. Maintain the rule of law and prove that we as a country as we have been for more than two centuries are a nation of laws not of men. Host Gail Russell Chaddock this goes back to what was at the top of our conversation. What do we expect of a new congress and vindicated probably more gridlock. Guest that is always a default but but just picking up on the tea party one thing i have worried about covering the tea party is not a model of senate doesnt have leaders. We like to think that it does because its easier to do our job. Guess ive gone to the leader of the Tea Party Movement and they said x, y or z. He doesnt have leaders and thats why, this is a longer story but i would suggest theres another Tea Party Agenda thats emerging and its what she articulated as the ted cruz Tea Party Agenda. Fight them in the bridges and fight them everywhere. The other one is the rand paul initiative. Rand paul who opened its first office in his president ial bid in california. Really . A republican who thinks they can do something in california, whats that about . Hes reaching out to Silicon Valley libertarians. The libertarian strand in the Tea Party Movement is i think what the rand paul camp is going to develop with things like mandatory sentencing. He can get the congressional bout black caucus onto on to that one with things like nsa spying which is an interesting issue to raise if Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee. Theyre all kinds kinds of creative possibilities here that really are not covered by what she said. What you heard there is one branch of an old tea party. There are lots of new tea parties developing. They got clobbered in this election, absolutely clobbered and many are still heartbroken about mississippi. They are looking for a new face and it does not necessarily fighting the old losing battles. Guest this was not a tea party election. This was an establishment election. Tea Party Candidates were defeated in the primaries and the establishment rose. Even some unlike joni ernst to have the backing of both the tea party in iowa and establishment in iowa and nationally. These are establishment candidates coming to washington. A lot of them answer to the tea party to be quite frank. Host Speaker John Boehner and senator Mitch Mcconnell and the wall street journal began with these words. Americans have an trust republicans with control of both the house and the senate. We are humbled by this opportunity to help struggling middleclass americans who are clearly frustrated by an increasing lack of opportunity the stagnation of wages and a government that seems incapable of performing even basic tasks tasks. You can read the editorial on line at wsj hong kong. Wsj. Com. Escoto lee in carbondale illinois. Good morning. Caller good morning cspan. The subjects on what to expect with republicans, the gop with control of the senate and congress, correct. Is that correct . Host yes sir turn it into a question, lee. Caller okay, well my question is, i have a comment in and a question is that okay . Host absolutely that we are short on time so please be brief. Caller okay, yes. I think the people of america shouldnt expect anything different and i think also they shouldnt blame either party, the democrats or the republicans because these guys are in this job for not just political gain but also financial gain through major corporations. I think basically major corporations in this country have actually any way, in a sense have held america hostage in a way. Host 3. 7 billion spent in this election. How do you respond to lees question . Guest its a great deal of money. I would go quickly from that to the personal finances of members of congress or why they are here. The longer you look at this place, jackie mentioned tom coburn. This is someone who when it came to the Senate Everyone assumed he was going to burn the place down. He was known for some idiosyncratic things that he had done and viewed as extreme. He developed into i think one of the iconic statesman of the senate, acknowledged on both sides. He may be one of the few friends that barack obama actually had when he was in the senate. I think one of the Reasons Congress is a negatively viewed as people dont see what goes on here on a personal level and to the surprise of many people including me there is a lot of nobility here. People actually doing what they see as the right thing in their own life. There is money when you leave. Theres not a whole minute a lot of money when you are here. I wouldnt be so quick to generalize the way the color did. Guest i was going to follow. Campaign finance reform is one of those things that everybody talks about how bad it is and how theres outside money in campaigns how thats horrible but they could fi fix it, but ty dont. Host the president talk about isis and he talked about ebola. Going to ask congress for 6 billion deal with the ebola crisis in africa. What is Foreign Policy going to look like under the new Republican Legislature . Do you want to tackle that . Guest well its very interesting, you mentioned rand paul and he is trying to bolster his foreignpolicy credentials but theres a strain of not wanting to go to war again among more libertarian minded republicans. I think that is going to become more pronounced. There is going to be a debate over the funding for the Presence Campaign in syria and iraq. I think its going to be very interesting to see how much of a voice these republicans who are done spending money on wars have. Host lets go to john Sarasota Florida on the, democrats line. Good morning. Caller im so glad i finally got through. Host we are glad you got through john. Caller ive been called in a long time and i couldnt get through. Please dont cut me off. I initially called to make a comment that was constructive, critical comment about the press and i want to do that but since i heard his comments about obamacare from the Tea Party People i want to make two comments, one about health care and two about the president. Please dont cut me off. I am a 60yearold man. I have not had any Health Insurance for years because i couldnt afford it. I was taking care of my mother who had alzheimers and i was feeding her and taking care of her but i couldnt afford health care for myself and it was because of the aca. I havent been able to get insurance. Here in the state of florida we have 1 Million People, let me repeat that, 1 Million People who benefit from Medicaid Expansion but for political reasons because of the 51 billion in its florida taxpayer money that we dont get back because we have a Republican Legislature wants to poke it in the eye of the president , 1 Million People and you all have nice health packages. Imagine, just imagine if you could never go to doctor. Host john, hold on the line. We will get a response and come back. You have been so patient to follow. Guest he is making what i feel is extremely important point. State politics is very important. We have spent so much time and i dont hope this is going to be criticism of the news media but we are so focused on who is president that we are not investing the resources that are needed to go down deeper where the state decision is what affects so many peoples lives on a day by day basis. Host john do want to followup . Cocco yesterday of what i want to make my comment about the press and i think im very accurate about this. I try to be a critical thinker and this is what i have observed. Over the last few months on every major sunday program, every major post and just about everybody i have heard its just casual comment. Washington is broken. The bickering in washington, nothing gets done and all that. The fact of the matter from my point of view is its not that washington is broken and its not that there is bickering. There has been a Record Number of filibusters. There was a shutdown of the government that resulted in the downgrade of american s p Credit Rating and even people like norm ornstein says its not both parties. The republicans have moved to radical party and they have obstructed everything. Host john i was happy there. Thank you to the dash thank you for the call. Wed like to respond Jackie Kucinich . Guest i wasnt sure what he was saying about the press but i do think when you go out in the state states and you talk to Everyday Americans they do want washington to want washington do something because they are sick of hearing nicholas cliche washington is broken, sorry. I think that was one of the messages of this election. They want to see the years are grinding again. Host alesia budget passed the senate . Guest thats one of the priorities republicans are talking about. The devil is in the details. Host good morning i enrich wisconsin coming over the last caller with Gail Russell Chaddock of the Christian Science monitor and Jackie Kucinich of the Washington Post. Whats on your mind this morning . Cocco thank you. I want to followup the topic a little bit. My first topic is health care. My copay is 4000 not to mention the premium. I am scared to go to the doctor. I would come close to dying before i could pay all that and go broke. Wisconsin has better care through scott walker. I would be interested in your opinion on that and secondly i think welfare, i believe people should be drug tested before they can collect welfare. Also their names should be put on the food stamp so they cant trade them to other people for their things. Host i just want to go back to you. Are you selfemployed . What is your monthly insurance though . Caller yes i am. Its actually paid for my wifes work. I couldnt afford it. I could not afford it. Im selfemployed. Guest there has to be a day of reckoning for Social Security, medicare and medicaid if only because within a decade they are collectively going to take all the resources of Government Plus the debt but the states are where the debate is going to come from. Remember when president clinton with a Republican Congress did medicare commented welfare reform. They had experiences and states to look at and thats whats going to happen here. States are going to take different paths on how they do with health care and how they deal with social safety nets. When this debate happens you can be certain that they are going to be exhibited abc and d for how the federal level looks at. Host question for both of you. The Biggest Surprise tuesday night in what you expect expect in the lameduck congress . First the returns on tuesday. Guest the fact that mark warners race was so close in virginia. That was the one race i looked up and said wait, what happened . In the middle of all of that chaos. I think the omnibus spending bill, how rodgers is working on that something had to get them. Host the Biggest Surprise in lameduck session . Guest the Biggest Surprise for everyone who breathes in the city with the virginia race. Everywhere i went Election Night people were gasping when those numbers came through. It was the Biggest Surprise. My Biggest Surprise was what happened at the state level. I really thought that some of these radicals stayed experiments especially in kansas were going to be swept aside by voters and it didnt happen. I think the lameduck session will be quiet. Sometimes there are oysters but i feel sometimes elections went and this election went a lot of people. I dont think there is a lot of spirit. There are ones within the Republican Party and there certainly ones between republican and democratic parties in and tremendous wounds between congress and the president. Host Gail Russell Chaddock covers washington politics for the Christian Science monitor and also the Deputy Washington Bureau chief Jackie Kucinich is on the congress be for the Washington Post covers politics as well. To both of you thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it. Guest thank you. Guest thank you. Here are a few the comments we have recently see from our viewers. Just calling to tell you how much i enjoy q a. At 5 00 on sunday on the west coast everything stops at my house. I turn off my phones, get my cup of coffee and is the most enjoyable hour on television. Yesterday was very and forward it. I enjoyed listening to him the comments that were done today. He was very accurate and on point. He did not use his own personal innuendos. I greatly enjoyed it and i hope you have more gas like that. He was right on target this morning. Im going to say that i think like many people cspan is wonderful but as to criticisms i have none. The reason i almost have none is i think you all do a tremendous job of showing just about every side of everything and the way people look at things in d. C. And elsewhere. I take my hat off to you. Thank you very much. Intended to let us know what you think about the programs are working. Call us at 202 6263400 or email us at comments as at comments at cspan. Org or send us a tweet send us a tweet at cspan hashtag comments. Join the cspan conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Actress Jennifer Lawrence recently called exposure of a personal photo on the internet a crime. Thursday the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee examines sexual privacy concerns and the legal ramifications of having private photos and socalled revenge postings. This is an hour and 10 minutes. [inaudible conversations] welcome everybody. Im executive director of the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee and thank you for attending this recess briefing. Hopefully we will get you out of here within 60 minutes or so. This topic is on your program which have in program which have in front of you thats what information is on there as well as is the information of the speakers and their twitter account so you can contact them on twitter or any other way you would like. We are hosting this event are the congressional internet caucus and vice are committing connection with the congressional internet caucus and its cochairs. On the house of the cochairs of the caucus or congressman Bob Goodlatte and cars woman anna eshoo. The senate cochairs are senator johnson and patrick leahy. We are in their deaths for supporting this program. They dont agree on every issue and frankly not on a lot of issues but we are thrilled that they agree that the internet should have a place where we can debate these issues with expert speakers likely is it a pretty want to thank them and their moderator today is tal kopan with politico. She is a cybersecurity reporter and she is covered this issue quite a bit over the last several years from a cybersecurity site in the revenge site and perfectly situated to monitor panel today. Her twitter account information is on the program as well so take it away. Thank you tim and thank you to the caucus for having me here today. Its a very interesting topic which we will be diving into pretty much headfirst. To introduce our panel from here down down down on we have. Mary anne franks who is the associate professor of law at the university of miami school of law. To her leftist, llanso director of the Free Expression project at the center for democracy and technology followed by rob pegoraro who is a columnist at yahoo attack and on Washington Post. Com. All of these fine people have a lot of expertise on topic from a lot of different angles which is how i want to start off today. One of the interesting things about the hack of celeb photos is it really raised a lot of different issues for a lot of different people. As a cybersecurity reporter at covered in terms of the Password Security on the cloud and the technical aspects might abandon what they dark web was doing with these pictures. Or do that we will with a social expression and what are the only way that we can express it as a community is to say that they should be against the law. To think about the particular nature of what happens to other victims not so highprofile in terms of the daily suffering and humiliation that they have to experience. That they can never get it back and theres no way to undo what has been done. That the harm in these cases is irreversible and ongoing. What i really hope that we can do to bring this conversation by looking at the is to think about why we might care about the fact that this has now become an Entertainment Industry and what are responsibility is people who are concerned about having a free and open internet and what we could be doing in response to that. Thank you. Its very interesting how we have talked about social expressions about this kind of issue. Because that is one of the major difference is that i saw in the response around the most recent celebrity photos compared to how this issue and nonconsensual disclosure has been treated over the years. Five years ago were several years ago when many of us started here following this issue, it was very difficult to get people to even engage upon the question at all and there was this not a public conversation about how is this effective of exposing someone elses photo is being used as a way to wrap them and silence them in the public conversation that theres willingness for major media outlet to talk about and the especially to the people whose photos have been exposed. And it is a good thing generally that were not having the to really appreciate it. And the concern that i see coming from the First Amendment is we want you to see the proposals on how to take a stronger response to this. And this includes a lot of expression as well. Its very difficult to craft a law that goes after that is, making a prime of disclosing information in a way that only gets after a bad or malicious disclosure of information and dozen offer a lot of vital and important speeches. So i hope that one of the things that we can focus on today is looking at what are all of the existing laws that really do identify the kind of harm that has happened here, whether it is someone trying to inflict Emotional Distress on another person. Harassment against someone, whether there is federal Computer Fraud and abuse act. There are ways in which we have addressed the harms that can come from this kind of behavior in existing laws that dont entail focusing specifically on this access of it. My first reaction was there were a bunch of celebrities in response, which i found really unhelpful and stupid. There are 20 people that have pictures that they dont want to share. And perhaps this with some of the people on facebook and thats perhaps a better way to look at it. It was one of the celebrity date buzzwords thrown around. You need to talk about how apple security is set up because one of the things is that if you want to keep your information safe, here are the tools available and do they actually help and in this case at the time they did not and they had a brief limitation of the twostep verification and even if you have done it, the whole way this works is, you know, im not clear on how i can control it. Its a very opaque system and so you have this case were these people didnt think they were putting pictures on the internet. And its not always clear in Cloud Services where this data when. Security experts didnt know that apple was saving a working copy of these on the ipod. They thought it was just their own computer. And so legally speaking we already have laws against unauthorized access to Computer Systems and i think that it does affect the sort of thing. And at the same time we need to come and i know not everyone is going to have a twostep verification, but it should be there and it should work and you should know what it is protecting and what it is not herriot. [inaudible] and this is a specific about the other incident, one of the thing that is in the purview of this panel is the broader question that the professor called it, this epidemic and the revenge in the outskirts sites and those kinds of things, which i think is a serious social issue and my thoughts turn to the First Amendment, first of all, which is as you said, crafting, even if we think this is harmful, crafting prohibition that would survive First Amendment scrutiny with respect to much of this material, but it would be quite difficult and probably not impossible but difficult. And especially in regarding this protective material. I had a student who was working on actually a project on copyright, possible copyright on these revenge porn sites, i spent half an hour 45 minute dealing with that and there is a good deal of material on some of the stuff that i sampled it is clearly affecting. Theres some material that may not be challenging, i think. And that is one thought that i had. In the discussion about these issues, there has been a good deal of discussion about what to do about this in the conversation and debate has moved often quickly for hosting these photographs. And especially with existing tort remedies that may provide relief to people that have been harmed against the individual of floaters of the private photographs that are being posted with section 230 of the communications act, but what has been construed and does protect the website operator from being drawn into that liability. And that includes a broad range including thats. So much of this discussion has come to people arguing as to whether this should be repealed completely and modified to allow actions against this and i think its a very important internet law problem because many issues have this feature where the intermediaries are helping to spread this information and i hope that we can get into some of these issues during the discussion. Rate, as we can all see, theres an event at play here. And perhaps we can start, we are going with from a very specific place, Jennifer Lawrence had private photos in which he believed was a private place that was gotten into by someone else and thats a very different situation than a lot of other revenge porn cases where someone send a private photo to someone else and then after that relationship and that was initially sort of given this consent and this includes just a password because you used your dogs name as a password versus is sophisticated type of password. Which is to say that there are a lot of Different Cases that raise these issues and generally speaking what are some of the remedies that people feel that they have private images and private data and the Digital World has been exposed. What can they do now under the law to try to get relief although they may never be able to get it back. Its really important to focus on all of these other celebrities are different from these other kind of contact and its also important not to make too much out of these differences. We shouldnt be that difficult that when people disclose is, they dont expect it will be given to another party. Versus disposing that to a partner, it seems that the more obvious ones would be and when you go to your doctor and you tell them about this, you expect that they are not going to tell anyone else about your system or share this. So we have been in situations where we can think about it and to think about all the ways in which our information should be kept confidential even if we have voluntarily given it to the other parties and i think that when we consider it that way, its helpful to think about what we do in other contexts and do we protect peoples credit card information and Social Security information and peoples home addresses and companies trade secrets. These are all ways in which we might be disclosing information so that we have criminal penalties on people step outside of those contacts and its useful to think about why we should apply these remedies here. Because it certainly is true that we can come up with ways for victims to talk about copyright remedies and Emotional Distress and i think most people can see that its really difficult after the fact and that is going to maybe work for Jennifer Lawrence but its not going to work for those who have really no records, but it takes some time to figure out this process and you need to have this and many will not have that kind of clout. And so copyrights are really not a very effective solution for the mass majority majority of victims and this is not just going to be relationships gone sour but domestic violations are used to track people in these relationships to keep them from reporting physical abuses and we have plenty of Sexual Assault and this is a big category that is getting out there and the idea that theres any kind of lawsuit that is going to be responsive to that particular thing is a bit naive or at least somewhat abstract given the actual victims. And i think its important again as we try to think about adequacy of legal remedies to think that yes, completely about the goals of section 230 and in that considering how much of an effect i would say a disciplinary effect that these harms are having on women speech and how many women are now afraid of having their webcam hack or having someone have a hidden camera and how many are committing themselves truly to their careers because they are afraid that this is what is going to happen to them and this is the punishment that will be given to them and the best response is maybe we can clean up the response afterwards unless you have tons of money and tons of time and so i think that that is really a sense that we have to have to take seriously and the epidemic is using this threat of behavior as a way to shut women up and as of this the open discourse is something we should all care about. If i may disrupt us a little bit so we mix it up. What are some of the ways that the law as it stands tries to grapple with some of these issues and what are the ways that people have looked at adopting laws or crafted this long before the internet was before it was today to some of these problems in our little big unique. I think the computer abuse act as just mentioned is one and this may well have been a specific instance without authorization including civil and criminal liability and im not giving anyone thats been also several people have mentioned there are a number of remedies for some of the savior with Emotional Distress being one is recognized in most states now for outrageous conduct. And especially and its naive and not very sensible. And we have one place in the federal code where a aggrieved parties can quickly arrange to have this without a lawsuit to have materials taken down from the internet and you notice that procedure and its very powerful. And as mentioned, it probably covers a small subset of the problem and i think that its not a trivial subset and at least there is a remedy that is useful in terms of removing material for one reason or another they believe that they have a claim on. You send the message, they have to more or less give you some procedure to follow if they want to claim that copywriting and they do so. And its generally speaking millions of times a day. Removing the material from that. Another quick, and i want to make about this notion and this will all have to wait until something happens and tools thing that happens before providing a remedy and i think that in this context the answer may be yes most of the time because this is a lot of what we are talking about that falls into the category of protected speech were speech and there is a serious problem with a prior restraint doctrine that says that you cant put it up in the first place. That would avoid much of the harm that raises more Serious Problems in the ex post regulation of this which raises its own problem and that has to be taken more carefully. Im sort of reminded about the email address that we also had, from what we understand in a fairly similar fashion. It was if youre going to use this and you dont have that beyond that, hopefully we will all be in a position to make that at some point. The point being that we put a lot of information about that and we dont think about the levels of security. And this includes information on the internet and how does a law protect those right now. A lot of people have complained that its over and if you read the text of it, because it might be on the internet in the he said it in a way that wasnt specifically authorized by the people and you can be charged, which leads to it can criminalize a lot of basic Security Research that needs to be done to solve the problems we are talking about right now. And if the webpage is coughing up data because youve entered the right input, that can be a crime come even though you have to do that to the owner to prove that you have a problem and we need to fix it. So id say that this problem is not that the laws dont protect them that also that they are dealing with a bunch of other stuff that the people need to do to help stop the people in the black cats. Okay, certainly as well to figure out what we need. You know, you can say that he was not being very nice and this is a fellow put a laptop in a closet to make it publicly available. Moving into a little bit more now that we have some sense of what can be done and address some of these issues, if you can talk about how you mentioned in the laws are being practiced and theres been a lot of effort on the federal level and state level. And this includes a professor at the university of Maryland School of law that has been working hard to figure out and theres a lot of other speeches and they have key categories that you have in the content we are talking about this content protected under the First Amendment. When its a person taking a photo of themselves or eight image of a person with protected speech and theres certainly no consult at the outset. So trying to define it is imagery that reveals different types of nudity and Sexual Activity and theres a lot of back and forth especially with how we can all contact us as in regards to a harassing effort. Time to define the category of content that would be protected so its not just like a photo of a woman or some other kind of nudity which you might very well be able to capture and we try to focus in on images and also who is viable in this includes the person that had the photo from the person who picked it. And theres also if they start surfing the website and i think we talked about that a little bit and then this is underway including an attempt to intimidate a person that tries to define exactly what the content of this image would be in this includes being challenged by the First Amendment by other groups. On the other hand, the state of arizona passed another law that is a nude photo lock him law, trying to restrict the ability for people to share rose of other people without their consent and it basically would make this display of images without the consent of the person depicted who is the felon and so there are no exceptions or acknowledgment that somebody poses for this to be included in this exhibit. If someone else post that exhibit online, they havent understood it as part of the process of being in this. But under the letter of the law, that website is still posting some and its still done with the best of intentions before the photos were shared. Just how much sharing of images happened in a way that doesnt violate that initial consent. So this is getting a little bit into the weeds here. These are the kinds of things that we have to think through this too is it possible to have something that sort of anticipates unintended consequences. We need to pick up on what the efforts have been and we need to translate that on the federal level. This is a difficult task for his am sure that everyone in this room knows that you can start out with the best of intentions and you might end up with something that is not that great and that is certainly true and the organization for which we talked about this, we have actually published this trying to make clear what we think with the pit bulls are and we have been making some of these were right sometime in there needs to be a narrow definition as to what is considered these explicit materials and what is responsible for this conduct and we need to have certain exceptions to the Public Interest but can include things like Law Enforcement as well and there are a couple things, as much as i agree, then we can look at what some of those things are. And that was a mistake and that is one of the things that were willing to fix. As for the rest of it, its not at all clear that this is what you and others are trying to make it out to be. As to the question of who should be responsible as many of you probably know because of section 230 which allows for immunity for on line intermediaries as far as state criminal law goes 230 as i is going to trump says that of the state criminal laws pose a threat. It creates headaches because people might be confused that i cant actually preempt state criminal law can preempt to 30. Again as many of you know section 230 is not absolute. It does not apply to copyright. It doesnt apply to electronic privacy indications but it also doesnt apply to violations of federal criminal law which is why facebook and twitter has have to care about chopra not free laws because section 230 dozen and a good thing we can all agree that thats a good thing. What i want to emphasize is while it is true we have to care about what am i has called unintended consequences we always have to be worried about that. Thats true of every single law. Theres no such such thing as a law that doesnt sweep in something that we are probably not going to like. The question ice has been in criminal law generally on balance are we accomplishing more good with his mum in law than accomplishing a bad and for us to suggest to have a response that says any time we suggest to someone that they might not be able to disclose what they want to disclose that means a disaster for us as a democracy or the internet. That hasnt proven to be true in many contacts and one that we have discussed already as dmca notice and takedown takedown many people were convinced that it would shut the internet down. It looks like the internet is doing okay even in light of the fact that it is a powerful tool to get people to stop saying certain things in expressing themselves. The same thing as is true of child pornography lossing gamla sing gambling laws. All kinds of situations in which we have for quite some time accepted the fact that disclosures of lawful information can be criminalized. If we think about the i. D. Theft context none of us want to be criminalized for having a credit card number and we are not that someone takes that information uses it in a it in an unauthorized way we do say thats criminal. The same thing happens in trade secret. Maybe the only thing that is novel is that we are not dealing with the type of conduct that is primary directed at women and trying to treat thats the same as we have treated other types of Sensitive Information perhaps Sensitive Information perhaps we are resistance as a society to giving those rights. Maybe that shouldnt be the way we approach this. What we count is practicing considered to be the social value of saying you cannot disclose certain information unless we want to live under a rule world where there are no medical records protections no trade secret protections note confidentiality protections at all. The question is what is on balance to restrict that speech . And people would say that is not what the first time it does but effectively it is what it does because their situation is not only court has said we have to consider these types of harms but also many times people dont even bring up the First Amendment questions. How many people think that spam is a First Amendment issue . How many of you think, other than david think its a First Amendment issue . How many think disclosing people Social Security numbers is the disclosure issue . Do we think that whats going to happen the people were able to protect in the values we are able to support are more important than the few things that might happen otherwise . That being seven i dont want vendors make the fact that we do need to know as much as we can about unintended consequences but lets remind ourselves that no law can accommodate every single unintended consequence. Their size going to be some measure into which we will deprive some people of some measure of liberty to discuss away to discuss a weightloss work and unfortunately most the time when we have to pass new laws is because our society is come up with a horrific waste heard other people and we cant simply say we are just going to let that happen. We are full up en masse and we dont want any dont want anyones. We are trying to figure out how we traditionally treat privacy confidentiality intimacy and why we are holding off on doing that here. Just a very Quick Response on this contentious i guess difference of opinion that is not going to be resolved in a 50 Minute Program but just to focus on what emma said about looking for a way to craft a law that has more benefit than harm i would take the position and i think its supported by lots that isnt does. Precisely what the First Amendment does not ask, does not say the way the benefits against the harm. It has a higher threshold. In cases involving the suppression of speech merely showing that harm, the good outweighs the bad and the First Amendment is the thumb on the scales of that determination. I think it does make it more difficult to say that this is preventing harm and when the harm we require more precision in the drafting to do Everything Possible to ensure that we do Everything Possible to be sure. We dont have to be that precise. Maryanne is of course right now laws perfectly precise and gets 100 of the bad guys and 0 of everybody else. In the First Amendment context we require efforts to at least move in that direction that i think would be difficult in this context. Not impossible but very difficult. Section 230 came up again and i dont know if you want to talk about that conversation how it applies here. Thats is to say that section 230 is one of congresss great legislative in large measure and i dont think congratulations and all that. We are all in Congress Bashing mode all the time other than those who are sitting in this room i suppose. But section 230 was of critical importance in helping the internet. In 1996 he couldnt have facebook tumbler twitter you name it. The explosion of usergenerated content was a complete unthinkable without protections against tort liability. There are many reasons to think that theres an active debate of course about whether this very broad immunity for the intermediaries is that good or bad thing. I guess one thing to consider as part of that debate is tweaking the that law a little bit an exception for this, an exception for that and an additional exception for Something Else probably makes it go away in rapid order. The immunity will disappear. There are lots of claimants who would like to see section 230, lots of people who have been defamed, people whose privacy has been invaded, people who have been scammed, people who have been defrauded, all sorts of things would like to see an exception for their harm as it were carved out of 230 and they have a good argument. Why cannot we just make sure theres a remedy in this case . Once Congress Goes down the road and starts carving out exceptions the floodgates will open in 230 will largely disappear. I think that would be a dreadful thing. Her friends in the Entertainment Industry has suggested all kinds of tweaks to the mca that would impose all kinds of liability issues for web sites and they have tried and that has not worked. Im a little more interested in how can we use the laws that are on the books and prosecutors can go to court with to make life as painful and expensive as possible for people who went after these users and other likeminded creeps. I just wanted to build out a little bit on the section 230. To give an example of why those of us who are such staunch defenders of that law what world it really plays. If you imagine we take a person or web site operator who knows or should have known that this photo was shared without consent, take the stand or we were just discussing it if we had a law that said you know imagine i run my own photo host web site. Created what i hope to be the next instagram. I have something way better than filters filters and but is and i dont know what it is but im running my own site. Thisll all the books is as i can be taken to court if someone claims that i know or should have known that a photo that was uploaded to my site, a image of another person was shared without consent. Under current law under 230 i can immediately get out of any lawsuit that somebody tries, thousands of photos are uploaded to my site and somebody says they photo of me is on your site and you should have known that i did not consent to it. Under 230 i dont get dragged into the court case. There is very clear, cannot be held liable for this mic and go back to doing my business of running my photo hosting web site. The law changed and there was this question of should i have known that this photo was shared without consent then we are in a case where i is the operative web site have to go to court. I have to find two or three employees for my business and now i have to hire a lawyer. Im operating on thin margins and i have legal fees because i have to defend. There is no way that i couldve that i could announce it and if we are talking about good faith operators who really had no knowledge and couldnt be considered to should have known that these kinds of photos were on their site are still going to have to go to court and defend that. Thats one of the real burdens that this kind of liability framework was put on operators, not even thinking about the giant internet platforms that deal with millions of pieces of content a day and what knowledge standard do they have about tens of millions of photos posted on their web sites even thinking about small companies, two or 3 operations trying to figure out how to navigate the situation would be vastly more complicated. The flipside on what professor franks was saying copyright lawsuits are not something that people normally too. Its this larger issue that we have made the law something that people who can afford to hire lawyers can be really good at in the rest of us try to stay out of trouble. To respond to that specifically we want to be careful to count the balance of these harms. May be true space and Supreme Court has gotten to the mode of saying we dont do balancing task but this is the fact they do. Concerns about overly broad laws but judged in relation to the statutes legitimate sweep. Thats basically saying exactly their harms out there that can be addressed by this one you can simply say there could build these things that might happen. There could thats true but they have to be real harms and they have to be weighed against the legitimacy of any statute. If we are looking at the case of the poor site owner thats true. Theres no reason to say we arent going to create issues. Of course there will be but we also know that there are actual current harms that there are thousands of people who are being affected by this whose lives are literally being ruined. That is a real harm as well and to say we are not sure about whats going to happen to the site operators that is a concern but it cannot be the only concern. As far as section 230 people waiving their hands and saying we want carveouts section 230 has carveouts. Section 230 doesnt apply for federal criminal law in copyright. Whose interest is served . Its not as though section 230 is a natural right. It has always been a matter of interpretation interpretation. Its size than interpretation. Its size than the question of who are going to say gets protection and it doesnt . The First Amendment doesnt apply in certain considerations either so i think its an invitation for us to think about why is that the case . Why assume that section 230 is natural that the status quo is better. One final note the goal of section 230 written in the statute includes to ensure vigorous enforcement of federal criminal laws to deter or punish trafficking stalking and harassment by someones computer. That is what a lot of people seem to forget. Its not just about letting intermediaries do what they want. There are values and goals embedded in section 230 that we would do well to ask if they are being served today. I would love to take some questions i will but i want to offer a chance to the audience if anyone has any depressing thoughts that they would like addressed. What is the flaw in the current law . There is defamation and intimidation. Whenever we have a highprofile case there is a desire from people who think they can solve a problem or people who are injured who want a new law specifically for that issue. I understand that the flaw is that the current state of the law. The question was what is the flaw with the current state of law and why do we need a new law in this case . Mary anne. To clarify our work did not start with any case. Jennifer lawrence hacking case is not where we started. We started two years ago when average people were being affected by this. Its all the same to me if now society cares about this. If it happens this liberty we will take it. This is something thats been happening to private citizens for many years. We care about this because the experience of victims has been that none of these laws work. If the images out there and wasnt necessarily someone who is trying to harass them and doesnt fit statutes and many of them dont tend them dont and to give you a concrete example from a couple of weeks ago the california Highway Patrol officers arresting women for drunk driving and taking their phones and taking pictures off of their phones and sharing within each other. As long as we have rules that are simply going to be located with stalking and harassment thats not going to be enough. For those who think the laws are adequate i would invite you to do one simple thing which simple thing but simple thing which is to ask victims that they think thats true. Ask what is happen when they have hired lawyers if they can afford them and when they go to Law Enforcement. Ask them how many times they have been told what happened isnt a crime. Your own fault taking these pictures. So for all these reasons and responding to an issue where thousands of victims have come forward and said we cannot get relief from the law and are not going to secondguess those victims because they are the ones who experience this firsthand. Of Law Enforcement is telling them and its your own fault this happened to you they are wrong. I know you agree with that but that is not only just literally wrong and a faulty understanding of how, what it means to take your own photo or share photos in an intimate setting but also probably indicates they dont understand the laws that do exist. They might not be effectively enforcing the laws. By no means and i hope no one gets the impression, i dont think anyone thinks that laws are Silver Bullet to this problem. We are asking Tech Companies to rethink their internal policies and to inform people about why we are engaging in this terrible practice and we terrible practice and we want to Law Enforcement understand the stakes. Much like in the 1970s when Domestic Violence was not considered a crime and Sexual Assault was not consider a crime there is an important social and legal importance of recognizing that this is a harm that should be addressed by the law at least in theory. Did you get a chance . I was going to point to we have a range of loss on the books that might be useful in Different Cases. Whether its invasion of privacy Public Disclosure of privacy whether its a copyright remedy or Emotional Distress there is a of laws out there that are the way society has expressed that. Its wrong to cause Emotional Distress to another another person in their laws against that sort of thing. Its not going to mean that every single instance of this kind of exposure of a private photo is covered. There will be gaps where case is not fit into every single aspect or fit into any aspect of current laws but if we try to craft a new crime that is expansive enough to cover every single instance of an expose photo we are absolutely going to sleep and other kinds of content other kinds of expression that law will not survive First Amendment scrutiny. There is no Silver Bullet and its very difficult to figure out how to get a law that can express disapproval over information that doesnt run afoul of the First Amendment. Imagine getting companies to look at the laws they enforce. I was interested to hear about people who were arrested the gate city. They take a report seriously and try to educate themselves. Twitter has not done that yet. If you look at they did not have a form to report use until this era master which is insane for a social network that has been around since 2007 and i hope they are taking it seriously because they can do a lot. Twitter is not the public internet. They have their own rules. They are allowed to change them to make it easier for people who are being harassed for seeing others being harassed to call out the offenders and they have not done that. Going back to her case example for the day a lot of these images of celebrities more generally were circulating for a long time on web sites and blew up at me. Read it which had a threat which really makes these images go viral and eventually was shut down. It was sort of a question of i have heard it said many times the most wonderful thing about the internet is also its that is for the users to use they way they want to. Its difficult to say a web site that is based on the idea of people having open forums to share and discuss what they would like also needs to be responsible for making judgment calls. What are some of the difficulties with that perhaps and david are brought my want to jump in here. The problem with the internet is the people on it. To that point and i take twitter as an example, why we need to rethink the emphasis on emotional stress. When people are engaging in these activities, these different types not not just some of the cases but a pretty large number of these cases where people doing this . Because they think its funny. They think its entertainment. Its not intended to cause Emotional Distress. Why is it any better . Wiser person the better releases one of these pictures because hes trying to hurt his girlfriends families or because hes doing it forprofit. Why would we say its totally fine if you do it for that but dont hurt feelings. Mary anne. You need to have as part of a prohibition maybe i misunderstand that you have to have some reference to an improper purpose. Like the arizona statute which is clearly unconstitutional. But you cannot picture someone with their close on. That is not what you are saying. The difference is you too have to focus on the improper person. The motive for why someone does something, why would that matter . Whether they are doing it because you are attractive for funny looking should matter. Think about the way crimes tend to be wary. We think of it in terms of consent. They are certain forms forms and the sister of our identity information and are other forms of privacy. Do we only criminalize disclosures of medical records when you are that is not part of the statute all. I thought it would be funny to put your Social Security number out there. No one cares. When it comes to intent intimate information the motive for why someone is doing it should not be the point that its the lack of incentive to do so and i think its something that is clear to us as a society that we have serious deep problems with Sexual Consent in this country. That is true and we can see this in terms of the Sexual Assaults committed every year but in the sense we take it as a given that it doesnt matter whether woman who has consented to the use of her body for sexual entertainment or. I dont know this is determined as a hacking but is this an instance of phishing rather than hacking . The question is this is an instance of phishing verses hacking . Social engineering is still hacking. Involves folks being able to give their passwords or whatever false pretense. It wasnt necessarily hacking of the iphone. Its unclear exactly what went down. Apple has come out and said their systems were not hacks which is to say apple writ large was not hacks. They did not rule out individuals through sophisticated techniques whether social engineering or phishing were able to get passwords from individual accounts that they were offered. Two things about apple. They are not generous about their specifics of their products in cases like this. I have looked at things like touch i. D. On the iphone and thats great. Cloud security they have had real issues with. Also to that question does that matter . Is that a significant distinction we are talking about . We have talked about the difference between this case where you have perhaps a violation of the cf aaa. Where does the distinction of how the image is bought come into play . If you think consent is the fulcrum then whether you have hacked into someones account or a photograph that was sent to you or you have access to that account, all of those that would need to be evaluated. There is a much larger debate about the role of consent generally with respect information. On the internet theres an active International Debate the socalled right to be forgotten in various european laws. If you no longer consent to have information you can withdraw the consent and delete information that may be floating around about you. Again not to beat a dead horse but this is a familiar landscape in a sense for the First Amendment debate which has sort have been in the background of this consent privacy information debate for many years. What will it do to the free flow of information if you have to show that you have consent of some form for passing on that piece of information. This is related to this idea i think that people should own the information about them, on the information about them and therefore people have to come to them if they want to publicize various things about them. That has serious, very difficult issues about free speech for First Amendment issues because it is very difficult to evalua evaluate. Given the many circumstances how you demonstrate consent and have a very serious impact. Can you tell people you saw me using this as an example about owning information can you tell people what this thing at the Rayburn Office building. If i am not information you cant. An extreme example and nobody suggests we should have such a lot but thats the issue with respect to balancing the free flow of information on the one hand for showing of consent to expect some information. Is one of the reasons why im optimistic about this type of material because there seems to be an easy way to fix this. That is to say have consent forms. Ask them to sign a form and you can disclose away. We certainly have Something Like that when it comes to medical records. If you really do want to submit the information you think its consensual because thats the only stance to take make sure you have documented evidence that its consensual. This is not nearly as hard as the right to be forgotten are the general question about what it says about you. Its very specific and can be resolved through paperwork. I saw one more hand. Given their takedown regimes for child pornography and these other protective what have you would it be thats that much more burdensome to require Search Engines facebook and other Tech Companies to also take down revenge pornography and what do you think it would possibly impede the growth of small tech business is . There are couple of things you have to keep in mind when you are talking about some kind of takedown regime. First and foremost what a notice and takedown regime does is give a person the ability to write the mechanism to tell a web site host to take down someone elses content, to take down something that was uploaded by another person. This is a mechanism that has been helpful in taking down infringing copies of recent songs but at its heart its giving a person the ability to say take down what that person has uploaded. The potential for abuse of these systems is very high. When you look at Something Like that dmca the copyright takedown system they are a number of safeguards built into the system based on what you have to include in a notice . It has to include the ability to identify yourself with Contact Information you have to attest that you are the legitimate owner of this copyright. The person who uploaded the content has the ability to push back in to say no this is my content or im making fair use of the copyrighted work. The web site puts the information backup and leads to two of them to fight it out in court. Its not a simple mechanism in saying give someone an easy form to fill out. Theres a lot that needs to go into how to can construct this takedown system so its not vulnerable to someone using it to say i dont like like what that person since im going to file a takedown request. One of the real challenges we have to think about when we are talking about questions around images is there is a sensitivity and privacy that a person might have. Mature photo and been posted without your consent on line people want to violate takedown request you have to identify yourself and act request that may cause privacy with concerns but if its someone else trained chimpanzee system. We have uploaded a photo and you are happy with the photo being out there but you dont want a connected with your name and somebody else is trying to use a system to get that contact data down your ability to respond and say leave it up requires you to disclose. There are complicated issues about the vast range of imagery available on the internet. There is a lot of it that is uploaded anonymously for pseudoanonymously but with the full so as we are looking the possible effects and consequences thats another one we have to take into account. Just to follow up a little bit. I notice and takedown regime is worth exploring. Just to clarify the existing notice and takedown schemes and in particular the copyright one in section 512 does require is emma was saying that the burden is on the aggrieved party. It doesnt say google or facebook or twitter has to take stuff down. They have to respond to the copyright owners identification of the material which i think is very important and very contentious over the last four or five years in court if they more or less come to that resolution and the obligation of the aggrieved party to find the material and to to send another senate which point the process is imus said there all sorts of protections and you have to be careful about allowing something to be used. If its too easy to submit a takedown notice people be using it for purposes other than to protect against what all those are the devil is in the details. I think the copyright takedown regime wanted to go in that direction which i think would be worth looking at carefully to see how well it has worked and what hasnt worked about it and to streamline getting apps for hundreds of millions of copyright infringing files taken down legally under section 512 somehow sense and i know the cop rating, they have to find the material and they dont like that but on the other hand it does have a salutary effect. Its done their job pretty well. Provided a process that the scale and the scale of size important when you are talking about the internet. We are talking about millions of it and thats scale that has allowed for the automation of takedown but yet protect the people who have uploaded and giving them an avenue to say wait a second this is fair use or it didnt post it or if this is infringing. That would be managed in comparison to look at that carefully and see how it could be modeled to work on this problem might be a useful aven avenue. You mentioned Search Engines and one thing we should be careful about going too far. Someone like you too have content idea to look for content because google owns it and they have a lot of computers but also they have the known universe of copyright material that they get from the Entertainment Industry that they can use to match against this. Theres no such thing when it comes to peoples private photos and trying to do general searching match, web sites can do in screening for child pornography because theres no consensual anything there, thats flat out illegal. There is this database assembled by the National Assembly by exploited children. Doing that weathered it can be a legitimate case of a person an email is not going to work. One verification with child pornography, isnt it isnt quite that easy because it isnt easy to tell if the person is in fact a minor. They have to engage in investigations and figuring out whether or not the picture was consensual. Unfortunately we have broken our comments keeping them to 60 minutes aware ] wonderful conversation that im sure could continue for hours but we appreciate all of you coming and we appreciate the caucus having us here today. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] president obama will travel to china in may on mart and australia next week to attend a series of asiapacific meetings including the g20 summit. Thursday the center for strategic and International Studies preview the president s upcoming trip. This is 90 minutes. Welcome to the center for strategic and International Studies. I would like to welcome you all this point. We have a terrific breathing from the president s trip. I would like to first say congratulations to good good friend journalist arthur just got married, julie pace was just back back from our honeymoon. [applause] but that i would like to introduce my colleague dr. Mike green. Thank you and congratulations. We are going to give you an overview of the president s trip to the asiapacific region and open it up to questions. The president will be in china november 10 through 12th at the apac asiapacific Economic Cooperation leader summit and the associated ceo summit and then he will have a state visit with president xi jinping november 12 to 14 he has an me on mart permit for the east asia summit the u. S. Osi on summit and then a meeting with sings itchy. He is in Brisbane Australia from the 15th to 16th for the g20 and in brisbane the white house has said he will do a major speech on asia policy. We will go through those and provide whatever the opposite of monday morning quarterbacking is friday evening previews. I will start with an overview and talk about whats at stake for the president on the trip particularly after the midterm results. Matt goodman will focus on the apac meeting, the brisbane g20 in u. S. China economic issues. Ernie bauer from the east azore summit that osi on summit and engagement with me on marr burma on this trip and Steve Morrison is going to conclude with a rap on whats happening on the ground in me on marr based on a trippi and others took recently. I will address some of the Security Issues up front too. Looking at the results of the midterm for those of us who travel to the region the polling that shows that in some cases twothirds of americans are not satisfied with president obamas leadership style half of them democrats are not satisfied with president obamas leadership style squares with what most of us who travel in the region here from governments across asia. In fact we found in surveys we did at csis strategic think tankers policy experts and 10 Asian Countries that the rebalance has 80 support. At very high support but there were questions in the survey and the majority had questions about the limitation and the election result reports those concerns from new zealand to china whether the administration has the wherewithal to follow through on the pitted or rebalance as advertised. There are some areas of progre progress. The Obama Administration is the best attendance record in asia and the u. S. Administration. They have made every asean regional forum. They have held far more bilateral Security Consultant meetings at high levels in australia and korea. The president attends the east asia summit so in terms of showing up is pretty consistent high attendance record. The Defense Department although its in a smaller budget shifted relative resources to the pacific especially the navy. Mike at ustrs prioritizing that Transpacific Partnership over other aspects of the trade agenda. Despite questions about implementation of the pitted and questions about president obamas leadership right now in our survey strategic thinkers in a show which we just published last spring it was striking that a significant majority of elites in of elites and they should think the u. S. Will be the leading power in the region in 10 years and outside of china and one or two other countries a significant majority particularly among our allies said that they want the u. S. To be the leading power in asia in the coming years. So there is a lot of opportunity for the rebalance and the pitted to succeed but their problems and the president s trip is going to be important in terms of addressing those. There are three i would highlight. These are things we have noted for some time in our writing at csis. The first is that how the president and the cabinet talks about the pitted keeps changing. Even the kind of Bumper Sticker keeps shifting. For a little while for