 Good afternoon and welcome to this session of the Berkeley Forum. We are delighted to be organizing this event in collaboration with the Berkeley College Republicans. The Berkeley Forum is a non-partisan student-run organization that organizes debates, panels, and talks on the UC Berkeley campus. We are honored to have one of the leading critics of government surveillance and personal privacy at Berkeley to share his views. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Senator Rand Paul. Thank you. Great to be here at Berkeley. Thank you. Thank you to the Berkeley Forum for inviting me. Now, you may be a Republican or a Democrat or a Libertarian. I'm not here to tell you what to be. I am here to tell you, though, that your rights, especially your right to privacy, is under assault. I'm here to tell you that if you own a cell phone, you're under surveillance. I'm here to tell you that the NSA believes that equal protection means that Americans should be spied upon equally, including Congress. Instead of equal protection to them, it's equal disdain. They don't care if you're white or black or brown. They care only that everyone must submit to the state. Senator Sanders, and I don't agree on everything. He's an independent from Vermont. But he asked the NSA, he says, are you collecting records on Congress? And in characteristic arrogance, you know what the NSA said? They said Congress is getting the same treatment everybody else is. In other words, yes, yes. And again, yes, they're spying on Congress. They're collecting our data as well. Digest exactly what that means. If Congress is spied upon without their permission, who exactly is in charge of your government? Last week, we learned something new. Your senators in the middle of this. We learned that the CIA is illegally searching the computers of the Senate Intelligence Committee. They're the ones supposed to be overseeing the CIA. I don't know about you, but that worries me. If the CIA is spying on Congress, who exactly can or will stop them? I look into the eyes of senators, and I think I see real fear. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I think I perceive fear of an intelligence community that's drunk with power, unrepentant and unincline to relinquish power. I'm honestly worried and concerned about who is truly in charge of our government. Now, most of you have read the dystopian nightmares, the dystopian novels, and maybe you're like me, you say, ah, you know, that could never happen in America. And yet, if you have a cell phone, you are under surveillance. Last week, a new revelation came out. The NSA uses an automated system called Turbine. They've hacked into millions of computers. The NSA is even posed as a fake Facebook server. You may have seen Zuckerberg complaining to the president about this, to infect computers. If you have a computer, you may well be under surveillance. Who knows, they won't tell you. Your government collects information from every one of your phone calls. That's what they're maintaining. Remember the warrant that Snowden revealed? Every phone call from Verizon was on the list. Your government stores your email so it can access it without a warrant. Your government claims the right to look at your every purchase online. Your government actually claims that none of your digital records are protected by the Fourth Amendment. Listen very carefully to that. They say they'll protect them, but they say none of your records are protected by the Fourth Amendment. This is something we're going to fight in court. If you own a cell phone, you are under surveillance. I believe what you do on your cell phone is none of their damn business. In the opening pages of Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist guy Montag asks, wasn't there a time when firemen used to put out fires? They laugh and rebuke him and say, everybody knows that firemen start fires. Montag knows this. His father and grandfather had been firemen. It had been his duty for many years to burn books. He knew it was his duty, but this day would be different. Montag arrives on the scene to do his job, but he finds a woman who won't leave. She stands on her porch as they pile the books about her, but she won't leave. Undeterred, Montag proceeds with the other firemen to douse her and her books with kerosene. The woman shouts out and goads them. She's indignant that they would touch her books. She refuses to leave the porch. She says to them, play the man, Master Ridley. Today we will light such a candle by God's grace in England that it won't be soon forgotten. They keep dousing her with kerosene and she says it again, play the man, Master Ridley. We will light such a candle. In the book, the references lost to the firemen as they simply do their job. The references to the 16th century figure Hugh Latimer, who literally became a human candle. He was burned at the stake in 1555 for heresy. His crime, he wanted to promote the idea that the Bible could be translated into English, which the state forbade. In the U.S. today, we're not yet burning people at the stake, nor are we burning books yet, but your government is interested in what you're reading. They're interested in what you say on your phone calls. They're interested in what you write in your emails, or even if they say they're not interested, they say the Fourth Amendment doesn't protect any of these records. The NSA is collecting the records of every American. A year before Snowden's revelations, before Snowden had his leaks, I had heard that this was happening. I had talked with Ron Wyden, I'd seen some of the releases, and I had heard that they were collecting an unprecedented amount of records, but I wasn't allowed to reveal the number because they say it's a secret. Why the number's a secret, I don't know. So I announced that a gazillion records were being collected because I knew that was a fake number and couldn't get, they can't put me in jail for making up a number, but I wanted to emphasize by using this fictitious number of gazillion, I wanted the American public to know that the actual number of communications being collected by the federal government was almost beyond comprehension. Senator Wyden of Oregon has been trying to shed some light on this invasion of our privacy. It's an example of how someone from the left and someone from the right come together for something that's good for the protection of your privacy. He's on the intelligence committee and he's privy to information that very few congressmen or senators have access to. For over a year before Snowden's revelations, Wyden expressed concern that the government was acting outside the law, but he was constrained by the secret C laws. Finally, a few months before Snowden's leaks, Wyden called the office of the intelligence director, James Clapper, and he says, I'm going to ask you in open committee, are you collecting millions of Americans records without a warrant? Despite this warrant, warning, Clapper comes to congress and lies. This is a felony, punishable up to five years, but you hear nobody talking about it. When this secret surveillance of Americans finally became public, though, no one on the intelligence community was even contrite. Their only regret was that the program was no longer secret. In an almost surreal exchange, a congressman asked the NSA, did you think a program of this magnitude could be kept secret from the American people? The NSA official replied with a slight smile, well, we tried. The sheer arrogance of this, they were only sorry that they got caught. Without the Snowden leaks, these spies would still be blindly doing whatever they pleased. Some say it's only records, held anonymously, only rarely access. What's your beef? Well, what they rarely mention is that they don't believe any of your records have any Fourth Amendment protection. When they say, oh, it's only boring old business records. Think of what information is on your visa bill. From your bill, the government can tell whether you drink, whether you smoke, whether you gamble, what books you read, what magazines you read, whether you see a psychiatrist, what medications you take. There was a recent study by two Stanford graduates, we were allowed to mention Stanford here. By two Stanford graduates, look it up in the last week or two that was released showing exactly what can be figured out simply from your boring old phone records. I oppose this abuse of power with every ounce of energy I have. I believe that you have a right to privacy and it should be protected. I believe no government should ever access your records without a judge's warrant. I believe that the majority of Americans agree with me, whether they're Republicans, Democrats, independents, I think most people are offended by this program. Now, Edward Snowden, the leaker of classified information did break the law, but so did James Clapper. I don't think there's been enough criticism of Clapper. James Clapper proposed that it was okay to lie to Congress and the American people in the name of security. Snowden proposed that it was okay to leak classified information in the name of liberty. There are laws against both of these, both leaking and lying, yet history sometimes accepts one or both as laudable. If a government official leaks to expose government malfeasance, we sometimes call it whistleblowing. If an enemy asks for secret information, we would expect our intelligence director to lie, but no matter who is testifying to Congress, lying to Congress is still a crime. Lying to Congress also damages credibility. When the intelligence director lies, it makes it harder for us to believe him when he comes and tells us, oh yeah, we're collecting all your information, but we promise we won't look at it. You know, so it's harder and harder to believe them when they don't tell the truth when they testify. They also come to us and they say, well, terrorists can't be apprehended in a fashion consistent with the Bill of Rights. Well, under cross examination, that turns out not to be true. Who knows what to believe anymore. Even if no abuse of phone records has occurred so far, we must limit government power to prevent abuse in the future. The intelligence director maintains he lied in the open hearing because it was open to the public and the information was classified. He tells us that he testified in the least untruthful way. Anybody accept that? The least untruthful way. As Americans, we don't deserve the least untruthful way from the people we pay for who work for us. We have a right to the truth, we deserve the truth, and we demand the truth from our visuals. The people clap, but not that aren't clapping, are y'all from the intelligence community? I'm asked repeatedly, is Snowden a hero or a villain? Now there's no, there's no, I'm sort of of mixed minds. I know some of you have decided this, but there's no doubt that his legacy will be clouded, you know, by his perch in Russia. No great repository of civil liberties. I agree with critics that say you can't let everybody just decide when to leak classified information. Snowden will in all likelihood face punishment if he returns, but I don't agree with those who argue that he should be hanged or shot on sight. Snowden's leak should not be seen, they say oh it shouldn't be seen as civil disobedience because he didn't stick around for punishment. Now one can argue degrees of bravery whether you would stick around or not. Thoreau faced a day in jail and he was considered to be a civil disobedient. Martin Luther King faced 33 days in jail, he was a civil disobedient, but Snowden faces either death or life in prison. I don't believe yet to be, to commit civil disobedience that it requires martyrdom. History will decide is he a hero? Who is hero and who is villain? Clapper lied in the name of security. Snowden told the truth in the name of privacy. The debate over the leaker though shouldn't be caught up just in personalities. It shouldn't make us lose track of the real issue. How does the Fourth Amendment apply in the digital age? To me this is a profound constitutional question. Can a single warrant be applied to millions of Americans phone records, emails, credit card statements? When you sign a privacy agreement with your phone company or with your internet provider, don't you retain a privacy interest in those records? The Fourth Amendment is very clear. Warrants must be issued by a judge, warrants must be specific to the individual, must have your name on it if they want your records, and a single warrant for millions of Americans phone records hardly sounds specific to the individual. Warrants are supposed to be based on evidence of probable cause. I'm not up here arguing against people searching you. If the judge says they have probable cause that you committed a crime, I'm fine with that. I'm not against the NSA per se, but I am for the process, the due process of law to protect your rights. Generalized warrants that don't name an individual and seek to get millions of records, it goes against the very fabric of the Fourth Amendment. Some say that James Otis, his protest against generalized warrants at the time of our revolution was really the spark that got things going. I find it ironic that the first African American president has without compunction allowed this vast exercise of raw power by the NSA. Certainly, J. Edgar Hoover's illegal spying on Martin Luther King and others in the civil rights movement should give us all pause. Now, President Obama were here, he would say he's not J. Edgar Hoover, which is certainly true, but power must be restrained because no one knows who will next hold that power. As Madison put it, if government were always comprised of angels, we wouldn't need restraint. But as we all know, government is often not comprised of angels. The president claims, well, the NSA program, it's been approved by 15 judges. Well, yeah, right. 15 judges, most of them ruling in secret, where nobody had a lawyer on both sides of the equation. The FISA court is a court where the defendant gets no attorney. The debate is shrouded in secrecy. In the FISA court, the NSA can say whatever they want, and they are not cross-examined. A secret court is not a real court. We must take a stand and demand an end to secret courts. This battle for your rights must take place in the light of day. As we speak, my attorneys are battling for a hearing in open court in Washington, DC. We have already, we have a lawsuit to try to prevent this from happening and to get a decision from the Supreme Court. Only the Supreme Court can legitimately decide if government can access all your phone records with a single warrant without suspicion. Everyone in this room owns a cell phone, so I'm not fighting for just me or for just one political party. I would do the same, whether it were a Republican president or a Democrat president. This is an important issue that goes beyond party politics. I say what you read or what you send in your email or your text messages is none of their damn business. Now they say they're not listening to your phone calls. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. But last week we found out that the CIA illegally searched Senate computers. Diane Feinstein, she's in charge of the committee, she gave a big speech on the Senate floor saying they're illegally taking our work product, they're looking at our computers, and they have now taken stuff off the computers that we thought could have been information for the American people. I'm going to fight them on this. I told her in compliment at her, she's from another party, I went up to her immediately and said great speech, everybody's talking about it, because I don't see this as a partisan issue. I hope she will stand up, not let the CIA push her around, not let the NSA push her around. I'm going to fight them on this. No one, no one should be allowed to invade your privacy. That's why I'm announcing today that when I return to Washington I will push for a select committee styled after the church committee that investigated the abuses of power by the intelligence community in the 70s. It should be bipartisan, it should be independent and wide-reaching. It should have full power to investigate and reform those who spy on us in the name of protecting us. It should watch the watchers. Our liberties are slipping away from us. When Hugh Latimer said, let this be an episode that will not be soon forgotten, he became a human candle against tyranny and intolerance. Americans still have a torch that's burning figuratively or otherwise in New York Harbor. We should never let that flame of liberty go out. On occasion we've let our guard down, particularly in times of war, in times of fear, we've succumbed. We have, as Roger Waters put it, traded our heroes for ghosts, exchanged a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage, or as Franklin put it, traded our liberty for security. I think we've been too lax in guarding our privacy. Look at how we travel now. Look at the personal privacy and dignity we've lost. When you slog through the airports, ask yourself, who's winning? Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman asked the question in a very visual way. He says, the next time you go through airport security, the next time they tell you to put your hands over your head and hold that vulnerable position for seven seconds, no hunt, just a little bit higher, ask yourself, is this the posture of a free man? The question before us is, will we live as men and women? Will we cower and will we give up on our liberty? I for one will fight on because I believe that your rights are inalienable, inseparable, inextinguishable. And I hope everyone, everyone with a cell phone, every American will fight for your privacy and for the right of every American to be left alone. I hope you will stand with me and take a take a stand for liberty. Thank you very much. Conservative activist Larry Klayman and the ACLU have also filed similar lawsuits against the NSA and both resulted in either failure or a staid ruling. What makes you think that you'll have any more success than these groups that have tried before you? I am supportive of all the other lawsuits, so it isn't exclusive that mine is the best, but it is slightly different. The ACLU lawsuit was ruled against the judge either threw it out or said that the program was constitutional. The Klayman suit is in the same court that mine will go to, and the judges previously ruled it unconstitutional, staid the ruling, and I think it will be appealed. So I think the Klayman suit is still active. Ours is going to the same court because it has a similar subject. Our case is slightly different and we think for some legal reasons that it may have a chance of going all the way to the Supreme Court. To me it's not so much that my case has to go, but I think a case needs to go to the Supreme Court because currently many people believe that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply at all. They think that the reason why you can give a single warrant to Verizon is that you don't own those records. I think they're jointly held. I think if you sign a privacy agreement, Verizon agrees not to tell your neighbor who you're calling, so they kind of acknowledge that. I think it's acknowledging that you still have an interest in those records, but to me the most important thing is, and there's at least, we think, four or five Supreme Court justices that have indicated that in this digital age, think about it. It's a lot different than 1975. That's when the last case, Smith versus Maryland was held on records. It's also different. That was about one suspect's phone tap. We're now talking about 300 million Americans' phones. I think it's a big deal and it is different than what we've ever had before, so I'm hoping that we will get all the way to the Supreme Court. So earlier you condemned a director of national intelligence, James Clapper, for allegedly lying in front of Congress. You said he's very explicitly broken the law. Does that mean that you think he should be sent to prison? I think he should be. You don't get sent to prison until you're found guilty, so we should have a trial. He deserves a trial. But the interesting thing is, I'm not an outlier on this, in the sense that I think seven members of the Intelligence Committee or Judiciary Committee in the House have signed a letter saying the same thing. I think it hurts us because we do have to rely on some things being secret, and it's an extraordinary power. It's in a power to capture people, incarcerate people. It's even a power to kill people. So that power needs to be overseen, and they have to be honest with us. If the people in charge of the Intelligence Committee are not being honest to Congress, and they're actually spying on Congress, I have grave doubts about everything they're telling me. So yeah, I think it is important, and one of the reasons I bring it up is that many of these people, they want to throw the book at Snowden. And I have mixed feelings what should happen, because I think you can't release secrets all the time. I mean, that would lead to chaos. But at the same time, I think he also wanted to reveal something he thought was unconstitutional. But for all the people that want to throw the book and the letter of the law at Snowden, I like the contrast. They don't want to do a thing. They're not a peep out of them for Clapper. So you're not really being consistent if you want to throw the book at Snowden, but you don't want to do a thing to Clapper. They both broke the law, technically, and then you have to decide what justice is. But yeah, I think Clapper should be tried for perjury. So you say you're asked this all the time, but we want to get it in here, too. Would you classify Edward Snowden as, on the one hand, a hero or a traitor? Interphrase that slightly differently, maybe. If there were another Edward Snowden out there, would you encourage him to speak up? You know, I think the ultimate decision of hero or villain history is going to sort out. And I think there are pros and cons to a lot of it. And I know people have a strong feeling about it. I think that his intentions were good. But here's the problem. Let's say we have 400, 500 people here. And let's say you all are, you know, we're talking to you, the new recruits for the CIA or for the intelligence for our army. Should I tell all 500 of you, just decide when you think it's unconstitutional and just reveal secrets any time? You could see how it could lead to chaos. But at the same time, I'm very upset about what our intelligence community is doing. And we might not have ever known about it had Snowden not leaked it. Some say Snowden should have tried to become a whistleblower. I don't know if he did try or what the process is. But I think on the one hand you have chaos, you know, Bradley Manning released 24 million pages. There's a chance that people could die from that. There's a chance that intelligence could get out that it could endanger our agents. And I'm not against spying. I mean, we will have people gathering intelligence around the world. And I don't think that we can allow willy-nilly indiscriminate release of documents. But at the same time, I'm sympathetic to what was released because I think it's a real problem. So I have mixed feelings, Isabel Amon. So you posed a very interesting question during your address. You asked about potential CIA spying on Senate computers to quote you, if the CIA is spying on Congress, who exactly can or will stop them? So what would be your answer to this question? Well, see, here's the interesting thing. And this is worth everybody reading about. The way I understand it, and this is what Senator Feinstein said in her speech, they came across something, they were given access to the CIA computers by the CIA. The search engine was created by the CIA. They say, and I'm just going from what they're telling me, they say they found a report called the Panetta Review, which looked into some previous activities of the CIA, interrogation and detention. And they got it through the search engine. If that's true, the CIA then may have said, oh, whoops, we didn't want you to read that. But think about that. If it was a mistake by the CIA, you can say, well, it was a mistake. But why should the CIA be allowed to withhold an internal review from the people overseeing the CIA? So that to me is the arrogance that they think they're in charge. And it's too important to let members of Congress know about. Well, if your members of Congress don't know about it, the people you have some interaction with and can get rid of or elect, then who is in charge? You can't have people who are not elected in charge of your government. And that is really, I think the very definition of tyranny. So this to me is a very important thing. And I also want to make the point that I'm not saying that any of these people are necessarily evil or that they have bad motives. I think a lot of them have good intentions. And maybe they're not even abusing their power at all. The danger, though, is allowing that much power to go unchecked and not have review by Congress. So we obviously don't have all the information yet. It's a recent scandal. But if these allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers do prove to be true, then who do you think should be held responsible? Would it be just CIA director John Brennan or perhaps some official higher up in the federal government? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not sure I know the answer. Brennan was approved about a year or two ago. That's when I was, I actually did the filibuster was to his nomination. And so whether or not it's Brennan or someone who precedes him, but Brennan oversees it now and he's defending the program and saying it didn't happen. But here's the real direct question. There's some media here. Y'all need to ask is ask Brennan, what about the Panetta review? Why should Congress not be allowed to read the Panetta review of the CIA interrogation program? I mean, if I'm not allowed to look at it, and this is something you also need to realize, many of this, much of this that goes on in the Intelligence Committee, I'm not allowed to read. Okay? The Intelligence Committee is allowed to read things I'm not allowed to read. And then the head of the Intelligence Committee is allowed to read some things that the rest of the Intelligence Committee isn't. Some of the revelations that have come forward have come forward. And the day before they came forward, the CIA calls up Senator Feinstein and chapels us as, oh, by the way, we've been collecting email for the last 10 years, it's going to be revealed tomorrow. You know, so we're really not in the loop on this stuff. And we're not overseeing it. They're doing what they want. And then when they get caught, they inform us, but that's not oversight. And that's not representative government. This is incredibly important, not just because of abuse that may be occurring, but because of abuse that could happen, if someone took the reins of power and really wanted to use this for malevolent purposes. Alright, so we have time for just one more question for this interview. This is on sort of a different topic. There has been pretty extensive media coverage of your recent visits to places that don't usually vote Republican, like students at Howard University. You mean like Berkeley? And that UC Berkeley. There has been quite a lot of speculation that these efforts constitute an attempt on your part to broaden your personal appeal in anticipation of a 2016 presidential run. How do you reply to these claims? Maybe. Part of it might be that. Part of it might be that the Republican party is, I've said they have to either evolve, adapt, or die. You know, it's a pretty harsh thing. I think I was telling somebody the other day, remember Dominos finally admitted they had bad crust? I think Republican party admitted, okay? Bad crust. We need a, we need a different kind of party. But I think some of, one of the things that really upset me in the last couple years was that we passed legislation, really done by Republicans and Democrats, frankly, that allows an American citizen to be indefinitely detained without a trial. And I had a conversation with another senator and I said, does this mean an American citizen could be accused of a crime and sent to Guantanamo Bay with no trial, no lawyer? He said, yeah, they're dangerous. I said, well, kind of begs the question, doesn't it? Who gets to decide whether you're dangerous or not? The reason why I think this is important is many sort of libertarians, libertarian leading Republicans, people who believe in individual rights, this really bothers us. But I think it's a bigger audience than that because think about it. If you're African American, Japanese American, Jewish American, Hispanic, have there ever been times when the government didn't treat you fairly? Have there ever been times when you said, you know what, the war on drugs has had a racial outcome? Three out of four people in prison are brown or black. So something's gone wrong. Maybe a candidate who would stand up and say, everybody deserves their day in court. The law should not have a racial outcome. Maybe then people would say, you know what, I always hated those Republicans and their crust sucks, but maybe there are some new Republicans, maybe there'll be a new GOP. We'll see. Thank you. So we also have some questions from the audience. We passed out no cards before and you guys have submitted some questions. I was going to read a few of them to the Senator. This actually relates to your last point. Do you think the issues of privacy and civil liberties could be used to bridge the partisan divide in Congress? You know, yes. And I think there's also, there's a right left nexus on this. One of the persons I work most closely with in Washington on NSA, spying abuse, more oversight needed is Ron Wyden. And I don't agree on some economic liberty issues. You know, he's not so much for lower taxes or less regulations, but on this, we're almost in 100% agreement on some of these intelligence issues. I think it's a way you could actually get things done. That compromise isn't always splitting the difference, but compromise means meaning that your party label isn't as important as the issue is. So to me, I honestly would tell you whether this was a Republican or a Democrat president, I would give exactly the same speech. And I think Ron Wyden would too. I think he's an honest progressive. In fact, I ribbed some of the others by saying, whatever happened to the good liberals around here, all right? You know, because you can be, I think, even someone who isn't a progressive, be progressives who are honestly good or I think very good on civil liberties. In fact, the president was. When he was a senator, President Obama was much better on civil liberties than he is now. Next question from the audience. If elected president, how would you respond to the recent increase of executive power? I think one of the biggest problems in the last 100 years, not Republican, not Democrat, but last 100 years has been the increase in power of the executive. We have thousands of orders written by the executive. Um, Montesquieu wrote and said, you know, he was big on the separation of powers and the checks and balances. He said when the executive begins to legislate, that becomes a form of tyranny. The check and balance is that the executive, the president's not allowed to legislate. Only the legislature can, but it's a messy process. And you gotta, you, everybody's gotta just come to grips with that. It's a messy process. And it's not easy, but that's why you have to convince people on the other side of the aisle to vote for your stuff. And it is also why we have so much contention over the healthcare plan, not one Republican voted for it. Had there been some Republicans voting for it, or had the Democrats come a little bit to our side to have a discussion, I don't think we'd be having this big war in our country right now. So really, I think the way I look at issues is you don't have to agree on everything. We are probably a mixture of people from parties and, and all different walks of life here. And let's say we take 10 issues. We're not going to agree on all 10. You know, we might agree on three out of 10. Why don't we work on the three out of 10 issues we agree on rather than spend our whole time fighting around the seven out of 10. Next question from the audience. You have voiced support for a flat tax system. Are you concerned about the potential increase in inequality resulting from such a system? One of the interesting things is some of the wealthy pay no taxes. Some of the corporations, wealthy corporations pay no taxes under the current system. Another interesting fact over the last five years, income and quality has gotten worse, even though we raised tax rates. So it is something you have to kind of think through as far as how you want to make it better. I'm of the opinion that the way you stimulate the economy and the way you create jobs is by leaving more money in the economy. And you may say that sounds incredibly simplistic, but it's true. The private economy creates jobs. We have to have a certain amount of government, but we should minimize the size of government because it's not very good at stuff. I'll often say it's not that government is inherently stupid, although it's a debatable point. It's that they don't get the same signals. So for example, we need to have a national defense and it can't be done privately. Same with the judiciary and the legislative branch and roads and education and things like this where the government will be involved. And so I think you can argue that that should occur, but we should keep it and not expand it to all walks of life. Does the government need to sell pizza? Does the government need to deliver the mail? Oh, that's really a problem. They probably shouldn't be delivering the mail. They're not very good at that either. But we should minimize what government does and try to maximize the private sector. And that's, I think, where jobs are created. But to me, though, it's getting beyond the hurdle. I can go to a poor community in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and I'll say, bring me the 10 richest people in your town because I would like to reduce your taxes. And you may be horrified and say, oh, he cares only about rich people. No, we all work for rich people. So I want the people who own the business, the guy who owns the business in Middlesbrough, Kentucky, who employs 100 people is probably the richest guy in town. How am I going to get him to hire or her to hire 110 people? Reduce their taxes. So we got to get over this class warfare that rich people are bad people. The top 1% pay 40% of the income tax. There are some exceptions to the rule and we should fix the exceptions, meaning that if there's some in the top 1% that aren't paying taxes, they should. In some ways, a flat tax accumulates more of those people and you lose less of those people by having less deductions and having a flatter, simpler code. But I'm also for reducing everyone's taxes, not just the middle class, everyone's taxes. This is going to be your very last question. We are here at the number one public university in the world, something we tell ourselves a lot. You're not at all biased, right? Of course not. This relates to that. Do you believe the federal government should play a role in supporting higher education, if so describe? I believe in general that the more local control of education, the better. So you really are not at the federal University of California, Berkeley. You are a state school. Education has primarily been at the state level. There is some federal influence through Pell grants and things like that. I've decided to leave those alone when I've created budgets that cut a lot of money because I think a lot of people are dependent on them. I also think we have to figure a way forward. The biggest problem really isn't right now getting an education. We've got plenty of grants, people are getting into school. That's not the problem. The problem you need to think through is not getting a grant and getting into school. It's getting a job when you get out of school and how you're going to pay your loans back. What's happening is the loans are so big and the incomes not as large that a lot of people are getting out and making something that's inadequate. I think one of the ways that we could fix and help students is to maybe give tax credits to students as they get out. Not forgive your loans, but let you reduce your taxes because most people will be working, let you reduce your tax burden some as a way to pay off your student loans. Thanks everybody.