Crisis in ukraine took a new turn today. China and russia pledged to strengthen military cooperation with each other and plan to hold military actions in the asia pacific region. Hong kong with the ongoing crisis rocking ukraine. Both they say have been instigated by the u. S. And its allies to undermine russian power this the world. Meanwhile, the Government Troops and prorussian separatist battle continues. Makes russians feel fear. Military exercises in nato states and russias real concern is preventing ukraine from joining the nato military alliance. Russia is demanding guarantees to make sure that never happens. While nate hasnt formally formal while nato hasnt formally invited ukraine to join its rarntion, nranks, no country ise suspicious than poland is. In 1980, a new independent trade union called solidarity challenged poleds cold war regime. By 1990 poland was able to transition to democracy and pivot itself towards the west, eventually joining the European Union and nato. A key person in Polands Polands transformation says its on the way from the cold war. Barricaded them sestles in the gadansk shipyards. The Solidarity Movement was born. Polands Solidarity Movement exposed communisms first cracks in europe and that young are electrician was le lek walesa. Eventually brought polands government to the negotiating table. Ten years later walesa went on to become l polands first popularly elected president. And a postcommunist state. But today as a crisis unfolds in neighboring ukraine the poles are again feeling pressure from moscow. I sat down with the man who was there from the beginning a quartercentury from his historic election, lek walesa. Thank you for speaking with us. You have speaking so much with what is happening in ukraine, with russia, poland has been strong saying the west has got to resist what russia is doing. In the world many people think the worst is over, the worst is behind us but here in poland people are still worried about russia being expansionist and wanting to do more. What are your thoughts . Translator my great grandfather, my grandfather and my father always said there is no free poled without a free ukraine. And that is why the poles are so concerned about this issue. Because they know it is dangerous when ukraine is not free. So the question nowadays is how many bruises will we get from a russia that is still 30 years behind us . How many problems will we still have . There are no chance he for russia to win in this because you cant nowadays use tanks and force to solve such problems. If we were in solidarity, if we work together, if we defend the peace together, the quicker russia will understand it. You said russians are good people. Who have bad luck with their leaders. What do you think of Vladimir Putin . Translator well, i refer to putin among others but russia when we look at its history has always needed an external enemy. They are not able to rule their country without an enemy. These were the people from chech chechnya. The philosophy of the enemy helps them keep the country. Country. This is their philosophy, and it has to be changed. And this is not the right time for such philosophy. And we are not able to afford such loss and rule through enemy. And russia has to change its philosophy of that necessary enemy. You remember a time when even in poled there was not a free poland there was not a free press. Ladimir putin is very popular in russia for his action he because it seems that the people think hes defending russia and hes defending greater russia. Do you think if the people knew what was really going on he would have less support . Translator definitely. The support he gets nowadays is smaller but russia may like it in a certain day. The additional problem for russia is they used to be a superpower as the ussr. They lost its position and now the only superpower is the u. S. A. But i also refer to weapons to the economy to the moral and social and Economic Issues as well. They are not the leaders. That is why it is hard for russia to be as important as at the used to be. Are as they used to be. So they need success. They need to show their power by threatening. They also have to understand the world. That it is not boorishness, not tanks. But intellect and wisdom of the world. Do you think that russias incursion into Eastern Ukraine and the land that they basically control now in donetsk and crimea do you think thats enough for russia . Because a lot of people have drawn examples comparing it to germany before World War Two where they went into other countries including poland in order to protect the ethnic germans. Thats what russia is sayings theyre doing saying theyre doing. Translator well, im considering it. It is possible but i dont have the answer to that question. Whether he has this philosophy and hes going to develop it, it would be really bad. Or if its just an idea to threaten others with the external hazards. He was wrong, because he did not expect the western world would protect kook ukraine. And now he doesnt have an idea of how to get away with it. Former polish president lek walesa. That is complicating the reaction of European Countries. On tomorrows edition of our special series the new cold war ill take you to bulgaria where sentiment over russia is deeply subdivided. Quite different from portland deep. President obama is reviewing how the u. S. Responds to the high stakes demands plus uber drives itself into a new controversy. Hit me up ad today on the stream, is one of the largest manufacturers of airplanes valuing corporate interest over safety . A look at a groundbreaking al jazeera investigation on the boing 787 the stream, on Al Jazeera America consider this the news of the day plus so much more. We begin with the growing controversy. Answers to the questions no one else will ask. Real perspective, consider this on al jazeera am the Obama Administration confirmed this week that it is reviewing its policy on hostage negotiations but it wont be lifting a u. S. Ban on paying ransoms to kidnappers. No ransom was paid for 26yearold american aid worker peter kassig. With the exception of brit april which along with the u. S. Also abides by a strict noransom policy some other countries havent been as reluctant to pay money to get their ohio hostages hostages released. 15 were said to be freed in exchange for money. A new report prepared for the United NationsSecurity Council says i. S. I. L. Has enough arms and ammunition to wage war for up to two years as a result of its financial resources. I recently sat down with david cohen, hes the undersecond for Financial Intelligence and i pressed him why getting europe to stick to a no ransom policy is so important. The solution is to have the International Community really come together and apply a no ransoms policy in a way so that we take away the incentive in the first place for organizations like i. S. I. L. To take hostages and to seek ransom payments. Now, supporters of the u. S. Policy say holding firm to a ransom ban has worked. Of the 53 hostages, known to have been taken by al qaeda branches in the past five years, a third of them were french. Only 5 were u. S. Citizens. Now, there have been high profile exceptions to the u. S. Policy. In 2002, the fbi facilitated the payment of 300,000 for the release of two christian missionaries held by an al qaeda affiliate in the philippines. The u. S. Also has a history of turning a blind eye to other countries paying for american hostages release. A ransom qatar allegedly paid for peter theo curtis. Tools of negotiations that other countries dont have. He is an associate fellow of the Royal United Services institute a security and defense thpg thin thinktank in london. Thanks for being with us. Good evening. Tom, what are the instruments, the tools that the u. S. Has that can prevent it from paying ransoms where others dont have those options . Well, i think its interesting to look at some of the news over the summer, obviously we became aware that there was an attempt to find james foley and to release him from northern syria. I think the smaller, albeit rich, but smaller European Countries dont have those option he. They dont have many of the capabilities that the u. S. Have. So inevitably i would say they tend to default to using money as a way of freeing their hostages. When we talked to david cohen, he said that i. S. I. L. Had taken in 20 million in ransoms this year. Al qaeda had brought in about 125 million since 2008. Which accounts for about half of their operating revenue. What can be done to stop the source of revenue . Clearly, its big business. And the only way that one can stop the source of revenue is persuading countries that actually, they shouldnt use their money to free their citizens who are held abroad. Topic. There are strong differences of opinions in Capital Cities around the world. I think frankly what needs to happen is there needs to be a proper dialogue about this because theres as you rightly say, payment leads to more hostages being taken, and that is clearly a suboptimal situation when we are trying to starve groups like i. S. I. L. From ransom and ki kidnap for ransoms a source of funding. A strong statement dependence paying ransom, we seem to know European Countries are secretly paying them. I couldnt even get david cohen to take a strong position of official censure against these positions, i assume there are back conversations going on not to pay them or paying them indirectly. As you mention there was a big discussion at the d8, previously there was clearly a u. N. Resolution that was passed on this matter. So i think its something that publicly everybody signs up to. I think the bottom line is, when you have got families knocking on the door of your government in paris or in germany or in austria, its difficult to say no. So and the discussion of president obama says we are going to have about how we handle hostages, i mentioned theres nobody ive heard from who says its likely to change. The policies about ransom are likely the change and if the policy is not going to change what about negotiating would change to allow the release of u. K. Or u. S. Hostages . Well, its interesting, to note isnt it, that one of the countries in the cross hairs over criticism in the last few months regarding funding terrorism is qatar. But qatar has access to these groups to facilitate negotiation. So i can imagine that media countries ar intermediary countries, find ways that deals can be done that mean that ransoms are not paid. On the face of it ransoms are not paid or soldiers are changed as we said previous. Suspect it a zero sum game . If they know i can get this much for a american or a brit or a french citizen does it matter whether its qatar involved in the middle or anybody else . Isnt it really, we pay or we dont pay . I think the key to these situations being resolved is dialogue. And as long as there is dialogue there is hope that these people can be brought home safely. Dialogue between i. S. I. L. And the United States i would suggest is not going to happen. Dialogue between the u. K. And i. S. I. L. Is not going to happen. Using the intermediaries to solve this pretty divisive problem. Conversation. Thank you. Republicans vow to fight president obamas plan to protect millions of illegal immigrants. Ill examine the controversy. Uber may be growing faster than its own good. Im examine the deeper technology problem. Were following stories of people who died in the desert. The borderland marathon. No ones prepared for this journey. Experience Al Jazeera Americas critically acclaimed original series from the beginning. Experiencing it has changed me completely. Follow the journey as six americans face the immigration debate up close and personal. Its heartbreaking. Im the enemy. Im really pissed off. All of these people shouldnt be dead. Its insane. The borderland thanksgiving day marathon. On Al Jazeera America. The immigration debate is about to go into overdrive. President obama will announce a major executive action on Immigration Reform in prime time tomorrow. Hes invited senior lawmakers to the white house tonight for dinner to explain his immigration decision. The plan is said to give protection from deportation to as many as five million undocumented immigrants. Mike viqueria is at the white house with more, starting mike with the most important part of this, it is an executive action not legislative action. Mike viqueria right so it doesnt have the force of law. In other words, this is temporary. Whoever succeeds mr. Obama here has the chance to follow that or not. Last summer in 2013, that is something very dear to the Immigration Reform advocacy community. As a matter of fact many land grouplatinogroups are disappoine president , supposedly considered, that is the dacca law, brak in 2012, deferred action for the dreamers, those were the young people brought to this country through no choice of their own. The president essentially said through executive discretion we are not going to be deporting or nishtin initiating any deportation action he against these individuals. Ever since then a bit of rise, the president said i cant do that for anybody else, he said we have to wait for congress my hands are tied. Lo and behold tomorrow hes going to do just that and of course republicans are insensed. Theyre calling him a dictator, an emperor. There are all kinds of talks among the senators about what actions they can do. They are more likely the come adeem when republicans are mad about this whats to be done . First of all i think we can expect the president to say this is going to be active on a date certain, sometime next year and thereby give the republicans some time to act. Though really thats more of a Public Relations optics thing, giving the republicans some extra time while theyre in control of congress. What the republicans are more likely to do is try to defund what the president is planning to do. In other words insert a rider into a bill thats due december 11th to keep the government open here we go again right, to keep the government open to say no funds sham be expended in support of what the president said in his executive action. That could lead to a Government Shutdown and heaven for bid, hardettes of the hard core are calling for impeachment. Do something that would be immensely unpopular, ali. Mike viqueria, at the white house. Are author of the immigrant exodus, he says president obamas immigration announcement tomorrow will only be a bandaid that ends up enflaming as mike just said both republicans and he says some democrats, and vivek, as you always point out so clearly, part of the problem with democrats, we sort of see this as republican inaction on immigration but part of the problem with democrats is they wont take the deal that could at least solve half the problem, thats skill immigrants, we have a problem keeping skilled immigrants in this country. Ali, even with the unskilled, undocumented workers if the democrats lowered the demands, right now theyre demanding citizenship and that crosses the line for republicans. Look, give them temporary work permits so they can be here work legally pay taxes they can go home to their families and come back and come out of the woodwork and get their basic human rights. If he put that on the table for republicans i believe they would agree to it. That is not amnesty and doesnt shift the electoral balance. On skilled immigrants, start up visa, nobrainers, keeping students over here, if you fixed the loopholes in the system, no argument on that. Even the dream act, nobrainer. So these could be agreed to however the democrats have been playing this game of all or nothing. Theyre playing chicken with our countrys economy and the human rights of millions of people. Im blaming the democrats not the republicans on this one. Are you not concern as the president will likely argue if they do like youre saying if cathey can take the deal that we can all agree to, unskilled coming over the border from mexico . The republicans have agreed in the past to the dream acts. They would agree to some form of legalization. The churches dont want these families being deported. Most of the republicans would not even think of deporting these millions of people. The issue is rewarding them for breaking the law and the issue is about citizenship. There are shades of gray over here. Most republicans would agree to doing humane thing, in fact all of america would agree to do the humane thing here, which is to legalize them in some form which would allow work over here and shift this debate about citizenship for another decade or so until weve come much further and we can come to a consensus of what should happen here. Playing chicken to each other is doing damage to the country. When it comes to granting skilled immigrants or entrepreneurial immigrants vee is as, you have done some study on what the effect to the economy is. It would be a boost of 1. 6 to u. S. Gdp. In 10 years. Were talking about a trillion dollars, more than a trillion dollars of economic value to america simply by having a startup vee is a and allowing people to visa and allowing people to hire, into the economy that is a nobrainer, not even those fighting against the temporary visa holders. The startups we have more start jums, more money flowing startups, more jobs being created because we have more startups. This is what happens when you pit the job creators in here. People who want to Start Companies they can be here, five years lets say to start a company, as the company employs x number of americans and contributes to the economy fine, they can stay here permanently. Thats a simple agreement, no one will have a problem with that, they are not taking jobs away, they are adding jobs, bringing jobs into america. How can they disagree with that. Both of which are your passions and you have written about i want you to stay right there. Coming up next, you may be getting more than you agreed to with uber, is it an uber problem or a sign of the dark side of the Silicon Valley culture . Im going to shine a bright light on the truth in two okay, im devoting the rest of tonights show to take a lard look at the culture of an Aggressive Company ive come to admire and rely on. I am talking about uber. I love uber because this 21st century scar service has essentially reinvented the business of driving people from point a to point b. Its simple but brilliant phone app directly connects passengers with drivers. Real value, customers can afford to drive around in black cars, for investors. In the process ubers caters have built a company now estimated to be valued at 17 billion or more thats offering rides in 200 cities around the world. True, some of ubers success has come at the success of traditional business but thats not what is disturbing me. Heres what is. The website buzz feed reported that at a private event last friday, emil michael suggested that the company should invest option researchers to tig up dirt on journalists who have been critical to the company. He singled out sarah lacey whoing accused uber of sexism and miss on misogyny. She has apologized but is a bit too late. Here are a few of his tweets. Emills comments showed a lack of humidity, departure from our yieltdz. Here is what struck me about the comments, his duties here at uber do not involve communication strategy or plans and are not representative of really . Vice president of the company . That comment underscores what others are saying. Uber has to grow up and that means the boss takes responsibility foreverything that happens at the company. You cant really say that a Vice President isnt talking for the company. Ubers Privacy Policy says rider and driver data are only accessed for legitimate business purposes. We asked uber for comment and the emil michael story and they refused to comment. Uber employees warned her that uber executives might access her rider logs. Now this is while she was reporting a cover story on traches kalanic, called the smartest bro in the room. Ellen judge cushing, thank you for being with us. How did that make you feel . When you heard that they might have been tracking your movements. I was a little bit surprised over the course of my reporting i came to realize that uber is a very paranoid company and its a company that feels very victimized by the press. And its a company that prizes employee secrecy. All companies in Silicon Valley pretty much prohibit their employees from talking to the press but uber seems to have taken that degree of secrecy to an extremely high level. So i wasnt wildly surprised. But i was a little bit i was a little taken aback. Creepy on some levels the app does show you where youre going so i assume that data exists but the concept that someone might access it for something other than a lawsuit or tracking whether you know theres been a complaint the idea that someone might use that because theyre not happy with you, thats got to freak you out a little bit. Yeah, if you think about how much data uber has on you they have your credit card number they have your billing address which means they have your home address they can see every trip you take. I take uber all the time. Im sure they could find out a lot of stuff about me. Now sarah lacey the woman that seems to be the subject of the conversation that emil michael had in new york, she has been very critical, do you think overly critical and do you think they that comment that they would spend money to dig up dirt on her . I wasnt actually wildly surprised when i heard that. Uber is a very vindictive company. Sarah lacey has been one of the most outspoken critics of the company especially as it regards sexism and misogyny. And i understand why they would be concerned about her. You know, i i believe that emil michael even though he believed he was off the record, i dont think you Say Something like that if you dont mean it to some degree and i wasnt all that surprised knowing what i know about the company. A company with 17, 18 billion of valuation you can throw anything you want around right. Exactly. You dont believe they have looked into the logs . I have no reason to believe they have. I havent heard from uber since the buzz feed story broke. I have no indication they looked into my logs but all the people that i spoke to told me its quite easy to look into anyones logs and the company has in fact shown before that they have access to your data and are more creepy. All right, theres been a lot of talk im going to talk to vivek because hes wrote about it. This immature frat boy culture, this play money that backs these companies is new York Venture Fund play money. Whats your sense of it . I think that uber is certainly a part of that. Its, even though uber actually has a fair number of women in high profile positions, its still overwhelmingly a boys club. All of the top execs, including travis and emil michael are men and the company frankly have a history of being dismissive of female writer and driver and journalist concerns about safety, about certain toads they attitudes they have. This is not the first time that uber has been accused of misogyny. Its like the fifth. Senioring editor of the magazine. lkush. This is the problem vivek. Innovating women, the changing technology. You people solve all our problems, youre the smartest in the country your university is the hardest to get into and if you graduate with a degree in Computer Engineering you are guaranteed a job largely in this country. We dont have enough people so we get these people from other countries. We look to you for these solutions. Its very upsetting to me, there may be something at the core thats rotten here. Ali, in every country you have extremists, you are talk going the extremists in the middle east and al qaeda and so on, so on. In Silicon Valley we have this boys club. Its a small bunch of very powerful very rich, people who believe theyre gods because they lucked out and achieved so much success. They behave for complete arrogance and contempt for whats right. Thats what ive been attacking. The majorities of people in Silicon Valley are like us, born abroad, can think big but the trouble is you have a small minority who dominate the funding scene and who give us give Silicon Valley a bad name. Thats what were talking about. Lets not blame all of Silicon Valley. As many good ceos as there are bad ceos. This could be a better place if we would reign in the bad boys. What uber is showing is is the worst of the boys club. Ashton kutcher who is an investor in uber, supported this vp for saying that they should investigate sarah lacey. How dare they say that, how dare they even think like this . This is outrageous that a celebrity like him would attack an innocent journalist like this. This is wrong. Quite usual because Ashton Kutcher was quite the outlier. When we tell people whether Silicon Valley is a good place for women, ang attractive place for women they talk about sarah miller, and meg whitman and they talk about Carly Fiorina at hp. But we cant name ten wellknown executives in Silicon Valley. Im sure there are hundreds but we dont know of them. Because they dont get depressed, another problem here that the media covers the boys club. Because these powerful investors are also investors in some of the tech blogs and their companies tentd to ge tends to l the attention. It distorts the image of whos important and whats right here. The wrong people get the attention, the wrong people get the funding and it really screws up the system. The Venture Capital system is on the decline. They invest the me too companies and throw the money in the wrong places. We need to hold the boards responsible and rein in the boys club and this will be a nicer place to be. Us. Thank you. How disrupting the taxi industry has made uber a moving target. Im joie chen, im the host of america tonight, were revolutionary because were going back to doing best of storytelling. We have an ouportunity to really reach out and really talk to voices that we havent heard before. I think Al Jazeera America is a watershed moment for american journalism real reporting that brings you the world. Giving you a real global perspective like no other can. Real reporting from around the world. This is what we do. Al jazeera america. Earlier i told you that ubers Disruptive Technology has generated plenty of controversy that has nothing to do with digging up dirt on journalists. Stopped uber from taking a huge bite out of its business. As mary snow reports, thats one reason uber has attracted plenty of negative attention he even before this last outbreak of bad publicity. Uber declaring war with the taxi industry and taxi drivers in turn has lashed out at the company that threatens to up end its business. Ubers ceo travis kalanin, talked about his wage of Political Campaign against the industry. We have to bring out the truth about how dark and dangerous and evil the taxi side of things is. At that samek kalanic talked about replacing his own uber drivers with selfdriving cars as a way to cut costs. He didnt think robots would be in the picture until 2085. Proper background checks after a report of a number of incidents involving its drivers. Its model of price surging has also drawn fire. But the Company Raises the subject as a way of getting more of its drivers out in their cars. Arrival lyft is among competitors that have accused uber of trying to sabotage its business by ordering cars and cancelling them. Something uber has denied. And the companys culture has drawn scrutiny. Uber office in france that advertise pairing riders with drivers who are hot chicks. Mary snow, al jazeera. Im joined in the studio by writer and entrepreneur rachel sclar, she tweeted she was gobsmacked by those comments. Joining me from San Francisco with jake ward, al jazeera science and technology correspondent. Welcome to both of you. Rairachel, you have often talked about the struggles women have to sort of break into Silicon Valley culture because the assumption is there are no problems. The assumption is that anybody with the same skill set can be part of it. The mate oka meri meritocracy merit meritocracy culture is live and well in Silicon Valley. There has been item after item after item about uber which adds up to a shady reputation before this bombshell. Surge pricing and disquieting incidents like the uber france promotion which essentially advertised sexy drivers and i mean if women are working as uber drivers that puts them essentially in a position of being potentially harassed, and the easy to get around background checks, you know what it is something you can register for online and certain uber drivers swap their driving sort of technology their uber machine out between them. To share shifts. And its a lot harder actually to be able to drive a taxi typically. Whats your sense of the community in which youre involved about the response to this and im trying to figure this out. Is this just a bunch of journalists and northeasterners who think this is a big story or do you think there are people who are saying im not going to use this service . Im surprised at the uniformity of the outrage to this story, that they will go to lyft and they dont feel comfortable going into uber cars. John hodgeman commented on hi blog that he wouldnt support uber and doin and doing supporting company policy. Jake, what is the uber thing, cant you walk or take a bus like everybody else does . The culture thing, uber is fantastic on so many levels, its a company i want so badly to love because it brought us needed technology, it has created value for drivers who had extra time and capacity in a car and for passengers who needed rides and for investors. Where is the disconnect here . Well, ali youre absolutely right. The audacity it takes that you can take on the business that is so enstretched as the taxi livery business, on the other hand, i dont know if theres a causal connection or just a correlation here with the same audacity being the sort of inexperience of yeurt. And i think that is youth, that is reflected throughout Silicon Valley culture. Ive always pointed out that as the user base of facebook has expanded as exponentially as it has, suddenly you are seeing the behavior on facebook outstripping what the very youthful founders of facebook obviously had in mind when they were thinking about sharing the adventures of life. When i had a friend who had a miscarriage or a divorce or Something Like that, suddenly the user interface, is going to click on like, on the loss of ones dog . The changes of life is sort of the youth and i think with uber here were seeing those things written large. One thing for me that really stood out about uber several years ago is that in 2012 on their blog they pointed out the patterns they were noticing in their data that suggested to them the number of people that used uber to get home from one night stands. It was sort of this strange kind of nerdy little weird. Yes its a tonedeaf quality here. You need something there that tells you you need that youth and inexperience and ir irreverence. Were hearing a lot of griping from existing medallion holders, who could sell their medallion for a Million Dollars. We need this disruption these masters of the university who upturned the world think there are no rules. I will say i agree with jacobs point about young entrepreneurs. The folks at uber dont really qualify, Travis Kalanik has been a serial entrepreneur. Uber cant skate by pretending theyre naive 20yearolds. They have trained people, they brought david ploth over, he worked for obama the need for disruption, and when what you said about why cant people take the bus . Theres actually an incredible need that uber does fill for people who i mean Jenna Worthham wrote a great piece on yeem abou medium about how uber solved a problem for black people. Come pick you up where you are. When i was on crutches, i you know i used uber all the time. Because i needed to have door to door service. And i know that a bunch of new moms have used uber and that theyve introduced car seats. So this is a you know, this is a good technology, and a good idea, and a did concept and its needed to your and a good concept but to your point it needs to be managed properly an by jacobs point, by adults. Jake, glad to see you. And rachel sklar is a founder of the list and a good friend of our show. Coming up why does one of the smartest men of Silicon Valley think that im guilty of making way too much of this uber story . Im going to let hum tel him teu and me right here in two minutes. Small, medium, large. Cluster oysters and white tablecloth half shell oysters. For nearly a century, oysters have been harvested here in drakes estero. Seven years ago kevin lunny bought the floundering farm here and turned it into a 1. 5 Million Dollar annual business, but some environmentalists say he has outstayed his welcome and it is time for the farm to stop production. But it is fundamentally incompatible with a National Park wilderness area to have a commercial, private oyster operation. It just doesnt fit. Lunny insists he is a responsible steward of the land and exemplifies sustainability. Lunny says if the Lower Court Ruling against him stands, the community may gain a quiet estuary, but some of their cultural history will be lost. Weve spent the last half an hour taking an in depth look at the controversy, of emil michael suggesting that his company should spend 1 million digging up dirt on journalists. Telling us that journalists like myself are overreacting and have been, michael the floor is yours. Why am i wrong . Well, there are three stories about uber that we can talk about. One is the remarks that emil michael said at a dinner he thought was off the record. Wrongheaded remarks, bad remarks, thats one story. The second story is the story about how uber does or does not regulate and maintain control over the private information of its users, whether it maintains correct oversight over its employees about the private information on its users, you had a couple of references to it that were insightful. A swash buckling company that is taking on entrenched interests, and they can be tone deaf to the pratfalls they pai make. And the first one is where you and i probably disagree. I should disclose to you i know emil michael i know sarah lacey i know them as human beings. I know journalists are extremely excited about covering themselves. I dont think most journalists, emil michael disavowed the remarks immediately. I can feel sympathy if one or two people might feel threatened by them. I dont think that policy was a good idea, it was never ubers policy but the valuation of 17 billion, you can take a million bucks and try to smear someone right . A lot of companies could do that and there are companies that sell backgrounder information on journalists including personal data personally available information about them. Natasha singer of the New York Times covers companies that do that for a living. There is an industry here. My guess is emil was saying something dumb, foolish wrong headed absolutely indefensible. You can say that good enough or not good enough. Whether uber itself is conducting the way it could, the answer is clearly no. That swash buckling spirit we admire, they are fast and loose with their privacy information. As you know i stand for privacy in Silicon Valley. But i tell you this the same commentators who will criticize uber for having fast and loose Maintenance Data policies, not enabling or empowering its employees. A company thats growing as quickly as uber is, astoundingly quickly is going to have a lot of mistakes. If they are tone deaf to the mistakes they are going to have a hard time to turn it around. I think the threat to their business, my guess is the impact of that is going to be effectively zero on their business ever. Including today by the way, including today. I think the problem the threat to their business may in fact be if people do not trust them to use their data in a trust worthy way. Im not talking about journalists im talking about consumers. We saw a letter from al franken, outlining ten questions to the travel ceo of uber, asking chiefly how uber tides to use their personal and private data. If they dont turn that around business. I dont know if its a guy or woman, please dont become paranoid, who shares your view on it. I dont think its going to affect their business at all, we have a small number of people who are correctly mortified about what was said but turning into sort of a larger activist idea. I dont think it has legs. The private information though, if in fact the private information is being abused routinely then thats something that we got to worry about. I dont like that, that ubers business could suffer. The reason were talking about them is next time im in the bay area will you pick me up at the airport next time im in the bay area, i might need a ride. Ill come. I might have a pink mustache in front of my car. Like lyft. Michael furtig, one thing is certain, the company has exploit exploited a great idea and become a successful business as a result. Many in many markets its taxi hailing Smartphone App fills a letting region, serves many customers particularly well. Uber is becoming just the latest example of a noxious culture in which politicians and business men think its appropriate to manipulate businesses for their ends. That kind of stuff was rightly vilified, it should be vilified now with uber. Any time a Company Executive or a Government Official threatens harm to the reputation of journalists who have reported something they dont like is cause for extreme concern and that shows a complete lack of understanding of the role that journalists play. Were here to serve your needs based on the information made available to us. If the publics perception is incomplete it is up to the ubers of the world to be more forthcoming with the press. Those are my thoughts on it. Thats our show for today. Im ali velshi. Thank you for joining us. Gunfire at library on the campus of Florida State university, three shot, the gunman killed by police. 10 new york counties under a state of emergency and the snow keeps piling up. How much could be on the ground before this storm ends. Immigration showdown, president obama about to reveal his executive actions on immigration. Well ever a preview. Its called the worst refugee crisis in a