Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20130731

Charge of aiding the enemy. 202585rats, call 3880. For republicans, 2025853881. 5853882. Endents, 202 journal cspan. Org. Papersnt page of major carried a story about the Bradley Manning decision. Here is the wall street journal. Ot guilty aiding the enemy he was found guilty of taking information from government databases, why passing security activism using classified information for other than its intended purpose and other charges, and he could face a maximum of 136 years in prison. Front page of the baltimore sun. Leaks indict by leaks by manning. We will find more about that today as the fort made, we start the process of seeing how he will be punished. Here is how the Washington Times looks at it. Manning verdict is a warning guilty leaks are cut 19 charges likely to result in heavy sentencing. A military Court Tuesday convicted manning of violating the espionage act for the hundreds of thousands of classified documents to weaken the. While manning was acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which carried a penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole, he still faces up to 136 years in prison when sentenced at fort meade. The hearing is expected to last most of august. We would like to hear your thoughts on this. What do you think of the decision by the military court, the military judge, and what do you think its implications are . What do you mean . We will talk with someone who works with whistleblowers and your thoughts . Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy and still may face a long jail term. A lowg was working as level Intelligence Analyst in baghdad when he was arrested three years ago. We will look at his sentence come as we mentioned, today. His case is one of two prominent ones involving highprofile leaks, reports reuters. Former u. S. Intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has been holed up in the transit area of moscow airport for more than a month. Despite u. S. Calls for russian authorities to turn him over. Here to talk more with us is scott malone, editor in charge and reuters. Good morning. Guest good morning. Host our guest has been writing about this case as well as doing editing. An expected decision . How anticipated was this verdict . Guest the big question going into yesterday had been the big charge, the aiding the enemy charge, which carries the life sentence. That was really the big variable. Would he be guilty of that or not . S, thesser charge conviction was expected. But the notguilty plea, his supporters took it as heartening the notguilty verdict, excuse me. Plead guilty to some of the charges against him. Take us through what he admitted to, what he took a plea with and what else is he facing . Guest he pled to some of the lesser charges of faith of sharing the information with wikileaks, and essentially what he was fighting was the charge that he had done this with the intention of helping foreign entities that the u. S. Regards as the enemy, and basically his argument was that he was trying to call attention to aspects of u. S. Foreign policy that may the average american was not aware about. Process go . Es this explain to us how the military court operates and how it might be different than what people richer civilian court to be like. Nott for starters, he was tried by jury. He had that option but requested to be tried by the judge, colonel denise lind, and left his fate essentially in her hands. Also, when he had pled guilty theier in the year to lesser charges, oftentimes in civilian Court Prosecutor might take that deal and avoid the rest of the trial. Therek in the military was clearly a reluctance to do that and perhaps a desire to send a stronger message. Host we are seeing pictures in the news of demonstrators supporting Bradley Manning. Are pictures in the Washington Post, supporters demonstrating outside the gate of fort meade. What has the crowd been like . What has the publicity of this case been like . Guest the publicity has been intense. This is closely watched, probably the most closely watched courtmartial we have seen in a few years. Supporters essentially argue that he did the right thing, that he called attention to activities that the American Public has the right to know, and that doing it through wikileaks was no different than doing it through more traditional news media outlets. Host scott malone, where do we go from here . In your story in reuters, you and your colleagues look at what happens next in terms of charges regarding Julian Assange. Certainly Julian Assange is the big question, and the first thing is obviously assange is living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in london, putting him out of reach of the u. S. Government. But, having gotten the conviction of bradley, the leaker in this case, would certainly be of interest in charging assange. The challenge there ac has more access to the the challenge there is that he has more access to protections than manning had. Manning does not have the protections that would make charging Julian Assange different. He would be charged in civilian courts. Look at a statement that Julian Assange put out on the Bradley Manning verdict. He said, this is the first ever espionage conviction against a whistleblower. It is a dangerous predict a and anus precedent example of National Experience extremism. How significant is that . Guest it is very significant. And as the trial moves onto its sentencing phase, while avoiding the commission on the aiding the enemy charge, he did not avoid the he avoided the mandatory life sentence, he still faces the 136 year sentence. He is 25 years old. In that case you are splitting hairs. What is the difference in those sentences . Host scott malone, thank you for talking with us this morning. Guest thank you. Host we are asking you for your thoughts. Here are the call here are the numbers. 202 5853880. Republicans, 202 5853880. , 202 5853882. Ray, you are on. Caller i was in the military. People,d wiped out 29 they would have called it Collateral Damage or a mistake. But then we will release in our prison system here in different states, murderers as early as seven years after they have killed somebody. I just dont understand the thinking. I think the guy is a hero. Theink this other guy about nsa, naturally the government is upset, because if you are spying on me or other people, treating everybody like a terrorist, we are getting in dangerous territory. We are no longer a democracy, and a freedom of speech people anymore. Int this is going to do this administration or any other 1 if anyone goes out to tell everybody what the administration is doing, right or wrong, risks losing their job, their pension if they are working for the government, and going to jail. I think this guy is hero it because we have not heard whether he has released all the information. We dont have to go with the government says. Host caller, what do you think . Calls agree with ray, who Bradley Manning a hero . The wall street journal looks at the four allegories of information that Bradley Manning at the four categories of information. An apacheshows helicopter firing on a group of people including journalists from reuters. Was edited and called collateral murder. Private mannings lawyers said the material in the video have been previously released to the public. Prosecutors said that militants could learn about American Military tactics by watching the video. That information in the wall street journal. John, from virginia, republican. Caller how are you doing . I am just appalled that we have a group of young men in this country that signed up, they to protect this country, and then they turn around and give our secrets out to folks, and people die on the other end of that. I spent years in the military. This Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, people die with stuff like this. Giving out embassy secrets happens. Ateral damage but those are american secrets, private orot some low level individual, it is not up to them to take up a flag and give away our nations secrets. That is wrong, and it does not the generation of young kids. It does not set the right example that we should be setting for our country. Freedoms were paid for in in blood by our forefathers, our grandfathers, and these kids, for them to give this stuff away it is just horrible. For me, they are traitors, and they should be punished as such. John in beverly, newt jersey. A democrat. Good morning. I agree with caller i agree with the previous caller. Manning has a scar he will have to live with the rest of his life. He will not ever get access to a phone or a computer. He is in the rehabilitation process of incarceration, he is going to be taught new tactics to live by. He is going to be live in some authorities. He is a young man, very agile. There are going to be sick people there that need to be taken care of. Help feed them. He will learn humility. He is going to be there for a long time. I dont think he is going to get 136 years, but i know for a fact he took anage oath to secrecy. Those wikileaks documents are available from china, and we have no reciprocity with china. Those documents are Still Available on the internet, no matter how much the United States tries to block them. Hackers from the United States can use processes to get to them. I am sorry this will let down a lot of callers. In terms of snowden, it is a different document because he is of subject to the swearing the secrecy for classified information, so he is more of, ok, he is some kind of a journalist. So he will be handled by civilian court. Host Edward Snowden still had clearance, even though he worked for a contractor. Caller i dont know. All i know is, these guys have got to stop doing what they are doing because there are secrets on those tapes and china can turn around and say whatever they want about them. China listens to these lessons by make yourself invisible prior to war. Thank you very much. Host this tweet from bill beatty on twitter it is enough for me to see those hands ton bin ladens say he is guilty. Insurmountable damage could have killed troopers. Joe tweeting in and saying, none of that stuff should have been classified. At some point the American People must know what our government does. From louisiana, independent. Standing up and exposing injustices that happen around the world, they are putting their life at risk by Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. Heronk this young man is a for notld be commended caring about his own wellbeing but the wellbeing of society. And showing the atrocities of what happened. If you look at what happened in iraq, it is terrible. It is chaotic. The war put these people back i dont know how many years. We should stand by these young people. They are fighting for better wages, exposing the atrocities happening with this. We should applaud them. Do you think, what about the verdict we saw a rendered yesterday by the military court . He was found not guilty of aiding the enemy, but Bradley Manning was found guilty of a thatr of other charges could carry a jail sentence of over 130 years. , forr i think the verdict not being found guilty of aiding the enemy, is good. But overall it is a terrible situation. He is a hero. Exposing what is they should have been doing their job instead of being , shouldith the military be telling us what is happening around the world and the country. From twitter manning is being persecuted for having the guts to tell the truth. The law requires military personnel to report crimes, and he did. The Washington Post breaks down the verdict. After an eight week trial, Bradley Manning was found guilty of most of the crimes which with which he was charged, but not guilty of aiding the enemy. 104aiding the enemy. Specific charges were al qaeda. He pled not guilty and was found not guilty. You can see here is please, the not you can see here his toas he admitted guilt storing classified information, then he pled guilty to a lesser offense, including state Department Records and classified cables. That is under the computer abuse and fraud act. He also pled guilty to a lesser offense for the iraqi airstrike video, classified memos, military records, database files and so on. He pled not guilty to stealing government property, was found guilty on those charges, and he pled not guilty to publication of intelligence, but he was found guilty on that. The Washington Post breaks down the sentence, what it could be for them. The army judge will spend weeks hearing from defense and prosecution witnesses. The government is expected to provide a classified assessment of the damage created by mannings disclosures. They are also expected to see the lawyer for Bradley Manning continue to portray his client as a patriot who followed his conscience. Expressing gratitude to his legal team and supporters. Our next caller in taylor, michigan, on the democrats line. Hi, don. Caller hello. Tank you for cspan. Thank you for cspan. Gave anom line is they oath to the constitution, nobody else. All he did was show emails. Thousands of people are reading them. Biden said something about them. The thing is, you have to think about our forefathers. Werent they all whistleblowers on the British Government . They knew the wrongs of those British Government, so that is why they wrote the constitution. Give their oath to the constitution, not to an administration or a corporation. Manning to me, they are heroes. Bush, clinton, obama they all lied, they all said they were going to do one thing. Look at the nsa, we are being recorded. I look at the nsa as not sees as nazis screwing americans. They are patriots to me. But i have got to say one more thing. The truth is they are telling the truth. That is what they are upset about. If we dont get together with the truth, this is why we are in this mess. We are not finding out the truth. Host the headline in usa today the manning verdict redefines traitor. A classic case of a mold linking leaking of a mole leaking sensitive documents to a foreign country has been replaced by a junior analyst releasing troves of data to the public with a few keystrokes. Is from twitter the troopers have a right to know what they are being asked to fight and die for. See don ritchie writing, manning is guilty of espionaging to the public. David is up next from st. Josephs, missouri, republican line. Thatr i want to say manning and all the people who support him are traitors. The left has always hated this country. They will do anything to get us killed and ruin our missions on protecting this country. Continue toeople deny it is terrorists that destroyed the twin towers. In fact, they celebrate it. Many people they say that the people who died in the terrorist attacks deserved it. Host who said that . Caller the people that support this punk, ok . Host david, why are you so angry about this . Have served my i country and i had friends who served their country and went to they have people like this manning edit what is going on so they can portray them as matures. As butchers. Sun,in the baltimore the case unfolding in maryland at fort meade, they write, a balanced verdict. The law noinst matter his motivations, but it did not amount to aiding the enemy. Some other Opinion Pieces in usa today. The manning case sets a framework for assessing leakers. He is a criminal but not a traitor. The judges reason he has broader implication as well. The framework for assessing the actions of not just manning but Edward Snowden and a host of lesser known leakers pursued the pursued by the Obama Administration as if they were spies. An opposing view says, manning deserves the nobel peace prize. s opposing today views section. He wall street journal the wikileaks source was heedless of the harm his leaks might do here co. The wall street journal says, his defenders described him as a whistleblower. Heedless of the content or the harm he might do american interests. What do you think . Louisiana, independent. Caller i am disgusted by the sitg men and women who behind a desk on the computer, not actually out there putting their lives on the line. They were entrusted with all kinds of different documents that contain Vital Information to the wellbeing of our young men and women out there fighting. Therethey need to get out and get a sense of what and how they are endangering our men and women. That theymy heart have disgraced the United States that way. They have no moral code, which is such an important part of being in the military. What the United States stands for. Where is our american morality . Where does it stand now . I just think it is real sad. Host kelly in louisiana. Writing to us by email from cspan junkie, why do we pile on charges . Why not one charge and if he beats it, he is free . He has already suffered over a year harsh prison time. Democrat, new york, go ahead. Caller what i would like to say is the judge has taken the mitigating circumstances up. The sins of omission or coalition. If she sees a crime in her case, is she not to report it or sweep it under the rug and not do anything about it . If any of us saw a crime, we would be shocked to see what he saw, the machinegunning of people from a helicopter on the street. The other thing is, during the nuremberg trials, we said you were all out killing people, civilians who were doing weg, and we helped held the high officials to accountability for killing people for no good reason. So if we are not to be hypocritical, holding them to the same high standards or we lose all our credibility, or nobody will buy any of the them outwhen we send into the world. Host houston, republican, good morning. Caller good morning. This country will be destroyed from within, not without. That is my statement. Host how so . You caller the guy is in russia giving away our secrets. This soldier is doing the same thing. Island park, new york, an independent caller. Caller good morning. Secrets, theyy are telling the American People what this government is up to. Thegovernment does not want American People to know what they are up to. I have an image in my mind. I saw the head of the nsa testify before congress. If i lied to congress, i am going to jail. He was asked his question and notified the day before that he would be asked this question. Data on tensecting of millions of americans, on their facebook, emails, tweets . Six times he rubbed his head and said, no, no, no. This is the head of the nsa, and he is walking free. He has not been put in handcuffs. Snowden told the truth. They are collecting your data, in violation of your First Amendment, for the moment, constitution. They are collecting your data. Who are they coming for . , they aref the nsa not gunning for him. He is walking free. Does that tell you something . Do you want a secret government or a government that you can stand up and be proud of . Democraticcalifornia senator Dianne Feinstein has a piece in the Washington Post today in the oped pieces. She writes that, the nsa program, a stone section 215 of the patriot act that collects phone numbers and related data, been program has often called a Surveillance Program or a program to listen to phone calls. It is neither. Rather, the program collects only phone numbers and the duration and times i caller made. When the nsa learns of a number used by a terrorist connected to al qaeda, it can search its database of phone records. She talks about ways to adjust the program but retain it. Senator feinstein defending the nsa data programs in the Washington Post. On twitter, hero . All 700,000 paper all 700,000 crimes oral constitutional violations . No, he discriminately dumped the documents without distinction. She is talking about Bradley Manning and all the information he gave to wikileaks. Arrest caller, from kingston, illinois our next caller, susan, from kingston, illinois, a republican. Caller i think because of his age, Bradley Manning should have therapy. I dont think he is violent. Maybe immunity service. I have a complaint about the sean hannity show. They do is character is a eric or assassination of the president and everybody else. I cannot believe he thinks al sharpton is being mean to him or something, and he is a crime crybaby. And i think Rush Limbaugh is clearly on drugs, you can tell. Host lets get to Bradley Manning. You think he should be punished caller i think they are doing the right thing. At his young age, he is not a rapist or a murderer. I think some therapy, do a little news show about the reasons why he made his decisions. If you are under 25 or so, you do stupid things and he may be ature, but he has to know i dont think snowden should be able to come into the country. He is too all, and i think the republicans paid him. I really think rand paul host susan, you called in on the republican line and you said you are a republican. Caller i am both. I used to be a republican and it is too darned embarrassing. I used to be. Host lets go to bonnie in maryland. Caller good morning. When i see this, it reminds me of years ago when john kerry came back from vietnam. Killers,d our boys baby killers, and all. When they came back, they got spit on. My husband was over there. He got rewarded. He is the secretary of state. He is the same he is in the same position this boy is in. Being prosecuted when john kerry stepped on some boys metals some boys medals that he did not even earn. Host secretary kerry spent time in vietnam. Caller he was filmed beating around the bushes. Host lets go to sylvia is it taken any, michigan . It pinckney, michigan . Caller pinckney. Host what are your thoughts . Caller i think he is not a hero. When you induct yourself into the military, you know you will have to take an oath to secrecy. That oath,ot uphold dont conduct yourself into the military. Things throughee their whole entire military career that they dont like, but they dont open their mouth. I think there is money behind these people snowden, assange, and this manning. They take specific people who have weak minds and tell them they will be prosecuted, but where were all these people when bush was president . All of a sudden obama becomes president , and there are tons of these people. I think it is really a conspiracy against the Obama Administration. Said one of our callers Bradley Manning is young and should not be punished. Caller you know what . He was kind of a strange person from the start, if you read his history. And then he came to washington to live with his aunt. Sam asuld be his anunt opposed to uncle sam. Somebody filled his head full of things. They look for people who have very weak minds who can be thesenced or coerced into things, and then they try to tell them that nothing will happen to them, or they will be taken care of. Snowden had a place in hawaii. How can you afford a place in hawaii when you dont even have a High School Education . He was based in hawaii, and that is where he fled after classified information. But stern attention to other stories in the news. From the baltimore sun, the senate has cleared five nlrb nominees under a truce. Meeting the final conditions of allowing minorities to block actions using a filibuster. This was that deal that avoided the nuclear showdown, the Nuclear Option in the senate to overcome the filibuster. In usa today, president obama and republicans clashed over the grand bargain. The president seeks funding for jobs programs and offers Corporate Tax changes. He presented a grand bargain yesterday to break a long running budget impasse. Republican leaders say no deal at all. The Washington Times had a. Imilar headline Corporate Tax plan called a rehash, president obama speaking in chattanooga, tennessee, making policy ideas for private sector growth. Nancy pelosi, leader of democrats in the house, former speaker, says blame the republicans for gridlock. That is in usa today. In the wall street journal, we see a push to the front of the health law advancing. He isr ted cruz says frustrated that more of his republican colleagues have not joined in the effort to strip the republicans to strip the Obama Health Care law of its funding. Thethe Washington Times, headline promising jobs in the Climate Change fight. Gina mccarthy, in her first speech since taken over the since taking over the epa, says she will ramp up the Climate Change agenda laid out by president obama. We are asking what you think about the Bradley Manning verdict. Bill, from chicago, and democrat. Caller yes, i think that Bradley Manning and edward a minimumserve sentence of 20 years. At the very minimum. Military ifve the this is going to we cannot defend this country if we are going to make heroes out of traders. It just doesnt make sense. The minimum. Ld be there should be no chance of parole under 20 years. Both of them deserve more than 20 years. Host all right, adam. Our next caller is a republican. Veteran, and i am stand the emotion behind this whole case. War hasy the iraqi brought out a lot of emotions and personal feelings toward it. Soldiers have been bullied or been in these situations. Let me say this. Lets look at it legally. Revealed things in a way he should not have revealed that, or he should not have revealed so much. He obviously will spend some time in jail. I dont think he was intently trying to aid the enemy. Here is the big issue, everybody has to remember what he did reveal. There was a helicopter, sadly, mistakenly shot a reporter, and a lot of civilians were shown in the vehicle. Things happen like that. But that specific action on the helicopter was never given to anybody in the department of be used to retrain the helicopter pilots. Host adam, you cut out on us. Is it good or bad that the American Public saw it . Caller i think the American People, it was good to see that there are mistakes in war. And the helicopter, shooting civilians, it may have been in enemy area, but the shot clearly shows the guy did not have a gun and it was a camera. Me, was good to see. It is not the best way to reveal it, but that should reveal and we should have made sure that never happens again. That was a very crucial thing. I am not saying the way he did it was right, but we have to be honest, that was a bad video and the people should have known. Even though i support the war, i dont think there was a good strategy to it. But i understand will stop i think the balance is maybe 15, 20 years. Obviously he revealed things that he should not have an he swore not to. Thank you. Host here is what jack writes on twitter host then we see this from gwb. This guy is a traitor get him, nsa. Lets hear from mark in endicott, new york some of the independent line. Caller i dont see him as a traitor, i see him as an American Hero. He has the guts to tell the truth. Callll these people who him a traitor, where do you draw the line . Are these people just being good americans . I mean, at least they have the guts to tell the truth. The American People have the right to know the truth. Host we have these comments coming into our facebook page. Respect to have mutual to have peace. Patricia writes, he broke the law. You can agree with his reason or not, but he broke the law. Illegalswould apply to who work here to feed their families. Manning should have been found guilty on all counts. I believe he meant well by revealing what he genuinely thought was wrong, but he released thousands of documents indiscriminately without knowing what was in most of them, and he did so gleefully. He should stay in jail for the rest of his life. From bristow, virginia, a . Emocrat, lyndon last call for lyndon in bristow. Claremont, california, don, a republican caller. Good morning. You look terrific in red. Here are some of these comments from some of these people. You dont take an oath to uphold secrecy. The time that john kerry was running around talking about what a hero he was here is a guy who was against the war like bill clinton, Hillary Clinton, and all these people now heroes who are running the government. These are the people giving us the bs from the nsa and all the control, and we need people like manning and snowden to stand up and tell people we have a corrupt government. If you call him what he is, an incompetent idiot who does not know how to run the country. The government, you think about the people we left behind in benghazi, violating every oath that every guy in the military knows, which is to go in and save the people who are wounded and damaged, and here we dont know anything about him and we have phony scandals and no one is upset about that. The good news about Anthony Weiner in showing what Hillary Clinton is really like, it is perfect to see these control freaks for what they are doing. I thank you for the time to talk, and you need these people to read the constitution, yet these people out of here, stop spending money. These people have been in congress so long. Host we are talking about the Bradley Manning verdict is morning. Do you want to wrap up with that thought . The thought is manning is going to get a raw deal. He is one of the saps being punished like anyone else who has the courage to show what kind of idiots we have. St joe writes on twitter, perhaps he should be demoted and dishonorably discharged. Then we see matt smith writing notrevealing war crimes is a crime. Manning spends life in prison while the war criminals have gotten away free. We will get more of a sense of the sentencing. As we read earlier in the newspapers, the process is expected to go on for a while. We will hear more from attorneys as they make their cases for how long his sentence could be. Years inace up to 136 prison. That is what we see on the front page of the wall street journal. Despite the fact he was found not guilty of aiding the enemy, he was found guilty on a number of other charges. Thanks for all your calls. Later this morning we will talk about whistleblowers with stephen kohn of the National Whistleblowers center. Up next, how messman Steve Scalise, republican from louisiana congressman Steve Scalise, republican from. Ouisiana we will be right back. One, i think they serve as a window on the past for what was going on with american women. At any given time in our past history. So if you look at a first ladys life, you get a view of what is going on with women. The other thing i find very interesting from a womens history standpoint, it is the conjunction of the public and private lives of women, which is a topic that many scholars are very interested in. I think first ladies epitomize the coming together of the public and the private life of an individual. Our original series first ladies examines the public and private lives and their influence on the presidency. Watch the encore presentation weeknights starting at 9 00 eastern on cspan. There should just be a flow of communication available to everyone in the country. It is just like electricity. We turn on lights and we dont even think about it. Communication should be the same thing, but because we have been a little confused, there is a lot of fog around this issue. People have the sense that getting at access is a luxury. People forget that electricity was treated as a luxury, too. Everybody thought that water is everybody needs, but electricity is only for the rich. We are in this middle point right now where Internet Access is still viewed as something. Lightly magical or expensive but talk to somebody trying to run a business from his home. , hehim, Internet Access cannot even going even get going without having that reasonably priced connection. Now there is no option for it. Being americas future is controlled by access to the internet. Booktv,ford, on this weekend on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Scalisengressman steve is with us. Guest good morning. Good to be with you. Host we saw president obama gave a speech yesterday in tennessee. Tribuneine in the newspapers, grand bargain gets a makeover. Rates,ng Corporate Tax spending more money on roads and bridges around the country. What did you think of his proposals . Host its ash guest it seems the president does not know that the campaign is over. This plan raises taxes on people and asks for more federal spending, whereas people across the country want washington to start living within its means and stop deficit spending. It is not want to get spending under control, he wants a rehash of his failed stimulus bill from his first two years. That did not work when he came back into office. We have tax reform lowers rates on everybody. There is a bipartisan plan being put together in the house and senate that would lower the overall rates not only for big corporations but also for Small Businesses. The president was serious about this. Down in to sit washington and work with republicans and democrats were trying to get a bipartisan agreement to lower taxes and get the economy moving again. Times,om the new york a lonely bipartisan approach to lowering to improving the tax code finally gets noticed. Guest he is working with senator max baucus to put together a republican and democrat plan that would lower overall tax rates and make our country competitive again. We have the corporate the highest Corporate Tax rate in the world. It makes it hard to compete internationally. We need a lower overall rate that would create jobs. The president s idea is to change the rate on one group of people and continue to make Small Businesses uncompetitive and then raise tax rates and spend it on federal programs. That did not work in 2009. He should stop ignoring what was in washington. The campaign is over, so lets get to work. Host do you support what congressman cap is opposing . Iscongressman camp proposing . Guest i do. Theyies realize that if did not have to spend so much time filling out the irs tax forms, they could have more time to create jobs and having money in their pockets to spend things they would do a lot better than having washington spend that money. Host congressman Steve Scalise is our guest. Lets listen to president obama speaking yesterday. Again, here is the bottom line. I am willing to work with republicans on reforming our Corporate Tax code as long as we use the money from transitioning from a separate tax system for a significant investment in creating middleclass jobs. That is the deal. And i am just going to keep throwing ideas out there to see if something takes. I am going to lay out my ideas to give the middle class a better shot. But now it is time for republicans to lay out their ideals. If they have got a better plan to bring back more you factoring manufacturing jobs around the country, let me know. I want to hear them. If they have got a better plan to create jobs rebuilding our infrastructure or help workers get the skills they need, they should offer up these ideas. But i have got to tell you, gutting our environmental protection, that is not a jobs plan. Gutting investments in education, that is not a jobs plan. About an on talking oil pipeline coming down from canada. That is estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs. That is not a jobs plan. Time bythe countrys taking Something Like 40 meaningless votes to repeal obamacare is not a jobs plan. That is not a jobs plan. Host president obama in chattanooga yesterday. Abridgment scalise, what is your response . Not been listening to what is going on around the country and especially here. Andng around the country giving these campaign speeches, if you listen to what was going on around here, the bipartisan plan to create jobs and get the country moving again, we could change the rhetoric of this partisan divide. Just look at the regulations. As he is giving the speech yesterday in tennessee on jobs, the new epa administrators talking about new jobs and regulations on Climate Change. This is something they have been doing for four years, and it is running manufacturing jobs out of the country. He has declared war on the coal industry, literally shutting down coal plants around the country. Jobs,ld create 25,000 new and he laughs at that like it is some insignificant number. That is just the beginning, and have to energy security. Every Million Barrels we get from canada is a Million Barrels we do not have to get from countries who do not like us. Even the labor unions, who are not typically reflect not typically friends with republicans, they support our plan that we pass with a big bipartisan vote in the health in the house, like the keystone pipeline. These would create jobs in the private sector. He is only focus on raising taxes and creating jobs in the federal government. He tried that in 2000 nine and he did not work. Increase the Unemployment Rate across the country in 2009 and it did not work. It increased Unemployment Rates across the country. Lease isgressman scott in his fourth term in congress, serving on the energy and Commerce Committee and is chairman of the republicans study committee. Emocrats, 2025853880 republicans, 2025853881. Ndependents, 2025853882 how are you doing these town halls in your home district . What are you hearing from constituents . Host guest it is great to hear about the from the people we represent. We had an overflow crowd. There is a lot of interest in this issue. Just about everybody there is concerned about this law from a number of different perspectives. We had the head of the Louisiana State medical society, representing all the doctors across the state. They just got their new bill for next years Health Care Plan for the doctors, and their premium went up 60 . Their premiums because of the president s healthcare law. The doctors themselves see a 60 increase in their healthcare costs, you can see what is happening to families across the nation. They are seeing not only higher increases in premiums they are paying for healthcare, the less access. Fewer doctors are taking healthcare patients. The spansion of medicaid. Planaid the president s puts 30 million more people on a plan where doctors do not even see medicaid patients. That is one of the reason the president himself admitted there is problems with his healthcare law. The problem is the president says he will delay the law for big businesses, not for families, not for Small Businesses. Ultimately, the president himself does not have the authority to ignore a section of the law. Delay nota bill to only the employer mandate but also the individual mandate. Host deborah from florida, a democratic caller. Caller good morning. Steve, everything you said this morning is not true. You republicans do not intend to give us jobs and help the president get this economy going. I would like to tell the American People, it is time for us to hit the streets, get them out. Start on the streets and fight this thing because we need jobs. What the president is proposing is going to help us. I want to thank you very much for taking my call this morning. Guest thanks, debra. First of all, not only is everything i said true, but it is verifiable. You can contact our office and i will be happy to send you a copy of every single one of the jobs bills we have passed through the house, not just the keystone pipeline. Energy production bills, bills that would get our economy moving again in the manufacturing sector. These are bills that had rod bipartisan support had brought bipartisan support. I would be happy not only to send you the bills we passed out of the house, but also the notrd votes, that it is just republicans but also democrats voting for these bills. That the president just jokes about. This is a rehash of what he did in 2009. It did not work. We saw unemployment in the country increased, and we saw deficits increase. We want to get people working again. We have good ills that have passed good bills that have passed with bipartisan votes. Host david in quincy, michigan. A republican. High. Good morning, steve. My comment is i work for a company that is about a 100 billion company. Because of the taxes and they told employees that this is the reason, because of obamas high Corporate Taxes they moved 50,000 jobs to china. They stated in a letter that obama or republicans can get taxes down to 15 , they would be happy to return to america and hire those 50,000 people back. This goes along with general motors, who has also moved i live in michigan so gm has moved to china, laying off people for the same reason. As has apple. Steve jobs told obama this, that if they did the if they did not lower taxes, they would be forced to move to china, and they did. General electric. All these countries need to taxes lowered to 15 . They could bring about 25 million jobs back to the United States. Host lets get a response. Guest the question you brought up is something we hear from businesses large and small across the country. Forcing jobs out of the country. We need to lower the overall corporate rate. Look at repatriation. A companyry makes a profit in another country, they are penalized under our tax code. Doubly t tax them they pay taxes in other countries. If tax code penalizes them they bring it back to america. It makes no sense. Everybody recognizes that except president obama. He will not work with us to get rid of that. Proposal. Bipartisan we could probably get that done quickly and create those jobs in america. Host donte from philadelphia. Caller good morning. This is nonsense. This is what is wrong with our country. You talk about jobs. We need jobs out here. Our roads and bridges are falling apart. You want to lower the Corporate Tax rate. You are just contradicting yourself. Why dont you talk about the deal he wants to work. Trade ando reformat bring jobs between the countries. I just do not understand. We are hurting out here. The stocks are doing well but we are not doing well. Give you some and give us some. Talk about flying on air force one. He has to come to us. Host lets get a response. Guest look at the policies. Those are president obamas policy. He had a super majority and he passed everything he wanted. He had so much new spending and higher taxes. It has destroyed so many jobs in the country. You will not fix that problem by having a repeat of the first years. It actually spends more money on the government. That is what he did in 2009 that led to mushrooming national debt. They are good bipartisan ideas. Republicans and democrats are working together in washington while the president is flying around the country and giving campaign speeches. It is going to take the president willing to sit down and stop rehashing raising taxes. He has to work with republicans and democrats to get something done. Host congressman Steve Scalise. You will be leaving washington fairly soon. What is the game plan for messaging and helping the members think about how they talk to constituents back home over the august recess . Have 173 members of congress. We cover lots of different types of communities. I will be having town Hall Meetings throughout the rest of august. We will be hearing from real people and the real problems they have. We will be talking about how the Health Care Law is impacting them. They are seeing there premiums go up. We have an alternative plan that we are putting together that and willobamacare address the real problems in health care. We will make sure that people with preexisting conditions will not be discriminated against. You can shop around and get a better deal for your family. Also fixing the tax code. Your employer is able to deduct those costs. If you feel there is a better extra. Ou have to pay all of the things we put together have been proven to lower the cost of health care. Host there was a town hall you held on monday was covered this. Ay in new orleans there were a couple people in the audience who were trying to take advantage of the law. Publiclysician questioned your opposition to the law. The number of uninsured louisianians at more than 20 . He wanted to know whether you think it is a problem that people do not have insurance. How do you balance helping people figure out how to take advantage of the law . Guest i was happy to answer his question. At what happened with the healthcare law, it has made that worse. Are seeingeople increases in their Health Premiums by over 300 . That is a skyrocketing sticker shock that will make health care unaffordable. The problems with health care was that the cost was too high. The president s bill makes it worse. Look what the president did with the employer mandate. We have hearings every week on capitol hill. Isple testify that this law not ready to be implemented on january 1. There is no rules and regulations for businesses to comply. I met with the ceo of whole foods. That plan would not qualify under the president s Health Care Law. You have a business with over 30,000 people and the employees like the plan. We need to be focused on solving the real problems. Host how does your office deal with someone who says they need help with the exchanges. Can you help them . If it was working, we could help them. It is not even set up. They have missed so many legal deadlines with their law. The president has not met the deadline to set up the exchanges. They were trying to get the nfl to get their athletes to put their credibility on the line to get people to sign up. It was not even ready. We pointed this out to the nfl. They are admitting this is not ready for prime time. The nfl agreed. They do not want their name attached to this thing. Larry larry is up next and is a democrat. Caller hello. I would like to ask the senator why does he straight up lie about cutting taxes . He cut taxes under reagan and bush. Growth ind more job eight years than reagan did and bush in 12 years. Plus he created a surplus. Bush came back in with a surplus and cut taxes and destroyed the economy. Obama is in here. Months you are basically lying to the public. Guest that is not accurate. You need to go back and look at the numbers. I got my numbers from president obamas own website. I will go back to president kennedy. President kennedy cut taxes. You mentioned the bush tax cuts. All three president s cut taxes and the government got an increase in revenue. These are facts. Look at president obamas website. Actual revenues to the treasury increased. You can look at whether it was under reagan or bush. It is not because they were not ress didrevenue cong not control spending. If you cut taxes, you will get more revenue. History shows you that. Go look at the record. Congress has had a better record of controlling spending. You will create jobs and get the economy moving again and you can reduce the deficit. Host one of our followers on twitter asks we continue to focus on restoring our coast in louisiana. Look at some of the marsh. They are working hard to clean up the oil in the marsh. Some areas still have issues. We passed a bill last year that would say any of the fines bp will stay along the gulf coast to clean up the damage and restore the coast and the way of living. Industry the seafood continues to thrive. That is something we will continue to focus on and make sure it is completely cleaned up. Host patrick from pennsylvania. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. I would like to make a comment and ask a question. Span,hing i love about c it enables us to become well informed citizens. Being wellinformed is essential to democracy. There is an Organization Called usa. Com that speaks to be wellinformed with regard to these immigration proposals. Is a great organization. To ask thee congressman, does the Republican Party realize this legislation, the senate bill and the possibility of having a bill in from the is a middle and the working class to 1 . The Republican Party is not representing working people and middleclass people. We do not want it. I do not want it. I would never vote for a republican. I am a republican and i contend to continue as long as the republicans stand up for americans. We put americans first. Guest i oppose the senate bill for a number of reasons. Look at the senate bill. It doesnt do anything to secure the border. They can double count the fence that is in place. We need to secure the border first. I love the great work that immigrants have done to help build the nation. We need to continue to allow that system to work. There are 4 Million People trying to come to this country legally. We need to respect them. You just do not give amnesty to somebody who broke our laws. If somebody wants to come here to work, that is what the American Dream is all about. We want people to be a part of the American Dream. We need to make sure that our rules work in right now they do not. We have to start by making sure that a system of Legal Immigration works. Host republican donors are urging House Republicans to support an immigration bill that includes a path to legal status. Way for people a to come to this country legally. Laws and wentry of have to make sure that you follow the rules to come to america. Some of the rules do not work too well. The visa systems do not work. We have to make that work better. Some people wait over 20 years to come to america legally. We should fix that part of the system. Ont is what we need to focus and we start by securing the border. Host christina from michigan. Caller good morning. Where do i start . So many things you said today are totally, totally wrong. All the major problems we have, they were all there before anybody even knew who barack obama was. That is the simple truth. I have a whole bunch of notes here and i wish i had the time to discuss every single thing with you. You talk about business taxes. They existed before anybody knew who barack obama was. You said he had a super majority in the senate. Al franken was not seated until july. Lieberman campaigned with mccain. Andranken was seated senator kennedy died. I do not know how you guys do math. Guest go back and look when the healthcare law passed. He had 60 votes. Not one republican voted for that bill. Go look at the math. Believe me, it adds up. They had the votes to pass the law. Host what about problems prior to the Obama Administration . And some of the social issues and feeling strongly about those. What do you think . Guest republicans and democrats spend too much money in congress. Spenticans and democrats too much money over the last 30 years. They did manage to balance the federal budget. And they did it. At the time, i think republicans lost their way and spent too much money. Unemployment was below eight percent when president obama came into office. After he passed his stimulus up andnemployment went stayed above 8 for the rest of his first term. We saw a mushrooming of the national dead. And went above 1 trillion under barack obama. That was not george bush it was barack obama. Host our guest has to leave in just a couple of minutes. Raging is in San Francisco, a democrat reggie. Caller this guy is the biggest liar i have ever seen on cspan. Guest you might not like the facts. Go to the white houses website. Caller i am a student right now in San Francisco. Liestelling these people about the fence. Impossible. Fence is lastly, you laugh but you are the biggest liar. Host lets tackle the issues you brought up. You talked about being on your parents Health Care Plan. You can stay on until the age of 26. Also your concerns about the fence issue. Guest your parents are paying a lot more for that insurance. The president promised you that your premiums would go down. He promises Health Care Plan would reduce the deficit. All of those promises were broken. I would be happy to send you a copy of the president s Health Care Law. You can disagree with the way i feel about it. Those are thee facts that are in the law. The head of the state medical society talked about the 60 increase they are seeing in their Health Care Premiums for doctors. This is happening all across the country. These are devastating impacts on families across the country. Your parents are paying a lot more for that plan. That is not what the president promised. Host congressmen Steve Scalise, chairman of the republican study committee, thank you so much. Up next we will speak with stephen kohn with the National Whistleblowers center. And later on we will speak with Michael Hirsh of national journal. Sayss a story that companies have helped todays surveillance state. But first a news update from c span radio. A deal that gives College Students and their parents lower Interest Rates for loans is heading for a final vote today in the house. Borrowers would see lower rates for classes this year but costs may climb in coming years if the economy improves. Watch live house coverage at me on eastern tio cspan. A vote is expected. Mr. Jones was nominated in january and he seemed unlikely to prevail. The National Rifle association said it would be neutral on his nomination. Another vote on Samantha Power expected to win approval to become the United Nations ambassador. Committee judiciary is set to question top officials about the National Security agencies Security Program Surveillance Program. From the office of the director of National Intelligence and we will hear testimony from a senior judge who served on the foreign intelligence court. The hearing airs live on cspan three at 9 00 eastern. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Mark twain was a young man when he was here in carson city. He arrives in 1861 and is going on 26 years old. Here, experiences he has all the things he does and then things that the rights and the notoriety that he gets beginning in San Francisco and new york city. Foundation for the man who would become one of the greatest writers in american history. I would argue that without that experience, Samuel Clemens would never have become mark twain. Life ofistory and carson city, nevada, saturday at 2. On eastern on cspan washington journal continues. Of theephen kohn National Whistleblowers center. Provide advice for whistleblowers. I have represented whistleblowers for over 30 years. And a lot of people blow the whistle and make big mistakes and the key is to do it right so you can protect yourself. Host this is a headline, Bradley Manning just received his convictions yesterday. We saw him declared not guilty of aiding the enemy. He was found guilty of a number of other counts. What is your reaction to the verdict . Guest my reaction is next. The aiding and abetting charge was over the top. A whistleblower does not aid and abet the enemy. A whistleblower does not engage in espionage. If you are a spy, they should be dealt with harshly. You should not confuse the two. This was a case of a young man who made some mistakes in exposing wrongdoing. He was not a spy or enemy combatant of some sort. Host what defines a whistleblower . Guest is generally somebody at work or in a place where they have access to inside information who sees serious misconduct and reports that. If there is a way to reported to it, you have some rights. Lots of americans are not covered under effective whistleblower laws and they find themselves in the gray area. Host is everything Bradley Manning released whistleblowing . Documents andand cables. Is that all low and the whistle . Guest the information that went public, a lot of it would not be considered whistleblowing but a lot of it would be. Under the First Amendment, the law requires a balance. You balance the public right to know to the government needs. That balance must exist. I did not see it in the prosecution. I do not see an attempt to weigh the pros and the cons. Host we see here the catalog of secret information disclosed in the wall street journal. Information about Guantanamo Bay and the detainees. To whistleblowers, how do you talk to them about how to distinguish information that the public should know . Guest i view it from a legal end. I do not try to tell my clients to blow the whistle. Risky. Oo i will analyze information. If it is not protected, my recommendation would be to not go forward or understand the risk if you do go forward. Most whistleblowers do not understand we have incredibly powerful laws in this country that can reward whistleblowers with monetary compensation. Whistleblowerhe blew the whistle on Swiss Banking and the largest tax frauds ever, on thousands of illegal accounts in switzerland. He comes to the United States and doesnt know what his rights are as a whistleblower. He works for some lawyers that have never worked on whistleblowers. He ends up three years in prison. We get into the case and totally redo it. It is reevaluated under the modern whistleblower laws. He was entitled to a monetary reward. He should not have been prosecuted. Had he presented like the law said, he would be fully protected. The largest individual whistleblower reward ever, 104 million dollars. One branch puts the whistleblower in jail. The other said you are the most important fraud whistleblower ever and we will give you the largest reward ever. Does this make sense . And you are confusing have to understand what your rights are before you take the risk. Is thetephen kohn executive director of the National Whistleblowers center. Tell us more about the laws on the books. But start with the whistleblower protection act. Guest it has some good definitions. The biggest weakness, it excluded all intelligence ,gencies from protection nsa defense intelligence. This was the birth of modern whistleblowing. You had a series of laws that created what we now know as modern whistleblowing. In this area of intelligence whistleblowing, it was stuck in the mud. They never matured. The agencies were exempted from protections. The managers did not have to change the culture. What do we see now . People doing it right and billions being collected for the taxpayer. All of the studies show the number one source of fraud detection in this country are whistleblowers. Intelligence,f they are back in the stone age. The managers who got the exemption and have fought to keep it vigorously. President obama promise to and that exemption and give intelligence whistleblowers the same right. It took him a year to break that promise. If you do not give people protection, you are going to see Bradley Mannings and you are going to see Edward Snowdens. 1978. Is was created in they did not understand the importance of safe channels and whistleblowing. Once they got the exemption, they like it. Host lets go to our phones and hear from haddie. Hi, haddie. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. I wish i could have gotten in with the other gentleman. I would like to ask a question. The whistleblowers, find, you protect them. I listen to the news and everything. Thereent obama got down teachershese american and the whistleblowers had some of the material and everything there. Sometimes it is good for one country. Maybe i do not understand. Can you please explain that to me. I am trying to see. Would help our country to be strong . If not, i do not think so. Guest i think that whistleblowing helps the United States to be strong. The effectiveness of whistleblowers in detecting and reporting fraud. In detecting and reporting misconduct and corruption. We need that for our democracy to work. Just yesterday, the u. S. Senate passed a resolution honoring whistleblowers. They did it because of an event that happened in 1778 and 1778. Disclosures made by the included allegations that british prisoners were being tortured, mistreated. That would be embarrassing to our revolutionary fighters. Might harmus itmight us. Sometimes the truth is hard to swallow. If you do not get the truth, you cannot fix the problems. I think the whistleblowers take the risk. We have to make sure our political system protects them and that laws exist for safe and effective channels. Host we have a tweet from ronald guest there is no doubt he is a whistleblower because he follows the pattern. He gained access to information he believed demonstrated wrongful conduct and even perjury in congress. Then he disclosed the information. That is a typical whistleblower pattern. Protected . The press our Supreme Court has held that going to the news media is a protected whistleblower activity. You have to balance the public right to know with legitimate government interest and secrecy. That balance will play out in his case. It depends on what he releases and how he releases it. His releases so far have been much more circumspect than those of mr. Manning. Host lets hear from jerry in florida. Caller i would like to say thank you for having me on. Basis of our democracy is the fact that we are informed. There seems to be a mindset of us against them. If you have a dog catcher that reform like bush performed in office with the war against iraq, he would have been fired. People like say snowden and manning are the greatest protection we have in this country to preserve our democracy and you cannot be free if you do not know what is going on. I think these people should be applauded. People who profiteer off of everything they do up there. They tell us how evil these people are. Those are some of my comments. Host do you see any difference between what Edward Snowden did and what Bradley Manning did . Caller i do not think there is much difference. I think both were moral in their decision to come forward. I think they knew there was a price to pay. Snowden realize he was putting things out to risk. We have people who abuse the system every day, telling us these people are traitors. Guest i think you made a number of good points. Enacted the fathers First Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech and press. Speech includes whistleblowing. Documents, at the their intent, it was all about protecting american citizens who exposed wrongdoings by the government. That was the main purpose of the First Amendment. Yes you can look at a lot of Cable Television shows. That is all protected. The main reason was to protect people from the government that would not want their wrongdoing exposed. That is what the courts have to protect. I hope any court fully understands the First Amendment and applies it despite clinical pressure not to. Host we see this headline in usa today. Then we see some other speculation about what may happen next. This is from the Washington Post. In to us what do you think the impact of the decision yesterday would they . Chilling affect is a major issue. Look at First Amendment law. They are always looking at the conduct of the government and how it may chill others. There is always a balance. Maybe this person did wrong. But will it hurt other people from doing right . These facts are indisputable. Whistleblowers are the number one source of fraud detection p[eeriod. These contracts are multibilliondollar contracts, many in secret. Politicians and their friends get these contracts. How do you police them . There is a lot of people who benefit when whistleblowers are and thatand chilled, has to be taken into consideration as we judge these events. I have seen the chilling effect. Is very hard when someone comes to our office with legitimate concerns that touch National Security that should be known the American People or by law enforcement. It is hard to advise anyone to blow the whistle right now and that is not good for our democracy. Ast stephen kohn serves as supervising attorney with the National Whistleblower defense fund. Here are the numbers to call. Democrats, 2025853880. Republicans, 2025853881. Independent callers, 202585 3882. Outside the u. S. , 2025853883. Lets go to woodstock, illinois. Caller good morning. Opportunityis as an to transfer the process of whistleblowing and put it into the venue of Public Service activist. As ahe did was basically contractor. He identified what we now know to be a secret line. We have a right to know where the utility lines go to our homes, our business, our way of life. He basically was not a trespasser. He decided it was essential for us to know that with our communication system, there is a parallel line. We are paying for it. We signed up for it when we signed up for communications contracts. For me, he did a Public Service. Host you are talking about Edward Snowden . Caller yes, i am. Activist a an seed for a Public Service activism. Flag something that was not done by the nsa when they did not let us know there was a sign going through our home. Trespassing no nsa signs. Guest you are seeing the public right to know side of the equation and how important that is. Whistleblowing is for our government to fully egg knowledge its importance in the detection of crimes and detection and fraud and create safe and effective channels for people like snowden and others to raise these concerns not just in secret but in a manner that the American People can learn about them. That is the role of the citizens today, to look at these cases and say, we have to make sure these whistleblowers have a safe mechanism. How do you judge manning or snowden . Why are we judging manning and snowden . In some ways they are victims. They sought in justice. They just did what they did injustice. For taxe effective laws fraud, for other areas. The safeot enact harbors and provisions across theboard and especially in the area of intelligence. Why does no one judge them . Why is there no accountability for those who created the framework that have forced people to become leakers . Host this is in the Washington Post. He prefers his son remain in russia. There. Is seeking asylum we have this on twitter. Is there a distinction . Guest obviously there is a distinction. You will find yourself in a Different Box if you commit certain wrongdoings. I represented National Security whistleblowers. I represented a whistleblower named fred whitehurst. It was his job to secure the crime scene. 1 he could have put boxes of information in his car and hauled it out. He worked with us to do a generally. They force the crime lab to be accredited. Additionalear 20,000 cases where people were convicted or tainted with fraud. A person who was one week from being executed because of whitehurst disclosures which the the 1990s Justice Department stopped his execution because it was tainted. He was an American Hero and the the right thing. He is still doing it. Those documents, this is 2013. He blew the whistle in 1993. How would we have judged him . He knew that innocent people were in jail and potentially being executed. If he dumped the documents onto the internet . He did not do that. How would you feel if you were one of the 20,000 whose cases are being reviewed . These are questions that are monumental. The only solution is safe, effective methods to blow the whistle. Unless our government delivers on that, they are the ones who are causing the problem. Is the authorkohn of the whistleblowers handbook. How do you use twitter . Whistleblowers. Org. We have a way to raise concerns confidentially. You can gain all types of information about your rights as a whistleblower at whistleblowers. Org. Host our next caller is from kentucky on our democrats line. Hi. Withr i wanted to start back in the 1960s in 1970s, everybody who was a whistleblower i wanted to hear about how these kids who are doing this, some may be good but some may be bad. How do we take the bad away from the good . Today it is one thing over another. Now big brother has a little brother. What are we doing . We are all americans. We are fighting against these people who are trying to make us better. I have a hard time believing these people. Well, i must say that i have worked with whistleblowers for over 30 years. These people come in and risk it all. They are the salt of the earth. It is an honor to represent them and to try to help them. I do not view it as one is good and one is bad. The whistleblowers i have worked with have been incredible people. The issue comes down to how do you blow the whistle . If you have a legitimate channel and then you go out and blow peoples covers and release stuff to the press irresponsibly, should you be protected . I would say why . People follow those channels and they work. If youre in a case where the government has tried to squash the whistleblower so that information cannot get out, i say who is to blame now . You follow the law and do it right. Give us the protection people need. We get a lot of press in america. America has the greatest whistleblower laws in the world. If you blow the whistle on the right things like tax fraud. We have a great law for securities fraud. Foreign corrupt practices act. These are strong laws that let whistleblowers get rewards and let them get on with their lives and that is really good. We cannot forget that. Our government knows how to pass an effective law. Why are they not doing it for National Security and intelligence . They got away with escaping 1970 when everybody else had to get it. Summit in congress has to step up and do their job. That is how i see it. Asks ll writes in and uniform service members. Guest they are in any other bucket. I would call a purgatory system. They do have some rights. Be careful as you exercise them. They are nebulous. You are not going to get a jury trial or rewards. All of the burden is on you. Ofn there is a great area what if it is classified you get a gray area. It is all on you. In many ways you have to out yourself in the military. The military law does not understand that. Host what about if youre in a corporation and you feel you need to blow the whistle . How does someone perceived proceed differently . Guest the laws have improved based on the enron scandal and the most reagan recent mortgage meltdown. Every publicly traded company has to have an Employee Concerns Program that except whistleblower complaints confidentially and processes them. We do not have that in the government. And itblow the whistle turns out to be a securities and itnd harms investors is a big fraud. If the government elects 1 million or more, you can get a reward. Some people say, why is that . Neting new whistle is a negative. You always lose. It encourages people to report these frauds. You have the reward structure in corporate america. You have a right to a jury trial. It is beginning to work. The largest fraud ever. One whistleblower gives back to this country 10 million straight up. There will be more. One person. It works. That model needs to be followed in the government in general. Intelligence agencies need something. Ast lets hear from dale, republican. Caller good morning. You guys cspan continue to do a good job. You make them look good. This story is not as dramatic as what we are experiencing now. A large years ago, pharmaceutical firm was found guilty of Medicare Fraud and i think they pay the largest fine, 300 million. The whistleblower was an employee of the company. His cover got blown in the course of this. Journalist in speaking to the whistleblower said the Pharmaceutical Company actually treated him better than the doj. The doj treated him basically like a street snitch. I guess this is not news to you. It was appalling to me. Doj does note matter who is in the white house. They do not have a lot of regard for people who are engaged in this. Unfortunately what you are saying has much truth to it. Thatovernment agencies should be helpful to whistleblowers often shut their doors. That is just the way it is. That is why strengthening the laws are important. Congress has made some adjustments in the private sector. They have required the irs to have whistleblower offices to help the whistleblower. They understood that merely creating a low and hoping and agency would help a whistleblower is not enough. You need an Actual Office to assist. That is a step forward. Effectivet these very procedures are implemented across the board. I will say the pharmaceutical industry, whistleblowers have recovered billions and billions and billions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies because of illegally marketed drugs. That is mostly because some of the laws are working. We can help those continue to expand. Host stephen kohn, National Director of the National Whistleblowers center. Twitter on guest Public Opinion i believe number one. We need strong Public Opinion for whistleblowers. There was tremendous support and charges were dismissed in one case. Look at it now with the snowden case and the jury is out. We do not know what will happen to him. In my have to live the rest of his life in exile. Nobody knows. Public opinion is key. We have an alert program. We are constantly trying to get the public to Tell Congress and the president that whistleblowers need support. I cannot underestimate that. Host did the laws change when the country is at war . Guest absolutely. The Supreme Court precedent was a great decision. It has a concept known as a balancing test. If the country is at war, that is going to go into the balance. If youhave no law and try to expose wrongdoing and you try to do a good thing, that should go into the balance. , there was a kohn post this week in the about how lives have changed after people blew the whistle. He spends his days fly fishing blowing the whistle on wrongdoing, according to those who did it, jeopardize the National Security. Theyre all people that have to get on with their lives. Where can they go after they have an experience like this . That is one reason we support these laws. Most will of the day, not fit into the career, even if they protect them. And nobrainer. You hope the law permits you to get on your feet and protect you. That is what you hope. If you blow the whistle without knowing your rights, you are facing danger. So many whistleblowers have lost their case before they even talk to me because the way they blew the whistle strip them of their rights. In almost every case you can find a channel. May not be the best one. You have to know what your rights are before you blow the whistle. It just spells it out, three years in jail, 104 million. He did get the 104 million check about three weeks after serving three years in a federal penitentiary. Take your action with informed consent. Yet to know what the risks are. You have to balance that and move forward within a framework that will get the maximum protections. The Horror Stories are endless. We need better outcomes. We can get them. The washingtonand i post story the story says he revealed no classified information. Lost his 155,000 per year job and pension, even though in 2011 the criminal case against him fell apart. The top justice spokesperson said it may have been an old fitting choice for federal prosecution. He now works at an apple stores. That has happened to so many whistleblowers. That case is a tragedy. One man that is being persecuted in his family and life. It should never have happened. Where is the justice . Where is someone stepping in to fix this . Why did that happen . There was no basis for this prosecution and persecution. He did the right thing, but these agencies are so used to having absolute power. They wanted to send a message to other employees to shut up and not expose wrongdoing. We have seen it so many times. It a whistleblower loses their , youin a highprofile away will scare people. It has to be understood in the context of what we know to be the truth. Whistleblowers are the number one source of fraud detection. If you are in an industry or company or Government Agency and you do not want your dirty linen of ever being exposed, file a whistleblower, get away with it, make a tieprofile, and you will do pretty darn good. That is what we the people have to work against. We have to hold leaders accountable. No one likes to have the whistle blows on them. If we lived in a person perfect society, we would not need them. We know people need it exposed. Host a question on twitter say this straight up. One of my first books is called american political prisoners. That book chronicles the abuses of the law from the inception. The call it a spinbut nothing to do with espionage. That law should have been struck down as unconstitutional years ago but when it came up in the courts, we did not have a sophisticated First Amendment bar at that time and was found constitutional. That wall is a National Disgrace that should be repealed. And if you are going to prosecute a whistleblower, find a real lot to do it under. If theyre going to hold him accountable. Host next calller from florida. Ofler i am a different type calller in the fact that i have done all three things. I was in the military for 20 years and worked as a contractor for dod after that. Thing the lawyer is saying the man needs to go to jail for what he did under the code of military justice. Whistleblowing has nothing to do with his case. He took information that was given to him in his position. If he did not like what was going on, he could have been asked he could ask to be transferred out to another job with the army. The man should go to jail. Glad he is going to lose everything. He will never get Veterans Benefits and does not deserve it. Guest this is a question of degree. He pled guilty to 10 offenses. We will take that off the table. He has already served three years in jail. He will serve prison time for what he pled guilty to. I do not think that is part of the debate anymore. The debate is how much time and for what . What i am saying is when that is evaluated, you have to evaluate, he have legitimate reason and what was the publics right to know and did it serve a Public Interest . It is required that this judge take a lot into consideration and any action she does, including dismissing charges. That is required. I am concerned that under the military Justice System that they are not given adequate recognition of the First Amendment. Some people may say time of war or military. Our very first whistleblowers marinesleblowers work blowing the whistle on the treatment of marines. They were fully protected by congress. For even voted them money lawyers in the middle of the american revolution. Where is that being discussed . Host a breakdown of the verdicts it is all in the Washington Post you also see the sentences they could carry, which could equal up to 136 years. We will learn more about that starting today as the sentencing phase begins. Mae is a democrat in new york and joins us. Tell the wanted to gentleman that if Edward Snowden had come out with this it seems they have gone to the point that theyre trying to pile on as much as they can for this president. I do not think Edward Snowden would have had the courage to come out with Something Like this during that administration because we would not even know where he was right now if he was anywhere. Guest i am sympathetic. Think many in his administration know better. He campaigned to get National Security whistleblowers and intelligence whistleblowers equal rights to other federal employees. I was at that meeting where his administration backed off the promise is very early on. It has been that way for all the president s. Everyone has gone along with the exception of intelligence. It is disappointing, extremely disappointing, but that is the nature of our political system right now. Up to the American People to avoid their concerns. All federal employees need the state channels to voice concerns and will lead to a full review of their concerns. We need to push for that reform. President obama understood it in 2008. He should be asked to fully understand it right now. Host headline. A guilty verdict was called a dangerous precedent and represents the quintessential was lower in a Statement Released tuesday. Taking a look at more of the statement by the head of wikileaks. Shortsided judgment that cannot be tolerated and must be reversed. It could never be conveying the true information to the public is an espionage. President obama has initiated more as cannot proceedings against whistleblowers and publishers than all previous president s combined. Word as bydgoszcz. It covers conduct with nothing to do with espionage. Archaic law. War oni way beyond was slowing. Whistle the typical blower. The typical whistleblower is far more cautious. Of any case where someone has unloaded that much information publicly. Even when employees make mistakes and the beginning because they do not know what their rights are, often possible to put it back on track. He made mistakes in the beginning and was put back on track. Hashat whistleblowing today radically changed from the time of daniel belzberg. The other reason it has changed is because there are now scientific studies that demonstrate the benefit of blissful blowing. So every Major Corporation has a whistleblower program. Whistleblower program at the sec and irs. Each of these channels a way that is supposed to lead to the full investigation and protection. Often does not. There has been a revolution in whistleblowing. It has matured. It has proven its effectiveness. Then you have these outlining areas. The most infamous is National Security intelligence. The whole world moved forward. They like or they are. The American People should demand reform . Stephen kohn. His experience goes back for decades when he started representing whistleblowers fulltime in 1984 as the clinical director and director of corporate litigation for the Government Accountability project. He also worked with congress to draft a whistleblower protection in Sarbanes Oxley and doddfrank. You can find his book the whistleblowers handbook. Time. You for your coming up next, a spotlight on magazine segment. We will take a look at a story. He said American Technology companies have helped create today surveillance state. First, this news update. Sayse Commerce Department Economic Growth accelerated in april to june quarter. Economists are hopeful growth could improve to around 2. 5 in the third and fourth quarters private businesses created 200,000 jobs this month. The Apparel Company atp says company tired of the fastest pace since december. The Payroll Company adp. It does not report government hiring. This from International Business world. Sayss outgoing president 5000 new centrifuges are ready to start operating at the countrys nuclear facility, in addition to the 12,000 already in operation. The Development Comes despite the director of International Atomic energy expressing concerns over the controversial nuclear program. Iaea said in june they were violating sanctions by increasing the number of centrifuges. Meanwhile, the u. S. House will take a suspension on sanctions. Watch live house coverage on c span. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. They serve as a wasow on the path to what going on with american women at any given time for past history. If you look at the first ladys life, you get a view of what is going on with women. The other thing i find very interesting from a womans history standpoint is that it is the conjunction of public and private lives of women, which is a topic that many scholars are very interested in. I think first ladys epitomize the coming together of the public and private life and individual. Series firstl ladies examines the public and private lives of first ladies from Martha Washington to item mckinley week nights starting next week at 9 00 eastern on c span. Host this weeks spotlight on magazine sekhmet takes a look at national journal. Segement. E said thank you for being here, Michael Hirsch. You write for nearly 20 years most of these companies, havecas biggest sectors, the Intelligence Companies bidding says they find Homeland Security companies have for their way into privatelyrun and digital infrastructure. Guest well, i think it is important to have a perspective on this. As we piece together exactly what the edward snowed in at weeks mean and what is out there, because we did not know fully what is out there. Edward snowden. The history of it, it goes back a couple of decades. Actual private sector Government Corporation goes back much further than that. Goes all the way back to world ii and a program called shamrocks whereby the government started monitoring outgoing telegrams. This went on for decades. The 1970s when it was discovered and caused a hughes huge eruption of public outrage. An earlier reiteration of what were seeing now led to the famous churchpike hearings on the intelligence communities and to the pfizer lost in 1978. This was to constrain such activity. That was an earlier version of what has really been a longterm system or i would say how bit of pressure and cooperation by the government on industry. Most recently this begins in the aftermath of the cold war when entire goalcy whose was to spy on the soviet union. In the early 1990 sec, the phrase was the nsa was going death. That is when this whole process began. The nsa had a lot of leverage, particularly in that era. There were debates over exports control, software and the option. The government and the nsa had a of almost a veto power over many of those issues. As well as the many telecom mergers that were happening. There was a flurry of telecom mergers. The government had a lot of leverage to bring in industry and forced the cooperation, culminating in the system we have today. Host about the relationships between companies and the government. Is it a partnership . How to best describe what is required under law verses what is voluntary and what is encouraged . Government can go in under fire set and enforce the cooperation of these companies. Morei try to focus on was the cooperative relationship. Ofre talking about a lot Different Companies here. I did not want to lump together necessarily the companies that have actually been contracted with the nsa for many years. Hand ine had a huge building the Data Collection systems verses the companies that are working with it. Not always happily. Yahoo and facebook and and the telecom companies. They have been working with the governments with the implicit power of the government to force cooperation, forced divulgence of the data if it wants. Me by of described to friday people that i quoted an article, many of these companies, that still see themselves and have the image of a very independent, Silicon Valley, far away from washington and do not work with washington and across country on the west coast actually have been much more in bed with the government then people might think. It is a combination, to answer your question of pressure and voluntary cooperation. Host Michael Hirsch has this story. How americans top10 companies greeted this surveillance state. If you would like to join the conversation our guest writes with snowden on the run in russia and threatening to unveil the entire blueprint for an essay surveillance, there is at much terror in Silicon Valley as an washington about what he might expose. How have they responded to this week . Guest it has been very interesting to watch the evolution of this. Almost at the same time we have seen Congress Gets up in arms about some of these programs. Activity culminating in the defeat of the amendment that would have shut down a large portion of the Surveillance Program. And on the part of the companies. The private sector. They have mounted a real effort to put pressure on the Obama Administration and leading members of congress in oversight and intelligence to let the companies more about these requests. What kind of information is the government asking . How many individuals . How many requests are being made . The companies are concerned about their image, reaction of shareholders. Lot of issues here for the companies in terms of protecting their names and protecting liability in terms of what is the nature of the government cooperation . Across the board now you are seeing a lot of pressure to force the government, executive branch in particular, to divulge what it is asking the companies to give up. Host we go to the phones and hear from eric in indiana. Independent call. Book, and the a book talk about these Tech Companies, and they used to rent wires, and the government tried to investigate who was doing all of this. You can help me. Pennsylvania i cannot think of who it is, but they always do research. Some guy got really rich racing renting out the race wires. Congress would demand to know who was using the telephone lines to profit profit of the gambling. The telecoms were big on not admitting who was doing all of this. They kept it private, but they were making a mint off of it. Guide. He publisher of tv are you aware of who that was . Host what was your big take away from that . Feeling of whatyour that all meant . Caller i actually thought it was ok to keep secret from the government your business dealings. I think anybody would think it is ok. They were trying to go out and find all of this. I think pennsylvania. I am not familiar actually with this issue. It may be historically accurate. Reporting ie and tried to go into the system that we have now. I am the sketched out what happened earlier. I cannot really respond. The how much resistance of companys given to the government as they have tried to force the partnership or use of material . You write in your story some of these data sharing has happened after an initial resistance and occasionally under penalty of law. More often with eager cooperation. The private tech sector effectively build the nsa Surveillance Systems. Integral to developing the system that is so controversial told me in an interview a couple of weeks ago there is no longer a single computer for telephone and Telecom Systems inside fort meade, nsa headquarters in maryland that the government owns. The entire Data Collection and isecom Surveillance System effectively privately built by private companies. One of these companies there is a whole slew of these companies. But out when hamilton is one of them. Reportedly a Company Called eagle alliance, which is a consortium of companies. These are the companies that the nsa has gone to in recent years. Of course, one of the big projects that was considered a boondoggle was called a trailblazer, which was largely by a company that happens to be located near fort meade. You have this whole Cottage Industry of not very well known. These are not google, facebook, yahoo s that the nsa is going to to use data is to use their servers to collect data. These are companies that built the servers. Not necessarily very well known. Effectively it is privatized. The point is across the board from those who built it to the companys not cooperating with the nsa in terms of turning over have this intelligence industrial complex. A play off the famous phrase that people really do not know about. Ultimately i think what will come out of this is much more knowledge about how the private sector has played a huge part. Talking about the story in national journal. The cover piece looking get Tech Companies and surveillance. We go to calller from new york. On the just building previous comment on how Tech Companies create and as a Surveillance Program, it seems that consumers add another level of cooperation by buying these products up by buying these products. We are enticed to buy the products and the wonderful things they can do and the big joke being that we automatically signed the privacy agreements that the companys offer as without even reading them. I guess what gave me this perspective is when the boston that bombing occurred and when the police asked everyone to turn and photographs and videos of the event to see if they could catch the bombers, it seemed as if under the right uscumstances, that all of spring into action and become part of this surveillance state by helping authorities find people. Everyones phone becomes as Security Surveillance device. Host does this change your user habits . Caller it becomes a very quick decision. You see what is happening, and the decision is to turn off your phone and computers. You are coerced by necessity, by the way you conduct your life these days to participate. Either you are in it or out these days. It is a trap we are all in. Good he makes really points there. This is central to the whole controversy right now, how much privacy are people willing to give up. Certainly in the weeks right after the revelations came out, the polls showed most people ok with these are types of Surveillance Systems. Partly because people have become used to the loss of privacy. Every time you sign on, do a google search, sign on to the internet, a product similar to the things you were looking for pop up to your right. You know information about you is being used by the corporate sector. During the most frigid boston as forn bombing Police Cooperation and quickly got it in the form of a lot of different cellphone images. There is a changing sense of privacy that i think has made people a little less shocked than edwards noted and supporters thought they might be. , programs havee been digested and people have realized that nsa is mass collecting all of the telephone records. There is a certain fear of whether it is going too far, and what dont we know about what the government is doing . How many checks and balances are there . I think what has people queasy is theres not enough checks and balances. I actually believe the momentum in congress is strong enough. I believe we will see real changes to the way the law is used, the way the court conducts itself, the range of people to whom these requests are made known, and what about the request could be classified . Hirsch is our guest. Next calller from california. The boat inard a the house the vote in the house, the congressman that continued voted for the nsa to continue were paid more than those who voted against it. Do you know anything about that . That is do not believe so. Paid congressional salaries are standardized. I do not think it is a question of money. Boats ine referring to terms of support by the private sector. I do not know of any pattern there were by people in congress who supported the United States Surveillance Program got substantially more in corporate donations or anything like that. Thisost recent votes happened in the past several days. Is a movable were seeing in congress that is brand new. Host todays marketplace looks at googles data trove dance. Tom gara looks into his own record. Has, howee, emails he many contacts, what searches he has done and how many of them and looks at the games he has played and where his bones have ended up. His mother has one. How does this factor into the reporting you have done when it comes to the governments effort of looking at data . Area this is a big gray that is delicate and difficult to debate because we do not know the full extent of the data. Basically what we do know is the inernment is very interested met a data, the number of calls you made, the number of people number of people. What they are supposed to be doing under the rules is if a terrorist cell abroad or even findis rolled up and they a cell phone or more than one cell phone, then they go out several hawks. They call the contact on the phone and in the context of the context of col. Have called. They traced to see if there is anyone else suspicious. And this could add up to millions of people potentially. The controversy is whether that is too broad ranging and such to ahes ought to be tied terrorist organization, as the best surfing. Then, when it comes to the present program, which is the other thing that he revealed, what theyre supposed to be of thes doing searches internet, internet servers, by a suspected terrorist abroad. What we do not know for certain is to what extent are the stepping over the line in terms of the kinds of services they are doing . Particularly, has this enormous Data Collection capabilities. What we do not know, really cannot comment on, is how much companies are diverging at this point to the government . It is an interesting article about what google could potentially do. We know the track surface and can tell a lot about you and what your interests are. We know and criminal investigations many time school searches become part of the evidence. We do not really know to what extent it is used in regular and as a surveillance. Host spotlight today looks at journal aniece in national by Michael Hirsch. Kenny in maryland. Independent. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I am a mile or to outside of fort meade. With regards to , if a journalist ,eceives classified information can company, reliable . Ifould be held liable also it becomes a conduit for crime being committed, that website can be held liable. Held liable for classified information and is that protected under the First Amendment rights . In the case of wikileaks, julian being indicted. Some senators and Public Officials have called for him to be classified as an enemy of the United States. Host lets get a Response Period of looking at the larger question. Are central constitutional questions that are being not just abated but tested it right now in a couple of cases. In particular, the one involving a New York Times reporter. Using this Surveillance System the Bush Administration was using for a while. You do have freedom of the press balanced against prosecution of those who knowingly or handle become conduits of classified information. Partly what has Julian Assange also a question about whether the Obama Administration would prosecute accessoryfor being an over the mishandling of classified information. Traditionally reporters have not been prosecuted. Recently president obama said he did not intend to do that. No question the Obama Administration has been tough on reporters. A lot of concerns among journalists about how much of a crackdown there will be by the administration. Hirsch, chief correspondent for national journal. Anthony on the democrat line. Could you make comments on 2006 cspan had a guest, and as peak at t technical executive i believe he was. He pointed out the americans had 9 11 andd on prior to there had been a class action lawsuit. Upon barack obama becoming president , his first act as president was to grant immunity to the telecom industry. This is not credence to the snowden adnd wikileaks. Doesnt it point to them being more enemies than rather spies . It was taken away by what is said to be a constitutional law scholar. What does that speak to about his legitimacy as a constitutional law scholar . Guest it is an interesting question. Think the abuses of the warrantless Surveillance System that the Bush Administration put in place led to the amendment of the fis that act in 2008 fisa act in 2008 and you had to get a court order in order to make some of these searches. Where for a while the Bush Administration was not doing that at all and was simply going around this. Telecomame time, these companies are very concerned about liability. They want protection. A whole set of laws that are basically still behind the times. Data, the speed at which data is mast, for example, in the case of google has evolved a much faster than the loss can keep up with it. That is one of the problems here. First act, you had to go get a warrant to do one search. Then it there was some other telephone number you wanted to check out, you have to go back to court. Very slow. No way to keep up with what they intended to do. At the same time, the republican congressman who was one of authors of the patriot act said, a key voice in the very close others had never intended that there would be this indiscriminate amassing a telephone data, and that had to be stopped. Termsmehow legally and in of the national debate, the u. S. Will have to strike a balance between what i think will continue to be this surveillance state because the nature of the threat has not changed. The Boston Marathon bombings was a good example. It can crop up anywhere in an essay cannot detect it in time and the nature of the technology which is so complex and fast moving. So much data. Because of that, i do not see this Surveillance System moving, but i do think there will end up and tougher controls on the data and more Public Disclosure of what was needed. I think one of the problems is kept secret. All companies could not talk about it. The government did not talk about it. Many people in Congress Said they had no idea it was going on. Was it really necessary for it to be so secret so the disclosures blew up in our face . I think it is possible to disclose numbers of requests and things like that. Perhaps have more people in congress clued into it without jeopardize thing the sources of methods that the Intelligence Community is so concerned about. I think a balanced needs to be struck. Most americans i think would be ok with that. If you talk to americans about this program, the typical response would be i am not involved with terrorism, so it does not bother me. There are no cases where this information has been abused in a way where someone has been by the government based on evidence accumulated in secret. I did not know of any cases like that. Along those a tweet lines another question for you from maverick on twitter so does the government see it differently, grabbing information either from the internet or something from a hard object . Guest that is one of the things at issue right now, gother the government can into and will directly go into the servers or whether the data will be set aside in a separate place . I do not know the Technical Details of it, but i know that is one thing were not sure of yet, how much direct access there is to the major servers of these companies. On the question of whistle , it isverses trader interesting. Obviously Bradley Manning was convicted of most of the charges against him, so he might spy ially be considered us ba but there are some of think he serve the public good and not that much damage done by disclosures. The sentencing phase will be largely about they are ,lready in secret session attempting to show what kind of damage was done. National reporters have not really seen evidence of a huge amount of damage to national interest. Majors the most development to come out of the Bradley Manning weeks might be the era of spring. Circumstantial evidence that the protests were touched off by a howleaks cables showing corrupt the president of tunisia was and that might have incited people to begin protesting, portugal it the food seller who immolated himself. Then interesting way, disclosures that came from brabham manning may have led directly to the arab spring. I do not know that is necessarily a terrible thing. That is very much at issue in terms of the image. I think we see the same thing with snowden. The initial reaction was this guy is just a trader. He flew to hong kong and russia, but in the last week we have seen this groundswell of support in congress for changes based on his disclosures. The Washington Post yesterday, a prominent columnist, eugene robertson, wrote a piece saying we should all thank him. Russiaf he holds up in for a long did that time, his image will shift from that of a traitor to whistleblower and in a more dramatic way than we have party scene. Host were talking about Michael Hirschs piece in national journal. He spent much of his caree at newsweek. From iraq,rted afghanistan, other places around the world. Pat is our next calller in illinois. Republican. Caller hi, mike. Communications are borderless. Can you hear me . Since communications are borderless in some many high Tech Companies are moving to china, as far as the potential for the same communications once this becomes a Chinese Company, to go ahead and get the same data, how much abuse could they exploit the same day that once a Chinese Company gets the same day that . They being the government . Caller think of the google equivalent of china giving the chinese government. Let me just answer ofust want to say that one the ironies of this whole controversy about socalled domestic surveillance of americans is the reason that the nsa went at it this way is because some much of the worlds internet traffic goes through the United States. The percentage is between 16 and 17 . Michael hayden, a former nsa director told me in an interview, we consider this a home game for us. So much goes through washington where microsoft is based, why would we not make use of that . That has been the situation until now, that even though the target has always been an supposed to be for the nsa, foreign suspects, foreign threats to the United States, the nsa felt it had no choice but to monitor the traffic of companies that go through here. As more traffic moves to places like china, that is certainly going to be seen by the nsa and the Intelligence Community as an advantage. China and russia are companies that we keep track of. Very closely. I think that is one of the great years right now, but so much about the nature of the program will be revealed that that advantage will accrue to the government in china, as well as russia. Snowden is in russia right now. The reason to think he has been partly debriefed by them in terms of what they know what he knows. That is one reason why if he is arrested, no doubt in my mind he will be charged in much the same way that Bradley Manning aidingobably including the enemy. Host independent calller in indiana. Go ahead. Thank you for cspan. I have learned so much in the past three years. Our companies and technology are great, but we need to remember that there are companies in russia and china doing the exact same thing our companies are doing. All of the satellites that the russian cup put up, chinese have put up, they are not for just whether. They are trained on us, listening to us. We need to grow up. Is a traitor. Probably the greatest christmas presents putin has ever received. Still is thek that prevailing view based on the polls i have seen among the most americans. Again, there is no question whether or not personally you think of him as a whistleblower trader, no question he will be charged. He has been charged and will be pursued. If he stays in russia, which seems to be the plan, i understand that they are preparing to give him asylum, which he has asked for. All the more reason i think he will be viewed in a negative light because russia is certainly a company that is not very friendly to u. S. Interests. The calllerthink makes a good point. We should not be naive that the same intelligence gathering message are being used. Every reason to believe they will be, by china and russia. Thisstory just in from associated press. On theet she let in conversation. Shelia. Is about themment different tracking devices they are using through cell phones and other technology. I cannot hear you. Concerned way, i am about protection. There are some anythings they are using around the world now to monitor us like were criminals are around the world like street lights in your home. Credit cards and so many other ways. Cell phones. To know youggling do not have any privacy anymore. Guest again, this is an important debate. Privacy is at issue. I would caution people to have a little bit of perspective. I am not saying this surveillance methods cannot be abused, they certainly can be abused by the wrong person in charge. J. Edgar hoover came back to life and people would be worried, but i will say in nottice, there really are in the cases i know of abuse. Having talked to nsa people, they have more trouble getting enough data on actual suspects. Theyre not concerned about actual people because they did not have the time. They have to focus on potential threats. I think most people should not be concerned about these programs. Hirsch, chief correspondent for national journal. You can find us online. Also, the cover story of the magazine. Thank you. That is all for washington journal this morning. We will see you tomorrow morning at 7 00 eastern time. We now head to the house of representatives for morning hour. At