emily: live from bloomberg headquarters, welcome to "bloomberg west." the british trader accused of causing the may 2010 flash crash is free. free by a london judge on the condition that he does not use the internet and list of the parents and his london neighborhood. an expedition to the united states where he has been charged with fraud and market manipulation.

responsible for one and five sellers during the flash crash using an -- illegal trading strategies. march saw big gains in the housing market. sales of existing homes hitting their highest level in 18 months according to the national association of realtors. job growth, low mortgage rates, and springtime weather helping to boost sales. president obama says many of his fellow democrats are wrong in their opposition to trade deals. the president wants fast track powers to approve trade proposals including the transpacific ownership and the president is finally unlikely allies like the cognitive debtor public and congressman paul ryan. paul ryan: i think he is going in the right direction with these trade agreements with asia and europe. we just ruled out trade promotion authority, a bipartisan bill we are moving through the house and the senate committees this week.

it is essential and necessary to get good trade agreements and that is why we're doing this. emily: ambassador says he does president obama and the prime minister will be able to announce an agreement on the transpacific trade do next week when he visits washington. staying in japan, the company -- after a drone landed on the roof of prime -- of the prime minister's office. traces of radiation were found in a plastic bottle on that drone, also equipped with a camera. the prime minister was away at the time. apple pay more attention to washington spending $1.2 million on lobbying in the first quarter, a 16% increase over the last your. apple has been lobbying on a variety of issues, including taxes. it still lacks behind rivals like rubel which spent $5.5

billion on lobbying during the first quarter, and faced, which spent 2.4 million. now to our lead comcast passes 45 billion dollars takeover of time warner cable is in serious jeopardy. comcast executives are in washington today to sway and type less -- antitrust lawyers. the justice department wants to see comcast sell assets to keep the market competitive or will follow a lawsuit that file a lawsuit to block the deal. written to the justice department urging them to block the merger. joining me now christopher and the bloomberg intelligence antitrust analyst. what exactly will go down at the meeting today? is this a hail mary? christopher: it may be. they will try to convince them

this will not be anticompetitive. lawyers are skeptical. emily: why? christopher: the best estimate is he will take two monopolies and combine them into one. it is not much of an argument. they say they will save about $1 billion in the process. that is relatively's all change. there are worries on the other hand, serious worries, about the merger. there are worries it will be a huge company and will have power in the purchasing of programming and they can use that power to do a variety of things that could harm competition and consumers for example, discriminate against consumers they do not own, like netflix, in favor of services they do own. and also make it harder for compensation to come for broadband services. these are potentially worrisome fax about the justice department.

emily: our analyst wrote a piece about why the merger is dead. she wrote this the two months ago. is the merger debt and has it always been, jennifer? jennifer: i do not know if you could say the merger is dead. there are meetings today and those are for comcast to defend against any, early indications from the staff at the doj that they have anti-competitive problems with this merger and think it will be anti-competitive. they have an opportunity to defend the allegations and also an opportunity to enter settlement negotiations. i think the consensus is it is difficult to understand what the terms might be that would allow the deal to go through. emily: what would you say? has it always in debt or doomed? christopher: no, a couple of things. you are seeing the beginnings of

some move in the cable industry that could make cable more competitive. hbo unbundling from the cable package and offering hbo now to customers who do not have a cable subscription. that threatens cable's dominance. what comcast would like to do by acquiring time warner is have additional powers to net this unbundling trend in the but. that would stop competition from coming to video. and also to broadband. potential broadband competitors look at the market and say, if i could provide broadband, there will be stuff on the internet for people to watch her it becomes a more attractive opportunity. comcast would like to nick that in the blood as well. the lawyers are looking closely at this. emily: jennifer, what about reports they canceled sales of hulu because they found out competitors were interested in buying it? so many tricky issues

with the potential deal. jennifer: it is a tricky deal with a lot of tricky issues. relationships among the entire industry, the issue with the hulu news we are seeing is that it harkens back to the consent order entered between comcast and the department of justice in 2011 one comcast took a stake here they entered a consent order that was largely behavioral. the department of justice does not tend to like cave real fixes because it can be hard to police and they can be violated. i think what the hulu issue does is highlight the fact that perhaps that consent order did not really work and comcast has argued what could fix the issues in current transactions is just to consent debt send that consent order which may not be good enough because of what we are seeing as to what happened with hulu. emily: all right, jennifer and

nyu law professor christopher. thank you both your we will be following developments out of that meeting in washington today. up next, the man in charge of the nsa when edward snowden dropped a bombshell. i speak with alexander about the rapidly changing world of cyber security. be sure to tune in friday for my exclusive interview with the facebook coo, sheryl sandberg, and richard branson. ♪

emily: welcome back. still to come, and in-depth discussion. i sit down with the former nsa director and retired four-star general keep house and her. first, banks received access to mormon agency funding. the council raised the cap according to people familiar

with the decision. in the meantime, the our area finance investors will meet in latvia friday to persuade greece to commit to academic reform. outlining his turnaround plan, which includes launching a mobile app, dozing 350 restaurants, and remaking its marketing strategy. >> as a model company a customer experience, progressive is about doing what it takes to be the mcdonald's our customers expect tomorrow. >> 833% drop in first-quarter profit and 1110 drop in first-quarter sales. sales in the u.s. have dropped six straight quarters. boeing says deferred production costs are rising for its dreamliner. the costs rose 30% in the first quarter to nearly 27 they dollars or their a maker also posted negative cash flow and a

92% plunge in operating cash flow. profits actually rose 38% and sales were up 8%. in san francisco, nearly 30,000 security experts are in town for the security conference, one of the largest events in the world. among them, one of the foremost authorities on cyber security, general keith alexander am a retired four-star army general who served as the nsa director chief of -- and the first commander of u.s. cyber command. he is the founder and the el of eighth ever security technology and consulting firm, and he is with me here today. great to have you back. you are famous for being in charge when edward snowden dropped his bombshell. i'm curious, since you have stepped down, what has changed in the security landscape? what surprised you most being outside the government?

>> one thing that surprised me is where we are and the rate at which the cyber attacks and a was are increasing. we have seen exploits against target, home depot jpmorgan an attack against sony. when you look at it, the changing landscape and threats to companies is growing significantly. part of that is attributed to the rapid change in technology. part of it is attributed to the global landscape, when you look at what is going on with russia and iran, what went on with north korea and terrorists are in all of those combined make this a tough area and one where i think good parts about conferences we need tech companies to come together and figure out a better way of addressing these problems. we have not done that yet. the solution cyber teams are putting together is in this -- inefficient. one of the good things about being here is looking at

addressing new ideas wrestling with those as other tech companies have, and seeing how perhaps you could partner more together to provide a more comprehensive solution. emily: the president of rsa gave a comprehensive keynote saying the security industry has failed. how much to you agree? >> i mostly agree with that. the practical reality is we let security language on two fronts, on the technology and demand for better security area in the past, it has been one we could write over, so we did not have the big draw from the board and others, bullet happened some of these companies, some said, ok, we need to look at this at this eeo and board level. it has made that type of change and something we now need to look at from a tax perspective let's put the solutions on the table to get a more comprehensive approach to cyber

security that does not put it all on the back of the i.t. professionals. if they are getting hacked, it is because they do not have the tools and the training, not because they do not want to put their networks. emily: what exactly do you want because they say they're the -- they will never open a backdoor in edward snowden says yes there has been, for a long time. requested a slightly different from that in with the tech companies need to do is, how are you going to have an integrated roach. you do not need to protect the company. you do not need backdoors or any of that. what you need is a way to understand when malware enters your network, how do you do that? in the past, it has been antivirus solutions 30 ca security company say antivirus solutions alone are inefficient, they are right. what you need is more conference solution. it brings in a team approach

where you use mcafee and others. you use firewall companies and others. look at how you could integrate it into a comprehensive approach. i think that is what he was referred to in his is and what i think we actually need to do. call it team cyber on the civilian side. this is where it could present a much better product or set of products that could help the companies. emily cohen is the nuclear talks fail, what can we expect? emily: if the nuclear talks fail, what can we expect? general alexander: i am concerned if those fail, there will be cyber repercussions for us. if you look at what happen in 2012, in 2013, there were over 350 service attacks. there were also destructive attacks in 2012 that destroy

data on over 30 something thousand systems. my concern is if those come together against any of our sectors, we have a big problem. part one, let's fix the defense here and we can do a better job. take much of this off the table. and i think we need cyber legislation between government and industry to share, so the government knows when the industries being attacked. going back to your thing about backed doors governments do not want to see in the networks, and does not know when a company like sony is being attacked. how do you then defend it? emily: did you see the hbo documentary, citizenfour? a documentary about edward snowden. it takes away that the government sees literally everything.

general alexander: get the facts on the table. it is interesting, for the presidential review group, we had a board member at the aclu look at what nsa really does. that was jeffrey. it would probably be good to get jeffrey on here at some point because what he found is that not only is the nsa doing what they asked to do, but they were following the law and had great integrity. and yet, that does not normally come out. what comes out is somebody sensationalize this and in flames and says there in all your networks. consider how many networks are out there and how many businesses. what you see is, santa claus can see every child in the world. a nice thought, but not factually correct. the same with nsa and other government agencies. the real question becomes, how do we let the government know when a company is under pressure? we will have to do that.

if it is the government's's to defend a company like sony from being at act by a nation's eight, who will tell them? what we do today is forensics, after the fact. that company, our nation has lost a lot of money. we can and should do better. emily: general keith alexander, stay with us. we will be back after the break. we will be right back. ♪

emily: welcome back. we're back with general keith alexander on the former head of the nsa. general, you mentioned you feel the public gasoline misunderstands how much information the government has. what can they see in terms of my

phone calls, my text messages? what does the government know about me? general alexander? other than that you are a great tv personality? if you're talking about government agencies who have a reason to do it, the government would require a warrant to track your communications. nsa posits responsibility is foreign. think of the case out there public, a guy who was going to blow up the new york city subway. what nsa had to do under the 702 program was get a court order to allow them a 702, to get information on communications going from al qaeda, a known terrorist. that is what nsa and that

program is geared towards. nsa's the foreign side and not the domestic side. this perception that under the metadata program, we are listening to your phone calls or reading your e-mails, that is completely false, unless you're talking to a terrorist who is overseas. to mastic, the same thing with the fbi, they have to have a warrant, some reason, probable cause under title iii one to go after you. the dragnet, this is the to 15 program, the metadata program. let's go over it. emily: this is information you collect? general alexander: the government propels internet service providers to provide, which has only numbers in it and no content. it has the to and from number, and the duration of the call. only those four things. her name is not in there. no content is in there. i will repeat, no names and no

content. just numbers. let's say a case, there was actually a number in that communication. the fbi told nsa, that was his number and we now know he is talking to al qaeda. under the rules at the time nsa had to have proof to look into the database that it was associated with al qaeda. one of 35 people could then look into the database and go out to see who he was talking to appear they were able to see one of the people in new york had connections to other terrorists. all they saw was the numbers and the numbers resulted in somebody overseas known to be terrorists. nsa would then give at number two new york city, not knowing who was to the fbi. fbi could look that up. and as a's job was to code -- connect the dots with 9/11, not

to listen to your communications or others for one thing that is wrong is all about content. emily: we will have more of this discussion after the break. thank you for explaining there. we will get more in-depth coming up. ♪

emily: we're back now with retired general and founder of iron net cyber security. he said an essay was just connecting the dots to the problem the american a look as if nsa is that a problem? general alexander: an essay is authorized to put them in the database but cannot look at it unless they have a reasonable suspicion. every time a look at it and everything they touch is audited

and can be overseen by the courts, the administration, and a number of places in the administration, and was reviewed by the presidential review root. they all found nobody was misusing the data. the really issue, we had a discussion of how we do it better. if there were a better way to protect the country, i am all for it. that is where the tech community and the government need to work together. emily: the tech community has insisted they will not work with the government can you have larry page and tim cook and mark zuckerberg saying this personally. general alexander: i would step back and say, what is needed for the con -- for the country? what we need is a way to stop terrorists and protect liberty. what i put back to the tech community, which now includes myself, is there a better solution. more importantly, we should look

not only for our country, but for europe and other countries. emily: what should the tech companies be providing? general alexander: i have not come up with a better one to we wrestled with this for years. what do you do and how do you connect the dots? the intel community took a hit for not being able to connect what nsa saw overseas with what fbi saw in the states. that resulted in 9/11. we do not want another 9/11. is there another way and it should -- if so, we should put it on the table. if you were to look at big data and say, who is the best with big data? the companies you just mentioned, google, apple, face and others amazon, why don't they join in and say, let's come up with a solution that does both. emily: you are saying apple google facebook, can stop the next 9/11? general alexander: better than

what we're doing today, if they do, it would require the government and industry to work together. we have a great tech community and we ought to bring them in. we have got to figure out how we cross the divide that was created. there is a lot of misinformation out there and we need to fix that and that is where folks like you i think can help. emily: you said you are really concerned something bad will happen but you do think people need to know we are at a great risk. what do you think could happen? what is something bad? general alexander: i am concerned that isis and other terrorists want to hurt our country and europe. it is in their best interest to have a big attack. it helps them recruit more people. we are trying to stop that.

we are doing everything we can. telling the bad guys how we got them only helps them. think about what happened with the early parts of the war when the germans went to a third to a fourth. we started to lose the war. i'm concerned at the amount of information that has been revealed is an advantage to them. that now is the time, for all of these companies to help protect our people and civil liberties and privacy. the government cannot do this alone. emily: how concerned are you about another 9/11? general alexander: i am concerned. most of my time spent as director was spent on counterterrorism and our troops abroad. i did not have time for anything else. when you think about it, the tools they have in the approach we're taking and when used a big data and crowdsourcing, is there a way we could actually take some of these techniques with

courts, congress, and the administration involved, come up with a better legal foundation and a better technical foundation question mark nobody has put forward a better process. part of that is because there are two camps and a divide between them. technology and the government and we cannot have that. emily: if we are so vulnerable and all the systems are so vulnerable, if lanes can be hacked, why has it not happened yet? >> look at target and home depot and sony. they are. the statement is just the opposite. there are two sets of companies, those that know they have been hacked and those that do not know. the reality is they are. the real question, if i can just turn that a little bit is, when does this change from stealing intellectual property and theft

to destruction? that is when the countries oppose what we're doing in sanctions and other places around the world. they oppose our foreign policy with their operations. and we are not ready for that. a scenario where the tech community has to work with the government. emily: would you put a time frame on it? general alexander: it depends on what happens on a geopolitical front, what happens with iran and russia and the ukraine. these are all big shifts in what will happen in cyber security. if you roll across the middle east, what is happening with isis and others will tell you what will happen on the terrorist front. my experience working with the people of the nsa, cia, and others, these are good people trying to protect our country. they are not after your personal information or spying on you. they're trying to protect you and others. the question now is how do we as a nation help them do it and do it better.

that is what we have got to do. emily: keith alexander now at your own consulting firm. thank you for being here and being patient and explaining everything in such depth to us. good to have you. the agency wants to force cyber security partnerships with silicon valley giant as general alexander just mentioned. are the companies on board? that is next. ♪

emily: welcome back to it i'm emily chang. the cyber security conference allows security companies to showcase their latest anti-hacker technology. it is also becoming a place for government agencies to form new silicon valley partnership spear the department of homeland security announced it is opening a satellite office in the silicon valley and the white

house is looking for tech experts to develop a system that allows one party to get in while keeping the others out. meeting with tech giants and entertainment companies following some of this year's against breaches. john is the current general of the department of justice. thank you so much for joining a spirit you are coming on after a long and in-depth conversation with him or head of the nsa general keith alexander. tell us what your role is innocent -- in the cyber security world and what your particular goals are. john: thank you. i lead the national security division and we are formed to be one place of the department of justice that looks at the spectrum of risks. our top priority remains preventing terrorist attacks. we are also charged with looking at those who would steal information from american companies, spies. what we see is so much of what

we value has shifted from the analog to the digital world. spies, terrorists those who would harm us are seeking to do so in cyberspace. part of my job and responsibility has to be transforming to meet those threats. it is great being out here. some a different folks are innovating on the security side of the house and that is an important conversation to have and to learn what they're doing is try to defend against attacks. we are also meeting with power and gas, small and medium-sized companies here and others. the full spectrum of business and the message is clear. you need to be prepared for a major cyber incident. part of the preparation plant has to be humming in and being prepared to talk to law enforcement so we can help you respond. emily: what about companies like apple, google, and facebook?

if they cooperate, they could prevent the next cyber attack here they made it clear they do not want to compromise users privacy. have you find the balance and convince them to play ball? >> there is a different set of issues depending on the sector you are discussing. one of the key threats to american privacy day in and day out are those crooks and spies at want to steal information. we're seeing time and again companies penetrated by either criminals were nationstates overseas that are stealing information for economic value but also to cause embarrassment or color version. the sony hack was a real wake-up call to a message we have binge ryan to deliver for a while now, which is that it does not matter your industry to you are at risk of a destructive attack. for too long the information

technology issues, cyber risks were assigned to cyber professionals. the ceo general council did not understand the risk and thought maybe if you had the right tool you can block all attacks here you cannot. there is no role you -- no wall you can build high enough or deep enough. if you need to think of this as an area of risks to mitigate like any other. we are not perfect and government. there lately has been a big push to make sure the cabinet secretaries or the deputy secretaries are in the room when we talk about cyber security risks to government systems. for too long and government, it was a cio issue. part of that is language. those talking in bits and bytes and they try to talk to the general counsel, the ceo, they do not know what you are talking about. we need to learn how to bridge the gap between technical experts and those who understand business risks. emily: one of the biggest risks

is to their own employees. the biggest threat to a company security. edward snowden was a government contractor. how likely is it there will be another edward snowden? >> i'm glad you brought that up. when we talk about the risk to a company, particularly from a nationstate, they are still sending traditional spies here. case in new york, what were they looking to do? they were looking to use greed or sex or revenge as a motive. they used traditional spying techniques. they used loose lips and tried to hang out with people from your company who might talk about things they should not and they tried to find out who would breach or company. if they're able to succeed, the amount of information they can steal is vast. the harm they can do is much greater than it was 10 or 15 years ago.

i do not think you could get down to zero on your risk, but you have to have a risk mitigation strategy that the ceo and general counsel by in on. that means you have to got to make it as hard as possible for these guys to find what it is they want. to give an example, for a long time, law firms would put the most sensitive information and put it in a folder. if a bad guy got into your system, they knew what to look for. a simple tip would be, do not do that. other thing is look for anomalous saviors by employees or digital insider system. you need to have people actively monitoring and looking for these suspicious haters. emily: they brought and disparate landscape for companies to navigate. and thank you so much for joining us. good luck at your meetings as

you crisscross silicon valley. time for a quick check of your bloomberg top headlines. shares of visa and mastercard surgeon today on news the chinese government is running to end a monopoly on bank card clearing. the new rules clear the way for credit card companies to gain a foothold in a dentistry that the china central bank say handle $73 trillion or year. tesla is signing up big customers like walmart for energy storage. the electric carmaker next week will make a push beyond its core business when it unveils batteries for homes and utilities. a review of california's alternative energy rebate program shows tesla plans to sell batteries for a range of commercial uses from powering factories to producing the -- at schools and wineries. coming up "bottom line" with mark crumpton. what have you got for us today? mark: some senior democrats have

concerns the white house is trying to allay feels -- fears. how will these pacific rim trade deal that could, if completed create a free trade zone in the age of the region question mark corey bowles will give us his analysis and i will see you at the top of the hour. back to you in san francisco. emily: thank you. coming up, the documentary making waves at the film festival that sheds light on tech's lack of gender diversity. ♪

emily: welcome back. i'm emily chang. there is a serious problem in technology right now when it comes to filling future engineering jobs. a new documentary that made its debut at the phil kessel this week, debugging the gender gap, seeks to shed light on this very issue.

>> students have no exposure to programming. >> computer science should be a requirement in all public schools. this is a rosy the riveter moment. jobs are here and we do not have workers to fill them. emily: will the film get the attention of tech giants to help get more women into jobs? joining me now to discuss robin, thank you for joining us. this is an important conversation we have been having over the past several years. what is your goal with this film? clubs it it is a lofty goal but i would like to inspire change the way women see themselves in the industry change in the way the culture is not so welcoming to women, and especially to inspire change in the education system. we have to make computer science mandatory in schools. emily: you're not an engineer and you are not generally

involved in technology. how did you come to take on the subject? >> right. i'm a filmmaker and anybody who has a child in college is also looking at, what are the job opportunities. seeing what she went through being one of two women in a classified five men entry-level classes in computer science and college, and the wall street journal is talking about how it headlines in different newspapers, if you do not have a computer science education, good luck at getting a job. >> you visited several prominent tech companies to introduce executives about this issue. did you find any striking differences in attitude? did any companies strike you as more or less diverse or open to these kinds of changes? >> everybody is pretty receptive. the doors are wide open to a spirit we were well received.

the most important thing is a knology there is a problem. thanks to tracy at interest, there is a problem in an -- everybody knology is it. everybody wants to rectify the situation because everybody realizes industry across the board will be greatly improved once we improve diversity. emily: tracy is an engineer at interest or tries to shed light on these issues to which companies would not open the doors? tracy: do i really call them out? certain tech companies sort of just do not do that. certain companies just do not want the press, do not want to be public, that is ok and that is fine. we found plenty that did. emily: any of your fears or assumptions confirmed by the film? tracy: yes, i am surprised. it is different than the mad men days. it is not as bleak and as it was. now, women are talking about micro-aggressions and death by

1000 cuts. actually look at the case that just came up i think it is the ellen powell case. it is harder to prove now. being a woman in tech means you just have to every day go to work and prove you belong in that space. i think the clip we use in the film says, it is exhausting. emily:. hopefully her film is part of the solution. a new film this week at the film festival. thank you. i want to get to news just making headlines to google announced a new wireless service plan, something reported for a long time but details are just now being released. brian has that for us. how will this work? brian: the news is finally out. it was like a lot of the reporting has been borne out here. it will be a national service in

a lot of ways. a lot of 4g areas will be covered. it will work with wi-fi. you will have a $20 basic monthly fee. you sort of pay extra for data from that. we will see how many people will use that an adopted. but they're partnering, as reported on t-mobile and sprint. emily: google fiber, the google moon project, to win the internet for the people. will we have services like youtube forced on us? brian: it is yet another step to get access everywhere. i think this one is more about what will be interesting with consumers day today with mobile phones. it gives a lot of great insights. it will be about pushing the industry forward. but yes, it is yet another thing they are doing and we will have to see if it works. emily: thank you so much and

thank you for watching this edition. the latest headlines all the time on your phone, tablet, and bloomberg.com. ♪

mark: i am mark crumpton and this is "bottom line." to our viewers here in the united states and those of you joining us around the world come welcome. full coverage of stocks and stories making headlines this wednesday. latin america reports looking at venezuela's lockout of data and what it means for bond investors. agriculture reporter alan monitors a u.s