are top government officials lie to go congress and the rest of us? sure seems like james clapper lied to a senate committee about the phone and internet surveillance program. some on capitol hill are now calling for clapper to be punished. we will have the latest. and what about the self-proclaimed whistle blower edward snowden? there is a weird left and libertarian coalition calling him a hero. i say he's a traitor who should be arrested, tried and thrown into jail as soon as possible. and there is a global market obsession with whether the fed will taper its bond purchases. it's hitting stocks and interest rates, commodities, everything. guess what? i think the fed is jumping the

gun. i believe they should not take it down anytime soon. the "kudlow report" begins right now. first this evening, we begin with the dramatic breaking news and video out of turkey. riot police and anti-government protesters continue to clash. you're looking at live pictures of the taksim square where after ten days of protests, police fired tear gas and used water cannons to drive out thousands of demonstrators. courtney reagan joins us with the details. good evening. >> from what we understand, the turkish government didn't expect the protesters to be as resilient as they have been these last ten days. the unrest 2u8actually began as protest urging not to demolish a park. things took a sharp turn towards violence and police used more hostile tactic its to break up

the demonstrations. the government took to the airwaves saying they would clear the taksim square throughout the night until protesters retreat. it was a very tense scene as police used both tear gas and water cannoncannons, but they responded by throwing rocks and fireworks back. they believe the prime minister has overused his position of power. t protesters claim his government is heavy handed. while the prime minister denies claims that he's an authoritarian leader, he says he will meet with protest representative, but insists the flon stragss must stop. three people have died so far and reportedly more than 5,000 have automatic medical attention for injuries. the country's central bank says it will intervene if necessary to support the turkish lira which is at its weakest since

october 2011. this is serious. world markets are paying attention as well of course as citizens and tourists that are within turkey. >> thanks very much, courtney reagan. appreciate it. our other top story tonight, the nsa's massive surveillance of phone and internet data from millions of americans. aclu filed a constitutional challenge to the program. but i believe it's the right thing to do for america and essential for our national security. such a policy, though, must have appropriate oversight. which begs the question why the director of national intelligence james clapper seemingly lied to congress in march the very body meant to provide such oversight. take a listen. >> does the nsa collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of americans? >> no, sir. >> it does not. >> not -- >> all right.

senator widen today called for public hearings to get straight answers. but white house press secretary jay carney says it's already happened. take a listen. >> director clapper has been straight and direct in the answers that he's given and has actively engaged in an effort to provide more information about the programs that have been revealed through the leak of classified information. person edward know den. there is a coalition calling him a hero, but i call him a traitor and i think he should be put away for several decades. let's talk about that. we have charles cook who wrote this column today and we have mark tiesen, author of this op-ed in the "washington post" yesterday. mark, let me begin with you. i want do the snowden thing. is this guy a hero or traitor? >> he's a traitor and admitted

felon. this is a man who leaked classified information, collaborated with foreign governments apparently to try and leak this information, and he exposed a program that is absolutely essential to protecting the united states of america. and on top of that, the people that are his supporters are calling him a whistle blower. he actually hasn't exposed any kind of wrongdoing or any kind of abuse of the system. all he's done is exposed a lawful constitutional and vital national security program. he hasn't for example proven -- he says in interviews i could look at your e-mails. well, he hasn't actually shown any evidence that anyone has looked at your e-mails or has listened to your phone calls. he hasn't done anything like that. so all he's done is exposed a classified program that we need to protect the country from the terrorists. >> which other enemies should not have known about. first of all, if snowden was so right on this, why is he fleeing to china? who knows where he'll go. i heard today putin would consider asylum in russia. he knows he's in trouble.

what's your take on this guy snowden? a traitor or hero? >> i'm not sure he's either. i think it's possible to be alarmed at what snowden revealed which is far more damaging than what was just implied without necessarily having to hate him. we can be seduced by words like legal and constitutional and warrant all day, but the reality is one has to ask what is oversight, what is a washrrant, what is constitutional. we have here a situation in which the american government is writing warrants that apply to 100 million people. that is not the intent of the warrant -- >> i don't understand that, 100 million people. look, this is all about data mining and digital eavesdropping. if the special court decides that there is probable cause that there is a terrorist activity, the rest of us, they are 00 not evening dropping on my phone calls.

they're not looking in to my e-mails. >> the fisa court, first of all, it approves pretty much everything. but even if you say that's because 99.9% of cases it's fine, the nsa is there to spy on foreigners. now, there is an exemption which says that if a foreign spy is within the united states, they can be given permission to look into them. are we really suggesting that that is similar to what we've learned in the last week where hundreds of millions, tens of millions of verizon customers are having their medidata collected by the nsa? it's not what we regard as being normal in a system of privacy. >> quick answer because then i want to move on to clapper. >> clarls obviously doesn't understand how the program works. nobody's e-mails are being read or phone calls listened to if you're an american citizen living within the united states. what they are doing, remember

after 9/11 we were accused of failing to connect dots. what the nsa is doing is collecting the field of dots. the phone records, not the content of the communications, who called when and where. and those dots are not touched unless we have a terrorist raid somewhere and find a new dot, a phone number of a terrorist. and then they go back and plug that dot into the field of dots to see who is connected. if you're not calling that terrorist in afghanistan or yemen, your dot is not touched. >> it's collection, not content. that's my understanding of this whole thing. >> exactly. >> there is a big difference. but i have to move on. we could argue it all night. charles, i want to give you a chance. did clapper lie? very important point. you wrote a very compelling comment. senator widen asked a very straightforward question. and does the nsa collect any type of data at all. or are millions or hundreds of millions of americans. clapper says no. and i noticed in the clip that

we played, when clapper said no, he was looking down at his pa . paper. do you think clapper lied? >> he absolutely lied. if lying means anything, he lied. he was given would be day's notice of this question. he's then asked the question and he said any data at all. they didn't say is he reading e-mail, he said any data at all. and clapper said no, sir. and then he said unwittingly. and then he went on to say the nsa can't do this because it only looks at foreigners. it was a flat out lie and worrying in a country when the national intelligence services are subordinate to congress that they would lie to the congress which is primary. >> and mark, i will count myself basically as a supporter of this whole national security apparatus. but if clapper is lying and, boy, that whole scene, he wouldn't look at widen's face when he answered it, it's like the irs. there's a trust issue here that we cannot overlook.

the irs we know lied repeatedly lied and got into people's nickers they should never have gotten into, but that's for another segment. all i'm saying is for this to work, we have to have iron clad integrity. what's your take on clapper? >> i think charles is misdirected. i think the outrage is that senator widen asked the question in an open forum. senator widen knew the answer. he knew the answer was classified top secret information. and he knew that director clapper couldn't answer the question in a public forum and he asked it anyway. he was either trying to embarrassing him or trip him up or force him to disclose classified information. which is as a measure of the senate intelligence committee with a top secret security clearance sworn to protect classified information is a wholly irresponsible and shameful thing to do. so clapper couldn't have answered the question because he would have been confirming a classified covert operation which widen knew. >> you answer that. >> my answer is that the senate is in charge of oversight of

this organization. this organization was doing something as i've said is not acceptable in this country. he asked him a question as to whether it was going on. he clearly didn't know. many members of congress did not knows of going on or not. and he was lied to. and that is worrying in a free republic. >> mark, this may be a detail, but why ask a question like that in an open hearing? why not do it in a closed hearing? >> exactly about that. >> it seems that was the biggest mistake made.that. >> it seems that was the biggest mistake made. >> you've hit the nail on the head. snar i senate intelligence committee has closed sessions where they conduct oversight. and he had already asked and gotten the question answered in a closed session and what he did was then take it out into an open session and try and force the dni to expose classified information in an open setting. it's a shameful thing to do for a member of the senate intelligence committee. our anger should be focused

on -- >> he tried to get the dni to admit to doing something it wasn't supposed to be doing. you and i disagree on that. >> absolutely not. it's lawful and he tried to expose a classified program. he has no right do that. >> we'd love to have you yes ba gentlemen back. we have more to discuss. now let's get to the one track minded fed obsessed markets. all investors talk about is whether ben bernanke will pull his bond purchases today, taper the bond purchases. i say no. markets however are sinking everywhere on this. we'll discuss it next up with the all-star tan did tell stephanie link and rebecca patterson. and later, what's the real reason for our continued slow economic growth? democrats keep blaming government spending cuts, butt obama tax hikes and new regulations are the real cull

pretties. that debate coming up. free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. that means limited government, lower tax rates and deregulation. ♪

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we're seeing a selloff across the globe. stocks, bonds, commodity, all sparked by worries that the federal reserve may be withdrawing stimulus. ever since ben bernanke's economic testimony on may 22nd, emerging markets are down 10% at least. euro stocks off 5%, s&p 500 down over 2%. got to ask yourself is the market rally over for this year. and i'll go one step beyond. you got 1% inflation, which is nothing. you've got 2% real growth, which is terrible. heck, the money supply, there is no printing press. i don't see why the fed should taper down or ease off or tighten up. i don't see anything like that going on. you need the liquidity. so bringing in robert mctier,

rebecca patterson and stephanie link. ladies, as always, welcome. talk to me just briefly about this because we're really seeing it across the board. when commodities fall, when bond prices fall, when stock prices fall, pretty much in tandem it looks like they are obsessing over an event. is it in fact the fed or is it something i'm missing here? >> i don't necessarily think it e it's the fed. if you look at the economic data, it's not been that good.i it's the fed. if you look at the economic data, it's not been that good.t it's the fed. if you look at the economic data, it's not been that good. it's the fed. if you look at the economic data, it's not been that good. i don't think they will taper anytime soon because the data points haven't supported it and as you said inflation is nowhere and gdp is 2%. >> i don't even understand the speculation about tapering down. but that's what everybody is talking about. >> so bernanke and other members of the fed are job owning the

market because they want to keep it two sided. in may the ah-ha moment was a rwandan bond auction. low interest rates pushing people -- rwandan -- exactly. whoa. so bernanke is saying we don't want people to take crazy risks. i'd say to your average investor it is. so we need to verbally intervene to make sure people think we could change -- >> that's a good idea. >> and when they do intervene, it means the economy is strong enough and they're going to be gradual and flexible. >> y >> but there's no evidence. here's what bothers me. bernanke said what he said. everybody interpreted to mean there's a two sided market. now there is a con sus more than likely the meeting in september.

and the markets in my humble opinion are saying don't do it. it's as though bernanke has already tightened by threatening to tighten. let me bring in robert. for h former president of the dallas reserve bank. you're a straight shooter. should ben better abotter bernar down his bond purchases? >> not real soon. she do so maybe toward the end of the year.his bond purchases? >> not real soon. she do so maybe toward the end of the year. he nids to clarify that he won't do it real soon. >> that's a great point. has they a de facto way, has he miscommunicated so that the markets think either june or august or september the fed is going to cut back on their liquidity by buying fewer bonds and therefore is there already a de facto tightening going on and these markets are registering

their disapproval? >> yes, a de facto tightening has related i think from those minutes of the last meeting where they referred to several individuals or participants. i think there is a little too much transparency there and too many people talking at cross purposes. >> let me ask one more before i bring the ladies back in. we've got 2% real growth which is below everybody's par. we have 1% inflation. i was wrong. so 1% inflation, 2% growth. the money supply, i don't mean the fed's balance sheet. i know they put a lot of reserves in, but the reserves aren't circulating. so in the last five, six months, down to only 4%. velocity is falling. you know, if i believe that stuff totally, those data points, they're showing a det r deteriorating economy. >> yeah, fed policy has only

been easing in the keynesian interest rates. milton freeman view, it's been tight. >> that's why stocks are selling off. that's why john paulson's fund, a brilliant guy, unfortunately his gold fund is down 54% year to date. but gold goes down when they see monetary policy tightening up. and when inflation goes down and monetary policy tightens up, that is real bad combination. and i think it's bad for stocks, too. >> well, commodities other than oil have actually been in free fall really. and it's the question of what happens to oil by the way. does it follow the rest of the commodity complex. >> where is it? i'm waiting for them to crack. >> it certainly could, but i think you have support from the middle east. but there is no inflation anywhere and its dealing you global demand is a lot slower

than initially expected. we all thought in the beginning of the year that all of the stimulus efforts from all of these central bankers around the world would lead to better than expected second half of the year growth. >> ain't happening. not a single sign of it. a great point. not a single sign that's happening. in fact, rebecca, we cannot forget the federal reserve tightened policy way back in 1937. that was the recession inside the depression fp th. even i wasn't there to see it. but i don't want the fed tightening now. it would be calamity. >> what i'd like to know, so the fed has a meeting coming up this month. will it address the volatility in the bond market. will it say anything about it. there is a press conference, an opportunity for bernanke to say that this volatility in the market maybe is unwelcome. try to calm thing ts down someh. that would be a huge relief to investors. >> bob, can bernanke get himself out of this communications corner? >> well, i'm afraid he needs to

do what was just suggested and it should be consistent with the release of the minutes at about the same time. so, yeah, he can. but there is just too much reporting going on about chatter within the meeting. >> there is too many reserve bank presidents yapping publicly on a constant basis. seriously. you're a former federal reserve president. i started my career at the fed. but this is not your father's fed. these guys never shut their mouths address i think that really gets the markets in to a tizzy. what do you think about that, stephanie? you're investing in it. what's this all about? >> this is just a very tough time. a, you're up so much in the markets year to date. b, you have kind of inconsistent economic data points here in the u.s.. we were supposed to be the pillar of strength sand that's not happening. europe is stabilizing, but still a lot of question marks. china is nowhere to be found.

now you have the emerging markets also starting to -- so a lot of uncertainty. >> what are the emerging market stocks telling you? do you know that ecb, they are way too tight. their interest rate target is too high. their money supply is falling. that's how dumb they are. ecb money supply is falling. >> bigger picture issue here, all the things you said i agree with, but i'd overlay on top of that is that we're facing unchartered waters. we'll be pulling out of a quantitative easing policy we've never lived through anything like this before. so to have market uncertainty as we're trying to figure out what that's going to feel like is normal. i'm still overweight stocks. i think this will resolve. >> across the board. s&p 500. you like it. >> yes, i do. but i think it will be a choppy summer as the market continues to digest. >> you say the rally is not over. >> i don't think so. >> stephanie, your take. >> i like stocks. i like the u.s.. i like housing, technology, the

banks. i like what everybody said today in the financials. loan growth getting better and steepening of the yield curve makes them more profitable. so i like a healthy financial system and i like that they're leaders. but i also think there will be tuchbts in the emerging markets. these material stocks have been hfr-they go down every day. >> can i just tell you there, is deflation in the air. and the central bank of the united states is contributing to it, so is the central bank of europe and that's what these markets are telling us. there is deflation in the air. we cannot afford deflation because this has been such a lousy recovery to begin with. >> it might help on you margins and earnings. >> margins are good. i grant you that. american businesses are good. in fact measuamerican business d run the federal reserve. anyway, bob being thank you very much, sir. stephanie, rebecca, you two will come back later on. more controversy for you to discuss. first up, we'll take you back to

istanbul where the government continues to try to clear protesters from a major city square. there is no sign of compromise in this story. [ shapiro ] at legalzoom, you can take care of virtually all your important legal matters in just minutes. protect your family... and launch your dreams. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side.

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chalky... not chalky. temporary... 24 hour. lots of tablets... one pill. you decide. prevent acid with prevacid 24hr. we want to get another update on the violent situation in turkey. let's go to richard engel, nbc news chief foreign koefr correspondent. he is in istanbul. >> reporter: the air here is still thick with tear gas

tonight as these clashes continue. it still doesn't feel like an arab spring moment, but if the violence continues, it could become a serious problem for turkey, one of the most stable countries in the region. police moved in around 7:00 a.m.. and sparked the worst clashes in turkey in a decade. police used tear gas and water cannons. the protesters, stones an molotov cocktails. protesters set a police vehicle on fire and the police pulled back. this has been going on now for nearly two weeks. it started as an effort to save this park. but it's well beyond that now. the demonstrators complain of police brutality. and the prime minister is imposing an islamic agenda in secular turkey. by evening, taksim filled again,

more than 10,000 demonstrators shouting against the prime minister. it seemed like the violence was over. but it turned again. suddenly in the biggest crabd n do crack down oig of the day. hundreds of vriot police and their vehicles rushed in. some protesters fell, some injured. fire, more tear gas. it's been fired i don't want to say at random, but fired with such intensity that it is even come being up to the upper balconies of private homes and private businesses. a decision had been taken to take back the square. this is now a challenge over the nature of the country. the islamic democracy or the secular tradition. demonstrators say they're determined to defend. there are also protests tonight and clashes in the city of ankara. that said there, are many people watching what is going on here

and in and came are a who believe the protesters are getting what they deserve. the country is divided. richarden gel, nbc news. >> back here in the usa, the big preliminary economic debate is over what's causing our continued slow growth. you blame the bunch the cutting sequester or president obama's higher taxes and new regulations? we'll join that debate next up on the kudlow report. hey. they're coming. yeah. british. later. sorry. ok...four words... scarecrow in the wind... a baboon... monkey? hot stew saturday!?

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welcome back to the "kudlow report". in this half hour, we know the top tech and internet companies were cooperating with the nsa surveillance with the program. so what does that mean for investors? would you sell your going eogle verizon stock because of this story? and a new survey says small business optimism is up. why is that and what is the biggest obstacles for business owners today? we'll talk to a couple small business owners on both coasts to get their take. but first up, you've heard me say it before, the budget

cutting sequester actually boosts economic growth. in fact, a new study from the san francisco fed estimates 90% of the fiscal drag from the u.s. budget policy comes from higher taxes. not automatic spending cuts. we need more free market combination of more spending cuts with lower taxes. that is called free market capitalism. we're almost there, but we're not there. we have two cnbc contributors to debate this. jim, as i read the story, they're saying the next three years, i don't really think they're referring to this year, the next three years, income tax hikes, investment tax hikes, obamacare tax hikes, that is the biggest obstacle facing the which i. not lower spending. am i right? >> they think the drag -- sort of beyond what usually happens in a recovery where you see tax

revenues go up and get rid of the automatic stabilizers so spending goes down, they figure going forward if that's a 1% drag on the economy, 0.9 of that is from taxes. what they talk about is the 10%, the sequester. they never quite get around to the 90% which is the tax hikes. so if you're really worried about the austerity, you should be for cutting taxes across the board. >> jared, i love the sound of that. >> i'm sure you do. in 2013, i was on this set consistently arguing that we should not let the payroll tax cut expire. and as i recall, both you guys were on the other side of that. larry, called it a sugar high. >> it is a sugar high. i don't think that's the problem. that's not what the san francisco fed said. >> that's a very small

percentage. what about the obamacare tax hike and income taxes. >> hold on. the other night you correctly pointed out that in fact president obama kept over 80% of the bush tax cuts. he i thought she have gone farther. so listen, thus far, we have generated 2.5 trillion over the next ten years in deficit savings. $1.9 trillion comes from spending cut, $600 billion from t increases. so i think the numbers are a little off. >> why do where e need to raises again? with the tax hikes you're taking tax revenues above the historic average when even you probably think the deficit has been overblown. >> jared, i'll say before you answer, i will concede that the tax bill that was passed, even though it was not to my liking,

wasn't as bad as i initially feared. i concede that. but i will in order concede this. we did raise marginal tax rates that may have a bad effect over time. we're facing big obamacare taxes. some people say it will be up to a trillion dollars. investment tax rates are going up, payroll tax is going up. permanently, jared, not temporarily. i think that's what the san francisco fed is really talking about. >> first of all, let me address jimmy's question which is about deficits. i actually agree as jimmy suggested i would that deficits are coming down too quickly right now. as i said, i wouldn't have allowed the payroll tax break to expire. i think the time for deficits to come down is in the outyears. and by the way, you guys, every time the deficit comes down, it's not a fiscal drag. sometimes you actually need the deficit to come down and you can't do it all on the spending side. as far as obama -- >> are you worried interest rates are too high, that deficits are hurting the

interest rates? >> not at all. right now i'm not at all worried about deficits. but i don't think the deficit should be going up in the outyears and if you look at the projections, that's exactly what you see. you can't blame obamacare by the way. that's a mistake. i'll tell you why. if you net out the taxes, in order to -- >> i can and i will. >> larry, you're a former omb. >> i am. >> if you net out the spending and the taxes according to the congressional budget office, the affordable care act lowers the budget deficit by $100 billion over the next ten years. that's macroeconomic chicken feed. >> jimmy, help me on this. i don't have much time. >> the one thing we haven't heard, that most of the so-called terrible austerity and figures c fiscal drag is coming from tax hikes. if you're so worried, you should be calling for low aer taxes.

>> we could debate it forever. all eye say is this. you limit government spending, lower marginal tax rates and that would be marginal corporate tax rates, the economy would grow twice as fast from 2% to 4%. and that would reduce the budget deficits over the next ten years according to the cbo by as much as $7 trillion. >> history has not been kind to supply side predictions like that. >> i beg your pardon. you go to the 20s, the jfk '60s, and reagan/clinton '80s and '90s and you'll see that lower tax rates and growth were the key. and i'll stick to those supply side -- >> clinton and reagan raised taxes. >> i have to get out of here. you'll be back. we love it. now, is there a real reason for smalls about owners to be more optimistic? a new survey says there is optimism. let's talk to two small business owners and see what they say. that's coming up next.

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join us at projectluna.com good news from main street usa. the nfib small business optimism survey edged higher for may. yet the survey does quote top business problems like tax

burdens and government regulation such as bobamacare. once again i ask whether the administration will understand real free market capitalism. but things may be getting out there. we welcome our small business owners rachel shine, owner of baked in the sun, and seth goldstein, a dunkin donuts and baskin-robbins franchise. rachel, are things getting better? >> it is true that i think that small business owners are optimistic. that doesn't mean they're getting better yet. the small business owners have -- who have survived the last four or five years have learned to become more efficient and we're hopeful. i think that's what that survey says. we're hopeful. but that doesn't necessarily mean we've experienced better sales or profitability yet. >> that's a key point. a great point. and seth, i want to ask you that. are you seeing better sales and does that enable you to get better profits? >> we are seeing better sales and rachel is correct, we also

are being more efficient where the brings thusiness that we're. but we are seeing an increase in business in mornings. we're seeing people come in hfr- >> doughnut operation. >> in the dunkin donuts part of the business is really a key indicator of the economy. we see a lot of contractors, we see landscaperses, we see salespeople on the road. so those are coming in in the morning. we see people doing that. we're definitely part of somebody's business day. >> well that's good. but rachel, you said you want to be optimistic, but you didn't really sound optimistic. and that's okay. if that's your feeling, if that's your view, fine by me. tell me what's on your mind. tell me what you're really worried about. >> i'm optimistic about sales. i'm optimistic that we put good operating structure in place to handle the efficiencies now. but we do have the affordable care act coming our way. and i think that small business

owners are very -- we want to be hopeful. by nature we persevere and we have all our skin in the game here because we live or die by our businesses. and our kids' college education is all i'd to it. so we need to be hopeful. but within the next 12 to 24 months, we're dealing with large expenses and large administrative tax. >> seth, is she right? this could be a nasty revolution in the lives of small business at least that's what many people say. >> she's 100% right. the regulations that are coming down, we don't even know what they are right now. there are like 30,000 or 40,000 pages written. we have about 140 employees in our 13 shops. >> so you'll have to get in to it. are you going to stay with your current plan or are you going to ask people to go into the insurance exchanges? >> we're going to create a plan. right now we don't have a current plan.

some of our employees get health insurance that we pay forks but we'll have to create a plan and work within the means of the regulations. the regulations, we're still waiting for. >> rachel, will you create your own plan? i don't know how many employees you have, but will you do the same and what will that cost? >> i have about 100 employees. and i think we also will be creating our own plan. it's an economic decision. our employees will all have health care whether they go to the exchange or get them from us. so for us it's a bottom line, we have to make a sound financial decision. s about and you you saibut as u don't know what the costs will be so all of us small businesses are just waiting. >> so this health care stuff will be a big issue.all of us s just waiting. >> so this health care stuff will be a big issue.us small bu waiting. >> so this health care stuff will be a big issue. you say it and i've heard it from other people. anyway, i wish you both the best of luck. go out and get them and i hope the optimism stays. anyway, thanks. the nsa surveillance story

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does the nsa spy program actually go deeper into americans' phone records than the obama administration's been willing to admit?

today south carolina republican senator lindsey graham says it does. does he still stand by his statement from last week? take a listen. >> i'm a verizon customer. it doesn't bother me one bit for the national security administration to have my phone number. >> all right. well, i'm going to ask senator graham my special guest tomorrow evening whether he stays with his original statement. anyway, revelations about the nsa surveillance of phone and internet data have americans questioning the government. but will there be any dire consequences for tech giants like apple, google, facebook if consumers stop trusting them? here now is tech columnist and rebecca patterson and stephanie link are back. you seemed more upset in your column friday than did you in your notes today. you're saying silicon valley is taking this in stride. do i have that right? >> i think it depends on how it shakes out with the public.

it seems the public is shrugging about the whole thing. the big problem is what happens when nonamerican customers kind of react to this. you know, most of the customers that these companies have are outside the u.s. and it seems like this program, the spying program, can kind of tap into nonamericans' records pretty easily. so these companies might face competition from local social networks or phone companies or others in china, india, where these companies really want to make a big play. and there they could be positioned as an arm of the u.s. government which wouldn't be good for their business at all. >> please pardon me, i meant slate.com. didn't want to put you in the wrong operation. let me go a step further. when you talk about india, china

and the oversee sas markets, is a question of trust or are the customers out there kind of less concerned about nsa? i don't know what they know in india about our national security surveillance. and it's just a matter of operational efficiency and execution. >> yeah, i mean it's probably both those things. but in china, there is already sort of suspicion about u.s. companies and this could be another thing that these companies have to deal with to kind of fight a neglect sif p perception. you might say the chinese internet is already surveilled. but an average person in china might think i'd ratheren part of a company that my own government is watching than the u.s. government. >> stephanie link, i don't agree

with that. i mean, let's take china as an example. their government is far more repress sich when it comes to the internet and everything else. and actually, i have to go through fisa and court orders and warrants. it's not like all these people are reading their e-mail. that's the part i don't get. are we making too much of this? let's ask that. >> i think we are making a bit. and i think china is an extreme. and i think u.s. is on the opposite side. so there has to be a little bit of a merge. and i think it's healthy. what do i want do? i want to own the security companies, the software security companies, because as you have proliferation of devices as you have seen increasing in social and mobile and in cloud and you get the security breaches that are getting more and more intense and scary quite frankly, you want to own the companies that will help solve that. i like symantec.

you had rad ware, palo alto, these are all companies that blew themselves up in the first gaur because you didn't have a lot of i.t. spend. but they're at the forefront of the technology. >> do you agree with that? >> we're overweight tech. a couple of different themes within tech. but i lived in singapore for several years and spent a lot of time in places like china dealing with some of these issues. and singapore is an interesting thing to think about right now. you have a strong well run safe country, not much terrorism going on in singapore. but you do give up you an element of human freedom. and people living there said that's fine because we want to be safe. we want to be able to do whatever we want do. >> is this nsa surveillance story essentially disconnected from the stock market? i want to -- >> i think so. i think it's -- >> sometimes wall street goes to washington and back. is this really an impacter? >> i don't think so. >> i don't see it from the guests coming on our network.

>> it's like the fed. the market has on get used to a new world order with fixed income and here they're getting to a new world order with cyber technology and cyber spying. and it's a different world. >> i think i would just say one thing, which is that they might not react at this point, but one of the things that silly c sili valley does best is have startups that serve customers needs. if customers start to worry about this stuff, you might see new companies, new products that try to help you communicate privately, that try to disconnect you from some of the social networks that mine your data. that could be a new market and i've already seen several new companies try to make that pitch over the last few days. >> google is asking the government for the ability to provide more information to their customers. i will bet you the government gives that to them. and if they do, that's going to be a great thing, isn't it? >> why not. >> that's why i don't think this

story has a bad ending. >> i don't think so. and again, i think you can point to the companies that will actually benefit from this. >> and new ones to come. >> i have to go. all right. thank you very much. we love having you on the set. that's it for this evening's show. senator graham and more tomorrow night. please join us. we'll be back. oh, he's a fighter alright. since aflac is helping with his expenses while he can't work, he can focus on his recovery. he doesn't have to worry so much about his mortgage, groceries, or even gas bills. kick! kick... feel it! feel it! feel it! nice work! ♪ you got it! you got it! yes! aflac's gonna help take care of his expenses. and us...we're gonna get him back in fighting shape. ♪ [ male announcer ] see what's happening behind the scenes at aflac.com.

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