i would like to know more about it. a very long discussion about politics in 2008, and the market with that because i want to know what part obama, how he will behave. we have every right to know. i want to know what mitt romney believes because the line did gentleman was describing is being erased. question number two, monday, -- money, money is not only the most important thing in politics but has also become completely unaccountable. $100 million, we have no idea who gave the money. that could be supporting organizations or businesses that are giving money to karl rove to undermine all my beliefs and i have no way of finding that out. and then he can run commercials

which are completely untrue -- and i'm not saying he is the only person. lots of people. >> including on the other side. >> including the other side, although most of the money is on one side. the people who are funding it are never going to be held responsible for it. it's a terrible situation. our politics, if we can't keep money out of politics, and you can't, then at least we should have some transparency and accountability for that money. we have lost that thanks to the supreme court decision of citizens united, so we are in a bad place right now. it's the single most important issue. >> we only have two more minutes. we will take a call. let's hear from dave in florida. >> hello. how are you? i have to ask you a question. i'm wondering how many times you have been to israel where you can give your opinion from the norman finkelstein school of thought that israel seems to be

the problem in the middle east? you claim that israel is an arab land, yet you don't even know your own history about your own faith, but i guess that's because you're a self-hating jew. you'll know that is the palestinian government of hamas and the plo denied rights of the palestinians because of the threat of eliminating israel. >> what do you want me to say? >> tell people about the book you are writing. >> yes, i happen to be -- my buddy, when i don't go to the three groups that i am currently a part of, when i'm not busy writing my own daughters bought this book, when i'm not visiting israel i happen to be at work on a boat called good for the jews, a study of jewish cultural contribution from the 1940's to the 19 --

>> global your here? >> american jews. i teach two separate courses on judaism and jewish cultural contributions and jewish film and had many close friends in israel who i love and have enormous admiration for people. they represent an israel that i'm afraid you're unfamiliar with and who agree with me that the worst thing israel can do for israel and for jews is to continue to depress the palestinians in a very and jewish fashion. thank you for your call, and you're not invited to my parents' house. >> and as we end here we should tell the audience that mickey edwards, former congressman from oklahoma reviewed this book and the boston globe. >> conservative republican congressman. >> and suggest you need not be a liberal or progressive to enjoy the book. >> at like to thank him if anyone will tell him. >> last question, give one name

of somebody that people will read about in this book that is not a common name in modern american history that it will learn more about. >> the author of a book called strange fruit which played an enormous role in listing in this country and inspiring and providing an example of a southern liberal who fought on every issue and made a great contribution to liberal culture that i had never heard up until i started this book. >> eric alterman, thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> as we continue our coverage from the los angeles times festival books and a couple of minutes you will meet the two people whose organizations put this festival together, the head of usc and the head of los angeles times. in a few minutes our next call in program right here from are set on the usc campus, lori andrews his book is about social that works and that that the

privacy. it's called "i know who you are and i saw what you did." we'll be back in a few minutes. [background noises] >> we are on the campus of usc with the president of the university and also with the president and ceo and publisher of the tribune and los angeles times. gentlemen, the second year of your collaboration, although the 17th year for the los angeles times festival of the book. i'll start with you. tell me about the loss angeles times interest in books and why you continue in this digital age >> we feel that it is at the core of the very essence of what we do. it is an integral part of our day-to-day reporting in journalism, connecting consumers and interested readers with our advertising partners and talking about books in whatever form on printed page or back late or otherwise with screens is very important to us.

it is the connective fabric for all of society, we feel. part of what makes a democracy work, especially in this election year, 2012, with you folks at c-span are certainly covering well, as you always do. >> the second year of your collaboration here bringing the festival to the campus of usc. tell people why you wanted it here. >> we wanted it here because we felt it's very fitting to have the festival on the university campus in the heart of downtown los angeles and also given the long history of close collaboration that we have with the l.a. times. so we are very excited to host this festival on our campus. >> what is new this year? >> well, i'm excited about last year the festival books exceeded by far attendance and any metric you want to take and look at, an overwhelming success. that is what makes it exciting entering this year's festival

that we expect more than 150,000 people to come on campus today. >> and for you, what's new that you're excited about? >> i'm excited because if you look at our lineup over 400 authors, 100 panels, and look at the audience this year, the people in this busy city that have a lot of other things going on, two nba teams in the playoffs, but hockey team, lot of competition. yet we have 150,000 people this weekend of all ages, at this city's, all mingling and have this common thread. they want to learn, the reid, be informed and make the authors who are as the verse as they are , indeed as diverse as this city is. >> how are you -- beyond what we see here, what else are you

doing that people around the country and around the rest of the state can take advantage of? >> we want people to know that the western united states and especially the california is every bit as much as los angeles is a part of the educated, informed crew. we are not here in the land of hot tubs and wine coolers. we are very much engaged, very diverse society, and what we're trying to do is reflect the stories and the news that we cover in whatever medium and connect our readers and give them an opportunity to do this. this is something that we give back to the community. yes, we have sponsors, but we are putting more and more interest as we go forward with our readers, especially great partners like the usc family. >> you have a mobile lab.

i'm thinking about how you use digital technology to expand. >> certainly. we just launched our own program . in five weeks we have over 100,000 people registered at l.a. times. some people call it a pay wall. it is a. the journalism and in-depth stories and minute by minute 24 newsroom that we have come as a price, but we have found that when people see your brand, see the value of what it is that we do, the stories we create, they are more than willing to pay. i think that's one of the things that you will see with many of our exhibits and panelists, what does publishing mean for authors in the digital age. the answer is, it's just a different medium and bridges connecting them in every way

that we can. >> it must be quite an educational experience to bring 500 authors to a university campus. i'm sure many of your students are in on the session, but in addition to sitting in, how else do you involve this event with the students? >> we publicize the event to alston communities. 37,000 students that we expect to participate in the thousands. they know about this festival. they know about the author's coming on campus. we also advertise this event through our alumni base. the trojan family has more than 300,000 members. each one of them does know about this festival books. so we expect a big participation in addition to that, something that i believe makes this festival mourn the -- unique or a new is that we have our drive,

asking for donations of books that we give to the 15k-12 schools part of the usc family of schools in the neighborhoods right here around campus. this year we anticipate more than 4,000 books will be donated , and we will make them available to the kids in the local schools. >> we invite book tv viewers in the area not only to come down but bring books for the drive. what's interesting about the two of you in addition to both being citizens of this community, if you have a shared background , both engineers and both and humanities, blending those two things together. is that how you can to collaborate? is this a shared interest of love of books that brought you together? >> i go way back with heavy. when he was getting ready to launch direct tv. at that time being in the engineering school as a

professor, 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago i met him for the first time. he gave me a tour of the facility. i have always admired what he is done turning out to be one of the more successful television providers via satellite. >> that resulted in this collaboration >> it had a lot to do with the. we, as you, susan, know quite well, c-span and c-span2, and like many cable operations, was one of the first to programming entities when we first went up and only had our first 50 or 60 channels. stays with us yet today. we feel that the blending and taking down the walls that are

perhaps traditional between schools of thought, literally schools should continue. there is a connective tissue of everything we do. usc is all about multi disciplinary studies. my background, while in engineering, has everything to do with learning the system and the human aspect of everything that we do. i think that's one of the usc mission statements and certainly one of the los angeles times vicious statements. >> as we close, here is the put you on the spot question. what are you reading right now? >> i'm reading and actually i did have the author from england who presented his book yesterday on our campus. i'm reading the biography of cicero by anthony ever. this is the author who has written three biographies and he is coming out with a new book in august, the rise of rome.

so he came as a distinguished lecturer yesterday afternoon. that is what i'm reading. >> the benefits of being president. invite an author to do a presentation. >> the doe say no to me. >> and would argue reading? >> i am in transition. i just finished thanking fast and slow, which was one of our book prize winners last night. and just about to start at and hot chiles opus on world war one. i have some family interest. i'm looking forward to the one. i enjoyed daniels book as well. >> gentlemen, thank you for serving up could southern california weather and congratulations on your collaboration. we appreciate your hosting book tv for the los angeles times and usc festival books.

>> thank you. the key for covering. [background noises] >> you're looking at the crowd at the los angeles times festival books on this sunday, almost afternoon. thank you for joining us here on book tv, the campus of usc with more than 100,000, some say as many as 150,000 people here on campus for two days to celebrate books. we're going to introduce you to our next guest as we continue with live call-in programs from our major studio. lori andrews is with us, a law professor, public interest lawyer, mystery novelist, and the author of nine other books. >> fourteen. >> fourteen. sorry. a big body of work. the latest on social networks. it is called "i know who you are and i saw what you did".

where i want to start is your dedication. it puts into perspective what you say in this book, the people of facebook, twitter, youtube nation, may your data never be used against you. how frequently does that happen? >> very often. it's not just what the post and your social network page, as we have all heard about people being fired for having a drink in their hand on their facebook page. 75 percent of employers now require their human research department to look at people's online presence before they offer them a job. it's not just what you put at yourself. to every it is actually collecting information about everything you do. if i send a team of to a friend saying and thinking of getting a divorce, that information come potential divorcee, if i buy an old guitar, when i get to a credit card side have offered a less good credit card because

people who are divorcing or are in bands are less likely to pay off credit cards. information about everything is used to not just send me coupons but really to deny me things like credit, insurance, or other benefits. >> where and who is aggregating all this data? >> it is astonishing. think about the ipo for facebook, worth 100 billion. what is there inventory? it's not gadgets and so forth. it is our personal information. 86 percent of their income comes from offering that information to people who want to target us in one way or another. that's just the tip of the iceberg. google makes ten times as much money, 36 billion per year, 96% based on the sale of personal information to behavioral advertisers. there are companies like axiom

which calls itself the biggest company you've never heard of. 96 percent of americans have a file there with at least 1500 pieces of a permission, including what medication's use . so all this incredible data is being used in ways we don't even realize. it is not just a matter of if you're looking for a job take down your facebook page. i have written mr. rees, mr. reiss. my google searches are troubling, and some people have been prosecuted based on lines of searches. 93 percent of the time when the cops ask google for information it turns it over. we would not be giving up this information to government, things like we put on our facebook page, political belief, sexual preferences. yet we think we are entering the friendly space. that information is now being

used by marketers and the governments and others in many ways. >> imagine if you are an interviewer and how many google searches you do on different topics. for our audience, we welcome your participation. you can use on-line communication if you like or the regular telephone. our phone lines are on the screen, and we welcome your comment. you can also tweet us, send us an e-mail, if you dare. how did you get interested in this topic? >> someone suggested that facebook has 845 million members, which makes it the third largest nation in the world after india and china. i thought, well, what are its politics? it turns out it has its own currency, relationships with other nations. it is like a country. rather than being a sort of friendly place it often makes decisions that are problematic. initially when people join

facebook they were told everything you say will be private and will only be shown to friends. in 2009 facebook made people public. pictures and names were accessible. it turned out there were critics of the iranian government who have friends in tehran or relatives. by just making their pictures public those people were beat up and arrested. so here you had a social network that had a tremendous impact financially, physically on people. they were like a wild west without any governing rules. i got involved, 2,205th anniversary of the u.s. constitution, trying to say what should be the constitution for social networks. >> are there other people thinking about this? is there an emerging consensus that there ought to be a set of governing rules and i would guess that would have to stress on borders?

>> and that's a tough thing, although it's actually the u.s. that has the lowest level of protection. so if you're in europe you have a right to know what information companies have about you. a law student wrote to facebook and said, what information had collected on me. it turns out they sent him a cd-rom with 1500 pds of everything he ever posted and liked and all that information, even when he deleted it. in europe you have rights to challenge. so tonight insurance because i did a google search for hand terrorist but i couldn't get it for an all or friend. my medical condition. elsewhere you can challenge and correct information. there is an emerging consensus on the white house recently suggesting we need an online bill of rights.

judges unfamiliar with the technology have erroneously set to lose any privacy on an affirmative keystroke. think how crazy that is. you can even apply for a job or make an appointment with my doctor without killing online. we need to have the same protections on line as we do off >> let's take our first telephone call. brian in chicago. welcome to the conversation on social media and privacy. are you there? >> yes, ma'am. >> you're on the air. >> hello. the day. i enjoyed reading your book. >> thank you. >> do you have a question? turn your television volume down. speak up please. >> okay. i want to know why this whole thing about people losing jobs, being fired from jobs where things totally unrelated to how

well they perform their job, why hasn't this spurred action as far as giving people more rights in the workplace where innocence and proof of guilt obviously does not apply? >> sure. that's an important question. one-third of employers say they fire people for having a drink in their hand, even just an innocent one class at a wedding. the most recent trend is for employers to ask for your private password. to get into bed, we are seeing some changes. ..

privacy is important. free speech is important, and yet you have high school kid being expelled because they didn't like a class or coach on their myspace page in one case a 50 some-year-old friend friended the hot sexy defendant in court on facebook and told her how to plead. in other case -- people are so used to asking their friends for advice about everythingful the woman actually posted the facts of the criminal case, asking her friends to vote up or down whether to fry this guy. so we need to decide what is important to us, and if legislators kept that in mind, they could make a big difference. >> host: this is the book we're talking about. the title "i know who you are and saw what you did." we're taking calls.

>> caller: my question is kind of off the wall but i don't belong to facebook, but how does -- can i still get the information on me that is undesirable or credit unworthy or anything like that? >> host: i guess his question is, is anybody safe? or is everyone vulnerable? >> guest: well, if you use that computer at all, if you use the internet you're at risk. so if you. >> host: if you charge with a credit card. >> guest: but here's some interesting things. dictionary.com, which every author loves, puts 233 tracking mechanisms on your computer to collect information where you go on the web. so, it knows what sites you're looking at. you know, or if you buy a book on amazon or make a travel reservation on an airline so if you use the web for any reason,

information is collected on you. there was a big lawsuit in california because one data aggregator actually convinced internet service providers to put hard wear at their offices that allowed that aggregator to collect everything single thing people send over the internet, whether it's "skype" calls or e-mails or credit card numbers, and so really is vulnerable if you use the web at all, and i have some tips in the book about ways to search more in a private mode or to be sure to close out your facebook page before going to someplace else, but google collects information like location information on your droid phone even when you have your gps turned off. and i don't know if you followed it but there was a recent supreme court case whether the cops could put gps on your car, and surprisingly it was 9-0 that

people had a privacy right not to be tracked because even just the gps location, which anybody with a smartphone is giving up as the move around the world, that can help enormously private things about you whether you have gone to a synagogue or church or aids clinic or if you're at a location of a competitor for your employer. so even something where you are can show something that could be used against you. the old max jim by people used to be, i don't do anything wrong so i don't have anything to worry about. what you're suggesting is the most everyday things can look nefarious,. >> guest: the most everyday thing. so one woman was in a workplace injury. she had to go through four spinal injuries, pins in her neck, and when she sued, in a legitimate suit, the judge

included into evidence anything on her myspace page or facebook page, and the judge said, she is smiling. she couldn't possibly be harmed. so, who would think that a smiling photo that maybe was taken before the accident, would come back to haunt her. or in los angeles, where we are now, the penalties for young people can be enhanced if they're wearing gang colors on the facebook page. what's a gang color? i looked up the l.a.p.d. rules and it's plaid. i have a 23-year-old son and he wears plaid all the time, or all black, and think new york art opening, and a picture of yourself in a plaid shirt might give you five more years. >> host: next up, a call from laura in arkansas. >> caller: hi. i appreciate your time. i find you're very eloquent and highly knowledgeable. my question has to do with the

u.s.a. patriots act, which literal databases people nationally for any crimes or alleged mental illness, and then you mention the no privacy for an affirmative key stroke. of course you're familiar with echelon, the protocol that was crafted many years back to capture all of the keystrokes, particularly using terms like osama bin laden or other link terms, and of course, now all of our cell phones are linked in also with this protocol with the u.s.a. patriots act. >> guest: there is an issue with the patriots act because it does allow the government to go to google or facebook and get private information, and google and facebook doesn't have to inform the individual. it is interesting, i did look at homeland security list of 350

terms they find problematic if you use them in an e-mail and it's funny because they include terms like pork and vaccine and the term social media itself, and they also include the term organized crime. and you know that people involved in organized crimes aren't saying e-mail saying, love tony, organized crimes. so some of the monitoring mechanisms probably ant even effective. but we do have to admit there are just also huge benefits one can get from social media. if you look at the arab spring and what was accomplished through twitter and facebook and look at things like "patients like me" people who have rare diseases and want to share symptoms so we have to find a way to protect it because "patients like me" one of the

dataing a aggregatedot ares was collectingings in. but this is a wonderful way -- something that our founding fathers would have loved you could express yourself so freely and get an audience to at it really about making sure that we have some protections there. they're not doing away with them entirely. >> host: do we know yet how effective do not track software will be for protecting privacy? >> guest: the digital advertising announced they were going to have a do not track mechanism. but it turns out it actually still is going to collect data. so, they're using -- it's a misnomer. they're using a term that we're familiar with, like the do not call list, and we think we're not going to be tracked. they're still going to collect the information. they're just not going to target the ads so finely it freaks you

out, like when you write to your friend and say i'm thinking of divorcing my husband, and you have ten divorce lawyers in an ad, and there have been problems with that. so, google admitted in 2010 that when young people said, i think i'm going to commit suicide using x chemical, an ad would papp that would say, call 1-800, two for one this chemical. so what the do not track being proposed by the advertisers would do, would be to still track the information but would not -- be a little more careful about the ad exhibited. so i really want an absolute do not track where you have to opt in if you want to be followed rather than having to figure out what company is tracking you and go there and opt out. >> host: next call from paul in florida. >> caller: my question is, why don't people take these losses

they endure through the facebook to a civil court and get relief that way? anything that prevents that? >> guest: sure. some have tried. and what has happened is that there are protections for people under the wire tap statute. so if the data aggregators are pointing things on your computer you think you would be protected, but the civil courts have said you don't have a protection as long as one side has given consent. and so if the web site has given consent to the invasion of your personal privacy, like if dictionary.com says, oh, it's okay for 200 companies to track me, when i use their site, then i don't have a right to contest that. so the civil courts have not been protective enough of privacy, and we need to really get judges to think more about

these technologies. >> host: our next call is from whittier, california, jerry. welcome to book tv. jackie in galveston, texas. >> caller: hello? >> host: jackie go ahead, please. >> guest: hi, jackie. >> caller: i i'm really -- i pay my bills with the mail and i fay with a checkbook. how safe to use intermet to pay your bills and do banking? >> guest: you know, it's -- i don't do it. so that may say something. usually that's a much more secure web site but it's very funny. right now there's a scam going on, a you can man moves into an apartment building and he friended everybody in the building, and so what he did was he went on -- randomly went on bank sites in the area and put

in that person's name and put, forgot passwood, and once he got the security question, like what's your dog's name, he knew from their facebook pages what their puppy's name was and was actually able to rob a lot of people of money who lived in his apartment building by using their online banking and having money transferred into this can't. a young college student when sarah palin was governor, broke into her e-mail account and published her password on the web by resetting the password by, where did your husband meet, and went to the social media to reset the questions. so banks and financial institutions have to protect you in a big way, much more so than does the online site of a -- oh, a magazine publisher, for example. but still, there have been these scams. so think about it when you

design your security questions for online banking and that would make it even more protective. >> next is jackie, galveston, texas. we just did jackie. let's go on to randy in pennsylvania. go ahead, randy. randy, are you there? >> caller: yeah. >> host: you're on. good ahead. >> i'd like to make a comment. the ted kaczynski, the "unabomber," his manifesto is just like what she wrote in this book. >> guest: i think there's a difference between someone who is really protesting any technology, because i've taken a much different position, which is there are so many benefits from this that we just want to go against the narrowess set of harms. i don't think that anybody thinks you should be kicked out

of high school for saying you didn't like a particular class, or that you should be -- lose your job over having a wine glass in your hand in a wedding picture, so all i'm saying, our automobile rights should be the same at our offline rights and that's not the case. through some quirk we're less protected on the web. so, actually, as someone who previously worked in the area of genetics, and i chaired the federal budget commission on the human genome project, so i was warned i could be targeted with others involved by the "unabomber" at the time, and one of the people who was close to me in that process actually was a target. so i take seriously and totally distinguished that sort of concern about all technologies and where we're going, but with my position, which is they're

great but how that's being used against us in an unexpected way. >> host: just to take this conversation a different direction in this book you tell us the u.s. military in february of 2010, embraced social metworking in a big way. tell me how. >> guest: it's stunning. you think that you could understand why the military might have the position, they don't want people in the middle of combat going on their facebook pages. a lot of other things to do but recently they started allowing people to use iphones and smart phones in part because military equipment wasn't functioning unless you use the app. so some weapons you needed to use an iphone app so there's isniper and other things to help your equipment, and the soldiers were so upset about being off my face and casebook, they can now from the middle of

battle go on social network and the military is flying in blimps with wireless networks, putting them on tanks. i find it extraordinary. and in one instance, an israeli defense soldier actually posted on his facebook page where they were going to bomb the next day. well, you don't want your soldiers doing that because the enemy then knows and can take -- so he was court-martials. but jason valdez was the -- the priests were coming to arrest him in utah. he took a hostage and he posted a picture on the facebook page. cute hostage, huh? and while the s.w.a.t. teams were coming in, he friended 15 people in the middle of a gunfight battle. so we up think we can multitask but do we want our soldiers, cops, judges, deciding whether to go to jail or not, tweeting

or being on face bill. >> host: staying with the military and the geo locating lf the various social networks, how does the military keep soldiers safe, their location safe? >> guest: i think there's this belief that we're ahead of the technology game so there are app that purport to tell you whether people in the location are friends or enemies, but you can see how easily that could be used. all you need to do is capture one american phone and it could be used against us. and so there isn't a good strategy for not having location information readily available, and we have seen where people then take photos, videos, of crimes against the enemy, that go beyond mere warfare, desecration of bodies and so

forth. and so it's really troubling to figure out what the limits should be on military use. >> host: our next call for our guest is from michael in prescott, arizona, michael you're on. >> caller: thanks. susan. you're great. i want to take off from the lady from arkansas. she was saying that the patriot act, and i -- those are big nsa building in utah that they just built, and hank johnson, from georgia, was asking an nsa director, whatever, in hearings, do they collect information on american citizens and he was like, no, we don't, no, we don't, no, we don't. what is he doing with the data when they get information, they can go get it? is that -- what is this thing? it's doing something. right? thank you. >> host: i've heard of similar discussion and operative word is

collection as opposed to. >> guest: use. yes. and so, i read the most amazing thing recently where the cia said they're so excited that more and more household appliances that have energy savings actually docketed the internet, and so someone said we can use your dish washer to spy on you. there's -- you know, we do have certain protections in place about government use, that actually are more stringent than data aggregators' use of our information. but orbit we're all carrying around smartphones with video capability, microphone capability, i think about pennsylvania where a wealthy school district gave laptops to all high school students, and without telling them of their parents that the web cam could be enabled from the school, it turned out the computer department at the school, the technology people, were taking photos through the web cam

without people's knowledge. so they took tens of thousands of photos of students, and where do students have their laptops open in their in their bedroom, coming out of the shower, they're half dressed. so one thing people don't take into consideration what are the surveillance capability office their own technologies they use. so there's a potential for collecting more and more information about u.s. citizens, among others, but there actually are more restraints in place for government collection than for companies that collect. >> host: brent in tucson. you're on. >> caller: yes. how effective is it to go into your browser and, if you're able find out these outfits that are tracking you, like net clicks or whatever, for marketing purposes, and then you put their web address in as something to be