they have some damning information about who was involved here. they said the -- >> host: your suspicion being if they were exculpatory or something that backed up what the justice department was saying they would feel perhaps the motivation to release them. >> guest: that and also if the oversight exciteey is building a criminal case for prosecution, they're not going to release that to the press because they're building a case. >> host: do you think that's where this might end up? >> guest: absolutely. >> host: what be the criminal angle sneer -- angle here? the view las vegas of the federal code? >> guest: on an individual level perjury is a huge possibility for at least the assistant attorney general, randy brewer, and maybe attorney general eric holier as well. the fact is that he has changed his testimony multiple times, the documentation shows the

opposite of what he said. documentation shows exactly the opposite of what the assistant attorney general lanny brewer said under oath in front of congress so perjury is one of. the they're looking at roger clemens for -- >> host: thinking about retrying him a second time. >> guest: so we take the two cases and the difference is these guys worked for the government and roger clemens is a public person, but he is not a government official. and so it comes down to, who is above the law sneer so -- law here? and i think perjury and also on obstruction of justice charges. >> host: do you think what has happened so far constitutes from your vantage point a wilful coverup? >> guest: absolutely. from day one. >> host: no other explanation from your vantage point. >> guest: no. no. >> host: not misremembering things north being poorly briefed. >> guest: no. >> host: being less than forthcoming because you don't

possess enough information? those are all standard and ritualistically invoked excuses within the government for communications and miscommunications. from your vantage point, none of that. >> guest: no. >> host: is possible. >> guest: you look at the evidence which i have compiled a lot of and it this is' a coverup, not coming forward with information. this isn't coming forward with admitting your department did things wrong. the one thing that the justice department has done, they've said, this was a mistake, let's move on. but the problem is that if it was a mistake, why has no one been fired? why has there been no consequence tore the people who approved this program? and why isn't president obama, like ronald reagan during the iran-contra, coming out and saying, look, this is a terrible scandal. i'm the president. the the buck stops with me. >> host: mistakes were made. >> guest: anyone who is involved in this, who should be fired, should be fired, and if criminal charges are necessary, they should be filed and that's

something we have yet to see and i'm not sure we will see that. >> host: two tick questions before we wrap up. you mentioned 1400 guns still missing. so there's no visibility on those? no none. >> host: so they -- that there could be more terrible consequences no there are not many thing attorney general eric holder admits but he admits there will be murders as a result of this program. for years and years to come and keep in mindings because as i said they put two out of 2500 tracking device on the guns, they claim they were tracing, the only way they can find them nows when they show up at blood, soaked crime scenes in mexico or in the united states. their final resting place. no telling how many crimes they were used in before that point. >> host: you just mention blood, soaked in. the sub title of your book it says president obama reside bloodiest scandal and its shameless coverup. that implys there are other bloody scandals, that this would be the worst of other bloody scandals. are you comfortable with that?

>> guest: i wouldn't say there's other bloody scandals -- >> host: that's what that implies. >> guest: i don't think so. i would say this is the bloodest scandal in terms of the literally people who have been killed here. it's not blood being thrown on capitol hill over solyndra, on taxpayer money and congressmen getting at each other's throats whether that was okay, whether the white house should submit information about solyndra. this is about people being murdered and mowed down in the streets in mexico as a result of this program. >> host: thank you for your time. >> guest: thank you. >> that as afterwords, book tv's signature program in which authors are interviewed by journalists, and others familiar with their material. after words airs every weekend at 10:00 p.m. saturday,

1:00 a.m. on monday. you can also watch after words juvenile, go to become tv.org ask him on after words in the become tvs series and topics list. >> richard john talked to book tv about the history of the telegraph and telephone in the u.s. the interview was recorded in the kings college room in columbia university's library as part of become tv's college series. this is half an hour. >> you're watching book tv on c-span 2. on a regular basis, we go to universities to talk to professors who are also authors. right now we're at columbia university in new york city, and we're joined by prefer richard john, who is the author of this book, network nation, inventing american telecommunications." so professor john, samuel morris invented the telegraph. ey yes or no?

>> guest: no. >> host: why are we taught that as school children? >> guest: well, we love tales of heroic inventors. and it turns out one reason we love those tale us because they fit the needs of the promoters who are actually developing the networks that would prove so enormously important in 19th 19th century american communications and indeed in communications today. so, yes, samuel morris was a gifted inventor who had the good fortunate to have a college classmate who became pat tent -- pant end commissioner who enabled him to try to monopolize the telegraph business help didn't succeed but that was the basis for the claims that have swirled around him, claims that surprisingly enough were then picked up by his arch rival,

western union, who used this claims in tornado buttress their own legitimacy as a corporation. so samuel morris did not invent the tell gravel and alexander graham bell did not invent the teletelephone? >> host: how did head not invent the telephone. >> guest: he was a number of very talented individual inside the 1870s who became part of a sort of a competitive struggle involving western union, which was then the leading dominant telegraph network provide ever, and jay gould, a promoter who had very small but very effective, at least for his purposes, tell telegraph company. so you have two companies competing for inventions they can use as chips in a competitive struggle, and bell was part of that. he wanted to invent.

the but his primary backer, who would soon become his father-in-law, gardner green hubbard, wanted him to develop what we now call a broadband telegraph and it was only when he did develop such a device his backer, hubbard, permitted him to go on and do his research on the telephone, and had that telephone patent been not part of a bundle that became part of american bell which would eventually become at&t we never have heard oft alexander graham bell so the inventors are operating in a political economy in which their own inventive genius is only part of the story, and indeed a relatively small part of the story. >> host: so, richard john, how would you compare samuel morris or an alexander graham bell to a steve jobs or a bill gates today? >> guest: well, they're very different. morris was an unsuccessful entrepreneur. bell did not wish to be an entrepreneur and gates and jobs

are very successful entrepreneurs. and in that some ways morris is the most revealing. he is the most revealing contrast because he very much wanted to rely on the last generation's templates for how to organize a business to rely on the federal government. he wanted to sell this patents to the government and get out of the way, and when that failed hoe tried to license his telegraph patents but this proved impossible. the federal government was unable to provide him with the kind of protection he needed in order to pursue his business. in the case of gates, he famously had the very great good night -- great good fortune to stumble been the exhumer business at just the moment when ibm was looking for a developer and ibm gave him the kind of

running room the federal government didn't give morris. >> host: are you saying telecommunications in the u.s. has been regulated since day one? >> guest: yes. >> host: was the telegraph highly regulated? >> guest: the communications networks have always been highly regulated in this country but regulated in different ways in the case of the telegraph, the original idea was for the telegraph to be coordinated like most office. morris tried for several years to sell his patent rights to congress and only after that did he develop his own unsuccessful network of telegraph companies. in the case of the telephone, it development -- gold a different economy. the rules of the game mattered and they're different for at the telegraph and the telephone in the case of the telephone the rules of the game mandated you have to establish a municipal frap characterize company and by doing so, you are obliged to follow all kinds of rules and

regulations likes in the stock, whereas the successful telegraph companies, the second generation, not morris but the generation that followed morris, they operate in a political economy with minimal rules but there were still rulesful always have been rules and always will be rules. it's just too important a factor and too bound up with all kinds of property rights, eminent domain, pat tent rights, to ever be leak a lemonade stand and that's the case in the past and the case in the present and that's one of the main theisms the book, is the extent to which the political structures within which communication networks evolved, shaped the business strategies of the promoters 0 who developed those networks, those structure shaped strategy. >> host: professor, how does the internet fit into the regulation structure. >> well, contrary to the assumptions that show up in popular books, the enter note -- internet was not instant vented

in anybody's garage or the world wide web. i is was a cold war project and what is remarkable is that no corporation would have taken it on. and indeed it really was only possible in a relatively short period of time. when you are trying to economize on scarce computer processing space. so-so you have cheaper long distance telephone lines than computer processing space and you need these computer processing space because you're trying to commute missile firings and that was the impetus that lead these cold war scientists to try to put together this remarkable network that really didn't have a commercial remarks until -- ration neal -- rationale and was not given a particular business model model model and has been part of the

astonishment of watching it develop. so highly regulate from the beginning, remains highly regulated today. even the idea of creating a level playing field is a particular set of regulatory arrangements and it's important that not only those of white house care about the history of communication networks but those who care about the future of communication networks, ring nation their relative -- relevant issues is not between regulation and no regulation. different kinds of regulation, and different kinds of regulation promote different kinded of innovation and that's really part of the story of network nation. >> host: who founded western union? >> guest: well, western union, as its name implies, was a sort of a combine of small tell gravel lines that were in -- telegraph lines in the midwest, between new york, ohio, and michigan, if there there were one central figure it would high

rum sibley and he was able to convince a number of merchants s and other capitalists in rochester, new york to invest in what had been at that time looked like a failed venture. that is to say telegraph corps. they -- because of the way the laws were set up there were telegraph corporations hither and yon and almost none of them were making money. so he convincees his buddies -- he was a poor boy, came to new york and had been helped best these wealthy merchants but he convincees them to put money into this corporation that becomes known as western union which he will use that cap grade school buy out the number of companies. the second key innovation of his besides getting together capital -- that's all the capital he needed to raise, that one point in time.

the other key innovation of his was that he figured out a way to get some of the benefits of monopoly in a political economy in which state governments were encouraging the establishment of lots and lots of telegraph companies, and what he dade was he established exclusive right of way contracts with individual railroads. so if you can get an exclusive contract between, say, detroit and chicago, along a particular railroad line, you are able to maintain that line at a much cheaper cost than would be your rival having to use roads or just having to bush walk threw open country. ...

by ingeniously used in the world to create the monopolies that the state. >> host: are there any comparison today to verizon and at&t are you install powers, et cetera? inaccuracy comparison intrigues me. in 1996, congress enact the law to open up competition in local communication. the idea was required to have lots of cable services and telephones operating. and in fact can work out almost precisely the opposite. we ended up with to dominate

communications. at&t, which was s. piece v. chicago told the company, second-biggest in the world. you have verizon, which was the new york telephone come to me, the biggest telephone operator. this is precisely what happened in the late 1870s. congress was intent upon preventing western union from dominating telegram line soden asked to laws to encourage competition and it is precisely the opposite and you outcome, it can establish and operate the business community, which was the rise of jay gould added that the fact the telegraph magazine that takes up her in 1881. that inspires a kind of horror and disgust on the business community. it would be hard to envision today not murdoch, not, no

business leader was as reviled as she cooled with an 1881 when he takes over western union. the great ironies he takes it over as an anti-monopolist. he was not won a special privilege and was simply going to use his own commercial acumen to move ahead and he does it in a way that immediately sets off alarm bells because he used the most notorious financial backing arab dh. i'm the most notorious buccaneer, the fellow who made his name by speculating and now is controlled -- and control of western union. the congress of the circulation, which is most important for us speculator because of his relationship with newspapers he was also able to -- it was feared and with considerable justice that the critics are right to actually plant stories in newspapers.

so there's this marvelous cartoon in which he says i never speculate. why did she could never speculate? because the control's western union, because he controls newspapers, because he has a lock on the associated press and they portray him sitting on the side of the stock ticker, that is the machine to generate the tapes that you put the stock prices and. and then you look very closely and you see that shape what is actually writing the stock prices themselves. so he doesn't need to speculate because he couldn't dominate the nation's financial market and that's the kind of power projects in the 1880s. but we have similar concerns today. warranted concerns about work at culmination and communications about the power of murdoch and google, the power of apple.

but it really was sent -- the concerns in the 1880s were more focused because of the ability of one individual to control both the conduits in the content itself. and if it's a lesson wake it from the story that that is the kind of control that lawmakers had mr. aground on. we want to segment markets and i think you can take that as a lesson out of this historical study because i'm not writing a book with policy pronouncements, with advice to lawmakers today, but we do have a long tradition of encouraging the segmentation of our communication networks and that has been a remarkably effective regulatory strategy promoted and is made the united states for much of the 20th century the envy of the world and the provisioning of communications and telecommunications services.

poster richard john, one of the concerns is the issue of privacy. with that initiative 1800s? >> is certainly wise and you really need to go back before it the electric telegram. the post office, which was an extremely precursor and it was the template for this insane though morrison man, a mental map of how to set up a communication network. the post office under federal law prescribed and a one other than a very specific well-defined group of outsiders for opening many letters. the concept of privacy in the united states come in a very calm that is closely linked with this postal policy, the term privacy and the idea that there's some image of a have a right to do with the government does not have a right to interfere with. now, what happens to the concept of the rights of privacy. the technology is very

different. in fact, in order to send a message by telegraph, you have to permit telegraph operator to ride out ortiz and,, to transcribe electrically your message. so that operator knows what is in the message byte code. that is one of the solutions. but then, what if you're a government official and you are concerned about content of messages? well, you have these triteness subpoenas in the 1860s come again in the 1870s, where congress called the thousands, tens of thousands of telegraphs and this from the present-day point a few in certain contemporary sports rather extraordinary invasion of privacy and that led to relate the end of the career because he was some of the telegrams that were revealed were quite embarrassing to him.

what is interesting about this historically as there was little outrage from congress about these triteness subpoenas. so who is concerned? the merchants were concerned in western union. corp. was actually moving these messages. of course telegraphed in the country was dominated not by the government, but commercial providers. so you get western union seeking privacy and western union payment standards in the telegraph should do the same bystanders in the post office. so the government is not necessarily the best guardian of privacy of the citizenry and i think it is a lesson we can take from the history of the 187 days in the 1880s. >> host: desanto borst i read from his invention? >> samuel morris died rich because samuel morse, a business manager hired the good sense to

invest in western union and that is what saved sammy morris, even the western union was in effect the great rival. and the irony is even richer because western union saw the value asserted a poster child for the new type apology and they're actually behind the statue from the still standing in central park. one of the first erected to a living american. morris is still alive and by linking him with western union, and they created this historic mythology that's really falls to the history, but it is one that cuts to associate a corporation, which had a rather low regard of the heroic adventurer who had a high regard today. so yes, by investing in western union come morris died rich i did cornell, who uses the money that he gets from investing in

western union to fund the great university, cornell university. so when a fire at elite schools is a beneficiary of total finance communications. >> host: birgit alexander graham bell codas university after inventing the telegram? >> guest: he had no interest in business with the library. he also became sort of a poster child. they tried him out when bell engineers figured out how to send a transcontinental voicesignal, which is a quite remarkable achievement. they put him up on under the wire, tom watson at the other because it's a different fellow, and other telephone put them at each end of the line ended his visit to the publicist thursday, american public, if you want an

adventure will give you battle a look at the watson at two ends of the line, but there's absolutely nothing to do with the transcontinental telephone. bill could have. they had a very fine group of engineers and they could have looked have looked at the main made into national heroes. they didn't want to do that. they didn't want to emphasize heroic individuals. they wanted to focus on the team. but it fell to between 1879 when he becomes a rich man and have an agreement between western union and battle nat and 15 he becomes an independent inventor and gets involved in airplanes and communications. his great passion was as a teacher of the tasks and that is why he was interested in telephone. he was trying to enable and figure out a device that would enable the death to hear and that really became and remains the passion. so he is a pure inventor who

really has a distinguished, distinguished inventive legacy. with morris, he was a very talented man, but of course his career was as a painter, a painter of heroic landscapes and portraits. he preferred the portraits but there wasn't enough money was very frustrating those in the commission. but they are in there, but it's really about promoters, entrepreneurs and financiers that the innovators and invention is not an efficient. if you care about development communication as we all should today today, innovation is more important. >> host: could it be argued that without cheap will, but what are communications networks be like right now? >> guest: yes, jay gould is a

remarkably effective entrepreneur who take advantage of the roof of the game. the telegraph network he commanded in the 1880s was extraordinarily innovative than anything there's a lesson there. this is a cool fall. if the rules of the game kirsch competition, then you can have a burst of innovation, a hothouse in the 1870. g golden western union compete with each other for innovation. pretty good. telephone, photographs, and that those innovations, for the most part do not amount to the benefit of the promoters and executives running the telegraph network. they use broadband telegraph of a limited scale, but none of the others. it is so different from the case of the telephone. highly regulated from the start, out of the highly regulated

amounts emerges bell labs, the crown jewels of the national industrial research in the 20th century, arguably the most important site in world history. highly regulated as a regulation, innovation, the competition are antimonopoly gave you a much narrower -- businesses with the missionary focused mandate, certain innovations that don't have the cumulative innovation that would make the telephone system at the mid-20th century the envy of the world and still to this day about the the internet. >> host: just thomas andersen figure into? >> guest: of course. thomas edison was one of those inventors who was competing with the ballot in 1870s to invent some team that could be sold to eat their jay gould or to western union. all