database of 120 million people to identify suspects in, of investigations. our guest is the newspaper's national technology reporter. is next.on journal" host: the united states files criminal charges against edward snowden. this is the headline in "the gu ardian." we look into the newspapers in just a few seconds. you are watching "washington journal." today is june the 22nd, 2013. charges include theft of government property and unauthorized communications of national defense information. if you want to get involved in the conversation here are the n

you can also reach out to us via social media -- as we mentioned, this is the way the story is being reported this morning in "the guardian," one of the first papers to print the story --

he is reported to be hiding in hong kong -- if you want to get involved in the conversation, the numbers --

in thism the article morning's "the guardian the," we got this from an online --

we're talking about the nsa leaker edward snowden. welcome to the program, our first call is tom on the line for democrats.

i have been listening to -- these people are listening to us constantly. with this snowden guy coming in , we do need our privacy. it is almost a relief to think that there is someone out there out could possibly bring it to the open that we are being listened to whenever these people please. the headline in "the baltimore sun and close " this morning is -- -- the baltimore sun the" this morning is -- "the baltimore sun this mmorning is

-- in my: for the first time life i feel like i am not paranoid. now they say it is espa. on towe are going to move amad in georgia. caller: thank you for taking my call. , i do notnk necessarily believe this guy was a spy. just revealed something to government did not want people to know. i carry no that the government is listening.

i am not personally worried but -- i do nottime condone it. i do not believe he is a spy. spy but iny not be a "the new york times" as well as other papers this morning, say --

according to the charges that have been laid out he broke the law. >> that is true. i worked for the government one time myself. you do take an oath. withu're not satisfied what the government is doing you do not say anything. once you leave you can say whatever you want. let us move on to john in columbus, ohio. caller: if you worked for coca- cola or pepsi, if you go and take their ingredients and say you know their ingredients, they are going to get charged with something. it is just like working for the government. you know when you sign your name on that piece of paper -- if you

delete something you are going to jail. something you are going to jail. the guy is a spy, whatever. he broke the law. in america we need our secrets kept secret. we probably have spies over here now. whatever he did, he better be -- he better keep running. we are going to move on to arnold on our line for independents. the trees don't need to be hidden. -- truth don't need to be hidden. what he is doing, i agree with what he is saying. as a black man i have been lied to all my life by the government. the government is deceiving the

people. this is what snowden is trying to do. he is trying to shed some light on that what was done in the dark. this is not a government of secrets. a democracy means everyone knows the truth. host: sylvester on our line for democrats from new york. go ahead. caller: how are you? host: good, what you think about edward snowden been charged with espionage? caller: i have an american opinion on that. i think this young man, he had no credentials, and if he did not have that type of education so when he got that information, of course he is going to bundle it up. i do not understand why people -- as an american and we are in trouble. we do not know what he knows. that makes me feel he knows too

much. he has no credentials. he should have never been allowed that information. host: more information from "the new york times" article -- room chris is calling from san

antonio, texas on our line for independents. has he admitted to the demonization of folks? host: how so? caller: it is called -- host: we are going to move on to denise in texas on our line for republicans. i believe the regional boston tea party, there participants would be treated as terrorists today. anything the obama administration does not want the people to know, that is detrimental to them, is treated as terrorist activity. time the lady first

disagreed with obama and she got time anyonem the who disagrees with him is made fun of -- it is horrible. what happened to snowden -- if i had the obama administration after me out run to the place i would be safest, too. line. donald on our welcome to "washington journal." what is ono not know his mind. these people are taking care of the country, they are protecting us against the worst people you have ever seen in your life. you wouldn't want these people in your vicinity. is nobody play with.

you do not run around killing any secrets. who do you think he was working for? just go to the process and go to jail. host: this is part of the conversation that is going on right now on facebook. david writes --

that the phones and our discussion regarding at lord snowden been charged with espionage. our next call comes from the line for democrats in kentucky. caller: it is bill. host: go ahead, bill. i cannot agree more, he knew what he was getting into. have worked with the tse before. when you take an oath you follow what regardless of the future. if you are time --

-- anytime ione search anything on the phone something comes up -- everything you do you are being watched. we to not want our government to tell us everything. people do not understand that until you get into that office -- want to get into that office and apply the knowledge that has been presented to you, the things you thought you would do may very well change. to theople have access information that has been afforded to you. in ansnowden charged

address a leak case. case.nsa leak we have a couple of folks on twitter who have responded to our conversation -- back to the phones, our ally for democrats. i am just concerned

because people should know, the american people should know that we have always had secret programs protecting the country. this is not something that was just brought into law from .resident obama even back in 1978 and probably even before -- the main thing is 9/11, there are a lot of things the that it doing to try to protect america that you would not know. as far as -- it is for our protection.

if you do not have anything to hide than you do not have a problem. . am perfectly safe the united states is trying to protect us. i have no problem whatsoever with e-mails, my conversations, being screened. your call. you for we want to let our listeners know about something that is coming up late night at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. it is the ceremony, the dedication of the statute of frederick douglass. that happened earlier this week in emancipation hall in the u.s. capitol. congressional leaders and vice president biden, abolitionist frederick douglass had a state

-- had a statue dedicated to him. remarks, d.c. delegate nancy pelosi and harry reid said d.c. residents deserve full statehood. other notable speakers included john boehner, senate minority theer mitch mcconnell and great granddaughter of frederick douglass. you can see the steady dedication in emancipation hall under that don't bear in the u.s. capital that you are looking at right now. you could watch it tonight on c- span at 8:00 p.m., the hon. florida onc.j. in our line for republicans. welcome to austin to journal. -- welcome to washington

journal. i am in boca raton up. host: what do you think about edward caller: snowden i think it is -- about edward snowden? caller: i think the club up by charging him with espionage. that way it may be possible for hong kong to keep him because it is such a fear -- it is such a severe offense. i want to take umbrage with people saying he is not qualified because he is a drop out. a lot of folks who:, i am nice -- a lot of folks who call in, i am an english teacher and they can even speak english. -- they cannot even speak english. a lot of people are talented and

smarter than a lot of people that get these degrees because you and i both know that our degrees are not equal. a lot of folks for whom i teach, there decrease to not mean anything because they do not know anything, not all colleges are alike. leaks things to "the new york times." a lot of people, like eric holder, and the irs guys, we found out they lied under oath. when you are in congress you take an oath to tell the truth and they cannot tell the truth. on what you said,

are you equating the alleged leaks coming out of the white house with the leaks by edward snowden? if so should the people in the white house be charged with espionage or should the charges be dropped? caller: the charges should be dropped. -host: thank you for the call. we are coined take a look at some other items in the news this morning as we continue our discussion regarding edwards noted being charged with espionage. this is in open " the washington --t," two different versions

this is the way the story is being reported in "the baltimore sun" this morning --

that the phones and our discussion regarding edward snowden, charged with espionage. from pennsylvania on our line for democrats, go ahead. i think that it wasn't the obama administration they would be more sensitive to what is going on right now. i believe news agencies should not put out a lot of the information. it puts our country in danger.

information --e kept the information in our country i do not think we would have so much terror attacks. it has a lot to do with why this is coming out like this. host: we are going to move on to wayne in virginia. caller: i do not know if they should charge for that. george washington would have been considered a traitor. -- were the nsa listening to tea party calls. host: use a george washington would have been charged. -- you say george washington

would have been charged. did george washington give information made available to the enemies of the colonies? caller: see would have been charged as a traitor. that is just an expression. a traitorou see being as the same as performing the espionage? caller: i am not saying that is the same thing. the call.k you for another story from "the washington post" this morning. obama to nominate two to be fec commissioners --

ricky in albany, georgia is on our line for democrats. caller: hey. i -- itng a veteran, could be lives lost behind this leak. in iraq.ugth ight

responsibility falls on the individual. lives could be lost behind this. i don't like it. i think he should be charged with espionage. host: we are going to move on to jeff on our line for republicans. caller: i have a problem with this guy being called a "spy." i have another problem with leakers being called "criminals." it seems like there were guns being shipped over to mexico a while back. that guy got demoted when he leaked that information. this guy leaked the nsa information and now he is being

called a criminal. i am wondering if these people should be called criminals because of that information? host: paul is on georgia for are on our lineeorgia for democrats. go ahead. and were snowden had stayed in america there would have been the same consequences. with being charged espionage because he leaked it from another country? host: do you think would still charge him if he'd leaked them here? caller: i do not know the exact amount of information he has. host: why do you think the severity changes whether or not the leak comes from the united states or is done overseas. caller: [indiscernible]

as american he could be watched. was he given information to china about what we were taking on them? that sort of thing. host: this story under the headline -- mor if you would like to see that

speech in its entirety you could go to our website and click on our video library. mitch is in harrisburg, pennsylvania, calling on our line for democrats. you are on the "washington journal." caller: great show. i agree with the charges. people have a tendency to forget, if you remember robert hansen. he was in charge. there is a movie out that was pretty good.

it is called "breach." it goes to show you how money can get involved with giving out secrets. they need to take this guy out after the interrogate him. loyalty brokaw. it just gets me mad for somebody to do something like that. he screwed his friends over, for crying out loud. mj : we are talking with from chicago, illinois on our line for independents. think that edward snowden is a hero. americans are so diluted, so that theyn, so asleep

do not understand how their freedom is being limited. they are being spied on. they are being watched, drones are flying over them every day. to thee counties federal, all of these governments are criminal, in same politicians that are very interested only in their careers and only get reelected. once they get into office they do exactly what want to do. as far as i concern the edward snowden -- as far as i am concerned edward snowden is a hero. people thinking

just because obama is for black people -- we voted 98% for obama and he doesn't even recognize us as a community. host: let us get back to the discussion regarding edward snowden. we have a tweet here -- calle thrownu think about records having stopped terrorists threats? caller: i think it is egregious. i do not think that as the government's right to spy on people. -type oftotalitarian movement that this government is going into. obama is no saint.

black people do not know anything about obama. host: we have this on facebook -- fromto our phones -- georgia -- tired of hearing the whining and complaining about freedom. they want to be free, they do not want the government to know what they are doing, they pretend they want freedom but

this guy should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. thes ridiculous to and let enemy know exactly what we are doing and how we are doing. helped aidn people the 9/11 terrorists with their bad behavior. every time something happens in this world it is always the government. people need to take responsibility for their own action. host: we are going to go to steven. people in the military are sent out to defend the constitution but what they are doing to address them in here is unconstitutional. host: we are going to move on to our life for republicans, noel in watertown, new york. caller: i wanted to contest the

did i wanted to -- i wanted to talk about the nsa. it is redundant. they should get rid of it. they have the internal revenue service and they are spying on everybody with those guys. there is no privacy regardless. host: ostensibly the nsa is to help defend the country from threats and the irs -- caller: i know, but they have ton using the irs as a club wheel from the white house. essentially they are doing the same thing with our records, whether they are phone records are financial records. not feel very safe from these people. i'm disgusted with them. host: noel in watertown, new

york. a couple of items in the paper this morning, regarding work on the farm bill. this first one says -- "the failure of the house to pass a new farm bill has blindsided the agricultural industry. the leaders of several trade groups said they have waited nearly three years for a farm bill and have been disappointed ask the legislation was held up by partisan politics." also this morning in "the new york times," there is a congressional medal --

you can read more of that congressional memo in this morning "new york times." you are on the washington journal, go-ahead. caller: i do not believe this snowden should be prosecuted unless he has revealed some specific assets, as far as locations of this and that. there is a whole -- what i have heard it as it is not a big deal. i understand government's intention to keep us safe. americans, we cannot give up everything in the pursuit of

protecting us. our: cleveland, ohio on next line. caller: he did break the law. it sounds crazy, he broke the law. he is a traitor. he is not a hero. he is a fool. we had the boston marathon and 9/11. i think the government is doing a good job. president obama is the best president we have had since bill clinton. host: we have a tweet -- another article from the newspapers --

paul in boca raton, florida. you are on the "washington journal." swore an oath to uphold the constitution, just like our president, and just like everybody else in our government. when he turns around and find out there was something against the constitution, the obama administration wants to go after him. he did not go after holden, he

did not go after anyone else in his administration. this is a big smokescreen. more people died of smoke inhalation than they ever do a fire. that is our obama administration. a part of the conversation on facebook -- our last call regarding edward snowden, charged with espionage, comes from rockville, maryland on our line for republicans. caller: i agree with the charges because that is what the government does.

and what i find interesting is one of these countries recorded these companies -- one of these companies was a voice chat program. nsa official said the only collected meta-data, so how could they do this from a voice- program? they are lying to us again. host: we believe that there. we want to tell you what is coming up. next we will be talking with anthony sanders, a senior scholar at george mason university, about the state of the u.s. economy. later in the program we will be joined by a matthew segal. he will be here to talk about issues important to young americans. you are watching "washington journal."

we will be right back. ♪ >> when you talk about transparency to the american public, there is -- you are going to give up something. you are going to be giving signals to our adversaries as to what our capabilities are. the more specific you get about the program, the more specific about the oversight, the more specific you get about the capabilities and successes, to that extent you have people sitting around saying, "ok, now i understand what it can be done with our numbers in yemen and in the united states and consequently i am going to find another way to communicate." there is a price to be paid for that transparency. where that line is drawn, in terms of identifying what our capabilities are, is out of our hands. if you tell us to do it one way we will do it that way. there is a price to be paid for

transparency. >> robert muller makes his last scheduled appearance before the senate judiciary committee, today at 10:00 eastern. today at 10:00, the nsa before and after 911 on booktv. key house with judiciary staff, investigating whether there were grounds to impeach president nixon, sunday at 3:00 on c-span3. guest: this is a challenging time for people who are conservatives. we have a liberal president who has not only been elected and reelected after putting into place some ideas and programs and products that i think are very wrong-headed. the public had a chance to re- elect him. a it is an exciting time. what i tried to do and many

others try to do is modernize conservatism, bring it in line with the challenges the country faces now. health conservatives and therefore the country on how to confront the challenges of the 20th century. there's a lot of opportunity on thinking about what americans in -- to get backy to prosperity and a four revival that we need. it is challenging, but exciting. >> more with yuval levin, sunday "q &a."on c-span po's >> "washington journal" continues. sanders.honey the fed chairman announced plans

for winding down the central bank's stimulus policies. welcome to the program. guest: thank you for having me. host: tell us more about what the fed chairman had to say and what the reaction has been so far on wall street, main street, and here in washington dc. guest: first of all he said we are going to continue buying $80 billion worth of treasurys and securities. or decembereptember we may start curtailing this a little bit. was lethal and quit. the stock market plunged 400 points over two days. it is still coming down. interest rates popped up boards. it has gone up just in the week. in "the wall street

journal" -- that is a good ". -- a good quote. the answer is we do not know. the fed is in uncharted waters. trying to generate gdp growth for cheap money is a theory. we are not seeing a lot of evidence for it. -- years into this recession we claim it went away in june 2009. it is still with us. unemployment and recession is

still there. unemployment is still doggedly high. they cannot bring it down. host: talk to us about what it was the and that was trying to do initially regarding this stimulus. why did they put it into place? guest: they never called it qualitative easing. -- quantitative easing. it is monetary policy. they are controlling that for decades and decades. was if theyory started buying long-term treasurys and mortgage-backed securities the drive prices up and yields down. bonds in the -- bonds and interest rates move in opposite directions. they thought businesses would go out and start hiring people because money was cheap and they

could do a lot of expansion. in the text book somewhere this is a great model. unfortunately it has not panned out that way. host: not everyone reads the same textbook? guest: no. host: the fed chairman mentioned the word "tapering." what does that mean? guest: it means they are buying $8 billion of mortgage-backed securities and are going to slow that down. $20 billion.to cut that this tapering. will we get there? that is the next question. host: we are going to continue to look at that as to continue this conversation. we want to try to get some of our viewers and listeners involved. the number, if you want to get involved in the conversation, -

you can also reach out was by a social media -- we want to play a part of the wednesday news conference with that chairman ben bernanke in ben bernanke answered a question about where the optimism for the economy comes from. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> it is the case that the fed has over estimated the economy's growth rate very often. we have gone through it. in the first half of the year -- we have gone through a period in the first half of the year. i would like you to explain where this optimism come from

that thisxpectations will be met. it is not only creating construction jobs but as house prices rise, support conjunction spending and consumer sentiment. they no longer have to lay off large numbers of workers. generally speaking, financial conditions are improving. the main drag -- the main headwinds of growth this year are the federal fiscal policy. estimates it as 1.5 percentage points on growth. given that very heavy headwind, the fact that the economy is still moving ahead at at least a moderate pace is indicative that the underlying factors are improving.

we will see how that evolves. obviously we have not seen the full effect yet of the fiscal policy changes. we will see how they evolved as they get through the fiscal impact. host: anthony sanders, senior scholar at george mason university, your thoughts on what the fed chairman had to say and the questions that came from "the wall street journal." his response is perfectly fine. it was a little bit shy of complete disclosure. the improvement of the housing market, what does he mean by that? let me give you one answer, housing prices are skyrocketing. they are going way up all over the country. is that a sign of improvement? not necessarily. a mortgage purchase applications, the number of people applying to buy a home, has been flat since 1995.

there is no improvement from the consumer side. "st: one of the headlines in usa today," -- is this a reaction to what the fed chairman had to say or liked what he said earlier this week kill this increase in home prices? guest: i do not think anyone listens to ben bernanke when making a decision. the consumers are not getting it, this is going to corporations and wall street and cash investors and foreign investors are coming and gobbling up our cheap housing. this rapid rise in housing prices is stimulating people to put their house and on the market, finally. particularly underwater households. the problem is that recovery.

this might be a bubble. he could be just creating a bubble with low interest rate policies, overheated housing market. the same thing happened last decade. host: one more question before we get to the calls -- as the fed chairman says, he wants to creep up the interest rates. eventually want those interest rates go up for home owners? guest: absolutely. this reminds me of the movie "jurassic park." the market will have its own will. you can try to influence it. may 2 was a pivotal date. that is when rates started rising all around the world. mortgage rates have been rising since may 2 and that will put it dampen on the housing market. host: we are talking with

anthony sanders, a senior scholar at george mason university. our first call comes from ed in douglas bill, georgia on our life for republicans. you are on the "washington journal." caller: thank you. i like to ask the gentlemen of what he thinks about the impact regulation has on economic growth and if he could comment on what he believes the true inflation rate is and whether or not there is an actual indicator of that. guest: let us start with inflation. the fed has a very narrow definition of what inflation is. know -- energy is very bottle toll -- very volatile.

if you include food the interest rate -- the inflation rate is higher. i think the true inflation rate is higher than the fed is saying. that is number one. number two, regulation -- common-sense tells you that if you regulate something more economic growth will slow down. the entire middle protection agency. they are trying to kill off the coal industry. you do not see it in real time because these things do not happen overnight. this takes years to actually come to fruition. can destroy markets terribly. there is a great theory out of the university of chicago on regulation -- basically saying

that one party being up on another group -- one party ganging up on another group to get their way, it is more about industries or people getting to beat up on someone else. next call comes from henry in michigan. the name of your town for me. who? for in's move on to roberto texas on our line for independents. of ben i am a huge fan bernanke. since he spoke the other day and the way the markets reacted, i think he should resign and have the president appoints someone else. i know the president cannot fire him.

he saved the economy. now he is destroying it. that is my comment. i would like your guests to comment on my comment. host: give me a specific on what you think he is to showing the economy. caller: there is a combination of things i think are going on. he is on his way out. there are no experts now. he is under water. he does not really know what to do. he wants to retract what he did and let the next person do whatever they want to do. there are lots of factors going on here. i am disappointed in him. sanders? the presidentrd, of the st. louis fed agrees with you. he thought it was premature for

bernanke to come out and raise rates. and the weird happens. global investors are not paying as much attention to fed policy as they were. menanke does not talk to except when i see him at a baseball game. he now knows that the market is starting to attach -- the cactus so from that policy. the market wants to go one way -- the markets are detaching themselves from fed policy. he does not want to have an honest and. it may not be his fault. aaron on our is line or republicans. caller: the federal reserve is

creating huge bubbles in the market. they heavily distort the market. the federal reserve is out of date and we should create a banking board to replace the federal reserve altogether. the federal reserve should be dissolved and have an open forum between the treasury departments and a new banking board so the treasury department will have more control over the banking policies of the united states of america and have more of an open forum so everybody knows exactly what is: on. good question a our point. nervous shakes when you said give treasury more control. that can work badly for us. this is not a criticism of jack lew. they have their agenda.

they are politicians. that may not be such a good idea. i certainly sympathize with the notion of abandoning the federal reserve system and putting something else in its place to reduce its impact. pound gorilla800 in the room. they can be toxic. they can help us out. they are also causing some collateral damage. bubbles, you are absolutely right. this is the same as 1929. massive margin accounts. everybody jumping into the stock market and housing is in a bubble. the federal reserve does not say it wants to create bubbles. bernanke is very scared of deflation, down were moving

prices. that was his doctoral dissertation. his solution is to try to create inflation. it is not even an imperfect sword. sword that hits everything it touches. he is creating baubles -- bubbles. that is by design. from we have a tweet joseph. does the economy recover painfully slowly? yesterday john taylor at stanford has an interesting study. this is the worst recovery from a financially related recession in the history of the united

states. generally, the markets are slow to recover. this is far worse. this involves the entire economy. it was not in the financial collapse. ,ost: in the financial times have a headline, fed signals sent investors running for cover. he delivered the clearest signal yet that the u.s. central bank was preparing to scale back or tapir its monthly asset purchases as long as u.s. economic conditions improve as expected. he commented at a news conference on thursday. was speedy and brutal. from georgeers mason university is here to talk to us about that.

our next call is charles on our line for democrats. caller: it is nice to be able to speak this morning in reference to the economy. my issue is simply this. we have an economy with the laws are not enforced. the big bank ceo's have gotten away with murder and wrecked in this country. not just this country, but this world. when american citizens can start trusting our enforcement again in this nation, they will be able to trust the economy as far as purchasing homes and picking the timing up and making a strong again. these ceo's need to be taken to task. america's laws in reference to our constitution need to be in force. i am a veteran and i hate to see things torn apart the way they are today. guest: i appreciate your sentiment and i agree with you

100%. we have to obey the law. send an e-mail to a turning general eric holder and ask him why he is not enforcing the law -- to attorney general eric holder and ask him why he is not enforcing the law. caller: mr. sanders, the question i have directly relates to how mr. bernanke has been trying to prop up the obama tax policy and taxing businesses when they have no money to spend. how is this going to collapse down to nothing when the printing of dollars probably -- finally stops and the market comes to reality of what it is really churning out? guest: it is difficult when you have monetary stimulus trying to support the economy.

the economy have to grow on its own volition. you cannot have this artificially-induced said stimulus. like any drug, it wears off. it may have already started. his it is not as effective, so we might see some corrections in the market going forward. the fed might come out like --lard came out and said, and say, he is only kidding. he is not kidding. raising taxes is a hotly debated economic issue. you can imagine website i am upon. in favor of tax hikes because it kills the timing. christina romer said that is true. gamendgame said -- the end is not going to be pretty. host: an editorial campaign

shows faith chairman ben bernanke pulling the rug on quantitative easing. caller: good morning. if printinging dollars is a flat tax that president obama and his administration could not possibly pass otherwise. you would not be able to tax the poor. it would be politically too difficult. if you print dollars, does that end up working as a flat tax? guest: there are two issues. one, do i like the flat tax? it is the where to go. you could say everyone under $20,000 is exempt from the tax. whenever congress agrees on.

there is no sentiment in congress to do a flat tax. it is economically much more efficient. we could scrap the entire tax code. we have a tax code -- we could have a tax code that is one page long. so many special interest groups and politicians are interested in having this extortionary and progressive tax system. probably will not go away. it should. host: in the washington post, -- headline, said officials to set official slams plan to end stimulus. he said he should not make important policy changes based on the idea that you are optimistic about your forecast. you should wait until you see some data. and kind of data is fed -- louis fed chairman james bullard talking about?

.uest: gdp growth the federal reserve board economist say it will be the best economists -- economists say it will be above 3% soon. that is a model. let's wait until we see these numbers. the flip side of the coin. bernanke is just the chairman of the board. there are lots of other governors who are voting. their concern is that this is sword that if the was talking about. it hits everything when you weild it. when inflation starts to heat up, it takes a long time to cool it down unless you do what volcker did under carter. he tightened rates so much that its strength of the economy. host: tell us a little bit more

about james bullard, the st. louis fed president. what is his relationship to chairman bernanke? guest: he is on the board. he is advisory. he votes. the problem is, i do not think he and bernanke sit down and go to baseball games. if you want to complain about bernanke, he is always at the nationals games. he is just one voice. the richmond fed is the most hawkish. he really wants to start raising rates. he sees what the rest of the market sees. it is a different theory on the purpose of the fed and what you think government's role is. the nationaly at association of manufacturers'

2013 summit, john boehner talked about the economy referencing what he called the new normal and said it is not good enough. we will take a look at what he had to say and get a response from anthony sanders of george mason university. [video clip] atour economy is recovering the slowest rate since world war ii. quarter, growth numbers barely moved. we are told, do not read too much into it. experts call this condition the new normal. some even argue it is good enough for now. it is not good enough for me, not nearly good enough. i know it is not good enough for you either. stay with aof us group that keeps 20 million americans out of work and threatens our children's future. we should be doing much better.

we are not people who hobble along hoping down the line things will get better. we are people who charge -- chart our own course. the people in this room represents so much of our nation's economic success and our potential for the future. host: anthony sanders of george mason university, your thoughts about what house speaker john boehner had to say and what role will congress have in all of this? guest: what john brennan was saying is that we have very french-like growth. there is a push to become more like europe. a lot more social programs, safety nets, taxes, etc. that is what we are mutating into. e. are becoming franc gdp growth under 2% or negative

sometimes. ofh a huge mass of presence government. extortionary taxes. unemployment never goes away. it remains artificially high. why? let's be honest. when you put in massive social programs and safety nets, some people may not want to work anymore. dole.easier to be on the host: we are going to go back to the phones. ino on our line for republicans in ohio. caller: i agree with everything anthony sanders is saying. he is almost a tea baggers. as far as i know, bernanke never mentioned the word taper. this has been a term from the wall street journal that has been used 43 -- last three

months. i think this whole decline in the market was something engineered by wall street and should be investigated. thank you. believe the expression is tea partiers. anthony sanders. that: thank you for offensive remark. i am not a member of the tea party. orchestrateeet this? we have the federal reserve in place that is meant to protect the banking industry. through decades and decades of data, what you see is that the federal reserve was put in place under woodrow wilson to bubbles in the market,

market failures. -- banking failures. since it has been put in place, beenng failures have fewer. it depends on your point of view. a big government type, they are probably doing everything you want. host: we are talking with anthony sanders of george mason university. he is a professor of finance and the distinguished professor of real estate finance. sis primary research interest include financial institutions and capital markets with interests in real estate, finance, and investment. our next call comes from richard in florida on our line for independents. how is it that if

the american people realize we spent $1 trillion to prop up the markets? i think the american people have something to say about this. we cannot keep buying our own stuff and expect the whole world to change. it is not going to happen. how do we get out of this mess now? i will stand by and with for an answer to that one. guest: i will -- i would like to know how we get out of that mess, too. the speedy, organized bankruptcy. off.bit it let them swallow it. bailouts are distortion airing and i do not think it is appropriate. congress -- bailouts are distortionary and i do not think it is a program.

congress does not call it a bailout. once you start building out, how to use scott? we build dow gm. -- bailed out gm. the post office. congress has to get to the point where they say, no more. you have to basically stand on your own. unfortunately, that is not where we are at. from newt up is nick york on our line for republicans. caller: thank you for the opportunity to ask your guest a question. i am intrigued by the notion of a flat tax. what with the impact be on deferred tax liability, specifically income that is being held overseas by corporations. we read about apple holding over $1 billion. there must be billions of dollars held overseas and not brought back because of the

taxes. i would like to know what mr. doctors thesis was on. i love having these types of tests. it would add more credence to the discussions if you had a counterpoint so we could evaluate whether it be -- but with the point being presented have merit -- to evaluate whether the point being presented have merit. host: thank you. we do have a great team of producers and we do occasionally have roundtable discussions. guest: my dissertation was on real estate investment trusts and how interest rates impact real estate markets. i forget with the of the question was. i can argue with myself, but i cannot think the host would like me to do that. host: we have a tweet.

sequester raise taxes and said says economy is doing better. our debt is currently not increasing. sequester has been implemented. that expectedis tax revenues are up. i do not think you are right on debt not increasing. debt is increasing. you will see the real time counter on the debt. we are still running big deficits. we are not running as large a deficit as we did last year. that is a mistake a lot of people make. in illinoisp is max on our line for democrats. as we listen to the question or comment, we will be taking a look at the debt clock. caller: it is nice to talk to

you, mr. sanders. if we had let this go and let it settle itself in the beginning, would we have all of these problems: on now with the rich continue to give richard? nowthese problems going on with the wrist continuing to give richer? getlong before we start to a little money on our own savings. that is mainly what i have wondered. guest: i hear you. the federal reserve has a policy to stimulate growth and increase employment. outle have gotten so blown about this. it has been savers and people on a fixed income. save?

that is one of the dawning questions. people are saving, but the savings rate started to plummet again because rates are so low. sword.he dull it is difficult to help everyone out at the same time. having said that, who is benefiting more from the policies right now. i would argue the people in the stock market last week. the wealthy did benefit deferentially -- deferentially from the fed policy. host: this is a chart or graphic that we have of the dow jones industrial average on thursday after the wednesday news conference with fed chairman bernanke. it has a fairly rapid drop through the day. 15,050 -- atut at

14,070.nd went down to do you see the numbers going back up or will it be a slow and steady increase? finished going down? could it continue to go down on monday? investors heard. somebody starts to do something -- investors herd. somebody starts to do something and they all rushed out to do it. the long-term trend will probably be coming down. host: our next call for anthony sanders of george mason university comes from bob on our line for republicans. caller: what i would like to

know is who is the federal reserve and how can they print $85 billion a month in counterfeit money? what would the consequences be of an audit of the federal -- audits ofman the federal reserve. ? guest: if you go to my teaching side, i post a lot of notes on the federal reserve and their impact pay who are they? -- and their impact. on theseout they are federal government organization chart. to say they are independent and acting on their own is not right. the president is to nominate the chairman of the federal reserve when it is ben bernanke or alan .reenspan or whomever

there is. that was a particularly unfriendly one to the fed. and: what with the audience divulged? votes -- divulge? on the one hand, if you are a believe that we are a global economy and we might have to bail out a german, dutch, and french banks to preserve economic stability, that is what the fed is doing. if you are more isolationist, you might get mad by that. i am not sure what effect on it would divulge. host: the fed's next move. can the fed to stimulate the

economy without creating assets bubbles? what are these assets bubbles and can be fed stimulate the economy without creating them? guest: the only thing that can stimulate the economy is economic growth, which is people creating jobs. the fed can try to maneuver and get everything into place. it is like one of those movies where someone has a flame thrower and they are trying to light it up to kill a monster and nothing is happening. that is where we are right now. we had a housing bubble. we have an stock markets bubble. we have a junk bonds bubble. they are at the lowest yield in decades. is that because our economy is in great shape? tot: let's see what jim has

stay on our line for independents. go ahead. caller: when mr. boehner gave his comments earlier, you chose to ignore something that he say. i feel like the republicans in congress are responsible for, and unemployment. all of the republicans in the againstve stood firmly spending programs, even for our infrastructure at the lowest interest rates in years. for you to just dismiss these stimulus forege -- ge and other companies. please respond. guest: i cannot pay attention to everything john boehner says. infrastructure. of course we need infrastructure.

i do not like the language on either side of the aisle saying it is obstruction. we have a debt problem. says there is not one. depends on what colored glasses you are looking through. we have to get too infrastructure spending pretty soon. we have crumbling roads. -- we have to get to infrastructure pretty soon. i do notlectric -- know where you are going with that. the fact that they do not pay taxes. is that what your question was? host: he is gone. i wanted to get this question in regarding chairman bernanke's success source. one of them is thought to be janet yellen, the current vice chair of the board of governors of the federal reserve.

do you think she would be a good successor? who would be your favorite to succeed chairman bernanke? obamacare out and mentioned janet yellen, is a good predictor that it will be janet yellen. she is a carbon copy of ben bernanke. she is a berkeley professor. and bernanke is a princeton professor. they follow the same models. you do not get to be vice chair if you are not in cohesion with the chairman. if you like what bernanke is doing, you will love janet yellen. if you are more a fan of jeffrey lacker, you will probably not probablyyellen. probably not like yellen. host: any chance that you will one day be the fed chairman?

guest: i do not think obama will nominate me. i did not think any other president would either. host: thank you for being on "washington journal" today. next up is matthew segal, the founder and president of our time. later on the program we will have the national technology reporter for the washington post. he will talk about how police officers are using facial recognition technology to solve cases. you are watching "washington journal." today is june 22, 2013. we will be right back. first ladies have a capacity to personify if they so choose. this is a pattern in american women in politics famous and not. there are two things.

they are women, real people, who actually do things. secondaryalso capacities of being a charismatic figure. many first ladies have become the first lady and realized this thing was larger than life. that was something that dolly figure out. she becomes a figurehead for her husband's administration. she makes the white house a symbol. this happens in 18 08. she does not know this. the british -- this happens in 1808. they were helping the public identify with this house they call the white house. it is going to pay off. it will give a surge of nationalism around the war. "first ladies" continues monday night at 9:00

eastern on c-span. >> the gettysburg was the midpoint of the war and more people died after than before. why doesn't loom so large in national memory? considered the statistics. three days of fighting, july 1 through july 3, 1863. 7000 killed. 33,000 wounded, some of whom later died. 11,000 missing. of 50,000 total casualties in 13 day period. anniversary of the battle of gettysburg on american history tv on c-span 3. "washington journal" continues. is founderew segal

and copout -- co-president of our time. tell us what is our time and how does it reach out to young americans? guest: it is an advocacy organization for the millennial generation. we breakdown news and policies in partnership with social toia and online destinations help drive better awareness of what is happening in washington, d.c. we launched campaigns that advocate for voter registration and modernizing our election system, as well as issues important to the millennial generation. host: established in march, 2011 with more than 1 million members. why was there a need for this organization to be created? where young people not getting their news from mainstream sources? guest: if you look at the

mainstream news trends, not only has there been a huge segue into generations, but our spends the majority of their time interacting with each other and with news and commentary through social media networks. in order to break down policy today, you have to live and communicate with our generation whether it is through facebook die, who or funny or we are partnered with to bring down the student loan debate and issues around the 2012 elections. our generation and how we view the world, we are a much more visual generation. we like images and graphics to help bring down content. we make everything visual for our website. people can follow us on facebook and tumbler. -- tumblr.

we give you the key information in a vernacular and sensibility that resonates with our demographic. host: how is our time funded? guest: our time is funded solely (c)3 and foundations and families that care about civic engagement. our donors are discussed and we are transparent about everything. host: he talked about the 2012 alexian. theording to a cnn poll, views on president obama, overall, they have a disapproval rate of 50%. their thoughts regarding his approvedof the deficit a 30%, disapprove 67%.

surveillance approved 33%, disapprove 62%. foreign affairs, 43% approve and 55% disapprove. why is it that this group, 18- 34-year-old have such takedown view of the president when that was the move he appealed to in downest such a -- such a view of the president when that was the group he appealed to in 2008? the disapproval rating is higher than the approval rating. guest: if you read the poll and what the director said, there is a feeling that many of the

president's promises to change washington have gone unfulfilled. you into a city like this when there is such a large group of interns and dress, it is hard to move. you heard promises immediately to close guantanamo. there was a lot of frustration with the patriot act. a lot of policies five or six years later remained the same. there is some frustration. i also think there is a fundamental -- if you looking at previous polling -- trust that the president wants to do the right thing. he reflects the future of america not only in his background, but in his social views, which are in line with our generation. social- social views and progress -- progressiveness is in line with the millennium generation. there is a lot of concern about

the cost of higher education, about the job market and about the national debt, which will cause some degree of future tax burden on our generation. we see this president pragmatically. the one thing you will hear from me today is that we are a pragmatic generation. not that ideological. organization would call on your show to the independent line in the way we bring down issues. host: you let me ride into where we are going to go. we want to talk to our viewers old and young alike. 202-585-3881 for republicans, 202-585-3880 for 18-30 year and for

3833.282-585- you can also reach out to us through social media. our first call for matthew segal comes from tim from michigan. caller: good morning, gentlemen, bother atf you wear all by the irs? i was curious. i will get off of the phone and listen to your answer. host: why would you think matthew segal would be targeted by the irs? organizations have been more closely scrutinized. targeted bynot been

the irs. i did not think anything that we do about our mission of education and occasionally taking stances that are largely dewpoint -- largely in line with our generation's dewpoint would raise flags. we follow laws that are consistent with being a 501 (c)3. host: as a group that focuses on the concerns of young people, do you find that you are generally associated with liberal causes and liberal agenda as? guest: that is a great question. i would like to say we are a pro-generational organization. if you look at where our generation stands, there are a couple of trends. no generation is monolithic.

there are exceptions to every rule. there is a wide degree of diversity of opinion among and 80 million strong generation. when it comes to issues of equality, that is seen as a way of life, not even a political belief. when it comes to marriage equality or equal rights and treatment in the workplace or paid with gender and wages, that is a no-brainer in something that is seen as an apparent the for our generation. when it comes to issues of fiscal concern, i would say we are fiscally concerned and rather moderate. whether it is on the deficit hawk or on the costs that are spiraling in products and services in america, young people favor a hybrid approach of some government intervention with the free market. moderate fiscally and economically.

we have gone up in the eighth day and age of pragmatism where we are uniquely deferential to math and science -- grown up in an age of pragmatism where we are uniquely the for rental to math and science. uniquelyd -- defferenctial 2 less than. deferential to math and science. caller: i am a former teacher. doing all the presentations and graphics is very appropriate. we laugh about this generation being add. they did not have to drill down into articles, just three bullets. i got a chuckle out of that.

the gentleman said president obama has been blocked by the stagnant atmosphere in washington. he has not been able to push forward his policies because washington is stuck and locking him. he has promised to close guantanamo bay. he can do it by executive order, but he has not done it came a -- he has not done it. ofincreased the number troops in afghanistan, which was in compliance with george bush's policies. that has been a failure. people generally do not identify her arrival,'s policies with his persona. in other words, they feel he is a good guy and he loves the country and wants to do the best for it. he is some of the victim of washington, d.c. i would like to hear more about what the young man has to say about that. guest: good question.

the 2007 and 2008 campaign was not only an historic one -- especially on the democratic ticket with hillary clinton versus barack obama -- but there was a huge level of disenchantment among the young generation with the policies of the bush administration. there was an unpopular war and a weak economy. when a candidate that had a quick ascend will rise to stardom and relevance and promises change when there was a level of frustration that was unprecedented with washington, d.c. and congressional approval ratings were extremely low, the large notion of people supporting and believing in the president and wanting to cast productions in what he wanted to in whatest projections he wanted to do creek -- in what

a highed to do created level of high expectations. that created a pretty tough system to govern with between the legislative and executive branch. i realize democrats had a small majority in 2008. there was still a large degree of unanimous obstruction coming from the republican party. instead of trying to cast blame on either party, there is a general degree of unanimity within party voting behavior that makes it difficult in today's day and age for the modern congressional member to survive his or her reelection campaign. it is tougher to reach consensus. it is tougher to about your party and reach out across the aisle. those are not values of our

generation, but that is the situation in washington, d.c. that is why millenials will give the president some degree of the past. the president is the commander and chief -- commander in chief. let's hope he continues to try harder and reach out to the hill. the system of this function in washington is disappointing to say the least. callingxt up is moses from florida. he is calling as an independent. he is 30 years old. thank youd wanted to guys for what you do. it is a great service. it shows the bill ritter aspects of this country that we can comment on a show -- it shows the greater aspects of this

country that we can comment on a show like this. in reference to why my specific age group has a lower approval rating of 0, when we were the age group that supported his rise into -- breaking of zero, when we were the age with the support his rise into office, we were disillusioned. outthe first time, i went and volunteer and i was canvassing and knocking on doors. as far as the policies and what not, i have been pretty see obama's to handling of certain things like guantanamo, the surveillance that is going on, a lot of the things that have been in the news. .t is hard to stay motivated

you can watch some of obama's speeches prior to being in office and things he is talking about now. it is almost like he is debating himself. host: we will leave it there. talk about the motivation aspect. ha guest: the motivation aspect of my demographic. -- particularly guest: the motivation of my demographic. -- guest: the motivation of my demographic. my group pushed for the national expansion of national service in the past because we think that is exactly the sort of post- partisan goal that our country needs to settle on in order to bring people together and excite the next generation. a lot of the day to day functions are political

machinations, political pandering to score: points in a week to week context. points in apolling week to week context. if the people and congress could push forward with laser vision, you could create a situation where the people could show up and vote in greater numbers. they would volunteer on campaigns and get involved in the legislative process. host: a programming note. "newsmakers," congressman joe courtney is our guest. we will talk about student loan interest rates and get a response from our guest. [video clip]

>> anybody in this business understands the power of this issue. 84% of the public is opposed to letting the rates double or go up from rates that are far above regular consumer rates for other products like home mortgages and car loans. speaker boehner did move forward with the bill in may. this is an issue that they need to handle with care. it cuts across every state, blue familiesiddle-class and upper-class families. they are struggling with college costs. the political power on this issue is dangerous for either side to be on the wrong side of.

each side is to blame for allowing this to happen. -- can see host: you can see each side. it is all about -- also available online. your response? guest: our organization and a few others will have a lot to do with that. we have a petition on our website where people can rally and asked congress not to double their rate. this is not an issue that anybody wants to be on the wrong side of. if you look at the massive burden of student loan debt, it is more than $1 trillion cubic in. has $26,000consumer

in consumer loans. high unemployment, lower wages. the american dream here is harder to achieve for this generation that the current moment. that is not to say we have lost our sense of optimism. is,fact of the matter congress is going to have to coalesce around a solution. what has of said me and many other applicants can young people and students -- student loans don't just affect students currently. about half of the borrowers of this country are over the age of 30 and still paying back their loans. interestingly, he stood alone interest-rate debate is only a symptom of a larger problem, which is the spiraling and

outlandish cost of higher education in this country. higher education has continually outpaced inflation and the cost of any other goods. the roots of on the problem rather than the costsms -- there are many in education. whether it is the monopoly pressure of people needing to enroll in college or whether colleges are not necessarily being forced to disclose their job placement statistics. we can work in tandem around all those reasons. in the capital, they are just talking but with the weird when to kick the can down the road for another year -- talking about whether we are going to kick the can down the road for another year. i hope congress will have the larger debate as to how student

loan debt interest rates can become less of a problem by virtue of making higher education more affordable. debatewe have a mini- going on here on c-span this morning. of minnesota discuss the student loan rates as well. he urges the president to come together with house reported -- house republicans to find a long-term solution for student loan interest rates. [video clip] solutiond a long-term that is washington out of the business of setting rates. fortunately, president obama agrees. he offered a plan for long-term reform by time and interest rates to the market. republicans put together a similar measure, the smartest solution for students at. the house passed it last month,

weeks before the deadline. senate democrats actively blocked the president's plan and refused to consider hours. they have yet to pass a solution of any kind. if i did not know any better, i would say they are content to let rates double. republicans are heading forward in good faith. we need more leadership from president obama. john brennan sent a letter to the president this week asking johnto sit -- john r. -- boehner sent a letter to the president this week to ask him to show leadership. we need him to finish the job. the republican media address given by representative ein, who is the chairman of the workforce committee. your response.

guest: there is one big philosophical disagreement. said there is not used difference between his plan and the president's plant. the money that is made currently offer of student loans in this country under the house republican plan will be directed toward deficit-reduction. that has offended many student borrowers, as was the president saying he should not reduce the deficit on the backs of students and that students are already in so much debt that how can we take surpluses from a program and give it toward deficit-reduction when that money should go toward greater college affordability. takeresident wants to excess money and put it back into the higher education fund, particularly a program he

created called income base for payment where you only have to pay that 10% of your income for 20 years before your student loan debt is forgiven. that will help student borrowers not have to pay such a disproportionate degree of their paycheck every month to help with some of the burden of student loan debt. student loan that hurts consumers spending and hurts the overall economy. it hinders people's ability to buy homes or buy cars or start a business or a family. it is important that any money -- of of constraints interest rates, in my opinion, goes back toward the larger route of the problem, which is college -- larger root of the problem, which is college affordability. host: we are talking with

matthew segal, the co-founder of our time. we are talking about what his organization is doing to promote awareness caller: many thanks to c-span. i want to personally commend matthew for his comments on behalf of the young people of our nation. i think the 18-30 group right now is the future of america because they are optimists. and i'm a former republican activist, i'm now reagesterd democrat because i'm very disappointed with people like john boehner and mitch mcconnell. i think what matthew is saying that the young people of today in america are optimists and they do not believe that the word liberal and progressive is a dirty word. they want something to happen

and they don't want to have the continuing gridlock that we have right now in washington. and i believe that people like matthew and his group of our time people are going to take this country in an even stronger position in the future. i want to say that the reason that i believe as an observer that the young people of this country supported president obama in 2008 and 2012 was based on his campaign slogan of yes, we can. and boehner and mcconnell are ruining the republican party with their attitude of it won't work, we're against it. host: we're going to move on to dwayne in texas. he's 26 and calling in as an independent. caller: good morning. thank you gentlemen both for your time here at c-span and what you provide here. i guess the exception to the rule -- and i don't understand

why it is the role of government to provide student loans or the role of government to decide who is to be married or to get a house loan. that i think is a little more ideological than pragmatic. host: did you go to college? caller: yes. host: how did you pay for it? caller: with private loans. host: all right. guest: great question. there's a really philosophical debate at the heart. which is is is there a roll of government in making sure that higher education is accessible through grant money and through subsidizing student loans. and there's a legitimate argument that certainly a -- an argument that by subsidizing loans you are making them more available and increasing demand and opportunity for people to enroll in college which doesn't force colleges to keep their costs doin or in check.

but regardless the heart of the issue is the heightning income inequality in our country. if college remains, if higher education remains a system where only the elite or the sons and daughters of well-off people can enroll, then you're going to see a heightning and greater disparity between the haves and the haves not where you have one america who is likely to earn about $1 million more their lifetime which we know is part of the statistics if you graduate college you're going to have a better income and ticket to uper mobility. and then you have people who can't afford an opportunity to go and are therefore essentially more dictated toward a certain life path that's not as well off. and the federal government which often comes in as a force to abate inequality has decided that by entering the student loan market that's one of their goals and a lot, as in most young people -- and our generation is extremely

disappointed about the growing income inequality and the genesis of that was not only seen as occupy wall street in 2011 but generally by the widespread support of efforts to tax the rich, where if you look at polling our generation believes that wealthier people should be paying higher taxes. but coupled with that we also believe in cutting certain programs and having an honest debate about long-term solvency on issues. there's a pragmatism. but really that philosophical question is at stake here. and whether or not higher education should be funded publicly like k-12 education is, you need higher education today more so than ever before to get a good job but you need it to be qualified and get training to get hired and to be able to work in most emerging industries, especially in light of our technology and informational economy and culture that we now live in.

host: regarding jobs, the overall unemployment rate for may 2013 was 7-1/2% but for folks 16-19 years old their unemployment rate was 22%. -24-year-old, 12% and 25-29, 8%. 30-34-year-olds, 6.4%. what do you see as the turn around for getting young people employed and how big of an issue is this going to be? guest: it's going to be a big issue. unemployment has ranked the top issue coupled with higher education affordability. over the past several years. and in our current deficit focus culture and debt focus culture it's going to be hard to get any programs that is

federal spending around jobs through. so i'm not particularly bullish on seeing congress pass another jobs program for millenials and i think as a result you might see depressed voter turnout because there will be less efficacy with our political process. and then there's less of a motivation to show up. one thing that's important to note here is that young people want to see something get done. we have this culture where we can get instant information where we can pull up through a drive through and get a meal, where we can walk into a store and buy something, where we can change an outcome through clicks and through text messages very quickly. then we have this legislative process that is so bureaucratic, slow moving and gridlocked that it is hard to

reconcile the two cultures which vary. and so getting people to understand and to have the patience to be in the political process for the long haul is exactly where the role of organizations like mine come in. and certainly it's our hope that we can continue to increase turnout in the mid terms but a lot of that will be tied to congressional and xecutive action. ost: on twitter. guest: i think most and sadly due to the drop in civic education at the high school level in this country don't have a sophisticated enough understanding of the limitations of every branch of government. and even necessarily an understanding of the difference between local and federal government. and i think a lot of that comes back to the fact that we over the last several years have

tried to depoliticize the classroom and in fear of politicizing the classroom we have cut civics programs from american history and from high school to the point where the burden on increasing civic education has to be picked up and absolved by many nonprofit institutions. host: robert lambert writes a tweet. let's go back to the phones. betty in louisiana for republicans. caller: thank you. i was really impressed with the young man on. but what i want to ask is that does he realize that this is his future? you tell us that pragmatic. well, i'm glad to hear that. but if you base your ideas on fact, i would like to know what

do you make of the -- what's the direction that america is taking now? and do you remember your history? do you remember -- do you see what europe is right now? europe is in dire straits. this is us. this is you. your future. and the next 20, 30 years. the government cannot provide you with everything. government can give you an atmosphere in which to work. they can say, ok, here are the ground roots level. everybody go for it. and your skill, your education, your ambition, all of that will help you to see how far you go. host: we're going to leave it there. matthew. guest: i think betty is right. absolutely it is our future and i think there is a huge focus on personal responsibility and i think the views toward government if you look at polling shows that there's a necessity for some government intervention but we also believe in entrepreneurship.

look at all the great startups that have been founded by millen yls and young people. not only in the text but also in the retail markets and look at the rise of social entrepreneurship. my favorite fact about our generation is that we're the first generation in the last several, four or five generations who have been polled on this topic, to say that corporations should do more than just make money. that they actually have a responsibility to the public and to the community to create social footprint and impact based on their work. so if there's such a focus on excessive profit tiering over the serving the public interest, you create a system where not only a few are well off and able to persist with great means. i think that is largely seen as an atsdz ma to our generation. host: next up, willie in florida.

caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i would like for you to tell us what the purpose of your organization is. and then secondly, if you are a new administration and someone tells you that their main goal is to make sure that you are just a one-term president how do you feel? how does your organization feel that you will imin terms of getting your policies into effect? guest: i already touched on the second point and to answer your first question the goal of our organization is to help drive civic awareness among our generation, put most simply and that's through breaking down content and news and policy on our website and through our social network in a way that makes sebs, is relevant to our generation, and increases people's literacy as to what's

going on. and then past that we hope they'll take action not only through registering to vote but contacting their congressional representatives and local and federal government outlets to help make their voices heard around the issues that are largely important and consensus drien among our generation. now, to the second point just to reiterate, i think when you had a senate minority leader that you reference who said that the goal of his caucus is to get the president to fail that is largely rejected scorned upon and viewed as outrageous and unfair. and to a certain degree generally idiotic for a generation who would like to see progress be made. i think that statement reflects everything that's wrong with washington, d.c. but i don't think it necessarily should cast an entire dispersion on a party. i think there are sensible

republicans who want to work with democrats to see these things get done. i think mr. mcconnell's comments there are certainly lamentable. host: what kind of response are you getting regarding the situation that is on the front page of the guardian this morning regarding edward snowden being charged as a whistleblower with espionage? guest: it's interesting to look at the most recent poll you referenced this morning about where our generation stands on the whole issue of privacy. there is a huge value on transparency. and expectation of transparency among our generation. we opt in and submit all of our data and divulge our personal lives through g mail, through facebook, through twitter, through tumbler and so forth. and we know we're opting in and we realize that there is a certain social contract that's made there that certain data

will be polled and given to advertisers and that's expected. but following the same logic when it comes to the federal government, we don't necessarily believe we live in a very privacy oriented culture any more. we do believe that there should be a certain degree of transparency that is akin with the way we expect transparency from the private sector. and so when it was revealed by edward snowden that there wasn't transparency about the nast program, millen yls were sympathetic because that seems to defy the ethic we have around transparency. i'm not saying that's necessarily the most justifiable point of view because there's a compelling argument to be made that these nsa wiretapping and data collection programs are absolutely necessary to prevent terror. some of the officials testified on the hill this week there is

numerous examples where they have stopped and abated terror attacks as a result. but i do think that our generation is sympathetic toward this notion of transparency and expects outlets to be as forth coming with the public as possible so that we at least know what we're opting in to. host: next call from marsy in texas for republicans. caller: i would like to touch back again on the k-12 education that you brought up and the money that's being spent on that. i wondered how you feel about the three major degrees that president obama spoke about of course science math and technology. would you prefer that the government spent more money providing you with education on those three degrees maybe say p an online programs where you wouldn't be carrying so much debt, and make sure that there was job availability for you here in america with that?

and the second part of my quiet -- question touched on transparency how do you feel about the rising food costs and are you able to provide for yourself carrying all that debt? >> we're going to leave that there. guest: on the stem science technology engineering and math question, i absolutely think there should be as many incentive-based programs on the state and federal level to help graduates rather graduates of high school enroll in post secondary education programs that will train them in those areas because that's where they're more likely to get hired. and in terms of online education, it's a promising invention but ironically while the cost of education on line is collapsing, our college is still getting more expensive and that has more to do with college decisions how they're investing their mup. there's been what's -- money.

there's been characterized as an arms race on campuses where colleges are putting their money towards sports complexes and utilities that enhance student life that have nothing to do with the core competency of their educational mandates. and that will generate prestige from them but bars access and increases student debt. so will online courses solve that problem? perhaps. but i think it's also a different cultural shift in having colleges not worry so much about the mega business of competing for rankings as opposed to serving their core mission. host: very quickly, the situation in syria continues to ebb and flow. there may be a possibility that one day that u.s. troops will be put there. many of them will come from your generation. your thoughts about that possibility. guest: i looked at polling this weekend. it shows that young americans and actually older generations

are pretty consistent here. there's first of all an overwhelming lack of information as to what's even happening in syria. there is obviously a slight sympathy toward the rebels but we don't know who the rebels are. and i think there's a rhett sense to get involved in another war especially when the majority of people fighting that war are going to come from our generation. we can't afford the cost of rehabilitating and dealing with the post traumatic stress and the death and loss of life that could come with a third war right now. so i think there is a rhett sens to go in or whether it's a war or invasion or sending in troops, i think there's a pragmatic view that the united states of america can't be everywhere at once. there's a huge lack of -- there's a lack of popularity with afghanistan and formerly iraq. and so most people in our generation would like to see a more diplomatic means by all means approach if possible.

host: cofounder and president of our time. you can find him on line at our time.org. thank you very much for being on the "washington journal" this morning. guest: my pleasure. host: coming up on the program, craig timberg is national technology reporter for the "washington post" and he will be here to talk to us about how police officers are using facial recognition technology to solve cases. we'll be right back. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2013]

host: craig timberg writes about national technology for the "washington post." and on monday had a front page article regarding facial recognition technology. about 120 million people are in a searchable photo data base system that state officials had originally committed to prevent drivers license fraud but that is increasingly used by police to identify suspects in criminal investigations. welcome to the program. guest: thanks for having me. host: first tell us what is facial recognition technology and how does this technology work? guest: this technology analyze it is features on your face and the distngs among your features turns it into digital code. say if you have a data base of 5 million images, if you have a new image you can compare and see if the codes look like one

another. host: how is law enforcement getting involved and how are they using this? guest: they're using it in quite a few different ways. if you have surveillance video, atm cameras, facebook painls. if they have an image of somebody they can figure out who you are. and the story in the post, we tried to explore one which is the ones create bid the drivers license registry. host: how reliable is this technology? guest: really depends on the images. it's not like fingerprints that come in and they compare them and it's a devenstive hit. it's really gives you a set of leads. and sometimes the leads are not that good. you'll get a suite of 20 and it doesn't look like the person at off other times they'll come up with two or three images and they're dead on. it takes a human to look at the hits and determine whether it's the same person. but kit be helpful in certain cases. host: talking with craig, national technology reporter with the "washington post" about his story on photo id

data bases becoming troves for police. if you want to get involved in the conversation give us a call. the numbers are on the bottom of your screen. so who puts these pictures into a system and then how are they stored, how are they accessed? guest: there's a lot of these data bases. the state department has a data base of 230 million images, about half of which are pass port holders and visa applicants. the criminal has a lot. state kmple from mug shots and bookings. what happened with the drivers license photos over the last decade states have used this to manage the drivers license registry. so they check my image to make sure i don't have two or three

of five images. and so the drivers license facial data base was created for that sort of problem and they've been incredibly effective. they have cut down on fraud. but once the bases existed, the state police come by and say can you help us with this case and they have made these system soss incredibly proufl that i've watched police officers check with from their car. they take a picture and they run it through data base. and there's 30 million images because you've got the mug shot photos, from other states and the drivers license foteost. host: would there be a conflict in the technology? for example if you have your picture taken on you're drivers license and it's slightly different than the picture that you have on your pass port, might the data bases confuse you and end up kicking out a completely different name? guest: again, you get sort of a list of options and they ran my picture through this thing and

you got somewhat hilarious mix of mug shots. only a couple of which really looked like me. in a couple cases there were a couple women. so you can screen for gender and for ethnic groups and that sort of thing. in general more photos, better. right? because you have more opportunity to if you see a passport photo that kind of looks like me and a mug shot -- there isn't a mug shot but if there was, you have a better chance of establishing id. it's not like the local cops are checking the state department. but when you have a boston marathon bombing everything gets checked. >> host: you say the local cops. but do the data bases talk to each other? guest: some do. the f.b.i. data base and the state level of criminal justice data bases are becoming slowly interoperable. the department of defense which is mainly iraqi and afghan men collected during war segget. that can be queried at the same time you do the f.b.i.

so the sort of connections growing among them. but not yet one big organism yet. the thing if you're concerned about this is there's a pretty good chance i have access to the f.b.i. data base, i have access to the department of defense, i probably have access to any state data base. and if there's a big enough case i can probably get in the state department too. our first call comes from rhode island on our line for independents. caller: thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to ask the gentleman about the boston bombing suspects, they had the videos of them. so i'm just curious if any kind of facial recognition was used. because i know they were asking the public more to identify

them. so i'm wondering if they used this technology in any way to figure out who those guys were at that point. guest: thanks for the call. the story that i did really grew out of the boston marathon bombing coverage. you all remember where they come on tv and they release the images of these suspects. and we started asking ourselves why didn't they use this technology. and that led to the exploration of the data bases that are available and what the technology can and can't do. with regards to those initial images, they were too grainy and the angle were too oblique. one had sunglasses on and a hat. the image quality matters enormously so they did have gcombages. they didn't get any kind of devenstive hit. that's when they opened it up to the world. i look back on that insane week and thinks that's the moment you open pandoras box. the suspects freak out. there was this police activity.

so it could have worked in that situation more effectively. might have been able to get those two guys and put hand cuffs and avoided everything. but after they released those images on tv they got a flood of other images from other people's cameras and facebook pages and some were good enough to check against facial recognition technology. host: next up, dana on our line for democrats. caller: thank you c-span for what you do. i just want to throw in a quick question to the fellow and ask him, how does this technology work when you're looking at identical twins? guest: that is a great question. as part of this reporting i got in touch with the motor vehicle folks or the law enforcement folks in every state. and when they run these searches of their data bases they find a bunch of people who

seem to have more than one drivers license and they always find identical twins and they're able to weed it out. sometimes they're able to get in touch with the person. but that's a sortable problem. i did find several instances where motor vehicle found people who had five or 10 or 15 drivers license. in some cases it turns out they also have more than one voter registration as well. host: in the article, you've got a map that breaks down where police can search drivers license photos, data bases created for other purposes are being used to identify criminal suspects victims and witnesses. those in green have facial recognition systems that let police search or request searches that's 26 states, those in beige have facial recognition systems that

generally do not allow law enforcement searches. 11 states and the district of columbia and then the remaining states, 13 in white do not have facial recognition systems or drivers license photos. back to the phones. jill from virginia on our line for independents. when you have these people's faces and identities that are in question, do you have information that you can go back to the time they were young and get their photo or their -- also like if there's in their lifetime have had scars or reconstructive surgery or any kind of thing like that that you can link in to those photos? guest: once you have the identity of someone, you can

generally pull all sorts of old records including of old photos of someone. say i'm a police officer and trying to identify a suspect and i have a facebook page or surveillance video, i can tell you they look awfully closely at scars marks and tattoos. the f.b.i. is building a data base that has scars marks and tattoos in it. and the better facial recognition system can also age people and see how they can sort of manipulate the image in a way that makes them more likely to get a hit. i went down to florida, they have one of the most sophisticated data bases teams in the country and they have this crime where the man had been hit by a train and he had apparently committed suicide and of course his body was damaged. they were able to alter that facial image in a way that allowed them to figure out who that was and notify the family. so it's not quite csi as they are always reminding me.

but they are getting more and more sophisticated. in some cases people are transgender, they were men and now women and the technology is pretty good at spotting that. we saw an example of that as well. host: you write that the sheriff's office says its unit conducts 5,000 searches a month and has assisted in nearly 1,000 arrested since 2004. a bulleten board in the office is lined with success stories. a teen age boy who was sending lewd messages to girls through multiple facebook accounts was identified as was a suicide victim and an alleged bank robber whose scowling image was captured by the branch's surveillance camera. so even with scowls and i guess reconstructs of tive surgery they can still cope you out. guest: it depends on how good

the images are. and if they have a good image they can compare it. my favorite image i saw was of an alleged drug dealer who was taking a shipment of marijuana to an abandoned house in philadelphia so the u.s. postal service police dressed up as a fedex delivery guy and they came to the suspect with an ipad and they said here sign this and the ipad has both front and rear cameras so the picture is you get full face he's leaning down to sign his name. they ran that against mug shots , and the next thing you know the police are there saying tell us about that package. so again this technology is not perfect but it's getting better all the time. and it will get better. host: we've got a tweet

. guest: iris imaging is in some ways much better. if you can get an iris image on somebody it's much more like a finger print. it's very distinctive uses a relatively small amount of data and you can get close to a devenstive id than you can with a face. on the other hand, it's a little harder to get someone's iris. the military used this technology quite a bit when they were trying to react after ied explosions on road sides they ran up to a bunch of guys and compare their images to other people they saw at other times. so the f.b.i. has this but in order to get those images they put what are essentially big glasses over your face and they look into your irises and take that data. they can't yet do that from 50 feet or 100 feet the way you can with a facial image. if you're walking down street and a camera captures your face

they have it but i'm told that they are working on technology to capture irises remotely. and if that starts working it will be an incredibly effective tool if you want to think of it that way because the data field is smaller, it's very distinctive and you can figure out who people are. host: our next call comes from carol in maine. caller: i'm calling to tell you that i think having your picture on a license is a great thing. nd i really think -- i'm calling from maine. and i think having your picture on your license is a very great thing. i really think that the government did a great thing doing that. host: we'll leave it there. guest: maine is one of the

states that does not do this. and next door new hampshire they actually passed a law banning any kind of collection by the department of motor vehicles in new hampshire which means irises, facial images, all that stuff. it's interesting to see the way the politics play out. it's worth saying i gather your reader ks see that map we made. there's all sorts of variations. there's some states that get two or three requests a month. there are other place that is have made these pretty interoperable. so there's a remarkable variation from state to state. and sometimes it had to do with the politics. sometimes the personalities of the people in charge of the various state offices. host: gregory, you're on the "washington journal." caller: thank you gentlemen. my question has to do with the potential rights of people who are being troveed by police internally and support tishesly

unknown to them. is there more being done presently to accumulate possible hits and leads like you get the pictures of people on gun licenses and things like that? and cold cases and things like this? is there a habeas corpus problem here or is this intrusive? and is the general public unaware of what's happening internally and should they be made more aware of it? guest: well, the point of the article was to make people a bit more aware of it. you asked a lot of pretty interesting questions. i can tell you when police are trying to figure out who you are, you're a suspect in a crime, they have fairly extensive rights to pull all sorts of data. i don't know exactly with gun licenses but if you've lodged information with the government or you have a facebook page or you have google searches, that's all sorts of thing that is police can get especially

with court orders that can lay down a lot of detail about your life, who your friends are, who you talk to. even down to your physical movements. i carry an i phone with me so if the police decided i was a suspect they could figure out where i am virtuely every second of my life for the past several years. so once you're a criminal suspect there's a lot that can be done if the police can establish probable cause. if terms of the right issues, you don't have a presumption of privacy when it comes to your facial image out in public. police say if i can see it the surveillance camera can see it. what people tend to worry about from a legal perspective of the possibility of accumulation of data in data bases. we know there's cameras in airports and downtown areas. when you marry the cameras with data bases there's at least the possibility that a government could track your movement over time based on your face.

the technology is not quite there to make that easy but i can tell you there's not a lot in the way of laws that govern how this can be used. that's one of the things that arguably concerning about it is u you have a pointed government officials who are making decisions about what's ok, not ok, you have government lawyers making those kind of decision. you don't have a robust public debate. so my sort of feeling is if something is possible and it's effective, someone is going to do it unless it is specifically prohibited by law. i think we're seeing that at the federal level as well that unless there's a specific law that makes it clear that it's illegal someone is going to try to use this technology. host: you write the supreme court's approval this month of dna collection during arrests that coin side with the rising use of this technology as well. the suspects in some cases submitting to test that is put their genetic details in official data bases even if they were never convicted of a

crime. the courts are already looking at the use of dna. are there cases pending now in any level of the courts regarding the use of this facial recognition telling technology? guest: i don't know of a case yet. but this stuff is fairly new. i had a colleague of mine yesterday, the problem here is that everyone's seen it on csi so no one is that surprised but one of the things you try to make clear that all sorts of thing that is felt like science fiction a few years ago are becoming real. and i didn't find any obviously shockingly egregious cases. so but i think our general experience as a society is that as governments have access to powerful tools they're going to use those tools and it's almost inevitable that you'll end up with a really good case where something was done that doesn't seem to pass the legal muster

and you'll get a challenge. i think you'll see the courts increasingly wrestle with these questions about what amount of biometric collection is appropriate. the other issue that i forgot to mention is among the concerns that we are essentially creating a national id card system without a card. if my face is in a data base and they can compare it to whoever else's face they don't need for me to proffer an id card. they just have it. and that creates a lot of concern. host: we have a tweet. back to the phones. beverly. you're on the "washington journal." caller: i'm a victim of identity theft where this lady -- i never lost my license -- had my information, went to a branch of my bank in michigan and withdrew $3400. now, she was a black lady.

on the drivers license she had all my information but her picture. where do i stand like what position am i in? because she has my information. she could commit a crime. travel back and forth. where do i stand in this? that's my question. how am i protect snd is this good or bad? host: we can assume that you're not a black lady? guest: no. i'm a white lady and that's how i knew is because i had my branch manager call the bank out in michigan and they pulled it up on the video. host: guest: that sounds incredibly unpleasant. i'm voir to hear about that. and i hope you have police involved because they do have ways of cracking down on this kind of thing. one of the good arguments in favor of facial recognition. it makes it harder to steal your identity. so if your bank had -- again this is not practical in the

near term but if they had a facial id system so when you walked up they looked at your face and immediately knew that you were one of the customers, you're beverly, if the face doesn't match that check you're trying to pass they could block that. so from a -- in terms of fighting fraud, the facial recognition technology is very effective and there's cases all over the country where they've been able to crack down on fraud because of technology. sometimes they'll pull the video and say that's clearly not beverly. so in terms of your rights, you know, i didn't look specifically for this article but i know that identity theft is a big problem, a growing problem. and it can take years to untangle the sort of trail of problems that can be created. so you need to have law enforcement involved. you may need to have a lawyer involved. in some cases even your home owners policy may have a theft

identity rider which you should check and see. but again, this woman may have stolen your name and your numbers but she didn't steal your face. host: we're talking with craig timberg of the "washington post" about his article regarding facial recognition technology. and we would like for more callers and viewers and listeners to get involved in the conversation. the numbers are on the bottom of your screen. our next call comes from john in michigan. caller: i would like to correct something that was on there about michigan. we do have a photo id on your

drivers license. guest: all states have photo ids. i understand from the michigan motor vehicle they do not use the facial recognition technology to analyze that and turn it into a numecal template. but i can tell you that pretty much every state has a photo image. also pretty much every state uses this technology with regard to criminal juss disdata bases. so if you're arrested and in a prison system there's a very, very good possibility that the state criminal justice officials have your face, they've analyzed it and in future situations if police are trying to figure out who committed a crime and have an image your face is going to get run. in addition, the f.b.i. is working on developing relationships with all the states so they can pull these into a unified data base that they will manage and become

interoperable. so we're a few years away from the day when you get pulled over in michigan for a d.w.i. and they are able to check that against all of the images around the country including the state of maryland. so if you have been arrested there's a very -- you're very likely in a facial data base somewhere. host: also in your article off chart with the size of existing photo data bases including the state department that has about 230 million photos from passports and veesast. the f.b.i. has about 15 million of people who have been arrested or convicted of crimes. the defense department has about 6 million mainly of iraqis and afghans. and then there are at least 107 million photos in 26 states, 38 million in 11 states tand district of columbia and 65 illion in 13 states. this part about the f.b.i. having 15 million people have

been arrested and convicted in the state department, the folks they do isas, do cross checks on this? i mean, is it something that automatically happens if you're involved in something with the state department does it automatically send a signal if they can't find you in the state department data base does it automatically send a signal to the f.b.i. data base saying we're looking for this guy? host: the state department data base is not linked up with the f.b.i. those the f.b.i. is linked up with the department of defense. in west virginia where the f.b.i. has this big biomet rirks operation, the f.b.i. they're build nug buildings. the f.b.i. here and the department of defense will be in the same building so if i'm an f.b.i. agent i can check both at essentially the same time. but they're very different.

the f.b.i. one is criminal mug shots, not drivers licenses. and the department of defense one is sort of potential insurgents that the military has encountered. the state department data base is a different kind of animal and they have guarded it fairly jealously. but in high priority cases, again, boston bombing, they check everything. host: next up, ellen calling from richmond, virginia, on our line for democrats. caller: what i want to ask about is is there are a large number of women in this country who are hiding from abusive spouses. i wonder if these data bases ay compromise their situation. guest: that's a great question.

so in order to search the data bases, the police officers who are doing the searches have to -- it has to be for a law enforcement purpose. so it is not like i could go to somewhere and check the data base. but the power has been fairly devolved downward to some individual officers and i think it's reasonable to worry about police officers checking up on who is dating their sister and that sort of thing. so i didn't come across any case like that. i think it's unfair to presume that that would happen. but i do think when you put these kind of tools in the hands of thousands of police officers, the possibility of abuse certainly exists. and people who run these programs do worry about it. they have rigorous training programs. you can't do anything electronically and not leave a trail. so you would think that someone who abused the system like this would get caught fairly quickly. with that said, if it was my

sister, i would worry. host: the chart that we showed earlier had state department, f.b.i. and defense department. does t stnch a have a data base? guest: the department of homeland security has a data base of all sorts of facial images and fingerprints but that is not yet hooked up with the technology which is the source of irritation of folks in law enforcement. but i can only assume it's a matter of time. again, as these get more powerful, people want to use them. host: next up is bill in south haven michigan on our line for republicans. thanks for waiting. caller: you mentioned science fiction there a moment ago. i would like to kind of follow up on that with the d.n.a. becoming so prevalent. criminal and all. i was wondering if in the far

future they're going to use that to eliminate criminal ndencies of certain d.n.a. guest: let's hope not. hard to believe that kind of system passing any kind of constitutional muster this country or any kind of legal standards as well. i mean, i think it's reasonable to kind of think around the edges of these things and continue plailt the kinds of abuses that could come. i don't see that happening in the near future. the much more commonly heard complaint is the prospects that the government could, for example, flip on a camera at a political rally and figure out who everyone is. or they had quite a few cameras down in tampa during the republican convention. we're not too far from the day when you can figure out who the

protesters are, who is coming and going, when they came and went. so i think in terms of practical realm for abuses i think that's kind of where we are now. host: jeff from maryland on our line for independents. caller: i just turned on c-span not too long ago so i don't know if this question has been asked. i understand now that police just pull you over for any reason at all that they can just get out and basically take your picture to add it to the system? guest: depends where you are. so maryland doesn't have a facial recognition data base with its drivers license photos so as long as you stay in maryland you're probably ok for now. whether the police can take your picture really is a jurisdiction by jurisdiction

matter. where i was in florida they were -- the situation i saw was a county deputy would see someone who was doing something suspicious, maybe trespassing, looking solsting prostitution. and if they could proffer a drivers license or some other kind of id, then -- and it hecked out, but if someone couldn't if they were taking pictures. when you talk to police about what their dream would be they say it would be great when we pull someone over if the cameras that are increasingly mounted on the front if they could tell us who somebody is just so we can know that someone might be a threat to law enforcement or murderer or something along those lines. and they already have systems a bit like that for reading the license plates on cars. you can -- and with these you

can drive down the street and say that license expired, that person is a fugitive. so we're not there yet on the facial stuff but it's not too terribly far in the future if the law allows it. host: i'm probably giving away a million dollar idea. but they do have flashlights the police have flashlights that have the ability to pick up whether or not you've been drinking they can get the blood alcohol from your breath. is anybody working on a flashlight that's got a camera so when they come up on the car they can see who you are and send a signal back to the car and they'll know who you areber the guy gets back to his car? guest: you should run to the patent office and work on that one. but they can search from a smart phone. so not everywhere but in the most sophisticated systems police officers can get on there, take a picture, get on the secure web system from their browsers, they can upload the photo right away. so what you're describing is not too far fetched.

host: chris in california on our line for republicans. caller: thanks for your time. i have a story that will make your blood run cold if you have cable tv. i was watching the news about three years ago and there was a big football game that there was going to be a playoff between two colleges. and they asked one of the coaches there -- i forget what city they were in -- how the coach would know if they were out partying the night before and whether they would be in bed at bed check time. and he said simple. i arranged with the hotel to have the cable tv show me into each room. and this way i would be able to see whether or not the people were in bed like they were supposed to be at a certain time. and i just think, i just wonder what kind of access police might have or any agency might have coming into your house

through your cable tv since then when my tv is off there is a black cover on top of my tv. call me crazy but i'm not taking any chances. and i'm a law-abiding citizen but i love my privacy. host: we're going to leave it there. craig. guest: so i wonder if in that case the hotel was reporting on the -- that the television was on and what they were watching or whether the televisions actually had cameras installed? i think that would be deeply worrisome. i think everybody should know that anything you do that involves an electronic signal can be tracked and pulled in some cases by police if that includes what shows you're watching on cable tv. and your story though reminds me of a really interesting case i ran into working on this story. some computers and i pads of course have web cameras. and there was a case in florida

where a computer had been stolen and the on line photo album that the person who owned the computer maintained and the online photo album kept new pictures kept appearing. it turned out that the people who ended up with the stolen computer were uploading their family snapshots. it got synched to the drop box. police saw them, ran them through the software and had hits both on the mugshot and on the drivers license. and they found the folks who pointed to someone else as the person who stole the computer. there's another story in florida where someone was using -- someone had gotten a stolen computer and had a web cam on it. and the rental company had installed software they could remotely about vate the web cam. so they got an image over the

keyboard, they ran it through the software, got a hit. turns out that the person who stold the computer lived next door to the person who lost the computer. worry more about your computer than your cable trn v at this point. host: craig timberg, with the "washington post." his story in monday's edition. photo id data bases become troves for police. you can find it on line at "washington post".com. thanks for being on the program. guest: my pleasure. host: we want to tell you about what's coming up on tomorrow's edition on "washington journal." we begin with a roundtable iscussion. discussing the immigration ill. they'll be talking about immigration policy.

later we have bob managing editor at the hill a look at what to expect in the week coming up before congress departs for the july hth recess. and the senior associate of the middle east program at the carnegie endowment for international peace and he will be talking about the results of the recent iranian election. thank you for joining us for this edition of the "washington journal" and we'll we'll see you again tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. >> today on c-span, robert mueller testifies on nsa surveillance program. in-house debate on a bill nn