americans and foreign visitors to the u.s. banned in travel and tourism, plus your e-mails, phone calls and tweets "washington journal" is next. ♪ ♪ good morning, it is friday, july 5, 2013. president obama is scheduled to had to camp david after attending briefings at the white house regarding the situation in egypt. congress remains on recess in. will return monday with plenty to deal with in closing -- including rising federal interest rates for students and immigration reform and economic pieces will be a hot topic in the wake of monthly job numbers to be released at 8:30 a.m. today. we will get to all that this morning in "washington

journal." we want to hear from you about the recent defeat of the farm bill. decline inndicate a the political influence of middle america? give us a call and tell us who you things gets more attention from the government -- rural america or urban america? but the phone numbers are on your screen. you can catch up with us on all your favorite social media sites. or send us an e-mail. a very good friday morning to you, hope you had a great fourth of july holiday. we are taking your calls and comments this morning on the issue of who gets more attention from congress -- urban or rural america? this is how "the new york times"

put it --

people are lining up to take sides. that is the story. there is already some comments on facebook on this question.

another facebook comment -- tweets, king your facebook post, and calls. the phone lines are open if you want to call in and give us your thoughts on this question. first, we want to turn to amy mayer with iowa public radio. >let's talk about the farm bill which is the subject of that "new york times"article. why did it fail and what are the implications for agriculture and the at -- and rural america? guest: everybody is wondering why it failed. obvious level in terms

of how the representatives of budget, it had primarily to do with the disagreement over how much ought to be cut from the supplemental nutritional assistance program, formally known as food stamps. there are other contentious issues but it seems that perhaps because of disagreements within the republican party, perhaps because of the republican leadership, that was the primary issue that when representatives went to the floor to vote, there were essentially voting on this. the farm bill is far reaching and you could argue effect just about everybody in the country. for farmers, depending on where and what they farm and which programs are most significant, it varies but it includes certain provisions relating to subsidies for crop insurance. thats certain programs

support new and young farmers or ranchers and as programs for farmers markets and organic farms and certification and a lot of research. host: talk about the reaction among the agricultural community in rural america. how are they taking the defeat of this bill? is this seen as a sign of declining influence? guest: that is a question we have been asking for some months. i see a disconnect between what policy makers and perhaps lobbyists are arguing and what i iraq actually talk to farmers on the ground. i went out last week and probably talk to over a dozen farmers. the number one response i got from them was that i don't pay attention to the farm bill because i am busy in my field. the consensus is they should be paying more attention that they have not been. among the farmers paying attention with what had happened in that house, i heard they felt disappointed and felt other

issues including inter- republican fighting and nutrition assistance work clouding the real concerns that farmers have. when i asked specifically if they felt as indicated more influence or less influence or less attention for agriculture theashington, most of farmers i spoke with said they did not see it that way. they felt this was just one of the ongoing, i guess, consequences of gridlock in washington. they can see other issues and other lobbies similarly being impacted by the gridlock. i think that perhaps at the lobby level, some of the commodity groups that the farmers are members of, may have a different perspective but for the farmers on the ground, after all the rain we have had this spring, their first priority is taking care of their crops and after that, they start to think about what things will look like next year.

they feel if congress can do its job, they will not be able to plan for next year. from here is a headline "the hill." talk about rural voters in 2014 and what they will be looking for. guest: i cannot speak broadly for world voters across the whole country but here in iowa and perhaps in the farm belt, there is still strength for republican party in most rural districts. you do find increasingly that the rural residents include people who are frustrated with the gridlock and people who are frustrated with some of the stuff that comes from conservative lawmakers and that's why there is a vision of opening for democrats and it is true that all the populations are concentrated in urban areas -- there are fewer people in

rural areas -- there are young people moving out to start small organic vegetable farms in rural districts. some of those new farmers are more likely to lean a little bit more to the left. there are people retiring to rural communities. they have been living in perhaps suburban districts. how they vote as a wild card. the republicans still get the most votes in rural communities at least in iowa. host: from the united states department of agriculture on rural population trends --

reasonstalk about the of the decline that the usda has seen since they started tracking these numbers? guest: i don't know the trends lost in those numbers but when we talk about rural decline which is an issue in iowa, farm families used to be big and children grow up and fewer of them, and coming back to farms. often a family of six kids, maybe one might come back to farm. there is a decline there. also, farming has become more efficient. it is much more mechanized and i think that there may have been a time when you needed more people working your farm and even if they were hired employees, they would live potentially nearby and of farmers don't need to hire as many of the same kind of workers. in general, people moved to cities for better economic opportunities and better educational opportunities and those trends have been around for a long time.

host: respond to this tweet - guest: that is difficult. know that population concentrations are in the urban and suburban districts and fewer people in rural communities. one of the arguments that farmers argue is that farmers are growing food for a whole lot of people and fewer farmers are growing more food for more people which is something farmers like to point out. that is difficult. yes, there are more people in urban areas. they will get more money over all but it is more divided. that is a big challenge. historically, i think the senate has been more friendly to rural issues in the house of

representatives. that has to do with our chambers of commerce were created and we have one body that is two raucous and it's for every state and one based on the populations. host: amy mtyer , give for joining us this morning. we're taking your questions and who gets more attention from congress. our phone lines are open. let me show you a map from the usda report. america in the 1970's. represents our rural america and now we will shut -- the orange street represents rural america and now here is a present role counties. it covers 70 the cent sign of u.s. land areas.

to the phones, ruby, from riverside california honor democratic line for your thoughts on urban versus rural issues and who gets more attention from congress? all, happyst of independence day and let's keep it that way, hopefully. the major is because laws of republicans are getting dictated on these food matters. targetmers have been a of the new world order because they ourselves sufficient and an alternative to the chemical- ridden and distorted faces. host: is riverside, calif. a rural community? caller: used to be but now it is picking up fast. we were nominated the most intelligent city in the world. host: talk about the changes you

have seen. you say it is picking up fast. it is changing from rural to urban. talk about what you see in terms of federal help for your community. it has been very good here. they are really good at budgeting here in riverside. whenever it seems like somebody means something, there's someone to go to. -- thing i don't appreciate i will not name the chain store but -- i notice the efforts don't taste natural and more. they are just weird and strange. i know california supposedly did not pass the labeling on the food. i think everybody here would want to know what is in their food. hopefully we will try again to get that done. here is edwin christian on

twitter -- the phones,k to patrick in carnegie, pa., on our democratic line. what is your experience and thoughts? the cityf course, center's get more attention. that is unfortunately by design. there are two pieces of legislation that the american people should have paid attention to. the senate bill 517 and congressional bill 2665 which failed but it shows what is taking place across america in our rural communities. engineeringssive geo-

operations which have gone unchecked and zero oversight by the united states government and by american scientists. engineer oureo- climate and not think that there will be massive consequences. we are now seeing aluminum particles. there are all types of materials that are showing up in different animal populations. this is our biosphere they're tampering with. oft: is there less oversight federal programs in rural areas or urban areas? it is a lack of oversight. when the united states government turns over these operations to companies like monsanto which have one singular goal, to make huge amounts of money at any cost, the media

better start paying attention to this. collapses, were are done. statistics one agricultural and farm service workers from the usda.

we are taking your thoughts and calls, our phone lines are open this morning to talk about this issue of who gets more attention and why from congress. frances is up next on a democratic line. caller: good morning. i want to tell the nation that in indiana which is a very big farm states, at a little school just a mile from my home, they're going to give free meals in june and july to children who are not in school anymore for the summer because they are hungry. when one in three americans are now pour and they need food stamps and 80% of the farm bill is food stamps, that is speaking to the needs of children and our country that they are not being fed to do to the cost of food. farms are making

billions. they are represented by mr. countyn here in lagrange and he and his father received many hundreds of thousands of dollars for corporate fund -- farming. but children are hundred and is food stamps are very much needed. the corporate side or someone who gets the big dollars, does not want this to happen. host: another tweet - theces was talking about food stamps program. this is the story from the associated press -- about the history of

the urban and rural alliance. but no more, according to the associated press. the vote that happened on the farm bill, the unexpected failure of the farm bill late

last month. to.other story i want tutu is an editorial in today's "boston globe." is ino the phones, jared

houston, texas on our democratic line. talk about urban versus rural issues and to get more attention from congress. [indiscernible] california gets two senators so it will continue to be expressed by the rural areas. has made ourde -- politics so conservative. there is the increasing urbanization of america but despite that, we have in our that there is strength in rural areas. host: a few more statistics from the "new york times" article -

we are taking your calls and of phone lines are open on the issue of who gets more attention from congress. i want to point to a few other stories in today's papers.

front page of "usa today" -

that editorials are on same subject of egypt. one other editorial on this subject is from "the wall street journal."

if you want to read more of that editorial, it is from "the wall street journal." this morning subject is or rural versus urban and who has more influence in congress. madison, nebraska on our republican line. caller: it really doesn't matter if they're rural communities are conservative and lean that way. the courts will have the final decision anyway. issue or not does not really matter. it depends on how the courts decide or a single particular judge. it was interesting how you said farm lobby is more interested in keeping the food stamp program

in the farm program. i don't know if that is necessarily the case when you talk to the farmers. the farmers i talked to and i live in a very rural community -- it is rather deceptive to -- it is almost like they are trying to hide the food stamp program in the agriculture it.rtment so they can hide in and talk about the big corporations and what they are doing to the food and what have you. technology touches every aspect of our lives, from our vehicles, from our computers and everything. should it be any surprise that agriculture does not touch our

food also? no big fan of monsanto at all. is to ownere end gain all the farms end -- and the firm ground in addition to all the seed and the seed companies. peoplem saying is that should not be surprised that technology has reached the level of their food also. here is another tweet - here is another tweet -

the last caller was talking about the idea of splitting the house farm bill and splitting some of the pieces from the food stamp program manager is a story on that from "the hill. of " "american's agriculture and

, finance,lopment forrester, energy, and crop insurance companies and organizations strongly you to bring the farm bill back to the floor as soon as possible." james is up next from fayetteville, arkansas, on our independent line. forer: thank you so much taking my call. a very good point, your last one about how it relates to the farm bill. the lobbyists having that power. my point was that the agri business is going to flourish. they are going to see this mush, the high-protein nutrient. the soy products, peanut butter products, all that is cheaply

made. that union is going to be very strong. the smaller types of farms -- i was going to say, my main point was that the federal government shows a lot of interest to the rural areas during times of natural disasters, fires, things like that. a lot of money pours in through roads. waterways, host: and that is all part of rural areas getting more attention from congress, you think? cities,in the bigger they tend to focus on the social issues. host: james, thanks for the call. an ongoing poll this morning, our c-span facebook page, if you want to join in that. that has urban areas receiving more attention from congress, or than double the amount of --

more than double the amount then rural areas, who gets more attention from congress? "the farm bill got so overblown and overstuffed, an example of the worst kind of legislation and it was for 10 years not just five." our massachusetts, on democratic line, john. your thoughts on this issue? caller: basically i think it is the globalist elite. they are turning the system into a weapon. newre getting to start this eugenics again where we are modifying food, basically targeting the poor and the middle class. way ofust another basically impoverishing the middle class. host: so you don't think it matters who gets more attention? caller: to me it does matter, right now is a

runaway freight train. there is no oversight. i mean, basically they are modifying food genetically. we don't know what impact that will have on people's health. we have pharmaceutical companies genetically modifying things that we don't even know what we are eating. basically it is eugenics. it is what the rockefellers and bacardi carnegie's and the rich people did back then. -- and the carnegie's and the rich people did back then. host: i want to point you to a story this morning on the nsa leaks, and edward snowden, the former contractor behind the leaks. more countries have refused to grant him asylum, the headline from "the wall street journal." searching for a new home after leaking classified intelligence, formallyean countries

rejected mr. snowden's request for asylum on third a -- on thursday, further complicating old's request for asylum. in order to expose secret -- inllance programs, top order to avoid exposing secret surveillance programs. mr. snowden withdrew his asylum request from russia after its president, vladimir putin, said the american would only be allowed to stay if he stopped leaking classified information." that is in today's "wall street journal." on that same subject, this from today's "washington post." french officials denounce alleged u.s. spying. france's top security official publicly dressed down the united states at the american ambassador's fourth of july

garden party, announcing alleged u.s. espionage of france and countries while the european parliament voted to open an investigation. --erior minister man well manuel falls -- we must say rings clearly, directly, frankly." more abouttalking the nsa leak, the nsa programs, and the use of metadata in our next segment of "the washington journal." those jobp today are numbers, expected out at 8:30 this morning. here is a headline from today's "financial times." likely to show a solid rise." when we get those numbers, we will get them to you as soon as possible, right around 8:30.

we still have about 10 minutes left of this segment, talking about urban versus rural america and who gets more attention from congress. allen is up next from brownsville, texas, on our republican line. good morning. caller: it was a good issue what the other gentleman was ringing up, about all these foods being modified. genetically modified -- the other gentleman was bringing up, about all these foods being modified, genetically modified. low class, middle class area, so you can see a lot of people here are on food steps -- on food stamps, and that is when the government steps in here. host: do you think urban america or rural america is overrepresented in terms of how much attention they get from congress, whether it be money or attention on their issues? caller: definitely. i think people in the cities and the lower class get way more

attention. host: is brownsville, texas, in a rural area? caller: i am, actually. it is kind of both because we do have lots of farming, a lot of people here who are -- they sick leave the state of texas -- state of texas is republican, but there are a lot of democrats down here. rural brownsville, texas, changed in your lifetime? caller: it has changed because we have a lot more cities -- not cities -- more density of population in certain parts of the cities, and it is just bogged down. more of the rural areas here. urban areas are complaining, saying you guys should be taking

it somewhere else, just completely changing the heart of the culture here in the south here. next from is up laurel, maryland, on our independent line. caller: good morning, how are you doing? i have the first time chosen to call in. host: and why did you call him? caller: because of the question you are asking on urban versus rural. there are some problems i think in the rural area like , and i just don't like hitting american against american. that is all i have -- i don't americaning -- pitting against american. from jason is calling hawaii on our republican line. good morning to you. caller: good morning to you, sir. this is the first time i was channel surfing.

way, happy independence day to you and all your listeners. host: we are focusing on how much attention congress pays to rural america versus urban america. caller: i think it depends on the lobbyists. i believe they pay attention to their own infrastructure, who has more influence. and these other bills, padded with the honey-d'' s, or whatever, it and this farm bill. read the farm bill. it has nothing to do with agriculture or farming, just a guy, abridge to this little public project for this guy, $2 million for this guy. he couple years ago they were doing the same thing, and god bless senator in a way -- , but he got --

host: you don't think congressional efforts to cut down on these pet projects have been effective? there has been a specific push in congress to cut down on those. caller: absolutely not. when a real sad thing congress passed the line-item veto. reagan signed it into law, the supreme court ruled that the line-item veto was unconstitutional. so that means that if the bill passes and there is some stupid ridiculous bridge to nowhere, but the bill is a really good , as the president you don't have to veto it because of that bridge to nowhere. that is what i think the supremes scored -- the supreme court screwed up years ago. there needs to be an amendment to the constitution.

you ought to be able to have line-item veto. host: jason calling in from hawaii this morning. a tweet on this question of who gets more attention from congress. pays more attention to urban america more often because that is where the votes are. get nothing."ates i want to point you also to this story in "the wall street journal." rates,t loan interest students caught in capital crossfire," is the headline. millions of college students are being thwarted by the broader partisan fight over taxes and deficit reduction. the white house hopes congress will reach a deal later this month to reverse a july 1 increase in the interest rate on some new federal student loans, the rise to 6.8% from 3.4% will as fact an estimated 7 million students who take out certain federal student loans for the

coming school year, representing about a third of all undergraduates. the story goes on. on that same issue of student loans, here is an editorial in "day's "baltimore sun," dropping the ball on student loans." "here is a suggestion. get togethercannot to craft a workable compromise, let them at least return to another time-honored clinical tradition by temporarily anti-.ng the status quo it is called kicking the can the road, and all that is needed for congress to repeats benefit is to vote to standalone program that expired on monday for another year when it reconvenes after the july 4 weekend." two more comments from you on this subject about who gets more attention from congress, urban or rural america.

karen is from oklahoma on our republican line. caller: good morning. it is hard to say as far as the money that goes out. all the other callers have said that according to where the votes are is where they will put their money, but almost everybody in these small towns, everybody almost gets food stamps. a lot of them get some kind of housing. , and thehim a bone taxpayers get up every morning and earn this money that we spend on food stamps and all that, and the lady a while ago said that the kids did not have summer meals that go hungry. when a family is getting $800 a month in food stamps, why is any kid hungry? all they ask is that we at least get an effort to get up and feed the kid, go to the store and feed them. don' -- don't trade them

for cigarettes and stuff so the kid will be hungry. law,obama's mother-in- paying for them to go to africa -- did they pay their own way? thank you, america. we go to john from dry creek, west virginia. john, turn your tv off and give us your comments. caller: yes, sir. i am 61 years old, and i can remember, as i was growing up, just about everywhere in one of those hollows you would go up in southern west virginia, any flat area, not only flat areas but on the size of hills, people would be growing their own crops. they would not be waiting on a subsidy from the federal government in the rural areas here. it seems to me like the younger

generation has virtually quit farming in a lot of the rural areas. i am quite sure that the urban the money goes where the people are. thank you very much. creek, westrom dry virginia. thanks for the call. i want to show you one of the front pages this morning. yesterday after the fireworks on the fourth of july, this is the front page of "the boston globe." secure, scorching, and festive " is the headline there. from "the baltimore sun," the statue of liberty reopening eight months after sandy hit. there is a picture of the statue of liberty. reopening eight months after

superstorm sandy. it's surrounding infrastructure was destroyed. the national parks service expected to spend $56 million to fix liberty island, the ellis museum thatto the remains closed. using materials they hope will prevent the next monstrous storm from damaging infrastructure. there is a picture of the statue of liberty reopened there. that is it for our first segment of "the washington journal. we will talk about the data being collected by the obama administration, and the role it plays when it comes to making decisions about a variety of issues, what -- including nsa surveillance. and the impact of education on national security. this sunday, "newsmakers" will theure an interview with president of the american medical association, dr. ardis

holden full -- dr. ardis hoven. talking about obesity as a disease. >> the ama recently classified obesity as a disease. does that make insurance companies more open to covering for obesity? >> i would think so. when the ama has said this is something we want to deal with, we want to escalate the conversation about this problem to a significant level. we are going to look at the things we must change to make things get that are around obesity, around hypertension, whatever we choose to study. i do believe the payers will be a part of this because they want to see what is best for the patients as well. they want to help us eliminate so much disease, so much suffering, and help reduce the cost. the debate like

among your membership that led that decision? are folks united behind that decision, or was there some disagreement among physicians going forward with this? >> this is a discussion that the ama has been having for some years, as you are probably well aware. clearly, as we have seen over the last couple of years, as we recognize the issues around open the city, we recognize that clearly everybody recognizes that it is a problem. we need to do something about it, but nothing is happening. so the discussion of the debate had to do with elevated the being aof diabetes, disease so that we can begin to manage this complex problem in a more meaningful way by the medical community. the debate was lively, important . at the end of the day, the house of delegates supported this position, and wisely so. and comfortably so.

is it a perfect answer to everything, troubling not. but as the end of the day we know we have to do something about it. >> the black okies thought coming west that they would leave behind the racism. the sun did shine a little bit more benignly on them here, but a number of them told me it was even a more cruel kind of racism. a smile on the face but a dagger behind the back is how they described california. allowed to live in any of the cities, not even the small towns. they were locked out. so the only land available to them were these patches of out lie land. when you ride up on the land, it looks so salty it looks as if it had snowed there. this was available to them, and they build their little wooden shacks here. no water. they had to go into town to

fetch water. no city sewers. they had outhouses. no police roamed this area. it was a no man's land. arax on the mark okies as we explore the life of bakersfield on .ooktv on c-span2 "washington journal" continues. host: in the wake of information that the nsa is prosecuting huge caches of data, nancy scola joins us to talk about her recent piece in "the washington post" titled "the big data president." start off by defining metadata and explaining how this is different from content. is sort of the content that surrounds content,

so if you are talking about an e-mail, metadata would be the time in which the e-mail is sent, where it had been sent from an terms of an ip address, finding location. it might also include subject lines and the people who are sending and receiving the e- mail. metadata is the envelope around the data itself. host: give us the example of the nsa programs that have been in the news so much lately. -- to the metadata there find it and how is it collected? -- define it, and how is it collected? guest: when we talk about metadata, when it has to do with internet traffic, that can be things that in some cases they sort of e-mail traffic patterns and that sort of thing, seeing what may --

seeing what might be of interest. when we are talking about phone surveillance programs, particularly with verizon, they are collecting sort of the traffic patterns of phone calls in and out of the united states, looking for suspicious patterns, and then getting the legal requirements to actually tap into the content itself. if you think about the internet traffic, often it is the traffic, so they are getting sort of the ability to tap into im's, thatdeo chats, sort of thing. when you're talking about the phone, the first step is getting the metadata and the second step is getting the actual content. we are still working out what is successful. host: president obama has defended this program, but you argue in this piece, "the big his faceident," that

in big data and metadata goes well beyond surveillance. explain. guest: absolutely. it is one of the markers of his presidency. if you look back at how he became president, even his time the facenate, it is in of the power of large quantities of data. one of the sort of landmark pieces or significant pieces of legislation from his first term, one of them was a bill that was cowritten with senator tom coburn, an oklahoma republican, that would set up a database that you could track federal spending. so the idea is that we are not going to necessarily curtail federal spending, and if we introduce a little bit of transparency, citizens can say, hey, i am not that comfortable with this sort of spending and that sort of spending, and that way we can get a policy effect that you may want to have from the outset in terms of reducing

fraud and reducing federal spending where it is needed. if you look at the campaign in 2008 and even more so in 2012, they used large quantities of data to figure out who might the willing to support president obama, really in granular ways of who is a good candidate for raising money, for calling their friends for rallying support, about maybe they are not going to contact a friend directly but they will be willing to tweet about president obama. there is a whole list of things, and i go into it in the article. if you look at their healthcare push, a big part of that is driving costs down by making the data more transparent so that patients have more of a sense of what they are paying for, hospitals have a better sense of economics and what they are doing. we saw recently the department of health and human services released the charge master playlist, the amount of

hospitals charge for different procedures. this is not the obama administration coming in and hospitals, you have to lower your costs. they do not have the ability to theyat, they had -- but can make it transparent and drive down costs that way. it is a rather new ability to use large sums of data to make them public and hopefully nudge things in the direction you would like to see them go. host: we are talking with nancy scola, a freelance contributor to "the washington post." our phone lines are open if you want to talk about these issues with ms. scola. democrats can call 202-585-3880. republicans, 202-585-3881. , 202-585-3 883. where did president obama learn

to love big data? how far back? you mentioned his time in the senate. did he learn this before that? guest: i think it is probably a -- one of therent things that state senator obama pushed in illinois was opening up sort of in some ways video surveillance of police interactions to try to introduce some level of transparency into those interactions. i think from that, part of the early face of data in washington in political circles was the transparency component that i spoke about earlier, and i think he came into it in that way. getting yourself elected president as a no-name guy in some ways on the back of data is pretty convincing in terms of the power of this stuff. he hired people in the early campaign that they were thinking

about practicing politics. david plouffe, in particular, sort of a numbers stripping guy. a little bit unexpected, i think part of it goes to the ability that they really honed in the about howg four years do you use data to make events move in their direction. it has developed over time. art of the context of this is that a lot of these technologies and techniques just were not possible a few years ago. a lot of this came out of the /google/twitter/amazon generation of learning how to digitale quantities of data, and what that can be put to him really powerful ways. it is sort of a confluence of events that has worked well for acceptable is newly and inexpensive. theirlet's try to wrap

heads around this and how the obama administration is using it. this is a comment from twitter 300 billion e-mails sent daily. you are probably more likely to be struck by lightning than have your e-mail read by an nsa employee." do you think that is true? guest: if you look at the numbers, google recently released a data set about not just the nsa inquiries into data, but the data that law enforcement holds. in particular, data that they were looking at. it struck some people as a lot and some people not a lot when you talk about a few hundred billion people in this country. i think phone records, if you of looking at sort of risk

personal privacy, i think phone records in some ways are more of an immediate concern for people who are worried about -- people knowing what they are doing on a day to day basis. part of what i wrote about in ont piece, the discussion this thing tends to begin and end on personal privacy. there is a lot more to it than that. just because my personal privacy is not at risk does not mean there are concerning factors here in terms of how the powerment, the enormous the government has by using this data really well. host: another comment on twitter -- "so is metadata more about both filing than snooping -- more about profiling than snooping?" i think metadata is more about triggers in some ways, knowing what to look for,

narrowing in on the data. so if we are suspicious of michigan,om dearborn, to someone in pakistan or whatever the data might be, the metadata is narrowing in on the people and the patterns that we might want to investigate further, if that makes any sense. useful.metadata is i think it is fair to say that generally you will want to scroll down into the content to pursue the stuff, take that extra step of aggressiveness and using the data to find out what people are up to. host: phone lines are open. the numbers are -- , (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881.

independents, (202) 585-3882. the very act of collecting this data is illegal. it is a violation of the fourth amendment. there are no processes or practices in place regarding this practice that are legal. you cannot collect data that does not belong to you, and you cannot do it without a proper warrant. ae whole thing is really ridiculous practice. the other thing is that people are concentrating on whether or not this data is used properly or illegally. that is not the question. the question is, is the gathering of the information legal? it is not legal, it is unconstitutional, and it should be halted immediately. talkinge caller is

about the constitutional provision against unreasonable searches and seizures. your take on whether this data is protected under that provision? difference ins a this case between unconstitutional and illegal. we have advanced a set of laws they give at least the interpretation that gives the government the power to do these things. whether or not the boundaries on that were pushed in these cases is something we should be talking about and investigating. lot of the power and authority given to the nsa to do some of this work happen in the wake of september 11, happened in the run-up to the iraqi war. we stretched the boundaries of what is considered within the realm of legal in the united states, and i think president obama gave a speech just a week before this nsa situation broke saying we entered onto the war

footing after september 11 and we might want to roll that and -- roll that back and rethink it. we made some legal assumptions and made things permissible in that last decade or so that we might want to sort of start rethinking. so i don't -- i think whether or not it is unconstitutional is something we should be debating. next fromld is up westwood, new jersey, on our republican line. the morning. you are on with nancy scola. caller: it is not just the president doing this. plantationgigantic exit freedom usa, sponsored by the new united states -- by the , sponsoredes senate by senator reid and senator shuman. the way to keep it under control is keep it in protection will

pop ready. perpetual poverty. we keep people in perpetual poverty for their own good. do you think the congress needs to do more to step in to actually give oversight on these programs? already thrownve the constitution under the bus. eric holder refuses to enforce the law, like dilma come a which is ridiculous -- like doma, which is ridiculous. aboutnancy scola, talk congress' role here. one of the questions is can you do oversight in the question of traditional oversight, when some of the stuff is so complex, so forward- looking. one of the advances of this big

data approach in the technology world is that in the past you really selected out what data you wanted to collect as you go about building your product, building your service. you collect it in advance because it is expensive to store data. you would not know what to do with it or how to find anything. we have just developed tools that make it possible to collect as much data as you want and search through it in really sort of very impressive ways from the technology perspective. mean?oes that it means we have gone from sort of a query focused approach to data, which means i know what i want so i collect the data to answer that question. people talk about and investigative approach, so i am giving all the data i possibly can and i will figure out what to do with it later. i was modeling a panel recently from ae data scientist

company that shortens the link on data and twitter. they have access to a lot of the links that people are sharing. isy have insight into who clicking what and sharing what. i asked them, what do you think of your day to day life in terms of the protections that you are putting in place for customers when you actually are deciding what to do with the data. he said, "our approach is we collect all the data we can and figure out what to do with it later." this is a panel in washington with policy folks, and you can see them recoil at this idea. know, the design phase of what you are going to do with the data that you are going to collect. way of sayingong oversight is very difficult if you don't know what you are going to do down the road. so if we sign an end-user license agreement to use gmail,

it is incredibly broad, say we will do with it what we want to do with it in a lot of ways with the data that you share that they collect through gmail. if that is open-ended, how do you do oversight on that sort of thing? it is sort of forward-looking, and oversight is what are the facts on the ground and how can we properly sort of regulate that day in and day out? it is a challenge. president obama is the big data president you argue in your story. what will president bush -- on your blog, you used your term guruization. can you talk about the difference between the obama administration and the bush administration? guest: the argument that data has really become a marker of obama isart of team

being data-driven in your approach. not just politics and governing, -- your you are sort of orientation is let's get the data and figure out what it says and go from there. the argument that they are young democratic operatives or old democratic operatives, they say republicans are still fixated on to reduce -- on gurus. that the people that you hired from mitt romney's campaign are able that worked on his campaign before that you pay a lot of money to. the argument is that there is this debate that democrats are less captured by these gurus that still run the republican party. we will see if that is actually true. in part it is wishful thinking in terms of the up and coming operative, but that is sort of the idea, that george bush and some of these past presidents

were sort of captured by you hire the one smart guy to run your campaign. why is obama -- in large part he is president because the data has overlapped with his presidency. it is the function of the evolution of technology. we just did not have a lot of this stuff before. host: a comment from twitter on this issue. only uses metadata for pattern recognition, no problem. it is the intelligence private contractors that are the problem." "faith inn writes in, is all good,ency but we are not exactly seeing transparency with respect to the nsa spying." lastcola, talk about that comment, with the president talking about his administration being the most transparent in history. are you seeing that? guest: i hate to give this

answer, but it does depend. they have been transparent in some ways they approach government, but not transparent in other ways. they have sort of leaned on every agency to release data, to respond more quickly. they have sort of talked a lot of the language you would want to see from a transparent administration, some putting has practice, some of it been worse. the sentiment i would agree with is that part of the check on this stuff has always been transparency. know, someoneou is collecting all your data as long as you know what they are doing with it. the argument that people sometimes make with facebook, for example, is a little bit different, but they are collecting all our data, i know

i am getting service out of that. i made an informed choice to make that trade-off. i am willingok, so to give up some data for that. what we have seen is the aggresn using the data without the corresponding transparency around it. freelancey scola is a reporter covering politics and technology. her work appears in "the washington post," "the atlantic." you served on the house oversight and government reform committee as a staffer from 2001 to 2005 before going on to your writing career. she is taking your questions and story, president obama's faith in data going for beyond transparency. that morning, june, on the republican line. caller: good morning. at her andf amazed

her comments. these are things that are suspected all along. i am just kind of surprised that the administration would make it so that things come out in such a plain way. folks, we are being played. we are being used by this administration. there is information that is collected, and i am just kind of amazed. folks, wake up. i mean, you cannot do anything on the internet without granting permission to collect this data. you cannot engage in commerce without doing this. have a facebook page because i have been resisting it , because i did not want to put all this information out there. not tois very difficult do facebook or twitter. and this administration is collecting all of this data.

yes, for national security, i understand that, but it should not be used or allowed to be used to further your political agenda. nancy scola, what surprised you most about these revelations since this all came out through the nsa leaks by edward snowden? what were you surprised? -- what were you surprised about? guest: i think it is the compounding of the different -- you know, some of the programs we didn't know about, among them we suspected -- some of the programs we did know about, some of them we suspected. internet traffic data compounded with your phone records, compounded with traditional on-the-ground intelligence. aat is possible to know about particular individual in the

public, you know it intellectually but when you think about it in practice, it is pretty powerful. we are constantly creating digital data, so there is a lot that can be known about us. back, iftake a step somebody wanted to know the in's and outs of my life, that would be pretty possible. the second thing is, the lack of oversight in some ways, what we now know we did not know in terms of who in congress was conducting outside -- was conducting oversight. it is the checks and balances on this, we really did not have a handle of the full scope of that. comment from twitter. "mr. snowden is the only reason we are discussing the nsa data collecting. how transparent is that?" what is your take on a bird snowden and what he did here? guest: i don't know if i want to wade into that.

doingediate reaction, oversight work in the past and tracking this stuff closely over the years, i think people were arprised that you would have 29-year-old with such immense ability to peer into these systems. i think we have done a lot of work over the past many years as the national security state really ramped up and or out -- ramped up and outsourcing that. it was easier to pay out by contract than to do it ourselves. some people make the argument that that makes it easier for , thenies to do sometimes the government has the capacity to do. just sort of in terms of respect for privacy and things we would be extremely happy that extremely unhappy for the .overnment to do

my initial reaction was, wow, this is a reminder of how we few outsourced and we have systems put in place to protect against these sort of leaks. linda, from georgia, on our democratic line. good morning. you are on with nancy scola. caller: thank you for taking my call. agree with the republican from virginia calling, where she admitted that we all knew about and when president bush dick cheney, when all of this was implemented during that administration. this is nothing new. companies gather our information every day, and we give it to them freely. i am not opposed to data gathering at all when it comes to keeping us safe. thank you. host: nancy scola? it is well, i think

interesting to think about the counter example of attacking applauding the united states on facebook and we do not track that. you can see the criticism of the government that has lagged behind technologically, the whole world discussing things on facebook and twitter, and we are not paying attention. i could certainly see their perspective of a smart, savvy government will use the data to fulfill its mission of protecting its people. but it brings up one thing that is interesting in some of this stuff, too will stop there was an inspector general report in 2009 from the nsa saying that part of this is so much about internet traffic and phone passing through the

united states from the whole world. ofhave a lot of the backbone the infrastructure and that sort of thing. for the internet, it is the historical first mover advantage , that we foster the internet and for various reasons -- our economy, commerce -- a lot of tech companies have set up in the united states. we have the ability to tap into some of the stuff we would not have. you don't see the nsa going for the chinese version of twitter and asking for this data because they will not get it in the same way. , to not go this idea aggressively and ask these companies to hand over this data would be giving up the united states advantage. for someone like me, it raises questions about in some ways we have that advantage, and because of the united states'

traditional and self-proclaimed role, is the protector of the internet, protector of internet traffic, and what does that put at risk? there are people who do actually run the internet. we periodically have these debates about that, and when that comes up, it seems to me are theyent again is, abusing that privilege and responsibility they have of running the internet, and maybe the push has been in the past there are various problems that people do not -- various problems and reasons that people do not want to do that, and that to do that, and that as fuel to the debate. host: does a story like this in today's "new york times" surprise you?

the headline, "france, too, is sweeping up data, newspaper reveals." newspaper in france disclosed thursday that france has its own large program of data collection thomas which sweeps up nearly all the data transmissions, including telephone calls coming e-mails, and social media activity that comes in and out of france. surprising to you? guest: in some ways. i have not read it yet, i woke up and came right here. but the devil is in the details. we saw with the early reporting about the nsa programs, a lot of that was wrong, the idea that the nsa could tap into facebook servers was sort of wrong. quantitatively or qualitatively, it skews the story in a way that i think is unfortunate. i would love to see the details of what is happening in france.

have country is going to some thought of how do we use this traffic to make our country am sort of punting and saying i would love to see the details of what they are doing. i think reporting on this can lack perspective and sense of scale, so i am punting on that one. crofton,n is next from maryland, on our republican line. caller: a lot of people are talking about edward snowden. you talked about him recently. close to where i live in crofton, maryland. coincidentally, edward snowden grew up here, went to crofton woods elementary school, went to crofton middle school, went to the only high school that crofton students went to at that time, and that was arundel high school. he is kind of like the local boy

even though they say he is from ellicott city or grew up over there. i think the jury is still out on what he did. i don't think we know what he did exactly. i don't think we know what he has in his inventory that he has not released yet. i don't even know what the story -- that being in the moscow airport, iceland. i think the guy did us a service. for one, maybe i am not well informed -- nancy, maybe you can tell me -- did you know about this facility in utah? before this? yeah, i think the existence of it, we knew about the existence of it. i think what was going into it was -- i think a lot of this is

scope and scale. we have a better sense of the enormity of what is going into that, and the use that it could be put to. host: any thoughts on what happens to edward snowden from here? , the: in some ways reaction, the nsa and the federal government's reaction to edward snowden -- i am making sort of editorial statement here -- it makes more sense to me than what happened to julian assange. the nsa has the responsibility to crack down on people joining up reportedly to get information from them then make a public. in theiran agency that minds works in private in some ways. ways it was state department driven, more about

the state and i think did not necessarily need to be as aggressive as they were. you have to object when someone breaks into your house and takes your stuff. i think kind of their role in this is to be pretty upset about this sort of incursion of the work they are doing. we are talking about a guy who has been at the moscow airport, sort of a more dramatic story than anybody imagined. i don't know how that is going to play out. a question on twitter about how the process works and the oversight of the data collection mechanism that the government has. fisa judges selected by the supreme court judges?" can you talk about the fisa

court? guest: they are the judges that hear this -- that hear these requests. it is a very sealed court, only government attorneys and a few other folks who are able to take part in the proceedings, and they make a determination about whether or not they requests be made for information, they overwhelmingly approved the requests made to them. i don't know. they are judges, sort of normal about, and i don't know the mechanics of how they are elected to serve on the court. on ourext up is anna republican line in texas. caller: i lost one nephew in niecesd i have two

currently serving in afghanistan. those are the people who do services for our country, not mr. snowden. the other thing on mr. obama being the data president. this all started back with nasa. we have our social security that is india, china, god only knows where. our banks and information all over the world, and i am worried , president obama? i don't think so. we have people calling about the data president. this man and every other president, including president you have to keep us safe, and our young people are in harms way when a person like mr. snowden and anyone else gets our security information like this. he is a traitor, and anyone who

thinks that he has done america a great service is also a traitor. thank you. anna from desoto, texas. ron is from new york. are you there? caller: i am. the thing that is disturbing me is that no one seems to be talking about the morale of the of this issue. when you take something of value from someone and don't it issate them for it, called feeling. and this is what is happening. it is not just the federal government, it is also all kinds of companies from one place to another. it is called stealing. no one is talking about the morality of it. scola, is this data being stolen? mean, i talked about it a little bit earlier,

that there is a transaction here. gmail is free for a reason. facebook is free for a reason. they would not be able to survive as a company, facebook in particular, if they could not adsre out how to serve really well. they do that by using the data we give them to target those ads, and they use the data for other transactions in terms of figuring out what people are interested in and that sort of thing. i don't know if it is being stolen. phones you could argue, i pay for my cell phone, so what right does anyone have to that data? that is an argument on more solid footing than the argument that if i use facebook or twitter or google, you are making an informed consent by knowing you are getting something for free.

host: fred is from ohio on our independent line. you are on with nancy scola. caller: i could not help a notice that you seemed to unite peter king and nancy pelosi. it seems to be a general consensus in washington that he is a traitor. understandable because he went to potentially adversarial powers. the people do not necessarily whathat is the sponsor -- is responsible for the washington establishment being bad for the american people. host: you say in your article, which appeared in "the asked month,st" that president obama is open to a conversation about metadata but has not been too helpful in getting that debate going. what more does he need to do to actually have the

guest: i think part of it is just discussing some of the nuances and not reflexively treating all of this as secret. the previouse of callers talked about her niece or nephew serving in iraq, and sometimes the washington establishment, to use as ifible phrase, reacts any of the threats are putting troops directly in harms way. it is certainly natural and it makes sort of intuitive sense. but when you think, what did edward snowden reveal that actually created a national security threat? a more complex question then our reaction tends to be. did al qaeda not know we were sort of surveilling facebook or have the ability to track records. beenuch of this could have

disclosed. how much is the proposition that it is rested upon could of been disclosed? thisel it is ok to track sort of data and not that sort of data. datat rated -- get rid of after a certain period of time because we think the utility has used up at that point. maybe it is wishful thinking, but those are conversations we should be having hearings about in some ways. this is a brave new world in which it is not always immediately understandable to humans. the algorithms, how the data is being used. we need to start coming up with a new terms of the debate and determining -- i think we need to start figuring out what the questions should be. one of the things that happened with jim clapper, the director of national intelligence, he was asked in the hearing about whether or not nsa was

collecting data on millions of americans and their were some arguments why he essentially said no. some are human about why he answered the way you did. , orntionally obfuscating another perspective i talked about in the piece that collect has a different meaning when it talks about data. sounds like or rally in -- orwellian speak may be. saying we are only collect ink it when we do something with it. we do not even have the sort of common vocabulary to talk about the juices of data in politics and governing. i think that is the place to start. i think in that piece, i reflected a little bit of disappointment about the idea that president obama's immediate reaction is no one is listening to your phone calls. at is the first thing we do wrong, is to assume this is surely a question of personal privacy. and if i have nothing to hide

and they are not listening to me, that is not something that concerns me. the first step is like, what are we doing with the data, why are we doing it and what are we talking about when we are talking about data? and i think whatever you think about edward snowden -- and i ofnk there are a real range opinion, we are starting to the conversations in the way we were not a month and half ago. host: long island, new york, democratic line. dave, you are on. theer: if you look at recent events with the obama administration where they used the irs to intimidate political thatent, how do you know there is eventually some little cool group or party would use the nsa as a political weapon -- eventually some political group or party would use the nsa? with the banks in 2008, i know eliot spitzer was being populist

against the banks and next thing you know he has a problem with prostitution. then you have the guy in chicago am a he was being kind of populist, and he had issues. , julianu had wikileaks assange, and next thing you know you has some sort of criminal charges and he is in exile. have situations where you have the lobbyists pumping all of that money into congress. you get the situation of state capture. when bigens corporations donate enough money? against unions or whatever? guest: i think there are two things. people working -- worried about the capacity building, once you have the capacity you can use it for another purpose. if you have the ability to set

up the databases and queries to find patterns for particular enemies of the united states we are talking about now, you have the capacity to use it for other purposes. the development of nuclear , or atomicyou know bombs, the sense is that the purpose was may be justified in the short term and now we are looking at what we sort of unleashed upon the world and worrying about that a little bit. i think we have to think about, ok, this is the capacity we are building right now. we might not like how it is used 20 years from now. and then the other thing is that i think that without being alarmist, there is a lot of back and forth right now between some of these tech companies in particular. and the government, in ways that are nontraditional. that we have not seen in the past. we have the white house regularly partnering with places like facebook and google to hold

chats and do some of the communications outreach. you have mark zuckerberg, for example, the ceo of facebook, hosting a town hall with the president. it is because if you talk to the white house, they say facebook has an ability to communicate with the public that the white house simply does not have. they be it sounds a little crazy, but if the white house wants to hold a town hall on veterans issues, and they want to do it in a week it is a lot easier for facebook to find those folks. so they can use for veterans or politically engaged and sort of round them up and hold the town hall. in a way the white house does not have the capacity to do. i think some of -- we sort of have -- you know, these companies for so many years were considered so nine. do no evil approach. people gave google and facebook a lot of freedom. good intentions.

you know, not impugning their intentions, but they have the capacity to do things that are enormously powerful. facebook has all of this data. google has a great deal of data. are we ok with the white house sort of -- let's partner up with mark zuckerberg and hold a town hall, just because it sounds so neat and tech savvy without thinking through the fact that in some ways it is pretty comparable to, in the past, the white house wanting to hold the telephone town hall and we had the ceo of at&t hosting. i think it would strike us a little stranger. just having a little more skepticism about how we approach and understand some of these relationships i think is probably -- i think the time is probably come for that. host: nancy scola is a freelance writer covering politics and technology, author of "the big data president" in the outlook section of "the washington post"

from sunday, june 16. .com.ork is that nancyscola thank you so much for joining us here on "washington journal." guest: thank you. host: we've got the jobs numbers for june. they were just released by the bureau of labor statistics. the total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 195,000 in june, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.6%. according to that report released today, employment rose in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services. retail, trade, healthcare and financial activities. that report just released. the number of of unemployed persons at 11.8 million. theext, a discussion about impact of early education on national security. and later, our weekly america by

the number segment will look at how travel and tourism impacted the u.s. economy. we will be right back. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> they thought coming less -- west they would leave behind the racism. the sun did shine a little more benignly, but 5 -- some of them saying it was even a more cruel kind of racism. a smile on the face but a dagger behind the back, is how they describe the california. they were not allowed to live in any of the cities, not even the small towns. they were locked out. the only land available to them were these out alive land -- literally when you ride up, it

is so salty, it looked like it snowed there. this was the land available to them. and they build their little wooden shacks. no water. had to go into town to fetch the water. no city sewers. they had outhouses. no police roamed the area. it was a no man's land. ,> more on the black okies african americans migrated to bakersfield, california, from the south. as we explore the history and literary life of bakersfield on c-span2's "booktv" an american history tv on c-span3. >> one of the points we make in this book -- does it make it different to have direct popular elections? we come down on the side, yes, it did make a difference. senators began to act like house members which, of course, is not something any senator wants to hear.

it means they were scavenging for votes. they actually had to go out and deal with the people as opposed to -- if you've got a state legislature and there are 26 members of your state senate, all you need are 14 votes and you could easily pay off. and they did, in some cases, pay off 14 senators. in ag off their mortgages couple of notorious cases, to buy their election. with historian emeritus of the u.s. senate, richard baker, sunday night at eight on c-span's "q&a." "> "washington journal continues. host: are neck guest noted the u.s. military recruit class of 2010 34 has just -- our next guest noted that the u.s. military recruit class of 2024 has just graduated kindergarten. talk about your group, mission readiness, military leaders for kids.

of 380 retired generals and admirals who advocate for smart investment in the next generation of children. we are a nonprofit, nonpartisan national security organization. we fall under the umbrella of counsel for stronger america. for tenets we think are important. business leaders, faith leaders, law enforcement leaders, and our military leaders. at the end -- at the end of the day calling for smart investment into children so they grow up to this and ready, ready to during -- join the workforce in the military and serve the country. what factors are keeping tomorrow's recruit out of the military? guest: here is a surprising 25%istic did 75% of 17 -- of 17-25 years old are not eligible to vote -- on a eligible. including the health issue, being obesity. % could not, 75

walk into a recruiting door even if they wanted to today. supportinggroup is the obama administration's early education initiative. explain but that initiative is and why it will not work there. guest: research shows money spent on high-quality pre-k programs has great results in improving graduation rates, keeping kids law abiding citizens. into reducing obesity. we are all in for supporting this program that put over a ten-year period $75 million dollars toward four-year-olds for high-quality pre-k programs, from low to middle income families. your callse taking and the segment as we talk to general seip about his group come in mission rate, military leader for kids. issues facing today's military recruits they are -- that they are helping to solve through funding for pre-and garden

education. our phone lines are open -- host: and we have a special line for active military, if you want to call them in the segment. host: general seip, what does it cost today to send a kid to a high-quality pre-k program like the ones you are advocating? from $4000ould range to $9,000, and for many families it is just out of reach. the obama administration program is a state partnership that allows states to grow the programs they already have in place, or in some cases, established programs that again would result in increased graduation rates and make sure children grow up. they have the opportunity to be

called the greatest generation. i dad grew up and he was part of the greatest generation that tom brokaw described. we think every generation of children have -- should have the opportunity to have that moniker and pre-k sets the stage. host: the group of generals you work with, is your primary concern the national security aspect, sort of the larger societal issue? guest: concern from the national security aspect. a lot of people associate the military with our tanks and planes and ships and technology. but at the end of the day, it is the young men and women who so proudly served that make us a most respect it and interviewed military in the world. our concern is that as the economy continues to grow, we will be competing out there for the cream of the crop to come in through the military and be part of our workforce. we would like to see the pool as large as possible. so we don't necessarily have to industrygainst private

or other organizations out there, that there's enough kids for everyone to go after. host: $75 billion is the proposed investment by the asthma -- by the obama administration the next 10 years. where do you think the money should come from? is it something where there are further cuts to the military to help fund the pre-k effort that would pay dividends in 2020 four and beyond? host: i am not sure we want to go after the military budget that is being cut as we speak. this is america's problem. it is not a republican or democratic problem. parents,ountry, we as administrators, teachers, we as a let it officials, if we decide this is a problem we are solving i think we will find ways to fund the program without adding to the tax burden. host: specific recommendations in your report. to prekindergarten is a commitment to national security. folks can find that online at your website.

iness.org. missionread specific places you think the money should come from? guest: i would be quite honest it we don't care where the money comes from. we just like to see congress and the administration come together and make the program come to fruition. host: we are taking your calls with seip lieutenant general -- lieutenant general seip. where did you serve? guest: my last assignment was the 12th air force commander at the air force base and i was also senior airman in southern command where i interacted with 20 nine partner nation air forces in latin america and the caribbean. host: let's go to john in fairfax, virginia, on the democratic line. you are on with general seip.

caller: i want to thank the general for his foresight. we know investment in earlier education has a big payoff. i am a white person. i believe that we owe descendents of slavery a form of reparations, and my plan would program where descendents of slavery would be paid throughout their elementary education on a daily basis, eight more for better performance and fined for lack of and -- performance. i think i -- they need an incentive and i think paying them to do well would pay off for everybody. host: what are your thoughts on post the pre-k years? you are talking about funding in the pre-k here specifically in this report. are there other investments your group is advocating for after pre-k? guest: right now we are focused

on the 10 year program that bring $75 billion to the table. e av studies that looked significant.nt early kprograms in that for every dollar invested there is a two dollar return in savings, cost avoidance, and the cost of avoidance comes from not having children haveci ed. full to that don't end up in the criminal system, as well as people higher up in the economic that don't end up in the criminal system. you in itself is a way could potentially keep the statem going to allow the to continue to grow, offered a high-quality pre-k. host: you mention 75% of 17-24- year-old are not able to serve because of poor education, being overweight or having a serious

criminal record. i am wondering, do you think our current qualifications for being in the military on these three levels are too high? are we saying no to too many people? guest: i think our qualifications are spot on. the results are, if you look and see what we accomplished each and every day, whether in armed conflict or whether it be out there doing humanitarian relief and natural disaster type responses for our own citizens as well is for people around the lowering the bar is not the answer. we need to up our game and make sure that it's our citizen ready. regardless of whether they join the military are not. that they are ready to enter the workforce and be productive citizens and ready to contribute to our country and keep of the great economic power that we are. host: nelson is from new york on the republican line. you're on with the general seip. i would like to ask a question. in 1954, what was the iq scores for being drafted?

have that, i don't type of information available to me. caller: ok, where would i find it? guest: i bet a smart google question would bring the answer to light. the later not -- later on, if i could get your information. we have a crack research staff at mission readiness would be happy to help you out. host: is there a place people can go on your website to send questions? guest: we have a contact page within the website, missionreadiness.org. host: can you tell me how the qualifications changed over the years? when did you first start seeing the problems of so many folks not being qualified? guest: it has grown over time. in obesity, in 10 years, we went from one state with 39% or more of them being overweight or obese to $.39. 39 states.rates --

graduation rates going down. this has an something that has occurred for a long time. it will take a long-term effort to reverse those trends. showsain, the research that a dollar invested in quality pre-k programs brings great returns and sets a young man or woman on the path to academic achievement and result in graduation. host: talking about the history of qualifications, can you talk about, if we were in a military crisis, who you think these standards would come down a bit? a recent book by rick atkinson talks about the war in western europe from 1944-1945 and he in that book that by 19 44, physical standards had been lowered to accept effects that had once cap young men out of uniform. they no longer examined eyes but

just counted them, came true. a man could be drafted if he had only one eye or was completely lostin one year, or had both external years or was missing a thumb or three fingers in either hand -- host: talk about, if we were to be in a military situation, how we would deal with some of the issues keeping folks out of the military. will not getlly we into the dire straits in terms of the type of folks we have to recruit. but as we were growing the military over these past 10 years, there is a point of time where we actually did lower some of the standards to allow people into the military so we could fill the ranks. now that the wars are ending up we are shrinking the military, we can afford to maintain the high standards. at the end of the day, we have a high tech military. it will require folks who are smart, law, morally sound that can go out there.

the american public expects nothing less. the leaders expect nothing less. the people walking in the door need to be prepared to do those things. host: david from north carolina on the independent line. you're on with general seip. caller: i happen to be going through this with my four year old. had him in daycare. things went awry with those people. as far as how to get it from pre-k. es i thought paid for school and stuff. but having to file as low in, find -- kind of feels offensive to me. but i will do it, because i want him to get a good education and -- good start. thed him started and now curriculum has faded. i am willing to pay more land taxes. i pay all the taxes i can. i am willing to pay more land taxes.

leave oneo reason to kid across the street at home and send the other one. we are lacking. that is just a comment i want to make. thank you, general. that is exactly what the generals at admission readiness is looking for. every eligible for your old and high-quality pre-k has highly skilled teachers, they've got curriculum, high staff to student ratios, folks that can determine whether a young child might have a behavior, physical, and/or developmental disorder that we can tackle early on. if you are not careful and do not do this right, it will fade out over time. what we see -- i use new jersey as an example -- those kids who started in the high-quality pre-

k program, as they are hitting fourth and eighth grade, still three quarters of a year ahead of their contemporaries in math and two thirds ahead of their contemporaries and literacy skills. high pre-k programs have a lasting effect and they really set the foundation for a young man or young woman. i compliment you for wanting the best for your child. host: here is a story in today's "usa today." the headline is "preschool programs are getting a boost."

host: general, can you talk about that decline in funding and where you saw the most? decade from 2000-20 10, dramatic increase in pre-k program in funding and then over the last couple of years we have seen it stagnant. we have seen the funding drop. the $75 billion over 10 years can help boost that. i would pushback on the comment that there is not an emphasis on

pre-k out there. we've got a bipartisan support from governors, again, from both sides of the aisle, that have come up on record supporting early pre-k programs, high quality. this, which is state-federal partnership really put to the states in the drivers seat. we have 10 states out there that do not have any type of pre-k programs at all and half of the states that do have them, 30% or more of the four-year-olds are not being served. there is plenty of room for improvement. our report shows even if we increase -- increase graduation rates by 15%, a long -- a lowball number, over 10 years, we would graduate 2 million more till june from high school. that equates to almost all the active-duty guard and reserve we have in the military today. that is a significant number. host: your report shows some of the support from different states you notice bipartisan support.

the governors buying into the program. talk about how you get this proposal from the obama administration through congress? i would like to think they meet somewhere and hatchet out. recognize the fact that pre-k programs, high-quality pre-k something that parents one, teachers one, and bipartisan folks across both sides of the island congress one. -- once. resident kennedy saying we need to put a man in the moon, within a generation. . in 10 years we did that. we are convinced admission readiness that we come together saying we need to solve this problem, we will come together and solve it. host: steve is from virginia on the democratic line. you are on with the general seip . .aller: good morning thank you for the work you are doing. i am wanting to know, if nutrition is in this.

i think that is a big problem. a child can't learn if they are not getting proper nutrition, even at a young age. and i want to know what you think about getting physical education back in school. it seems like a lot of people i know who served in the service had a background of athletics. football, basketball, or whatever. that is one of the most important things, i think, is physical education in school. i had it. i played ports. a lot of times that is the only place they will get it -- magician and some kind of physical education at school. it all goes hand in hand. thank you. guest: that is a great question. is on obesity, childhood obesity. -- cdc's dead -- it isn't the cdc said that it is an epidemic. high-quality pre-k program, working with