fighter program. a spotlight on the magazines at 9:00. host: as the president departs for his bus tour, a proposal that will break colleges on markers such as tuition and graduation rates. if he can get congressional approval, the idea would be to tie federal financial aid to students based in part of the rankings. analysis from the census bureau shows that average median income stands at $52,090. the washington post reports this morning this comes as americans are trying to improve their income by going back to school to improve skills. bradley manning sentence that

should it for information given to wikileaks. he was given 35 years. what do you think about the sentence? 31 people commenting so far. we want to ask you about the sentence. was it too lenient or appropriate? we want to hear from you this morning. -- here is how you can weigh in this morning. twitter is available to you. you can also send as emails. the new yorkrom times. bradley manning escorted into court wednesday for the maryland retreat in maryland. it shows a picture of him with

the headline. manning giving sentence 35 years for lookeaking. then gives youe

a little bit of perspective. there have been a series of opinions in the sentence that was handed down yesterday. you may have opinions of your own. here is how you can share them with us. if you live outside the united states, if you could also give us opinion on that. he made a statement and thoughts known on the release yesterday saying reprimanding betrayed his country. obligations as a soldier.

editors of "new york times" known --eir opinion and

again, with all that in mind, your thoughts and opinions on the 35-year sentence given to bradley manning yesterday. and as we start this morning, we will start in florida on the republican line. david. good morning.

guess they had to give him something, but i have an issue with the fact that what we're doing around the world cannot stand the light of day. there is a problem. there is a little saying that truth is treason is in the empire of lives. that is all i have to say. to get tell us about the role in this. what this says about those who will provide information about government activities. >> they do take an oath and all that and they do have a chain of command. you are there to do what you are told. they know that going in. i guess that comes a point where your conscious and you want your soldiers to have one might override whatever they're being told. they say you have to follow orders but some are not always lawful. i am admire people when they

stand up against what they believe to be wrong. know what a right to is going on. in california. in the next to john on the democrat line. i just have a brief comment. that is bradlee manning probably deserve some time. i thought it was harsh. how about those people who lied to the congress that represents the people about the nsa activities and bold faced lies saying they did not spy on americans? that is all i have to say. what you think about the sentence to reprimanding and what others would do if they provide that type of information?

those in the future might provide this type of information to the public as well? caller: i would like to echo the previous gentleman's comments, and that is they did take an oath. at what point does your --scious do the right thing it is really a tough question. he did break his oath. at the same time, at what point is there a point when you should break the oath when it is for the greater good? >> usa today reflects hemlines and other papers. nsa admits new privacy violations. kevin johnson writing about the top intelligence officials here yen .

there are other accounts of the story as well. theheard some thoughts on 35-year sentence handed down. you could make your thoughts known as well. kentucky up next. archie on the independent line. good morning. personally i think they both deserve a government of freedom. this government serves it's self and huge multinational corporations. that is all it serves. they have no interest in what we want and our rights as a citizen. privacy as out the window.

this is 1984. thank you very much. host: a presidential pardon is the goal of a new web site. this is for bradley manning. in conjunction with the announcement, the support network has launched the website that connects to a petition written by amnesty international and a video with testimony from veterans and civilians from afghanistan. it will link to the official application for pardon as soon as it is available. a couple of thoughts this morning on pardon. randall says parted him, but finally go out to the criminals that manning exposed. no one seems to mention them. brian jarvis had about 40

comments when we started the show. that has decreased during our time together. a variety of ways you can make your thoughts known this morning. republican line. victoria. corn -- good morning america. with thisajor problem whole situation. president of the united states food does not apply the constitution that we hold so dear to our hearts. then we have this young man and and nsa. as an american citizen, i am totally disappointed in whole

system. this guy supposedly exposed classified information. i would like to know what major harm this guy has done with classified information. that he a way, glad exposed as to the american public to the nsa or we would never have known it. i am confused. the president better stick to theoath to uphold constitution. he is walking all over the constitution. democrat line in new jersey. tim o'neill.me is i want to say bradley manning did that really break his oath. -- did not really. his oath was to protect the constitution, and that is what

he did. in my opinion he is just as brave and as much of the patriot menhe bed he off -- as the on the front lines. host: even with the type of information he left out? of the the type information he let out did not endanger the men on the front line. he left out information that xposed -- he let out information that should not have happened, that the government was hiding. the men on the front lines have thanof a conscious officers and generals do. they just issues the orders and try to hide mistakes. morningphotograph this

out of damascus. the bodies of the people who syrian rebels they were killed in wednesday on a government attack. hospitals flooded with victims. there is an accompanying story post" and"washington

taking a look at nerve gas. in general it says -- bradley manning and his 35-year sentence this morning. sean on the republican line from massachusetts. any army based on

anything to buy with the constitution is a hero in my mind. this government answers to the people. anybody, if you in this today and you find that the government is violating the constitution, you have a responsibility to inform the public. 1943 anyone who brought to light the massacre of the jews, they would say you violated your oath or whatever. host: the president embarks on a bus trip today. new york and pennsylvania college campuses will be the destination. stopping in new york today. new york and pennsylvania on friday. a story taking a look at some of the message. david jackson is the white house

reporter. could you highlight some of the message that the president will how colleges should be ranked and how that ties to financial aid? on a: this is the latest series of speeches to the middle class and the topic is college affordability. he will outline a revamped plan that. first of all, it involves payment for performance. they're holding down costs and delivering a more effective education. these rankings will be tied to federal aid. the higher the school is ranked, the more federal aid they will be eligible for. change the student aid program where it will be tied to student progress to a degree.

the way i understand it right now, a lot of students get them at the first semester. the way i understand it will be allocated through the year as they make more progress. it will also challenges -- promote innovation and competition among themselves and basically improve innovation services and how they deliver them. that will reduce cost as well. he will talk a little bit about a new student debt program. the president has also talked about how the student debt load has increased in recent years making it harder and harder for graduates to enter the workforce and middle-class. also changing the way students would have repayments no more than 10 percent of what the earnings are after he graduates. he will go to college campuses and speak directly to students. it seemed that throughout the

campaign. and talk about the other issues like the economy at large and health care. and yet he is focusing on college this week. guest: i am standing right now at the university of buffalo. according to the white house, they are already doing things with technology innovation. he is coming here to us -- to spotlight the kinds of things he is talking about how colleges can lower the cost and still maintain a good education. he will start here and then go to a high school in syracuse. as you mentioned, this is all part of a larger strategy based on what he calls the middle class programs. over the past several weeks he has given several speeches on different aspects of the programs. he talked about housing and of other city. he says education is the key to

middle-class. are college graduate, a better class of entering the economy and making more of an income. even on top of that, he was on vacation last week, now getting back to the real grind. we're heading into september where we will look at budgets. the fiscal year ends september 30 and the temporary spending bill ends on september 30. if the president and congress cannot agree on a new spending plan, the government will shut down. i think you are also hearing him make his pitch for how we should handle the budget going forward. for the proposals he is laid out, what are the expectations? significant factor. i thought he would talk a lot about the executive order but that does not appear to be the

case. a lot of it is ranking the college in tying college aid to this. they would have to agree to a new system that would base college aid on the rankings. also, i think he has to be involved if you change the structuring of debt prepayments for college loans. that will be a challenge. they are tied up on the budget. there is a potential argument over the debt ceiling. congressional republicans who are trying to defund the health- care law. a lot of disagreements. this college issue, while it is important, i can see it getting lost in the shuffle. host: i suspect he will have to do will reach a deal with college administrators and leadership directly at the places he is going to be at in the next few days. think he will seek college officials saying it is

subjective, and they will argue, which is expensive. providing a top-quality education is expensive. you have to pay professors and pay for equipment and subject matter. this will be interesting because a lot of them support president obama. host: david jackson talking about the president's bus trip he embarks on today in new york and pennsylvania. thank you. topic this on that morning. aboutced to 35 years and the maning case. thank you for waiting. go ahead. caller: i wanted to comment that i thought the sentence was a bit harsh. he is not a hero. ofdid leak a massive amount information. in light of what he released, i think it was a bit harsh. i think that's got handed down

in light of the edward snowden controversy. if i would say there were direct marching orders to the judge to give him a harsher sentence, but in the light of more recent paranoia, i would say there is probably a culture more directed at securing that sort of thing. the numbers to call in -- another eric from pennsylvania. this is on the independent line. good morning. caller: i somewhat agree with the previous eric, but i depart from him and what should happen subsequent to the hearing and whenever kind of harshness it has. an effectiveot

movement to pardon him. it is looking pretty good. i am optimistic from the citizen standpoint. it there is not some sort of direct action to remedy this wayr the fact, that is the we as americans, those that our constitution-minded, regardless of partisan loyalty, we can know that america is officially terminally cancelled. beene constitution has presented. aspects of what he violated, it is almost like we have come to a point where now that we have secret vaults and courts and jails and torture programs and so forth, it astonishes me that the american drink the willing to kool-aid and the current day

when we have seen the proxy wars. it took a decade or 24 things to come out and we can more traditional ways. was much worse than we thought. folks should be willing to suspect at this point. if they do not, they really have no room to complain. regardless of party politics, it is an america that is broken. eric, thank you. john on the democrat line. as ar: i am calling veteran. as a veteran i remember taking the oath to protect the

constitution. in any order from a commander that is thought to be a moral and wrong and against the constitution, i would have a moral responsibility to report that act. the fact of the matter is the commander giving the orders, he or she should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because that is a war crime that was committed. you hear nothing about that. i think back to world war ii, they knew they were serving the constitution. even in those times, many of those soldiers knew. what heto see him for did with the freedom of information act, and he should

be supported and put up in the chain of command. those people that supported the action are to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. host: a story about income this morning in "the washington post ." --

host: scott from florida. you are up next. independent line. caller: good morning. and ited to say snowden believe this individual deserves what they get. president bush told us a long time ago we are being monitored. in in the reality what they did is take highly-sensitive documents and release them throughout the world. these are security documents and has nothing to do with the monitoring us. i wanted to state that. thank you. >> more doctors excessing

medicare. kelly kennedy writing the number of doctors and said the new medicaid payments rose by 1/3. it is now higher by a number of positions accepting new patients. in 2007 about 925,000 doctors billed medicare for the services. in 2011 it had risen to 1.2 5 million. million. john is also from florida. on the republican line. odd mani guess i am the

out. i feel he should be shot and executed. in my father's generation we would not have tolerated this. there is a world of difference between what snowden did and he did not like the don't ask, don't tell. hading was a homosexual who an issue against the army. he put people's lives at risk, operatives we had in other countries. he should have been shot as well beenhung. hung.t as well as is on the line. like to stated something about what the gentleman before me spoke about. i was floored.

to the sameth constitution. a lot of people who took the are concerned. we were taught that america does not do certain things. that is what made us great and what made people from different countries want to be here. go back to nazi germany time and the nuremberg trials. escapewere trying to that country. i do not want people trying to escape america. people afraid. safetyraid for my baby's someday. we have to think in terms of mass surveillance and what they will be capable of doing with these supercomputers in the next 10-15 years.

things are being built up as terrorism now. when we think in terms of the information age and what our enemies can do -- these are secret courts like the gentleman said, secret prisons, ndaa 2012. can be detained indefinitely without trial or charge because of something a secret court or secret who-kn ows chooses for us to be hauled off. looking at ups to make changes on health benefits. prompted in part by

the federal health overhaul. rising costs for coverage of crime and other health have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost. the change will affect about 15,000. working spouses who can get health care coverage through their own employer. the change does not apply to spouses who cannot get their own coverage or the sponsors of onized employees. caller: good morning. how are you doing? of the discussion i am folks areout -- from

comparing manning to a for exposing the rights of our constitutional -- for exposing the fact that our constitutional rights are being violated. a warosed documents in theater to the general public, including the enemy. the damage probably still has not been completely assessed, causing potential harm to tactics, mets and potential andbilities that -- methods potential capabilities. we are fighting an enemy abroad. he exposed classified documents. 35 years is nothing. he should be kept in prison for

life without the option of parole. the only reason he should not be executed is because he did it to the general public versus a specific country for the purpose of that country's gain. there could be links somewhere down the road as to how governments used what he exposed in order to fight us or harm us in the future. ramirezseph rumor is -- ing is no hero. ilso, from american hero, joe, am optimistic on manning being paroled.

a new report on mortgage servicers. numerous ongoing issues in the mortgage servicing business ranging from problems helping troubled homeowners to payment processing errors and loan changes. the review comes as the new federal regulator prepares to comply with new rules on the mortgage industry set to begin in 2014. the agency plans to press for industry changes. there is a challenge in making non-banks are following federal law. virginia up next in alabama.

caller: i would like to thank c- span for this program. i am a retired government employee who worked in the capacity of intelligence. should bemanning, given life. people do not understand what this man has done. to be caused americans killed. he has but a lot of lives at risk. concerned,nowden is they need to bring him back to the united states and execute him. you do not give out secrets of the united states of america. about people complaining here.e have terrorists the game has changed since 9/11. people's neighborhoods

were bombed, they would be complaining to the u.s. government. --o not care about any money anybody detecting my lines or doing what they need to do to keep me safe. these are people not doing the things they are supposed to do or doing something that is illegal. i do not feel my privacy is being invaded. if you knew the fight of the fbi you would embrace this program that they have. host: nsa and their activities will be the topic of a program at 9:15. you can join us for that segment. a report saying it would be inappropriate for bradley manning to receive a presidential pardon from presidential -- from president

obama. i want to make a comment about these guys who have turned over classified documents to whoever wants them. in the 30 years military. i listen to what has taken place. it is clear that the chain of custody of this information should have never gone to the point where this private had access to hand that stuff over. something happened. i used to have a chain of custody of everything that came in. up andcer with pick it we would go through the channels and everything was ied.mented and inventor private walk out of there and nobody seemed to miss it?

these folks calling in and talking about their constitution do not have a clue about what the constitution is and what it means. the only thing i can say, those folks in the middle east have the best electronic equipment money can buy. if we have been, you can guarantee yourself that everybody -- that somebody in that system has already provided them with it. on facebookmments so far on this topic. was not divulging dirty laundry, it was his temerity fortifying the state. that is a comment from the 140 lus people0 p

commenting on facebook. robert on the republican line. manning or snowden got ahold of these things at such a low level that they were, it seems like internal security is terrible. that is a black spot on them. liker two, i would someone to explain to me the difference between bradley manning turning things over and this the administration supply military equipment and financial assistance to the muslim brotherhood, who are sworn enemies of the united states. if you read the constitution and you provide that kind of help to them, that is treason. no one has answered that question yet. host: the federal reserve the topic of several stories in the

papers this morning. .he stimulus program the federal reserve is involved in buying bond. the minutes of the fed's policy- setting meeting in july show that officials discussed at length for the first time whether they should alter the terms of their landmark promise. scores --sion under the announcement that the fed will begin scaling back its bond buying program this year. as purchases are referred to quantitative easing and are intended to boost the recovery.

the tapering of bond purchases jitteryesult in a market. democrats' line. hi. caller: bradley manning got off easily. massive dump of this information. caught up in this information was the position of our soldiers in the theater along with their names and other national security information. there were also some things that should have been exposed. was reckless and he did a massive dump. he himself apologize. for those who say he should thought fewer years, he should have gotten a minimum of 99

years. he should at least to a minimum of 25 years. thele are calling in about constitution. most of these people have no idea what the constitution says. they are acting like the nsa is something new that happened under president obama. it has been around since 2001. it escalated under the patriot act. c-span and "washington correct the people who call in. if you do not, you will allow people to spread the ignorance. former president richard nixon the topic of stories from yesterday. thewashington post says april 30, 1973 calls with ronald

reagan and george h. w. bush were captured on a secret recording system that nixon used to take conversations from february 1971 to july 1973. there were 140,000 pages of text documents. reagan, the governor of california, called late in the evening of april 30 to support nixon after nixon delivered a landmark speech about the watergate scandal. he says, my heart is with you. i know what these months have been and what you have been through. we are still behind you out here. you are in our prayers. on more call from nebraska the independent line. like there areds a lot of the uninformed people

calling. they have no idea of the scope of the material he released. if you look at the previous incident, it is just crazy. if you are going to claim the pedophiles ent and in afghanistan are the same, you are crazy. that is all i have to say. that is the last call. later, the cost and future sustainability of the fighter built by lockheed martin. we will take on those topics and "ore when "washington journal

continues after this. to see the loss of print journalism. i am frustrated when i see the loss of so much state and local journalism covering what is happening on the ground. a lot of the national journalism is not as good if you do not have the local journalism. a lot of what i do is watch and read local and state stories and figure out how it is bubbling up to the national level. if there are not people on the ground doing that sort of work, national and journalism suffers. waype someone figures out a to keep that sustainable. we will see a lot more social media where people do not go to the web site of news outlets as much, but they see stories being shared by others and by what

their friends are talking about and use goes that way where the then -- rather than you go to these four web sites. terkel and what is shaping modern journalism on c- span's "q & a." ,"first ladies',m -- the first ladies became extremely popular. she is used in campaigns. we have grover cleveland running for president. we also have mrs. cleveland running for first lady. ofthe encore presentation

our series "first ladies" tonight. "washington journal" continues. tad dehaven, from the cato institute. what the social security coverage? washingtoncials in wanted to have a disability component. most people thought it would be too expensive. they got it in 1956. if you become permanently disabled, you had this program that covered part of your wages. of anally, it was half percent of your wage.

now it is 1.8%. the original program was supposed to be for people 50-64 and then if you became permanently disabled, you would on a reagan's -- go regular social security. it has become a lot bigger. it has become something it was not supposed to. it was supposed to cover everybody. the trust fund is going to be bankrupt by 2016. the tax is coming in are not enough to pay the benefits. it is a situation that will only get worse. we have more and more people going on ssdi and we do not have enough taxpayers paying for those who are on the disability

rolls. as a what qualifies disability? guest: that is where we get into trouble. it is very subjective. it used to be the disability had to be in a permanent, long-term nature. now it only have to last 12 months. the considerations used to determine disability are more subjective. ofyou look at the history it, in the 1980's, there was a backlash. by changingponded the process. owadays, people qualifying for muscular skeletal disabilities. it is very subjective. it is very hard to determine if

someone is truly disabled and if that is a permanent disability. host: when the program started, it was for back injuries and things that would take you out of work. was seen as a transition period that was when we had a more blue-collar work force. people approaching retirement. host: our guest is joining us to talk about disability insurance and the issues he sees with it. if you want to call and comment on it, you have the ability to do so this morning. 202-585-3881.s, for democrats, 202-585-3880. 202-585-3882.ts,

if you are receiving disability, 3883.umber is 202-585- sdi,numbers involved in s are they? guest: if you look at the number of people collecting disability benefits in a ratio to the work force, that has doubled since the 1990's. and a less blue-collar less hard labor work force. with technology in medicine and assisted devices, they should make it easier for people to work. disabled, not more yet you have this doubling of the number of people collecting versus the number of people working. have are people who

permanent disability who need help. nobody is disputing that. there is something amiss with this program when you look at the growth. when you investigate and look at this program and see the inherent subjectivity, it needs to be addressed by congress. host: why hasn't a standard been made? guest: this ability is an elastic concept. they have tried to narrow down and the apparent -- the impairments that they are supposed to use. that has given way to medical location guidelines that are supposed to take into account people's a and location. like mental issues illness and that pain. at some point in my life, i have had back pain or anxiety.

when you get to the appeals appeals if a claimant to a judge, it is hard to look at somebody and listen to them and say you are completely are notor, no, you disabled. host: some of the numbers according to 2013 estimates. 10.9 million people receiving benefits. 2.1 million receiving benefits are spouses and children. why are they included? program andof the expansions that went on over the years. $111 billion expected in revenue for the trust fund. research projects the trust fund will be depleted by 2016.

is concerned,ture analysis has been done saying in the past congress has eliminated potential shortfalls by shifting money within the social security budget. that has been done 12 or 15 times. why not do that again to cover the cost? guest: theory is not a lot of people talking about this issue on capitol -- there are not a lot of people talking about this issue on capitol hill. havingd appear to me in worked around some of these folks that this is an issue they do not want to get too involved in. if you go back to the carter administration -- in the late 1970's, they were facing a lot of the problems we are facing today. carter wanted to crack down and there was a tremendous backlash.

congress made it easier to get disability benefits. this is an emotional issue. this is a tough issue. the average member of congress does not want to deal with people protesting outside their offices, handicapped or what have you. there is not a lot of gumption to tackle this problem and they meant that this thing has become something it was never supposed to be. host: your estimation is that congress would shift funds around to cover the cost. from the cato institute joining us to talk about this. the first call, go ahead. not understand. what do they consider a disability?

caller.anks, we talked about it a little bit, but if you want to go further as far as how it is clarified. guest: it is a disability that last at least 12 months. it is made by a state determination office. it can be appealed. there are various criteria that are taken into consideration as to whether that standard is met. the disabilityr, component is being abused. pension shortfall is real. how does that square with your analysis? guest: this program is already in serious trouble. social security will be in the same boat soon.

to make up for this shortfall, we are basically borrowing it. the problem is already here. if you want to go along with washington accounting, in 2016, you have the real problem. host: we set aside a line for people have this type of insurance. mario, good morning. caller: i wanted to state that i received disability. haved seems the best i received it for quite a while. -- i have received it for quite a while. they want me to try to work. the problem is once you start working, you lose your insurance. the medicine i take costs $300 a month. if i do not have the medicine, i end up back in the hospital and i lose my job.

that the affordable care act is being considered, wouldn't that be a great segue for people on this ability to be able to work in be gainfully employed and received benefits so that they can afford their medicine -- there wouldbe be less recidivism on the roles of social security. rolls of social security. host: what cause you to be on social security? caller: i would rather not state. on thattick with hippa one. caller does make a point. 24 months after receiving benefits, you automatically qualify for medicare. this is a big reason why people

choose that option. the government picks up the cost of your health care. that is one of the big costs here. ssdiedicare cost to beneficiaries is about $100 billion per year. host: what is the monthly benefit payment? guest: it depends on your work history and previous earnings. you cannot be making more than $1,100. there is a cut off in that does disservice to work. that is an issue. the caller was getting to that problem. host: change from texas, you are up next on the republican line. caller: i have heard that a large number of people in puerto rico can qualify for ssdi. if that is the case, that seems outrageous to me. guest: what the caller is

referring to is that there is a massive fraud situation with ssdi benefits in puerto rico. the fbi and other government of doctorsed a bunch who were being paid to give diagnoses that would help people collecting benefits. they are talking about benefits hall of over $100 million. this is one of the -- they are talking about benefits of over $100 million. work from a wall street journal reporter brought this to the world's attention. the response was that there was nothing out of the ordinary in puerto rico. host: the story this morning goes on to say three indicted doctors charged patients a fee

for filling out government paper work. their claims medical corrections -- medical conditions did not -- medical conditions did not exist. the top-10 hit thath in the united states had the highest level of benefits were in puerto rico. amazingly, the ssa said there was nothing out of the ordinary. host: shouldn't there be some kind of framework to follow up on the legitimacy? guest: this is the problem having a government-run program run from washington. it is not just the number of people on it, but the number of people applying. the system is broken so you have this massive backlog because of

the appeals. conductis supposed to periodic reviews. they are behind on that. the judges are so overwhelmed institute quotas to move things along. the administrative law judges have said judges are pushing people through the system because it is easier and quicker to approve benefits. e joins us from maryland and received disability benefits. go ahead. caller: i applied for benefits in 2002. it is a case of thyroid disease. in 2005, i got benefits, but only for one time.

i was working part-time as a contractor. in 2008, it was investigated and months and ir six got medicare for six months. still working part-time as a contractor. year, i the end of last finally got mine ssdi benefits i my ssdi benefits and continue to get them now. i still work part-time. they kept telling me, do not work. if i did not work, i could not pay my bills, so i continued to work. host: you said someone told you not to work. who was that? the program is that you do not work. you are supposed to be so disabled that you cannot work. you also need to apply for ssi

time.di at the same i refused to apply for ssi because i wanted to work in i am working and i continue to work. that was part of my problem in getting the ssdi. i did go without insurance for almost a year-and-a-half. host: are you working full-time or part-time? caller: i work part time. arthritis. from that was sadie merrill lynch. guest: the caller touched on the sadiem -- host: that was from maryland. the call it touched on

the problem. this points to the problem. the caller brought up ssi, to mental security income, a sister supplementale -- security income. you see the problem with these with parents that say they are looking for a kit that can pull a check. a kid can goes -- th pull a check.

the check goes to the parents. these kids in the up not getting skills and they end up identifying themselves with his disability and is in capability of working and the end up on the rolls permanently. host: the most prevalent mental impairment among children found eligible were speech and language delay and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. examinersbility considered the impact of secondary impairment when making a decision. these impairment score used to support 58 percent -- 55% of cases. they are aware of trying

to get their kids on medication because taking drugs will help them get back ssi -- that ssi check. in the town i grew up in, there was a doctor called aridalin -- ritalin. -- dr. ritalin. --le told the judge psychotropic drugs are nothing to play with. good morning. i would like everyone to have a great morning. about the ssi check, they should

not eliminate it. i have a question for your guests. -- your guest. what about people with brain injuries? how would they fit into this? nsa if you have a brain injury ifd you meet the -- guest: you have a brain injury and you meet the qualifications, you should get the benefits. who do not have a safety or a backup. it has become something it was not meant to be. am a former paralegal from the northeast. aziz inlly got crohn's 1998, which is a little known disease incrohn's

1998, which is a little known disease that affects your gastrointestinal system. i am continuing to work at the law firm. told that mentally i was not there. i had to deal with that. am point of the matter is, i concerned about the funding of 32e program i paid into for years. i am 47 years old. i sound good and i look good, but i am not good. these things are forever. i have scars in my brain. things are never going to change for me. i am concerned about the funding you speak of that is not there for me. thank you.r,

thet: i feel bad for collar's circumstances. it sounds terrible. circumstances. that is why it is possible for the federal government to administer such programs because of the complicated nature of administering such conditions. host: 900,000 cases were allowed. claims were pending at the time this data was collected. there is the determination stage. if you are rejected, there is the reconsideration stage. there are a series of reconsideration each time you are rejected. -- reconsiderations each time

you are rejected. the administrative law judges are employees of the social security administration, but they are very independent. they hear the hearings. most initial applications are rejected in many cases because of technical reasons, earning too much money or not having enough work credits. ,nce it gets to the law judge it is a different story. you have some wild numbers out there. one judge in west virginia that approved 99.7% of his cases. you see one judge for back pain

approved 90% and another approved 50 -- 15%. most people when they come in have a lawyer. ae taxpayer does not have rep. the government does not have a rep. -t is supposed to be a non adversarial situation. at least have somebody in the room representing the interests of taxpayers. these lawyers get paid to do won, to get people honda -- one and people on the system. you might see people in a cowboy hat with a binder. there are certain big firms. you have specialty law firms. you do not make a ton of money per case. for004, they made it easier

claimants to be represented by non-lawyers. heaphire people on the c and you can make money. made $8nd binder million. the amount of money the taxpayers spend is over $1 billion. is being funded by the taxpayer. anything the government does, we are paying for. the taxpayer interest is being represented. on theeffrey is up next republican line. on c-span.e to be

this is my first time calling in. i have been fighting for my disability from 2006 until now. i just got the appeal. how come i have to keep on fighting? be about to get it, right? the socialounds like security administration and the law judge disagreed. florida on the republican line. my first point is that the gentleman said there are ssdi funds.ou's and au are borrowing money from fund to support and putting iou

's in there. you are taking from taxpayers. i think you get my point. two, i worked 35 years. i paid into the system 35 years. years and almost 3 medical records about 3 inches thick to get my disability. i have heart disease, a condition that kills members of my family from 27 on up. last year, i was diagnosed with breast cancer. i am glad i hung in there and fought for it. i could have lost my home because of the debate that goes on. luckily, i had an attorney. i need to get an attorney early on to protect me.

wasting thiso are fund are people who have hardly worth any, who are claiming to be personality disorders, mental illness. you know what i am talking about. host: how many times did you go through the appeals process? initially turned down right away. they tell you that is what happens. i went back the second time and i went with an attorney. in that process of having an attorney, it took me three years to get my disability. caller.ank you, an emotional and tough subjects. you hear a lot of these stories. peopleesentment from

that he system is being abused. there is no easy solution, especially in the political environment we find ourselves in. host: is there a best practice as far as determining who is disabled and who is not? or is this something that should together?d guest: we should move this to the state level. you have state determination of this is to begin with. the states are involved. in a situation where you can get the private sector more involved, the better. i have a friend who represents people for workers' compensation claims. the company is represented. the taxpayer is not. that is an inherent problem. the politics are tough.

we have heard from these various colors that it is an emotional s it is analler emotional issue in congress is not going to stick its neck out on this. be some talking going on. congressman issa a hearing on it. good at naming post offices after people. kinky -- taking on an entire disability system is going to be a lot of work. host: our next call comes on the democrats' line from michigan. theer: i have to speak to autism conversation you had. i worked with that population

for years. --ere was little medication with that population for four years. son gosuggested that my on some kind of medication for attention deficit. i had to come down hard on the school board. in aw a young man who is tiled care situation with my son. are which in with son. this child has a mental disability. he he will never be able to work productively in society. it is a sad situation. the government did not do its job to protect the children. i know someone who just retired from the u.s. department of

education. he is a quadriplegic. he is my age. i am 56. he worked all of his life. he used an apparatus in his mouth to type. people can work who have disabilities. they should not be punished for that. i live in subsidized housing. i am quite certain my next-door neighbor, who does not appear to be disabled -- she has copd. go to work every day and she does not. it bothers me that she seems capable of going to work but she does not. received two types of responses to my paper so far. one response was people sharing antidote's of people abusing the don't -nd -- energy

antidotes people abusing the system. people abusing the system. this is something that hits home to people on an emotional level. these are things we deal with on a daily basis. having this discussion is healthy because there is clearly a problem. a band-aid is likely. itnging more attention to -- the gumption can be found in washington. host: this is the paper. the rising cost of social security disability insurance. tot initially prompted you research this? dayt: i was at wal-mart one

and had a covers -- overheard a conversation between two women. this was during the recession. one woman says i can take a pay cut or go on disability. policy guide. i stopped and thought, that is really interesting -- also a policy guy. i stopped and thought, that is really interesting that she sees that as an alternative. isn't this being addressed? we have a web site at cato we go to each program. i said, we need to tackle this. on ssdi andsay ssi, as well as the parents' social security program. host: from oahoma on the

deat line. fullr: i started working time while i was going to school. when i became injured, it was workmen's compensation. i thought, i am hut. a ruptured disk-- hurt. -- hurt. i had a ruptured disc. it is go through this and go through that. there were records i could not get because they were trying to prove there was nothing wrong with me. when they proved that there was, i could not get those records because they paid for those. by the time i got to social

security, everybody is rejected. it is a blanket thing. there are people who have bulging discs. is just people who are too lazy to get their backs in shape to work and they are receiving social security. zillions of us who have repetitive trauma injuries. i worked my shoulders until i had spurs that word the size of your little finger. bursaould not tell the the rotator cup. host: caller, thanks. guest: it is just another case of frustration. samees people in the

situation collecting benefits and it is hard for him to understand. host: how often do they meet on these kinds of things? guest: i am not aware of a lot of activity. programs are administered by the social security administration. yourtunately, the fact that have the trust fund going the fact that16, we are not talking about it and i am discovering it myself as a guy, tells me that the fix is in and they will just use the parent social to mask thed

problem. would like to ask the gentleman who owns the cato institute? guest: we are nonprofit. the koch is put in an bid to buy you. judges do not -- the lawyers do not get paid unless they win the case. the cost of health care is rising. is true in education. true in education. acrossdifferent opinion the table like you used to do there.. lamb was an emotional issue. these are tough things that need

to be tackled. about taxt just payers and the money. this is also about the disabled. some of these kids and the cycle toe pick madison -- second sychotropicp medicines. it is not just me saying it. it is other people. host: if you want to find no more about the organization itself or talk about social therity disability, go website. we will talk about the hurdles associated with the joint strike fighter. the national security

agency. have you ever wondered how it is organized? willll talk about discuss. first, we get an update of news from c-span radio. a president obama is lodging -- launching a two-day bus tour to promote proposals for making college more affordable. today, he will be at the university of buffalo. that is one of several cities that have a chapter of say yes to education. it is a new scholarship program offering varying degrees of academic, social, and financial support meant to steer students towards college. deliberations expected to begin today in fort hood, texas. to determine whether army major hassan is guilty of the 2009 shooting rampage at fort hood in texas. he has are presented himself in the case. stemming from the deaths of 13 people and has sent only one

piece of evidence to the jury room. he wants jurors to see a from his superior that's called him a good soldier. foreign france's minister is raising the possibility of the use of force in syria if it is proven that president assad's regime did use chemical weapons. the u.s., britain, and france are demanding that a team of you experts already in syria be granted immediate access to investigative site near damascus where activists say government forces unleashed chemical weapons on civilians yesterday, killing at least 100 people. some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. on, we said we have this 16 acre piece of land, we have to put some things on it, or maybe not, it was an open- ended what should we do with it. everyone wanted a say in that. so very quickly people --

leaders promised a public process to receive public input to generate a master plan. at the same time that that was going on, however, like i said before, you had larry silverstein, the developer who won the lease to the office space, you had another running the port authority, and they believed in the importance of the commercial space that was distorted. they wanted to make sure that lower manhattan are made in international financial hub. they believed that in order for it to remain that reputation, they had to rebuild all of this commercial space. quite the controversy over the theting -- lacks controversy over the rebuilding on the world trade center site. part of booktv this week on c- span2. "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now, frank oliveri of cq roll call, thank you for joining us. we are continuing a conversation we started earlier this week on

joint strike fighter. what is it and what is its role? guest: it is a multirole fighter meaning it of air to air, air to ground, it is sort of like the swiss army knife of fighters for the air force, navy, and the marine corps in the future. nine of 10 of our allies are currently signed up to by the plane. f-16's, f-lace 15's, you can name someone to claim that this plan will hopefully replace. can do everything. host: why the need to replace the planes we currently have? guest: current plans are almost 25 years at this point you're the air force and the marine corps have not really had any kind of a hedge planted to update the planes that had to any great degree. a lot of stuff they had dates back to the 80's and 90's and they need to get those things moving on.

very high operations tempo over the last 10, 12 years with wars in iraq and afghanistan. host: what is the cost of this project, and how does that compare to costs from previous play the united states has undertaken to build th? guest: somewhere around $400 billion give or take. there is some been -- there have been some decline in the cost and the actual lifetime operation sustainment costs had recently been reported about 1.1 trillion dollars, which is something like 30% higher than anybody would have hoped. they have been able to knock that down about 22% because that they have gone into the flight test program, they are learning more and more about the systems and how they work and what breaks more often, what brings less, and how many people are required to fly the lanes and so on. those types of things are giving them more granularity as to their cost. host: have there been concerns about cost overruns for this project? guest: significant.

it was supposed to cost for the entire program of 2443 we roughly production fighters $400 billion. the actual cost of the plan itself was ejected originally in -- $60 billion, now it is about $161 billion give or take. host: are there problems with the plane? -- 100by the way, 164 621 million dollars per plane. lion per plane. while they have had to level off some plan -- problem, based on software problems. millions of dollars that they need to do, and whole bunch of flight testing they need to be doing. they are still making changes to tooling, some of the things we're going to buy something like 289 plans before this flight test program is done, so

over the next 10 years, we could be spending upwards of $2 billion just a re-outfitting be plain that are sitting on the flight line right now. host: frank oliveri joins us until 9:15 to talk about the f- 35 fighter. we have questions about it not only from your viewpoint and interest in it but also maybe you are in active or retired military and want to give your thoughts on as well. here is the line, how we have divided them this morning if you want to participate. for republicans, (202) 585-3881, for democrats, (202) 585-3880, for independents, (202) 585-3882 . if you are active or retired military and you want to get your thoughts on it, [no audio] --(202) 585-3883. you can also send a sweet journal@c-span.org -- you can also send us tweets @cspanwj. there is a term fly before you buy. is what i'mu buy, thinking of, but tell us about how this plane is being produced

and how it meets with everything else we have been talking about. term called is a concurrency, and acquisition term that basically means that we have been developing a plane, and at the same time, we are learning and developing a plan and the subsequent technologies that make the plan work and work together all the systems, we are also producing the planet is integrity that overlap of production and development -- they're trying to stretch this out more so they have stretched the program out because there were so many development approach -- developmental problems, and the integration together one platform. this plane was on paper 12 years ago. never existed before. up,you break those lines if you overlap, but we have known this for many years, it is amazing in washington and dod and congress, we learn lessons and seem to forget them and then we relearn the same kind of lessons. the definition of insanity, you

know. right now they are trying to break up those lines a little bit. they are forced to get planes going. it also drives down cost to get the production line, but it also comes with enormous risk because producingu are planes, if you had to change the retooling, everything has to stop in it to restart all these things and then the people doing the work need to relearn how to do certain things. so there is an enormous risk in doing it in any kind of acquisition program where there is high concurrency. host: what if the company producing the plane? guest: lockheed martin. the largest defense contractor the states. it built the f-22 fighter. severely truncated. host: what was the argument they used to get this contract? guest: they are the preeminent stealth developer. you will hear the term fifth- generation fighter. these fighters have changed warfare for us. they have made our fighters --

we have always been a preeminent predominant force and air power since world war ii. but these stealth characteristics did change 1991 straight through to today, our opponents are having to adjust to these types of technologies. they have been very effective. host: we will continue on our conversation about this plane and its role in u.s. military and other uses. first, your calls. debbie is joining us from indiana, democrats line. you're on with frank oliveri of cq roll call, good morning. caller: good morning. how much do you think it would int to fund something profits if journalists like yours wrote about the 705 feet in freefall on 9/11 and the evidence that preplanned explosives destroyed it. well, there are all kinds of conspiracy theories about that. i don't actually subscribe to

any of them. i think with the government has said about what has happened and what law enforcement and military officials have said about what happened are accurate. i don't think that there was some kind of conspiracy. host: monty asks -- do we need the f-35? it seems old jets were doing well in the bombing the world's poorest of the poor. guest: aside from motive, the actual fighter itself, there is a pretty significant debate as to whether or not the f-35 is the end all be all of the sole answer to our fighter problem because we are in a -- look, this is a problem that innocence was created by the services. they put all their eggs in this basket. they were warned in the 1990's that they probably could not afford to buy the f-22 and the f-35 at the same time because the costs were so severe. but the issue today is that the tical fighter' tac forces aging and has aged much

faster than anticipated because we mandate no-fly zone over iraq for 10 years, and then we went into a war in afghanistan, and shortly thereafter a war in iraq. these planes have been used very heavily. that is the first call that comes out is where is the air force if there is a problem you ? complex,of military they always talk about the use of military power. these are very heavily-used planes. some are very old. 30 8-10's are upwards of years old. the jump jets at these plans would replace are rather old. some of the f-16's in the air force inventory are getting old. f-15's also cleared a lot of planes that this would replace rowingfinitely g old. whether you need 2443 of these stealthh-end

fighters versus some of those planes and a mix of these lower endome a very -- lower- claims, yes, defenses in the world are very cheap alternative, and they are becoming more and more sophisticated to the degree that you can't penetrate some of these air defenses with f-16's and f-18's and expect that many of those planes will to write. it is a very challenging environment. the stealth is the environment a advantage. first the air force, then the navy, then the marines buying the planes as well. other countries involved. guest: some nine nations. lockheed martin and the united states hoped that other nations walls lay by f-35's just as they for years and years. they are very capable planes. the air force hopes that air force, navy, and marine corps

hope that over the life of the program, the more nations that buy it, the more you buy the unit cost of the plane go down. host: here's is a look at some of the countries involved. mark from new jersey up next, retired military. caller: maybe your guest can a slightly how the a-35 could take in place of the a-10 warthog combat. when you look back at the b-52 's that have been around for 50 something years and its specific role and content julie -- and continuously upgraded, you have what that vulcan cannon in a, which is low and slow over the battlefield in protecting the troops, how can come that low-end phone loan provide a much cover power? guest: i did a story recently

because of the senate armed service committee was associated with its defense authorization bill, had lingered on the issue of close air support. there was concern, senator bill nelson of florida who have , wasl interest in the f-35 raising the concern as to whether or not there will be a close air support cap created by retiring the a-10's and replacing them with the f-35, the jump jet variant or of some other variant courtesy f-35 does have a 22 million -- variant. the f-35 does of a 22 millimeter cannon. anybody you talk about will say perfect, closea air support type weapon, let's be clear this cannon -- the plane was built around the cannon. the plane has quad redundancy. the eyelid system, the titanium bathtub, it can take a norm is amount of damage.

it is a relatively inexpensive plane. the f-35 is not going to be a cheap plane. they fast-moving plan, a stealth plane. a well-placed rocket those speeds and negative environment can take a plan like that down. moments that are you have to be very careful in how you use it. the air force believes that it can provide adequate if not good to their support battlefield, to the grunts on the ground, with an f-35. they have done it previously with f-16's, which are also fast movers. they do not loiter the way that a-10's. if you are in the acquisition world, they say don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. in some cases, you may find that in the short term, the air force that isle on the f-35

not perfect but is good. host: we have steve o'brien, vice president of lockheed martin, who talked about the cost overrun, the delays, we will get what he said, get your response. [video clip] >> we understand to make the flight test, but the program is on track, just as the secretary of defense and said in front of congress recently. we are driving the price down. from the first year of production to the 70 or of production, we have reduced the cost of the airplane by over 55%. we are not satisfied there. we will continue to drop this price. in 2018, the average cost will be $85 million, about $75 million in today's dollars. that is in line with older generation airplanes. quantum leap the and capability. we are focused on reducing the cost, we have been on track for the last three years, and we are

continuing to focus as we go forward to reduce it to about the same price as a fourth- generation or prior generation played out there today with a quantum leap capability. host: analyze what he said. guest: first of all, and washington, you always have to be careful because people make comparisons that are apples and oranges and often times they will do that, it won't be necessarily incorrect, but it won't necessarily reflect a true big picture. what he is saying is they have made improvements after the program goals have been severely adjusted. if you take the baseline of when it first started to today, it is not doing very well. but if you take the new baselines after reorganization , it hasrogram definitely shown some leveling. the government accountability ,"fice used the term "leveling the manufacturing processes, the aboutin ways they go bo

doing business, they are starting to get control. the argument sort of like you have a 10 story building, and all 10 floors were on fire before, now you have got it down to only three floors are on fire , and you say that is a great improvement. but three floors are still on fire. there is still a significant risk. we're going to buy 289 of these planes at a cost of almost $60 billion, and the flight test program would have the -- what have you been completed. that is anonymous -- an enormous commitment. one of the things senator durbin, who is chairman of the senate defense appropriations subcommittee, he is basically the top defense appropriator in the senate on these issues raised the concern about this program and said one of the problems with this program has always been optimism has been an enemy of the program. optimism on the front and begins to look like you are intent.ic with

if you could say every thing is great, at some point you are committed. for instance, it was the top acquisition at the pentagon is that if you are to cancel this program and launch a new one, you have to spend $20 billion to $30 billion to develop a new plan. you would be starting from ground zero. the cost would be enormous. it is always cheaper to go with what you have got. than what you don't have your to the bird in the hand. -- don't have. the bird in the hand. it is a really deeply flawed program and beyond anything you have ever seen before. that threeact services are tied in, this is the largest acquisition program in history, the most costly in history. he is going to try to say positive things. he has reason to feel good. the program is beginning to level, but he is not going to talk to you about the challenges that they face, software, web stemsntegration, sy

integration, all the things they are wrestling with. this is a 13-year-old program and they still have design changes that they are having on this plane. it is a good thing that they have been able to -- the joint program office head is a military issue and says we have been able to identify 50 of the most likely parts on his jet that will fail, and we are now working those quality issues. we also have found the 50 systems on your that are -- on here that are most difficult to prepare. over time, things will improve, but he that come at an inn or ms. cost. -- an enormous cost. host: coming in at $837 billion. guest: right. that is something they have said will begin to happen. it is a welcome thing because

1.1 trillion dollars was just politically on acceptable to anybody. whether it was dod or the congress. furthermore, even if does not occur again in 2014, the numbers for defense are going to be really flat and really austere for the next 10 years. anymore costford increases, and they most certainly need to create as much more room as they can in this program as far as cost go because there is not going to be the money. host: bob on our democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a couple of issues with this. first of all, i understand that the parts are made in 50 different states. that it wasme designed with an idea toward congress rather than an idea toward doing something efficient. thing that i wonder

about, as i understand it, most fighter planes never even see the target that they are shooting at because they're so they are shooting with controlled rockets and things like that. why do we need to have a manned plane to do this? if you consider how much it costs to ensure the survivability of the pilot in terms of the oxygen supplies and everything else that has to be done and ejection seats and all of these things, it would be a lot cheaper to put together a drone with the same capabilities that without the pilot inside. host: caller, thank you. guest: you make some fascinating points and that you are absolutely right that there are some real questions as to whether or not an unmanned drone remotely piloted type aircraft could do some of these missions. remember that we have not really

developed a remotely piloted vehicle that can fly in these profiles yet. when we talk about predator and reaper drones that fire hel lfire missiles, they are very slow moving, they loiter over these things for a long periods of time. permissivee under a environments. when you're talking about a high-performance fighter that forfly up to nine g's, example, at speeds of up to mock too, and can surge even faster than that in some cases, the profiles are different. plus sometimes having a man in the loop is an important aspect of combat missions that still is of enough concern that you would want to have them there. there are datalink issues that go on with these kind of things, the performance environment is severe.

there are some people that argue that the f-35 may be the last manned fighter of this kind that the united states will ever build because we will be able to jump over those hurdles that pre--- or venice from creating those unmanned aerial vehicles that can do these missions. y'stainly the technolog maturing. the targeting behind visual rant, we have been doing that for a very low long time. but having that person there to , totify targets to change recognize, to have the versatility, intellectual versatility to recognize changes in the combat environment, sometimes having the person there is incredibly valuable. host: one thing i read over over was when it comes to the millions of lines of computer code, talk about having so much reliance on a computer background. guest: this is not a plane where

first of all if a playlet -- if a pilot is thinking about flying a plane, some of it is insignificant but a lot of controls are automated. so just the flight controls themselves, there is an enormous amount of computer controls involved in making the plane fly. there are all these different integrated systems that must work together, sensors that tell you where things are, even to the degree of how fast you are flying, where are you in space and time, all of these things are so incredibly sophisticated. the weapons themselves and the employment of the weapons in the targeting of that are situational awareness into these fighters. that is so much going on you need the computers in the background to manage the information flow for the pilot. that would be there whether he was an unmanned vehicle because the guy back or woman back at base is still flying in these environments. they may not have the physical demand of it, but the

intellectual demands are all there. so many data points are coming in that you need systems to help you manage all of that. so it is a very sophisticated, very difficult environment to operate. you only have your very best people doing it. host: our line for those retired or active military. good morning. caller: good morning. i have got a quick question -- who is footing the bill for all of this new technology? i understand he is talking about the agents of the program, developing this fighter. at the same time, lockheed martin is talking about we are working to bring the price down of this fighter. why he is working to bring the price down, the u.s. government is still paying money for them to develop this thing. now here they are fixing to buy this plane that is not completely -- i'm not going to but notworthy, completely finished. it is going to be sitting on the time,ine, and at the same

they are going to be repairing this plane, upgrading this plane on the fire line. where is all this money coming from geico they -- from? digital and before he was speaking about social security and disability, the taxpayers are footing this bill. bill? footing this to the tune of how many billions you are speaking of. guest: it is always interesting to see the emergence of outrage and some of these programs because it is monopoly money. the costs are so enormous. the taxpayer is footing the bill to a great degree. but there are phases in the program, we have been through largely a development phase. the development phase never existed before and comes with enormous risks. the only way you will get a contractor to launch into the program is of the government who is asking the contractor to take these technologies and turn it into something, the government assumes a great deal of the

risks during the development ross the spirit of the government oftentimes his response over cost growth in these programs because they continually add new requirements. they asked the contracts to make changes and add new capabilities. so the government has been complicit. your defense department has been complicit in the cost growth. not just the contractor who is at fault. the contractor also is there's a certain degree of blame for the cost growth. we are moving into phases where we buy lots of fighters from lockheed, groups of fighters of the f-35 from lockheed martin. we are moving into a world where the costs are fixed. we will say we will buy 29 aircraft, and the costs is a fixed price contract and we negotiate with lockheed martin on what that price will be. anything that goes beyond that rise within a certain window, and it is a relatively small one, the contractor begins to assume the cost. so the incentive shifts to the contractor to find ways to drive

those costs down. so that is an important aspect. but you are most definitely footing that bill. the taxpayer pays for these things, or the government borrows them to have the taxpayer to have a for these things. byback on the other caller, the way, i forgot to mention this. he talked about marketing the plane essentially is being built in 50 different states. it is between what he seven and 50 states. what that does me no is that each one of the -- between 47 and 50 states. what the that does mean is that each senator has an interest. lockheed martin has gotten good at marketing the things. in a major way when the be-2 bomber, they realize the supplier base was scattered across the united states, they would have the rallies of lawmakers there to defend their program. , a formerris deferred congressman from connecticut, had said that if you have 10 a weaponsn board

program, it is a greatly difficult if not impossible to cancel that program. if you have 100 or 90 lawmakers in the senate on board with this weapon system, it is simply not going to go away. there will always be opportunities to continue that program. host: how long before we see these jets in day to day activity? guest: they are talking about initial operating capability is in the mid-20's. 2018 or something like that. they're going to need to shake these things out. once they have the weapons, once they have it together and they start actually doing combat, it will take some time. he took a number of years for the f-22 as well. host: republican line, good morning. caller: i have several point i would like to make. number one is they could cancel there is am, and

replacement aircraft, that boeing built and lost the competition to lockheed. i spent 40 years in this industry, and i understand the cost plus program. it seems to me that lockheed is incompetent. i don't think they really are in compliance to what our needs are. it is based on the profit of the company, and i will give you an example. was a new technology developed by the boeing company, and we ate the cost for the development of that airplane. matter of fact, i think they produce -- they have to produce the 800 before they even make a profit. why can't we do that with lockheed? guest: we have begun to do that with lockheed. see the ones that are being purchased right now are going to be on a fixed price, so if there are cost overruns, they will eat the costs.

in development, that is a much more risky prospect. they did not work that program that way. i am also not entirely on board with your claim that boeing could just turn around and take what was a prototype and suddenly be able to displace the f-35. much furthert so along in development. remember, the prototype f-35 is nothing like the play we are flying right now even. -- with its have to plan, whatever that might be, would have to go through an entire development process,, with a machine tooling, go through the flight testing, go through the changes, and all the things that go on. let's incorporate all the different requirements that have changed since boeing has left the program here to remember, the air force, navy, marine corps -- they all agreed on a certain type of plane when they signed onto it. , they'llhereafter begin to work to give back all of those technologies they lost in the compromise.

for example, they were initially going to build these plans and only have maybe four different types of weapons that it would employ from the outset. that number grew significantly over time where you had suddenly dozens of different types of weapons that they were saying they can incorporate. each weapon cost something like $800 million or so to incorporate. software technology, integration systems come all the things that go on. this is not an easy thing. you cannot go back and say let's pick up this one because it is so mature. it is not a mature program that boeing had. -- willtwitter question we sell the f-35 to russia and china? my question on top of that is what will they perceive? guest: we will never sell to those countries. we view them as a better country. we view them as alliances and some whispered we have friendly relations, but we are also competitors with those nations. we are very disturbed by the fact that russia and china have developed their own stealth aircraft.

in theirvery early development programs as well. there is a belief -- there was a time, or there was a belief --t china had hopped into had hacked into lockheed martin's computers. those are allegations that have never been proven, but the fact of the matter is we would never give in those technologies. there are a lot of technologies out there that we will not give the f-35 two. we would remind rather sell them f-16's. -- we would much rather sell them f-16's. we will not give every nation a fully loaded f-35. some planes have boxes that are locked that that country cannot actually touch. they would to go to lockheed martin or go through a u.s. vendor to be able to work with those technologies. host: roderick, independent line. caller: thank you. i enjoy watching c-span. of eight years.

two tors in afghanistan. first of all, what we have going on right here and everything he is talking about, military, industrial complex, get as much money from the taxpayer as possible. even if this product is awfully available yet, and the amount of money the guy is saying is staggering to me. i like to bring up the money parts, specifically for republican friends, nice to be a republican. i useddy wants to -- and to be a republican. everybody talks about how the poor people are the scourge of our nation. it is the guys in charge of lockheed martin. and for the reporter, do you feel any role in the raping of the taxpayer with these programs? watchdog, we are dependent on you, you are the free press. there is an amendment to make sure you are there to watch with these guys are doing. this platform being built in 50 different states you have 50 senators or 50 representatives'

hands in a jar, that breeds corruption. guest: you know, you make a very good point, and i make a point of going back and reading eisenhower's speech on the military-industrial conflict when he was leaving his presidency behind. we do see evidence of the so- called self-licking cohn here. you have a defense department that represents more than half of our discretionary budgets, the budget that the congress passes every year, to run our government. more than 50% of it is defense department-related spending, even with the declines in spending on a depression or a -- on the discretionary side. the defense department gets a big amount of money. it is the biggest guy in town. it invests money with contractors to take that money and turnaround and are able to congressmen and senators on their behalf.

they set of political pac's, they set up all kinds of things with the new supreme court ruling. money apparently it's a speech that also gives some of these power.more my colleagues and myself have written dozens and dozens of stories. i have been through just in the last year knowing i was coming on this program this morning, just recently going through everything i have written on the f-35 in the last two years. i've been told by staff -- i wrote a cover story two years ago, i was told by staffers that that cover story, because it uncovered it, really pull together all the problems of this program over the last 12 years or so and even before and laid it out as to how this thing sort of came to be. it was passed around through congressional offices. i know because i know people over there. the fact of the matter is or has writing about these things. there is a lot of money at play.

a lawmakers -- it is not just the money that they get for their campaigns. it is the jobs that these things create in the communities. it is interesting when you juxtapose, you hear some people publicly-funded jobs like teachers, firefighters, policemen, things like that, that those people may be on the dole, i remember being on the show and having a caller say we should go to the pentagon and cap every fourth person and they go home. frankly that may happen next year. a lot of these people are public service. it is a very difficult people in public jobs that will lose those jobs. -- it is a very difficult mix. you have people in those jobs that will lose those jobs. in essence they are government- funded jobs. --becomes an in or mislead an enormously powerful tool to say we are going to lose 1.1 million jobs in the defense

sector. highly skilled people who will move on it will not be able to be reclaimed if there is a war that we need to do the kinds of assistance we need to win a war. when you have that national security thing on your side, a lot of money will get spent and a lot of leeway is given. a challengetely pretty taxpayers and voters need to be vigilant. they need to hold lawmakers accountable. this program happened largely during the wars in iraq and afghanistan. a lot of lawmakers will tell you they lost sight of the ball. they are very concerned about what was going on in iraq, very concerned later about afghanistan. somehey just lost sight of of these programs and they made some significant errors. there were also some errors made -- to filibuster this one question, in the acquisition process, and a 1990's, it became very cool to suddenly turn prison -- terminate acquisition professionals in the benetton

because they were bureaucrats. i keep using quotes because these were the terms to slander people, bureau cat is a printer returns -- eurocrats is a perjury to have term -- i bureaucrat is a perjorative term. for 10 years, it seemed to be very cool to call those people out of a we are saving money because we don't have these bureaucrats taking money. now, the trend is more toward bolstering the acquisition workforce because you need professionals and highly sophisticated programs that are worth sometimes billions or over the life of this one, trillions of dollars. you need to have people who really understand what is going on or else the contractor will who a military professional is in this job for two years and then he is gone. at the end of the two-year cycle through a program office, he has just become expert in what is going on and then he or she is

gone. and then they put a new neophyte in. that is not a fair fight. you have professional acquisition people in the spirit becomes more of a fair fight, you'll get more bang for your buck. host: what happens once lockheed delivers the planes? will they also get the country to update them and maintain them? guest: in some cases they might, but that is another thing that the program manager cited as a way to drive down costs in the future is to begin to compete. these different service contracts. don't think of a fighter as a singular thing. a fighter has certain types of to thats that uses pure is probably produced by one contractor or a couple. if you get a couple that compete, the cost of that actuator will decline. over a 60-year lifetime, you will see where those conditions -- competitions happen. you may think that is a high- performance jet that is landing

at a couple hundred miles an hour hitting pretty good tires. you begin to see where you can start to drive down costs on all these individual systems, certain hydraulic systems that might be there, certain types of avionics that my beater, certain radars. radars, theree are components that go all the way down to the most basic things. if they can compete all those different things, and develop a global supply chain where it is globally competed, you can see where they might save money. host: for frank oliveri, here is richard. caller: the thing is ridiculous. we have the drugs, and you have got the a-10. to fight a guy with an ak-47, it is ridiculous. we have a think setting up your just like -- sitting up here, they spend billions of dollars on its. -- on it. did they put on

the ground to already fight a war? host: let's squeeze in one more call. kelly on the independent line. caller: congress or the senate had their eyes on the war, their eyes on the ball, i think they dropped the bombs on the war. i guess i have a concern if someone is overseeing everything that the taxpayers are paying for, and i would include the production line and the robotics , the computers, everything. anything we have paid for, we also get in addition to the planes. my comment is, i think there is a lot of people in washington that are benefiting from the stocks that they own in this company. i would like to see if any country like this go to companies that are not allowed to be traded on the stock market because they are making millions just announcing that there needs to be a change.

then the stock drops and it comes back up. -- it isips on this just wrong. guest: it is certainly true that it is an enormously incestuous community. people of interest on the community, they all interact, they all know each other, they in some cases will go to work for each other when they leave. there are military people who over time will begin to sit on boards of lockheed martin and boeing and other major defense contractors. there are congressional people here who become lobbyists or up sitting on boards for major contracting firms. certainly over time they have made and had family members. some of the sisters are relatively small, and some a relatively big. if there is a defense facility or contractor, some of these lawmakers have family members that may in fact be associated in some way or another. they try to watch carefully

these quick row quotes. quid a very difficult -- pro quos. it is a very difficult thing. they spent time tracking these. they set it up so they do not necessarily know what their interest are. but the generally speaking, people do have some idea. the defense contractors are not making millions, as you point out, they are probably making billions. there are enormous problems. you also made the point about whether they oversaw the iraq and afghanistan wars very well. that again is a debatable point. on the right, they might say that they oversaw it well during the bush years and things were going as best as they could. democrats might make a counter argument. there are certainly a whole lot of discussions we can have a go well beyond this show as to the performance of congress on these issues. i would say that on some level, congress is complicit, on some

level congress may not have the capacity to deal with the kind of oversight questions. congress over the years and cutbacks and xavier to try to save money in some ways, -- in cutbacks, to try to save money in some ways, they do not have the office anymore and they cut it back. severely cuteen back. sequestration has hit these committees as well. some of the armed services committees are down 10, 12, 15 positions. you have people who are working be committees who have portfolios that are suddenly enormous because they do not have the manpower. there are some serious problems here. all these cutbacks are hindering government's ability to run itself. that also becomes an issue. said, toy cool, like i cut back on the government, but these are people who are there to protect the taxpayers' interests. host: i'll guest writes for cq

roll call, frank oliveri, thank you for your time. our next guest will tell you how he tried to figure out how the national security agency is organized and structured when it comes to defense and they like that. marc ambinder. first, an update from citizenry appeared -- from c-span radio. >> an override of mayor anomberg's idea to appoint inspector general. a federal judge recently ruled the nypd's plant -- practice of stop and frisk was racially discriminatory, and the judge appointed a monetary -- a monitor to oversee changes to the practice. a role in virginia shows registered voters are split over whether they can believe republican governor bob mcdonnell. criminal and state

investigation focuses on tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and loans that his family received from a major political donor. apple released today by any university -- that poll released by a university show that former secretary of state hillary clinton is in the strongest position in the battleground state of virginia among the possible 2016 presidential contenders. and just ahead of a discussion about the nsa on the "washington obamal," the administration has acknowledged it was ordered to stop intercepting thousands of internet communications from americans with no connection to terrorism. a privacy administration says was an unintended consequence when they gathered bundles of internet traffic connected to terror suspects during some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> c-span -- we bring a public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, andfings, and compasses,

offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. cable -- created by the tv industry 30 years ago, and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. now, you can watch is in hd. "washington journal" continues. host: joining us from los angeles this marc ambinder, a senior contributor to defense one. welcome. guest: good morning. host: a little bit about defense one, please. guest: defense one is a new publication of national journals that is devoted to the national security establishment and the way to interact with the political establishment. in washington. it is a little over a month and a half old. kevin barron is our esteemed executive editor. the idea of the publication is to get people to think deeply

about national security issues, past present and future. thinking deeply is a topic you take on when you think about the national security industry. here is what you wrote recently -- host: could you spent on that thought? guest: i've always been fascinated i how the pipes fit in the national security establishment. understanding that what goes through the pipes as often highly classified. but if you want to hold an organization accountable, if you want to figure out how the nsa actually works, you have to look at how it is organized. it is an analogy to the biological principle that form follows function. that was my emphasis to figure out as much as i could about the organizational structure of nsa and make some inferences about

where programs are located and how it works. the nsad you approach and say please let us get access to this type of information? guest: reporters who have done that in the past filed freedom of information act requests. all they get back and linetially is the top showing the leadership of the nsa and nothing else. everything below the level of an associate director, and there directors,o nine depending on how you count them, and nsa. the nsa will not even say what those directors actually are, much less the internal organizational structure. so no, nsa was not forthcoming with me, and they have not been forthcoming with researchers. actually before september 11, they released, and of course the

nsa has reorganized since then, but they release a lot more information about their organizational structure. now, very little. and if they did not help. but i spent the look past couple of years in parts collecting information for the book that i have written, in part because i happen to be a subject that i am very interested in trying to put together based on public sources, open sources as well is discussion with source sources, human sources, works charts. i've been taking a lot of notes, i had a file on it, and little by little, i put it together. i used linkedin a lot because former and even current nsa employees will often describe the program offices that they work for, and sometimes they will give the organizational designator in there. so that was helpful as well. and if there are some people who i was able to run parts of the had not enough knowledge of the nsa to be able to say this looks right, this does not look right.

one of the things i found though is that even former employees of aware of whatlly the org chart looks like. some of that is by design because the money of the programs that nsa undertakes are -- highly carved mineralized. host: our guest is here to talk about the structure of the nsa, something he has worked on as you heard him say. if you want to ask him questions about it, you can do so on one of three lines morning. republicans,1 for (202) 585-3880 for democrats, and (202) 585-3882 for independents. we provided a link to his chart on our c-span website. can you break down in general

what you found as far as how the breakup of the nsa works inside the building? guest: i will try, and i will have to refer to my own copy of the chart here in part because there are a lot of moving parts. in general, there are five operational directors. these are the most interesting parts of nsa and where i tried to spend the most time researching third of the one that we are all familiar with, given all of the recent revelations and disclosures is the signals intelligence are accurate. -- intelligence directorate. there is the information assurance directorate which is responsible for the second half of nsa's mission, which is , code,ally cryptology and computer network operations, which includes protecting u.s. government computers from attack and of course creating cyber

mischief across the world. government calls offensive cyber offer rations -- operations. director, research which performs research and have a number of highly classified projects on subjects ranging , which isum computing a sort of the technology of the future, to such things as direction finding, which is a signals intelligence technique that has been used since the early parts of world war ii, and even before that. there is the technical directorate, which is pretty much responsible for the technical backbone of nsa. and then there is the foreign affairs directorate, which is is possible for the nsa's liaison activities with many countries. these include our sort of

,rimary ally countries, canada the uk, australia, new zealand, with whom the u.s. shares most but not all of the intelligence that it takes. and has lots of corporate of perativets -- cooo agreements. other countries, like saudi arabia, one admit that they have relationships with nsa. those are the five operational directorates. in addition, there is sort of a shadowy, maybe because the nsa has not acknowledged its existence, but an organization that is run essentially out of the office of the director. it is called the special collections service. in government, if anything has such an anodyne name, it probably is important. is no exception. it is a joint nsa-cia

organization that places highly trained nsa operators inside of clandestined other u.s. operating locations worldwide along with their equipment to collect very sensitive signals intelligence that could not be collected by pointing a satellite at a target. these are often in countries where the u.s. really does not have the freedom of movement to rome. -- to roam. these nsa employees have to operate under the same principles of cover that cia case officers do. they are in the line of fire essentially every day, and it makes sense as to why the nsa is reluctant to go into much detail on if any detail, about the special collections service. i should say some of what i am saying is unknown to intimates of the united states.

there are some things that i know that of course i neglected to include because reasonably one could consider them to be sensitive. but i don't want to give viewers the impression that this is sort of a voyeuristic exercise designed to expose everything. host: as a going through the morning, you can explain in detail about what we are talking about. we will take some calls. let's start with robert from new york, republican mike, good morning, you were on with marc ambinder. me that theeems to nsa, the cia, mr. snowden, and has leaks, and he never signed a waiver or anything like that. -- i've ave me follow-up question. can you give me an estimate how many of the people in the nsa

are paid up eurocrats type of thing versus the -- paid bureaucrats type of thing versus the other? guest: i am not sure what he means by the paid up eurocrats versus civilian. those are the same thing. i'm making a production, but i think he means the percentage of who areoyees contractors versus the percent who are paid government employees. there is a man named tim sherlock who has done an extensive amount of research on contracting and nsa. i do not have the exact figures. i believe it is somewhere around workforce are contract employees. if that is not the correct number, please don't hold me to that. but one thing to realize about nsa and the analysis that it

does is that most of the frontline analysts are active duty members of the u.s. military. who of course, are not contractors, but in recent years as the nsa has expanded and keep up with the pace of technological change and at last taken on more and more missions, contractors have played a much larger role than they ever have before. the value of contracts has increased significantly. i-team that is what the caller was getting at. >> going to jonathon in massachusetts. question about how long it takes to declassify some of the information. inead an article recently 2005 that talk about president

johnson getting secrets from the nsa that they had cut and pasted and given exurbs it to be present at influence his beav years. wantully, you would not people to do that to the president because it will affect his decisions. what are your thoughts on that? guest: there are many avenues -- i should not say many. because nsa does not often the cost of fighting spirit but there are several avenues that they can avail themselves of to push things through the declassification project -- process. isrge washington university a master of this and has gone nsa and cia to release enormous

documents, but it believed the -- particularly from historical research evidence of these agencies. the caller is referring to the gulf of tonkin incident. it is fairly unflinching in the criticism of the nsa and it's been years. it does not say that anyone deliberately cut and pasted intelligence in order to force johnson into war. it admits that nsa analysts were sloppy and softly -- the organization was set up in a way that it did not catch mistakes that were huge and it misled the white house about the true nature of what happened in the gulf of tonkin. having read a number of declassified cia and nsa reports about incidences' in our history, when you read a story about these organizations to write these reports, it is

fairly critical and judgmental. and it is a good thing. i would urge people who are interested in some of these reports to look at the national security archive at george washington university. and even the cia's website, they have a database called crest where you can search for a lot of the cia's declassified documents. and a lot of them are very interesting. and it gives you a sense of how they collection overtime has matured and become more disciplined as a profession. is -- ournext guest next caller is on the independent line. besides booz allen and csc, how are the contractors acquired for the nsa?

i was around then, and the report on the gulf of tonkin was engendered by a man who was the gunnery officer moos submitted a false report. the nsa contracting ,rocesses are somewhat unique in that they're not a lot of organizations capable of doing the discrete missions the nsa performs. booz allen and csc are two of the main contractors. there is another one. a lot of the contracts in recent years have been in the area of

cyber security, cyber defense, cyber analysis, as well as infrastructure modernization. of thethe criticisms contract in process is that there is just not enough competition, in part because there are only so many employees who have the top secret sci clearances to work. after the september 11, although not so much now, the nsa expanded rapidly. it spent billions and billions of dollars overhauling virtually everything in its toolkit. and a lot of private companies in a lot of money off of nsa's expansion. to the classification question came up earlier on the

phone, there is a question on twitter saying, how long does it take for the in the state to declassify something? guest: it depends on what it is. we have seen in the case of court opinions that have been released in light of demands from organizations like the electronic freedom foundation, which won a what -- won a in an opinion that cannot yesterday. i'm happy to talk about that later if the callers want. the and as they can do that relatively quickly. but generally, it can take anywhere from eight months to 10 years. it is random, variable, and it depends on the specificity of the request. in some sense, you are dropping a request into a magical black box and you will something will come out. you always have to kind of force the an assael long, but you have to have a solid understanding of the process to do so.

and it can be frustrating. host: you mentioned the case that was released yesterday about the nsa domestic collection of communications and e-mail. we're with the fall according to what you're talking about earlier? guest: that would fall under the intelligence directorate, particularly in the division of s2, which would be for the production and analysis lines. the production and analysis lines are basically the subject matter divisions nsa uses to shunt intelligence. there's a counter-terrorism product line. product in asia/china line. there is a counter proliferation product line. most of the intellect -- analysts we're talking about queries thatpe in

would result in over collection that forto s2, is together organization. however, what we learned was that the major factor contributing to the ingestion of all of these u.s. persons communications was a technological one. in which case, the link analysis of the nsa signal intelligence directorate, as well as parts of the organization's technology directorate are implicated. it is hard to say exactly who for thatsible particular question, in part because it is so complicated and they'll work together. but when you're thinking about analysts making queries that they should not, using u.s.

persons information that they shouldn't, most of those will be along the two product lines themselves. when you're talking about technical problems, you're anding about, for example, again, the problem could originate in families head. they're not sure what this piece of equipment does and they tell a supervisor, this is what this equipment is actually pulling in. and nsa discovered later, no, it has been pulling in a lot more information, which has been discovered by sunday that analysts -- by some data analyst. and the nsa says in its court documents that there are some organizations involved in the -- there areection a lot of acronyms and his lingo to master. it took some time before they could actually figure out what was happening. host: mark jurrjens as from gainesville, florida.

-- joins us from gainesville, florida. any comparethere both countries that actually spy on the united states -- comparable countries that actually spy on the united states? and we're not aware of it? and secondly, since you know so much about the intelligence information, how do you know so much about it? answer to the second , not yet, but i will certainly write about it. the first part, china, russia, israel to an extent, aggressively spy on u.s. persons and u.s. companies. in the case of china, trying to

steal information that would be very useful for their companies. cia, and the nsa have robust counterintelligence programs designed to catch spies for these other countries. but you can get -- you can bet that china is trying to cure of, just as the u.s. is trying to be drowned out china's traffic is routed so it can spy on chinese leaders, china is trying to figure precisely how the u.s. internet traffic is routed in the washington, d.c. area so it can spy on u.s. leaders as well. information is ingested by the processes and procedures that china and other use, but certainly not to the scope that they are with nsa. this may be hyperbole on my part, but i believe given their reach of nsa, and the amount of

raw information about everything in the world that it takes in commodities probably the most powerful single organization in the world at this point. it does not mean it is the biggest in terms of the number of employees it has or the budget it has. although cumulatively over time, you're talking about more than $100 billion worth of infrastructure. but of course, information is power in the modern world. has moresa information and better information about anything, more quickly than any other group in the world right now. which is one reason why even if and as it was not doing anything wrong, it ought to be subject to more stringent scrutiny than it is. next call is bellmore, n.y., john on the democrats line.

my question is associate beav with the responsibility for the data collected. if they're using a contract for the information, that there is certain expertise offered by the contractors. they need to let the and as they do what they need to do for the sake of our country and our safety, right? however, they have the plausible deniability of having the insulation of it being a contractor. they cannot say, oh, it is a contractor. once you put that in a contractor's hands and not have the oversight and forced, that information is for sale. there is a legitimate debate about the degree to which the nsa is able to scrutinize these contractors verses its employees. and of course, what constitutes a core government function, which by law, contractors are

not allowed to perform. court government functions, one would hope, would include the type of careful scrutiny of the cyber process that is intended onthe collection of data american citizens. but increasingly since september 11, but even before that, the trend has been and to allow contractors to do more and more things that you and i might look at and say, clearly, that is a court governmental function. ways, thee contractor's work for companies and are responsible primarily to the companies. they go through the same security procedures and are subject to the same auditing that employees are, particularly if they work in certain positions. in the case of edward snowden, a systems administrator or in infrastructure analyst happen to

be employed verses a contractor. and of course, snowden was a contractor. given the way the structure was internally, and the way those who maintain the structures -- it would not have mattered if he was an employee or a contractor. a particularly if he had the clearance and was hired into the job. the numbers are on the screen. , florida.hollywood go ahead. my question relates to the contractors, such as the 1 edward snowden work for. as far as the government's ability to clamp down on cost overruns and things of that nature -- in other words, who is

dollars out for our tax in a secretive operation like nsa? no. 2, any sense of whether government folks have family members on the boards of these companies and things like that? that.let me add to senator bob corker has sent a letter to the president demanding a briefing on the and as a domestic surveillance programs. go ahead. guest: to give you a sense of the ubiquity of contractors, let me make a disclosure. it is a disclosure have made elsewhere, but i think it is germane to the topic. i spent three months working for a company called paulick year -- pallatier. the works by performed for them have nothing to do with it -- the

work i performed for them have nothing to do with national security, although they may have some of those contracts. it gives you a sense of how contractors and direct with the government. but i think it's important that the caller has all of the available information about brecker -- my biography, as they can assess that in the context of work for. again, i have no information one way or another whether the company at work for has any contracts like that with the nsa. that said, there is increasing awareness within the entire intelligence establishment that the idea of the court government unctions over time -- core government functions over time has been frittered away. nsae is a sense of getting ba the key positions. the first slice to go will be

, and a lot more of core - hopefully, more government functions will be employees assigned to the u.s. government. twitter,eone else on if there is a free flow of are their checks and balances in the system? .uest: the nsa would say yes and reading what is disclosed, the answer i think is an accurate one. they have put into place many large parts in response to problems they discovered. could cause large. i would not necessarily call it

robust. they have put in place a pretty large compliant regime. there compliance officers in every product line. the targets for the nsa analysts are oscar nights before hand -- are all scrutinized before hand. the and as they will go in at random places to target folders and retrospectively audit what analysts do. there are more than 300 employees working on compliance and auditing issues. the organization of 10,000 people or more might not seem too large, but more than had been working on the subject before. a lot of the compliance, and the reason the compliance staff has grown, is that technology has haspat -- outpaced what nsa claimed it could do in terms of

its internal compliance. and you saw this yesterday with the revelations. is nsample of that assumed to have the technological know-how to be able to pull in a lot of communication upstream without encroaching upon the civil liberties of americans, and doing so in a way that minimizes the number of u.s. persons communications that were brought in. it turns out and as they did not have that expertise. they thought they did. they told their congressional overseers that they did. they told the court that they did repeatedly, but they did not working with congress, they added more layers of checks and balances to this gap between their technological capability and the type of information that they actually use and will end. to the extent that there are

systemic problems within the nsa, one of them is their ability, or their penchant for we have thisoh, under control. but we have found out that many times since 2009, and it was admitted by the director of national intelligence yesterday, not to be true. it turned out they were significantly underestimating the degree of the number of projected u.s. communications that were brought in. host: i've got 10 more minutes with our guest. washington, d.c., democrats line. go for it. caller: first, thank you very much for c-span. i want to say, i want to be american who is very concerned about government intrusion into our privacy.

i'm very glad that people like grabbing manning and edward snowden -- bradley manning and edward snowden have done a service for the country and we are finally able to have a discussion like this one today about these important issues. as for my question, my question is -- can you tell me what the difference is between the nsa and the cia and where we need both agencies? time and i short on wanted to a unit that, but go ahead and answer period guest: -- and answer. collectse cia information from human sources. it conducts covert actions out in the field. the nsa's mission is to collect essentially electromagnetic emanations from people, signals. people calling each other.

people e-mail in each other. that is the difference between the two entities. there are between 16 to 19 different intelligence organizations in the country. and there is some overlap in their functions. new: gary is from hampshire, republican line. the nsa seems to be able to help secret service always show up on time when there's a .eal threat to the president' we have seen those arrests have been with the kids were just joking around, bartending that they want to harm the president. they never fail. oft with that kind information that they have, how come they feel at things like, or 9/11, or sandy hook, or the

boston brahmin? ?- bombing guest: the nsa has nothing to do with the secret service information gathering about potential threats to the president. the fbi would play the lead role in that. and a lot of the threats that the john is talking about is -- are threats that people would post on twitter. and anyone come including myself could search for it. the nsa has google to -- has a google set up to look for language that would be threatening. that is not terribly in -- interested. -- intrusive. the reason it did not pick up on things like columbine, it would be very difficult to know how to get into the minds of the two young men who were planning that. 9/11 capozzi well, there is --

9/11, well, there is the 9/11 commission report, which details the intelligence community and how the ice needed to change. minnesota, independent line. my question is, what is the final goal, or what would satisfy people like yourself and others as far as what the nsa or what you out, want discovered? -- i think sense, the caller is saying for civil libertarians, what types of reforms could possibly be enough? and for most of nsa's critics

the answer critics, to the question is probably nothing it will be able to do. but there are reasonable things that the nsa, congress, the courts, the president are able to impose on what the nsa does that will make things better, that will improve the nsa's collection techniques and make each year for americans to trust the government when the government says, well, we're not collecting information about you and we're not using that information. quite frankly, a lot of the nsa's problems, so far as i'm concerned, stan -- extend from an organizational keepers and ann coulterhubris as opposed to doing anything wrong. culture asand

opposed to doing anything wrong. and now, they have more compliance staff, and a very vigorous inspector general who works for the department of justice and reports directly to the government and can report on anything that the and as it does. those two reforms would be significant and in many ways, it would be as efficient as it can get. from a couple of comments twitter. why would we allow a transition to do something but not tell us what that something is? and the other is how annual the organization responsible when everything is secret? and we will take one last call. about arem calling legit allies. it was reported yesterday msnbc that it was not known what mr.

snowden had taken, but the brits destroyed a disk they had over there. the number one stockholder of british petroleum, and we know what canada wants to do with the pipeline. i'm curious whether or not this information is being used against people like me, who oppose such actions? and may i say hi to my friend and his family down in australia? the nsa is not using aberration to persecute for -- not using information to persecute you for your ideological beliefs. host: what are you hoping to find on top of this information? guest: i plan to update the organizational chart with new

information that has come in over the last week since i published my story. what are mostly trying to do is to continue to put the regulations that keep coming out into this context of how the .rganization i hope it will give people some sense of what the organization is doing, what it says it is doing, what it is not doing, and constraints are as well as its capabilities. and i think having a sense of what nsa fundamentally can and cannot do by looking at the ,rganization as an aggregate kind of the doing what amounts ,o an organizational audit people can understand more why their government collects information and how their government can protect them, and

whether that production is sufficient. with thec ambinder national defence one, writing about the national security agency. thank you for your time. guest: my pleasure. >> health care coming up this morning here on c-span. in about an hour, our programming kicks up with the health and human services