later in the program, a look back at what was accomplished this year in congress. roll call senior editor david hawking's joins us. ♪ isgood morning it "washington journal." press conference which may have seen, the president of questions about the nsa, the affordable care act and iran. he told reporters that 2014 could be a breakthrough year for america. especially when it comes to the economy. do you agree with him about the possibility of 2014 being a good year? here's how you can reach out to us and let us know.

host: that breakthrough year, is something that took leisa the president's press conference. it was highlighted in the paper today. here is president obama yesterday talking about the economy and his 2014 being a breakthrough year. up and whathat all it means is we head into next year with an economy that is stronger than it was when we started the year. more americans are finding work

ad experiencing the pride of paycheck. we are positioned for new growth and new jobs and i firmly believe that 2014 can be a breakthrough year for america. outlined in detail earlier this month we know there is a lot more we are going to have to do to restore opportunity and brought based progress for everyone. it is a good start that earlier this week for the first time in years both parties in both houses of congress came together to pass a budget. that unwinds some of the damaging sequester cuts that created headwinds for our economy. it clears the path for businesses and for investments that we need to strengthen our middle class like education and scientific research. it means that the american people won't be exposed to the threat of another reckless shutdown every few months. that is a good thing. or disagree with

the president's concept of 2014 being a breakthrough year when it comes to the economy. you may want to comment on that or other things when it comes to the new year. again, you can send us tweets, e-mails or comment on facebook. "the new york times" headline -- typically the best chance for wallace he achievements for

lame-duck status politico," their headline is that the president signs off on 2013. say this,cal writers in part. he will need to pull off quite the trick him up produce enough successful collaboration with republicans to show congress hasn't completely clipped him. again, 2014 being a breakthrough year. taking the president's words and getting your thoughts on how you

think that might happen. i picture on the front page of "the new york times" this morning. goodbye tony 13 and low. ofhlights the fax yesterday's press conference and talks about the president's vacation which starts today. he landed and arrived safely according to officials for long extended vacation in hawaii. also this morning in the paper is a lot of talk about the nsa, issues we will take up on this .rogram as well later he spoke considerably about it yesterday at his press

conference. one of the things that came out of it according to this "the headline, nsat" programs will be reined in. let's take our first call. this is lauren ingrid not a hills, california. in granadalawrence hills, california. my thoughts are that i wanted to hear more of a plan of

how he is going to achieve a breakthrough. it seems like the headline in "politico." hoping that we have a good year whether you're republican, democrat, independent or whatever. we have been in this situation economically since 2008 and it has been rough. we need a breakthrough on that economy. as far as arrests rest of the country is concerned, we are still going slow, people are still out of work. i hope we have a break. yes. host: lawrence, could you tell me more about the specifics you want to hear? economy,s far as the

since the president has been in office we know his plan has been spendmulate growth and more money on the government area, but that is not doing it. .he economy is not doing much host: that's lawrence. this is carl in green valley, arizona. republican line. thanks for c-span. i watch all the time. i'm just going to make a comment as food for thought. see, the only way that i based on the facts and what has happened since 2008, is that hopefully the republicans can reacquire the senate majority,

get rid of harry reid, nancy losey and the rest of them and make them insignificant and , articlespeach and it of impeachment against this president. this is the most this honest, underhanded, scandal ridden failure of a presidency in the history of the united states. politics is a dirty business, but this crosses the line and blows it clear out of the water. this has got to happen and get this country back on track to prosperity and honesty. you think it realistically could happen, though? it will never happen if the republicans, and i'm i'm a tea party guy. proud to be. is the only way.

it is not going to happen with harry reid running interference very at eric holder is running interference for this guy in the justice department. harry reid is running interference in the senate. host: senator reid was in the hospital being treated for exhaustion. a treat from his office says that senator reed was diagnosed as exhausted. that was released by the senator's office. bernie from kettle falls, washington on our independent line. the president saying 2014 could be a breakthrough year, what do you think? caller: i think it will be, too. five years a plane straight people being it is president obama stern.

they try and do nothing president is calling the republicans a do-nothing congress. [indiscernible] there's more revenue coming in because more people are working. and ands are going up they're getting more incoming. the debt has been cut down. host: is anything specific for 2014 that you think he can do to spur the economy further? caller: i think he is stepping every thing up right now. the ball is growing. he is finally broken away from all the tethers that were holding him back. i think he is now getting is

head start for obamacare. he is getting the chance. it took a while for them to get going, to. i believe what they call -- oncee or romney care it takes effect in two or three years it is going to work right. host: one of the economic indicators was a gross mistake rather heard 4.1% expansion rate according to economists and reported in "usa today."

that he up next from iowa on the republican line. caller: i know of only two people that have been hired for a good job. whoas a teacher in spain graduated from the university of iowa and one is working for the government in africa. these are full-time jobs with good benefits. otherwise the only jobs that i know that the people i know have been hired for our part-time jobs or as independent contractors. i am scared. iis economy is not good and live in a state where unemployment is supposed to be one of the best in the country and i can see the quality of the jobs that people are getting. it is not good. when it comes to the idea of a breakthrough year --

caller: caller: yeah, breakthrough the and from detroit. the cut line. i think his words were very encouraging and motivating. a lot of the people are still suffering regarding employment, seeking employment, i really believe that once they realize that the republicans are the ones who are holding the president back from getting bills would not properly -- the country does not understand that is not the president who makes the laws primarily. and congress is primarily republican. they have to understand to get

out and vote and get rid of the republicans. they're the ones who are holding the americans from going forward. host: do think the president has at selling anb agenda? caller: yes, i do. the problem is that we need more democrats. we need a lot more motivated democrats out there selling that ticket. wordsthe president's talking about the economy yesterday. you can talk about the economy as well or other things and comes to politics in 2014. the lines are divided by political party. 585 38014 republicans

it was during a press conference. if he haven't seen the whole thing you can see it on a video library. the president was asked i ap's worstpace if 2013 was the year of his presidency. here's his response. >> julie, i guess what i'm saying is if you're measuring this by polls, my poles of got up and down a lot. through the course of my career. pulling interested in it would not have run for president. i was polling at 70% when i was in the u.s. senate. this job to deliver for the american people and i knew i will continue to know that there are going to be ups and downs. you are right, the health-care website problems were sort of great frustration. in the last press conference i

adequately discussed my frustrations on those. i now have ame couple million people, maybe more, who are going to have health care on january 1. that is a big deal. that is why i ran for this office. as long as i have got an opportunity every single day to make sure that in ways large and small i'm creating greater opportunity for people, more kids are able to go to school and get the education they need, more families are able to stabilize their finances, the housing market is continuing to -- to improve, wages are inching up a little bit, if those things are happening, i'll i've said before i have run my last political race, so at this point my goal every single day is to make sure that

i can look back and say we are delivering something. not everything, because this is a long haul. it comes to the affordable care act, house majority leader eric cantor bring out a statement yesterday ofut the cancellation individual mandate for the plans canceled under obamacare. he quotes the majority -- the majority leader quotes -- the president talking about the economy. even top and wider topics if you want to read walter, washington, dc, independent line. good morning and happy holiday to your entire audience and to america and the world. i enjoyed his final press

conference. he did allow a lot of questions to come his way and he answered them honestly. i'm frustrated with people who call him a liar or a deceiver, whatever they want to call him is wrong. he has reached out. year has beens that bad for him. it has been ridiculous at the lady said from detroit. the obstructed everything. if president obama mentions it, they are against it here it is not a worst year for him it is the worst year for them because they result in doing nothing. bill on twitter says 2014 will be better. your thoughts on twitter as well as the phone lines this morning. michael is on a republican line he's from lee acres, florida. i take issue, we have

5.9 million plus and the number keeps climbing. people are losing their health care coverage. approaching four dollars a gallon, most jobs being .reated our part-time jobs there are millions more americans on food stamps. i don't call that a breakthrough, called a breakdown. host: what would make a breakthrough in your opinion? what would have to change? hard for me to believe this president. we have to get more things done at the state level. me to say we would have to do an end run around this president. host: what you mean by that? state: do things through and local governments. wait until the next election. that is pretty much all we can do. norcross,is from

georgia on the democrats line. caller: i think president obama has put a lot of tools on the table. she has executive orders and etc. to strengthen communities. one of the things he said that makes a much sense is that we need a bottom-up economy. a bottom-up economy means that people will have to participate. he can give us all the tools and do all the work but none of the representatives or towns, we may to present a super mayor. all he has to do is take the blame for local area not doing its work to bring small businesses up from the ground. it is not taxes is about him allowing people to innovate, people at the community level to come into the market. then the economy will breakthrough. otherwise they will continue to

complain, obstruct and do games that benefit wall street and the top-down model won't work for us on the supply-side theory that the republicans insist on holding to. it will keep letting us down and give us another collapse. we don't need any more collapses . if the people do well, then they can have insurance and afford gos and our problems will away. it comes down to the local area doing its share. obama can't come to your house and knock on your door and tell you here are all the opportunities you need. paul capetta on twitter --

caner: the republicans prove the top 10% are the job creators. break thatve a tax for every new employee that the , if people hire this year they can prove there is a net gain from all these tax cuts that everybody will be happy, thank you. "the salt lake tribune" this morning talking about a ruling in utah.

judy up next. harbour beach, michigan, democrats line. discuss thent to whole economy thing about the economy getting better. most of the stimulus money went to the banks and the banks were supposed to lend that money out. i know so many people that are about to lose their homes and you mentioned earlier about so many jobs that are part-time. i became a substitute teacher. i have three endorsements, a masters degree. they definitely don't want to hire me and i have to sub. they took away my pension. i have no pension and i make

between 70 and $76 a day. i can't afford to pay my bills. i can barely afford to eat and pay for gas to get back and forth. he needs to take a look at -- it really needs to go from the bottom up instead of the top- down. these banks are what collapse our economy. i really think the affordable care act was a great idea. ,e did some wonderful things but he has given into the republicans too much and he has not publicized enough what good things have come out of the aca. we have a new irs commissioner receiving praise from their present in a statement saying -- i applaud the pipe partisan -- the

bipartisan majority of senators rob from kansas. he is on a republican line. caller: i have tried to call for years and this is the first time i got through. host: congratulations. couple of comments. earlier, the lady said that it it is thelican -- republicans holding him down. unfortunately, what people don't know is that harry reid has the power, obama has the power, obama had a democratic majority and obamaok office even says republicans never offer any ideas. as a fact, the republicans send

lots of bills to the senate but harry reid, he has the ability to either present their bills or not present them to the senate. 95% of what is offered to the senate by the republicans never goes to a vote. other thing, obama care is a thing that will keep us down in 2014. when people find out what the premiums are and the deductibles, this is not an affordable care act. thank you. roses from idaho on our independent line. caller: hello, good morning. thank you for taking my call. are getting on and saying -- on, can and can't do what obama can and can't do. this man is broken so many laws

of our constitution, him and eric holder. fast and furious, were they killed some eight people in mexico. you have so many things he has changed on this health-care law which he doesn't have the authority for. that is why harry reid is stacking the people in the appellate courts for this man to keep doing is illegal activity. that they arelize serializing homeland security and nationalizing our police. this is something that is totally unacceptable and do you guys wonder why the people don't trust the government? is both democrats and republicans, they both want this. >> as far as a breakthrough year

for 2014, something we have ripped off the president statement yesterday, what do you think? i don't believe anything this man says. he does not speak for the people . he said he would make us look like a european country and the man is achieving that. you had a tv at home, but if you're watching now, currently at the international space station there is a spacewalk going on. my pictures on the screen, this whatsa has described this our makeshift snorkels allow an evennaut to keep reading if water should fill the helmet. it happened during his -- june italian astronaut. currently, that work is going on. this is a spacewalk to replace a

malfunctioning pump module is part of the space stations cooling system. that walked going on live on nasa tv. one of several that are planned. including one for christmas day. a little bit of the pictures of the current spacewalk going on at the international space station. tom from kentucky, democrats line. caller: i just wanted to say merry christmas and get straight to my comment. some of these people this morning and i don't hear any of them talking about what brought us to this mess. the health care, obama admitted adjustments would have to be hasn't lied about anything. he is to make those adjustments. we have the tea party like cruise in these other people who won't let this take place.

they won't let him do what he is supposed to do to make the economy better. the previous president that we cardad a limitless credit and he went on a spending spree. took us 22 wars, and by the way with the wrong country. i believe the hijackers and all that stuff, without getting into all that, were saudi arabians. there were no iraqis. so we got bogged down there. using 2014 could be a breakthrough year as the president hopes? if he: i think you can be is allowed to do some of the things he needs to do. host: such as? can redo health care for one. you can do job incentives. if the health care is costly enough, less expensive enough to where the employers can afford a good policy, maybe to cover,

that is going to cut costs. we have so many people out here that don't have insurance. they have to go to er and things like that and that runs bills up. if you get a policy that they can afford that will give them coverage like the congress has -- how come they are not subjected to this health-care? they have a golden nest or something? they have the best insurance it can be bought. host: the president talking about the rollout of the affordable care act and healthcare.gov yesterday. here's a statement from the press conference yesterday. >> and for all the challenges we have had, and all the challenges we have been working on bothently in dealing with the aca and the website these past couple months, more than half a million americans have enrolled through healthcare.gov in the first three weeks of

december alone. example, the, for state is operating its own marketplace and more than 15,000 americans are enrolling every single day. in the federal website tens of thousands are enrolling every single day. since october 1, more than one million americans have selected new health insurance plans through the federal and state marketplaces. all told, millions of americans, despite the problems with the besite, are now poised to covered by quality affordable health insurance come new year's day. thereis holiday season are mothers and fathers and entrepreneurs and workers who have something new to celebrate. the security of knowing that when the unexpected or misfortune strikes, hardship no longer has to. a president from yesterday making comments about the aca. the press conference lasted for about an hour. he took questions on a variety of things in one of the things

he talked about was 2014 being a breakthrough year. we want to get your thoughts on if you agree with him or disagree and tell us why y. if you go to twitter you can make your thoughts known. cj, barrington, illinois, independent line. caller: my question really is i don't understand why it the't been addressed that marginalization of becoming a l tor with the obamacare

lobbying past is going to be -- i don't understand it. you're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to and then withr obamacare you're only going to host: lidia,0,000? decatur, michigan, republican line. caller: i don't know too much about politics, but i do listen to this show. what makes us think that things echooing to get better the if he didn't do the right things from the start, what do we expect if he is about to step out? shouldlly, i think we

take care of ourselves. wait until can and the lord takes care of everything. host: so when you said he didn't do the right thing from the start, what do you mean specifically? caller: most everything he said turns out to be a lie. promises that instead of accomplishing them, he is always on vacation or excusing himself or making remarks. i don't know too much about this but i've seen a lot. things are not going to get better with him, things are going to get worse if he doesn't change. his ways of thinking and his heart third because his heart is

not the way it is supposed to be for president. thank you. host: that is lidia from michigan. the president yesterday in his remarks to reporters talks a bit about the u.s. and iran and other countries negotiating a deal about iran's nuclear program areas the president expressed concerns about sanctions, or a new drive for sanctions in the senate. the headline in "the new york times" this morning talks about the senate bill. rick gladstone. he writes

there is more to that in "the new york times" this morning. democrats line from new jersey. thatr: i just want to say i do believe there will be a breakthrough in 2014 only because politics have to be put to the side and both parties will start to work together. if you are a democratic hertician and he have supporters, your supporters will vote democratic again. if you're a republican supporter you vote republican again. isyour independent, that where you will decide if you're going to go republican or democratic. i think the republicans need to come to the honesty and the truth that when they put country

first, they have the majority with resident bush another should think that way again. country first, politics to the side and let's move forward. host: you talk about republicans, do democrats have anything to offer yucca caller: democrats have always had something for the working men are working woman. they're not about the politics per se because they just want to help the whole country, whether you vote for them or not or the programs that are out here, social security, medicare among those are programs that democratic presidents put through. republicans didn't vote for those things. they don't believe in that. they believe you're on your own. if you're on your own and your rich, you are fine. but if you are an american and hard-working, you need the support of policies that keep you working. we get this e-mail from

miami. moore's head, indiana, that is .here rick is very is i think the republican party especially mr. boehner realizing that the heritage foundation is a proponent for a third world country is a breakthrough in itself. you have people like the tea party us who are also funded by the same people like the coke

koch brothers who don't believe in safety net for america. they move jobs out of the country, promote sweatshops in other countries. i'm really disappointed by the fact that walmart is the number one employer in the world. that really sickens me and it makes me not proud to be an american today. if that is what they stand for, i think we had better wake up and america. the tea party us rake through would be to vote them out of office. host: why did you have it walmart? number walmart is the one employer in the united states today. that is appalling because they are proponents of minimum wage, no health insurance and part- time jobs. mean.ow what i

the growth of gdp, that is from the bottom up, not from the top down. greed is a disease. host: the e-mail from an unidentified person says the bottom 90% of the job creators. the top 10% of the job destroyers. -- the top 10% are the job destroyers. think this idea that the president runs the country is a myth. we need a balanced budget amendment. all this money that people put in their pockets before it is taxed should be ordinary income. this country should be on our feet. did $3ber when reagan

trillion deficits and then you had bush and now obama. the next president comes in here and will probably have three , a $17 trillion debt and a chance to take it to 20 trillion. congress is going to do nothing to have a balanced budget. i want that passed. i want that tax law taking care of. i have every tax benefit there is an it is really criminal. the country is suffering. my grandkids will get along fine. they did fine on ordinary income because this country is too of peopleand plenty have suffered for it. thanks, pedro. host: a story in the "wall talks about the liberal agenda for democrats in 2014. here's what it says.

goose creek, south carolina, democrats line. yes, good morning america, the light of the world. and wel believe in god must realize that our breakthrough has to be in religion, not economics. coleman from baltimore, maryland. we will have a

breakthrough year. number one we need to reform education which needs to be free, health-care needs to be free, black people need their 40 acres and a mule. we're going to have a breakthrough year than we should think outside the box. marijuana should be legal and not taxed by medical marijuana. that way we can create businesses that are going to be taxed by the government. they have different ways to make money, but it is not opportunity out there. people need better opportunities to take advantage of the situation. this one more call their is mac from fairfax, virginia. matt, are you there? first of all, i'd like to say that i hope the 2014 will be a breakthrough year. i will be personally trying to live my life accordingly and try to be a productive member of society.

goes, as the president five years since his election and hope a lot of people remember that the whole purpose of the affordable care act was attain universal coverage for all citizens. even though he fall short of the number we might have -- we might never get there toward everybody having insurance. way, the number one issue still remains for students. we can't find a way to make a reasonable living and the self- sufficient and do well. host: at the press conference yesterday the president talked at length about the national security agency. the headline from the washington post says it all. president signals nsa programs

will be reined in. environment has changed. julian sanchez chal joins us. mr. sanchez will be along to talk about that later on in the program. we will talk about the environmental movement. several key organizations involved in the movement find themselves in midlife, so to all this as "washington journal" continues after this. ♪ >> as a moderate in the privacy debate and in the privacy world, i have come to a troubling conclusion. the data broker industry as it does not have constraints and does not have shame. it will sell any information

about any person, regardless of sensitivity. , which isnts a name the price of a list of rape sufferers which was recently sold. sufferers, victims of domestic violence, police officers home addresses, people who suffer from genetic illnesses, complete with names, home addresses, ethnicity, gender and many other factors. this is what is being sold and circulated today. from visiting a website and seeing an ad. what is, this is a sale of the nationally identifiable information and highly sensitive information of americans.

span, yourekend on c- medical history, income, your commerce, the senate committee looks at data mining. on booktv, thom hartmann argues that without a strong middle class the u.s. is heading for an economic implosion that will make the great depression seem tame. at 8:45 p.m.. on c-span threes american history tv, by august 1945 it was already becoming clear that a struggle for global dominance had begun. from world war ii cold war. sunday at 7:30 p.m. eastern. >> the thing i care about most is to make it more of a museum with more pieces of beautiful furniture that belong to our president. from 1902.t is dates >> why isn't it more antique

furniture? i thought they would have been collecting it from the beginning of this republic. >> a thing is, thomas jefferson did the most wonderful thing of putting in beautiful furniture and the sad thing was a war of 1812 when everything was burned. piecemealhad to start and every president who came could sell it in like, what was there. these have auctions and one of the president could change the decor if he wanted. once president grant had the blue room file it. chester author had it ravens a blue. >> that was stopped after theodore roosevelt in 1902. >> next week, louver to jacqueline kennedy.

washington journal continues. now julianng us sanchez with the cato institute. welcome. this week the president addressing the nsa in a press conference. a traditional ruling on the nsa. a lot dealing with this agency. give your assessment of the president's management of the agency so far. what is come up this week shows us the gap between what happens when management is totally internal and secret curse is what happens when you get outside scrutiny. showing not necessarily the president's personal mismanagement, it shows the difference external scrutiny makes. we're hearing all this is constitutional and always pfizer court judges overseeing all of fisand all thesefis

court judges overseeing this. when the president's experts look at these programs in a thatehensive way they find there are a lot of big changes that need to be made to ensure these are well calibrated to protect security without leading to potential abuses of civil liberties. host: the president does indicate he wants to make changes. what does he face in making this change is? enormousobably an amount of pushback from the intelligence community itself. their 40 some odd recommendations in this report from his surveillance review. one of the agents said they do not intend to follow these. the responsibility for cybersecurity should be split off from the responsibility for spying, which makes sense. we have seen that there is a

tension there. on one hand they're trying to making occasions more secure, but that is in conflict with the mission of being able to spy on everything. last night there was a report about how the nsa was trying to undermine the security of one very widely used encryption toolkit. reformlot of his other recommendations, in a lot of the this is consistent with more drastic reforms that have been proposed. the proposals they are making do not look like the sort of stuff intelligence committees have said would be sufficient, basically small tweaks. essentially, they're saying this mostam, for example the controversial program, the program, phone records one needs to be ended in its current form. that is something all along the president has said no we are willing to look at reforms but we basically support the program as it exists. for his own review group to say

actually, no you charges looking at this and we say no, that puts him in a difficult position. host: we would talk about a lot of these things, but the nsa is a current topic. if you want to ask him questions, the numbers are on the screen. little bit of tape from yesterday at the press conference in which the president talked a lot about the nsa, talked about his management of it or here's a bit of it. >> we believed that we had scrubbed these programs then struck an appropriate balance. there had not been evidence in the continues not to be evidence that the particular program had been abused in how it was used. tool workingul with other tools of the intelligence community has to

ensure that if we have a thread on a potential terrorist threat that that can be followed effectively. what i have also said is that in light of the disclosures that have taken place, it is clear that whatever benefits the configuration of this program outweighed bye the concerns that people have on this potential abuse. if that is the case, there may be another way of skinning the cap. host: do you have any takeaways from that? guest: the most confession we have heard from the president that the program in its current form may need to be changed more than cosmetically. again, i think that is because this is a review group he picked. i think in a way most people saw -- you might have

expected that pre-existing entity which has a lot of civil liberties friendly focus on it, it wasn't tax with the primary review responsibility very a lot of people saw that as maybe once a little less stringent or strident reports from folks that are closer to the intelligence community. so in that group comes out with you need saying yes, to make radical changes come in some ways more radical changes than even a lot of the critics meanseen proposing, that you can't keep saying everything is fine. he says there is no evidence of it not being abused. is there truth to that? guest: it is the case that there have been a lot of evidence of misuse is. the problem is, what are they going to count as abuse. if you look at opinions that are been disclosed to the government court, youret fisa

find that the first three years of this program the court was not currently informed about how it was working. the safeguards the court had imposed on this program to make abused were't ignored. you have got a lot of improper queries. it is true that you can look at that and say ok we found a case for we know someone was deliberately violating the rules to do some things as ethically and completely illegal like just look for whether a senator was having an affair or something like that, that is true, but the reason you have these rules are because a program on the scale, the is like that is always going to be very difficult to prove. is going to be hard to detect it at all and that hard to prove that it was deliberate or intentional. always going on in someone's mind within a certain query. we know for the cap the historical abuses, they're

typically not uncovered until years later. the rationale here is you don't wait until the abuses are exposed in a secret and complicated program because you are not going to detect them in real time, probably. host: some of those recommendations you have been alluding to and talking about, including ending the nsa's collection of phone data and letting the private companies keep the data, would he think of that step? it depends on what it means. if means a status quo going back to the old model of when have suspicion about a particular phone number you go with in order to get those records, that is how it always works are traditionally works. so that makes perfect sense. it is not clear whether they are talking additionally about and it -- a retention mandate. if you have his records yet to turn them over in response to a court order, but you have to

keep these records for certain amount of time, whether it is 18 months or two years or five years. that would be new. there are also two problems i can come with that because once you're forced to retain his records they can't really compete on privacy by saying we are not good to keep your records for longer than we need them. you open up the possibility of having those same records accessed by private lawyers in divorce hearings and other kinds of private lawsuits. is a veryl say it different story. it is a different thing to say these records will be held for longer by the companies as opposed to all these records will be pooled in a giant government database and the government will do it it wants with that huge pool and you hope that they follow all the rules that are in place. sense of the the companies themselves are reassessing how they work with the government on this type of data? papers thiss from

week such as verizon making statements. guest: and at&t, two. there's a drastic difference between technologies and traditional telephone carriers and their response to the story. companies likese google and microsoft, internet companies, it's a lot easier to opt out of using the internet service usually than your local phone company. there's overwhelm so many of these carers. so, they've been pushing back very hard, the googleles and yahoos and aol's, saying we want to be able to tell our customers about how much information we're handing over, we want to limit maybe how much we're giving you so they can trust if you use g mail, you're not just letting the government into your inbox. the phone carrier so far, to stay out of it. but both verizon and at&t now coming out for the first time with the kind of transparency

reports that in the internet space have now become increasingly standard. they too are starting to feel a bit of the heat. >> our guest to talk about the n.s.a., here's wayne, democrats line. go ahead, please. wayne, are you there? one more time for wayne and then we'll move on. let's go to jodie, corning, iowa. caller: good morning, gentlemen, how are you? host: go ahead, please. caller: at&t and verizon and google and yahoo have been paid millions and millions of dollars, so, to collect the information. aren't us taxpayers paying the companies twice for taking, we're paying our bills and then our tax dollars are being paid for this overspying? guest: there have been actually

significant payments. it's not that the companies are really making money on this, they have pretty large, legal compliance teams, in some cases dozens, i think in one case more than a hundred lawyers, and be able to process all the information and hand it over. so the payment is actually to pay for the cost of complying with this, but it's true, right? the more, the more companies are burdened by having to find a way to process and turn over all this information to the n.s.a., the more expensive this becomes for the taxpayer. $70 kind of massive million intelligent budget goes. it's not a chunk we're spending, but maybe one of the reasons the companies have not had a huge incentive to push back. it's not imposing a burden on

them that isn't being paid for. >> earlier this week, the president holding a photo op, with facebook, yahoo, google and the like. what's it mean to have the social media sites gather around the table with him? guest: i think one of the things you're reminded is that if you think back, for example, the debate over the soapa debate, this is what everybody thought would battle through quickly and the technology companies being opposed to it meant not only were they able to throw a lot of lobbying money around, but they were actually able to leverage and flooded these offices with calls. so i think one of the things that reminds us, these are companies that beyond their enormous bank account, almost even punch above their substantial weight. so i think one of the things recognized there is antagonizing

ese companies comes with political cost. certainly you saw that n.s.a. was not just getting information directly from google from arrangements they had worked out, but in addition to that where google said we're going to do this, not going to do that, work out a balanced arrangement we think is reasonable to give you information out giving you all our users stuff, it turned out n.s.a. had been sort of going behind their back and vacuuming stuff up on the pikes between the companies data centers. they were really furious about that. they thought they had worked out a balanced deal to protect user privacy and it turned out that basically they were being hacked. not literally hacked but that n.s.a. was going behind their backs on that. and so, yeah, they're in a lot of ways angry.

host: what's the concern to me as far as their relationships with the n.s.a.? guest: not that you have necessarily more concern than any other service you might use. certainly if you're in the united states, at least in theory, the programs they're talking about are not supposed to be targeting you. that doesn't mean necessarily though that your information won't be vacuumed up as part of a collection that is targeting someone overseas but is sort of more broad in the initial stage, so vacuums up a lot of stuff about your address book and other metta data. and later in theory, only looks at content first, but it's not a perfect process. host: this is suzie, independent line. caller: hi. host: go ahead, please. caller: oh, good morning. i have a question, i'm originally from utah, and i would like to know why it's been hidden from the american public

about the huge complexes being built in bluffdale at the point of the mountain. seven huge buildings to store all of this information that the n.s.a. is collecting on americans, and foreigners also? but you don't hear anything, you don't see anything. already american taxpayers have paid $52.6 billion. where did that money come from? and why haven't we heard about it? and i feel like if we really think, if americans really think that they're not being spied on, or that it's going to stop, then america better wake up, because you don't know the complex like is sitting in utah right now, with the thought of stopping this. so i would like your opinion on it. i would like to know why the news hasn't -- we've seen several photographs of it, very seldom, but why isn't somebody following up on that huge complex that's being built in

bluffdale, utah. guest: it hasn't been totally ignored. the best story you can find is a cover story that appeared on wire magazine. the complex was on the cover of the magazine. it was by a journalist and historian of the national security agency. if you go to wire.com you can find somewhere on the site the story he did about that complex. should be interesting to see, follow up reporting on it. my old friend cashmere hill from forbes has done some reporting about it. so, there is some stuff out there, but i think it's absolutely true that the enormous size of that complex speaks at least indirectly to the incredible quantity of data that n.s.a. is vacuuming up, that they need to build, complexes of this magnitude just to keep up with everything they're taking in. host: and also, caller, if you want to check our video library, i think james was on this program with that story to talk

about this complex. go to our video library at cspan.org and type in his name or search words and you'll get that. sara, independent line. caller: yes. hello? host: you're on. caller: hello. good morning. and i'm so happy to speak to you. as far as the n.s.a. goes, i am so frightened about it because they did nothing, they dropped the ball with what happened in boston. no one talks about that. and it's very frightening, and i don't care how many things they've said they stopped, i can't believe -- i voted for president obama twice! and i wish i had voted for the more mormon. i don't know what's going on in this country. guest: i'll say this much in

their defense. in the boston case, one, it's not clear there were any international communications there that would have tipped off what was going on. these guys were kind of radicalized internally and not sure they were in touch with someone overseas. so that would actually be outside of the n.s.a. and more generally, it may just be the case that sometimes there isn't enough evidence in advance that's going to tell you when any, what every single terrorist attack or event like that is going to happen. there was, i think, some kind of tip from the russians that maybe these were people worth looking at, but we don't know how many people the russians say are worth looking at every year. so if they looked a little bit and said we can't find any evidence at the time we looked these guys are involved in any criminal wrong doing, then there's not a whole lot we can do. and so in some sense, i think, you know, if, i think one of the

problems is every time something bad happens, we think why didn't they stop it. the answer is sort of, well, they must need more power, they must need more authority to wiretap, more authority to get information. it may just be there's not always a way in advance to know who those people are, unless you just sort of have a complete police state. so, in a way, i think we have to accept that sometimes stuff will happen that we cannot reasonably spot in advance. you hope, you know, when it's the really kind of major attacks on a 9/11 scale that there's got to be evidence in advance that you can pick up on. but, will smaller things sometimes happen that we can't stop? i think that's probably something we just have to accept. certainly if we keep increasing our power after something like that happens, there's no real sense of when that will stop. host: recommendations of the task force that were released

this week, another couple of points that i want you to comment on. this was created, or at least one of them will create a public interest advocate for fisa courts. does that mean there's not as they're currently set up? guest: right. a body created in 1979, and the idea is that these 11 judges essentially hear secretly applications for wiretap orders. originally, the idea was just they would be hearing individual applications, you know. julianne sanchez, we think is suspicious, here's the evidence why, we want to wiretap him, search his house or look through his records and the court would say do you have evidence to justify that he's linked to foreign power, foreign spy agency, ok. the problem is, that overtime, it stopped just being a court

that makes those yes or no determinations. it started being a court that has to answer questions like, well can we have a huge program that collects everyone's phone records, and then analyzes them in various ways. and then what are the rules under which we can analyze. they're not just saying do you have enough evidence anymore. they're saying does the law allow this whole program, what kind of safeguards are appropriate? they're answering these complicated and technological questions. normally a search warrant, whether it's intelligence or criminal investigations, the application is made many secret. you can't have a public process where you say come in, we'll have a proceeding whether we decide if we're going to wiretap you, it sort of defeats the purpose. but the idea is if they're going to be making these broad decisions, not just individual decisions, you need to have someone else in there arguing the other side. someone who can come in and say ok, if you're answering a big question like that, who's going to say, i don't think the fourth

amendment allows that, or maybe the statue doesn't allow that. maybe technology works in a way you haven't considered, that might create a problem. so it's not just you're hearing only the government's side. i think one thing's become very clear, as these opinions justifying some of these programs have come out, you see a lot of legal scholars, even people who are pretty sympathetic to broad government surveillance going wow, this looks like they zoomed through this, didn't consider a lot of counter vailing arguments and looked like they were stretching to give the government what they wanted. so this is a way to make sure that's not what happens. because then judges know, when you only hear one side all the time, however fair you're trying to be, that creates an effect. you tend to give that side what you're looking for. >> you talked earlier about tensions leading to complications and making changes. -- do you think the

president because of that would probably hold off from making that kind of position doable? guest: this actually seems like the one thing most people don't have a problem with. we've seen, in hearings about this, a little bit of push back. i've heard some sort of separations of power's concerned about whether this particular role makes sense there. there's a question and standings. if the court makes the decision the advocate thinks is wrong, can they appeal to the supreme court. questions about standing because the advocate isn't really representing an actual client whose interesting are adversely affected. so there's so many questions about that, but basically, this seems to be something that everyone, including the leadership of the n.s.a., thinks they can sort of live with. that in a case that's not some sort of emergency, a person needs a wiretap, we have a broad program we want to do or want to know, get a rule on what the law means or allows, then the case

like that, they're willing to take the extra time and have another side present it. >> couple of other points, with an issue of national security letters only under judicial supervision, and stop n.s.a. weakening of encontribution standards by tech companies, can you address that last part? guest: right. we learned a few months ago about a program called bull run where the n.s.a. has been working, the n.s.a., which is charged in part with enhancing and protecting american cybersecurity had been working in various ways, to undermine the encontribution of the security of the internet depends on, either by doing deals with particularly companies to insert back doors or to degrade the effectiveness of certain encontribution tools, or to flaws less secure with in them. a report just the other day,

there was apparently a $10 million deal struck with a major security software company basically encouraging them to of as their default sort random number, something they knew had a flaw in it. when you're doing encontribution, a lot of the ability of the software to secure a communication depends on generating random numbers to create keys to lock and unlock communication. if it turns out there's patterns in how the keys are generated, then if you're very sophisticated like the n.s.a., you can exploit those patterns to break it open. so it seems like they encouraged this company to adopt, and these widely used tools, a number generator the n.s.a. knew had these flaws, even though the

company maybe did not. that's a huge problem. that makes everyone less secure. about nly n.s.a. knows the vulnerabilities. stuff that seems to have been inserted or adopted in n.s.a.'s request, a couple of years later, researchers go hey, we found a sort of complicated, not easy to spot, but we did spot it eventually, was a problem in these. and so, i think it's absolutely right. you can't have an agency that people are supposed to be trusting to work with them to help enhance security because they've got the most sophisticated math ma tigses, and at the same time, their mission is to make sure they can spot everything. host: john, go ahead. caller: good morning. and good morning, julian, fascinating to listen to you. i was only calling with a

comment, because i always hate to say, i'm getting old, and i'll be gone. and you know, i still get those standard today wave my finger nd say it can't happen here. everyone thinking that it's been eradicated like the small pox. but i guess it will be your kids, julian, or your kids, kids that will wring their hands and say and how did it happen here. how did it ever happen here. guest: i think it's always so important to remember, but i think a lot of americans don't know about or remember this. it has happened here. in the mid 1970's, the church committee, the senate committee that invest gated abuses that had happened over the past several decades under j. edgar hoover and the f.b.i., and they found a really disturbing, very long term pattern of illegal

surveillance of political civil rights leaders, members of congress, judges, and misuse of that information for basically overtly political purposes. the most famous case is of course martin luther king who they wiretapped and bugged and attempted to discredit by leaking derrogatory information to friendly reporters, then basically trying to blackmail him into retiring with tapes of his extra marital affairs. the real concern is even if you don't see what evidence that this newark texture has been built, if you look at the real combination of symptoms, not just the database of all the phone records but the fact that they've got these powerful semantic right on the internet, able to ilter, and

seize it with other records that there is vacuumed up, an architecture of surround vail yans that is gathering so much information that at the point in the future where it were to be misused, it would be capable of intimate facts on a scale so far beyond of what was possible in the 60's and 70's, you really have to wonder whether there would be, in a sense, anywhere to hide, when that happened, if that happened. host: maryland, from new hampshire, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. and good morning mr. sanchez. guest: good morning. caller: i believe i was tapped, my computer, a few weeks before we first started hearing things bout n.s.a. on the news.

i'm sitting and working at my computer. now, i'm a writer, i'm writing about ancient egypt, so i've always got multiple egyptian websites open. i'm sitting and writing and all of a sudden i see popping up on my screen a little logo that says p.r.i.s.m., and then my system went down. and it turned out it was probably hacked. and the fact that i haven't seen anything like that or heard of anything like that from anyone else leads me to suspect that either it was a malfunctioning computer or it was an n.s.a. train yi. i don't know any of this for sure, but it was kind of scary to think i may have been hacked. and do they know the difference between ancient and modern egypt. guest: i will tell you i think that is not very likely for a couple of reasons. one, obviously if you're having logos pop up on your screen you know something is wrong, which

sort of defeats the purpose of surveillance. n.s.a., they're pretty confident, so, i mean, it would be sort of a blundering thing to have it pop up on your screen. it doesn't mean you weren't hacked. it may be you downloaded some other thing compromised your system. n.s.a. has access to, you know, the pipes themselves. so, in special cases looking at particular targets, they might, we know they do in fact go ahead and hack the person's machine. but, usually that's not sort of how it works. when they get to the point where they have an active reason to think there's someone's machine they're going after. and so it seems, well, it's not impossible, depending on if the website you were visiting, it's conceiveable, but strikes me as

pretty unlikely. but i do think that one of the reasons to be concerned about this kind of mass surveillance is indeed that when you know stuff on this scale is happening, it does create this chilling effect, so you have writers using the internet and thinking well, if i go visit this website, if i look at some it ube of a radical, will trigger something that puts me on a list somehow or gets my communications scrutinized more closely. whether or not that's the case here, a reason for greater limits is that you don't want people always sort of looking over their shoulder and thinking, you know, is this next link i click on going to somehow set off a red flag somewhere. is typing this word in this email going to send off a red flag somewhere. am i thinking every time i do anything online about whether this is going to trigger

urveillance. ost: our guest julian sanchez, cato institute, we're talking about the national security agency. julian sanchez, there's a story in "the new york post" saying the f.b.i. develops surveillance techniques that allow you to turn on web cams. guest: yep. this is something i used to argue with my techy friends. i always thought that your web camera, or at least the web camera in your laptop is hardwired to the light to the power. we always believe if there's power going into the web cam the light kind of has to go on. someone can't just remotely hack your machine and turn on your web cam without you knowing about it and take naked pictures of you and look at what you're doing. as we've learned it turns out for some models of labtop

there's a way you can compromise the system to alter the behavior of the particular chip that controls that so it doesn't turn the light on. you can activate the web cam without any alerts to the person using the computer. in a way even more troubling than that is the microphone in your laptop, on your phone, there's no light next to that. only an alert if someone has turned on your mike. and so that's also, no doubt, something that can be exploited. although again, that's something a little less concerning because it doesn't scale, right? you can sweep in lots and lots of phone records and internet records and internet communications in bulk, have them in a big database and you better hope that no one in five to 10 years finds someone to use that huge database. remotely activating a camera or

a microphone is, i mean, a kind of chilling technology, but you can't do it enmass. you can't do it to everyone. you sort of have to target. so in those cases you would hope that's something happening only after a judge has issued a specific search warrant. host: bruce jackson, florida, independent line. caller: yes, good morning gentlemen. i guess the best thing to do is start off, do you trust the government? and number two, would we know bout n.s.a. if it wasn't for edward snowden, trusting the government. you know we go back to fast and furious, benghazi, the i.r.s. which leaked information to the obama administration. i just, you know, and if you're worried about you're information, just go on google and google your name and find out how much information you can find about yourself on google.

guest: i think that's right. in the report of the presidents review group the president released this week, they say, you know, it's important to remember that we cannot just totally trust the government. at some level, if you're going to allow surveillance authorities at all, there have to be some trust that it will not be widely abused, but you should always sort of have in mind the possibility of abuse. if you look at the hearings on this subject, you sort of, again and again, people saying we know your heart is in the right place and do not intend to spy on order americans. maybe that's true about the guys running the show right now. but that should never be the structural policy answer that, you know, you trust the particular individuals whose hands are at the levers of a machine. you need structural controls. the founding fathers set up all these checks and balances and

ways to ensure that power could not be abused, set up the bill of rights, the separation of powers. not that they thought they were bad or untrustworthy people. they understood that power is untrustworthy in a sense. that power tends to be abused. so you always need to assume that at some point it will be unless you have structured designed to prevent it. >> what about people like edward snowden. what role does he play in this? guest: you know, some of the stuff that's come out was stuff we had an inkling about before. we didn't know quite as many details about the phone, we didn't know the exact legal rationale. but the "u.s.a. today" in 2006 had reported that there was some kind of large scale collection of phone records happening. that was sort of overshadowed by the big warrantless wiretapping that was happening at the time. i think again, maybe people may have assumed that that had gone by the way side as some of the

illegal and immediate post-9/11 stuff was moved under by the authorities. but no, absolutely. a lot of this is stuff we wouldn't know about otherwise. we saw president obama's press conference you referred to saying well, it was important that we have this debate, and indeed, you see now, big changes need to be made. a court says actually some of the stuff maybe wasn't legal after all. could have had the debate some other way. you want to believe him. you want to believe that we can talk about these things and regulate our national security apparatus without classified leaks being part of it, but, you know, how else were we going to have this debate? is there any evidence that this is a debate we would be having at any point but for those leaks? and so, you know, may have to say well, you wish this kind of thing weren't necessary. that, a debate could happen and

secrets could be kept. that need to be kept. but i think, history shows sometimes that's what it takes. host: what do you think will be the ultimate fate of edward snowden? guest: i was surprised to see that even within the government there are folks now talking about amnesty, i guess, conditional on his returning some of the data. i'm not sure if that's possible. i mean, my understanding is that he's basically at this point turned over what he had, or most of what he had to various groups of journalists, so it's not like he's in any position to return it, and certainly not clear the journalists who have it would be interested in returning it. so, i don't know whether to expect that. but i think politically now, in light of this report, and in light of the that court ruling, the line all along has been he's not a whistle blower because everything he revealed was legal, and fine and he's not revealing abuses or criminal conduct. well, the point where you have a

judge apointed by president bush saying actually, i think this is unconstitutional, you know, it becomes a lot harder to say no, he's not a whistle blower. so it may be politically more difficult to really try to throw the book at him, although i have no doubt there will be, for the rest of his life, someone whose job that is. host: stephanie, democrats line, you're up next. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you're on, go ahead. caller: so i would like to know what he thinks about the employees that actually work at n.s.a., and for the government. how many of them would have to exploit to actually data? guest: well, one. there's no sort of proof of that. ed snowden is someone who basically took thousands upon thousands of highly classified documents that was not supposed

to be possible to extract from the system. some of these reports, by the way, did actually contain, you seem them redacted, information about the names of particular people under investigation. so that hasn't been published. but some of the studies information out to persons. so, as it turns out it takes one erson to get this stuff out. and in this case, for months afterwards, still unclear exactly what he took. it's not clear that his extraction would have been detected at all except that, obviously, he went to the press and started publishing some of these documents. you have to assume that someone who extracted information to abuse it, either by you know misusing information for political purposes, or using information to make stock trade, because they found out about mergers. any of the number of ways you

could use information or sell information illicitly, you're not going to take out a front page ad in the "new york times." you're not going to leak that to the guardian. i think this is clear proof it wouldn't take much. i will say everyone i've ever met or spoken to from n.s.a. seems like a thoughtful and decent person, so it's not that i, in my personal experience with these folks, they seem like, you know corrupt people who are looking for ways to misuse their power. but, it does show that, it might only take one or two. and it might not be, if not now, five years in the future, someone who thinks what they're doing is in the interest of american security. certainly, i think j. edgar hoover when he abuses power, thought he was protecting american from communism. so one person at the bottom even it seems can do potentially a lot of damage. and, you know, much, much more recently certainly someone

higher up could, i think, do even more damage. especially given again that we the or years at a time bodies that were supposed to be overseeing the program were supposed to work in one way and turned out they worked in a different way. so the structures in place to prevent that from happening don't seem to be effective. guest: someone asked to ask you if the n.s.a. overall undermining of internet security could lead to more cyber breaches? he highlights the target breach. guest: in theory, certainly, right. but if you're introducing vulnerability into the system, even if you think you're the only one who knows about them, then yeah, you increase the risk that someone else is going to discover those and use them for their own purposes. not to do security surveillance

but to extract people's credit cards. i think that's certainly the case. whether it's plausible to these particularly kind of vulnerabilities are likely to be criminals, asrder compared to basically other oreign actors, that's a fairly sophisticated and exom ply kated vulnerabilities. but when you reduce securities so you can spy, you reduce securities so someone else can spy too. host: how much technical know how does it take to pull often a target breach? guest: i don't actually remember the details of how that articular one was carried out. in part, if you look at what applications and sites are constantly updating themselves and changing the way they work, you know, every kind of major

change introduces potential new vulnerabilities. you know. you see, even just order software, security updates on a pretty constant basis. that's just because it's impossible to really know in advance how all the complex pieces are going to work together and predict every vulnerability every global community of hackers might detect through constant efforts to hammer through something. so in a way it's almost less an individual level. it's that no person tasked with securing a system is going to be as smart as everyone who's trying to compromise it. sooner or later, one of them is going to find a vulnerability you didn't think about. host: mary, the independent line. caller: hi. this may be less about n.s.a. surveillance and more about identity theft and privacy

concerns, based on what i've seen on c-span this week. i'm curious about responsibility of employers of their employees data and things about have data on people, including social security numbers. my particular concern recently is that i have had -- i learned that my w 2's were sent to lawyers on behalf of a lawsuit that my employer has going. and i learned that i could have the items redacted so that the social security numbers could be wiped off. and i'd be ok with them being submitted as long as the social security numbers wouldn't be there. but i was really concerned if this were to go to a jury, the stuff would be out there, exhibits, blah, blah, blah. and i think that's really personal data to have out there. i took it to my employer for his concern, he claims to have an open door policy. he was not interested in listening to my concern and just

kept repeating that the lawsuit is none of my business. and so, i couldn't get very far with that. i was really going to ask for his help but he was not interested. so apparently his lawsuit is private, which it's not really because you know, it's out there and yet somehow my personal data is out there for people to see with my social security number, just hanging out there. i just wonder if you could address the thought around what responsibilities, again, courts have, or employers have on protecting data for certain situations. guest: that's a huge question, and i'm sorry, i don't want to get too complicated. but there is a tension here that they've been grappling with the presumption that court records are supposed to be public, you're not supposed to have, in general, it happens, sometimes records are sealed. but the proceedings of a court, the documents presented in a court, are supposed to be part

of the public record. and on the other hand, discovery and disclosure and lawsuits often irrelevance or personal material as part of the process that you don't necessarily want to put on the web for all to see. so there is a tension between those two values. whose particular case, responsiblity it is would probably be determined by state law than any kind of national policy on this. i can't give you too much specific guidance, i might suggest that a foundation might be able to help out with that. host: we'll squeeze in one more call. this is larry, big spring, texas. republican line. good morning. caller: yes, i just wanted to bring up a couple of points that you kind of touched on earlier at the beginning of the show when julian first came on. one, is the fact that he said there was no evidence of any wrong doing that n.s.a. had

done, you know, so far as gathering evidence and all. what about steve rosen that worked with fox and the other networks, they went after fox network, you know, went into their phone records. and then i forget the other network, there was another one. guest: that wasn't n.s.a., want to recognize. that was the f.b.i. and the justice department, although certainly it all comes together. and in those cases, i think probably because the n.s.a. program is classified, and this is information they got phone records of both the associated press and the reporter as part of leak investigations, they wanted to be able to use that information in court. so they didn't want to talk about the n.s.a. database is supposed to be used for terrorism in theory. we know the rules were violated quite a lot. but in theory it's only supposed to be used within these rules.

and they certainly don't want to have to publicly reveal the existence of that program. so these cases really involve, i think, warrants in the case of reading the emails of rosen, and grand jury subpoenas in the case of the associated press, and that's given rise to revamping of the rules, but which they're supposed to look at media records. supposed to be an enhanced scrutiny before they sweep in a reporter's record because there's additional first amendment concerns where there's extra temptation for government abuse. are you going to learn who's talking to the government, not just a leaker you're worried about, but anyone who might be blowing the whistle or talking to the press. what kind of stories are they working on, giving you advanced warning about what's coming out. additional layers of protection there. but it is certainly concerning to see that in those cases, one,

in rosen's case, essentially because they had to argue because of those restrictions, that he was in fact involved in some kind of crime, basically treated him as the equivilent of a foreign spy because he was engaged in order newsgathering. and the a.p. case, that in order to try to figure out who was talking to the a.p. about one particular classified story, they swept in records for a whole bunch of a.p. phone lines. so would have learned about a whole lot of people who are communicating with the associated press. and gotten a pretty comprehensive picture of everything they were working on. certainly those are cause for concern. host: as we finish up, the legal decision that was handed down this week, ultimately, what does it mean? guest: so, a republican apointee essentially found the n.s.a.

phone record program was likely to be found to violate the 4th amendment, this was the preliminary injunction, pending an appeal. meaning it doesn't have effect right away. but someone was challenging the phone record company saying don't want my information taken away did in fact probably violate the 4th amendment. there's a long ago supreme court decision that sort of says once you turn over information like a phone number you dial or the internet site you visit to any kind of third party business, like your internet provider, google, your phone company, and they keep that in the business record, the idea there is you've given it away, you have given up your 4th amendment right so the government can get that without following all the restrictions that the 4th amendment imposed. you have to specifically say what you're going to search. you have to have probable cause, get a warrant from a judge. as the ruling says, that doesn't apply. the 4th amendment doesn't apply

to these third party records and what this ruling basically says is, well, when it's on this sweeping information that covers years and it's everyone's information so you can analyze it in bulk to look for patterns, that raises additional issues. there's a greater intrusion there. that does actually violate people's reasonable expectation of privacy. that's actually really important, because that idea holds up. it's not just this one program would be unconstitutional. it's that a whole lot of the powers that the government now as been using to collect enmass, lots of information about people without particular warrants would have to be looked at as well and probably not survive scrutiny either.

so, this goes on appeal to actually a d.c. court that has already basically endorsed that theory of the fourth amendment. the theory that even if it's not a constitutional search to get a little bit of information, getting a huge amount of the same kind of information can be a search by kind of going beyond what an order person would expect to be kind of subject to disclosure, and so then the question would be does that make it the supreme court. there are other ways they can do this. the judge in this case decided not to look at the statutory argument. that is, forget the constitution, this is more than the statute allows. he thought, for various reasons, they weren't able to take up that question, to challenge that part of it. if an appellate court said no, we're going to look at that question instead, we can leave the big constitutional question aside and say we're going to decide it on the narrower, does the statute permit it.

host: julian sanchez, mr. sanchez, thank you. coming up on our program, we're going to take a look at the environmental movement, especially as it endures mid life, that's according to a viewer report, environmental and energy news. we'll discuss that topic next. later on in the program, have a chance to get you to respond to what's going onto the open phone. but first we want to let you know about this weekend on book tv and american history tv. they're on the road and they're going to feature the history and literary life of dayton, ohio, coming up at noon. we'll travel to the city to talk with different authors and visit special collections and historic sites. here's a look at the segment with paul lawrence dunbar from his home in dayton, the first tate in ohio to honor an african-american. >> paul s. dunbar was a gift to

his people. through 72, who came so much difficulty and managed to rise to such great heights and be an inspiration to all americans. he was a writer. he wrote every form of the language and wrote it well. he was a speaker. he was the first person in his family born in freedom. both of his parents were ex slaves. so he became a voice for his people. he did so by writing about human dignity. he actually wrote most of his work focused on the dignity of all people. and in particularly, the humanity of the black man in america.

>> i was a donor to martha's table, like so many of your viewers, michael and i would do the annual consideration of the things that we care about because they were important to us as we grew up. issues that we cared about because they match our broader beliefs. but also the players in our community that we saw doing good work every day. and martha's table delivered hot meals to the little park outside the bill and melinda gates foundation d.c. offices. mcpherson square. and i would see that van every night and i would see the lines of people there every night. and i knew that it was volunteer driven, 10,000 volunteers, just 80 hard working staff. and that they had enormous influence in the community that they were serving and it was a great brand. and i thought, why wouldn't i join that organization? see if i can put my skills to work, but also see if i can

understand better why do we have this issue persistent child poverty? why do we have so many children that aren't graduating high school, going onto college, and being able to attach to careers the way that i was able to? >> the president and c.e.o. of martha's table, patty stonesifer n leading the washington, d.c. a.ed nonprofit sunday on q & >> "washington journal" continues. host: she serves as a reporter, welcome. guest: thanks for having me. host: a series called shades of green, a movement at mid life. who's this about? guest: this is our look indepth at five top national environmental groups. what we do is we cover the horizon on energy and environment. we talk a lot about these groups. there are thousands of environmental groups operating out there. how do you define it enough to

ask is it succeeding as it reaches its 40's, since the heyday of the 1969 to 1973 period when all these major laws were passed. so we thought the best way to do this would be to pick five, five of the biggest and take a look at what we're doing, how they're talking to congress, to their members. host: so ultimately this is the discussion about the impact of these groups, these five specifics? guest: exactly. really a discussion of, take health care for instance. there was a great way to measure the success of the movement to get more people covered because obama care became law. this big policy success happened. environmentalism hasn't had that same experience. largely what they do is prevent people from changing these laws that are 10, 20, 30, 40 years old. we wanted to really test how it. ssful is we started with money, because

money talks, that's what allows them to afford television ads, contribute to campaigns. what we really discovered is that's an imperfect test. average americans who might not think the environment is their number one voting issue, because in public polling it never comes close to number one. but who will respond to that, that ad that says protect your local river or stop a plant from being built. it's really that grassroots, almost immeasureable communication that makes them successful. host: we'll talk about the groups in specifics, but a sense of the numbers when it comes to revenues, the environmental defense fund with $120 million taken in, the sierra club also weighing in at $100 million. you go down the list, a league of conservation voters, then 350.org taking in $4 million. when it comes to day-to-day operations, you've talked about in your story that in 2010 it

was climate change that was rallying all the forces together. the words you use is environmentalism suffered a near death experience. can you expand on that? guest: absolutely. what we started in this series by doing is debunking a whole lot of policy papers that were produced after the cap and trade climate bill sales in 2010 that said this is the end for environment alism. they pull all this into the bill, they failed. what does it mean for america, are we becoming a more fossil fuel nation, et cetera, and said let's throw that out for a second. because the mumente wasn't -- despite the media talking about environmentalism in one unit that can endorse a bill. what we wanted to say is that's not the case. in using these five, one or more of whom would not have supported "killed bill, that

vifmentalism," we had to get a bolder picture. host: our guest is with us to discuss the environmental movement, these groups, where it is. you can ask her questions on the hone lines this morning. part of a series by environment and energy news called shades of green, a movement at midnight. a little bit about your organization who may not know about your publication. guest: yes, absolutely. we're kind of the online paper about record and environment news. we have a staff of literally dozens. we have one reporter who focuses entirely on water, another who focuses entirely on e.p.a. air rules. what we really do is take like a

5,000, 10,000 foot view, explore all of these issues that make up energy and environmental policy. we send a lot of free content out there, but we are mostly subscription based. host: so if 2010 was the climate bill and you talked about a specific bill in a rallying point. is there any specific for groups involved today? guest: to the extent one exists, it's the keystone pipeline. it's not that these groups don't want to see e.p.s. put out good climate change rules for power plants which is basically what the obama administration is doing, since it won't act on climate. they support that. but keystone excel is simple up or down rallying cry. do you or do you not want the pipeline. what it explores is for better or for worse, it actually has less of a climate. this pipeline has united the movement. host: so for the five involved, at least the five we've listed,

how many similarities are there as far as the way they go about doing business. and what are the points of contention these groups might have? guest: my faith part of the series is we asked each group if they were in high school what personality they would have. it sounds like a beauty contest, but what it forced these very intense policy people to do is how do we present ourselves to the world? who are we? because they are talking to order americans and their answers were hilarious. they've showed how different each group really is. you know, one said i'd be student council president, that's the environment defense fund. we get things done. 50, which is the new, young, not as well funded upstart set, they'd be kind of the nerdy kid who no one understands. so you start to see how these groups, even though they have technically the same goals, are widely different. host: let's highlight some of the other groups you profile.

guest: what we call the n.r.c., they actually started out as a law firm in their early life. all they did was take cases that would force open and defend big laws. arguably hen it comes to policy they became the most powerful lobbying group. they can deliver to the obama administration a paper and put it into regulation. they're like the green eye shade tapes of the movement. then you have sierra club which is the oldest, founded in 1892. and the joke is, in a lot of ways, they're still the hiking club that john muir created before there was television. they lead a lot of local excursions, kind of all about getting average americans to realize hey, i don't think of myself as an environmentist but i care about my local park, my local landscape, so they're very, very connected to the state chapterers more than the other groups. host: so of the five that you listed, how much ear do they have on capitol hill and to what

degree? guest: great question. another thing the series tried to explore. l.c.v. is the fifth group, they're on a lot of tv commercials. they're the only real green group that runs a lot of ads during campaign season. so in many way that gives them the biggest reach with congress because they're the ones that can help re-election campaigns. but, they also have, you know, less than a tenth of the budget of environmental defense fund, so does that make them more or less powerful? these are questions that are tough to answer for sure but we try to get into. host: is there a sense of mid life crisis among these five in terms of what they're doing and how they do it? guest: good question. i think the last couple of years of the obama administration we realized will be the test of that. we'll get an answer on the keystone excel which they have spent a lot of time trying to defeat. and we'll see if the e.p.a. can do anything with these rules.

because the president can give any number of speeches that says i support the e.p.a. but inside the agency, you've got people trying to get the rules out on time because there's no telling what will happen when the next president takes office. the process could stop. host: christopher, you're up first, boston, massachusetts, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. actually, i have a couple of quick questions for your guest. one, i'd like to talk about fracking. i'm a lobbiest actually there, and i work for a foreign country in effect, basically, trying to have fracking actually regulated. could you explain some of the dangers about that and what it actually is? guest: well, fracking is another big issue for these environmental groups because it's powered the oil and gas development in america. it's a process that involves shooting at high pressures kind of aing mixture of water and chemicals underground to

literally free trapped oil and gas from rock formations. it allows to get us to get at tight oil because it's in very tight spaces. and it's really just propelled oil and gas to become our number one export commodities. and environmentalists are very worried for a couple reasons. these groups want to see us get off gas and move towards cleaner sources. they just don't like the idea that we'll be going through this oil renaissance, it's not great in their view for the climate. but they also want to see stronger regulations on, say, the types of chemicals that can be used. the disclosure of what is actually pumped underground when a well is fracked. so they feel there's not any transparency surrounding any process, that they say can be very harmful for ground water, local, things of that nature. host: so as far as the five you

highlighted, you don't have to go through the list, but do they take the same approach or are there shades of green? guest: absolutely. t's a largely uniting force. but e.d.f. is considered the most type of right leaning of a left leaning movement, and they would say we've got to make sure fracking can be done safely and responsibility, but the bulk of it at this point is really a lot of environmentalists say, if we are switching from coal to gas, that's a good thing. gas is poised to take over coal as our number one form of electricity. it's not renewable, but better than the alternative to a lot of greens. on the democrats' line -- good morning. caller: she's a breath of fresh air.

i wish we could duplicate her many times. we need this over the airways. more people need to know the facts and the truth. i'm a phd scientist. when you observe what is happening in the planet earth, this global warming and all these issues pertaining to the environment, it is not factual. people can fact check themselves. broadcasting nonsense, we have to do something about this right wing stuff. there are a lot of people who are investing in their own interests and lobbyists so forth. host: what would you like our guest to address? she has answers, and if she could figure out how to duplicate herself and try to do

something about the nonsense -- we can't make a mistake in this. 10 or 20 years from now, we are going to wish we had done something. the children will be saying, why didn't you do something about this. host: let me bring up a point you brought up, global warming. where are we on that? , iner: what he was saying about 10 or 20 years our kids will say, why did we do something about this, in this series we explore the moral narrative, with that to act for our kids. it will be the next wave of messaging and 350, which was started in 2007 by a few college kids. the is what they're hoping rest of the movement embraces. the older groups can point to the science. washington, oftentimes you have to have a cleaner message, such as, act for our kids.

that is a deficit reduction message that has helped fiscal hawks gain traction in washington. i think you will see the environmentalists do it more. about?hat is 350 it speaks to your question about climate change. there's a climatologist names james hansen who is a godfather, very influential for environmentalism. he put out a paper right before the big united nations climate talk in 2007 that said 350 parts per million in the atmosphere of dioxideioxide -- carbon being the biggest greenhouse gas, although there are a lot of other ones, and greenhouse gases being the main contributor to he said whene -- we get above that, that is when the planet is in real trouble. we recently hit 400 parts per million.

we cannot a level practically get down to in yours groups useime, but it to illustrate. host: they are the idealists. it is perhaps the one that wants to force a debate as much as possible. here is rick from massachusetts, independent line. find it a hypocrisy of these environmental groups, to call the copenhagen agreement where everybody had to fly in and have limousines, and here's another point -- without fossil fuels, none of these groups could put out their papers, have their computers, attend their protest, have their microphones, or do any of that.

they are against something, and i feel it's strictly for power and money. if it were not fossil fuels, they would not be able to get their message out there. how do they justify using that which they vilify? he makes a point that you will hear a lot of industry conservatives on capitol hill. vice president al gore, another godfather of environmentalists, got in a lot of trouble and became a bit of a target when press reports about the size of his home, his energy consumption became public. big is a line and a lot of environmental groups have to walk. they try to walk the walk as much as possible in terms of what the organizations are doing for clean power without upsetting their activities. it is a fact that even if the economy was completely de- , we would tomorrow

still have not a guaranteed shot at meeting this 350 parts per million, two degrees centigrade line. we are dealing with some inescapable climate change. were going to have to keep taking our flights and driving our cars. avironmentalists want to see slow pull towards cleaner energy, and ultimately make that faster and faster. host: you get a sense for the five you highlighted, the money they taken, how much goes to the operation of the organization, how much goes to the cause of making things happen? that's a great question. the irs allows nonprofits to use broad categories to describe how they send money, but we did find some interesting trends. an environmental fun uses less than 10% of its money on staff thanies -- fund uses less

10% of its money on staff salaries. 50% of its money on staff salaries. host: you can find the findings on the website for the organization. they posted the report there. if you would, tell the folks at home how to find that material and get access. guest: our website is eenews.net, and usual see a visual icon there for the series, -- you will see a visual icon there for the series, "shades of green." is cliff in youngstown, new york, republican line. i grew up next to a canal. nobody wants dirty air and dirty water.

ande's been a great fight, it's a great strain to clean up .he environment think that the environmental movement has its teeth in the bit to the point that it's caught up in the heavy cause of trying to be responsible. the hopes about the ozone -- it's not global warming anymore, climate change -- is a hoax too. you are presented here as a reporter, and you have a responsibility to look at both and to understand the and pull back the

environmental movement into a reality that does not make them a laughingstock. well, the hole in the ozone and spotted owls were legitimate policy issues at the time. he makes a point about the hoax argument about climate change and how effective environmentalists have been about cantering it -- not that great. there's a lot of folks in congress who believe the matter is not settled, although 90 nine percent of scientists believe that man is contributing to the change in climate. it was a bit of a communications fumble in some ways to call it global warming, because even though it's a more understandable phrase in climate notge, global warming does accurately describe the scale of the problem.

it is not always result in higher temperatures. it leads to confuse members of the public to think, why is it snowing so much this winter if .lobal warming is happening you're seeing environmentalists pull back and embrace climate change more, even though it is a bit of a walkie, and except the bull concept -- wonky, and acceptable concept. -- unacceptable concept. caller: my question is regarding the [indiscernible] which is the same as the keystone xl pipeline. they have all stayed silent. is it obama wrote an executive facts --dating the fast tracking of the keystone xl. if this had been a republican president the wrote an executive order mandating part of a these groupsilt,

would have gone crazy and attack that president in every way possible. get we here in texas, this pipeline is in the ground, it's ready to start on january 22, and we have lost all respect for these organizations. had do these troops justify the fact that a democratic president approved the keystone xl? guest: it is a great question. what you see there is environmental groups really wanting to win the battle on and not being excited that almost half of the original pipeline is being built. they don't want to talk about it , because it saps some other momentum and energy for the rest of the pipeline. we have been fighting about this for years and washington. the pipe would've gone from the oil sands in canada to the gulf coast. when president obama said no to

the pipeline -- he vetoed it, delayed, what have you -- he actually approved a portion of it that goes for oklahoma to texas. this is under the pretext of, this can carry u.s. oil. i'm not necessarily ready to talk about canadian oil, but this leg of it is fine. folks in texas are seeing the same kind of oil that environmentalists oppose my through this pipeline and saying, why didn't you folks do more to stop it. it is a big problem for these groups. although they can make noise nationally, they depend on energy in the states, and they're losing some people in texas. about how these groups perceive the president on an environmental agenda. the president talked about being post-partisan in his last campaign. is, he gives of

one hand and takes away with the other. he delayed a major ozone rule in 2011 even as he was pushing through the strong fuel efficiency standards. you see a lot of environments of groups not know what to make of him. he is our friend, but how reliable is he? that is why keystone became as powerful of a symbol as it is. yet to say anything about it, but a lot of these groups are going to really judge him. i suppose he will make more of an effort in the last part of his term to get these issues than? exactly. nothing mobilizes people like the image of a big pipeline. some people see it as wonderful. some people can see it, as chris dirty positions on my community. host: robert is on our independent line for elana schor

of "environment and energy daily ." caller: i'm reading my springfield republican newspaper. there's an by ron gillis, where he says the canadians are contemplating getting the regulations together to build an oil pipeline to the west coast so they can send their oil to china. regions in this country are looking to send by rail oil coast so they can send coal to china. i'm sure the chinese are going to build state-of-the-art refineries. what do you say about our planet, where we have almost 7 billion people? what is going to happen when the planet reaches 9 billion people? i think were going to need a bit more power. thank you. guest: he points to a lot of big

issues and question marks for environmentalists, the first thing exports. at this point, we have more crude oil than we can use in america. these fuel-efficient automobiles are leaving us with a lot of oil and know where to send it but overseas. next year you will see these environmentalists really challenged to play defense as the oil industry tries to send more of its products out there. have a strong economic argument. the same goes for coal. fuel looking at fossil exports being the environmental battle of 2014. about ais week, a story surge. i suppose all these groups look their -- like this as

going against their initial reason for being. guest: this is an expects just -- existential threat to environmentalism. we are written in the carter era of opec dominates, and a lot of fear in america. changed our fuel map in ways that our laws don't necessarily represented all. host: is this reflective of what's going on in the private industry, or reflective of what is going on in federal lands as well where oil is being drilled? what congress cantor l is federal contro land. you hear republicans and democrats fighting about opening more federal land and that compared to fiber -- private land, federal land has not been as productive for fossil fuel production. more of the resources are

located on private lands. you would have to see more federal land potentially opened for it to compete with private production. that is what republicans like john boehner want to see. a caller from new york, on our republican line. caller: you stated the largest greenhouse gas was carbon dioxide. guest: the most well-known. caller: the largest, by quantity, is water vapor, okay? you are wrong on that. you said that al gore, a patron saint of environmentalism, said [laughter]hat -- [laughter] [no audio]

the sister ship of the uss 3, 1968, august surfaced at the north pole in clearwater. was that -- [no audio] what he's illustrating is something men vie mentalism needs to work harder at countering. when you talk about scientific for man-madesy climate change to pull out an individual metric and say, it's not happening because of this one measurement in this one study. a difficult, granular debate when they want to have a bigger thematic discussion of, let's acknowledge that climate change is real. a lot of people are not prepared to do that here it i think were going to see the movement kind of struggle to get anything national passed until they have a better strategy for dealing with it. host: the movement depends on

information based on prediction. guest: exactly. that is why a lot of scientific theories were theories until we realize they were real. it is tough to prove something 100%. you always have outlying studies that will help question the validity of this. you are seeing a lot of environmental groups move more towards the harder hitting -- ages, typhoon high-end haiyan in the philippines. to move less to the scientific debate of metric versus metric and more, it makes your life harder, it makes disasters worse. host: you talked about one of the groups putting out campaign commercials. when it comes to politics, do these groups involve themselves -- presidential politics, midyear politics like we see in 2014 -- do they step into these things and support candidates or put out ads?

you see the league of conservation voters do that the most. their budget is small compared sierra club. increasingly, they are rivaling the dark, unreported money they goes through groups who don't always have to disclose. they're playing with the big boys on that front. democrats really rely on that money. of'll see a lot environmentalist involvement in 2014. mary landrieu is about to become chair of the energy committee in the senate. if she loses, democrats could lose the senate. two environmentalists support someone who is not their friend because she's a democrat, or let the senate turned republican? host: ron joins us on the

democrats' line. our federal public lands, especially out west, there's a lot of mining going on , big game hunting. a lot of industries out there. we are losing very quickly our wild horses. land management and u.s. forest service is rounding them up right under the noses of many american people. there is a big pr movement from anti-wild horses groups. these are eight critical part of our environment. a lot of the environmental groups you mentioned have been silent. a perfect example of a regional issue that matters to a lot of people who live in this region, where the wild horse operations are happening.

environmental groups cannot play everywhere at all times. i think you see some groups, especially those that are only headquartered in the west, are active on this issue. you will not see the big five environmental groups play too much on this issue. you are seeing a lot of state, local, and regional groups play bigger roles on issues such as the wild horses. laura from twitter asks what these groups are doing about mountaintop coal removal. coal is a pretty unifying factor. , it is not good for the climate. as far as activities on that, we're dealing with a rule about what we call valley fill, stream complex concepts

that dictate how coal mining can affect the surrounding landscape. thench of rules pending in obama administration dealing with this. a lot of these groups are very active on. issue all the press releases you want, saying where active on this, but when there's a rule behind closed doors in the administration, it is not really get congressional hearings or media attention. , environmentchor and energy news. you can find part of the series, at least, on the website. good morning, kathy. elana: i was wondering if has seen or heard any talk in washington about moving any of the critical, core environmental

issues be taken into the fold of national security issues. if not, can she envision that ever happening? guest: in terms of communications and the appeals to congress, absolutely. is ait -- climate change major issue. sea level rise is foreseen as triggering a lot of international and global conflicts we need to prepare for a. when nations are not wealthy, the effects of climate change will hit their agricultural economies very hard. the u.s. is going to have to deal with that climate driven unrest. we are seeing national security become a bigger part of the climate dialogue. on the other hand, you're also seeing it become a big part of the pro-fossil fuel dialogue because of what i was saying

about exports, oil and gas, our number one commodity. the president says he wants to get rid of our trade deficit. oil and gas is going to be the way to do that. both sides have a national security argument. host: the idea that the five groups you list were care for united states interests, do they also have a global reach -- work here for united states interests, do they also have a global reach? guest: most of them do. league of conservation voters tends to be more of a u.s. political entity. the other of the big four all have international programs and involvement to an extent. gradeks very different 350 prides itself -- different. saying,es itself in where watching you, america. the environmental defense fund

has more money and focuses on technology, sharing, making sure our bilateral relations on energy, tech in china are solid so if it comes to the u.s.-china climate technology sharing deal, which some people think will happen, they're setting the stage for that. host: here is michael from new orleans on the independent line. in 1971 i helped start the institute for environmental alternatives. [indiscernible] as ased environmentalist boldfaced liar. that is absolutely a lie. he won't talk about the real

issues of climate change. we're talking about the geo- engineering such as chem trails that are spraying bulimia -- barry m, -- barium, aluminum. you are not talking about manipulating the weather with whether weapons. you don't talk about the real government issues here. you are a liar, and you're working for the wrong people. i'm actually not from the valley, i'm from new york. his point about geo-engineering, that is not something big environmental groups talk about. it's a major part of the climate change debate. geo-engineering is the principle that we can affect climate bynge or slow it or stop it intervening technologically, whether it is changing the chemical balance of the atmosphere and the oceans, and so on.

these big environmental groups don't believe it is a solution, but you see a lot of independent individual actors, scientists exploring it and saying we need to talk more about it. gloria, north carolina, republican line. caller: good morning. hereve a local issue regarding the epa. goes is a bridge that across and connects the rest of the northern outer banks with hatteras island. four years, the erosion under the bridge has caused problems. years,rs, at least 25 they have been trying to replace the bridge. every time they decide they're going to do it, the epa has some kind of excuse why they should not do it. recently, the bridge was closed, which meant that the people on hatteras island, in orer to get to their jobs

whatever, had to take a ferry, which took them hours. it took her six hours to get to work. like to know is, why does the epa stick their nose at a local issue like this, and as a result, the bridge is going to cost a tremendous amount of money -- if they had done it 25 years ago, it would have been a lot cheaper. of the backnaware story, so it's tough to say why the epa was involved, probably a water health concern in the local community. it is a vast agency. you have people working nationally on things such as power plants in missions rules, and you have regional offices. their job is to enforce these aging environmental laws in local communities. it can lead to frustration, which gives a lot of opponents of environmental action a big opening. epa is not seen as a planet protector two people such as our

color -- to people such as our caller. host: these five groups would have to associate with the epa, the energy department specifically -- what are the relations like? generally, the mission is in line with what these groups want to see. the general trend in relations are good. but these groups are wondering is how much political support there is from the white house, which is really what the agencies look to. host: this is patrick from georgia, independent line. i just wanted to say that people who are in the epa and these environmental groups, i wish they would use their common sense more. it is just intrusive when you try to build a bridge for people

who already live there. regulations that they put against mountaintop coal whyng and stuff like that, doesn't the epa, these environmental protection groups, why don't they use more of their power to stop the population from building houses on these mountaintops, like in california when you build houses on the top of the mountains and the mountain comes flooding down when it rains? thehould be more about people in these environmental groups, they should spend more time thinking about the population and building houses and buildings on top of them. guest: there's a common thread with what this caller is talking about. the one who is saying earlier, 9 billion people in the world, how do we deal with that -- it's

true. aree urban environments very environmentally friendly, but our development is not necessarily geared that way. the mountaintops, being involved in mind top -- mountaintop mining, are very different from the hollywood hills. the question of where and how people live is also something environmental groups -- some of them plan, and some of them don't. the obama administration has a partnership that not many folks know about, livable communities, trying to get multiple agencies involved in helping localities build an environmentally smarter -- in an environmentally smarter manner. we don't see the big five groups talk about that a lot, but they are involved in that. holdsas far as the future -- i don't know if these groups are even starting to look to 2016 -- how do they chart their

course going forward, how are they adjusting, and where do they go from here? guest: it's washington. they're definitely thinking about 2016. former first lady and senator clinton, when she was secretary of state, she said she expected the keystone xl pipeline to get else -- built. race, ioes enter this predict a big effort by these top five groups to influence her and shape how she thinks about these issues. i think the clinton factor is big. if you want to read the report about these five groups and others in the environmental community, you can do so at their website, which you can see on the screen. thank you for joining us. , theinal half-hour president saying 2014 is a

breakthrough year. be au think you could breakthrough year on other fronts than the economy, give us a call. we will take those calls. "washington journal" continues after this. frontare here on the west of the u.s. capitol to tell you about our c-span "year in review" series. coming up on monday, a look at immigration laws. nsa surveillance on wednesday. thursday, gun laws. friday, we wrap up the week with a look at the u.s. budget and

government shutdown. that all starts monday at 8:00 p.m. on c-span. everybody felt they knew erma . and they did, pretty much, because she laid her life out for everybody to see. she told us about what life was ine in suburbia for women the 1960's through the 1990's. one of the wonderful things about her -- she wrote mainly humor -- it was humor that was accessible to everyone. it was humor that happened and everybody's lives, but they might not recognize it until they saw it written on the page becausee newspaper funny things happen to us all the time, but we have to be on the lookout for them. she was the one who focused our

attention on the funny things that happened in the family, things that at the moment seem like craziness and driving you nuts. when you look back at them you think, that was really funny -- that's a literary gift. >> the life and times of erma .ombeck, this weekend today at noon on c-span2. you are a middle or high school student, c-span student cam video opposition wants to know what the most important is that congress should address in 2014. your chance to win the grand of $5,000. the deadline is january 20. get more information at studentcam.org. said inesident obama

his press conference yesterday that 2014 could be a breakthrough year when it comes to the economy. we are asking your thoughts and if you believe that, or if he could be a breakthrough year on other topics. here is how you can respond this morning. the numbers are on your screen. you can tweet us if you want. you can facebook us or e-mail us at journal@c-span.org. card going to get a report for congress as they adjourn for this year for christmas break. joining us on the phone is david hawking's with rollcall, serves as their senior editor.

how would you wait the effectiveness of congress -- weight the effectiveness of congress this year? i counted up 32 things that members of congress started the year or started talking about during the year that they wanted to do. at the end of the year, the score was that seven of those things got done and 25 of those things did not get done. ruledid change the senate s, they did remake the d c circuit court of appeals. they did come up with something of a budget deal. they did change the violence against women law. they did change student loans. they did not do, which ranges from confirming janet yellen, they did not get the way down to

changing the environmental laws to address climate change, which is something that nobody is anymorealking about although it remains one of the most important issues facing the country. what kept him from getting more of that list done? it is a divided government, and it's more than simply a divided government with the house and control of one party and the senate in control of the other. it's a closely divided , thenment, which is to say republicans have narrow control of the house and the democrats still have solid but not filibuster proof control in the senate. that's one of the many reasons why the partisan gridlock we all know about has locked in. there are dozens of other reasons, and i'm sure we could talk about those all day.

neither side is showing much interest in compromising. , more often betting than not, that they put that -- biding time until the election is the better course. host: what may come back next year, we face a debt limit. the republicans are saying, no straightforward debt limit increase. they will demand something in return. the president at his news conference yesterday essentially laughed at the questioner who said, what are you willing to negotiate and said, you know the answer to that question. i'm not willing to negotiate a darn thing. the new year begins with that standoff. begins with also congress still having to do the nuts and bolts work of apportioning that trillion dollars in the budget deal they

just cleared. they still had janet yellen to do, one of the edges -- judges on the d.c. circuit to do. host: one of the things they have to do is deal with unemployment and what is being done for benefits. caller: that was one of the things the president said yesterday he wanted to be the first thing the congress did in the new year, to extend the already extensive benefits for the unemployed, long-term unemployed. there are about 1.3 million of these people who would benefit from this. that number is down from the height of the recession, but it is still more than a million people. there is some back channel negotiating going on. no deal yet. the republicans are of the opinion that this is a benefit that should not be extended and definitely, that is ultimately not the government's role, to extend it in perpetuity.

at this point, the democrats have not been willing to offer a time when they think it should be cut off. host: the topic of getting things that could get done, any optimism in 2014? naive, but iht be ,till think the republicans house republicans might conclude it is in their best political interest to make some run at a change in immigration law. the speaker has been talking about this in recent weeks. he has hired a prominent adviser to john mccain, back when john mccain was driving the immigration debate for the republicans. i still think the right be some movement on that score -- there might be some movement on that score. host: david hawking's with roll call.

thank you. president obama calling 2014 -- it could be a breakthrough year, he said. we want to get your thoughts on that. the numbers are on your screen. journal@c-span.org is a website, and @cspanwj our twitter address. pat from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i'm calling in regard to

president obama's comment about this being a breakthrough year. i don't know if he means it's going to be a stellar year or a banner year, but i don't know what else people expect him to say. he's telling us what we want to hear, not what we need to hear, that as americans we need to all pull together as one country and when people to get this -- one people to get this economy going. it is our responsibility, because it's our country. we need to do more as individual that thiso see to it economy picks up, and that we make it. host: don from indiana, republican line. i'm from tennessee. host: sorry about that, go ahead. caller: i was wondering about

why you keep complaining about ,ot having any bills passed when the senator will not let [indiscernible] richmond, virginia, democrats' line. caller: i'm a longtime c-span watcher. i've been watching you guys for 20 years. what i think the next year is going to be is a banner year for science. i'm hoping, and i wanted to .omplement your last guest i've been working in climate science communications for about 15 years. this past year, for the first time in all the time i've been working on this subject, i'm starting to finally see people

start to listen to the scientists. the scientists -- everybody needs to understand -- somebody called in earlier and was calling this woman a liar about the fact that 98.5% of the climate scientists agree that climate change is real and .aused by humans the trick in that phrase is, climate scientists. about a year and a half ago, the coke brothers put out a full and -- koch brothers put out a full 189 scientists that were against the findings of the [indiscernible] they ever thought somebody would go through and check out all 189 of those people on that list, but i did. scientists, people,

a lot of them were scientists and a lot of them were phd's in some form, were employees of the coal industry, or the gas industry. next on thes up republican line. caller: i thin republican my some offe, and i think the things here that the president is wanting to do, like the obamacare stuff, we need to see what happens. we have needed to do this for a long time. i don't agree with much that obama does, but i do believe that we need to negotiate and stop being so hard lined. we are not getting anything done this way. i think the republicans need to try to work with democrats more, and see what happens.

calling 2014sident a potential breakthrough year when it comes to the economy. here's his full statement from yesterday. [video clip] up, and whatat all it means as we head into next year with an economy that is stronger than it was when we started the year. more americans are finding work and experiencing a paycheck. that 2014 canve be a breakthrough year for inrica, but as i outlined detail earlier this month, we all know there's a lot more were going to have to do to restore opportunity and broad-based growth for every american. that will require some action. it's a good start that earlier this week, for the first time in years, both parties in both houses of congress came together to pass a budget that unwinds some of the damaging sequester

cuts that created headwinds for our economy. it clears the path for businesses, and for investment we need to strengthen our middle class. it means the american people won't be exposed to the threat of another reckless shut down every few months o. host: what is your opinion? bob from new york is next on the democrats' line. say that weke to had one of the most lackadaisical congress that i have seen in my lifetime. they have a countless nothing but confrontation and conflict. accomplished nothing but confrontation and conflict. congress people have been caught using cocaine. maybe the democrats are smoking pot. i'm concerned about the people of this nation, not necessarily

these elected officials. people get caught up in their own bigotries, dealing with political parties, what separates our nation and prevents us from being the nation we could be. i would hope, as obama has said african american, native american -- i don't feel this government represents the people. who called and said, this government belongs to the people, not to particular influenceroups that congress and prevent them from getting the job done -- we should never have unemployment where people are in the millions . we should not have homeless people sleeping outside the white house. we should not have children sleeping in shelters. we should be ashamed of being called the united states of america. host: john from irving, texas.

can somebody explain to me why both parties cannot sit fighting instead of -- how manything , they sit passed there. tryr, fight, and don't even -- bicker, fight, and don't even try. [indiscernible]

host: don from arizona, republican line. i always hear the president's people talking about how he's going to grow the economy through energy and infrastructure. i would like to comment on the infrastructure. it takes about two to three years just to draw up plans to do big infrastructure projects. i feel it's very false for him to make the comments would he knows it would be at the end of his presidency that these infrastructure projects would actually be created or started. my comments on energy is, while the keystone pipeline has not one of theh, over old russian satellite countries, they are building a pipeline going through three or four different countries going down into italy.

we can't even put a pipeline going from the middle of the country to the gulf coast of texas. i think that is something we need to address, and the and it keepsline, jobs from being created. host: you should know that the profile of the building behind me is going to change. you will probably see it happen as it goes on. preparations are underway for a long planned restoration project that got underway this week. officials suspended tours of the upper structure. capital architects took .eporters for a climb some mass of metal were parts -- parts have been removed. you see structures going up around the capitol building as part of this project. here is the artist's rendition

that will show what the capital will look like as the project is underway. you will see that play out in real time, though, as you watch this program day after day. we will give you a few more seconds to look at that. here is chris from colorado. i just wanted to say how satisfied i am with this government. every country that has done health care, all the other -- hello? thank you. the medical, agricultural, inalization of the country two states is positive. there are 500 industrial and medical uses for cannabis, including ahab -- a hemp creek. it is also being used in some bmw automobiles being made

for its medical, industrial, and agricultural applications. ideally wanted to see if folks at home thought 2014 would be a breakthrough year. tom, independent line. caller: good morning. i think that 2014 is going to be a banner year, because we have 14 new models of plug-in hybrids that will be introduced this .oming year the prices of the range from $15,000 to over $85,000. of electricn vehicles will help change our energy future. steve from jackson,

mississippi. this is steve from jackson, mississippi. i'm very optimistic. it will be a breakthrough year because i think republicans will be elected to the house, and reelected to the house and senate, and there will be a different landscape. there will be more sensible government tax cuts, responsible .pending if republicans nominate mainstream republicans and not extreme tea party republicans, we can take the senate and keep the house like they did in mobile, alabama with the election of bradley burns to .ongress i'm very optimistic that mainstream republicans will win in 2014 and this will be a breakthrough for reasonable conservative government in washington. report on the secret service activities, issued by the department of homeland security, the headline says,

misbehavior in secret service is isolated trade this report was done by the department of homeland security's inspector general. 83% said they were not aware of sexual misconduct. i think the president should make climate change is first priority. i'll tell you the reason why. should call all the

scientists who believe that climate change and global warming are definitely happening to the white house for a meeting to listen to all their ideas, and then he should address every country and try to get them to join with the u.s. in trying to see if, together, in a united effort, we can reverse global warming altogether. i just heard the other day about the pyramid's in egypt having snow for the first time. this is ridiculous. hisink you should use executive order -- forget about congress, they're worth nothing. get this done asap. is the last call we will take this morning. tomorrow's program, a discussion about the latest in north korea with scott snyder. our guest will join us to talk about the perspective on the current situation in north korea. david sanger will discuss

president obama's national security strategy. we will also be joined by dave leventhal, center for public integrity. fundll discuss 2014 raising and spending, as well as the role of super packs -- super pac's in the upcoming election cycle. " comes yourjournal way at 7:00 a.m. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> in a few moments, a hearing on how consumer information is being used online. senate finance

subcommittee on social security looks at ways to sustain the benefits for seniors while encouraging others to save money separately for retirement. she was everyone's soul sister. everyone thought they knew erma. she laid her life out for everybody to see. she told us about what life was like in suburbia. throughn in the 1960's 1990's. one of the wonderful things about her -- she wrote mainly humor. it was humor that was accessible to everyone. it was humor that happened in everybody's lives. they might not recognize it until they saw it written. because funny things happen to us all the time, but we ha t