that shows 18% of adults with internet access have important information stolen last year. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. host: a lot of international news this morning, the u.s. is reporting that theory as sent out to rebel groups. and an important exercise will take place in poland an attempt to ease concern from nato's eastern european members over military operations near ukraine. also, the prime minister of canada and others are reacting today after the white house announced yesterday that it will delay a ruling about the construction of a section of the keystone xl pipeline.

it would move more than 700,000 barrels of oil from canada to gulf coast refineries. but first, your reaction on this decision about the keystone xl pipeline. here is how you can call in and give your thoughts. the numbers are on the screen. if you want to give your thoughts on our social media -- a couple of different writeups on this decision made by the white house yesterday this in the "washington post" this morning. riding that the 90 day time

frame for comments was supposed to end on may 7, but the state department extended that deadline, citing "uncertainty" created by a nebraska ruling that could lead to changes in the pipeline route. this story is also picked up in the pages of the "wall street journal" this morning. amy harper and janet hook writing, adding this --

also, it gives reaction from canadian officials on this project as well. here is a little bit of that. you see a map there, the red

section of keystone that is already existing. the blue line that you see is the proposed route that is under consideration by the state department. again, a decision by the state department and obama and -- obama administration delayed in view of the nebraska supreme court case that we spoke about. we want to get your comments, what you agree or not. the numbers are on the screen. we posted this on facebook and about 700 comments so far. this is just one of them. this is patrick dolan saying, i applaud the decision. the u.s. needs to switch to alternative fuels, like so many other countries have done or on the process of doing. the sooner we switch to cleaner

fuels, the sooner we can start shrinking our nation's carbon footprint. the first call on this, from oklahoma city on the republican nine. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm opposed to the keystone pipeline, even though i'm a republican. if republicans really put the principles to work, they would be able to argue that. progressives tend to argue that all of the great projects that this country has had over many years were aided and assisted by government intervention and government coercion. it's not necessarily true. for example, james hill will -- built the enormous pacific northwest railroad by not taking a single dime of state or federal money.

and he bought every easement from minnesota all the way to the pacific coast with his own money. the keystone project is an exercise in corporate statism through eminent domain. it is a redistribution of wealth through government coercion that in many instances at the eighth expense, for instance, of nebraska landowners. host: and on the democrats line good morning. hi, you are on. from illinois, are you there? caller: the phone is breaking up. i'm really sorry. host: go ahead if you can hear us. ok, we will have to let her go. a couple of tweets for you.

again, the keystone pipeline and the reaction to it. the white house and the obama administration deciding to hold off on the decision through the state department as well. we want to get your reactions to it. the numbers are on the screen. there was a poll that was highlighted in one of the stories this morning, taking a look at americans and their reactions to the keystone pipeline. this is a "washington post" abc poll that shows most americans support the pipeline 65%. 22% opposed it. you can have various thoughts on that as well. again, if you want to use the

phone line to give your thoughts, please do so. as you can imagine, a lot of reaction from members of congress. mary landrieu of louisiana, the chair of the natural resources committee, put out a statement looking at this, saying it amounts to nothing short of a -- an indefinite delay of the keystone pipeline. she also tweeted about her thoughts as well. she said them -- the it ministration delay of the pipeline is shortsighted. 1825 days to decide whether to permit one prep on the next producers, and consumers. she was one of 11 senators legislators that wrote the white house, asking for purple of that. as soon as i find that letter, i will read a little bit of it. back to your thoughts, los angeles, california, democrats line. caller: this has gone beyond ridiculous. if you are not going to do it,

obama, tell them no, we're not going to do it. we need alternative energy resources. it can be done and environmentally friendly. but the delays and delays just shows the administration is so wishy-washy. yes or no, but we really need that pipeline. host: why do you have confidence in it? -- why don't you have confidence in it? caller: i have two issues. i'm worried about saudi energy dominance over u.s. energy dominance. nor -- north america needs to become independent. but my issue is if you are not going to do it, don't have these private companies that have their money tied up continually delayed hoping something is going to happen. that is not fair to those business concerns. host: this is wayne in

shreveport, louisiana, republican line. caller: i'm a supporter of the keystone pipeline. host: are you there? i think we lost wing as far as the connection is concerned. if he has the ability to call back am a please do so. house speaker boehner weighing in on the decision yesterday saying that, for no other reason than the refusal to stand up to the extreme left, good jobs and more energy remain out of reach. steve from florida, independent line. caller: hi, pedro. how are you? host: i am well thanks. caller: i don't think we should do this pipeline. i know republicans and democrats both want higher gas prices because it yields economic for

alternative energy. i think the balance that we have right now is fine. if the only reason to do it is if we were at war, it was declared war and we needed the energy to fuel our jet planes. but the thing about it is, we don't need this dirty oil in the united states. that is how i feel about it. host: some of the politics behind it, that i told you about, it was 11 senate democrats that wrote this letter , a story dated on april 10 about the pipeline. mary landrieu is one of them.

bill from pittsburgh pennsylvania, independent line good morning. caller: yes, sir, good morning. thank you for taking my call. i watch with great interest, and i have to salute you and your colleagues for giving the citizenry an opportunity to weigh in on so many of these critical issues, such as the pipeline. there seems to be a fairly evenly distributed strength of opinion on both sides of this issue. as i view these issues and rely in a very mistaken frame of reference on the mainstream media to bring them to us, there

is in operation here in my area that presents a position on the pipeline and the negative implications it may bring. i'm not sure what my position is on it. but what i do know, and as an absolute -- i mean, the jury has reached its verdict -- the big-money controls politics in this country. -- the big money controls politics in this country. they control it with devious well-thought-out agendas. i think, if there is another way to go other than the pipeline it should be explored to the nth degree. host: larry from oklahoma democrats line -- larry from

tennessee, democrat line. caller: if you put the map back up that is probably up 1000 miles from the ocean. canada has water to the right and to the left, but we have to run there's sewer. we can put a man on the moon but we cannot do this. this has nothing to do with the department of energy. there is no reason for that oil to run all the way across our country. host: if it when in another direction, you wouldn't be so opposed to it? caller: look at saskatchewan. how far is it to the pacific ocean? why does it take 1000 miles of pipe when we could build a refinery in washington? what is the problem with that?

that is oil companies not wanting to make the investment probably. host: this is jan on twitter. some of the politics and behind the scenes stuff highlighted on -- joe is up next from minnesota, independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. about two and a half years ago

you had a lady on theirre and she said it would be about 1500 jobs. and i said -- isa he put it up to about 2000. something is wrong here. and in the agreement with the united states, 70% of the pipeline was supposed to be made in the united states and there is none. it is coming from russia and australia. this whole thing has been a lie. i agree with the guy from pennsylvania that this is crazy. they are putting a pipeline from north dakota to the keystone. this is a scam for world dominance on energy, that is all. host: senator barbara boxer from california is the chairman of the environment and public works committee. she weighed in with this tweet.

ruth ferguson from twitter also this morning. david, thanks for holding on from grand rapids, michigan, democrats line. caller: hi, good morning. we know what scientists say about climate change, that if the oil comes out of the ground, in 100 years this planet is done. number two, all of those republicans that want this pipeline, the republican congressman and whatnot, they have interests. they will get rich at this pipeline goes through. that is the other thing. -- if this pipeline goes through. that is the other thing. the main thing is, i don't read the polls. when i listen to c-span and other news organizations, the majority of the american public do not want the pipeline. the republicans are lying to us left right.

the oil needs to stay in the ground or else we are going to die. host: the "star phoenix" is the paper that serves saskatchewan, canada. it also has a story about the pipeline decision. " the president of the chamber of commerce there. -- it quotes the president of the chamber of commerce there. that statement is attributed to the president of the chamber of commerce there in saskatchewan. indiana, independent line. caller: i'm in the midwest however, i don't know, i catch up on my politics. i don't see how this is going to economically benefit the united states at all. i think it is, again, the

oligarchs, all of the big oil the money, the big corporations that is what it is about. they tend to take those of us from the midwest as ignorant and uninformed. it is an insult and i'm glad obama has put a pause on this and i hope that gives the country enough time to do a little more research and see what this is really about. host: let me ask you how you arrive at your opinion on the keystone pipeline. caller: i tend to do a lot of research into the independent news media. and i listen to, and probably -- the oligarchs.

this country is turning into a an oligarchy. it is being managed by the rich and the poor have less and less of a say-so. whether we want to admit it or not, the middle class is being squeezed out, and that is a hold of the program. -- a whole another program. it is the oligarchs. host: this is about conflict going on in syria.

that is in the "wall street journal." if you go to the pages of the "new york times" this morning also a story about the conflict between russia and ukraine. this is about military drills planned for eastern europe, saying this -- maryland is up next -- maryland is up next from ohio, democrat line. caller: yes, hello.

i applaud our president for making yet another very brave decision. i hope he continues on this path. everything i have said -- the research done by bill mcgibbon a leading scientist very thorough research for years, has identified major dangers in this pipeline, not only for those who live around it -- many of them are getting cancer from the toxicity of this oil. it is going to run through the major -- one of the major aquifers of this country, water aquifer. people need to research this thing and find out the science, because it really is very dangerous. and no amount of money or jobs is worth endangering our planet and our people, and our animals. host: one more story about

russia and ukraine. this is about the deal that was reached in geneva this week.

bill up next, whitesburg, tennessee. caller: i've been listening to c-span, following this. if there was consideration, i missed it. to build this on the american side and then ship it up north to the facilities up there. host: pat from lexington, kentucky, democrats line. caller: hello? host: hi, you are on. caller: from a commonsense point of view, why are we building a pipeline that far, like the german pointed out before -- like the gentleman pointed out before, the ocean is right there

for canada. why are they going to our country? that port is closed there and they can ship that to china. that is what they are doing it for. they are building a for china not for us. we are building a pipeline through our country, through our environment, so china can get oil. host: there is a story about the michael's craft store, it being the target of a data breach. we will talk about data protection on our journal segment. but we also want to point to a newsmakers program. the guest is tim plenty. he is now the ceo and financial services roundtable, former governor. that is on newsmakers tomorrow.

he talks about whether the u.s. is behind other countries in improving security of credit cards and other id protections. here is what he said. [video clip] >> we took him different approach and -- we took a different approach and obviously, that needs to change. the technology is improving rapidly. not just the chip, but other things. there is a lot being done as a relates to payment phones, fox even facial recognition technology. this is something that will dramatically change over the next several years. the next step is the payment network, and we said that by october, 2015, we will expect retailers in the network to have chip readers. and if you don't, either way, the fraud liability is going to shift from the banks and the payment networks to the retailer. you will see a big change in

this space in the next 12 months starting with that watershed moment. host: that full interview you can see on our newsmakers program. watch that tomorrow at 10:00 and you can see it again at 6:00 in the evening on c-span. the financial times also looking at a story. the story goes on to say that

fixed income, where banks trade derivatives, interest rate bonds, commodities and currencies is still hugely significant, reversing more than 17% of the banks revenues. from new jersey, frank on the independent line. caller: this pipeline, there does not seem to be any reason to have it come down to texas. they have been asking for a refinery in the oklahoma area to make gasoline cheaper throughout the united states. they could build a refinery there, run the pipeline there and refine it. the type of oil we will be getting from canada is a very dirty oil. it will add so much carbon to the atmosphere. it is a battle royal to have,

period. here in new jersey, we have refineries up in the northeast section of new jersey and it is called "cancer alley." the cancer rate is very high up there. it just seems like a dead-end. the pipeline is going to add to fossil fuels in the century. host: charles, you are up next from new mexico. caller: i was wondering why is it they can build a refinery close to the border and then serve the large populations on the west and the east coast? why should we transport it

completely across the u.s. to a refinery in texas? it makes no sense. host: that is charles from new mexico. a couple of the stories in the paper, hillary clinton released yesterday. this is "newsday" and jonathan allen of bloomberg news writing that.

james is from dallas, texas. we are talking about the keystone pipeline, a delay announced by the administration. he is on our independent line. go ahead. caller: thank you, pedro. and i appreciate it when you challenge people's sources and positions. i work at a refinery in corpus christi and baytown. the refinery capacity for this type of oil really only exists on the gulf coast. and this oil will not be shipped down as oil, but a refined

product, mostly diesel. it will not be going to china. it will be going to europe, for the most part. again, there are many misconceptions about it. we cannot build a refinery in this country. the epa permitting regulations just won't allow any new refineries to be built. people are upset and want to build a refinery closer to the canadian border. that's fine. we need more refinery capacity in this country. but they will have to call their congressman and have them allow these things to come about. and one more thing pedro. i notice there are not a lot of calls on the republican line. i'm not sure if that is because republicans are going to work. host: address the concerns over

safety of the pipeline itself before you go. are you there? ok, i think he is listening to his television. the administration delaying the keystone excel taking into consideration other decisions with the nebraska court case. we have been showing you a map all morning about the pipeline itself. a section of it already exists and on that map you saw this morning, you probably remember it was in red. but there is also a section in blue, which is the one under consideration, supposedly a decision by the state department could be made this year. there is no indication of when that decision may come down. there is some concern about where it is located and where it goes to and why things could not be built in the north and so on.

we will be on this topic for the next 10 or 15 minutes or so. nebraska, lois on the democrats line. caller: yeah, nebraska. i'm trying to get my thoughts together. i appreciated the previous call with the information about refineries. host: what do you think when he says it is a capacity issue, as far as refiners being built along the gulf coast? caller: there seems to be another alternative. it just might take some time. but it might also just get past this -- everything needs to be hurried up, because of the degree -- i don't know if it is

keystone or the entire oil industry. i kind of think the latter. at any rate, nebraska republicans were being sold on the idea of all the jobs it would bring here. i don't know if it is just in nebraska or in the total expansion of your blue line, but that would have 34 permanent employees. host: that is lois from nebraska. if you go to the "wall street journal" this morning a large profile about senator ted cruz of texas. you can read that online.

mrs. cruise, 41, had arrived in town and unhappily spied his favorite bachelor meal, campbell's chunky soup. she is trying to get him to eat less processed food. at the dinner, he played off his or beautician has a need to just am a by republicans and democrats -- as an egotist, i republicans and democrats alike.

robert from ohio republican nine. caller: good morning. everyone who thinks this has not gone through because of environmental concerns, you need to stop and think about that. is it really more detrimental to the environment to run a pipeline from here -- from canada to texas and have the oil flowing underground? or is it more detrimental to have it on trains and trucks with the emissions that they put in the air, as well as the safety issues concerning both trains and trucks? the most interesting fact about that is, when canada developed a way to extract those oilsands,

more went into trains to haul that oil from canada to texas. that is really the bottom line. that is why that line is being built. it has nothing to do with environmental concerns or jobs or anything else. it is because warren buffett stand to lose a lot of money if that oil goes in the pipeline rather than on his trains. people need to think about that. host: here at c-span, we have a project will the local vehicle content project. they traveled the united states, going to major and smaller cities, to talk about the city's history as well as its literary works. you can see those on c-span2 and c-span3. all weekend long, you can find out about this city of palms fort myers florida.

the 1864 diary of samuel grosvenor. jacobs transcribed is time as a pow during the civil war. here's a bit of that interview. [video clip] >> on april 20 is when the confederate soldiers get close enough to him and they get into a small skirt -- small skirmish, and as he said, "the reds took us all." and in-depth going to georgia to the andersonville prison, which was originally fort sumter, but became known as the andersonville prison. and on the fourth of may, when they finally arrived in andersonville, he writes, "i rose this morning at sunrise and began to look around. i found a quite pleasant looking place. oh horror of horrors, i only got to see in the stockade where i'm likely to stay for a while and my heart grew sick and my blood

curled in my veins. this half of prison horror was never told to me." he writes another description that says it was dark and black and had a stench to it and it all just kind of sad over the whole prison at night. --a pall just sat over the whole prison at night. you could not even see the stars. in june of 1864, there were about 45,000 men on just over 500 acres of land with hardly any room to lie down. of course, there is no sanitation. there's hardly any food. there was a band of men that got dubbed the raiders, because the minute a new batch of prisoners came in, they would go up to them and take anything they had whether a pocket knife, assured, boots, whatever it was they had. these raiders were robbing from all these prisoners. host: that is a sampling of what you can get on not only our booktv channel, but our american

history tv channel. we focus on fort myers, florida this weekend. find out more at www.c-span.org /localcontent. another comment on the pipeline. tyler from victoria, texas republican line. you are next, go ahead. caller: hi, this is tyler. host: you are on. caller: awesome. from what i've heard so far, people are talking about the economic value blah, blah, blah. why would obama stopp a pipeline from texas all the way to canada?

you don't even know how many family members i have a north dakota right now that are working their butts off, making a lot of money. anyway from where i stand, 60% of our oil is coming from iran. i was in iraq for 12 months. i know what the pipelines are about there. i know what the money is about there. and that is the reason american soldiers are there right now. why would obama want to stop something that will profit america, that will profit american civilian? host: one more call -- american civilians? host: one more call, sherry from oregon, democrats line. caller: i am not for the pipeline. i believe a german called earlier and talk to -- a gentleman called earlier and talked about why wasn't going

through canada, east or west. the reason that is, the canadians will not allow it to go through canada. that oil is so caustic. the type of oil will cause the types -- the pipes to leak in that pipeline. it is a bad deal. there are going to be problems. and that is a major aquifer, 25% of the countries water -- of the country's water coming through that area. the farmers and ranchers are very much against it. i think the polls show there are many more people against that pipeline. host: one more story to show you before we move on to our next segment on the -- our next segment. from the "wall street journal."

for our first segment that is coming up, we are taking a look at the economy particularly after a speech by the fed chairman janet yellen post up we will talk about the federal reserve's monetary policy and what to expect in the months ahead. donley from the "los angeles times" will join us.

also, with annie snyder, we will look at the clean water act. the epa and army corps engineers want to give the epa jurisdiction over streams and wetlands. you can find more about that at 8:30 a.m. we will bring you these segments as "washington journal" continues after this. ♪ >> whether it is an award for good journalism, as a politician i do not want to make a judgment on that. but an award for public service for possibly the greatest betrayal of our national secrets of all time strikes me as quite bizarre. and i do think there's a real danger of the very cozy media world patting itself on the back without fully understanding the

consequences for the dangers that we face in a very dangerous world. i think there is a dangerous disconnect there. i am for the guardian newspaper itself, and my view was that if i, as an individual, gave the names of an operative outside of u.k. jurisdiction, that would be in breach of the terrorism act in the united kingdom. if that would apply to me as an individual, why would that not apply to a newspaper? >> this weekend on c-span, former british defense secretary liam fox on edward snowden government surveillance programs, and privacy issues, this morning at 10:00 eastern. and on booktv, from texas, the san antonio book festival, including authors and panels on the stories that shaped san antonio. and the nsa, the brother and democracy. also today starting at 1 p.m. eastern on c-span2. and america -- and on american

history tv tour washington d.c.'s cryptology museum and their role in history. sunday at 6:00 and 10:00 on c-span3. >> for over 35 years, c-span brings public affairs events from washington directly to you putting you in the room at congressional hearing from a white house event, briefings and conferences, and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house all as it looked service of private industry. we are c-span created by the cable industry 35 years ago and brought to you by -- as a public service by your local table provider. watches on tv, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. "washington journal" continues. host: don lee has joined us to talk about policy issues.

we are starting with the federal reserve. what is the general sense of what janet yellen said ? guest: she has continued to express her concerns about the job market and the notion that the fed is still concerned about how people are getting jobs and would like to keep monetary policy easy, so there would be support for the economy. she is not ready to let up on the accelerator get for stimulus. there has been some concern that the fed may be beginning a little earlier to tighten policy as there have been signs of economic growth. i think she wants to reassure people that there is not a big

shift there. host: to expand on some of those things, when you say taking a look at the jobs and economy she wants to keep fed policy easy -- what does that mean? guest: that means -- first of all, there are three ways in which the fed can affect the economy. the traditional conventional way is to control short-term interest rates. that is the overnight loan rate and the benchmark interest rate which also affects other interest rates. and then there is what is called the quantitative easing, which is buying bonds, which the fed has been doing for some years now since the great recession. and then there is what is called to medication, or forward guidance, in which the fed gives direction and a roadmap where it is likely to go to help people understand, so if you say you're

going to keep monetary policy easy or keep rates low for a certain time frame, people can assume it is going to be favorable for them to continue to invest and that borrowing money will be cheap. those are the three ways in which they are doing that. right now, short-term interest rates are near zero and they have kept it there since late 2008. the fed is still buying bonds at a very heavy rate, but they have been reducing the amount since early this year. and the third part, in terms of getting guidance which means letting people know, wall street and investors, and ordinary people that interest rates this is when the fed policy is likely to start to move those rates up. those are all the ways that the fed manages monetary policy. host: what are the things that

janet yellen looks at to determine a rise of interest rates or lessening of bond buying? guest: there are two main things. the feds mandate is to control prices, to keep inflation stable, and then to maximize employment. she looks at both of those. right now, inflation is very good, and there is no sign that inflation is about to spike. in fact, inflation has been unusually low. that has not been a concern. she is looking very closely at the job market, because unemployment is still very high, 6.7%. and we have people who have been jobless -- long-term jobless for six months or more, and part-time workers who would rather have full-time jobs. the job market is still struggling. she is looking at those two

primary things, the job market and inflation. and on both of those points right now, the nation is underperforming. i think those are the measuring stick for her. host: does she have to see let's say, an implement at a certain point before she makes a decision? or are there other facts that go into that cap the -- that go into that? guest: initially, the fed had said it would keep short-term interest rates and not really move on those until the unemployment rate fell below 6.5%, and we are very close to that. and as people know, the unemployment rate does not really measure all aspects of the job market. it doesn't cover -- if you drop out of the job market, then you are not considered unemployed officially. she is looking at a range of data about the job market, including as i mentioned

involuntary part-time people, people who have been jobless for a long time, and those who have dropped out of the job market. host: 6.7% is the and implement rate, and the jobs that were added recently was 192,000 jobs. that is part of the issue when it comes to the federal reserve. the federal reserve and other economic issues is the topic. don lee is our guest, an economics reporter. if you want to asking questions, here is your chance to do so. the numbers are on the screen. you can also comment on twitter as well. the fed chairman, janet yellen she spoke this week in new york. she talked about the fed's next move. a little bit about what she sees as recover in her own words,

here she is. [video clip] as the recovery -- >> as the recovery proceeds, it is obvious we will have to avoid overshooting our target. we are very focused on that. this is a judgment call that the federal reserve needs to make. in every expansion, overshooting that goal, we have learned from past recoveries that it can be very costly to reverse. that is something we don't want to happen. yes, we will remain very focused on removing accommodation when the right time has come. and i feel very confident we have the tools to do that and also the commitment and will, by making our objective of two percent longer run inflation very clear.

we did that in order to be transparent and to give the public ways to hold us accountable for achieving that goal. host: any takeaways from that? guest: back in the bubble days when interest rates were low and the economy was zooming, the fed did receive a fair amount of criticism that in the wake of that it was too slow on pulling back on its easy monetary policy and keeping rates low. i think the amount that the economy is starting to show improvement, she wants to make sure that the fed is not too slow in reacting. because we don't want money to be so cheap that you have people who are speculating -- you know, creating more bubbles or financial instability.

host: and she said that with her comment about overshooting from past recoveries? guest: yes. host: don lee is here to talk about the federal reserve and other financial issues. philip, you are up first. good morning. caller: good morning. basically, this federal reserve policy of heating rates low has been a total failure. it has been five years since the recession and the business cycle has not improved. it is a complete disaster in the sense that basically, long-term unemployment has gotten worse. we have seen a little improved economy. it is destroying the older population that depends on the interest for their investments for their savings -- from their

savings to live. and there is little buying power in the population. the only people who have gotten rich from this federal reserve policy have been the wall street's picketers and wall street in general. i would like a comment before i say my next comment. host: we will leave it there and let our guest respond. guest: it is true that because the fed has let interest rates -- left interest rates very low it has been hard on certain people. i think there has been some pain from that. but on the flipside, though low interest rates have helped people buy cars and support the mortgage market. and it has provided stimulus for consumers. the stock market, of course, has benefited. i think that overall has spurred a comment growth -- economic

growth. when that happens, you can boost growth in the job market and hiring will also pick up. i think fed chairman bernanke as well as others, have said that monetary policy is no panacea. i think that is right. there are long-term jobless that the caller referred to. there are some skill mismatches i think, and if you have been unemployed for a long time, it becomes increasingly harder to get work. and of course, fiscal stimulus the amount of money the government, the federal government, has been spending after the initial recovery act there just hasn't been a whole lot. and we know it is because of the bottlenecks on capitol hill.

fiscal policy has not been very supportive of economic growth. i don't think you can pin all of the problems of the economy on the federal reserve and monetary policy. it is really all that we've had for the last two or three years. it can do certain things, and sure, it does give support especially to wall street. that is the transmission mechanism. you lower interest rates and investors by stocks -- buy stocks, and the stock market rises with that. and with that you have some cuts in spending. that tends to benefit the upper sector and that will tend to use the economy. the theme is that it will spread wealth and share jobs with everybody. it is not happening very fast

and i think the caller is reflecting that sentiment. host: north carolina, democrat line come a you are next. caller: i was just wondering what the bls -- where the numbers came from for that 6.7%. spnspn i was wondering if the underemployed are rely vant, the way they treat people and everything. thank you. guest: the unemployment numbers come from a survey that the census does, and they ask households whether they've been working ando so it's a survey

of residents throughout the country and it's in the tens of thousands of numbers of households that are asked, so those unemployment numbers come from that every month. first, the underemployed are concerned, the b.l.s. does calculate and underemployment rate. it's not described in that way. it includes people who are working part-time who would prefer to have full-time hours and includes people who are discouraged and that's a broader category of under employed and unemployment and i think that number is about 12.7% and edged up last month. people do look at that and i think the fed and janet yellen do look at that and doesn't matter it's just that that's the headline number and people

sometimes focus on the main number. but the underemployed and unemployed together are important indicators. >> the b.l.s. did a snapshot of long-term unemployed and said about 3.7 million right now in that category, a little change from february. host: it's down by 137,000 by the year end, 35.8% of the population is long-term. guest: historically the long-term unemployed, six months and over, have been closer to 20%. so since the great recession it's been double that and it has only edged down a little bit and this is a primary concern for the federal reserve. because these are people who are going to struggle in the job market because the longer you've been unemployed, the harder it's likely for you to get a job. employers tend not to want to hire people who have been

unemployed a long time and might have skills that atrophied and for a variety of reasons this is an important number and both janet yellen and previously ben bernanke commented on that quite often. i think this is something i'd like to address but obviously the long-term policy can't address specifically this in a direct way and so i think in some cases people need job training and you may need to have some sort of agreement or pressure put on employers to hire people who have been out of the job market for a long time and so you need other mechanisms that would help the long-term unemployed to get back on their feet again. >> the federal reserve put pressure or at least give comment to the white house or congress about how to resolve these type of issue? 's -- issues?

guest: the federal reserve tried not to advocate specific policy directives. ben bernanke over the years did express, i think you could say some level of frustration that fiscal policy was not more active in supporting the job market and the economy because with the budget debates and all of the wrangling in congress, didn't seem to get much done and various proposals to support the economy and workers in the job market, just didn't move at all. but as far as specific policy measures, i think in general, i think they would all agree more skills training is needed and that it would be good that employers hired long-term jobless workers and gave other incentives to bring these people back into the labor

market. host: pat from new york up next on the independent line for don lee of "the los angeles times." caller: you said yellen would change her direction when unemployment got to 6.5%. going at the rate of 192,000 jobs a month like in march how many months more will it be before we get to the 6.5%? guest: thanks for the call. i said janet yellen and the fed have previously indicated 6.5% would be the threshold, not a trigger. in the last policy meeting they erased that because as a caller pointed out, we're getting very close to reaching that 6.5% number. so what the fed has done instead is put in a

qualitative, not quantitative measure of what -- the threshold to shift policy. that is not a fixed number anymore and the fed said it wants to look at an erase -- an array of labor market indicators including unemployment as well as job growth and things like long-term joblessness and will use the broad array of data to help determine where the labor market is heading and that would be the benchmark or the way in which the fed will determine when to shift policy. as far as when the jobless rate would drop to 6.5%, it's 6.7% now and you need about 100,000

or so jobs a month to keep up with the labor force at a growing natural rate of the growth of the labor force. and if we had 200,000 jobs a month you'd think the labor rate would drop but during the recession and slow recovery had all these people, millions, who dropped out of the labor force so if more people come into the labor force, they'd actually put upward pressure on the unemployment rate. so even if we have 200,000 to 200,000 job growth the unemployment rate would hold steady and not come down because we have people coming into the labor market. the federal reserve are expecting the unemployment rate to be in the low sixes by the end of the year and is the

consensus forecast from experts. >> from missouri, delano, this is on our democrats line. go ahead, please. caller: thank you for c-span. mr. lee, have you read the fed by martin player? guest: sorry, i have not. caller: well, the people in the united states need to read more about the federal reserve system. now, when george bush promised wall street the social security fund would be switched to wall street and it failed. then wall street came back and put this thing -- the federal reserve and wall street are all tied in together. and the only way to get the wall street in was to keep interest rates so low -- i'm a retired person. i'm getting .03% interest on my money my banker has built two

buildings for his son. each house costs over $20 million. and so what we're getting here, mr. lee, is not the real facts, down to earth, i don't know, you're from los angeles probably. but the federal reserve is not going to raise the interest rate. they're stealing money off of social security recipients that have retired, hoping that they can make a decent living while they were -- and i think that the american people need to read more about the stock market and federal reserve system. guest: i think the caller expresses the sentiment that i think is shared by many people that federal reserve policy has benefited the very wealthy and left many of the rest of america without the gains and i

would say that -- as i said earlier, it is true the unusually low interest rate that has sparked the stock market of course has benefited the wealthy and they were in the best position to invest and had the most to invest and so they benefited from the unusually sharp gains and last year had 30% or so growth in equities and so i think the caller's sentiments certainly reflect that kind of concern that touches on the income and inequality and the gap between the very wealthy and everyone else. and i think it fed policy does

help the very wealthy and this is something that i think has been increasingly a concern, including the fed as well. i'm not sure the fed policy can directly address that. and -- but i would also say interest rates as janet yellen mentioned and we saw a clip of that, i think she is mindful that you can keep these rates so low and you will get speculators and financial instability which is what we saw with the housing bubble and other instable elements. so i think, you know i don't think the fed is going to be just holding on interest rates just to support wall street if there are other signs the economy is growing.

host: if interest rates are raised by the fed and bond buying is lessened by the fed, is that going to bring a shock in the system which has been used to it for so long? guest: that's right. that's a very good question. and i think the fed will have to carefully orchestrate any kind of reversal in policy and so right now, as i said, the fed earlier this year began withdrawing or reducing the bond purchases, buying $85 billion a month of treasury and mortgage-backed securities to last year and it has been reducing in the last three policy meetings, it reduced by $10 billion and it has been trying to reduce it gradually and doesn't want to do anything abruptly because you're right, the markets might react to adversity and you might get shocks and of course we know what a shock can do for the economy. and the same with interest

rates. that's why the forward guidance, sort of laying out the roadmap and giving investors and others clues and information about what it's like and what would trigger those kinds of actions and i think those are very important. host: we have a question for don lee from jodi about the fed and if it's ever been audited. guest: the fed does -- i guess it depends on how you describe auditing. the fed's books and its finances are reviewed independently and, you know as you know in congress, some members have wanted -- pursued for many years and there are still some who do audit the fed and i think what they wanted was to have greater direct

involvement and auditing, if you will, of fed monetary policy and the fed has resisted that because they wanted to be free from political interference and wanted to have a greater -- be able to have independence in order to device monetary policy without outside influence. host: here is john from missouri for don lee of "the los angeles times." john is on the independent line. go ahead. caller: thank you. let's talk some real numbers. unemployment comes out every week, the numbers for unemployment, which is averaging about 300,000. the jobs that are raised come out every month which is up almost 200,000. so it's never been below -- the unemployment rate never has been below 300,000 since

fweven. -- 2007. so if we add six years of these rates, that comes to about 1.2 million a month and there's 60, 70 months so you're talking almost 90 million people laid off. if you have 200,000 new jobs per week which it hasn't really been that high, that would be almost maybe two million new jobs. so where are the real figures? where are the real figures here, thank you. guest: i think the 200,000 numbers weekly you're referring to those are unemployment claims first-time unemployment claims that people file, so a worker loses his or her job and then a person goes and files for unemployment benefits so the weekly numbers are what are

called initial jobless claims, and those numbers are kept and issued by the labor department. they're different numbers from the monthly jobs and unemployment report. the weekly unemployment claims numbers are an important indicator of lafse and those numbers have gone down and they're now at prerecession levels the weekly unemployment claims numbers are an as you point out, close to 300,000. those are numbers that are separate and give one half of the equation because they reflect what happens when companies lay off workers. but it doesn't really say as much about hiring and those numbers are then captured into monthly b.l.s., bureau of labor statistics numbers, as you point reports that are issued with job gains or losses and the unemployment rate. host: one more time we'll hear from janet yellen who addressed

policy and the comments about the public the private sector and how they might be able to help with overall job creation. here's her thoughts. >> you asked me, also what role public and private sector can play. you know i think that we all know that there are problems in the labor market that run deeper than merely a weak economy. they're not just cyclical problems. we've seen a rise in inequality and pressure on wages at the middle end below, of the income spectrum rising, skill gaps in wages at least going back to the mid 1980's. and economists, of course, debate exactly what the causes are of those unsettling labor market trends. and there are a lot of ideas that have been put forward

skill bias, technological changes, changes in the global economy and institutional changes. i think almost on anybody's list what the private and public sector can do to address those disturbing trends would be greater training and education, and clearly there's a great deal that the public can do and also i see state and local governments and private individuals, obviously in making their own decisions about training, are responding to those differentials in ways that i think will be helpful over time. host: don lee and your thoughts on it. guest: janet yellen put her finger on the structural concerns she has, the concerns about the structural problems in the economy. structural is different than the cyclical problems.

cyclical problems, we have a recession, you have slow sales, consumers for the time being are not purchasing as much and companies then let go of workers. when the economy grows, then people buy again and the economy -- companies are investing again, then they hire. these are circumstance electrical issues and we have ups and downs and we have them regularly, of course. but structural problems in the economy are things that are above and beyond the cyclical challenges, so she mentioned the long-term jobless because of the skills gap. we may have jobs, there are indications in the country right now that we have jobs, job openings, but people are not able to find people to fill them. she mentioned globalization. we have increasingly globalized economy and that means, you

know, the accountant here would be competing against an accountant in india. and of course wages are lower there. we have technological change where productivity is increasing and technology is, in some cases you know, removing and making some jobs less needed. so we have all these factors that are contributing to the labor challenges that we're having right now and i think she's pointing to the private sector that can work and address problems with job training in particular, and of course the private sector can also help with education, then those will go a long way in supporting the labor market and economy. host: don lee from "the los angeles times" is our guest to

talk about the economy the federal reserve, and other issues. plymouth, ohio, is our next call. this is our republican line. bob, good morning. caller: good morning, pedro. good morning mr. lee. my question is where does the fed get their money? and are they part of the congressional budget? is that a source of their money? part 2 if they are loaning these moneys to the wall street banks, could they use that money to reduce the deficit and spur the economy that way? guest: well, the federal reserve is self-supporting self-funding. and so i think -- and that was by design so that it's not dependent -- it does report to congress and was authorized by congress but is not financed by congress. it is self-financing and has a federal reserve district

branches and, you know, when it buys bonds and it issues different securities, then it receives interest on those and it operates and manages finances in that way. and it has -- has operational surpluses, and so -- it has put money in the federal government. and so it has, i guess in that way, help to reduce the deficit, but the deficit is quite large and the fed isn't going to be a big player in that you know, at the end of the day. host: garnett kansas, henry is up next, the democrats line. go ahead. caller: ok. well you just go back 13 years when bush was president, and you'll find out where all this

money went. host: what do you mean by that, sir? caller: what do i mean by that? i'm 85 years old and i'll tell you one thing that damn bush outfit is crooked. you go back to with c-span when he and cheney was indoors, where they spent the money. host: don lee, final thoughts. as far as going forward, what's the federal reserve's job janet yellen's job, i know she's new to the position but what do you expect from her as far as the next few months going forward? >> she is new to the job but she's been in the federal reserve the fed, for a long time and think so far she's indicated she's going to continue on the policy path that her predecessor, ben

bernanke undertook and she's going to have to carefully monitor the developments in the economy. we're at a point now where it seems like we could see some real momentum in the economy after the harsh winter and the past three four years, we had growth and expectations and we thought that we were going to break out and then we entered a spring or summer lull and recovery slowed again. this time i think there are real hopes the economy is going to pick up and that would require, really, i think careful parsing of the data so that -- to make sure that the economy is on a sustained and path of growth, stronger growth. and then i think the fed would

start to give greater signs it's going to continue to withdraw not only the bond buying but also to give indications of when it would start to raise short-term interest rates. host: don lee is with "the los angeles times," their national economics reporter here to talk about the federal reserve. mr. lee, thanks. guest: thank you. host: coming up, we'll look at the clean water act, the environmental agency and the army corps of engineers wants to amended the act and give jurisdiction over streams and wetlands. we'll talk more about that decision with annie snider. and a look at a study by the pew research center and finds in 2014, 18% of adults with internet access have important, personal information stolen. that's an increase from 11% in 2013. lee rainie will talk about what it means as far as data security. all that when "washington

journal" continues up next. >> we're at the museum of history and the exhibit we're in now is our crurl -- agricultural exhibit citrus, cattle and cane, the big three that really made florida what it is today. interesting, all three of those were originally brought over by the spanish in the first inhabitants here in florida. the cattle in the first place were brought over as a food source for the settlement of florida, and citrus and cane were later brought over as cash crops. well, the cattle established itself as almost a native breed here in florida. in fact, the early american settlers who came down here to herd the cattle, they were free-roaming, so the florida

cowboy, or what we call the florida cracker, would herd the cattle once a year during the season when they were bringing them to market. but other than that, they just kind of roamed the state, so they adapted very well to our environment. the florida scrub cattle you see behind me here now was a species that was predominant here all the way up into the mid 1900's. and was very hearty. it was able to withstand the cold in the wintertime and able to withstand the heat and humidity, obviously, we have here but also did very well in the swamps out in the grasses, the sawgrass and so it adapted very well to the florida environment. when the united states purchased florida from the spanish, they started that transaction in 1819, completed it in 1821. and at that point, the government was encouraging people to settle florida. and one of the main draws for florida was to come down here and capture these free-roaming

cattle and use that as a monetary source and as a business. so that industry really started in the early 1800's, and built all the way through the civil war, and then became a very important issue during the civil war. >> this weekend book tv and american history tv take a look at the history and literary life of fort myers florida, including a stop at southwest florida museum of history. today at noon eastern on c-span 2 and sunday at 2:00 on c-span 3. "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now, annie snider from e and e daily, a reporter, here to talk about the changes in the clean water act. welcome. guest: thank you. host: can we start with the clean water act itself and the scope it has over water? >> that's a very good question. guest: the last seven or so years there's been a lot of confusion around that and there

were a lot of confusing supreme court decisions that threw into question which waters get protection under the clean water act. so everybody at this point agrees big rivers and the streams and creeks that flow into them should get protection and pretty much everyone agrees the wetlands should get protection but there are other types of water streams that flow during certain parts of the year or maybe in response to rainfall, there's been a lot of questions around and there's actually a lot of those streams, particularly in the west. wetlands that aren't next to a major body of water, nobody has really known if those get protection or not and this is really important because the clean water act does a lot of things. and which waters fall into it is the very starting point for it, right? so if somebody spilled oil or a chemical into a creek, they're only breaking the law if that creek is covered by the clean water act. also if you want to build a house or parking lot to allow somebody to fill in streams or

wetlands, you have to get a permit. part of the permit usually requires you a permit for that. part of that permit requires you to go and restore or protect other similar streams elsewhere, and i can be an expensive proposition, but you only have to do that if you are impacting streams or creeks or wetlands that are covered under the clean water act. that is what is at issue with this proposal. host: so specifically, what does the proposal say? guest: this proposal is getting at the streams and wetlands that i was describing, ones that only flow during certain times of the year, and wetlands that may not be directly closed to another major water body. this proposal would have every tributary, as a pretty technical definition, but pretty much everything that flows into a major river covered under the clean water act automatically. so right now people are having to go out case-by-case and say ok if i go from the string to that stream that flows into a bigger river that was in it.

this one would say no, it is included. if it meets these particular criteria, you do not even have to ask questions. host: some only created if a hard rain occurs or certain periods of the year and they appear, is that correct? guest: there is a lot of confusion and there are geographical difference is around the country, so in the east where it is wetter, you have a little bit less of that but out west, arizona has a lot of so-called dry washes. areas where most of the year if you walk by it, you do not see anything there. it looks like the land next to it. when a lot of rain comes down quickly, these areas that don't normally have rain at all, do not normally have water, can actually have currents and rapids in them, so the question is -- do you protect that area? that is what is at stake. host: those connect to other bigger things, which connect to larger bodies of water, and that

is the concern that this proposal from the epa? guest: exactly. host: so is this an expansion of the clean water act? guest: there's a lot of debate and use of that word is very controversial in certain circles and washington d.c. wendy clean water act was written in 1972, a lot of people assumed it meant everything was covered, and for many years, the kinds of waters that were he are describing right now were covered, and it was a course t case in 2001. there are entire regions, prairie potholes, north plans, lots of wetlands, but are not geographically connected to a larger water body, and so that court case kind of reined it in a little bit. and any court case in 2006 through these questions around

streams that don't flow year-round. folks who support this regulatory proposals say this is just restoring some of those protections that were thrown into question by these court cases, and these court cases really questioned the way that regulators were drawing, so the isolated wetlands one was under the commerce clause. so if you have a bird that can land in this wetlands and fly across the state lamp, that is interstate commerce, for that is covered under the commerce cause. so the court case through questions about how this is being justified, but it did not flat out say you cannot claim jurisdiction under any of these things so people who support this say it is just restoring some of those protections. so to oppose the proposal that these court cases said you cannot go there, regulators so this is an expansion of jurisdiction. it depends who you ask. host: you call it proposal. what stage doesn't have to go before it becaomes an

actual law or act? guest: propose regulation, which means it is already gone through one round of review within the administration -- they are putting it out there now, and they're putting out for public comment. it is going for public comment on monday. the epa in particular has really said we want to hear from the public on this one because this is going to affect a lot of people and they want to come up with something that is going to make sense, that people can wrap their arms around, particularly challenging under the clean water act which is a pretty confusing law. they will have 90 days of public comment, putting that out for people to file comments, and then they will go and review those, make some changes to the proposal perhaps, and then that is the date that they would put it out for a final analyzing. host: so the clean water act annie snider here to explain that to us and take your questions on it. if you would like to ask her a question, (202) 585-3881 for

republicans, (202) 585-3880 for democrats, and (202) 585-3882 for independents, and you can also, tweet us thoughts @cspanwj , and send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. for scholar, bob from colorado, you were on with annie snider. good morning. bob, go ahead, please. caller: yes, i think it is ridiculous. i think it is an expansion of it. these wetland restrictions are ridiculous because every property that every once in a while has water in it, now can i use the property, which is mine because someone might say every once in a while there is water in that creek. that is ridiculous. guest: you mentioned being able to use the property. it depends on what you want to do with it. if you want to fill in that wetland, if you want to fill in that crake, depending on how large of an impact you have, you

would have to go to the army corps of engineers to get a permit for that. it would depend on what you wanted to do as to whether you might need to restore or protect wetlands elsewhere on your property, but yes it would mean going to regulators for a permit probably. host: does the epa in considering this talk to say a landowner, top to businesses that might have land affected by this? what kind of outrage are they doing i guess is what i am after? -- what kind of outreach are they doing i guess is what i am after? guest: this is by no means the start of the conversation. when congress -- when that second supreme court decision came out the justices actually asked that congress step in and verify this. congress wrote the 1973 clean water act so they asked congress to step in and clarify this.

so there was some things done that are similar to what this regulatory proposal is now proposing, but it never came up for a vote, and then the obama administration came in and had a more informal proposal that would not go as far as this proposal would, so that was kicked around for a number of years. there were a number of insiders and businesses who said we want this to go through a more formal process, which is what it is going through now, but it was no means the start of the cover station. a lot of folks have already weighed in. the epa and the army corps of engineers are really reaching out for, now, they're meeting with stakeholders, particularly the agriculture community. they are traveling around the country. regional folks are talking with folks as well. host: this is brad from wisconsin on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a couple of questions. first of all, how is this going to affect farmers and dit ches? we are already dealing with

nrcs. we have problems with the army corps of engineers is to clean our ditches. and if all of this passes, will there be a compensation program that will be taken out of production -- for the land that will be taken out of production forbecause of this? and how will it affect the great lakes watershed program that is just starting? guest: lots of questions there. one was about ditches. that is a point of a lot of confusion and controversy. epa has says it's does not increase relation of ditches. you that to talk to a lot of lawyers to find out exact they what they mean there. my understanding is that this would actually codify epa's existing policy on us and maybe even pull that in a little bit. ditches do contribute flow off into larger bodies of water and epa says when that happens, they can be treated just like any other tributary.

so under this proposal, those ditches would need to have flow year-round perennial flow in order to be covered, but if they are covered, then they are treated like any other activity. the caveat here is that agriculture gets a handful of exceptions under the clean water act so this is not going to affect farmers the same way it might affect other industries. under the clean water act farmers are exempt from the section that relates to filling in or otherwise damaging wetlands and streams. so something like plowing. you might end up plowing through what opne might consider a wetland, but a farmer would not need to get a permit for that. farmers are exempt also from needing a permit for water pollution, by fertilizer or pesticides flowing off their property if it is related to rain. if it is washing off your form

field and into a ditch, you would not need a permit for that, either. however, there are other sections of the clean water act other issues that would relate to these waters, and that they would have so one of the key areas of concern is water quality standards, so under the clean water act the state says we want this water body to be used for fishing or swimming or just for agricultural use, and based on how they designate that use, that determines how clean our water body needs to be, and if it is not meeting that level of cleanliness, then they can put it on something called a pollution diet, and i can put a little more pressure on farmers. it is not going to mean permits, but it could put a little more pressure on farmers. so he gets pretty constipated, but this proposal is not suggesting out right that any of those exemptions, any of those activities that farmers can do that don't require permits under the clean water act today --

this proposal would not change that. host: our public in line, gene is from michigan. hello. you are on, go ahead. caller: i think my question was pretty much answered by that previous man there with his questions, so, thank you. host: ok, david vitter weighed in on this. he said. he will of the agency's connectivity report is guest: so this connectivity report, it is a scientific report, epa has said that this proposal, the final proposal will be based on sound science. there has been a lot of science out there on this, and a lot of it is already peer-reviewed. what they have done is they have collected the studies that have been done by individual scientists that are peer-reviewed and they put them into a single study and have drawn conclusions collectively from them. a lot of this is around how an

individual stream or set of strings near each other affect ultimately these bigger waters because that is clearly covered under the clean water act. so there is a proposal, the scientific study that was released at the same time the epa announced it was going to do this relation commanded but that study out there. that study has arctic under one level of review. i think it has already gone through two levels of review. and then internally they have reviewed the synthesis of them but it is now going through an external review. a lot of folks say epa should really wait until that scientific study, that final round of review is done before putting out any sort of proposal. that is what he is talking about. host: by the way, annie snider of "e&e daily," which is -- guest: guest: we are in energy and government publication. a lot of things happen on capitol hill and other agencies was a regulatory proposals are

our thing. host: david vitter waiting in, is this pretty much a done deal? guest: it is not a done deal. like i had mentioned before, there had been attempts in congress trying to clear five is through legislation. they did not go anywhere. honestly, the issues at play here are so controversial i don't think anybody expects that congress is going to step in and provide a proposal along the lines of what epa is proposing here. however, what they can do is knock down epa's proposal and there have been a number of attempts to do that. i mentioned a less formal mergers of this had been kicking around previously in the obama administration and we have seen particularly republicans in the house trying to block that. it also comes up through the appropriations, and then they have what are called policy writers were they say we're giving you your budget that you are not allowed to do this or that or none of the money can be used for this or that.

so in the house appropriations bill, there had been writers saying you're not allowed to give any of this money to finalize or move forward with a proposal on these lines. so we have denied the house in the past, but it is always gotten stripped out by the senate were there tends to be more supporters of this approach, but not everybody on the senate is on board, and this is an issue that stands to be pretty controversial in tough elections for democrats, so the real question is going to be whether those moderate dems, whether they're facing tough reelection battles, whether they will be supportive of this. host: up next, here is doris from arkansas, democrat line. hi. caller: yes, good morning. i have been listening and found some good information. what i have found out that in the piece of land, my dad persisted in the 1970's when they first did the water conservation act and since

then, the largest farms around him have created his form into a landlorocked situation where they use the ditches to dam up the water on his property, so given and able to grow crops produce vegetables on his land, and they want to turn it into a wetland. and i am totally disagreeing with this because like you said there are so many different relations that go in with this. how can a person like me put a halt to that situation? guest: i did not catch the last bit of what you said there, i think you are asking how you get involved. one thing talking about how property near your father, how

activities on those can affect his. that is important to note about water issues. what is happening on a farm next to your form does have the potential to impact you through flooding, through water quality what is happening there, moves downstream, so that is definitely at play here. you are asking how you can get involved, and i think i mentioned before that there is a public comment period right now. if you search clean water act epa, you will probably find a big website epa has that has links to where you can book public comments in. there are a lot of groups out there collecting public comments as well, but the epa would like to hear from you. host: one of the stories he wrote an this is quoting the head of the national association of homebuilders, kevin kelly. why are they concerned? guest: agriculture has exemptions that i described earlier, but those are unique to agriculture.

other activities do not have that exemption so we were talking before about the types of permits that are required. really anybody who is working across the landscape even in a medium or certainly a large scale, you are going to run into somebody's waters, and in order to be able to do something in that area, you have to get a permit. usually that permit requires you to pay to restore or to protect wetlands or streams, and i can be a pricey proposition. so this regulatory proposals stand to make one that regulation and protection more extensive, and two, the more you are impacting, you get kicked into more continuity time-consuming permit processes. and homebuilders certainly are one of the industries that face is permitting situations already and are worried about how that may change. host: they wanted to michael from it illinois, independent line. caller: number one, anybody who

is taking a basic course in june geologyin geology know that water is pervasive. anytime you get rain, it will percolate into the ground. the debate is mischaracterized. we are all affected by this. the second comment is -- people get this misconception of property rights, like that first fellow that you had on the program. you know, he wants to do whatever he wants to do with his property. well how about if the guy next door to him dump some cyanide on his property and it leads to into his well? he might think a little bit differently about this. my question is -- why are we even having this debate? we should know that we can't live without water, and virtually every water well in this country has some level of pollution because of the industry. guest: so the caller mentioned

the level of pollution that a lot of waters have, and it is very true. the clean water act was passed in 1972 because people saw major oh water quality problems. rivers were actually catching on fire there was so much pollution. and it was -- there was a public outcry into solving some of that. and the country has come a long way. two thirds of the country both the waters were polluted, or the other term for it is impaired, at the time that the clean water act was passed. we are now at about one third. the progress hasn't made, but water is definitely not 100% clean up because of it, so that is part of what is at play figuring out how to get to the rest of the waters that are polluted. at this point, at the time that the clean water act was passed, things that were coming out of factories and wastewater treatment plants, things that have a pipe that were dubbing

into a waterway, so the clean water act has really gotten that those problem's and has been ratcheting that down. they have made a lot of progress on that front. what has not been as successful is the other sources the kinds where rain is at issue, so pollution washing off of farmville than suburban lawns and city streets. those are harder to deal with because they are related to rain and there are things you can do to improve the quality of water coming off of those, but it is a lot trickier and sometimes more expensive. that is part of what is leading this proposal, try to find out how to get those remaining impaired waters. host: a viewer said the common misconception of property rights, and i would assume property rights is a constant struggle and dealing with the epa. guest: the epa is a controversial agency and a lot of people get really nervous around them. they have not really helped themselves on that front.

one of the things that really becomes a point of contention here is where the line is drawn between the land and water. i think the caller had already mentioned that water is pervasive in slows down the moves across the landscape. some of this is about where you draw that line. most people agree that the major rivers and streams that flow into them should be covered but we were talking before about these dry areas that when the big rain, water flows through it, but the rest of the time it just looks like land. is that water or is that land? host: chris up next from prince frederick, maryland, republican line, hi. caller: hi, my name is chris chafee, i am running for congress again steny hoyer. i'm also a small builder, so i know what builders have to deal with. we have critical area, 1000 foot setbacks we have to do, i do not

believe that engaging into a new rule and regulation is the bastion right now for our economy. it is costing us extra dollars every builder to go out there and build a home now, which is turned out to an american who wants to buy a house. what they need to look at is all the waste that is actually going into what builders have to do. for the caller, a couple of callers back from the homebuilders association, i think he knows exactly what we have to do. if you ever have to go to the corps of engineers to get a permit it is not a week, it is not a month, we are talking sometimes six months to a year. can you answer that? guest: so that caller was from the chesapeake bay bridge in and there is something different or additional that is going on there that is targeted, particularly at future development in the chesapeake they so point taken on the

permitting, the length of time that permits often take. it will be interesting to see how that plays out if the regulatory proposal goes through because it stands to be more permits and more consultative permits. what is happening in the chesapeake they is a little bit different. for about 30 years, there were six states, 64,000 square mile watershed, they have been trying infrequently failing to clean up the bay. this is not getin good shape, so the bay agreed in 2010 to take a novel approach to clean up the bay watershed. i think i had mentioned that there are aspects of the clean water act that farmers are exempt from, but then there are these other things, water quality standards, the ability to put waters on a pollution diet. so the epa was really taking a

novel and more aggressive approach with that. and so there were some restrictions and some things happening in a chesapeake bay that are helping -- that are not happening in the chesapeake bay but friendly people are watching their and wondering if that might be a model for elsewhere. some people see that as a good model and some people don't. there is actually a lawsuit right now trying to take the same approach in the chesapeake bay and apply to the mississippi river watershed. mississippi river has a huge pollution problem, a huge nutrient problem. what we are seeing there could get used elsewhere. host: a question from twitter in terms of congress, which interest groups are against the changes and which are for the changes? let me ask you, which growth will lobby most on either side? guest: with the leaders on both sides. the farm bureau has been leading the opposition on the agriculture side. not all are opposed to it, but a number are, and the farm bureau

has been out talking about this for a long time. we mentioned the homebuilders. their real concern. they are less critical about it, but they are concerned about it, the portland gas industry is watching this, and as impact there. trying to get out there and show support for this regulation, one of the callers had mentioned nobody really gets clean water. this proposal is really about how to approach that, but a lot of environmental groups are out there trying to show public support for it. host: eugene from south carolina, democrat line, hi. caller: hello, sir, thank you. in thank you, ms. snider. my question is about governors of states, it in particular the governor of north carolina who intervened a group that was suing a company that had a feel

of coal ash in the rivers. how can the governor intervene and do that? or does he have the power to do that? thank you. guest: so the clean water act -- and what was at stake and that spill did not entirely fall under the clean water act. the clean water act deals with directed discharges into the water. and it does cover a little bit of the fines relates to the fines that can be associated with that, but there are also other laws up there that deal with the handling of hazardous waste including coal ash, as you mentioned. there is a separate regulatory proposal there. but a lot of these laws embrace -- the phrase is "cooperative federalism." so you might have the federal government or epa setting an overall standard within a

a state but then they delegated. every water covered under the clean water act, it is under the state is a this is what we want to use this water for post of some of you have a river or lake where people like to swim, the standard is going to be fishable and flammable, and it is going to have higher standards for what it means to be clean. if you have an agriculture or cultural area, unites the people will be swimming in a, so the standard might be lower. that is up to the state decide how are we going to use these waters. the epa comes and it says here is what you need to do or make sure that they are actually setting numeric goals or setting goals that are actually going to keep the water up to that standard. host: he mentioned governors. you write about western governors and how they wait on this -- weighed on this. guest: yes, there is a wide variety of landscapes.

the west is very different from the east, especially when we talk about water. how do you make a rule that is going to work for arizona the same way that is going to work for louisiana? the same way it is going to work for maine. there has been a lot of pressure and this is been a long, ongoing process. regulators have been out there and people have been talking about this a lot but shortly after the proposal was released, and actually even some before, western governors had been expressing a lot of concerns about this stop western states have a lot of these waters that are at stake in this proposal. 89%, 90% of these states' waters are at stake here. host: from acclaim, virginia michael is on the republican line for annie snider of "e&e daily." caller: thank you. i appreciate your recent comments because they touch on something that i was going to race was of any introduction,

you said something startling and i have to believe it was not through or you were missed misspeaking. you said if someone dumped something into the creek and it is not covered by the clean water act, they are not breaking the law. i think this is clearly something states could regulate independently. the reason i raise this is i think it is important and sort of what you are hearing from the western governors, maybe as an indication of the fact that there might be ways to solve this problem to prevent people from putting poisonous substances into their wells that the previous caller had said. you do not necessarily have to solve it all through the clean water act but one is somebody who is dumping toxic substances into a crate that is not covered by the clean water act almost certainly be violating state regulations either that relate directly to the apartment or that regulate some aspects of business that would protect against that kind of egregious

conduct? guest: that is a good point. there are definitely state rules and rate the state have rights to regulate. that said, they do not always do that. it is up to the individual states how they want to handle it. after the first confusing supreme court decision, some states did step back. a lot of people expected that states would come through and pass laws of their own. a handful dead, virginia was one of them that they came in and said these wetlands that folks are not really sure about under the clean water act -- we want to make sure that they are protected, but not all did. i think the number is 36, the environmental law institute put out a report about states that have actually passed laws saying be state cannot go any further than the federal government does, and i think the number was 36 states that passed laws like that. so states do have the authority to do things, go further than epa, but whether or not they do

is really up to the individual state. host: i question from twitter asks you to comment on the last enforcement of the clean water act. guest: enforcement is a challenge because of the declining budgets we're seeing across all of the federal government but particularly across epa and there have been studies showing that enforcement is down because of it. they're trying to focus their resources on the big problems, places where a lot of water -- were something big is happening, or they see a pattern and they want to knit that pattern and the but and give people a reason not to do it. but enforcement is up, and they rely on individual people sitting in tips, and they are focusing their resources on the big players. host: john from that the video, democrat line, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call.

i live in the epicenter of pennsylvania, and it is my understanding that the halliburton loophole exempts drillers from the clean water act. my concern is the pollution that is occurring in the area. will this new legislation or proposed legislation addresses and propose new rules from pollution from frack water? thank you. i will take my answer off the air. guest: there are definitely loopholes in the clean water act , and there is a lot of controversy about the issues you just described. this proposal is not proposing to change any of the fundamentals of what gets covered or what types of activities get covered by the clean water act, so this would not say this type of pollutants this type of chemical, this type of activity is now nearly covered. this is really looking at which streams and creeks in wetlands are already covered. the areas that are already

regulated under the clean water act would be regulated in these waters that are question right now. it does stand to have impact for the orlando asked industry, -- for the oil and gas industry. even just a few rows away, the geography changes a little bit so in the mountains you may have more these headwater streams that are sort of an issue than you would in flatter areas but because it is kind of a wet area, one of the ways that it stands to impact the oil and gas industry out there the most is just by this permitting aspect. if you are building a drilling pad, this is probably going to pass some streams and wetlands you have to get a permit for that. the oil and gas industry is wondering how that will slow down the process. the natural gas industry flies on speed. you have a drilling rig that has to move around and is on a tight schedule, so if you do not have a permit, you have a drilling rig sitting there and it is causingosting you $1 million a

day. it does have an impact for the orlando asked industry, but it will not impact the types of chemicals or activities regulated, to switch waters. host: we are talking about the clean water act with annie snider of "e&e daily." matt from baltimore, maryland joining us, independent line. caller: hello. as far as credentials, i was offered the chief scientist of epa back in 1992. it was very apparent when i investigated it that their nickname in washington of extraordinary potential for attorneys was a major objective and i can see here the increase in litigation over what is affected by the clean water act the water is getting tremendous as you probably know, you're knowledgeable in this area, of

the superfund money, about 55% goes to lawyers. the other 35% goes to actually cleaning about areas. i think the epa needs a bottom to top or top to bottom overhaul so that it once again looks into what the real needs are. i would like your comments on that and i will take it off the air. guest: yeah, so it is a lucrative time to be a water lawyer, particularly a wetlands lawyer. there's been a lot of litigation around this was up with the obama administration would say is that this proposal is actually aimed at ending some of that. trying to make it a little bit clearer. people don't know when they are impacting water or when they're doing something near water that could be covered by the clean water act, so what has ended up happening is there have been lawsuits.

one of the places we have seen this is around concentrated animal feeding operations. that is one of the areas where agriculture does need a permit. if you have got an animal feeding operation that is of a certain size, and if it is discharging into a water that is covered by the clean water act they need a permit. that is something that environmental groups have been rolled nervous about. they have brought a number of lawsuits trying to push more folks into getting permits, but there has been a lot of controversy, a lot of confusion about with waters are and are not hovered. is this creek that we see this happening in covered by the clean water act? what is happening as it is going to court and because there has not been clear regulation statute, the judge is trying to figure out looking at hydrographic maps and does this connect here and there, so it causes a lot of confusion. read obama's administration would say this is aimed at cleaning that up. it remains to be seen if that really does do the trick. host: you talked to the previous question about enforcement. if they expand, change what is

the stream, do they have the staffing to enforce these kinds of things? guest: we will see what money congress give them next year. no. i mean, in recent years they have not had the level of enforcement to go out after every single violation. nobody likes that they will ever be able to have the staff to go out and look for every single violation, and i think probably most americans do not want them. you have to go on somebody's property and look for it. but the idea is kind of what i was saying before, they want to go after the big violations in the big players and in a way that kind of lets everybody know. host: from indianapolis, indiana on our republican line, this is john. john, go ahead. caller: hello. i when outside. yes, my main concern with this whole water act that is being proposed the reclassification

of aquifers. being a republican, i'm actually tickled pink that we have had such a stop on his keystone pipeline because i was cognitive to the importance of that aquifer to all of middle america, so if something happens to that aquifer is that canadian company liable for all of central americans' water supply? guest: this regulation -- one of the things it does not do is cover ground water, which is where opera first come into play. so this would not -- which is where opera aquifers come into play. so this would not regulate that. you may be following the bp trial over the 2010 deepwater horizon spell. the trial that is going on right now is a civil trial and it is related to find better under the clean water act. the clean water act laid out how

much fine you pay per day, so this does cover that sort of thing, so the questions around with waters are covered by the clean water act, you know, that is definitely at play here. so if you have a spell in a smaller creek or stream, for now it is harder for epa to go out and assess a fine based on eye. they have to prove that is connected right now. the idea here is under the obama administration for bozo, this would be automatically in. host: it has been four years since the deepwater horizon incident. guest: yeah, it is the anniversary. host: what have we learned as far as drilling practices, especially in bodies of water? guest: there is not as much change as a lot of people had expected. there have been some legislative attempts right afterwards to change the regulations around drilling. some of those have moved forward, some of those have not.

one of the most interesting things that came out of this on the issue that we were just talking about around fines -- the spill happened in the gulf of mexico closest to the shore of louisiana, and as we all know, lots of oil came near the shore and into the wetlands. louisiana particular was hit hard but as were other gulf states. under the clean water act and under another law covering the pollution act fines related to that go into the treasury, so that money -- there is a process for the responsible party to go out and try and fix one for one exactly what was hurt by the spill, but then there are punitive fines that are meant to be a warning against doing this. you do not just pay to fix what you broke, you pay something more. i goes into the treasury. so after this big spell where everybody saw what was happening along the gulf coast, the congress stepped in it that we want to spend some of that money

back to the gulf states, so they passed the restore act, that will send 80% of the fines related to this bill backed the gulf states. we have seen some money in there from transition. i think about $1 billion is going, that they paid, so about 80% of that is going to go into this find is that then gets divvied up amongst the states and there is a consultative formula for how that works. we have not seen a settlement or a fine paid by bp yet, but that is definitely one of the things that came out of this is try to figure out what we do with the fine money and send that to people who were hurt. host: william is a democrat in california, go ahead, please. caller: when you are speaking of all the farmers and such as that, i was wondering what kind of impact is that going to have on each individual city? because all of the major runoff and pretty much every city just

throws water away or a river. could you give me an answer about that please? guest: urban areas are also contributors of water pollution. it is a little bit trickier to handle under the clean water act . the clean water act does not set start regulations for them as they do water coming out of a pipe. major cities don't do regulation so some of them have to get permits. there is a big debate going on right now over storm water pollution, so that is mostly what we are talking about when we talk about cities is storm water. when it rains, there is a lot of junk on the ground, there is sediment, there is dirt, there is chemicals, oil from cars, and that all gets swept into the sewers and ultimately into the waterways. this proposal probably will have less of an impact on that area just because when you are

talking about cities you are talking about a built environment, see you have already filled in the streams and creeks and wetlands there usually. so this would have a little less of an impact there. there are certainly other things going on in the world of water litigation that are trying to get a handle on the urban environment. host: one more call, donna from new york, independent line. caller: hi. i see this as usual government overreach to tax and regulate us . as the previous caller said, make lawyers and lobbyists more wealthy so we cannot leave our houses without breaking some regulation. i think it is ironic that the government agencies are the worst offender, putting fluoride in the water. thank you. guest: so the idea of government overreach is absolutely something we are hearing here in washington by folks who are oppose the rule. it is a debate we have heard before but what the proper role

is of the federal government and the role at large. you will certainly see that play out as we move forward. you have already heard some opponents, particularly in the house. there will be a hearing in one of the committee that oversees eva oversees the omissions in the house and the next couple of weeks, so we will watch how that plays out. host: annie snider, before you leave, if you have any thoughts on the delay from the keystone xl pipeline, what it means as far as the project and where we are at with it. guest: i don't follow this area as closely as a lot of other reporters do, but it is clearly a controversial issue for sub it is clearly something that people feel very strongly about and that the obama administration is trying to not handle it carefully. host: annie snider is with "e&e daily" and reports on environmental issues, talking about the clean water act. you can find the website for "e&e daily" -- guest: eenews.net. host: annie snider, thank you

for your time. coming up, we look at the pew research center that finds 18% of adult internet access had very important information stolen. lee rainie from the pew research center will talk about that study in what it is for your personal information online when "washington journal" continues. ♪ >> whether it is an award for good journalism and a politician has declared an interest in not wanting to make a judgment on that, but an award for public service, for publicly the greatest betrayal of our national secrets of all time strikes me as quite bizarre. and i do think there is a role danger of the very cozy media world patting itself on the back without truly understanding the consequences for the dangers that we face in a very dangerous

world. so i think the danger is a disconnect there. as for the "guardian" newspaper itself, my view, the size and the individual gave the name of operatives outside a u.k. jurisdiction, that would be a breach of the terrorism act, if that would apply to me as a individual, why would that not apply to a newspaper? >> this weekend on c-span, former defense secretary liam fox on edward snowden, government surveillance programs, and privacy issues this morning at 10:00 eastern. and on booktv, from texas the san antonio book festival including authors and panels on the stories that shape san antonio. and the nsa, big brother, and democracy. also today starting at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. and on american history tv tour the nsa's national cryptologic museum and learning about the

making and breaking of secret codes and their role in u.s. history sunday at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. on c-span3. >> for over 35 years, c-span brings public affairs washington directly to you putting you in , the room at congressional hearings, white house events briefings, and conferences, and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house -- all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span -- created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now, lee rainie of the pew research center, he is the director for the internet and american life project. thank you for joining us. 18% of people finding that their information has been compromised? guest: even more strikingly, we

did a survey last summer asking the same question and found that 11% of internet users had had their really important information compromised, social security number, record number a banking information, stuff like that. just in january when we did this new survey, it jumps to 18%. it was particularly striking among younger folks, people between the ages of 18 and 29. so the line of breaches that we have seen in recent months starting with the target stores' breach around christmas time now with new information coming out pretty regularly, a lot more people are aware of what's going on and they have probably had direct experience. host: with the server you took, how to these breaches take place? what kind of information was compromised? guest: we did not press people on that. it included such things as social security numbers, credit card numbers, and things like that. in many cases, people have heard

from their credit card companies. they themselves did not discover the bridge, but their credit card company said there is weird activity or maybe a credit application, something that does not have all of the right information, so they are hearing from banks and other finance companies that there are problems with their accounts and that is what discovers it for them. host: what his reaction, though as far as what people find out? guest: they feel hugely vulnerable. many feel like they're playing by the rules and they are following the basic good commonsense advice of they get from their companies and friends and stuff like that. other people just assume the best. they're using the internet, nothing bad has happened so far but they are now discovering that they have got a problem and someone notifies them and things like that. the other number that was really interesting for the us is that 21% of internet users have found that an account of theirs has been compromised like an e-mail account or social media account or things like that.

people are newly sensitized to the idea that people are messing with their accounts and they can come back to haunt them. there is a lot of tension out there now that did not exist when we were -- just a couple of years ago. host: lee rainie, we live in an age where we are told about our information was of is a change in practice? guest: not so much. we know that lots of people would like to be safe online and take rudimentary steps to do that. it occasionally change their password, though it is still the case that lots of people use pretty simple and not very smart passwords. but even more people are now sorted taking elementary steps and we saw in a survey that we did last summer that more people are encrypting their e-mail or using services like virtual personal networks that allow their activity to be anonymized and hidden from viewers. part of that is just there worry about surveillance, part of that is that they have heard enough horror stories from their friends and things like that. so there are hundreds of levels of awareness and it is stitched into a broad range of people's

concerns about their security and surveillance online. host: you hinted at this, but are there differences in how people protect their information depending on age and where they fall in that? guest: yeah, interestingly enough, one of the consistent things we found is contrary to what people believe, that young people are indifferent to privacy, that young people are not very protective of what they do. we actually find a younger adults and teenagers are the most active folks who are trying to do best practices and trying to keep their reputation say. one of the other elements of this of course is that not only is personal information related to finances at issue but just your reputation, who you are and what your identity is and who could know that and things like that. younger folks are more active in managing a reputation, trying to keep up with their password than older folks. even though there is a lot of finger waggling from their parents and grandparents they are doing a little bit better job about that. but it is a new environment now where people sort of have a sense that they are being surveilled and sort of have a

sense that their information might be compromised and they are a little bit confused about what the right steps are because even though they have been told -- go to these websites and don't share any information unless you see attps, the signal of a secure website, or the little green lock at the top of your browser. if you see that, you can be safe. the horrible thing that has happened in the past days is the disclosure about the vulnerabilities in that system. host: lee rainie is our guest he is with the pew center and talks about internet issues. if you'd like to ask him questions about privacy and online concerts, here is your chance to do so. (202) 585-3881 for republicans (202) 585-3880 for democrats (202) 585-3882 for independents. twitter @cspanwj and e-mail journal@c-span.org. you mentioned about event reported this morning with this michael's arts and crafts store

a data breach that occurred. guest: michaels is just the latest in the run of stores about the vulnerabilities that companies have had. he big one was targets during the holiday giftgiving season but there are data breach is almost weekly at some level. a laptop is stolen with lots of government accounts on it. lots of web companies now are having to disclose to their customers that they have been hacked and basic information like e-mail addresses and passwords and sometimes personal information like social security numbers have been hacked. so this is sort of an omni present aspect of online life now. what is interesting is that public apprehension has risen, there has not been a significant drop off in internet use. for instance, after the edward snowden disclosures in the national security agency surveillance programs were unveiled, you might suspect that people who were nervous about such things would have changed

their behaviors or that anyone of these data breaches like the target story might have driven people away from sites like that and basically using financial information and sharing their credit card number online. absolutely not. the incidence of e-commerce, the willingness of people to share personal information online has not been interrupted by any of these disclosures. it is sort of an interesting phenomenon because you think if people felt this vulnerable, and if many people have experiences drug problems, they would be marching with pitchforks against somebody somewhere yet there is not a tremendous amount of public outrage, even though people would really like the laws to be tighter and really feel more vulnerable. host: i was going to say if people have reacted -- i will give up on the internet altogether because of these things. guest: no, it is so baked into people's lives that they do not feel they can afford to be off the grid. we are all network individuals.

we depend on our friends to share things with us, we depend on it for news, for commerce and things like that. so it is in many cases not an option for people to go off-line because that really puts them at a disadvantage or so many things come in and there is lots of enjoyment to be had on the internet, too. so it is not the case that people are fleeing. they're trying to figure out how to be smart about it, and things like the heartbleed bug come out in april there had to say even if the experts cannot prevent things like this, it is not too good of a situation for me. host: you mentioned the heartbleed. is there a limited way to understand this? guest: there is a bug that runs the secure website, the https websites and things like that, lots of websites, anywhere from 500,000 to one million or even more use this basic kind of software. what is interesting as it is

open-source software. a company did not put it out. it is an open source immunity where people of their own time volunteer to write code to make things better on the internet. and it turns out that they opened -- the open ssl community made a mistake in coding. a simple mistake that was in inadvertent. it has been a vulnerability that has existed for over two years because it was released in march 2012. there are so many eyeballs on it. one of the other iconic examples of open source stuff is the leading operating system, which runs lots of the servers that runs lots of websites. i would bet heavily that c-span servers and pew servers are run with the linux operating system. there are lots of people looking at this code and find boehner abilities and one of the ways

you increase your status and get a better job is to find boehner abilities or to write more elegant code. the problem with this open sll code is there weren't very many people doing it. it only got $2000 last year in 2013, so the people who are doing this are just doing it out of the goodness of their heart. the guy who wrote this mistaken code posted on new year's eve because that is when he had a little downtime to try to upgrade some of the security in the system. the system has a variety of folder ability. -- vulnerability. when the affordable care act what's i out, and it was propriety, written by a private company or several private companies, some of the early reactions was we should have used open-source software because it is so much more ubiquitous and so many more people are watching her.

this is the flipside that something really valuable is still causing a lot of problems. host: the first call for you come from paul in montana. caller: mr. rainie, i hate to be a wet blanket, but i have a very simple question to ask you. why, what reason would someone have two posted their personal, private financial information and personal information in the computer when they know or suspect that it can be taken misused, or abused? i would really like to know that. guest: well, in many cases companies have spent a lot of time and effort making systems really convenient for people to use was of you can go to a website, you can buy something in a couple of cliques of your mouth and get the thing delivered in a couple of days. and it is an upgrade in the shopping experience for a lot of people. the other thing is up until this heartbleed situation, most

people were convinced that the existing security systems and the elaborate encryption of personal information was good enough to rent problems like this. the other thing that you often hear when people talk about -- why do people trust the internet in these ways when it is so clear that it can be hacked or there can be data breaches/ think about the last time you went to a restaurant or the last time that you gave your credit card to somebody at a coffee shop or at a bookstore. you are trusting that the system of recording that information your waiter or clerk at the store was an honorable person that was going to be doing it. we are a credit card-dependent society that is decided we really love the internet and all of the benefits that you get from it, and breaches are now a part of life because there are people that wanted a given edge of things like that. i was going tohost: i was going to

say you do not see to the people writing checks these days. guest: even those can be vulnerable and hacks. host: security breaches are a fact of life now says jody on twitter. guest: in the financial world, there is an arms you know, there is an arms race of hackers. banks, financial institutions of other kinds are in an arms race with hackers. i'm sure a lot of viewers of this program have had the experience of their credit card company calling them or writing them saying, there are weird charges on your account so your behavior is being pretty well monitored. your normal patterns, where you live, etc., and if your credit card company sees anomalies, they will flag it and you will get a call. smart people are watching, people have the sense, and the systems are good enough to protect me.

and even though we asked questions about vulnerabilities on the internet, people do not necessarily know where the breaches in their information came from. you are sharing information. it is hard to know exactly what the problem was. host: you talked about the changed practices. heartbleed, it was a wake-up call. what happened to change it? guest: there are mechanisms for that. a data breach becomes a public-relations disaster, a problem for anybody who wants to change. the other problem, there is the white hack community out there looking for vulnerabilities, and bringing them to the attention of companies they are hearing from. there are people having interactions with companies and parts of the internet oversight system saying these are problems, you got to fix them. coding is a process.

you keep making improvements. you keep finding problems. the system keeps improving even as its vulnerabilities are exposed. guest: is that why most of our cards have an magnetic swipe and other countries have an encrypted ship and could we see that? host: guest: sure. we are not as far along. in scandinavia and parts of asia, people use their cell phones. it is not a matter strip. you use your cell phone. you can swipe that. people say, oh, my gosh, your cell phone is the well of your life. if that gets hacked, the vulnerability is -- vulnerabilities multiply exponentially. host: so the target of hacking

could go from standstill computers to mobile computers. guest: one of the problems with heartbleed is it is prebaked into the android operating system for cell phones. there are lots of android systems that use this encrypting and there is a scramble in the community and google to fix it. host: republican line from texas for lee rainie. go ahead. caller: hi, fellas. my opinion is, these guys are so confident, so brilliant as they undoubtedly are, it just seems a little too conveniently keeps happening. they know everything that you do. my thought is at some point they will say everybody has to take a microchip, and i just want to say, i'm not taking no microchip and i'm pretty sure the average listener will not take no microchip. that is the mark of the beast. and that is how i feel.

guest: one of the interesting things since hardly came to attention is how fragile the system was. it is not that there are masterminds behind it trying to survey livery body. it was that there were a handful of coders in charge of the central mechanism for securing information online, and i think there will be a very active effort now to increase the funding for the security systems like the heart beat system this exploits and companies will try to step into the breach because it was very convenient for lots of companies to take advantage for free, of this open source software and put it in their systems. that was a best practice on the internet. now i think they have a much more acute sense of the vulnerabilities, the limits of it, how few people were working on it. having software that lots of

people work on is awesome. having software a very few people work on could be very vulnerable. host: matt smith says -- guest: yeah, that is the other side of it. one of the great arguments for the open source community is anyone can make a contribution. you do not need a credential. you do not need a pass card. if you feel like writing code, if you want to participate in a community, you are in. the way you raise your credibility and become an important community member is to make contributions. the way that this works amazingly well online, but there are also ways there are too few people being asked to do too much. host: michael from alabama on our democrat's line. hi.

good morning. oh i could not read his name on the screen without my glasses. there are millions -- or at least hundreds of thousands in this country -- who do not own credit cards because of we have autism is, in my case a very rare or high functioning autism called asked burgers. this is also why i do not have a checking account, because the checking fees caught me way off guard in the 1990's, and so we pay cash for everything. well money orders, international money orders when we buy stuff online. i admit credit cards are vastly more convenient. the good news is this has saved our bacon from getting into much too high reddit card fees. the bad news is, we are considered -- this has saved our

bacon from getting into much too high credit card fees. the bad news is we are considered nonpersons for car dealerships, anything where you have to pay something on time. also there are >> vendors on the internet who will not allow anything except paypal. do you know of any credit score fica score, bills in congress like one that suzy orman is championing? also, do you know any alternative systems for payment most vendors will put where we do not have to put our telephone number and social security number and so forth? also thomas finally, what security breaches can you get on your computer just from belonging -- i do not want to chat sites. i belong to sites having to do with my art career. host: caller, you've said a lot.

let's let our guest answer. guest: i don't know any particular legislation. my guess is suze orman if she is championing legislation, she has a big enough following that someone is seriously considering that. paypal is an alternative for people who do not have a credit card. one of the decisions people have in this world, how are they going to encode this information in their life? are they going to have a credit card or debit card to engage with vendors who are requiring the things you are talking about. too many, they do not feel like there is an option accept to get a credit card -- except to get a credit card or to get the kind of financial material that will allow them to pay things on an installment basis or something

like that. host: she used the term non-person for not paying with a credit card. guest: yeah, there is a presumption with retailers that you are online and you have basic relationship and a relationship with a financial institution they would like to take note off. it is increasingly hard not to be in this network and on this grid for that. it is one of the reasons why a bitcoin, as separate digital currency, came to prominence. people say, too much information is available about me in too many places. i would like the capacity to use a currency that does not track to me and does not have any footprints. we will probably see more of that in the digital age. it is easy enough to create. and maybe we will see groups like the one this collar --

caller was talking about. guest:host: you do not want to comment on legislation. how much is congress doing on this and regulatory matters? guest: there is so much discussion in recent years about what to do but it is a struggle though. there is a huge group of industry stakeholders and privacy advocates who have spent those two a year trying to, with protocols on privacy. who to share it with, how it will be disclosed. and it fell apart last fall. there could be no coming together of this community. now they have thrown up their hands and they are hoping that their advocates in college or -- in congress or state legislatures, where were this is taking place, will take up their cause. now there is probably more

transparency. forget if we are making rules of the road to tell companies how to behave. at least share what you are doing. there is a lot of energy in that too. and there is a lot of exploration about data brokers people who have a tremendous data mass and what they can or cannot do with that information. host: our guest is lee rainie from the pew research center. he is the director of the american life project. lisa on our republican line. hi. caller: hi. i am not too familiar with this -- hi. hi. i grew up in the bay area silicon valley and all that other kind of stuff. it has been a struggle the whole time. two days ago i got on the computer and everything was

completely wiped off. all the e-mails, the social all -- everything. i am talking to years worth of stuff and i did not even know what to do. they took my passwords. they took everything else. when i finally got it back up and running, but it is still not running right. what is this thing going on with the nsa and the supreme court? are they even going to be able to rule on that? guest: i think federal courts at all levels will continue to rule on elements of the government surveillance program. we have not seen the end of that. i'm very confident. your situation is like a lot of peoples. for some set of circumstances there are things you did where you had no idea you were vulnerable or causing yourself problems. something bad happened to your computer and it is hard to know whether it is internal to your computer or introduced by an

outside force or something like that. but a lot more people have described to us stories like yours, where they lost enormous amounts of personal data, material they were trying to save for one reason or another long-standing e-mail accounts, things like that. so, among other things everybody recommends you set up good passwords, you keep changing them, and you keep backing up your systems. there will be times for one reason or another, things are going to go wrong and you will want to retrieve your passwords. host: the head of the financial services roundtable spoke with our "newsmakers" program and one of the topics of discussion was this idea of cyber security and reducing bugs from phone abilities like heartbleed. [video clip]

>> we do need to have security clearances so when problems arise they can access information from the government and act on it. for example, if you are in singapore, and you have to respond in five minutes, your coo can access it. number two, we need to share information. when you think about government agencies that have useful and actionable evidence about cyber threats including the nsa the fbi, the cia the treasury and more, being able to work with them without fear of legal liability or recriminations is important for that kind of protection. and frankly, the current laws in that regard need to be upgraded. they are not current. congress needs to act. host: lee rainie, your takeaway? guest: that is a well

articulated view of the financial community. a lot of senior executives, past and present administrations basically make the same argument that vulnerabilities are staggering, there is less information sharing then there ought to be, that there are inhibitions in talking to the government about something like that. the other part of this -- he ran through the institutions that are vulnerable. he did not mention utilities. one of the things that has happened as the internet has become prominent and personal lives, lots of systems, vital systems important to this country are online. they are encrypted or there are some levels of security. but people have a prickly -- pretty substantial feeling of vulnerability. they just don't know. there were tons of experts who had no sense this was a level of vulnerability. it took a special geeky guy at

google and a private citizen to figure out this vulnerability and it had set out there for two years. i think there has been a flip and the public and expert community now, thinking, we were ok, five years ago. we were not that vulnerable. now there is a probable sense that we do not even know what the vulnerabilities are. the unknown unknowns are worrying people. and i think mr. polin see was speaking to a range of things everybody is working on. host: up next, gary from indiana, democrats' line. i. caller: hi, i would just like to pull out something that i think should be more emphasized in a has-been. these computer hackers and identity thieves, i believe there should be a process established, i mean a stringent one, that will discourage these people from even thinking about

it. they cut people's hands off overseas? why don't we do it here? guest: it is pretty easy -- not easy, but it is possible to track down the bad actors here. when heartbleed came to prominence lots of companies went immediately to their websites to figure out what they're vulnerabilities were. within days there were a number of test sites where individuals could put in a url from a website and see whether that website was secure or not. the response time too many problems is pretty fast once the vulnerabilities are known. -- the response time to many problems is pretty fast was the bomb abilities are now. in canada, a bunch of companies discovered they were vulnerable. yahoo! is scrambling to fix it systems. there are lots of ways people

are trying to respond to this. the penalties are pretty severe already for people caught breaking the law. host: john is from holyoke, massachusetts. independents line. lee rainie. you are on. caller: please don't interrupt me. let me give you a summary of what happened. the nsa is like ibm. if it had not had been for the punchcards, hitler would not have assassinated so many dues and pole locks and everything else. gm built the first nuclear plant in russia. this is economic international corporate fascism. it is population control. guest: people are feeling vulnerable.

86% of american adults use the internet. they depend on in their lives. it is the saurian singh and scary when lots of vulnerabilities come to light. -- it is disorienting and scary when lots of him abilities come to light. you thought that you were operating in a safe manner. now it no longer works for you. it is a scary things. there are global actors who are the purchase of guns on the internet. one of the other things about this media is you do not have to ask permission. you get an independent software writer, like tim berners-lee who creates a program that essentially gives you the world wide web. he did not ask anybody's permission to release the code that gave us this amazingly powerful and beneficial resource that all of us use in our daily lives. at the same time, this

permissionless environment lets bad people do even more bad things with more tools. it is a hard environment to regulate and it's hard to figure out whether the whole law can apply to these situations. we are struggling to figure out what the right regulatory and punishment regime is and what the right role of corporations should be and it makes environment really interesting to study as a researcher but really are to operate i am sometimes. host: strategies to be less visible online. clear cookies and browser history. deleted or edited something you posted in the past. set your browser to disable or turn off cookies. going down the list, as the average person know how to do this? guest: it decreases. lots of people know how to clear out their cookies if they need to. not many people know how to encrypt their e-mail and there are questions about whether that makes you as secure you hope you

might be. there are surveillance folks out there who can figure that out. i think more people have a sense that too much of their personal information is online, and they have a sense they can take personal steps to limit it, the list you were going through. they would really like a little bit more activity from lawmakers and the regulatory committee to give them more privacy protections, the right to go after people who abused or misused their information things like that. we are in an interesting policy moment right now. host: you talked about encrypting e-mail. is that available on a consumer level? guest: yeah, yeah. there is a service that allows you to do pretty powerful encryptions. there are ways that people can take that step in their system for steps that are not too expensive to create virtual networks that anonymize all of your activities online. host: nextel or from indiana,

independent line. good morning, go ahead. caller: yes, you have been talking about encryption the last few minutes. with the nsa being able to decrypt things from google and well the rest of them, e-mail and so on and so forth, and the fact that the nsa owns so many companies that no one knows about, it's all classified, i would like to know your opinion on their ability to decrypt your e-mail and purchases and get your information that way. thank you. >> there are well-publicized efforts by the nsa and prep --

but simply other organizations. they are codebreakers. they have been important parts of the government for a long long time. it is possible it can be done. it is possible it is plain old individual hackers who can figure out even the very tough math used in encryption systems. it is probably safe to presume at some point not everything you are doing will be kept in a private realm and things like that. what most people will say to us, we cannot live our lives assuming the worst and assuming we are going to be broken into and assuming our information will be promoted out there. most people have not had the experiences of having one of the dark side possibilities fall into their laps. we have this data that 18% now have lost significant personal financial information. it is a big and growing number. but it also means 82% of internet users haven't had that

happen. it is a challenging environment but most people do not think they can just walk away from it entirely. host: edward snowden back in the news after an exchange with vladimir putin over issues of internet security. talk about the exchange if you want, but has edward snowden changed to wait to think about internet security matters? guest: yes there is a very robust discussion about whether he did the right thing or the wrong thing in the first place. there is a discussion about what is the right role of government in surveillance activities. when we did the very first poll right after the revelations in june last year, a majority of americans were ok with the idea of surveillance, particularly in the cause of catching terrorists or other bad actors. but more generally, if you ask about surveillance programs for

whatever cause they're gleery of them. the other thing we have seen in our data, a lot of americans think the nsa is capturing more information than has been disclosed. we know from the snowden revelations that metadata -- who you are calling, who your e-mails are being sent to, what times, things like that -- but we do not necessarily know under the snowden revelations with the content of e-mails or phone calls is being monitored. lots of americans think that is the case. the literal content other e-mails and phone calls is being captured. and even some people who fear that they are ok with these programs, because they say, you have to fight bad guys with methods like this. host: jamie in texas, go-ahead. caller: i was wondering if the guest could speak to identity theft insurance? i understand it might be able to

refund lost money, limit liability. can it repair my credit damage? can it restore my name if criminal activities were done as me? guest: i am not actually sure about the range of policies now being made available by insurance companies on things like this. it is probably the case that some of the things may be restored, some of your lost assets obviously cleaning up your record at some level as part of the offering of some of those companies. but i'm not sure the specific ones or if they can literally give you a fresh start or what about a let the damage that you folks have suffered on this. host: here is our last call. ida, good morning. caller: good morning. mr. rainie. caller: -- guest: hi. caller: i am one of those

privacy people. i do not have a credit card. i do not have a cell phone. i make all of my payments on money order. i like to read and write, so that is why i do not have a computer. i don't want technology controlling my life. i'm sure it does one way or another. once you go to a doctor everything is on paper. guest: yes, there are a portion of americans who are just like you. they are so concerned about possible bad consequences of sharing materials, they really want to be off the grid. they want to not be known, and it is a very common expression of american independence and privacy and things like that. many more people think that these are essential tools for our lives, having credit having access to the internet, using a smartphone, all of those benefits they get from that

when they do the tote board in the situation they say the benefits outweigh some of the problems related to it. but absolutely, a portion of the population feels exactly like you do. they are worried about the vulnerabilities and they are taking as many steps as possible to avoid it. host: what is the next area of concern in your mind when it comes to the internet and security? guest: until the heartbleed thing, i would not have even said rouser material and things like that. in many respects, it is unknown. i think there is a big reckoning we are about to have about amassing databases. all of the material your credit card company knows combined with what your phone company knows, combined with what your browser knows -- there is a lot of concern about who controls that, what they know, what they

share with others, held a profile you. >> lee rainey, pew research center, thank you for your time. coming up tomorrow -- two guests from the american all seems to do. you will also hear from dan mitchell of the cato institute. talking about the federal reserve and banks from fox.com. and then we will talk about the latest when it comes to russia and the ukraine. all of that, plus a look at the papers in your phone calls as well when "washington journal" comes her way tomorrow at 7 a.m. we will see you then. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] ♪

>> today on c-span, former british defense minister liam fox talking about government surveillance programs and privacy issues, followed by assistant secretary of state p.j. crowley and the importance of diplomacy. later, a look at immigration and the hispanic community, chances for legislation in congress, and the obama administration's deportation policy. >> one of the real signatures of this boom is how quickly it has moved. there is some good about that, but there is also some bad. we were 10 years into this room before regulators and the companies themselves started asking tough questions to read what is