>> that's it for us. >> john: the g.o.p.'s highly selective outrage factory is in full production. they're furious about benghazi even though they didn't complain when our embassies were attacked in damascus and yemen. they're furious about the i.r.s. scrutinizing tea party groups although they didn't complain when the i.r.s. scrutinized greenpeace the naacp anti-war churches or the medical marijuana industry. and the one scandal that might be a real scandal the d.o.j. spying on "associated press," those are reporters. republicans hate those anyway. tonight we're joined by bill press, scottie nell hughes of the tea party and we'll talk

about miss angelina jolie. birthday of cate blanchett and george lucas. we forgive him. tonight we play a very special game of are you qualified to criticize obama with dick cheney. i'm john fuglesang. you're watching "viewpoint." >> john: good evening, i'm john fuglesang. this is "viewpoint." thank you so much for joining us. a very busy day for attorney general eric holder and presidential press secretary jay carney as the white house struggled with two scandals that threatened to help define president obama's second term. the first cuts to the core of the first amendment. "associated press" seen your vice president kathleen carroll explained what exactly happened. >> we got a notice from the justice department that they had seized the records of 20 of our telephone lines work and personal lines belonging to

a.p. journalists and connecting to a.p. bureaus. >> john: the d.o.j. fishing expedition was triggered by a story last may about an alleged terrorist plot to bomb a u.s.-bound jetliner from yemen. eric holder explained he recused himself from this case after an fbi interview that was part of the original investigation. and he also insisted the fishing expedition had been necessary. >> this was a very serious -- a very serious leak. a very, very serious leak. it put the american people at risk. and trying to determine who was responsible for that, i think required very aggressive action. >> john: according to a.m.p. ceo gary pruitt...

>> john: and legendary watergate investigative reporter carl bernstein agrees. >> it is totally inexcusable. the object of it is to intimidate people who talk to reporters. this was an accident waiting to become a nuclear event. and now it's happened. >> john: but at the white house, jay carney said he knew nothing about it. >> other than press reports we have no knowledge of any attempt by the justice department to seek phone records of "the associated press." >> john: as for the second scandal, the i.r.s. targeting tea party and other conservative political action groups, application for tax-free status, kind of funny when you say it outloud. a.g. holder said he ordered a new investigation. >> they're coordinating with the justice department to see if any laws were broken in connection with those matters related to the i.r.s. those were -- i think as everyone can agree if not

criminal, they were certainly outrageous and unacceptable. >> john: president obama made the same points on monday. as to whether the white house knew anything more than the news media on that one jay carney insisted it did not. >> when it comes to the i.r.s., it is under review by the independent inspector general. we have not seen that report. >> john: give it a few hours jay. draft reports are now surfacing and according to the report summary and i quote... >> john: apparently ineffective management was to blame. we'll talk about both of these stories talking with the justice department's investigation of "the associated press." for more on that, i'm happy to be joined by national security and human rights director for the government accountability project. what a pleasure to you have here this evening.

>> thank you. >> john: so the a.p.'s gary pruitt wrote there is no way to justify this overbroad targeting of reporter's phone records. is he write? what are the d.o.j.'s own regulations require in this instance? >> their own regulation, 28 cfr 5010 talks about subpoenaing a reporter being something that should be rare. should only be done as a last resort after you have tried to find out the information through all other possible, available avenues. and should be narrowly tailored. in scope. and in breadth. and be going after a specific piece of evidence. so to hear the attorney general himself, say that all internal procedures were followed or that his deputy attorney general followed those procedures seems to strike out on every count.

>> john: except we hope it was rare. was justice required to tell the a.p. that they were having this investigation? >> eventually -- they had to tell eventually but obviously they're supposed to err on the side of telling them early. apparently there were early discussions going on with the a.p. because they talked about holding the story so it is not like the a.p. was freezing them out for anything. but to conduct this entirely in secret and then just reveal it to them at the end obviously deprived them of the chance to try to quash the subpoena. >> john: well, of course, we're hearing from the d.o.j. that this was about finding a leak, that was leaking information about terror plots but carl bernstein said the object of this investigation was to intimidate people who talked to reporters. does that sound right to you? >> yeah, absolutely. there has been an on-going war on whistle-blowers prosecuting them under the espionage act.

i have represented people in two of those cases. one of which crumbled in spectacular failure that of thomas drake. but obama has indicted more people under the espionage act than all u.s. presidents combined. it was first used on pentagon papers whistle-blower dann elsburg. that's meant to send a chilling message. if it were not already freezing cold in the land of journalism and the blogosphere, this was meant to chill it even more. because i've said all along, reporters, you need to be worried about it. they're going after your sources. now, some reporters were worried about sources getting burned. but only now that they're in the cross hairs do they seem really to have awoken to the fact that this is such a problem. but whatever it took, i'm glad

they're finally awake and paying attention. because it really is an utter infringement of the first amendment that we do still have in this country. >> john: given that the national security agency is allowed to record and hold all digital communications that go in and out of this country should we be surprised when the fbi grabs as much info as they can in an investigation like this? >> not at all. in fact, it seems that in the fbi and the nsa could just be frenemies for a couple of days, that they would actually gleam more information. so no, nsa is collecting and storing pretty much everything, all digital data. and the fbi of course, is going to follow suit because they're the ones who actually have domestic jurisdiction. nsa is only supposed to have jurisdiction over things going on foreign to foreign. >> john: for those who aren't upset about this yet they're out there what do we lose as a society when the national

security agency like the fbi can do surveillance on a hundred journalists or more, whether they're tied to any kind of leak from the governing agency or not? >> well, the media is always rear ifed to as the fourth estate in this country. almost a fourth check and balance. we lose the public right to know. we lose the democracy. because instead we have a government-controlled media more akin to totalitarian dictatorship than a free and open society. so it is engravely serious. people should have been paying attention to it years ago. i've been shouting into the wilderness for years about this. that the whistle-blower prosecutions really are away -- a back doorway of going after journalists whose names by the way, are in every single indictment. and now to find out that this has happened, does not surprise me. but i hope it does for some kind

of pop -- populist reaction in terms of the pendulum of the -- having swung more than it has under bush. >> john: we know the story isn't going away any time soon. many thanks to you for joining us tonight on "viewpoint." >> thank you. >> john: for more on the i.r.s. and the tea party, i'm delighted, as always, to be joined by the one and only bill press, host of the "bill press show." good evening sir. you had a front row seat in the pressroom today, didn't you? >> bill: well, obviously in row five. hi john, how are you? that's pretty close. >> john: well, the white house, as you know, insist it knew nothing of the problems at the i.r.s. and they didn't even have the inspector general's report before parts of it got published on the internet. if the i.r.s. is truly an independent agency, why is this supposed to be president obama's scandal? >> bill: first of all, i got

to say, i think you talked about the real scandal. i don't think the i.r.s. is much of a scandal. i'm not defending the i.r.s. but the answer to your question is simply that everything that happens with any federal agency, no matter how far removed from the president is expected to have been president obama's -- any president's personal decision unless they prove otherwise. and i think the white house has done a pretty good job of proving that this was not president obama's decision. i think -- look, here's what we know john, real quickly. we know that citizens united spawned a whole flood of political organizations, trying to get a tax-exempt status. they were 50 times at least more on the right than they were on the left, seeking such status. we also know that most of them are phony. they're no more -- if they're social welfare organizations i'm an astronaut okay. they're just trying to cheat american taxpayers. but i think where the i.r.s. went wrong is they didn't look at the big guys like karl rove's

crossroads or even bill burton's priorities u.s.a. they looked at -- they went after the tea party -- all of the little tea party groups. i think what we had was a question of laziness or incompetence on the part of the i.r.s. some of them, officials in some office but not criminal activity. the white house wasn't involved. >> john: let me play devil's advocate for the tea party because i don't get to say that sentence all that often. the i.r.s. said it was contained to the cincinnati office. now we find out offices in d.c. and california were involved. so does that suggest this may turn out to be more of a coordinated effort, not just a couple of rogue tax inspectors? >> bill: i think it proves that incompetsense not limited to cincinnati, ohio. there are some other offices involved but at a lower level. my understanding is once the higher ups heard about this, they said wait a minute, guys. we're going too far here. >> john: bill, none of the groups targeted lost the

tax-exempt status. why is it such a scandal? what did the conservative groups lose? >> bill: well, look, first of all, everybody who was audited by the i.r.s. believes that he or she is a victim of political intimidation and political targeting. >> john: april 15th, we all feel that way. >> bill: they didn't lose anything. you know what we lost? what we lost is a lot of tax revenue that we might get out of these groups and we lost the knowledge of who's putting all of the money behind these groups. which get to the point -- the real answer here, i think is not this holder with this criminal investigation, i think is caca. we don't need a criminal investigation. we need a change in policy so that the i.r.s. really knows what it takes to qualify for tax-exempt organizations. there are too many phony groups and phony churches that have a tax-exempt status on the i.r.s. that the i.r.s. is doing nothing about. the law is too fuzzy. look at scientology for god's sake. >> john: you would agree they

shot themselves and this administration in the foot by focusing too much on right wing tea party groups rather than the phony churches. >> bill: totally. also focusing on the little guys and letting the big guys off the hook. >> john: some of our republican friends are compare this to nixon's ordering audits on list aside from the fact that mr. obama hasn't been tied to this. is it anywhere close to -- is it ridiculous to compare this to watergate? >> bill: i love that nixonian comparison. first of all nixon we know, sicced the i.r.s. on his political enemies. personally told halderman to get the i.r.s. on the case. by the way, it is not nixonian, it is not bushian either. george bush sicced the i.r.s. on the naacp in 2004 and on a church in pasadena, california, which was organizing people against the iraq war in 2005.%

i'm confident that i think the american people -- barack obama had no idea what the i.r.s. was doing in cincinnati office. >> john: do you think they'll get any mileage out of the fact that the director of the i.r.s. was a bush appointee during this time? the democrats will? yes, sir. >> bill: yeah, i think the i.r.s. looks bad. and i think that yeah, sure, so it wasn't an obama guy but i don't think obama needs that to put this behind him. >> john: bill, always a pleasure to have you on. bill press, host of the "bill press show." i want to get you back to talk about what's going on with a.p. sometime soon. >> bill: love to do it. thanks john. >> john: two survivors of breast surgery are going to join me to talk about angelina jolie's double mastectomy. one survivor faced virtually the same situation while the other has doubts about early detection.

what you're saying. you would rather deal with ahmadinejad than me. >>absolutely. >> and so would mitt romney. (vo) she's joy behar. >>and the best part is that current will let me say anything. what the hell were they thinking? the chill of peppermint. the rich dark chocolate. york peppermint pattie get the sensation.

i think the number one thing that viewers like about the young turks is that we're honest. they can question whether i'm right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us. >> john: today's thing of the day is today's three stooges spy thriller of the day. diplomat and spy ryan fogel wearing a blond wig i guess because he was going undercover as one of the beach boys in russia was caught red-handed, trying to recruit a russian

counterintelligence officer in moscow. he was investigating the link between boston bombing suspect tamerlan tsarnaev and russia which is a good thing but unfortunately, he got all of his spying equipment at a halloween store. it is hard to be james bond when you don't have a queue. oscar winner angelina jolie did not have breast cancer. angelina jolie was not sick. all she had was a faulty gene and a few bad numbers. alan 87% risk of breast cancer a 50% risk of ovarian cancer and one more number, 56, the age when her mother died of cancer. as she wrote in "the new york times" today, she had both breasts removed making her perhaps an extreme example of a trend. many women are considering double mastectomies either because they face advanced cancer risk or they receive low risk cancer diagnoses. every woman's situation is different. not everyone has angelina jolie's faulty gene nor does every woman have angelina

jolie's resources. still with genetic testing, more and more women may be pressured to address a disease that may or may not happen. foind joining me now is lindsay avner. she elected for a double mastectomy at age 23. and peggy orenstein a breast cancer survivor who has written for "new york" magazine about possible drawbacks to early mammograms. welcome to you both. it is a pleasure to have you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> john: betalked briefly during the break. i mentioned breast cancer a sort of situation where men don't have enough information and sometimes it seems women are constantly fed information. lindsay, you also had a test on the brca gene, the gene where angelina jolie has a mutation. you also had not been diagnosed with cancer. why did you elect to have the operation? >> well, i have a very strong family history of both breast and ovarian cancer. my grandmother and great grandmother died a week apart both from cancer. my mom is an 18-year-old breast

cancer survivor. so when i found out i had these incredibly high odds, i didn't want to just sit back and wait to develop the disease that had struck my family for generations. so 7 years ago when i was 23, i opted for the risk reducing double mastectomy. i can honestly, it is a decision i haven't looked back on since. >> john: peggy you've written powerfully about this. are you worried some women may overreact to jolie's story? >> when i hear a story about lindsay's, it breaks my heart that's the choice she had to face and it is a totally medically-warranted choice and what angelina jolie did was medically advisable but the problem that i'm worried about is that women of average risk or women with low-grade cancer will overidentify with angelina jolie and think they're in the same category as her. a brca mutation is a rare thing. it affects .6% of the general

population. and the choices that face those women are stark difficult and personal. but they're not the same choices that face the rest of us who are average risk or even those of us who are at high risk but don't have that kind of familial history. >> john: indeed. do you agree? >> you know, i think that absolutely, i worry about that, as well. i worry that women are going to run out in droves be demanding genetic test which is not responsible to go out and test all women or by any means having double mastectomies. however, i do think having the opportunity to educate women in their 20s and 30s gathering their family's cancer history speaking with their doctor, getting habits at a young age that will last a lifetime, this is the age to begin that conversation and to start those behaviors. and i always say, as long as -- women getting to know the symptoms of breast cancer and what they should do from a breast and ovarian standpoint.

it is not that they're waiting to get cancer. they're establishing what that normal is so should something change they'll be apt to know it. >> john: peggy, considering how much this cost, could this become a class issue or is it already? >> well, i think the cost is an issue but also the patenting of the genes is an issue. myriad genetics owns brca genes and they own the testing and they are responsible for all of the research. so the kind of research that needs to be done that would provide better options for people like angelina jolie or lindsay is controlled by myriad genetics. there is just a supreme court case recently that hasn't been decided yet on whether companies should be able to patent genes and own piece of our bodies this way. >> john: that's very interesting because in your article, peggy, the chief of surgical oncology at the university of minnesota used a term i had never heard before. breast cancer overawareness. is it possible for people in a society to be overly aware of this disease? >> i think that overawareness

can tip into obliv yes sirness. that's the issue. what i mean by obliviousness there is a culture of fear around breast cancer right now. i'm afraid of breast cancer. i've had it twice and i'm afraid of it. it is reasonable to be afraid of it but how we manage that fear, how it is marketed to us, how it is sold us to, what we're told about what we can do about it, those issues are cultural. that's what we have to be careful of so we keep our eye on the ball which is reducing the incidence of breast cancer, understanding better those of high risk versus those who are not and getting better treatment and prevention in place. >> john: we're all suspect at times of big pharma. lindsay, what's your advice to people who have been diagnosed with something that might happen? >> well, similar to what peggy said, i think it is really important that all of this awareness that's being created that we recognize that awareness is not what saves lives. it is action. so my greatest hope from all of this awareness that's being created is women everywhere will

use this as a call to action. to talk to their families. to have different conversations with their doctor. to make a decision that's right for them. and just remember that while awareness is good, it is action that saves lives. >> john: peggy you wrote a mammogram helped save your life but apparently your views in some ways have shifted on this. why is that? >> that was in 1997, the first time i had cancer. and you know, in my defense, i would say our understanding of cancer has changed now. breast cancer not one disease. it is a family of diseases. and some of them are relatively -- relatively slow-growing and treatable. some of them are really fast and really deadly. and so there are breast cancers that can -- even if they're trini, tiny, can have already spread. breast cancer in the rest of your bod yes if it spreads is what kills you. cancer can be very small, caught early and still have spread or it can be relatively large and slow-moving and never harm you in your lifetime.

no individual woman really knows whether a mammogram is responsible for saving her life or not. or harming her for that matter. or harming her because the downside of mammography is overdiagnosis which includes being diagnosed with cancers that would never otherwise have become clinically apparent and harmed a woman in her lifetime but since they're found have to be treated. >> john: lindsay how huge an impact? women's health in general across america, across the world? >> well, i mean, as one of the most famous women in the world this has just been an incredible day. at bright pink, part of what inspired me so much is the thousands of women around the country who are reaching out saying, you know, i have a family history on my dad's side of my family. i never considered that could have some impact. or others who are reaching out saying that lump that's been worrying me, i'm going to get it checked out. i think that this is such a powerful moment in time and it

really is an honor to have the chance to take part in helping to lead this movement for women around the country. >> john: as a clueless male, i'm deeply honored to talk to both of you and to do anything we can to raise smart awareness of breast cancer. lindsay avner, founder and ceo of bright pink and peggy orenstein, contributing writer to "new york" magazine. i could talk about this all night. i thank you both for your service to the women of america. >> thank you. >> john: back to the subject of president obama's extremely bad week, my panel of nonexperts joins me coming up. just be grateful current tv does not come in smellivision. the sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. (vo) only on current tv.

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