[ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> hal: here we are i can't believe they left me alone in the studio. i'm hal sparks filling in for steph and the mooks while they're away on vacation and i found out this morning as i roll in that i'm going to be filling in for the lovely and talented jacki schechner as well she will be in studio with us the rest of the week. right now i'm going to do a tad of news for you. there was no sign that former u.s. spy agency contractor edward snowden was on board a russian plane bound for cuba as it prepared to take off on monday.

a reuters correspondent said was there a person on the plane that was not a reporter? flight attendant said snowden was not on the plane and the seat that had been expected to occupy him was taken by another passenger. boy, do i feel sorry for that guy. snowden was charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person. which i guess would include the entire earth. said the criminal complaint which was dated june 14th. the latter two offenses call under the u.s. espionage act and carry fines of up to ten years in prison. accompanying affidavit remained under seal. anti-apartheid icon nelson mandela receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection is in critical condition. the condition of former president nelson mandela who is still in the hospital in

pretoria has become critical. the condition of the 94-year-old who was admitted to the hospital on june 8th has worsened in the past 24 hours. now, obviously the show, we'll be talking about today is what is going to happen with the supreme court. this is the big gap in the news today because until we know we don't know. i don't like to be one of those people that speculates on whether or not they're going to kick the can down the road. we'll have david bender in studio to discuss whatever results come out of the supreme court today. and we've got a couple of other great guests as well. i will be sitting here playing with steph's box. so, here's the other -- i guess big story is where snowedden is going to end up. that's the other thing. papers filed that would allow him to go to ecuador are under review. whatever that means. he was not on the flight to go there via cuba. nobody knows where he is right now. the united states apparently has a stake in his safety because if

anything happens to him you know, it will be blamed on us. we'll be back in a little bit on "the stephanie miller show." (vo) current tv is the place for compelling true stories. (kaj) jack, how old are you? >> nine. (adam) this is what 27 tons of marijuana looks like. (vo) with award winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines. way inside. (christoff) we're patrolling the area looking for guns, drugs bodies ... (adam) we're going to places where few others are going. [lady] you have to get out now. >> lots of terrible things happen to people growing marijuana. >> this crop to me is my livelihood. health care system. (christoff) we go and spend a considerable amount of time getting to know the people and the characters that are actually living these stories. (vo) from the underworld to the world of privilege. >> everyone in michael jackson's life was out to use him. (vo) no one brings you more documentaries that are real, gripping, current.

>> occupy! >> we will have class warfare. (vo) true stories, current perspective. documentaries. on current tv.

>> about a da boom. ♪ it's a beautiful day ♪ >> hal: i'm hal sparks filling in all week as steph and the mooks are on vacation. of course that means that jim is sleeping in unless he has another job. i guess chris lavoie is just trolling santa monica with his friends with a chance to stay

up. how many weeks of vacation do they take now? seven? hope comics, lifting mountains throwing large rocks overexerting as best you can. taking the idea of a vacation to a painful and unrelaxing point. we'll cover something from the supreme court. we're waiting for any kind of word. they really only have today or thursday to say something about 11 cases that are actually in front of them. and three of them -- real bombshells. dealing with affirmative action.

gay marriage. this is a big week and we're going to have david bender in studio with us the last hour. to discuss these things. we're going to have them in earlier. he wants time to read up on these things if they come down. that's the other thing. if they come down. to avoid that speculation when it happens -- when it happens we'll go right to it. and until then, we'll talk about the myriad of other news stories that come up. we've got lee papa, the rude pundit coming up at the half. eric boehlert from media matters. the attack on the first amendment for media matters. that mitch mcconnell the senate minority leader, the senior senator from my home state of kentucky has the guts to -- media matters is an

assault on the first amendment. apparently they've been recording what he says in public and playing it back. terrible thing. how do you do that? how in the world do you let an organization get away with that? i'm 50's not talking about the -- i'm not talking about the stuff that they had -- somebody recorded what he said in secret. amongst his aides and amongst his staff when they were working on his campaign. talking about ashley judd. i mean the stuff that he actually says in speeches that they play back because somehow i guess if you do a speech for the heritage foundation or the american enterprise institute that somehow that's a secret. i don't understand that. go up in front of cpac and you say something that's completely crazy. the rest of us are supposed to pretend like you didn't say it because you didn't say it on -- i guess on government property? is that the rule? it is hard for me to even wrap

my head around. we'll deal with that when eric comes on. but i will be filling in for steph all week. 1-800-steph-12 still the number. and we will be taking your calls about a lot of things and i'm going to stir some stuff up because i want to start off talking about this david gregory greenwald thing that happened yesterday. now, if you weren't watching on "meet the press," david gregory had glen greenwald on. because glen gren wald's goal -- greenwald's goal is to be the kim kardashian of leftist journalists. of "the guardian." he will -- i guess show up on almost every show no matter how much he seemingly hates the host. i'm not -- i will say openly and forwardly i'm not a fan of either glen greenwald or david gregory. i find that glen has a history of making the story about him. i think we're avoiding a conversation about the nsa's

real role in government. and the rewriting and i guess the dismantling of the patriot act and putting in other bills that would benefit everyone and not have all of the easily loopholed places for the nsa and the dod to go and gather information. we could ordinarily focus the law to make it as useful and not as instantly broad but that being said, we're not having that conversation. right now, we're following the travel plans of edward snowed and whether or not he's a looker versus a whistle-blower and the problem is that on a legal stance, regardless of your feeling about it, he's both. because some of the stuff he leaked while are legal the rest of us need to know about and shouldn't be legal i believe, but the unfortunate part is that they are and that's

why it is a political discussion, not -- i think on the same level of the outing of valerie plame or the pentagon papers themselves and had he stopped at the nsa's got this giant server that looks like whopper from war games that is gathering all this information and just holding it, in case they ever need to sift through which is troubling to say the least, but doesn't surprise anybody who, when they go to a particular site, suddenly visa is chucking up ads based on stuff you said in private e-mails which happens all the time. if you use google mail, things that are in your google mail can start showing up in the ad bar next to you. that's your private e-mail. that's not because you went to a web site and looked. that participation that's in all of the -- it is technologically available in all the e-mail servers that are out there. all of the major ones, yahoo!

and apple. they all have the capability of doing it. it is whether or not they flip that switch. and that information is being cataloged. that information while you're typing it and every time you bring up in an e-mail with a friend that you know that there's -- you know, you need a new pair of shoes, you start seeing the sketcher's ads because you mentioned you had a pair of skechers that you liked awhile ago that kind of stuff the e-mail companies can decide whether or whether or not to forward that information from your e-mails or allow you to check that. the truth is they're still gathering it whether you check that switch or not. it kind of sits on it. in case one day you decide to, all of your consumer info -- all of the stuff you've talked about in the past. all of the private organizations are doing this. that's why i think a lot of people aren't shocked by the nsa. they want it stopped. the problem was snowden didn't stop there. and he's carrying around with

him, according to "the guardian," four laptops full of government secrets. and thanks to glen greenwald he has spoken of the other information that he has that he's carrying around. that's what opened him up to being charged under the espionage act. so part of the question yesterday from david gregory was should he ask glen greenwald should you be charged with a crime. glen greenwald did not answer the question. he just clutched his pearls and said how dare a journalist ask another journalist if journalism should be criminalized. i don't think that's what he was asking at all. david greg which was a conduit for people in the senate and house are actually asking and are actually looking forward to putting into the legal process. so at some -- there are senators. there are people in the house who are looking for ways to charge glen greenwald as a co-conspirator in this snowden story. and like i said, i'm not a fan

of david gregory's. there was a moment -- i was never a big fan and i've always -- of course, many of you know i started the kick starter campaign to buy him a mustache. i think he needs one. there's more distance between his nose and bottom lip that needs to happen on a human being so a big handlebar mustache would cure that right away. that being said that he had dick cheney on at one point and they were talking about how they're both on the list for this e-mail that goes around like this one -- this neocon e-mail list where this insider heritage foundation he kind of thing and gregory said you and i get this -- we get this newsletter. we both read this newsletter. like not -- i get it because i get everything because i'm a journalist and i try to get everything. you and i are on the list. it is a short list of people who get the newsletter and vice president cheney, you and i both get this.

we both like it. read it. it creeped me out. i was like why is david gregory and dick cheney on the same e-mail list for this weird one-sided neocon newsletter and that was worrisome to me. so i'm not a fan of david gregory in that regard but i think he was just -- in this instance a conduit to the question. people in the house, people in the senate who were saying glen greenwald needs to be charged a co-conspirator because regardless of the whistle blowing information that edward snowden actually had, he was responsible for -- in one of his talks, especially, getting him to start talking about other aspects of the governmental programs that are not illegal. that are actually in the purview of the nsa. and letting, you know, i guess the law is if you let -- if you

provide information to an enemy then you can be charged under the espionage act. the question becomes can you be charged under the espionage act if you just went with a megaphone, the soldiers are hiding over there. essentially. this is the legal question that is here. if i go to a russian spy during 1967 during the cold war and i go the soldiers are hiding there. we've got trucks and we've got -- we're listening in on your conversations and they're parked right there. i can be charged under the espionage act for doing that. the difference is can you be -- if you just stand in full view of everyone with a megaphone and say they're listening in and they're right there and the soldiers are over there, is that the same thing as straight up espionage or is that a generic leak and are they the same thing? i would argue that they are because they cause the same amount of damage even though you're not monetary benefitting from it. a lot of what would be communist ilfiltraters or u.s. infiltrators in russia, didn't

directly monetary benefit. they weren't selling secrets. they believed in the american cause versus the russian cause. both could be charged by either country under the espionage act. i want you guys to weigh in on this. 1-800-steph-12 is our number. is it as cut and dry that edward snowedden is a whistle-blower and deserves protection and should not be charged or is it murkier than that? is glen greenwald part of that question? i think david gregory raised it. i don't think glen greenwald tried to answer it. i think he was a jerk on twitter and called it a day like he normally does. that was a shame because it is an important conversation that needs to be had. we'll be back with more of "the stephanie miller show." i'm hal sparks filling in all week taking your calls 1-800-steph-12. >> it just implies we all know what's going on in this bubble. the kids don't know but we do. >> announcer: it's "the stephanie miller show."

current tv is the place for true stories. with award winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines. real, gripping, current. documentaries... on current tv.

>> hal: i'm hal sparks. it is "the stephanie miller show." 1-800-steph-12 is our number. we're talking about the complicated issue that is the edward snowden case. i'm a big fan of discussing the

patriot act and its dismantling. i'm a big fan of open congressional and administrative information about these kind of things. i don't necessarily -- i'm not a big fan of pointing where our spies are sitting. or allowing anybody that we're in -- in a contentious relationship with on a military or political level to know where they are alla valerie plame's existence and status. those kind of things. i don't feel the need for that kind of information to just constantly -- i think transparency at a certain point i love when they use the word transparency by the way. that means you can look all the way through. most of us want to be able to see inside. you can't see the invisible man -- you can never tell the invisible man had cancer because he was transparent. i want to take some calls about this because it is very

important that we have this discussion. let's go to ken in the adirondacks on line six. hi ken. are you there? do we have ken? oops. hold on. we got him. we're having a bit of a phone issue. tony is running around. that's all right. he'll handle it. we'll get to you in a second, ken. hang on for a second. the nsa has a new app that's on the phones and it is not working quite smoothly. it is one of the issues. yeah. yeah. travis to back him up. all good. the question i think that we'll get to eventually is edward snowden alive safe? i think we've only got -- let's go to ken. hey, ken. >> hey. >> hal: thanks very much for holding as they worked out the technical issues. >> caller: you had me. now you don't. >> hal: can you hear us? nope. we lost ken. hold on.

there for a second, ken. let's go to paul in florida. hey, paul. paul can't hear us. we're going to have to send that to you. okay. hold on there a second. we'll get to the callers in just a moment. i want to bring up some of the details while they work out the techs and everybody who is holding on the line, we've got a lot of calls about this because i think it is a heavy issue. according to "the guardian" article on how they actually came to be in contact with edward snowden. how they started these -- the series of conversations between him and glen greenwald according to them, he had actually at first was going to go to "the new york times" and had learned that the -- i guess at some point he recalled that in the times that they had a scoop in the election year of 2004 that the bush administration post-9-11 had

allowed the nsa to snoop on u.s. citizens without warrants but it sat on it for a year before publishing, "the new york times" had not published an article they have direct influence with because it was an election year. so this was -- snowden said this was a turning point for him. confirming his belief that traditional media outlets could not be trusted. he looked around for alternative journalists, anti-establishments with blog and other social media. the member of the media he most trusted was glen greenwald. it is interesting "the guardian" refers to glen as a commentator not a journalist or a blogger. that's curious to me. that's their definition of him. in january snowden reached out to a documentary filmmaker poitrus and they began to correspond. he went back and forth. she in mid february, he sent an e-mail to glen greenwald who lives in brazil, suggested he might want to set up a method

for receiving and sending encrypted e-mails. even made a youtube video for greenwald to help him step by step through the process of encryption so that he could speak to him. and are we good by the way? should we be all right on the phones or fix it during the break? thanks tony. greenwald wasn't sure whether to believe the e-mails he was getting were from the person they said they were from. no one knew what he looked like. they hadn't been in contact before. in march in new york, he received a call from poitruss who convinced him he needed to take it more seriously. the first of the documents arrived dealing with nsa secret prism program which gathers up technology in the leading companies. he flew to new york on the 31st of may. the next day he and poitruss flew to hong kong.

that's where they met snowden for the first time who had packed up and gone there. they went to a room that greenwald recalled contained a large, fake alligator whatever that means. snowden made himself known. he told greenwald i would know it was him because he would be carrying a rubik's cube. gone are the carnations of the old james bond movies. now, he was carrying a rubik's cube. both greenwald and poitruss were shocked the first time they saw him. green wald said i expected a 60-year-old veteran someone in higher echelons of intelligence service. i thought this is going to be a wasted trip. after an hour of listening to snowden, he changed his mind, i completely believed him. >> hal: we'll figure out the phone system. people need to be in on this conversation. i'll let you know they're all up and working. i'm hal sparks filling in for "the stephanie miller show". this is a heavy deal. lee papa is next after this.

are you encouraged by what you heard the president say the other night? is this personal, or is it political? a lot of my work happens by doing the things that i'm given to doing anyway, by staying in touch with everything that is going on politically and putting my own nuance on it. in reality it's not like they actually care. this is purely about political grandstanding. i've worn lots of hats, but i've always kept this going. i've been doing politics now for a dozen years. (vo) he's been called the epic politics man. he's michael shure and his arena is the war room. >> these republicans in congress that think the world ends at the atlantic ocean border and pacific ocean border. the bloggers and the people that are sort of compiling the best of the day. i do a lot of looking at those people as well. not only does senator rubio just care about rich people, but somehow he thinks raising the minimum wage is a bad idea for the middle class. but we do care about them right?

>> hal: welcome back to "the stephanie miller show" now with 100% more working phones. on the phone with us, fingers crossed, bit way, chris lavoie, if you're listening i think it is hilarious you unplugged the phones before you left. great gag. joining us now and playing his jingle, rude pundit. ♪ ooh papa papa, papa ♪

>> hello? >> hal: you're there. >> i have music on the line. >> hal: oh, yeah? >> i'm rockin' out. i can barely hear you but i'm rockin' hard. >> hal: right on. i'm guessing that was your theme song? did you hear that part? nope. can't hear us. i think he's piped in to another show. >> i think it's hal-type music that's playing here. >> hal: oh, that's nice. then it's not us. hold on one second. tony will work that part of it out. i think he's got his ipod hooked up to the actual thing through another pair of wires running underneath. we'll discuss this. i will reach out specifically on this -- if you haven't had a chance, go to rude pundit.blogspot.com and you can get -- to say it is an uncensored view is to put it

lightly. there is a piece of it -- this is your most recent post on the continuing need to shove a can of pbr up the elitist -- i'll say bum of david brooks. this is a little piece of it. every once in awhile, "new york times" columnist strays into the rude pundit's hood and writes about the world of the university. the rude pundancy is a real professor, not the one that plays one. if you own a $4 million house because your $1.6 million house you don't have the right to teach a brain damaged dalmatian about humility. it is a fascinating prospect to me. by the way please hang on, lee papa if you could through the -- because i hope if it's hal music, it is good music. we'll deal with that in a second. but i would love to get your take on where you think -- by the way no one can hear the music that you're listening to. it is a magical piece of music.

if you can bother to talk over it or you can hear me, i will pass this along and just say i would love to hear your take on the snowden v. greenwald v. david gregory debacle that occurred yesterday. and our -- the stakes at play in this, your genuine take on it. i don't know that we have him. nope. it's just me. okay. we'll hold on to the rude pundit for just another moment and get him and once we clear up the technical issues here, to me, there are -- you know, multiple layers to this. we'll get to more of your calls 1-800-steph-12 is the number as well after the break. we will -- at some point we're going to have to sort of face the music on this as it were. we're going have to deal with the fact that aside from the fact that after 9-11, we got in such a panicked posture that we

said i'll take security over a free country any day and we handed the reins over to the bush administration and their buddies and donald rumsfeld and the known unknowns crowd and we know where the weapons of mass destruction are and we don't want the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud. panic attack that became -- was part legitimate concern and part drummed up concern for this specific type of control. the drafting of the patriot act occurred and the rest of us shrugged it off. and now we're discovering that parts of it are in play and we're -- i guess somehow surprised at this or we're supposed to be shocked at this is what's occurring. i have two major problems with this. one is like i said, i think the conversation has drifted away from that discussion to whether snowden actually has extra

information that he's either carrying around with him or he's released that is beyond the purview of talking about a program that is not illegal but should be. like the nsa. like the prism program. it's very good that we know what's happening. i don't think many of us are surprised something like that is happening. we know the name and oversight can occur. the elimination of that program and replacing it with something that's -- i think more akin to a combination of privacy rights and national security than this clearly is. that's moved away from that to where is edward snowden you know the celebrity/video game that's going on and the story -- the fact that glen greenwald a lot like david gregory is enough of a jerk that he overrides the story that he's actually doing no matter what the merits of the

story is. it is like the occasional you know one out of 6,000 things that alex jones says that's actually true. it is overridden by the fact that he's a screaming main ac. -- maniac. so that being said, i guess there is another part of this that you know, that i guess i get to deal with is that -- i'm curious to see if other people have even thought about this. but what happens if something happens to edward snowden that we didn't have a part of? what if somebody kills him for the information that he has or just to stir up our political process here? because there's no one that's going to -- myself included, would find it very hinky if he suddenly showed up dead. and this would throw a monkey wrench into our political process again. it would continue the erosion of distrust in our government. that it already started.

i think you know, there have been plenty of stories some of them recently involving a fiery crash of a car and the los angeles area that have made all of us a little more curious about the realities of how we have dealt with leakers whistle-blowers and journalists who ask tough questions of the highest level people. make everybody a bit worried about that. that the death of snowden would actually exaggerate. it would actually make it worse. and would it be worth one of our political enemies killing him just for the mess it would make? it is simple as that. so now the united states has a bit of a security stake in keeping this guy alive. whether he turns himself in or not. just for stability sake. is that a concern?

and plus, apparently, according to "the guardian," the other information that he has that he has yet to release is actually -- some of it may be damaging or -- damming or both. but it also might be worth it to anybody who wants either to do us damage politically or a religious enemy because we have lovingly been in a religious hot war for the last decade. you know, and so at a certain point, snowden is our problem living our dead. in custody or not. and what happens if something happens to edward snowden and we don't -- we don't have a part in it. how does it -- how could it not be? how could it not affect us? that's one of the secondary parts of this and by the way

we're going to -- in a minute or so we're going to take a break and hopefully when we come back, we'll have worked out our tech issues. if not, at the very least we'll fix it during the break when we have eric boehlert. i apologize to lee papa for us not being able to get to him. clearly the nsa's new phone app needs an update. i think we're in beta. and you know, obviously front line attack. they would come for us first. not to be as paranoid as fox. but you know, clearly. it is a worrisome part. you know what? i actually -- the truth is i'm kind of relaxed about the whole thing, tony. i know you look like you're panicked. people at home can see. >> i know they're going to blame me. i'm the fill-in guy. >> hal: of course. we're on current tv and people are seeing you and everybody running back and forth in front of the cameras blocking them, unplugged or whatever and i know, i know chris lavoie is

just at home on the couch you know just woken up early to watch this happen. this is hilarious! like it worked! i can't believe it worked! but here's the thing. we'll get to it. when the supreme court information comes out to you whether they are going to announce today or whether they're going to kick the can to thursday they've still got to do it this week which really is great for me. completely selfish note, i get to be on the air the entire time -- when this stuff goes down, i'm going to be filling in for "the stephanie miller show" and i promise at some point we'll get the phones working. so that we can talk to you guys about this. because i really do want your input. we've got the people holding on for a little bit. i appreciate you doing that. we'll try if we can, next hour to even get lee papa back. so he can join us.

but at the very least do yourself a favor during the break and go to rudepundit.blogspot.com and bookmark it. we owe him at least that if we couldn't speak to him and at the very least, we can play his jingle. back with more of "the stephanie miller show." i'm hal sparks. not taking your calls currently. at 1-800-steph-12. with a hooker. >> your mistake was writing a check. >> she never cashed it! >> the war room. >> compared to other countries with tighter gun safety laws our death toll is just staggering. >> the young turks. >> the top bankers who funneled all the money to the drug lords, no sentence. there's just no justice in that. >> viewpoint. >> carl rove said today that mitt romney is a lock to win next pope. he's garunteeing it. >> joy behar: say anything. >> is the bottom line then that no white person should ever, ever, ever use the "n" word? >> yes!

>> only on current tv.

>> if you believe in state's rights but still support the drug war you must be high. >> "viewpoint" digs deep into the issues of the day. >> do you think that there is any chance we'll see this president even say the words "carbon tax"? >> with an open mind... >> has the time finally come for real immigration reform? >> ...and a distinctly

satirical point of view. >> but you mentioned "great leadership" so i want to talk about donald rumsfeld. >> (laughter). >> watch the show. >> only on current tv. (vo) she gets the comedians laughing and the thinkers thinking. >>ok, so there's wiggle room in the ten commandments, that's what you're saying. (vo) she's joy behar. >>current will let me say anything.

>> hal: tony, you don't exactly expect me to interrupt that song, do you? it is one of the great -- by the way, while we're working on getting the phones and those of you that are still holding on, here's what i do. i literally open the show with the most contentious conversation i could possibly come up with. i'm literally trying to come up with the one thing that will blow up the phone lines right away. the glen greenwald and snowden are they co-conspirators in a crime question, the one that got david please by me a mustache, gregory asked him and started a whole back and forth. i get that question out and right away, we've got calls and people are interested. it is a conversation worth having and bang, the phone lines don't work.

so that's -- yeah, so i think we're off to a bang-up week, i do. >> i can assure you, i mean you no harm. >> hal: in interim what i'm going to do to make sure people have an act to get in on the conversation is i'm going to, you know, go to people on twitter and of course on my youstream chat. go to halsparks.com there is a chat there. you can join in the chat there and sign up if there you have question or input to put in to this. this will be our conduit speak until we get that issue solved during the break. i think -- i have faith in these guys we'll manage to do it unless they destroyed a piece of gear. some sort of sporting event took place. sports. sports. i've heard sports has happened in this room in the last 48 hours and that it was a rather big sporting event involving a

ball that you're loy towd touch your hands that is orange in color that occurred in the last texas/miami situation. the guy who knows like two guys who know nothing about sports arguing about it. the only reason i know this is because everything i like gets preempted by coverage. everybody clutching by some sporting event that is -- i can't be less interested in. that be said, like said, i'm sorry we didn't get to lee papa. we'll make an attempt to get him to come back on with us in a little bit. like i said, check out rudepundit.blogspot.com. we'll talk to the lovely folks my preferred twitter machine. is hoot sweet.

tony, do you have a preferred way of conversing on twitter? >> i'm still trying to learn how to use twitter. i finally signed up for an account. i got that far. >> hal: i can't talk to you anymore. just figure it out. >> i'm working on it. >> hal: 45 twitter clients. i know you're on ego nomist. you're a big believer in i want the one program written for me that no one else can use that's, you know, it rattles and pings when i use it but it is special to me. i know how tony's brain works. >> i got instagram to work okay. >> hal: monkey of darkness on twitter says i never voted to be spied on. there's no excuse for it. ul actually did. the fbi the fbi and c.i.a. have different purviews. c.i.a. is outside the country. the fbi is inside the country.

the nsa after 9-11 was sort of supposed to become in many ways, the bridge between the two. the two missing parts where the c.i.a. is warning about something happening. and supposed to be solved by the patriot act. that was the one good part of it that was supposed to exist. you don't have a boss hog moment with a terrorist where you have to stop at the border because he's outside. he crosses the county line. you have to put the brakes on your police car. that was -- the deal. but i think -- i don't know that -- it is an interesting part -- you know, way to phrase it. in that regard. so we'll see. i'm not -- scott walker says snowden's espionage was premeditated. libertarian glen greenwald has eyes on 2016 midterms and -- 2014 would be the midterms and 2016 would be the general

election. when did they really meet? according to "the guardian," they met earlier this year and he didn't buy it right away. he was convinced it was, you know, it might have been some other odd source or someone just messing with him quite frankly. this is -- you know, like i said, we're going to twitter. i'm at hal sparks on twitter. we can go there until we get the phone system reconciled. halsparks.com/youstream. don on twitter is saying nsa is so bad at their jobs, they not only miss disgruntled employee. i think that's a great point that he brings up because one of the weirder points of this whole thing is that they're data mining everyone and the big fear is that they're listening to everyone's phone calls which

they don't have the ability to do but that was the big fear that came out of it or they're at least tracking everyone's face time conversations their voip, voice over internet protocol phone calls, all of the skype conversations, that would be caught in the prison program. e-mails, any of that stuff. it's catching all -- prism is catching all of that stuff and yet it didn't catch the boston bomber beforehand. even though they were warned about it. it didn't catch edward snowden. it didn't stop at bradley manning. this is is stuff that's been in place. as much as they might reassure us that we're -- there were terrorist situations that were happening that they managed to stop upwards of 50 is what they said there's no real pointing to that they ended up stopping the other things. it is interesting because i think a lot of people -- maybe that's part of the shrugging off

that a lot of people in the middle of the conversation are having. maybe that's why a lot of people are saying they can't be listening to everything. they didn't catch this guy. they didn't catch their own guy. and now questions are being answered. i saw the mayor of atlanta actually was on i believe it was on chris hayes' show, he was talking about how while they did not stop the boston bombing the use of prism and the programs was why they were able to catch them fairly quickly before they could get out of town. they were headed toward new york and they wanted to continue their bombing run. they had bombs with them. they wanted to keep this up. they consider that successful and they were picking a second target. they were stopped between the first one and the second one because of these programs. that was part of his argument. but i do find it amazing that they never actually -- you know, that there are so many of the things they can point to. at hal sparks like i said. my twitter.

many people are chiming in. one of them is saying tony is adorable. which is true. especially when he is stressed out. i recognize that i'm -- you know, at moments during the last hour, i've stammered a bit and kind of gotten mildly distracted but that's because there are people running around literally elbowing me off the air while they fiddled with a phone next to me. 1-800-steph-12 is our number. we'll try to get this remedied over the break. into the next hour and in the next hour, eric boehlert from media matters will be on with us and hopefully we'll be able to discuss with him what the heck is going on with mitch mcconnell and the first amendment attack by media matters by daring to play what mitch mcconnell says. did you believe that? tony they're actually recording what he says during speeches and providing video of it. oh my god. are they going after the fourth amendment next?

we'll be back right after this. it's "the stephanie miller show."

>> hal: i snuck in here last night and clicked as many wires as i could -- and clipped as many wires as i could because i know tony likes a challenge. what i would like you to do when you're watching this hour of "the stephanie miller show" which is going to be fantastic and eric boehlert will be joining us to talk about the fact that mitch mcconnell believes that what media matters does not incidents not little

bits they do but their entire mission is to destroy his first amendment rights. because apparently there's a running theme in the republican party that -- conservatives in general because bill o'reilly is certainly guilty of this. we see it all the time that somehow criticism is a violation of your first amendment rights. if it that's the case, then i would have to shut down twitter because i -- the amount of criticism you get just came from random trolls. as much as it is annoying, you know, that some guy with a bunny head for an avatar and some i am captain jack sparrow as their twitter handle and i'm captain of a boat and calling me a jerk and running away on twitter, if that's a violation of my first amendment rights then there is no validity to the bill of rights. now, the question becomes and this is a running story line and

we're getting a lot of impact -- a lot of sides on this. about whether or not what the nsa was doing is either right and illegal or right and not illegal or illegal and wrong or not illegal and wrong. all four of those point of views. i don't want to sound too donald rumsfeld about this. there are so many knowns and unknown knowns and unknown unknowns involved in the nsa that's pretty much their charter. i'm beginning to think the nsa you know how you walk in and the marines have semper fi and the state department has their code of ethics and the justice department has justice in it, if you go into the nsa, is there a picture of donald rumsfeld. there are things you he you know and things you know you don't know and things you don't know you know. no. up on the wall. because that's the very essence of this kind of intelligence and that's what we're going to be discussing over the next hour

with eric boehlert and you. that's right. we'll be back.

current tv's no limit documentary series "vanguard". >> we're going to places where few others are going. >> it doesn't get anymore real than this. >> vanguard is about telling important stories that need to be told. >> we're patrolling the area looking for guns, drugs, bodies... >> now in it's seventh remarkable season, "vanguard" is the documentary series that raised the bar for excellence. garnering the industry's highest honors for getting real and going deep. >> we go in and spend a considerable amount of time getting to know the people and the characters that are actually living these stories. >> people who want to live a racist life freely move here because they feel like they can. >> the impact of phillip morris in indonesia is devastating.

>> hard news, no agenda. this is "vanguard". next, only on current tv. >> when you're telling the little stories, here's a good idea. ♪ it's a beautiful day ♪ >> hal: welcome back to the show. i think we've got it solved just in time for eric boehlert. apparently the nsa has approved our talking to eric boehlert and has released the phones from their death grip from their other program blender where they take the e out and spell it blndr. how are you?

>> i'm good. >> hal: yes, you can hear us. we can hear you. >> perfect. >> hal: beautiful thing. i went to the -- i went to twitter. i'm going to go back to that after we stop talking -- to deal with some of the stuff. it has been a great thing because people have a lot to say on this. it is interesting -- i want to see from your point of view, i saw what mitch mcconnell said about media matters. like on thursday. >> yeah, yeah. >> hal: was saying you guys were violating his civil rights. basically violating his first amendment rights and that you guys are an attack on the first amendment. >> yeah. we're trying to intimidate and you know, we're all part of obama's culture of intimidation. all us media matter researchers hunched over our monitors all day. we're actually the chicago thugs controlling the republican party and the conservative movement and we're pounding down dissent in this country. this has been an argument that

bill o'reilly used the first week media matters was launched and that we're -- his big thing was we take everything out of context. it is morphed into this culture of intimidation. and as i've pointed out on twitter, is that what we're calling fact checking? is that what we call transcribing what people say and posting it on the internet? so mitch mcmcconnell is up for re-election. it is his campaign season. he wants to beat up on the little nonprofit group that monitors the media. seems a little weird the leader of the republican party is giving speeches about this little nonprofit group but if he think that's what's going to get him re-elected, that's kind of telling. >> hal: that's a big point of concern. the reality is he has to take a weapon out of your hand going into the election cycle. if you start pointing out stuff he said that's contradictory to what he's running on during this election season. that's exactly what you guys do which is basically store up what

everybody says and see if it holds up later. >> it's been amazing. we've been doing this for almost ten years. we have found -- we have confirmed many times over the conservatives don't like you repeating what they say. and they don't -- they particularly don't like you repeating what they say on radio and television and then they don't like you fact checking what they put into print. and they just really want to have a complete run of the highway and they don't want any interference. but you know, the point of media matters and the whole progressive movement has gotten so much better in the last ten years is doing that debunking and really making sure that a lot of that and an fit you go back to the gore campaign and some of the stuff from the 2008 campaign, that so quickly jump from the right wing circus to the mainstream media you don't really see that jumping anymore. i think people in d.c. and d.c. bureaus have sort of come to the realization that rush limbaugh, interesting big audience, he's

insane. there is no reason really to take him seriously as a public policy person in any way. >> hal: also that even that big audience part is debatable. up for debate. absolutely. >> rush limbaugh, he hasn't gotten anyone elected, certainly not in the white house. i don't think he ever will again. he has an awful track record and the whole conservative media movement has an awful track record in getting republicans elected and certainly since the tea party has come along and they've almost, you know, torpedoed any chance of winning national elections. that's what we're seeing with this fox news sort of civil war you know, the republican party karl rove would like to elect some republicans and fox news would like to keep its ratings high and those two things are -- >> hal: mutually exclusive. i made the case last week when i came in on wednesday that it is my belief and i'm sorry it took me so long to figure it out that

this -- i.r.s. scandal is really more about infighting amongst the republican party. because it was run by a bush appointee and the guy in charge of that particular field office views himself as a conservative republican and these guys were seeing that the tea party was nipping at their heels and coming out with 3,000 groups during this cycle and they're like huge flood of these things. i think a lot of the scrutiny came from their own party. the in fighting group targeting the conservative victory fund. targeting tea partiers to make sure they don't ruin chances of them getting a president in office again. that seems to be the case. i want to read to people though what mcconnell said. i won't read it like he speaks because we'll be here all day. he said last june, i stood here and warned of a grave and growing threat to the first

amendment. that threat has not let up at all. our ability to freely engage in civic life and organize is a coordinated assault of groups from the left of anyone criticizing their aims. from the white house that appears to shut up anyone who disagrees with it. now, on the outside, there is a well-documented effort by a number of left wing groups like media matters to harass and intimidate conservatives with the goal of scaring them off the political playing field and off the airwaves as well. >> there are so many things there. one of the most interesting and comical, you know, mitch mcconnell and the republican party is suddenly interested in civil debate, b the first amendment and c i think part of this was tied into freedom of the press because he claimed the department of justice was part of this culture of intimidation. all of these things that the conservative movement has not only not cared about but also attacked. is now suddenly, you know,

they're suddenly the poster boys for all of this. rush limbaugh is the voice of the conservative movement. fox news is the face of the conservative movement. and they're going to tell -- they're going to lecture us about civil discourse? they're going to lecture us about trying to intimidate their foes and shut people up? it doesn't wash and it doesn't go anywhere. >> hal: when they're coming up with the freedom zones. you can process but you do it in this little cage halfway out of town. >> that's why mcconnell's claimed they don't resonate anywhere outside of the two inner circles of you know, brent bozajianel's office. at media research center. the idea that it is liberals and progressives in this country are trying to slam down debate. it is so counter intuitive. there is nothing to back it up. media matters is not part of an effort to silence anybody. we're for robust debate but we

would like to have facts at the center of them. >> hal: it is one of those things. some of the arguments why people will make why pharmaceutical companies don't seek a cure but just a pill that keeps you sick for a very long time. it is a terrible analogy. it goes somewhere. for you guys, why would you want to shut mitch mcconnell up when he says the exact kind of things that you know, the existence of the site. for political reasons and for your social beliefs the idea that you would -- what he's saying is awful and it should be held in the light of day. but arguing that you want to shut him down is silly when you run a web site based on showing those things. keep talking. >> we're much more engaged with the media. we're much more interested in the fact that mitch mcconnell has to bow down to rush limbaugh. the republic and speaker of the house boehner has completely lost control of the caucus to fox news. to media matters that's much more interesting politically. we don't target politicians. we don't go after campaigns.

>> hal: when it is obviously their hand in glove with an organization -- >> we've never seen such close coordination and in some ways, you could argue you know, the republican party has completely handed over its leadership role to meed ya outlets which is why you see this complete incoherence like the vote on the farm bill last week. the republican party is completely leaderless because they've handed that role over to a bunch of a.m. talk show hosts. that's not a recipe for getting anything done. >> right. which now the talk shows themselves that we're talking about, vacillate between levels of crazy. it is not like there's some sort of -- you know, there's the charlie rose faction of just sensible political slow down. we want to pass some laws but let's be conservative about this. let's pace ourselves versus you know the michael savage.

>> i'm talking about the a.m. talk shows. way out. >> hal: they seem to all be that. that's how you make your bones in the republican media machine these days. they're like out crazying each other. it is almost like what stern did to shock jocks. they all overshot and just trying to keep up with him. everybody is trying to match limbaugh and maintaining his place if he -- and maintaining his place so they're all going way over the line to where they've given credence to alex jones. >> that's very interesting. particularly in the second term, the beginning of obama's second term. we saw the complete spillover the blurrying of the line. where does drudge end and alex jones begin. a couple of years ago, there was this obvious demarcation line in terms of the conservative media. alex jones was this weird libertarian radical conspiracy nut job fill in the blank. and -- >> hal: i've been on his show.

>> yeah. you know, we're seeing the things he's talking about now being -- talked about in conservative media outlets and so yeah, i think you're right. look, you know, when obama was inaugurated five years ago the crazy went from zero to ten on the scale. the obvious question is where does this go for five, six seven, eight years and we're finding out where it's gone now. and it has infected the entire republican party. and it has infected what happens in congress unfortunately. >> i greatly appreciate what you guys do over there and i think it should be a badge of honor that you're called a grave and growing threat. by mitch mcdownel because -- by mitch mcconnell because that's a legit worry from his point of view. i appreciate you coming on as always. eric boehlert from media matters for america. media matters.org should be one of your big bookmarks. >> thanks. talk to you soon. >> hal: thank you eric

boehlert. more of "the stephanie miller show" and working phones, 1-800-steph-12. i want to hear from you about that snowden thing and i'm also going to read more of the stuff i got from tbitter because a lot of people made some great points. at hal sparks on twitter. fire away because there's some really great points on all ems of the spectrum. we'll be back. >> oh, my god, this is so amazing! it's all anybody in my class is talking about! >> announcer: it's "the stephanie miller show."

current tv is the place for true stories. with award winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines. real, gripping, current.

documentaries... on current tv. ♪ >> hal: greatest part about filling in besides being able to talk my head off is that tony and i goat play some music that we both love. >> more people need to know about this band. >> hal: dankojones on twitter.

no spaces, no hashes, no nothing. at dankojones. buy all of their albums. they're amazing. we've got one decision from the supreme court. so far the -- i guess the headline is supremes punt on affirmative action. so, by the way, we're going to deal with all of the -- david bender is going to be in with us at 8:00 our time. in the next hour, for the entire time. we're going to discuss the decisions that come down today and whether or not they are actually decisions doesn't sound like they kind of. we'll get to the calls 1-800-steph-12 now that our phones are working. a lot of people came on twitter and started putting their 2 cents in. i would like to convey what they're coming up with in regard to the snowden greenwald nsa prism conversation.

monkey of darkness who we also quoted earlier this is complete overreach. i never voted to be spied on by our government. having corporations sending our data to nsa, not overreach? i wouldn't say that. i would say yeah, that's overreach. it is a question though, we have, you know, somebody else, jim infant tino says we value our privacy and ready to give it up for a 5% discount at cvs but we get freaked out when the nsa listens in? don says no, hal we didn't vote to continue illegal bush programs. we voted for hope and change. they listen to your calls. >> hal: they don't listen to your calls without a warrant. they know the numbers are connecting but they don't know the names associated with them. that being said, if it is a

skype phone call, yeah, i'm going to say yes. maybe they don't listen but they certainly have the ability to listen to them. rainbow 48 says glen is not the bad guy. glad he broke the story. we need this discussion. i completely agree with you about needing the discussion part. i think glen might be reaching a little too far in this and getting into the area where he's just releasing information that's just insider information that is not actually criminal. not even actually bad. the normal purview of the nsa and that's the concern about it. then you've got a guy walking around with multiple laptops with national security secrets. we'll trust all of them are criminal and none will get into the hands of people while he's going from china to russia to cuba to ecuador. the bigger scandal is the outsourcing of our security apparatus. i think that's completely right. i'm stunned.

we have all had problems with the amount of contractors involved in the iraq war from halliburton, the lack of criminal prosecution against contractors where soldiers can be court-martialed but contractors were literally living in this legal-free zone where they could kind of kill people steal stuff just nothing we could do about it at all. cases of rape, we had that woman who was held in a shipping container for days and you know, it was not able to report the crime. you know, this is -- i've been totally against the patriot act. americans need truth not more b.s. from elites. i think it is sketchy when people use the word elites. you know, always just seems dismissive about anybody who who went to school. fox news uses the term elites to argue against college education.

if you think you know, rich people, or you think heads of corporations or you think you know entrenched political interests, say so. elites is a very, you know, kind of a loose word. every self-respecting journalist should shutter at the request he that david gregory asks glen greenwald. i'll disagree with that. that's what glen greenwald said. and i think any journalist should be able to ask any other journalist or any subject of their story any question, especially the giving that person the question of -- answer this. why would you think this actually comes up, you know. there are people asking for your head. what do you think -- they should have your head? that's not a bad question to ask. that's just conveying the

question to see what that person's answer would be. i think glen just kind of got verklempt about it and didn't answer the question. any self-respecting journalist should be able to ask any germane question to the conversation. that's where we are. if he thinks that, that's a different thought entirely. if that's what you mean. if amazon screws up my data, i get a wrong recommendation. if nsa screws up, i get a black bag over my head. well, all right. certainly the reach of the federal government and the ability of the federal government on a prosecutorial level is scarier. i think it is more than a data screwed up with lead to that. but then, of course, tell that to the people in gitmo. and you know, in many ways, the left has been after obama for not closing gitmo quote-unquote even though it was the first executive order i think he put in place. we certainly are one of the first two that he put in place and it has been the congress

that's been stonewalling on this. while we've all been councilwoman oregon, why can't obama close gitmo because he did everything he could as the president to do that and he didn't have the back-up in congress because we all stayed home in 2010. that's probably why since congress has been the nimby wall around that. we're going to get to your calls, too by the way. after the break because we're getting a bunch of calls about this. i'll get a couple more of these. the good news is you could play fruit ninjas on your government issue tracking device. thanks. that's nice. and down and out two, we're sick and tired of the greenwald lynch mob. third week of this. i've had it with the show and you. >> is that really what i'm doing? no. nice try though. we'll be back right after this. to the fire. are you encouraged by what you heard the president say the other night? a going on politically and putting

my own nuance on it. in reality it's not like they actually care. this is purely about political grandstanding. i've worn lots of hats, but i've always kept this going. i've been doing politics now for a dozen years. (vo) he's been called the epic politics man. he's michael shure and his arena is the war room. >> these republicans in congress that think the world ends at the atlantic ocean border and pacific ocean border. the bloggers and the people that are sort of compiling the best of the day. i do a lot of looking at those people as well. not only does senator rubio just care about rich people, but somehow he thinks raising the minimum wage is a bad idea for the middle class. but we do care about them right?

>> hal: it is especially interesting that you know, people are talking about the nsa and the gathering of our digital information via social media. this is interesting. the big fear they're tracking everything that i say and do so i'm going to say the most provocative things i can on social media. it belies a lack of genuine fear about it. you know what i mean. if you were really afraid they're going to track you and

misinterpret what you were saying, you would kind of -- i'm shutting down my facebook page. i think alex jones was on that show -- you're the west guess i've ever had in my life which is genius. he didn't say guest. he said person. worst person i've ever interviewed. he said -- he's like i've noticed you said there are black helicopters and they're disappearing people and all of this. i noticed you're still alive. how did you manage that? how do you manage if you're such a threat to their system, being alive. if they really exist. like david ike the guy who writes the lizard people books that donald rumsfeld is a lizard person which is true by the way. completely fact. but he's basically saying lizards live among us and human smoothies. that's how they stay alive. like these real. i've always known there was a slight -- i had to take everything he said with a grain of salt as much as i would like

to believe the sci-fi aspects of it. they always have a picture of the author on the back and the picture of him is him smiling. it is like a normal picture of the author picture. he had a photo shoot and they pick the best one. they use the loupe went through all of the pictures. which you would hardly do if you felt there were lizards watching your news. let's go to frank in albuquerque. hey, frank how are you? >> caller: great hal. oh, boy, did i get a big and hearty laugh at the glen greenwald clip on "meet the press." you know, since david gregory has hosted the show, i've taken it to call it "meet the puppet." in many cases you know, if the corporate newspeople were doing their job we wouldn't need whistle-blowers. the most disturbing thing about this whole mess is this seemingly careless handling of classified documents by the nsa's private contractors. you know, dick cheney and his

army of tax dollar finance private contractor welfare queens have done their jobs terribly. and as far as snowden goes, for all we know, snowden is in some moscow torture dungeon. you know, being punched by vladimir putin wearing a super bowl ring. >> hal: excellent point. you know, like said, we have a stake in the safety of edward snowden because if something happens to him everybody will think we did it. secondly, i think -- i've always -- i think of "meet the press" as "meet mccain" because statistically, john mccain is on the sunday morning talk shows more than the hosts are. constant like what is -- let me guess what john mccain has to say about this. i'm going to guess it entails giving bombs and missiles and guns to somebody. is that the solution? to everything but food stamps. we won't bring up food stamps,

it's john mccain. it is a fascinating part of it. the other thing too is if you're going to -- he brought up the fourth estate doing their part that we wouldn't need whistle-blowers if the media were doing their job. i think we would still need them. i think we would still need whistle-blowers because there's only a certain amount of reporting you can do. there will always be classified and secret programs. and some of them will fall under the area of the nsa prism where they are legal but you know, i think on sketchy legal ground. and need to be taken down. or iron contra-- iran-contra for example, both of those were clandestine and secret categories. until somebody came out with that information started leaking that information those whistle-blowers, which they

weren't really called at the time started giving that information to reporters. reporter can bark around the edges of the pentagon all they want but unless somebody gives them a piece of information that they wouldn't normally be privy to, it just doesn't exist. to me, we'll always need whistle-blowers. that's why we need strong whistle-blower protection. the problem with the snowden situation is he's both a whistle-blower and a leaker. my note to him would be -- i think many people's was stop while you're ahead. say the stuff that whistle blow all you want but once you start leaking and going by the way they also had this program that was going on. that's not illegal. as a matter of fact, most americans are kind of okay with that. there might be some hard-liners on both sides who are against it but there is a legitimate national interest in maintaining some of those things. you can't just talk about them as if they're on the same level because you know what it does? it actually waters down the prism program. you start talking about other

stuff as if they're on the same playing field people go well, that i'm for. maybe i'm not against this as much as i thought. that softens the argument. we're talking about his travel plans and that -- there we go. let's go to lisa in houston. >> caller: haw you doing hal? >> hal: i'm good. >> caller: number one, this has been going on for awhile now. not one person, not an obama hater and you know there's plenty of them have come out and said i got caught in that dragnet. i didn't do anything. so that tells me that nothing has happened. these are just numbers that are being collected. and i think it should go a little bit farther. people talk about their own personal opinion and their freedom of speech but people don't understand, there are young men putting their lives on the line every day going undercover pretending they're looking for somebody to help finance their bombs and what have you. and we see these militants every day on the television on cell phones because they can bomb, drop them, throw them away.

they don't need them. if somebody is out there undercover and he says i've got this number. he tells his supervisor, that person puts it through this database, we can't trust anybody. see who's calling this number. follow the dollars. you cannot say he does not have the right when his life is on the line and this person goes to president obama says we need to know every one of these numbers because we can't take a chance. nobody thinks about that man who is undercover. that's the most important thing to me. we treat the people like we treat our military. need to be some respect for those men. when this guy went out here and telling all of this, said i have all of their names. those guys are not worrying. is somebody going to come after me. how can they do their jobs? >> hal: part of "the guardian" thing said not only were his laptops full of information he was carrying with him when he went to hong kong now that he's on his way to russia -- i guess

we don't know if he left russia or if -- he was supposed to be on one plane. he's not blah, blah, blah. his laptops had the ability to hack into -- he made an assertion that there was software on his laptop that allowed him to get into the nsa servers still. >> and that's not reasonable because a lot of people are calling in. i can understand, they're going to say nobody done it yet. they're not going to do it. but i want people to take the time to think about that young man out there who was protecting us, many of them not -- i know -- i'm 62. young men who say i'll take this battle. they should not have anything on their minds but getting the job getting out of the dangerous spots and getting home to their loved ones. they should not be worrying in their head. i think the person is looking to me. he already knows i'm afterren in ant. -- i'm after informant. >> hal: thank you, lisa. the one area people say harm could come of it is where we start getting in the area of

drone strikes and anwar al-awlaki and his 16-year-old son being killed by a drone strike because he's associated with people and the intel that is getting them -- is that there is a group of these guys gathering and they have a history of you know, associated with terrorists and they're isolated right now. we can hit them with a strike if we want to. therefore using the tracking phone numbers and the like has led us to a target and what ended up happening was the 16-year-old boy got killed in this drone strike when he was not specifically -- he was not the one specifically target. he was present with these people. the idea that somehow association was the reasoning for the targeting. that i think is where you would say this kind of stuff is where it becomes dangerous. where the automatic tracking of these kind of things and the associative criminality saying okay, these guys are bad guys and they're talking to these guys so those guys on the phone must be bad guys, too.

if the nsa is kind of -- is not vigilant to the highest order there will be innocent people targeted at some point because of a program like this. i think that's why -- where the concern comes from. you know, this is -- you know, this is a big part of it. let's go to michelle in pennsylvania. hi, michelle. real quick. we've got about a minute before a break. >> caller: okay. did cheney really get this privatization thing going? because to me, that's the real crime. that we can privatize armies, halliburton, blackwater and our security. for god's sake, who thought of that? >> hal: right. >> caller: that's the last thing that should be privatized. whether it is the pennsylvania turnpike or your local nursing home i'm -- that's where the greed is. >> hal: voting machines. there's a lot of this stuff -- there was this big move to -- this mythology that's -- that i

blame the dmv for. that somehow you know, we've all got this idea the dmv is awful and that's an indicative part of government. therefore, i don't want what happens at the dmv to happen in regard to national security and voting machines. we're going to go to a real computer company and they're going to create our voting electronic voting machines. but because of proprietary legal rights. they don't have to tell us how the machines are run. who knows how to get into the software. who has access to that software. whether or not they have a financial interest in one of the parties getting in versus the other. that becomes really, really concerning. part of that small government push that we hear all the time and this idea that workers can't do their job the secondary thought form that comes from that is we need to outsource almost every aspect of our government. we start doing that, we get situations where guys like snowden have access to all of the information. parts of which maybe should be brought to light like prism and

parts that should not be for the safety of the people in the field that whether he's intending to access apparently his laptop can. we don't know where he is. that's really worrisome. thank you so much for the call. when we come back, more of your calls at 1-800-steph-12. i'm hal sparks. i think the show is now flowing. now that we have working phone lines and we're going to have david bender in studio with us to talk about what the actual supreme court -- what the supreme court did today. what they might have to do later in the week. it is going to be exciting. we'll be back right after this. >> holy cow. you just blew my mind! >> announcer: it's "the stephanie miller show."

(vo) next, current tv is the place for compelling true stories. >> jack, how old are you? >> nine. >> this is what 27 tons of marijuana looks like.

(vo) with award winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines, way inside. (vo) from the underworld, to the world of privilege. >> everyone in michael jackson's life was out to use him. (vo) no one brings you more documentaries that are real, gripping, current. you've heard stephanie's views. >>no bs, authentic, the real thing. >>now, let's hear yours at the only online forum with a direct line to stephanie miller. >>the only thing that can save america now: current television. >>join the debate now.

>> hal: blazing talent that is doug pinnick. that's his solo effort. of course, many people know him from king's x. if you don't, don't talk to me in public. take more calls about the snowden greenwald nsa prism issue on all fronts. let's go to steve in -- i'm sorry, michael in chicago. beg your pardon. michael, how are you? >> caller: i'm good. how are you hal? i listen to you on saturdays too. >> hal: thanks. the hal sparks radio program out of chicago's wcpt. >> great show. i wanted to comment -- you said a little bit of what i have to say so i'll cut mine short. the lady lisa, i think it was that prompted me to call. the people that are hincky about

this like me, aren't so much worried that obama will do a bad thing with it. we just don't know who's coming next. >> hal: sure. >> caller: it might be we'll have a good president next time, too. maybe even the time after that but sometime dick cheney is going to get in or rand paul or some knucklehead is going to get in. and then what's going to happen, you know people are going to be spied on and there will be nothing that can be done to get rid of it because we've always done what we always did. why would we change then? and so that's why it has to be nipped in the bud. >> i totally agree. i appreciate the call. i saw paul ryan on morning joe this morning as i was getting up. and he was talking about how he was very upset because they had all of the plans. he and mitt that were going to go into effect. they were very excited about the possibilities of their -- what they were going to do for the country and then they see where things are going and they're all

upset because it is just a tragedy, you know. and he genuinely believed this. but that sent a chill down my spine when you look at what -- the amount of leeway this gives. by the way this is by no means new. this is -- this is jay edgard hoover level stuff. it is just getting broader and broader with social media and the connection of the internet and the digital waves of how telephones are dealt with now. but that's the big reason. he brings up exactly that point. hi steve. how are you doing? >> caller: i wanted to get off track a little bit. the supreme court made a ruling today to send the affirmative action back to this appeals

court. seven to one. descending vote was justice thomas. here is a man who was put the head of the eeoc to water it down, to effectively destroy it. as a result, he got a reward of being on the supreme court. the republican base -- the republicans want to enlarge their base with minorities. how can he do that when he keeps selecting men like thomas and this lieutenant-governor now running this guy in virginia who says that slavery was as good -- >> hal: a plus. was better -- for those people that don't know, he said that the black families were more intact under slavery than they are currently. >> caller: yeah. then he said -- he said poverty started with lgbt. does he remember young kids in the delta, mississippi who were literally starving to death? their bellies were distended and

here he says that's the reason for poverty. now, what about the 40% of companies that have been moved overseas? i mean these people in these small towns, they had jobs. mills and things and now they're crowded and then you talk about the prison down in cuba. we have thousands of young black men who initially were sent to jail for marijuana charges and now they're being told to be criminals in prison and yet, all of these areas that are making marijuana legal and if you notice, most of these -- where it is not predominantly black. the states were -- predominantly black, they're still being sent to prison. and when they get out there you are -- they're felons and their lives are over and they're being trained to be criminals. >> hal: there is a systemic

move to do that. the softening and the less overtness of racism by people who still believed the racist thoughts that they had in their heads when they were in office in the '50s and '60s and when the civil rights era happened. they were against it. and yet they knew it was the losing side so they came up with other strategies to get to the result that they wanted and of course, you know, the prison industrial complex was a great way to do that. if you look at -- there was i think four states just cut their contracts with the biggest prison firm in the country. and what came out when they cut these contracts was that they had guaranteed these prison companies 100% capacity. that they would fill the jail. how do you promise a prison company when you give them a contract that you're going to make sure they have enough criminals to fill the jail?

when the goal of at least social programs education, all of this stuff would be to keep crime down and keep people out of the system. it seems very counterintuitive. they promised them that there would be people in these jails. >> caller: yet they call it a correctional facility. >> hal: right. >> caller: i know a young man that got selling marijuana. he's in jail for ten years. had a beautiful young baby. his life is over. statue of limitations, if it is not a hardened crime where this man could get a good job. this is a stigma on him for life. what else can you do? >> hal: the rapists who get less time than the guy who outed them and put their stuff up. there is a -- such a diversity of you know, sentencing and the prisons. by the way, we're up against the bottom of the hour. i gotta let you go. david bender is going to join us in the next hour to talk about

what the supreme court has done and has not done. but i do think it is fascinating four states have dropped their contracts with the biggest prison company in the country because a, they don't work. there's all sorts of scandals about the behavior and how they're treating people in the prison system. from you know, creating fight clubs to rape, sanctioned drug gangs, that kind of stuff. that stuff is all part of the problem. the idea that we somehow guarantee we have prisoners in jail, in a contract is insanity. we'll be back right after this with david bender on "the stephanie miller show." at hal sparks on twitter.

>> hal: here we are. entering into hour three of my first day on here. we've got working phones now. tony can sit back and relax and pick music like i like to have him do which is much more relaxing. and david bender will be joining us in a few minutes. we're taking a lot of calls on the snowden case situation nsa prism story. mainly because i think there are so many varieties of opinion. twitter is just on fire because of this. but we'll get to some news. paul ryan actually said, which is amazing i didn't support the farm bill but democrats are to blame for its defeat. representative paul ryan of wisconsin on monday admitted he voted against the farm bill but insisted that democrats were to blame for the bill's surprise failure. but in support of the farm bill,

ryan told msnbc's show, democrats promised 40 votes. they didn't bring the votes they promised. during the consideration of the bill on the floor they engaged -- they reneged on the commitment of the 40 votes they promised and the bill went down. p.s., i think they got those 40 votes from democrats when they hadn't put in the cuts to the snap program and eliminating food stamps for starving people. that might have been the reason why they lost the 40 democrats vote. i don't know why they lost paul ryan's vote. that would be interesting. i would like to know why paul ryan voted against it instead of why democrats are to blame. don't you? i would be curious. hours before dying in a fiery car crash michael hastings sent an e-mail to his colleagues warning that federal authorities were interviewing his friends and that he needed to "go off radar for a bit." the e-mail was sent around 1:00 p.m. on monday june 17th.

at 4:20 a.m., hastings died when his mercedes traveling at full speeds caught on fire. hastings sent an e-mail to staff at "buzzfeed" but blind copied a friend biggs on the message. biggs made the e-mail public and forwarded it to ktla who posted it online. it reads hey the feds are interviewing my close friends and associates. if they arrive at "buzzfeed," "gq" or hq, wise to request legal counsel before interviews about our news gathering practices or related journalism issues. also, i'm on to a big story and need to go off radar for a bit. all the best. hope to see you soon, michael. not hincky at all. we'll be back with david bender and the supreme court punting on affirmative action. 1 thing than viewers like about the young turks is that were

honest. they know that i'm not bsing them for some hidden agenda, actually supporting one party or the other. when the democrats are wrong, they know i'm going to be the first one to call them out. cenk on air>> what's unacceptable is how washington continues to screw the middle class over. cenk off air i don't want the middle class taking the brunt of the spending cuts and all the different programs that wind up hurting the middle class. cenk on air you got to go to the local level, the state level and we have to fight hard to make sure they can't buy our politics anymore. cenk off air and they can question if i'm right about that. but i think the audience gets that, i actually mean it. cenk on air 3 trillion dollars in spending cuts! narrator uniquely the worlds largest online news show is on current tv. cenk off air and i think the audience gets, "this guys to best of his abilities is trying to look out for us." only on current tv!

you know who is coming on to me now? you know the kind of guys that do reverse mortgage commercials? those types are coming on to me all the time now. (vo) she gets the comedians laughing and the thinkers thinking. >>ok, so there's wiggle room in the ten commandments, that's 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? >> if you believe in state's rights but still support the drug war you must be high. >> "viewpoint" digs deep into the issues of the day. >> do you think that there is any chance we'll see this president even say the words "carbon tax"? >> has the time finally come for real immigration reform? >> ...and a distinctly satirical point of view. >> but you mentioned "great leadership" so i want to talk about donald rumsfeld. >> (laughter). >> watch the show. >> only on current tv.

♪ it's a beautiful day ♪ >> i'm disappointed! >> hal: the supreme court has done, i guess next to nothing? that's the question. did they save us from a bad ruling? or did they guarantee one? or is this just going to come back around to haunt us again? is it going to come back in another form? as many legal fights often do. here to help us sort it out and hopefully speculate on what they're going to do on either tuesday or thursday, depending on when they go to it next is david bender. how are you sir? welcome. >> did you say sorted out? >> hal: sort it out. >> sorted actually makes more sense than sort it. >> hal: maybe so.

>> good morning, hal. it's dave. hi. here's what we know. the supreme court has -- held as they have been doing now for some time, these are -- i would call them drama queens but i don't want to bias what's going to happen with doma and prop 8. but they do hold the most significant rulings as they did with the affordable healthcare act to the very last week of the session. the supreme court comes in october 1st and they get a solid summer vacation actually all the way through september. this is their last week. they're done on friday. normally, opinions come down on mondays and thursdays. we're now hearing that they may even be issuing rulings tomorrow, tuesday and maybe even wednesday. we could have a rolling day of rulings. a rolling week of rulings. today was limited to one case that a lot of people have been

watching closely. it is university of texas case. the fischer case. about affirmative action. so here's what we know. the supreme court sent it back. the word we're look for here is punt. >> hal: yes. >> by a 7-1 margin, the only dissenter was ruth bader ginsburg, god bless that woman. she is going to be dissenting on a lot of things i suspect or certainly sending a message clearly with the opinions that she writes that the law needs to be much more specific. she always encourages congress to do what it should do which is actually write law. >> hal: right. >> not have them making it up on the bench but write the law. so in this case, the other seven justices basically said we're sending it back to the texas court. here's what the case is. in sum it has challenged whether or not universities can

use race as a criterion. it is the core of every affirmative action program that's gone back for 40 years now. the idea of redressing the imbalance that exists between white students and minority students in terms of admission. so all things being equal can you look at race as a way of redressing that. for years plainly it worked. it improved the number of minority students, university of texas -- there was a suit saying hey, this is simply reverse racism. supreme court has said we're not going to decide that. we're sending it back to the state court. you figure it out. they did it narrowly. we want more scrutiny of these programs. we would like you to look at whether or not this is a good idea. so, that's what we got today. >> hal: right. not much. on this particular story the woman, abigail phisher many

people claim she wouldn't have been admitted anyways because she didn't have the grades of all of the other minority people who also didn't get in. she had lower grades than other black people and hispanic people and i assume they probably don't put lgbt people. >> we could do this seriously or as a joke. seriously, we know that when there is an opening for a job and people have phone interviews and white people call and black people call, they're asked in pretty much equally for the followup if their credentials are there. and overwhelmingly, white people, in a face-to-face interview, are more likely to be hired. so we know that race is still a factor in what's supposed to be

a color-blind world. i always go back to the eddie murphy sketch. remember that one, "saturday night live"? >> hal: he dressed up as a white person and got on a bus. he tries to pay for a newspaper? they're like no, it's free. don't be silly. >> eddie murphy in a white face goes into a bank for a loan and having been turned down as a black man, in white face, they're reaching under the desk pulling out briefcase full of money saying take it! don't sign anything. >> hal: nobody's look. >> white people say to each other. that's essentially the point of all of this. it is funny until it happens to someone. until someone's life is changed because they didn't get a job or they didn't get a college education because they're black or hispanic. >> hal: it has always struck me that when you have -- the irony is a lot of kids who -- you know, fight their way through what are -- schools that clearly have fewer resources in

minority areas where you know, one of the biggest, i think attacks on minorities in this country is the tying of education funding to property taxes. because you guarantee without some sort of federal move in that poor minority people will -- who are already intrinsically in an area that is poor because of discrimination that it happened for decades they're barely getting out of will always have lesser capable schools and rich people in white neighborhoods who have had a safer, better neighborhood because of that privilege that comes with that, will always have better schools and their kids will always have a leg up over the other kids. >> you're saying beverly hills is more likely to do better than compton in the way they can fund their schools. i can't imagine how -- >> hal: i don't know. you have two a students. one kid who is an "a" student same grade point average.

they both have a 4.9 or whatever. >> you can do that now. >> hal: okay. one of them went to a school in compton. one went to school in beverly hills. one had every possible thing -- you know, that you could want. tutors s.a.t., support secondary education. you know, all over the place. space camp, you know. whatever. parents can afford every possible resource. the other kid had to go through a metal-detector every day. was shot at on his way to school a couple of times over the course and still got the exact same grades as the kid who had every possible protection. now, they're both up for college >> right. >> hal: the white kid who went to the beverly hills school automatically, under every test, every measure will get in. without affirmative action being in place. still to this day. that if you just look at the statistics, even grades, the fact that -- this kid in the

inner city school who went through hell to get his education, who literally bootstrapped in the worst possible circumstance -- >> but hal you've hit on something really important here. it is not just race. it is economic inequality. you came from rural kentucky. >> hal: right. >> so having to go through that and go through an education which is not the equivalent of what you get with space camp in beverly hills, it is the same thing. you have the advantage of being white but you have the disadvantage of not having had an economic background that necessarily allows for the same quality of education. >> my father made a distinct point about that when i was in high school. i was going to high school in kentucky. at the time, he knew that that was just kind of setting me up for failure. the education system there was not good. even though he couldn't afford it, he rented a guesthouse four blocks from the best high school in the country. i walked to school every day when i went to high school there. and that school is like a

university. it is a giant building. they have a huge football field. they have every possible resource. you have congresspeople's kids and senator's kids going to school there. wealth all over the place. kenilworth being one of the richest communities in the entire country. being part of that school district, it gets a flood of money. the distinction between the education system that i was exposed to at the high school versus franklin county high as much as they might try is night and day. >> how do you remedy that? you're on to -- precisely the problem which is that if you're basing it, funding on property tax and the community it is never going to be an equal playing field. it's not going to happen. but the court isn't even looking at that. that's really where our country's economic inequalities is the biggest issue. >> hal: horse is already out of the gate. trying to close the barn doors after the horses have left. the problem is early on and by

the way, i believe this is why a lot of your southern white racists will fight federal input into the education system and say we can do it fine on the local level because part of their plan on the local level is and has always been the black kids who go to this school, the white kids will go to this school. we'll fight busing as best we can and keep things segregated. franklin county high school which is where the majority white kids went and frankfort high where the majority of black kids went. frankfort high was below the floodplain level. in frankfort. and that's not surprising. it wasn't like decision people are making now. people in frankfort aren't that way now. really. but they were for so long that that's how it is set up. it will, without some sort of extra effort from the outside will remain that way even past the public moving on. we have to take a break. more with david bender and your calls. i also want to hear your

thoughts on the snowden deal because he's not on the flight. you know the funny thing is a bunch of reporters on the plane who couldn't get off in time. literally have been flown to cuba. the story is back there. we'll be back right after this. more of "the stephanie miller show." i'll hal sparks filling in all week for mama and the mooks. >> announcer: the following program is closed-captioned for the thinking impaired. it's "the stephanie miller show." garnering the industry's highest honors for getting real and going deep. >> we go in and spend a considerable amount of time getting to know the people and the characters that are actually living these stories. >> people who want to live a racist life freely move here because they feel like they can. >> the impact of phillip morris in indonesia is devastating.

>> hard news, no agenda. this is "vanguard". next, only on current tv.

current tv is the place for true stories. with award winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines. real, gripping, current. documentaries... on current tv. >> hal: hi, i'm hal sparks. i think steph is in the mountains of new mexico biking up a hill as they attach a rope

to it to make it harder for her. >> it is the death march. >> hal: it is for exercise. >> that's her vacation. >> hal: it is her ab program. >> she chains people to her. that makes it all the more -- >> hal: buns of steel. how about trail of tears? like she's crazy when she exercises. she races straight out of here and goes straight to spinning. >> can we do the theme from "bridge on the river kwai." it is so funny to me that that's what she views as exercise. i understand pushing yourself. stationary bikes have always confused me. you know what i mean? >> where am i going? >> hal: you're not going anywhere. too much of a metaphor for your life. i don't understand why i've been in the same place for seven years. get a bike with a second wheel. we'll take some calls there. has been a lot of stuff about -- nsa stuff i want to get to. since we were dealing with the affirmative action thing and the

funding of schools kathy from albuquerque is calling in. hi kathy. >> caller: good morning. new mexico has done something right in my opinion. we have what is called a school equalization formula and what happens is property taxes and general revenue taxes go to the state general fund every year, the legislature decides what the unit value is which roughly equates to one student so that every student, whether they live in the fanciest gated community or in the lowest poverty area has exactly the same amount of financial basic support. it is spread statewide. >> hal: how long have they been doing that? >> years and years and years. it is all available on the web site of the education department. but what it does, it assures that every kid has at least a decent foundation to start with.

>> this was not republican governor martinez. >> no. this has been in place for years and years and years. >> that's great news. >> hal: absolutely. unfortunately, it is the exception, not the rule. >> caller: right. >> hal: i appreciate it, kathy. that's the thing. it is so stark. you go to so many neighborhoods in this country if you've got nice houses, you've got a nice school. if you've got bad houses, you've got a bad school. it almost makes the kids to blame for the history of where their parents were either forced to live or found themselves living or were lucky enough to be born into living. there is a way to solve this. if you're going to fund it through property taxes put it all into one thing and level it out. and create a value so that every student is going to get the same amount. that makes perfect sense. the problem with things that make perfect sense what i call

no-brainers is usually they're administered by people with no brains. that's what we've seen every time the republicans get ahold of a program that actually is working. they work to dismantle it. >> hal: speaking of paul ryan, i think you noticed that -- i don't know if you saw him on morning joe this morning making the case that -- >> god, how did i miss that? >> hal: it's easy. just don't watch morning joe. it's difficult for me. i like mica a lot but sometimes it becomes this weird like -- you're the chick. we'll let you say a little bit. but we're going to -- slow down. don't get too much into the conversation. that kind of thing. >> he's a man's man. >> hal: he certainly is. paul ryan was on there saying he blames the democrats for the failure of the farm bill even though he himself did not vote for it. >> right. that sounds -- >> hal: without ever saying

why he didn't vote for it. >> everyone is pointing the finger at this. the fact is very clear. john boehner has lost control of the house of representatives. that assumes he ever had it but nominally, the speaker is supposed to be able to get votes. the only way john boehner can pass anything now is with democratic votes. how rye ronic is that? he has become nancy pelosi. >> hal: the interesting thing about it, did you see steny hoyer -- eric cantor was on the floor complaining they were promised 40 votes but it didn't deliver. they added cuts to snap after the democrats that already promise and not only did they lose the 40, they lost 60 of their own party who live in areas where they would get you know, like drummed out of office by a -- you know, a riot, the likes of young frankenstein.

>> here's the question. are we going to see the exact same thing on immigration? >> hal: yes. >> people are going to bail on both sides of the aisle? i suspect so. >> hal: the big thing is militarize the border. you know. lindsey graham said that bill actually ends up militarizing the border. to me, it seems like a big pork spending thing. these states that are in this area that has any kind of claim border problem or immigration problem will just get federal resource money they can do what they want with. and the big argument i guess is that they want it so that the congress decides whether the border is secure versus the president. the president can go okay, here's the data. right now we have net zero illegal immigration from mexico. more people being sent back. the same number of people being sent back that are getting in.

they're not the same people but we're doing that. we're at zero. >> it's even. >> hal: yes. what they want is that plus a wall and moats and -- >> alligators? >> hal: yeah. you know there's like rick scott's probably got an alligator farm. >> rick scott is an alligator. >> but this idea that we're militarizing the border. what is it, 40,000 new border security. >> hal: drones. >> folks, think about this. congress wants to oversee this as opposed to the individual states which -- you know, again federalizing something the republicans for years have been saying let's keep the federal government out of our states and now they're saying send in the troops. is there any consistency there? >> hal: look at jan brewer on

medicaid expansion and obamacare. believe me, once it starts showing up and this is something that the federal government will spend money on and we don't have to take it out of our state coffers, they hand it over in a heartbeat. >> my rule is make them take the check physically and a photo op with barack obama. >> hal: a big giant one like they've won the lottery. that might limit how many bills we would get through. we'll be back right after this. i'm hal sparks filling in for mama and the mooks while they're away on vacation, if that's what they call it. current tv is the place for compelling true stories. >> jack, how old are you? >> nine. >> this is what 27 tons of marijuana looks like. (vo) with award winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines, way inside.

(vo) from the underworld, to the world of privilege. >> everyone in michael jackson's life was out to use him. (vo) no one brings you more documentaries that are real, gripping, current.

(cenk) it's go time! it's go time! it's go time! go time. you know what time it is. go time! it's go time. it's go time. what time is it rob? here comes the young turks go time! it's go time. oh is it? oh, then it's go time.

anybody? anybody? what time is it? oh, right. it's go time! very, very excited about that and very proud of that. >>beltway politics from inside the loop. >>we tackle the big issues here in our nation's capital, around the country and around the globe. >>dc columnist and four time emmy winner bill press opens current's morning news block. >>we'll do our best to carry the flag from 6 to 9 every morning.

♪ >> hal: welcome back to the show. i'm hal sparks filling in for steph while she's away and joining me as a temp mook, i guess, is david bender. from progressive voices.com. and the a.p. political director at progressive voice.com. hosting the david bender show. >> we're doing politically direct and top of the hour. we're doing all sorts of things. we're on more than we can count. >> hal: it is increasingly necessary as we go into the 2014 cycle which is -- >> not a stationary bike. >> hal: no it is not. it has training wheels on it and a little ringer. before we get more calls about the nsa story because i do want to deal with that and i would love to have your take on these callers as well, i want to read

specifically what paul ryan said on morning joe this morning. >> please do. >> hal: the difference between his brain and reality. okay. so this is it here. he goes so when you're in divided government and when you're trying to bring bipartisan legislation to the floor, you have to keep your word on whether you're going to vote for something or not. he continued. i, before this bill came to the floor, said i wasn't going to vote for it. they knew that! some democrat said we will vote for it. then after the bill was brought to the floor they changed their minds and the bill went down. ryan add that the the worst thing about working in congress was a lot of people lie. he called basically the 40 democrats that voted against it, liars. now, i don't know if he's calling -- at the same time, the 64 republicans liars who weren't going to vote for it and ended up voting for it.

they look -- look you right in the eye and lie to you "washington post" columnist agreed. you know that they're doing it, ryan observed. well then i guess you wouldn't have counted on their vote. check this out. this is the telling part. minutes before bringing the farm bill up for a vote, the 62 conservative republicans like ryan who voted down the farm bill pushed through an amendment to limit the food stamp programs and undercut democratic support for the overall bill. he just called them liars and then lied about the content of the bill. >> right. >> he just looked in a camera and lied to the american people and said people will lie to you. this is the republican panic. i will complain that my enemy is doing exactly what i am doing and intend to do and pretend as if they're doing it first if at all. >> of course. and it works. the big lie always works.

when in doubt double down. blame the democrats. call it the liberal media. we haven't had a liberal media in this country if ever. we certainly haven't had it in 40 or 50 years. you'll hear that phrase constantly. >> what they do has worked for them. they lied their way in. they've lied about deficit reform. over time, people tend to think if you keep repeating a lie maybe there's some truth to it. >> hal: right. they wouldn't keep saying that. tho social bar -- that social bar we would muster, will not cross. they live in. by the way sometimes they tell the truth. for example like bill hemmer on fox news. >> formerly of cnn and -- >> hal: i used to do oscar

preshows with this guy. now, he's -- so weird. like they go over there and how much money? it is so weird. following the monday supreme court decision to send affirmative action to the lower court, hemmer noted the court had not yet handed down rulings on other things. it doesn't look like the gay american decision will come down today apparently. they have to give us something to talk about the rest of the week senior official judicial analyst andrew napolitano pointed out. we'll make something up hemmer shrugged. there you go. sometimes they tell the truth. sometimes. >> i have a policy called truth in broadcasting. finally, fox decided to adhere to it! we'll make it up! >> hal: openly said. if we don't have news we like to talk about we'll just make it up. by the way let's go to some calls. we have a bunch of calls. a lot of them are dealing with the snowden case and have been holding on for quite some time. let's go to don in illinois.

he's been holding for quite a awhile. >> caller: hal, let me take you off of speaker. can you hear me? >> hal: yep. >> caller: okay. the thing is what the snowden thing, what really puzzles me, it has probably been said before. he opened the door -- the terrorist groups can operate carte blanche now. they know how we operate. they know the organization's private organizations that are involved. they could even infiltrate them easily because all they have to do with their screening policies just slip somebody in there. what this is going to do is lend this -- agencies get wind of something that's going to happen and people that may be involved, well they could conceivably go deep underground. no communications -- outside of messages and stuff like that. they're behind the scenes. we'll never catch them.

>> hal: i totally get where you're coming from. i think the question really -- and thanks for holding on as long as you did too. the idea somehow that he let terrorists know and why -- the argument greenwald was making and what some are making is that it's not espionage because he didn't sell it to a particular government. and my -- what i was bringing up was that the government doesn't care if you leak to a specific person. that's the basis of the law because that's normally how people do things. but if you just set your classified info out loud in a mall someplace that's enough. you can do it for ideological reasons. if money isn't your motivation but the tearing down of the government was because you've created -- you're part of the hale-bopp cult and you blamed the san diego law enforcement

for why it failed and you never got to launch. you believe that the u.s. government needs to come down so you go underground for about five years and you go study something. you get your ged and then you get a job at booz allen and you get access to some stuff because you're an i.t. guy i've got all of the information. i'm going to let it out because my goal is bringing down the government, i don't need a particular group to do that. there are plenty of opportunistic infections out there that can take over. it is still espionage. it still qualifies. again, people who get confused think i'm defending the nsa's spying program and i'm not. i'm telling you why they can and will file charges against the guy. >> sure. >> hal: that's just a reality. if he doesn't -- you know, i'm not the first to say this but a lot of people are saying he's really doing this as a matter of pride and patriotism, come back. go to court. stand up. >> the problem is our laws no

longer reflect the reality of the world in which we law. it is about espionage against a nation where much of the computer system that is now carrying classified information is going to places like booz allen. these are private corporations. >> hal: right. >> i would suspect most of our multinational corporations know as much about our security systems as our nsa does. they have -- >> hal: booz allen designed the data mining and security systems for saudi arabia and the uae. they were hired to do it because they worked with the united states government. basically, the saudi government said we want what they got. they use the same systems we use. so why wouldn't they know the holes in it? >> hal the larger point this is what i'm trying to suggest is why doesn't he come back and stand trial and if we go back in time and look at daniel ellsberg and the pentagon papers, a time when this man stood on policy to

try to end a war he thought was unjust and revealed this information to "the new york times," this is a different world. this is a world where we're not at war with countries. we're at war with terror. which doesn't exist. >> hal: it is like being at war with the word boo. >> or booz. that's the point. if you're at war with ideas and you're at war -- not with governmental entities, china or saudi arabia or iran, you are -- you're dealing with a different situation wherein everybody is a citizen of the world. and where this information, by definition, is going to wind up eventually being available to everybody and we're kidding ourselves if we think there is anything like classified data. we've learned now after wikileaks and this, we've learned that's never going to happen. the barn door's not only open, it has been ripped off its

hinges. so what are we going to do? >> hal: the other thing the other big question is that you know, people are calling for open hearings about how the nsa works, open hearings about the programs. i think that's so blatantly fundamentally naive so as to be silly. i want -- because it is one thing to say have a hearing about the oversight. are our congresspeople being notified? you don't have to give me the details of it. there's program a and program b. did these congresspeople who are in charge of oversight hear about program a? did they hear about program b? okay. no. why didn't they hear about program b? because they're supposed to hear about -- i don't need to know the details of program b because it is secret for a reason. if i know it, everybody knows it. there is an element of we should have checks and balances that allows for us to allow that it is happening and people in

charge match the level of trust. which they don't. we have jeff sessions in sitting in there. >> michele bachmann. >> hal: louie gohmert. >> there is a conversation. >> hal: obviously we don't care who has access to the nsa trolling data because that's who's in there right now. that's -- the nsa is talking to. >> again, go back in time, hal. we did have oversight that actually held public hearings. the church committee hearings back in the '70s did this and they talked publicly about what we were allowed to know and in fact, it put people on the record. and they legislated. they changed it. they made fundamental reforms in the way our security systems worked and yet what's happened really in the last decade, since 9-11 is all that's gone out the window. anyone who suggests that we're not in a permanent national security state, in a permanent state of war undeclared is missing everything we see around us.

>> hal: i agree. should we be, no. >> no, we should not be. >> hal: but we are. >> how do we end that? >> hal: it is an act of undoing. maybe that's the valuable part of this. the valuable part, the whistle blowing aspect of what snowden brought up is valuable as is the stuff with assange. >> and bradley manning. >> hal: there are secondary factors where it doesn't. that's where it gets watery. because they're marching out of the woods as oppose to the just appearing -- >> we're the united states. we live under a constitution. but if we, in the name of protecting that constitution, do things which are fundamentally anti-american in order to feel secure, it was jefferson who said, you know, we would trade all of our civil rights for half an hour or half a day of welfare you can't put these things up to popular opinion. it's got to be what the constitution prescribed and we're not doing it.

>> hal: i agree. we'll be right back. 1-800-steph-12. i'm sitting here with david bender from progressive voices.com. bookmark it while we're in break. i'll be back right after this. >> announcer: it's not radio. it's "the stephanie miller show."

>> "viewpoint" digs deep into the issues of the day. >> has the time finally come for real immigration reform? >> with a distinctly satirical point of view. if you believe in state's rights but still believe in the you must be high. >> only on current tv. (vo) next, current tv is the place for compelling true stories. >> jack, how old are you? >> nine. >> this is what 27 tons of marijuana looks like. (vo) with award winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines, way inside. (vo) from the underworld, to the world of privilege. >> everyone in michael jackson's life was out to use him.

(vo) no one brings you more documentaries that are real, gripping, current. [ ♪ rock n' roll ♪ ] >> hal: i'm hal sparks. of course, i think part of the greatest parts of -- one of the elements of eddie van halen's talent is his ability to stay on time in his crazy guitar playing no matter where his brother was on the drums.

over here. the beat's over here. slow down. now, speed up! >> i gotta tell. >> story. true story. i had a meeting with the brothers van halen once about the possibility of a book. and eddie showed up -- i don't know, an hour after the meeting was called. and i've never seen anyone more quintessentially rock star. his shirt was open to his navel. he had a leather jacket on. hot day. wearing a leather jacket. he was swigging from an open bottle of wine. it was so perfect. you can't make -- and this image is burned into my brain. >> hal: like he came back from a keith richards impersonation contest. >> keith would lose that. eddie wins hands down. >> hal: so we're getting a lot of stuff on twitter. i'm at hal sparks on twitter. david, are you on twitter? >> the twitter machine? >> hal: oh, god. i'm going to at least get you on

pheed.com. >> i get to eat, too? >> hal: there are some snacks. there's a lot of -- by the way somebody on twitter noticed my mine craft shirt. you're welcome. there's a lot of stuff on here about you know, how people are feeling. snowden apparently has confirmed that he took the booz allen job with the express purpose of leaking the material that he got while he was there. >> and when you say he's confirmed that, how where? >> hal: i'm going to an article, scmp, south china morning post out of hong kong. snowden sought booz allen job to gather evidence on nsa surveillance. he secured a job with the u.s. government contractor for one reason to, obtain evidence on washington cyber spying networks, the south china post reveals. he sought a position at booz

allen to collect proof about the u.s. national security agency's secret surveillance programs ahead of planned leaks to the media. my position with booz allen hamilton granted me access to list of machines all over the world, the nsa hacked. he told the post on june 12th. that is why i accepted the position about three months ago. during a global online chat last week snowden stated he took pay cuts in the course of pursuing specific work. his admission comes as u.s. officials voice anger at hong kong and indirectly beijing and after the whistle-blower was allowed to leave the city on sunday. >> he knew what he was doing. okay. >> hal: his interview with the post it showed hacking by the nsa into computers in hong conand main link china. this is him talking to chinese media. i did not release them earlier because i don't want to simply dump huge amounts of documents wrought regard to their content. this is the assange -- the self--assanging he's doing. >> now a verb.

>> hal: asked if he specifically went to booz allen hamilton to gather evidence, he replied correct on booz. which is interesting what -- steph said to me when i called her. that was all i heard. his intention was to collect the information about nsa hacking into the whole world. the documents he divulged to the post were discovered in april. he had intentions to leak documents at a later date. i would like to make it available to journalists in each country to make their own assessment independent of my bias as to whether or not the network of operations against their people should be published. that sounds like espionage. >> but that sounds like an individual who is saying, as a citizen both of my country and the world, i see something that is wrong. i'm not defending it. i'm just making an observation. >> hal: nor am i defending the espionage charge itself.

that's where they're going to get it. >> of course. we're applying 19th century rules, you know, where you hang -- >> hal: exactly. >> to a 21st century universe that no longer acknowledges national boundaries. osama bin laden was not an afghani, a pakistani or nominally a saudi arabian. he was an individual who declared war on the united states. now, when individuals can take actions that have global consequences which is what this just has then the idea that we're dealing with he's a traitor to his country what does that mean anymore? that's where i think our mindset is so screwed up. >> hal: i think you're right. it is interesting to look at is this type of behavior american? is the nsa sweeping of data american and so by bringing this stuff up and out, is he in

violation -- is he fighting america or is he fighting a segment of the security state that is attempting basically a soft coup with the complicit fear-based support of the american people. >> which is a global security -- which is interrelated. >> hal: all of our allies. if you're not, you're with the terrorists. you know, that's what we're going to see more of. >> once -- of course, that's why you have to get me on twitter and pheed so i can understand better how everything is falling apart because once that has happened once we are linked instantaneously, the next big thing will be something that, in fact causes mass destruction. we'll see the immediate consequence of information putting out for someone or some group of people die as a result of that information. if that murder, you could make the case for it. but is it also, as it was in iran trying to save people from

being killed by their government. >> hal: the existence of twitter is almost solely responsible because of the jasmine revolution. iranian uprising. because it was an unimportant social media network. it became important because it was below the radar of how you could affect it and shut it down. 30 seconds left. thank you, david bender for being with us. thanks, eric boehlert for calling in. progressive voices.com and the a. p. political director, david bender. bookmark it. listen to it. find it on the tune in app. and we'll see you tomorrow as i fill in more on "the stephanie miller show."

we're up in the hillside overlooking the capital city of madagascar and it's a tongue

twister. i think i finally got it. atananarivo or atananariv-- city of about 2 million. where we are up in the here in madagascar is about as far as you can get from california and still be on planet earth. i think it was 36-hour transit 24 hours of those were spent on an actual plane.