even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watch and recorded. >> this week on "inside washington" a high school dropout gives up the family jewels. >> he gives me hope that we may actually regain our bill of rights. >> he's a trader. >> what about our right to privacy. >> reports at the national security agency have been monitoring the phone records and internet activity of citizens should concern every american. >> and syria is indeed using chemical went tons kill its own

people. what happens now? >> now every day that goes by is complicated. there are no good options. >> times change and the immigration system has to change with those times. >> the u.s. senate race in massachusetts. could republicans pull one out of the hat again?urn out in this election. >> the super secret national security agency is head quarterereded in maryland just outside of washington, d.c. the nsa is building another facility in the middle of the utah gadge jet where they will capture everything we say or text electronically, phone calls, internet searches, you name it the nsa has it.

a plan politico's roger simon describes as possesing all of the qualifications to become a grocery bagger. high school drop out hired as a c.i.a. guard,ed by the and claims he had access to just about everything. sbl when you see everything, you see them on a more frequent basis and you recognize some of these things are abuses. you captain come forward dens the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because they are so powerful that no one can meaningfully oppose them. >> we reject as faults the choice between safety and ideals. candidate obama becomes president obama and discovers that sometimes the demands of national security do challenge our ideals.

he's not the first president to experience that? >> he isn't. you are kidding yourself if you think otherwise. this is a classic tradeoff. i think the public understands that and accepts it. i don't see a great up swell of public upset. i think people understand it and they accept the tradeoff. >> the leaker edward is a hero, house speaker boehner thinks he's a trader. what about you charles? >> he hasn't gone to trial yet. but in a non-legal sense he's a trader, of course he is. if you had everier person in the army and intelligence deciding on their own what ought to be told the world and whatnot, you have no army and no intelligence. there is a certain obligation you take on when you enter the service. if you are disi solutioned you don't act on your own in a society of law. you go to the congress, you go

to a lawyer. you try to get your story out in a way that doesn't as you say give away the family jewels. and what is he doing in hong kong? is is a paragon of human rights. in 1997 it became a sovereign propty of china. i'm not sure who he is or why he's doing this. >> article three of the constitution defines treezen as giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the united states. do his actions meet that test? >> as charles says he hasn't been tried yet. i think there is too much we don't know about this young man. it is peculiar that he ends up in hong kong. some of what he says i am reasonably convinced is not true. he has exhibited a certain amount of grand osty. on the other hand he's produced facts. and to examine these programs is

to understand that even if you accept the fact that they are aimed at having information available if necessary and that they have all kind of safeguards and if you accept that and that material is necessary sometimes and has produced alerts about terrorist attacks, you still also have to accept the fact that there is enormous potential for abuse. and that we have not really examined that issue in public in any meaningful way. and this gives us an opportunity, i'm not sure it will actually happen, but an opportunity to do that. >> mark, what do you think of this young man? is he a hero or trader? >> i don't see he reach it is level of trader. no american secrets were revealed or disclosed. nothing was sold to the enemy,

nothing was sold to an entity or foreign country that is hostile to the united states. no agent's names were put at risk. no friendly sources were exposed. and so i don't see that. perhaps the most disengeneral youse statement of all from the white house i welcome this debate and think it's healthy for your democracy. the conservatives in the congress and liberals don't want to discuss this. you can't discuss it. now we want a debate on it. which is it? >> congress is an accurate reflection of the public mood. people live with this. congress have known about this for a long time. they could have blown the whistle but they haven't because they know there is a conflict between public privacy and security. you're never going to resolve it.

>> i appreciate the fact they briefed congress in a relatively forth right fashion. but when you are getting a briefing you don't know what questions to ask in many instances. >> they don't want to ask because it's not going anywhere. >> it's just wrong. this is the first time the versus out sec resi privacy versus what post 9/11 means has come home. it's been about what about rendition, what about guantanamo. all of a sudden it's come here. it's our lives and they are going to store this stuff indefinitely. and i tell you one thing that gets me going is this high school dropout business. what the hell, the snobbery of this city. we defer and general flect before phd and graduate students

like richard pearl. george bush was an mba from harvard. they took us into the worsr this country has entered in history and we're still paying for it. and we forget the fact that washington, d.c., lincoln, franklin and a lot of other great americans were high school dropouts. >> one person can do a lot of damage. , e thing about technology technology is a force multiplire for evil meaning that one person who has their hands on technology can do a lot of harm. >> how dows a high school dropout get access to this information? maybe i'm a snob. >> the dropout is irrelevant. the issue is did he have the training in the field? i understand he was with boos allen for three months and then

he disappears. he's one guy apparently from the testimony we've heard was going into places you are not supposed to go. it's not stuff he was authorized to do. he was breaking the rules and the law just in looking for this stuff let alone disemanating. where have you been for the last decade? we've had debate over debate over this. the patriot ability and the wire taps and then in 2011. we have always debated this. the cleblingting information about the outside of the envelope about the addresses where you don't look inside the envelope about the content of the phone calls. and we decided that is the correct line. >> i'm going to quote the "wall street journal" website. the individual privacy from the government thus a presence of the system that can harm, harass or invade the liberties of americans this.

is a recipe for disaster. >> charles makes the point we knew all along and in fact, we didn't. what happened to refresh people's recollection the bush administration did not go to them for warrants. when "the new york times" blue the whistle on that and the lid came off, the bush administration went to congress and asked for amendments to the law that had provided certain kinds of safeguards. most people, i have to say me included did not entirely understand the bedth of those amendments, the powers they took away actually from the court. to the 90 this year, this very year in the supreme court when there was a challenge to one of these programs, the government argued that it was pure speculation to suggest that people were being surveilled in the manner that was being suggested. four members of the court said

don't be ridiculous of course they are being surveilled because the government wouldn't be doing its job thund program if they weren't. so now all the people who were called paranoid because a majority of the supreme court said it was speculative, all the peopho wer being called paranoid and speculative now are being proved correct. >> we had a huge debate over granting immunity to the phone companies that gave over information so the whole damn country knew they had given over information. we're having a debate about it. it's as if you discovered the sun raises in the east. >> we're having a washington debate about it. i don't see the public outrage. i don't see people taking to the streets because they are upset about this. >> surveys indicate there is a divide about this. voters under the age of 30 who have grown up with this know you can have privacy but you can't

have both. there is a time let's be frank about it liberals have given this administration a wide birth but if it was president rick san or the rum or president rick perry. >> president bush. >> a new president bush, you'd hear an outrage and an uproar. >> let's note all of this information serve having a fit about, google and the other providers they have that information any way and they sell a great deal of it for commercial purposes. >> yes, they do. >> i feel almost everyone who talks about america for a living is missing a huge and essential story that too many things are happening that are making a lot of americans feel a new distance from the country they have loved . they are feeling a separation from this?

is there any truth to that? >> there is. but it's being fed by people on have ght and the left who an inherent distrust of the government. i'm not saying the government is trustworthy. it's not. but we don't -- >> but as a separation from the government, not their country. people still love their country. they are still americans but they do feel separation from the government. >> i think there is. i think there is more than a germ of truth. there is a core of truth here. it is almost impossible to love your country and hate your government. i know that becomes the tea party man tra but it isn't. in the final analysis of government is us. we are the government. >> in a democratic government most of all. >> we have a specific government today. we know where the i.r.s. is

harassing conservatives. the attorney general says i never heard of prosecuting a journalist when he was involved in that. it is a climate of distrust caused by a specific administration. >> chemical went seasons a game changer. what will the president do about syria? >> by a game changer i mean that we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us. >> that was president obama on april 30 of this year. earlier he said i have made clear that the use of chemical went seasons a game changer. the white house says the scope and scale of assist tons syria's rebel forces will increase now. over 90,000 people killed in the syrian war with chemical weapons. john mccain says if our military can't establish a no fly zone on syria then american taxpayer dollars have been waisted. stop his aircraft from flying down. shoot his aircraft.

how has the game changed now? >> it's all up to one man. the tragedy of this story it's all up to one man. the head of the c.i.a., defense department and state department a year ago, very senior people was we had to do something and he didn't do anything. he treats this instead of high state craft which it is as a c.s.i. episode. now he's depot the evidence. the tragedy is this: we're now at a point where the rebels are deeply in distress. they lost the town of can you sare. iran is in the game. the russians have flooded it with weapons this. is a civil war in which one side is participating. we have done nothing which has eld up the other side. we are now at a point where it could be too late. what was reported on friday, the

administration is thinking of increasing the military assistance, small arms and am in addition. they are getting hit by the most high-tech went tns russians and iranians have. too little too late. if that's all you're going to do, better to do nothing. >> spanish civil war. >> you asked the question, you get an answer. >> here is the key on this right now to me anyway. john kerri has pushed hard for this administration -- bill clinton broke on tuesday with this administration. what we're looking for is the most i losive subspecies in any civil war and that is the rebel who believes in relinches

pleuralism and democratic free elections. al qaeda is in this. you have al qaeda groups on the rebel side. it's a little bit like the athiest watching the methodist notre dame game. you don't know which side to root against. assad is the guy to root against in this one. it's a tough one. > i think obama was reluct tonight intervene. that's a healthy take. he's learned to be careful and not to get bullied. now eventually he had to say yes. i don't think he was wrong to resist intervening when you don't know what the unintended consequences are and you're aiding al qaeda. >> i'm with evan on this. i see no good outcome.

it doesn't matter what we do there is no good outcome. how deeply are we involved whand are the consequences after wards. >> obama played hamlet for two years. >> no, it isn't. >> let me explain. >> a year and a half ago the rebels were not dominated by al qaeda. t began as a revolt by syrians who were not al qaeda. they were the local people and that's when the help could have been decisive. assad was on his knees. >> there was no unified opposition to help. there were al qaeda people in there from the beginning the minute they saw the opening. this is not simple help one side. >> it's muchless simple here than libya. >> the point is you're denying the fact that the shift in the

composition of the rebels has never happened, that al qaeda was the dominant element from the beginning and that is simply false. >> i didn't say that. >> the resistence has little to do with syria and a lot to do with iraq and afghanistan. that is the war. >> the debate continues. >> a sog you're to have a rational and positive immigration program will choke this economy. it's not a good idea. >> it will be good for every worker here. every day we wait is a day we've lost. >> how about that? youhen the is the last time saw those two on the same page? >> i think it was the united way mable for the nationals redskins parade and that's it. >> quite bluntly to put it in

political terms. the senator from arizona says this makes it difficult for republicans to compete nationwide and state by state. it's tough to compete for people's votes on any issue when they believe you don't like them and that's where the republicans are right now. and john boehner has a real problem because you saw what they did last week. with steve cain in the lead from iowa they repealed the dream act which is enormously popular and hurt republicans in the 2012 election and i don't think it argues well for the immigration in the house. >> you don't think this thing is going to make it? >> right now i think what boehner wants to do is get the house judiciary committee to break it up bit sizes to pass something so he doesn't have to

deal with what the senate does pass and have an up or down vote in the house because they can't carry this in the house right now or if he does it's going to be a majority of democrats and minority of republicans and that's bad. >> this is a real test of functional government. when you have a lot of republican momentum as well as democratic, when you have all these forces in alignment and can't get it done. that's when americans ought to really be worried about congress. >> it is a situation of the tail wagging the dog. the smallest part of the base in republican party it's probably a third of the base or 40% of the base is now wagging the whole dog. and if we can't get this done as even says, when everybody seems to want to do it, it doesn't speak well for us.

>> charles, new gallop of american confidence in our institutions. congress ranks last out of 16. 10% approval rating. the lowest for any instuge on record. american confidence in the military 76%. > what's the confidence in general? >> 25. >> sa dam hugh sane is somewhere in between i bet. >> the problem is not in the house, it's in the senate right now. the guy who is not wagging the tail but leading the march marco rubio. he wants to fix this. he's made a huge concession to the democrats. he's going to do legalization before any enforce. . he swallowed it because there is no other way to do it. he says we'll legalize everybody. before you can get a green card and get citizenship we want to

have enforce. . that's where the argument is. they are asking and the gang of eight i thought agreed on the border so you know what is going on like in a war zone. and 90% interdiction. that should be the objective. if you have that the majority of americans will say republicans and democrats and conservatives will say that's okay. democrats are try to vote that down. if you don't have enforcement nobody will support it on the republican side. >> a word on the u.s. senate race in massachusetts. could the democrats boot this one again? >> he's going to try to prop him up. >> he may be a fresh face but he's promoting the stalest old republican ideas. >> that's a peek at the race in massachusetts for the u.s. senate seat vacated by john

kerry. ed mark ki has been in congress forever. that's a pretty good lineup when you consider where the weakness is in the last election for republicans. >> you described congress 10% of approval and ed mark ki has been in congress 27 years. >> they have carried by 20 points or more at the presidential level. >> could gomez be another scott brown? >> he could if there hadn't been a scott brown. he is from massachusetts. does like the red sox. does campaign. as a graduate of boston college. are the democrats worried? >> bill clinton the president of united states going to wither. the president of the united separatelymrs. obama

campaigning for him. >> they are not taking any chances. if there is anything they can do to make sure they don't have another scott brown situation they are going to do that. >> the president is speaking in oston on behalf of markey. the clip you didn't show was showing why it's in gridlock or break down and he said that's because what they care about is the next election and not the next general rapings. he said that. >> markey has been there so long but he is not a hack. he is a very smart guy who knows a lot. hat is a quality that has been deminshg on when i will. he knows what he is doing. >> a democrat honored this week

as the longest serving member in congress in history. quite an achievement mark. >> quite an achievement. and one thing i remember about john dingle was in 1925eu6 civil rights revolution. it wasn't just a southern thing. it was very much more than industrial areas and john dingle put at risk his own career by voting for the act in 1965. the "wall street journal" said 50 to 1 chance he won't be re-elected. and he was. >> we'll see you next week.