captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> when it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. >> woodruff: president obama today vigorously defended government surveillance of phone and internet activity. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the "newshour" tonight: we get the latest on the secret data mining of calls, emails, videos and credit cards to prevent terrorism attacks. >> woodruff: margaret warner wraps up her series of on-the-ground reports in lebanon: a closer look at the country's delicate sectarian politics, strained by the fallout from the syrian civil war. >> the tidal wave of mostly sunni refugees could also upset the demographic balance in lebanon, among sunnis and shias and a major combatant in lebanon's civil war, the

christians. >> brown: mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> woodruff: and gwen ifill has the story of one chinese woman's search for her jailed dissident father and the novel inspired by her experience. that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i want to make things more secure. >> i want to treat more dogs. >> our business needs more cases. >> where do you want to take your business? >> i need help selling art. >> from broadband, to web hosting, to mobile apps, small business solutions from a.t.&t. can help get you there. we can show you how a.t.&t. solutions can help your business today. >> more than two years ago, the people of b.p. made a commitment to the gulf. and everyday since, we've worked

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station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: revelations that the government is checking up on phone calls, web traffic and credit card sales prompted the president to speak out today. he said intelligence officials are trying to keep the country safe from terrorism and they're doing it under close supervision. it's now known the national security agency is running three highly classified surveillance programs. the first to be publicized collects phone call data from millions of verizon, a.t.&t. and sprint customers. last night, director of national intelligence james clapper also confirmed the existence of prism, targeting the internet. it taps into the central servers of nine major u.s. companies, including google, apple, yahoo, and facebook, to access e-mails and other files. today, the "wall street journal" reported the n.s.a. also

catalogues credit card transactions. hours later, president obama defended the n.s.a.'s activities, at a stop in san jose, california. >> nobody is listening to your telephone calls. that's not what this program's about. they are not looking at people's names, and they're not looking at content. but by sifting through this so- called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism. now, with respect to the internet and emails, this does not apply to u.s. citizens, and it does not apply to people living in the united states. >> brown: the programs began in 2006, and the president said they've been monitored by congress and the courts all along. >> bipartisan majorities have approved them. congress is continually briefed

on how these are conducted. there are a whole range of safeguards involved. and federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout. >> brown: many in congress support the surveillance, while other lawmakers, along with civil libertarians, have voiced alarm. mr. obama said that's all to the good. >> i specifically said that one of the things that we're going to have to discuss and debate is how were we striking this balance between the need to keep the american people safe and our concerns about privacy, because there are some trade-offs involved. and i welcome this debate. >> brown: at the same time, the president denounced the leaks that triggered the debate. >> i think that there is a suggestion that somehow any classified program is a quote- unquote "secret" program, which means it's somehow suspicious. but the fact of the matter is,

and if every step that we're taking to try to prevent a terrorist act is on the front page of the newspapers or on television, then presumably the people who are trying to do us harm are going to be able to get around our preventive measures. >> brown: the president said he plans to address the issue further, in coming days. for more on what is known about the n.s.a.'s programs we turn to two reporters who've been covering this story. siobhan gorman of "the wall street journal," and charlie savage of "the new york times." charlie, tell us first more about the collection of data on the internet. what do we know about how extensive it is and how it works? >> well, people who pay attention to this world may remember that in 2008 congress passed a law called the fisa amendments act which retroactively or going forward legalized a form of the warrantless surveillance that president bush had been conducting outside of statutory

authority and an element of that was that surveillance aims at foreigners overseas did not need to have individualized warrants even if that collection was taking place on u.s. soil. you could get a basket surveillance order that would be good for up to a year aimed at, say, surveilled suspecting al qaeda targets in pakistan. that would include e-mails to and from those people, even if they were communicating with people inside the united states. and so what prism seems to be is the manifestation of that program that's called 702 orders in the world -- this universe, going to internet companies, at least nine of them, who are participating in the program by, when being presented with these orders and requests under them, turning over information about e-mails and other electronic traffic that they have about the overseas targets and the people they're communicating with. >> brown: shiv sean, we also learned today that the data collection program on the phone call which is first came out

yesterday goes beyond verizon. >> yes, we were told it's the lee major carriers so it's verizon, at&t and sprint nextel. they have the same standing orders from the fisa court, the secret surveillance court. >> brown: today you reported on the cataloging of credit card transactions, that was new today. tell us what you can about that. what do we know? >> well, my understanding is that it's -- there have basically been a whole host of transactions that have been swept up in the wake of the september 11 attacks and this has been sort of an evolution. so one of the sets of transactions that has been funneled through the databases is credit card transactions. i do want to be careful what i was told. it's not clear there are standing orders for credit card transactions but there's certainly that data has been incorporated into these database vetting search types of investigations as well.

as have lots of different types of information from data brokers which you can -- one can buy, you can buy it for direct marketing purposes. but in this case it's just being used to collect as much information as possible to balance it against leads and things like that. the intelligence officials pick up in the course of their terrorism investigation. >> brown: you're saying, though, it's not clear whether that program continues. whether that's ongoing. >> right. i mean, it may be the kind of thing that -- something they do periodically for different purposes. >> brown: charlie, we heard the president say "no one is listening to your calls." so flesh this out a bit. explain what -- what is going on in the search for data. >> well, so he's referring specifically to the first of these now three major intelligence disclosures over the last three days. and that involves the calling log data that siobhan was just referring to from sprint and verizon and at&t. what this appears to be doing is

assembling a giant library of calls made inside the united states and calls made between the united states and abroad. not the contents of those calls but this number called that number at such and such a date from such and such a location. and when you have -- but all of them. ordinary people's calls are being logged in here. but that doesn't mean that what they're saying to people is being eavesdropped upon. it appears this database is being used so that when they learn that someone is suspicious they want to quickly see who that person was talking to and who was talking to those people without having to go back to the phone companies and present individual orders and that would slow down the process and/or maybe the phone companies would have disposed of the data after some time for their own business purposes. however, one question that's arisen around this program is whether it's necessary for the privacy cost that's incurred-- especially now that we all know-- every time you call someone that's going to be a permanent record in the government that you did so.

could the government not just take that exextra step of getting those subpoenas when they need them about a specific person in the community of interest surrounding them? does this really need to be stored forever, everybody's phone call record? that will be one of the conversations that's unfolding in days to come. >> brown: siobhan, let me start with you on this. let what do we know about how the data has been used so far? we've had several members of congress, i think, refer to the program actually helping to stop terrorists. do we know any details? do we know how all this has been used? >> well, yes. lawmakers have said that there was at least one significant terrorist plot that was thwarted several years ago. we've still been waiting to get detail which is apparently they're working to get declassified but but it sound like that won't happen today. i was told that one of the primary values that intelligence officials see in this program is that it allows you to sort of rule in and rule out different individuals and locations. so if you get a lead, a

particular individual, you can do this so-called link analysis to try to see who they're connected to and you can see, well, do they have -- is this an overseas person? who has some sort of significant connection in the united states? if so, what other investigative action cans they take? what officials have taken pains to describe in recent days is that there are very specific standards that the investigators have to adhere to when they were going through database. one official who i spoke with yesterday said that a fraction of 1% of the data has actually been viewed in the course of these searches. >> brown: charlie, one more just in our last minute here. there's been talk about when this information -- when investigators go to the courts. there's been talk about how much congress has been notified about these programs. what can you tell us so far? >> well, what appears to be clear is that a lot of people in

congress knew about this, were well briefed about it and notwithstanding some voices like senator widen in particular and mark udall who have been warning about what this section of the patriot act is underlying this phone record collection, they've been raising alarms about that oe peekly for years, their colleagues who knew about this thought it was okay because they kept reauthorizing the law that this is based upon. so president obama's defense today is this is not illegal, all three branches of government are on board for it, the courts are overseeing it, congress authorized it and oversees it and so therefore there are no rule of law concerns. obviously civil libertarians might beg to differ on constitutional grounds but certainly it will be an uphill climb to make that case with three branches of government behind it. >> brown: okay, charlie savage, siobhan gore man, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: still to come on the "newshour": margaret warner

on lebanon's sectarian split; shields and brooks on the week's news and the harrowing story of a search for a father that inspired a new novel. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman. >> holman: more people went out looking for jobs last month, and more people found them. the labor department reported the may numbers today. it said unemployment rose a- tenth of a point to 7.6%, as the ranks of job seekers grew. the economy actually added 175,000 jobs, about what was expected. wall street moved sharply higher on the jobs report. the dow jones industrial average gained 207 points to close at 15,248. the nasdaq rose 45 points to close at 3,469. for the week, the dow gained nearly 1%. the nasdaq rose 0.4% gunfire broke out today near a college in santa monica, california. police said a man began firing at vehicles from a street corner. they said at least one person was killed and several wounded. one suspect was in custody. at the time of the shooting,

president obama was attending a fund-raising luncheon about three miles away. the president was also opening two days of talks with his chinese counterpart, xi jingping. cyber-security figured high on the agenda. the u.s. has publicly accused china of hacking into american business and defense systems. china denies it. president xi arrived yesterday with his wife, at ontario international airport outside los angeles. they were greeted by california governor jerry brown. the f.b.i. arrested an east texas woman today for allegedly sending ricin-tainted letters to president obama and new york mayor michael bloomberg. a third letter went to bloomberg's group that lobbies for gun control. the woman was identified as sharon guess richardson of new boston. the f.b.i. said she initially claimed her husband sent the letters. the u.s. senate formally opened debate today on a bill to overhaul the country's immigration system. ray suarez has our report. >> reporter: prospects for

immigration reform have been clouded for years, but senate supporters expressed hopes today they can break through. >> the majority leader... >> reporter: senate majority leader, harry reid talked optimistically of passing the first overhaul of immigration laws since 1986. >> our system is broken. it needs to be fixed. it is gratifying to see the momentum behind this package of common-sense reforms, which will >> reporter: similar efforts died in 2006 and 2007, and opponents, including alabama republican jeff sessions, argued this bill is no better because it means amnesty first, before border security. >> the legislation right here before us would immediately give legal status, allow people to move toward legal permanent residence and citizenship later. and they have to pay a few >> reporter: the senate bill worked up by eight senators from both parties would provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented people in a process that would take 13 years;

applicants would have to pay a fine and back taxes, learn english, and pass a criminal background check, among other things. but first, backers need 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle and move forward to weeks of debate and final action. democrat patrick leahy of vermont urged senators today to let the process play out. >> we represent over 300 million americans. they're counting on us not to use stalling tactics but to stand up. vote for, or vote against. >> reporter: hoping to muster those 60 votes, majority leader reid pledged to allow as many amendments as possible, with a deadline of july fourth to finish work. utah republican mike lee dismissed that offer. >> there is no series of tinkering changes that will turn this mess of a bill into the reform the country needs and that americans deserve. >> reporter: meanwhile, in the house, bipartisan talks are ongoing, but republican raul

labrador of idaho pulled out this week over objections related to immigrant health care. and yesterday, the chamber voted along party lines to block funding for a 2012 presidential order that delays deportations of young, undocumented immigrants. >> holman: michigan congressman john dingell is now the longest serving member of congress, ever. after 57 years in office, he passed the late west virginia senator robert byrd today. the veteran democrat is 86, and was first elected in 1955. he supported landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960's and also played a key role in creating the medicare program. tropical storm andrea lost some punch today as it blew across georgia and the carolinas. sustained winds dropped to 45 miles an hour, but the storm still was strong enough to whip up heavy surf. it also was dumping as much as six inches of rain as it passed.

andrea made landfall yesterday on florida's gulf coast. the gray wolf may lose most of its remaining wildlife protections against hunting and trapping, in the lower 48 states. the u.s. fish and wildlife service proposed the move today, over the objection of environmental groups. the wolves were placed on the endangered species list in 1974. there are now more than 6,100 in across ten states. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: in the final story of her overseas reporting trip to lebanon, margaret warner looks at the tenuous peace among the country's various religious sects and whether it can survive as the conflict in syria moves deeper inside lebanon's borders. >> reporter: in a high end jewelry store in the hamra district of beirut, owner elie nawbar is entertaining a diverse set of friends. >> he is a shiite, and i'm a christian, and he's a muslim

sunni, and we live together. and i'm very close friends. >> reporter: and you want to keep it that way. >> yes. this is lebanon. >> reporter: nawbar spent much of lebanon's brutal 15-year civil war, ending in 1990, in london, but he's back in business here and convinced that even under the sectarian strains inflamed by syria's civil war next door, his countrymen won't let it happen again in lebanon. >> and they know what this means: war. nobody wants it anymore. >> reporter: but plenty of other lebanese aren't so confident, as they live amid reminders of the city's savage past. people from all walks of life, like this store clerk on beirut's waterfront promenade. >> ( translated ): people here don't like each other. it's not easy to live here anymore. the situation in syria is affecting lebanon, and all the people here are scared. >> reporter: sharing her fears on the water's edge below, a 50-

year old fisherman who lived through the civil war. >> ( translated ): people are very scared, but what can we do? >> reporter: no wonder they're scared: as militias of lebanon's shiite party hezbollah fight for their syrian ally, president bashar al assad, sectarian fighting plagues tripoli; and sunni and shiite villages in the bekaa valley suffer regular rocket strikes. all this is putting at risk the delicate agreement made after the civil war, giving sunni and shia muslims, christians and 15 other sects each a piece of the governing power pie. so says paul salem, director of the carnegie middle east center. >> the lebanese have found a way to coexist and manage their tensions without major confrontation. that arrangement is coming under a lot of stress because of the conflict in syria.

>> hassan nasrallah, what he did effectively he entrapped lebanon into the syrian quagmire. >> reporter: hezbollah's engagement in the syria conflict, led by hassan nasrullah, has angered many including: former prime minister fouad siniora. >> this is endangering the political situation, the social cohesion of the entire country, as well as the economic and social consequences in lebanon that are very devastating. >> reporter: as head of a moderate, largely sunni bloc in parliament, siniora joined with other factions to forge an official government policy of neutrality in the syria conflict. but that policy was always a sham, says newspaper editor ibrahim al amine, who is close to hezbollah and its leader. >> ( translated ): no lebanese can say he is not concerned with what is going on in syria. in lebanon, there are two sides: one force supporting the syrian regime and another supporting the opposition. the forces supporting the opposition started acting on the ground first, before hezbollah

did. the difference is, hezbollah's capacities are much greater. >> reporter: there's little dispute about the economic damage the syrian war has brought here. on a visit to hezbollah- dominated baalbek, home to majestic roman ruins, cab driver sayed hassan tried to insist tourists were still coming, until a fellow cabbie jumped in. >> ( translated ): what is wrong with you? you tell them there are tourists? look inside the shops, they are all empty! there is not work and no tourism here. >> reporter: business is bad down the road in mashgara too for this owner of a roadside shawarma eatery, now that most legal trate between lebanon and syria has been shut down. >> ( translated ): the economy has become very bad because all the products i got were cheaper and came from syria. now everything is very expensive because the road is closed.

>> reporter: this business owner also happens to be a shiite refugee from syria, who fled after sunni rebels burned out his restaurant and home near damascus. he's part of another war-related stress on lebanon-- the waves of syrian refuge and he is one of the luckier ones in the shadow of a new, saudi-funded mosque outside the sunni border town of arsal, we found the unlucky ones, struggling to put up tents. most didn't bring money, but many brought new-found sectarian passions. 30-year old sunni khadija jamal alahmad trekked here with her ten children after her husband was shot. >> ( translated ): the shiites attacked us and they left nothing. they burned the house and we had a shop but it is all gone now. >> reporter: how do you explain to your children why they are here and why you left? >> the children know everything. i don't say anything to them. they saw how people were being killed and how the fighting was going on. >> reporter: how do you feel now

about shias? >> ( translated ): i hate them. >> reporter: all shia? >> ( translated ): yes. all of them. >> reporter: even with an influx of one million refugees into a country of just four million, the government won't allow official camps. so poorer syrians make do in garages or empty buildings. working and middle-class syrians have rented apartments, driving up prices. tripoli restaurant manager roula sidawi says they are also taking lebanese jobs: >> ( translated ): the syrian worker gets paid ten times less than the lebanese worker, so the boss fires the lebanese and hires the refugees. >> reporter: so is there resentment among lebanese of the syrian refugees? >> ( translated ): a lot. >> reporter: the tidal wave of mostly sunni refugees could also upset the demographic balance in

lebanon, among sunnis and shias. and a major combatant in lebanon's civil war, the christians, though they're an estimated 35% of the population, many worry they'll be persecuted or driven out, as christians in iraq and egypt were, after political upheaval brought islamists to the fore. at a mountaintop shrine to the virgin mary, joelle karam voiced that fear. >> christians here are leaving the country, they are leaving lebanon. >> reporter: but beirut's melkite greek catholic arhcbishop, cyril bustros, says christians here need not fear or flee, if they keep their heads down. >> ( translated ): they cannot be caught in the war if they don't collaborate in and participate in the war. 2,000 years we are here and there is no way that we will leave the country to the muslims. so we have to stay here. >> reporter: but on a carefree night, the kind that makes

beirut a magnet for so many in the middle east, young partyers of all sects told us they would just as soon leave, than watch their country slide, again, toward instability. so did three friends who had sought out a quiet restaurant nearby. zalfa halabi is due to graduate soon from prestigious american university of beirut. >> we're not sure what's going to happen next, and so our lives are sort of on hold, not >> reporter: but graphic artist bane fakih, also on the verge of graduating, dreams of british columbia, not beirutbane fakih. >> i really don't want to live what my parents lived, because i know, they told us stuff, and it seems really ugly. >> reporter: amidst the revelry that is still beirut, a sobering warning for lebanon. >> brown: on our world page, read personal stories of three syrian refugees who fled to lebanon.

>> brown: and to the analysis of shields and brooks, syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. hello, gentlemen. so, first this revelation over the last few days that the u.s. government is collecting massive amounts of information, phone records of u.s. citizens, david and listening to or collecting internet e-mail communications of foreign citizens. reaction? >> well, it's worrisome. i, on balance, think it's justified. i think the president's basically right on this and the most bipartisan leaders of congress are right. we live in a world of big data. we live in the world of gigantic databases where people are collecting large amounts of information. the stuff being done on american citizens is not the content of the calls, it's the network of connections. there is a fisa court review, there's congressional review, the targets are reasonably

narrow. i worry about this being abused later on. but as i understand the program right now i think it's a reasonably supervised policy to try to control terror and balance it off with the normal privacy concerns. >> woodruff: not troubled by it, mark. >> to those in america that were worried that those in washington aren't listening to what they have to say, they ought to be reassured. judy, every administration since i've been in washington has a bottomless appetite for secrecy and information and intelligence taeufplt just love it. i don't know what it is presidents but we talk so glowingly about the need for an informed citizenry and yet they get information, they want to hold it and it's what daniel patrick moynihan called the culture of secrecy is epidemic in this city and i would just say to my friend on the left who defend this that do you imagine the same kind of power and

authority with president donald trump? with a president rick perry? with a president rick santorum? it's one thing to say, oh well, president obama is sensitive and all of these things. i just -- i really think it's a real problem. it's been a problem in this country. we classify too much. we keep too much from our citizens and this is an example, i think, of it's going too far. >> i agree in part we have a national security state which is gigantic and overblown. hundreds of thousands of people have top security clearance so i agree with that part. and i agree with the penchant for secrecy. i blame it on the fact that if you're in the national security apparatus your disaster if there's an event so you'll do anything possible to prevent an event but your career won't hang on if somebody's privacy is violate sod their interests are all over here. i worry about that, too. nonetheless, when you fight wars or when you involve international conflict conflicte there are enemies you have to have -- citizens have to have some trust in the authorities.

authorities have to have some power to do things that they think are right. and as long as there's a court review-- as ther there is-- as g as there's some oversight, we as citizens have to say we'll trust the authorities to some degree. >> woodruff: that's what the president said today, right? he said there are protections, there's the constitution, the so-called fisa court. >> the fisa court i have yet to see a decision made by the fisa court. it's a -- >> woodruff: this is a special court that was set up a few years ago. >> 11 judges but we don't know what goes on. one side presents and i don't know of the number of rejections that the fisa court has given. i guess where i disagree with david is it's very seductive to become part of this intelligence community. because we're doing it because we're protecting you. we're taking care of you. we're going to make sure you're safe and anything that's done in that name. we went through the entire cold war, that was a real threat. that was a real threat. and the soviet union and the intelligence community-- which

was closed off and completely cloistered and nobody could go near it-- was absolutely wrong. as late as 1989 it was saying the soviet union was getting stronger economically, militarily, it was a bigger threat than it was and george canon predicted 50 years earlier it would implode, the seeds of its own destruction were there. and i think that you have to trust your citizenry. you have to open up to debate. barack obama ran on transparency and open debate. i don't see that being present in this. >> pelley: . >> a couple things. first, we live an age of data. what the government has done to our phone records, private companies are doing that every single day. if you have a credit card, they're looking at the vast array of spending patterns every single day. this is happening to us every single day. this is part of the age we live in. should we have known that they are doing this to the phone records? to some extent we already did know this but we probably should have known. the secrecy of the program was a mistake, i agree.

>> woodruff: in other words, you're saying the government should have told everybody "we're doing this." but then the other argument is they're telling the terrorists. >> if you're aa terrorist you assume the phone records are being used in this way. but they stillave the responsibility if they see somebody -- if they see these boston guys, the bombers, calling some number and then they want to trace the links to that number, it seems to me that's a legitimate piece of information that they should have. now, the second question is-- and charlie savage, my colleague, raised this earlier-- should we just -- instead of collecting big reames of data, when they have a suspicion should they have to go back and get a separate subpoena so it's a much narrower set of data? that seems to be a legitimate argument we have to hear answered. >> can i just respond to david's point about visa and mastercard and my saoeufway card? safeway knows whether i bought ben & jerry's and i should haven't bought ben & jerry's last week but visa and mastercard, they have that information and we know they have that information.

they can't indict you. they can't -- >> fair enough. >> they can't go after my taxes. i mean, a federal government with that kind of power and without restraint can do that. i mean, it's really giving an enormous amount of power. >> that's fair enough. if i could make one political point. usually-- and this is arguing against my point sort of-- the people, the voters more or less side with security. but following the i.r.s. scandal, following the other affairs, the justice department stuff, i think the politics of this may switch -- there may be more -- people may be more appalled by this program. >> woodruff: quickly to both of you. you both agree the media was right. the news organizations were right to report this once they found out? that that's not a violation. >> i do. >> woodruff: all right, let's move on to another announcement this week, david. the president announced that he's -- wants susan rice, the u.n. ambassador, to become his national security advisor. a woman who's been an his national security council staff

masamantha power to be his u.n. ambassador. what does it mean? >> i think they're outstanding picks. he has tended to pick people who are more staff-oriented, more process oriented. but power and rice are -- they can do process fine but they are strong advocates for positions. they're idea-oriented. they're aggressive, strong individuals so i think they will widen the frame of debate. so i think they're outstanding picks on that regard. as far as whether they shift foreign policy one way or the other, they're known as -- i guess the phrase is liberal hawks. they're willing to use power to prevent humanitarian disasters in some circumstances. they were both among the more aggressive forces on whether we should do libya. that's not to say all circumstances. they have not been aggressive as far as i know on syria, for example. but they tend to be a little more aggressive on wanting to prevent humanitarian disasters believing it's in america's foreign policy interest. so i think they're both outstanding. >> woodruff: do you agree? >> i don't question david's

assessment of either individual. i find it fascinate that when barack obama became president that his secretary of state was hillary clinton, the secretary of defense was bob gates. now he has his national security advisor with jim general jones former commandant of the marine corps. now he has in position chuck hagel at secretary of defense, john kerry as secretary of state who will soon have susan rice as national security advisor and pending senate ratification man? that power as u.n. ambassador. all of whom supported him for the nomination and for election. i mean -- >> pelley: you're saying that's different? >> they're loyalist. well, hillary clinton didn't support him. leon panetta was not an intimate or supporter, even the successor of bob gates, bob gates did not support him. jim jones was not campaigning in iowa for him. >> pelley: what does that say? >> well, it says there's a pulling in of loyalty -- and i'm

not saying loyalty rumps ability because these are able people. i think in the case of susan rice there's no question this was very personal with the president. he likes her, he's close to her, he appreciates her support, particularly in 2008 and he knows she was hung out to dry on benghazi, that his administration -- >> woodruff: the so-called talking points. >> it wasn't petraeus, it wasn't clinton, it wasn't panetta who did the five shows, she did it and paid for it. >> woodruff: she couldn' couldne secretary of state so he's making her national security advisor. >> i think that's it and i think he really felt an obligation as well as an emotional commitment. >> woodruff: change in foreign policy direction? >> i doubt it. obama runs his own foreign policy. there may be more of a ting toward this humanitarian interventionist side but he runs his own policy. >> i haven't heard either one of them mention the word "syria" in public. apparently the damascus moment for susan rice in her career was rwanda in the clinton administration and she's become

-- that would never be repeated. that was on her watch and she feels an enormous sense of obligation but i haven't heard her or samantha power. >> woodruff: let's bring it home finally. domestic -- a political story. new jersey this week lost long time senator frank lautenberg, a democrat. the republican governor, mark, chris christie, after a few days, announced that he will have a special election four months from now and he named somebody as a caretaker, the state attorney general. but, david, what does it say that christie is having a special election which just happens to be a month before his own standing for reelection as governor of the state? >> he's an astonishing governor who wants to be reelected. so he's a republican in a democratic state so he decides i don't want to run on the same ticket where there's a popular democratic senatorial candidate who will probably win and bring in democratic votes so he's got a lot of flexibility, he can schedule the election when he wants and he decide to schedule

it 13 minutes before his own election. to sort of get it all out of the wa +*eub way. a couple weeks before. but, you know, he wants to win and he's using power to do it. is it inexcusable? i think it's an excusable use of power. >> woodruff: excusable. >> is it totally on the up and up? no, it's a political maneuver. >> what made him special is he was a tell it like it is different not your typical poll, as bury park, new jersey, august of 2012 hurrican hurricane sands coming and he goes down there and says "get off the beach." nobody else in politics does it, people cheer. he is different and this makes him a poll. this was too cute by half. this was a way of saying we're going to have an election, okay, the democrats will have a primary because that means two house members can run and not jeopardize their seat bus at the same time, judy, what it means is that he will not face, as david put it, a popular democrat

on the ballot, risk his margin. all he's talking about right now is his margin. >> woodruff: you mentioned it will cost -- >> $24 million. holding down meals on wheels for people. >> he was never mother teresa. he was a politician. >> but he was different. it wasn't such a self-serving -- this was so transparently self-serving plus he wouldn't even let poor frank lautenberg be buried before he started speculating about the thing. >> woodruff: nothing self-serving about the two of you, david and mark, thank you. >> love you'rings. >> woodruff: on our home page, you can watch their conversation from 2007 when the issue of n.s.a. wiretapping first dominated the news. catch that and don't miss a special double header live with mark and david on june 21. >> brown: we'll be back shortly with the story of a young chinese woman's search for her father that inspired a new novel. but first, this is pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support. and that support helps keep programs like ours on the air.

>> woodruff: this week marked the 24th anniversary of the tiananmen square protests. gwen ifill has our book conversation, about a young chinese woman named in honor of that revolt and her fictional counterpart. in it, two american high schoolers set out to find a missing political dissident. the fictional girl and the real life woman who inspirespired ths

story share the same name, ti-anna. fred hiatt was inspired by the search forty jana's father. thank you both for joining us. brad, tell me how you two met? >> we went about five years ago when ti-anna came to washington after graduating high school trying to bring attention to her father's case. she submitted an op-ed to the "washington post"-- about we get 100 a day-- but this one was extraordinary. and we published it and i said "would you have a cup of coffee with me?" and that's how we met. >> ifill: how did you know this story would get attention? >> i'm from canada and i was trying to bring attention to my father's case and submitting an op-ed was one way someone else told me i should try so i didn't. i never thought that it would be published and that later on a book would come of it.

>> ifill: ti-anna, tell us the story of the realty anna, including the origin of your name. >> okay, so i'm named after tiananmen square, june 4, and i was born in 1989 and my father who was a well-renown political dissident at the time decided that he wanted to name me in commemoration of his colleagues who died that night. and also in celebration of the ideals that the students were -- had sacrificed their lives for. my father was a political dissident. he moved to the united states in 1982 to found the overseas chinese democracy movement, a cause that he gave himself to. and he -- for 20 years he advocated for democratic change in china until 2002 when he was kidnapped from vietnam, forced into china, and eventually arrested and sentenced to life in prison where he has been ever since. >> ifill: how do you compare

yourself to your fictional counterpart? >> i can't compare at all. she's -- it's kind of strange to be fictionalized into a a heroine of sorts. you can't help but make a sort of comparison and the fictional ti-anna, she's pretty great. she's -- (laughs) she's smart and courageous and very filial and i think it's good because it's a -- i think it's good to have someone kind of almost someone to look up to in this book. >> ifill: fred, why a young adult book? this could have been a churn's book. this could have been an adult novel. why this particular -- i know you have a child reading teen lit now. >> yes. >> ifill: but what about this story lends itself to that? >> it's a story of adventure and of a friendship between these two that i thought would work for kids but i did also think that, you know, there are a lot of young readers who are interested in the world and just

interested in human rights and human trafficking which also comes into this story and i don't have anything against zombies and vampires but for kids who might want to move to something else it would -- it might be good to have a story that deals with some of these issues. >> ifill: do you feel that in your using this this way, telling the story as a way of getting to an issue that otherwise we don't talk about that much and -- imprisoned dissidents and human rights issues in a place like china where the u.s. is trying very hard to work with these days? >> yeah. and this story was a way that might provide an opening for kids to start thinking and talking about those issues. >> ifill: ti-anna, now you live in taiwan? you're studying language? mandarin. >> correct. >> ifill: tell us about your father. when is the last time you saw him? what is happening with him? >> so my father he's serving his sentence in a prison about six

hours away from hong kong. >> ifill: he's 65 now? >> 66 years old. no longer a young man. he has chronic health issues and has had three strokes in the last ten years during his imprisonment. i last saw my father in december, 2008, and i obviously went to see him and -- but since then i haven't been able to get a visa to go to china and i assume it's as a result of -- the result of things i might have said and done in support of his release. we exchange letters quite frequently. i got a few letters from him just last month. >> ifill: does he know about the book? >> i'm not sure. i wrote him a letter when it came out in april but there's -- when you write a letter there's a lot of censorship so when you send it, it's held at the prison for about a month or two before he actually gets it so i don't know. i don't know if he knows about

it just yet. but hopefully soon. >> ifill: what do you hope, fred, to accomplish by writing this way? >> in the back of the book there's an afterward by ti-anna and by me for young people who might want to get srofled in these issues. talks a little bit about how. of course, the best thing would be, you know, if when the paperback comes out we could write an afterward about her father being freed. >> ifill: the nine of the book is "nine days" written by fred hiatt of the "washington post" and it tells the fictional story of the real life ti-anna wang. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thank you, gwen. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: president obama vigorously defended government surveillance of phone and internet activity. and the economy added 175,000 and aerial castro, the leav cled man of holding three women captive for a decade was indicted late today on 329 charges including murder, rape, and kidnapping.

online, we delve into today's jobs report. kwame holman explains. >> holman: on making sense, we analyze the data and round-up stock market and media reaction. plus, an economist's take on expanding apprenticeship training to combat high youth unemployment. find answers to your questions all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. judy? >> woodruff: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on monday, we'll kick off a week on food with stories from around the world about what we eat, how we produce it, and how that's changing. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. we'll see you online and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thanks for joining us. good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> more than two years ago, the people of b.p. made a commitment to the gulf. and everyday since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we shared what we've learned so that we can all produce energy more safely.

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