captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: the heated political battle over the keystone oil pipeline got new ammunition today, a state department report raised no major environmental reasons not to go forward. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. also ahead, it's ben bernanke's last day on the job. we assess his economic legacy after eight years as head of the federal reserve. >> i give an a minus. >> a give maybe a c minus, in the semester since 2010, let's say, i would say incomplete >> woodruff: plus, ahead of

sunday's big game, we look at a new type of super bowl ad directed to your mobile phone. and it's friday, mark shields and david brooks are here to analyze the week's news. those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> supported by the john d. and

catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: supporters of the much-debated keystone oil pipeline project won a key round today. a state department review found completing the pipeline, from canada to the gulf, would cause no serious environmental problems. we'll have more on the review, and its implications, right after the news summary. the state of california is cutting off state-supplied water to 25 million people in the face of severe drought.

the unprecedented decision today means 29 water agencies will have to rely on local sources of water. the head of the state water control board says it's essential to conserve what little water is left in state reservoirs. this is the most serious drouted we've faced if modern times. and we'll have to face it head on and make many hard decisions in days, weeks and months to come. everyone, farmers, fish and people is cities and towns will get less water because of the drought. >> woodruff: the cut-off also affects nearly one million acres of crop land in one of the nation's richest farm belts. a global sell-off sent wall street sharply lower. the dow jones industrial average lost well over 149 points to close below 15,699. the nasdaq fell 19 points to close below 4,104. for the week the dow lost 1%. the nasdaq fell more than half a percent.

overall, it was the market's worst month since last may. president obama appealed to the nation's c.e.o.'s today to hire the long-term unemployed. the president urged them to create opportunities for nearly four million americans who've been out of work for six months or more. he spoke to leaders of e-bay, boeing, mcdonalds and a number of others, at the white house. >> folks who have been unemployed the longest often have the toughest time getting back to work. it's a cruel catch-22. the longer you're unemployed, the more unemployable you may seem. now this is an illusion, but it's one that unfortunately we know statistically is happening out there. >> wooduff: nearly 300 companies made commitments to focus more on the long-term jobless. the president also signed a memo ensuring the federal government won't discriminate against such applicants in its own hiring.

a former new jersey port authority official now says there's evidence that republican governor chris christie knew about a major bridge closing while it was happening. christie has said he found out after the fact the new allegation comes from an attorney for david willdstein who ordered the bridge closing, allegedly to punish a democratic mayor. christie has denied any knowledge of a political motive. the first round of the syrian peace talks ended today in geneva, with little to show. the syrian government rejected opposition demands that president bashar al-assad give up power. the regime also refused to commit to a second round of negotiations. we'll get a full report, and explore what happens next, later in the program. officials in thailand are warning they may close polling stations if violence erupts during sunday's general election. the government is going ahead with the vote, despite

protesters' opposition. today, the atmosphere at protest sites in bangkok was festive, and demonstrators tried to drum up support. they've threatened to disrupt the polling, to support calls for a boycott. >> ( translated ): i'm not going to vote on sunday, because if you do that means you accept that this election right. we have been defying this government for long time. we need to finish it this time. >> wooduff: the protesters are demanding the ouster of prime minister yingluck shinawatra. they say she's a puppet of her brother, who was ousted as prime minister in 2006. members of the international olympic committee arrived in sochi, russia today to view the security for themselves. thousands of police and troops are being deployed, along with helicopters and radar sites. it comes in the face of threats by islamist insurgents. meanwhile, president obama says he'd advise friends it's okay to

go. he told c.n.n.: the process of building an obama presidential library has formally begun. major supporters announced today they're forming a foundation to raise money, develop building plans and pick a site. the leading possibilities include hawaii, where the president was born and the chicago area, where he lived for many years and was first elected to office. still to come on the newshour; new ammunition in the fight over the keystone oil pipeline; ben bernanke's economic legacy; some progress, other pitfalls at the syrian peace talks; super bowl ads directed to your mobile phone; plus, shields and brooks on the week's news. >> woodruff: as the proposed keystone oil pipeline extension cleared a major hurdle today, it

set off alarms in some quarters and lifted hopes in the world of energy and business. jeffrey brown has more on today's developments. >> brown: the pipeline would stretch from the alberta, canada oil sands to refineries on the gulf coast, moving more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day. there are concerns about leaks and spills, but some of the biggest environmental issues are focused on the extraction of the oil. juliet eilperin has been reporting on this story for the "washington post" and joins me now. juliet, fill in the picture a bit. what exactly was the state department looking at in this report? what was its key finding? >> they were looking the a whole range of impacts including whether rejecting the pipeline would make a different in global greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change. they also looked at things like what would happen if there was a spill. and what about endangered species along the route, things like that. their overall conclusion was that no one single

infrastructure project makes a huge difference, a significant difference in terms of development in the oil region in canada. so the overall climate change impact they're saying is not significant from this decision. that's their broad conclusion. >> so this is, of course, highly contentious with environmentalists feeling that they have evidence of just the opposite. so just remind us of what the main concerns have been. >> absolutely. so environmentalists have been arguing for years at this point that by allowing this pipeline to travel from the united states to gulf coast-- from canada to gulf coast refineries in the u.s., you're accelerating climate change both because you are speeding development in the oil sands region and also because you're increasing the united states dependence on fossil fuels. and one very interesting fact is that while this technical document suggests that this one project would

not have a significant global carbon impact-- impact, the state department is making it very clear that they're still looking at how this pipeline decision sits in to-- fits into the broader national and international climate strategy that the president is pursuingment and so they're making it clear that this is not the final word even on what is the climate impact of this project. >> so what are they going to be looking at going forward here. they still must decide whether it's in the so-called national interest, right? how is that being defined. >> that's a very broad line, actually. and so it can include everything including our energy security. in other words, what does it mean to have the supply coming from canada as opposed to other countries. they will look at things like our relationship with canada and what are the foreign policy implications of this. as well as again, as i mentioned, they still are going to use this kind of amorphous term which is how does this fit into the broad national, an international climate policy that president obama is pursuingment and they will

be reviewing this, getting input both from the public as well as from eight agencies that will weigh in on this question within well s so what was the response today? >> there was, you can imagine a lot of response. so for example, clearly the oil industry an other conservatives, for example, on capitol hill welcomed it asical as-- well as the condition dan government an transcanada, the company that has been pursuing this project for years. environmentalists without exception criticized this, although again they emphasized that they did not think this was over. one interesting thing is we have just had a rail spill of oil in mississippi. and so people are seizing on that saying this is yet another example of what are the problems with the transportation of oil into the united states. >> the ultimate decision, of course, will be by the president. an there's been as you said so much pressure for several years on this now. do you expect that to not only continue but ramp up now that we're into what looks like maybe a final

stage here? >> absolutely. i think you will see an intensification of the pressure, particularly on the secretary of state john kerry. since this is the moment that he gets involved in the process he has absolutely stayed out of it to this point as has the white house. and this is the first moment that, for example, both environmentalists as well as their opponents can appeal directly to a man who has made climate change and addressing carbon one of the central ints of his career. so i think that this is going to become even more intense as we move forward. >> and the president himself last summer said he would approve the pipeline only if it didn't, quote, significantly exacerbate carbon solutions. so today's decision clearly plays at least partly to that. >> it does. although again when reporters were trying to press the senior state department official, carie ann jones whether or not this report answered that question, she declined to answer it. so that is absolutely the central question. and while at this point the state department won't say what role the president will

play in this, it's clear that once a decision is made, the white house can't stay absolutely removed and that there will be at least some input. >> finally, is there any sense of when a decision will come? >> that actually is still an open question which is interesting particularly in a midterm election year. so technically we could be looking at a process that would last about 105 days if you look at technically the calendar. but one of the things that they have been emphasizing is that both secretary kerry will take as much time as he needs to consider it. so it could be longer. but at the same time some of the officials warned that it could be shorter. that they will urge agencies to get engaged quickly and frankly because this is being done under the president's executive authority, there is considerable flexibility. so there is no deliberate end point that we can face. >> juliet eil perrin thanks again. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: part of the turmoil in the markets of late, especially emerging ones overseas, has to do with the federal reserve's decision to start pulling back on its stimulus. that's led to worries about what may happen to capital and investment in some countries. but the feds decision comes after years of unprecedented moves to prop up the economy. the man at the center of that action, chairman ben bernanke, is ending his term today. newshour economics corespondent paul soloman looks at his legacy and the questions awaiting his successor. it's part of his reporting on making sense of financial news. >> reporter: in 2012, still a hero on the cover of the atlantic. but as that magazines cover also asked: why does everyone hate him? so hero? or zero? rather than trawl the darker

corners of the internet, we thought we'd ask two professional economists, on the right and left, to grade bernanke's performance. >> i give him for his whole tenure an a-. >> reporter: economics professor alan blinder, a past vice chairman of the fed, hired ben bernanke at princeton, so of course he's biased. but in his post-crash bestseller, after the music stopped, even blinder takes bernanke to task for letting lehman brothers fail, freezing credit worldwide. that lowers the grade from a straight a or a+. >> the lehman episode just sticks in my craw, not to save lehman or put them to bed in a more gentle way, this is a joint mistake of ben bernanke and hank paulson, who was secretary of the treasury, but it was very consequential. i mean as you know, all hell broke loose the very next day. >> reporter: but at a town hall in 2009, bernanke told jim lehrer that the fed didn't have

the legal authority to intervene in an investment bank like lehman. >> in the case of lehman brothers, there was just a huge $40, $50 billion hole that we had no way to fill and no money, no authorization, no way to do it, so we had to let it fail. we had no choice. >> reporter: to blinder, though, the government made up all sorts of tools during the crash. >> guess what? they had the legal authority to save the money market mutual funds by using something called the exchange stabilization fund, which is supposed to be to support the dollar. now how did that work? but somehow the treasury's lawyers koshered that when just a few days before nobody was koshering a saving of lehman, so i count that as a mistake. >> reporter: but the rest of his tenure you give him an a? >> my grading system says lets take lehman day plus three or something, just a few days after lehman, grade him from that point forward, yeah i give a+. >> reporter: and that's pretty much the mainstream opinion of bernanke's role in saving our economic bacon. >> i spent my entire academic

career studying the great depression. >> reporter: the closest thing to fly-on-the-wall footage of the crash: paul giamattis portrayal of bernanke in the hbo film, too big to fail. >> if we do not act boldly and immediately we will replay the depression of the 1930s. only this time it will be far, far worse. if we don't do this now we won't have an economy on monday. >> reporter: and so, starting that weekend, the fed, in conjunction with the treasury department, took historically unprecedented action. it:

>> reporter: when push came to collapse, even conservative economist charles calomiris thinks bernanke saved the day. but how does he grade bernankes entire chairmanship, which kicked off exactly eight years ago tomorrow? >> lets take it as three semesters. the semester that begins in september of 2008 and ends middle of 2009, i would say he gets very high grades, maybe even a straight a, but the semester before that, i'd give him, uh, maybe a c-, and the semester since 2010 lets say, i'd say, incomplete. >> reporter: the c- is for bernanke's stint pre-crisis. calomiris points out that he joined the feds board of governors back in 2002, became chairman in 2006, and yet never in all that time pushed to clamp down on the promiscuous lending that helped cause the crash. >> i think that the fed was far

too late in recognizing problems after 2006 and doing something about them. the banking crisis was not a surprise, the banking crisis was the culmination of that erosion in the creditworthiness of the banks. >> reporter: so we asked alan blinder what about the charge that before the crisis when the housing bubble was obvious to a lot of people and the fed did absolutely nothing about it? >> bernanke becomes chairman of the fed february 1, 2006 so this process had gone pretty far by then. in addition, try to put yourself in his shoes and i've thought about this a lot. you're taking over from a person, alan greenspan, whos been deified. you become chairman of the fed. are you gonna walk in the office and say, okay now everything's different? right, im taking over from god and im changing everything. i think that would have been asking too much of anybody i don't think anybody would have done that. >> reporter: so, mixed grades before the crisis

high grades during. but what about the fed's policy ever since, so-called quantitative easing in which the fed continued the expansion of the nations money supply begun during the crash, an expansion that the fed is only now, gradually, tapering off? mightn't all the new money, an lead to inflation and another crash landing, risks that the feds new chair, janet yellen, will have to contend with? has expansionary policy since the crisis as you know many critics alleged-- >> including me. >> reporter: --set us up for another fall? >> reporter: again, conservative economist charles calomiris. >> the fed under bernanke under the last two years has created inflationary risk that could be hard for his successors to manage. what he created was a risk of inflation over the next five years in exchange for getting very small potatoes in terms of

improvement in the economy over the past two years. >> reporter: that risk is why calomiris gives bernanke a post- crash grade of incomplete. but alan blinder calls inflation fears baseless. >> for years there was gonna be inflation next year, inflation next year, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong we haven't had any inflation. lately since there's no inflation, often its the same people have started this, its causing speculative bubbles. so lets see, where? house prices, i don't think so, they've recovered about one- third of what they lost and it looks like they're kind of leveling off, cant tell. stock prices, well maybe but you know, we have extraordinarily high profits, we have extraordinarily low interest rates, on basic fundamental stock prices should be high. i don't stay awake worrying about, uh, bubbles now. >> reporter: at her confirmation hearings, janet yellen didn't seem overly concerned about bubbles either.

she testified that she wants to see stronger job growth, making sure that the fed doesn't withdraw its stimulus too rapidly. as for bernanke, he says he's confident the fed can continue safely pulling back. >> i think we have plenty of tools now, at this point we've developed all the tools we need to manage interest rates, to tighten monetary policy. >> reporter: and so, as ben bernanke leaves office after what everyone agrees is an unforgettable eight years on the job, his final grade probably won't come for years, during the tenure of successor janet yellen. or maybe even later than that. >> woodruff: the long awaited geneva two syria peace talks ended today without any semblance of an agreement. and as jeffrey brown reports, there's uncertainty on whether there will be another round of discussions.

>> this is a very modest beginning but it is a beginning on which we can build. >> brown: u.n. mediator lakhdar brahimi summed up the nine days of contentious talks, saying, in effect, progress needs to be measured in small steps. >> it was a very difficult start. but the sides have become used to sitting in the same room. they have presented positions and listened to one another. there have been moments when one side has even acknowledged the concerns and the difficulties and the point of view of the other side. >> brown: brahimi lamented that the two sides failed to agree on lifting the siege of homs, where civilians are trapped, with no access to food or medicine. there was also no movement on creating a transitional government. the syrian foreign minister rejected it out of hand, and complained the opposition won't face facts.

>> ( translated ): i regret to tell you that we have not reached tangible results during first of all, the lack of maturity and seriousness on the other side and the threat to implode the conference, and insisting on an element, as if we have come here to meet for one hour to hand over everything to them and then to go back. >> brown: the minister did not say if his government will come back for a second round of talks, on february 10. but the western-backed "syrian national council" insisted that bashar al assad must negotiate the end of his regime. >> i don't think that there will be a kind of meeting of minds with this criminal regime. it's very difficult. i think that this regime was forced to come to geneva, he is trying to buy time because he knows the end is near. >> brown: all of this, as opposition activists reported

that another 1,900 people have died in the civil war since the peace talks began. amid the fighting came word that the u.s. resumed shipment of non-lethal aid and some light arms to moderate rebel factions. at the same time, "the new york times" reported groups linked to al-qaeda have seized control of most of syria's oil and gas resources. the islamic state in iraq and syria, or isis, is said to be selling fuel back to the assad government. meanwhile, the u.s. complained assad is dragging his heels in shipping chemical agents abroad for destruction. secretary of state john kerry spoke today in berlin. >> we want the syrian regime to live up to its obligations. and it is critical that very rapidly all of those chemical weapons be moved from once, from their 12 or so sites to the one site in the port and be prepared for shipment out of syria all together. >> brown: kerry meets this weekend with his russian counterpart, to discuss the

chemical weapons issue and prospects for the now-recessed peace talks. >> brown: so with no deal achieved and without a firm agreement to meet again, what are the prospects for ending the country's civil war which has claimed the lives of an estimated 130,000 people and displaced millions? we turn again to joshua landis, director of the center for middle east studies at the university of oklahoma. and andrew tabler, a senior fellow in the program on arab politics at the washington institute for near east policy. joshua landis, let me start with you. what do you take there first round of talks? >> well, i think many people were expecting-- were expecting that the united states would be willing to take half a loaf, that it would be willing to compromise to the point of not asking for regime change in syria in order to get, perhap, some access to stafbing people, to victims inside syria, and perhaps the beginnings of a cease-fire

nor to alleviate the suffering of the syrians and the big outflow of refugees that risks to bring down and trouble neighboring states but the u.s. stuck to its guns and said that there has to be regime change in syria. as soon as the assad regime sensed this and heard the opening speech, it began to take away offers of cease-fire access to humanitarian agencies and the conversation became one of accusation, counteraccusation, very heated. and we haven't seen any progress. and we've seen stalling on chemical weapons. i think that the regime want to geneva, i believe the syrian regime, believing that it could-- that the united states was beginning to get worried about the jihadist problem and would not-- would stake a deal somehow with the assad regime and that did not happen. >> all right, andrew, what

do you take from it, the very fact of meeting even symbolically, did that have any importance. >> yes, it does. it goes the diplomatic ball rolling. many predicted thatted opposition would collapse. that didn't happen, they didn't end up getting access. the reason why i think the u.s. stuck to its guns because this conference was about transition. it was never going to be about a conference about why the assad regime should be doing what it's obligated to do under international humanitarian law and again efa convention. access of humanitarian goods and evacuation of civilians are rared there. it's been a transition. russia son board with a with that. so actually at the end of the week i think the opposition is a tactical victor ree at least in the short term. >> but in addition to transition there are the humanitarian crisis going on. we mentioned homs, for example, what is the holdup there with getting something. >> the regime will not allow the flies through their lines into homs. now in homs, the rebels

there are actually more reliable, there is better command and control. the long siege there has pushed them together and they are better connected with the syrian national coalition. -- coalition, so it was a golden opportunity and unfortunately it was missed. we'll have to see if the regime comes back to the negotiating table on february 10th. >> joshua landising thins like the humanitarian crisis, is that on the table there? did they make any headway? it didn't make any headway, it was on the able but the reasonable i'm is trying to make a deal and it didn't sense that there was a deal so it took its offer of aid off the table and we're back to a war of attrition here, i have talked to a number of people in washington and paris about this. and they feel that assad is at his acme, his strongest point here because he has had a number of successes militarily. the rebels are in chaos but they believe that with time the reb ems will get a new command structure that they are getting together.

they are going to get more help and that the minority regime behind a sood-- assad, the al whites, christians, are only about 20% of the syrian population. they can be-- and their young men will be killed off eventually and that in a year's time or perhaps even two, the balance of power will be very different. and this regime will begin to collapse. and then the conversation will change andrew tabler, what about the reports that syria is so far behind on the timetable on the poison gas talks. >> it has only handed over the initial shipment of 500 tons am but not only that, syria is now refusing to physically destroy its chemical weapons facilities and said that they want to make it inaccessible. meaning like lock up the front doors, weld it, which is easily reversed. the u.s. has come out very strongly. and remember that the geneva communique on which the talks have been going on be there, the only place that is enshrined inside the united nations is in the u.n. security council 2118

that deals with the chemical weapons issue. so they're actually linked in there. so i think now we're going to be going back to the security council, concerning chemical weapons. and there's humanitarian access. >> is this tied to what joshua landis is talking about, that assad is filing himself very powerful. >> assad feels very powerful particularly in the western part of the country. but was's interesting is assad despite being so powerful is saying i'm not strong enough to allow these convoys of these chemical weapons, chemical agents through the area out to the coast. he's demanding more and more equipment. and-- which is interesting. if he is so strong in the west, why demand so much equipment. actually the international community believe they provided sufficient equipment. so does the ocpw and that lead to the statements we have seen from the united states the last two days. >> so joshua landis, do you expect the syrian government to go back to the table on february 10th? are there some areas, even limitedded where there might be some progress? >> i don't think they want to talk about reason i'm

change, and you know, the message from geneva was the most important thing is that assad has to step down. we need regime changes here assad is not going to step down. this is going to be done over his dead body. and that, you know, that's-- this is what this civil war is about. and that is where we are once again he thought there was an opening for that the west was falling out of love with the syrian opposition, they're worry about the jihadist. they're willing to pauk about assad remaining. as you remember the ex-head said maybe assad is better than the opposition and ryan crocker, important ambassador and spokesperson for the state department now retired had said the same thing, roughly. that he expects assad to win. so assad i think had begun to feel that perhaps theres with a changing mood in the west. he discovered in geneva there is no change in the west. kerry was very dramatic,

this is about regime change. he said that assad is the reason for the jihadists there, he is the magnet. and until he goes, jihadists will not go. >> okay. >> and that was his assertion. >> let me ask you very briefly, andrew. are you as pessimistic? >> i'm pessimistic in terms of for we were leaving-- relieving the suffering on the ground. i think is no mistake president obama talked about syria three time in the state of the union speech, he talked about surprisingly supporting the moderate rebels. dealing with extremism in syria is as simple as the assad regime t has to involve working with the opposition, the moderate parts we can work with. >> thank you so much again. >> pleasure. >> woodruff: beyond the football game itself, ads have long been a big part of the event that is super bowl sunday. now as people are increasingly using mobile technology, companies are trying to step up

their game, looking for new ways to pitch their product to you directly. and there are questions about whether they may be crossing a line. hari sreenivasan has the story from our new york studio. >> sreenivasan: fans who've descended on new york for sunday's super-sized match-up are excited, as always. and so are companies looking to highlight new trends in tech. the website whosgonnawin.com for instance, has been tabulating fans daily twitter votes. each night, the winning team gets a display of its colors atop the empire state building. last night the honor went to seattle. a number of companies also have rolled out online previews of super bowl ads, hoping to maximize the return on 30-second commercials that cost $4 million apiece. last year's broadcast pulled in more than 108 million viewers, but the n.f.l. hopes to expand past the television market. this year, online viewers can see a live stream of the game on foxsportsgo.com or the company's

i-pad app. some verizon i-phone users will watch using the n.f.l. mobile app. it also gives pop-up alerts on events and retail promotions, around manhattan and areas near metlife stadium in new jersey. tiny beacons transmit the alerts, based on the location of your cell phone. >> sreenivasan: nick wingfield of the new york times has been writing about this latest move by advertisers in the mobile age. he joins me from seattle. so nick,i tried to explain it but how do those beacons work, how do they know where you are and what the products around you are? >> the beacons are a form of transmitter that the nfl is installing in various areas around midtown, what they do is wirilessly kpaun kate using a technology called bluetooth with your smart phone. so if you've downloaded an app for the nfl and you walk within let's say 10, 20, 30 feet of one of these transmitters, it will wake up your phone and sen you an

alert, if you have consented, that is, to receive these alerts. and the alerts might tell you to walk down the street so go see the vince lombardi trophy, to go to the fourth floor of macy's to get nfl merchandise or to go see the toboggan run in midtown manhattan. there is a vart of information it can give to you. but basically it worked on a technology that almost all of us have in modern smart phones today. and if you have the right app, then that means that the nfl can communicate with you. >> and you're saying that it's not just the super bowl, that there are other stadiums an other cities an other leagues rolling this technology out? >> absolutely. think of the nfl and the super bowl this week as the first real big test of this knowledge. it's -- it's beinged rolled out in baseball ball park n about two dozen stadiums including fenway park, by opening day this year. american eagle stores are putting it in.

mazies is putting it in. so there are a variety of different venues, stadiums and other, you know, other stores that are installing this technology. and from what i have heard from people who are fluent in this area, you know, it's going to be hard to find public venues that don't have some form of this technology because basically venues want to be able to communicate with their customers and spectators. and that is thought to be one way to do that. >> so beyond sports venues we're talking about retailers trying to communicate. so this is almost like an electronic barker standing at the door saying hey, come in here. there is a sale, 10% off if you walk in and buy something right now. >> think about your experience when you go to amazon and you log in and maybe it welcomes you by name and then it sorts of customizes itself. this is kind of the same idea but in the bricks and mortar world. you might walk into an american eagle store, it would say welcome, hari, it might recognize that you are a loyal customer and give

you certain customized offers. but it would do this very precisely when you go over the jeans section, it would know when you got close to the jeans. it wouldn't just be one antenna for the entire store, it is a very local technology that can be tuned very precisely to give you a better experience when you are wandering around the store. >> soif's got to ask in the era of n/a revelations or even credit card breaches and target and nieman marcus, without owns all that information about where i am in the store and what my tastes an preferences are? >> well, in this case, the transmitters themselves, the people, technologists say don't actually record your locate, what records your location are the apps that you are using when you go into the store. so in the case of the nf will be, that would be the nfl, major league baseball if you go into a ballpark. and what they do with it is really up to their terms of service. a lot of these places say they want to sell it to another company. they're going to respect your privacy but really you

know, they have a lot of latitude in terms of what they can use it for. of course one hopes that they have good security because frankly someone can break in and steal this data the way they have ed:ity card information for target. >> so let's say even setting hackers aside, doesn't that data over time become more valuable, say if someone approaches the nfl and says i would love to know the type of customers that buys jerseys is also the type of customers that buys beer an could you let me take a look at your customer list? >> yeah, it could be. and we'll really see how this information, how this type of technology pans out. it really has not been tested broadly yet. and so it may turn out that people really hate it. we haven't talked really, we talked about privacy. there are also some potential annoyance issues here. walk into a ballpark if they start sending you too many messages alerting you every 10 feet when there is a hot

dog stand nearby or dow want to buy a beer and all of this. that could get very irtaingt, consumers would reject the technology and opt out of the applications that do this tracking. so it remains to be seen how valuable this data is going to be. but certainly the promise is there. and the potential for abuse. >> all right, nick from "the new york times", thanks so much. >> you bet >> woodruff: and to the analysis of shields and brooks, that's syndicated columnist mark shields and new york times columnist david brooks. welcome, gentlemen. so i want to ask you for your super bowl predictions in a minute, so you have a few minutes to think about that. but the couple of new stories bubbling today, david, one of them is this keystone oil pipeline statement by the state department that they don't think that there is a serious environmental damage that would be created if they finished the pipeline. what's the effect, this has

been a hot potato issue. what effect did in have? >> well, the president has been waffling, sort of signaling he would okay the thing. his view is that the thing is sort of overblown, a symbolic issue of whether you are for fracking or against fracking, your attitudes towards the natural gas industry. i think the assumption has always been at the be of the day after making sort of a political gesture toward the environmental movement he would end up on the ore side. and if you listen to the state of the union address, the energy revolution in this country is possibly the best thing economically that happened to the country in a long time. and so he was bragging about how much energy he was producing. how it changes the dynamic in the middle east. it's been a wonderful boon to the american economy. so i think at the enof the day he is not going to like it in the way that even on a symbolic issue are o semi symbolic issue. >> do you think this smooths away for the president to say it's okay to go ahead with the expansion. >> it makes it tougher for him to say no, i think. but i think with the risk to democrats is that it could alienate one of the most

activist blocs in the part going into the 2014 elections. and that if environmentalists decide to sulk and sit on their hands and say this president has let us down, and it could be a real deficit for democrats. >> and so we will watch and see. we know there is another john kerry, secretary of state has to make a decision and the president, well, the other story that came out, this is late today, has to do with governor christie's new jersey governor and whether he knew or didn't know, david, about the closing down of traffic lanes on the bridge leading into new york city. and what it-- it is a little confusing but there is a "new york times" story saying, quoting the former head of the port authority who said that, who is saying governor christie did know that this was going on. and now christie's office has come out subsequent to that and said well, that's okay. that confirms what he says. so how, what do you take away from all this. >> people with disturbingly

long memories would remember that this would not hurt him too much. so that view is lacking a little less ten able -- tenable as time goes by. so it has begun to hurt him just because there's been a series of other stories voluming-- following. but i did say that if it turns out that the central theme of that long news conference was that he did know contemporaneously than he's in big trouble. and so we done know the state of the evidence, the quality of the evidence but if he knew contemporaneously than he doesn't only look like a bully, he looks like somebody got up there and said something that was either withholding the truth or simply untruthment i don't want to say we are there yet but if it turns out to be there i do think it really becomes quite damaging. and even possible to imagine he won't be able to run for president. >> so it doesn't matter whether it's proven, mark, that there was a political motivation. they wanted to furnish this mayor, what really matters is done -- >> yeah, his word. i mean he was pretty unequivocal and pretty

clear. i think most democrats would concede that he was the most formidable candidate in 2016, that they were most afraid of. they are less afraid today. this is the man, david wildstein who is his high school classmate. >> port authority within port authority official to whom the message was sent from chrisiest's deputy chief of staff, time for some traffic problems in fort lee. so he was the guy to execute the plan. and theres with a plan. this wasn't just an obviously a hanging phrase. there had been a plan, this was an activation order. what is interesting, judey is this, everything goes back to high school. chris christie in high school said he didn't really know. he didn't really node david wildstein who he praised as a tireless advocate for the people of new jersey when he left. but he didn't really know him because he shall chris yas chris committee had been class president, he had been an athlete, and david wildstein wasn't the cool guide without stat at the

call guy aes stable in the cafeteria. this is sort of the revenge of the geeks. >> but does, i mean, so both of you are saying, no matter what company kos out of this, his brand, his persona is hurt. >> i think the times reporting has been pretty tough. i mean they did a long documented piece this week on his office. and how intimately he was involved in everything that went on. the politics of it. the substance of it. the campaign of it. you know, he was a hands-on go guy, this is the argument for chris christie, the guy with wonderful political instincts, a guy in charge. and now the defense says he wasn't curious, he didn't know. and i just, or he was paves. i just think it becomes more of a problem for them politically whether legally or something else. >> i think even bragging that you were a big man on campus you have already all yent ated 99 percent. i'm sure people in mark's social circumstance rel very up et. but just one other point,

you are from new jersey, your governor, if the guy has evidence to burn you,-- to him, he did not do that. >> yeah, don't-- couldn't understand that. >> this is the week of the state of the union. just three days ago, 72 hours, david, what are we left with at this point. did the president help himself. did he advance his cause by what he had to say? >> i just, i go back to the wet moodel. that has only been reinforced by what i have heard from people around-- that there is a sense of uninspired, not thrilled, ratings not great. not being ideas. and i do think it was a misreading and reflection of misreading of the country. with a country in fear of really a decline, i do think you have to have something big. that means you probably can't have something passionable. but i do think he had the tant to really change the debate in some large way to really maybe not pass legislation but pave the way for a future president to pass legislation by introcausing ideas, creating

networks by mobile identifiesing a movement for equality, for opportunity, for social mobility and can could have laid the predicate for something big that would have felt big and commensurate with the moment and i guess i don't think he did it. >> woodruff: how do you read it. >> i can't argue that it wasn't big, i don't think children in the future generations will be memorizing large chunks of this speech. and committing them to memory. but i do think that it was the word that he used that i think gwen used it in the post-election, post speech analysis, that was workman like, it worked politically t was not uplifting t was not-- but i do think that it put the republicans, quite frankly on the defensive by the issues the president did raise, the republicans have been scrambling since. to prove that they're not just the opposition, the blind opposition that they do have alternatives whether, and they are even now revisiting, i think forced to revisit health care. they just can't be blindly to repeal it and they're wrestling with immigration

which is truly the san andreas fault of the republican party. this is potentially combustable for them. >> he only touched brief leigh on immigration. but since then he's indicated david just in the last day or so that he's open to frankly the language of the republicans were supporting, now-- the house republicans have been offered a retreat the last couple of days. what is coming out of that and what do we think about it. >> the president is defendant about that. he didn't want to get in front of the republicans be he wanted them to taked initiative and then embrace. boehner issued principleses i thought when he issue the principles they found a way to heal the fault amount of my understanding is they haven't. and they are certainly not going to want to do it, raise anything before primaries because they don't want republican candidates to be faced with primary challenges on this issue. so that pushes it off for a bit of awhile. and then i think the opposition is still strong. so i'm less hopeful that they're going to be able to

get something out of the house let alone something that is manageable with the senate. >> the problem there is very simple one. republicans have the house. it all likelihood they will hold on to the house. the republicans can an maybe even expand that in 2014. the republicans cannot win the presidency with their present position on immigration. and the position of mitt romney in 2012. they have to deal with it. it is the difference between the electorate in 2014 and that in 2016, is approximately 42 million people. of those 42 million people, half of them will be african-american, asian, and latinos. >> in 2016. >> so they can win an election where whites are disproportionately represented, older voters are disproportionately. they cannot compete presidentially and i just think the party is, you know, ronald reagan won 45% of the latino vote in california in

1984. republicans held half the house seats in california. today as a consequence of republican policy, beginning with people, all about republican presidential candidates, the republicrats are not even expective in california. and that's 55 votes out of-- one fifth of what you need to get elected president. and that is happening in colorado, in florida, in virginia, in nevada, across the country. i mean this is a party that is writing off the white house. >> woodruff: change of subject, benzodiazepine ang, his last day as chairman of the federal reserve. we heard paul solman talk to economists on both sides of the political spectrum. how do you see it. >> right now we have to think he did a fantastic job. it was gutsy to really, not only unif you recall tools but unif you recall tools he didn't know he had. >> i agree. i mean when everybody else went weak in the knees and were naysayers and everything, particularly congress, republicans, he really stood up. i mean he stood between this

country and the gulf, i mean, disaster. and i think he de serves a lot of credit. i really do. >> you both give him an a or something like that. >> it is all unwound but yeah. >> now the final and most important question, the super bowl. i want a prediction from both of you and what are you looking for? >> well, when your own team is not in the super bowl you have two moral obligationsment you can either root for the team from the most economically disadvantaged city, that's right. and in seattle i they they are about even, o they are politically economically advanced so there is a wash there. so ten you go on the moral calibre of the role model. here su have payton manning who is a very perfect presentation. for seattle richard scherrman the defensive back. a bit of a braff dachio manner you would say, so i do think you have to go with man on that. so that is my moral preference. my game decision preference is that seattle wins. >> woodruff: oh my, all right, mark. >> i have to say a word about richard scherrman who came out of compton, a top

city, gangs, turned down a scholarship to go to standford where he graduated. finished second in his high school class because -- >> he says bad things about crabtree. >> he apologized for that. judy,-- fairs for good reason, favorites usually win, i like underdogs, rat for the phillie to win the kentucky derby, i root for the kid without went to law school nights and worked days to get the promotion and it's always the c.e.o.s nephew that gets the promotion instead. i am rooting for russell wilson, even though peyton manning is a totally admirable human being an great citizen, i am rooting for seattle and they will win. >> woodruff: you request bet we will hold to you account on this one. david, two answers. >> on the game outcome we agree. >> okay. >> all right. thank you both. >> thank you. >> wooduff: again, the major developments of the day.

a state department review found the long-debated keystone pipeline would cause no serious environmental problems. a global financial markets sell- off sent wall street sharply lower. the dow industrials lost nearly 150 points. and the syrian peace talks ended, with little progress to report. it's been a year of big changes here at the newshour, and we aren't finished yet. come visit us online tonight and you'll see a whole new look. we've completely overhauled our website, and our new home online is designed to look great on any device. whether you want to watch shields and brooks on your tablet, watch our show live via our video stream, or catch up on pbs newshour weekend on your android phone, we've got you covered. you can find all of our reports, neatly arranged on our recent video page, browse our latest science, health or education coverage, and everything else we offer online, with no registration, no paywall, and no limitations.

so, online right now, more economists weigh in on making sense with commentary on bernanke. we offer a look at thailand in the eye of a political storm as it nears an election. and our student reporting labs investigate the impact of concussions on school football. you can see we're excited about it. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week" which airs later this evening. here's a preview: >> as the president takes to the stump and republicans go on retreat, we examine the state of the state of the union. the rhetoric, the reality and the reaction, tonight on washington week. judy >> wooduff: tomorrow's edition of pbs newshour weekend reports on a darker side of the super bowl. the spike in prostitution and

sex trafficking around the big game. and we'll be back, right here, on monday. with a look at how established names from traditional news media are moving to new online news outlets. that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff, have a nice weekend thank you and goodnight. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

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