06.14.13 06.14.13 >> from pacifica, this is democracy now! massive agency collecting a tremendous amount of information every day by satellite, tapping undersea cables, by picking up microwave waves and tapping telephones, and data links, a computer, e- mail, and so forth. and it has to store it some place and that is why they built

bluffdale. nsa'swill look at the secret war with longtime investigative reporter james bamford. he profiles general keith alexander and profiles -- and connect the dots, "connecting the dots on prism, phone surveillance, and the nsa's massive spy center." supreme court denies patenting human genes. >> how is that possible? we all know people that have experienced a breast cancer. >> we know that too much patent protection can tramped -- trample on our civil liberties. >> we will speak to a senior federal judge whose ruling was upheld by the hard court as well as the plaintiff in one of the lawyers who argued the case. all that and more coming up.

welcome to? i'm amy goodman. fbi director robert muller has practice andnsa's saying that such is illegal and is done in the interest of national security. he also confirmed the administration has launched a criminal investigation into edward snowden, the whistleblower who leaked secret documents about nsa spying. >> as to the individual that is admitted to making these disclosures, he is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. this has caused harm to our nation and our safety. we are taking all necessary steps to hold the person responsible for these disclosures. actively underis investigation, we cannot comment

publicly on the details of the investigation. >> edward snowden is believed to be hiding out in hong kong. "the new york times" has reported the obama administration has begun arming rebels in syria. the white house said thursday it has firmer evidence that the aside government use those weapons multiple times on a small scale and at up to 150 people have died. unnamed officials said the cia would coordinate the transfer of small arms and ammunition. accused bothcently sides of carrying out war crimes. thursday, thel on national security advisor official declined to say what type of aid they would give the rebels. >> the president has made a decision about providing support to the opposition. that will involve providing

direct support to the smc. that includes military support. i cannot detail for you all the types of support for a variety of reasons, but again, suffice it to say, this is going to be different in both scope and scale, in terms of what we are providing to the smc, then what we have provided before. >> the supreme court has ruled that companies cannot patent human genes. genes have been in the public eye since angelina jolie said andunderwent gene reading found that she was at risk for breast cancer. we will have more on the patents later in the broadcast. a group of doctors are calling on their colleagues in the

military to boycott the mass force feeding of prisoners at guantanamo bay. three medical professionals from boston university wrote -- the majority of guantanamo's 166 prisoners are on hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention. 43 are now being forced fed through tubes. the pentagon has sent dozens of medical personnel to assist with force feeding. the military judge presiding cole bombing --

information discussed at the hearing could cause grave damage to national security if revealed. he could face the death penalty for allegedly plotting the bombing that killed 17 sailors on the u.s. warship in 2000. irani and are heading to the polls today to cast their votes for president. the presidential campaign has seen thousands of iranians rallying in favor for reforms, including the release of political prisoners. president ahmadinejad is leaving power after exhausting the two- term limit. turkish prime minister erdogan says that he will hold talks about building a new park before they have talks. protesters now senator erdogan has pledged to honor the outcome of a court case, saying that they will preserve the park.

demonstrators have remained in taksim square and adjacent parts despite the 24-hour deadline for protests to end. on thursday, mothers formed a human chain between their children and riot police. may god protect our children. anything could happen. everyone has kids. >> as mothers, we buy to end the pressure and torture. >> israel is moving forward with plans to expand two settlements in the west bank by adding more than 1000 homes. the plan would see more than 500 housing units added to the settlements of its amara and bruchin. palestinians say all settlements are illegal. in colorado, two people have died as one of the worst wildfires in state history continues to rage. the black forest fire has burned through roughly 16,000 acres,

destroyed hundreds of homes, and forced tens of thousands to evacuate. at least one person was killed and 70 injured when a chemical plant exploded in louisiana on thursday. the blast was fueled by the chemical propylene. those within a radius of two miles were told to remain in their home to to the smoke. in financial news, bloomberg news is reporting traders at some of the world's biggest banks have manipulated key foreign-exchange rates to set the valley of investments. traders said that this is accomplished by executing deals before and during the windows when benchmarks are set. the report says the activities happened daily. there is a scandal over the rigging of the global interest rate libor. true, oneory is person wrote, it would trump libor for scale and horrible mess.

critics say the move could trigger another financial crisis by allowing risky deals to continue abroad, but some financial reformers claim a half victory because a majority of democrats voted against the bill despite wall street corporate -- wall street pressure. senate lawmakers have rejected a measure by republican senator chuck grassley to severely delay a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented residents as part of the landmark immigration reform bill. the grassley amendment would have required officials to maintain effective control of the entire u.s.-mexico border before immigrants could apply for legal status. it is one of several bids to increase border enforcement as

part of immigration reform. meanwhile, three young people to attention to the separation of families under current policy this week when they went to the border to see their mothers for the first time in several years. the mothers, separated from their children by deportation restrictions, traveled north from colombia, mexico, and brazil. they embraced their children through the bars and the border fence that divides mexico and arizona. today marks six months since 20 children were shot dead at sandy hook elementary school. adam lanza's shooting rampage began on the 14th before he turned the gun on himself. proposalcre pushed the of gun laws. in april, the senate rejected proposals to expand background checks and ban assault weapons. according to cnn, five states have tightened gun laws since

the shooting while more than a dozen have loosened them. families of the shooting victims returned to washington as a renewed push for gun control. nicole hockley, mother of dillon, said that they would not abandon their quest for change. it is important lawmakers remember that we are not going away on and we will not let paid into the background. it is too important, it is too common sense. those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> i'm juan gonzalez. we begin the news that the obama administration has decided to begin arming syrian rebels fighting president bashar al- assad after concluding his forces had used chemical weapons. the white house said thursday it has firmer evidence the government has used weapons multiple times on small scales and up to 150 people have died.

unnamed officials told the times that the cia would coordinate the transfer of small arms and ammunition. the united nations says roughly 95,000 people have died in the two-year civil war. >> a un panel recently accused both sides of carrying out war crimes. the president has made a decision about providing more support to the opposition. that will involve providing direct support to the that includes military support. i cannot detail for you all of the types of that support for a variety of reasons, but again, suffice it to say, this is going to be different in both scope and scale in terms of what we are providing to the smc < than

what we have tried before. >> for more we are joined by a foreign correspondent for a london newspaper. your response to what the united states is saying and will do in syria? >> i think it is probably bad news for the syrian people. that means there will be an escalation of the war. what is not clear yet is whether the administration, as it hints, will try to adjust the progression of balance between rebels and the us of forces, -- whether goingor down the road to take over assad, whether this is the beginning of an all-out offensive against asasad. >> the consequences for the

united states intervening in the situation in syria and the growing divide between sunni and shia in that region of the world? >> this is extraordinarily dangerous. what is happening in syria may have begun as a uprising against a dictatorial government, but now it is sunni against shia in the country, sunni against shia outside the country. the allies of the u.s. of this conflict are extremely sectarian. sunni monarchy's, very little interest in democracy. once you get entangled in this, but rather like iraq, it is very difficult to disentangle yourself. this could go on for years. >> the evidence that the u.s. says it has that assad used chemical weapons?

>> they say this, but it is a surer voice, which reminds me of what they were saying in 2002 and 2003 about saddam hussein's weapons of mass destruction. you would need evidence to be laid out in front of you to really be convinced by this. circlesoncerns in some that this is really developing into a proxy war with iran and hezbollah, rather than actually trying to deal with the situation internally within syria? >> it has already turned into a proxy war. you can see that with hezbollah and iran being involved, but also the u.s. was already sending weapons and up to $3 billion to the rebels, 70 flights of weapons, organized

with the cia. i'd think what ought to happen would be to go down the diplomatic row to have a cease- fire. he could not have a solution at this moment in time because you are involved in war and they hate each other, but they should push for a cease-fire. then that could be the basis for talks after. the decision by the u.s. looks as if it will push this into an all-out conflict. >> your assessment of the media coverage of what is happening in syria and the u.s.' decision? by somee been surprised of that, particularly on cnn, an immediate acceptance that syria was employing chemical weapons, accepted it as if it was written in stone, despite all what happened in iraq in the past, an

almost total lack of skepticism about the claims being made. >> patrick, thank you for being with us. we will continue to follow what is happening in syria. when we come back, we will speak with james bamford about the nsa's the secret wars.

snowden claimed responsibility for the leaks. robert moeller confirmed to the house judiciary committee that the u.s. has launched a criminal investigation. >> as for the individual committed to making these

disclosures, he is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. these disclosures have caused harm to our nation and safety. we are taking all necessary steps to hold a person responsible for these disclosures. is actively under investigation, we cannot comment publicly on the details of the investigation. the head of the nsa, keith alexander, defended the program, and said they helped prevent dozens of potential terrorist attacks. other lawmakers were critical of what entering of u.s. citizens. this is democratic congressman john conyers of michigan > . >> it is my fear we are on the verge of becoming a surveillance state, collecting records of

law-abiding americans every single day. fightwden has vowed to any extradition attempt to bring him back to the u.s. he said in a newspaper on wednesday -- the associated press reports the british parliament issued a travel alert to airlines around the world to not allow snowden to fly to the budget kingdom. >> we are now enjoyed by james bamford who helped expose the and as a's existence. "theost recent book is shadow factory: the ultra-secret nsa from 9/11 to the eavesdropping on america." in his latest article, he profiles keith alexander.

he also has a piece called "connecting the dots on prism, phone surveillance, and the nsa's massive spy center." e writes of alexander -- james bamford, welcome back. tell us who then as a chief alexander is. >> thank you, good to be back. four-starander is a general. if you walked and pennsylvania avenue in front of the white house, it is not very likely that even members of congress would recognize who he is. his name is unfamiliar to most americans, his face is unfamiliar to most people even in washington, but he is the most powerful person that has ever existed in the american intelligence community. he runs the largest and most

secret intelligence agency on earth, probably, which is the nsa. in charge of enormous numbers of people that do just amazing electronic spying, as we could see in the last weeks. he runsion to that, basically his own military, the u.s. cyber command which was just placed under his authority. u.s. cyber command is an extremely powerful organization that has already launched aggressive what they called kinetic attacks. that means destructive attacks, using cyber to destroy things. they destroyed the centrifuges in the iranian nuclear plant using cyber. being the commander, he also has three branches of the military under him. he has the second army, the 24th airforce, and the 10th navy

fleet. you have an enormously powerful person who is enormously secret, who can do things without even members of congress knowing about it. >> is he linked to dawn of rumsfeld in his rise to power? >> he is the one that gave him most of his stars. he came from almost no wear. he was a west point graduate. he rose up through the ranks in the nsa's secret world, but when the bush and ministration came in, he began to really rise high in the administration, going from one star to three stars in a short period of time, and now four. >> abu ghraib? >> one of the groups he was in was head ofwhen he army intelligence command were people in the upper grades, the

military intelligence people who were connected to a lot of the human rights abuses that went on there. >> with some of the fear is being expressed by u.s. officials in terms of the snowden revelations, he has alluded to other things that he has about u.s. cyber attacks abroad. could you comment on that? >> the interesting thing here is, the administration and the nsa has been coming up with all these charges against china going after our secrets, information, and so forth. it has caused congress to give enormous amounts of money to an money fornsa, defensive yousef as the chinese and so forth. one never comes down is a u.s. offensive capability against the rest of the world. there is no one that can compare

to the u.s.. they are expanding the secret city by a third to accommodate 14 new buildings, 10 parking supercomputer center, all for this new secret cyber command. it is dedicated largely to offense, to creating wars, not preventing wars. reports from some the press in china, commenting sayingleaks of snowden, this could change the relationship between the u.s. because it is clear the u.s. is engaging in cyber s.b. not around the world be cut the u.s. has been involved in that from the beginning. that is the job of the nsa. they were at the forefront of

the electronic eavesdropping era and is at the forefront of the cyber warfare era. the first thing you have to do when you are doing cyber warfare is discover how their systems work. you do that by inserting different kinds of viruses and malware into their systems. we have 14,000 more people who are going to be working for general alexander now in cyber command. this is a serious command. you have an army, navy, air force under him. this is the real thing. nsa directory, keith alexander said the american people had been misinformed about the extent of the agency's surveillance. >> i have been working with this committee for the past several years.

they are very good about asking all the questions and providing tremendous oversight, as does the court and administration. this is not a program where we are out for free-wheeling. it is a well-overseen and very focused program. what we owe you the american people is now, how good is that, with some statistics. i think when the american people hear that, they will stop and say, wait, the information we're getting is incorrect. i would tell the american people, let's take a step back, look and what is going on, oversight and compliance, and then have this discussion. your response? >> there is one area that i agree with him. the intermission that the public is getting is incorrect, but it is incorrect because it is coming from keith alexander and

the administration. what is incorrect is the fact -- you have general clapper of their denying in congress that the u.s. is engaged in any of this activity. , basicallyut this the same things coming out from mr. snow then, in "wired" last year and a verbally told me basically the same thing. soon after, keith alexander came out denying all of this. it gives me a lot of thought about what might have been going through snowden's mind. if he sees the other whistle- they comeming out, out and say the government is doing these things. then the administration and nsa says that is not true, and then

the mainstream media falls in , whatith the nsa position could go through somebody's mind is, the only way to actually get attention to this is to show the real documents, show what is going on. you cannot deny, if you're looking at a foreign intelligence court order, that shows all of these telephone records being connected, even local records, on the daily basis. that is the problem. you tell the public what is going on, the administration denies it. so what is next, you have to show the proof. >> explain the spy center that is being built in the bluffdale, utah. the best way-- >> to think is nsa's external hard

drive. it is stored from all they get from surveillance, including daily records of everyone's telephone calls, which we have been hearing about in the news. it is not just that, it is all this information coming from the internet that the nsa picks out, surveillance from around the country, from around the world, and it all goes into one place, this huge data warehouse where all this information is placed, but it also serves as the cloud for the nsa. and where all the information is kept. through these fiber optic cables that go out from it, people at nsa headquarters, listening posts in georgia, texas, all these other places, are able to immediately go in.

it is like a hard drive. you go in and analyze the information. if they are collecting my telephone records today, who i am calling, tonight the and as a andd go into those records analyze them. that is basically what is for. it is a massive respect -- repository for the information that the nsa is collecting. this is a million square feet of space. it is incredible when you can worth of data on a swiss army knife. this is a million square feet costing $2 billion. 2012, at the annual "def con "convention, the hacker convention, general alexander was asked whether the nsa keeps a file on americans. this was his response.

>> no, we do not. absolutely not. anyone that would tell you that we're keeping files on the american people would know that is true. let me tell you why. we havender our agency a responsibility. our job is for intelligence. we get oversight by congress, both intel committees, congressional members and their staff, so everything we do is able to be audited by them, by the fisa court, so the judiciary branch of the government, and by the administration. everything we do is accountable to them. within the administration, it is from the director of national intelligence, department of justice, from the department of defense. i feel like when i was a kid growing up, and some of you may feel like this, too. you get in some trouble, your supervised a lot, and that is the way i feel today.

we are overseen by everybody knows who would want to weave a story that we have hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is absolutely false. >> james bamford, that was general keith alexander at the asf con" convention in 2012, we mentioned yesterday, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. him raising the fact that we just gather for intelligence? >> i was there, too, i spoke at that convention. the comments that general alexander made were amazingly out of place because we just discovered that he has all of these dossiers that he has on american people, american internet. what he is talking about in terms of oversight is just

nonsense. he talks about the court. the court is a top secret court that no one is even allowed to know where its address is, let alone getting any information from it. time they overhaul the legislation, they weakened the court a great deal. what was the question again? basically, his emphasis on foreign intelligence gathering, as well as the role of the nsa. >> that is always what they claim, we are not involved in the u.s., we're just involved in foreign communications. it the look at the foreign surveillance court order that was released, but we are talking about getting from verizon is

not just overseas calls, these are also local calls. these are called but are not even on your bill. somebody calling their grandmother next door. the government is trying to get access to even your local calls. i do not see any connection between that and what they claim, that we're only doing international, for a communications. when you are asking for local phone calls throughout the united states, everybody, on a daily basis, where is the truth in all of these claims? >> republican senator rand paul says that he plans to take action against the nsa's actions and also says that they're monitoring is ineffective. >> i believe we can have liberty

and security. i believe we are more secure when we narrow our focus and target specific suspects. despite mining billions of american phone calls, we still had the boston bombing. perhaps we are overwhelming ourselves with data. perhaps this unfocused approach distracted us from knowing that one of the boston bombers had gone back to chechnya. perhaps targeting everyone distracts us from stopping people such as the underwear bomb or, who rear tip off about in advance. >> james bamford, your response? >> i have been saying the same thing. if you are trying to find a needle in a haystack, the last thing you want to do is continually put more hay on the haystack. you want people who are more capable of hiding -- finding a needle, rather than people putting more hay on the

haystack. that is always what happens every time there is an incident. we need more information. not only that, but this idea that they are doing this totally covertly is anti-democratic. before all this broken out over here, the british were debating the same thing in england. the government wanted access to ofl of the metadata communications in the country and they wanted to order the isp's to store on that incoming and outgoing data for a year so that the government could go through it. -- difference, however

and it was voted down. the public said it was too much of an intrusion for the balance of security. so here you have a democratic system in england where they have a choice and they vote against it. here they figure, if we bring this out to a vote, people will vote against it, so we will impose it on the secretly. that is not the democratic process. >> james bamford, thank you for being with us. investigative supporter -- reporter who has held to expose the existence of the nsa surveillance program. his most recent book is called "the shadow factory: the ultra- secret nsa from 9/11 to the eavesdropping on america." "wired" o pieces in

about general alexander. when we come back, the landmark decision issued by the supreme court barring patenting human genes. it was 9-0. stay with us. [♪]

>> "paths of victory" by odetta. a major victory for women's

health. the human -- the supreme court has ruled that human genes cannot be patented. dealsrm myriad genetics own human genes and their -- it was the only company that could conduct life- saving tests to see if women had mutations in those james. >> on thursday, the supreme court said that the discovery of the precise location and sequence of the genes did not constitute a human-made invention eligible for patenting. the aclu and public patent foundation filed case four years ago on behalf of 20 plaintiffs

and women's health advocacy groups and patients. they made this video to raise awareness. >> right now a private company called myriad genetics owns a piece of your body. that is a bad idea. it panted two games, breast cancer genes 1 and 2. certain mutations on these genes give women a strong chance of getting breast or ovarian cancer. however, because of the patents, they say they are the only ones that can test for the mutation. marion says once it removes the genes from your body, it owns them. that is not how the law works. >> this gained publicity last month when actress angelina jolie revealed she underwent a double mastectomy after discovering the chance that she had an 80% chance of developing breast cancer.

she wrote -- toda she says the cost of testing and more than $3,000 remained an obstacle for many women. >> democracy now! invited myriad genetics to be on the show but they declined. when we spoke to a company thatsperson, he explained they offer life-saving technology at a cost. >> we can drive financial assistance, depending on the patient's level of need. we have patient assistance programs for those who are uninsured or in financial need, can access and help them get the tests. the vast majority of patients will be able to get the test

with no out-of-pocket expense at all. for those in private insurance plans that are not yet under the umbrella of the affordable care act -- and eventually they all will be -- but for those not yet under the umbrella, the out-of- pocket cost is $92. it is far fewer than 1% of patients to ever have to pay list price for the test. that is just -- it is not even half of 1% of patients that have to do that. >> that was a spokesperson for myriad genetics. our next guest had a different experience when she tried to get her testing done through the company. we are joined by lisbeth ceriani, one of the plaintiffs in the aclu lawsuit. she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. her oncologist noted that she was also at risk for developing ovarian cancer and recommended that she get the test.

but due to patent laws, the tests were prohibitively expensive, even though she was insured by masshealth at the time. we are also joined by an attorney with the aclu, sandra park. >> and in london, we have a senior federal judge for the southern district of new york. he ruled against myriad genetics in 2010 and invalidated their patents on the the rnc 1 and 2 genes. judge, let's begin with you. this is certainly a victory, at the upholding of your decision. how significant is it, 9-0? the principle that is enunciated by justice thomas' opinion is a very powerful one. i think it will have an immediate affect on people like

those represented by the plaintiffs' groups and so on. recognizedrt itself of study of genomics is one the leading areas of research in the united states and it is very importance to everybody's health. willdecision, i believe, free up the ability of researchers and others to experiment, to deal with genomes, and that, i think, will expand the area of knowledge and research. i think it is a very important decision. it is one that, frankly, i feel so delighted that i was able to have a part in it, because i

think this issue of knowledge and the freedom of the gnomic knowledge is something that will be critical in the years to come. judge sweet, the court made a distinction between human genes that exist in nature and those that are altered by a firm in the process of their own scientific experimentation. think it is really a simple but elegant decision. the court has made it clear that there are areas in research that can perhaps be patented. that is for another day, with respect to each one. that is because they have made a

change in the gene. so the court has not closed down the ability of people to advance medical research through patents, but at the same time, has made it clear, that no one itself.nt a genome in that will open up a greater ability of people to obtain information on the bir racy -- also enhance and the ability of the researchers to deal with the atomic research, which is now, as i understand, not only a question of one genome, but the effect of one genome on another. so that freedom is important. is also1 and 2

pronounced brac one and two. >> very briefly, if you could tell us your story. >> i had difficulty obtaining the brac analysis test because i was told by the genetic counselor that they would not accept my insurance, and that it would not cover it, actually. when i contacted the insurer, they say they would cover if it was provided by a contract it lab. i contacted marietta and said, please contract with my insurance. that was not happening. it chose not to contract with my insurance which was at the time masshealth. that was within their right, but as you know, the test was extremely expensive, so it took over a year and a half to access the test through a grant, luckily.

>> you heard the spokesman for mayor ed say that few people have to pay the list price. rogers insisted that they made the test highly accessible. take a step back and talk about access to the test. the brac analysis test for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer is widely accessible. essentially all private insurance companies, medicare, and medicaid provide reimbursement for at risk patients for brac analysis. also, because of the affordable care act, some people refer to it as obamacare, under the preventive care provisions, patients can get the brac analysis test without any out- of-pocket cost, meaning no

copayment, no deductible. they can get the test with no cost at all. for the private insurance plans -- and there is a small percentage of private insurance plans not yet under the umbrella of the affordable care act, for those, the average out of pocket cost for the patient is $92. >> could you respond to that? >> in my case, it would have been closer to $4,000 to access the test in 2009. toietta was choosing not contract with massachusetts medicaid at the time. many negotiations went back and forth between the contracting people with masshealth and the contract in people at marietta. in my case, it would've been closer to $4,000. apparently, they were not able to allow make any deals on the price because i had masshealth,

said they were prohibited from offering me any discounts. so that was just prohibitive for me today at the time. luckily, i was able to access a grant in enough time to access the information i needed in order to assess whether i had an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer. in my case it turned out i did have a where mutation, so i was lucky to be able to access the test when i did, but it did take there arer-and-a-half definitely other women in massachusetts with the same issues. argue thisark, you before the supreme court. >> this is a huge victory. but we had here up to this point was a company that monopolized two human genes. with that monopoly, dictated the terms of testing. ist you heard from lisbeth

they decided the price with no competition. they also decide which mutations are looked for, the quality of the test, and we now know that there are many laboratories capable of offering this type of testing that would offer it in different ways so that they would be looking at the many genes connected with breast and ovarian cancer, and not just screening two. with the ruling today we fully expect much better access and options for patients, as well as for scientists who want to look a different parts of the genome. they now bring to deal with hands on the thousands of genes on our genome when they engage in scientific work. >> the direct impact of this decision in terms of the availability for testing, not only for this -- this has ramifications beyond these two particular genes in terms of what happens in the industry. >> we have heard two or three different laboratories have

announced they plan to offer testing on the brac genes within two years. but you are right, the patent office has issued patents on thousands of human genes connected with diseases like muscular dystrophy, colon cancer. what we expect to see is at this on those genes under question with the ruling and more options will become available. to myriadd to turn thatics lawyer, suggesting patenting a human gene is like patenting a baseball bat. he says, a baseball bat is not a baseball bat until isolated from a tree. chief justice roberts took issue with the argument. >> my understanding is that what is involved here is snipping.

usenet off the top and bottom, and you have it. the baseball bat is different. you cannot look at a tree and you cut it here and here and all the sudden you have a baseball bat. you have to invent it. you do not have to invent a particular segment of the strand. you just have to cut it off. >> during the hearing, sonia sotomayor questioned the lawyer, questioning patenting a gene, comparing it to patenting building a top chip cookie. >> i can make a truck to chip cookie using natural ingredients, salt, eggs, flour. and i create my chocolate chip cookie. and if i combust those in some new way, i can get a patent on that. but i cannot imagine getting a patent simply based on the basic items of salt, flour, and x, simply because i have created a

new use or new product from those ingredients. explain to me why gene sequences, whether the actual numbers, why sequences are not the basic products that you cannot patent. >> i will start by showing you how this is a different structure. it has a different chemical -- only with regard to the isolated molecule as well. if you were to write it out in those chemical equations -- >> so i'd put in salt and flour, and that is different? >> that is a combination of two different things. noto if i take them apart, even get a pat on the salt and a patent on the flour? >> they were both old pier that is the problem with using the

simplistic analogy, with all due respect, your honor. your response on the significance of this ruling? the fundamental issue was, can you patent something that is a product of nature? can you patent gold, for example? what this decision has affirmed is that there are things in nature that cannot be patented. one of those things in nature is hea.genome to it is a natural development and not deprived of any outside influence. it is your genome. that cannot be patented. the issue is really the extent

to which your genome can be, if you will, grasped, for some other purpose. i attended the argument. the justices were marvelously attentive. direct, andsimple, powerful 9-0 decision indicates that they believe the genome is something that is important, if you will -- not using it in a legal sense -- but free. it will make a difference in terms of availability for those who want the tests, and also in terms of research. is that it is quite -- i know it is important. --

>> we are going to have to leave it there. thank you for being with us. i know that you just celebrated our 90th birthday. happy birthday, justicdge.