they're going to be rigged again this time too. voting is on friday. watch this space. that does it for us tonight. thanks for being with us on this fine monday night. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. thanks for being with us. okay. let me get this straight. the nsa is a big scary surveillance monster that knows everything we do. but it didn't know that one of its own contractors was working with glenn greenwald on a massive leak about the nsa? tonight i'll ask glenn greenwald if his own experience is actually evidence that the nsa isn't really so scary. and david axelrod is here to respond to the accusations against the obama administration. >> i'm no different from anybody else. i'm just another guy. >> opposition to the government's sweeping surveillance program now has a public face. >> 29-year-old edward snowden revealed himself -- >> 29-year-old edward snowden. >> he leaked information about the government surveillance

program. >> he's a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the cia. >> then he goes over to work for this contractor for the nsa. >> he landed this job make over $200,000. >> are his motives pure? i have no idea. >> he says he did it because the public needs to know what's going on. >> big breaking news today. >> i certainly wasn't shocked by it. >> big break news about something we've known for like seven years. >> is this guy a criminal or is he a whistleblower? >> he's not a whistleblower. >> do you think has credibility as a whistleblower? >> you don't break the law, steal documents, and then make a run for the border. >> i can tell you this. these programs are within the law. >> aren't all the programs that have been revealed legal? >> the damage these revelations incur are huge. >> this is u.s. policy. you may disagree with it. >> i'm no different from anybody else. i'm just another guy. >> the law was broken by one person, who is mr. snowden. >> snowden's treatment may rest on public perception.

glenn greenwald continues to break news about the national security agency, and he will join me in a moment. but first, the shocker of the weekend was the secret leaker in the nsa story broke the mold for leakers and decided to go public. >> my name's ed snowden. i'm 29 years old. i work for booz allen hamilton as an infrastructure analyst for nsa in hawaii. >> swaerd snowden spent his first years in elizabeth city, north carolina and then his family moved to maryland when he was 9 years old. he has an unusual background for someone in a position of trust in the intelligence community. he was a high school dropout, but he did obtain a g.e.d. he spent less than a year in the army reserve. snowden says he was discharged after breaking his legs in a training accident. he first worked for the nsa as a security guard. he then got an information technology job with the cia. according to the "guardian," snowden worked at the nsa for

the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors including dell and booz allen hamilton where he last naid about $200,000 a year. this is the way edward snowden described why he decided to leak nsa material. >> when you're in positions of privileged access like a systems administrator for these sort of intelligence community agencies, you're exposed to a lot more information on a broader scale than the average employee. and because of that you see things that may be disturbing. but over the kofrs a nocourse o person's career you see one or two instances. when you see everything, you see them on a more frequent basis and you recognize that some of these things are actually abuses. and when you talk to people about them in a place like this where this is the normal state of business, people tend not to take them very seriously and

move on from them. but over time that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about it. and the more you talk about it the more you're ignored, the more you're told it's not a problem. until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public, not by somebody who was simply hired by the government. >> here's how snowden described what the nsa actually does. >> nsa and the intelligence community in general is focused on getting intelligence wherever it can by any means possible that it believes on the grounds of a sort of self-certification that they serve the national interest. originally we saw that focused very narrowly tailored as foreign intelligence gathered overseas. now increasingly we see that it's happening domestically. and to do that they -- the nsa specifically targets the communications of everyone. it ingests them by default. it collects them in its system,

and it filters them and it analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve these ends. >> joining me now from hong kong, the "guardian's" glenn greenwald, who broke this story. glenn, i've been wondering as the story's developed that given that the nsa, as you're portraying it, knows everything, sees everything, how is it in that environment that you were able to communicate internationally over a period of time with someone working as a contractor for the nsa right under their noses? i mean, isn't what you've pulled off here, this successful leak, evidence that the nsa really doesn't know everything that we are suggesting it knows? >> unfortunately, i wish that were true, lawrence.

unfortunately, it isn't. when he first contacted me back in february, the first thing that he insisted that i do was to install extremely sophisticated encryption technology that would allow us to communicate by e-mail and online chat. one of the very few ways that makes it difficult for the nsa to intervene in communications. you have to have a very high level of sophistication to be able to do that. something that i don't have. and it actually delayed for quite some time our ability to communicate. so if you go to extreme lengths that the world's greatest programmers and cryptologist experts have in order to install and figure out how to do programming, maybe you can stay a step ahead of the nsa for some time. but anyone who isn't doing that is going to have their communications monitored and stored. and that's the only way that he would end up talking to me and did end up talking to me. >> what about the nsa's hiring and contracting practices? clearly, they would not have

wanted snowden working for them if they knew then what they know now about him. and obviously, they're not really screening who gets to work close to this material very closely. >> well, i mean, i'm not so sure that's true. if you look at his history, i mean, he's exactly the kind of person that you would want working for you if you're in the intelligence community. the first thing that he did after he got out of -- he actually didn't complete high school but would have completed high school. was he enlisted in army training to join the special forces to go fight in the iraq war because he thought that war was so noble. and he was quickly disabused of that belief, but he then went to work for the nsa and the cia after that. he had devoted himself to serving his country. and it was only over time when he began to realize just how pervasive the surveillance state is, how secretive it is, how without accountability it is. did he gradually start having his eyes open about what this national security apparatus

really does and felt compelled to step forward and do something about it. but that is the key. when you have this sprawling system and there are 20,000 employees at the nsa but many other tens of thousands working for private contractors, collecting enormous amounts of data, it's an unaccountable, uncontrollable system. you're going to give access to huge numbers of people to the most sensitive communications data and other forms of information about people. there's no way to prevent abuse. that's one of the lessons here. >> and he's kind of low level. i'm reading what he told you about what he did there. every one of his titles, glenn, is simply a technical -- he's an i.t. guy. he says he's a systems engineer. then he was a systems administrator. senior adviser for solutions. and a telecommunications information systems officer. but at the same time, at the same time as giving you a bio that's basically an i.t. guy, he claimed to have very powerful authority. let's listen to what authority he claimed he had.

>> i sitting at my desk certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if i had a personal e-mail. >> now, glenn, he does not mean, does he, that he had the legal authority to do that. he is simply saying because i had i.t. access i could get into anything i wanted to get into, much like, say, people working in the irs used to be able to just look at your tax return if they felt like it even though they were not authorized to do it, the irs has since controlled that. but he's not saying he in any way could legally possibly been given that authority by anyone at the nsa to look at president obama's e-mail? >> precisely, lawrence. and you're making the important point. it's the point that he's making. it's the point that he wants everyone to understand. which is that even though he is a relatively low-level, not even an employee of the nsa, private

contractor, he has been given -- by authority he means he's authorized to access these data bases and these technologies. and that there are tens of thousands of people in the nsa who are not accountable, who are authorized to do the same. everyone should go right now who's listening, go onto google and google 2008 abc news nsa abuse. and you will find stories there about low-level nsa analysts who abused these technologies to listen in on the conversations that soldiers were having with their girlfriends, that people they knew were having with one another internationally. it is a system that is begging for abuse because it's all in secrecy. we don't really know what it is that it's doing. but his point is that this apparatus is sucking up every communication, every telephone call, every e-mail so that at any time any of these people at these terminals can go in and invade these conversations because it doesn't have sufficient oversight and it's ie ubiquitous, the surveillance

it's doing. >> but glenn-i don't think we can attack a systems mission because someone working in that system like snowden is willing to actually violate the rules of the system. for example, my bank. there are people working at my bank who can go and look at exactly what's going on in every one of my bank accounts whenever they feel like it because they just saw me on tv and they said i wonder how much money he has in check. they can go do that. they're not supposed to. it doesn't mean that my bank is a bad bank because someone working there violates the rules. same thing with everything else that private companies -- like gmail, for example, anybody working at the e-mail facilities at google, all these places, they can go look at the people's e-mail who are writing those e-mail if they want to, if they want to break the rules and do that. >> right. well, first of all, he didn't actually break the rules. he didn't say that he has gone in and invaded other people's communications that he shouldn't have been looking. he was making the point that he had the ability to do so as a way of warning us. but i think that your question

raises the important point. look, we have to have a banking system. we have to have e-mail. we don't have to have a government that is collecting all of this information about us. this is a choice that we have as citizens about whether we want the government to be doing this. we have a history in this country that we can look to. go and look at the church committee report of the mid 1970s, with which i know you're obviously familiar. and what it found is when you empower politicians and law enforcement officials to gather massive amounts of information about people and don't provide sufficient transparency and oversight to how they're using it they will abuse it. it's j. edgar hoover's fbi followed martin luther king around, read his mail, listened to his conversations, found out about what they thought were adulterous relationships and tried to use it to discredit him and even encourage him to commit suicide. what he's trying to say is we should be debating whether we want to have a government that is in the business of collecting huge amounts of extremely invasive information about not terrorists or people suspected of wrongdoing but all americans.

and think about the potential for abuse that has, the inevitability of abuse that has. and even if you're right, lawrence, at the end of the day we decide we do want, that at the very least we should have way more transparency and checks and accountability on how this is done and what is being done, which is the reason that we decided to write these stories, so that we could start a debate and make americans aware of what this apparatus is actually doing. >> yeah, i mean, glenn, my feeling so far is in everything i -- and i've been slow to react to it because i want to take in as much as possible. but so far i'm not scared. so far i haven't heard a single thing about what the government has collected on me that isn't also collected by a bunch of private companies. and the fact that the government is collecting it at such a gigantic massive level means that it's even harder for the government to find me in this giant amount of data that they have. and they have absolutely no incentive to find me. and so i at this stage feel completely unthreatened by this. i understand every point you're

making on principle. i get the principle. and my reaction to it in the practice is i am at this point unthreatened by it. but glenn, one more thing before we go here. you have said that there are people who tried to sue the nsa and their suits were dismissed because they didn't have standing. and based on some things i've heard you say in the last 24 hours, i'm starting to think that one of the next things you have coming out is you're going to release the names of people that the nsa has specifically been looking at so that they actually can have standing to go to court and sue. >> we would not ever publish the names of people that the nsa has spied upon because one of two things could happen. either they are actually guilty of doing bad things, in which case you tip them off to the fact they're being surveilled or they're actually innocent of all

wrong doing and then you make it seem as if they're guilty by publishing their names. so we're not going to be doing that. but the fact that there are these names out there means that they do have evidence to show they have been surveilled and therefore can sue. >> well, glenn, i have the feeling you are going to be breaking more news. this is not the last night of breaking news with glenn greenwald, is it? >> you're correct about that, lawrence. there are certainly lots more stories that need to be covered, and we intend to cover them aggressively. >> all right. come back with it on your next one. glenn, thank you very much for joining me tonight. coming up -- david axelrod will be next. i'm the next american success story. working for a company where over seventy-five percent of store management started as hourly associates. there's opportunity here. i can use walmart's education benefits to get a degree, maybe work in it, or be an engineer, helping walmart conserve energy. even today, when our store does well, i earn quarterly bonuses. when

people look at me, i hope they see someone working their way up. vo: opportunity, that's the real walmart. (girl) w(guy) dive shop.y? (girl) diving lessons. (guy) we should totally do that. (girl ) yeah, right. (guy) i wannna catch a falcon! (girl) we should do that. (guy) i caught a falcon. (guy) you could eat a bug. let's do that. (guy) you know you're eating a bug. (girl) because of the legs. (guy vo) we got a subaru to take us new places. (girl) yeah, it's a hot spring. (guy) we should do that. (guy vo) it did. (man) how's that feel? (guy) fine. (girl) we shouldn't have done that. (guy) no. (announcer) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. thanks, olivia. thank you. so you can make a payment from your cell to almost anyone's phone or email. (speaking french)

so you can express your gratitude... in the moment. chase quickpay. so you can. living on cloud nine with that u-verse wireless receiver. you see in my day, when my mom was repainting the house, you couldn't just set up a tv in the basement. i mean, come on! nope. we could only watch tv in the rooms that had a tv outlet. yeah if we wanted to watch tv someplace else, we'd have to go to my aunt sally's. have you ever sat on a plastic covered couch? [ kids cheering ] you're missing a good game over here. those kids wouldn't have lasted one day in our shoes. [ male announcer ] add a wireless receiver. call to get u-verse tv for just $19 a month with qualifying bundles. rethink possible. nelson mandela is in a south africa hospital tonight undergoing treatment for a serious lung infection. the nobel laureate and former south african president has been in intensive care for three days. current south african president jacob zuma and fellow nobel

laureate bishop desmond tutu both issued calls for prayer for nelson mandela. nelson mandela is 94 years old. up next, david axelrod joins me to respond to the recent leaks about the national security agency. asional have constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues... with three strains of good bacteria. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'.

i'm no different from anybody else. i don't have special skills. i'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office, watches what -- what's happening and goes, this is something that's not our place to decide. the public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong. >> joining me now, former senior

adviser to president obama and msnbc political analyst david axelrod. david, you're not just a regular guy when it comes to this story. you sat with the president. you saw the way this kind of information is processed in the white house. what concerns and worries do you share with edward snowden about the way this government collects information? where are the risks in the way this government collects information? >> well, look, this whole issue of how intelligence is gathered in these kinds of situations is a concern, and that's why when the president came to office he imposed additional safeguards in terms of more briefings of congress. there's no -- you know, i listened to glenn speak. there's no -- there are no warrantless sort of -- there aren't people sitting at their desks and invading people's privacy, at least legally. and i mean, the law would prohibit exactly what snowden

suggested suggested. the law requires any such activity involving an american citizen, requires a warrant. as it should. and so you have inspector generals in the executive branch. you have the courts. and then you have the congress overseeing this. and you know, we should be vigilant about it because there are legitimate concerns. but i also -- the other experience i had, lawrence, was sitting there every day aware of real threats. and i was there, for example, when the zazi case was going on. the fellow in colorado who traveled to new york as part of a conspiracy to blow up the new york subway system. the only way he was detected was through the use of these -- of these programs. if not for these programs, he may well have been successful and we would have had the worst terrorist attack since 9/11. so i hear glenn. i hear what he's saying. but all of -- you know, there's no evidence that what the fbi

was doing in the '60s is what's going on here. there's no evidence of any of this. there are safeguards that have been built in and more since this president took office. but the question is what is the real threat? you say you're not particularly scared about what you heard. but there is a legitimate fear about terrorist attacks. and the question is what we as a country are willing to do and willing to sacrifice for it. and as the president said on friday, and i agree with him, the kinds of intrusions that this program suggests are not so profound as to be worth the risk on the other side. but this is the balancing act a president has to do. >> well, david, if you were holding a cell phone in your hand 20 years ago, you knew that there were people driving along in their car radios who could hear your cell phone call. this stuff did not originate as

secure communication. and so if you have a long enough history with this technology, you never should have been trusting it as some kind of secure thing to begin with. so it's a little bit harder to create a fear in me about what's being gathered through these systems when i never considered them secure to begin with. and i think that's true for a lot of americans. i want to read you a "usa today" story. and i was struck by it. bill maher read this friday night. and it's a "usa today" story from 2006 that i think we can -- it has an echo that we can all remember. "the national security agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of americans using data provided by at&t, verizon, and bellsouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told "usa today." the nsa program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary americans, most of whom aren't suspected of any crime." now, david, i read that sort of

thing back in 2006. and i am not so terribly surprised by what we've been learning this week because of what we learned back then. >> but the difference between now and 2005 and 2006 is that there are additional safeguards built in. there is additional legislative review. there is a requirement that if any action is taken on the basis of these records -- and remember, they're not listening to calls. they have no idea what the content of these calls is. they're just -- computers are amassing all these numbers to try and put puzzles together as to who overseas might be in touch with someone in the u.s. who might be plotting against us. none of that implies that people are listening to your calls. but if the government has a lead, they have to go get a warrant from the fisa court to pursue that. there are a lot of safeguards here. my question is -- of mr. snowden is he could have gone to the

congress. he could have gone to the inspector general. this is a peculiar route he took. i mean, he's a whistleblower who then blew the country and -- >> i've got to say, david, the one thing i accept from him is the notion that if he had tried in any way to make headway with this internally he would have gotten nowhere. and i am virtually certain of that, that he would have gotten nowhere internally. he made a very big life decision to go in what is a criminal direction with it. >> but lawrence, you know that there are a couple of senators, wyden and udall, who've been critical -- >> but they'd go on the senate floor and they weren't getting anywhere because they couldn't say publicly what they knew. so they couldn't get anywhere either. >> but he certainly could have talked to them. i'm not quite -- look, let's leave that issue aside. but i mean, there are -- there are peculiarities about this. one of them you pointed out.

the notion he said -- he did say he had the authorities to tap anyone's phone. he didn't have the authorities. and i'll leave it to others to discover as to whether he had the capacity. he also said later in the interview that he had the names and locations of every operative all over the world. maybe he does. i don't know if that's the facts. >> he actually said at one point that he knew everything. now, that sounds like a pretty grandiose statement to me. i don't think it's possible for a human being to know everything that's happening in the -- >> i've met a few people in politics who thought that, but -- >> but one final note, david, before i let you go. it seems that at the base of this story also is this is what elections are about. and we discovered this in the 1960s, when we had the nuclear bomb. and barry goldwater seemed to be a presidential candidate willing to use it. and that destroyed his candidacy. the public realized, we are going to entrust nuclear

weaponry to this president, and they decided we cannot entrust to this president the power with nuclear weaponry. we now are revealing to the public there is a lot of other powers in the presidency that you are entrusting to someone in an election. and this looks to me like something that the public should at minimum take very seriously when they vote on which one of these presidential candidates do you want to entrust, safeguarding this kind of material. >> i think that's true. but i also think that we as a country have to build in safeguards so no president can hijack the system and misuse it for their own purposes. and that's why having legislative review, that's why having the fisa court as an oversight on this process, that's why having an inspector general, all of those things, you know, they have audits, they have a series of things that are built in, that have been built in in the last few years because, you know, i have great faith in the president.

i worked with him. i know him very well. i trust him. i have no doubt that this program has been executed, you know, in an appropriate way under his -- under his leadership. i don't know what's going to happen with the next president or the president after that. and i think that's why he felt so strongly about building in some additional safeguards. because you don't want the executive to have unfettered power. >> david axelrod, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> good to be with you. >> coming up -- murder on a college campus. once again. that's in tonight's "rewrite." she's still the one for you -

you know it even after all these years. but your erectile dysfunction - you know,that could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial.

vo: ta friend under water is end usomething completely different. i met a turtle friend today so, you don't get that very often. it seemed like it was more than happy to have us in his home. so beautiful. avo: more travel. more options. more personal. whatever you're looking for expedia has more ways to help you find yours.

i've said that by friday if the chairman doesn't want to release them like he promised, like he promised, what we will do is we will do the redactions and then submit them to the public and to the media so that you all can make your own judgment. there's nothing in those transcripts that i'm afraid of. >> that's elijah cummings the senior democratic on the committee chaired by darrell issa. elijah cummings is daring the chairman to release the transcripts of interviews the committee staff has done with irs workers in the cincinnati office where a 501c-4 applications were processed. darrell issa has previously quoted very selectively from those interviews but he has refused to publicly release those interviews. among the facts darrell issa has refused to release but congressman cummings has now revealed, the irs manager who

supervised the team of screeners that evaluates applications for tax-exempt status in cincinnati has 21 years of experience at the irs, and he described himself to the republican committee staff as "a conservative republican." the irs manager also said, "i do not believe that the screening of these cases had anything to do other than consistency in identifying cases that needed to have further development." when asked if he was aware of any political motivations behind the screenings, screening centralizing and development of tea party cases, he said he was not. when asked if he had any reason to believe that anyone in the white house was involved in the decision to screen tea party cases, he said he did not. joining me now are howard dean, former vermont governor and dnc chairman, and richard wolffe, executive editor of msnbc.com. howard dean, well, i guess that

does it. we've just heard from the guy running things at the cincinnati office. he's a conservative republican. and he said no, no, no, the white house wasn't telling me what to do. >> yeah. the interesting thing about this is first of all, elijah cummings has been a very courageous congressman for a long time. he leads with what he thinks is right, which is a reasonably unusual quality in congress these days. and darrell issa is basically a fraud. i mean, darrell issa is a propagandist who instead of doing his job for the united states government the way he's paid to do thinks this is all about politics. and it isn't. and he's about to be undressed by the ranking member. and i think it's great. it's about time somebody told the truth in washington. and elijah cummings is telling the truth. >> you know, the information is revealing things that i thought was reasonable all along, that people thought, you know, in the hearings in some of the media thought was so terrible. i want to read something, an interview from one of the screeners who worked for that

conservative republican manager. and the screener explained why he started using the search term "patriots." he said, "i used patriots because some of the tea parties wouldn't -- they would shorten their name to tp patriots. i thought okay, i will use patriot. and i would see tp patriots." richard wolffe, that's from a guy whose job it is to evaluate how much politics your 501c4 is going to engage in. that strikes me as a perfectly reasonable search term. >> especially because they weren't targeting them for their politics. they were targeting them because they were pretending to be educational institution that's were eligible for tax-free status when they were really political groups. and of course in this period what were the largest number of new political groups coming up but of course the tea party groups. you know, there was a lot of republican commentary advice at

the time these hearings first came about where people like charles krauthammer and others said let the facts speak for themselves. darrell issa, don't go out there and play politics, let the facts speak for themselves. and here these transcripts are speaking very, very loudly and they might speak even more loudly if we saw them all. >> howard dean, this is so washington, this whole thing, where you know, we start the big investigation, and they're just not willing to recognize that what they're finding doesn't line up with their initial accusations. it was a perfectly legitimate edition to launch if they'd launched it with an open mind. and they could have come across this information and not had to suppress it the way issa seems to be doing. but now issa's not interested in getting out the information that his own staff went out there and found. >> well, it's interesting. darrell issa has a history of this kind of stuff. he was a force behind the recall

election of gray davis when gray davis was recalled from the governorship. darrell issa desperately wanted to run for governor and he was pushed aside by the republican party precisely because of this kind of stuff. what darrell issa is serving darrell issa in the republican party. it's not serving the people of the united states. this is a consistent theme throughout the right wing. they always give you part of the evidence and tell a story. they think the story is more important than the evidence. fortunately, the american people have gotten pretty smart about this, which is why the so-called irs scandal is not going anywhere. because they strongly suspect that the republicans are going to do this again and again and again. and it gives them less and less credibility. >> "the new york times"/cbs did a poll today where it asked the public to simply guess, just guess what happened at the irs. and those guesses apparently are newsworthy. and the guesses are that 68% said that the irs did this for political reasons. 19% said they did it because it

was the right policy. and 14% honest respondents said they simply did not know. but richard wolffe, so this is now newsworthy, what the public guesses about an investigation that isn't even actually complete. >> right. it's not very enlightening. and look, the irs, we all know, the irs has no friends. so those numbers aren't surprising. there is a tiny hint of irony in all of this which if you kind of strip await pieces of the story you'd say that people were afraid of a branch of government acting out of public view for purely partisan reasons and in fact that pretty much describes what darrell issa's been up to. >> howard dean and richard wolffe, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, joey reid joins me live from florida with the latest on the trial of george zimmerman for killing trayvon martin. and in the "rewrite"

tonight, another day, another mass murder in america. this one was close to home. [ male announcer ] this is kevin. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. ♪ a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine.

with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions, your business is more reliable - secure - agile. and with responsive, dedicated support, we help you shine every day of the week. [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me.

it appears it's an agent of good. ♪ [ agent smith ] ge software connects patients to nurses to the right machines while dramatically reducing waiting time. [ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. [ static warbles ] in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our history matter to you? because for more than two centuries, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. ♪ and the next great idea could be yours. ♪

a houston group thinks it's found a way to make america a better place. free shotguns for everyone. especially women. the group, the armed citizens project, gave free shotguns to 35 residents in a neighborhood of houston. after those residents passed a background check and a firearms course. the group plans to expand into other cities and describes itself as dedicated to training and arming vulnerable women. it turns out few things make a woman more vulnerable than owning a gun. a study of gun ownership and homicide rates show that a woman with a gun in her home was nearly three times more likely to be murdered. up next, our latest mass murderer was able to get an assault weapon and all the ammunition he needed thanks to the national rifle association. america seems to be taking this latest mass murder in stride. but it's next in the "rewrite." ♪

[ male announcer ] moving object detection. ♪ blind spot warning. ♪ lane departure warning. safety, down to an art. the nissan altima with safety shield technologies. nissan. innovation that excites. ♪ accomplishing even little things can become major victories.

i'm phil mickelson, pro golfer. when i was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, my rheumatologist prescribed enbrel for my pain and stiffness, and to help stop joint damage. [ male announcer ] enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. you should not start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. tell your doctor if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have symptoms such as persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. since enbrel helped relieve my joint pain, it's the little things that mean the most. ask your rheumatologist if enbrel is right for you. [ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biologic medicine prescribed by rheumatologists.

on friday laura sisk knew president obama was in town just a couple of miles away when she saw a man dressed in black carrying an assault weapon. he looked like he was a member of a s.w.a.t. team. for a second she thought maybe he was with the president's security team. then the man jumped in her mazda and said "you're going to drive me to santa monica college and let me out." she begged him to take the car himself, and he said, "no. you're driving." later she told the "los angeles times" "he told me to calm down. you'll be all right," sis k said. "he said he'd let me go if i didn't do anything stupid." and he did. he let her go. after he got to santa monica college. on the way to santa monica college he fired a blizzard of bullets at a bus. a woman sitting in the back row of the bus was grazed in the head by a bullet. and when the gunman arrived at santa monica college, he opened fire on a ford explorer, killing the driver immediately and

wounding his passenger. the driver of the explorer was a 22-year employee of santa monica college. 68-year-old carlos franco. tended the grounds at this urban college attended by many full-time students with full-time jobs. sitting beside carlos in the explorer was his youngest daughter, marcella, 26 years old. she was badly wounded and rushed to the hospital a few minutes later, after santa monica police and campus police closed in on the gunman in the library. the police shot and killed him. the police soon discovered that america's latest mass murderer had begun his rampage by killing his father and his brother in their home less than a mile from sandt monica college. he then set the home on fire before hijacking laura sisk's mazda. as he lay dead on the ground of the campus of santa monica college, police discovered the mass murderer had 1,300 bullets

with him. the portrait of the mass murderer that appeared over the weekend had those familiar characteristics that we've come to expect after the mass murderers in tucson, arizona, aurora, colorado, and newtown, connecticut. friends said this one was an emotionally unstable 23-year-old. one neighbor described him as an angry man whose rage could make his voice boom through the walls of his home. a family friend said he had a fascination with guns. "we were all worried about it." and thanks to the national rifle association, that's all you can do in this country when you have an angry, emotionally unstable neighbor who is fascinated with guns. all you can do is worry about it because the nra has made sure that your angry unstable neighbor will have no trouble getting his hands on the most murderous weapons that exist and unlimited amounts of ammunition. and the nra has made sure that

the day your angry, unstable, heavily armed neighbor is overwhelmed by homicidal urges the question is not will he kill anyone. the question is how many people will he kill? friday it was four. four people killed in ten minutes by america's latest mass murderer before he was killed by the police. bringing friday's death toll to five. but the death story didn't end there. this weekend, when carlos franco's family was reeling in grief from his murder, they were huddled at the hospital making difficult decisions about the treatment of his daughter, marcela. marcela is the family's middle child. the parents' youngest child and only son carlos was killed just two years ago in a car accident. on sunday marcela's older sister, leticia, and her mother, ramona, had to make the most painful decision of their lives when the doctors advised them

that there was nothing more they could do to save marcela, who never regained consciousness after the shooting. and on sunday they decided to take marcela off of life support. 26-year-old ryan paine never left marcela's side this weekend before she died. ryan and marcela had been dating for about a month. he told the "los angeles times," "it's been the best month of my life." this is the second time this year that mass murder has come to my town. first my home town with the boston marathon bombers and now to santa monica, where i live now. i spent a lot of time on the santa monica college campus. my daughter grew up using the swimming pool there. i have friends who work there. some who are students there. and so once again after a mass murder i had to make a bunch of phone calls to make sure everyone i know was okay. graduation will proceed as scheduled tomorrow at santa monica college at 6:00 p.m. but this time it will be part

memorial service. a student told the "los angeles times" today, "we drove by our school today, and it was an eerie feeling. everything looks the same, but it is not the same." i drove by the school yesterday too. and everything does look the same. but the students and faculty who were at santa monica college on friday will never be the same. now they're not just students and teachers. they are survivors. survivors of america's latest mass murder. asional have constipation,

diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues... with three strains of good bacteria. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'.

jury selection for the murder trial of george zimmerman began this morning. that george zimmerman shot and killed trayvon martin is not in dispute. george zimmerman claims self-defense. trayvon martin was not armed, but he was carrying an iced tea and a bag of skittles, which today a fox news analyst theorized could have been used as weapons. >> you're spinning a lot of hypotheticals. and you could break a bottle of iced tea, right? with a jagged edge. and you could kill somebody with it. >> trayvon martin was carrying a can, not a bottle of iced tea. and the last time someone with a can of iced tea used it to kill a man with a gun was never. up next -- joy reid joins us live from florida for the latest on the trial. easel!

the tide's coming in! this is my favorite one. it's upside down. oh, sorry. (woman vo) it takes him places he's always wanted to go. that's why we bought a subaru. (announcer) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. every day you stain it. so every day, use crest 3d white toothpaste to remove up to 90% of surface stains in just 5 days. no wonder the number one whitening brand is crest 3d white. [ whirring ] [ dog barks ] i want to treat more dogs. ♪ our business needs more cases. [ male announcer ] where do you want to take your business? i need help selling art. [ male announcer ] from broadband to web hosting to mobile apps, small business solutions from at&t

have the security you need to get you there. call us. we can show you how at&t solutions can help you do what you do... even better. ♪ a friend under water is something completely different. i met a turtle friend today. avo: whatever you're looking for, expedia has more ways to help you find yours. i am an american i'm a teacher. i'm a firefighter. i'm a carpenter. i'm an accountant. a mechanical engineer. and i shop at walmart. truth is, over sixty percent of america shops at walmart every month. i find what i need, at a great price. and the money i save goes to important things. braces for my daughter. a little something for my son's college fund. when people look at me, i hope they see someone building a better life. vo: living better: that's the real walmart.

we are relieved that the start of the trial is here with the jury selection. as we seek justice for our son, trayvon. and we also seek a fair and impartial trial. >> that was tracy martin, trayvon martin's father, this morning on day one of george zimmerman's murder trial. today the prosecution and the defense asked 100 potential jurors to fill out a questionnaire and then had one-on-one interviews with only four of the potential jurors. they will eventually impanel a jury of six plus four alternates. george zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder for the killing of 17-year-old trayvon martin in february of 2012. george zimmerman says that he killed trayvon martin in self-defense. george zimmerman has sued nbc

universal, the parent company of this network, for defamation. the company has strongly denied his allegations. joining me now, msnbc's joy reid. joy, you were there in florida today on the first day of the trial. is this case going to take a couple of years? we had interviews with four jurors today. did any of those four actually get impaneled as a juror? >> well, we're not quite there yet, lawrence. you know, there is a 500-member jury pool. so it could take a while. but i think the prosecution and the defense obviously know what they're looking for, or what they're looking to exclude. and they do have a certain number of automatic challenges. like people they think are sort of obviously biased in the case. and so you're starting to see kind of what they're looking for in these questions. questioning somebody who's a parent that has children about the same age as trayvon martin. asking people what is your source of news, which is an interesting question because i

had wondered whether or not sort of looking at where you get your news, which cable network, for instance, because it tells you something about ideology. and this case has become ideological. so each of them is sort of playing a chess game to try to get just the right jury for their case. >> let's take a look at george zimmerman's lawyer asking one of the jurors questions and show you the kind of of thing that gets developed in this question and answer. >> anything else that you've talked about with other people about this case in the last couple of weeks? >> no. not really. >> you should never, ever say "not really" to a lawyer. >> yeah, i know. >> my -- my girlfriend had her opinion about it. and she thinks that -- she told me she thought that mr. zimmerman should have stayed in his car and that could have alleviated the whole thing. >> so joy, there's a juror that

the prosecution wants and the defense doesn't. >> exactly. right. and the thing is that of course mark o'mara, the lawyer for george zimmerman, has done a lot to put a lot into the bloodstream out there. a lot of information he's put out on the defense website. so it's just interesting to see him then querying people as to what they know about the case. and you know what? look. the reality is lawrence, there are very few people, especially in seminole county who don't know a lot about this case. this case has been heavily covered, particularly people in sanford, which is the county seat for seminole county. so they're trying to find this combination of people who've heard about the case but haven't formed an opinion, and this is that -- the person you that just looked at was somebody who, well, their girlfriend formed an opinion. so what does that say about them? it's all very complicated. and now the defense has actually hired a jury selection expert to even add to the chess moves. >> joy, in my experience girlfriends are very influential on -- >> whatever they think. >> -- men's opinions. yeah. and i think both sides in that

courtroom know that today. joy reid, thanks very much for joining us tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. >> chris hays is up next. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. thank you for joining us. tonight, we have a name and a face of the man at the center of the nsa surveillance revelations. the question still remain, are the programs necessary, are they dangerous? we'll be debating the issue coming up. also tonight, how is this happening in america? another major metropolitan city is closing almost two dozen schools, laying off hundreds of teachers and aides, but plans for a new $400 million prison are still moving forward. i'll talk to the mayor of that city, michael nutter of philadelphia. plus the primary field is set for the special election in new jersey senate race and it is