hear what secretary of state john kerry had to say about snowden. also ahead today we remember legendary poet, writer, and activist maya angelo. >> every human being has the possibility and the probability and the privilege really of inspiring someone else. >> we start in west point, new york, where just a short time ago president obama laid out his vision for american foreign policy and a new $5 billion counterterrorism fund. in a commencement address before a group of graduating cadets. it comes a a daf president obama announced an updated timeline for ending our military mission in afghanistan. with fewer than 10,000 troops scheduled to remain there by the end of the year. down from 180,000 total in afghanistan and iraq when mr. obama took office. now, while the speech touched on

points from syria to boko haram, to even climate change, it's the lessons of afghanistan that control the tone of the president's speech and that clearly still guide his view on how to confront a more decentralized terrorist threat. >> the service members who stood in the audience when i announcesed the surge of our forces in afghanistan gave their lives in that effort. a lot more were wounded. i believe america's security demanded those deployments, but i am haunted by those deaths. i am haunted by those wounds. >> president obama summoned the names of eisenhower, kennedy, and roosevelt in his address to make the point that a strong foreign policy does not necessarily mean that there's a military solution to every global challenge. >> u.s. military action cannot

be the only or even primary component of our leadership in every instance. just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail. >> president obama's speech comes in advance of a ten-day foreign policy push and an appearance in france next week where he and other world leaders, including vladimir putin will commemorate the 70th an verse riff the storming of the beaches at normandy. heather conley, the senior fellow and director of the center for strategic and international studies, and michael handlan is a director of research at the brookings institution, and health earnings i'll start with you. this is the president who came into office, and a lot of people believe largely elected based on his impression of being opposed to the invasion of iraq, but also really doubling down on a swift but really firm end to the war in afghanistan. how do you think today's speech plays into kind of that vision of barack obama and sort of the reluctant warrior?

>> i think the president in almost the first paragraph of his speech gave up his legacy. he said to the cadets that this may be the first class that is not required to be deployed to afghanistan and iraq, and absolutely, that is going to be his legacy of unwinding us out of two unpopular wars. i think the speech, though, is always difficult when a president is being reactive and defensive. it's not uplifting. it's not hopeful. in many ways the president was trying to send off critics that he has done not enough, not been forward-leaning in addressing a lot of very complex global challenges from asia to the middle east to africa. >> presidents are oftentimes identified with a military

escapade, whether it's ronald reagan or president clinton in bosnia, or the first george w. bush iraq or the second one invading iraq and afghanistan. the first president that i can remember whose situation when it comes to military conflicts are mostly inherited, trying to fix these other problems, but deciding not to go into syria, not to go in militarily when conflicts arise. do you think that president obama is sort of maybe defined downward by a lot of his critics because he hasn't had a proactive sort of military intervention? >> there's a lot to talk about there. i can think of other presidents, let's say lyndon johnson, who inherited a much bigger, uglier war from a predecessor, and i can think of a lot of other presidents that inherited the need to contain soviet union from their predecessor. no american president gets to choose his problems. especially in foreign policy. to some extent you can choose domestic policy. i think mr. obama on the one hand has deny a fairly good job, case by case, problem by problem

with most of these conflicts. to think of him as a guy who is fund mentally going to be known for ending the afghanistan conflict, first of all, he will have preceded over it for eight years, so i think that is close to a record for any american president with any war. if not the actually record. i'm not sure ending the afghanistan war is the first thing i think of when i think of obama in that part of the world. secondly, and more importantly, what he should worry about, and i think he usually does, although his rhetoric doesn't always acknowledge it, is keeping us safe by accomplishing our goals in afghanistan and if that takes a little longer than 2016 with a very small residual force, that's an option we should keep alive. i generally like his afghanistan policy, but i'm not sure why he has to commit now to our leaving definitively just so he can have threat cal talking point that he somehow ended that war. the higher and more important goal is to make sure we stay safe. he has done a pretty good job with that. i think he should go with that theme rather than ending the war per se. >> on that point there is the president who gets criticized a lot from the left from the way he has chosen to keep the

country safe, and that is really focused a lot on drone policy. i want to get your response on the other side. >> that means taking strikes only when we face a continuing imminent threat, and only where there is no certainty. there is near certainty of no civilian casualties. for our actions, should meet a simple test. we must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield. >> hearth, when you actually look at the application of that policy on drones for president obama, you look at the drone strikes from 2010 to 2013 in pakistan and yemen. the number has actually gone down. the raw number with 122 drone strikes. that was down to 27 drone strikes. basically yemen and pakistan, you look at the casualties from those strikes in 2010. there were 849 estimated casualties from u.s. drone strikes in pakistan. that's down to 153.

then you go to yemen and look at the same statistic from 47 in 2012 down to 11 and the casualties therein have also declined from 487 to 79. this is a policy that's clearly being scaled back. can you square the american people's red sense with getting involved in conflict and the discomfort within the president's own base with this means of keeping troops out of harm's way? had. >> you're sleight absolutely right. president obama has i think use of drones, special forces, when it can be done sort of out of sight, yes, i think that's his preferred mode. the reason that the drone policy had to be significantly adjusted, was exactly to the president's point. there was massive blowback, whether that is yemen and pakistan and others that was actually creating a problem, a larger problem for u.s. interests in the region.

>> it's still creating political tension and blowback as far as getting policy from the cia and transparency has been helpful. it may not be u.s. soldiers going into conflict, but this is war by a different method, and we have to be very understanding, appreciative of the policy impact. i think that is, again, where perception and reality is working. it's in the situation about surveillance. the president was in the united states senate when we first heard the "new york times", i believe it was, about warrantless surveillance, warrantless wiretapping, the congress had placed that under the fiza court and gave it -- there is still a lot of controversy over the president maintaining some of the those surveillance programs.

i want to play you what the president had to say about that and get your response. >> that's why we're putting in place new restrictions on how america collects and uses intense. >> i think the dialogue, even though i'm not happy about how it began last year, has been pretty good overall. including the president's own role. i think most americans that i know are wrestling with this very question in a thoughtful way. on the one hand, we need to be able to look for evidence of terrorist communications, and we don't obviously know in advance who is going to be having those communications or those conversations.

who gets to issue the -- these are exactly the right conversations. i'm actually sort of proud of the country at how we're wrestling through the issues and i have no particular beef with the issues or where the president has come out on them. >> important conversations indeed. thank you so much to contributing to the one today. thank you both. >> pleasure. >> up next, believe it or not, this dad who just lost his son in the uc santa barbara shooting is now getting attacked from the right simply for speaking up about gun control. >> they're going to try to do to me the same thing they've done to all these people, but i have a message for them. my son is dead, and there's nothing that you could do to me that's worse than that. ombinati, artfully prepared. fancy feast elegant medleys. inspired dishes like primavera, florentine and tuscany. fancy feast. a medley of love, served daily.

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>> i agree that the people in washington should hear that not one more person should have to die because of this ridiculous situation. when i raise my hand, i want you to shout so loud that they're going to hear you. not one more. not one more. >> to hear the nra and other members of the gun lobby tell it, we can't stop mass murders in the united states. we just can't. we can't prevent people from slaughtering movie theaters full of people or elementary schools full of women and children. we can't keep gunmen from shooting up government meetings and nearly killing a congresswoman. we can't pass background colleges for gun purchases on the internet or in any way reduce the number of military style assault weapons or the size of war grade magazines people can own. we can't allow the centers for disease control to even study gun violence because statistics are anti-freedom. the nra doesn't want a surgeon

general who has any interest in discussing our epidemic of gun violence, which by next year is projected outpace traffic beings as a cause of death in the united states. now, we really can't prevent an angry alienated young man who hates women from mowing down innocent people over several city blocks in california. we just can't do it. so we're doomed to remain the only western country on earth that can't do anything to stop our citizens from being slaughtered by guns. in fact, the nra and other members of the gun lobby would prefer that if anything, we double down. that means more guns, not fewer, in more places like georgia recently allowed. it means guns in bars and at the airport and in church. call it, the power of constant intimidation. to demonstrate, witness the protests that fast food restaurants where open carry groups continue to show up at places like chipolte and jack in the box, terrifying people who are just out for a meal with their families and causing some employees to lock themselves in the freezer.

here they are getting booted out of a sonic at san antonio this month in a video mother jones posted on its website. just when you thought you heard it all, enter sam worthlebacher. joe the plumber, held up by the middle class. yesterday he wrote this on-line letter to richard martinez with the message "i am sorry you lost your child, but your dead kids don't trump my constitutional rights." so the question is at what point do we as a country acknowledge that what we have here might be a cultural problem? here with me now is nationally syndicated radio talk show host michael medved. >> nice to meet you in person. >> i am want going to make you responsible and have to answer for joe the lum plumber's words. >> i am not now nor have ever been a member of the nra, but i do support second amendment rights, and i think it's very important to get some

perspective here. this horrible young man, elliott rodger murdered six people, three of them were killed by knives. they were. by the way, those two roommates who had called the cops on him in the past knew he was dangerous. had they taken precautions of arming themselves with some handguns, they might be alive today. >> let me ask you this because i think one of the -- "the daily beast had an article about this issue. there is no national lobby for the knife manufacturing industry that's going to members of congress and demanding that you be able to pack a knife anywhere you go. >> there are no restrictions on packing a knife. >> secondly, as somebody who has a child who will soon be getting ready to go to college. if the idea is we need to send our freshmen off to college packing a glock, prepared to murder their roommate, prepared to kill, is that a country we want to live in? >> no, but if it's prepare to defend, it's very, very different, and the point about this, joy, is i'm in favor of

sensible gun regulation. however, i would like somebody to come forward, and i feel the pain of richard martinez, and i don't think he should be attacked. i think anyone who says anything against him is wrong and out of line. i don't support that. what i do support is asking people what regulations specifically would have prevented elliott rodger from buying these guns? he had no criminal record. he was under a doctor's care. he was supposed to be taking his anti-psychotic medication. he didn't need to. we're having on the radio show today a doctor who is a crusading psychiatrist who has called repeatedly for commonsense laws restricting people who are insane and dangerous and mentally ill. that's the national problem. we, by the way, do not have a gun violence epidemic. if you look at the murder statistics in the united states, they are down dramatically since 1970, down even dramatically since 2000. >> what we do have, though, michael, is a mass murder epidemic. it is true that overall our crime rate is down.

gun violence overall in terms of armed robberies are down, but we are unique in all the world. it has a clear -- we are essentially the mass murder capital of the western world, the free world, and the only country that has refused to do anything about it because we do have -- i do have to go back for a moment to the reactions to mr. martinez's grief. we also have a tonial problem. the attitude of the pro-second amendment crowd is not to first go forward with sympathy, but to go forward with things like showing up at restaurants with long guns and sort of really angry -- >> i'm opposed to it. identify spoke out. for instance, when there were people who were coming to president obama rallies saying don't tread on me, and it's wrong. put your gun away, please. what you do need to do is talk about, okay, what exactly is to be done? there are some people who favor a ban -- total ban on handguns. i don't support that because i do believe that most guns, when they are used in crimes, in the middle of crimes, are to did deter crimes, to not commit crimes.

by the way, one of the things that people never ever acknowledge is, you know, what is true of two-thirds of the gun deaths in america, they are suicides. we have a suicide problem in the united states. >> we have a suicide problem that wouldn't be possible if people weren't so armed. if you were suicidal, but not armed, you couldn't do it. i want to talk one other thing about tone. you did talk about one of the things we need to address. one other concern i have. i'm not going to broad brush ovrnt right because you are a gentleman. there is a tone that is also very harsh toward women. i was reading a piece in "mother jones" about women who are part of moms -- richard martinez has now joined everytown.org. some of the women that are involved in that have been spat at. you have a tone on the radio on right wing talk radio that refers to women in the worst ways, that refers to femi-nazis, and it seems like a constant attack on women for not wanting to go back to the 1950s era. do you think that's a problem? >> i think it's a problem that's been addressed. rush limbaugh, who used the term

feni-nazis back in the 198 0z. >> and is still use it. >> no, i don't believe he does. he has tried to avoid it. i think it is a tremendous problem on the right, and i agree with you about that. i have been critical about a lot of my colleagues. people don't like a shouter. what president reagan used to say is i'm a conservative, but i'm not angry about it. nuclear huckabee has said that same thing. my goal is you can't come into political disputes believing that my job is to crush my enemy and destroy my enemy. i don't want to crush or destroy anybody. i would like to persuade everybody. you don't do that by shouting. >> your tone could be sort of spread across the land. i really do appreciate you being here, michael. >> it's great to meet you, i'm glad to be here. >> thank you. all right. now a quick reid alert to pass look regarding v.a. skamgdz. the office of the inspector general has released preliminary findings on problems at the v.a. phoenix hospital. some of the most damaging findings include about 1,700 vets who were excluded from the

medical care waiting list. the inspector general also said it received allegations of sexual harassment and bullying. we'll be right back. i missed you, too.ou. hi buddy. mom! awesome! dad!! i missed you. ♪ oh... daddy. chevrolet and its dealers proudly support military appreciation month. with the industry's best military purchase program, for all that have served.

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>> time for we the tweeple. you can usually find him in the club, but 50 cent was in the clubhouse of the new york mets last night. the music mogul is trend, but not for his rhymes. this time it's because 50 didn't handle a baseball too well at last night's game. the platinum rapper threw out the first pitch at city field against pittsburgh representing his home team in a mets jersey baring his name. he lou this wildly out of bounds ball and the comedy ensued. the bad pitch kicked off a comical stream of tweets mocking his attempt. 50 should change his name to nickel, among a steady stream of snark. 50 brushed it all off, and all of you haters, and he said i'm a

hustler, not a damn ballplayer. lmao." gangster has an equally strong sense of humor. now so to something making many of you laugh. wonder and smile. google has just unveiled its self-driving car. you can't stop talking about it. the electric two-seater has no steering wheel and only stops and go buttons. it drives using laser and radar sensors, and, of course, google maps. the company says it can easily recognize people, signs, and traffic lights. many of are you marveling at the vehicle that's been in development since the early 2000s, but some think that it looks a little silly. well known futurist anil dash weighed in saying what's the difference between a clown car and google's car? in a clown car, the joke is on the clowns because you watch everything they do. of course, this is a reference to google having access to all of our data. a seasoned digital reporter was a little kinder in her assessment of the hands-free vehicle tweeting, on "love the car, but i am still not wearing those glasses." i'm with her on that.

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as the company that's all about printing. but did you know we also support hospitals using electronic health records for more than 30 million patients? or that our software helps over 20 million smartphone users remotely configure e-mail every month? or how about processing nearly $5 billion in electronic toll payments a year? in fact, today's xerox is working in surprising ways to help companies simplify the way work gets done and life gets lived. with xerox, you're ready for real business. >> my life has been long, and i have dared try many things. sometimes trembling, but daring still. be certain you do not die without having done something wonderful for human apt. >> a civil rights icon, a

memoirist and poet, a single mother, dancer, singer, filmmaker. it's difficult to know where to start when trying to sum up the life of maya angelou. she passed away this morning at the age of 86 of undisclosed causes. she's left behind a footprint of size of the century she was born in. her most famous for her memoir "i know why the caged bird sing" angelou taught americans that the lives of poor, black women were important, memorable, and exceptional. malcolm x and dr. martin luther king jr., to her unforgettable appearance at bill clinton's first inauguration. today the former president remembered her in a statement that read in part, "with maya angelou's passing are america has lost a national treasure, and hillary and i a beloved friend. i will always be grateful for her electrifying reading of "on the pulse of morning" at my inauguration, and the years of friendship that followed. president obama joined in the

accolades saying in a statement, "michelle and i join millions around the world in remembering one of the brightest lights of our time. the voice she found helped generations of americans find their rainbow amidst the clouds and inspired the rest of us to be our bestselves. in fact, she inspired my own mother to name my sister maya." the triumph over personal tragedy, she mitt life with the same nature, and she taught the world to do the same. the reverend al sharpton is the host of politics nation on msnbc. now, i'm going start with you. you and i were on earlier talking about i think the part of maya angelou's life that is least known by most people, and that is her engagement with, you know, the towering civil rights leaders of our time with martin luther king jr., but also with malcolm x. can you talk a little bit about that? >> maya angelou was an activist. you know, when i was a teenager

just starting in new york and brooklyn with civil rights, she was one that was with towering figure that is i would fwroe to constituted where i. would i never forget she would lecture those of us that were younger about where are the women, and you can't just fight for one segment of society and call it civil and human rights. you must fight for everyone and have the courage to stand up, and she was a phenomenal woman, and i'm not just using her term. there was something about her presence, if you were in the room with dr. maya angelou, there was something that was indescribable. she had a presence and a strength that even before she opened her mouth you could feel

her and you would know you were in the presence of something different. she's truly a different type of person that has passed our way. >> she was in many ways sort of a feminist icon, right, early on within the african-american movement because she did emphasize and re-emphasize the necessity of including women's voices in that struggle. how important was that and how pivotal of a figure was she in that regard? >> she's a very important figure in that regard. how can a woman that lived in a very small town in arkansas have such a profound affect upon the world, and i think part of it had to do with the ways in which she wrote about her life and the sense in which that you could see sort of a feminist streak in there, the streak of, listen, you have to be able to pick yourself up, to be able to fight not just for yourself, but for all women, for all the kinds of

things that women go through, and i think this is especially poignant to talk about her today knit misdemeanorst of the things that are going on in the world right now with women, with the nigerian girls being missing, the shooting that has happened. i mean, more than ever i think dr. angelou's words about women and empowering women who are in certain kinds of circumstances resonate true today, and i think they will continue to resonate that way. >> yeah. she is thought of and known best as a prolific and beautiful writer, but in a lot of ways she became an important touch stone that political leaders wanted that touch, they wanted that blessing from her, and she became increasingly so as time went on. why do you suppose that is? not a lot of literary figures had that aspect to them. >> very few literary figures rise to that level. i think part of it is because she wrote about real life, and as poetic as she was, as flowery as she could make a language

live, she also wrote about real life, her own pain. she shared things that a lot of people had gone through different similar things in life and were afraid to express until she brought it out. that gave her a connection with people that could validate any politician because she touched people in a way that were different than other literary figures. she talked about i know why the caged bird could sing, she was one that had been caged. this wasn't someone looking outside the cage at a bird. this was a bird talking about being free. that gives you a different kind of validation that a politician runs trying to get some of the beams of your light, about the you become the spark for that life. she was that spark. that is why politicians would fall over themselves just to get dr. angelou to give some level of approval to them. >> yeah.

absolutely. in another sphere, she was a mentor to oprah winfrey. we have a statement from her saying what stands out to me most about maya angelou, it's how she lived her life. she moved through the world with unshakeable calm confidence. a lot of those statements coming out. i want to play you just building on what rev was just talking about because in one of the spheres that she was able to uncage herself, was her brilliance with the written word and the education it took to get that. let me play you an interview that our own andrea mitchell did with maya angelou not too long ago and get your reaction. >> with the book the young man gets a chance, the young woman gets a chance to say, oh, in russia there are kids who think just as i think. in south africa, there are kids who think -- who are afraid of the dark. oh, i see, in france there are people who long to have -- just

as i do. that brings the world closer to a young man or young woman, and him or her closer to being a global citizen. >> okay. very quick last word for both of you. what do you think will be the most profound lasting legacy of maya angelou? >> it will be her writing, actually. i was musing about the fact that she actually kept a hotel room on loan so she could go and write, and i think this is so important because we have a swrrgs of people who don't know how to read anymore. they don't care about reading. they read 140 characters. you know, her words oepdz up a big world. s a world where people need to be right now. >> rev? is. >> i think she did -- i'm beforing to pray on politics nation tonight. she said something i'll never forget. she said the most important thing is to have courage and courage will give you the

consistency, even when you feel less than you will have the courage to go forward, and i think that ability to inspire courage. many of us didn't have the -- you know, we weren't as suave as ionstein or as gifted as a joye reid or as pretty as a tamran hall and that smart. some of us had to have the courage to go forward. >> thank you so much, reverend. we definitely will be watching tonight, politics nation, of course, on msnbc 6:00 p.m. eastern time, and we will definitely be tuning in to watch that, and, of course, my friend anthea butler. anthea butler. thank you both for being here. you're going to have a problem with getting a wife. uh, yeah, i guess. [ laughs ] this is ridiculous. christopher glenn! [ doorbell rings ] what is that? swiffer sweep & trap. i think i can use this. it picks up everything. i like this. that's a lot of dirt. it's that easy! good job chris! i think a woman will probably come your way. [ both laugh ]

i think a woman will probably come your way. it says here that a woman's sex drive. increases at the age of 80. helps reduce the risk of heart disease. it seems that 80 is the new 18. grannies, bless your heart, you are bringing sexy back! eat up. keep heart-healthy. live long. for a healthy heart, eat the 100% natural whole grain goodness of post shredded wheat. doctors recommend it. yes, nsa leaker edward snowden would have you know he is no regular i.t. guy. no. the former national security contractor who went into exile with a troef of secret documents wants you to know he was trained as a spy. he said as much during an exclusive sitdown interview with "nbc nightly news" anchor brian

williams. take a listen. >> were you trained as a spy? it seems to me spies probably look a lot more like ed snowden and a lot less like james bond these days. >> well, it's no secret that the u.s. tends to get more and better intelligence out of computers nowadays than they do out of people. i was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that i lived and worked under cover overseas pretending to work at a job that i'm not, and even being assigned a name that was not mine. when they say i'm a low level systems administrator that i don't know what i'm talking about, i say it's somewhat misleading. >> secretary of state john kerry shared his thoughts on snowden with my colleague chuck todd on today's daily rundown. >> edward snowden is a coward. he is a traitor. he has betrayed his country, and if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so. >> last june president obama

seemed dismissive of snowden. >> no, i'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker. >> since then ed snowden has presented himself as a defender of the people's privacy appearing at south by southwest and lobbing softball questions about surveillance to president putin who took the time to say that he, too, is a former spy. snowden's emerges ens has put a face on what can broadly be called the hacker culture. one that's operating behind the scenes of american life, including increasingly inside the federal government. the question is the government putting too much trust in the hands of the edward snowdens of the world? here with me now to discuss that question, ronan farrow and matt sledge, who corps national security for the huffington post. i got to go to my homey, ronan.

thank you for coming across the hall. >> thanks for having me. long walk. >> it is a long walk. it is an interesting kind of dichotomy, right? you have on the one hand people who say disclosure looks good and that they've gotten us to have this conversation about national security and the nsa's role in -- on the other hand, when you talk to people in your former world at the state department, the idea of somebody who was an insider just georging this kind of secret information really rankels a lot of americans. how do youen pack that? >> i think it's a spectrum, right? this isn't just all leaking is bad and not all leak issing good. even if it trirgs the kind of reforms that seem to be tangible. the house just approved of going ahead with maybe ending bulk metadata. that's a different practice that probably wouldn't have happened if we didn't have these leaks. there's good in terms of the outcome, and wills some public opinion supporting that. what's the scope of the leaks that allow for that, and are we comfortable with that or do we need to say that is a crime? on one end of the spectrum maybe

you have elsberg leaking documents. at the other end of the spectrum you have chelsea manning, leaking documents and unlocallieding everything she could on to a cd and just giving them to the public. edward snowden seems to be in between. glen and some of the journalists that have disgorged this information have leaked things like routine surveillance on unfriendly companies. stuff like intercepting the phones of russian officials. things that we kind of all know happens in the course of diplomacy and espionage. the question is for edward snowden and his supporters, why? why that as well? >> i think what bothers a lot of people is this idea that not only, you know, to ronan's point is edward snowden talked about americans' personal security. he is also doing things like saying it's wrong for us to do surveillance on china, which

most americans say, wait a minute, that doesn't sound wrong at all. that sounds like what we do. in the end when people sort of look at the edward snowdens of the world, is he despite all of the p.r. he is trying to do, forever tainted by the association with the chinas and russias of the world, will this sort of p.r. xaen be a success? >> i think snowden is a little bit different. i think what they're saying is there are tools that are trained on china today. what's to stop the nsa from training them on americans tomorrow? we know they are training some very ascary stuff like the call tracking program which i think one federal judge thinks is unconstitutional, and the nsa has a habit of turning these tools against americans into in secret, in time of war, which they did under the bush administration. you just look at the story last week where hacking all the phone calls in the bahamas, and that was quite explicitly being used

as a pet for nsa activity in the future. >> when you poll this, ronan, people put it low on the totem pole. we understand why the government would want to tavk tap the phones of an adversary sort of government, like a russia, china, but to what end do the snowdens -- do they build this conspiracy theory, but they don't ask question why would the nas want to read your e-mail to your grandma? >> how much tangible intelligence that was useful did we get out of those acts of surveillance? the answer is really unclear, and i think it's unclear enough that we've seen everyone from the white house to folks on the hill agree, you know, this kind of rampant metadate collection has to end. does that have a chilling affect on the regular course of business of monitoring our enemies. shouldn't we still be allowed? i'm going to push back on the argument we just heard about it's a slipper where i slope. we use them against their own

civilians. where the he'lly, we have a lot more sunlight on this issue, and went know it's not what we use against our own people. >> that feels like a conspiracy theory that's speck lavsh, rather than the fact of what the programs are. i also want to ask you, matt, about this government sort of need to recruit the kind of person edward snowden is, the kind of person we generally think of as a hacker. you now have a need by the federal government to have that kind of person in house because you're dealing with seeber security with countries like china. how dangerous is that really to bring someone in because there is a counter cultural aspect to what they do fundamentally? >> sure. i think hackers are probably a little bit different from the clean cut standard military recruit. we need them, though. and the nsa is the main federal agency that keeps on saying we need them. i think what's really scary here is what snowden's leak proved is

that there weren't great controls within the nsa on what kind of information people could access. you know, earlier in the decade we heard about all this love-ins. people at the nsa sneaking in on lovers called home, and it doesn't seem like they cleaned that up. i think it mate fall to the agencies to establish much better controls on the inside. >> that is a huge point. there are more than four million people with security clearances of various types. that's too much. there are too many classified documents, too many secrets, want enough transparency about how much data we're collecting. maybe edward snowden's leg as where i will be to change that. >> snowden wasn't even working for the nsa. so much of this stuff is contracted out right now. >> you should do another segment on the problems of contracting. >> promise to come back. >> i'm in. any time, all the time for you. >> ronan farrow. matt sledge of the huffington

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