side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. this is the age of taking action. viagra. talk to you doctor. this morning my question. are we finally out of the long season of war? plus, the devil in the detail of a plea deal. and edward snowden makes his case. but first, working for a dollar a day in america. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. this morning we begin with a disturbing story of indefinite detention of the human rights

violations it can gender. ft let's begin with a location already synonymous with these issues. guantanamo bay. for the men detained there, the there's special scrutiny because of the alleged involvement with terrorist acts in the united states. the problems of gitmo continue to reflect on us as a nation. democrat senator carl levin of michigan is especially concerned. last week while the house shot down an amendment to close the the detention center, senator levin managed to pass a bill that would create a pass to close guantanamo bay. this bill would allow him to transfer the 150 detainees remaining to the u.s. where they would be kept as prisoners of war and get trials. but only if president obama submits a detailed plan to do so. don't expect anyone closely following the issues of guantanamo bay to feel optimistic. this is only the latest in multiple unsuccessful efforts to

close the detention center. few would argue that it's free from serious concerns and human rights group like the aclu have been leading the charge for due process for the prisoners there for years. and yet the detention center and its problems persist. remember back in 2009 when the president signed an executive order to close gitmo in a year. and then when he used a national security speech to call for the closure. >> by any measure the cost of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. that's why i argue that it should be closed throughout my campaign, and that is why i ordered it closed within one year. >> then mooif years later. ps obama renewed his push to close it in the state of the union speech. clearly he identifies this detention center as a problem. despite the efforts by president obama, the reality is we as a nation simply haven't figured

out an alternative. a majority of americans still oppose the closing, and so even though we are a nation of laws, we are undeny bli in the business of indefinite detention without due process. and not just in guantanamo. there are other places on u.s. soil where people are detained in deeply troubling conditions. i'm talking about detention centers for undocumented immigrants. these detainees are individuals who are often not charged with any crime beyond the status offense of being in the united states without specific documentation. ch and for that offense, not alleged terrorist actions, and sometimes not even so much as a traffic ticket, but just for being somewhere, our laws have deemed it illegal for them to live and work and go to school for that. they are ripped from their families and detained in what can be an indefinite detention

without due process. you will remember 17-year-old cynthia diaz. she and two other activists went on a hunger strike outside of the white house to bring attention to the fact that the loved ones were taken away tr the families and serving indefinite terms in detention centers. cynthia and her mother were thrilled to be reunited earlier this month. but her mother's future remains in limbo. on any given day 30,000 immigrants are in detention centers in the united states. in 2011 the department of homeland security held a record breaking 429,000 immigrants in more than 250 facilities across the united states. an in the decade from 2001 to 2011, there was a dramatic increase, with 3 million immigrants held in detention facilities across the u.s., making it the fastest greing incarceration system in the country, and there is a staggering price tag for these detentions. taxpayers spend anywhere between 122 to $164 a day to hold each

detainee. and that annual cost totals to ruffly $2 billion a year. the detention of undocumented immigrants is not solely about cost nor is it just about if a person is here supposedly legally or illegally. it's about what happens in the detention centers where basic human rights are sometimes abused. according to "the new york times," thousands have become a source of cheap labor in the facilities where they're being held. some of them earned as a little as a dollar a day, the times reports. while the federal authorities say the program is voluntary and legal. a lawsuit filed in april accused authorities in washington of putting detainees in solitary confinement after they staged a work stoppage and hunger strike. and if their work, detainees make about 13 cents an hour. which translates to a saving of $40 million a year by the

government and private companies by allowing them to avoid paying private contractors the minimum wage. and the buls is not reserved for adult workers. according to an investigation by the houston chronicle, children and teens crossing the border face abuse in federal detention network. the paper says for the first time in response to the freedom of information act request filed by the chronicle, the government released copies of 101 significant incident reports from march of 2011 to march of 2013, involving abuse allegations against staff members. children and teens reported sexual contact, ranging from kissing to unwanted touching with staff members in new york, florida and illinois. in guantanamo there's no consensus, but there's there's an awareness. in the case of detention centers for the undocumented, few even know they exist. and fewer understand the horror of the conditions faced by the mothers and fathers, daughters, sons, workers and friends who

find themselves held there. many without due process and some without hope. f joining me at the table is carl takai, who is staff attorney for the aclu. maria theresa kumar who is ceo and president of voto latino. and eugene jareki, film maker of "the house i live in." thank you all for being here to talk about this this morning. >> thank you so much for having us. >> so since this is your work in so many ways, did i get the comparison between guantanamo bay and the detention centers, is that an overstatement o r a wrong comparison. we struggled with this a lot trying to convey to people how bad the circumstances are. >> i don't -- i mean, it's hard to say what's happening at guantanamo bay is absolutely severe. but i think what we need to understand is, yes, there is no due process when it comes to detention. 70% of people in the detention

system are there for mandatory detention, which means a judge can't say, you know, you're the chief breadwinner of your family. any of these things into account. you've been here 30 years. you have a minor drug conviction. that would happen in the '80s. none of those things matter. inherently all detention is indefinite. it's an undetermined amount of time. one of the big questions are the psychological issues happening whenever you're in detention. last year we saw two people within one week commit suicide at the eloy detention center corrections corporation facility in arizona. a lot is like, how long is am i going to stay here in people end up for months or years. they're just waiting for a hearing, like you said. it's a status defense or legal permanent residence as well and asylum seekers. so, yeah, and in a lot of ways it's indefinite. there's a lot of comparisons to this be made. >> so much of your work has been

around particularly how the drug war ends up scooping folks into american prison ls. and i kept thinking in this case, that notion that the crimes for which people are being detained in this case are so often status offenses, i wonder if it raises or ought to raise our ethical concerns to an even more heightened level, not that we shouldn't also be concerned with the human rights of those who commit other sorts of crimes. >> it's sort of a cut to the chase question. one thing i researched in the giant war on drugs is it began in the 1800s with laws against chinese immigrants. we didn't want to put them in jail because they were chinese and racist and threat to the american jobs. so we said let's find a trn to put them in jail to thinly veil the fact that we're putting them on jail in racially social control. so we came up with opium laws they didn't say we're going to put you in jail because you're

chinese. we passed a law against something chinese people do. we didn't make smoking opium in general all across the country illegal, we only made it illegal in california. it was legal everywhere else. it was legal to to other things with opium that americans did widely at that time. so we found a very selective way of putting chinese folks in jail. >> which is how we use crack laws. >> we use drug laws as thinly veiled laws against racial group ls. and what we're announcing is we just removed the pretext. with we no longer need to say we're going to have a cover-up for what we're doing. we're going to stop you from who you are racial little and socially at the same time. that sort of tells us how far we've come to become shame sles as a way of american life. think about how how immorally horrible that is.

we don't need the pretense. >> we can go straight to it. i want to listen for a moment. i think part of what you have done is to bring it to the human aspect. i want top listen to cynthia diaz. she talked about the experience of having her mother ripped away from her family. i do want to make sure we don't lose the humanity of this. >> it was a saturday morning. i was 15. i have a little brother who was 13. i was waking up by my dad screaming out "cynthia, they're taking your mom." and i was confused baa i didn't know what that meant. and so i went to my friend yard and there i saw officers all over my frond yard. i saw my mom being handcuffed and pushed into a van. >> to the extent that a generation of young people like cynthia ends up experience the american state initially through those kinds of e peernss that

detain their loved ones, friends, neighbors, how much does that rupture the possibility of what we want an america to this be. >> this is one of the largest massive kars ration movements in our country's history. we're going after the most vulnerable. the any knowledges who don't have a vote or deep pockets for individuals to represent them. your story of cynthia, she's experiencing what tens of thousands of american children are also facing. when we say people are getting lost in the system, it's not individuals who have been swept up because they're undocumented or don't have the right documentation. we have evidence that you have american citizens that have been incourse rated and are basically awaiting detention. one of the most erroneous ones that came to my attention, this oklahoma man was picked up in missouri. they didn't understand his accent. they thought he was russian. they were going to process him to go back to russia. these are every day stories. this is when we have to take a

step back and say we are actually talking about where are wre going to be in the enyears when we have to face our children and say we have in the last seven years, 1% of the american population, of our population in this country has been deported. >> that narrative of the clarity of the racial and ethnic aspect, and once you get to the racial aspect. how does this -- whose whole work is around the question of due process and american laws, how do you all as an organization begin on the respond to this level of mass incarceration through detention? >> it's a serious question because in part in the criminal justice system which is hardly a model, generally you have the right to see a judge and ask, can i be released? should i continue to be detained while my case goes on within 4 hours? in the immigration system, we are fighting for that right to happen within six months after you're detained.

>> and of course, we know the impact of being detained for six months, particularly if you're marginal, if you're not paying your rent, if you're not picking up your kids, even if you end up getting something better, getting six months, what that does to your life is potentially something that cannot be repaired. stick with us. we have much more. up next, hundreds of people put on a plane, flown out of state, dropped off at a bus station. all in the country that calls out for the huddled masses. as a kid, i made a list of all the places i wanted to visit.

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last weekend federal officers did something interesting. according to a spokesman for border patrol in tucson, those federal officials flew 400

undocumented immigrants originally from central america and dropped them off at a greyhound bus station in tucson and phoenix last weekend. why? in south texas they do not have the manpower to hand it will surge of undocumented immigrants. both sides of the immigration debate are upset over dropoffs. border enforcement groups fear it could spur more illegal entry into the u.s. humanitarians worry about the immigrants and children being dropped off without basic necessities. this feels like the opposite of due process. i had a whole host of feelings about this. >> i talked to a colleague down in texas. what she said is many of these people, they're children in families, like u you said, who have gone through a terrible crossing. going up north to escape violence and persecution. when they arrive on our doorstep, we should treat them humanely, that they're screened

for asylum claims and particularly children are treated in ways that respect the vulnerabilities and protect them. those are our obligations under international law. >> and so those are both our obligations under international law. but as americans when you lay that out, it seems hard to imagine the moment we say no, those are not our obligations. >> but we signed the commitments. about two and a half years ago they came out with recommendations that said we should halt all immigration detention centers until we get our act together. they had so many violations of human rights. not only against adults. but especially against children. you have children that are unfortunately caught in the system, violated every single day, too afraid to come forward, and no one is watching out for them and our record system is so poor that no one is charged for these violations. >> how much does that undermine our credibility on the world stage? if i'm the secretary of state

and i'm out doing global work trying to talk about human rights and someone can point to these immigration detention centers. >> i think it absolutely undermines our credibility. what we need to understand in so many ways, i mean, this is a humanitarian crisis. it's also a crisis that's been created because of u.s. foreign policy and other things. naafta and other thing that have destroyed communities in south america and new mexico. this is why people are coming and we need to take responsibility for that. it's interesting to see the way these things are happening. whenever you think about the the past, a lot of these things happened. people were dropped off, not getting the support they need. a lot of abuses occurred. this is not what america should stand for. >> i would like to add one note. for a lot of americans, they think of questions like immigration as a country. we're struggling as a country. i'm having trouble paying the rent. i'm having trouble with the amount that gas costs.

why do i have to worry about people coming over? it's the american tradition to have them welcome and become the america we then talk about. but much more importantly, we are in international conventions vital for us to have them in the world. in a global system with a rule of law. when we suspend that and say when it's convenient for us, we're not longer going to be party to those conventions. those conventions are force of law, what international treaties have under our constitution. as such, we are ending up in a place morally in violation of who we are as as a nation and how we were founded. that was stephen colbert's joke when he said my forefathers didn't come to the country to have it be overrun by immigrants. so we have the violation morally of who we are. we really do have an obligation here that is not just a convenient luxury that we do because it's useful to us in the moment. if it's not consistent, then you find you live in a lawless

world. and then it costs us a great deal in military force and other ways to deal with the lawlessness that we promoted. i know, you know, even sometimes as i'm having a conversation at the table. i can hear in my head viewers saying, oh, come on. why should i worry about someone? you talk about a long hard crossing. why were they crossing? i can hear counter arguments being made. >> then we have no business here. >> the underground business of recruiting people in latin america for them to cork and work is vast. individuals don't appear and look for a job. these are sophisticated networks where they are looking for this. >> and there's massive economic need in the country for migrant labor. stick with us. much, much more, i promise. but up next, but there is no delay in deportations. pane when we come back, we're going to go to the moral quell

that eugene has raised for urs and one church is saying enough and rallying to protect one of their own. we need it right away! we cannot let the fans down. don't worry! the united states postal service will get it there on time with priority mail flat rate shipping. our priority has always been saving the day. because our priority... amazing! ...is you! the amazing spider-man 2 delivered by the united states postal service.

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behold! i love being outdoors. i love bark. shake the outdoors, indoors. with new bounce bursts. what we're talking about is people. people who often pay taxes and become integral parts of their communities. people who have families and deep connections here in the united states. the pastor of south side church in tucson, arizona, understands the truth and the reason why she offered sanctuary in her church to daniel ruiz, a mexican man who is facing a final deportation order. he will not be deported as he's no longer a priority for the agency. that doesn't ensure it will never happen. i'm pleased to be joined by reverend alison harrington from

tucson. nice to have you this morning. >> thank you. good to be here. >> reverend, what led you to make this decision to offer sanctuary? >> every day in tucson we're seeing individuals like daniel being torn apart from their families. so we were honored that he came and asked us and that we were able to offer him sanctuary, thereby keeping his family together. and we're joining our voices to ask his deportation case be closed, that he can stay with his wife carla and his 13-year-old son carlos. >> when i read the story i turned to my producer and said, wait an minute, you can do this? i did not know american churches could operate in sanctuaries against deportation rules. >> yeah, it's a long tradition actually. the sanctuary movement of the 1980s is part of the legacy at my church. we were a founding church in the

sanctuary movement, whereby we gave shelter and refuge to central americans fleeing civil wars in their home countries. and so part of the legacy are churches who are these days offering sanctuary to feel in our community with final order ls of deportation. >> we had cynthia diaz on our show. now talking with you about daniel ruiz. these are sort of one moment and there's the story if you're the one person who is saved it matters. but is there a way to capture your story or your model sor the kind of ethical norms that you're presenting and actually influence policy as a result. >> i hope so, i hope other churches respond in the way that we respond. but they call for the widow and

the orphan, and we're saying we need to act sooner and prevent our broken immigration system from creating widows and orphans throughout the communities. we are hoping other churches would step up. other communities of faith to say this is enough. we don't want people disappearing from the neighborhoods anymore. we want the families to remain together. we hope that moral voice thinging about the importance of family community would indeed help. m. >> thank you for joining us early in tucson, arizona. we really appreciated your story and we're happy to have you share it. and as we go out, i want to take a listen. as we come back, we'll talk about the fact that there is organized efforts against the problems. i want to listen to a little bit of tape. this is tape from the detention center. f and just that sense of a lack of hope. we'll talk more about hope when

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we're back and continuing to talk about the difficult human rights issues associated with our broken immigration system. so we've been talking a lot about detepgs. but also made a shift to deportation. how much is deportation a central human rights issue in this country? >> it's a huge issue. i know we're going to delve into it a little bit more. this is where we need the president to come out and be the organizer that he is. right now he said he's not going to provide fast relief for a lot of folks. we have roughly 1,000 people

getting deported every day. that better smeen something. between now and august roughly 45,000 to 50,000 families who are going to be affected and whose life is going to be changed. he would best be used to go out and talk about what detention centers mean. yes, it's a republican leadership problem, but unless we know what's happening day in and out, no one is going to change the conversation. when he revisited the drug laws, we should do the same thing for the the detention centers and start opening up and saying, look, this is something very serious. this is what we're talking about leaving a legacy for our children. >> so what i love about the way that you have framed that is to the extent there has been any success in any immigration reform, it really came from the dreamer themselves who got organized and said mr. president, i know the republicans are giving you a hard time. here's what you can do. here's what it would look like.

talk to me about organized community activism and how it might be able to shift policy at the presidential and congressional level. >>? one of the major issues right now is we have a quo that that requires 34,000 people be detained at any time. >> please say that again. >> so 34,000 people required to be detained at any gien time. so these are huge numbers. and congress has implemented this quota. if this is passed, this won't be impacted. this is appropriations. so much is happening through funding of detention centers. the private prison companies for a while, sb1070 and the arizona law and a lot of state policies and lobbying at that level has dissipated at this point. really think push towards appropriations. >> they were helping to write this legislation.

they sat in the same room as the the arizona senator and crafted this law. all the sudden we're going to target individuals who didn't have a voice and since 2010, the last seven years, you're able to actually follow the money, they've given campaigns over $46 million in contributions. >> so there's a private economic incentive and a legal requirement to hold a certain number of people in these centers, which we know are leading to abuses of both law and human rights violations. >> and this is kpekted to the scale of the system. we're detaining almost five times as many part-time as we did 20 years ago. that means hundreds of thousands of people every year in detention centers. and that requires hundreds of detention centers which in turn require cheap labor to keep them running. and that's how the u.s. government, it's how that government has become the

biggest em boyer of undocumented immigrants in the country. >> and let's take a step back and put a human face on it. you have communities where their plans saying what happens when these parents don't come and pick the kids up? what are we going to do? >> because it's happening so frequently. there's a standard operating procedure for the day when mom has been scooped up and the therefore isn't going to be there to pick up the kids. >> usually they end up in the foster care system. i think one year 46,000 parents were deported. that's the other thing. you're now dealing with the child welfare system, which has its own issues, right? >> and i feel like wait a minute, didn't we just do this? seriously. everything that i'm hearing here, if we just sort of rewound it and talked about the explosion of the federal prison system under bill clinton's two terms in office, these are exactly the same the north lawndale in chicago has the same

set of problems about sort of parentless children because of ins are course ration. >> and the enemy is the same. and the enemy is the way that our congressional system relies on toxic money in the system. a so a congressperson's job with respect to the drug laws, it's to fill prison beds. that's how the congressperson gets money. that means they have to pass laws to make certain things into crimes that didn't yumsed to be. or they give you longer and longer sentences so the profit can be sucked out of you while you occupy the bed. all these are are fancy ways of referring to a simple ideas, which is that members of congress have to be embarrassed publicly for the fact that what they do for a living is take money in exchange for resume lives. that's what's happening. >> and maybe i'll get in trouble for this. i want to play almost a minute

of conversation of mr. boehner. you just, you know, i'm a political scientist. we say congressmen are single minded seekers of re-election. you said congress's primary job is to fill prison beds for the purpose of generating profits that then come back to their campaigns nrd to be the single minded seeker of re-election. i want to listen for a whole minute to mr. boehner talking about immigration reform and see if your frame changes how we hear this. >> so speaker, we came here to ask you why are you blocking immigration reform? is it's been almost a year. >> me? blocking? >> you can bring it to a vote. >> well, the issue of immigration reform is an issue that i've talked about for 18 months. but the president, the president has responsibility here as well. when he continues to ignore obamacare, his own law, 38 unilateral delays, he reduces

the confidence of the american people in his willingness to implement an immigration law the way we would pass it. so the president has to rebuild this trust if we're going to be able to do this. >> the senate passed immigration reform almost a year ago. >> i just gave you annens. there's nobody more interested in fixing this problem than i am. >> so as you can see, that was the exchange with jorge ramos of univision with speaker boehner there. your language about that sort of stonewalling changes my ideas about why it's going on. that it may not be purely political. thank you for coming on. i hope you will come frequently and more often. we've talked before. up next, let me ask you this, if you were accused of a crime you didn't commit, would you ever

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[ applause ] biotene -- for people who suffer from dry mouth. . 27.2 million americans are locked behind bars. in this we are exceptional. the united states has less than 5% of the world's population and more than one-fifth of the prisoners. you probably know that, but did you know that our criminal justice system is really more of a plea deal system. 90 to 95% of all criminal cases, state and federal are resolved by plea bargaining, and which a defendant pleads guilty in hopes of a lighter sentence. almost all are judged not by a jury of one's peers but by a defendant pleading guilty before the case even gets to trial. of course, not all are treated equally.

african-americans are less likely to receive reduced charges by pleading guilty. and although there's little difference in the rate of guilty pleas with public defenders or hired private attorneys, those with public defenders are more likely to be sentenced to prison if convicted. inform state courts of those with public counsel who are convicted, 71% are sent to pritz. compared that to those convicted with private attorneys where 54% are incourse rated. and most criminal defendants are represented by public counsel, 82% in state court and 66% in federal court. from thes are able to get them in part because of harsh mandatory minimum sentences. the resume rights report showed they threaten drug offenses with those that carry extreme mandatory minimums. the bargain is this. plead guilty to a lesser charge and save us the court trial and

you'll get off relatively easy. those few who go to trial and are convicted see the other side of the the garbage. according to human rights watch, federal drug defendants who pled guilty receive an average sentence of about five years in prison. those convicted at trial receive an average 16 years. a sentence three times longer than those who pled guilty. there's no way to tell how many incident people plead guilty in order to avoid a long prison sentence. but one study of exonerations found 8% of convicts later proved incident had originally pled guilty. which leaves us to pause it that there are potentially more. more people sitting in a cell right now for a crime they did not commit. how do we fix that broken system is next.

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i'm looking at you phone company dsl. check your speed. see how fast your internet can be. switch now and add voice and tv for $34.90. comcast business built for business. in tv crime shows some of the most dramatic moments happen when the suspect goes to trial. in real life, that's the

opposite of what most criminal defendants do. ch 90 to 95% of criminal cases end in guilty pleas. even innocents defendants would rather take a plea deal than the longer sentence if they lose at trial. joining us now is a san francisco public defender. nice to have you this morning. >> good morning, melissa. >> so talk to me about what it says about our system that 95% of defendants are pleading guilty and never having a trial. should that raise flags for us? >> one of the fundamental rights we have is the right to a jury trial. before a person can be convicted, a jury has to find beyond all reasonable doubt that the crime has been committed. 95% of people plead guilty. in some places it's as high as 98 or 99%. why is that? well, there's a couple l of things happening. first of all, prosecutors tend to charge every charge they can.

even charges they can't prove. ft if you're charged with a number of crimes, you could be facing 20 or 30 years. prosecutors know that creates fear and anxiety. so they can come to you and offer you something like five years. if you're innocent, you're going to think long and hard, and you're probably going to take the fife years instead of the 30 year sentence you could receive after a trial. >> that's a process called stacking. so it's not just you saying it, i want to take a listen to a former federal prosecutor and what he told a congressional hearing in fer about exactly that stacking process. >> it's a tactic that prosecutors have. i've been at meetings. i was a prosecutor for 20 years. it's called stacking. take the crime. you put as many offenses into it as you can, and you stack it up. >> so what would happen, if instead of taking the pleas, public defenders like those in

your office and is private attorneys started taking everything to trial. how long would it take for the system to break if you took everything to trial? >> you know, the professor michelle alexander who has written a book called "the new jim crowe" said what if everybody exercised a the right to trial. that would force the system to reprioritize the cases it tries. 60% of the people in prisons and jails are in drug offenses. in those places they went to trial, there's no way the system could hand l it. public defenders often have huge case loads and are not able to investigate cases and feel compelled to try to settle every case. in our office we remain reasonable case laws and require them to go to trial. unless you test the evidence and go to trial you are allowing the

prosecution to determine what cases settle and what cases go to trial. >> i want to come back to you on this topic. by taking the matters to trial, we could potentially shift how the drug war is being played out in a criminal space, as much as there's activism around it, you could break the system by going to trial. >> you also expose it to sunligts. 90% to 95% of all of the cases are happening in the shadows. if you try to teach a child about the american system, we have the separation of branches. you never actually see that judge. he's an actor. they don't really come in because most of the time they don't need them. they're out in the trial to make a private deal. you would horrify a child about the morality of law and government if you told them that's standard practice in the country. so you would shed light on the public on the incredible arrest

load that is happening in this country, that is only possible because they never make it to the courtroom. it's all for the lobby. >> and that very notion that a child would be appalled -- that it violates our constitutional understandings and core of what makes us exceptional as a people. talk to me about how the aclu might, on the other side of it, when you see folk who is have gotten the sentences, do you hear folks saying i got pushed into a plea deal here? >> absolutely. and the other thing is, the engine that makes this possible is mandatory minimum sentencing and three strike laws. the aclu put out a report of people convicted with nonviolent crimes. the people around the country are in prison for nonviolence offenses for the rest of their natural live ls.

on those, more than 80% are there because of mandatory sentencing regimes. if somebody is looking at a potential plea and seeing the potential of their life stretching out in front of them entirely in prison if they go to trial where they're looking at a plea deal, that's extraordinary pressure. >> let me come back to you for the last piece here. i heard you say you keep reasonable case loads and as a result you can push your attorneys the to take things to trial to the diseffect that jew gene was talking about. how do you manage sufficient resources and how to better come to their offices. >> i'm able to say if the case loads are too high, we can't take anymore cases. and that's the only way to ensure that we have reasonable case loads. and two other things i wanted to mention. judges penalize people for going to trial. it's called a trial penalty. we have to stop that.

we have to reform the bail system. a lot of people are in jail. the only way they can get out is by pleading guilty. they offer them probation and get out of jail free today. and so people will take that deal in order to get out. and so all of these things have to be looked at. and you're right about this, melissa. people have to know about their right to a jury trial. they have to demand cases are properly investigated. and we as attorneys have to stand up for them. >> thank you for joining us here this morning. >> and also onset, thank you to carl and eugene. coming up, the obama doctrine 2 2.0. the role of america in the world as we emerge from a long season of war. plus, ed snowden makes his case. [ male announcer ] legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses. if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution

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welcome back. ch i'm melissa harris-perry. wednesday president obama looked to reclaim his foreign policy in a speech that laid out his broad vision for how and under which circumstances the united states should intervene in conflicts abroad. speaking before an audience, the president acknowledged a particular significance of laying out his foreign policy vision before the very people who will be charged with the risk and responsibility of seeing it through. >> i will betray my duty to you and to the country we love if i ever sent you to harm's way because i saw a problem somewhere in the world that needed to be fixed. or because i was worried about critics who think military intervention is the only way for america to avoid looking weak. >> see that last line there, there was a nod at the other audience for the speech. his political adversaries who

believe his strength in reflecting military might mounts to a failure of leadership on the world stage. ft president obama rebutted his critics by framing his speech as the response to one fundamental question about america's role in the world. >> the question we face, the question each of you will face is not whether america will lead, but how we will lead. not just to secure our peace and prosperi prosperity, but also extend the peace and prosperity around the globe. >> and the answer isn't a full approach to unleash american military might in the world wherever and whenever chaos erupts. it would lead foreign flikts as a problem just for somebody else to solve. instead, the obama doctrine is laid out by the president to have us take a middle of the

road approach. somewhere in between. >> the united states will use military force unilaterally when necessary when our core interests demand it. on the other hand, when issues of global concern do not pose a direct threat to the united states, when such issues are at stake, when crises arise that stir our conscious or push the world in a more dangerous direction, do not directly threaten us, then the threshold for military action must be higher. >> when the call for u.s. intervention does not meet the high bar, the scope of the president's foreign poll city division allow for alternatives to the use of force. >> in such circumstances, we should not go it alone. instead, we must mobilize allies and partners to take collective action. we have to broaden our tools to include diplomacy and development, sanctions and isolation. appeals to international law and

if just, necessary and effective, multilateral military action. >> suggesting this week that the president has laid out a blueprint to has a post 9/11 world, in which the question of american intervention has evolved beyond dual direct threats posed by afghanistan and iraq. the president sees a need for a strategy that is selective in its response to diffuse threat, and one that deploys american military knowledge when in place of force. that was at the heart of the announcement he made in the speech. >> i'm calling on congress to support a new counterterrorism partnership fund that will allow us to train, build capacity and facilitate partner countries on the front lines. >> and defense hawks like senator john mccain were quick to disparage the speech. >> the president keeps setting

up this sintellectual strong ma that those who want to do nothing or send in the military. it's a matter of reliability, and around the world they believe we are unreliable. >> and eric cantor echoed senator mccain's criticisms in an op-ed for abc in which he wrote today was a goldilocks speech, trying to find the lukwarm bowl of por ridge will not concern those who fear its return. and the hits kept oncoming across newspaper editorial pages. the address did not match the hype. was ininspiring and unlikely to quiet his detractors on the right or the left. or the "washington post" declaration that, quote, this binding of u.s. power places mr. obamaed a odds with every u.s. president since world war ii.

oh my. joining me at the table today, earl potagnis jr., who is an assistant professor of history studies and karen skinner, director at carnegie mellon university center for international relations and politics and research fellow at stanford's institute. and msnbc contributor and foreign policy analyst for "newsweek." thank you all for being here. let's just senator. did the president weigh out a week goldilocks foreign policy? >> i think it was more of a political speech. i think you arkansas ticklated it much better than he did. he has surrounded himself with the unmost unqualified advisers in foreign policy in international relations that i've seen in recent years, and he's created this -- these advisers, and i don't think it's him. i think it's his fault he hasn't

found the right people. he's created this era -- this myth of success around him, there's three examples. one is he cited that russia pulled out because of his sanctions and that's not true. putin all along wanted crimea and he got it. two is that he cited syria and how syrian involvement that he did not get involved because he saw this was a quagmire waiting to happen. well, the only reason we were going to get involved is because of his red line speech. he's the one who put it there. and that actually severely hurt our relationship in the arab world. and then, three, obama inferred that he was responsible for the decline in the aids epidemic in the standing up of africa command, and that was a policy that he continued that was a bush policy. he may have supported it, but president busch continued the support.

>> so you laid out three for us here. we have ukraine. let's start with syria. i want to listen for a moment so we can hear the president in his own words, and then i'll have you to respond. >> i will work with congress to ramp up support for those in the syrian opposition who offer the best alternative to terrorists and brutal dictators. and we will continue to coordinate with our friends and allies in europe and the arab world to push for a political resolution and make sure those countries, and not just the united states, are contributing their fair share and support to the syrian people. >> what do you think? a big damage to our international reputation, or smart policy? >> it's a very smart policy. if you travel in the arab world, and i know how many times you've been in the arab world. the thing they tell you over and over, the world is is becoming more messy. whether it's in egypt, iraq and

syria. let's talk about syria. you have a civil war and you have a religious war between shiite and sunni. who are you going to be involved with? who are the people that you want to talk to? you're talking anlts damaging our relationship tw the arab world. what arab world? are you talking about the sunnis and saudi arabia. let me finish my speech. let me finish what i'm trying to say. if you're saying the world is looking up, the citizens want democracy and freedom. or the regimes that want to set the clock back and go back to religious and islamic war. obama foreign policy is the best foreign policy you can have ever see on the ground. when he talked in egypt in 2008 and he told the people, go out, demand democracy, they went out, they listened to him, and they started voting. they start challenging the regimes. he went after al qaeda. he decimated al qaeda. and he will be remember as the person that kept peace for eight years.

it might not be the peace that you want, but it's the peace that the rest of the world will look at, that hated unilateralism. >> so let me get mark in. >> i think we need to reframe how we look at the president's speech. one way is to look backwards and say, okay, has he fulfilled over the course of time in his office what he's talking about now? has he been a good foreign policy president? the record is largely good, but it's also very mixed, too. i think that syria is not a high point of success for this administration. >> because of the red line comment and then -- >> exactly. >> but i would also say this is a forward looking speech. where u.s. foreign policy should go in the future. and if we only look back, we can say, well, he says this, he says that, but he hasn't lived up to it. if we only looked at the future, we would ignore everything else and say this is a great path to the future. but i think that this, that what

the president laid out is a solid realistic way of looking at the future, without trying to cover up any mistakes from the past. shift from a more military focus, as the former secretary of defense gates believed it was, as the secretary of defense in this administration, to using more tools in the tool box. to using diplomacy first. is it a full-fledged road map for the future? not necessarily. >> would you agree on that? >> i agree in part with what you're saying. i would like to first go back to one of your points. i've been critical of the obama foreign policy, but i could not state that his foreign policy team is overall weak. i actually went to graduate school with a lot of them. >> you're like, those are my the friends. >> we don't agree politically and we work for different party ls doesn't mean they're not skilled and good. they're facing a very challenging international environment. and what i saw in the speech was a president that's been on a

steep learning curve in foreign policy and he was trying not to placate various parts of the american electorate, but in fact was trying to reconcile the differences in the way we behavior behave as a superpower. he motivates in a way he would not have in in the cairo speech in 2009, for example, talking ability erp power and projection and using the term unilateral once or twice in the speech. i think that was a way to say we are the dominant military power in the world. we're nearly half the world's defense spending. when we decrease, the rest of the world will not increase enough to catch up to what we can do. >> because we basically stand alone in post soviet. >> and also in terms of having the highest gdp. also despite the fact that the chinese and indians have bigger standing armies than we do. we have the only fighting force

because of the last decade or so. so i think he was trying to really learn. it was not extremely well received, even by the cadets, because it was much more theoretical trying to walk through what it means to be a super power. >> let me give you a quick chance to respond. >> what i was focusing on was president obama's speech and how he talked in his redline speech and made this promise hean then broke the promise. and that you can see a direct strategic shift where they shifted to china. >> but we'll take a break and come back. this is an interesting point and worth also coming back to how he's motivating it. and that's in part, and i think you were talking about the backwards versus the forward, the discourse of a civilian leader of the military versus the actions and the ways in which they played it up. i want to talk more about that and the lone american p.o.w. in

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this was the scene yesterday evening at the white house as president obama appeared with the parents of a u.s. soldier taken hostage in 2009, to announce his release. >> this morning i called bob and janie and told them after nearly five years in captivity, their son beau is coming home. >> army sergeant beau bergdal was the only american soldier held by enemy forces in afghanistan. he was rescued from the taliban in exchange for five taliban detainees at guantanamo bay who were sent from the president and have arrived today.

it was a bright spot in what has been a difficult week for the president. the criticism of his wednesday foreign policy address was followed two days later by the resignation of the secretary of veterans affairs, aaron shinseki, amid a scandal over wait times at v.a. hospitals. but the good news also comes on the heel eels of tuesday's announcement about u.s. military presence in afghanistan. >> this is the year we will conclude our combat mission in afghanistan. by the end of 2016 our military will draw down to a normal embassy president in kabul, with a security assistance component just as we've done in iraq. >> so you were talking about whether he's trying to appease different kinds of interests. i just want to listen because it's sunday morning. over on abc's "this week" senator ted cruz had this to say about the release.

oh, sorry. we don't have -- oh, here we go. >> very troubling. >> why? >> well, for one thing, how many soldiers lost their lives to capture those five taliban terrorists that we just released? ambassador rice said to you, yes, u.s. policy has changed. now we make deals with terrorists. and the question going forward is have we just put a price on other u.s. soldiers? what does this tell terrorists? >> so senator cruz is saying we make deals with terrorists. chuck hagel had this to say on "meet the press." >> first of all, we didn't negotiate with terrorists. sergeant berdahl is a prisoner of war. that's a normal process getting your prisoners back. i don't think what we did in getting our prisoner of war released in any way would

somehow encourage terrorists to take our american servicemen prird prisoner or hostage. >> okay. so good, bad? >> any time you get an american held in captivity for a long time, having that person free is a victory for the united states. this argument that the administration is negotiating with terrorists, we need to look back to the reagan years with what prompted the iran scandal has to do with the hardest scenario in international relations when you're a leader of a great power. when you're adversary is not a great power, basically a black box, and you care about people. and your responsibility is to protect your citizens. the argument that cruz did not make, but the story is still evolving and we need to know more, is that the administration may have violated the statutory

regulation of not notifying congress well in advance of this act, but then it begs the question, can you do the behind the scenes and covert activities that you need to protect our citizens if you're constantly notifying congress? cutter was doing it for them. was negotiating with the taliban and referring to the americans. but every country is doing this. last year for one soldier who released a thousand prisoners. everybody. the life of the soldiers are much more important. i think obama is doing everything to avoid casualties, by using drones and other means. when somebody is captive, why not let another country or allies negotiate for you. i don't understand.

>> is this part of the messiness of this big world that we live? i think your point is so well taken, that we're a stand aloan power in a way waiting. >> it's a analysis of finger painting and understanding there's a full color palette out there. when we invaded afghanistan, the taliban was the government. it may have been an unrecognized government, but it was the government. >> so we were going to have to negotiate with them. >> exactly. it's also a terrorist organization, too. but i think the secretary of defense hagel made a very good point. do you see them as a prisoner of war or someone who has been kidnapped by a terrorist organization? i think at the very least there's a republican debate that can be had. even pointing out that the u.s.

didn't negotiate directly. i think it is a victory for the obama administration in getting the soldier released. not the immediate release of information bury that. allow the reporters to uncover it themselves, and then -- >> allow reporters to uncover. >> and the reason is why? you're going to turn around and look to afghanistan, the leadership in afghanistan, that you are going to negotiate to have a status agreement and you released five of the senior most taliban people after you just got done saying we're going to support you. this is all about the covert diplomacy. the sophistication is not at the senior level. it is at the lower level. >> both of you brought up covert. i want to listen for one moment to the president talking about transparency. let's listen for a moment to the

president talking about transparency. ooel go to commercial break and talk more when we come back. >> i also believe we will be more transparent about the basis of our counterterrorism actions and the manner in which they are carried out. we have to be able to explain them publicly. whether it's drone strikes or draining partners. when we cannot explain the efforts clearly and publicly, we face terrorist propaganda and international suspicion. we erode legitimacy with our partner and our people and we reduce accountability in our government. the united states postal service will get it there on time with priority mail flat rate shipping. our priority has always been saving the day. because our priority... amazing! ...is you! the amazing spider-man 2

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is still fresh on day 30, we installed an aged clip in this taxi. so let's get started. what do you guys think of the smell in here? light and airy. fresh. i forgot we were in a taxi. this is a febreze vent clip. do you think we need to replace it? no. no. [ male announcer ] no matter the oil level febreze delivers consistent freshness for up to 30 days. it's 30 days old. wow! no way. i feel like we went on a journey together. [ male announcer ] febreze keeps your car fresh for up to 30 days without fading. so you can breathe happy. we're back, and we were talking about what i think is a critical issue between transparency and what the president was laying out there versus the need for covert action. you wanted to weigh in, mark. >> yeah, i want to say you can't easily conduct foreign policy in secret now. in part because we live in the

21st century. people hear about things. but i really don't think you could release five taliban detainees. have them released and not say anything about it and hope that reporters will uncover it. there are public effects, and the u.s. have to effectively explain what it's doing. it's the same thing with the drone policy. people are killed. too often civilians. the u.s. have to have an explanation of what it's doing and why. >> i'm so seduced by both arguments. both by the argument that clearly if this prisoner of war comes home, people are going to say you did something and we need to know what it is. enif you don't tell us you will look as though you can't be trusted. and yes it's hard to conduct foreign policy covertly, but also with the full fn of every member of congress and every

ordinary pundit. >> that's why you need international law. that's why. whether it comes to drone attacks. whether it comes the to covert relationship and covert operations, you need absolute sleerns with cha you are doing and have your allies agreeing on this. so you're not breaking the law. >> but also when you have secrecy, you have abuse of power. unfortunately then you have a system like in the united states that we all look up to, that the president, congress and everybody who operations. whether oversees or hear to obey certain rules and certain law. that's why we have the court system to decide what is write and what is wrong. at least principles on these issues. >> so you've taken us to an interesting place. i want to listen to the president talking about every problem is not a nail that needs a hammer. i want to make a political science 101 claim and then get

your response. let's listen to the president first. >> just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail. and because the cost associated with military action are so high, you should expect every leader and especially your commander in chief to be clear about how that awesome power should be used. >> he clearly call this himself the civilian leader. the thing that makes the u.s. so different is that our military defers to having a civilian leader. you talked earlier about moving quickly up the learning curve, which is something in many years of watching the president as state senator and then senator and then president, he does very well. we do, in fact, have civilian leadership. we don't have military coups that take over. kbu it means then that we have civilian leadership of the military, which sometimes means there's an asymmetry between the sort of moj base. the tactical skills of the very thing that these civilians

command. and you brought us to the issue of law and rules. but i also wonder if it's just tough to have civilian leaders of military. >> i think it is, and it's important. it speaks to the fact that the united states is truly a unique nation in the world. he would not have to give the speech if he were the head of the government of most mature dploxs. the kits we constantly walk the line between power and principle. and that's the tension of our country. that what makes our country great. and with we saw when the president called the united states an indispensable nation. he was really talking about the fact that not that transparency is important because we have the internet, but because it's demanded by the values that we have. the and that's important. on the point that you made about

international law being the cure for secrecy and corruption, i differ. for international law to work, every nation state has to agree to abide by it. sometimes states agree when it's in their interests. and sometimes they don't. and also, as we see in nern domestic laws like in the american south and the poesz civil war era. you can pass laws in states and have the rule of law being followed and be as dangerous and biased as you possibly can be. so i don't think international laws -- >> in a vacuum of law. >> so i promise we've got a little bit more. talking about transparency and democratic accountability, i want to talk about if we take that to the full extreme, should you be able to be tweeted into war. we'll talk more about that when we come back. ittle pieces would get in between my dentures and my gum and it was uncomfortable. [ male announcer ] just a few dabs is clinically proven to seal out more food particles. [ corrine ] super poligrip is part of my life now.

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people in distress are in need of someone to come to the rescue. >> when a typhoon hits the philippines or schoolgirls are kidnapped in nigeria or masked men occupy a building in ukraine, it is america that the world looks to for help. >> and in the case of the nearly 300 kidnapped girls who remain missing in nigeria, the call for help was amplified by twitter. what began as a demand from nigeria activists for their government to take action and bring back our girls took on another life as a hash tag that went viral. it sparked a worldwide call for intervention to give assistance in the search for the nooij ran government that has been widely kriz sited. the t united states answered that call with surveillance drones and aircraft and the deployment of 80 troops in chad to help with the search efforts. according to a news report from

richard engel, it's left the american forces concerned they may be tweeted into combat. and yeah, i have some angst about hashtagging folks into s onto the continent. i don't feel good about american troops on the continent of frek for the most part. make me feel better, mark? >> well, the u.s. is deepening and expanding the military across the continent. >> literally across the continent. >> a steers of installations. exactly. drone bases. a significant base in jabuti. it's deployed troops to -- to support ugandan and african union forces to root out the large resistance army. >> that was the koni 2012 hashtag. >> the discussion started long before 2012. i work for an organization that

urged that for a number of years. still very suspicious of hashtagging dip ploemsy, but it's about this tool box that president obama talked about. there's a limited number of u.s. advisers, special forces helping other forces find the large resistance army. it strikes me as an appropriate use of force. so if you can use it there you can use it there, you can use it there. but the other thing i hope and expect is that u.s. foreign policymakers aren't going to be hashtagged into a deployment. this isn't new. it was cnn deployment before. i remember a cnn reporter in benghazi saying, wen there was a discussion about whether there should be an intervention there t there will be a blood bath here if there isn't some action

taken. wrel, did she really know that was really going to happen? who knows? yes, there are definitely pushes that occur. i think u.s. policymakers were not unhappy there was popular support for a very limited smaum deployment to go against the lra. sometimes the administrations use the hagtag as a way of doing what they want. so take us back to what you said, the very first thing you said. which is i'm not sure this president has around him the advisers that i think he needs. so when i hear you say that, and i know we have pushback on that, but i'm putting that together with the idea of us now deploying. sometimes 80 feels like more. is there a way in which the the advisers become the public? which couldn't find nigeria on a map. i mean, most americans, right? >> i really don't think that we're going to hashtag our troops into war. i think it's ha political

statement. i do think that social media serves a purpose. and i think that it does -- those troops would not be there just because of popular reasoning. so i think that there's an excuse there that they can actually expand their influence in africa. which they have already done and they've already established that. i teach at valley forge military college. officers to go to the service academies. we have a great connection wur our african counterparts there. and so that said, bringing it back to the advisers. if you can frame this different, take it away from the social, you can use that as a tool. but frame it differently in a is sophisticated way, in a way that has always been used because politicians and diplomats have only used what we call public dip ploem sit to get what they want. this is just a different means.

but it's so unsophisticated the way that they're approaching it. >> so stick with me. we're going to this get back into the transparency, the covert, and we're going to do it through transparency. we're going to talk about edward snoweden and the whether of whether or not he's a patriot or a traitor and what that means for who we are as a country ♪ ♪ make every day, her day with a full menu of appetizers and entrées crafted with care and designed to delight. fancy feast.

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>> a lot of people have said you have badly damaged your country. >> i would say can you show that? i've been asking the united states, the press has been yts the united states government for a year now. if after a year is they can't show a single individual who has been harmed in any way by this the reporting, is it really so grave? is it really so serious? and can we really trust those claims without scrutinizing them? i would argue that we can't. >> snowden during the interview claimed he had been trained as a spy and worked abroad covertly for the cia and nsa. that was just before he said he wasn't a spy. for those wondering if he's now working for president of russia vladimir putin, he denied that saying he has no relation with the government at all. he elaborated on giving up sibl liberties for security and defined what a security state means to him. >> the definition of a security state is any nation that

prioritizes security over all other considerations. i don't believe the united states is or ever should be a security state. if we want to be free, we can't become subject to surveillance. we can't give away our privacy. we can't give away our rights. >> snoweden also offered up philosophy regarding his actions. >> in your mind, though, are you blameless? have you done, as you look at this, just a good thing? have you performed, as you see it, a public service? >> i think it can be both. i think the most important idea is to remember that there have been times throughout american history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. sometimes to do the right thing you have to break a law. >> in response to the snowden

interview, secretary of state john kerry said this wednesday on chuck todd's show "the dai daily rundown" this, if this man is a patriot, he should stay in the united states and make his case. they don't seek asylum in cuba or venezuela, they fight their cause here. edward snoweden is a coward. he is a traitor. he has betrayed the country. if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so. >> all right. what you got? is. >> well, i think this is -- his interview at a very rhetorical level, it soubds like he's making arguments few people could disagree with that. when you go beneath that, he's completely confused and in violation of american law. whistle blower is a legal term of art. and he's not a whistle blower in the u.s. system. we have a way within our judicial system and within our government to protect whistle

blowers who have important information to share that goes beyond their demand authority and their job. that's not what he did. when he says we didn't produce evidence that he's put anyone in harm's way in the past year is to misunderstand the nature of covert and intelligence activities. the intelligence community has many, many, many more successes than we will ever know. because they can't report their successes, and they should not report their successes because it compromises sources and methods. >> but every whistle blower is saying to snowden, don't come back because you will not have a fair trial. but there's a major point here. and the media is concentrated on snowden. he's not the issue. the debate is really boring about snowden. i'm so sorry to say that. the debate is about the overreach of the nsa. this is what we should be focusing on. i lived in countries where a

staged regime went after citizens all over. they collected datas the the same way that nsa is doing today. this program we're collecting all kinds of datas. sf they're collecting all kind of pictures for facebook, yahoo! twitter. i have a problem with this. this is not the police state. this is the united states. this is a place where everybody comes here because your fundament fundamental basic rights are protected. t this is a place where whoever wants to listen to your conversation, tap your conversation or read your e-mail, have to go to a judge. are we really ready to give up on all of this in the nature of natural security? >> i do think that we don't understand, if i just may make a quick intervention, the fact that the nsa is under very strict authority that does not

get talked about. all the things that they have to do to make a move. >> and there's an army of lawyers that back every play the nsa makes, the same with the drone campaign. there's an army of material that they can produce. >> the first court that starts speaking about the nsa -- >> let's let him finish. ch. >> the problem is you can write anything as a lawyer and read into this. this is again about laws and how you can read and make and read into them. and where they're getting the go-ahead. where is the nsa getting the go-ahead to go and make this reach? if this is a strategic move, was the president involved in it? was he not? who knows. but -- >> pause for me one second. we're going to stay on snowden for just a few more moments when we come back. we just run out of time. got lots to say. [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans

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we've been talking the whole commercial break. i want to take one more moment from brian williams' interview with edward snowden. >> all of your private communications, all of your transactions, all of your associations, who you talk to, who you love, what you buy, what you read, all of these things can be seized, and held by the government, and then searched later for any reason hardly without any justification, without any real oversight, without any real accountability for those who do wrong. >> mark? >> melissa, i have a couple of thoughts about this discussion. first, i do think that we focus too much on snowden and not enough op the effects of what snowden did. he doesn't have to be a wonderful person. he doesn't even have to be a good person to have brought about some positive effects. and the fact that we're having a national discussion, and not just an inter-community

discussion is the real thing. you make really good points about the fact that this information rests in a number of different places. these data rest in a number of different places. we need to be concerned about those places. i have to admit, though, in my level of concern, the top level is what the government is collecting. that there are civil liberties questions that are powerfully raised by the vacuuming up of mega datea. >> would google be better having it, because the government has an army? google also isn't democratically accountable. >> exactly. but i'm not entirely sure that this nsa -- that all of these nsa policies are democratically accountable either. so just because my top level of concern is government collection, that doesn't mean that i don't have powerful

concerns about corporations. there's a reckoning that's going to happen with all of this. a third level that's kind of down the line for me is, what individuals can collect about us. >> true. >> we're moving into an age now of massive collections of data that a government, that corporations, that individuals can collect. and i think we're going to need to beef up our regulation on all of those levels. >> i will -- >> a debate. >> i'll give you that. for me, i rank them differently. my greater anxiety is with corporations having the data, in part because to me they're not even theoretically democratically accountable. nsa is at least through the elected leaders in accountability of the president in the context of this. but i'm going to give you this, as our final point. i will give you that edward snowden caused conversations, that we had only had in black community dinner tables before. there's real value in talking

about what government surveillance is and who we are as a people. this table is great. they're going to have to come back. thank you. that is our show for today. although i bet it's going to keep going after we're off. thanks to you at home for watching. i'll see you next saturday, 10:00 a.m. >> that is the best show in the conversation. the conversation continues, as it does. bowe bergdahl is free. and broke down crying on a u.s. helicopter. nightmare in brazil. you might recall this scene in the past few weeks. in 11 days, hundreds of thousands of outsiders will be there for soccer's biggest event. we'll talk about the world cup. an unexpected ride. what happened when a gust of wind gave two children a real scare. imagine that. don't go anywhere. i'll be right back. we are the thinkers.

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i'll stand by that decision. i signed off on the decision. the president made the ultimate decision. >> they didn't notify congress. i think they violated the law in two different places here. >> freedom and controversy. bowe bergdahl is no longer a prisoner, but the deal making this possible is coming under fire. the rush of war. a new film captures moments in afghanistan that could help explain why u.s. soldiers have so much trouble coming home. the president is expected to roll out a historic plan that could change the planet. i've done absolutely nothing wrong. >> the latest word from pro golfer phil mickelson. new details on why he feels the need to say exactly what you just heard him say. hello, everyone, high noon