today on our t.v. no evidence no warrants no problem the national security agency is listening carefully these days to your private conversations we'll talk about new evidence that shows why the u.s. in n.s.a. should perhaps stand for spying. in the year two thousand and two bills was accused of assault to your ex girlfriend but there were no charges filed because bills on the would anger management. looks like we have a witch hunt on our hands as prosecutors officially charge the u.s. soldier accused of massacring seventeen civilians what's really going on trial one soldier or the entire war. plus a military plane and

a passenger train leave from california at the same time if plane a fly that five hundred miles per hour and train the trials at an average speed of one hundred miles per hour who will get there first the answer it doesn't matter because train be doesn't exist all our taxpayer money is going to fund a show you what a trillion dollars can buy. it is friday march twenty third five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you are watching our t.v. well it's the end of the week and this has been a really interesting week in terms of new information coming out about the extent to which your government spies on you we told you a few days ago about a report by wired magazine that outlined the details of the spy center being built in a small town called bluffdale utah it's called simply the utah data center and its

purpose is to intercept analyze and store why did a bit of the world's communications from international foreign and domestic networks the article states that the n.s.a. has turned its surveillance apparatus on the u.s. and its. since including the dropping of domestic phone calls and the intercepting of domestic e-mails and this week there was a rare occurrence the n.s.a. chief actually testified in front of congress and to questions about the n.s.a. ability both legally and physically to do that to spy on u.s. citizens well dancing around some of the facts general keith alexander for the most part deny that this is happening at all but there's evidence that shows otherwise and many people who believe otherwise one of those people is a nice to pan eventually told counsel of the electronic privacy information center amy let me ask you just to the point do you believe that the n.s.a. is spying on citizens in the u.s. do you believe that the n.s.a. is being very secretive about what it's doing i believe that spying is probably

involved and i think that most of the information that we've ever received about the n.s.a. has come from whistleblowers and that whistleblowers at this point are saying that they're spying on domestic citizens or spying in the united states and i think that information has to be weighed appropriately back in back in the day a couple decades ago some of the things that they do and you see this in t.v. shows and in old movies they tap the phones the landline so they could listen in find out where the person was or what they were saying and they'd also sometimes be able to get warrants to actually go through the people's mail well fast forward to twenty twelve nobody i know has a landline over my parents we have cell phones now we have and we have the ability to buy disposable cell phones and we communicate over e-mail how has the n.s.a. to your knowledge been dealing with sort of this change these advancements in technology in terms of being able to do their job well the n.s.a. as you said has just created this new data center they're building this new data center in utah and supposed to have unprecedented data capabilities so we're able

to take all of the electronic transmissions that are coming out of your mobile phone or your computer or my mobile phone and of anybody's mobile phone they have the capability know the n.s.a. saying that they're not doing it for united states citizens unless we're. communicating overseas or with foreign entities but the have the ability to collect all of those communications now the state of this center in utah isn't just a data center they're not just collecting information it's also a cryptography cryptography center so they're actually looking at dia encrypting all of the data that comes out so for example when you use g. mail your all your e-mails are encrypted by default google has given you this service and has allowed you to say my communications are protected now the n.s.a. is center is designed around building systems that will d. encrypt that data and remove any protection that you can put onto it so it's not only gathering the information it's doing its best to be able to look at any information that you put protections on i mean that just seems kind of crazy to me

obviously when you talk about security there's often you know it often goes hand in hand with secrecy but we live in the united states of america there's a constitution and this kind of stuff i mean that you're talking about is not supposed to be happening other than these you know we as you said these whistleblowers have come forth and said in fact it is happening well how do they justify this well the i don't know if the n.s.a. has justified it other than just to deny it and this is their modus operandi for five years and epic has been litigating in c. n.s.a. trying to get information we've been trying to get their cyber security authority that was given to them by george w. bush they have said no they've said we're not going to give you a name for any information we've tried to get when lieutenant general alexander was actually first brought to the n.s.a. he testified in front of congress many of his answers were quoted in classified we have asked for the answers to be made public to the united states this involves a few things that methods of domestic surveillance should be taking place and what

those methods should be so that his answers on these very sensitive subjects have been kept hidden in the n.s.a. has operated continually under this strout of non-transparency and secrecy despite its commitment on president obama's first day in office as. this is going to be the most transparent administration ever the n.s.a. just doesn't think that applies to them all right well i think a lot of branches of government as we know that president obama has also used the espionage act to charge several people more people than any other all the other presidents combined so that transparency thing hasn't exactly happened you talked about. the head of the n.s.a. speaking and testifying in front of congress this most recent testimony happened this week i think it was on tuesday i want to play one question they came out of that hearing that was pretty interesting. if dick cheney. president and wanted to detain and incessantly waterboard every american who sent

an email making fun of his well known hunting mishaps. what i like to know is does the. technological capacity to identify those cheney their shoes based upon. their e-mails your son know. you know. so if you say denial in general alexander goes on to explain that assuming those emails were sent within the united states that the n.s.a. does not have the ability to do that i don't know whether he's saying the legal ability or the physical or ability the capability that in the u.s. you know the n.s.a. he says would have to go through the f.b.i. . you know get a warrant basically was deflected responsibility talk a little bit about you know i guess read between the lines for us here but i can't help but watch that clip and reminisce about a scenario not too long ago when george w.

bush stood up and said they were not collecting they were not wiretapping phones of american citizens and it wasn't too long after that that the n.s.a.'s warrantless wiretapping program was revealed by a whistleblower and so you wonder in what the n.s.a. is just frequent track record of hiding information either if lieutenant alexander is choosing his words very carefully which some have proposed that maybe they can't collect it within the united states but they're using satellites to collect this information and that's the collection point and that is being transmitted into the united states for process or if he's just lying out rates which has happened in the past as well what we've talked to people here who say that there's also sort of the element of language that can be used that that intercept that spy to us might mean something different than the actual language. given an outline at the national security administration. let me talk about something also that happened this week i mean certainly this week a lot of stuff going on this is just yesterday u.s. attorney general eric holder just basically gave the national terrorism

counterterrorism center the license to retain americans data for up to five years now these are not just people who you know that they've got warrants to look into because they thought they were suspected of terrorism these are people who have no ties have no suspects and of being suspected of being tied to terrorism they can hold onto that information for five years what was the purpose of giving that license. well that license is actually supposed to make americans feel more secure and supposed to gather all this information and they think by having a bunch of information being able to retain it and reference it that it's making the country safer however you find that when you have information in one place stored for a very long period of time it actually makes that information less secure because it gives criminals and people who want to use that for bad bad methods a place to go so it's actually making people less secure when it's trying to make people safer which i think we all would agree is not a good interesting to have as a legal counsel of the electronic privacy information center appreciate your

insight on this there's a kind of a tangled web of things to go through here when it comes to safety and security in the u.s. one other major story this week the latest in the massacre in afghanistan the incident allegedly carried out by a single soldier staff sergeant robert bales he's now been officially charged with seventeen counts of premeditated murder in the shooting rampage in southern afghanistan and they also was also charged with six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault and if you've been watching the news coverage you know the story has widely been about sergeant bales himself who he is what he was doing before the incident occurred and what could have possibly set him off this is the robert bales most people who knew him described a man always smiling despite that smile he'd been through a lot sergeant robert bales the u.s. army soldier accused of killing sixteen afghan civilians he was once accused of ripping off an ohio couple to the tune of over a million dollars in the year two thousand and two bills was accused of assaulting

an ex girlfriend but there were no charges filed because bills are going to anger management counseling bills and his wife held onto a condo that they usually they were treating it as a real property we drove over to their neighborhood earlier today that place is under foreclosure. so there you see quite a bit of attention being paid being put on this one person and of course this is a story that a lot of people find it pretty difficult to wrap their heads around but there's a lot of other elements of this story things not being discussed the fact that this is simply you know not a story of a single soldier who had had enough that this is also a story of the actual impact of war the horrors of war and more importantly the casualties created on both sides of the battlefield so today we want to broaden this and talk to some of the talk about some other aspects aren't being that aren't being widely discussed and for that i'm joined by journalist and writer and he'll say hey there neal why do you think so much attention of this has turned into the

story of one person as opposed to the larger epidemic here. i think it's a lot easier to focus on one person it's easier to look at this particular guy's surjit fails and say that he was either a rogue soldier or he stands as one of the only people seriously that brings you to the wars in iraq or afghanistan but you were right earlier when he said that this is not necessarily symptomatic because seargent bill's probably acted on it but there are a lot of things with the but it will be like the united states and other countries and this is a good opportunity for us to think about what we ask them to do and the price that it may actually cost us in the world i think you're right i think there's a lot of different kind of directions we could take this and certainly one direction is the fact that a lot of times these soldiers these men and women come back from for more number

one two or three in the case of robert bales of this is his fourth deployment they come back and they're they're not given the time they need they're not given the diagnosis that's correct in terms of the p.t.s.d. that they're experiencing i talked to several question you know about how you know why you think that that goes so under-diagnosed and why these people are sent back to the battlefield time and time again. well that's sort of just the nature of the way the military does things that soldiers are all the ones here force and they stay in the army or the variance or the baby or whatever prejudice for a longer time and the military to cycle them through i was starting with a young marine just yesterday and even telling me about what he came back from his tours in iraq and afghanistan he had to do a p.t.s.d. . as it was administered by the military and do so that it was sort of

a joke process he could have filled out any answers on this that he wanted and as long as he avoided certain sort of chill tale signs as long as he refused certain things the military was very happy to send him back into the battle but i think that shows that the military really needs the soldiers and it and it there's a temptation to turn a blind eye so the problems that you can see when men and women come back to the battlefield there's some casing to recycle them very quickly throw them back to the iraqi or themselves i think that that sensation may be by the military but it may also be by the soldiers themselves and by a you know the public when you grow up here in the u.s. they're taught that you know when a man or woman puts a uniform on this country that person is a hero most older sailors and marines are said to believe but about themselves but sometimes that and more than just once or twice there is

a huge difference between nobility and reality i'm wondering you know if you think that this incident will change things will start the discussion about the fact that just because you served doesn't necessarily mean your hero. i think that but you know that's a very very interesting for you but it's also very blue in the united states we don't like to impugn our heroes in any way but i do think that the american. case for violence is very low so we were used to. a long time ago the idea that there was a more very much like so warrior was sort of. you know he was famous or well regarded depending on what kind of violence you visited upon it that made were so far from that in modern society that we want our heroes to be very quickly we want well. if they do too much violence or they go off the deep end so to speak then we

sort of you can disown them and i think that we're trying to do that storage and bales. very interesting point i know neal you've spent quite some time working next to soldiers in afghanistan yet you've written a lot about it and i know recently you wrote a pretty realistic picture of what some of those soldiers were like they kill dogs for no reason and they broke into homes and vandalized furniture of some of these afghan civilians these are stories that often go i'm told as you say it is a taboo subject it makes me feel uncomfortable to talk about because i grew up in this country i was taught this that that you know always support the troops no matter what i'm wondering if you found it difficult to report on the men and women who i mean you were working right next to you reflecting next to you. but to report accurately about it. yeah the nature of the embedded journalist process in iraq and afghanistan is sort of very complicated but these ideas with these men and women.

and you rely upon them for your security for your safety for your transportation for your lodging for everything and at the same time you're trying to get an accurate story about the challenges they face and the way they behave and i know that for me as well as for many of my colleagues it's difficult to walk the line between. an overly sympathetic pro-choice and trying to really different story to bring home to people in the united states and show them what it's really like as far as we can on the battlefield it's a very difficult thing certainly very very difficult darlington writer neal say to appreciate your in. isolation. let's take a look now at the power you have when you pay to play and it says washington after all it's hard not to notice the power of lobbyist in this town but with you cannae still trying to keep its head above water. you've got to do is look around and see that we are living in

a time where things have to be cut and the money isn't there the projects funded by that money often go away as well but there are some exceptions to this rule so we want to take a look at some specific programs and talk about why some continue to move forward and some are dead on arrival the first there is a lockheed martin and more specifically the f. thirty five program being developed for the pentagon. because as you see there are nearly one trillion dollars to develop purchase and support this through twenty fifty unfortunately there are already more than a billion dollars over the budget and the government has agreed to cover six hundred seventy two billion dollars of that it's a mistake and lockheed martin will cover the russe. and there's this project high speed rail in california the estimated cost ranges between thirty billion and a hundred billion depending on who you ask and despite this project being in the works for years as of now it's. still

a strain to nowhere so why is one of these products going forward and the other in darrelle well i want to talk more about that was one very familiar with the of defense industry michael o'brian a former contractor for the department of defense worked in iraq he also wrote the book america's failure in iraq michael let's start with this example of this f. thirty five which by the way i think has been in the works since the one nine hundred ninety s. it was supposed to be up and ready and going by i think twenty ten now they're projecting a won't be at doing anything at least until twenty eighteen so that's still in the works is still happening and the compare that to this high speed rail which would be a revenue generator would help a whole lot of people out and could be built for a fraction of the cost of the f. thirty five are certainly. in some ways these are different ball games here but there's two major projects one going forward and one is not where you think about

well they are totally different one is the one is a defense program and the other one is a strictly defense transportation program the the the f. thirty five. this might actually be the very same program that when there was a big fight going on in the ninety's secretary defense at the time cheney actually made a comment i think it's the same program what i'm not one hundred percent made a comment that he was going to have the top of the contract you want to certainly have the procurement canceled which of course he has no right to do contracting officer cannot be told what to do by anybody the president even the person in the united states which was the secretary of defense this particular contract is very likely what's called a cost plus contract. very technical a weapon systems like the like a thirty five hour a cost plus contract is one where. competitors did the one that gets awarded the the the procurement. is paid directly for all of the costs incurred

for the development in the manufacture of the weapon system plus their overhead and their profit so if you want a contract like this and i'm very sure this would be a cost plus contract as opposed to a firm fixed price contract where they when the procurement and the government says we're going to pay x. amount for each unit and that's that well they can't do it for something like this because technology and prices and the cost for making it change or we're over here over time from the time the contracts awarded until delivery delivery of the first unit the problem is that this thing is so expensive very likely because it sees me because the air force has changed it so many times all these change orders are jacking up the price but when you think about why the air force another unit of the military have the ability to change and take much time as they need to i think it's

hard to deny that at least in part there is an aspect of lobbying involved i want to take a look here we have the money that basically shows that muscle flex by lockheed martin basically this shows that since i've made i'm lucky martin that more than twenty three million dollars on campaign financing they've spent more than one hundred twenty five a half million on lobbying and they've also received more than twenty million dollars in earmarks now i know this should not be stocking but it still is. i mean what do you think no lobbyist no dice this is this is an example par excellence or excellence of the military industrial complex which i write about it in my book. you just showed the numbers money talks. when and when a defense contractor spends that kind of money they are buying boats they are

bought they are paying for politicians to vote in favor of this particular weapon system no matter how long it takes their how much it costs. and the thing about it is the a moment ago i was talking a little bit in the details in the weeds so to speak about the the the mechanism the contract vehicle a cost plus contract put it put let's get a back up why is the year craft being built at all doesn't matter what type of contract why is this aircraft being built and now if in the next course of course the proponents of the aircraft are going to say we've got to have this weapon system we've got to have it to fight you know in the new millennium do we write it that you had already was one of the most amazing air capabilities in the world is there nobody can touch us i already know that right now right now i'm not an air force guy i was an army guy but i would venture to say nobody could even come close

to our capability in the air. probably for decades to come now this weapon says i mean you know that you take a look at a clearance it's beautiful and if i was going to be a pilot of one of those i'd be all for it let's build it let's let's let's build a spine because our country need it and the thing is you know i on my website i've mentioned the department of defense it needs to be called what it really is it's the department of war explorer department and a weapons system like this is really and it's a it's an authenticated it's there's an off and so capability. nothing wrong with having the offensive capability but what is the real need for this and it's the military industrial complex it's the lobbyists the money that you showed up on the screen a moment ago and they are going if they spend that kind of money for campaigns and

for lobbying they are going to get what they want the thing to and maybe we've already answered this question because of the money but it seems to me that they're simply some competition i mean lock you will soon be the only company in the united states that builds fighter planes for the pentagon we live in the us i mean this is a very educated a very innovative country with a lot of smart people why is there not why are there not five or six other defense cock contracting companies competing with lucky thank god we're actually going to get this done on time we're actually not going to go over budget that's not happening now because what happens is companies get bought out by other companies the entire issue of the. you know the you know monopoly you know you know monopolies you just said it this is going to be a it's looking towards being a monopoly for this particular type of product that the government does put the answer is is the money the money that you showed up on showed on the screen money

talks and the politicians that are or should be saying the asking the same question that you're. well if they get money for their real watching campaigns it's just money they're not for me it's a question that gets really interesting to me and of course lockheed martin just one of many companies but it's really interesting that there are sort of corporate motto is we never forget who were working for and based on those commercials you often think those are working for me the taxpayer they're working for the military it seems perhaps if what you say is true that there may be working for the executives and those people that sit on their boards that we were at a time that michael o'brien author of america's failure in iraq. but book fifty shades of gray has been described as everything from erotic fiction to mommy porn to twilight for adults and it has been extremely popular earlier this month fifty shades of grey rose to number one on the new york times e-book fiction best seller list and the number three position on amazon. this is concerning to some say the

book promotes a culture of submission in women by glorifying rape so what does that mean for feminism in this country and quit this signal a change in society or is this simply a reflection of reality previously kept in the dark or harshness for the residents are posed these questions to people in new york city. the book fifty shades of grey by e.l. james has topped the new york times bestseller list and it's filled with graphics that it is this kind of sexual liberation or to pray very in our culture this week let's talk about that well i think that if popular it must mean that you are really into. it but you don't really want to know so maybe. so maybe it's perfect because it's a book so no one can see that you're reading it yeah it's quite safe to do it do you want to read the book over my worst. hear more about it when you're done do you

think you'll let your daughter read it. what's bad about it nobody's ever going to get over six. it will live to the end of our time but people have a problem with things like pornography. our year to do comes into people's moral values so why are we ok with the book being so popular but not porn. i don't know kids can go into a bookstore and pick out whatever book they want there's no age limit may can't walk into a rated r. moving there isn't make it worth it a book is popular i think so because at that point you're creating your own images in your head but i mean as a matter of fact i was infinite that one can get to. snow always into. things so maybe the world at large is becoming more sexually liberated yes i believe so you heard about the prudish america and europe or in germany.

when you see american film set in television no sixteen and all no press no. breasts you can see i think you're restricted here i maybe the sad and maybe the the way the bookcase friedan. has a lot of fans is that maybe they can tell and they feel that. it's a way of restricting ourselves here i also think that absolutely we seem to have issues with sexuality in this country and yet here is this book that everyone's buying what does that mean closet liberal side or maybe that's a yes it's a book you can read and no one knows that you're having a point. whereas if you're watching what everyone know yeah yeah i think you got it whether or not you think a graphic sexual novelty.