welcomes of the i want to show will you get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're coming live out of washington d.c. alone has the night off by names christine for sound and tonight we'll speak with former chief of staff to colin powell colonel lawrence wilkerson on simmering tensions with iran and on the eve of going public the facebook backlash is in full force so we'll talk to the founder of a social networking alternative one that keeps your personal information safe and then we'll speak with chris hedges plaintiff in the suit the cause of federal court judge to overturn the indefinite detention provision of the n.d.a. just last night i have all that and more for you tonight including

a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at what the mainstream media decided to miss. over half we can thank shows like law and order or even judge judy but there's something about drama in the courtroom that seems to captivate american audiences sometimes it's tearful witnesses sometimes it's those closing arguments that hit home there's the suspense as the jury deliberates even if at the end of the day the ruling in most cases it doesn't really impact most people watching just those few people involved in the case and still here's what you probably got your fill of from the cable networks today. closing arguments happening right now in the john edwards corruption trial the fate of john edwards could be in the hands of the jury as early as tomorrow today's come down to a month of emotionally charged dramatic testimony john travolta sex suit has come

to an abrupt halt closing arguments are underway in the ramp up of the trial was a bit of a surprise for the defense rested without calling any of the major players to the stand the second man who alleged travolta had groped him withdrawing the charges nine men and seven women are hearing closing arguments in the dramatic campaign finance trial closing arguments today in the john edwards campaign finance trial here in greensboro north carolina could the judge's latest ruling be a major setback for the former senator and one time presidential candidate he has no idea why his client withdrew the lawsuit john edwards corruption trial the jury could get this case as early as tomorrow his defense team resting after weeks of often dramatic testimony his defense team rested their case after just two days and after deciding not to have edwards or his former mistress testify. what you didn't see was anything about one of the most significant rulings this year in a case that affects every person who's a citizen of the united states

a federal judge has blocked the ability of the u.s. government to enforce the indefinite detention provision of the national defense authorization act section ten twenty one essentially what this did is grant the government the power to detain anyone it considered a terrorism suspect including american citizens this means anyone who the government suspects of associating with terrorism suspects i.e. maybe you met with a person six years ago that is considered a suspect and you had no idea you were in the same room with someone considered as them maybe you were interviewing that suspect because you were a journalist section ten twenty one allows the government not only to detain you but to do so indefinitely without charge or trial anywhere in the world including right here at home it's a pretty big deal. well as i judge catherine forrest ruled that it violated not one but two amendments to the constitution the first amendment right to free speech and the fifth amendment right to due process congress and president obama and they all want this was ok and after saying that he would veto the bill obama decided to sign

it and then he promised that he wouldn't be detaining any americans only problem that's just a promise so this is huge and not only because it's a court case the challenges are that changes rather the definition of what your government can and can't do it's also timely our lawmakers will be voting on a series of amendments to the n.d.a. and today they started debating and voting on them in committee and i gotta say it got pretty heated now congressman james mcgovern a democrat from massachusetts introduced nearly one hundred amendments to the house rules committee and did not hide his disdain when many of those votes failed still here's the reaction from his colleague texas republican congressman pete sessions. chairman i i think with first that michelin is not happy. i think there's also behavior.

that i wonder people have been out drinking. or whether or or angry or incapable of controlling themselves and i would question that i take offense. and then that room is chairman. and i would say the gentleman that you know there are some issues worth fighting over and for me ending this war is one of them. so clearly some emotion and controversy here my back to the n.c.a.a. and yesterday's overwhelming rejection of the decision by congress and the president to give themselves unlimited power this is huge and important story and where was it not on the mainstream media they were too busy providing wall to wall coverage of all the important cases about sex scandals with former movie stars and washed up politicians but a case about freedom and justice for all americans this is what the mainstream media chooses to miss.

an announcement on today that the u.s. is prepared right now to use military force on iran if it needs to to prevent iran from developing nuclear weapons that announcement comes on the heels of a series of meetings scheduled between iran and six world powers united states france russia china britain and germany well the u.n. has already implemented four rounds of crippling sanctions against iran with another round set to go into effect this summer they're hoping to persuade iran to stop its uranium enrichment program entirely today's announcement seems to be another warning lights to iran that the u.s. and israel aren't messing around here to discuss this is lawrence wilkerson retired united states army colonel and a former chief of staff to colonel. colin powell excuse me colonel wilkerson thanks so much for being on the show and i guess i want to ask you i thought today's announcement sort of in two different ways i thought on one hand as being sort of

a warning to iran on the heels of these talks and on the other hand of being sort of a nudge to israel by the way we're still your loyal friend how did you see this hope that's all you saw a little bit of the diplomatic corps talking a little bit. more encouraged to other proposed amendments to the n.b.a. that's the one conyers olson. paula jones is centrally in its language nothing in this legislation authorizes the use of force against iran and then conyers and louise a moment which essentially says diplomacy is the best course of action those are far better and then months and they also indicate i think that we are heading on like in the iraq war we are having someone have a debate in the congress over how we should proceed you don't miss and certainly there's one congressman who has never been shy about voicing his disdain for for these provisions congressman dennis kucinich he was on the house floor today i want to play just

a little bit of what he had to say. the n d a authorizes war against iran it calls for a new policy military action which puts u.s. aircraft and munitions into position for air and sea based missions and the bowstring of u.s. capabilities to launch a sustained see an air campaign against a range of iranian nuclear and military targets it authorizes war under the pretext that iran is threatening to launch a nuclear attack even though our random is not have nuclear weapons does not have nuclear weapons capability and is not building a bomb. everything he said is dead on accurate well it often is but why don't more people in congress in the senate share this opinion why is this sort of a fringe opinion well but the hard part of the n.b.a. is all a pack i would dare say the language went from apacs computers to the congress's

computers they rarely change anything when they give them something so if this is as you said in your first question simply an attempt by the congress to keep the pressure on iran. if it's actually the sense of the congress then they're all a bunch of idiots. let's talk about these talks scheduled i think they're for may twenty third in baghdad what can tehran say to the u.s. to some of these large countries that would make them. put this idea of using military force aside put it's bad the the ingredients are there is stumble was more successful than people let out and i don't blame them because this is a very very contentious process it's very difficult and getting to some success is going to take really exquisite diplomacy but the ingredients are there and our policy is not like the in the hard side expresses our policy is iran can enrich as long as she's under the. under rigorous safeguards and i don't think either policy

but if that's not israel's policy but who cares what israel's policy u.s. care not today it's not going to united states isn't the go shater here and the people so you want plus five so we're we're looking at a possibility here they could do on iran needs done in order to feel safe about what it's doing in terms of giving in and let us feel safe in terms of iran nuclear capability now and in the future and come to some motives for the indies so we can settle a range of the issues that arguably are more important than the nuclear issue to include sponsorship of terrorism to include human rights in iran to include all the issues that are on our plates together all of those issues in my view in combination and some of them singly are more important than the nuclear issue or the nuclear issues mantra but in addition to to sort of my theory that perhaps the united states made this announcement that that the plans are in place they're ready to go if need be that it was sort of a gesture to israel to say hey we're looking out for you could it have also been

sort of a nudge to them to say please hold off on taking action because there has been talks from you know netanyahu on down that that a they want all uranium enrichment stopped and that they are prepared to launch some sort of strike i mean it absolutely riveting to a degree of sanity and sobriety to the congress that i don't see exist however i do see that israel has been some. restrained and somewhat restrained because she hasn't gotten the kind of acceptance from us that the netanyahu in particular thought he was going to get and by the way we need to set this at rest israel cannot do anything but make the rocks in the wrong israel does not have the military capability to couldn't stop a effective series of strikes against iran there are massive public affairs machine could turn it into that for a day or two but like operation cast lead in gaza and like the july two thousand and six incursion in lebanon they're going to come out with

a goal over their face so you're saying that that israel's biggest power is their relationship with the united states is the only power they could conduct the kind of strikes that would do damage to iran and incidentally would have to follow up with an invasion if it really was serious about ending the nuclear program because all the airstrikes will do israeli or american or israeli american combined is causing iran to become even more determined to create a nuclear weapon create a nuclear weapon and cause an enormous cohesion of seventy million plus persians and others in iran and hatred for us forever and not down the democratic movement in iran for at least two decades let me ask you this there are reports out today that iran has been apparently shipping weapons to the syrian government. hasn't i mean tell me a power that matters it hasn't been shipping iraq. shipping to one faction in iraq or in syria and shipping to another faction in syria the saudis putting people in

syria everybody's playing in syria including probably russia and china and that's why we need to stop this so you don't think that this sort of coming out will have any sort of effect on these talks with iran that one way or the other that i certainly hope not because this is a real mess and oh by the way you didn't mention this latest sketch of an explosive chamber in iran that supposedly came out of somebody that probably care. experience with this stuff probably came out of a lot of curve ball in other words it came from the same place the child be in the i r c produced all this intelligence about iraq before the two thousand and three war it came from the enemy kay and it came from israel and it came from a pact israeli compliance and that's the equivalent now of challah be in the eye and see so this intelligence is worthless. we keep hearing colonel wilkerson a you know from president obama you know from from different factions there's still plenty of time before you know yes plans are in place yes we're prepared to use

military force on iran if need be but there's still time i guess i just learned from your experience what does this mean plenty of time are we talking a few months are we talking after the election we're probably talking if you really took the doris prediction we're probably talking two to three years and that's before you could actually have a nuclear warhead and something with which to deliver that nuclear war i would say more like five years remember people have been predicting that iran would have a nuclear capability ever since the show and they haven't done that yet i know you and i have talked about this before that this is nothing new and i fear mongering and the idea is that iran is our biggest threat is nothing new and. is the possibility now for the deal we had in two thousand and nine but had to back away from the brazilians in the turks orchestrated essentially we have the opportunity to make that really work now to take the twenty percent out to give them and in exchange for that for the t. or to come to some kind of modus vivendi were we could not only settle the nuclear

problem but as i said before getting to these other issues which were far more intractable and far more apt to do a decent relationship in the future than the nuclear issue bottom line of the nuclear issues if iran got a nuclear weapon saudi arabia would buy from the pakistanis indeed may have already and then we would be in a rough balance so it's made their job or even if they've got a nuclear weapon just because i have you here i want to talk really really quickly about pakistan they're going to announce any day they're going to reopen their borders to the u.s. only if there's going to be a little change instead of you know that opening the borders letting the u.s. you know bring in what they want to now what they're going to charge five thousand dollars per shipping container is this just you know the cost of doing business with people you know. early like this is the pakistanis try and maximize the potential before the united states pulls out because if we operate as we have in

the past recently pakistan we will pull out and that will be the last thing we do for pakistan for the next twenty years i mean that's our relationship with pakistan up and down up and down up and down and so they're just trying to cover their bases as we get ready to pull out no by the way this is going to be a fighting pull out probably there's been some interesting headlines about it basically telling the us to bend over and let everybody else finish the sentence but it's very interesting what's going on here colonel lawrence wilkerson always great to have you here thanks for having me thanks so much. for coming up after the break a recent attack talk has been all about the upcoming facebook i.p.o. and we'll hear from the founder of a social network with a different business plan. the talk of american power continues. things that are. by the time. they're going to

be very good for. him. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know. welcome to the big picture. here is what i. love and they alone are so they'll get the real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those

stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v. . i'm laurin mr. some for show intelligence and its program earlier this week we told you about the case of steven staley a mentally ill inmate who was going to be forcibly medicated just so that he could

then be executed luckily his execution has been stated there's still a question about the constitutionality of forcibly medicating a person before he's put to death so we asked you why these horrific cases go under the radar of the overall approval for the death penalty has reached a historic low in the u.s. let's go to producer in a sense and to find out what you want to say. i'm on the streets of d.c. to tell people the nation's capital what our viewers had to say on twitter facebook and you tube and he was comments we should keep. so i'm going to read your response from stars and stripes on you tube he wrote in to say we as people aren't speaking loud enough to end the death penalty what do you think about that like a lot of other cases to the enemy like attention and they don't get it i don't know why i think the media is to differ would be a lot more attention to cases like these i do think that more stories like this do need to be out there and people do need to just get off their butts and do something that carrie wrote in to say because the media is not pushing this

important story they're hung up on things like cell phone etiquette and popular baby names who do you think about that i agree with that people don't really look at that stuff they really want to see like oh what's the new technology or get a new i phone i know the take up you know the most popular guy's name but i haven't heard about this probably at the tab on you tube he said people don't like how much money are rehab programs cost and how ineffective they are i think the court saw an opportunity to save some money when they first sentence them what do you think. that's really controversy all right they're complicated question you know i think that they do try to keep some of that under the radar to probably save money capital punishment stories may not be enough for the mainstream media to cover but when approval for the death penalty is so low and executions are still happening many people think it's up to the media to keep them informed. so thanks for your responses and here's

a question for you later in the show we're talking about a bill which could bar facebook co-founder eduardo saverin recently relinquished his u.s. citizenship from re entering the u.s. so do you think people who give up their u.s. citizenship for tax purposes should be barred from coming back let us know what you think on facebook twitter and you tube and who knows your response just might make it on air. all right guys the countdown has been on for weeks and i know a lot of you out there have been waiting by the television by twitter by facebook to find out how much a share of facebook will be sold for well just minutes ago it was announced that facebook raised sixteen billion in its initial public offering with shares priced at thirty eight dollars making it the third largest i.p.o. in history facebook stock will begin trading on the nasdaq tomorrow the tip of the ticker symbol is f b i. now even though they just turned twenty eight year old mark zuckerberg was selling a thirty million shares will be holding on to more than half of them so the

question is will this be a good investment sure everyone who is anyone is on facebook now but it wasn't that long ago that everyone who was anyone was on my space things can change and one of the biggest reasons people are leaving facebook and mass today is due to concerns about privacy so if a site developed with all the abilities of facebook but more privacy guarantees came about would you make the switch and joining me to discuss this is evan pradelle no c.e.o. and founder of a status that hey there evan i guess talk a little bit about status not just break it down give us the nuts and bolts of what this is sure i can be really quick about it status that is software that lets anyone set up a social network for themselves we have a system where you can go set up a social network that runs on our servers or if you have a web hosting system where you're running a blog you can also install status. for yourself so our software is open source and it was anyone set up their own social network so i guess i'm just wondering not to

be rude but i guess i'm wondering why you're sad is that it is not more popular. well. it's a good question i think that there are a lot of big social networks out there are software is mainly popular with people who are trying to set up small networks this is either say a big company that wants to set up a social network inside their organization just for their employees we also have a lot of people who set it up for a klug for their families so what you see when you have you know private social network that's just for one group is that it's not as visible to people who aren't in that group i think it's really interesting i mean it wasn't that long ago that the f.c.c. had a ruling against facebook because well there were blatantly lying to their customers about how private their information was and the extent to which they were

sharing their personal information i mean what do you think i mean people don't seem to be outraged about this a lot of people and i find this outrageous don't even have their you know security settings updated to the fullest extent do people not care do they not know what do you think. i think you know it's typical with privacy is that people don't pay attention to it until it's too late they've leaked some important information that they wish that they hadn't or they found out from an employer that they've been. passed over for a job because of something that they put on facebook three or four years ago i think that for people who care about privacy the time to start dealing with privacy issues is today now before there's a problem rather than waiting until. it comes up. that's you know i think a lot of the privacy problems that people where the big centralized networks like facebook are invisible to them. they're putting a lot of information into this system that's being used. for advertising for

data mining by marketers said they don't actually see you know what where it's going out the other. i mean and you know facebook does say you know we do have these security settings that we can leave it up to the consumers we can leave it up to the people who use our product to use our service but you know on the one hand a lot of the people who use this service are fifteen years old fourteen years old you know they're younger what do you think i mean should the government be more involved making sure facebook is you know isn't lying to its customers. yeah i mean i think it's a i think so important point for all users to be you know concerned about their settings i think that a lot of what happens and we see it with all kinds of software that people leave the default settings on ninety nine percent of the time right it's only one percent of people who go in there and reset it. i think you know it although it sounds you

know although it feels like everybody's on facebook right now i think that a lot of you know younger people are turning to some of the more. group chat systems based on the mass they're looking to have smaller networks that they can stay in touch with just their friends that they choose to be communicating with they're looking for the kind of private communication that facebook doesn't get they're not looking to publish everything out to everyone in the world they just really want to share with friends i think that there are a lot of other people who are doing the same kind of thing i'm a parent i have two small children and i make sure that i assure pictures it's check ins only with people in my family those don't go out to everyone i facebook and then at the beginning of this segment we announced the athame by facebook that it's thirty eight dollars a share sixteen billion has already been made. but do you think i mean do you think

that that for those who are buying shares that this is a good investment. i think that you know i can't really make a good recommendation there but you know what i could say that it's clearly the case that social networking has become an important part of our economy the linked in i.p.o. which was only so many months ago really showed that. you know social networking is a big part of the technology world i think is the next chapter that i think that facebook is here to stay and this is going to be an important part of technology for the next decade so whether you're ready for that as an investor is something that i think is really between people in their brokers yeah it's really interesting especially with you know everything happening today there's a there's a lot of grumbling today people want to criticize people want to hate on facebook the fact is you're right i mean they're still opportunities for growth especially for it to expand and grow in other countries just real quick what do you think it

would take for the facebook bubble to burst. you know i don't think that i think that there's a there's a lot happening we've seen some growth of different kinds of networks i think pinterest is kind of a well known one where you can actually share images instagram is another one that grew very fast and they grew so fast that they spoke felt the need to buy them i think that we're seeing a lot of new networks happening and as those grow facebook you know takes it takes a different position in the ecosystem than it did just a few years ago so the more that. separate networks are connecting to each other rather than just staying isolated the more that they confederate and form a federal social network that really is what kind of defending this kind of centralized system as with all technology it all moves so much faster than we can predict c.e.o.

and founder of the status net thanks so much thank you. still to come tonight chris hedges will be joining us to discuss a federal judge's ruling which put indefinite detention on hold for now. let's not forget that we sat in a parked car right now. i think. he'd want to well. we never got there but says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you get your freedom. they are going to. look into the alona so you'll get a real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that.