five years ago today a bridge collapse in minnesota sent thirteen people to their death this should have been a wake up call to lawmakers that infrastructure here in the u.s. is literally crumbling but since then little has changed our t. takes a look at the state of infrastructure across america. and we live in a social media society but should sites like twitter be forced to reveal the names of people who set up fake accounts will dive into the topic of internet freedom versus user privacy. plus millions of homeowners across the nation continue to be drowned in their underwater mortgages luckily there is a relief program that could save owners up to a billion dollars so why is the federal government refusing to throw this much needed lifeline.

a good evening it's wednesday august first ten pm in washington d.c. my name is christine and you're watching our t.v. let's talk now about a topic that most people and even most lawmakers here in washington actually agree on infrastructure and the need to make sure it's strong and safe but it was on this day five years ago that the interstate thirty five west mississippi river bridge in minneapolis collapsed. the buckling of the bridge over the mississippi river happened during evening rush hour and resulted in the death of thirteen people on the injuries of nearly one hundred fifty others it cause a closer look at infrastructure all around the country and we already knew at that point after all that it was the levees breaking in new orleans and not hurricane katrina itself that cause excessive death and destruction there that was back in two thousand and five about what specifically has been done what's changed the

american society of civil engineers ranks this country's infrastructure just about every five years and in their most recent report card in two thousand and nine when the show you the grades that were given you can take a look here and see a couple sees mostly d.s. and d.d. minuses well earlier today we talk more about these issues with of infrastructure with rachel mccleary vice president of the urban land institute infrastructure an issue to of at the urban land institute we firmly believe that infrastructure provides the foundation for metropolitan prosperity and national prosperity you see this across the country and across the globe as. countries and governments recognize the vital importance of investing in infrastructure and building the pillars of a modern economy and you know and examples like the very talented things that are happening right now in india with the collapse of the electricity grid and i see

the perils of not making those investments in a timely way and not not spending the money that we need to spend on infrastructure but what do you say to people who say you know maybe in a few years we'll be able to really invest in those projects but we should focus now on climbing out of debt. well i mean i think investing in infrastructure is both a short term solution and a long term solution. but the urban land institute we focus on the longer term view a lot of places like the american society of civil engineers and others are really looking at the short term job benefits and helping to put people back to work which is of course an immediate concern so pumping money into infrastructure investments not only does it give you benefits today but it also you know provides those long term benefits you need so you know it's not it's not an either or question and we have this report card that we put up on the screen just

a few moments ago this is by the american society of civil engineers this is not a partisan group looking for political gain these are grades given by by people who understand the engineering aspect of things that are built in the last lack of safety standards have been implemented i mean i know that if i brought a report card that looked home looks like this home to my parents there would be some immediate changes that would happen i guess i'm wondering why. you know letter grades and information like this has largely been ignored yeah i mean i think across the u.s. at the national level it's been harder to get traction on the infrastructure investment issue i think we do see some strides happening at the regional and local level as local governments across the country are really trying to figure out how to move forward with their infrastructure priorities and in some cases that means you know figuring out a place to find the money locally so in two thousand and eight and los angeles the

county voted for a one cent penny sales tax increase that will go to forty billion dollars worth of transportation and transit road investments. so you do see pockets of progress at the national level we've had some. improvements there was the federal aviation bill that passed just last month the federal transportation bill was a bipartisan compromise bill was put through congress that will provide some programs to billet and funding stability for the transportation surface transportation program for the next couple of years so you know it's still an uphill climb but i think that you do see more emphasis being put on infrastructure investment and in particular more and more local and regional sort of innovations around how do you tackle this problem it's really tough too because where do our

all of our lawmakers meet will they meet here in washington i live here in washington and if you look around it's hard to imagine that there's any issues with infrastructure you look around the roads are being repaired things are being built there's cranes everywhere around this city you know working on buildings but but in fact as a country overall you know just since that report card came out in two thousand and nine reports show that public construction spending including state federal and local projects has actually been on a staggered decline and the idea why that might be well you see i mean you know local governments across the board are strapped you know so federal investment in infrastructure at least in transportation infrastructure accounts for about a quarter of total spending and the rest of that money is spent by state governments and local governments and you know it's just been tough times for local economies trying to figure out in the national economy where's the money come from what priorities should there be. and you know i think

infrastructure as you said when you look around and you see the state of roads and bridges it's not always apparent what the scale of the needs are you know don't you don't see it and you know by and large engineers are quite good at you know when you turn. tap the water comes out when you drive on the road it's pretty good quality and so they they've been making do yeah i think that's a really good point a lot of it is not apparent i know just across the pond here from here in baltimore a few weeks ago some glaring examples of underground infrastructure i know when i worked as well as a local news reporter it seems like almost every week in southern california we were having a water main breaks and this happened a one hundred twenty year old water main burst and it shut down a lot of the city i know a few days later some more issues a sinkhole actually made the road caved in but when i read about this i know one of the things that i saw first was what are we doing with one hundred twenty year old

pipes under under our road and i mean i think you made a good point when you said we might not have the money now but investing could bring jobs i guess my final question is just you know who can we point to finger at to you know for the problem and also for the solution. well i think it's going to have to be you know all hands on deck to build the infrastructure for the future but i i just want to emphasize that it's not just enough to think about you know how much money we spend we also have to think about the return on that investment and the connections between that investment and land use and development and how we're investing in how we're building the places that we want to become you know are its conservation part of the equation are we really thinking about managing and maintaining the infrastructure that we have appropriately and finally about pricing in terms of sending the right signals about you so it's not you know i think you

can overemphasize the total amount of infrastructure spending but we really need to think about as a country is how do we invest wisely how do we build the future that we want for our thoughts in the coming decades and what does that investment in infrastructure really need to look like absolutely some really important questions there rachel mccleary vice president of the urban land institute infrastructure initiative thanks so much for being on the show i had to be here well today marks the eight hundredth day that private first class bradley manning has been behind bars manning is accused of leaking classified information to the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks and of course we've been staying on top of all the pretrial hearings he's been having but one of them part of today also looking at the man behind wiki leaks julian a sauna a fan has spent the last seven weeks inside the ecuadorian embassy in london he's awaiting word on whether he might be able to get asylum in ecuador on his first unavailing wiki leaks julian assange and has been somewhat of a controversial figure and now it's becoming even more clear he's even making some

waves within his own community last night a battle erupted over twitter when one of the few people who has met both assad and bradley manning started criticizing i thought the comments are in reference to a fake new york times op ed and former new york times today. director bill keller now wiki leaks took credit for the hoax that fooled quite a few people across the internet so then this quick tweet from david house came along it said as long as we can leaks is controlled by a songe the shortcomings of a songes leadership will continue to put supporter at risk jake about obama responded he said david howes attacking wiki leaks i think and have thought for a long time that he is probably a confidential informant snitch or worse also wrote people often ask me how i feel about david house and now it's a matter of public record i wish him luck with his legal cases and nothing more. meanwhile angelina songes mother recently told the associated press she's worried about her son's health she says her son is essentially been living in prison like

circumstances for the last two years as far as the ecuadorian asylum officials there say they will announce a decision they will not announce a decision at least until later in the month after the olympic games in london have wrapped up. as you may know here at r.t. we talk a lot about social media and the way it's being used more and more by the government both in investigations and sometimes for purposes of surveillance we've told you in the past additionally how sites such as facebook actually sell users' information to companies for marketing purposes although they want to focus on twitter what those behind twitter have and have not done to cooperate with the government so here's one case there's a user his twitter twitter handle is unstaged oracle and seems to be parroting steve auckland the chief executive of northcliffe media which has said that the spoof tweets are quote obsessive and offensive and e-mail by twitter's of the account holder that was recently made public said that twitter is obligated to

respond to the lawful process and will do so on august first twenty twelve that's today but now twitter has remained on its promise and is refusing the order so could we be seeing a new chapter but other social media take cues and perhaps even follow suit and standing up to the government to answer that more i was joined earlier by chris chambers a journalism professor at georgetown university both think it's it's possible but they're not i mean this is this is the result of social pressure this is a result of their own users turning against them and it's really an example of the tension that you see in twitter and most of these social media giants they've become the mainstream media outlets of the you know thought that they were going to supply. and move beyond evolve beyond i mean you know with with with guy adams and b.c. i mean twitter has become a b c two has become the daily. you know which was the which was the result of the the author so the guy adams case for those a people who have not been following this is

a british journalist who works for the independent and i know he was criticizing some of the coverage right of the olympics a lot of people were talking on twitter somebody criticizing the coverage and so he gave the corporate e-mail address of an executive b.c. public knowledge which is already posted right apparently and twitter guidelines you can't give personal information right. they thought he was violating federal they suspended as account and then re brought it back i guess i guess the point is here guys are starting to tread in waters the murky waters here and plea of free speech starting to be defined. in this use especially yeah i mean they've become in their you know if you want to call it evolution they're trying to monetize themselves or trying to make money they're acting more like traditional media outlets what they're going to have to deal with the same hobgoblins that the devil all these outlets from fox to traditional newspapers and what part of that is

dealing with people who are using them as an outlet for what most would say legitimate either media criticism or parody and satire which is protected speech parody and satire in case of the daily mail. nonsense with with auckland is protected speech but that doesn't mean you can't turn around the targets of that and go after those people with with legal process where they'll win or not is this a different story the thing that's nothing new rich people powerful entities have always used the courts or law enforcement to quell debate and quell information they don't want out there the question is how does the the media outlet respond to that well they're supposed to respond by protecting that kind of of free exercise and the free flow of ideas as long as there's no nothing on lawful going on i mean i know with the daily mail they thought well. you know they might have been hacked but there was no proof of that but twitter does have to respond to lawful subpoenas

the question is are they going to roll over or fold and they were and they did that twice and got called on it by their users and that is the scary part i think another really interesting aspect of all this to be a use words like protected speech we know of course the first and here in the u.s. twitter is not just a social media website for the u.s. right there's something we local it's a global it is used by people in countries with very different rights and laws about speech and so i think it's it's really interesting to see the way that some of its sounders have had to deal with well you know i mean you have this whole legal tangent now where things that might arise in pakistan or london are being fought out in a federal court in san francisco which is nothing to do with china or pakistan or london or anything like that and so that part is fascinating in of itself but it's all part of that same maturation or evolution or growth of twitter from this group

global consciousness which is what the founders and i think you know web activist and practical content users alike would like to think of it as and the reality which is it's maturing into this you know seizing entity that they didn't really want to be didn't want to be like n.b.c. or fog right now it's been now has to deal with that and they've opened pandora's box and they're going to have to deal with it and protect supposedly protect the very people that inject the information into it you know you live by the sword you die by the sword absolutely and i want to talk really quickly a little bit bigger picture here to the extent you know your professor at georgetown i'm sure one hundred percent of your students have some form of social media when i heard twenty percent. as a member of the media it's the same thing a whole lot of people in this country more more and. use social media rely on social right to communicate and do you think the majority of those people

understand the extent to which this is a tool for law enforcement i think i think they're understanding it now i think what you're seeing is that the enemy in these two instances did not become n.b.c. because people hated them already and it didn't become the daily mail people hated them already it's twitter it's almost like that's supposed to be your uncle who's supposed to be watching over you and he's off doing what he's doing his own thing i think people are much more attuned to this now i mean the serious content suppliers of the serious twitter users behind beyond the teenagers tweeting that you know they hate somebody but even they are starting to catch on that that stuff is is is is curated is stored and could go to people that they don't want to go to and not not their ex-girlfriend but to the federal government or to other governments and i think this has opened a door that i think the casual user is now seeing i think they're starting to see about what do you think that it would take for you know twitter and facebook to

actually say you know under no circumstances will we give your information i mean is it going to take you know a billion people leaving facebook or threatening to leave facebook that it's going to take it's going to take that kind of insurgency because they are mature businesses now with evolving business models and they've had trouble obviously facebook as and now twitter and they are much more in tune i mean you know the whole thing with guy adams was a strategic relationship the twitter head with n.b.c. wall now users are starting to see that they're going to be much more distrustful and it would take a large scale insurgency but leaving them that would be like telling americans you know don't drive anymore i mean we might you know protest high gas prices we're not going to not drive so they don't have to worry about losing the users they have to worry about losing the user's trust and that's much worse reality think it's a really interesting point you bring up that i hadn't thought about just sort of this relationship of twitter with n.b.c. for our. lympics coverage purpose but the fact that in this case physically they notified n.b.c. right whereas most of the other cases they are notified by the federal government

they want information on certainly i think we're going to see some changes in the. because of her chambers journalism professor at georgetown university always good to have you here. so how do you run our genes underwater and drowning quickly millions of americans are facing that prospect when it comes to their mortgages so why isn't the federal government helping hold on to that issue in just a moment. a lot of american power continues. might actually be time revolution. or drink or starbucks or the surprising him really you.

what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made can you trust no one. is your view with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capital score fashion when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question morning. is the state run english

speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. well since the financial collapse of four years ago one of the biggest issues in this country have been the bursting of the housing bubble and the large number of foreclosures that have happened as a result depending on where you look for information nearly one third or one fourth of all homeowners in the u.s. are underwater on their mortgages take a look at this map from june of this year the dark reddish color represents the area hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis that part of the south the midwest and the west so. what's the solution well then calling for the federal housing finance

agency which oversees fannie mae and freddie mac. to give the green light for principal reductions to be offered to people who have been late on their payments as a part of the home affordable refinance program a way to cut the principal and therefore monthly mortgage payments for struggling homeowners well the f. eighteen s a has just given their response they will not in fact take part which means many struggling homeowners could drown by this debt i want to talk more about this with anthony rendez o. director of economic research at the reason foundation and anthony just want to first ask you your take on this decision. well this was an incredibly surprising. the average if a has talked about whether or not they want to participate in this program over the past several years it's been debated back and forth they have thus far said they don't think that participating in it is going to be good for taxpayers who are bailing out fannie mae freddie mac's losses and this would involve losses so it was an incredibly surprising i think the thing to remember

though is principle reductions while there is a great solution are not a magic bullet and that's what the markets are trying to weigh here but taxpayers bailed out the banks they bailed out the people who didn't actually really need it and an addition anthony i mean nearly all the economic institutions from the u.s. treasury to the federal reserve and even the i.m.f. have backed principal reductions. i guess you know what's the discrepancy here. the taxpayers don't have to keep bailing out fannie mae and freddie mac. i think i think that's the first point we've filled out a lot of institutions that shouldn't have to get it that doesn't mean we need to keep it with fannie mae and freddie mac. but more to the point with principle reductions they work in some cases that's why some people back them but look at the results of the program that we're talking about the home affordable modification program champ fifty percent at minimum of people who have gone into that program i wound up redefault the on the more the point of this point of principle modification is to in theory help families that

would otherwise be able to make payments on their homes and they they just got behind only to lower the payments but when we've done that through this program already half of them have read the bulk of it so when the market looked at the numbers and they looked at what the outcome could have been and what the minimum benefits the taxpayers would have been any assumed about a fifty percent success rate if you look at the numbers just don't add up to that to be beneficial for taxpayers but i wonder if you know if all the numbers are being included in the equation here certainly you can look at figures like that fifty percent which you know is frankly really sad. but there is other numbers that are out there i mean between the upkeep of the increased safety needs and the lowering of property values around foreclosed homes there is an estimate event put the cost of each foreclosed home at about thirty thousand dollars to the community and to the government so talk a little bit about this and how a you know these kind of numbers also factor in those are very important numbers and the banks have begun doing principal reductions in certain cases now some

people some banks or more dispensers who just they're aware of those costs very aware of those costs and they put that into their calculations and ultimately it is this was beneficial for the stakeholders in a particular president for a different message but money out they say we actually think that if this home went into default and given all the upkeep costs as we sold in the market we would get more money back if we lower the mortgage payment that the analysis i mean you and i can't sit here and determine for the mortgage investors or for fannie mae freddie mac. what that calculation should be because we don't have that right in front of us what we do know is that every jabez very aware of what you're talking about and and i for one. would like to consider more principal reduction considering those costs if the calculations show that that's what would be good for the taxpayers we don't have those books to be able to go through all this and so i think it's to say the

principal reduction is the only solution is a little bit of sort of idealism coming in or even sort of a political persuasion that is don't think is appropriate when we're talking about the housing market i guess i'm just wondering then for yourself and for others who don't see principal reduction as the best choice here how do you or any options that are better than you think would work and perhaps benefit the taxpayers and still benefit those who need it. well once again i think. our solution for some families and not for all and that has to be made on an individual basis so i think that step one for those who would not i think that really that answer is for people who are underwater that you continue to make your payments keep making your payments the cost of your house will probably come back up a some point that doesn't mean that you have the ball and for families who are underwater and can't make your payments. to walk away from a home or have to declare bankruptcy. figure out ways sort of step away from

renting i think we need to shift mentally in the country not criticize renters and not say that because you're renting you're less of an american or you're not achieving the american dream that's not a easy solution it's not a silver bullet and it's not something that is linked absolute in a political soundbite but i think that most high level roach shipping the way that we think about homeownership in america and be willing to accept some losses is the only way we're going to be able to move forward but as we know anthony the government and especially and a political season as we are now in a presidential race in a few months the government likes to come up with solutions and likes to put forth strategies so that people in this country living on the streets with you know their neighbors' homes foreclosed. i get what you're saying that there is there's not a sweeping solution for everyone but the government sure likes to give them anyway

i mean what do you say for this you know is there a possibility that there could be some more that the government does. i think that backing away from restricting foreclosures i think that one stepping back and not giving a helping hands to banks and say actually banks you actually got to think along. with the taxpayers are going to take the loss of those programs i would like to see the government step into place but really i mean the idea that we keep coming up with such a thing eminent domain to forcibly take mortgages and mortgage investors that they were really risking rule of law i think that we're damaging the housing market going forward which should because that's the calculation that needs to come into play if principal reduction let's say that. we do that is a good way to handle this problem well that's going to be very problematic for investors in the future knowing that the government can just come in and forcibly modify down mortgages so it's going to be the worst housing market in the future

that's the calculation that f.h.a. jabez putting into place i don't think that fixing the housing market is something that the government needs to do or should have to do right. certainly it's very difficult because there's no black or white response here and there's a lot of numbers not adding up but certainly everybody trying to put forth what they think is best a lot of different answers here anthony was as a director of economic research at the reason foundation and fairfax virginia thanks so much you. write and for us here this evening that's going to do it but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com. america we post most of our interviews and our stories there you can also check out our web site it's our t dot com slash usa and we were talking a lot about twitter earlier i am on twitter you can find me there and follow me find me at christine i want to thank you so much for watching for now have a great night.