u.s. citizen in the surviving boston marathon bombing suspect with the use of weapons of mass destruction with the intent to murder some republicans have urged the federal government to try the nineteen year olds are naive as an enemy combatant in military court the white house told reporters today that the suspect who has just started to communicate to investigators in writing will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in civilian court. will not be treated as an enemy combatant we will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice under u.s. law the united states citizens cannot be tried tried rather in military commissions if convicted and i have could face the death penalty but the way this story played out last week almost like it was ripped from the movies captivated the nation and because of it once again the word terrorism is on the tips of everyone's time and it has our news media and our politicians thinking in terms of terrorism now this is very important this is very important because it doesn't just animate how we

deal with the show cars are not over the next few days weeks months years or what new surveillance we put up on our street corners or security checks we employ a future sporting events or whatever but also. it teaches us how we deal with just about everything. for example last year this month this month last year in fact the house of representatives passed what's known as the cyber intelligence sharing act which is billed as an essential tool for combating the growing threat of cyber warfare it basically gives internet sites like google and facebook full legal immunity to hand over your private your personal data and information over to the government if it's believed that there's some sort of cyber security threat under way of course privacy advocates say that the bill's very loose definition of what exactly cyber threat is means private internet companies and government spying agencies like the n.s.a.

would have virtually unlimited power to share your personal information destroying whatever privacy we thought we had on the web last year against an enormous backlash from the online and digital community cispa failed it passed the house but it went nowhere in the senate we just weren't ready to give up our privacy rights online in the name of so-called terrorist cyber threats but with the boston bombing fresh in everyone's mind house republicans are hoping we're ready for sis but now last week the house once again passed cispa and this time they dragged the boston bombings into the debate over why suspect is needed republican congressman mike mccaul the chairman of the house committee on homeland security said quote i think if anything the recent events in boston demonstrate that we have to that we have to come together to get this done in name and case of boston they were in the case of boston they were real bombs in this case they're digital bombs these bombs are on

their way that's why this legislation is so urgent for if we don't and those digital bombs land and attack the united states and congress failed to act then congress has that on his ends. with the nation afraid of pressure cooker bombs congressman call warns us we should be afraid of digital bombs too and we should submit to this new cispa law we should give up our online privacy to confront this threat of so-called digital bombs still the critics of cispa are unswayed critics like gizmodo writer sam bedell contends that the bill is quote the greatest privacy disaster our country has ever faced in today users of popular social news aggregator reddit have voluntary blacked out some sections of the site in protest of the house's cispa vote. well big tech companies like microsoft and yahoo support the bill but president obama has promised to veto it if the senate approves it but fact dropped now by terrorism in boston can the defenders of privacy be back

suspect in and if not what are the consequences and is it possible to balance internet privacy and cyber security for more on this i'm joined now by jeremy scott national security fellow at the electronic privacy information center jeremy thanks love i want to show you thank you for having me so i gave a brief. review of what cispa does more to it what exactly is the legislation for and what does it do you did a pretty good job there but what it's for is its main purpose is information information sharing now that's going from the government to the private sector and from the private sector to the government so the government will share cybersecurity information they think is relevant to the private sector so they can be warned of potential attacks and on the flip side the private sector will provide whatever that is determined to be cyber threat information fairly general term so the government for their purposes so like if google thinks they're about to be hit

by by cyber attack or they're investigating possible cyber threats they can take information from g. mail users or. users or whatever and take personal information handed over to the government based as true if they think that information is relevant in terms of being cyber threat information they can gather that information and hand it over to the government so how is in the bill what exactly is the definition of a cyber threat and how can that definition be used for bunch of other reasons besides maybe terrorism or whatever to collect personal information well it's not clear how it would be used outside terrorism there's always that. that concern of mission creep with these definitions they do they do try to narrow it to more cyber security purposes with with what's been a. problem with what the main problem actually is just the lack. for the

private sector to do any removal personally identifiable information before they hand over the information to the government so like what when this bill was being debated in the house and i'm sure there were amendments brought up in everything in regard to it what needed to be in that bill to contain those protections for consumers and those just. regulations on private industries on what they could share in under what circumstances they can share that information well the there needed to be an amendment that would require reasonable efforts to remove personally identifiable information and there was one but it was it didn't make it out of committee and it wasn't voted on and it's not in the bill that was passed by the house and the idea is to as to why these amendments are so one agreeable. well that's a question to ask about a lot of the legislation in in the house and in the senate. i don't i don't have

a comment that articulate for this one. how how big of a threat i mean we've seen recently in the news these threats personally from china coming in these cyber attacks. how big of a threat are these how much should we worry about it and what sort of legislative remedy is there to these sort of things that still preserves privacy unlike cisco so it is a threat and there's been documented cases of cyber attacks there mainly stealing corporate intellectual property secrets of that nature so they do damage in terms of monetary value to u.s. companies were really. in a place where we have to be too concerned about the. cyber nine eleven our cyber pearl horrible harbor that they say that we shouldn't work towards cyber security to address those things but it's not the immediate threat that it is it is said to be a lot of times by politicians well if so if

a foreign country is maybe engaging in some sort of cyber threat to attack a water treatment facility or something in the united states obviously water treatment facilities don't have. any body's personal information stored within that facility so it's like that wouldn't be subject so much cisco but which is but then applied to social networks for people might have been talking about that threat online and have to reach out and try and grab that information from facebook or other sites where her message boards where people are talking to respond to that threat against a water plan or something as the bill is drafted it would because it would probably fall under the definition of the cyber threat information so if if there was information in terms of on a social network discussing some type of cyber threat that did actually occur particularly if there were details in it that warrants available to the public information definitely be shared and if you were somehow connected that person and talked about your information could be caught up in that when you may have nothing

to do with it. when all this was going on. there was also an pipa going on and there was this huge organization of online websites internet service providers telecommunications that all joined together to oppose sopa and pipa and there was this blackout of the internet and those laws were were defeated what sort of opposition is there when it comes to cisco is it quite a strong i mean there are there are there are a lot of these different entities in the online community coming together to fight this or is the opposition a bit of a there's actually quite a few privacy and civil liberties organizations focused on on stopping said sense but are improving steps but. epic itself doesn't do lobbying of any sort we do you know when the notice issues was private in civil liberties pertaining to bills and other government activities we will point that out which is what we've done in this case but there are and it just and security experts who have spoken out against

against this. last year this was passed and it didn't go anywhere in the senate people just i mean which was good i mean this was a victory for most private privacy. advocates so here it is the house is trying to get what's different this year from last year i mean is it the fact that we just had these bombings in boston we see that the chairman of the house homeland security republican mike mccaul is actually using that to justify why urgent action is needed on this and it is something like that going to be what pushes the bill over the finish line this year when it didn't last year. not necessarily i don't know you know if things are particularly different there's still opposition to it the white house released a statement of policy last week saying that they would they wouldn't be ptosis as currently constituted because at least in part to the lack of privacy and civil liberties protections we haven't seen what the senate is going to do yet so we're

basically at the same point where last year with the house has passed it's going to the senate lashon the senate last year and the president threatened to veto it we're kind of in some a position so we'll see where we go there's no shortage of strange things coming out of the house lately and the senate's kind of act as a backstop that's had stuff in the president be doing it so it looks like hopefully it'll die this time but you know it's got to keep an eye on it jeremy thanks a lot thanks for having. coming up last wednesday's explosion at the west texas chemical and fertilizer company plant killed fourteen people and destroyed hundreds of homes we all know that texas heats regulation but couldn't big government have helped prevent one of the worst workplace disasters in recent memory more on this just a moment. ago

in the republican. in the state of. texas. has got all the gas and everything in the. everything you can survive but. state would say the. straw. bread and an independent. republic of texas see.

the mission of free accreditation free zones for charges free. range month free. free studio time free. old free broadcast quality video for your media projects a free media. tom. more news today. again fled the film these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. operations are today.

on thursday president obama will attend a memorial service for the victims of the fertilizer plant explosion last week in the city of west texas the latest death toll in that small city is fourteen with more than two hundred injured and some still missing the explosion was so powerful that it destroyed dozens of nearby homes schools businesses including a nursing home across the street from the plant that was completely leveled the people of west texas are returning to their homes today but life won't be returning to normal in that small town anytime soon investigators continue to look for the cause of the devastating explosion and new information is coming out about the plant itself and the level of regulatory scrutiny that it faced leading up to the explosion were news reports that the plant was holding two hundred seventy tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate fertilizer the sort of stuff used to blow up the federal building in oklahoma city back in ninety four all of that storage of ammonium nitrate should have been reported to the department of homeland security

but it wasn't and last week it exploded but really we're just scratching the surface of the regulatory problems with the west texas fertilizer plant and how this disaster could have been prevented joining me now to talk more about this is leaf on reporting fellow for the investigative find the nation institute and author of the forthcoming book the machine a field guide to the resurgent right we welcome back to the show. a sam has a gun that's going well could have you on so when things like this happen it reminds me of this classic right wing argument that we hear all the time that you know the free market will police itself and that when this sort of stuff happens the free market will fix whatever consequences come out of this but really isn't this yet another story of not enough regulation or at least read not enough resources for proper regulation. i think that's right sam and you know another right wing trait that you hear is that you can't put any new rules on job creators right the c.e.o.'s and businessmen who run these types of facilities can't face any

type of new regulation or our economy is doomed. but that's right you know we don't know all the circumstances that led to this explosion investors are still trying to sort out the pieces what we do know is that this fertilizer mixing plant . facing very little regulatory scrutiny from any of the agencies involved the osha occupational safety and health administration the last time they inspected the plant was in one nine hundred eighty five. other regulatory agencies barely looked at it and that's largely because they have so little funding i'm so few resources to to really do diligence that's required for these very dangerous types of plants i mean you say wasn't it you said that osha which i mean this is obviously not just an environmental hazard or

a hazard for the people who live abroad the plane it's a hazard for the people who work there which is why the occupational safety and health administration should be looking into this stuff and you say that they haven't looked into it since nineteen eighty five. i was i think one in one thousand nine hundred five i mean the world has changed so much it in plants that are dealing with the deteriorated air malfunctions must occur in those intervening twenty seven twenty years i mean there are these flaws within osha itself or is it is it just the austerity going on in washington d.c. that are cutting these these watchdogs budgets and there aren't nearly enough inspectors to look at all these plans. well sam it's a little bit of both. osha at its funding level just two years ago someone capped at the calculation and found that they could inspect every work site in america wants with its state inspectors every state once every sixty seven years and for its federal inspectors once every one hundred twenty five years so this is

a resource question but it's also just a general regulatory problem that we're seeing across the board. the environmental protection agency currently has rules that compel them to inspect certain chemical plants that could could cause a safety concern however it is a bill moving through congress this session that would repeal e.p.a.'s mandate to do those types of inspections they already have a very small budget to do so other safety boards like the u.s. chemical safety board which is designated to investigate violations after they happen their budget is only ten million dollars they're still trying to investigate deepwater horizon as the center for public integrity noted recently they haven't investigated debts that require use in places like memphis and other retiree's just

in the last year so there's a resource problem and then that it doesn't even reflect the sea question and the budget cuts that we're seeing today so the very few inspections that gone on over the last couple of years they're going to get even smaller and we're going to see if you are them and in the years to come yeah and i keep i keep thinking of teaching moments sort of you know i remember the b.p. oil spill in two thousand and ten eleven workers on that rig died and there was the environmental consequences everything the upper big branch mine explosion over thirty people died and that now we have this explosion in west texas in which who knows what the death toll will be at the end here. when will we didn't see much out of the b.p. oil spill or anything we didn't see much out of the the upper big branch mine explosion or anything and given that this happened last week while the entire nation in the world was focused on boston you know it's tough to see if anything will happen out of this i mean how many how much how often are these things going

to have to happen before our legislators come to the table and actually say we have major problems with our regulatory infrastructure. well this problem reflects the larger issue of money in politics right now we have a money driven system where it's not news events it's not science it's not academics or it's safety inspectors who are driving policy it's really just the lobbyists and the special interests that have the money to influence the system right so if you're a victim of something like best you don't have the money to hire a p.r. or you know agent to get your news or your side of the story into the news you don't have the money to hire k.-street consultant you can meet with regulators and update the laws you don't have the money to pay off a politician to write a better law to just make sure that this doesn't happen in the future so really the victims of these types of tragedies are at a loss in our current system because they can't really have

a voice and formulating policy or making sure that our systems better reflect the problems that have caused these types of incidents and that's the kind of the other tragedy here that because of our system even when these items do get into the news they don't necessarily trigger reform yet and i think of it as though it's not just for the workers and everybody everybody around there but also you want to try and the people who own this plant in west texas they're done for now i mean at least their profits are and when these major industrial action accidents happen that's going to come in their profits too it's almost like we need these regulations to help them protect them from themselves it makes me think of climate change and the oil companies that are that are burning as much oil as they can despite the consequences for their own business and twenty thirty years down the road i mean isn't that the point of regulations here that you almost have to clamp down on the profit motive before it harms not just people around these plants but also the

plant owners themselves. the you know that's right and after nine eleven there is a rush to create better security systems in this country and one of the biggest proposals out there was an effort to update the chemical safety standards at plants all over the country and you think about it if a terrorist wanted to come in and blow up a foreign allies or a plant or some other chemical plant that could harm a lot of people in america that's not only good homeland security that's good for business too because that business would be held liable to you know a lot of deaths and economic damage i think could be caused but really every single chemical company in america ever everything from koch industries to dow chemical came together to lobby against this bill and we still don't have a comprehensive chemical safety terrorism law in this country i mean greenpeace put out a big report two years ago really laying out these these issues as congress trying to reform law increasing the number of security personnel at these terror and these

chemical facilities and changing some of the guidelines the way they're run but you know we weren't we're seeing no requirement from the business community or from anyone else yeah absolutely that's frightening stuff given that this plane has been checked since ninety five it's you can assume that there's several other similar ticking time bomb plants all around the country but you know let's let's do something about it leakage of the great reporting thanks a lot thanks sanjay. you know it's time for tonight's the good the bad in the very very torah night in leigh ugly the good teamsters local twenty five today friends and family of crystal campbell gathered in medford massachusetts to pay their final respects to the twenty nine year old who was killed in last week's boston marathon bombings the

westboro baptist church plane to picket the funeral but an effort spearheaded by boston's chapter of the international brotherhood of teamsters to organize a counter protest looks like it scared fred phelps in the company away this morning hundreds of teamsters gathered in front of st joseph church in bedford the westboro baptist church however was nowhere to be found so good work local twenty five there is power in a union and now the bad. ted nugent and his most recent column for world net daily rock star and second amendment enthusiastic enthusiastic just crazy person ted nugent calls for the public execution of boston marathon bombing suspect dzhokhar. in graphic terms he says quote there is no excuse for constant delays and years of appeals when there is overwhelming and obvious guilt this isn't justice it's a joke my dream of real justice would be

a july fourth celebration of stringing this son of a you get it up in the boston common and letting the crows pick on his rotting flesh. well you think such a strict constitutionalist like mr nugent would be concerned about the fifth sixth seventh and the eighth amendment but i guess he's not the only cares about the second amendment. and now the very very ugly chris no. speaking of the second amendment chris snow gave the author of the pen county arkansas lawyer publican party newspaper has this to say for republican supporters of obamacare is medicaid expansion quote i don't feel the same way about the democrats says bullet backstops as they do about the republicans who join them we need to let those who will come out in the future to represent us know that we are serious the second amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stop

responding as representatives. although nobody says he and his fellow republicans quote mostly won't shoot g.o.p. traitors he still thinks personally that a gun would be a quicker form of protest than just political protest to stop medicaid expansion while that is very very ugly. coming up today is earth day a day to celebrate worldwide efforts to protect the environment and to ensure the long term health of our planet after the break we'll talk about the true meaning of earth day during a time when our planet faces more challenges than ever before. could

you take three. or three arrangement three. three. three. three. four your media projects three.

i've. international and in the very heart of moscow.

here's a question for you is billionaire charles koch running for president they hear me out on this according to a report of the new york times over the weekend koch industries headed up by charles koch and his brother david is looking to purchase the tribune company several newspapers across the country if you one of the biggest newspaper purchases in the country would include the los angeles times the fourth largest newspaper in the nation and the chicago tribune the ninth largest if you're familiar with how silvio berlusconi rose to power in italy he did it by purchasing most of the media in that country he basically held a media monopoly of t.v. print and radio outlets and when he was pressured to divest of some of these holdings he decided to run for prime minister of italy to protect his fortune he used his media empire to promote his campaign and sure enough he what you see when you own the media power comes a lot easier so it plans on the table to buy some of the biggest newspapers in the country.