well coming up on our team after nine eleven the white house gain more power in the war against terror now lawmakers are considering ways to look when it this increases in presidential power but will clarifying certain rules really make a difference or just to have. all signs are pointing to the obama administration dominating and x. bush official to the new f.b.i. director spy james comey is facing criticism for signing off on secret wiretapping when he was a deputy attorney general will dive into his resume and look at some of us past decisions. and our ratings freefall the left leaning network m s n b c is facing a ratings slump the news network has dropped to fourth in primetime looks for what may be causing the decline later on the show.

it's friday may thirty first eight pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how you're watching r t starting to sour the a you imagine lawmakers are looking to make a few changes in the authorization for the use of military force joint resolution currently under the national defense authorization act the a u m f contains vague language that gives the executive branch broad authority to go after threats to our national security interest in light of september eleventh well now congress along with the president are trying to clarify the process for targeting these threats are he's political commentator sam sacks brings us more on the a and why we currently manage the war on terror. when we think about our wars since two thousand and one we usually think of just these two countries afghanistan and iraq but those

were the signature wars our so-called war on terror stretches beyond those borders if we include nations that we've launched drone strikes into for example it looks like this out in pakistan yemen somalia we have also launched trikes in libya but really even this map doesn't show how limitless the so-called war on terror has now become. here's why very early on in the obama administration in march of two thousand and nine the definition of the authorization for use of military force the a u.n. math which basically authorized the war in afghanistan in two thousand and one against al qaeda was expanded to include not just al qaida but also associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the united states or its coalition partners including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of such enemy armed forces now this is important because the pentagon and department of justice have

justified everything from drone strikes to indefinite detention under this expanded a definition in fact the d.o.j. white paper released earlier this year on targeted killings specifically says quote the president has authority to respond to the imminent threat posed posed by al qaeda and its associated forces arising from his constitutional responsibility to protect the country the inherent right of the united states national self-defense under international law. but what exactly is an associated force of al qaeda that we are at war with but we have some idea this is a two thousand and four list of associated forces identified by the department of defense this information was found in the kuantan m o files made public by wiki leaks as you can see it's a rather large list and includes organizations you probably didn't know we were at war with over the last decade including the iranian intelligence agency pakistani intelligence the muslim brotherhood has blown up and hamas plus more than sixty

other groups now here's the thing if we include the organizations that are listed as associated forces by the pentagon here then really the global war on terror looks a lot more like this including nations like algeria lebanon morocco egypt respect as in tajikistan iran tunisia saudi arabia syria and really the list just goes on and on so this war is far more expansive than most of us can even imagine and some in congress now want to rein it in the hill reports today that early draft language in the new national defense authorization act would quote require president obama and the pentagon to review all groups or individuals now characterized as associated forces under the current rules the root review mandated by the draft language would require the pentagon to specifically lay out whether those groups or individuals are directly tied to al qaeda operations and if they are engaged with ongoing or future terror plots against the united states or its allies so if

congress succeeds in this this will be the first limit imposed on the a meth in more than a decade and as this conflict has now expanded into more regions of the world that we never imagined we'd be dropping bombs on the new limits on this global war on terror is exactly what's needed most in washington sam sachs r t. well it looks like president obama will nominate an x. bush administration official for the f.b.i.'s top spot replacing robert mueller james comey was a former senior justice department official serving under attorney general john ashcroft while many law loud komi as a good public servant under bush he doesn't come to the table without some controversy privacy advocates question his ability to protect civil liberties considering recent allegations about the obama administration's policies regarding wiretapping and surveillance while serving as deputy attorney general komi approved

the n.s.a. warrantless wiretapping policy so what can we expect from an f.b.i. with comey at its helm r.t.s. liz wall looks into it. it looks like president obama will nominate james comey to lead the f.b.i. komi has a resume that has garnered both praise and controversy between two thousand and three and two thousand and five komi has served as deputy attorney general in the bush administration in two thousand and four comey took over for his boss attorney general john ashcroft when he became sick despite pressure from the bush administration comey refused to reauthorize the n.s.a.'s warrantless wiretapping program at a senate hearing in two thousand and seven komi described how senior administration officials came to ashcroft's hospital bed to try to get his approval for the spying program as he laid back down he said but that doesn't matter because i'm not the attorney general there is the attorney general and he pointed to me and i was just

to his left the two men did not acknowledge me they turned and walked from the room he goes on to describe standing up to high ranking members of the bush administration for this call me has received praise from both republicans and democrats but civil rights advocates point to other dark spots on commies record the a.c.l.u. says quote as the second highest ranked justice department official under john ashcroft call me approved some of the worst abuses committed by the bush administration just when we need a real break with the past we get another nominee from the bush just like we had john brennan from the bush era who was high up in the cia when torture and indefinite and she was being used and now he's confirmed as obama's head of the cia as deputy attorney general tommy would have approved controversial programs including enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding and the indefinite

detention program i think with comi although he enjoyed this almost cinematic hero status because of the showdown with ash croft over one thing we can't forget he was in church. proving a lot of been hints to techniques also known as torture komi is expected nomination come shortly after president obama's speech about drone policy and closing guantanamo bay obama pledge this speech was a step towards ending the war on terrorism overseas but for critics this nomination would be another signal there is more of the same on the way if you look fundamentally at the policies after these announcements it becomes clear that nothing changes but if you listen to the words it sounds like there's something shifting after leaving the justice department coming join the private sector it was a corporate attorney for lockheed martin and the hadron bridgewater associates confirmed komi what replaced them robert muller as head of the f.b.i.

muller became head of the agency just seven days after the september eleventh attacks and washington does wall r.t. well cia whistleblower john kerry up who is speaking out the former cia operative best known for blowing the whistle on the cia's use of waterboarding is speaking out from behind bars initially charged under the espionage act kiriakou three months into a thirty month sentence for having pled guilty to lesser charges in a letter sent to his attorney just when rate eric which was published with his consent to the blog fire dog lake curiosity details his experiences inside that federal correctional facility in the radio pennsylvania now being designated as a public safety threat though kiriakou described being moved to serve his sentence in a general population rather than a federal work camp as previously discussed karaoke went on to say that his

reputation has preceded him while in the radio and described various run ins with commanding officers one verbal exchange that ended in the following one hour later for ceo's descended on both of our cells trashing all of our worldly possessions and my first shakedown lesson learnt ceo's can treat us like subhumans but we have to show them for respect even when it's not earned. we'll keep you updated on his case and the details as they continue to develop. well that revolving door between government service and the private sector has another network the official passing through it retired four star army general and former cia director david petraeus join the ranks of a high profile investment firm kohlberg kravis roberts and company here's what the general had to say about his new job i served our country for thirty eight and a half years or so in government service if you will i die too. capitalize on

opportunities or that are out there and capitalize he will betray us will chair k k r's new global institute which will focus on public policy communications economic forecast and investment advice betray us lost his spot as cia director in november after that extramarital affair with his biographer which was exposed will take a r.'s best known for huge corporate takeovers the alliance between the seventy three billion dollars new york city based private equity firm and betray us has benefits for both parties trace gets back into the public eye after residing in scandal while k k r gains access to patrol uses rolodex filled with all those government economic and military contacts to trace isn't the first to move from a position of influence and power to a cushy private sector job well what you know if you revolves back around to the public sector. still ahead here on our t.v. the ratings for m.s.m. b c have fallen in recent months the networks growing focus on talking heads hasn't

viewers elsewhere a look at their rating challenges when we come back. the same story doesn't make good news no thought no puff piece lose so many tough questions. in a month filled with breaking news m.s.m. b.c.s. ratings continue their nosedive may ratings were the lowest the network has seen in four years and it's even worse. it's that their prime time lineup which is an all

six year low the left of center news channel struggled to keep up with its competitors and now it's ranked fourth among major networks and was taken over by c.n.n. for the second month in a row in breaking news and now lags h l n which spent the entire month covering the jodi areas trial criticsm investment b c argue that they're out of touch and champion french politics an anecdotal commentary over hard news or could it be that the viewer as a whole is just more interested in salacious content to discuss this with me i was joined earlier by georgetown university journalism professor christopher chambers i started off by asking how why this reason is for the ratings dip. well there are a variety of things i don't go for the out of touch thing that's kind of a kind of a kneejerk thing now underneath that comment there is some truth because basically they have spent a lot of time building themselves up not as

a advocate of the president but kind of a kind of a bore you know like a like oh like some something out there like a fort the kind of blunts the the right wing perspective from fox and some of the radio hosts and people like that well you have a month of scandal and i think a lot of people really were turned off by that stuff and can comment at least what happens then is that the network doesn't reach you know reorganize it doesn't you know basically rebuild a message i mean very much like say on our t.v. where you know you are not pandering to a right wing audience but you're not pandering to present you know friends of the president either you have to have analysis and criticism and they've really had neither ok well as you mention that scandalous month we just had a matter of fact with a lot of news story you know cleveland three women were found alive after being kidnapped work lahoma major major natural disaster there and of course the obama administration has given everybody you know information. for

a long time there so do you think it's the news that so i mean why are they doing so poorly with all this stuff going on well it's there's there's a technical term called selective segmentation which really all that means is you go out and find the news you want to hear now with the scandals this is tailor made for fox because they can then churn that and churn that to the point where you have almost a cult following going there i mean whether it's factual or real you just keep churning it so they can build the kind of the audience with the raw meat they've already been providing and this and b c doesn't do that basically what they're trying to do is continue with their same business model and talked. about the same stuff now on top of that you have some very we both ok and i don't mean you know i'm in the business too and i don't want to speak ill of people but there are some people that probably don't need to have shows and you know this runs the gamut from

you look at saturday night live did a scathing just pilloried al sharpton i mean and that stuff it's satire but setar has a little grain of truth or the middle of it that's or say various i you know i'm so glad you're probably talking hearts because i have a clip that i want to play for you out there have this talking as if you have silly . joining me now to talk about this and the nation's real problem of joblessness the reverend al sharpton. reverend jesse jackson. right i don't you know i'm so sorry i'm so glad we had a storm last week but we've been talking race in two thousand and twelve and i'm asking all of you one central question and the question is well that raises so out because any good race baiter needs at all race card for everyone and everyone at the table has our race card ok professor take. a little bit of clips there for a. you find them silly do you think i'm asking beastie is being seen

a silly i think that there are some amateurish mistakes going on i don't i think chris matthews is probably getting to a point where he's becoming a parody of himself i think al sharpton is to harris perry show has a following particularly younger women and particularly younger women of color but she's not a you know a homegrown journalist you know so she's an academic like me who transformed herself into you know showbiz and there are dangers there but she does have a following but but it shows like with chris chris hayes this show is very weak and i think they have the the lynchpin of something good with in the morning believe it or not with morning joe the ed show probably needs to be spiced up but it's on that line between amateurish and just like they just lost their way and sometimes you get into a perfect storm and that's what's going on here what they need to do is raid

current t.v.'s hosts and put them on because they're pretty good you know and then look at our tease model and how you mix analysis commentary and hard news they have in d.c. news at their disposal they don't use them they have pete williams who was the only voice of reason in the boston marathon bombing and they don't you. use him fox at the very least uses its news content as a set up for the primetime circus now it's a circus but at least they have competent news product that they can put these issues out there and then they let the lunatics come in and debate them but you know see it does not do that it's just talk talk talk talk talk and they ignore the hard news you know the deep human stories talk ok that's what i want to get to the heart of here so that commentary do you think it alienates your work i don't think it needs viewers i think i think they have their core audience just like fox does i

think what it's happening is that it's turning their core viewers off you have and you don't have that kind of fanatics will. drumbeat that has been energized because of the president's tone deafness and scandals that you have with fux on the other side you can have criticism of the president but still get to the bottom of these these controversies and see what the facts are without this kind of weird curtain that they had or not being it's not really alienated it's like if you have a favorite t.v. show and it's starting to get bland you don't think it's a credibility issue i don't think it's a credibility issue i think i think they are just really kind of lost their their way. i don't think that they're you know the rebuke used to be liberal shields for the president i don't think that that's what's going on with i don't think they're losing an audience over that the people that watch it are pretty much probably progressive anyway i think it's it's stale like i said it's like watching

a favorite t.v. program you're watching mad men and done draper's not doing anything for you you find something else you go to an alternate new source such as r t so their loss is your gaze you know. professor chambers i don't know who ever get tired don draper we're out of the lights for that is our town university journalism professor christopher chambers. here on our tail we've been long covering the use of those x. rays at airport security checkpoints and our guests have had plenty to say on this issue take a listen the t.s.a. the machines that they use the magnetometers the body scanners the pat downs none of these can detect powdered explosives. i mean the body scanners were not designed to detect powdered explosives. the exploit that i found in the body scanners essentially allows any metallic object through so we're talking explosives

we're talking any kind of weapon can get through these body scanners and the same can't be said for metal detectors. a lot of the tests that the t.s.a. currently does you know they are incorrect it's it is still possible to get the exact same box cutters or other things through airport security as was used in the nine eleven attacks that is a massive waste of money. you could just be that they're embarrassed you know they spent a lot of taxpayer dollars on these machines that essentially don't work and they probably don't want to admit that they're a failure well here's a piece of news that may make you want to lift up your arms just a little bit the transportation security administration announced that it has completely remove all invasive x. ray technology from airports in the u.s. the ones that produce those controversies new like images of passengers going through airport screening checkpoints the t.s.a. officers will only see a cartoon outline of the passenger with

a colored box that pops up if there's something suspicious. after much public outcry over that technology pete made people look virtually new did congress order the t.s.a. to modify the scanners to create a more generic looking image one company rafa's said that it wouldn't be able to modify its machines in time for that june deadline so the t.s.a. had to pull them out completely and that was such an expensive setback for the t.s.a. let's go through those numbers it's rapid scan body scanner cost one hundred eighty thousand dollars and the t.s.a. well they bought two hundred fifty machines out of the actual cost for development and removal and the total cost to the taxpayer was to the tune of forty seven point seven million dollars there's no word yet on the status of those invasive pat downs though comedian katie helper joined me earlier to discuss the t.s.a. is latest move i mean i think it's really great people like rand paul who i think trying to make

a political career over that. it kind of disappointing it for people who've been getting it because it kind of the way you're going off your body. ok i want to look take a look now at what you're going to look like if you go through this airport screening you'll no longer appear nude do you think that this cartoon image thing is a better alternative i think it depends on how comfortable you are with your body i think there's a correlation between yourself and your happiness but being nude or a with knew by other people ok you know i don't i can't think of a single person who actually has a positive viewpoint of the t.s.a. . do you think that this action is going to make the american public have a more positive view. i think pat downs are still pretty hated by most and those aren't going to stop although i'm sure there are some people who have their own reasons for doing this at them but i don't think those are going to

stuff and i think that one of the main reasons that also there's a general attitude among some. people where the like they'd rather be getting a canal been doing what they're doing which can also be a turn off ok what do you make about general attitude why do you think why do you think we haven't. i mean i guess i would be in that state of mind too if i had. people thinking that if you saw probably get pretty funky and stuff and million there that may have something to do with it ok must be the smell all right so what do you make of that whopping forty seven point seven million u.s. tax dollars the t.s.a. spent first we know they spent it on putting the machines then then they made some adjustments and then they had to pay to take them out what do you make about katie . i don't know i guess they're doing well. i'm

sorry they must be doing well they must be doing well that's that's one way to look at pat ok so the screeners are out you mention those pat downs earlier you know we've seen instance after instance of these pat downs where people are carrying them to assaults. and in a lot of cases do you think that it's strange that t.s.a. is so they're saying ok no war machine but the pat down i.e. the groping may not be going anywhere but the growth machine out groping in the new the new black. yeah i think actually something that people aren't upset about but should be more upset about i think is the levels of radiation not to get totally serious but. there is a good office by now in the times last week about how he refuses to go through those banners because of the radiation level and prefers actually it. ok so we've

got one person who says that they actually want to pat down do you have any personal remarks on that pat down katie you don't mind the pat down it depends what the pat down or looks like if i'm being on with comedian filmmaker and blogger katie help or. religion in the us always a hot topic here and one thing that americans pride themselves on is that freedom to practice any religion they choose but having a particular phase of something still americans care about or not will it's this delineation under god the residents or harvests gives us her take. to.

america who are losing their religion at least according to a new gallup poll you are it found that a whopping seventy seven percent of americans say religion is losing its influence in the u.s. that's a pretty big indictment of a country that opposes lee takes pride in being a good christian nation right so could this actually be true well there is the fact that a courthouse in florida is about to unveil the country's first atheist monument on a government property it's a fifteen hundred pound granite bench engraved with atheistic cultivation that sounds like evidence that america is losing its village and. then there is also the fact that the supreme court has agreed to rule on whether or not prayers can be offered at government meetings to women in greece björk challenge the town's practice of repeatedly having christian clergy conduct prayers at the start of its public meetings opening prayers have been going on in congress and throughout

states since the birth of the country so the fact that this was an issue today sounds like more evidence that america is indeed losing its religion so the results of the opinion poll could very well be true america is losing its religion in official that used at least in that country that was largely built on the idea of separation of church and state this could be seen as a good thing right well also according to this page poll seventy five percent of americans say that no this is actually not a good thing that america will be better off. if it were more religious. the poll didn't reflect the participants personal church attendance or anything like that but rather how large events and trends shape shared views for instance the sexual revolution vietnam war and rising counterculture of the late one nine hundred sixty s. made people feel like religion with losing its clout in society in those times and

that is to say feeling americans are now experiencing today so what events are creating that same shift now could it be oh i don't know the fact that our government and the corporations that run it are systematically robbing the entire country blind and that they've created a false god of greed and are asking us all to bow down to it on a daily basis that could be it but whatever the reason is the bottom line is it sure seems like america is once again facing one of those times in its history where it's people are losing the faith tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the resident. that's going to do it for a mail for more on these stories we've covered go to youtube dot com slash arts here america tried our website at our t. dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter it underscored j underscore

howell for nell have a great. let me let me i want to know what all let me ask you a question from. here on this network is where we're having a debate we have our knives out. but if you give the scientists back staying there again we're in a situation where the united states talk about the surveillance.