n.s.a. leaker edward snowden he's still living in russia what are the chances overturned in the u.s. this year and what does he mean when he says his mission is complete i'll talk with snowden scheme legal advisor ben wiser of the a.c.l.u. on today's politicking. with ben wise and he's director of the a.c.l.u. speech privacy and technology project he's been a key adviser to the n.s.a. leaker edward snowden ben what's his current state of mind later we'll have a debate about all of this too what's the current state of mind of mr snowden well

you know his morale is pretty good. he is so grateful for the support that he's received recently from some of the world's leading newspapers including the new york times that called for him to be treated leniently to be given clemency but even more than that he's grateful for the global debate at his disclosures have set off and that open courts are reviewing the programs that he revealed and now congress is considering historic legislation even the president's own advisers are telling him that the n.s.a. has gotten out of control and needs to be reined in that was what hope to accomplish and that's what he has accomplished so that's what he meant when he said his mission has been accomplished. yeah i don't think that he meant the mission accomplished this wasn't the president on the aircraft carrier saying the war is over what it was just starting what he meant by that is that his job is done his job was to bring the public into the debate to take these secret programs and bring them into the light of day it's our job to decide what we do with that information

he didn't have any grandiose notion that he himself could change our society what he wanted to do is to put us in a position where we could decide what the consequences should be of these disclosures that's what he meant by mission accomplished another debate is going to take in two turns judge leon enlarging the indiscriminate collection of phone records violates the fourth amendment two weeks later judge william pauley in new york says that the collection program was legal and effective these are contradictory rulings you would be a you where you stand on all this contradiction. well you know it won't surprise any of your viewers that we agree with judge lee on that that this dragnet collection of all americans phone records violates the constitution it's exactly what the framers of the constitution had in mind when they said that we should not have general warrants we shouldn't let the government collect all this information and sift through it to see if we've done anything wrong rather the government needs

to have suspicion of wrongdoing before it intrudes into the privacy of our communications but you know larry what happens when one federal judges disagree with each other the case goes up on appeal and it's headed like a arrow straight for the supreme court and looking at the makeup of this court how would you read that outcome. you know it's very hard to say in two thousand and twelve all nine justices of the supreme court ruled against the government in a very important surveillance case you know the government argued that attaching g.p.s. devices trackers to suspects cars and tracking their location over time was not a fourth amendment violation because where people drive in public obviously isn't a secret if the police could follow them then why is it a constitutional violation what the justices recognized in that case all nine of them is that technology actually creates a sort of different set of concerns used to be that the government had to decide

who it really wanted to follow and devote resources to that have have teams of people tracking them you know now any law enforcement agent with a laptop can track hundreds or thousands of people in real time so i am confident that when the supreme court looks at this program and looks at an n.s.a. that has allowed its technological capability to get so far ahead of its rules and its values that it will say this is what the framers were about they were more worried about a government that was too powerful than they were about an occasional bad guy getting away. you should. use the riches snowden's information has been profoundly in the public do shoes done a great deal of good is there any area where do you have think it's been harmful. well no i don't think so but i do think that it's certainly people are free to disagree you know what one one line of attack that you hear is that it's one thing for mr snowden to have revealed what the n.s.a. was doing in the united states and quite

a different thing for him to have revealed what the n.s.a. is doing abroad but i see that very differently you know the n.s.a. is part of the united states military the american people have a right to know what the n.s.a. is doing around the world in our name unless the disclosures would reveal sensitive sources and methods and harm national security i don't think there's any good evidence larry that these disclosures have caused harm and i think there's a huge amount of evidence that they've caused great good by launching a incredibly significant debate not just in the united states but around the world you're in you're in touch with him you kind of his with the united states i guess what does is day like were easy was his living conditions like you know he gave a long interview to barton gellman of the washington post that was published on that paper's front page just before christmas and he used a funny term to describe himself to bart he said i am an indoor cat. by which he means that wherever he is in the world he's

a citizen of the internet he's someone who doesn't need much more than a laptop and some dry ramen noodles that you can buy at the store and he'll be fine in whatever country he's in but he's living very independently he is learning the language there in case he doesn't get the benefit of clemency or amnesty and and needs to make his home there he does need to live somewhere and he is merely closely watching the news what about those who say been why didn't he do as others in somewhat similar circumstances doing those work comes to mind why not stay and face to face the music have a trial appear before the public many many many many people agree with you why why we're on. i think it's a fair question but i think people don't understand what the laws are under which he's charged and he's charged under the espionage act of nine hundred seventeen which is a world war one era law and that law doesn't distinguish between people who leak to

the press and the public interest and spies who sell secrets to our enemies all the good that has come from his revelations all the public interest the changes in the law the legal decisions none of that would be relevant in a prosecution and in fact you could expect the prosecutors to move to have it excluded altogether a jury would not be considering whether his disclosures were justified the only thing they would be considering is whether the information was classified and in that case he would be found guilty and he would serve a sentence of thirty or fifty years in prison or even life i don't think and he doesn't think that the cost of his act of conscience of starting this debate should be a whole lifetime behind bars if the law were more fair if the law really did not treat whistleblowers as spies but allowed him to make his defense he would not have gotten on that plane but he saw what happened to prior whistleblowers who were either ignored by the system or crushed by the system but disown was will is also a woman. you know some have over time and.

even though and some have it i mean today on the front page of the new york times there's a very interesting article about activists who in one nine hundred seventy one broke into an f.b.i. office in media pennsylvania and stole files that revealed j. edgar hoover and the f.b.i. counterintelligence program there are vast domestic surveillance program i expect that they will be greeted as heroes because the results of those revelations were the most widespread surveillance reforms in the history of the country i think history will be equally kind to edward snowden i think that in in five years in ten and twenty no one is going to take seriously the argument that these disclosures harm national security people are going to recognize that he was the necessary instrument in order to start this global debate and that a law that would punish him with life in prison for that isn't a fair one president one was are they going to pay attention to recommendations

from his bipartisan the ribbon panel about the n.s.a. surveillance what's your reaction to that when he says pay attention what are you going to do. we'll see i'm you know i'm i am i am hopeful that the president will embrace real reform i think in in all candor larry most of us were expecting a white wash from that panel something that would just offer some cosmetic reform suggestions without really taking on the n.s.a. but it was very impressive the report that president obama's hand-picked panel came out with they essentially said that the n.s.a. had allowed its capabilities to get ahead of its values that there was no evidence that the dragnet domestic surveillance program was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks and that it was time to to put in place much stronger oversight mechanisms to ensure that it doesn't get out of control again i hope the president will take that advice i think at the end of the day we need congress to legislate those

suggestions not just have the executive branch continue to police itself ben print does one thing in the washington post and cautions in the foot print machine but as we know in america there's nothing like seeing the real thing i would be happy to go to russia to sit down with him do you think mr snowden would agree to a sit down interview tell about you know we talk about it we talk about it often larry i think the question is not if the question is when it was very important during the last six months that he not be the story that he not to be what everybody was paying attention to he wanted the documents and the work of the journalists to speak for themselves and to stay in the background and i think it was the right decision it was one that i supported and i think it's been vindicated by how how incredible the debate about surveillance practices has been. you know we

have agreed that perhaps in two thousand and fourteen he will tiptoe out of obscurity and start to have some of these conversations larry a huge begged him to do a book. you know he certainly has had no shortage of offers to do book or film projects he said no to all of them so far once again he didn't do this to enrich himself he didn't do this to become a global celebrity he did this to start the debate that we're having right now but again you know at some point in his life he's going to have to you know make a living and will probably want to tell his story so i would be surprised if in a year or two he decides to write something one of the thing how do you think history will look at him you know i think in general larry history is very generous to whistleblowers and i'll tell you a quick story i mean you remember i don't when the pentagon papers were published and the government went to the supreme court to try to the government tried to block the supreme court from publishing those papers and the government told the supreme court that if they were published it would cause grave irreparable harm to

national security well a few years later the government lawyer who made that argument wrote an op ed in the washington post in which he said you know what i was wrong i've never seen a trace of evidence that their publication harm national security and claims like that needed to be read to be greeted with skepticism i think that history is not so generous to claims of national security they always look overblown in hindsight i think that mr snowden will be seen as a visionary and as someone who really bent history in a better direction thanks thanks to ben watching for joining us today and giving us insight into edward snowden coming up next a debate on the year ahead a new year's resolutions for the president and congress stay right with us. technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got this huge you're covered. i got

a quote for you. it's pretty tough. stay where it's not story. get this guy like smear that done stead of working for the people most issues the mainstream media were rich on the right time just as you. did rather it was. love like money now to politicking favors amy holmes independent anchor of the hot list done glenn beck's the blaze t.v. she joins us from blaze newsroom in new york and in d.c. is richard fowler host of the richard fowler show we thank you both let's pick up on the earlier discussion amy what do you make of edward snowden the hero or

villain well i wouldn't say that he's a villain that's too strong of a word but i think that he is dodging responsibility and that if he wanted to be a responsible whistleblower he would have gone through responsible channels hired a lawyer go to the house intelligence committee the senate intelligence committee and let them know that what he had discovered but what we also know that is very troubling to me about mr snowden was that back in two thousand and nine when he was working for the cia his supervisor alleged that mr snowden was trying to hack into top secret national security files so we know that this was a guy with an agenda he didn't go through the proper channels and even beyond that his revelations go far beyond possible privacy violations of american citizens but he's revealing very important national security secrets about how we gather foreign intelligence against foreign enemies. bridget fowler how do you view but i tell you i sort of agree with amy on this i think it's probably only time will agree this segment but i think we're there is an error this is not a black and white thing is the shade of gray larry i got to tell you and so i

totally understand why every citizen here is he's a hero for sort of exposing what general you know general clapper wouldn't say at the intelligence committee and on and on and on and on but if he truly wanted to be a hero he would of followed all the whistleblower protection laws here in this country he would have sort of stood up and took his penalty like the man like a man and said running off to russia seems to me to be a little bit weird but i got to tell you i my my if you know this changes every day on this and really particular and the what do you make of senator rand paul is going to launch a class action lawsuit i guess representing everybody in america against the government over surveillance programs well i think it's both very principled on his part he is a libertarian after all but also very politically savvy i he's signing up his volunteers from his web page rand pac which is where people also go to give money and certainly i'm sure has tremendous appeal to young people president obama is actually really suffered among young voters because of this n.s.a.

surveillance and in terms of the you know the legal merits of his class action lawsuit i think that's a bit divided i'm not a lawyer but there has been a split decision with the u.s. district court you had one judge in washington d.c. saying that all of this metadata gathering and surveillance was almost certainly unconstitutional. rigid some. some think that mr paul is going to a little too far that but what he what are your thoughts on the idea of a class action suit but larry i'm saying on our show we have the maniac of the year and rand paul was a nominee for that award because of rand paul is just indeed just a maniac i mean first of all he gets his paycheck from the federal government so suing the federal government taxing themself but i digress beyond that point this is just another ploy by rand to build his list like amy said and give people to get people to give him money it has nothing to do with the facts of the case and like that not to mention the fact that i don't really even believe that rand paul is a true libertarian because if he was

a true libertarian then he would believe in less government in all cases including when it comes to l.g.b. to write a minute reading some of the woman's rights when it comes to the rights of african-americans but he you know wants the government to impose their will on other place but hold on hold on hold on there just a marriage and you don't think that there is a constitutional problem with our fourth amendment and our privacy protect i do think there is no actual government is gathering up a law like this one that is you know on citizens on citizens phone numbers i think rand paul is on to something i may be on to something really not certainly on this i want to exploit it exploitation for political purposes which was a real barrier spall i literally call senator paul graham back and i asked him which is the you know the key one and that is one of the senator paul got the senator paul got the white house to back down your member on there their idea that they should be able to use drone surveillance on u.s. citizens on u.s. soil senator rand paul he did that filibuster and he got the white house to rewrite that i'm not saying that he doesn't have merit in his argument amy what i'm saying is when you use your are when you use them as an organ for political gain and to

raise money that on this issue has been you know a leg good fish i know that you have an antibiotic i hope that they try not to interrupt. this for you richard rand paul says that the director of national intelligence james clapper should be prosecuted for lying to congress about the n.s.a. surveillance program what do you think it was that i think that there is some issues that. as a democrat i think there is some issues with james clapper not telling the complete whole entire truth to under oath to the united states congress our representatives and should be something done about that whether it's prosecution i'm not sure i'm not a lawyer i can't speak to that but i definitely think that there somebody has to answer for the fact that the intelligence culture in america after nine eleven has just gone too far it's come to explosive it's become too intrusive and it's violating our constitution amy republican congressman peter king of new york going over well says that mr paul is stroke is stoking paranoia and his steria in connection with this and he claims rand has not been able to cite one abuse by the n.s.a.

what's your reaction well in fact the n.s.a. in own internal audit found thousands of abuses by n.s.a. and i say employees when it came to using this data and they saw that there was very there was a lack of oversight and management at the n.s.a. most of the abuse had to do with employees spying on former lovers you know out of revenge and so forth not necessarily the type of surveillance that we're fearful the government might be imposing on us as american innocent citizens but i think rand paul as well as edward snowden at least in this narrow sense of the n.s.a. surveilling america innocent american citizens on a massive scale is a very worthy topic of debate and of reform rigidity of things snowden has hurt the obama administration oh no i wouldn't say that he's hurt the about ministration i said would he's hurt all americans by sort of revealing our international foreign secrets of who were for who were spying on foreign in the in the foreign arena i think he's heard it he's got a credibility of the president's credibility on

a worldwide platform but i think more so important he's hurt america's military power and he's hurt our influence across the world and that's the sad part let's touch some other bases start with you on this one amy. income inequality that's the president's going to push that a lot in two thousand and fourteen including the minimum wage issue and unemployment benefits good issue for them. well i think he has a lot of issues to be able to fall back on since the major one obamacare is a fiasco and republicans are targeting that very effectively but in terms of the president these are popular issues with the american people extending unemployment benefits and raising the minimum wage those are winners with the american people the question is will those be priorities come november in the midterm elections we've already seen today that the extension of unemployment benefits passed the first procedural hurdle and the united states senate so it looks like republicans they understand that they have to come up with solutions and they can't just say no

you think the pope is going to be involved in american politics which is so many people. i think one wacko called him a marxist pope. listen there's i really love pope francis he's one of i think the greatest hoax we've seen in modern history to be honest and i think he's already he's already inserted himself in american politics with a stance he's taken on many of the issues that we deal with politically in america and one of those is income inequality and i think even the republican party knows they have to find a way to talk about income inequality to the broad to the masses that's why next week you have paul ryan giving a speech you have marco rubio giving a speech you have eric cantor giving a speech because they understand if they don't find a way to answer this income inequality argument that liberals and democrats are making they're going to have trouble at the ballot box and here's why they're going to have trouble and the reason why they're going to chose because the american understand how important is that not only do we raise the minimum wage but

everybody gets a fair shot at the american dream and that is slipping because of republican policies. in the health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius said obamacare would be considered a success of seven million people assigned by the end of march you think that will happen. i won't make a prediction about that so far it looks like they're not getting anywhere close and you know when she says signing seven minutes that's excuse me seven million people signing up she's neglecting the over two million people that have actually are rather nearly five million people who have seen their health insurance plans canceled so they're way behind the ball when it comes to that and there's a real problem and i put this to people who actually support and defend obamacare that if you have if you don't get the people signing up that you need then you have a system that is going to collapse it's going to collapse from within so even supporters of obamacare should be very concerned about the fiasco that is the rollout the mandates that have required insurance companies to cancel coverage for those individuals and the burdens that it places on small businesses which are

getting reprieve but larger businesses down the road that it's going to raise the insurance costs and now we just got a new study that showed that is that the expansion of medicaid actually raise the number of our visit there's it's rather than lowering them so it might be driving cars even more rich which it can obamacare recover i think obamacare is recovering larry don't get me wrong the but the rollout was botched amy is correct the website was screwed up the p.r. wasn't as good as it should have been but as of january first we've seen the marked difference not only on the website of folks being able to go to the website but the fact that it wasn't for on the new york times or on the wall street journal that folks can go to the doctor after they've already enrolled in the health care law shows that law is working to pono the people already enrolled and history will judge this president based on whether seven point one million or six point nine million enroll in the affordable care act what it will judge is how many individuals finally got access to health care and we are seeing we're seeing million people get access three million back on their parents' health care

insurance or over fifty million americans who had quote unquote preexisting conditions including being a woman as one of them can now get health care the system is starting to work access is going to be key here and now after the vailable to all americans to the exchange and that's the most remarkable part about this law but there's no question that. any major roll out you're going to have issues you're going to have pick ups you can have to go back in and do some fixes and some tinkering here and there and this president committed doing that hopefully republican the congress will be able to join him in six finding a way to make this law work for all americans amy what do you make liz cheney pulling out of the senate race in wyoming well she said that it was for personal family reasons and some subsequent reporting suggested that that is the case there's one child who has childhood diabetes and another child who has some unspecified issue going on while that child is in college so i take her at her word she apparently was raising money at a pretty good clip of her polling wasn't nestlé pulling up to be able to really

challenge mr enzi but i can tell you republicans are breathing a sigh of relief that liz cheney is backing out the race so that they don't have this messy primary leading into november but one thing to get back to obamacare we have folks who are facing sticker shock higher premiums higher deductibles these are major problems it's not just p.r. it's not just technological failure failure it is baked into the cake and baked into the policy and i think obamacare supporters really need to face that you guys want to make a forget is that in the house and senate races this year richard i think democrats hold the senate we might pick up we have to pick up about seventeen to eighteen seats in the house i don't think will do a politic of ten but i think the fact that there are all these bitter primaries luckily there's no not one in wyoming for republicans that's a number one problem and i think if everybody out there needs to watch is what happens in these bitter primaries of the next coming months how start up with this as the republican party brand look like as we get into november in the air you see it. well i commend richard for saying the bitter primaries for the g.o.p.

are bad things. romney i've really got a bad for the electorate bad for the g.o.p. i think the senate is definitely in play and you see these democratic senators from red states like mary landrieu joe manchin and kay hagan the list goes on who are very concerned about obamacare that are trying to distance themselves from this white house from these sets of policies so i think republicans have a very good chance of taking back the senate they'll have to work really hard at it but i also predict that they'll keep the house and will hillary run rigid. that is the question of the year i think for the next two years we'll have to see there's no question here the political article recently about of that there is a shadow campaign going her folks are getting ready to go here they're ready for hillary the question will see will she decide to or not i think to be a personal choice between her chelsea and bill i think you probably have better insights that than i do larry we'll see what happens well i know them all very well i mean will she be formidable if she does run. i shall certainly be formidable but

as we learned in two thousand and eight she's also beatable in a democratic primary president obama he was able to accomplish that handily will there be another democrat who as is charismatic who is able to capture the imagination of the democratic base in the way that president obama then senator was able to do i'm not sure but you know what politicians are ambitious people and i don't think you're going to see politicians sitting on the sidelines just crowning hillary clinton the democratic nominee i think you agree there and it is. a republican you dear richard i think the best chance of the republican party to be honest is paul ryan said this over and over and over again after the budget deal he passed he's a few he's the only one this is able to work across the aisle maybe a chris christie paul ryan some sort of ticket there might not be a bad idea oh chris christie's number one problem is that paul ryan will probably going to be getting through the republican primary the republican party on its own part of the right so we'll have to see what i think you both will have you on a lot this year at least both of you for joining me thank you thank you use having

you there this is well and want to hear from you and would join the conversation on my facebook page and share your boards on twitter by greedy that you can use the you then use the politics and say that's all for this week i will just.

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to. hello my people i'm having martin and this is a break in the set it's a question i never thought i'd ask what buff firaaq is making the calls up to in ohio so last month the radio disney employees travel twenty six schools and science centers across the state promoting a program called iraq in ohio sounds innocent enough right turns out this initiative was entirely funded by none other than the ohio oil and gas energy education program which in turn gets its money from you guessed it the oil and gas companies or the demonstration the kids were shown interactive presentations about gas pipelines and encouraged to spread the message about the industry not just guessing here but i doubt these kids were also taught that infertility in cancer causing chemicals been found in fracking water supplies and that the practice is responsible for artificial earthquakes and youngstown ohio.