captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. b.p. engineers began pumping mud into the damaged gulf oil well to plug the leak. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, we find out just what the so-called top kill procedure does. plus, tom beardon reports on wildlife threatened by the oil, fouling louisiana's fragig coast. >> lehrer: then we get two views on the president's plan to send more national guard troops to the u.s.-mexico border. >> woodruff: margaret warner updates the violence gripping jamaica's capital after security forces stormed the slums in search of a reputed drug lord. >> lehrer: jeffrey brown looks

at what's private and what's public online as facebook offers new ways to protect its users. >> what we set out to do in response to a lot of the feedback we've been getting is to make it really, really easy for people to control the information they put into facebook. >> woodruff: and we close with images of the changed coastline on the gulf, taken by a.p. photographer gerald herbert. >> reporter: this thing has been gushing oil for over a month now and it's been none stop, when & when you think about how much oil must now be in that gulf it's a pretty scary thing. it has everyone on this coast frightened-- frightened and angry. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> lehrer: this was another make-or-break day in the struggle against the oil spill in the gulf of mexico. b.p. crews launched a long-awaited operation to stop the oil at its source. monitor green lit up with action at b.p.'s command center in houston this afternoon. remote-controlled cameras, a mile deep, displayed multiple views as the top kill operation

began. it came five weeks into the disaster with a geyser of oil still gushing nonstop from the damaged oil head. b.p.'s plan called for pumping heavy drilling fluid called mud into the blowout prernt that failed initially to stop the spill. engineers hope the mud, followed by sement, would plug the well and stop the flow. it works on land but it's never been tried at such ocean depths. b.p. gave the procedure a 60% to 70% chance of working, but some outside engineering experts warn if it fails, it could make the problem much worse. >> by imposing a high pressure, we may actually cause the flow rate to increase instead of decreasing. >> lehrer: no wonder then, that officials from president obama on down were paying close attention. the president spoke in fremont, california. >> if it's successful-- and there are no guarantees-- greatly reduce or eliminate the flow of oil now streaming into

the gulf from the sea floor. and if it's not, there are other approachs that may be viable. >> lehrer: back in washington... >> i'd like it thank the secretary for coming as he departs. >> reporter: secretary of the interior ken salazar left a house hearing to monitor the preparations for top kill. in the meantime, there was new focus on how the "deepwater horizon" oil rig exploded on april 20 and sank, losing the oil into the ocean. the associated press reported one worker on the rig told coast guard investigators b.p. was taking shortcuts. and the chief mechanic on site, on the day the rig blew, spoke at a new orleans hearing. douglas brown said he witnessed an argument between a b.p. official and drilling manages for transocean, the rig's owner. he said the pressure to finish work was intense. >> prior to the event, were you aware of any type of concerns or pressures from either transocean or b.p. personnel concerning completion of this particular drilling project?

>> yes. >> when were those, please? >> i didn't really hear anything verbal. it was passed around via other people that this well is taking too long and they were in a hurry to complete is it so they can move on to the next. >> lehrer: there were new calls for accountability of the house natural resources committee hearing in washington. >> but i do think it is important to determine whether "deepwater horizon" is the wall street of the ocean. privatizing profit while the public bears the risk. >> lehrer: the frustration from politicians on both sides was apparent. arizona republican jeff flake suggested government had learned nothing from past spills. >> we're still shoveling sand on the beach or doing some of the same things -- washing off birds with, i don't know, handywipes or whatever else-- and it just seems that we don't learn. why aren't we between spills doing something

that actually will inform us for the next spill? >> there is a lot that has been learned. maybe it's not everything that needs to be learned and there will be a lot of lessons that will come from this particular response. >> lehrer: b.p. said today it paid oit $36 million in damage claims. the current limit is $75 million a ceiling that many, including new jersey democrat rush holt are, trying to modify. >> would you support a legislative increase in the liability ? >> we are doing what we can within the limits of the executive branch to make sure they're held accountable. in changing the law, we are supportive. >> lehrer: tomorrow, the president is expected to call for tougher safety procedures and inspection rejeeps for offshore drilling. we have more now on the top kill operation from greg mccormack, the director of the petroleum extension service at the university of texas, austin. for the record, the service partners with members of the gas and oil industry. he joins us tonight from

houston. greg mccormack, welcome. >> thank you for inviting me. >> lehrer: it's just after 6:00 eastern time now, mr. mccormack. and that means this operation, this top kill thing has been under way now for four hours or so. does the fact that it's still going after four hours mean anything? >> i don't think you can read anything into the fact that the well is still flowing. we would be able to kill this well a lot quicker if the blow-out preventers were functioning properly. but with them not functioning properly, we're losing a lot of mud out to the blow-out preventer. >> lehrer: in other words, the mud is being blown out by the oil itself, right? >> that's correct. the pressure of the oil and gas flowing through the blow-out preventer is going to carry some of the mud out into the riser. >> lehrer: i assume-- have you been watching these live pictures from-- from

the water, from the sea bed? >> when i could receive them, i've been watching them. >> lehrer: what should we look for? a lot of people-- we've been running them live here on the online noir. i spent a lot of time watching it today. i didn't know what i was looking for. what should we be looking for. >> eventually we should be looking for a reduction in flow. that would mean we're bringing the well under control and the top kill is working. it's going to take a considerable period of time for that to happen. it's not an instantaneous kill. we've got to really fill all of the well bowl with this heavy-weight drilling fluid. >> lehrer: and this heavy-weight drilling fluid-- they call it mud, but it's not technically mud, is it? it's specially made for this kind of thing, right? >> it's specially made. it's a mixture of water, clay, to give it the weight, and then some other chemicals to give it its property. >> lehrer: and the idea is this thing called mud, this liquid

you're just talking about, is heavier than the oil itself but there's a pressure collision; is that correct, that's what's happening? >> that's what is happening. usually when you're drilling, the weight of the mud keeps the oil and gas in the formation and stops it from flowing into the well until you need it. if you don't have a heavy enough weight , the pressure in the formation is going to allow the gas and oil to go into well bore. and i think that's what we saw here. >> lehrer: but the fact that it hasn't-- that it is till flowing means only that not enough mud has gone in yet? is that-- is that-- is that what you're saying? >> i think that's a correct statement. we haven't put enough mud in to fill the total well bore to create enough weight or pressure down where we need it at the reservoir. >> lehrer: the word going in, it might take two days of putting mud in there before we know for

sure. do you buy that? >> well, i think it will take about two days for us to know if it's successful. we should see a reduction in flow after a period of time, but we also have to remember we have to stabilize the well and make sure that it doesn't kick-- in other words, the oil and gas flows back out of the reservoir and back into the well bore. so i think that's why we need to wait one or two days to make sure that this -- we've truly killed the well. >> lehrer: what about the concern that was expressed that this-- this meeting of the two pressures could in fact damage the pipe itself and make things even worse? are we over that or is that still a possibility? >> well, i think we have some restrictions, both of the blow-out preventer and in the riser itself. and we want to make sure that we don't make those restrictions any less to impede the flow of the oil and gas there. i don't know if we're past that point right now.

i would think that if anything was going to happen, it would happen very, very early in the top-kill operation. >> lehrer: so there is-- you could read at least at-- up to this point at least it hasn't-- that hasn't happened, that the pressure became so bad that it it exploded again, exploded the pipe itself, right. >> i think you can make the statement that it hasn't destroyed any of the pipe. >> lehrer: okay. now if this doesn't work , the word is from b.p. that they've got another dome ready to go. they've tried that one before and it hasn't worked. what's going to be different this time if it even comes to that? >> well, i think they know what the problems with the dome was before. when gas under pressure meets water, you form ice crystals-- they're called hydrates-- and those ice crystals like to join together and form great big snowmobiles, and those snowballs blocked off the containment vessel so it couldn't allow the

oil and gas to go to the surface they've learned from that and what they're doing in the containment vessels they're constructing now is have the ability to circulate warm author around the pipe and also to inject methanol in which prevents the formation of these hydrates. >> lehrer: let me ask you finally, you're an expert, you know what this is all about, and you know what's happened thus far. you just explained what is backup here. do you as a professional have any sense of optimism that this thing may suddenly or may soon be over? >> i'm cautiously optimistic. because i do want it over. i want it over for all people of louisiana, and everyone that's been impacted by this. >> lehrer: but the facts aren't there to make you any more than cautiously optimistic at this point, correct? >> that is correct, jim. >> lehrer: okay, all right. greg mccormacking thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: as crews try to

plug the well leak in the gulf, there are plenty of other teams in the coastal wetlands trying to monitor its effect on wildlife and the environment. newshour correspondent bomb tom beardon followed one team's work near grand isle, louisiana. >> reporter: mandy tumlin is trying hard to spot dead wildlife on queen besse island in louisiana barataria bay. she's a conserveivation biologist with the louisiana department of wildlife and fisheries. tum run, biologist landon parr, and their colleagues are out here to verify a report that a dead animal had washed ashore. after much visual searching they could barely make out a dead dolphin and then a dead sea turtle among the rocks. >> in that situation basically you had a dolphin which was documented with binoculars on the shore but that area had already been boomed off so we

couldn't open the boom because we had oil moving in that area right there and we didn't want to compromise the rest of the animals in there for that one animal who was already dead on the beach. >> reporter: most of the time the $23 million grand isle laboratory conducts research work to help maintain the state's fisheries and wildlife. but they've been directed to mobilize all of their resources to patrol the coastal wetlands to stay on top of where the oil is and how it's affecting the habitat. within the last few weeks, the department has had to shut down most of the shrimp and oyster fisheries, a multibillion-dollar industry. they act mostly on tips. someone from this work boat had respect seeing another dead turtle drifting near the island earlier that morning. >> can you point in the direction of where you saw the turtle? >> right here. >> but in the boom. >> in the boom or outside the boom? outside the boom. >> reporter: parr

says they found several other dead turtles in the last few days. >> we've had some turtles that we found. basically what we do in the field with those is we'll swap them and that gets sent off for testing so we can't determine at that point if it's oil or not and we found some birds , pelican. >> reporter: why the focus on turtles? >> it's an endangered species. so we basically patroled for dolphins, sea turtles, and birds. >> reporter: when dead animals are recovered, they're brought back here to the main laboratory then starts a long, involved forensic process of determining why they died. it's find out if the animals died from exposure to oilt or something else to determine liability. the information also helps wildlife managers to concentrate their cleanup efforts and determine places that need to be closed to the public. the hard part is finding the animals in distress in the vast

bay. >> we've got troops on the ground all on the water, in the sky, covering any environment that we possibly can where any animals may potentially be affected by the oil or impact by the oil. we've got a long road ahead of us, but we're going to keep chugging along and doing our best to document everything and, you know, look into long-term effects this may have on animals and as the oil continues to encroach our inland areas our marsh habitats and see what type of animals are affected by it. >> reporter: myron fischer is the director of the research lab. have you seen a lot of wildlife damage already? >> we've seen some wildlife damage. we actually were anticipating a lot more. we are seeing some oiled birds, a few turties coming ashore. >> reporter: people have been surprised that we haven't seen a lot more oiled birds and oiled animals. do you have any idea why that is? >> i think you're right. the oil has been gushing for a month now. it's still coming out of the

ground but the oil only hit at beaches a few days ago. now let's see what happens from this point forward. >> reporter: fischer also wants to know what those hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemical dispersants used to break up the oil are doing to the birds and fish. >> i'm really worried about it, dispersant, the oil, what it's going to do to the esturine area. i'm worried about a lot of issues. i'm worried will commercial and sport fishing will ever be the same in my lifetime. >> 89 degrees, 57.442. >> reporter: yesterday, the head of the wildlife and fisheries department sent a letter to b.p. sqg for an additional $30 million to pay for the resources they need to stay on top of this environmental disaster. the state agency has also asked for additional funds from the department of the interior. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour, more troops on the u.s.-mexico border.

the hunt for a jamaican drug lord. new privacy tools on facebook, and a photographer captures images of the oil spill. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> wall street had a late sell-off after a new slide in the euro. the dow jones industrial average lost 16 points for the day to close at 99 story 74. the nasdaq closed below 2196. in seoul, south korea, secretary clinton called for a global response to the sinking of a south korean warship blamed on north korea. clinton met with south korean president lee myung-bak. she said the u.s. fully supports hi move to stop all trade with the north. >> the international , independent investigation was objective. the evidence overwhelming, the conclusion inescapable this was an unacceptable provocation by north korea, and the

international community has a responsibility and a duty to respond. >> north korea despise it torpedoed the warship. yesterday it cut all ties with the south and today a top north korean general warned his country will answer any provocation with all-out war. the space shuttle "atlantis" returned to earth dade for the last time. the touch-down ended a 25-year career with a perfect landing on runway 33 at kennedy space center in florida. the final trip was a 12-day mission to the international space station. only two more shuttle missions are scheduled by "endeavour" and "discovery" before the program ends. longtime tv variety host art linkletter died today. his family said he passed away at his home in los angeles. link letter hosted "house party" from 1962 to 1969. it was known forward his interviews with children. he was 97 years old.

those are some of the day's stories. >> woodruff: the latest steps in the obama administration's efforts to secure the southern border came yesterday with word the president will send up to 1200 additional national guard troops to the region. they will join the 340 soldiers already on the ground. the troops will perform support roles, such as conducting surveillance and intelligence analysis. but not confront smugglers or arrest those crossing into the country illegally. mr. obama also plans to request $500 million in supplemental funding to support enforcement effort along the border. to assess the strategy we get two views. thad bingel served as chief staff of u.s. customs and border protection in the bush administration. and rick nelson, director of homeland security and counter-terrorism program at the center for strategic and international studies. gentlemen, thank you both for being with us. thad bingel, to you first, how serious is the border problem right now? can you quantify it?

>> sure. in many ways, it's better and worse, judy. it's better in that we have a lot more resources than we had even five and certainly 10 years ago down there. we've seen a reduction in the levels of apprehension and people crossing that border illegally. unfortunately, what we've seen is more organized effort the by the cartels smuggling, the narcotibs, actually contributing to this violence because now they're being confronted for the first time on both the south side of the border with what the calderon administration is doing and on the north side of the border. it's not easy to get across by sneaking across which resulted in under violence which led to some of the incidents we've read about. >> woodruff: rick nelson, would you add anything to that? >> no, i think that's accurate. we made significant progress from where we were in the 90s so i think it's a conflewence of events right now that has brought this to the front. >> woodruff: what is your understanding of what these 1200

additional troops are going to do? what's their mission? >> that's a great question, judy and that's what i think was administration was trying to struggle with, exactly what are these troops going to do. and as you point out they're mostly going to be focused on the isr mission, so they're not going to be doing the law enforcement testifies. they're not going to be interdicting smugglers or narcotics trafficers. and that's one of the things that the administration had to consider is what are we going to use these troops for. >> woodruff: our understanding is there was a disagreement between the pentagon and homeland security over what they were going to do. >> and there was last time. when we did operation jump start in 2005-2006 where we deployed 6,000 national guardmen--. >> woodruff: under president bush. >> there was disagreement over what type of units would be deployed. what you deploy 1200 national guardsmen. you don't end up with 1200 people on the line. they're in mission support roles

and you probably get 500 to 600, maybe 700 tops will be out there deployed. you'll have at least one person supporting them at various depots, headquarters, forward deployment locations on the national guard side. so it's not -- it's not as impressive of a number as it sounds when you see who's actually out there fully deployed. >> lehrer: rick nelson, give us a sense of what exactly they're going to be doing. there are four states in the southwest that border mexico. what kinds of jobs that people can understand are they going to be doing? >> they'll be taking intelligence and analyzing intelligence, which is a significant role. the more individuals you have analyzing intelligence the more likely you have to apprehend drug trafficers and whatnot. they'll also be conducting-- operating night vision devices and doing that kind of surveillance, perhaps operating unmanned vehicles as well and even some training . >> woodruff: does this free up, thad bingel, the other border

patrol people who are already there? >> it can, judy, and that was one of the significant benefits of jump start is that by putting guardsmen in mission support roles you were able to free up what we called badges back to the border. we had border control agents and law enforcement administration specialists who could concentrate on other duties, including being back on the line but it depends on getting the right national guards units out there. you can't take supply clerks and turn them into surveillance analysts. you need to get the right kind of units there to be useful. otherwise you spend a lot of time train ing national guardsmen to do the task. >> woodruff: what's your sense of how much difference it will make? >> it will be helpful, judy but no one should have the illusion that this deployment is really going to make a dramatic dins in levels of violence along the border. they will be helpful in getting some resources immediately back to the border.

they can be quickly deployed unlike training 12 had been00 now border agents. they're not a long of-term solution. >> woodruff: rick nelson, how do you see what difference they'll make? >> very minimal. it will free up some additional law enforcement access to focus on guarding the border itself but at the end of the day this is more an interim solution and indicative of the fact we need comprehensive immigration reform if we're going to solve this problem or address this problem once and for all. >> woodruff: are you saying it may not even be worth doing this? >> i think we have to ask ourselves why are we deploying them to the border? what is the reason for doing this? it's going to have minimal impact but it's not going to solve our larger immigration issue that we're struggling with and the violence is just a product of that. >> woodruff: how do you view the balance of whether it's worth it to add 1200? >> i think it is in that they can be immediately deployed. when you look at the rest of the 500 million, which is only a step towards what really needs to be done, it is focused on

deploying some longer term solutions-- more border patrol agents, constructing through new operating bases-- those are the things we see in the house progz bill that will be helpful but that in itself is also a drop in the bucket. when you look at what d.o.e. spends, $177 million of the guard deployment is part of a $64 billion war supplemental on top of a $660 billion defense budget. we spend $12 billion to $13 billion on border security depending on how you count it each year. we have a long way to go if we want to get to the levels i think some people expect and 1200 is a nice start for the national guard but that's not a long-term solution and it's really not enough. >> woodruff: and these funds the president is asking for, it looks like they'll probably be passed by congress but you're saying they're not going to be that much more than what is already there. >> 500 million is not anything to sneeze at, but it's a

matter of not doing this in one fell swoop. we didn't get here overnight. it was a decades-long problem that developed and we're not going to solve it overnight. we made significant progress since 2001 and 2005. in 2005 are the busiest station in the whole southwest border, yuma station in arizona, had 125,000 apprehensions that year of people illegally crossing the border. this last year was 3800 people. that's progress. but it's not complete, and i think most people would say even 3800 might be an unacceptable number. until we make a sustained investment of resources over a period of years, we're not going to get where people want us to get. >> woodruff: rick nelson, given this, why do you think the president did this, and what more should be done given the very, very charged political environment over this issue? >> i think it's exactly why he did commit to it. they've been talking about committing national guard troops since last spring. it's now come i think in the wake of

the arizona immigration law, and the murder of the rancher and the president was in a position where he had to do something especially with the arizona senators coming forward so aggressively on this issue. they'll be critical to any comprehensive immigration reform so what needs to happen next is a three-step process. one, as thad point, they're going to have to figure out what the appropriate mix of technology and people is on the border to improve the security there. secondly, we're going to have to have comprehensive immigration reform, and that's why senators kyle and mccain are so critical. and lastly we're going to have to improve our bilateral relations with mexico and that's what we saw with the recent visit of calderon. >> woouff: but this will remain a tough political issue all around. absolutely. >> woodruff: thank you for joining us, thad bingel and rick nelson, we appreciate it. >> thank you, judy. >> lehrer: next tonight the violence on the caribbean island of jamaica. margaret warner has that story.

>> warner : thousands of police and soldiers continued to swarm the tivoli gardens neighborhood in west kingston as a fourth day of deadly street fighting rocked this caribbean nation. they are search are for a man named christopher coke, also known as dudus coke. he is being sought by the u.s. government on drug trafficking charges. confronting them, armed supporters of coke, and member of his his gang, can the shower. coke's partisans have waged fierce battles against the government's forces. kimmo matthews is a reporter for the "the jamaica observer." we reached him by phone. >> the last few days have been very intense and a number of persons have been locked behind their doors not able to come out because of the state of emergency that has been imposed on kingston. a lot of gunfire, gunmen and

police trading bullets in the streets. it has been really, really tense. >> warner: nearly 50 people have been reported killed in the fighting thus far, mostly civilians. a curfew has been declared and residents are being urged to stay in their homes. >> reporter: it would apeter police have taken sections of the city, and the gunshots there they're subsiding. i'm not hearing the gunshots as we would several days-- two days ago. and we are seeing people are able to come out and carry out their activities in some areas. but in sections of tivoli gardens, the soldiers are still keeping a watchful eye. >> warner: the government says it's arrested some 500 people but 41-year-old dudus coke is still at large. the fierce reaction from well-armed tivoli garden residents wasn't surprising. given the role dudus coke plays in this impoverished neighborhood just 100 miles from jamaica's popular tourist

beaches. according to larry birns, direct of the council on hems fear, affairs in washington. >> we have seen the dudus coke type before. we've seen them in ica lab ria, in sicily, in much the latin america. and on the tv screens. this is the classic dawn. he is the be95 cent one, the benefact oin a country which doesn't have an economy, he becomes a figure that sees to it that you don't die, that your kids can go to school. this is a country where life is rough, where poverty is stark. and where the little guy is nameless and numberless. given that fact, having a mr. big who protects you at

least in thier-- of course at a price is an important thing for them to have. >> warner: the u.s. justice department decision last august to indict coke on charges of running a jamaica u.s. drug and weapons trafficking ring reflects jamaica's growing importance in the latin-american and caribbean drug trade. its role has increased since colombian and mexican authorities stepped up the pressure on their drug cartels. the u.s. asked for dudus coke to be extradited and jamaica usually honors such requests, but in coke's case, jamaican prime minister bruce golding resisted. finally on sunday, after nine months of diplomatic pressure from washington, golding relented. >> actions were being taken which caused significant threats to law and order in the corporate area. >> warner: this was a hard decision for golding, given the long-standing ties between coke's gang and the prime

minister's jamaican labor party, says birns. >> well, look, we're talking about a phenomena that goes back to the 1970s . it is the rise of political gangs. and both of the major political parties in jamaica, they have their gangs. they were colleagues-- that is, the political party and the government and the cartel. so right now, coke feels that he has been betrayed by prime minister golding. this was a quid pro quo relationship, and each side, the government, the political party, the jamaican labor party, and the gang got what they wanted. the gang got protection. >> warner: and what did the government get from the gang? >> well, the government was

getting political control over a very important neighborhood. a lot of people, a lot of votes there. cooperation. and--. >> warner: and money? >> and money. >> warner: jamaican officials have vowed publicly to keep up the pressure until they cash their man but within a power strukt that you are has long protected him, dudus coke is clearly a man with resources to draw on. >> lehrer: and late at a, jamaica's information minister said it was unclear whether coke was even still dm the country. right now. >> woodruff: now big changes in privacy controls on facebook. newshour correspondent spencer michaels begins with this report from palo alto, california , where the social media giant made its announcement this

afternoon. >> reporter: when people sign up for facebook, it's usually to connect with old and new friends via the computer. high school buddys, former workmates, long-lost relatives and recent acquaintances. but facebook is far more than a digital phonebook. billions of pieces of personal information are posted on the site-- likes, dislikes, social doings, photos of everything it's good, the bad, the embarrassing. and streaming videos. with some 400 million users and counting, six-year-old facebook has grown into the largest social networking site with sharing amongst friends and whole groups. if measured by population, it could rank as the world's third largest country. it's free. the company makes its money from ads. of late, several media outlets have alleged that facebook has shared data on its use werz advertisers

, and that has provokd a storm of questions, including who controls that data and whether that data is being used for commercial purposes. today, facebook responded to consumer and government pressure announcing new privacy tools intended to make it easier for users to specify who can see their information , as well as whether facebook can share that information with other web sites or commercial interests. 25-year-old c.e.o. mark zuckerberg , who founded facebook with friends in his harvard dorm room, said that the new procedures were a response to complaints product manager chris cox explained to us how a very complicated procedure for restricting access to information has been drastically simplified. >> our controls were too complicated in the minds of a lot of our users so what we set out to do in response to a lot of the feedback we've been getting is to make it really, really easy for people to control the information they put into facebook. there were a lot of different

concerns aired out at the same time in the past couple of weeks. so what we've tried to do is address a lot of them. there's a simple switch that allows people to not share any of their stuff with third parties. there's a simple control that allows people to lock down the content they post to just friends. >> reporter: these new rules of the digital road were unveiled amidst not only growing consumer unrest that facebook has been too loose with information about its users but also creating complicated and confusing privacy controls, putting the onus on consumers, not all of them technical wizards, to protect their own data. to adjust how much information is accessible to anyone , facebook users currently are required to navigate through 50 setings with more than 170 differentings ons. meanwhile, facebook, myspace, and several other social networking sites were found to have sent data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers' names and other personal details.

facebook's chris cox denied the company shared any information with advertisers. >> we don't share any information with advertisers about our users and we never will. >> reporter: does that mean the advertisers can't get that information? >> it does. advertisers can control -- they can say, "i want to talk to people who are in berkeley that like reggae music," and then we'll take the ad and we'll show it to people who are in berkeley who have said they lycra gay but we don't give advertisers information about our users. >> reporter: facebook launched a product which automatically shared users' profile information with other sites unless a consumer opted out. last month, new york senator charles schumer said he wants tougher consumer privacy laws and asked the federal trade commission for an opt-in option rather than opt-out only. >> social networking sites have become the wild west of the internet. users need to be able to control feist information and fully

understand how it's being used. >> reporter: as facebook tries to make meadowlandss, some consumers are take matters into their own hands. one group, organized online, is encouraging users to delete their facebook account en masse on may 31. many people have said they will do just that, but meanwhile, more people continue to sign up for the site. >> lehrer: jeffrey brown has a closer look at the issues raise by the facebookcase. >> brown: and for that i'm joininged by kevin bankston, a senior staff attorney with the electronic frontier foundation an internet privacy group and pete cashmore, founder and c.e.o. of the mashable.com. kevin bankston, before we assess today's action by facebook, help us frame the privacy question at issue when someone uses facebook or another social media site. how would you define it? >> we think the electronic frontier foundation, that the key question is does the user of the social network have complete control over how all of their

information is shared? facebook, which original originally started as a good place to connect with your friends and family has recently been pushing its users and in some cases forcing its users to make more and more of their information public when they used to be able to keep it private. will be and so today's changes are a reaction to the uproar over those changees and have given users some new control over how their information is shared. we think the changes are a good start but we think there's some more work to be done when it comes to giving users their own control over their own information as facebook itself states as one of its principles. >> brown: let me come back to that but bring in pete cashmore. on this question of how you define the issues hundreds of millions of people have made it a normal part of their lives to share information . so how do you define the sharing versus privacy equation? >> well, i think there's a trend

here that facebook is tapping into, that there is more sharing going on, on the web. so it's like twitter, having public sharing being the default, and facebook is trying to compete with the sites and be part of the wider movement but there's also the gap between user expectations-- they expect facebook to be a private site-- and the direction in which the web is going. >> brown: were they-- what did you make of today's announcement >> i agree that the announcement was a good step. it was a step in the right direction. it greatly simplifies the controls, but i also think it's a little bit of misdirection going on here. the instant personalization, which is the product that automatically shares information with selected third parties, is still an opt-out system, so you're still opted into that, at least according to the announcement today. >> brown: peter, explain that instant personalization, what that means. >> so the instant

personalization piece is essential that facebook has chosen some sites , pandora, yelp, where if you visit those sites information you've chosen to be public will be sent to the site. facebook's argument is if you set it to be public it's not a problem to be sharing it with entrusted partners the second you log on to their sites. >> brown: so kevin bankston, you think it's a good step, but what? >> they made a few important changes today rolling back some of their worst privacy missteps in of the last months. they forced users to go through a transition where their likes and dislikes, the places they worked and schools they went to, which previously had been able to be set to private had to be made public or they'd be deleted. facebook has wisely, i think, stepped back from that position, and has restored new true privacy controls for that information so that you can set is to be privacy again.

facebook has also provided a new ability that it took away back in december whereby users can, if they choose, opt out of any sharing of their information over what's called the facebook platform, the platform on which all the applications people can use on facebook are built on it's an important privacy step. >> brown : well, , i'm wondering, do peopleoon what do we know about the psychology and understanding of users? do people know about the flow of information and do they care? >> i think the simple answer is they don't know. there is reference to a change in december where essentially facebook came up with a dialogue box that said we're updating our privacy settings, do you want to agree to the settings? the settings facebook chose by default was sharing a lot more than you might be comfortable with.

i think facebook has somewhat pushed users to be more open without their understanding. i don't think there's that much life evidence that users fully understand these settings. >> brown: does anyone fully understand the flow of information? do you. in our setup with spencer michels, we were talking about where information goes, who it goes to, does it go to advertisers. how much is known about that? >> it's an extremely complex issue even for technologist s covering the space. i think the simple rule is if you don't want it to be shared don't put it on line. but facebook is doing a good job of simplifying the settings and making it more understandable to the average user but there's no doubt it's a complex issue and understanding where your information is gk is challenging. >> brown: bang, what can you tell us about the flow of information jik the most important thing for people to understand on facebook, is and something that wasn't changed with the changes today, right now there's something we in the privacy community call the ap-gap.

that's the privacy problem whereby even if you aren't choosing to use an application or facebook web site, if one of your friends uses, it that web site or application is automatically going to get your information. we think users should have complete control over their information so that they can block all of the hundreds of thousands of facebook-connected applications and web sites and only approve sharing with the applications they want to use. but right now, faigs book is posing users a choice, either you can opt out completely from that sharing, and not use any applications, or if you want to play scrabble with your mom or face off in the mafia wars game with your friends, that automatically means your privacy is at the mercy of your friends' and whatever the hundreds of thousands of other aps your friends choose to play or install, those aps are going to get your information even if you never use them. >> brown: i'm sorry for

interrupting, but i'm wondering how much do people care about their privacy? i mean, we-- we said that there is a backlash against facebook. this is sort in the air right now. on the other hand, hundreds of millions of people are doing it. are there. >> volving standards of privacy for people, especially younger people, who have grown up doing this? how much do you sense that people really care about this and what they're willing to do about it? >> i think they care a lot. certainly, people are becoming more comfortable publishing more online, including to a broad audience. however, they doesn't mean they don't also want control over what information is being published to people other than their friends or family. indeed, receipt research here in the bay area at the berkeley law school found that younger internet users are more comfortable sharing more information but they're just as uncomfortable as older users

when information is shared outside of their control. so the key really is control. we're pro free speech we think it's a great people are abe to speak online but we think they should only have to speak when they want to speak rather than having facebook or any other country decide what information to share. >> brown: let me give the last word to pete cashmore. what do you think of this evolving standard of privacy? >> i think it was a really correct summary there. i think what's happening on the web is, yes, young people are becoming more comfortable with sharing more things, but the way facebook has been implementing these features is an opt-out or pushing users beyond what they understand. i think facebook would do a better job of highlighting the advantages of your likes. if you share your likes you might be able to meet up with people in the local area to share your interests. i think facebook would be better to sell uses, or thisivation and opt into that vision.

>> woodruff: finally tonight, the images of the oil spill in the gulf as seen through the lens of a veteran photojournalist and louisiana native. >> my name is gerald herbert and i'm a photographer for the associated press based here in new orleans. ever since the rig exploded, covering it in the air, in boats helicopters, every day, seeing the fishermen react to their loss of income. seeing the oil impact the wildlife. it's been a pretty sad process. early on, i was down in hopedale and there was a big meeting of all these fishermen. they are all out of work, all on the same day, all at once, as though awe hurricane hit. and all of them were walking around saying this is going to be worse than katrina. katrina came and went and they could rebuild. this thing, they feel, is going to last fair very long time and their worry was very pro found and very real. these

men are faced with mortgages. they probably have mortgages on their boats. they have families to feed. they have a livelyhood they're used to and probably don't have other skills to apply to replace their livelyhood and earn an become elsewhere, nor do they want to. and lately with the oil impacting into the shores of grand isle, venice, and barataria bay, you see impact on wildlife. we were on a supply vessel, and one day i was oit taking pictures of some egrets that had landed on the boats, and they were oil stained. and know worst crew members motioned me over the and was frantically pointing into the water. i could see this bird languishing in the water, and he was pecking at the hull, trying to get in, and he had no way of getting in, and he was completely inundated with oil and this was right at the spill site. you can imagine if the plume was coming up right there, and he was just getting the full impact of that oil coming to the surface. and it was a pretty sad sight to see that bird. he worked his way around the hull and he went around the

front. >> and never saw him again. it's one of those little things that you don't notice, and in fact i was out there with a couple of other news media, and there was a tv crew, and one of them was right next to me and he point out and he said, "look at that dragonfly." and once i zoomed in on it and made a frame i could see it had oil on its wings and i saw its feet couldn't move off of the reid. he was stuck to the oil on that piece of marsh grass. it's quite something to see something that small impacted by the oil after flying over that rig at 4,000 feet while it was fully engulfed with flames. to see the macro and the micro was a privilege but a sad one at that. it's affecting everything from the insects, the little insects that are going to get oil on them, the birds are going to eat the insects and it's going to go all the way up the the food chain. the brown pelican just came off

the endangered species list not too long ago and they're getting hit pretty hard in barataria bay. i saw birds swimming in the oil. i saw birds fully coated in oil, and birds with oil on the tips of their beaks. so you know they're going out, getting fish, bringing them back to those babys-- because they're nesting right now, and the babies are hatching. and you know they're ingesting that oil, too. only one drop of oil on an egg can kill that egg. that rookery stands a very good chance of being gone, that they might all die. walking on the fringes of that island i was trying to get pirbs of the impacted bird and saw this little heron. he was down there looking lifeless. mud was very thick and gooey, and you could see the drops of oil on his underside. i don't know if he died from the oil or not but there's no question he was in proximity of the expoil had it on him. when you're out on that island, the sounds of life are so overwhelming. it's a very beautiful sound. you hear the ocean waves

lapping. you don't hear the sound of the death. you don't hear when they're suffering. you hear the sounds of life, but you see the ones that are hurting and you can see that they're not well. you really can't truly grasp the magnitude of it until you're out here. this thing has been gushing oil for over a month now and it's been nonstop. i think it's just beginning, this oil starting to come ashore. and what you're seeing now is going to keep impacting for some time, and it's got everyone on this coast frightened, frightened and angry. one oyster fisherman i was out with said, "this is not just the fish and the fishermen. it's our whole culture. all of southern louisiana is affected by this." >> lehrer: again the major developments of this day. b.p. began its top kill operation to try to stop oil gushing from the sea bed in the gulf of mexico. and wall street slumped again. the dow jones industrial average closed below 10,000 for the

first time in nearly four months. the newshour is always online, of course. sue saville in our newsroom previews what's there. >> we're playing closings attention to the developments in the gulf of mexico. you can keep taps on the attempts to bring the or leak under control by watching live video from the ocean floor. tell us how you think fors should deal with the leak and clean up the mess. send us comment and videos by using our link to the youtube response page and view more of gerald herbert's images and an animation that explains the top kill . >> woodruff: that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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narrator: 1944. stranded u.s. airmen are protected from the japanese by the so-called "wild men of borneo."