captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. the u.s. commander in afghanistan, general stanley mcchrystal, was summoned to the white house tomorrow to explain his criticisms of administration officials in a magazine story. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, the general issued a swift aapology but his comments drew fire from the pentagon and the white house. >> we look at the fallout with mark thompson of "time" magazine and retired generals dan mcneil and merrill mcpeak. >> ifill: then judy woodruff

gets an update on how the government financial rescue program is working from congressional watchdog elizabeth warren. >> lehrer: on the oil spill story, the obama administration vowed to appeal today's decision blocking a six month ban on deep water drilling. we have a debate. >> ifill: and spencer michels reports on privacy concerns over cell phones that track and share users' whereabouts. >> if you are publishing your location to the world, anyone including a stalker or a thief or the government or an advertiser or anyone else can go and look at that information. hence, the threat. >> lehrer: that's all hi owed the tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by

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station from viewers like you. thank you. >> lehrer: general mcchrystal, commander of forces in afghanistan, faced removal after he and his aides were quoted mocking president obama and his top advisors in a magazine article. mr. obama called the general to a meeting at the white house tomorrow and he had this to say after meeting his cabinet late today. >> general mcchrystal is on his way here, and i am going to meet with him, secretary gates will be meeting with him as well. i think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed a poor ... showed poor judgment , but i also want to make sure that i talk to him directly before i make any final decisions. >> lehrer: at issue, a lengthy rolling stone magazine profile in which mcchrystal and his

colleagues spoke derisively about president obama and his top aides. the piece depicts mcchrystal as wary of the president's mission right from the start a year ago. when appointed to lead the afghanistan mission. at their first oval office meeting, mcchrystal was pretty disappointed, an aide told rolling stone, because mr. obama didn't seem very engaged. at the white house today, the president's spokesman was asked about the president's reaction. >> i gave him the article last night. and he was angry. >> how so? >> angry. you would know it if you saw it. >> lehrer: in response to a question about mcchrystal's future, press secretary robert gibbs said.... >> i would say all options are on the table. >> lehrer: he said the president and mcchrystal will likely meet one on one. >> general mcchrystal is a ... has

... has fought bravely on behalf of this country for a long time. but there has clearly been an enormous mistake in judgment to which he's going to have to answer. i think the magnitude and the graveness of the mistake here are profound. >> lehrer: the magazine article recounts an open disagreement the two men had last year over troop levels in afghanistan. at the time mcchrystal said without 40,000 more troops the u.s. was headed for mission failure. and then at a speech in london the general said the u.s. would not just focus on defeating al qaeda. that was the suggestion of vice president biden. mcchrystal called such a strategy short sighted. president obama castigated mcchrystal for overstepping and called for a full strategy review before event ally approving an increase. i found that time painful mcchrystal told rolling stone. i was selling an unsellable position. the article also

recounts aides to mcchrystal ridiculing the vice president and one aide calling national security advisor james jones a clown. the general himself had harsh words for u.s. ambassador to afghanistan carl ikeen berry who last year questioned mcchrystal's counterinsurgency strategy. here's one that covers his flange for the history books mcchrystal told rolling stone. now if we fail they can say i told you so. mcchrystal has spoken bluntly about the war effort in the past including just last month with the newshour's geoffrey brown. >> brown: as we sit here now, is the u.s., along with its allies winning the war in afghanistan? >> i think in the last year we've made a lot of progress. i think i'd be prepared to say nobody is winning at this point. >> lehrer: today the general's top civilian media aide submitted his resignation and mcchrystal issued a written apology. he wrote, the profile piece was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened. secretary of defense robert

gates said in a statement that he recalled mcchrystal to tomorrow's white house meeting. he said general mcchrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment. at a senate foreign relations hearing chairman john kerry said the general's fate is in mr. obama's hands. >> my impression is that all of us would be best served by just backing off and staying cool and calm and , you know, not sort of succumbing to the normal washington twitter about this for the next 24 hours. we have troops on the front lines. we have a major mission that we are in the middle of. >> lehrer: mcchrystal still has the confidence of afghanistan's president hamid karzai. today he called mcchrystal the best commander and urged president obama not to replace him. still, the fighting has taken no break for controversy. two nato service members were killed in attacks in the south.

one last night and one today. for more we go to mark thompson deputy bureau chief and pentagon correspondent for "time" magazine. retired general dan mcneil who commanded nato forces in afghanistan from 2007 to 2008. and retired general merrill mcpeak, air force chief of staff from 1990 to 1994. he was among a group of generals who campaigned in 2008 for barack obama. mark thompson, where do things stand right now? is mcchrystal on his way out? >> well, jim, i think it's important to note that this story hit washington this morning like an i.e.d. nobody could understand why general mcchrystal would say such things or his staff. it's important to point out that this isn't an argument about policy. it's not a general being insubordinate to a president. it has to do with personalities and somewhat sophomoreic comments that both he and some of his closest aides made to this reporter. the key question is the president might get a sense or

a good feeling if he cans mcchrystal simply because this is the second time this has happened in less than a year. but on the cusp of the u.s. and nato effort toward taking over kandahar and taking it back from the taliban, it may be a decision he really can't aafford to make right now. >> lehrer: what's the best word on how in the world this happened. mcchrystal himself said this should not have happened. how did it? >> he spent close to 30 years in special forces. unlike other generals who have spent years interfacing with reporters, with congress, with allies, he was always behind closed doors. he was in the black world. he was a so-called snake eater. he parachuteed into afghanistan last year and all of a sudden the flood lights of the world media were on him. some people suggest that him and his close circle of aides also drawn from this realm weren't up to the task of dealing with the 21st century

media. >> lehrer: general mcneil, how do you see how this could have happened? do you find this rather unusual? >> jim, it is out of character with stanley mcchrystal. i've been traveling most of the day but i got home about two hours ago. one of your producers provided me electronically a copy of the article. the article does contain some things that are unfortunate and completely out of character with general mcchrystal. i think the question at hand is, are these things to egregious that he should be replaced? the answer to that is you have to weigh it against what he's doing for the country, what he's doing for the alliance. the answer is clearly no he shouldn't be replaced. >> lehrer: back to the original question. what would possess general mcchrystal to do something like this? based on your experience, how does something... these things don't normally happen. why would it have happened in mcchrystal's case, do you think? >> i think that there's a chance that he and the boys may have put their guard down around this reporter. as i understand the reporter-- and i will not criticize the reporter or the article or the

publication for which it stands or comes from, i should say-- but it's written in prose. it makes them seem almost flippant. makes them seem almost arrogant. i know these guys. that's not how i would characterize any of them. >> lehrer: general mcpeak what's your explanation in i know you don't know for the fact but what do you guess is the explanation for how this happened? >> unlike dan mcneil, i don't know mcchrystal so i can't give you a personal profile. but it's a mystery to me, jim. i cannot understand why a four star general serving as a theater commander with very high political responsibilities , policy responsibilities, would say some of the things in this article. i can't explain it. >> lehrer: do you believe it's a firing offense, general mcpeak. >> yes, sir, i do. but i don't know if he should be fired. that's two different

questions. he's done something that would merit his firing. but like dan mcneil said, what is the situation on the ground in afghanistan? who have you got to replace him? i mean there are a number of practical questions that would that might come between you and actually firing the guy even though... it's a firing offense. >> lehrer: general mcneil, is it your view that it is a firing offense but you shouldn't be fired for the very reasons that general mcpeak said? >> well, the article is unfortunate. but that's not to say that i'm... that i would say it's insubordinate. what the issue will boil down to is do you construe this to be insubordinate to the way that it ranks with other dimensions of u.s. history in the past. i understand it's a violation of u.s. code against office holders and whatnot. but my read on what i was provided is there's not a whole lot there put to

mcchrystal in quotes. there's a lot of iny end owe. there's a lot of generalizations about what some of the members of his staff said. maybe the issue here is that we take a look at the team. they've been together for a long time. i know most of them. they're very good guys. maybe the team needs to be shuffled around a little bit. >> lehrer: do you think that would do that, general mcpeak, just reshuffle the team a bit? >> my inclination would be to support mcchrystal. i think first a couple of reasons. first, he has a very tough problem. this is mission impossible he's working on in afghanistan. i don't think it's helpful to him if you have retired senior officers weighing in against him. i would initially like to support him. for another reason too. i don't know him but what i've read about him said he's a warrior. sometimes warriors are frank, to the point of bluntness.

they're hard to get along with. but they're pretty nice to have, good to have around when it's dark. so my inclination would be to give him all the support we can. my question here is a judgment call. now i agree with dan mcneil that maybe rolling stone made more out of this than could be attributed directly to mcchrystal. you know, he's not quoted directly on a number of these things like calling jim jones a clown. that's not a quote from him. so forth. but it's also pretty clear that these were his guys and they thought at least they were reflecting his views. so the question you have here is how good a judgment does he have? how smart is he? is he smart enough to solve what is a really difficult problem in afghanistan? that's the question that the president has to ask. >> lehrer: mark thompson, you've heard what general

mcneil and general mcpeak just said. what does your reporting reflect about the reaction has been within the high levels and other levels in the pentagon since this broke? >> in the military there is a big split. some people say, including senior officers, these got to go. there's no choice. mostly because this is the second time it's happened. he was chided by the president last october following his remarks in london that were perceived as taking a shot at vice president biden. others say, as tony mcpeak just pointed out, this guy is a special operations commando, has done that for 30 years. he's not a banker. we shouldn't be surprised when he doesn't talk like a banker. now a reporter hung around allegedly for a month. they were basically snowed in in europe because of the volcano that kept them grounded. he spent a lot of time in close confines with these folks. obviously they said some things they shouldn't have said.

the sense from the military is civilian control is absolute and it's a brittle and bright line. you cross it at your peril. so plainly the sense from most military folks is, yes, this is a firing offense but they split on whether or not they believe the president should take that action. >> lehrer: what is your reading of how secretary gates feels about this? >> secretary gates obviously is the key advisor here to the president. he met with mcchrystal today. he's playing his cards very close to his vest but he issued a statement following mcchrystal's first snafu where he said, this kind of advice should be offered privately. so once again for whatever reason, mcchrystal has transgressed. the question is going to be will secretary gates allow him to transgress twice? >> lehrer: general mcneil, is it your feeling that if somehow mcchrystal survives this that he can still

lead the forces in afghanistan? >> absolutely. i think if you were to check those forces, you'd get that same vote. >> lehrer: you also said that this kind of thing does not reflect your knowledge of stanley mcchrystal. what did you base that on? >> i think that the episode back last october that mark was referring to has been blown all out of proportion. it's not consistent with what i know of that event. >> lehrer: he doesn't talk this way? he doesn't.... >> no, no, no. >> lehrer: he doesn't talk this way among his own.... >> he does not disparage his chain of command. he does not disparage those who work for him or those who are his peers. anyone who has searched with him and by the way we should correct the record. it's not 0 years in ops. he's men a chair a chute soldier, straight infantry soldier, army special forces and, of course, our high special forces.

he's covered all bases. it's completely out of character with him. i again point out to you that what i read much of it is innuendo. >> lehrer: general mcpeak, you say you don't know general mcchrystal, right? >> that's true. although.... >> lehrer: what has been.... >> i would just add to what dan said. he spent a year at the council on foreign relations. he spent a year at harvard. he's in a position where he reports not just to the president but he's a nato commander. he has to deal with heads of state from all the nato countries. i mean, there is a very big political element in what he has to do. counterinsurgency is in many ways political fighting par excellence. so the issue here is judgment in dealing with the policy aspects, the political aspects

of his job. i have no doubt that every guy working for him in afghanistan is very high on him. he's a warrior. but the political element of his job , i mean, this guy took on the president, the vice president, the national security advisor, ambassador holbrook, ambassador ikeen berry, everybody up and down the line. it doesn't show a lot of judgment. >> lehrer: is just going to be the key word, mark, when it's all said and done? >> i think so not only mcchrystal's judgment but the president's judgment in how he deals with it. some of mcchrystal's allies have said this guy has been in a tough job not only for the past year in afghanistan but before that at the pentagon and before that as head of special operations. i mean he has been in an intense pressure cooker for a long period of time. you know, maybe he just needs to take a little breather. >> lehrer: give him a break? >> at least keep reporters away. >> lehrer: okay.

mark thompson, generals both, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, overseeing the financial rescue program. drilling in deep water off shore. and tracking cell phone users. but first the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our news room. >> sreenivasan: president obama told health insurance companies today not to use health care overhaul as an opportunity to raise rates. the health care law's major benefit, expanding coverage to 32 million uninsured, doesn't go into effect until 2014. at the white house, mr. obama said if law was not an excuse for insurers to try and increase profit. >> insurance companies should see this reform as an opportunity to improve care and increase competition. they shouldn't see it as an opportunity to enact unjustifiable rate increases that don't boost care and inflate their bottom line. >> sreenivasan: the president also announced a package of consumer benefits including a ban on insurers denying coverage to children in poor health.

a new plan to combat the problem of homelessness was unveiled today by the obama administration. it aims to end veteran and chronic homelessness by 2015 and eliminate homelessness among families and children by 2020. to accomplish that, the strategy would provide more affordable housing options and better access to sustainable employment. it would also ensure that assistance programs are integrated with health care and education. a key member of president obama's team is stepping down. a white house spokesman confirmed budget director peter orszag will exit before the next budget is written. orszag is the first high-profile member to leave the administration. during his tenure, congress passed the most expensive economic stimulus program in u.s. history. senior members of the u.s. military defended efforts to prevent suicides among the armed forces. but at a senate hearing, they did acknowledge a shortage of health specialists to diagnose and treat mental illness. the u.s. army's vice chief of

staff, general peter chiarelli warned the kinds of stress facing soldiers are growing. >> it's not only combat stress. it's individual soldier stress and family stress. when we look at those across the continuum, what we're seeing in the army with the high tempo we're on today that a soldier in the first six years he or she spends in the united states army has the cumulative stressers of an average american throughout their entire life. >> sreenivasan: in the u.s. army alone, 163 active duty soldiers have committed suicide through may of this year. 245 army soldiers committed suicide in all of last year. in the republic of congo, at least 48 passengers died when their train plunged into a ravine. the derailment happened on the line between a coastal town and the capital of brazzaville. more than 400 people were injured in the crash. a government spokesman cited excess speed as the main cause of the accident. britain's treasury chief announced the sharpest budget

cuts and tax increases in decades. belt tightening measures include a sales tax hike to 20%, a new levy on banks, and higher capital gains taxes on the wealthy. the treasury chief, known as the chancellor of the exchequer, said the austerity measures are necessary to slash the country's $1.3 trillion debt. >> this budget is needed to deal with our country's debt. this budget is needed to give confidence to our economy. this is is the unavoidable budget. i am not going to hide hard choices from the british people or bury them in the small prints of the budget documents. >> sreenivasan: osborne said britain currently has the largest budget deficit of any european economy except ireland. on wall street today, stocks were down on new concerns about the housing and banking sectors. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 149 points to close at 10,293. the nasdaq fell 27 points to close above 2261.

those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: the $700 billion financial rescue program known as tarp is set to wind down this fall two years after it was created, but there are still questions about its effectiveness. that was the subject of a capitol hill hearing today. judy woodruff has the story. >> woodruff: when congress authorized a rescue for banks and other institutions at the height of the financial crisis in 2008, it created an oversight panel to ensure accountability. chaired by harvard law professor elizabeth warren, the panel has spent months grilling industry officials. today it heard testimony from treasury secretary timothy geithner. >> to date, more than half of all the money dispersed through the tarp has been repaid. tarp investments have generated $2lln additional revenue for tax payers. >> woodruff: that money has come from large banks who

repaid the government. but major sources of friction remain including a part of the tarp program aimed at helping homeowners avoid foreclosure. >> what is the metric for success here? is it 120,000 families saved over 15 months at a time when 186,000 are posted for new defaults and foreclosures every month? >> you look at its results family by family, foreclosure by foreclosure, change the monthly payments, but recognizing that and on this, i think we agree, these programs were not designed and could not have been designed responsibly to try to prevent a set of foreclosures that tragically were probably unavoidable. >> woodruff: geithner acknowledged the government will likely lose money on the bailout of insurance giant a.i.g., but he said overall

the program helped stabilize the economy at a pivotal moment. >> i think that the american public was left with the impression that the government of the united states came in and wrote checks for $700 billion to our nation's largest financial institutions, and that they will never see that money again. the reality, of course, is very different. as i said we've only put out about half of that authority. we have more than half back. those are the facts and realities of this program. it is a remarkably effective program . >> woodruff: out of the hundreds of billions of dollars originally authorized, the congressional bunk it office ... budget office estimates that ultimately tax payers will lose $109 billion on the tarp program. and with us now is the panel's chair elizabeth warren. thank you for being with us. >> good to be here. >> woodruff: we heard secretary geithner say today he thinks the tarp program has worked remarkably well. tax payers are getting most of their money back.

should that be the main measurement of its success? >> well, it should be one of the measurements. look, it's always part of the measurement that the initial action very well may have pulled us back from the brink of a depression. the big question is what are we going to do with the money now? tarp is winding down. there's three more months to figure out whether or not we actually have adequate stability in the financial institutions and what to do about moment mortgage foreclosure. we only have this limited period of time to adjust the programs to change the programs to try to deal with those problems. >> woodruff: let me ask you about the home mortgage foreclosures. you had a very animated exchange with the secretary over that question. >> we did. >> woodruff: he says the success as we heard him say can be measured family by family, that it was never intended to help everybody. >> no one disputes that. of course it was never intended to help everybody. but it was intended to help somebody. the problem we've got... let me put it this way. this is a program that is

saving a tiny number of people ultimately by getting them in to affordable mortgages that the estimates are they'll be able to sustain over time. for every one of those families that goes in, there are many, many more families who never make it. the kinds of numbers we're looking at? we're looking at mortgage foreclosures that stay well over a million families this year, next year, the year after that, the year after that. that has implications not only for those families but for the financial institutions that are holding those mortgages, for the construction industry, for aur overall economy. we have a serious problems and a limited amount of time to get ahead of it. >> woodruff: what's your understanding of why the administration, why the treasury department isn't doing more? >> it is ... it's as if we had a boat that's taking on gallons of water. they're trying to bail it out

with a teaspoon. i'll give you an example. this program has now been in effect for 15 months. it has an allocation to try to deal with its very large problem. the allocation is $50 billion. and so far, they've actually spent less than 200 million on mortgage foreclosure relief. it is a badly designed program that, from the beginning, was too small, too slow, couldn't be scaled up. >> woodruff: elizabeth warren, you also expressed concerns today about the number of banks that you said are dangerously exposed to commercial real estate. what did you make of secretary geithner? >> he said he's comfortable. i just have to worry. we have 3,000 of the 8,000 banks in the united states. by the definition of their own regulators, they are dangerously exposed on commercial mortgages. we see a problem that's coming

that's getting bigger in the years ahead. and six of the 19 stress tested banks, just to give you an idea about concentration, six of the 19 stress tested banks have commercial real estate mortgage portfolios that are larger than their tier 1 capital. this is an area, just to give you an idea, by the end of this year commercial real estate mortgages will have shrunk in value, the property underlying those mortgages, by about 50%. this is a big problem. it's a problem in our future not in our past . >> woodruff: i listened to your exchange with the secretary. he didn't seem to be nearly as concerned as you are. is this a definitional difference here as much as anything else? how do you explain that? >> you know, i do have to say, i really wish that the secretary had said your numbers are wrong. or some part of it you're not seeing. instead what he said is the problem isn't as bad as we thought it was going to be.

smud. >> woodruff: separate question. the financially regulatory reform legislation came up today at the panel several times. i know it's not officially underyour purview as chair of this panel but as someone who studies the financial sector, what do you think is good about what's moving through congress and what do you worry about? >> i think the consumer financial protection agency is good. we don't know until the final details are there but it is is a strong agency. it's right up to the edge. you take much more away from it and it won't be enough to get the job done. right now the big issue on that is whether or not car dealers ought to have an exemption, not have to follow the same rules of disclosure and honesty in their loans that everyone else is going to have to follow. but the consumer agency looks good. the other pieces ? in the right direction. the real question is whether they push hard enough. whether we get enough done in this round of reform. >> woodruff: what would be

your definition of enough? >> well , enough that we feel like we wound real risk out of the system. that's hard to do. you know, we always have to remember what it was that brought us this crisis in 2008. we talked about concentration in the financial services industry. here we are two years later in the industry is more concentrated. the big are bigger. there are fewer small banks, so we have less diversification in the industry. we have not yet dealt with the problems of derivatives with these shadow markets that impose a lot of risk on the overall financial system but not on the rest. until we deal with that, we continue to live at risk. >> woodruff: will your panel be hearing from secretary geithner again? before tarp expires in october and before your panel expires next spring? >> we will certainly invite him. that's the best we can do. i call on a regular basis and ask if he will come to talk with us. >> woodruff: elizabeth warren,

chair of the congressional oversight panel. thanks very much for coming. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, gulf state lawmakers rejoiced today as the obama administration's plan to suspend deep sea oil drilling was dealt a setback in court. oil continued to pour into the gulf today as a federal judge in new orleans ruled to block president obama's effort to impose a six month ban on deep water drilling. in his decision, judge martin feldman said the government should not have ignored the safety record of other oil rigs in the gulf. are all airplanes a danger because one was, he wrote? are all oil tankers like exxon valdez? that sort of thinking seems heavy handed. a white house spokesman said the government would immediately appeal the decision. more than a dozen companies sued to overturn the ban after the obama administration

expanded what was initially a one month suspension last may. >> we will continue the existing moratorium and suspend the issuance of new permits to drill new deep water wells for six months. >> ifill: industry executives argued the ban would cost tens of thousands of jobs and millions in lost wages. louisiana governor bobby jindal who has opposed the ban praised today's ruling and asked the federal government to let it stand. >> the bottom line is this. the fact that the federal government can't do their job shouldn't cost thousands of louisianaians our jobs. what we're saying very simply to the administration is i hope they'll consider this decision. >> ifill: ken salazar tried to reassure lawmakers on the senate energy panel that the ban would only be temporary. >> it's the pause button. it's not the stop button but it's the pause button. it's a pause button so we can make sure if we move forward with

drilling in the outer continue netal shelf that it can be done in a way that is protective of people and protective of the environment as well. >> ifill: earlier today at an oil conference in london, transocean, the owner of the sunken rig, criticized the obama administration's approach. ceo steven newman told reporters there are things the administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six month time limit. b.p. also came in for criticism. protesters twice interrupted a speech by b.p. chief of staff steve westwell who was standing in for ceo tony hayward. other oil executives at the conference warned that the deep water drilling ban was ... would cripple world energy supplies. the court decision did not end the debate. for more on what's driving it, we turn to rayola dougher, the senior economic advisor at the american petroleum institute which opposed the moratorium. and kiernan

suckling, the executive director of the center for biological diverse diversity, an environmental protection group that supported it. what did you think of the judge's decision today? >> we welcome the decision. i'm sure that the folks along the gulf who stood to lose their jobs are pretty happy to hear that decision as well. >> ifill: listening to the president again as well. what his decision did was to suspend granting of permits for new oil drilling. why was that off shore deep water oil drilling, why was that such a problem? >> because it will impact thousands of jobs. it would have cost millions... actually even over a billion dollars in terms of investment moving forward. it's a big problem for the industry and for the people who would have been losing their jobs especially in the gulf. louisiana senator... i mean the louisiana governor said they could lose as many as 20,000 jobs, just in the next couple of months alone. last month in the united states in the whole country we added 41,000 civilian jobs. this would have been a big

impact on a region that is already reeling from the impact of this accident. >> ifill: as you heard, the judge ruled or said that the... actually he used very tough language saying that the president and the department of interior was arbitrary, its was overreaching. why is he wrong? >> because deep water drilling, as we've seen, is a very, very dangerous activity. neither the oil companies nor the government has the capacity to fix a spill of that magnitude. so when you take an action that is irrevocable, that you cannot fix it when it goes wrong, you have to be very, very careful. the judge didn't take that into account. >> ifill: what is it that the administration could have done perhaps to avoid this outcome, perhaps, you know, i don't know, a more temporary, the one-month halt that had originally been proposed. why wasn't that good enough? >> well, the problem here is

very, very deep. you've got an agency, the mineral management services, which is extremely corrupt and ineffective. you have technology that is is way out past our regulators' ability to control it. so it's not a kind of quick-fix situation to go in and fix in a month. we really need to take that six-month timeout, figure out what we're doing and stop this dangerous activity until it's done. if we have another deep water oil spill in the next six months, the government is already swamped in its ability to deal with this first one. it will be doubly catastrophic. >> ifill: rayola dougher what about that? there's a possibility this has happened once. why not twice? >> we've had 30 years of operation in the deep water in the gulf of mexico operating safely all this time. the government took immediate action when this spill occurred and went back and inspected all of those rigs. they all passed inspection.

the industry formed task forces in the interim that reported to the department of interior on off shore safety as well as off shore technology. we're not waiting until the final commission comes forward. we're taking action now. but to assume that all of those other rigs are not safe, i think is a stretch. we do agree with the judge on that count. >> ifill: you mentioned jobs. jobs that would be lost as a result of this moratorium. fishermen and shrimpers and other people whose jobs would be lost if this doesn't get fixed right. >> absolutely. everybody wants to see this fixed right. i mean everybody is really focused on the safety issue and on safety moving forward. i don't think anyone cares more right now about what happened, what to do, how to fix it than the men and women that work in this industry. they are really focused on this issue right now. out front about it and very concerned. that it be addressed and that it be addressed so that the american people really are assured that this is safe,

that we can do this and that we can proceed. >> ifill: kieran, this seems like it's about calculating relative risk. how do you do that in a case like this? >> well, it is about risk. what we can say about deep water drilling is that it doesn't fail often, but when it does fail, it's catastrophic. it's very similar to the nuclear industry. in that sense. up to now, we've been very cavalier about it in saying, oh, it's rare. it will be fine and just ignoring that catastrophic impact. those days are over. >> ifill: we're talking, rayola dougher, about 33 wells of the deep-water wells as opposed to, i believe it's like 3600 oil wells which continue to operate. so why not just take these 33 off line? >> you would think that number sounds smallment doesn't it? >> ifill: is there a lot of production. >> absolutely. >> would be anywhere between 80 and 100,000 barrels a day

just within a six month period alone. the thing about the jobs there's only about 250 people working on these rigs. they work in shifts. about 125 each. but then you multiply that times 33 rigs. you're already up to thousands of people. then you multiply that by the three or four or five jobs that are supported by that job on the rig. you have a very serious economic impact just in the jobs. but then in terms of the income, in salary alone, the salary in one month from those jobs can be anywhere from 165 million to 330 million. that's in wages lost. and it has repercussions throughout the entire economy. there's no parameters on this. it's six months and then what happens? we're saying we've done the inspection. we can move forward with new safety procedures, without shutting these rigs down. these rigs shut down, they start moving to other areas of the world. we lose this production and we lose these jobs. it's at a critical time for

louisiana and for our nation. we can't afford to do this. >> ifill: kiernan, what's to say that a temporary moratorium does not become a perm net one? >> well, it may become a permanent one, but we as a nation have to go through a process of rationally figuring out what is safe, what risks are we willing to take? there will be an answer at the end of that. to simply say let's keep doing the risk while we study it simply doesn't make sense. to ignore the tens of thousands of people that lost their jobs this month due to b.p.'s oil spill, the billions of dollars that have been lost this month due to this spill, the tax payer money, small business money, and say we're going to ignore all that. we're going to put all those people at risk because the only thing we care about is oil jobs, that is bad public policy. it's just unfair. >> ifill: a chance to response.

>> no one is talking about putting anybody at risk at all in these. we're talking about how to move forward, how to guarantee safety as we move forward. all of those rigs have been inspected. they all passed inspection. we're moving forward on the task forces to see if there's anything else, if there are any gaps in this system. is there any way to improve? >> ifill: don't we know that the mineral management services hasn't really been enforcing these inspections? >> well, we do know that the men and women that work in these industry take these tests very seriously. they do look to safety and they do it all the time. they build in redundant systems. they care about the viability of their operations. they have every reason regardless of whether someone is looking over their shoulder or not, they are focused on what happened with technology? what happened with safety procedures? what is different? what can we do better? how can we do this? they are doing it. they are a safe record for 30 years of doing it. they have a proven record.

>> ifill: i gave you the first word. i want to give mr. suckling the final word. >> it's important to note that every single one of these 33 rigs out there kpas femented from full environment... was exempted from full environmental review. they're not known to be safe. the mineral management service dropped the ball. they did it once with b.p. and it's been catastrophic. and i just don't think we can let it happen again. it's time to stop and figure out what's happening and develop a good, rational and safe policy. >> ifill: kiernan suckling and rayola dougher , thank you both very much. >> thanks for having us on. >> lehrer: finally tonight, privacy worries raised by cell phones that can track and share your location. newshour correspondent spencer michels reports. >> reporter: what happens in

vegas stays in vegas is no longer necessarily true. these days cell phones here on the strip and throughout the country can pinpoint exactly where you are or whoever wants to know. your friends or others. and they can help you find almost anything you want. that's led to a fast-growing industry for entrepreneurs like walt doyle who developd the ware application for cell phones especially smart phones. the program can find nearby shows and entertainment , discounts and restaurants. let's say i want a kosher pa stramy sandwich, we're on the strip in las vegas, can you find one with your i-phone there? >> with where? let me give it a shot, spencer. what i'll do is just type in kosher. i came back with some results here for you. we've got a stage deli. that's a kosher deli. kosher chinese restaurant. >> reporter: the phone knows

where we are. >> yep. there's the map. >> reporter: right down the strip. wow. that's just one of the new uses of cell phones' location technology which got a big push after 9/11 when carriers were told by the fcc to make sure the location of the phones could be traced. today cell phones and smart phones rely on global positioning system or g.p.s. plus a combination of nearby cell towers to zero in on your location. >> we need more people down here. >> reporter: that proved extremely useful in haiti when rescuers used cell phone signals to find buried victims of the earthquake. the geo-location industry is booming. last year it took in $34 million. industry researchers predict phenomenal growth in five years time to $4 billion in 2015. four square is one of a number of apps including twitter,

face book, and google's latitude designed to keep people in touch or to meet new people. it's social media with a game and prizes built in. dennis crowley founded four square which has taken off. >> we have this process that we call checking in. basically you telling four square where you are. people check in at bars and restaurants and art gallerys and museums and playgrounds and airports. >> reporter: at a location convention in san jose, 55 attendees were already signed up on four square and could find each other including grady forest. >> i use four square for a couple reasons. one is to share my location with my friends. two it's to find out where my friends are and three it's to help me remember where i've been. >> reporter: it's mostly the tech savvy younger generation, says founder crowley, that uses it to connect with friends. >> deaf

definitely our demographics which is like mid 20s to mid 30s or so. it's primarily based around night life. what we're starting to see is parents with kids checking in at playgrounds to alert other parents about play dates. >> reporter: in fact parents have been using cell phones with g.p.s. to track their children for several years. verizon wireless provides what it calls family locationor for $9.99 a month but some people say that in the wrong hands, such devices can facilitate stalking. kevin bankstone an attorney with the electronic frontier foundation finds broadcasting your location troublesome. >> if you are publishing your location to the world, anyone including a stalker or a thief or the government or an advertiser or anyone else can go and look at that information. hence, the threat. >> reporter: the website please rob me, bankstone says, shows in a satirical way that if someone knows you're at a bar and not home, they can rob your house but his concerns over people disclosing their

locations go deeper. >> how protected is is the data that these companies-- be it your cell phone company or a location-based service such as a mapping company or a friend-finding service-- how long are they keeping this data? what legal protections apply to this data? >> reporter: it's not always easy to find out what companies do with your data. walt doyle says his company, ware, purges it at this end of every day. >> let's suppose i go on to your service, ware, and i look for an aids clinic, can anybody get that information? can you use that information? is that a danger for me? >> certainly not. i mean, no one can see that information. number one, everything that everybody ever does with us is encrypted sunday morning many of the services require the user to choose to share location information. carriers like verizon and companies like google say they protect privacy. but for many users that's not

a big concern says rob messerow who organized this wireless convention for c.t.i.a.. >> if you don't want them to you don't opt into it. for a lot of the newer generation really nobody under the age of 30 has any expectation of privacy. >> really? you're exaggerating. >> i'm exaggerating, of course, for a fact. but people in their 20s and 30s are putting all this private information up on the internet. it's okay. they seem to be okay with it. >> reporter: eric blumberg runs an app called smarter agent that allows a user to find homes for sale nearby or in other cities. >> if you download an application and you're saying i'm here, find me, you're asking to be found. so what's the danger? >> reporter: the danger, argues attorney blankstone is that company can keep and then divulge location information to the government or to others. >> even if you're just aiming at your friends in the next bar, these companies are obtaining this data.

so then the question becomes what does the government or civil litigant have to do if it wants that information? >> reporter: bankstone and others claim that law enforcement and the government are too easy a time getting cell phone information or data stored on servers an increasing practice. to remedy that, a coalition has been formed by the electronic frontier foundation, google, microsoft, the aclu and others to ask for a revision of the 1986 electronic communications privacy act. the technology has changed so much since then, they argue, that the law is out of date. >> what's especially needed in this area is for congress to step in and to clarify and strengthen the electronic privacy laws that cover this area. >> reporter: the coalition members want to protect digital information from easy government access. without taking away tools the police need to investigate crimes. they say a judge should have to issue a search warrant

based on evidence before tech companies give up location or other information. meanwhile, entrepreneurs, big and small, continue to introduce new location-based products like this sam-sung smart phone with lair that provides what they call augmented reality, a look at that the world that is augmented by computer-generated images. >> you can see the kind of radar icon there. you have all these different people who are tweeting. >> reporter: such devices will intensify the debate over who should get access to the increasing amount of information available in the digit al world. >> lehrer: the major developments of the day, the top u.s. commander in afghanistan, general stanley mcchrystal, was summoned to the white house tomorrow to explain his criticisms of administration officials in a magazine story. president obama said mcchrystal showed poor judgment but he would speak to him directly before deciding if he would fire him.

and a federal judge in new orleans blocked a six month moratorium on deep water drilling projects. a white house spokesman said the decision would be appealed immediately. the newshour is always online, of course. hari sreenivasan in our news room previews what's there. >> sreenivasan: we talked to politico white house editor craig gordon about the fallout from general mcchrystal's remarks. on newshour extra, our site for teachers, find a lesson plan on off shore oil drilling that asks students to explore all sides of the debate. plus as south carolinaians choose a republican candidate for governor, patchwork nation looks at what the state's politics say about this midterm election year. all that and more is on our website, the newshour .pbs.org. >> lehrer: and again to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the iraq and afghanistan conflicts. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available.

here in silence are 11 more.

>> ifill: that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> lehrer: 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 bank of america , continuing to help fuel our nation's economic growth. chevron. this is the power of human energy. bnsf railway. and by the alfred p. sloan foundation, supporting science, technology and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st

century. and the 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.