. >> lehrer: and gwen ifill talks to biographer joan biskupic about supreme court justice antonin scalia. >> he says i read text, i read the constitutional, i'm an originalist, i do not let my religious views come in. and i don't let any other personal views come in. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's pbs newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by: >> what makes us an engine for the economy? plants across america. nearly 200,000 jobs created. we see beyond cars. >> chevron. this is the power of human energy. >> we are intel, sponsors of tomorrow. the national science foundation. supporting education and research across all fields of science and engineering. 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: the official story of how the airline bomb plot eluded u.s. security was made public today, and at the white house, president obama ordered changes in the handling of information

and joan biskupic has written about the highest court since 1989. >> i think it goes a certain kind ofter. we're all in it of course for the chase and for information, but we tend as a group to be a little more of a bookish crowd. we all carry yellow highlighters with this. we love to read opinions and look back at president. i think all of us appreciate the law, and joy. and i think it draws a different kind of reporter that way. it's on a school year cycle. it draws a lot of us have gone to graduate school, law school. we somehow don't want to break out of the school year cycle i think. >> the supreme court is the most mysterious branch to the public. they are not recognizable generally to the average person on the street. and then they speak to the public through their opinions. so in some ways, they are very public, because anything they do that will matter in your life, will be down on black and white, in a court opinion. but yet, they themselves will not be publicly announcing that before a camera. so there is a real ministry to the supreme court. also, face it, it's the law and