they ever will is pulitzer prize winning national security correspondent for the "new york times" mark mazzettiark, thanks so much for being here. (cheers and applause) good to see you. okay, you are the author of "the c.i.a. secret army and war at the ends of the earth called the way of the knife." so let's talk about this. are we doing this? >> yeah, it seems that certainly the u.s. is doing pretty much most of what has been reported over the last several months, including as had been reported in the last couple days, the spying on dozens of world leaders that -- and it could be more. >> is that normal? have we been doing this for a long time or is this the sort of thing that obama started? >> i don't think obama started it. i think it was going on before obama. it was clearly going on during president bush. >> stephen: okay, because he says he didn't know it was happening. do we believe that? >> well, it's -- it's hard to imagine the president didn't know all of these leaders' communications had been tapped. >> stephen: the ultimate question is, is obama blameless or clueless? (laughter) >>