mr. sparapani, if you would start by giving us a snapshot of what facebook is. >> guest: facebook is one of the fastest growing new communications tools. it's a company that's six years old, and our mission is to make the earth more open and connected, and we do that by providing people a free tool whereby they can share information with anyone, anywhere at anytime. and it's turned into a fabulous success. so far we have over 400 million active users worldwide. it's really become a phenomenon. >> host: what countries don't permit facebook or block facebook? >> guest: so we are often times blocked by china, occasionally vietnam or regularly vietnam, that started in november of last year. >> host: why? >> guest: you know, it's a remarkable question. we're not sure. this is not a company with any political agenda whatsoever. we are a vehicle for communications of our users. so whatever our users feel like talking about with their family, their friends, their business associates, that's what we do. we're the intermediary that allows that communication to take place, so it's unusual that coun

mr. sparapani. he served as a senior legislative counsel at the american civil liberties union prior to joining facebook. now, as is your old organization happy with your work at facebook? >> guest: i don't know, i hope so. seems like the mission ahead of the aclu was not terribly different from the mission i have now at facebook. the goal was to maximize privacy and free-speech. primarily for folks here in the united states. now that we have at facebook 70% of our users outside of the united states i feel i do the same things, maximize privacy and free-speech in real-time with a communications tool but i get to do it on a much bigger stage. it is a worldwide populous, so if anything i think these two visions are remarkably complementing each other. >> host: just to go back quickly to the australian example, what is the impetus of this trillion government for the censorship? >> guest: there've been a variety of incidents over time and i think this is not a typical. we see this here in the united sta

sparapani today on "the communicateors" on c-span. >> now an event with michael mccallister. he talks about rising costs in the u.s. health care system and the legislation making its way through congress. mr mccallister speaks before the detroit economic club for about 45 minutes. >> thank you. as the presiding officer, i have been asked to do two things. one is to give a brief reflection on the history of the detroit economic club and then introduce our speaker. when i reflect on the 75 year history of the detroit economic club, i think of my father, a son of detroit, a self-made man, and a member of the detroit economic club. my father was put in an orphanage when he was 5. he ran away at 13. that ended his formal schooling. he got into the peacetime navy, got out, and the only work he could find during the depression was in alaska, keeping a two- mile section of the railway between anchorage and fairbanks a free of snow. during those long winters, my father took out every book in anchorage and fairbanks libraries. he took out every record. he taught himself english literature, mathematics, physics, and to enjoy opera. when he got out of the navy, he took advantage of the gi bill and te

sparapani saturday on "the communicators" on c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: steve emerson is the executive director of the investigative project on terrorism. mr. emerson, if you could start by telling us what that is. guest: it's an organization i founded in 1995 to track the activities, investigate the operations of radical islammist groups on american soil and their ties to international terrorism overseas. it followed the production and broadcast can of a documentary that i had done in 1994 for pbs called "jihad in america." the investigative project on terrorism, now 15 years old, has amassed a repository of close to five million documents , 50,000 hours of reported video and audio of radical islammist groups gathering conference, as well as many other types of data. host: why did you start this project in 1995 or start 9 documentary in 1994? guest: good question. i had been a reporter for cnn in 1993. and right after the first world trade center bombing in february of 1993, cnn asked me to do a documentary on the roots of that bombing. i already had some prior knowledge of the extent to which radical islammist groups had morphed from bein

. >> host: tim sparapani of facebook, cecilia kang of the washington post, thank you both for being on "the communicators." >> guest: my pleasure. >> host: thank you. in >> mr. speaker, a message from the president of the united states. >> mr. speaker, i'm directed by the president of the united states to deliver to the house of representatives a message -- ♪ >> a discussion, now, on the use of the filibuster, a parliamentary maneuver that blocks action on legislation unless three-fifths of the senators vote to end it. speakers include new mexico democrat tom udall who wants to change rules. the center for american progress action fund is the host of this event, it's about two hours. >> good morning, everyone. i'm jim thurber, i'm directer at american university, this is a joint forum with the center for american progress, and i want to say at the very beginning before we get into the program all of us are saddened by senator reid's wife's accident, injury of her daughter. his wife is in serious condition, if you didn't know. they were rear ended yesterday at 1:00 by a tractor-trailer on interstate 95. they're both in the hospital right now, and a moment of