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a national day of mourning for the people killed in last weekend's mudslide. we begin with stories on former president george w. bush and it is in in "the washington post." the washington post is calling it blame game, the former president again this year in the mid year election. 202-737-0001 for republicans this is what the piece looks like in "the washington post" on the campaign trail, he is living quietly in dallas, far from washington's political news cycle. he has traveled to haiti and joined facebook. yet less than three months before this fall's vote it is almost as though he has never left politics. democrats have decided to blame any and all problems on former president bush and the republicans around the country rally against government spending even turninging on the ex-president. and even recently accusing the former president of runaway spending, called the bush blame game and from bloomberg's business week, back so soon, on the bush tax cuts. we'll have more in just a moment. and president obama spending the weekend in the florida gulf coast. this is the front page of the of the new york daily news released by the white house photographer. there were no independent photographers to show the president swimming in the gulf coast. joining me julie pace from the associated press in panama city, florida. what is the news that came out of this or is more a photo opportunity for president obama? >> it is really a photo opportunity. it is really about showing an image to people, a clean gulf coast. we didn't see the president getting in the water, the official photo that did not let the media get near him in the gulf. it is a little interesting that the one image they wanted people to see is the one that people won't see. host: and it is the front page of "the new york daily news." what is the significance of having a white house photographer taking this photo versus some other news organization? guest: this is a white house that has billed themselves as the most transparent white house ever. we have to take them at their word. the second is a little humorous as you remember when the president took a trip to hawaii after the election in 2008, there was photos of him shirtless in hawaii, and there was a joke that the president wanted to avoid that and and by handing out one photo, we don't see him shirtless on the beach. host: and the president talking about his determination to make sure the gulf coast is cleaned up and also pointing out that it is just over a month since that well has stopped leaking oil. here is more from the president yesterday. >> the cleanup effort and beaches along the gulf coast are clean, safe and open for business. that is one of the reasons we're here. the governors and mayors invited us down to enjoy the beach and the water to let our fellow americans know they should come on down here. it is spectacular. come down here because it is a beautiful place to visit. host: yet this is all of 27 hours that the president is spending in panama city? guest: it is a 27-hour trip. theres was criticism that the president and first lady were urging other americans yet planning their own family vacations to north carolina earlier this spring and maine, and spain, and this weekend to martha's vinyard. host: saturday following the president's remarks friday evening at the white house just two blocks from ground zero, a clarification of the remarks but the president saying that freedom of religion is fundamental to our constitution. there is an issue about what the president said friday night versus what he said yesterday. what the white house says is that the president cannot walk back any of his remarks. he meant to say he supports the right right of any religious group to build a place of worship and that the american people have to respect that right. he said he wouldn't comment specifically on whether this group in new york should building a mosesing on ground zero. >> we will talk more about it on "news makers." let's look at this photograph from inside the the new york daily news saying they did not meet the press for the gulf dip. does that fly with locals? guest: this will be a long-term restoration to get the tourism back up. whether one can bring back a whole industry remains to be seen but these people are hoping they will see more gulf travelers vuments of this trip. host: the question of the morning from a number of outlets including "the washington post," both parties are playing the bush blame game, having george w. bush to attack has been convenient, and his book will be coming out a week after the election and he will doing interviews begin with matt lauer. joseph is on the line in frk frk. good morning. caller: thank you for letting me give my comments. george bush didn't do anything wrong. americans borrowed so much money on credit cards. we shot ourselves in the foot, but there's worse things than that. do you know about the fema camps in oklahoma and northern texas, set up after obama became president. these were built right away. the chain link fences go up ten feet tall and then have barbed wire. if you were going to keep somebody out, you would pull the barbed wire out. why is it pointed in? this man is a fascist nazi. host: we'll go to gilbert in alabama. the bush blame game. what is your response to that? caller: good morning to c-span. as an independent who understands the far right and the far left of this country, i feel that george bush has his amount of blame to be shared and the republicans and democrats, also. we need to take a look at the figures and the ratings that the president has. his rating is less than 50%. 50% of the people don't believe these people are taking us where we need to go. we elected are these people to solve the problems even though bush might have started them. what have they done? host: elena from pittsburgh, good morning to you. caller: good morning. i wonder why you call it in the blame game in the newspapers. it is cynical to call it the blame game. host: what would you call it? caller: i wonder about the rest of the republican pearlts when they have had bush in for eight years and then when they got a revelation, they know everything how to fix. no, it doesn't take obama to fix anything. host: it is obama's white house but still bush's world. this is a quote from robert gibbs that got a lot of attention telling the hill newspaper "i hear them saying the president is like george bush. most people ought to be drug tested, i mean, it's crazy. only when we have a canadian healthcare plan and e eliminated the pentagon. even if he spoke inartfully, the comparison stings. democrats have made george w. bush a focus of their fall campaign, speeblg speaking at a texas fund-raiser monday, the president saying, do we really want to go back to that or keep moving our country forward? " a quote from president obama and robert gibbs responding. bill is joining us from the republican line, boyertown, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. gibbs should be drug tests, i mean, look at his tie. the other thing i would say is they are alike. obama and bush, they spend money without taxing. we're handing a world to our kid kids and grandkids that is going to be a worse world than we live in. they spend without taxing. i would say that bush and obama are the same. host: from our twitter page, this is from vivian saying before we start bashing bush, i want to remind us that after 9/11, he told us we are not at war with muslims." and the wisdom and folly of the bush tax cuts in the bloomberg news, which is what the congress will be dealing with in mid september. george joining us from the independent line in baltimore. good morning. caller: good morning. we ought to remind people of what occurred in the last 30 years, the policies that were put in place are the reasons why we are in this pickle that we're in. the former famous quote, you are wren titled to your own opinion but not your own thoughts. this is what hurts the country so bad. republicans are trying to get people to forget that these are the ones that they supported and they are trying to run away from this. you don't have to remind them that the bush administration along the g.o.p. has playbooks in position. we have to right the ship. obama administration could not turn it around and many months that would restore it, in eight years, i would say 30 years bog reaganomics is still in effect. host: democrats have controlled the senate since 2006, november, conservatives will dominate in election day." from bush's point of view, all this negative attention may not be a bad thing. criticism probably doesn't keep him up at night. he is not a man of regrets or indecision and this talk might help him sell books. whether it helps anyone win an election is an open question. larry joining us from memphis, tennessee on the democrats' line. good morning. caller: first of all, george bush was a pork barrel fan and then he got into office and -- host: we're still with you. go ahead. caller: george bush was appointed by the supreme court, and right after he was appointed, he dealt with 9/11 and then gave us two wars for afghanistan and iraq and then gave us $5 gas, and then destroyed medicaid and medicare, and then we had the financial crisis. he dug a big hole for america and for obama. host: thomas on the republican line from rich month, r richmond, virginia. caller: they have a saying bush lied, people died. the one that comes to mind is we played the blame game and nothing got meter. can the democrats get us out of this mess? the answer is no because we have the opposite of what we needed. we needed less government, not more government, despite a cocaine addict addicted to powder cocaine if he smokes some crack, he will be better. >> this is as piece from jay norlinger in the national review, and he writes "one curious thing about vice president biden is his habit of referring to the president by his first name in public. i mean, and he did this at the democratic issues conference in june and again in july. he mentioned that barack and i sat in on a meeting and then said barack are reeling." he says i don't know about you, but i have never heard of a vice president referring to a president on a first-name basis in public. dick cheney always referred to the president as the president or president bush, face to face, i believe he called him sir. some reporters pointed this out. the top dog, i don't believe bush's father ever referred to ron or ronnie, and did nixon say ike? unthinkable. how about frank to franklin? unbelievable. that was on the cover of "the national review." next is troy in richmond, indiana, independent line, good morning. caller: yes, how are you doing? host: fine, thank you. caller: i think barack obama is doing a great job. to say we're blaming bush for the mess that barack obama walked in is an accurate account. we have to take into consideration that there is opposition in congress in the form of republican party who is not giving an inch to accomplish anything. host: michael from houston, next. caller: i want to agree with the last caller. it is not a blame game with bush. i think it's just with countries allowing this blame game, we just need to understand that congress needs us to give a chance to make the right decision in the future. that's what i want to say. host: from our twitter page, you're coming in here on this sunday morning, you're entitled to your opinions as you insist that the g.o.p. raig nomics has hurt the country and we don't need to know who is responsible, and from dana eubanks, who says "in education, the obama/bush comparison is spot on. obama has taken the worst aspect of no child left behind law and amplifyed it. obama has underlined the importance of no child left behind to determine which schools will be closed despite that such evidence is hurtful in the process, without gaining much support from conservatives." our question this morning, the bush blame game, will it be a factor in the midterm elections? fred, raleigh, north carolina, good morning. caller: i just heard a couple calls back, someone saying the effect and wonder if this would carry over into the fall elections, and i have to tell you that it certainly is going to the people who i speak with. this has gotten to the point of a rolling joke at this point, every time something happens around here, be it political or non-political. the joking kind of caption as well, must be george bush's fault. we had a bad rain yesterday so parking lots were jammed full. this must be george bush's fault. these are all people who have come to resent this type of blame game and its republicans. it's independents. i've not been terribly involved with the tea party because i haven't had the time, but i have no doubt that the tea partiers are in that as well that. will be, i suspect, predict a rallying cry that is going to get an awful lot of people to the polls in the midterm elections. host: do you think it will be referred to as a wave election? caller: i think it could be, if i understand wave elections correctly. hoif 1994 was a wave election, where one party looses control and the other gains. caller: yeah, i was thinking about the reasons for it. in 1994, people didn't like the healthcare thing that the clintons were putting together or trying to put together, and going out and bashing everyone they could, and in the meantime, now, if that started a wave, the wave with the bill already in place was 67%% of the people wanting it gone, that might be a tsunami if the 94 was a wave. i think the other way to define a wave is to get traditionally independent voteers to be strongly lined up on one side. i suspect they will not go with the obama side this time, if they do produce a wave, it's going to be any coalition of republicans and independents, and perhaps these tea partiers. host: i will leave it there. thank you for the call. kathleen flannery says "obama is having a great time cleaning up after bush, paying for the tax cuts and bush's agenda." more on your calls and questions this morning regarding the bush blame game. christopher hutchins is dealing with cancer, and in "the new york times" "immitations of immortality." police are praying for him, a confirmed atheist. he doesn't mind nor is he changing his mind. on august 6, there was an interview posted at his home that has been circulated and in it, jeff are ry goldberg asked him how he was doing. "i'm dying, he said. i would be lucky to live five years. he dismissed the notion that his cancer would leave him to make a tardy confession of faith and if it did, if such a confession would be valid. here is an excerpt from earlier this month. >> part of the battle, because there is supposed to be a struggle with cancer, is the one which people must battle. your don't read that they die from a long battle of old aim. they battle with cancer. are you realistic, fatalistic? guest: i'm a realist. age something depressing. i would be optimistic to say another five years. host: the entire 8-minute interview is available on the atlantic website and the piece in "the new york times." back to your calls from the bush blame game, the focus, the bush tax cuts, but the extension of the bush tax cuts is the opening salvo of a generation defining fight with medicare and social security spending set to balloon as baby boomers retire and grow old. what do americans expect from their government? how much are they entitled to and how much are they willing to contribute and what are they willing to do without? today high unemployment is coloring the debate over whether to extend the tax cuts and democrats are open to continuing them figuring the economy can use all the mep it can get. it does not end much of a signal about fiscal fortitude. there's another reference to former president bush, part of the tax cuts this fall and the bush blame game that will likely be a factor. what do you think. abbey is joining us from redmond, oregon. good morning, independent line. good morning. caller: i very much enjoy watching c-span and we see more reality on c-span than almost anywhere else. this is stunning to me, absolutely stunning. you know, we had a democratic congress on both sides for -- since 2006, and you know, they weren't very cooperative. i can tell you, and bush constantly courted them. since obama has taken office, he has done nothing but whine and moan, and he has wanted to be the president since god was a boy. it's stunning to me how american blacks and american latinos and latinas, and i don't think they're captured as the black population, and i understand that, but they're the ones suffering most, and it's stunning to me that he is the chief promotor of, like, shovel-ready projects. he said your insurance won't go up and guess what? they got more of me. he is misleading and moving to the middle. the gibbs comment was planned. tax breaks, the rich are pulling for it. 50% of the rich get money back. i'm stunned by this man. when you can't find the harvard law review and the position he held that, you can't find his college papers, give me a break. >> host: from the paper, "bush blame game, cheney's closed door meeting with oil mongrels contributed to the oil crisis" and maxine waters and charlie rangel, the opinion of harold jackson who says allegations and racism, many american minorties can't help but feel there is a dual standard for american politicians. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. this should be blamed and i'm shocked at the media and the so-called journalists and these newspaper writeers and these use these things to go by like 9-11, president bush was talking about the economy how it was going down, and you know what he said? you can go back and research some of the his speeches because you can't wipe them away, sorry, you just cannot. he said that government has plenty of money and i'm going to help them spin it, now, you need to go back and do the research and find out why we do this and it is because of the bush republicans. the democrats got in in 2006 and the republicans did not allow them to do anything. they did not have enough of a majority to pass anything. i can't believe that some of these people, you know, they get amnesia so quick. host: this is from "the new york times," voters are mad, but this is time it is no surprise to democrats. in the last two elections, democrats picked up 55 seats in the house, earning a majority that house party leaders know will narrow the question is whether are republicans will win seats but rather democrats believe their futuress will be worse, and this discontent will stay around until this august." we will talk more about polling with mark murray, the nbc news wall street journal poll out this week showing democrats and republicans getting low marks. he will be with us in 15 minutes. steve is joining us from the albany, new york on the republican line. caller: how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: i want to make a point since i only have a minute. if we go back to 1999, it was bill clinton who signed the law that actually made banks easier to do those kind of fraudulent investments. it made investment banks and come mer shall banks exactly the same. now, when bush came into office in 2001, the left continued protested against him saying that he wasn't the president. now if you look at history today versus back then, there is similarities. the left painted bush as hitler. they painted hitler mustaches on him as he was being protested in the street. now, if you also look at the economy from 2002 to 2007, the average unemployment rate was 5.9%. i did not hear any kind of protest or complaint about the economy back then when there was actually 52 months, consecutive months of job growth, now, also, when obama continuously said he brought us back from the brink, he he did not. if you look at history, october 2008 when tarp was passed, that bill stopped the bleeding and that was passed under bush, so, you know, it is just amazing how the democrats have the amnesia because they're the ones who continuallyly forget that what they're complaining about when people are protesting against obamas, the birthers, you listen that he's not an american, they should look back at what they were doing to bush back in the streets in early 2000. there is a lot of sim lair tizz. the cover story in "the new york times" sunday magazine, andrew cuomo is called the second coming. andrew cuomo is not politically his fatherrer's son. he is not tem premental, the reincarnation of eliot spitzer or so he wants to prove. he wants to redeem albany or maybe himself. has this witter comment saying he is anti-free enterprise, bush is at fault this morning. joe, thank you for your comments. hank is joining us from bloomfield hills, michigan. good morning to you. >> good morning. thank you for c-span. sure. >> i follow things closely and the bush cheney administration, this republican administration has been a disaster. that was 8 years of disasters, and nothing was done for the people, and they showed no care for people. you can imagine if obama came with the things that bush had to work with, how much better off we would be. it is amazing how he has accomplished so much in a short time. he has given us cash breaks, stimulus checks, healthcare, saved the auto industry. he has given us supreme court judges. it's just so much i can't believe he has accomplished so much in such a short time and look what he is fighting against. my goodness, it is like he is spreading a gauntlet line against these tea baggers and a republican, who is just no, no, no, no. they don't do nothing. they don't have a program. they don't have any policies. they don't help the american people, and obama all he has to do is give them a little more time. what he's doing out there with the gulf, trying to help these people, get their game back together on the gulf coast and all the things that obama is doing, i think it is an amazing job he is doing. i came to find as an independent, i can't find one single reason why he i would vote for a republican. host: sasha say "bragging about bush and the recovery act, was that bush? " our friend james warren of the "chicago tribune" has a piece in "the new york times" editorial page on the late congressman dan rostenkowski, funeral services will be held this week for him and for former senator ted stevens who died in that plane crash. with regard to congressman rostenkowski, jim warren says, lost in the rostenkowski coverage was this, he came from a different chicago than that of mr. obama whose harvard pedigree and cerebral cool are far more in sync with the reality of this new far little understood city. the funeral will be in the same polish kath lib chush much his grandmother attended. it is mr. obama's chicago that carries aspirations for a bright future and a far cry from any gray somber met met metropolis with high winds an barbara loud mouth howling about and barroom loud mouths arguing about politics." caller: i just wanted to say that i agree with the last caller. my biggest thing is that everybody needs to stop slipping ought the blame on how obama is not doing anything, because we forget the mess that he had inherited, you know, so as well as all the states, you know, and all the governors and i feel they need to do their jobs, and you know, just give the man a chance. host: next is kathy, republican line, way co, texas. good morning. caller: good morningment i have to toitsly disagree with your last caller a lot of people are forgetting that when president bush took office the first term, then he had 9/11 hit. that didn't occur in the six-month period that he took office. that was the clinton administration. nobody wants to understand that and give responsibility on the democrats' side. i believe that we did a good job. our economy right now is very bad still. our unemployment rate is very high and where are the jobs? we're paying for people to go to school but where are the jobs? >> and "chicago is still a haven for cheap political crooks" is this viewer's sentiment. jonas, you're on the line. go ahead, please. caller: yes, i would like to make a couple comments. i'm going to say some things that i hope people would open their minds up to, and this, you know, this bush, this blame game, the fact of the fatter is that bush, like obama, both attended, i think one attended yale, and one attended harvard. what people don't really know is americans seem to get their news from either cnn or msnbc or what we have, c-span, but what i'm trying to say is that the president isn't the one who really calls the shots. i voted for obama, because i thought he would change things, but it's starting to look like the same presidency that it was before. the president didn't no only abolish it but tweaked it more. he said he would take us out of war. he is more into another one. he kept secretary gates, the general, the main guy that was upper the bush administration. he appointed timothy geithner, the ex-president of the federal reserve, as treasurer. this country started going down the drain, in '37 with woodrow wilson deciding to get off a standard and make the federal reserve. you can look up clips after his presidency. he came back and said it was the biggest mistake he ever made in his life, because what this enables us to do is you have government coming in with business, and they're part of one entity. host: thanks for the call. kilroy says this "news flash. a democrat is president. democrats control the senate, and democrats control the house." from the new york poaftd, obama mosque and backpeddles on saying he was defending the rights of religious freedoms but not giving the project his stamp of approval. john is joining us from canton, job, and said that we needed to buy health insurance. there is no jobs out there. i have 7 or 8 fellow graduates who graduated in teaching and they have been out of work for a year and a half with no job offers and the debt this man is leaving our generation, i don't think i will ever get to middle class, you know. i'm just scared to death of what this administration has done for me and the rest of my generation. host: how old are you, john? caller: i'm 24. host: good luck in your job search. caller: i appreciate that, thank you. host: this from brian saying "president obama's favorite phrases are "we inherited the previous administration and for eight years." meanwhile, bill kristol has today's editorial in "the weekly standard" called collapse. the left has collapsed. the political support has collapseed. historic repudiation of the president and the democratic party this fall, something on the order of 60 republican gains in the house, and it is claimed that intellectual integrity has collapsed. religious organization has had smarminess with the left. better to light a candle than curse the darkness, especially if you're not cursing the darkness but rather your fellow citizens. the cover story is kangaroo court, the tin international congressional court. next cal joins us from tennessee. good morning. caller: thank you for this question. it is something i have been thinking about for quite some time. the truth of the matter is they look at the whole eight years of president bush. we first took office in january 2001. nobody thought we would have september 2011 actually hit the free trade buildings or try to he destroy this entire government that we have today. if you look back, bush did a good job as far as recovery because it had a major he effect on our economy, with tax cuts and then in 2006, we had the best economy that we have seen in a long time. stock market was way up, new records. we saw also, people were empowered like. this we had four percent unemployment total. you can see what you want to, but when the democrats came into office in january 2007, a lot of things collapsed f we're going to blame anybody, blame the banks and the oil companies, that's who is really at fault for this. they're the ones who created all this mess. i appreciate obama trying to help but it is putting the cart before the horse. you don't worry about healthcare or cap and trade, what you worry about is putting people back to work. that's my comment. host: thank you. lee says "blame reagan. all conservatives thinks that reagan regrets the deficit he left." brian from oklahoma, good mork, independent line. caller: good morning. well, the blame is misplaces to discuss either bush or obama. the blame should be placed on the entire washington, d.c. establishment. the system works exactly as designed, to further empower the people so the elite can live the way they want to live and the only solution us people have is to take back the country, take back the counties, the states, 50 independent states working independent from washington, d.c., get away from d.c. d.c. is broke and cannot be fixed. it works exactly as designed. we've got an empire built. we're running over the country. the united states is the biggest pore supporter of islamic terrorism since 1953 we've been messing in their countries. when bush went over there in '91, we first got us stuck over there now and we will never get out. we have got kids dying in afghanistan, kids dying in iraq, 50,000 troops still going to stay over there. the blame game. you all go back and forth between bush and obama. blame all of them. host: this other viewer says "it's amazing how angry people are rat trying to fix this mess, but not the people who have created it." and kim writes in the new york daily news, more on robert gibbs, and maureen dowd saying "it's time for robert gibbs to step down as press secretary." kim writes "gibbs isn't immune from being can fire department he screws up but his recent ways of con contentious comments doesn't rise to the level of dismissal. there is no truth that i have offered an inflatable exit, and on the democrats' line, dwight from new orleans. host: please go ahead. caller: we shouldn't blame republicans or democrats. i fault the media. the media isn't reporting the real story, because the republicans, ever since ronald reagan was in office, their goal was to bankrupt the country. that's why they put tax cuts in. that's why he they increased spending, because their goal is to get rid of every social program that they don't like and if the country is in trouble and they cut social programs, that was their goal. ronald reagan was against social security and medicare and the republican philosophy, they want to get rid of welfare, social security, medicare and they're still trying to do it, so if the media would report the story and stop going for the sensational headlines and report the real motive behind the republicans, we wouldn't have no problem because then people would know how to vote. right now, people are voting against their own interests. the people were voting for republicans on social security and medicare are voting to get rid of their income. >> thanks for the call. the bush blame game. read more in "the washington post" and also bloomberg has a recent cover story on the bush tax cuts and the impact they would have on the deficit and also on the u.s. economy. some of the other stories or books you might be reading from "the new york times" and best seller list number 2 is the obama die diaries. michael lewis, number 4, and the outhigher saying coming back stronger by drew breeze is number 8. here to talk about the poll, what are you thinking about democrats, republicans and the midterm elections? but first a news update with c-span radio with the latest on this sunday morning. >> at noon eastern on c-span, you can hear replays of the sunday network television talk programs, issues this week include the economy, before midterm elections, the war in afghanistan and the proposed mosque in new york city. we begin at noon with "meet the press" as david gregory interviews general petraeus. at 1:00 on "abc's this week, the host welcomes republican senator bob corker, former new jersey governor jon corzine, and then a look at the economy with laura tyson on the economic advisory board and the chief of u.s. chamber of commerce, and chris wallace rep r. welcomes john cornyn, and senate sarmed services committee member jack reed and moody's chief economist. on "face the nation" at 3:00, bob schieffer talks politics with the chairman of the democratic national committee and governor rendell, a pennsylvania democrat, the former of the republican national committee, ed gillespie and national strategist ed rollins. finally at 3:30 p.m. on cnn's state of the union, kevin mccarthy and peter king and democrats chris van holland and gerald nadler. the talk shows reair at noon eastern. we start with nbc's meet the press, 1:00, this week and 2:00 fox news sunday and 3:00, face the nation from cbs and cnn's state of the union. listen to them all on c-span radio on 95.1 in the disk area and on sirius channel 32 or on-line at c-span radio.org. >> harry truman when he just of the seen as a senator from the opinion der grass machine in new york city -- of the pendergrass machine in new york city and senate historian donald richie on washington movies and the u.s. congress, a short introduction, tonight on c-span's q&a. >> i think it's important that i will stand up for the principles of the state of florida. i won't be part of this corruption or special interest. i'm going to fight only for the people of florida. >> and the c-span video library makes it easy to follow the election cycle, victory and concession speeches, all free on your computer, anytime. "washington journal" continues. host: mark murray the political director for msnbc. thank you for joining us. peter hart quoted a washington journal/nbc news poll as jetblue nation looking for the exit ramp s that a fair comparison to where the country is? >> guest: absolutely. when you look into the actual numbers of our poll, as peter put it very well, i mean, not only are they angry right now, they have actually cussed out somebody on the intercom, grabbed a beer and slid down the emergency slide. 64% don't think that the economy has hit rock bottom just yet. 58% think the country is often on the wrong track. 60% think this congress is eeth are below average or one of the worst, president obama below 50. everyone is angry and we're looking ahead to the midterm elections coming up, that is not a good thing for any politician, particularly those fam familiar with the incumbent party. host: from peter hart and his republican group and bill mcintyre. republicans in congress, 24% favorable. 46% unfavorable. you look at the democratic party, 33% favorable, 44% unfavorable. there isn't a good guy here at all. the democrats are seizing on the republican party's favorable rating, 24% as a sign that look, we are going to be in ok shape, that the public isn't just ready to hand over keys to the republican party just yet. whatwhen you look back in 1994, before republicans were able to take control of the congress, their numbers were much higher. that said, "the washington post" made a good point saying when you look in july 2006, a few months before the november 2006 elections, democratic numbers weren't that good either. i don't think we know what is going to happen in november, but it's clear that both democrats and republicans aren't looked at favorably by the electorate right now. host: there is no reveling for democrats and as i quote from senator chris dodd, who is retiring at the end of this year, chairman of the senate banking committee, democrats don't know how to celebrate, senator dodd said. in the face of this unyielding opposition, this president and this congress stepped up to pass historic legislation for the good of the country. "the new york times" lists the legislation including a 787 billion stimulus package, tobacco regulation, credit consumer protection, healthcare law, wall street regulation, tax cuts, credits and more. guest: this has been the most productive congress since the new deal when franklin roosevelt was president. however, when unemployment is 10%, no one looks at those achievements. they don't think things are going well. the b.p. spill in the gulf dampened opinions about how the country was doing. despite the legislative achievements, you look at that. that is something for congressional historians and president shall historians to look back 20, 30 years from now. right now, people aren't happy and that is clouding democrat successes right now. 32% of those questions say this congressional session was one of the worst, 28% below average, and republicans could see this increase in government spending and say that's exactly the problem. how do we pay for it with a $14 trillion debt? guest: right. some of the people responding thing this congress spends way too much did but there are democrats saying we don't like the republican opposition, so independents, moderates, conservatives, no one is happy in congress right now and whether you're a republican or democrat, you need to basically fasten your chin straps for a midterm election. host: charlie rangel and maxine waters, democrat from california, she said this on friday here on capitol hill. >> are you concerned about the effect four party? >> there is a lot of speculation about whatever happens on either side of the aisle prior to an election. people are speculate hog is going to win, how many seats will be lost. most of it is speculation. i think that each member must be concerned that they are representing their constituents, that they are doing their best job that they can possibly do, and that they are not only producing the public policy that the american public expects us to produce, but they are honoring all of the laws and they are living by the rule of law. that's all i can tell you. i am not about to try and get into what is a benefit or lack of benefit for either party. i want to deal with the case. that's what i want to deal with. host: the comments of maxine waters. we saw this in 2006. does this case mirror what we saw four years ago? guest: congresswoman waters was talking about a lot of speculation. she is right about the midterm. we don't know how it will play out. democrats really want to talk about the economy. they want to talk about jobs. this is a distraction for them. 2006, democrats promised to clean the ethical swath of washington and with republican misdeeds before the election, that wasn't helping. charlie rangel or maxine waters, this isn't a good story for democrats to tell. one irony is that the democrats taking control of congress tightened ethics policing that goes on on capitol hill. this is a consequence of that, by their own rules, and you're seeing what is coming with maxine waters and charlie rangel. there is the race issue. in the philadelphia enquirer, it is called allegations and racism, saying i don't think that the ethics charges against charlie rangel and maxine waters are racially motivated but as an african-american of a certain age, i can not divorce my feelings about the history of racism in this country." is that a fair comparison? guest: there has been racism, but when you look at the actual charges on maxine waters or charlie rangel, i don't care if you're white, latino, african-american, that these are troubling allegations, particularly in the case of maxine waters where it is alleged that she intervened on behalf of a bank that her husband had hundreds of thousands of dollars in to make sure it received bailout money. that's a big charge. if she wants to get her side of the story out, i don't care what your race is, that's a troubling charge. host: charlie rangel in new york this past thursdays and fry, a fund raiser at the plaza hotel and also speaking to reporters on friday saying he is going to speak about the ethics charges on friday and won't do so again. here is congressman rangel. >> as of today, i will not be able to entertain any questions that any of you have concerning a hearing. i personally have to prepare to defend myself for my family, for my colleagues, for my community, and that's all i've been after, just an opportunity to say i came in for 40 years ago with dignity and there is no question in my mind that there will be no obstacles, politically, or in the newspapers that are going to stop me from clearing my name from these vile and vicious charges that are not even included in the reports of the ethics committee. >> mark murray, what is the strategy behind his comments? guest: i'm not certain. he is taking a defiant tone. he wants to be able to defend himself. we saw him wednesday at his birthday celebration and saw the press conference on thursday. he is going to be going down swinging. the problem for democrats right now is that there is an epghtsics trial, it is not going to take place in august. it could be good news for the democrats. a lot of americans are on vacation. . host: join the conversation online at twitter. the tea party -- favorable, poll.rable in hthe guest: it was the first time when the favorable was lower than the unfavorable. democrats are using a strategy against republicans to tie them to the tea party, a highlighting the excesses of the tea party -- sharon engel, rand paul. the tea party has been a success so far because it has given them a shot of energy and enthusiasm heading into november. right now that tea partiers is doing better than the democratic and republican parties. host: the president, his approval rating on different topics -- overall approval is 47%, up two points. his handling of the oil spill is up at 50%. his handling of the war is 44%. his handling of the economy, 52% disapprove of the way he is doing it. guest: once the oil spill had been stopped, the president's numbers went up 8 points. when you look at afghanistan, and our poll was taken after wikileaks, and continued violence in afghanistan, those numbers went down. it is almost as if one problem was solved and other problems remain. the economy -- that is the biggest issue. host: this photograph is one of the photographs that will drive the conversation on sunday. the president in the gulf coast with one of his daughters. this photograph was taken from a white house photographer, not from an independent news source. some news outlets have published it. "the new york times" and others opting not to use it. guest: the president was asked a question about taking photographs, and the last time he went to hawaii, it was on people magazine that showed him without his shirt and proclaimed him one of the sexiest man alive. i do not think michelle obama and he wanted another type of photograph like that. certainly that is a news rooms across the country were people way how limited do you want the information? do you want photographs from the white house or do you wanted to have news organizations to have access? host: mark murray, we talked about this in our first hour -- he is back, george w. bush. there is also a piece in a bloomberg about the tax cuts. even republicans blaming bush's spending that escalated under president obama. guest: no doubt he would be an issue in this election and maybe even in 2012. there are many republicans to criticize the democrats to say it is unfair for the democrats and president obama to continue to argue that what they inherited and use bush is a campaign tool. it is interesting -- we looked at past speeches, 1998 presidential convention were at george h. w. bush was the republican nominee continued to criticize the jimmy carter even though it had ended nine years earlier. in 1992, republicans continued to criticize the jimmy carter. we saw democrats criticized herbert hoover generations after his presidency ended. my opinion is that all is fair in love, war, and politics. if those arguments are working, you will see the parties use those arguments host. host: robin joining us from austin, texas, independent line. good morning. caller: i come from the country of texas where some of us feel like we are a race of texans, and i know some how the beltway is going to blame -- of course, it is not being racist to blame us because we are texan, but yes, they will blame us. i know definitely hillary did not give overwhelming support here. sorry. i know we are always at fault. host: i am not sure there is a point there. guest: i went to school at the university of texas in austin and i am from texas. there is a feeling in texas where president obama was earlier last week raising money for democrats. that is a state that has been a favorable to them for a long time. even at his highest popularity, when he won in 2008, he only won 44% of the vote. it is a tough state for democrats. there are long-term demographic issues going on, but texas is always a fond place in my heart because that is where my roots are front. m. host: the front page of "the new york times" -- voters are mad ecause -- but it is no surprise to democrats. they are missing the element of surprise they had in 1994. guest: it's a great opint. point. i was in college at the time, and what we know and i was reading newspaper accounts of the congressional election is that everyone was caught by surprise. there were some people who had an inkling, but democrats were caught with their pants down. this time around, we knew the political environment for the last year and a half. democrats do after winning in 2006 and 2008, in many conservative areas, that they would be due to lose seats. historically, the incumbent party almost always loses midterm congressional el seats. i think every poll shows democrats that need to raise a lot of money. and they have to be able to point out the issue differences with their party. we are seeing incumbent members, democrats, do that. the question is -- what will work? it will be such a tidal wave of anger that sweeps even the best- prepared democrats, or will some democrats have been smart messaging it be able to survive? host: more is available on msnbc.com. mike joining us from myrtle beach, south carolina. good morning. caller: i would like to ask you to explain to the television audience of the bias of nbc news and the fat that msnbc and chris matthews and all those people are just rooting for obama and want him to succeed. this poll, your pulse have no credibility at all. this poll, conducted by peter hart and a democratic pollster, it has no credibility. to think that people actually believe what you people about on msnbc is just laughable. host: is there any survey or pulled you would believe? caller: i believe the gallup and rasmussen. anything with nbc news attached to it is just ridiculous, and everybody knows that the ceo of ge is in the pocket of obama. nbc news is out every day campaigning for the obama administration. they neglect to report news that is worthy of reporting. and they put their bias and a spin on just every word they other. host: i will give mark murray a chance to respond. it is a survey conducted by peter hart, but it is also conducted by a republican strategist working side-by-side in conducting this survey for nbc news and "the wall street journal". do you trust the "the wall street journal"? caller: i do trust them, but nbc news has their name on it first. host: i just wanted to get those facts out there so you understand. do you have a final point? caller: absolutely. i watched mark murray on msnbc and i watch chuck todd, and it is laughable the way they report the news. i would like the audience to listen closely to how they report the news and what they neglect to report. it is not only what the report and this been a put on it, but what they neglected to report and how they choose not to report things that could be or would probably be damaging to this particular administration. guest: steve, i appreciate you're pointing out that a republican is part of the poll. there are a lot of people in the political community, the nbc-"the wall street journal" poll, one of the gold standards. the view or ended up making a point, and there are some people who talk about msnbc because of keith olbermann, that they are a liberal-leaning their work. it is true that keith olbermann, some of the opinion people that are in prime time, come from the news from a certain point of view. i will speak for myself and truck todd. we try to be as fair as possible. we chat with republican sources. as journalists, what we have is our credibility. what i write or in appearances, we try to look at politics as fair as possible. we are talking about the midterm and firemen, and there is a very fair assessment on what will happen -- we are talking about the midterm and farm it. we tried to leave our opinions by the wayside. i tried to be as fair about the news, and we journalists have our own credibility to look at in we are just by our own work and that is what i would like to be judged by. host: "vanity fair" -- he says washington is broken and he pointed to a hyperkinetic media environment driven by the web, and all of the opinions out there, and how this president may have a tougher challenge than any previous president because the way the media works today. guest: there is something about that. we are in a 24/7, or second by second mode of blogging, reporting on the news, and by that instant analysis, we are missing some of the bigger picture things going on in the country. it is constructed to look forward or backwards. we are sometimes so caught up in a moment of trying to do what is happening now. this is a huge story, and we will devote the next two weeks on it. whether it is something robert gibbs says or something john boehner says. a week goes by, and everybody forgets about it. sometimes, we are not doing a good job of looking forward on the issues coming up. i do think that we as a journalist need to look at our work as technologies change and revolutionize what we do, it is important to step back and not only be fair in our own work but also fair in what we are doing and how we are covering the news -- it might impact people's views of american politics and american life. host: if it were not for msnbc, we will not get any real news. gail is joining us from the west river, maryland, on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. i think is funny to hear a southerner call from south carolina and bash nbc news when the republicans have had their own propaganda channel going, which has been proven over and over to falsify the news, right down to showing the wrong videos for different tea partiers eveny events. in listening this morning, most of them this information i have heard has come from the right who have called in completely mixed up about the facts, such as bill clinton created more jobs and then reagan and both bushes put together. it is interesting to me that the media allowed a george bush to live the country into a washington art and created a scenario whereby if you did not by his allies, you are on the side of terrorists -- if you did not buy his lies. you see this big to do made about acorn, which was prudent to be false. what concerns me the most, however is that people rely only on the news instead of reading the books that are written by the people who are involved in the serious incidents and situations that come up in this country. i find it just astounding that they would accuse your station, nbc, us being partial, because, you know, you can tune in to joe scarborough every morning and hear three hours of democrat bashing and miss statements on his program, which offers us the many "liberals" who are not really liberal at all. guest: the caller made a point, and there is something to be said about the politicization of the news media. whether it is republicans to claim -- who complain about msnbc or fox news. we are almost caught in the middle. it is disheartening when we are trying to report about the truth, that you are caught in the middle. sometimes people do not believe at all what you are going to say. i think i have the greatest job in the world, to be able to cover politics, so much energy and so much going on. it is disheartening with how politicized it has become. the caller made a point. i want to respond in the previous -- to the previous caller, there are some people who end up saying nbc is too liberal, there are other people who say, you guys are coming from general electric, that is a defense contractor. you guys are so corporatized media. it is almost a no-win situation. you are not appealing either to liberals or democrats, but that also is disheartening when you are trying to report on the truth. host: let's look at upcoming primaries in arizona. a race that has been getting a lot of attention. john mccain is with a widening lead over former congressman j.d. hayward. guest: we saw this a couple weeks ago that this would be the best primary in the country. a challenge from the right, the possibility that he could actually lose. what is interesting is that this has not been raised just yet. j.d. hayworth has not caught on in the polls. there are two weeks left. what has been impressive is that john mckean has actually controlled the issues debate. from 2001-2007, john mccain was the quintessential independent in this town, sometimes siding with democrats, sometimes having a more liberal voting record than his republican colleagues. he has taken the fight oto j.d. haywroth. orth. from the tactics. if you, john mccain has run a very good race -- from a tactics point of view. host: -- facing a challenge from a wealthy florida businessman. what is your take? guest: meek is now edging ahead of his challenger, jeff greene, a billionaire democrat who made a lot of his money off of the subprime mortgage industry and who also had mike tyson as best man for his wedding. a problematic résume a. jeff greene is incredibly wealthy and is bombarded the airwaves. this will be a great primary and it will impact the the general election in a three-way race for the senate between marco rubio and charlie crist. if meek becomes the nominee, that hurts charlie crist. we just do not know yet. that is why i am turning in on august 24, because that will impact the florida senate race. it might be the most entertaining race we see an election day. anyone could win. host: charlie crist was in town raising money from democrats. guest: one, the fact when you are an independent, you are not part of the establishment anymore, being able to raise money is one of the most important things. he is not able to go to a national republican senatorial committee or the democratic senatorial committee for help, he will have to go to people across the country. really, when you look at the issues, and he made some flip flops on issues, he is trying to appeal not only to democratic donors but also to independence, maybe some liberal-leaning republicans. the winner only needs 38%. each person is taking their own at calculus. rubio is running to the right. crist is trying to get a coalition of liberal republicans, democrats and independents. i have no idea whose formal work. it will be interesting. host: if charlie crist is the next senator from that state, does it benefit republicans or democrats? guest: probably with the democrats because of what has happened in the last year. the primary was so ugly and bloody that it is probably very hard. after making his independent move, it probably disqualifies him up from a caucusing with the republicans. florida voters will demand that from him, and it will be an interesting thing to watch. host: we will look at the next nbc news "the wall street and how" polls they view democrats and republicans. allen joins us, independent line, from houston, texas. caller: good morning. the poll you are discussing, and mainstream media programs in general are not discussing or uncovering in an adequate matter the disconnect between american people, main street american people and government, and the cause, or the reason lying beneath that disconnect is as serious a disaffection between the american people and our government at all levels, federal, state and even local levels. and that disaffection, we really need, it is not just a political game or a matter of winning points in elections. it really gets to the heart of solving the problems we have an america. and i think at that root cause is the jobs. we always talk about jobs in the polls and the media, but i think we talk about it in a superficial manner. see, america began losing out to manufacturing in this 1970's. -- when european and japanese finally recovering from the post-w a r era began to compete in a meaningful way with american manufacturing. guest: the caller made a good point in that there does seem to be a disconnect between washington and main street, in that what we've seen over the last 15 years in this country is that the people who have done well continue to do well, but there has been a shrinking of the american middle class. what happened with the bailouts in 2008, were we. -- our government put all this money in to resuccue banks. wall street is doing very well, but main street has not been. that is a constant source of criticism. the tarp vote -- most people credit that it stopped in economic collapse in this country, but most people are angry that the government did not bail them out. the people in the middle class, that is shrinking. people's wages are not growing below a certain income level, and it is tough. that is why we are seeing a lot of dissatisfaction in the country. the political party the best seizes on that says, i have a solution to be able to start restoring and actually have policies geared towards the middle class, and geared toward main street. i think it will be the successful party in the long run. that is one of the reasons why we are hearing so much anger. people are really angry right now, and they feel like everyone is taking care of the people who are well-off but not taking care of the people who are not well off. host: mark murray's political blog is available on the msnbc web site. he has written for "the new york times" and other magazines. chris joins us on the republican line from brooklyn, new york. caller: thank you for taking my call. thank you for showing up on c- span today. it is terrific to have someone from msnbc on. i think what you are not appreciating it in some of the caller's comments concerning by as is that there are commentators who were thrown off of newspapers for plagiarism. eugene robinson, it is always the commentary. even on your program. i think chuck todd is terrific. c-span is the gold standard when it comes to hard news and a serious questions and looking into issues. respectfully, i am asking you to look more closely at your own station and ask this woman that appears with chuck todd, savannah, is she really of hard news person or is she there just to balance off a morning program? host: do you watch fox as well? do you get the same sense when you tune in to bill o'reilly or you see laura ingram on fox, of karl rove? caller: i am a c-span junkie. in fact, whenever anybody asks me that question, i say i watch c-span. when you watch c-span, what you get is your morning program, you go through the newspapers. on msnbc in the morning, the only highlight "the new york times" and "the washington post". you go through everything. it is about balance. it is about getting to the core questions that are appearing daily. one thing that i think shows a bias of msbc, and keith olbermann is absolutely offensive in his name calling of people, calling them a stupid or robert gibbswhen does his white house briefing, he is almost doing a stand-up comedy routine there. he is ignoring reporters' questions. he is joking them off. he is not addressing them. chuck todd presses a little further. fleicher,s ari they would been held up as an example of how the administration is not taking it seriously. guest: i want to say good things about savannah, my colleague. i think she and chuck todd make a great team. as journalists, we are responsible for our own selves. all we have is our credibility. you could write one story that is the tough other republicans and it criticized for being a democrat or you might ask a question that is being tough on the democrats and be accused of being a republican. i appreciate the caller's comments that chuck tood fantastic. -- chuck todd is fantastic. i think he is a very savvy york. i think savannah is fantastic. if you look at the body of their reporting, it is hard to pick -- certainly there are people that come from an opinion ankle, keith olbermann. eugene robinson who comes from a more left-leaning point of view, and he would not agree with that. it is important for people to know that those of us who are trying to report on the facts and try to be as fair as possible, we get caught up in the middle. republicans do not think we are way to a liberal, and democrats think we are way too conservative -- republicans think we are way too liberal. i appreciate the comments he made. that is something i keep in the back of my mind to be as fair as possible. host: you also contribute to "meet the press". donna says, i think you should be asking people which news they think is fair. mary joins us from bethesda, maryland. you have the last word with mark murray of nbc news. caller: thank you. it is my understanding that during the bush administration, all of the war funding was an emergency supplemental. none of it was in the budget. in 2009, he brought our war into the budget. i wonder, how is it fair to compare deficit numbers that include the war to deficit numbers that did not? and why do television moderators let people get away with that? guest: is part of my understanding that there have been supplementals to pay for the war in afghanistan and iraq under president obama's administration. what is different, and i am not a military defense expert, but what is different is that they are trying to keep away a lot of other, some of the pet projects outside of those. so, i do think there have been at supplementals that have gone on under president obama. and i think that keeps the best apples to apples comparison. but we are a little bit outside of my expertise talking about this subject. host: there is a story in "the washington post" today -- democrats want kennedy's we go to run for his seat. it is the seat held by scott brown, the most popular politician in massachusetts. in an interview, they quoted mrs. kennedy saying she could not see yourself running for her husband's seat, but could not rule it out. guest: there are a lot of democrats that wish that she was running and not martha copely. it would be interesting to see what she decides to do. if she ran, should be the democrats' best chance. but scott brown is very popular. in 2012, that will be during a presidential year. massachusetts is a democratic- leaning state, but it voted for scott brown. it will be tougher for him, and he will weigh that in. he has taken some moderate positions on key senate votes right now. the political junkie in the hopes she runs, because that will be a fantastic race. host: we conclude by asking about the survey. the polling to place between august 5 and august 9. what is the margin of error? guest: 200 were conducted by cell phones we were able to contact the proper universe. the margin of error was 3.1 percentage points. host: mark murray, thanks for being with us. we would like to take a look at how the events weeks are viewed through the creative pens of editorial cartoonists. here is that look. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome sonal verma, the d.c. chapter chair of american immigration lawyers assocation. we want to go to the process of how those a become american citizens. what are the requirements for nationalization? guest: you have to be 18 years or older. you had to offend a legal resident for three years or far years.-- or five years. you have to provide continuous physical presence. you have to have continuous of physical presence. you have to have permanent residence for the five years preceding the time you file for citizenship. you cannot have committed crimes or done certain things against laws of the united states. host: as you look at the process, how has it changed in the last 50 or 100 years? is it more complicated or easier to become a u.s. citizen? guest: it is more complicated. it is more complicated to become of legal permanent resident of the united states. people travel worn out. the world has become global. so when people travel and they are a legal permanent resident, they are spending more time outside the united states and it is difficult to show the permanent residence prior for applying for the naturalization process. host: these questions are available from the web site of the department of homeland security. what is the rule of law? what does the judicial branch do it? why do some states have more representatives than other states? what is freedom of religion? what is one right or freedom and the first amendment? some of those born in this country could not answer those questions. guest: the immigration and naturalization service has a terrific website. anyone planning on filing their application can go to the united states citizenship and immigration service website, www.uscis.gov, and there are study guides. there is a list of 100 questions asked on the civics exams. there is a lot of preparatory material available so they can prepare and be confident going into their citizenship interview and taking their civics and english exam, which is another part of what is required in order to become a citizen of the united states. host: we have on line for those of you going to the process of applying for citizenship. that is 202-628-0184. otherwise, we have a dedicated phone lines for democrats, republicans, and independents. in talking about this segment, we discussed about what happened when folks came through ellis island from europe a century ago. what did happen to those immigrants here? how long was the process? guest: the process to travel here was several months on a vote. when they came to ellis island, they were herded into a large room, basically, a large area, and individually they would have to show where they were from, who were, what their profession was, and provide health screening. they would get screening there on the premises. now that is not part of the naturalization process. the four met at that time was a very primitive compared to what is now -- the four met at that time was very primitive compared to what is now. as we have now, it is a more organized process. we have the law available to allow for naturalization. back then, you were a chinese citizen. you are from china. you were not allowed to be a citizen. there were other rules at play that now are not available. host: i want to go back to one requirement, the ability to read, write, and speak english. we are a bilingual country. many people speak spanish. if you go to an atm, it is in english or spanish. in a recording, it is english or spanish, and many are critical of that. guest: i think the criticism is unfounded. to allow people to participate in united states, to make certain concessions to allow them to bank oor to move forward is fine, but i think, also, to have the english requirements in the civic requirements are necessary to show that they do want to become progressive members of our society, to participate. one of the the freedoms you get when becoming a citizen is to vote. to understand what the issues are, to vote, it is necessary to know english. host: sonal verma is with the american immigration lawyers assocation. harris arkansas, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: i do not have a problem with people who want to come here legally. it is people who come here illegally to jump over the fence and create a burden for our society. if they do the necessary progress to become a citizen, i do not have a problem with that. it is the people who come over here illegally, take the jobs, use up our health care, cause all the financial crises that california is experiencing right now. you know, we can be realistic about the problem, but government wants to get too involved in it and they do not want to do the right thing. that is my comment. host: thank you. guest: in order to become a citizen, you have to be a legal permanent resident and have a green card. that is not an issue that would affect the citizenship process, because you have to go through a number of steps in order to become of legal permanent resident prior to applying for citizenship. host: next is marked from miami, someone going to the process right now. mark, good morning to you. caller: yes, i am going to the process now. host: where are you from? caller: canada. i have been a resident alien for several decades. i love the united states and i want to star participating in the political process. my question is, when you are applying as a resident alien, you have to relinquish your resident alien card and its status. is it true that if you do not pass your naturalization test, that you have it then therefore lost your resident alien status, too? guest: no, that is not correct. you can only lose your resident alien status by appearing some of -- by committing some crime or fraud. you will not lose it by relinquishing your car. by not passing the sixth exam or retaining u.s. citizenship, you will not lose your legal permanent residents -- by not passing the civic exam. host: bonnie joins us from oklahoma on the democrats' line. are you with us? good morning. caller: i am 61 years old, and after googling the best place in the world, i find united states is not the best any more. host: were is the best? caller: norway. host: to you want to move? caller: yes. after living in 10 different states and the things i've seen in the people i've met, i am sad for our country know. guest: let me use your call to ask you about the reverse. if you have u.s. citizens who want to move to our land or norway, what is your process? guest: it depends on each individual country, just as the united states has a set parameter of laws to apply for citizenship. each, individual country outside the united states will have their own at method by which to determine who can be a citizen. in europe, the vast majority of countries have a points system which allows you to become a legal resident. then they have a certain period of time within which you have to file for citizenship of that country. but each country has its own laws and they are very different from the united states laws appeare. host: sonal verma is from the american immigration lawyers assocation. nina joins us from villanova, pennsylvania, on the republican line. caller: good morning. if one is applying and their parents are citizens of -- from india or pakistan -- what is the weight once -- the wait once the child, the citizen, has applied for their parents to come? immigrant lawyers that are not charging hundreds of thousands of dollars, do you know of any? i heard in some cases where the poor people are trying to get their elderly parents legally into the united states and they are having trouble with the process because these lawyers are extending these cases on and on it just to get hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes. i would appreciate that. one more question. there is a business be said that is offered to individuals wanting to invest in the united states and then they are offered a green card, i believe. i wish the obama administration would look into this policy, because they are asking for $1 million or more for some of these investors. if they could lower the borrower, invest in real a state, $100,000 investment, that would increase our economic situation and bring these immigrants, who are going through missouri. some of these developing countries, they want to come in legally, yet they cannot because of these economic issues. if they lower the borrower, and say you can invest in r, country you will get a green card. that will make it easier on everyone. host: thank you. guest: let me address your first question with respect to how long it takes a u.s. citizen to bring their parents from abroad. it takes less than a year to bring your parents from abroad. they come in as legal permanent residents and once they established their residency with physical presence, they can file for their citizenship within four years and nine months of having entered the united states. it is a quick and easy process, actually. your second question, with respect to the list of good attorneys available, you can contact the american immigration lawyers association and to do research. you want to look online for attorneys and see if they are members of the american immigration lawyers assocation. i would like to encourage everyone to steer clear of people holding themselves out to offer immigration advice or legal advice. they are not licensed attorneys. we have seen significant issues with respect to these individuals providing erroneous advice to people and causing more problems than they are helping with. so you do want to seek a good, licensed attorney. it should not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring apparent from abroad. it is a very reasonable thing that most immigration attorneys do. with respect to the investor visa, there is a tiered structure. it is a very complex situation. there is information available on line with respect to the base amount of investments needed and the requirements and which countries can participate in the process. there is actually some conversation happening right now as to whether or not they are going to try to introduce changes or introduce bills that will enable investment in the united states to be a better avenue by which people can enter and become legal permanent residents of the united states of america, and that is something i am looking forward to seeing more of. host: for more information, log on to alia.org. we also have all linked available through our web site at c-span.org. our producer is from trinidad. can he have dual citizenship? guest: the united states does not have dual citizenship, but if trinidad recognizes it, he can maintain his citizenship and all the rights and privileges that go along with trinidadian citizenship. whenever he enters the united states, he has to use a u.s. passport in order to maintain it citizenship here. host: as part of the process, you get fingerprinted. once that is completed, how long do you wait for the exam? guest: that is a million-dollar question right there. sometimes you can wait two months. sometimes you may be waiting six months after you did your fingerprints taken. it depends on where you are in the united states. each district office has its own processing time, but you are looking at a general period of 10-12 months from the time of filing for application to the time you are sitting for your oath ceremony. in the grand scheme of things, for everything else you apply for immigration, he is not as lengthy process. host: brian has this question -- true or false? our legal residents required to carry their green cards at all time? guest: the law states they are required to carry evidence of their legal permanent status. host: augusta, georgia. tell us your story. caller: yes, i just filed. i was going to the oath ceremony, but between the test i took, they told me i had a citation, a citation for disorderly conduct, and they told me i could not go through the oath ceremony unless is show good moral character. they dropped my citation and probation. and i am still waiting for that. host: where are you from? caller: i am from tunisia, north africa. i lived here since 1998 with a green card. i got a wife. i went through this process, and i was there until they told me i cannot go through because of that citation. guest: you have to establish a good moral character for five years. if the citation occurred during that five-year period of time, you have to start the clock over again from the time the citation occurred until the time you filed your application. it is not going to permanently bar you. and depending on what the citation is 4, it will not permanently bar you, but you may have to wait a little longer. host: our people from friendly nations given more priority? if you are from somalia versus someone from canada or great britain, are friendly nations given preference? guest: in the citizenship process, no. everyone is treated the same way in filing their application. caller: hi. i keep having to remind people that ronald reagan gave a huge amnesty when he was in there and i think it is too hypocritical for conservative folks to forget that and to act like the liberals today are being so soft on immigration and wanting to be so soft. if we are going to move forward, and reagan did not put down any more effort at the border, we will have to do that. we will have to crack down at the border and have to have a good idea requirement. but we will also have the re-do what he did with immigration. i write about that on my blog. paul brown, my congressman, things the civil war should not .have been fought have now in thewe united states is due to several factors. we have seen an increase in the number of people coming to the united states, but we have also seen an increase of the number of people staying here. in 1996, there was a law that was passed that said if you are in the united states for six months or longer, you are ba rred from returning for three years if you leave. if you are out of status for over 12 months and you leave, you are barred for 10 years from returning. what this law created was a hostage situation, where people who spend time out of status in the united states, and do not feel they can return to their home country because then it will not be allowed to return to the united states. you have to go through a waiver process and it is a very complex situation to qualify. so we have a lot of people here right now who without the 3 and 10 year bars, would be able to return to their home countries. we have not addressed that as a country. we just see the increase in number is compiling simply because we are keeping these people here. we are keeping people from returning to their home countries. no one wants to stay here and not be welcome, but we are not allowing them to return. host: dana joins us -- dan joins us from tulsa. caller: good morning. my fiancee is from mexico. it has spent 13 years. since then, she has been a model citizen, a single mother that has raised her child care. the child was not born here, a homeowner. owned her home for eight years as a single mother. and she had filed for citizenship. i am afraid she has lost in the system. you know, her english, she may not have worked on it like she should have come up -- it seems money is the key to everything, as in being able to acquire an attorney to represent her. i know you talked about it, but it seems, if you have money, you can get things taken care of. but just being a good citizen and working at all low-wage, the attorney fees are too much. guest: ok. i don't know if she has already filed for naturalization or she was a legal permanent resident. it sounds like she is going to the process and perhaps has not heard back. i do not know how long it has been since the time of filing. you can call the customer service line. you can call it. if you have received, you can ask them for the status of your case -- with a receipt. you can go to the website and plugged in at the receipt number and see where it is in the process. host: let me bring up the 14th amendment. some republicans call for repealing the amendment set in place after the civil war to make sure that slaves could be u.s. citizens. is that the right alternative? guest: i do not think it is the right alternative. amending the 14th amendment to appease a certain political goal is not what we do in the united states. the 14th amendment achieves citizenship for everyone in the united states who was born in united states. it did not discriminate against who you work. there is a small line of supreme court cases that upheld the 14th amendment in various situations. it provides equal protection to people within our borders. and to use the 14th amendment as a pawn for political purposes is, frankly, disturbing. host: sonal verma is with the american immigration lawyers assocation. yusef joins us. good morning. caller: i think we should let all the mexicans, all the haitians, all the jamaicans, we should let all of them into the country because this is god's land. this land belongs to god. if we allow them to come in, we can fight with these jews, who divide people with immigration. host: wait. why do you say that? caller: man, look at the history of the jews? anytime you thought anything jewish, you cut people off. you do not hear people. host: i would say the same for any ethnic or religious group. caller: if you look at the history of them, they have always divided people by race, by color, by finances. it is the jews behind all of this stuff. there is no such thing as immigration which should allow everybody into this country. this is back to the original land. we're with the jews be at? host: did you want to respond? guest: no. host: where are you from, dom? caller: i am originally from mauritania. host: how long have you been in the united states? caller: june, 2002. host: why did you come here? caller: political problems in my country. i feared for my life. after so many prosecutions in mauritania, i felled my country and applied for asylum. . . host. host. blah blah blah. caller: bra blah blah (202)737-0002 (202)737-0001 (202)628-0205 (202)628-0184 sonal verma.org cspan.org.org julia angwin (202)737-0002 (202)737-0001 (202)628-0205 (202)628-0184 (202)737-0002 (202)737-0001 (202)628-0205. (2. guest: anyone says anything from 12 to 18 million. host: host: it's red herring. it's not the economic or political issue that people make it. i think that's very true to a certain degree. i think the arguments that are made for the economic problems that are created by people who are here without documentation have been blown out of proportion. you have a lot of people in the united states who are hard working, paying taxes, who will never get tax refunds, never obtain any money back in social security, they are paying into the system. when people come here, whether they're undocumented or here on proper visa, or whether they're legal permanent residents, they send money. they go to the grocery stores, restaurants and malls. the sales taxes, revenue generated for small businesses by people in the united states are helping our economy, rather than hindering our economy. it goes back to why do we have these undocumented people in the united states? they are here, that increase in numbers has been seen in the past 14, 15 years simply because of the situation i'm going back to. people are not discusses it that often. without it, you would see more back and forth migration, what was happening pre1996 where people returned back and had more opportunity to go through borders, rather than staying here. without the preentenure bars, we had fewer undocumented people, and more people who could in some capacity file for a visa, or to obtain some sort of normal status in the united states in some way. that was a whole line of method that people do not have anymore. host: you are encouraged to join this conversation on line. how about the parents can be legal residents, but never citizens after having children here. guest: i don't know that that's a very good suggestion. i think that would cause a lot more, you know, with all the argument about the fourteenth amendment right now, i don't think that's something that's going to go very far. the conversation, the reason that the fourteenth amendment has been brought up, we're talking about people who would come here, have their children in the united states, automatically by their birth in the united states become citizens. the conflict has arisen by saying that they're somehow affording their undocumented parents a path to citizenship. the background is these babies have to grow up, attain 21 years of age, and they have to petition for their parents to become legal permanent residents, after which time, five years later, their parents can attain citizenship. in order to be petitioned for legal residents, those bars are going to kick in, and those warrants are going to have a 10 year, wait the process and come back. the problem that everyone is raising with respect to people being born in the united states, and that horrible term anchor babies is really what's really happening out there, what can happen, because you're talking about waiting at least 31 years before a foreign national can become a legal resident in the united states. host: a few more of your phone calls, sonal verma, welcome to the washington journal. are you with us? host: no. host: where are you with us from. caller: nigeria. caller: host: how long? caller: 40 years. i'm a two-time veteran of the armed forces, navy and army, and i have tried to get my citizenship when i was in the military, and they told me i have to pay $500, and i was wondering after serving in the military for about 10 years, why do i have to pay to become a u.s. citizen? guest: that's a good question. currently, there are certain expedited procedures by which people serving in the military can attain u.s. citizenship, but you've, of course, he should already, and it seems are not currently serving, so you would have to go through the application process, and that's a fee that's paid to the u.s. immigration and citizenship service, a fee based agency, that's how they operate. the current fee for filing is $595 plus a biometrics fee. that's how they look at your background to determine whether you have any criminal acts in your past. host: bennett is joining us from danville, kentucky from the republican line. caller: good morning. i'd like to ask your guest there, given that back in 2000, there were reports that the gore-lieberman folks were registering voters in florida that were non-citizens, other penalties whether legal or illegal aliens, if they were to register or vote in an election, are there penalties for those who encourage this or if a as i will taillight any illegal vote for a non-citizen. guest: that's a terrific question. yes, there are penalties for fraudulently carrying yourself as a u.s. citizen when you are not, and there are penalties for having someone sign up to become for assisting and aiding in such fraud. the distinction that you made that i want to make clear is sometimes people don't know that they can or whether they can or cannot register to vote. in those circumstances, it is very important to insure that you're rights are represented by a very competent professional to help you sift through the morass, because if you have a fraud, someone believes you have committed fraud, you will be barred permanently from achieving citizenship, and if you're a resident, may have it taken away from you depending on the level of fraud. you really would want to seek counsel to try to assist you to get out of that. like i said, there's people out there that are going to do things like the notarios, do things that are going to cause more harm than good. host: jason cooper says thank you. it's wonderful to see someone express concern over the term "anchor babies. guest: that's a terrible term. i'm a farmized u.s. citizen born in the united states and been able to attain e.u. citizenship. while a person coming from the united states must announce citizenship, how is it i'm able to hold dual citizenship. guest: the united states does not recognize dual citizenship, but the country you're going to may. depending on where you are in the european union, they may recognize dual citizenship. when you return to the united states, you won't be able to return using the european passport, your entry would have to take place with your u.s. passport. host: the debate continues, 30 million illegals are in this country. guest: it's difficult to pin down the number of people in the united states. the census is not taking into account who is here illegally and legally. not everyone is raising their hand to be counted like that. it is difficult to assess the number of people in the united states and who are undocumented. host: steve says please ask if expatriation is growing. guest: i think it is by degrees. it's some people going back to their home countries. many people are in line waiting for their status. legal aliens working here have been just waiting and waiting and waiting before they can get permanent residence, and now they are tired of it and are going back home. host: next we have a caller from the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. host: please go ahead, rick. caller: i brought my wife here on a fiancee visa. we have been married for 3.5 years. she got her temporary residency card in january. guest: ok. caller: now we have to go, there's some kind of interview. if we don't go to it, they said they'd revoke her status. host: where is she from, rick? from ukraine. guest: she attained her green card. you said that she attained a 10 year green card or two year green card. caller: right now she has her 10 year green card. guest: had she been married to you for two years or longer when she attained it? caller: our anniversary was april 27, so three years. guest: who told you that you needed to have another interview? caller: the uscis. guest: generally speaking, when a citizen marries a foreign national and they attain permanent legal residence, they get a conditional green card, a two-year conditional green card. at the two year anniversary of attaining that, you file to remove the conditions of the green card, and then ultimately attain the 10 year green card. in your situation, i'm a little confused in that you've been married for over two years, she has a 10 year green card. i would suggest that you seek counsel to try to get that sorted out, because that doesn't sound like a normal situation. host: caller joins us from philadelphia, also in the process of becoming a u.s. citizen. go ahead, please. caller: i am in the united states fourth time as family-based green card. i returned to my home country after six months, because i wanted to finish off my education there. i filed my return permit, where i can return to the united states within two years, so i returned to united states after 1.5 years in 2006, july. now, according to the uscs, i can file my citizenship after four years and one day, because i applied for my return permit, and i, so that counts towards my five years, is that correct? guest: i think you would need to sit down with the dates, sit down with someone and count out each and every day. generally speaking, you have four years and nine months from the time of obtaining your permanent legal residence before filing for your application for citizenship. at the five year mark, you are eligible for that citizenship. the reentry permit gives you that one year towards meeting the permanent residency requirements if filed correctly. you also have to look into the continuous physical presence requirements and make sure you have had 30 months in the preceding five year period of physical presence in the united states. host: if ultimately, you are denied, what is the process. guest: it depends on the reason for the denial. if it's an eligibility factor, meaning you applied at three years and not five years, you apply when you are eligible. if it is for a mistake, somehow, you are confused with someone else, which occurs occasionally, or because they have determined that your eligibility factors, that you don't warrant the eligibility, or if there's-it depends on the reason for the denial. you can appeal the denial of the n400 directly to the district office. ask for a motion to reopen or reconsider and present evidence as to why you believe that you are eligible. if for some reason it is an eligibility factor, you are allowed to reapply for citizenship. you can reapply after you meet the requirements. host: thank you for joining us this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: what are you watching, surfing on the web, and who is keeping track of all that? a new "wall street journal" series in a moment. host: joining us from new york is julia angwin of the "wall street journal." a series that appeared, the web's new gold mine, your secret. it's one of the fastest growing businesses on the internet, spying on the user. guest: we decided to look at the top 50 u.s. websites, and see what kind of tracking was being done, when i say tracking, i mean companies that are watching what you do on the internet, mostly advertising companies. when we looked at those 50 websites, we found that collectively, about more than 3,000 tracking devices were installed on our computer after we browsed those sites. on average, it was about 64 tracking devices per website, and one website that had the most was dictionary.com. there were 234 different types of tracker on our computer after visiting there. host: you conducted that survey, what surprised you the most? guest: we were surprised by the scope of the tracking, how widespread defense and how pervasive. the numbers were much higher than we expected. we have surprised by the intrusiveness of the tracking. some trackers are pretty well known, like cookies. most people are sort of aware that there are cookies stored on their machine. some are very innocuous. they can store your password so you don't have to sign on every time to a site. they are also used by third party companies to follow you around and see which websites you browse. we found a different kind of tracker that is a software program that sort of runs live while you're on the website, and it can monitor where you move your mouse on the page that to reading the contents of the page to see what it is you might be reading or capturing your key strokes as you type them. host: i want to show one of the graphs that you have in the "wall street journal." if you visit dictionary.com, it is sent to other companies. who is interested in this data, and what can they gain from it. guest: the on line advertising industry has really to answer formed into an industry that is interested in figuring out who you are and what you're doing. all these companies behind the scenes at a site like dictionary.com, the vast majority of them are companies in the business of following users around and develop ago profile about them. this profile, it should be said is anonymous. they don't know your name. you have an i.d. number, and they are building a file with that number. they go off into the marketplace and either say to an advertiser, i've got this number, and this person seems to be interested in this type of things, or more recently, there have been no exchanges that have sprung up in the last year and a half so people tracking you can sell that data on an exchange in sort of a realtime, although mated wall street type setting. host: we know cookies, but you talked about beacons and flash cookies. are they different? guest: flash cookies are really cookies that live in your flash video player. they are controversial. most users who might be aware of cookies and delete them are not aware of flash cookies and don't delete them. they're much hard tore find and delete in your system. the use of them by advertisers has been condemned by both adobe and flash industry, self regulatory bodies. the other one you mentioned is beacons, live sort wear programs, generally java script that launch in visibly while you are on the page, and can be doing anything from broadcasting that you're there to monitoring movements on that page. that depends on each program, what they're sort of wired to do. they can do a lot or very little. host: our topic is on line privacy, who is watching, where you're going on the internet, and what is that information used for. give us a call at (202)737-0001 forums and (202)737-0002 for democrats. you can join us at cspan.org or twitter. how are they doing background checks? guest: most of the data we are finding is being used for advertising. data has sprung up where data is being bought and sold, there is no law or limits that would currently prevent employers from buying up that information. we don't know that they are, but that's a question that this data collection raises, which is about potential harm. could it be this data which is being used now to you determine whether you want to buy a pair of gulf clubs could be used for other reasons. host: one example you put fort is kate reed and how yahoo is trying to use it. guest: kate reed was worried about her weight. she felt she saw a lot of ads for weight loss when she went on line. it was reinforcing some of her feelings of insecurity. our reporter showed her actually, a place on yahoo where you can go and see what is it that they think they know about you. they don't know you at kate reed, but as an i.d. number. some tracking companies will let you go and see your dossier. it said that she was a 13-17-year-old who was interested in weight loss. when we went to the yahoo, they said look, it's true that her dossier might say that, but we have our own internal rules that prevent us from advertising weight loss to anyone under 18. she must have had a coincidental experience or ads were sent by someone else. it showed the scope of this type of tracking, you know, that they know this much about high school teenager, it was shocking to her. host: you write in the piece the "wall street journal" found that a tracking file was planted with data. it had a prediction of a surfer's age, zip code and genter, plus a code that you just alluded to with estimates of in come, marital status, homeownership, creating a file targus information core. guest: some of the companies that provide off line dataful in the direct mail business, responsible for all those catalogs that you get in the mail, because people go to them and say i want to buy a list of people who might go interested in this type of catalog. some companies are now trying to get into this on line business, which is booming, the on line advertising business. targus is one of those companies. they promise to embed their tracking devices with some more data about the users, and their estimates of who they are. so, when our researcher browsed msn, he received a cookie that had an estimate of his zip code, age, and this code that we weren't able to decrypt, but all of them were a little off. his zip code was just a digit off, the age was a little off, but they were close enough, and neither m.s.n. nor targus could tell us how or why this happened. guest: we are joined from a democratic from new york. caller: i appreciate you being here and explaining this to the public. have you noticed while researching whether or not the companies that actually provide anti-spy wear, antivirus software has been placing any tracking cookies on user's machines, and i guess that's the most important question. guest: we didn't find the big spy wear antivirus companies among these top trackers in our analysis, but we didn't capture every possible tracker, i'm sure. host: sandra joins us from jacksonville florida, republican line. go ahead, sandra. caller: yes. i didn't catch everything that the other lady had said who was speaking about immigrations and the anchor babies. i didn't catch what she said. i don't know if we're on to another speaker at this point. host: we have. and if you're interested in watching the interview that we just concluded, it will be available on our website at cspan.org, just click on washington journal. we'll go to our next caller. caller: good morning, is there actually any privacy on line, really, once all the information is out there in cyberspace, and you don't know who has it? there is no privacy. that's basically what i have to say. there's probably a little more, but i'm a little nervous, and i didn't expect to get through. guest: actually, that's a good question, right, so what are the results of our surveyed raised that question to us, too. the on line advertising industry says look, we don't know who you are. we don't know your name. we have this i.d. number, attributes about what we think your interested in, but since we don't have your name, their argument is that that protects your privacy. one question raised is if these profiles are so detailed and elaborate, does it matter that they don't have your name in the sense that if they know everything about you, is that also an invasion of privacy. that's a question that i think society will have to grapple with, because these on line dossiers are getting more detailed and rich every day. host: maybe this is not a fair comparison, but if you go to amazon.com and order a couple of books, you get something on history, up pop one or two options that you might want to put in our cart. is this take that go data and turning it into an advertising, a source of advertising revenue for those who want to use the information? guest: no, i don't believe that amazon is selling that data. host: i'm not saying that they sell it, but when you click on a book, there will be similar books you might be interested in. to understand your data of marital status, that feeds into what information is on your laptop. guest: greed. basically, what's happening is as there is more data about your behavior available on line, people can buy it and use to it tailor the experience you have when you go to a website. the third article in our series was about capitol one. what they do is when you land on their website they do an instant 200 millisecond assessment of your income and lifestyle habits. then they show you the credit card they think is right for you. you can still choose any credit card you want, but the process of this type of instant analysis of you as a consumer, before you have shared any information with them is actually pretty troubling. at least with amazon, you know the reason you got that book is because you already gave them your interest, you typed in something and they came back with things additional that you might like. when you go somewhere you've never been before, and they already know about you, that could change our internet experience dramatically. host: the piece is called the web's new gold mine, your secrets. you can read the series in the wall street journal, i there are new companies now that claim to protect your i.d. are they also legit? guest: yes, there is a growing field. i can't comment on the particular companies, i don't know who they're referring to, but i would say that one of the life skills we're all probably going to need to learn about living our lives on line is protecting our identity. most people have already had the experience with facebook of joining, maybe sharing too much, and then kind of realizing that the facebook was a little more open than they thought, and possibly dialing back. that debate has played out in public for a while now. now what we're talking about with this series is there is data being shared with you based on your activities on line. once again, there are ways to manage that. it's not easy, but you can install software that would block this type of tracking, or you can go to the on line advertising industry has a page where you can click to opt out of all of the tracking networks. the only thing that's a little weird about that is when you opt out, they place a tracking device on your computer that says don't track this person. host: julia angwin is a graduate of the university of chicago, been with the "wall street journal" since 2003. go ahead, please. caller: i had a comment on the internet. once you put something on the internet, regardless of whether you served for it or put it on the media such as facebook or twitter, it's there permanently, so once you make one of these searches, that search is going to be logged for all eternity. guest: yes. i mean that's a good point. what i think we were raising in this is this is not necessarily even searches, just your browsing behavior. if i look at some of brought files that i have with these tracking companies, it really captures basically a lot of my movements, some of which i don't think it occurred to me at the time that i was putting out there. host: another quote from the series, "the tracking is not new, but technology growing so that even some of america's biggest sites were unaware until informed by the" wall street journal "that they were installing intrusive files on visitors." guest: we looked at the top 50 websites, and then called them on it, said here's the list of cookies, flash cookies and beacons that we found on your site. a good number of sites were very surprised at what we found. the reason is that tracking has become sort of its own industry, with its own distribution system, so a website might make an arrangement with a few companies, and allow them to install their trackers. those companies might then have their own arrangements. what we found was trackers are sometimes carried within our trackers, or carried within an ad and dropped from the ad. when you visit a website, the company that provide that is website may not know actually what's coming on to your computer because of the way these things are carried through other devices on the same web page. host: according to the "wall street journal" the 10 site that is most expose the data, include dictionary.com, comcast.net, msn.com, yellow pages.com, and yahoo.com. we are joined from the republican line. good morning to you. atul, turn the volume down on your set. caller: how are you doing this fine morning? host: i'm fine. caller: you are doing a wonderful job. i really appreciate it. you are very fair and balanced. one thing that is a priority on right now going on, everybody on cell phone, on telephone, everything is tracking. what is the privacy? where is the privacy? thank you. i appreciate, julie, and i'm waiting for your answer. guest: well, as i was saying earlier, i think that our sense of privacy is changing with technology. now we have to grapple with new ways that people can watch what we're doing, and there are ways to protect yourself. on the internet, you can use some software to block some tracking. you can try to adjust your web browser to block, and update some of the tracking networks. it's always an arms race. by the time a normal person has come to an awareness of this stuff, then there's new technologies being developed. it's something that i think is going to be a constant challenge for us as the internet develops. host: what about google, and its role in all of this? guest: so google is an interesting story, because really, google knows so much about you already. most people do a lot of searches on google. a lot of people use g-mail and they are automatically scanning your email to print ads next to your email. in a way, they don't need to share that data with these tracking companies as much as other companies do. the data they have about you is their own proprietary data. we noticed in our survey is the companies who know the most about you, facebook or google, had low numbers of trackers on their sites, because they don't want to their their data with other tracking companies. host: we had a couple of questions from our twitter page followers. what tracking is preset on the "wall street journal" website. you included wsj.com as part of the 50. guest: the "wall street journal" is not one of the top 50 by traffic, but we checked our own trackers, as well and came in pretty much squarely in the middle of the pack. most invites installed 54 trackers. the "wall street journal" had 60. we put together a little page about all the different trackers on the journal's site, as well. host: donna joins us from michigan on the democratic line. caller: thank you, julie, thank you for the information you've given us. i compare this to opening up our mail. it's against the law. the right of privacy in the constitution, i don't get where these companies have the right to look into our privacy. it's like looking into our files. people make payments on line with medicals, and i don't understand how they're intruding in our privacy when it's against the constitution. we've got it in our constitution. another thing, with them -- i don't see how we don't have something set up that if somebody goes into your computer, then they should let you know, that way you can check into it and see who is looking up your information against your will. the bottom line, we've got the government doing surveillance on us. we've got corporations doing basically the same thing. where is the constitution being disregarded in all this. host: where is the consist illusion, julia angwin? guest: actually, i'm not a legal scholar, i'm a technology editor, but our understanding is that this is perfectly legal. there was a challenge about 10 years ago to the use of cookies, which at the time was the most pervasive tracking technology. when a company started using cookies for advertising purposes, there was a legal challenge. the courts ruled that it was legal, and it was based on the analogy was that it was as if you were on the phone with a company talking to them, and they allowed someone else to listen in to that call. that was considered a legal transaction. there hasn't been a case since then to challenge this use of technology. maybe there will be. for now, it is legal, so in the sense the websites are allowing people toe listen in on your conversation with that website. host: good morning to curt from connecticut, independent line. caller: thanks to c.-span. i don't think there is another country that has this sort of open, unedited forum. i appreciate this. i appreciate somebody who is disabled and does a lot of buying from catalogs, i appreciate when i go on to facebook, things pop up that i'm actually interested in. i feel i am targeted for things i am interested in. i accept at this point that because of all the money involved in consuming goods that the better targeting is, the less effort for me to find the things i want out there. since i don't feel that i have anything to hide, as long as i know this information isn't being stored in some government file that could somehow be used against me personally, orton more about me personally, then i'm comfortable with, i'm ok with this, and i consider this part of the other side of all the advantages of the internet, all the capabilities of being able to find people who i haven't seen for 30 years, or to find things that are really hard to find out there that i'm actually interested in having. i'd like to hear, you know, about this other side, where i feel actually benefited by this technology and tracking. host: we'll get a response. thank you, kurt. guest: that's a really good point. i think people, a lot of people actually like targeted ads. i have to admit that i sometimes find targeted ads usful, as well. there is, i think there needs to be a debate about whether people want to get these ads. other people find them really intrusive, for instance, people searching for a disease on line, or looking, researching some sort of health issue, and then they see ads about this, some of the conditions that advertisers target against are things like bipolar disorder or depression, and so imagine, that you're searching for something about that, and then all the ads you see are about that. some people find that disturbing. similarly to what we talked about earlier with the girl concerned about weight loss and getting more and more weight loss ads. it can be a creepy experience. one of the debates is whether there are certain types of ads or conditions that shouldn't be targeted. there is question about this data being used for something other than targeted ads. all right right now that is the use for the ads, there's no rule that prevents it for being used for other reasons. let's say they're collects information about people with bipolar disorder, and some health company wants to buy it and use it for insurance reasons, there i there is a lotf potential harm for the use of this data, that's why there needs to be laws concerning this data. caller: good morning. thank you for airing this program. host: you're up early this morning. caller: yes, i am. i was curious specifically about this tracking, and what specifically would they be tracking if you're just going to get answer to a question at dictionary.com or a word search, what are they tracking, the words you're putting in? guest: yeah, they could be checking for example medical terms that you're searching on, or placing a tracker there so they can see you at the next site you're going to. basically, you have an i.d. number with each one of these tracking companies. everything you do is incremental information for the file they have on you. on dictionary.com, we don't know really how useful the data is that you're looking up the word anxst, but maybe with other information, it's useful information. host: one of the fastest businesses growing on the internet is spying on consumers. tom from los angeles, good morning. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. good morning. i'd like to get back to the legality issue of this. my computer is my personal property, and if they're planting things in my personal property, isn't that sort of like robbery, or invasion? guest: i mean, so far, the courts have rule that had this is a legitimate sharing of information, that when you go to a website, you are engaging in a transaction with some of their third party partners. the industry argues that this is what consumers get, when they want free content, free dictionary lookups at dictionary.com they are implicitly agreeing to exchange of data about themselves for that content. most people don't know that they engaged in that transaction. that's one reason we wrote the story. there are some that are willing to exchange their date, and other people might not be. host: if companies can buy and sell info about me, then shouldn't i be able to go on line and find out what they know about me, transparency? guest: that's a good point. one way the industry is trying to counter some of the moves for regulation are to increase transparency. i would say at least a dozen of these tracking companies, and certainly the big ones that you've heard, google, yahoo, microsoft, and some smaller ones that you haven't heard of offer little windows. when you go on to a certain page, it will say here's what we know about the cookie on your machine or here's what the file we have on you says. some of them are pretty broad, and some of granular. one of them blue ky probably has the most data and is the most rant parent. it's fascinating to go look up your profile. i recommend it for everybody. host: that site is. guest: blue ksi.com. host: brian is joining us from indianapolis on the independent line, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for accepting my call. my question was pertaining to the privacy. if they're worried about our privacy, then why is it that the consumer has to go out and purchase the cookies or whatever else it is to keep them from going in our background? to me, it just doesn't seem right to be on the computer, go in, and somebody retrieving all of my personal information, because i guarantee, out of their "transparency" i can't do that with the corporations and find out how much money the executives are making. my question is why is it that the consumer has to go out and purchase these things for their computer? host: thank you. caller: thank you. guest: well, i'm not sure you need to purchase anything. almost everything we're talking about is free. for instance, if you want to download some free software that blocks tracking, you can do that, or you can look for free at some of these transparency websites that will tell you a little bit what they know about you. i agree that this value exchange that you're encaging in when you go to a website and you're getting content or service, and giving up your data is not fully transparent, and probably people who are engaging in this transaction need a little more guidance about what they're giving up and gaining in return. host: shirley joins us from florida on the republican line. good morning, shirley. caller: good morning, hello. host: yes quarterback please go ahead. caller: hi. yes, question number one, ok, these people are taking my information, and i they're making money on me. can i charge them. ok, next question. host: we'll take one at a time, shirley. >> ok, hon. guest: well, no, currently i don't think you can charge them. there's one company, this blue kai are a data exchange. companies who want to sell data about you can list it for sale there, and will allow to you donate the profits of that sale to charity. that's the only way i know of that you can be involved in the data. caller: i watched a program that you had like this years ago, talking about a site in sweden that does not follow you. i've tried to write that down, and i could never find it. are there some site that is don't find you--or follow you? guest: yes. in the top 50 site that is we looked at wikipedia doesn't have ads or track. they don't allow anyone to install any tracking devices on the computers of their visitors. host: sharon is joining us from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: the on line privacy, could i suggest a few things? host: sure. caller: there should not be any kind of privacy. if anyone wants to have a job as a public official, they should have to be recorded or listened to, or any number of other things. this privacy, this has come to the point where everything is criminal in this country. host: ok. caller: and numerous people are not allowed to do anything, numerous, the right people aren't allowed to do proper things. everyone's getting away with crookedness, and all the police officials need investigated. host: ok. thanks for the comment. julia angwin, your response. guest: no, i don't think so. host: let me conclude with susan's point. how can we increase consumer awareness of what data is collected on each visit? guest: this is probably the plain question that our series raises, which is it shouldn't be that we have to go, the "wall street journal" and see what these top 50 sites are collecting. it should be that users are more aware of. there are a few ways you can do this, but mostly, it's tech savvy people installing software to see how they are tracked. the industry is working hard to make everything more transparent, because they are worried about regulation, and whether congress might pass some allows. right now, that is the question of the moment, how to make this more transparent for consumers, giving them more choices about their data. host: thanks julia angwin for joining us. guest: thank you. host: we'll continue the conversation tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. we gain series on financial markets, fill mattingly from bloomberg news will join us. tomorrow we begin a week long series. thursday we'll look at investors, friday on how to prevent a future financial cries. thanks for being with us on this sunday morning. hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend, and have a great week ahead. >>. >>. >> and that was the judgment, i might say, of the cia. it was not a judgment -- you also had evidence on. seeking an alternative judgment. but, the tiny scraps suggesting contacts usually when saddam hussein was under threat and the danger was that tiny scraps of intelligence were given importance and weight. so to my mind, iraq, saddam hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. i haven't seen anything evidence. >> were you produce material produced by the pentagon? >> thank you. >> we know we have been with iraq, first gulf war and indeed in naval operations in the gulf. in your view, your perspective, did any of these vofments affect the domestic drk involvements affect the desk terrorist threats? where are
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