Im antonio mora, heres more on whats ahead. Venezuelas president , Nicholas Maduro lark out. Protesters clashed with riot police once again. After two months of protests theres no sign that they will stop. Good this is a knife fight. Senate democrats investigating passive abuses by cia. The man who crafted the benghazi talking points insisted we did not some students are opting out. Selgt for a status quo of mediocrity should not be the answer. About. Fourth degree rape, he admitted he performed sex acts on his threeyearold daughter. My guess has a lot to do with this. We begin with breaking news from fort hood texas which spent much of wednesday in lock down after the second mass shooting in five years. Four were killed, 14 wounded at the army base, home to the first cavalry division. Nadal hasan killed 14 people in 2009. After wednesdays shooting president obama expressed his support for the bases soldiers and families. Good obviously our thoughts and prayers are with the entire community and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that the community at fort hood has what it needs to deal with the current situation, but also, any potential aftermath. At their home base they need to feel we dont know yet what happened tonight but oddly that sense of safety has been broken once again. For more lets go to washington, d. C. And al jazeera correspondent mike viqueria. Its just awful to hear this has happened again mike. Whats the hatest . Fort hood the Largest Army Base in the country. The home to veterans of afghanistan iraq wars. There have been many conflicting reports about the number of dead and injured anywhere from 1 to 4 killed. We are expecting a press conference from authorities at any moipt moment now. It will be welcomed because there so much conflicting statements. When the order came down shelter in place a lock down, people were told to stay low in their houses. We understand in the last few minutes that lock down has now been lifted. Reminiscent as you pointed out, of the shooting five years ago, 13 people killed. President obama has been traveling in michigan, he had an event surrounding the minimum wage like he was sponsoring, and then to chicago, it was there that he spoke to reporters, he assured everyone, we are going to get to the bottom of exact hi what happened. He says it r reopens the pain of what happened at fort hood. The navy yard shoot just a few moments ago in washington, d. C. And chuck hagel is at a conference for asian defense ministers, he says when we have a tragedy at our bases, something is not working. What do we know about the shooter . We understand it is soldier to soldier violence, on twitter any number of scenarios have been playing out. Its best to stay away from those. But we understand it is most likely soldier on sol swrer violence. Al jazeera will stay on top of the story. Criticism of the cia, the hits just keep on coming. The focus was again on benghazi attack in 2012 where four americans were killed. Deputy director mike morel. We did not deliberately down play the role of terrorists in our analysis or talking points. This comes as senator Dianne Feinstein blasted the agency over allegations, interrogation activities after 9 11. Sr. Director john brennan denies that, this feud is not going away any time soon. I will explain tot president exactly what i did and what the findings were and he the one that can ask me to stay or to go. On thur, a Senate Committee will, expected to show that the cia misled the pilkington on the use and value of using torture on detainees. For more were joined from washington, d. C. By mike m mazetti. Good to have you with us. Lets start with mike morale and his testimony on wednesday. Crafting those infamous talking points, argued that the results, down play the attack that it was a terrorist attack from the benefit of the obama election campaign. What happened, was this an issue of competence, ignoring a cia station chief that was there and telling you whats going on . Morel indicated talking points were inartfully created, the land was no strategy to down play the role of terrorism and vigorously refuted this idea that he was killing anyones water for political contributions. It is a political issue in the political bloodstream, it is going to be an issue if Hillary Clinton runs for president. Unfortunately, benghazi is with it for a while. And moralee did his best to take his role out of for the time being. Why do you think it played out the way it did . For one reason you have a deadly a tack that killed an american ambassador. It was a tragedy and a very important moment in this ongoing conflibt of terrorism. But you have this real political scene where republicans are charging a coverup. I think someone in the ministry would admit the early days were not handled well directly after the benghazi attack. That is just more chum in the water. The senates investigation into the cray and you wrote on wednesday that people who have read the report says its uncompromising. What is the worst of it lying about the methods and how much intense interrogation was used,. We have tried for a year to get to the bottom of the report and its classified. We get some pieces and some details. I think in the end and again, this is subject to speculation, that the reeg significance of this report will be these conclusions and the explanation of how the cia systematically was inflating the value of this program. Less new details about specific interrogations, although we certainly will learn some. But i think its really going to be the legacy of the program and maybe there had been a real systematic effort to sell the value of the program not only to the white house but also the extent of the American People. And to night extent of the black sites . There have been repeated assertions from the va edelay only three people were awardbordewaterboarded. Whether it was officially sanctioned, thats what were trying to find out. There is still so many years later a lot to be learned about this period of history. The Senate IntelligenceCommittee Votes on thursday, voting to declassify this executive report, incredibly long, thousands of pages, apparently. Is it likely well see that soon . That will go to president obama for declassification. President obama has said he will push to declassify it. It could take weeks, months, days if president obama really tries to push it. I do think there is a condition that politically, this has dragged on too long, it is hurting the president , is making him look like hes covered up something that he has the record shows long opposed so i think the white house recognizes that they would like to get this out sooner rather than later. What about this spy versus spy situation were seeing in washington, the cia being under the microscope, whether the cia spied on the Senate Intelligence committee, the Senate Intelligent Committee got documents it shouldnt have gotten, Dianne Feinstein has been a supporter, already buffeted by controversies, the rupture by ms. Feinstein one of its closest allies, could have ramifications, what do you think happened . That is one of the extraordinary situations, the legacy of this program, you have these accusations of each side spying on each other. And its now at the Justice Department to sort out to see whether any crimes were committed. I dont think that the Justice Department is going to take up the investigation in the sense they are going to charge anyone with crimes but it has some real effects. One is the constitutional issue of separation of powers. Was the cia improperly monitoring the very people who were supposed to be overseeing them . Secondly you have the political story. Its not a good idea for the cia to cross the intelligence communities their funders their overseers especially when you said Dianne Feinstein for the most part has been pretty vigorous in her defense of cia and its programs. Well see what the Justice Department review comes up with and again if people are interested in looking at the cia and what the cias role has been in wars around the world including afghanistan, the drone wars and osama bin laden, you should read marks book, the way of knife. Thank you for coming on. Now to the Supreme Court which reviewed four the fivefour decision either strengthens freedom of speech or blows out a fire wall against corruption. In chief Justice John Roberts ruling, right to participate in electing our political leaders. Justice breyer wrote, todays decision eadvice rates, grave eviscerates,. Lets bring in Jeffrey Stone from chicago, hes written a number of books on constitutional law and a former member of president s nsa review panel, he made some surprising comments about the intelligence agencys role, we want to get to that in a moment but well start with campaign financing. Jeff good to see you. This furthers the Citizens United ruling, the ruling does not increase the amount an individual can contribute to an individual candidate but what it does is gives the individual the chance to drobt as many candidates as they want to contribute to as many candidates as they want without limits. To eviscerate any restrictions on the ability of individuals to use the large amounts of influence to political process. In the name of freedom of speech i think what theyre doing as Justice Breyer said in dissent, underlying the fundamental democracy that the freedom of speech is meant to preserve. The center for, series of candidates, so how big a deal is it if only that few people can really afford this level of contributions . Its a big deal. If everybody could afford it then much less of a problem. The fact that only a relate small number of americans, what it basically does is put political candidates in the pockets of these very billionaires and thats not exactly the way the democratic process should work and thats a serious threat to democracy in the United States. These are bad decisions, bad decisions. Justice roberts wrote, despite the profound offense that those spectacles cause, despite popular opposition, and popular opposition is there. Why this disconnect . Well, first of all Justice Roberts use of those analysis are really problematic because theyre wrong. The core protection of the First Amendment is, the examples that you gave of the nazis marching in skokie or flag burning, it does not like the message, thats not the case here. The government for example can certainly say people cant use loudspeakers in a Political Campaign in a residential neighborhood at 2 00 in the morning. Those have always been upheld under the First Amendment. Toal eyes the campaign to analogize, its completely a false analogy. The fact that we do allow the federal government to regulate the volume of loudspeakers, how come it is that 80 of the American People disagree with the Supreme Court on this issue, this is a case that 80 of americans have good common sense. Freedom of speech does not necessarily entail the ability of a billionaire to buy candidates right and left. Lets move on to the nsa, the review group, you made recommendations how to control the nsa, you just spoke to the nsa and wrote about it and saying there is no doubt that the nsa has thwarted terrorist plots and it has a high degree of integrity. One of the things that i was surprised of as a me of the National Advisory council and wellknown civil libertarian, high degree of integrity and care and does in fact make a very conscientious effort to stay within the bonds of the haw, i think were excessive and inappropriate, with the congress, the president and with the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, so attention should really be placed here not on the nsa, a bad guy, my sense is that the nsa is not a bad guy, it is simply exercising the authorities its been given, i think not sufficiently careful about constraining those authorities. So i came to have a great deal of respect for the nsa and its employees and i think its important to turn attention to the responsibility where that responsibility really belongs. So your concern is that it has too much power and despite those positives you found, you think that we should not trust the nsa . I dont think we should trust any part of government, large degree of power, thats an essential predicate, house and a senate the reason we have a president elected four years, separation of powers checks and balances those are all designed because we are not supposed to trust government and we should not trust the nsa any more than we should trust the Senate Intelligence committee but the fact is that in the recent past the fa has acted in my opinion the nsa has acted in my opinion with a high degree of responsibility. We should focus our attention on those entities that have really made the mistakes there and its not the nsa. Two important topics, Jeffrey Stone, thanks for coming. Thanks for having me antonio. Today after he tear gassed his option. Also fighting common core testing at schools. How parents are having their kids boycott. And our social media producer, Hermela Aregawi is tracking the social media. Good for you in ways you dont think about. And let us know what you think join the conversation on twitter ajconsiderthis and on our facebook and google plus pages. [ male announcer ] its here Xfinity Watchathon week, your chance to watch full seasons of tvs hottest shows for free with xfinity on demand. Theres romance, face slaps, whatever that is, pirates, helicopters, piratecopters. Argh hmm. Its so huge, its being broadcast on mars. Heroes. Bad guys. Asteroids. Available only on mars. Theres watching. Then theres watchathoning. Now to the crisis in venezuela, and president Nicholas Maduros defense, venezuela a call for peace maduro wednesday accused the foreign media of distorting the reality of my country and the facts surrounding protests that have seen nearly 39 killed, and arrested and jailed. Maduro said his government had reduced poverty and inequality, and the 1 who sought to reverse the gains and enjoy the vast majority of the people. Tear gas firing police on tuesday when she led an opposition march to try and retake her seat in venezuelas national assembly. She tried to address a meeting of the organize of american states as a representative of panama. Viral video like this, graphically illustrate the tear gas barrage on the protesters. For more on president maduros actions, harold, good of you to be with us. President maduros op ed, actions like tear gassing, and jailing leopoldo lopez, have a dialogue for peace . Good its a pleasure to join you. The calls for dialogue if venezuela from the government have been relatively recent in response to growing international pressure, growing international for trails of the violence in venezuela. There is a dual message here between the violence and repression that were seeing against the opposition and the calls for peace that are now gaining new prominence among venezuelan, including pad rowe. Calling for peace in venezuela, they talked about the brutal repression against dissidence that is going on there. Maduro writes in his peace rightfully that there has been a change in poverty, that power and resources have become more equally distributed that venezuela has cut poverty in half since his mentor hugo chavez took power in 1999. How does venezuelas efforts on that front how do they compare with the rest of latin america . It is true that venezuela has made progress in increasing social inclusion. Venezuela has gained a windfall revenue over the oil revenues, government has put some of the oil revenue into social programs and other increasing domestic consumption. Venezuela ranks similarly to some of the other areas in the region brazil and chile which have also made great progress on reducing poverty. General commodity boo boom. The oil prices have gone from about 19 near the beginning of chavez regime to sometimes 150 per barrel, so venezuela has had a massive increase in income but. It is true but the windfall revenues of venezuela really dwarf, 25 to 30 of gdp per year during the past decade. Despite the oil boom, terrible, terrible increase in crime, probably the third highest murder rate, third highest inflation in the world. How does maduro survive that kind of pressure . Because the argument is that this is now reaching all parts of Venezuelan Society not just the rich. Thats correct, i think the Maduro Administration realizes it has been making adjustments to the economic model. Weve seen the government since the last fall taking measures to reduce consumption. Consumption was greatly outstripping the supply of oil income and of imports have hit venezuela. Claims in his peace that the antigovernment protests are being carried out by the hundreds of thousands of people in some of these marches in the Associated Press is saying that now the barricades are not limited just to middle class neighborhoods that they have spread throughout the country including in poor neighborhoods especially outside of caracas. Protests actually started in the western city of san cristobal. Protests have been around the capitol city of caracas. The efforts to call attention to economic problems, scarcity, and rising levels of crime in the country. So how does it play out . He was elected democratically, whatever you may think of the power of the government in an election and the size of the federal government is passive in venezuela, nothing compared to our federal government here, people complain about how big that is, and they control the media, they control all the aspects of, you know all powers all the different branches of government. What happens . Can there be a recall election next year . Do