Desert are going to be important parts of that. Woodruff those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ifill a federal Oversight Board is recommending the National Security agency stop collecting bulk phone records entirely. It was widely reported today that the board made its proposals to president obama earlier this month. Last week, the president said the Data Collection should continue. Well explore the oversight report in detail, right after the news summary. Wall street earnings were down sharply today on worries about corporate earnings and a slowdown in china. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost nearly 176 points to close at 16,197. The nasdaq fell 24 points to close below 4,219. The state of virginia will no longer defend its ban on same sex marriage. Newly elected attorney general mark herring, a democrat, announced the decision today. He said he believes the ban is unconstitutional. The United States constitution is the law of the land. So a state law and a state constitution cannot violate the United States constitution and i swear a duty to uphold the Supreme Court is clear. The United States constitution is the law of the land, supreme law of the land. Ifill last year, the Supreme Court struck down the defense of marriage act and allowed gay marriages to resume in california. A United Nations envoy struggled to hold the syrian peace talks together today. The assad regime and the westernbacked opposition traded barbs at a distance, without saying if they will sit down for direct talks today. Well get a full report on the days developments, later in the program. Irans president Hassan Rouhani is promising to adopt policies of prudence and moderation, including a final nuclear deal. He told the World Economic forum in davos, switzerland that his government wants constructive engagement with the global community. And, he insisted any nuclear efforts will be for peaceful purposes only. The Islamic Republic of iran has a strong will, a serious will. Again when it comes to the nuclear program, to reach a comprehensive agreement, i do not foresee an impediment. Iran has never pursued a Nuclear Weapon and it will never desire to have one in the future. Ifill rouhani also met with western and arab businessmen, telling them iran wants new investments in its economy. In ukraine, protesters stormed government offices in three cities today. But a tense standoff held in kiev as the president met with opposition leaders who oppose closer ties with russia. Matt frei of independent Television News is in kiev. Especially when the wind is on the side of the revolution. Rate on the front lines there is a battle between the elements, the protectors are use smoke and fire and the police are using water. Just as they were getting even more out of hands, a visitor a reached at the barricades. The tallest and certainly most most famous ukrainian. The heavyweight world champion, politician and fast emerging as a the most popular opposition leader. He had to calm to douse flames and calm nerves. I have taken responsibility, he told the crowd. There will be a truce until eight this evening while we resume talks with the government. Supply lines continue to make its way to the barricades. Negotiators for south Sudan Government signed a seis fire with rebel souths ifill negotiators for south sudans government signed a ceasefire with rebel forces today, in ethiopia. The fighting has killed thousands of people and driven thousands more from their homes since middecember. And a transitional president took office today in the neighboring Central African republic. Catherine sambapanza was sworn in as the nations first female leader. Shes asked for the muslim fighters behind last years coup and christian militiamen whove fought them, to support peace. Still to come on the newshour, a new call to end the n. S. A. s phonerecords program, Margaret Warners update on the syria peace talks, recommendations to reform american elections harnessing the power of the sun in the Mojave Desert, the c. I. A. s secret prison in poland and as more devices collect data, whats happening to our privacy . Woodruff a Government Review Panel warned today that the n. S. As collection of americans phone records is illegal and advised that the program be terminated. The recommendations by the privacy and Civil LibertiesOversight Board go further than the Obama Administration has been willing to accept. The panels 234page report includes dissents from two of the boards five members. For more on the groups work, we turn to david medine, the committees chairman and Elisabeth Collins cook who was one of the Board Members who dissented to some of the findings of the overall committee. Welcome to you both. Thank you within happy to be here. Woodruff david medine, tell us, you are speak for three members of the group. What is the main reasons you think this program should be discontinued . I will say that ten of our 12 recommendations were unanimous but this was one where there were dissents. The reason the program should be doneaway with is three fold. One is it doesnt comply with statute 215 in a number of respects. Woodruff being the under the usa patriot act that the program supposedly authorized by but there are number of requirements under the statutes, for instance that the records go to the fbi and not the nsa but the records be relevant to investigation. And these were every record in the United States of every phone call and kept for five years so, goes way beyond. Legal grounds, constitutional grounds, we dont say it is a violation of the constitution but we say it im impinges on first and Fourth Amendment concerns, having the government hold this much information chills people wants to call journalists and be whistleblowers, it chills dissidents without want to call their political organizations, even if this government, information isnt used, just knowing that the information is there can have a dramatic effect on rights of association and free speech. So for a variety of reasons. Beth cook what about you, there were two of you on the board as we said who dissented. Why do you think the program should be continued . Within i think the program is fully authorized by section 215 of the patriot act which has been codified as part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and i would note that every federal judge who considered this question also agrees the statute provides the necessary authorization. Where i do agree with my colleagues on the board is that there are certain interim recommendations that we have made to impact the immediate operation of the program but i decline to join the majorities statutory analysis which i view to be flawed. But on the constitutional analysis, i believe to be unnecessary and speculative. I saw i watched some of the statement that you all made today david medine. And one of the points i think the other, the dissenters made was that there is really no evidence that the administration here this one or the Bush Administration deliberately exploited or misused what theyre collecting from all these phone records. That being the case, why wasnt that persuasive. Well, thats right. We didnt see any evidence of misuse but a number of us on the board have lived through the water gaithera, the Church Committee era where government wasnt always so beneficial to its citizens, where sometimes there was eavesdropping and spy on citizens even though i think the president in his speech the other day talked about eaves drop on dr. Martin luther king, jr. So even though the government today is responsible and by the most part following the rules, getting this much information, sensitive personal information does run the risk in the future if a government isnt so well intentiond. How do you see that. This is one of the reasons i declined to join the constitutional analysis as the majority which was concerned with programs that do not exist. As we all concludes, some incredibly miniscule portion of the information that is collected is actually seen by human eye as. The information that the nsa has collected is a set of numbers it is not in any way associated with the identities of the individuals chbt so the programs that have concerns for the majority and the majority found to raise First Amendment implications are programs that do not exist. Why isnt that persuasive . Well, i think on the one hand you have the potential of serious privacy invasions and what we dids with we balanced that against the National Security benefits of this program and did a careful study of when has it been effective and how has it been effective. And we conclude tad that by and large it has never thwarted a theorist plot. It they are really identified a terrorist that wasnt known in advance. You say by and large, you mean no evidence. No evidence that it thwarted a plot or that it has detected a terrorist. There are some benefits to the program, peace of mind, knowing that there is not a terrorist plot under way but we decide given that minimal value compared to the massive potential privacy concerns, and really shifting the balance between citizens and their government, once the government knows everything about you, everyone you call, everyone you associate with, what you it was said on balance it was better to terminate this Bulk Collection Program and still allow them to go to phone companies on a casebycase basis and get information. Do you accept their founding or conclusion that there is has never been a beneficial effect from this program . I also declined to join that portion of the boards report. I have looked at the efficacy of the program from a number of different angles. And my conclusion was that a program like section 215 that allowed us to connect dots about our adversaries when used it in conjunction with perhaps other programs allows us to paint a better picture of our adversaries. Allows us to triage threats. Allows us to determine whether or not threats have a connection to the homeland. To me its a valuable program. And again, that was not persuasive. Right. Our board was created at the recommendation of the 9 11 commission which said after 9 11 lets build up our security, lets Start Connecting the dots and do a better job. But lets not go too far because if we do the, we are have given up our privacy and Civil Liberties. And so our job as a board is to strike the right balance between the two. And youre saying this is going too far. Just finally, i want to ask you both, we know the president is calling for changing the program somewhat. He doesnt want to do away with it all together but he says this information should be collected by something other than, somebody or something other than the government. To both of you quickly, how feasible is that . I would be open to any alternative that pose fewer privacy risks, raised fewer privacy concerns and was equally effective. Perhaps the failure of imagination on my part, i have been unable to develop that type of alternative. I think there are serious risks with counting on the Telephone Companies to maintain the records that are currently available today. And i think it will be i think it will lead to immense pressure to force the Telephone Companies to deep data that they dont currently keep today which raises a different set of privacy risks. How do you see the feasibility of what the president is talking about . Well, i dont support having a third party collect the information because i think that just creates more problems in terms of privacy. I think right now again you can go to phone companies but also lets enlist American Technology companies and say you do a tremendous skrb on searching and managing databases. Lets figure out a better way to do this where we could target the bad guise and not collect every single americans phone records. Well, we thank you both, david medine and elisabeth colins cook with the privacy and civil lib rerts oversite board thank you it ifill as the syrian peace talks in switzerland took a break today to move from montreux to geneva, the surrounding drama continued with more heated rhetoric from the opposition and government representatives. And as Hari Sreenivasan reports, some are wondering whether the two sides will even keep their plans to meet tomorrow. Sreenivasan u. N. Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met separately today with the Syrian Governments delegation and the opposition in the wake of yesterdays tense, formal opening session. He declined to comment on his conversations or about prospects for facetoface talks that the two sides are supposed to hold tomorrow. Ahmad aljarba, head of the westernbacked Syrian National coalition, reiterated again today that syrian president Basharal Assad must go. That idea indeed, many of the civilian opposition groups refused to come and none of the fighting forces secular or islamist sent representatives. Instead, theyve been fighting among themselves and against the more extreme Al Qaeda Linked jihadi groups. Today, alqaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahri released an audio message urging the islamists to unite. Meanwhile, the president of iran called for elections to decide syrias future. Hassan rouhani addressed the World Economic forum in davos, switzerland after his country was barred from yesterdays peace talks. We must all respect whatever the people vote for. Irans support has helped president assads forces make important military gains in recent months perhaps with that in mind, secretary of state john kerry said today its obvious that, for now, assad is not ready to step down. Chief Foreign AffairsMargaret Warner is in geneva. I spoke to her earlier. Given all that happened yesterday are these two sides lickly to meet facetoface tomorrow . They are, hari, and weve been told that ryu hinei had meetings with both sides and they have agreed on an mo for tomorrow. They will meet at the palace denational right here and they will start in the same room. And he will proposed to them what he is thinking of. They will speak through each person, each sides representative too him. Great care has been taken to make sure nothing eck plodes. You dont have a situation like yesterday. Then once thats happened they will each retire to different rooms. And from there then, the question is will that then amount to turning to shuttle diplomacy going from room to room or will they return and again in this very structured way Exchange Ideas through brahimi. Even though they are in the same room they will speak through brahimi. How much from what happened yesterday impact the conversation. Well, interestingly, hari, the opposition which had to really be pressured to even come here by the west and its brackers backers, comes out of the with wind in its sails and the belief is among apparently syrians in syria and certainly among many of the world powers that the 4r50eder of the Syrian Opposition who is really a neophyte to the International Stage did better than foreign minister. Just in terms of style. As we discussed the foreign minister was very histrionic, very aggressive in his language, very sort of bloody and violent in his terminology and never talked about the future that they see. And the j a arva while he also had a litany of grievances did actually speak to the Syrian People about the kind of inclusive syria he hopes to see. So that said, the western backers of the opposition have said to him all right, you dont represent all of the Syrian People as you well know, now is the time to try to capitalize on this little bit of a boost youve given yourself, by not rising to the bait of the Foreign Ministers comments yesterday and try to expand your circle. What about that reservation that weve talked about that not all the people who were fighting on the ground and the opposition are actually represented in the room . In fact, none of those really fighting on the ground or even in the room. And that has to do with a lot of the complicated politics of the fighting forces at the moment whereas we explauned in the settup, theyre fighting a two front war, so they have no fighting forces here, some of the civilian groups declined to come. And so that is an achilles heel for the Syrian Opposition coalition, absolutely. And there is why it is very, very important not to prove for them not to prove the