We are winning. Right now, a live look as hundreds march on the National Mall protesting americas spy tactics. Good saturday afternoon to you. Im craig melvin. Youre watching msnbc. Those protests come as top german officials plan a trip to the white house to demand a nospy deal. Theyll also be asking more questions about whether we spied on the german chancellor herself. Weve got people working overtime 24 7 to boost capacity and address these problems every single day. The one word in the title thats true is patient because if you logon to the website, you have to be very patient. Healthcare. Gov is fixable and functional. While the Administration Promises changes and soon to the obama care website, the nsa website goes down last night, prompting rumors of hacking. What officials are saying about that claim today. Also, texas senator ted cruz is hunting for pheasant in iowa. And maybe votes, too. Its his third stop in the Hawkeye State in three months. Hes preparing to speak to supporters this hour. Well take you there live. Need blind . A private university opens up about a misleading admissions process that actually favors wealthy students. Well talk to the College Student who broke the story. Its fun being in this wheelchair. I never heard of this before. And smart wheels, a dance instructors design helps the disabled move in ways they never could before. Its today the big idea. We start on the road to the 2016 election in, where else, but iowa. Thats where ted cruz is on the hunt today, literally. His morning began with pheasant hunting with local congressman steve king. And casey hunt asked him about those rumors that hes in iowa with president ial aspirations. In 2011, governor perry did this with the congressman when he was running for president. Are you here for that . Thats a very dangerous comparison on a lot of fronts, not the least of which is governor perry is a lot better shot than i am. Im going to avoid making that comparison on every front. Ted cruz set to deliver the keynote address this hour in lamars, iowa, where casey hunt joins us live now. Casey, how is he being received out there so far . Reporter hey, craig. So far hes being received well. He actually did go pheasant hunting this morning with congressman steve king whos now hosting this lunch. I actually went with him for several hours. We were traipsing through the brush. Cruz flew his own shotgun with him here from texas on united airlines. He checked it in his luggage. He spent a lot of time just sort of talking as they walked through the brush with many of these supporters of congressman king, many of whom are conservative activists in the state that youd want to court and get to know should you be interested in mounting a 2016 campaign. So what hes doing here is really starting its a slog to campaign here and to actually win. And you have to Start Building the networks really at the ground level. And voters here really want to hear directly from the candidate. So hes a little bit behind some others who have run here in the past. And he has to get started on that if thats what he does intent to do. What weve seen this weekend is kind of the beginnings of that sort of effort. Casey, what is he saying about his shutdown of the government and what are folks in iowa saying about that . Reporter he addressed last night the reagan dinner, a fundraiser for the iowa gop here. And he laid out really a defense of the shutdown strategy. He says that it energized the grassroots and that that especially heading into 2014 is what the republicans need to win. He says theyre not going to win elections by trying to moderate themselves but rather by trying to get their most interested and most aggressive voters to the polls. He traded it overall as a success that way. The voters ive talked to here in iowa say while the shutdown might not have been popular, they appreciate cruzs willingness to take a stand and not back down. Thats a trait, as ive talked to people here about him, that they highlight as something that they view really positively. Casey hunt in iowa for us on a saturday, we of course are going to bring you a portion of ted cruzs speech when that happens live. Casey, thank you. Meanwhile, demonstrators on the march on capitol hill today. They are protesting u. S. Government surveillance programs which they say infringe upon privacy rights of people all over the world. Some of americas key allies are saying the bonds of trust between them and the United States have been stretched thin after revelations that the u. S. Government has been eavesdropping on officials in great britain, in france, in italy and germany, specifically listening to the cell phone of german chancellor angela merkel. I want to bring in david rode. Always good to see you. Thanks for coming in on a saturday. Thank you. You wrote this weeks disclosures reveal something about our fight against terrorism globally. What . That were essentially overreacting. That our fear of al qaeda is actually hurting us more than al qaeda itself. There have not been major attacks in the United States theres been two, boston and the shooting on the military base in texas. We are now global eavesdropping. Were alienating our allies. Covert drone strikes are making us incredibly unpopular in pakistan and yemen. And then this tsa screening in u. S. Airports, theyre now Mining Private and government databases that show your property records, your tax identification numbers and looking at that before you go on a domestic flight in the United States. And heres the thing, these are the efforts that we know about. These are the efforts that journalists like yourself have uncovered so far. Theres no telling what else is going on out there that we dont know about. Theres the report that emerged this week which revealed that the nsa monitored the phone conversations of 35 World Leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another u. S. Government department. How badly could these revelations specifically damage our relationships with our allies . The big issue is germany. And people consider not to worry about germany, we work more closely with the brits. Germany was critical in turning an iranian scientist and helping slow down their nuclear effort. The germans are furious. Were overdoing this outofcontrol eavesdropping thats hurting our Counterterrorism Operations because theres pressure on merkel now from the german public to stop cooperating with the u. S. What about this argument out there that all countries do this, especially all of the civilized superpowers out there . Is all of the outrage that were seeing and hearing, is it legitimate or is some of this more for the domestic audience . Some of its for the domestic audience. But one of the things that specifically happened was in france, the nsa followed at least got the phone numbers for 70 million phone calls in france. Other nations arent able to do that. So were dealing with a new era and new technology where the nsa is essentially scooping up data from all over the world. Its really alienating europeans. Its backfiring. Were kind of overdoing it. As i talk to you, were showing folks at home whats happening right now in our nations capital. Hundreds if not thousands of people taking to d. C. To protest precisely what weve been talking about here. Whats the Tipping Point . I think this tsa thing that came out, the New York Times reported it. Theres always been a prescreen they did on your date of birth and other information, but limited information. Now theyre just going through these huge databases and looking at anything, your past travel itineraries, personal records, even your physical characteristics, it appears, are where theyre looking at as they do deeper data grooifz. And civil liberty groups say americans dont understand the data mining thats happening about their personal lives in the name of stopping terrorism. These latest revelations come from the nsa files leaked by Edward Snowden. The state department said, quote, more allegations will surface. What might these allegations that they are talking about look like . Its hard to know. There was even one report that there is another tranche of tens of thousands of documents that snowden has hidden somewhere. Every time an american official goes to another country, theres an embarrassing story. Secretary of state john kerry was in france when the report of the 70 million phone calls came out. I dont know where this is going to lead because no one knows what the nsa has been doing. Everyones shocked at the level of eavesdropping theyre carrying out everywhere, inside the u. S. And outside the u. S. Sounds like this could just be the tip of the iceberg. David, always good to see you. Thank you. Topping our saturday headlines this hour, a man who led police on a wild chase through the Mojave Desert has been killed in a shootout with police. Police say the 39yearold shot at passing drivers and tried to run cars along the road as he spun along 30 miles of desert highway with two hostages in his trunk. He was caught when he was stopped on the side of the road and started firing his gun into that trunk. About 100 people turned out for a Memorial Service friday for colleen ritzer, the popular math teacher allegedly killed by her 14yearold student this week in danvers, massachusetts. Her familys set up a Scholarship Fund in her honor. A peaceful protest in brazil turns violent as demonstrators outraged over transit fare hikes set buses on fire in sao paulos main terminal. That group has been demonstrating against bus fares since 2004. And the race to find two americans kidnapped by pirates off the coast of nigeria intensifies this saturday. The ships captain and chief engineer were taken wednesday in the gulf of guinea. U. S. Officials say that ship is now in port but they still do t not know where the americans are. First, nsa workers now fixing the obama care website, what contracting out the work of our government really means. Thats next. Then later, islams influence, how the muslim faith influenced our Founding Fathers and americas birth. Wild and crazy guys, whoa and whats al gore talking about . Whats that guy doing . Its in our political playground. In the nation, sometimes bad things happen. 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Pfft [ laughs ] you nearly had us there. Canned soup. [ male announcer ] they just might think its homemade. Try campbells homestyle soup. The website problems that have prevented an untold number of americas from registering for Health Insurance should be fixed by the end of november. Thats the word from the white house. Friday, the administration hired a tech contractor to oversee the work of 47 other contractors who already worked on healthcare. Gov. Jay engoff, norm ornstein and clay johnson join us. Good to see all of you. Clay, i want to start with you. This isnt the first time the governments use of contractors has been called into question. We were just talking about Edward Snowden and his disclosures of the nsa surveillance activities. Snowden, of course, a Government Contractor whose security clearance was granted by another Government Contractor. Why is there so much reliance on outsiders . Why cant government workers do these jobs . Well, i think government workers can do these jobs. The problem is that the hiring and firing policies inside the federal government are pretty hard to manage and deal with. It takes a long time to get someone inside of the government. Oftentimes it takes longer to get them inside the government than it does to get them to do the actual work. With Something Like healthcare. Gov, id estimate a Standard Company could probably build Something Like healthcare. Gov with 50 to 100 bodies. That would take a long time for government to hire up all those people. What government should be doing is hiring some really great talent, centralizing them and having them work across different agencies to help them with their different technologies. Why dont we do that . How . Why dont we do that . We should do that. Thats what my New York Times oped yesterday said. The uk did do that just a few years ago. They created a Government Digital Services that centralized Technology Inside of a Cabinet Office and works across various offices and agencies inside the uk government. Theyve saved billions of dollars doing it and more importantly are delivering Effective Services to citizens that work. Norm, the Sunlight Foundation issued a report on the contractors chosen to build the healthcare. Gov website. It found that of the 47 contractors chosen, some 17 aca contract winners reported spending more than 128 million on lobbying in 2011 and 2012. 29 had employees or Political Action committees or both that contributed some 32 million to federal candidates and parties in the same period. Norm, that smells funny to me. Is it sinister or is this merely another example of the way modern washington works . Its more an example of how the modern washington works. On the surface, if you have a company that is big and active in politics, i dont have a particular problem with that. Where i would have a problem is if youre getting sweetheart contracts or sweetheart deals. I dont see any sign of that with the contractors at this point that have been involved with building healthcare. Gov. I think the problems are of a different order. And theyre really some of the things clay has pointed out numerous times. Its really not having a kind of coordination and not having the talent together inside the government that is up enough on modern tech policies to be able to coordinate these things. You want to watch this stuff and make sure youre not dealing with people who are simply clever at doing the requests for contract bids and know how to file them. You want people who have expertise. But the rest of it is not the greatest concern. Jay, are these glitches are they going to merely be a flash in the pan or is there a real possibility that these glitches have a lasting effect on the longterm viability of obama care . Well, there are big stakes here. If its fixed by the end of november, this will all be a footnote. Well be able to joke about how terrible it was when the system first came up and everything will be great. In fact, it might even be a little better because theres been so much publicity about this now, if the system is fixed, everyone knows about it. So thats great. On the other hand, if its not fixed, it will be terrible for obama care but it will also be terrible for the government, for the antigovernment crowd, the people who hate the United States government will use this as an example, as an argument anytime the government wants to do great things. Theyll point to this. So the stakes really are very big here. From now until the end of time. Clay, your company developed the president s 2008 campaign website. But when asked to work on healthcare. Gov, you said, quote, i want to make sure i get this right, according to the article, it was a project i wanted to steer clear of. Why . Well, because 94 of these projects fail. The what kind of projects specifically . The Standings Group earlier this week issued a report that said federal i. T. Projects of greater than 10 million have a 94 chance of failure. 94 of them fail. So thats a staggering number. I think that working on projects like this and the way theyre being managed and the way theyre being contracted out clearly has to change. The federal government spends 80 billion a year on information technology. And now were looking at a staggering level of failure. And its clear that we as a country, the congress, we all have to figure out how to make a system that works better. Norm, you wrote in the National Journal this week, in part, it was the remarkable lack of concern with managing the government, seeing the effective implementation of the laws as important as their passage. That is the key here and the buck stops and starts with the president. How do you think president obama should have handled this from the beginning, norm . Well, i think we needed now we have jeff sinz, whos a terrific guy and someone who can coordinate this from the top. That didnt happen. You had people in the white house, people in h. H. S. , outside contractors that were not working together, coordinating together. They didnt put together the front end and the back end. A lot of it is the kinds of problems that clay is talking about. But the larger point of my piece was i think the biggest failure that weve seen in the Obama Administration and the Obama White House is theres been much less concern with public administration. Running the agencies, making sure the laws you get passed remarkable success at passing the laws actually get implemented well. And this is the pr