September 11 - The Just Declassified NSA Surveillance Documents; Why Colorado Voted to Recall Pro-Gun Control State Senators; The Author of "Lawrence In Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and The Making of the Modern Middle East

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the release of de-classified NSA surveillance documents that indicate the government went too far in collecting domestic phone data and mislead the FISA court prompting a rebuke of the NSA from a judge on the secret court that oversees the intelligence community’s secrets. Cindy Cohn, the Legal Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which along with the ACLU sued to get the documents released, joins us.

Part 2

Then we speak with Lynn Bartels, a journalist with the Denver Post who has been covering the recall elections in Colorado that resulted in the recall of two Democratic State Senators who voted for tighter gun control laws after the gun massacres in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut. We discuss the national political significance of this apparent victory for the NRA and the money race in which New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a personal contributions of $350,000 and Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad contributed $250,000. But since undeclared contributions from the billionaire Koch brothers were not counted, it is difficult to say which side spent the most. 

Part 3

Then finally, we look into the chaos in Syria and the broader the Middle East and the historical legacy of colonialism, Zionism and Western imperialism with the author of a new book “Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East”. Scott Anderson, a veteran war correspondent who has reported from Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Sudan, Bosnia and El Salvador joins us to discuss the roots of the current turmoil in which he sees the Arab world continuing to be defined less by what it aspires to become, and more by what it is opposed to.