'Up w/Chris Hayes' for Sunday, February 17th, 2013

UP WITH CHRIS HAYES
February 17, 2013

Guests: Bill Dailey, Michael Brendan Dougherty, Jamie Manson, Saadiq Long, Gadeir Abbas, Ben Jealous, Jen Daskal, James Poulos, Bill McKibben, Chief Jackie Thomas, Tyson Slocum

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC ANCHOR: Good morning from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.
"USA Today" has obtained a draft of the White House proposal for
immigration reform, which would allow undocumented immigrants to become
permanent citizens within eight years. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of
Florida said the proposal would be quote "dead on arrival." And Michael
Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever to play the game turns 50 years
old today.

Right now I`m joined by Father Bill Dailey, visiting associate professor of
law at Notre Dame University, Sister Mary Hughes, former president of the
Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents
catholic sisters in the U.S., Michael Brendan Dougherty, national
correspondent for the "American Conservative Magazine" and Jamie Manson,
who writes the weekly column "Grace on the Margins" for the "National
Catholic Reporter." Great to have you all here.

People around the world were shocked on Monday by the sudden announcement
that Pope Benedict XVI would step down at the end of the month. Only a
handful of popes have renounced their office. Benedict will be the first
to leave the papacy in 600 years, since before Columbus sailed those three
ships, before Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

When Benedict became the pope in 2005 he was 78 years old, one of the
oldest men ever elected to the position. Now at 85, age seems to be the
reason for his resignation. Speaking in Latin on Monday, the pope said
quote, "after having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have
come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no
longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine Ministry." The papal
conclave is set to elect the next pope on March 15th, but the Vatican is
flirting with the possibility of moving the date up.

Benedict`s successor, whoever it is, faces several challenges both in the
U.S. and around the world. Seminary enrollment in the U.S. has fallen at a
staggering rate, also in Europe. Church attendance is down. The church`s
center of gravity has moved from Europe to Africa and Latin America, and
the church continues to works through the legacy of the widespread cover-up
of repeated rape of children by priests, a cover-up that revealed a
widespread set of institutional failures and dysfunctions that spanned the
globe.

Given all this, how exactly should we judge Pope Benedict`s relatively
brief papacy, and looking forward to what`s next for one of the world`s
largest and oldest institutions. And it`s a great pleasure to have you
here to discuss that.

I have to say, I have a personal -- you know, I was raised in the church, I
was baptized in the church, confirmed in the church, my father was a Jesuit
seminarian before leaving to become a community organizer. And, you know,
so I have -- I have a very strong relationship with the church. And I
think that my first question, I want to talk about the resignation itself,
because what I find fascinating about this, is Ratzinger has this
interesting ideological trajectory, he is a theologian of Vatican II, he`s
sort of associated with the liberals at that time. He is viewed later on
as this incredibly doctrinaire reactionary, particularly in the way he`s
covered in the press. And yet his final act, the final act for which he`ll
be known is this remarkably modern thing, right? I mean, here`s this
traditionalist who has done the most modern thing imaginable, which is
basically just to say, you know what, I`m too old to do the job, which
seems to me like a very wise, commonsensical thing, but also remarkably
radical given the history.

MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY, THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE: Yeah. I would say
it`s radical, and I would say it`s going to be very interesting to see how
he performs in his post-papacy to establish a kind of precedent for this at
the ...

HAYES: I don`t imagine a kind of Jimmy Carter sort of thing. Habitat for
Humanity, sort of ...

(LAUGHTER)

HAYES: Side project.

DOUGHERTY: "The Onion" had a good article about him joining a Catholic
think tank.

(LAUGHTER)

DOUGHERTY: But it will be very interesting because I actually think there
is potentially -- I think it may be modern, and it may be good and it may
be something that was inevitably going to happen as our, you know, our
lives are being extended into senility and (INAUDIBLE) that we`re just not
used to.

HAYES: Right.

DOUGHERTY: And the thing is that there could be a danger with the idea
that, OK, popes can resign. Should they resign if they become unpopular?

HAYES: Right.

DOUGHERTY: With the set within the church, outside of the church. So they
resign, you know, this talk in England of, you know, the crown skipping a
generation because of reasons of popularity. Once you establish that, I
mean you`ve basically given yourself over to democratism in the church.
And I ...

HAYES: The horror.

DOUGHERTY: Yeah.

HAYES: It is a horror.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) a far greater degree that it does now.

HAYES: Bishops?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, you had bishops being chosen by acclamation of
the faithful. Unthinkable today, but it actually more traditional than the
current system.

HAYES: That`s interesting.

SISTER MARY HUGHES, LCWR.ORG: Well, if you look at religious communities,
they`d long had a tradition generally of not electing someone for life.
It`s a period of time. You come. You give your best gifts. And then
someone comes in with different gifts to either continue your legacy or to
reshape it in another way. I think it`s very promising to look at
something like this. It allows the spirit to move into the realm
differently.

HAYES: How should we -- how should we judge? I mean I think that the
question when he was like -- people are fascinated with the Catholic Church
because it is one of the world`s oldest institutions. It`s obviously one -
had been and historically one of the world`s most powerful institutions.
It still exerts a kind of pull over our imagination for many reasons,
Catholics and non-Catholics. And the question to me was when the news came
was how do you -- what`s the value or criteria to talk about a papacy?
Like how do you judge a papacy? What are the metrics if we`re conducting
pope Benedict`s exit interview. What -- How do you judge it?

JAMIE MANSON, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER: Well, I would judge it by the
state of the church and the health of the church. And I think it`s fair to
say at this point, this is not a healthy time for the Roman Catholic
Church, particularly in the United States where you have 77 million
Catholics, two-thirds of them no longer go to church regularly.

HAYES: Ding, ding, ding.

MANSON: Yeah, and that`s very common. Half of that -- half of that number
don`t even call themselves Catholic any more. So, we`re definitely in a
crisis mode. I think there`s been too much stress on the pelvic zone
issues, what we call -- and that is all that folks are hearing about the
church and so they`ve almost been made into an idol those teachings, where
-- how you feel about those teachings as a Catholic is now determining
whether you`re in or whether you are out.

HAYES: Is the focus on culture war issue, pelvic zone issues as you`re
talking -- talking about in the realm of birth control, abortion,
premarital sex, et cetera, gay and lesbian relationships, is that driven by
a press that can only view things through this political lens or is it
driven by a church putting emphasis on it?

DOUGHTERTY: There`s a little bit of both. I mean -- I go -- I mean people
that follow me on Twitter might know -- I go to like a Latin traditional
mass with the most like militant type of priests. And we have maybe one
sermon ...

HAYES: Militant traditional.

DOUGHTERTY: Yes. Militant traditional. But they have the most, you know,
we get one homily every two years about pelvic zone issues. You know, it
may be discussed in catechism class or something like that. But, I mean,
most of the focus is, have faith in Jesus Christ, our high priest in
heaven, et cetera, you know. It is not -- it`s not like going to a pro
life activism course or something like that when you go to mass even at the
most traditional Catholic parishes. So. I think there`s just a way that
the media has given a set of moral issues that are contested in our broad
culture and everyone is in a sense licensed to have an opinion on them.

HAYES: Right.

DOUGHTERTY: And then the church ...

HAYES: ... which as it should be.

DOUGHTERTY: Right.

HAYES: (INAUDIBLE) licensing for opinions on them.

DOUGHTERTY: Right. But I mean there could be, you know, in another age we
would be debating different moral issues.

HAYES: Yes, that`s true.

DOUGHTERTY: And the church`s position on something else like slavery or
usury ...

HAYES: Right, right.

DOUGHTERTY: ... or something else would become the focus. And everyone
will be saying, you know, I hate these popes, they are condemning commerce
...

HAYES: Right, right.

DOUGHTERTY: ... and commercial progress in the United States, et cetera.
So, that`s I think why for the non-Catholic or for the Catholic that`s away
from the church they just experience the church through the media.
Through, OK, here`s some sweaty fat priest telling me what to do with my
sex life.

FATHER BILL DAILEY, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME: I`m sitting right here.

(LAUGHTER)

MANSON: You know, I think that some of it is media. I mean, certainly
Benedict has been the greenest pope. I mean he has installed solar panels
on the Paul VI residence. I mean he`s done remarkable things that we never
hear about. But I think it`s also fair that we have to look at the
church`s pocketbook where is it spending its money.

HAYES: Right.

MANSON: And we learned in the last year during the election season it
funneled millions of dollars to the Knights of Columbus and the Knights of
Columbus, in turn, used that money to fund NOM, the National Organization
for Marriage. So much of the money is being spent on the agenda.

HAYES: And also, the U.S. Confidence of Bishops, I mean that they -- they
were quite outspoken on the Affordable Care Act decision about mandated
birth control, there`s a lawsuit. I mean that is not a fabrication of the
media. That was actually a political battle. Which, you know, that`s
their belief system and they have every right to participate in that -- in
the legal system the way everyone else does, but I don`t think you can say
that that fight was picked by the ...

DAILEY: It is, though, as Michael says, an interaction with the media.

HAYES: Right.

DAILEY: So, last night at dinner someone said, well, how is that that you
get along with Chris Hayes? I said, well, we don`t agree about much. And
then I thought -- actually we probably agree about 98 percent of things.

MANSON: Yes.

DAILEY: So, we are never going to have a controversy over the 98 percent
of thing we agree about, which is to say that just orthodox Catholicism is
exceedingly liberal 98 percent of the time.

MANSON: Yes. Yes.

DAILEY: So is the media. Then there`s the two percent.

HAYES: Right. Right.

DAILEY: ... where there`s going to be a clash.

DOUGHERTY: Well ...

DAILEY: And that`s also going to define how the bishops spend their money,
whether defending it or not that`s where their money is going to be spent
because they don`t need to spend money to get MSNBC to talk about global
warming or about health care ...

HAYES: Right.

DAILEY: We`re probably speaking.

DOUGHERTY: And it weren`t -- you know, there wasn`t wall to wall media
coverage from 1978 on when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was
saying we need universal health care.

HAYES: Right.

DOUGHERTY: You know what I mean -- that wasn`t like a wall to wall, like
emergency -- like watch out, America, these bishops are coming to give you
health care.

HAYES: Right. Right.

DOUGHERTY: So there is an element where it`s just, we focus it - I mean
it`s really based on pre-existing partisan narratives and then we try to
apply that to the whole church.

HAYES: I want to talk about something you said about the sort of declining
membership issue, which is not just obviously in the U.S., that`s in
Europe, too. It`s actually in Latin America, where evangelicals are
growing at the expense of the Catholics. And a sort of question about like
how much should a pope be held responsible for that or even think about
that, right? Because it`s -- you`re not selling a product at some level,
right? So if the metrics are that people are leaving the flock, well, you
know that -- you know, I guess the question is should you be judged by
that? Right? What does it say about the church that membership is
declining and what does it mean for the church`s future right after this
break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: This is a newsletter from Catholic President Bill Donohue talking
about ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Catholic League president.

HAYES: Sorry, yes, yes, right. Catholic President -- Catholic League
President Bill Donohue. Catholic President Bill Donohue ...

(LAUGHTER)

HAYES: We don`t live in that world, thankfully. "Everyone, of course, is
entitled to offer advice, but those who are no longer practicing Catholics
or who never were cannot expect a serious hearing. This has to be said now
because over the next several month we are likely to witness an explosion
in voyeurism, as well as downright meddling in the internal affairs of the
Catholic Church." And I think that -- I think captures something that I
saw on Twitter in the wake of this, which was devout Catholics feeling kind
of besieged, feeling like misunderstood or that there was -- they are
taunting or, you know, bias from the media. And I know this from my own
world, my own family, my father, I think thinks the church gets a raw deal
sometimes. But in some way that relates to this question of how the church
is outward facing and how this outward facing relates to the fact that its
membership is declining, particularly here in this country and Europe, and
I wonder if someone who is involved in the life of the church on a very
daily basis like how do you understand that decline?

DAILEY: Well, I`m not sure that actually in absolute terms it`s declining,
but certainly with particular socio-cultural groups it`s declining. I
think that competition for people`s attention and the secularization of the
intellectual life, I mean I was an undergraduate philosophy major in
college. You go through that and you wonder, does it make sense to believe
in this faith.

HAYES: That`s true.

DAILEY: In any faith.

HAYES: Correct.

DAILEY: So that`s true for North America, for Western Europe as a matter
of intellectual history, and I`m not sure that it`s easily generalizable
across other cultures. But Mary, what do you think?

HUGHES: I think in my experience that people that I see that no longer go
don`t find relevance in the church. They go to church, they hear homilies
that they don`t feel fed by. Sometimes it`s an emphasis on law, sometimes
it`s a stream of consciousness homily having little to do with I`m sure,
you are not in that category.

DAILEY: You don`t think when I open with a story of my summer camp that
doesn`t ....

(LAUGHTER)

HUGHES: Right, but, you know, people go I think, wanting to get something
they can hold on to for the week, something they can model their lives on,
something that they feel relates. And I think at times and perhaps it`s
the decline of the intellectual life as well, there seems to be an
inability to hold attentions in a complex discussion where there`s
multifaceted issues and we might not all agree with each other, but at
least we can be stretched by our mutual understanding.

HAYES: But I don`t think -- I think that Michael makes this point all the
time. I mean I -- as a liberal and, you know, someone who comes out of the
tradition of the church and Jesuits, that`s quite intellectual and quite
concerned with the life of the mind, that is incredibly appealing to me,
and I would say part of my relationship with the church is that. But
Michael makes a point that, you know, complexity is not the thing that`s
driving religious growth around the world, right? I mean in some ways like
devotion, faith of the most kind of straightforward way and I don`t mean to
oversimplify people`s internal spiritual lives, which are rich and complex.
But doctrinally, complexity and holding tension is not a thing that`s
driving religious devotion around the world.

DOUGHERTY: I mean I`d say, you know, I left the church as a teenager. And
it was probably -- I grew up in this church that was constantly trying to
experiment. It`s like, OK, we`re going to try folk music this week. OK,
we`re going to do some sermons on Jungian archetypes this next week. OK,
now we`re into enneagram and comparing the sacraments to your chakras, et
cetera. And it was just like ludicrous. And I was really impressed by
either atheism or evangelicalism, saying like, OK ...

HAYES: Go all in.

DOUGHERTY: Exactly, and eventually came to a point where what is the
Catholic Church good for unless you believe the tomb was empty on Sunday,
Jesus Christ is the risen Lord, and you want to get to heaven.

HAYES: Right.

DOUGHERTY: That`s what drew me back into the church. And it wasn`t
necessarily just a political conversation or a kind of indulgence in the
intellect. It is who am I? Who is he? And I want to be in his church,
even with all these evil people that are in it, all these mediocre people
that are in it like me.

HAYES: But can -- can the pope be held responsible for -- what should the
pope be held responsible when we talk about things like the growth or
decline of the church. When we talk about the church being in crisis in
terms of membership? How much of that can be laid at the pope`s feet?

MANSON: Well, the purpose of a religion is to help people make sense of
the big questions, the questions that none of us have answers to. Why are
we here, where are we going, why do we suffer, what happens after death.
And it`s important that a church or any religion engage with its people and
meet them where they are. That is what a church is supposed to do, to help
people find meaning. And when a religion stops helping people find meaning
people will invariably turn to consumerism, to culture, and the pope is so
busy declaring our culture, the culture of death, you know, putting the
responsibility on us.

HAYES: So, you are laying, I mean, I just want to be explicit here. You
are laying this on the pope`s feet. I mean you`re saying, basically, this
person that comes out of that CDF and the person who was, essentially, the
chief theologian with his sort of doctrinal declarations is alienating the
flock that -- the potential flock in places like the U.S. and Europe, where
church membership`s declined.

MANSON: Well, I think he and the hierarchy have. You know, they have
decided what their priorities are, and they -- they have just patently
denied the crisis, particularly the crisis in the priesthood.

HAYES: And do you?

DAILEY: I think his doctrinal declarations are quite beautiful. If you
were to read his Encyclicals. They are sort of out of time, though. It`s
precisely the crisis that we haven`t yet addressed. I was with some
priests at dinner the other night, as I tend to be teaching at a Catholic
university, and living in a religious community, and one of them said, you
know, people just can`t believe in these guys who wear these robes, and
it`s easy to mock the clerical garb, especially the dresses that bishops
are said to wear. Nobody says that about the Dalai lama.

HAYES: Right.

DAILEY: Why is that? Well, I mean there might be all kinds of reasons.
But if the people wearing clerical robes handle or mishandle the crisis in
the way that they have ...

HAYES: Yes.

DAILEY: ... misunderstand their own role in it, right, what is driving
people away from the church is not that priests have molested, as horrible
as that is -- use the worst words, which are the correct ones, child rape.

HAYES: Right.

DAILEY: I`m not saying that people don`t care about that. What really
makes them leave the church isn`t that there are some priests who have done
that. It is because we sort of imagine they are sick people and there`s
only so much you can do to get rid of sick people. What`s the defense of
bishops who didn`t respond in a robust muscular and transparent way to deal
with that. That`s where the crisis in faith is. That`s what makes the
robe seem bad. And what I think is the great moment of grace in Benedict`s
retirement, resignation, however we`re going to call it, is he`s saying
it`s not the occupant of the robes, it`s the office that matters.

HAYES: Right

DAILEY: And that needs to be extended much further and more robustly.

HAYES: I`m glad that you cued that up. As I knew, I`ve done a lot of
reporting on this, on the church`s sex abuse scandal. And the way it`s
been dealt with, and I want to talk about that next, because -- and the
reason why I want to push that off is because it seems like the only thing
we talk about in the church. And church is a big organization, a big
institution, but you can`t -- there`s no escaping it. It`s just so
central, it`s so central to the way we understand and I think people of
faith also understand it. So I want to talk about that. I want to talk
about a few of the cardinals who will be voting on the next pope and what
their record is on this, which I find really horrifying right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: All right. Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop in Los Angeles, and
who has in his ministry, I think, done a lot of tremendously laudable
things vis-a-vis, particularly around immigrants and immigration and
creating a kind of sense of oasis for people that are feeling alienated,
marginalized, persecuted in American life, who are not documented, that
said. His handling of child rapists within the flock of his priests is
horrifying and I just want to give an example because this man is going to
be voting on the next pope and to me the fact that he`ll be voting on the
next pope symbolizes and exactly everything that`s wrong right now with
where the church is in terms of dealing with this, dealing with this evil
and its mist.

Father Peter Garcia was a priest who abused more than a dozen young boys.
Most of them families of undocumented immigrants, in some cases threatened
to have them deported if they reported him. And this is letters that we
now have access to because of the lawsuit of Roger Mahony writing to his
chief adviser about Monsignor Garcia who is this -- the priest who`d done
this thing. "I feel strongly that it would not be possible for Monsignor
Garcia to return to California, to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for the
foreseeable future. The two young men who were involved with him and their
parents have switched attorneys on several occasions, and I believe as
Monsignor Garcia were to reappear here within the archdiocese we might ever
-- well, to have some type of legal action filed and brought to criminal
and civil factors."

Basically this is just a straightforward degree of law evading criminal
counsel, which is you were wanted by the fuzz here for the horrifying
things you did, you should not come back. And there are many, many, many,
and I`ve spent six months reporting on this and you and you and I have
corresponded about it, Father Bill There`s more letters like this. This
is not one ...

DAILEY: 12,000 pages.

HAYES: Yes, I mean there are a lot of letters. And this, to me, I think
the question when you think about the pope`s legacy particularly as what
will it take for the church as an institution to get right on this. And
there`s a certain (INAUDIBLE), which the evil that`s been done can never be
undone, right? But institutionally what would your solution look like for
the church to get right on this, so you do not have a situation in which
even the pope himself -- there were some cases in which under his -- that
priests were transferred after having accusations and justified accusations
of this kind of behavior. What is the solution for the church to get right
on this, Michael?

DOUGHERTY: There`s no -- there`s no one solution for it, right, because
every -- every institutional reform in the Catholic Church and it`s gone
through them in every age and epoch of its being, ends up being subverted
in the end by, you know, the men within the church, the human nature. But
in the immediate term I think there are some solutions, which is one,
bishops who have done this should lose their authority. I mean just --
that`s it.

HAYES: Yes.

DOUGHERTY: Cardinal Mahony should have his red hat taken away from him.

HAYES: Yes.

DOUGHERTY: And some of these men should be turned over to the authorities.
The church should encourage the prosecution of these crimes. That`s --
those are just the basic, simple ...

HAYES: Yes.

DOUGHERTY: ... decent things that don`t require extraordinary holiness ...

(LAUGHTER)

HAYES: Right.

DOUGHERTY: ... or like religious insight to do. I mean this is just the
basic. If you protect child rapists, you`re done.

HAYES: You are done. Sister?

HUGHES: Well, I know that they spend -- it`s my understanding that prior
to the actual election the bishops spend time and the cardinals spend time
really talking about the issues that face the church and this is one of the
most significant things, the credibility is nil in so many places because
they have not taken responsibility for their own actions and haven`t acted
justly. Or in a gospel fashion. So they are the only ones in a sense who
can -- they don`t seem to respond to the criticism, the newspaper, the
media, the letters.

HAYES: In fact, there`s been a lot of bunkering.

DOUGHERTY: Yes.

HAYES: I mean there`s been a lot of sort of reaction to it in a very kind
of defensive posture.

HUGHES: Exactly.

DAILEY: When the bishops adopted a policy in Dallas ten years ago or so,
the policy itself was unobjectionable ...

HAYES: Right.

DAILEY: ... it was already in place in most places, but they decided to
say that with Cardinal Law who at the time was Cardinal Mahony in that
position ...

HAYES: Right.

DAILEY: They decided to say that what Cardinal Law needed was a better
policy and if only we had a better policy, which was fundamentally not the
case. And they knew it. If instead they had said we need to cauterize
this wound. We need -- Cardinal Law who also did many great things in his
life.

HAYES: Right. Right.

DAILEY: But when you didn`t react properly to this signal and astonishing
issue, then you have to step aside. As the pope is stepping aside because
his physical and mental capacity isn`t up to the job as Michael said, step
aside. If 100 bishops had resigned because they felt they had also
mishandled the issue God will judge their souls and their conscience.

HAYES: That`s not the law -- where is the law?

DAILEY: But my point is, they wouldn`t be giving -- they wouldn`t be
saying, I`m a moral failure in some -- what they would be saying is we`ve
lost the credibility to have this office within the church. That is an
important office that is more important than me. And the bishops have
never found collectively that capacity to recognize the reason people are
leaving the church is not that priests have done horrible things. That`s
the sort of public health issue, in my view.

HAYES: Right.

DAILEY: It`s not that people aren`t horrified by it.

HAYES: And a criminal issue.

DAILEY: And a criminal issue, of course, but what they are more horrified
by is people who can`t say I have this pathology that I can`t help, and
yet, I`m trying to keep people out of the state away from the long arm of
the law.

HAYES: It -- and I completely agree with that. I mean I think -- and one
of the things we`ve seen actually which I think is really interesting, is
we`ve seen other institutions, as, you know, have acted in very similar
ways, right? One of the big differences is they have rubbed up against the
outside world of a law much faster than the church was able to keep things
internal for so long sometimes with the complicity of Catholic district
attorneys and Catholic police. And I mean, you know, that in the case of
Penn State, I mean that went on for a very long time. Eventually it hit up
against the wall of secular law. And it would be entire thing was blown
up. And I want to turn to where the church goes and what this conclave is
going to look like given what this handling of the sex abuse scandal says
about the institutional dynamics at play, right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: As the conclave is preparing to meet, I just want to reiterate that
what we think of here as a domestic problem is global and in Ireland is one
place where it`s been particularly acute. This is the Irish Prime Minister
Enda Kenny on the Cloyne report, which is a long detailed report that was
commissioned on the handling of abuse allegations against 19 priests. And
you get a sense of the outrage, which right now in Ireland, I think, is at
a very high pitch. Across the society. And that`s actually devastated
church attendance. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ENDA KENNY, IRISH PRIME MINISTER: For the first time in this country, a
report into child sexual abuse exposes and attempts by the holy see to
frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign democratic republic as little as three
years ago, not three decades ago. Ad in doing so the Cloyne Report
excavates the dysfunction, the disconnection, the elitism, that dominate
the culture of the Vatican today. The rape and the torture of children
were downplayed or managed to uphold instead the primacy of the
institution, its power, its standing and its reputation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: As someone who is a Vatican watcher, Michael, and I`ve been
following your reporting on all of this, is there something the conclave
can do in who it select that would signal to you some kind of break or some
kind of new course for the Vatican and for the cardinals and for the
(INAUDIBLE) in specifically this issue, but sort of more broadly?

DOUGHERTY: No. And I don`t want to sound hopeless. There have been some
cardinals, like a Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna who have been very critical
of the handling of the sex abuse crisis, but the only way the election of
the next pope will affect this reputation, is based on how he administrates
the church. And how he governs the church. This is going to be in the
pudding. Is he willing to tell people that elected him you`re out of
office.

HAYES: Right. Right.

DOUGHERTY: Go to a monastery and wait for the cops. You know, that would
restore confidence in the Vatican and in the papacy. But short of that
there`s no one signal. And there`s actual thing -- there`s not going to be
one signal in the election of the next pope, because everyone is looking at
other factors, too, like geography or region or anything else. So it`s not
just one -- it`s not just one issue.

HAYES: Do you have hopes about who the next pope will be in that respect?

MANSON: Well, I actually like to speak to that ...

HAYES: Yes. Please.

MANSON: A little bit more, about the moral -- the lack of moral credibility
is, you know, the Roman Catholic Church now is known for its condemnation
on issues relating to sexual morality.

HAYES: Right.

MANSON: The problem is, it does not make itself accountable to its same
standards of judgment ...

HAYES: Right.

MANSON: Internally. This is -- this is the big struggle that we are
really having, is that that`s why there`s no credibility. In terms of
hope, I mean most of the men that will vote for this pope have been
selected by John Paul II or Benedict XVI. So, it does not look promising
for people like me who are looking for a transformation of the priesthood,
of a real investment in our glory, social justice tradition in this church.

HAYES: Yes.

MANSON: But I don`t like to discount the holy spirit.

HAYES: Can I ask you this question?

MANSON: Yes.

HAYES: And when I ask -- I`ve asked my parents this sometimes, you know.
If there are frustrations you have with the doctrine of the church and with
this -- why do you stay in it? Why? I`m always sort of interested in
Catholic reformers, people like Call to Action ...

MANSON: Yes.

HAYES: ...which is a group of folks who are trying to sort of change the
church direction from within it. But, you know, the church is what it is.
You can, you know, you can -- there`s lots of -- you can go be a Unitarian
or something like that.

MANSON: Sure. Well. I went to Yale Divinity School, which a Protestant
seminary with the ton of Catholic students and Catholic faculty in it. And
that gave me time, gave me years to figure out what it was that I loved
about this church and what was distinctive. And what hurts me about so
many more traditional Catholics who claim to love the church, is they have
this very reductive view of Catholicism that says, well, it all comes down
to how you believe -- what you believe about sexual morality, when in fact,
the beauty of this tradition is its sacramental theology. And the
sacramental theology that this is based as for this unparalleled social
justice tradition. This is what makes this church beautiful. This is what
makes this -- this is what speaks to people, that Catholic imagination that
we have. That really is unique about the tradition.

DAILEY: If you grow up encountering God and Christ in the church then no
number of perfidious bishops or anyone else can take that away from you and
I think that`s why people stay. Think about this. If you have decided to
talk about something other than the pope with this group of four people you
might have found some disagreement. But if the next pope, if we knew six
months from now that the next pope were going to deal in a muscular way
with the crisis of authority and its misappropriation and abuse ...

HAYES: Right.

DAILEY: ... the four of us are all pining for that.

HAYES: Right. Right.

DAILEY: Irrespective of the other things we think about. Four faithful
people with quite different perspective.

HAYES: Yes. It`s a very good point.

DAILEY: So one hopes that the holy spirit will let the conclave see that.

HUGHES: And to that point, we began this conversation talking about the
legacy of the pope. And one of the most stunning pieces that he left us is
his resignation ...

HAYES: Yes.

HUGHES: Saying that the church is more important than I am. And I hope
that talking about the movement of the spirit, that`s going to stay in
conversation for a long time. We can only hope that that penetrates as the
church begins its move forward.

HAYES: Father Bill Dailey from Notre Dame University, Sister Mary Hughes
from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Michael Bernard
Dougherty from the "American Conservative Magazine." If you`re watching
this and you are an editor out there and you`re looking to hire a
phenomenal, truly, genuinely, phenomenally talented writer and reporter,
Michael Bernard Dougherty is on the market. And you should absolutely ...

(LAUGHTER)

HAYES: No, I really mean this. And Jamie Manson from "The National
Catholic Reporter." Thanks for joining us this morning.

MANSON: Thank you.

HAYES: The human cost on the war on terror, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: The 11 plus years since 9/11 we have all grown accustomed to the
accretion of new government policies then to track, surveil, spy on and
collect information about U.S. citizens. We`re acclimated to the small,
but annoying curtailment of rights. We might experience firsthand the
prying eyes of the Rapiscan machines at airports, routine searches of our
bags when entering a stadium. And yet the large bulk of the official state
activities are invisible to the vast majority of Americans. Somewhere,
someone might be reading an email I sent to a friend abroad, for instance,
but if they are, I don`t know it and I don`t spend a lot of time thinking
about it.

But for Saadiq Long, an American citizen and ten year United States Air
Force veteran who is converted to Islam, the policies enacted in the years
after 9/11 are anything but remote. Saadiq first surmised that he`d been
placed on the no fly list when he was barred last April from flying from
Qatar where he currently lives with his wife and daughter to Oklahoma to
visit his terminally ill mother. Six months later, and two weeks after
Glen Greenwald`s "The Guardian" wrote an article telling Saadiq`s story.
He was allowed to board a flight from Qatar to Oklahoma in late November of
last year. When he purchased the plane ticket to go back home to his job
and family in Doha, his lawyer sent a letter to the FBI alerting them to
his plan, saying "I write to inform you that Mr. Long has purchased a
ticket to Doha, Qatar that leaves from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on February
6th, 2013. In light of his past travel difficulties, Mr. Long requests
he`d be accorded the same right given the millions of American citizen
travelers every day -- the right to board a plane."

Despite telling the FBI in advance of his flight plans and being allowed to
board a flight in November to come back to the United States, Saadiq was
barred from returning to Qatar. He now remains in Oklahoma away from his
wife, his daughter and his livelihood. As of today, Saadiq has never been
told by any U.S. authority that his name is on the no fly list, or nor has
he been charged officially with any crimes. He`s simply been told he can`t
go home. Joining us now is Saadiq Long, U.S. Air Force veteran who joins
us from Oklahoma City because he was unable to fly here and join us on set.
We also have Gadeir Abbas, Saadiq`s lawyer and a staff attorney of the
Council on American Islamic Relations. Gentlemen, good to have you here.

Saadiq, can you tell me ...

SAADIQ LONG, USAF VETERAN: Good morning.

HAYES: I`m curious about your story. You were in the Air Force. I think
you joined when you were 18 or 19 years old. How did you find your way to
Islam?

LONG: Well, when I was stationed in Turkey I met two individuals, one of
whom worked with me and another one who worked a different office on the
base, and they used to present, you know, they would pass out booklets and
pamphlets to, you know, those of us who were serving there and that`s how I
basically was introduced to it.

HAYES: And you -- and you converted while you were there in Turkey?

LONG: That`s right.

HAYES: And then after that you met your wife, you came back to the United
States, your met your wife and you decided to go live abroad in the Middle
East.

LONG: That`s right.

HAYES: And why did you make that choice?

LONG: Well, because I guess while I was serving in Turkey I guess I fell
in love with the culture and the way of the people. Just the whole
atmosphere, you know. So I decided, you know, after getting out of the Air
Force in the Mexico, I decided to move to Egypt and try to learn Arabic
language and just kind of mix with the people.

HAYES: And so, you`ve now created a life for yourself in the region.
You`re teaching English, I understand it, at a company. How did you hear
about your mother`s illness and walk me through what happened when you
tried to go home the first time when you purchased the ticket to try to go
home and visit her?

LONG: Yes. I think my mother, she became ill maybe in the middle of 2011,
and, you know, I had to try to arrange to travel to see her, and around
April is when I had everything basically arranged. I guess one or two days
prior to the flight, it`s when I received a phone call from the manager of
the airline, explaining to me that I would not be able to fly.

HAYES: And what explanation did he give you about why you couldn`t go home
to see your mother who was terminally ill?

LONG: Well, she couldn`t really. She just told me that she had received a
call from the airport security manager and she gave me his number to call.
And I called him. And he said that he received, I guess, a tele-text or
something to that effect from the customs and border patrol and they just
notified him that, you know, I should not be allowed to get on the
airplane.

HAYES: Now, you -- there`s an official sort of redress process for folks
that feel they are mistakenly put on the list, and you as his lawyer, I
think, helped file, right, through this process. And you got a letter back
from DHS saying "Thank you for submitting your travel inquiry form and
identity documentation to the Department of Homeland Security and Traveler
Redress Program. In response to your request we`ve conducted a review of
any applicable records in consultation with other federal agencies as
appropriate. It has been determined that no changes or corrections are
warranted at this time." That`s all you get.

LONG: That`s all I get.

GADEIR ABBAS, SAADIQ LONG`S LAWYER: Yeah. And often you get less. So,
this new iteration of letters that people are receiving from DHS pays
people the courtesy of letting them know whether or not changes have or
have not been made. But we regularly see people that are on no fly lists
receive letters that essentially say if a change was appropriate, we made
it, if a change was not appropriate we didn`t make it. And what`s really
disconcerting is that DHS doesn`t know why Saadiq Long is an FBI ...

HAYES: They just have -- literally, just have a list of names.

ABBAS: They just have a list of names. It`s only the FBI and God that
know why Saadiq Long was placed on the no fly list, to begin with.

HAYES: Can I ask you this, Saadiq, and I don`t want to -- I don`t want to
endorse the suspicion that has been cast upon you for no reason that we
know, but I do want to ask you since you`re here. Do you know why you were
put on the list? Do you have affiliations with people that would -- that
would put -- make you be a suspicious individual?

LONG: I have no idea, really.

HAYES: I want to talk about what happened when you got back to the United
States and talk about how you feel about being placed in this position of
exile now from your wife and child right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: All right. Saadiq, so you are denied a plane ticket, you`re not
told why. You go through this redress process. Your mother is still ill.
And then at a certain point you decide to try again. Why did you decide to
try again?

LONG: I`m sorry, could you repeat that last part?

HAYES: You decided -- you decided to try again to buy a ticket to come
home to visit your mother. What prompted you to give it another go?

LONG: Well, under the direction of CAIR that, you know, that needed to be
done, so that they could, I guess get it out in the media that I was still
trying. And of course, I still needed to see my seriously ill mother.

HAYES: Right.

LONG: So something had to be done.

HAYES: And you were allowed to fly. You came home. You visited your
mother. I understand that the FBI came and showed up at your mother`s
house before you had even landed, is that correct?

LONG: Yes. As a matter of fact they did. They wanted to see her
medication since, I guess they didn`t believe the reason I was coming home
was to see her. So they asked to see her -- all of her meds.

HAYES: So, they showed up at your mother`s house -- your terminally ill
mother`s house and asked to see her medication to prove to them that she
was, indeed, ill.

LONG: That`s correct.

HAYES: You came, you visited -- you visited your mother. And then decided
after being with her and being able to see her that you were going to
return to your family in Doha. You sent a letter, right, to the FBI. What
happened at the airport when you showed up to fly back to Doha?

LONG: Well, we tried -- I tried to check in, and the airline
representative, he had notified me that I would not be able to, in fact,
and he requested a policemen to come on the scene and three of them showed
up. Which was very intimidating. And they basically told us that we would
have to discuss it with the representative from TSA. And he, in turn, said
that he had no idea why I was on the list, but I should just call the FBI
and they would explain to me.

HAYES: So you show up at the airport, and you have a police escort out of
there. You are given no explanation.

LONG: No explanation.

HAYES: What happened when you, Gadeir, contacted the FBI to get some
explanation?

ABBAS: Well, so we sent a letter ahead of time prior to him flying to
indicate that he would be flying ...

HAYES: Right.

ABBAS: And we are yet to get an explanation as to why it is that Saadiq
Long is on the no fly list.

HAYES: And we`ve tried it -- meaning the FBI won`t comment about these
cases. That`s part of the standard operating procedure. They are not
going to talk to us, they are not going to talk to the press. They say
it`s an ongoing case. You were then -- you were then tailed by FBI agents
after being at the airport?

LONG: No. I mean when I first arrived back in November, that`s when I,
you know, I was tailed. And that`s when my mother`s house and my sister`s
house, they were placed under 24 hour surveillance. But this last time,
you know, last week or so, February 6th, no, they haven`t been following
us.

HAYES: Saadiq, as someone who served in the United States -- in the United
States Air Force for ten years, as someone who served the country, how do
you feel about being placed in this state of suspicion by your government?

LONG: Well there`s obviously feelings of frustration. Feelings of
uncertainty. Feelings of distress.

HAYES: And what is your next plan now?

LONG: Well, I hope to be able to get back on -- get on the plane and go
back to Qatar in about a week or so. As you said, I do have a family
there. I am the sole breadwinner. And I have, you know, a livelihood to
earn, so I need to get back to work.

HAYES: And as of now, still no indication from the government whether
you`ll be allowed to leave, no indication of confirmation about whether
you`re on the no fly list and no amount of official charges. Saadiq Long,
U.S. Air Force veteran. Thank you for joining us today.

LONG: Thank you for having me, Chris.

HAYES: What the no fly list has to do with gun control, after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Welcome to New York. I`m Chris Hayes. We were talking about the
story of Saadiq Long, a United States Air Force veteran, who was, it
appears, placed on the no-fly list, originally barred from returning to the
Middle East to visit his ailing and terminally ill mother. Eventually
allowed to fly back to the United States, and then after visiting his
mother, being -- having his mother and sister tailed by the FBI, unable to
leave the country when he went to the airport. The police were called, he
was informed he couldn`t get on the flight, and as of now, we still do not
have any (INAUDIBLE) from the government as to what charges are against
him, what suspicions there are, why he`s on the no-fly list, and why he
can`t fly.

I`m joined now by Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP to help
discuss this. Jen Daskal, adjunct law professor at Georgetown University,
former assistant attorney general for national security in the Obama
Department of Justice. And James Poulos back the table, producer at
HuffPost Live and a contributor to "Forbes" and "Vice" magazine. Still
with us is Gadeir Abbas of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and
Saadiq Long`s lawyer.

This story is really, the details of the story are truly awful and
bewildering. And I guess my question, as someone who is working on this,
how common is this sort of thing? I mean, is this just a one-off kind of
example?

ABBAS: No, it`s not. This is a characteristic of -- that is plaguing the
American Muslim community today. Saadiq Long`s case is exceptional only in
the details. It`s very common for us at CAIR to receive calls from people
who are stranded abroad or stranded inside the U.S. We`ve even seen
situations where American citizens that are placed on the no-fly list, and
only find out of that placement when they are abroad, actually choose not
return back to the U.S., because one can imagine how terrifying it is to
experience a denial of the right to be present in the United States.

HAYES: What is the legal status of this gentleman? This list, it seems
like it`s this very strange carveout from our very basic legal principles,
right, like innocent until proven guilty, you can`t be denied things
without due process. There is this list of, this nebulous list of
suspicion which places you into some kind of third category, where you`re
neither innocent or guilty.

JEN DASKAL, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Right. So this is the problem with
these types of preventative measures. They are not criminal. So they are
not punishment. And so they are civil measures that the government takes
that impose significant and severe restraints on individual liberty. But
because the government is not placing people behind bars, because there`s
not a custodial deprivation of liberty, the answer generally is, we don`t
think there`s a huge problem here. There`s been a number of cases that
have been brought, and the cases have bounced back and forth between
district courts and appellate courts, because of a weird jurisdictional
statute that lacks clarity in terms of where these cases can even be
brought. Two cases have recently been remand back down to district courts
in Oregon and California, and there`s hope at least that courts will begin
to look at some of the constitutional, procedural due process, substantive
due process claims that are really significant here.

HAYES: Ben, given the history of the NAACP, and the way state surveillance
and spying has been used both against civil rights activist, in particular
African-Americans, broadly, throughout the history of this country, I
wonder what your feeling is hearing Saadiq`s story?

BEN JEALOUS, NAACP: It`s very sad. It`s frustrating to listen to somebody
who is a father, who is working, trying to provide for their family, a good
son trying to get home to his sick mother, and a veteran of our military
being treated with suspicion. And you can almost feel that he feels like
perhaps his faith has something to do with it, right?

And we`re a country that reveres service in our military, that reveres
people of faith. And there`s an increasingly large black Muslim community.
People who -- some, you know, second, third generation, some who convert.
And when you sit down and you listen to vets, many of whom have converted
to Islam, and quite frankly converted to strings of Islam that are
especially consistent with our patriotism, with their service in the
military, often in countries that are allies to us, like Qatar is an ally
to us, like Turkey is an ally to us, and then treated with suspicion by the
military, by the broader government, it`s very painful, because these are
people who are good people, and it`s hard to not look at him and see
thousands of people like him. Some of whom I work with, who left the U.S.
military because they converted and were treated differently.

HAYES: The Obama administration has doubled the no-fly list, we should
note. This came from an AP report. The Obama administration has more than
doubled, to about 21,000 names. It has secret lists of suspected
terrorists whose are banned from flying to or within the United States,
including about 500 Americans. The flood of new names began after the
failed Christmas 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound jetliner. The government
lowered the standard for putting people on the list, then scoured its files
for anyone who qualified.

James, so we`re talking about what`s outrageous about this. I can
absolutely, 1,000 percent understand that exact reasoning. Right?
Abdulmutallab happens. You think, how the heck did we let this guy get on
a plane, and so people say let`s err on the side of caution, right? Let`s
err on making the list bigger as opposed to smaller, and the worst that
happens is some people get deprived of their ability to fly. But the best
that happens is we don`t let someone -- what`s wrong with that logic?

JAMES POULOS, HUFFINGTONPOST.COM: Well, Chris, because it`s not erring on
the side of caution this is err on the scale of fear. And this is
something Jeremy Scahill has pointed out, when, you know, on 9/11, the kill
list was like 10 or 12 guys. Now we`re into like five digits. And this is
something that`s happening with the drug war, it`s something that`s
happening with the no-fly lists, it`s something that`s happening with kill
lists, and this is the way the system works.

When you build this kind of system, you are creating an architecture of
corruption. And what you see in this situation -- Saadiq`s personal story
is dismaying, to say the least. What`s even more dismaying, I think, when
you take a step back, is to say like you know, today it might be, well,
this disproportionately affects Muslims, today with the drug war it may be
this disproportionately affects African-Americans. Tomorrow these are
going to look like prototypes for the way that people as a rule are
treated. I would say this is the way bureaucracies function. They have
certain pathologies, and when you start to motivate those pathologies by
resorting to politics of fear, then this becomes everyone`s problem.

HAYES: But it`s not just - please.

JEALOUS: Look, we tend to think, look, it`s dangerous people on this list.
No, it is names on this list. And this list from its origins has been
notorious. Because you get names on there like Gordon Smith, who
apparently may have been somebody who had some affiliation with the Irish
Republican Army. Same name as a U.S. senator. And then a U.S. senator
can`t get to work, right? You get a Ted Kennedy on the list. But we also
have a Ted -- and he can`t get to work. You have Nelson Mandela on the
list. Why? Because he was associated with a terrorist group that happened
to be trying to end apartheid in South Africa. So this list is
problematic. And we have to understand it, as you said I think somewhat
(INAUDIBLE) earlier, his name is on the list. It`s not clear to him that
even he`s on the list.

POULOS: And his objection, I don`t understand why I`m on this list. The
point of the list is that it cannot be understood why you`re on the list.

HAYES: Yes. This is the FBI FAQ about the terrorist screening database,
which is the official name for it. "Can I find out if I am in the TSDB?"
One might ask as a frequently asked question. The FBI responds, "The TSC"
-- which is the Terrorist Screening Center -- "cannot reveal whether a
particular person is in the TSDB. The TSDB remains an effective tool in
the government`s counterterrorism efforts because its contents are not
disclosed. If the TSC revealed who is in the TSDB, terrorist organizations
would be able to circumvent the purpose of the terrorist watch list by
determining in advance which of their members are likely to be questioned
or detained."

DASKAL: I want to defend one aspect of that--

HAYES: Defend. Go to town.

DASKAL: The concept -- there are two things. There is a reasonable
conception, where you can have a no-fly list. There`s a situation where
you could have information from a foreign government that`s sensitive,
that`s time sensitive, that somebody dangerous is about to get on the
plane, and you want the government to be able to do something to stop them.

HAYES: I think we would all prefer Abdulmutallab not be (INAUDIBLE).

DASKAL: The question is, when these types of restraints persist for a very
long time, like they do in the (INAUDIBLE), this is not just a temporary
emergency stop-gap measure. It`s persisting without any fair process to
determine why you`re on the list, if you`re on the list, how to get off the
list, why you`re on the list. That`s just unjustifiable.

And secondly, the fact that the FBI does not disclose who is in their known
and suspected terrorists that they`re watching makes absolute sense. But
once somebody has gone to a plane, been told that they cannot get on a
plane, it`s pretty clear that they are on this list. And the idea that
even after that situation, the FBI will not tell somebody why they are on
the list makes no sense.

HAYES: And here`s what I want to do. I want to zoom out too because Jim
said something I think key, which is like, one of the things that we`re
dealing with here is like, how do you deal with prevention, right? As
opposed to like, someone commits a crime or someone commits a terrorist act
and then we want to hold them to account, right? The way that we`ve been
thinking about crime recently and the way that we clearly think about
terrorism post-9/11 is prevention. Right?

How do you stop people from ever getting to the point where they can pull
this off, and this is the ballyhooed approach of police departments, and
It`s the same logic as stop and frisk. It`s the same logic as stop and
frisk and other sort of police tools. And it`s the same logic I think of
background checks for guns. Right? It`s the same logic, that what you
want to do is keep certain kinds of people away from doing certain kinds of
activities. And I want to talk about the legitimacy of that as a broad
principle and how Saadiq Long should inform the way we think about gun
control legislation, given some of the civil rights problems here, right
after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RAHM EMANUEL, D-ILL.: I think the most simple thing we can do, and we
have got to make this a number one issue as a test vote and then take it
into the election, that is if you`re on the no-fly list because you`re
known as maybe a possible terrorist, you cannot buy a handgun in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That`s Rahm Emanuel in 2007, calling for what`s been known in gun
safety circles as a kind of no-fly, no-buy policy. There`s bills
introduced in Congress that basically say, look, we`ve got this list, and
the logic of it on a certain level makes sense. If you can`t get on a
plane, why are we letting you buy a handgun? But as someone who has
experience with the no-fly list, Gadeir, I wonder what you think of that
kind of policy?

ABBAS: It`s abject silliness. To think that Americans are made safer by
precluding Americans that are placed on no-fly lists by unknown FBI agents,
that have never had to explain themselves to independent decision makers
and to assess the quality of their information. It does not -- it provides
the illusion of safety here.

JEALOUS: Rahm said something there that`s actually counter to the policy.
Rahm said if you`re on the list because you are a known terrorist--

HAYES: No, he says, let me just say specifically what he says. As maybe a
possible terrorist.

(CROSSTALK)

JEALOUS: Ted Kennedy couldn`t buy a gun, because at the time he was saying
that, Ted Kennedy was on the list.

HAYES: Then the question becomes, is, the question here is, and this I
think why this relates to the background check discussion, right, because
the question is, is it the execution or is it the conceptual idea? Right?
Is the problem this list keeping and maintenance of some sort of third
category of people that are suspicious and suspected, or is the problem
just that that`s fine, we just don`t do a very good job of making sure that
the list is pruned and properly maintained, et cetera.

DASKAL: I think it depends on what you do with the list. Because FBI
intelligence officers, they have to have lists in order to determine who to
track. There`s, as I think you said early on, there is a difference
between privacy interests and lists that are being used for determining who
is the terminology of the user, known or suspected terrorist, somebody
worth tracking and monitoring and keeping tabs on. Absolutely, you have to
have lists in order to do your job. The question is when the lists turn to
the basis for imposing affirmative restraints on individual liberty. And
in that situation, there absolutely needs to be clear notice as to the
basis, of the fact that you`re on the list, and a meaningful opportunity to
challenge it.

HAYES: But you`re saying it`s the process of list making itself that
you`re against.

POULOS: Well, conceptually, I don`t think you can separate out the idea
from the execution as you`re framing it. So when your point of departure
is when it`s a fact that you are maybe possibly a terrorist, then you`re
not going to be able to have a gun. And where is the overlap between the
background checks and between the no-fly list? Well, where it is I think
is I mean, you can look at gun control as something that people are
advancing as a policy idea. But then when you sort of peel off the first
layer of the cake, you say, well, what`s in here? It`s actually people
control. And if you want to do gun control by doing more people control,
then you should say so. And that`s like a policy option. But we should be
clear that the project is to do people control, in the same way that it is
-- and that`s the way the lists are used.

HAYES: I actually think that there`s two different ways. Right? And I
think this is actually key, right? Banning certain kinds of weapons,
right, is gun control. Background checks is people control. I totally
agree. There`s different approaches to the tissue, and the point I would
make is, because of the way our political discussions get framed, that
people control is more popular. That`s one that is going to have more
political legs.

JEALOUS: We should be clear there`s two different types of people control.
There`s a background check based on who you are, what you`ve done, are, you
know, do we know that you`re crazy, do we know that you`re a criminal. And
then there`s your name, a name that`s like yours is on a list and we can`t
tell you why. And there`s no real -- that`s a problem.

And the fact that the FBI is not willing to be courageous enough to sit
down with somebody like Saadiq, go through the facts and say, you served in
the military for 10 years, you told us why you were coming, and it turned
out to be true. You got a family to get back to, let`s get you back there.

HAYES: And let me just reiterate this point, the key difference here and
the thing that makes the no-fly list its own kind of special monster in the
fact that in the national criminal background check, the NCIS, which is the
database that was started in 1968 in the Gun Control Act and then kind of
broadened in 1993 through the Brady Bill, right, most of the things that
get you on the list are things that are adjudicated officially, right?
With due process and law. So if you have a criminal felony conviction, you
have been afforded due process, your constitutional rights, and that`s
noted in the list.

The problem is this kind of haze of suspicion. And the thing that really
both scares me and also makes me really suspicious of the way the list is
operating is that there`s 22,000 names on it. When you go read the FAQ on
the FBI list, the FBI site, this is what I love. It`s basically asking
about like, can I get off this list, I`m misidentified? It says,
"Misidentified persons are sometimes delayed while the government works to
distinguish them from the terrorists in the TSDB." So it`s -- that`s
actually a terrorist in there? There`s 22,000 terrorists, and all we`re
doing is saying don`t get on a plane? That`s madness, right? If that`s
the case, if there`s actually--

ABBAS: We actually don`t believe that these people are terrorists, because
if they had --

HAYES: Didn`t think that.

(CROSSTALK)

ABBAS: -- were actually convictable, they would convict them. It`s not as
if our law enforcement agencies post-9/11 have been hesitant to bring
charges against persons that are properly chargeable with terrorism.

JEALOUS: But one of the big problems is this is like a loophole for like
the working class terrorist. Because if you`re a rich terrorist, you get
on the QE2, and there`s no no-sail list. And you just come on over.

HAYES: Or you get on a cruise boat or you can drive a van and buy
fertilizer. That`s the crazy thing. I mean, it`s like the only thing you
can`t do is like, don`t get on that Delta flight to Cleveland, but like go
ahead and do whatever you want.

JEALOUS: Drive there. Take the train. Get on a cruise ship.

HAYES: Gadeir Abbas of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Jen
Daskal, James Poulos. Thanks a lot.

The big political story that everyone is missing, my story of the week,
next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: My story of the week, the change in climate change. Something
pretty remarkable has happened in the last month and I don`t think many
people have noticed. For several years in which climate policy was
sidelined from Beltway discussion, after presidential campaign in which the
issue was almost entirely ignored, it`s clawing its way back into the
conversation. You can feel the terrain shifting beneath our feet, subtly
but unmistakably. First there was Sandy, a devastating 100-year storm that
hit the nation`s media capitol, highlighted just how much damage higher sea
levels can do, and cost an estimate, and cost an estimated $50 billion in
damages. The elephant in the room, the fact that storm intensity will
likely grow in the future, and combined with higher sea levels to do even
more damage did not go unnoticed by politicians.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, D-NEW YORK: We have a new reality when it comes to
these weather patterns. We have an old infrastructure and we have old
systems. And that is not a good combination. And that`s one of the
lessons that I`m going to take from this personally.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, I-NEW YORK CITY: What is clear is that the storms
we`ve experienced in the last year or so around this country and around the
world are much more severe than before.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: All up and down the East
Coast, there are mayors, many of them Republicans, who are being told you
got to move these houses back away from the ocean, you got to lift them up.
Climate change is going to raise the water levels on a permanent basis. If
you want your town insured, you have to do this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Then came news that 2012 was the warmest year in the United States
ever recorded, and not by a little bit -- by a full degree Fahrenheit. And
then suddenly, after saying hardly a word about climate for much of the
last year, the president himself, to his great credit, has pushed it back
onto the agenda. In his inaugural address, he surprised observers by
saying this early in the speech as the first domestic policy he mentioned
after dealing with the economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will respond to the
threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray
our children and future generations.

Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can
avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more
powerful storms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: During Tuesday night`s State of the Union speech, the president
once again foregrounded climate, putting it as the first domestic policy
issue after the economy, and was even more emphatic in his promises to act.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I urge this Congress to get together, pursue a bipartisan, market-
based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe
Lieberman worked on together a few years ago. But if Congress won`t act
soon to protect future generations, I will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: And on Thursday, the independent congressional watchdog, the
Government Accountability Office, came out with a new report identifying
risks to the government, and at the top of the list was the fiscal exposure
the federal government faces due to climate change. Remarkable. Darrell
Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee and --
Government Reform Committee, he of Fast and Furious scandal mongering, bete
noire of liberals, had this to say about the GAO report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-CALIFORNIA: I don`t want to walk away from anything
in this report.

When you look at climate change and Hurricane Sandy and others, it points
out that we have underprepared through FEMA and through our emergency
funds, including flood control, for a generation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Finally this week, Senators Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer
introduced a new ambitious climate bill that, in the admittedly unlikely
event it will pass, would represent a major victory for the planet, for
climate activists. It would put a $20 tax on each ton of carbon pollution,
as well as it`s enabling the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate
fracking. After several years of painful, bewildering, infuriating exile,
climate policy is back on the agenda. Thank God.

Now, I don`t want to minimize just how far things still have to go and how
many challenges there are to overcome the make the kinds of changes
required to reduce the risk of total disaster. We were reminded once again
this week of the lengths the wealthiest industry in the country, the fossil
fuel companies, with trillion of dollars on the line, will go to, to the
preserve their right to dump their pollution cost-free. This week, the
"Guardian" newspaper reported the conservative dark money group Donors
Trust funneled almost $120 million between 2002 and 2010 to groups denying
the science of climate change. And that`s on top of the sizable funding
from Koch Industries, Exxon and others towards denialist groups. That
funding and the pro-pollution lobbying infrastructure aren`t going
anywhere.

There`s also the president himself, who, while admirably talking about the
issue, has yet to indicate whether or not he`ll use his authority to block
the wildly destructive Keystone pipeline, and who, after his strong words
in the State of the Union, didn`t indicate in his follow-up Google Plus
fireside hangout the administration would break any new ground in executive
action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: The same steps that we took with respect to energy efficiency on
cars, we can take on buildings, we can take on appliances. We can make
sure that new power plants that are being built are more efficient than the
old ones, and we can continue to put research and our support behind clean
energy that is going to continue to help us transition away from dirtier
fuels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Then perhaps the most pernicious at this moment is the strange
culture of Washington that used climate as a niche, special interest issue,
relevant only to environmental groups and not every living human on the
planet. While pundits, strategists, columnists and politicians absolutely
obsess over budget projections for the year 2040, those same strategists,
columnists and politicians seem remarkably sanguine about the fact that
Arctic ice volume has shrunk by more than a third in the last decade. And
more and more recent data that indicate our previous climate models have
underestimated the terrifying rate of change to our climate and
overestimated just how much time we have left to get our collective asses
in gear.

No one will care in 30 years, I guarantee you, what the deficit was in
2013.

Quick pop quiz. What was the deficit in 1953 or 1923 or heck, 1883? The
correct answer is you don`t know because it doesn`t matter. What does
matter are the molecules in the air, much, much more than the numbers on
the balance sheet. And I`m sorry to say the strange apathy about the
climate extends past the usual suspects of deficit obsessives to people
that broadly constitute the president`s base. It`s a standard liberal
trope of activists to whine that fellow liberals aren`t paying enough
attention to issues they care most about, but at the risk of falling into
it, I can`t help but notice that even when the president tries to insert
climate into the conversation, it tends to fall with a dull thud among the
bulk of progressive politicians, activists and media outlets. Washington
will never make climate a priority until the left makes it a priority.

I want to tell you about one group on the left that`s making it a priority,
after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: We`re talking about the new politics of climate after a period in
which climate activists thought they could get a bill regulating carbon.
That died in 2010, a sort of glum, quiet death. The issue has been exiled
for a few years, but it really does seem to me like it`s back on the table
in a big way.

Ben Jealous of the NAACP is back with us at the table, and joining us now
is Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen`s energy program, a renewable
energy advocacy group, and I also want to bring in Bill McKibben, author of
"Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet," and founder of 350.org, which
advocates for climate change solutions, and Chief Jackie Thomas of the
Saik`uz first nation in British Colombia, who fought back attempts by the
energy company Enbridge to build an oil and gas pipeline on first nation
territory. They join us from Washington, where they are taking part in a
national forward on climate rally this morning just a few hours away to
protest the proposed Keystone pipeline extension and call for limits on
carbon pollution from power plants.

It`s great to have you there. And maybe I`ll begin with you, Bill. What
is the strategy here? There was a strategy, a legislative strategy that did
not work. There`s been a lot of handwringing about it. It kind of moved
off the agenda for a few years. Where do you see this going now? What is
the path forward for folks who are working on this issue?

BILL MCKIBBEN, 350.ORG: Chris, here`s the deal. You know, we thought for
20 years that reason would solve this problem. The world` best scientists
kept showing up and saying the worst thing on earth is happening, you got
to do something about it. But that didn`t reckon with just how much money
there was on the other side. That money killed the reasonable solutions.

So now we`re doing our best to build a movement, and that movement, it
really started to turn into something. As you know, a year ago, we had the
largest civil disobedience action about any issue for 30 years, this
Keystone pipeline, and today`s rally, which is mostly about Keystone, will
turn into the largest climate rally in U.S. history. So if the president
really wants to move, there`s now some movement behind him, opening up some
political space for him to go to work.

HAYES: Chief Jackie, you have fought a pipeline that would go to the
Pacific Ocean, running from the Alberta tar sands, and go through the land
of your first nation. My question to you is, I think people look at the
Keystone thing and there`s this temptation to view it as a foregone
conclusion and there`s a temptation to just think, well, it`s good to fight
the good fight, but at the end the day, the fossil fuel companies are going
to get their way. And what have you learned about the possibility of
actually stopping things from the battle you`ve been engaged in?

CHIEF JACKIE THOMAS, CLIMATE ACTIVIST: We can`t be complacent in the
things that we`re doing to stop this pipeline. And if we accept what we`re
told, we won`t be waking up the people. And I think the people are waking
up now.

JEALOUS: And that`s really the important thing, is we have to wake people
up. You know, we cannot ask ourselves, is this possible in Washington.

HAYES: Right.

JEALOUS: We have to ask ourselves, are there real consequences for our
children if we don`t do this now. And if there are, then we have to have
the moral courage to actually step forward. And that`s why I`m so ...

HAYES: Do you think you have purchase in this, as the head of the oldest
civil rights organization in this country and someone who is working in
communities that are besieged by joblessness, by poverty, by failing
schools, by a criminal justice system run amuck, by a million different
things. Do you have purchases?

JEALOUS: Because we are the ones who live lower than the levee. We are
the ones who live in the housing projects.

HAYES: In the Rockaways, that`s right.

JEALOUS: In the Rockaways.

HAYES: Right.

JEALOUS: You know, Katrina changed things for the black community, because
yes, there was a time when there were many of us who were black
environmental -- that`s one of my predecessors, Ben Chavis, famously was a
big driver of this. But there were also many of us who said, we`ll get to
that after we get jobs, right? And then we realized the two things are
very -- are extremely vulnerable.

HAYES: Right.

JEALOUS: And our children are vulnerable, when you look at asthma rates.
And that`s why, you know. Yes, Keystone is an issue, but we also need this
president to make sure that we have a very strong policy with regards to
power plants. Because these coal fired power plants, many of them in the
cities, like the ones that we shut down in Chicago are literally killing
kids every day ...

HAYES: Yes.

JEALOUS: And we just need to be honest about that.

TYSON SLOCUM, PUBLIC CITIZEN ENERGY PROGRAM: Yeah, absolutely. I mean
when you look at how people of color and low-income communities are near
these sources of pollution, but then you also have to look at how consumers
fare, under our fossil fuel addiction, oil prices are only going to get
more and more expensive even as Exxon Mobil predicts we`re going to be a
net exporter of crude oil by 2025, it won`t lower the price for working
families. The longer that we stay tied to fossil fuels, the more enslaved
we are to fossil fuel, higher prices and the instability that comes with
fossil fuel.

HAYES: But you`re making -- Bill, Tyson is making arguments that the kind
of rational arguments you noted before as the way we were leading on this
issue for 30 years, and you are seeming to be saying, it is about -- it`s
more about power than arguments, right? I mean it`s more about what -- how
many people you can deliver on the mall, how many calls you can get into a
senator`s office.

MCKIBBEN: We won the scientific argument 20 years ago. I mean I wrote the
first book about all this in 1989, OK. But we also have to match the
incredible financial power and that`s what movements are about and it`s
starting to happen. Wednesday, you know, I had the great honor of being
handcuffed in the paddy wagon next to Julian Bond, one of my great heroes
and he was telling stories about going to jail in 1960 in Atlanta to
desegregate lunch counters and he was saying this Keystone fight is the
same fight, it`s the same fight, the Sierra Club that day, our oldest
environmental organization for the first time in its history committed
civil disobedience because of this Keystone pipeline.

This has become the rallying points now for people. And if the president
turns it down, Chris, this will be the first time that a world leader has
ever said I`m not going to build some big project because of its effect on
the climate. If you want to talk about legacy, that`s legacy and if you
want to talk about the ability to try and leverage other countries to try
and convince them to change their ways that`s how we`re going to do it if
we`re ever going to do it.

JEALOUS: What`s so important about what Bill is talking about is that the
movement is changing rapidly to rise to the challenge. You know, Julian
Bond was there because he knows it`s important to our community, it`s
important to our kids, it`s important to our nation. But also there was a
new generation of young leaders like Mike Bruhn (ph), like Phil Radford at
Greenpeace ...

HAYES: Right.

JEALOUS: .. like Phaedra from Green for All, Becky Tarbutton (ph), if she
hadn`t passed away a few months ago, would have been there. All of the
young people who have come up as organizers saying we`re not going to do
this and frankly, you know, the Romney campaign and the environmentalist
movement had the same problem. The old and -- the old green movement, all
they could do this with one color of people.

HAYES: Right.

JEALOUS: Right. The new movement recognizes ...

HAYES: Yes.

JEALOUS: ... that we have to pull in people of color. We have to really
organize, we can`t just make arguments from on high, we got to make them in
the streets and move the people into action. That`s what Bill is doing --

(CROSSTALK)

SLOCUM: And I think the American people are finally seeing through this
cynicism, of the bombardment of the messaging from the fossil fuel
industry. I mean they spent hundreds of billions of dollars, just in this
last election and I think people are beginning to understand because of
Sandy and other things.

HAYES: I want to talk about that this is sort of the outside game and the
inside game of what a legislative strategy would look like. You helped
work on the bill that was just introduced this week. I want to talk about
the details of that right after we take this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: My story of the week I talked about deficit obsession and relative
complacency on climate. But, of course, you can link the two. Because
something like a carbon tax proposed by a new bill, by Senators Sanders and
Boxer, would raise a lot of revenue. Here is just a look at that would
look like. This is an estimate of not specifically this bill, but a $20
metric ton carbon tax, which is in this bill, done by the Congressional
Research Service, September 17th, 2012. Year one, $88 billion. That`s a
lot of money. By year ten, you`re getting $154 billion. Huge amounts of
money. If that -- the worry is about fixing the deficit, this is like a
way to start. You helped work on this bill. Bill McKibben spoke at the
press conference announcing it. And the standard Politico take on this is,
it`s a dead end, it`s going nowhere, you adorable liberals with your pie in
the sky ideas.

SLOCUM: Well, I mean everything is difficult in Congress right now. Even
a routine appropriations bill. That`s what the rally in March is about
today, is building that grassroots support. So that our senators and
Congress, people are hearing from what the people really want -- and polls
consistently show strong support for action on climate change. And so,
what this legislation does, is it does -- it has one big tool to address
climate change, which is pricing carbon, right, to more accurately reflect
the true costs of burning fossil fuels like oil and coal. But we can`t
rely on prices alone to make that big shift.

HAYES: Right.

SLOCUM: So 60 percent of the revenues that are raised from pricing carbon
are immediately kicked back to families on a per person household basis.
So it`s around 220 bucks per person is kicked back. And then ...

HAYES: You get a check in the mail.

SLOCUM: Exactly.

HAYES: This is your dividend from our (ph) carbon.

SLOCUM: Exactly. And that helps offset the increase that we`re going to
see in energy prices. So it holds working families and the elderly and
people on fixed incomes whole (ph), because that`s a crucial component is
equity. But then 40 percent of the revenues go into helping to finance the
tools that families need to help them avoid their access to or their
reliance on fossil fuels. Financing mass transit options. Making it
easier to finance renewable energy deployed in our communities. These are
the sustainable energy investments ...

JEALOUS: That create jobs.

SLOCUM: Absolutely.

JEALOUS: Make the air for all of us cleaner.

HAYES: Right.

SLOCUM: Absolutely.

(CROSSTALK)

SLOCUM: Absolutely. This $5 billion a year for weatherization assistance,
so our homes are more energy-efficient. There is a billion dollars a year
and therefore, for a job training to -- for folks to get jobs to do that
weather ...

(CROSSTALK)

JEALOUS: But it also creates jobs.

SLOCUM: Absolutely.

JEALOUS: When you create mass transit.

HAYES: Bill, are you setting up -- is the movement setting up Keystone as
a kind of defining moment and if Keystone actually does end up being OK,
what does that do the energy of the folks that you -- that are going to
come to the mall that have been participating in what is a very sizable
energetic and well organized movement?

MCKIBBEN: Well, look. This -- it`s politics is one thing. Physics is
another. The reason we`re worried about Keystone above all is, we can`t
put that carbon into the atmosphere.

HAYES: Right.

MCKIBBEN: Right. But there`s a lot else going on. We`ve got 256 college
campuses now with active divestment moments. This is the biggest student
movement in decades. The fossil fuel industry we`re going to put them on
the run. We`re trying to change the politics of Washington, but we do need
some leadership from the president. He gets to decide Keystone himself
without Congress saying a word. So, we`ll find out if he`s talk or if he`s
action.

HAYES: And Jackie, Steven Harper in Canada has been very pro-excavation of
this exploitation of this resource. Is -- and I know that there`s also a
very powerful movement there. Do you see a potential for sort of
partnership across the border on this?

THOMAS: I`ve been building alliances. And I`ve spent all my time in
Canada building alliances across the country. And I`m very willing, and
this is the reason I came here is to build an alliance with my American
neighbors.

HAYES: I want to thank Bill McKibben, 350.org and Chief Jackie Thomas of
the Saik`uz First Nation of British Colombia. Thanks for joining us from
the site of today`s National Forward on Climate rally in Washington this
morning. Looks like a beautiful day down there. What you should know for
the news week ahead, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: In just a moment, what you should know for the news week ahead.
But first, a quick update on the film "Zero Dark Thirty," which we`ve
discussed at length on the show, particularly its portrayal of torture.
Former CIA general counsel John Rizzo, who overawe the CIA`s torture
program at the time has now gone on the record with his impressions of the
Oscar-nominated film. And in an event Monday night at Cardoza University,
Rizzo was asked by PBS`s Jeffrey Brown about the film.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY BROWN, PBS: Do you think the film left a clear impression that the
interrogations were instrumental or even a sort of direct link to the
killing of bin Laden?

JOHN RIZZO, FORMER CIA GENERAL COUNSEL: Yeah. That was my impression. I
would be interested if someone did not get that impression. I don`t think
there`s any getting around it, that -- as depicted in the movie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Rizzo is just the latest in the string of government officials to
come away with that impression, yet a 6,000 page report on CIA
interrogations, recently declassified and released by Senate Intelligence
Committee, which reviewed roughly 6 million pages of agency documents,
found that torture was not, in fact, a central component in finding Osama
bin Laden.

We`ve also covered the battle to reauthorize the Violence Against Women
Act, and this week, it finally made it through the Senate, by a vote of 78
to 22. All 22 opposing votes were Republican men. Every female senator
supported the bill. Now it goes to the Republican-controlled House. So
what should you know for the week coming up? Well, you probably already
knew this, but in case there`s any doubt, you should know Elizabeth Warren
is going to be a real asset to the Senate Banking Committee. After her
election to the Senate from Massachusetts in November, there was some
discussion about whether she would be assigned to the Banking Committee,
the obvious and natural pairing since Lil Wayne and cough syrup. Well, at
her very first hearing, where a number of banking regulators appeared
before the committee, Senator Warren showed just why she deserves to be up
on the dais.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASSACHUSETTS: The question I really want to ask
is about how tough you are, about how much leverage you really have in
these settlements, and what I would like to know is tell me a little bit
about the last few times you have taken the biggest financial institutions
on Wall Street all the way to a trial.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: They didn`t have a lot of answers for that. You should know that
one of the conservative stories about the financial crisis that actually
has some real truth to it is the idea that existing regulations, if
enforced, could have done a lot to prevent the crisis or reduce its
likelihood. The problem was as much regulatory capture and the failure of
regulators to adequately do their job as it was the actual structure of the
laws. You should know Elizabeth Warren probably understands the dynamics
of too big to fail and the threat it poses and the cost it imposes as much
as any member of the United States Senate.

And finally, you should know the world has lost a towering public
intellectual and a great theorist of liberalism with the death this week of
legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin. Dworkin died on Thursday from leukemia.
He was 81. You should know Dworkin devoted his life to thinking and
writing with lively rigor about the good life -- the role of the law, of
the Constitution and the state, and how to achieve and justify equality
without trampling liberty and human dignity. You should know "The New York
Times" obituary described Dworkin as, quote, "dashing, witty, well
connected and open to earthly delight," a phrase we should all hope appears
in our obituaries.

I want to find out what my guests think we should know for the week coming
up, beginning with you, Jen. What should we know?

DASKAL: So on the subject of lists, as we talked about today two things,
on February 27th, the Supreme Court is hearing the case of whether or not
states can collect the DNA of arrestees. States, many states now collect
the DNA of people who have been convicted. The question is, can they
constitutionally collect the DNA of people who have been arrested but not
convicted? And on lists as well, John Brennan in answers to questions to
the Senate Intelligence Committee acknowledged that the administration had
reviewed the question of a secret court to review --

HAYES: To deal with (INAUDIBLE). Something like a FISA court for the kill
list is sort of being floated right now. James Poulos.

POULOS: This is something we talked about on HuffPost live, look forward
to doing it some more. The middle class is getting harder, not easier to
define. Dante Sheeney (ph) has a great piece in the Wall Street Journal
recently. It`s got a map, a great info graphic. Using the rule of thumb
that most researchers use to define the middle class, middle 60 percent,
the range in America can now be as high as $140,000 a year of income. The
middle class is becoming something that is just getting more and more
irresponsible to demagogue in the way that we do on both sides, and we have
got to start thinking harder about the dangerous possibilities that we`re
creating by treating the middle class as if it`s this monolithic entity.

HAYES: A unified entity. It`s interesting. Ben Jealous.

JEALOUS: You should know that Julian Bond is willing to go to jail for
climate change. You should know that the NAACP has a climate justice
program. And you should know that whether it`s voting rights or climate
change, that the greens and the civil rights community are working together
to protect our most basic rights.

(CROSSTALK)

SLOCUM: People often ask, what can I do to tackle something like climate
change? I`ve got two things. One, everyone out there needs to contact
their senators and tell them to sponsor the Climate Protection Act of 2013
by senators Sanders and Boxer. We need more co-sponsors so this bill gets
legs. And second, contact the White House and tell the president to start
using his authority under the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants and oil refineries.

HAYES: You have been a veteran of a bunch of legislative battles in
Washington on primarily issues on the climate, specifically. Is there a
change in the amount of grassroots mobilization you can turn on now that
you can actually mobilize than it was ten years ago on this issue?

SLOCUM: Oh, absolutely. Technologies enabled that. But it`s also the
coalitions of a lot of different types of organizations that have come
together around climate change and I think it`s really an understanding
that the cynicism being pedaled by the fossil fuel interest isn`t working
anymore on the American people. And I`m really proud of the American
people for recognizing that.

HAYES: We -- I was talking yesterday about that. I referenced the famous
book by Albert O. Hirschman, "The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity,
Futility and Jeopardy.", these different kinds of reactionary arguments.
And you get a lot of the perversity arguments for a climate change, right,
it`s going to cost jobs. But we are now moving, skipping to the most
cynical, which is a futility, right? The argument I see more and more
coming from the right is well, we are kind of screwed either way. You
know, you`re seeing this jump to, you know, denial to just saying well,
it`s happening. But, you know, we can`t control the weather. And I think
it`s really important to remind people we actually can control a lot more
of our destiny--

JEALOUS: We have power.

HAYES: We have power.

SLOCUM: Absolutely.

HAYES: I want to thank my guests today. Jen Daskal from Georgetown
University, James Poulos of Huffpost Live, a real treat to have you here on
the East Coast. Ben Jealous of the NAACP and Tyson Slocum, of the Public
Citizen Energy Program. Thank you all.

Thank you for joining us. We`ll be back next weekend Saturday and Sunday
at 8:00 Eastern time. Coming up next is Melissa Harris-Perry. On today`s
MHP, what`s funny, what`s hilarious and what`s over the line. Race jokes
on today`s "MHP", coming up next. That`s going to be very interesting.
The one-year anniversary show.

We will see you next week, here on UP.



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