January 22 – A “Sea Change” in the Government’s Ability to Collect Data on Its Citizens; Brazen Republican Gerrymandering in Virginia; The Cardinal’s Sins

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Part 1	We begin with a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist with the Wall Street Journal, Julia Angwin, who has uncovered a new government surveillance regime at the National Counterterrorism Center that was resisted by privacy rights officials in the Department of Homeland Security before being put in place last March by John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to head up the CIA. We discuss this new program described as a “sea change” in the government’s ability to collect data on its citizens. Julia has an article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal “U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens”.
Part 2	Then we examine the brazen actions of the Virginia legislature where Senate Republicans passed a radical redistricting plan while a key Democrat was attending the presidential inauguration. Keesha Gaskins, a Voting Rights Advocate and Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program joins us to discuss the latest gerrymandering in a key swing state and whether the Republicans, who are on the losing end of changing demographics, plan to stay competitive by rigging the vote.
Part 3	Then finally we are joined by Joelle Casteix a spokesperson for SNAP, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests. She addresses the just-released records the archdiocese of Los Angeles have fought for years to keep secret that reveal Cardinal Roger Mahony hid sex abuse cases from authorities. We discuss the now-retired Cardinal’s contrition in the face of more and continuing evidence of a systemic cover-up of abuse by pedophile priests in the Catholic Church.