Democracy Now!

A manhunt is continuing in California for Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer accused of shooting three people dead. In his online manifesto, Dorner threatened to wage "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against a police department he accused of racism and corruption. He was fired from the police department in 2008 after being accused of falsely claiming his training officer kicked a mentally ill suspect in the course of an arrest. On Friday, the LAPD announced it would reopen its investigation of Dorner’s firing and his claims. We’re joined by journalist and activist Davey D, who says, notwithstanding the allegations of murder, Dorner’s manifesto "has opened up old wounds or it’s reaffirmed what people have long suspected or have experienced in terms of [police] brutality. ... I’m really curious as to whether or not these allegations that he has raised, where he names dates, times and places and names, whether or not they actually check out. And I think that needs to be really investigated, above and beyond the immediate scenario which led to his firing." [includes rush transcript]

• Pope Benedict to Resign over Health Concerns
• Obama to Unveil Cuts to Nuclear Arsenal
• LAPD Reopens Dorner Case as Manhunt Continues
• Northeast Blizzard Kills 9; Tornadoes Hit South
• Fighting Escalates in Syrian Capital; 5,000 Fleeing Per Day
• Allen Steps Down as NATO Commander
• Israeli Military Dismantles Palestinian Encampment in West Bank
• Bahrain Holds First Reconciliation Talks Since July 2011
• Over 100,000 March in Anti-Austerity "Lift the Burden" Protest in Ireland
• First Lady Among Mourners at Chicago Funeral for Slain Teen
• 4 Wounded in Mardi Gras Shooting
• Action-Film Star Steven Segal Trains Armed "Posse" at Arizona School
• Kerry: Keystone XL Decision Coming in the "Near Term"
• Intel Estimate: Cyberattacks Threaten U.S. Economy

CIA nominee John Brennan was repeatedly questioned about torture at his CIA confirmation hearing, including the use of waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques. He refused to say waterboarding was a form of torture, but said he has come to oppose the technique. Under George W. Bush, Brennan served as deputy executive director of the CIA and director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. "Remember, he was the cheerleader for some of these onerous policies, particularly renditions and extraordinary renditions. So, for John Brennan today to say he read the Senate committee intelligence report on torture and he learned things he never knew before and that he was shocked with what he learned, this is a case of incredible willful ignorance," says Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst. [includes rush transcript]

Thursday’s confirmation hearing for CIA nominee John Brennan was briefly postponed to clear the room of activists from CODEPINK after they repeatedly disrupted Brennan’s testimony. One woman held a list of Pakistani children killed in U.S. drone strikes. Former U.S. diplomat Col. Ann Wright interrupted Brennan while wearing a sign around her neck with the name of Tariq Aziz, a 16-year-old Pakistani boy who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. Wright and seven others were arrested. We speak to CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin, who also disrupted the meeting and recently visited Pakistan to speak with victims of drone strikes. "It’s not only the killing, it’s the terrorizing of entire populations, where they hear the drones buzzing overhead 24 hours a day, where they’re afraid to go to school, afraid to go to the markets, to funerals, to weddings, where it disrupts entire communities," Benjamin says. "And we are trying to get this information to our elected officials, to say, 'You are making us unsafe here at home,' to say nothing of how illegal, immoral and inhumane these policies are." [includes rush transcript]

President Obama’s nominee to run the CIA, John Brennan, forcefully defended Obama’s counterterrorism policies, including the increased use of armed drones and the targeted killings of American citizens during his confirmation hearing Thursday. "None of the central questions that should have been asked of John Brennan were asked in an effective way," says Jeremy Scahill, author of the forthcoming book, "Dirty Wars." "In the cases where people like Sen. Angus King or Sen. Ron Wyden would ask a real question, for instance, about whether or not the CIA has the right to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, the questions were very good. Brennan would then offer up a non-answer. And then there’d be almost no follow-up." Scahill went on to say, "[Brennan] has served for more than four years as the assassination czar, and it basically looked like they were discussing purchasing a used car on Capitol Hill. I mean, it was total kabuki oversight. And that’s a devastating commentary on where things stand." [includes rush transcript]

• CIA Pick John Brennan Defends Drone Strikes, Targeted Killings
• CODEPINK Protests Force Delay to Brennan Hearing; 8 Arrested
• Tunisia: Tens of Thousands Mass for Burial Procession of Assassinated Opposition Leader
• Iraq Bombings Kill 31 in Seventh Consecutive Friday Attack
• U.S. Media Agreed to Cover Up Location of Saudi Drone Base
• Manhunt Continues for Ex-LAPD Cop Wanted for Shootings
• California Lawmakers Introduce New Gun Control Measures
• Panetta: Top Officials Backed Plan to Arm Syrian Rebels
• Bangladeshi Man Arrested in FBI Sting Pleads Guilty to Fed Reserve Bomb Plot
• Autopsy: Mexican Teenager Shot Multiple Times from Behind by Border Patrol
• North Dakota Senate Passes Measure Threatening Abortion Access
• Northeast Prepares for Massive Blizzard
• Britain: Horsemeat Found in Beef Lasagna Products

The new Spanish-language radio program "Radio Ambulante" gathers voices from around Latin America and the United States to showcase the untold human stories behind issues such as immigration and kidnappings. Using a network of journalists from around the Americas, the monthly program fills a gaping hole in the radio landscape for Spanish speakers. We’re joined by Radio Ambulante executive producer Daniel Alarcón, the acclaimed author of the novel "Lost City Radio," and by Annie Correal, a Radio Ambulante producer who tells her family’s story of using radio to convey messages to her kidnapped father in Colombia. [includes rush transcript]

As counterterrorism czar John Brennan appears on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing to head the CIA, a new report provides a detailed look at global involvement in the agency’s secret program of prisons, rendition and torture in the years after 9/11. In "Globalizing Torture," the Open Society Justice Initiative says 54 countries helped the CIA detain 136 people, the largest tally to date. The report’s author, Amrit Singh, joins us to discuss her findings and Brennan’s role in the expansive program she’s documented. [includes rush transcript]

• Obama Admin Agrees to Share Assassination Memos After Uproar
• Wyden Vows to Press Brennan on Assassination Program
• Justice Dept. Argues Appeal of NDAA Ruling
• DREAM Activists Call for Citizenship to All Undocumented Immigrants
• Obama Rejects Calls to Stop Record Deportations
• "Undocumented and Unafraid" DREAM Activists Disrupt GOP Immigration Hearing; Cantor Shifts Stance
• Iranian Leader Rejects Talks After U.S. Expands Sanctions
• U.N. Warns of "Catastrophic Humanitarian Crisis" in Syria as Dozens Killed
• RBS to Pay $612 Million Fine for Libor Rigging
• Senate Panel Delays Vote on Hagel Bid
• Obama Taps Sally Jewell for Secretary of Interior
• Outcry Prompts Delay of Colorado Drilling Auction
• Boy Scouts Put Off Decision on Ending Gay Ban

Sterling College in Vermont announced on Tuesday it will soon become the third college in the United States to divest its endowment from 200 fossil fuel companies identified by the environmental group 350.org. Unity College in Maine and Hampshire College in Massachusetts were the first two schools to divest. Divestment campaigns are ongoing on more than 200 other campuses. "I think it’s no surprise, really, that young people are starting to say, ’We’ve got to spend another 60, 70 years on this planet. We better do something fast,’" says Bill McKibben of 350.org. "And that something means standing up to the fossil fuel industry that’s been in the way of rational change for a quarter-century now." McKibben is helping organize a Presidents’ Day rally against the Keystone XL pipeline later this month, one he predicts will be the "biggest climate rally probably ever" in the United States. [includes rush transcript]

New York politicians are threatening to cut funding to Brooklyn College if the school hosts a forum Thursday night about the Palestinian-led campaign to boycott and divest from Israel. The Brooklyn College Political Science Department is among the event’s co-sponsors. In response, a group of New York City councilmembers has raised the possibility of Brooklyn College losing taxpayer support. The councilmembers’ threat is just one of several efforts by local lawmakers, from Congress on down, to pressure Brooklyn College to remove its sponsorship or even cancel the event. As the school vows to proceed with the event, we’re joined by one of its featured speakers, author and activist Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the BDS movement and author of "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights." On BDS, Barghouti says, "It follows in the steps of the civil rights movement in this country and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. ... It’s just when we talk about Palestinian rights that some people are trying to criminalize and make it completely unacceptable speech to address Palestinian rights under international law." We’re also joined by Glenn Greenwald, columnist for The Guardian and author of "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful." [includes rush transcript]

Ten years ago this week, a defining moment occurred in the Bush administration’s push to invade Iraq. On Feb. 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State General Colin Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council. His message was clear: Iraq possessed extremely dangerous weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein was systematically trying to deceive U.N. inspectors by hiding prohibited weapons. A decade later, we host a debate between Powell’s former aide, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson — who prepared the U.N. speech, only to later renounce it — and media critic Norman Solomon, author of "War Made Easy." "I don’t believe the hype about that presentation having been the ultimate presentation ... that led us to war with Iraq," Wilkerson says of Powell’s speech. "George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and others had decided to go to war with Iraq long before Colin Powell gave that presentation. ... It added to the momentum of the war. ... Frankly, we were all wrong. Was the intelligence politicized in addition to being wrong at its roots? Absolutely." In response, Solomon says, "We were not all wrong. As a matter of fact, many experts and activists and researchers, from the get-go, in 2002, were saying that the administration case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was full of holes. ... So, now to say, 'Well, it wasn't just us at the administration; other people believed it,’ people believed it because they were propagandized by the administration, with massive assistance from the mass media." [includes rush transcript]

• Report: U.S. Has Secret Drone Base in Saudi Arabia
• Opposition Leader Shot Dead in Tunisia
• Solomon Islands Hit by Deadly Tsunami After Earthquake
• Bulgaria Implicates Hezbollah in Bus Attack That Killed Israeli Tourists
• Obama Plans to Make 1st Visit to Israel as President
• British Lawmakers Vote in Favor of Same-Sex Marriage
• Hopes for Peace Talks Falter in Syria
• Colorado Lawmakers Seek to Hold Makers of Assault-Style Guns Liable
• FBI Data Shows U.S. Gun Sales Continue to Soar
• Judge Denies Request to Delay George Zimmerman's Trial in Trayvon Martin Case
• Sandy Victims Denounce Conditions in Temporary Housing
• Indigenous People Travel from Ecuador to Texas to Protest Sale of Amazon Land for Oil
• U.S. Post Office to Stop Delivering Mail on Saturdays
• Study Finds Racial Bias in Google Ad Results
• Pakistani Girl Shot by Taliban Speaks Out

A lawsuit challenging a law that gives the government the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens is back in federal court this week. On Wednesday, a group of academics, journalists and activists will present oral arguments in court against a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizing the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial. In a landmark ruling last September, Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York struck down the indefinite detention provision, saying it likely violates the First and Fifth Amendments of U.S. citizens. We’re joined by Daniel Ellsberg, a plaintiff in the case and perhaps the country’s most famous whistleblower. Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, exposing the secret history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. [includes rush transcript]

A federal appeals court has ruled the government can continue to keep secret its efforts to pursue the private information of Internet users without a warrant as part of its probe into the WikiLeaks. The case involved three people connected to the whistleblowing website whose Twitter records were sought by the government, including computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum and Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir. The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented the account holders, argued that the subpoena violated their privacy rights and they should know why the government wanted their information. [includes rush transcript]

The Boy Scouts of America opened a three-day meeting on Monday in which the group’s national board will consider lifting its controversial ban on openly gay members. A group of current and former scouts — and scout leaders — opposed to the ban rallied outside the meeting at the Boy Scouts’ headquarters in Dallas. Ahead of the historic decision, we’re joined by Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, founder of the group Scouts for Equality. Wahls’ lesbian parents were actively involved in his Boy Scout activities, and he wants others to be allowed a similar opportunity. He is the author of "My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family." [includes rush transcript]

The Obama administration’s internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. In a secret Justice Department memo, the administration claims it has legal authority to assassinate U.S. citizens overseas even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the United States. We’re joined by Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you look at the memo ... there’s no geographic line," says Jaffer. "The Obama administration is making, in some ways, a greater claim of authority [than President Bush]. They’re arguing that the authority to kill American citizens has no geographic limit." [includes rush transcript]

• Leaked Memo Shows Expansive Rationale for U.S. "Kill List"
• Report Tallies 54 Countries, 136 Prisoners in CIA Torture Program
• Italian Court Reverses Acquittals of CIA Agents for '03 Kidnapping
• S&P to Face Civil Charges for Faulty Ratings
• Prisons Bureau to Review Solitary Confinement
• Obama Promotes Gun Control Ahead of SOTU Address
• McCain Among GOP Senators Who Won't Block Hagel Bid
• Monitors: Over 270 Killed in 2 Days of Syria Violence
• Iranian President Makes Historic Visit to Eypt
• Israel Arrests 23 Hamas Members in West Bank
• Israeli Forces Dismantle Palestinian Encampment Protesting Settlements
• Lawsuit: NYPD Spying on Muslims Violating Handschu Rules
• Arkansas House Advances Anti-Abortion Bill
• Hundreds Protest Fracking at New York Capitol
• Oklahoma Protester Chains Herself to Keystone Equipment

Born on Feb. 4, 1913, today would have been Rosa Parks’ 100th birthday. On Dec. 1, 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her act of resistance led to a 13-month boycott of the Montgomery bus system that would help spark the civil rights movement. Today we spend the hour looking at Rosa Parks’ life with historian Jeanne Theoharis, author of the new book, "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks." Often described as a tired seamstress, no troublemaker, Parks was in fact a dedicated civil rights activist involved with the movement long before and after her historic action on the Montgomery bus. "Here we have, in many ways, one of the most famous Americans of the 20th century, and yet treated just like a sort of children’s book hero," Theoharis says. "We diminish her legacy by making it about a single day, a single act, as opposed to the rich and lifelong history of resistance that was actually who Rosa Parks was." We also air audio of Rosa Parks in her own words. In the midst of the boycott in April of 1956, she spoke to Pacifica Radio about the action she took. [includes rush transcript]

• Obama Admin Enacts Right for Preemptive Cyberattacks
• White House Proposes Compromise to Provide Contraceptive Insurance
• 35 Killed in Pakistan Attack; Taliban Claims Revenge for U.S. Drone Strikes
• Suicide Attack Kills 33 at Police Headquarters in Iraq
• France Continues Mali Bombing; Amnesty Calls for Probe of Civilian Deaths
• Iranian Foreign Minister Backs Direct Talks with U.S.
• Video Shows Egyptian Police Beating Naked Protester
• Damage to Philippines Reef by U.S. Ship Worse Than Previously Thought
• Study: Suicide Rate of U.S. Vets Jumps 20 Percent
• Iraq War Vet Detained for Shooting Death of Famed Sniper, Companion
• Somali American Convicted in Alleged Entrapment Case
• Panetta: Bin Laden Could Have Been Found Without Torture
• Hundreds Mark 1st Anniversary of Ramarley Graham Killing; Family Sues NYPD
• Appeals Court Sides With Gov. Secrecy in WikiLeaks, Twitter Case
• WikiLeaks Founder Assange Awarded Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts