Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald and Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation join us to discuss domestic surveillance drones and the secrecy surrounding military drones around the world. "I think the importation of the war on terror and its tactics, generally, to the U.S. is probably the most significant development in the world of civil liberties," says Greenwald. Timm is also the co-manager of the @Drones Twitter account. As a result of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, drone use in the United States is expected to expand rapidly in the next few years, an issue that is being closely watched by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. [includes rush transcript]

About two years ago, news reports described the State Department-funded project of Sascha Meinrath as a way for overseas dissidents to overcome repressive regimes that try to censor them by shutting down the Internet. This week a variation on the software he helped design will launch here in the United States. It is called Commotion Wireless. You can download the program on your cellphone or laptop computer in order to create what is called a "mesh" network that allows you to share Internet access with other devices on the network. "It challenges this business model that everyone has to buy their own Internet connection, and it really puts forward this notion of, well, why don’t we share resources? We can share them across our neighbors, we can share them within our offices, we can share them across entire cities," says Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. [includes rush transcript]

Just hours after he appeared on Democracy Now! on Monday, former Republican staffer Derek Khanna received a call from the White House saying it was coming out against a ban on unlocking cellphones that went into effect in January. Under the ban, consumers can face up to five years in prison if they unlock their cellphones for use on another carrier without authorization. Khanna helped spearhead a petition against the ban that received more than 114,000 signatures on the White House website. In an online post titled "It’s Time to Legalize Cell Phone Unlocking," White House Senior Adviser for Internet, Innovation and Privacy R. David Edelman writes: "The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties … if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It’s common sense." Derek Khanna joins us to discuss the White House response and what comes next. [includes rush transcript]

WikiLeaks is set to receive major new financial support this week from a new group that funds independent journalism organizations dedicated to transparency and accountability in government. This comes as MasterCard, Visa and PayPal continue to refuse to process payments for WikiLeaks, making it difficult to send donations. "We don’t need just one WikiLeaks; we need 10 WikiLeaks or a hundred. We have a situation in this country where government secrecy is at an all-time high," says Freedom of the Press Foundation co-founder and executive director Trevor Timm. We are also joined by Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, who is a member of the foundation’s board. [includes rush transcript]

As we broadcast from the Freedom to Connect conference, we look at one whistleblower who used the Internet to reveal the horrors of war: U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning. Military prosecutors have decided to bring the maximum charges against Manning after he admitted during a pretrial hearing last week to the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history. In a bid to secure a reduced sentence, Manning acknowledged on the stand that he gave classified documents to WikiLeaks in order to show the American public the "true costs of war" and "spark a debate about foreign policy." Manning pleaded guilty to reduced charges on 10 counts, which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. But instead of accepting that plea, military prosecutors announced Friday they will seek to imprison Manning for life without parole on charges that include aiding the enemy. Manning’s court-martial is scheduled to begin in June. We speak with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, who has long covered the case, about what this means for Manning and its broader implications for whistleblowers and the journalists they often approach. [includes rush transcript]

• Venezuela: Chávez Has "Severe" New Breathing Infection
• Biden, Netanyahu Threaten Military Action on Iran at AIPAC Conference
• Biden Avoids Mention of Settlement Building as Protesters Stage "Occupy AIPAC"
• Kerry: U.S. Aid to Syrian Rebels Won't Be Misused
• Syrian Rebels Capture Raqqa; 40 Soldiers Killed in Iraq Ambush
• Obama Confirms Picks for EPA, Energy Dept.
• White House Budget Nominee Heads Walmart Foundation
• Attorneys: Gitmo Prisoners on 3-Week Hunger Strike
• Appeals Court: Anti-Day-Labor Provision of Arizona's SB 1070 Unconstitutional
• U.S., China Agree on U.N. Rebuke of North Korean Nuke Test
• Arkansas Gov. Vetoes 12-Week Abortion Ban
• Openly Gay Mayoral Candidate Brutally Killed in Mississippi
• Grassroots Newscast FSRN Issues Urgent Appeal over Threat of Closure

As many as one in 10 Americans cannot get Internet connections fast enough for common online activities such as watching video. Many communities have responded to this digital divide by creating their own municipal broadband networks as an alternative to the slow services offered by cable and telephone companies in order to gain equal access to education, healthcare and even jobs. One example of success is Thomasville, Georgia, which has been connecting people for more than a decade. But these efforts could soon be blocked. Some 19 states have passed laws to stop these communities from making such investments, and Georgia could be next. We are joined by Chris Mitchell, director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative, of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He recently co-authored a report, "The Empire Lobbies Back: How National Cable and DSL Companies Banned the Competition in North Carolina." Catharine Rice is the president of the SouthEast Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, which represents Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. She led the effort to block an industry-sponsored bill on municipal broadband investment in North Carolina, which passed last year after Republicans came to power in the state, including a longtime friend of the Koch brothers, Art Pope, who is now the governor’s budget director. [includes rush transcript]

UPDATE: The White House called Derek Khanna just hours after his appearance on Democracy Now! to say it’s coming out against the cellphone unlocking ban.

WATCH our EXCLUSIVE interview with Khanna minutes after he received the phone call from the White House at the Freedom to Connect conference.

READ the White House response to the petition against cellphone unlocking.

In late January, it became illegal for cellphone users to unlock their phones for use on a different carrier. "It’s a very weird law or regulation that now makes it illegal for us do this really commonplace technology with our own devices," says former Republican staffer Derek Khanna. He helped spearhead an online petition against the ban, which has drawn more than 114,000 signatures, gathering wide support from several political corners and prompting an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. We speak to Khanna and Darcy Burner. [includes rush transcript]

The Freedom to Connect conference has attracted people from across the political spectrum, including Derek Khanna, a "rising star" in the Republican Party, who has worked on both of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns. Khanna wrote a policy brief for the Republican Study Committee entitled "Three Myths About Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix It." In it, he advocated lighter penalties for copyright infringement and an expansion of fair use, arguing that current copyright law hinders progress and runs against constitutional principles. The day after it was released, the committee retracted the report, reportedly after pressure from the entertainment industry and politicians. Khanna then lost his job. He joins us to talk about why copyright reform transcends partisan politics. [includes rush transcript]

We broadcast live from the Freedom to Connect conference, a national gathering to promote Internet freedom and universal connectivity. It comes as the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act has been reintroduced in the House, calling for a "cybersecurity" exception to existing privacy law that would give immunity to companies that hand over troves of confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency, FBI and Department of Homeland Security. Last year at this same conference, Aaron Swartz, the late cyber-activist, computer programmer, social justice activist and writer who committed suicide earlier this year, gave the keynote address, in which he described the battle to defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Swartz took his own life at the age of 26 just weeks before he was to go on trial for using computers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to download millions of copyrighted academic articles from JSTOR, a subscription database of scholarly papers. JSTOR declined to press charges, but prosecutors moved the case forward. Swartz faced up to 35 years in prison and a million dollars in fines for allegedly violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. After his death, federal prosecutors dropped the charges. We are joined by Darcy Burner, who opens today’s conference with her "After Aaron" address. She worked with him on several projects, including ProgressiveCongress.org, which she formerly directed, as well as the Progressive Congress Action Fund. She is also one of the biggest self-described geeks to run for U.S. Congress, having run for office three times in Washington State. [includes rush transcript]

• Obama Floats Entitlement Cuts After Sequester Kicks In
• Military Prosecutors Seek Maximum Sentence for Bradley Manning
• Environmentalists Decry State Dept. Environmental Review of Keystone XL
• U.S. Apologizes for Strike That Killed 2 Children in Afghanistan
• 45 Killed in Pakistan Bombing
• Kerry Unveils $250 Million in U.S. Aid for Egypt
• U.S. Sailors Sentenced for Rape in Japan
• Landmark Treatment Cures Baby of HIV
• Michigan Gov. to Appoint Emergency Manager to Replace Detroit City Council
• Florida Farmworkers Launch March for Humane Conditions
• Thousands Commemorate "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama

We look deep inside the $1-trillion-a-year "processed-food-industrial complex" to examine how decades of food science have resulted in the cheapest, most addictive and most nutritionally inferior food in the world. The vitamins added back to this packaged and fast food — which amounts to 70 percent of calories consumed in the United States — come from nylon, sheep grease and petroleum. We are joined by longtime food reporter Melanie Warner, author of "Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal." [includes rush transcript]

Food companies have known for decades that salt, sugar and fat are not good for us in the quantities Americans consume them. But every year, people are swayed to ingest about twice the recommended amount of salt and fat — and an estimated 70 pounds of sugar. We speak with New York Times reporter Michael Moss about how in his new book, "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us." In a multi-year investigation, Moss explores deep inside the laboratories where food scientists calculate the "bliss point" of sugary drinks or the "mouth feel" of fat, and use advanced technology to make it irresistible and addictive. As a result of this $1 trillion-a-year industry, one-in-three adults, and one-in-five children, are now clinically obese. [includes rush transcript]

For the first time, 25-year-old U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning has admitted to being the source behind the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history. More than a thousand days after he was arrested, Manning testified Thursday before a military court. He said he leaked the classified documents to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks in order to show the American public the "true costs of war." Reading for more than an hour from a 35-page statement, Manning said: "I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information ... this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general." At the pretrial hearing at Fort Meade military base in Maryland, Manning pleaded guilty to reduced charges on 10 counts, which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. But even if the judge accepts the plea, prosecutors can still pursue a court-martial on the remaining 12 charges. The most serious of those is "aiding the enemy" and carries a possible life sentence. We are joined by Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. He just returned from attending Manning’s hearing. [includes rush transcript]

• Bradley Manning Admits Giving Documents to WikiLeaks in Bid to Show "True Costs of War"
• U.S. Lawmakers Fail to Avert Sequester Cuts Before Deadline
• Obama Admin Urges Supreme Court to Overturn California’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban
• U.S. House Passes Expanded Violence Against Women Act
• South Africa: Officers Suspended After Man Dragged Behind Police Van Dies
• Explosions Targeting Shiites Kill Dozens in Iraq
• China Accuses U.S. of Repeatedly Hacking Military Websites
• Haiti: Ex-Dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier Questioned in Court About Abuses Under His U.S.-Backed Rule
• Maryland Senate Backs Sweeping Gun-Control Bill
• U.S. Senators Delay Consideration of Assault Weapons Ban
• Texas School Worker Shot During Gun Training Class
• Keystone XL Pipeline Critic Disrupts TransCanada Speech by Locking Neck to Projector Screen
• Red Lake Nation Members Occupy Land to Protest Enbridge Oil Pipelines
• Study: Racial Wealth Gap Nearly Tripled Since Since Mid-1980s

A federal judge has once again ordered the state of Louisiana to release Albert Woodfox, a former Black Panther who has spent more than 40 years in solitary confinement. Woodfox and Herman Wallace, another prisoner of the "Angola 3," were convicted of murdering a guard at Angola Prison. The Angola 3 and their supporters say they were framed for their political activism. On Tuesday, the same federal judge that ordered Woodfox’s release in 2008 again ruled Woodfox should be set free on the basis of racial discrimination in his retrial. It was the third time Woodfox’s conviction has been overturned, but prosecutors successfully reversed the two previous victories. The state is expected to appeal once again to keep Woodfox behind bars. We’re joined by two guests: Robert King, the third member of the Angola 3, who was freed in 2001 after three decades behind bars; and Mwalimu Johnson, a longtime member of the Angola 3 support team. [includes rush transcript]

As Pope Benedict XVI steps down today, we turn to a former Catholic priest who was silenced and expelled by the pope, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, in the 1980s. Matthew Fox chronicles his story in the book "The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved." Pope Benedict’s tenure was marked by several scandals, most notably his handling of the widening sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, including allegations that he ignored at least one case of abuse while serving as a cardinal. Documents show that in 1985 he delayed efforts to defrock a priest convicted of molesting children. "I’ll take the pope at his word here when he says he’s tired. I would be tired, too, if I left as much devastation in my wake as he has," Fox says. "I think that the Catholic Church as we know it, the structure of the Vatican, is passé. We’re moving beyond it. And it’s become a viper’s nest. It’s really sick, what’s going on, obviously — the cover-up of the pedophile priests." [includes rush transcript]

As President Obama unveiled a statue of Rosa Parks at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, the Supreme Court considered overturning a key achievement of the civil rights movement: the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Signed in 1965 by President L. Johnson, the law requires several states and counties with a history of racial discrimination to clear election-related changes with the federal government. While the Supreme Court’s four liberal justices appeared willing to back the Voting Rights Act, conservative justices were much more critical. Justice Antonin Scalia described the law as a "perpetuation of racial entitlement." We’re joined by The Nation’s Ari Berman, who covered the hearing and has reported extensively on the battle for voting rights. Berman says overturning Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act "would open the floodgates to more voter suppression laws, more legal challenges, and it would make it difficult to enforce the voting rights laws that are on the books. ... It would be one of the most radical and consequential decisions made by the court in a very long time." [includes rush transcript]

• Senate to Vote on Sequester Proposals Ahead of Friday Deadline
• Senate Confirms Jack Lew for Treasury
• Senate Panel Delays Brennan Vote for 2nd Time
• Hagel Takes Pentagon Helm After Confirmation Vote
• Senate Judiciary Committee Weights Assault Weapons Ban
• Newtown Father Appeals for Ban on Assault Rifles
• U.S. Increases Aid to Syrian Rebels; Training Underway in Regional Country
• Shell Delays Arctic Drilling After Setbacks
• Bloomberg Super PAC Helps Defeat Pro-Gun Candidate in Illinois Primary
• Judge Orders Release of Seattle Activists Jailed for Resisting Grand Jury Testimony
• French Resistance Fighter Stéphane Hessel Dies at 95
• Rosa Parks Statue Unveiled in Washington, D.C.

Oxfam has released a comprehensive report that measures how the world’s 10 largest food companies perform on food justice issues. No company emerges with passing grades. The 10 companies Oxfam scores are Associated British Foods, Coca-Cola, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever. Collectively, these companies make $1 billion a day. Oxfam based its report on seven criteria: small-scale farmers, farm workers, water, land, climate change, women’s rights and transparency. We’re joined by Chris Jochnick, a lead researcher for Oxfam’s new report, "Behind the Brands." [includes rush transcript]