Award-winning journalist and author, Amy Goodman joins Thom Hartmann for "Conversations with Great Minds." Tonight she'll discuss her work as a journalist and how she sees Democracy changing in this country. She has been on the forefront of developing truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to light the alternative voices often excluded by the mainstream media. Amy's latest book is "Breaking the Sound Barrier" and explores the role and power of independent journalism in the struggle for a better world.

For tonight's Conversations with Great Minds - I'm joined by NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and Kirk Wiebe. Both men were involved in exposing the NSA's massive, illegal, domestic spying program known as the Trailblazer project initiated in 2000. Despite not leaking any classified information - and exhaustively going through all the protocols required for members of the intelligence community to blow the whistle on wrongdoing - both men faced serious retributions for going public with what they knew about the NSA's surveillance program. In 2007 - after a reporter for the Baltimore Sun obtained information regarding waste, fraud, and abuse at the NSA - FBI agents raided the home Kirk Wiebe - confiscating computer hard drives and business records - and revoking security clearance that Wiebe - an NSA veteran - had held since 1964. Wiebe was not charged with any crime. However - Thomas Drake - whose home was also raided - was charged with multiple crimes including violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. Eventually those charges were dropped in 2011. Since then - Drake has gone on to win multiple awards for his courage in blowing the whistle on the NSA - including the Ridenour Prize for Truth Telling and the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. And both he and Kirk Wiebe have done tremendous work to inform all of us on the growing American surveillance state. The National Security Agency is building a massive spy center in Utah. What for? And will Americans be the targets of the NSA's prying eyes?

Michael T. Klare, Author of fourteen books, including his latest "The Race for What's Left" and previously, Resource Wars and Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. A contributor to Current History, Foreign Affairs, and the Los Angeles Times, he is the defense correspondent for The Nation and the director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The U.S has begun to hand out permits to companies to do exploratory digging in the Arctic for oil and natural gas. But - with other nations laying their claim to the vast resources in one of the world's last unexplored frontiers - what happens when the Arctic is tapped out? We'll pose that question and more to Michael Klare in a special edition of Conversations with Great Minds...

Economist and author, James K. Galbraith joins Thom Hartmann in "Conservations with Great Minds"...tonight we'll discuss how the middle class continues to get trampled by the "New Predators." Can economists help or are they part of the problem - everyone thinks we think are way out....can we?

Economist Dr. Richard Wolff, Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown/Democracy At Work/The New School, joins Thom. Is the neverending recovery of the Great Recession the fault of austerity or the fault of capitalism itself?

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

Neil Barofsky, former special inspector-general of the TARP & author "Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street," joins Thom Hartmann. In 2008, we were all told TARP was needed to prevent a Great Depression. Instead - TARP funds have made the big banks richer - and given them an even greater feeling of invincibility. So how was this allowed to happen?

Former Congressman Bob Ney, "Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill" joins Thom Hartmann. If - like most Americans - you think Congress is corrupt ..... well - you're right