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Then 83 makes it easy for you to keep an eye on whats happening in washington. Now from book tv Investigative Reporter discusses the history of National Security agencies buying. And as a surveillance of american citizens since 9 11, and the edwards known leaks. This is an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] thank you very much. I appreciate everybody coming here. This is a great event. There is this is only the second greatest event i have had here. So this has to take second place to that, i think. Among the people at my wedding, which i discovered later was the major russian spy, bob hansen. I had known him for years as one of my sources. I did not realize what his application was. But it is really good to have you all here. I was very happy that the president decided to hold off on his announcements until tomorrow so that he could hear what i had to say tonight. It was very nice of him. I dont think he will agree with most of what i have to say, but i will be interested to hear what he has to say tomorrow. One of the things that is fascinating is how many people actually know about the nsa today. I mean, when i first heard the puzzle power back in a june 82i was doing a book tour. One of the people on the book tour or at least in a limousine telling the studio was senator bill bradley from new jersey. He said, well, what is your book about . Well, the National Security agency. Was that . So we got on the said. He was there to talk about the economy. I was there talk about the nsa. I just could not resist it when i asked how secret it is. Even senator bradley said he had never heard of it. You get really angry. He took a separate car back to the hotel that night. The next day his aide called up and said, that was below the belt. I said, no, below the belt, he probably confused with the nba. [applause] so i hear he went on the Intelligence Committee after our get together. He knew a lot more about the nsa after that. One other thing that was really funny when the book first came out was that the book was picked by a bookofthemonth club. So at the New York Times book review. On the back to have all these are pictures of these little books that make little pictures of the books that make the bookofthemonth club. I saw mind. The name was there. The picture was different. It was a picture of a rocket taking off for something. Then we called up and they said, well, what was the idea of doing this. They said, well, we the you were talking about nasa. They actually change the cover of my book on the bookofthemonth club because they thought i had made a mistake. So but john wanted me to keep his shirt because we a lot of people with a lot of questions. The questions going to be far more interesting than the talks. I thought i would run through the few interesting things here. First of all, im happy to be in the press club. The press club has been by been a member here for over 30 years now. I was actually a member actually not at the time, later on, this was actually an all mans place until 1971, i think it was. But the person upon out there that has a deck of cards in front of him was an alltime press club member. He would hang at year during the 1950s. He became a really fascinating card shark. He wrote a book called education of a poker player. That is the ers still in the original building. He may have been playing cards year. Before he became a card shark yet another job. That was being a founding father of the National Security agency. And the nsa actually got its start in that little Apartment Building there. July 21920. And the chief of the black chamber, that is what it was called. He lived on the top floor with his family. The first floor was of farming company. It was accompanied a supposedly made commercial codes, but it was just a front. The actual code breaking was done on the two middle floors. So as you can imagine, the nsa has grown a fair amount since those days. But what some of us, at least some people have been saying right now. Afros actually in 1929. That was the secretary of state to came along, secretary of state simpson. Did not want to tell him that there was a thing called the black chamber even though his state department was paying for. Did not know what his reaction would be that there was a secret office in new york that was eavesdropping on carry vacation. He did finally tell him. Simpson was erased. The gentleman did not read each others mail, and he immediately close down the black chamber. Well, that put yardley out of work. So then yardley went from being the head of the black chamber, the head of the organization that was the first predecessor of the nsa to becoming the basically Edward Snowdon of his state. Snowden, who today has become the object of is he a hero or a trader. My answer to that is always he is a very heroic was a blur. There is no connection between snowden as far as im concerned, as buys. I had one in my weddings that i mentioned. Hes not selling secrets to the russians. He did not go there themselves seekers to the russians. He went there because the u. S. Canceled his passport halfway between hong kong and ecuador. The way before there was an ever snowden there was Herbert Yardley. And Herbert Yardley, after the close the black chamber, they decided to it is such a write a book about it which was the very first to expose a of american cripple logic community and there were not very happy, obviously, what when his book came out and they try putting him in jail. They could not find a lot, so they actually created a new part of the espionage law to prosecute him with. A lot of that is what theyre prosecuting or were trying to prosecute, trend to prosecute snowdon with red now. Ironically the first head of the nsa became also the first whistleblower. Now, this is something that i think every word would be very interested in. There is history of this. There is history which i will show you a little bit. At one point being a really big villain for the nsa, and the next minute being a hero to the nsa. It took a while. It took almost seven years, but they finally put Herbert Yardley in the hall of honor at the nsa. So maybe there is still a chance for every seven at some point. But like us said, this is an yardley wrote the very first book on the organization of the crypt illogic organization, the predecessor of the nsa. The next one to write was david connecticut hero of book called the code breakers and 1967 which still lot about the nsa has the most the biggest expos a of the nsa that had never happened since Herbert Yardley. And the nsa went to a lot of trouble to get rid of the book. I mean, they even considered this came out in and senate Intelligence Committee report, surreptitious entry into this house to steal the manuscript, Clandestine Service supplication , whenever that is, kidnapping, termination. Worst of all, there were going to plant some disparaging press reviews about his book commodes as an author you take every other option before that one. So like yardley david connecticut was rehabilitated in the 1995 that made him an official the First Official scholar in residence at the nsa. They took all his books, including the one that there were trying to ban and put it in a library. So, again, more hope for edwards no near. And then mine was an excellent, the puzzle palace. And there they accused me of putting the country at risk. They threatened me to rise with prosecution. That said they forced me to give up documents college and never gave up rrated a library or did the research, ripped a lot of stuff of the library, they threatened some of my sources, including a former nsa director with prosecution and jail time and everything. They had to they have a guy follow me. That is why wore a costume or rye went. So they actually that was eileen party at john henrys house. But they did actually have somebody in every audience or i give a talk taking notes justin cases of japan said something that they could put me in jail with. They put all file cabinet of papers to get around me. Fl ia, the free information request. We dont have anything on the. Thats impossible. A been writing a benefit three years. Even of a single piece paper. And then i saw on one paper in the sub defense of the word esquire. So i sent a request for everything on the file im gonna holds or. Then i get rehabilitated. So after after about 20 years the agency yes, i just when that picture up. They actually had a book signing. The nsa. They did have a line going up the door. A lot of the people were actually carrying the puzzle palace was there were forbidden. Anyone his book of the National Group the largest school, but im really recalcitrant i became a bad guy and wrote the book about the nsa and eavesdropping. I no longer on their official tour listening more. But anyway, there is possibility here that this could be really. You get general alexander of saying snowdon is a hero are wearing a hero tshirt. It is all possible. But before those are the people that i really admire, people that helped me in writing some of the books i did, some of the articles i did. Tom drake, occur week, all the people who defined the nsa. These are people who were working there for almost 40 years. Tom drake it works their is a contractor for a long time. Before that he was in the military. And toms to cut hundreds firstever job at nsa was september 11 to those among. But these are the people that i really and mired because their people who have a conscience. And when 9 11 came along and the nsc began hes tapping domestic is the people that spoke up. They left the agency, quit the agency because it did not want to see the system they work on turned into a vehicle for use germanamerican citizens and the u. S. So i have a lot of aberration. In all have the honor of attention that is no national what they did an awful lot of work to help get the message out in a few of the mayor here tonight actually. Well, the nsa is, longways since herbert l. Yardley in the town house. Now its an entire city. Have been to their a few times. And it is just a mammoth location. People have no idea how much that agency has grown just in the last ten years. It is the complex, the headquarters complex itself, you could put the u. S. Capital and therefore times over and have space left over. And the whole purpose is eavesdropping. It is an agency that really needs to have a one and released have a close eye on which is why were here, why this controversy is, because there has not been a close eye and a. Here is the nsa budget. For years the nsa this is one of the topsecret documents released. For years the nsa was the largest budget item in the Intelligence Community, but that changed more recently because of the advent of drones with the cia and so forth. So it is an enormous amount of budget. You can see how it is budgeted. And it is very widespread. This is one of the more revealing slides i have seen from the 9 11 group that shows where they do all of their they plan all of their mall where, the computers around the world, 50,000 places the plan now where. Of the places with a tap into fiberoptic cables and so forth. So for somebody has been writing about the nsa for a very, very long time this was an extremely informative slide. Matted data. No one ever heard of that word before last june, i think. But it has become really the key one of the key issues were talking about now. I dont know about you, whenever give the u. S. Government, particularly the nsa, the authority to have, you know, every time i pick up the telephone to keep a record of that and to keep it for five years. So that is one of the big issues that will be talked about tomorrow and the president s talk, whether he will go a long with the committees recommendation which is his panels recommendation which is basically taking the nsa out of the business of storing all of these records and instead putting the data where it is supposed to be, the companies are the collected it. And then using legal authority, getting a warrant from a judge to search through the data and not just going through it without any oversight. Anyway. Meditated is a really big problem. One of the things that has come up more recently was these two decisions on the issue of mad at data. One was judge richard leon, a federal judge in washington. The other was judge William Pauley in new york and none of it made any difference, but i grew up with judge lyonnais went to law school with them. But we never agreed on anything in 30 years. He is a very conservative judge. Periods judge leon came to a very conservative conclusion which happens to be the same conclusion i came to which was the conclusion that the government should not be able to do this kind of activity with the data. Judge william paleoindian came to the office opposite conclusion. You had that split decision. In my opinion provides that whole idea of the government collecting netted data. I mean, the snowden case is a perfect example of why. Here was at risk snowdon. The was a contractor. He was in his 20s. And yet he was able to spend almost a year, it seems like, exfiltrating all of those well, over onehalf million secret documents. And without even knowing about it until the inception on gone. So do you want to trust his agency with all of your data . I dont particularly want to do that. You can see what happens with target. There are people out there that really one data that will pay a lot of money for it. And as somebody at the nsa said to him, the honorable thing, being a whistleblower, wanted to be a criminal, they have all that data. The lessee keep in the hands of the government, the better it is pretty darn of the key issues which is an issue will talk about, which is somewhat of a complex issue but it is a key issue in the entire meditated discussion. It is the issue that judge pauley sort of hung his hat on on his decision. And it all centers on this house in human and this person appeared. I will guarantee you i am the only person in this room that has actually been to that house. This was the Operations Center in the men. It was very controlled of his plots from. I went there because i did a documentary for pbs. We did a documentary and the nsa and 9 11. So i went to that house, and we saw it, and that was where the first hint of 9 11 came from. Again, these were all the issues that feed into judge paulis decision, the comments of the director of the nsa. This is what i am about to talk about here is the key excuse for having limited data program. What happened was in december of 1999 the nsa while, the nsa had been listening to this house for years because it was the house where he would call to set up his terrorist operations. It is the house where they attacked the u. S. Set up a plan for the u. S. S. Cole, the u. S. Embassies and so forth. The nsa was listening to that house. December of 1999 it picked up the communication, and it was from afghanistan that said send khalid for the meeting. So we know that the nsa knows at this point that there will be a big meeting in kuala lumpur. Well, they nsa passes that to the cia and to the other intelligence agencies. The cia says people to kuala lumpur. They get the cooperation of the government, the malaysian government. And theyre watching these guys. And then all of a sudden they get to the airport and they get on a plane. And they fly out of the country with all of the cia being good intelligence people they figure theyre flying to bangkok because that is where the plan was going. The problem was, like all of the station in bangkok to let them and it happens to be a saturday and nobody was working. So that the terrorists got the plane and disappeared into bangkok. But the cia did know that there were going to the United States because they had a copy of their passports with the visa and it. So what happened was the two of them flew from yemen to kuala lumpur. California. And since nobody had been tipped off by the cia, no one was there to watch them arrive. They went down to san diego. Then managed to get this house here. It was a house in san diego. Done by somebody, muslim and san diego and needed a place to stay, let them stay there. The guy happens to be an fbi informant which was very interesting. You had to terrorists there were on their way year. The cia knew about it, did not tell anybody, and theyre living in a house that is owned by an fbi informant. Then his wife was pregnant in yemen. So he caught her calder fairly often. The nsa was eavesdropping and everything in that house, everything going in and coming out. So what happened was that the cia wanted information from that house. It wanted to say, well, give us the transcripts, give us with these people saying. The nsa would not give the cia and the information that they were picking up from the house. They went up three times asking senior officials at the nsa for that information and they would not give it to a. The cia is a building near on a listening post the communications announced. The problem is, theyre only getting the downlink. They dont have the satellite, so they are not getting the uplink of the communication. So they go back to the nsa and say, look, you know, we get the downlink. We have our listening posts. Can you just give us the appalling . Tsa says no well, that is the that is one of the key issues right now. This is another case that is coming. Let me back up to this one. He accepted the argument that the nsa command even know for two years there were listening to everything going in and out of the house, there were not able to pick up to five theyre inedible to find out that the calls from that house are going to the house in human. Now, of vases 1982. They just cant believe that the nsa is saying that they did not have the capability to find out where those phone calls were coming from. That is the nsa problem. Did not know whether those calls were coming from. There were listening to the calls in yemen, but they could not tell that there were coming from san diego. That is the key point. So judge pauley accepted that argument. That is the argument for a message dated because the nsa could not sell well it or those phone calls were coming from. You had to collect everybodys minute data in the United States so that you have it in one place then you can go through it so that you dont have another 9 11. That is their argument. Again, these are things that are somewhat complicated, not usable in a sound bite on television, but theyre critical to this whole issue of better data and it needs more writing about and a Journalist Committee because a lot of it, are you kidding . You know, we put all of this technology out there and you cant tell where a telephone is coming from . So but the story is not over yet. There is any there is going to be a third bite of the apple year. We have a split decision, the judge in new york, the judge in washington. Well, this another case coming up called First Unitarian Church in los angeles this is the nsa. A played a little role in this case myself. The Electronic Frontier foundation, income in the case that focuses on the legality of matted data. But theres another little twists and theyre also focusing on another issue. That is the americans right of assembly. The government should not have a right to know every time a committee for the republicans are meeting here to get all our phone calls and find that that were having a meeting, or the naacp. Any political gatherings are antiwar gatherings. That is where the other aspects of this case that makes a little bit different from the other two commanded should be decided hopefully in the relatively near future. So you have these three cases, and they will go to the Appeals Court in the Supreme Court for decision. We are just at the entry position, but i really do have to every time i see judge leon after, for the first time, see was right. And rather he was right on this issue here. What i did was wrote an amicus where i helped. I taught at berkeley at one point. Law students at berkeley wanted me dealt into an amicus brief, friendofthecourt brief for that case. The third case that will be coming up. Memo we focused on large new was looking back to the Church Committee, for example, in 1975, the Church Committee, we can sell the nsa was just running amok. Millions and millions this was only when the Church Committee came along publicize it cannot their hearings and there for reports that there was a change made. That was the creation of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, the first court to ever put any kind of regulation on the nsa. And it worked really well for 30 years. I mean, i was not perfect, but they never turned the government down. At least it was there and did make some i think it was i used to make jokes about it, but i think it actually did do a fair amount of good work. Certainly better than not being there. So what happened after 9 11, the bush and ministration went around the court, violated the law and just bypassed it. And then two and a half years later or so after the New York Times revealed the program then they created this thing called the foreign Intelligence Surveillance amendment to act which legalized but there were doing in the first place. Now were at the point where we were at just prior to the Church Committee with the nsa has run amok. We need another Church Committee to look get this. I admire the president s panel because they actually came up with some really good suggestions, but it was just a panel that looked as some of the issues for a month or a couple of months or never was and thats it. And in the oregon. So i think what we really need is a Church Committee to do this. It has been since 1975. Let the technology, like the amount of weaknesses that they have created in the foreign Intelligence Surveillance forum. And then i was down in rio back in november. I saw greenwell while i was there. He showed me one of the documents that he had. I thought it was fascinating. This one here was this is just an excerpt from it, but and ive got another slide that you can actually read what it was. But when i read that i thought, wow, we are here. We have finally arrived at the point we were in 1975 when the government was doing a lot of really bad things. Back them what they were doing was there were looking for ways to get Martin Luther king who is considered a radical, and they wanted to discredit him in front of his followers. And one way of doing that was by finding out what kind of Sexual Activity he might have and then using that tie their blackmail them, and stored them, or basically just discredit them in front of his followers. And that is what this document was. It basically said the same thing it was back in october of 2012. And what it argued was that and the director of the nsa, general alexanders title at the very top of it commanded said they let her personal vulnerability. Sexually explicit material on line and so forth. A lot can be learned by people visiting pornography sites. Besides, its probably more from a listening to the north koreans. Said in the nba here is to exploit. I was amazed at the language of the used, let no one would ever see this document. So then they would exploit the vulnerabilities of character. And they said, we are not talking about terrorists come across. These are people or radical. And actually in identified the people. I saw the original document when i was down there. Actually saw the names, but you know, i agreed that you should not publicize it. When i saw the names it was not a division between because one of the names i saw was a u. S. Citizen, are u. S. Person the college, and others are foreigners. There was not a division. Verily going after the foreigners, americans, u. S. Persons, and foreigners. And then, you know, what is interesting to me, among the distribution tests, the Justice Department and commerce. Is because theyre trying to regulate the porn industry something . I did not give what the commerce to permit would be giving a topsecret document from the nsa about use dropping out peebleses to porn sites. Theres a lot i dont understand about the nsa. So going back, this is what happened back in the battle and 1960s. The fbi used wiretapping. Discover vulnerability for radicalizes such as mine with the king. Back then the idea had come up with j. Edgar river, the longest serving fbi director who now comes from general alexander, along with serving nsa director witt says something about not letting people stay on the job too long. And the nsa player roll back in those days as part of eavesdropping and the antiwar protests and so forth. So they would pick up the information and pass it on to the fbi. So in terms of reforms, you know, i could not see anything that i really disagree with on those 46 recommendations that came out from the white house panel, you know, hearing all these rumors that the president is killing ted do cosmetic changes tomorrow and nothing really sensitive which would be very disappointing, but actually it goes along with his track record. I mean to me is the guy that triple the number of people tripled the number of forces in iraq instead of ending in the First Six Months im sorry, and afghanistan, triple the number of forces in afghanistan and the first cut its office said in a minute. George bush had won drone attack in yemen in a years. And obama has declared war on yemen. There are drawn attacks all the time. The first attack was not even address our attack. It was december 17th 2009. That was when he launched his first attack which was very telling. There were not enough runs in the area. There were all in afghanistan and pakistan. But there was a navy ship. It was either a navy guided missile cruiser. In it whenever casey used that. And if that that there were some terrorists down in the rural part of southern yemen. So they fired all these cruise missiles this crew. This tiny little village. The cruise missiles happen to be filled with cluster bombs telling you know, 109 countries. This is the person i voted for president. Really. Shooting cluster bombs yes. Shooting cruise missiles or cluster bombs at a country we are not at war with and then missing the target and killing 15 women and children. But that wasnt the end of it. The next day he made a very public phone call to the president of human thinking and for such a great terrorist operation is performed. The president of yemen had nothing to do with it. It was entirely the Obama Administration. He agreed to go along with it. Which gives me kind of to the point im making or the point i want to make. We find out a lot of these things, not from the u. S. Government, but from whistleblowers. A lot of this came from the material that was leaked by mana chelsea manning. Among the documents released was a meeting between patraeus and the president of human. And at that meeting he place after that attack. There was one on Christmas Eve and other attacks in yemen. Then then that meeting there was a transcript that was leaked by the documents. It says there were laughing about it in the meeting. The president of yemen said i will keep lying about it. As a matter of fact, on line to my own parliament about it. One of the things that i thought was fascinating since i number of people at the Church Committee, they were able to get the nsa to come up and name a lot of the people that work targets of their eavesdropping, the antiwar protesters and so forth. There were 1600 of them. They actually came out with the names of my fear some people like dr. Benjamin spock. There was one name in particular that they refuse to release to the Church Committee. Despite all that there would never releases one name. That name was finally released. I think it was last september it was released. Here is to it was. Which is why we need another Church Committee. Thank you very much. [applause] id be happy to take questions. At think john has good. Who do we have . This fine. I think the audience. That think they learned much from the narrative recounting the National Security ministration. One of the things, created by a topsecret memorandum by harry truman in 1962. No congressional or public debate. Just sort of embarrassed. I am sure that harry truman thought he would be embarrassed by this session. It is the only agency in the u. S. Government that was not created by a law in congress, hearings, by a bill through congress. It was created by a topsecret memorandum signed by harry truman in 1962 that was even the congress was not allowed to know about it. It is the only agency in your government that was born secret. Which is the opposite. The government must be transparent in order to have government by the consent of the governed. It seemed apparent inconspicuous that other than a few cameo to appearances nothing involves congress. We have those the bourse, where is congress. Nasas 1975. And now was this sort of an episodic instance in any event. Were talking about the constitution of the United States. Fortyseven classified volumes. He was investigated for espionage by the next demonstration. We cant depend upon our liberties that some brave whistleblower from time to time will expose wrongdoing of the executive branch. Needs to be institutionalized, which is the whole reason why yet congressional oversight. And then tell that change we made gate and snowden from time to time, but it wont change that night unless theyre is a systematic assistance by the American People in congress that this be made public it is a joke if anything they have the coverup. Exactly. And that was one of the points i usually make. Im not asking for a Church Committee in congress. Ms confer an exchange of Church Committee to my Committee Head would be like a 9 11 commission. And also one that just is not have former government officials but as a civil libertarian so forth. We have to get other questions. Un question. That was my question the frank church in 2014. That was why unless we can find somebody with the medical ability to bring them back to life and put them back into the senate, i would not i would not allow the senate or the congress to do this committee. But when it comes so far. Ive been following this ever since the Church Committee. And the Church Committee, they took it upon themselves, their mission, there were the beverage win the American Public and the nsa or the Intelligence Community. It is draw said the Intelligence Committees in congress feel that they are the protector of the agency. Not the protector of the public. They argue for a bigger budget for the Intelligence Agency whenever theres a cut in the budget argue for more freedoms for the agency. Where were they doing that here in half years, the times release , the information getting out about the enormous eavesdropping which came from the whistleblowers, not from our overseers in congress. Any other questions . So, yes. Sorry. Deborah is a really good friend of mine. She was the lead attorney on the tom drake case. I worked on that case and it was a tremendously successful case. A whistleblower from the nsa who is charged with 5pound to five counts of espionage. Leaking some rather mundane information. I was able to show with the help of to me that the member mentioned there were charging him with was not only unclassified and that one of the put him in jail for 35 years, not only unclassified, but it was in the Public Domain and put there by the nsa and the pentagon. So when it came time her child the prosecution rift please to sign this green tell mr. Mayor with no jail time and no fines the judge spent 20 minutes and yelling at the prosecutor and the nsa. It was a good case. I appreciated the deputies work on it. Its good to see. Thank you for that. Youre embarrassing me. And im going to take a different role and play devils advocate which is driven in part by this and comparable uncomfortable feeling that i have. It is driven in large part on my experience in toms case which is i have read articles in the post and the times the there are millions of documents well, i guess oneandahalf million documents he took. The best majority of the documents that are in his possession have really nothing to do with medical data are spying on americans. One of the slides you show was a map of the world showing where our mouth where is. I dont want to comment on whether we need to know about that, what and what point is and word snowdon going to be not this clamors zero, but a thief. Shes a journalist. That is one of the major questions that people have. The question is, you have one half million documents. By the like i did not show me all of them. I was down there. He happens shown a couple. But thats a really good question. The major questions are, is to the chinese about naxos . Could the russians of rednecks us . According to what he says, that did not get access. Speaking in his defense to some degree if your whistleblower and its trying to get the documents out, you dont have time to edit the documents lawyers sitting there your desk. The idea was who would pull the documents out and not just put them up on the internet, but to give them to responsible journalists, and the journalists would go through them. That is what happened with dan l. Burke is a good friend of mine. He did that. He gave it to the New York Times on washington post. And we ended at helping to shorten a war that we should never have gone into. There is no i dont think you went to whistleblower school. He probably did not read out to be a whistleblower. You know, i give him a lot of courage for he has and what he did. I think theres a lot that the government is always saying. The worlds going to come to an end. They said the world was going to come to an end when david connecticut wrote the codebreakers. It the world will come to an end. But so far the world is in good shape. The main problems we ever getting into wars that when i suppose to be in. If we dont have whistleblowers occasionally, they may not be perfect people, may not make mistakes. We will laugh a government that we dont want one about. Anyway, i always am happy to debate you. Youre such a great lawyer. And always feel that im up against the greatest challenge. I appreciate it. Thanks to free a question. You probably know that this is the part of this is the subject of the 28page section of the original joint congressional investigation into 9 11 which was suppressed by president bush and remained suppressed by president obama. This section, from what we can derive from other writings and speeches by senator bob gramm who chaired that committee indicated an investigation on saudi intelligence connections with the two hijackers in san diego zoom, funding mechanisms and apparently also the fact that the fbi refused to allow it digress subcommittee investigators access to the informal who own a house where these two guys were saying staying. Give me your predicate or request. Further comment. Two members of commerce have introduced a bill calling for every member to read the 28 pages and that it declassified. Wonder what your thoughts are on that. Well, i completely agree and have a lot of admiration for walter jones. Republican from north carolina, and he was the person who when we went to war changed the name of french fries to Freedom Price because the french were not supporting our war. And then one day he read the book arrow called a pretext for war and he completely changed and became the most vocal antiwar opponent within congress. Analysts and a great deal of admiration for him for a meeting of state and then trying to get others to change also. It is amazing what is still classified in as reports. I had no idea because i have not seen anyone. I dont know what the saudi part is. There are a lot of people that have speculated. I dont know, but the committee did a poor job on the essay aspect which i wrote a lot about because they never focused on what the nsa did not know. And so i agree that that should be released. Judge, commented the question. Is several years ago i was told that what the nsa really meant was no such agency. Now is stands for not secret anymore. You might want ask those visiting here to give their comments later on from the nsa. My question is in light of the situation where the nsa and the cia were not cooperating but for 9 11 and if they had it might have prevented it, going for word what do you think would be the proper balance between this kind of Data Collection and analysis for National Security in protecting individual privacy what should whatever the nsa turns into or other agencies be doing anda they cooperate with the cia and others to protect interests while still protecting privacy. The one problem here is that first of all i would like them to add these to start telling the truth about how useful some of these programs are. The nsa when for years telling congress how useful the email meditate a program once. It was not until senator wyche and senator you know poked their fee to the fire and said, come back here and show was word has been useful. The nsa could not to the debt had to shut the program down in 2011 then mom were discussing those telephone minute data programs director kim batten said there are 54 cases where this could help prevent attacks. And then it was down to like 32 or whatever. And then all of a sudden she wasnt really talking about the manner data program, the 215 program. He was talking about the present program will lead. When it came down to the actual net it it a program it came down to one success, one success. And actually, the Deputy Director admitted this. He admitted it on public radio about a week ago. It was this one case, and the case was a guy in san diego who sent 8,000 to some group in somalia. Did not have anything to do with the United States, but that is the one success for collecting all of your telephone records since 2001. So thats what i really hope. Begin start to understand the useful programs from the useless programs and to apply not just the standard of some guy in the back room or the bomb and a backer of the nsa listening post, but people who are in the Civil Liberties privacy community hear other voices in this debate. I would like to five my question is just about this. Youd think there is really what . And American Society to really restrict, to really end this kind of restrictive [inaudible] this permanent threat of terrorism. Panera said the show. Its a good question. The question is basically, do you think there is any public support. The problem is it going up against the tehran machine. The fear mongering machine. So much of the sphere. We have had what, 23 people have been killed from terrorism in the United States since 2011 and half of that was major Nidal Hussein and the army major and the fbi in san diego have been picking up these conversations with anwar awlaki so it wasnt a question that they didnt know about. So i have eyes been amazed at the United States how its against the law to take a bottle of shampoo onto an airplane but you can buy as many assault weapons as you want. [applause] what sense does that make . But thats a good question. Unfortunately i can only answer the questions where there is a mic because this is being recorded bye bye cspan so if i answer question where there is no mike they wanted the question so i have to go with john henry where the mic is. Im with the institute for public accuracy. We are having an event to remedy some of the problems with the and we will have several whistleblowers that you mentioned. As well as russell tice will be there immediately following obamas address of people can check it out on line. It will be live streamed at 12 30. Obama is speaking at 11 and they can go to accuracy. Org to get the insights on the whistleblowers immediately following obamas address. I would like to ask you a brief question about a pushback on the International Scope of it. Certainly nations spy on each other but should we have some kind of limits on can the nsa spy on democracy activists in egypt for example . Is the delineation between u. S. Person and nonu. S. Person does generally the most meaningful one that we want to set up . Thank you. Again thats another good question. This whole issue doesnt resonate as well and thats what about the rest of the people in the worlds . I mean we dont care about any of the people in germany or france or anybody else . Yes they have their own Intelligence Services and spying but still. Its a question of digital imperialism in a sense. I hear that argument a lot. We all spy. Every country spies but every country doesnt have the nine largest Internet Companies homebased in their backyard. And when you do have the nine largest Internet Companies in your backyard you can force them to do things that other countries cant do. You can go to google and force them to give you whatever you want. But the nsa goes well beyond that. Theres the front door but they also go into the backdoor and tap into the fiberoptic link between the data centers so i think thats something i would like to see at least addressed and where is this leading us in terms of worldwide surveillance of everybody and is a rational we are paying for this . Are we just building the haystack so high that we will never be able to find the needle so those are good questions. Jim Marc Rotenberg from the Electronic Privacy Information Center and i want to thank you very much for your talk and all your work on this issue. As you know it was the epic that brought the omission initial challenge to the nsa program. We were supported in that effort by dozens of legal scholars and former members of the Church Committee who agreed under section 215 there simply wasnt the authority for the nsa to collect all the telephone records on american citizens but i will want to ask you about the historical significance of the president s speech tomorrow morning. It seems to me if you take a step back and think about the significant Reform Efforts in this area we were called for example in congress of 1974 in watergate to pass the privacy act to strengthen the freedom of information act and the congress after the Church Committee established the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. Dont you think we have sufficient evidence at this point that points toward comprehensive legislative reform in light of what we know to save guard privacy in the country . I certainly do mark and that is a true Big Organization and has been on the advisory board. They are the ones that originally fought nsa during the 1990s when nsa wanted to do a thing called the clipper ship where the nsa would force the u. S. To turn the keys over to nsa for letting them use the backdoor. The public and the congress rejected that largely because of what epic was doing and then we find out from the snowden documents that it doesnt make any difference. They are going around the backdoor anyway and eavesdropping so its a good question. The problem is as somebody mentioned earlier frank church isnt in congress anymore. We have Dianne Feinstein and i just dont see an awful lot of momentum in congress to work on or to actually pass some privacy bills with teeth in them. I would really like to see that happen and you know we are living, still living in this post9 11 period which we werent living in back in those days and as i mention itself generating so you get the Congress People who know that they have to go up for reelection every two years and they know that if they vote against a new budget increase for nsa or they vote for a privacy bill instead their opponent is going to say well, my opponent is weak on terrorism so if you are blown up by the next terrorist bomb its going to be his fault. That is the incentive for these congresspeople to push for you know progressive legislation and falling back on pouring more money into the Intelligence Community that yeah that is one of the reasons why epic does a great job at trying to get these bills passed. There has been a couple of references here or at lease one to the fact do we have to balance our rights against National Security. A vigorous effort by a lot of people to reframe the argument or frame the argument that we have to balance Constitutional Rights versus National Security and what seems lost and that is the back of the bill of rights as mr. Henry alluded to the beginning really the means for us as a sovereign people versus what we previously saw subject under the monarchy to be the overseers and provide oversight for the government meaning the malfeasance or misfeasance of government officials. Going back and some of us are earlier old enough to remember the 70s the army and agents of defense spying on antiwar activists and to suppress their free speech in right now and here we have the nsa and the dod agency doing on on a massive scale worldwide. The question seems to me to be why are we willing to relinquish to government officials military especially do have a very narrow focus that we as american citizen should have. I think vietnam was the best example showing that the army, the military was wrong and the antiwar activists were right and they are the ones who manage to keep us from degrading into the same catastrophic failure that the soviet union did 15 years later because we have that right to know. Where is the outreach i guess is my question . [applause] that is always the problem. I write looks and i write articles and i do documentaries and so forth so im always hoping we are going to create momentum for things but its hard for any American Public to get energized between issues that dont deal with saving them from the terrorists are saving them from iraq or saving them and i dont have the answer to that. I wish i did but you are 100 right that during the 1970s the army actually was used in the United States to spy and to eavesdrop on u. S. Citizens. Its another reason why the committee was formed. Motivating the public, if i knew the answer to that i would be selling toothpaste to make millions of dollars but i dont know how to motivate the public. Jim, i am curious. You warned us of the danger of inadvertent release of all of this vast score of information but to your knowledge or we intentionally sharing any of this make a data with Foreign Countries and if so do you have any idea which once . Is really interesting. People dont realize this at its not just the nsa. The nsa is one element of the much larger organization. Its called the u. K. Usa agreement otherwise known as the i dont know why they call it the flybys. It should be 10 years but that is what they call it the flybys and thats the United States the u. K. Australia new zealand and canada. After world war ii it was very successful in codebreaking the purple machine in japan and so forth so the countries continue doing codebreaking and so forth. What they did was they divided the world up in terms of its fears of eavesdropping capabilities. The u. K. Could eavesdrop on europe very well. The u. S. Could do south america and the australians and New Zealanders could do Southeast Asian and so on and so forth. Its one Big Organization that does the spying so everything is picked up by the United States is shared with those five countries. Theres a lot of sharing that goes on beyond that. One of the documents that i thought was fairly shocking from Edward Snowden was the nsa was turning over to israel all of our data that the u. S. Was collecting without everything going through having some oversight or overview, just turning it over. So thats the problem you have when you have a situation like that. You have the government that collects all of the stuff. Theres no real oversight and nobody saying you were not allowed to do that. They just do anything they want and i dont particularly want to know the police to know who im calling every day. Why should they no . I agree its a big problem. Once they collected its going into this place i wrote about in utah called bluffton which apparently is not being a very big success. Its a 2 million, 1 million square feet and every time they turn the switch on one of the servers melts. So they havent had a lot of luck with that at that is where supposedly its going to be stored. I think its shared easily and they can share with whoever they want. Norman. You mentioned senator church but senator church was from idaho and came from a distinctive political culture. His ancestry was sent at predecessor was senator board who was a great opponent of centralized power governmental tyranny and arbitrary decisions so the question that we have all raised how come our citizenry isnt more active or more outraged or how come the aclu protests and their editorials in the times and so on but there isnt a kind of study abroad taste popularly rooted protest and probably the answer to that lies in other features of our political culture in the gigantic system of our social institutions and the fact that when you sign a contract for a phone you are signing something away thats powerless in the face of these very sizable institutions will whether they are big banks or communications companies. I would suggest that this induces a kind of general paralysis which requires real bureaus to oppose and as Everybody Knows it is in everybodys forte. That is why all whistleblowers are so rare. In a society like this is much easier to go along and if you are in certain areas of society and you are saying that there is no threat to terrorism people are going to look at you like you are a screaming radical or Something Like that. If you actually look at the statistics that person would be absolutely right. Theres this fearmongering that goes on. That is really to me the worst part about it, the fearmongering and it hasnt encountered much in the press either. What to do about it i really dont know but i tried to indicate the level of risk and if the level of risk is very small from things like terrorism or its very large on gun control and things like that. Anyway i wish there was some solution. I just dont know. My question is earlier you were describing the 54 events whereby they were tried to come up with evidence. Do you have any idea how much money they spent specifically on that program and how many people are being employed to do nothing essentially . Yeah i have no idea but nsa, it was all topsecret until the document came out with the budget was so there is nsa is the largest Intelligence Agency in the world. His 35,000 employees and you have another 15,000 or so that are contractors. Youve got all that money and all those people out there and yeah thats the big question, what do you get out of that . Its on most like they are doing it because its an academic exercise because we can do it or we are eavesdropping because we can so we will. Thats really a problem and that is why the senate house and Intelligence Committee dont hold their feet to the fire like the Church Committee. It wasnt just church but there were other committees back in the 70s that did that. You are going to have these programs. As i mentioned the nsa kept arguing that the internet metadata, the email Metadata Program was a roaring success until they were forced by only two senators udall and wyden to put up or shut up and they couldnt put up so they had to shut the program down. While im thinking of it just so i can mention it but we were talking about whistleblowers and so forth and penalizing whistleblowers. Where are the penalties to the u. S. Government for breaking the law . Where his clapper . [applause] es he is an indian been criticized by the government let alone indicted and how many people from the warrantless seeds dropping the operation were prosecuted . That was a complete violation of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. Even in a time of war you only have five extra days to do warrantless eavesdropping. Nobody ever gets punished. Theres this lack of accountability. General alexander headed the nsa captain of an Aircraft Carrier that ran into the rock of gibraltar. What a navy captain still be running a ship . He still running the nsa after the worst Security Breach in u. S. History. Theres no accountability within the administration. You have to start with accountability before you start getting any reform. You let the same people make all of the same mistakes continue to make them. I am from the Government Accountability project. [applause] we represent represent Edward Snowden and i just want to point out that the Congress Actually took out of the whistleblower in protection enhancement act any protections from retaliation for the Intelligence Community whistleblowers and therefore they are vulnerable to any action the government takes against them for a corporation. Do you see on the horizon and he and enhanced protections from reprisal coming from the congress or the Obama Administration . Yeah you point out some really important facts. The fact that the whistleblowers dont have protection and that is why the things the administration keeps talking about, they have these proper channels they can go to. Well they dont have those proper channels and i dont see any legislation. I have been watching this for years because that is my bread and butter comes from whistleblowers. To give you one quick example here one of the people that i quoted in my last book the shell factory was Adrian Kinney who was an employee or who was in nsa what they call voice intercept operator down at the nsas huge listing post in the state of georgia here that eavesdrop on a lot of of remotely from satellites and so forth created she was among the things they were doing was eavesdropping on americans calling americans come in other words journalists are aid workers or americans in the middle east to happen to call their spouse in the United States and were having bedtime conversations and so forth. She didnt particularly want to listen to that. She said it was like reading somebodys diary so she protested all the way up from her position at the listening post in georgia all the way up to the head of the Army Intelligence and Security Committee which ran all of that. His name happened to be Keith Alexander at the time. And that got nowhere so then she climbed up the ladder on the congressional side and got all the way to the senate Intelligence Committee chairman leahy and again nothing happens so she finally talked to me. I really asked her to go full face and full name and let me use that because otherwise they would just say ill go you are just making it up. She did and it was a very brave act on her part but she felt very strongly that the government was doing this is in this is the problem the whistleblowers they spray they dont have any real protection. We were a will to do a few things behind the scenes that got her protection within two hours of the time i came out with mike look