Page 514 - Abuses News Today

Comb over what ann was just talking about and looking at these different allegations, the main issue is potentially what was covered up. what was changed. and especially as they looked to try and tie this to secretary of state hillary clinton. theyre looking carefully at suggestions that top floor management at the state department knew about some of what was going on and actually played a role in watering it down. and the first reaction here on capitol hill was to say look, the state department...

We have to have that kind of special prosecutor today. >> greta: if it furnishe turns t the president had nothing to do with this, no knowledge, totally confined within the irs, does he still have responsibility being the head of the country? >> absolutely. he set the tone for it back in 2010, when he pointed out these organizations, sometimes by name, hinting that theyre controlled by foreign entities. then you have eight to ten senators sending letters to the irs, demanding investigations, thr...

Country is not what was bargained for when statutes were enacted in the days and weeks after 9/11. >> elizabeth, has there been a national debate, sufficient national debate over this matter? >> absolutely not. we havent known this is in fact the governments interpretation of the statutes and we have not known its the courts interpretation either bus its a secret court, it rules in secret, only has one party in front of it, the government. the president said it the other day, we need to have a p...

To create some sort of backlash? >> i do, particularly because theyre coming into context of genuine abuses of government power especially by the irs. i think the big thing to remember is national security is different from internal management of the government. were dealing with foreign terrorist threats here and secondly, apparently this program really does require court orders to target particular individuals or groups and you cant just migrate through the whole database and data mine and say...

The same congressman he was last week when he showed outrage in chapter and verse and went through the deficiencies at the irs. it looks like it was cory booker to me. somebody got to this congressman and told him enough is enough, back off. because there is no reason for him to have sudden epiphany that the crime is solved when so many people have yet to be interviewed, when the key witness has taken the fifth, when others are allowed to go on paid leave without being thoroughly investigated. t...

Im 29 years old. i sitting at my desk had the authority to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president if i had a personal e-mail. even if youre not doing anything wrong, youre being watched and recorded. when you see everything, you see them more on a frequent basis. and you recognize that some of these things are actually abuses. you cant come forward against the worlds most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because theyre ...

>> there is definitely a real debate to be had. real threads of this could stay alive in the terms of public interest. i dont think the public has tended to be that engaged on issues like this. look at bradley manning. what were the huge policy changes that came after that? basically the public loses interest. we all move on and it dies. this one might be different -- >> maybe it might be different because it is domestic surveillance. saying that your communications over facebook with your frien...

Century president to have, the commander in chief, to keep us safe. there are going to be competing interests, civil libertarians, national security. we need to weigh those. we also need to make sure theyre updated to modern times. and again, until -- unless and until we see abuse of this information, im not particularly concerned. >> jason, how would we even know. we didnt know about the program until this guy leaked it. >> how would we know? >> abuse, yeah. >> i guess a whistleblower would com...

To this extent. though i think the question is, is he a hero or traitor, i think it is a bit too stark. i think it is much more nuance. ai agree with simon that he has done damage to our national security, in giving our enemies heads-up and untold cases we are looking into as for as terrorism and pending tlets and so on. but you can also be on the side of wanting our national security secrets protected as well as deeply concerned about potential abuses of these surveillance programs. what he sai...

Good morning, everybody. im john muller. >> and im tai hernandez, in for diana perez. >> great to have you here tai. >> great to be here. did you get your beauty sleep? >> i tried. theyll be the judge of that. >> youre looking great to me. i thinyo lets get right to it. were learning about the whistle-blower that leaked top-secret details about the surveillance program. hes a 29-year-old high school dropout who claims to have worked at both of the nations top spy agencies. >> edward snowden coul...