former cia director that said the metadata collection program would have prevented it had it been in place. i think senator paul postulates a lot of hypothetical impingements on our liberties, but would senator paul like to take responsibility if we have another 9/11? he s put the house in a very very difficult position and also politically, maria, it allows the white house to say to the gop, well if there s another terror attack it s your fault. never mind that the president has stopped interrogations that he sent gitmo prisoners back and the rest. this is a terrible day for america. i think it puts us at a lot of risk. ed, do you agree with that? i disagree a little bit. another 9/11 is not going to occur because we don t have the patriot act. we have very due diligence. our guard is up. i think there will be some compromise that ll come forth this week. another version in the house or something like that. a lot of the provisions that we think are important are going to be re-eva
cross-promoting. after working for bill fist the senate floor is usually empty, so i m glad to see somebody giving a speech.rist, the senate floor is usually empty, so i m glad to see somebody giving a speech. is this metadata collection program actually working? it doesn t stop the boston bombers. and we had tips from the russian government. so as you say, strange bedfellows about and people were concerned about america s national security. whether you re talking about drone war pairfare or excess or the collection of data the thing i certainly found since 9/11 is if you re going to take that position, take the position that rand paul is taking taking the position i ve taken on excessive use of drones, get out of the way. because you ll get run over because the majority of republicans, majority of americans, they support it. they support aggressive drone warfare. and they support because nobody wants to be responsible for what is happening.
all this information. what is the case about here s my question. if it s not is the argument that it will inevitably be abused? yes. that the argument? that s one of the arguments. and the fact is that the government, knowing that the government is collecting that data, will people be less likely to communicate as freely and openly as they wish? yes. look, if the american public that s an interesting thought. it actually has an impact on how people conduct themselves as citizens. exactly. i mean, if i were someone who were a little bit paranoid, which i m not, really, but if i were someone who was a little bit paranoid and i wanted to call the aclu and say, i think the government is doing something wrong. and i m aware you have this metadata collection program whereby the government was able to track my phone calls, to and from individuals, i would be less likely to make that phone call. and democracy begins to die a little bit more each day when people are less likely
the phone conversations of foreign leaders like angela merkel the german chancellor. all the outrage that caused in germany when that was discovered. in terms of the american public, a whole range of things. one of them being they want a civilian head of the nsa, not a military leader. they think that would send a good message. things like that to appeal to everyone and say that there s better accountability and transparency here. but you know what, anderson, they did not recommend ending this metadata collection program. they want to keep that in place. the members of the panel say there s still a national security interest in doing that. and the obama administration, though, they re not legally bound to do any of this. reporter: not at all. in fact, the president looks at these recommendations and he picks and chooses what he wants to do going forward. that s what a senior administration official told me today. he s going to look and in january he s going to come back and say wha
have voted to. the fact of the matter is today we don t know as much as we once did about potential adversaries partially due to the disclosures made by traitor named edward snowden and part of it due to presidential directive and recently this law recently passed cancelled metadata collection program. god forbid there is a terrorist attack tomorrow we would not be able to gather the phone records of the individuals involved in that plot with a time effective way. when you drit sized the super pac for north supporting the law, which now allows bulk data not to be collected. he fired back and said that you are for amnesty. now he is going are a you for amnesty? senator cruz s has supported in the past and said he is still open to support ing. legalizing people in this country illegally. what i have tried to do is find a reasonable solution to a very serious problem that continues to plague us. it s very clear we can t do that in a comprehensive bill.