The speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. Chaplain conroy let us pray. Eternal god, we give you thanks for giving us another day. We thank you once again that we, your creatures, can come before you and ask guidance for the men and women of this assembly. Send your spirit of peace as they visit their families and constituencies back home. May their hears and hearts be ears and hearts be open to listen to those whom they represent. Bless the people of this great nation with wisdom, knowledge and understanding that they might be responsibly participate in our american democracy by making their interests known to their representatives. Please keep all who work for the peoples house in good health that they might faithfully fulfill the great responsibility given them and their service to the work of the capital. Bless us this day and every day and may that is done here be done for your greater honor and glory. Amen. The speaker pro tempore the chair
Institute hosts this 90 minute of that. Good morning. Welcome to this mornings panel. Separating fact from fiction. I am a member of a task force on detention and interrogation policy. Captain bigelows recent film sparked controversy. Recentryn bigelows film sparked controvery. Its graphic depiction of eight torture. For the most part, the outrage has come from the left. You are a conservative like me, when you see the washington left with the hollywood left, your temptation is to sit back and destroyed a fight. And enoy the fight. That is why many of the cia and defenders and supporters stayed out of this debate. I interrupt while the progressives are fighting it out. But the fact is, culture matters. Many americans will form their opinions based on what they see on the silver screen. It is important for those who know the truth to set the record straight and separate fact from fiction. Today, we have a distinguished panel to help us do that. Three veterans. There were directly involv
When he came into the office, the program had been suspended. He was not involved in its initial creation. He conducted a partial assessment. He gathered all the information and had to advise the president whether or not to restart it. He concluded he could not advise the president not to have an Interrogation Program. We will ask him to explain why that is. Jose rodriguez is the former director of the cia service. He was an undercover officer, becoming the head of the cias counterterrorism center. Including the Interrogation Program defected in this film. He is the author on what i considered the best book on this topic. He is in my view an american hero. John is the former chief legal officer of the cia. He spent 34 years in a cia office of general counsel. He has been called the most influential career lawyer in the cia history. In his memoir, a former director wrote, you do not call in the tough guys in a crisis. Call lawyers. Get the information they needed while staying well inbo
Pursuant to section 702 of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. Section 702 permits the attorney general to join the authorize surveillance of targeted persons who are not u. S. Persons who are recently believed to be outside of the United States with compelled assistance of Electronic Communication Service providers in order to obtain foreign intelligence information. Although u. S. Worsens may not be targeted under section 702, communications of or concerning u. S. Persons may be acquired. 702 program is extremely complex. It involves multiple agencies, collecting multiple types of information for multiple purposes. Overall, the board has found the information the program collects has been valuable and ineffective in protecting the National Security. The program is operated under a statute that was publicly debated and the text of the statute outlines the basic structure of the program. The operation of the section 702 program has been subject to judicial oversight and extensiv
Program close to the line of constitutional reasonableness. Including the scope of u. S. Versus communications, the use of medications acquired through the internet that are neither to or from the target of the surveillance, and the use of such queries to search information collected under the program for the medications of certain u. S. Persons. With these concerns in mind, the report that we are voting on today offers a set of policy proposals that should strike a better balance between privacy and Civil Liberties and National Security. Push theesigned to program more comfortably into the sphere of reasonableness ensuring that the Program Remains tight to its constitutionally legitimate core. The key goal of our studies to improve public understanding of how the program operates. Therefore we look forward to discussing our proposal, and i want to start by dispelling a great snow should about the programs operation. First, it is audible Collection Program. The program only targets med