catch up with us on all your favorite social media pages on facebook or twitter or e-mail us. you.y good morning to thank you for joining us on this christmas morning. talking about your political heroes for 2013. the question is up on the facebook page. we will also be reading your tweets this morning. this question posted on the facebook page last night. already over 1200 response to it. allen writes in on the facebook page, elizabeth warren is the best senator we have up there. taking on the big tanks and student loan debt crisis. says--low that tony a few other heroes being pointed says ted cruzle or rand paul is her hero. the phone lines are open. we will be taking your calls on the subject. edward snowden, the subject of plenty of news of late. here is the piece by amy goodman in the albuquerque journal this morning. calling snowden an amendment hero. also, some news on edward .nowden, and i'm the ap yesterday edward snowden will speak directly to britain and the televised christmas message today stressing the importance of privacy and urging an end to government surveillance. the television channel said tuesday the pre-recorded would be the first television broadcast since he arrived in moscow. we will be talking about this with you in the first 45 minutes. your pick for your political hero of 2014. tell us who it is and why. starting with bill in cleveland, ohio. caller: good morning. i am picking joe delisle sheol. i think he is the brush of fresh air. i think we need a different focus. a little bit more inclusive, not only economy but society. is goinge direction he in. at least what he wants to go in. host: did you know more about him before 2013? caller: no, i did not. host: what specifically did you like about him? is populism. i think it is the way the country should go. for the callou from cleveland, ohio. jessica up next from misery on the line for republicans. good morning. i have two heroes. i chose rand paul because of the emphasis on civil liberty. i love all the 9/11 conspiracy callers on your show. either and whyt you are electing them as your hero. caller: both because of the civil liberties act. i feel like the 9/11 guys are drying -- drawing attention to you. that is why i am such a strong republican. thank you for calling in this christmas morning. taking your comments in the first 45 minutes on the subject. talking about political heroes. this call from rasmussen. thought was your most influential person in 2013. edward snowden getting eight percent. hope france's leading with 23%. the president below the pope at 21%. david from sarasota. morning.ood my political hero would be very sanders. sanders. the second choice would be elizabeth warren. hopefully more people both democratic in the next election. talk about very sanders -- barry sanders. how did he first come to your attention? caller: i has been a lot about him in the news and have read about him in the paper. always seems to be protecting american workers and social security, which i think is important. host: what would you like to see in 2014? what theyeep on doing are doing. i would like for him to run for higher office but i did not think there is an equal like or house ofsenate representatives to really get things done. vote for more democrats. higheralking about office. elizabeth warren, you do not think she would run? she would help hillary clinton leaned more left and get some more policies going that way. you for calling him this morning. appreciate it. twitter post coming in on this subject. carroll writes in phil robertson for speaking truth. vivian writes in that bernie sanders is my political hero because everything he does is for the people. looking at the twitter pages as we talk about this. phone lines are open. back on our facebook page, christopher green right in benjamin carson is his political hero for speaking truth to left this racism. benjamin carson this morning. he wrote a piece in today's "wa shington times." then carson has a front-page piece in the commentary section on the feeling behind merry christmas. i wish of good cheer is not is his piece.d nick in fairview, tennessee. caller: the man who stood out to me was ted cruz. he substantiated the tea party people. the status republicans are for big government. me. gentleman tobe a stand up to all but destroyed that romney. he was a good man. whatderstands politics, should is just a form of marxism. i call it the anti-american corruption act. various other aspects. carson is a good one. these men are for freedom and cannotleft thesies understand that. they are people that create wealth by their own principles and abilities. host: we just showed a bit of filibuster.m his we are also interested in your thoughts on your political heroes and what you think the future will be. culpeper virginia on the line for democrats. good morning. good morning. why, he pushed this health-care law through for people that do not have health care in the country. republicans do not mind if you lived or died. he pushed health care through for people who do not have health care. it is all about the heart. this man did things for the american people who did not have health care. job, and you go to the hospital and die, it is what you get. you have a choice. you can apply for health care for life and no one can take it from you. have a good holiday. a lot of assessments of the president past year coming out in reports this past week. --t: obamas approved mel approval rating matches all-time low that he fell to last month. does this approval rating remains unchanged at 56%, an all-time high. theou want to read more on survey, it is from cnn politic or blog. a lot of assessments of the president in the paper. here is the new zealand herald from earlier this week. a column, the land of the free end state of change. despite a resounding 2012 reelection victory, obama had a guy your year. that is a piece in the new zealand herald from december 21 if you want to read that. we are talking political heroes this morning. getting your thoughts and comments. james on the line for democrats. good morning. i am a democrat. i think they should try to do what they can do. people need the insurance. the republicans do not want to do nothing about it. they could have done better than they have done. they do not let nothing go through. the democrats are trying to do what they can do. host: look ahead to 2014. what do you want to see out of the president? caller: i am retired. people. for the without the poor, you cannot make the rich. that is what president kennedy always said. are the onesns that have messed things up in the country. continue on doing what they have to do. i wish you all the best. a call from delaware this morning. a few other comments from the facebook page. moeller.of justin lunday writes in any who kisses off the republican party. we will look at your tweets and facebook post this morning. taking your calls. kathleen is up next. good morning. people have said so many great things about bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. saying a elizabeth warren runs, was -- pushing hillary clinton -- ibly into apologizing just want to call the political decision to vote for the iraq war resolution. maybe we will still get an apology out of or -- her. my two favorite heroes are hillary mann leverett in flint leverett. both in the bush administration. a both stood against the invasion of iraq. hillary has negotiated directly with a ron -- iran. former middle east analyst. they have a website. best ate tried their reforming the american public of the facts. are they both here now? caller: i think he teaches at the university of pennsylvania. their website, they stand against any kind of military action based on facts. informing the american public about the fact that they have a right to enrich uranium. think they have done so much work on trying to let the american public know about the facts. hearings -- euros to me. they are republicans or were republicans. they are standing up against another unnecessary action. you brought hillary clinton up. what her prospects might be in 2014 and beyond. here is the iowa democrats. 55 point eight percentage points according to real clear politics. our stations with them a credit officials in iowa reveal not all takeem hope she will another shot at the white house, just as eager to explore whether the options reveal themselves. what do you think the other options are out there besides hillary clinton? warren i think elizabeth , the fact that she will i and will bed up economically supported by wall street. i think she gives us a real option on pushing hillary a little bit more to the left. more towards being right. standing up on special interest. issues, hillary is a real humanitarian without giving away things for free. findreign-policy issues, i a very serious war monger. very aggressive. i do not think we will get much -- much difference between her and cheney. foreign policy i think she is far too aggressive. i think if chris christie runs, i think there would be democrats that would go in that way. host: richard rogers again on twitter -- taking your comments all morning. aubrey in to concorde, new hampshire. good morning. caller: my political hero for 2013 is barack obama for bringing us health care. i am 62, and i am telling you it is a great thing. he inherited a mess and stuck to principles. he said he would try to make changes. political climate, economic climate. he has been fighting that principle. when you talk about 15% of the population, back in the 30s living under poverty versus the same number today, three times as many people living poorly. it is even higher than that now. , one ofthe health care the gentlemen called and said it will take away the freedom. accident inortunate canada. i was in the canadian hospital for over a month. i did a lot of business in canada and can tell you from experience that the health care enjoy helps their -- them their system. there you have it. thank you very much. fish and sam writes in -- facebook, melvin campbell writes 0-- that is melvin campbell on the facebook page this morning. i want to point out a few other headlines as we continue to take your calls on the subject of political heroes. one of the stories leading the toers today is the u.n. set boost force in south sudan. the situation in south sudan and have the community is reacting. the u.n. security council voted unanimously tuesday to nearly double the number of these keepers to more than 1400. thatng swift action threatens to become a full-blown civil war. that is the washington post take on it. here is the new york times on the same subject. we will keep an eye on that situation for you. for about the next 25 minutes or so we are asking you about your political hero of 20. phone lines are open. waiting.evans caller: thank you for taking my call. it is political stretching it a little bit, but basically the king of the vatican and the head bishop. i would have to say the new pope has a new philosophy of things. i have great expert patients if the mafia does not knock him off .r someone else i am not even roman catholic. in a sense i am catholic but have a lot of comments on the negative side. shortd like to make a comment of almost the reverse. a lot of promise. ,n new jersey we had a man here a lady just a few collars back made a comment about christie. some of the things he says and does i shake my head. in many ways we could have chris christie as the new president. then we could have a obama being the vice president. then we could sell off america. the 13 colonies could go back to england. new york city going back to amsterdam. florida, puerto rico back to spain. california, nevada. basically chris christie some people think he is the star. some of the things, i am kind of wondering is that the way we really want to go jacob do you consider that a political position, where would that be more of a religious position? in my office base by saying the pope? interested in who your political figure could be and how you define it. here is the story from usa today. a shift create a template for u.s. politics. hope transit since the election in march. has made quite the/. unfunded -- unfettered capitalism and saying that his place to pass judgment on -- on gays. the story if you want to read more of it. thecent piece from " huffington post." that is by nancy codding. that is in the huffington post if you want to read more of her piece. we have about the even if left to take your thoughts on your political hero. harold on the line for democrats. good morning. good morning. i wanted to say something about the poll numbers. president obama is my hero. he holds his temper. . when i was in the army, i was taught to respect the uniform. have shown so little respect and regard for this man that people all over the world are starting to have no confidence and respect in him. what about the hypocrisy of that? the man is under attack 24 hours a day. sunday morning program are filled -- no one black ever on the programs to speak up for him. the rest of the people always find ways to find fault with him. how is that fair? host: what do you think the president could in can accomplish in his last year in office? he should stop trying to be nice to these guys who do not respect him. they are not going to help him, they are going to undermine him. he will be the last black president. this country is on the road to failure. if this guy does not step forward and up for the poor and stop trying to kowtow to these people, he is not the guy i voted for. host: harold from st. louis, missouri, this morning as we talk about your thoughts on your political hero of 2014 ash 2013. we will go to the republican slime now. george waiting from florida. good morning to you. good morning. my hero was a state legislature here in lord of. he is the one that wrote stand your ground. when people say that was a racial bill, it has nothing to do with that. so many black people voted for it also. they also want to be protect did. i would like to say one thing, , butlease don't cut me off it seems to me from watching c- span over the past 20 years, and especially over the past five, i .ee adulation's from color i am really scared of that. there is so much power in the inner cities. if you took away that part of the poll, i think obama would be down in the 20s. i do not see people voting with sensibled or creating decisions. i see them voting for color. to turn it around now and do the same thing by using discrimination of color, to me, it seems frustrating. i know him, a good man, responsible man. that is all i have to say. florida.rge from on the twitter feed today, gary wright in my heroes are the syrians willing to be free of tyranny as we creep to more andrnment and control intrusion, they fight for freedom. gary on the twitter page this morning. living with no limits rigwrites- we have about 10 minutes left in this segment to talk about your heroes the morning. the postal service has been cleared to raise state prices to offset the recession. " the washington post." the cost available right at three cents. the largest rate hike in 11 years. the stamp price increase of $.49 will be in effect for two years, agency ae struggling temporary infusion of extra revenue intended to recoup losses suffered during the economic downturn the between 2008-2011. much more on that in the days, we, and months. we're are talking about your political hero of 2013. todd from davenport, iowa. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for being on life. bradley manning has to be on the list for 2013. thomas drake, the whistleblower from the nsa should also be on the list for 2013. i first started watching season in when he made a phenomenal i encourageh everyone to search for thomas drake at the national press club . a very gripping, chilling survey of what the situation is. before snowden, there was drake. snowden.pired drake exposed the nsa trailblazer program. going through additional challenge -- channels. he did. he did try to report it through official channels to no avail. chelsea manning. i am hopeful manning will see the light of day of freedom. one other comment i would like to make -- the woman who approached the topic of the conspiracy theorists who call in, i applaud her bringing that up. i know many of your folks that post the shows are sensitive about that topic. i would encourage producers to think about having their architects and engineers for truth on as guests regarding the fact that they have done this and so forth. i think it is a topic that should be discussed. people to check out the architects and engineers for truth. a balanced view that you probably will not hear. thank you for your comments. todd brings up the whistleblower even. you can check that out in the archives. there is a clip of it. we have a few minutes left to take your calls on your political heroes for 2014. a few more notes from the facebook page. but theres strange are so many responses. seems america has finally awoken . ted cruz and likely are the heroes for trying to save us. forsays mitt romney predicting the mess. join the conversation at facebook. on twitter jd writes -- a little bit of news regarding nelson mandela. this is from politico. noting the senate majority leader and harry reid and nancy pelosi the have filmed tributes for the new movie, long walks of freedom. in her piece, she says very few people existed in the history of world to measure up to his standard. in the video for the mandela foundation. in a spiritual way he made strong political change and affected the lives of people in a very positive light. that is nancy pelosi for the " mandela, the long walk to freedom." -- letter from the editor talking about politicians no longer with us. the time of the 50th anniversary, the assassination of john f. kennedy. the seacoast online. the u.s. needs a political hero like john f. kennedy. he did in two and a half years what many fail to do in eight years. inspired al optimism nation that at the time on waysf in a funk, in many not quite unlike today. today america needs a kennedy and the veil of leadership he offered as president. in this era of seemingly unstoppable gridlock, america needs unification. that is a letter to the editor. sandra is up next from new york, new york. on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: merry christmas. .bama is my hero i am talking as a nurse in new york where we are losing nursing homes. they can build cornell college. we are very upset. the nurses union does not have a contract. i have many family members in iraq. boys, --he american stick with your political hero. the president, what are you expecting from the president and 2014 and beyond? i thought the plan he did was very good. it was excellent. i am a retired nurse. i think the plan was excellent because it brought the seniors out of hiding in their houses to find there is something for them. i think obama has woken up the sleeping dead. we needed to find someone out there that would support us. host: i did not mean to cut you off there. i thought you were done. calling in talking about president obama as her hero. politicals in as his hero, snowden, snowden, and snowden, and also snowden. edward snowden the subject of an editorial. the editorial. the piece on edward snowden in " the washington informer" this week. nick on the independent line. good morning. merry christmas. thank you for c-span. i am calling in for pope francis. i think he definitely is the most important figure politically not just for the united states but globally. i am not a christian, religious person. entrepreneurssman, , but i recognize the importance of charity. mirror to theup a religious right and showing them this is what is important. read the bible on the look what jesus did. wash someone's feet. go to a soup kitchen. we have become a country that overips money and guns people and humanity. francis providing a real service in broadcasting .hat message to the world i think it is resonating even with folks like itself. host: paul on the line for republicans. good morning. good morning. merry christmas. my political bureau would be tom cole clark of california. the waste book he just put out. billionsbillion's and of dollars of fraud, waste, and abuse. the sad point is we have neither a president, nor a legislature and up of democrats republicans who are unwilling to do anything about it. oversight. effective no attempt to reform the government so we can get rid of the fraud, waste, and abuse. fundraisingore time than they do governing board legislating. i think that is sad. i think the state of our politicians today is also sad. those are my comments. thank you for calling. that will do it for the first segment. we will revisit the question of who your political hero is in the last half-hour. if you did not get your call in, stick around. we will come back to this at the end of the show. up next, politicos health care editor joins us for a discussion on the health-care law and what is ahead and 2014. later, the professor joins us to discuss his latest book on the supreme court and provide a year in review for the judicial branch. first, the president this week offered up his christmas greeting. want to play you a bit of what the president and first lady had to say. hello, everybody, and happy holidays. >> you know how busy this time of year is for everyone so we will not take much of your time, but we did want to take time to wish you a merry christmas from our family to yours. >> this is the season for millions of family to be together and to show their gratitude to those we love. along the way, some of us might even watch a little basketball or eat christmas cookies, to. >> here at the white house we have had about 70,000 people from all across the country come visit and look at the holiday decorations. this year's theme was gather round. in every room of the house he tried to tell the story about who we are as americans and how we celebrate the holidays together. we have made certain to highlight some of the most powerful stories we know him at the stories about ending troops, veterans, and military families sacrifice or our country. in themen and women military are serving so the rest of us can enjoy the holidays. that means many are far away from home and families. are setting up video chat so they can watch as presidents are opened. today we want all of the troops to know you are in our thoughts and prayers this holiday season. here is the good news, for many of the troops and newest veterans, this might be the first time in years they have been with their families on christmas. with the iraq war over, transition in afghanistan, few works of the men and women in afghanistan are in harm's way then in any point in the last decade. >> that is something we can all be thankful for. with more and more of her troop back here at home, it is our turn to serve and our turn to show gratitude for the military families that have given us so much. that is why jill biden and i started the initiative to rally americans to support military families in ways large and small. we have been overwhelmed i the response we have gotten as a folks -- as folks from across the country have found new ways to get back all's, businesses and houses of worship. >> the same spirit of giving that connects all of us during the holidays. so many oral across the country are helping out at soup kitchens , by and for folks in need work organizing clothing drives. or families like ours, that service is a chance to celebrate the birth of christ and lived out what he taught us come to love the neighbors as ourselves, the the hungry and look after the sick. americans,us as those are values that can drive us to be better parents and friends, better neighbors and citizens. >> so as we look to the new year, let's plant ourselves to living out the values by reaching out and lifting up those in our community that could use a hand up. >> merry christmas, everyone. from the two of us, as well as malia and sasha and bow and americae wish you all smith and happy holidays. >> merry christmas and god bless. > host: coming up, we will play you a bit from the speakers holiday message. right now we are joined by sue keenan for a discussion on what has turned out to be a news the holiday week when it comes to implementing the new health-care law. walk us through what took place over the past 48 hours and it comes to health care enrollment. millions of people came to the website of the past few days. it did not crash. it did something called cueing. if too many people are on, it puts them on a list. so there were times where there were so many people that they did a waiting room. those people could have back. they did not get the purple air we wereerror messages seeing in october. it worked pretty well. why is becausen they were big deadlines this week. guest: yes. last night was the deadline for most people. you can still get health care coverage all the way through march but if you want it on january 1, last night was the deadline, except they put out an announcement that if you were genuinely stuck on the website, had tried to make the deadline, there will be a know it chronic footprint of whether you were there or not and you got ,verwhelmed by the website which was not the world's best website, then you have more time and will work if you. idea.not have an somewhat case-by-case. we do not know how many millions of people ended up having a problem. how does the process work? guest: the call center is off today. 10,000 old working until midnight tonight. the call center does give christmas day off. tomorrow it will be back. if you had a problem, you can call the website. just announced this yesterday. they put a post on the website it self. they sent out an announcement. the do not have all of the mechanics. the insurance industry people we talked to yesterday that it is not a wide open door. it is for people that got caught up on the website, but i do not know what that number is. stats about the number of people that have visited the website this week. centers for medicare and medicaid services put out an announcement that as of monday, 850,000 visits. visits overn site the weekend. do we know what this translates to in terms of the number of ?eople signing up ya guest: we will not know for a while that way how many people signed up. we know the numbers have gone up. thatdent obama did say at point it was roughly over a million. plus a couple of millions and medicaid exchanges. that was last friday. we know we had millions of people. that is just the federal exchange. that includes new york and california. they have given up this in pieces of numbers. new york had 25,000 in one day. i do not remember all the numbers. i may be rattling off numbers from memory. you may want to check. there are hundreds of thousands that have signed up. getting into serious numbers. host: the goals before the website, the administration looking for over 3 million sign- ups? something like that. the big numbers in march looking for 7 million. that is a member of that basically came out of the budget cost. this was a budget number. we think this many people will do this and will cost us this much. it became the policy goal. the white house had to wiggle a little bit recently. from a political view on the they are stuck with that number. this look shaky. could they get them, yes. host: if you want to talk about the health care act, give us a call. the phone lines are open. we actually have a special line for this segment for those that are recently enrolled. we want to hear about your experience on the website, especially if you went through the process or try to go through the process this week or last week when we are talking about the large volume of all. also some of the state exchanges. if you are recently enrolled, --t number -- 202 -- 583 5883. we talked about pushing back the deadlines a little bit this month on the 15th to the 23rd to the 20 fourth. what is the multiple push backs of the deadline doing for the insurer who had to make this happen on the back end? thought you got up early on christmas morning, i would not want to work for an insurance company. bureaucratic red tape. sure you aremake on the list of people that should have the insurance card by january one. there are lots of lands and insurers. the website was having trouble. these are the companies you are familiar with that are in the exchanges. headache. that is why they cannot make the deadline. that is why they originally wanted this number 15 to straighten this out. host: do they get a say in the deadline? did they say we can still make this happen? guest: i think they are saying we are doing the best we can to make this happen and not promising january 1 will be a completely flawless state. talk about the insurance and when it starts. there is a difference between signing up and paying your first payment, reich? guest: there is a little wiggle room there, too. if you signed up at midnight last night, you are covered january 1. there are variations on state deadlines. you need to check your own states. basically they are asking insurers. they have to do invoicing and mapping of. it is complicated. giving most people until january 10 to pay. check with your carrier. later, some are earlier. yesterday,ed up coverage is january 1 and have until january 10 to pay. talking with joanne keenan, politicos health care editor. one of several pieces that you wrote yesterday, this one early in the morning, final countdown to midnight. there has been a couple of more pieces that you have written since then. to take your calls and questions on the affordable care act implementation effort that has been going on. we have a line set up specific before folks that were recently enrolled. bruce. line waiting is he is an independent. thank you for joining us. thank you very much. i wanted to make read comments. i tried to sign up one of program first opened. i decided to wait and give the to fixr people a chance it. i am rolled yesterday and spent a lot of time, but most of the time was shopping for a plan, not signing up. looking at the dental part was not but i will do that later. i said i did not have a computer so i will sign you up. overall, i think it was a good experience. host: how many hours would you say you spent on it this week? yesterday i started at 9:30 and data on until -- stayed on until 9:00. i was also doing other things. i was working and having to stop and go to things. it was really hard. i was probably on the site for five hours. i took an insurance course in college so i was very keen on what i wanted. i went over every plan benefit. a lot of time was spent doing that. then when i started doing my sister-in-law and her husband, i of there's.nd probably an hour. does the same like a normal amount of time that people using the system are on it for? guest: i do not know what a normal amount of time is but we do know the error rate -- it sounds like a normal consumer, sounds like he knew what he needed and would check the bronze and silver. there are different kinds of health care plans. those of us who get insurance through our jobs on my have three choices and i have trouble figuring out which is the best choice for my family. and you get on the computer with the new options, particularly for people who did not have insurance before, the insurance market has changed. it is not a simple shopping experience. do you mind telling us, were you someone who had your plan canceled? were you insured before, did you get a better deal on the site? caller: i had a major health care -- i do not know if i should use their name on the air but -- guest: you had a plan. caller: my wife and i bought it. -- oh,a high-deductible shoot. guest: catastrophic plan? yes, and our deductible is $5,000. we paid into it for 20 years but never used it. as we age, the cost kept going higher and higher, pushing $1000 a month. about two years ago we said the heck with this we will pay for our own health care, so we just dropped it. not having health care as you age gets more scary, so i chose yesterday the silver plan in the middle, the high-deductible silver plan, and that seems to be -- it is simple. people will look at that. it is a very simple plan. you pay your deductible and you do not have to worry about coinsurance and this and that and the other. i did not like the bronze plans. they lift -- they left a little much to the imagination to me. the silver plan seemed better. host: we don't know anything about the silver, bronze. i should explain that. silvercover the least, - covers more, bronze covers the least. most people did what this caller did, and we do not have enough numbers, from enough states, to know if that is going to hold up when we get the final numbers. but we have hints that that is the one that people like. host: appreciate you sharing your experience. we have the special line folks who have used the website and enrolled or tried to enroll recently on the website. the website also has been giving updates through its own twitter page. page ands own twitter talks about the changes and .eadlines noting in one of the tweet yesterday, those who could not get through but started their application would have help and be allowed to continue their work -- like with medicaid and medicare, there is a system for people who try to enroll but could not, considered on a case-by-case basis, talking about some of the work that might continue after the december 24 deadline. and january 1 is -- if you get on tomorrow, you get covered. if you get on in mid-january, that is until february. then you can get on and get covered in march, get covered through april. the deadline for someone who did not get insurance, that did not go away. the january 1 deadline went away. people have three more months, and the government will be getting people -- trying very hard to get people to sign up by then because there are not enough right now. line forald, all our republicans, good morning. you are on the "washington journal." caller: thanks. i don't mean to be bashing anybody in particular on christmas day. merry christmas, everybody. but where was the press the past three years and prior to the election echo it seems like you guys were not doing your job in any way whatsoever, figuring this thing out, when reporting to the people of this country what this whole thing was about. how it was going to affect us. we still don't know. i get my insurance through my employer and i am hearing about all kinds of things about what is going to happen to us. you are unaffected. if you get insurance through your employer, you are pretty much unaffected. the vast majority of people who get insurance through their are pretty much unaffected. if it is an iffy plan, you may season changes. if your insurance went up this year -- mine has gone up just about every year for the last 20 years. so you cannot say my insurance went up this year because -- insurance prices have been rising since there has been insurance. lessyears more, some years . in the 1990's it slowed down a little bit, in the 2000's it went way out of control. but basically the people who are getting insurance on the job, the changes you are going to see should not be that traumatic -- that dramatic. you may pay more, but that is a decision your employer will make, and you may end up paying less. workplaceends in the post 2014 are not that different. you get more preventive care, if you have a 25-year-old, they can stay on your plan. it is very hard to tease out what prices or cost shifts because of the decisions employers make and what is happening because of care costs have been going up. host: do you want to respond to the comments that donald has made about the press? i did not expect the cancellation numbers to be as big as they were, but we wrote many many stories about essential benefits and how plans had to meet certain requirements. i think that the last few months, because the website -- six people got through on day one. it was a disaster. what were the stories the last two muncy echo a complete -- of the last two months? a complete catechism. then the plan cancellations. a the website was just wonderful consumer experience and you get a letter from your insurance saying this product will not be available and you can go to the website -- 40% to 50% of people who got plan cancellations are eligible for subsidies. some of those people are better off. some of them are worse off. some of them got a cancellation letter but your insurance said i can offer you this. some prices went up. if you get a subsidy, your price probably went down. i have spoken to people whose prices went way, way up, but there are also people who were paying a lot of money for a pretty skimpy plan, and they will be better off. ,ost: a question from twitter living no limits. "what other parts of the health-care law have to be implemented or have not been fully implemented at this point?" almost all of the information on january 1. the cadillac plans, which are sort of a comprehensive expensive plan that most of us don't have, that is either 2017 or 2018. pretty much everything else will be implemented a week from today. some of it, things like preventive care -- some of the benefits people are getting they do not even realize that. if you take a kid to the doctor and something for then to that used to pay 20 bucks for is now free, i don't know if people are connecting that -- that is part of the health law. seniors have been getting help with drug costs. this is going to be a bumpy year, and 2015 may be a be year, too. i was not prepared -- i was not prepared for millions of cancellation plans. the cbo was not. they saw a 2 million net shrinkage of the private, individual market. host: projection, not partisan. 10st: it does not tell me people went out, eight people lived in. we still do not really know how big it was because there is no central repository of every health plan has to write a letter to me saying i canceled 300 people this week. they are estimates and they are across-the-board. they go from a few hundred thousand to 14 million. january 1, was of this will be a demented. -- will be implemented. guest: some new conditions will get added. the a ceo's, which people do not understand -- accountable care organizations. co's. >> it will be interesting to watch, the favorable/unfavorable ratings of the affordable care act. here is kaiser stanley foundation's polling on favorable/unfavorable ratings. the orange line that has been rising over that has year is the unfavorable rating, ended in december. act viewedble care favorably is the other line. waiting now on the phone is dead from new albany, indiana, on our line for folks -- waiting now on the phone is ed from new albany, indiana. thank you for c-span. i watch it quite frequently. to set the stage, my wife and i are both 62 years old presently, and i am at work -- i am a retired chemical engineer. because ofn 2008 some medical problems. i have a bad heart, i am diabetic, and my wife is a polio survivor. in 2008 we signed up for what was called the healthy indiana plan in the state of indiana. excellent plan will stop your premiums were based on your ability to pay. in some regards, this is what the health-care program that mr. is supposed toed reflect. somewhat it does. however, because we are going on to social security and because mike pence, our governor, decided to cut back on requirements for the health-care indiana plan, we were going to have to enroll in the new national healthcare program. indiana, we have to go through the national healthcare exchange will stop i started that process on october 13, and i got into some sort of loop that made it almost -- it was impossible for me to get out of. the people at healthcare.gov did work with me, but a lot of it was out of their control, too. i wrote an appeal letter to try to explain my situation and what i thought was causing the problem. either, sonot help finally on november 13, i called -- i'm sorry, on december 13, i called and said today i have got to get health care, i have to get signed up or else. i have to find another that my wifelan and i can be a part of, which i had found one in humana in louisville, kentucky. it is only about five miles from where we live, and their bronze plan will cost me, out of the marketplace, probably $500 more in the most expensive silver plan would in the marketplace. anyhow, the people at healthcare.gov worked with me and got me to a point where i was signed up. they submitted the information to and from, which, by the way, was the only health-care company that was offered in indiana. -- in foy county, indiana. there was no competition in our state. some -- anthem had the only policy. host: are you set to be covered on january 1? caller: on december 13 i was to give all the information. as said by christmas i would have a packet of information from the insurance company, but i have yet to receive that packet of information. we are starting to get to a point here where i do need coverage january 1, but i am still sitting here -- i think i am covered but i am not sure. i am hoping that we will be. guest: i think you should call anthem. tellingwhat the hhs is people. if you have enrolled and you have not gotten your call yet -- your card yet, i would start tomorrow. they are answering today. if you have documentation and the e-mails and you paid, you're probably in their records. you have to get the information from healthcare.gov to the insurer. it is not a flawless process. you may be in the system and it is going to come in the mail tomorrow, but you have medical thes and i would call carrier, the insurer, and see that you are in their bank. your comments about the lack of competition, it varies across the country. we looked at it state-by-state, and we have also seen some studies by various think tanks. states that have a lot of competition out are having a fair amount of competition. more rural areas that did not have a lot of competition, they tend to still be -- the government is trying to do something to create multistate so that there will be an alternative in every state. they will not be in every state the first year. i don't remember whether indiana is or not. they should spread so you will have more alternatives in the future, although you may have found something that is going to work for you very well and you will not need in advance. midland, texas, on our line for independents. your online with joanne kenen. president obama symbolically signed up with the washington, d.c., plan. that wasbroad plan $400 a month. i was really stunned. about 1000 employees. we have insurance. my monthly premium is like $100, about $125 per month. ishospitalization deductible -- the one thing about our plan, we do not have maternity because 10% of our employees are women. i am just wondering, with the new health-care plan, we will probably have to take on maternity. that will probably cause our rates to go up. how is thatndering type of situation going to affect certain company like ours , a freight company, who does not have a lot of female employees and now we will have to probably take on maternity. cause the other 90% house rates to go up. if taking on maternity causes your rates to go up, it will not cause them to go up that much. there will have to be more mental health coverage for people. and you cover more -- i don't know if your company covers spouses or just a worker, but if it is family coverage as an option, there are people who -- you have a mostly male workforce, if their spouses are covered, there may be more people needing that than they need. you may be thinking i don't want to have to cover a 30-year-old having a baby, but they will also be covering a 60-year-old with cancer. that is what insurance is about, having a people -- a pool of people who are covered. younger people subsidize older people, and that is the way it works. what are you going to go from $100 a month to $400 a month because of maternity? i would be stunned if that happens. host: the president signed up this week for -- guest: somebody signed him up, yeah. host: cbs news reported that president obama could not use the website to sign up for obamacare. they did not let us watch. they did not let the press watch. there was no photo up, i just said by the way he did it. his personal information is not kept in the databanks, the normal databanks that the d.c. exchange and the federal government would have. if you or i signed up -- so they cannot process the president like they process you or me. secondly, he is not supposed to be -- he is not going to fit into the normal checkboxes. he is the president. care. other health it was a symbolic thing. he has plenty of health care. he has white house physicians, he can go to walter reed. yes, he did it as a symbolic thing. he said back in 2010 he would do it as a symbolic thing. i don't know that we can -- whoever was on the call line or the ipad or who at -- or however they did it, i would guess they -- that thishe six is 1600 pennsylvania avenue. bob from fayetteville, tennessee, on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. i was wondering if the people going onto medicaid are aware that they could possibly lose , -- assets is coming in and out, so i cannot hear the question entirely, but if you're --ing for tests for medicaid i am guessing what you're asking. dedicate is the program that the federal government does for the poor. the asset question comes in when people are older and needing nursing health care, and there are certain assets that do not count. if you got $3 million in the bank, they will not pay for your nursing on this. or other kinds of long-term care. there is a spend down requirements. that is not new to the health law, and that is not specific. there are variations of those rules state to state. there are variations of the protected assets and there are variations in how the states enforce it, but it is not new. medicaid is meant for low income people. if you're talking about the spends down that exists in terms of getting into medicaid now, it is all income based and i am not sure of all the asset rules, but it is not meant for health -- for wealthy people. you can get a subsidy. if you own a nice house and you are a middle-class class person but you still have an income, below a certain level you can get a subsidy in the private exchanges now, in the health care private lands -- private plans. i apologize if i am not answering exactly what you wanted to know because i cannot hear it perfectly. host: bob, did that answer your question? caller: the reason i am asking this is because it was reported there was a lady in wisconsin that had a health plan that was canceled. when she went in to check on the new health plan, because of her income, she was pushed into medicaid. so i just don't think that's right. guest: wisconsin had a medicaid plan that was actually -- i don't know if this is an individual case -- wisconsin, medicaid is for people with low income. wisconsin did not expand medicaid, which they had an option of doing. everybody --aw, the subsidies are available for the lower working middle-class people. about half the states did not go for that option, and once the sticker in court -- once the supreme court made it optional -- they did their own solution, which they are taking some of the federal money, taking some of the people over the poverty line, putting them in the exchanges where they can get federal subsidies. if you are too poor for a federal subsidy, then the law does not allow subsidies over -- below a certain income. it allows medicaid. she can either pay for insurance herself if she wants -- no one is forced to go into medicaid -- there are strategy -- there are for catastrophic options people who have the money, or she can go into medicaid. -- there'sthing from nothing stopping her from buying a plan on her own. if she wants to subsidize the plan, her choice will be medicaid. florida is waiting in this morning. line, ofndent on the people who enrolled or are trying to enroll in the of care.gov exchange. good morning to you. caller: good morning. she just hit on a good point there. it took them about three weeks on the website, so it is a task. , in theet enrolled silver plan. he could barely pay to his premium site, and the did not bubbles are like six grand. playll not even be able to -- to pay his the dockable's. that is the problem. i know nobody wants to talk about medicaid, but in florida they accepted federal money. so you have hundreds of thousands of people around here that the website just may tell theyo go to medicare, and do not even have the money for medicare. we are looking at hundreds of thousands of people that this program was supposed to help. the rich do not need it. they have the gold plan, it but what are we going to do? how are we going to make these states take the money and get the poor health insurance? like you said, they can get a premium on insurance policies if they want to. they do not have the money to pay for it. that is my question. guest: yes, it is medicaid that is optional. medicare remains for ever one over 65. medicaid was originally in the law passed in 2010. the supreme court said optional for the states, and he pointed out that florida is not that florida is one of the states that did not expand medicaid. florida governor scott is a republican and supported it. he is a very strong critic of the health law and does not like obamacare, but he actually said there is federal money for me to cover poor people in the state and i want to take it. the state legislature did not agree. there are a few republican governors -- seven or eight of -- , not even a few anymore kasich, brewer, and scott wanted to. i do not member the exact number of people in florida who fell into the gap where they are too poor for the exchanges or to get a subsidy. too much a little bit money to get into the old medicaid. it is mostly for families with kids. it is very limited. there is this gap of people who are really quite poor and are not getting anything when people who are less poor are getting something. it seems like a million people. in florida, it is about 4 million. it may be too high for florida. i am not that far off. states can still decide to change that. many of them will do that until after the 2014 elections. virginia might because they just had a democrat elected. host: how many states are we talking about that have not? believe the number was 24 that had not, but -- like iowa just decided, so they might be 25. tennessee is still considering it. virginia thinks will now that mcauliffe was elected. pennsylvania is talking about it. host: american hero joe writes in -- guest: medicaid is free for most populations. some of the borderline people on the higher end of the income scale, they do not have monthly premiums. some of the states you have to pay a small amount for your medication. someof the states have -- of it is discretionary to states to help pay for some things that differ from states. you do not have to pay to get assetedicaid, and the test comes usually in the long-term care setting. from simi valley, california, on our lines for republicans. caller: good morning. merry christmas. i have two points. i am a small business owner, and i cover about five families. i pay the premiums 100%. forced of the law, i am to pay for three people that are between the ages of 21 and 26, and i have to pay for them 100%, even though they are in the workforce with other jobs. i am actually subsidizing other businesses. about the 5stion is million people that have been dropped from coverage, whatever the number is. you would have to assume some percentage of those people are in a hospital right now being covered by a doctor, and what happens to them on january 1 if the hospital they are in or the doctors they are being covered by is no longer in their plan? guest: that is two separate and really good questions. if you are a small business owner, under the law with five employees, you do not have to do anything. -- the exchange for individuals, there is a thing called shop, the small business exchange. first year, there is not much there. go through a broker. some of the features that would make it more attractive, letting workers have more choices on their plans etc. of -- instead of using them all. they could not pull it together. statesappening in some -- not in too many. you may find that on the small business exchange next year, there is more in it for you. will not be you penalized if some of your employers -- some of your employees end up that you are doing more than required by law and more than small business owners. if you have to cover more people, it is going to go up. whether you are required to oner them, it depends whether you are grandfathered or not. it is a technical issue. if they have another job offer, you have to check with your broker or however you get your health care. in a grandfathered plan versus a non-grandfathered n --i went through this with my employer -- do they have to continue covering or not? atdepends on the option work, and yes, i am still covered. you may decide that you want to cover 95% said of 100% because of the additional costs. you may talk to your workers about let's change the plan a little bit. you have more flexibility as a small-business owner because you are not mandated. if you have under 50 people you're doing it because you want to do it. probably the one reason you have loyal workers if they stick with you, it is probably how you compensate your workforce, at is why they work their bank. host: steve in florida, an independent on that line that we set up for folks who recently enrolled or tried to enroll. caller: merry christmas to everybody. first of all, i was going to talk about my plan, but then i jean say medicaid is free. -- medicare is free. guest: medicare is not. medicare you pay editable. -- you pay a deductible. caller: medicaid is not free, ma'am. we are talking about does an individual have to pay to get in. the federal government and the state government pays. caller: we can understand it is not free. it costs money. we are putting millions of people more on it. you do not say that. the coverage of this obamacare has been horrible. you are sticking up for mr. youa with his big lie that can keep your insurance come you can keep your doctor. many of us cannot, and now that we do not have insurance, we cannot get on that line out and when we do get on that line, my primus was $6,000. my deductible -- my premium was $6,000 -- my deductible, i'm sorry. that was up $3000. this is not affordable, and i cannot stand the press sticking up for this plan. instead of being a repeater, you should be a reporter. you sound like you were -- caller, joanne kenen works for politico. you can check out all the work they have done on this subject at politico.com. you can follow joanne kenen on twitter. #joannekenen. had a plan canceled and the prices went way up. the government announced the other day you have some new options and you may want to look into catastrophic. it will not be available on every county and it may not help you personally. i have talked to other families like yours that had their the constables -- their delectables and premiums go up and they are not happy. from 3000 to $13,000. they are very unhappy. there are people finding this to not help them. there are other people who are finding things that they could not afford before. there are definitely winners and losers here. medicare is a whole different issue. medicare is more solvent now than it was a number of years ago. right.st fund -- you are the trust fund has a few more years. congress has been completely unable to solve this problem. on the other hand, medicare spending is still going on but at the lowest rate in 50 years, and it has been that way for three years straight. that weartisan things have agreed on on medicare. some health law provisions, some trends in health care delivered and how they spend their money in a recession. the rate of growth has gone down. it is not a solved problem. nobody in washington or the country thinks it is a solved problem, but that is different from what happened in the exchanges. those who had canceled plans and it went through the roof such as this caller, you should check into this catastrophic option is available in your area. it is a high deductible plan. he covers preventive care and gives you a few free primary care visits a year, and it costs less. but not everybody is happy with this law. host: let's get a quick call in in texas.n an independent caller. job, i have issues on my job. i get paid every two weeks. it is the idea of helping other people. when i amre than that just out doing crazy things. the bad part about it is the different people that want to and keep other people them from having health care. it is a shame where we would rather have people be without health care than pete will -- then care for the people who cannot have health care. people that have good health they might be in a position where they need health care. the same thing they fight against they are going to need one day. that is what i called in about. amazed the money people make that they throw away , and they could put that money to good use. guest: i think what has been upsetting people about this law, the irritant particularly from day one, is the mandate. people being told they have to do something by the government. that has been controversial. the democrats don't like that. you are saying you feel like it is part of my social obligation. i may need it some day. people would rather do it through a charity, and they do not want the government to tell them to buy a health plan and what it is going to cost. that is why this has been this hot button that is not going away for years. you also raised a point where people get sick and they do not know when, and the rest of us subsidize that. a -- ourd up on insurance is as high as it is because part of what we pay, those of us who are insured, a portion that we pay every year is going to the hospitals. so we are already paying in ways we may not see. one of the other callers asked a really good question. the question about what if you are in the hospital right now and you are sick and have a different plan on generate one. if you have a chronic disease, if you are sick right now, some people who have to change doctors are not happy about that. the insurance industry often make some kind of accommodation when you're changing from plan a to plan b. if i am in the hospital today and my health insurance changes tomorrow, are they going to kick me out of the hospital tackle apparently the industry has ways of working through this. this willink necessarily be perfect for every person in the world who has to change doctors, but the administration did ask insurers to get them their current prescription through the month of january. insurers do not have to do that. it is voluntary. some will, some won't. it takes time. you are trying to find a new doctor, they can appointment, and it is not something you can necessarily do overnight. if your insurance changes on january 1, i think they have some way of -- i would hope they have some way of accommodating. you are still insured. some people will end up not being very happy with the bill they get. host: joanne kenen, the health journalist from politico. yesterday, speaker john boehner tweeted holiday greetings, sending out a merry christmas picture of the capital. he sent out a christmas message that he shared his holiday wishes on. i want to play you a bit of that now. [video clip] >> if they are going to take me the time -- if they are going to take the time to send me a card, i will take the time to read them. every year there are great pictures and some really sweet notes. continuehe good job, the fight. i'm praying for you. have of these cards stories about their family and how the kids are doing. christmas, we celebrate the birth of christ first and foremost. year a blessed time of the and i think a good time to count our blessings. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 -- c-span. we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, our princes, and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago, funded by your local cable, or satellite provider. now you can watch us in hd. washington journal continues. host: we are joined now by scholar of all things supreme court mark tushnet. what are the two forces that are in the balance in this book? guest: the easiest way to describe them is they are divided now between five appointees of republican presidents who are quite conservative and four appointees of democratic presidents who are more liberal. and the balance is between those two, and in particular the future of the court depends on what the next appointment is going to be. in the book you talk about the difference between the roberts court and a kagan court. explain that. guest: usually we talk about the chief justice, but the chief justice is not always the leader of the court. brennan, under all warren, was probably the leader of the court in terms of organizing the thinking of the court and writing the most important opinions. a chance if the next appointee is a democratic appointee that justice kagan will emerge as the court's leader, displacing chief justice , leaving a more or less liberal majority against the conservative majority he is leaving. you write in your book that the future of the court will be shaped by not only the nominations that obama and his successors will make, but the competition between roberts and kagan for the intellectual leadership of the court, as each forcefully articulates differing views about the balance between law and politics. when the justices are looking at cases, how much are they taking the long view, the competing balances you are talking about, and how much our cases decided in a vacuum? thet: each justice comes to court with a relatively well shaped judicial philosophy or ideology that he or she deploys in a particular case. of course each case presents different issues, and those issues are legal and limited to particular problems. so in some cases, every case is a combination of applying your theral legal philosophy to particular problem at hand. the balance will shift depending on how significant the case is, whether it is a question of interpreting federal statute, where the judicial philosophy will have a relatively smaller part as compared to an issue like the constitutionality of a major federal statute where the judicial philosophy will have a much larger role. with markre talking tushnet, the william lawson cromwell professor at harvard law school, who divides his time d.c. n boston and if you want to talk about all things supreme court or his book "in the balance," our phone lines are open. for republicans, 202-585-3881. 202-585-3880. , 202-5ependents 85-3882." how long have you been studying the supreme court? have been teaching for 42 years. before i started teaching, i was a law clerk for justice thurgood saw how the court operated inside the court. things have changed a lot in the way the court operates, but i have been paying attention to the supreme court basically for my entire professional career. host: you say things have changed. the 2012-2013 term of the supreme court -- how demonstrated is the balance between law and politics? guest: i actually think the dates of decisions begin to blur and you have been studying the court as long as i have, but obviously the decision in the affordable care act or obamacare case was a central feature of the court's most recent recordns, and there the -- the court divided oddly in a many issued case, ultimately upholding the constitutionality of the affordable care act, but really structuring it in a way that contributes to some of the problems we have been seeing as it is coming into force. the five justices held the constitution did not allow congress to enact a statute under its power to regulate interstate commerce, but five justices did say that congress had the power to do this as an exercise of its power to tax, so we have an individual mandate coming into effect over the next couple of weeks. in addition, there is the decision last term in the united , a lateral but important issue in connection with the issue of gay marriage. a decision striking down an important provision of the voting rights act of 1965. all of these are changes where the traditional philosophies of liberals and conservatives divide them and lead to different outcomes, lead to the divisions that we see in the court's interpretation of the constitution. host: you write in your book that some of the 2013 cases from this past summer might demonstrate that the court is still justice kennedy's court. explain that. right now justice kennedy is what everybody would describe as the swing justice. now, he is quite conservative, but he is not consistently conservative or does not go along with all aspects of what the current conservative ideology is. he has been on the court for a relatively long time. he was appointed when conservatives were somewhat different from what it is now will stop and he has a libertarian streak that comes out particularly in gay rights cases. the alignment is right, when the issues are ones that particularly appeal to his distinctive way of being a conservative, he will be the dispositive vote." that will not last forever. there will be new appointees, and justice kennedy may not be, as the political science calls them, the median justice in the middle of the court. for more than a few more years. host: we are talking about the supreme court with mark tushnet. scholar of all things supreme court. if you have questions for him, comments and phone lines are open some of the books that you have written -- we will start with randy from citrus heights, california, on our line for republicans. randy, good morning. good morning. i would like to dispute's your .uest's assertion that justice roberts is the strong conservative leader of the court. i would disagree. i would say just as thomas is the intellectual leader of the group. if not him, maybe scalia. but i understand the inclination an any harvard academia --they want to basically prop up roberts as a hero because of his vote on the health care law, each, in my opinion and the opinion of millions of us, is a stain on his tenure. tushnetet's let mr. krishna explained that. guest: i don't want to dispute the claim that justice scalia and justice thomas are powerful influences on the conservative side. justice scalia has articulated a philosophy or judicial approach of interpreting the constitution according to its original understanding. estes thomas is even more so unoriginal honest -- an originalist. but leadership on the court involves a combination of intellectual chops, the ability of -- the ability to articulate a visionnd forcefully of the constitution, a combination of that with kind of a marshaling of the forces, ,eing able to go along with you and justice thomas in particular is largely -- he is not all that interested in making sure that he puts things in ways that other people will be able to sign on to. does haveice roberts this sort of -- i would call it a sort of social facility, and being the leader -- not nearly intellectually, but in combination with the sort of social skills that allow him to assemble a majority. bill king writes in on twitter -- guest: i think it is quite unlikely that any of the current justices will depart the court voluntarily before the next presidential election. i put it that way because several of the justices are getting up there in years, and you never can predict things about health issues. but at the moment all of them appeared to be perfectly healthy and likely to stay on through , because it ison a good job and they like what they are doing. host: how much is the idea of who takes over there see important to justices when they look at the timing of their from twitter -- there are some scholarly studies about the timing of departures from the court, and reasons a sort of modest that you can see for justices to to stealhe court, and a president from the arty whose president appointed then controls the presidency. it is a modest tendency, not universally true. on,e is some of that going or some of that affects some of the way the justices think. and sort of understandably so. justice scalia has said he does not want to leave the court, preventing an opportunity for -- presenting an opportunity for a them a credit president that would undo all the work justice scalia has been doing over the course of his career. that three ofting the conservative justices are , as supremeoung court ages go. kennedy arelia and the most senior in age, but they have expressed no interest in leaving not just -- well, justice scalia because he does not want to see his work undone. justice kennedy, because he likes being the focus of attention as the median justice. host: we are talking to mark previously he georgetown law university. he is here to take your questions and comments. herb is up next from springville, new york, on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: yes, good morning, professor. my question relates to a subject that, as far as i know, has never been heard or considered by the supreme court. let's go back just a little bit in history. in 1945, as you well know, we were a signatory to the united nations charter. in fact, we were a charter member, you might say. as at only signed signatory to the united nations charter, but it was then ratified, as you also well know, by our senate. that, to me, makes it the law of the land. the united nations codifies international law. hasn't, sincewhy it has been the law of the land, why hasn't the united states been required to follow international law as codified by the united nations charter? the constitution does say that treaties that the united states find are the law of the land, the supreme law of the land, and the u.s. is required to follow international law, the supreme court has said so and has enforced some aspect of international law, even cases that get to the court. now, a lot of issues involving international law, those get to the supreme court or to the federal courts at all, partly because they are largely political issues. but it is also partly because the court has developed a series of doctrines that screen out the , these doctrines including the idea that the person bringing a constitutional talent has to be injured by the illegality that is alleged. the issue cannot be, as the court puts it, a political question which is left to the congress or the president to resolve. those devices keep a fair number of important issues of international law away from the supreme court. host: john is from owings, maryland, on our line for independents this morning. you are on with mark tushnet. gentlemen.d morning, i have a question about comparing and contrasting juryial activism, nullification, and the role of the supreme court in these issues. guest: ok, so -- i am pausing because i want to make sure i can get the analogy correct. i guess the idea is that when a jury engages in jury nullification, it is setting its judgment about what is right against or over the judgment of the legislature with an active statute, there being -- and the analogy is that the supreme court, when it finds a statute unconstitutional, is also setting its judgment against what the legislature did when it enacted the statute. i think there is a certain kind of parallel, but it is worth emphasizing that when juries nullify, they don't have to use plain what they are doing. whereas when the supreme court the statuted unconstitutional, they have the right an opinion of explaining why in their judgment the statute is inconsistent with the constitution as properly construed. is just a maybe this professional interest of mine as a law professor, but i think there is a difference between actions that are made, that are explanation, and those that come accompanied with an next donation. although there is some parallel -- i don't want to deny that -- i think the president host: talking about the all supreme court with professor tushnet. the case before the court. ifonder if we'll ever know roberts was threatened over the obamacare and what made him change the law to a tax? a chapter in the book about the affordable care act. i take the position that nobody agrees with, i think as i put he there were stories that changed his mind sometime between the time when of the case was argued and the time it came down. outset, he said he thought it was unconstitutional. he ended up -- as a couple of yours have suggested, upholding the statute on one ground while striking on a mother. in between, he changed his mind. my own view is that he actually did not change his mind -- he made up his mind on issues he had not thought very much about. given the attention on whether congress has the power to require people to buy insurance because of his power to regulate interstate commerce. the chief justice said, no, the congress does not have the power. they been thinking about this. once they had a majority saying it was unconstitutional on grounds, he had to see if it was unconstitutional or not on whether to impose taxes. i do not think he devoted a lot attention to that before hand. when he sat down and tried to write out an opinion, he concluded that given other aspects of his judicial philosophy the statute was constitutionally permissible as a tax. colleagues but it is important to understand the processes. they hear the arguments and they gather for a conference which is an hour or two discussion, but there are nine of them. the affordable care act had a lot of issues involved. my guess is if the conference is , ite -- vaguely indicated was probably unconstitutional and not focus in on a particular issue about the tax aspect and he ended up having to write about. , nobody agrees with me, conservatives inc. he was threatened in some way. there were comments after the oral argument about a vice president biden and senator reid and president obama about their expectations that the court would do the right thing. justice think a chief would be intimidated by that. there records of the conference that you talk about that we might see that might prove one way or another your thoughts here? will not include me. there are records. the justices keynotes. i can say that congress is closed to outsiders, just the justices. one of the traditions is if it's a message that has to be out, somebody knocks on the door and a junior justice gets up. i guess justice kagan and goes to the door and opens it and get the message and brings it back in and gives it to have her messages for. no cell phones. no conversations thousand records. -- outside of the courts. it will be really improper to answer a message. they are taking notes. they will going to their files. now, 70 years from somebody will be able to see what thosesay. host: justice roberts famously said he had the job -- his job was to be like an umpire calling balls and strikes without did the affordable care act the decision go with that philosophy that he outlined? emphasize, heto said people have probably made too much of the metaphor. he may have emphasized it too much because it does suggest a kind of mechanical aspects of judging which nobody really agree is there. i do think, as i put in the book, if you wanted to apply the did sort ofhor, he call of one strike and one ball. know note -- i do not which is the striker which is the bald. one way it was unconstitutional at it was constitutional. result not ofas a a neutral umpire but in the the chiefn that justice brought to the job. -- the realr tragedy is judges bring their political ideology to the court. hard -- ass very justice thompson put it in his confirmation hearing, stripped down like a runner and approach every case as if you have never thought about the underlying issues for the deep issues that are implicated in the case. after all, these people have been experienced lawyers and have handledey cases. they have thought about these issues. it seems to me, it is a realistic to expect they will simply discarded them once they get to the court. in addition, they are chosen, partated, and confirmed in because of some sense of the parts of the president of how they are going to approach cases. i have tried to characterize as judicial philosophy. it is not realistic to think that judges cannot -- will not have these views and that they bring on specific cases. oe on the line for republicans. you are on with professor tushnet, the author of the book "in the balance." goldberg said of the constitution is not a suicide pact. i think the problem -- in the opposite direction from where -- the supreme court justices think very little -- have very little working knowledge of technological bomb waske atomic developed during world war ii. one man lost his security clearance. there is lots more. there are genetically modified foods, technology, and other technology that the court is simply unprepared to deal with. it shows over and over like this tax issue. justice roberts opinion that it was a tax, if god don't any scenario work -- he is not doing any scenario work. these things move around. with regard to technology issues, what about peer-reviewed , qualified technologists for supreme court justices? and polygraph examiners on live tv to see if that been improperly influenced? make twowant to points. act, onceable care you characterize it as a tax, there are other issues that arise. several of them are continuing to be litigated in the lower carts. so far, none of them have advanced very far. still rattling around. the issue about technological change, he is clearly right. justice kagan, the court heard a case about regulation of violent video games. she made a comment about how amusing it was to see the talking abouterks how you play a videogame. of a combination of two things. appointedes are toward life terms. or forced totire leave the bench because of illness or death. they are there for a long time. in combination, there is rapid technological change. inebody was appointed now 2017 a let's say will be facing issues in 2057 that we cannot imagine. i do not know -- we have to go to science fiction to be robots to sit that have constitutional rights. i do not know what the issues will be. whenbly reasonably clear justice kennedy was appointed in the mid-1980's, i do not think anybody would've expected him to have any knowledge about genetic technology and patents on human genes. these have come to the court during his tenure. i have a colleague who suggested that one way to deal with these issues as to get away with the idea that all of the justices and every one of them can only be a lawyer. maybe he said, there should be people with other specialties. people with backgrounds in engineering, for example. host: technological changes comic. your thoughts on putting cameras in the courtroom. guest: this is an issue i do not have any influence on. their minds have unfairly stacked against it at this point. i do not think their fear that if they express are realistic. i think it would be a benefit for the court and the public more importantly to see and for people to think to see what is going on during these arguments. right now, we have the sketch artist who puts up snippets and -- excerptho accept snippets. releasedsions are within the week of the argument. host: same-day audio now. guest: on important cases like the affordable care act. i do not see what the loss would be of having cameras in there. checkif viewers want to out more about these bands work on cameras in the courtroom, you can check out that at www.c- span.org. up next on the phone is larry from mississippi on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, repressor. professor, -- good morning, professor. professor, they voted foolishly. i just do not understand. this is interesting fact that i want to mention. how -- fromt to say an overall perspective. the perspective as a lawyer, the blitz. decision is a not significant or constitutional law, but there are two cases that are always mentioned when i give talks about the court. one is bush versus gore. the reason for the latter is the view not unrealistic that an important reason for the presidency of george w. bush was the vote of the supreme court. a very close election. a lot of people voted for george w. bush. are thes that matter five votes on the supreme court that resolved the controversy. from a constitutional point of , bush versus gore is not that interesting. from somebody interested and constitutional politics, the fact that the supreme court had a decisive role in making george w. bush president is extremely important. it is not something that i, at the constitutional lawyer, would think very much about. twitter, it was the worst ruling of our time and that includes the bush versus gore will link which we all regret. we are taking comments on twitter and facebook page is open. our phone lines are open. robert daniels had a trivia question. what is the shortest supreme court decision? some areell -- extremely short. there are these things called procuring opinions that were issued by the court. of anypically dispose did not a very brief order narrowly -- order narrowly way. y- order near he -- ordinaril way. i do not know what the candidates would be. deadlinesuced under of 24 hours. maybe that would be a candidate. i would want to look. brown versus board of education was seven or eight pages long. not a long opinion. that's the shortest really important decision. i do not know. i would have to look. next on thes up line for independence. your own. -- you are on. caller: good morning. -- i considery all day talking with a constitutional lawyer. i want to get your opinion, a lot of people in d.c. do not follow the constitution is money taken old. i like to ask you -- even though they took an oath. you, what gives obama the 40 to remove a private -- to remove a private industry ceo? and was a lot has been made in the past and is signed by him, that he cannot change and congress can only make amendments to the loss -- laws? i believe obama has overreached his authority much too much. an ideology of progressivism. he said he stands for change because that is what has taken over the party. thank you, professor. guest: i am not entirely sure about the removal of ceos, i think it has to do with the powers under recent financial reform legislation, the dodd frank statute. the other issue is the suspension of various provisions of the law. in both of those instances, the say -- his actions lawyers say it is authorized by provisions or general authority of the executive branch to make decisions about what issues to pursue through enforcement actions called discretion. everybody agrees that the not have to use -- theyatute to the have discretion. let's give this one a pass. it is not important to devote the energy and well more important antiterrorist issues. everybody agrees there is that type of discretion. there is an argument that presidents do not have the power to exempt matters by category from enforcement. there is litigation going on now. it is very hard distinction between ordinary not to enforce a law and larger ones that the president has been engaged in. we will eventually weigh in on that issue. my view will become insignificant. host: cases moving through now. what your out about the new challenges to the affordable care act which would've been talking about a lot this morning? what are going to be the things to watch in the coming year? guest: the supreme court had already granted review with a contraceptive mandate. the issue there is whether private for-profit operations whose owners have religious objection to providing access to contraceptives for insurance tons can be required purchase those plans for their employees. that issue is going to turn not on the constitution but on a federal statute called the religious freedom act that said congress cannot impose substantial burdens on a religious exercise of individuals unless there's a substantial justification for it. whetherhe issues is these private conversation -- corporations are covered by the constitution or the religious restoration act with respect to religious conscience. ofre is resonance of united what people are saying. the opponents and supporters of the mandate are saying, how can corporations have religious conscience if they support speech but conscience is something internal to their head? the court will decided that by the end of this year. the other issue that is still in the lower courts is a competent question about whether there can be subsidies for people who purchase insurance on the federal exchange and states over the states have not put out the exchanges. gethe texas, if you want to , purchase insurance, you have to go to the federal exchange. that itute is written provides subsidies to people who .uy them all state exchanges it is not clear it will provide subsidies to people who buy them on the federal exchanges. there is litigation about that going on in the lower court. on the latter when i would expect it eventually the federal changes will get the subsidies as well. host: victor is next on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. merry christmas. i have two questions. is the -- the one that -- [indiscernible] me, it says that corporations being a person is an instrument by attorneys and makes them dots basically.- gods i do know that there has been a case or situation and the supreme court with a person with the oldest or the longest on the in the courts automatically placed -- [indiscernible] and "-- opened up -- [indiscernible] guest: on the first question is important to emphasize that asking the question, are corporations people or persons is probably not the right way to frame the question. i want to emphasize from a constitutional lore yours point of view. there are prosecutions for engaging. -- constitutional lawyer's point of view. rightsve constitutional to a fair trial whether prosecuted for unlawful pollution. the real question is, do corporations have constitutional force in a specific setting? and the contraceptive mandate, the issue is does a corporation have a right of freedom of conscience? was doesn'the issue have a right to free -- does it have a right to free speech? the answer will vary. underlyingn what the constitutional issue is. i should say that -- i have a chapter on united in the book as well and i say the bro problem is not as the corporation are persons part, straightforward to explain why corporations actually do have rights of freedom of expression. rather than the supreme court doctrine that makes it extremely hard to limit the expenditures by anybody. if you're concerned about campaigns, the finance issues, that is the place to focus not on corporations. the court doctrine saying that again, it is really hard to justify restrictions on campaign expenditures. on seniority issue, the chief justice as nominated for the particular position. not to the seniormost member of the court. there are constitutional courts around the world that the chief justice is basically the most senior justice. therestem is one in which is a difference between the age of the chief justice and the most senior justice on the court. host: you talk about how justice roberts was originally going to be nominated with the intent of moving into the chief justice spot. if you do talk about the history. guest: what happened was chief rehnquist was quite ill, had a certain kind of throat cancer. knew he was going to leave the court relatively soon. court.ed to stay on the justice o'connor had a husband who was quite ill and she wanted to leave the court, so that she could be with him and take care of him. she went to chief justice rehnquist and asked -- none of wanted to be two vacancies at the same time. they try to tame and dash time of their departures -- time their departures. she asked if he planned to retire in in the coming year. he said, no, he planned to stay on. she announced her retirement. justice roberts was the on the court of appeals and was nominated initially to fill justice o'connor's position. justiceat, chief rehnquist passed away from his illness. that left two vacancies. been whenad always chief rehnquist left, roberts promotionme chief by or as it turned out directly. his nomination for her seat was withdrawn and resubmitted for the seat of the chief justice. justice alito was nominated to fill the vacant o'connor seat. host: some discussion on twitter on the subject of the cameras in the court. video coverage would expose the justices and their questions and competence to being judged of by the public and they do not want to that. we have time for one more question. vida is waiting. you are on with mark tushnet author of the book "in the balance." guest: yes, good morning. what a wonderful time for me to say the decision by john roberts absolutely floored me. i never thought he was fitted to be a supreme court justice at all. to think you can tax the american people and to let the like bk gp --e on the kgb, i no longer have faith in the court. this the absolute worst thing that is ever occurred. i saw earlier something on their that somebody sent in on twitter. or one of those. was justice roberts threatened? i have wondered that exact same thing. we have lost faith. anyone could make that type of decision and think it is ok. millions of people are against it. we wanted it repealed. that comes from a person who comes left or right. right now, i am leaning up. i do not know which way. think the only thing we can say in response to that , thevation is that constitutional issues which is all i am concerned about about whether congress can impose a tax this year is like $95 on people who do not purchase issue --surance, that that constitution issue is relatively straightforward. judgmentters from that , they did not express a view on the constitutional question. what they said was that it was unreasonable to interpret the statute to impose a tax rather than be a regulatory mandate which is punished by failure to mandate is a punished by a financial exaction. chief justice roberts had a view about interpreting statutes to make, constitutional. said, you can. he said it not the most natural reason statute. if you look at it carefully and , it has a lot of the characteristics of things we call it taxes. the statute does impose a tax and once you are over that hurdle from a constitutional lawyer point of view, imposing a is of not doing something fine. there are taxes -- there used to be, there was a court case about of peoplethe statues who do not register as gamblers or register as people who sell unlawful drugs. they do not register. and the supreme court said that is fine. course, there is substantial disagreement with the affordable care act. we will see how it is working out as a matter of politics which is basically the way i system ought to work anyway. host: if you want to read more on his views, you could pick up the book that is "in the balance ." thank you so much for joining us this morning. oft is it for this segment "washington journal," and will be right back. this question of your political hero of 2013. we'll be right back. >> what we know the founders at that work guys against the constitution were the religious conservatives of the day among the anti- federalist who included patrick henry. test. to have religious the founders were the cosmopolitans. most of them were believing christians. why did they take the approach they did and come down where madison came down? they believed no faith including their own was beyond faction. madison's prescription was a multiplicity of sects. >> there've been important development in the law over the last couple of decades in terms funding of public institutions. there were some real issues to work through and to figure out. the rules that govern this area during the clinton years -- the early clinton years, they were different was doubt they changed over time. some people think it was a good thing as something was a bad thing. there are important issues that people fight about and fight about with legitimate disagreement. but today, current and former heads of faith-based offices of the separation of church and state at 12:30 p.m. eastern. joe sacco with an illustrated account of the great war at 5:00. fromerican history tv, 1967 follow bob hope as he travels across for his uso tour of southeast asian includes stops in vietnam. "washington journal" continues. host: we are back opening of the question to you. we want to know your political hero of 2013. who would you nominate and why? our phone lines are open. democrats can call -- republicans -- independence -- u.s. --re outside the the conversation on this topic which we asked our viewers has been continuing on our facebook page. i will review a few of those. oaquim writes in a bernie sanders. working elected official in washington. above that, her political hero our activist who are relentless in exposing political corruption. are youat, hero? serious? people who speak of hero and politics in the same breath are the reason why our country continue to flounder. we will read your comments and tweets as we talk about your political hero for 2013. one tweak from eugene says my political hero is a senator ted cruz for trying to stop obamacare from destroying the lives of americans. as our phone lines are open ready for you to call, the christmas themed stories in the papers today on christmas morning. valueddays of christmas at $27,000 is in "the washington times." up --ition of adding if you want to read more, it is in "the washington times." we have 20 minutes left to talk by your political hero of 2013 and why. first calling from wisconsin. good morning. caller: good morning. -- my hero as president obama. to makeying very hard things right for the american people after the bush administration gave everything to the rich and lost jobs. he wants everybody to have insurance. he is trying very hard. republicans keep try to stop him in every way. i make may he wrote because he he's trying even though they make life difficult for him in every way if they can. our: catherine is on independent line from new york. good morning. caller: good morning. to everybody. my hero is the united states of america. nothing else in the world is like -- do you hear me? freedom and democracy is the only country in the world. the most democratic country. i lived in many, many countries before will stop switzerland, italy, greece, and then the united states. belief me, nobody else left. the united states -- [indiscernible] constitution and should go on and deleted the world of every body the best country in the world. host: after nominating everybody -- and the entire country as her political hero, we want to hear yours. why you nominated that person. charles is from fort worth, texas. thank you for calling. is the i think paul ryan hero of the year because he was able to negotiate with the very liberal democrats and get a budget passed for the first time in many years. because of the obstruction of the president in any kind of bill that would pass, that would not allow it to, for a vote or the president would threaten to veto no matter what it was. whether it was good or bad. he was able to get a budget passed with all of that. that is because of course of obama's poll ratings have gone away down. even though the other lady said she now made obama, it is because most other people in the country do not approve of him. not just republicans. thank you. host: charles from texas this morning. we will show you some the headlines in of major papers today. we already read this morning from "the washington post," u.n. will boost forces in south sudan. that is the headline. that is leading a lot of the major papers. overseas the news. here is from the post in the philippines city, afflicted christmas for -- conflicting christmas for typhoon victims. this story said it damaged about one million houses and left nearly 1800 people missing according to a report by the united nations. a few pictures showing this christmas tree made out of empty water bottles. one of the pictures from the recovery in the philippines. back to your calls. everett is waiting from georgia on our line for democrats. who is your political hero? caller: president obama and the democratic party. we do not care about the polls. we are so proud of president obama and democrats are trying to stick up for everything, average am a working people. the bush administration wanted this country. we found out that snowden was brother george bush's who owns a company that is contracted. administration has had a had been messing up this country. thank you. host: that is eric from georgia. nominatesohio senators not made by several viewers. senator elizabeth warren and senator sanders who put the public good and a will and ford -- informed citizenry first. larchmont, new york. jane, good morning. caller: bernie sanders is my political hero. i feel that he -- he is a -- heul person that has a is very much oriented to the well-being of the common good. speak andouraged to explained very clearly his point of view. i think for that reason he is extremely valuable. we are asking for your political heroes and bob is up next from indiana on our line for republicans. good morning. of the c-od morning span. merry christmas. if i had to pick it would be c ruz. it is amazing how many people are calling today and are ready to accept socialism under a guy like bernie sanders. country.ly sad for our what the heck is going on now? everybody thinks they are going to get a free ride? and it -- host: go ahead. caller: you put on betsy mccoy and all these leftists for the health care thing, you have kaiser on their. -- on there. how fair is that? host: can i ask you about ted cruz and what he did it year that he drew you to him? think he takes a stand and he sticks with it. unlike the president that will bend with everything. a red light means nothing to him. he has principle. father has that his taught him we are living under a social country is like -- what the living under a socialist country is like. host: what do you think he will do down the road? higher office? caller: i do not know if 2016 would be his time. who knows? i do not think -- they guess that hillary and i do not think anybody knows. a lot of things can happen in two years time. indiana thism morning talking about his political hero of 2013. another store in several of the papers. the associated press. denied by utah federal court. the story notes that 300 gay couples have attained licenses since friday in salt lake county. subject into the front page of opposed the new indiana noticed -- -- indiana find it is not so easy to but gay marriage trend. --says if you want to read more of that story, it is in "the new york times." talkve 10 minutes left to by your political heroes for 2013. jerry is from mississippi. he is a democrat. good morning. caller myry, are you there? caller: hero is president barack obama. he has brought hope to this country. mother andne what my father and grandfather and grandmother would say today that we have an african-american president. it is all over the world. we have hope here. there was a time in mississippi that there was not any hope. we were second-class human beings. thank god that we have a president that brought hope to this country and to mississippi and to this nation. host: can i ask you before you go? we had a story on the poll numbers was that he is ending the year at an all-time polling a low according to the cnn poll. what did you think the president should and will be able to accomplish in his last couple of years in office? -- one of thek greatest achievements that the president would have -- that is health care. as an african-american, we have never had the opportunity to have health care. i think this is really going to be a milestone in his presidency. americans said african- have not had the ability. what do you mean by that? caller: i am a 68-year-old african-american male. time, we were not able to go to the doctor and go to the hospital to get health care like what the president is trying to do. what of president is doing today. i am verye thing excited about. we can go now and have a first- class health care. it is just going to be amazing. -- our people are going to be able to have health care. tois not free, it is going be something that where the opportunity to get. host: jerry from mississippi nominating the president for his political hero of 2013. patrick is from south carolina of the line for independence. thank you for joining us. caller: my nominee is a bernie sanders. he is the only person in washington standing up for the working people and to the hard- working people of america. he is definitely a hero. he is just great. he is fantastic. , not just is the hero this year, but every year he has been in congress. he is just a great guy. i am not really independent. i am a socialist. i like bernie sanders was because is a socialist. he does not make a bald about it. host: another vote for bernie sanders. garlandt time name, writes that his hero is senator harry reid. he stood up and stopped obstructionist bullets -- and believe in the senate. americans are the winners. the christmas think stories to point out to you on the front page of the washington times, no land of misfits, toys have a congressional caucus. it is just one example of a unique cause for which members of congress banded together in their free time. that story has a chart on some of the most interesting congressional caucuses on capitol hill that goes with it including the urban caucus, motorcycle caucus, former mayors caucus, ski and snowboarding, prayer caucus and civility caucus just to name a few. we have a few minutes left to take your thoughts are your political hero of 2013. to east orange, new jersey on the line for republicans. who is your political hero? caller: my political heroes cap cruise. hero is ted cruz. he stood to repeal obamacare. and people do not realize that -- [indiscernible] see 5 million, six my people without insurance. the government should not be involved in health care. it is just crazy. what did you think ted cruz is going to do down the road? caller: i do not know what his plans are. that --o not realize with government comes in control , they think it's is fine if you do not have it. he is concerned for the people. there is no real concern for the determiningyou are what companies should be doing. this country stance on liberty and freedom. there is no liberty and freedom when they are being told what you have to do. host: east orange, new jersey. a few more tweets. paul is the political he broke because he tells the truth about our finances and spite of the liberal establishment keeping abuse upon him. carson vote for dr. ben for the man who called obama out on his destructive ideas and perverse mindset. his nomination for his political hero of 2013. we have time for a few more calls this morning. roy is in brooklyn on our live for democrats. your own. go ahead. my hero is mr. chris christie from new jersey. when we had the hurricane. he got together with the president and joined as one. host: turn your tv down and go ahead and speak. caller: he gets together with the president. he is a peoples person. he is concerned. about an agenda but people. ieat is why i think mr. christ is my hero of the year and i think he will go on as the president of the united states of america. roy for brooklyn, new york. clifton is up next from saint augustine on our line for independents. caller: good morning. happy holidays to all. stand above the word. frankly, personally, having gone to what we went through a month a world war ii vet, i'm going to give the one consistent answer. it will be set for christmas morning. personally, none. zero. not one consistent answer. an ark fort built the lobbyist and ship it out and being replaced by different ones until we get a group of people who knew what is good for the country and people. that's all i have to say. merry christmas. host: clifton with the no votes for political heroes of 2013 this year. david is up next from new castle, indiana on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: as far as he rose, i i agree withes, the gentleman before me. i am thankful that we have african-american president. like billwas somebody cosby who promotes education and set of letting everybody out there -- a few control whatever. david. that is all the time we have in today's edition of "washington journal." i appreciate you joining us. tune in tomorrow. come tomorrow and talk about divisions in the republican party. and the future of the democratic party. we will see you back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> what we know the founders at guys that were against the constitution where the religious conservatives of the day, the anti-federalist who included patrick henry at the time. they wanted to have religious tests officeholding. the founders for the cosmopolitans. most of them were christians. why did they take the approach they did? why did they come that were medicine came down? they believed no faith was beyond -- medicines prescription was a multiplicity of sects. >> there been important development in the law of the last couple of decades in terms of government funding. i would say there were some real issues to work through and figure out. the rules that govern this area during the clinton years, the early clinton years were different. they changed over time. some people think it was a good thing as some a bad thing. there are really important issues that people fight about and fight about with legitimate disagreement. >> today, on c-span, current and former heads of faith-based operations on the separation of church and state feature. , july 1,great war 1916. and, follow bob hope as he travels across the pacific for tour of southeast asia, including stops in vietnam. >> in the first and second world wars am a native american code talkers used tribal languages to
and total accounting for that. but he isn't about to do it and it can be done, obviously. >> if a person is gay and seeks god and has goodwill, who am i to judge them? >> children born today grow up in a world without doma, and the same children who happen to be gay will be free to love and get thated as thea and i did with the same federal benefits and protections as anyone else. at 2013. a look back all of that and more coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. at 2013.look back it was an historic year. edward snowden exposed how the national security agency amid the nsa, built a worldwide surveillance apparatus while chelsea manning wasn't it said 35 years in jail for leakin your secret documents -- was sentenced to 35 years in jail for leaking secret documents. pope francis warned about the journey of unfettered capitalism. tens of thousands were killed in syria. the philippines was devastated by typhoon haiyan. the supreme court struck down part of the voting rights act all over turning the defense of marriage act to charge recognition of same-sex marriage. george zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of trayvon martin. the u.s. government was shut down for 16 days while congress failed to pass conference of immigration reform or any true gun control measures. u.s. war in afghanistan entered its 13th year while over a thousand siblings were killed in iraq in the deadliest year there since 2008. the drone war continued. we will spend the are looking back at 2013. we begin with resident obama's inauguration. ask our journey is not complete until our wives, mothers and owners can earn a living equal to their efforts. [applause] completeey is not until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. [applause] for if we are truly created equal summit in surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. >> prominent rights activists has spoken out after she and her mother were detained. she is played a leading role in the undocumented youth movement and urged an end to the raids in a tearful recording. >> we need to do something. we need to stop separating families. stopd everybody to pretending like nothing is wrong, stop pretending we are living normal lives because were not. this can happen to any of us. >> aaron swartz was laid to rest on tuesday at a funeral their chicago. he killed himself on friday weeks before he was to go on trial for downloading millions of articles provided by the nonprofit research service j stor. he was facing 35 years in prison, a penalty supporters called harsh. in a moment we will be joined by his girlfriend. first, let's turn to aaron swartz in his own words. hes is part of the speech delivered last may and washington, d.c. when he explained the challenges he sees the internet facing. >> there's a battle going on right now to the financing that happens on the internet in terms of traditional things the law understands. sharing a video like shoplifting from the video store or like loaning one to a friend? is reloading the webpage like a peaceful virtual sit in or a violet smashing of shop windows? is the freedom to connect like freedom of speech or like the freedom to murder? >> he was the most dedicated person to fighting social injustice of any one of ever met in my life and i loved him for it. say, what we do this thing, will make you happy. you would say, i don't want to be happy, i just want to change the world. it's a retired cia agent who blew the whistle on the bush era torture program has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. he becomes the first cia official to be jailed for any reason relating to the torture program. >> i'm going to prison ostensibly for violating the intelligence identities protection act of 1982. i believe and my supporters believe that this however was not a case about leaking, but about torture. i believe i'm going to prison because i blew the whistle on torture. >> president obama has formally unveiled his second term nominations for two key post, former republican senator chuck hagel for defense secretary and counterterrorism adviser john brennan to helm the cia. in a rare move, his confirmation hearing was temporary called into recess following multiple interruptions by protesters drawing attention to john brennan's leading role in the drone war. >> i'm pleased to be joined today by my wife and brother -- >> i speak for the mothers -- >> we will stop again -- >> [indiscernible] they won't even tell congress what country we are killing children in. senator feinstein, are your children more important than the children of pakistan? are they more important? do your job! world peace depends on it. >> 48 and terminal active as were arrested in front of the white house as part of an ongoing protests calling on the obama administration to reject the keystone xl pipeline. 't win if wee can continue to talk about it and don't do anything. we are engaging in civil disobedience for the first time because with a moral catastrophe on our hands and we need to do everything we can to compel stronger, bolder action. >> venezuela has announced seven days of mourning for the president hugo chavez who has died at the age of 58. he died after a two-year battle with cancer that was first attempted in june 2011. this is the bolivian president remembering chavez. >> he fought for his country with a great nation like bolivar, a friend who gave his entire life for the liberation of the venezuelan people, the people of latin america and all anti-imperialist and anti- capitalists of the world. >> more than 100 detainees held in the u.s. military prison at guantánamo bay cuba are reportedly entering their fifth week of a hunger strike against deteriorating conditions. >> we have heard reports of people losing over 20, 30, 40 pounds and today we are in day 36 or so of the strike. by day 42, 45, you start seeing things like loss of vision, loss of hearing, and eventually death. >> a papal conclave has selected the new pope. he is viewed as a theological conservative who staunchly opposed abortion, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of women. in argentina has long been dogged to reports he aided the military dictatorship in the 1970s. >> he really does live a life identified with the poor. he lives in a simple apartment, cooks his own meals, and is really been identified with a very, very strong social justice in latin america. he uses language about the inequalities between countries and talks about argentina as one of the most unequal places in the world. talks about the unjust distribution of goods as a social sin. >> military officials before a panel to answer questions over the failure to halt the epidemic of sexual assault within their ranks. senator john brennan who chaired the senate panel last of the military's handling -- senator kristen hillebrand who chaired the senate panel blasted the military's handling. >> each of you believes that the convening authority is what maintains discipline and order within your ranks. if that is your view, i don't havingw you can say that 19,000 sexual assaults and rapes a year is discipline and order. >> service women's action network also testified. >> military sexual violence is a very personal issue for me. during my five years as a marine officer, i express daily discrimination and sexual harassment. i was exposed to a culture rife with sexism, rape jokes, pornography him and widespread commercials sexual exploitation of women and girls both in the united states and overseas. my experiences came to a head while i was stationed at the school of infantry at camp lejeune, north carolina from 2002-2004. eyewitness reports of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment swept under the rug by handful of field grade officers. perpetrators were promoted or transferred to other units without punishment, while victims were accused of lying or exaggerating their claims in order to ruin man's reputation. >> a series of bomb blasts have ripped through baghdad and surrounding towns on the 10th anniversary of the u.s.-led invasion of the game -- began a -long war in iraq. 10 years ago today the united states under president george w. bush invaded iraq on the false pretext of saddam hussein was hiding weapons of mass distraction. now a decade after the invasion began, a new poll confirms most people in the u.s. believe it was a mistake. >> a situation in iraq today, 10 years after the u.s.-led invasion and occupation began, it is just utter devastation. it is a situation were overall he can say iraq is a failed state or the economy is in a state of crisis, perpetual crisis, that began far back with the institution of the 100 armor orders under the coalition provision authority the civil government set out to run iraq during the first year of the occupation. and it is been in crisis ever since. >> to high school football players in steubenville, ohio have been found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl at a party last august. on sunday the teenagers were convicted of sexually assaulting the victim who witnesses testified was too drunk to move or speak. this case sparked national controversy following the images in social media postings from the night of the assaults, including one picture of the defendants holding the victim over a basement floor. are deadthree people and 144 when did, 17 of them critically, after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the boston marathon on monday. >> it was a heinous and cowardly act. and given what we now know about what took place, the fbi is investigating it as an act of terrorism. >> one suspect in the boston marathon bombings is dead and a massive manhunt is underway for the second after a chaotic scene erupted overnight that left one police officer dead, another critically wounded. >> he will not be treated as an enemy combatant. we will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice. >> tuesday, the senate held its first-ever public hearing on the with secret drone program. 12 years after the united states launched its first deadly drone strike. the most moving testimony at the senate hearing on drones came from a youth activist from yemen . >> now, however, when i think of america, they think of the terror they feel from the drones that have her over their heads ready to fire missiles at any time. what the violence militants had previously failed to achieve, one drone strike accomplished in an instant. there is now an instant anger against america. >> for the first time the obama ministration admitted wednesday it killed four u.s. citizens in drone strikes overseas. >> for more we go to jeremy scahill, author of the new book "dirty wars." premieres in theaters around the country june 7. >> i think that congress needs to step it up and ask how these americans were killed, but i also think about a moral level it reallyegal level, is irrelevant whether they are americans were not americans. why i think it is important to focus on these cases is because how a society will treat its own citizens is a good indicator of how it will treat noncitizens around the world. if the basic standards of due process are not being afforded to american citizens, then they certainly are not going to be afforded to non-american citizens. >> wal-mart has been tied to the collapse in the -- industrial building where over 1100 workers died last month. ahe new york times" says contractor and hired one of the factors for walmart store. addressing walmart chair. mr. walton, i'm sure you know that fixing buildings would cause too many frictions in your family, so i implore to you, please, help us. you have the power to do this very easily. don't you agree that the factories where walmart products are made should be safe for the workers? for years, every time there is an accident, walmart officials include the terrible conditions in my country's garment factories, but the tragedies continue. respect, the time for empty promises is over. >> the fbi has outed the former black panther to its most wanted terrorist list and the reward for capture is been doubled to $2 million. she's the first woman added to the list. we are joined now by angela davis. >> the is designed -- it is designed to frighten people who are involved in struggles today. 40 years ago seems as if it were a long time ago. for decades. however, in the 21st century, the beginning of the 21st century, we are still fighting around the same very same issues, police violence, health care, education, people in prison, and so forth. so i see this as an attack not so much on her herself, although .he deserves to be brought home >> historic verdict, former guatemalan dictator rios mont was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. judge barrios announce the verdict on friday. >> by unanimous decision, the court declares the accused is responsible of genocide. >> our next guest is a nobel peace laureate rigoberto manchu. it was her lawsuit that help to lead to the conviction for his trial -- first to strum and an eight year sentence of the former u.s.-backed dictator of guatemala. >> this verdict is historic, monumental. the verdict is historic. we waited for 33 years for justice to prevail. there is no peace without justice. there is no peace without truth. we need justice for the victims .or their to be real peace this verdict is crucial. >> i want to move to another subject with the former attorney general of the united states in a room c clarke rn this top story in our headlines today, the associated press and justice department secretly obtained a trove of journalist phone records, believed more than 100 reporters working at ap and outside, reporters even use the ap phones. >> it seems to be a terrible intrusion on freedom of the press. i don't see how the press can if the effectively public and people that talk to the press have to assume big zeother is listing in or sei the conversations they engage in. it seems freedom of the press would be a threat, clear and substantial. be done.not to ask president obama speech at the national defense university washington, d.c. was interrupted multiple times by medea benjamin, founder of code pink. >> once again -- >> [indiscernible] desperate people. >> [indiscernible] >> you're the commander-in- chief. >> [indiscernible] look at tedue our 2013 in a moment. ♪ [music break] died at the age of 78. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. atcontinue our look back 2013. a newly disclosed court order shows the telecom giant verizon is handing over the phone records of millions of subscribers to the u.s. government without individual warrants. the guardian of london reports the fbi obtained a three-month authorization from the foreign intelligence surveillance court in april. it compels verizon to provide the national security agency with metadata of all subscriber phone calls, who they spoke to, where and what time they made the call, and for how long. this appears to mark the broadest act of government surveillance known to date. we're now joined by two former employees of the national security agency. and william binney. >> it is or lan extension of what i've been trying to say that we were on a slippery slope to a totalitarian state to and that was censored based on the idea that government was collecting so much information about all the citizens inside the country that he gave them so much power. >> i think what people are now realizing is this just -- it isn't just a terrorist issue, this is simply the ability of the government secret on a vast scale to collect any and all phone call records, including domestic, local, as well as location information. call is no need now to this the foreign intelligence court. just call it the surveillance work. it is no longer about foreign intelligence. it is simply about harvesting millions and millions and millions of phone call records and beyond. >> we turn now to the man who blew the whistle on the national security agency and the expanding your surveillance state. on sunday, the guardian newspaper revealed the source of its explosive series on the nsa to be a 29-year-old former cia technical assistant named edward snowden. >> any analyst at any time can target anyone. where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that analyst is empowered with, not all analysts have the ability to target everything. but i am sitting at my desk, certainly 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. >> on friday, president obama confirm the existence of the surveillance program. >> when it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. that is not what this program is about. >> when greenwald, edward snowden turned 30 on friday. also then the charges against known.e made can you explain what he has been charged with by the united states? >> he has been charged so far with three felony counts, one of which is essentially stealing property that doesn't belong to him, the other two are the much more serious ones they are offenses under the espionage act of 19 17. >> journalist michael hastings has died at the age of 33. he was killed in a car crash in los angeles early tuesday morning. speaking to democracy now! in 2012, michael hastings said it was based on a false premise. >> wmd's for the big lie of the iraq war, the safe haven myth is the big lie of the afghan war. and what i mean by that -- and this was true in iraq as well. 99% of the people -- maybe even higher, honestly, the people were fighting weather was sunni insurgents or shia militias, the taliban never actually posed a threat to the united states homeland. >> in a major blow to voting rights, the supreme court has added an integral part of the landmark 1965 voting rights act. the act was a crowning achievement of the civil rights movement and helped transform the south. >> reverend jesse jackson, let's begin with you. your reaction to the supreme court decision. pain.ource of deep my father came from world war ii. they did not have the right to vote. i marched in selma, alabama for the right to vote. trying to get mandela the right to vote. it hurt at that level. its resounding victory for marriage equality, supreme court ruled marriage same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits as instruct him in 1996 defense of marriage act. in addition, the court paved the way for same-sex marriages to resume in california. when the five to four decision on doma was announced, enormous cheer went up outside the courtroom and the crowd started chanting "doma is dead" as couples hugged and cried. the lead plaintiff in the case was an 84-year-old lesbian named edith windsor. >> children born today will grow up in a world without doma, and the same children who happen to be gay will be free to love and get married as thea and i did, but with the same federal benefits, protections, and dignity as everyone else. , what a to survive thea glorious way to do it. and she would be so pleased. >> pro-choice advocates and democratic lawmakers waged a battle into the early hours of wednesday morning to successfully block a bill that would force nearly all of the state's abortion clinics to close. >> members, i am rising on the floor today to humbly give voice to thousands of texans who have been ignored. >> wendy davis filibuster lasted nearly 11 hours before republicans cut her off. that is when her colleagues and the protesters in the gallery took over. violence is continuing in each of days after the military ouster president mohamed morsi. at least 42 people were reportedly killed earlier today at the military side where he is being detained. the muslim brotherhood says the victims were holding a peaceful sit in when gunmen opened fire, wounding over 500. the victims included women and children. we areo cairo where joined by sharif abdel kouddous. >> amy, i'm just coming back from the scene of a bloodbath in cairo today. as you mentioned, the official count is at least 42 people , many of00 wounded them killed with live ammunition . i spoke to many eyewitnesses. all of them say the attack began right at the end of dawn prayer where a pro-morsi supporters are holding a sit in. >> the pakistani schoolgirl attacked by the taliban last year appeared at the u.n. friday to deliver her first speech since undergoing surgery for to celebrate a global day in her honor. a was left sears they wounded when militants shot her in the head for campaigning for the rights of girls. on friday, her 16th birthday, she said she is undeterred by the taliban's efforts to silence her voice. , on the ninth of october 2012, the taliban and shot me on the left side of my four head. they shot my friends, too. they thought the bullet would silence us. but they failed. cameut of the silence thousands of voices. the terrorists thought they would change me and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this. weakness, fear, and helplessness died. strength, fervor, and courage was born. >> members of the jury, have you reached a verdict? >> in the circuit court of the seminal county, florida, the state of florida versus george zimmerman, verdict, we the jury find george zimmerman not guilty. so say we all, for. >> when trayvon martin was first shot, i said, this could have been my son. is,her way of saying that trayvon martin could have been me. 35 years ago. >> for more we go to columbus, ohio, joined by michelle alexander, civil rights advocate, turney, author of the best selling book "the new jim crow mass incarceration in the age of color blindness >> i think it is critically important we not allow ourselves to get bogged down in the details of who said what, when, but rather step back and consider what the zimmerman mindset, a mindset that views a boy walking in his neighborhood caring nothing but as a threat, ice-t this mindset that views black men and boys as a perpetual problem to be dealt with. this mindset has infected our criminal justice system, has infected our schools and has infected our politics in ways that it had disastrous consequences, birthing a prison system unprecedented in world history and stripping millions of basic civil -- millions of people a basic civil and human rights once they've been branded criminals and felons. >> pope francis has issued unusually candid remarks about lgbt people saying they should not be marginalized in society but maintaining that homosexual acts are a sin under catholic teaching. >> if a person is gay and six god and has goodwill, who am i to judge him? presidential oath of office sunday, replacing outgoing president ahmadinejad. interactions based on equal footing and cooperation will be the basis of our relations with other countries. on this basis, proportion to the behavior and approach of the other side, in view of improving and promoting future ties, we will ascertain our next step. so i will say this, if you want the right response, don't speak with iran in the language of sanctions, speak in the language of respect. >> a federal judge has denied a request for compassionate release for jailed civil rights attorney lynne stewart who is dying from fourth stage breast cancer. lynn stewart has served almost four years of a 10-year prison sentence for mr. bidding for his releases on behalf of her jailed client for the egyptian cleric known as the blind shake. your wife is in prison. you visited her last week. >> this is dangerous situation. and the prison wants her dead. call them death camps. >> we begin with a ruling in federal court to stop and frisk tax excuse by new york police officers are unconstitutional. shortly after the decision was announced, the plaintiffs held a news conference alongside their lawyers. >> the reason why i joined onto this case was because any of us, including myself, believe stop and frisk is police abuse and that is the lowest level of police abuse. and once police abuse -- they can do it in times of falsely arresting people and they can do it in times of planting evidence. in the most extreme cases, they can do it in times of killing people. theayor bloomberg accused judge of denying the city a fair trial. >> this is a very dangerous decision made by a judge that i think just does not understand how policing works and what is compliant with u.s. constitution as determined by the supreme court. >> and breaking news out of russia, national security agency whistleblower edward snowden has been given one year temporary political asylum in russia. snowden reportedly has already left the moscow airport where he has been holed up for over a month. >> members of egypt's muslim brotherhood have called on followers to march and protest in cairo today after at least 500 25 people died when security forces raided two protesting cam is filled with supporters of ousted president mohammed morsi. 3500 people were injured. the muslim brotherhood said the death toll may top 2000. >> the scene inside the main medical facility was extremely tragic. people were being brought in. the dead and wounded, every few minutes. the floor was slippery with blood. the windows were closed to prevent tear gas from coming in in it was a most unbearably hot. the dead were everywhere. in one room alone, i counted 24 theies just strewn on ground. -- i counted 24 bodies just written the ground. on another floor, another 30. another floor, 8. doctors were overwhelmed with casualties. >> the british government is being accused of abusing press freedom after attending the partner of guardian journalist glenn greenwald. on sunday, glenn greenwald's partner was held in london to heathrow airport and interrogated while traveling home to brazil. i stayed in the room with three different agents. they were entering and exiting, they spoke to me, ask any questions about my whole life. they took my computer, my video games, cell phone, everything. >> steering opposition activists are accusing the regime of killing hundreds of civilians in new chemical violence. the steering revolutionary command council claims as many as 650 people have died in a gas attack on rubble-held areas of eastern damascus. >> hours later we started [indiscernible] the injured were removed. we could not believe our eyes. i haven't seen such death in my whole life. people were lying on the ground in hallways, on roadside, and in hundreds. >> army private bradley manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking more than 700,000 classified files and videos to wikileaks. the sentence is much longer than any punishment given to previous u.s. government officials who have leaked information to the media. under current guidelines, manning could be released on parole in about seven years. after the hearing, manning defense attorney david coombs read a statement from manning asking president obama for a pardon. >> when i chose to disclose classified information, i did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others. if you deny my request for a pardon, i will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. >> julian assange, what is your response to the verdict? symbol. important bradley manning's incarceration is also important some all. .radley manning is now a martyr you did not choose to be a martyr. i don't think it is a proper way r activists to behave to choose to be martyrs. men, allegedly in the case of bradley manning and clearly in the case of edward snowden, have risked their freedom, risked their of us.or all that makes them heroes. in a statement just released this morning, radley manning thanked supporters and announced lands to live as a woman under the name chelsea manning. manning said -- tens of thousands gathered in washington, d.c. on saturday to mark the 50th anniversary of the march on washington for jobs and freedom, originally held on august 28, 1963. democratic congress member john lewis of georgia o'neill the surviving speaker from the 1963 march, said the struggle for racial and economic justice continues today. >> we are one people, one family, one house. we all live in the same house. [applause] so i say to you, my brothers and .isters, we cannot give up we cannot give out. we cannot give in. we must get out there and push and pull. >> the obama administration is considering launching unilateral airstrikes against syria after british lawmakers voted against the use of force. >> it is very clear tonight while the house has not passed a motion, it is clear the british parliament reflecting the views of the british people does not want to see british poetry action. i get that and the government will act accordingly. >> i'm confident in the case our government has made without waiting for you in inspectors. i'm comfortable one forward without the approval of the united nations security council has so far has been completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold assad a countable. >> fast food workers went on strike and 60 u.s. cities in the largest protest of an almost year-long campaign to raise service sector wages and restaurants, including mcdonald's and burger king. >> i have kids, six and 12. both my boys graduated kindergarten and fifth grade at the same time this year. my general manager told me he was going to give me some extra opportunities to make some money , extra days. he calls me in on my day off and three days after that, every day a different manager sends me home. at the end of the week, only get a paycheck for 28 hours. i did have enough to do anything for my sons,. i could not really celebrate his graduation because i didn't have any money. >> new york city councilmember leticia james expressed support for the fast food workers. >> the individuals who work in fast food restaurants, which is one of the growing -- fastest- growing industries in the city of new york, it is a race to the bottom. a significant number in retail and fast food restaurants are women of color who look like me. so there is a feminization of poverty. it is a term which describes most women who live below the poverty level while struggling to make ends meet. >> we will be back with our 2013 year in review in a moment. ♪ [music break] >> "sunday morning" featuring away octoberpassed 27 at the age of 71. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we continue our look back at 2013. "the new yorkan," times" reveal the national security agency is successfully waging a secret war on encryption. jeopardizing hundreds of millions of people's ability to protect their privacy online. >> and what these documents show is not just the nsa is trying to break the codes of encryption to let them get access to everything, but they are forcing the companies that provide encryption services to put backdoors into their programs, which means, again, not only the nsa, but all sorts of hackers and other governments and all kinds of ill motivated people can have a weakness to exploit the vulnerability to exploit in the systems, which makes the entire internet insecure for everybody. >> styria foreign minister announced that accepted a russian proposal to surrender control over its chemical weapons. the russian initiative was a poorly sparked by remarks made by john kerry on monday about what syrian president bashar al- assad could do to prevent a u.s. attack all stop -- attack. >> he could turn over his weapons to the international community in the next week. turn it over, all of it. without delay. allow a full and total accounting for that. but he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done, obviously. >> international address from the white house tuesday night, obama said the u.s. will explore russia's proposal to place syria's chemical weapons under international control. >> it is too early to tell whether this offer will succeed. any agreement must verify the al-assad regime keeps its commitments. has the initiative potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force. particularly because russia is one of assad's extremist allies. therefore i have asked the leaders of congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic cap. >> your response of these latest fast-moving developments? >> it reveals both president obama's international isolation with its only main ally supporting the campaign against syria being the saudi's who themselves have funded many of the so-called rebels in syria and at the same time president obama is facing increasing domestic opposition from the republicans to the democrats across the political spectrum. >> we go to washington to speak with seymour hersh himself. his latest piece in the london review of books is -- >> the fact is, i think the administration should just take the high road here and put out what it knows. i have reasonably they know more than they indicated about who did what and what the sarin look like. as i wrote in the article, you have a president of the united states that one day is saying he's going to bomb syria and suddenly he cuts a deal. box 13 people have died after former navy reservist opened fire and enable basin washington, d.c. monday morning, killing 12 people and wounding several others before dying in a shootout with police. the government has been identified as aaron alexis, 34- year-old who had been arrested at least twice in the past for shooting-related incidents, but who had security clearance to enter the washington navy yard and worked for military contractor. >> in the wake of the mass shooting at the washington navy yard that left 12 people dead, dozens of gun control activists, many from the newtown action alliance, convened on capitol hill wednesday to try to revive a bill that would expand federal background checks of gun buyers. >> you guys can leave your go on with your lives, but we've got to go home to empty rooms because our children's lives were taken away by people who should not have had guns anyway. most of our children's lives were lost by people under 21. this universal background check is a start. we need healing, you guys. and it is a global thing. it is beyond an epidemic. america.enocide in >> brazilian president dilma rousseff has canceled an upcoming trip to the united states over revelations of spying by the national secured agency. doma rousseff was to visit washington next month and attend a state dinner in her honor at the white house. box like so many other latin americans, i myself fought on a first-hand basis against arbitrary behavior in censorship and therefore i could not possibly fail to uncompromisingly defend individuals rights to privacy and my countries sovereignty. >> an armed standoff is continuing at a mall in nairobi, kenya, where al qaeda-link militants have taken hostages in a deadly rampage. at least 68 people have died, nearly 200 have been wounded since armed gunmen with the samaras al-shabaab stormed the shopping center on saturday. republican senator ted cruz is staging a marathon filibuster as part of his campaign against the affordable care act. the democrat-controlled senate is set to strip a provision from house republicans spending bill at which idea aversion of a government shutdown to the defining of obamacare. during his comments, ted cruz compared those who oppose efforts to repeal obamacare to the western appeasement of not see germany. azi you go to the 1940s ,ns germany. we saw britain, neville chambliss who told the british people, except the nazis. yes, they will dominate the continent of europe, but that is not our problem. let's appease them. why question mark because it can't be done. we can possibly stand against them. >> this government has begun a partial down for the first time in 17 years after congress has felt to break a person dead like -- deadlocked. some 800,000 will be furloughed and more than $1 million will be asked to work without pay. >> the affordable care act is moving forward. and funding is already in place. you can't shut it down. ♪ >> hundreds gathered saturday in angle aans to remember three-member herman wallace as he was laid to rest. wallace spent nearly 42 years in solitary confinement before he was released october 1 and died three days later, a free man after louisiana federal judge overturned his conviction. 3 memberello angola speaking at his funeral. >> i'm the only free member of the angola 3. that is true. but someone would also say that herman [indiscernible] herman died with a clean slate. >> a trade to describe by critics as nafta on steroids that would establish a free- trade zone stretching from vietnam to chile to japan and encompassing nearly 40% of the global economy. for more we're joined by lori wallach. >> one of the most important things to understand as it is not really about trade. i guess the way to think about it is, a corporate trojan horse. the agreement has 29 chapters and only 5 have to do with trade. the other 24 chapters either handcuffed our domestic government, limiting food safety , environmental standards, financial regulation, energy and, policy, or establishing new powers for corporations. >> president obama defended his signature health care law monday following weeks of technical manyres that prevented people from signing up. >> there's no sugar coating it. the website is been too slow, people have been getting stuck in the application process, and i think it is fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than i am. precisely because the product is good. >> we're joined now by the family who just traveled to the united states from pakistan. on tuesday they became the first victims of u.s. drone wars to address members of congress on capitol hill. gone to school that day when i came back i had a snack and offered my prayers. my grandma asked me to come outside and help her pick the vegetables. >> you're hit by this drone that killed your grandmother? >> yes, i had seen a drone and two missiles hit down where my grandmother was standing in front of me and she was blown into pieces and i was injured to my left leg. >> you were nine years old. how have things changed for you since the attack? how is your going out again come out into the fields alone or do you fear again of other possible attacks? >> ever since the strike, i'm just scared. i'm always scared. all of us little kids are scared to go out. >> bill de blasio won an overwhelming victory to become the first of a credit mayor in two decades. >> so and we call on the wealthiest among us, to pay just a little more in taxes to fund universal pre-k and after school programs -- [applause] we aren't threatening anyone's success. we are asking those who have done very well to ensure that every child has the same opportunity to do just as well as they have. [applause] all riseow we together. >> one of the most intense storms in world history has hit the philippines. typhoon haiyan has already killed at least four people, injured several others, and prompted millions to flee. president aquino has warned the country faces climb it with sustained winds of up to 199 miles per hour, it may be the most powerful storm ever to make landfall. the filipino chief climate negotiator yeb sano. >> what my country is going to resurrect old of this extreme climate events is madness. crisis ise crie madness. we can stop this madness right here in warsaw, mr. president. we cannot sit and stay helpless, stirring this international stalemate. we need to take action. we need an emergency climate pathway. >> where broadcasting from warsaw, poland, where the climate is cold and the protest are hot. we are at the u.s. -- the human climate summit known as cotton 19. as we go to broadcast, hundreds of activists are walking out of the talks. oe turn right now to kumi naido who moments ago, surrounded by hundreds of people, addressed to protest. he is head of greenpeace international. understand they should not negotiate. you cannot change the science. we have to change political will. it is within their capacity to do that. they cannot drag their feet any longer. powers and six world have clinched a deal to temporarily limit and roll back the iranian nuclear program in exchange for the easing of international sanctions. >> for the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the iranian nuclear program. key parts of the program will be rolled back. president, please, use or executive order to halt deportation for all 11.5 undocumented immigrants in this country right now. you have the power to stop deportations -- >> actually, i don't. that is why we're here. >> i need your help wit. >> a federal judge has approved detroit's in group c. -- bankruptcy. in a landmark decision that could harm retiree benefits nationwide, federal judge stephen rhodes ruled federal records the law can override state law to protect public pensions. that clears the way for detroit to make major cuts to health and retirement benefits of city employees. for more we're joined by rachel richard wolf. example of a failed economic system. you have to judge in economic system like ours. not only by the good things it can produce, which it does, but also by the disasters which it sees, which it worsens, in which it does nothing to reverse. cooks across south africa in the world today, people are mourning the death of nelson mandela. the anti-apartheid leaders spent 27 years in prison before becoming south africa's first black and democratically elected president in 1994. south african president jacob zuma deliver the news to the nation in a televised address saying mandela died peacefully surrounded by his family. >> our nation has lost its greatest son. our people have lost a father. knew that this day diminishe, nothing can loss.nse of the profound >> a white house panel has proposed a series of curbs on some key national security agency surveillance operations. following the leaks by edward snowden. the panel recommended the nsa halt its bulk collection of billions of american phone call records. >> also with this is been wizner -- ben wizner. towhat a week this has been vindicate the act of conscious he engaged in. first a conservative federal judge saying the nsa's sweeping domestic intelligence program violates the constitution and within what we expected to be a whitewash executive branch report, coming back with these really incredible recommendations for a sweeping overhaul. none of this would have happened but for what snowden did. >> edward snowden has released a new video statement urging concerned citizens to unite against unfettered surveillance. address,stmas day snowden said massive spying is undermining basic rights to privacy. books recently, we learned our government working in concert have created a system of worldwide mass surveillance. watching everything we do. great britain's george orwell warns us of the danger of this kind of information. the types of collection in the book, microphones and video cameras, tvs that watch us, are nothing compared to what we have available today. we have sensors in our pockets that track as everywhere we go. inc. about what this means for the privacy of the average .erson a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. they will never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, unrecorded, unanalyzed not. and that is a problem because privacy matters. travis he is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be. the conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. together, we can find a better balance -- and mass surveillance. remind the government if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying. for everyone out there listening, thank you and merry christmas. >> that does it for our look at the 2013. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]
and total accounting for that. but he isn't about to do it and it can be done, obviously. >> if a person is gay and seeks god and has goodwill, who am i to judge them? >> children born today grow up in a world without doma, and the same children who happen to be gay will be free to love and get thated as thea and i did with the same federal benefits and protections as anyone else. at 2013. a look back all of that and more coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. at 2013.look back it was an historic year. edward snowden exposed how the national security agency amid the nsa, built a worldwide surveillance apparatus while chelsea manning wasn't it said 35 years in jail for leakin your secret documents -- was sentenced to 35 years in jail for leaking secret documents. pope francis warned about the journey of unfettered capitalism. tens of thousands were killed in syria. the philippines was devastated by typhoon haiyan. the supreme court struck down part of the voting rights act all over turning the defense of marriage act to charge recognition of same-sex marriage. george zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of trayvon martin. the u.s. government was shut down for 16 days while congress failed to pass conference of immigration reform or any true gun control measures. u.s. war in afghanistan entered its 13th year while over a thousand siblings were killed in iraq in the deadliest year there since 2008. the drone war continued. we will spend the are looking back at 2013. we begin with resident obama's inauguration. ask our journey is not complete until our wives, mothers and owners can earn a living equal to their efforts. [applause] completeey is not until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. [applause] for if we are truly created equal summit in surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. >> prominent rights activists has spoken out after she and her mother were detained. she is played a leading role in the undocumented youth movement and urged an end to the raids in a tearful recording. >> we need to do something. we need to stop separating families. stopd everybody to pretending like nothing is wrong, stop pretending we are living normal lives because were not. this can happen to any of us. >> aaron swartz was laid to rest on tuesday at a funeral their chicago. he killed himself on friday weeks before he was to go on trial for downloading millions of articles provided by the nonprofit research service j stor. he was facing 35 years in prison, a penalty supporters called harsh. in a moment we will be joined by his girlfriend. first, let's turn to aaron swartz in his own words. hes is part of the speech delivered last may and washington, d.c. when he explained the challenges he sees the internet facing. >> there's a battle going on right now to the financing that happens on the internet in terms of traditional things the law understands. sharing a video like shoplifting from the video store or like loaning one to a friend? is reloading the webpage like a peaceful virtual sit in or a violet smashing of shop windows? is the freedom to connect like freedom of speech or like the freedom to murder? >> he was the most dedicated person to fighting social injustice of any one of ever met in my life and i loved him for it. say, what we do this thing, will make you happy. you would say, i don't want to be happy, i just want to change the world. it's a retired cia agent who blew the whistle on the bush era torture program has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. he becomes the first cia official to be jailed for any reason relating to the torture program. >> i'm going to prison ostensibly for violating the intelligence identities protection act of 1982. i believe and my supporters believe that this however was not a case about leaking, but about torture. i believe i'm going to prison because i blew the whistle on torture. >> president obama has formally unveiled his second term nominations for two key post, former republican senator chuck hagel for defense secretary and counterterrorism adviser john brennan to helm the cia. in a rare move, his confirmation hearing was temporary called into recess following multiple interruptions by protesters drawing attention to john brennan's leading role in the drone war. >> i'm pleased to be joined today by my wife and brother -- >> i speak for the mothers -- >> we will stop again -- >> [indiscernible] they won't even tell congress what country we are killing children in. senator feinstein, are your children more important than the children of pakistan? are they more important? do your job! world peace depends on it. >> 48 and terminal active as were arrested in front of the white house as part of an ongoing protests calling on the obama administration to reject the keystone xl pipeline. 't win if wee can continue to talk about it and don't do anything. we are engaging in civil disobedience for the first time because with a moral catastrophe on our hands and we need to do everything we can to compel stronger, bolder action. >> venezuela has announced seven days of mourning for the president hugo chavez who has died at the age of 58. he died after a two-year battle with cancer that was first attempted in june 2011. this is the bolivian president remembering chavez. >> he fought for his country with a great nation like bolivar, a friend who gave his entire life for the liberation of the venezuelan people, the people of latin america and all anti-imperialist and anti- capitalists of the world. >> more than 100 detainees held in the u.s. military prison at guantánamo bay cuba are reportedly entering their fifth week of a hunger strike against deteriorating conditions. >> we have heard reports of people losing over 20, 30, 40 pounds and today we are in day 36 or so of the strike. by day 42, 45, you start seeing things like loss of vision, loss of hearing, and eventually death. >> a papal conclave has selected the new pope. he is viewed as a theological conservative who staunchly opposed abortion, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of women. in argentina has long been dogged to reports he aided the military dictatorship in the 1970s. >> he really does live a life identified with the poor. he lives in a simple apartment, cooks his own meals, and is really been identified with a very, very strong social justice in latin america. he uses language about the inequalities between countries and talks about argentina as one of the most unequal places in the world. talks about the unjust distribution of goods as a social sin. >> military officials before a panel to answer questions over the failure to halt the epidemic of sexual assault within their ranks. senator john brennan who chaired the senate panel last of the military's handling -- senator kristen hillebrand who chaired the senate panel blasted the military's handling. >> each of you believes that the convening authority is what maintains discipline and order within your ranks. if that is your view, i don't havingw you can say that 19,000 sexual assaults and rapes a year is discipline and order. >> service women's action network also testified. >> military sexual violence is a very personal issue for me. during my five years as a marine officer, i express daily discrimination and sexual harassment. i was exposed to a culture rife with sexism, rape jokes, pornography him and widespread commercials sexual exploitation of women and girls both in the united states and overseas. my experiences came to a head while i was stationed at the school of infantry at camp lejeune, north carolina from 2002-2004. eyewitness reports of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment swept under the rug by handful of field grade officers. perpetrators were promoted or transferred to other units without punishment, while victims were accused of lying or exaggerating their claims in order to ruin man's reputation. >> a series of bomb blasts have ripped through baghdad and surrounding towns on the 10th anniversary of the u.s.-led invasion of the game -- began a -long war in iraq. 10 years ago today the united states under president george w. bush invaded iraq on the false pretext of saddam hussein was hiding weapons of mass distraction. now a decade after the invasion began, a new poll confirms most people in the u.s. believe it was a mistake. >> a situation in iraq today, 10 years after the u.s.-led invasion and occupation began, it is just utter devastation. it is a situation were overall he can say iraq is a failed state or the economy is in a state of crisis, perpetual crisis, that began far back with the institution of the 100 armor orders under the coalition provision authority the civil government set out to run iraq during the first year of the occupation. and it is been in crisis ever since. >> to high school football players in steubenville, ohio have been found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl at a party last august. on sunday the teenagers were convicted of sexually assaulting the victim who witnesses testified was too drunk to move or speak. this case sparked national controversy following the images in social media postings from the night of the assaults, including one picture of the defendants holding the victim over a basement floor. are deadthree people and 144 when did, 17 of them critically, after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the boston marathon on monday. >> it was a heinous and cowardly act. and given what we now know about what took place, the fbi is investigating it as an act of terrorism. >> one suspect in the boston marathon bombings is dead and a massive manhunt is underway for the second after a chaotic scene erupted overnight that left one police officer dead, another critically wounded. >> he will not be treated as an enemy combatant. we will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice. >> tuesday, the senate held its first-ever public hearing on the with secret drone program. 12 years after the united states launched its first deadly drone strike. the most moving testimony at the senate hearing on drones came from a youth activist from yemen . >> now, however, when i think of america, they think of the terror they feel from the drones that have her over their heads ready to fire missiles at any time. what the violence militants had previously failed to achieve, one drone strike accomplished in an instant. there is now an instant anger against america. >> for the first time the obama ministration admitted wednesday it killed four u.s. citizens in drone strikes overseas. >> for more we go to jeremy scahill, author of the new book "dirty wars." premieres in theaters around the country june 7. >> i think that congress needs to step it up and ask how these americans were killed, but i also think about a moral level it reallyegal level, is irrelevant whether they are americans were not americans. why i think it is important to focus on these cases is because how a society will treat its own citizens is a good indicator of how it will treat noncitizens around the world. if the basic standards of due process are not being afforded to american citizens, then they certainly are not going to be afforded to non-american citizens. >> wal-mart has been tied to the collapse in the -- industrial building where over 1100 workers died last month. ahe new york times" says contractor and hired one of the factors for walmart store. addressing walmart chair. mr. walton, i'm sure you know that fixing buildings would cause too many frictions in your family, so i implore to you, please, help us. you have the power to do this very easily. don't you agree that the factories where walmart products are made should be safe for the workers? for years, every time there is an accident, walmart officials include the terrible conditions in my country's garment factories, but the tragedies continue. respect, the time for empty promises is over. >> the fbi has outed the former black panther to its most wanted terrorist list and the reward for capture is been doubled to $2 million. she's the first woman added to the list. we are joined now by angela davis. >> the is designed -- it is designed to frighten people who are involved in struggles today. 40 years ago seems as if it were a long time ago. for decades. however, in the 21st century, the beginning of the 21st century, we are still fighting around the same very same issues, police violence, health care, education, people in prison, and so forth. so i see this as an attack not so much on her herself, although .he deserves to be brought home >> historic verdict, former guatemalan dictator rios mont was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. judge barrios announce the verdict on friday. >> by unanimous decision, the court declares the accused is responsible of genocide. >> our next guest is a nobel peace laureate rigoberto manchu. it was her lawsuit that help to lead to the conviction for his trial -- first to strum and an eight year sentence of the former u.s.-backed dictator of guatemala. >> this verdict is historic, monumental. the verdict is historic. we waited for 33 years for justice to prevail. there is no peace without justice. there is no peace without truth. we need justice for the victims .or their to be real peace this verdict is crucial. >> i want to move to another subject with the former attorney general of the united states in a room c clarke rn this top story in our headlines today, the associated press and justice department secretly obtained a trove of journalist phone records, believed more than 100 reporters working at ap and outside, reporters even use the ap phones. >> it seems to be a terrible intrusion on freedom of the press. i don't see how the press can if the effectively public and people that talk to the press have to assume big zeother is listing in or sei the conversations they engage in. it seems freedom of the press would be a threat, clear and substantial. be done.not to ask president obama speech at the national defense university washington, d.c. was interrupted multiple times by medea benjamin, founder of code pink. >> once again -- >> [indiscernible] desperate people. >> [indiscernible] >> you're the commander-in- chief. >> [indiscernible] look at tedue our 2013 in a moment. ♪ [music break] died at the age of 78. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. atcontinue our look back 2013. a newly disclosed court order shows the telecom giant verizon is handing over the phone records of millions of subscribers to the u.s. government without individual warrants. the guardian of london reports the fbi obtained a three-month authorization from the foreign intelligence surveillance court in april. it compels verizon to provide the national security agency with metadata of all subscriber phone calls, who they spoke to, where and what time they made the call, and for how long. this appears to mark the broadest act of government surveillance known to date. we're now joined by two former employees of the national security agency. and william binney. >> it is or lan extension of what i've been trying to say that we were on a slippery slope to a totalitarian state to and that was censored based on the idea that government was collecting so much information about all the citizens inside the country that he gave them so much power. >> i think what people are now realizing is this just -- it isn't just a terrorist issue, this is simply the ability of the government secret on a vast scale to collect any and all phone call records, including domestic, local, as well as location information. call is no need now to this the foreign intelligence court. just call it the surveillance work. it is no longer about foreign intelligence. it is simply about harvesting millions and millions and millions of phone call records and beyond. >> we turn now to the man who blew the whistle on the national security agency and the expanding your surveillance state. on sunday, the guardian newspaper revealed the source of its explosive series on the nsa to be a 29-year-old former cia technical assistant named edward snowden. >> any analyst at any time can target anyone. where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that analyst is empowered with, not all analysts have the ability to target everything. but i am sitting at my desk, certainly 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. >> on friday, president obama confirm the existence of the surveillance program. >> when it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. that is not what this program is about. >> when greenwald, edward snowden turned 30 on friday. also then the charges against known.e made can you explain what he has been charged with by the united states? >> he has been charged so far with three felony counts, one of which is essentially stealing property that doesn't belong to him, the other two are the much more serious ones they are offenses under the espionage act of 19 17. >> journalist michael hastings has died at the age of 33. he was killed in a car crash in los angeles early tuesday morning. speaking to democracy now! in 2012, michael hastings said it was based on a false premise. >> wmd's for the big lie of the iraq war, the safe haven myth is the big lie of the afghan war. and what i mean by that -- and this was true in iraq as well. 99% of the people -- maybe even higher, honestly, the people were fighting weather was sunni insurgents or shia militias, the taliban never actually posed a threat to the united states homeland. >> in a major blow to voting rights, the supreme court has added an integral part of the landmark 1965 voting rights act. the act was a crowning achievement of the civil rights movement and helped transform the south. >> reverend jesse jackson, let's begin with you. your reaction to the supreme court decision. pain.ource of deep my father came from world war ii. they did not have the right to vote. i marched in selma, alabama for the right to vote. trying to get mandela the right to vote. it hurt at that level. its resounding victory for marriage equality, supreme court ruled marriage same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits as instruct him in 1996 defense of marriage act. in addition, the court paved the way for same-sex marriages to resume in california. when the five to four decision on doma was announced, enormous cheer went up outside the courtroom and the crowd started chanting "doma is dead" as couples hugged and cried. the lead plaintiff in the case was an 84-year-old lesbian named edith windsor. >> children born today will grow up in a world without doma, and the same children who happen to be gay will be free to love and get married as thea and i did, but with the same federal benefits, protections, and dignity as everyone else. , what a to survive thea glorious way to do it. and she would be so pleased. >> pro-choice advocates and democratic lawmakers waged a battle into the early hours of wednesday morning to successfully block a bill that would force nearly all of the state's abortion clinics to close. >> members, i am rising on the floor today to humbly give voice to thousands of texans who have been ignored. >> wendy davis filibuster lasted nearly 11 hours before republicans cut her off. that is when her colleagues and the protesters in the gallery took over. violence is continuing in each of days after the military ouster president mohamed morsi. at least 42 people were reportedly killed earlier today at the military side where he is being detained. the muslim brotherhood says the victims were holding a peaceful sit in when gunmen opened fire, wounding over 500. the victims included women and children. we areo cairo where joined by sharif abdel kouddous. >> amy, i'm just coming back from the scene of a bloodbath in cairo today. as you mentioned, the official count is at least 42 people , many of00 wounded them killed with live ammunition . i spoke to many eyewitnesses. all of them say the attack began right at the end of dawn prayer where a pro-morsi supporters are holding a sit in. >> the pakistani schoolgirl attacked by the taliban last year appeared at the u.n. friday to deliver her first speech since undergoing surgery for to celebrate a global day in her honor. a was left sears they wounded when militants shot her in the head for campaigning for the rights of girls. on friday, her 16th birthday, she said she is undeterred by the taliban's efforts to silence her voice. , on the ninth of october 2012, the taliban and shot me on the left side of my four head. they shot my friends, too. they thought the bullet would silence us. but they failed. cameut of the silence thousands of voices. the terrorists thought they would change me and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this. weakness, fear, and helplessness died. strength, fervor, and courage was born. >> members of the jury, have you reached a verdict? >> in the circuit court of the seminal county, florida, the state of florida versus george zimmerman, verdict, we the jury find george zimmerman not guilty. so say we all, for. >> when trayvon martin was first shot, i said, this could have been my son. is,her way of saying that trayvon martin could have been me. 35 years ago. >> for more we go to columbus, ohio, joined by michelle alexander, civil rights advocate, turney, author of the best selling book "the new jim crow mass incarceration in the age of color blindness >> i think it is critically important we not allow ourselves to get bogged down in the details of who said what, when, but rather step back and consider what the zimmerman mindset, a mindset that views a boy walking in his neighborhood caring nothing but as a threat, ice-t this mindset that views black men and boys as a perpetual problem to be dealt with. this mindset has infected our criminal justice system, has infected our schools and has infected our politics in ways that it had disastrous consequences, birthing a prison system unprecedented in world history and stripping millions of basic civil -- millions of people a basic civil and human rights once they've been branded criminals and felons. >> pope francis has issued unusually candid remarks about lgbt people saying they should not be marginalized in society but maintaining that homosexual acts are a sin under catholic teaching. >> if a person is gay and six god and has goodwill, who am i to judge him? presidential oath of office sunday, replacing outgoing president ahmadinejad. interactions based on equal footing and cooperation will be the basis of our relations with other countries. on this basis, proportion to the behavior and approach of the other side, in view of improving and promoting future ties, we will ascertain our next step. so i will say this, if you want the right response, don't speak with iran in the language of sanctions, speak in the language of respect. >> a federal judge has denied a request for compassionate release for jailed civil rights attorney lynne stewart who is dying from fourth stage breast cancer. lynn stewart has served almost four years of a 10-year prison sentence for mr. bidding for his releases on behalf of her jailed client for the egyptian cleric known as the blind shake. your wife is in prison. you visited her last week. >> this is dangerous situation. and the prison wants her dead. call them death camps. >> we begin with a ruling in federal court to stop and frisk tax excuse by new york police officers are unconstitutional. shortly after the decision was announced, the plaintiffs held a news conference alongside their lawyers. >> the reason why i joined onto this case was because any of us, including myself, believe stop and frisk is police abuse and that is the lowest level of police abuse. and once police abuse -- they can do it in times of falsely arresting people and they can do it in times of planting evidence. in the most extreme cases, they can do it in times of killing people. theayor bloomberg accused judge of denying the city a fair trial. >> this is a very dangerous decision made by a judge that i think just does not understand how policing works and what is compliant with u.s. constitution as determined by the supreme court. >> and breaking news out of russia, national security agency whistleblower edward snowden has been given one year temporary political asylum in russia. snowden reportedly has already left the moscow airport where he has been holed up for over a month. >> members of egypt's muslim brotherhood have called on followers to march and protest in cairo today after at least 500 25 people died when security forces raided two protesting cam is filled with supporters of ousted president mohammed morsi. 3500 people were injured. the muslim brotherhood said the death toll may top 2000. >> the scene inside the main medical facility was extremely tragic. people were being brought in. the dead and wounded, every few minutes. the floor was slippery with blood. the windows were closed to prevent tear gas from coming in in it was a most unbearably hot. the dead were everywhere. in one room alone, i counted 24 theies just strewn on ground. -- i counted 24 bodies just written the ground. on another floor, another 30. another floor, 8. doctors were overwhelmed with casualties. >> the british government is being accused of abusing press freedom after attending the partner of guardian journalist glenn greenwald. on sunday, glenn greenwald's partner was held in london to heathrow airport and interrogated while traveling home to brazil. i stayed in the room with three different agents. they were entering and exiting, they spoke to me, ask any questions about my whole life. they took my computer, my video games, cell phone, everything. >> steering opposition activists are accusing the regime of killing hundreds of civilians in new chemical violence. the steering revolutionary command council claims as many as 650 people have died in a gas attack on rubble-held areas of eastern damascus. >> hours later we started [indiscernible] the injured were removed. we could not believe our eyes. i haven't seen such death in my whole life. people were lying on the ground in hallways, on roadside, and in hundreds. >> army private bradley manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking more than 700,000 classified files and videos to wikileaks. the sentence is much longer than any punishment given to previous u.s. government officials who have leaked information to the media. under current guidelines, manning could be released on parole in about seven years. after the hearing, manning defense attorney david coombs read a statement from manning asking president obama for a pardon. >> when i chose to disclose classified information, i did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others. if you deny my request for a pardon, i will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. >> julian assange, what is your response to the verdict? symbol. important bradley manning's incarceration is also important some all. .radley manning is now a martyr you did not choose to be a martyr. i don't think it is a proper way r activists to behave to choose to be martyrs. men, allegedly in the case of bradley manning and clearly in the case of edward snowden, have risked their freedom, risked their of us.or all that makes them heroes. in a statement just released this morning, radley manning thanked supporters and announced lands to live as a woman under the name chelsea manning. manning said -- tens of thousands gathered in washington, d.c. on saturday to mark the 50th anniversary of the march on washington for jobs and freedom, originally held on august 28, 1963. democratic congress member john lewis of georgia o'neill the surviving speaker from the 1963 march, said the struggle for racial and economic justice continues today. >> we are one people, one family, one house. we all live in the same house. [applause] so i say to you, my brothers and .isters, we cannot give up we cannot give out. we cannot give in. we must get out there and push and pull. >> the obama administration is considering launching unilateral airstrikes against syria after british lawmakers voted against the use of force. >> it is very clear tonight while the house has not passed a motion, it is clear the british parliament reflecting the views of the british people does not want to see british poetry action. i get that and the government will act accordingly. >> i'm confident in the case our government has made without waiting for you in inspectors. i'm comfortable one forward without the approval of the united nations security council has so far has been completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold assad a countable. >> fast food workers went on strike and 60 u.s. cities in the largest protest of an almost year-long campaign to raise service sector wages and restaurants, including mcdonald's and burger king. >> i have kids, six and 12. both my boys graduated kindergarten and fifth grade at the same time this year. my general manager told me he was going to give me some extra opportunities to make some money , extra days. he calls me in on my day off and three days after that, every day a different manager sends me home. at the end of the week, only get a paycheck for 28 hours. i did have enough to do anything for my sons,. i could not really celebrate his graduation because i didn't have any money. >> new york city councilmember leticia james expressed support for the fast food workers. >> the individuals who work in fast food restaurants, which is one of the growing -- fastest- growing industries in the city of new york, it is a race to the bottom. a significant number in retail and fast food restaurants are women of color who look like me. so there is a feminization of poverty. it is a term which describes most women who live below the poverty level while struggling to make ends meet. >> we will be back with our 2013 year in review in a moment. ♪ [music break] >> "sunday morning" featuring away octoberpassed 27 at the age of 71. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we continue our look back at 2013. "the new yorkan," times" reveal the national security agency is successfully waging a secret war on encryption. jeopardizing hundreds of millions of people's ability to protect their privacy online. >> and what these documents show is not just the nsa is trying to break the codes of encryption to let them get access to everything, but they are forcing the companies that provide encryption services to put backdoors into their programs, which means, again, not only the nsa, but all sorts of hackers and other governments and all kinds of ill motivated people can have a weakness to exploit the vulnerability to exploit in the systems, which makes the entire internet insecure for everybody. >> styria foreign minister announced that accepted a russian proposal to surrender control over its chemical weapons. the russian initiative was a poorly sparked by remarks made by john kerry on monday about what syrian president bashar al- assad could do to prevent a u.s. attack all stop -- attack. >> he could turn over his weapons to the international community in the next week. turn it over, all of it. without delay. allow a full and total accounting for that. but he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done, obviously. >> international address from the white house tuesday night, obama said the u.s. will explore russia's proposal to place syria's chemical weapons under international control. >> it is too early to tell whether this offer will succeed. any agreement must verify the al-assad regime keeps its commitments. has the initiative potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force. particularly because russia is one of assad's extremist allies. therefore i have asked the leaders of congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic cap. >> your response of these latest fast-moving developments? >> it reveals both president obama's international isolation with its only main ally supporting the campaign against syria being the saudi's who themselves have funded many of the so-called rebels in syria and at the same time president obama is facing increasing domestic opposition from the republicans to the democrats across the political spectrum. >> we go to washington to speak with seymour hersh himself. his latest piece in the london review of books is -- >> the fact is, i think the administration should just take the high road here and put out what it knows. i have reasonably they know more than they indicated about who did what and what the sarin look like. as i wrote in the article, you have a president of the united states that one day is saying he's going to bomb syria and suddenly he cuts a deal. box 13 people have died after former navy reservist opened fire and enable basin washington, d.c. monday morning, killing 12 people and wounding several others before dying in a shootout with police. the government has been identified as aaron alexis, 34- year-old who had been arrested at least twice in the past for shooting-related incidents, but who had security clearance to enter the washington navy yard and worked for military contractor. >> in the wake of the mass shooting at the washington navy yard that left 12 people dead, dozens of gun control activists, many from the newtown action alliance, convened on capitol hill wednesday to try to revive a bill that would expand federal background checks of gun buyers. >> you guys can leave your go on with your lives, but we've got to go home to empty rooms because our children's lives were taken away by people who should not have had guns anyway. most of our children's lives were lost by people under 21. this universal background check is a start. we need healing, you guys. and it is a global thing. it is beyond an epidemic. america.enocide in >> brazilian president dilma rousseff has canceled an upcoming trip to the united states over revelations of spying by the national secured agency. doma rousseff was to visit washington next month and attend a state dinner in her honor at the white house. box like so many other latin americans, i myself fought on a first-hand basis against arbitrary behavior in censorship and therefore i could not possibly fail to uncompromisingly defend individuals rights to privacy and my countries sovereignty. >> an armed standoff is continuing at a mall in nairobi, kenya, where al qaeda-link militants have taken hostages in a deadly rampage. at least 68 people have died, nearly 200 have been wounded since armed gunmen with the samaras al-shabaab stormed the shopping center on saturday. republican senator ted cruz is staging a marathon filibuster as part of his campaign against the affordable care act. the democrat-controlled senate is set to strip a provision from house republicans spending bill at which idea aversion of a government shutdown to the defining of obamacare. during his comments, ted cruz compared those who oppose efforts to repeal obamacare to the western appeasement of not see germany. azi you go to the 1940s ,ns germany. we saw britain, neville chambliss who told the british people, except the nazis. yes, they will dominate the continent of europe, but that is not our problem. let's appease them. why question mark because it can't be done. we can possibly stand against them. >> this government has begun a partial down for the first time in 17 years after congress has felt to break a person dead like -- deadlocked. some 800,000 will be furloughed and more than $1 million will be asked to work without pay. >> the affordable care act is moving forward. and funding is already in place. you can't shut it down. ♪ >> hundreds gathered saturday in angle aans to remember three-member herman wallace as he was laid to rest. wallace spent nearly 42 years in solitary confinement before he was released october 1 and died three days later, a free man after louisiana federal judge overturned his conviction. 3 memberello angola speaking at his funeral. >> i'm the only free member of the angola 3. that is true. but someone would also say that herman [indiscernible] herman died with a clean slate. >> a trade to describe by critics as nafta on steroids that would establish a free- trade zone stretching from vietnam to chile to japan and encompassing nearly 40% of the global economy. for more we're joined by lori wallach. >> one of the most important things to understand as it is not really about trade. i guess the way to think about it is, a corporate trojan horse. the agreement has 29 chapters and only 5 have to do with trade. the other 24 chapters either handcuffed our domestic government, limiting food safety , environmental standards, financial regulation, energy and, policy, or establishing new powers for corporations. >> president obama defended his signature health care law monday following weeks of technical manyres that prevented people from signing up. >> there's no sugar coating it. the website is been too slow, people have been getting stuck in the application process, and i think it is fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than i am. precisely because the product is good. >> we're joined now by the family who just traveled to the united states from pakistan. on tuesday they became the first victims of u.s. drone wars to address members of congress on capitol hill. gone to school that day when i came back i had a snack and offered my prayers. my grandma asked me to come outside and help her pick the vegetables. >> you're hit by this drone that killed your grandmother? >> yes, i had seen a drone and two missiles hit down where my grandmother was standing in front of me and she was blown into pieces and i was injured to my left leg. >> you were nine years old. how have things changed for you since the attack? how is your going out again come out into the fields alone or do you fear again of other possible attacks? >> ever since the strike, i'm just scared. i'm always scared. all of us little kids are scared to go out. >> bill de blasio won an overwhelming victory to become the first of a credit mayor in two decades. >> so and we call on the wealthiest among us, to pay just a little more in taxes to fund universal pre-k and after school programs -- [applause] we aren't threatening anyone's success. we are asking those who have done very well to ensure that every child has the same opportunity to do just as well as they have. [applause] all riseow we together. >> one of the most intense storms in world history has hit the philippines. typhoon haiyan has already killed at least four people, injured several others, and prompted millions to flee. president aquino has warned the country faces climb it with sustained winds of up to 199 miles per hour, it may be the most powerful storm ever to make landfall. the filipino chief climate negotiator yeb sano. >> what my country is going to resurrect old of this extreme climate events is madness. crisis ise crie madness. we can stop this madness right here in warsaw, mr. president. we cannot sit and stay helpless, stirring this international stalemate. we need to take action. we need an emergency climate pathway. >> where broadcasting from warsaw, poland, where the climate is cold and the protest are hot. we are at the u.s. -- the human climate summit known as cotton 19. as we go to broadcast, hundreds of activists are walking out of the talks. oe turn right now to kumi naido who moments ago, surrounded by hundreds of people, addressed to protest. he is head of greenpeace international. understand they should not negotiate. you cannot change the science. we have to change political will. it is within their capacity to do that. they cannot drag their feet any longer. powers and six world have clinched a deal to temporarily limit and roll back the iranian nuclear program in exchange for the easing of international sanctions. >> for the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the iranian nuclear program. key parts of the program will be rolled back. president, please, use or executive order to halt deportation for all 11.5 undocumented immigrants in this country right now. you have the power to stop deportations -- >> actually, i don't. that is why we're here. >> i need your help wit. >> a federal judge has approved detroit's in group c. -- bankruptcy. in a landmark decision that could harm retiree benefits nationwide, federal judge stephen rhodes ruled federal records the law can override state law to protect public pensions. that clears the way for detroit to make major cuts to health and retirement benefits of city employees. for more we're joined by rachel richard wolf. example of a failed economic system. you have to judge in economic system like ours. not only by the good things it can produce, which it does, but also by the disasters which it sees, which it worsens, in which it does nothing to reverse. cooks across south africa in the world today, people are mourning the death of nelson mandela. the anti-apartheid leaders spent 27 years in prison before becoming south africa's first black and democratically elected president in 1994. south african president jacob zuma deliver the news to the nation in a televised address saying mandela died peacefully surrounded by his family. >> our nation has lost its greatest son. our people have lost a father. knew that this day diminishe, nothing can loss.nse of the profound >> a white house panel has proposed a series of curbs on some key national security agency surveillance operations. following the leaks by edward snowden. the panel recommended the nsa halt its bulk collection of billions of american phone call records. >> also with this is been wizner -- ben wizner. towhat a week this has been vindicate the act of conscious he engaged in. first a conservative federal judge saying the nsa's sweeping domestic intelligence program violates the constitution and within what we expected to be a whitewash executive branch report, coming back with these really incredible recommendations for a sweeping overhaul. none of this would have happened but for what snowden did. >> edward snowden has released a new video statement urging concerned citizens to unite against unfettered surveillance. address,stmas day snowden said massive spying is undermining basic rights to privacy. books recently, we learned our government working in concert have created a system of worldwide mass surveillance. watching everything we do. great britain's george orwell warns us of the danger of this kind of information. the types of collection in the book, microphones and video cameras, tvs that watch us, are nothing compared to what we have available today. we have sensors in our pockets that track as everywhere we go. inc. about what this means for the privacy of the average .erson a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. they will never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, unrecorded, unanalyzed not. and that is a problem because privacy matters. travis he is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be. the conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. together, we can find a better balance -- and mass surveillance. remind the government if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying. for everyone out there listening, thank you and merry christmas. >> that does it for our look at the 2013. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] ?
that question doesn't come up. when you decide to send a b-2 launching from the american midwest to be a show of force in south korea, nobody asked of it comes together. if you think about it, it's pretty spectacular. think about the intelligence, the refueling requirement. how does all this happen. who is doing that? they are just in the background making things happen every single day. there's a great tv commercial where the tagline is these guys are good. you have probably seen that. so are my guys. they are incredibly good. luckily our combatant commanders know that so the demands for what the air force provides is on the rise. unfortunately, the supplies are going in the of attraction. that's a we are facing with the sequester level budgets were looking at in the future and decision we have to make. every recommendation we're making these days does hurt. is taking capability capacity away from combatant commanders, things they believe they need and things would like to provide that which is will be able to in the future because let's be part of the solution for the nation. we have to get how to wisely move forward, keeping our air force balanced as the downsize overtime. we are reducing capability in everyone of our core missions. that's the reality of it. every single one of them. we are cutting my recession programs by 50%. protecting a couple of key programs would think we have to recapitalize, akc for six thank you, the f-35 and the long-range strike bomber for operations so we have a viable air force tenure soda which is also part of our job. not just been ready to operate today. we're doing everything we can to maintain that balance between being ready to do the nation's business today and being capable of doing it 10 years from now against threats that are clicking more cable in some areas and getting more complicated in others. even with a balanced budget agreement it's important to remember the reason this seems so dramatic to people is that three years ago in fy '12 f. i just figure out the projected budget for fy '15 for the air force was $20 billion higher than we actually have. that's about 20% of our overall budget. changing from a planned even three years ago that was projected funding at that level to one that is going to be 20 billion a year lower from here forward is a significant adjustment. that's why the changes seem so dramatic. if they are not done it will get worse in the future. it's hard to make a 20 billion-dollar reduction for you without making some significant change. to trimming around the edges as with the together our budget proposal just wasn't going to work. we had to look at dramatic things. my rent mentioned the a-10 fleet. one of those dramatic things was cutting fleets of aircraft. let me tell you why we decide to recommend that census, already. that decision has come under fire from several sectors but there's a logical reason. let me briefly explain -- explained to. with five missionaries in our air force. we have the same five core mission since 1947 when we became an independent service. we've added space superiority as part of the first one. the way we do that has change. the domains we do the men have change. we do air, space and cyber domain a but we do the same five missions. we do air and space security, global strike, isr, and command control. that's it. we are not obligated. in air space superiority we're taking cuts in the budget. a few years back, the 22 is the hinge been of air superiority for the training of america. not just the united states air force. it's the foundational to the way we fight wars as an american military. without it you can maneuver on the ground, you can maneuver at seat. you have to have a. oliver warfighters no. it's only one service can provide it, only one has the capacity, command control capability to be able to do this. when we kept the f-22 sydney we are disappointed with some of the kind of airplane to provide a theater of air superiority. until the f-35 is on board, it's the f-15 c. we are cutting f-15s out of her fleet this year as part of the budget cuts but we can't eliminate the entire fleet are we can do the air superiority mission and our combatant commanders won't accept that. fleets save big money. all the back supply chose go all those things that cause a lot of money. if you can't do air superiority maybe it's isr we can eliminate. we have fleets there, too buddy to ask the combatant commanders their newborn shortfall year after year is isr capability. we are taking isr capability in this budget. they would not support is cutting anymore. maybe we could take it out of global mobility, cut our airlift fleet. we talked about that. i talk to ray odierno and said we're getting smaller. you are going to get smaller as well. can we cut our airlift fleet more than we planned to align with that force size for you? he said we're going to be smaller, we need to be more flexible, more agile. know, i wouldn't support your cutting airlift fleet. so we can't cut airlift. what about the tanker fleet? we look at cutting the kc-10 fleet. look at the impact it would have on the operational centers we face. we've looked at cutting an equivalent number, amount of money from the kc-135 fully. it would take three times as many kc-135 as the same, the number of a sequence to get the same savings because you can't get rid of logistical structure behind if you don't take care of the whole fleet. if you could get rid of the kc-10 fleet, less impactful than getting rid of the 135 come you can't let do the job. without the kc-10 she could but it would be ugly and would not have any flexibility whatsoever. we found decided the impact was too big on all the services and combatant commanders tempered other options we look at. analyst wasn't a good place to go. command-and-control, maybe we could cut systems there. the only service they can do is air force. missile defense, air operation, isr to become whatever it may be. nobody supports that cutting for the. we're down to the strike platforms. we don't control the policy on nuclear business to going after nuclear platforms is not part of our purview. we need 80 to 100 bombers to do nuclear deterrence and to do any predictable expected campaign kind of flying the bomber fleet and a large conflict which i'd never hope we have to do. you better have a deep the 100 bombers. that's about how many went today. their aging but we've got the right number. we can't go smaller. our number of squadrons is below the standard requirement today. now you go into the tactical strike platform, be one, f-16. we looked at the agency because we can say $4.2 billion by investing the a-10 fleet. if we say $4.2 billion we also viable for the long-term? that's what we owe our reserve component. we do have a plan to do that. if we don't do best the a-10 some those units the plan will come unraveled. we will start the planning. so everything in this entire chain of events is hard. the balance is pretty delicate. the cuts are real and issues are serious. they deserve serious consideration. so let me stop there and i will be glad to talk to you any of those things that i'll be glad to talk to you about the budget further, about the total force integration. we can talk about sexual assault. we conduct or anything you'd like to talk about. if i need help i will call on said mjd who are smarter and much better looking. thank you again for the opportunity to be here. [applause] >> the air force is looking for a guiding concept to build and modernize around, and you've mentioned recently you believe the u.s. air force should focus on strategic agility. in practical terms what does this turning and how difficult is it to implement in this budget climate? >> thanks, my ring. -- my ring. it's hard to get there. by strategic agility i'm referring to agility of everything from thought to training to education to the decision processes to acquisitions and you operational activity. we have to change the way a little bit that we do everything in order to get to this point. i think it's a long-term journey. all of you know we have a lot of processes inside the department and inside a government that none of us would consider agile. if we look forward to try to solve this in a budget cycle we can't do it. that's the difference. we have to start by making a concerted effort to look at the long-term. for the solution. we are trying to change the way we do strategic planning in the air force. we're standing up strategic planning organization that will focus on strategic planning and long range resource planning but the idea is we will have a living, breathing strategy document that has three pieces do it. the first one is the call to the future, the priorities for science and technology, for research and development, for development of new concepts, for human capital development, for new approaches to training and educating our people so are capable or capable of being strategically agile. there's a 20 year piece of the strategy which is a master plan a single air force master plan. we have 12 aligned on core function lives. the problem with that is you wind up with 12 different plans. they compete and lots of ways both overt and covert. we need to bring that together into a single master plan where we can make the prioritization decisions as an institution that will allow us to be realistic about funding going forward. that master plan will have a 20 year forward look. it will be bounded by projections of resources. we expect the resources will be at this line we will not build into a plan anything that will push us above that funding line. if we add something in that drives is above the line would take something out that keeps a balance. the third piece will be a danger balanced budget, balloted of the year. the first five years will become our future years defense plan but we've got to stop pushing costs into the future and discerning money will fall from heaven because that's not going to happen for the foreseeable future. we've got to start balancing our books like you do at home. >> it is well known you are an a-10 pilot with several hundred hours of time in that airframe. has this impacted your response to calls for the a-10's to be replaced by the f-22 or the f-16? is there any willingness on your part to try to keep at least a few of these aircraft around for specific close air support missions overseas? >> yes. we looked at every option we could. here's the problem. i mentioned that you to make big savings unless you cut fleet. if we took the a-10 that have been we winged the last few years, but new wings on airplane as part of a continuation of the aircraft if we kept those aircraft, just those and the vested the rest of the fleet we would save $1 billion because it's all the infrastructure that drives the big cost. the difference between 1,000,000,004.2 been insignificant -- between 1 billion, and 4.2 billion. we can't find billions of savings in many places in this budget. this is not about the a-10 not being a great airplane, not doing great work. it's about what can we take operational risk going forward what it can we create savings and how can we start transitioning the air force into thinking about the threat and private we left operate in 10 years. the a-10 will not be part of that solution and a high threat invited. what the budget is doing to us, i mentioned we are cutting capability in every mission area, is eliminating our ability to have airplanes, systems, people who only operate in a single environment. >> if the air force is prevented from cutting the a-10 what are its second and third options to achieve the same savings? >> any of the options i mentioned before could happen. people are suggesting that we could cut 363 f-16s. if we did that the other nations the air force is accountable for, the major missions we do in the theater of operations and god forbid a big conflict would be almost impossible to achieve because the a-10 can't do those missions. the f-16, f-15, but the ones can do close air support. they been doing it extensively alongside the a-10 in afghanistan and iraq for the last eight to 10 years. thousands and thousands of sorties, very successful sorties. the problem the a-10 can't do the job that those airplanes can do in the rest of the battle for. we save big lives as an air force by a limiting the enemy's will to continue the fight. by destroying the command and control networks, eliminating their ability to look just to reinforce the fight in the front lines, by keeping the reserve forces are moving forward to rejoin the fight, by a limiting their second reserves so they never engage u.s. or coalition troops on the ground. that's the air force is said big lives on the battlefield. we do it by providing air security i mentioned which gives our forces freedom to maneuver and freedom from attack. that's what air force is to any significant way to shape a battlefield. we also do close air support. we have a number of airplanes that can and do perform close air support very well. >> this year's fiscal 2015 budget much like last year's continues an interesting trend as far as aircraft procurement in the department of defense. the navy is by more aircraft than the u.s. air force, and the army isn't far behind. the air force is retiring its force structure and not buying aircraft. while planning to combat sequester related cuts what do you say to the air man who joined the air force to fly aircraft? is help on the way? >> you make a sound as if the navy and army are expanding and i don't think that's the case be there. and in a joined the air force joined it because, for lots of reasons initially. they find when they come in the door even if it wasn't the pride that attracted them, it looks them. they get very proud of who they are. they get very proud of what they do and how will they do. they get very proud of the people who stand beside. just like the folks in our other services. i the son services. i dissent was a brain infantry officer. is the same way. he could not be prouder to come to work everyday and work with the people he gets to work with every day. that's what our enemy and are looking for. they're looking for the opportunity to be good at what to do. that's the one thing that will cause them to walk away. one of the things we're trying to do in the air force is were trying to balance our force at a size where we can't afford to train and operate it. we didn't use the law that was passed. it's a law. in 16 we will return to sequester levels of funding according to the law. if that happens we cannot operate and train our air force at the size we are at now. we got to downsize. our people understand that although it's tough. it's a horrible incitement to be operating in, worrying about will be the next year, who will not be the next year. we're trying t to do force management this year so we can reduce the size as quickly as again and get past this drama in the next 12 to 15 months. whoever is in the air force at the point we start to focus on the future. that's the approach we're trying to take, myron. >> in the longer-term the air force is buying a new tanker and procuring a new bomber in the coming years. it also wants to step up f-35s recapitalization in the coming years by many times the base rate. and also move to procure the new jstars replacement by the end of the decade. that is an unprecedented modernization occurred in the history of the service. not taking into account the large and growing expenditures related to space. how will the service managed all of this? >> first we have to manage it realistically. one of the keys for strategic agility in my mind is taking on his look in the near routinely and making sure you can afford what you are planning to do. we think the budget was submitted as a step towards managing this in a way that's fiscally responsible overtime not just over the next year or five years. all the things you mentioned are in the current plan. we're not asking for new money for them. we're not trying to raise the budget like to get it. it's in the plan even at these reduced levels. what it means the is in our military judgment those are the things we need to be successful not just today but 10 years from now against the threat as we see it. what we can do is maintained everything else that we would like to keep going and still be able to make that transition. that's the dilemma we are facing. you want a ready force today or do you want to read and modern force tomorrow? that's the tightrope we are walking. >> general welsh, you mentioned a few times the u.s. air force should begin looking at what it wants in a sixth generation fighter. as in the successor to the f-22. what are the attributes to aircraft like this? is it really fair to call such an aircraft a fighter when it will likely be just as vital as an isr and network asset beyond just a straightforward air superiority fighter? >> maybe not, myron. i don't even know there's an airplane. what we have to start looking at is what does air superiority look like 30 years from now. let's go back to the strategic planning document. i don't know what it looks like but we better start thinking about it because it takes is a long time to deliver because we don't have that strategic agility and acquisitions before. not just in the air force but in our government. we've got to start figure out what does air superiority mean because it still going to be required 30 years from now. and the air force is going to be responsible to phon phone the mn in providing if our combatant commanders. if we don't start thinking about this at this point in time i think we're being a responsible but i wouldn't try to characterize it or describe it or i have no idea yet what is going to look like, what it even is, whether it flies or whether it's a combination of things. just don't know. >> drones are an increasing part of the air force's mission. yet they are very controversial. what would you say to critics who argue that drones depersonalized killing? >> first of all, remotely-piloted aircraft that we fly out get the party line in, jarret toback this opportunity to mention it, we don't call them drones. we have an awful lot of people die these things and people operate them are proud of what they do. we don't have anything flying around deciding to fire weapons or drop weapons on something. as a hunk of metal doing its thing. that's not just what happens. we have people in the loop on every level in process of flying remotely powered aircraft. about 97-98% of what we do on remotely-piloted aircraft, maybe hire, is purely intelligence collection. our rpa fleet is that huge percentage. it's less than 10% of our aircraft today. it's not going to dramatically change in the near future. there are an awful lot of things you can't replace about the sensor myron carries on his shoulders but we do shoulders but we do have a platform that the conflict into a battle space and determine and about 22 seconds what his brain tells him is going on. until we have that sensor we will always have men and women in the battle space. and so we should look at how do we best use unmanned capability in ways where unmanned capability has the most effective. if you plan to collect intelligence over a particular area for long crates of time, then don't limit yourself by the human body in the cockpit. that's where remotely-piloted aircraft have been used extensively up to this point. if you want to track things 24 hours a day, then the remotely-piloted aircraft will work well for you. if you want a quick fiction, it's the wrong type of the county to use today. if you want to get nuclear weapons, if you want to move your families around i'm not sure i'm ready for a remotely-piloted aircraft to do that yet. so the idea is what does the technology allow you to do and then what should you do? that's the debate we have internally on remotely-piloted aircraft. should they get bigger, should they get smaller? what will technology and resources allow will help inform the. we will probably move more freight in the united states of america not in the military side of the house but on the commercial side of the house. when we do that the ability to move things with remotely-piloted aircraft will start to explode. that will change the game in the rpa business. right now we still can't fly multiple rpas innocent airspace under faa control, not just in u.s. but also national airspace controls in other nations. don't know how to track them can manage, organize them because they're all operated independently by different people in different locations. the faa is working with the military and with states to do that today in multiple locations around the united states. this industry is going to grow. as it grows it what's important for the air force to be at the leading edge of technology. that's what we do. we are founded on technology. with people who are drawn to it. they understand, employed of the wealth and their innovative with it. so that's what interests us most about the remotely-piloted aircraft future. >> in light of the recent gao report on the mental health of drone operators who are overworked and have little access to psychologists, according to the report, how does the u.s. air force review the recommendations and how will they be implemented? >> the gao report actually, it's a great read because it gives you a good picture of a community. i think they cover 2006-2012 and so the information into is a little bit dated but there have been some changes made during that timeframe that are having an impact now. if you look at the results of some of the focus groups that are counted you'll see some of the focus groups tell you they don't believe there is a problem today in the community. they do have access to medical care and counselors. all that has changed as a result of the effort we been making over the last four or five years. i think we are just protesting. this career field is new. we are just getting started. and the rapid, rapid expansion between 2006 and today in the remotely-piloted aircraft the business as a result of the conflict in iraq and afghanistan has been dramatic. we didn't have a community of people who were up and operating and fully which are in some of the system and we just transition to rpa. we built this community on the fly. in 2008 we had i believe there were 21 orbits with these are the days of the people associate with them. now we are approaching a new target is a 65. we hope to make that 55 and reinvest in other areas of the fleet. but that's the way we've been growing and that is a huge investment of people and of cash. to try to meet the needs in iraq and afghanistan. and the needs of the characters conflict around the world. all that happened with a group of people who are stressed to begin with, under pressure from this rapid expansion, conducting combat operations. it wasn't a lot of pressure and we have to make sure we're treating them the right way from here forward. i think there's lots of good lessons to learn in the gao report. >> why did the united states wait for so long to develop technology for a next-generation rocket engine for launch? >> i think when we purchased the engines we are currently using for heavy launch which is the real issue today, the russian designed and built them, i think was a great product. it was cost savings, and efficiency week again by purchasing en masse and they've been very successful. we can't afford to forget that. we just hit 100 straight national security space launches which is a spectacular success story. one of the things we're to be careful about in any decision in the space launch turbine is first do no harm. and make sure as we transition we transition in a smart meaningful dedicated detailed way. i think clearly it's a good time to look at what is the future of heavy space launch and propulsion. we support fully the assessment that we are undergoing right now to try to determine the best way forward for the. i think the air force and our nation will be well served by this. >> with nasa's loss of the shuttle program, how does america's smaller role in space affect the u.s. air force and its mission? >> our mission hasn't been dramatically affected by nasa losing the shuttle mission. the things we do through space have not changed dramatically over the last 10 years. we've just gotten better at it. we've gotten a little more efficient that we're expanding our knowledge of the actual environment and looking at the missions required for the future. there is a change in technology in space that's going on. is a change in capability by nations around the world. it's going to be important for the united states and the united states air force as part of that to keep up with that technology, growth, and if possible get ahead of it. as opposed to reacting to something that other nations do in space routinely with new technology development under capabilities that are there. we should be trying to drive the activity. instead of just being in a responsibility that's what we've been trying to do. the costs of platforms that operate in space are growing just like costs, platforms that operate on cn in the air and we've got to factor that in to look into new ways to do business, the way you we've been doing it is not going to continue to be the right way. this idea of miniaturized sensors, smaller packages moving into space, different types of orbits, different approaches whether it's these aggregation or writing passengers on commercial platforms. whatever it might be we've got to be strategically agile enough to think of new ways to get at an old problem. there are somethings we demand full security, full confidentiality, the ability to operate 100% of the time no matter what happens but that doesn't have to be everything every day. costs will drive us out of that mindset, if nothing else does so we need to get moving in that direction. i think our folks are doing that now. >> lieutenant joe johnson of the air force academy has had to make elimination of about 10 majors in response to the cuts that were mandated under the new fiscal year '15 budget cuts. how did he feel about this heavy-duty impact to the academy's mission? and isn't possible for the endowment, considerable underwritten fund, to help offset some of his academic and outside cutting mandated by the defense budget? >> what a joe johnson has done since she arrived at the academy is she's taken a hard look at the air force academy at what product is designed to produce. we helped her by outlining the requirement for her. what to expect a graduate to be and to be able to do? she has been stored and ever issues calling the essence of the air force academy, and the idea is to determine exactly what is it that we have to do in incredibly well at the academy to produce that graduate. some of the mage that you are talking about are an effort within the academy to refocus their priorities and to focus resources on things that mean the most in terms of the essence. the specific cuts were not directed by the air force or anyone else and, in fact, michelle knows there were resources that able to help her if she needs them but she's trying to measure own funds and be part of the solution as well which she believes is part of her responsibly as one of our commanders. i completely agree with her. at every level people are making these decisions. this is sequestration. we need to get used to it. >> general welsh, you are one of only a couple of chiefs who graduated from the air force academy in colorado springs. how has that affected your thoughts toward the problem of sexual harassment the academy hahas been experiencing, an empy field they are progressing towards dealing with this problem once and for all? >> i am a graduate of the cabinet, a proud graduate of the academy but my thoughts on sexual harassment were really formed by growing up as the son of the world's greatest mother and a brother defied incredible sisters. they pretty much shaped my moral fabric on issues related to respect between the sexes at a very young age. my family is a family because my parents that shows respect for each other all the time. we always have. we love each other. we respect each other and the idea that you would not act that way to people of another gender is just beyond my comprehension, quite frankly. so that has formed my views on this much more than being at the air force academy. my expense at the air force academy was without women in the actual -- we didn't have women when i attended. i have worked there since but i was not a cadet in that environment. but whether it's at the air force academy or an air force wing anywhere on the plan or an account outside the front gate this is unacceptable behavior. it. the difference in the last couple years in the air force in the discussion on this topic is palpable. if you haven't visited an air force wing, talk to the people on the base about the discussions they're having at the lowest levels, then you don't really understand how this environment is changing. trust me, i'm not claiming victory but we will claim victory when we have victory. we will celebrate when the number is zero. and i don't think that will happen in the human domain. so what we have to make sure is that we are doing everything possible to prevent environments the lead to things worse than harassment even but it starts with lack of respect for individuals but it starts with lack of understanding that inclusion is a strength of ours. it starts with lack of understanding that diversity must be a strength of the united states air force. those are the things we are focused on. we got a lot of visibility and activity in the higher end of crimes that occur but really it starts with human behavior toward other humans. we are spending time and energy on that to include new training programs, basic training, lots of education and not all major air force programs, some of us directed stuff where we will sit and talk to five or six people 30 minutes a month just to talk about what matters to you. what do our core values mean to you as an aircraft crew chief for as a trainer or as a classroom instructor or as a finance officer? and get people to know each other. every airman in our air force has a story. every one of them. the ones wearing uniforms, the ones wearing coat and ties to work. and the stories are spectacular. some of them are inspirational, some of them are a little sad but they are unique. and until we know the stories we just can't take care of the enemy in the way we should. so that's the drive. i tell everybody i meet in her air force, learn the stories. >> and one more question in this area. senator kirsten gillibrand argues that commanding officers do not have the training to always properly handle complaints of sexual assault in the military. what makes you confident that all of the commanders in the air force are prepared to deal with such cases when they are not trained prosecutors? >> no one, commanding officers in the air force, leaders of industry, nobody is fully prepared to deal with every issue related to this area. there are just too many of them to comprehend. every command in air force is, however, advised by a trained prosecutor. and here is a fact. we polle pulled every court-marl case in the air force for the last three years. this was about eight, nine months ago. over those three years we had i believe the number and i could get this wrong but i'm close, 2411 court-martials. of those 2411 court-martials there were 25 incidences where a commander did not agree with this judge advocate general's recommendations on the proper disposition of that case. in 13 of those cases the judge advocate general as the higher level commander to review his recommendation and the higher level commander accepted the jags recommendation. in 12 they did not. they supported the lower level commander. so in 12 of 2411 cases, which is a pretty small percentage, about .5% actually, we did not have agreement between the commander and the jags on the best way forward. in 12 cases. one of those was a sexually related case. so the idea that the commanders are trained and, therefore, you don't take the right action is an interesting discussion but it's not too. it doesn't happen. it just doesn't happen. and so that logic doesn't track well with me. i tell you what i do like. i love syndicate gillibrand's passion on this issue. while i don't agree with her on the particular point i love or passion on the issue and the passion of a lot of members of congress. we are making changes. we can make changes in the future with their support. some of them have a lot of experiencing this arena including the legal arena and they have great ideas. special victims council. with the air force is getting credit implementing a year ago was an idea that came from congress, a great idea. it's been a huge, huge program for us. so i think this is a partnership. it has to be a partnership on forward. people tend to focus on the differences but the support we can give each other is what will make it successful. >> how have the iraq and afghanistan wars affected the air force's role? >> actually they haven't changed our role at all. we've gotten better at supporting a low intensity conflict in the counterinsurgency fight just as all the services have because that's what we've been focused on. we have made huge developed and tactical airlift and airdrop. most people don't know the precision and drop capabilities have come leaps and bounds forward in the last 10 years. we used to need about a 600-yard square drop zone to drop things into any battlefield invited. now we can land something on this head table. it's pretty incredible. we have the ability now to move patients from battlefields in afghanistan to full trauma care centers in the united states who the trauma director of trauma at the ucla medical center told you when to he wouldn't move from room 110, 111 because it can stabilize them long enough. the medical advances in battlefield care all the way to critical care transport to revolutionary surgical techniques and new technology have been absolute stunning. i think over time will just be a signal achievement of people in the air force, and the entire joint medical community over the last 10 or 12 years. the core missions of the air force haven't changed at all. we are still doing them all. you are just not reading about them. they're happening all the time but it's the light switch. we're still doing all those other things all over the world. >> put into scale the herculean effort put before the air force in drawing down from afghanistan. what if there is a full withdrawal by the end of 2014? does the current infrastructure there a bow for this or would you need to build it up? >> we have the ability to do the drawdown. the plan has been in place. general dunford has done a fantastic job in putting together a transition plan that covers lots of different options. we have airman in the middle of this retrograde plan to get hud's mythic equivalent out of the country, where do you stewart, how do you sell it if that's the game plan. we have an ability to search airlift under u.s. transportation command's leadership to move equipment and people rapidly. the big issue for the air force is will we be allowed to continue training the afghan air force. the aviation industry in afghanistan is an opportunity for the country. it's an industry that could be an currently successful and meaningful for them in the region. it hasn't been robust in the past. their air force will lead that effort. they're adamant will lead that effort and we have a chance to return them to a level where they can be fully operating sustained air force overtime with the building not just a thought airplanes which they do very well but to manage infrastructure and systems and logistical training of those things i think it helps the country's ability to develop and aviation industry over time. that's why we would like to stay engaged but if we come out by the end of the years year, that effort will not continue. >> your biography does not mention any reference to your time serving under the ncaa director leon panetta. usurped him during the raid on the bin laden compound in abbottabad, pakistan. the recall any of the details as to how this race was decided on and what the decision process was to keep the photos of bin laden under the shroud of secrecy? >> i'm sure you brought papers. >> no. [laughter] >> in fact i wasn't there when the raid occurred. i left a while before then. >> been do you think is rated and aftermath permanently hurt our military a little and diplomatic relationship with the government of pakistan? what do we have to do to repair this relationship? >> i'm just not a position, myron, to understand the damage to relations with the government of pakistan. i'm really not in that information network right now. one of the things we do in the military that is would try to make connections with our service counterparts. i do know the pakistani attaché here in the u.s. i have met with the pakistani ambassador coming to me in the next couple of weeks. we are trying to arrange a visit for me to visit pakistan, meet with the energies and if identity is so i can begin here. one of the great things about the military is there really is a common understanding between nations, people do the same things, whether it's banking finance, militant whatever. with ever adamant it's anything. we just kind of connect. i'm certain j.j. will take the same thing. there's a connection that happens very easily. so while we may not be a military may not be the pillar of an international relationship or a bilateral relationsrelations hip between the united states and some of the country we can be part of the connective tissue and we would like to be that with pakistan. >> several weeks ago secretary james and is the announced the dismissal and retirement of 10 command level captains and majors from the malmstrom air force base missile command. for cheating on a routine periodic proficiency test. what has happened to the testing regime and what changes are being considered and implemented to make sure this climate of cheating does not continue? >> the people who wer were relid and to resign for all lieutenant colonels or colonels. it was the wing commander in the group commander, deputy group command and squadron commanders of the missile squadrons at malmstrom. none of those people were actually involved in the cheating. the concern that they didn't realize the cheating was occurring. each of the squadrons had about 40% of the people involved in this to include a large number of instructors on base. so basically the commander of the 20 air force lost confidence in his commanders to manage the environment integrate an indictment that was required to be successful and to maintain all of our core values as they moved forward. the changes that had been implemented have been intimated at that level. the secretary and i are not telling them what to do. the commanders involved, general weinstein, jenna wilson, put together a command directed recommendation. they put together some formal focus groups. they formed a effort called the force improve the program whether brought people from every part of the nuclear community together with experts and advisers from outside including people from other services and from outside the military to look at every part of the enterprise and see if there is a way to start making changes that will have meaningful affect. over the last six or seven years we've done 20 different studies. the air force didn't just start focusing on this about two months ago. of those studies we've taken about 1056 i believe is the number recommendation that have been completely implemented. want to do things that was not highlighted is this idea of cheating. but some of the other issues that we found in all these focus groups and the look that jenna wilson has taken were identified before and we have made partial movements to fix these things but not extensive enough. we now have 300 additional recommendations from this internally developed focus group effort and we are going to march down the solution sets one at a time, figure out where we can put resources, and we should put resources, where do we have the most impact. a lot of the smaller things that are activating people that made a frustrated in the community are being changed. we are trying hard to eliminate an idea you can never make a decision. your most senior boss always has to be the one that makes the call. a lot of things at the lowest levels of authority and we're trying to push there. we look at the environment for training, testing as a small example. we have made the monthly test the crew members take pass-fail as opposed to score them which is the underlying concern that crew members if you don't score when it% you are seen as not being confident enough to move on to other jobs. the only assessment your commander has of you is your test score remark which is a productive environment. so that's already been changed and will be a lot more changes as we move through this but the goal is, number one, taken on this look in the mirror. admit where we are and then let's change it again. let's just change the game. our people deserve better than that. the people who cheated, the people who are breaking the law, breaking our policy intentionally, they don't have a future with us. that's not how we operate. >> peering into the crystal glass, are you seeing signs from congress that sequestration levels will not return in 2016? >> i am not seeing any indications of that. >> what is th the air force's backup plan if it loses access to the gps constellation? >> one of the great things about the gps constellation is it does bring a lot of redundant capability. it is dispersed enough and very difficult to remove the gps constellation. we are, have been looking at partnerships with other nations also have navigation type systems. we are also looking at technology into future that uses different ways of precision navigation, things we think will be useful whether the gps system signal is denied a whether the system is compromised or whether we can't develop coalition or allied partnerships that allow us to use their system everywhere in the world we don't have immediate access. lots of efforts going on but i'm confident of the future but we have to have a very many of things to choose from if we want to guarantee the ability to use it. we become reliant on it. we have to be able to navigate precisely, to operate the way we are operating as a u.s. military around the world. >> we are almost out of time, but before asking the last question we had a couple of housekeeping matters to take care of. first of all i'd like to remind you about our upcoming events and speakers. may 27, donald trump, chairman and president of the trump organization. on may 28, ben carson, no surgeon and author. next i'd like to present our guest with a traditional national press club mug. general, i don't think we could call it air force but it is a nice blue. [laughter] >> thank you so much. >> how about a round of applause for our speaker? [applause] >> thank you all for coming today. we are a journey. >> you forgot the last question. >> excuse me. i made, i thought we had a perfect breakfast, and i forgot the last question, which i'm sure the general will want to respond to. as an a-10 pilot, what's the most annoying thing about flying commercial? [laughter] spend i better think about this one. you know, actually there is nothing in knowing about flying commercial. as i get older the problem is it's just not as comfortable. [laughter] >> thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you again. we are adjourned for real this time. [inaudible conversations] >> tonight at eight eastern on c-span the national museum of women in the arts host a discussion on women judicial leaders with supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg and canadian justice rosalie abella. tonight at eight eastern on c-span. on booktv primetime tonight, the civil rights movement. >> what we're seeing right now where we are embedding capabilities more and more into our environment, some technologists disagree on this but i personally consider the smartphones that we all carry around with those at least 70% of the market by pollution carries around with us to be a trademark example of the internet advance. we are becoming human centers because were all carrying around an extra in a powerful computer in our pocket but it takes the form of different sensors that exist in the physical world around us that takes the form of radio frequency identification leaders that we pass underneath when we access td pass on the new jersey turnpike. weather sensors ar that are all around us. certainly surveillance and cameras that collect data and then send that summer else. this is all part of the internet. is basically the embedding of computers into a real world. on "after words" the deputy editor of the futurist magazine patrick tucker o on a world that insists that your every move saturday night at 10 eastern and sunday night at nine. and online our book club selection is bing west, the wrong war. join the discussion at booktv.org. and allies sunday may 4 look for next in death just, former gang member turned author and poet. his work on gang life, always running. booktv every weekend on c-span2. >> if you were to come up with the most influential people in the world, who would be on your list? "time" magazine has done so and ben goldberger is joining us on the phone from new york. is the nation editor for time.com. thanks for being with us. >> guest: good to be with you. >> host: let me ask you, who made the top 10 announced earlier this morning. >> guest: we don't rank of the list. it's sort of one of the fun parts is you can do it yourself but it is a list of the 100 most influential enough so in no particular order. i can say there are four covers to the issue and they are beyoncé, robert redford, mary bara and jason collins. the first player in one of the major use pro sports leagues to come out as gay. >> host: let me ask about robert redford, best known for his acting capabilities but also a leading activist when it comes to global warming and the infinite. why did he make the list? >> guest: keys on their certainly for his acting. without a doubt he's been outspoken incredibly uncalled environmental activist. but this is the 30th anniversary of the sundance film festival and he is there because it the way we take for granted now he is the godfather of independent film in america. the vast majority of all these incredible features that come out the last decade and popular local movie houses would not have existed had he not created these incubation platform for them through sundance. >> host: "usa today" is out with a story looking at the "washington post" saying that it is re-energize with jeff now as the on of the "washington post." why did he make the list? >> guest: he is one of these figures similar to present obama dibut you can make a strong case for every year. amazon remains incredibly influential and every year they seem to dig deeper and deeper into our lives whether it simply -- their new latest gambit to deliver by drones. his purchase of the post is really what catapulted him to shoot because you have this venerable generalist institution that was listing off a bit but in purchasing it not only did he in -- put a new energy and vitality. where's seeing the fruits of that but a renewed sense of purpose. >> host: that story on the future the "washington post" is available online at "usa today.com." let's go to other names on the list. probably no surprise that pope francis is on the list and in tn political circles democratic senator kirsten gillibrand and republican senator rand paul. >> guest: indeed. the children peace is wonderful. al d'amato, former senate from new york wrote it and it's more an appreciation. one of her earliest forays into politics was as an intern in his office. though they were on other sides of the aisle he said should make a great president and he does anyone to underestimate her. >> host: hillary clinton once again on the list. speculation continues on 2016. more immediately to comparable comes out in june. >> guest: and the book is like everything she does right now being read as something of a precursor to a run or not. she's on there for a number of reasons, of course her accomplishments as secretary of state. the list is an attempt to look forward as much as it is to chronicle the achievements of the past you. in doing so we're very much anticipating the will she or won't she sort of shadow boxing that has the entire political class at something of a stand still. >> host: walk us through the history of this list. when did "time" magazine start developing a? >> guest: we began in 2004 and the idea was very much to chronicle the most influential people of the rather than say the most powerful. while that is perhaps a worthwhile exercise, strikes us as boring and quite predictable. you have the leaders of the nation should expect all the central bankers. this is an attempt to get an influence in a number of ways, the athletes, the actors, the musicians, economist, scientist to create a snapshot of those who are shaping our world, shape the world in the previous year and that we think will do so in ways we can barely get predict. each year we have done it. the process begins around november. we reach out to our correspondents and editors all over the world and asked him to be getting ideas. one of the great things about it is that as it's gone on now and we are in many years in, and number of time 100 alumni pitch in with her own suggestions and many of them wind up writing about previous winners and so when. so it's kind of a fun rolling club in a way. >> host: john kerry on the list, present obama also on the list but who surprised you the most? >> guest: that's a great question. you know, i really do like jason collins entry. that's because if you look merely at his stats and there's no way he would qualify. i think the average is something like two points a game at the end of the bench for the brooklyn nets. been having the courage to be the first man to come out in a major pro sports league in his flows will be felt for generations to, far beyond the stats on the back of his basketball card. >> host: so you get to select the 100 but you also have a viewer paul and i think at last check about 3 million people have weighed in. >> guest: yes. at a wonderful way to reach out. we absolutely attention to it but as we said at the outset, it's another fun way to sort of gauge influence in a number of places but it doesn't have any bearing on its final decision that we make on the list. >> host: last question. i'm not sure you give an answer this, but if you wanted to put someone on the list that did not make the time 100, from your standpoint who would it be? >> guest: that's a tough question. i'm going to have to pass if only because there is always next year that folks at wrigley are fond of saying. >> host: wrigley field commemorates its 100th anniversary but as somebody said that, anyone can have a bad century. thank you very much for being with us from "time" magazine. >> guest: great to be with you, steve. >> free prom was supposed to to the stage at the annenberg center for commuters and journalism in california earlier this month. the panel discussion focused on challenges national study whistleblowers face when they seek to expose wrongdoing and violations of law. and the university of southern california in los angeles this is about two hours and 10 minutes. >> should mention just life was also in the administration and the justice department as was her speaker, our first speaker. played a leading role in pending stone as alert, did her undergraduate a brat and graduated from yale. i love having her here because i'm all for models of people who don't sell out. so much of what we teach is selling out. we test people so that they will be able to make a lot of money, go on to great success here. .. in partnership with my organization government accountability project for hosting this event. the government accountability project is the nations leading whistleblower organization we have been around for 35 years and have represented whistleblowers from all segments of the government as well as private corporations and other entities. recently in 2008, i began the national security and human rights program which ended up representing people in those communities and i quickly realized that those are the people who have virtually no protection. i think in our country right now we are at this crossroads. we are the first amendment is under attack and that implicates both you as journalists and us as whistleblowers. i was a whistleblower before i went to work for gac. a lot of people want to know what a whistleblower is in the government thinks it gets to decide who is a whistleblower. the government in this case often the wrong doer, does not get to decide who is a whistleblower and who is not. a person becomes a whistleblower by operation of law through disclosing fraud, waste, abuse, illegality or danger to public health and safety. the term leader is often used anonymously with whistleblower that these are quite different activities. because a leak for example when richard armacost leaked cia undercover operative valerie plame's name that serves no public purpose whatsoever. that was done purely to punish ambassador joseph wilson. whistleblowing on the other hand is done to serve the public interest in the public's right to know. so when i began this program i was used to representing whistleblowers who often experienced retaliation such as being demoted or transferred to a meaningless position are having their security credentials pulled. but that has escalated astronomically because in 2010 thomas drake to the right of me was indicted under the espionage act, one of the most serious charges you can level against an american. he became the second person in u.s. history to be indicted for espionage for nonspidey related activity since daniel ellsberg to my left the pentagon papers whistleblower, who did much of the same thing as another plan of mine is doing today with the help of journalists like yourselves. you play a critical function. that is why journalists are considered the fourth branch, the fourth estate in our government. we the whistleblowers are considered the fifth estate. we are indeed the last final check when pillars of our tripartite democracy are not working as they have been failing over the last decade since 9/11. we have an executive that has expanded by an order of magnitude. we have a congress that has been largely complacent and complicit and we have the judicial branch that hasn't been able to cure the most critical cases involving torture, surveillance and drones because the united states asserts a state secret privilege or standing to shut down those cases. so when you have two important branches of government not optioning you the press play a critical role even more, and that is when we need whistleblowers even more. but since 9/11 that people who are out to expose government incompetence, ineptitude and things that embarrass the government get hammered but god forbid we should discover disclose government illegality has been the hammer will really fall on you and you will face dean imprisoned for the rest of your life. this is not hyperbole. this is not exaggeration. i just wanted to set the stage and each of us in turn will talk about our own stories and our own role in this work that's been going on which journalists have been the saving grace for a number of us and they have also been all too willing to cooperate with the government in other cases. so with that i will pass to bob. >> i thought you were going to go much longer than that. i wish you would talk a little bit -- what impressed me so much about your own work and you are actually a whistleblower is one john locke and -- john walker lindh was caught up with the taliban and i looked at this guy's story and the picture in the paper and clearly he had him beaten and he'd been tortured and without feeling any sympathy for what got them involved in all of this i thought you know if there is a tradition of everyone deserves a legal defense and a tradition of due process applies universally this is the guy that was going to challenge that tradition. what i find so amazing about your career is that in the justice department you decided that he deserved legal representation. why don't you just tell us a little bit about that case and how it ended your justice department career. >> well i worked at the justice department as the ethics adviser and i happened to be on duty that day that i got a call that we had captured our first prisoner in the afghanistan war john walker lindh quickly dubbed the american taliban and i was told unambiguously that he had a lawyer and the criminal division wanted to know about the ethical propriety of interrogating john walker lindh without his attorney. my office got that kind of question all the time. that was routine question and i advised no, you can't question and interrogate someone if they are represented by counsel. meanwhile there was a famous trophy photo of him, blindfolded, gagged and with epitaphs written all over him. it was very much foreshadowed what later happened at abu ghraib. clearly this was an individual who was being tortured though i am under a gag order and can't go into that aspect of it too much. but suffice it to say the fbi ignored my advice, and interrogated john walker lindh anyway and wanted to know what to do. so at that point i said not to worry, we can seal off the interrogation and use it for national security and intelligence purposes but not for criminal prosecution. which is exactly what the justice department turned around and did. again i didn't say anything. there was a press conference held by the attorney general announcing the charges against him and a reporter, one of you, asked hey it looks like he is being mistreated here. in this photo he looks like he has been tortured. what happened? the attorney general said his rights have been carefully scrupulously guarded. i knew that was a lie but i didn't do anything. he had another press conference two weeks later. john ashcroft. during that press conference another astute reporter asked, i thought he had legal counsel and the attorney general said, if we were aware that he had a lawyer he would have been provided that lawyer. again, a complete lie but i didn't act or do anything. it was the prerogative of the attorney general to say what he wanted to. however, the criminal prosecution continued and i inadvertently learned from the prosecutor that there had been a federal court order for all justice department correspondence related to john walker lindh's interrogation and he said he had two of my e-mails. i was immediately concerned because no one had told me about the court order which discovery orders go far and wide within the justice department and i knew i had written way more than two e-mails. ding a naïve 29-year-old i went and checked the hard copy file because back then we kept things in analog form as opposed to digital because we barely had the internet in 2001. and when i checked the hard copy file my heart sank because there were only a couple of pieces of paper in what had been an inch thick file. i consulted with a colleague of mine who had been with the department for 25 years and he said very matter-of-factly this file has been purged. that was inconceivable to me because the department was simultaneously prosecuting arthur andersen at enron for destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice. i wasn't sure what to do but i knew i couldn't be a part of this. i called tech support and i was able to resurrect more than a dozen of the e-mails including the ones that documented the fbi committing an ethics violation in its interrogation of john walker lindh and i gave them to my boss and said i don't know what's going on here. i'm not going to be a part of this and i resigned. i thought that was the end of this ordeal for me at the criminal prosecution continued and there was a suppression hearing coming up. the key to john walker lindh's case was the validity of the confession he gave during the interrogation i advised against and i heard the justice department continued to say that they never thought he had a lawyer. which said to me that the justice department didn't turn over the e-mails. i didn't think they would have the temerity to make a statement like that, that he never had a lawyer if my e-mails had reached the court. i try to get copies of my e-mail. i had taken home a copy in case it disappeared again. i tried to give those to the judge but i know longer worked at the department and no longer had standing. this weighed on me -- this weighed on me a lot because someone might die and face the death penalty because i hadn't turned over information or the information i tried to turn over didn't reach the court. i struggled with this and one morning i heard michael isikoff who was at that time with "newsweek" repeating the party line that he never had counsel and i picked up the phone and called him and said, yes he did and i had the e-mails to prove it. i gave the e-mails to isikoff. he wrote an article that i think was the beginning of the end of the lindh case which quickly settled in john walk or lindh pleading guilty to two minor administrative infractions and again i thought that my part in this was over. but i didn't realize that by going to the press i was unleashing the full force of the entire executive branch and when i say that i mean that i was put under one of the first federal criminal leak investigations. in reality there is no such crime as leaking. i was referred to the state bar in which i'm licensed as an attorney and for good measure i was put on the no-fly list. after that and many years in the wilderness fighting this, i decided to dedicate the rest of my life to representing whistleblowers. i knew when they would come in and say you will never believe what the government is doing to me, i could look them in the eye and say yes, i can. so i was representing whistleblowers, usually the retaliation was getting fired or transferred, demoted, having your security clearance pulled. that kind of thing but then one day i read about a guy named thomas drake who from everything i could tell in the article had gone through every conceivable internal channel to blow the whistle at nsa but he was getting indicted. he was indicted under the espionage act which is the most serious charge to be leveled against an american. right now i thought tom's case was a one-off. it wasn't. it has turned into a brutal war on whistleblowers and that includes espionage act, prosecutions more than any president before obama and more than all presidents combined against people who were not spies but were accused of mishandling allegedly classified information. this implicates journalists because you are in every single indictment in these cases. >> so let me introduce an old friend daniel ellsberg. when tom spoke he mentioned daniel ellsberg we had no way of knowing what was really going on in our name because it was all all -- but the pentagon decided to do a study of what this war was all about. and this study which daniel ellsberg revealed by tony rizzo to the people in government and they will tell you all about it and two newspapers really was a lesson to me. the people's right to know because what this was was nothing more than an honest history. it was writing history and it was information that you needed to have to be able to make intelligent decisions about an event that ended up according to mcnamara the secretary of defense causing 3.5 million and the chinese to die as well as almost 59,000 american soldiers so here you have this horrendous development. there is a defense department study that says what we are being told about this is bogus and this guy releases those documents and now he is considered something of a hero in the establishment circles because they used him to say snowden is the bad guy. his ellsberg is the good guy but i remember the time when he was on trial at the federal building and it looked like they were going to put them away for a real long time. daniel ellsberg was a figure getting much less support than he deserved at that time. >> thank you. listening to bob that makes me wonder how much did you learn from the pentagon papers? the material wasn't actually in the pentagon papers and they had looked into it and you have more than they had in many ways about the origins but on the other hand you had quite a bit but then the pentagon papers that were top secret. when was the study, 65? >> i went in 64 and 65 in the study, it was interesting because the study was published by robin hutchins. >> what year did it come out? >> 66 -- 65 but woe is amazing about when i delivered my study there was justice douglas and henry luce. this was the establishment organization and this goes to the question of how do you prove something. they'll told me i was full of it. this can possibly be and they all have their friends so my point is the public debate was always a loser because we were not given the information that we validated. that is what you supplied. >> well people on the left had been, like that the time, had been saying when it came up this is a news to us. this is what we have been saying into a large extent that was true except they weren't being heard very much and those who heard them like myself had to ask well can this be true? who are these guys? what do they know, they are not insiders and it was so different from what we were hearing what the president was saying what the motive was and what the aims were. what we were doing was so different that it was hard to believe. i remember by the time i read your piece which i wouldn't have seen it in vietnam. i was in vietnam from 65 to 67. i probably saw when i came back and 67 and i remember thinking by that time i was ready to believe at that point having been there for two years. i remember thinking if i had read this before 1964 or when you are working on it i never would have gone to vietnam. i would not have brought out the pentagon papers and i wouldn't have gone but had i read it in 65 i think my reaction probably would have been can this be true? what is this? with the pentagon papers showed was that people inside were not saying something different from what the radicals were saying. they were saying much the same. they were saying totally differently in the public. in other words they were lying and they knew they were lying. and actually to some degree some of them showed a good deal of realism about what was actually happening in vietnam, contrary to the impression they were giving. i remember there was a cartoon where one of the panel says well i did this and johnson didn't know it and you knew it and you knew it, we all knew it and how could johnson know this? the answer was he did know it. he was just lying to us when he said he didn't but the implication then is the government is able to keep secrets very well and the secret they kept was what they were up to and what they thought the prospects were and what the costs were pretty much. they were simply lying about it and they were able to keep secret the fact that they did know that much about it and the prospects were as bad as they actually were. and it's hard to believe they could have gotten us into vietnam specifically had that intrepid -- had that information been available in 65 and there are two ways that might've happened. bob scheer putting out in a pamphlet probably doesn't do it. you have to think of somebody else or i could have put it out. i was just a staffer at the pentagon but i have the documents in my safe at the time. 64 and 65 and had i put them out at that time i actually believe it was very unlikely that johnson could have escalated the war in 65 and 66 the way he did because he had a senate that was very skeptical of it. couldn't believe that he was lying to them about his intentions as blatantly as in fact he was and there was no whistleblower and i wasn't one. senator morris was one of the two people who voted against the tonkin solution which gave the president a blank check for going ahead. he told me and 71 when i put them out, if you had given this information to me on the committee in the foreign relations committee in 64 the tonkin gulf resolution would never have gotten out of committee. and if they had brought it to the late for a voted would have lost. at the time when he first told me that i thought well they would have found another excuse. the tonkin gulf was a clear set of lies and in particular we had not in fact been attacked and he got a declaration of war out of it that they would have found some other false attack, something else. then when i thought later it took me a wild to realize it but what if i put out everything that was at my safe about the planning for escalation that was going on before the election or during the election campaign with his rival general senator on reserve, general goldwater who was the senator on the foreign relations committee. he was saying we should escalate and the president was saying we seek no wider war and i had a safe full of documents showing the planning for a wider war as soon as the election was over it was actually carried out. could johnson have gone ahead in spite of that? i don't think so which means on the one hand i, but not only by, dozens maybe a hundred people at least had access to documents of that nature. any one of us could have averted that war if we had told the truth knowing that our president was lying at the time to the congress and in the campaign. second, no one asked anybody else in the press and what's the truth? they weren't looking critically at the what the president was saying into this day they weren't making an effort which was rebuffed somehow to get the truth about what was happening. and the upshot of that is to this day we don't have nearly as many whistleblowers as we could and should have. bob suggested to me earlier practically everyone who had that documentation should have realized that the constitution was being thwarted and violated. congress should decide whether we go to war nothing less we been immediately attacked which we claim to be in tonkin gulf and that was the lie and later in the year they weren't pretending really the attack on the united states and yet we were moving a headline to congress clearly unconstitutional. each one of those in the executive branch had taken the same oath and i'm sure tom did which is to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic and i think we all let that time my colleagues and i all violated that oath we had taken and i don't think we have asked ourselves what it would mean to obey the oath and to disobey the oath. it didn't come up. we were beyond the constitution. we worked for the president and there was a war. he decided we should have a war that was calm -- unconstitutional. what was the trend without going to congress and of course our present president like toward libya and have the consulate of the state department say it's not a word because no americans were dying and we were killing but not dying so that's not a war. the former dean of the yale law school in the case of libya. what i'm saying is whistleblowers have the ability to avert a disastrous, hopeless bloody war and not only that one iraq could have been stopped that way by any way by anyone of a thousand people who knew what we were getting into. not one of them told the truth nor did -- actually there were in that particular case, there were a couple of reporters walter pincus and a couple of others and some dissenters talking about the black of evidence for wmd. but the suppose it, the leaks, the talks -- top-secret leaks of judith miller and michael gordon that there were wmd and there were cylinders and there was dealings to get yellowcake for saddam that got on the front page basically of the new york times and helped get us into the war. so the reporters in washington failed across-the-board on iraq in exactly the same way they had failed years before on vietnam and the people in the government all failed to carry out their oath to the constitution all without any exception known to me except for a few anonymous sources during that period. a very great failure. the government can't keep secrets, does keep secrets even when thousands of people know them and know that they are critical to a deadly war going on and given its ability to keep secrets then the incentives to refrain from crimes and lies and unconstitutional work is very much eroded. they are without accountability and they can go ahead and they do. the price of that is wars like vietnam and wars like iraq and i think actually it's leaks about sy hirsh in particular and others about the military resistance to nuclear weapons and other attacks on iran that he began leaking in 2006 and leaked again about syria this week about false flag operations in syria apparently done with the support of the turkish government about the sarin gas in syria. thanks to those leaks we are not at war in syria right now and in other words we need a lot more of them and we need more effort by the press to look for them and to do it. >> i want to pick up on that. the fact of the matter is we get most of our news on national security and foreign policy from leaks. >> true, i mean true. we get false stories and plenty of false stories. >> you mention judy miller but they are not just leaks uncomfortable to the government or what the government is pushing and i want to give this to thomas drake. you have been in those official circles and what i wonder in those circles and let me get the background. he spent time in the air force and navy that one of the interesting experiences you had was you actually were in east germany if so you became familiar with the horrors of the official propaganda system and so forth. you understand the need for information for a free society and you had been in the nsa and unlike snowden as a contractor but you also then rose to a high official position. surely living in washington you are probably aware the norm is the leak. i will just throw it out there i remember when i was reporting at the "l.a. times" in covering the labs and development of the star wars system and spare me if i tell the story again but i think it goes to the point. i was on psa now southwest airlines plane going from l.a. to san jose and edward teller the father of the h-bomb and was very instrumental in getting ronald reagan behind star wars and they were going to get an x-ray laser. coming off this plane i said hi. i said where are you going and he said i'm going to the sanford arms control program. i said make sure said tell us you about great results we had on the cottage just. we got lazy. well that was if it were true the biggest change in the military balance. it would have been the elements weapon. it was the thing any enemy would have most wanted to know and hear was edward teller telling me, certainly a suspect character that no one should trust in those circles, telling me this, the result of the test the very name of the test had to be secret results and so forth. when i got up to stanford to the arms control center where condoleezza rice was a member there i mentioned it and he freaked out. this is the highest secret and i can talk about this and so forth. but they routinely give information of that sort. in the case of thomas drake what got you in trouble which is so interesting here is that it was a very important story but it was boring from a kind of cops and robbers or national security thing. it really had to do if i understand it correctly with efficiency, wasted resources and an important issue of privacy as well. a lot of the high school. i was 14 and i mentioned that as transition to answer your question robert has dan ellsberg was a key individual in my understanding in what can go wrong with your own government. my civic awakening as a young adult place in the 1970s. the pentagon papers leaked by dan ellsberg. sy hirsh and all that meant. the horror of vietnam as a continued to unfold, watergate, woodward and bernstein. think about it. that's where they got their beginnings and their fame to say it that way in terms of reporting. it was a really cool profession to be an. and then i saw the president of the united states resign his office and get when i became eyewitness to just a few short decades later, in fact in reality it was only about 26 years later, makes the nixon era look tame by comparison and much of what was actually illegal and dan ellsberg speaks quite eloquently about this during the 1970s in terms of government activities and violating the law became legal in the post-9/11 world much of its secret of course. i mention all of that because that's the context in which i came. as the context of which i was brought up. vermont used to be a republic for 14 years until it joined the union. in 1791. and we have to remember the beginnings of this country and the first amendment of which i else metlay had to confront after 9/11 as to what was happening to our country, the first amendment is the cornerstone of who we are as americans and if you don't have the first amendment everything else disappears. if you don't have a press, everything else becomes propaganda. information controlled by the government. it's important to note that vietnam, vietnam's lessons were actually learned quite well by those in power. they actually said that books published about this that if we ever find ourselves in conflicts of this nature in the future we have to control the message. because the fact remains that vietnam was really the first television war that was brought right into the living rooms of americans. we got to see it all played out over number a number of years. all of that is that drop. we also have to remember something else because history is really important here. especially for the professions you are looking to go into because you are reporting on the news. you can't understand the news without also understanding that history. one of the things that becomes so in your understanding about that period is that there were congressional hearings. just look up the church and pike committee hearings, extraordinary hearings. detailing comic cataloging all whole series of violations by the government but i'm not here to give you a litany of all those violations and all that wrongdoing. one of the things that came out during the 70s, which is often forgotten by the apologists of the national security state in the post-9/11 era is that nsa and the cia and the fbi are routinely violating their rights of americans with impunity. nsa formed the deepest of secrecy not by congress but by the virtue of a presidential signature in 1952, a military organization headed by a three-star general, now a four-star general. he had been routinely violating the rights of americans on a program called operation shamrock, the first massive surveillance program truth be told. i'll tell? is coming into the united states and exiting the united states were routinely collected and copied and given to nsa and guess who is providing them under the greatest secrecy? the very corporations like rca opal for example as well as several others turn this over to the government. total violation of the fourth amendment of the constitution. i am saying all of this. look up operation iraq to nsa using its extraordinary power back in the 60s and 70's to spy on americans that they didn't like that pose threats to the state or activists to journalists and reporters providing in the public interest critical information about what was going on inside the government, finding themselves on the other hand of an nsa surveillance them with the technology of that day. i say all that because a lot of performers were instituted in the 1970s including something called the foreign intelligence surveillance act passed in the carter administration. remember during this period also establishing don't forget to standing committees on intelligence that were supposed to provide oversight so they wouldn't get out of hand as had been demonstrated by these revelations and disclosures and of course down and ellsberg living history right here in front of you turning over the pentagon papers in the public interest because the american people have the right to know what their government was doing in their name. now accelerate to 9/11. i will ask the question rhetorically where were you on 9/11? what were you doing on 9/11 because for many in this room including my own son who is 18 and a freshman at virginia wesleyan, 9/11 he doesn't remember this pre-9/11 world. the only world he actually knows is what occurred after 9/11. some of us actually remember nine/10. some of us would like to return to nine/10. my first ammo job was 9/11. i did not know when i was sitting in the affairs office listening to my immediate supervisor attempts to explain why nsa needed billions of dollars to meet the challenges of the digital age a program which i actually blew the whistle. i didn't know what was about to happen while i was in that room and while i was in that room both towers were hit. then the pentagon shortly thereafter. and yet that was a trigger event almost 3000 people were murdered it was a trigger event in which i'm going to say this in the strongest possible language. it was the reality of what i confronted, the horror of what i confronted that my own government unchained itself from the constitution. a silent coup against the constitution placing itself, granting itself authority to engage in emergency powers, emergency powers. we had been operating in that mode ever since truth be told. and a series of decisions were made as a result of the failure of 9/11. we have to remember 9/11 was fundamentally a failure but it was used because the government is too big to fail. it was used as an excuse to engage in a whole series of activities and operations. they were in total violation of what we actually stood for and none of it was necessary. none of it was necessary. the varied best of american ingenuity had already been ready to go well before 9/11. we would never have had to go to the gartside as vice president president cheney himself said on public broadcast television five days after 9/11. so what did i confront? i confronted within days of 9/11 the power of nsa being turned on the united states full power. nsa was supposed to do foreign intelligence but apparently now the united states was a foreign nation for all intensive purposes. in my moment of truth occurred three weeks after 9/11 when i confronted the lead attorney at nsa and the office of general counsel. i said, what are we doing? it's the prime directive of the national security to say you do not spy on americans without a warrant. we are a 25 year regime modified 25 times to keep up with the technology and now we are just separating ourselves from the fourth amendment? there is an entire directive, a regime in which i was fundamentally accountable and had been ever since i was in the military flying reconnaissance. we couldn't just collect even incidentally collect. if you did there were special procedures involved. all of this is tossed out. i wasn't just looking at -- coming off this thing called the constitutional republic or the constitution pio is actually looking at an entirely new vehicle that i did not recognize an alien form of government and remember i had taken in both before this four times to defend the constitution. i am now eyewitness to subversion of the constitution and 9/11 was a trigger for billions and billions of dollars being poured into nsa. failure was really profitable. in fact my immediate supervisor as we went around the campus complex attempting to console the workforce. they knew that we had failed the nation. they knew that we were also responsible for not keeping people out of harm's way. just read the preamble of the constitution. the two responsibilities we had failed except one asked what would 9/11 mean for nsa. 9/11 direct quote is a gift to nsa. we would get all the money we want and then some. congress really provided blank checks to nsa for the next several years. that was the fraud waste and abuse and then i discovered there was critical intelligence that had been capped by nsa and never shared with the rest of government. the real truth here is what i was confronted by in terms of what the government chose to do. no public debate. no need for the public to know. in fact they were doing everything to keep us away from the public so what do you do? i chose, my colleagues resigned from the agency that i worked from and i chose to stay on and fight. i made a conscious choice i would fight for them because that moment of truth set into motion my whistleblowing within the system for a number of years and then ultimately leading to a fateful choice in the press of what i would do. and here is where i looked at dan ellsberg in terms of history because back during the nixon administration for president actually had said and this is the famous david frost interviews that if the president says it's okay it's legal. here is what the lead attorney at nsa told me. you don't understand. this program is all legal. it was approved by the white house. ever since i heard that the hairs went up on the back of my neck. we are the executive agents for the program and the program was stellar. the secret surveillance program. it was a dragnet surveillance program. he cannot understand snowden, you cannot understand any of the disclosures today without understanding the foundation of the surveillance programs. so i went through all channels. i ended up becoming a material witness for two, 9/11 investigations. i gave them thousands of pages of material evidence and now i wish i had kept that evidence. dan and i have talked about this. just like he shared with you he wished he had disclosed the pentagon papers years earlier. it might have stopped the war and prevented it from occurring. i'm a material witness for two, 9/11 witness investigation. and giving him all this information that was censored and suppressed. the only evidence that i had any contact material contact with those two, 9/11 congressional investigation was the fact that i was interviewed. their people right now and there have been for a number of years trying to track down where all of my material witness evidence both verbal and undocumented form and everybody is playing. i wonder why. buried in there are things i disclosed publicly later. very good and there is the reality of the foundational programs of which been hearing so much about since june of 2013 thank you ed snowden. buried in there is the evidence of nsa critical intelligence that could have prevented, stopped 9/11. nsa conveniently said general hayden how convenient it was during later on during the 9/11 commission hearings. an essay hiding between -- behind the shadows of nsa. this is the stark reality of our government turning into something other than what it is supposed to do. as i recall from the nixon era the cover-up is often worse than the crime. i am eyewitness to high crimes and misdemeanors and they are all covering it up and millions are being spent because there was a really big failure. it takes a lot of money yet none of this needed to happen. in fact the very best technology had already been developed. in fact as i discovered when i was in the program we actually were able to look at the critical database of nsa. we discovered pre-and post-9/11 intelligence. information had never been shared and information they needed to know they had. and they fundamentally protected the fourth amendment rights of all u.s. persons and u.s. corporations. so i went for all this. they actually took it portion of thin thread and without any controls at all know for the mimic controls everything was just taken wings all e-mail address is in internet usage. i have been ching all the disclosures from edward snowden. i'm up where there's far more going on inside the government then what edward snowden himself was disclosing to journalist reporters to date. this is really really disturbing knowledge and history about our own government. trailblazer was launched with great fanfare a year and half before 9/11 ostensibly as a flagship program to deal with the digital age. nsa was going deaf. it was literally being drowned in all of this data. they are in violation of the federal acquisition violations. they just want to spend a lot of money and they decided to buy the solution. it had already been made. the military-industrial complex lookup eisenhower's farewell speech before kennedy became president in 1961. the department of defense inspector general investigation on trailblazer i get all the way to 2005 just after the fall of 05. there's a new director at nsa triggers a final report from the department of defense. i was a chair with us on that one as well. on teen thousands of pages of evidence given to them on all that was going on with trailblazer is it related to it. i wrote it led her to general alexander my final whistleblowing act at nsa. i lost my job. i ended up being -- to an office that i had no responsibility no money and no one reporting to me ended up at the national defense university and i made a fateful decision because in 2005 it was important to summarize for you what actually took place in terms of press reporting. it was fundamental to begin to unravel precisely what the government had been doing in such deep state secret will all those many years since 9/11. james risen eric would allow and "the new york times" had held onto this for 14 months prior to this 2004 presidential elections. at blockbuster article revealed for the first time ever that program with the government called a terrorist -- to find the sources of that article and i knew when they launched the investigation that i would become a prime target. why? because the set of people that knew about the secrets of the program's stellar wind in particular were extraordinarily small and because i had in a program manager of thin thread although it had been completely shut down and put into the body watching indiana jones. imagine thin thread which is really software -- remember the famous indiana jones movie where there's the box going into the government warehouse? that's the last time i saw the then thread. the digital warehouse indiana jones warehouse. so i knew that i would be a target of the government in this investigation. it was reported in i'm going to keep emphasizing this how absolutely crucial the press is an ultimately revealing the truths even the most disturbing of truths about her own government. reported in 2010 that this criminal leak investigation apparently was so crucial to the government to find out who had provided information about the secrets of the program to "the new york times" if they put five full-time prosecutors on it and 25 full-time agents and i can tell you from my own ordeal that they actually borrowed agents from the mole hunter unit which is the elites buying hunting unit in the fbi. that's how serious they were about finding the sources for "the new york times" article. no, they thought i was one of them. so, this happens in early 06 and i knew and i have always known this, there was a third rail option. the third rail option that you never touched at nsa because you never say anything if you work for nsa and especially to the public, especially to a reporter and especially if it's not preauthorized. i knew i would be in administrative violation. but worse i knew i could be easily, easily placed under investigation for leaking classified. that i knew but i chose to go anonymously to a reporter and share with this reporter from "the baltimore sun" who have been writing a series of articles on nsa what i knew about the intel cover-up, the failure of the multi-million dollar fraud, waste and abuse in the secret surveillance programs i was placed under direct investigation in the spring of 2006. i know that because they were trying everything they could to get into my computers at home. and my colleagues, former colleagues as well as the person who'd been the nsa oversight manager staffer of the house intel committee they were raided in july 2007 by teams of the di agents in four months later i was unceremoniously raided my cell. the house was tossed and they thought that i was the leaker to "the new york times" because there was no evidence. because there was no evidence that meant that i had done it. remember the absence of evidence? so i am now target number one. during my cooperative period with the fbi and they are now saying that i had gone to a reporter with all this stuff in there accusing me of having gone to the near times and asking me specific questions about what i had shared with reporters and asking specific questions in particular not about the fraud waste and abuse but about the secret surveillance programs. they were hyperabout protecting that program and everything that has ensued since. in april of 2008 just imagine yourself looking across the table from a chief prosecutor being threatened with the following statement. mr. drake, how would you like to spend the rest of your life in prison? unless you cooperate with their investigation. i said i will not depart from the truth and i cut off all contact with the fbi. i hired a private attorney, spend lots of money over the next two years, was charged in secret. in march of 2010 and then i was publicly indicted in april of 2010 facing 35 years in prison, five counts of espionage and one threat against justice someone for making false statements. now i'm on the front page of just about every newspaper in the nation because it was extraordinarily rare. i was ers whistleblower since ellsberg charged with espionage. no attorney would represent me pro bono. those who are willing to do so the firm said if you want to represent mr. drake u. you will have to leave the firm. we have government officials. we have senior contracting officials that we represent conflict of interest. i was cleared indigent before the court and i had federal public defenders appointed to provide my defense. .. >> i would have the blood of american soldiers on my hands. the level of classification of e
for the purpose of disclosure to a reporter caused exceptionally grave damage. the highest level of damage to the national security of the united states. i was painted into a really, really, really dark corner. i knew i could not prevail in the federal court system. i knew i would have to find a way to influence the court of public opinion, and i knew that would require me to engage the press. not just mainstream media, but alternative press. it was crucial that the truth about my case get out there. but i couldn't -- no one, all -- you would think your natural allies, you would think that organizations like the aclu would have come to my defense in a minute. they didn't. in fact, the only organization that actually stuck with me the whole time was the government accountability project. and why is that? well, see, when you're charged with espionage, i even had family members say, well, jeez, you must have done something. why would the government charge you with espionage? of course, i was reminded of dan ellsberg, the first american charged with espionage for non-spy activities. i did remember that. there's an extraordinary human being sitting next to me on my left. she wrote an amazingly powerful op-ed in the l.a. times. go read it. speaking of the press. i read that and realized here was finally, and this was just a few short days after i was so publicly indicted. lanny breuer, who was the supervising official in my, the criminal prosecution against me, had made very public statements. i read that article, and i knew that she got the case. and she recognized the absolute crucial distinction between leaking which is not in the public interest and whistle whistleblowing which is. and i contacted her. and under her extraordinary leadership, she defended me in the court of public opinion when no one else would. and she engaged the press, the full story has not been revealed to date. we're actually writing a book, just can't find a publisher. [laughter] detailing all of this. there's much here beyond what i just shared with you. for the next 14 months, i withstood the best the department of justice had to throw against me. they had an extraordinarily aggressive prosecutor doing everything he could to paint me into a really dark corner inside the courtroom. and, of course, they themselves were strategically leaking certain information even to the mainstream press about my case. after all is said and done, i did plead out after -- on my terms. they dropped all the felony count toss a minor misdemeanor for exceeding authorized use of a government computer. my act of civil disobedience not involving any classified information or unauthorized contact with someone not authorized to receive classified or national defense information. because that was the truth of my case. but it didn't matter. but i was free. do you know what it means to be free? it means an awful lot. the press was instrumental in my case because jesselyn was providing both in the front and in the background critical information, critical information, about this case and what it represented. and she got, as dan got himself, early on that this was more than just somebody who apparently violated the espionage act. this really was the obama administration far beyond the bush administration sending the most chilling of messagings x. it was actually a -- messages. and it was actually a laser beam focus using me as the cutout to say, press, we're on to you. we know who your sources are. see, there's one thing i didn't tell you, and this hasn't come out fully either. there was a special secret program at nsa after 9/11. it was originally known as first fruits. guess what it was designed to do? spy on reporters and journalists. find your sources. and if we can freeze out your source, guess what? we already have the other mainstream media reporters in our back pocket, because we give them privileged access to what we want them to hear. >> just so we don't get too despairing here, can you tell what the judge said? >> fourteen months later the case collapses on the eve of public trial which, for history, was scheduled for june 13th, 2011, the 40th anniversary to the day of the publication of the pentagon papers. dan ellsberg himself had already made plans to fly to baltimore and sit, stand on the steps of the federal district courthouse in downtown baltimore and give civic lessons on why what was going on inside the courtroom was so important to the nation. he had the perspective. he knew this was really serious stuff. and if the government prevailed in my case, it would really set bad precedent. and i knew that. this wasn't just about me, it was about the future of the first amendment, it was about the future of that extraordinary experiment launched over 225 years ago called the constitution of the united states. the judge during the sentencing, the judge -- because the chief prosecutor continued to make his case in spite of the pro forma sentencing that was agreed upon before 15, july -- he said, this is unconscionable, it doesn't pass the smell test. you put mr. drake through four years of hell. you know, we did have an american paraphrasing the judge, an american revolution. you don't take two and a half years to find a way to indict an american. >> the judge was a bush appointee. >> bush appointee. judge richard bennett. i actually came out on the courthouse steps and said, hey, there is a third branch of government. >> so because we're going to run out of time for this session, we have mics, can we get questions? how are we doing this, gang? anybody got a question that you can shout out? >> [inaudible] >> over there on the side. so why don't some people line up, and we'll try to get you involved. yeah. >> hi. my name's karen lowe, i teach here at annenberg. i think you all have sufficiently scared all the journalism students who wanted to be investigative reporters. my question to you is twofold. one, how as a journalist can you assure a source that they won't be outed if, as you say, the journalists are being spied on through their phones, their computers, their laptops? how do you do that? and if reporters can't do that, if they can't protect their sources, have they abdicated tear role to whistleblowers? >> i'll take a stab at that. i think a big step in protecting sources which hardly any journalists are taking is using basic encryption. how many people in here are using encryption? okay, i see three hands. i think encryption should be a requirement for journalists, particularly if you're dealing with high level sources. >> do you realize how astounding this statement is? not learn to think, be logical, get the facts. encrypt your material so your own government will not destroy you. that's an astounding statement. i mean, i agree with you. but think about that. these people have all taken a vow, right? i sat in this room when almost everyone in the room had voted for obama. right? >> i campaigned for, contributed to and voted for obama. so this is not an anti-obama -- >> no, but i'm just saying -- >> i know. >> -- it's astounding that the advice you would give, and i agree it's advice you need to hear, to a young journalist is to learn encryption. >> you have to to protect your source. >> you're not protecting them from stalin, you're protecting them from obama. >> that's -- >> correct. >> -- the day and age in which we live right now, unfortunately. >> and, i mean, there are other things you can do as a lawyer in terms of protecting my clients, i joke about using my drug dealer tactics; meet in person, pay in cash, throw away cell phones, encryption, underground parking garages -- >> video cameras, though, so you have to be careful. >> that's true. true. [laughter] but seriously, protect -- source protection has become a huge issue as we see whistleblowers being thrown in jail and prosecuted for espionage. i mean, there's no guarantee, but you can certainly take precautions. and then the other one is at least for the level of whistleblowers i'm representing, my test is are you willing to go to jail for your source? and i can tell you, that's why there are fewer than ten reporters in this country that i take my whistle lblowers too. jim reisman right now is facing jail. he's a new york times reporter, and he is facing jail for not testifying against his source, another whistleblower who's being prosecuted for espionage named jeff sterling. >> other questions? yeah. >> we're talking about whistleblowers and -- [inaudible] i'll just be be really loud. [inaudible conversations] >> could folks just line up or get mics? hopefully, we have some questions. >> hello? so you're all whistleblowers, and we kind of touched on a journalist and how my question is, you know, how do you -- the logical progression, you know, first you prosecute the whistleblower, and then you're talking about james reisman being prosecuted for refusing to testify, i believe, in front of a grand jury. the logical progression then is like what's happening with glenn greenwald, the threats to actually prosecute journalists for espionage. is that something that's a possibility in this day and age? and is that something that you guys can just expand upon? thank you. >> i can say that i think the effort against julian assange and wikileaks in a grand jury -- still going, as far as i know, in virginia -- pursuing, they say they don't have a sealed indictment or that's leaked out. they may or may not have one. but, certainly, i think they've been going after assange as kind of a transition case where some journalists are willing to say, well, he's not a journalist in any way that i can recognize. clearly a preparation for cutting themselves loose, in effect be, for assange if they went after him for wikileaks. but that would be, i think even drew keller drew back from that position saying he shouldn't be prosecuted, realizing, i think, assange would simply be a test case in that case, and they would go after him. risen, by the way, what's the status of that? >> he won in the district court which recognized a reporter's bring, but in the circuit court they ruled against him, and i assume they are petitions for certiorari before the supreme court. and on the note of assange, interestingly in the bradley manning court-martial -- which the new york times did not attend until they were twice chastised by the public editor -- there was a pivotal moment when the judge asked the prosecution if chelsea manning had gone to "the new york times" rather than wikileaks, would you still be bringing this case? and you could hear a pin drop. and you could see the wheels spinning, because these prosecutors didn't know how to answer it. and they said yes. so that means that "the new york times" is just as vulnerable to this kind of prosecution. >> well, that's still the source. that's still chelsea manning. but what he's asking, and i think is right, is that i think the movement is definitely to move in the direction of going after the press directly. by the way, i think the word has sort of leaked out around the rosen case, they're saying his testimony's critical, and that's why they have to demand to find the source in his case. but i think they're confident now with the electronic surveillance that they do, the digital surveillance of everybody, they don't really need to go after the press so directly anymore. they feel they can find the source even beyond a reasonable doubt by sur couple substantial evidence -- circumstantial evidence of who called who at what time, exactly when. that's how they got a guilty plea bargain out of stephen kim of the state department who has pled guilty now that he had given information to a guy named rosen of the fox news. and the key thing this was to get the exact metadata of when kim had called rosen having just read a classified document of some sort, so forth. they put the screws on him, that they would give him a higher sentence if he didn't come out with a guilty plea at this point. so i think the press has not yet been directly prosecuted, but that with the -- if these various cases succeed that go along, there's every reason to think, i think, that that would be the next step. >> and james clapper, the director of national intelligence, said that people like glenn greenwald were aiding, abetting, conspiring and that anybody who's helping snowden in any kind of way -- that would include the lawyers -- are subject to, could be subject to criminal penalty. and that's an incredibly frightening place to be in. >> we have a question here. >> yeah. i was just wondering what do you guys think makes a good whistleblower? because i know a lot of whistleblowers, obviously, receive a lot of retaliation, but what do you think helps people avoid prosecution? >> she wants to know what makes a good whistleblower. how'd you guys get to be -- you know, the most amazing thing is, and we discussed this before, is not that you guys have done what you've done. that should be the norm. the amazing thing is where are all the other people who knew people were dying in wars that made no sense, right? public the being spied on. how many people knew what was going on in the nsa? >> several thousand. >> okay. where the hell are they? where are the several thousand that knew their neighbors and everyone else, their children are all being spied on? >> they're just following orders. >> they're just following orders. >> right. you know? decisions were made by people above them. >> so i guess your question, if i understand it, is how do we get more people like you, is that it? >> i think -- >> self-serving -- [laughter] >> i think you need to have -- look, president obama says he wants no more leaks. there's a very easy solution for that; enact meaningful, effective whistleblower protection for them so people like edward snowden have some realistic place to go. the whistleblower protection laws including the enhancement act and the own executive order obama bragged that snowden could have used specifically exempt national security and intelligence whistleblowers inclauding those from the nsa -- including those from the nsa, fbi, cia, dni, the people you would most want to hear about about the biggest scandals in our nation, at least in my generation, secret surveillance, torture and drones. those people are completely unprotected. >> edward snowden himself, to answer your question even more directly, is someone who i had always hoped would come forward, that someone would stand on my shoulders. seeing what happened to my case, he obviously followed my case very, very closely as well as others, that would actually come out with a much larger set of documentation regarding how far the u.s. government had gone in terms of secret surveillance and beyond. and so i have some hope because edward snowden himself did come forward that there are others who may come forward as well. >> i'm not a whistleblower, but i think they don't want to toot their own horn, but it's courage. that's what it takes to be a whistleblower when the full force of the state comes down. they're too humble to say that. so my question is to thomas drake. can you explain if you see a correlation between hactivists and whistleblowers? >> yeah. there's a direct correlation. you all live in the digital age. edward snowden's a product of the internet age. that's all he's known. it's a time if which i used to spend a lot of time in front of a computer. there is a clear confluence of being hactivists who are dedicated to making information free in the public interest and whistleblowers who are in the inside of these government institutions and corporations coming out and disclosing information in the public interest. one advantage that the hactivist has, they're very very much mass in their own domain of the technology. and it's one of the things that i have actually, i've laid down an extraordinary challenge to those in this space, that we need better encryption, we need better autopoising environments. we have got to protect because people are actually hot not just losing their jobs, people are being incarcerated, people are ending up in prison. people like brown, people like hammond and any number of others. these are all, all of these examples, this parallel whistleblowers and shack vises, the -- hactivists, the government is deliberately going after them to send, they're targeting individuals like they targeted me to send a much larger message to anybody else that might dare come forward. but ultimately, what are they really shutting down? they're shutting down the free flow of information that informs the public with what is actually going on. >> and legally they're also overprosecuting in the hactivist community using the computer fraud abuse act and cispa and laws like that the way they're using the espionage act to go after whistleblowers. it's a war on information more broadly that can be seen through the war on whistleblowers and journalists and hactivists. and in the parallel to thomas drake's case, you look at someone like aaron schwartz where they were also seeking to put him away for 35 years, and then once he committed suicide said, oh, we would have settled for three months. overprosecution, it's completely, it's sick. and, but it's meant to send a message and make an example out of people like that. baird -- barrett brown just pled guilty the other day, and i can't get into the details of that, but the major, major heavy-handed extra-bogus charges ended up being dropped because he had been so -- >> i'm humbled to be in the for presence of the three of you. thank you. >> it's important to remind you all -- >> she's humbled to be in your presence. >> well, could i -- [laughter] could i make a -- >> go ahead. >> i just want to ask a question because snowden's name keeps circulating here, and you have been presented as the un-snowden. you're the good guy. you were willing to take your medicine. you were willing to go to jail for a hundred years, right? what were you facing at one point? 150. only 50, okay. yeah. [laughter] so you were prepared. and if it hadn't turned out that the judge was offered a bribe, basically, by the nixon administration to be head of the fbi, who knows where that case would have ended up. nixon overreached and fixed the judge. i remember being in the court when that happened. so why didn't snowden do that? now, you're a lawyer -- and then you're presented as a good guy,? you were there in your house when the fbi broke in, and you have your five kids, you know, and you end up working at apple, at an apple store trying to support your family. that's the good -- take your medicine. be prepared to go to jail for a hundred years knowing damn well that's not what we teach people to do, that's not what we're going to do. now you're snowden's lawyer. what is your view about people saying, hey, you know, he cut and ran? >> my view is that it speaks volumes that the only safe way to blow the whistle right now if you're in national security or intelligence and know that level of information as snowden did, the only safe way is to blow the whistle from another country. and that's a really sorry state of affairs for this country to be in. my other nsa whistleblowers right after snowden revealed himself had a press conference to say that they all supported him and understood why he had to go to another country to make those disclosures. in terms -- you can go ahead -- in terms of the penalty. >> well, i was going to say that snowden, i believe, looked at these examples, looked at tom drake's example, looked at chelsea manning, looked at assange, what was going after him, and realized that he had to be out of the country if he was going to put out this amount of information and be able to tell what he had done, why he had done, to comment as he has been doing, to speak now. i was personally, 40 years ago, able to speak. i was out on bail, on bond throughout my trial, and i was able to speak to demonstrations, to lecture, to do this and that. there isn't a chance in the world that snowden, i think, would have been allowed to do that as he knew from looking at chelsea manning. he'd be in an isolation cell like chelsea for the rest of his life, essentially. no journalist to this day, three and a half years, almost four years after this stuff came out, no journalist has spoken to chelsea manning. no journalist has spoken to chelsea manning. not in four years. no interviews, no nothing. and they won't either. you're not allowed to speak to him in prison now. so snowden more or less had to be out of the country. he learned from that. he also learned that you need to put out a lot of documents, they should be current documents and all the more reason he had to be out. but one reason you were saying earlier what makes a whistleblower, it turns out it's pretty hard to do, it turns out. we've all been saying dozens, hundreds, thousands in some cases of people knew the secrets, knew the truths, and many, many of those -- perhaps most of them -- knew that these involved life or death matters on which major lies were being told and that where the truth could make a great difference, and yet they didn't speak out. i think we have to change the culture of secrecy, the cult of secrecy in this way, change the benefit of the doubt that's given quite wrongly to politicians and to the president in terms of what the public should know and should not know to allow, to even think of, for example, clapper or keith alexander or the president should be the last word on what the public should know about what they're doing in our name represents a kind of culpable ignorance at this point unless you're 16 years old, something like that. if you've lived through any of these things, these people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. behind the veil of secrecy, extremely bad, disastrous policy making goes on. without accountability. as we learned from the pentagon papers, we learned from the documentation, we learned from snowden. we learned if we got the iraq papers which we still don't have, but there have been a number of leaks, authorized leaks in some cases. the decision making is actually very bad. it's not only criminal, stupid, it's also stupid and ignorant to a large extent. it's not subjected to a larger debate even within the government. or the congress or little known within the public. and the reason that the constitution that tom has been a talking about so much -- has been talking about so much is not, indeed, obsolete, it was a good idea then and it's still a good idea, has to be defended against people starting with two presidents and their minions and many people in the press. that after all, after 9/11 we have a new kind of threat here for which the constitution 200 years old was not instituted. and -- suited. and we really need a different form of government in which it is true, as nixon said, that if the president does it, it's not illegal. we have no choice but to leave it up to him to decide what to tell us. what we get with that kind of judgment is the kind of judgment that george iii had rate well in continue -- pretty well if in continuing the american revolution. you get, as i said, vietnam, iraq, and i would say very much more seriously the possibility still to this day, outrageously, of nuclear winter that could come from the alert forces on both sides that have absolutely no excuse whatever for existing thousand and putting the entire -- existing now and putting the entire world in jeopardy. you have, i'm sure, a great deal more information about climate and what confronts us within the government than they have yet told. that's why james hanson, i think, left the government recently having been sat on and squashed at nasa for, since 1988 trying to warn us about what was come anything climate. the point -- coming in climate. the pointing that we need more oversight, we need the independent branches, and we need whistleblowers. and one thing that would change in this culture, for example, is, well, i was complaining to bob about the title of this talk which was "patriots or traitors ?" [laughter] now, not too many people like to be called, have the opportunity to defend themselves against being a traitor. not many people think, oh, thank you for the chance to explain to my fellow countrymen that i don't really feel that i'm a traitor despite all appearances here and so forth. [laughter] a lot of people gave me that opportunity 40 years ago, and i was thinking, now, why am i so sensitive to that title at this point in my life? it paid me realize, it took me back 40 years. i identify with snowden completely, and i identify with chelsea manning. with all the differences in our background. and in our personalities and whatever. i identify with them very strongly. i feel that they went over the same trajectory that i did. they acted for much the same reason. they did what i would have done in their circumstance and so forth. and so when it's patriots or traitors, i realize i'm back explaining why i don't think i'm a traitor. if they're not a traitor, if they're a traitor, where am i? i've been saying for three years now chelsea manning and now snowden is no more a traitor than i am. and i find and i have to say, and i'm not. [laughter] to make that very clear. the fact, it's taken me back 40 years. i kind of kind of got out of hearing that question all the time, but i did hear it a lot at the beginning with reporters asking me and saying how does it feel to be regarded as a traitor or to be seen as a traitor? which, by the way, i was not charged with in court because it so happens that the constitution narrows the legal definition of traitor very significantly compared with what was under or george iii. because under george iii, every one of signers of the declaration of independence was a traitor. and four of them, five of them, i believe, were hanged out of the 56. as traitors. and they all could have been hanged if they had been found. so our country was founded by traitors, in other words, to the country they were born in or this colony they were born in. and they discovered a different loyalty, a higher loyalty to a country that had never yet existed. a large country with a constitutional basis, a bill of rights and the notion that you could not criminalize telling the truth. about the government. that was the country they decided they were loyal to, and it made them traitors to the other. i remember the first time somebody called me a traitor on -- i've never mentioned this that i can remember. it was in 1971. i had just been indicted, and i found myself on a program being out on bail, and somebody at the table, there were three of us there, said, well, you're a traitor. and i was so startled and shocked by this. i looked to the moderator to say are you going to let this happen? do you invite traitors on your program? [laughter] no, no, no problem. and i took off the microphone, and i left. i thought i'm not going to sit here and discuss whether i'm a traitor or not. this is ridiculous. well, the camera followed me out of the room on the news -- [laughter] all the way out, and people at my trial said don't do that. that was a mistake. don't do that again. it doesn't look good. so television informed me is very cool, i looked a little too hot and defensive and so forth. so i had to sit there and answer the question about being traitor, and i can tell you, it is not -- there's nothing pleasant about it. well, the fact is if you're not willing to be called names like weak, i think millions of people have died in vietnam and in iraq. millions. because democrats, my party, were unwilling to be called names. that they knew were false and slanderous, but names like weak, unmanly, unpatriotic and weak on communism, weak on terrorism, what not. and rather than be called those names, they sent people to be killed and to die. snowden said there were things worth dying for, and the truth is most people narrow that unless they're in the military or conceivably in policemen, some firemen, something, where it's taken for granted that with the team and acting on authority and doing your function as assigned by society you should risk your life. and then people do it very courageously. and you see in combat, you see this courage all around. be very routinely. and then get the same people like apollo who was a battalion commander in vietnam and put him in civilian clothes and others like that and put them in a situation where they would risk their career or their clearance or their job, their careers and their marriage and their children's education. serious risks. but risks, not certainlies. and rather than -- certainties. and rather than take any risk at all for strangers, for people who aren't on the team, i've had to conclude most people are willing to see nearly any amount of harm done to other people to avoid that risk without lifting a finger for it. well, if we can recognize that the snowdens and the mannings are doing an essential job and one that we need done a great deal more than it's done with the help of journalists, and the journalists have to be probing for it and looking for it, we don't have the democracy, we don't have the country that our founders risked their lives, fortunes and sacred honor for 220 years ago. we have something worse, much worse and more dangerous. so it's up to you out there, and it's up to your sources. >> it's interesting that the founders -- after 9/11 this argument, well, after 9/11 nothing matters, right? the fact is most people in the world live in nations that have had tragedies as 9/11 or much greater. and our founders actually faced far greater risks than 9/11, as you point out. if it had gone the wrong way, their families and everyone else would be hanging from some tree. and yet they put these very provisions in the constitution that these other people after 9/11 wanted to throw out, right? they didn't guarantee free press because they thought the press would always be on their side, right? they didn't guarantee any of the right to assemble thinking there wouldn't be angry people assembling. and the message, and it's interesting how we teach history, but i've said this before and it just drives me crazy, if anybody reads george washington's farewell address to his country, there's an incredible indictment of what he called the imposters -- these are his words -- the imposters of pretended patriotism. george washington. you referred to eisenhower, another great general, who in his warning about the military industrial complex and warning about the loss of civil restraint. and i'm going to call on another person, but i do want to pick one statement about the non-whistleblowers. you mentioned the gulf of tonkin. a thoroughly decent man, william fulbright, right? the gulf of tonkin resolution which meant we were now in this full war in vietnam, okay? twenty years after the fact, and this was a fact known by many whistleblowers, there had never been the second gulf of tonkin attack. it was a phone tony. phony. we were not given those documents until 20 years after the fact. so they were not present in debate. we were given the fact that an american ship had been fired upon on the high seas by the north vietnam and, there are, we had to go to war. our own government, our president, our secretary of defense, all of these people when we got these documents, we realized knew in realtime that there had not been an attack. and i forget the particular exchange you and i had, but i remember when i got these documents i was at the l.a. times. i went down to tom johnson who was our publisher, a marvelous guy. i have great respect for him. but i went down to tom johnson, and i said you were in the white house. you were with lyndon johnson. did you know this? you know? bill moyers was in that white house. i'm not talking about the devils out there. i'm not saying they all knew every detail. but going along to get along. not challenging it, not becoming a whistleblower when there had to be many people -- and i don't know whether those two that i mentioned, they really knew -- but there certainly were plenty of people. when i finally interviewed all these people, they scratched their head and said how'd you get that? well, the government released it. just came out. oh. i was thinking that myself. but they never told us. okay? so you raised the basic question is what is the meaning of this democratic experiment if you are, can be lied to with such impunity? and there's no restraint? it's not a marginal issue, it's the ball game. yeah. >> hi. thank you for this panel. it's really great. after 9/11 we basically went through a couple changes in my mind at least psychologically. there was this issue of now we only to follow orders, as you pointed out, and technologically with the boom of the internet and rival of smartphones -- arrival of smartphones, the nature of espionage changed there, the nature of espionage also changed bureaucratly with the reorganization of the united states intelligence community, and there it seems stem the problem this panel has so clearly identified. i'd like to ask how with that framework in mind the fourth and fifth estate can catch up or, in other words, affect change themselves? to address these problems? >> well, a brilliant question. do you want to -- >> yeah. >> yeah, i would be glad to speak to that in terms of what the fourth estate can do and journalists can -- >> [inaudible] >> -- to stop. well, a multipart question, but what journalists and what whistleblowers can do to try to stop the current state of affairs. and for me, i feel like during much of the decade following 9/11 that at least in the mainstream media a lot of journalists were behaving as government lapdogs rather than government watchdogs. and even today i get very frustrated when a journalist says, uh, yeah, i can't hit the government too hard in public because i'll lose my source. and that's a very real issue. i mean, after the warrantless wife -- wiretapping story, one had his white house credentials pulled. but to be a true journalist, i think you need to be able to value your civilian sources as much as your government sources and not just be a stenographer who copies down government talking points. >> i have a thought on that, bob, let me try it on you too. oh, sorry. >> did your question go further than that to the technology? >> my question, basically, the problems that far arisen in terms of these infringements in the name of espionage and intelligence gathering really relate to, you know, the changes in technology since 9/11 and the psychological changes which you have identified just now. you know, it's great to identify the problem, but i'm asking you what you see as potential solutions to these problems. within these sort of realms. >> at the strategic level, you have to bind the government down again with the change of the constitution. that's what you have to do. this government mean just because of advances in technology, that somehow that gives them a free pass. that's not true at all. the constitution is more than flexible enough to accommodate all of modern society. you still are a sovereign individual with rights. they just chose because of technology -- it was a lot easier. in fact, real intelligence, actually, has largely disappeared because it's so easy to collect everything, and we'll sort it out later. sort of the seize first, search later mentality. that completely flips the paradigm. so when you're faced with those decisions being done in secret, it doesn't really matter. the technology is just a means to an end in that regard. so you actually have to protect. it's still the same. your cell phone, that's one of your effects that you have as an individual. if they choose to say it's not protected, well, yeah, the technology does make it easier, but the technology in that regard is simply enabling a choice they've made. that's a choice that violates as an american, u.s. person, legal citizen, violates your rights. because they choose to do so? catch 22? i absolutely resist that mindset. i absolutely resist the notion that somehow they're the ultimate protecter, and it doesn't matter what your sovereign rights are at all, that the sovereignty of mass security trumps everything? look, i was going to say this, i'll say it now. do you know that the traitors of this country, the traitors that founded the united states of america met in secret in philadelphia to hammer out the constitution of the united states? and they made a pact that nothing would come out except madison took notes, and in 1843 they were published. so at least we now had documented evidence of what debates took place inside the constitutional convention. benjamin franklin exits the building that long, hot summer, and history has recorded that a woman reporter, right? came up to him and said, hey, what'd you guys create in there? and reportedly he responded saying a republic, if you can keep it. they knew there were no guarantees. and they knew that an executive would do their darnedest to centralize power and gain under themselves what they thought they could take. so they bound down the executive as hard as they could, and they made congress the central portion of our three, our triparty government. so watched after 9/11? it doesn't -- the technology here, yeah, you know, we had horses and cagers back in the 18d carriages back in the 18th centerly. that doesn't matter. it's the living constitution in that regard. but it's an idea of how to govern ourselves and the fundamental question we have to ask if it's no longer sufficient, if the constitution is no longer sufficient, the same question i point-blank asked the lawyers at nsa, the same question i asked congress when i went to them with my disclosures, if they're saying this doesn't work, you know, there is a constitutional means in the country to change the law. you know what they told me at nsa? they said, say no. if we go to congress with what we want to do, they'll say no. they'll say no. >> the question really arises you said a republic the if you can keep it, question. have we kept it? and the answer is, no. no, we have not kept it. since 2001 we have, in effect, an elected monarchy. and meaning a country in which nixon's view if the president does it, it's legal. if the president says it, it's not illegal. that's the attitude long after nixon of the adviser to george w. bush, david addington, cheney's adviser. essentially, there are no limits on presidential power except those he chooses to put on himself. obama, following on, has in effect decriminalized torture which is as illegal and criminal as anything can be under international law and domestic law, a number of domestic laws and international laws which we are sworn or rat -- ratified to investigate and follow be up if there's any credible charge. obama has not chosen to investigate or indict any higher-up for that process of torture. take right now the 6,000-page, what was it, two years or was it four years? >> torture report? >> for how long, two years? 6,000 pages. they're arguing now, well, in a way it's kind of worthwhile to see this argument go on for a month now to see where obama comes out on it when they send it to him for declassification. what if obama says, no, mix -- public interest does not allow this? obviously to, that report should have been leaked, and it should be leaked right now. and we need this to understand, for example, what the report is reputed is leaked to have revealed which is that there was no necessity this that for this torture and that there was no effect. far from being essential, it did not contribute in any case to preventing terror attacks and what not. now, why does that matter, after all, if it's illegal is and unconstitutional? what's it matter whether it works? well, the whole issue that was put before the public implicitly was the constitution is obsolete, it was overtaken. we have a -- by 9/11. we have a state of emergency now which is formally declared in which obama has reinstated several times now in office which how many people actually knew that in this journalists' office, that obama has formally reip stated every six months or so that we're in a state of emergency? how many people knew that? let me see hands. don't be shy here. i see about four, five. how many did not know that? okay. well, what's the state of the press that it's not made you aware that we are living in a state of emergency? now, what does that imply exactly? what regulation does that mean the president is free from in a state of emergency? well, the house, a member of the house committee over homeland security asked precisely that question. i see that there are, he said, classified annexes to the continuity of government regulations and to the state of emergency regulations. can we see those? and the answer was, no, they're classified. so he got the chairman of the house committee on homeland security to ask directly for those. no, they were not able to get them. now, this is not a constitutional republic that you're talking about here now. and if the report says, as it does in 6,000 pages, in this was not necessary, in other words, it is criminal, it is not justified by an argument of necessity because it can't be necessary if it didn't work at all over years after years. therefore, it's criminal. absolutely criminal without any question about it. as i say, just as some people want to decriminalize marijuana in this state and others, obama has effectively decriminalized torture. how could an ex-president bring prosecutions for torture after last eight years, after the last 16 years? i don't see how he could. >> it does remind me, dan, does anybody listen to jackson brown? one of my favorite songs, out into the cool of the morning strolls the pretender? there's a lot of pretenders. and on stage here there are no pretenders. we're extraordinarily -- three whistleblowers are extraordinarily fortunate. we never ended up in prison. there are whistleblowers in prison right now. there are whistleblowers facing prison right now. there are hactivists already in prison and those facing prison or already incarcerateed. that's the reality in this country. and so here's, here's another truth. the two biggest scandals of the bush administration that have been immunized by obama were secret surveillance and torture. the only -- currently serving 30 months in a federal penitentiary in laredo, pennsylvania. why? because he actually blew the whistle regarding state-sponsored torture and the name of a torturer, and he's in prison. those who authorized the program, those who approved the program, those who implemented the program, those who managed the torture program have immunity, secret surveillance. i'm the only one prosecuted, indicted, convicted. i had nothing to do with surveillance. i resisted with everything i had. and yet all those who authorized surveillance, approved surveillance, managed the surveillance programs all have immunity. in fact, if i had committed surveillance, if i had engaged in surveillance, i would not have been prosecuted. john, if he had tortured, he would not be in prison this day. what does that tell you? the press has been complicit in the war crimes, in the wrongdoing and the suspension of the constitution since 9/11. it's high time, and you're faced with the stark reality of you are going to be in this venue. you need to question. in this queue here is question authority. it means question everything, but i especially question authority. how else do we know what's going on without being informed? this is a fundamental and even some suggest the fatal flaw in any democracy no matter what form it takes including a constitutional republic. it's ultimately about keeping the public informed, and the public having the responsibility to inform themselves. what's the primary means we cothat in -- do that in this country? the ultimate question we have to face, the ultimate question that must be asked is what future -- given there's no guarantees -- what future do we want to keep? >> we're going to end, but i don't have the counselor not to call on my -- the courage not to call on my wife. [laughter] and i do, but i want to call on her not just, as jeff pointed out, she started the book festival, but she did an important book with mary tillman, the mother of pat tillman. why don't you talk about that. [laughter] >> how much time do you have? >> no, because i watched you for two years reading those documents. >> we read, i read 3,000 pages of investigative documents that were so full of holes, government documents so full of holes that you could drive a humvee through it. and we came away with no satisfaction at all about how pat tillman really was killed and what the circumstances were. and to this day i still talk to her practically every week to see, you know, what else we can do. it's been very frustrating. but i have just two quick things. one is, first of all, you've inspired so many young people. i know you've inspired me, and i was a lifelong journalist and still am, i guess. you've inspired a lot of young people in this room, and i hope that you can, jesselyn, before we go tell the 99% of this room how to do encryption. but my real question -- how to do encryption. yeah. [laughter] my real question is can you actually put this geeny back in the bot -- yesny back in the bottle? i remember a few years ago dennis kucinich was in congress, before edward snowden, and he was part of a group of congress members who were trying to get the nsa aboll bished because it was -- abolish z baud it was seen to be -- because it was seen to be duplicative. why do you need this sort of renegade agency? is it possible to accomplish that now with all these revelations? and -- yeah. >> yeah. i, i hope it's -- i guess i still bereave -- believe it's possible to rein in the national security surveillance state that we are becoming. if i didn't believe that, i would not be out on the lecture circuit every weekend talking to students like you. i would have given up. so i guess i still believe that we can recover our democracy from the police state that it's becoming. in terms of encryption, i am not a technologist. but even i learned how to use pgp; pretty good privacy. it's easy. you can install it as an app on your phone, and you can put it on your computer. that's just one of many encryption mechanisms, adm, otr, tour, tails, others get more sophisticated. but pgp is just pretty basic encryption that is not too difficult to learn and doesn't take that long to learn. have some crypto parties. no, seriously, that's what their doing in other -- they're doing in other countries. i really do believe every journalist should know how to use basic encryption. >> by the way, there is -- i'm on the board with edward snowden on freedom of the press association. if you look at press freedom foundation.org, others on it have made available now encryption methods for journalists like those at wikileaks in a way which can be picked up free and used and -- >> they'll walk you through it. they have secure drops so that people can blow the whistle to news outlets in a secure way. so i think, i think tech can actually really help in this endeavor. >> are and while you're doing that, you should get the wording of the fourth amendment, carry it in your pocket and pass it out to people to remind them that we had other means of protecting our privacy. sandy, you were so instrumental, and i want to thank the government accountability project and a lot of people really helped an enberg support both -- annenberg really journalism and -- i mean, the school is really great. do you have some closing remarks? >> well, i wanted to ask one question, and i want to echo what you just said, bob. we thank you all for coming. it's been a remarkable evening and early in the day, and it's going to go on tomorrow with the institute of politics at the tudor center at 11:30. but it's, i think room 227. but i wanted to ask one question just there was a piece a few months ago in the new york review of books by noted civil libertarian david cole in which he made a distinction in his opinion citing others that all leakers are not the same. he basically defended snowden but was more critical of assange and especially of manning in some cases. and this is what he said in his piece. he said while some specific war logs and cables may have revealed illegal conduct without disproportionate harm to public safety, manning's dump of several hundred thousand documents was not narrowly tailored, and e said the leaked state department cables outed many individuals who put themselves at considerable risk. and so i just want to ask you, do you think that there are distinctions to be made, and are there times where leaks should not be made? >> i would say, obviously, i don't think source -- i don't think all secrets should be out there. i think sources and shed -- sheddeds should be kept -- methods should be kept secret. troop movements, things like that. the problem with the argument cole made is that a lot of whistleblowers are accused of either overdisclosing or undies closing. bradley brookenfeld held some of it back. ful chelsea manning gave -- chelsea manning gave way too much information. but legally, the law does not turn on the quantum of how much information you disclosed. it turns on whether or not the kiss closer had -- discloser had a reasonable belief that what he or she saw evidenced fraud, waste, abuse or illegality. so i think cole misses the point by trying to make the analysis turn on that. i think we can all agree that the collateral murder video alone is, was definitely, definitely whistleblowing. and a lot of the other stuff in terms of all the phantom harm that the government talked about as one of the few people who actually did go to the parts of his court-martial that i could, her court-martial now, and the government cried damage, harm, the way they are right now with snowden. .. are there secrets that are legitimate seekers that should not be told quite we mentioned earlier giving gallery please been was not just unnecessary, it was not whistleblowing. it was wrong. it should have been leaked. i couldn't imagine doing that. i don't think anyone one who would give an agent who is doing something worthwhile, which is not true of all cia covert nations. she was running anti-proliferation efforts, which worried injured by putting up that name. >> yeah, i want to object to this in a way because we get into this great argument of whistleblowers should or should not do. whatever raises the argument about the 99.99% of information select blue leaked in power, whether it is deputy sheriff or defense department. i looked at my own profile and there was really nasty stuff that was made up decorative certainly lost jobs. so if you look at what they tried to do to martin luther king for god sakes, the fbi, you look at the whole record of destroying people and no one ever occurs the argument back. let's sold bradley manning, who told us we were killing civilians were killed in our name and we made a game of it in iraq. let's question him or her. let's challenge that. but they have been trying to call attention to this evening as the normal way weight is discovered about national security and foreign policy is by the government on either side of the story at cali until they get to year. and they shape the debate. so that's the standard. you pointed this out the other day. you look at what was her teammates had right now. finally, feinstein admitted that their study shows it does not make us safer in any way, that there was no defense of torture in any way. with select deletes from the government. if you look at the story of how that movie was made, "zero dark 30", hot they were in a meeting where they honored cia people within a secret meeting to talk about their missions in the most secret thing to get bin laden and movie producers are thought to be making a movie that will make the cia look good are brought in and are given this information. in fact, we pass on the lies. this is the routine. this is been going on ever since we've had forced. but we have to get over as we are so different that all these other countries. we had this whole thing about china. they do up a cyberstaff. they do all this that, china. and of course putin is the most evil thing. >> russia is so much propaganda. the fact of the matter is all these governments use the same jury argument. national security. they all say they are making people safer. they all said a peep or telling the other side are traitors and that people and so forth and what you got to get back and i know they were flawed and all the ways my wife will tell me on the way home, but the fact is they were incredible group of people. what was is incredible is famous in basic truth. you cannot have an empire in republican essay moment. that is the key. the whole idea of limited government is if you are going to conquer the world and you are going to have power, you're going to lie and you're going to engage in messing around with people's eyes, you become a responsible and you have to torture. said the ways to have a notion of limited government, restraints, right of the individual and that is why you find the opposition to this thing is not liberal or conservative or democrat or republican. i've been told snowden is a libertarian. but what i see in the people on this panel are unique individuals in that they care about individual freedom and the integrity of the individual above paying allegiance to some notion of state power. that is the core of the u.s. constitution and sent and we should honor. let me close this evening by taking a people. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the mac used a look at a portion of what you will see. >> women of my generation had to overcome certain obstacles. by then it was okay. it was not okay to make intelligent jokes about race or religion. but i'll give you one example of that. i was arguing before a federal court in new jersey. we had three judges on the court and nice and i understand that women have made great progress. they even have equal opportunity in the military. and i said women are not allowed to have flight training and just responded my dear, don't donate that. women have been in the air always. so one thing you don't say is the sexiest pic. you want to win the case. [laughter] so she got angry, that would be self-defeating. the best thing is to have a sense of humor. so to say i have met many men who don't have their feet planted firmly on the ground and then raise it to the next line. >> now, conversation is in obama's record on immigration policy and order security and on the prospects for immigration legislation from congress. from the d.c. based think tank ndm, this is in our 20 minute. -- and our 20 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> hi, welcome, everybody. if i can ask everybody to make sure you turn off your ringer on your phones, that would be terrific. we have a wonderful event today, one that is both very timely and also very informative and i hope eye-opening too many people here. it is on a very hot topic here in washington right now on the obama immigration and border enforcement record. this is an issue that is striving to immigration debate right now. republicans have said they won't work with the president to pass immigration reform this year because the president has not followed the law and in the way he's enforce the immigration system has given them pause that he is a trustworthy partner and passing immigration reform and will stick with the things outlined in both the house and senate immigration reform bill. the issues we are discussing today are central to a republicans are approaching the next few months and whether or not we will actually have an immigration bill or not. second is clearly on the centerleft where i come from, the issue of deportations and the president's record on this is a hot topic. in fact, just down the street in front of the white house right now, there are dreamers who are demanding that their parents get returned back to the country. it's gotten a lot of press today. the issue is what is really happening. this border and immigration or cement is really the single most important topic in the debate about comprehensive immigration reform in washington right now and we are really pleased to have with us today at three experts from across the political spectrum. people who are well regarded by people on all sides. independent thinkers who have done a lot of work over a long period of time. these are no newbies here to this debate. what is new is we have a lot of new data. frankly, ghs, let's all acknowledge is not always been the most transparent and easy to understand institution in washing 10 and recently they have been putting out new data cut in the race, which has helped us get a brand-new window perhaps the many issues we've been talking about and we'll talk about today to give us a fresh perspective and a new look at some old topics are not as part of what you are going to hear about today. so in the order we were here first or a marc rosenblum from american policy institute. many of you know mark's work well. he has been a longtime anchor and later in this arena. in fact, next week npi is publishing what will probably become sort of the definitive take on many of these things were going to talk about today and mark is going to preview a little bit of that paper. but not all that because he he has to save some fun stuff for next week for his own event on tuesday which i encourage everyone to go to. you will be followed by ted aldon from the council on foreign relations. ted has been working on these issues had been a great collaborator. whenever we have questions we call ted to make sure we are getting things right. to publish this pamphlet last year on illegal migration on the border and he will be offering his thoughts, complementing up markup for. and finally, jamar jacoby -- tamar jacoby, someone who comes from a slightly different perspective, the leader of the center-right for immigration reform and for that alone i want to applaud your for her courage and steadfastness in trying to bring along a part of politics that is not always anxious to move in some of the directions we want to go when. so they weren't immigration works from a network of small businesses advocating for a sensible solution to our broken immigration system and we are really glad she's here today. she will bat cleanup and then we will open it up for q&a to all of you. so marc, take it away. >> thanks, simon. thanks for having me and everybody for being here. so i went to preview the finest in the report released next week and i curse you to, check out the full version later. i'm going to focus mostly on three key trends that have occurred in the last couple of decades in the deportation system. first-round is the deportation -- u.s. deportations , the system have moved from one that focuses mostly employs informal returns to one that mostly employs formal removals. let me explain what that means. when enough authoress immigrant is apprehended in the united states, they can be deported in two main ways. one way and informal return is going is the person is put on the plane and sent home in the alternative is formal removal, a more formal process obviously has more sick to forget long-term consequences for the individual and in particular means they become ineligible for a visa for at least five years and in most cases longer than that. and if you take apprehended in the u.s. in the future, they can be subject to criminal charges as a result of that removal. so previously, before the mid-90s, 95% of everybody apprehended in the u.s. was supported through informal return, put on a bus and sent home. last year that was 33%. so we've gone from 5% or more removals to two thirds formal removals. so that is a big change. that all by itself explains a lot of the confusion about whether this administration is setting new records on enforcement because we are talking about deportations on one hand and formal removals on the other hand. in terms of deportations, the overall numbers are down and the reason is there is a lot fewer unauthorized democrat coming to the united states. there are fewer people apprehended at the border and fewer overall deportations. but because such a higher share are getting formally removed, the formal removals are setting all-time records. more formal removers that matter, but not more deportations. so that is what a lot of the confusion is about. but that difference matters a lot. more formal removals than a very significant. second trend is previously, just focusing on those formal removals, previously almost all formal removals involved a judge, an immigration judge. and above peter the great going before an immigration judge in having a chance to seek relief and judges have discretion to offer relief from removal. now, most formal removers are in the strait of removals handled exclusively to dhs. in 1995, 95% went before a judge before they were moved and had a chance to seek relief for 25%. so we've gone from 3% nonjudicial to 75% nonjudicial. the third trend is that a lot or unauthorized immigrants were apprehended at the border are being charged with criminal offenses, immigration related criminal offenses. there has been a law on the books since 1952 that crossing the border without permission is a crime and been in the united states following a removal order is also a crime. but those are rarely prosecuted in the past. when i say rarely, in 1997, about 1% of people apprehended at the border faced criminal charges for it. last year the number was 25%. obviously these criminal charges matter because when you work they could have a crime, you go to jail. you can incarcerated in a federal penitentiary. you have a criminal record and become the rest of your life to criminal. so let me just recap quickly. three big changes. one is that we've gone from overwhelmingly informal returns to mostly formal removals. we've gone for mostly judicial removals to mostly nonjudicial removals and was gone for mostly not facing criminal charges to increasingly facing criminal charges. so those are all three long-term trends that go back to the mid-90s. the obama administration inherited programs in funding that supported those and he kept all of them in place. so while those trends have continued and really all three of them have accelerated under the obama administration. so that is the sense, and a broad sense in which the administration has been very tough on immigration enforcement. the other thing the obama administration has done is create these new explicitly articulated enforcement priorities and guidelines for prosecutorial discretion. what that is done as while keeping in place those high consequence enforcement tools, this administration has focused enforcement on its priority cases. you know, just sort of cutting to the bottom line, that has resulted in very different systems at the border and within the united states. let me just mention that the priorities that dhs has identified. there's three priorities. one is recent illegal entrants, including people across the border. another is repeat immigration offenders, people who get formerly removed and returned. the third is convicted criminals. the read reason this has produced at the border and interior. at the border by definition cannot virtually everybody's apprehended falls into a priority category because they all recent illegal in turns apprehended at the border. almost everybody at the border gets put into one of these high consequence enforcement pipelines. they get formerly removed or face criminal charges or both. in the interior, many people get identified through programs like secure communities are not viewed as enforcement priorities and they are not getting put into these tough consequence pipelines. so this set of priorities and these tools for prosecutorial discussion have really played out very differently at the border are virtually everybody who gets apprehended gets the book thrown at them versus the interior, or a lot of discretion is exercised. so that is our broad overview. i can talk a lot or in q&a if we want to. [applause] >> great. it's great to be following marc. thank you on assignment for having me here. what to focus on the issue of border control, which is the ability of the u.s. government to prevent illegal entries, especially the southern border with mexico. pretty much all of what i talk about here comes out of the paper signing matching. there's some copies cowritten with brian roberts and john whitley. john was the head of program analysis and evaluation for dhs and a second term of the book administration and brian is a fine economist who was working on orders security issues. so these are people who spend a lot of time thinking about how do you measure the effectiveness and enforcement efforts. first, there is no question that border enforcement today is more effect than any other time in u.s. history. fewer people are trying to enter legally than anytime in the past four years and a higher percentage of those who try rb hot and as mark said, they seem much more serious consequences when they are caught. my second point is that the numbers and measures needed to make that assertion are difficult to gather and explain, which is why there's so much controversy over these issues. the problem is exacerbated because administrations tend to want to have it both ways. they want to thanks attention. one is they want to gather and report credible measures of progress but on the other hand they want to claim constantly to beatnik in progress. what do you do if the measures don't seem to show progress? that is the real problem not only for this administration, but others. fewer people trying to cross the border the "glee" and anytime since the the early 1970s. our research suggests that the odds of being apprehended and much higher than they have been in the recent past. if you go back to the 1980s and 1990s, he probably had a one in three chance of getting caught if you're trying to cross the southern border illegally. you would probably get taken back to mexico. today is probably at least 50%, perhaps higher depending how you measure. much of that is an economic story. a weaker u.s. economy, fewer people trying to cross. somewhat stronger mexican economy. but there's little question that robust border enforcement, which is steadily building up since the 1990s is making a difference. it does matter with 21,000 border patrol agents now compared with 10,000 a decade ago or 3000 in the early 1990s were there with 700 miles of fencing that we have aerial drones monitoring much of the border 24 hours a day, on the ground surveillance. that stuff does have a real impact. so why do we still claim the border is hopelessly porous? some of this is politics. tamar will talk more about the politics. senator certainly places along the border but there's still high levels of crossings. you go down to the far southeast corner of texas, for instance. if you are landowner can you don't feel secure. a lot of people tried to enter legally or people smuggling drugs. most of the problem is success administrations had done a poor job of gathering in explaining the evidence. so take one example. when president obama came to office, the established measure of enforcement effectiveness is something called porter myles under operational control. cheap regular is your summer and responsible for many reports on mouse under operational control. this is largely based on the judgments of the border patrol sector chiefs and measured their capacity to respond quickly and effectively to incursions in different places along the 2100 i'll border. it was a problematic measure for many reasons. partly because he relied on the subjective judgments. but more because operational control simply wasn't an appropriate standard for all parts of the border. there's still very low price they receive very few incursions and you really don't want to be placing border patrol agents to respond quickly in those areas. it doesn't make economic operational expense. the problem for the administration if it did tell a good story. in 2011, for instance, gao came out the report is that only 44% of the southwest border is under operational control of that became a headline statistic and fed into the story that the border is out of control. so the former dhs secretary, janet napolitano decided in 2011 to stop using the operational control master. i supported that decision. i thought it was a good idea because i don't like the operational control. their effort to find a replacement was badly mishandled. she promised to develop something called the border conditions index, which i'm not sure if any of us has ever understood. it was designed to throw together low crime rates in the u.s. cities on our side of the border of a real estate guide us along with traditional for st. patrick's in, put index out of 100. border patrol last year was 73. those of us who -- i never thought this is a good idea. fortunately, never saw the light of day. the result was we didn't have a set of measures to tell the story and what it fell back on was what they call the apprehension state, which is simply a measure of the number of people arrested by the border patrol. but they were free fat. the number of arrest by the border patrol in any given year. so there are individuals who are arrested multiple times. it's a very old data set that goes back to 1925. since 2000, border control has been taking fingerprints. what we call recidivism, the apprehension of data are very good, but hard to interpret. if border patrol is making more arrests, is that a measure better enforcement? besylate drug seizure data is reported. more trucks seized is better enforcement. but on the people cited for logical to read it the other way. .. the problem is a started to pack up. the economy has done a lot stronger, the numbers have risen back up over 400,000. most of the central american coming to that texas court are. makes it harder for the best ration to tell the story of consistent progress. just to conclude, what a brand, john, and i argued for in that paper is that this administration and future administrations should be gathering and reporting a far larger range of data. estimates of the apprehension rate, the percentage of people, to five people try to get through the legal ports as well. the number of these overstays. that is information we can track that is not regularly reported. all of these should be part of the annual performance report. there are challenges, but it definitely could be done. it just a note in closing, a pretty good model for how to do this. the border security results act that was passed last year by the house homeland security committee, chairman mike mccall texas, who is no softy on this issue, the bill sets out achievable goals for border security, how the administration should assess and evaluate progress toward those goals. just in case england thinks it is impossible to find a consensus, that bill passed the homeland security committee in the house unanimously. every single democrat, every single republican on that committee who voted in favor of the bill. there is an approach to the weakening real. the. [applause] >> hello, everyone. thank you. i'm going to talk a little bit. these guys have done a good job talking about the numbers. i'm gonna talk a little more about up the political ramifications of the debate. so the first thing to understand about this debate is one side saying we're not doing enough. the other side saying or doing too much. the truth is, the reason debate can get resolved is the reality underneath it, think of it as a riptide. they're is a tide going one way, and in some ways the obama of restoration has gotten tougher. there's also a tide going the other way. it's hard to sometimes tell when people look at the data conflicting crosscurrents is what they are reading and what the numbers are the results of. so on one hand there's a big spending buildup, secured communities, employer i-9 on its , on the other hand there has been i calling off of workplace raids and the calling of of a supporting workers who are caught in raids. there has been a move to much more targeted approach is. to me the most important -- that is what is hard to understand. the data i am seeing in the results of the data. but the most important changes the one that both of our -- my predecessors have talked about this change on the border from the formal, informal sending people back on the boss to apprehending people, fingerprinting and putting them in the system, calling it a formal the fence so that the next time they come, if you get caught the first time because you were sent back in a different way when he tried the next time you are committing the same crime all over again and it -- the ticket much more seriously. you're then committing a real crime and the consequences play out the way they are playing out and in my view the ultimate point is that the border, there is more of a deterrent and the border is more secure. ultimately that's a good thing. we want a system where there are ample and relatively easy ways to come and go, but it's extremely difficult to come illegally. that is what the obama administration, all these changes, that is one of the consequences. i want to take a minute and speak in defense of enforcement as someone who is a long time immigration advocate working to advance immigration reform, i am also somebody believes that strong and effective enforcement says is necessary. it is may be worth explaining, maybe isn't. we live in a globalized world where workers, high and low-skilled workers, families are coming and going. kids are coming and going, was so workers produced in percent of all mexicans work in the u.s. silicon valley would never have happened without immigrants. the economy would come to a screeching halt. the point is, the american people are not going to support that kind of interconnectedness and coming and going no matter how good it is for us economically and in other ways unless there are rules and unless people feel in control and unless they feel that the people who are coming in our people that we have decided to let come and. they're not going to support immigration unless there is an immigration system with integrity which means rules. good rules are the foundation of a good system. today we live in an air with battles and their living with the consequences of decades of bad rules, and realistic quotas and that sort of thing. today we're living in an era that is like prohibition where the rules are totally unrealistic. enforcement's seems onerous because we have these battles. button when we have a good rules and meaningful enforcement. and even in a climate like today, a prohibition climate, you cannot expect people to say a total flooding of the rules as a caribbean. reasonable people can disagree about where the lines are, you know, what the obama administration discretion should be. should he decide the target criminals or border crossers or rust never want? there are republicans, senator sessions says there should be no discretion and we should be doing everything. i think that is an unreasonable position i think more effective border control is a much better use of resources than the old republican policy of attrition to reinforcement, basically self to partition. but i also think there are emergency situations -- there are murky situations where one side can say that's an unacceptable thing in the other side can say it is susceptible. there are some circumstances that pretty much this seems to me at least most of the american public agrees supporting violent felons, there are not too many people that think that is a mistaken priority. not too many people who think -- the situation on the border is important because once you done something once, it's called a crime, he had been sent back and then do it again, most people think that is unacceptable. wanting to cross once, but to make it a way of life to my think a lot of people say, known and looking the other way does not really pass the laugh test. so bottom line, if you think immigration is good for america and want america to remain a nation of immigrants you have to believe and enforcement. so in closing i want to step back and talk about the political ramifications and congress of these ideas that and talking about. you know, our republicans giving obama enough credit for what i'm standing here saying? now simon says they're not giving enough credit. he's -- we are doing much better on the border. and i would like to put that in context because i think there's a difference for many republicans between the president having some priorities and making some allocation of resources and i know senator sessions and others complain about that, but that's one thing having priorities, having an allocation of resources and is totally another to take the law and your own hands. that's what republicans in congress feel the president is doing, not just making some priorities, criminals instead of mothers but just taking the law and is on hand. we are seeing is not an immigration, but in lots of areas. republicans call this executive overreach and imperial presidency and they see a whole pattern of it. this is about obamacare, the national labor immigrations board and the epa and drug sentencing. they have a whole long laundry list. mr. kantor has 303 issues were he feels the president has taken the law into his own hands. the point is when -- and we can talk about something where the president -- singh arubia was proposing a proposal much like what the president did. instead of going insane let's work together he did a unilaterally. the point is, this is infuriating. i think in some ways justifiably so. i don't buy the argument -- and it's good to be here, but this is where we disagree. i don't buy the argument that obama's record is good and the problem is that republicans don't appreciate. i just think there is of complexity to that. but -- and even if i like the outcome focusing on interior enforcement and criminals and adding to deterrence, that does not make obama trustworthy and it does not make him out trustworthy, billing partner for republicans to make a deal with. just to be clear, in case anybody has any doubt, the road to a permanent fix on immigration runs through congress. there is no fix that does not include legislation. obama can't do it alone. he can't do -- he can to our real reform pixel on. and any further unilateral action on his part is going to be a kiss of death for getting bipartisan action, passing legislation in a republican controlled house. we will be the kiss of death for this year and the next two as well. it obama acts alone on immigration it's over. and you have to try to see this from our republican point of view for a few seconds. basically they see this as a trade. they are going to accept legalization of some kind and get enforcement, but if they feel like they're not really going to get enforcement then they're not going to want to give up with they don't particularly want to do anyway. serbs you can -- and you can say and maybe some will say republicans don't look like it will act anyway. why should the president's tax? i guess we can have a long discussion about that. i believe they're getting closer the leaders want to act. more and more republicans understand we need act. the question really is about when, not as if. that is what we ought to be fighting for, not pressuring the government to do things that will get in the way of a possible legislative or eventual legislative fix. under the long term there is no solution. we ought to keep our eyes on a price. [applause] >> we are going to take a quick intervention and move the chairs around a little bit. hang tight and we will have q&a. i no there are a lot of people who want to weigh in with comments, thoughts, suggestions. you not only will be on c-span, but our internet feed for ever since. so make sure that when you weigh in you do really well and really in a pit the fashion. give us about 90 seconds and we will be back with you. thanks, everybody. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] site. >> i'm using my mike. c-span2 me to use your head wire? >> this is fine. >> it's good? >> your good. and before we go, i just want to also think in the put this event together for us and andrea who is here today, real-estate. she has been an amazing in turn. done a lot of the graphs and charts and. it's his birthday today. sing him happy birthday on c-span. happy birthday of there. i want to start with one question, and then we will open up to the audience. in all research one of the things that we have concluded from looking at the way we have a graph of pier showing the increase and border removals and a decrease in interior removals' and in the latest i stated that came out at the end of 2013 there are only 10,000 people deported from the united states that neither had a criminal record or a border crossing, meaning that of the 370,000 or so people deported in 2013, only 10,000 fell outside of the priorities meaning that if you were -- the question of going to ask is, do we believe it is true now that if you are an undocumented immigrant in the united states, do not have a criminal record and only the country, is the chance of your deportation essentially eliminated? >> it's a lot lower in that case then if you are a border crossers or if you do fall into one of the priority categories. i would just -- i would say -- boat not quite used the word eliminated, but very much reduced. i would put too little asterisks on that. one is that many of the people likely have roots in the u.s. because we think casual crossing has gone way down. there are people who are affected by border enforcement, who are definitely tied to u.s. immigrant communities. the other thing is that i think, you know, would secure communities in particular which is the programmer when people are left in every jurisdiction in the country now when their fingerprints are sent to the fbi for background checks they're also said to be a chess, and they use that to identify people who might the removal. even though the program does not purport a lot of people, because it is so seamlessly integrated and in every community in the country it has a broader fear affect. i'm not sure people understand how narrowly focused it is. it has had a much bigger impact than the numbers suggested should. >> i would agree with your general conclusion, certainly your odds of facing deportation site. the border is a big region, 100 miles. these interior checkpoints. there are people who could get apprehended and fall into that priority category. my point about the border crossing and actively from talking to people who work on the border and looking at some of the data, lot more of these people are people who have lived here before, may have been deported or returned voluntarily and i think all of us would look at those differently. we would not necessarily think of them as priorities in the sense that they're trying to reunite themselves. if you look at the senate bill all of those people would potentially be allowable to of eligible for legalization. there still are real challenges. you have a fundamental dilemma. on the one hand you have to show serious, credible enforcement systems to address the republican concerns, but on the other hand, a fair number of people are targets, who the democrats ought to be eligible for legalization. is it appropriate? so i think that the administration has moved in a good direction. there are still real issues. >> i don't work with the data like these guys do. and i only know when i read the newspaper, but i would agree with the assessment. where i would--- push back is on the notion of these people who are called -- caught the second time crossing the border. people went back and forth repeatedly evaded kind of was a way of life. we basically treated the border for as many as during a barbwire and probably not even that. the sole crossing repeatedly had one kind of moral significance. once you start to say we will apprehend you and fingerprint you and put you in the records and college in offense. and you keep doing it over and over. it has a different moral significance it is one thing become the first time to feed your family and another to make a way of life. i'm not saying these people are evil but it has to have a different weight. am sympathetic to these people, but it does have a different moral weight. >> you and i would agree in a post immigration reform world a few better legal channels to come and emigrate or work temporarily and if he had legalization. you deal with a lot of these people who are tied to a dysfunctional system. we have this problem of trying to establish the credibility of enforcement without having made some of the changes to the legal system that the unnecessary six. >> certainly one of the things that i heard today was about in our research we have seen one of the messages to the undocumented and immigrant community is that you shouldn't leave the country. the consequences of the chance of you getting caught re-entering is much higher than they used to be. there has been a significant change. enforcement mechanisms are working much better. the second point is that when you get caught the consequences are much greater to the point where you may not even be eligible for legalization in some cases when there is legalization. that could actually where move your ability to become legalized i think one of the things we have learned from this process is that for those advocates who are talking to the immigrant community, we have to be more honest about the fact that leaving the country now is far more dangerous than it used to be and that it can end up wrecking appear family, as ted talked about. if you have been here for 20 years, went back and forth and saw your cousins and now you if you get caught would just be returned on a bus i could try again a few days later. those days are gone. we have to be more honest about the real consequence of leaving the country for all the undocumented immigrants that we care about some much. >> and i'm not saying it's good. say again, i just think it's finding its reality. >> it's a reality. >> let's open and up to this wonderful and the people. there are a lot of folks. we have a microphone. if you can identify yourself and speak into a microphone, that would be great. >> i am ted harrison from fusion my question is for ted, but really anyone can answer. if there's a lack of good data for homeland security on things like apprehensions and who was crossing the border, how can we get those numbers and what can be done factually to make vhs more accountable? >> well, actually i think the data has been improving. i want to give vhs and credit. one of the big pieces of data that was released a year and a half ago was the record that the border patrol collapse on a sector by sector, station by station basis on apprehension, what they call turn back which are people who are seen trying to enter the united states and change their mind when they see the border patrol and go back to mexico. and then what they call got a ways, people they think they missed. people who were cited visually. more commonly through what they call sign cutting which is footprints and other things. very good and saying this was probably a group of 12 people. all of this data was released to the gao for really important -- 2012. rebecca gambler. and that gave us pretty good data on apprehension rates, turn back, got a ways. the border patrol date is a little too optimistic. in our report we use other methods, including survey data and what they call the recidivism not the. by looking at people who are called multiple times and making assumptions you can bacchant apprehension numbers. most recently what we have is the result of the aerial drone. you can do observation in the desert, fly over region for a month and watch the people across. if you are not actually communicating you could do a proper scientific experiment and say this was the percentage we caught. there have been press reports that this is been done and suggests an apprehension rate of about 50 percent which i've never been able to verify. but the data is there. it is not perfect, but it's a lot better than it used to be. i do see in cdt in particular i see a real commitment to improving data gathering and reporting this in a more regular and systematic way. i think that will be a big step forward. >> okay. let's just go with this. at any point if you want to jump and. >> my question for you all, i'm an undocumented immigrant. my parents brought me here when i was a year-old in 1989. originally from brazil. my dad was deported a few years back and passed away last year. i was not even able to bury my father. my question for you all today is how is it that your numbers if you have been talking about today reflect the actual reality of the pain that families are suffering on the ground, the separation of families. how these numbers reflect my father situation or that i could not bear my father? >> also something about the. starting with, i'm sorry. i mean, i -- the answer i would give it the administration has been pretty successful at focusing enforcement of the people that they say they're going to focus. they have also been the importing about four repeatable year. that's a lot of people. even now says those categories exclude a lot of people, they include a lot of people. most people have deep roots in the communities, families here. you really can't have it both ways. you can't do robust enforcement and not have a major impact on these deeply rooted longstanding emigrant communities. your story goes to that point. i don't know the conditions under which her father was deported, but most people who are deported have lived in this country for a while and many of them have families here. there may also have been previously removed or convicted of a minor crime or convicted of another crime or be apprehended at the border in which case they're defined as a priority. there are a lot of people who fall into those categories to have deep connections to rebuild story lines are true. it's also true that that is having a huge impact on average in communities. >> i am somewhat surprised i ended up doing this kind of work because i didn't really think would. and the situation is one where what a lot of us in this remark which is a sensible legalization program that would have allowed you to go back in barrier father , the only when l.i. happen is if congress acts. and there are a lot of people and congress to have insisted that there will only act if they believe that we are not going to end up in the situation we ended up in 1986 where we legalized 3 million people with the promise that this will be a one-off and a decade later we have 12 million did he have to be able to say, we do have a credible enforcement system. my hope is ben that as some point the republicans would beepers winnable. i don't know any more. i am not sure. and then the logic changes. but a lot of the reason i do this is because i think the way to make this right is with the proper legalization program, and the only way you do that is with credible enforcement. sadly, the timing is a big problem. these things need to go hand-in-hand and they have not. >> i would say a version of what both of us have said. it's a terrible story and it's awful and everybody can understand your pain. but we do -- i think, and any metaphor is inappropriate, but we live in that time that is like prohibition. rules that are realistic and are wrong. that is a situation you are in in a way is not to say no rules matter and that we don't believe in rules. in order to get the better rules we have to say we do believe in rules which is kind of the stage we are in now. in some way your family and many other families are suffering for the. people think we're in a system where no rules apply. >> one of the point. we have to recognize, if this graph is correct, which we think it is, government data, there is a lag going on between the sense and reality of what people are experiencing and what the system is doing today. in many cases and if you have read the new york times piece about the backlog in immigration courts, there are people who are coming for deportation today who are originally apprehended 67 years ago under a completely different system we have now. what you saw in that data was that far fewer of those people are actually being deported. the courts themselves are implementing the prosecutorial discretion standards and letting far more people go because they were not apprehended at the same set of standards that we are applied today. that was the whole thrust of the really powerful piece in the new york times using a lot of new data came out of the doj. the key thing is that the ag total stories to million know, many of them are things that happened two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, five years ago under completely different system. i think that both of these things can be true. your story can be true while also this can be true. the system is also changed, and it is my basic contention that the president deserves far more credit from the immigration advocacy community forever been responsive to their concerns and change the system are virtually now is almost impossible a few live in the interior of the united states and do not have a criminal record, virtually impossible for you to be deported. that is a completely different system than we have in 2009 when all 11 million undocumented were on the imminent threat of deportation at any time of day and a completely different system of the republicans passed and hals. the house republicans have wanted to roll back and make sure that ice reestablished as the eminent threat of deportation for all people. the republicans in the house on record during the amendment voting for the in 2013. the contrast speaking as an obama supporter between somebody who has only a reported 10,000 people or noncriminal border crossers and 2013 being responsive to your concerns and a republican house leaders who want to undo all those reforms and put the threat of ice imminent deportation back into the system immediately, there is an enormous contrast. i think this is something that we have got to sort of honor. this is, again, very different and where we were a few years ago which is why i think we're having events like this to honor of the new data that we have and don't create a clear picture of where we are today. >> i'm not going to rise to the bait. i could. i live in your house. i want. maybe later in the conversation. >> the devil's den. >> i enjoy it. i want to get to a couple of reporters in the room, and then we will get back to some other folks. >> thank you. financial magazine. this is a very important issue for our readers. the question i have is, is this purely a republican versus democratic
>> coming up later today, remarks by kevyn orr, the emergency manager for detroit. asis overseeing the finances they emerge from bankruptcy. he announced it tension agreement with a number of detroit employees. live coverage of his remarks scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. eastern. this past tuesday, the supreme court heard arguments in a case andlving the aereo company whether it in french on rights of networks by offering programs without paying copyright fees. you can hear that argument and comments from the attorneys tonight at 8:00 eastern. at 2:15 eastern, whistleblowers talk about the challenges they face in exposing wrongdoing. here's a portion of the program. snowden looked at these look at chelsea manning, assange, realize he had to be out of the country if he was going to put out this amount of information and to be able to tell what he had done and why he had done and to comment as he has been doing. speak -- i was out on bond throughout my trial and i was able to speak to demonstrations, lectures, to do this and that. there is not a chance in the world that snowden would have been able to do that. he knew, from looking at chelsea manning, he would be an -- in an isolation cell for the rest of his life. no journalists, to this day, noe has smoking -- journalist has spoken to chelsea manning. not in four years. no interviews, no nothing. they will not. you are not allowed to speak to them in prison now. snowden had to be out of the country. he learned from that. he learned that you need to put out a lot of documents. all the more reason he had to be out. one reason we have seen earlier, what makes a whistleblower -- it turns out -- it is pretty hard to do it turns out. people knew the secrets, knew the truth, and many of those, perhaps most of them knew that these involved life or death matters on which major lies were being told. where the truth could make a difference, and yet, they did not speak out. we have to change the culture of secrecy. change the benefit of the doubt that is given wrongly to politicians and to the president in terms of what the public should know and should not know. thinking that clapper or keith alexander, or the president should be the last word on what the public should know about what they are doing in our name represents a culpable ignorance at this point. any ofhave lived through these things, these people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. ,ehind the veil of secrecy extremely bad, disastrous policymaking goes on. it has no accountability. thee have learned from pentagon papers, documentation, as we have learned from snowden. papers, whichiraq , theill do not have decision-making is actually very bad. stupid,t only criminal, it is also stupid and ignorant to a large extent. it is not subjected to a larger debate, even within the government. let alone within the public. the reason that the constitution , that tom has been talking about, is not indeed obsolete. it was a good idea then and it is still a good idea. it has to be defended. ,efended against people starting with those copresidents and their minions, and many people in the press, after 9/11, we have a new kind of threat for which the constitution, 200 years old, was not suited. we need a different form of government in which it is true that if the president does it, it is not illegal. we have no choice but to leave it up to him to decide what to tell us. >> you can see the entire program, which also includes thomas drake. it also includes a former ethics official who now advises edward snowden. easterntomorrow at 2:15 on c-span. president obama is in south korea today. he had been in japan since tuesday. writinghington post" about his meeting. north korea is already the most isolated country in the world, by far. its people suffer terribly because of the decisions leaders have made. we are not going to find a magic bullet that solves this problem overnight. will talk with leaders in the philippines and malaysia. he will be the first president to visit that nation since lyndon johnson in 1966. he will return to washington on tuesday. thank you, mr. speaker. >> the death of trayvon martin is an american tragedy. often, violent acts resulted ,n the murder of trayvon martin they are repeated in the streets of our nation. allplaud the young people across the land who are making a about hoodies and the natihoodlums in this on. racial profiling has to stop, mr. speaker. just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum. -- bible teaches us >> the member will -- >> we will show the man what is good, what does and does not require you, love mercy and to walk humbly with your god. testament, it teaches us these words -- the spirit of the lord is upon me because he me --ointed >> the gentleman will suspend. >> i urge all to hear these words, to heed these lessons, may god [indiscernible] >> the member is no longer recognized. the chair will last be sergeant at arms to enforce the prohibition on the core -- on decor. clause five of rule 17 prohibits the rule of -- the wearing of hats when the house is in session. members need to remove their hoods or leave the floor. >> find more highlights in our facebook page. c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. ruthrsonal stories from bader ginsburg and colleagues and friends from canada and israel. they share what it took to rise above the odds to reach the tops of their fields. >> good afternoon, everyone and welcome to the national museum of women in the arts where women, the arts, and leadership come together every day. and we are so glad to have you here for this evening with our three justices. we are very pleased to be partnering once again with the embassy of france and especially i want to give a thanks to madame sofie for being a wonderful partner with us. [applause] my remarks tonight are logistics. we will have this wonderful conversation this evening and that will end with q&a. at 6:00 we will go to the third floor for a reception and then dinner will be an hour later, i promise, at 7:00 p.m. town in the great hall. i would like to introduce madame dalatra to make her remarks. thank you very much. >> rest reassured we will be switching to english. this is a very personal event and i really want to thank you all for being here tonight. many of you have come from outside of washington, from chicago and new york and canada and really it is very special. you are here because of the three extraordinary women. each of whom i have had the privilege of getting to know. justice abella from the supreme court of canada, the justice from the supreme court of israel and justice ginsberg from the supreme court united states. before we introduce each of the justices and begin an historic and extraordinary conversation i want to say about how this event came to being and why we wanted to do it. justice and her husband erving were friends when we were posted in canada a few years ago. i was, as you will all be tonight, moved by her personal journey and undying faith in humanity. i also learned that she and justice ginsberg were girlfriends. when we moved to washington it seemed natural to arrange a conversation between these two extraordinary women. that opportunity arose when i had the privilege of attending a small private dinner at the former mayor of montclair's home. she had justice ginsberg with her and i said ask her if she would be interested in conversation and she immediately agreed and she said well, why don't we invite doris my friend? and so it then became this threesome with chief justice dorek. it would not have been possible had justice ginsberg not reached out. this evening is the result of many extraordinary women who pulled resources together. mary, which we just talked about, the three justices, of course. mrs. willhelmina. judy woodruff an icon in journalism. mrs. bennett, a force of nature in washington. my friend connie millstein. and many, many others. this evening's conversation is truly historic and for the first time we gather three women from three supreme courts who are girlfriends and from three countries. they are each a living monument. at a time when so many people are asking where are the women, this evening is a response. they are here. they are there. they are everywhere. we just have to look. we have to ask. we have to listen and we have to act. and france, my country, is taking action. each of us in this room has the power to identify leaders and become a leader ourselves. what has astounded me with the three justices from very different backgrounds growing up in different countries, each took very similar paths. canada, united states the israel, each of these women were firsts in their countries. the issues of womens rights is a conversation worldwide across all cultures. we are looking to identify those leading the path for change and today we have an opportunity to give three of them even more visibility. when you think about it, these women have an impact on the future of their countries for generations to come. elected officials decisions can be altered by the courts, and it is the supreme courts that define some of those difficult issues today which will impact future generations. in the decades that follows as historians look at cultural changes in our societies around the world these leaders will be at the forefront. historians will read their decisions and interviews and biographies and this one will stand out. we hope you enjoy this evening. now may i please allow judy woodruff to begin this historic conversation. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, for being the inspiration behind this evening. what a treasure it is to bring these three extraordinary women together. it is not only my great privilege, it is an extraordinary honor and a great pleasure to be here with you. i want to thank susan sterling for introducing us and wilhelmina holiday whose idea it was to have the museum and have the conversation in the perfect place in the city of washington and at this moment. let's get started. no more time wasting. these are, as you just heard from sophie, three path-breaking women. you have the full biographies in the program. i want to remind everybody about who they are and where they came from truly. i'm going to lead off the conversation and then we will leave some time at the end for questions from you in the audience. so keep that in mind as we talk. first, from your left, the honorable justice rosalie silverman ibella. having been appointed in 2004. she was just 29 years old when first appointed as a judge. making her the youngest and first pregnant judge in canadian history. she had practiced civil and criminal law for several years and from the family court moved to the ontario court of appeal before being named to the supreme court. along the way she has been actively engaged in employment equity, labor relations law, access to legal services by those with disabilities. she is considered and for so many other reasons, and is considered one of canada's foremost experts in human rights law. the justice was born in a displaced persons camp in germany soon after the end of world war ii. her family came to canada as refugees four years later. besides the distinguished legal credentials she has a degree from the royal conservatory of music in piano. justice abella. [applause] >> next the honorable dorit. she served in the capacity for six years, the first woman in that position. she was recognized, among many other things, for her focus on protecting civil rights and human rights, women, and socially vulnerable immigrant workers and emphasized the importance of judicial review of activities of the executive branch of israel's government. her service as president of the supreme court followed 10 years as justice of that court. prior to this she served as a district attorney, director and deputy in the state attorney's office and as the state attorney of israel. the first woman in that position. she was born in tel aviv. justice dorit benish. [applause] >> and third, someone we know very well, the honorable ruth bader ginsberg, associate justice of the united states. justice ginsberg serving in her 21st year, only the second woman appointed to the u.s. supreme court when she was named in 1993 by president clinton. prior to her appointment she spent 13 years serving as a federal appeals court judge for the district of columbia. that followed a distinguished teaching career at rutgers university where she cofounded the first law journal in this country to focus exclusively on women's rights and at columbia university. as general counsel of the american civil liberties union she argued landmark cases before the supreme court on gender discrimination. she was described in a profile by the new yorker magazine as the supreme court's most accomplished litigator. she was born in brooklyn, new york. and as a measure of how far women in the law have come when she graduated from law school in 1959 at the top of her class she did not receive a single job offer. justice ruth bader ginsberg. [applause] i want to start by talking where you grew up and how you grew up. it is clear by talking to you and reading about what you have written and said in the past that that shaped you. start with you, justice ginsberg. brooklyn. growing up. tell us just a little bit about what it was like. >> i grew up with world war ii -- the overwhelming presence. it was both a sad time and then i remember the exhilaration in this country first on d day and then vj day. we were doing ting contribute to the war efforts so we were saving the wrappers from our gum, the tin foil to roll them into bags. we had victory gardens in our school and we saved from our allowance money to buy stamps to buy war bonds so that the end of world war ii i think was a very hopeful time in our country. >> and so it was new york city and you spent your formative years in the heart of that city. not travel, not a lot of travel but right there in the heart of that busiest, most populous city in the country. >> yes. and in addirondacks in the summer. >> and that is a good thing. that is a good thing. justice what about you, you said you were born in tel aviv. tell us a little about growing up, your family. >> i was born in tel aviv. it was my parents came in 1933 to israel which was then palestine. it wasn't the state of israel. they were kind of pioneers active for the movement for jewish people coming to israel. my mother was a kindergarten teacher which was i think the most famous in israel for many years for the important that she thought to education and to educate young children. she wrote in this field and she was very active. my father was working in public service. it wasn't an easy time, it was time of war and everything. when i was born, it was world war ii. at that time the last post card that my family got from my grandparents and my aunt from poland was congratulations for the baby and then they were murdered there. they didn't want to come because they thought it will be a burden on their children to be there in palestine and, of course, no one foresaw what the terrible future for them. i was always interested in education as a child even, in public activity and it was just by chance that i came to law and came to love it so much. so i grew where we spoke hebrew, we were -- the first israelis, i was 6 years old when the state was established. >> 6 years old. >> when, when the state was established. >> do you remember that? >> yes, it was such an excitement that even a 6-year-old child can remember. it was really excitement and the war was and we were during the war, of course. and you know, we all accompany the development of this state since my childhood. and maybe up to today. so that is the background in which i grew up. >> you really grew up with israel at the same time. >> yes, yes. >> now, you were born the war in many ways brought the three of you together, different times and different plays but affected all of you. >> defining for the three of us. >> you were born in germany as we mentioned. what is a displaced persons camp? >> my parents were polish. my father was a lawyer who grad -- graduated in krakow and my mother's family were business people in the city of poland. they were there and operating under german agis. they got married september 3, 1939. and then, had a child and spent four years in concentration camp. the child was killed. they found each other -- it is quite a remarkable story when i listen to my parents tell it. my father ended up in a different place from my mother. when she came back to poland she found out where my father was and rode the rails to prague but there was a typhoid epidemic. nobody was allowed in so she snuck in with the garbage detail. she found him in the back of the camp, frail listening to the radio, because they were announcing who had survived. they ended up in germany. i'm just stunned by the decision to have more children after something like that, but i was born july 1, 1946 so it was very soon after they got together. and they made us speak german. my mother tongue is german because they wanted us to feel like we belonged. so on some level that i didn't really understand i realized there wasn't any hate, there was just the desire to overcome and make us feel normal. they spoke polish to each other and my grandmother spoke yiddish. my father taught himself english and was hired as a lawyer for displaced persons. i have wonderful letters from judges and lawyers qualifying him and recommending him for when he was able to come into canada which we were finally able to do in 1950. >> why did he choose canada? >> he had a relative here. canada had, as you know, not a great record of allowing in jewish refugees. >> shout out for your husband. >> right here. but more of him later. i remember my father -- one of my earliest memories in canada, they quickly learned english and switched to english in the home. and i remember my father coming back from having gone to the loss society of upper canada to say i am, i speak english, i'm a lawyer, i have done my eight years of training in europe and the americans have hired we, -- hired me. what do i have to do to practice law in ontario and they said you can't, you have to be a citizen. that would have taken five years and he had me and my sister and my mother to look after so he became an insurance well and did really well. i never heard him complain. but there was a moment when i think about it when my brain said fine, if they won't let him be a lawyer i'm going to be a lawyer. so i spent my life going to -- >> how old were you when -- >> 4. so i spent my life going to barmitzvahs and wedding when people said what are you going to be when you grow up i said a lawyer. i knew no women who were lawyers. all i knew was he couldn't be it and he wanted to be it and i would be it. it wasn't until i was 13, i read a lot of big books on weekends because nobody ever asked me out but that is okay. and i read -- >> somehow we don't believe this. >> i thought it so hard to believe now when you -- [laughter] >> what can i tell you? so les miseraables was the book that made me see what justice was and injustice was. the childhood aspiration caught up with a theory of fairness and i thought okay it was good that i decided to be a lawyer. but i didn't know any women who were lawyers and when i got pregnant in 1973 with our first son i didn't know any mothers who were lawyers but i was tenacious in my desire to replace what he couldn't be. but the most important thing about my childhood as an immigrant you have zero expectation of entitlement. it is all about opportunity. it is all about working really hard to pay back the country for letting you to be a member, working really hard in school so you are the top student in school. i played piano two hours every day because it was important to my parents. they wanted it and i was all about making sure that i lived in accordance with their values. and you know, it was of all -- we don't grow up in a jewish neighborhood. there were maybe two or three kids that were jewish of all of the kids i knew growing up, public school and high school. it was the happiest home. they never complained. they never were bitter. there was no sadness. i never had a sense of demons in the house and i didn't know until much older that that was not typical for the homes of survivors. they made me think i could do anything and i can't take any credit for it. they also said you will get married and have children. i mean this is jewish, right? of course, you can be a lawyer but you are going to get married and have children. but in a way it was easier because there wasn't should i do this or should i do this. it was a merger of aspirations and -- >> you will get married and have children. >> and you will be a lawyer. >> justice ginsberg, i don't think you mentioned your occupation of your parents. what sort of influence did they have and other family members have on your ultimate interest in the law? >> my mother was an avid reader. she never dreamed, i never dreamed that it would be possible to be a lawyer. i was going to be a high school history teacher. people asked me did you always want to be a judge? i said when i got out of law school the object was to get a job. any job in the law. these were pretitle seven days so employers were up front that they didn't want any women. the law school -- my class in law school had about 500 students, nine of them were women. so you can imagine what a tremendous opportunity i had when the women's movement came alive again at the end of the 1960's and there i was, a law teacher and able to contribute whatever talent i had to nudge this movement a little further. >> what do you think pulled you in the direction of the law and toward the idea of wanting to have something to do with justice? >> in large part it was a professor that i had at cornell university. his name was robert e. cushman. i attended from 1950 to 1954. a bad time for our country. it was the heyday of senator joseph mccarthy who saw a communist in every corner. and my professor wanted me to understand that our country was straying from its most basic values, that there were lawyers representing people, many of them in the entertainment industry, who were reminding our house on american activities committee and senate security committee that our constitution has a first amendment, freedom of expression, and a fifth amendment, protecting people from self-incrimination. so it was the idea that a lawyer was a profession and it was a field in which you could make things a little better. now, i have to say also that my family was not too keen on the idea of my going to law school mainly because they were interested in my being able to support myself. but then, when marty and i married, it was okay to be a lawyer because if it didn't work out i had a man to support me. [laughter] >> so the heat was -- they were relaxed about it after that? >> yes. >> i'm curious about how you all have spoken a little bit about, you know, the direction of the law but it wasn't just the law. you all have been advocates in our own way. you have all as we mentioned human rights has been a passion for all of you. but along the way there was something that kept you going. it wasn't just as you are saying, it wasn't just seeing that laws get passed by legislative bodies or that lawyers get a case argued, it was about, as justice ginsberg just said, making things better. was there a point when you heard a voice, justice bainisch inside your head that said this is what i want? >> you know, looking backwards, to be sincere, i think how did i come to law. it wasn't my first -- my first dream was to be also a high school teacher for history. and i went to the university to study history and literature. but really, i believed that you have to do something for your society. this was part of the education i got at home and i thought the best thing is to influence society through education to be with a young generation. i don't know how last minute decision was that i have to do a change from my routine thinking about education and i thought it was a revolution to go into law school. >> where did that idea come from? >> i don't know. because i wanted a change. and once i started i really fell in love with this profession, with law. you know, my surrounding everyone, i always tell the story that after i went, i started to law school i met my school master from high school. she was a very important personality in education. very influencial. and she said dorit, what are you going to study? i was then just released from the military service. i said well, i decided on law. she was so disappointed. [laughter] >> at the end, she said you know, if you will be a judge in the juvenile courts this could be good. >> why was she disappointed initially? >> i think she didn't know anything. she had values about young people. what do they do? how can we contribute? only when i started law school i realize you can contribute much more than any other field. it took time. she thought that lawyers have their business, and this is a sin. we were looking for something with value. little girls come to me many times and they say, what shall i do to be a judge, and i always wonder, i never thought of being a judge when i was your age. you just do good what you have to do. it comes if you do that. it's easier said than done, but they already start when they are eight years old, 10 years old, 12, to think what should they do? >> law is still a first degree in israel, isn't it? >> yes. >> you were rather young when you entered law school. >> we were not 18. more than two years, and only then i started law school. it's the second after you study your first degree. i started when i was 20 years old. at this time i really thought i would prefer literature and history. i love every minute of it. >> the first woman on the israeli supreme court, who was it? >> it was in the 1970's. i think women's career in law in israel was in a way easier than in the united states. >> why? >> because someone has paved the way. during the british mandate in israel and palestine, they had a mandate. women were not allowed to argue cases in court. they had to fight for that. they came to london. they learned women could argue cases in court. someone paved the way. we didn't have many women in the profession, but we had some when i started to study. >> in the 1970's the first woman justice. it was a few years before. what about being a woman? >> you made a very important point. it was inconceivable when we were young and even when we started practicing law that we would ever be a judge. inconceivable. there were no women judges. one of the reasons that was an advantage, and especially if you are kind of an outsider. i know it's hard to talk about it if you are on the supreme court, but we know what it feels like to be an outside insider. you do what you feel is the right you to do. >> what do you mean? >> if you know you are different. i was jewish, immigrant, female in a male profession that was largely -- grandfather was a supreme court judge. father was a supreme court judge. it can be a great advantage to understand you are different, that you are never going to be like anyone else, and that's good. enjoy the fact that you are different. don't try to homogenize. you do things not to the possibility of an ultimate objective, i.e., one day i want to be on the supreme court. and you measure all your choices. you take risks. you say, sure, i will run a labor board. i will be judge at 29. nothing was against my ultimate objective because i was having a wonderful ride in the legal profession. i now give advice when i am asked to young people and say you don't know where you're going to end up. give yourself a chance. the great tin pan alley songwriter was asked, what comes first, the music or the words, and he said the phone call. i get that. the other advantage our generation had is we had the banality of the 50's with the un-american activity, but then you had the 1960's. the women's movement, race, and in the 1970's the dialogue came. we were a generation in which change was all around us. that was a great advantage. to be a lawyer in an environment where it was all about legal change, where you have all these groups screaming for entry into the mainstream, that was a privileged time. we wanted a better world. >> what did that time feel like for you? you were teaching during a chunk of your career in the 1970's. >> 1963 until i got my first good job in d.c. >> what did that feel like to you? you plunged right in. you were involved in civil rights issues from the beginning. >> exhilarating and exhausting. what touched me most was one of the people who came forward and said, i have experienced an injustice. i think our legal system can make it right. the first case in the supreme court was sally reed's case. she was a woman from boise, idaho. she had an adopted son. she and her husband separated. she had custody of the boy. when the boy was a teenager the father said i want to have the child for part of the time. he needs to be prepared for a man's world. the family court judge said ok. sally was distraught. she had a reason to be. her son was terribly depressed and took out one of his father's many guns and killed himself. sally wanted to be the administrator of his estate. it was for sentimental reasons. idaho had a law that settled the matter. it is between persons equally entitled to administer an estate, the male must be deferred to males. sally thought that was wrong, and she took that case through three levels of idaho courts. when idaho supreme court ruled against her, a brilliant lawyer said that is the case that is going to change the court. they will hold the gender classification is inadmissible. they said once the women's movement was conspicuous, more and more people thought i don't have to put up with this. it should be changed. >> what touched you about that? she literally she came to you? >> a lawyer from the aclu read the report of the supreme court decision, called the local lawyer in boise, idaho and said the aclu would like to assist. the aclu has a mixed history early on that opposed the equal rights amendment because it was afraid the protective legislation that women were threatened by the equal right women, but after sally reed's case, they decided to start a women's rights project, so from 1972 until 1980, i spent most of my time -- >> did you -- i know you have written and spoken about this. how much did being a woman affect what you were able to do and you were arguing cases before the court? >> the women of my generation had to overcome certain obstacles. it was not ok to make indulgent jokes on race or religion, but women were fair game. i will give you one example. i was arguing before a federal court in new jersey, and they said, i understand women have made great progress. they even have opportunity in the military, and i said women are not allowed to have flight training. the judge responded, don't tell me that. women have been in the air always. i know that from experience with my own wife and daughter. one thing you don't say is you sexist pig. you want to win the case. if you got angry that would be self-defeating. the best thing was to have a sense of humor, to say, i have met many women who don't have their feet on the ground and then race into the next line. the last argument i had with the -- was in 1978. it was about putting women on juries in missouri. missouri had an opt out system where women were not required to serve and the summons that went out -- if you were a woman you need not serve. if you don't want to serve, check off here. how many people would volunteer? i had an argument with the public defender of kansas city. i thought i had gotten out the point i wanted to make. then the justice said, you won't settle. this is the same man that wrote a wonderful opinion of the family medical leave act. as long as you live you can learn. [laughter] >> justice, i described some of the work you did before you were appointed to the supreme court. how much did being a woman affect the deputy state attorney and state attorney? >> i don't know how much it affected. i think the story we just heard, what is so impressive is it is a vehicle to promote human rights and women's rights. we don't really have the equality we are struggling to achieve. what was difficult as a woman, was when i was in the ministry of justice, i needed many times to confront the politicians. i thought they don't respect enough the right of minorities, so i had many fights inside the system, inside the administration. i think you don't have to take it too seriously what you say. you have to fight when you want to achieve it. it's rather easy. some people said i couldn't get jobs when i had to. i don't know. maybe because i was a woman. maybe because i was a troublemaker. we can never know what was the real reason. i think women always have to be much better to achieve. we are not accepted for many jobs, many things. you have to do much more to prove you can do what every man can do and more than that, it wasn't easy. >> you know justice o'connor's story? she graduated from the top of her class in stanford. no one would hire her. she said, i will work for he. -- for free. after four months, if you think i am worth that you can put knee -- puit me on the payroll. >> that was how she got her foot in the door. your point is for women at the level you were serving, you were fighting a lot of behind the scenes. it wasn't in the public arena. >> this was behind the scenes. it was sometimes the decisions that were taken. it wasn't easy at all. i thought if you believe you are right, don't give up. try again and again not to give up. i think i never gave up. >> what made you stick it out? where did that come from? >> i thought we have to do justice. this is part of it. i thought the government should respect the law and respect for the both of the law. sometimes it's not so excepted. you have to fight for that. this was my experience. >> what's your experience? >> i never knew whether it was sexism or anti-semitism. it's hard to tell the reason there were exclusions. we knew there were. you just did what you did knowing you were in early days of the women's movement. in those days we all gave speeches on women and the law to talk about -- here is how the law treats women. in law school, i didn't know any of that. school is a meritocracy. if you work really hard you do well in school. you think life is going to be like that. then reality hits. it was from my women clients that i realized how the law treated women. it opened my eyes. >> what is an example? >> who gets custody, who gets divorced, matrimonial property laws. it used to be when the couple got married the husband and wife became one person. there were many examples of how the law had to catch up with the emerging reality. now we give lectures and seminars on women in the law. now the panels are, do you lie down, do you stand up? having achieved the numbers -- when we went to law school there were five women out of 150. now it is 50% and the conversation is different. the question you ask is an interesting one. i had to think about it when you said, what do you feel as a woman? they'll would ask judges this. does being a woman make a difference. i think being jewish, having experienced what we experience as used -- as jews and when it gives you an insight into the importance of understanding that you as a judge have to be open to reality in front of you and be ready to really listen, because their story may not be your story. the difference between a judge having an agenda and a judge truly listening, i remember all the conversations in the 80's and the 90's. all of those things meant to dismissively rebut arguments about why he quality was important for women. i remember thinking, you can't judge it from a majority perspective. you have to look at how the law looks to the people who want access to it who don't have the views of the majority. that's how i learned to understand what judging was all about, that you listen to two sides. one side is always mad at you. you have to be ready to be unpopular. when you are a judge, you are an institution that has the responsibility and independence to take a stand that is unpopular, so when people say it's an agenda or activism or reverse discrimination, i think what they are saying is, i don't like the results, so they throw a label around the decision-maker to say, what do you expect? she's a woman. whatever identity they attribute to the decision. i think the best judges are people who understand what it feels like not to have the same privileged world we all experience. >> you use the word outsider. you know what it's like to be an outsider who is empathetic to others. i think we would like to clarify one thing. you used the word agenda twice. agendas don't make agendas. we are receiving always. we don't make the controversies that come before us. but we do our best when they are on our plate to decide them. we are not like the political branches that do have an agenda. >> it attributed to us. remember the 80's and the 90's, the discourse was extremely critical of judges who were progressive. it was critical because they said they had an agenda, which is the worst thing you can say about a judge, because what it suggests is that the decision-maker has an intellectual basket that will accept evidence and information and keep the shape of the basket, and judges are supposed to allow the basket to change. when somebody said you have an agenda, it's a way of dismissing results and saying what do you expect, but it is absolutely a contradiction to what judges actually do. we listen, but that doesn't mean we have an agenda other than trying to get it right every time. >> there is another restraint on you. you don't sit alone. >> i tell people i am 800. -- 8 husbands. i say, imagine making every single major decision every day with eight husbands. >> i don't know about you, but deciding to go to a movie is hard enough, but eight, and they didn't choose you and you didn't choose them? it's really extraordinary. eight forced marriages. but i have never heard it but that way. >> and the three of us have in common that it allows us to file dissenting opinions. >> i don't want the afternoon to and without -- i don't know where we are because i don't have a watch and i am having such a good time. i think that three of us have another thing in common, speaking of eight husbands. we have been very lucky because having a partner at home who is utterly supportive and encouraging and therefore you -- there for you and lets you be really exuberant when you feel like it, cries with you, feels the joy when the children are doing well, that is so crucial to the soothing soul that people in difficult jobs have. i'm not saying it's difficult, but it's stressful, and that makes all the difference. >> let's pay tribute. >> you want to stand up while you are having tribute paid? [applause] >> and marty. >> we all agree. you've made it. you really made it. >> i want you to weigh in on this conversation we have been hearing. >> about the husband. >> about the husband i must say. it's much more difficult for me to decide then to decide what to do in court. those are the most difficult. courts do not have an agenda. we all agree. people do not understand it, because they think different. they should have an agenda. we come from a different point of view. this is the branch of government. we don't have an agenda. we can choose the cases. they started -- especially in our court -- we opened the door of the court. we don't decide. we can dismiss the case and say there is no legal cause, but when it comes and we express our opinions, some people may say, of course, it's their agenda. they care about women. they care about arabs because they are a minority. this is not a truth. we are independent. this is the right value. one government comes, and one government does. those are the values that exist in this society. >> how hard is that to do justice in such a polarized environment especially like the one we have in this country. >> one of the things that makes it possible is that all of us sit in high courts with higher statutory questions. we have many more questions involving statutes congress passes, and i wish the press more often would notice the cases in which we have unusual lineups, where you can't predict who is going to be on what side. we are also in systems where judicial independence is pride. i have a job i can keep as long as i am able to do it. full steam. >> you retired. >> a political point, and then i will take questions. >> this is supply-side rhetoric. we all got the language throwing around here when people try to delegitimize the integrity of supreme court's. i think it's really important to deconstruct what the criticisms were. judicial activism was not an expression i ever heard about a decision that restricted rights. i only ever heard it when a court expanded rights. reverse discrimination i understood as a remedy to reverse discrimination. the merit system. you would have to look in the meurer and say we had one until 2000, so merit system is a suggestion that affirmative action contradicts it made no sense to me at all. we were trying to get people into the system who had been excluded. we say that because the rhetoric around rights is the most controversial of all. governments are elected by majority, and they are responsible. if you want to be reelected you are attentive to what the majority says. we are committed to being controversial. people debate our decisions, and they should. we are there with 75 to life so we can make calls that we think are the right calls. when you think about what this public opinion means, which newspaper, so the notion there is such a magical thing that will vindicate or censure what you want to do, you don't have that constituency. your constituency is time. >> i think in my country it's a special situation. it's not accepted easily that we have to decide sometimes the need to protect rights is more important. we need security. we care about security, but we try to balance. this is not popular. sometimes this is what is criticized. to the public interest. this is tough sometimes. >> you really don't feel you need courage for this? it necessary for the judge to decide if it is the right thing. >> i think you need courage, and you have it. do you want to comment? >> we have those cases. i don't think there's any country in the world that has them in a more tense atmosphere than israel. i was drawn to what your colleague said, if we are so overwhelmed by security that we surrender our abilities than our enemy has won because we have become just like them, so the idea that court can't be swept up by the need for security. it has to maintain basic values of the system. >> because israel has done it the way they have, every western democracy and the world follows their jurisprudence because they have been able to transcend daily stress and find jurisprudence of right anyway. it has made them a world leader in that area. >> this is the guarantee for democracy. we have the values of democracy to keep. >> a question from the audience. right here. >> it's adrian. >> hi. >> i think you are right. >> my mother was the first woman judge in delaware. rosalie came many years ago to speak in delaware. i'm honored to see you today. my mother was appointed by the governor. in delaware we do not elect judges. in many areas where it was an appointment, and the olden days it followed the male line. over time appointment of judges has given the appointing party more than an opportunity to bring diversity. we have many places in the united states where judges are elected. that's where you may see an agenda. my question really is, i know in the united states we have places where judges are elected. in canada and israel, are there some judges and court systems where there is an election? >> are you kidding? i remember in judgment at nuremberg there is a scene where marlena dietrich is walking with spencer tracy. i love movies. oscar night for me is a religious night. she said, this is your country? i remember it was so odd the notion that you are directly responsive to the public for the decisions where you have to choose a side that may not be the one giving you the money. who do you go to for fund raising? i'm not saying there are very good judges who are elected. i'm talking about the theory of an election where you are directly responsible to the majority for decision-making. if you are doing sentencing, if you are doing constitutional rights, you are having to decide a minority versus a majority interest, and if you really like hearing a judge and you want to go back for another seven years, you are going to work very hard at not annoying the people you are going to go back to for money and reelections. i know sandra day o'connor is working really hard on this. the notion of populism is so deep in this country that one vote -- democracy is not just about elections. democracy is about institutions that work and check and balance off of each other. some are elected, and some are not. the judiciary scrutinizes the elected officials. so you have to be independent. you have got a different mandate. people always say, who are these people anyway? they are not elected. they are not supposed to be elected. they are performing a different function. >> it's the most frequent question i am asked when i go abroad. how can you have an impartial judiciary when you elect your judges? we know how it originated. there was great distrust of the kings justices. people wanted to have a say in who would be their judges. it isn't something i can explain when i am asked that question. i can say i am glad to be part of the system. >> i am a guest in the united states, so i'm not allowed to say what i want about the system. [laughter] it's really against the principles of independence of the judiciary, but i understand the historical background. sometimes when you have a tradition based on historical background it's very difficult. this is why it won't be easy to change, but it's against all the principles we believe in. >> question? >> yes. >> i am greta van susteren. my question is for the visiting judges. i am curious when you look at our trial system if there is anything you could tinker with. when i see the british system and the defendant in the back i think he looks guilty. i like the way we put him in the court. is there something about your system that you think might be a little bit better that we should perhaps tinker with? to both of our judges? >> i just said what i think about our system. [laughter] being serious, i think nowadays the privilege -- we have a wealth of communication, and we learn from other systems and we referred to the canadian system. we have a lot in common, and we learn from each other. it's not only a matter of majority. it's the values. >> is there any procedural difference that might be a little bit different and something to look at? maybe that is sort of odd and we might do this that are? >> we don't have a jury system. we are different because we have a different background. you carry your history, but we can learn from each other, and we try to do that all the time. >> in canada, juries are used for what? >> most references have civil juries, but we have big criminal cases. >> i think that is a good question, and here is why. the one thing all of our countries has in common is we have a real problem in court. that is the access to justice problem. we were talking about change before. one of the expressions i find least comfortable is they think it is a valid rebuttal when they say we have always done it this way. there is a light old joke about lawyers. how many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb? change? here is my story about what frustrates me about the way we resolve adjudication everywhere. in 1906 the dean of harvard law school wrote an article based on the speech he gave to the american bar association called civil -- public dissatisfaction with the civil justice system, and in the article he talked about how slow the system was, how expensive it was, how it was becoming a trade instead of a profession, how it was too adversarial, and i thought about that. i thought, people probably went to his lecture with the horse and buggy. doctors were still using leeches. i don't know how we listened to music. maybe that thing that goes around and around. look at every profession today and compare it to 1906. doctors have experienced in order to find better ways to save lives. what engineers do is totally different. we didn't have planes then? if you took a lawyer from 1906 and gave him training, he would feel perfectly at home in our court room. i don't get that. they say trust us, it's justice. here are doctors, experimenting with life, and we won't experiment with justice? i think we need a fundamental shift instead of tinkering around the edges. let's look at what the system would look like if we were starting it today. how would we resolve civil disputes? criminal cases are different? anyway, i have views. an agenda. >> greta, see what you stirred up. a question in the very back. >> i would like to address this to the justice. you have a very complicated court system in israel, particularly in family law. i am really interested in how you deal with religious and cultural aspects of law when you are dealing with secular jews and ultra-orthodox jews and arabs in the same court system. >> it's true we have a complicated system. again, we only have religious marriage and divorce, not only for jews. for arabs and muslims and christians. we have only their religious tribunals. we try to do more and more to achieve. i would daresay i may have an agenda, to achieve civil rights, -- civil marriage. but our court, our supreme court can and does review the decision, not from the substance of religious law, but through procedure. it's not perfect, but we can review these decisions and more and more to apply our civil principles in religious courts. it's not easy. they do not accept that kind of tension. i think if we are talking about women's rights, equality for women, they still suffer because we have this system of religious marriage, and this is a very difficult issue that should be changed. >> you are not just speaking of israel, or are you? >> to clarify what the question is, family law has given over to religious authorities. under jewish law as i understand it, a woman cannot get a divorce. you can only receive a divorce. tell me if this is true. there is supposed to be a man who said, let's see what the courts are doing. they say if i don't give her the divorce she wants, they are going to put me in jail. and there was a man for years and years in jail because he refused to give his life. -- his wife the divorce she wanted. that's how the civil court tried to adjust this one-way direction of religious law. >> we have sacred family law for every purpose. custody and other things, but divorce is in the hands of the court. all other courts -- this is a very serious problem. the court may send a man who refuses to give a divorce to prison. we had cases. this was a very famous case where he was ready to die in prison. not to get a divorce. it happened. there is public work trying to change the law. >> may be one more. this gentleman right here. >> i would like to ask the justice of question. during the process of negotiation leading to a hopeful palestinian and israeli peace, new conversation has arisen on the side of israel as to the recognition of israel as a jewish state. what would be the constitutional implications of this new conversation in terms of the rights of minorities in israel? >> i don't want to go into the question of political conversations or trying to reach an agreement, but israel, according to the basic laws we have -- this is our inc. -- our constitution -- it's a jewish democratic state. jewish and democratic. we have the basic colors of the israeli law. constitution, legislation. what does it mean? we have a minority of arabs. according to the declaration of independence, they have the right to quality. the question, what does this mean to be a jewish state. i don't need palestinians to recognize because i believe we are a jewish state. this is our law. we have not always agreed what does this mean. it means first of all a home for all the jews. this is the idea. this is the home of the jewish people. we have religious parties who think it should be a religious state. this is not what we mean when we are talking about a jewish state. we have jewish values. we believe there is no contradiction to be a jewish state. like every other state, yes, it is a democratic state and has to reflect the rights of the minority. i see no contradiction. the political matter is completely different. i think what he means is to recognize this is a home to the jewish people. >> one last question. [laughter] you both have your hands up. >> i am going to try to sneak in. i think what is understood to be the liberal side of the spectrum. is that a coincidence or something more? you talked about what it is like to have eight husbands on the court. i am curious about what it's like when those are wives and what is the impact to have more than one woman on the court at a time. >> she got two questions. >> a follow-up. [laughter] >> what about the question of women on the left side of the court? >> the breakthrough in the united states supreme court was the appointment of justice sandra day o'connor. born and bred a republican. and the arizona senate, but we voted in every case that involved women's opportunities. i didn't hear the first question, but i would like to say how great it is. there are now three women on the supreme court. it makes a difference in the picture that has been made. i sit close to the middle. justice kagan is on my left. justice sotomayor or on my right. the children in school, and watch what is going on in the court, and they see the women are not there just to look good. my colleagues are likely participants. -- lively participants. anyone who has been to the court knows that. last year several journalists counted the number of questions each justice asked, and they decided justice sotomayor or won the prize even more than justice scalia. the women are not shrinking violets. it was very lonely being the only woman. maybe it was better for sandra who was a more imposing presence. >> i don't think there is anyone questioning how imposing you are. you can take both questions. >> if i am asked if it's a coincidence, this is for social logical research. i think you are right that women are more on the liberal side. not only when we are talking about gender and women's rights, but somehow it's true that most of the women justices are on the liberal side. if you can label it. you have to be very careful labeling judges. there is something in it. there was a time when we were five women in the court. we sat sometimes in groups of three. we had a panel of three women justices in the court. in the beginning you could see they were suspicious. what are these three women doing here? it doesn't matter anymore. having women in the court is not an issue anymore. i believe we will have a vacancy and there will only be three more women to the court. >> i actually never thought about why or whether women are more liberal. it's true in canada we deny women -- we have nine women on the supreme court. i would say all of them are progressive. i think the supreme court in canada is generally progressive anyway. let me tell you how great it is to have a lot of women colleagues. when i joined the court in 2004, i was appointed with another colleague from the interior court. we became for women on the court. in not only normalizes the perception of the public that your supreme adjudicators can be of either gender. it's great inside the court because there is a collegial spirit when you have got people who have gone through the same experiences. it always put my colleagues back when a couple of women are arguing and it goes something like this. i don't think the charter was meant to deal with this issue. don't forget the decision we decided in 1903. i like that necklace a lot. that we -- [laughter] in the middle of the most sophisticated debate, we will notice a piece of jewelry. the first few times of that i remember them going, are you allowed to do that? am i allowed to notice your socks? it is a much more collegial and i would say less pretentious -- it's not one ought to behave this way because one is a supreme court judge. it's just nine people, many of whom happen to be women, and it's a privilege. it was really smart people who are men and women. >> so many smart questions, but our time let's just say thank you to these amazing women. \[applause] [laughter] [applause] >> thank you. >> the supreme court heard a case this week that will decide the fate of a technology company that streams local broadcast television to customers' computers, phone and tablets. the supreme court is looking at whether aerial is violating copyright law and must play licensing fees to broadcasters. we will have that oral argument tomorrow 8:00 eastern on c-span. orr we will have live --erage of that around 115 1:15 p.m.. >> that gene produces an allergy. you may have an allergy from eating corn that is genetically engineered an unlabeled. the process of genetic engineering created a switch on of that dormant gene and the change to 43 other genes as well as changing the shape of proteins. increase invenfold known allergens. this wasn't intended, it was a background side effect of the process of genetic engineering. the process that is used to create the soy and corn that we eat. organizations have no problem with gmo's. if that isn't enough for you, here are a bunch of other organizations. these are not organizations with some scientific sounding name. these are real medical and protective organizations. , in australia, all over the world. we pay attention to the epa when it comes to global warming. they say it would not pose unreasonable risk to human health and the environment. i could come up with dozens of these. c-span,weekend on genetically modified food. and this weekend on book tv, the los angeles times festival of books. authors and panels on the realities of war, feminism, world politics and events. american history tv, georgetown university professors on title ix, discrimination against women in sports and the education amendments of 1972, saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight on c-span three. homeland security jeh johnson has put charles edwards on administered of leave, this is according to the washington post. the post writing that a hadressional investigation tailored up old -- reports. he had directed altering and delaying critical investigative reports and audits at the request of top political appointees in the department. again, that from the washington post. last month a panel of supreme court reporters and scholars discussed transparency in the nation's highest court. changes,hed on policy vocus and on the court's website , and cameras in the court. the event was held in new york universities washington campus. >> i want to welcome you all this morning. thank you for coming. my name is tony morrow and i am on the steering committee of the reporters committee for freedom of the press, which is co-sponsoring this. and i want to thank n.y.u. also for sponsoring this event. i have also covered the supreme court for 34 years and have been immersed in these issues for pretty much all of that time. this is the second discussion we have had on the subject of transparency at the supreme court. the last one was a few months ago. the theme then and now really is that transparency in the case of the supreme court is about way more than just allowing cameras in the court. of course, that is very much on our wish list. we will see these other issues related to transparency develop even more this morning than over the last event. we have a terrific panel to discuss these issues, led by dahlia, it's my great pleasure to introduce her. she's also on the steering committee of the reporters committee for freedom of the press. another panelist sonny west used to be an intern at this reporters committee. dahlia covers the courts since before the turn of the century. when she arrived on the beat and ever since she's been a breath of fresh air bringing tremendous insight as well as a touch of humor to covering the supreme court beat. when she writes about a supreme court argument, you almost don't need cameras. emphasis on almost because her writing is so vivid. before i turn it over to dahlia, i want to mention if you would like to give the supreme court a piece of your mind on these issues there's the scotus booth of truth upstairs where you can tape a brief video with your views on these issues. i will turn it over to dahlia. >> thank you, tony. i want to redouble tony's thanks to the various sponsors and to n.y.u. for this absolutely gorgeous venue. and you all probably know that last fall for the first time in history some advocacy groups knocked a camera into oral argument for the first time ever we got to see live video of oral argument, which actually looked more like a sighting of the loch ness monster. it was awfully blurry and confused. but america went kind of crazy and people were interested in it, reminded -- especially those of us who go back and forth to the court and get to be in those arguments, the extent of which the branch that is meant to be the most transparent and open and everything that you need to know about the courts working is contained in the four corners of the opinion is actually completely unknown and unknowable to 99.9% of the american public who were glimpsing for the first time blurry judicial shoulders and getting very excited about it. so we're here to talk about transparency. not just cameras but all of the aspects of transparency. but i want to 0 just open by saying that transparency means not just that we can't see the workings of oral argument. but it means we also can't hear the workings of oral argument until the court releases audio on fridays. we can't readily access their website when we on the day the health care cases came down tried to access their website, it crashed. the best source of getting information about the court is not, in fact, the court's website. it's other websites. we don't know the justices' speaking schedules. we don't get copies of their speeches. it's very difficult to get their financial disclosures. don't get me started on their papers. so this branch that's supposed to be open and one of three coequal transparent branches of government is awfully hard to get into. and so that's what we're here to do today. and we thought in lieu of me reeling off introductions of panelists who are amazing each in their own right, i'm going to ask each of them to just introduce themselves to you and tell you for half a minute who they are, why they have skin in this game. then i want them to answer a question that is completely open ended because that's the kind of hipsters we are. and the question is going to be, what does transparency at the supreme court mean to you? we will start right here with willie and go down the line. just ten seconds on who you are and why this is an issue that's important. and if you would sort of develop an idea about what transparency means to you. >> sure, thank you, dahlia, very much. it's a real pleasure to be here. i'm a partner at the partner goodwin proctor here in d.c. why am i here? i'm here because i'm a lawyer who briefs and argues cases before the supreme court. i used to work for the justice department and now i'm in private practice. much of work -- my work is before the supreme court as well. what does transparency mean to me? as lawyer and advocate, it's not about the cameras, it's not about the papers, it's not about the speeches and certainly not about financial disclosures. it's about the decision of cases, which after all is the justices' a number one job, to decide cases. when they decide cases, what do they decide and what do they decide them based on? those are kind of transparency things that get me up in the morning. because the courts will often say we're a transparent branch because everything is public. the briefs are public. they're on a website, not the court's website. the oral argument is public. it's transcribed easily, peruseable on the court's website and so on. does the court limit itself to what's in the briefs or not? and i think one striking example of that is through buried in justice kennedy's juvenile life without parole opinion from a couple years ago where he was developing some statistics about how many young offenders were incarcerated for interment life without parole. you see in that opinion very unusual citations including letter to supreme court library from federal bureau of prisons. letter to supreme court library from i think district of columbia, department of corrections. basically the justices had asked other parts of the federal and municipal d.c. government to do research for them and provide that information, secretly, not copied to the parties and i'm not revealing inside information because i don't have any but the solicitor general did not participate in that case. it may have been a surprise the attorney general, slit iter general the bureau of prisons report that the bureau of prisons was opining or providing factions on this fairly complicated and nuanced issue. i think it was a surprise as well. so when you're standing in the court, you speak your piece, sit down and chief justice says the case is submitted. the briefing is all done. oral argument is all done. then researching begins so the transparency concern i have is justices of on view that as the beginning and not the end of the fact at law and science gathering process. justice breyer i think is also fond of citing social science and other secondary literature in his opinion. in most cases none of which is cited by the parties, his own research. that's how he decides cases. he finds it useful. how do you respond to citations and convince hem not to rely on them because you have not seen them until they appear in his opinion? >> hi, i'm clay johnson. i'm the c.e.o. of a company called department of better technology. i'm a former presidential innovation fellow. used to be director of sunlight lab at the sunlight foundation and before that founder of blue state digital. we made barackobama.com in 2008 and a bunch of other things. i guess i'm here to present the technical aspect as you can tell by my lack of tie. what does transparency mean to me in terms of the supreme court. i think it means three things in desending order of primplete first thing is means to me is education. there are no other fields in the world i can think of where the players at the top of their game are obfuscated from public view. imagine if you will, we took every beautiful skyscraper and wrapped it in a cardboard box before you could see it, or the scores to the super bowl were the only thing you saw from the big game. and this has an adverse effect i think on people who aspire to these jobs or to aspire in the legal profession not to be able to watch people who are at the top of their game deliberate before the court and argue before the court. i think that that's a remarkable law. the second thing is history. transparency means history to me. we're doing a great disservice to the dignity of the court to make bush v gore or citizens united are captured in low resolution audio files and that's it. and moreover, because of various technical things, oftentimes webpages are cited and arguments all of the time but someone did a study more recently that said, about 30% or so of all of the links cited in these arguments are now gone. so we're not taking that sort of technical step of archiving the context of these decisions at all and as we further rely on technology, especially the web in order to do that, this level of context being removed seems to be a great disservice to our children and to the people that are going to come after us. and finally, it's about accountability. i don't find that argument to be the biggest and most important one. although it is important. i just find that my work both inside and outside of the federal government, you know, going to someone, anyone and saying hey, i would like to place a camera behind you so i can watch and scrutinize everything that you do in realtime tends to be a tough sell. so i tend to lead with more substantial arguments like, this does not reflect on the dignity of your job. so i think those are the three things that matter the most to me around transparency. and why i care about this issue. >> good morning. i want to thank gabe for inviting me and tony and dahlia for hosting it. i'm excited to be here. my skin in this game is pretty serious. i teach constitutional law at georgia state in atlanta. it's ironic to me that the supreme court might be the least transparent court in the united states because at best i am with judge pozner that it is a political court. i in fact don't think it's a court at all. to the except there are transparency issues to begin with judges i don't think the supreme court really counts as a court. i will give you a great example of that. every year thousands and thousands and thousands of people send surpetitions to the supreme court. lawyers spend hundreds of hours working, fee are paid, parties are incredibly vested in this. maybe the most important decision the justices make is which cases to hear because if they don't hear a case, then whatever happened at the appellate level is the final say and we're done. and we don't even know which justices voted to grant cert in a particular case. this is an incredibly important public vote on a matter of public concern and there's simply no reason why we shouldn't know this. and it's relevant, truthful information about a public body. now, they may argue that too much would be read into who decides to grant cert and all of that. but the bottom line is, i was litigating supreme court cases in the 1980's with some of the leading litigators at the time, and at the trial court level, we had a short state case and the entire effort was to make the record such that justice o'connor would be pleased. and this was five years before o'connor would even see the case. so much speculation going on anyway. if we know that four moderates vote to grant cert in an abortion case, we have some idea where justice kennedy might stand or at least where they think justice kennedy may stand. that might be wrong. it may be right. but who votes should be a matter of public record. which leads me to my overall point. with the president, with the congress, with state lectures, there is a presumption of transparency and then there has to be a good reason for secrecy. if there's a good reason for secrecy, to print that and presumption can be overcome. when it comes to the supreme court of the united states, there is a huge presumption of secrecy and only if that's overcome do we get transparency. and that to me doesn't make any sense at all. i have now run this by a lot of supreme court litigators and law professor and no one has yet given me a good reason why we can't find out who voted to grant cert in a particular case. if we don't have a good reason for it, the public should know relevant, truthful information. >> i'm bruce brown. i'm executive director of reporters committee. for freedom of the press. and i'm here because the committee was underrepresented as a -- [laughter] i thought we had to balance the panel out. for the reporters committee, which represents the interests of journalists and covering institutions like the supreme court, obviously, we care deeply about the immediate access to see and hear what goes on in the building. and we care about it not just for us but, of course, public at large. there's a groit moment described in the book, fourth estate in the constitution, about the oral argument in richmond newspapers which came along at the time when the press had been losing access cases when it had been arguing for some kind of special privilege that it had. laurence tribe, who argued the case for the newspaper petitioners is after just another example of the press coming in and asking for some kind of special protection for its own interest. and tribe responds and says no, the access we're seeking is the access that belongs -- excuse me, to the general public. and that was the core for the access law, that was the moment that tipped the scales and the court in richmond newspapers then grant this historic decision recognizing the right of access. again, not just for the press but for the general public. but for the general public. and when we at the reporters committee think about access, we're thinking not just in the short term. can we get reporters into the court to cover the hum of what happens in a particular news cycle building, but also the long term? dahlia mentioned papers and supreme court papers. and one issue we're also very interested in is trying to really force the court away from this ad hoc system of each justice deciding on his or her own when and how and under what circumstances to make papers available and to move instead to something more regularized like what you have in the presidential system now, which was put in place by legislation in 1de
loss of oxygen at that level. it is very cold, so people say it is very surprising that he was able to survive. >> does tsa keep track of attempts like that? that has got to be an infrequent occurrence. >> there are some lawmakers that say it is happening more frequently in recent years. area,s a bit of a gray which is what lawmakers wanted to get into. isport perimeter security usually handled by airport police department, but tsa is also supposed to make sure that every passenger that comes through has accurate boarding documents. there is some overlap in jurisdiction there. youru wrote in one of articles that a representative of california, homeland security committee, wrote a letter to the comptroller general of that perimeter security. what did he want to know? he is calling for a nationwide reassessment of airport perimeter security. he says this incident shows that there are large gaps in security in some of the jurisdictional gray areas i was talking about. he is calling for an examination for all airports in the country. he said that has not been done in several years. iswe are showing the viewer a field hearing of the house homeland security looking at the 2013 shooting at lax airport. they talked about a number of issues including security. tsa sort of efforts did make, in particular, after that shooting at lax? >> there has been a bunch of changes that have been recommended. the los angeles airport and the authority that oversees it conducted a review of the security situation of the emergency response situation during the november shooting and they found that it took too long for airport police to get over because tsa agents are not armed. in that situation, there are some groups that are calling for the creation of armed tsa officers. in that situation, the union for tsa workers said that the agents were sitting ducks because they had an active shooter, there were no airport police who were armed, tsa was not. >> once again the issue of security, and back to the stowaway issue, you write the tsa administrator headline in the hill says that they question the tsa chief after the stowaway. what will they want to know? onthat hearing was already the books, probably will take on a different flavor now that this incident has happened. it was supposed to be a broader look at tsa's efforts to develop new procedures to keep up with the new threats that are emerging. that there will be questions from lawmakers from both parties on how a teenager was able to access a flight in an area where only authorized personnel should of been, and what tsa would be doing to deal with those challenges. >> you can follow keith on twitter. you tweet about a poll dealing with the tsa and how people feel. only 50% believe tsa makes flying safer. did any of those poll numbers translate into fewer flights by passengers? not appear. that poll was conducted by harris interactive. it was more an assessment of passenger attitudes, about flying, they separated the data into people that live very frequently, business travelers, infrequent flyers. it did not seem like there was anything to suggest that people were less likely to fly because of the tsa. >> you can follow keith on twitter and follow his reporting at thehill.com. thanks for the update. >> now to that house homelands subcommittee hearing held at los angeles airport on march 28. >> the committee on homeland security subcommittee on transportation security will come to order. the subcommittee is reading to them in the transportation security administration preparation for and response to emergencies at airports. before we begin, i want to welcome the witnesses and extend my thanks to those participating in the hearing. i appreciate the efforts of all those involved to have this important hearing. this is an official congressional hearing as opposed to a town hall meeting, and as such, must abide by certain rules of the committee of homeland security and of the house of representatives. i wish to remind the guest today the demonstrations from the audience coming including applause and verbal outburst, as well as the use of signs or packard's are in violation of the rules of the house of representatives. the rvs and campers are limited to accredited press only. i now recognize myself for an opening statement. i want to thank the witnesses for their participation in this hearing and their commitment to aviation security. also want to acknowledge the sacrifice of tsa officer hernandez who lost his life on november 1 2013. it is my sincere hope that this hearing reminds us not only of the horrible events of that day but also motivates us to make changes that will improve our ability to detect and deter potential threats and respond to future emergencies. i believe we owe it to mr. hernandez and all those impacted by the shooting to examine the fax and shed light on the details and the timeline of this incident in an open setting. that alone is the purpose of today's hearing. the shooting that occurred here at lax exposes significant weaknesses in the federal or the ability of federal personnel to communicate and coordinate during an emergency. i suspect this exist in other airports across the country. perhaps these witnesses stem from constraints or clashes between agencies, or a believe that an incident like this is unlikely. it is certainly easier to push emergency planning and size on some time to the distant future rather than making a top priority than today when you have so many other competing demands for time and resources. having said that, most of my colleagues will agree, in a 13 years after 9/11, these types of flaws cannot be tolerated, regardless of the reasons. based on reports and pleaded by tsa, it appears there is widespread agreement on this. according to los angeles airports, the response and recovery efforts following the november shooting lasted roughly 30 hours. shooting affected over 1500 .lights and 171,000 passengers among the findings of the report , they highlight significant coordination and challenges among local first responders. i'd agree with the assertion that airport security needs to become more risk-based, emergency communications need to be more streamlined, and it must be a unified incidents command center after an incident like this. the report provided details on certain aspects of the response, but they did not mention where the officers assigned to terminal three were at the time the first shots rang out and what impact if any this may or might have. i believe the location of these officers is crucial to understand the viability of a .lexible response especially when you combine it with a lack of interoperable radio communications that we know exist. if we do not have law-enforcement officers station at heavily traffic screening point or ticket counters, we should at least have confidence that we know when the first officers will be there to respond to an active shooter or to an emergency. i look forward to discussing this issue in greater detail. we have had the benefit of reviewing tsa's recent report which highlights several recommendations, actions, including mandatory active shooter training for screeners and improved mitigation systems and enhance law enforcement officer presence at checkpoints and ticket counters during peak travel times. bottom line is tsa cannot do it alone. it must rely on local law enforcement partners in an event like this. for i conclude, i want to remind you that we are on a tight schedule today with folks flying out at various times this afternoon, so i will be enforcing the five-minute rule for all members to hopefully we can get through to give you of questions. follow-up on the hearing to look more broadly at what lessons were learned once we put the fax on the record here today and how they can be applied to airport asian wide. i welcome all member -- members to attend the hearing as well. i now recognize the ranking member of the full committee for any statement he may have. >> thank you for holding this important field hearing today. at the outset, i'd like to acknowledge executive director lancing and chief galen of the los angeles airport for their hospitality. your willingness to aid the committee and oversight for hosting a hearing and accommodating our members request to choose a side of this tragic shooting of november 1, 2013, is appreciated. two administrative pistol, thank you for appearing before the subcommittee to discuss tsa findings in the wake of the shooting and planned reforms to mitigate a similar incident in the future. we placed the security of our aviation sector in the hands of men and women of the transportation security administration every day. , the on the front lines tsa officers, deserve to know that we are doing everything within our power to see that they themselves are secure when performing the critical jobs of screening passengers. i'm pleased that the national president of the american federation of government employees is appearing before the subcommittee today to give voice to the transportation security officer worked corner. documented, onl november 1, an armed guard -- you been man entered a term of three of los angeles international airport and opened fire on transportation security officer hernandez. the gun then proceeded through the terminal, targeting other tsa employees, shooting and injuring transportation and security officers grigsby and spear. thanks to the bravery of the police officers on duty among the gunmen was open daily -- ultimately taken down and prevented from causing further harm. while some may wish to point fingers and assign blame for this horrific incident, i believe doing so would be counterproductive. all of our energy should be directed toward not only learning from the incident but also implementing needed reform. frequently, we speak of lessons learned from a tragedy but failed to implement the reforms necessary to present those lessons from having to be learned again. for instance, after 9/11, we identified an indication between and amongst first responders was an area that needed major reforms. despite knowing this and having spent $13 billion to correct the problem, a review of the report the airport released last week revealed more than a decade after 9/11, the police and fire department at this critical airport could not communicate effectively during an emergency. the two transportation security officers have been trained to use in the event of an emergency did not work. the state of affairs is unacceptable. our police, firefighters, transportation security officers, and emergency medical personnel, along with the american public, deserve better. ther the shooting at lax on targeting intent of passengers incident tsa personnel, untold lives could've been lost. in addition to the communication issue, i have concerns regarding the training of transportation security officers are receiving for active shooter scenarios. i look forward to hearing from the administrator for how he arends to ensure all tso's trained to respond to an active shooter scenario in a matter relevant to their work environment. before yielding back, i would like to acknowledge represent a divorce who represents the district the airport is in, and representative brown, for their participation in the hearing today. i must also ask for unanimous consent that representative waters and brown be allowed to sit in and question the witnesses at the hearing today. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. >> without objection, we welcome ms. waters and mr. brown. the chair now recognizes the chairman of the full committee, mr. mccall, for any statement he may have. >> thank you. offer my firstst -- sincere condolences to officer hernandez's wife, who we met with briefly before the hearing. i also want to recognize the tsa officers grigsby and spear. from what i've seen, you are true heroes. what you did the day. we appreciate your service. fornt to thank the chairman his leadership on this issue. i also want to thank the los angeles world airport for hosting us. chief galen, who gave us a tour of the terminal this morning. , ms. lindsey,tsa thank you for hosting us and giving us a briefing this morning. they were very informative and insightful. it is critical that agencies responsible for protecting our airports are doing all they can to keep passengers and employees safe. i believe this hearing is an important opportunity to examine lessons learned from the shooting, what went well, and what didn't. how we should apply those lessons learned to others as we move forward. unfortunately, we live in a very dangerous world. that's like the one that happened here are difficult if not impossible to prevent. but what we can do is improve our ability to protect the threats before someone starts oroting or detonates a bomb hopped a fence or takes advantage of any security thatole or vulnerability we have failed to close for one reason or another. as chairman of the committee on homeland security, i know how committed our law enforcement officers are and our transportation security officers are, day in and day out to stay ahead of any potential threat. yet, the tragedy that the world watched unfold at this airport could very likely happen again at another airport in the future . so we need to be prepared for that. wherever and whenever it may happen. there are valuable lessons to be learned here today by this incident. first, we need to dissect exactly what happened. among the shortcomings in the response to the shooting, we know that all relevant agencies did not join together in a unified command structure until 45 minutes after the shooting occurred. even then the los angeles fire department did not join the unified command. ins, along with the lack of some cases interoperability communications made the job executing an efficient response more difficult. what is perhaps most concerning about the problem identified after the incident is that it was as if the government had gunmenooting randomly -- had been shooting randomly rather than targeting tsa, we could've had dozens killed within the 4.5 minutes it took for officers to obtain the gunman. airport police were operating vehicle checkpoints and stopping certain vehicles to check for anything suspicious. yet, as the airport report points out, it was possible the shooter went through one of these checkpoints and the officers were not able to detect or deter him. there is no such thing as 100% security, but the situation reminds us that we cannot become complacent. we need to constantly stay ahead of potential threats with proven tactics and techniques, and there are some parallels to what happened at the washington navy yard just a month and a half before this incident occurred. i do want to close on a positive note. ms. we saw today with lindsay and chief janet, john pistole, not only prior to the shooting, what was done at the shooter, tostop the stop more bloodshed, the heroes that day, as i pointed out, are tso officers. chief, the great work that you did. i must say, i walked away very impressed with how this incident was handled by all the relevant agencies, but also the way they have looked in a self-critical way to examine what can be done better. that is what it is all about, how can we do a better job so we can prevent this from happening again? i must say i'm very proud of the police, ms.airport lindsay, your efforts with the airport, mr. pistole, what you have done with tsa, to make this place a seizure airport. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. now recognizes the gentleman from texas, ms. jackson lee, for any statements she may have. >> might i add my appreciation to you, mr. richmond, and also to the chairman and ranking member of the full committee of homeland security. i also wanted a knowledge my colleagues commerce and waters, who has come up with great honor, served his community and showed great compassion for these issues, and to forratulate congresswoman her important legislation that i hope will be passed and the president will sign. i thank all of you for coming to this hearing, particularly, the witnesses, mr. pistole, who is in service to the nation, ms. lindsay, your guidance of this airport, along with your whoeague, chief gannon, eloquently presented the case today of november 2013. mr. cox, thank you so much for standing very strong and tall for first responders in the name officers. today we will learn what we can do to prevent or mitigate a similar incident in the future. at the outset, i want to knowledge the ranking member of sir richmondtee, of louisiana, could not attend the hearing today, although he wanted to very much. he has asked that i express his regret, which i will do all that and ask that i sit in his place during the hearing today. at this time, i ask unanimous consent that ranking member richmond's didn't be inserted into the record. >> without objection, so ordered. >> again i think that witnesses for a. before the subcommittee today. a special thanks to the executive director lindsay and chief gannon, the administrator pistol, national friend tocox, a working men and women, for traveling to appear before the subcommittee. today we have the honor and privilege of having officer hernandez's wife present with us today and as we chatted about her wonderful children, i thought it was important to acknowledge to all of the clear,s, let it be very you serve in the stations defense, and that tso officers across america are first responders and they are serving to protect our national security. mrs. hernandez, your husband fell in the line of duty serving his nation, and we are grateful to all of you for your sacrifice and your willingness to sacrifice, saddened that it occurred, but we thank you for your presence today. today's hearing focuses on an issue that i closely observed in my time in congress and as a member of the homeland security committee. that is the safety and security of our aviation system and airports. i served as easy the chair or the ranking member of the subcommittee and work to enhance aviation security and the security of our critical infrastructure. indeed, i was the principal author of the last repetition security administration authorization act to pass the house of representatives and i would hope that we soon have the opportunity to look at that again with the many changes we may need to include. understanding the importance of training for transportation security officers, not legislation contains a section focused on the talisman of a centralized training facility for the workforce. i look forward to hearing from administrator pistol today on how he intends to train the entire transportation security officer workforce on active shooter scenarios in a setting resembling their workplace environment, a crucial element to the many tso officers across america. today's hearing also focuses on a topic of great interest to me in light of a similar incident having occurred, as i mentioned earlier, in houston, texas. last may, a man entered the houston internet -- intercontinental airport and was in the parking lot for over an hour and subsequently fired shots into the ceiling near a ticketed area. thankfully, no passengers or airport personnel were injured in the incident. the shooter ultimately took his own life. as an additional point, it was a tso officer that first acknowledged or thought there was something suspicious about this individual. ultimately, as this tso officer andronted the individual the department of homeland security law enforcement agent came out from under the direction and was part of the overcoming of the individual even though he had begun to look as if he was going to take his own life, taken together, the shootings at lax and houston bush internet -- intercontinental airport shows that airports are target rich environment, as unfortunate as it seems. whether it is the airplane, the area where passengers are, or whether it is in the open space and secure areas where tso officers are manning. knowing that it is incumbent upon us to implement recommendations and modify policies where appropriate that will make the airport environment more secure, airport personnel and transportation security officers. undoubtedly, russo will require resources and support from federal, state, and local authorities when an incident occurs that prompts support from multiple law enforcement agencies, communication systems are only as good as their weakest link. our challenge is to make that link a strong as possible. it does no good to the washington -- los angeles airport to invest in a communication system and the surrounding jurisdictions fail to do so. i look forward to listening to the testimony and will submit the rest of my statement into the record. >> i think the gentlelady. other members are reminded that you may submit written statement for the record. we are pleased now to introduce our distinguish panel of witnesses here with us today. first we have the honorable john pistole, the administrator of the transportation security administration and the department of homeland security since 2010. as tsa administrator, he oversees and manages approximately 60,000 employees, security operations of more than four hundred 50 federalized airports throughout the united states, federal air marshal service, mass transit systems, and pipelines. appointedey was general director of los angeles world airport in june 2007. she has over 20 years experience in airport management. she has briefly served as managing director for seattle-tacoma international airport and her attorney aviation for anchorage international airport. aggie for hosting us. mr. patrick gannon, appointed to the position of chief of airport police for los angeles world airports in november 2012 hearing chief of airport police, 100 --non leads over 1100 police officers, security officers, and civilian staff and ensures compliance with tsa mandates, airport rules and regulations, and international federal, state, and local laws. he retired from the l.a. police department in 2012 after 34 years of service. finally, mr. j david cox is the national president or the association -- american federation of governing employees. the largest federal employee union representing six hundred 50,000 federal and easy government workers nationwide in overseas -- and overseas. mr. coxlso point out, is from the eighth district of north carolina, so he is my constituent. always want to make note of that. i thank all of witnesses for being here today. full written statements will appear in the record. the chair recognizes administrator to stall to testify first. , ranking member, congress numbers, for hosting this field hearing on this important topic. opportunity to appear before you with these other distinguished witnesses. of november 1 demonstrated the bravery of our front-line workforce as well as their commitment to tsa's mission for protecting the nation's transportation system. in the immediate aftermath of the incident, tsa took a number of actions which i'd like to outline some including assembling a crisis action team to advise me and ensure communication and engagement with the workforce and stakeholders regarding the event. a call for a conference review of tsa policies, procedures, and training to identify improvements to the safety and security for tsa employees and by extension the traveling public. after meeting with the family of officer hernandez, and thank you for recognizing anna and the officers, the day after the shooting, i met with them, and then had the senior leadership team take the following steps. first, we communicated with our workforce what we knew and then with cricket updates. second, i convened a meeting of external stakeholders where we requested inputs for active engagements to consider and improve officer safety. third, i directed internal teams to assess options and make recommendations. fourth, i redirected a number of fromntermodal viper teams their surface trepidation missions to lax and other high-profile airports to serve as a deterrent to a shooter. from these reviews and assessment, we received hundreds of ideas and have limited over a dozen of them. tsaoyees from all levels of contributed to ideas through what we call our idea factory and then over 100 town halls, i and other senior leadership team convened. we continue to welcome stakeholder work force feedback as we remain engaged in advancing modernization. want toregard, i recognize the immediate and ongoing engagement our senior hasership team here at lax had with our over 2100 employees here at lax, the largest contingent of tsa employees of any airport in the country. and to thank each and every tsa employee, particularly here at lax, and terminal three, for their resiliency and dedication to the mission. directornt to thank lindsay and to our police for their strong partnership prior to november 1, and since that day. the lax shooting raises a number of issues about the training we provide to our tsa employees, and while they have received a number of different types of training, active shooter training was not a primary focus. since november 1, lies mandated all tsa employees receive this training and am pleased to report over 90% of our six 2000 employees have completed this training. in support of further efforts to reinforce emergency procedures, we've incorporated a reminder in our shift greece regarding evacuation routes and rendezvous points identified in the local navigation plan. as part of our review, we study how officers notified law enforcement of an emergency most effectively and determined that we need to do two things. existing alarms, and acquire and install many more alarms in airports around the country. interoperability of most federal agencies and state local authorities, it continues to be a challenge worldwide. we also instruct our federal to own adirectors wireless devices preprogrammed with their own emergency numbers to allow them to voluntarily program them into their personal devices. in addition to best practice we when a distress alarm is received it would be appropriate to automatically focus on the location of the alarm. after carefully studying the presence of law enforcement officers at checkpoints, tsa is also taking the following actions, including incorporating maximum response times in their airport security programs and recommending standards for increased presence at high airport locations, such as checkpoints, ticket counters, to provide a deterrence and quicker it's -- quicker response time. ofconclusion the shooting officer hernandez and three others reminds us of the dangerous world we live in. the shooting serves as a catalyst for tsa to assess its existing safety kerry -- existing safety security policy. there is no guarantee of preventing terrorists and others from doing bad things. the actions i have outlined divide a measured approach to mitigate risk without trying to eliminate it. clark's thank you. the chair recognizes the chief. member -- >> members of the committee, welcome to los angeles international airport. i am the director of los angeles ofport security and chief los angeles police. airport police is the primary law enforcement agency for los angeles world airport with a staff of 1100, of which approximately 2500 are sworn, the rest are support staff. los angeles airport police is committed to ongoing training. an active shooting exercise was held three weeks prior to the november 1 shooting. during this two-day training exercise we trained over 350 airport police officers in los angeles police officers and los angeles city firefighters to respond to an active shooter in an airport environment. we conducted this training in one of our airports. this training proved to be very helpful as we faced a gunwielding man at terminal three. on november 1, 2013, the alleged shooter entered terminal three at the departure level near a ticket counter. atwalked to a nearby line the foot of an escalator. at the bottom of the escalator was a podium staffed by geraldo hernandez. assault rifle from his luggage and shot the officer mobile times. he went up the escalator just a few steps but then turned and came back down and shot officer hernandez again. shots were fired passengers ducked for cover. within seconds tsa officers urged passengers to move away from where the shots were being number of tsa officers acted heroically and put themselves in jeopardy to make sure passengers got out of the line of fire. i would like to specifically recognize tsa officers for their heroic and selfless actions to protect passengers who were slow to exit the area. 10 seconds after the first shots were fired a call came in to airport police dispatch. the call was made by a supervisor who was forced to run from the area and was unable to provide information about the shooting. shortly thereafter an airline contract service employee who was near officer hernandez used his cellular telephone to call airport police within a minute airport police had a full discussion of the shooter and responded as quickly as possible. following the initial shooting he went up the escalator through the evacuated tsa screening area and then into a terminal concourse apparently looking for other tsa officers. fired an assault type weapons as people scurried for cover. this is where he shot and wounded other tsa officers and one additional passenger. airport police officers quickly converged on terminal three for many different directions as the officers arrived they were directed towards the suspect by a number of people in the terminal. the officers eventually confronted him near gate 35, where an involved shooting took place. he was stopped and taken into custody. the shooting of officer hernandez took place at approximately 9:20 a.m.. one minute 22 seconds later our airport police dispatch center broadcast the shots fired call in terminal three. at 9:25 a.m. airport police officers reported the suspect was down near gate 35. four minutes and eight seconds elapsed from the time the news the shooting was broadcast to our dispatch center to the time our officers reported the shooter was down in the terminal and in custody. this has been speculation event may have been prevented if an airport police officer was posted at the tsa screening checkpoint in terminal three. the facts are that a podium-based officer at the checkpoint not have prevented this murder and the officer would not have been in a position to keep them from attacking officer hernandez. i believe it podium-based officer would be more vulnerable in a carefully planned attack. school it wasigh 46 minutes before law enforcement was able to make entry into that school. to respond and neutralize the suspect within four minutes to when we had the shooter in custody is remarkable. even so we continually look for ways to improve our response time, even though we work each day to prevent or deter violent acts at lax. we can never guarantee this will always happen. what we have learned is that when a violent attack occurs, speed and quickness will be the key to saving lives. thank you very much. >> the chair recognizes mr. lindsey to testify. committee,of the thank you very much for coming to lax. and being willing to discuss the events of november 1. of the largest destination airports in the united states serving 66.7 million passengers through nine different terminals. passenger and cargo airlines that end of the 615,000 operations in 2013. november 1 was like any other busy friday morning at terminal three. loant of violence by a gunman set off a sequence of events of which you have heard a great deal. the suspect came to lax and a vehicle driven by a friend and was dropped off by a departure dislike many departing passengers. he was dressed as a typical passenger with luggage typically brought to the airport by passengers. was in custody, communications, traffic control and tactical operations remained quite obligated. airport police and their partner agencies did not know if there were other shooters. they did not know if there was a vehicle with a bomb or a secondary device placed in the airport area. lax handles about 200,000 passengers per day in its central terminal area and it is a massive undertaking to make sure we keep everyone safe. as soon as dispatch was notified landsideooting all airport access was shut down. we could only reopen once we were certainly were not putting anyone in harm's way. however simultaneously we were still accepting arriving flights. the number of passengers ultimately held on board grow.ft continue to while airport police quickly apprehended the suspect, significant travel disruption resulted in tens of thousands of passengers. our best estimates were there are 23,000 passengers in the terminals at lax. of approximately 3005 hundred people in terminals 1, 2, and three escaped onto the airfield and were then bused to appropriate holding facilities. that is the plan we have in place and on that day it worked. workers inngers and terminals one, two, and the three ran out to the central roadway. those and other terminals were sheltered in place. others who were still expecting to depart on flights continued to arrive at the airport, adding to the congestion and traffic gridlock outside the central terminal area. flights005 hundred 50 scheduled for lax that day 1200 and 12 actually operated. although 74 of those were cancel 250lines flight and diverted 800 flights to other airports 16 arriving flights were held on board for longer than 30 minutes. availablee were not what ran workers evacuated. of with lax effectively shut down or ripple effects throughout the national air transportation system that impacted an estimated additional 1500 flights remarkably the airport returned to full normal operations 30 hours after the shooting on november 2. lax established 12 evacuation and shelter sites and distribute it 16,000 bottles of water. there were partner agencies with passenger accommodation that also made extensive use of the news media websites and social media to communicate what information we had. months itt several , everyiewed in detail aspect of this incident and presented a comprehensive report to mayor garcetti and the board of airport commissioners with several key findings. the report assesses what happened, what could have been prevented, what response efforts worked well, and what areas of emergency management need to be improved. this report is available online. the most significant challenges centered on nasa vacation and public notification. in terms sheltering and customer cares, given the duration of the events, the ability to mobilize an entire airport community in response. lax has implemented a number of specific recommendations and will be implementing others in the coming months. the report also concludes that the immediate tactical response by airport police was swift, heroic, and well executed. collaboration with and in support with response partners was effective. terminal three was rapidly repaired and returned to service. we thank you for your attention to this matter and look forward to answering any questions. >> thank you. of the chair now recognizes mr. cox to testify. of flux thank you mr. chairman and ms. -- mr. chairman and members of the committee. testifyhonor it is to before a majority of the committee that has a southern drawl like me. first i would like to extend our deepest condolences to the family of officer hernandez and our best which is -- best wishes for the full recovery of the officers. attack, -- unarmed, unprotected, and exposed, tsa officers at terminal three checkpoint were easy targets for a man with an irrational hatred of tsa and our officers. results of our analysis are made fully in abridgments -- in a written statement. i will focus on recommendations for improved security going forward. if she strongly believes tsa should create an arms transportation security law positionnt officer assigned to protect tso's and passengers at airport checkpoints and other key locations. of trained ts eliot 's -- --ts leo rather our proposal would establish a new lawn enforcement unit within tsa. as we have heard, current airport law enforcement operations have gaps and inconsistencies that leave passengers vulnerable. many airports have no law-enforcement officers stationed at or in the airport. even where they do decisions about taxing, staffing, and the plummet have left many checkpoints without an officer stationed there to provide security for our unarmed tso's and passengers. placing one armed passenger at every key airport location will several security improvements, including integration of law enforcement operations,sa creation of a visible deterrent to those with criminal intent as well of those who subject tso's to verbal and physical assault and provisions for the quickest possible response when an attack occurs. i was interest of time simply list our additional recommendations. protected establish installations at each checkpoint with bulletproof glass to allow armed officers to better observe the area, detect a problem before it escalates, and create it is able to turn for those who might be planning an attack. tsa should continue to deploy lto's to the new monitor exit lanes. the lack of coordination across horrificcies made a situation even worse as emergency medical attention for our wounded officers was delayed. we recommend implementations -- gao reports on scientific research and enhance training to better identify threats to aviation security. we believe that will increase the likelihood that a bdl will be at the right place at the a potentialo detect attacker like the lax shooter. he is a must provide active shooter training to tso's relevant to each airport, which includes inter-agency grills -- interagency drills with other first responders. her fallen officers act would grant public safety officer , honor public service killed in the line of duty. we recognize that a very small portion of the population volunteers to be put in harms way to protect their country. receiveshould enthusiastic bipartisan support. we look forward to the same support for proposals we have made today. his concludes my statement, i would be happy to answer any questions. >> i recognize myself for five minutes to ask questions. i would like to start with you. four minutes eight seconds is quite remarkable from the time he received the call to the time your officers took down the shooter. i just want to acknowledge the heroes of the officers that served under you and the work i think everyone recognizes their action and they were extraordinary. one of the issues we have heard different information about was the location of the two officers in terminal three that day. i would ask we get it on the record and be clear where were .he two officers a >> the other officer was out on the airfield, which was quite a responsibility. my interest is not to get you with any officer. that ane a policy officer operates under when you're taking a break to you should notify someone, or was it standard operation to quickly take that break and quickly get back on? >> i guess that policy is to ensure that we have coverage in that terminal. somebody to making that kind of determination. i don't have a particular problem with that. i have a problem throughout an entire airport through each of the terminals. a tremendous responsibility throughout those, whether it is in the departure level or arrival level in the baggage claims. there is a lot of difference responsibilities that are officers have. they were not the only officers working that day. they were the only officers that had responsibilities to that terminal. >> explain what are some of the layers that would have overlapped with terminal three. >> in addition to the officers we had assigned to terminals each day's we have bike officers that have been working that particular day. i have supervisors that are read we haveing roving patrol units working in the central units that they. >> thank you, chief. you stated the tsa is recommending airport operators conduct active shooter training. assays that the exercise weeks prior contributed to the performance of tsa officers that day. working in coordination -- do you do these training the local law enforcement at the airports? could you explain how that -- >> there are two aspects to the active shooter training. employees all tsa around the world to make sure they know to do in the event an active shooter takes lace. there are three different types of training. then there is the tactical training. -- its the training combines all three. weprobably did save lives call the in actuation -- -- the evacuation, it was as much a of an escape as an evacuation. it is in concert with the airport authorities and please. of we are requiring that to be done semiannually for all 477 airports around the country. will hold everyone else to their five minutes, with 13 seconds left i will yield to the ranking member of the committee for questions you may have. >> thank you, very much. simply put, how would the response to an active shooter laxation differ today in compared to what happened november 1? >> i think the response to the actual incident itself and to the shooting this tough. part of the difficulties we had on that day was coordinating all the resources that responded to the airport. that we one challenge had in making sure that we understood exactly where they were being put to work in building out an effective command to be able to deal with those. the other issue is prevention. he spent a lot of time wondering if we could have prevented this incident. theiven the case of suspect, he was not on anybody's radar screen. i don't think we could have prevented this in that regard. there are ways in which we can educate our employees and educate people within the airport to be better partners with us and be more observant as to what is going on in maybe behavior exhibited by the suspect could have been identified and acted upon before he had an opportunity to shoot. i don't think this particular case it was. we put together a community to finding officers to specific terminals to build relationships with people so we get better information. >> i guess my point i'm trying to get at is you have identified thatination as something will be different now than before. told on what we have been during our visit here it is still very difficult for the sheriffo talk to the lapdtment, to talk to the what are you doing -- lapd. to affectou doing that inoperability issue that still exists? >> it still exists throughout southern california and throughout the los angeles area. the county is responsible for putting together an nmr -- and inoperability plan. they have a program in development. we have developed our communication systems to be compatible but that is still some time off. in the meantime what we have -- the the short term orociated with this airport lapd officers that are on campus or close is we provide them with a radio in which they can monitor -- for us in which we can monitor their frequencies. we do have frequencies in which we can talk to lapd on our frequencies. withinave inoperability to some degree but not to the extent that we need in a major instance. >> i think the only thing i would add is we are encouraging l.a. to take the steps they need to take because we have already implemented the technology that they are ultimately going to a whole lot is more of encouraging them the steps they need to take that we can do from airport perspective. >> an active shooter situation is difficult scenario. recommending for situation like this? that the memo kinds of training tso should have in that situation. >> there has to be an opportunity for the tso's to take the training and were member their jobs are very demanding. and people line up to get into the airports it is time that it is hard to take time to get the drain. they understand how to get to the alarms that are handy, having more radios that would be permissible to use their own cell phone for help. passengers, where to go for a safe harbor type thing. there although differently. that happens in every .rganization >> the chair now recognizes the chair of the full committee, the gentleman from texas, mr. mackall, for any questions you may have. >> thank you. day in and day out, under very difficult circumstances, tsa officers protect the public from threats that may be terraced street we certainly appreciate the work you do. you don't always hear that. i want you to hear that from the chairman. i look at threats, risks, and vulnerability. this airport has been threats under nine -- under threats since 9/11. it was a target. when i look at this annual -- at this pattern, it seems to me one goes through proper screening, having a police officer beyond that screening is helpful. it seems to me the real vulnerability is before that before they go through other screening. the shooter actually went through the exit. what were your lessons learned in that regard when you look at what happened that day? >> i agree with you. i think the threat for this airport starts on century into the and extends terminals itself. our greatest threat occurs -- are please presence should be -- thosephasis should be in particular areas. that is consistent with the strategy we have put together. the way insistent in which we have moved from that podium assignment where we have officers sitting or standing at a podium behind the screening and to move them up front with that in mind. .o reduce the threat there there are a number of challenges that any of our airports and a number of issues that involve crime and other things that we have to address each and every day. i also feel it is important that we protect everybody in this airport environment to the best of our ability. >> there was talks of putting a police officer in front of each checkpoint and resources obviously are an issue. there ways to be agile, flexible, and to keep the threats guessing? i think if you have one person always in one place they are able to predict better in terms of the threat that particular juncture. the flexibility and agility, do you think that is important to move those assets around -- ?ion mark want for it to be an issue here. -- toprobably going to be watch and look and pay attention how we do our jobs each and every day. five minutes is extraordinary. i think we can always do better. moreuld have seen a lot budget that they. when you look at resources, and theave to look at that, in bush continental airport there was an officer that responded. -- have a lot of different thatave the viper teams are there today. you have the teams, cvp officers. they are being trained, unlike the tso's. can you speak to that instead of bringing those to prevent that from happening> >> there are a number of multiple layers of security that could be brought to bear. chief mentioned, it is one thing to have the police doing random controls and having that unpredictable aspect along coordinated with the viper teams which is another layer of security there. when we start introducing other components, who have primary inponsibilities elsewhere addressing what risk and what threat. we do balance this threatened vulnerability for assessing this to make informed judgments. you mentioned if we did have a special cadre of armed tso's, i --e concerns about that, but i do not think is a solution. i would agree with that. my time has expired. thesa officers are in service of protecting this nation. as we proceed at this hearing, it is a key element, collaborating with local law enforcement. we thank you again very much. that direct thought of in 2013 youurity, did a vulnerability assessment lax with transportation security. in my opening regards, i alluded tso officershat should have the ability to pick the emergency line and it should work. they should know that the panic button will work or offer a proper response. shooting situation, that is crucial. like question is whether the assessment that was done in 2013 tip into account the communication between first responders. we raise that question. but also the ability as the ability of the tsa officers -- thank you. the joint assessment was in february of 2014. it was part of the previously scheduled one. one of the things we looked at communications a not necessarily in terms of interoperability, because there is a number of challenges to that, from a number of different aspects. havee police want to police officers on their regular channels and communications -- to ask other questions. please summarize. ofwe looked at a number things. he did not look at communications between first police,rs, fire, sheriff. that is not part of the joint vulnerability assessment. a can we add the ability of tso officer to have immediate response based on what ever -- >> the question we look at is due officers have the ability to communicate directly with their police, and the answer is yes. onthe supervisory tso did november 1, 10 seconds after the first shot was fired. >> my point is we want to make sure all that is operable from our perspective. they have taken action to direct that. is it your important for the federal tso professional realization as opposed to privatization -- does this point out how important that is? a federalve tsa is workforce. we recognize the congress mandate to have screening. >> i would disagree with that. about the importance tso,aining professional, organization as opposed to privatization. let me comment briefly on what you think is important about a law enforcement entity. thehe american people had outcry that they wanted the federal government to operate the screening at airports after 9/11. since that time tsa has done a fantastic job in protecting the flying public. i believe that needs to be a function of government, and they are doing an excellent job. art event was having a law enforcement -- part of it was having a law enforcement project inside. i commend of the work of the police department. he did a fantastic job. thatbrave police officers ran into the situation. at the same token, tsa needs a law enforcement affair. my good friend sent the economy would not be looking to the phoenix police department to provide the security of officers he wants to do that. there needs to be some type of law enforcement inside tsa to provide security at that checkpoint. there are still a very large airport parking lots come all this type of things that have to airported in an operation, at which we need to local law-enforcement and the airport law enforcement to. itse checkpoints and tsa, was one of ours that did not get to go home to his family. >> thank you. i yield back. -- >> the chair -- still have a -- congressionalour district. we recognize you for any questions you may have. >> thank you, and i appreciate you being here. i would like to thank the committee chairman, the ranking ander, richard hudson congresswoman sheila jackson-lee who is sitting in for organizing .his here by joining with my colleagues to honor the life and service of gerardo fernandez a tsa officer who was killed in the line of duty on november 1. i offer my deepest condolences to his family and friends and 's ando honor all the tso other first responders who risked their lives to stabilize the situation. this hearing follows the release of two reports of the incident, one by the los angeles world airports and the other by the tsa administration. i am concerned about some of what was revealed in those reports. i am not -- because those things that were revealed, whether it is the red telephone or the panic buttons or even the interoperability are things that can be fixed. i think that ms. lindsay and chief tenant have already talked about a quick response to those kinds of things. they had the resource to do it, and they will certainly knew it. i would like to spend a moment about the need for a consistent law enforcement presence at tsa passenger checkpoints such as the one where officer hernandez was killed. i know that there are differences of opinion about this. what i am anxious to hear it day and in the near future is that the discussion will continue. there may be things that can be tried. there may be alternatives, but what i do not wish to do is to simply have the issue put to rest. i am concerned that there may be a better mousetrap. i am not sure. following the incident, i discussed airport security issues with leaders of the american alliance of airport police officers. i wrote a letter to the administrator, in which i recognized -- recommended that law enforcement officers be feet ofd within 300 checkpoints. i have a copy of that letter consent i will conclude it. i was pleased to learn that tsa was responsive to the concerns that i raised and addressed this issue in its report. standardsended calling for an increased presence of law-enforcement officers at high-traffic locations within the airport such as peak travel times and checkpoints and ticket counters. tsa still does not require that law enforcement officers be thesetently present at checkpoints, even during the aforementioned peak travel times. the report on the other time has not addressed the issue. responsea flexible process -- approach to security which allows officers to roam around the airport. fixed approach by contracts requires the police officer to be stationed at each passenger screening checkpoint. airports that support the approach havense argued that this approach provides better visibility of police officers throughout the airport and less predictability for those who are intent of doing harm. a consistent law enforcement presence is a controversial issue. i would argue that the flexible response message are not exclusive. a major airport cannot have police officers at every checkpoint and still have additional officers patrolling the airport. in the capital comics where we were cheap, in washington, can have please officers stationed as well as additional officers and patrolling the vicinity. i think it is possible for lax. some police departments have stationing ahat police officer at every just just tookpoint is expensive. i do not accept that particular argument. i do not want to compromise airport security in order to save money by paying for fewer police officers regardless of what the late -- the locals agency is response will for station officer at checkpoints. presence at these checkpoints is critical. i look forward to a bright discussion regarding security today and in the future. i firmly believe that we should not adjourn without at least continuing to address this issue. i want to thank the chief or his perspective on this. he gave me a new insight about predictability and the fact that if it is known that there is an officer of the checkpoint they easy targets. i appreciate that. i want to thank mr. cox. that is why i think it is so important to continue the we can't beecause creative and we can try things. i think there is no reason why we cannot take several ideas, worksem out, see what best, but i do not want to give up on this discussion. thank you for allowing me to be here today, and i thank you for the one for sure you gave us today. it gave us a editor insight. this is an important facility. lax is an economic engine of this area. i appreciate you. i appreciate all of the tremendous responsibility that you have. i want to be part of the solution, not a part of the problem. >> i think that gentlelady. >> thank you, and i want to thank you and the chairman and the ranking member thompson for hearinghis important here today. as someone who travels every week, to and from lax, i feel very safe. as chairman mentioned, we cannot be complacent, and this incident informs us on changes we need to make to improve all of our security. i want to thank chief gannon and all the men and women who serve with you, who protect us here at , and allmr. pistole the tsa officers who work very hard every single day and who put their protection or our protection over theirs every single day to ensure our safety. i have to state that when surveying over 200,000 people every single over theirs every single day to ensure our safety. i have to state that when surveying over 200,000 people at lax, ite day here is likely major public event that takes place every single day. so i want to thank all of the andesses who are here today their willingness to answer our questions, and hopefully the death of tsa officer fernandez -- hernandez and a passenger on november 1 will never happen again. it is incumbent on all of us to work together to identify possible improvements to safety and security for tsa employees and our traveling public. the shooting also raised another one that wee death of tsa and must address. current law does not provide tsa officers with death benefits like those officer did -- offered to state troopers. i'm just naming a few of the law allrcement personnel who received death benefits. introduced i have the honoring our fallen esa officers act which seeks to eliminate this in equity. my bill would amend federal law to provide for the eligibility of a tsa employee to receive the deathfety officers' benefits. introduceded the tworing our today and officers who are here today, and all of the tsa employees who demonstrate current -- courage and bravery every day in hopes of never having another november 1 incident. god forbid that an incident like this ever happens again, as well as the husband of ms. hernan tho officers who are here today, and all of the tsa employees who demonstrate current -- courage and bravery every day in hopes of never having another november 1 incident. god forbid that an incident like this ever happens again, as well as the husband of ms. hernandez, the two officers who are here today, and all of the tsa employees who demonstrate current -- courage and bravery every day in hopes of never having another november 1 incident. god forbid that an incident like this ever happens again, as well as the husband of ms. hernandez, but if another tsa officer dies in the line of duty, i believe these benefits are critically important to their families. with that i wanted to ask mr. pistole, having served in the fbi and now with tsa, what is your opinion on whether tso or tsa officers should be afforded the same benefits as the federal partners that help to secure this country every single day. >> let me thank you for initiating the bill, to recognize tsa employees as public safety officers to receive that and if it. it would eat a tremendous overall.o tsa hopefully it won't never be needed again. i appreciate your initiation of support of that and would help that that would him to fruition retroactively, obviously. and then be programmed it in terms of any future losses. tremendous appreciation and support. thank you. >> thank you very much. i will would appreciate it if you and your organization -- and i know you have -- taken a look at the bill, if you could take a deeper look at the bill and provide any feedback as we move forward with that, i would appreciate it very much. almostee that my time is expired, so i will yield back. >> i thank the gentlelady. i would like to recognize the chairman of the full committee. >> thank you. let me say again to honor our thoughts and prayers. we can never undo what has been done. we want to make you whole again as much as we can. we are determined to help you. to mr. pistole, thank you for the jobs you and your officers .o ms. lindsay, i did not get to ask your question, but i wanted to close by commending you as well for the model you have created of kawai operation in in your command center. it is important the public be aware of what you have done even before this incident, but more so after it, pulling together the relevant agencies to work to gather to better prevent threats like this from happening. very similar to the joint terrorism task force model where you bring all the relevant layers into the same room with equipment, soeo that god forbid something like this happens again we will be able to respond very quickly and protect the traveling public. with that i will close by saying thank you for your leadership in holding this hearing. two maxine waters, thank you for hosting us and you're fine district, and you are a lucky woman. the weather is very nice here. thanks for your leadership. >> thank you, mom mr. chairman. i think the witnesses for your testimony and members for your questions today. i am committed to working together in a bipartisan way to look at the lessons learned to make sure that officer hernandez did not die in vain, that we can aswhat we can do representatives of the people to go forward and make the country safer for the flying public, to assist law-enforcement administrators around the country and the top job they do everyday. thank you for making this possible. i would point out that members may have additional questions for the witnesses and ask that you respond to these in writing. without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned. >> mr. chairman -- consent to take care of something i did not take care of? i just really realized that mr. james speer and the other here,rs who were shot are so i want to thank you and i am pleased that you are here and getting back to work. >> without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> prime time begins at 8:00 eastern on the three c-span networks. we will bring you supreme court oral arguments and remarks in a oase to decide where the aere company has the right to transmit without paying copyright fees. and on american history tv, a discussion on the 1954 freedom summer when civil rights activists registered black voters in mississippi. that is american history tv on c-span3. 2:15, a talk about whistleblowers. snowden looked at these examples, look at chelsea manning, looks at assange and realized he had to be out of the country if he was going to put out this amount of information and be able to tell what he had done, why he had done this, and comment as he has been doing. i was personally 40 years ago to be able to speak. i was out on bond throughout my trial. i was able to speak to demonstrations, to lecture. there is no chance in the world that snowden would have been allowed to do that, as he knew ,rom looking at chelsea manning would be in isolation for the rest of his life. the journalist today almost four years out after this left a map, no journalist has spoken to chelsea manning, no journalist has spoken to chelsea manning, not in four years written note interviews, no nothing. and they will not either. you are not allowed to speak to him in prison now. snowden more or less had the out of the country. he learned from that. he also learnt you need to put out a lot of documents, and all the more reason he had to be out. one reason, what makes a was a world -- what makes a whistleblower? hardrns out it is pretty to do, since we have been seeing dozens, hundreds, thousands of people knew the secret, who the truths, and many of those, perhaps most of them, knew these involved life or death matters on which major lies were being told. and where the truth could make a difference. and yet they did not speak out. we have to change the culture of secrecy, a cult of secrecy, change the benefit of the doubt that is given quite wrongly to politicians and to the president in terms of what the public should know and should not know, to allow to even thinking that for example that clapper or keith alexander or the president should be the last word on what the public should know about what they are doing in our name represents a kind of culpable ignorance at this point, unless you're 16 years old. these people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. behind the veil of secrecy can extremely bad disastrous policy withoutoes on, accountability. as we learned from the pentagon papers, we learned from sedimentation, from snowden, we learn if we got the iraq papers, which we still do not have, and there have been a number of authorized leaks in some cases, the decision-making is actually very bad. stupid,t only criminal, it is also stupid and ignorant to allow. it is not subjected to a larger debate even within the government or the congress, oversight, let alone within the public, and the reason that the constitution that tom has been talking about so much, is not indeed obsolete, it was a good idea then and it is still a good againsts to be defended the people starting with two presidents and their minions and many people in the press, that after all, after 9/11, we have a new kind of threat here for which the constitution was not suited. we really need a new form of as nixon said,re if the president does it it is not illegal. >> you can see the entire program which includes thomas , who was prosecuted as a spy. it airs tomorrow at 2:15 pm eastern. service returns monday from its recess. 49 bills atvils in 6:30 eastern. startsn the week, work on 2015 spending bills. you can see the house live on c-span. 2:00 p.m. is back at eastern where members will be a day >> let's turn to the senate. during the past week the majority leader harry reid tweeted about the minimum wage. he said he looks forward to a debate for raising the minimum wage. i hope my republican colleagues will join us to act on it. >> you will see a debate. democratic leaders have promised they will bring this to the floor. wednesday's vote is not expected to receive 60 votes. of the good in terms election year politics for both sides. isublicans have decreed this a measure aimed at driving democrats to the polls. >> billy house is a congressional reporter. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> the house and senate are back at 2:00 eastern. live coverage of the house on c-span, and the senate is on c-span2. you, mr. speaker. [indiscernible] an american tragedy. act that this violent resulted in the murder of has receded in the streets of our nation. i applaud the young people all land who are making a statement about hoodies, about the real hoodlums in this nation, particularly those who , wearingour laws quasi-official -- racial profiling has to stop, mr. speaker. just because someone wears a them adoes not make hoodlum. the bible teaches us, mr. speaker -- suspend.mber will >> these words -- >> the member will suspend. >> [indiscernible] mercy, and in the testament -- speaks us these words. the spirit of the lord is upon me because he has anointed me -- >> the gentleman will suspend. -- speaks us these words. the spirit of the lord is upon me because he has anointed me -- >> the gentleman will suspend. these wordsho hear to heed these lessons. may god -- the member is no longer recognized. the chair will ask the sergeant of arms to enforce the prohibition on to korma. the chair -- on the court. the chair must remember members that the rules for hibbitts the wearing of hats in chamber when the house is in session. the chair finds that the wearing of the hood is not consistent with this role. >> find more highlights of house floor coverage on our facebook page. c-span, treated by cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. up next 18 the washington post journalists and reported from london's guardian newspaper talk about release of nsa documents edward snowden. reporters who is now with "time" says mr. snowden has no input on what stories he writes or what should be published. the event hosted by "the post" is about two hours. proud of the recognition and of the recovered. we recognize that there are sharp divisions of opinion about the source of the documents that form the basis of our coverage, edward snowden, and also about our role here at the controversy has been intense at times, and i expect we will explore that today. u.s. edition of "the the board embraced the idea that it is in the public interest. " the new yorker" wrote this -- this was a defining case of the press doing what it is supposed to do. the president was held accountable for he has to answer questions that he would rather not have and when his replies proved unsatisfying to the public and some cases false, his administration had to change its policies. congress had to confront its own failures of oversight. private companies had to rethink their obligations to their customers and to law enforcement. people had conversations at home and at school and everywhere about what they themselves would be willing to let the nsa do to them. journalists have had to think about their own obligations to the law among the constitution am a their readers, and even in the practice of reporting in the age of technical tracking to sources they might expose. on the other hand, representative peter king declared awarding the public 's enablers is a disgrace and suggested we should be prosecuted. a reader of ours were that he was stripped that the paper should be praised for publishing classified information, that has resulted in a lessening of this country's security. i do not think the post should wrap itself in the text of the first amendment and itself an immunity bath. much to talk about here. we will talk about, this story wee to be, how and why decided to publish them how we went about our work, and how we think about issues of national security and our coverage. national security is an area of intense focus for us. that should be no surprise. the government's powers to make -- to incarcerate, prosecutors kill, rank as the greatest powers of all. if we are to cover the federal government, these are not activities that we can ignore. these are not activities where in my view we can simply defer to the government cost wishes on what we report, what we do not report or how we report. another -- whenever government asserts national security. on the grounds of national security the government has secretly implemented policies with profound implications for individual rights. we here at the post have an experienced staff. discretization relies heavily on their expertise and their history of navigating the most sensitive subjects imaginable. we take national security's concerns seriously. it is a dangerous world. we know that. as a result our reporters committee kate with the pentagon, the white house intelligence agencies and private companies. on the nsa documents we spent many hours on each story in detail conversations with officials. on many occasions about the request for government officials, we withheld information that would disclose methods. we did not agree to every request of every sort made by the government. had we done so, there would have been no stories whatsoever. the intelligence agencies were opposed to publishing anything at all. what we saw in the documents was something that went beyond specific sources and methods that the press had guarded on grounds of national security. the documents would repeal the national security agency was engaging in surveillance and data collection of breathtaking scope and intrusiveness. what had transpired was a dramatic shift toward state power and against individual rights, including privacy. with no public knowledge and no public debate. so now the public knows and the debate is well under way. toh that i will turn it over cecelia. she is a national reporter for the washington post who will focus on telecom policy and the social impact of technology on policy -- on families. she joined the post eight years ago. she began her career at dow jones as the bureau chief as -- of the south korea office. all yours, cecelia, and thank you to you for coming. [applause] this work andor your support of a project that was quite an endeavor as you can tell that involved legions of work behind the scenes, graphic works, editors. i am pleased to announce this panel these reporters who work. barton gellman on my left is a pulitzer prize-winning reporter and author. he is a senior fellow at the century foundation. he is one of three journalists who received classified archives from edward snowden. lead the coverage at the post and is writing a book on the surveillance industrial revolution. he is being humble in his admission of his price. a reporter for the washington post read she covers issues relating to intelligence and government surveillance and civil liberties. she has written about the nsa and evolution of cyber policy. south eastas the asia correspondent for the washington post between 2002 and 2006. she has reported on the islamic militant network and the indian ocean tsunami. since 1995 she has cover the white house and virginia politics. she grew up in hawaii. ashkan soltani helps understanding that technical capabilities of government surveillance. he served as a technologist in the division of privacy at the federal trade commission. he also worked as the primary consultant for the wall street journal's series what they know. he is working with the washington post on their coverage of the nsa. timberg is reporter who covers privacy, security, and surveillance. he came to the paper in 1998 and has done stints as a reporter covering africa. he is the author of a book, "tinderbox." thank you for joining us. withld like to start out two minutes from each of you to talk about what the response has been that you have received to the appeal of sir prize. it seems very long ago, actually. my friends like to tell me the stories of what an outrage it is. there have been some. there are serious criticisms to , and we are not immune from that. -- and thereple have been a number of commentators who said that this was undeserved. there are others who are very -- forrimarily before the validation of the id of debate, the idea that the fundamental boundaries about what secret intelligence can do in a democratic society need to , thatided by the people the government is working for. the information is power, betsy get information is even more power, and that although very clearly the u.s. intelligence cannot operate entirely in the open by any strain of imagination, it it's fun to limit will -- it's fundamental boundaries have to be subject to public debate. >> i think bart said well. i do not have much more to add, to say that the reaction has positiverally quite from civil liberties communities. sources inmuted from the intelligence community. think the general public has been appreciative. i think my favorite response has been from the tech community, because the response being that the value of understanding technology or bringing technical people out from the basements, to explain haves more openly, as we seen a lot of interactions now where digital media, over computers, over phones, and i think the response in being able to highlight how those things work and bring them to public debate and demystify how the technology is no different than it was years ago in the sense of how it impacts our lives, that has been a valuable response for me. humbling it has been and inspiring to realize that you had a small role in such important work, but has been a reminder how fractured my life is. i was opposed to coach my son's baseball game tonight. they knew me as coach craig. they did not know i did this. it has been fun to share in this and understand how much people interact with you in a newspaper in a way that is different from the way people react to you and the rest of your lives. >> there will be plenty of time for questions. we will have almost 40 minutes. you should have received a card in your packet. if you would like to ask a question, that we may not get to, we will continue to answer questions after this event online. after the panel discussion there will be two people with microphones who will be available. raise your hand if you have a question and please stand up when you pose your question. tell us about the development of this story. you have been away from the paper for a few years when you received the documents and access to the story. in that time, in your absence, artie was appointed the executive editor. i understand you did not know each other very well. it happened to lead to the introduction of this story at the post, the acceptance of the post of this story, and decision to carry forward? >> it is not obvious from the coverage that i am not a washington post employee. i am on contract now. after working for 21 years, i left in 2010. in the first half of 2013i developed a correspondence with the man i later learned to be edward snowden and receive documents from him. i knew that there was only one place to do this story for me. it was going to require resources and the decades of andective experience here the mutual trust of people i had worked with for a long time. fundamentally it was going to need big, hard, risky decisions to be made by the boss. the boss was one guy i did not know at all. i walked into a room after asking for a meeting and figured out who marty was by process of elimination. he is the managing editor. he is the lawyer. this guy must be marty. i was asking him to take on risks and to put his trust in literally never laid eyes on. it was obvious to us that a story of this magnitude was going to need a lot of lawyering and careful thought about how to balance the risks of disclosure with the necessity of bringing the big policy decisions for the public, and they are going to be really hard problems. how do you verify? you have a piece of paper that says it is an nsa document. how do you know that is true? how do you know that is authentic, and if authentic, it is accurate? how do i know that this guy who says he is edward snowden used to be a contractor of the nsa is either of those things. a gonesking the paper to all of that and to devote resources and to accept new kinds of security measures that normal newsrooms did not have to have before. i was thrilled at the answers i got. hety understood exactly what was getting into. he was very thoughtful about the what -- about what the big decisions would be and the successive steps would be to carry them out, and he embraced it. >> it was a revelation when you explained your pulitzer speech in the newsroom. some of the research even on the i.t. side that in involve. could you talk about that? >> a little bit, because there are things i will not talk about. we took very seriously the responsibility to protect material we did not think should be disclosed. we said in every story that we write that we are holding back certain elements of it. we are not doing that because someone told us we have to. we are doing that because having -- to the government and thoughts are the implications, we decided we agreed, we should withhold the stuff. there's no sense saying you're going to hold something back if you leave it on a network or on a hard drive were any competent actor can come in and take it. the post stepped up its game in terms of physical and digital security and encryption and things like that. i do not want to get into the details. your role in the coverage, covering nsa? talk about when you came in, what your guiding mission was and reporting on this story, and apart how this coverage has affected change in government. >> the disclosures has had an impact on the policy in the process and most significantly on public awareness. i wanted to make a few observations up front about how the landscape has changed from the perspective of a beach reporter who did not receive the documents, at least not directly. certainly we are engaged , that iste unprecedented in breadth and depth. and that would not have happened were it not for the disclosures. edwardized by snowden. it is not for want of trying. lawmakers, journalists, and others, as long ago as 2006, senator ron wyden was warning publicly but cryptically about the existence of secret law ther the patriot act, counterterrorism law passed after 9/11. but he was bound by classification rules from going any further, from explaining his discomfort with the interpretation, and he and other lawmakers continued to born about the secret law. journalists, including my this -- including myself, try to pry from government officials some insight into what the secret law under section 215 of the patriot act could be. they were bound by custom location rules. they wanted jobs they did not want to risk and it was to no avail the civil liberties groups, the electronic frontier foundation, which filed lawsuits to try to force the government to be more transparent on this .aw nothing worked until edward stone came along. i remember june 5, last year, the first document emerged. verizon court order to or directing the company to turn over all records of its customers to the nsa. we know that is now not the content, but just a phone numbers and the call times and durations. it quickly became apparent that this was a program of vast scope in terms of collecting data of many law-abiding, and it did stun americans. had beenwhat wyden warning about. it was quickly followed by more disclosures and stores by bart others -- and >> and nakashima. >> about how to break encryption and significantly its growing overseas collection and attempts to game to edward snowden and his leaks forced a degree of transparency from the government. after june, they declassified the existence of the program. subsequently thousands of pages of court documents, opinions, reports, a lot of those documents that months earlier intelligence officials have been telling me it was difficult to much of theuse so classified material was intertwined with legal analysis full top -- legal analysis. transparency, a permanent change in behavior or as some suspect, a shift in response to disclosures? i want to say one quick thing. i heard an observation that came from a former inspector general at the nsa, joel brenner. that by withholding the existence of this metadata program, the government may have avoided or obtained a short-term tactical benefit in terms
entries in the student am video competition encouraging middle and high school students to think critically about issues. asked to create the documentary based on the question what's the most important issue the u.s. congress should consider in 2014? first prize winners it are antonia, and madeleine, our eighth graders in silver spring maryland. to improveongress the nsa data collecting and surveillance programs. >> edward snowden -- thank you. bringing to the attention of the world the fact that the u.s. government, the nsa, is engaged in massive information gathering. -- 125 billion cell phone conversations a month. >> that has been allowed in the media about the situation, some right, a lot wrong. >> i have told you, how .mportant they have been we use one of these programs to another plot to bomb the new york stock exchange. here we are talking about this in front of the world. >> to repeat something incredibly important, the nsa is prohibited from the same to phone calls or reading e-mail without a court order. period, end of story. >> the nsa, what is it, what does it do? it was hard to answer the question before edward snowden leaked documents to the public showing the full extent of surveillance on americans. the nsa is doing data collection e-mail.cans it is not limited in scope to terrorists, to people that they have probable cause to believe they are committing some type of crime. it is a bulk collection of data. clock said it is one start of the -- >> that is just one part of the story. many believe they are doing the right thing under a law called fisa. >> nsa is trying to implement the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which is designed to try to capture communications and can indication from foreigners who are believed to be trying to do harm to americans or the united states. >> i think pfizer has a lot of problems. voted to reindly in and redefine the fisa court responsibility. i think we have more work to do. news weing, all of the have endured about the national usurity agency really tells in a deep way that there are things we have to do to rein in and provide oversight, as members of congress, what the responsibilities of the nsa are. method has changed over time with the advancement of technology. >> it has changed enormously because of the change in technology. the technology what i wrote my first book was simply telephones that hung from wires in people's houses, and that was about it. there were occasional telegrams, but not much more than that. so -- the nsae was limited in what they could eavesdrop on. technology was in favor of privacy back in those days. technology favors eavesdropping because it is very easy to access internet communications, satellite communications, micro communications. >> edward snowden release thousands of documents that revealed the true nature of nsa to everyone, not the american public. >> i do not think what he is done is ethical and right. i do not consider him to be a traitor because i do not think his intent or purpose was to arm his country, but he clearly violated the law. there are clearly, in my view, better ways for him to have proceeded. >> a lot of people have very different feelings on what edward snowden did. some people consider him a hero. some people consider him a traitor. i think the most important thing edward snowden did was start a conversation about what our government is is doing, and how they are spying on us. it is a conversation that america needs to have because people need to talk about what that balance is, and what that balance should be. weore edward snowden, all had to go on with the government saying no, we are not collecting your data. well, we know that is not true, so he started an important conversation. >> the nsa is controversial, and the other way to resolve the that caps on -- congress... as their number one issue -- congress puts this as their number one issue. >> it is really not been consider since 1935, and it is causing enormous damage. the german public and government is mad at the u.s.. here are the brazilian president can sign a trip to the u.s. in the u.s.ple angry that the nsa is spying on them. so, the nsa remains to be reigned in, and i think after all these years it is time to do that. think it should be after all these years a targeted topic. >> to watch all of the winning videos and to learn more on our conversation, go to c-span.org and click on studentcam. you can post your comments on the facebook page or tweeting us. >> next, a look at the challenges faced by the whistleblowers, with daniel thomas drake, a former senior executive at the nsa, who was prosecuted as a spy, and a former ethics advisor. she now advises former nsa contractor edward snowden. it was hosted by the university of southern california in los angeles. it is about two hours, 10 minutes. [applause] her -- >> i just want to mention that her husband was in the justice department. she played a leading role in lawyer.g as a i am all for models of people that do not sell out. so much of what we teach is selling out, not particularly here, but at american universities, we test people so that they will be able to make a lot of money, go on to great success, and rarely are asking the questions of what you will use the skills for, will you help people, what have you, and here is someone that clearly excelled in the american university system, and has devoted her life after yale, which is also where jeff got his law degree, to really doing her oh e-work. time,thout taking more why don't you set the stage of why we are here since we did this as a co-project with your organization that you work with now. >> sure. thank you, bob. thank you to the annenberg school. in partnership with my organization, the government accountability project, for hosting this event. the government accountability project is the leading whistleblower organization. we have been around [video clip] -- for 35 years, and have represented whistleblowers from all parts of the government as well as private corporations and other entities. 2008, i began the national security and human rights program, which ended up representing people in those communities. realize that those were the people that have virtually no protection. in our country right now, we are at this crossroads where the first amendment is under attack, and that implements both you as journalists, and us as whistleblowers. i was a whistleblower before i went to work. a lot of people want to know what a whistleblower is, and the government thinks it gets to to decide. the government, in this case, often the wrongdoer, does not get to decide who is a whistleblower and who is not. a person becomes a whistleblower by operation of law through disclosing fraud, waste, abuse, the term weaker is often used synonymously with whistleblower. but these are quite different activities because a leak, for example, when richard armitage leak cia undercover operative valerie plame's, that served no public or whatsoever. that was done surely to punish ambassador joseph wilson. whistleblowing on the other hand is done to serve the public interest and the public's right to know so when i began this program, i was used to representing whistleblowers who often experience retaliation, such as being demoted or transferred to a meaningless position or having their security credentials told. -- pulled. but that has escalated astronomically because, in 2010, thomas drake to the right of me was indicted under the espionage act, one of the most serious charges that you can level against an american. and he became the second person in u.s. history to be indicted for espionage for non-spy related activity since daniel ellsberg to my left. the pentagon papers whistleblower who did much of the same thing as another client of mine, as snowden is doing today with the help of journalists like yourselves. you play a critical function. that's why journalists are considered the fourth branch, the fourth estate in our government. we, the whistleblowers, are considered the fifth estate. we are the last, final check when the pillars of our democracy are not working, as they have been failing over the past decade since 9/11. we have a congress that is largely complicit. you have a judicial branch that is not hearing cases because the united states government asserts the state secret privilege to shut down these cases. when you have two important branches of government not functioning, you, the press, play a critical role even more. that is when we need whistleblowers even more. but since 9/11, the people who are out to expose government, incompetence, ineptitude, and things that embarrassed the government get hammered. but god forbid you should discover -- disclose government illegality because then the hammer will really fall on you and you will face being imprisoned for the rest of your life. this is not hyperbole. this is not exaggeration. i just wanted to set the stage and each of us in turn will talk about our own stories and our own role in this war that has been going on in which journalists have been the saving grace for a number of us. and they have also been all too willing to cooperate with the government in other cases. so with that, i will pass it back to bob. >> i thought you were going to go much longer. [laughter] >> i can. >> what impressed me so much about your own work and you were a whistleblower is when john walker lynde from marin county, california was caught up with the taliban. i looked at this guy's story and picture in the paper and he had been beaten and tortured. without feeling any sympathy for what was involved in all of this, i taught, if there is a -- i thought, you know, if there is a tradition of everyone deserves a legal defense and a tradition that due process applies universally, this was the guy that was going to challenge that tradition. what i find so amazing about your career is that, in the justice department, you decided that he deserved legal representation. why don't you tell us a little bit about that case and how it entered your justice department career. >> i worked at the justice department as the ethics advisor. i happened to be on duty the day that i got a call that we had captured our first prisoner in the afghanistan war, john walker lindh, quickly dubbed the american taliban. i was told unambiguously that he had a lawyer and the criminal division wanted to know about the ethical propriety of interrogating john walker lindh without his attorney. my office got that kind of question all the time. that was routine bread-and-butter question. and i advised, no, you cannot question and interrogate someone if they are represented by counsel. meanwhile, there was the famous trophy photo of him, naked, blindfolded, gagged, and with epithets written all over him. it very much foreshadowed what later happened at abu ghraib. clearly, this was an individual who was being tortured so i am under a gag order and cannot go into that aspect of it too much. but suffice it to say the fbi ignored my advice, interrogated john walker lindh anyway and then wanted to know what to do. so at that point, i said, not to worry, you can see a lot the off the interrogation and use it for national security and intelligence purposes but not for criminal prosecution. which is exactly what the justice department turned around and did. again, i didn't say anything. there is a press conference held by the attorney general announcing the charges against him and a reporter, one of you, asked, hey, it looks like he's being mistreated here. this photo, he looks like he's been tortured. what happened? and the attorney general said that his rights had been carefully scrupulously guarded. , i knew it was a lie but i didn't do anything. he had another press conference two weeks later. john ashcroft liked press conferences. during that press conference, another astute reporter asked i thought he had legal counsel. and the attorney general said, if we were aware that he had a lawyer, he would have been provided that lawyer. again, a complete lie. but i didn't act or do anything. it was the prerogative of the attorney general to say what he wanted to. however, the criminal prosecution continued and i inadvertently learned from the prosecutor that there has been a federal court order for all justice department correspondence related to john walker lindh's interrogation and he said that he had two of my e-mails. i was immediately concerned because no one had told me about the court order, which discovery orders go far and wide within the justice department. and i knew that i had written way more than two e-mails. being a naïve 29-year-old, i went and checked the hardcopy files because back then we kept everything in analog form as opposed to digital because we barely had the internet in 2001. and when i checked the hardcopy file, my heart sank. there were only a couple of pieces of paper in what has been a inch-thick file. i consulted with a colleague of mine who had been with the department for 25 years and he said very matter-of-factly this file has been purged. that was inconceivable to me because the department was simultaneously prosecuting arthur anderson and enron for destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice. i wasn't sure what to do but i knew i couldn't be a part of this. i called tech support and i was able to resurrect more than a dozen of the e-mails, including the ones that documented the f -- the fbi committing an ethics violation in the interrogation of john walker lindh and i given -- gave them to my boss and i said i don't know what is going on here but i'm not going to be a part of this and i resigned. i thought that was the end of this ordeal for me. but the criminal prosecution continued and there was a suppression hearing coming up. the key to john walker lindh's case was the validity of the confession he gave during the interrogation i had advised against. and i heard the justice department continue to say that they never thought he had a lawyer. which said to me that the justice department didn't turn over the e-mails. i didn't think they would have the temerity to make a statement like that, that he never had a lawyer, if my e-mails had reached the court. i tried to get copies of my e-mail. i had taken home a copy in case they disappeared again. i try to get them to the judge, but i no longer worked with the department and no longer had standing. and this weighed on me a lot because someone might die and face the death penalty because i hadn't turned over information or the information i tried to turn over didn't reach the court. i struggled with this. one morning, i saw michael isikoff who was with "newsweek" repeating the party line that he never had counsel and i picked up the phone and called him and said, yes, he did and i have the e-mails to prove it. i gave the e-mails to michael isikoff and he wrote an article which quickly settled with john walker lindh pleading guilty to two minor and mistreated infractions. -- two minor administrative infractions. again i thought my part in this , was over. but i didn't realize that by going to the press i was unleashing the full force of the entire executive branch. and when i say that, i mean that i was put under one of the first federal criminal leak investigations. in reality, there is no such crime as leaking. i was referred to the state bars at which i am licensed as an attorney. and for good measure, i was put on the no-fly list. after that and many years in the wilderness fighting this, i decided to dedicate the rest of my life to representing whistleblowers. i knew when they would come in and say you'll never believe what the government is doing to me i could look them in the eye and say, yes, i can. so i was representing whistleblowers. usually, the retaliation was getting fired or transferred, demoted, having your security clearance pulled. that kind of thing. but then one day i read about a man named thomas drake, who from everything i could tell by the article had gone through every conceivable internal channel to blow the whistle at nsa and was being indicted under the espionage act, which is the most serious charge that can be leveled against an american. and right now, while i thought case was a tom's one-off, it wasn't. it has turned into a brutal war against whistleblowers that include espionage, act, prosecutions more than any president before obama and more than all presidents combined against people who are not spies but are accused of mishandling, allegedly, classified information and this implicates journalists because you are in every single indictment in these cases. >> great. did we agree that you will go next? ok. let me introduce an old friend, daniel ellsberg. when thomas spoke earlier he , mentioned daniel ellsberg as setting the marker for whistleblowing and such cases. and influencing him. most of the time when i am influencing dan, i get it wrong. well-known person i know and he never gets anything wrong i think when i met you, i thought of u.s. sort -- i thought you were sort of a conservative originally. because you had been not only in favor of the vietnam war, you actually participated. you've been in the press corps and the marines before that and in the defense department and so forth. and we were having this argument in this country over whether this war ahead any sense, -- made any sense whether it was , justified and i wrote a pamphlet called how the u.s. got involved in vietnam and it was based on what i could find in interviews and so forth. and then lo and behold, we had , the pentagon papers. the pentagon papers settled those debates. basically, if we think of democracy being based on an informed citizenry, we had no way of knowing what was really going on in our name because it was all classified. but the pentagon had decided to do a study of what this war was all about. and this study, which daniel ellsberg revealed, and tony russo, first of people in government and they will tell you all about it, and then to newspapers. it really was a lesson to me and -- in what this is all about, the people's right to know. because what this was was nothing more than an honest history. it was writing history. it was information used to make intelligent decisions that ended up being an event causing 3.5 million indochinese to die as well as over 59,000 american soldiers. so, here you have this horrendous development. there is a defense department study that says that what we are being told about this is bogus and this guy releases those documents and now he's considered something of a hero even in establishment circles because they used him to say snowden is the bad guy, ellsberg is the good guy. but i remember at the time when he was on trial at the federal building in downtown l.a. and it looked like they were going to put him away for a real long time. daniel ellsberg was a figure getting much less support than he deserved at that time. much did you learn from the pentagon papers. it had a lot of material in it that wasn't into the pentagon papers. you had more than they had in many ways about the origins. on the other hand, you had quite a bit that was in the pentagon papers. inside, top secret when did you inside, top-secret. when was your study, 1965? >> i went to vietnam in 64 and 65. the study was published by robert hutchins center for the -- >> which year did he go out? >> 66. 65, 65. but when i delivered my study, there was justice douglas, henry luce, the establishment organization. and this goes to how you. -- this goes to how you prove something. they all told me, you are full of it. this couldn't possibly be. and they all have their friends. the public debate was always a loser because we were not given the information that was validated. that is what you supply. >> people on the left like bob at that time had been saying when it came out, this is not news to us. this is what we have been saying. to a large extent, that was true but they were not being heard and those who heard them like myself had to ask can this be true? who are these guys? what do they know? they are not insiders. it was so different from what we the presidentwhat was saying, what the motive was, what the aims were, what we were doing. it was so different, it was arduous -- it was hard to believe. by the time i read your piece, which i would not have seen it in vietnam. i was in vietnam from 1965 to 1967. by that time, i was ready to believe having been there for two years. and i remember thinking, if i had read this before, in 1964 or 1965 when you were working on it, i never would have gone to vietnam. had i read in 1965, i think my reaction would have been can this be true? what is this? what the pentagon papers showed was that people inside were not saying something different from what the radicals were saying. they were saying much the same. they were saying totally differently in the public. in other words, they were lying. they knew they were lying. and actually to some degree, , some of them showed particular -- a good deal of realism about what was happening in vietnam contrary to the impression they were giving. i remember one of the joe pfeiffer cartoons. said, i knewnels this and johnson did not know it? and you knew it and you knew it. how could johnson not know this? the answer is he did know it. he was just lying to us when he said that he didn't. the implication is the government is able to keep secrets very well. and the secret they kept was what they were up to, what they thought be prospects were, what they thought the costs were pretty much. they were simply lying about it and they were able to keep secret the fact that they did know that much about it and that the prospects were as bad as they actually were. it's hard to believe that they could have gotten us into vietnam specifically had that information been made available in 1965. there are two ways that might have happened. bob scheer putting it out in a pamphlet probably doesn't do it. you have to think of somebody else. or i could have put it up. i was just a staffer in the pentagon, but i had the documents in my safe at the time in 1964-1965. had i put them out at that time, i actually believe that it was very unlikely that johnson could have escalated the war in 1965 and 1966 the way he did because he had a senate that was very skeptical of it, that was like , could notlied to believe he was lying to them about his intentions as blatantly as in fact he was. and there was no whistleblower and i wasn't one. center morris was one of the ones who voted against giving the -- senator morris was one of the ones who voted against the hitting the president the blank check told me in 1971, when i , put them out, if you had given this information to me on the committee on foreign relations committee in 1964, the resolution would have never gotten out of committee. and if they had brought it to the floor directly for a vote, he would have lost. and at the time when he first told me that, well, they would have found another excuse. to be sure, that resolution was a set of lies. in fact, we had not been attacked and he got a declaration of war out of it. but they would have found something us to get it. -- something else to get it. but when i thought later, what if i put out everything that was in my safe about the planning for escalation that was going on before the election or during the election campaign when his rival, senator on reserve, general goldwater was a senator on the foreign relations committee was saying we should escalate and the president was saying we seek no wider war and a safe full of documents planning a war as soon as the election was carried out. could johnson have gone ahead? i don't think so. hundreds,y i, but maybe a dozen people at least had access to those documents. anyone of us could have avoided that war. if we had told the truth, knowing the president was lying at that time, to the congress and the campaign. asked me orne anybody else. nobody in the press was really pressing what's the truth behind this thing? they were not looking critically at what the president was saying. there weren't to my knowledge, to this day, making an effort that was rebuffed somehow to get the truth about what was happening. and the upshot of that, the meaning is to this day, we don't have nearly as many whistleblowers as we could and should have. how many would that be? bob suggested to me earlier, practically anyone who had that documentation would have realize that the constitution was being thwarted and violated. congress should decide whether we go to war or not, unless we were immediately attacked. which we claimed to be, and that was a lie. later in the year, when the escalation occurred, they weren't even pretending there had been an attack on the united states. yet we were moving ahead, lying to congress, fairly unconstitutional. each one of us in the executive branch a taken an oath, the same one i'm sure is the same with you, tom, which is to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic. and i think we all at that time, my colleagues and i, all violated that oath. i don't think we even asked ourselves what would it mean to obey the oath? what would it mean to disobey the oath? it didn't come up. we were beyond the constitution. we worked for the president. and it was a war. to be sure, it was a war he decided what we should have, which wasn't especially but it was al, trend ever since harry truman took us to war in korea which was not constitutional. we had the president take us to libya and say it was a war. we were killing, but not dying. so that was not a war. ok, what i am saying is whistleblowers have the ability to avert a disastrous, hopeless, bloody war and not only that one. iraq could have been stopped that way by anyone of a thousand people who knew what we were getting into. not one of whom told the truth. nor did any -- actually, there were in that particular case, unlike vietnam, a couple of reporters, walter pincus and few others, some dissenters talking about the lack of evidence for wmd's. but the leaks, the top seek it -- the top secret leaks to judith miller and michael gordon that there were wmd's, that there were cylinders and dealings to get yellowcake for saddam, that was all over the front page of "the new york ," and that got us into the war. so the reporters in washington failed across the board on iraq in exactly the same way they had failed years before on vietnam. and the people in the government all failed to carry out their oath to the constitution all without any exception known to me except for a two anonymous ones. the government can keep secrets, does keep secrets, even when thousands of people know them and know that they are critical to a deadly war going on. and given its ability to keep secrets, then the incentives to refrain from crimes, lies is pretty much eroded. without accountability, they can go ahead and they do. and the price of that is wars like vietnam and iraq. leaks toctually, it is others about the military resistance to nuclear weapons and other attacks on iran that i began leaking in 2006 and leaked again about syria this week, about false flag operations in syria done with the support of the turkish government about the serum gas -- sarin gas in syria. , we areo those leaks not in syria right now. we need a lot more of them and we need a lot more effort by the press to look for them and dig them up. >> i want to pick up on that. the fact of the matter is we get most of our news on national security, foreign policy from leaks. >> true. we get false stories. you get plenty of false stories. >> you mentioned judy miller. leaks that are not comfortable to the government or what the government is pushing. i want to address this to thomas drake. you have been in those official circles. what i wonder, in those circles -- let me get the background. you spent time in the air force and the navy, but one of the interesting experiences you had is you were in east germany so you became familiar with the horrors of the official propaganda system. the stasi and so forth. you understand the need of information for a free society been in the have not unlike snowden, you are a contractor but then you rose to a high official position. surely, living in washington, as you do, you are probably aware. we had lunch today. i remember when i was reporting for "the l.a. times and the development of a star wars system, i think it just goes to the point i was on tsa or a southwest airlines, a plane going from l.a. to san jose but and edward teller -- maybe not known to all of our students, but he was the father behind the instrumentals very in getting ronald reagan to support star wars. they were going to have an x-ray laser. he said, where you going and i said i am going to the stanford arms-control program. he said make sure sid tells you about the great results we had on the cottage test. we got lazing. true, that would be the biggest change in the military balance. it was the thing that any enemy would want to know. and here he is telling me, a suspect character that no one should trust, right? telling me the result of this test. the very name of the test had to be secret. the very result, so forth. so i went to the office control and i managed -- i mention this to sid and he said i cannot talk about this because it is of the highest confidentially out. what is interesting about thomas drake is that it was a very important story but it was boring from a kind of cops and robbers or national security thing. it really has to do, if i understand it correctly, with efficient c, wasted resources, and an important issue of privacy as well. but the nsa had developed a system with a very brilliant fellow who had developed a system for a thin thread that would allow you to go through information but in a selective way still preserving privacy. this was after 9/11, very important. before 9/11, it could have been used to good effect instead, they rejected that system and went for an enormously expensive system that has never worked and has a bludgeoning effect. >> this was really the thing that turned you into a whistleblower, isn't that true? >> in part, yes. he don't wake up one morning and decide to be a whistleblower. it is not a profession you would normally seek. i don't remember going to my high school counselor and saying, hey, i want to be a whistleblower. it just wasn't on the list. i grew up in vermont. as a very young teenager, i witnessed seniors earning their draft cards in the back lot of the high school. i was 14. and i remember that because dan ellsberg was a key individual in my understanding of what can go wrong with your own government. my cynical way getting as a young adult took place in the 1970's. pentagon papers leaked by dan ellsberg. sy hersh, me lie, and all of that meant. the horror of vietnam as a continue to unfold. watergate. woodward and bernstein. think about -- that is where they got their beginnings and their fame, to sit that way, in terms of reporting. it was a really cool profession to be in. then i saw a president of the united states resign from office. yet when i became eyewitness to just a few short decades later -- in fact, in reality, it was only about twice six years later -- makes the nixon era look tame by comparison. government. the real truth here is what i was confronted by. in terms of what the government chose to do -- no public debate, no need for the public to know -- and fat, they were doing everything to keep us away from the public. so what do you do? my colleagues resigned from the agency that i work with. and i chose to stay on and fight. i made a conscious choice that i would fight them from within because that moment of truth set into motion my whistleblowing within the system for a number of years and then ultimately leading to a choice to go to the press with what i knew. and here is where i looked at dan ellsberg in terms of living history. back during the nixon which i ultimately have to confront after 9/11, what is happening to our country, that it is our cornerstone of who we are as amendment -- as americans. if we don't have the first amendment, everything else becomes propaganda. information control by the government. it is important to note that vietnam's lessons were learned quite well by those in power. they actually said in a book published about this that, if we ever find ourselves in conflict of this nature in the future, we have to control the message. because the fact remains that vietnam was really the first television war during it was brought right into the living rooms of america. they got to see it all played out over a number of that backdrop. we also have to remember something else. because history is really important here, especially for the profession you are looking to go into. because you are reporting on the news, you can't understand the news without understanding the history. and one of the things that becomes so seminal in your understanding about that period is that there were congressional hearings. just look up the church and type committing meetings. detailing, cataloging a whole series of violations by the government. but i am not here to give you a litany of all those violations and all that wrongdoing. one of the things that came out during the 1970's, which is often forgotten by the apologists of the national security state in the post-9/11 era, is that nsa and the cia and the fbi were routinely violating the rights of americans with impunity. nsa formed the deepest of secrecy not by congress but by the virtue of a presidential signature in 1952. a military organization headed by a three-star general now a four-star general. it had been routinely violating the rights of americans on a program called operation shamrock, the first mass surveillance program, truth be told. all telexes coming into the united states and exiting the united states were routinely elected and copied and given to the nsa. and guess who was providing them under the greatest secrecy? the very corporations like rca global, for example, as well as several others, just turning this over to the government. total violation of the fourth amendment of the constitution. i'm saying all this -- look up operation minaret. nsa using its extraordinary power back in the 1960's and 70's to spy on americans that they didn't like, that posed threats to the state, were activists, dissenters, journalists and reporters. providing in the public interest critical information about what was going on inside the government, finding themselves on the other end of an nsa surveilling them with the technology of that day. i say all that because a lot of reforms were instituted in the 1970's, including something called the foreign intelligence surveillance act passed under the carter administration. also establishing to standing committees on intelligence to provide oversight so it wouldn't get out of hand as was demonstrated before -- by all of these disclosures. daniel ellsberg, turning over the pentagon papers in the public interest because the american people have the right to know what their government was doing in their name. now, accelerate to 9/11. i'll ask the question rhetorically, what were you doing on 9/11? for many in this room, including my own son who is 18 and a freshman at virginia wesleyan -- 9/11, he doesn't remember the spring i 11 world. the only world he actually knows is what occurred after 9/11. some of us actually remember nine -- 9-10. some of us would like to return to 9/10. my first job was 9/11. i did not know when i was sitting in the legislative affairs office listening to my immediate supervisor attempt to explain why nsa needed billions of dollars to meet the challenges of the digital age, a program that i actually blew the whistle -- i didn't know what was about to happen while i was in that room. and while i was in that room, both towers were hit and then the pentagon shortly thereafter. and yet that was a trigger event. almost 3000 people were murdered. it was a trigger event in which i am going to say this in the strongest possible language. it was the reality of what i confronted, the horror of what i confronted that my own government unchained itself on the constitution. a silent coup against the constitution, placing itself, granting itself authority to engage in emergency powers -- emergency powers. we've been operating in that mode ever since. truth be told. and he serious of -- and a series of decisions were made. we have to remember 9/11 was fundamentally a failure but it was used to cut is the government is too big to fail -- it was used as an excuse to engage in a whole series of the committees and -- series of activities and operations that are total violations of what we actually stood for. necessary. none of it was necessary. the very best of american ingenuity had already been ready to go. well before 9/11. we never have to go to the dark side as vice president cheney himself said on public broadcast television five days after 9/11. so what did i confront? within days of 9/11, the power of nsa being turned on the united states, full power. nsa was supposed to do for intelligence. but apparently, the united states was now a foreign nation for all intents and purposes. my moment of truth occurred three weeks after 9/11 when i confronted a lead attorney in the nsa in the office of general counsel. i said what are we doing? it's the prime directive that you do not spy on americans without a warrant. and now we are just separating ourselves from the fourth amendment? there is an entire directive, a regime in which i was fundamentally accountable and had been ever since i was in the military, flying reconnaissance. there were procedures involved. all of this was tossed out. i wasn't just looking at the wheels coming off this thing called the constitutional republic. i was actually looking at an entirely new vehicle that i did not recognize, an alien form of government. remember, i had taken the oath four times to defend the constitution. now i witnessed a subversion of the constitution and 9/11 was a trigger for billions and billions of dollars being poured into nsa. failure was really profitable. and fact, my immediate supervisor, as we went around the complex attempting to console the workforce, they knew that we had failed the nation. they knew that we were also responsible for not keeping people out of harms way. just read the preamble of the constitution, the two is possibilities of the government, provide for the public defense. 9/11 was a gift to nsa. we will get all the money we want and then some. and congress really provided link checks to nsa for the next several years. so that was fraud, waste and abuse. then i discovered there was critical intelligence that had been kept by nsa and never shared with the rest of the government. the real truth here is what i was confronted by. in terms of what the government chose to do -- no public debate, no need for the public to know -- and fat, they were doing everything to keep us away from the public. so what do you do? my colleagues resigned from the agency that i work with. and i chose to stay on and fight. i made a conscious choice that i would fight them from within because that moment of truth set into motion my whistleblowing within the system for a number of years and then ultimately leading to a choice to go to the press with what i knew. and here is where i looked at dan ellsberg in terms of living history. back during the nixon administration, the president actually had said that, if the president says it's ok, it's legal. here is what the leading nsa attorney told me. you don't understand, this program is all legal. it was approved by the white house. as soon as i heard that, the hairs went up on the back of my neck. we are the executive agent for the program. it was a dragnet surveillance program. you cannot understand snowden. you cannot understand any of the disclosures to date without understanding the foundation of those surveillance programs. so i went through all channels. i ended of the a material witness for 29/11 investigations. i gave them thousands of pages of material evidence and i wish i had actually kept that evidence. and and i have talked about this, just like he shared with you that he wished he had exposed the pentagon papers years earlier. it might have stopped the war, may have prevented it from occurring. so a material witness for two 9/11, no investigations. all of the evidence was censored and suppressed. the only evidence that i had any contact, material contact is the fact that i was interviewed. there are people right now, for a number of years, trying to track down where did all of my material witness evidence, both verbal and in documented form and up? and everybody is playing dumb. i wonder why. because buried in there are things i is closed publicly later. buried in there is the reality of the foundational programs of which you have been hearing so much about june 23. -- june 2013. thank you ed snowden. buried in there is the evidence of nsa having critical intelligence that could have prevented, stopped 9/11. nsa conveniently said how kinsey meant it was for nsa to hide behind the fbi and the nsa. let them take the hit. this is the stark reality of our government turning into something other than what it is supposed to do. and as i recall from the nixon era, the cover-up is often worse than the crime. i am eyewitness to high crimes and misdemeanors and they are all covering it up and billions are being spent because it was a really big failure so it chased a lot of money. none of this needed to happen. the very best technology had already been developed. the fact is i discovered when i was the executive program manager, we were actually able to look at the critical or the critical database at nsa and discovered pre-and post-9/11 intelligence, information that had never been shared, 'had never been shared, information they didn't even know they had. and in thread fundamentally protected the fourth amendment rights. so i went through all this -- noah the program they did adopt it as they took a portion of thin thread and without any controls at all, no fourth amendment controls, everything was just taken. all phone numbers, e-mail a dress is coming internet usage. watching all the disclosures from edward snowden, i'm aware there is far more that has been going on inside the government than what edward snowden has disclosed. truth again be told. this is really, really disturbing knowledge in history about our own government. trailblazer was launched to great fanfare a year and a half before 9/11 ostensibly as a flagship program to deal with the digital age. nsa was going deaf. it was literally being drowned in all this data. they were in violation of the federal acquisition regulations. they decided to buy the solution, not make it. it had already been made. look up eisenhower's farewell speech before kennedy became president in 1961. i get all the way to 2005. this is -- there is a new director of nsa. there is a final report from the department of defense. i was a material witness on that as well. umpteen thousands of evidence pages given to them on all that was going on with thin thread and trailblazer. i wrote a letter to general alexander, my final whistleblowing at nsa. i lost my job. i ended up in an office that had no responsibility and know many and nobody reporting to me. i ended up at the national defense university and i made a fateful decision. in 2005, it is important to summarize for you what actually took lace in terms of press reporting. it was fundamental to beginning to unravel precisely what the government had been doing in such deep state secrets all those many years since 9/11. james rise in, eric lichtblau -- they held onto this for 14 months, blockbuster article revealing for the first time the existence of the so-called the terrorist surveillance program. they launched a criminal leak investigation to find the source of that article. my new when they launched the investigation that i would become a rhyme target because the set -- a prime target because the set of people who knew about the surveillance program was a sword nearly small. and debbie -- and because i had been executive manager on thin thread, although it had been completely shut down -- anybody watch indiana jones? just imagine thin thread, which is really software -- remember that famous picture in the end in the first indiana jones movie where the box going into the government warehouse? that's the last time i saw thin thread. the digital warehouse, indiana jones warehouse. so i knew that i would be a target of the government in this investigation. it was reported -- i am going to keep emphasizing how absolutely crucial the press is in ultimately revealing the truths, even the most disturbing of truths about our own government. reporting in 2010 that this criminal leak investigation apparently was so crucial to the government to find out who had provided information about the secret surveillance program to the new york times at they put five full-time prosecutors on it and 25 full-time agents. i can tell you from my own ordeal that they actually borrowed agents from the mole hunter unit, which is the elite spy hunting unit in the fbi. that is how serious they were about finding the sources no. they thought i was one of them. this happens and it is early 2006. i knew and i had always known that there was this third rail option. the third rail option that you never touched the nsa. you never say anything if you work for nsa. especially to the public. especially, especially to the reporters and especially if it is not preauthorized. i knew i would commit on administrative i alicia and. -- violation. i knew that i could be easily, easily placed under investigation for leaking classified. that i knew. i chose to go anonymously to a reporter and share with this reporter from the baltimore sun who had been writing a series of articles on nsa what i knew. about the intel cover-up, the failure and abuse, and the secret surveillance programs. i was placed under direct investigation in the spring of 2006. i know that because they were trying everything they could to get into my computers at home. my colleagues, former colleagues, as well as the person who had been the nsa oversight manager and staff are on the committee, they were raided in july 2007 by teams of agents. i was unceremoniously rated myself. the nightmare had begun. they thought that i was the leaker to the new york times. it was no evidence. because there was no evidence, that meant that i had done it. remember, the absence of evidence -- so, i am target number one. during my cooperative period with the fbi, they are now saying that i had gone to the reporter with all this stuff. they were accusing me of having gone to the new york times. they asked me very specific questions of what i shared with orders -- reporters. not about the fraud and abuse, but about the secret surveillance programs stop they were hyper about protecting that program. everything that ensued since. in april 2008, just imagine yourselves looking across the table from a chief prosecutor and being threatened with the following statement: mr. drake, how would you like to spend the rest of your life in prison? unless you cooperate with our investigation -- i said i will not plea bargain with the truth. i cut off all contact with the fbi. in terms of cooperating with them. i hired a private attorney and spent a lot of money over the next three years. i was charged in secret. in march 2010, then i was publicly indicted in april 2010. i faced 35 years in prison and five counts of under the espionage act. now i am on the front page of every leading newspaper in the nation. it was extraordinarily rare. i was the first whistleblower since daniel ellsberg was charged with espionage. no attorney would represent me pro bono. those who are willing to do so, the firm said that they would have to leave. we had government officials, senior contracting officials that we represent. conflict of interest. i was declared indigent before the court. i had federal public defenders appointed to provide my defense. now you are wondering what happened because i am here, and obviously i'm speaking to you as a free human being. i am extraordinarily fortunate. i cannot say that for the others charged with espionage under the obama administration. administration. i was exhibit number one. they want to make me the example. because you are charged with espionage, there is no public interest in defending you. your charge like a spy. in fact, the government said that i was worse than a spy. not only was i an enemy from the state, i endangered many american soldiers. i would have their blood on my hands. the level of classification of the documents i had given and retained for the purpose of disclosure to a reporter cause exceptionally grave damage, the highest level of damage, to the united states. it was a really dark corner. i knew i could not prevail in the federal court system. i knew i would have to find a way to influence the court of public opinion and i knew that that would require me to engage the press, not just mainstream media, but alternative press. it was crucial that the truth about my case it out there. you would think that organizations like the aclu would have come to my defense in a minute. they did not. the only organization that actually stuck with me the whole time was the government accountability project. why is that? when your charge of espionage, and i even had family members say that i must've done something. why would the government charge of espionage? i was reminded of daniel ellsberg, the first american charge of espionage for non-spy activities. i remember that. there is an extraordinary human being sitting next to me on my left. she wrote an amazingly powerful op-ed in the l.a. times. go read it. speaking of the press, i read that and i realized that here was finally, a few short days after i was so publicly indicted, and the supervising official of the criminal prosecution against me have made very public statements -- i read that article and i knew that she got the case. she recognized crucial distinctions between leaking, which is not the public interest, and whistleblowing, which is. i contacted her, and other her extraordinary leadership, she defended me in the court of public opinion when no one else would. she engage the press and the full story has not been revealed. we are writing a book, but we cannot find a publisher. it will detail all of this. there is much year beyond what i shared with you. for the next 14 months, i withstood the best that the department of justice had to throw against me. it was an extraordinary prosecutor doing everything he could to paint me into a dark corner. they, themselves, were strategically leaking certain information to the mainstream press about my case. after all is said and done, i did plead out on my terms. they dropped the felony counts to a misdemeanor. that was for exceeding authorized use of a government computer. that was my act of civil disobedience not involving any classified information. that was the truth of my case. it did not matter. i was free. do you know what it means to be free? it means an awful lot. the press was instrumental in my case. they were providing in the front and the background, critical information. it was about this case and what it represents. she got and then got early on that this was more than just somebody who apparently violated the espionage act. this was really the obama administration far beyond the bush administration. they were sending the most chilling messages. it was actually a laser bleeding -- you focus using me as the cut up to say, press, we are onto to you. we know who your sources are. one thing i did not tell you, and this is not come out fully either, there was a special secret program at nsa after 9/11. it was originally known as first for -- fruits. it was meant to spy on journalists and reporters. find your sources. if we can freeze at your source, guess what? we have the mainstream media reporters in our back pocket. we give them privileged access to hear. >> just so we don't get too despairing here, tell them what the judge. >> 14 months later, the case collapses on the evil public trial. for history, that was scheduled for june 13, 2011. the 40th anniversary to the date of the publication of the pentagon papers. dan ellsberg himself had already made planes -- plans to fight in baltimore and stand on the steps of the federal district courthouse in downtown baltimore and give civic lessons on why what was going on inside the court was so important to the nation. he had the perspective. he knew that this was really serious stuff. the government prevailed in my case -- that would really set back precedent. i knew that. this was not just about me. it was about the future of the first amendment and the future of that extraordinary experiment launched over 225 years ago called the constitution. the judge during the sentencing, the judge -- the chief prosecutor continued to make his case. in spite of the sentencing. it was agreed upon. he said, this is unconscionable. it does not pass the smell test. you put mr. drake through four years of hell. we had an american revolution. you not take 2.5 years to find a way to indict un-american. -- an american. >> he was a bush appointee? >> he was a bush appointee. i actually came out of the courthouse and said hey, there is a third branch of government. >> we are going to run at of time for this session. can we get questions? has anybody got a question? over there on the side. we will try to get you involved. >> hello? >> hello. my name is karen. i work at annenberg. i think you have sufficiently scared all of the journalism students who wanted to be investigative reporters. my question to you is twofold. how is a journalist -- how do you assure a source that they will not be elegant if, the journalists are being spied onto their phones, computers, laptops. how do you do that? if reporters cannot do that, if they cannot protect their sources, have abdicated their role? i will take a stab at that. a big step in protecting sources, which hardly any journalists are taking, is using these encryption. have any people in here using encryption? i see three hands. encryption should be a requirement for journalists, particularly if you are dealing with high-level sources. >> you realize how astounding this is? the logical, get the facts, encrypt your material so your own government will not destroy up. that is an astounding statement. i agree with you, but think about it. these people have all taken a vow. everyone in the room has voted for obama. right? >> i campaigned for and contributed to obama. this is not an anti-obama -- >> is astounding that that is the advice you would give. that is what young journalist you to hear. they must learn encryption. >> you have to to protect your sources. >> you are not protecting it from the stasi, from stalin, you are protecting it from obama. >> that is correct. >> that is the day and age in which we live. >> there other things you can do. in terms of protecting my clients, i joke about using drug dealer tactics, but paying cash, throwaway cell phones, encryption, underground parking garages. >> they have video cameras now. you have to be careful. >> seriously, source protection has become a huge issue. we see whistleblowers being from in jail and prosecuted for espionage. there is no guarantee. you could certainly take her cautions. the other one is the level of whistleblowers that i represent, are you willing to go to jail? are you willing to go to jail for your source? that is why there are fewer than 10 reporters in this country who i take my whistleblowers to. one reporter is facing jail. he is facing jail for not testifying against a source, another whistleblower who is being prosecuted for espionage named jeff sterling. >> questions? >> we are talking about whistleblowers. i will speak really loud. [inaudible] >> 10 folks just line up again microphones? >> hello. you are all whistleblowers. we kind of touched on journalism and my question is, the logical progression, first you approach the whistleblower and then you talk about people being prosecuted for refusing to testify. is the logical progression then -- what is happening? there's a threat to prosecute journalists for espionage? is that something that is a possibility in this day and age? can you expand on that? >> i can say that i think the effort against julian assange and that jury is still going as far as i know, they say that they do not have a sealed indictment. they may or may not have one. they are going after him as a transition case. some journalists like bill keller of the new york times say that he is not a journalist in any way i can recognize. they are cutting themselves loose from him. i think even bill keller drew back from that position and said that he should not be prosecuted. he realized that julian assange would simply be a test case. they would go after him. what is the status of that? it has gone up to the supreme court. >> he one in the district court. they recognized reporters'privilege. a ruled against them in the district court and their petitioning before the supreme court. on julian assange, in the bradley manning court-martial, which the new york times did not discuss until they were chastised by the public editor, there was a pivotal moment where the judge asked the prosecution is chelsea manning had gone to the new york times rather than wikileaks, would you be bringing this case? you could hear a pin drop. you could hear the wheels spinning. the prosecutors did not know how to answer stop they said yes. that means that in your times is just as vulnerable -- the new york times is just as vulnerable. >> that is still a source. that is still chelsea manning. the movement is definitely to move in the direction of going after the press directly. i think word leaked out around a verizon case. they are saying that testimony is critical. that is why they have to demand to find a source. they are confident now with the electronic surveillance that they do. they don't really need to go after anyone so directly. they feel that they can find the source. it is just circumstantial evidence of who called who and what time. that is how they got a guilty plea out of him -- stephen can from the state department. he pled guilty that he had given information to a guy named rosen. the key thing there was to get the exact metadata of when he had called rosen. they put the screws on him that they would give him a higher sentence if he did not come up with a guilty plea. the press has not yet been trekked the prosecuted. but these various cases may succeed. there's every reason to think that that will be the next out. >> the director of national intelligence said that people were aiding and abetting and conspiring. anyone who is helping snowden in any kind of way, that would include the lawyers. they could be subject to criminal penalty. that is an incredibly frightening place to be in. >> i was just wondering, what do you guys think makes a good whistleblower? a lot do it out of retaliation. how do you avoid prosecution? >> shallots to know what makes a good whistleblower. >> the most amazing thing is -- and we have discussed this before, it is not that you guys have dealt with this, that should be the norm. the amazing thing is, where are all the other people? the public is being spied on, how many people knew what was going on in the nsa? >> several dozen. >> where the hell are they? where are the several thousand who knew that their neighbors and everyone else were all being spied on? >> they are just following orders. >> rifle. decisions are made by people above them. >> your question, if i understand it, is how do we get more people like you? is that it? >> president obama says that he wants -- there is an easy solution. meaningful whistleblower protection. people like edward snowden have someplace to go. the whistleblower protection laws, including the enhancement act and the executive order that snowden could have used specifically exempts national security and intelligence whistleblowers. the people you would most want to hear from. those people are completely unprotected. >> edward snowden, to answer your question, is someone who i always hoped would come forward. i thought that he would stand on my shoulders. he would come out with a much larger set of documentation. i have some hope, because edward snowden did come forward, that there are others who may come forward as well. >> i am not a whistleblower, but i think they do not want to cheat their unborn. the courage that it takes to be a whistleblower, they are too humble to say that. my question is, can you explain if you see a correlation between activism -- hacktivists and whistleblowing? that you are all a product of the digital age. that is all edward snowden has known. there is a clear confluence between being hacktivists who are dedicated to making information for a and those who are in the inside of his government institutions and corporations, coming out and disclosing information. one of the advantage that they have is that they are very much masters in their own domain of technology. it is one of the things that i have laid down in her talent you. we need better encryption. people are not just losing their jobs, they are being incarcerated and ending up in prison. any number of others, these are all examples. the government is deliberately going after them. they are targeting individuals to send a much larger message to anyone who dares come forward. what are they really shutting down? they are shutting down the free flow of information that informs the public with what is going on. >> lately, they are over processing in the hacktivist community. the way they are using the espionage act to go over whistleblowers. it can be seen through the war on whistleblowing and hacktivists. they were also seeking to find a way for 35 years -- once he committed suicide, they said they would have settled for three months. over prosecution is completely set. they want to make an example of people like that. they just don't feel to other day, and i cannot get into the details of that, but it is a major heavy-handed charges. he had been so overcharged. >> i'm humbled to be in the presence of the three of you. thank you. correct it is important to remind you all -- >> i want to ask a question. you have been presented as the anti-snowden. you were the good guy. you are willing to go to jail. 150 years. you were prepared for that. as it turns out, the judge was offered a bribe by the nixon administration and the head of the fbi, who knows where that case would have acted up? nixon overreached. he fixed the judge. i remember being in the court when that happened. why didn't snowden do that? you are a lawyer. you are presented as a good guy. you were in your house when the fbi broken. you have five kids and you worked at an apple store, trying to support your family. take your medicine. be prepared to go to jail for 100 years, knowing damn well that that is not what we teach people. you are snowden's lawyer. what is your view? >> my view is that it speaks volumes that the only safe way to blow the whistle right now if you are a national security or intelligence and have that level of information, the only safe way is to blow the whistle from another country. that is a sorry state of affairs for this country to be in. my other nsa whistleblowers, right after snowden revealed himself, they had a press conference to say that they understood why he had to go to another country to make those disclosures. in terms of penalties -- >> snowden, i believe, he looked at these examples, he looked at chelsea manning, he looked at julian assange, and he realized that he had to be out of the country if he was going to put up this amount of information and be able to tell what he had done and why he had done it and to comment as he has been doing. 40 years ago, i was able to speak. i was out on bail throughout my trial. i was able to speak to demonstrations and lectures and this and that. there is not a chance in the world that snowden would have been allowed to do that. he knew it from looking at chelsea manning. he would be in an isolation cell for the rest of his life. no journalist to this day, 3.5 years after this came out, no journalist has spoken to chelsea manning. no journalist has spoken to chelsea manning. not in four years. we know nothing. they will not. they are not allowed to speed her in prison. snowden had to be out of the country. he learned from that. he learns that you have to put out current documents. one reason and he was saying earlier, what makes a whistleblower? it is pretty hard to do. we have all been saying that there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of people who knew the secrets and knew the truth, but many of those, perhaps most of them, knew that this involved life or death matters on which major lies were being told. the truth could make a big difference. they did not speak out. i think we have to change the culture, the secrecy, change the benefit of the doubt that if given wrongly to politicians in terms of what the public should know and should not know to allow to even think that for example, whistleblowers -- people in charge should be the last word on what is going on. it represents a culpable ignorance, unless you are 16 years old. if you have lived there any of these things, these people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. behind the veil of secrecy, it is extremely bad and this asterisk policymaking. without accountability. we learned that from the pentagon papers and from snowden. if we got be a rock papers, which we still do not have, but there have been a number of leaks. the decision-making is very bad. it is not only criminal, stupid, and ignorant to a large extent, it is not subjected to a larger debate, even within the government. not to congress or with the public. the reason that the constitution is not indeed obsolete, it was a good idea then and it is still a good idea, it has to be defended against people, starting with two presidents and their minions, and many people in the press, who after 9/11, we have a new kind of threat here. the common -- the constitution was not suited to this threat. we need a different form of government. nixon said, if the president does it, it is not illegal. we have no choice but to leave it up to him to tell us what to do. what we get with that type of judgment is the judgment that george the third had during the american revolution. you get vietnam, iraq, and much more seriously, the possibility to this day, outrageously, of nuclear winter. there are forces on both sides. they have no excuse whatsoever for existing now, and putting the entire world in jeopardy. you have a great deal of information about the climate than what they have yet told. that is why one man left the government recently. he was being found and squashed at nine thousands 1988, trying to warn us about what was coming with the climate. we need more oversight, we need independent branches, and we need whistleblowers. one thing that would change in this culture, for example, -- i was complaining to bob about the title of this talk. it is called patriots were traders? -- traders -- traitors? not too many people have the opportunity to defend themselves against being traitors. not many people think, thank you for the chance to explain to my fellow countrymen that i am not a traitor, despite all appearances. a lot of people gave me that opportunity 40 years ago. i was thinking, why am i so sensitive to that title at this point in my life? it made me realize that it took me back 40 years. i identify snowden. completely. i identify with chelsea manning, even with all the differences in our background and our personalities and whatever. i identify with her very strongly. they go over the same trajectory that i do. they did what i would have done. when it is patriots are traders, -- or traitors, i realize i have to explain why i am not a traitor. i've been saying for three years now that chelsea manning and now snowden are no more traders -- traitors and i am. and i am not. to make that very clear. it has taken me back 40 years. i got over fearing that question all the time. i feared it a lot at the beginning. reporters were asking, how does it feel to be regarded as a traitor. by the way, i was not charged in court. it happens that the constitution narrows the legal definition of traitor very significantly. under george the third, all the signers of the declaration of independence were traitors. five of the more hanged out of the 56 as traitors. they all could have been hanged if they had been found. this quality that they were born into, they discovered a different loyalty, a higher loyalty to a country that had not existed. it was a large country with a constitutional basis, a bill of rights, and the notion that you could not criminalize telling the truth about the government. that was the country they decided they were loyal to. and they were traitors to the others. i remember the first time someone called me a traitor. it was in 1971. i had just been indicted. i found myself on a program out on bail. somebody at the table, there were three of this -- asked, said, well, you are a traitor. i was so startled by this and i looked at the moderator. and i said, do you invite traitors onto your program? i took off the microphone and left. i was not going to sit there and discuss whether i was a traitor or not. the camera followed me out of the room. all the way out. people at my trial said, don't do that. that was a mistake. it doesn't look at -- good. for me that it was very cool and too hot. i disappeared. to answer the question about being a traitor, there is nothing pleasant about it. the fact is, if you are not willing to be called names, like week -- weak --millions of people have died in vietnam and in iraq. that is mainly because democrats, my party, were unwilling to be called names. they knew they were false and slanderous. names like week, unmanly, unpatriotic. we got communism and we fund terrorism. -- weak on communism and weak on terrorism. snowden said that there are things worth dying for. the truth is that most people narrow that. unless they are in the military, or conceivably in policeman or fireman where it is taken for granted that with a team and acting on authority and doing your function, you should risk your life. then people do it. they are very courageous. you see in combat, the scourge is all around. it is the same people. you put a commander in civilian clothes, and others like that, and you put them in a situation where they would risk their career or their clearance or their job or their marriage and children's education. serious risks. rather than take any risk at all for strangers, people who are not on the team, you have to conclude that most people are willing to see nearly any amount of harm done to other people to avoid that risk without lifting a finger. if we can recognize that edward snowden and chelsea manning are doing essential jobs, one that we need a great deal more with the help of journalists, journalists have to be probing for that and looking for that. they have to be encouraging that. we do not have democracy. it is what our founders risked their lives for. we have something worse and dangerous. it is up to you and your sources. after 9/11, this argument -- the fact is that most people in the world live in a nation that has had tragedy as big as 9/11 or greater. r sanders -- our founders actually fixed -- faced for greater risks. they would be found hanging from some train. they put these very provisions in the constitution that these other people after 9/11 wanted to throw out. they did not guarantee free press because they thought the press would always be on their side. they did not guarantee any of these rights thinking that they would be angry. the message that is interesting, how we teach history, and i have said this before, if anybody reads george washington's farewell address to his country, there is some incredible indictment of what he calls -- pretended patriotism. george washington. you can refer to eisenhower and other great general -- another great general, who warns about the military-industrial complex and the loss of civil restraint. you want to make one statement about the whistleblowers. you mentioned the gulf of tonkin. a decent man, william fulbright, went to the gulf of tonkin resolution to stop it meant that we were now in this issue. 20 years after the fact, and this was a fact known by many whistleblowers, there had never been a second gulf of tonkin attack. it was a phony. we were not given those documents until 20 years after. they were not present. an american ship had been fired on the high seas. therefore, we had to go to war. our own government, all of these people, when we got these documents, we realized that there had not been an attack. i forget this exchange that we had, but when i got these documents, i was at the l.a. times. i went to tom johnson, a marvelous guy, i have great respect for him. i went to him, and i said, you were in the white house. did you know this? he was in this white house. we are talking about the doubles out there. i am not saying they knew every detail. but going along to get along, not challenging, not becoming a whistleblower, when there had to be many people -- those two that i mentioned, they really knew. there were plenty of people. when i finally interviewed about it, they said, how did you get that? well, the government released it. it just came out. i was thinking that myself, but they never told us. your basic question is, what is the meaning of this democratic experiment if you can be lied to with such impunity? there is no restraint. it is not a marginal issue. it is the ballgame. i thank you for this panel. it is really great. after 9/11, we went through a couple changes psychologically. there was this issue of following orders. technologically, with the internet and smartphones, espionage change. the nature of espionage also change bureaucratically. from there it seems that the problems that these panel has clearly identified -- i would like to ask, how would that frame of mind, did the fourth and 50 state ketchup? -- the fourth and fifth esate tate can catch up? how can they effect change customer -- effect change? class it would be glad to speak to that. in terms of what the fourth estate can do to stop -- it is a multipart question. what whistleblowers can do to try to stop the current state of affairs. for me, i feel that much of the decade following 9/11 at least in the mainstream media, a lot of journalists were behaving as government lapdogs, rather than government lapdogs -- watchdogs. i get very frustrated when a journalist says, i cannot hit the government to heart in public he could i will lose my source. that is a very real issue. after the wiretapping story, one reporter had his press credentials pulled. to really be a true journalist, i think you need to be able to value your civilian sources as much as your government sources. you would not just be a stenographer who copies down government talking points. >> i have a thought on that. let me try it on you too. >> my question is basically, the problems that have arisen in terms of these infringements on personal liberty in the name of espionage and intelligence-gathering relate to changes in tech knowledge he with 9/11. the psychological changes that you identify. it is great to the problem, but iran -- i am asking you what you see as potential solutions to these problems. >> at the strategic level, you have to find -- finds the government out of the chains of the constitution. just because they have advanced in technology, that does not mean they get a free pass. that is not true at all. the constitution is more than flexible enough to accommodate all aspects of society. it is about individual rights. real intelligence has largely disappeared because it is so easy to collect everything and sort it out later. that puts the paradigm. when you are faced with decisions being made in secret, it does not matter. the technology is a means to an end. you have to protect. it is the same. it is one of your effects. you have it as an individual. if they choose to say it is not protected, the technology does not make it easier. it is simply enabling a choice. that is the choice that violates as an american you as a person. it violates your rights. where did they get off getting away is that? they choose to do so. it is a catch-22. who will stop us? i absolutely resist that mindset. i read is the notion that somehow they are the ultimate protector. it does not matter what your sovereign rights are. doesn't trump everything? i was going to say this, but i will say it now. the traders of your country met in secret in philadelphia to hammer out the constitution of the united states. they made a pact that nothing would come out except madison took notes. in 1843, they were published. we have documented evidence of what the base took place -- debates took place. benjamin franklin exited the building. history has recorded that a woman reporter came up to him and said, what did you do in there? he reportedly responded saying there is a public if you can keep it. they knew there were no guarantees. an executive with do their darndest to centralize power and gain unto themselves what they thought they could take. they bound down the executive as hard as they could and may congress the central portion of our three part government. what happened after 9/11? the technology here -- we have horses and carriages that in the 18th century. that is not matter. it is a living constitution in that regard. it is an idea of how to govern ourselves. the constitution is under suspicion. the same question i asked the lawyers at nsa. the same question i asked congress when i go to them of my disclosure. they are saying it does not work. there is a constitutional means to change a law. you know what they told me? they said, they will say no. if we go to congress, they will say no. they will say no. you said a republic -- have we kept it? the answer is no. no, we have not kept it. since 2001, we have in effect unelected monarchy. it means that it is a country in which the president doesn't and it is legal. that is the attitude. that was the attitude of and advisor to george w. bush. essentially, there are no limits on presidential power except those that he chooses to put on himself. obama, following bush, decriminalize torture. that is as you legal and criminal as anything can be under international law. there are a number of laws that we are sworn to investigate and follow up with if there's any credible charge. obama has not chosen to investigate or indict any higher up for that process of torture. take right now. the 6000 page -- >> the torture report. >> 6000 pages and their are doing now, in a way it is worthwhile to see this argument go on. we will see where obama comes out on it. they assented to him for declassification. obviously, that report should not have been leaked. -- should have been leaked. it should be leaked right now. we need not to understand what it is reputed to have revealed. there was no necessity for this torture. there was no effect. far from being essential, it did not contribute in any case to preventing terror attacks. why does that matter? it is illegal. it is unconstitutional. the whole issue was put before the public. the constitution is obsolete. it was overtaken. we have a state of emergency now. it has been formally declared. obama has reinstated it several times in office. how many people actually knew that in this office that obama has formally stated that we are in a state of emergency? how many people knew that? let me see your hands. don't be shy. i see 45. how many did not know? what is the state of the press if it has not made you aware that we are living in a state of emergency. what does that imply? what regulations does that mean? the house member of the committee over homeland security at precisely that question. there are classified annexes. can we see those? the answer was no. they are classified. we have the chairman of the house committee on homeland security to extract the for those. no, they were not able to get them. this is not a constitutional republic. if the report says, as it does, and it is 6000 pages, that this was not necessary. in other words, it is criminal, it is not justified by necessity. it cannot be necessary for did not work at all. therefore, it is criminal. absolutely criminal. as some people want to decriminalize marijuana, obama has effectively decriminalize torture. how can the next president ring prosecutions for torture? >> it does remind me that anybody -- does anybody listen to jackson browne? one of my favorite songs. there is a lot of pretenders. on the chair, there are no pretenders. we are extraordinarily fortunate. we never ended up in prison. there are whistleblowers in prison right now. there are whistleblowers these in prison right now. there are hacktivists already in prison and facing prison. that is the reality in this country. here is another truth. the two biggest scandals of the bush administration was secret surveillance and torture. the only two people investigated and prosecuted and indicted and convicted of torture and surveillance are myself and one other person. he is currently serving 30 months in a federal penitentiary in pennsylvania. why? because he actually blew the whistle is a former cia agent. it was about state-sponsored torture. the name of a torque for. he's in prison. those who authorized the program, those who approve the program, those who implement the program, those who manage the world torture program have immunity. secret surveillance. i am the only one prosecuting and indicted. i had nothing to do with surveillance. i resisted with everything i had. they had all of those who authorize surveillance and approve surveillance -- they all have immunity. in fact, if i had committed surveillance -- if i had engaged in surveillance, i would not have been prosecuted. if the other man had tortured, he would not be in prison today. what does that tell you? the press has been complicit in the war crimes any wrongdoing and the suspension of the constitution since 9/11. it is high time. you are faced with the stark reality that you are going to be in this. you need to question this. question authority. you need to question everything. especially question authority. how else do we know what is going on without being informed? this is a fundamental and some suggest, the fatal flaw, of any democracy, no matter what form it takes. it is ultimately about keeping the public informed. the public has the responsibility to inform themselves. what is the primary means by which we do that? he pressed. -- the press. the ultimate question that we have to face and that must be asked is what is the future, given that there is no guarantee, what future do we want to keep? >> we will end, but i do not have the courage not to call my wife. [laughter] i want to call her, as she started the book festival and she did an important book with the mother of pat tillman. when you talk about that? >> how much time do you have? >> i watched you for two years reading that. >> i read 3000 pages of investigative documents. they were so full of holes. government documents that were so full of holes, you can drive a humvee through it. we came away with no satisfaction at all about how pat tillman was killed and what the circumstances were. to this day, i still talk to her every week. i see what else we can do. it has been very frustrating. i have two quick things. one is that first of all, you have inspired so many young people. you have inspired me and i was a lifelong journalist. you have inspired a lot of young people. before we go, i hope that you can tell the 99% of the people how to do encryption. my real question, how to do encryption -- my real question is, how can you actually put the genie back in the bottle? dennis kucinich was in congress and it was before edward snowden, before any of these revelations. he was part of a group of congress numbers. members. you have the cia, you have the fbi, why do you need this? is it possible to accomplish that with all of these revelations? stillope it's -- i believe it is possible to rein in the national security surveillance state that we are becoming. if i did not believe that, i would not be out on the lecture circuit every weekend talking to students like you. i would have given up. so i guess i still believe that we can recover our democracy from the police state that has become. in terms of encryption, i am not a technologist. pgp.i used how to use pretty good privacy. you can install it as an app, and put it on your computer. that is one of many encryption mechanisms. tour, tails, others get more sophisticated but pgp is a pretty basic encryption that is not too difficult to learn and does not take long to learn. parties whereto people can teach you this. that is what they do in other countries. i do believe every journalist should know how to use basic encryption. >> there is, i am on the board with edward snowden of another group called the press foundation. if you look at press freedom foundation.org, trevor -- and others have made available now encryption methods for journalists like those at wikileaks which can be picked up free and used. they will walk you through it. soy have secure drops, people can blow the whistle to news outlets in a secure way. so i think tech can actually really help in this endeavor. >> while you are doing that, you should get the wording of the fourth amendment, carry it in your pocket and pass it out to people to remind them that we have other means of protecting our privacy. sandy was so instrumental. i want to thank the government accountability project. a lot of people really helped, great annenberg support, both in journalism. the school is really great. in having this conference. do you have some closing remarks? >> i wanted to ask one question. and i want to echo what you just said, bo. b. we thank you for coming. it is going to go on tomorrow with the institute of politics at the tudor center at 11:30. room 227. but i wanted to ask one question. there was a piece a few months ago in the new york review of books by david cole in which he made a distinction in his opinion, citing others, that all leakers are not the same. he basically defended snowden but was more critical of assange and manning. this is what he said in his piece. he said while some specific warlocks and cables may have legal go -- revealed a contract without a disproportionate harm to public severalmanning's hundred thousand documents was not narrowly tailored. he said the leaked state department cables outed many individuals who put themselves a considerable risk. i just want to ask you, do you think that there are distinctions to be made? are there time where leaks should not be made? i dowould say, obviously, not think source -- i do not think all secret should be out there. i think sources and methods should be kept secret. nuclear design information, troop mates, things like that. the problem with the argument e is that a lot of whistleblowers are accused of over disclosing or undergoes closing -- under disclosing. he did not give enough information about swiss bank secrecy. chelsea manning gave way too much information. legally, the law does not turn on the quantum of how much information you disclosed. it turns on whether or not the discloser had a reasonable leave that what he or she saw te,denced, fraud, wasite, abuse or illegality. i think cole misses the point. we can agree that is the collateral murder video al one was definitely whistle blowing. theerms of the phantom harm government talked about as one of the few people actually did go to the parts of his court-martial that i could, her court-martial now. and the government cry again. the way they are with snowden. when it came time for the government to produce a damage assessment, the judge gave them numerous opportunities, and they could produce not a single damage assessment. >> it is funny when you mentioned, i made this distinction earlier about leakers and whistleblowers. my wife. i used to be called a leaker. my wife hated that. she thought it made me sounding confident. had to get used to that --she thought it made me sound nent.ti are there legitimate secrets that should not be told? we mentioned earlier, gibbering valerie plame's name. you mentioned that. it was not just unnecessary. it was not just whistleblowing. that is not the only thing. it was wrong. it should not have been leaked. i cannot imagine doing that. anybody think i knew who would give the name of a covert agent who is doing something worthwhile, which is not true of all cia agents. she was running anti-proliferation efforts which were endangered by putting up that name. that is an example
>> that's not just data collection; that's digital surveillance. >> i argued it was unethical, illegal and unconstitutional, and when this comes out, all hell is gonna break loose. >> narrator: next on frontline, "united states of secrets." part one: "the program." >> frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from: and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support for frontliis provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information is available at macfound.org. additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the wyncote foundation. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from john and jo ann hagler and a grant from millicent bell, through the millicent and eugene bell foundation. >> narrator: the biggest leak of government secrets ever began in december of 2012 with a single email delivered to an ip address in rio de janeiro. >> glenn greenwald, one of the world's busiest journalists, is sitting in his home in rio, and he sees an email from someone he doesn't know-- it's not a friend, it's not his mom-- and it just says, "i've got some stuff you might be interested in." >> he didn't use his name, and he said very cryptically and very vaguely that he had information that he wanted to discuss with me, but could only do so if i were to install encryption. >> narrator: guardian newspaper columnist and blogger glenn greenwald didn't pay much attention to the email. >> 99% of the time, it ends up that they're crazy or delusional, or the story is just not very good. >> and this guy or girl-- we don't know who it is-- is persistent, so a few days later emails again and says, "look, glenn, can you do this thing?" and glenn still doesn't do it. this attempt, basically, to leak all of these secrets initially just goes straight into the sand. >> narrator: the source moved on, this time to berlin. he was soon exchanging emails with american documentary filmmaker laura poitras. >> she had been in contact for over a month with a mysterious source who had reached out to her using her encryption key and using anonymous channels, and said he had a big story for her. >> narrator: a few weeks later in new york, poitras met national security investigative reporter barton gellman at a greenwich village restaurant. >> this was something she wanted to be exceptioionally careful about. we agreed on a cafe to meet at. we also, i think, both understood that when we got there, we'd move to someplace else. >> narrator: poitras asked gellman to vet the source and meet him electronically. >> her source, who became also my source, needed to take very special precautions in the usual nsa style. and so he called me brass banner. and he called himself verax, which means "truth teller" in latin. >> narrator: through sophisticated encrypted messages, verax promised an unprecedented scoop. but it came with a warning. >> he believed he was risking his freedom and possibly his life. and he warned me as well that if the u.s. intelligence community believed that by getting rid of me they could prevent the story from happening, he said that my life would be at risk. >> narrator: in late may, verax surprised gellman and poitras. he sent them an invitation. >> he said, "your destination is hong kong." >> narrator: poitras wanted to go. barton gellman, worried about a secret meeting in a foreign country like china, decided not to. but poitras knew someone who might join her. that spring, glenn greenwald arrived in new york to deliver a speech. >> and we met that night in my hotel, in the lobby. and she showed me these emails that she had been exchanging with this person who was claiming that he was a national security state insider with access to very sensitive information that he believed to be very incriminating, and stated very definitively that he wanted to turn it over to her and to me. >> narrator: greenwald decided to join poitras. >> we all knew that this was incredibly risky and uncertain, but the story had to be reported. >> narrator: in june, poitras and greenwald headed to the airport. >> i think they're kind of quite excited, but there's also a sort of feeling that maybe this is just the most terrific hoax. >> narrator: they were joined by ewen macaskill, a veteran guardian reporter. >> at the time, i didn't think it was for real, didn't take it that seriously, and thought it was a slightly obscure story. >> narrator: once they were finally airborne, poitras thought it was safe to share with greenwald something the source had securely sent to her. >> and that's kind of quite a moment. they're in a secure space, and so laura creeps forward to go and see glenn. >> laura whips out this thumb drive and in a very sort of almost mischievous way says, you know, "guess what this is?" and told me that she had just received a fairly large archive of documents. >> they kind of can't control their excitement because this is clearly the biggest story that anyone has worked on since the pentagon papers in the 1970s. >> i didn't sleep one second for the next 16 hours because the adrenaline made that impossible to do, because i not only saw the magnitude of the documents, just the sheer quantity. the fact that we had in our possession thousands, not dozens or hundreds, but many thousands of top secret nsa documents that were about a wide range of surveillance activities, that came directly from some of the most sensitive areas of the agency. >> i could see out of the corner of my eye glenn with the light on throughout this 13-hour flight reading on his laptop all the time, laura coming to see him, them having chats, and glenn getting more and more excited. >> we essentially couldn't believe what it was that we had. and that was really the first time i think i fully understood that this was going to be unlike any other story, really ever, in american journalism or politics. >> narrator: in hong kong, greenwald and the others traveled to a hotel in kowloon. >> snowden's instructions to glenn and laura are like a kind of magical mystery tour crossed with something out of john lecarre. he tells them to go to a hotel, the mira hotel in hong kong, and says that he will meet them in a less-trafficked part of the hotel, next to a shopping mall, by a bench and a crocodile. >> we had still no idea of who he was, what his age was, what his race was. we knew nothing about him demographically at all. and so the plan that he picked was that he would be holding a rubik's cube in his hand so that when he entered the room, we would immediately know who he was. >> all of a sudden, this guy comes past with a rubik's cube-- scrambled up, which was part of the code-- but the man before them is not what they'd expected. they'd expected some grizzled cia veteran wearing a blue blazer, maybe with a bit of dandruff, with a tie, receding grey hair. and they get this callow, sort of thin-limbed student type who looks as if he's just out of high school. and he is their source. and he's supposedly the guy who has got the crown jewels. >> when this 29-year-old kid who looks a lot younger shows up, it was extremely disorienting and introduced a real awkwardness to our interaction, and kind of a shock. >> narrator: edward snowden led the group upstairs to his room. >> in his bedroom by the door, he'd piled pillows as high up the door jambs as he could, and pillows along the bottom. so if somebody was outside eavesdropping, it would make it harder for them. >> there was always this kind of uncertainty, one might even say danger, hovering over the room, especially for the first few days, because we didn't know what the nsa knew about what he was doing. so we thought it was very possible that the door could be barged down at any moment and someone could enter to arrest snowden. >> narrator: they painstakingly debriefed snowden for days. at one point, guardian reporter ewen macaskill sent a text message to his editor in new york, janine gibson. >> janine knew that i liked guinness, so she said, "if snowden is for real, send me a message and just say, 'the guinness is good.'" i was 100% sure that snowden and the documents were for real, and i sent a message to janine saying, "the guinness is good." >> narrator: the documents snowden delivered revealed the history and details of one of the united states government's most closely guarded secrets. it was known as "the program." "the program" began on september 11, 2001 at fort meade in maryland. >> biggest story in washington now: people talking about michael jordan's comeback. >> narrator: the headquarters for the national security agency. >> does it look like september or what? >> i'm in my office. i remember the day, brilliantly clear day, clear blue skies. >> i was in his suite, waiting for a meeting. and we had started up the hallway to his office when the first plane hit the tower. >> we understand that a plane has crashed... >> my executive assistant, a young woman, came in and said, "hey, we got reports of a plane hitting the world trade center." and like 300 million other americans, i thought, "wow. small plane, sport plane, accident, too bad." >> that looks like a second plane... >> that just exploded... >> my poor security chief didn't even have a chance to speak. i just turned to him and said, "all nonessential personnel out of here now." (explosion) >> oh my goodness, there is smoke pouring out of the pentagon. >> everybody had the tv on, because the tv is where the news was. it wasn't coming out of nsa's computers. it was on the tv, because we had missed the entire event. >> this is a live picture. we are seeing the second... >> it was an enormous shock that you have this huge agency set up to prevent a surprise attack, and they learn about it on a $300 television set tuned to cnn in the director's office. >> narrator: at the white house, there was chaos. a near total evacuation. >> secret service bursts into the vice president's office, basically frog marches him by one arm and the seat of his pants into this deep underground shelter that was built to withstand nuclear war. >> narrator: almost immediately, cheney directed his lawyer david addington to prepare the case for the president to exercise his unilateral authority as commander in chief. >> david addington, principally the vice president, was interested in ensuring that the president's constitutional authority was used to its fullest. >> cheney says, "i want you to tell me what powers we're going to need, the president is going to need, that he doesn't already have to respond to this calamity." >> and they decide that they're going to push every boundary they have. addington at one point says, "we're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop." >> tours of the capitol will be cancelled indefinitely. >> the fbi has received 4,000 reports of bombs... >> narrator: on september 12 at nsa headquarters, the mood was somber. >> where did it all begin? >> we began soul searching almost immediately. we all felt like a great wrong had been done and that we were all somewhat if not all culpable. >> a date that will live in infamy. >> you have to remember that nsa was created after world war ii to prevent another surprise attack. that was the whole raison d'etre for nsa: pearl harbor. we don't want another pearl harbor. >> more people involved in the plot remain in the united states... >> immediately we began to wonder what we had done wrong, why did we miss the boat, what didn't we detect that we should have detected? >> the investigation continues in this country... >> narrator: in the aftermath, troubling questions emerged from deep inside the agency. >> had lived for at least a year... >> narrator: why hadn't the nsa been able to connect the dots? >> it was a very cautious agency. it's an agency that is fighting with one hand tied behind its back out of fear of a political backlash by being too aggressive. >> the president now at the door... >> narrator: during the nixon administration. >> a final wave... >> narrator: the nsa had overstepped: spied on americans. >> certainly appears to violate the 4th amendment to the constitution. >> narrator: caught and restricted by congress, the domestic spying apparatus went dark for more than 20 years. it was against the law to turn the nsa on americans. >> if you were an nsa analyst, this sort of legal regime was drilled into your head to the point where a lot of people said, "it's made the rules too restrictive and it's hampered the nsa's ability to detect terrorist plots." >> narrator: some at the agency thought the nsa had been overly cautious and believed the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped. >> i do believe it could have been prevented with revisions to the way we were permitted to operate before 9/11. (voice breaking): revisions that i tried to get the general counsel to embrace and wouldn't... and couldn't... i tried to get them to make adjustments to how we were operating, how we were permitted to operate, and they wouldn't do it. i've felt this ever since it occurred, that over 3,000 people's lives were lost. and it's just a weight that i am having trouble bearing. it's... i'm sorry, i... >> the toughest week for america since japan bombed pearl harbor 60 years ago... >> narrator: all over washington, there was a growing demand to stop the next attack. >> we have to remember that we had had terrorists living in this country for a number of months and we didn't know about it. what else didn't we know? and so there was a great deal of concern about the fact that we not only could not connect the dots, we could not collect the dots. >> narrator: at the cia, director george tenet was under pressure from the vice president. >> the director had a meeting with vice president cheney and his top aide, david addington, and he was asked, "what can be done? what can be done that isn't being done?" >> 9/11 made necessary a shift in policies. >> cheney says, in effect, to tenet, "make me a shopping list. tell me what you want to do that we're not letting you do yet." >> narrator: tenet, whose own agency was designing covert operations against al qaeda, called general hayden. >> george calls me and says, "mike, any more you can do?" i said, "george, no, not within my authorities, not within my current authorities." and he paused and said, "that's not actually the question i asked you. is there anything more you could do?" i said, "i'll get back to you." >> narrator: hayden got the message. at nsa headquarters, he spread the word. "take the gloves off. bring me an aggressive plan." >> and they asked me, "is there anything that we had that could have prevented 9/11?" >> narrator: loomis told them what he believed was necessary: begin monitoring foreign internet traffic going through the united states. >> the u.s. internet hubs handle so much of the worldwide internet traffic. so i said, "let us allow collection between u.s.-and-foreign/foreign-to-u.s. against the terrorism problem." >> narrator: but others in the agency were proposing much more aggressive data collection. >> what they proposed to do is create a whole new surveillance program without warrants, trapping all sorts of information, taking advantage of the fact that modern communication trunk lines tend to come through the united states. >> the idea of this program was you're looking for unknown conspirators, and the way they devised to do that was to look at everybody. >> narrator: it was the outline of something hayden could take to the vice president. he headed to washington to propose the idea. >> one of the worst days in american history... >> narrator: it would be his first meeting in the oval office. >> there was a massive sell-off on wall street... >> prior to 9/11, i don't think i knew general hayden. i probably knew his name. i doubt that the president knew his name. >> it's a very big change for the director of nsa to suddenly have all this attention from senior officials in the white house and so forth. and i'm sure it had a major impact on hayden. >> narrator: the president had been briefed. he put his arm around general hayden, called him his childhood nickname, "mikey." >> so i walk in to see the president. it's the president and the vice president in the room. almost certainly condi was there, as the national security advisor, andy card would have been there. >> cheney suggests the question and george bush asks it: "what would you like to do that you can't already do that would help prevent another 9/11?" >> narrator: hayden outlined "the program." it would gather data on the phone calls and internet traffic of hundreds of millions of americans, then search it for suspicious connections. but he was worried about whether it was legal. >> and the first thing he says to me is, "mike, i understand your concerns. but there are some things we're going to have to do, and i think i have the authority to authorize you to do things that you've outlined." >> the president says, "go. i want you to go develop a program. come back to me. we've got the lawyers working on it, but you have my order. we're going to do this." >> narrator: hayden left the white house knowing that "the program" was bound to be controversial. >> no president had authorized it prior to this time. and michael hayden goes home after briefing the president and the vice president about his ideas for expanding surveillance and takes a walk with his wife. >> and she said, "what's on your mind?" i said, "well, we're going to do something here." and i didn't go into any details. "we're going to do something. one day, it's going to be public, and when it gets public, it's going to be very controversial and the people doing it are going to be swept into this thing." and she said, "uh-huh. is it the right thing to do?" i said, "yeah, i think so." she said, "okay, we'll deal with that when it comes." >> narrator: on october 4, in a secret signing with cheney, the president officially authorized "the program." >> that order is written by david addington, the vice president's lawyer. it's not written by the president's lawyer. and this is not only unusual but probably unique in the history of major u.s. intelligence operations: it's written by the vice president's lawyer and stored in his own safe. >> narrator: addington worked out of a small office next to the white house in the old executive office building. >> this order is one of the most closely kept secrets of the bush/cheney administration for four years. it's kept so secret that many people involved in national security inside the white house and the government don't know about it. >> narrator: addington personally hand-carried a copy of the secret document out to fort meade. >> he said, "i'm coming out. i'll be there in about 30 minutes." hand-carried. this was very closely guarded that we were doing this. and he comes onto the campus at fort meade, up to the top deck, and hands me the order. >> narrator: now general hayden wanted the sign-off of his top lawyer, robert deitz. >> i think he was concerned and wanted my view of whether this program was lawful. i spent a kind of sleepless night pondering the legality of it. this was a very hard call. it was a very hard call. >> the nsa has a general counsel and about 100 lawyers. and they were told, "the president has signed it, it's been certified as lawful, and once all the signatures are there, that's it, we salute. we say, 'okay, it's lawful, we're going to go ahead.'" >> in the intel world, if a president says to you, "i need this in order to keep the american people safe," you need to try to figure out where that line is constitutionally and march right up to it. >> narrator: two other nsa lawyers would also sign off on "the program." >> we came to the conclusion independently but consistently that there was no doubt in our mind that it was a legitimate use of the president's article 2 authority. >> narrator: general hayden had heard exactly what he needed. article 2: the president's authority as commander in chief. >> i had my three good friends here, who have been my guardian angels on these things since i became director, saying, "this is good." >> narrator: now the massive collection of data could begin. >> who is emailing whom? who is texting whom? who is doing skype calls with whom? they're collecting a lot of information, a lot of content of phone calls. they are actually recording the voices. not for all of our calls, but for a lot of u.s. telephone calls. and they were doing this under an authority that had never existed before. >> narrator: it would be general hayden's most closely guarded secret. only a small handful of nsa employees knew what the president had authorized. most were kept out of the loop, including this man: senior manager thomas drake. >> my first day reporting on the job was the morning of 9/11. >> he had been in the military, he'd been in the air force. he's devoted his life to national security issues. he's a computer genius of a sort. >> narrator: drake had no idea what had been going on between hayden and the white house. he had been given a different task. >> i was actually charged to find "whatever you've got in the labs, whatever you've got in your agency, even if it's not operational, put it into the fight. we need it, it might help us. we need to deal with the threat." >> narrator: but according to the rules drake thought he had to follow, whatever he found had to safeguard americans' privacy. he started by digging around inside the deepest reaches of the nsa's secret r&d programs. >> and he stumbles into sort of a skunkworks, and he discovers that there was actually a program before 9/11 that could have, as they said, eavesdropped on the entire world. it's called thinthread. >> narrator: thinthread, a program that could capture and sort massive amounts of phone and email data, was the brainchild of veteran crypto-mathematician bill binney. >> the whole idea was to build networks around the world of everybody and who they communicate with. then you could isolate all the groups of terrorists. once you could do that, you could use that metadata to select the information from all those tens of terabytes going by. >> narrator: but to make sure the nsa would not spy on u.s. citizens, binney and the other analysts had built in privacy protections. >> it anonymizes who it's listening in on, unless there's a court warrant that makes the identity of that person clear. >> if you knew that it was u.s. person-related, it would be automatically encrypted. that was part of the design of thinthread. >> it had a data privacy section. that was working very well, protecting citizens and innocent people by encrypting the data and not allowing analysts to look at it even. >> narrator: drake was ecstatic. the experimental program could monitor massive amounts of data, but the encryption would protect the privacy of individual americans. he took it upstairs to the top deck. >> in those short days and weeks after 9/11, i put together a two-page classified implementation plan to put thinthread into the fight, and i presented it to maureen baginski. >> narrator: baginski was drake's immediate superior: the third highest ranking official at nsa. >> it took awhile to get any kind of response. he felt there was something strange going on. >> she would refuse to see me. none of her responses were ever electronic. none of her responses were in a form that would be recorded or saved. >> finally, he wrote a memo, sent it to her, and instead of responding electronically, which would have been normal, she wrote in a big, black felt pen. >> it was kind of a modified cursive. and she said, "they've gone with a different program." >> when drake asked her what this other solution was, she said, "i'm sorry, i can't tell you." >> narrator: it didn't take long for clues to emerge that something much bigger was going on. >> they started seeing stacks of servers piled in corners and so forth. >> so we had to walk way around all this hardware that was piling up out there. and so we knew, you know, something was happening. >> all of a sudden, people who normally would communicate with each other were keeping secret this new operation of some sort. >> narrator: dozens of nsa employees were sworn to secrecy, but before long, details were leaked to drake. >> i have people coming to me with grave concerns about, "what are we doing, tom? i thought we're supposed to have a warrant. i'm being directed to deploy what's normally foreign intelligence, outward-facing equipment, i'm being now directed to place it on internal networks." >> narrator: at the same time, bill binney and the thinthread team heard that "the program" was using thinthread but stripping out the privacy protections. >> what they're hearing is that the program they designed is in some form being put into use, but without the protections that they had designed in. >> what they did was they got rid of the section of the code that encrypted any of the attributes of u.s. citizens. >> narrator: even ed loomis, who had wanted a more robust approach, was surprised at how far the agency was willing to go. >> i just refused to believe, after all i had been through for 37 years, that all of a sudden things would change and they'd go back to the old ways, back to the early '70s. i didn't believe that they could possibly have just flip-flopped and gone 180 degrees the other way. i just didn't believe it. >> narrator: to the thinthread team, collecting data without a warrant seemed like a direct violation of the rules they had followed for years. >> all these years having grown up, you never spy on americans. we had suddenly become criminals by association. the agency had gone down a path that we had been preached to you never do. we were very, very, very concerned. >> narrator: and the fact that their thinthread system had been incorporated into the program was the last straw. >> we said, "we can't stick around and be a party to this. we can't be an accessory to all these crimes, so we have to get out." >> narrator: at the end of october 2001, bill binney, kirk wiebe and ed loomis all quietly retired. tom drake stayed behind. >> so drake is now still working away over at the nsa with his worries rising about what's going on in terms of domestic surveillance. >> narrator: once again, drake confronted maureen baginski. >> i made one final attempt, one final appeal to maureen baginski, and she demurred and she simply said, "call the office of general counsel," which i did. and i said, "i want to speak to the lead attorney." she'd given me the name. "i want to speak..." it was vito potenza. >> he goes to the general counsel's office with his concerns and says, "i think this program may be illegal." >> he proceeded to tell me, "you don't understand. all the lawyers have approved it. it's legal. we are under emergency, emergency conditions. extraordinary, extraordinary means are required to deal with the threat. we just need the data." and then the most chilling... i don't often have said this part of the conversation: "don't ask any more questions, mr. drake." >> if he came to me, someone who was not read into the program, right, and not a part of what we were doing, and told me that we were running amok, essentially, and violating the constitution, and it was in that time frame when there was an awful lot going on and we were all worried about the next attack, there's no doubt in my mind i would have told him, you know, "go talk to your management. don't bother me with this." i mean, you know, the minute he said, if he did say, "you're using this to violate the constitution," i mean, i probably would have stopped the conversation at that point, quite frankly. so i mean, if that's what he said he said, then anything after that i probably wasn't listening to anyway. >> narrator: "the program" was continuing to grow. in secret, the nation's largest telephone companies were now giving the nsa the private call records of millions of americans. tom drake had hit a dead end inside the agency. that fall, bill binney took an extraordinary step. he decided to break ranks: to take the matter to congress. >> the next move is to try to get some cooperation from congress, from the senate and house intelligence committees. and he finds an ally in diane roark, who felt the same way. >> narrator: diane roark was a top congressional intelligence staffer. >> i worked at the house intelligence committee for 17 years. and for the last five of those years, i had the nsa account for the republican majority. >> she's an interesting character. she's very conservative. she's a republican. she is in oversight of the nsa partly to make it powerful and also to keep it from wasting money. >> narrator: porter goss was roark's boss. goss was the powerful chairman of the house select committee on intelligence and future cia director. >> diane is the go-to girl on the house permanent select committee on matters dealing with nsa. so she spent a fair amount of time at nsa. she knew personnel out there. >> narrator: binney and roark decided it would be safer to meet away from her congressional office. >> bill came to me at my house and told me that part of their system, their thinthread system, was being used for collection of domestic communications in a dragnet fashion, collection on everybody. >> so diane says, "they have gone rogue," you know? that was her point: she thought they were going rogue. >> i was aghast. i was absolutely aghast. because nsa had... because this constituted a complete reversal of nsa policy. >> roark is a very feisty woman. she was just certain that there was no way that this program was legal, and she said, "and if the nsa officials are breaking the law, i am going to fry them." >> narrator: roark began to distribute a series of searing memos to the leaders of the house intelligence committee. >> diane was very capable, so good that she pierced the veil of a program that she was not briefed on, not cleared for, but knew something was going on. >> i updated them on what was going on, explained to them the... all the technology in as simple a way as i could. and i argued very strongly that they needed to have the protections restored. i told them that if they did not... if the administration refused to do this, they should insist that the system be killed, be stopped. >> narrator: what roark did not know was that in october, the white house had invited a small group of congressional leaders to a secret briefing in the vice president's office. general hayden led the briefing. >> mike hayden is particularly good at coming in and explaining things in a way that, shall we say, neophytes in the business could understand it. and you really wanted to believe what mike had to say and absorb it and digest it rather than question it. >> he has very facile command of the facts. he's also very good at eliding past the parts that he doesn't think you want to hear, and using very careful language to avoid saying things he doesn't want to say while also avoiding any outright falsehood. >> our purpose in this was to get the other political branch involved in this program. and so we would be defeating our own purposes, working against our own goals, if we weren't full monty to these folks. >> narrator: but as open as hayden says he was, he and the vice president's office created strict conditions for the briefing. >> you have the individual senator or member of congress who is brought in and read into a program. they're not allowed to bring any staff with them. they're not necessarily allowed to communicate any of what they've heard to their staff. in some instances, they're not lawyers, so they may not understand all of the legal fine points. in most instances, they're not technologists, so they may not be able to grasp what it is precisely that they're being briefed on or the implications of it. >> 14 people were killed and scores were wounded... >> narrator: they returned to congress, some now feeling they were unable to exercise effective oversight of the program. by the summer of 2002, it was running full speed. >> and i argued with everybody that i met, and i got no refutation from them. i said it was unethical, immoral, politically stupid, illegal and unconstitutional, and stop. and when this comes out, all hell is going to break loose. >> narrator: finally, intelligence committee chairman porter goss had had enough. >> i said, "you need to talk to general hayden, and you also need to know that concerns of the areas you're talking about are known to me. and i'm not going to discuss, because you're frankly not cleared for this level of program or what's going on here. but the fact that you have discovered this means that you need to talk to general hayden." >> narrator: roark was summoned to the top deck at the nsa to meet with director hayden. >> my whole point in going there was to ask him why he had taken off the protections: the encryption and the automated tracking. i asked this any number of times, and he always evaded answering. and i finally just decided i was not going to leave the room until i got an answer. and so i kept asking. and so about the fifth time, he looked down, and i remember he could not look me in the eye, and he said, "we have the power. we don't need them." and he made clear that the power he was referring to was the commander in chief's wartime authority. >> it's awkward for me having the conversation, because she's not been briefed on the program, all right? so to a certain level of detail, i simply respond that i disagree with both of her conclusions. i think what we're doing is lawful, and i think what it is we're doing is effective. and if i knew of a better way of doing it, i would do that too. >> toward the end of the meeting, general hayden made it pretty clear that he wanted me to stop lobbying against the program. >> i said, "look, diane, this is going to become public. and when it becomes public, you can argue your point and i can argue mine." >> and so instead of allaying my concerns, this actually made me far more worried. it was clear to me that he didn't like my talking to other people in the executive branch and on the house intelligence committee and trying to convince them to put controls on the program. >> narrator: for now, hayden's secret was secure. >> narrator: by early 2003, keeping "the president's program" secret was about to become harder. >> few answers so far... >> narrator: in a small office at the department of justice, attorney thomas tamm had just started a new job. >> i went in with a lot of patriotic fervor. i work with agents, fbi agents primarily, to try and develop intelligence about people that we thought were foreign agents or terrorists. >> he came from a family of fbi agents. but not just any fbi agents. his uncle was one of the top aides to j. edgar hoover. his father had also been a senior official under j. edgar hoover. >> narrator: tamm would work with one of the most secretive institutions in washington: the foreign intelligence surveillance court-- the fisa court. >> it was on the sixth floor and only one elevator went up there. and it was literally in a bank vault because they were worried about the soviet union overhearing what was going on. >> good evening. president nixon reportedly will announce his resignation tonight... >> narrator: the fisa court had been set up to act as a watchdog after those revelations during the nixon administration that the nsa had been spying on americans. >> when that came out, you saw a period of reform like none other we'd seen, like nothing we'd seen before then, and frankly, nothing since. >> narrator: under the reforms, the nsa could conduct surveillance inside the united states only if the fisa court issued a warrant. >> you can turn your ears outward, but not inward. you can listen all you want abroad, but you really cannot do that to americans unless you have a warrant. >> narrator: and inside the department of justice, it was thomas tamm's job to prepare warrants for the fisa court. >> the law specifically said that if you didn't go through the court, you were committing a federal felony. >> narrator: but then as tamm began working on terrorism cases, he discovered something surprising: evidence of "the program." >> there are references to wiretaps and information that hadn't come through fisa warrants. so the question is, "where did they come from? where did the government get this information?" >> narrator: tamm learned that hardly anyone at the doj knew details about what was going on. >> i asked a supervisor of mine if she knew what "the program" was about, and she told me that she just assumed that what we were doing was illegal, and she didn't want to ask any questions. >> narrator: tamm became concerned. >> they were conducting electronic surveillance without getting warrants, and using that information then to develop probable cause and basically not informing the court of the source of the information. >> narrator: tamm and others at the doj, unaware of the secret presidential order, wondered if attorney general ashcroft was doing something illegal. >> it just kind of ate away at me and kind of came to a head when i ran into one of the deputies of the unit who said that there was a chance that for the first time ever, that a sitting attorney general would be indicted. >> narrator: tamm says he tried to take his questions up the chain of command without success. >> he was quite disturbed by that, was quite disturbed that he wasn't getting answers to the questions he was asking. >> narrator: eventually, tamm decided to take a risky step. he headed up pennsylvania avenue to congress for a secret meeting with a powerful senate staffer. >> i said, "does congress know what we're doing with regard to this program?" and she said she couldn't tell me. and i said, "well, then i think maybe i will go to the press." and i remember her last comment was, "you know, tom, whistleblowers frequently don't end up very well." and i told her, yeah, i understood that. >> in baghdad, a bomb last night set portions... >> narrator: in the fall of 2003, the white house got involved in filling an important vacancy at the justice department. >> the justice department needs a new head of the office of legal counsel, which is a very powerful position. cheney and addington get together and say, "who should we pick?" >> narrator: david addington had a candidate in mind for the job: jack goldsmith. >> jack goldsmith is impeccably credentialed, a member of the federalist society, well-known and liked in the conservative movement. david addington calls goldsmith in and interrogates him about a few of his lesser known positions and, "what would you think about this or that?" and he's convinced goldsmith, like he himself, is a true believer and is going to be making the right decisions. >> narrator: with addington's blessing, goldsmith became the new head of the office of legal counsel, charged with reviewing the legality of the administration's most secret operations. >> i was being briefed into a lot of programs: classified programs, counter-terrorism programs. i was extraordinarily naive. i had a sense that this was an important job. i did not have a full sense of the nature of the issues or the pace. >> narrator: before long, goldsmith headed for david addington's office. it was time to learn about "the program." >> jack, like most of the others who are briefed on this, walks into addington's office, which he regards as a little bit peculiar, "what's this doing in the vice president's lawyer's office?" addington opens the safe and pulls it out. there's the red cover-- it says "top secret/ si/comet/stellarwind," the cover name for this program. >> narrator: as he read the document, goldsmith began to have grave doubts. >> the program was an example of the administration going it alone in secret based on inadequate legal reasoning and flawed legal opinions. >> narrator: goldsmith discovered that as part of the program, the government had been tracking data about the emails of tens of millions of americans. >> he said, "you can't justify the email collection. it is, on its face, a clear violation of the 4th amendment and perhaps the 1st amendment as well." >> narrator: addington was furious that goldsmith would raise questions about "the program," and he let him know. >> he was very tough in making his arguments. he was very sarcastic and aggressive against people with whom he disagreed, and dismissive oftentimes. and he acted with the implicit blessing of the vice president. so all of these things made him a very, very forceful presence. >> you know, david pushed, he pushed everybody. he pushed me. even when i was the attorney general, he would push me. so that was just david's nature, and i think jack didn't appreciate being pushed sometimes. >> he was daring jack goldsmith to say, "this is illegal and you've got to stop it." he never believed that goldsmith would do it. >> goldsmith tells him, "we're going to pull back our endorsement of the legality of this program." and addington roars at him and says, "if you do that, the blood of 100,000 people killed in the next attack will be on your head." >> narrator: for cheney, addington, gonzales, hayden and others, the personal stakes at this moment were extremely high. >> it was a felony to conduct this kind of surveillance in the united states. and everyone was relying on the shield that they were trying to create of having the president order it explicitly and have the attorney general sign off and say, "it's lawful." and as soon as the justice department starts to say, "we're not so sure this is lawful," there is a great deal of concern and anxiety. >> five separate car bombs blew up in a span of 45 minutes... >> a bomb last night set portions of the old city ablaze... >> narrator: at the justice department, they prepared for conflict with the white house. goldsmith's boss, deputy attorney general james comey, delivered the news to john ashcroft: parts of the program appeared to be illegal. >> they go to the attorney general, john ashcroft. they say, "we don't think this is legal. we think we need to get this changed. we need to stop what's going on because we don't have a solid foundation to go on." >> narrator: ashcroft was supposed to sign a reauthorization of the entire program every 45 days, and for two and a half years, he had. but now he balked. >> ashcroft gives comey his verbal assurance that he is not going to go along with this program and that he is going to demand changes or he won't sign. >> narrator: then just hours later, attorney general ashcroft collapsed, suffering from severe pancreatitis. james comey was now the acting attorney general. >> comey notifies the white house formally that he's not going to sign, and we're now within 48 hours of expiration of this program. >> narrator: with the deadline looming inside the white house, alberto gonzales, chief of staff andrew card and david addington headed to attorney general ashcroft's hospital room. >> we went to the west wing, picked up david, who had the authorization. we get to the hospital and i tell david to stay back because there was history between david and the attorney general and i didn't want to aggravate the attorney general needlessly. >> janet ashcroft, the attorney general's wife, is very alarmed. she calls up ashcroft's chief of staff and says, "oh my god, they're coming over." ashcroft's chief of staff calls comey, the deputy. comey is in a car on his way home. he has the driver make an actual u-turn. they slapped the flasher and the siren on, and he heads over to that hospital as fast as he can go. >> it was the evening, about 8:00, and i got a call from the justice department command center. so i rushed to the hospital, double parked, ran up the stairs. >> narrator: goldsmith and comey waited in ashcroft's room. >> he had tubes going in and out of him. he looked ashen, and i actually thought he looked near death. i thought he looked just terrible. in walked alberto gonzales, the white house counsel, and andrew card, the president's chief of staff. >> we get to the hospital and general ashcroft is laying in bed. and as soon as we got there, i said nothing other than, "sorry you're feeling bad." and judge gonzales said, "we have brought the document. here is the document." >> attorney general ashcroft kind of lifted himself. he arose from the bed, lifted himself up and gave about a two- or three-minute speech or talk addressed to gonzales and card, in which he basically... i can't get into the details, but he showed enormous, unbelievable clarity about what the issues were and what was going on. and he explained why he also would not approve the program. and he read them a bit of the riot act, and then he said... at the end of all this, he said, "in any event, i'm not the attorney general now. jim comey is," because jim comey was the acting attorney general. and with that extraordinary performance-- and it was just amazing, one of the most amazing things i've ever seen in my life, because he went from seeming, you know, near death to having this moment, this amazing moment of clarity-- and he just again receded into the bed, and i really worried at that point that he was going to expire. and i mean, it just... it looked like he gave it the last of his energy. >> and so finally, when he repeats again he's no longer the attorney general and is finished talking, andy and i just said, "thank you, we'll raise this with the deputy attorney general," and we left. >> it was an intense, unbelievable scene. and gonzales and card quickly left, and that was the end of it. >> narrator: in the wake of the hospital confrontation, at the white house, cheney insisted the president should act on his own: reauthorize all of the program even though the justice department said part of it was illegal. >> cheney and david addington draft a new order. and this time, it has one subtle difference. instead of having a signature page for the attorney general, "i certify the lawfulness of this order," there's a new signature for the white house counsel, alberto gonzales, who does not have the same legal authority. >> i satisfied myself that there was sufficient legal authority to move forward. and i felt that the president was not a lawyer, and that it was my job, if i felt comfortable that it was in fact lawful, to provide that signature. i did it because i wanted to protect the president. that's why i signed that document. >> narrator: but the white house wondered, "would general hayden go out on a legal limb and continue the program?" >> david addington calls me and says, "are you willing to do this without the signature of the attorney general? with the signature of white house counsel al gonzales and authorization from the president?" and i thought and i said, "yes." >> narrator: hayden and gonzales say their willingness was informed by something that happened just before the addington call. (explosions) >> in madrid this morning, more than 190 people were killed... >> after at least ten simultaneous bomb blasts... >> narrator: it was one of the worst terrorist attacks since september 11. >> series of bomb attacks at three train stations during... >> given that starkness of the al qaeda threat and given the ambiguity of the situation, i thought the correct operational, legal and ethical decision was, "all right, we'll do this one more time on a somewhat different framework." >> so that was a point where he could have said, "i'm turning it off until we get a proper order from the justice department." but he didn't. he went along with addington and cheney. >> narrator: that afternoon, president bush reauthorized the program. at the justice department, jack goldsmith prepared his resignation letter. >> i had drafted my resignation letter and was prepared to resign, and i was sure i was going to resign that day. it was inconceivable to me, based on what had happened the last two days, that i wouldn't resign. >> narrator: dozens of top doj officials threatened to join him, including fbi director mueller and even acting attorney general comey. >> "and i would never be part of something that i believe to be fundamentally wrong. with a heavy heart and undiminished love of my country and my department, i resign as deputy attorney general of the united states, effective immediately. sincerely yours, james b. comey." >> george bush is on the edge of a cliff. his presidency is at stake. this was going to be something on the order of two dozen, nearly the entire political appointment list at the justice department, from the attorney general on down. and no president could survive that in an election year. >> narrator: the next morning, the president decided to have a private talk with acting attorney general comey. >> after the national security briefing, bush says to comey, "stay a minute. come talk to me." and cheney starts to follow, and bush says, "no, no, this is just the two of us." and he says, "what's going on here? how could you possibly do something of this importance at the very last minute?" comey suddenly realizes that the president had no idea what had been happening. the president thinks this just began yesterday. he doesn't know it's been going on for three months. and so he says, "mr. president, if that's what you've been told, you have been very poorly served by your advisors." >> the president certainly did not want a situation where the fbi director and the deputy attorney general would resign, so he was not too happy to learn that this had risen to a level of angst that it had risen to. >> narrator: the president then sent for fbi director mueller. >> mueller is waiting downstairs a level, outside the situation room. some aide goes and says, "the president wants to see you right now, get in there." and bush says to mueller, "go tell jim comey to fix this. i withdraw the order. you go make it right." >> narrator: the warrantless email data collection was shut down. the crisis was averted. but at the white house, they were determined to resume it. >> and so they're sort of sifting through the fisa law, they're sifting through the patriot act trying to find existing laws, existing authorities, you might call it loopholes, to justify these programs. >> narrator: general hayden was sent to the secret fisa court to convince a judge to restart it. >> could we get a court order to authorize this? and so we began a very aggressive program with the chief judge of the fisa court at that time, judge kollar-kotelly, to take that part of the program that had been stopped and present it to her to see if we could get an order to allow that program to go forward. >> hayden personally meets with judge kotelly of the fisa court on two saturdays to make the pitch, to explain how they are going to do this. and kotelly eventually rules that this is legal: that the nsa can indeed collect all of the internet metadata going to and from the united states. and they used this authority that previously was used to trace numbers going to and from a single telephone... for everybody. >> narrator: kollar-kotelly's secret ruling relied on a controversial interpretation of a 25-year-old supreme court case. >> this was, frankly, a huge stretch. the idea that you could use this to justify the collection of trillions of pieces of internet metadata surprised a lot of people when it came out in the snowden archives. but that's where they went. >> narrator: the program was back on line, bigger than ever. >> that part of the program over which there was a grand dispute in the spring of 2004 was resumed in large measure under a different legal theory by the fall of 2004. >> bush on day two of his tour to defend the patriot act, this time in buffalo, new york... >> in buffalo, he continued his push for an extension of the anti-terror law... >> narrator: that same year, the president hit the campaign trail, publicly arguing there was no warrantless surveillance program. >> nothing has changed, by the way. when we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. >> bush got up there several times and said, "when you hear about us wiretapping, that means we're getting a court warrant." well, we knew that wasn't true. he was leaving out this whole other side of the equation in terms of the nsa operation. >> it's important for our fellow citizens to understand, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the constitution. thank you for coming. >> narrator: as the president insisted the government always secured warrants, in washington, that department of justice attorney thomas tamm knew otherwise. >> i agonized for... probably for months. i was upset, i would say, with what i thought was being done to the way our government was supposed to work. >> narrator: tamm had not been aware that jack goldsmith and the top echelon at the department of justice had nearly resigned. but his concerns about the program had continued to grow. >> he agonized about this, spent a lot of sleepless nights, wondered about what he should do. >> it just kind of ate away at me. it was pretty clear to me, at least, that i didn't want to keep participating in whatever was going on. >> narrator: tamm decided to take a very big step, one dramatically out of character for the son and nephew of high ranking fbi agents. one day, on his lunch break, he slipped into a washington subway station. he used a pay phone to make an anonymous call to the new york times. >> he said he was sweating, nervous, looking around. he felt, he said, "like a spy" when he made that phone call. but he did. >> i certainly was conscious of the fact that if i were going to be found out-- and i did think i would be found out actually, eventually, that there would be serious ramifications-- but i just thought it was important. >> narrator: tamm says the phone call was to a new york times reporter. >> i had read articles by eric lichtblau with the new york times. i knew he was covering the department of justice. >> narrator: lichtblau will not confirm that tamm was a source, but acknowledges receiving a tip from an anonymous source. >> there was a suggestion from one of the early sources that whatever was going on involving this supersensitive spy program was causing such tumult and debate within the justice department that there's talk of ashcroft being indicted. that certainly gets your attention. >> narrator: tamm says he and lichtblau had a series of clandestine conversations around washington. >> i eventually told him my suspicions that a very, very limited people knew what it was all about and that really some very experienced, high level lawyers thought what the government was doing was illegal. >> narrator: having leaked, tamm disappeared back into the bureaucracy at the justice department. at the times, eric lichtblau knew that another reporter, james risen, had also been hearing about "the program." >> we heard, basically, that the president had authorized a warrantless wiretapping program. it was believed by the people we were talking to to be in violation of fisa and of the constitution. >> they were doing things well outside their lane, without the knowledge of most of the court, without the knowledge of most members of congress, really, on the white house's own authority. that was really what, in our mind, made the story. >> narrator: eager to get general hayden on the record, james risen called the nsa. >> i told the press person that i needed to talk to hayden immediately, and for a very sensitive matter. and i didn't tell them exactly what it was. but to my surprise, she got him on the phone immediately. >> i remember, i was sitting next to him and i did not know he was going to do that. it was a bit shocking, not only that he was calling him, but also that he got hayden on the line. >> i read him, like, two paragraphs of the draft of the story. >> "months after the september 11 attacks, president bush secretly authorized the national security agency to eavesdrop on americans and others..." >> and you could hear, like, a sharp intake of breath, like... (gasps) you know, it was almost like he was... he didn't want to say it, but he was like, "i can't believe you got that story." >> i think this is a very bad thing. there is a reason we keep intelligence sources and methods secret. it's the same reason journalists try to keep their sources and methods secret. you know, you can't survive unless you keep them secret. >> i'd caught him off guard, and he had started to confirm it, and then realized what he was doing, and hung up. >> narrator: hayden sounded the alarm: the new york times was preparing to expose the existence of "the program" in the middle of an election year. >> we were worried that this would compromise a very important, very significant intelligence activity. there was a debate within the administration about what to do, should we try to get an injunction. >> narrator: the white house demanded a series of meetings with the times. the first was inside the eisenhower executive office building. acting cia director john mclaughlin ran the meeting. >> one thing i remember about his presentation was that he never actually confirmed that they had such a program. >> they kept talking in these hypotheticals, like saying, "if we were doing this, this would be very important to the government." >> the language he used, which was kind of orwellian in a way, was, "if the united states had such a program, we would request that the new york times not publish any information about it." >> and then i started taking notes and they tried to stop me from taking notes. it was a very contentious meeting that only convinced me further that the story was right and that they were trying to stop it. >> narrator: in meeting after meeting, the government made the argument "the program" was both effective and legal. >> one of the strongest selling points that they made, which to my mind was probably the most disingenuous, was the idea that this had all been legally reviewed, this was all perfectly legal, perfectly constitutional, everyone was on board. there was no doubt about its legality. >> narrator: back in the times offices, the reporters argued the white house was misleading them. but the editors were not convinced the story should run. >> there were intense discussions, and it got emotional on all sides. >> we argued that this was really important, that our sources were telling us it was illegal or unconstitutional, that there was clearly people in the government who disagreed with what the government, what the officials were saying to the editors. >> narrator: in the fall of 2004, the administration invited the times' top editors to a closed door meeting. executive editor bill keller met with the president's top advisors: condoleezza rice, general hayden, alberto gonzales and others, who insisted to keller that revealing the existence of the program would endanger national security. >> i had a consensus of everybody that we had contact with in the administration that this would be an extremely dangerous thing to do. these were serious people, a consensus across the board of those who talked to us that it was going to be dangerous, a level of stridency that was quite impressive. and after much discussion, decided that we weren't ready to go with it. >> narrator: keller spiked the story. the white house had prevailed. the program would remain a well-kept secret. >> the president has ordered a major shake-up of america's spy operations... >> the nuts and bolts of intelligence will fall to lieutenant general michael hayden, who now heads up the once super secret... >> narrator: general hayden was promoted by the white house to help oversee all intelligence operations. he was replaced by a new general: keith alexander. the change gave tom drake another chance to voice his concerns about "the program." he wrote general alexander a classified letter. >> within the system, my last official act for all intents and purposes was to write that formal letter to alexander. >> narrator: the letter said the nsa's intelligence gathering activities were out of control and needed to be reined in. >> this is a crusade for him. being drake, someone who's got a somewhat obsessive personality, he keeps trying to get the word out. >> narrator: but general alexander was no more responsive than hayden had been, and by writing directly to the general, drake had broken bureaucratic protocol. his days were numbered. >> they actually reorganized my job right out from under me, and i literally was left with nothing. i had an office, i had a flag because of senior executive, but nothing else. no programs, no people, no team, no nothing. >> narrator: drake had formed friendships with the thinthread group: binney, wiebe, loomis and congress's diane roark. now they began to seriously consider what they called "the nuclear option": going to the press. >> and i can remember throwing the question out there one evening. i said, "what do we do? tom's not getting anywhere." and so we would say, "is it time to go to the press? invoke the nuclear option, which is going to the press?" and we were all afraid to do it. >> we were still traditional kind of employees of the government and wanted to stay inside the government to try to get the government to change its ways, to right itself as opposed to having to force it by going to the fourth estate, the public. >> the third rail option of going to the press was fraught with enormous peril. at a minimum, you would no doubt be fired, or worse. >> narrator: it had been nearly one year since the new york times had refused to publish the investigation into the nsa. during that year, "the program" had grown dramatically. terabytes-- huge amounts of information about americans' telephone calls and emails-- had been clandestinely captured. finally, reporter james risen from the new york times had had enough. he decided to strike out on his own. >> the story was dead now, twice dead, and i thought the only way to ever get this story out was to put it in a book. >> narrator: risen had a surprise for eric lichtblau. he invited him to drive over to his house to read a draft chapter of the book: the story the new york times had refused to print. >> the chapter was just called "the program." and in it, he basically made known the existence of this program and the fact that the administration had gotten the paper to spike the story. >> i said, "i want to make sure it's okay with you." he said, "the only thing i ask is that you put my name in there, too." >> narrator: it did not take long for the editors at the new york timto get word of what risen was planning. >> i began to hear through the grapevine that he might include the nsa story in the book. so that led to a series of, you know, very awkward conversations with jim. >> the editors were furious at me. they thought i was being insubordinate. >> he had a gun to their head. they're really being forced to reconsider. the paper's gonna look pretty bad. >> that led to this massive game of chicken between me, my book and tnew york times over the next few months. >> narrator: inside ttimes, the editor who had killed the story 12 months earlier now faced a hard choice. >> because we had to either decide, "we're still not ready to run the story," or, "the situation has changed sufficiently that we are ready to run the story," in which case we'd better get the story in the best possible shape and let the administration know. >> narrator: on a frigid december evening, editors bill keller, phil taubman and new york times publisher arthur sulzberger were summoned to the white house. >> it was indeed a dark and stormy night. i remember it. it was dark and it was stormy. and we were in the oval. mr. sulzberger began to speak and the president said, "i'm going to go first. i want to talk to you about this program. i want to talk to you about why this is important, why we think it saves lives, and why it should not be made public." >> narrator: the president turned the meeting over to general hayden for one of his famous briefings. >> it's hard to brief in the oval. you know, you can't... no visual aids. hard to roll out something in front of somebody. so i gave them the best explanation of the program i could, but i did bring up specific examples. >> the example he gives them is a plot in which a radical was planning to bring down the brooklyn bridge, apparently with a device similar to a blowtorch. and it actually kind of makes the times editors kind of scratch their heads, because they think this is kind of surprising, that somebody can sit there with a blowtorch or something like that and bring down the brooklyn bridge without anybody noticing him and stopping him first seemed absurd to them. >> i think arthur believes that the president may have cracked a smile when the "bringing down the brooklyn bridge" item came up, but maybe that's just a wishful memory. >> narrator: the president then played his trump card, threatening that the new york times would be responsible for the next attack. >> he said, you know, "listen, if you guys publish this article and there is another 9/11, we're going to be called before congress to explain how we failed to prevent it, and you should be in the chair beside us explaining, because you'll be complicit in allowing damage to our country." he was saying, in effect, "you, arthur sulzberger, will have blood on your hands if there's another attack that could've been prevented by this program." i think anybody would feel goosebumps. >> the new york times broke the story about the national security agency... >> narrator: nevertheless, the times decided to publish the story, revealing the existence of "the program." >> four years now, the nsa has been secretly spying on its own citizens... >> the new york times story in december 2005 just shocked the world. >> unchecked domestic surveillance is far greater than previously reported... >> it is the definition in most people's minds of illegal government activity. >> with a bombshell of a story in the new york times today that the nsa... >> narrator: they were in crisis mode at the white house. all eyes were on president bush. >> we call it the big pause, okay? when stuff like this goes public, what's the big guy going to do? is he going to man up and support you, or suddenly get reflective on you? >> and for once, the president actually decides he's going to come out and address it directly. he goes on the offensive to try to push back against critics who said he went too far. >> narrator: it would be a first: an admission the program existed. >> this is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the united states, our friends and allies. >> the president comes out and minimizes what he describes as "the program." and he gives a very truncated description of what they're doing that sounds, i think, probably not too worrisome to most americans. >> i authorized the national security agency, consistent with u.s. law and the constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al qaeda and related terrorist organizations. >> narrator: it was the least controversial and smallest element of the program. there was no reference to the massive gathering of domestic communications data. >> his characterization of the facts was simply wrong. and it was wrong from the beginning. the program wasn't to surveil known suspects, known conspirators. you could easily get a warrant for that. the program was to sift big data. it was to trawl through enormous volumes, literally trillions of telephone calls, trillions of emails, and to look for unknown conspirators. >> narrator: once again, it would be left to general hayden to brief the press. he too minimized the scale of "the program." >> this is targeted. this is focused. this is about al qaeda. one end of any call targeted under this program is always outside the united states. >> when they asked questions about how widespread the program was, he confined it to this little part of the program that had leaked and did not address all the other parts that were far worse that had not leaked. >> narrator: there was no mention that the nsa was tracking telephone calls and emails inside the united states. and hayden even dismissed the idea that there had been any internal dissent about "the program." >> not a single employee of the national security agency has addressed a concern about this program to the nsa ig. i should also add that no member of the nsa workforce who has been asked to be included in this program has responded to that request with anything except enthusiasm. >> general hayden's press conference introduced many of the tactics that the administration has used to deflect questioning and also to mislead the public. i was amazed at what he was saying, because it was not truthful; it was misleading. and that was the beginning of the spinning and the lies. >> president bush heads to the nsa as part of his weeklong blitz to defend his controversial wiretapping program... >> white house strategy? fight back on every point... >> yesterday it was the president; today the attorney general speaks out on the matter... >> the president will visit one of the nation's most secret buildings today... >> narrator: at the national security agency, thomas drake was watching the white house's reaction carefully. >> drake watches what top levels of the u.s. government's saying about this program, and he thinks they're lying. >> i realized that they were lying, that they were desperate to protect the domestic surveillance program. >> he knows it's much more than what they're describing, and this makes him mad. >> the far larger program was the dragnet surveillance, the vast bulk copy of millions and millions of phone records, email records, internet usage, and financial transactional and credit card information. >> narrator: drake had been complaining internally about the program for more than four years. now he said he had run out of options. >> all the internal proper channels had been exhausted. the one final choice was to actually touch the third rail and go to the press. >> narrator: drake decided to act on his own, without the thinthread team. he'd reach out to a newspaper reporter. siobhan gorman worked for tbaltimore sun. >> he just reaches out to her in a way that he thinks is secret, using all kinds of protected hushmail to tell her he wants to talk to her and might have documents to share with her. >> narrator: drake said that he would only provide unclassified material. >> it's a pretty classic whistleblower kind of move that he makes, and he's careful, he thinks, not to violate any kind of national security laws in reaching out to her. >> narrator: gorman will not acknowledge that drake was her source, but she says she knows why she received the leaks. >> there were a number of people at nsa that were just very unhappy, and i think that the revelation of warrantless surveillance probably did loosen up some concerns that some people inside nsa might have had. >> narrator: at first, drake remained completely anonymous, communicating entirely by encrypted email. >> she had no idea who i was. i ultimately was referred to as just a senior official. it was sort of an agreement as to how she would "couch" who i was in her reporting. but i was a deep... i was a deep source. >> the baltimore sureports today that the nsa rejected... >> and so i provided her unclassified information about the secret surveillance program. >> narrator: gorman would write a series of lengthy stories: a deep investigation into the nsa, thinthread, and the warrantless surveillance of millions of americans. but drake wasn't the only leaker. other stories broke. >> high ranking officers in the justice department... >> narrator: the new york times revealed the story of that standoff in attorney general ashcroft's hospital room. >> andy card and alberto gonzales to the hospital room... >> narrator: and a leak to usa today revealed the government had been collecting the phone records of tens of millions of americans. inside the white house, vice president cheney was furious. he was determined to stop the leakers. >> if you've known dick cheney-- i've known him for a long time-- he was always upset about leakers, so it wasn't... this was not out of character. it fit within the character that he was, whether he was secretary of defense or chief of staff to the president. >> narrator: the investigation would be run by the fbi: a massive manhunt for the leakers led by the new attorney general, alberto gonzales >> they had broke they law. they leaked classified information. that's against the law. the job of the department of justice is to prosecute those who break the law. >> narrator: the agents began their investigation across the street at the department of justice itself, calling everyone who had worked with the fisa court, including thomas tamm. >> and he starts getting phone calls from this fbi agent, jason lawless, at work. he's ducking the calls. >> narrator: terrified, tamm refused to return the calls. >> i was preoccupied with what was going to happen to me and when it was going to happen, what was going to happen, if it was going to happen. >> and finally, lawless gets him on the phone and says, "hey, this'll only take a few minutes." >> narrator: but tamm panicked and quickly sealed his fate. >> i told him that i chose not to talk to him. i chose to exercise my rights under the constitution to not be a witness against myself. and of course, i knew that immediately would send up red flags and that i would immediately be their primary suspect. >> narrator: thomas tamm resigned from the justice department. he began to wait for a federal indictment. >> a story that has now triggered a justice department investigation into who leaked what was behind... >> narrator: in cambridge, massachusetts, jack goldsmith had settled in as a professor at harvard law school. one morning, he was summoned to a meeting in harvard square with two fbi agents. >> as we were sitting down at the table over coffee, one of the agents sort of sheepishly handed me a manila envelope. and he said that it was a subpoena for a grand jury investigation into the leak of the new york times. and he was very embarrassed and sheepish about this. >> narrator: the subpoena was issued under the leadership of attorney general alberto gonzales. >> and it seemed particularly ironic that the justice department was coming after me for illegal actions, or allegedly illegal actions or possibly illegal actions, taken in connection with this program. >> narrator: by the summer of 2007, it had been more than 18 months since the fbi had begun its investigation. they had little to show for it. they decided to up the ante. they would conduct a series of early morning raids on the houses of their primary suspects. >> at 9:00 eastern standard time, the fbi, with guns drawn, raids the homes of binney and wiebe, and out on the west coast, they raid the home of diane roark, waking her up. >> it was quite shocking. in fact, they went through the whole house and went through every book, every paper, every drawer. turned the mattress over. it was quite shocking. >> it's 9:00 in the morning, and i see these blue uniform with gold "fbi" on the back, people coming across left to right, and i said... well, it sent a chill through me immediately. >> the first i knew the fbi was in my house was a guy pointing a gun at me when i was coming out of the shower. they took my computer, all the electronic hardware, discs and things that go with that, any kind of electronic storage device, and they also took some of my magazines, technical magazines, and papers and things like that. >> narrator: and then they hit one more: ed loomis. >> my life was in shambles at that point. my wife was hysterical. she couldn't believe what had just occurred. i couldn't believe what just occurred. and i had no insight into why it had. >> you know, this button is nsa's second highest award, and i wonder what it was that i did personally so wrong that i deserve this kind of treatment. >> here i am, an eagle scout, a retired scoutmaster and a devout patriot, and my patriotism is being questioned by the government that i had served for 43 years. i just couldn't... it just didn't make sense to me. >> you feel pretty low, your self-esteem takes a big hit, there is discord in the family because kids, family, wife may ask you, "well, what did you do to bring this upon the house?" >> it tore me up. i was... i became a recluse, pretty much. i cut off virtually all social contact with friends. it was rough. very rough. >> ed probably took it worse in terms of cost to family and self, physically, mentally, because ed went into the shadows. he became a recluse, quiet. he lost his wife. >> it's still eating at me. but i've... i've told my family. i've told my... i told my father before he passed away. uh... i know i've done nothing wrong. >> narrator: the fbi considered them "persons of interest" for leaking to the new york times, but they all insisted they hadn't, anew york times reporter james risen agrees. >> i didn't know any of them. and i just felt badly that they were getting caught up in something that was completely unrelated. i knew that couldn't be true, that it was just collateral damage. >> narrator: tom drake's home was not raided by the fbi that day, but drake had the feeling that he was next. >> almost six months goes by and drake still hasn't been raided. but then on the morning of november 28, 2007... >> i'm seeing these cars pull up as i look out the window. it's just after 7:00 a.m. in the morning and there's a dozen fbi agents. and my heart's up in my throat, because i realize it's now me. >> narrator: the fbi's search warrant said they were looking for evidence that drake was the new york timleaker. >> drake being drake sits down at his kitchen table with the fbi agents without a lawyer present and spends the entire day trying to convince them that the real culprits are the people at the nsa who have run this illegal program. >> so i told them everything i could, but they didn't want to hear about that. they wanted to hear about the new york timand sources. >> narrator: the fbi carted away drake's computers and boxes of his papers. drake waited. >> a few months later, in april 2008, drake gets a summons to go meet with somebody who is described as "somebody very important." >> narrator: the meeting was with federal prosecutor steven tyrrell. >> when drake sits down, tyrrell says to him, "mr. drake, you are screwed." >> narrator: tyrrell had no hard evidence drake ever spoke to the new york timor that he had given any classified material to the baltimore sun. nevertheless, tyrrell said the fbi had discovered classified documents on drake's computer and in his basement: a felony. >> he proceeded to tell me, "how would you like to spend the rest of your life in prison, mr. drake? unless you cooperate with our investigation, we have more than enough information to put you away for a long, long time. you better start talking." >> and they talked numbers: 478 months-- 35 years. the government said he would have the blood of soldiers on his hands for what he did. >> narrator: tyrrell wanted drake to confess and admit that he was the center of a conspiracy involving roark, binney and the others. >> i was not going to plead out. and he was all ticked off and he says, "well, we'll just have to go with what we've got." >> narrator: drake and the others faced decades in federal prison and at least tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills. desperate, they came to believe they had only one chance. (crowd cheering) as it happened, 2008 was a presidential election year, and there was one candidate who was promising a change. >> are you fired up? ready to go? fired up! ready to go! no more secrecy. that is a commitment i make to you as president. >> he is promising to be the most transparent administration in history. he believes that there's been too much secrecy. >> he made a real point of owning these kinds of arguments, both as a senator and then on the campaign trail. >> it's time for us to change america. and that's why i'm running for president of the united states. >> narrator: barack obama even embraced the importance of whistleblowers. >> obama, throughout his history, is a champion of whistleblowers, arguing that they're the folks who help make government better and reveal conduct that, if not is illegal, is questionable. >> i certainly had a lot of hope and i had a lot of hope for hope and change. but i actually thought that somebody might say, "you know, you actually did the right thing." >> narrator: and when it came to the secrecy surrounding the creation of "the program," obama was forceful. >> i will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our constitution and our freedom. that means no more illegal wiretapping of american citizens. >> it's not a calibrated statement. this is a political statement. this is, in his words, a surveillance state run amok. >> no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. that is not who we are. that's not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. >> it was like he was back at the university of chicago as a constitutional scholar. he sounded like an aclu lawyer. >> narrator: at the white house, in the waning months of the bush administration, they were determined to find a way to make "the program" permanent. >> the debate shifted pretty quickly to congress in terms of debating whether or not the administration should get the power to do what they were doing. >> narrator: the president decided to try to convince congress to enshrine the program into law. >> for president bush, it's really a significant reversal. he's decided he needs congress to back up what he's done. he, in effect, is abandoning his claim that he has the power under article two of the constitution to do this without congress. >> narrator: the administration proposed to amend the fisa law and insisted it was "reform," but insiders knew it granted the nsa unprecedented power. >> the fisa amendment act of 2008 actually allows some of the things we were doing under the president's authority only against al qaeda, it allows them for all legitimate foreign intelligence purposes. so in a sense, the fisa amendment act not only validates the terrorist surveillance program, it expands it. >> narrator: at the united states congress, the administration secretly made the case for the bill at closed hearings of the intelligence committees. >> you had to read it very, very closely to understand what they were doing, and i don't think people knew what actually the intent of that was. the intent of that was to make legal all of the programs that the attorney general, the fbi director had said they had a problem with. >> narrator: publicly, the president would press lawmakers with a familiar warning: pass this law or americans could die. >> without this law, our ability to prevent new attacks will be weakened. and it will become harder for us to uncover terrorist plots. we must not allow this to happen. >> narrator: candidate barack obama now faced a choice: would he vote against the president's bill? >> i remember when the bill came forward, there was some discussion as to whether or not he would support it. >> the senate is expected to vote on a controversial measure to amend... >> he was thinking ahead to the general election, and how he was a young senator with not a lot of national security experience and how he needed to be seen as being tough on these issues. >> narrator: in private, a tougher, more determined obama was emerging. >> i remember the first conversation i ever had with him during the campaign. i said, "look, when you become president, you have to kill people. are you willing to pull the trigger? are you willing to do that side of the job?" and he got very silent and looked at me in a very steely kind of way and said, "i know that and i can do that." >> u.s. senate returning final vote on the fisa bill, setting new rules for electronic surveillance on foreign... >> narrator: and now, obama had a chance to enhance his national security credentials. >> gives the government new powers to eavesdrop on both domestic and international communications... >> for all of his criticism in the past, for all of his background as a constitutional lawyer and civil libertarian, he chooses to accept the rather expansive law. and he votes for it. >> mr. obama, "aye." >> senator obama getting a lot of heat for this vote, much of it from his own supporters... >> senator barack obama voted for the surveillance bill, despite his opposition to it in the past... >> it's off to work for president obama. it's a busy first day. >> he takes over two wars, a staggering economy... >> narrator: six months later, barack obama was the new president and the commander in chief. >> he's taking on national security right from the start... >> meeting with the joint chiefs of staff and other military advisors... >> the first time that barack obama ever learns about the full scale of this program is an early briefing in the situation room about all of the data that the nsa is collecting in these domestic surveillance programs. >> the point of the briefing was to provide the president and the new national security team at the white house with an overview of how these programs worked, what the value of the programs was, the legal structures that supported the program, what the authority was. >> narrator: he was told about the trillions of phone calls, emails and internet data that had been secretly gathered. >> as we talked about these programs, the way they were used, in particular the value of the collection of content, an extraordinarily vital tool, that the idea was, "all right, this is a really important program. we need to maintain it." >> narrator: the president's closest advisors insisted the program was necessary. >> there was a very strong view in the intelligence community that this was an important program, that it did fill an important gap. >> narrator: the new president faced a decision: whether to dramatically restrict "the program." >> i think that the president approached this with the degree of seriousness that you would hope and expect from the president of the united states. >> when you get into office, when you're the man, when you're in the white house, you don't want to give up any tools that you inherit. you don't want to give up anything that might get you that one fact that will stop an attack. >> narrator: he made his decision: the program would continue. >> he had a chance to say, "that's too far. let's not sweep in quite so many people who don't have anything to do with terrorism as part of this broad sweep." and he chose to keep the programs largely intact. >> i'm not aware of any case in which obama pushed back hard and said, "you can't do that." >> narrator: convinced the program was effective and necessary, obama would now own it. at the nsa, they were now spending more than $10 billion a year on capturing communications of people around the world. >> the nsa was on the verge of what it came to call the "golden age" of electronic surveillance, because there was so much more communication, so much more data, so much better computer capacity to process it, and it was there for the taking. >> narrator: to run the operations, the nsa relied on a number of private contractors: companies that could provide highly skilled computer programmers and engineers. >> the nsa, cia and other intelligence services suddenly realized that they needed people with those kind of skills. >> narrator: 25-year-old edward snowden was one of them. a high school dropout, snowden had grown up just 20 minutes from the nsa. >> he grew up in the community where lots of people who were in the military and the intelligence community live. his father was in the coast guard for 30 years. >> if you've been to a ron paul rally, you've seen lots of people who look exactly like edward snowden: young, clean cut, student, you know... passionate about the constitution. >> narrator: snowden had enlisted in the army, but left after breaking both of his legs in training. >> he had the reaction after 9/11 that a lot of patriotic young americans had, which is, "i'd like to do my part." and that brought him to the nsa and the cia and the worlds of secret intelligence. >> narrator: by 2009, snowden was working as an nsa contractor in japan. the job provided him extensive access to the details of nsa operations. >> he really began to understand the true scope of how much the nsa had gotten its hands into the backbone of the internet. >> narrator: the more snowden saw, the more disturbed he became. >> it was a gradual accumulation of evidence and of observations that led him to think, "something's going wrong here. the balance is out of whack. the surveillance of ordinary people is far greater than i would have imagined and far greater than the american public has been able to debate." >> narrator: one of the key documents snowden discovered: a classified inspector general report detailing the history of "the program." >> it tells the entire secret history of the program. it talks about addington and hayden writing the authorization for the program. >> "according to general hayden, the vice president's counsel, david addington, drafted the first authorization..." >> it talks about the rebellion at the justice department. >> "consequently, the white house counsel rather than the attorney general signed the 11 march 2004 authorization." >> it's the entire unadulterated history of these programs. >> he told me that reading the inspector general's report made a big impression on him. he felt like people had done things that were wrong and had not been held accountable for them. >> the laws that are written will be more open to the public. no more secrecy... >> narrator: and under president obama, snowden watched as "the program" continued. >> his hope was that obama would be a force for transparency, and that's not what happened. and that was another of the pivotal moments in which snowden realized it was going to have to be him. >> narrator: as snowden was deciding exactly what to do, obama's justice department began to address those bush-era leak investigations, led by attorney general eric holder. >> what's interesting is that these cases from the bush era linger on. they don't just throw them out; they revisit them. and they keep going after the enemies of the national security agency, much as they'd done under bush. >> narrator: despite the campaign rhetoric in support of whistleblowers, president obama did nothing to stop the prosecutions. >> this president personally really doesn't like people leaking classified information. he takes that very seriously and he thinks that we should all take it very seriously. >> in every conversation that obama had that i have heard about, he said, "when it comes to national security, you leak classified information that could endanger people, we're going to come down on you like a ton of bricks." >> narrator: and when the bricks fell, they landed on thomas drake. >> they couldn't indict us all, so they went after the one that they could at least show an example to the rest of the intelligence analysts, "you speak, you go to the press, you're going to get hammered." these were the lessons that were supposed to come out of being raided, and then in tom's case, indicted. >> narrator: on april 14, 2010, thomas drake was finally charged. >> i was arraigned. before i was arraigned before the judge, i was fingerprinted by the u.s. marshals with the fbi agent watching. i was a direct threat to the national security of the united states. i truly had become an enemy of the state. >> narrator: drake was charged with violating the espionage act. >> and i'm facing the distinct prospect of having the rest of my left spent behind bars, effectively. >> narrator: as he waited for his day in court, drake's life began to fall apart. >> he spent two years draining all his resources on a private attorney, and then when he had no more money, he had to go to a public defender. >> it was extraordinarily lonely. i mean, life had become already extremely difficult. all the income i had, all the retirement's gone, your life is turned upside down. you're persona non grata. i ended up finding work, initially part-time, then full-time, at an apple store. >> narrator: at the center of the government's case were those documents found at drake's house. prosecutors insisted they were classified. drake's lawyers turned to author james bamford. >> i was hired as a consultant by the defense and was able to find basically all of the information that they were charging him with was already in the public domain. not only that, it had been placed in the public domain by the government itself. >> i looked at the stuff that he was indicted for. that material was clearly marked unclassified. >> it was not stamped "classified" until after it was seized from tom drake's home. >> and all they did was draw a line through it and classified that material, and so then they charged him with having classified material. it's like framing him, and we're going to frame you after the fact. >> narrator: the government later insisted the documents drake had contained national secrets and were covered by the espionage law. but then just days before the trial was to begin, the charges against drake were dropped. >> it was astounding. basically, drake went from someone charged with such serious crimes that he could spend the rest of his life in prison to having it bargained down, because the justice department could see it was falling apart, to a misdemeanor, where he spent no time at all in prison. >> narrator: drake agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor unauthorized use of a government computer. he was charged a $25 court fee, put on probation for a year and given community service. none of the other suspects in the leak investigation we ever charged. it had been more than ten years. despite the revelations of insiders like drake and the news reports about the program, there was little public outrage and few congressional critics. "the program" was continuing to grow. but at a secret bunker in hawaii, edward snowden was now working for a new nsa contractor. snowden was initiating his own move to expose the program. >> the fbi has raided the offices established to protect federal whistleblowers... >> narrator: snowden studied carefully the actions of the other whistleblowers: the thinthread group and tamm, and especially drake. >> what he learned from drake and binney is that you can be discredited or people won't know whether to believe you if you don't have proof. and it was because of that that he decided it had to be documents, and it had to be a lot of documents. >> the new york times broke the story after holding it for a year... >> narrator: and unlike tamm, snowden would not go to the new york times. >> paper faces questions about why it held that story... >> snowden was disgusted at the new york times for having that story before the election, sitting on it for month after month. and he had a real antipathy towards tnew york times as a result of the way they behaved over risen. instead of the new york times snowden would reach out to glenn greenwald, laura poitras and barton gellman. >> narrator: and he would begin systematically copying and giving them documents that held many of the united states' most closely guarded secrets. >> snowden had clearances for human intelligence. he had clearances for many, many compartments of electronic surveillance. and he had a third set of powers, which is actually called "super user." it was a very potent combination that opened many, many doors to him. >> here is this low-level analyst who was able to access, if you believe the government, 1.7 million documents, and walk out of the agency with them without them having the slightest idea that it was taking place. >> this was a stupendous intelligence breach. this was the largest collection of classified information, the largest leak of classified information that had ever occurred in the history of the united states, or indeed the history of the world. >> embarrassing for the obama administration, in a trove of documents leaked by edward snowden... >> narrator: for the national security agency, the biggest threat to "the program" was just beginning. >> next time the story contin with part two. >> google may know more about you than any other institution on earth. >> the googles, the facebooks collect as much of our sensitive data as possible. >> but anything you hand to a private company is potentially the government. >> the nsa specifically targets the communications of everyone. >> corporate america and the national security state know so much about us, and we know so little about them. >> next time part two: privacy lost. >> go to pbs.org/frontline and watch more of frontline's interviews with the architects of the program and the whistleblowers who tried to stop it. learn more about the scope of the nsa's domestic surveillance activities, including what your phone records may reveal about you. take a closer look at the three main proposals for reform, and connect to tfrontline community. sign up for our newsletter, and follow us on facebook, twitter and pbs.org/frontline. >> frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from: and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support for frontliis provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information is available at macfound.org. additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the wyncote foundation. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from john and jo ann hagler and a grant from millicent bell, through the millicent and eugene bell foundation. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> for more on this and other frontline programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline. frontline's "united states of secrets" is available on dvd. to order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-play-pbs. frontline is also available for download on itunes. what if television... ali: i shook up the world! could remember the heroes we honored? the music we danced to? the dreams we chased? kennedy: the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die. no one tells our nation's story like pbs. give to your pbs station, and help bring america's story to life. daniel mansergh: (♪ upbeat theme music ) (♪) (♪) daniel mansergh: imagemakers is made possible by a grant from: celebrating the vitality and power of the moving image. and by the:
>> that's not just data collection; that's digital surveillance. >> i argued it was unethical, illegal and unconstitutional, and when this comes out, all hell is gonna break loose. >> narrator: next on frontline, "united states of secrets." part one: "the program." >> frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from: and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support for frontliis provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information is available at macfound.org. additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the wyncote foundation. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from john and jo ann hagler and a grant from millicent bell, through the millicent and eugene bell foundation. >> narrator: the biggest leak of government secrets ever began in december of 2012 with a single email delivered to an ip address in rio de janeiro. >> glenn greenwald, one of the world's busiest journalists, is sitting in his home in rio, and he sees an email from someone he doesn't know-- it's not a friend, it's not his mom-- and it just says, "i've got some stuff you might be interested in." >> he didn't use his name, and he said very cryptically and very vaguely that he had information that he wanted to discuss with me, but could only do so if i were to install encryption. >> narrator: guardian newspaper columnist and blogger glenn greenwald didn't pay much attention to the email. >> 99% of the time, it ends up that they're crazy or delusional, or the story is just not very good. >> and this guy or girl-- we don't know who it is-- is persistent, so a few days later emails again and says, "look, glenn, can you do this thing?" and glenn still doesn't do it. this attempt, basically, to leak all of these secrets initially just goes straight into the sand. >> narrator: the source moved on, this time to berlin. he was soon exchanging emails with american documentary filmmaker laura poitras. >> she had been in contact for over a month with a mysterious source who had reached out to her using her encryption key and using anonymous channels, and said he had a big story for her. >> narrator: a few weeks later in new york, poitras met national security investigative reporter barton gellman at a greenwich village restaurant. >> this was something she wanted to be exceptioionally careful about. we agreed on a cafe to meet at. we also, i think, both understood that when we got there, we'd move to someplace else. >> narrator: poitras asked gellman to vet the source and meet him electronically. >> her source, who became also my source, needed to take very special precautions in the usual nsa style. and so he called me brass banner. and he called himself verax, which means "truth teller" in latin. >> narrator: through sophisticated encrypted messages, verax promised an unprecedented scoop. but it came with a warning. >> he believed he was risking his freedom and possibly his life. and he warned me as well that if the u.s. intelligence community believed that by getting rid of me they could prevent the story from happening, he said that my life would be at risk. >> narrator: in late may, verax surprised gellman and poitras. he sent them an invitation. >> he said, "your destination is hong kong." >> narrator: poitras wanted to go. barton gellman, worried about a secret meeting in a foreign country like china, decided not to. but poitras knew someone who might join her. that spring, glenn greenwald arrived in new york to deliver a speech. >> and we met that night in my hotel, in the lobby. and she showed me these emails that she had been exchanging with this person who was claiming that he was a national security state insider with access to very sensitive information that he believed to be very incriminating, and stated very definitively that he wanted to turn it over to her and to me. >> narrator: greenwald decided to join poitras. >> we all knew that this was incredibly risky and uncertain, but the story had to be reported. >> narrator: in june, poitras and greenwald headed to the airport. >> i think they're kind of quite excited, but there's also a sort of feeling that maybe this is just the most terrific hoax. >> narrator: they were joined by ewen macaskill, a veteran guardian reporter. >> at the time, i didn't think it was for real, didn't take it that seriously, and thought it was a slightly obscure story. >> narrator: once they were finally airborne, poitras thought it was safe to share with greenwald something the source had securely sent to her. >> and that's kind of quite a moment. they're in a secure space, and so laura creeps forward to go and see glenn. >> laura whips out this thumb drive and in a very sort of almost mischievous way says, you know, "guess what this is?" and told me that she had just received a fairly large archive of documents. >> they kind of can't control their excitement because this is clearly the biggest story that anyone has worked on since the pentagon papers in the 1970s. >> i didn't sleep one second for the next 16 hours because the adrenaline made that impossible to do, because i not only saw the magnitude of the documents, just the sheer quantity. the fact that we had in our possession thousands, not dozens or hundreds, but many thousands of top secret nsa documents that were about a wide range of surveillance activities, that came directly from some of the most sensitive areas of the agency. >> i could see out of the corner of my eye glenn with the light on throughout this 13-hour flight reading on his laptop all the time, laura coming to see him, them having chats, and glenn getting more and more excited. >> we essentially couldn't believe what it was that we had. and that was really the first time i think i fully understood that this was going to be unlike any other story, really ever, in american journalism or politics. >> narrator: in hong kong, greenwald and the others traveled to a hotel in kowloon. >> snowden's instructions to glenn and laura are like a kind of magical mystery tour crossed with something out of john lecarre. he tells them to go to a hotel, the mira hotel in hong kong, and says that he will meet them in a less-trafficked part of the hotel, next to a shopping mall, by a bench and a crocodile. >> we had still no idea of who he was, what his age was, what his race was. we knew nothing about him demographically at all. and so the plan that he picked was that he would be holding a rubik's cube in his hand so that when he entered the room, we would immediately know who he was. >> all of a sudden, this guy comes past with a rubik's cube-- scrambled up, which was part of the code-- but the man before them is not what they'd expected. they'd expected some grizzled cia veteran wearing a blue blazer, maybe with a bit of dandruff, with a tie, receding grey hair. and they get this callow, sort of thin-limbed student type who looks as if he's just out of high school. and he is their source. and he's supposedly the guy who has got the crown jewels. >> when this 29-year-old kid who looks a lot younger shows up, it was extremely disorienting and introduced a real awkwardness to our interaction, and kind of a shock. >> narrator: edward snowden led the group upstairs to his room. >> in his bedroom by the door, he'd piled pillows as high up the door jambs as he could, and pillows along the bottom. so if somebody was outside eavesdropping, it would make it harder for them. >> there was always this kind of uncertainty, one might even say danger, hovering over the room, especially for the first few days, because we didn't know what the nsa knew about what he was doing. so we thought it was very possible that the door could be barged down at any moment and someone could enter to arrest snowden. >> narrator: they painstakingly debriefed snowden for days. at one point, guardian reporter ewen macaskill sent a text message to his editor in new york, janine gibson. >> janine knew that i liked guinness, so she said, "if snowden is for real, send me a message and just say, 'the guinness is good.'" i was 100% sure that snowden and the documents were for real, and i sent a message to janine saying, "the guinness is good." >> narrator: the documents snowden delivered revealed the history and details of one of the united states government's most closely guarded secrets. it was known as "the program." "the program" began on september 11, 2001 at fort meade in maryland. >> biggest story in washington now: people talking about michael jordan's comeback. >> narrator: the headquarters for the national security agency. >> does it look like september or what? >> i'm in my office. i remember the day, brilliantly clear day, clear blue skies. >> i was in his suite, waiting for a meeting. and we had started up the hallway to his office when the first plane hit the tower. >> we understand that a plane has crashed... >> my executive assistant, a young woman, came in and said, "hey, we got reports of a plane hitting the world trade center." and like 300 million other americans, i thought, "wow. small plane, sport plane, accident, too bad." >> that looks like a second plane... >> that just exploded... >> my poor security chief didn't even have a chance to speak. i just turned to him and said, "all nonessential personnel out of here now." (explosion) >> oh my goodness, there is smoke pouring out of the pentagon. >> everybody had the tv on, because the tv is where the news was. it wasn't coming out of nsa's computers. it was on the tv, because we had missed the entire event. >> this is a live picture. we are seeing the second... >> it was an enormous shock that you have this huge agency set up to prevent a surprise attack, and they learn about it on a $300 television set tuned to cnn in the director's office. >> narrator: at the white house, there was chaos. a near total evacuation. >> secret service bursts into the vice president's office, basically frog marches him by one arm and the seat of his pants into this deep underground shelter that was built to withstand nuclear war. >> narrator: almost immediately, cheney directed his lawyer david addington to prepare the case for the president to exercise his unilateral authority as commander in chief. >> david addington, principally the vice president, was interested in ensuring that the president's constitutional authority was used to its fullest. >> cheney says, "i want you to tell me what powers we're going to need, the president is going to need, that he doesn't already have to respond to this calamity." >> and they decide that they're going to push every boundary they have. addington at one point says, "we're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop." >> tours of the capitol will be cancelled indefinitely. >> the fbi has received 4,000 reports of bombs... >> narrator: on september 12 at nsa headquarters, the mood was somber. >> where did it all begin? >> we began soul searching almost immediately. we all felt like a great wrong had been done and that we were all somewhat if not all culpable. >> a date that will live in infamy. >> you have to remember that nsa was created after world war ii to prevent another surprise attack. that was the whole raison d'etre for nsa: pearl harbor. we don't want another pearl harbor. >> more people involved in the plot remain in the united states... >> immediately we began to wonder what we had done wrong, why did we miss the boat, what didn't we detect that we should have detected? >> the investigation continues in this country... >> narrator: in the aftermath, troubling questions emerged from deep inside the agency. >> had lived for at least a year... >> narrator: why hadn't the nsa been able to connect the dots? >> it was a very cautious agency. it's an agency that is fighting with one hand tied behind its back out of fear of a political backlash by being too aggressive. >> the president now at the door... >> narrator: during the nixon administration. >> a final wave... >> narrator: the nsa had overstepped: spied on americans. >> certainly appears to violate the 4th amendment to the constitution. >> narrator: caught and restricted by congress, the domestic spying apparatus went dark for more than 20 years. it was against the law to turn the nsa on americans. >> if you were an nsa analyst, this sort of legal regime was drilled into your head to the point where a lot of people said, "it's made the rules too restrictive and it's hampered the nsa's ability to detect terrorist plots." >> narrator: some at the agency thought the nsa had been overly cautious and believed the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped. >> i do believe it could have been prevented with revisions to the way we were permitted to operate before 9/11. (voice breaking): revisions that i tried to get the general counsel to embrace and wouldn't... and couldn't... i tried to get them to make adjustments to how we were operating, how we were permitted to operate, and they wouldn't do it. i've felt this ever since it occurred, that over 3,000 people's lives were lost. and it's just a weight that i am having trouble bearing. it's... i'm sorry, i... >> the toughest week for america since japan bombed pearl harbor 60 years ago... >> narrator: all over washington, there was a growing demand to stop the next attack. >> we have to remember that we had had terrorists living in this country for a number of months and we didn't know about it. what else didn't we know? and so there was a great deal of concern about the fact that we not only could not connect the dots, we could not collect the dots. >> narrator: at the cia, director george tenet was under pressure from the vice president. >> the director had a meeting with vice president cheney and his top aide, david addington, and he was asked, "what can be done? what can be done that isn't being done?" >> 9/11 made necessary a shift in policies. >> cheney says, in effect, to tenet, "make me a shopping list. tell me what you want to do that we're not letting you do yet." >> narrator: tenet, whose own agency was designing covert operations against al qaeda, called general hayden. >> george calls me and says, "mike, any more you can do?" i said, "george, no, not within my authorities, not within my current authorities." and he paused and said, "that's not actually the question i asked you. is there anything more you could do?" i said, "i'll get back to you." >> narrator: hayden got the message. at nsa headquarters, he spread the word. "take the gloves off. bring me an aggressive plan." >> and they asked me, "is there anything that we had that could have prevented 9/11?" >> narrator: loomis told them what he believed was necessary: begin monitoring foreign internet traffic going through the united states. >> the u.s. internet hubs handle so much of the worldwide internet traffic. so i said, "let us allow collection between u.s.-and-foreign/foreign-to-u.s. against the terrorism problem." >> narrator: but others in the agency were proposing much more aggressive data collection. >> what they proposed to do is create a whole new surveillance program without warrants, trapping all sorts of information, taking advantage of the fact that modern communication trunk lines tend to come through the united states. >> the idea of this program was you're looking for unknown conspirators, and the way they devised to do that was to look at everybody. >> narrator: it was the outline of something hayden could take to the vice president. he headed to washington to propose the idea. >> one of the worst days in american history... >> narrator: it would be his first meeting in the oval office. >> there was a massive sell-off on wall street... >> prior to 9/11, i don't think i knew general hayden. i probably knew his name. i doubt that the president knew his name. >> it's a very big change for the director of nsa to suddenly have all this attention from senior officials in the white house and so forth. and i'm sure it had a major impact on hayden. >> narrator: the president had been briefed. he put his arm around general hayden, called him his childhood nickname, "mikey." >> so i walk in to see the president. it's the president and the vice president in the room. almost certainly condi was there, as the national security advisor, andy card would have been there. >> cheney suggests the question and george bush asks it: "what would you like to do that you can't already do that would help prevent another 9/11?" >> narrator: hayden outlined "the program." it would gather data on the phone calls and internet traffic of hundreds of millions of americans, then search it for suspicious connections. but he was worried about whether it was legal. >> and the first thing he says to me is, "mike, i understand your concerns. but there are some things we're going to have to do, and i think i have the authority to authorize you to do things that you've outlined." >> the president says, "go. i want you to go develop a program. come back to me. we've got the lawyers working on it, but you have my order. we're going to do this." >> narrator: hayden left the white house knowing that "the program" was bound to be controversial. >> no president had authorized it prior to this time. and michael hayden goes home after briefing the president and the vice president about his ideas for expanding surveillance and takes a walk with his wife. >> and she said, "what's on your mind?" i said, "well, we're going to do something here." and i didn't go into any details. "we're going to do something. one day, it's going to be public, and when it gets public, it's going to be very controversial and the people doing it are going to be swept into this thing." and she said, "uh-huh. is it the right thing to do?" i said, "yeah, i think so." she said, "okay, we'll deal with that when it comes." >> narrator: on october 4, in a secret signing with cheney, the president officially authorized "the program." >> that order is written by david addington, the vice president's lawyer. it's not written by the president's lawyer. and this is not only unusual but probably unique in the history of major u.s. intelligence operations: it's written by the vice president's lawyer and stored in his own safe. >> narrator: addington worked out of a small office next to the white house in the old executive office building. >> this order is one of the most closely kept secrets of the bush/cheney administration for four years. it's kept so secret that many people involved in national security inside the white house and the government don't know about it. >> narrator: addington personally hand-carried a copy of the secret document out to fort meade. >> he said, "i'm coming out. i'll be there in about 30 minutes." hand-carried. this was very closely guarded that we were doing this. and he comes onto the campus at fort meade, up to the top deck, and hands me the order. >> narrator: now general hayden wanted the sign-off of his top lawyer, robert deitz. >> i think he was concerned and wanted my view of whether this program was lawful. i spent a kind of sleepless night pondering the legality of it. this was a very hard call. it was a very hard call. >> the nsa has a general counsel and about 100 lawyers. and they were told, "the president has signed it, it's been certified as lawful, and once all the signatures are there, that's it, we salute. we say, 'okay, it's lawful, we're going to go ahead.'" >> in the intel world, if a president says to you, "i need this in order to keep the american people safe," you need to try to figure out where that line is constitutionally and march right up to it. >> narrator: two other nsa lawyers would also sign off on "the program." >> we came to the conclusion independently but consistently that there was no doubt in our mind that it was a legitimate use of the president's article 2 authority. >> narrator: general hayden had heard exactly what he needed. article 2: the president's authority as commander in chief. >> i had my three good friends here, who have been my guardian angels on these things since i became director, saying, "this is good." >> narrator: now the massive collection of data could begin. >> who is emailing whom? who is texting whom? who is doing skype calls with whom? they're collecting a lot of information, a lot of content of phone calls. they are actually recording the voices. not for all of our calls, but for a lot of u.s. telephone calls. and they were doing this under an authority that had never existed before. >> narrator: it would be general hayden's most closely guarded secret. only a small handful of nsa employees knew what the president had authorized. most were kept out of the loop, including this man: senior manager thomas drake. >> my first day reporting on the job was the morning of 9/11. >> he had been in the military, he'd been in the air force. he's devoted his life to national security issues. he's a computer genius of a sort. >> narrator: drake had no idea what had been going on between hayden and the white house. he had been given a different task. >> i was actually charged to find "whatever you've got in the labs, whatever you've got in your agency, even if it's not operational, put it into the fight. we need it, it might help us. we need to deal with the threat." >> narrator: but according to the rules drake thought he had to follow, whatever he found had to safeguard americans' privacy. he started by digging around inside the deepest reaches of the nsa's secret r&d programs. >> and he stumbles into sort of a skunkworks, and he discovers that there was actually a program before 9/11 that could have, as they said, eavesdropped on the entire world. it's called thinthread. >> narrator: thinthread, a program that could capture and sort massive amounts of phone and email data, was the brainchild of veteran crypto-mathematician bill binney. >> the whole idea was to build networks around the world of everybody and who they communicate with. then you could isolate all the groups of terrorists. once you could do that, you could use that metadata to select the information from all those tens of terabytes going by. >> narrator: but to make sure the nsa would not spy on u.s. citizens, binney and the other analysts had built in privacy protections. >> it anonymizes who it's listening in on, unless there's a court warrant that makes the identity of that person clear. >> if you knew that it was u.s. person-related, it would be automatically encrypted. that was part of the design of thinthread. >> it had a data privacy section. that was working very well, protecting citizens and innocent people by encrypting the data and not allowing analysts to look at it even. >> narrator: drake was ecstatic. the experimental program could monitor massive amounts of data, but the encryption would protect the privacy of individual americans. he took it upstairs to the top deck. >> in those short days and weeks after 9/11, i put together a two-page classified implementation plan to put thinthread into the fight, and i presented it to maureen baginski. >> narrator: baginski was drake's immediate superior: the third highest ranking official at nsa. >> it took awhile to get any kind of response. he felt there was something strange going on. >> she would refuse to see me. none of her responses were ever electronic. none of her responses were in a form that would be recorded or saved. >> finally, he wrote a memo, sent it to her, and instead of responding electronically, which would have been normal, she wrote in a big, black felt pen. >> it was kind of a modified cursive. and she said, "they've gone with a different program." >> when drake asked her what this other solution was, she said, "i'm sorry, i can't tell you." >> narrator: it didn't take long for clues to emerge that something much bigger was going on. >> they started seeing stacks of servers piled in corners and so forth. >> so we had to walk way around all this hardware that was piling up out there. and so we knew, you know, something was happening. >> all of a sudden, people who normally would communicate with each other were keeping secret this new operation of some sort. >> narrator: dozens of nsa employees were sworn to secrecy, but before long, details were leaked to drake. >> i have people coming to me with grave concerns about, "what are we doing, tom? i thought we're supposed to have a warrant. i'm being directed to deploy what's normally foreign intelligence, outward-facing equipment, i'm being now directed to place it on internal networks." >> narrator: at the same time, bill binney and the thinthread team heard that "the program" was using thinthread but stripping out the privacy protections. >> what they're hearing is that the program they designed is in some form being put into use, but without the protections that they had designed in. >> what they did was they got rid of the section of the code that encrypted any of the attributes of u.s. citizens. >> narrator: even ed loomis, who had wanted a more robust approach, was surprised at how far the agency was willing to go. >> i just refused to believe, after all i had been through for 37 years, that all of a sudden things would change and they'd go back to the old ways, back to the early '70s. i didn't believe that they could possibly have just flip-flopped and gone 180 degrees the other way. i just didn't believe it. >> narrator: to the thinthread team, collecting data without a warrant seemed like a direct violation of the rules they had followed for years. >> all these years having grown up, you never spy on americans. we had suddenly become criminals by association. the agency had gone down a path that we had been preached to you never do. we were very, very, very concerned. >> narrator: and the fact that their thinthread system had been incorporated into the program was the last straw. >> we said, "we can't stick around and be a party to this. we can't be an accessory to all these crimes, so we have to get out." >> narrator: at the end of october 2001, bill binney, kirk wiebe and ed loomis all quietly retired. tom drake stayed behind. >> so drake is now still working away over at the nsa with his worries rising about what's going on in terms of domestic surveillance. >> narrator: once again, drake confronted maureen baginski. >> i made one final attempt, one final appeal to maureen baginski, and she demurred and she simply said, "call the office of general counsel," which i did. and i said, "i want to speak to the lead attorney." she'd given me the name. "i want to speak..." it was vito potenza. >> he goes to the general counsel's office with his concerns and says, "i think this program may be illegal." >> he proceeded to tell me, "you don't understand. all the lawyers have approved it. it's legal. we are under emergency, emergency conditions. extraordinary, extraordinary means are required to deal with the threat. we just need the data." and then the most chilling... i don't often have said this part of the conversation: "don't ask any more questions, mr. drake." >> if he came to me, someone who was not read into the program, right, and not a part of what we were doing, and told me that we were running amok, essentially, and violating the constitution, and it was in that time frame when there was an awful lot going on and we were all worried about the next attack, there's no doubt in my mind i would have told him, you know, "go talk to your management. don't bother me with this." i mean, you know, the minute he said, if he did say, "you're using this to violate the constitution," i mean, i probably would have stopped the conversation at that point, quite frankly. so i mean, if that's what he said he said, then anything after that i probably wasn't listening to anyway. >> narrator: "the program" was continuing to grow. in secret, the nation's largest telephone companies were now giving the nsa the private call records of millions of americans. tom drake had hit a dead end inside the agency. that fall, bill binney took an extraordinary step. he decided to break ranks: to take the matter to congress. >> the next move is to try to get some cooperation from congress, from the senate and house intelligence committees. and he finds an ally in diane roark, who felt the same way. >> narrator: diane roark was a top congressional intelligence staffer. >> i worked at the house intelligence committee for 17 years. and for the last five of those years, i had the nsa account for the republican majority. >> she's an interesting character. she's very conservative. she's a republican. she is in oversight of the nsa partly to make it powerful and also to keep it from wasting money. >> narrator: porter goss was roark's boss. goss was the powerful chairman of the house select committee on intelligence and future cia director. >> diane is the go-to girl on the house permanent select committee on matters dealing with nsa. so she spent a fair amount of time at nsa. she knew personnel out there. >> narrator: binney and roark decided it would be safer to meet away from her congressional office. >> bill came to me at my house and told me that part of their system, their thinthread system, was being used for collection of domestic communications in a dragnet fashion, collection on everybody. >> so diane says, "they have gone rogue," you know? that was her point: she thought they were going rogue. >> i was aghast. i was absolutely aghast. because nsa had... because this constituted a complete reversal of nsa policy. >> roark is a very feisty woman. she was just certain that there was no way that this program was legal, and she said, "and if the nsa officials are breaking the law, i am going to fry them." >> narrator: roark began to distribute a series of searing memos to the leaders of the house intelligence committee. >> diane was very capable, so good that she pierced the veil of a program that she was not briefed on, not cleared for, but knew something was going on. >> i updated them on what was going on, explained to them the... all the technology in as simple a way as i could. and i argued very strongly that they needed to have the protections restored. i told them that if they did not... if the administration refused to do this, they should insist that the system be killed, be stopped. >> narrator: what roark did not know was that in october, the white house had invited a small group of congressional leaders to a secret briefing in the vice president's office. general hayden led the briefing. >> mike hayden is particularly good at coming in and explaining things in a way that, shall we say, neophytes in the business could understand it. and you really wanted to believe what mike had to say and absorb it and digest it rather than question it. >> he has very facile command of the facts. he's also very good at eliding past the parts that he doesn't think you want to hear, and using very careful language to avoid saying things he doesn't want to say while also avoiding any outright falsehood. >> our purpose in this was to get the other political branch involved in this program. and so we would be defeating our own purposes, working against our own goals, if we weren't full monty to these folks. >> narrator: but as open as hayden says he was, he and the vice president's office created strict conditions for the briefing. >> you have the individual senator or member of congress who is brought in and read into a program. they're not allowed to bring any staff with them. they're not necessarily allowed to communicate any of what they've heard to their staff. in some instances, they're not lawyers, so they may not understand all of the legal fine points. in most instances, they're not technologists, so they may not be able to grasp what it is precisely that they're being briefed on or the implications of it. >> 14 people were killed and scores were wounded... >> narrator: they returned to congress, some now feeling they were unable to exercise effective oversight of the program. by the summer of 2002, it was running full speed. >> and i argued with everybody that i met, and i got no refutation from them. i said it was unethical, immoral, politically stupid, illegal and unconstitutional, and stop. and when this comes out, all hell is going to break loose. >> narrator: finally, intelligence committee chairman porter goss had had enough. >> i said, "you need to talk to general hayden, and you also need to know that concerns of the areas you're talking about are known to me. and i'm not going to discuss, because you're frankly not cleared for this level of program or what's going on here. but the fact that you have discovered this means that you need to talk to general hayden." >> narrator: roark was summoned to the top deck at the nsa to meet with director hayden. >> my whole point in going there was to ask him why he had taken off the protections: the encryption and the automated tracking. i asked this any number of times, and he always evaded answering. and i finally just decided i was not going to leave the room until i got an answer. and so i kept asking. and so about the fifth time, he looked down, and i remember he could not look me in the eye, and he said, "we have the power. we don't need them." and he made clear that the power he was referring to was the commander in chief's wartime authority. >> it's awkward for me having the conversation, because she's not been briefed on the program, all right? so to a certain level of detail, i simply respond that i disagree with both of her conclusions. i think what we're doing is lawful, and i think what it is we're doing is effective. and if i knew of a better way of doing it, i would do that too. >> toward the end of the meeting, general hayden made it pretty clear that he wanted me to stop lobbying against the program. >> i said, "look, diane, this is going to become public. and when it becomes public, you can argue your point and i can argue mine." >> and so instead of allaying my concerns, this actually made me far more worried. it was clear to me that he didn't like my talking to other people in the executive branch and on the house intelligence committee and trying to convince them to put controls on the program. >> narrator: for now, hayden's secret was secure. >> narrator: by early 2003, keeping "the president's program" secret was about to become harder. >> few answers so far... >> narrator: in a small office at the department of justice, attorney thomas tamm had just started a new job. >> i went in with a lot of patriotic fervor. i work with agents, fbi agents primarily, to try and develop intelligence about people that we thought were foreign agents or terrorists. >> he came from a family of fbi agents. but not just any fbi agents. his uncle was one of the top aides to j. edgar hoover. his father had also been a senior official under j. edgar hoover. >> narrator: tamm would work with one of the most secretive institutions in washington: the foreign intelligence surveillance court-- the fisa court. >> it was on the sixth floor and only one elevator went up there. and it was literally in a bank vault because they were worried about the soviet union overhearing what was going on. >> good evening. president nixon reportedly will announce his resignation tonight... >> narrator: the fisa court had been set up to act as a watchdog after those revelations during the nixon administration that the nsa had been spying on americans. >> when that came out, you saw a period of reform like none other we'd seen, like nothing we'd seen before then, and frankly, nothing since. >> narrator: under the reforms, the nsa could conduct surveillance inside the united states only if the fisa court issued a warrant. >> you can turn your ears outward, but not inward. you can listen all you want abroad, but you really cannot do that to americans unless you have a warrant. >> narrator: and inside the department of justice, it was thomas tamm's job to prepare warrants for the fisa court. >> the law specifically said that if you didn't go through the court, you were committing a federal felony. >> narrator: but then as tamm began working on terrorism cases, he discovered something surprising: evidence of "the program." >> there are references to wiretaps and information that hadn't come through fisa warrants. so the question is, "where did they come from? where did the government get this information?" >> narrator: tamm learned that hardly anyone at the doj knew details about what was going on. >> i asked a supervisor of mine if she knew what "the program" was about, and she told me that she just assumed that what we were doing was illegal, and she didn't want to ask any questions. >> narrator: tamm became concerned. >> they were conducting electronic surveillance without getting warrants, and using that information then to develop probable cause and basically not informing the court of the source of the information. >> narrator: tamm and others at the doj, unaware of the secret presidential order, wondered if attorney general ashcroft was doing something illegal. >> it just kind of ate away at me and kind of came to a head when i ran into one of the deputies of the unit who said that there was a chance that for the first time ever, that a sitting attorney general would be indicted. >> narrator: tamm says he tried to take his questions up the chain of command without success. >> he was quite disturbed by that, was quite disturbed that he wasn't getting answers to the questions he was asking. >> narrator: eventually, tamm decided to take a risky step. he headed up pennsylvania avenue to congress for a secret meeting with a powerful senate staffer. >> i said, "does congress know what we're doing with regard to this program?" and she said she couldn't tell me. and i said, "well, then i think maybe i will go to the press." and i remember her last comment was, "you know, tom, whistleblowers frequently don't end up very well." and i told her, yeah, i understood that. >> in baghdad, a bomb last night set portions... >> narrator: in the fall of 2003, the white house got involved in filling an important vacancy at the justice department. >> the justice department needs a new head of the office of legal counsel, which is a very powerful position. cheney and addington get together and say, "who should we pick?" >> narrator: david addington had a candidate in mind for the job: jack goldsmith. >> jack goldsmith is impeccably credentialed, a member of the federalist society, well-known and liked in the conservative movement. david addington calls goldsmith in and interrogates him about a few of his lesser known positions and, "what would you think about this or that?" and he's convinced goldsmith, like he himself, is a true believer and is going to be making the right decisions. >> narrator: with addington's blessing, goldsmith became the new head of the office of legal counsel, charged with reviewing the legality of the administration's most secret operations. >> i was being briefed into a lot of programs: classified programs, counter-terrorism programs. i was extraordinarily naive. i had a sense that this was an important job. i did not have a full sense of the nature of the issues or the pace. >> narrator: before long, goldsmith headed for david addington's office. it was time to learn about "the program." >> jack, like most of the others who are briefed on this, walks into addington's office, which he regards as a little bit peculiar, "what's this doing in the vice president's lawyer's office?" addington opens the safe and pulls it out. there's the red cover-- it says "top secret/ si/comet/stellarwind," the cover name for this program. >> narrator: as he read the document, goldsmith began to have grave doubts. >> the program was an example of the administration going it alone in secret based on inadequate legal reasoning and flawed legal opinions. >> narrator: goldsmith discovered that as part of the program, the government had been tracking data about the emails of tens of millions of americans. >> he said, "you can't justify the email collection. it is, on its face, a clear violation of the 4th amendment and perhaps the 1st amendment as well." >> narrator: addington was furious that goldsmith would raise questions about "the program," and he let him know. >> he was very tough in making his arguments. he was very sarcastic and aggressive against people with whom he disagreed, and dismissive oftentimes. and he acted with the implicit blessing of the vice president. so all of these things made him a very, very forceful presence. >> you know, david pushed, he pushed everybody. he pushed me. even when i was the attorney general, he would push me. so that was just david's nature, and i think jack didn't appreciate being pushed sometimes. >> he was daring jack goldsmith to say, "this is illegal and you've got to stop it." he never believed that goldsmith would do it. >> goldsmith tells him, "we're going to pull back our endorsement of the legality of this program." and addington roars at him and says, "if you do that, the blood of 100,000 people killed in the next attack will be on your head." >> narrator: for cheney, addington, gonzales, hayden and others, the personal stakes at this moment were extremely high. >> it was a felony to conduct this kind of surveillance in the united states. and everyone was relying on the shield that they were trying to create of having the president order it explicitly and have the attorney general sign off and say, "it's lawful." and as soon as the justice department starts to say, "we're not so sure this is lawful," there is a great deal of concern and anxiety. >> five separate car bombs blew up in a span of 45 minutes... >> a bomb last night set portions of the old city ablaze... >> narrator: at the justice department, they prepared for conflict with the white house. goldsmith's boss, deputy attorney general james comey, delivered the news to john ashcroft: parts of the program appeared to be illegal. >> they go to the attorney general, john ashcroft. they say, "we don't think this is legal. we think we need to get this changed. we need to stop what's going on because we don't have a solid foundation to go on." >> narrator: ashcroft was supposed to sign a reauthorization of the entire program every 45 days, and for two and a half years, he had. but now he balked. >> ashcroft gives comey his verbal assurance that he is not going to go along with this program and that he is going to demand changes or he won't sign. >> narrator: then just hours later, attorney general ashcroft collapsed, suffering from severe pancreatitis. james comey was now the acting attorney general. >> comey notifies the white house formally that he's not going to sign, and we're now within 48 hours of expiration of this program. >> narrator: with the deadline looming inside the white house, alberto gonzales, chief of staff andrew card and david addington headed to attorney general ashcroft's hospital room. >> we went to the west wing, picked up david, who had the authorization. we get to the hospital and i tell david to stay back because there was history between david and the attorney general and i didn't want to aggravate the attorney general needlessly. >> janet ashcroft, the attorney general's wife, is very alarmed. she calls up ashcroft's chief of staff and says, "oh my god, they're coming over." ashcroft's chief of staff calls comey, the deputy. comey is in a car on his way home. he has the driver make an actual u-turn. they slapped the flasher and the siren on, and he heads over to that hospital as fast as he can go. >> it was the evening, about 8:00, and i got a call from the justice department command center. so i rushed to the hospital, double parked, ran up the stairs. >> narrator: goldsmith and comey waited in ashcroft's room. >> he had tubes going in and out of him. he looked ashen, and i actually thought he looked near death. i thought he looked just terrible. in walked alberto gonzales, the white house counsel, and andrew card, the president's chief of staff. >> we get to the hospital and general ashcroft is laying in bed. and as soon as we got there, i said nothing other than, "sorry you're feeling bad." and judge gonzales said, "we have brought the document. here is the document." >> attorney general ashcroft kind of lifted himself. he arose from the bed, lifted himself up and gave about a two- or three-minute speech or talk addressed to gonzales and card, in which he basically... i can't get into the details, but he showed enormous, unbelievable clarity about what the issues were and what was going on. and he explained why he also would not approve the program. and he read them a bit of the riot act, and then he said... at the end of all this, he said, "in any event, i'm not the attorney general now. jim comey is," because jim comey was the acting attorney general. and with that extraordinary performance-- and it was just amazing, one of the most amazing things i've ever seen in my life, because he went from seeming, you know, near death to having this moment, this amazing moment of clarity-- and he just again receded into the bed, and i really worried at that point that he was going to expire. and i mean, it just... it looked like he gave it the last of his energy. >> and so finally, when he repeats again he's no longer the attorney general and is finished talking, andy and i just said, "thank you, we'll raise this with the deputy attorney general," and we left. >> it was an intense, unbelievable scene. and gonzales and card quickly left, and that was the end of it. >> narrator: in the wake of the hospital confrontation, at the white house, cheney insisted the president should act on his own: reauthorize all of the program even though the justice department said part of it was illegal. >> cheney and david addington draft a new order. and this time, it has one subtle difference. instead of having a signature page for the attorney general, "i certify the lawfulness of this order," there's a new signature for the white house counsel, alberto gonzales, who does not have the same legal authority. >> i satisfied myself that there was sufficient legal authority to move forward. and i felt that the president was not a lawyer, and that it was my job, if i felt comfortable that it was in fact lawful, to provide that signature. i did it because i wanted to protect the president. that's why i signed that document. >> narrator: but the white house wondered, "would general hayden go out on a legal limb and continue the program?" >> david addington calls me and says, "are you willing to do this without the signature of the attorney general? with the signature of white house counsel al gonzales and authorization from the president?" and i thought and i said, "yes." >> narrator: hayden and gonzales say their willingness was informed by something that happened just before the addington call. (explosions) >> in madrid this morning, more than 190 people were killed... >> after at least ten simultaneous bomb blasts... >> narrator: it was one of the worst terrorist attacks since september 11. >> series of bomb attacks at three train stations during... >> given that starkness of the al qaeda threat and given the ambiguity of the situation, i thought the correct operational, legal and ethical decision was, "all right, we'll do this one more time on a somewhat different framework." >> so that was a point where he could have said, "i'm turning it off until we get a proper order from the justice department." but he didn't. he went along with addington and cheney. >> narrator: that afternoon, president bush reauthorized the program. at the justice department, jack goldsmith prepared his resignation letter. >> i had drafted my resignation letter and was prepared to resign, and i was sure i was going to resign that day. it was inconceivable to me, based on what had happened the last two days, that i wouldn't resign. >> narrator: dozens of top doj officials threatened to join him, including fbi director mueller and even acting attorney general comey. >> "and i would never be part of something that i believe to be fundamentally wrong. with a heavy heart and undiminished love of my country and my department, i resign as deputy attorney general of the united states, effective immediately. sincerely yours, james b. comey." >> george bush is on the edge of a cliff. his presidency is at stake. this was going to be something on the order of two dozen, nearly the entire political appointment list at the justice department, from the attorney general on down. and no president could survive that in an election year. >> narrator: the next morning, the president decided to have a private talk with acting attorney general comey. >> after the national security briefing, bush says to comey, "stay a minute. come talk to me." and cheney starts to follow, and bush says, "no, no, this is just the two of us." and he says, "what's going on here? how could you possibly do something of this importance at the very last minute?" comey suddenly realizes that the president had no idea what had been happening. the president thinks this just began yesterday. he doesn't know it's been going on for three months. and so he says, "mr. president, if that's what you've been told, you have been very poorly served by your advisors." >> the president certainly did not want a situation where the fbi director and the deputy attorney general would resign, so he was not too happy to learn that this had risen to a level of angst that it had risen to. >> narrator: the president then sent for fbi director mueller. >> mueller is waiting downstairs a level, outside the situation room. some aide goes and says, "the president wants to see you right now, get in there." and bush says to mueller, "go tell jim comey to fix this. i withdraw the order. you go make it right." >> narrator: the warrantless email data collection was shut down. the crisis was averted. but at the white house, they were determined to resume it. >> and so they're sort of sifting through the fisa law, they're sifting through the patriot act trying to find existing laws, existing authorities, you might call it loopholes, to justify these programs. >> narrator: general hayden was sent to the secret fisa court to convince a judge to restart it. >> could we get a court order to authorize this? and so we began a very aggressive program with the chief judge of the fisa court at that time, judge kollar-kotelly, to take that part of the program that had been stopped and present it to her to see if we could get an order to allow that program to go forward. >> hayden personally meets with judge kotelly of the fisa court on two saturdays to make the pitch, to explain how they are going to do this. and kotelly eventually rules that this is legal: that the nsa can indeed collect all of the internet metadata going to and from the united states. and they used this authority that previously was used to trace numbers going to and from a single telephone... for everybody. >> narrator: kollar-kotelly's secret ruling relied on a controversial interpretation of a 25-year-old supreme court case. >> this was, frankly, a huge stretch. the idea that you could use this to justify the collection of trillions of pieces of internet metadata surprised a lot of people when it came out in the snowden archives. but that's where they went. >> narrator: the program was back on line, bigger than ever. >> that part of the program over which there was a grand dispute in the spring of 2004 was resumed in large measure under a different legal theory by the fall of 2004. >> bush on day two of his tour to defend the patriot act, this time in buffalo, new york... >> in buffalo, he continued his push for an extension of the anti-terror law... >> narrator: that same year, the president hit the campaign trail, publicly arguing there was no warrantless surveillance program. >> nothing has changed, by the way. when we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. >> bush got up there several times and said, "when you hear about us wiretapping, that means we're getting a court warrant." well, we knew that wasn't true. he was leaving out this whole other side of the equation in terms of the nsa operation. >> it's important for our fellow citizens to understand, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the constitution. thank you for coming. >> narrator: as the president insisted the government always secured warrants, in washington, that department of justice attorney thomas tamm knew otherwise. >> i agonized for... probably for months. i was upset, i would say, with what i thought was being done to the way our government was supposed to work. >> narrator: tamm had not been aware that jack goldsmith and the top echelon at the department of justice had nearly resigned. but his concerns about the program had continued to grow. >> he agonized about this, spent a lot of sleepless nights, wondered about what he should do. >> it just kind of ate away at me. it was pretty clear to me, at least, that i didn't want to keep participating in whatever was going on. >> narrator: tamm decided to take a very big step, one dramatically out of character for the son and nephew of high ranking fbi agents. one day, on his lunch break, he slipped into a washington subway station. he used a pay phone to make an anonymous call to the new york times. >> he said he was sweating, nervous, looking around. he felt, he said, "like a spy" when he made that phone call. but he did. >> i certainly was conscious of the fact that if i were going to be found out-- and i did think i would be found out actually, eventually, that there would be serious ramifications-- but i just thought it was important. >> narrator: tamm says the phone call was to a new york times reporter. >> i had read articles by eric lichtblau with the new york times. i knew he was covering the department of justice. >> narrator: lichtblau will not confirm that tamm was a source, but acknowledges receiving a tip from an anonymous source. >> there was a suggestion from one of the early sources that whatever was going on involving this supersensitive spy program was causing such tumult and debate within the justice department that there's talk of ashcroft being indicted. that certainly gets your attention. >> narrator: tamm says he and lichtblau had a series of clandestine conversations around washington. >> i eventually told him my suspicions that a very, very limited people knew what it was all about and that really some very experienced, high level lawyers thought what the government was doing was illegal. >> narrator: having leaked, tamm disappeared back into the bureaucracy at the justice department. at the times, eric lichtblau knew that another reporter, james risen, had also been hearing about "the program." >> we heard, basically, that the president had authorized a warrantless wiretapping program. it was believed by the people we were talking to to be in violation of fisa and of the constitution. >> they were doing things well outside their lane, without the knowledge of most of the court, without the knowledge of most members of congress, really, on the white house's own authority. that was really what, in our mind, made the story. >> narrator: eager to get general hayden on the record, james risen called the nsa. >> i told the press person that i needed to talk to hayden immediately, and for a very sensitive matter. and i didn't tell them exactly what it was. but to my surprise, she got him on the phone immediately. >> i remember, i was sitting next to him and i did not know he was going to do that. it was a bit shocking, not only that he was calling him, but also that he got hayden on the line. >> i read him, like, two paragraphs of the draft of the story. >> "months after the september 11 attacks, president bush secretly authorized the national security agency to eavesdrop on americans and others..." >> and you could hear, like, a sharp intake of breath, like... (gasps) you know, it was almost like he was... he didn't want to say it, but he was like, "i can't believe you got that story." >> i think this is a very bad thing. there is a reason we keep intelligence sources and methods secret. it's the same reason journalists try to keep their sources and methods secret. you know, you can't survive unless you keep them secret. >> i'd caught him off guard, and he had started to confirm it, and then realized what he was doing, and hung up. >> narrator: hayden sounded the alarm: the new york times was preparing to expose the existence of "the program" in the middle of an election year. >> we were worried that this would compromise a very important, very significant intelligence activity. there was a debate within the administration about what to do, should we try to get an injunction. >> narrator: the white house demanded a series of meetings with the times. the first was inside the eisenhower executive office building. acting cia director john mclaughlin ran the meeting. >> one thing i remember about his presentation was that he never actually confirmed that they had such a program. >> they kept talking in these hypotheticals, like saying, "if we were doing this, this would be very important to the government." >> the language he used, which was kind of orwellian in a way, was, "if the united states had such a program, we would request that the new york times not publish any information about it." >> and then i started taking notes and they tried to stop me from taking notes. it was a very contentious meeting that only convinced me further that the story was right and that they were trying to stop it. >> narrator: in meeting after meeting, the government made the argument "the program" was both effective and legal. >> one of the strongest selling points that they made, which to my mind was probably the most disingenuous, was the idea that this had all been legally reviewed, this was all perfectly legal, perfectly constitutional, everyone was on board. there was no doubt about its legality. >> narrator: back in the times offices, the reporters argued the white house was misleading them. but the editors were not convinced the story should run. >> there were intense discussions, and it got emotional on all sides. >> we argued that this was really important, that our sources were telling us it was illegal or unconstitutional, that there was clearly people in the government who disagreed with what the government, what the officials were saying to the editors. >> narrator: in the fall of 2004, the administration invited the times' top editors to a closed door meeting. executive editor bill keller met with the president's top advisors: condoleezza rice, general hayden, alberto gonzales and others, who insisted to keller that revealing the existence of the program would endanger national security. >> i had a consensus of everybody that we had contact with in the administration that this would be an extremely dangerous thing to do. these were serious people, a consensus across the board of those who talked to us that it was going to be dangerous, a level of stridency that was quite impressive. and after much discussion, decided that we weren't ready to go with it. >> narrator: keller spiked the story. the white house had prevailed. the program would remain a well-kept secret. >> the president has ordered a major shake-up of america's spy operations... >> the nuts and bolts of intelligence will fall to lieutenant general michael hayden, who now heads up the once super secret... >> narrator: general hayden was promoted by the white house to help oversee all intelligence operations. he was replaced by a new general: keith alexander. the change gave tom drake another chance to voice his concerns about "the program." he wrote general alexander a classified letter. >> within the system, my last official act for all intents and purposes was to write that formal letter to alexander. >> narrator: the letter said the nsa's intelligence gathering activities were out of control and needed to be reined in. >> this is a crusade for him. being drake, someone who's got a somewhat obsessive personality, he keeps trying to get the word out. >> narrator: but general alexander was no more responsive than hayden had been, and by writing directly to the general, drake had broken bureaucratic protocol. his days were numbered. >> they actually reorganized my job right out from under me, and i literally was left with nothing. i had an office, i had a flag because of senior executive, but nothing else. no programs, no people, no team, no nothing. >> narrator: drake had formed friendships with the thinthread group: binney, wiebe, loomis and congress's diane roark. now they began to seriously consider what they called "the nuclear option": going to the press. >> and i can remember throwing the question out there one evening. i said, "what do we do? tom's not getting anywhere." and so we would say, "is it time to go to the press? invoke the nuclear option, which is going to the press?" and we were all afraid to do it. >> we were still traditional kind of employees of the government and wanted to stay inside the government to try to get the government to change its ways, to right itself as opposed to having to force it by going to the fourth estate, the public. >> the third rail option of going to the press was fraught with enormous peril. at a minimum, you would no doubt be fired, or worse. >> narrator: it had been nearly one year since the new york times had refused to publish the investigation into the nsa. during that year, "the program" had grown dramatically. terabytes-- huge amounts of information about americans' telephone calls and emails-- had been clandestinely captured. finally, reporter james risen from the new york times had had enough. he decided to strike out on his own. >> the story was dead now, twice dead, and i thought the only way to ever get this story out was to put it in a book. >> narrator: risen had a surprise for eric lichtblau. he invited him to drive over to his house to read a draft chapter of the book: the story the new york times had refused to print. >> the chapter was just called "the program." and in it, he basically made known the existence of this program and the fact that the administration had gotten the paper to spike the story. >> i said, "i want to make sure it's okay with you." he said, "the only thing i ask is that you put my name in there, too." >> narrator: it did not take long for the editors at the new york timto get word of what risen was planning. >> i began to hear through the grapevine that he might include the nsa story in the book. so that led to a series of, you know, very awkward conversations with jim. >> the editors were furious at me. they thought i was being insubordinate. >> he had a gun to their head. they're really being forced to reconsider. the paper's gonna look pretty bad. >> that led to this massive game of chicken between me, my book and tnew york times over the next few months. >> narrator: inside ttimes, the editor who had killed the story 12 months earlier now faced a hard choice. >> because we had to either decide, "we're still not ready to run the story," or, "the situation has changed sufficiently that we are ready to run the story," in which case we'd better get the story in the best possible shape and let the administration know. >> narrator: on a frigid december evening, editors bill keller, phil taubman and new york times publisher arthur sulzberger were summoned to the white house. >> it was indeed a dark and stormy night. i remember it. it was dark and it was stormy. and we were in the oval. mr. sulzberger began to speak and the president said, "i'm going to go first. i want to talk to you about this program. i want to talk to you about why this is important, why we think it saves lives, and why it should not be made public." >> narrator: the president turned the meeting over to general hayden for one of his famous briefings. >> it's hard to brief in the oval. you know, you can't... no visual aids. hard to roll out something in front of somebody. so i gave them the best explanation of the program i could, but i did bring up specific examples. >> the example he gives them is a plot in which a radical was planning to bring down the brooklyn bridge, apparently with a device similar to a blowtorch. and it actually kind of makes the times editors kind of scratch their heads, because they think this is kind of surprising, that somebody can sit there with a blowtorch or something like that and bring down the brooklyn bridge without anybody noticing him and stopping him first seemed absurd to them. >> i think arthur believes that the president may have cracked a smile when the "bringing down the brooklyn bridge" item came up, but maybe that's just a wishful memory. >> narrator: the president then played his trump card, threatening that the new york times would be responsible for the next attack. >> he said, you know, "listen, if you guys publish this article and there is another 9/11, we're going to be called before congress to explain how we failed to prevent it, and you should be in the chair beside us explaining, because you'll be complicit in allowing damage to our country." he was saying, in effect, "you, arthur sulzberger, will have blood on your hands if there's another attack that could've been prevented by this program." i think anybody would feel goosebumps. >> the new york times broke the story about the national security agency... >> narrator: nevertheless, the times decided to publish the story, revealing the existence of "the program." >> four years now, the nsa has been secretly spying on its own citizens... >> the new york times story in december 2005 just shocked the world. >> unchecked domestic surveillance is far greater than previously reported... >> it is the definition in most people's minds of illegal government activity. >> with a bombshell of a story in the new york times today that the nsa... >> narrator: they were in crisis mode at the white house. all eyes were on president bush. >> we call it the big pause, okay? when stuff like this goes public, what's the big guy going to do? is he going to man up and support you, or suddenly get reflective on you? >> and for once, the president actually decides he's going to come out and address it directly. he goes on the offensive to try to push back against critics who said he went too far. >> narrator: it would be a first: an admission the program existed. >> this is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the united states, our friends and allies. >> the president comes out and minimizes what he describes as "the program." and he gives a very truncated description of what they're doing that sounds, i think, probably not too worrisome to most americans. >> i authorized the national security agency, consistent with u.s. law and the constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al qaeda and related terrorist organizations. >> narrator: it was the least controversial and smallest element of the program. there was no reference to the massive gathering of domestic communications data. >> his characterization of the facts was simply wrong. and it was wrong from the beginning. the program wasn't to surveil known suspects, known conspirators. you could easily get a warrant for that. the program was to sift big data. it was to trawl through enormous volumes, literally trillions of telephone calls, trillions of emails, and to look for unknown conspirators. >> narrator: once again, it would be left to general hayden to brief the press. he too minimized the scale of "the program." >> this is targeted. this is focused. this is about al qaeda. one end of any call targeted under this program is always outside the united states. >> when they asked questions about how widespread the program was, he confined it to this little part of the program that had leaked and did not address all the other parts that were far worse that had not leaked. >> narrator: there was no mention that the nsa was tracking telephone calls and emails inside the united states. and hayden even dismissed the idea that there had been any internal dissent about "the program." >> not a single employee of the national security agency has addressed a concern about this program to the nsa ig. i should also add that no member of the nsa workforce who has been asked to be included in this program has responded to that request with anything except enthusiasm. >> general hayden's press conference introduced many of the tactics that the administration has used to deflect questioning and also to mislead the public. i was amazed at what he was saying, because it was not truthful; it was misleading. and that was the beginning of the spinning and the lies. >> president bush heads to the nsa as part of his weeklong blitz to defend his controversial wiretapping program... >> white house strategy? fight back on every point... >> yesterday it was the president; today the attorney general speaks out on the matter... >> the president will visit one of the nation's most secret buildings today... >> narrator: at the national security agency, thomas drake was watching the white house's reaction carefully. >> drake watches what top levels of the u.s. government's saying about this program, and he thinks they're lying. >> i realized that they were lying, that they were desperate to protect the domestic surveillance program. >> he knows it's much more than what they're describing, and this makes him mad. >> the far larger program was the dragnet surveillance, the vast bulk copy of millions and millions of phone records, email records, internet usage, and financial transactional and credit card information. >> narrator: drake had been complaining internally about the program for more than four years. now he said he had run out of options. >> all the internal proper channels had been exhausted. the one final choice was to actually touch the third rail and go to the press. >> narrator: drake decided to act on his own, without the thinthread team. he'd reach out to a newspaper reporter. siobhan gorman worked for tbaltimore sun. >> he just reaches out to her in a way that he thinks is secret, using all kinds of protected hushmail to tell her he wants to talk to her and might have documents to share with her. >> narrator: drake said that he would only provide unclassified material. >> it's a pretty classic whistleblower kind of move that he makes, and he's careful, he thinks, not to violate any kind of national security laws in reaching out to her. >> narrator: gorman will not acknowledge that drake was her source, but she says she knows why she received the leaks. >> there were a number of people at nsa that were just very unhappy, and i think that the revelation of warrantless surveillance probably did loosen up some concerns that some people inside nsa might have had. >> narrator: at first, drake remained completely anonymous, communicating entirely by encrypted email. >> she had no idea who i was. i ultimately was referred to as just a senior official. it was sort of an agreement as to how she would "couch" who i was in her reporting. but i was a deep... i was a deep source. >> the baltimore sureports today that the nsa rejected... >> and so i provided her unclassified information about the secret surveillance program. >> narrator: gorman would write a series of lengthy stories: a deep investigation into the nsa, thinthread, and the warrantless surveillance of millions of americans. but drake wasn't the only leaker. other stories broke. >> high ranking officers in the justice department... >> narrator: the new york times revealed the story of that standoff in attorney general ashcroft's hospital room. >> andy card and alberto gonzales to the hospital room... >> narrator: and a leak to usa today revealed the government had been collecting the phone records of tens of millions of americans. inside the white house, vice president cheney was furious. he was determined to stop the leakers. >> if you've known dick cheney-- i've known him for a long time-- he was always upset about leakers, so it wasn't... this was not out of character. it fit within the character that he was, whether he was secretary of defense or chief of staff to the president. >> narrator: the investigation would be run by the fbi: a massive manhunt for the leakers led by the new attorney general, alberto gonzales >> they had broke they law. they leaked classified information. that's against the law. the job of the department of justice is to prosecute those who break the law. >> narrator: the agents began their investigation across the street at the department of justice itself, calling everyone who had worked with the fisa court, including thomas tamm. >> and he starts getting phone calls from this fbi agent, jason lawless, at work. he's ducking the calls. >> narrator: terrified, tamm refused to return the calls. >> i was preoccupied with what was going to happen to me and when it was going to happen, what was going to happen, if it was going to happen. >> and finally, lawless gets him on the phone and says, "hey, this'll only take a few minutes." >> narrator: but tamm panicked and quickly sealed his fate. >> i told him that i chose not to talk to him. i chose to exercise my rights under the constitution to not be a witness against myself. and of course, i knew that immediately would send up red flags and that i would immediately be their primary suspect. >> narrator: thomas tamm resigned from the justice department. he began to wait for a federal indictment. >> a story that has now triggered a justice department investigation into who leaked what was behind... >> narrator: in cambridge, massachusetts, jack goldsmith had settled in as a professor at harvard law school. one morning, he was summoned to a meeting in harvard square with two fbi agents. >> as we were sitting down at the table over coffee, one of the agents sort of sheepishly handed me a manila envelope. and he said that it was a subpoena for a grand jury investigation into the leak of the new york times. and he was very embarrassed and sheepish about this. >> narrator: the subpoena was issued under the leadership of attorney general alberto gonzales. >> and it seemed particularly ironic that the justice department was coming after me for illegal actions, or allegedly illegal actions or possibly illegal actions, taken in connection with this program. >> narrator: by the summer of 2007, it had been more than 18 months since the fbi had begun its investigation. they had little to show for it. they decided to up the ante. they would conduct a series of early morning raids on the houses of their primary suspects. >> at 9:00 eastern standard time, the fbi, with guns drawn, raids the homes of binney and wiebe, and out on the west coast, they raid the home of diane roark, waking her up. >> it was quite shocking. in fact, they went through the whole house and went through every book, every paper, every drawer. turned the mattress over. it was quite shocking. >> it's 9:00 in the morning, and i see these blue uniform with gold "fbi" on the back, people coming across left to right, and i said... well, it sent a chill through me immediately. >> the first i knew the fbi was in my house was a guy pointing a gun at me when i was coming out of the shower. they took my computer, all the electronic hardware, discs and things that go with that, any kind of electronic storage device, and they also took some of my magazines, technical magazines, and papers and things like that. >> narrator: and then they hit one more: ed loomis. >> my life was in shambles at that point. my wife was hysterical. she couldn't believe what had just occurred. i couldn't believe what just occurred. and i had no insight into why it had. >> you know, this button is nsa's second highest award, and i wonder what it was that i did personally so wrong that i deserve this kind of treatment. >> here i am, an eagle scout, a retired scoutmaster and a devout patriot, and my patriotism is being questioned by the government that i had served for 43 years. i just couldn't... it just didn't make sense to me. >> you feel pretty low, your self-esteem takes a big hit, there is discord in the family because kids, family, wife may ask you, "well, what did you do to bring this upon the house?" >> it tore me up. i was... i became a recluse, pretty much. i cut off virtually all social contact with friends. it was rough. very rough. >> ed probably took it worse in terms of cost to family and self, physically, mentally, because ed went into the shadows. he became a recluse, quiet. he lost his wife. >> it's still eating at me. but i've... i've told my family. i've told my... i told my father before he passed away. uh... i know i've done nothing wrong. >> narrator: the fbi considered them "persons of interest" for leaking to the new york times, but they all insisted they hadn't, anew york times reporter james risen agrees. >> i didn't know any of them. and i just felt badly that they were getting caught up in something that was completely unrelated. i knew that couldn't be true, that it was just collateral damage. >> narrator: tom drake's home was not raided by the fbi that day, but drake had the feeling that he was next. >> almost six months goes by and drake still hasn't been raided. but then on the morning of november 28, 2007... >> i'm seeing these cars pull up as i look out the window. it's just after 7:00 a.m. in the morning and there's a dozen fbi agents. and my heart's up in my throat, because i realize it's now me. >> narrator: the fbi's search warrant said they were looking for evidence that drake was the new york timleaker. >> drake being drake sits down at his kitchen table with the fbi agents without a lawyer present and spends the entire day trying to convince them that the real culprits are the people at the nsa who have run this illegal program. >> so i told them everything i could, but they didn't want to hear about that. they wanted to hear about the new york timand sources. >> narrator: the fbi carted away drake's computers and boxes of his papers. drake waited. >> a few months later, in april 2008, drake gets a summons to go meet with somebody who is described as "somebody very important." >> narrator: the meeting was with federal prosecutor steven tyrrell. >> when drake sits down, tyrrell says to him, "mr. drake, you are screwed." >> narrator: tyrrell had no hard evidence drake ever spoke to the new york timor that he had given any classified material to the baltimore sun. nevertheless, tyrrell said the fbi had discovered classified documents on drake's computer and in his basement: a felony. >> he proceeded to tell me, "how would you like to spend the rest of your life in prison, mr. drake? unless you cooperate with our investigation, we have more than enough information to put you away for a long, long time. you better start talking." >> and they talked numbers: 478 months-- 35 years. the government said he would have the blood of soldiers on his hands for what he did. >> narrator: tyrrell wanted drake to confess and admit that he was the center of a conspiracy involving roark, binney and the others. >> i was not going to plead out. and he was all ticked off and he says, "well, we'll just have to go with what we've got." >> narrator: drake and the others faced decades in federal prison and at least tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills. desperate, they came to believe they had only one chance. (crowd cheering) as it happened, 2008 was a presidential election year, and there was one candidate who was promising a change. >> are you fired up? ready to go? fired up! ready to go! no more secrecy. that is a commitment i make to you as president. >> he is promising to be the most transparent administration in history. he believes that there's been too much secrecy. >> he made a real point of owning these kinds of arguments, both as a senator and then on the campaign trail. >> it's time for us to change america. and that's why i'm running for president of the united states. >> narrator: barack obama even embraced the importance of whistleblowers. >> obama, throughout his history, is a champion of whistleblowers, arguing that they're the folks who help make government better and reveal conduct that, if not is illegal, is questionable. >> i certainly had a lot of hope and i had a lot of hope for hope and change. but i actually thought that somebody might say, "you know, you actually did the right thing." >> narrator: and when it came to the secrecy surrounding the creation of "the program," obama was forceful. >> i will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our constitution and our freedom. that means no more illegal wiretapping of american citizens. >> it's not a calibrated statement. this is a political statement. this is, in his words, a surveillance state run amok. >> no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. that is not who we are. that's not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. >> it was like he was back at the university of chicago as a constitutional scholar. he sounded like an aclu lawyer. >> narrator: at the white house, in the waning months of the bush administration, they were determined to find a way to make "the program" permanent. >> the debate shifted pretty quickly to congress in terms of debating whether or not the administration should get the power to do what they were doing. >> narrator: the president decided to try to convince congress to enshrine the program into law. >> for president bush, it's really a significant reversal. he's decided he needs congress to back up what he's done. he, in effect, is abandoning his claim that he has the power under article two of the constitution to do this without congress. >> narrator: the administration proposed to amend the fisa law and insisted it was "reform," but insiders knew it granted the nsa unprecedented power. >> the fisa amendment act of 2008 actually allows some of the things we were doing under the president's authority only against al qaeda, it allows them for all legitimate foreign intelligence purposes. so in a sense, the fisa amendment act not only validates the terrorist surveillance program, it expands it. >> narrator: at the united states congress, the administration secretly made the case for the bill at closed hearings of the intelligence committees. >> you had to read it very, very closely to understand what they were doing, and i don't think people knew what actually the intent of that was. the intent of that was to make legal all of the programs that the attorney general, the fbi director had said they had a problem with. >> narrator: publicly, the president would press lawmakers with a familiar warning: pass this law or americans could die. >> without this law, our ability to prevent new attacks will be weakened. and it will become harder for us to uncover terrorist plots. we must not allow this to happen. >> narrator: candidate barack obama now faced a choice: would he vote against the president's bill? >> i remember when the bill came forward, there was some discussion as to whether or not he would support it. >> the senate is expected to vote on a controversial measure to amend... >> he was thinking ahead to the general election, and how he was a young senator with not a lot of national security experience and how he needed to be seen as being tough on these issues. >> narrator: in private, a tougher, more determined obama was emerging. >> i remember the first conversation i ever had with him during the campaign. i said, "look, when you become president, you have to kill people. are you willing to pull the trigger? are you willing to do that side of the job?" and he got very silent and looked at me in a very steely kind of way and said, "i know that and i can do that." >> u.s. senate returning final vote on the fisa bill, setting new rules for electronic surveillance on foreign... >> narrator: and now, obama had a chance to enhance his national security credentials. >> gives the government new powers to eavesdrop on both domestic and international communications... >> for all of his criticism in the past, for all of his background as a constitutional lawyer and civil libertarian, he chooses to accept the rather expansive law. and he votes for it. >> mr. obama, "aye." >> senator obama getting a lot of heat for this vote, much of it from his own supporters... >> senator barack obama voted for the surveillance bill, despite his opposition to it in the past... >> it's off to work for president obama. it's a busy first day. >> he takes over two wars, a staggering economy... >> narrator: six months later, barack obama was the new president and the commander in chief. >> he's taking on national security right from the start... >> meeting with the joint chiefs of staff and other military advisors... >> the first time that barack obama ever learns about the full scale of this program is an early briefing in the situation room about all of the data that the nsa is collecting in these domestic surveillance programs. >> the point of the briefing was to provide the president and the new national security team at the white house with an overview of how these programs worked, what the value of the programs was, the legal structures that supported the program, what the authority was. >> narrator: he was told about the trillions of phone calls, emails and internet data that had been secretly gathered. >> as we talked about these programs, the way they were used, in particular the value of the collection of content, an extraordinarily vital tool, that the idea was, "all right, this is a really important program. we need to maintain it." >> narrator: the president's closest advisors insisted the program was necessary. >> there was a very strong view in the intelligence community that this was an important program, that it did fill an important gap. >> narrator: the new president faced a decision: whether to dramatically restrict "the program." >> i think that the president approached this with the degree of seriousness that you would hope and expect from the president of the united states. >> when you get into office, when you're the man, when you're in the white house, you don't want to give up any tools that you inherit. you don't want to give up anything that might get you that one fact that will stop an attack. >> narrator: he made his decision: the program would continue. >> he had a chance to say, "that's too far. let's not sweep in quite so many people who don't have anything to do with terrorism as part of this broad sweep." and he chose to keep the programs largely intact. >> i'm not aware of any case in which obama pushed back hard and said, "you can't do that." >> narrator: convinced the program was effective and necessary, obama would now own it. at the nsa, they were now spending more than $10 billion a year on capturing communications of people around the world. >> the nsa was on the verge of what it came to call the "golden age" of electronic surveillance, because there was so much more communication, so much more data, so much better computer capacity to process it, and it was there for the taking. >> narrator: to run the operations, the nsa relied on a number of private contractors: companies that could provide highly skilled computer programmers and engineers. >> the nsa, cia and other intelligence services suddenly realized that they needed people with those kind of skills. >> narrator: 25-year-old edward snowden was one of them. a high school dropout, snowden had grown up just 20 minutes from the nsa. >> he grew up in the community where lots of people who were in the military and the intelligence community live. his father was in the coast guard for 30 years. >> if you've been to a ron paul rally, you've seen lots of people who look exactly like edward snowden: young, clean cut, student, you know... passionate about the constitution. >> narrator: snowden had enlisted in the army, but left after breaking both of his legs in training. >> he had the reaction after 9/11 that a lot of patriotic young americans had, which is, "i'd like to do my part." and that brought him to the nsa and the cia and the worlds of secret intelligence. >> narrator: by 2009, snowden was working as an nsa contractor in japan. the job provided him extensive access to the details of nsa operations. >> he really began to understand the true scope of how much the nsa had gotten its hands into the backbone of the internet. >> narrator: the more snowden saw, the more disturbed he became. >> it was a gradual accumulation of evidence and of observations that led him to think, "something's going wrong here. the balance is out of whack. the surveillance of ordinary people is far greater than i would have imagined and far greater than the american public has been able to debate." >> narrator: one of the key documents snowden discovered: a classified inspector general report detailing the history of "the program." >> it tells the entire secret history of the program. it talks about addington and hayden writing the authorization for the program. >> "according to general hayden, the vice president's counsel, david addington, drafted the first authorization..." >> it talks about the rebellion at the justice department. >> "consequently, the white house counsel rather than the attorney general signed the 11 march 2004 authorization." >> it's the entire unadulterated history of these programs. >> he told me that reading the inspector general's report made a big impression on him. he felt like people had done things that were wrong and had not been held accountable for them. >> the laws that are written will be more open to the public. no more secrecy... >> narrator: and under president obama, snowden watched as "the program" continued. >> his hope was that obama would be a force for transparency, and that's not what happened. and that was another of the pivotal moments in which snowden realized it was going to have to be him. >> narrator: as snowden was deciding exactly what to do, obama's justice department began to address those bush-era leak investigations, led by attorney general eric holder. >> what's interesting is that these cases from the bush era linger on. they don't just throw them out; they revisit them. and they keep going after the enemies of the national security agency, much as they'd done under bush. >> narrator: despite the campaign rhetoric in support of whistleblowers, president obama did nothing to stop the prosecutions. >> this president personally really doesn't like people leaking classified information. he takes that very seriously and he thinks that we should all take it very seriously. >> in every conversation that obama had that i have heard about, he said, "when it comes to national security, you leak classified information that could endanger people, we're going to come down on you like a ton of bricks." >> narrator: and when the bricks fell, they landed on thomas drake. >> they couldn't indict us all, so they went after the one that they could at least show an example to the rest of the intelligence analysts, "you speak, you go to the press, you're going to get hammered." these were the lessons that were supposed to come out of being raided, and then in tom's case, indicted. >> narrator: on april 14, 2010, thomas drake was finally charged. >> i was arraigned. before i was arraigned before the judge, i was fingerprinted by the u.s. marshals with the fbi agent watching. i was a direct threat to the national security of the united states. i truly had become an enemy of the state. >> narrator: drake was charged with violating the espionage act. >> and i'm facing the distinct prospect of having the rest of my left spent behind bars, effectively. >> narrator: as he waited for his day in court, drake's life began to fall apart. >> he spent two years draining all his resources on a private attorney, and then when he had no more money, he had to go to a public defender. >> it was extraordinarily lonely. i mean, life had become already extremely difficult. all the income i had, all the retirement's gone, your life is turned upside down. you're persona non grata. i ended up finding work, initially part-time, then full-time, at an apple store. >> narrator: at the center of the government's case were those documents found at drake's house. prosecutors insisted they were classified. drake's lawyers turned to author james bamford. >> i was hired as a consultant by the defense and was able to find basically all of the information that they were charging him with was already in the public domain. not only that, it had been placed in the public domain by the government itself. >> i looked at the stuff that he was indicted for. that material was clearly marked unclassified. >> it was not stamped "classified" until after it was seized from tom drake's home. >> and all they did was draw a line through it and classified that material, and so then they charged him with having classified material. it's like framing him, and we're going to frame you after the fact. >> narrator: the government later insisted the documents drake had contained national secrets and were covered by the espionage law. but then just days before the trial was to begin, the charges against drake were dropped. >> it was astounding. basically, drake went from someone charged with such serious crimes that he could spend the rest of his life in prison to having it bargained down, because the justice department could see it was falling apart, to a misdemeanor, where he spent no time at all in prison. >> narrator: drake agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor unauthorized use of a government computer. he was charged a $25 court fee, put on probation for a year and given community service. none of the other suspects in the leak investigation were ever charged. it had been more than ten years. despite the revelations of insiders like drake and the news reports about the program, there was little public outrage and few congressional critics. "the program" was continuing to grow. but at a secret bunker in hawaii, edward snowden was now working for a new nsa contractor. snowden was initiating his own move to expose the program. >> the fbi has raided the offices established to protect federal whistleblowers... >> narrator: snowden studied carefully the actions of the other whistleblowers: the thinthread group and tamm, and especially drake. >> what he learned from drake and binney is that you can be discredited or people won't know whether to believe you if you don't have proof. and it was because of that that he decided it had to be documents, and it had to be a lot of documents. >> the new york times broke the story after holding it for a year... >> narrator: and unlike tamm, snowden would not go to the new york times. >> paper faces questions about why it held that story... >> snowden was disgusted at the new york times for having that story before the election, sitting on it for month after month. and he had a real antipathy towards tnew york times as a result of the way they behaved over risen. instead of the new york times snowden would reach out to glenn greenwald, laura poitras and barton gellman. >> narrator: and he would begin systematically copying and giving them documents that held many of the united states' most closely guarded secrets. >> snowden had clearances for human intelligence. he had clearances for many, many compartments of electronic surveillance. and he had a third set of powers, which is actually called "super user." it was a very potent combination that opened many, many doors to him. >> here is this low-level analyst who was able to access, if you believe the government, 1.7 million documents, and walk out of the agency with them without them having the slightest idea that it was taking place. >> this was a stupendous intelligence breach. this was the largest collection of classified information, the largest leak of classified information that had ever occurred in the history of the united states, or indeed the history of the world. >> embarrassing for the obama administration, in a trove of documents leaked by edward snowden... >> narrator: for the national security agency, the biggest threat to "the program" was just beginning. >> next time the story contin with part two. >> google may know more about you than any other institution on earth. >> the googles, the facebooks collect as much of our sensitive data as possible. >> but anything you hand to a private company is potentially the government. >> the nsa specifically targets the communications of everyone. >> corporate america and the national security state know so much about us, and we know so little about them. >> next time part two: privacy lost. >> go to pbs.org/frontline and watch more of frontline's interviews with the architects of the program and the whistleblowers who tried to stop it. learn more about the scope of the nsa's domestic surveillance activities, including what your phone records may reveal about you. take a closer look at the three main proposals for reform, and connect to tfrontline community. sign up for our newsletter, and follow us on facebook, twitter and pbs.org/frontline. >> frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from: and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support for frontliis provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information is available at macfound.org. additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the wyncote foundation. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from john and jo ann hagler and a grant from millicent bell, through the millicent and eugene bell foundation. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> for more on this and other frontline programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline. frontline's "united states of secrets" is available on dvd. to order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-play-pbs. frontline is also available for download on itunes. what if television... ali: i shook up the world! could remember the heroes we honored? the music we danced to? the dreams we chased? kennedy: the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die. no one tells our nation's story like pbs. give to your pbs station, and help bring america's story to life. daniel mansergh: (♪ upbeat theme music ) (♪) (♪) daniel mansergh: imagemakers is made possible by a grant from: celebrating the vitality and power of the moving image. and by the: