Today governor jerry brown declared a drought emergency. In new jersey 17 people and three Government Agencies have been subpoenaed over the George Washington bridge lane closure scandal. David wildstein, a former appointee of chris christie, said he helped enact those closures. Consider this is next with antonio mora. President obama proposes changes to the nsas controversial tactics. A former acting director of the cia on what they mean to our intelligence gathering. Also danielle elsberg, why he thinks it vind gates, Edward Snowden. Plus a seemingly botched leeltal injection in ohio. And the often painful program for infant children in adapting to american life. Hello, im antonio mora, this is consider this. More on whats ahead. Intelligence agencies cannot function without secrecy, which makes their functioning less open to public debate. An ohio inmate took 26 minutes to die during an execution. Ive never seen anything that lasted so long in the shuddering and gasping was so pronounce pedestrian. Everything here is different. They are the american dream. We begin with the long awaited recommendations from president obama on reforming the vast and controversial spying powers of the nsa. , while defending widespread surveillance as crucial to National Security, president obama said he was ending the collection and storage of phone data at least as it exists today and vowed to stop is eavesdropping on friendly allies. It will ensure that we take into account our security requirements, but also, our alliances, our trade and investment relationships, including the concerns of american companies, and our commitment to privacy and basic liberties. But critics of the Data Collection including kentucky senator rand paul say these recommendations on how the security works. And dodge some of the state. Hes going to continue to collect all of my private information without a warrant. Its not about who holds it. For more im joined from washington, d. C. By former Deputy Director of the cia john mclaughlin. He is now a professional of intelligence and Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins university. Great to have you with us, john. First lets get your reaction to the president s speech. You have staunchly defended the nsa and the program. You were at the cia after the 9 11 attacks. What did you think the president said . Well i think the president did a good job of lailg out for the public the role of intelligence in our National Security system and i think he also did a good job of defending the nsa and americaing clear that other countries have intelligence programs like this. Now, when he comes to the actual recommendations that he made i think the phrases that came to mind for me are the devil is rail in the details here. And also, wait and see. Because when you look at the Metadata Program which has been probably the most controversial, what i heard him say was were going to transition this to a different system in which that data will be held by someone other than the u. S. Government. He noted thats going to be complicated, thats not simple. If you put it in the hands of the phone companies they all have different systems for collecting the data. If you put it in hands of someone else kim im not else, im not sure who that would be. I cant think off the top of my head of another group or another entity that would be safer and more assuring of privacy than the nsa itself. Its very careful how it uses the this data. He pretty much suggested the following, there be judicial approval to dip into records and store that metadata outside the government. Wanted to add an independent voice at the fisa court. And some friendly relief for spying outside the utle. Again the big question is this a big deal . The reality is at t would keep those records for five to seven years. The different phone companies all had different time frames within which they kept that data. If the government could access from those phone companies or Third Party Storage facilities in the end does it make any difference to ordinary americans . In this sense if you put it in a system that adds time or process to the period when nsa has to react to a lead or deal with a crisis, youre increasing the risk that we will miss something or not handle it appropriately. So i think thats one risk. Another risk is simply that i dont know how secure another entity or the phone companies would be, when it comes to protecting data like that. I mean i have an unlisted number but i gel get 12 robo calls a day. We have trouble target being hacked. Having it kept by nsa is about the most secure way you can store this data. Talking about the quickness with which the nsa could access this information, you were there during 9 11 and in fact the president mentioned in his speech that there was one phone call back then from one of the 9 11 hijackers that if the cia could have access to figure out that guy was in the United States it could have made a difference. Is that fair . It was a critical phone number in yes yemen and we knewa bad guy had talked on that number, had made a phone call on that number. We had no authority to bounce that phone number off a data bank in the United States. In fact he was in the United States. Had we been able to use a program like this i suspect we would have been able to map to some degree the network of supporters and contacts that the hijackers had in the United States. I think the president is thinking not so much about the past as about the future. Al qaeda is in some ways becoming more robust, its rejuvenating, it has a larger area for safe haven than in a decade. Im sure the president is mindful that this threat has not only gone away, it may be in the outyears as severe as in the pre9 11 period. I dont think he wants to give up any tools that would help us combat that. The president seemed to say actually at one point he said as these disclosures have come out theyve shed more heat than light and that while revealing methods to our adversaries that could Impact Outcomes that we may not understand for years to come. One of the contributors to the guardian have said they really havent let howt ni out any met. Whats the truth . We have all sorts of public statements including an annual statement by the director of National Intelligence that lays out our conception of the threats and the concerns in the world. No other country does that. These leaks have been damaging. Most of them let me say all of them have been leaks that have not exposed abuse or illegality. I think the president pointed that out. They have detailed intelligence methods for one reason or another are kind of fascinating to the average readers, the reared of newspapers, and in that sense, when the president says we wont know the damage for years what he means that adversaries will study this, they will go to school on it. We dont know yet about what they will conclude about how to secure their communications and avoid our scrutiny and our attempts to penetrate plots particularly by terrorists but also by others who mean ill to us. So you know, we use the word transparency a lot but in order for intelligence to be intelligence on the one hand it has to have public support and therefore there is a certain amount of transparency required. But there is also a certain amount of secrecy required. As other countries in the world as the president pointed out very well, arent doing the things were doing to put their systems out there. Interestingly, critics are going at the president from the left and the right. He did not take many or most of the recommendations that he had received from the panel that he named to study this. Well look, the Intelligence Community is pretty accustomed to being examined and investigated. That is part of our robust system of oversight. So i think they will take this all in stride. They will do their best to respond to what the president s asked them to do which in this case is to think about a different method for storing this data. Many of them may say its going to make our job a little harder, its going to add some process here. But i think their attitude may be very much like the response i had to the speech which was interesting, devils in the details, lets wait and see. Well, well wait and see and former cia acting director john mclaughlin, thank you for joining us to discuss this important topic. Thank you. From a different perspective, he is of course the famed whistle blower who in 1971 leaked to reporters the top secret documents dubbed the pentagon papers, outlining the u. S. Militarys role in vietnam. Great to have you on the show today. Julian asange said he had to be kicking and screaming dragged, a pr effort to mollify the public. What is your reaction . Well, i heard the president say that he was certain that this debate would strengthen us. And neglected to say thank you, Edward Snowden. Maybe that was on his television prompter and he choked up when he said it. He did say earlier about mr. Snowden who has joined our board of directors, that he deplored the sensational way that this information, which has led to all these proposals for reform, including his, and various legislative proposals, now pending in congress, he hated the way that was made. Well, what exactly other way might that have come to his attention or to our attention . There was no other way. Hes talked about his whistle blower protection act which didnt go into effect until after snowden had actually made his disclosures. But he neglected to, maybe he didnt know that that didnt cover snowden as a contractor. Anyway, the four nsa officials who have been saying for years that the nsa was acting unconstitutionally, in this dragnet surveillance that they were carrying on were defying the Fourth Amendment had said openly that they thought snowden did the right thing and they did the wrong thing by acting through the channels that the president had spoken of. They were simply persecuted in a variety of ways, one of them prosecuted, others held at gunpoint on suspicion. And a sorry sight. They said the only way this could have come to our attention is for a courageous person like mr. Snowden who had access to this information to tell it without authorization because no head of nsa was ever going to authorize the information as to how long and how greatly this institution has been violating our constitution and the rights of all our citizens. I want to get to Edward Snowden in a moment. But first there has been argument about whether its constitutional or not, different judges have decided in different ways and the nsa panel named by the president said that they hadnt found any illegality or abuse. What reforms did you say by the way if i could say that was a rather absurd statement by the president that there was no evidence of illegality or abuse. The fisa judges, described tens of thousands of violations and abuses, they went so far as one judge pit that the restraint might as well not have existed at all. They were simply ignoring it. Hes simply not telling the truth here as to what is to be found. What is the worst abuse in your opinion . I think im sure the worst has not yet come out as a matter of fact. Its bad enough to be taking the metadata of practically everyone in the world which, by the way, could be stored fairly easily, they wouldnt need to store all that digital data in bluffdale in the new Storage Facility theyre building as russell tise has pointed out a former nsa whistle blower has been saying for years now that the has been lying and is lying now when they say they collect only metadata as obtrusive as it is. They are collecting content not of everyone, thats too hard to store. But youd aw audio of persons, s persons, Even Supreme Court justices, tise himself was involved in such collection and he knows that its going on right now. What has yet to come out are a, the fact that they are in fact taking a lot of content not all of it of our audio. It was revealed yesterday that they are taking in hundreds of millions of text thats not all data. From foreign sources. And what we havent found is the kind of abuses that that sort of collection is certain to give rise to and i feel it already has given rise to. The Text Messages supposedly are only from foreign sources not from u. S. Sources and again there is no confirmation that they are gathering all that content. So if it is only metadata which are is the only information that has been confirmed at this point, why, if its available through the phone companies and other ways and stored, so why should Americans Care . If its available from the Telephone Companies as its turning out to the government directly that is indeed something to be very concerned about. The assumption was by the companies that theyve assured us that they were keeping that quite privately and they are concerned about encrypting that information so as to offer that privacy to their customers which they cajt yet. But even cant yet. Even if they, not to smear dissenters as hoover was doing. Not to manipulate kat activist groups. To attack to persecute, to assassinate, so the danger of having that in government hands is i would say much, much greater than have it in corporate hands unless having it in corporate hands means giving it to the government in which case if they didnt give it to the government they would have fairly easy access to it. Edward snowden, you have defended him today, from the beginning. Here is what the president has to say. Im not going to dwell on mr. Snowdens actions or motivations. If any individual can object to the governments actions and take it within himself to reveal classified information, we cant protect Foreign Policy. Moreover the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out have more often shed more heat than light. In ways that we may not fully understand for years to come. Former acting director o Deputy Director of the cia john mc [ laughter ] li, what are your response to his statements . And to the president . Maybe its true, maybe his judgment is right. He hasnt told us any specifics nor has anyone else. Maybe we shouldnt expect that after all its all secret right . Except those exact same things were said about me by the president and the Vice President and other people like mclaughlin and they were said by chelsea manning. And not one specific was ever brought up validating those concerns about processes being broken or not. I think we circulate take this with a great deal of skepticism. Mr. Snowden has found the only way that that information could have gotten to the public or to president obama as far as we can tell through channels. Hes said to have been surprised that his people were listening in to angela merkel. Maybe that is true and maybe it isnt true. I would trust Edward Snowdens judgment, not that hes perfect, maybe he has made mistakes. I trust him more than James Clapper or Keith Alexander or dianne feinstein, about what the public should know about these situations, there is no way we would find that about any other way other than through a snowden and i hope there are others waiting to tell us about abuses. But there is a better way to find out this material than to have leakers take their lives into their hands or face a life at best of compile or like chelsea manning, prison, looking to genuine investigation of the Intelligence Community, Better Church managed to do it. Intelligence committees failed to provide oversight. Church led to the fisa intelligence court. That has failed, has been a rubber stamp operating in secret. What we have to have is kirk leavy of the nsa has said, a panel picked by congress reporting to the congress and the judiciary and the nsa with full access and full clearances. People who have never been hired by the Intelligence Community in the past. We need in other words genuine oversight for the first time in a way the nsa has never had it, within or outside the executive branch. But still you would trust the judgment of a 29yearold contractor over senators, the president of the United States, the oversight from congressional committees that already exist and intelligence officials . Pardon me. The president s own committee which had the judgment that they expressed not only to the president , but to Congress Just two days ago, these included the former chief of counterterrorism in the white house, richard clark. Morel the former head of the cia. Another person who was actually the one who hired Jeffrey Stone who hired obama as a law professor back at chicago. His judgment was that we should end the bulk collection. He overruled that collection because i believe he has been corrupted by his office right now, not because his judgment was worse. I think Edward Snowden is the one person taking action because he needs to protect the country . I think he needs to reassure the people that have now gotten information that he refused to give them, in fact he may not have known in detail. I dont think the nsa has been terribly forthcoming for all we know to the president about whether they broke the law. It took fisa court judges, in their ability, they do not have the technical ability to investigate that i have said here about kurt leavys recommendations. Is it shocking that a 29yearold to take his life in his hands to tell us this, not really, thats the way humanity works, thats the way governments work. Knowledge is power. Secret knowledge of other peoples secrets is power. And power corrupts. Even americans. This debate will continue for a long time, daniel elsburg, i really appreciate you joining us on the show tonight. Thank you for opportunity.