Transcripts For ALJAZAM Consider This 20140119 : vimarsana.c

ALJAZAM Consider This January 19, 2014

Virginia. Freedom Industries Filed for bankruptcy. The owner created a new company to bail it out. It was founded friday, the day that freedom Industries Filed for chapter 11. Officials in california lifted mandatory evacuations in california. Thousands fled. The blaze covered 1900 acres. Firefighters stopped the flames from proceeding. Im morgan radford, those are your headlines. Consider this is up next on al jazeera. President obama proposes changes to controversial tactics. What they mean to intelligence gaer thissing. The man who leaked the pentagon papers gives his take on the president s speech and thinks why it vindicates the note. Also what does a federal judge want on the argument of concussions. A humorous take on our biggest generation. Welcome to consider this. Here is more on whats ahead. Ill tell jones agencies cannot function without secrecy which makes their work less public to less subject to public debate. We cannot unilaterally disarm intelligence agencies. There is from the judges perspective, she has to look out for the people who were not able to participate in negotiations. Talking about as many as 20,000 plaintiffs. The were the first generation probably in the history of the world that had the opportunity to do what we wanted to do. We begin with the longawaited recommends from president obama on reforming the spying powers of the ntsa. While defendingwide widespread surveillance, the president announced he was edging the collection of phone data as it exists today and vowed to stop eavesdropping on friendly allies. This will strengthen oversight of our intelligence activities. It will insure we take into account security requirements but also alliances, 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 Center say these recommendations will have little effect on how the nsa work and dodge the bigger issues at stake. He told me he is going to continue to collect all of my private records without a warrant. I dont want them collecting the information. It is not about who holds it. Im joined from washington, d. C. By former cia Deputy Director john mclaughlin. He is a 30 veteran of the Central Intelligence agency. He served as Deputy Director and acting director of the cia. 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 when it began after the 9 11 attacks. What do you think about what the president said . I think he did a good job of laying out the role of intelligence and the way it operates in our National Security system. And i think he also did a good job of defending the nsa in making 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 really in the details here. And also, wait and see. Because when you look at the mehta data program which has been the most controversial, what i heard him say was we are going to transition this to a different system in which that data will be held by someone other than the u. S. Government. Complicated. It is 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 the hands of someone else im not sure who that will be. I cant think off the top of my head of another group are entity that would be safer and more assuring of privacy than the nsa itself. Which is very careful how it uses this data. The president to go down the recommendations, he suggested the following. That there be judicial approval to dip into records and as you said to store the phone meta data outside the government. He wants to add advocates to add an independent voice and signature cases. And as we mentioned, some friendliry leaf for allies. From our spying. But, focusing on the meta data, is this really, again a big deal . The reality is at t would keep the records for 5 to seven years. Different phone companies all had different time frames within which they kept the data. So if the government can access it from the phone companies or from this Third Party Storage facility, in the end does it really make any difference for americans . Well, i think it does in this sense. You put it in this system which adds time or process to the period when nsa has to react to a lead ordeal with a crisis, you are increasing the risk that we will miss something or not handle it aappropriately. And that is 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 have an unlisted number but i get 12 robo calls a day. We had the problems with target being hacked. Nsa has a whole effort that is designed to prevent someone from penetrating their system. So having it kept by nsa is about the most secure way that you can secure the data. Well talking about the quickness with which the nsa an access information. You were there during 9 11. And the president mentioned in his speech that there was one phone call from one of the 9 11 hijackers that if the cia had access to where to figure out that that guy was in the united states, it could have made a difference. Is that yeah, there is a critical phone number in yemen. And we knew that bad guy was talking on the phone number had made a phone call to the number. But we didnt know where it came from because we had no authority to bounce that phone number off a data bank of phone numbers 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. So also, i think the president is thinkling not so much about the past as about the future. I mean, al qaeda is in some ways becoming more robust, it is rejuvenating. It has a larger area for safe haven and operational planning that it has had in a decade. Im sure the president president is mindful of the fact that the threat has not only gone away. It may in the out years be just as severe as it was in the pre9 11 period. I dont think he wants to give up any real tools here that can help us combat that. How badly have all these leaks hurt our National Security . The president seemed to say. He said at one point. He said thata as these disclosures have come out. They have shed more heat than light. And while revealing methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations in ways that we night not fully understand for years to come yesterday we had one of the guardian reporters involved in publicizing the leak that they havent let out any sources and methods. Whats the truth . To me the truth is this. We are already the most transparent country in the world when it comes to intelligence methods. We have all sorts of public statements including an annual statement by the director of National Intelligence that lays out conception of the threats. No other country does that. These leaks have been damaging. Most of them, in fact, all of them have been leaks that have not exposed abuse or illegality. I any president. This out. Most have detailed methods that are kind of fascinating to the average person or to the readers of the up ins and so forth. In that sense. The president says we wont know the damage for years. When it means is adversaries will study this. They will go to school on it. We dont know yet 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 used the word transparency a lot. But in order for intelligence to be intelligence. On the one hand, it has to have public support and there is a certain amount of transparency required. But there is a certain amount of secrecy required. And other countries in the world arent doing the things we are doing now to put their systems out there. Interestingly, critics have gone after the president for the left and the right. How is the Intelligence Community going to react . In fact, he did not take many of the or most of the recommendations that he received from the panel he named to study this. Le with, look, the Intelligence Community is pretty accustomed to being examined and investigated. They do it to themselves. That is part of our robust system here of oversight. They willing take this all in stride. And they will do their best to respond what they are asked to do. Many of them may say it is going to make your job a little harder. Will add process here. But i think their attitude may be like the response i had to the speech. Which was interesting. Devils in the details. Lets wait and see. We will wait and see Joan Mclaughlin thank you for joining us to discuss this important topic. You bet. Thank you. For a different perspective im joined by daniel elseburg ellsberg, who Just Announced snowden as a new board member. He is the famed whistleblower who 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 with us today. Julian assange said the president had to be dragged kicking and screaming to maim make the recommendations. Aclu panned the speech. It was called a p. R. Effort to mollify the public. Well, i heard the president say he was certain that this debate would strengthen us and i would like 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. But what exactly other way might that have come to his attention . There was no other way. He talked about his whistleblower protection act which didnt go into effect until after snowden had made his disclosures. But he neglected to maybe he didnt know that that didnt cover snow zen as a contractor. Any way, 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 have said openly they thought snowden did the right thing and they did the wrong thing by acting through channels that the president has sponge subpoena of. They were simply persecuted in a variety of ways, one of them prosecuted. Others held at gun point on suspicion. And a sorry sight. They say the only way it 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. Well i want to get to Edward Snowden in a moment. But first i want to there has been argument about whether it is constitutional or not. Different judges have decided in different ways. And the nsa panel said they havent found any illylity or abuse. So what reforms did you want if i can just say, that was a rather absurd statement from by the president that there had been no evidence of illegality or abuse. The judges themselves have written reports which have now become known us to in part through snowden that described tens of thousands of violations, and abuses that went so far as one judge put it that the restraint might as well not have existed at all, they were simply ignoring it. He is simply not telling the truth there. I guess my question is what the worst abuse in your opinion . I think im sure the worst has not yet come out, as a matter of fact. It is bad enough to be taking the meta data of practically every one in the world, which by the way could be stored fairly easily. They wouldnt need to store all that digital data in bluff dale in the new Storage Facility they are building as a former nsa whistleblower has been saying for year that the nsa has been lying and is lying right now when when they say they collect only meta data, obtrusive as that is. They have been collecting content, not of everyone, that is too hard to store or audey content of telephones, that is why they need the bluff dale storage site. They do it on targeted groups, not just individuals, journalists, congress persons, Even Supreme Court justices. Activists groups of all time tyce was involved in such collection and knows from insiders if it is going on right now. So, i think what yet has to come out are the a, the fact that they are in fact taking a lot of content, not all of it. Of our audio. It is just revealed yesterday that they are taking in hundreds of millions of Text Messages a day. That is all content. That is not meta data. President ignored that. But from foreign sources. We havent found the abuses that that sort of collection is certain to give rise to. And i feel sure it already has given rise to. But again, the Text Messages supposedly from r only from foreign sources not from u. S. Sources and again no confirmation that they are gathering all that content. So if it is only meta data, which is the only information that has been confirmed at this point. Should Americans Care. If you say that is going to be available, it is available through the phone companies and other ways and stored. Why should Americans Care . Of course if it is available from the Telephone Companies as it is turning out to the government directly, that is indeed something to be very concerned about. The assumption was by the companies is they have assured us they were keeping that quite privately. And they are now concerned about encrypting the information so as to offer that privacy to their customers, which they cant do yet. Even if they have it themselves. Their intent is to make money from it, to sell things to us from it. Not to smear dissenters as hoover was doing, not to manipulate activists groups not to affect elections, these companies do not have the power either to tax, to prosecute, to assassinate as our executive branch has claimed the right to do. So, the danger of having that in government hands is i would say much, much greater than to have it in corporate hands unless having it in corporate hands means giving it to the government. Even if they didnt give it to the government think would have easy access to it. Before we go, i want to get to Edward Snowden. You defended him today and from the begin. Here is what the president said today. Im not going to dwell on mr. Snowdens action or his motivations. If any individual who objects to government policy can take it into their own hand to publicly disclose classified information, then we will not be able to keep our people safe or conduct foreign policy. Moreover, the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out is often shed more heat than light. While revealing methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations and ways that we may not fully understand for years to come. Former acting director of the cia Don Mclaughlin just told us that these leaks have been damaging in exposing american intelligence methods. What is your response to former director mclaughlin and the president . Maybe it is true. Maybe his judgment is right. He hasnt told us any specifics nor has anyone else. Perhaps we shouldnt expect that because after all it is all secret, right . Except that those exact same things were said about me, by the president , and Vice President , a lot of other people. Like mclaughlin, they were said about Chelsea Manning and after three years under indictment not one specific was ever able to be brought up validating those concerns about processes being broken and whatnot. I think we should take this with a great deal of skepticism. So far are in snowden has found the only way that that information could have gone governmenten to the public or to president obama as far as we can tell. He is said to have been surprised that his people were listening in to maybe that is true. Maybe it is isnt true. Not that he is perfect or beyond criticism or mistakes. Maybe he made misjudgments. I trust his judgment moyer than i trust James Clapper or Keith Alexander or Dianne Feinstein as to what the public should know about the programs nsa is doing based on what we have learned so far. There is no way we would find out about that any other way than through snowden and i hope there are others waiting to tell us of 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 of exile. Or like Chelsea Manning, prison. That would be for a new Church Committee looking for a john win investigation of the Intelligence Committee belter than church managed to do it. His reforms consisted of intelligence meets. Church led to the intelligence court. That has failed. It has been a rubber stamp operating in secret. What we have to have is this a panel picked by congress basically in the nsa reporting to congress and the judiciary and nsa with full access and full clearance. 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 of the executive bran very much. Still you would trust the judgment of a 29yearold contractor over senators the president of the united states, the oversight from

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