Principle is underlying the concept of security must remain the same. For our constitutional protections to continue to be meaningful. One of the things we have struggled with as a congress and that we struggle with as a country as a whole relates to the fact that where we keep our papers and what our papers are has changed especially in the last few years. No longer do our papers consist exclusively of actual paper. What the founding generation wouldve thought of as papers, s often exist int the electronic equivalent. Those are not stored exclusively on hard drives with a finite loaccation. It a lot of times they exist on a cloud somewhere. These pieces of information, these papers, in many instances are something we have or reasonably should have a next rotation of privacy which is reasonable. We have to figure out how to balance these two sometimes conflicting interests associated with security. There are several ways in which this arises. We have talked a little bit today about the collection of metadata and the fact that we have an enormous amount of metadata that has been collected on potentially 300 million americans. The government notes that it has in place a rigorous review process that must be followed before anyone accesses this database containing metadata on basically every american. What concerns me about that is the fact that these are internal operating procedures. What is a policy today which may be followed religiously for all i know today could change tomorrow. I am willing to assume for purposes of this discussion that the men and women who work at the nsa have nothing but our best interests at heart. I am willing to assume that. That might not be the case a year from now or four years from now or 10 years from now. We have seen this movie before. We know how it ends. We know that eventually it that much information remains in the hands of government for that long it will be abused and manipulated for partisan and the various and nefarious purposes. Lets are with professor stone. Wouldook at this this be something you describe as one of the most compelling argument in favor of putting more robust restrictions in law so that they are not simply in the hands of people, however wellintentioned they may be, inside the nsa . Of this is of primary concern when it comes to the collection of metadata. It is not the actual use of the metadata it is authorized but the risks somewhere down the road that someone will figure out how to misuse that data. I think the safeguards in place internally are quite good. They are rigorous, multifaceted, there are checks and balances. Even so, our judgment is that it should be taken out of the hand of the government in terms of holding the data. Substantially the potential for the data to be abused in the way you are talking about. It is still a question of tradeoffs. Our judgment is that it is an important step towards reducing the risk on one side while at the same time preserving the value of the data for National Security purposes. For that reason, chairman leahy and several of my colleagues have introduced legislation. If i could ask one followup on this. Suggested it would simply be categorically infeasible to require a court order as a Condition Precedent for performing a query of the government database. Set doesume the data remain in the possession of the government and we will move to a different system in which the government does not have possession. The argument frequently arises. You cannot require a sort of Court Ordered work wearing for querying that database. It would take too much time. Do you know of any reason why that should be the case or why that should be the unavoidable case . While we cant get around that . Our view is that there are practical route realities. You need to add resources, judges, magistrates is it necessary but there is no reason why the argument about getting a court order for a query of metadata is any more impossible than getting a search warrant to search her home. This is what we do all the time and are great protections and there was no good reason it should not be adopted. Thank you, professor. Senator franken. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I think this report will be overall help a real help. On page 124 under report you will quake a free people can government can govern themselves they have information they need to make wise judgments about Public Policy. I could not agree with you more and right now the American People do not have the information they need to make up their minds on these programs. Bill thatipartisan has the support of 14 of my colleagues and strong support from the Business Community that has endorsed the principle of transparency and has endorsed my bill specifically. When i met last year submitted written comments to your group, i urge you to support the reforms in my bill and i am pleased to report written endorses the same measures that are at the core of my bill. On thefocus my questions transparency reforms that we agree on. First my question is on government transparency. Seven months after the snowden leaks, the government has yet to disclose a rough estimate of how many people have had their information collected in the telephone metadata or prism programs. My bill would force the government to annually disclose an estimate of the number of people who have had their information collected by the nsa under each key surveillance authority. Your report supports this. You say that for each key surveillance authorities the government should report publicly on the total number of requests made and the number of individuals whose records have been requested. Why did you support this particular transparency reform . A theme of our report consistent with your bill which is sunlight is the best disinfectant and it is important for the American People unless there was a very strong National Security justification on the other side. Goal ist and foremost about democratic selfgovernment and a free society. That is one of the things that distinguishes our nation from some others. Wither idea has to do economic interests that should not be trivialized. There are American Companies that are economic risk because the American Government is forcing them to turn over stop. That is not true. It shows it is much narrower adn nd targeted. I want to talk about that next. Any other comments . Continue to drill down on this first recommendation because it is different from what the administration has been saying. It calls for the government to say how many people had their information collected. My bill is for that. Last november, representatives from the office of the director of National Intelligence and the nsa came before the subcommittee on Privacy Technology and law which i chair and testified that it will be difficult if not impossible for the government to say how many people had their information collected under these authorities. Did the administration communicate this concern to you . If so, why did you find it unpersuasive . Thank you. Detail with some the administration about transparency provision. Thereessed concern when is a provider that has a small number of customers that do not tip off the web and surveillance who have been surveilled. When it comes to the number of people wouldve been touched by the waters, they did not focus on the discussion on that risk of transparency. Having talked to the companies on this, if there is cooperative effort to have the companies and providers to work with the government that we are likely to come up with practices that allow estimates. You may not have exact numbers because sometimes you dont know at the same email applies to three people or one person so with precision you might not have exact details but i think you could have a good overall sense of what is happening. I amout of my time out of my time. We will recess for five minutes. Before we do, i want to reiterate this thing about the companies and their ability to disclose because it is hurting them. Firm thatanalytic stands to lose up to 180 billion by 2016 as a result of the disruption of their services abroad. Thank you for being that part of your recommendation. We will recess for five minutes vote and iave to go better go now. I am the chair. I call on senator cruz. Thank you, senator franken. I want to begin by thanking each of the members of the panel. Thanking you for your service in the Intelligence Community and thank you for your Service Looking at the difficult and important legal issues and privacy issues that surround this critical area. I think Many Americans have concerns about the current state of nsa surveillance. I have concerns on two different fronts. I am concerned on the one hand that the federal government has not been effective enough monitoring and surveilling bad guys. We have not succeeded in preventing what shouldve been preventable terrorist attacks. At the same time, i am concerned that the sweep of the surveillance has been far too broad with respect to lawabiding citizens. I think a great Many Americans would err to see that reversed. Far greater scrutiny on bad guys, people that we have reason to suspect may be planning a terrorist attack, and far more protection for lawabiding citizens who have conducted with committed no transgressions. I want to begin on targeting bad guys in a want to followup with the question senator graham saded earlier concerning as and maliki. Despite all of our surveillance capabilities. Despite having significant wascations that assad engaged. The federal government failed to prevent the horrific terrorist attack that claimed the life of 14 innocents at fort hood. The first question i would like in yourhe panel is judgment, why is that . That are bent us from getting the information and acting on that to prevent that act of terror . I would say that is a very important question and your general thought to target through surveillance known bad guys that is something we did the boat a great deal of intention to attentinon to. The section has not gotten any attention. That recommendation is that we need to expand our authority to track known targets of counterterrorism. That is a gap in our statutory structure. Whether that would apply in any way to the case you are describing, i dont think so but it is an important gap. That one is probably a group we need to get more into the details of that we did than we did. Welcome your thoughts as well as how we couldve done better. It is not something that we as a group looked at. That was not our mandate. I am familiar with the case. I am constrained here because i in thenow what is unclassified and classified world. We can have a conversation afterward in closed session. A followup question for the panel. Respect to true with the boston bombers where in that instance we had intelligence from russia that they were having communications with radical islamic groups and yet for whatever reason, their radicalization continued, the government dropped the ball, and they carried out another horrific terrorist attack. Did members of the panel had any view as to why our surveillance providety did not sufficient information to act upon it to prevent that terrorist attack before it occurred . I will tell you in that case there were not any communications between the United States and overseas. Ofre was no surveillance those communications that wouldve provided any information that wouldve prevented the boston bombings. This is largely a case of domestic radicalization. I think that is the best way to think about it. As i understand it, the elder brother after traveling to chechnya and meeting with radical islamic groups, came back and posted on public due to pages youtube pages. That does not take extraordinary surveillance capability. It just takes the government looking at what he is saying publicly. I was making a different point. You are right. I was making a different point about the actual communications and the collection of those communications. That underscores my concerned that the focus of the programs has been far too much on lawabiding citizens and much too little on people for whom we have significant reason to believe there may be a real danger of terrorism. Bostonspect to the bombers, i am not sure there could have been too much surveillance based on the information we had to protect National Security. Citizens at large, and i understanding correctly the conclusions that the commission received that in your the Metadata Program has not to date prevented any significant terrorist attack. Is that an accurate understanding . That is a fair understanding. We have contributed some useful information but cannot say any specific terrorist attack was prevented because of the information we learn from the Metadata Program. An additional recommendation is that the government itself stop collecting metadata, but t hat private companies, the phone companies that have that data, preserve that data and that searches be conducted only when there were specific cause to search rather than the government sweeping in every lawabiding citizen. Precisely. Is that the judgment of the immission that if there that was kept in private hands, at the phone Companies Already that would do, nothing to undermine the efficacy of the program preventing future attacks . We believe that way of handling the data can be done in the weight that will not in any way undermine the efficacy of the program. That itnize in a report is speculative. In fact turns out there are inefficiencies that make it more difficult to use the data in an appropriate way, the upturn of it is to have it held by private holders. Focusing also on the question of potentially overbroad ouple weekse a c ago senator sanders wrote a letter to the nsa asking if the nsa had spied or if the nsa is currently spying on members of congress or other american elected officials. Wasnsas response to that that members of congress have the same privacy protections as all u. S. Persons which suggests the answer to that question is affirmative. You understand it, each of were granted security clearances, the ability to see classified information. I will ask the pet asked the thel are you aware has nsa ever done surveillance on members of congress or other elected american officials . We are not aware of any such. One of the things we learned in our review is that there are no targeting by the nsa of people because of their political views, religious convictions, or their political party. Somerms of concretely, may not havee precise questions that every one of which answer to. Politics, religion, political views that is not what they are interested in. We are talking about in recent years. We are not talking about the 1960s and 1970s when there was a different history of surveillance agencies. I mean incurring years in current years. I want to clarify one thing you said about religious views. Agree that awould would not to jihad qualify as a religious view and would be a political and an embrace of violence that merits very close scrutiny to prevent that violence from happening. If there is reason to believe the person is threatening the United States, that would not fall between under protected religion belief. A followup question related congress,bers of are any members of the panel aware that the nsa has spied on any of them . We have no information to that. We would not anticipate that. I want to thank each of you for being here. The remainder of the committee is off voting so with that we will take a fiveminute recess and i expect my colleagues will return. The hearing will commence again. Thank you. I just wanted to note a couple of quotes from your report. One is the question about granting the Government Authority makes us safety but whether the additional safety is worth the sacrifice of individual privacy, personal liberty, and public trust. It soust as we know many times we have to rely on individuals and the public who might give us information that can be valuable but they have to have the public trust. Lawenforcement knows this. Same with the Intelligence Community. Yield. But, in your review, did you identify a difference . I think you already answered this question. A difference between the demonstration of the utility of the governments abilities which is aimed at nonus persons abroad and the phone records program. 702 has proven to be much more valuable as a counterterrorism tool thean 215. Thank you very much. Morell, how would you characterize the value of the 215 program . Will, from a safety perspective even if as fast if it has not generated intelligence. Im interested in your assessment of its values. That is where i am. It is absolutely true that 215 has not by itself disrupted, prevented terrorist attacks in the United States, but that does not mean it is not important going forward. As i said in my oped, it only needs to be successful once to be invaluable. One of the ways that i think about this is that many of us have never suffered a fire in our homes but we still all have Homeowners Insurance to protect against that. That is one of the ways i think about 215. The concerned that of an author in unauthorized leak an una uthorized leak was not foreseen by the Intelligence Community and that there would not appear to be a response that was timely, sensible. They didnt seem to be paired. What is your sense of what the reaction was i the Intelligence Community . Was it a scramble as a look like from the outside . I was inside for part of it and outside for part of it. The strategyhat that was being pursued was not successful. Pursuedtegy that was did not deal, did not mitigate the lack of public trust, did not win back any of the public trust. It was absolutely clear to me that and this picks up on something professor stone raised earlier, this was one of the most overseen programs in the history of the Intelligence Community. In the history of the country. Nsa, within the executive branch, within the justice department, within the Intelligence Community, congress , and with the judiciary which is very unusual