Transcripts For CSPAN Year In Review NSA 20131226 : vimarsan

CSPAN Year In Review NSA December 26, 2013

Of voice and tate that data communications. Senator feinstein said the u. S. Has to look for ways to get intelligence that is operable and ways that can prevent plots against americans. First of all, i really think that protecting the nation is important. Secondly protecting the nation within the principles of this great democracy and this great constitution is also important. Now, the metadate is a it not constitutionally guaranteed to be First Amendment material. The Supreme Court has passed on that. But having said that, we have got to examine ways to be able to get data to get intelligence that is operable and that can prevent plots from hatching and americans from being killed. That is the goal. Now if we can do it in another way, we are looking to do it in another way. We would like to. If we cant, we cant. You could say that this program has thwarted some specific attacks . Well, it has. But that is classified. We discussed it in there. I gather there is i have to there is a report on that. Im going to look at that report. Senator, was this is regular meeting or did you put this together because we just put this together. Because what happened we just put this together quickly as a briefing because on the floor a number of members came up to me and said we really need a briefing. And what also happened is members who briefed made comments they were astonished, they didnt know this was happening. We thought so many things that people have to deal with that it would be critical if we could bring members that were interested to come in. I think there was a good Cross Section both of republicans and democrats there. Senator, are you able to share with us some of the concerns that members this took place in a classified briefing and we dont talk about the substance of it. Are you considering looking at changes to the program . What kind of changes would be made . We are always open to changes. But that doesnt mean there will be any. It does mean that we will look at any ideas any thoughts, and we do this on everything. We are with mark mazetti National Security correspondent at the New York Times bureau here in washington. We saw a clip of Diane Feinstein back in june. She had just come from a briefing on the n. S. A. Revealations. Take us back a little bit. Who was Edward Snowden and how did he get such access to the top secret material . And how it d. It make its way to publications like the New York Times. Edward snowden was a n. S. A. Contractor work for a number of companies. Most recently booze allen. Working as a Computer Systems administrator which gave him access to a tremendously wide array of classified files inside the n. S. A. System. I think the f. B. I. And n. S. A. Are still trying to figure out the extent of what he took and how he did what he did. But what he did over the course of 2012 and 2013 was systematically download and copy files, thousands and thousands of files from a facility in hawaii that the n. S. A. Ran. Is there any idea, do you think the n. S. A. Has any idea how much information he has . They are still trying to grapple with that. Even so many months later to figure out exactly how much he took. And to some degree the American Government has been scrambling with each new revealation in the press, the foreign and the american press, to mitigate the damage whether it is relationships with other countries or other intelligence services. And you have been writing regularly about this store ricks the n. S. A. Surveillance and revealations. What has been the most surprising thing that has been revealed if his treasure trove of data . I think that you go back to the very beginning. I think in my mind the most extraordinary document is really the first one that the guardian published which the court order ordering both collection of cell phone records of americans. I think that even after months and months of a revealations about tapping the internet burks gaming, of all sorts of things you go back to this because it is extraordinary the reach of the order which allows the n. S. A. To gather data about pretty much every single phone call of americans and i think that really is even to this day extraordinary. It unfoldedfolded almost like a weekly serial novel. Your most recent article was about onlin gaming. An infiltration there. What is the n. S. A. And the c. I. A. Looking for . They are trying to just build up massive amounts of data, collect massive amounts of information in order to then go back and run searches in order to find what they call the needle in the haystack and they say you to build the haystack in order to get the needle. They are looking for terrorist activity. This n. Order to they claim find out cell phone records or email records of people who might be engage in the activity you need to build up a massive amount of data and then run algorithms to find the information. In the gaming story that i did it is hard to know exactly what it is that they were looking for in world of warcraft or in second life. They were, we believe, they thought that these games provided a venue for terrorists to go in, pose as different characters and be able to discuss thing in normal gaming code and actually discussing real world terrorist attacks. We dont have any evidence that was actually happening. We will show the cspan viewers on the year in review program some of the hearings held and some of the floor debate. What in general has been Congress Reaction to the revealations . There have been episodic attempts by congress over the course of this year to restrict some of these activities. But nothing has really in the end happened of any significance. In part because congress itself is very torn about what they think about these things and the democratic leadership of the senate, the Senate Intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein has broadly supported this activity and so you have for the most part a congress that has blessed these activities of the n. S. A. So that is why any kind of real change is difficult. Get back to the information with Mark Mazzetti in a moment. We wanted to show the floor debate on the amendment and other hearings this year on the n. S. A. Surveillance program. In recent years, the information gathered from these programs provided the u. S. Government with critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world. F. A. A. 702 contributed in over 90 of the cases. At least ten of the events included homelandbased threats and the vast majority Business Records fisa reporting contributed as well. It is a Great Partnership with the department of Homeland Security in those with the domestic neck nexus. It has been our honor and privilege to work with director mueller and Deputy Director joyce. I will turn it over to shawn. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. N. S. A. And the f. B. I. Have a unique relaysship and one invaluable since 9 11. I want to highlight a couple of the instances. In the fall of 2009 n. S. A. Using 702 authority intercepted an email from a terrorist located in pakistan. That individual was talking with an individual located inside the United States talking about perfecting a recipe for explosives. Through Legal Process that individual was identified as naji and he was located in denver colorado. The f. B. I. Followed him to new york city and later executed search warrants with the new York Joint Terrorism Task force and n. Y. P. D. And found bomb making components and backpacks. He later confessed to a plot to bomb the new york subway system with backpacks. Also working with Business Records the n. S. A. Was able to provide a previously unknown number of one of the coson spear stores. This was the first core alqaeda plot since 9 11 directed from afghanistan. Another example, n. S. A. Was monitoring a known extremist in yemen. This individual was in contact with an individual in the United States. Individuals that we identified through a fisr that the f. B. I. Applied for were able to detect a nacens plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. He had been providing information in support to the plot. The f. B. I. Disrupted and arrested these individuals. Also David Headley in the u. S. Citizen living in chicago. The f. B. I. Received intelligence regarding his possible involvement in the 2008 mumbai attacks responsible for the killing of over 160 people. Also n. S. A. Through 702 coverage of an alqaeda affiliated terrorist found that headley was working on a plot to bomb a danish Newspaper Office that had published the cartoon depictions of the prophet muhammad. Headley later confessed to personally conduct surveillance of the danish Newspaper Office. He and his coconspirators were convicted of this plot. Lastly the f. B. I. Opened an investigation shortly after 9 11. We did not have enough information nor did we find links to terrorism so we shortly thereafter closed the investigation. However, the n. S. A. Using the Business Record fisa tipped us off that this individual had indirect contacts with a known terrorist overseas. We were able to reopen this investigation, identify additional individuals through the Legal Process and were able to disrupt this terrorist activity. Now in order the way it works, is the there is an application that is made about it f. B. I. Under the statute to the fisa court, we call it the fisk. They ask for and receive permission under this to get records relevant to a National Security investigation and they must demonstrate to the fisk it will be operated under the guidelines that are set forth by the attorney general under executive order 12333. It is limited to tangible objects. What does that mean . These are like records like the metadata, the phone records i have been describing but it is quite explicitly limited to things that you could get with a grand jury subpoena. Those kinds of records. Now, it is important to know prosecutors issue grand jury subpoenas all the time and do not need any involvement of a court or anybody else really to do so. Under this program, we need to get permission from the court to issue this ahead of time so there is Court Involvement with the issuance of these orders which is different from a grand jury subpoena. But the type of records, just documents, Business Records things like that are limited to the same types of documents that we could get through a grand jury subpoena. The orders that we get last 90 days. We have to reup and renew the orders every 90 days in order to do this. Now, there are strict controls over what we can do under the order. And again, that is the bigger thicker order that hasnt been published. There is restrictions on who can access it in this order. It is stored in repositories at n. S. A. That can only be accessed by a limited number of people and the people who access it have to have rigorous and special training about the standards under which they can access it. In order to access it there needs to be a finding there is reasonable suspicion that you can articulate, that you can put into words that the person whose phone records you want to query is involved with some sort of terrorist organizations and they are defined. It is not every one. They are limited in the statute. There has to be independent evidence aside from these phone records that the person you are targeting is involved with a terrorist organization. If that person is a United States person, a citizen or a lawful permanent resident you have to have something more than just their own speeches, their own readings, their own First Amendment type activity. You have to have additional evidence beyond that, that indicates there is reasonable articulatable suspicion that these people are associated with specific terrorist organizations. Madam president , thank you. Im reading the statement on behalf of the commission and im here today instead of Vice President biden who is unavailable. The commission is concerned about recent media reports that you United States authorities are accessing and processing on a largescale the data of European Union citizens using major u. S. Online service providers. Programs such as the socalled prism and the laws on the basis of which such programs are authorized potentially endanger the fundmental right to privacy and to date it protection. The present case as reported in the media is also likely to reenforce the concerns of e. U. Citizens regarding the use of their personal data online and in the cloud. Already in 2012, 70 of e. U. Citizens were concerned that their personal data held by companies could be used by a purpose other than the one for which it was collected. The prism case as reported in the media also highlights the difference between the European Union and the United States. Whereas in the u. S. System only u. S. Citizens and residents benefit from constitutional safeguards, in the European Union everyones personal data and the confidentialallity of their communications are recognized and protected as fundamental rights irrespective of their nationality. While reports are particularly worry some colleagues, commissioner, 500 million european citizens were very shocked last week to find that a foreign nation has unlimited access to every every intertate detail of their private life. It was the president him solve who came and answered to questions of congress and the media. So what do they see in europe . First of all, with all due respect to the commissioner, we get the commissioner for Public Health to deal with this issue. Well the president who should have stepped in his his helicopter and flown to straussburg to answer we have at least the responsible commissioner to respond to terrorism in the house. Where is the responsible commissioner . Why arent the prime political leaders of europe here . We also need to look at ourselves colleagues. Look around you. An empty hemi cycle. This house just over a decade ago when faced with a similar situation something called echelon, we decided to set up a heavy parliamentary inquiry. Today we get a handful of dedicated m. E. P. s to address 500 million citizens. We are failing the european citizens at a time where trust in the European Union is at an alltime low we should be ashamed of ourselves. And then to the subject matter itself, first of all we cant have been very surprised to find that the americans are spying on us because we knew about it. We have been asking questions again and again and again. But asking questions through the commission is like talking to a wall. I have a long list of nonanswers to my questions. About the patriot act. About extra territorial application of u. S. Law and we get no answers from the european commission. The Member States because there is a National Debate about the same issue everywhere. We will ask the americans for an explanation. In all of the Member States including the u. K. And in my member state we are doing the same. The states are doing double speak to the citizens. Are we surprised that they are losing trust . And actually you can say the citizens dont trust their governments any more but the governments seem to trust their citizens even less. We are also losing moral authority here. How can we tell the governments of say egypt iran, any other country that they should not spy on their citizens because that has no place in a democracy if we ever doing the same on our citizens . We are losing credibility here. On the special relationship, i have heard nearly all colleagues hero if he to the special relationship with our best friends and closest allies the United States. I dont know if you listen to the statement of president obama when he was addressing the american audience who were worried. He said dont worry, you know, we are not spying on you as citizens. We are only spying on foreigners. Foreigners. So that is us. That is european citizens. So what kind of a special relationship is that . And over the last 12 years europe has bent over backwards to be the closest ally of the americans in the fight against terrorism. And im sure that we will continue to be their ally. But we need to see eye to eye. And we expect the commission and with all due respect im grateful you are here, commissioner borg, but this is a matter for Political Leadership. We need Political Leadership in europe to defend the rights of our citizens and the time is now. As we look at the specific cases described in hearings earlerier this week. What at first seemed like fairly dramatic claims, dozens of terror plots being foiled looks a lot less dramatic under closer scrutiny. Separate out prism and 702 from 215 you say 40 of these terror events again, whatever that is, were overseas so those may have proved prism or at least half may have involved press new mexico some significant way and 10 or 12 that are domestic. And then when you start looking at exactly what that means you say how many of those was 215 actually used specifically . This metadata program. And welshing the majority we believe. Okay, six or sew seven. What are the cases. One involved founding someone donating money to shababb, the ethiopia group

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