In 1917, there was no cloture rule at all. The senate functioned entirely by unanimous consent. So how did the senate overcome the determined opposition of 11 isolationist senators who refused to give consent to president wilson to arm ships . Senator walsh made clear that the senate would exercise its Constitutional Authority to reform its practices by a majority vote. I think the majority leader deserves more respect. The senate is not in order and the senate will be in order. The senator from alabama is correct. The senator from kentucky is recognized. Senator walsh made clear the senate would exercise its Constitutional Authority to reform its practices by a simple majority vote. A past senate could not take away the right of the future senate by tying the hands of the new senate. He said a majority may adopt the rules in the first place. It is preposterous to assume they can deny the right to change them. What he said made good sense. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] all this week, book tv is in prime time on cspan two, and team tonight with memoirs and biographies. 9 00, men we reaped. At 10, look of ages. Book tv all this week on prime time on cspan two. On camerican history tv span three with commemorations of three events. Highlights from the august for the eight 2013 ceremony august 20 8, 2013 ceremony honoring the march on washington. And finally, we will take you to dealey plaza in dallas for ceremony remembering the 50th anniversary of the assassination of president john f. Kennedy. All thishistory tv, week in prime time on cspan three. The first lady series continues tonight with a look at the life and career of pat nixon. She traveled abroad more than any first lady before. She also allowed more public white house to worse and allow. White house tours the life and times of pat nixon tonight at 9 p. M. Eastern on c span. You can also listen on cspan radio. The world is on fire. My education expires after five to 10 years. Everything is new, the cloud is new, facebook is new, google is new. Historically what we have done is we slice human life into five slices. The working phase, phase, the resting phase, then dying. Learn,ld play, we should we should work, we should rest at the same time. We really have to stay upto date. New years day on cspan, just before 1 p. M. Eastern and throughout the afternoon ceos of youd ask the, twitter, and others on the future of higher. Ducation, and robotics formertexas air it texas senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on the woman who shaped texas. , daughters of civil rights leaders and segregationists share their memories of the civil rights era. You are watching cspans 2013 year in review. The mostsome of significant revelations about u. S. National Security Surveillance methods. Leaked documents by former n. S. A. Contractor Edward Snowden unveiled a widespread vacuuming of voice and data communications. In june of senator feinstein 2013, 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 metadata is 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. Could you 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 a 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 crosssection 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 Mazzetti, National Security correspondent at the New York Times bureau here in washington. We saw a clip of Dianne Feinstein back in june. She had just come from a briefing on the n. S. A. Revelations. Take us back a little bit. Who was Edward Snowden and how did he get such access to the top secret material . And how did it make its way to publications like the New York Times . Edward snowden was a n. S. A. Contractor working for a number of companies. Most recently booz 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 revelation 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 story, the n. S. A. Surveillance and revelations. What has been the most surprising thing that has been revealed in 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 revelations about tapping the internet, about 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 unfolded almost like a weekly serial novel. Your most recent article was about Online 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 have to build the haystack in order to get the needle. They are looking for terrorist activity. In this order they claim to find out cell phone records or email records of people who might be engaged 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 things 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 revelations . 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 10 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 nexus. It has been our honor and privilege to work with director mueller and Deputy Director joyce. I will turn it over to sean. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. N. S. A. And the f. B. I. Have a unique relationship 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 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 coconspirators. 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 plot 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 a 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 conducting 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 by the f. B. I. Under the statute to the fisa court, we call it the fisc. They ask for and receive permission under this to get records relevant to a National Security investigation and they must demonstrate to the fisc 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 articulable 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 the Vice President , who is unavailable. The commission is concerned about recent media reports that the 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 data 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. Legal system only u. S. Citizens and residents benefit from constitutional safeguards. In the European Union everyones personal data and the confidentiality of their communications are recognized and protected as fundamental rights irrespective of their nationality. While reports are particularly worrisome colleagues, commissioner, 500 million european citizens were very shocked last week to find that a foreign nation has unlimited access to every intimate detail of their private life. It was the president himself 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 helicopter and flown to straussburg to answer 205 million citizens, 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 hemicycle. 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