Thank you. Ifill a leaked document today put the spotlight back on lethal strikes by the u. S. Government on u. S. Citizens abroad. In response, top officials in the Obama Administration argued their actions are justified and legal. Primary concern is to keep the American People safe, now do so in a way thats consistent with our laws and our values. Ifill attorney general eric holder today defended the Justice Departments rationale for authorizing the killings of americans overseas. We are we have as a basis for action that we take a congressional statute that allows us to operate against al qaeda and associated entities not only in pakistan or not only in afghanistan but in other parts of the world. We say that we only take these kinds of actions when theres an imminent threat, when capture is not feasible and when we are confident that were doing so in a theys consistent with a federal International Law. Ifill nbc news obtained a 16page Justice Department white paper apparently prepared for congressional committees last summer that describes the Obama Administrations legal reasoning the document said a lethal operation is legal if it targets a senior operational leader of al qaeda or an affiliated group. If their capture is not feasible and if an informed high level official of the u. S. Government determines the target poses an imminent threat of Violent Attacks against the United States. The white paper describes such killings as a lawful act of national selfdefense and not an illegal assassination. The issue first surfaced in september, 2011, when president obama announced the killing of americanborn al qaeda leader anwar alawlaki. He was the target of a u. S. Drone strike in yemen. The death of alawlaki is a major blow to al qaedas most active operational affiliates. He took the lead in planning and directing effortings to murder innocent americans. Reporter u. S. Officials say alawlaki inspired the fort hood shooter in 2009 and the failed bombing of a detroit airliner that christmas among other attempted attacks. Three other americans, including alawlakis 16yearold son, have also been killed by u. S. Drone strikes in yemen. Civil liberties groups have said such attacks deprive u. S. Citizens of constitutional due process protection. But White House Press s. E. C. Jay carney justified those actions today as legal, ethical, and wise. The questions around this issue are important and the president takes them seriously. We have significant challenges because of the nature of the attacks, how theyre planned, who plans them. But there is no question that senior operational leaders of al qaeda are continually planning to attack the United States, to attack american citizens. The authorization to use military force is entirely appropriate for the United States to target seen yore operational leaders of al qaeda. Ifill the white paper revealed overnight was drawn from more detailed legal memo which is remains classified. A Bipartisan Group of senators led by oregons ron widen have asked they be made public in advance of thursdays hearing on the nomination of john brennan to be c. I. A. Director. Brennan has been key in implementing the steppedup use of drones to target terror suspects. Ifill for more now on the Justice Departments white paper, we get two views. Matthew waxman is a professor of law at Columbia Law School and a fellow at the council on foreign relations. And hina shamsi is director of the American Civil LibertiesUnions National security project. Hina shamsi, has you look at this white paper today did it tell you something you did not know or that maybe you snerd. Well, the argument in the white paper is quite familiar in many ways to speeches that Senior Administration officials have given. But i think there are two aspects that are particularly problematic and deeply chilling and everyone should read this white paper. Someone what it says or summarizes about the substantive legal standards that the government is apparently applying. It starts out claiming that there are limits, for example, imminent threats, as you quoted in your introduction. As you keep reading as it turns out for a highlevel official to determine that a threat is imminent he or she doesnt need clear evidence, there doesnt need to be a specific plot and there doesnt need to be any indication that the person is near or on a battlefield. So what you have is imminence defined out of its plain meaning and what appear like restrictions are no restrictions at all. You can see how its easy to manipulate. Ifill Matthew Waxman, are these standards you see laid out in this white paper open to manipulation . Well, i had a different reaction than ms. Shamsi did this document. As i read it, i see it as a careful and narrow. I still have some questions about it. Its a summary document and there are parts of it the leave some gaps in my mind as to how the reasoning unfolded but i think this is a serious effort toar tick lates limits to the president s pow to engage in targeted killing and a reasonable effort to translate constitutional and International Law to deal with this new kind of war. Ifill let me ask you this, professor waxman. If this only applies to americans on foreign soil why wouldnt this reasoning apply the americans on u. S. Soil at home . Well, what one of the things that the lawyers the drafters of this memo do is try to explain that this is an analysis of a limited set of facts. A set of facts that were probably provided by senior officials to deal with situations that confront them flp the real world. And i think one of the important points that the article makes sorry, that the memo makes is that we are engaged in an ongoing war, an ongoing Armed Conflict with al qaeda and this is a conflict to condition battlefields abroad, places like afghanistan. Thats a position, by the way, that now two president s of both parties, congress and the courts have all essentially embraced. Ifill let me ask hina shamsi about that. If this this is a brave new day and there ought to be more latitude given to governments to protect themselves, how do you argue against them taking that latitude and running with it . Well well, first of all, its an overstatement to say these are standards that are narrow and restricted. Theyre not you read the memo. Secondly, these standards that this claimed authority is one that virtually no other government in the world accepts because theyre so broad as to be virtually meaningless. And if you think about it, its the authority to declare citizens an enemy of the state and killed that person even when they dont present a truly imminent threat, even when they are far from any battlefield and without any kind of review by any court before or after the fact. And thats one of the main things about this memo that is so disturbing and the governments position in general which is that no court should have any role in determining whether the governments actions including killing an american citizen is lawful before or after the fact. If the government is convinced of the lawfulness of its condition, there should be no reason not to go to fight judicial review as much as they have. Ifill let me ask Matthew Waxman about that question of judicial review and also the question of what constitutes a in the words of the attorney general today a clear and present danger. Sure. Well, this is one of the areas where ms. Shamsi and i disagree. I think its important there be a careful review and accountability for these kinds of decisions. But what the memo says and i think this is right sds that due process does not necessarily mean judicial process. Ms. Shamsi is right that in most circumstances where the government is using coerceive powers against citizens, detaining them or killing them occur in our criminal Justice System where the review by courts is the norm. Were talking about warfare and military operations going on halfway around the globe and traditionally, customarily the president has broad powers there and courts are not in a position to review those kinds of decisions. Now, one might think that it would be wise for there to be some additional level of review and one of the questions the memo leaves me wondering is id like to know more about what kinds of internal processes the executive branch has to review and bet these kinds of decisions. But the fact that it might be wise to do that doesnt mean that its constitutionally required. Ifill ms. Shamsi, i want to ask you about the method by which these attacks happen. Thats drones. Do you draw a line between the use of drones at all and the use of drones in order to get to american citizens . Look, i think the concern is less abouting a t actual kind of weapons used in the fact that lethal force is authorized in the first place and i would disagree with professor waxman on a couple of very key points. One is that hes accepting the conclusion that there is a war without geographic limitations. We are admittedly in an Armed Conflict in a war in afghanistan but at the time of the killings, for example, that we are contesting in a lawsuit with center for Constitutional Rights of three american citizens in 2011, there was no Armed Conflict in yemen where the killings took place at the time that the killings happened. So whats truly troubling here is how broad the assertion of authority is and how hard the administration is fighting to prevent the courts from looking at the legality of the authority that it claims. Ifill we should mention that even though anwar alawlakis name is not mentioned in this memo, mr. Waxman, there is an assumption that this is a kind of an afterthefact justification. That it speaks clearly to the situation she just referred to, the three americans who had been killed in 2011. Is that something that we should be concerned about . Well, let me say, i we should be concerned about the idea of the government being able to use lethal force against citizens but we should also be concerned about the idea that terrorists terrorist leaders and plotters can plan attacks on the United States and the president would be powerless to take military action against them. We need to try to strike a balance between those two things. Now, to ms. Shamsis concerns about the conduct of these operations in yemen, you know, i wish it were true that al qaeda and its operations were contained to places like afghanistan but everything that ive read and know about al qaeda suggest that many of its activities have been waged from territory in yemen. Ifill im sorry, you had one final quick point you wanted to make . No, no can i ifill ms. Shamsi . Yes. Our lawsuit concerns not only anwar alawlaki, it also concerns a 16yearold boy who was killed by a drone strike while he was eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant. No one has alleged any wrongdoing against him and his family has not received any acknowledgment at all that this killing took place and they want answers, which is what were seeking. Ifill well, theres certainly more questions than answer at this point. Hina shamsi of the a. C. L. U. And matt waxman of the Columbia Law School, thank you very much. Thank you. Brown you can read the Justice Departments memo for yourself. Youll find a link to that on our web site. Still to come on the newshour, did s p knowingly inflate its Credit Ratings; the neverending campaign; global soccer under investigation; and an orchestras mission of music and more. But first, the other news of the day. Heres hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan this years federal budget deficit will fall below a trillion dollars for the First Time Since president obama took office. The Congressional Budget Office projected today the red ink will be roughly 845 billion. It was 1. 1 trillion last year. The c. B. O. Attributed the decline in part to new tax hikes and to automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect in march. But it said those same factors may also hold back economic growth. Personal computer maker dell has announced its going private. The Company Detailed a 24 billion buyout of stockholders today. Its the largest deal of its kind since the great recession. Dell has been publicly traded for nearly 25 years. But sales have waned as consumers have shifted towards smartphones and tablets. Britain took a major step today toward legalizing samesex marriage nationwide. The house of commons voted more than 21 to legalize the practice. Thats despite sharp divisions in the ruling conservative party. Prime minister David Cameron acknowledged the split, but supported the bill. I think its delight gay people should be able to get married, too. This is yes about equality but its also about making our society stronger. I know there are strong views on both sides of the aisle, i respect that, but i think this is an important step forward for our country. Sreenivasan the bill faces further debate, plus a vote in the house of lords. If it wins final passage, it would take effect in 2015, ahead of britains next general election. The president of iran, mahmoud ahmadinejad, made a historic visit to egypt today. It was the first by an iranian leader in more than 30 years. Ahmadinejad was given a red carpet welcome in cairo as he arrived for a summit of muslim nations. Egypt and iran have had no diplomatic ties since the iranian revolution in 1979. Now Egypts Islamist president , mohammed morsi, is trying to improve relations between his sunnidominated nation and shiite iran. The latest look at traffic on american highways painted an ever more gridlocked picture today. An annual report from texas a m university found commuters spent an additional five and a half billion hours in their cars in all that idling came at a cost of 121 billion in wasted time and fuel. It also released an extra 56 billion pounds of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. Wall street bounced back today from mondays losses. Stocks rose in part on upbeat news about u. S. Home prices. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained 99 points to close at 13,979. The nasdaq rose 40 points to close at 3171. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to jeff. Brown in whats seen as the first major federal action against a Credit Rating agency in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the department of justice announced today it had filed a civil suit against standard and poors. The suit says that from 2004 to 2007, s p committed fraud by falsely inflating ratings of risky mortgage investments, in order to increase its own profits and that, in turn, helped fuel the financial crisis. Tony west, the acting associate attorney general, said s ps false votes of confidence helped convince investors those securities were safe to buy. The evidence reveals that s p promised investors and the public that their ratings were based on data and analytical models reflecting the companys true credit judgment when, in fact, internal s p documents make clear that the company would regularly tweak or bend, delay updating or otherwise adjust its ratings models to suit the Companies Business needs. Its sort of like buying sausage from your favorite butcher and he assures you that the sausage was made fresh that morning and is safe but he doesnt tell you is that it was made with meat he knows is rotten and plans to throw out later that night. Brown the government says s p could be liable for 5 billion in damages. So far, it has not announced legal action against other leading credit agencies. The department of justice declined our request for an interview, but 16 states and the District Of Columbia have filed similar suits against s p. We hear first from the attorney general of one of those states, lisa madigan of illinois. I spoke to her earlier this afternoon. Welcome. What do you see is the essence of the case against Standard Poors . The essence of the case is that Standard Poors repeatedly represented that their ratings were independent and objective but in fact when you look at internal emails as well as congressional testimony what you learn is that the ratings were in large part motivated by retaining their clients and also gaining market share and increasing their profits. They were not independent and they were not objective. Brown so collateralized debt obligations, c. B. O. S, these are you have to to explain but can you give us an example of how it could work . I can break it down for you. Were talking about Mortgage Backed investors. So the subprime loans that a lot of people have heard about over the last five or six years because of what happened when the economy collapsed. It was those types of products that were securitize, they were put into investment vehicles but in order for those investment vehicles to be purchased bid Pension Funds, mutual funds, they had to be rated so it was Standard Poors that would say to them that the c. B. O. S had the highest rating, the a. A. A. Rating. Only then were they able to be purchased by these investors but all along it was well known that those investments, that collateral, was not as good as they said. So at the end of the day if you look at why the financial collapse took place and why it was so large it was because you had Standard Poors saying that these were good and they were really bad. Brown s p put out a statement right away, yesterday, they