Rule. Ifill and in india, child labor is outlawed, but a Staggering Number of children still toil away. Fred de sam lazaro reports on efforts to change that practice. The combination of official and middleclass indifference, and dire poverty, drives perhaps 50 million children into the workplace. Some as young as six or seven. Ifill thats all ahead on tonights newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ifill the American Public learned a little more today about the sweeping surveillance of telephone communications, revealed by Edward Snowden. The government released heavily redacted documents that showed, broadly, how the National Security agency uses the data. And, in london, the Guardian Newspaper published images of what analysts see, under a program known as xkeyscore. For more, we turn to charlie savage, whos covering the story for the new york times. Charlie savage, because youre covering this story, tell me what knew you saw in these documents today. As you said, there were two sets of documents. There was an officially released set of documents that the Intelligence Community and the Obama Administration wanted the public to see. And those concerned this program which has been collecting for years ever phone call died or receiveed in the United States. And there was an unofficial release of documents they didnt want anyone to see and that concerns their vast vacuuming they being the National Security agency vacuuming up of internet activity, apparently primarily of foreigners overseas from some 150 different sites scattered around the world. That would be browse, habits, search terms on google and other search web sites, whats being said in encrypted search programs. Is that something perhaps foreign governments know we were doing . From the document we can see the five countries in the sort of anglosphere canada, britain, new zealand, australia, and the United States must all be participating in this knowingly, but the number of dots where there are collection site servers scatter around the world, including some countries not friendly to the United States, suggest there are countries that didnt know this was happening and i suspect we will see some reaction around the world as this starts to get digested. The Obama Administration has said since the beginning were gathering metadata but were not actually listening in on phone calls, were not actually gathering information, unless we have some reason. Was there anything in either of these two sets of documents today that would undercut that argument . Again, you have to separate the two of them, and that also goes to the statement that you cited the administration as saying. When it comes to collecting metadata, calling logs who called whom inside the United States, yes, by definition that doesnt include content, what was said. Of course they do wiretap all the time, just not through thats program and there are extra rules in Court Approval for wiretapping inside the United States. There are essentially no rules for surveillance abroad. The u. S. Constitution does not cover noncitizens not on u. S. Soil. The domestic wiretapping laws are written to exclude that kind of foreign intelligence collection activity. Its kind of open season. Whatever a country can get away with, it does, in the espionage world dispp what weve seen in the last few weeks with all these leaks from Edward Snowden from the n. S. A. Is the United States really can do quite a lot, more even than was long suspected about their capacity to just vamume up fronta procesd spy on what the world is doing on its telecommunications networks. The domestic documents declassified confirmed some of the things the Edward Snowden leaks told us about major phone Companies Like verizon turning over documents to the government. Do we have any idea how widely that how much information was gathered and what use the government makes of it . Well, so, this is the key question that senators will today at the senator Judiciary Committee hearing and lawmakers generally have been asking about this domestic phone log Collection Program involving americans communications, which is we can see how on paper its useful. You already have the data. Its all in one big set. If you want to go look and see you know this person is a suspect, who have they been in contact with . Who have those people in turn been in contact with. You can very quickly do that if youve already collected the data of everybody. If you have the heydemann stack, you can go searching for the needles. The question they keep asking is has this actually thwarted any plot . We know the collection overseas appears to have been quite useful. This data leaked today suggested 300 terrorists ases of 2008 have been identified from this overseas collection, but what about the domestic collection that has this implication for americans privacy rights. And the Intelligence Community has really struggled to come up with compelling examples of how this is not merely a theoretically useful tool but once that stopped something from happening that otherwise would have happened. Are they persuading anybody in the house or senate that that is what we saw last week, that the house vote came very close to outlawing this kind of activity. There was still more skepticism today . Certainly i think most notably today the Judiciary Committee hearing, the democratic chairman of that committee i commit a vel member of the Senate Patrick leahy said he had been looking at a list of terrorist events disrupted by various surveillance programs and he saw very little on it that suggested there was utility to this american phone log program. He said if it doesnt seem to be effective it should be shut down, and soinar hes not persuaded. Despite fact that members of the Intelligence Committee at least leaderes of them who knew about this all along have been trying to defend it and the Intelligence Community in the Obama Administration a lot of which are career officials who span administrations having trying to defend it. We see skepticism, bipartisan skepticism in both chambers of congress. Sounds like more shoes yet to drop. Charlie savage of the new york times, thanks for keeping track for us. Thank you. Brown still to come on the newshour the secret court at the center of government surveillance; why the head of the Federal Reserve matters; the potential for further unrest in egypt and child labor in india. But first, the other news of the day. Heres kwame holman. Holman the Federal Reserve downgraded its assessment of the economy today. The central Bank Reported only modest growth slightly worse than the moderate reading it gave in june. That suggested theres no early end in sight to the feds economic stimulus efforts. The reaction on wall street was mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 21 points to close at 15,499. The nasdaq rose nearly ten points to close at 3,626. The u. S. House has given final approval to a student loan deal, just in time for the fall semester. The bipartisan agreement already passed the senate. It will tie Interest Rates to the performance of the Financial Markets. That means undergraduates who take out their own loans will pay 3. 9 this fall. The Interest Rates would rise over time as the economy improves. President obama paid a rare call on congress today. He talked up his economic ideas to fellow democrats and tried to calm concerns about his Health Care Law. Hello, everybody holman the president arrived first on the house side of the capitol, and later after a closeddoor session that lasted nearly an hour, he said his message was simple. Jobs, middle class, growth. Holman House Minority leader nancy pelosi said her members were enthusiastic. It was a really masterful presentation that he made on the subject of jobs in the future. And today, we had the chance to go back and forth on some of the issues that, so he could hear some of our priorities, and we his. Holman other democrats said those issues included the publics confusion over the new Health Care Law and fears the prospects for Immigration Reform legislation may be dimming. Later, mr. Obama crossed the capitol, for a similar meeting with senate democrats. Maine independent angus king who caucuses with the democrats said on health care, the president urged them to remind people that a lot of good things are happening. Congress also faces a september 30 deadline to approve new spending bills, or risk a government shutdown. Washington states patty murray said the president also warned republicans must keep budget issues separate from the looming debt limit legislation. He made it very clear that he was not going to negotiate over the debt ceiling we have got to stop lurching from crisis to crisis, in his words and in our words and that we are going to holman lawmakers now are making ready to leave for their fiveweek summer recess. For his part, mr. Obama will continue his push on Economic Policy, next tuesday, with a speech on homeownership in phoenix. Later, House Republican leaders withdrew a bill that would make sweeping cuts in transportation, housing and Community Development funding for the coming fiscal year. Conservatives had pushed the measure to meet lower spending levels spelled out in the House Republicans budget outline. In iraq, a wave of driveby shootings and bombings across the country has killed at least 26 people. Several blasts targeted shiite and sunni mosques overnight in baghdad. That followed bombings on monday that killed 58 iraqis. More than 700 people have died in the violence this month. Civilian casualties in afghanistan have risen sharply this year. The United Nations reported today they were up 23 in the First Six Months of the year. From january to june, the u. N. Counted 1,319 civilian deaths and more than 2,500 wounded. It blamed taliban insurgents for 74 of the casualties. Secretary of state john kerry arrived in pakistan this evening, for an unannounced visit. Hes to meet with newly elected Prime Minister nawaz sharif. The visit came as Pakistani Police said theyve recaptured more than 40 inmates who escaped from a prison monday night. Taliban attackers had freed some 250 prisoners in all. The 35 guards on duty at the site were overwhelmed by 150 attackers who carried guns, bombs and grenades. Reports said only ten of the guards were armed. Thousands of people in zimbabwe headed to the polls today to elect a president , and possibly, end an era. Incumbent president Robert Mugabe was trying to keep his 33year grip on power in the african nation. We have a report from neil connery of independent television news. Reporter first light but in the chill of dawn, there is hope in the air. The polls have just opened, and already the queues stretch out, such is the hung tore make their voice heard, as zimbabwe votes. Opposition candidate ian mcconey arrives to cast his ballot. He believes this could be the most significant day for this country since independence. 1980 was a watershed election from colonial days, and this is a watershed election for freedom. Reporter but as zimbabwes only president since independence 33 years ago voted, he said the people had a choice to make and he promised hell go if he loses. The man challenging him, is confident he has the support needed to win. Well, i thought that. Reporter but with the voters registered only issued yesterday, and widespread allegations of vote rigging, critics doubt this can be judged a free and Fair Election but despite those fears, across zimbabwe, wherever we traveled, the determination to vote was clear. The large turnout in this election could prove crucial. The opposition fear this bool on the is going to be fixed. But they say that their ability to counter that increases with the number of voters who turn out. As zimbabweans consider this countrys future, they hope their vote will count. Im happy because we have done everything so peacefully, and everything is moving so smoothly. I feel happy to vote today. We choose a president. Reporter but will that choice be respected . If not, then the consequences for this nation could be devastating. Holman zimbabwe was rocked by violence in 2008, amid charges mugabe had stolen that election. He and tsvangirai eventually agreed to share power in a unity government. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to jeff. Brown as new revelations of data gathering continue to come out, the role of the foreign intelligence surveillance, or fisa, court has come under increasing scrutiny. We take a closer look now. The story of the court goes back to 1978. The senates Church Committee among others had chronicled surveillance abuses by the government brought to light in the watergate scandal. One Response Congress created the court to review warrants for National Security investigations. Proceedings are closed and many years and several amendments later, the snowden disclosures of surveillance by the n. S. A. Have raised new questions. On sunday, for example, the senates democratic majority whip dick durbin argued the court is hardly impartial. And there should be another in this case, its fixed in a way, its loaded. Theres only one case coming before the fisa, the governments case. Lets have an advocate for someone standing up for Civil Liberties to speak up about the privacy of americans when they make each of these decisions. Brown but at todays senate hearing, Deputy Attorney general james cole said theres no clear precedent for changing the way warrants are approved. Traditionally, when you issue search warrants, when you issue wire taps and things like that, in the criminal law you dont have an adversary process that takes place if there isnt somebody on the other side. So theres a legal tradition that the way weve been doing it is certainly one that weve done in other contexts. Brown another issue the fisa courts 11 judges are chosen by the chief justice of the u. S. Supreme court and all of the current members have been selected by chief justice john roberts. Republican senator jeff flake of arizona raised that issue at todays hearing. All right. Theres been some criticism that the process that we have for the selection of these judges may lead to more republican judges being appointed than democratic or republicans appointing judges than democrats appointing judges. Do you sense or see any difference in your experience, all of you, with is that an issue that somebody ought to be concerned about, or have you seen any difference in decisions rendered . From my experience, i havent seen any decisions of the judges our judges and theyre being guided by the law and not necessarily by politics, but thats certainly a topic we would leave to the sound discretion of the congress. Brown already, there are proposals in Congress Bring raised to change the way the court operates, and how its members are named. We raise these questions and more now, with james bamford, a journalist, lawyer and author of several books on the National Security agency. And steven bradbury, head of the office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department during the george w. Bush administration. Welcome to both of you. Thank you. James bamford, we heard earlier this gwens discussion about new revelations what, do you think of those and what do they tell us about this role of the fisa court . These new revelations are really an expansive look at a much more expansive eavesdropping capability. We looked before at the telephone and the email. Now, this is pretty much the internet. And its very worrisome in the sense that people when they communicate on the internet are communicating basically their thoughts, their deepest thoughts in their minds a lot of times. Their thoughts sometimes that they dont want to share with anybody else. If you have this megacollection thats going oagain, it raises will the question of what oversight is there and what checks and balances are there . We didnt see there were very many checks and balances on the other systems. And maybe the same thing applies here. Brown well walk through some of those issues, but first, generally, whats your thought steven greenhouse. I think its important to focus on what the government dec