It will take decades before the spill is cleaned up. As for the cost, the air force has already spent 50 million, and believes that figure will double at least. Ifill those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by at bae systems, our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from Electronics Systems to intelligence analysis and cyber operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. Knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. Thats bae systems. Thats inspired work. Ive been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. The ones getting involved, staying engaged. They are not afraid to question the path theyre on. Because the one question they never want to ask is, how did i end up here . I started schwab with those people. People who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. 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. Woodruff an explosion and fire tore through a coal mine in turkey today. The countrys Disaster Agency reported 70 miners were killed. The local mayor reported 157 were dead. An undetermined number were still trapped in the mine. Firefighters and rescue workers rushed to the scene after an underground power unit blew up during a shift change. It happened about 150 miles south of istanbul. As word broke, relatives and friends of the miners swarmed a nearby hospital, hoping to find their loved ones among the injured. And in this country, two coal miners were killed in West Virginia last night when the mine floor collapsed. Ifill fresh violence broke out today in eastern ukraine, as seven government soldiers were killed by prorussian gunmen. The Defense Ministry said it happened when an armored column was ambushed near kramatorsk, in donetsk region. Separatists declared that region independent after a referendum on sunday. But today, the official governor, who answers to kiev, dismissed the results. translated the Donetsk Republic does not legally exist, nor is it a registered political organization. It is not a civic organization. It is just a madeup name and nothing more will come of it. That is how it should be regarded. Ifill meanwhile, germanys foreign minister arrived in ukraine to help jumpstart talks between the government and the separatists. And russia announced new retaliation for u. S. Sanctions. It refused to accept a u. S. Proposal to keep the International Space station going beyond 2020. And it barred using russianmade rocket engines to launch u. S. Military satellites. Woodruff a string of car bombings across baghdad killed at least 34 people during the morning rush hour. Dozens more were wounded. Most of the attacks targeted shiite districts in the capital. They coincided with the birthday of shiite islams most sacred martyr. The alqaeda offshoot in iraq claimed responsibility. Ifill in vietnam, demonstrations against chinese owned factories turned destructive, as workers vandalized facilities that refused to shut down. The protest grew out of anger over chinas deployment of an oil rig in disputed waters of the south china sea. Vietnam initially sanctioned protests over the weekend, but they appear to be spreading. Woodruff an israeli judge sentenced former Prime Minister ehud olmert to six years in prison today. He was convicted in march of taking bribes to promote a real estate project while he was mayor of jerusalem and National Trade minister. That was before he became Prime Minister in 2006. Ifill europes highest court has issued a ruling that could shake up the searchengine industry. The court said that in some cases, google must remove personal information from search results linked to someones name, if the person requests it. A spanish man had found his name still linked to debts from 1998. One of the judges said privacy is paramount. translated as the data subject may, in the light of his fundamental rights request that the information in question no longer be made available to the general public. It should be held that those rights override, as a rule, not only the economic interest of the operator of the Search Engine but also the interest of the general public in finding that information. Ifill the ruling is not subject to appeal. In the u. S. , some limited search deletions are already required, especially regarding crimes by minors. But its up to the site that published the information, not the Search Engine, to remove the link. John conyers was thrown off the primary ballot today. The wayne county clerk ruled the detroit democrat failed to muster the required 1,000 signatures of supporters. More than 600 signatures were disqualified after a challenge which conyers primary opponent. Conyers is 84, first elected to the house in 1964. He has three days to appeal the ruling. Woodruff in economic news, retail sales barely rose in april, raising questions about just how strong growth will be in the second quarter. They were up just a tenth of one percent. And the regulator overseeing mortgage giants fannie mae and freddie mac announced policies that could make it easier for Many Americans to obtain home loans. Ifill wall street had a relatively quiet day, but still managed to reach new records. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained nearly 20 points to close at 16,715, an alltime high. The sandp 500 added less than a point, but finished at 1,897, also a new high. And the nasdaq fell 13 points to close at 4130. Woodruff still to come on the newshour the u. S. Joins the search for the missing girls in nigeria; a close look at u. S. Spying with the former head of the n. S. A. ; new worries about an underground fuel leak stopped long ago; a debate over one economists controversial take on inequality; and a medal of honor for saving lives in afghanistan. Ifill in nigeria, the u. S. Is lending air power to help find the abducted schoolgirls, as the Nigerian Government indicated its open to talks with the militants holding the students. Ifill its a remote, dusty village in northeastern nigeria thats hard to get to. Now, chibok is known around the world as the place where hundreds of schoolgirls were abducted last month by the Islamist Group boko haram. This video of them surfaced yesterday, and some parents confirmed today they spotted their daughters in it. In that same video, the leader of boko haram proposed a swap. translated by allah, these girls will not leave our hands until you release our brothers in your prison. Ifill nigerias government confirmed today that a window of negotiation is open. At the same time, the u. S. Started manned surveillance flights over the region. Authorities think boko haram might be holding the captives in the sambisa forest, near the border with cameroon. Back in chibok, the girls dorms lie empty and burned out, while authorities try to piece together what happened, and how. Ifill in all, about 50 girls managed to escape, despite being locked in by their teachers, as one father told a reporter. Ifill the principal of the school says she was away when the attacks occurred. Ifill nigerian authorities have come under fire for their response to the abductions, and to combating boko haram. But Foreign Affairs minister aminu wali says the criticism is unfair. Ifill meanwhile, protests over the girls plight continued today, from abuja to paris, where a group of highprofile women, including two former french first ladies, called for the students speedy release. translated we must all, men and women, be together for these young girls but beyond that it must be a symbol for all women who are oppressed in the world. Ifill france will host to a summit this weekend focusing on security and boko haram. Woodruff now to a close look at the u. S. Governments surveillance programs. Its the subject of tonights frontline on p. B. S. , the first of a two part series titled the United States of secrets. Their reporting focuses on inside accounts of the controversial spying operations put in place after the attacks of september 11th, 2001. Here youll see former National SecurityAgency Employees affiliated with a program called thinthread, a tool which could capture and sort massive amounts of phone and email data, but had an encryption function to protect the privacy of individual americans. They and others describe the moment they found out the technology was being used without the privacy protection. Narrator it didnt take long for clues to emerge that something much bigger was going on. They started seeing stacks of servers piled in corners and so forth. So we had to walk way around all this hardware that was piling up out there. And so we knew, you know, something was happening. All of a sudden, people who normally would communicate with each other were keeping secret this new operation of some sort. Narrator dozens of n. S. A. Employees were sworn to secrecy, but before long, details were leaked to drake. I have people coming to me with grave concerns about, what are we doing, tom . I thought were supposed to have a warrant. Im being directed to deploy whats normally foreign intelligence, outwardfacing equipment, im being now directed to place it on internal networks. Narrator at the same time, bill binney and the thinthread team heard that the program was using thin thread but stripping out the privacy protections. What theyre hearing is that the program they designed is in some form being put into use, but without the protections that they had designed in. What they did was they got rid of the section of the code that encrypted any of the attributes of u. S. Citizens. Narrator even ed loomis, who had wanted a more robust approach, was surprised at how far the agency was willing to go. I just refused to believe, after all i had been through for 37 years, that all of a sudden things would change and theyd go back to the old ways, back to the early 70s. I didnt believe that they could possibly have just flipflopped and gone 180 degrees the other way. I just didnt believe it. Narrator to the thin thread team, collecting data without a warrant seemed like a direct violation of the rules they had followed for years. All these years having grown up, you never spy on americans. We had suddenly become criminals by association. The agency had gone down a path that we had been preached to you never do. We were very, very, very concerned. Narrator and the fact that their thin thread system had been incorporated into the program was the last straw. We said, we cant stick around and be a party to this. We cant be an accessory to all these crimes, so we have to get out. Narrator at the end of october 2001, bill binney, kirk wiebe and ed loomis all quietly retired. Woodruff the film goes on to explain the governments rationale for its new controversial programs during the bush and obama administrations. And it looks at the major revelations by former government n. S. A. Contractor edward snowden. Thats where we pick up tonights newsmaker interview. General Keith Alexander was director of the n. S. A. From 2005 until he retired at the end of march this year. He also headed the u. S. Cyber command. Welcome to the newshour. Thank you. Woodruff so given all the news, all the a stories that have been out there over the last year since the snowden revelations, i think there are some people out there watching who think the n. S. A. Must collect whatever it wants to on anybody it wants to at anytime. What do you want the American People to know about what the n. S. A. Does . Well, i think you bring out a great point. First, they have to have the facts because the facts are largely incorrect thats being put out there, that the n. S. A. Would be collecting all the u. S. Persons information, the content, their emails and their phone calls. I think this is where the courts really play a key part, and what the judges have found and asked and allowed us to do actually comports with the constitution. When we make a mistake, they correct it. I think a key thing we see in a lot of these discussions and the ones we just saw is people looking at things and jumping to conclusions theyre collecting everything, theyre doing all this when the programs, the 215 and the 702 are tailored to address problems that were found after 9 11. If you remember where our nation was after 9 11 and what we now have to swing to do, and it brought in all three branches of the government congress, the courts and is the administration. Woodruff to sign off . Ell, to sign off, but also to oversee that were doing it right. And you know the review groups that have looked at this, in every days they found n. S. A. Is doing it exactly right. Woodruff without getting into the numbers, general alexander, of the different programs, just to look at the excerpt we watched, you had three longtime veterans of the n. S. A. Who suddenly realized that american citizens were being tracked, that their data, their phone calls were being tracked, and you heard them say, this violated everything they had ever known to be the rules at the n. S. A. Werent they right to be alarmed about that . This happened five years before i got there. Woodruff right. But let me tell you my time there, and i know gen. Mike hayden as well, ive not seen people doing what they say theyre doing. So i dont see that, and every review group thats looked at it has not seen that. Woodruff but you know whats been going on at the agency. Theyre saying the encryption went away and it was possible to not only collect but listen in on data of american citizens and their phone calls. Lets delve into that. Its metadata on the 215 program. It has nothing to do woodruff without using the word 215. Okay, so the Metadata Program only has the two phone numbers, the date and time of the call. You can encrypt it but theres no other information other than the number and n. S. A. Doesnt know who the number is. Woodruff seems to me you talked to people in the agency and out. Theres this fundamental divide between those who say whats going on, what you just described, this nonpersonal sweep of collection of socalled metadata. Right. Woodruff and on the other hand there are those who say, yes, they do that and they listen, they have the ability to listen in on the contents of phone conversations. You bring out a great point. You see where the confusion arises. They have the ability and could be doing this, but what every review group, congress and the courts found out, is theyre not doing it, and if we do find it out, we hold them accountable. The is it cases is important to point that out. The church Pike Commission in the 70s said we dont want n. S. A. Collecting inside the United States and actually, we dont want n. S. A. Collecting. So why is n. S. A. Involved . When you look at it, n. S. A. s expertise is overseas, foreign intelligence terrorists. Thats what we found in 9 11 is what we knew overseas wasnt connected to the dot the f. B. I. Had. So it has nothing to do with us going after the content of u. S. Persons. Thats the part we have to help the American People understand. Woodruff can you flatly declare that american phone calls are never listened to unless theres been a court order . Not in exactly those terms, and i dont want to walk away from this because i do thi think this is important. N. S. A. Goes after a foreign targeters and why people equivocate is, if a foreign target is talking to a u. S. Person, then its going to be covered. And what we dont want to do is say, okay, well, we didnt mean that one. As soon as you say that, people say, oh, but you lied. So what you want to say is under fisa, n. S. A. Is not authorized to target the content of u. S. Persons email or phone, period. We are authorized to go after other targets, and there will be things like incidental collection, and the courts say, if you do that, heres the process and procedures you must comply with and we will check it, and they do. Woodruff and youre saying the procedures are always followed. I believe they are. Now, people make mistakes. If they make a mistake, we hold them accountable, we retrain them. Go ahead. Woodruff i want to turn to a couple of other questions that are out there. President obama, when he ran for president , among other things, in so many words he pledged no more illegal wiretapping and no more letters that would allow spying on citizens. Were you surprised when he got in office that president obama was prepared to accept someo these things that he had said he would not . Well, i didnt track the elections closely. I was actually working overseas, but i actually sat down with him in a group in the white house not long after he came in to review these programs. Wed had some compliance issues, wed worked through the court how we were going to fix those. We had a chance to sit down with them. On both president s, their article 2 authority to defend this country is paramount. What i say was good people, both sides, doing their job to protect our nation and our allies, and president obama is a better lawyer than me, constitutional law, saw that what the courts and the congress was doing and what we were doing is exactly right. Now, he did say, okay, how are we going to address these compliance issues in the future . How do you work that with the court . We set up better procedures that were more technical. We worked with congress. It was a long six months. Not because of him but because of things we needed to fix. So when i look at that, what it tells me is theres a lot more going on here than the American People get insights to, and it has nothing to do with us listening to n. S. A. Trolling through u. S. Persons data. Look at the terrorist attacks between 2012 and 2013, you saw the data. The number of People Killed from 11,000 in 2012 to over 20,000 in 2013. Now why is this that we and europe have been so secure . And its these tools that help you. So this is an issue that we you and others are going to have to help us face. How do we d