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Happen is those investigative leads that you get in each of these areas, they are going to be either stopped or hurt because those critical pieces of information are going to disappear, at least for the period in which we don't have anything governing this kind of collection effort. >> how much does this concern you? i mean does this put the country at risk? >> well, most certainly, because everybody is moving toward an online presence. the virtual worlds and the physical worlds are, in essence, becoming one in the same, so when you track criminals or terrorists, you also have to track their d...

Congressman himes, it looks to me if you listen to what the president said to charlie rose last night and look at the testimony today, the president could not have been more clear. he denied that the united states government has the legal capability or intends to do if it did have the legal capability to try to find out what we're saying on the telephone or our e-mail. it has to be gone through, if you do get a target opportunity, you have to go through the courts and get a warrant. that would be the fbi, not the nsa. so it sounds to me like there's a lot of room between the scandal here as it...

By all accounts from everybody we've talked to, that is not true. that doesn't mean we shouldn't still ask a lot of questions about you know, a historically unprecedented collection effort. there's no indicationing that capturing the verizon disclosure, that capturing people's telephone metadata is illegal. it appears to be legal under the patriot act. but we haven't had a chance as a country to have a discussion whether we're comfortable with that and haven't done the work which we need to do to find out when the general alexander and others say that this has been important to helping us or c...

Since 9/11. >> joining me now is u.s. congressman jim himes, democratic from connecticut. he is a member of the house intelligence committee. congressman himes, it looks to me if you listen to what the president said to charlie rose last night and look at the testimony today, the president could not have been more clear. he denied that the united states government has the legal capability or intends to do if it did have the legal capability to try to find out what we're saying on the telephone or our e-mail. it has to be gone through, if you do get a target opportunity, you have to go through ...

There is no indication that capturing the verizon disclosure, that capturing people's telephone mehtadata is illegal. in fact, it appears to be legal under the patriot act. but we haven't had a chance as a country to have a discussion whether we're comfortable with that. and we also haven't done the work, which we need to do, of course, to find out when general alexander and others say this has been important to helping us or contributed to helping us with 50 terror attacks. how important? those of us charged with oversight need to find out, what was it essential, was it tangential? what are w...