Operation, which is the internet targeting of basically essentially foreign surveillance of those used internet. the targeting of prism that is a whole level, that s where you see the level of outrage where you have a whole bunch of folks in the intelligence community, well the verizon issue, the telephone, cell phone, maybe that was overclassified. nobody is saying that about prism. mark mazzetti, the conversation has quickly moved to this man, edward snowden and whether he ought to be prosecuted. a lot of people in congress feel he should be. it s important to stop and look at prism, what it does and what it doesn t. what could the government do with all that data. there s still a lot we don t know about prism but no, it s myunder standing that in
Overclassified perception of secrecy in the united states government. there is a massive bureaucracy. american citizens are being spied on. the whole idea of courts almost irrelevant when you have this behemoth breaks where they can data mine with a 50% likelihood you might be a foreigner. what does that mean? how does one prove that? when you compare that with the drone strikes and signature strikes we have gotten out of the business who we re actually fighting anymore. a lot of this is this unanimous big brother state. a lot of people say you re exaggerating. every time we see these stories critics are proven right. glenn greenwald has been talking about this through the bush and obama administrations. a lot of his reports have been vindicated, not just war on terror under obama but spying on its own citizens. the film is called dirty wars. if it comes to a city near you, see it.
And the need to have a very free and vibrant press. and as you know from the work you do so well on msnbc, you can t report on the hardest national security problems the united states is facing today, unless you are tripping into classified information. there is so much that is classified, overclassified these days. to talk about iran or afghanistan or the drone program, you can t do it without getting into areas that somewhere, somehow in the u.s. government is considered classified. even the reporting on the president s speech yesterday, the good reporting on it, then went on to describe the classified memorandum that he signed, that sort of implements the principles he laid out in the speech. the question is how do you make the balancing test work? he didn t take us that far. just to play devil s advocate here, walter pinkus in the
Been out campaigning, the president has been out campaigning? we re now two-plus months into this, and this is for lack of a better word four homicide. >homicides. you have it right. for a while attention was focused on the presidential campaign, succeeded in not letting the story get out until after the campaign. it s now december, and there s still no report for something that happened back in september. there s a reason why the information isn t coming out, and it s because the administration doesn t want it to come out. they can be effective at slow-rolling everybody, changing their stories, and hiding behind there s an fbi investigation going on so we can t talk about. greta: what i don t like, and correct me if i m wrong, it seems like that a lot of conversation on capitol hill is done behind closed doors. i m always suspicious that things are overclassified as a way to protect the american
Has been out campaigning, the president s outs campaigning? we are two-plus months into this. this is, for lack of a better word, four homicides. i think have you it right. for a while, attention was focused on the presidential campaign. the administration succeeded in running the clock out, inesque, not letting the story get out until after the campaign. but remember, we were going to get a full report right after the campaign. it is coming on december, there is still no report for something that happened in september. there is a reason why the informs isn t coming out. it s because the administration doesn t want it to come out. they can be pretty effective at slow-rolling everybody, changing their stories and hiding behind there is an fbi investigation going on so we can t talk about it. what i don t like maybe i am wrong, it seems that a lot of the discussion that does come up here is done behind closed doors. i am always suspicious that things are overclassified and sort of a way to protect the american people from hearing
Write the talking points to suit their ideology, to suit their political imperatives, where did all of that come from? and that, i think, is going to be the focus of a lot of the inquiry with director petraeus tomorrow. greta: one of the things that is curious to me, and i am total oat outside, but having tried cases. have you to keep secret. some things on capitol hill have to be secret because it s classified. but i have a view that things tend to get overclassified. that there is probably information we probably could have heard. how did the american people determine what is classified, left only to the sound judgment and members of congress? and how much are we not hearing that we have a right to hear? well, i think that the next step should be having these same hearings in public with whatever small amounts of stuff is legitimately classifiable, just kept out of the public domain.
The real is did the white house write the talking points to suit their ideology, to suit their political imperatives, where did all of that come from? and that, i think, is going to be the focus of a lot of the inquiry with director petraeus tomorrow. greta: one of the things that is curious to me, and i am total oat outside, but having tried cases. have you to keep secret. some things on capitol hill have to be secret because it s classified. but i have a view that things tend to get overclassified. that there is probably information we probably could have heard. how did the american people determine what is classified, left only to the sound judgment and members of congress? and how much are we not hearing that we have a right to hear? well, i think that the next step should be having these same hearings in public with whatever small amounts of stuff is legitimately classifiable, just kept out of the public domain.
Subpoenas to testify about benghazi? i think that they are important. i m not so sure about the importance of general holder based upon the information that i know today. certainly the c.i.a. director, the secretary of state their testimony would be very, very important to any kind of investigation. if they are not willing to testify voluntarily, obviously they have the authority to subpoena their testimony. greta: american people have no control over this. things are overclassified, do you agree with me or not? i think there is a lot of information that gets classified that probably should not be classified that certainly understandable when you are in a time of war or serious danger. after 9/11, but there is no
Subpoenas to testify about benghazi? i think that they are important. i m not so sure about the importance of general holder based upon the information that i know today. certainly the c.i.a. director, the secretary of state their testimony would be very, very important to any kind of investigation. if they are not willing to testify voluntarily, obviously they have the authority to subpoena their testimony. greta: american people have no control over this. things are overclassified, do you agree with me or not? i think there is a lot of information that gets classified that probably should not be classified that certainly understandable when you are in a time of war or serious danger. after 9/11, but there is no
Investigation. this is always the case in washington with los angeles, which is leaking is something terrible when your opponents do it or information you don t want out. and it is until it serves you. and this gets to a much deeper question, which is we have seen amazing reporting turned into a book, one thing pernicious happening in post-9/11 america, there is never an incentive in government to do anything but create a larger catchment area of secrecy. there is own downside risk. if you say we are going to stop calling these things classified, everyone who works in the classified system, this is from reporting, will tell you there s too much classification, things are overclassified, that is what moynihan s book was about. always the impulse in washington. and i think accelerated after 9/11. i don t see any way, this is a