Page 7 - Terrorist Surveillance Program News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Members of this panel? well, they learned about the bush administration's terrorist surveillance program by reading the "new york times." and a report that the board wrote was heavily edited by the white house. one memory signed in protest. congress in 2007 made the board an independent agency, president bush nominated members in 2008 but the senate never took any action. president obama's turn came next and he promptly dragged his feet. he didn't even nominate everyone to the board until 2011 and his final member was not fully confirmed million may of this year, about a month before edward sn...

Questions how someone like him, young as him, with his background, could have such access to such classified information and given your expertise and the positions that you have held, are you surprised? >> well, actually, mika, i am included in some of those people you just referred to. i am very surprised that someone like him, fairly low ranking, working for nsa, out in hawaii, able to get access to sensitive documents including the fisa court order. >> so, general, can you give us some examples of how you believe this nsa program has actually thwarted attacks? >> yeah. i mean, i had multipl...

Recorded? >> i can't conceive of it being true. number one. think it's technologically beyond the capacity of any surveillance agency to do that. and number two, it doesn't make sense with what it is we know about this program. the agency gathers from american telecommunication providers what are essentially business records. they don't collect it, they don't put alligator clips on some wires somewhere. these are records that the company creates for their own purposes. then under this court order, shares with the national security agency. >> the nsa director was in front of congress today. and...

Explanation. because i feel like we're dealing with a bunch of clouds. i don't know what the actual facts are, the entire program, expansion of it, how it changed, how it adapted. i would say on trusting in government and the poll that you mention, trust in president bush at the time the terrorist surveillance program was leaked to "the new york times" on the front page for days and days was low during the first year of the second term. that's now true for president obama as well. but the media, it is interesting, glenn greenwald of the guardian got this story, not "the new york times." media ...

In this particular program, it applies to foreign citizens, the program does, not the fourth amendment. i've seen this program operating in realtime, when i was a member of this privacy board. and i saw the careful scrutiny that each person involved in the terrorist surveillance program, when they approached the line of encroaching on the fourth amendment rights of american citizens, they pulled back to the point where there were so many checks and balances within that agency, where i was watching the program, i sometimes wondered whether we were missing evil terrorists because of concern abou...