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Editorial board. tom, walk us through this surveillance program. how does it work? >> we're talking about billions and billions of phone calls all across this country. let's narrow it down to one neighborhood. imagine all of those calls taking place just here. and imagine you have a computer that's tracking every time a call it made, when it's received, and how long it lasted. that is megadate. you don't know what was said, you just know that contact was made. that's the corner stone of this program as we understand it. >> even if the goft has all of this information, how does that help top te...

On everything you've seen? this is all legal the way the obama administration is engaged in this? >> just because, you know, the court approved it -- >> but they're not breaking the law? >> they are. >> how are they doing that? >> because that authorizes only foreign surveillance, or clandestine agencies. that had been the first commandment at nsa is you were always able to spy on foreigners, but not domestic. >> is the obama administration with the congressional backing, as congress has known about this this for seven years, are they violating the law? >> no. i mean, you heard senator dianne ...

Obviously the obama administration would be court authorization for some massive surveillance program like this. >> right. look, wolf, i haven't read the thing yet, but yeah, that's right. you would presume this was done under a court authorization, with showing of probable cause. and it would have been briefed to congress. >> congress would be informed of it. the chairs of the intelligence committees, ranking members, the speaker presumably, the senate majority leader, among others. so there's no suggestion this is illegal, right? >> well, i think if you read the plain language of section 215...

>> reporter: the controversy stilled over to eric holder who's already in -- >> we're just asked, could you ensure to us that no phones inside the capital were monitored. >> with all due respect, i don't think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss that issue. >> reporter: but the program also has its fierce defenders. >> so you keep up what you're doing. and if you've gone outside the lane, you fix it. president bush started it, president obama is continuing it. we need it from my point of view. >> reporter: sbregt committee members insist that it is authorized under fisa, and renew...

Details of its customer calls within the united states and overseas. including, quote, the originating and terminating telephone number and duration of the call, but not the content of the call. the white house defended the program as a critical tool that is subject to strict controls. a good way to catch terrorists. >> it's called protecting america. >> reporter: in fact, it's already proven effective, argued the chair of the house intelligence committee. >> i can tell you why this program is important. it was in the last few years, this program was used to stop a program -- excuse me, stop a...