Individual subscriber by going to a court and obtaining a court order and allowing the subscriber to raise whatever objections they have before the court. Its interesting that some of the testimony thats been given here and i think its very concerning from some issues of anecdotal evidence and real evidence and discussions especially on the s. E. C. Side when youre, you know, giving the your own report saying youre doing more than youve ever done here yet without this by choice or by decision however you want to do it. Mr. Calabrese, one last question for you because my time is now over. But in dissent from the ftc request the civil agency carveout they wrote im not convinced this authority is necessary to maintain the commissions effectiveness as a law enforce the agency now or in cases we can foresee. I am concerned that the civil authorities to obtain content from ecpa providers can have the potential to lead to invasions of individual privacy and in some circumstances may be unconstitutional in practice. Can you speak very briefly. Do you agree or disagree with his concern . I do worry that well create an unconstitutional or incredibly carveout for civil agencies and my hope is that we continue to push hr699 forward as is to a markup and we can vote and get it to the floor. I apreshiate it. Looking around how its me and the distinguished ranking member, this concludes todays hearing. Without objection all members have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record, and with that, this hearing is adjourned. Up next on cspan3, a discussion on nsa bulk collection of telephone data, followed by a hearing on the proposed merger between anheuserbusch and inbev and sabmiller. And tonight in prime time, congressional history beginning with Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell on happy chandler, Earl Clements and justin morton. Thats followed by an interview with massachusetts senator ted kennedy. At 1 30 the history of the Dirksen SenateOffice Building and Later Congress in the 1965 immigration and nationality act. Thats all tonight on American History tv in prime Time Beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Three days of featured programming this Holiday Weekend on cspan. Friday evening at 7 00 eastern, Congressional Republican leaders honoring former Vice President dick cheney at the capitol with the unveiling of a marble bust in emancipation hall. When the Vice President had his critics just go off the deep end as they often did, he asked lynn his wife, does it bug you when people refer to me as darth vader . And she said, no, it humanizes you. Saturday night at 8 30 eastern an indepth look at policing in minority communities. Speakers include former st. Louis Police Officer mr. Hudson, and washington, d. C. , chief police chief kathy lanier. Most people get defensive if they feel youre being offensive. So, you know, being very respectful, you know, in encounters and requests, if its not a crisis, if its not a dangerous situation versus demands, those things change the dynamics a little bit. And sunday afternoon at 2 00 race and the criminal Justice System with white house Senior AdviserValerie Jarrett and others. Then at 6 30, portions of this years washington ideas festival. Speakers include virginia senator mark warner former Vice President al gore and author annmarie slaughter. Weve got to banish the word hes helping at home, all right . Helping is not actually taking the burden off you. You are still figuring out what needs to be done, and you are asking him to help. He is not the agent, right . Hes the assistant. And if were going to get to where we need to go, men do have to be lead parents or fully equal coparents. For the complete schedule go to cspan. Org. Next a discussion about nsa Data Collection and surveillance with a guest from the American Civil Liberties union and former nsa general counsel, stuart baker. Joining us for discussion on the National Security agency and collection of information two guests this morning. The American Civil Liberties union, their legislative counsel. And joining us stuart baker a former nsa general counsel in the Clinton Administration 1992 to 94. Thank you for joining us this morning. Weve heard about this program known as section 215 a clction of metadata. To set it up for the folks at home, what does it mean specifically . The program which has now been ended collected metadata, that is to say, who you were calling and who was calling you on all of the calls inside the United States and into and out of the United States, put them in a database, locked up the database and said the u. S. Government can go into the database if they are pursuing a terrorist and they have a terrorist number and they want to see whos in touch with a terrorist. So as far as the nature of the information it took in, it didnt deal with content at all or was it more logistical in nature . It did deal with the content the program that was reformed. But we have to remember that this metadata is extremely revealing. It tells if you called a suicide hotline or a pizza delivery man. It tells you a lot about someones life. The program was extremely invasive and congress did the right thing by limiting it. Since you both brought it up, the limits on it, what limits were placed on this program . Well, what congress essentially did said, look, well have the program but well not let you have it be quite as broad. You cant collect all the records in america. You cant collect all the records in a particular state. But what they didnt do was say you can collect records if you have a reason to collect if you believe someone is connected to a terrorist organization. Mr. Baker, what about those changes . What did you think of them, to the program . The original program was full of protections. You could only go into the database if you had reasonable suspicion. There were only 20 people were authorized to go in and the number of searches done were 3 left hand to 500 a year. It was not a dragnet program. The collection was very broad but there were a lot of protections on going in. What the changed program does is essentially say the government cannot collect all that and put it in one place. They have to go to individual carriers, phone carriers, and ask each of them to look through the records that they happen to have collected to and stored. And thats what were doing now. Again, they have to have a reasonable suspicion with respect to terrorist numbers before they collect this information, before they collect it from the carriers. The worry i have about it is that its not anywhere near as fast, probably not as comprehensive, and if you look at what happened in San Bernardino, we would have very much liked to know immediately who those two terrorists were talking to. And have a quick set of assessment of their connections to other people, whether they were part of a conspiracy. The old program would have given us that. Now that data is locked away and not accessible. Can i ask what the justification was for the broad nature of the information taken and why it was such a wide scope of info . Because if youre trying to quickly determine who are these terrorists in touch with and who might the people theyre in touch with also be in touch with. You need to be able to do a search of a single database. Thats the only way youre going to get it quickly and thats the only way youre going to control how long you keep that data. The phone company will keep it as long as they find it useful, which is certainly not as long as a terrorist investigator might find it useful. Whats wrong with the broad scope of information especially if some incident happens and you have to get a wide scope of whom is talking to whom and things of that nature . I think theres two really important points, the first is when these reforms are passed the intel jennings ageligence a had it wouldnt undermine their ability to investigate terrorists. The second point that is important to make, this program had not proven to be effective. There were two independent oversight boards that looked at the call Metadata Program. What they concluded it had not stopped an act of terrorism. It calls in to question the assertions whether limiting the program will actually have a negative impact on National Security. The guests joining us if you want to ask them about the program, the nature of collection of information and things associated with that, 22 78488000 for republicans and for independents 2427488000 send your thoughts to us at twitter. Mr. Baker, what about that nature or what she just said the information that we take it in, its never stopped or yeah i am paraphrasing. Its fair to say it never stopped a plot that was that was it was designed to stop. But the reason for that it was designed to stop plots where careful preparation and recruiting and planning for an operation was carried out in a terrorist safe haven and then the terrorist came to the United States, coordinated here and quickly launched an attack which is what happened in 9 11. And the reason it never stopped a plot is that we wiped out those plots at the source by taking away the taliban and al qaeda safe haven. Whats truly troubling is were getting rid of this program just as theres a new safe haven emerging in syria and iraq and as weve seen in paris and now possibly in San Bernardino, the people in that safe haven are planning and recruiting for attacks on the United States and the west. And we have deliberately blinded ourselves to carrying out a quick assessment of possible attacks, identifying a possible attack just when we need the program most. What would you say about that . You know, it doesnt help National Security to divert Law Enforcement resources to investigating people who have no connection to terrorism. And thats essentially what the program did. It collected a lot of information about people who the government frankly didnt need information about. The reforms that were passed in june do leave space for the government to go to the intelligence court and request information when they have reason to believe they need it. And thats sufficient to allow us to respond to emerging threats and also to emergencies. I mean, there are emergency provisions that say that if the government needs information theyre able to get it in a timely fashion. First call for both of you is from mohammed. Mohammed is in milwaukee, wisconsin, hes on the independent line. Youre on with both of our guests, mohammed. Good morning, go ahead. Caller good morning, thank you for taking my call. My question is if the nsa was collecting all this data for the past several years and the San Bernardino killers especially the man was in contact with other people who the fbi and the department of Homeland Security say were on a known terror watch list, they were they were known to have been in contact with them. Why was somebody like this, they were collecting all this credit card data, telephone data, why was somebody buying all this ammunition online, using credit cards possibly, all the machine guns and everything, where did the the nsa, the department of Homeland Security and the fbi failed the United States and the public by not being able to control these people. What happened to the Data Collected on these guys . Let me address that first. The program that were talking about today is designed to catch people who are in touch with terrorists by phone outside the United States. And so we dont know, at least i dont from the reports, whether the contacts were online or in an encrypted form or whether they were actually phone calls. If they were phone calls, then this should have shown up. But if the phone call occurred after last saturday, the programs over and it would have been very difficult for the fbi or nsa to identify those contacts and quickly determine whether there was a broader plot. Yeah, you know, i want to respond to that. In a case like San Bernardino, theres still a lot of facts we dont know. But based on what has been disclosed, it wouldnt have been impossible for the fbi to collect information. They knew purchases the individual had made. They could have gone to the courts and gotten an authorization. You know, the idea in a case where you have reason to believe someone is going to do something and commit a terrorist attack, you know, the government has ample authority to get the information they need, including call records and other types of tate data. Again, the topic is Data Collection by the nsa a program that got changed or received changes as of sunday. What happened to the information that had already been collected . Where does it reside now . Does it reside with the phone company . Did it get eliminated . Before sunday. The database still exists but its been locked away. The government has asked for authority to run searches to compare how effective the new program is compared to the old program. So far they have not gotten that authority. In fact, i suspect the aclu is litigating to prevent that. Is that true . Its very important to remember that a federal court ruled that this program was illegal. It went beyond what the law allowed and so, you know, its still the subject of litigation, whats going to happen to all of this information that was collected by the government illegally, you know, it should be destroyed. The court the government didnt have authorization to do what they were doing. And theres legislative efforts to keep hold of that information and allow the fbi or the nsa and others to gain access to it. I think senator cotton and senator cruz have proposed that. Or senator rubio, im sorry. In the says of San Bernardino, would this information have been shared with the fbi and others . Is it easily interchangeable amongst the agencies that need it . Yes. There is ability to share it. Republican line, hi, there. Caller hello. Youre on, go ahead. Caller i am . Yes, go ahead, please. Caller okay. Here i go. I am hearing were going to put you on hold. Well go to another call and come back to you. How about that . If you wouldnt mind turning your tv down. Well go to tommy in texas, democratic line. Caller how are you doing . Good. Go ahead. Caller i was a member of nsa for over 40 years. I know what the program is like, and i know it works. Theres Nothing Better than getting raw data, then you can work on immediately than waiting three or four days to find out what that data is. We protect our sources and our means of gathering that information. The other important thing is that with us its like a tree. You know, you find out where the root is, and then from the root you lead to the trunk and then from the trunk to the branches and the branches to the leaves. What this Program Change has done is prohibit the nsa from finding out its source and then tracing it up without going to private companies to ask for the information, which could be compromising the information. You want to start . Sure. I mean, youre exactly right that the information will be in the hands of the Telephone Companies. But the reforms that were made still leave ample space for the government to go to these companies and request information and get it in an accelerated manner if theres an emergency, so i think youre still going to have the ability to connect the roots and the trees, youre just going to have it in a way that doesnt result in mass surveillance that collects millions of americans information who have no connection to terrorism or terrorist activities. Mr. Baker . I think thats like saying to somebody, were going to take google away from you, but you can still go to the library and look up the information you need. And were sure youll find it there. Maybe so, but it wont be as fast. It wont be as effective. And it will put people at risk. From connie, lets try her again. Roth, oklahoma, republican line. Hi, connie. Caller hello. Go ahead. Caller what i was calling about is everybody in my community is just really upset about what the president ask Loretta Lynch said today, they just seemed like they was more concerned with muslims being harassed and everything than they was the American People. And i just dont understand that. Okay, connie, well move on to matt. Matts in emerson, new jersey, independent line. Youre on with our guests. Go ahead. Caller thank you, good morning, and i believe that the gentleman, mr. Baker hello . Youre on, go ahead. Caller yes, thank you. Good morning. I believe the gentleman, mr. Baker, is correct in his points. However, the first responsibility of a president is to protect the American People, and this president has failed miserably by his deliberate refusal to confront isis. And thank god the french, the russians, the brits, and the germans are doing this. And one question for these good people here, is why is turkey allowed to support isis by buying their oil and letting terrorists go freely between syria and europe . And last point, if i may, please, obama supporters the only thing they have left is to falsely accuse gun owners who want to protect their own families of causing problems like this. It is outrageous. Thats matt in new jersey. Mr. Baker, if theres anything you want to pull from that, go ahead. As i had said earlier, the way we stop terrorist plots for ten years was by taking away the safe haven. Now that the safe haven is back, if were going to concentrate on stopping all of these attacks essentially in the end zone, were going to have to be much more aggressive about pursuing plots in the United States. And unfortunately because of ten years without serious attacks, congress felt it was free to start taking away those protections as well. I think thats a bad idea. Anything you want to add to that . This isnt a choice between liberty and security. Its very possible to have our liberties in a way that still protects National Security. When you look at, you know, events of recent years, i mean, what weve seen in a lot of them that in many cases the individuals who committed particular acts were known to police and were known to investigators. What that tells us is that mass surveillance isnt necessarily the solution. There are other methods that may permission needed by the fisa court. Whats the turnaround on that from the request to the fisa court . We dont know what the new program turnaround time is. Because the programs only been running for a week or so. And as far as i know, there wasnt any live testing, so we actually are probably giving it a workout right now as a result of San Bernardino. But theres no information yet on how effective that program has been as a substitute for the old one. I mean, the only we have statements from intelligence officials who looked at these changes before they were passed and said that they didnt believe that it would impair intelligence capabilities and we also had provisions to address emergencies. So, every expectation is that the program will operate just as effectively and efficiently as prior ones. Thats the second time that she said that, and i agree that that true, but these are people who work for president obama and president obama decided to accept this legislation, and you would be a very foolish highranking intelligence official to say the president has said he likes this program, but i dont think it will work. They had really little choice but to say we think we can make this work. I think its very important to remember that these reforms were the result of a twoyear debate in congress. It wasnt democrats pushing these reforms, it was democrats and republicans who were rightfully very concerned about the effect the program had had and were very concerned it had operated with very information provided to the public and even some members of congress. So, i dont think we can frame this as just a partisan push from one particular person. This was a very protracted debate and included voices from individuals from across the political spectrum. From david in fayettesville, georgia, go ahead, youre on with our guests. Republican line. Caller good morning, how you doing . Fine, thanks, go ahead. Caller why do we continue to use the word Civil Liberties when were at war . When were at war we should use every type of measure and the government should have every type of access to Anything Possible to keep our country safe. You know, i hear rand paul and ted cruz talk about these words privacy. But Chris Christies dead on that, you know, once youre at war, the country has to do whatever provisions we need to do to do what it takes to keep our country safe. And, you know, and she just talked about the congress debating this for almost two years. But part of that the house is those tea partydriven people that are trying to push this Civil Liberties, but were at war. And we need to prepare and do everything we need to do to keep our country safe. And thats why Chris Christie has to run this country, because they dont know what it is takes to run this country. They need to know that we have to keep our country safe. I think its false to say that this is a choice between National Security and liberties. I mean, we can have both. But we also cant be blind to the very real effects that surveillance can have on our country and has had on our country. You know, when we talk to journalists who now say, look, i have trouble getting people to talk to me because theyre concerned that my phone might be surveilled. Or you talk to companies who are increasingly having trouble remaining competitive in the Global Market because consumers have concern about the privacy of their information. I very much agree that discussing National Security and how we can protect our countrys important, but that doesnt mean that we should sacrifice our constitutional liberties and it doesnt mean that we should sacrifice other values that are very important. I agree with matt. I while it would be nice to have Civil Liberties and security, thats thats an unproven idea, that we can protect our privacy as aggressively as congress and the aclu want to protect it and also be safe from attack. Im unconvinced that thats the case. And i share the view that republicans were complicit in passing this bill. They let their hostility and suspicion of the Obama Administration translate into hostility and suspicion of the Intelligence Community which i think is a big mistake. I think i told the wall street journal the good news from the Republican Primary Campaign so far is nobody is going to get the republican nomination by running with Edward Snowden as their running mate. As far as the Telephone Companies, whats the benefit and liability of having the Telephone Company hold on to information, this metadata . The benefit, in theory, is that they will resist improper requests for data by the government and that they will be a sort of independent check on the governments gathering information improperly. I think thats a pretty thin read and, of course, we lose with that being able to know that we got the information for a set period of time and that we can quickly compare the information that verizon has with the information that at t has about calls. I mean, after all, you can call somebody with a verizon phone if you have an at t phone. But trying to draw that connection requires that you go to more than one place to get the information. Thats much less efficient. So, the Telephone Company can turn down a request . They can fight a request. They can say we dont think this is justified. They can ask the fisa court to review what has been done, and in some cases they have actually resisted particular requests. Same question. Yeah, i mean, i think that theres a significant Civil Liberties benefit to the Telephone Companies holding on to this information. You know, the constitution was never intended to allow the government collect massive amounts of information about people who have no connection to any criminal activity. And at least this is a step forward towards limiting this type of dragnet surveillance. And weve been talking a lot about how effective these programs are, but the reality is that theres very little evidence to show that they have been effective. Joining us now on the phone kathleen from florida, republican line. Youre on. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Yes, i agree that the government or whatever agency is charged with protecting us has to be able to do it. And when we are at war, there are certain liberties and freedoms that have to be sacrificed. The idea that you can make requests for information that might help in preventing an attack to go through a system that can take days or weeks is just absolute insanity. We need to be protected. And if groups like the aclu have a problem with that, let them stand in the front line and see how willing they are to make sure that it takes six or seven or eight weeks to get a response so that they be safe. I mean, theres simply no evidence that getting this information is going to take six, seven, or eight weeks as you say. You know, all we have are testimony from intelligence officials saying that they expect that the program will work. And so i think that, you know, to say that these reforms are somehow making us less safe, we just dont have any evidence to support that contention. Part of the reason we arent going to get that evidence is the aclu is litigating to make sure that we cannot check how much faster it would have been to use the old system. Theyre afraid of the facts i think. One of the things that came out of this was a call, at least by some, to install whats backdoor technology for these phone companies to gain access. Can you explain that and what it adds to the debate over the collection of information . Im not sure whats meant by backdoor access. Do you mean access to the encrypted communications . Yes. This is a different but related fight in which the director of the fbi has said that encryption increasingly is making it impossible to find out whos talking to whom or what theyre saying at least. And he has said that the companies that supply that encryption should have a mechanism to decrypt it when a court order is presented to them, and the companies response has been we prefer not to do that. We think it would be bad for business, and technologically difficult and potentially a security risk. The attacks in paris and now in San Bernardino are going to make that a much livelier debate than it has been up to now. Senator Dianne Feinstein was on the sunday shows and said the fbi director and i james comey and john brennan would agree the achilles heel in the internet is encryption, its now a black web and theres no way of piercing it. I think its very important to talk about what encryption does and the benefits. Encryption is what helps protect your data when you lose your phone, when youre transmitting financial or medical records on the internet and what Technology Experts have said is that theres no way to build this magical back door or key to decrypt communications that will not open up security problems. It would be very unwise to go down a road where were actually weakening the very protections that our systems rely on. Does Encryption Technology hinder the information gathering that sometimes has to be done when it comes to terrorrelated cases in your opinion . We havent seen evidence or data on whether encryption is hindering the ability of Law Enforcement. What we do know Law Enforcement has access to more information than they ever have had before. So, you know, going down a road of weakening the cybersecurity of our systems and the absence of evidence that its needed is unwise. Shade lives in ft. Pierce, florida, democrats line. Hi. Caller hi, good morning. My comment this morning is, im listening to you guys talking about this, but, you know, i cant understand why we wouldnt use every tool that we have to catch any terrorism, home growing or abroad. I mean, by me talking on the phone. Better for families that been massacred about me talking on the phone. I mean, dont say it. But [ inaudible ] something on the phone that can catch them. If i get on the phone and Say Something trying to destroy masses murder people, i think youll catch me and i think we should use every tool that we have. If you dont want to aint nobody ever come and killed nobody at no house so well come and you said on the phone unless you do something heinous. I think you should use every tool this country has to keep us safe like theyve been doing. Dont stop. I hope they still doing it, to tell you the truth. I give that phone call up. Dont say it on the phone. Thank you. So, i would simply say that there is real risk here, and hes right that we need to take a close look at some of these tools. We dont know much about the San Bernardino killers communications, but, you know, those guys in garland, texas, who two people armed with semiautomatic weapons who wanted to do the same thing apparently, according to the press, had hundreds of Communications Prior to that attack, which we cant read because theyre encrypted. So, when weve said weve never seen it, well, we havent seen it, because its encrypted and you cant read it and the government will never be able to read those communications. You know, theres still a lot that we dont know about the San Bernardino shootings and the attacks in paris and whether encryption played any role at all. But i want to go back to something that was raised by the caller and, you know, thats this question should we be listening to everybodys phone calls, were facing threats. I think the answer to that is no, there are values in our country, free expression, that arent just important on paper, but that very much contribute to the lives that we enjoy and the strength of our country. The ability of journalists to report on important National Security issues and call in to question decisions by government officials, for example, the vietnam war, those are all things that we prize. And when we engage down a road of mass surveillance where people are afraid to say things or feel like theyre under constant government scrutiny, what we really risk are losing some of those values and things that protect our country broadly. Just to be clear the Metadata Program never dealt with the content of conversation. It did not deal with the content of conversation, but that metadata is extremely revealing, for example, if i call a suicide hotline, you may be able to infer a lot about my life. If i called a minister, you might be able to infer my simply because the program didnt deal with content doesnt, you know, completely remove the impact it has on peoples privacy and the level of intrusion it represents into peoples lives. Mr. Baker, is there ever a level where content can be gained from the nsa . Absolutely. You can gain content if you have in the United States if you have a court order that authorizes interception of content. And its a higher standard than the standard of reasonable suspicion. But i think it is important to say, yes, metadata can tell you a lot, but it was only searched when we had reasonable suspicion that someone was in touch with terrorists. If someone is in such with terrorists and also calling a suicide hotline, i think the authorities need to know. Frostburg, maryland, robert is next up. Independent line. Hi. Caller hey, pedro, good morning, how you doing . Fine. Go ahead. Caller yes, i saw a program this week on hbo that was labeled spy masters and i saw general hayden, petraeus, powell, tenet, pineta, and gates all show remorse for, you know, some of the mistakes that we policy mistakes that weve made in our country. You know im a vietnam veteran also. What i saw, it was not the with gandhi whats the religion in the far east . With hinduism, with christianity, with buddhism, with muslimism, its not about religion. Its about when people are abused, thats the issue that i heard these six former cia directors say. Its about people feeling abused. But we keep mischaracterizing it as being religion. Its retribution. People are tired of this abuse that we do to them. And all these good cia people that we have, we are overworking them with these bad policies that we make. Mr. Baker . I think there is always a problem in the Intelligence Community is always subject to suspicion and its unfortunate, its bad for the morale of the Intelligence Community, but it is part, unfortunately, of the experience weve had for the last 50 years where people say, i really want to be protected, give the intelligence agencies everything they need. And then five years later we say, oh, well, thats too much. We ought to cut it back, and we should we a little more measured about what we authorize the intelligence communities to do. I think its really important to note that, you know, a lot of the outrage on the program was the fact it was shrouded in secrecy. You had members of congress who drafted the patriot act who said, look, it was never my intent to allow this kind of surveillance. You had members of congress that werent aware of the surveillance. And you had public that was deprived of the debate that we should have engaged in before the massive programs. The notion of the distrust that has now resulted from the disclosures isnt justified i dont think really tells the whole story. By the way, the documentary of spy masters we had the two people behind it on our program last week. If you want to see that interview about the documentary, and the things that the producers found out, you can see that interview from last week on our cspan website, go to cspan. Org. Theres information that youll find about it. Two guests joining us to talk about nsa, the National Security agency, programs of Data Collection, stuart baker, a former nsa generally counsel and the American Civil Liberties uni union, and mike is in ohio, republican line. Caller good morning, our government over the last 100 years, 200 years, theyve always been dishonest to people, so since we cannot trust our government and i do lean republican. Im conservative. I dont believe in abortions. I dont believe the government should take our money for any purpose. But our government isnt trustworthy, so the more power you give them to spy on us, the more they will spy on us. And i dont do nothing that i dont feel my neighbors would be a threat to me and i dont feel im a threat to my neighbors, but i do believe our government should be able to access anybodys records anytime they want because they might say theyre getting a warrant, but i dont trust them. I do not trust our government. Mr. Baker, about that level of distrust . Yeah, i think its unfortunate and wrong. I worked in the government many different capacities. And worked with many of the people that were on that program, and they are responsible americans who believe in Civil Liberties, who believe in privacy, but who also wanted to make sure that we were protected from attack. And i think its quite wrong to say you cannot trust the government in this context. Im sure thats not the first time youve heard that claim, i suppose. I think we need transparency and we need accountability. And we need to know exactly what programs are being run and how americans are being impacted. And its hard to have exact confidence in our intel jennings agencies when we have a secret intelligence court that has had very Little Information revealed about their opinions and even the legal basis for their opinions. So i think to address this distrust, we have to reform the laws that have proven to be used improperly and we need to have that transparency and accountability so americans know exactly whats happening. I think you can do that in a way that still maintains the secrecy that intelligence agencies need to operate. This is the fias court yousa youre talking about, the secret courts. Thats right. It was an authorization that independent oversight boards have said was a misinterpretation of the law, a federal court has said was a misinterpretation of the law and people in congress that drafted the law said it was a misinterpretation. Its not surprising in the wake of the that people have distrust. What do we know about this court . Its consisted since the 1970s, it consists of federal judges, the same federal judges that sit on other cases. And the level of oversight, the extent to which the judiciary, congress are involved in overseeing what information is searched is unparalleled anywhere in the world. We have more oversight, more scrutiny for our Intelligence Community than any other country. Those countries are gathering intelligence on us, on americans, and on american institutions. And we have largely, butc entirely, disarmed ourselves in that intelligence battle in a way that is going to turn out to be very dangerous. And the fact is, you cannot have intelligence programs if you tell your adversary everything you are doing. And i think that weve essentially said i would like to have everything about these programs made transparent. And if you do that, you simply wont have an intelligence program. Is that your claim . Thats not my claim at all. You know, i think that there are there are parts of these programs that may need to be kept secret. But the American People deserve to know how much of their informations being collected. Members of Congress Whose job it is to oversee these programs need to know how Many Americans are being affected. And when you have members of congress saying, look, i never knew about these programs, they existsed over a decade and we have federal courts calling them illegal, its hard to say thats an approp at level of transparency or accountability. I do agree with stuart it needs to be a global conversation. We have to also examine many of our intelligence partners who give us information. I mean, who we provide information to. That is an important part of the debate. What elements of that conversation do we specifically have to take on with our Global Partners . What things do we need to examine . I think we need to develop standards what information we pry provide to foreign partners and what information we receive. If a Foreign Government can get the same information and give it to the u. S. Without following any of these restrictions, what well have are americans whose rights are still violated regardless of the change in the law. What do you think of the concept . I think that boils down to say spg the aclu would like even more restrictions on their intelligence programs. That the restrictions ought to extend to what foreign nations collect and use when they engage in intelligence collection. I havent yet heard any suggestion about how we would effectively control chinese or russian intelligence programs that are gathering information this minute against us. As far as if someones number or someones metadata is searched by the nsa, does that person ever know that that took place or can they even find out that took place . If that information is used in a criminal case, yes. There are mechanisms by which the fact of the search will be made available to the defendant. But thats pretty rare. But, remember, theres only 3 00 to 500 searches a year for any purpose of this database. I mean, thats not entirely accurate. Weve seen in Court Filings the government take the position that even if evidence from section 215 is gathered and used in a proceeding that the government has no notice obligations. I mean, that also doesnt extend to, lets say, people who had their information searched but were never charged with a crime. So, the notion that americans whose information is even collected or searched is receiving notice from the government even after an investigation is closed is just not accurate. Lets hear from steve. Steve is in phoenix, arizona, democrats line. Steve, go ahead. Youre on with our guest. Caller good morning. First, i agree that that could be a concern. Of course, the other side of it is that if you shut down the collection of information, you pretty much stop listening to your enemies and thats a big part of how we won world war ii is listening in to germany. Because the admiral that ran their fleet, i cant think his name off the top of my head, he didnt think that germans communication was listening to, they could crack the code. We were listening right to them. Thats first and second. And we kind of lost the element of surprise, 9 11 kill 130, 141 and San Bernardino took 2 to kill 14, 71. They lost the element of surprise. And, you know, really, though, its not democracy versus or democracy versus islam, because in islam those people they vote for the offices and stuff in their religion. Its more like islam versus capitalism, because capitalism will let you buy and sell anything and they have restrictions on their religion. And i was just wondering what you guys think of that. You want to start . Sure. I mean, i think just to address the first point you raised, no one is saying that when theres reason or cause the government shouldnt be able to get information, but what the constitution requires is a process for that and they require that there be cause before the government engage in getting to information. So, we can still maintain the ability to, you know, gather information about terrorists who while remaining consistent with these constitutional values. The second point that was alluded to, extremism comes in many forms. Muslim americans are not the root of this problem. I dont know that that was suggested by the caller but i think its an important point to make. Mr. Baker . Yeah, theres no doubt that we have done a better job than we used to of reducing the catastrophic damages that could be caused by an attack we werent prepared for. But, you know, two people killing 14 is not an acceptable outcome. We need to do a better job to protect against the kinds of attack that we saw in San Bernardino and in garland, texas, and in paris. Jackson, tennessee, independent line. Go ahead. Caller we shouldnt let fear rule us because, you know, without your rights we wont be safe or free and a quote from abraham lincoln, american will never be destroyed from the outside if we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we detry stroyed ourselves. And as einstein said three great forces rule the world, stupidity, fear and greed. We cannot let these extremists and all these people make us so fearful and we have to have our rights. I stand with the aclu lady, we cannot let fear rule us. We got to have our rights and freedoms. Because we dont want the terrorists to dominate us because to me its like the line in the fly scenario. The fly cant knock the lion out, but the lion cant catch the fly. How would you respond to that . I dont think that keeping this program is driven by fear. I think getting rid of this program is evidence of stupidity. It was a valuable backstop against an attack from a safe haven that was planned abroad and then executed here. And we may yet discover that that is what happened in San Bernardino. Its certainly a possibility now that isis has a safe haven. And were stupid to ignore that possibility. I dont think that reflects the debate that happened over the patriot act. The patriot act was a rushed bill. It happened in the wake of 9 11. It received very little debate and it was used in a way that Congress Never intended. And i think its an important lesson. I mean, often after an attack or a tragic event theres kind of a knee jerk reaction to pass policies that at the end of the day arent good for our liberties and arent good for our security. Chuck, las cruces, new mexico, republican line, hi there. Caller hi. I had an interesting observation. I notice that the aclu well, theres two forms of collection right now. This one in the government which is being destroyed by the aclu that helps protect us. Theres the other one by google and all of these other private entities that looks at our profile. The aclu is allowing them to collect all of this information on us. Yet they attack the government that wants to protect us. The googles of the world, the network wants to profile us to get information. I dont understand why the aclu wants to shut down the stuff that wants to protect us yet doesnt do anything with the commercial entities. And, oh, by the way, i was in the business and i used the fisa court, and it takes forever to get something through. If you have something to me thats going to attack us and you want to have readily available information to find out where whats going to happen, this this law is going to cut us down, and its not good. I mean, i think theres two important points. Private collection could raise concerns, and there should be standards that Companies Follow to ensure that theyre, you know, appropriately protecting the rights of their customers, but we have to recognize theres a very big difference between google collecting your information and nsa collecting your information. Google cannot bring a criminal prosecution. They cant put you in jail, so we have to acknowledge the very real differences in authority that exists between private sector collection and government collection. Mr. Baker . So, there is a big difference. And quite frankly, google is not going to protect you from a terrorist attack. So, the reason the government needs this information is much more significant and much more valuable to society than having better focused ads. Its striking to me that technology is making it easier to hide communications with encryption and its also making it easier to gather information quickly and efficiently and go through it to find suspicion behavior. And the aclu is all for the intelligence for the new technologies that make it difficult to catch terrorists. And all against using the new technologies that would make it easier to catch them. And i think we need to recognize that sometimes what the technology is taking away with encryption we should be counterbalancing by using big data and the capabilities. And last point for the listener, i, too, had a lot of contact with the fisa court and wrote about the experience in a book called skating on stilts that made exactly your point. The fisa court was so afraid of critics like the aclu saying, oh, youre just a rubber stamp, that it was far beyond the law in imposing restrictions on what we could do and it contributed very substantially to the success of the attackers on 9 11. I want to respond to the point that stuart raised. Its not an accurate reflection of the aclu position to say, well, were against everything that is for security. And for everything that is for privacy. But if you have courts going far beyond authorized thats a problem that needs to be recognized by congress and the judiciary. There are steps the government can take to protect National Security but they can do that within the bounds of the constitution. We cant forget i was a federal employee once just as you and we have a federal responsibility to comply with the law and the constitution. This program was reviewed by probably 25 judges. One judge Still Believes that its illegal. And that it was illegal. Every other court has decided that at least as adopted by the most recent law and approved for a period of six months, it is legal. And the only reason that there were determinations of illegality, is because the aclu argued to all 25 of those youngs that it was illegal. I 25 judges it was illegal. I dont know of a new single technolog technological system that the aclu said use that. The only merits of this program were found it was illegal. It was legal. You took it up and said save that the new Six Month Program authorizing six month extension of this is illegal, the court says no, now its legal. Now Congress Know what its authorizing we have no problem. Thats inaccurate. The 2nd circuit which i believe is the court youre referencing, the case is moot. We have reform by congress. The issues you raised are no longer relevant. Very different than examining the program. To just your second question yes there are new technologies and in many cases Law Enforcement may want to take advantage of new opportunities to investigate crimes effectively. That doesnt eliminate the constitution. It doesnt eliminate the need to get a warrant. It doesnt eliminate the protection we should enjoy. To frame this as an issue to say well we have to collect everything with no protections whatsoever or we have nothing is not an accurate way of looking at it. The government is able to collect information about people who pose a threat and they can do so following appropriate procedures that protect the American Peoples liberty as well. I remember when Boston Police got smartphones and they had access to databases to look up criminals quickly. Aclu criticized that. Theres not a bit of technology that aclu said they dont have a problem. Aclu doesnt have a problem with the government using technology in certain cases when its targeted, when they go to court and get a warrant and when theres appropriate notice. To say that we should just use any new technology ignoring the very real impact it has on privacy and ignoring whether it might raise constitutional issues i dont think its consistent with what the public wants and not consistent with the laws we have. That says well challenge every single new technology with the argument that its probably unconstitutional and then wait for the courts to decide. Last word. Thats simply inaccurate. Two guests joining us to talk about these Data Collected practices by the National Security agency. To both of you thanks for talk about this. It was a pleasure. This Holiday WeekendAmerican History tv on cspan 3 has three days of featured program. Beginning friday evening to mark the 125th anniversary of the birth of president Dwight David Eisenhower his grand daughters sue an and Mary Eisenhower gather for a rare family discussion at Gettysburg College to talk about his military and political career as well as his legacy and relevance for 21st century americans. Then on saturday afternoon at 1 00, 60 years ago rosa parks defied a City Ordinance for blacks to leave their seats to make room for white passengers. Er stance instigated the montgomery amortize. Well reflect the amortize and see what role lawyers played in that protest and the Civil Rights Movement as we hear from montgomery bus boycott demonstrators. At 6 00 civil war author and historian William Davis on the little known aspects of the lives and leadership of Union General yagaigeneral ulysses s. And on real america a 1965 Progress Report on nasas projects including the manned Space Program and mariner 4 fly by of mars. Just before 9 00, writer and awardwinning documentary filmmaker rick burns on how the public learns about history through film and television. American history tv, all weekend and on holidays too. Only on cspan 3. Three days of featured programming this Holiday Weekend. Friday evening at 7 00 eastern Congressional Republican leaders honoring form are Vice President dick cheney at the capitol with the unveiling of a marble bust. When the Vice President had his critics going off the deep end as they often did he asked his wife lynn does it bug you when people refer to me as darth vader. And she said