Welcome to this session of the texas book festival with h. W. Brandis. My name is steve hair again. I will be doing a q a with bill. 15 minutes after the session phil will be signing books in the book signing campus between the tenth and eleventh down the street. Please patronized the book signing tent in the bookstore, and pleas by the the book which wont be a problem. This is the book, the man who saved the union, Ulysses Grant and war and peace. If you by this book, proceeds will go to support texas libraries and literacy. It is a great book to read and to find a word because. H. W. Brands is the dixon Allan Anderson centennial prof. Of history in austin. His focus has been for many years on American History and politics and his biographies and histories include a number of tremendous books. This is the just the most recent. Also traitor to his class about Franklin Roosevelt, biography of Andrew Jackson called Andrew Jackson. The age of gold about the gold rush in the 1840s. The Fir
The speaker the house will be in order. The prayer will be offered today by our guest chape lane, reverend george dillard, Christian Church, Peach Tree City, georgia. The chaplain lets pray. Almighty god, we come before you with praise and thanksgiving because you are the giver and the sustainer of life. We thank you for freedom, help us to use it well. To bless and not to curse. We thank you for justice, help us to be righteous in its use. We thank you for an abundance of food. Help us to be generous. We thank you for life. Help us to give it the value it deserves. We thank you for your truth. Help us to use it as a light to see the path back to you. Bless the members of this house with wisdom and watch over those who serve in our armed forces as they protect our liberty. Forgive us for the error of our ways and thank you for the grace, mercy, forgiveness and love that provide a path to you through jesus, the christ, our king, amen. The speaker the chair has examined the journal of th
I wanted to start in the beginning is the easiest way to go. Can you tell me why you decided to join the cia . Guest it was 1975 i had been in law school for about three years. I had an entrylevel job in the Treasury Department as a lawyer and the Customs Service which is a part of treasury at that point. As i said it was a good job, but i found the atmosphere, the bureaucracy of the treasury. And rich respect i was young and ambitious about at the same time the Church Committee hearings were being televised and as you know these were the congressional hearings that exposed a ci the cia activitiesd misadventures in the followings from the 50s and 60s and was chaired by Senator Frank Church from idaho, and i believe on cspan if im not mistaken. And i was watching this and i know nothing about the cia and no one in the cia and they had no visibility was so law but it just occurred to me as i was watching all the tales of the cia adventures that if they did have lawyers it occurred to me
One, theres the possibility that all this metta data that is out there with the National Security agency may be left with aol and the other telecommunications operations. But john, the National Security state is alive and well. The president has responded to mr. Snowden in the sense that weve got to find a greater balance between rights of privacy and National Security. Hes recommending that there be an advocate before the fisa court and things like that. But overall, this extraordinary capacity and capability the United States has, he wants that accessible to our security people, but he wants greater restrictions against its use, against foreign leaders and others. I think he struck a pretty good balance. Eleanor . I would agree with that. I think his main goal is to restore confidence in the governments ability to surveil and monitor communications of principally american citizens, but also foreign leaders. And he traced the history of intelligence gathering going back to polar, up t
Morning. Lets bring in pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, Senior International correspondent Nick Paton Walsh and National Correspondent Sunlen Serfaty and cnn military analysts retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling and retired Major General james spider marks. Lets start with Barbara Starr, who broke the news this morning, tell us what we know. Good morning, well it was a commando raid overnight, deep into syrian isisheld territory. U. S. Army special Operations Forces and that means delta force, went in by helicopter under orders to try to capture this man. But apparently a firefight broke out, handtohand combat. He resisted. He was killed in the firefight. Along with other isis fighters there. His wife captured and taken back to iraq. The big question why this guy . Why was it worth risking so many u. S. Military lives to go after him . What were being told is he was an isis leader if you will in their oil and gas operations. So thats very key because of the financial impact.