convinced the government has the legal authority to gather up and store records of virtually every u.s. phone call. i would like to know how the president feels that my cell phone calls and your cell phone calls are relevant to an investigate sln. what investigation? what act or what threat? i welcome this debate. and i think it s healthy for our democracy. i think it s a sign of maturity. probably five years ago, six years ago, we might not have been having this debate. reporter: some members of congress concerned about these programs say they ll try to change the law to reign them in and civil liberties groups are talking about filing lawsuits. alex? justice correspondent pete williams thank you so much. in santa monica, four people are dead and five injured after an apparent domestic violence incident escalated. a man allegedly shot his father and brother before carjacking a woman and then forcing her to drive to a college as he shot at public busses, other cars as
this caused flash flooding in areas like long island hit hard by hurricane sandy seven months ago. just a few miles north of new york city for us. what are the folks dealing with besides a pretty swollen river behind you? good morning to you, alex. a surging river. the water, the a rain has stopped but the flooding still a huge issue and the river really the main cause as this hurricane tropical storm i should say made its way north. the water still pours down is now making its way back here again in the rivers. this is the river. i m going to step over and show you the river parkway. this is a major artery leading into the city and i am able to actually walk in the middle of it this morning because it remains this morning shut down. police making sure that several miles of this strip are not accessible by car because several inches of water remain this morning in some cases even over a foot. the concern, obviously, hydroplaning as we saw last night. this road we are told will
call forensically is of so little use it should not be allowed in court because there s so few clips in that call where you re not listening to the caller, the 911 caller, or the 911 dispatcher in the distance in that phone call, you can hear an altercation. some of the states witnesses were saying that they could make out words, they are saying that trayvon martin is saying certain things and george zimmer man is saying certain things. the defense is countering saying how do you know for certain when you don t have much of a sample there to listen to. so in addition to that, the judge also has some pending motions from the defense that she s not even heard yet. we don t know how long today s session will go, whether she ll even entertain going into tomorrow. she does seem adamant this trial will get under way with jury selection on monday, alex. yeah. we have heard various testimony from these audio experts. is anyone suggesting thus far that the voice on the tape could be george zi
to see what judge nelson decides, if she does decide today on the hearing and then we ve got other pending motions as well. absolutely. it could be pretty darn important evidence. thank you so much, ron mott. george zimmerman has sued nbc universal for defamation. the company has strongly denied his allegations. let s go now to washington and more revelations about the secret government programs to collect massive amount of cell phone and computer data, sparked heated debate in the public and halls of congress. but senator dianne feinstein, chair of the intelligence committee defended the tactics saying, quote, there have been approximately 100 plots and also arrests made since 2009 by the fbi. i do not know to what extent method data was used or if it was used but i know this, that terrorists will come after us if they can and the only thing we have to can deter this is good intelligence. joining me now is alex boltton, congressional correspondent for the hill covering this stor
issues as well. reporter: now the president was asked if the recent revelation about the united states surveillance program of phone and foreign internet records undercut his argument to china during these talks and he said he does not believe the two issues are parallel and we should say that president xi has invited president obama to come to china for a similar visit some time in the near future. we know the two of them will be meeting in about five hours or so from now no, actually yeah, about 9:00 a.m. local time there in los angeles. yes. thank you so much, kristen. also this morning, we are learning more about the secret government programs that gather data from phone companies and the internet. president obama is defending them as essential to stopping potential terror plots. but others say it s a big overreach. nbc justice correspondent pete williams joins us to break it all down. pete, good day. alex, from the president on down, federal officials presented a u