these are parts of a thread, parts of a fabric. none of these are a silver bullet. this is the problem people like me have explaining this to the american people. intelligence is fundamentally boring. it s not what you see on evening television. it s piece by piece, thread by thread. you re giving up threads. it may not make a difference for a while. then again, it might. over the longer term, i m willing to wager, chris, it will, indeed, make a difference. as you pointed out in your setup, we re more at risk today from internal actors than we have been at any time since 9/11. there seems to be a debate about how effective and how useful these programs are. let me put some things on the screen. a recent report by the justice department s inspector general said fbi agents could not identify any major case developments that came from bulk data collection. and the privacy and civil liberties oversight board, an independent agency created by congress, found no instances of
they are not comfortable with that but they are comfortable of the idea the nsa saying okay, we want to be able to get those records that are just one or two degrees removed from a phone number that s been identified with a terrorism ring. that s a reasonable accommodation, what this bill would allow the nsa to go after. what about those including your colleague republican senator john mccain who says on the other side of this debate i believe his words were the most middle east is literally on fire. we re watching inging isis take on a more powerful role throughout now syria and iraq as well and never before. since 9/11 we needed all of the tools necessary to prevent an attack here in the united states. yeah i understand the argument. my response is look these provisions would not have expired. section 215 would have been modified so as to eliminate bulk data collection but i don t think the absence of bulk
fund-raising. the reality is that this bipartisan bill that already passed the house, that takes the bulk data collection out of the hands of the government and puts it with the phone companies will likely pass just with some amendments attached. some senators for example, want to make sure the phone companies are going to collect this stuff in a way that the government can eventually find useful. bottom line, wolf it s going to take some time but we could see a vote as early as tomorrow. we ll stay on top of that michelle thank you. let s get more on what s going on republican congressman matt thornberry of texas is the chairman of the house armed services committee, joining us right now. mr. chairman thanks very much for coming in. you re welcome. do you believe that as a result of the bulk data collection program being suspended at least for now the american public less safe right now than it was what 24 hours ago before that midnight deadline last night? i think we are. it
needed to after you came back to give a perspective to the kon verizon shall acts that needed to be fixed? do you feel that the boards needed to be fixed? yes, pretty much everything in the handbook is consistent with the reports that the five of us spoke. it was noon mouse, and anti-terror ism anti-terrorism, and i worked on the privacy, and from all of the perspectives, we said that we need to get rid of the bulk data collection collection, and we need to get rid of the fisa report, and all of it is kon sisconsistent with the report. and if the freedom act is passed in the senate, many people will be held by the tell conn company, and how does that work, and what is the difference here? well, it is not a surprise that the phone companies keep phone records. they do it for billing a and lot of the purposes of the business,
continue, and the traditional uses of it, not this bulk data collection, would be allowed to continue. it expires at midnight tonight, and if the senate can t get their act together they could go several days without those laws being available to protect american citizens from suspected terrorists. you mention this one senator, and let s call his name, senator rand paul of kentucky running for the gop nomination, he promises the patriot act, what he calls the nsa legal spying program will expire today. listen to the senator s comments. there is no constitutional justification for the government to collect all of your phone records without your name on a warrant without suspicious, and not signed by a judge. your privacy is yours and your records are yours and the government needs to leave us alone. so that is the one senator you are naming. what is your response to his