questions. this decision puts it in perspective. there are no suit or violations. the nsa goes to extraordinary length to make sure everything it does is entirely constitutional. colonel frederick lleyton joins us, former nsa director and joint chiefs of staff officer. colonel, great to see you. i read the formal opinion, what s very interesting about judge pauley s 53-page p.i.opin. he eloquently delves into national security and appears to appreciate the danger imposed by al qaeda and others. what do you think? absolutely, greg. it s great to be with you. the basic opinion by judge pauley was almost as if written by an intelligence officer, because he looked at every single detail in the way in
peter king, chairman of the subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence. good to see you today. thank you. your reaction to this latest ruling, which says the nsa found that this is legal? i fully support the judge s decision. i strongly believe that the program is legal and constitutional and everyone s rights are being protected. and it s very important to our national security. i fully support judge pauley and his opinion. how worried are you that the judge might find that the nsa collection program violates our fourth amendment rights in the future? because this contradicts what we heard from a d.c. judge just a week ago. i m as confident as i can be. this is carefully monitored by the federal courts. it s monitored by the justice department. and it s monitored by the congress. i would say it s monitored more than any other program we have. the fbi, the justice departmen
let s talk about judge pauley s decision there what do you see wrong with that one? the most interesting thing is judge pauley admitted this program, which he gave the green light to, if left unchecked imperils the civil liberties from every american. he was relying on a weird legal technicality to give the greenlight to the government sucking up every bit of information about who we re calling, when we re calling and how long we re talking to them. it goes back to a 1979 case called smith v. merchandize, where the court said if you give up any information to a third party, like the fact the phone company is aware of who you call, there s no fourth amendment right to have that protected. so he is basically saying anything, and in the digital age, you need to understand that s everything that you do, every purchase you make, every call you make, every e-mail you send this. judge said, that s all fair game for the government to search and analyze, and i think that is a very dangerous o
thank you very much for coming in during the holidays. thank you. a major decision today on the government s collection of our personal data. a federal judge in new york has ruled that the nsa s phone tracking program is legal, and he dismissed the lawsuit from the american civil liberties union. the judge said there s no evidence that the government used any of the information it s collected for any other reason than investigating potential terror attacks. doug has more on this. he is traving with the president and has been with the president while he is on vacation. doug is not in honolulu. this could set up a showdown in supreme court. almost bound to be destined for the supreme court. we have contrary rulings here, both occurring this month. no way to properly interpret this national security agency surveillance program without some court of supreme court resolution to it. the district judge pauley in his ruling today, 54 pages, said basically that he admits the
president obama was asked directly for evidence that nsa programs had stopped another 9/11. he didn t name a specific one. has there been a single terrorist threat that you say has been stopped by this program? well, in his opinion today, judge pauley refers to three of them. i am virtually with one of them, that s the attempted attack by zazi in 2009 on the new york city subway system. i was actually there with commissioner kelly when this was unraveling, when the plot was unraveling and the nypd and fbi were on to it. this came in large part because of the efforts of the nsa. they were absolutely instrumental in that. there is any number of others. the nsa has given examples of over 50. the judge today cites three of them in his opinion. judge leon last week, you have the president of the united states, director of national intelligence and head of the nsa and cia all saying that the surveillance is important. judge leon is not an intelligence expert. he went outside his lane.