understand the point of having robust surveillance tools for our government, given the terror threats. we asked you for questions for the panel and we got this on facebook from andrea jamison. she writes, how can we trust the president with vetting refugees, talking clearly about the syrian refugees, when he doesn t do anything about sanctuary cities borders. jane, how do you answer andrea? well, that s a good one, andrea. i would say that, look, the president is going to take a national security approach to the vetting of the refugees. perhaps more than he would with the immigration issue, and that can be debated as to whether that s the right approach. i do want to pick up on one other point, on the same day that president obama was in turkey giving his set of remarks about the paris attacks you ll recall he got irritated by the questions from the reporters saying that s a variation on the same question. he was essentially telling us, the strategy against isis is working more or
collecting american phone records, and do you think the expiration of the program at midnight will hurt our counterterrorism efforts? well, first of all, i supported the program. i was briefed on it early in the bush administration. i thought that the legal underpinnings were weak, and in 2008, congress made a big effort to put the whole program under law as part of the foreign intelligence surveillance act so i voted for that. this change came about after i left congress. i don t think because i left congress. but there s been a lot of discontent after the edward snowden leaks with the so-called invasion of privacy. but the good news is this. first of all the program was not abused. second of all the law that recently passed, which changed the program, doesn t eliminate it, but third of all, we have other surveillance tools which are lawful and which we continue to employ and a big chunk of those expired, or sunsets in 2017. by then i would hope that there would be a coalition that
records? do you think the expiration of program as of midnight will hurt our counterterrorism efforts? first of all i supported the program. i was brief on it early in the public administration and i thought that the legal underpinnings were weak and in 2008 congress made a big effort to put the whole program under law as part of the foreign intelligence act i voted for it. the change came about after i left congress. there is a lot of we discontent after the snowden leaks with the invasion of privacy. but the good news is this, first all, the program was not abused. second, the law that recently passed which does change the program, does not eliminate it, third, we have other surveillance tools which are lawful and which we continue continue to employ and a big part of those expire or sunset in 2017 and by then i would hope this is a coalition that would understand the point of having
the likes of which we haven t really seen before. and the targeting of the soft targets. is that the wave of the future, fran? is this what s going to happen? does paris, does france, does the united states become israel in the effect where that is the new reality? no question. lo look. the bad guys have moved to soft targets because they re easier for them. there are things we can do to disrupt this but we need surveillance tools, we need intelligence and the resource put against the capabilities to ensure that we continue to have the edge to try to disrupt plots. but we re going to op site way are we not? exactly right. and you know, we ve become complacent over time because we ve been successful disrupting them here in the united states.
the problem, officials say, is that isis recruitment efforts are increasingly difficult to detect because they are essentially hiding behind encrypted communication. the fbi director has repeatedly warned police chiefs nationwide to be hypervigilant since police may get no warning prior to an attack. there are on encrypted platforms, so it is an incredibly difficult task that we are enlisting all of our state and local and federal partners in and we are working on it every single day but i can t stand here with any high confidence when i confront a world that is increasingly dark to me and tell you i got it all covered. reporter: just as official this week were trying to gain support for two surveillance tools. the first is the ability to monitor individuals with no ties to known terror groups. the second, roving wiretaps, tracking multiple phones tied to a single person and both are set to expire on june 1st and the