Ifill all that and more on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongoing support of these institutions this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff the situation in syria had u. S. And Russian Military officials talking today, at least by long distance. They discussed ways to avoid confrontations between warplanes crisscrossing syrian skies. Meanwhile, the war on the ground raged on. Woodruff rebels in Northern Syria fought using americanmade antitank weapons today, trying to slow a government offensive in hama province. The assad regime is taking advantage of russian air strikes currently hitti
U. S. President Barack Obamas applauding a win against sunni militants in iraq. Iraqi and Kurdish Forces recaptured the countrys largest dam. He says his military helped in the operation. American air strikes have stopped isis advance around the city of erbil and pushed back the terrorists. With our support iraqi and Kurdish Forces took a major step by recapturing the largest dam in iraq. The dam provides water to iraqs secondlargest city mosul. Obama said its breach could have proved catastrophic with floods that could have threatened the capital baghdad. He said the u. S. Will continue to pursue a longterm strategy against the militants. The iraqi people need to reject them and unite to begin to push them out of the lands theyve occupied. As were seeing at mosul dam. Obama urged iraqs prime ministerdesignate al abadi to launch a broadbased government within a few weeks. He said once the u. S. Has a capable partner in iraq, u. S. Military engagement is unlikely to drag on over the lon
Congress reacted to snowden and theyre saying hmm, maybe it is not quite so scary as we thought to go against the government. I want to move on because of the time. But, mieke, i thought you might have the best view into how might this ruling influence the politics of this, the congressional will . I think that the court the Second Circuit clearly put this back in congress lap and said, look, congress did not explicitly authorize this Bulk Collection Program under 2150 and if they want to be explicit about that, they need to act they made note of the timeline. But their analysis of the 215 program suggests that they would not look kindly upon it the way that it is currently constructed. I also think that the politics of this right now here in the house, it is unlikely that you would get a clean reauthorization of the existing program through. And so the real question for senator mcconnell is, do you take the reform legislation or do you let the program expire . So to move on to so i wa
When president bush instituted it and president obama continued it, they didnt have an open discussion about whether the country should have such a program. And actually that seems to run through a little bit of yesterdays opinion by judge lynch. Even dick cheney. This is something that i discovered in writing this book that nobody had ever seen before. When he wrote his dissent in the irancontra matter, he said if you have a hard Foreign Policy or National Security issue, a wise president first would not engage in excessive secrecy, and, second, a wise president would have a full and open democratic discussion in which he would attempt to persuade the public of the need for validity of a broad program. The concept delineating between the number of people affected or how targets are picked, versus the program itself, i think is valuable, and it gets to a question that i would like a from everybody on. There is a trust problem that now exists, for whatever series of reasons. An example
Public of the need for validity of a broad program. The concept delineating between the number of people affected or how targets are picked, versus the program itself, i think is valuable, and it gets to a question that i would like a from everybody on. There is a trust problem that now exists, for whatever series of reasons. An example of a concern that i at least have was revealed through a usa today piece that came out last month that revealed that the dea had been conducting a Metadata Collection Program ten years before 9 11. One of the concerns and maybe this is pessimism or paranoia depending on who you ask, is that stopping a program like the telephone Metadata Collection Program that is ongoing under authority, how do we know it does not show up under another 30 . It is a sincere question that premuch everybody, because theres no reason to hold the community to such a paranoid standard, but how do we get to that point . I think this question is a real challenge because of the