is a terrorist event. that being said, terrorist events and terrorists don t always take credit. the best example, pan am 103 over lockerbie. in that case, those who perpetrated the crime were trying to hide their involvement. they never did take credit. we do have instances of terrorist attacks where terrorists never admit they were involved. of course, that was a state actor. i should note this. the one detail that gets people is mr. ali who bought the flights, bought the tickets who s an iranian. this was from the reporting we know a fairly trusted intermediary in that area. it s not like a completely random thing this guy showed up. it s possible he was just essentially a intermediary travel booker in that area. i think that s how it appears right now. i don t want to cast too much, you know, guilt on mr. ali. of course. there s plenty of guilt to cast at the iranians but we shouldn t necessarily cast that in this case with mr. ali. i think the fact that as he said who was
get a number like that. this is something that someone who has some experience investigating this kind of thing says, wait a second, what s going on here? absolutely. i think for the counterterrorism community and the intelligence community, as soon as you have a plane that disappears from radar, that s already unusual. people take some notice. but the intelligence community and the counterterrorism folks, once they heard about the stolen passports, that definitely got their attention in a different way. now, as of now, there has been no claims of credit or i guess credible claims of credit that we ve seen so far. it does seem to me in other instances in which there was some kind of terrorist action, often it s motivated as much by a kind of pr victory and trumpeting of it as by the actual crime. what does that say to you that no one is rushing to claim credit? well, i think the longer time goes on that no one claims credit, the less likely that it is a terrorist isist event. tha
based think tank wants to know why the bulk of the phone records did not thwart major terrorist events. that s consistent with the panel findings. out of 225 cases, groups found, quote, no discernible impact. a former hills staffer with experience explains the reform dilemma. i think the congress is bitterly divided right now. the power brokers in the house and the senate have different takes on whether the phone records program has been successful or not. generally i think that s a recipe for inaction over the long term but there are two wild cards. and one of those wild cards, according to allen, is edward snowden and whether he will continue to leak more documents. line share of which have not dealt with the privacy rights of american citizens but rather, sources and methods and u.s. alliances overseas. this hearing really sets the table for mr. obama who will address the n.s.a. controversy on friday in that long awaited public address and the expectation is that there will
executive action toss tamp down the nsa controversy. i think he foresees legislative activity will be tough and he has to act to arrest the problem. he wants to move on to other issues. one of the wild cards is the nsa leaker edward snowden, whether ehe will continue to lek documents. documents have not dealt with pr privacy rights but sources and methods and u.s. alliances overseas. what are we learning about the new report on the effectiveness of nsa programs. do they help us to nab terrorists? well, there s a new study by the new america foundation. they are a washington-based group. what they find is one of the most controversial nsa programs, bulk collection of america s phone records based on their research did not in a concrete way thwart major terrorist events. they cited 220 cases. critics have come toward since
program, its impact on terrorism, also joining us cliff may the president of the foundation of the defense for democracies. you thing this whole metadata thing, as far as terrorism is concerned, a waste? very marginal. the government can only point to one case. somebody sent $8500 to somalia to an al qaeda affiliate. not to be encouraged but even in that case the government waited two months to investigate this case. the idea that this is kind of critical to stopping terrorism is overblown. yeah, i m for letting our national intelligence community have the tools they need in their toolbox. and this may be one of them. u.s. government officials say that 54 different terrorist events have been prevented in 20 different countries thanks to the use of metadata. do you buy that? we need to be kind of careful here. there s the telephone metadata, then there s overseas e-mail surveillance. what is controversial in this country in particular is in five