security and privacy, are they mutually exclusive or can we strike a balance between the two? it is a deeply divisive subject. lets introduce our debaters. joining us tooday and representing team yes is general keith alexander, former director of the nsa. along with him former democratic congresswoman jane harman of california. and neil . >> and representing team no, those who say the nsa is not making us safer is anthony ramir ramiro. also on team no, former republican congressman mickey edwards of oklahoma. he was a ranking member of the subcommittee on foreign operations. and finally jeffrey rosen, the president and ceo of the national constitution center in philadelphia. before we dive in, we know that both the audience with us here in aspen and online have strong feelings about this topic and want to be weighing in as the conversation goes on. so we're using some innovative new voting technology powered by microsoft. my colleague richard wolffe, the xekt tiff editor of msnbc.com is here to explain to us how it's all going to work. richard? >> thanks, andrea. over the next hour as we discuss the issue of whether the nsa makes us safer, we want you to answer this simple question. we're calling it the pulse question. who is winning the debate? now we've divided the teams in two, team yes which says the nsa makes us safer and team no which argues the nsa does not. you can vote for team yes if you think they're winning or team no if you think they're winning. keep answering the pulse question over and over and, of course, you can change your mind as you go along. think of it like an applause meter. feel free to vote as often as you like. we'll check in several times. when you want to vote go to pulse.msnbc.com and with that i'll send it back to andrea. >> so let's start with the man at the center of the controversy, edward snowden. recently nbc news's brian williams interviewed snowden in moscow. brian and snowden talked about whether anyone had been harmed by his revelations. let's listen to snowden's answer. >> if after a year they can't show a single individual who has been harmed in any way by this reporting, is it really so grave? is it really so serious? and can we really trust those claims without cruscrutinizing them. i'd argue we can't. but we should be open to it. it's fair, the possible exists. if it caused serious harm, i personally would like to know g it. >> normer nsa director keith alexander has said you have done, quote, significant and irreversible damage to the nation. he said there is, quote, concrete proof that terrorist groups and others are taking action and making changes and it's going to make our job tougher, and this amounts to telling our enemy our playbook. >> so what's interesting is that we see the exact same language, the exact same accusations being leveled against whistle-blowers, being labeled against any critic of any government program. >> general alexander, last summer here in aspen you told my colleague pete williams from nbc that you wished that you could bring every american into your huddle to show them your playbook. so in answer to snowden's question, what is the playbook? what can you tell us, what can you tell americans about where is the harm that edward snowden did? >> so the issue with trying to come up with a specific example is the fact that look at what happened after 1998, and it was revealed we were collecting on bin laden with a sat com phone. after those east africa embassy bombings, the next day we never saw bin laden in communications again giving him the opportunity to plan 9/11 without any collection by nsa or others. here is what some of our allies have said. the information that nsa and others would have provided on folks like shabaz in somalia would have been key to helping understand westgate and the recent attacks against somalia. they had no intelligence to do it. now, the issue is how do you point to the lack of intelligence, what you have lost? and the answer is we do see, we have seen collection that shows they're changing the way they operate, and that is a logical thing for the terrorists to do. they learn by what they're hearing, and they're going to change the way they operate. what we're really concerned about, this is growing. i think even anthony agreed with that, the terrorist threat is real. >> i want to give you a moment to respond, but let me just ask as a follow-up, "new york times" is reporting that your successor admiral michael rogers said it really wasn't so bad. the sky isn't falling. do you want to respond to that? >> yeah, i took it a little bit different. i took what he said is it's manageable. there is change, but, look, he has to come into an agency now that is faced with all this, and he has to manage and lead them out of it. it's what our nation wants him to do. we need an nsa. we need them ready to defend this country. he has to do it, he has to manage it. i think he would also tell you there has been great risk with what's happened, what we've lost, and just look around what's happened to our country, what's happened to all of us. it has been significant. >> jeff rosen? >> i thought that "new york times" article was very interesting. not only did general alexander's successor michael rogers say you have not heard me as the director say, oh, my god, the sky is falling in contrast to the general alexander's statement saying the compromise was the greatest damage we have ever suffered, but the same "new york times" article pointed to ways that surveillance has actually compromised u.s. security. u.s. companies have been more reluctant to cooperate with foreign intelligence services. chinese hackers are better able to infiltrate our systems because of the back doors that have been inserted into them. foreign leaders are refusing contracts with u.s. companies and the u.s. government. so the new director of the nsa disagree was his predecessor and points to specific and measurable ways in which nsa surveillance has not helped america but has actually hurt us. >> mr. romero, your organization serves as an adviser to edward snowden, and you not only call him -- consider him a whistle-blower -- >> that's a patriot, yes. >> you call him a patriot. prosecutors have charged him with espionage. do you think he should be granted clemency? >> yes. and i would like to go to the point and put a point to my other team. leaving aside perhaps the harm that he has or has not done, do we like this debate that's been sparked on the nsa? general alexander, do you like this debate we're now having? >> i wish we could have done it differently. right now you mean? >> no, generally -- >> going to the dentist generally. >> i think the debate -- if we could replay history, go back 14 years, in fact, this is -- go ahead. >> let me answer that because i take it very personally. i was a member of congress on 9/11, a senior member of the house intelligence committee walking toward the dome of the capitol when my office called and said, you better come back, something dreadful has happened. before i even got back, the offices had closed, the capitol had closed. the dome of the capitol was where the intelligence committees were. they're now underground in the visitors -- so-called visitors center basically in a bunker, but that was probably it's intended target of the last plane that went down in pennsylvania. so focus your mind on that, not that you all weren't around, too, but i had a daughter in school in washington whom i couldn't reach. it was a hugely personal moment for me and thousands, millions of other people. at any rate, congress set about to make us safer. the unfortunate part of the early history of this is that the bush administration decided to enact a series of programs, not laws, without going through congress, so the early versions of these programs that you've heard about, the metadata program and so forth, complied with rules -- decisions of the justice department, and congress was not fully informed. finally we got to a place where the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which has been the law for 30 years, was amended to control what these programs are, and why this matters is had we done this a different way, there would have been a public debate about how to do it and confidence in these programs would have been much higher and in addition to that probably how they were designed would have been better. but i just would point out to one thing, anthony, which is read your papers this morning and read that the department of homeland security is trying to figure out how to find bombs that may be in these westerners with clean passports who are right now training in syria and iraq under isis and other organizations. i want to know how to find these things and we need programs that give us tools to find out what might happen. >> but i want to make sure i go back to my question. general alexander, do you think the debate that has ensued in the one year since edward snowden's revelations have been good for our country or not? i think it's a very simple yes or no question. >> actually, let me -- i'll answer this. here is why i equivocate. i think we should have the debate. i do. but it has to be on the facts, and the facts aren't there. what comes out are people's impressions of the facts, of what we're doing and what we're authorized to do. you know, nsa -- you talk about reigning in nsa. nsa is not the policy makers. nsa has done exactly what the administration, congress, and the courts have authorized. it is not nsa running amok. nsa has been asked to do this to defend our country, pure and simple. and the review group found that, and one of the members of the review group is on your board, and he said -- >> he's a great man. >> he's a great man. i was stunned and so, like you, i know that we all want to get this to the right place. so i do think now that we're in the midst of this debate, i would prefer to have done this in a way that we didn't reveal to terrorists and our adversa adversaries what we're doing, but we're now there. >> we did not reveal to the terrorists what we were doing. the only -- the people who are the terrorists knew that we were trying to gather information. they knew -- everybody knew except for the american people and angela merkel. so, you know, the problem is, you know, yes, the nsa is doing a good job of trying to keep us safe. but the oath of office i took and the oath that jane took was to protect and defend the constitution of the united states. >> absolutely. >> against all enemies foreign and domestic. and what we have is a situation where, general, if you went overseas to visit a friend in italy and then you called back to somebody in the united states, maybe a cousin, the nsa could not only have your records, but your cousin's records and everybody in your cousin's contact list records. now, that's not -- you know, yes, we ought to stop the terrorists and i certainly agree with anthony that it is important that we have an nsa committed to our safety and our security. that's not the problem. the problem is the surveillance on the american people -- >> but, general, let me just -- let's just bring in richard for a moment. >> so we want to take an instant poll right now which you can answer but just one time only. it's this question, has edward snowden harmed the national security or has he served the public interest? our choices are one or the other. let's check in on the pulse question, who is winning this debate. when you look at the overall results here, it seems pretty even lly divided. 50/50 for knnow, but if you taka look over time, the answer is the results have been changing quite dramatically. here early on team yes was up. team no has been pulling all the way through here until right here where it's evenly divided. remember, you can vote for this pulse question as many times as you want. you're watching "the great debate" on msnbc. is the nsa making us safer? woooo. i know what you're thinking. you're thinking beneful. 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[ cat meows ] ♪ ♪ da-da-da-da-da, bum-da, bum-da ♪ ♪ bum-da, bum-da ♪ the animals went in two by two ♪ ♪ the sheep and the frog and the kangaroo ♪ ♪ and they all went marching, marching in two by two ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the nissan pathfinder, with intuitive four-wheel drive. an adventure worth sharing. nissan. innovation that excites. welcome back to the great debate here on msnbc. i'm richard wolffe, executive editor of msnbc.com. we've been discussing whether the nsa is making us safe, and edward snowden's role in that debate. has edward snowden harmed the national security or served the public interest? your choices are, harmed the national security or served the public interest. a slight advantage for those saying he served the public interest. let's go back to andrea mitchell and our panel for our discussion on edward snowden and this debate. >> the question is how to have the debate and the way snowden did it, you know, i think there's real disservice -- >> what were his options? >> he could have gone to the inspector general. >> he did. >> he could have gone to his supervisors. he said he did and they've only found one e-mail. >> let's watch and see. >> i think snowden took millions of documents out and the fact he didn't take out his documents in which he supposedly whistle blew is interesting. >> edward snowden's options if he were in america would be to spend the rest of his life in jail under the espionage act with no ability -- >> he could have gone to congress before hand. there's a statute that allows him to do that. >> he went to his super vvisors. he wrote the e-mail. >> the only e-mail is complaining about the slide. >> there's one e-mail, stay tuned. let's be clear, there are a number of other -- >> have you seen other e-mail sfs. >> no, i haven't seen them. >> millions of documents out. where are these supposed e-mails -- >> stay tuned. >> the fbi and nsa looked, we have not been able to find them. >> edward snowden if he were in america charged with the espionage act with the number of documents you allege he's taken, there is no mitigating evidence -- >> he should have done it before hand, before he took the documents so there wouldn't have been a criminal case in the first place. >> how would you respond if you're working at the nsa and you're a low level employee and you watch on march 12th, 2013, during a u.s. senate select committee, senator ron widen quotes a speech from general alexander, and he says, alexander had stated that, quote, our job is foreign intelligence. those who want to weave the story that we would have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is absolutely false. from my perspective this is absolute nonsense. those are your words, general. senator widen asked your colleague, mr. clapper, does the nsa collect any type of data at all on millions of -- or hundreds of millions of americans? the question -- he responded, no, sir. widen asked, it does not? and clapper said not willingly. there are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect but not willingly. if you were edward snowden working for then sa watching your boss perjure himself in front of congress, lie to the american public about the extent -- >> one thing i wouldn't do is empower every individual -- >> let me ask a question of jane harman. at any time when you were on the intel committee and the fisa law was in dispute, did you ever get briefed on something that troubled you? did you take an objection and did anything ever happen? >> well, i was briefed on the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. i think everybody understands what those are. >> torture. >> when i first -- well, not all of them. some of them, yes, i think so. certainly waterboarding and i said so publicly, but when i was briefed highly secret format by the -- then general counsel of the cia, i wrote a letter to the then general counsel of the cia and i said i have serious concerns and i want to know what policy guidance was given. remember, as keith just said, these agencies don't make policy. they do intelligence through human or technical means guided by policy. so i asked that question. i also said you told me that there are videotapes of some of these techniques. please do not destroy them. >> and what happened to those videotapes? >> they were destroyed and i got a kind of kiss off answer, but i did complain, and why -- >> but my point is your letter was classified. so there was no public debate or exposure of enhanced interrogation. >> at the time, you know -- we do have to continue to have -- i would defend this -- some classified programs. we have to protect the people and the technologies that we use to keep us safe. to mickey's point about congress, ron widen and mark udall, two senators on the senate intelligence committee, made a big record of objection to some of these programs, and edward snowden probably could have figured this out, most people could have, and co-have gone to see them, and he did not do that. on jim clapper's answer, i think it was a very unfortunate answer in public. >> it's a lie. >> and he -- >> it's not unfortunate. it was a complete misstatement of the facts, jane. >> he should have said i cannot answer that question. i will answer it in closed session. >> we're going to go to richard -- >> i want to talk about the role of congress. that is, jane, you were on the intelligence committee and did a very good job on the intelligence committee and i agree that have to be things that are kept classified, but in terms of going to congress, when the executive branch decides to give -- share its information with the intelligence committee, it can share it with a very few members who are on the committee who cannot share it with their staff or with other members. >> that's true. >> which means, in fact, congress has no ability to conduct its own independent review and to find out whether or not what you've been told is true. meanwhile, there's like eight or ten or whatever of you who get this information and can't tell anybody while there are tens of thousands of people in the executive branch who have this -- >> we need a public debate. i'm for it. we should but dianne feinstein -- >> that is why we're having the debate, but richard, how are the teams doing? >> thanks, andrea. so our instant poll question was this, has edward snowden harmed the national security or served the public interest? you can see it's pretty evenly bamed but mostly leaning toward serving the public interest. when we pel up the gender breakdown, you will see that actually men are leaning towards saying serving the public interest. women are leaning towards harming national security. so women are really going against the grain there for edward snowden. when it comes to the party breakdown though, republicans are saying serving the public interest, democrats are saying harming the national security, but independents, the big nnl here, coming out very heavily against serving the public interest. keep voting on the pulse question. who is winning the debate? it continues right here on msnbc. [ male announcer ] this is the age of knowing what you're made of. why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. this is the age of taking action. viagra. talk to your doctor. in the nation, the safest feature in your car is you. add vanishing deductible from nationwide insurance and get $100 off for every year of safe driving. which for you, shouldn't be a problem. just another way we put members first, because we don't have shareholders. join the nation. nationwide is on your side. and thank you so much for being with us for this msnbc great debate. we're at the aspen ideas festival discussing whether the nsa is making us safer. for this portion of the debate we're looking at the balance between security and privacy. president obama has said you can't have 100% security and also then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. to follow up on that quote from the president, let's go to ri richard wolffe. >> what's more important, the government's ability to protect us from terrorism or your right to privacy? remember, you can vote there at pulse.msnbc.com. andrea? >> thanks so much. we have our two teams now ready to consider that issue. so general alexander? >> what concerns me is you rest the case on a march 2013 and by his own account he had already met with reporters in january, and he had already stolen a number of documents. if it was to reveal the fact that we have a business record fisa issue, that's one document, one court order, that's all he needed. why did he steal all the british documents, all the australian documents, all the other country documents, a million-plus of those and go to russia? he didn't need those. >> via china. >> to illuminate one program he has all these others. i'd like to -- >> let's bring him back on video. >> i would like to answer the question. >> let me just play a little bit more of what edward snowden had to say to brian williams. >> the nsa, the russian intelligence service, the chinese intelligence service, any intelligence service in the world that has significant funding and a real technological research team can own that phone the minute it connects to their network. as soon as you turn it on, it can be theirs. they can turn it into a microphone. they can take pictures from it. they can take the data off of it. but it's important to understand that these things are typically done on a targeted basis, right? it's only done when people go, this phone is suspicious. i think it's being held by a drug dealer. i think it's being used by a terrorist. >> can anyone turn it on remotely if it's off? can they turn on apps? did anybody know or care that i googled the final score of the rangers/canadiens game last night because i was traveling here? >> i would say yes to all of those. they can absolutely turn them on with the power turned off to the device. that's pretty scary, but the thing about the rangers game is also scary. you might say does anybody really care that i'm looking up the score for the rangers game? well, a government or a hacker or some other nefarious individual would say, yes, they're very interested about that. it tells a lot about you. it tells you probably speak english. it says you're probably an american. you're interested in this sport. they might know what your habits are. where were you in the world when you checked this score? did you check it when you travel? do you check it when you're just at home? they could tell something called your pattern of life. when are you doing these kind of activities? when do you wake up? when do you go to sleep? what other phones are around you when you wake up and go to sleep? are you with someone who is not your wife? are you doing something -- are you some place you shouldn't be according to the government, which is arbitrary. are you engaged in any kind of activities that we disprove of even if they weren't technically illegal? and all of these things can raise your level of scrutiny, even if it seems entirely innocent to you. even if you have nothing to hide. even if you're doing nothing wrong. these activities can be misconstrued, misinterpreted and used to harm you as an individual even without the government having any intent to do you wrong. the problem is that the capabilities themselves are unregulated, uncontrolled, and dangerous. >> and jeffrey rosen, i know you had a thought but i want to give keith alexander or jane harman, someone from your team a chance to respond because you have been jumping out of your seat. >> edward snowden does not know what he's talking about. half of this is conjuring up a craziness, and this is not how the programs work. there needs to be a foreign intelligence predicate, a bad guy overseas that we have reason to suspect is conspiring with other people, and then a very limited program goes into effect. >> that's not true. >> the database was queried 400 times last year, 400. not millions. 300 times the year before. every time that happens if an american is involved, there has to be individualized permission which is required by our fourth amendment. >> jeffrey rosen? >> so we have a definitive white house report on this question. there's no need for speculation. the white house had a review panel and it reviewed every time this authority called 215 authority, not the 702 foreign authority that the congresswoman is talking about. >> the metadata program. >> they found no examples, not a single example in which a terrorist attack was stopped because of the program. here is the quotation from the program. the program was not essential in preventing attacks. furthermore judge richard leon who reviewed the kati constitutionality said government officials were unable to cite a single instance in which analysis of metadata stopped an imminent attack. so our position is simple. does then sa make us saever? the government's own report found that it has not and, therefore, to the degree there's a balance between privacy and security, there is no need to compromise privacy because we have not increased security. >> let me read you back what one of the review group members said and a board member of the aclu. to say i was skeptical of nsa in truth is an understatement -- >> whom are you quoting? >> jeffrey stone. to say that i was skeptical of the nsa is in truth an understatement. i came away from my work on the review work with a view i found quite surprising. not only did i find that the nsa had helped to thwart numerous terrorist plots against the united states and its allies in the years since 9/11, but i also found that it is an organization that operates with a high degree of integrity and a deep commitment to the rule of law. >> you're reading mr. stone's questions out of context because he went on to say part of the program that impressed him was the 702 program. he said the difference between that and 215 was night and day and that is why he specifically recommended there was nothing like that in -- >> 215 that you'reai arguing against, not nsa. >> the metadata collection of all americans -- >> american's data, not that of foreigners, but the collection of american's metadata under 215 -- >> so you agree that 702 makes us safer. >> 702 is a separate question. >> i wouldn't agree. >> 702 involves the foreign -- >> general, will you concede section 215 according to the government's own studies and judge richard leon has not stopped a single terrorist attack. >> i will not. >> can you name a single terrorist -- >> there's a case that's been revealed. you can say because it was going after a guy that the fbi had looked at, he was a guy who we had seen data coming from somalia into san diego, a case that had been closed by fbi. we saw that again, and it was money transfers. so you're right, was it a terrorist plot? >> let me stop you on that one point because you originally said in june that you disrupted 54 terrorist plots and october you revised that number downward to 13 and then to one or two and the only one you now krait is the somali militant group. >> that's what you're doing. you're taking it and taking it out of context. 54 terrorist plots worldwide. only 13 applied to the united states. and only those that applied to the united states could business record 215 apply to. of that it helped in 12. 4 of them it gave no data. so you would say take those off. in 8 it did. i gave you two examples. another one was the -- there's two. >> this is a collection of data, lists of numbers. >> but do you think we have a privacy right on the metadata? >> i think security and liberty are not a zero sum game. i think you have to have both and that's what we tried to do, congress, when it reformed the intelligence agencies ten years ago, set up a privacy and civil liberties review board which has been finally activated by this president. neither bush nor obama set it up early enough and it should have done more. i think we need both. let me just say about 215 again, i support the congressional amendments, and i would go farther. i think there ought to be transparency in particular and it's fine with me if this database is not held by the government but is held by the telephone companies. it's only been queried a few hundred times a year and to do that you need individualized approval by the courts. there is no evidence that it's ever been abused, that any of your phone conversations have been listened to. >> has the fisa judge ever turned anything down? >> yes. the fisa court, and i think the fisa decisions again ought to be made public subject to not revealing sources and methods but they have forced changes in this program over many years. >> but they have only forced the changes after the revelations that the program in its unconstrained form had stopped no terrorist attacks. >> you were saying they collected all the information, all the e-mails, all the phone calls, there's been 12 documented instances of abuse. an infinitesimally small number. most of them were spying on their girlfriend. they were referred for criminal prosecution. >> none of them dealt with this program. that's the problem. >> do we have a privacy -- metadata is your phone number, the phone number you call to, how long it lasts for, the back and forth. do we have a privacy right or not? >> let's see what our audience thinks. >> we've been asking you all the way through what you think of who is winning, but we also ask what's more important, the government's ability to protect us from terrorism or your right to privacy. it looks like it's been evenly balanced, but when i pull up the party breakdown, what you see is something really fascinating. democrats siding with the government in terms of protecting us from terrorism. independents saying the right to privacy is much more important. remember to keep voting on the pulse question. you're watching "the great debate" right here on msnbc. ♪ the little things that you do for me ♪ [ male announcer ] the little things we do... can make a big difference. every time you use dawn, you're using a brand that supports wildlife rescue efforts. experts trust dawn... because it's tough on grease yet gentle. ♪ you by my side makes the little things so good ♪ ♪ be a part of the bigger picture. ♪ and your kindness makes ♪ the little things that you do for me ♪ go to facebook.com dawnsaveswildlife. that would be my daughter -- hi dad. she's a dietitian. and back when i wasn't eating right, she got me drinking boost. it's got a great taste, and it helps give me the nutrition i was missing. helping me stay more like me. 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[ female announcer ] stay strong, stay active with boost. now what if i told youok a hotel you can save up to 60%,me first. but you couldn't know the name until after you book? did i say never? i didn't mean it. ♪ would you consider a 4-star hotel that's up to 60% off, you just can't know the name? just no name? until you book. um... yeah, i'd do that! ♪ sfx: car unlock beep. vo: david's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today his doctor has him on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. this is the msnbc great debate. our panel is debating this issue. does the nsa make us safer? some questions from our audience here in aspen. >> my question is about metadata. one of the things that's so interesting to me about this debate is the idea that in the popular consciousness that there's a distinction between metadata which is the idea of who you call versus the content of that call so maybe there's a distinction between, i don't know, whether you call an abortion clinic and what you say to that abortion clinic, right? do we really think there's a distinction? does that really matter? >> do you want to take that? >> i think we are entitled to the right to privacy in our metadata. i think the idea that metadata is devoid of personal information is not true in the reality. you look at -- for instance, a hypothetical situation. i get a phone call from the gay men's health crisis. i'm gay in case you don't know. you can check the cufflinks. you will know i'm gay. i get a phone call at 11:00 a.m. from the gay men's health crisis that lasts for three minutes. i call my physician, lasts for one minute. i call my sister in florida, it lasts an hour. i call my boyfriend, it lasts five minutes. what has been the content of my communications just by piecing together the length and the subject to and from of those phone calls? you know the subject matter would have to be an hiv infection issue. and so the idea that we don't have a privacy interest in our metadata i find totally untrue. >> we do. >> but that's not the statement of our government. and the second question on unreasonable searches and seizures, neil. seizures. are you saying that unless we query the database we don't affect the fourth amendment? the fact that you have taken, seized our data is not just the search of the data. it's the seizure of that data. are you saying the fourth amendment does not adhere when the government -- >> don't amazon and facebook and others have -- >> -- fourth amendment adheres to government action, and when the government seizes my personal information on metadata i believe the fourth amendment, it does -- >> so i agree with anthony in part. the question is not do we have a privacy right in metadata. it's what the government does with it and whether that triggers certain rights. so if the government is using it to get your gay health men's crisis call or the texas rangers score or something like that, i could see that being a privacy violation, but what you have here is bulk collection with very stringent safeguards on when they're used. as miss harman said, only 300 to 400 times per year, 12 documented instances of abuse in over a decade. and so i think this stuff about the rangers -- >> only 300 to 400 -- >> compare that to the private sector. >> let's go back to the fact pattern that keith alexander was talking about. let's imagine right now, unless you have been in a cave for the last few months, you know what isis is and you know about al qaeda, other terror groups that are now opportunistically coming together, and you know there's a bombmaker at large in yemen who did the underwear bomb, who did the cartridge bomb, many of these plots unraveled by us, thank goodness, but if they had gone off, major ka tas fro if i. i want to find somebody with a clean passport who is learning all the bombmaking skills and wants to three back here, either blow up his plane or blow us up, and i want to find that person pursuant to a carefully drafted law or series of laws that is reviewed -- debated and reviewed by congress and by the federal courts. that's the system i think we need, and i do think that system protects privacy. just a final comment on this whole metadata thing to bring in the private sector. there's a lot more known about all of us, i agree it's not the government, by the private sector than the government knows and the private sector uses the data anyway they want and they don't get permission from a court or there's no oversight about how they use it. >> we're going to take a quick break right here. you're watching "the great debate" on msnbc. with ink plus from chase. like 50,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards, even cash back. and my rewards points won't expire. so you can make owning a business even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can. cshe is the greatest thing ever. one little smile. one little laugh. honey bunny... 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[ chainsaw buzzing ] humans. sometimes, life trips us up. sometimes, we trip ourselves up. and although the mistakes may seem to just keep coming at you, so do the solutions. like multi-policy discounts from liberty mutual insurance. save up to 10% just for combining your auto and home insurance. call liberty mutual insurance at... to speak with an insurance expert and ask about all the personalized savings available for when you get married, move into a new house, or add a car to your policy. personalized coverage and savings -- all the things humans need to make our world a little less imperfect. call... and ask about all the ways you could save. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? we're here today at the as spen ideas festival and our topic today has been does the nsa make us safer? we're asking our audience both here in aspen and all of you watching us online to tell us what you think. neal, you served as an acting solicitor general and have argued before the supreme court so many times. how can you balance the need for effective oversight with the redar redactions and classification requirements on congressional members. we saw what happened to mark udall and mark wyman when they tried to spark a debate to criticism to their colleagues. >> i'm such a fan of the way the founders created our government with the three branches of government that do check and balance each other. i think congressman edwards has been great to try to bring attention to more congressional oversight post 9/11. unfortunately the bush administration really cut congress out of the loop and we're living with the aftermath. so the obama administration both in 2009 and 2011 when this 215 program was authorized wrote them a letter and said, please read -- everyone in congress can read the details of this program. it is not simply we're not going to hide behind obfuscation. read and understand it before you authorize it. i think that's the way it should go. yes, there will be sometimes need for internal debate in congress that the public can't see or might even be limited to the intelligence community. we are dealing with china, russia, very sophisticated intelligence operations, as well as al qaeda. there is certain stuff the american public won't be able to see. but i think that debate post-snowden, for better -- is better because we've had -- we've been able to have i think a more robust debate. it just happened the wrong way and it could have happened the right way. >> let me ask another foreign policy question that does not relate directly to terrorism, which is that, the snowden disclosures came within days of the first summit meeting in california between president xi of china and president obama. president obama had been planning to raise a major issue of sign her attacks from china. his whole talking point was completely destroyed by the snowden revelations. then came angela merkel and there is still, i am told, considerable resentment, a lack of trust. brazil with the brazilian president canceling a state visit. so hasn't that also been damage from the snowden revelations? >> it wasn't snowden who damaged it. it was the investigations by the nsa that damaged it. and it became public. i think, andrea, we've narrowed this a little so that the other side is able to keep going back to specific pieces of, say, section 215 or whatever. so i'd ask general alexander about ex-keys score which is part of your search engine where all you need acourting to the civil liberties board is for a search. fill out a very broad justification on screen or dni presenter, which we haven't talked about yet at all, which allows analysts to actually read the contents of stored e-mails, facebooks, chats, private messages. so if we just stay on 215 or whatever, no. it's a lot more than that. you have all these other tools that are being used and that are not part of the debate because the people don't know about them. so it's much broader. >> that's a great case in point. so in tnajibullah najibullah za. you have to have key scores in to bring that e-mail in and read it. you have to have a way of collecting it. the amount of data that will be collected this year, 3.5 zeta bytes. you have to focus on key parameters. the way you focus -- the reason i keep coming back to metadata is you use metadata to focus content that then focuses where you do your investigation that leads you to the terrorists. if you start with i want to cover everybody's content, you will never get any place. so you have to have a reasoned approach. and what the judges said, that's the best way to ensure our civil liberties and privacy. they're going to start here, and they're not going to go after anthony ramiro because he has nothing to do with terrorism. they're not going to go after that and anybody who suggests that is wrong. >> now let's turn back to richard for one last time to look at our audience reactions. >> thanks, andrea. it is an intense debate. right now team no is edging out team yes, 54-46. but it hasn't always been that way. if you take a look at the graph leer, there was an early spike when general alexander was talking. the lead went back and forth over time. just want to point out the party breakdown though which is the most interesting thing. to me at least. democrats citie -- siding specifically with team yes. republicans team no. tens of thousands for team no. it's been a great debate. thanks very much for voting. >> thank you, richard. thank you so much to our panelists for this very spirited debate. and thank you to our audience online and at home and those of you here at aspen for participating in the aspen ideas festival. thanks and have a great day. crestor is not right for everyone, like people with liver disease or women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. tell your doctor about other medicines you're taking. call your doctor right away if you have muscle pain or weakness, feel unusually tired; have loss of appetite, upper belly pain, dark urine or yellowing of skin or eyes. these could be signs of rare but serious side effects. are you down with crestor!? 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