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Curated research library of TV news clips regarding the NSA, its oversight and privacy issues, 2009-2014

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Primary curation & research: Robin Chin, Internet Archive TV News Researcher; using Internet Archive TV News service.

Speakers

Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
MSNBCW 08/06/2014
Kornacki: Colorado Senator Mark Udall, another democrat on the intelligence committee, vowed today to hold president Obama to his promise to declassify the report. Quote, “The CIA should not face its past with a redaction pen, and the white house must not allow it to do so.” The White House, for its part, defended the redactions this week, from that democratic criticism. Josh Earnest: There was a good faith effort that was made by the administration and by national security officials to evaluate this information and make redactions that are consistent with the need to protect national security, but also consistent with the president's clearly stated desire to be as transparent as possible about this. Kornacki: The President has said that we tortured some folks. He's also said that part of our national reckoning with that history is to make that history as transparent as possible in the hopes that putting it out on the public record will help ensure that it never happens again.
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James Clapper
Director of National Intelligence
MSNBCW 08/06/2014
Kornacki: Talk about what is potentially being left out of this report, as it's currently been redacted by the CIA. Because you have James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, who said even with these redactions, he estimated that 85% of that report that your committee put together still is in place, and he says it would still offer, quote, “a full view of the committee's report on the detention and interrogation program.” that the heart of that report is not lost in this. What do you say to that?
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Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
MSNBCW 08/06/2014
Udall: Steve, thanks for covering this story. Let me start with that. And also, let me just say, those of us on the intelligence committee want to have the strongest intelligence functions possible. we want to secure the American people. But we want to do it under the constitution, and under our laws. And that's why this report is so important to be released, so the American people can draw their own conclusions.
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Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
MSNBCW 08/06/2014
Udall: With all due respect to Director Clapper, 85% doesn't get the job do done. You can imagine reading a novel or a non-fiction piece for that matter, and if all the nouns, the what, where, when descriptions are taken out of that novel and all you have left are verbs and articles and punctuation, you're not going to be able to follow what's happening. That's really what the white house and the intelligence committee is proposing with these redactions. We're going to stand our ground on the intelligence committee. There has to be more details released. We don't have to go this far with this kind of redaction. And in the end, the point is to learn from what we did. We detained people, we tortured people. It's a stain on our history, but we're at our best as Americans when we learn from those mistakes and vow never to make them again.
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Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
MSNBCW 08/06/2014
Kornacki: Senator, in your opinion, is the CIA, and the administration, for that matter, trying to protect itself, trying to protect the CIA with these redactions? Is that the motive here? Udall: I can only conclude that to be the case, Steve. I was taken aback by the President's comments the other day, but there's clearly an effort on the part of past and present CIA leadership to make it more difficult to understand what happened. We know what happened. We can be a bigger and better country once we acknowledge what happened. And it's in times of challenge and difficulty where we need to stand most by our values and by our constitution. My friend, Senator McCain, made that point this week. And that's why I'm not going to relent. I know Senator Feinstein is firm in her belief that there needs to be as much declassified as possible. We're America. We can embrace what happened and be the better for it.
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Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
MSNBCW 08/06/2014
Kornacki: Does president Obama want this report to come out? He's committed to it. You said you want to hold him to it. Do you think he really want this report to come out? Udall: I do. As you know, I called for Director Brennan to step down recently. And I don't relish making that call, but I think we need a leadership change at the CIA. The Director spied, under his leadership, the CIA spied on committee. Then he denied that they had done So. and then he called into account or into question our voracity on the committee. And to me, it just signals that there is a movement to prevent this report from being released in the fullest way possible. I trust us as a country to learn from what we did, and to be better for it. And for the life of me, I can't understand why it would say it wouldn't work with us. And frankly, respect, separation of powers, and our oversight role on the intelligence committee.
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Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
MSNBCW 08/06/2014
Kornacki: and quickly, Senator, are you confident this will ultimately come out in a way that is meaningful? And when do you think that will happen? Udall: Yeah, I am confident. I can't give you a date certain, but I want to underline, that Senator Feinstein is resolute, I'm resolute, Chairman Levin is resolute. Many members of the Democratic caucus are resolute. We all understand the stakes if we were to let this report be redacted to the point that it's meaningless.
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Edward Snowden
Whistleblower
ALJAZAM 08/13/2014
Beban: For Edward Snowden, discovering that a top secret project called MonsterMind was in the works was the last straw. Once he learned about it, Snowden says in the new issue of “Wired” he decided it was time to go public and tell the world what he knew about the national security agency's surveillance programs. He says monster mind is designed to be an automatic program of tremendous power. Housed at the NSA's massive data center in the Utah desert. It would essentially be the ultimate cyber-cop, constantly on the look out for the beginnings of a foreign cyber-attack on United States computers capable of deciding on its own when and how to strike back. But attacks are often routed through computers in innocent countries. That's a problem, Snowden says. Security analysts agree.
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Paul Beban
Correspondent, Al Jazeera America
ALJAZAM 08/13/2014
Walsh: The costs and risk come in all sorts of forms. it may be that we respond and attack the wrong person or we respond and attack the wrong country and that causes an international event. Beban: Then there are the constitutional concerns. For MonsterMind to spot malicious attacks it would have to constantly analyze all the traffic on the internet. Snowden tells wired that means violating the fourth amendment seizing private communications without a warrant without probable cause or even a suspicion of wrongdoing for everyone all the time.
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Edward Snowden
Whistleblower
ALJAZAM 08/13/2014
Beban: Finally, there's the simple question of whether it's a good idea to leave the decision to wage a form of war up to a machine. Walsh: I'm sure that we're going to get arguments here and probably good arguments from the intelligence community that says all this happens at lightning speeds and that unless you're able to retaliate instantly, your opportunity may pass. And that may be true. But then that has to be weighed against the public policy costs and benefits and again we see no discussion of that. Beban: The NSA wouldn't comment on the article. A spokesperson for the NSA did say that Snowden should talk to the Department of Justice, about the charges against him. Now Snowden actually told “Wired” that he is willing to “volunteer for prison. That he cares more about the country than what happens to him.” And he also said, John, that more revelations about the NSA are coming.
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