Skip to main content

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

Click "More / Share / Borrow" for each clip's source context and citation link. HTML5 compatible browser required

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

Speakers

John Boehner
U.S. Representative (R-Ohio), Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
CSPAN 01/15/2015
Boehner: With regard to the threat to the capitol, coming frankly not far from where I live, the first thing that strikes me is that we would have never known about this had it not been for the FISA program and our ability to collect information on people who pose an imminent threat. I'm going to say this one more time because you’re gonna hear about it for months and months to come as we attempt to reauthorize the FISA program. Our government does not spy on Americans unless they’re Americans who are doing things that frankly tip off our law enforcement officials to an imminent threat. It was our law enforcement officials and those programs that helped us stop this person before he committed a heinous crime in our nation's capital.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
John Boehner
U.S. Representative (R-Ohio), Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
CSPAN 01/15/2015
Russert: Do you know something we do not, because apparently he was on social media talking about this? Is there more to this that we don’t know? Boehner: We will let us story roll out there, but it is far more than just that.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
Tulsi Gabbard
U.S. Representative (D-Hawaii), Armed Services Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee; Iraq War Veteran
CNNW 01/16/2015
Gabbard: It's so important for us as we look at this threat to make sure that we focus our resources on those who are posing a threat to the American people. We’ve been hearing from some folks recently and I think we may hear a lot more from people who will advocate for greater surveillance greater NSA programs than we have seen already expanding those, which is not the right move a, because they haven't been proven to be effective, that spying on and collecting phone call information on every single American is effective in capturing terrorists but it also weakens our ability to focus our resources on those who pose a direct threat think this has been a problem that we have seen in the Boston bomber attack for example, that we have seen in Paris, where people fall through the cracks because our resources are not focused on those who are planning these attacks and who do pose that direct threat.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
Barack Obama
President
CSPAN 01/16/2015
Obama: With respect to the issue of intelligence gathering, signal intelligence, encryptions this is a challenge that we have been working on since I have been President. Obviously it was amplified when Mr. Snowden did what he did. It has gone off the pages -- the front pages of the news, but we haven't stopped working on it. We have been in dialogue with companies and have systematically worked through ways in which we can meet legitimate privacy concerns, but also meet the very real concerns that David Wright identified and my FBI Director Jim Comey identified.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
Barack Obama
President
CSPAN 01/16/2015
Obama: Social media and the internet is the primary way in which these terrorist organizations are communicating. Now that’s no different than anybody else, but they are good at it. When we have the ability to track that in a way that is legal and forms with due process, rule of law, and presents oversight then that‘s a capability that we have to preserve.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
Barack Obama
President
CSPAN 01/16/2015
Obama: The biggest damage that was done as a consequence of the Snowden disclosures was I think was in some cases a complete undermining of trust. Some would say that was justified. I would argue that although there are some legitimate concerns there, overall the United States government and from what I have seen, the British government, have operated in a scrupulous and lawful way to try to balance the security and privacy concerns. We can do better. That is what we are doing.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
Barack Obama
President
CSPAN 01/16/2015
Obama: But we’re still going to have to find ways to make sure that if an al Qaeda affiliate is operating in Great Britain or the United States that we can try to prevent real tragedy. And I think the companies want to see that as well. They are patriots. They have families they want to see protected. We just have to work through in many cases, what are technical issues. So it’s not so much that there’s a difference in intent. But how to square the circle on these issues is difficult. We are working with partners like Great Britain and the United Kingdom but we are also going to be in dialogue with companies to try to make that work.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
David Cameron
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party
CSPAN 01/16/2015
Cameron: It has been possible in both our companies -- countries by signed warrant, by the home secretary to potentially listen to a call between two terrorists to stuff them in activity. in your country, a judicial process, where -- we believe in very clear front doors through legal processes that should help to keep our country safe. As technology develops as the world moves on we should try to avoid the safe havens that could be created for terrorists to talk to each other. That is the goal that is so important. I am in no doubt having been prime minister for foreign half years, having seen how are our intelligence services work, and there is a connection between that and the capabilities that our intelligence services within the law used to defend our people.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
Barack Obama
President
CSPAN 01/16/2015
Obama: There are going to be situations where there are hard cases but for the most part, those who are worried about big brother sometimes obscure or deliberately ignore all the legal safeguards that have been put in place to assure people's privacy and to make sure that government is not abusing these powers and on the other hand there are times when law enforcement and those of us whose job it is to protect the public are not thinking about those problems because we are trying to track and prevent the particular terrorist event from happening. And it is useful to have civil libertarians and others having us on the shoulder in the midst of this process undermining us that there are values at stake as well (and I think that David and I welcome that kind of debate.)
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
Barack Obama
President
CSPAN 01/16/2015
Obama: The technologies are evolving in ways that potentially make this trickier. If we get into a situation which the technologies do not allow us at all to track somebody that we’re confident is a terrorist, if we find evidence of a terrorist plot somewhere in the middle east that traces directly back to London or New York, we have specific information, we are confident that this individual or this network is about to activate a plot, and despite knowing that information, despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or an e-mail address, that we cannot penetrate that, that’s a problem.
More / Share / Borrow
Add to Popcorn
Showing 1581 through 1590 of 1708