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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

Zoe Lofgren
Representative (D-CA) member, House Judiciary Committee
CSPAN 08/13/2015
Lofgren: I believe this bill makes meaningful reform to a few of the surveillance programs but it in no way stops all of the bulk collection of U.S. person communications currently occurring. This bill won't stop the most egregious and widely reported privacy violations that occur under section 702 and executive order 12333. In a declassified decision, the FISA court said NSA had been collecting substantially more U.S. person communications through it’s upstream collection program than it originally told the court. With upstream collection, the N.S.A. directly taps into international internet cables to search through all of the communications that flow through it looking for communications that map certain criteria. Four years ago, the court found that the government is collecting tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications a year. Why? Because all your data is everywhere.
Zoe Lofgren
Representative (D-CA) member, House Judiciary Committee
CSPAN 08/13/2015
Lofgren: No accurate estimate can be given for the even larger number of communications collected where a U.S. person was a party to the communication. The Director of National Intelligence confirmed the government searches this vast amount of data including the content of email and telephone calls without individualized suspicion, probable cause and without a warrant. The Director of the F.B.I. says they use information to build criminal cases against U.S. persons. This is an end run around the fourth amendment and it has to stop. Now, this bill did not create those problems. However, this bill doesn't correct those problems. Chairman Goodlatte stated during the markup of the bill that these issues would be next, but we can't afford to wait until the final hour of expiration to take action like we did with this bill. To do so would mean at least another two years of mass surveillance of Americans, which is unconscionable.
Judy Woodruff
Co-Anchor and Managing Editor of the PBS NewsHour
KQED 08/28/2015
Woodruff: A U.S. government program that collects the telephone data of millions of Americans can continue for the next few months. That was the ruling of a panel of federal appeals court judges today that favor the Obama administration's position on the N.S.A. Surveillance program. The program expires in November and congress has passed legislation to replace it with a new program.
Devin Bartlett
Wall St. Journal, Staff Reporter
KQED 08/28/2015
Devlin: The lower court judge found that the program was almost certainly unconstitutional, and the government appealed that decision. What this panel said today was they reversed that lower court finding in the sense that they said, look, we're going to overturn what's called the preliminary injunction, we're not going to let that stand, and we're going to toss the case back to thrower court judge. So, now, that judge has to make some more findings of fact. But what the judges did beside just sending it back to the judge, they said they have a lot of skepticism about whether the person who is suing can prove his phone records were taken as part of this program.
Devin Bartlett
Wall St. Journal, Staff Reporter
KQED 08/28/2015
Devlin: That collection in its current form is only going to continue until the end of November under a law that was passed the summer. Woodruff: anyway? Devlin: Right. To a certain extent, you're seeing the lawyers and judges on each side of this issue in some sense, getting their last licks in on this issue before a lot of it becomes moot anyway. But until then, there are still going to be fights in both in New York and courts in D.C. about whether any of this was ever legal. Certainly the privacy groups would love to get more rulings that say, no, it wasn't. Mean time, just this week, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court said, yes, this will continue and will continue till the end of November and is not a violation.
Pete Williams
Wall St. Journal, Staff Reporter
MSNBCW 08/28/2015
Williams: 2013, the end of the year, a federal judge said that the program is unconstitutional. this is the bulk data collection the NSA is collecting on all phone calls, the meta data number called and so forth. He put a hold on his ruling and that, the government appealed to the federal court of appeals. And today the court of appeals said we are going to lift that stay, we're going to send the case back to the trial judge to try again. Two of the judges said that the people who sued here don't have any legal right to sue because they can't prove that the NSA was taking their numbers, they are Verizon wireless customers and the only thing the government have admitted to is that Verizon business was collecting the numbers. So the two of the judges say, you know, what -- they got to go back to the judge and see even whether these people have the right to be in court or not. A different two of the three judges said the case should probably be thrown out anyway.
Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator (I- Vermont)
CSPAN2 09/23/2015
Sanders: In Vermont and New Hampshire on issues of civil liberties and privacy rights I think we feel very very strongly about, perhaps stronger than many parts of the country. I have honestly heard people say to me in terms of the NSA and so forth, they say well, the NSA is tapping my phone, they’re listening to what I say and I don't really care, I'm not a terrorist, what do I care. I think that’s a pretty sad statement. I think that privacy rights, the right to know you can lead your life, you can read whatever you want to read, that's your business and it's not the government's business. And by the way, it's not just the government, it’s not corporate business as well. They have more information -- [applause] >> I want you to know a couple of things. It is clear to everybody or should be that technology has far outpaced public policy.
Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator (I- Vermont)
CSPAN2 09/23/2015
Sanders: Alright. You know that this little thing-a-ma-jig here, this little cell phone enables somebody to know exactly where I am at this moment. Right? That's a fact. And between the government intercepting your phone calls and logging them and between corporate America knowing everything you buy or maybe getting into your medical records and into your banking records, I think we have seen a huge invasion of civil liberties and our constitutional rights and American privacy. So let me just say there -- this to you, you’re looking at a guy when it was not popular this was after 9/11. I voted against the USA Patriot Act. [applause] >> and that wasn't popular.
Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator (I- Vermont)
CSPAN2 09/23/2015
Sanders: And I voted and I voted against the reauthorization of the patriot act because I believe -- this is what I believe. Do I believe that terrorism is a real threat to the country, I sure I will do. There are people out there who do want to hurt us, and we’ve got to do everything we can to protect our people. But I happened to believe that we can do that without undermining the constitution of the United States and the privacy rights of the American people. Thank you for the question. There's an enormous amount of work that has to be done. Public policy has not kept up with technology. It’s tough stuff. Technology is exploding every single day. But in my view, the American people should be allowed to live their lives without the government and corporate America knowing as much about their lives as they currently do.
Shepard Smith
Anchor of Shepard Smith Reporting
FOXNEWSW 09/24/2015
Smith: Remember that massive cyber breach targeting the United States government that we reported on it? We gave you the information given to us. But now we know it was much bigger than we knew. According to the Office of Personnel Management hackers stole fingerprint records of more than 5.5 million federal workers as part of that attack. Earlier the feds said the hackers had stolen only one million sets of prints as if that wasn’t bad enough. Analysts point out this is important and here's the reason. You can change your passwords anytime you want, you can change your social security number if you want. You can go through the process and get a new social security number. Fingerprints you can’t change. In all the feds say the breach affects more than 21 million current and former government workers. Our chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge is in Washington. There was a hearing on capitol hill on this, right? Harris: That’s right. We're just into the question and answer session with the head of the NSA before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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