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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

Sheldon Whitehouse
U.S. Senator, D-Rhode Island
CSPAN 07/31/2013
Whitehouse continued 2A: that shows that that short term decision, that it was easier to classify, was actually the wrong decision. Litt: I just want to add on this, and I know you are familiar with what I'm going to say. We are having a public debate now but that public debate is not without cost. The information that has been leaked is going to do damage to our ability to protect the nation. We are going to lose capabilities. People are paying attention to this. The way that typically the Congress, both through the legislation it passes and through its own internal rules, has historically sought to achieve the balance between appropriate oversight of intelligence activities and the need
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Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator (D- Vermont), Judiciary Committee Chairman
CSPAN 12/11/2013
Leahy: But under the current law, 90 would the NSA be able to restart the bulk collection of internet data? Litt: if the nsa and the department of justice were able to make a showing to the FISA court that the collection of internet meta data in bulk, which, of course, is a category of information that's not protected by the fourth amendment, that if it were relevant to an authorized investigation and could convince the FISA court of that, then, yes, it would be authorized.
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Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator (D- Vermont), Judiciary Committee Chairman
CSPAN 12/11/2013
Leahy: So to restart the bulk collection of internet data, would you have to go to the court? Litt: I believe we would. Leahy: Mr. Cole? Cole: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Under the FISA statute, i think you would have to get court authority just like you would under 215 to be able to do that. And that would only last for a period of time. it would have to be renewed periodically. there's no active authority for it right now.
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Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator (D- Vermont), Judiciary Committee Chairman
CSPAN 12/11/2013
Leahy: the only limitation (under the FISA pen register statute) would be that it would be meta data? Cole: It cannot be content. In the latest order of the FISA court under 215, it specifically excluded cell site location as well. Litt: I was going to add only that you'd have to show that the categories of meta data that you're seeking was, in fact, relevant to the authorized investigation.
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Robert Litt
General Cousel, Office of Director of National Intelligence
CSPAN 12/12/2014
Litt: if I could talk about section 309 which is actually not part of the appropriations bill. It’s in the intelligence authorization bill, and it absolutely does not do what people have said it does. It does not give any authority to the NSA to do anything. What it does in fact, is impose restrictions on the -- on surveillance. What it says is when you collect information about Americans, regardless of the authority you collect it under, whether it is under FISA or any other authority, you must limit the retention of information about those people. So I do not know why people are misreading this as if it gives authority to NSA. It does not.
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Robert Litt
General Cousel, Office of Director of National Intelligence
CSPAN 12/12/2014
Litt: I do know something about Directive Clapper. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read the letters I wrote to the New York Times and to the New Yorker about this. It is utterly wrong to say that he (Director James Clapper) lied. There’s a famous quote from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. It says even a dog knows the difference between being tripped and being kicked over. And the point there is that lying means that you’re saying a conscious falsehood intentionally. I was with the DNI, and I was with him both before, during and after that. And I can tell you that he made a mistake. And he acknowledged making a mistake.
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Robert Litt
General Cousel, Office of Director of National Intelligence
CSPAN 12/12/2014
Litt: The question is did he (Director James Clapper) do it in public before - Did he correct it in public before the Snowden disclosures? And the answer is he didn’t. Maybe he got bad advice from his lawyer on this. But we talked about this immediately after the hearing. Because we went to him and we said you know, that’s not right because of this 215 program which he had not focused on. If you read his answer, you’ll see he’s clearly thinking of the 702 program – that’s clear from what he says. And we talked about can we correct this or not and the problem was, and I had conversations with Senator Wyden’s staffer about this. And the problem was to correct this on the public record, we essentially would have had to reveal the program that was still classified. So it is A, wrong and B, kind of annoying to me that people continue to repeat this statement that he lied. Because he didn’t. And so to go on to your question, I would say the difference between this and other things is that there was not a crime committed here.
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Robert Litt
General Cousel, Office of Director of National Intelligence
CSPAN 12/12/2014
Hawkins Do you think that it should have been handled differently? Litt: Yes, as I say, he may have gotten bad advice from his lawyer But in retrospect what would have been the right way to handle it? Hawkins: What would have been the right way to do it would be to send a declassified letter to the committee immediately there after, saying I misspoke but I can’t reveal it on the public record. And I regret, one of the things I regret in five-and-a-half years on the job is that I did not advise the DNI to do that. Hawkins: In a situation like that, I think that in addition to a class, if there’s public testimony there should have been at least be some public marker that there is a classified addendum to some testimony in that hearing. Otherwise the public is still left with an actively misleading impression Litt: You know the problem is that there shouldn’t be questions asked about classified hearings, classified programs in public hearings.
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