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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

James Bamford
Author and journalist
CSPAN3 04/18/2012
This is a big change, NSA switching to eavesdrop on Americans. It was -- it did that in the Nixon administration. It violated the law back then and violated the law when first created. For 30 years it eavesdropped illegally on U.S. communications until discovered in 1975. So it has a history of eavesdropping illegally on U.S. citizens, and then lying about it.
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James Bamford
Author and Journalist, Writer for Wired
ALJAZAM 01/30/2014
MacVicar: For some, he is a traitor, who should be punished for the damage he has done to U.S. national security. For others, he is a patriotic whistleblower who revealed government excesses. Bamford: Well I think there is a big push to get him pardoned. I think a lot of people think he's a hero for what he did. I think he's a courageous whistleblower. I don’t think there’s any indication that he's a traitor, that he sold secrets to a foreign government secretly to make a lot of money.
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Edward Snowden
Whistleblower
MSNBCW 08/13/2014
Geist: Snowden told "wired" of a top secret program called MonsterMind, first revealed here, which automatically retaliates to cyber attacks from foreign countries. Bamford: And if you just turn around and automatically fire back, you may be starting an accidental war. Geist: Wired released new audio recordings of its time with Snowden. Snowden: Our generation is facing a time where governments around the world are questioning whether or not individuals can be trusted with the power of technology. And while I don't know the answer to that question, what I do know is that governments shouldn't be the ones to decide. We should. Geist: Snowden disputes that he took 1.7 million documents as the government alleges, saying the number is much smaller and he wouldn't comment on recent reports that he has inspired other leakers.
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Edward Snowden
Whistleblower
MSNBCW 08/13/2014
Bamford: There is another Snowden out there someplace. The question is whether he's still in there, whether he's out, whether NSA is looking for him. Geist: Snowden says he left a trail of digital bread crumbs to show the NSA exactly what he took from an internal server, but the NSA missed the clues. Snowden: “I figured they would have a hard time,” Snowden told "wired." “I didn't figure they would be completely incapable. “ Bamford: He had access to material well beyond top secret. Way over most anybody's head at NSA. Snowden: I gave this information back to public hands to give you back a choice about the country you want to live in. Geist: Snowden told "Wired" he wants to come home and he would even he says volunteer for prison as long as it served the right purpose. For its part the NSA told us if Mr. Snowden wants to discuss his activities, that conversation should be held with the U.S. Department of Justice. He needs to return to the United States to face the charges against him.
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James Bamford
Author and Journalist, Writer for Wired
WHYY 08/13/2014
Bamford: He said he actually left basically bread crumbs. He left some clues to indicate which documents he actually saw and which documents he actually copied so that the N.S.A., when they went back and did an audit, would be able to determine that he was a whistleblower -- in other words, taking documents that indicated they were involved in domestic eavesdropping, for example, as opposed to documents dealing with North Korea or Russia or china or whatever. So he didn't say how many documents, but he said there were considerably fewer than the 1.7 million that the N.S.A. has alleged, and that 1.7 million is basically based on the documents he may have at one point seen, but certainly not the documents that he copied and by them missing the clues he left, we aren't able to tell which he saw and which he copied.
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James Bamford
Author and Journalist, Writer for Wired
WHYY 08/13/2014
Bamford: What Edward Snowden said to me was that the N.S.A. certainly has a problem, that things are still going walking. He said that's a major problem to the U.S. since the N.S.A. has so much of American communications -- telephone calls, e-mails and so forth -- and if there is a second leaker, which apparently there is, and certainly the evidence indicates that, and maybe having been inspired by Edward Snowden, it's certainly a major problem for N.S.A., if they thought they had a problem with Snowden, now they have a problem with someone else there.
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James Bamford
Author and Journalist, Writer for Wired
WHYY 08/13/2014
Bamford: yeah, he was quite concerned that at some point the information that was coming out will pretty much be put on the back pages, people won't pay attention to it anymore, sort of compare it to a war in the sense that five people being killed is a headline, 1,000 people being killed a month later is a back page. So it's a problem of becoming sort of numbed, or this whole problem of boiling frogs where a frog is in the water and the heat gets turned up slowly so that the frog doesn't know is it’s being boiled. So it's a problem he's concerned about that the public will stop paying attention to the leaks and revelations at some point.
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