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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

Glenn Greenwald
Co-Founder, The Intercept
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Greenwald: It's hard to overstate, Alex how important the Second Circuit is in the Federal Judiciary for other courts. It's probably the most important court right after the Supreme Court along with the DC Circuit. And also the judges, all three judges are appointed by democratic presidents. Two by President Obama, one by President Clinton. What's amazing is just how aggressive the ruling is in rejecting the Justice Department's arguments one after the next. It says that the plaintiffs have standing to sue because the U.S. government is collecting everybody's communication data and therefore the plaintiffs are among those. And says very kind of an extreme way that the Obama administration's interpretation of The Patriot Act is unprecedented and unwarranted. That is extreme as The Patriot Act is not even the extreme Patriot Act justifies a policy this radical and I think it's going to have a huge impact on how litigation proceeds from this point forward.
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Glenn Greenwald
Co-Founder, The Intercept
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Wagner: For a Federal Court to say that what the government is doing is illegal, they didn't rule on the unconstitutionality of it but to say that what the government is doing is illegal would seem to mandate some action and I wonder, do you think James Clapper's days are numbered as the Director of National Intelligence? Greenwald: To me the question that you asked is probably the most stunning part of this entire episode. We know that with certainty that the Senior National Security official in the United States government, lied to the American people, and to the Senate and not only did he deny there was a program that the NSA was doing, denied its existence, this program has now been declared by the federal court to be illegal which means he was lying and hiding a program that was against the law. If that doesn't get you fired by the Obama administration let alone prosecuted what does? If that's not a firing offense, then nothing is.
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Glenn Greenwald
Co-Founder, The Intercept
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Wagner: In terms of Snowden, still overseas, do you think this brings him back home? Greenwald: It should. I mean, if you think about what a whistle blower is a whistle blower is somebody who shines a light and discloses to the public something that the government is hiding and shouldn't be hiding that at least there's a good argument to make an example of wrongdoing. And now you have not just a federal judge who last year already said the program was unconstitutional likely but a federal appeals court saying it's illegal, how can anybody say that we would be better off if Edward Snowden had kept quiet and let us remain ignorant of the spying program that the federal court now said is illegal, it's classic whistle blowing. I think he deserves our national gratitude, not a life in prison.
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Mitch McConnell
U.S. Senator (R-Kentucky), Senate Majority Leader
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Wagner: Following today’s ruling Senator majority leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans defended the program and pushed for its reauthorization. McConnell: According to the CIA had these authorities been in place more than a decade ago, they would have likely likely have prevented 9/11. Burr: Why in the world would we think about rolling back the tools that are the only tools that put us post- 9/11 versus pre- 9/11? Rubio: One day, I hope that I'm wrong but one day there will be an attack that's successful and the first question out of everyone's mouth is gonna be why didn't we know about it? And the answer better not be because this Congress failed to authorize a program that might have helped us know about it.
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Alex Wagner
Anchor of NOW with Alex Wagner
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Wagner: A Federal Appeals Court in New York today ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of millions of Americans phone records is illegal. In a stunning 97 page opinion, Judge Gerard Lynch described the program as unprecedented and unwarranted. According to the New York Times, it is the first time a court in the regular judicial system ever reviewed the program. Since 2006, it has been repeatedly approved in secret by a National Security court. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU. The existence of this program, the bulk collection of telephone met data first disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Today's ruling which was unanimous, comes as congress debates to end, replace, or perhaps extend the meta data program which is part of The Patriot Act. The program is set to expire on June 1st.
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Chris Hayes
Host of All In with Chris Hayes
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Hayes: Today for the first time, a high level federal court ruled that one of the programs disclosed by Edward Snowden in 2013 is illegal. The opinion for the unanimous three-judge panel, second circuit U.S. court of appeals, reads as a harsh criticism of the government's argument that a massive NSA program to collect in bulk the domestic phone records of millions of Americans is lawful under section 215 of The Patriot Act. Judge Gerald Lynch wrote
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Jameel Jaffer
Deputy Legal Director, ACLU and Director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Jaffer: It's a big deal. It's a great ruling. We've been waiting for it for a long time now. It's a case that we filed right after the first Snowden disclosures. This was the first program that was disclosed. Hayes: This was the big bombshell on the today by the way, they keep going to your cell phone providers and saying just give us everyone's call records. Jaffer: Every day, every day they get from all the major telecommunications providers a list of, you know, essentially this log of who you called and when you called them, how long you spoke to them for and they have that for everybody, not just suspected terrorists or suspected criminals, everybody. And we challenged the lawfulness of that program. Both on statutory grounds and on constitutional grounds. And the ruling today is a ruling that the program violates the statute. In other words, the law doesn't authorize the government to collect information on this scale. So it's, you know, a big deal.
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Jameel Jaffer
Deputy Legal Director, ACLU and Director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Hayes: So just to be clear here, right, there's The Patriot Act, which is the statute, there's the U.S. constitution. constitutional grounds. This ruling says doesn’t touch the constitutional question, right? Jaffer: That's right. So we had argued both. We had said it violates the statute. The Patriot Act doesn't allow it. Hayes: Even The Patriot Act doesn't allow this. The text of the law that got passed in the wake of 9/11 –even that has limits. Jaffer: even that has limits. And we said if you disagree with us, then it violates the constitution. But the court didn't disagree with us. The court said we agree with you, The Patriot Act authorizes a lot of things but doesn't authorize this.
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Jameel Jaffer
Deputy Legal Director, ACLU and Director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Hayes: How did this even get into court? I mean, so many of these cases have been kicked out of court on what's basically national security grounds. Jaffer: That's right. Hayes: How did you guys get this heard? Jaffer: We argued a case just before the Snowden disclosures in the Supreme Court challenging a different surveillance program and the Supreme Court held 5-4 that we didn't have standing, we didn't have the right to be there because we couldn't prove that our communications had been monitored. And, you know, that was a very demoralizing decision. But then just months after, just weeks after, in fact, that decision, the Snowden disclosures came and gave us among other things standing to challenge this program. Hayes: Because just on its face, everyone – Jaffer: Well, everybody is subject to the program. We happen to be, the ACLU happens to be a customer of Verizon Business Networks which is the company that was the recipient of the order that Edward Snowden disclosed.
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Jameel Jaffer
Deputy Legal Director, ACLU and Director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy
MSNBCW 05/07/2015
Jaffer: We get this decision coincidentally at a time when Congress is already in this heated debate about government surveillance, and we're in this heated debate because the provision, The Patriot Act provision that underlies this particular program is set to sunset, to expire on June 1st. So Congress is already debating what should we do between now and June 1st? Should we reauthorize the program, reauthorize Section 215, or let it sunset, or do something else? Reform the provisions, scale it back in some ways. And so this decision kind of throws all of that into a degree of chaos. Hayes: Right, because if that weren't the case, then it would be fairly clear, right, the government would probably appeal. The Supreme Court grants it or not. They would hear it Jaffer: That's right. Hayes: But if the thing is going to sunset, anyway, I mean it would essentially -- if it expires or is amended in some ways, it's no longer a live issue, right? So it might just be taken out Jaffer: it could certainly have an effect on litigation. And if it sunsets, you're right, it mainly moots the case, most of the case.
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