america, with a look at today's top story. it has been a night of drama in london's theater district, and it doesn't have anything to do with the performances. dozenings of people have apparently been hurt after some plaster fell from the ceiling at the apollo theater. the theater which was built was showing the curious incident of the dog at nighttime. phil ittner joins us now, what is latest? is. >> well, david, the latest we are hearing from the london authorities is that they have accounted for people inside the building everybody who was drapped under any debris has been freed. they are upping the numbers of the injured.

it is now up into around 80, we are hearing, but that includes everything from cuts and bruises to broken bones. the important thing also to note, is that london authorities are saying there are five. whether or not that's life threatening i think that is in progress. >> five life threatening injuries. no fatalities so far. and those are the headlines, "inside story" is next, for news updates head to aljazeera.com. ♪ what will the president and the congress do? that's the inside story.

hello, i'm ray swarez. it is impossible to know if the people at the top of the national security agency ever expected their techniques to be revealed to the rest of us. or if they could have expected what the world would be. >> with millions of documents under his arm. we now know just how far one agency has reached into the pockets and purses of millions of americans in the name of keeping americans safe. you remembering more oversight, and restrictions on the

country's digital surveillance tactics. over the next several weeks we will be reviewing the report and the four recommendations as we continue to past forward which might require further study, in which we will choose not to pursue. >> the report released wednesday comes from a panel of five legal and intelligence experts. and make more transparent the national security agency and the rules under which the agency works. there were 46 including ending the collection. about syringes without senior policy review. ending the storage of bulk telephone calls so

far meta data by the government, creation of a public interest advocate, to represent privacy and civil liberties interests. j the panel also stressed that because the intelligence community can do something, that doesn't mean it should. "the right to privacy is essential, the rise of modern technologies makes it all the more important the democratic nations respect people's fundamental rights to privacy, which is a defining part of individual security and personal liberty. vermont center, the chairman praised the panel's proposals. >> the message is very

clear. nsa you have gone too far. the bulk collection of americans data by the u.s. government has to end. review group came to the same conclusion that i had -- >> the controversial intelligence gathering methods employed by the nsa were revealed by former contractor edward snowden who continues to disclose nsa tactics the public was unaware of through the media. snowden is believed to have stolen millions of documents tied to the nsa's activities. calling the practice likely unconstitutional. the ban on unreasonable search and seizure, on tuesday, the president met with top leaders from internet giants, yahoo, google, microsoft, and

others they brisled over revelations that the nsa co-oped their networks to gather intelligence, and have called for changes on behalf of their clients and users. >> in the meantime, nothing is halting the nsa from surveillance of phone calls and internet traffic within the current frame work on behalf of national security.

>> four main recommendations of them which one stands out, which one should be get thing lion's share of our attention. >> the ones that should stand out are the main recommendation that bulk telephone, meta data collection, be terminated immediately. been dismissed by the president is that nsa should be separated from cyber command, and again, that the born intelligence court should have to approve orders based on probable cause rather than having national security letters get documents on people in secret. >> sebastian, same question, whether it's advisable or not, which of those 46 recommendations should be getting our attention? >> this may surprise you, was i agree with the one concerning meta data. it is -- european union respectable whether it bumps into the fourth

amendment for unreasonable seizure or search. the fact it is bad trade craft. it is the idea i scoop stuff up. we want to have as much as caple in case we meet it down the road, i think for me personally, that's the best recommendation and the most important one. >> recommendations are cherrypicked but is super structure launchly stays in place. i think the one exception recently is the 9/11 commission. the reform of the congressional oversite has largely been adopted. by the united states, so

we will see how many of these actually result in fundamental changes. i think in addition to what my colleagues said the one that intrigued me was the recommendation that the national security agency become led perhapses are open to being led by a civilian. the nsa is a military intelligence organization. not so long ago here in washington, there was not even a street sign that pointed to the national security agency, even when there was, the nsa no such agency, now there's a recognition that the ns ark is reaching deep into civil society. in terms of profound effect, not only with the society. but also within the u.s. economy.

>> from both the recommendations from the review group and the opinion of judge leon, a few days earlier, is that both recognized that all of this scooping up data really did not thwart any terrorist attack, because if you are looking for a needle in a hay stack, why do you want to make the hay stack bigger? i don't think it's helped, and i don't think any of these two bodies that have looked a this helped, i think it violated the rights of a number of innocent people, who were there was no probable cause or even a reasonable suspicion that hay had done anything wrong. so the scooping up that has been going on over the last 12 years has been a huge problem.

just to build in another level. >> potentially, if you look at the ombudsman model that could be seen as one of the ways to approach this kind of issue. the trouble is that the ombudsman is usually a very open office, it is publicly managed and the information is unclassified for any kind of civil rights issue. in case you are talked about classified sessions in a closed court. how that advocate would function, and what they would be able to do outside of the court, i think would be justice closed as if there weren't there to begin with in the first place. so it may be a nonstart of a recommendation, in my opinion. >> so that very capacity

which in his view helps this process work, is that what bugs you about this is this? it does. the idea that things have been approve bade court, because a face a court has signed off, is not the same thing as an open article only one side of the argument which is the government then you will get what we have gotten which has effectively been whether you want to call it a rubber statute or not, approving all 1,136 decisions in 2011. to me, speaks for itself, and the fact that you do need to have an actual other side.

it came from executive initiative. and that produced a controversial in 2005, and 2006. over the revelation of what the national security agency was doing and the kind of information it was now collecting. firms up behind many of the steps on the so called war on terror. you know the presidential advisory group was

ambiguous about the term balance, but i think that is what we are talking about. how do you balance security interests, privacy interest, transparentsy, in a way that can restore some of the trust and confidence that has been lost by the revelations of the last six months. >> well, there are a lot of other interests at play here, including those of congress, and what blitz have to say, and those in the business world, and that's where we will go when we come back, we will take a short break, this is inside story.

welcome back to inside story. on this edition of our program, we are discussing reigning in the nsa and new recommendations on how to do it. and i think this whole argument over privacy, sebastian, has created some strange bedfellows on capitol hill. some of the staunchest defenders of a robust antiterrorism effort, and people who are stone cold civil libertarians have made common cause on what they see is overreach. how do you hit the sweet

spot that protects liberty, and still helps this country police its inkmies. >> congress has not expressed its powers adequately. the fact that you have strange bedfellows today is very interesting but the fact is that it is an ad hoc reaction to a scandal now again. and the fact is that congress has very very serious oversight powers of the intelligence community, which it hasn't exercised to a fraction of their potential. if you look at the pie and church communities

that eviscerated the c.i.a., that was congress. using it's oversight. >> no one wants to be labeled on soft of terror, that they are taking a tool out of the arounds of the government and then the next time something bad happened they are pointing at you. >> this is washington, and it is a question of packages. how does collecting huge bits of information and soaring them in fatalities facility, how does it protect? it's does it actually protect american americansd almost hawkish congressman can use that argument to package that message.

we have been pigeon holed into this idea of liberty verses security. and those two things are not intentioned with one another. but we are told, if we want to have our civil liberties we are going to fore fit some of our security, and that's just not right. and i think such a significant finding of both the review group and the court decision, is that these techniques not just the bulk meta data but a lot of invasive surveillance techniques that have been used have not done a thing to really thwart terrorist plots or the within that was disruptedded could have been disrupted dru regular traditional law enforcement means. we have the same strange bedfellows when the wire p thatting scandal was revealed. on the left and the right, people can agree we have a fourth amendment.

cell phones is the idea that there are cell phone information is being collected. i am not talking about intelligence experts just regular people with a cell phone in their pocket, but that is one way that people's movements have been tracked. that the contacts between outside the country and inside the country networks were surveilled was through the use of watching people cell phone traffic and that's what bugged them. yet can we stop that? >> i think you can. it has within created back doors into google and yahoo, and some of the biggest tech giants. i think there are ways. certainly the tracking device the fact that your cell phone is a special tracking device can be used to target a bad guy, if you have probable cause. i don't have problem with that.

>> this is an individual who is in regular email contact with the third most al quaida individual out there. and this is known to the system. you don't need a save to know that they are communicating and what is the attitude or decree on killing my fellow serviceman if i am deployed. and they are having this communication in the clear. the fact it was picked up reported and then somebody who was investigating it said we won't take any action, because any investigation could be detrimental to his career. that's bad national security practice. >> you have been someone who was trying to explain to the public what the government was up to.

and help shaping those messages, have we done a good job as a country, having an honest conversation public to government, government to public, about what the needs of the intelligence community are? and what the expectation oz of the public are? >> it is fundamental to this rick go back to 9/11, and the report. the narrative was never again. there was a running we can identify every plot and stop every plot. where we have done effective work, particularly in the level of increased international intelligence cooperation.

we have also gone to excess this is aboutening inyou remember toed citizenry, we have to decide hop how much we will allow government to intrude into a society that is afternoon rating massive amounts of data. i got an email saying hey, a year ago you bought this gift for this person, do you want to do it again. if google can do that, or a retailer, should the government have the ability to use data that is available? yes may be the answer, but we have to bring citizens into that bargain and in fairness to congress we have not yet made the information that congress needs so readily available so they can do effective overside. ron has been jumping undown saying i wayn't to

do this, but he couldn't literally start a public conversation at a hearing because he would be violating classifications. when we come back, we will talk about the big internet service providers and their stake in this debate going forward, this is inside story. stay with us.

night with the combatants in their training base.

service providers the googles the yahoos, they were at the oval office earlier this week, not very happy that the government was rifling around their files without even their knowledge. now, these

recommendations involve protection. making their systems -- can we do that? >> i think they are already starting to do that. i think google and yahoo and microsoft are justifiably -- they give the government front door access to their information. yet that buzz not enough because they created back doors without them knowing pit p so these company is in their business interests. but al in the interest of most individuals who have no choice but to use these carriers. there are obviously rep precautions. we have a very short amount of time left, let me get your thoughts on

where the company stands. i hope so because you want to trick bad guys not good guys. it is about winning over people who can help you, who aren't your enemies and they haven't been doing that. so i think it's possible, but it's going to take a lot of leg working by the white house now. >> and i think it is part resoaring arm's length to the relationship between these companies. because there is an economic impact to this, and obviously the economy is an element of national security. so if you are doing things that may -- you might think is protecting on one side, it is weakening you in the other. >> well, we will have to talk further as this story continues to unfold about whether the trust of the public can be earned back, one of the major questions that has to be answered in order to preserve the value.

sebastian, jeselnik, great to have you all with me today, that brings us to the end of this edition of "inside story." thank you for being with us, the program may be over, but the conversation continues we want to hear what you think about these issues this day or any day's show. log into our face back page, send us your thoughts on twitter, our handle is a.j. inside story a.m., or you can reach me directly at ray swarez news, see you for the next inside story, i'm ray swarez.

some of america's best-kept secrets are out. by now, most of the world has heard the name edward snowden. the former national security agency contractor who released thousands of classified documents about government surveillance in one of the most significant leaks in u.s. history. he's been charged with espionage and has been living in russia under temporary asylum. the american journalist at the center of the story lives in brazil. >> we've had to come to rio to speak to glenn greenwald.