oversight and do you have access to this information and we support that, but we think that the public could be provided with reports. something that has been done routinely over the years for title. going back to the history of the wire tapping program, part of the reason that the oversight mechanism broke down and the fisa court was not informed about what the government was engaged in, there were not enough reports put in place. we are not questioning the competence of the court or the oversight committees, but saying this additional safeguard to give the public the opportunity have to have a general picture of this function would be helpful. >> i understand that the different positions are here. i would stress this is an independent court made up of regularly sitting federal judges and a review court as well. those of us that serve on the committees have access to any

major decision made by the court as well as annual reviews done by the court. >> the time of the gentlemen expires. the gentlemen from virginia, mr. scott. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you indicated that they are sent overseas. you can pick up e-mails anywhere. how do you know that an e-mail has been sent overseas? >> thank you for the question. so this is actually one of the questions i think congress should try to get to the bottom of. it really is a concern that the act forecloses a government from targeting people known to be in the united states. in a lot of instances, you don't know where a person is and where the public is coming or going to. under this statute, the government has the authority to pick up those communications. that's one of the concerns about the act. >> you talked about

non-visitized technology that allows you to get a lot of information. should there be a difference between getting the information and what you do with it after you get it and what searches the things? >> absolutely. that's exactly -- you have to divide this into two questions. there is a front end question of what the government should be permitted to pick up and there is a back end question about what the government can do. i think on the front end and this goes to the questions too, it's important to recognize that the court's is very, very limited. this is not like a traditional process in which the court is presented with evidence about a particular target. some justification for wire tapping the target. this is a system in which the fisa court reviews broad programs. the only question in which the court asks is whether the program as a whole has gathered

intelligence and whether the targets are overseas. targets commonly speak to people in the united states. those communications we are worried about. >> the significant purpose, a significant purpose in response to a question i asked, it's significant and not the primary. what could the purpose do. we have the joint task forces. you might have an official there and others are restrained by a criminal warrant standards where they need probable cause a& it' relevant to foreign intelligence. in response to a question, what could the primary purpose be? it could be a criminal investigation. you are doing a criminal investigation on a different standard.

should we change a significant purpose back to the "prime news"ary purpose the way it was before the early 2000s? >> that are would be a great thing to do. i think that there a few other things you should consider doing as well. one is foreclosing dragnet surveillance and a variety of ways to do that. proposals have been made and the other is strengthening the minimization requirement. even if congress decides that it is in the interest of the country to give the government unfettered access to the international communications, there is still the question, what can the government do with the communications once acquired? there ways to strengthen minimization to make sure that the privacy is protected. >> thank you. you indicated the comparison

between the search warrants and how the court has to go through a process. the difference between search warrants and the criminal case and the warrant is the warrants public automobile and they can see what's going on. what kind of information should be made available to the public so we have confidence that the program is being run appropriately? >> that's a very good question. the concern about transparenty and public knowledge of any initial security program say serious concern. the more knowledge they have and the more confidence they have and they are being responsibly err sized. that's an important concern. when it comes to fisa court operations, that's the most sensitive of the sensitive operations in our national security apparatus and recognizing that, the statute itself decided appropriately to

give that insight for congress. congress gets reports on a regular basis about all the rts that are issued by the fisa court. you can ask questions about the program and can bring members of the branch up and quiz them about in closed session about classified information. that's the balancing that provides the representatives of the people and insight into a classified world and doesn't divulge important secrets. thank you very much. >> thank you. i think the discussions so far this morning brings us to this issue. can and should we get more information in the process of

reauthorizing fisa? with the exception of california on the committee, i think everybody that i heard thinks that there is nothing wrong with getting a little bit more information so that we know what's happening. would you say that is a fair opinion to hold at this point. mr. waynestein? >> in theory as a matter of principal, more information to the public is better. all things being equal. however, in this area where you are talking about intelligence officials coming into the fisa court and laying out the most sensitive information about sources and methods. >> we didn't say that. i don't want to do that either. i agree with you. we don't want to throw out sensitive information. that's why i said this is a somewhat tricky sensitive kind

of a discussion we are having. let's agree that we don't want to do that. i would never rationalize doing it. what do you think? >> i think it's a good approach. if nothing else, it will give us more information to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, certainly in looking at the annual wire tap report, useful information shows us strengths and weaknesses and where government authorities need to be enhanced. that would help here. >> after all, we wanted to improve the laws. i know that you are very generous in your compliments about the congress acting on this originally. for goodness sake, okay it again because we did it before. couldn't we improve it. what about minimization?

doesn't that require a little more carefulness? >> i think it does. the way that minimization works right now, the government is required to minimize only noefrz the information obtained is not foreign intelligence. that is defined extremely broadly. foreign affairs is one that the government under the statute can disseminate. americans talk about foreign affairs all the time over the phone and e-mails. i think it's unacceptable to say to american that is when you are communicating about foreign affairs in an e-mail, that is something that the government can have access to even if you have never done anything wrong and even if they are not believed to have done anything wrong. if i could say one more thing about the transparency point that you raised. there is precedent for the

release of the republican opinions with redactionses. they released an opinion about the significant purpose reamendment and the same amendment. in 2008 the review released another opinion about the protect america act. there is precedent for the release of legal reasoning in these opinions with the redactions of legitimate sources and methods. everybody is in agreement that some of the opinions are likely to be sensitive and the government has interest in keeping that secret. it's a different story than what they are keeping street is legal reasoning. >> pfs, let me close with this observation. we have been told that we can't even tell how many people are

being subjected to this process located in the united states. we don't know and they can't tell us. i think we can get a little bit closer. there could be reasonableness there to give. it's this kind of vagueness that creates in those of us in the congress suspicions that are negative rather than suspicions that are positive. we don't know and we can't be told. >> the gentlemen's time is expir expired. >> do you mind if he responds. >> the witness will respond. >> i agree. as i said in my statement, when you create authorities for the government, you need to create counter balance of oversight and

the problem with that went quite far with new surveillance authorities in our view of the means of public oversight don't match the authorities. >> the gentlemen from california, miss chu. >> thank you, mr. share chair. you mentioned the "new york times" article that revealed the security agency had intercepted private e-mails and phone calls of americans. you stated that the aclu showed that agencies conducting surveillance have improperly coned or dem nated. you can talk about the kind of information that they obtained? >> thank you for the question. the aclu filed the litigation to find out how it was implemented and all the records we made available, but the records show among other things that the government has repeatedly

violated minimization and targeting rules. at least some of the violations resulted in the collection of americans communications. there have been violations of the targeting restriction against directioning surveillance. in some cases, americans have been targeted inappropriately and unlawfully. there was also at least one occasion in which the fisa court got so frustrated with the executives's repeated violations, the court ordered them to provide reports every 90 days to explain issues. on the one hand, that's a sign that they sometimes do have the authority to do what they wanted it to do. it raises real concerns about t whether we can trust them to release the limitations. we have at least some information to warrant congress

asking more questions and pausing before reauthorizing. >> do you believe that there is any legislative remedy to this to address the fears that americans have that they are being subjected to warrantless surveillance? >> absolutely. i think when this act was proposed by the push administration, the main problem that the bush administration identified was they believed they couldn't wire tap foreign to foreign communications. communications between non-u.s. persons without getting a warrant. some of those communications were running to the united states. nobody is making the argument that we should revert to a world where they have to get a warrant for those communications. what we were talking about is something relatively narrow. we are asking for a fix that prevents the government from engaging in suspicionless dragnet. there a variety of ways in which they could make that fix.

>> how rigorous is this certification process. of the attorney general and the director of national intelligence regarding the surveillance program under title seven. have they rejected an application under title seven? >> it's a good question and i couldn't answer it because the information is not made available to the public. there provisions as to the contents of the report made available to your committee. here's the information that is made available about the use of the surveillance act. it's a two-page letter sent at the end of april from the attorney general to the speaker and to the president of the senate. this is what we know about the use of authority. in recommending that more information be made available to the public about the use of fisa, we are suggesting to make it possible to evaluate the

adequacy of the oversight techniques. they may be working. i am not suggesting that there is a competency or systemic problem here. it is a small number of people who have access to this information and takes time to evaluate. >> in the s, they allow the government to conduct surveillance for seven days without each making an application to the fisa court. what's the standard for exogent circumstances and what gets to decide? >> that is also set out and that's consistent with other provisions in similar surveillance authorities. that will be circumstances, for example, where the government needs to search and it believes that it doesn't have time to obtain the authority. did r it can go forward with a search. it's important that the statute requires them to come back later and make the application required. if they can't get approval, the

activity is suspended. the requirements are set out in the statute. >> thank you. i yield back. >> the gentlemen from colorado. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my question is for mr. jofr. you are concerned that the administration is conducting bulk collection of american communications. i was hoping you could explain that term and the evidence that this is occurring. >> when the push administration proposed it, they explained that one purpose of the statute was to allow for bulk collection meaning non-visitized collection. the government doesn't go to the court and say we want to target this person. instead it goes to the court and said we want to target people overseas and maybe we want to target everybody in this city or in this particular country.

>> that can be from karachi or anywhere. >> absolutely. >> do you have evidence that this is occurring? >> this is something that came up in the case we are litigating right now and the administration was asking this question. by the could you state your name district and again by the appeals court. they had an opportunity to say they are being use and declined to take that opportunity. >> there would be enormous amounts of resulting data. is there any public knowledge about how that might be gone through or any safeguards might be a place to prevent and in broad terms what safeguards have

to be put in place. our concern is that they are too weak. the intelligence is so broad that minimization applies only to a subcategory of the most sensitive information. the result is that americans communications about something like foreign affairs can be disseminate and analyzed and retained forever without a safeguard. that's a concern from not only privacy, but first amendment as well. as i said in remarks, this surveillance has a chilling effect on activity that is not just protected, but necessary. . >> any issues that arise can be dealt with by federal judges who approved the applications. i wanted to question about how effective that has been and a role of judges has been in administering the faa and

specific recommendations for improving the ability to administer the faa. >> thank you for that question. that's an important question. there two parts to this. is the that question. i think it's important. i think as mr. rodden has pointed out part of the problem is we don't know what's going on or in the most general terms what's going on. we think it's important that some of the court's opinion relating to the faa be released in redacted form. it's true no other federal court has weighed in on the constitutionality of the faa and no court has found to it to be unconstitutional. that's because the administrations, first the administration, now the obama administration has insulated it from judicial review. they have done that by saying to plaintiffs that the only people that can challenge this surveillance are people that show their own communications

have been monitored. that's not information that the administrations release. you're in this situation where the extremely far reaching surveillance statute is essentially beyond the reach of the courts. that is a problem in itself. >> from your description it sounds like one of the issues there's insufficient standing to bring it to federal court. one might be defining standing in such a way you don't have to know something. you don't know by yourself so there might be others that have standing to get it to federal courts. is that the issue identified? >> i think that would be an improvement to the law. we believe we have standing in the case we're litigating before the supreme court and the sect circuit agreed with us. >> you believe there's this issue with regard to standing. as you said it's something people don't know about themselves would be the ones who

would have to object. thank you. >> yes mgentleman from georgia, johnson. >> thank you mr. chairman. with respect to director of national intelligence, what is the relationship between that office and the other, i believe it's 26 intelligence gathering agencies within the u.s. government. what is the relationship? >> it was established to be the quote, unquote quarterback of the intelligence community. that's the collection requirements and provides oversight a number of ways. in this particular process, dni

plays a critical role. the director of national intelligence have to jointly certify. >> certainly, but dni is pretty much the quarterback for all of the other intelligence agencies within the federal government. how many are there? it's about 26 of them. >> 16, right. i'm forgetting but i want to say 16. >> 16. that might be good. now the processes is 16. >> i'm getting nods from the audience. >> the process that the intelligence community uses or the tools that are used to conduct surveillance are products from defense contractors and intelligence agency contractors, is that

correct? >> a lot of technology is worked on by contractor as well as people within the intelligence community, yes. >> i suppose there are some firewalls between the various intelligence agencies, but perhaps not. what do you think about that? >> fire rules for the conveying of information? >> yes. >> one of the major efforts since 9/11 has been to take down the stove pipes and the walls between the agencies. there are limitations on d disseminati dissemination. one of the focus of the dni has to make sure that everybody get what is they need to do the job. >> certainly. does the intelligence community

have technological capacity to identify americans based upon the content of their electronic communications? >> that's a very good question. i can't get into classified techniques to community. >> if they have that capability, would you agree? >> they have the capability to an extent. when you try to identify communication like a telephone call, in our own experience, if you trying to figure out if they are american or not, you might look at the phone number or ask the person on the phone. you might listen to the content to determine if they are talking about being overseas or not. there's not one set that identifies every communication as being overseas. >> yeah. i have a hard time getting a good answer for that question.

i would assume duo have the ability to identify americans based upon the content of that i can electronic communications. i would say sum we could be able to do that. i can't get anyone to admit that we do have that capability, not that we do it, but we have the capability. that causes me a lot of suspicion. i'll tell you with the chamber leaks problem that came out a couple of years ago where a couple of defense contractors were making a proposal to the u.s. chamber of commerce to use information gleamed from these processes that they've developed to spy on and disrupt and

destroy opponents of the u.s. chamber of commerce. i'm concerned about that. i'm concerned about the recent usa today situation where reporters reporting on a defense contractor engaged in propaganda actions were targeted by persons in that company, in that defense company. how would you add to this? >> i think you're absolutely right to be worried about the way these powers will be used. if you look at the way similar powers were used there were all kind of abuses. there were members of congress who were wiretapped. there were supreme court

justices who were wiretapped. there was a member of congress who the nsa sought to wiretap in 2006 or 2007. that's in the same new york times story we referred to earlier. i think that his history shows us that these kinds of broad surveillance powers can and will be abused. that's part of the reason you need to set up limits now to make sure that doesn't happen. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from tennessee, mr. cohen. >> thank you. i want to follow up with an article i must have missed that one. you say it revealed they had been listening in on conversations of judges? >> the church committee report. yes. the church committee report goes into details about that. that was back in -- >> 7'70s. >> we don't have any knowledge

of current? >> no. >> i tuned in a little late. 40 years is a long time. who was the member? >> i don't know. >> what was revealed about the purpose of which they wiretapped the individual or what they learned or was anything revealed? >> all i know is from that story, the story reports that a member of congress was traveling overseas somewhere in the middle east and the nsa sought the authority to wiretap the conversations of that member. i don't know if they got that authority. they're just three or four sentences in the new york times story. >> how much is available for us to know about the dealings as far as applications denied, basis for denial? is any of that available? >> almost nothing is available. the only thing that's available is this raw