privacy is about control, personal control. the individual has the ability to use that information. >> not able to drive on an airline. >> not about concealment. it's about your choice of how to use information about your son. >> if i travel on airlines, does that remain private. >> not saying there aren't lots of places where you're required by law to get information. you give it gladly or you don't engage in that behavior. you fly, we don't have citizens, taxes, we have to pay the irs, of course, is required by law to get that information. we know the rules. but those are legitimate uses of information and the protection of that information by the organization. >> what about buying a gun? should i be able to do that privately? >> we can get into the gun debate. the point is, there are laws and the laws have to be followed. but the converse to that is that the government department is

collecting that information and only permitted to use that information for a very narrow purpose. they're not intended to use it for secondary purposes unrelated to that primary purpose of collection. it's very narrow. so privacy is about freedom and your ability to largely go about your activities as you wish subject to limited exceptions and subject, of course, to law enforcement. >> i agree with you. asking these questions. let me ask you, the limited purposes, do you feel you're using that information for purposes for which is not intended today, right now, say in the jane's department? >> i don't know it personally. >> how about security in general. >> homeland security, i worked with them. there's no issue. but i am going to point to the obvious which is to the nsa revelations that have come out. not just nsa, my country in canada, the csc, that kind of thing. that has revealed the massive scale of information about

law-abiding citizens that are being collected. let me point you and if you want the reference, i'll tell you after. excellent article on all of the false positives. you're identified as being a potential terrorist and you're not. it's a false hit. the enormity of the false positives is staggering and should be unacceptable to free and democratic societies such as ours. it's unacceptable. because those people are not off of the list. they're the false positives. until they are cleared, you can go through enormous problems and anxieties. it's outrageous. >> well, i feel like a visitor from outer space here. because the crime story in new york is in two respects a distinction of the privacy and the municipal problem story.

in the first instance, it's as close to a solved problem that we thought was retractable. the homicide rate in new york this year will be down 86% from the homicide rate in the same city with the same population and the same structural problems 30 years ago. now that's astonishing. the second thing is that the changes that took place are relatively low tech. they are all located in public places. this is going to be important when you center the conversation on privacy. the changes that took place with the computer to be able to identify for the police force where crimes keep happening and

where public drug markets are located. that isn't rocket science even circa 1975. it was a change in policing strategy and it worked very well. now, what about privacy? well, in a funny sense, if you're talking about public places, you're talking about a serious problem that i think privacy is the wrong word for it. the reason for that is public places are too dangerous for the autonomy we associate normally with privacy. so for instance, if you want to talk about 700,000 stops and frisks in 2011 and 2012 and the fact that they keep talk happening to the same people in the same neighborhoods and the false positive rate is hovering around 98% as anna expressed,

you have a serious cost, serious problem, serious benefits. it's not about privacy. what it's about is government having to respect the dignity and autonomy of people in the streets even though they know things about them that require relationship between government and -- >> how has technology and the new command center we're going to see today change that? >> it doesn't change that. that's the relationship between individual people if machines could stop us and frisk us, that does happen in the airport folks that are going to travel, in a funny sense, the indignity in the process, the power competition when two people with

too much testosterone are on the sending and receiving ends of the stops and frisks doesn't happen. this is human relations and i think as soon as what you have is a polite use of government, a polite use of technology. and some notion that the autonomy of the false positive if everybody who is stopped and frisked is treated as if they are guilty, then you're going be 99% wrong. on the other hand, i don't mind going through a machine if i'm one of 100,000 people who is coming to see the president of the united states and there are people who are trying to make sure that none of the 100,000 are armed and dangerous. >> let me open it up, if i may, if we can turn the lights up a little bit so i can see.

raise your hands, questions? >> back to your innovation comment? >> yeah. >> and this gentleman here. >> one quick comment there. >> i never answered -- >> the question about innovation. i'll make this really fast. the reason privacy is so important to innovation, i say this as a psychologist, we have a limited amount of bandwidth. we have a limited ability to focus on various things if we're living in a society we think we're constantly being surveyed. people are watching this. everybody is watching us all th time. imagine you live in the time of nazi germany which is, of course, nonsense. if you live in the society where you were constantly being surveyed and watched? what do you do? engage in self-destructive protective behavior.

they shield their behavior. not because they're doing anything wrong, but they don't like to be watched and surveyed. the focus shifts away from creativity and risk taking which you need, because there's limited amount of what you can focus on. the cognitive bandwidth is important. we want to encourage freedom and the notion that you're not constantly unsurveilled. one of the professors, leading economist, he recently had a broken and he wrote about how important freedom was in invoking innovation. he was worried china wasn't going in that direction because their freedom is restricted. that's how i tie it. not official, but essential to innovative pursuits.

>> i'm not going to sit here and listen to comparisons to nazi germany. >> she didn't mean it that way. she pulled it back. we get her pull-back. >> i meant no respect at all. nothing like that. what i say is if you look at countries like that and you look at what changed in those societies during a time of heightened surveillance, what changes is people alter their behavior. they automatically shield instinctively and what goes is innovation, creativity, and freedom. >> what's happening right now, three norms are emerging, not only in this society, but globally. people have expectations of inclusivity. they have expectations of transparency. they have expectations of reciprocity. if it's good enough for you, making me do this or are you doing this? in response to this. so this is -- there are global movement antidotes and rep actions to excesses. the privacy community is not the only one outraged.

>> we had an officer involved shooting that was resolved because someone held it over the window sill and approved it. i tried on the google glasses, i realized if we gave one of these to each officer and said start filming. we in cities are going to have to figure it out. anyone think that the federal communications commission is going to keep up with this pace of change? >> add it to the list. >> so we have to figure out what the boundaries and protocols are for the use of technology and public safety. because it's exploding quickly. i would be interested if any of the panelists have any thoughts on who the regulator might be if not us at the municipal level,

then who? >> i can tell you how regulations will be involved. that is if the security device is useful, it will be tried at the municipal level and if there are any norms that are going be invoked to limit it, they will probably be in different levels. we're sitting here in a city where there's an ongoing conversation now with the police department that innovates with security, and a federal court that tries to protect when there are costs imposed. but the point that i think i want to make is that first of all, cameras are so cheap now that in public places, if what you're concerned about is the right not to be filmed, game over.

we now are going to be living lives of record in public spaces. >> everything you do in public space will be on youtube at some point. >> it can be on youtube. someone has to be interested in it. >> i've watched youtube. that's not true. [laughter] >> you don't like cats. >> correct. >> okay. the truth is, the issue that's going be crystallized in public space isn't privacy in that world. it's dignity and autonomy. it's regulating the way in which power is used rather than removing the power. and that's going to involve balances, obviously. but it's not a technology issue

so much as a human relations and political issue. you got to be comfortable with it. >> i don't disagree. it's both. human relations and technology. if i can just respond -- i work with my police chief all the time in toronto, canada. he has a slide he uses with the police officers saying that we have to take a positive sum approach to policing and privacy that you do both. that of course there are cameras. there are ways to do it. of course, they're everywhere. but when it's done by the police, the state, you can do the use. >> what about when it's not. everybody is talking about google glass? >> the big issue is it can do all these things. but unlike the camera where the

person being recorded has no notion that you're doing it. you don't have that notion with google glass. they identified certain light fixtures that come on. >> is there a way to hack so you don't get the red light on if you don't have it. >> point-counterpoint. they're aware of the issues and actively trying to find measures to make it transparent. >> trust me, somebody will have a glass soon that's not transparent. even if it's -- >> it's not that you can't up the ante. but the point is that it's not a zero sum game. functionality. >> it's security. security is something that their society is assigned to their governments to handle.

we want a safe street, governments police. governments are being the monopolist in security space and they are in all except cyberspace. governments have not given the responsibility in cyberspace to keep us secure. we look at the trends and technology, on the one hand, we have an intelligence community that thinks it's 1947 and information is hard to get and the technology doesn't exist. but the most powerful companies have demonstrated the highly reliable, highly lucrative, important -- >> right out of time. >> if we asked the people in the audience how many times they read a terms of service all the way through before they click agree, they would have a small show of hands. we're addicted to these technologies and we're arguing today about the battle between how big brother or little sister are using our data. what's the role that the public can play in this debate?

what can we do ourselves to insist on a mode of behavior, not only by big brother and little sister, but among us to ensure that we can ensure the privacies and security. >> everybody gets to use that as their final answer. >> again, it seems to me that the question is about the use of power and technology is a power. but it is used in human relationships and so the politics of sorting through its solution is going to be a politics of individual dignity in power relations. >> jane? >> it's the accountability mechanism of this country that's in the hands of the people that is the most powerful mechanism of keeping the government honest in evolving in a complex situation.

>> you have to speak out, you have a strong voice. speak out and let your politicians know what you want for the first time ever, 6 out of 10 americans, every since polling happened, 6 out of 10 americans have rated privacy and civil liberties are more important to them than public safety and security. that's never happened before. you have to tell the government that you expect transparency, openness on their part, and hold them accountable. >> that's because 6 in 10 take security for granted. >> i would challenge that completely. privacy has traditionally been relegated to a lower category. now, with all of the revelations, as to how much the people don't know about what the government is doing, people are astounded and they don't want that anymore and they're fighting back. that's what i urge you to do. >> that's our next panel. thank you. let me welcome two people who are on the front lines of this. thank you all very much.

thank you. greg kelly. city of the commissioner of newy york. colleague,end and ed davis. thank you for joining us. >> reactions to what you just heard? >> i got here late. >> you got your command center. tell us how that works and tell us the concerns you have about how that might invade privacy and cause people to react against you. that cancommand center

person putting down a bag in grand central. >> not the command center. the coordination center. it has both public and private stake holders, police officers, and representatives of major companies. >> tell me what it does. >> what it does is it monitors a -- an array of cameras now about 5,000 cameras. many of them are smart cameras. not all, but by smart, i mean you can do video analytics on these cameras. for instance, if you want to go back 28 days, you want to see someone wearing a red shirt, you can through algorithms put the information up and it will come up quickly. 28 days, after 30 days, it erases automatically. we put that in voluntarily. we worked with privacy advocates. we knew there would be some concern as we put in the mayor camera in the system. we put in a protocol that erases

after 30 days. i don't think -- i haven't heard major privacy concerns raised as a result the security initiative. and i believe that a lot of it was forestalled by working with the privacy advocates before we put the system in. >> tell me a little more about what new technologies you're using and give me a couple of examples of how it worked even though some people might have concerns about it. >> as i mentioned, we have the smart cameras that have license plate readers that are now all over law enforcement. they're really amazing pieces of equipment. because you can drive down the street at 60 miles per hour with license readers on the patrol car and read the license plates

on both sides the street. it's an effective tool. we have radiation detectors now that aren't actually worn as pagers which will tell you specifically let's say where the radio active material is moving. this is now sort of a state of the art something else we may be working with is facial recognition. that is very much work in progress. we have solved dozens of cases as a result of emerging official technology capabilities. we have software now that enables us to a whole host of things. sort of an eye insert. you can see someone whose eyes are closed. put the eyes in. mirror imagining, half a face. you can do the whole face. that is moving along. >> and the earlier panel, frank

just said that if instead of having stop and frisk, there was just a more automatic way, you could detect people with guns, that's less invasive? do you have that technology? >> we've been looking at something and looking at it for several years. working for metropolitan police and the d.o.d. research component. called terra hertz technology. everybody emits tera hertz radiation. and what it does is enables you to see someone carrying a weapon. the problem is so far that the device developed is too big. it doesn't have the range. we know what technology is like in 1986. that would be a major breakthrough as far as finding

weapons on the street. >> could you imagine ten years from now that technology being deployed around the city, just like you have cameras recording where people go, you could notice that somebody with the gun is moving in a certain neighborhood? >> not without a major fight. i think our lawyers are looking at the issues of -- fourth amendment issues are involved there. but this is -- this is something that you do in increments. and i don't know if ten years from now you see them, you know, positioned all over. you have to develop the technology and i think they would be concerns raised by -- by privacy. >> if you have privacy concerns in lower manhattan, you have advocates sitting with you, how do you do that? do you have in your department specialists and privacy and ethics issues? >> we don't have privacy down

there. but we do have attorneys that focus on this, the protocols that we put together by our attorneys. obviously, we live in the mostly litigious city in the world. we have to be aware of ongoing litigation. privacy issues are among them. >> commissioner davis, walk us through technology help after the boston marathon. >> i was there before the bombs went off. after they went off, i recognized that there were thousands of cameras there. not just cameras along the street, which were basically owned by businesses. the city had very few cameras in that particular area. but we did have thousands of people who have iphones taking still shots and video of the finish line. my estimation based on what i was seeing that no one could move through the crowd without being observed. so after the bombs went off, our

immediate focus is on retrieving as much video as we could get. the video with the business is extremely important. we went to crowd sourcing on the internet and asked people to send us every clip and video shot they had taken. they came in so quickly that the fbi computer crashed. we had to rely on twitter and facebook to retrieve some of the photos. we got them all compiled in a hastily set up command post. it started with one computer. 12 computers there at the end at 12:00 going through that information. >> you said you asked people to send them in, did you collect privately-taken photographs without people's permission but doing it from public sites such as twitter or facebook and others where you could say, okay, these are people who posted at the boston marathon, let us post those photographs as well? >> we did everything possible.

>> do you have concerns about people saying have they taken photographs and put privately on the facebook accounts? >> the state of law is what we operate under. that's missed in the conversation. ray and i operate off of what's constitutionally acceptable. the supreme court said if this information in the public place, the video information in a public place, we can look at that. it's a little less clear as you get to facebook and twitter, right now, there are places that we can go legally and we go there. the problem with our profession is that unlike the medical profession with medical emphasis, we don't have that here. we operate off of a supreme court decision that always happens after the fact. so we're always behind the curve when it comes to change like we're seeing right now. we need to -- we need to look at that. we need to start a conversation among police officials in the community to talk about what's right and wrong.

george was about 20 years off. it's come at us so fast, no one knows how to deal with it. >> the boston bombers, afterwards, technology kicks into action immediately. was there a way to use technology more effectively to know these are bad actors planning something? >> you know, i think we have been focussed externally. we looked at the security apparatus in the federal government. ray has done a tremendous job here in making italo call. -- it local. if you're dealing with boston, home grown extremists radicalized on the internet, a system has to be thought about. the debate of what the public is, the role of local police should be in that environment, it's clearly a threat that we're facing right now. we need to do more. i wish there was a computer system that we could find that would say these are the guys.

but it's more about connecting with the community and having good contacts in communities throughout the city. and being transparent and open about that. >> transparency and openness, it's come up three or four times. let me ask you a question. to pose all of that in revelations, instead of edward snowden revelations, the government just said, here's what we're doing. we're going to make this public right away. we're doing these type of things. if you don't like it, call your congressman. would that have been a better way to approach it. >> i believe so. i said that previously. i think the american public could accept the need for that. and actually this was made public in a sort of bizarre sort of a way. it was -- well, you should have known about it. and we know how restricted it was in terms of access to the public. i think that was a mismake. it seems like, well, these

things are -- >> are you trying to be very transparent without compromising your methods and operations? >> obviously, we're not going to breach confidentiality as far as specific investigations are concerned. but we have people such as this group here will come in, take a look at the equipment we have, the processes that the -- that we use. we have many community groups. i have a muslim advisory council i meet with. we have a tactics and strategies committee made primarily of leading the members of the african-american community in this city. so we have a -- i think a very good dialogue as far as processes and procedures. >> do you have a good dialogue with the federal government now? >> we do.

>> but have some problems with the sharing? >> there's always going to be some friction. it's not necessarily a bad thing. we get the job done. i think your agencies want to do good work. they're proud of the work they do. and sometimes it creates tension. but tension is not always a bad thing. i think you want to see behind the curtain. i think we want transparency as far as the federal government is doing. ed has an opinion on it. if, in fact, there are things going on in your city, then your mayor and your police chief or police commissioner should know about them from the federal government. there should be a regular exchange of information. >> i agree completely. >> but what commissioner kelly has done is expand more than most city police departments a counterterrorism unit of your own where you even do interviews say in new jersey famously enough. have you learned from that? and do you think you ought to expand your counterterrorism in boston so that you're doing things that normally is given to

the fbi to do? >> as it relates to home grown violent extremists, yes. i think there are people in our community that we should be working with and sort of keeping an eye on if they pose a threat. that's part of our responsibility to keep our citizens safe. however, we need to be transparent about what we do and i don't think there's any agencies in the country more transparent than the local police agency. we have "the boston globe" and the boston herald in our lobby every morning checking on what we did overnight. community groups are marching to the police station every time there's a problem. it's a very dynamic environment at the local level. the mayor from portland talks about cameras on their eyeglasses. when that happens, it will, i'll put the federal investigators back on the street. documented.ill be

>> when that happens, will you allow people to be arrested using google glass? >> that's an important part of this conversation. more of that information we're collecting right now is exculpatory. everybody is looking at this as they're going to use it to put me in prison. it's going to clear a lot of people. at what point in time if you want to pursue the goals of justice, what point in time do you stop collecting the info, what point in time do you get a license plate connection that might clear someone of a murder charge. this cuts both ways. people have to understand that. >> you wouldn't have problems if normal citizens videotaped police at all times in their action using google glass or phones? >> not at all. we have a court case on it in boston. i sent out a directive to my offices that if anybody videotapes you with public information, you can't do a thing about it.

>> one other quick thing. one of our crown fellows of the institute created a shot spotter, is that right? james bellvick, a friend of mine, how does that work? >> an acoustic collection device. listeningcrophones for gunshots. they hear the report of the gunshot, they try hang later and give you a precise location as to where it happened. it's extremely effective. it saved lives and led to arrests. >> opening it up for questions. questions for the commissioners? i can't see well. but wave a hand -- >> we are police commissioners.

>> is the same true in new york about people who videotape? and is it exculpatory? do you encourage citizens to videotape your police in action? >> we don't discourage them. we've had issues in the past. but clearly it's the public domain. and it can be done. we've had some issues with the shot spotter because i think the topography of new york city has the effect -- >> yeah. >> what new technology is the most effective coming down the pipeline that we don't know about. >> well, you know, the cameras are great. quite frankly. the first thing that police officers do when a crime is committed is to look and see if any camera is in the area as was said before in the previous time. it can wait. so they're -- you know, they're virtually everywhere. every commercial establishment. >> can you monitor in realtime to prevent crimes that are about to happen?

>> that's a very expensive do that, to have police officers. >> you need human eyes to do that or can you do it -- >> yes. >> with artificial intelligence? >> you can do some of that. we have some live monitoring going on in our public housing projects that's going on on a limited basis. but generally speaking, the cameras are used for retrospective investigation or examination. >> yes. >> hi, my name is emma green. i'm from the atlantic. commissioner kelly, how do you feel about the verdicts that came down on stop and frisk. and how do you think of the new york precinct going forward? >> i didn't hear the second part, but the first part is how do i feel about -- >> how do you feel about the verdict that came down on stop and frisk. and how will it change new york policing moving forward? >> i am a disabled veteran. i don't hear exactly what the question is, but stop and frisk.

it's first of all, stop and question. sometimes frisks in less than half of the cases is frisk. which is a limited pat down. i believe that this case -- the decision by joe shinnedling cries out for appeal. i think the findings and the indictment of the entire police department calls for indirect racial profiling is based on the flimsiest information. the experts had in this case looked at 4.4 million stops over a decade. the expert on the plaintiff side found that 6% of those may be unjustified. >> the judge himself looked at the -- took testimony from the plaintiffs in this case, i believe there were four plaintiffs, it involved 19 stops. she, herself, found that ten of

the 19 stops were constitutional. the criteria that they use in my judgment and a lot of other people's judgment is totally unrealistic and involves census data in a particular area. taken to the natural conclusion, we would have to stop more women. we stop very few women because the law -- the codified law says you can stop someone in a public place who you have reasonable suspicion is about to commit, is committing, or has committed a crime. and the majority of those cases, of course, are males. we had the most diversified police department in the world. we had police officers born in 106 countries so it's kind of somewhat strange that we're found to be guilty of indirect racial profiling.

we are majority minority in the police officer rank. so the 97% of the shooting victims in this city as are the perpetrators. black or hispanic. the criteria that was used as i said the census data goes up against the one we believe should be used and we brought in the corporation to 2006. the most appropriate racial profiling is ongoing is that the descriptions given by the victims of the violent crime of the perpetrators of violent crime. government is left out of it. now, in that case, in those examples, 70% to 75% of the perpetrators of violent crimes are identified as being african-american. and our stops traditionally had been 53% african-american.

so our stops obviously or certainly comport to the description of violent crime. now, what we're doing in the city and i think this gentleman alluded to it, it's working here. if you compare the bloomberg years, the 12 -- the 11 years, the almost 12, the 11 full years of mayor bloomberg's tenure, you compare it to the 11 years previous. you have 12,000 murders prior to bloomberg taking office. 5,000 murders in the -- in the subsequent 11 years. so it's 7,363 fewer murders in this city over that period of time. and if history is any guide, the vast majority of those lives saved are young people of color, mostly young men of color. and for a variety of reasons, this case cries out for appeal.

it may not be appeal because of the city's change in the the administration. the new mayor may not decide to go forward with the appeal. and i believe that would be a major mistake. >> yes. there. following up on that, i'm curious about your thoughts on the mandatory sentencing for violations, how it works, and the racial ramifications for that as well. >> mandatory sentencing? >> and the gun violations and how that works in terms of racial issues? >> i don't like mandatory sentencing. i think that in very few instances should we have mandatory sentencing. i would leave it up to the discretion of the judges. and so much of the process of the judges. but not in favor of -- >> my understanding that here there are -- that the state of new york, if you are illegally

possessing a gun that there's a three-year mandatory sentence -- >> the application doesn't work. what happens is the people were let to plead guilty to possession, or some place in the process, there is a negotiation that takes place. so practically speaking, it's in my judgment not worked well. >> what do you think has been the most important effect here in new york? it's remarkable. >> i think a lot of things that we're doing. i can tell you one of the most recent programs that we put in the last year, year and a half, is something that we call crew cut. in the analysis, we determined about a 30% of our shootings were coming for what we called crews. these are gangs and a couple of

crooks below bloods and crips. these are loosely affiliated. we have about 300 in the city. we put in a program to take them on directly. we increase the size, we double the size of our gang division. we took advantage of the fact that these young people can't help themselves but brag on social media. and we put a social media component in each one of the gang units, put an attorney on each one of the gang units because we have five district attorneys in new york city. and it enables us to have liaison directly with each one of the district attorney's. we put a uniform component, uniformed police officers in each of our precincts that had a problem with crews and they're there to disrupt and intersect in the acts of violence. one of the things that we're sensitive to is retaliation.

so this has worked very well for us. and as was said before, last year, we had a record low year for murders and shootings. this year, we're running 25% below that. i think the professor said that something -- he talked about the reduction in murders. but 20 years ago, we have -- 23 years ago, we had 1 million fewer people living in the city. we had 2,245 murders in the 7.3 million population. now we have 8.4 million people and we're running at a rate now that will bring us in at about 320 murders. >> let me get commissioner davis in. what are you doing that's most effective? >> we're following the same policies. >> the shootings are occurring among gang members.

neighborhoodsnto of color. the aclu is looking at our numbers just like they did in new york. the initial findings are that most of the stops we're making are when people are involved in criminal activity. they kept records and the people that we should be paying attention to. but i find it remarkable that in a city where ray kelly has been able to reduce the homicide rate by 86%, the conversation is allowed something else other than giving him the credit that he's due for what's happened here. 7,000 lives are saved over this period of time. i give him a lot of credit for that. >> yes? way back -- >> hi, there. i'm sara goodyear. i'm with the atlantic cities. and even as homicide have continued to fall in new york city, traffic violence, continues to be a big issue here. 148 pedestrians killed by cars last year. there's a perception that the drivers don't get prosecuted for criminal activity.

do you think the nypd could do a better job of preventing traffic violence on the street? how can they do that? >> we can do a better job in every area. we're down 6,000 police officers from where we were 13 years ago when this administration came in. we've done a variety of things. we worked closely with the commissioner. they're doing a great job. we have just significantly changed or reformed our investigation of the practices. we have the collision investigation squad which uses the state of the art technology. but we do have 8.4 million people here. we do have a daytime population that's over 10 million people. going to have a lot of traffic and accidents. some people are saying that some

police are not arresting a lot of people for reckless driving, that kind of thing. you have to -- you have to observe the violation. many of the advocates, i assume, you're one of them, want us to make these determinations when we haven't seen -- we haven't observed the violation. it takes in depth investigations and examination, it takes witnesses. it is much more complex than you might think. >> yeah, technology and cameras, do they help? >> asking me? >> they do help. we have cameras in the patrol cars right now. certainly in the highway patrol cars. we use our technology to help our investigators go to the

scene of the accident and doing the investigation more effectively and quickly. >> last question. >> police departments -- >> identify yourself? >> rick hull, deputy mayor, city of los angeles. police used to be the back water in many cases of the local government, typically less educated than folks in other departments. now you're far more sophisticated in many ways than most of the other departments. more sophisticated technology, training, web of interconnection between the police agencies of all levels. how in the budget battles and you're looking at the overall health of cities, how do you see beginning to balance what you do in fighting crime and in keeping cities safe with the other elements that are necessary for a healthy city that in turn

supports the prosperity, support the revenue, and the quality of life that makes a city safe and attractive. >> start with that and repeat it. did you get all of that, okay, great? >> that's a great question. the mayor has made it clear that we'll work with other city departments. the strength of our success in boston, his designation was the urban mechanic for a great city. it's been based upon the fact that there is connectivity between all of the various branchs of government. so i know that arresting people is not going lower the crime rate. we've arrested fewer and fewer people every year for the last seven years. but i do know that working with the inspectional services department, with the alcohol beverage control department, the regulatory agencies in city government have a direct effect on crime and reduce crime hot spots immediately. so we've used that sort of wholistic approach for a long time in boston. me for the last seven years. it's only through cooperation

and coordination in the full direction of the mayor. the mayor plays ape nowhere role in makingr sure the people work together. when that happens, it can be extremely powerful. >> no more innovative mayor or leader in this country than michael bloomberg. he's done phenomenal things here. everything that goes forward in this city, certainly anything that is progressive in nature has to be public safety. it has to be a feeling that you can walk the streets safely and you don't have a fear of being shot in your neighborhood and he's made a commitment to that. i'm concerned about the priorities.

i'm parochial. but public safety, the staffing of the police departments, and the support that's needed comes first. everything else falls into place after that, in my judgment. >> thank you all, before you leave, you're both leaving office in the foreseeable future soon. where do you travel to go on vacation. when -- >> i'm going back to italy. my wife made it clear we're going to make another trip there. but the truth of the matter is, i have an offer for a fellowship department, i'll do a little teaching and looking at other opportunities. >> what will you teach? >> the institute of politicings. >> what subject? >> criminal justice and politics, i haven't gotten the course. i'll find out in november. so i'm looking forward to it, though. >> what are you going to teach? >> i'm going to be a greeter at walmart. >> all right. >> see you there. >> see you there. [ applause ]

>> annexed, journalist greenwald testifies before a european armament on surveillance programs. theok at to the changes to federal reserve stimulus program. as followed by discussion on u.s. relations with saudi arabia. >> coming up, a discussion on the role of faith and religion and politics and public life and civics. uests arere very -- g d-maryland and richard land. of the federal commission discusses the target credit card security breach and ways consumers can protect themselves from identity that. washington journal is live every morning on c-span.

>> c-span, we bring a denzel washington directly to you, put you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events and briefings. all as a public service a private industry. at four yearsted ago. you can watch it in hd. >> last week, former guardian journalist glen greenwald testified before the committee on the nsa surveillance programs and privacy issues. greenwald is the journalist that reported documents from nsa leaker edward snowden. the hearing on civil liberties, justice, and home affairs is an hour. >> we don't seem to have a

connection. other.hear each please welcome to the session of the committee of inquiry of the european parliament. we have an hour of this session. and i'm going to invite you to do your presentation and then afterwards we'll have full -- we'll take questions and answers. so i'm pleased to have you with us here today. i will give the floor and the video link, rather, the floor is yours. >> good afternoon. thank you to the committee for convening this inquiry and inviting me to speak to you as well. there has been a virtual avalanche of stories and reports over the last six months regarding else by image and

-- espionage and electronic surveillance by the nsa and its partners and each of the stories has been extremely important. but i think that the quantity of them has sometimes endangered the ultimate point from being obscured. so i wanted to spend a little bit of time discussing what i think is the primary revelation, the crux of all of these stories that ties them together and i think is the most important thing for us to realize. and that is what the ultimate goal of the nsa is along with its most loyal one might say subservient junior partner, the british agencies, gchq, when it comes to the suspicion surveillance is being dulled. the objective of this system is nothing less than the elimination of individual privacy worldwide.

and at first glance, that might seem like it's a bit hyperbolic, like it's a bit melodramatic, but it isn't. it's a literal description of what the nsa and the surveillance partners are attempting to achieve. and the reason i know that's what they're attempting to achieve is because this is what they say over and over and over again. on occasion, they say it publicly and repeatedly they say it in their private documents, which were written when they thought nobody was able to hear what it was that they were saying. there are instances where keith alexander, the general who is the chief of the nsa has made comments along the lines of the nsa for all signal communications between the unis.

the nsa tried to dismiss it as a literary illusion or a joke. it's no joke. throughout the nsa documents, there appears continuously all sorts of references to the fact that the nsa is the phrase, collect it all. whenever the u.s. and the surveillance process meets each year and the surveillance partners in the uk, canada, new zealand, there are constant inclusions of slogans like collect it all, know it all, or exploit it all throughout all of these documents. this is actually the mission. of the nsa. one of the ways you see the mission manifest is there are numerous programs that the nsa develops and pursues that have no real purpose other than to identify the few pockets of communication that still exists

on the planet that the nsa has not quite successfully invaded. the nsa was obsessed institutionally that exist that are impervious to the invasion and they work every day to try to rectify what they see as this problem. the problem being on the planet that human communication can take place by collect, storing, analyzing the communication. they're devoted to the example of trying to understand how better to invade the wi-fi systems on the airplanes, based on the concern they can use the internet, mobile phones for a few hours in their lives and not be susceptible to their surveillance set, there are documents that discuss ways

to circumvent holes in the means to be able to communicate to one another privately in the nsa. it was not just the creation of the most pervasive in history. we are faced with that. it's beyond that. it's an institution that has embedded to the mandate, the mission to ensure that the human beings can no longer communicate with one another electronically with any degree of privacy simply through the inertia. there's an effort to collect everything. and over the past six months, i've done a lot of reporting in many different countries about espionage targeted at many different populations. anywhere i do the reporting, i do it with interviews with newspapers, television programs in those countries and i'm

always asked why does in sweden, why are they so interest in what the people who are swedes are discussing, or why is -- obsessed with collecting all of the communications of brazilians or any number of the other countries. they give the answer that comes from the document which is that the nsa and partners don't need any specific reason to collect anybody's communications. just the fact that human beings are communicating with one another is reason enough for the nsa to decide that it should be collected and stored and monitored. they don't need specific rationale. their only rationale is that nobody should be able to communicate without the nsa being able to invade the communication. every one of the stories we've done, every one of the specific stories driven by the overarching theme. and i think it's fair to say that the significance of

supporting what mr. snowden revealed to the world really can't be overstated. if governments are devoted to the elimination of privacy worldwide, the u.s., the uk, and three partners are clearly devoted to doing, that has profound consequences for everybody who communicates electronically, which is most people on the planet. which is most people on the planet. and at the very least, it's be thing that well ought to discussing, debating openly. the t figuring out how stock -- >> the second point i wanted to make is i wanted to discuss a some of t about what the reaction has been. in are reporting about an pe and it reveals important point. late june, five months or so, reported the st

nsa that the nsa was targeting germans by the hundreds of millions for collections of telephone a of their records. the reaction of the german government was muted. here was symbolic gestures to objecting, but by in large, it was very restrained, the reaction. very much of an effort to do anything about it. asn't to reveal the ordinary germans but even the german chancellor angela merkel was the target of the surveillance system. the government react with genuine indignation and decided that it had to do something it.ut and i think that's a pattern that has repeated itself in sort of an as well, apathy and indifference when it's revealed that the is targeted with mass surveillance but true anger when themselves find out they're targeted. and part of what explains the the esting dichotomy is

fact that political officials often tend to be concerned about the own interest and not interests of the citizens they're representing. but i think the broader point the idea that as long quote/unquote only collected, then we can live with that level of intrusion. but when it comes to listening o people's cell phone calls or reading their e-mails, that's hen genuine outrage was warranted. i want to spend a moment addressing this point. it's the single greatest report thatn in the we've been doing. if you talk to surveillance i know you're doing, what you will hear i think lmost in census at this point, around the world, is that almost ass not simply invasive as content and reception or even as invasive. meaningful nd most

census in collection of metadata is more invasive. it's the nsa itself throughout the documents. metadata is the upreme priority of the agency, not because it protects people's privacy, but it enables the nsa people's privacy more effectively than the interception of content. easy to understand the abstra abstract. you can imagine, for example, a woman is going to get abortion, if you're listening in on your phone call, what you her calling the clinic, the clinic will answer ith the generic-sounding name like east-side clinic or something like that. ou will hear the woman who you decided to target for

surveillance, ask for an appointment tuesday at 2:00. appointment tuesday at 2:00. get to the phone. you have no idea why she called clinic she of called or what kind of purpose it was. but if you collect the metadata, see the phone number that you called, you will be able to identify it as an abortion clinic. you won't know how many times she called that clinic. you can see somebody who has hiv, calls a doctor specializing hiv once every three months as hiv patients do, if you listen to their phone calls, you have no idea what kind of doctor you're calling, but if you their metadata, you know their medical condition. someone calls the suicide hotline or drug addiction clinic, or someone who with someone who is not their spout late at night. ut other types of intimate activities that human beings

engage in. will apprehend reading their -mails or listening to the telephone calls that you will instantly be able to understand by collecting their metadata. are eyond that, there sophisticated, increasingly ophisticated tools for analyzing metadata when it's collected en masse to be able to only who your targets are speaking to, but who to andeople are speaking then who those people are speaking to. and then to develop a very of the nsive picture network of association and of various individuals society. of the a very invasive understanding of associations, the private thoughts of people whom under surveillance by collection of metadata. if eally is the case that

you're somebody who values privacy, almost preferable at nsa point to have the listening to the phone calleds e-mails for the collection of metadata over the course of years and link it to and dy else's metadata analyze it in secret no restraints as the g stshgs a and gchq and the surveillance partners are doing. make, point i wanted to nd talk about briefly is that the individual privacy, there's ften the sense that i think had rn governments have people accept that privacy value, really have much that it's essentially a luxury. that if you've done nothing nothing to hide. all of the sorts of cliches that been manufacturing and to get populations

a custom. ithough there's a perception, think in reality, it can work, seem to d because we instinctively understand why privacy is vital. they put pass words on e-mail and social media networks. their y put locks on bedroom and bathroom doors. they put video cameras in their homes to monitor everything they're doing. react with repulsion. human beings understand that critical component of what it means to be a free human being. it's worthhough, that spending a moment to underscore why that is. think we all have this understanding that when we know e're being watched by oh people. when we know that other people judgmental a examination upon our choices and ehaviors, the behaviors are

much different than when we react in a private realm. make cases to conform to orthodoxies that are designed to behavior deemed to be shameful. e take choices to fulfill the expectations that other people on the broader society have on us. conformists, we conform to norms. we have a realm we can go into where we're confident we're watched, can we test boundaries, can we engage in creativity and dissent. that's the realm in which human freedom exclusively resides. we can decide for ourselves what kind of choices we want to make. nd a society in which the private realm is abolished, in they're an beings know susceptible to being watched at any time. that is the key. read, but ey can be

they can monitored by some agencies just the knowledge that behavior is subjected to the possibility of surveillance is a society that breeds conformity. t's a society in which range uals will have the of choices restricted. tyranny, despot, every oppressive government loves a surveillance state, because it eliminates waste and breeds conformity and reduces the ly amount of freedom that as individuals we have. beyond is why i think the political implications or the theoretical or legal serious ons, there are consequences for what it means to live ree individual in the state like the one we're oving to which surveillance is -- sible and yeet yue pibipick yet ubiquitous. the final point i wanted to make by saying that

hat i'm glad the committee has convened the inquiry and we're able to have the opportunity to these issues. i wanted to remind everybody that therese only one reason to have the discussion that we're having today. and why we have the knowledge and information that we now about this system. oh the one reason is brave panned quite self-sacrificing decision of my this story, the edward snowden, to risk that he g in his life had, career, stability, and personal there are governments all over the world -- in fact, most governments all over the world who are extreme beneficiaries of mr. snowden's choice. human beings all over the world consider him a hero, governments have been able to realize how their privacy is being invaded, to take steps to reform the abuses that we now know about, to convene investigations like

the one we are here to participate in today. all sorts of people, all kinds of governments all over the world exploiting for their own interests and their own benefit the very great sacrifice that mr. snowden made. i am glad to see they are doing it and i'm gratified that governments are taking seriously what it is he has shown them. although governments have examined the choice is made and the sacrifice and bravery he has shown, you are very few governments -- in fact, a tiny handful -- who are extending reciprocal courtesy to him by protecting his rights the way he has decided to protect all of ours. because of that, he is currently in a situation that is very uncertain where his own government has threatened to subject him to persecution and put him in a cage for decades if not the rest of his life and for having shown the light on behavior that is illegal and

abusive, and most governments have decided to turn their back not only on him but their own obligations ethically and legally to protect people such as mr. snowden from persecution by granting him asylum. i think it is a very strange and disappointing dynamic to watch governments in europe express indignation over what he has revealed and take steps to protect themselves against it while at the same time turning their back on him and allowing his own government to threaten him with life in prison. i would hope that governments around the world would not only decide to try to exploit his revelations for their own interests, but also to express gratitude for what it is that he did by protecting his basic human rights, which is the right to come forward with evidence of secret wrongdoing on the part of

the worlds most powerful factions and not be sent to prison for the rest of your life for having done it. with that, i thank you once again for inviting me and i am happy to have a discussion if any of you have questions. >> ok, thank you very much for your introduction. now we are going to go to questions and answers, and i hope that the connection will remain stable enough. i understand that we can speak our only much and you will get translation into english, but that our colleagues here do not get any translation, or do you? no. but you should get translation >> ok, thank you very much for into ingush so signal if there is a problem. i'm also going to ask colleagues and our guests to be as brief and concise as possible and to allow for maximum number of questions. we will have one question, one answer each time, and i will ask everybody to be very, very concise. first of all, we will listen to

the man from the dsnd group. >> thank you, mr. greenwald for being with us today. can i begin with where you finish, the source, edward snowden? in my report, i am going to be talking about whistleblower protection. yesterday we saw the congressional committee that by mike rogers, and they rejected the definition of mr. snowden as a whistleblower. what is your view of that? is a problem. by rejecting that definition, they are seeing him as a felon. simple question, what is your view of that? secondly, on the federal court judgment, which you welcomed, again the congressional committee but also dianne feinstein and others say it is one of many judgments. this is an important judgment for us and a report because it begins to perhaps address this whole issue of metadata as you

describe it. you welcomed the judgment, but we are hearing voices saying that the judgment is not significant. tell us what you think. finally, the issue about the "guardian" reporting you have been doing -- how do you address critics who say that the reporting is putting people in danger or that it is inappropriate? my understanding is that you redacted all sorts of information. please answer those critics. finally, we had a european parliament debate on the issue of miranda. please comment on the issue of how anti-terrorism powers were used in that instance. thank you.

>> mr. greenwald? >> i will take those in order. yeah, i would just take those in order. i think mike rogers picked a very bad week to deny that mr. snowden is a whistleblower, given the federal court decision that you reference in the second part of your question, which is that the core program, the first one we revealed and that mr. snowden, when i first met with them, cited as what caused him to come forward, the collection of the metadata of all americans without regard to suspicion of evidence of wrongdoing, it regards the core guarantee of rights in the constitution and the court said it does not come close. somebody comes forward and revealed that a federal program that a court says is illegal is a classic whistleblower. on top of the fact that his revelations have sparked a debate in the united states and around the world that -- as evidenced by the hearing that we are participating in today about

all sorts of things that i think everybody on all sides of the debate agrees we are better off knowing about, and that is a classic whistleblower, somebody who reveals to the public evidence of wrongdoing, as well as illegality, and that sparked very important debate that no society can be about, and that is what mr. snowden has done and that makes him a classic whistleblower. as far is the opinion you asked about, what generally happens in the united states when it comes to surveillance is that the only court that rules on these programs are courts that no western democracy would even recognize as courts. they are tribunals that meet in secret and with only one side, where the u.s. government is permitted to be present and heard. what happened yesterday is that for the first time, real court proceeding as if value weighted the legality of these surveillance programs. the judge's opinion, which i urge everybody in the world to

read -- it is not only about the u.s. law but the way the programs destroy the concept of individual privacy and how the rationale offered by the u.s. government is false, mainly that it helps terrorism. the judge said there is zero evidence that it has stopped terrorism. this opinion was issued by one of the most respected national security judges in the united states. he is not known as a liberal. quite the opposite, he is a conservative judge when it by president bush. what he said is that the national security rationale offered by the government is not only false but woefully inadequate to address the serious privacy infringement that the collection of metadata imposes on everybody who is subjected to it. given the gravity of the opinion, how vehement it was, and the fact that it was issued by the judge is quite vital. as far as the third question, responding to my critics, it is

really remarkable, as although we have been criticized for disclosing documents which put people in danger, we have been pretty damning the criticized from the other direction as well, that we have published to view documents, that we have got to slow and how we publish these documents. i consider that criticism to be vastly more persuasive and valid than the one that says we put people in danger. terrorists have long known that the u.s. and the u.k. government and lots of other governments are doing everything possible to monitor the communication. osama bin laden famously used human couriers to communicate with his associates precisely because all terrorists already know that everything they're doing on the internet or telephone is a subject to being monitored by various governments. we did not tell terrorists anything they didn't already know. what we tell people that they didn't already know is that not the terrorists, but that they themselves, innocent people, are the real target of this mass surveillance system.

the only thing we have part is the perception of honesty and the credibility of western leaders who have built this massive surveillance system in the dark. the final point of the case of my partner -- the thing i want to say about that is that i hope everybody understands how extreme and radical the u.k. government is when it comes to press freedoms. they are literally equating the reporting we have done not only with espionage but with terrorism. the u.s. state department has for years condemned as tyrannical governments that equate journalists with terrorists, or journalism with terrorism. that is exactly what the u.k. government is doing in this case. they have lots of other instances where they threaten core press freedoms of "the guardian" and journalists who have been able to report on this story in a way that any country

that overlooks what the u.k. government is doing loses all credibility on press freedom when engaged in by countries that are not quite as familiar or allies of those governments. >> ok, thank you. the next question. >> i would like to talk in german. [speaking german] >> thank you very much, mr. greenwald, for giving us your time and an opportunity to put questions to you. i have got basically 3 small questions. first of all, if there is a serious concern to raise attention to what is going on in our private lives around the world, then i am wondering at the moment whether we know everything that there is to know, that we ought to know, or whether there might be more information that could catch us by surprise. obviously, that would be

interesting for us as to what more might be looking out there. then you mentioned always of intercepting communication and how that is being done, but for a long time now things are being made public which were in the realm of national security, and that was in the national realm. so for example, when you are talking about the opportunities of phoning up an abortion clinic and to be found out, is that in the interest of the nsa to evaluate that sort of information? the fact that it is possible to do, i think we all understand that. that is not an issue. but is there any interest in the nsa doing that? thirdly, on the threats we are facing, obviously there are

threats in our private sphere. that is what is occupying us at the moment. but what about the threats that exist, as it were, around the globe, threats to states and from states, fundamentalist movements? do you think it is justified to carry out certain reconnaissance work or activities even if that may involve delving into information that perhaps should remain private? >> thank you for those questions. as far as whether we know everything, we certainly know the gist of what these documents reveal, as i began by discrediting, that the nsa and gchq and allied governments our attention to collect all forms of electronic communication.

there are stories that we are going to report that are significant. but the documents are complicated and as responsible journalists it takes is a little bit of time to assess them and report them accurately. we're doing it as fast as we can, consistent with being responsible and accurate. there are stories that remain that a significant but after 6 months, everybody gets the fundamental point that drove mr. snowden to come forward -- the menace to everybody's individual privacy. as far as the question about the nsa and whether it has an interest in, for example, collecting information about a woman getting an abortion or people calling drug and alcohol clinics, to answer that question all you have to do is look at recent history, not only in the united states, but other countries as well. there is no instance where governments have developed the power to engage in secret massive surveillance where it wasn't abused.

for decades in the united states, the united states government used its surveillance authorities to monitor and eavesdrop on political dissidents and opponents of the government. the fbi famously tried to get evidence that martin luther king was having adulterous affairs and then threatened him or even tried to encourage them to commit suicide. there were decades of abuses that come from this system. i think it is widely understood that if can exercise massive surveillance power in the dark with no accountability or transparency, it is not likely but inevitable that it will be abused. just 3 weeks ago we reported that one of the things the nsa is doing is monitoring people not engaged in terrorist activities or members of terrorist organizations, but who express what the u.s. government calls "radical ideas," who have been targeted by the nsa, and the nsa is collecting information about their business

with pornographic sites or sexual chats that they have online with people who they are not married to, and the documents we publish contains plans to use that information to publicly humiliate and discredit those people to prevent them from effectively communicating their ideas to the world. a pure instance of abuse. it may be true that an ordinary person and never challenges the government is not going to be threatened with that kind of abuse, because they are not challenging the government, but i don't think we want to create a society that says you won't be targeted with abusive surveillance as long as you stayed home and mind your own business and never challenge the government. the measure of a free society is how it treats dissidents and those who express ideas that deviate from the norm. finally, on the issue of whether there is justifiable surveillance, of course there is justifiable surveillance. everybody agrees that when there is evidence of somebody who is

engaged in terrorist organizations or terrorist plots, that their conversations can be legitimately monitored. i think it should happen in a framework of accountability and the involvement of courts to make sure it is not being abused. but that is not what these documents show. the documents show whole populations being subjected to indiscriminate surveillance. and things we have reported on such as the targeting by the gchq of the oil giant, or the organization of american states, or economic conferences where economic records are being negotiated in latin america, or spying on energy companies, such as what we reported on in norway and sweden. what much of this spying is about as nothing to do with national security. that is the pretext. economic advantage, essentially the accumulation of power. terrorism and national security are ways to excuse it, but not the real purpose and these

documents leave no doubt about that. >> ok, thank you. i'm afraid i'm going to have to ask you to be a bit more concise in answering because otherwise we won't make it in the time slot foreseen. i am now changing hats and i am going to ask a question on behalf of the liberal democrat group. my first question would be, amongst all the countless targets that have been revealed, there is one that is of particular interest to the european parliament, and that is the server of a company called swift, processing bank data. there are early indications in the snowden papers that say that the u.s. authorities have unauthorized access, or at least created the possibility of having unauthorized access. do you have any more information on that? second question, what makes a whistleblower a whistleblower is that he has exhausted all internal procedures for reporting wrongdoing.

is that the case with mr. snowden? what happened with the internal procedures? my third question would be, in your introduction, you singled out the u.k. as an ally of the u.s. are there any other particular european countries that you would like to highlight? my final question follows up a little but on the other -- have you seen any evidence or indication that information has been used against political adversaries or that it will be allowed to use explicitly against political adversaries? thank you. >> as far as the swift banking, "the new york times" reported

seven years ago that the nsa had targeted the swift banking system. the documents we published in brazil and the targeting of petrograd by the nsa and gchq listed it as among its targets. that is the reporting we have done so far. clearly swift is part of the targets of the nsa and the gchq. as far as being a whistleblower and exhausting all the internal procedures, i think mr. snowden has explained in the past the past jobs he had where he brought the wrongdoing to light that he was dismissed by his supervisors and told to go back to work and mind his own business. the same response that other whistleblowers like chelsea manning received. there are senators on the intelligence committee of the united states who were aware of this wrongdoing and tried to inform the public about it but were constrained by law from even telling the public what it is they found out and were essentially rendered impotent. mr. snowden saw that even united

states senators were barred by law from speaking about it or doing anything about it and that his only recourse for getting action was to make it public, that internal systems for whistleblowers is really a farce. it is designed to suppress the information and not bring it to light. the u.k. is the closest ally. there is another level of cooperation, tier-b cooperation where these governments cooperate with the nsa on a case-by-case basis for specific targeting purposes and germany, france, norway, sweden, and denmark are among the countries in europe which participate most extensively with the nsa, and we publish documents setting that fourth.

as far as the documents used against illegal adversaries, i described the stories published in the huffington post a couple weeks ago in which the nsa plotted to use evidence of sexual activity on the internet in order to discredit and destroy the reputation of people they consider to be purveyors they think are radical and there is reporting i cannot talk about because the documents are not yet published and the reporting is not done. >> ok, thank you very much. the next question will be on behalf of the conservative group. sorry, on behalf of the green group. >> thank you very much. first of all, let me say that i thank you for your work, because without the independent work of

journalists scrutinizing and reporting about these documents, we would not have this discussion either. let me ask three questions. first, with regard to the awareness, quite a lot of politicians think that citizens do not care about this. what do you think about this? and these fundamental questions could play a role also in the democratic decision-making process -- for example, in elections in upcoming years. second question, with regard to spying activities of intelligent services, do you have some hints

that there could be also economic interests involved in the spying activities of intelligence services? for example, of the gchq into eu member states. the third question is about the work of journalists. i admired the work of independent analysts trying to scrutinize this information, but i hear from many sources that the work of journalists and free press in europe is in danger, and that extends -- my question would be how far you would see the possibility of us politicians to safeguard the work of the free press in europe and worldwide, and if you consider going to the strasburg human rights court on the obvious infringements to the freedom of press in your work? thank you.

>> mr. greenwald? >> thank you for the kind words, and as far as the question of whether or not citizens care, there is immense anecdotal and incurable evidence that demonstrates how much they do. around the world, millions of people have been in gauged by this reporting, have concluded that mr. snowden is heroic for what it is he did. the interest level around the world is as high as ever but i think it's a testament to that in the u.s., there are severe polling shifts in terms of how people for the first time since 9/11 are viewing threats to their freedom and privacy from the government as being greater than terrorism, and all kinds of significant shift in how people perceive these issues. continuing to make people aware not only of the severity of the threat, but the reason why it affects them so personally, is

instrumental to ensuring that people continue to take an interest, the governments are doing to their privacy. as far as the question of economic interests, as i indicated in my last response, there have been literally more than a dozen stories about programs that have as their only goal spying on economic entities for economic reasons, exactly what the u.s. on the left have criticized very vocally for doing is what the nsa and gchq and its allies are doing as well. i am hesitant to talk about reporting we have not yet done, but europe is by no means exempt when it comes to the u.s. and the gchq putting it under a surveillance microscope in terms of trade talks and other kinds of economic interests. finally, the question of the free press, i think it is hard to overstate just how successful

the effort has been to intimidate journalists and their sources by the u.k. and the u.s. i know i have received all kinds of invitations over the past 3 the effort has been to or 4 months to attend events and speak at events in europe, at private events, organizations, at public events, before government bodies, and have been advised that traveling would be very dangerous to me because the charges the u.k. government is threatening to bring. and so i do hope that to the extent that any of you believe the information is helpful in fulfilling your duties as legislators, then you take steps to protect the journalists and especially the sources who sacrifice their own interests to bring it to light. >> thank you. now it is your turn. >> thank you, chairman.

good morning, mr. greenwald. i assume it is morning where you are. i want to do more with the processes the new general observations. i would like to know really whether in the receipt of information whether you received a copy of the files originally from mr. snowden or whether you got that from an intermediary, and additional documents, or copies from "the guardian" newspaper. and if not originals, did you get separately any other copies from any other source or a mix of the 2? and the documents -- he talked a lot about documents and what they contained. i would like to press you on this. what were the documents about? were there signs of redaction, particularly the names of intelligence agents?

also, you say on your twitter account that it was the guardian's decision to give the gchq files to "the new york times. i wonder if you got the information on those files later, or did you already have them. some people, mr. snowden -- i mean, mr. greenwald, regard mr. snowden as a hero. i'm afraid i cannot join that club. but the reference to whistleblower -- as i understand it, the legal processes of the united states set down clear guidance as to how whistleblowers behave. there are protections for whistleblowers in the constitution and legal system. how is it that we have no evidence that mr. snowden attempted at all to utilize what was legally available to him and, frankly, therefore left us with a situation that he could actually deal with these matters, and telling the world

about it, was that responsible behavior when security was so important? finally, as a journalist, mr. greenwald, how do you determine yourself what is or what is not a matter of national security? you feel yourself qualified or work with -- i know you are no longer with "the guardian" -- do you feel qualified or groups to make such norms decisions? thank you. >> mr. greenwald. >> part of freedom of the press an important part of freedom of the press, like we have been talking about this morning, is that fortunately journalists don't have to answer to government officials about what their sources gave them or how it is that they got the materials they are allowed to protect their sources and protect their journalistic material from invasions by questions from the government, like some of the ones you just

asked. mr. snowden is the source for the reporting that we have done at "the guardian." we specifically at "the guardian" received the material and when we received it is not anyone's concern. mr. snowden is identified as the source because he wanted to be identified as the source traded beyond that, i am not going to answer questions about exactly when we got the documents or who at "the guardian" got the documents or when we decided to share them with one another. those are internal matters as journalists and as a newspaper and it is not for the government to intervene with that process. as far as what the documents are about, i think it is very clear what the documents are about. when mr. snowden came to us, he said that he had a large number of documents, and if you think about it for a minute, and i think this is really crucial him he had a lot of choices with what he could do with that those documents. you could have uploaded them all to the internet. he could have given them to an organization and ask to that organization to disclose them all. he could have sold the documents to foreign intelligence services around the world and have been

very rich for the rest of his life. he did not do any of that. he came to journalists that worked with the largest and most respected news organizations in the world and ask them to be extremely judicious and careful in going through the material and publishing only that which is in the public interest to know while not endangering any lives. i think that everyone can see that we have adhered to those wishes. as far as whistleblower protections are concerned, i am not really sure what you got the idea that there are protections for whistleblowers in the u.s. constitution. that is simply untrue. as far as whether there are protections for whistleblowers in the law, all you have to do is look at the fact that the obama administration has prosecuted under espionage statutes more whistleblowers in the last 5 years than have been prosecuted in all of american history prior to president obama becoming president. as i discussed earlier, these

mechanisms that exist in the u.s. government are designed to depress this kind of information and not enable the public to learn about it. finally, in terms of the question of how i is a journalist make these decisions, the simple answer is i make them the same way journalists around the world make these kinds of decisions every single day. i work with the largest newspapers around the world, france, spain, brazil, scandinavia, the "new york times" and "washington post" are going to the same process. we make sure the information we promise doesn't put anyone's lives in danger and no one has suggested the information we do our job as journalists, which is to not repress this information and demonize those who ring it to life and so people know with the government is doing because that's what democracy requires.

>> thank you. that brings us to mrs. gomez on behalf of the foreign affairs committee and i have two more requests for the floor after that. >> do you have any evidence any european leader has been spied by nsa has been blackmailed or could be blackmailed or intimidated in any way? my second question is when we went to the united states recently, we found out the different elements of the administration and congress had no strategy and were quite fearful. at the same time, they were not taking responsibility because there was all of this came, the president was not aware and in

congress, the mood was business. what does it mean? are we going to learn that he -- that the nsa was spying on the u.s. president? finally, there is a reference to the corporation with intelligence -- cooperation with intelligence agency and inherits to the rule of law, in that cooperation. you mentioned a few more cooperative with the nsa methods, but i would like to ask about mike country portugal -- about my country portugal. >> as i have indicated, i'm hesitant to talk about the documents we have not yet reported because it is

irresponsible to start opining on documents that have not gone through the journalistic process. what i will say is that there are a lot of stories about how the nsa uses and abuses its surveillance power. that are not yet reported, but we are working on. as far as the question of blackmail, i would simply point that history as opposed to what documents might reveal we have not yet reported in which surveillance powers have been abused exactly that way. it is naïve to assume that for the first time in human history a massive surveillance state that operates in the dark isn't being used for those purposes. as far as portugal is concerned, there are still lots of countries where we tend to do very specific reporting in partnership with media organizations in those countries area virtual is one of them. the only thing i can say on that is that there is reporting coming regarding portugal and unfortunately, since we haven't done the reporting, i'm not able to be more specific.

>> thank you. and the final questions. >> thank you for the work you have done which has allowed us to really understand the world we are living in. i think it has been very helpful. do you think the metadata or sensitive data -- we just heard from european experts who said basically metadata can give you a time and place to allow you to identify a person area -- person. if it is sensitive data, should it be protected? in your country and the united kingdom, the role of the united kingdom is very important in

this. do you think metadata should be protected? >> i talked earlier about why i think the collection, the mask collection of metadata is more invasive than the interception of content, the ability to read people's mail or listen to their telephone calls. the court decision that came out of the united states that found the metadata program violated the privacy rights of americans is extremely compelling about why metadata is so invasive and i would encourage you to read it erie it -- to read it. the idea that it's simply a list of harmless information is antiquated. it's from an era where communications were radically different than they are now. given technology and what we use our phones for and what

governments have been able to do in terms of analyzing metadata, metadata is what the focal point of these surveillance agencies is the cousin learn more of out people from metadata analysis than content. i'm glad you brought up the u.k. , because when it comes to european metadata, the nsa plays a very important role but it is the u.k. through their interception of underwater fiber-optic cables and their invasion into all sorts of systems, including by very controversial means of hacking that is a primary threat to the privacy of european citizens when it comes to their telephone and e-mail communications, at least as much or more so than the nsa. >> thank you. the last speaker on the list. >> thank you. i come from sweden and last week, swedish television showed

a program there you were one of the reporters showing how the swedish security agency are intimately connected to the nsa and that they play an active part in breaking into computers. that was a new revelation for people in sweden. i'm happy to tell you this has created quite a lot of attention in sweden and at the moment, we have the government basically saying they hope it will be followed and i get the impression if there are more revelations that they are planning to distance themselves and be able to blame the security agency itself. my question would be will it be more on the swedish, the fra thing? and will there be more reporting on the involvement of european government?

that is an issue that is of particular issue -- that is an issue with us here. you mentioned not jeopardizing lives. can i be confident you are thinking about your own security in the security of everyone else who has access to the material so it's not even a theoretical option for security services to suppress the material by killing you off? >> yes, thank you for that concern, first of all. i'm glad you asked about the swedish television part because i wanted to emphasize that we spent a lot of time talking about metadata this morning trade but one of the revelations

they are reporting in sweden demonstrated that the spying, including mass indiscriminate spying goes beyond metadata. one of the reports we did was about a very important program for the nsa and gcs q. but they have started to allow their closest surveillance partners access to their programs and has very little to do with metadata. it's about the ability to store e-mail and read them at will and collect people's browsing history and google searches trade essentially the content of communication and what is being done on the internet area that is very much a part of our privacy is being invaded. there are programs that are all about content and not just metadata. as far as european governments are concerned, it is true that governments in germany and france expressed ingot nation when we did our first reports that the nsa was targeting their countries only to turn out that they subject their own

populations to similar types of surveillance and even cooperate with the nsa. but nobody really competes with the nsa when it comes to the level of invasiveness, the amount of resources that go into it, and the objective and mission to pull back all forms of electronic communication. but the u.s. and the u.k. are at a different level when it comes to their ability to destroy privacy area and about my own security of the people reporting on this, we have taken a lot of steps to ensure there are multiple copies of these documents in various places around the world grade very safe and very secure. eliminating somebody's ability to work on them would not impede the ability to do reporting on these materials. reporting on these materials is inevitable.

i've been particularly fortunate to be in a country, brazil, whose government is appreciative of this reporting and understands the need to support the free press by the u.s. and u.k. on our ability to do the reporting. we feel as confident as we can't that this reporting is going to happen and nobody can stop it area -- nobody can stop it. >> thank you very much. with that, we have exhausted our list of speakers. on behalf of this committee, i would like to thank you very much for your time and willingness to answer questions. i think everybody is waiting with great syria city and interest in particular on the issues you have said you could not answer our questions on because it has not yet been published. one of the things that sets a democracy apart from an

authoritarian regime is that we have secret services, but we also have democratic oversight. the free press plays a role in that others also parliamentary oversight and we feel as a european parliament we have very limited means to exercise oversight. we would be extremely grateful for any information if you would feel the urge to share that with somebody. thank you very much for your time and that concludes this session. goodbye. vietnam.

washington journal continues. host: at the table, gregory ip of "the economist." guest: good morning. host: let's take a temperature of the u.s. economy. how is it doing? guest: it looked very similar about a year ago. growing around 2%. but even though the raw numbers are very similar, the outlook is quite different. when you're ago, we were heading into a period when we were trying to get through a number of crises. we still had to get to the fiscal cliff.

a year later, we have absorbed the shocks to the system and it looks like things are looking up. employment growth seems to becoming more entrenched. the unemployment rate is dropping. -- it lookse people like the stock market is quite buoyant. i think next year would be the best you're we have had since the recession ended in 2009. host: what's the lease to be worked on? -- what still needs to be worked on? guest: we still have austerity in the pipeline. higher taxes and reduced government spending will reap deuce -- reduce half a percentage point. we have not seen the full absorption as the federal reserve dials back stimulus programs. we could see higher interest rates and that could weaken the

housing markets. we could see a pullback in the stock market. forecasts -- we have given the same forecast every year for the last 3-4 years. we need to be aware of things that could come along to set us back. host: the phone numbers are on the bottom of the screen as we take a temperature of current conditions. what is working, what still meets the work on, what next year would be like. we also have a separate line for the unemployed. .202) 585-3883 we will take your tweets and comments by e-mail as well. has written about the 100th anniversary of the formation of the federal reserve. here is a look at the "the economist" story.

tell us more of the significance. guest: there is an old saying things that -- two can get congress to act -- crisis and christmas. the solution was to create a central bank. there was a great deal of debate over what shape that bank should have. forcedil woodrow wilson the two sides to compromise, were they ready to compromise. because someting things never change. we are still having many of the same fights we had 100 years ago. our bankers to powerful? is it doing enough for main street? for wall street? host: we will hear from ben bernanke in a moment.