for the bill recently passed by the house of representatives. i appreciate the leadership and the considerable effort of this committee in working with us to explore how we can increase the confidence of our fellow americans in their privacy being protected while providing our intelligence agencies with the authorities they need to acquire foreign intelligence that is so important to our national security. the bill passed by the house last month would make significant changes to the provisions of the foreign intelligence surveillance act that we believe will help us meet these two objectives. it would prohibit bulk collection of information under section 215, the national security letter statutes, and the pin trace commitments of fisa. it replaces the bulk metadata collection program with a new framework that preserves the capabilities that we need without the government holding

the bulk metadata. to be clear, the president called for this transition not because the program was illegal or was being abused, but rather to give the public greater confidence that their privacy is being appropriately protected while maintaining the tools that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies need. the bill would also provide greater transparency to the public concerning intelligence activities and authorize the surveillance court to appoint independent amicus so alternative views could be heard. mentioned, hr 3361 establishes a new mechanism under section 215 that permits the government to access telephony metadata without having to collect it in bulk. it includes all of the key attributes identified by the president in march for a new

program, including, in particular, a requirement that absent an emergency situation, the government would obtain the records only pursuant to individual orders from the fisa court, approved with the use of certain selection terms for such queries and only if a judge agrees the government has established reasonable, particularly suspicion the firm is associated with a terrorist group. as i said before and is worth repeating, the prohibition of bulk collection extends to all bulk collection of records pursuant to 215 going forward, as well as under the national security letter statutes and the provisions of fisa. under each of these authorities the government would be a -- required to use a specific selection term as a basis for the collection of records. specific selection terms are defined as "a discrete term such

as a term identifying a person, entity, account, address, or device, as used by the government to limit the scope of the information or tangible things that are sought." this definition clearly prevents bulk collection under these authorities, including the collection of the sort that has been conducted with respect to the telephone and internet metadata. itle i have heard people say would allow the government to seek all of the phone records, for example, of a particular zip code, that is not the case. that would be the type of indiscriminate, bulk collection that this bill is designed to end. it does preserve the ability to collect information in ways necessary to identify and disrupt the threats that we face. for example, if the fbi learns that an unknown suspect intends to build an improvised explosive device using ball bearings and

fertilizer, this bill would enable the fbi to obtain sales records for those items from particular stores in the area that sell those items. or, if the fbi comes aware that an unidentified terrorist suspect spent several nights at a particular hotel, the bill would allow the fbi to request the hotel's guest records for those nights. as the house committee on intelligence noted in its report 3361, "the collection means indiscriminate acquisition, not the collection of tangible things." the bill's recognition of specific selection terms recognizes that distinction. other provisions would create unprecedented transparency and further enhance oversight. all, buildsrst of

on what the government has already committed to make public regarding the use of national security authorities. in addition to codifying best method to release annual figures, the bill essentially codifies the department of forice's january framework reporting by providers, but has additional options for reported -- reporting broken down by authority. it would require a review of fisa opinions, orders, or decisions that include an interpretation fisa and would direct the government to make such orders publicly available to the greatest extent correctable -- practical. it would create a new mechanism to ensure that the fisa court and the fisa court of review receive independent, third-party input in the consideration of novel matters.

beyond the authority to challenge orders they receive pursuant to fisa, the legislation would provide a magistrate to appoint an amicus and assist the court in a review that prevents novel or significant interpretations of the law unless the court issues a written finding that such appointment is not appropriate. in summary, we support the usa freedom act as an effective means of addressing some of the concerns that have been raised about the impact of our collection intelligence activities on privacy, while preserving the authorities that we need for national security. we urge the committee to give the house still serious consideration as soon as possible consistent with this entity is important role. importantmmittee's role. thank you for the ability to share our views. stephanie o'sullivan will make

an opening statement and we will be happy to answer your questions. >> thank you, the star cole -- mr. cole. mrs. o'sullivan. >> thank you. we are pleased to sit before you -- the usa freedom act as passed by the house last month, but i wanted to touch on a few key points in my remarks. over the past year the nation has been engaged in a robust discussion about how the intelligence community uses its authority to correct -- collect critical for and intelligence in a way that protects privacy. we take great care to ensure the protection of privacy and civil liberties in the conduct of collection activities. nevertheless, we have continued to examine ways to increase the confidence of our fellow citizens that their privacy is being protected, while at the same time providing the intelligence community with the

authorities that he needs to fulfill its mission and response abilities. to that end we have increased our transparency efforts and the director of national intelligence has declassified and released thousands of patients -- pages about the program including court decisions and a variety of other documents. we are continuing to do so. these documents demonstrate the commitment of all three branches of the government to ensuring that these programs operate within the law and apply vigorous protections for personal privacy. it is important to emphasize that although the information released by the director of national intelligence was probably classified originally, declassified it because concerns were outweighed. in addition to declassified documents, we're taken significant steps to allow the public to understand how we use

the authorities in fisa now and going forward. are currentlye working to finalize a transparency report that will outline on an annual basis the total number of orders issued under various fisa authorities and an estimate of the total number of targets affected by those orders. moreover, we recognize it is important for companies to be able to reassure customers about the limited number of people targeted by orders requiring companies provide information to the government. we support the provisions of the house bill that allowed the companies to report information about national security legal demands and law enforcement legal demands that they receive each year. we believe this increase transparency provides the public with relevant information about the use of these legal authorities, while at the same time protecting important collection capabilities. making adjustments to our collection activities and our authority is also part of this effort. for several years the government courtught and the fisa

has issued orders under section 215 of the patriot act, allowing the bulk collection of metadata about telephone calls. the president has ordered a transition that will end this bulk collection in a manner that maintains the tools and intelligence agencies need for national security. we are committed to following this mandate. the intelligence community believes that the new framework in the usa freedom act preserves the capabilities the intelligence community needs without the government holding this metadata in bulk. the usa freedom act would prohibit all woke collection -- all bulk collection of records pursuant to section 215, the pin andster provision of fisa national letters going forward. the intelligence committee understands and will adhere to the prohibition on all bulk collection under these authorities. moreover, the usa freedom act

makes other important changes by further ensuring that individuals privacy is appropriately effected without sacrificing operational effectiveness. to that end, we support the usa freedom act as an effective means of addressing the concerns that have been raised about the while of our activities, preserving the authorities that we need for national security. we urge this committee to give the house bill serious consideration as expeditiously as possible consistently with -- consistent with this committee's deliberations and we are able -- ready to work to clarify language in the bill if necessary. in closing, we appreciate the committee's leadership, in particular your support in considering issues related to our collection activities and privacy and civil liberties issues. we also appreciate your support for the men and women working throughout the intelligence community's that includes the nsa remain dedicated to keeping our nation safe, protecting our

privacy, and who have upheld their

to retain billing information into looking calls or at least 18 months. here's the question. does this rule required telephone companies to retain recent visionn

time? as you know, in this bill before us, there is no time for retention of records. leggettld refer to mr. but we believe this does divide a sufficient amount of time in the format of the records, it allows us in the court to allow to makel assistance sure they are in the kind of form and format that would be useful to us. >> we believe the 18 month retention would the sufficient if the companies were to change practices, we would advise the committee. theyu are confident that will retain the call records for 18 months?

>> they dictate that they retain the record then they could change the business models and need for that. we wouldn't advise the committee if and as that happens to conduct intelligence mission. >> thank you. mr. vice chairman. is sectionopinion accordance with the laws of the united states? >> can i get your answer to the same question? >> do you agree that the bulk telephone metadata collection system has one of the most heavily overused programs in the industry. >> this would extend the sunset

out to december 30 1, 2017. it seems to me that these are pretty noncontroversial at this point. the only reason we kept extending is because of the concerns of the bulk data collection program which this bill will eliminate. has there been any abuses of the lone wolf is -- provisions to your knowledge. >> other has not. >> would you make them permanent? >> yes. >> yes. >> yes.

>> in your opinion, is this safe or safer? >> thank you for the words of support for the nsa workforce. we appreciate that. in my opinion, we are less safe because of the disclosure of the methods that we use to conduct or authorize intelligence missions. collector does not appear to be any requirements from the service providers to retain call detail records for any set time, as you just discussed with the chairman. if service providers decide to scale back the data retention, how would that impact the nsa's mission? >> that would make the information less useful for providing intelligence with the u.s. nexus.

we would come back and informed the committee if that became the case. would youliana, how be i be affected if service providers unilaterally decide to cut back their retention periods ? >> at the door would affect the rich fullness and the usefulness of the data. >> would it make other techniques like grand jury subpoenas and national security letters less effective? >> i am not sure he would make them less effective, sir, but if the data is less rich and there is less data to use, it would impact the value of the data. >> now, i am in favor of providing a statutory basis for the fisa to use their inherent judicial authority to appoint court hearing when the determines it is appropriate and in our billing made a provision

for that. section 401 requires the court to appoint an amicus to assist the court in situations involving "novel or significant interpretations of the law unless the court issues a written finding that such appointment is not appropriate." now, this seems like an unconstitutional infringement upon the judicial's branch's power to interpret the laws of the united states. we routinely entrust our judges to make these determinations in a criminal context. mr. cole, do you think is a good idea to try to impose this requirement on fisa courts? thes a practical matter, courts will be appointing amicus when there is a significant and novel issue that comes before them and i think that will happen in the due course. this does not require them in all instances to, but it says in some instances if they decide they do not want one, they have to put their reasons in writing.

my expectation is that when it is significant and novel the courts generally will want to have another point of view and have amicus come in, so i think the operation will be virtually the same as if it were just the inherent power. >> so, what if you run into a judge who in every case decides they are going to make a determination that we do not need an amicus brief? do you think it is going to be doj to review the those decisions the judge makes? >> no, i do not think there is a mechanism that requires the justice department to oversee employing this. it is still under the court discretion. when you have one that is significant or novel and they do not, they need to state their reasons if they do not appoint one why.

>> thank you, mr. vice chairman. senator udall. ,t is udall, king, wyden mikulski, rockefeller, james and yell in. >> let me enter a letter. >> without objection, thank you. >> the surveillance coalition is made up of leading american companies -- linkedin, dropbox, google, andebook, yahoo!, and the important letter has ane is the senate opportunity to pass a version of the usa freedom act that was -- that would restore the confidence of internet users here and around the world while keeping the coalition safe. stress goes on to concerns with the house bill and then urges us in the senate to make changes to the house bill.

i want to make a set of comments and then i have questions for the panel. on january 17, the president ordered a transition away from the bulk collection of phone records. i share this goal and i applauded his intention at the time. he also stated that "it is not enough for leaders to say trust us, for history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. our system of government depends on the law to constrain those in power." i agree that we must depend on the law to constrain potential future abuses of government surveillance, but i believe the house passed bill falls short of this goal and is not the true reform i have demanded in any -- many other americans have demanded for years. section 215 language in the house-test build describing -- house-past bill is vague enough of mass the collection

information. i believe it is not this administration's intent to interpret the language so broadly, but the nsa has shown time and time again that he will seize on wiggle room in the law and there is plenty of that in the bill. you, evenlet me ask if it is not the intent of this administration or this congress, what would stop the fisa court from interpreting the specific selection term very broadly if the government should ask it to do so? what would prohibit that is the legislative history, the statements of intent, the legislative history we are creating here by and -- by making unambiguous statements that this is intended to stop all collection, and what we are focus,g on is some tailored in queries that will depend on the facts and circumstances, and it is impossible to predict all of them ahead of time, but to make sure that we have focused

inquiries and focused collection of information for our investigations. so, i think a lot of that is going to come from both the language of the statute, and if there are improvements that people want to suggest, we are happy to work with them on them, but we think the language does it by using terms like ,"pecific," and "identifiers and things of that nature to make it not indiscriminate. the statements being made by you, senators, in the course of your comments, and by the witnesses that come before you making up the legislative history, those would constrain it. in addition, if there were an interpretation by the fisa court that it is very broad, that would be a novel and significant order and opinion and it would be given to the united states congress, the senate, and the senate would have the opportunity to pass additional legislation to rein it back in.

i would be very surprised to see it go in that direction based on the language that is here and the legislative history. >> we do have a moment in time where we do have to get this right, and with all due respect courtot remember the fisa showing a great deal of restraint in the past. i want to move my -- to my next question. the current court-approved order for section 215 bulk election expires on june 20, not a long time from now, so in the absence of agreement on congress on a assumingll, i am congress will be asking the fisa court for another 90-day extension. it is disappointing. i believe we have the tools to keep the country safe and protect rights. has the ministration looked to what can be -- has the administration look to what can be done if only on an interim basis to and bulk collection now? does it not make sense for the

administration to pursue other options to data in bulk collection even as congress does its work? >> no final decision has been made on the renewal, but to answer the specific question, senator, you do not get all of the features on the the existing authority that you have under the current fisa order that exists or under hr 361. hops were get the two the time period given by the statute to transition into the thesystem and formatting up phone companies and providers will have to do. so, there are a number of features that we do not have today and would not have today without the current fisa order. as the president had said on the 17th of january, this is important information, but we think we have found a way to

collect the kinds of information we need to substitute it with out bulk collection, but without the structure we have in 3361, we do not have that tool. >> my sense, if i can be a bit contrarian, is that the fisa court has expansively interpreted the patriot act to allow the collection of millions of americans phone records, and if you came to them with a more narrowly drawn interpretation of the law as it now exists rent requiring further congressional action, they would positively respond. have you made any such request or engaged with the court on those questions? >> we have, to my knowledge, not engaged with the court on those questions. we have a judicially tried and tested method here, as the chairman had pointed out. 37 times the court has approved this. other courts have approved this as well. we are a little reluctant to start going into some other type of legal regimen that has not

been tested, that is not been approved by the courts. we would rather go the legislative route were the united states congress and both houses have looked at it, to passted, and decided it. we think our choices at this point really come down to what has been approved by the courts or a number of years, the new legislation, or else not having the tools that we need at all. >> manager, i time has expired -- madame chair, i want to say thank you to the panel for being here today. i have a number of questions. i will submit them for the record. >> july, senator udall. is next, but he has graciously agreed to permit senator coats, who has to catch a plane, to make a statement. >> i thank my colleague and i hope i can return a favor. in the interest of not taking time, i will make a statement

for the record. i have a number of questions we could pursue as we go through this. i was taken by the words of the vice chairman when he said --xing what is not roping broken -- we have to be very careful here." unfortunately, in my opinion, there has been misrepresentation that the current pogrom regarding -- program regarding privacy concerns, and regarding suggesting the lack of significant oversight by the three branches of government, which, unfortunately, has put us in a position where i am afraid we have over-reached in terms of what we are trying to do. i take a backseat to no one regarding our constitutional rights on personal privacy that are guaranteed to us. nevertheless, i think we must carefully review and analyze consequences of any proposed notges to ensure that we do compromise our ability to detect threats against

american citizens. the sirennot play to song of the political response simply to these people that we are responding to their misperceptions, in many cases, because there is too much at stake, mainly the security of americans. compromising to please a skeptical and frequently misinform the public, and therefore losing our ability to protect americans is something we have to take very seriously. i think as we go forward we have to carefully weigh and consider the response of general alexander to my question to him in a public hearing, when i asked him about the question of diminishing our capabilities to detect and thwart an attack. his answer was "americans will die." we i hope as we go forward keep that in mind as we examine how we are reconstructing this program, and make sure that

we're doing everything we can to keep americans from dying unnecessarily. thank you very much. >> thank you, senator coats. .enator king >> thank you, madam chair. thes asked recently what intelligence committee does, and after thinking about it i said our principal job is to way to provisions of the destitution. one is the preamble, which bests us with the responsibility of providing for the common defense and assuring domestic tranquility, and the others the fourth amendment to see the people's persons, property, and affects our secure from unreasonable search and seizures. we are consciously trying to find the right balance and that is exactly what this hearing is about today. i have expressed from the very beginning of my service on this committee reservations about the government holding the bulk data . it always struck me as an invitation to abuse. i believe strongly that we have to have institutional checks

rather than reliance upon the goodwill and good nature and who faith of individuals are entrusted with that kind of information. i am a great believer in the condition thatus all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. i believe this provision that the house is recommended is moving in the right direction. . couple of specific questions it seems to me something has to be added to the bill with a timeframe for the retention of records. the question has been asked several times what if they changed it, well, we would go back to congress -- let's do it now. let's decide what the right number is. 18 months is what the fcc requires, i understand, but will -- under our prior consideration we were talking about three to

five years, and i would like your recommendation, perhaps mr. ledgett, what the number would be. i would be happier with the number, and with a number longer than 18 months. >> from our point of view, we can live with the 18-month that the fcciod imposes, regulatory point of -- knee inhe knew the curve of effectiveness is right about there. >> 18 months you feel this efficient, but should that not be put in the statute because the house bill, as i understand, has no figure in it. is that correct? >> that is correct. that would address the issue on the part of the total communications companies, but as i said, it is not part of the statute. we will come back to the committee. >> well, let's do it while we have the chance would be my

response to that. a there going to be requirement or is there a requirement in the bill at the telecommunications companies normalize their record in some way that is useful and able to be searched in a consistent and standardized way? i notice you are not in. can you give me an effort -- nodding. can you give me an affirmative? part of the order to instruct the telik mitigation companies to work with the government to make those records -- to work with those companies, to put the records in a format that would be usable, which is usually an electronic format. >> there was some discussion one year and a half ago about possible delays. are you comfortable that this transition from government held data to privately held data will not delay -- if we have a bombing, god forbid, at the boston marathon, are we going to

be able to get at that information in a matter of minutes, or is there going to be some further delay because of this change? >> i think that because of this change i am not sure there would be a further delay. we certainly have under the bill emergency powers to try to go to the powers without even going to the court when it is truly an emergency with the authority of the attorney general. we have that ability. the attorney general then has to file a request within seven days . we also, i believe, will have the cooperation of the providers that in a true emergency they will help us go through this. i think the data, generally, is there and quite accessible and usable in the formats they are keeping it. it is a modern era. from all of those perspectives, i would imagine if there is any delay he would be minimal. >> final question, cost -- have there been estimates of proposals from the telecommunications companies

what, if any, cost will be incurred by the government in order for them to maintain the documents and the standardized format, and those kinds of things? >> senator, it is a little early to give cost estimates at this point. once the law is passed, assuming it is, we need to work with individual providers and each one of them have a different architecture. so, their architecture and our ability and need to interface with that will drive the cost figures. >> i realize this might be a strange thing coming from one of us, but it would be nice to know the cost before we passed the law. and of course, the interesting costr would be the net because i'm sure there are savings to not have to maintain this data. i would encourage you that we need some kind of ballpark estimate before we move forward with this legislation just to not have a bad surprise at the end. thank you very much. you could submit that for the

record. >> thank you senator king. senator wyden. >> thank you. to her for holding in opening a gash opened hearing. it is constructive and i commend the witnesses for being here. at me start by talking about the fact that the house bill does not ban warrantless searches through americans' e-mail, and here, mr. ledgett, if i might, we are talking about the back the loophole, which allows nsa, in effect, to look through a giant pile of communications collected under 702 and deliberately conduct warrantless searches for the communications of individual americans. now, this loophole was closed during the bush administration, but it was reopened in 2011, and a few months ago the director of national intelligence acknowledged in a letter to me that the searches are ongoing today. i am particularly concerned

about it because as global communications at increasingly interconnected, this loophole is going to grow, and grow, and grow as a threat to the privacy of law-abiding americans. for the purposes of getting on top of this and working with all of you, my question today is how many of these warrantless searches for americans communications have been conducted under section 702? for you, mr. ledgett. >> july, senator wyden -- thank you, senator wyden. the searches under the onlyment, section 702, are conducted under unlawfully acquired data and under approved procedures. the searches are not just conducted by nsa. they involve other agencies as well. we have provided, as you know,

detailed information to the committee on the background on this, and we will work with the to and the rest of the ic provide information to you. >> so, when will i get an answer to the question? it is a specific question. the director admitted to me in a letter that the wireless searches are taking place -- that the war and this searches are taking place, and i am asking how many -- warrantless searches are taking place, and i am asking how many? i would like it within two weeks. >> yes, sir. >> can we have it within two weeks? >> we will work on that, sir. we will get you a response within two weeks. >> thank you. making some progress. now, the only other question that i had for today was at this moment, your agencies continue to vacuum up the phone records

of millions of law-abiding americans, and this is because the executive branch has not taken any action to stop these practices. this others consider enormously intrusive, and the inflated claims of its value have crumbled under scrutiny, but yet right now the constitutional rights of americans are needlessly being violated while, in effect, i guess the administration waits for the congress to act. i think this is a case of bureaucratic inertia at its worst. you,he question for all of and maybe we start with you, mr. cole, would be that given that the government could use regular pfizer orders and national security --fisa orders and national security records to obtain the phone records of terrorist and their associates, which i support, why has the bulk record collection not been

ended? >> i think it is the same question that senator udall asked. the authorities we have under national security letters and other authorities absent the 215 orders we have been talking about do not really give us the tools that we need. the legislation, hr 3361 gives , --nows, including the hops , prospective information that we would not have under certain authorities. we would only get a phone number, and at the key and what it has been in contact with, and then you would have to go back and do separate items for each terrorist and associate that is there. it is not the same tool. , i understand your agencies desire for clear statutory authority, and the chair of the committee, i think,

has been constructed here in urging changes to the gives the government broad authority right now, right now, to obtain records quickly. fisa court, unquestionably, has been inclined to give the government and enormous amount of it. the fact that surveillance has taken place right now is unacceptable to me. i will continue to keep working on this and i will have more to a about it, wrote very thank you. qwest iq. -- >> thank you. -- wrote. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for holding an open and public hearing. myself withto align the senators.

everyone in this room and other senators know i represent the nationals 38 and he. people get up every day. we have seen the revelations of eric snowden and we are not here to debate whether he was a traitor or a whistleblower. but i will say this. i am deeply disturbed that, while i support the need to review the to 15 project, to actually even examine it, i do not see the continual immunization of the nationals cured agency, whether in the media or in other forms. -- national security agency, whether in the media or in other forms. people do a whole host of other things to keep america safe. eric snowden had his time. he gets an hour on tv.

row from brian williams. we ought to say to the national security staff, that while we looked at the persecution à la the of other issues here, that we do not -- i have always maintained our must be constitutional, legal, authorized, and believe youo you are doing your work using the q 15 program, you believe there are cost to shuttle programs, legal, authorized, and did you deem them to be necessary? >> thank you to the -- for the messages. yes, to answer your question. i believe it was constitutionally authorized and done within the legal and procedural constraints under which we operate it. i believe every investigation has shown it to be the case.

>> yes. i concur. i do believe the oversight of that program is expensive. >> we will not discuss the constitutionality there and i've urged the administration to find any x the dated -- expedited procedure to find what program is constitutional. i presume the usa act is constitutional that i will go to questions of the sets the. i will go to the nsa and the guy. do you believe what we did under 215 was necessary? you have now reviewed this usa freedom act. do you believe they say what you deem necessary to protect the people of the united states of america, that this will enable

and that your job will be able to have the choice to continue to do what you think is necessary to protect the people? >> yes, i do. i believe it helps to mitigate the gap that sanctioned 215 fill,ation is enacted to which is the x journal with the u.s. nexus, detecting that an avoiding a repeat of the 9/11 sort of attack where you had folks outside of united aids who were talking to people inside the united states and we could not identify them. the program was designed to address that. hr 361 does as well. we allow them do the job. >> yes. i concur.

use ours the fbi to authorities. it strikes the right allen's. -- right balance. the telephone company -- i am not sure. we find a telephone company. who is to say -- does all this come under the of ready of the fcc? >> to an extent. >> in other words, will we say they release all of these things and we will tell the fcc to keep an eye on it? >> you have to break it up in different pieces. the telephone companies already hold the data.

we are not doing anything new. there are already under the control of how they hold and how they do with it and things of that nature. what will remain subject of oversight is how we to acquireious tools some of that data, to use some of that data. restrictions on how much can be looked at, what it can be disseminated or, how long you can keep it, those are the kinds of things and what the standards are for getting it. those are the and wharton questions. a lot of oversight by the executive ranch, the justice department, the a the eye, the nsa, ig offices, there is a civic provision to do reviews. still be robust

reporting by congress on what is done. let's thank you. life enqueue. -- >> thank you. >> thank you. >> it seems to me we're doing something unnecessary and unpredictable here, which might , butthe public feel better which would be not good for national sick erie. that is what our job is. it seems to me we are taking a program the president determined as a legal, and important, counterterrorism tool -- a program that has audit, tax, andns, judicial other pressure systems built and. program currently in a highly , operated byon

highly change professionals who have taken an oath to defend the constitution, and who have lived up to that oath, and we are shutting it down to move the storage of that for intelligence sectors, to a private system that does not yet it this. what is the sense of that? i could and will ask you to describe the various queries and , to protectexternal american privacy as it relates. let me ask three things. on top of that. can you describe it ivc oriented training that has to be undergone for 215 databases?

or the training internal rules and external audit designed to protect privacy taken seriously at the nsa? the answer to that is yes. if this is the case, asked in why we should be moving the process to a new and system that is a free enter rises them which does that no matter how they testify, not want to do this. we went through that in i said. that's why we have to do amid the -- immunity. they did not want to do it. it is not their training. it is not their practice. it is not the nature of their workforce. it is a high concentration. 22 people are making serious .ecisions it is a private sector operation and it is huge. not everybody is verizon and

eight. there are a lot of small telephone companies that have to do the same ring. i do not give make sense. how do you compare the security pop -- possibilities of the system it does not yet exist, which i promise you is not welcome by those who would be asked to do it, to prevent -- to replace a system working well, which the public is naturally .uspicious about 39% rating , butublic never trust us if we're doing something for national security which is trustworthy, by trustworthy evil, who were trained, and they in ae their lives to this, particular place, why cash it out?

>> thank you for the questions. the current system involves a host of safeguards, to close it starts, policy procedural safe guards him a training safeguards, and safeguards around eliminating the number of people allowed to ask if the database. very restrictive, completely audited, and with software in place that prevent them from making an erroneous query that has not been authorized i the court. record in that arena is outstanding in that regard in privacy. iotecting think those were necessary for two reasons. it is the government with the data, as opposed to someone with -- who is not the government. closelyeed to

circumscribed those. the second reason is because the data was aggregated. under the new program, the data is not aggregated or held by the government. telephone companies are holding data they already possess today or there is no additional data they are holding except queries from us that have it to civic number of interest. we will work with the countries to put protections into place so our influence in a particular number does not leak out and provide warning to potential terrorist. the companies already have this data, so the implications are just in this regard. >> it is a large order for an untested series of companies. the art and the struggle to get people trained, to have them locked in on their duty as they go to work every single day,

ashley those 22, but nsa in general, where nobody has complained about the private violations. everyone is worried about what might happen. everyone is always worried about what might happen here in that it has not happened. it all comes to an end at the end of next year. we will have to look at it again. profit-making, and i have dealt with telecommunications a long time. they say many things. they do not do many things. when we started the program, which was really controversial home of a road me letters -- controversial, they wrote me letters. it ended up in the supreme court and they all lost. i would just assume not give them the chance. i am sorry it has taken along. >> no robbie there it enqueue. >> enqueue.

like many of my colleagues, i want to see our intelligence collection was strength to provide more trans and the, torove ivc, and also increase oversight. at the same time, as many of us have it best, we need to ensure we have the tools necessary to help her tech our nation from terrorist attacks. i want to follow-up on some of the questions that have been raised by senator rockefeller. under the usa freedom act, the private sector would retain phone records rather than nsa. that is a major change. i

believe it was mr. cole who pointed out, yes, but they are already saving these data. they are doing so for a completely different purpose than what we are contemplating. essentially, they are doing so for billing purposes for the most part. some experts warned us that data held in the private sector are at much greater risk of being breached by hackers, being for purposesused other than that for which they were collected, were being missed used by personnel than if the data were continued to be held by federal entities. if only to look at what has year, wherethe past the security firm called 2013 the year of the mega-breach.

that had million and their personal information compromised in the target case. there was a very compelling ,eport put out by our colleague senator rockefeller, the chairman of the commerce that found private companies already collect, mind, and sell as many as 75,000 individual data points on each consumer. there was a recent report by the fcc that found that companies group virtually every american by race, hobby, medical, conditions. things we would all think were private. there was a story a couple of years ago by the new york times that described to father of a teenager learned she was pregnant because he kept seeing all of these flyers for chris and baby clothes coming to her in the mail.

thosetrast to all of searches the nsa database, are limited to a very few, highly trained personnel. limitedngle search is him audited, and logged. there are have the coal safeguards. technical safeguards. you cannot do a search that will not work here at compliance issues have to be reported to the fisa court and congress. my question for you is, how are we going to ensure that these same kind of robust protections, even greater that many of us want to see, are in place if we are going to have the data scattered across all of these companies?

i just do not see how you will datae the privacy of that and is it not inevitable that many more people will have access to the data than they do under the current is him? -- system? >> thank you. the data is and has been in the possession of the telephone company since they started giving records however many decades ago that was good what we did at nsa was get a periodic seat of the data, which we then aggregated and held in a database. describedings you were held on a copy nsa held on it database. the billing records existed before and will continue to this regardless of the future of the 215 program and all those to hacking and

that sort of thing, the telephone companies you with every day. there will notis be a government held aggregated that of telephone numbers we apply all of those protections to. we make the database go away and then rely on the billing the telephone him pennies have held for decades and continue to hold or their own purposes and we query against the. -- those. >> don't you think there is a difference between the telephone companies holding this data for billing purposes, versus holding it and knowing the government pacific to them selectors, which will make them. about why the information is being written vested? you will have to go across a large number of companies to find the information here it is

teams to me to inevitably involve more people. that is very different from the kind of .ata dump you were receiving i just want to make sure, as we privacy,g to increase strengthen the safeguards, that we do not end up doing the opposite by having this data, these data, held by the private sector. now,w they are held there but they are held for an entirely different reason. asking thosebe private sector employees to do the queries that are now done by an extremely limited classified number. ofextremely limited number federal employees.

>> i understand. we will work with the telephone companies to ensure our queries are kept in a secure fashion by people who have gone through the clearance process the government runs, to ensure they are protected the right way. >> also, if i may, in traditional law enforcement, we are regularly going to phone companies with subpoenas and things of that nature to acquire some of their billing records and him of the various and kinds of information. we go to them for pin registers on the lawn was meant i. we work with phone companies to do wiretaps on the law enforcement side. there is a long history of working with phone companies and using their data and fist roadies from a law enforcement perspective that has given us confidence in that regard. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you.

i have a question or two in light of the recent revelation that the senator referenced that the nsa has in using a loophole of the fisa amendment act to search for americans private medications without a warrant. what some people have dubbed the search loop old, and i think it was for target reform medications. the government based on that letter believes it has the authority to deliberately search phone also were e-mailed of specific americans and to circumvent the traditional protections hearing the five with amendment. i would ask mr. legend and old, do you believe the government should be allowed to conduct searches of his mission on u.s. citizens, collected under sections of an o2, without having to seek a warrant for that information?

the way it has been viewed and has an interpreted is the first issue is whether you are legally off arise to collect the information in the first race. this is what sections of an o2 allows us to do. we target only non-us or since and only people believed to be out by the united date. those are the strict limits or there will be communications at involve americans that are incidental. they are not targeted. >> you end up collecting incidental information you're the authorization under section 7022 let the information trumps the profession of the americans who -- would typically be afforded under the for the moment? process. is a several you are first allowed to protect the information. it is like a

criminal law wired that. you collect calls a make from other people, who may not even target of your invest in addition. but you will collect those calls as well because they involve the person whose phone you are tapping. if you are legally permitted to collect the information, then you have got it and then the session is whether or not you can access that information, used information we legally possess, and this is what is different from the root i'm in the is that is going to search for the american, the u.s. or since records, which we are not doing. we get those in deadly. we have them legally under 702 and in the russian is whether or not it look through and those records because they are already illegally hours -- illegally hours. we have not done out to the them illegally

in any shape or form. legitimate from investigation, to further legitimate antiterrorism investigations and things of that nature am a we certainly have restrictions we try to waste internally on those and we try to make sure they are users on we and we try to make sure they are only used or specific possess already legally it. >> you have made the government's division very clear and i appreciate that. it is something we should probably look at, given the at forave is opportunity reform right now. i want to get to my idle restaurant. we're running short on time already. i want to go back to the issue raised early on and hr 3361ons around how to find a specific selection term.

looking back at the old draft from the house, it could set a term used uniquely to describe a person, and be, or account. that is a pretty tight version, andhe new election term means a just read terms such as, and there is a laundry list of items there. i have validation every time i see such as, because it is up to the risen reading to decide whether the next thing they imagine is are the poor is not. >> under your interpretation of the definition, passed by the house, what are some records secluded collection on a civic election term? >> any bowl collection. what is currently being authorized by the court of the collection of all records, and internet metadata records,

indiscriminately, that would be certainly,hibited. if you went to collect all the telephone records within a certain zip code, indiscriminately, that would be prohibited. focus.nt is to limit and it is to prohibit indiscriminate collection and only authorized focus and intentional collections for ace this the purpose. the reason that such as is in there is that it is very difficult to predict what you may come across that you might need, that will for you ample involve a larger number of records and just one specific telephone call to once the of the person that once the of a kind. some of the examples i gave in my opening damon. you have somebody who you know will build an improvised explosive device using ball bearings and fertilizer or you

may want to go to the stores in the area that sell ball bearings and fertilizer. it is broader than a pacific item, but it is much less than every store in america, regardless, and then sort through it. if you know a terrorist suspect stated a particular hotel for a couple of nights, but you do not know who it was only you might get the hotel fusses records for those couple of nights, to see who all the guests were at the hotel to then cross ref is that with other information to identify who the terrorist was. it is focused and discriminating. it is not indiscriminate. but it is larger than a specific identity of a pacific person. so, we need to have enough room to do an investigation that is effective and, we need to have enough restrictions so we are not indiscriminately collecting records in bulk. if there are better ways to

define it, and it is a tough one to define, but if there are better ways to define it come a we are interested in working on that. we think this doesn't. >> i appreciate your willingness to work on this. the chair brought up the issue early into the discussion. i would end this by saying, i weekend to get it right when we do a good job of defining the terms very specifically. i do not give a lot of trust to his attempt and legislative history being the that described -- that ends up holding the day in court years from now. holds a lot more sway in the room. thank you. >> thank you, madam chairman. i have a couple of quick questions and i really appreciate so many of my into this who dug

very deeply, trying to plow through these critically inortant privacy protections the essential needs of national .ecurity there are a lot of good folks at nsa in terms of their work. on senatorollow-up rockefeller and senator collins, since this is an open hearing, to at least make clear or further understand what i think we may be doing with this house bill. it was reported, when we think about 215 in the previous program that that collected metadata that was, with those entities, those companies, that entered into some relationship , and while large

, in many were involved cases, the fastest growing set , wirelessne calls calls, were actually a relatively small percentage. is that an accurate description of how the press has presented the 215 program priory i go >> yes, that is how the press representative. >> and if that was an accurate representation, wouldn't the universe of calls that are now potentially exposed to these kinds of inquiries be dramatically larger since any telco, regardless of whether they had a relationship or not, and any type of call, whether it is wired or wireless, be subject to the inquiries now made through this process? >> that is accurate.

greg so, again, with the notion here that under the guise of --ther protect they privacy a further protecting privacy, i think the number of calls would be exponentially larger than what the prior system was. is that an accurate statement? >> i don't believe so, because the only calls that the are those will see directly responsive to the predicate information we have. >> in terms of actual inquiries, but the universe of potential , whenthat you could query prior to the calls are only queried out of the database from ,he nsa, which the report said in many cases, did not include the fastest growing number of

new calls, wireless calls. now even though the number may be the same because the protections are still the same, the actual universe of potential calls that could be queried against is dramatically larger than what 215 has right now. >> potentially, yes, that's right. let me just go to one other item. one of the things, again, i will check with staff to make sure this is all appropriate to be after, one of the things to 15 did not include was location information. and in the nature of wireless technology, you can identify where a cell phone call originates. protections privacy do we have to ensure that location data will not be

queried on a going forward basis -- who holdlco to this data hold not only the billing information, but the location data as well. be up tok that would specific requests and specific court orders. right now, when we have a good basis, we can get good location information, and sometimes it's very valuable. instancenk of one where it save somebody's life who had been taken hostage, being able to get that information quickly. it will not be collected in bulk. it will be collected in the individual circumstances that warranted. 215ut in the previous section where the data was held, not -- tion data was >> that's right, we did not get

the location data with what was held in the database of the nsa and could be queried with nsa's protection, but we would always have the ability to go back to the telephone company providers in an appropriate circumstance and ask them for individual location information that we but thatoriented. >> would require an additional step. willght, and that is what happen now. >> would they be combined into a single step or a dual step? >> i think it would require the court to take a look at whether or not it was appropriate to provide location information as well as call data records, or whether or not only call data records were appropriate. it just depends on the circumstance. andgain, my time is expired i appreciate that. it is essential to the public that while we are trying to get

,his balance right and understandably, the public has a great deal of concern about the government holding the data, there lies a number of concerns the privacy act to vests should also -- activists should also be concerned about in terms of the scope of the data as well as greater access, if we are able to go at the telcos, and reemphasizing a couple of my colleagues said, the hope is that there will be an additional, higher-level of security standard and higher level of training, and higher level of commitment from the telcos of these individuals who are going to have access to data, that they will have the same -- i don't think the leverage will be to the standards of the folks of the nsa, but this is an issue that needs to be thoroughly vetted. thank you, madam chairman.

>> thank you very much, senator warner. we have completed this panel. wyden has asked in a more charming form, then sometimes, to ask one more question. agency a to ask your question relevant to a matter that has taken a lot of our time. for each of you, just go right down the row, do you believe it would be appropriate for your senateto secretly search files without seeking external authorization or approval? >> no. >> now, if i understand your question, by definition we are authorized to conduct a authorization of

some manner. >> you would have to have the appropriate legal approvals in every instance. >> so would we. >> thank you very much. >> if i may, let me thank the audience for their attention. this is a controversial subject and i know people feel strongly. it is very much appreciated. i would also like to thank the capitol police for their attention to this. we will change panels now, and i will introduce the next panel. i would like to thank them. thank the witnesses very much. do we have someone to change the name tag ec? [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> i would like to introduce the panel. i will introduce everyone and then begin left, you're right, and go down the line. the first person to be introduced is worth the senior counsel for the center of democracy and technology, mr. geiger, deputy director for the freedom, security, surveillance project at the center for technology.d mr. geithner has written extensively on the subject of collectionrm, bulk

and surveillance in general. second, mr. garfield, president and ceo of the information technology industry council , an advocacy and policy organization that represents a number of tech companies, including google, facebook, yahoo!, microsoft, and many others. mr. garfield has previously appeared he for the house judiciary committee to discuss pfizer reforms. the final witness is michael woods, assistant general counsel for verizon. safetys the public policy team. before joining verizon, he was chief of the national security at the fbi. he published a number of peer-reviewed law articles on national security, including articles related to section 215

of the united states patriot act. and finally, we have stewart baker, a partner in the washington office of steptoe and johnson. he creepy as lee served as the first assistant secretary for in the department of homeland security. from 1992-1994, he served as counsel for the national security agency. he brings a wealth of experience in both telecom and national security law. we will begin with you mr. geithner. once again, i will point out the five-minute clock. if you could adhere to it, it would be appreciated. >> thank you, chairman feinstein. members of the committee, thank you for holding this open me tog and inviting testify on this very important issue of surveillance reform.

i wish to say that i appreciate the dedication of the members of the intelligence community and of this committee to protecting both national security and civil liberties. anhough i am here as advocate for civil liberties, i recognize that the intelligence and law enforcement communities for those who wish to cause us great harm and i also realize that a major terrorist attack is just about the worst thing that can happen to civil liberties. at the same time, in the decade since the 9/11 attacks, the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of broad surveillance and it is time for a correction. the answer cannot be mass surveillance of individuals with no connection to a crime or terrorism. congress has an opportunity now to establish meaningful privacy protections without weakening security. whatever reform congress settles on is unlikely to be revisited

for many years, so congress should not just focus on surveillance programs and technologies of today, but those of tomorrow. the freedom act as the legislation that has made the most headway in this regard. addressough it does not all surveillance issues, it does seek to address bulk surveillance. however, there is serious and widespread doubt as to whether the bill as passed by the house accomplishes its goal. bulks not use the phrase collection as coded jargon for existing programs or nationwide surveillance dragnets. bulk collection, as any normal person would understand it, means the large-scale collection of information about individuals with no connection to a crime or investigation. in that respect, the bill does

not and bulk collection. this is not just the opinion of privacy advocates, but also more than half of the cosponsors of the usa per freedom is usa privacy freedom act as well as a number of corporate leaders. is a requirement that the government use specific selection terms in its demand for data. however, the definition of specific selection is openerately ambiguous and ended and ambiguous language is what led to bulk collection in the first place. there is nothing in the bill that would prohibit, for example, the use of verizon or gmail.com or the state of search as a specific selection term. i can believe that this current government is sufficiently's done -- sufficiently stung by

in thisto address this decade, but we will be left with language that is ambiguous. we recognize the need for in making flexibility surveillance requests. with my time remaining, i would like to propose an additional safeguard and path forward. rather than trying to find some magical definition for his pacific selection term, congress should strengthen other parts of the statute, in particular existing minimization procedures, and establishment them as a and or privacy procedures where there are none establish and privacy procedures where there are none currently. then the bill should prohibit retention of information of individuals who do not meet

specific criteria as outlined in the statute. foreign powers, agents of foreign powers or in contact with foreign powers or agents of foreign powers. compliance should be subject to oversight and revisited throughout a clean if procedures -- revisited periodically if procedures change significantly. drafted properly, this could provide for both privacy and flexibility. thank you very much and i look forward to your questions. >> on behalf of 58 of the most innovative and dynamic companies in the world, we thank you for the opportunity to appear before the panel today. it is our firm view that we have a timely opportunity to advance surveillance reform in a fashion that both reflects who we are as a nation and is well advanced our geopolitical and economic

interest. it is our hope and we strongly urge the senate to see this -- i seize this opportunity, and reaffirm our commitment to doing whatever we can to be helpful in achieving that goal. my testimony today will be focused onto things, one, why it is important to act and act judiciously, and second, the steps that are necessary to be taken to ensure we have a strong bill with broad support. with regards to the first, the reason to act as because it is in our national self-interest. i am proud to represent a group of companies that are the global leaders in innovation. as such, they compete all around the world and see firsthand the wide ranging impact of the nsa disclosures. they are able to see firsthand the economic impact, the lost business sales and lost business opportunities that most experts will be in the tens of billions of dollars.

they experienced firsthand the growing contagion of persistent protectionist policies that aim to limit their ability to whether it isly, forced localization requirements limitzil or attempts to cross-border data flows, these laws are the first step to creating an internet that is creasing lay vulcanized -- is increasingly vulcanized and no longer the global internet we have all come to appreciate. if that were not bad enough, we have experienced firsthand the growing distrust of whether the united states is willing to adhere to global norms as it relates to surveillance. all of these reasons that we think it is important to act to regain trust as we move forward expeditiously. what should we do moving forward? fortunately, there is a growing consensus as to a path forward. we released principles in

january that seemed quite forward leaning at the time we release them. today, they have been largely embraced as being the way we should move forward. usa freedom act incorporates many of these principles. however, in two respects, the usa freedom act needs to be improved. two sections need to be addressed. first is one that mr. geithner addressed, bulk collection. usa freedom act endeavors to end bulk collection. the language of the heart of that, they came out of the house intelligence and house judiciary committees, we think achieved that goal. however, the language is missing in the final bill that came out of the house, and it is no longer clear that the language will achieve the goal of bulk election. ending bulk collection.

>> can you tell me exactly what language you're speaking of? >> it is the same section we have been talking about. i will conclude that by making the point that there is an opportunity to changing that definition in a way that will move forward through the house in a way that addresses the concerns we are raising without violating the interests of national security. >> the second area is transparency. >> let me just say, we would welcome any suggestion you might make in writing on an amendment to the specific selection. the same goes for anybody else. it would be most helpful if when you say things, if you want to us in legalhing to language or not legal language, we would appreciate it. know, there isy a fair amount of conversation happening both inside this room and outside this room with the

aim of coming up with language that is acceptable to the intelligence community, and there is good progress as far as i can tell being made in being able to do that. last issue is transparency. transparency is a key part in rebuilding trust both nationally and internationally. the usa freedom act takes steps to addressing that with the resolution reached between the department of justice and many of the most impacted companies who happen to be our members. there are still additional steps with regard to the bands -- with andrd to building trust maintaining national security. let me say that i too deeply respect the work being done by the intelligence community and offer my testimony with a great deal of humility. i recognize that there is a lot we don't know.

for usy, it is important to play a leadership role in finding them have forward. we look forward to working with pathcommittee -- finding a forward. we look forward to working with this committee to achieve that. >> good afternoon. i am very pleased to testify before the committee on the topic of intelligence surveillance act reforms this afternoon. i name is michael woods and am the vice president and associate general counsel for verizon communications. i am responsible for the national security and public safety portfolio in our office and the chairman has also kindly ed my prior government service. the revelations this past summer about the ball collection of metadata have eroded public confidence in legal structures that are meant to oversee intelligence activity. there is significant concern

about the impact of surveillance activities on the privacy and civil liberties of americans. for verizon, customer privacy is a top priority. we believe that any collection by intelligence agencies of our customer data should be compelled under a set of clear and agreed upon rules. we believe these rules should be backed up with effective as mucht and have transparency as possible consistent with national requirements. we support the usa freedom act because we see it is largely achieving these objectives. transparency rules that verizon has already implemented and firmly rejects the idea that verizon or any other communications providers be compelled to maintain or collect data for these purposes.

we believe the collection and analysis of data for intelligence purposes is an inherently governmental function. compelling us or any other private entity to perform this function on behalf of the government is utterly inconsistent with the protection of our customers privacy. if verizon has a legal obligation to provide customer data to an intelligence agency or a law enforcement organization, it should be limited to that data which verizon generates in the ordinary course of business, and a production of data should be compelled at arms length overseen by a court. we appreciate the careful balance congress must achieve here. we are confident this is something you will accomplish. we stand ready to assist this committee in any way we can. much appreciate the open channel of communications that this committee has had with parties interested in this legislation and we appreciate the bipartisan

way in which this committee has operated. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i will be happy to answer your questions. >> thank you, chairman, vice chairman, senator collins, my authorizing chairman when i was last in government, a pleasure to be here. i would like to make two points. first, i don't believe we should end the bulk collection program, but it will put us at risk and slow our responses to serious terror incidents and lead us into the dark with respect to this data as senator collins, senator rockefeller made clear. we do not know how long or how battle that -- battle will be scored. it is a very serious risk we are come inor a payoff that my view, is minimal.

what i would like to talk about in the main part of my presentation is the second step, the kind of piling on step at the house undertook not only to say not only are we going to end the ball collection, but we are going to require that you show that you have one of the magic list of five identifiers that you are asking for, and if it is not on that list or does not look a lot like something on that list, you cannot ask for it purposes.ism purse let me talk a little bit about we wantedl searches to take, did undertake in real-life terrorist incidents. the case that was a subject of a cross-country chase was investigated in part because someone reported there was a guy buying large amounts of

household chemicals in beauty supply shops with a kind of shaky story. it was perfectly appropriate for go toi to say we want to all the household beauty shops and ask them is someone buying this stuff. surely, there is no one here in the panel or on the committee who would say that is an improper search. the magic selector? i don't see a magic selector here that says household products. you are not searching for a person, an entity, an account, a device. you cannot do it according to this. with the washington sniper attack him again, a terrorist attack and we wanted to act as we surely should. the phone companies -- do you have any indication of somebody who's phone was active at every one of those sites at the time the shooting occurred?

of course we should ask that question. that is not a person, an entity, an account. it's an address. but at that point you are starting to stretch the concept of address in precisely the way that senator wyden has argued against. the problem we face is this list is too short. we cannot imagine all the clues we need to follow-up in order to catch terrorist. writing words like such as in front of it does not actually accomplish the goal. i think it was intended to reduce bulk and indiscriminate searches. at the same time, it is going to prove to be a straitjacket, notwithstanding with the deputy attorney general said. i would like to see his justifications for each of the assurances he gave us about how he was going to conduct those searches. i think it is going to require that we immediately become

creative about the meaning of those words in a way that i think senator wyden would not approve but in a way that i think all of us believe should be carried out. that insteaduggest of a list of magic words that even harley geiger want to offend, we should try to find a that says what we think is necessary to avoid ball collection, and it is something along the lines of narrowing -- bulk collection, and it is something along the lines of narrowing the search, avoiding the collection of innocent party information, it you don't know who is innocent until you have that probably is the way to get out of what i think therwise will be a solution into satisfies no one in three years. >> thank you very much. let's go to questions.

just off the top of my case ut let's take the mr. bake ar just mentioned. around to wholesale beauty product companies and big chemicals, nts of large amounts of chemicals. nd somebody calls the f.b.i. and says this looks very suspicious. b.i. goes to query himl and finds that he has been in with a known al qaeda member in pakistan. problem do you have with that? >> let me see if i understand scenario correctly. so, they have the phone records al qaeda member in pakistan and they found out that find the nameg to of this suspicious individual, they find out that the two have with each other. i don't have a problem with that. don't see why that would be

prohibited under this bill. if they have the call records of the individual in pakistan, then the fact on ave record that he was in contact with this other suspect. don't know if they did or didn't on that specific point. me that that's exactly the kinds of thing we this kind to enable of collection. >> certainly. individual is in direct contact with an agent of -- foreign wer or four that is a legitimate reason to look at their records. what we are concerned with and i think everyone at the table xpressed concern with the ambiguity of the definition but we are concerned with at least concerned with i should say is the collection of individuals who have not been in contact with the agent of a fortune power or collection -- power.n >> let me stop you because my understanding was i forget

2012, the data base was only queried 288 times. the 288 times, 12 cases ere sent to the f.b.i. for a warrant. .o, it was very selective this was not any more than that. trust the department of ustice when they say the freedom act would provide them with there capability. with is it concerned provides this capability and capabilities that undermines the goal of bulk collection. it would enable them to do other things. what other things? what i mentioned during my opening statement. definition of collection erms is open-ended what counts

as a specific selection term. it could be the state of maine. verizon. be it could be something that would sweep in a large number of individuals not connected to the investigation. i understand the need for lexibility and sometimes it will be unavoidable to gather information about people not connected with the investigation. up with scenarios like that. and in that case i believed -- why i mentioned it in y opening statement -- it should be required they use the least intrusive means as the n.s. afp does they should not retain the information of the eople not in contact with the suspect. >> you also mentioned minimization. how would you strengthen the minimization? minimization requirements already in section 215. he other none for t statue but the u.s.a. freedom

put in privacy procedures. there are none in statue for national security letters. propose doing is what i just described which is a front end the the government use the least ntrusive means possibly and ack end a clear procehibition n dissemination and contention. ones have the most minimization and did require the -- the arization of minimization of retention and proceedly business. says nothing about acquisition. i'm approaching an upgrade to that. t least in certain circumstances where the risk that the information gathered sweep in a large number of people. think baker, what do you of that? >> first i would clarify the that i had in mind was the f.b.i. hears that somebody

all of these chemicals and decides to go to multiple anybody been has big large quantities of the chemicals. for the search is chemicals. i don't see how you justify that under the statute. is exactly the conflict. and this is a real indication. question open to whether the chemicals would work with a specific selection term r the name of the store would be a specific selection term. i know specific selection term that agencies use in practice but there's not a lot of public information. hasn't been built into statute before. >> if you knew that known somebody who is a likely terrorist was coming into the f.b.i. y and wanted to get hold of the would you limit it to one plane or say they should to all the manifests t a given time or some

reasonable limit? >> i believe law enforcement does get manifests but i would the government to use the least intrusive means possible and not save the the people of all of whose records they have pulled or hey are not relevant there is no reason to suspect they are connected to the investigation. would be to get a specific name. they are looking for someone. so, it is limited. >> i was going to add that ultimately what you are hearing hough is the language, the final language in the u.s.a. freedom act doesn't fully the equities that we're talking about. the equities mr. geiger raised privacy or mr. baker raised about protecting national security. concerted effort needs to be made to improve that language so both equities are balanced.

feasible to do that. >> thank you. mr. vice chairman. to yield to senator keating, who has to leave here shortly. >> thank you, senator. just a couple of questions. the , i think i heard answer to this but i want to be that the you feel u.s.a. freedom act is superior current law. mr. geiger? >> i believe it is an current law.o >> mr. garfield? >> i believe it is an but can be as well improved. >> mr. woods? >> i agree. > mr. baker i didn't ask you because you said unequivocally you don't agree. i appreciate that. woods, you tion, mr. heard my questions to the prior panel about duration and i think in your testimony you sort of ifd we will do there but not we have to change anything. how would you feel about a

provision that said 18 months or two years of retention? >> we would be very much opposed to it. as now we produce the records we retain for business purposes. compelled ant to be to retain records beyond that. can make see how we this change if you are not willing to make that commitment. policies and ange say we will only keep records two months then we've lost intelligence the value. >> as technology develops people transition s will from older to newer forms of technology. records that were generated by the old switch the telephone system are not the records that are generated by the wireless system. s the bulk of people's telephone usage moves from one system to the other the kinds of records change. hey are probably going to change again as things evolve. >> i understand that. but you understand the thrust of question. you are recommending we go from the government holding the data

o the companies holding the data but as a company you are not willing to commit to holding perioda for a meaningful of time to make it -- otherwise he protection of national security becomes a loser. both ways, tell us to switch but is we are going to do it as we choose. we are saying k we do it as we choose. e retain records generated in the ordinary course of business. we don't collect records for the purpose of conducting of our customers. so, we will respond to lawful that ts from the records we have. we are tphnot -- we are opposed compelled to collect records for reasons that are unconnected with our business. asking you to collect records. it is a question of maintaining ecords you already v. >> our general principle in these records is we do not keep business r than purposes because we have learned the longer we keep records

beyond what we need the greater risk to the privacy of customers. so the pwbest protection for is not to ivacy need. records beyond the >> did the louse question you legislation was passed? >> we were never asked. we played it clear. >> thank you. thank you very much. it clear.ockefeller. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefelleit clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefelleit clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefelleit clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. it clear.ockefeller. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefelleit clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefelleit clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefeller.mit clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefeller.ait clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefeller.dit clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefelleeit clear. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefeller. it clear.

>> thank you. >> thank you very much. senator rockefeller. excuse me. widen is after king. thank you. in suchu for getting me deep trouble. in your ods, you said statement for the record, which i do not have -- which regret, it is very unusual that we don't have statements for the line -- that the bottom is that "national security is a undamental government function that should not be outsourced to private companies." lap to agree with that. verizon is in the business of communication to customers, not acting as an intelligence agency. the many companies in a rural state like west virginia at&t or not called verizon or frontier or have very mall operations but nevertheless they cover discrete of people. they would all have to go into of becoming s n.s.a. trained professionals to go through uery and all the processes we talked about with the previous panel. this bill will end the and .'s role in storing

searching this data. for pbg the responsibility he multi-hop queries from the intelligence agency to the telephone companies. had great necessarily experience with telephone companies, cramming, data brokering, all kinds of other things, because i started the a unit and i as got myself subpoena power. i just gave it to myself. joyous moment. ut the experience with telecommunications companies is they are a moving target. a yourself have just used sentence longer than a business reason. more than t keep it business reason. that may have nothing to do ith, as senator king said, an intelligence reason. me like a unds to diminished national security role for the n.s.a. and expand

national security role for really and i'm wondering if that is right and particularly i'm wondering how co-relate in any fashion with the first statement it i read that you felt shouldn't be outsourced to private companies. i have never believed, no matter tell me -- because i we i chair when fisa thing but they didn't want any part of this. the n.s.a. people go to work one purpose in mind. they have been trained and they are there for years and years they are not particularly looking for promotions. in dy makes any money government. at least most people don't make

and the in government free enterprise system is different kettle of fish. it.on't attack my family has done rather well by it. but in the intelligence business i have a very different view about why you think you should but i really don't think you want to be. and you said that you shouldn't be. >> yes, senator. the first statement that you in reference to we made response to the idea that the elephone company should be retaining more data and performing the search or of the on behalf intelligence community. that is not in the u.s.a. freedom act and we are very about that. discussed as al part of the larger things. we don't want that. we don't believe we should be. we are prepared to do and have done for many years and all sorts of telecommunications respond to is targeted requests by law enforcement or by the

intelligence community. we see in the u.s.a. freedom act is not a shift of to national security role verizon but rather a change in the kinds of requests that we n.s.a.et from the instead of requesting all of our all detail records we will get a request for a targeted list of we detail records which will deliver much in the way we deliver records in response to subpoenas and other authorities. now, as to the -- ask another question? >> sure. >> my time is running out. little ut all of these companies that are not called verizon and at&t and frontier? there are lots of little companies. you don't get their billing. they get their billing. have to set up systems that are comparable to what you is the up if you can which i'm not sure you can because of the comparison to n.s.a.? to do this.t afford so all of their customers and

information illing is free and clear. are nator, they actually other to fisa and authorities. the government could go to many mall companies with fisa orders. many don't have the infrastructure and drawing from experience law enforcement and agencies like the f.b.i. are used to dealing with that. more mes they have to do of the work on the government's side. i think that that's -- these the security requirements, for example, already exist in fisa. it is not just peculiar to bulk collection. orders require we handle this in a cleared environment and we observe all the security procedures that are mandated by the government, and e attorney general director of national intelligence. that is a different burden for a communications company. >> you are heads of the unit

that specialize in there. don't have a unit. they probably don't know what fisa is except theoretically. >> i have had that experience in the f.b.i. of going to somebody that didn't know. but while that is all true, that kinds of information that the intelligence communities are after reside largely in a small number of rather large providers, which is you can see reflected in the programs that have existed up until now. maybe and maybe not. >> correct. > thank you, senator rockefeller. senator widen. >> mr. garfield, a question for with respect to the economic implications of these overly n.s.a. surveillance practices. this is the e to companies that are part your organization, the technology advantage mark. there is an area where we

lead, we have these cutting edge technologies, a development, ing cloud commute something just one. these are all areas where we in a fragile conomy to create good paying innovation orient the jobs. my take is that if a foreign was doing the damage to the american economy that some these overly broad n.s.a. practices are doing, our up in arms.ld be people with be up in arms coast.ly from coast to and you have highlight ed at pae testimony the forester study i believe or the foundation, $35 cloud loss to the computing industry just one part sector over logy three years. you talk