joint news conference lasting about 30 minutes with the greek prime minister, you can find it online at www.c-span.org. coming up shortly, the confirmation hearing for the nominee to the inspector general of the cia. that is scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m. eastern time, two minutes from now, live on c-span from the senate intelligence committee. we take a look at some of today's washington journal. the session on federal surveillance law and the act in particular we are joined by sean, policy counsel. before we get into that discussion remind our viewers what demand progress is, what the groups do. guest: demand progress and demand progress action are two arms of the same organization. is one andress demand progress action is the

more political arm. host: what do you do there? guest: i service council for them. we have over 2 million members across the country and we are active on net neutrality and surveillance issues. section two in particular, the mass surveillance law of the day hugee have dedicated a amount of time to it and our members are active on it. host: remind us where it comes from. is, it passed 702 in 2008. the law allows for the surveillance of targets. it is intended for people overseas and were not u.s. persons. the trick in the debate today is the number of americans who get swept up in that surveillance. a large number and we know it is used in ways that the american people would not accept. host: why don't we know the exact number? guest: the only number we have from the government comes from a

2011 opinion. millions of communications yearly. it is staggering. the reason we don't have a clear number about the overall volume or more importantly the number of americans who are affected by the surveillance is actually, government resistance. they refuse to produce estimates or counts of americans who are affected by this. their promised over the course of the last couple years to congress and to various parts of the public that they would come up with an estimate. director codes and director director -- they decided to balk on the deal. they have refused to give an estimate of how many americans they are spying on. host: this comes at a time of when congress is looking to renew parts of this. what is on the table? guest: section 702 because of

how broad and invasive it is comes with a sunset built in. he saw this two years ago with section 215 as well. congress will sporadically decide that a law must be reauthorized. it forces congress to revisit it before it can continue. are -- the the table reforms on the table are in a broad range. a number ofing for these reforms. the one that most people would be familiar with is called the act or search. search.ackdoor after they collect these communications, what can they do with it? the government argues, and the fbi does this practice looking for americans information. hundreds of communications, some large number of that includes americans information and the question is can you specifically look for americans even though you wouldn't initially be allowed to.

this process is going forward, demand progress sending a letter to congress talking about the reforms that they have "en pushing for, saying surveillance has always been justified on the back of national security concerns even though it invariably disproportionally targets communities of color and people working for social change." what sort of response have you gotten specifically from democrats on capitol hill? guest: loud and clear. under president obama there was some impulse saying that we trust the person in charge. no democrat should feel that way under president trump. or general sessions.

this was designed to remind congress that 60 years ago martin luther king junior was targeted by the fbi. we still have major questions and concerns about how environmental activists among others are spied on today and have been since the beginning of this country. congress is actually quite aware of that and democrats in particular, they are concerned. host: you mention in your letter the national security argument by defenders of this law and one of those is nsa director, mike rogers. he was at the heritage foundation last week talking about the benefits of 702. [video clip] >> the insight generated under this authority has enabled us to achieve insights from a cyber security perspective. we would not have been able to generate some of the insights we 2016been able to do from

with regards to russian activity, we have not been able -- without this authority we would not have the same level of insight with respect to cyber actions around the world both directed against our neighbors as well as against the u.s. structure. takeaways whenhe we talk to people about why is this so valuable? you get a sense for how unique this is. the fact that it generates insights that have direct actionable impact. this is an just theoretical. we are taking people off the battlefield, helping our partners take people off the battlefield. in terms of arresting those terrorists and those who would do harm to fellow citizens in other countries. we are helping to stop nations from moving arms illegally to other parties, generating huge insights and cyber security. highlightst try to

the people, this is why 702 is so valuable. it is deep, unique information that we can't get the a other is the volume of this information and its global applicability that makes it such a powerful tool for us. strongly,y we feel so we believe it is in our nations best interest to continue with the statutory authority in 702. we think that this is in our nation's best interest. host: i will give you a chance to respond. guest: one of the things he pointed out as the huge threat of it.- breadth it is stunning. that is one of the things admiral rodgers is championing. on the other side of it though, we're not asking for them to cut off all access. where not saying that they can't use it for legitimate national security purposes. , can theyning around entirely collect

domestic communications under a law that was authorized for national security purposes? the american people didn't accept those practices. host: you can check them on line. for the next 20 minutes we're taking your calls this morning about the foreign intelligence act reauthorization that is coming up, phone lines for republicans, (202)-748-8001, democrats, (202)-748-8000. chuck is up first in new york. the line for independents. caller: i think we need to look back to president eisenhower. when he warned us that the military-industrial complex, that there was a problem going on. we hear about terrorism, look at the amount of money that the

u.s. spends bombing other nations with jones, even -- with drones, even atomic bombs. what is going on with the information from manning which some call a criminal, a traitor, he was pardoned, she was pardoned, i'm sorry, but then assange, people say he is not a journalist but he just released truth. the whole russian situation, the up russia and podesta, u.s. media, i do want to thank it is but the u.s. media, what orwell warned us about and what eisenhower warned us about. all connectedia, and controlling it. host: do you have a question for sean? what do you think about the most recent department of defense statements regarding

the united states, the empire is falling, we will have to start a war somewhere? the truth that you are pushing for, i think just let it expire. guest: we would support the expiration of the srap the amount of the abuse is -- we call it an abusive candor. the name of the report was taken from a fisa court opinion. that is what the fisa court determined the nsa suffered from. isn't e enough trust to support these authorities continuing. the caller mentioned helsea manning, what chelsea manning and edward snowden have played in the debate playing out the reauthorization process?

guest: one interesting thing we knew or ebate, had information that suggested a lot of things that were going on going on. it wasn't until snowden showed court documents that the severity of it was known. benny, kirk s like levy, these people predate laura by many years and herself did reporting on them back in the day, but since the information has become a bit more standardized, people know this. that other side of knowledge, we see some major problems that come with mass program, in particular, we have evidence that tens of millions of adults online ging their activity in fear of government. hose are innocent americans acting differently, that is infringement on free speech and ight to association and right to privacy. those are massive problems, social problems we will feel for time to come, no matter when the laws expire.

host: john is a democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. my question is they constantly they only collect metadata and never look at the content and therefore they're violating any american's rights, but they also say that that a american has committed a crime then they will by law have to report that crime or pass it off to the f.b.i. how would they know that committed a crime if to the n't listen content? it is sort of trying to bamboozle people, they are and ing your phone number date and timestamps and not actually listening to the say, theon, but like i only way it can know i'm doing a rime, have to have some content. host: got your point, sean vitka. guest: so just at the outset, a lot of different ways the government can surveill a person. authorities, broader authorities justified by

foreign intelligence, the meta-data distinction showed up at great length in the debate section thing called 215, a foreign intelligence authority and under that, the overnment said they successfully ordered in front of ability court they had to collect, lawful right to collect every phone record in perspective n basis, and they were 90 thorizing that every days. that is stunning and that was the initial snowden revelation. meta-data, to s be clear. tis full take, everything, concept of communication, in some cases on of scanning e content of communications and particular ne reforms that were certainly looking for and the american eople are looking for are limited to make sure information does not get sent for criminal urposes, right, foreign intelligence law, let it be useful for intelligence and make

ure we are doing anything domestically, traditional norms apply, the constitution still you know, in particular for people on u.s. soil who are specifically protected under law, just ourou can find this and all "washington journal" segments online at www.c-span.org. now a hearing on the nominate to the inspector general for the cia about to begin. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

i would like to welcome our nominee to be the the next inspector general of the central intelligence agency. chris, congratulations on your nomination. i would like to recognize the family you have brought with you today. i understand your wife, kimberly, is here, as well as your sons. give me a wave, ok? and your