i'm 29 years old. i work for booth alan hamilton for nsa in hawaii. i certainly have the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to the president if i had a personal e- mail. >> edward snowden was a security contractor with top secret clearance until tuesday when he was sacked. he triggered a federal manhunt after he communicated by e-mail with the washington post and guardian, a british newspaper. he disclosed details of a top secret surveillance -- prison operated by the national security agency, the nsa. he spoke to us by video in hong kong to explain his action. he denied any intent to harm

security. he claims he blew the whistle to prompt a public debate about legitimacy and propriety. he had taken refuge in hong kong. snowden is resisting expedition to the united states. damage assessments are already under way in the nsa and cia, the central intelligence agency, and homeland security and other federal agencies whose secrets snowden is able to compromise. he's put himself under the jurisdiction of hong kong, the timing of snowden's disclosure is of particular interest, so close to the summit between president obama and -- of china. chinese cyber intrusion items. it's a diplomatic embarrassment to the u.s. and a serious

undercutting of president obama's negotiating posture, vis-a-vis china. >> what's more i between, what snowden did to the nsa or what they're doing to american citizens. >> i think he damaged the security of the united states, and i think he ought to be prosecuted. the national security agency have spent decades defending this country. now, what did we learn? >> they have access to aol's records, verizon's records, all the rest, but they can only access these records if they have found connection to a terrorist and if they go to a court and say we need to access those records. by in large, the guys working at the nsa are american patriots who have put in

decades in service. i think there's an exaggeration, potent for for evil doing is huge as it is in the irs, but there's no single example yet that this has been abused. the foreign security intelligence agency court. >> what kind of court is that? >> it's a federal court that authorizes warrants. >> is that an invisible court? >> it is an invisible court. >> why are you talk about an invisible court? >> because that's the court that the national security agency goes to the get authority -- >> how come they don't have cabinet rank? >> it's because it's sort of like the -- >> is it a spook agency. >> but it's under clapper. it's under the whole -- >> who's clapper? >> the head of national security overall, over the cia. >> reporting to whom directly. >> to the nsc and president. >> where is the office, in the white house? at the president's elbow? >> it's a secret place.

>> is it in the white house? >> he's a director of national security. >> i believe he's in the white house. >> no. i don't think so. >> he's in president obama's ear. >> of course. >> please continue. >> i have to say agree with pat buchannan, and i disagree with whatever little conspiracy you're trying to play out here. >> the director of national intelligence is probably a newly created spot. during the bush years we realized this a lot of the intelligence agencies were operating under their own seam and there wasn't enough coordination. there's nothing nefarious about it. the fact that they don't sit in a cabinet doesn't take away from authority at all. if you're talking about by the court -- >> whose the head of the court. >> the court was established in

1978. it's providing oversight so the government doesn't -- it up. to get back to the original question. edward snowden is a loner, a libertarian. i don't think he's guilty of treesen. he has no -- to betray. he thought he was doing the right thing by alerting the american people what was going on. i think people understood this is what the nsa does, it's what it was created to do, so now he brought this out into the open. i think that's fair enough. see if there's more debate. >> this young man's reputation, i think he's going to be very grateful. >> maybe he will be. i believe he'll be prosecuted. >> get a warrant, go after a terrorist, or a murder, or a rapest, but don't toll through a billion phone records every day. that is unconstitutional. it invades our privacy, and i'm

going to be seeing the i can challenge this at the supreme court level. >> senator rand paul wants to challenge government spy programs to determine whether they are constitutional. the fourth amendment to the constitution says this, quote, the rite of the people to be secure in their personal, houses, papers, effects against unreasonable searches and seizures should not be violated. we know they gather billions of data from phone records and back rooms, the databases of nine of the largest internet companies, including microsoft, google, apple, yahoo, and facebook. under the foreign intelligence surveillance act and section 215 and 702 of the patriot act. this data collection is legal.

many political figures disagree with senator paul, including mike rogers, congressman, fellow republican, former fbi special agent and chairman of the house committee. chairman rogers says this. >> the national security agency is not listening to american's phone calls and they're not reading american's e-mails. none of these programs allow that. the patriot act says it's expressly prohibitedly law that you can read and wholly surveil domestic e-mail traffic in the united states. >> question, who wins on this issue, senator paul or representative rogers? i ask you. >> i think senator paul runs this one. people are covering up their computer cameras right now. that clip you showed, talk about an unreasonable search. you're in your house and looking at the computer, and the government can be watching you. they can tap in and look at your e-mails, listen to your

phone calls. by definition, that's unreasonable. >> the whole idea of feeling secure and using your computer when you're in your home is the heart of the issue. >> they can go right in your computer and see what's there? >> that's what's there. we don't really know. how do we know what anybody is looking for? how do we know who is looking at it? we have government contractors now who seem to have access to a lot of personal things. they're not directly working for the government. they're government contractors. there's no real control over the information coming in. that's a big security issue. >> what do you think? >> well, i think you're leading with something essential. the head of national intelligence has indicated that dozens of terrorists attacks have been interpreted because of intelligence we got out of

that. given the world we're living in, we have to see if there's a way of preserving that access. now, they're not listening to conversations. they're not looking at material. i goes through a special course with independent judges and the congress have approved it. so this is something in this modern day and age that we're going to have to find some way of dealing with. the levels of terrorism that we've never before experienced. >> you have smart people creating algorithms, so you look for patterns when you collect all this data. when you buy something online, you notice you get less ads related to merchandise you're looking at. companies are doing the same. if you're going to cover your eye on your compute e you should have done it a long time ago. >> the extremity to which the subject moves. meta data, to capture all these e-mails, internet searches,

phone records, and other information, the nsa based in maryland has built a 1 million square foot data center in utah at a stated course of 1.2 to $1.7 billion. the utah data center stores and captures data in yoda let's move that out a little bit. let's take an example of metadata. >> it reports back how long it takes you to read it, what passenger sags you underline and everything you read on

kindle. it's as if you're shoulder is being snooped over. that a violation of your privacy? >> yes. >> i order all these books and then they say books just like it, would you like to buy this. it exists. it goes into this huge pool and nsa can access it if they've got a reason to believe some way it's connected with terrorism. >> then they can also turn it over to a law enforcement agency. then they can go in. >> there's no privacy. the question is can nsa get access is this it already exists. >> if they want to go further in and target on someone, they have to go to this court and present it. it essentially amounts to a warrant. but the fact that we can have the luxury -- we don't really

want to look. >> that's so we can have the luxury of having this conversation and feel pretty safe. maybe we shouldn't. >> god bless america. [talking over each other] >> they affect every part of your life. is there anything that cannot be found? >> it's possible there's very little that cannot be found, but let me put it this way, the bombs that went off in boston the day of the marathon. there was information and intelligence that we might have been able to find out about these people in advance, and we didn't do it, as it happened. we're in a different kind of world today. we have got to find a way to protect ourselves. otherwise this society is going to break down in ways we cannot even predict. it's a moderate price to pay for the level of security. >> it's a fourth amendment is shot to holes. >> i don't believe so. >> who is violating it? >> it's a balanced -- protecting the country versus giving up your rights to

privacy as an american. everyone is willing to say, okay, fine, government, look at me, take all the data. i trust you. i mean, really? >> whose fourth amendment rights have been violated. if someone went in my computer and took my e-mails, i would say, you sob, i'm suing you. but it hasn't happened. >> if the government holds on this that much personal data, is that an erosion of our personal rights, namely privacy under the fourth amendment? >> no. data already exists. they just move it from here to there. >> that's right. and they look for patterns. i want to quote david simon, he's the creator of the wire on hbo. he liken this is not only to trying to find the needle in the haystack. this is trying to find the needles before they're placed in the haystack. we don't want to surrender

that. there have been no documented abuses. >> i feel better now. none that we know of. this thing is so secretive. we're willing to accept it. we don't know what they're doing doing. [yelling over each other] >> i don't feel that my privacy has been violated. what i would feel -- if i was in the subway and the thing blue up. >> are we going to have to -- >> it just came out. >> you want to change the whole mood of this country, have a couple of terrorist attacks that go off without the ability to stop them. >> you're so trusting. why couldn't they track down the guys in boston. >> they can tape to reall the elements of your appetite.

>> i'm a vegan, so they're not going to have much to work with. ♪ ♪ for a store near you go to benjaminmoore.com/dcmetro.

♪ for a store near you go to benjaminmoore.com/dcmetro. issue to redlining, on thursday, the white house announced the obama administration has concluded that the assad regime has used chemical weapons multiple times in syria in the last year,

resulting in the deaths of 150 people. the white house also announced this response it would, quote, increase the scope scale of assistance we provide to the opposition, end quote. is he making the same problem with asyria that he did with iraq, being drawn into a middle eastern caught mire? >> no. >> no, i don't think it's a quagmire. i think assad is clearly winning. the rebels are clearly losing. the reason they're losing is because we did not provide them with what they needed.

>> we have to remember that they're located in different countries. >> that's right. >> and anything that affects their population within syria is going to be reflected on a massive scale, possibly causing eruptions over in those countries, correct? >> that's possible, but if assad and his forces wipe out the opposition, there will be implications directly, jordan in particular, and other countries. whatever happens here, you have the implications that go to the whole region. >> hold on just one moment. let's assume bashar al-assad, the head of syria, himself, authorized the chemical weapons deployment, five distinct conflicts have becomed tangled together. this is a quote. a popular uprising against a dictatorship that's a battle, a regional struggle between shiite and sunni which is also

a -- notably the u.s. and saudi arabia. the quagmire is turning out to be deeper and more dangerous than it was in iraq. war correspondent -- >> john, this has -- written all over it. we're putting the united states now militarily into a war where our side has al-qaeda people, jihad on its side. the war there is being lost. we have no plans to win it, no plans to end it, no plans to get out. you're right, it's a sunni- shiite war in the middle east. we're getting our -- russia is on one side and us and qatar on

the other side. it's -- >> first of all, that was a madeup incident. i don't believe -- [talking over each other] the french have tested it. there's a belief that this red line has been crossed. secondly, you said the president is he drawn in like bush was drawn into iraq. bush wasn't drawn into iraq. he wanted to overthrow the regime there. boy, did that backfire. this president really doesn't want to get involved. he's got one foot on the brake every step of the way. >> that's the problem. >> he's headed to the summit next week. the idea of this increased milliontary aid is an attempt to balance the power on the ground. assad is winning right now. you don't want to go into this peace conference they hope to hold over the sum we are assad winning. that's what this is about. >> the problem now is that he's

giving weapons -- >> who's he? >> the president decided to help the little men across this red line, but it's not enough to do any good. it's going to escalate things with russia and increase cold war situation. >> why did the president -- >> i think it was political. >> what do you mean political? >> for a number of reasons. >> he has effectively controlled the content of the sunday tv program. [talking over each other] yell yell >> i know your theory is the wag the dog theory,. [yelling over each other] if there's a collapse of all of our allies in that region, it will be a huge foreign policy

for the united states. >> i agree. >> saudi arabia is our ally. they're in their own way helping out. >> where are the turks? >> i don't know where the turks are. >> there's a reluctant warrior taking us into war halfway. >> will president obama rue the day he made chemical weapon use by assad's regime a red line. >> this could end his presidency. >> he'll rue the day. okay, quickly. >> that's bay overstated -- way overstated. no rue? >> no. the fact that the hezbolah fighters at the direction of iran are now in syria makes this a proxy war that super powers cannot sit on the sidelines completely. made a political move -- it's not going to damage. >> he's not going to rue the day? >> no.

>> no? >> the answer is big rue. we'll be right back with predictions.

tea party efforts to kill the farm bill will stereotype and make comments about food stamps.

>> iran is only 60 days away from having enough nuclear material to develop their first nuclear war head. >> immigration overall legislation will pass and become law by december 31 of this year. happy father's day. bye-bye.

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