those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the fisc. having said that, though, if you

however, to build greater confidence, i think we should consider some additional changes to the fisc. one of the concerns people raised is that a judge reviewing a request from the government to

those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the fisc. having said that, though, if you are outside of the intelligence community, if you are the ordinary person and you start seeing a bunch of headlines saying u.s., big brother looking down on you, collecting telephone records, et cetera, well, understandably people

that is provided to the court the fisc does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance and in that respect that this is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing government compliance with its orders what is it about the foreign intelligence surveillance court that prevents it from being that necessary oversight well it's interesting that they say they're in the same position as a normal court because they very likely are in the same position but things don't play out the way that they would in a normal court in a court you would issue a surveillance order be it a warrant or some other undocument that allows police law enforcement to go out and conduct surveillance of an individual and eventually that individual will be supposedly brought into court and presented with the evidence against him or her and allowed to challenge the gathering of that evidence under the fourth amendment under legal and statutory standards you never get that chance in the fight as a court you never bring somebody into court there's never a opportunity to challenge the

however, to build greater confidence, i think we should consider some additional changes to the fisc. one of the concerns people raise is a judge reviewing a request from the government to conduct progr programattic may hear one side of the story, may tilt it to much toward security and not enough to liberty. while i have confidence in the court and they've done a fine job, i think we can provide greater assurances that the court is looking at these issues from both perspectives. security and privacy. so specifically, we can take steps to make sure civil liberties concerns have an independent voice in appropriate cases by ensuring that the government's position is challenged by an adversary. number three, we can and must be more transparent. so i directed the intelligence community to make public as much information about these programs as possible. we've already declassified unprecedented information about the nsa, but we can go further. so at my direction, the department of justice will make public the legal rationale for the government's collection activities under section 215 of t

known as the fisc. it was created by congress to provide judicial review of certain intelligence activities so that a federal judge must find that our actions are consistent with the constitution. however, to build greater confidence, i think we should consider some additional changes to the fisc. one of the concerns that people raise is that a judge reviewing a request from the government to conduct surveillance only hears one side of the story. it may tilt it too far in favor of security. may not pay enough attention to liberty. and while i've got confidence in the court and i think they've done a fine job, i think we can provide greater assurances that the court is looking at these issues from both perspectives. security and privacy. so specifically, we can take steps to make sure civil liberties, concerns have an independent voice in appropriate cases by ensuring that the government's position is challenged by an adversary. number three, we can and must be more transparent. so i've directed the inte

those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the fisc. having said that, though, if you are outside of the intelligence community, if you are the ordinary person and you start seeing a bunch of headlines saying u.s., big brother looking down on you, collecting telephone records, et cetera, well, understandably people would be concerned. i would be, too, if i wasn't inside the government. and so in light of the changed environment where a whole set of questions have been raised, some in the most sensationalized manner possible where these leaks are released drip by drip, you know, one a week to kind of maximize attention and see if, you know, they can catch us at some inprecision on something, in light of that, it makes sense for us to go ahead, lay out what exactly we're doing, have a discussion with congress, have a discussion with industry, which is also impacted by this, have a discussion with civil libertarians and see can we do this better? i think the main thing i want to emphasize is i don't have an interest and the people at the n

and those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the fisc. well of course this latest revelation showing thousands of abuses each year appears to contradict the president's claims these documented abuses occurred at the n.s.a.'s fort meade headquarters and other washington area facilities government officials said the number of abuses would be much higher if other collection centers were included not only that other documents reveal that the n.s.a. purposely withheld information of these abuses from the oversight staff and the documents uncover a program out of the n.s.a. that collected and stored both u.s. and foreign e-mails together for months before the pfizer court even was made aware of its existence and eventually ruled it to be unconstitutional one thing that's still uncertain is just how many americans have been affected by these so-called incidents at the n.s.a. well for more on what can be learned from these latest leaks i was joined earlier by amy stepanovich director of epix domestic surveillance project and i started by asking h

nose as the fisc.he fisc was created by congress to provide judicial review of certain intelligence activities so that a federal judge must find that our actions are consistent with the constitution. however, to build greater confidence, i think we should consider some additional changes to the fisc. one of the concerns that people raise is that a judge reviewing a request from the government to conduct programatic surveillance only hears one side of the story. may tilt it too far in favor of security, may not pay enough attention to liberty. while i've got confidence in the court and i think they've done a fine job, i think we can provide greater assurances that the court is looking at these issues from both perspectives, security and privacy. so specifically we can take steps to make sure civil liberties, concerns, have an independent voice in appropriate cases by ensuring the government's position is challenged by an adversary. number three, we can and must be more transparent. so i've directed the

known as the fisc. i think we should consider some additional changes to the fisc. steps to put in place greater oversight, greater transparency, and constraints on use of in this authority. we can and must be more transparent. so i've drengted the intelligence community to make public as much information about these programs as possible. >> this is crucial. the president and nsa officials did not start out embracing transpatent or looking to reform the patriot act. they were dragged here by leaks that documented the very problems president obama outlined on friday. and they were pushes here by a of bipartisan vote of no confidence in the spying program just last month. so look i do think the president was right to finally listen to critics and take action on transparency and right to the release a memo how the nsa has expanded the trot act to search millions of phone records. he was right to call on congress to reform the patriot act and the spying court. in fact, under current rules that court provides an uneven playing field for lawyers which the president mentio

however, to build greater confidence, i think we should consider some additional changes to the fisc. one of the concerns people raised is that a judge reviewing a request from the government to conduct programmatic civilian -- conduct programmatic surveillance may only see one side of it. while i have confidence in the court and i think they have done a fine job, i think they can provide greater assurances that the court is looking at these issues from both perspectives, security and privacy. so specifically, we can take steps to make sure civil liberties concerns have an independent voice in appropriate cases by ensuring that the government's position is challenged by an adversary. numbers three best number three, we can and must be more transparent. i directed the intelligence community to making -- to make public as much information about these programs as possible. we have already declassified unprecedented information about the nsa, but we can go further. so the apartment of justice will make public the rationale under article 215 of the patriot act. and release information that

fisc was created by congress to provide additional review so that a federal judge must find our actions are consistent with the constitution. however, to build greater confidence, we should consider some additional changes. one of the concerns that people raised is that a judge reviewing a request from the government to conduct programmatic surveillance only here's one side of the story. it may not pay enough attention to liberty. while i have confidence in the court, i think we can provide greater assurances that the court is looking at these issues from both perspective, security and privacy. we can take steps to make sure civil liberties concerns have an independent voice inappropriate cases by insuring the government's position is challenged by an adversary. number three, we can and must be more transparent. intelligenceed the community to make public as much information about these programs as possible. declassifieddy unprecedented information about the and as a, but we can go further. the department of justice will make public to rationales for their programs. finally, the intelli

the fisc, meaning the court, is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided the court. so the nsa brings all its information to the court and says, hey, here's our information. and they have got no way to independently know whether that information is correct or complete. and let's face it, spy agencies want to spy. it's what they do. they want to keep us safe. and the more the better for them, we understand that. >> that's right. and sometimes the nsa folks come after the fact to the court and say hey, court, here's what we say happened. here's what we believe happened. just approve it retroactively. so here's what i'm saying. you need to get advanced approval for even a query. certainly you need to get probable cause for any kind of content information. but even querying a phone number, what number did it call, you should have to go to the court first. second, to your other point, we should have somebody at the court whose job it is, whose responsibility it is to make sure that they're putting forward the counterargument. after all in, a court of law, you h

checks are in place, and those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the fisc. having said that, to though, ifu are outside of the intelligence community. you're the ordinary person and start seeing a bunch of headlines saying u.s., big brother, looking down on you, collecting telephone records, et cetera, well, understandably people would be concerned. i would be, too, if i wasn't inside the government. and so in light of the changed environment where a whole set of questions have been raised, some in the most sensationalized manner possible, where these leaks are released drip by drip, one a week, kind of maximize attention, and see if they can catch us at some imprecision on something. in light of that it makes sense for us to go ahead, lay out what exactly we're doing, have a discussion with congress, have a discussion with industry, which is also impacted by this, have a discussion with the civil libertarians, and see, can we do this better? i think the main thing i want to emphasize is, i don't have an interest, and the people of the nsa don't have an int

as mike points out, it does show that this fisc, this foreign intelligence surveillance court, was able to police the system to change it, however belatedly but it also shows frustration that the chief judge there, john bates, had with the nsa and reporting. at one point bates wrote in a footnote there had been substantial misleading of the court by the nsa, by the intelligence community. that's not going to make or put people's minds at ease how the program is operating. >> it's not and one of the things, mike, that strikes me and i know you support this program and i think at love americans would be supportive of the program even one or two examples of specifically ways that this program has worked to keep them safe. i think one of the big concerns is that it is so overbroad, so tremendous in its scope, that it is mostly cya, so they can say, you know what? yeah, we had that phone number, show people, connect the dots, say here exactly how it worked and how it saved us. i don't think they have an example like that or i think they would have shown it to us. >> well, no, you have to rem

and would be against the orders of the fisc. >> erol, where does that leave americans?it's not good enough i think is where it leaves us. the president reverting to his original job as a constitutional scholar seems to think that, well, it's all perfectly balanced. we'll have a court do the oversight and everything will be fine. as you said the head of the foreign intelligence surveillance court says they don't have the independent means to verify whether what they are told is true or not. and he compared it to other court orders. he said the court is always dependent on the government to follow its orders. the thing is there's no contempt that can be cited. you know, what happens is in secret. the intelligence agency might get sort of a reprimand months after the fact. even that is secret. the president's policy, i think, and what he talked about seven days ago, i think is pretty much done. and he's now going to go through this, administration going to go through something akin to the stages of grief after death. you've got denial. you've got anger. you've got bargaini

united states, we must go to the foreign intelligence surveillance court and show probable cause on the fisc warrant basically to provide content for that specific individual. >> good. ow the nsa has produced and declassified a chart. i would like to make it available to all members. it has the 54 total events. it includes section 702 authority and section 215 authority. which essentially work together. t shows the events disrupted a -- based on a combination of these two programs. 13 in the homeland. 25 in europe. five in africa, and 11 in asia. now, i remember, i was on the intelligence committee before /11. and i remember how little information we had. and the great criticism of the government because of these stovepipes, the inability to share intelligence, the inability to collect intelligence, we had no row -- program that could have possibly caught two people in san diego before the event took place. i support this program. i think, based on what i know, they will come after us and i think we need to prevent an attack wherever we can from happening. that does not mean that we cannot m