it is an nsa facility.has the cooperation of government employees because it is a public school. that was the first facility at which he worked. >> can students freely go in and out? >> i don't know the details, i just know it was a secure building. >> so edward snowden was there as a guard? >> literally, security guard wearing the uniform and makeshift badge. i don't think he had a gun, but he had the rest -- >> how does he end up working at dell? >> he advanced to the national security state and got clearance. once you get security clearance, means there are all kinds of job openings available for you. he spent three years working directly for the cia in geneva, became disillusioned with the cia and decided to shift to the nsa. because so much of our national security state is now privatized and outsourced, what it means to go work at the nsa usually means you're going to work for some huge corporation like booz allen wardell, general dynamics and all sorts of other corporations that have contracts at the

the nsa adapted and moved on. ironically the agency's lowest point up until then came a number of years later, precisely because of its greatest success, the fall of the solve yet union. >> if you seek peace, tear down this wall. >> after the cold war ended, congress wanted the peace dividend. so they cut nsa's budget and nsa took money away from its research and development and put it into trying to keep operations up and running. >> general michael hayden was director of the nsa from 1999 to 2005. >> as the soviet union collapses, we have a technolo technological revolution going on over here and they both converged at a really inconvenient time for nsa. so after the fall of come nichl it took a hit. >> all i know fra structure no longer valid. declining budgets and that's pretty much where nsa was in the mid-1990s and the late 1990s. we could not keep up with the volume, variety and velocity of modern communications. >> you say it's deaf -- the signals that you want to listen to. >> if the nsa was deaf, a shock

the nsa didn't go through any of that. the nsa was created by a top secret memorandum.ent by president truman. >> the nsa's activities were so secret that insiders joked its initials stood for no such agency. for a generation, the nsa operated behind the scenes. for instance, the nsa provided the first evidence of questionable soviet activity during the cuban missile crisis. >> a president has nothing to hide. >> then, in the 1970s came the watergate scandal. and suddenly, americans wanted to know all about washington's secret activities. this led to the church committee in 1975. chaired by idaho senator frank church, it was charged with investigating the american intelligence community. >> the first time an nsa director was dragged screaming, kicking up to testify in a public venue about what his agency did. >> matthew aid is an intelligence historian. an author of the history of the nsa. >> it never happened before that point and it literally required something close to a subpoena. >> nsa had little to do with watergate. but it did come out that the agency had been se

the nsa's secret war. this spring, general keith alexander, director of the national security agency, retired. it's a sign of how controversial his tenure was that if you type his name into google, they will suggest you might want to try keith alexander lie. now, it's true there's plenty that is controversial and perhaps even worth censoring. but often it seems the talk about the agency has shed more heat than light. that's why we wanted to talk to the people who were there. those who know what happened. what we found may surprise you. but first, the latest on the story that's shocked the nation. it seemed like things couldn't get worse for the national security agency after former employee edward snowden stole and then leaked a trove of america's most sensitive secrets a year ago. but things did get worse. a torrent of damaging stories. in august, it's revealed the agency has broken privacy rules thousands of times. a few weeks later, the black budget is published showing the nsa pays u.s. communication c

that is where nsa was.uld not keep up with the volume and velocity of modern communication. >> if the nsa was death, a shock would soon come loud enough for everyone. ♪ why do results matter so much? it's probably because they are the measurement of everything we do. for a wireless company, results come down to coverage speed and legendary reliability. so go ahead, stream, game or video chat. that's why verizon built americas largest 4g lte network. because the only thing that really matters are the results you get. so for the best devices the best network and for best results, use verizon. could mean less waiting for things like security backups and file downloads you'd take that test, right? well, what are you waiting for? you could literally be done with the test by now. now you could have done it twice. this is awkward. check your speed. see how fast your internet can be. switch now and add voice and tv for $34.90. comcast business built for business. >> the attack of september 11th shook america to the

is lawless, nsa out of control." none of those resonate with us. that's not us. that's not what we are aiming towards. that's not how we hold ourselves accountable. our ultimate goal is to prevent things from... bad things from happening to ensure the national security. >> you want to draw the box differently? you want to have the security community work in a smaller box? i got it. but before you do that, you got to understand, you got to understand what the costs might be. i mean, we live inside a democracy. and, you know, the public will matters in a democracy. i just hope it's informed public will. and frankly, when the decisions are made, you understand the costs. >> we have to strike the right balance between protecting our security and preserving our freedoms. >> narrator: the president did what executives in the midst of a controversy often do... >> review of our surveillance programs... >> narrator: he appointed a panel. >> so i am tasking this independent group to step back... >> narrator: this one to review

it was against the law to turn the nsa on americans. >> if you were an nsa analyst, this sort of legal regime was drilled into your head to the point where a lot of people said, "it's made the rules too restrictive and it's hampered the nsa's ability to detect terrorist plots." >> narrator: some at the agency thought the nsa had been overly cautious and believed the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped. >> i do believe it could have been prevented with revisions to the way we were permitted to operate before 9/11. (voice breaking): revisions that i tried to get the general counsel to embrace and wouldn't... and couldn't... i tried to get them to make adjustments to how we were operating, how we were permitted to operate, and they wouldn't do it. i've felt this ever since it occurred, that over 3,000 people's lives were lost. and it's just a weight that i am having trouble bearing. it's... i'm sorry, i... >> the toughest week for america since japan bombed pearl harbor 60 years ago... >> narrator: all over washington, there was a growing demand to stop the next attack. >> we have to rem

now that's all nsa can do with that. nsa then would have handed that number to the fbi. the fbi would have kicked in the door in san diego and would have found nawaf al-hazmi and khalid al-mihdhar, two people legally in the united states. they probably would have leaned on them enough, though, and found some reason to push them out of the country, and off they would have went, and so two of the muscle guys on the pentagon flight wouldn't have been there. to answer your question, i suspect al qaeda then may have called the raid off. "we don't know what these guys gave up to the fbi, we don't know what else the americans know, they found these two guys, what if they're laying in wait, call up mohammed atta, call the other guys, we're off."i suspect that would have happened. i can't guarantee it. but wait, there's more. >> yeah. well - >> michael hayden: one more point. >> i want to bring the other side in. >> one more point. >> very brief. >> all right. >> if that would have happened, we still would have not gotten credit for stopping a terrorist attack because we would no

that there are divisions in the nsa and teams in the nsa devoted to doing this. >> reporter: the nsa says the implication that the foreign intelligence collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false. nsa's activities are focused on valid foreign intelligence targets. greenwald says he has thousands of documents and plans to reveal more on the intercept, a digital magazine whose parent company has a collaboration agreement with nbc news. >> several of the top, say, 5 or 10 are stories that are left to be told. one s that will really shock th world. >> reporter: green wald spoke with snowden 24 hours ago, but

they are put in a lockbox at nsa. 20 people at nsa are allowed to access the lockbox. the only thing in this is allowed to do with the truly digital unit record data field sitting there is that when they have what's called a signal, a seat of a which a reasonable our digital suspicion that that seed number is a fully with al-qaeda, the role of a safe house in yemen, you've got pocket litter, there's the al-qaeda membership card, he's got a phone you've never seen before. gee, i wonder how this phone might be associated with any threats in the united states? so i'll be a little cartoonish about this at nsa gets to walk up to the transo transit and yel through the transom and say, hey, anybody here talk to this number i just down in yemen? and then this number, say, and buffalo goes, well, yeah, i call him about every thursday. nsa then gets to say, okay, buffalo number, number, not name, a phone number, who did you call? at which point my description of the 250 metadata program is over. -- 215. that's all nsa is allowed to do with the data. there is no data mining. are

the nsa has records. have copies of e-mails right now to their office of general counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks from me raising concerns about the nsa's interpretations of its legal authorities. now, i have raised these complaints not just officially, in writing through e-mail to these offices and individuals, but to my supervisors, to my colleagues. in more than one office. i did it in ft. meade. i did it in hawaii. and many, many of these individuals were shocked by these programs. they had never seen them themselves. and the ones who had went, you know, you're right. these are things that are really concerning. these aren't things we should be doing. maybe we're going too far here, but if you say something about this, they're going to destroy you. do you know what happens to people who stand up and talk about this? >> what did you report? what was the response? >> so i reported that there were real problems with the way the nsa was interpreting its legal authorities. and the response

they're put in a lockbox at nsa. twenty-two people at nsa are allowed to access that lockbox. the only thing nsa is allowed to do with that truly gajillion record datafield sitting there is that when they have what's called a seed number, a seed number about which they have reasonable articulable suspicion that that seed number is affiliated with al qaeda, you roll up a safe house in yemen, he's got pocket litter and it says here's his al qaeda membership card, he's got a phone you've never seen before - gee, i wonder how this phone might be associated with any threats in the united states? so i'll be a little cartoonish about this: nsa gets to walk up to the transom and yell through the transom and say, "hey!

edward snowden the nsa and the u.s. surveillance state. >> i think if you look at the surveillance abuses of the past, the principle question has always been on whom is the government spying domestically and for what reasons, which who are their targets. and that's the missing part of the puzzle in terms of the public reporting taking place. >> rose: who the target are. >> who specifically are the target domestically, u.s. citizens, domestic persons inside the united states. the investigation we're currently working on the and when the reporting we're doing is to enter that question in a very comprehensive way. >> rose: we conclude this evening with writer christopher buckley. >> i was once speaking at a civic event in ohio. they're very nice. they're much nicer than we are in the east, although they're very nice in the carolinas. and it was one of those 11:00 in the morning things. the audience, a civic auditorium of a thousand blue-haired ladies and silver-haired ladies. my host, who was a sweet sweet person introduce

about nsa spying that mr. snowden revealed in the reaction that the u.s. media when the story broke. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> good evening. i am bradley graham coe order of politics and prose along with my wife in muscatine and on behalf of the entire staff and all the staff here at sixth and i i would like to welcome you. we are always delighted to partner with six and i and co-sponsor author talks in this truly marvelous building. esther forbes who is the executive director of six and i and her organization have done a traffic job establishing this place as a vibrant cultural center now celebrating its tenth anniversary. we are looking forward to continuincontinuin g our great partnership with them. as a bookstore owner i'm often asked by writers for it by somehow to promote a book after it's been published. i don't think i have ever suggested going out and winning a pulitzer prize and making sure it's awarded just a few weeks before the release of the book. but that's what glenn greenwald di

should the nsa exist? what do you say?> i don't know of anybody who believes that all forms of surveillance should be imloshed or that all -- abolished or that all forms of why surveillance are legitimate. >> you do? >> i don't know that are, oversight driven surveillance is justified and you know i've made my opinions clear as part of the journalism, which isn't a new form of journalism. if you look at american journalism for the last two centuries, it has been crusading credit journalism, they candidly acknowledge the opinions they have and then tell their readers you can still rely on the facts that i'm reporting and ultimately that determines the credibility of a journalist. >> you made the fact that main treatment sources go to the united states government bez they public things. >> what i dislike about the process is the one that results in the suppression of information that the public ought to know because it's news worthy as it's happened so many times before and that's the real problem. >> can you describe the ex

something like 70% of the overall budget goes to the nsa.t ends up going to the functions of private corporations. this idea that there are these great whistleblowing procedures that he should've gone through the way the u.s. government is structured is to hide, not to eliminate secret wrongdoing by people in power. the best proof of that is that there are two democratic senators who sit on the senate intelligence community weapon going round the city and everywhere they can for years warning the public that there are these radical surveillance policies. the public would be stunned to learn about what it was that was being done. yet, those two senders do not -- senators do not have the courage to disclose these programs because the system is designed to gag even powerful senators when they discover the national security is doing something wrong. he knew he cannot go to people like them because they were impotent. the system ensures they are and they ensure that they are. the only way was to go to newspapers and ask them to publish it. host:

should the nsa exist? what do you say? >> i don't know of anybody who believes that all forms of surveillance should be abolished or that all forms of surveillance are illegitimate. >> you do. >> oversight surveillance justified, isn't a new form of journalism. if you look at american journalism for the last few centuries it's been this crew saiding adversarially journalism where the journalists don't tonight readers, you can still rely on the facts that i'm reporting and ultimately that is what determines the credibility of a journalist. >> you have made a big point about the fact that mainstream organizations, like the new york times, the washington post, goes to the u.s. government before they print things and you don't like that. >> it isn't so much that i'm opposed to the idea of advising the u.s. government. >> you could have fooled me in the book. >> what i dislike about the process is the suppression of information that the public ought to know because it's news worthy as it's happened so many times before and that

as i've always said and as nsa has always denied. still the white house is challenging snowden's credibility. >> he was not trained as a spy. we have no idea where that assertion comes from. and has edward snowden done damage? he's done immense damage. >> reporter: and john kerry's

so they have some real concern about this eavesdropping that the nsa was doing. so that will be something she will be asked about as you see the two leaders come to the rose garden and speak to the media, this will come up, and her tone publicly may be a little bit more diplomatic that in private. >> and some people say the sanctions that the united states is waging against russia is the new way of waging war. you are a veteran washington watcher, have you ever seen a time when the lines between east and west were so blurred because there are so many competing economic interests scattered across the globe that it's difficult to impose sanctions on one country without hurting an ally? >> reporter: and so many of the trade agreements have opened up the borders to create that cross-border ability to get goods and services, and the thought of that of course is that it's harder to do sanctions. and the economies are -- are very connected at a time when many nations are still doing their own economic recovery process, it's not a time when many feel the ability to say w

. >>> edward snowden is holding firm to his claim that he did blow the whistle about nsa abuses beforehe leaks. leaving a paper trail to prove it. his interview with brian williams. >> not just officially, in writing through e-mail, to these offices and these individuals, but to my supervisors, to my colleagues, in more than one office. >> under pressure the nsa after a year released one e-mail, the sole e-mail it found from snowden to nsa lawyers but snowden has fired back about that release telling the "washington post" today the picture painted by the nsa is incomplete. i'm joined now by jerry mabash

it was developed by the nsa in 2009.is variously sponsored through a number of subprograms which are controlled by the nsa's commercial solution center, which works with their secret partners. the nsa would not be able to function without their corporate partners that they rely on to gain access to communications networks. it is also cosponsored by the cia and the drug enforcement administration. as you mentioned, this program has gained access in mexico, kenya, the philippines, bahamas, and one of the country that the intercept is not naming at this time. >> is the government telling you not to name them? >> this is a conversation that we had four weeks as we have reported the story, trying to determine whether or not it was responsible to name the country. the nsa and government did not want us to name any of the countries. we named four of them. with this final country, we came to the conclusion that naming it would very likely increase risk for people on the ground. as you know, this is one of those decisions that, a

the whole nsa scandal ban when james clapper went before the senate and was asked whether or not the nsa is mass collecting data about millions of americans, and he looked senators in the eye and said, no, sir. and then the very next -- the very first story we reported from snowden archives two months later prove the nsa was doing exactly that, which, the top national security official in the united states government, falsely denied to the nat and the public. so when you hear things like mr. snowden. -- not telling the truth when he says sitting at his desk he could have wire tapped anyone. i guarantee you that's exactly what the nsa analysts have the capability, and the evidence -- don't rely on my word or his. a program which we reported on

it was developed by the nsa in 2009. it is variously sponsored through a number of subprograms which are controlled by the nsa's commercial solution center, which works with their secret partners. the nsa would not be able to function without their corporate partners that they rely on to gain access to communications networks. it is also cosponsored by the cia and the drug enforcement

the nsa has records. they have copies of e-mails right now to their office of general counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks. oversight and compliance folks. >> what did you report? was the response? >> and the response more or less, in bureaucratic language was, you should stop asking questions. >> reporter: now under pressure from the senate intelligence chair and seven days after nbc first asked about snowden's claim, the nsa released one e-mail snowden wrote to a lawyer a year ago april, only weeks before he stole classified documents and fled. in it he raised a technical legal question, offering his opinion about which laws take precedence over others. the nsa lawyer answered in part the nsa lawyer answered in part "you are correct," adding, "please give me a call if you would like to discuss further." in a written statement today, the nsa said, the e-mail did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the office of general counsel address.

the whole time, the nsa is doing exactly that.hen you have a government misleading the people, democracy is in peril and it is the role of journalists to make people aware. >> you don't necessarily occupy the high ground here. thanks it is certainly something that american people have a right to know they're being told by the government that they are evil for doing the same things they are doing. >> does everybody do it? >> not everybody. >> not everyone is capable. >> no one surveilled the internet and world communications to the extent of the united states. >> that definition may be about competence. others might do it and they do it in part. they may do more if they had the competence. >> nobody thinks that's buying in and of itself and all of its permutations is legitimate. it has always existed and always will. if the united states were targeting a traditionally recognized legitimate target, military officials, heads a foreign state, there would never have been anna edwards snowden, no controversy. it is the indiscriminate na

but it may be the nsa you suggested? >> there is a huge, huge difference, fundamental difference between having a single company collect the information about you that they are able to know when you use their service so google can collect your google searches, yahoo can direct your yahoo e-mails and it's divided and fragmented in the hands of these companies versus the u.s. government collect in a systemized weigh everything there is to know about you online. there is a difference between corporate and government power. the government that can put you into prison, take your property and en that can kill you which is why the bill of rights and constitution limits what the government can do because we have always looked to government and state power as being particularly andniquely threatening. >> when you arrived at the museum, there were kids out, students that you probably walked through. do you think those young people in high school and college understand what you are saying completely? i mean what has fascinated me t

times and the guardian where you are reporting on the nsa scandal and the ed snowden leak.n the pulitzer prize for public service. (applause) and a post award for national security reporting. your new book is called no place to hide, edward snowden, the nsa and the-- surveillance state, are you looking for a place to hide? >> i'm in the. >> stephen: really? >> but if i were, there would be no one in this surveillance state, the title actually comes from frank church who investigated the surveillance state in the mid 70s and found something nobody knew which is that the nsa was collecting enormous amounts of communications. and what he said was this is an extraordinarily dangerous machine that has been building, if it ever turned around and aimed at the american people there would be no place to hide. a very mainstream democratic senator who served in world war 2 and to that's the title of the book becauses that is in fact what happened is the nsa has turned its apparatus on americans as well as the rest of the world. >> stephen: but we did not know the extent of that until

what they say the nsa and its practices are still needed? they think a lot of the practices are unconstitutional or dangerous or bad for our privacy or not helpful to national security. jule brenner and senator feinstein would disagree on all of those points. host: as far as your conversation with them -- when you take a look at specific programs what did you talk about and what are the concerns he -- what are the concerns? leaked aowden has hundred programs at least. the ones that generated the most controversy is the metadata program, where the nsa has been secretly collecting the phone records of basically all americans all the time. it turns out not quite all. they are missing the cell phone records. the idea is they are not listening to your phone calls but their computers no everybody you are calling. who you are calling, when you are calling, where you roughly were when you talked to them. when they for that is have a call: from someone they think is a foreign terrorist, then they want to know everyone i'm talking to, everyone i have

either for the nsa or against. and so we tried to balance our video on pro and antinsa clips and interviews so that we could try to achieve the balance feel that c-span wanted us to do. >> let go across the table to andrew, who is in tenth grade. his documentary, we the people, genetically modified, how did you come up with the topic and learn about student cam? >> i'd probably say i came across the topic on the internet, just simply threw watching youtube videos and stuff like that. but i figured it was really a great topic because unlike some of the other topics that of course are important, food is essential to life and transcends everything, and every requires food to live and a lot of people don't know whates being done to our food supply, and they just eat this food regularly without knowing what is inside it. i found that very concerning. so that's i would i chose the topic. >> what was the most challenging part? >> getting all the interviews and interviewing everybody, because since this was kind of a contr

the nsa, what does it do?t was hard to answer these questions before edwards noted in late thousands of detailed documents to the public. these documents show the full extent of the surveillance on americans. >> the nsa is doing bulk data collection of american's emails. is not limited in scope to terrorists, spies, or people with probable cause.e it is a bulk collection of data. >> that is just one side of the story. many people believe that the nsa is doing the right thing under a law called fisa. nsa is doing is trying to implement something called foreign intelligence surveillance authority. that is designed to capture communication information from ieved tors, who are bel be trying to do harm to americans. >> i think that fisa has a lot of problems. ignave repeatedly voted to re in the fisa responsibilities. i think we have more work to do. if anything, all of the news in the last few months -- it really tells us, in a deep way, that there are things we have to do to reign in and provide overisht. rsight.

an all german chancellor and memorable visit the white house just months after it revealed that the nsa spying on her. blundell stories coming. and oklahoma was the scene ever read but botched execution the state governor called for overview of the incense and the faith you think that lethal injection. more on that later and share. thirty if i can the island to friends or watching tv. midterm elections only have six months away pollsters are firing up the telephone lines to get a read on how the american feels about elected officials and more importantly how expects to both of them. at this point republicans hold the majority of seats in the house of representatives the things trooper to craft an authentic in the november elections republicans are expected to hold on to the house that need fixed me to pick up six seats to win control the senate. look at that. a new rasmussen national survey finds that fifty three percent of likely us voters think it's fair to say that neither party in congress is the party of the american people. it is up to forty seven percent last october overall it f

that there are divisions in the nsa and teams in the nsa devoted to doing this. >> reporter: the nsa says the implication that the foreign intelligence collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false. nsa's activities are focused on valid foreign intelligence targets. greenwald says he has thousands of documents and plans to reveal more on the intercept, a digital magazine whose parent company has a collaboration agreement with nbc news. >> several of the top, say, 5 or 10 are stories that are left to be told. one s that will really shock th world. >> reporter: green wald spoke with snowden 24 hours ago, but germany or brazil may offer snowden asylum. there's a cloak and dagger deal on how these two men first met. >> kate snow with her conversation with glenn greenwald. >>> what had been one of the most closely watched primary races in the country. former american idol contestant clay aiken was in a too close to call democratic primary congressional seat, but late today we learned his opponent keith chris co died today after a fall in his home. he was 71 years old. he died having

what did the nsa have access to?he reason we don't know this is because these meetings that general keith alexander had been discussing in these two sets of e-mails, they took place in a classified setting. so they were classified briefings. the executives had security clearance, and they've been unwilling to address it. these e-mails shed rare light on what has largely been very secret discussions taking place for many years now. >> jason, if my memories serves me correctly many companies were outraged and google went as far to say that nsa's actions were potentially illegal. in the wake of what we know now and what you know now, was that just a pr stunt by google? >> i'm not sure that it was a pr stunt. i don't think i would go there, but at the same time google should have known. they opened the door and invited nsa in. they should have known what was happening. i think it was genuine. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> still to come on al jazeera america, climate change is already hitting family budget hard. we'll ta

right outside the nsa. so i remember, i remember the tension of that day.emember hearing on the radio the planes hitting. and i remember thinking my grandfather who worked for the fbi at the time, was in the pentagon when the plane hit it. i take the threat of terrorism seriously. and i think we all do. and it's really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort of scandalize our memories to sort of exploit the, the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through to justify programs that had never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don't need to give up and our constitution says we should not give up. >> in the spotlight tonight, the fugitive and the likes that are leading to new rules for spying. edward snowden's location in russia remains a secret. nbc's brian williams did sit down for the first american tv interview since snowden left the u.s. he says his leaks were good for our country and the nas failed to detail any specific ways the leaks harmed national security. and snowden

snowden ever communicate any concerns about the nsa's interpretation of its legal authorities? >> now about that last point there about the paper trail that snowden says exists within the n sarks.

author of the new book, "no place to hide: edward snowden, the nsa and the u.s. surveillance state." glenn greenwald and filmmaker laura poitras were the journalists who first met snowden in hong kong last june. when greenwald came by democracy now! studios on monday. i asked him to talk about how edward snowden first reached out to him. >> he first tried to contact me or did contact me back in december 2012 when he sent me an anonymous e-mail using the name of a roman emperor who had famously been recruited to become essentially the emperor of rome to vanquish a foreign enemy and voluntarily gave up hour after he succeeded and was at the height of his power and instead of going back to my farm and became the symbol of civic virtue, someone who uses power for the collective good another own personal aggrandizement. the problem was, he was afraid for august reasons -- reasons that are now obvious -- to tommy much about who he was or what he had. all he would say was, i have a story for you but as you know, we get contacted every day by people claiming to have stor