is a legitimate defense of our freedoms,, acclaimed trial lawyer, harvard scholar, professor alan dershowitz. [applause] joining professor dershowitz on the pro side of the contest is none other than former head of the nsa, the national security agency, the former head of the central intelligence agency, a retired four-star u.s. general, ladies and gentlemen, michael hayden. [applause] now one great team of debaters deserves another and we have not let you down tonight. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, serial technology entrepreneur, the cofounder of the global social news phenomenon reddit, and best-selling author alexis ohanian. alexis. [applause] alexis' partner is a person who has been at the very center of this global debate since edward snowden stunned the world last june with his unprecedented leak, his exposure of america's most intimate cyberespionage programs. in the ensuing year our presenter has become in the word of the financial times of london, the most famous journalist of his generation, ladies and gentlemen, first look media's glenn greenwald. [applause] >> okay. befor

joining me, alan dershowitz and jacob xananalyst. jacob is this the m.o.his group, boko haram? >> boko haram has learned this tactic from other militants in this region. the first such kidnapping by cocoa haram was in february of 2013 when it took captive a french family and ransoming them for $3 million. later they started taking the family members of government officials and getting in the tens of thousands of dollars and the release of prisons in jails. now it has escalated to much larger scale with this kidnapping of more than 200 girls where boko haram should expect large ransoms. >> it's perverse that the world-wide attention. the u.s. policy, never -- we don't know of behind the scenes deals going but should we all chip in and buy the girls back? >> every democratic policy says the policy is never to negotiate with terrorists but they do. this would be a bad deal to negotiate and make a deal with them. because they are talking about soft targets. they will kidnap 300 more people. they will go to hospitals and kindergartens. the stakes will go up. th

alan dershowitz, your rebuttal. >> i think we've heard two straw men from the other side. the first straw man is raising the issue of torture and rendition. that proves my point! i'm a liberal democrat who voted against president bush and voted for obama. i hate torture. i hate rendition. i'm against all of that. but does anyone doubt that that was motivated genuinely if erroneously by a desire to stop terrorism?! do you think that president bush ordered these horrible things to be done just because he likes torture or likes rendition? he may have been wrong, but that was his motive, that was his goal, that was his purpose, to stop terrorism. and so let's debate the merits of whether surveillance is good or bad, not the motives. second, the argument is that, "well, if we only could just surveil terrorists, if we could only just point terrorists, if only we could live in a world like that." that is a real straw man. of course we wouldn't be having this debate, because we wouldn't be debating you. if you can figure out a way of identifying terrorists and only terrorists with

alan dershowitz, ted cruz thought this was selective prosecution. four senators wrote a letter to demand what was the basis for bringing this hagerstown against you. the "the washington times" points out in an-year-old yesterday mr. obama's 2008 presidential campaigns was fined $400,000 for failing to disclose millions of dollars in contributions and missing deadlines for filing excess contributions. no one was threatened with prosecution. is this about you or upholding campaign laws. >> it's remarkable to see the cases that do and don't get pressed. look at harry reid. there's multiple finance campaign things with him. he used money from his campaign finance to pay for his daughter's wedding. you look at numerous other cases and it seems the obama administration does not choose to push those. so that's really the issue. it's the issue of fair treatment. you know you don't want to have a country where lady justice has one eye open and she winks at her friends and then gives the evil eye to her enemies. >> let me ask you about the substance of it and

. >> you know, to go back to the legal thing, alan dershowitz said this was terrible lawyering. that she did waive her fifth amendment right, but i think, to me, the whole thing is why in the world did bill taylor even walk her near this problem. this is a problem that is so unnecessary for her, and she's a lawyer. >> right. that's how you get in trouble in these things, process, things like that. >> so now, tomorrow we wake up and what does the house do? >> well, there's a lot to fight over. if you listen at the end of this debate, jim jordan, the republican member of the committee, came out and said, well, we just did our 40th interview and it led us to new information about contacts between the irs and the justice department. if you listen to republicans, they believe there's still a lot to do beyond lois lerner in the irs. >> they served subpoenas on the irs. they're still trying to get information. i have never seen it, it's the strangest thing. they serve a subpoena and it's like an invitation, not an order. >> i think there's been complaints throwing throughout the proces