today is the first one and we're going to hear general alexander and director clapper testify. >> what we do not do is spy unlawfully on americans or for that matter, spy indiscriminately on the citizens of any country. we only "spy" for valid intelligence purposes as authorized by law with multiple layers of oversight to ensure we do not abuse our authorities. >> nsa's programs have contributed to understanding and disrupting 54 terror-related events, 25 in europe, 11 in asia, five in africa, and 13 in the united states. this was no accident. this was not coincidence. that claim was challenged a week later. >> we've heard over and over again the assertion that 54 terrorist plots were thwarted by the use of 215 and 702. that's plainly wrong. these weren't all plots and they weren't all thwarted. the american people are getting left with inaccurate impressions of the effectiveness of the nsa programs. would you agree that the 54 cases that keep getting cited by the administration were not full plots? yes or no? >> yes. >> we're talking about massive, massive, massive collection. we're t

and you heard director clapper this morning say that he was worried about the cuts in the appropriations bills. so all these things go back to urgency. getting rid of the complacency. and i think the families could be quite helpful if they focused on public relations campaign here to let people know that it is a dangerous world and that counterterrorism efforts need to be supported. that you can get into a lot of specific things that they go through, go to our recommendations, maybe have some views of your own on the recommendations and you can plug those things. you heard a lot of plugs today for correcting the oversight of the congress. whatever moves you, i would say, move in that direction. but overall, the huge challenge is to keep the eyes of the nation on the prospect of the terrorist attacks. and what might come from that. >> briefly, along extraordinary history in this country, i don't know of any group that is taken the tragedy and tried to use that tragedy to teach other people, then this pursuit -- persistent in making this country a better place, persistent and making sure t

chief general keith alexander and president obama's director of national intelligence james clapper were informed that the u.k.'s guardian newspaper was destroying leaked files an e-mail to keith alexander from richard legit now the director deputy director rather of the n.s.a. has the subject line guardian data being destroyed and is dated july nineteenth two thousand and thirteen most of it is redacted but the part we can see is good news on at least this front the next day hours after the destruction of the files the white house director of national intelligence james clapper was given an update and assessment of the damage the only unredacted line is we know that a small number of documents have been leaked to the press now the majority of these e-mails are redacted as you saw there including the subject lines and some e-mail addresses so it's unclear who from the british side briefed these people or how much power u.s. officials had in pressuring a publication to destruct journalistic material and of course it flies in the face of the white house's comments about these events right

you heard director clappers this morning say that he is worried about cuts in the appropriation bills. so all of these things go back to urgency, getting rid of the complacency. and i think the families would be quite helpful if they focused on public relations campaign here in effect, to let people know that it is the dangerous world and counterterrorism efforts need to be supported. now you can get into a lot of specific things they attract, you can go through our recommendations. maybe you have some views of your own on recommendations and you can plug those things, you heard a lot of plugs today for directing oversight of the congress. whatever moves you, move in that direction but overall the huge challenge is to keep the eyes of the nation on the prospect of the terrorist attack and what might come from that. >> briefly, a long, extraordinary history of this country i don't know if any group that has taken the tragedy and tried to use that tragedy to teach other people in as persistent in trying to make this country better place, as persistent in making sure it never happens to

possibility of terrorist attacks, then the politicians will turn away from it too, and you heard director clapper this morning say he's worried about cuts in the appropriations bills, so all of these things go back to urgency. getting rid of the complacency. i think the families could be quite helpful if they focused on a public relations campaign to let people know it is a dangerous world, and that counter terrorism efforts need to be supported. now, you can get into a lot of specific things that may attract you. you can go through our recommendations. maybe you have some views of your own on our recommendations and plug those things. you heard a lot of plugs for correcting the oversight of the congress. whatever moves you, i would say, move in that direction. but overall the huge challenge is to keep the eyes of the nation on the prospect of the terrorist attack. and what might come from that. >> i just said briefly, a long extraordinary history of this country. i don't know of any group that has taken tragedy and tried to use that tragedy to teach other people and is persistent in trying to ma

. >> next, the director of national intelligence, james clapper, on the state of national security. after that a discussion of congressional oversight. then the white house medal of honor ceremony. on the next washington martin, toby harnden and klingst. and what remains on the legislative agenda for congress adjourns. plus your phone calls and tweets. eastern on0 a.m. c-span. >> michele flournoy is our guest on q&a. >> if you're in government you are dealing with the tyranny of the inbox. responsibility was representing the secretary of defense on the deputies committee, the senior level group that works through the issues, developing options for the principles on the president. a lot of crisis management focus. when you're in a think tank, your utility is not trying to second-guess problems you make around the issues of the day. day, look raise their over the horizon to see what are the issues i'm going to confront a year from now. how do i think more strategically about america's role? cofounder of the center for national american security, michele flournoy. 8:00 p.m. eastern on

so remember the now infamous exchange between senator ron wyden and the director of national intelligence james clapper does the n.s.a. collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of americans no sir. it does not stop the tape ron wyden knew the truth so he could have blown this whole thing wide open he could have called clapper a liar liar liar liar he could have said right then that the n.s.a. is collecting data on millions of americans that they're creating massive databases containing all of our phone logs and they're siphoning off our internet communications and he could have submitted documents he obtained on the senate intelligence committee to the public congressional record he could have won the sam adams award given the alternate christmas message and been times person of the year the runner up he could have gotten to be best is with going greenwald all of it well never having to worry about spending the rest of his life in prison and edward snowden who says he was motivated to do what he did after he saw a copper line could have just stated his day job in hawaii makin

his life in jail if you did that oh i know i get it and at the same time the director of national intelligence james clapper blatantly lied to congress about domestic surveillance and he gets to walk free i've actually got the perfect ted talk prepared for this you've got a ted talk and finally somebody is interested in it in my ted talk i would explain in detail leave the ins and outs of how to sneak into congress and slip liquified silis i've been mushrooms into their coffee cups you want to. you want to get congress to pass because once congress are dripping all their third eyes will open and they'll realize they're committing spiritual suicide by sucking on the teat of the corporations and instead they'll start actually representing the people to create a more humanistic pathetic world. noble smart articulate nuanced and lightning in saying i'm well. i'll reveal my leagues to you i get it just play it cool. turn off the cameras you know ok so i found a report that the cia lied to the department of justice about how pervasive the use of torture was in their post nine eleven enhanced interrogation program

today, according to james clapper, the director of national intelligence, there are more than 1500 separatist groups with between 75,000 and 115,000. there are foreign fighters from neighboring countries. the most effective groups are all radical islamist groups, isis. but now washington is going to vet this vast disperse opposition of 1500 groups when it is not on the battlefield and find moderates. good luck. the complexity of washington's tasks can be seen in the american attitude towards isis. when the group battles the malaki government in iraq, it is deadly and must be ruthlessly attacked, but when it crosses the now nonexistent border between iraq and syria, it is a line with america's stated goal of regime change in da mass kick. with this whole goal in mind, it's difficult to believe that three years ago a modest american intervention of arms in training which is all that is being advocated would have changed the trajectory of events in syria. can anyone be willing to have a moderate intervention of arms and training is going to find genuine democrats, have them win against assad and

let's remember the director of national intelligence jim clapper testified before congress about his concern about upwards of more than 20,000 foreign fighters that could what they call bleed out. that's return after having got to the fight into western europe and back to the united states, even then they were talking about dozens if not hundreds that could enter the united states. it's hard to track these guys, right? so here is an american who is going to go to europe, you know, doesn't seem to be a concern and then they travel through several countries to get into syria. they get the fighting experience and travel back. they often use false documents, false names. so this is a real challenge and they got to work with our foreign allies, the intelligence services whether europe or more particularly arab country whose have a better sense of who what is going on in the ground inside syria. >> it's not like americans are taking flights back from syria after having fought in syria. it's coming back from jordan or lebanon or turkey or somewhere in europe and the fighters are european an

. >> director of national intelligence james clapper speaking there on this morning of what is the tenthsary of the 9/11 commission report. there is a new threat assessment there calling for improvements in three key areas. congressional oversight of the dhs, transparency for those threats we face, and an improved cyber security strategy focused not only on data collection and analysis but also on protecting our civil ib ler tis. over the past decades, hundreds of billions has been poured into the intelligence community to improve interagency communication. one corporation that's playing a significant role nowadays is the online retail giant amazon. a new article "daring deal" is the cover story in this month's "government executive" magazine. it's part one of a three-part series we're doing this week. you reported here that the cloud in this article, you say the cloud may actually achieve what thousands of bureaucrats have failed to do, to achieve some kind of faster, real-time interagency collaboration. what do you mean there? >> well, i think -- so it does go back ten years. this is a

the director of intelligence. that is james clapper. the secretary of defense. that is leon panetta. and of course the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general dempsey. all of those people, all of them said they knew unequivocally that benghazi when they found the annex, it was an organized terrorist activity. and i think right now people are now realizing that was the real issue. it's not who was responsible for it. it's the fact that we knew it was going to happen. our ambassador who was killed gave us ample warning for about well over a month and a half before it took place that it was going to take place. so i think that we understand now why gitmo is important and that we understand the whole reason that this is taking place, and i'm certainly hoping that we can stick together and make sure that we don't -- don't end up losing one of the most valued facilities that we have in this day of the terrorists by -- by having to close it down. with that, i just want to wind up and say we have got a serious problem, and i think if there is anything that we sho

in fact, director of national intelligence james clapper testified earlier this year that critical infrastructure, particularly the systems used in water management, oil and gas pipelines, electrical power distribution and mass transit provides an enticing target to malicious actors. a cyberattack on u.s. critical infrastructure such as gas pipelines, financial services, transportation and communication networks could result in catastrophic, regional or national effects on public health or safety, economic security and national security. high-profile breaches like the ones at target and nimeson marcus that affect over 10 million american consumers resonates. but as bad as those breaches were, a successful cyberattack on our critical infrastructure could cause much more damage in terms of lives lost and monetary damage. we cannot and will not wait for a catastrophic 9/11-scale cyberattack to occur before moving greatly needed cybersecurity legislation. the national cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection act ensures that d.h.s., and not the military, is responsible for domestic critic