filed a lawsuit against the director of national intelligence james clapper calling for an end to this domestic spying as it by lates numerous constitutional rights again that lawsuit was filed one week after the first edward snowden disclosure back in june and tomorrow on friday that suit will receive its stay in court when government lawyers will have to square off with the a.c.l.u. in a federal courtroom in new york city and for the first time this they will have to defend in public court the n.s.a.'s telephone metadata spying program and what comes out of that hearing could have enormous impacts on how the n.s.a. currently operates joining me now to talk more about the case and its consequences is bred max kaufman legal fellow with the american civil liberties union national security project welcome to the show thanks for having me so break it down for us what's at the core of what the a.c.l.u. will be arguing in court tomorrow. so we're in court tomorrow challenging the section to fifteen bulk phone record collection program as you just described it was the first revelation by edw

director of national intelligence james clapper james clapper,, deputy attorney the deputyes cole, director of the nsa, chris inglis. we will move immediately into the second panel of non- governmental experts knowledgeable on fisa issues. we will discuss possible changes to the way fisa applications are handled by the department of justice. i hope all of our witnesses will give clear answers about how proposals under consideration at congress would affect the nsa's ability to stop terrorist attacks. i am going to submit my statement for the record in order to ask some questions following the opening statement and your opening statements in relation to some of the news of the day to get some things clarified for the record. it will be important for the american people. .e do expect a vote we will hold as long as we can. we will take a brief intermission. there are only two votes. we should be able to recess or a short time and return. i will recognize any opening comment. for comingu, panel, here today. hopefully, we will get the facts on the table and let the american people understand wha

. >> reporter: and it was a director of national intelligence james clapper and nsa chief general keith alexander fielding the tough questions about surveillance and spying in another congressional meeting this week. >> some of this reminds me a lot of the classic movie "casa bank can, my god, there is gamble going on here. it's the same kind of thin thing{^l" ^}. >> reporter: does the president know as much as he should, and is he in control of his administration. as he reaches for the legacy of a successful second term, is he staying above the fray. here to discuss president obama's second term and the rosenberg. he was an adviser to former president bill clinton. in new york, jeff lefkowitz isn't to president obama, and served as bush administration envoy to north korea. and author of recent book "jockeying for the american presidency: the political opportunism." you worked in the white house, how bad was this past week? >> i would say this is as bad as it's been for president obama. coming off the heels having stared down john boehner the government shutdown and debt limit issue, i

james clapper. some time ago. and so i think the guys the people that are in charge and are going to give evidence today the chief. and i five and i sixty believe they're in trouble i believe that they are in trouble but i would say that's all of the trouble i mean i think that is much is our security services have a responsibility to make sure that we're safe and secure i think that our politicians have an even greater responsibility in having oversight and i think that most definitely many politicians will be expecting. you know some serious answers to the questions of why did they have greater oversight and do you think there will be serious actions against than then or will list just be a dressing down do you think. i think there will be serious i think there will be serious questions but whether or not we get to see the serious questions in terms of how do we take this forward will be another question and i think that in fact what we're going to see is much more of the dressing down in fact at this is very mu

what do you make in capitol hill testimony this week the director of national intelligence james clapper indicated that surveillance of leaders was not significant enough to require congress to know about it. well i had a fairly heated exchange over this very topic yesterday because i think plainly it is the kind of significant intelligence activity that must be briefed to congress in the area in an analogous area of covert action when the administration wants to undertake a covert action and there's the possibility that that covert action could blow back on us if it was discovered those are the things that are routinely briefed to the intelligence committees and for good reason but this similarly you have that potential as we're seeing you know very much manifest right now so that's precisely the kind of thing that should be briefed to the committees and i wasn't confident with the answer i got from the director yesterday that the intelligence community sees it the same way i asked very specifically would the tapping of a foreign leader be a significant intelligence activity that would

[inaudible conversations] >> national intelligence or james clapper and nsa direct or general keith allen discussed the nsa surveillance program and spying on foreign governments before the house intelligence committee hearing earlier this week. >> i never expected to write an entire book on cancer until i was diagnosed at a relatively young age. i was diagnosed at 36. i was astonished at how different i thought it was -- how different i was going through treatment than what i had heard about cancer and what i expected cancer be. and i sort of expected it -- i expected it to run like a well oiled machine in which cure wasn't obviously guaranteed, but people knew about my particular cancer at be followed and what i found was being really, really different. i couldn't help but i started to write about it. >> the head of the wrecks on trans next round of talks, george washington university hosted regional experts were monday. a farmer winning presidential candidate and former official at the american embassy in a rant to our commenting on prospects for the agreement. the impact of president

special order you're likely not to find out too much in fact director of national intelligence james clapper was questioned in october about violations of the program at a senate judiciary committee hearing here's experience change with minnesota senator amy closer shark. because you can see and i was the senator is that the subject matter of the hearing was to fifteen and seventy two and these twelve eilish and over ten years the curd under the foreign collection under them on under the auspices of executive order twelve triple three is this we are that we were kind of broadly asking questions and it would have been nice to have heard about it there. senator dianne feinstein who's been a vocal supporter of the n.s.a. says that more transparency is needed over this order and she's encouraging the passage of a bill that would require increased congressional oversight including a full breakdown of the guidelines that govern its use. and this week the white house correspondents association along with thirty seven news organizations called out the obama administration for its heavy restrictions

james clapper, the head of national intelligence, clearly lie to congress when he said he was wasn'tying on americans. the white house is still pushing for the prosecution of snowden nsayet no prosecutions of officials or intelligence officials like clapper have been discussed. what about that? >> there is clearly a big contradiction that has not been resolved between president obama saying that he welcomes the debate that we are now having about nsa, about surveillance domestically, overseas, and the prospect of a long prison term for edward snowden if he comes back to the united states. clear, it is pretty think it is fair to say that snowden broke the law. it is also pretty clear to a lot of members of congress that he started a debate that is quite the futureo sort of of the intelligence agencies and to american democracy. , you know,t that out i guess we will find out over the next months and maybe even years. >> scott shane, thank you for joining us. he says, edward snowden says, he was exposing the fact the u.s. government itself was breaking the law. scott shane is national s

host: let's hear from james clapper.video clip] demo we have alarms go off 11 terrorist communicates -- if we had an alarm when one terrorist committees with another terrorist our job would be easier. over the past month i have declassified and publicly released a series of documents release a series of documents related to both section 215 of the patriot act and section 702 of the foreign intelligence of real impact or fisa. anng that facilitates informed public debate that operate under these authorities. we felt that it might of the unauthorized disclosures, the public interest in these documents far outweigh the additional damage to national security. these documents let our citizens and see the seriousness, the withess, and the rigor which the fisa court exercises its responsibilities. the also reflect intelligence community, particularly in s.a.t.'s commitment to recovering, reporting, and collecting -- the nsa's commitment to recover, reporting, and correcting. particular targets of surveillance, but we will conti

however, if an interview earlier this year, james clapper, the director of national intelligence saidres very deeply about our privacy, and civil liberties, adding i think a lot of what people are reading and seeing in the media is hyperbole. the persons don't end with the fact that private information is being stored in a database. there is also concern about how that information is actually being used. those fears were heightened when it was recently revealed that the nsa has been turning over information to domestic law enforcement agencies. john shipman is a reporter who broke the story. >> the information that the nsa provides to law enforcement they send it to a special operations unit in virginia. and that sends information out to the dea, the irs, the atf, the fbi, and use that information to make cases against americans. >> like most everything involving the nsa the special operations division is cloaked in secrecy. according to one document, it strictly forbids those who receive nsa information from revealing its true source. shipman describes one scenario. >> it will pass t

. >> the director of national intelligence, the obama administration's director james clapper testified to that effect earlier this year. the director general of international atomic energy agency in his reports has essentially said the same thing. the sanctions are hurting the iranian middle class. just so viewers understand is the part of the iranian population most opposed to the regime of the ayatollah. so the accuracy of the sanctions is something you can question. we're hurting the people who actually share our view that this regime needs to go. >> iran's new president said that not allowing iran to enrich uranium as it is is a red line not to be crossed. aren't we right where we were with mahmoud ahmadinejad? >> they are advancing their program and they know it. if they can get a small reduction in the sanctions, they put the administration in a very, very difficult position. remember, u.s. law requires countries be steadily reducing their imports of iranian oil or u.s. sanctions then apply to them. a number of countries have been indicating they have gone down as far as they are

woodruff: we had planned to bring you an interview with the director of national intelligence, james clapperight. it has been delayed while he holds meetings with lawmakers on capitol hill. we will reschedule. >> woodruff: another milestone was reached today in disarming syria's chemical weapons stockpile. jeffrey brown has that story. >> the syrian government has completed what we called functional destruction of its entire chemical weapons making apparatus. >> reporter: the confirmation came from the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons, which won the nobel peace prize this month. the group has been working, under a u.n. mandate, to ensure that syria's chemical weapons- making facilities were put out of commission, by november first. >> so it no longer has the capacity to manufacture new chemical weapons agents and has not the capacity to utilize the precursor binary chemicals for sarin gas and to load those into munitions. >> reporter: the organization inspected 21 declared production sites. fighting between rebels and the syrian army made two other sites too risky to reac

. >>> earlier this week national intelligence director james clapper and nsa director-general keith alexander discussed the nsa surveillance program and spying on foreign governments in testimony before the house intelligence committee hearing this week. you can see that hearing tomorrow beginning at 10 a.m. eastern on our come pan one network, c-span. >>> tuesday, carol ga lawn at this, said before the house financial services committee a recent $1.7 billion cash infusion by the treasury department was required by law but based on outdated housing market data. republicans accused the fha failing to comply with federal law and misleading congress in previous hearings. they became a source of home mortgage credit in housing crisis and fha blamed losses during that period for its recent short fall. >> committee will come to order. without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at anytime. the hear something entitled, the federal housing administration implications of a $1.7 billion taxpayer bailout. i recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening statement

last week, director of national intelligence james clapper wrote to the senate intelligence committees noting his support for the closure of guantanamo in which he offered the following examples of how al qaeda and its affiliates continue to reference guantanamo in furtherance of their global jihadist goals. al qaeda leader iman zawahiri in an audio statement in july of this year cited the detention without trial of gitmo prisoners as one indication of american hypocrisy and indiscriminate persecution of innocent muslims. in an article about the boston marathon bombings, in the most recent edition of al qaeda -- well, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula's "inspire" magazine -- this is sort of a diabolical magazine that al qaeda puts out. this is the one published in june. it highlighted the ongoing detention of prisoners at gitmo as one of the purported justifications of terrorist attacks like 9/11 and the boston marathon bombings. here's what the article said, and i quote -- "if we note down all that has been and is still being carried out by america against muslim nations, we will run

the house intelligence committee chair had an exchange with james clapper and keith ellington. >> thats correct. those screenshots lead people to believe that week, the nsa, or the united states, collected those informations. that is false. collected on european citizens. poor,as created inaccurate reporting. >> this is something that we are going to have to deal with here in the future. i am glad that you clarify that. mr. clapper, i will ask you this, given the recent row about orders and numbers that may may not have been in possession of u.s. intelligence services. way to thend its white house? >> it certainly could. i would rather not speak specifically. speaking in totality, clearly the leadership intentions are an of thent dimension landscape out there for all policymakers. history -- given the likelihood that the house intelligence committee was aware of information that may be of logically --'t it when the administration have access to that information? >> i mentioned earlier in my description that they may not have information specifically related to a specific selector or an