keith alexander had risen fast and gone far.now a three star general with a specialty intelligence. his posting at the nsa a chance to command a new kind of war was de cuthe culmination of his career. >> he took this to a whole another level. he game an extraordinary defender of the surveillance team and went far beyond what he new. >> then a bombshell. the new york times published an article in december 2005 revealing nsa activities. >> eavesdropping on thousands of people without any warrant. it was a very big story. >> so big that by 2007 the nsa officially ended the warrantless surveillance approach. the surveillance program would effectively continue but with the approval of the visa. as that story was unfolding thomas drake decided he would take his case public. >> i made a decision in early 2006 to go to the court. >> he gave unclassified information to the sun and knew it was a violation of policy at the least. i knew by going to a reporter i could be accused of worse. >> the nbi investigating a number of leads raided hi

this spring, general keith alexander retired. it's a sign of all controversial his tenure was that if you type his name into google, they will suggest you might want to try, keith alexander lied. now, it's true there's plenty that 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 in august, it's revealed the nsa has broken privacy rules thousands of times. a few weeks later, the black budget is published showing the nsa pays u.s. communication companies for access to their networks. in the fall, news the nsa

documents figure that the intelligence community has been bandying about, the director of nsa himself keith alexander said just a week ago in the australian financial times, or australian financial review, i believe, that they have no idea what documents were taken at all. their auditing was so poor, so negligent that any private contractor, not even an employee of the government could walk into the nsa building, take whatever they wanted, and walk out with it and they would never know. now, i think that's a problem. and i think that's something that needs to be resolved. people need to be held to account for. has it happened before? could it happen again?

the idea of her journalist is that you ought to be adversarial to people like keith alexander.ould be a lot more worried if you like the reporting we did and praised it that i am that he is saying things like that. what is so important to realize, if you go back 40 years and look at what was said about daniel ellsberg who most people across the political spectrum now consider to of been her rohit and justified and noble in what he did, the same exact things were said about him. in fact, nixon went before congress and accused him of being a secret russian spy and said he put lives at risk to miss that people were going to die as a result of these disclosures, he was a traitor and engaged in treason. all of which have been proven to be utter fabrications. every single whistleblowing event that has happened since then, including the 2005 nsa story which someone in the justice department told about that and the rendition programs come the same rhetoric is constantly invoked which is, if used shine a light on what we -- if you shine a light on what we're doing that we have not autho

keith alexander former nsa chief said just this week that once again our tools are being publicly revealedut our nation and our allies at greater harm. people are going to pay for this with their lives. >> in every case it is a script in-- this transparency is going to damage national security, it's going to result in the loss of lives. they never offer any evidence for it. there's never any specifics proved. and it has proven to be false in virtually every single case. the reality is that edward snowden gave us many tens of thousands of documents and even though we have had them for close to a year, we published a relatively small percentage of them because we have been so pain stake and careful and meticulous about making certain that the only documents we're publishing are ones that don't put innocent people in danger. >> warner: you have also been contributes of the left. david cole, noted constitutional lawyer here am washington, big civil liberties advocate does say that you don't acknowledge that in this digital age now the choices are more difficult. i mean what is the line in your

general keith alexander was director of the n.s.a. from 2005 until he retired at the end of march this year. he also headed the u.s. cyber command. welcome to the "newshour". >> thank you. >> woodruff: so given all the news, all the a stories that have been out there over the last year since the snowden revelations, i think there are some people out there watching who think the n.s.a. must collect whatever it wants to on anybody it wants to at anytime. what do you want the american people to know about what the n.s.a. does? >> well, i think you bring out a great point. first, they have to have the facts because the facts are largely incorrect that's being put out there, that the n.s.a. would be collecting all the u.s. persons information, the content, their e-mails and their phone calls. i think this is where the courts really play a key part, and what the judges have found and asked and allowed us to do actually comports with the constitution. when we make a mistake, they correct it. i think a key thing we see in a lot of these discu

snowden arranged to be caring a rubik's cube and the other question being last week keith alexander the longtime nsa chief said your journalism will result in the death of innocent people. do you stay up at night and worry about the blood on your hands? therefore all be better than any television interview i do. so i wanted to begin by talking about what i did in the first part of the book the first two chapters which is tell the story of how i came to meet and then work with edward snowden along with my longtime friend and journalist collaborator in hong kong. the reason that i really wanted to write the book to tell that story is because so much has been said about all of those events in so much of what has been said has been wildly false. one of the really interesting things is if you are somebody really likes to bash the american media and i'm i am definitely somebody who likes to do that, it's one of my most favorite pastimes it doesn't really come as a surprise to learn that much of what the media turns out is misleading in all sorts of ways. but when you are actually at the cente

the reason we don't know this is because these meetings that general keith alexander had been discussingn 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 take a look at the effects of food crisis. and how a youtube spy plane caused huge delays at los angeles in

director general keith alexander and google executives, sergay bryn and eric schmitt. revelations are surprising. >> our al jazeera journalist, jiften leopold, who obtained the emails, is with us. conventional wisdom is that the phone companies shared and the tech giants did so when compelled by courts, acting as if they were bullied into it. the emails showed there was not much bullying. >> no, that's it right $. a year before the edward snowden revelations in those documents, here we see that google, apple, microsoft, dell, hewitt packard - they had all been involved in some aspect of information sharing with the n.s.a. >> many of the emails focussed on a project called enduring security framework, and it coordinates action between the government and industry leaders. i read that civil libertarians said that there needs to be information exchanges between major computer companies and the n.s.a. what happens here seems to have gone too far. >> it's not clear that it went too far. the reason it's not clear is because much of the information revolving around the endurin

if this has caused serious harm, i plirwould like to know about >> keith alexander has said you have done, quote, significant and irreversible damage to the nation. he said there is, quote, concrete truth that terrorist groups and others are taking action and making changes and it's going to make our job tougher. and this amounts to telling our enemy our playbook. >> so what's interesting is that we see the exact same language, the exact same accusations being levelled against whistleblowers, against any critic of any government program throughout history, throughout time. >> what are you doing in russia? >> all right. so this is a really fair concern. i personally am surprised that i ended up here. the reality is i never intended to end up in russia. i had a flight from cuba to latin america. the united states revoked my passport to trap me in the moscow airport. when people ask why are you in russia, i say please ask the state department. >> the u.s. state department says snowden's passport was pulled before he boarded that flight to moscow and yet he was somehow still able to leav

. >>> the former nsa chief general keith alexander has a warning now for americans. why he believes that we've just paved the way for even more terror attacks. >>> newly fired "new york times" editor jill abramson speaking out for the first time. find out what she had to say about losing her top spot and becoming her own kind of headline. >> what's next for me? i don't know. so i'm in exactly the same boat as many of you. i'm a little scared, but also excited. and our classic lasagna. plus unlimited soup or salad and warm breadsticks. signature favorites, just $10 all week long, at olive garden. but they don't yet know we're a family. we're right where you need us. at the next job, next adventure or at the next exit helping you explore super destinations and do everything under the sun. 12 brands. more hotels than anyone else in the world. so wherever you want to be, whatever you want to do, chances are we're already there. save up to 25% and earn bonus points when you book at wyndhamrewards.com. >>> welcome back to "the real story." entire towns and villages being w

it says in 2009,, shannon wrote a letter to keith alexander offering his gratitude and congratulationsor the outstanding signals intelligence support that the state department received regarding the fifth summit of the americas . he wrote, the nsa gave us deep insight into the plans and intentions of the other summit participants. shannon went on to name cuba and venezuela government -- the cuba and the venezuelan president hugo chavez. >> this is a fascinating story because this is part of what we had to report on in result. amazing thing about the summit was the summit was actually spearheaded by then president of brazil who wanted a regional summit to essentially let all these countries have tensions in the hemisphere band together on the one area where they can agree which are economic contracts. what this document showed is thomas shannon, then at the state department, was effusive in his praise for the nsa, essentially saying thank you for letting us on the negotiating strategy and what they were really willing to do. brazil. that story in at the time, very awkwardly, thomas shan

my conversation with the former head of the national security agency, general keith alexander. >> ifillhow a jet fuel leak at a new mexico military base dumped a cocktail of toxic chemicals in the ground, and raised concerns about nearby water supplies.

. >> the former head of the nsa, keith alexander, calling it the greatest transfer of wealth in history has been stolen by the chinese. give us an idea of what has been stolen. what companies are they targeting? >> this took place in pennsylvania. something interesting when we think of cyber security, we're not thinking about alcoa and u.s. steel. these are the kind -- types of companies that were mentioned in the indictment. it shows how the products work and want to replicate that. >> i wonder what kind of impact the revelation actually has? i understand there is another big report. what was the actual impact of the report? >> we trace the impact of the disclosure. what that was was a report that laid out the details behind what we believed to be widespread economic ease. a espionage coming from chinese military unit against a variety of different companies. after the disclosure of the report we saw very public not beingout this engaged. later behind the scenes as we were tracking the group we saw what we referred to as chinese military, a base of activity of disclosure, and when it d

he also challenged these with keith alexander. >> do you know what he has? >> we have a good assessment of what he has. >> is there a lot more damaging to come? >> yes. especially to our military operations and those who are serving overseas. >> they have no idea what documents were taken at all. if after a year they can't show a single individual who's been harmed in any way by this reporting, is it really so grave? >> snowden said the kremlin to his knowledge has made to attempt to access his stolen secrets and he in any case before flying to moscow had unloaded to the reporterers he worked with everything he had. bret? >> james, thank you. >>> the white house under siege. it's not an action movie. it is a political reality on a number of policy fronts. we'll take about it all with the panel when we come back. >> the president found the report extremely troubling. >> i'm wondering if the president continues to have confidence in the secretary's ability to lead that department. >> i think you saw the statement that i put out yesterday reflecting that the pr

when he sat down with keith alexander he wasn't playing just for punchlines. >> the concerns are thatou're not just taking the haystack but the whole farm and county and state and you've got some folks and the farmer's wife in the shower as well. >> so nsa is not allowed to do that on its own. it has oversight, and in every case to my knowledge, everyone except for 12 individuals, stepped forward at the time that they made those mistakes. >> right, but you can't say everyone except for 12. that's not saying i've never killing everyone apart from those three people i have buried under my patio at home >> unlike stephen colbert john oliver isn't playing a character, a wacky brit and really pressed the former nsa chief. >> i liked what he said. if you could ask edward snowden, what would you ask him other than a lot less than what he's said before, right? >> he just asked whether or not the name should be changed at the nsa and a rebranding? should it be the washington ed skins which is slightly less offensive. he really adds spice to an interview with hard-hitting questions. >> i though

keith alexander just said last week that they actually have no idea how many took. that is a made up number. the media has been reporting it. when edward snowden came to us, he was very clear that he was giving us these documents because -- if you wanted them all to be published, he would not have come to us. he would not need us. he could have uploaded them all to the internet himself. that would have been very easy for him to do. what he said was, there is a lot of documents here and i don't believe i should be in the position to decide which ones should and should not be published. there are some that i think should not be published. there is these kinds of documents that should be published and there is a lot in the middle that i want you with your editors and fellow journalists to make decisions about and report on responsibly. we are reporting on them one by one and we agreed we would do so. that is the best way to do so. i don't think all of the documents will be published because that is not what you wanted. all of the newsworthy stories here will be publish

these briefings, these meetings that have been taking place that nsa director keith alexander articulates or discusses in these e-mails take place in a classified setting. so we don't really know what's being discussed. however, the two sets of e-mails that we have obtained do show that one, they wanted to discuss mobility security and threats. there was another previous meeting that took place on software vulnerability issues related to when you start up your personal computer. so that shed some rare light into what has actually been discussed previously. >> talking about threats, part of this process may have involved an alleged thwarted plot by china that the nsa said could have destroyed the u.s. economy. some were questioning whether the computer companies should be working with the nsa at all to help with that kind of security. >> well, there is two sides of it. on one hand, you have, um, some civil libertarians saying information sharing is absolutely essential. the problem with it is that there is no clearcut guidelines on how that information sharing should take place. there is a

melissa: talk about getting leaked e-mails between nsa director keith alexander and google executived sergey brin, should the government and silicon valley, e-mails dating back to 2011 shed some major light on secret meetings between silicon valley ceos and the national security agency despite what they led us to believe. what is everyone laughing at? quite a graphic. james freeman and jonathan honig are with us. this is quite serious. what do you think? >> it is chilling. over ed decades, the government going after the real enemies of this country, militant islam and jihad has been targeting americans. pretty much under the board, they have been deceitful about it. they're looking for our e-mails at reviewing google searches, not doing anything to make us safer. melissa: let me be devil's advocate. i talked on background of some of the ceos about this and they say we are working as partners to try -- it makes logical sense, the government is our customer, our partner, we are helping them track terror, they see it, they are surprised by the fact that everyone is horrified and pretend

general cheap cap -- general keith alexander was placed in charge of this new cyber command, initiallycoaching personnel from other service branches instead of developing its own raw recruits. it is about to change. this year, west point seniors will be allowed to join cyber command as newly graduated officers. >> i want to see what i can do for the army as far as applying my expertise. >> the west point hacking club, which competes at contest against schools like m.i.t. means they can't compete with the best computer scientists of their age. >> i am as tech savvy as anyone my age. -- i see a future where there will be cyber space operations and physical in cyberspace operations that intersect at various points in time. >> the next-generation of army officers will still fight wars with machine guns, but some will also use mouse clicks. m joins me now. how exactly are they being trained in cyber warfare? >> marathoning a lot of techniques, understanding with essentially, they are learning a lot of techniques, what the tools beilable are, and it will lawyers, historians, experts in the t

general keith alexander, until recently the head of nsa and of cyber command at the pentagon, has characterized the cyber theft of american intellectual property as, i'll quote, the greatest transfer of wealth in history. and, of course, we are on the losing end of it. but no estimate can fully capture the real impact of trade secret theft. because when other countries and foreign businesses steal our trade ideas. they are stealing our innovation. most importantly, they are stealing our jobs. in my state of rhode island we continue to face high unemployment. despite having some of the most innovative businesses in the country. if we don't protect our businesses from those who steal their intellectual property we are letting the innovation go to waste and we are letting american jobs go overseas. in the past, some companies were reluctant to talk about the issue. because no one likes to admit that they have been victimized. but many are now coming forward to speak out because they recognize how important it is that we work together to address this common threat. i particularly want to thank the

general keith alexander, then head of the nsa, was placed in charge of this new cyber command. about to change. this year for the first time, west point seniors will be allowed to join cyber command is newly graduated officers. >> i want to see what i can do for the army as far as applying my expertise. these hacking club means are debts can compete with the brightest computer scientist of their generation. >> i think im or text savvy than the average person my age. skills may one day be applied to an active battlefield. >> i see a future where there'll be cyberspace operations as well as physical world and cyberspace operations that intersect. ofamerica's next generation army officers will still fight wars with machine guns, but some will also use mouse clicks. come, we will tell you why the popular rally is caught up in a feud with e-commerce site amazon. stay with us. ♪ >> we cannot change who we are. >> x-men, the latest film in the marvel comic series had sales of 11 as $111 million over the extended all-day weekend. x-men pushed aside godzilla to claim the number one spot

general keith alexander, then head of the nsa, was placed in charge of this new cyber command , initiallying personnel from other companies. about to change. year, west point seniors will be allowed to join cyber command as newly appointed officers. i want to apply my expertise. means these cadets can compete with the brightest computer scientists of the generation. >> i would say i am more tech savvy than the average person my age. these skills may one day be applied on an active battlefield. >> i see a future where it will be cyberspace only operations, as well as physical world and cyberspace operations that intersected very point in time. >> america's next generation of army officers will still fight wars with machine guns, but some will also use mouse clicks. bloomberg, west point. >> for the duration of the was in ferris bueller, he was in the producers, matthew broderick. you haven't seen wargames? >> no, because you're much older than me. it is a really interesting opportunity for new military officers. now it is a lot more sophisticated than code breaking from world war ii. >> wi

estimates of the value of ip stolen by foreign actors are as .igh as $300 billion general keith alexander, until recently the head of nsa and cyber command at the pentagon, has characterized these that -- the divers have -- the cyber theft as the greatest transfer of wealth in history. of course, we are on the losing end of it. but no estimate can fully capture an the real impact of trade secret theft. when other countries and foreign businesses dealer trade secrets, they're stealing our ideas. they're stealing our innovation. most importantly, they're stealing our jobs. in my own state of rhode island, we continue to face unacceptably high unemployment despite having some of the most innovative businesses in the country. if we do not protect our businesses from those who steal their intellectual properties, and we're letting that innovation going to waste, and we're letting american jobs go overseas. in the past, some companies were reluctant to talk about this issue because no one likes to admit that they have been victimized. but many are now coming forward to speak out because they re

have been prepared for the prospect that china or russia might have tried to indict keith alexander?ossible, unlikely. indicting a former high-level administrative official would have been extremely escalate tory. -- escalating. we will be seeing things at the company level. >> i would love to have you both back to explain what it means. >> effinger white house is still working on that. >> the to it or question of the day of not what was give it, it is more like what is the endgame for charging chinese officials? you so much, adam segal. our guest host for the hour, nick consonery. king, live sporting events reign supreme, then why isn't world wrestling entertainment winning big? we will take a look in our single best chart, next. ♪ >> good morning, everyone. this is "bloomberg surveillance ." time for a single best chart. scarlet? >> it has been a rough couple of days for world wrestling entertainment and the ceo, vince mcmahon. the stock has lost about half of its market value in the past three trading days. the reason is while content is king, their new programming deals do not re

general keith alexander, former nsa director explained that the only way to deter cyber attack is toto catch perpetrators and take strong and public action when we do. fbi director muller called for figuring out who is targeting us and going after them saying we must remember that behind every intrusion is a person responsible for that intrusion. a warm body behind the keyboard. whether they are in tehran, tucson, shanghai or seattle, bucharest or the bronx, our ultimate goal must be to identify and deter the persons behind the keyboards. the government and private sector alike are increasing the call for prosecuting cyber theft of trade secrets. we need to prevent attacks and deterrence helps. prosecutions can smul tan kwously punish those who have committed bad acts already and deter those who might otherwise commit bad acts in the future. in other words, by going after the crimes we can help stop the next group of criminals. it is, of course, possible that weal never obtain custody. even if these five avoid arrest, laying bare the criminal activity takes it out of the shadows. law

keith alexander just said last week that they actually have no idea how many took. that is a made up number. the media has been reporting it. when edward snowden came to us, he was very clear that he was giving us these documents because -- if you wanted them all to be published, he would not have come to us. he would not need us. he could have uploaded them all to the internet himself. that would have been very easy for him to do. what he said was, there is a lot of documents here and i don't believe i should be in the position to decide which ones should and should not be published. there are some that i think should not be published. there is these kinds of documents that should be published and there is a lot in the middle that i want you with your editors and fellow journalists to make decisions about and report on responsibly. we are reporting on them one by one and we agreed we would do so. that is the best way to do so. i don't think all of the documents will be published because that is not what you wanted. all of the newsworthy stories here will be publish

he was replaced by a new general: keith alexander. the change gave tom drake another chance to voice his concerns about "the program." he wrote general alexander a classified letter. >> within the system, my last official act for all intents and purposes was to write that formal letter to alexander. >> narrator: the letter said the nsa's intelligence gathering activities were out of control and needed to be reined in. >> this is a crusade for him. being drake, someone who's got a somewhat obsessive personality, he keeps trying to get the word out. >> narrator: but general alexander was no more responsive than hayden had been, and by writing directly to the general, drake had broken bureaucratic protocol. his days were numbered. >> they actually reorganized my job right out from under me, and i literally was left with nothing. i had an office, i had a flag because of senior executive, but nothing else. no programs, no people, no team, no nothing. >> narrator: drake had formed friendships with the thinthread group: binney, wiebe, loomis

general keith alexander, outgoing head of the nsa, has said recently -- in fact, he was on "60 minutes-- and he said, basically, our enemies know how to crater our financial system, and there's nothing we can do to stop it at this point. we can't stop hackers from hacking target. we can't stop rogue employees from stealing secrets from the nsa. iran has hacked the navy web site. we can't totally prevent this. so it's a very complex topic. it's the new form of warfare, and that's why putin was so confident in in saying if you do this, we can crater your market, we can attack your system. so there's very little we can do at the federal levelful we're trying, we're improving. i've been working with several groups in the government that are trying to figure out solutions to the problem. but in general, "game plan" tells the individual imagine you were living in honolulu in 1941 and somebody said, hey, by the way, if the japanese start bombing, here's what you should do. that's the nature of this book. if the russians, the iranians, the north koreans, the chinese start attacking us economic

director keith alexander henry kissinger c.e.o. of dutch rochelle the editor and chief economist of course neo-con warmonger richard perle david petraeus scruples eric schmidt and the queen of spain but that's not really what's the point i mean at what point behind the closed doors you think the shape shifting begins it's at the moment though because i mean really. and a lizard for you i mean dogs i've never seen that much evil in one room since iran used to have or all died raiders with henry kissinger run in the sound booth and margaret thatcher run in the beer bongs yeah i mean i didn't see that much but i also think people sort of put too much weight on these things because they're like oh my god they got together that maybe made sense back before like telephones and things but now these people can coordinate their their plans their you know global plans in many ways there's skype there's google hangout you know there's christian mingle dot com they have what you communicate over one hundred conference calls and yeah they don't